“Against foolishness we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the foolish person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
"Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison"
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI)is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding,safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
"Michael Pento – Is The Biggest Stock Market Crash Imminent?"
"In today's episode, Dave Russell of GoldCore TV chats with #MichaelPento of Pento Portfolio Strategies LLC, who shares his realistic perspective on how #TheFed has made a massive policy error and why he believes we are potentially on the verge of an 80%#MarketCrash."
"From the outset, my position was that Ukraine should have been split according to language. Borders have been drawn by politicians, and this policy has given us so many problems over the years. It is language and culture that should define a national border. Ukraine is exerting old-world imperialistic philosophy. While Putin ordered Russian troops Monday to “maintain peace” in two separatist territories in eastern Ukraine shortly after recognizing the Russian-backed areas as independent, naturally the West and Ukraine are claiming this is illegal. Putin has often referred to Ukraine as “little Russia.”
However, what is being ignored here is that those two regions are predominantly Russia which happened to be allocated to Ukraine because of the Soviet Union as was the case with Crimea. From the outset, I argued that Ukraine should have been split according to the dominant language. There are many Russians living in the West who simply speak Ukrainian to blend in.
Putin lamented the Soviet Union’s collapse, which I have stated before was a sore issue with Putin. He recognized the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic and made very clear that he views Ukraine historically as part of Russia. As I have stated before, the Russ capital was Kyiv. The Mongols invaded in 1240 and destroyed their capital leaving only the Golden Gate still standing. Kyiv was originally the first capital of Russia. It took nearly 100 years later for Moscow to rise as a city. All that remains of the ancient capital of Kyiv are the ruins known as the Golden Gate, below, constructed during the 11th Century. Putin’s statement some press call “false” and that only illustrates either their stupidity or their deliberate false narrative.
I warned back in 2013 that our model highlighted Ukraine as the tipping point in the rise of the War Cycle. Putin did say: “This was a speech to the Russian people to justify a war. In fact, he once again explicitly threatened one.” Russia entered Crimea in Feb/March 2014 which was on time with our War Cycle which turned up in 2014. This is the chart from the 2011 WEC in Philadelphia. We are now approaching 8.6 years into this cycle and this is the first critical turning point.
Ivan Mazepa was a Ukrainian who supported the Swedish against the Russians. The Battle of Poltava, below, on June 27th, 1709 was a turning point in Russian history. This was a battle, where Peter the Great and the Russians defeated the Swedish army at a turning point in a war with Sweden. Poltava is actually in Ukraine, and Ivan Mazepa remains a Ukrainian hero and a traitor to Russia to this very day. This was the decisive battle that placed Russia as a major power on the European stage of politics. So here we are facing the 309.6-year cycle and we see Ukraine matched against Russia once again.
Meanwhile, the West has been on its hands and knees begging for Putin to invade Ukraine. They know that rarely will the people throw out of power a government during a war. This is what they are counting on and it is why Biden refused any concession to Putin. That was a slap in the face and Europe is so weak it could not muster the strength to defend itself from Russia. But the covert benefit is that the EU will use this to create an EU army and this solidifies power over all European states. The White House bluntly said that Biden’s potential summit with Putin to talk through the crisis was probably off. This is the time when you should be talking and the fact that Biden withdraws illustrates their desire to keep Russia and a threat to Europe for all the elections in 2022.
The Kremlin decree signed by Putin did NOT specify whether or when Russian troops would enter Ukrainian territory. It came as President Joe Biden signed an executive order to sanction any Americans who invest in the eastern Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which are the two separatist regions that have sought independence from Ukraine. All Biden will ever do is make matter worse because this appears to be the true agenda that they need Putin and the new enemy as COVID uprisings appear and they now need to change the emergency."
The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
"This is not a game. As this crisis has been unfolding in Ukraine, I have been seeing people all over the Internet cheer for either side like they would cheer for their favorite football teams. But these people don’t understand what is at stake. If World War III erupts in Ukraine, it will very likely lead to nuclear war between the United States and Russia down the road. So we should all be deeply grieved over what is happening, because we are getting really close to a point of no return.
