@vk #2
And those numbers are for basically 1 quarter of nCOV reaction/lockdown (or less).
A full quarter of lockdown is likely to yield 10% or more annualized GDP loss.
The 7 counties in the SF Bay Area just decided to extend until end of May.
I expect many more blue state and local governments to do the same. For New York/NJ/CT, it is even probably advisable.

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 29 2020 17:44 utc | 3

2019 The year of social uprising
2020 The year of social distancing…

Posted by: Lozion | Apr 29 2020 20:58 utc | 5

How Turkey sees COVID-19 as a foreign policy opportunity … in Libya
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/04/29/how-turkey-sees-covid-19-as-a-foreign-policy-opportunity/

Posted by: Virgile | Apr 29 2020 22:49 utc | 7

Trivia time. Hail Putin, and Petrol prices in Oz…
A perennially irritating feature of the way petrol is sold in Oz has been the fact that the price can jump by 40 cents per litre overnight. This is always followed by several weeks of small but frequent and regular price reductions leading to a game of Petrol Roulette which involves guessing when the next overnight price hike will occur and re-start the guessing game.
On December 11, 2019, I filled the tank of my car with 91 octane ‘standard’ @ $1-36/litre. On December 12 the price of 91 octane jumped to $1-76/litre.
Yesterday, April 29, I filled the tank with 91 @ $0-76/litre – a discount of $1-00/litre on the December 12 price and 60 cents/litre on the December 11 price.
Thank you Mr Putin!

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 30 2020 3:23 utc | 9

its impossible to take you seriously with this B, and all your other reporting on the virus. I remember your early posts dismissing the virus as less bad than flu?! Now you sit at home cutting up hoover bags whilst clinging to hope that your smoking will help you. i can see why you would be worried now haha. They say that when a good scientist is presented with facts that go against their thinking, they change their mind.. in your case B i think you changed your underwear.
The hubris you and your countrymen purvey is why foreigners have to come, periodically and smash your country back into the ground.
The wheel on this bus do certainly go round and round.

Posted by: jack lockwood | Apr 30 2020 7:01 utc | 11

Syria received eight million barrels of oil (four tankers) from Iran this month. Could it be that Egypt stomped on the Suez canal authority to allow the tankers to pass through to Syria?
Russia is curtailing grain shipment due to a lack of rain and generally limiting sales to just Egypt and Turkey. Could the food weapon have served as a means to get Egypt to “assist” Syria. Likewise, could Turkey be “encouraged” to dump the Iblib terrorists?

Posted by: Krollchem | Apr 30 2020 7:54 utc | 13

karlof1 #26 on the ‘other’ thread

Now emerging from the swamp is a creature capable of taking votes from both Biden & Trump–Justin Amash.

I am past the covid fear thread so I respond here if you don’t mind and anyway Justin Amash is bad news from a different virus. Amash reads like a reactionary turd that doesn’t like to obey the conservative ‘system’. That does NOT imply that he has one progressive or even libertarian (whatever that means) bone in his body.
I read reactionary, conservative, empire snuggling, slitherer. Am I right?
The rolling stone story on the dude was f’ing boring and took forever to reveal anything of interest. (No wonder Taibbi has gone for walk in the long grass to write what he prefers to say.)
At least one can look forward to Amash being eviscerated by Jesse Ventura at some point. That would likely be short and memorable.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 30 2020 9:14 utc | 15

A flaky source but nevertheless a source, WaPo and LA Times headline to-day that the clown of orange has been shown internal polling indicating that the clown will lose to the pervert.
One form of “uprising” is a “downrise”…wherein nobody believes and thus all obedience must be compelled by force…
I previously posted the Tolstoy version…and pointed out that has a literary excellence due to the flaw it contains…which is “boat-hook”.
Tolstoy deliberately characterizes the nature of this device as a innocent peaceful tool, whereas in reality it looks more like a fat cop with a gun.
Withal, The Clown of Orange is in a jam…and of course it is essential, as Strangelove said, to preserve a specimen of our leadership… Anybody can see that the game’s afoot.

Posted by: Walter | Apr 30 2020 12:03 utc | 17

Per a footnote in this affidavit recently made public in the Roger Stone case, investigators believed “PM” referred to the prime minister of Israel.
Redacted FBI document hints at Israeli efforts to help Trump in 2016 campaign
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.204569/gov.uscourts.dcd.204569.29.7.pdf
Check para #50 onwards
“Roger, Hello from Jerusalem, Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene.”

