‘It’s You Against the Machine’
Fired by Bot at Amazon: ‘It’s You Against the Machine’
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fired-bot-amazon-against-machine-100013296.html

Posted by: librul | Jul 1 2021 12:43 utc | 3

I’ve just come across this, and I think it is extremely revealing.
Let me set out the context.
It is 2006. Queen Elizabeth has recently been forced to come out of her lair. She has used her personal powers to coerce the liquidator to drop its action “In its own interests”. You don’t fight the Sovereign.
The court made no finding in the matter of BCCI versus the Bank of England. The court was unable to exonerate the Bank or the twenty two employees charged with misfeasance. I think that what happened was that the judge refused to allow Deloittes to submit its evidence into court. Month after month after month. And things became quite nasty.
What is written in this is a judge – Justice Stephen Tomlinson – freelancing. This document has no legal standing. It is a pure public relations puff piece and nothing more.
Of particular note were the words of Bank of England Governor Lord King (Knight of the Garter)
“The judge’s words speak for themselves. It doesn’t need any further comment from me.”
That is the work of a wordsmith with a fine appreciation for the law of libel.
As I say, a very classy piece of propaganda which is very revealing and worthy of further analysis. I hope it’s OK if I reproduce the piece here.

Judge blasts BCCI legal team
By Robert Miller
13 April 2006 • 12:01am
A senior High Court judge has issued a savage indictment of the case brought against the Bank of England by Deloitte, the liquidators to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) which crashed in 1991 owing £5.6bn.
Mr Justice Tomlinson yesterday attacked both the case, originally brought in 2004, and the courtroom behaviour of Deloitte’s leading counsel and one of Britain’s highest paid barristers, Gordon Pollock QC.
“I told the Lord Chief Justice, then Lord Woolf, that the case was a farce,” revealed Mr Justice Tomlinson yesterday in a written judgment he delivered to court 23 of the Royal Courts of Justice.
He also said that he had warned Lord Woolf that Deloitte’s action “had the capacity to damage the reputation of our legal system”.
After the judgment Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, said: “The Judge’s words speak for themselves. It doesn’t need any further comment from me.”
On Mr Pollock, Mr Justice Tomlinson said that although Deloitte’s QC was “only infrequently rude” to him, it was Mr Pollock’s “sustained rudeness” to his opponent, Nicholas Stadlen QC for the Bank, that “was behaviour not in the usual tradition of the Bar and it was inappropriate and distracting.”
The judge continued: “I should have done more to control it, although I doubt if I should have been any more successful than evidently were Mr Pollock’s colleagues whom on at any rate one occasion I invited to attempt to exercise some restraining influence.”
Mr Pollock, who was not in court yesterday, is head of his Essex Court Chambers and is himself a deputy High Court judge.
He is reported to have been paid at least £3m in fees even before the BCCI case came to court making him one of the highest paid briefs in British legal history.
Mr Pollock’s chambers declined to comment on the judgement and the personal criticisms made of his courtroom behaviour and referred calls to the Lovells, the City law firm, which also refused to comment.
The Bank is legally protected against claims of negligence so Deloitte bought an action on the grounds of ‘misfeasance’, as in acting dishonestly or in bad faith, against the central bank and 22 present and former members of staff.
The BCCI case, in which the liquidator sought up to £1bn in damages, began in January 2004 and set several legal records.
Mr Pollock’s opening remarks ran for 86 days while Mr Stadlen addressed the court for 119 days.
Deloitte finally abandoned its claim in November last year by which stage collective costs in the case had soared to more than £100m. Mr Justice Tomlinson awarded costs against the liquidator and the Bank is claiming about £81.5m, including £8m in interest payments. Deloitte is believed to have deposited more than £70m with the Bank already.
In his judgment Mr Justice Tomlinson said the liqudiators had not withdrawn their allegations nor proffered “any apology” to the Bank or the “impugned officials”.
He continued: “They can be compelled to do neither and they may not wish to do so.”
However, the judge said this was unsatisfactory “made worse by the fact that for their own purposes the liquidators have assiduously courted publicity in respect of their claim.”
Deloitte retained The Maitland Consultancy for public relations advice.
The judge condemned the liquidators’ publicity campaign as “a cynical and grotesque operation.”
He added that the selective use of documents in the briefings painted “a wholly distorted picture of the Bank’s conduct.”
He continued: “The public relations campaign was obviously designed to put pressure on the Bank to capitulate.” Maitland declined to comment on its own behalf.
However, a statement issued by Maitland for Deloitte said: “The liquidators undertook and conducted this litigation in absolute good faith, in the interests of the creditors of BCCI and on the basis of legal advice.
They are therefore disappointed by the way in which the judge has characterised the conduct of the case.”

https://archive.fo/TH1nF#selection-1119.0-1467.106
The lesson everybody learned? You cannot rely on the courts to control the arms of the British State.

