Tag: news

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

The net cost of non-western immigration to Denmark, after tax contributions have been deducted, has been revealed to be nearly $5 billion a year.

Yes, really.

The Danish Ministry of Finance revealed in its annual report that the cost amounted to DKK 31 billion ($4.8 billion) in 2018, a figure that leader of the opposition Danish People’s Party, Kristian Thulesen Dahl described as “astronomical.”

“The figure is based on state spending for public services related to immigration and welfare benefits received by immigrants and included state expenditures on healthcare, child care, education, and culture,” reports Sputnik.

“By contrast, tax contributions were deducted from the total.”

Apparently, diversity isn’t a strength, it’s actually a huge drain on public resources.

The majority of the money – DKK 24 billion ($3.7 billion) is spent on migrants from MENAPT nations (Middle East and North Africa plus Pakistan and Turkey), who comprise 55 percent of all non-western immigrants.

These migrants cost the state DKK 85,000 ($13,000) per person compared to just 4,000 per person from other non-western countries.

The $4.8 billion has actually decreased compared to previous years thanks to Denmark pursuing a harder line on immigration and attempting to eliminate migrant ghettos.

However, the Danish People’s Party wants to go further by “deporting 70 percent of immigrants by 2030, if they have committed something criminal, haven’t mastered Danish, or have been unemployed for a long time.”

Earlier this year, Denmark launched a new immigration policy that will ensure areas of the country have no more than 30 per cent of people from a non-western background.

As we previously highlighted, a study by academics at the University of Copenhagen found that ethnic diversity has a negative impact on communities because it erodes trust.

Seeking to answer whether “continued immigration and corresponding growing ethnic diversity” was having a positive impact on community cohesion, the study found the opposite to be the case.

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The United Kingdom could be ready to officially put nuclear power back on the map.

That’s because UK ministers are planning on putting nuclear power “at the heart of Britain’s strategy to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050,” a new report from the Financial Times reveals. 

In what is one of the boldest statements about the future of nuclear in a major geographic area, government documents will lay out a “net zero” strategy for the UK as well as a cost assessment of implementing the strategy to meet the 2050 goal. 

Then, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to give the documents a “go ahead”. 

The FT reported on how the project would be funded:

 The creation of a “regulated asset base” (RAB) model will be key to delivering a future fleet of large atomic power stations. The RAB funding model is already used for other infrastructure projects, such as London’s Thames Tideway super sewer.

Under the scheme, households will be charged for the cost of the plant via an energy levy long before it begins generating electricity, which could take a decade or more from when the final investment decision is taken.

The mechanism is designed to encourage investment by institutional investors, such as pension funds, by guaranteeing steady returns from early on. Legislation on the nuclear RAB model will be published later this month.

Westinghouse is already taking well to the news, planning to revive plans for a nuclear power plant that was abandoned by Hitachi in 2019, the report says.

Ministers will also be advocating for small modular reactors, which we noted days ago were also key to France’s plans to meet net zero carbon emissions goals.

A combination of “nuclear power, renewables and ‘carbon capture and storage'” is being targeted for UK’s 2035 net zero goal. 

The government will also produce costs analyses and broader environmental plans ahead of the upcoming COP26 climate conference in Glasgow at the end of October. 

Four days ago we noted that France was also adopting nuclear as part of President Macron’s strategy for decarbonization. 

Recall, Germany is also trying to stop the decommissioning of its nuclear reactors. A newly penned letter to the FT, signed by professors from Oxford, Harvard and American University alongside a group of environmentalists, is urging that Germany postpone its exit from nuclear energy for benefit of the environment.

Noting that many Germans aren’t happy with the job politicians are doing addressing climate change, the letter notes that Germany’s “emissions are rising sharply again, at a time when they need to be falling fast”.

Recall, just days prior to that we wrote about Poland’s second largest energy consumer considering a move to small modular reactors to help generate energy. 

Earlier in the summer we posted about how crypto miners were starting to forge partnerships with nuclear power plants to combat the “bitcoin is not good for the environment” argument. 