Posted by: Yul | Apr 30 2020 12:43 utc | 19

uncle tungsten @15–
Amash is just as bad as Trump and Biden. Ventura has a biting, witty tongue that will be used extensively, but BigLie Media will mute him for the masses. As I’ve opined, the pandemic is revealing much while many are finally opening their eyes. Today’s USA Today published an article focusing on how poverty, homelessness in particular, increases risk to the virus and a host of other maladies. Perhaps the main message it sent was the economy wasn’t at all rosy prior to the pandemic making it harder for Trump to blame it for the ongoing lack of any real recovery since the 2008-9 financial fraud crisis, the makings of which he’s perpetuating.
China in contrast is strong and confident as this Global Times editorial displays:
“Washington, which is shirking its responsibility for its failures in handling the pandemic for political reasons, accused China of covering up infection and death figures. It also claimed China “falsified” its anti-epidemic results. The best answer to the smear is to steadily normalize daily life in China.
“No country can fabricate the recovery of businesses, the relaunch of tourism and resumption of traffic during rush hours, nor can it falsify people’s consumption enthusiasm after the epidemic and the leisure group chats on social media. It’s easy to tell whether a city has resumed normal life or if it is still struggling….
“Normalizing economic and social life will provide China with abundant capital to handle international affairs. No matter how the pandemic fight changes, China will take the initiative. It will have plenty of opportunities to smash US attacks. No challenge can crush us as long as we continue to properly manage ourselves, maintain one of the highest production resumption rates and prevent the rebound of the epidemic.”
Trump’s dereliction of duty ought to make him unfit to manage his own properties, but Biden’s no better. Martianov was scathing in his blog entry two days ago that I agree with 100%. On its main page, RT displays Max Keiser’s correct accusation that the Outlaw US Empire’s running a Ponzi Scheme:
“‘When you have debt money and you flood the economy with that debt money, you still have to pay interest on that debt money, which requires you to create more debt money.’
“That’s why there’s a dollar shortage, Max explains, adding: ‘That’s a Ponzi scheme.'”
Then in an RT op/ed, Norman Lewis, most recently a Director at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, speaks the truth:
“Rebuild a better world? First we need to accept that the West’s economies were utterly broken before Covid-19 came along.” [My Emphasis]
“Utterly broken,” although he doesn’t tell us how or why; we know why, and more people are discovering the truth on their own.
I’d like to see a candidate tell the truth about the economy and explain why we’re in the state we’re in. Sanders didn’t really do that. Biden just named one of the biggest financial criminals as his advisor–Larry Summers. If there was ever an opportunity for a 3rd Party candidate to break through, it ought to be this year. Will Jesse Ventura emulate the Bull Moose with a similar speech at Osawatomie–a speech citing conditions that differ little from those of 110 years ago?! He would be very smart to do just that. Biden still won’t embrace Medicare For All despite the fact that over 90% of D-Party people favor it. After the pandemic exposed the absolute need for such a medical care system, IMO the candidate who makes that the centerpiece of its campaign ought to win. Will Biden pull a Clinton/Obama by promising such but refusing to deliver–I bet he will.
After it seemed that all debate over the 2020 election died it looks to have revived as the political fallout from the pandemic begins to appear.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 30 2020 16:40 utc | 21

Likklemore @22–
Good catch! However, I’d argue the economy never recovered from the 2008-9 financial fraud crisis as this chart of US GDP shows.
I just did my own rough calculations on unemployment within the Outlaw US Empire and it’s pretty grim. Total population, 331,000,000. Number in workforce seeking fulltime employment, 271,000,000. Approximate number out of work, 135,000,000, Percentage unemployed, 50%. Shadowstats shows 22.9% as of 3 April. He likely calculates a lower number for the total labor force seeking fulltime employment which explains his lower figure. His next update ought to come during the next week. We both see the vast majority of pre-virus unemployment as structural, his chart further reinforcing the fact that there was never any recovery from 2008-9–a lie perpetuated by two presidential administrations and all Media outlets.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 30 2020 18:18 utc | 23

@ karlof1 posted 23
Thank you my friend. Shadowstats is the go-to for the real numbers. End of March, the St. Louis Fed had forecast unemployment nearing 32%.
The Great Recession 2008 – 2019 was said to be in recovery. When peeled back, the recovery is found to be an illusion underscored by the Feds’ printing and painting the tape- a secret $29 Trillion Wall Street bailout.
Well, just a tad over the 25% of $100 trillion Goldman Sachs said was required. But what’s a few trillion between bankster friends?

