-
Bill’s Commentary:
“Hooters experiencing “deflation”?”
PE-Backed Hooters Reportedly Taps Advisers to Address Debt as Revenue Falls
Hooters of America is huddling with lenders and advisers amid revenue declines that pushed the restaurant chain to shutter several of its locations, according to people with knowledge of the talks.
Hooters, famous for its chicken wings and skimpy server uniforms, is getting guidance from Accordion Partners and law firm Ropes & Gray on how to improve business and address its debt load as foot traffic slows and its liquidity dwindles, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential matters.
Bill’s Commentary:
“As Richard Russell always said, “inflate or die!””
Home Prices Set To Soar Amid Mortgage Refi Explosion
The Fed could not have picked a worse time to start easing (although with the election in just over a month, the “apolitical” Fed really had no choice).
As we predicted all the way back in December, the Fed would cut rates just in time for shtler/home prices and rent to start rising again…
Bill’s Commentary:
“Insanity rules?”
NATO plans for large-scale transport of wounded troops in case of Russia war
BERLIN, Sept 25 (Reuters) – NATO plans to coordinate the transport of a large number of wounded troops away from front lines in case of a war with Russia, potentially via hospital trains as air evacuations may not be feasible, according to a senior general.
The future scenario for medical evacuations will differ from allies’ experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, the head of NATO’s logistics command, told Reuters in an interview.
Bill’s Commentary:
“Michael Oliver is not one to throw crazy predictions out there. I can certainly see from a fundamental standpoint how the metals go vertical (currencies crash) from here. I will only add my two cents here …BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!”
Bill’s Commentary:
“What’s in your wallet? Hopefully not paper and credit?”
Reports Of BRICS Moving Forward With Gold-backed ‘Unit’ Currency
We’ve been hearing rumblings of the possibility of the BRICS creating an alternative payment currency that may involve gold ever since Russia was kicked out of the SWIFT system in 2022. But in May of 2024, journalist Pepe Escobar reported that the BRICS nations are now advancing their plan, which is based on a partially gold-backed settlement currency called the Unit. The BRICS Business Council has already endorsed the Unit, a proposal that as currently constituted would include a 40% backing of gold and a 60% backing of BRICS+ currencies.In his report Escobar explains the significance of the development:”And now comes the clincher: the Unit has already received backing by the BRICS Business Council and is on the agenda at the crucial ministerial meeting in Russia (which occurred in July), which will work out the road map for the summit next October in Kazan. That means the Unit has all it takes to be on the table as a serious subject discussed by BRICS+ and eventually be adopted as early as in 2025.”Sergey Glazyev, a prominent member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), has also voiced his support of the Unit model. He describes it as an academically sound and technologically innovative solution that complements the existing banking infrastructure. And he emphasized the legitimacy of the Unit under a UN institution, and for its role as a decentralized global trade currency anchored in physical gold and BRICS+ currencies.”I have been following the development of Unit for more than a year and can confirm that Unit offers a very timely, feasible solution. Launching it under the auspices of a UN institution gives Unit legitimacy, which the current Bretton Woods framework is clearly lacking. Recent actions by the US administration and loud silence from IMF clearly indicate the need for change. A decentralized approach to emission of potential global trade currency, whose intrinsic value is anchored in physical gold and BRICS+ currencies, makes Unit the most promising of several approaches being considered. It balances political priorities of all participants, while helping each sovereign economy develop along its optimal path. The New Development Bank (NDB) and BRICS+ shall embrace the concept of Unit and help it to become the pinnacle of the new emerging global financial infrastructure, free from malign political interferences while focused instead on fair trade and sustainable economic growth.”As the plan has developed, Escobar talks about how the emphasis has now shifted to increasing the public awareness of the new proposed system.“As it stands, the priority for the Unit conceptualizers – whom I followed for over a year during several, detailed meetings in Moscow – is to inform the general public about the new system.”He also highlights another crucial aspect of the Unit and its potential impact on commodity pricing:“The Unit can also help to upend unfair pricing in commodity trading, by means of setting up a new – fair and efficient – Eurasian Mercantile Exchange where trading and settlement can be done in a new currency bridging trade flows and capital, thus paving the way to the development of new financial products for foreign direct investment (FDI).”In July of this year Escobar provided another update that highlighted how Russian President Vladimir Putin has also been briefed on the plan.