Category: zerohedge

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky turned down the US’ evacuation offer from the capital city of Kyiv. He said, “the fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” – @ZelenskyyUa on the US evacuation offer.

Ukrainians are proud of their President💙💛

— Ukr Embassy to the UK (@UkrEmbLondon) February 26, 2022

On Monday, AMMO, Inc., a US-based ammunition and components manufacturer, announced it had acknowledged Zelensky’s call and has pledged to donate one million rounds of ammunition to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 

Fred Wagenhals, CEO of Ammo Inc., said his company “firmly supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence, as we stand for freedom and democracy everywhere.” 

“While we fervently hope for a quick and peaceful resolution to the crisis and that diplomacy will win the day, we condemn the Russian aggression and its threat to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and freedom. We recognize that events are unfolding rapidly on the ground in Ukraine, and we are prepared to move quickly as possible to support Ukraine as it continues to defend itself and its freedom,” Wagenhals said. 

The call for ammo comes as Russia tries to seize more Ukrainian cities on Wednesday. A menacing convoy of Russian troops is on a highway north of Kyiv. There are fears the convoy could encircle the capital. 

However, there’s some good news. The second round of Russia-Ukraine talks is set for today. 

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

Last week I wrote that Russian President Vladimir Putin rewrote the rules for the geopolitical game board. A week into his campaign to officially “demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine” it’s clear to me that Putin’s ambitions lie far beyond this stated goal.

He will, however, stick to that script until that part of the campaign is complete.

Today I want to start outlining where we go next and to do that we have to describe where we are.

Looking around the reports that are the most credible (and properly bracketing for any partisanship) we are staring at a complete, effective neutralization of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) to hold any of the ethnically-dominant areas of Ukraine.

In a post for my patrons on February 25th, responding to an excellent article by Alistair MacLeod I wrote the following:

MacLeod: Both sides probably do not know how fragile the Eurozone banking system is, with both the ECB and its national central bank shareholders already having liabilities greater than their assets. In other words, rising interest rates have broken the euro system and an economic and financial catastrophe on its eastern flank will probably trigger its collapse.

I’ve been banging my shoe on this table for 3 years now.  If the US/NATO respond with some kind of guerilla war here to hang Ukraine like an albatross around Putin’s neck, as we should expect, then Europe is in big trouble financially.  

Because the financial war will keep escalating as Putin responds militarily.  Remember, he’s openly threatened the ‘decision makers’ here.  And no amount of mealy-mouthed CIA/MI6 disinformation will deter him from action anymore.  

This is always what I meant by “spooks start civil wars, militaries end them.”  There is no more War for Ukraine.  

I still believe that. This isn’t a war for Ukraine, it’s a war for the future of the entire world. Ukraine represents the hill both Davos and Russia have chosen to live or die on.

The Afghanistan Gambit

Davos has refused to let President Zelensky surrender because if he does then legally there is no more war to sanction Russia with. It’s not Putin’s War at that point, it is a settled conflict and terms negotiated.

At that point what’s left of Ukraine can be carved up into pieces. It’s way to early for that to occur, so you’ll see constant threats of peace talks, but that’s only to assuage the fears of the capital markets, which is where Davos has the most control over the situation.

The primary goal of the information war from the West is to push capital markets as far in its favor as possible, keeping things within the bounds of the ‘acceptable’ to avoid any short-term pain. Gold is still under it’s all-time high, which is just hilarious.

That said, in that same post I put up this map of a future Ukraine which I felt, conservatively, would be in effect by the end of this year. Events are moving far faster than that, however.

Chernihiv and Sumy are also in play, as is Lviv as a bargaining chip to Poland. As Fmr. Col. Douglas Macgregor pointed out on Fox News recently, everything east of the Dnieper River will become part of a new Novorussia, if not part of the Russian Federation.

Clearly this is Putin’s initial goal, the partitioning of Ukraine. He’s moved militarily, the EU and the rest of the West have responded financially. Their hope is to turn Ukraine into a quagmire, a la Afghanistan (per Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks), which they hope Russia will not be able to sustain after being choked off from the global economy.

The financial sanctions regime put in place so far are brutal but also full of holes wide enough for Putin to maneuver within and around because of the well understood facts of Russia’s dominance as a global supplier of life-sustaining commodities for the entire world.

This is an asymmetric war.

There isn’t much farther the West can go financially. They’ve seized Bank of Russia foreign assets, for pity’s sake. What other weapons do they really have in their arsenal which can threaten Russia with?

They have, in effect, executed their nuclear first strike against Russia. Once you’ve gone nuclear, where do you go next? Real nukes? Yes, that’s a possibility, sadly, given the people we’re talking about.

On the other hand, Russia has so far only committed the necessary troops to neutralize Ukraine. So, in this respect, big advantage Russia.

Facts on the ground are facts. Russia has taken territory it can maintain. By not targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure, Russia has put itself in a very good position to not face an insane insurgency which the West can finance in the way that it has in past conflicts.

Much of NATO’s in-country assets have been neutralized. And you know this because the propaganda and rhetoric have been so thoroughly crude, cartoonish and strident. Again, ask why the financial and informational war has been so intense?