Posted by: John Cleary | Jul 1 2021 13:06 utc | 5

John Cleary @Jul1 12:57 #4: Queen Elizabeth intervened.
Off with their suits! Er … legal suits.
Thanks for the insights into the “rules-based order”.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 1 2021 13:41 utc | 7

Canada seems to be deteriorating faster under a man that is the complete opposite of his father.
Canada’s government is seeking to silence Canadian journalists at home and abroad with a draconian censorship bill

Posted by: arby | Jul 1 2021 14:00 utc | 9

Exercise SEA BREEZE 2021 is underway in the Black Sea! Some references:
>Jerusalem Post headline — Massive exercise in Black Sea with US comes after Russia warning
>from a US press briefing here
>>Well, good morning. This is CAPT Cameron Chen. I’m the Commodore of Task Force 68 — the highlight of our engagement is going to be a clearance operation where we’re going to work with the Ukrainians as well as Canadians, Poles, and Georgian divers to clear a wreck that is blocking the naval pier at Odessa. . .FACT: This wreck sank in about 2016; it was a Soviet-era yacht.
>>Yes, good morning. I am CDR Jeremy Lyon, Deputy Commander of Task Force 67, located out of Sigonella Air Base, a combined Italian-American airfield in Sicily. Task Force 67 is composed of land-based tactical aircraft that operate over the waters of the Mediterranean in submarine warfare . . .FACT: The US has one P-8 patrol aircraft participating in the exercise.
>>Hi, good morning. My name is CAPT Kyle Gantt. I’m the Deputy Commodore and the Deputy Commander of Task Force 65. Task Force 65 is headquartered in Rota, Spain, and it is the U.S. Navy’s forward-deployed destroyer squadron in Europe. As part of that, Task Force 65 executes all surface combatant ship operations in Europe and Africa. We oversee four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, . . .FACT: A majority of the 32 ships supposedly involve in thos exercise, 24 of them, are Ukrainian and only a couple of them are warships. The US has only one ship the USS Ross destroyer participating in this exercise.
>FINAL FACT: Most of this exercise involves sailors from various countries sitting around in their whites blathering as seen in this video featuring the CO of USS Ross.
In fact Russia has done more. In April, the country’s Black Sea fleet conducted an unusually large exercise in Crimea involving 10,000 troops and 40 warships. . .more on SeaBreeze here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jul 1 2021 14:17 utc | 11

@9 My impression is that Justin is popular with young ‘progressives’ and liberals. He is not liked by more conservative Canadians. How does that make him the opposite of his father?

Posted by: dh | Jul 1 2021 14:21 utc | 13

From the last open thread:
Hasn’t the material John’s provided prove that the Crown remains above Parliament?
karlof1 | Jun 30 2021 21:36 utc | 287
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/06/the-moa-week-in-review-ot-2021-049.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef026bdedc7148200c#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef026bdedc7148200c
Hello karlof1.
The question is, which crown and which parliament?
England was superseded first by the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, and then by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Your point about the Crown answerable to Parliament refers to England, which no longer exists as a political entity.
That left a blank canvas.
What happened was that the relationship between the Crown and Parliament was completely upended by the passage of the Treason Felony Act in 1848. This is the wording of that act as it stands today:
F2

3 Offences declared felonies by this Act to be punishable by transportation or imprisonment.
If any person whatsoever shall, within the United Kingdom or without, compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend to deprive or depose our Most Gracious Lady the Queen, from the style, honour, or royal name of the imperial crown of the United Kingdom, or of any other of her Majesty’s dominions and countries, or to levy war against her Majesty, within any part of the United Kingdom, in order by force or constraint to compel her to change her measures or counsels, or in order to put any force or constraint upon or in order to intimidate or overawe both Houses or either House of Parliament, or to move or stir any foreigner or stranger with force to invade the United Kingdom or any other of her Majesty’s dominions or countries under the obeisance of her Majesty, and such compassings, imaginations, inventions, devices, or intentions, or any of them, shall express, utter, or declare, by publishing any printing or writing . . . . . . F1 or by any overt act or deed, every person so offending shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable . . . . . . F2 to be transported beyond the seas for the term or his or her natural life . . . . . .

