I’m interested in stories that go uncovered and undercovered. Fewer stories are less obscured today than life in Russia under Western sanctions. I’m especially interested in stories that are so imbued with spin and propaganda that the news media has abandoned all pretense of objectivity. That’s certainly true about the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton stated that the Coalition opposition would not vote for the 43% emissions reduction legislation put up by the Albanese government, despite agitation by the few remaining moderates in his party. As it turned out the opposition did vote against it. However, Tasmanian Bridget Archer crossed the floor to vote with the government to pass the legislation, not that she needed to do so.

BY Houses And Holes — David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. 

Please note the article on the left of the cartoon that mentions "nazis" and "war".......

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW.....

The International Monetary Fund's board this week [May 2014] signed off on a $17 billion bailout for Ukraine, whose economy has been weakened by months of upheaval and a stand-off with Russia.

Ukraine's previous two IMF programs were suspended after the government did not stick to earlier promises, such as raising natural gas prices. This time, the IMF required Kiev to implement 12 reforms before receiving any money.

The following highlights some of the IMF's new requirements:

Energy Sector

The question we have to ask is why do the US want to weaken Russia as clearly stated in the Rand Organisation reports.…

Is Russia going to take over the world? Rob the Western world? Nope……

Is Russia going to bomb the USA? Nope……..

Is Russia too aloof to be a vassal of the Empire? No, but it values its independence…….

Do the US need to define enemies like Russia and China to fuel its now existence? Unfortunately yep… 

President Joe Biden, to his credit, did not come out swaggering at his press conference announcing that the C.I.A. had just killed Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri. But he did make the dubious assertation that the assassination somehow “made us all safer.”

In reality, this killing will not end the war on terror, and is unlikely to make us safer. And meanwhile, the Biden administration and other top U.S. officials are taking actions that do threaten our security. 

The U.S. is still spending billions of dollars arming Ukraine against Russia, while numerous experts around the world are discussing openly how the war escalates the danger of a nuclear exchange between the world’s two largest nuclear weapons states.

Finally, at long last, it appears the European Union may come to its senses. All it took was for German elites to understand they’re about to lose billions and risk upheaval. News from the IMF that halted gas supplies to the country will cost Europe’s largest economy 1.5 percent of its GDP in 2022 scares the Olaf Scholz puppet worse than communist smart girl Sahra Wagenknecht. Which has me wondering, was communism that bad, after all?

And if Germany sees the light and laments the utter idiocy of the Washington-led war on the Russians? Well, it’s a bit predictable if you think about it. The alternative, a global thermonuclear war that would take London, Paris, and Berlin down first, also seems less likely. That would kill off generations of bred mediocrity. But, what to expect next?

BY Phil Butler

Hungarians have decided they do not need any more genders, but would like to see “more Chuck Norris,” the country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban told an American crowd on Thursday.

Addressing this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in Dallas, Texas, Orban touched upon a range of his signature issues, including immigration, globalism, and woke culture. “[Hungarians] decided we don't need more genders — we need more rangers,” Orban said. 

“Less drag queens and more Chuck Norris!” he added, referring to the famous American martial artist and actor.

Orban delivered his remarks to rally the crowd ahead of the keynote speech of former US President Donald Trump, scheduled for Saturday. On Tuesday, he visited Trump at the latter’s golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Since 2000, nearly 100 former lawmakers have become lobbyists for countries like Saudi Arabia and China in Washington.

Earlier this month, a bipartisan bill was introduced in Congress that, among other important provisions to combat undue foreign influence in politics, would ban former members of Congress from lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. 

New Quincy Institute research finds that this congressional action is long overdue as the revolving door from Congress to lobbying on behalf of foreign interests has been spinning feverishly.

By the time a cell senses that it’s been infected by a virus, it generally knows it is doomed. Soon, it will be busted up by the body’s immunological patrol or detonated by the invader itself. So the moribund cell plays its trump card: It bleats out microscopic shrieks that danger is nigh.

The Coronavirus Has One Strategy We Can’t Vaccinate Against

It may be getting better at dodging one of the immune system’s main defenses.

By Katherine J. Wu

Nearly a third of foreign retailers have left Russia following Western sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, Russian daily Izvestia reported on Thursday.

A total of 27% of companies that leased premises in shopping centers decided to terminate their activities in Russia, consulting company CORE.XP (formerly CBRE) told Izvestia. A further 51% of foreign brands suspended business operations and 22% are undergoing restructuring.

Among those who announced their departure are H&M Group (which operates COS, Monki, Weekday, & Other Stories, H&M home, Arket and other brands), Nike, Starbucks, Victoria’s Secret, Lush and Lego. Among the brands currently undergoing restructuring are Levi’s (JNS), and L’Occitane (Л’Окситан), Izvestia says.

One of NATO’s main goals in the Ukraine conflict is preventing a “full-scale war” with Russia, the alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday. 

“In this conflict, NATO has two tasks: supporting Ukraine and preventing the war from escalating into a full-scale war between NATO and Russia,”Stoltenberg said in a speech in Norway.

The military bloc’s chief described the Russia-Ukraine conflict as “the most dangerous situation in Europe since World War Two” adding that Moscow must not be allowed to win. “If Russia wins the war, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will be convinced that violence works. Then other neighboring countries may be next,” Stoltenberg argued.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has accused Amnesty International of siding with “terrorists” after the organization condemned the Ukrainian military for placing weapons in civilian areas in violation of humanitarian law.

“Today we saw a report by Amnesty International, which unfortunately tries to amnesty the terrorist state and shift responsibility from the aggressor to the victim,” Zelensky said in a video address on Thursday evening. 

“If someone makes a report that puts the aggressor and the victim on the same level, this cannot be tolerated,”he said, repeating three times that “Ukraine is a victim,” and adding that “anyone who doubts this is an accomplice of Russia – a terrorist country – and a terrorist themselves and a participant in the killings.”'

This is the way the “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) ends, over and over again: not with a bang, but a whimper.

Two Hellfire R9-X missiles launched from a MQ9 Reaper drone on the balcony of a house in Kabul. The target was Ayman Al-Zawahiri with a $25 million bounty on his head. The once invisible leader of ‘historic’ Al-Qaeda since 2011, is finally terminated.

All of us who spent years of our lives, especially throughout the 2000s, writing about and tracking Al-Zawahiri know how US ‘intel’ played every trick in the book – and outside the book – to find him. Well, he never exposed himself on the balcony of a house, much less in Kabul.

Another disposable asset

BY PEPE ESCOBAR.