Authored by Tulin Daloglu via TheCradle.co,

Erdogan’s Syria choices seem increasingly limited by unflagging US support for his Kurdish foes. Turkey’s only option may be a Russian one…

In his 7 October statement renewing US national emergency powers in Syria, US President Joe Biden said: “The situation in and in relation to Syria, and in particular the actions by the Government of Turkey to conduct a military offensive into northeast Syria, undermines the campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, endangers civilians, and further threatens to undermine the peace, security, and stability in the region, and continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

The full statement obviously has several intended audiences, but then quite remarkably, veers to cast Turkey, a NATO ally, almost as an existential threat to the United States. Ankara understands that the exaggerated accusation may be a tactic to keep Turkey from carrying out military operations east of Euphrates River, currently controlled by US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) militias.

But whether Turkey aims to make this move is beside the point. What this harsh White House language seems to be communicating is a US red line whereby the Kurdish-controlled area in northeastern Syria is regarded as a federal district – as in Washington, DC or Puerto Rico. That is the crux of all that matters.

For years, US policymakers regarded Turkish misgivings over this issue as either paranoiac or conspiratorial. When Turkey and Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed a multi-billion-dollar energy package in 2013 by bypassing the central government in Baghdad, it was Washington that warned Ankara that such acts could only empower the Kurds’ drive for independence. To note, these contracts eventually did not yield any favorable results.

Fast forward to 2017, when Washington tamped down the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum quickly and decisively. The move made Ankara temporarily cool its concerns over the US’ stance on Kurdish nationhood, but found itself on alert again when the Pentagon began working closely with the YPG militia in Syria.

Turkey argues that the YPG is an extension of a group the US State Department classifies as a terrorist organization: the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The US maintains that its support of the YPG does not indicate hostility toward Turkey, its territorial integrity or national harmony; it merely needs non-US bodies on the ground to fight ISIS and, frankly, Syrian allied forces attempting to recover their resource-rich swathe of territory.

For years now, the American media has glorified the bravery of Kurdish fighters to generate sympathy, and cast Turkey as a racist state prepared to commit cross-border genocide against Kurdish populations. This simplistic approach in shaping people’s perception is one aspect of Washington’s policy agenda. The other part frames the US-YPG relationship as being merely transactional – the YPG maximizes its political and military power and the US scores gains against ISIS and the Syrian government.

The question is whether US-backed Kurdish forces are even an antidote to ISIS. Former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford doesn’t think so. “The YPG militia cannot destroy ISIS,” he said in a recent webinar event. “An autonomous (Kurdish) administration is not going to resolve the ISIS problem.”

So then, why does Biden’s administration believe that Turkey undermines US counter-terrorism efforts enough to pose a national security threat? If one examines Washington’s own post-9/11 foreign policy track record in Turkey’s neighborhood, there’s virtually nothing resembling “peace, security, and stability in the region.”

Is Turkey single-handedly responsible for these American failures? No. Could the Kurdish militia pose a threat to Turkey’s national unity and peace? Yes. Does the YPG have a right under international law to defend itself? Let’s get honest here – these NATO allies no longer trust each other enough to look away. And frankly, neither Turkey, nor the US, nor the YPG have the right to invoke international law in their fights against each other inside Syrian territory.

The US-Turkey relationship has never been an easy one due to Ankara’s poor record of human rights and rule of law, and its 1974 Cyprus intervention. These differences have grown in recent years, and include Turkey’s expulsion from the F-35 program, its exposure to CAATSA sanctions, bitter fights over its acquisition of Russian S-400 anti-missile systems, and so forth. But no issue today is of more concern to the Turks than the Kurdish one, and Washington doesn’t want to hear it.

When then-Vice President Biden visited Ankara on August 24, 2016, Turkey launched its Operation Euphrates Shield in northeastern Syria. Whether Biden received prior notice remains a mystery; it was the first high-level US visit to Turkey after the failed 15 July putsch by the Turkish-banned Fethullah Gulen movement (Gulen enjoys asylum in the United States), and perhaps Ankara was feeling vindictive.

“We couldn’t understand if it was an internet game, if it was serious, when it happened,” Biden has said. The again, he also assured Turkey that the US would extradite Gulen if the evidence warranted a trial, and that it would cut support to the YPG if they did not withdraw to the east of the Euphrates river.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with Biden on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Rome later this month, but the way Washington is ignoring him after years of support is making him restless. The inner ranks of the Ankara beltway are still reeling from the speed at which Turkey went from downing a Russian fighter jet for its 8-second incursion into Turkish air space, to purchasing S-400s from Russia the next day.