“Putin had a special meeting with Dilma Rousseff, president of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB). They did talk in detail about the bank’s development – and most of all, as later confirmed by Rousseff, about The Unit, whose lineaments were first revealed exclusively by Sputnik: an apolitical, transactional form of cross-border payments, anchored in gold (40%) and BRICS+ currencies (60%).”To say it’s a done deal would be premature. Although in addition to Escobar’s reports, there’s been increasing confirmation that the Unit is indeed being discussed, including a report from TASS Russian news agency earlier this month that the Unit is on the agenda for the meeting in October.Escobar also released his latest piece today titled Will a BRICS Bretton Woods Take Place in Kazan?, which includes commentary from Russian analysts who have been following the progression of the Unit. Which I personally found insightful to get a more full picture of how the news is being perceived in the east.We’ve heard rumblings about some sort of gold involvement in the monetary system ever since Russia was kicked out of the SWIFT system. And as we approach the BRICS meeting in Kazan next month, we could be getting closer to finding out more about where those plans officially stand.The latest from USA Watchdog –
-
Bill’s Commentary:
“Because it’s the right thing to do? In what world do we live?”
Indiana judge rules prison must provide transgender surgery for inmate who killed baby
A federal judge has ruled that it would be unconstitutional for an Indiana prison to deny a transgender inmate sex reassignment surgery following the inmate’s lawsuit against the facility.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Indiana Department of Corrections last year on behalf of a transgender inmate, Jonathan C. Richardson, also known as Autumn Cordellionè, who was convicted of strangling his 11-month-old stepdaughter to death in 2001.
Indiana law, however, prohibits the Department of Corrections from using taxpayer dollars to fund sex reassignment surgeries for inmates. However, the ACLU argues in the lawsuit, filed on Aug. 28, 2023, that the law is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Bill’s Commentary:
“Nomi Prins on gold”
5 Flashpoints for Gold
During my career on Wall Street, I saw that the best analysts were the ones who understood emerging risks, acknowledged their complexities, and were primed in advance to navigate them.
For investors, that means avoiding volatility when possible and being patient. For businesses, it could mean understanding external impacts ranging from supply chain disruptions to new tariffs. For those on Main Street, it means being on the lookout for economic problems and preparing for a rainy day.
Bill’s Commentary:
“This is what is meant when you hear “we don’t need no stinkin’ economy as long as we have the Dow Jones”…”
So the Economy Now Depends on Stocks Which Depend on Front-Running the Fed–And This Is Fine?
So the entire economy depends on the stock market going up as punters front-run the Fed–and this is not only fine, it’s optimal, the best arrangement the world has ever seen. On which ethereal plane is this considered sane, much less optimal?
That the real-world economy–a neofeudal confection featuring a parasitic, predatory Nobility vacuuming up virtually all the gains of the Everything Bubble while the bottom 80% stumble along in debt-serfdom, resigned to serving the top 10% who own 90% of the assets bubbling higher–is teetering on the precipice, clinging to the wealth effect of soaring assets, courtesy of the Federal Reserve, for its lifeline is, well, insane.
Speaking of gaslighting–how many people do you know who call this arrangement by its real name, neofeudalism? No one? How many people are trembling with excitement because every time the Fed cut rates at or near the all-time highs in the stock market, stocks were higher the next year–20 times out of 20? Hundreds? Thousands? A great multitude to be sure.
Bill’s Commentary:
“Umm, didn’t she get less than 40% of the Teamsters vote? It’s not like she got 60% and got snubbed, she just plain lost…”
Kamala’s Husband is Lashing Out at The Teamsters for Refusing to Endorse Her
Doug Emhoff, the Second Gentleman and husband to Vice President Kamala Harris, is lashing out at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union for refusing to endorse his wife’s 2024 Democratic Party presidential campaign. Despite rank-and-file members of the Teamsters overwhelmingly backing former President Donald J. Trump, according to the union’s internal polling, Emhoff believes the labor organization should still have thrown its support to his wife.
