TV News from Eastern Europe

 

TV News from Eastern Europe

 For many years, I have been using a Linux set top box and two IPTV services for which I pay 60 euros per year each, to receive TV broadcasts from all over the world, including U.S. and British premium channels and Pay Per View.  I subscribe to Spectrum for normal paid service with DVR, et al, and use the IPTV box as an experimental setup.

 Long story short, in times of international crisis, like Russia’s recent attack on Ukraine, I can access TV news directly from the country(s) affected.  I still understand a fair bit of Polish, and can follow Russian and Ukrainian spoken context from similarity of these Slavic languages to Polish.  The Polish news chyrons are in normal Latin script, but Russian and Ukrainian chyrons are in Cyrillic script, which I have pretty much learned, but to which I have to sound out the words like a first-grader.

 I’ve been watching TV in the original languages of all three countries.  The Russian news, of course, supports Putin and his aggression.  I receive one news channel from Ukraine, and you can imagine its focus.  The Polish news concentrates on the humanitarian crisis that has developed on the border of Poland and Ukraine in Southeastern Poland, where my Polish ancestors are originally from, and where I’m sure that I have many relatives that I have never met. There is an outpouring of support for Ukraine and condemnation of Putin and Russia by the Poles.  Blue and yellow Ukrainian flag pins are everywhere on Polish lapels.

 Since Putin did not stop with Eastern Ukraine, and chose to invade the whole, massive country of Ukraine, with 45 million people, there is a real fear in Poland, and particularly in the three Baltic states, that Putin may invade them next, NATO or no NATO.  Putin is pissed off that his vaunted Russian military is having such a difficult time with the Ukrainian Cossacks, and he still considers the idiot in chief in Washington, and the west in general,  as extremely weak.  Also, the strong real sanctions being imposed against Putin by most of the countries in the world have made him a pariah and isolated him even further than his paranoic self-imposed isolation.

 Ray Gruszecki

March 1, 2022

Ukraine, Russia and the World

 

Ukraine, Russia and the World

 If it were not for the doddering old fool in the White House and his clueless, ”woke” advisors, Ukraine would be in the EU and in NATO, and we would not be seeing the first major land war in Europe since World War II.

 We would also be seeing an economically stable law-abiding U.S. with a viable southern border, but that’s another story.  Suffice it to say, this is what we get when we are convinced by a corrupt and dishonest news media and their big tech accomplices, to vote against someone’s personality, rather than acknowledging the stability of the country.  Some wise observer said, “this is what you get when you elect a president by mail order”.

 Contrast the idiot in the White House with a real leader, President Zelensky of Ukraine.  When the U.S. offered to evacuate him, he replied, “I don’t need a ride.  I need more ammo”.  You have to love the guy.

 We need to pray for the innocent and hapless civilians of warring countries, whose politicians led them there.  Upwards of one million people are fleeing Ukraine, mostly into southeastern Poland, from where my mother and paternal grandfather emigrated in the early 20^th century.  I should have numerous relatives there, but I don’t know any of them.  I trust that these relatives are among those offering help and succor to the Ukrainian refugees.  Polish TV shows people wearing the blue and yellow flag of Ukraine and a lot of support of Ukraine and condemnation of Putin.

 When I was in Russia in September of 2017, Putin had an approval rating of 80%.  This coincides with Russian polling that shows that he has averaged 79% approval for the past 20 years.  Russian polls also show that Putin’s approval increased from 61% to 69% when he invaded Ukraine.  The 61% was because of Russia’s poor economy, the effects of Covid and other economic factors.  Experts feel that Putin’s approval will decrease as Russia gets dragged into a Ukrainian guerilla war, which seems increasingly likely

 It seems that the Ukrainians take their heritage seriously.  Many Ukrainians are descended from Scythians, and then Cossacks, both fierce fighters tracking back to Genghis Khan and the Mongols.  They are led by Zelensky, who is Jewish, and apparently cut from the same cloth as Moshe Dayan and other members of the fighting Israeli Haganah.

 The heritage and resolve of the Ukrainians were apparently overlooked by Putin, that maven of KGB intelligence.  He also seems to have forgotten the million or so Ukrainians who occupied Maidan Square in Kyiv in 2013-14, and effected the overthrow of the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Yanukovych and his exile to Russia.

 One would have also thought that Putin would have taken a lesson from the Soviets’ ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan in 1979-89, where the Russians also fought an opponent fighting on their home turf.

 Putin apparently looked at Ukraine president Zelensky, whose background was an actor and comedian, at weak-kneed, senile old buffoon, Joe Biden, and at new German SDU Chancellor Scholz, and expected easy pickings.  A four-pronged attack seemed a bit of overkill and signaled a logistical challenge, but I guess that Putin wanted to show off his newly reorganized, modern, military.