Given Ankara’s chaotic past decade, nothing is taken at face value anymore. But the US is also no longer perceived as a respectful partner in building democracy and human rights. Today, it is regarded more as a cold-blooded, interest-driven power broker, with little loyalty. While Russia, China and Iran are also viewed as sanguine players, they at least appear to respect their alliances.

Neither of these rising regional powers can single-handedly shape the world order in the way the Americans have done for decades. But, together, they are jockeying to exert influence and maximize their benefits in the wake of Washington’s error-filled, foreign policy decline in influence. The more the US sidelines the interests of its NATO ally in favor of Kurdish militias, the more tectonic opportunities arise for Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran’s benefit.

Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin met privately for almost three hours in Sochi on 29 September. It is in Putin’s interest to exploit or magnify US-Turkish differences to wrench Turkey away from its Western alliance, where anti-Erdoganism creates unprecedented opportunities for Russia. For years, Washington supported Erdogan in power; now Moscow is playing the same game.

The YPG recently killed two Turkish special operations police officers in northern Syria. Since then both Erdogan and Turkey’s Minister of Defense Hulusi Akar have spoken cautiously about their next step. On Friday, the Turkish president promised a “different” kind of anti-terror response in Syria, and took a swipe at the Americans: “The terrorists of the PKK, YPG and PYD are running wild in entire Syria, not only in the northern part. The leading supporters of them are the international coalition and the US,” he said.

It is unclear what Erdogan intends to do next. It could be a limited operation targeting only the Tel Rifaat area – which is under the supervision of the Russians, who have promised to clear out YPG militia. But Moscow will want something in exchange – likely, the complete removal of Turkish-backed militants in Idlib.

However, if Erdogan and Putin reached a comprehensive agreement in their latest bilateral meeting, Turkey could also aim for the area (30 kilometers deep, from Manbij to al-Malikiyah) of Operation Peace Spring, which Biden would fiercely oppose. Or it could do nothing at all. For Ankara, these are not easy times to make hard decisions.

One direction will leave Erdogan stuck with uneasy allies who militarily support his most belligerent foes. The other direction will see him abandoning all hope of territorial gains in the Levant, highlight his decade-long failed investment in Syrian regime-change, and place him firmly back within Turkey’s borders.

President Biden has either misread the tea leaves in the region or actively wants Moscow to exert even more influence over Ankara. Either way, Erdogan may find himself outmatched in the duel between Moscow and Washington. The end game could be a new West Asian order.

Authored by Cynthia Chung via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

No wonder that the Tavistock Institute and the CIA became involved in looking at the effects of LSD and how to influence and control the mind.

 “ ‘Science?’….’Yes,’ Mustapha Mond was saying, ‘that’s another item in the cost of stability. It isn’t only art that’s incompatible with happiness; it’s also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled…I’m interested in truth, I like science. But truth’s a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it’s been beneficent. It has given us the stablest equilibrium in history…But we can’t allow science to undo its own good work. That’s why we so carefully limit the scope of its researchers…We don’t allow it to deal with any but the most immediate problems of the moment. All other enquiries are most sedulously discouraged…Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness…[but] People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were the sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years’ War. That made them change their tune all right. What’s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled – after the Nine Years’ War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We’ve gone on controlling ever since. It hasn’t been very good for truth, of course. But it’s been very good for happiness. One can’t have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You’re paying for it, Mr. Watson – paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too.’ “

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

Where does one start in discussing the famed fiction novel of Huxley? Although most agree that there is a definite brilliance to the piece, most are also confused as to what was Huxley’s intention in writing the extremely influential dystopic vision. Was it meant to be taken as an exhortation? An inevitable prophecy? Or rather…was it meant as an Open Conspiracy?

What do I mean by an Open Conspiracy?

If we are going to talk about such things our story starts with H.G. Wells, whom Aldous acknowledged he was most certainly influenced by, particularly by Wells’ novels “A Modern Utopia,” “The Sleeper Awakes,” and “Men Like Gods,” when writing his “Brave New World.”