“Even though Trump, you know, bullied the leaders of the Teamsters to not do an endorsement, the Teamster locals are all endorsing her, including right here in Pennsylvania,” Emhoff claimed at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Sunday. A corporate and entertainment industry litigator whose past clients include the aggressively anti-union Walmart Inc., he added: “These Teamsters are not going to listen to some guy in D.C. who does not have the courage to stand up to Donald Trump, right? Can’t have that.”
Bill’s Commentary:
“This is so bad on so many levels, but dare I say not surprising?”
US Navy Oiler Runs Aground, Forcing Carrier Strike Group to Scramble for Fuel
by John Konrad – gCaptain has received multiple reports that the US Navy oiler USNS Big Horn ran aground yesterday and partially flooded off the coast of Oman, leaving the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group without its primary fuel source.
First reported on the gCaptain forum and by maritime historian Sal Mercogliano, a leaked video and photos show damage to the ship’s rudder post and water flooding into a mechanical space. US Navy vessels don’t typically transmit AIS signals, so we don’t know the exact location of the ship but a Navy source confirms she is anchored near Oman awaiting a full damage assessment.
Fortunately, no injuries or environmental damage have been reported for the ship. This is significant because the 33-year-old vessel is one of the single-hull versions of the Kaiser-class oilers.
Bill’s Commentary:
“As Jim used to say, “if you can’t catch it, you can’t kill it!””
A wilderness of mirrors: The Hegemon’s Last War
By Pepe Escobar on 24 September 2024
Andrei Martyanov has carved for himself a unique, haloed place when it comes to deep critical thinking of all matters of war and peace.In his previous books, in his blog Reminiscence of the Future and in countless podcasts, he has become the go-to source when it comes to the inner workings of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine as well as The Big Picture of the proxy war between the U.S. and its collective West minions against Russia.Naturally every new book by this delightful human being with a biting sense of humor is something to cherish – and this one, America’s Final War, the fourth in a series, should be seen as the crowning achievement in his carefully detailed analysis of a real revolution in military affairs that has completely bypassed the “indispensable nation.”Right off the bat, Martyanov addresses Russophobia – and how this overwhelming, Western-wide pathology “of a much larger scale than mere geopolitical contradictions between nations and states” is “taking on a metaphysical dimension, rising from its racial, religious, and cultural components”.Russophobia has only been exacerbated by unpleasant facts on the ground concerning the “Real Revolution in Military Affairs”: a true “paradigm shift” in warfare.Already in the preface, Martyanov outlines the state of things as we speak, or what I have recently defined as a War OF Terror:“The current U.S. economy and military will not be able to fight Russia conventionally; it would face defeat if it tried. So, the United States and combined West have resorted to terrorism”.Add to it that concerning the ongoing proxy clashes, “NATO is incapable of fighting a real war of the 21st century”. And even the U.S.’s “shortly to be overcome superiority in satellite constellations and NATO’s ability to fly with impunity in the international air space over Black Sea counts for little in real war, in which NATO would be made blind and its Command and Control disrupted.”“The best strategic assessment apparatus in the world”Martyanov engages in a necessary rewind to the situation pre- SMO, in late 2021, when the AFU was massing on the borders of Donetsk and Lugansk: “In a last-ditch attempt to avoid military confrontation with what at that time amounted to the best U.S. (and West) proxy force in history – trained and equipped with many critical C4 elements” – Russia presented the U.S. on December 15, 2021 with what Martyanov describes as a “diplomatic euphemism for demands” on Washington on mutual security guarantees: that was the notorious “indivisibility of security” proposal for Europe and the post-Soviet space.Martyanov is correct in evaluating that this was not exactly groundbreaking; it was “a reiteration of the same points which Russia had insisted upon since the 1990s”. The crucial point was of course non-expansion of NATO, specifically applied to Ukraine, “which since 2013 was becoming in effect NATO’s forward operational base.”That was Putin’s diplomatic gambit to prevent war. After all Russia’s political-military establishment had seen which way the dogs of war were barking, and were