 Realistically, if Russia chose to consolidate their hold on Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region, and perhaps a stronger hold on Crimea, they would have already achieved these goals.  Attacking and taking on the whole of the second largest country in Europe in area (after themselves), with a population of some 45 million people, seems to be a bit excessive, and that is proving to be the case.

 More to the point is the strategic importance of Ukraine as the southern buffer for Russia against the west.  Finland serves this purpose in the North and Belorussia in the center.  A pro-Russian, non-NATO Ukraine is needed by Putin in the southern part of Russia.  To be noted is that Estonia and Latvia have direct borders with Russia proper, and Lithuania borders Kaliningrad, the little piece of Russia on the Baltic Sea.  When I was in the Baltics in 2017, all three countries expressed fear even back then, and even though they are members of the EU and NATO, that Putin would make a move to reabsorb them back into Russia.

 Historical reasons for Putin’s designs on Ukraine are that Ukraine is really Russian.  Kievan Rus, in ancient Ukraine was the seminal foundation of the Russian nation. (Also Belarus and Ukraine).  The Ukrainian SSR was a founding republic of the Soviet Union.  Perhaps more than other ex-Soviet republics, Ukraine was “Sovietized” by Stalin by expatriating large numbers of ethnic Russians to Ukraine.

 To Putin’s consternation, as expressed by his recent nuclear posturing and threats, Putin finds himself increasingly bogged down in Ukraine, and an international pariah in the world.  Sanctions against Putin and Russia have proven to be much more than the usual empty verbosity.  Cancelation of the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline by Germany, exclusion of Russian banks from the SWIFT clearance system and other real financial punishments by the EU (read Germany), the U.S., and others, are having a real, not only a verbal impact on Russia.

 Western Ukraine, and in fact, most of the country except the far eastern part, has expressed time and again that it is European, and wishes to be part of Europe.  Zelensky, right now, during cease-fire talks, is entreating for Ukraine to join the European Union.

 It really is time for the world to “put their money where their mouths are” NATO or no NATO, to supply Zelensky with all “ammo” he needs to repulse the Russian aggression.  Wearing symbolic blue and yellow Ukrainian flag paraphernalia is fine.  Stinger and Javelin missiles and other military equipment is better.  Let’s help free Ukraine and make them part of Europe and the west, where they want to be, and should be.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 28, 2022

Machiavelli in Eastern Europe

 

Machiavelli in Eastern Europe

 In watching the brave but hopeless defense of Ukraine by Ukrainian military and civilians, some daydreaming and fantasizing on how to help the Ukrainians is inevitable.  In order to hope to accomplish this, one needs to throw off the “good guy” mantle, and become Putin-like or Stalin-like, in other words, Machiavellian.

 Putin, Stalin, Hitler and other despots are fond of “false flag” operations when justifying invading a country.  Suppose we “false-flagged” Putin?  Since Ukraine is not a member of NATO, NATO can’t help them against the current Russian aggression.  NATO reaction forces are being positioned all around Ukraine, ready to go, but are enjoined from helping the Ukraine military against Russia because Ukraine was late in joining the club. 

 But suppose a couple of my nephews and their sons and friends in Southeastern Poland, dressed up like Russian soldiers, and started shooting up the place, to the din of “Russia attacks Poland”?  We could even have Trey Yingst of Fox News give a blow-by-blow if we alerted him.  Then, the 82nd Airborne, which is already in the area, could go into Lviv and beyond, and start mopping up the Russian attackers.

 They could quickly repatriate Zelensky to shouts of “mazel tof” and “Ukraina jeszcze nie zaginęła”. 

 Dream on.  I hope Mark Z doesn’t run to Biden with it, or he’ll be reading it off the teleprompters.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 25, 2022

Inescapable Facts

 

Inescapable Facts

 Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe by area.  It is seventh largest by population. Russia is largest in both of these categories.

 Ukraine has been an independent sovereign country, off and on, since the late 18^th century, most recently since leaving the Soviet Union In 1991. Ukraine gave up 1700 nuclear warheads in 1994, when they were given assurances by the Budapest Memorandum and by the Finland Accords that they would never be invaded.

 Ukraine was invaded by Russia yesterday, and is in the process of being conquered by the massed, modern Russian military, and then either annexed or being made, once again, a Russian satrapy or suzerainty.

 Since Ukraine is not a member of NATO, the western powers stand by helplessly, yap verbally and threaten more “sanctions”, which Putin has already factored in, and scoffs at.

 Goodbye, independent Ukraine, and possibly, “hello” Baltic states and others.  “But they are members of NATO”, you say.  “So, what is Biden or Europe gonna do about it if Putin attacks them?  More talk, and more “sanctions”, c’mon, man.  Is Biden going to put NATO Article 5 boots on the ground for little Estonia with 1.3 million people?