Is it because the West thinks it’s winning or because it’s trying desperately to pivot domestic populations to solidarity after losing massive credibility during the last year with COVID-19 related lockdowns, vax passes, and the unpersoning of whole swaths of Western society?

The Real Russian Cauldron

Now let’s ask the next question that keeps coming up.

Why has Putin not shut off the gas to a Europe that is rapidly running out of it?

Because to do so would target civilian populations. If he’s not targeting civilians in Ukraine to minimize their anger at being invaded, then why would he use that weapon now against civilians in Germany who hold the key to getting overthrowing the insane politicians and oligarchs who provoked this war in the first place?

It doesn’t make any strategic sense. It also speaks to a kind of confidence in Russia’s military position in Ukraine, thereby lending credence to the reports that Russia is achieving her strategic goals on the ground in Ukraine.

Okay, that’s the lay of the land.

So, what are Putin’s real goals? Like I said at the outset, nothing less than breaking the back of Davos and their agents in the US/UK who have tormented Russia for more than a century.

How does he achieve that goal?

Putin is creating incontrovertible facts which his opponents must respond to. Again, he’s setting the operational tempo, like I said last week.

Their counter-moves are insipid and predictable. Ukraine has asked for admission into the EU. The EU is open to this. Georgia is now doing the same thing. Turkey is livid. Hungary is not getting involved.

No one is willing to actually send arms to Ukraine.

What does the EU achieve by adding Ukraine? Do they think because they signed a piece of paper with a person who is de facto not in charge of his country going to change the facts on the ground there?

Do they still think “stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool” matters at this point?

Because if the EU accepts Ukraine into its ranks, then it will be responsible for the next stage of escalation, not Putin. It will then have to figure out how to oust the Russians from their territory.

Last night President Sundowner made the entire US State of the Union about Ukraine. Do they really think a president with an approval rating that is, at best 37%, capable of marshalling the US into fighting a war for Europe against Russia after bankrupting us with NATO for three generations?

If they are, they are more delusional than even I’ve contemplated at this point.

Is NATO prepared to expand now into Ukraine under the umbrella of EU membership?

What’s obvious to me is the neocons and neoliberals controlling the West think they can turn Ukraine into a quagmire for Putin, but what if Putin thinks he can turn Ukraine into a quagmire for them?

Russia is not capable of conquering Europe. But he doesn’t need to to defeat them. He just needs to create a version of the map I posted above.

The Limits of Money Wars

If Putin and Russia have achieved, or are about to achieve, all of their military goals in Ukraine, what do they do to secure those gains?

They have to neutralize the financial war waged against them and create an environment where Europe spends money it doesn’t have, with failing political capital domestically, and bankrupts them completely.

And the first move along those lines was just announced by the Russian Finance Ministry today (VPN and Deepl translator needed).

What does this mean? It means simply that Russia has now, in effect, begun the remonetization of gold for domestic purposes. By removing the VAT on gold purchases Russian citizens can now offset their currency risk with gold and stabilize the domestic monetary situation.

The first step in offsetting financial warfare from the West is allowing the domestic population to be immune to collapses in their currency from foreign actors pulling capital out of the country. Companies doing international business now have an alternative to hold time deposits which are far less volatile than the ruble without penalty. Gold becomes the coin of Russia’s international business.

It’s the beginning of the process of draining physical gold from the global market and control over its price by the ponzi schemes that are the COMEX and the LBMA.

This is a first step in rebuilding confidence in the Russian banking system rather than what we’re seeing in the West which is the ritualistic assault on privacy, wealth generation and the value of our labor, which is degrading rapidly thanks to inflation, which will rage from here as all energy and commodity markets are scared to death of Davos’ financial war on Russia.

As Luke Gromen pointed out on Twitter this is the big signal that the petrodollar system is headed for the ashbin of history.

Failure of imagination, or western hubris.

Alternative view: Russia will soon begin to demonstrate in very stark terms that in the Petrodollar system, it is the “Petro-” portion that is the true value, not the “-dollar” portion, via either price or shortages or both. https://t.co/ee6MlHTogu

— Luke Gromen (@LukeGromen) March 2, 2022

With the global oil market in a complete state of shock as no one wants to run afoul of US and/or EU sanctions on Russian energy, the price of oil here potentially goes parabolic. At that point reality hits the money masters squarely in the face.

Those that brave the waters will get their oil at a steep discount, those that don’t will pay through the nose, further accelerating the decline of those economies as inflation spirals out of control and the people put the blame, not on Putin, but on the people in charge.

Moreover, Russia has kept the gas flows going to ensure that money keeps flowing into the country to finance further expansion of its gold reserves.

The current shock will abate. Russia is not Iran. It can insure its own tanker fleet. It can deliver the oil. If Iran could survive what Trump did to them, Russia can thrive under this new regime, changing the entire flow of capital around the world.

Now, I want to turn your attention to the other news of which further corroborates that Davos and Europe are trapped. FOMC Chair Jerome Powell testified today telling the world that the Fed will still hike 25 basis points in March. Bullard came out and said the Fed has to withdraw accommodation to maintain its credibility.