LINK
Instead of Draining the Swamp, the Swamp Is Draining the U.S. Treasury via the New York Fed

[while] the $700 billion TARP shiny object was all over the front pages of newspapers, the New York Fed, with nary a vote in Congress or even the awareness of Congress, was running a secret $29 trillion Wall Street bailout. The New York Fed was using its unlimited ability to create money out of thin air to ply Wall Street banks and trading houses, as well as global foreign banks and central banks, with the lion’s share of $29 trillion in revolving loans, at a fraction of the interest rate these financial firms would have been charged in the open market. Those revolving loans began secretly in December 2007 and ran through at least July 21, 2010.
So desperate was the Fed to keep that $29 trillion a secret from the American people that it battled in court for more than two years, arguing that the American people had no right to this information. It lost that battle.
This time around, the Fed and New York Fed have brazenly upped their game because they have a much bigger shiny object: a deadly pandemic that is dominating the news and effectively eliminating any network or newspaper coverage of what is happening behind the scenes at the New York Fed.
What is happening at the New York Fed is the same thing that happened during the financial crisis of 2007 to 2010. Average Americans are getting the short-end of the stick in the stimulus bill known as the CARES Act while Wall Street banks are getting astronomical sums from the New York Fed’s unlimited money spigot.
Even worse, in what is beginning to resemble a conspiracy of silence, no mainstream news outlet has reported on the more than $9 trillion in super cheap repo loans the New York Fed has pumped into Wall Street trading houses or the fact that those loans began on September 17, 2019 – four months before the first coronavirus case was reported in the United States and at a time when President Trump was bragging on TV about the unprecedented robustness of the U.S. economy.
[.]

See why the SGE is calling for a bypass of the USD? No longer backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. Backed by trillions of debt. It won’t end well.
This is grim reading:-
April 12, 2020
Barrons: Are We Heading for a Historic Economic Collapse? Why the U.S. GDP could fall by 40%

Posted by: Likklemore | Apr 30 2020 19:29 utc | 25

Likklemore @25–
That Barrons article is a laugher having no relationship to the real economy or the great mass of people now out-of-work as it mainly relates to the fortunes of the top 10-15%. I see this sort of pattern ~~~~ not a V or W or any other letter, although the L with an ever lengthening foot seems as likely as my bananas. Not at all mentioned is the political fallout, of which there’ll be plenty.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 30 2020 19:44 utc | 27

Interesting development in Germany, which points at who will align with whom in the current change of paradigm….

Germany bans all Hezbollah operations in the country, while designating it as a Shiite terror organization. Berlin has proceeded to search its mosques.
The German government estimates that there could be more than 1,000 Hezbollah members in the country. The government has proceeded to search all establishments linked to the organization, including the homes of its members.

https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1255841910616395779
https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1255842734448967683
This coincides with irruption of riotters creating chaos in Sidon and Tripoli amongst lockdown, with attacks against the Central Bank and burning of shops and business…
https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1255647243069272066
In his last speech, Nasrallah, declared Hezbollah will put at disposition of the Lebanese people all its networks of volunteers, hospitals, housing and banking…
All this only comes to undermine the Lebanese people´s and government effort to overcome the pandemic, as the US has done with Iran….
It seems that the international hunt season for cash has been declared open…

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Apr 30 2020 20:24 utc | 29

karlof1 @ 27
Barrons is part of Dow Jones, published weekly for the Saturday read. You need a forklift to get it into your car. Notice the repeat of analysis from the major trading desks for the 1%.
I lean on Investors Business Daily.
……Coronavirus Economy – sees the economic collapse as “depending on how nervous people are about resuming old activities, how quickly employment bounces back and a likely 2nd wave of C-19. in the fall.”
Imho, 100s of 1000s of businesses will not make the reopening.

Posted by: Likklemore | Apr 30 2020 20:50 utc | 31

William Gruff @32–
Max Keiser on his program has explained the why behind the demand for dollars and thus its strengthening–ever scarcer dollars are required by nations and businesses to make payments on dollar denominated loans. Since the velocity of dollars moving through the system has dropped off a cliff, the opposite–need–for dollars has gone up thus its growing stronger. But as we both know, that strength is a chimera, a mirage, a ghost, and as soon as equilibrium for dollars is attained, it will then fall again as the demand vanishes. The reality is the Outlaw US Empire did it to itself, and this should be considered Blowback from its decades of unwitting support–often disguised as outright extortion–by so many nations. The dollars flowing from Fed to Wall Street will never enter the global economy unless they’re forced to by redirecting their flow. The utterly gross mismanagement–shall we call it felonious fraud–of US Monetary Policy and its inability to think outside Neoliberalism will be the genuine cause of the coming Great Depression 2.0 as those $$Trillions going to Wall Street needed to be injected into the general economy for it to have any chance at restarting. The gunmen that invaded Michigan’s Capitol Building were at the wrong place making the wrong demands. They should’ve invaded the US Treasury and kidnapped Mnuchkin and or the New York Fed and grabbed Powell, then demanded the end to Fed supplying Wall Street and instead supply Main Street.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 30 2020 21:52 utc | 33

karlof1 #21

Ventura has a biting, witty tongue that will be used extensively, but BigLie Media will mute him for the masses.