able to forecast “based on the superb intelligence and arguably the best strategic assessment apparatus in the world – the Russian General Staff, Service of Foreign Intelligence (SVR), FSB and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”Moving on down the road, what is now developing in the black soil of Novorossiya – NATO’s impeding humiliation – could not have possibly be understood as “the captains of the combined West” are essentially uber-incompetent: “Western academic and analytic institutions” not only are “not designed” to think strategically in terms of global balance of power and matters of war and peace but clueless on “Statecraft as Art of Governance and Military Art”.Russia, in contrast, applied creative governance that “manifested itself as an art”, not least through “forecasting and forestalling” NATO’s moves, “but specially so in the military and economic preparation” for the clash, “including through the process of constant adaptation to changing external and internal conditions”. Let’s call it a military art counterpart to the geoconomic intuition by Deng Xiaoping of “crossing the river while feeling the stones”.Martyanov characterizes the proxy war in Ukraine as a Stupidistan spectacular: “Considering a mediocre at best, at worst non-existent military-engineering background of the most influential actors in Biden’s administration, the difference between starting a war in Vietnam or Iraq, and starting a war on Russia’s threshold (…) was lost on them” – as they failed to realize that “Russia was a military superpower with an extremely advanced ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) complex”.Martyanov correctly dates the dramatic “descent” of the U.S. “from the pedestal of self-proclaimed military hegemony” to the sabotaging of the April 2022 Istanbul agreement – which was on the verge of being signed – when Boris Johnson, “a major in classics from Oxford and a clownish figure with zero grasp of military art, let alone science”, botched it on the orders of the Biden combo.Going HypersonicA highlight of the book is when Martyanov registers the American bewilderment when it comes to high supersonic missiles such as the Kh-32 and especially the hypersonic, Mach-10, Mr. Khinzal – as he had been warning for years in his books and blog that Hypersonic Russia “would render any NATO’s air defenses useless in any serious conflict”.Cue, for instance, to 2018 when he outlined that “Khinzal’s astonishing range of 2,000 kilometers makes the carriers of such missile, MiG-31K and TU-22M3M aircraft, invulnerable to the only defense a U.S. Carrier Battle Group, a main pillar of U.S. naval power, can mount.”As the SMO developed, “Russia dramatically ramped up production across the whole spectrum of its missile arsenal”: from the RS-28 Sarmat, which carries the strategic hypersonic Avangard, to “tactical-operational Iskanders, P-800 Oniks, hypersonic 3M22 Zircons, 3M14(M) ship and submarine cruise missiles”, and of course Mr. Khinzal himself.For NATO’s ISR complex things can only get worse, because the Khinzal is now carried by Su-34 fighter bombers, “which makes the work of identifying which ones are Khinzal carriers very difficult and leaves no time for warning”.A crucial theme in the book is the relationship between the Hegemon and war: “The U.S. is not just an expeditionary military, it is also imperial military which fights imperial wars of conquest and doesn’t address the concept of defense of a Mother – or Fatherland in its strategic and operational documents”.The conclusion is stark: “Thus it cannot fight a real conventional combined war of scale against a peer or better-than-peer opponent who fights in defense of their own country.”Implicit in this concise explanation of the U.S./NATO debacle in Novorossiya is the disproportionate power of the U.S. industrial-military complex: “The U.S. military doesn’t fight in defense of America, it fights for imperial conquests only. Russian soldiers fight in defense of their homeland.”U.S. conventional military supremacy: a bluffMartyanov once again details how a real revolution in military affairs is already taking place. From facts on the sea like the ominous Poseidon submarine – “capable to not only devastate shores but hunt down any carrier battle group with impunity” – to the immense gap in “capacity of tools of destruction” between Russia and NATO, complete with “the operational concepts that gave birth to these weapons systems.”On the inescapable face-off between Russia and the combined West, led by the U.S., Martyanov hits the heart of the matter. It is already global, and “spreads into all domains from the world ocean to space, and encompasses not just military but also related economic, financial and industrial capacities.”And that, crucially, was