One of the good things about the Trump years was that President Trump was not interested in messing with Russia. So the status quo in Ukraine was respected by both sides for four years, and there was relative peace in the region.
But then Joe Biden took power, and he has surrounded himself with an all-star team of warmongers. National security adviser Jake Sullivan, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are all card-carrying members of the War Party, and they don’t seem interested in finding a way to have peace with Russia at all.
After having his security concerns mocked and laughed at for the past year, Vladimir Putin finally admitted that negotiations are at “a dead end” on Monday. It would have been so easy to negotiate a peaceful solution with the Russians that would have kept Russia out of Ukraine, but that isn’t what the War Party wanted.
Now Putin has run out of patience, and on Monday he greatly escalated the crisis by formally recognizing the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and by announcing that he would be sending troops into the two separatist republics… "Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent on Monday and ordered the Russian army to launch what Moscow called a peacekeeping operation in the area, upping the ante in a crisis the West fears could unleash a major war. Putin told Russia’s defense ministry to deploy troops into the two breakaway regions to “keep the peace” in a decree issued shortly after he announced recognition for Russia-backed separatists there, drawing US and European vows of new sanctions."
I think that Putin wanted to make a move before the Ukrainians did. According to one Russian official, there were “almost 60K Ukrainian military personnel concentrated near the borders of the Republics of Lugansk & Donetsk”, and I think that Putin decided that the only way to keep Ukraine from overrunning the two republics was to move his own forces in first. Hopefully that actually works.
Hopefully the Russians will stay in Donetsk and Luhansk, and hopefully the Ukrainians will stay on their side. If that is the end result, there may still be hope of defusing the situation. But I wouldn’t count on it.
Putin sounds like a man that is convinced that war is coming. The following comes from a very rough translation of his speech on Monday… “From those who took power in Kiev we demand to stop any and all military actions against Donbass. Otherwise, the consequences will be on Ukraine. I count on the support of all patriotic forces in Russia.”
Russia has essentially issued an ultimatum to Ukraine. If Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk, the Russians will invade Ukraine. Of course some western media sources are actually using the term “invasion” to describe Russian troop movements into the separatist republics.
If you have bought into that propaganda, let me ask you a question. Do the people in this video look like they have just been “invaded”?…
"Twitter can be a horrible place at times, but tonight’s decision by President Putin to recognise the Donbass republics is the news people there have been looking forward to for 8 years. I’ll sign off tonight with this video from Lenin Square in Donetsk. #Donbass 🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/l8YJVF84tf, — Dean O’Brien (@DeanoBeano1) February 21, 2022
This would be a good opportunity for both sides to take a deep breath and start backing down. But that isn’t going to happen.
Western leaders continue to use extremely harsh rhetoric and they continue to insist that a full-blown invasion of Ukraine is imminent. The following is what Jake Sullivan just told the Today Show… “We believe that any military operation of the size, scope and magnitude of what we believe the Russians are planning will be extremely violent. It will cost the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, civilians and military personnel alike,” Sullivan said during an appearance on NBC’s “Today.” “But we also have intelligence to suggest that there will be an even greater form of brutality because this will not simply be some conventional war between two armies,” he added. “It will be a war waged by Russia on the Ukrainian people to repress them, to crush them, to harm them.”
And another U.S. official is alleging that Russia has a list of people that they will be specifically targeting once the invasion has been completed… “Disturbing information recently obtained by the United States that indicates that human rights violations and abuses in the aftermath of a further invasion are being planned,” Ambassador Bathsheba Nell Crocker, the US Representative to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, alleges in a letter to Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
These acts, which in past Russian operations have included targeted killings, kidnappings/forced disappearances, unjust detentions, and the use of torture, would likely target those who oppose Russian actions, including Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons,” reads the letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post and obtained by CNN."