Although Aldous is quoted as referring to Wells as a “horrid, vulgar little man,” (Wells was indeed not a very likeable individual) it was not for reasons one might first assume. Aldous did share a Wellsian perspective in that society should be organised based on a caste system. Perhaps this was one of the reasons Aldous was so fascinated with learning about India’s Hindu religious beliefs and practices, which had coexisted for centuries with a deeply ingrained caste system to which India is still struggling to remove itself from to this day. This is not to say that one caused the other, or that Hinduism has not offered a plethora of great works and insights, but that it had become corrupted and thoroughly intertwined with upholding India’s caste system at some point one cannot deny; that it was used to justify a system of hierarchy from slave to the god-like state of a Brahmin and that British imperialists had always been greatly fascinated by this form of social organization one cannot deny.

Aldous was always interested in the subject of religion, but more so for its uses in behaviourism and mental conditioning achieved through such techniques as entering states of trance where an individual’s suggestibility could be manipulated. Hypnopædia was not just some quirky sci-fi concoction. It is also why Aldous was so interested in the work of Dr. William Sargant, whom Aldous repeatedly refers to in his writings and lectures and who was involved with the Tavistock Institute and MKUltra. More on this in Part two.

These spiritual/religious studies are what shaped the core thesis of Aldous’ book “Doors of Perception” which is considered the instruction manual for what started the counterculture movement. The title is influenced by the poet William Blake who wrote in 1790 in his book “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,”:

“if the doors of perception were cleansed then everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern“

Another major influence for “Doors of Perception” was again H.G. Wells, from his book “The Door in the Wall,” which examines the contrast between aesthetics and science and the difficulty in choosing between them. The protagonist Lionel Wallace is unable to bridge the gap between his imagination and his rational, scientific side which leads to his death.

Aldous writes in his “Doors of Perception,”:

“That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises seems very unlikely…Art and religion, carnivals and saturnalia [ancient Roman pagan festival], dancing and listening to oratory – all these have served, in H.G. Wells’s phrase, as Doors in the Wall…Under a more realistic, a less exclusively verbal system of education than ours, every Angel (in Blake’s sense of that word) would be permitted as a sabbatical treat, would be urged and even, if necessary, compelled to take an occasional trip through some chemical Door in the Wall into the world of transcendental experience. If it terrified him, it would be unfortunate but probably salutary. If it brought him a brief but timeless illumination, so much the better. In either case the Angel might lose a little of the confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning and the consciousness of having read all the books…But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out…”

Aldous was always chasing the perfect drug that would be minimal in its physically destructive effects but would allow an individual to tap into an almost consumer state of a religious/spiritual out-of-body experience, a transcendence that promised a connection with the Infinite, inner peace and enlightenment.

Enlightenment and inner peace in a pill, ready for whenever one needed a short holiday from the “illusion” of reality.

The name Soma, which Aldous used to name his fantasy ideal drug in “Brave New World,” was based off a plant whose juices were used to create the spiritual drink which was described in both the ancient religious practices of the Vedic tradition and Zoroastrianism, which called the plant and spiritual drink by the same name, Soma. Today, it is a mystery as to what plant they were referring to in these texts. Huxley no doubt chased after this dragon the entire latter half of his life, and indeed, psilocybin mushrooms are theorised as one of the potential candidates for what could have been named Soma centuries ago.

It is perhaps here that people are the most confused about the character of Huxley. After all, he was obviously walking the walk so to speak, thus didn’t he truly believe that psychedelics were the path to freedom through enlightenment?

Well, the argument has been made that Huxley’s approach to LSD [and other psychedelics] was essentially oligarchic, that it was to be regarded as a dangerous substance to be sampled only by such fine and visionary minds as his own. That is, those who had the mental strength, the mental stamina to reach enlightenment; those who were too weak to sustain such mental rigours would become the very opposite, and risked falling into the dark pit of complete madness, although this in of itself was perceived by many to be a form of clairvoyance. After all, what is it to be mad in a world that is sickeningly and inhumanely “normal”? This is most certainly how Ken Kesey thought when writing his “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” that madness itself was a form of liberation from the shackles of capitalist societal constraints.

Perhaps madness was the goal, it was after all, much more attainable that the promised enlightenment…

As William Sargant noted in his book “Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brain-Washing” J.F.C. Hecker was studying the dancing mania phenomenon that occurred during the Black Death, which was a social phenomenon that arose in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people who would begin to dance erratically during the Plague, sometimes thousands at a time until they would fall from exhaustion or from injuries. It was thought to have arisen in Aachen, Germany in 1374 and quickly spread throughout Europe with one of the last observations of it occurring in 1518 in Alsace, France.