Further Powell blamed both the Fed and Congress for inflation. It’s a result of too much spending.

Powell even floated the idea that the world can have more than one reserve currency (!!). Meanwhile Biden is talking about bringing back Build Back Better and sending us down the road to financial ruin.

The fight between Davos and the Fed, which I identified last summer is real, folks. That leaves a belligerent yet impotent Europe caught between the Scylla of a Fed drying up the global supply of dollars and the Carbides of a Russian military capable of withstanding anything Europe throws at them if the US doesn’t get involved, i.e. this doesn’t go nuclear.

NATO isn’t getting involved in Ukraine even if Ukraine becomes an EU member. They can have the landlocked rump of what’s left over. If Putin is smart, which he is, he will offer the Poles Lviv and Hungary Transcarpathia. The EU gets the dregs.

It’s clear from the wailing and gnashing of the Neocon/Neolibs that they want Putin Milosevic’d for daring to put them in this position. They still dream of overthrowing him. It’s also clear that there are a lot of people who are not down with the willful destruction of the current global economy within the upper reaches of US policy makers and European corporate boards.

This is the real fight for the future and if Davos thinks extreme demand destruction will be tolerated for any length of time over a regional conflict like Ukraine because it’s their ox being gored, then this war, while still raging is, in effect, already over.

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As of March 2, over 800,000 people living in Ukraine have left the country to seek shelter from Russian aggression, either permanently or temporarily.

As Statista’s Florian Zandt shows in the chart below, based on data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), most of the people fleeing have crossed over at the Polish border.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Roughly 453,000 refugees have reached Ukraine’s western neighbor via foot, bus, car or train. According to government statements, more than 50,000 people looking for safety from the Russia-Ukraine conflict arrive in Poland every day.

While around 52,000 people are fleeing towards other European countries, the aforementioned Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Moldova carry the brunt of the refugee wave. These movements will likely intensify over the next couple of days as fighting continues. UNHCR estimates released yesterday suggest that 12 million people in Ukraine and four million refugees from the country will need relief and protection over the coming months. To combat this humanitarian crisis, the UN and its humanitarian partners issued a flash appeal for $1.7 billion to allow the distribution of needed supplies.

Although the rallying efforts of the European community are generally seen as commendable, the treatment of non-white refugees has come under increased scrutiny over the last couple of days. On March 1, for example, Nigeria’s government condemned the handling of Nigerian and other African refugees by Ukrainian border officials who allegedly prioritized the evacuation of white Ukrainians.

Authored by Jessica Corbett via Common Dreams, 

Russia further elevated concerns about global catastrophe as on Tuesday its “nuclear submarines sailed off for drills in the Barents Sea and mobile missile launchers roamed snow forests” in Siberia just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and put his nation’s nuclear forces on “special alert.”

Anti-nuclear campaigners who have condemned the Russian leader’s actions over the past week also blasted the military exercises that Russia’s Northern Fleet said were designed to “train maneuvering in stormy conditions,” according to the Associated Press.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) tweeted the report and said that “drills with nuclear weapons are never acceptable and are particularly dangerous in tense times.”

The AP reported that the Russian military “didn’t say whether the drills were linked to Putin’s order on Sunday to put the country’s nuclear forces on high alert amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. It also was unclear whether the exercises represented a change in the country’s normal nuclear training activities or posture.”

Along with demanding an end to the “illegal” invasion, ICAN said Sunday that Putin’s alert order “is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible, especially during a time of war and high tension.” The group urged all nuclear-armed states to stand down their forces and “refrain from threatening to use weapons of mass destruction,” warning that any use of them “would cause catastrophic humanitarian suffering and the fallout—radioactive, economic, political.”

Yes, you’re absolutely right, the United States and NATO are 100% capable of obliterating that Russian convoy headed for Kyiv and establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

And all we’d have to be willing to risk is… … the fate of all life on Earth as we know it.

— Derek Johnson (@derekjGZ) February 28, 2022

ICAN continued:

Right now, the dangerous policy of so-called nuclear deterrence is used to enable the continued invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It does not keep the peace, it allows for war to be carried out against Ukrainian people.

Any theory which is based on the willingness to mass murder civilians and is kept in check by little more than sheer luck will eventually lead to a horrific humanitarian catastrophe. That’s what is being risked right now, and it must stop.

Russia and the United States collectively account for about 90% of all nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Both countries have subs, land-based systems, and bombers capable of launching the weapons. During Putin’s speech last week announcing the invasion of Ukraine—an air and land assault that has included alleged war crimes—the Russian leader made what was widely seen as a thinly veiled threat to retaliate with nuclear weapons if any other nation intervenes.

Anti-war campaigners have also responded with alarm to a Monday referendum that paves the path for Belarus to host Russian nuclear weapons.

Despite the recent developments, the Biden administration so far has not changed U.S. nuclear alert levels. While denouncing Putin’s war in Ukraine and imposing economic sanctions, U.S. President Joe Biden has indicated he does not plan to engage in a military conflict with Russia.