 

 Upon launching the attack on Ukraine, Putin warned the United States, NATO and other world leaders that attempts to intervene will be met by an immediate Russian response that "will lead you to such consequences that you have never faced in your history."

 What did he mean by that?  Was he rattling his nukes? Or his cyber? Or his energy supply to Europe?  Putin’s most potent and realistic threat is energy supply from Russia to greenie, socialist, Europe.  If the EU is too zealous with their “sanctions”, he will cut back on supplies of natural gas, shut down their electrical generation and freeze them out. As far as Europe is concerned, Putin is the modern incarnation of a 1970’s OPEC sheik.

 The EU is the largest importer of natural gas in the world, according to the Directorate-General for Energy for the EU, with the largest share of its gas coming from Russia (41%).

Germany is focusing on renewables, but the grid is not yet equipped for intermittent sources like wind and solar to completely fill the gap.  Nuclear power is the largest source of electricity in France, with a generation of 70.6% of the country's total electricity production.  Other EU countries rely heavily on Russian natural gas, as evidenced by the above 41%.

 Cyber? Russia has accomplished hackers.  Ours are better.  Retired Lt General Jack Keane is quoted as saying that the U.S. cyber capability “would make your eyes water”.

 Only a madman would go to the nuclear option.  Putin is a ruthless and unscrupulous ex KGB agent, but hardly mad.  He seems to have taken a lesson from Stalin, and like Stalin, apparently seeks to change the borders of Europe, and hence, the world order.

President Trump would have stopped this attack on Ukraine, and effectively told Putin to “shut up and sit down”.  But alas, Trump has finally been discredited by the massed mainstream media and big tech, at least until 2024, and is playing golf in Florida.

 

Ray Gruszecki

February 25, 2022

Angry Empty Words

 

Angry Empty Words

 I just watched Joe Biden’s response to Putin’s attack overnight on Ukraine.

 What a sad, fumbling, doddering old man, reading from the teleprompters and attempting to answer 3 or 4 pre-planned, prepared questions.

 Angry sounding, empty words read from a prompter, and “Sanctions”.  That’s Biden’s answer to Putin’s invasion of a sovereign, democratically elected European country in a manner reminiscent of Hitler’s 1939 attack on Poland.  Visions of Neville Chamberlain, Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland, anyone?

 Threats of additional sanctions on Russia fall on deaf ears.  Russia has already absorbed substantial western sanctions related to Putin’s annexation of Crimea and other Russian infractions of international law.

 It’s also doubtful that Germany will acquiesce to not starting up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with its promise of cheap Russian gas, or that the international financial community will ban Russian banks from using the SWIFT banking system.  Neither of these were mentioned during Biden’s speech, and he evaded a question about SWIFT, blaming resistance by European financial institutions.

 I personally observed one effect of past sanctions on Russia while I was visiting a Russian family in St Petersburg in 2017 as part of a tour.  One of the things that came up in our conversation is that some members of their family would have liked to visit Germany or England or the U.S., but they were enjoined from doing so by restrictions placed on them by sanctions placed on Russia because of their 2014 absorption of the Crimean Peninsula.  So, the Russian people were already feeling western sanctions in 2017.

 When something major like this attack by a nuclear power on a neighboring country to aggrandize more territory takes place, one has to wonder what’s really happening in the background.

 As I’ve expounded on in the past, Russia is not a great economic power, with a GDP between Mexico and Italy.  Russia has also been adversely affected by low energy prices, the Covid pandemic and past sanctions.

 Could it be that Xi Jinping and China, the world’s second largest economy (first, by some counts), will have a hand in financing Putin’s expansion into Ukraine?  This could dovetail with China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, and their own long term, world-wide expansion plans.  Putin and Xi did meet at the Olympics in Beijing earlier this month.  I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 24, 2022

Elections have consequences

 

Elections have consequences

 Elections have consequences.

 Now we have a ground war in Europe that we most certainly would not have had if President Trump and Mike Pompeo had been in charge of our foreign policy rather than poor old Joe Biden and his socialist “JV team”.  Thugs like Putin recognize strength and avoid confrontation if faced by a strong opponent.  They also recognize weakness, and take advantage of a weak opponent, as Putin is doing right now with hopeless, hapless, Joe Biden, and with Putin’s attack on Ukraine, a sovereign, democratic European country.

 Putin’s weeks of preparation, (including rattling his nukes last Saturday), and final attack yesterday?  Why, they were met with an “angry response” and threats of additional sanctions, read by Joe Biden from statements prepared for him by his minions.  To which Putin gave a gave a big middle finger, as he directed the bombing of Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, and other Ukrainian cities.  Can anyone just imagine Putin doing something like this during a Trump administration?