Hecker observed in his research on the dancing mania that heightened suggestibility had the capability to cause a person to “embrace with equal force, reason and folly, good and evil, diminish the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice.”

Such a state of mind was likened to the first efforts of the infant mind, Sargant writes “this instinct of imitation when it exists in its highest degree, is also united a loss of all power over the will, which occurs as soon as the impression on the senses has become firmly established, producing a condition like that of small animals when they are fascinated by the look of a serpent.”

I wonder if Sargant imagined himself the serpent…

It is no wonder that the Tavistock Institute and the CIA became involved in looking at the effects of LSD and how to influence and control the mind. And perhaps it is no coincidence that Aldous Huxley was in close correspondence with William Sargant to which Sargant even refers to Aldous’ “insights” multiple times in his book “Battle for the Mind.”

Aldous is also quoted in a lecture he delivered to the Tavistock Group, California Medical School in 1961:

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”

Aldous goes on to state a year later in a lecture titled “The Ultimate Revolution” at UC Berkeley Language Center 1962:

“Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ultimate revolution, the final revolution, where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows…we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude. This is the, it seems to me, the ultimate in malevolent revolutions shall we say, and this is a problem which has interested me many years and about which I wrote thirty years ago, a fable, Brave New World, which is an account of society making use of all the devices available and some of the devices which I imagined to be possible making use of them in order to, first of all, to standardize the population, to iron out inconvenient human differences, to create, to say, mass produced models of human beings arranged in some sort of scientific caste system.”

Yes, yes we get it. This is all to be taken as “warnings” to the public, a terrible necessity that will come about if over-population is not addressed (as he makes clear in his Brave New World Revisited). With over-population comes over-organization which in turn leads to the scientific advances in technology which we are told by Aldous can only lead to totalitarianism. Thus, population growth and advances in the sciences are the greatest threat to humankind. Wait, that sounds oddly very much like the reasonings of Mustapha Mond, have we come around full circle, what exactly does Aldous agree and disagree with here? Are we to have a scientific dictatorship in order to avoid a totalitarian system in the form of a scientific dictatorship?

In H.G. Wells’ “Open Conspiracy: Blueprints for a World Revolution,” he describes his vision for a Modern Religion:

‘…if religion is to develop unifying and directive power in the present confusion of human affairs it must adapt itself to this forward-looking, individuality-analyzing turn of mind; it must divest itself of its sacred histories…The desire for service, for subordination, for permanent effect, for an escape from the distressful pettiness and mortality of the individual life, is the undying element in every religious system.

The time has come to strip religion right down to that [service and subordination is all Wells wants to keep of the old relic of religion]…The explanation of why things are is an unnecessary effort…The essential fact…is the desire for religion and not how it came about…The first sentence in the modern creed must be, not “I believe,” but “I give myself.” ‘

Hmm, is this the same Revolution as Aldous is speaking about? After all, there is a lot of similarity between H.G. Wells’ description of his “Modern Religion” and what Aldous is preaching in his “Doors of Perception,” to which Wells is undoubtedly a large influence. The desire to escape from the distressful pettiness and mortality of the individual life, that the explanation for why one does something is not important, only to be motivated by the desire for release, for a complete catharsis that only the fervour of a “religious,” a “spiritual” experience can bring about.

It is the desire for, not the care for why. To believe is not even acceptable, because to believe pertains to thought, it is merely a matter of surrender, that you give yourself. It is not to act with reason but to be possessed by its very opposite; to be in a state of existence where there are no words, and thus there are no thoughts, just direct sensory feeling.

The ultimate achievement is to completely surrender oneself to the external world, perhaps to a dictatorship without tears…

The reader should be aware that Wells wrote a book titled “The New World Order” in 1940, and is the first that I am aware of to pioneer this now-infamous term. The reader should also be aware that Julian Huxley (Aldous Huxley’s brother) was a co-author of “The Science of Life,” a part of Wells’ trilogy “The Outline of History” (1919), “The Science of Life” (1929), and “The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind” (1932) to which Wells made no qualms should be regarded as the new Bible. Julian was also a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society, serving as its Vice-President from 1937-1944 and its President from 1959-1962. Interesting life choices from the authors of the “new Bible.”