Try not to get nuked https://t.co/WZXURe0FtZ

— Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow) March 2, 2022

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki made clear Monday that the Biden administration will not impose a no-fly zone, emphasizing that implementation could require the U.S. military to shoot down Russian planes, which could lead to a full-blown war with Russia.

Writing Tuesday for Responsible Statecraft, Emma Claire Foley of Global Zero outlined various scenarios that could result in nuclear action over Ukraine, from Putin making good on his threats to “an accidental first strike in response to misinterpreted or incorrect intelligence or uncontrolled escalation of a relatively small-scale, conventional military incident.”

“Very little seems certain about the tragic situation in Ukraine or the future of U.S.-Russia relations,” she wrote. “But as long as the status quo around nuclear weapons persists, the real risk of escalation from a regional conflict to a global conflagration will be with us. The difficult question that must be answered is how we build a path out of the darkness of the present moment to a world free from their threat.”

ICAN continues to call on all countries, especially the nine nuclear-armed nations, to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force last year.

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

In all the world the US as a nation is utterly unique in its tradition of citizen rights to self defense. There is no other protection written into any constitution anywhere that is as solid and unapologetic as the 2nd Amendment. Whenever I end up in a debate with a gun control advocate from another country that wants to “educate me” on the level of firearms ownership overseas I have to laugh because these people just don’t get it.

There are many countries where some guns are allowed to be owned by the public, but in every case this is treated as a PRIVILEGE which the government can give and take away anytime it pleases. Only in America is gun ownership an individual right regardless of what the government and the so called “majority” likes or dislikes. The government’s opinions on personal firearms are meaningless. The majority’s opinions on gun rights are meaningless. I own guns because natural law and the constitution says I have an inborn right to self defense. And, if someone wants to take those weapons from me they better be prepared to die in the process.

This is not an attitude shared by most of the rest of the world because most of the world has never fought and defeated a global power to achieve independence. This experience of freedom is not written into their cultural subconscious. In fact, most nations have lived under one level of authoritarianism or another for centuries. Many people inherently want freedom, but very few people have ever risked everything to get it and succeeded.

The only time you will see a mass awakening in favor of public self defense in these places is when a country faces an existential threat, then suddenly people start to question why they are completely disarmed and helpless.

This is a revelation that the Ukrainian people are experiencing today. As I write this the capital of Kiev is being surrounded by Russian forces and the nation’s government is calling on all able bodied citizens to take up arms and repel the invasion. This all sounds rather noble and the media in the west is waxing romantic about it. However, the situation reveals a foolishness that plagues most countries today. Why wasn’t the Ukrainian public ALREADY armed and organized?

Ukraine’s gun laws are not as strict as many in Europe or Eastern Europe, but they are certainly not conducive to civilian defense. It’s generally not legal for anyone to own a pistol for any reason other than special government issue, while a person must be at least 25 years old just to qualify for a permit to get a rifle. The types of arms allowed are select and few, and magazines are limited to ten rounds or less. Overwhelmingly, it is the upper middle class and the rich that obtain most of the permits, as is often the case through the majority of Europe. Middle class and poor people are rarely allowed to own firearms.

I’ll say it again: When some European leftist tries to argue with you online about how there are “gun owners everywhere” in their country despite their strict laws, remind them that firearms ownership is ‘pay to play’ in most countries outside the US. If you are not relatively wealthy you are probably never going to be allowed by the government to get a permit to own a gun. The rich are allowed firearms because the rich are more naturally inclined to support the status quo.

This kind of elitism has left Ukraine with a highly disarmed population, with only 1 in 10 people having access to weapons of any kind, and a majority of these weapons are bolt action rifles and shotguns which are generally not effective for military defense (unless we are talking about bolt action rifles set up for long range shooting, and there are scant few people that have the knowledge to actually use such tactics effectively). In many countries you aren’t even allowed to own military grade scopes or red dots.

The reason for this is easy to figure out and it has nothing to do with preventing crime – Rather, government elites want to ensure there is little chance of the public ever overthrowing them should they implement controls that push the people too far. We have seen this everywhere in the wake of covid mandates and vax passport laws.

There is a reason why these draconian measures were unsuccessful in the US; we are heavily armed and there’s nothing Biden or anyone else can do about it without risking annihilation. It’s the same reason why the US has not seen a major military invasion attempt since the Mexican-American War (I am not counting the minor incursions by the Japanese into Alaska during WWII). An invasion of the US would be a quagmire unlike anything in history and far deadlier than trying to take over a country like Afghanistan.

This is not opinion, this is FACT given the amount of arms, training and combat knowledge common within the American population. The only way the US can be taken over is from within, which is a subject for another article.

One area which Americans have failed to remain secure is in the abandonment of the citizen militia, which is an element of the 2nd Amendment that is just as important as gun rights. For many decades we have allowed the National Guard, which is now basically federalized, to take the place of the militia system. This is completely unacceptable and not a viable replacement in any way. Luckily, there has been a resurgence of local organization in recent years, and though the “M word” has yet to make a major reappearance, this is what will inevitably happen as mainstream systems continue to fail and people look to their own communities for safety instead of the government.