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/11-12/12/section/3
This statute served to convert any disagreement with the queen into a felony. Now, if that is not sovereignty I don’t know what is, and it was at some point in the second half of the nineteenth century Victoria began to refer to herself as The Sovereign.
The circumstances under which this statute was introduced are well known to you. In 1848 Ireland was in tumult following the forced starvation of the indigenous population: the Continental mainland was in a revolutionary firestorm following the work of Marx. In other words the TFA was emergency legislation, and the drafting was appalling, but the ramifications are with us to the present day.
As the century wore on, some bright spark (Disraeli?) pointed out to the Queen that the TFA could be used with much greater effect. It could be used indirectly via agents of the state, rather than directly against Irish dissidents. As time wore on, open prosecutions against rebels dried up, and the TFA became latent. Or so it seemed.
In fact the TFA was being used to control the civil service. This is where the bad drafting comes in.
“any person whatsoever” That applies to a judge, to a policeman, to a bureaucrat, to a corporation.
“any overt act or deed” That can be anything the queen does not like.
“our Most Gracious Lady the Queen” Presumably was meant for Victoria. But has been used by every queen since Alaxandra.
This law was introduced in Western Australia in 1902. Queen Victoria died in 1901.
France knew what was going on in their perfidious neighbour. They had expected it all to end when Victoria died. When they found that good old perfidious was going to continue this under a different queen they took steps to protect themselves.
In 1904 the UK and France signed the Entente Cordiale. It is a non aggression pact between the Scottish Rite and the Great Eastern. “England” could continue with its conquest of the United States and France could concern itself with its own empire.
I can go on, and I can provide some documentation as to this statute in modern times. But I’m acutely aware that I’m hogging this thread. If anybody wants more, please ask me.

Posted by: John Cleary | Jul 1 2021 14:39 utc | 15

John Cleary @Jul1 14:39 #15
TFA seems like something that could never actually be used without sparking popular disgust.
How do you suppose it is used to influence officials then?
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 1 2021 14:54 utc | 17

dh @ 13, IMO Trudeau’s father was leader and did not kow tow to every little demand from our southern neighbor. I doubt that he would allow a bill to go through like the one mentioned in the article much less advocate for it.

Posted by: arby | Jul 1 2021 15:06 utc | 19

How about that Afghanistan forever war?
…from Long War Journal….
The Taliban has taken control of more than 80 districts in the two months since launching its offensive against the Afghan government after President Joe Biden announced the U.S. would withdraw its forces from the country by September.
In many cases, Afghan security forces have turned over district centers, abandoned military bases, surrendered to the Taliban and handed over their weapons, vehicles and other war material without a fight. The Taliban’s multi-year strategy of gaining influence in rural districts to then pressure the population centers is paying dividends. . .here
Actually (1 ) the principal US forces are being evacuated sooner and (2) not all US military forces will be removed.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jul 1 2021 15:19 utc | 21

@19 Yes Pierre Trudeau wasn’t afraid to upset people like Nixon. That was the time of Vietnam and draft dodgers. Times have changed. Justin certainly lacks that kind of courage but he doesn’t have the Vietnam issue to deal with.
I still see him as having a ‘progressive’ agenda when it comes to things like BLM and LGBT. But that seems to be the way things are going in the US now too. Pierre would probably approve of that. And Justin plays along with the anti-China stuff.

Posted by: dh | Jul 1 2021 15:22 utc | 23

Strom Thurmond. See if spellcheck allows it this time

Posted by: Oldhippie | Jul 1 2021 15:25 utc | 25

librul, I love the Grayzone. They are an excellent website cataloguing the misdeeds of Mordor. They have a unique expertise of Latin America but also cover the M.E.
My head basically exploded when I read the article co-authored by Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton. I could never write anything as long and well researched as that and still maintained a coherent thought. I’d summarize the article as ‘the people who call themselves journalists in our MSM are fools’. But they demonstrate it by showing what actual journalism looks like, side by side with their name calling. Kind of like seeing the RUAF intercept and fly around hopelessly outclassed pilots.

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Jul 1 2021 16:09 utc | 27

@Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Jul 1 2021 16:09 utc | 27
Right! Everyone should have the pleasure — “my head basically exploded” — of reading that article.
Here is the link again.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/06/29/lawsuit-sulome-anderson-hezbollah/

Posted by: librul | Jul 1 2021 16:22 utc | 29

Posted by: vk | Jul 1 2021 13:52 utc | 8
Probably they were after Dante’s bones but the rest of the story does not sustain itself. Cervantes remains had been searched for a long time, and finally, in 2015, partially found in a Madrid church, Iglesia de las Trinitarias, within a common burial where more than sixteen deceased remains were mixed.
Lev Tolstoy’s burial place is a sight to behold, and a hard lesson to all the powerful of this world. A mound on the ground with not even a cross, no marble, no fancy monument, I got to see it in winter, a plain hump covered with snow. His manor, Yasnaya Polyana, was temporarily occupied by the nazis and its many dependencies used and desecrated, Guderian himself was in Yasnaya Polyana and it would have been so easy to dig Tolstoy’s remains that it rests credibility to that list of great writers.
Here you have some pictures of the desecrated manor, now it is a museum and a beautiful place to visit just of few kms. from the city of Tula.
https://topwar.ru/87970-yasnaya-polyana-v-period-okkupacii.html