 Elections have consequences.

 We are reminded every time we fill up our vehicles with $100 worth of gasoline, or after a $200 trip to the supermarket, or after another dictatorial edict about ourselves or our children needing to get vaccinated or wear mind and health stifling masks.  We are also reminded when we hear about, or are exposed to criminals being immediately released back into society by incognizant, “woke” prosecutors and judges after committing heinous crimes.

 There is a litany of abuses that poor old, doddering, arrogant Joe Biden and his left-wing handlers have foisted on our country.  For example, we spend our energy on really important pursuits like renaming schools named “Washington” or “Lincoln”, and deciding which bathroom or pronoun to use.  “Doxxng” and cancel culture also takes up valuable time.

 We live with these abuses every day, and these aberrations have been represented as “normal“  by the left-wing media and big tech, to the point that they become “business as usual” to most of the ovine masses.

 Elections have consequences.

 The mainstream media and big tech have pretty much brainwashed the American public that the 2020 election was completely valid and legal.  Questions about it have been relegated to the realm of conspiracy theories. But there are still many Americans who question the legality and constitutionality of changes to election laws in the swing states.  They also question the reluctance of SCOTUS to fully rule on election rules and procedures.

 We can’t undo the election of 2020 by hypothesizing a better U.S. society and economy, and a free, democratic Ukraine.  What we can do is learn how media and big tech vilification of a president’s personal foibles can lead to a terrible election choice for president of our country,

 No more mal mots and pithy tweets from President Trump, thanks to the media’s and big tech’s slanderous attacks, censorship and billions of dollars thrown against him.  Instead, we have Biden’s socialist dystopia.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 28, 2022

Putin Stealing Pieces of Ukraine

 

Putin Stealing Pieces of Ukraine

 A little summary of history.

 In the finaldecades of its existence, the Soviet Union officially consisted of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs).

 Outside the territory of the Russian Federation, the republics were constituted mostly in lands that had formerly belonged to the Russian Empire and had been acquired by it between the 1700 Great Northern War and the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907.

 In 1944, amendments to the Soviet constitution allowed for two Soviet Republics, Ukraine and Byelorussia, (as well as the USSR as a whole) to join the United Nations General Assembly as founding members.

 All of the former Republics of the Union are now independent countries, with ten of them (all except the Baltic states, Georgia and Ukraine) being very loosely organized under the heading of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

 When the U.S.S.R. dissolved in the 1990’s, 3,200 strategic nuclear warheads remained in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus.  All of these have been deactivated and returned to Russia or scrapped.

 Ukraine held about one third of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, the third largest in the world at the time, approximately 1,700 warheads. In 1994 Ukraine agreed to give the weapons to Russia, or destroy them, and to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.  Ukraine did all that was asked of them concerning nuclear weapons.  A side note – Leonid Kravchuk, back then, and Ukraine did not control these nukes, - the codes were held by Moscow. 

 The Budapest Memorandum of 1994, included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, in return for their giving up their nuclear weapons and signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

 The security assurances of the Budapest Memorandum are now being trampled under Russian soldiers’ boots in the Crimea, and in Donetsk and Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine.  Another unconscionable betrayal of a sovereign country, met with talk, talk, talk, of sanctions, and about the sixtieth? “executive order” by the teleprompter reading Joe Biden.  Once again, the world has betrayed a relatively helpless and relatively innocent country.

 As an aside, I don’t know my relatives in Southeastern Poland, of which there should be many cousins, nephews, nieces, and such.  My mother emigrated from Nieczajna Gorna, a rural area near Dabrowa-Tarnowska, which is about 100 miles from the Ukrainian border.  My paternal grandfather came from Jaslo, some 40 miles southeast of N.G., and about 70 miles from Ukraine.  Both of these areas are just west of where the 82^nd Airborne recently placed 3,000 U.S. Troops, about 60 miles from the Ukrainian border.  

 Ukraine gave up 1,700 nuclear warheads which were on their territory in 1994, in return for security for their country as defined in the Budapest memorandum, drawing on the 1975 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Helsinki Accords and the “Helsinki Final Act” treaty. 

 Obama effectively acquiesced while Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, in violation of the Budapest Memorandum.  Obama used words like “non-binding”.  Does that raise any hackles in response to Putin’s current moves in Eastern Ukraine?  Are they also moves that are “non-binding” by the Budapest Memorandum?  Do we also throw away the provisions of the Helsinki Accords?  Putin apparently thinks so.

 It occurs to me that if President Trump were still in office, (as some say he legally should be), Ukraine would already be in NATO, and Putin would not dare go up the “unpredictable, shoot from the hip”, Trump.  Even if not, Trump would most likely have sent 50-100,000 American troops to my ancestral area in Poland, rather than a meager 3,000, and more troops to the three Baltic states, perhaps to threaten Kalingrad, the little piece of Russia that gives them direct access to the Baltic?