In addition, Aldous’ grandfather Thomas Huxley (“Charles Darwin’s bulldog”) was the biology teacher of H.G. Wells and was one of the largest influences in Wells’ life, promoting the works of Charles Darwin and Thomas Malthus, for more on this refer to my paper. Although Thomas Huxley lived before the time of the “science” of Eugenics, he was a stout Malthusian and thus one can rather safely say would have been a eugenicist if offered the chance.

Thus, we should regard Aldous’ mention of the stylish ‘Malthusian belt’ in his “Brave New World,” under a more somber light perhaps…

And now we are ready to walk through the doors of perception on Aldous himself, the true Huxley behind the projected illusion. We may not find Infinity at the end of this excursion, but we will most certainly be better equipped to tell the difference between Huxley’s self and non-self, between what is real and what is false.

[This is Part 1 to a three-part series, Part 2 and 3 will cover the War on Science, the Battle for your Mind and Aldous Huxley as a pioneer for the counter-culture movement and its implications.]

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is traveling to eastern Europe this week, where he will reportedly tell countries on the “the front lines of Russian aggression” – in particular Ukraine and Georgia – that there is an “open door to NATO”, according to a senior defense official quoted in The Washington Times.

His trip will take him to both countries, after which he’ll go to Romania and on to Belgium to participate in a meeting of NATO defense ministers. “We are reassuring and reinforcing the sovereignty of countries that are on the front lines of Russian aggression,” the unnamed senior US official said further.

Both Ukraine and Georgia have have seen recent border conflicts and tensions flair up with their large, more powerful neighbor – including the Russo-Georgia War of 2008 centered on the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

“Against that backdrop, defense officials said Mr. Austin will tell Ukrainian and Georgian leaders that there is an open door to NATO membership and that each country should take steps to qualify for membership,” the Washington Times continues. 

As for Ukraine, which earlier this year saw President Volodymyr Zelensky provocatively declare that “NATO membership is the only way to end war in Donbass”, Austin is expected to underscore “unwavering support” – according to a DOD announcement of the official trip:

In Ukraine, the Secretary will meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky and Minister of Defense Andrii Taran to reaffirm our unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The visit will also serve as an opportunity to discuss Ukraine’s progress with the implementation of defense and defense industry reforms needed to advance its Euro-Atlantic aspirations as well as regional cooperation among Black Sea allies and partners.

Meanwhile, just before Austin’s arrival in the region, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov took the opportunity to restate Russia’s “red line” in an interview with a French TV channel, saying “Ukraine’s accession to NATO would be the worst-case scenario” for which Moscow would respond with necessary “active measures”.

“This is a scenario that goes beyond the red lines of Russia’s national interests. This is a scenario that could force Russia to take active measures to ensure its own security,” Peskov said. And addressing accusations earlier in the year of Russia threatening Ukraine’s sovereignty via a major troop build-up, he pointed out that “before the Russian troops were moved to that region, there were large NATO exercises held near the Russian border. Everyone talks about the concentration of Russian troops all the time, but nobody talks about the concentration of NATO troops.”

Austin’s trip comes on the heels of a rare visit to Russia of Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, where a US delegation said productive talks were had with the Russian side toward restoring deteriorated communications with Washington.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday plan to release a reworked version of a Biden administration proposal to surveil US bank accounts – after their original plan to require financial institutions to report transactions on bank accounts with more than $600 in annual deposits and withdrawals was widely panned (i.e. most people). 

Now, the rule will apply to anyone with at least $10,000 in annual non-wage deposits or withdrawals, according to the Washington Post, which writes that the toned-down scope ‘intends to insure it applies to only larger account holders.’

We wonder, though, if this includes older Americans deriving at least $10,000 in annual dividends / interest outside of a traditional IRA (which is considered ordinary income when taken)? Or parents sending at least $10,000 per year to college-aged children? Or anyone paying cash for a car, or motorcycle, or literally anything that costs more than $10,000? Or those who have spent at least $10,000 in a year – which brings us back to ‘most people.’

“I don’t know why they thought $600 would be a good number. $10,000 is definitely an improvement,” said former Obama and Trump IRS commissioner, John Koskinen, who thinks the threshold should be closer to $50,000. “The vast majority of people won’t be affected, but it will pick up more than just the idle rich.”