Posted by: Paco | Jul 1 2021 16:42 utc | 31

@ Posted by: Paco | Jul 1 2021 16:42 utc | 31
The only confirmed part is the Dante tomb, because the eyewitness, who exchanged Dante’s bones, is still alive (he’s 87 years old now, so he was just 10 when he helped do it) and told the story to be soon published by an Italian magazine. He claims (probably using the same source given by the OSS) that those other authors were also coveted by Hitler-Speer, but he says he doesn’t know what happened with them (as he couldn’t, since he was in Ravenna).
Remember that this happened in 1944, when the Nazi regime was in its death throes. It’s perfectly possible – even sensible – that the Nazis aborted their attempts to ransack the other tombs, or most of them. Evidently that they didn’t try to get to Tolstoy’s tomb, because it was in the USSR, and the Cervantes’ remains were in nominally neutral territory; but they could realistically get to Zola’s tomb.

Posted by: vk | Jul 1 2021 16:57 utc | 33

Posted by: vk | Jul 1 2021 16:57 utc | 33
They also had access to Pushkin burial place in occupied Pskov region, another beautiful place to visit in what is known as Pushkin Heights, but since Pushkin was of mixed blood he would not make the nazi mark, in spite of his great poetry.

Posted by: Paco | Jul 1 2021 17:08 utc | 35

What are U$A’s core values? How about UK’s core values?
The world thinks the people of the U$A are violent, greedy, arrogant — and U$A’ens agree.
A poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center, found that a median of 54% of people in countries surveyed associated the negative trait of arrogance with U$A’ens. 52% percent associate greed, and 48% say U$A’ens are violent. It found that majorities of people in the UK, Canada, Spain and Australia think of U$A’ens as violent, greedy and arrogant. Interestingly, most in the U$A say U$A’ens are arrogant (55%) and greedy (57%).
Source: PEW Global Research. The report is from 2016. U$A’ens overall values haven’t changed substantially in the past few years? Overall objective is to understand our U$A’ens values.

Posted by: Max | Jul 1 2021 17:22 utc | 37

@ karlof1 (#40),
Yes, one day ties to these FRAUDULENT financial entities will be severed, including IMF, WB and BIS. However, nations don’t need to return the amount they received. Nations need to unite together and demand DAMAGES from these fraudulent entities and their owners for their imperialism. What kind of tsunami of change will it create?
Remember, the Russian financial crisis of 1998. The Russian administration and the Russian central bank devalued the ruble and defaulted on its debt. Where was Vladimir Putin then?
How has the U$A defaulted on its debt in the past century? How will the U$A default next time? What will happen to “Mount Doom” (Debt & Deception)? What happened to Mount Mazama?

Posted by: Max | Jul 1 2021 17:44 utc | 39

While we or at least I wait and worry about other things here’s an interesting video (17:17 minutes) titled “The Longest-running Evolution Experiment” (that would be by number of generations, not by years) by the Veritasium YouTube channel.
The professor running the experiment describes and explains it.
It is about bacteria but the concepts are general (including for replicating viruses although the circumstances for those would be different).
One could call this “gain of function” only with bacteria. It is done to try to learn more (and they did, even after they thought they probably wouldn’t).

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 1 2021 17:59 utc | 41

– Max Blumenthal wrote a (very) interesting article:
“Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal”
Surprise, surprise, surprise. Regular visitors of Moon Of Alabama already knew that BellingCat was a “shady” joint funded by MI6 (MI6 ???)
Weblink:
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-foreign-office-russian-media/
Dated: February 20, 2021

Posted by: Willy2 | Jul 1 2021 19:17 utc | 43

@Librul, Will2 et all
Lauding the Grayzone is ok but please keep in mind who actually broke the stories you are linking.
The Grayzone’s “UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal” … is based on documents MoA excusivly wrote about a week earlier than the Grayzone.
MoA published a piece that bashed the dimwit Sulome Anderson in February 2018. The Grayzone published the piece it was sued over in May 2018. It was largely built on my work.
As the Grayzone writers are arrogant twits neither of their writeups mentioned MoA even though it definitely was their source.
How trustworthy is that?

Posted by: b | Jul 1 2021 19:48 utc | 45

@Posted by: b | Jul 1 2021 19:48 utc | 48
Very interesting…and thought provoking…
Grayzone was sued and it appears they were gagged from talking about the lawsuit.

For over two years, we, the defendants, have been barred from discussing this McCarthyite assault while the heiress’ lawsuit was relentlessly promoted and cheered on by an echo chamber of regime-change operatives and corporate media hacks.