 It is truly sad that our weak “woke” U.S. government with puerile empty hulk Joe Biden as figurehead, is literally “giving away the farm” to thugs like Putin and Erdogan, and to the really major international players like Xi Jinping, our real, long term rival.  We need to vote the clowns out of office and elect some grown-ups.

 Ray Gruszecki

Cold February 23, 2022

Wealth Inequality

 Wealth Inequality

A recent Robert Reich quote: “The next time someone tells you wealth inequality isn’t a problem, hit them with this fact. If the world’s ten richest men lost 99.999% of their wealth, they would still be richer than 99% of the global population.”

Robert Reich terms this a “fact”. Let’s put numbers to this. References for my research are shown below.

The Forbes list of the worlds' ten wealthiest people in 2022 adds up to a total wealth for these ten individuals of $1.455 trillion ($1,455,000,000,000). The world’s population now, according to the World-o-meter is 7.927 billion people (7,927,000,000).

Losing 99.999% of their wealth would leave the above ten wealthiest individuals with 0.001%, or a total of $14,550,000. Reich is stating as a fact that this is more wealth than held by 99% of the world’s population, or 7.847,730,000 people. This would amount to less than a cent per person (actually, $0.000185 per person).

If he means that these ten people, and their remaining 0.001%, or $14,550,000 is more than any other ten people have out of the remaining billions of people, I would like to see the data. If he refers to individual people in the remaining 0.001%, I would also like to see the data.

Reich calls himself a Keynesian economist, whereas he is only an economist by partial education. Reich, and other left-wing commentators like Paul Krugman, who have achieved considerable fame, throw statements like the above around to a gullible audience that don’t stop to analyze what they are saying. Many times, these pronouncements are misleading, and only feed a left-wing narrative.

My references:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2013/09/10/robert-reichs-f-minus-in-economics-false-facts-false-theories/?sh=39d2b0e5507a

https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#3f98ad693d78

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#:~:text=World%20Population%20Clock%3A%207.9%20Billion%20People%20(2022)%20%2D%20Worldometer

Ray Gruszecki

February 21, 2022

Why is Putin Invading Ukraine?

 

Why is Putin Invading Ukraine?

 The short answer is because he can.  This may seem to be a flip answer, but it relates to the weakness of the major powers in the western world right now.  The U.S. “president” is a senile, weak, puerile, doddering, old empty hulk controlled by his left-wing advisors, who talks threats, but does nothing   Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of Germany has moved away from Angela Merkel’s relatively centrist CDU, toward the more leftist SPD, or Social Democrat Party.

 Threats of additional sanctions on Russia sort of fall on deaf ears.  Russia has already absorbed substantial western sanctions related to Putin’s annexation of Crimea and other Russian infractions of international law.  It’s doubtful that Germany will acquiesce to not starting up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with its promise of cheap Russian gas, or that the international financial community will ban Russian banks from using the SWIFT banking system.

 More to the point is the strategic importance of Ukraine as the southern buffer for Russia against the west.  Finland serves this purpose in the North and Belorussia in the center.  A pro-Russian, non-NATO Ukraine is needed by Putin in the southern part of Russia.

 Historical reasons for Putin’s designs on Ukraine are that Ukraine is really Russian.  Kievan Rus, in ancient Ukraine was the seminal foundation of the Russian nation.  The Ukrainian SSR was a founding republic of the Soviet Union.  Perhaps more than other ex-Soviet republics, Ukraine was “sovietized” by Stalin by expatriating large numbers of ethnic Russians.

 Roughly the eastern third of Ukraine is heavily Russian in nature, particularly Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts sometimes are also regarded as Eastern Ukraine.  The western part of the country is more Poland and EU oriented.

 When I visited Russia in 2017, Putin had an 80% approval rating.  This may have slipped a bit, since Russia’s economy is already suffering from western sanctions, low energy prices, Covid and other economic ills.  Many Russians resent the chaos brought by so called modern democratization, and miss the big, old, international giant Soviet Union that imposed a repressive, but well-defined stability on Russian life.  So, they back Putin’s efforts to “make Russia great again”.

 This is Putin’s chance to steal another piece of Ukraine like he did with Crimea when Obama, another weak U.S. president, was in office.  One cannot imagine Putin making these invasion moves with Trump or even one of the Bushes as U.S. President.  In fact, if Trump were President and Mike Pompeo were Secretary of State, Ukraine would probably already be in NATO, and we would not have Putin threatening it.

 Let’s put a few things in perspective.  Russia’s GDP (Official Exchange Rate) is $1.7 trillion.  In comparison, the U.S. GDP is $20 trillion, China is $16.5 trillion, Italy is $2 trillion, and Mexico is $1.3 trillion.