In Ukraine there used to be a more concerted citizen call-up effort but again, this was a strictly centralized government affair. The only organized militias in the country are among the pro-Russian separatists. Today, as Russia invades, the Ukrainians don’t even have basic measures in place. Their ability to hold off the Russians at all is predicated on American missile systems like the Javelin which are being steadily funneled into the Ukrainian military.

SIDE NOTE: Also, the methods which Ukrainian forces are using to ambush Russian tank columns are rather advanced and familiar. I suspect the possibility that there are outside military “advisers” (perhaps US advisers) on the ground right now in Ukraine. The advanced guerrilla-style ambush tactics and the results look similar to training that is often given to Green Berets or SAS. The UK did send anti-tank weapons along with a small group of “trainers” to Ukraine in January.

Maybe I am mistaken, but if this is the case it would be diplomatically disastrous if such adviser teams were ever discovered to be involved in the fighting.

Despite all the help from the west, large chunks of Ukraine territory are now in the hands of Russia including two major cities so far. The Ukrainian government has offered to arm up any citizen who wants to fight, but the training I have observed in video footage is clearly substandard. Most of these people have never handled military grade arms in their lives, never fired a gun and never shot a 3-5 round group at 100 yards let alone faced the prospect of a two-way firing range and the sheer panic this can cause in untrained men.

Even more disturbing to me is that many of these call-ups for volunteers are peppered with women young and old. Guys bringing along their tiny girlfriends and wives as if the whole thing is a vacation at a Crossfit camp. This is delusional for a number of reasons, including the fact that having a loved one (especially a female) with you in the middle of combat can be a deadly distraction from the mission. Where is the soldier’s attention going to be? On the enemy in front of him, or his wife next to him who is screaming in horror as bullets zip past her head? When she realizes it’s not like the movies where every woman is a natural sniper that can go hand-to-hand with 200 pound men, will she then try to convince her husband to abandon the fight and leave with her?

It boggles the mind! At least make sure the women and children are safe in another place before going to fight.

The reason this desperation is happening at all is because of Ukraine’s complete lack of readiness. I find it hard to believe that president Zelenskyy was really tricked into believing that Putin was bluffing about invasion. Even if he thought that was the case, he should have been preparing defenses anyway and forming citizen militias. He had months of prior warning to do this, yet he did not.

I’m not going to field any theories here on why the Ukraine government was so unprepared (though I have a pretty solid idea), and it’s not my intention to support one side or the other politically. As I have written in previous articles, Ukraine is a globalist engineered distraction from bigger things, including the inflationary decline of the global economy. My purpose here is to examine the reasons why Ukraine was so easily invaded and to use it as a cautionary lesson.

The bottom line is this: If Ukraine had true self defense rights and a militia system in place then Russia may not have been able to invade at all.

I also find it interesting that the political left in the US, which has always been rabidly anti-gun rights for decades, is now cheering the prospect of the Ukrainian government arming civilians to fight a guerrilla war against the Russians. This reveals a dangerous hypocrisy which conservatives have suspected for some time – Leftists are not necessarily “anti-gun”, they are are just anti-gun when it comes to any person that disagrees with their ideology. When crisis strikes they become pro-gun, as long as they are the only people with guns.

The Ukraine event sets an important example for conservatives and moderates in America in that it reinforces the reality that owning guns alone is not enough. Local organization and public militias are the key to the survival of a society under threat. In fact, public militias can even act as a deterrent to future attacks from without AND from within.

Finally, local organization requires time and training. It’s not something you can slap together at the last minute and trying to form public security groups after an attack has already occurred is going to be a mess. One thing that has always bothered me about the Hollywood notion of the Red Dawn scenario and tales of regular people networking to fight foreign invaders is that these unprepared groups rarely if ever actually get very far in a real life fight. Rather, its the groups of people that were ready BEFORE the crisis happened that make the most difference.

You almost never see prepared people portrayed in the movies. I suspect because mainstream society has been conditioned to view preparedness as militancy, and militancy as extremism. God forbid a person is labeled as “extremist,” better to be apathetic and ineffective. It is always the people that step outside the artificial limitations of the mainstream that end up making a difference in the world, and it’s always the people that conform that end up becoming refugee fodder and victims of the historic tides. The Ukrainians are paying the price right now for this kind of attitude, lets not allow the same thing to happen here in America. It’s time to organize.

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Providing an overview of the status of cannabis in the U.S. is challenging at best. On the federal level, things are fairly straight forward. Cannabis is federally illegal and has been for 88 years and counting. But, as Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop and Aran Ali detail below, getting down to the state level, however, changes things.

This map from Tenacious Labs breaks down the legal status of cannabis across every U.S. state, and details how lenient each one is when it comes to criminalization.

No Cannabis Allowed

Cannabis—the plant from which marijuana is made—is still considered a dangerous and criminal substance in many U.S. states. In fact, there are six states where cannabis is illegal, of which five are yet to decriminalize. This means an individual can be criminally prosecuted for possessing certain amounts.