It is not clear if their own lawyers barred them as a prudent legal tactic
or whether the court itself barred them from discussing the “McCarthyite assault”.
This begs the question if there were other defendants involved with “dimwit” Salami that have had to be quiet.

Posted by: librul | Jul 1 2021 20:09 utc | 47

John Cleary @Jul1 14:39 #15
TFA seems like something that could never actually be used without sparking popular disgust.
How do you suppose it is used to influence officials then?
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 1 2021 14:54 utc | 17

Hello JR.
Point one. I first commented here while it was tuned to Billmon.
When Bernhard first went solo he felt he needed support (he doesn’t), so he invited me to write a piece for above the line.
Being a monomaniac I wrote, of course, about the crime factory that is Queen Elizabeth.
I got crucified. Not one person engaged with what i’d written. People just do not want to believe that the woman they have been taught to admire can be such a wicked person. I was told in no uncertain terms that no, Queen Elizabeth has no powers; she is a figurehead and nothing more. I cost b a great deal of credibility and I scurried away with my tail between my legs. So I think you are wrong when you conclude “TFA seems like something that could never actually be used without sparking popular disgust.”
Point two. If you really want to know the answer I suggest you absorb these two items:
https://archive.fo/44P7i Lords halt challenge to treason law | Media | The Guardian
https://archive.fo/7gmLt Calling for abolition of monarchy is still illegal – The Guardian

Five law lords upheld an attempt by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, to halt the newspaper’s attempt to declare section 3 of the 1848 act incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998, on the grounds that the older legislation was an obstacle to freedom of speech.
The lords ruled the Guardian’s case unnecessary, as the paper had published articles that espoused republican views, and had not been prosecuted.

You see they did the same as with BCCI. The action was “halted” as it was “unnecessary”. THEY DID NOT ACTUALLY HEAR THE CASE.
Look at the comments from the judges

The attorney general made no submission on his prosecution policy. But the Lords said if he had: “It could only have been to accept that, at least since October 2 2000 when the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force, no one who advocates the abolition of the monarchy by peaceful and constitutional means has been at any risk of prosecution (other than a private prosecution) or of conviction.”

So why did he not say so? Why is the court putting forward a submission on his behalf?
Remember Lord Hutton?

Lord Hutton said: “It is not the function of the courts to decide hypothetical questions which do not impact on the parties before them”.

Lord Steyn said: “The part of s3 of the 1848 Act which appears to criminalise the advocacy of republicanism is a relic of a bygone age, and does not fit into the fabric of our modern legal system. The idea that s3 could survive scrutiny under the Human Rights Act is unreal.”
But he warned that the courts should not be used as “an instrument … [to] chivvy parliament into spring-cleaning the statute book.”
Their Lordships all agreed that the 1848 Act is “a provision whose time has long passed”.
Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe said: “It is most undesirable that obsolete statutes should remain unrepealed. Quaint language and interesting historical associations are no justification for preserving obsolete statutes in a mummified state. But … it is still the role of the legislature, rather than that of the courts, to decide whether to repeal or retain legislation.”

Yet here we are, eighteen years later and the obsolete statute remains unrepealed.
(!! as you like to say.)
Now none of this makes any sense. Until you realise that she is using the Treason Felony Act to prevent the repeal of the Treason Felony Act. And contrary to what you would expect JR there were no riots in the streets.
And she does this by notifying the judges that to find for the Guardian newspaper would be an offence under the Treason Felony Act. And of course no judge could possibly knowingly break the law. And so she carries on, bringing death, misery and destruction to the world.

Posted by: John Cleary | Jul 1 2021 20:41 utc | 49

Multi-national teams do rescue missions from collapsed buildings resulting from natural disasters
https://reliefweb.int/report/indonesia/how-rescue-people-trapped-collapsed-building
There is a protocol followed by a UN group, The International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARG).
Here is a full list of all international teams, where they are located, and their capabilities.
https://vosocc.unocha.org/USAR_Directory/MemberCountriesOverview.asp
The entry for Miami Dade is pathetic, even after I got to their native website I could not find any overview of their capabilities or staff. The ’employee link’ just talked about benefits.
—————————————————————
My conclusion: DeSantis let the Miami Dade rescue drive this and they kept their turf.
DeSantis should have done what I did and reached out to other U.S. agencies and UN groups to speedup the rescue efforts. To me, it looks like Turkey has a kick ass rescue team which makes sense because they have a lot of earthquakes. I bet a lot of these groups have great rescue teams.
The UN group emphasizes getting everyone on board on day 1 to work out any language barrier problems. Yeah, getting 12 Israelis 3 days later, if anything underlines that this avenue was not seriously pursued.
I’ll even ding Biden because he could have stepped in and pushed DeSantis in the right direction and gotten FEMA involved.