So Russia plans to violently round up dissidents, activists and anyone else that is opposed to their rule? Oh, you mean that it will be kind of like what just happened in Canada with the full approval of the U.S. government? If the Biden administration actually cared about human rights, they would be condemning the horrific brutality that we just witnessed in Ottawa. But of course that will never happen.
Let’s watch and see what happens over in Ukraine during the next several days. One very alarming sign is that the Russians have just closed off much of the airspace over the Sea of Azov… "Russia’s Aeronautical Information Center issued a NOTAM (a Notice to Airmen) on Sunday which will close most of the airspace over the Sea of Azov starting at midnight between Sunday and Monday, as the US continued to warn that Russia intends to invade Ukraine."
I don’t think that this indicates that a full-blown invasion of Ukraine is imminent. But at this point the conditions for war have been clearly set. If Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk now, the Russians have made it exceedingly clear that they will invade Ukraine. So this actually puts a lot of power into the hands of the War Party in Washington. Joe Biden and his all-star team of warmongers now know exactly what it will take to spark a war. Will they decide to pull the trigger?
Let us hope not, because once World War III begins nothing will ever be the same again."
“Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.“
- Nouriel Roubini
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“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
- Mark Twain
○
"When you have eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
“We like to think that we are rational beings; humane, conscientious, civilized, thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear we are not better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream, but deep down we are still routing around in the primordial ooze; biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold, dark world like the rest of the tree-toads and sloths.”
"Economic Bubble has Burst and It's Going to Get Messy"
"We are living in a world where every bubble is about to burst. The Fed has the pin to pop it all. Interest rates for the key to keeping the country out of a recession and depression. The Fed really doesn’t seem like helping small business or the average person."
"Unbeknownst to most people, America's leadership made a pact with the Devil: rather than face the constraints and injustices of our economic-financial system directly, a reckoning that would require difficult choices and some sacrifice by the ruling financial-political elites, our leaders chose the Devil's Pact: substitute the creation of asset-bubble "wealth" in the hands of the few for widespread prosperity.
The Devil's promise: that some thin trickle of the trillions of dollars bestowed on the few would magically trickle down to the many. This was as visibly foolish as the promise of immortality on Planet Earth, but our craven, greedy leadership quickly sealed the deal with the Devil and promptly inflated the greatest credit-asset bubble in human history.
Rather than trade away one's soul, America's leaders traded away the future security and stability of the nation. By refusing to deal with the real problems exposed by the collapsing financial scams in 2008-09, our leaders - both the unelected Federal Reserve and the elected "best government money can buy" - chose to bail out the scammers who had greased their palms so generously and sacrificed the prosperity of the many to do so.
This is more or less the equivalent of sacrificing innocents at the altar of the gods to ensure the leaders' rule will continue to be successful.
The Devil was delighted to serve up the illusion of godlike powers to our corrupt, greedy leaders. The deal looked oh-so win-win: we enrich the top few percent and offload the costs and sacrifices on the powerless many, who were told that they would benefit from the trickle of cash leaking out of the super-wealthy's bulging pockets.
But now the Devil is demanding his due: the unprecedented credit-fueled bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are popping, and America's corrupt leaders can only stammer and spew excuses and empty promises. All this amounts to begging the Devil to renegotiate the deal because now the downside is not just visible but inevitable. So sorry, America's leadership - the Devil doesn't respond to pleas or threats. Sorry about that; the deal stands as agreed. All your bogus gains and powers will evaporate, and then the destruction really begins.
How does all this end? In ruin, of course. Our craven, self-serving leadership may well bleat, "the Devil made us do it!" but that is not true: they fell all over themselves to sell the future stability and security of the nation for the quick-fix riches of bubbles and corruption."
"For game birds and small game, shotguns ranging in size from a tiny .410 to a ginormous ten gauge can be quite effective. For those who have actually tried, it seems possible that you can kill mosquitos with a shotgun. However it is not a great idea because while it may work, you end up doing far more damage to the cat, your kids and the walls of your house in a futile effort to defeat a mosquito.