the initial operating framework of the SMO. Yet now it’s all evolving into a toxic mix of counter-terror operation and Hot War, potentially more lethal than Cold War 2.0.At this point in the book, Martyanov goes for the kill, asserting that as facts develop, “the much-propagandized U.S. conventional military supremacy is nothing but a bluff.”The Hegemon cannot “fight a peer or better than peer opponent and win such a fight”. Apart from an absolute freak out among Brzezinski epigones, one can imagine the desperation among the handful of neo-cons equipped to understand at least a simple mathematical equation.The only auspicious angle in all this turmoil is the apparent unwillingness by the War Party in the U.S. to “enter into open confrontation with Russia.” Yet what remains is as ghastly as a Hot War: the hybrid War OF Terror – as illustrated by the green light for Kiev to indiscriminately attack civilians inside the Russian Federation.As the book comes to a close, it would have to inevitably circle back to Russophobia: “Russia’s military record is telling – it has consistently defeated the best the West could throw at it when it mattered.” That’s a source of envy mixed with fear. Moreover, Russia remained Orthodox Christian, which only adds to the unmitigated hatred displayed by collective West elites.Martyanov comes up with a precious, concise formulation: “Especially after Trotsky has been exorcised by Stalin”, Russia ended up evolving into “a society with primarily conservative values”, very much derived from Orthodox Christianism, which crucially is part of a “non-Crusader historical ethos”.Whatever happens next, Russophobia simply won’t get erased from the Anglo-American “elite” worldview: “Russia in the form of the Soviet Union defeated the best West’s military force in history and a simple fact of the West’s efforts to rewrite this history by claiming the victory as theirs without acknowledgment of the USSR’s greater role reveals not only an ideological agenda and shoddy scholarship, but a deep lasting trauma.”The trauma persists and now has metastasized into a New Dementia Cycle – exemplified by the current War OF Terror and NATO’s plans to actually attempt an Operation Barbarrossa remix by 2030, all that while NATO’s “geopolitical humiliation remains a secret only for the most unsophisticated strata of the Western public.”That’s a diplomatic way of characterizing the relentless brainwashing and imbecilization of the post-modernist, post-Christian collective West.In Roman Empire days, Latins were able to turn something into a wasteland and declare victory. Martyanov’s chronicle of the fate of contemporary Empire turns Tacitus upside down: before they will be able to turn everything into a wasteland, a counterpower will inflict them inexorable defeat. -
Bill’s Commentary:
“Treason from within…”
West Point grad who wrote ‘Communism will Win’ under military cap is now a Ph.D. candidate at UT Austin
A West Point graduate who first made headlines for his “Communism will win” message written in his uniform cap is now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) studying “Modern Arab intellectual history.”
In 2017, Spenser Rapone displayed various Marxist messages, such as wearing a Che Guevara shirt beneath his official West Point uniform and posting “#VeteransForKaepernick” on social media.
Bill’s Commentary:
“And you wonder why we live in retard world?”
Bill’s Commentary:
“Filed under the category FULL OF SHIT!”
FBI stats show murder dropped 11.6%, the largest single year decline in the last 20 years
Crime, including serious violent incidents like murder and rape, dropped nationally from 2022 to 2023, according to new data released by the FBI on Monday.
Violent crime was down about 3% from 2022 to 2023 and property crime took a similar drop of 2.4%, the FBI reported in its annual “Summary of Crime in the Nation.” The most serious crimes went down significantly: Murder and non-negligent manslaughter were down an estimated 11.6% — the largest single year decline in two decades — while rape decreased by an estimated 9.4%.
Preliminary numbers showed that 2024 crime numbers were also dropping for the early part of this year, continuing a trend of crime easing as America has come out of the pandemic.
-
Bill is interviewed by USA Watchdog – (Also posted under Interviews)
Bill’s Commentary:
“I think many of us feel like Erik…”
The latest from Erik –
Bill’s Commentary:
“It is called “the flu”!”
There Never Was a “New Corona Virus”, There Never Was a Pandemic
On September 22-23, 2024, a special session of the UN General Assembly envisages the adoption of a project entitled “the World of The Future”.
The project consists of a package of “Global Digitization” to be adopted by the United Nations 190+ Member States.