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Jul 1 2021 21:03 utc | 51

karlof1
That’s a damned good point.
And thinking about it, there is an even better parallel with the TFA.
It’s the one they used to target the hapless General Flynn. Framed two hundred years ago to prevent countrymen overseas from undermining the President in matters of foreign policy. Ridiculous in this century. Just like the Treason Felony Act in the UK.
And I think the difference today is the Worldwide Web.
Sixteen years of development since then.
It’s a different world today.

Posted by: John Cleary | Jul 1 2021 22:14 utc | 53

CIA director William Burns meets with members of [Brazilian president] Bolsonaro’s cabinet
It was an official visit, and the members he met were minister of the Civil House Luiz Eduardo Ramos (most powerful minister, more or less the equivalent to the Secretary of State) and minister of National Security (the equivalent of secretary of the Homeland Security) gen. August Heleno. Burns was accompanied by American ambassador to Brazil Todd Chapman.
Evidently, the content of the meeting is confidential, but this is one of those moments in history where the secret reveals the content: the point certainly was to discuss a violent military coup against a possible large-scale revolt, anti-American reform (e.g. re-election of Lula) or even revolution in Brazil. That’s the only possible topic of discussion that intersects both the Civil House and National Security in this Brazilian government.

Posted by: vk | Jul 1 2021 22:44 utc | 55

Posted by: librul | Jul 1 2021 17:50 utc | 42 and b | Jul 1 2021 19:48 utc | 48
librul,
I only shared the link here because I rated it very important. I’m happy for more people to share that particular link and it’s all very incriminating information with respect to the way that accurate war zone reporting (and other geopolitics/foreign policy) is done in the USA. I agree with your and others’ take.
b,
Thanks for that reminder. I read MoA every day that I can and I must have missed that one. Very interesting that there was no attribution considering you were on top of it before those guys. That said, I still think it’s important information, especially about the way the lawsuit was conducted and then summarily dismissed. Lawfare is but one of many tools that the establishment and those “journalists” that are accepted by the establishment go about silencing critics or just alternative views from more informed voices even if some of the Grayzone reportage was actually stolen from MoA. Anywho, keep up the good work!

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 1 2021 23:23 utc | 57

I seldom disagree with Russia’s MFA spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, but her estimation that Iran and the Outlaw US Empire will return to the JCPOA on 14 July I find sadly mistaken because there’s one major actor the negotiators have no control over–the Outlaw US Empire’s Congress which legislated many of the illegal sanctions placed on Iran and can only be undone by its actions. And that would mean plenty of Congressional hearings and lobbying by Biden for that process to begin, and there’s no sign of the whatsoever. Iranian policy is simple and very clear–Actions resulting in removal of ALL sanctions must occur first prior to Iran acting–and it was just reiterated by president elect Raisi.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 1 2021 23:33 utc | 59

John Cleary @Jul1 20:41 #52
Thanks for that explanation. It seems to me that the pressure applied by TFA is both implicit and stronger than it appears.
The pressure is simply this: the Queen’s wishes can not be resisted and anyone doing so in any real way (ie. not joking) must be a traitor. There is no sympathy for such a person because any “loyal subject” immediately realizes that such sympathy is also traitorous.
So the Queens wishes are followed without invoking the act.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 2 2021 0:07 utc | 61

Another response.

“Those sort of papers would be very traceable.”

Less so if:
1. Printed on an inkjet printer (looks like they were).
2. Doused with copious amount of water so they get all blurry (looks like they were).
Then they should be less traceable from the ordinary universal printer fingerprinting (but perhaps not enough) and one should still take care due to the possibility of other measures being embedded (like textual ones, unique font manipulation, offsets and anything similar —these things are being used) which might still be relatively easy and effortlessly identifiable despite runny colors (easy compared to massively parallel statistical analysis of chemical values to identify likely coloration fingerprints from out of a blurry soup).
Not everyone will be aware of this sort of thing.
The above does not make any argument against or in favor of whether or not it was a genuine leak (my bias is that I think it wasn’t). These things can happen by accident for someone who didn’t know and they can be done deliberately when planting information rather than leaking.
Sorry if it’s stating the obvious 🙂

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 2 2021 0:31 utc | 63

vk # #14
Albert Speer was the third most powerful Nazi not counting Hitler himself.
Actually, he was the fourth most powerful Nazi (behind Hitler, Göring and Goebbels).
vk is essentially correct, but…… to think that he survived the war in good health and all, and was sentenced to ONLY 20 years in prison/Spandau for his war crimes.
any of the major architects of the illegal and murderous Iraq war like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Tenet, Wolfowitz, Bremer, et. al. should surely be punished by 25-50 years in prison, if not a lifetime without [parole, or by the death penalty.
oh, and the devil himself now has Rumsfeld in Hell….. the devil take them all

Posted by: michaelj72 | Jul 2 2021 1:16 utc | 65

the unforgivable war
https://twitter.com/nashwakay/status/1410417007070171138
1 in every 5 Iraqis has someone in their family who died because of the invasion of Iraq.
More than half of all babies born in Fallujah between 2007 and 2010 were born with a birth defect.
The average lifespan in Iraq is 70.
Rumsfeld died at 88 peacefully in his sleep.