Mosquitos are an irritation. So are protestors. But mosquitos are by their very nature an irritation. So it is with protestors. They want to be a giant pain in the ass until someone listens to their complaints.
Justin Trudeau and his government don’t think it is worth their time to listen to anyone objecting to how they govern. The protests have gone on for three weeks across Canada but focused on Ottawa. Since the protestors wouldn’t go home Trudeau made up his mind to destroy them and the rule of law in Canada at the same time.
I’m an American. I watched in horror a year ago as the BLM and ANTIF burned cities to the ground with dozens of dead and billions of dollars worth of damage to infrastructure. The government of California, Washington and Oregon did nothing. My most memorable vision was when a MSM mouthpiece stood in front of a burning building and talked about the “mostly peaceful protests.”
The Canadian protestors were peaceful, lawful, didn’t shoot anyone, and didn’t burn any buildings down. They just wanted to be heard. So Trudeau didn’t use a shotgun to kill a mosquito. No. It was worse. He used a hand grenade to kill a mosquito. I’m sure it was effective.
Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act for the very first time reminds me of Hitler’s use of the Enabling Act of 1933 where the government passed laws allowing them to remove all civil protections from anyone daring to disagree with actions of the government. Basically it handed all power to the government.
When Trudeau announced the Emergencies Act he made it clear that it was temporary and would be used for only thirty days. The Emergencies Act was not passed by the legislature; there was no debate and no vote. Only the cabinet and Trudeau enabled it.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has made it clear that she will use the temporary power granted to her to seize bank accounts from protestors and even those who legally donated money for the support of the truckers. She of course is the granddaughter of a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator so has vast experience with advancing the Nazi agenda. She also casually mentioned that some of the provisions of the Emergencies Act would be made permanent in much the same way as the Enabling Act.
We are at the most critical point in world history. The next few weeks will determine our future. Is it freedom and democracy or is it chains and slavery?
There is the greatest dichotomy between what we are told and what we can actually view with our own two eyes in all of history. Governments and the media aren’t lying about a few things or most things. They are lying about everything.
1. It was a bad flu not worthy of mass hysteria. Yes, Covid kills. The flu has always killed.
2. The “we need to lock down for two weeks to flatten the curve” turned into two years and didn’t work anyway.
3. Masks don’t work. Even the CDC now admits. If masks worked so well, why is Covid still around?
4. Social distancing is meaningless and has never been shown to have any effect on the transmission of Covid.
5. The PCR tests never worked, they generated an absurdly high number of false positives. A prior cold would show the same results as any flu. The CDC finally killed the use of the test at the end of 2021.
6. The CDC admitted that 94% of people, who died, died “with” Covid, not “of” covid. Since the tests generated incorrect results all of the numbers released by the government as to deaths were meaningless.
7. The CDC admitted in April of 2020 that both HCQ and Ivermectin were effective anti-viral medications. Since that killed the legal justification for any EUA for the “vaccine” the CDC retracted the information from public view.
8. The “vaccines” don’t work and in fact may increase the chance of someone coming down with Covid. The most vaccinated countries in the world have the most cases of Covid.
9. Excessive death rates shown in statistics coming from the insurance and health industry show that in the last year, the number of excess deaths over what has always been a stable and predictable rate, are up a remarkable 40% year over year. The jabs not only don’t work, they are killing those who took the shots in the millions already. It is now impossible to ignore the damage from the shots unless you have your head in the sand.
But Klaus Schwab is using the Covid mob hysteria to advance his sick agenda of The Great Reset. Trudeau, Macron and Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand are all part of the Young Global Leaders who Schwab has indoctrinated into advancing his Great Reset plan for mass global slavery.
We have a similar break between what we can see with our own eyes and what we are told from government and the mass media with the truckers' protest in Canada. According to the media, it is some right wing racist gathering of Trump supporters intending to overthrow government in Canada. But for anyone who has watched the hundreds of videos of the convoy driving into Ottawa, it is clearly a movement of ordinary Canadians tired of having their freedom stolen from them by a prime minister and legislature clearly tone deaf and out of control.