 In this Russian threat against Ukraine, we treat Putin’s Russia as if it were the old Soviet Union, rather than a country with the economic power somewhere between Italy and Mexico. After all, Putin has put upwards of 190,000 troops around Eastern Ukraine, and has flexed his nuclear muscles in recent tests.  Can you imagine the economic strain on an already faltering Russian economy?

 If the west allows Putin to absorb Ukraine, or the Eastern third of Ukraine, it will truly constitute the biggest coup in recent history.  It will set an example for Xi Jinping and Taiwan, for Erdogan in Turkey and the Middle East, and for every other despot in the world who has designs on their neighbors.

 Also, these despots will strike soon after Putin, while there is a weak shell of an American president, while the EU continues with their selfish, socialist policies, and while China continues its world-wide expansion.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 21, 2022

Durham’s Filing and Media Disregard

 

Durham’s Filing and Media Disregard

 This is extracted from John Durham’s filing concerning efforts by democrat operatives to frame President Trump into non-existing and now disproven collusion with Russia.  Since these actions to infiltrate the Trump servers occurred not only at Trump Tower during the presidential campaign, but also at the White House (EOP), after Trump took office, this is sedition, and a coup attempt to overthrow a sitting president.  This major effort to overthrow our government is not being covered by the dishonest mainstream media. 

  

“Tech Executive-1 tasked these researchers to mine Internet data to establish “an inference” and “narrative” tying then-candidate Trump to Russia.  In doing so, Tech Executive-1 indicated that he was seeking to please certain “VIPs,” referring to individuals at Law Firm-1 and the Clinton Campaign.

 5. The Government’s evidence at trial will also establish that among the Internet data Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited was domain name system (“DNS”) Internet traffic pertaining to (i) a particular healthcare provider, (ii) Trump Tower, (iii) Donald Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and (iv) the Executive Office of the President of the United States (“EOP”).  (Tech Executive-1’s employer, Internet Company-1, had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP.   Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP’s DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.)

 6. The Indictment further details that on February 9, 2017, the defendant provided an updated set of allegations – including the Russian Bank-1 data and additional allegations relating

to Trump – to a second agency of the U.S. government (“Agency-2”).  The Government’s evidence at trial will establish that these additional allegations relied, in part, on the purported DNS traffic that Tech Executive-1 and others had assembled pertaining to Trump Tower, Donald Trump’s New York City apartment building, the EOP., and the aforementioned healthcare provider. “

 

 This a quote from the New York Times in response to Durham’s filing:

 “Upon close inspection, these narratives are often based on a misleading presentation of the facts or outright misinformation. They also tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time — raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims. Yet Trump allies portray the news media as engaged in a cover-up if they don’t.”

 Sounds like something the old Soviet Tass would come up with.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 16, 2022

The Lying Media

 

The Lying Media

 After more than two years of the New York Times covering the “collusion of President Trump with Russia”, which polarized the country and proved to be false, for which the NYT received bogus Pulitzer Prizes, and which John Durham’s investigation is now slowly exposing, this is NYT’s commentary on the news worthiness of John Durham’s recent filings.  These filings define attempts by cyber experts paid by the democrats and Hillary Clinton, to access servers with the aim of framing Trump’s access with Russian banks.  This was not only during the 2016 presidential campaign, it was also after Trump had assumed office, so it was an attempted coup to bring down a sitting president.

 The NYT does not consider this newsworthy, and the leftist media has hardly covered it.  A little different than during the bogus Mueller Russian collusion investigation, when headlines shouted whenever Mueller or one of his band of left-wing accomplices sneezed  

  

This is a quote from the NYT:

“Upon close inspection, these narratives are often based on a misleading presentation of the facts or outright misinformation. They also tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time — raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims. Yet Trump allies portray the news media as engaged in a cover-up if they don’t.”

 This is the full article, denying and dissembling Durham’s findings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/us/politics/durham-sussmann-trump-russia.html

 Clearly there is something fundamentally wrong with a news media that spouts rhetoric and propaganda to support the left-wing of politics, and ignores or creates outright lies about the opposition.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 15, 2022

Durham, Trump, Biden

 

Durham, Trump, Biden

 Does anyone remember, particularly you voters that did not like President Trump’s pithy tweets and abrasive personality, and elevated this arrogant, senile empty vessel, Joe Biden to the presidency, how absolutely unfairly Trump was treated before the 2016 and 2020 elections, and during his four years in office?

 No one claims that President Trump was some paragon of virtue. His combative comments and tweets in response to his tormentors grated on American ears and were seized upon by a dishonest media to discredit him even further.