Agreed that the media will mute him but Jesse has already made it clear that he will campaign with rallies just as he did when elected Governor. And he has a clear field as Sanders exit blunder will leave the field to him (and Trump).
Biden can’t do rallies, can barely do home studio ballsups so imagine a rally!
The dynamics have shifted the Sanders entire campaign contact list is the essential tool to assist Ventura. But he will get momentum fine without it. The Sanders team will be revealed as a fraud spun together by Weaver and then unravelled by Weaver. They will be condemned if they fail to give over the contact list.
There is much clear air for a direct independent run against Trump and a sidelining of Biden. That’s if Biden continues to survive and I don’t see that. Ventura has the ‘right stuff‘ to take Trump down. But its the USA and I am far removed from the pulse.
Eager speculation yes, but desperate times yield surprises.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 30 2020 21:58 utc | 35

Walter #34–
Yes, Greek Tragedy Indeed! Nixon pulls trigger but bullet doesn’t enter USG’s brain until 2020. Now that’s one Magic Bullet!
uncle tungsten @35–
You’re correct about the field being wide open, but it was also the same for Nader in 2000, although the context is vastly different. We’ll wait and see what happens.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 30 2020 22:06 utc | 37

Walter #34

Stuff of Greek tragedy.

Fine words Walter, I can see it now choppers on the roof of the Great Mosque to carry the MBS and family to freedom in USA. They could be housed in a penthouse overlooking the sacred shrine where the Twin Towers once stood.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 30 2020 22:10 utc | 39

Walter #40
Stymied on that last line
hyperbole to the mists of time
lay another Tolstoy reference down
so I can interpret the f’ing thing.
On Jesse though, it would be a fine spanking all the way to the counting and I reckon he is the only guy who could play the pipe well enough to attract the crowd away from the pied goldilocks and see him run off a cliff.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 30 2020 23:23 utc | 41

juliania #42

Anthropology was created as a discipline in order look at the long picture. But that’s been narrowed into what one anthropologist calls underwater basket weaving and a study of tribal groups.

Thank you for that post and I fully appreciate Hudson’s critique of the narrowminded ‘science’ ? of economic theory. There has been a relentless undermining of many profession that demonstrated that life is more complex and hence so too is economics than ‘taught’ ? at reverential institutions.
On Sociology and anthropology the inquiry is directed at the broad human groupings and, yes, may apply to basket weavers. Primarily it applies to how and why humans create complex societies, how power arises in those societies, how power is managed, moderated, focused, how gender influence is created and sustained or destroyed etc. These two disciplines apply multivariate analysis and so much more to seek understanding and sometimes design better relationships.
Economists cant tolerate multivariate analysis unless it excludes all those untidy things. As Hudson said (more or less) how does an economist factor in a battleship or aircraft carrier when considering economic potential? IMO economists mainly are snake oil merchants unless they prove otherwise and Hudson has proved his credentials as a human thinker and economist.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 30 2020 23:57 utc | 43

uncle tungsten | Apr 30 2020 23:23 utc | 41
Ok…
The idea is that some people will believe one cat is prez, and other people will not share that belief, and maybe more…beliefs are shattering.
An I think I’ve said this before, revolutions are not voluntary, they are to avoided at all costs. They happen when they can’t be avoided. They happen when the ruling class become incompetent…which forces the crowds to abandon their delusions a see the rulers in bald clarity…after that, Oh Bummer might have said, “pitchforks”.
repost>
I want a question answered. What’s missing?
Suppose there was a hoax, and it failed. Examples abound. Oswald. Magic airplanes, coincidences. Obviously the real thing would not fail. If a hoax is big enough it’s not a hoax – but it functions precisely the same way, if one prepares the ground with proper exploitation. Takes the effort to write the “patriotic laws” well in advance, games the not-hoax well in advance, and so forth. Basic stuff.
Reader may consider two literary truisms here, one from Tolstoy, another from Emily Dickinson.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
and
“In quiet and untroubled times, it seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark, holding it with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, feeble man.”
(Tolstoy)
Ok, question Time. In what way is Tolstoy telling truth slant?
What’s missing?
Tolstoy left out the fighting. In the beginning of the “play” he failed to place a gun on the wall.
In Political matters, there is always a gun on the wall. And there are no coincidences.