When Canadians protest, it is peaceful. The only thing Canadians ever riot for would be a hockey game. Trudeau has called the truckers and supporters every name in the book including insulting a Jewish member of the legislature by suggesting she was a Nazi flag waving radical.
The media says one thing but with our own eyes we can clearly see an entirely different movement asking, indeed, demanding their government change course. Who will win? The police are even more out of control than Trudeau. Anyone who even contributed to the truckers not only had their names passed on to the media, they are subject to having their financial assets seized for doing something that was perfectly legal when they did it.
When does adult leadership in the legal system in Canada or the Military step in and realize what Trudeau and Schwab are turning their country into?
The ongoing Ukraine/Russia saga is another mass media charade where 100% of what we are told is a lie.
In 2014 the US spent $5 billion dollars overthrowing the legally elected government of Ukraine in a coup because the elected government leaned toward Russia rather than toward the bankrupt and corrupt to the gills EU. The Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine that is virtually all Russian voted 96% to rejoin Russia and fighting took place.
By 2016 Ukraine, France, Germany, the UK and Russia realized it was a meaningless conflict and they agreed in the Minsk II agreement that the government of Ukraine would deal directly with Donbass in the future to settle disputes. To date, Ukraine has refused to talk to Donbass. It is not Russia behind the conflict; it is the US, Nato and their sock puppets in Ukraine.
Last fall the Ukrainian government was pushed by the US and Nato to mass their troops on the border of Donbass in preparation for an invasion to restore the region to Ukraine. In response Russia has mobilized their troops to their border. Russia responded to the actions of Ukraine, not the other way around.
Now Ukraine has been shelling Donbass for nearly a week but the media and Nato insist Russia has invaded. Russia hasn’t invaded anyone and it is the government of Ukraine that has been the aggressor all along. None of which you will read in the media. All you get from the media is lies.
A dozen countries in the world have realized that after two years of lies from governments, Big Pharma and the media, it is time to learn to live with what is nothing more than a bad flu. The truckers' requests for the Canadian government to back off their draconian rules are perfectly reasonable.
Likewise, it is perfectly reasonable for Russia to object to having offensive nuclear missiles right on their border in exactly the same way John F Kennedy did with Cuba in 1962. The Ukraine is not worth starting World War III over even if the Military Industrial Complex sees war as an opportunity.
The next couple of weeks will determine the future of the world. Is it freedom or will the monsters take over under Klaus Schwab."
As People Rush To Get Their Money Out Of The System"
by Epic Economist
"In several parts of the world, bank runs have accelerated over the past few days after banking systems mysteriously started to go offline, raising fears that a potential system collapse is looming as geopolitical tensions rise all across the globe. Those who still think that these recent bank outages, closures, and disruptions were isolated events that will soon be fixed, will probably be unpleasantly surprised to discover that this is part of the ‘new normal’.
Conditions in the financial system are making many people lose their trust in banks, especially now that interest rate hikes threaten to unleash a credit crunch similar to what happened during the 2008 financial crisis. But problems in the financial world go way deeper than most people think, and that’s an extremely alarming situation for consumers, who don’t even know what they’re truly in for.
All over the world, and particularly in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and China, thousands of bank branches were suddenly closed since the burst of the health crisis. Banks say this is happening because people are still afraid to leave their homes and have been preferring to make their transactions using online platforms. Operational costs also have been going up, and banks tend to cut on expenses wherever they can.
In 2020, 2,126 bank branches were closed in the United States, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. That was the highest number of bank closures ever recorded until 2021 when roughly 3,000 more branches disappeared from the system without further notice. From March 2020 to October 2021, over 4,000 branches were shut down. Nationwide, Wells Fargo closed a net 267 branch locations in 2020, and that number escalated to 993 by the end of 2021, according to data released in a report conducted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “This suggests banks are simply rushing to close as many branches as they can, as quickly as they can, anywhere they can,” the authors highlighted in the report.