Most states began decriminalizing marijuana decades ago, but not all have chosen to partake in this trend. Prosecutors in Alabama for example are able to charge someone with a felony offense for possessing marijuana.

In most states where cannabis is illegal, it is not decriminalized. In particular, only one illegal state has decriminalized the substance—Nebraska.

Medical Use Only

In some U.S. states, approved medical usage of cannabis could be a precursor towards full legalization. Just as it was for states like California and Oregon. However, some states that allow medical usage have chosen not to decriminalize cannabis for recreational purposes.

Many states have lists of qualifying conditions which allow a person to carry prescribed amounts of cannabis—often for ailments like glaucoma or cancer. States like Iowa allow cannabis to treat medical conditions, but only if it is CBD-based rather than THC-based.

Interestingly enough, all CBD-based cannabis products with THC levels less than or equal to 0.3% are fully legal on a federal level.

Cannabis Allowed

Some states are famously legal, like Colorado. The legalization of cannabis in Colorado, for example, has added numerous jobs, investments, and a new market to the economy—not to mention billions of dollars.

Overall, there are 18 states (and Washington D.C.) which have fully legalized cannabis—allowing both medical and recreational usage—and over 20 which have legalized cannabis for medical use only.

With the current Democratic government, federal legalization seems more likely. In fact, the MORE Act (Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement Act) was recently reintroduced in the House of Representatives pushing forward the progress for federal cannabis legalization in America.

Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Common Sense with Bari Weiss,

How has Vladimir Putin – a man ruling a country with an economy smaller than that of Texas, with an average life expectancy 10 years lower than that of France – managed to launch an unprovoked full-scale assault on Ukraine?

There is a deep psychological, political and almost civilizational answer to that question: He wants Ukraine to be part of Russia more than the West wants it to be free. He is willing to risk tremendous loss of life and treasure to get it. There are serious limits to how much the U.S. and Europe are willing to do militarily. And Putin knows it.

Missing from that explanation, though, is a story about material reality and basic economics—two things that Putin seems to understand far better than his counterparts in the free world and especially in Europe. 

Putin knows that Europe produces 3.6 million barrels of oil a day but uses 15 million barrels of oil a day. Putin knows that Europe produces 230 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year but uses 560 billion cubic meters. He knows that Europe uses 950 million tons of coal a year but produces half that.

The former KGB agent knows Russia produces 11 million barrels of oil per day but only uses 3.4 million. He knows Russia now produces over 700 billion cubic meters of gas a year but only uses around 400 billion. Russia mines 800 million tons of coal each year but uses 300.

That’s how Russia ends up supplying about 20 percent of Europe’s oil, 40 percent of its gas, and 20 percent of its coal. 

The math is simple. A child could do it.

The reason Europe didn’t have a muscular deterrent threat to prevent Russian aggression—and in fact prevented the U.S. from getting allies to do more—is that it needs Putin’s oil and gas. 

The question is why. 

How is it possible that European countries, Germany especially, allowed themselves to become so dependent on an authoritarian country over the 30 years since the end of the Cold War? 

Here’s how: These countries are in the grips of a delusional ideology that makes them incapable of understanding the hard realities of energy production. Green ideology insists we don’t need nuclear and that we don’t need fracking. It insists that it’s just a matter of will and money to switch to all-renewables—and fast. It insists that we need “degrowth” of the economy, and that we face looming human “extinction.” (I would know. I myself was once a true believer.)

John Kerry, the United States’ climate envoy, perfectly captured the myopia of this view when he said, in the days before the war, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine “could have a profound negative impact on the climate, obviously. You have a war, and obviously you’re going to have massive emissions consequences to the war. But equally importantly, you’re going to lose people’s focus.”

But it was the West’s focus on healing the planet with “soft energy” renewables, and moving away from natural gas and nuclear, that allowed Putin to gain a stranglehold over Europe’s energy supply. 

As the West fell into a hypnotic trance about healing its relationship with nature, averting climate apocalypse and worshiping a teenager named Greta, Vladimir Putin made his moves.

While he expanded nuclear energy at home so Russia could export its precious oil and gas to Europe, Western governments spent their time and energy obsessing over “carbon footprints,” a term created by an advertising firm working for British Petroleum. They banned plastic straws because of a 9-year-old Canadian child’s science homework. They paid for hours of “climate anxiety” therapy. 

While Putin expanded Russia’s oil production, expanded natural gas production, and then doubled nuclear energy production to allow more exports of its precious gas, Europe, led by Germany, shut down its nuclear power plants, closed gas fields, and refused to develop more through advanced methods like fracking. 

The numbers tell the story best. In 2016, 30 percent of the natural gas consumed by the European Union came from Russia. In 2018, that figure jumped to 40 percent. By 2020, it was nearly 44 percent, and by early 2021, it was nearly 47 percent. 

For all his fawning over Putin, Donald Trump, back in 2018, defied diplomatic protocol to call out Germany publicly for its dependence on Moscow. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” Trump said. This prompted Germany’s then-chancellor, Angela Merkel, who had been widely praised in polite circles for being the last serious leader in the West, to say that her country “can make our own policies and make our own decisions.”