Posted by: Walter | May 1 2020 0:40 utc | 45

Strongly recommend watching this documentary:
Planet of the Humans
It exposes the farce called “green movement”.

Posted by: vk | May 1 2020 3:03 utc | 47

Saudi Aramco has purchased Port Arthur refinery in Texas. This purchase allows the Saudi regime to control the largest refinery in the US and use vertical integration to push its oil products onto the US market.
“In addition to Port Arthur, Aramco is acquiring full ownership of 24 distribution terminals. Aramco also gets the exclusive right to sell Shell-branded gasoline and diesel in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, the eastern half of Texas and the majority of Florida.”
https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/01/investing/saudi-arabia-buys-largest-oil-refinery-port-arthur/index.html
The refinery has the capability to process 636,500 barrels of oil per day “from a wide range of crude inputs, including tight oil and heavy, sour, and acid crude.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_Refinery
“This means that Saudi Arabia now has the ability to send more of its own crude into the US refining fleet, making the volume of “sticky” imports (those crude oil imports that are difficult to replace due to contractual obligations or foreign ownership stakes in refineries) higher than it was previously.” Based on the refinery capacity the Saudi component of the US oil market is about 5.4%.
https://www.enverus.com/blog/saudi-aramcos-port-arthur-refinery-us-refinery-fleet/
Based on these articles the Saudi regime can send a supertanker to its US based refinery every three days. “So far this month (April), at least seven supertankers carrying a total of 14 million barrels of oil are currently traveling to the U.S. Gulf Coast.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Saudi-Arabia-Sends-Wave-Of-Supertankers-To-US-Ahead-Of-Oil-Meeting.html
A more recent article states that the Saudi regime has 40 million barrels of oil in transit to the US which corresponds to 20 supertankers, or two months supply. Trump has threatened to impose a crude oil ban on this Saudi oil. However, Trump doesn’t understand that the US need real oil to dilute the fracking condensate that comprises some 60% of US petroleum production.
http://www.tradearabia.com/news/OGN_367041.html
It is well within the Saudi regime’s right to provide their refinery with their crude oil. “Last month, when Saudi Arabia pledged to flood the markets with oil, the Kingdom’s crude oil exports to the U.S. hit a one-year-high of 516,000 barrels per day (bpd).” This will allow the Saudi regime to purchase up to 120,000 barrels per day of light fracking condensate at rock bottom prices to blend with their heavier crude oil.
Without Saudi oil imports, the US will either have to import the real oil from Russia (Urals) or invade Venezuela. It would appear that Trump is planning an invasion of Venezuela under the guise of drug interdiction efforts.
https://apnews.com/d4c51884ba3ac6a4311b6f548434f958
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/trump-doubles-us-military-assets-in-caribbean-bolstering-drug-fight-after-maduro
The idiot Trump apparently doesn’t understand that 95% of the cocaine is being shipped out of Columbia and the US puppet regime of Bolivia.
https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-drugs-are-getting-smuggled-from-south-america-to-the-us-2017-9?op=1
https://www.unodc.org/documents/toc/Reports/TOCTASouthAmerica/English/TOCTA_CACaribb_cocaine_SAmerica_US.pdf
Trump hopes to drum up a war to topple the Venezuela government by falsely claiming that the “evil socialist narco-government” of Venezuela is the source of the cocaine.
https://www.rt.com/news/484735-us-navy-cartels-maduro/
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14857
Trump also needs a war to deflect the dumb and uninformed US population from the COVID-19/20 crisis to get reelected. I am sure that Biden, Obama, Hillary, Pelosi and even Bernie will salute and lend their support for the “noble drug war” (sic).

Posted by: Krollchem | May 1 2020 4:05 utc | 49

Grieved #46
Thank you for a very important interruption. Well received here. Perhaps I shall see if I can find a Vietnamese version and break out the flag.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 1 2020 8:56 utc | 51

@Posted by: Grieved | May 1 2020 2:36 utc | 46
Thanks! Happy Labor Day!
In a more modern, less official, although TV related, vein, I find this version quite passionate, and thus inspiring and encouraging for the Western standards …both from the side of performers and public…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZlD5RXkeuA

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 1 2020 10:33 utc | 53

H.Schmatz | May 1 2020 10:49 utc | 54 First establish curfew, then kick down doors…when do we get yellow stars?
Youbecha…first they came for the commies…
I may be an error to assume the raids took place in a isotropic atmosphere…coincidence theory…
Any thanks for the may day stuff all.