And although that itself is a matter of concern, the main problem is that the reduced number of functioning branches and available ATM machines means that many people will not be able to get cash on their hands in case an emergency hits. People will not be able to have access to their savings or regular banking services if an outage occurs.
On top of that, new rules backed by several global economies, including the U.S. government, do not require major banks to ensure that communities will have access to cash when their last branch shuts. In Europe, that has sparked some fierce consumer backlash over the past couple of weeks, but strangely enough, this news hasn’t hit the U.S. headlines just yet. In the UK, some dissatisfied customers started to move their money from their accounts and into their crypto wallets, while others engaged in a bank run to take their money out of the system. As a result, several banks have seized people’s assets and crypto portfolios amid growing fears that bank runs would continue to occur on a ‘faster, greater scale’, according to a recent report published by MarketWatch.
To make things worse, banking insiders are warning that 700 to 800 branches will be closed this year in the U.S. alone, ‘as high street banks continue to cut costs and attempt to speed up the process of digitalization,’ they said. With all things considered, it’s understandable why so many people out there have started to rush to withdraw their money from their accounts before more mandated interruptions are imposed by government authorities. The world’s population is just now realizing that the system is much more fragile than it seems, and that, in fact, their wealth is not protected in their bank accounts.
It won’t be surprising if more bank runs start to occur in the near future. The global population is finally waking up to the reality that those very few people in positions of power can choose to confiscate the money we worked for during our entire lives with no good explanation for it. Keeping in mind that things are going from bad to worse in the financial markets, it’s a good idea to start finding alternatives to protect our wealth before it all starts to fall apart around us. Our leaders won’t come to rescue us, and it is safe to say that bank bureaucrats most certainly won’t."
“Putin Declares Donetsk And Luhansk Independent Countries”
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"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
- Albert Einstein
○
"Something Really Evil Is Happening In Ukraine"
by Michael Snyder
"How can we figure out exactly what is going on in Ukraine when literally everybody is lying? Anyone that willingly embraces the propaganda that is being put out by either side without questioning it is simply not being rational. At a time like this, we must think for ourselves and we must come to our own conclusions. And we should be doing whatever we can to stop a global war from starting. For years, I have been warning that the United States and Russia were heading toward war, and now we are almost there. If we can’t stop it from happening, tens of millions of people could die, and so the stakes are incredibly high.
Do I trust Vladimir Putin? No way. He says that the troops that he has massed on Ukraine’s borders are not a threat. Of course they are a threat. But is it a threat to invade Ukraine, or is it a threat to strike back if Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk?
Of course I don’t trust the Biden administration either. You would be amazed at how many otherwise rational people are telling me that even though the Biden administration has not stopped lying ever since they took power that I should now fully believe everything that they are telling us about Ukraine.
What a joke. Anyone that has unquestioning faith in anything that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Anthony Blinken or Jake Sullivan has to say is being quite foolish.
I don’t want propaganda. I just want the truth. So what is the truth? Well, that is going to be hard to figure out in an environment where lies are being constantly fired in our direction.
To the best that I can determine, widespread artillery bombardment began less than 24 hours after Russia announced that some troops would start to be pulled back from the border areas. On Friday, the level of shelling was particularly bad. According to the OSCE, there were over 1,400 explosions “in the rebel held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk” during that 24 hour period…
"Fears of tensions boiling over were backed up by figures released Saturday by the OSCE, which showed there were more than 1,400 explosions in the rebel held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk on Friday. The OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission that is deployed in the conflict zone said it had logged 553 explosions in Donetsk and a further 860 in neighboring Luhansk – adding that it had confirmed one civilian casualty in a government-controlled area of Donetsk. It put the total number of ceasefire violations on Friday at more than 1,500, compared with 870 the day before, suggesting an upwards trajectory of gunfire and mortars."