The result has been the worst global energy crisis since 1973, driving prices for electricity and gasoline higher around the world. It is a crisis, fundamentally, of inadequate supply. But the scarcity is entirely manufactured.

Europeans—led by figures like Greta Thunberg and European Green Party leaders, and supported by Americans like John Kerry—believed that a healthy relationship with the Earth requires making energy scarce. By turning to renewables, they would show the world how to live without harming the planet. But this was a pipe dream. You can’t power a whole grid with solar and wind, because the sun and the wind are inconstant, and currently existing batteries aren’t even cheap enough to store large quantities of electricity overnight, much less across whole seasons. 

In service to green ideology, they made the perfect the enemy of the good—and of Ukraine. 

*  *  *

Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Subscribe To Michael’s substack here

Russian oligarchs could be on the run as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues the seventh day of incursions in Ukraine. President Biden warned in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night that the U.S. and Europe would “seize” the assets of Russian billionaires. Thanks to the Twitterverse, finding some Russian billionaires, if by air or by sea, has become an easy task. 

Bloomberg data shows the four biggest Russian-owned luxury yachts are in the Maldives. The largest is Ocean Victory, a 140-meter superyacht owned by Viktor Filippovich Rashnikov, a Russian billionaire who made most of his wealth in the iron and steel industry. Aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska is sailing his 72-meter yacht, called Clio, in the same area. 

A 142-meter superyacht called Nord, owned by Alexei Mordashov, another steel billionaire, is currently transiting Seychelles. Russian banker, Andrey Kostin’s 66-meter Sea Rhapsody, is sailing between Somalia and Maldives. 

An estimated 7% to 10% of the global superyacht fleet is owned by Russians, according to industry watcher Superyacht Group. Overall yacht counts have dipped to 10 from 19 this time last year in the Maldives, while they’ve climbed from five to 12 in the Seychelles, a former British colony known for its palm- fringed islands and sandy beaches. – Bloomberg

By air, tracking Russian billionaires has never been easier. Jack Sweeney, 19, created a Twitter account called “Russian Oligarch Jets” that follows the flight movements of some of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen. The Twitter bot updates followers when and where the private jets take off and land. 

The movement of Russian oligarchs worldwide after the invasion comes as western sanctions are complicating things for Russia and the elite class. The Biden administration has made it very clear that they will “seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets,” which is probably why some are fleeing to the Indian Ocean. 

“Tonight, I say to the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who built billions off this violent regime — no more,” Biden said last night. “We’re coming for your ill-begotten gains.”

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Republican-controlled Arizona House and GOP-led state Senate voted Monday to approve a measure on the November election ballot that would drastically increase the identification requirements needed for Arizonans who want to vote both in-person and by mail.

Gina Swoboda, third vice chairman of the Republican Party of Arizona, announced the measure had been approved in a video posted to Twitter on Monday.

“We are so proud to announce that the voter ID act has passed out of the house, it will be on the ballot in November,” Swoboda said. “Thank you to everyone for making this happen. This is going to be a great election cycle, the people will be heard.”

The SCR1012 bill (pdf) would require early voters to provide their date of birth and number along with their signature on their return ballots.

Currently, voters in Arizona just sign their names, which county officials then compare to signatures they have on file with verified voter registration documents.

The measure was approved after Republicans raised concerns that the state’s voter ID laws allow for fraud or illegal votes to take place, particularly in light of allegations of voter fraud in Arizona during the 2020 presidential election.

An independent Senate-sponsored forensic audit by Florida-based company Cyber Ninjas found numerous ballot discrepancies and potential issues involving a combined total of 53,305 ballots.

However, Democrats argue that the bill, along with a string of other election integrity bills being pushed through the Senate are aimed at voter suppression.

The bill would also limit the type of identification that is acceptable for in-person voters, removing their ability to provide two different forms of identification without a photograph in order to receive a ballot at a polling place, such as a water bill or tax bill.

The measure applies the voter identification requirements to elections beginning no later than the 2024 primary election.

Marcelino Quiñonez, a Democrat who serves in the Arizona House of Representatives from the 27th district, said he refused to vote yes on SCR1012 and a similar bill, HCR2025, because he trusts “Arizona voters and the integrity of our elections.”

HCR2025 would require Arizonans to provide ID, as well as the last four digits of their Social Security number, in order to vote early.

“Democracy only works when you respect the outcome: win or lose, not when you change the laws along party lines. I voted NO on SCR1012/HCR2025 because voter ID laws in Arizona already exist, and I trust our process,” Quiñonez said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Mitzi Epstein of Tempe said she is concerned that the similar HCR2025 measure could lead to hundreds of valid mail ballot requests being rejected.

“Voter ID is good. Arizona has voter ID requirements. But this HCR has too many flaws and will have too many unintended consequences. Every eligible voter’s ballot should be counted. We should not create barriers to voting,” Epstein said on Twitter.

However, Republican Rep. Walt Blackman of Snowflake praised the measure for strengthening election integrity.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with this. I really don’t,” said Blackman. “Because all it’s doing is protecting our election and the process.”