Posted by: michaelj72 | Jul 2 2021 1:32 utc | 67

Mina #45
https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2021/jun/27/why-most-people-who-now-die-with-covid-have-been-vaccinated
Thank you for a good link. What a fascinating, confused tale of self delusion from a statistician. An editor might have been useful to convey whatever message is within this paragraph:-

The PHE report also reveals that nearly a third of deaths from the Delta variant are of unvaccinated people over 50, which may be surprising given high vaccine coverage; for example, OpenSAFELY estimates more than 93% among the 65-69s. But there are lower rates in deprived areas and for some ethnicities and communities with limited coverage will continue to experience more than their fair share of loss.

and no, I have not lifted this out of context.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jul 2 2021 2:25 utc | 69

Posted by Librul @ 2
Thanks for pointing out the Julian Assange development. Here is some more from well known Australian lawyer Greg Barnes:
https://johnmenadue.com/key-assange-accuser-backs-away-from-what-he-told-us-prosecutors/
The contrast between the malicious prosecution of Assange and offical studied ignorance of Rupert Murdoch’s history of well documented intercontinental criminal hacking operations is stark.
I have no doubt which one should be rotting in prison.
I recommend the mind boggling book ‘Murdoch’s Pirates’ by award winning journalist Neil Chenoweth. Search for a review of this hard to get book. I also recommend Booktopia.
It is also interesting that newly minted deputy PM, Barnaby Joyce, is an Assange supporter. He has risen in my estimation.
It’s time for the Australian government to protect Assange. Both parties are also silent.
https://bananasfk.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/murdochs-pirates-neil-chenoweth/

Posted by: Paul | Jul 2 2021 2:46 utc | 71

Assange vs the NGO outlet in HK
I have not even bothered to look into the MSM wailing about the news office shut down in HK, especially after hearing it was connected to Bannon’s expat, regime change buddy. How can I take CNN, FOX, and the rest seriously when they applaud the death incarceration of Assange and fake deathwatch of Navalny?
I am moderately curious, what office was shut down in HK?

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Jul 2 2021 3:07 utc | 73

Continuing from Jul2 0:07 #64
Thinking on this further, it seems to me (an American) that the Queen’s power is derived from those that believe that privilege should be maintained. The Queen is just a figurehead, and loyalty to the Queen is a litmus test.
Furthermore, BCCI was apparently a spook plaything and senior civil servants would not be made to pay for State crimes (who knows what secrets they might reveal if pressed). Nor would UK government make own up to what BCCI really was or attempt to bring the spooks to justice. So something sly and underhanded was called for.
If the Queen lifted the rug for the embarrassments to be swept under, she was likely pressured/blackmailed or convinced that it was necessary. I’m not convinced that she has the power to formulate policy or a devious nature. She can barely control her own family.
Disclaimer: As I’m not British, I may not be acquainted with all the facts.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 2 2021 3:57 utc | 75

News item. Overseas arrivals to Australia halved. Tens of thousands Australians who have expressed an interest to return are, apparently, ‘stranded’ overseas.

Posted by: Paul | Jul 2 2021 5:12 utc | 77

Librul if I’ve understood it and the concept is real (bias: a reasonable general idea that seems overwhelmingly likely to me) then like everyone else they are already paying the price although most just won’t realize it (and some will be more innocent than others; it compounds and self-interacts and is not at all simple and not obvious to many).
Yes there will be much more too; according to christianity the individual “long tails” is seven generations (probably nothing but a wild guess to illustrate how serious and long-lasting the effects are) and in addition as the muslims say everyone will go to and maybe through hell. Those ideas also don’t seem unreasonable if given some assumptions or at least workarounds: the moment of death might feel like an eternity to some, humans experience similar state of mind “time compression/dilution” during dreams which last only minutes but are experienced as hours, or for that matter during periods of active focused attention or boredom.
Dying might be the single most important thing any individual goes through with all of life its preparation.
The “died quietly” trope is superficial boilerplate at its worst:
1. It says nothing at all about what might be happening inside. Nor does the opposite of a violent thrashing about.
2. Unless you were there you wouldn’t know.
3. Death/dying can be incredibly subtle but even when peaceful in my experience (seeing family die a natural death) it has a noticeable inertia or momentum.
4. All dead people shit themselves, often just a little because there isn’t much to expunge.
Somehow (at least to my knowledge) none of the world cultures have yet managed to make point number 4 into something “holy”, “sacral” or another superficial bullshit boiler-plate trope meaning “this was a good human, we’re being honest” 😀
As for the US a lot of us here have been saying it. The writing isn’t simply on the wall, it is prowling the streets and lives of everyone.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 2 2021 6:04 utc | 79