What I just shared comes from a British news source, and that is important to note, because western news sources are supposed to be convincing us that the Russians are about to invade Ukraine. But it is the Ukrainians that appear to be prepping for an invasion as they relentlessly pound Donetsk and Luhansk.
Of course the Ukrainians deny this, and some western media sources are actually trying to claim that the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk are shelling themselves hundreds of times in an effort to justify a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
So what is the truth? That is a very good question. It is certainly true that the separatists have been firing back into Ukrainian-held territory, and the government of Ukraine is calling this “provocative firing”. But as far as I can determine, it was the Ukrainians that started firing first. I certainly can’t prove that, because I am just one guy on the other side of the planet trying to figure things out as both sides relentlessly lie to all of us. However, what should be incredibly clear to everyone is that somebody out there really, really wants a war to happen. In the weeks ahead, I think that it will become clear who that is.
The Russians are trying to convince us that Ukraine is preparing to invade Donetsk and Luhansk now that they have been armed to the teeth by the U.S. and other NATO countries… The Kremlin said the supply of weapons and ammunition by NATO countries to Ukraine was pushing Kyiv towards a ‘military solution’ against separatists in the country’s east. ‘As a result, civilians… who have to evacuate to Russia to escape the intensifying shelling, suffer,’ the Kremlin added.
On the other hand, the Biden administration is trying to convince us that Russia is trying to “create a false pretext for invasion” because Putin is a madman that desperately wants to get his hands on Ukraine. In fact, Kamala Harris says that what we are witnessing is right out of the “playbook of Russian aggression”…“There is a playbook of Russian aggression,” Harris told the heads of state and government, foreign dignitaries and a large delegation from the United States. “And this playbook is too familiar for us all. Russia will plead ignorance and innocence. It will create a false pretext for invasion. And it will amass troops and firepower in plain sight.”
So who is right and who is wrong? Just hours ago, we learned that U.S. officials have supposedly gotten new “intelligence” that Putin has issued “an order to go ahead with an invasion of Ukraine”…"The U.S. has picked up intelligence showing that Russian military officials were given an order to go ahead with an invasion of Ukraine, a U.S. official and another person with knowledge of the matter told NBC News. The intelligence, which was developed very recently, informed President Joe Biden’s startling declaration Friday that the U.S. believes President Vladimir Putin has already decided to invade, the people said."
I don’t think that Russia is going to invade Ukraine today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. In fact, I don’t think that he wants to invade Ukraine at all. But I do think that Putin definitely wants to keep Ukraine out of NATO and western missiles off of his doorstep. Just check out some remarks that he made late last year… “It is you who must give us guarantees, and you must do it immediately, right now,” he said at his annual news conference late last year. “Are we deploying missiles near the US border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep.”
I also think that Putin is very interested in keeping Ukraine out of Donetsk and Luhansk. If Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk and starts taking lots of territory, I think that Putin will feel forced to intervene. And then western leaders will have the “Russian invasion” that they have been promising us.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made headlines all over the globe when he warned that the Russians are planning “the biggest war in Europe since 1945”… "Evidence suggests Russia is planning “the biggest war in Europe since 1945”, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said. He told the BBC’s Sophie Raworth in an interview: “All the signs are that the plan has already in some senses begun.” Intelligence suggests Russia intends to launch an invasion that will encircle Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Mr Johnson said."
No, I don’t think that is what the Russians truly want. But if neither side backs down, I think that is exactly what we are going to get. Nobody should be invading anybody. The Russians should not invade Ukraine, and the Ukrainians should not invade Donetsk and Luhansk.
Ultimately, everybody should just take a step back and relax. But it appears that is not going to happen. Thanks to all of the shelling in Donetsk and Luhansk, the Russians have announced that they will be extending their “military drills” in Belarus indefinitely… "Russia will extend its military drills with Belarus because of rising violence in Ukraine’s Donbas region, the government in Minsk said, as Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted a new round of talks with Kyiv amid warnings of an imminent Russian invasion."