This “fully digitized world of the future” is an enslavement package on behalf of Big Tech and Big Money, namely the financial establishment.
“A global digital pact is to be adopted, which has already been negotiated in almost complete secrecy in the absence of the public and parliaments. If you put aside the empty words in which the Global Digital Compact has been wrapped, you see an agreement to force everyone into a world controlled by digital corporations.”
Bill’s Commentary:
“CNN reports this? To be continued!”
Sunken superyacht believed to contain watertight safes with sensitive intelligence data
Specialist divers surveying the wreckage of the $40 million superyacht that sank off Sicily in August, killing seven people including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, have asked for heightened security to guard the vessel, over concerns that sensitive data locked in its safes may interest foreign governments, multiple sources told CNN.
Italian Prosecutors who have opened up a criminal probe into multiple charges of manslaughter and negligent shipwreck think the 56-meter (184-foot) yacht, the Bayesian, may contain highly sensitive data tied to a number of Western intelligence services, four sources familiar with the investigation and salvage operation said.
Lynch was associated with British, American and other intelligence services through his various companies, including the cyber security company he founded, Darktrace.
-
Bill’s Commentary:
“The timeline between bullshit and truth has been getting shorter and shorter. In this particular case, it’s taken only 10 days. Sadly, it is not science fiction, it is becoming real and everyday life in Murica…”
Bill’s Commentary:
“OK, so China must print like crazy. And this does what to global inflation of commodities/gold and silver? For those of you who bought gold and silver for a “trade,” maybe rethinking your desire to “take a profit” is in order?”
Time For China To Turn On The Printing Press
Summary
- Chinese money supply leads imports ~10 months
- M1 Supply y/y growth weakest/sharpest drop in decades
- Suggests 20% collapse in imports
Red Flag for Red China
The advantage of tracking container volumes is that we can bypass inflation and price distortions.
Simply put, on a container volume basis, Chinese imports are struggling: -7% y/y. Container throughput has fallen 20% in the last 2 years.
Bill’s Commentary:
“This is good stuff if you are an illegal. You come here illegally for free shit… and then get to legally vote for more free shit!”
Arizona Supreme Court Rules 98,000 People Without Confirmed Citizenship Documents Can Vote
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on Friday that nearly 98,000 people whose citizenship documents could not be confirmed will be allowed to vote.
The case emerged after the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office uncovered a database error that for two decades mistakenly designated over 90,000 voters as having access to the full ballot. The error is connected with a state law that requires voters to provide documented proof of citizenship.
Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Stephen Richer, the Republican Maricopa County recorder, had disagreed on what status the voters fall under.
Richer asked the high court to weigh in, claiming Fontes ignored state law by advising county officials to allow the affected voters to cast full ballots.
-
Bill’s latest interview with CapitalCosm (Also posted under Interviews)
Bill’s Commentary:
“It does not matter who you vote for, it only matters who counts the votes!”
LIVE ON CNN, CONSPIRACY DAY NOVEMBER 3, 2020,
IT expert, after gaining access to a forensic image of the Dominion Rigging Management System in Mesa County Colorado, demonstrates how your government was overthrown on Nov 3, 2020
How Trump votes were switched to Joe Biden in seconds by simply changing the index number. And without a trace.
Bill’s Commentary:
“Do you think it really matters to our enemies whether they are kicking the asses of a white led foe or a foe led by “diverse” incompetents? One last question, do you think this might be a plan to hollow out and cripple our military?”
EXCLUSIVE: New Docs Shed Light On Air Force’s ‘Goal’ To Reduce ‘White Male Population’ Joining Officer Ranks
The Air Force finally handed over a trove of documents pertaining to its sweeping “goal” of reducing the number of white male applicants in a popular officer program after spending months stonewalling requests for their release.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C.Q. Brown — at the time the highest-ranking member of the Air Force — issued a memorandum in 2022 that the branch was updating its racial and gender demographic goals for applicants seeking to become officers, in a bid to prioritize “diversity and inclusion.” Internal documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation include a slideshow from 2022 where the Air Force outlines racial and gender quotas and details how it hopes to “achieve” a reduced number of white males in its Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) officer’s applicant program.