Posted by: Walter | May 1 2020 11:09 utc | 55

‘The Simpsons’ is not the only series that predicts the future. ‘Yes, Minister’ already anticipated Brexit 40 years ago. You can’t tell more in less time.
https://twitter.com/elajedrecista_/status/1255844165784612865

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 1 2020 12:09 utc | 57

@Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 1 2020 13:37 utc | 58
Sorry, correction the Twitter account which published this article ommitted…
Amongst the Tax Havens in Europe, apart from Luxemburg, The Netherlands ans Switzerland, there is also UK….

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 1 2020 13:41 utc | 59

Interesting to see the rumors about Kim Jong Un’s health in the western media pop up as well-made black propaganda inside North Korea itself now.
The intelligence agencies up to their tricks – as usual with no distinction between at home and abroad.

Posted by: OHH | May 1 2020 17:46 utc | 61

On the lighter side of current events:
From ABC News: Phone tower crashes through Adelaide (South Australia) supermarket roof
Couldn’t help but wonder if we would get some free irony by virtue of it being recently fitted-out with 5G comm’s equipment…
Anyway, hope you are all well, and safe, and enjoying our Coronavirideae Isolation Blues as accompaniment to the collapse of the “global” financial architecture. What a piquancy!
I truly hope I get to kick a vulture capitalist in the arse before I die. Paul Singer would suffice.
Cheers,
Jonathan

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | May 2 2020 2:00 utc | 63

Having some problems with posting here, as if you were under DDOs attack…Abyway, trying again…
For those who rub their hands before the perspective of plundering Spain again, as in 2008…

The excerpt is taken from ‘Revolutionary Spain’, a list of nine articles on Spain written by Marx. They were published in the New York Daily Tribune between 1854 and 1857 due to the success of the liberal pronouncement of “la Vicalvarada”.
“Napoleon, who, like all his contemporaries, considered Spain to be a lifeless corpse, was fatally surprised to discover that, if the Spanish State lay dead, Spanish society was full of life and overflowed, in all its parts, with the strength of resistance…”

https://twitter.com/elajedrecista_/status/1256507863494729728

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 2 2020 13:55 utc | 65

This is a shout out to b about system issues that he reported
In the past week here in Corvallis, Oregon I have been having to reboot my Comcast/Xfinity fed computer 3-4 times per day because of loss of internet connectivity.
In the past maybe it happened once a month.
If I read something about it in my skimming of techie stuff I will report back.

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 2 2020 14:50 utc | 67

@Posted by: Mina | May 2 2020 15:38 utc | 68
To do that we would need a real people´s government, which we have not had since the end of the fascist dictatorship, as the Communist Party decided to willingly vaporize itself on behalf of “democracy” with US characteristics…
The current partner of the “Socialists” in the coalition of government, allegedly of the left, is a neo-left party which renegates of the Soviet experience and counts amongts its ranks with the liquidators of the PCE ( Spanish Communist Party ), current dirigents of such spectre called IU, amongst whom there are cadres who have never worked at any real life job ( the same happens btw, with most of cadres in Podemos ) but were rised as cadres. The last dirigent of IU ( Izquierda Unida ) who was a real worker was Cayo Lara. The current dirigent, Alberto Garzón is a von bivant who has been dissapeared during the Coronavirus crisis, being as he is Minister of Consum, evading totally his work and responsability in controlling especultaion and galloping prices of goods, at health and basic food level, being Mercadona, one of the biggest retailers on grocery, which most rised prices during this pandemic. Owner of Mercadona is one of the richest persons in Spain along with the owner of Inditex ( Zara and associated conglomerate ), which have its HQ in Holland to avoid paying taxes in Spain, but was sold by Nadia Calviño, Minister of Economy, as “solidary” at the beginning of the worst of the pandemic in the country because he “donated” the ridiculous ammount of 300.000 masks. We, Spanish people, prefer very much he pays his due taxes in Spain instead of receiveing his “donations” which are not so since he evades taxes through the same fianacing engineering the EU perpetuates within its fraudulent constituion.
Current Minister of Economy is a clear EU burocrat, looking more after her own European career, favoring German interests, than the fate of the Spanish people and the country. She was opposing since the beginning any lockdown at great business level, which, in some autonomous regions have never stopped working, eventhough the “state of alarm” and home detention of the rest of the population throughout two months. The same could be said of the Foreign Minister, former aid of head of ITC and high burocrat at OMC, who at first cathegorized as a lose case the requisition by the Turks of a cargo of ventilators bought by some Spanish regions, then felt presured by public opinion to exert the due presure expected from her charge in such a situation to get those ventilators in Spain asap…These two were working always before for the great business people, they are not going to look after the interests of the little and medium business, less those of the working class, who are just in the opposite end of their patrons..