If war starts, that will plunge the U.S. and Russia into a permanent state of conflict. Of course missiles would not start flying back and forth immediately. At first, both sides would use other measures to put pressure on the opposing side. But eventually a breaking point would be reached, and someone would go for the jugular. We must not allow things to get to that point. Because if we do cross that line, tens of millions of people could die in a war that nobody wants."
"Putin Orders Forces Into Ukraine Breakaway Regions"
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"Putin Orders Peacekeeping Operation In Ukraine's Breakaway Regions"
by Tyler Durden
Update (525pm ET): "In the latest development out of the Donbas, Reuters reports that under its new agreement with separatist leaders, Russia has a right to build and establish military bases in eastern Ukraine.
BREAKING: Russia’s agreements just signed with the LPR and DPR give the right to use military infrastructure and military bases on each other’s territory, and provide for joint protection of the borders of Donbass
Meanwhile, as the night progresses in eastern Ukraine, we are now getting footage of "peacekeepers" being bussed in to the Donbas across the border.
#Ukraine: Footage of #Russia’s military “peacekeepers” being bussed in to the Donbas across the border. This is essentially the beginning of the invasion. pic.twitter.com/7pUgkJrJzQ"
“Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. Centered on NGC 7814, the pretty field of view would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy.
Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive central bulges cut by a thinner disk with dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing to be smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. A very faint dwarf galaxy, potentially a satellite of NGC 7814, is revealed in the deep exposure just below the Little Sombrero.”
"It's always good to remember that life isn't easy. I don't mean to say that life is always hard in the sense of it always being painful. Clearly there are times when we're happy, when things are going well, when we feel that our life is headed in the right direction and that even greater fulfillment is just ahead of us, etc. What I mean is that even when we have times in our life that are good, that doesn't last. In fact, often the things we're so excited and happy about later turn out to be things that also cause us suffering.
For example, you start a brand new relationship and you're in love and it's exciting and fulfilling. And then you find yourself butting heads with your partner, and you hurt each others feelings. Maybe you even split up. Does that sound familiar?
For example, the new job that you're thrilled about turns out to contain stresses you hadn't imagined. Has that ever happened?
For example, the house you're so pleased to have bought inevitably ends up requiring maintenance. Or perhaps the house value plummets. Or perhaps your circumstances change and you find it a struggle to meet the mortgage. Maybe you've been lucky, or maybe you've been there.
Happiness has a way of evaporating. Unhappiness has a way of sneaking up on us and sucker-punching us in the gut.
On a deep level, none of really understand happiness and unhappiness. If we truly understood the dynamics of these things, we'd be happy all the time and would never be miserable. We'd be enlightened. But pre-enlightenment, we're all stumbling in the dark, and sometimes colliding painfully with life as we do so.
This being human is not easy. We're doing a difficult thing in living a human life. It's good to accept all this, because life is so much harder when we think it should be easy. When we think life should be straightforward, and that we think we have it all sorted out, then unhappiness becomes a sign that we've failed. And that makes being in pain even more painful.
We haven't failed when we're unhappy; we're just being human. We're simply experiencing the tender truth of what it is to live a human life. So when you're unhappy, don't beat yourself up about it. Don't fight it. Accept that this is how things are right now. Often when you do that, you'll very quickly - sometimes instantly - start to feel better. By accepting our suffering, we start to move through it. And as you look around you, realize that everyone else is doing this difficult thing of being human too. They're all struggling. We're all struggling. We all want happiness and find happiness elusive. We all want to avoid suffering and yet keep stumbling into it, over and over.
Many of the things that bother you about other people are their attempts to deal with this difficult existential situation, in which we desire happiness, and don't experience as much of it as we want, and desire to be free from suffering, and yet keep becoming trapped in it. Their moods, their clinging, their anger - all of these are the results of human beings struggling to find happiness, and having trouble doing so.
If we can recognize that this human life is not easy - if we can empathize with that very basic existential fact - then perhaps we can be just a little kinder to ourselves and others. And that would help make this human life just a little easier to navigate."