But Arizona state Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican, said the measures are the best way to ensure every vote is counted legally.

“Now you don’t have to mail in your driver’s license if it’s an early ballot,” Kavanagh told Fox 10. “You would simply have to put in your driver’s license number, which you have and you can copy, and the last four digits of your Social Security number. Those two pieces of information would be hidden, so nobody could see it.”

“It’s an easy way and a secure way to ensure that somebody who steals your ballot from the mailbox, or a family member who wants to vote on your behalf, unbeknownst to you, can’t find a piece of paper with your signature on it, trace it, and vote on your behalf,” said Kavanagh.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Republican Party on Friday filed a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to kill the vote-by-mail system used by 90 percent of registered voters, arguing that it is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit asks justices to get rid of the “no-excuse absentee balloting system” adopted by the state in 1991.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Since Monday a consensus narrative on Russia’s offensive in Ukraine seems to have emerged – that Putin’s war has stalled, commanders are frustrated at the slow grind of advance, and that Ukraine’s military has slowed Russia’s pace a lot quicker than expected. 

Much of this might be true, but only a week since last Thursday’s rapid invasion from Ukraine’s north, east and south – and with the ‘fog of war’ making it hard for external observers or media correspondents to verify much of the information coming out literally minute by minute, all early narratives should be treated with healthy skepticism warranted in war-time. Add to this the obvious truth that in war, all sides are flooding the information space with propaganda.

A battlefield situation report issued by Bloomberg suggests that precisely the above elements are at play, heavily affecting Western mainstream narratives of what’s at best murky and still in development. Starting on Wednesday, it became clear that the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson was under direct threat. Initial reports in Reuters, Bloomberg and others focused on video evidence suggesting that a major Russian assault had been repulsed: 

A video posted by an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister on social media on Wednesday showed a person in civilian clothes approaching a tank and then lifting Ukrainian flags from it and waving them in the air shouting “Glory to Ukraine!”.

The advisor, Anton Gerashchenko, said the video showed civilians in the southern city of Kherson taking away flags from Russian invaders set up in the heart of the city. Moscow said on Wednesday it had seized Kherson, the biggest win yet in its week-long invasion if its neighbor.

Reuters noted that it wasn’t able to independently verify the video. But by day’s end Bloomberg began to come close to admitting the narrative was not quite what many major outlets were saying, further with an admission that Russia’s battlefield onslaught is progressing better than is being widely reported:

Russia’s claim to have captured the port city of Kherson in southern Ukraine makes increasingly clear that its invasion, while slowed in the north, is gaining traction in the country’s open and hard-to-defend coastal plains.

Along with Russia’s shift to more aggressive artillery and aerial attacks on urban centers, it is leading to a tempering of optimism over Ukraine’s ability to sustain its so far effective organized resistance against a vastly superior force. 

And now Ukraine’s strategic Black Sea port city of Odessa is said to be “bracing” amid the Russian advance in the south, which appears gaining in momentum.

Into the late night hours, Ukraine’s government was still denying that Kherson had fallen: 

“According to the info from our brigade the battles are going on now,” a spokesperson for the ministry said. “The city is not captured totally, some parts are under our control.”

Simultaneously, Russian state media is within the last hours reporting that its forces have taken “full control” of the city – which would make it the most important large city to have fallen thus far. But just after 4am Kiev time, the AFP reported that Ukrainian government officials are now conceding that Kherson has fallen under Russian control.

Further, in its prior report, Bloomberg cited a military analyst to add the following key observation:

“We are now in for the long haul and Russia is reorganizing itself to ensure that it wins this war,” according to Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow for the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, who spoke on a webinar. “So the implications of the Russian way of war is that we need to prepare now for humanitarian catastrophe.”

For another example of a central fact that is currently in hot dispute – Ukraine said Wednesday that Russia has lost a whopping 5,000 troops after the first week of fighting.

Note the gap between reported US government estimates of Russian losses (1,500 to 2,000 Russian KIA) and the numbers Ukraine is claiming (5,000 Russian KIA). https://t.co/PvTQfd4oO7

— Wesley Morgan (@wesleysmorgan) March 2, 2022

This even contradicts the Pentagon’s own estimate which has been given at between 1,500 and 2,000.  As for Russia’s Defense Ministry itself (MoD), it said Wednesday that it lost 498 troops – and additionally 1,597 wounded. 

Around 6000 Russians killed in Ukraine so far. “two Western officials tell @NBCNews that about 5,800 Russians have been killed, a number in line with Ukraine’s estimates.” @JoshNBCNews

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) March 2, 2022

Between the Ukrainian and Russian government conflicting claims lies a gap of 4,500 KIA – which again underscores that in the fog and propaganda of war, truth is the first casualty – and it’ll take time before some of these contested facts are settled. 

As one online commenter underscored… “Repeating again: absolutely no claims of soldiers killed on either side can be believed at this stage. Claims of huge enemy losses and minimal losses of one’s own forces are a standard part of the propaganda of war. Likewise with civilian deaths.”