 The Robert Mueller investigation into President Trump’s accused “collusion" with Russia cost the taxpayers $32 million and came up empty.

 Trump cried “witch hunt” all through this ordeal, and it turned out that he was right. Even more so now that John Durham released in a filing this Saturday that the Hillary Clinton campaign hired techs to "infiltrate" Trump Tower and White House servers to establish a "narrative" to link Trump to Russia.

 Any honest observer, not turned off by President Trump’s combative defense against the leftist, mainstream media and big tech powers arrayed against him, will acknowledge that Trump was pretty much truthful and honest about most of what was happening. He may have embellished and sometimes appeared narcissistic, but basically, he was telling the truth about what was going on in the country.

 The leftists, the dishonest media, and big tech tried to tank Trump’s 2016 campaign, and man, were they chagrined when he won the presidency in spite of their slanderous attacks. They hounded him mercilessly during his four years in office. They finally succeeded in 2020 in bringing him down, by blaming Covid deaths on him, withholding news about Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop, and the Biden crime family, and contributing close to a billion dollars into left-wing candidates and causes.

 And then there were the Covid-related election aberrations and outright fraud, unconstitutional changes of state election laws, and anecdotal physical mishandling of ballots, all of which have now been relegated to “conspiracy theories” by the democrats and the anti-Trump media. Their narrative would have us believe that the protests about election aberrations on January 6, 2021, were some sort of fascist insurrection, and that all of the other cries about a stolen election were just so much right-wing propaganda.

 Getting wrapped up in Trump’s defensive comments and tweets, many voters ostensibly forgot the relatively stable country we had during President Trump’s four years in office. Contrast that with the Biden inspired dystopia that we now have after just one year of Biden and the socialist democrats. No need to enumerate the social ills. Just checkout at the grocery store and pay to fill up with gas, if you can avoid being hi-jacked by an illegal alien criminal junkie in the streets.

 

Ray Gruszecki,

 February 14, 2022

The Truckers’ Protest

 

The Truckers’ Protest

 A small group of western Canadian truckers, family members and friends, primarily using social media, decided in mid-January to launch a protest against the oppressive “woke” Trudeau government.  Truckers and supporters converged on the capital of Ottawa in a peaceful protest to get the Canadian Government to rescind the vaccine and mask mandates that they had imposed..

 This originally small protest movement has grown in size to a national movement in Canada, and has shut down a good deal of the trade between the U.S. and Canada, by choking off the bridges over which most this trade flows.  The movement has spread to other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand. A sympathetic U.S. protest is planned for early March by independent truckers in California.

 Of course, the truckers’ protests have taken on a political mien.  Strangely, the left opposes this blue-collar protest labor movement, and the right supports it.  Trudeau’s, the main stream media’s and big tech’s efforts to disparage the protests and cast them as “right wing insurrections” are falling on deaf ears by people and countries sick and tired of restrictive mandates imposed by “woke” overlords.

 With the amount of social inconvenience and disruption that the truckers are causing, it seems that Trudeau needs to lift his oppressive mandates.  He seems to have backed himself into a corner by relying on an ever less popular leftist media and big tech, and not on the people’s ever-louder voice.  Hopefully, the example is not lost on Biden’s “woke” regime.

  

These are three differing commentaries on the trucker protests in Canada.

 The National Review piece backs the blue-collar truckers as a valid response to an overbearing, liberal, “woke”, Trudeau government.

 The Wall Street Journal article is more erudite, cerebral and balanced, and while basically supporting the truckers’ protest, is more analytical about it.

 The New York Times article seems to go out of its way to reference individual and anecdotal occurrences to characterize the truckers’ movement as some illegal, right wing “insurrection”.

 https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/02/the-workers-revolution-is-here-and-the-left-hates-it/

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/freedom-convoy-canada-trucker-protest-what-11644441237?mod=article_inline

 https://www.nytimes.com/article/canada-trucker-protests.html

 Ray Gruszecki

February 11, 2022

Nikola Tesla, Scientific Genius

 

Nikola Tesla, Scientific Genius

 

I feel that Elon Musk’s choice of “Tesla” as the name of his electric car company and electrically powered cars serve as some vindication for Nicola Tesla, who invented much of the technology that we use in modern times, and who died penniless at age 86, in his hotel room, 3327 in the New Yorker hotel in 1943.

 Nikola Tesla was one of the most enigmatic characters in American science and popularity/notoriety.  It’s sad that his business acumen did not match his scientific inventiveness.

 He had eidetic memory, and spoke eight languages.  He invented radio, but Marconi stole it.  The invented alternating current, and effectively gave the patents away to George Westinghouse.  He was pioneer in x-ray technology, remote control, power transmission, and foresaw much of our modern world, including radio, TV and the internet.  He died penniless because he was such a bad businessman, was altruistic and others, like Edison took advantage of him.