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 2 2020 17:15 utc | 69

@Posted by: Mina | May 2 2020 15:38 utc | 68
I Spain, in sheer contrast with what Putin is doing, for example ( paying the salaries of the workers in lockwdown ) alleged “socialist” government decreed mandatory leave and lockdown at home for the workers fro about a month and a half, but they must return the work hours not done during the rest of the year, which most proably will translate into all these workers getting without holidays.
It seems that both, the government and employeers consider being under strict lockdwn a vacation worth the sufferved workers…
Whta it seems is that this government has come to end discrediting what was left alive of old European socialism, the one born at the III International, leaving that way the path free for sheer fascism. In fact, Spanish Socialism died in the Suresnes Congress, where the PSOE was hijacked by the CIA/NATO apparatchiks.

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 2 2020 17:33 utc | 71

Today, already yesterday here, it was the anniversay of the Odessa Massacre…
We do not forget.
Still no culprit found or sent to trial, as happens always with the killings of antifascits in Europe, as happened with Franco´s victims…This only happens because of the cover of NATO…
https://twitter.com/juako2001/status/1256678542617841664
https://twitter.com/EmbajadaRusaRu/status/1256572992215289858

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 2 2020 23:19 utc | 73

H.Schmatz | May 3 2020 0:08 utc | 74
Erich Honecker from “Jail Notes”?
cool quote, can you give a source for the work?
All I see is Leary’s book…
Thanks!

Posted by: Walter | May 3 2020 0:18 utc | 75

From Italian Youth Communist Front, on the Odessa Massacre…

FGC ☭
@fgc_nazionale
Six years ago Vadim Papura, a Ukrainian communist, died at the age of 17 in the stake of the Odessa House of Unions, where 48 people died, a massacre carried out by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, shamefully supported by the European Union and the center-left government in Italy. # 2maggio

https://twitter.com/fgc_nazionale/status/1256528735509057536

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 3 2020 0:45 utc | 77

@Posted by: Walter | May 3 2020 0:18 utc | 75
This is the book in Spanish in pdf…
Erich Honecker “Notas de la cárcel”- “Moabiter Notizen”

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 3 2020 0:59 utc | 79

@Posted by: Walter | May 3 2020 1:17 utc | 80
It is his own personal version of the fall of socialism in Europe and the fall of the USSR, of which we have only today US´and Putin´s system´s version, or that of the reactionaries, which is more or less the same.
I find it interesting, to set the record straight, since at the time he wrote it, he had yet nothing to lose, not even life, as he was more dead than alive because of liver cancer, in fact died a year after in Chile.
You can take your own conclusions.

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 3 2020 1:29 utc | 81

OK So prolly no one will see this, but if you are going lockdown-stircrazy, Right here is a magnet link to the excellent 20 episode production of “The Unknown War”.
This series made in 1978 narrated by Burt Lancaster from a script by Rod McKuen, is the story of WW2 as seen by the Soviet Union, CCCP, not just Russia. It is full of unique footage and great insights into USSR strategy.
There are 3 audio tracks, Russian, German and English with Russian the default so you should go into the audio settings on VLC, KODI or whatever you use and change it to english if you want inglesi.
Even tho I could only find peers not seeds I got the whole thing down just a few hours ago, so it is a good link, enjoy.

Posted by: A User | May 3 2020 5:52 utc | 83

@lex talionis | May 3 2020 7:02 utc | 84
Looks like it is available on youtube

Posted by: Norwegian | May 3 2020 7:32 utc | 85

Jon_in_AU #63

I truly hope I get to kick a vulture capitalist in the arse before I die. Paul Singer would suffice.

I’d settle for Gina Reinhart to kick her arse all the way from Adelaide to Coober Pedy. Failing that Jared Kushner.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 3 2020 7:47 utc | 87

The Soviets did the Sherlock Holmes as film…12 hours of it.
YT see tinyurl[dot]com/y8m6kxkk
(The Ruskies also did a post soviet series, also very good and with a breautiful “Mrs Hudson”)
Mrs Wally got a hive of Italian bees yesterday…

Posted by: Walter | May 3 2020 10:54 utc | 89

@Posted by: Walter | May 3 2020 10:54 utc | 89
Over these past weeks I was wondering whether you could be Walter.P.Lang, by any casuality?
It would not surprise me that he decided to invent a character talking in the third person to post here, imitating the one he had in his blog and then banned not so long ago….
At least, the original was funny and fresh…..and, sometimes, even astonishinlgy well informed …