That said, some Democratic aides are skeptical whether even the altered version of the proposal will make it into the final Build Back Better package.

Democrats supportive of the proposal have pointed out that well-funded business lobbyists and Republican lawmakers have mounted an all-out campaign against the measure that has sometimes exaggerated or outright fabricated the extent of the changes. But opposition to the measure is not limited to Wall Street, and has extended to community banks influential with much of the congressional Democratic caucus. -WaPo

Over 20 GOP attorneys general have opposed the original proposal in a Friday letter to President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, saying that it “stands in direct opposition to privacy that Americans are entitled to and deserve.” We can’t imagine they’ll change their stance in light of the changes.

At present, the rule change is nebulous. Perhaps Tuesday’s proposal will shed more light on exactly who Democrats are targeting with financial surveillance.

In an unprecedented maneuver amid joint naval drills that just wrapped up in the region, a large group of Chinese PLA and Russian warships sailed through a key chokepoint very close to Japan’s mainland for the first time ever on Monday.

Ten naval vessels belonging to China and Russia passed through the northern Tsugaru Strait, Tokyo’s Defense Ministry said soon after the pass through. It comes after the two militaries just wrapped up four days of joint naval exercises, dubbed ‘Maritime Interaction 2021’, in the Sea of Japan from Oct.14 through 17.

It also comes after in recent months Japan has made it clear that it sides with Washington’s controversial Taiwan pro-independence stance, inviting the wrath and muscle-flexing of Beijing.

Nikkei Asia reported that “The warships sailed eastward toward the Pacific Ocean, likely as part of Naval Interaction 2021, a joint maritime exercise the two navies are conducting this month.”

The maritime monitoring site Naval News described the weekend Russia-China drills as follows:

12 planes and helicopters of the Pacific Fleet’s air arm and the Chinese Navy were also involved in the maneuvers.

During the joint maneuvers, the crews of the warships from both countries practiced joint tactical maneuvering, mine countermeasures, artillery live-firing against seaborne targets. They also searched for and blocked a simulated enemy’s submarine in the assigned area.

Russia’s military released footage showing the large-scale joint drills…

On Friday Russia’s Ministry of Defense had blasted the behavior of a US destroyer in the Sea of Japan, charging that the USS Chafee had come dangerously close to a Russian vessel while intruding on Russia’s territorial waters. Russian media reports said the two ships came within 60 meters of each other.

The US Navy later in the day refuted the claims, saying its ship was conducting legal “routine operations” in international waters while blaming the Russian warship for making an aggressive approach.

The Kremlin said the Russian Navy “chased” the US destroyer out of the area, with the two contradictory narratives still unsettled. Further the region has seen Russia and Japan locked in an island dispute that goes back to WWII. Over the past couple of years, there’s been a handful of encounters between US and Russian ships, given neither the US nor its ally Japan recognize the extent of what Russia claims as territorial waters.

The Kyrie Irving effect is spreading.

In the latest farce involving pro sports covid “loopholes”, the AP reports that the NHL has suspended San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane for 21 games for submitting a fake COVID-19 vaccination card.

The league announced the suspension without pay on Monday and said Kane will not be eligible to play until Nov. 30 at New Jersey. Kane will also forfeit about $1.68 million of his $7 million salary for this season with the money going to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

There was a silver lining: the league also announced that a concurrent investigation into allegations of sexual and physical abuse made against Kane by his estranged wife, Anna, could not be substantiated. Kane had previously been cleared by the NHL in an investigation into allegations made by Anna Kane that he bet on hockey games, including some against the Sharks.

But while Kane probably did not beat the crap out of his estranged wife, the league did determine that Kane violated the COVID-19 protocols. A person familiar with the investigation said earlier this month that the league was looking into allegations that Kane submitted a fake vaccination card.

Using a fake vaccination card is illegal in both the United States and Canada, as well as against NHL rules.

Commissioner Gary Bettman said last week that only four players on active rosters hadn’t been vaccinated, although one wonder what the real number is.

Kane had not been around the team since the start of training camp while these investigations were ongoing in an agreement between him and the team.

Kane, 30, is three seasons into a $49 million, seven-year contract. He’s with his third organization after being drafted by and debuting with Atlanta/Winnipeg and a stint in Buffalo. Last season, he had 22 goals and 27 assists in 56 games.