A lot of us here at MoA I mean.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 2 2021 6:09 utc | 81

Jackrabbit 78
My take is the monarch is ceremonial. Signs off on decisions already made. So for four of the five-eyes, they are ruled by those close to the monarch. For elected politicians, a little autonomy in domestic stuff. For the three colonies, foreign policy is made in that royal circle or in Washington. Interesting to watch at times when the royal circle and Washington are in disagreement. For our dear leaders in the colonies, it is like having two bosses.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jul 2 2021 6:47 utc | 83

agreed, with Tracey….. and with Caitlan J.
https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1410322923575992326
Michael Tracey @mtracey
Few have ever personified the total depravity that the US government is capable of more vividly than Donald Rumsfeld
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/07/01/the-system-isnt-there-to-protect-us-from-criminals-its-to-protect-criminals-from-us/
“…..This despite the fact that it’s been public knowledge for years that Rumsfeld began orchestrating the unforgivable invasion of Iraq within hours of the 9/11 attacks and told numerous lies in order to set that invasion in motion. He also oversaw the intervention in Afghanistan which he and his Bush administration cohorts had been planning before 9/11, beginning a decades-long occupation about which the public has been pervasively lied to from the very beginning by US officials in general and by Rumsfeld in particular…”.
“…In reality, exactly zero percent of the world’s worst people are in prison, but some of the best people are. The fact that Donald Rumsfeld lived a long life of freedom while Julian Assange wastes away in Belmarsh Prison proves the world doesn’t work the way we were taught in school. The very worst bad guys are not put in prison by the good guys who run things, because the very worst bad guys are the ones who run things……”

Posted by: michaelj72 | Jul 2 2021 6:58 utc | 85

Tungsten 72 about the Guardian link, what is more interesting even is that the paper uses what seems to be a technical term, ‘imperfect vaccine’ which is explained here
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous

Posted by: Mina | Jul 2 2021 7:20 utc | 87

John Cleary 91
five-eyes

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jul 2 2021 8:20 utc | 89

@Christian J. Chuba (no. 76)
The only news of an HK news office being shut down I’ve heard of is one about a particular Apple Daily. Does it answer your question? Or are you thinking of something else?

Posted by: joey_n | Jul 2 2021 8:42 utc | 91

Hmm. Canadians are waking up, even if Australians are not.
Queen Elizabeth II statue toppled in Canada
https://www.rt.com/news/528161-canada-day-protest-statues/

Posted by: John Cleary | Jul 2 2021 9:27 utc | 93

Given the Grayzone is getting a serious ribbing I might just mention The Young Turks or perhaps I should call them Erdoghans nutjobs. Anyway the good Richard Medhurst gave TYT a mighty hard and well deserved backhander a week or so ago. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVnYWV4sHZo
Richard sets the intertubes on fire for 2 minutes of rage against TYT and its clown cart.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jul 2 2021 10:15 utc | 95

On Rumsfeld
Richard Medhurst has a short burst at this address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFZD569UJYI
I am unable to download it, yet every other RM piece downloads fine. I guess he is not complimenting the man and his expletives have congested the utoob censors.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jul 2 2021 10:29 utc | 97

Mina #90

‘imperfect vaccine’ which is explained here
“>https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous

Thank you, that makes the entire report most alarming PLUS it possibly explains the (to my mind) confused information in the grauniad piece. Now I understand the the implications of this text:

It could sound worrying that the majority of people dying in England with the now-dominant Delta (B.1.617.2) variant have been vaccinated. Does this mean the vaccines are ineffective? Far from it, it’s what we would expect from an effective but imperfect vaccine, a risk profile that varies hugely by age and the way the vaccines have been rolled out.
Consider the hypothetical world where absolutely everyone had received a less than perfect vaccine. Although the death rate would be low, everyone who died would have been fully vaccinated.

After reading the chicken Marek vaccine report I can see that one immediate implication is that the process of dispensing ‘imperfect vaccine’ for covid-19 is to let loose an army of carriers. One precaution I am taking is to increase my prophylactic practice and diligence as more and more acquaintances are getting their imperfect vaccines.
I guess there will be a rush to see which of the world’s vaccines fall into each category. I can see why vaccines are never rushed into distribution in a normal world.
Mina, do you know of any bio-accumulation reports on the current experimental vaccines on the market?

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jul 2 2021 10:48 utc | 99