Posted by: H.Schmatz | May 3 2020 14:04 utc | 91

H.Schmatz | May 3 2020 14:19 utc | 92 Wary is good. I’m not Lang. Just a bored retired guy who enjoyed working in the skilled trades, and has a highly variegated history. If you look further into the past you’ll see more of Wally and the posts. I even came out of character for an explanation time…I had not interned to frighten anybody. A life-long past-time has been writing stories…a trait curated by my Quaker grandparents…I tell the truth as I see it, informed.
I read the Spanish of Honecker’s letter from jail, which you mooted, and saved a copy too. I agree with his view, so far as I know, and tend to agree with his overall view as a matter of common sense.
I’m glad you do not think it’s funny. Good. But why say it?
pax vobiscum

Posted by: Walter | May 3 2020 14:39 utc | 93

I was searching for the German complete book, 200+ pages, and discovered that it’s in print at amazon, in German. I despise Amazon too. Nevertheless, as the sky, it’s there.
Like Udo Ulfkotte’s Gekaufte Journalisten…Americans are not supposed to be able to read subversive idea…I did crawl through Udo’s book. And I shall also crawl through Comrade Brother Honecker’s last book.
Friend, see:
wendemuseum> (there are no “non profits” in the usa, either they suit Power or they don’t last, or are suborned, made fake.
I would guess that the esteemed museum is a see eye ah approved revisionist agency. I don’t know…but there are indications that “they” grabbed the papers and make sure they support certain…”concepts”.
Anything “they” say is “western enlightenment”, anything they do not say is “commie propaganda”… Don’t take it seriously, amigo. It’s sarcasm.
“Erich Honecker’s Personal Papers (1991-1994)
Erich Honecker’s personal papers in the Museum’s collection document the last four years in the life of the Communist leader who ruled East Germany from 1971 to 1989. In his will, Honecker specifically requested that his personal papers be housed in a non-German institution.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Honecker was imprisoned in Berlin’s Moabit Prison and charged with thirteen counts of manslaughter for ordering deadly force against its own citizens who were trying to flee East Germany. These orders of deadly force ultimately resulted in 350 deaths. Honecker stood trial for crimes against humanity beginning in November of 1992. The trial ended early in January 1993, due to Honecker’s failing health. Honecker died in Santiago, Chile of liver cancer in 1994. In his memoir, Moabiter Notizen (Notes from Moabit), he claimed that, “If it were up to me, East Germany would still exist.” During his trial, Honecker credited the Berlin Wall with preventing World War III.
The Museum’s personal archive of Honecker includes legal correspondence from his defense lawyers regarding the trial and medical records from various doctors outlining his liver cancer. There are detailed reports of the allegations against Honecker, the individuals who filed charges, information about the appeal process and news articles with Honecker’s handwritten annotations, as well as drafts and notes for his final book, Moabiter Notizen. The Museum’s archive also includes books from Honecker’s library, which are marked with his personal stamp”

Posted by: Walter | May 3 2020 18:54 utc | 95

H.Schmatz | May 3 2020 21:13 utc | 96 Thanks old man.
I understand that there are the language difficulties.
Spanish is almost as hard for me as German, but I can very slowly read both languages. They are part of my youth, and my old age.
I learned the skilled trades of foundry and metals and carpentry, although I also studied at university, and law school (for a brief time) being first interested in anthropology, then literature. No degree. I cannot abide the academy, as academics support the corrupt capitalist class, at least in the US. I have always worked within union rules, and retired from a major US union. I remember the Korean war, my parents were members (for a time in the 1940’s) of CPUSA (and it caused them great trouble later).
Look on Youtube for “the knight foundry”… No, you won’t see me there, but that was one of the places where I learned from the old fellows. By the way, the knight foundry was left by its founder to the men who worked there…soundly commie!
No spook at this end, friend. Rather the other way… Although obviously every spook in the world reads this stuff.
And you? Tell me what you will…
About the wall… USA political type said, back in the time of building the wall> “I don’t know why they (the DDR) don’t build a wall”.
The wall was a logical and quite sound thing to construct, and first publicly proposed by the US, however I do not recall the name of the man, I think he was a Senator.
The foundations for “the wall” was laid at Potsdam by Truman rejecting the deal FDR and Stalin made….I would say.
And I would remark that betrayal and victory come as a pair of twins, with the example of fascist Truman replacing the socialist Wallace when Roosevelt was “ill” (or being poisoned). Stalin told Elanor Roosevelt that her husband had been murdered. I agree.

Posted by: Walter | May 3 2020 22:00 utc | 97

Kool. That’s a tough read for me old man, but I’ slug along.
This is going to take some time for me.

Posted by: Walter | May 3 2020 22:15 utc | 99