Bill’s Commentary:
“More DeDollarization …”
Turkey’s top diplomat confirms Ankara seeks to join BRICS
ANKARA, September 19. /TASS/. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed on Thursday that Ankara is willing to join BRICS but said that the republic doesn’t have enough information regarding institutional development at the grouping.
“Amid the ongoing diversification globally, we are certainly considering various options as regards trade and economic cooperation. BRICS now is a platform, but it is not institutionalized enough <…>. When we join BRICS, we will see how everything evolves. We are looking forward to it,” Fidan said in an interview with Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu when asked to comment on the situation around Ankara’s intentions to become a BRICS member.
-
The latest from USA Watchdog –
-
Bill’s Commentary:
“This is so bad on so many levels…”
The Foreboding UN Convention On Cybercrime
The UN committee approved the text of the Convention on Combating Cybercrime. Human rights organizations and information technology experts have called it a threat to democracy and the free world.
“One of the world’s most dangerous surveillance treaties was approved with a standing ovation,” wrote Austrian digital rights group Epicenter Works.
The UN General Assembly is now due to vote on the adoption of the Convention in September.
“It can be assumed that the treaty will be accepted without difficulty at the UN General Assembly in September, and will thus be officially considered a UN convention. After that, it will be available for signature and subsequently it can be ratified,” said political advisor Tanja Fachathalerová.
“It can be assumed that it will not be a big problem to achieve the necessary forty ratifications, which are necessary for the treaty to enter into force.”
Bill’s Commentary:
“You’ve been duped!”
The latest from Erik –
-
Pepe Escobar
From 11 September to 7 October: The fake ‘War on Terror’ collapses
The events of 11 September 2001 were intended to impose and enshrine a new Exceptionalist paradigm on the young 21st century. History, though, ruled otherwise.
Cast as an attack on the US Homeland, 11 September 2001, immediately generated the Global War on Terror (GWOT), launched at 11 pm on the same day. Initially christened “The Long War” by the Pentagon, the term was later sanitized by the administration of Barack Obama as “Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).”
The US-manufactured War on Terror spent a notoriously un-trackable eight trillion dollars defeating a phantom enemy, killed over half a million people – overwhelmingly Muslims – and branched out into illegal wars against seven Muslim-majority states. All of this was relentlessly justified on “humanitarian grounds” and allegedly supported by the “international community” – before that term, too, was renamed as the “rules-based international order.”
Bill’s Commentary:
“Has Tucker been watching my interviews on the sly since last November? Wait until he uses the phrase “Mad Max.” Then I will really become “mainstream”!”
“Throw Society Into Chaos” – Tucker Outlines Dem Plan As Harris ‘Honeymoon’ Fades
Tucker Carlson said the quiet part out loud in a brief comment last last week. Uncomfortable truths about the “party of democracy”…
“If they think that there’s a chance that Trump could win decisively enough in November that they can’t steal it, then I think their only option there is to in some way throw the society into chaos as they did during COVID which was the pretext for changing the way we vote and letting people vote anonymously without IDs and drop boxes and a month before the election.”
We all know what happened then (and we, the people, acquiesced so quickly):
-
The latest from USA Watchdog –
Bill’s Commentary:
“Erik on the dreadful prospects of the election.”
The latest from Erik –
Bill’s Commentary:“Why “secret”?”
Saudi Central Bank Caught Secretly Buying 160 Tonnes Of Gold In Switzerland
The Saudis have joined other Asian countries in ditching their long-term sensitivity to the gold price. Evidence suggests the Saudi central bank has been covertly buying 160 tonnes of gold in Switzerland since early 2022, contributing to the current gold bull market.
Until recently, Saudi Arabia’s gold demand would decline when the gold price went up and strengthen when the price went south. This dampened volatility in the gold market, which for many decades was ruled by the West.
Ever since the West immobilized Russia’s dollar assets in February 2022, those with diplomatic disagreements with the West are increasingly exchanging their dollars for physical gold. Saudi Arabia is the latest country—after China and Thailand—of which I have found cross-border trade statistics showing it has shifted from being price sensitive to a price driver.
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
BillHolter.com 