 His contributions to science, some of which, like wireless power transmission, were originally disparaged, are now acknowledged. 

 The youtube link is 16 minutes long, and it has some commercial interruption, but it a pretty good thumbnail sketch of Tesla and his scientific accomplishments.  The other link is about Tesla actually inventing radio, for which Marconi got a Nobel prize.

 https://youtu.be/Ok8JDXSYw1U

 https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/articles/tesla-invented-radio-not-marconi#:~:text=Tesla%20was%20very%20good%20at,transmissions%20in%20Germany%20in%201885.

 Nicola Tesla bio  https://www.biography.com/inventor/nikola-tesla

 Ray Gruszecki

February10, 2022

Biden and Covid

 

Biden and Covid

 Who can remember Joe Biden saying, “I not going to shut down the country, I’m going to shut down Covid”.  Well, that was just another pontificating, empty, bragging, Biden lie, said for the sound bites, and not for the meaning.

 When Biden took office on January 20, 2021, we had 24,810,979 cases of Covid in the U.S., and 411,534 deaths.  This was after the world was first hit with this unknown plague, after the virtual shutdown of much of the world economy. and without any effective vaccines against the pandemic.  These numbers were bad enough, and were seized upon by the leftist democrats as an example of President Trump’s mishandling of the Covid pandemic.

 In the year since Biden’s dubious “win” of the presidency, we have had 50,745,216 more cases of Covid in the U.S., and 520,909 more deaths.  These significantly higher numbers are even though there were three effective vaccines and numerous therapeutics against the disease that were developed on President Trump’s watch, and that were being used during this ”year of Biden”.

 So, what happened?  Biden’s mismanagement of vaccinations, business and school shutdowns, and mask mandates, happened.  Rather than applying our constitutional federalist principles, Biden ran off with his illegal executive orders like a power-hungry Rooseveltian potentate.  Many in the country reacted, and resisted “mandated” vaccinations, pointless masking of school children, and other draconian measures dictated by the “woke”, oppressive Biden administration.

 So, we can add Biden’s botching of Covid to the long list of his other egregious wrongs.  Crime wave, inflation, Southern border, Afghanistan, killing our energy independence, international weakness, and on and on and on.

 Biden is indubitably the worst president since Jimmy Carter.  The difference is that Jimmy was a nice guy.  His heart was in the right place.  He was just inept.  This guy Biden is not a nice guy at all.  Biden is not only inept and incompetent, he is an arrogant, overbearing, political hack, who has been lining his and his crime family’s pockets for years, and continues to try to play our country for suckers.  We feel sorry for him because of his obvious slide into dementia.  Better that we should feel sorry for our poor country, suffering under Biden’s “woke” and incompetent yoke.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 9, 2022

Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

 

Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

 Below is a thumbnail sketch of Germany’s last two chancellors, and Germany’s two major political parties.  References to the impact of the Nord Stream 2 (NS2) are also provided.

 One point to make is that with Olaf Scholz as Chancellor, Germany has moved away from Angela Merkel and the relatively centrist CDU, toward the more leftist SPD.  This may serve to explain why Chancellor Scholz was not so supportive of Joe Biden’s contention at yesterday’s presser that he will “stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Putin invades Ukraine”.

 Articles about the impact of NS2 on various countries:

 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/what-will-the-impact-be-if-nord-stream-2-is-completed/

 https://www.swp-berlin.org/publications/products/research_papers/2017RP03_lng_wep.pdf

 https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/nord-stream-2-who-wins-who-loses/ar-AAS5sMd

 

 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a lawyer from a socialist background, and is a member of the SPD, or Social Democratic Party of Germany, or Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands.

 The SPD was founded in 1875, making it Germany's oldest political party, that has historically acted as an umbrella organization for a number of leftist movements, trade unionists, and communists.  The SPD's core issue has always been social policy.

  

Angela Dorothea Merkel, née Kasner, is an East German PhD quantum chemist who served as the chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021 as a member of the CDU, or Christian Democratic Union, or Christlich-Demokratische Union.

 The CDU was founded in 1945 as an interdenominational Christian party.  The CDU effectively succeeded the pre-war Catholic Centre Party, with many former members joining the party. The party also included politicians of other backgrounds, including liberals and conservatives. As a result, the party claims to represent "Christian-social, liberal and conservative" elements. The CDU is generally pro-European in outlook.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 8, 2022

Will Putin Attack Ukraine?

 

Will Putin Attack Ukraine?

 Putin has massed some 130,000 troops around the eastern borders of Ukraine.  What is his basis for threatening this attack?  To be honest, the real basis for Putin’s militancy is a weak, puerile Joe Biden being posed as “leader of the free world”, and the current socialist orientation of the European Union, and of Olaf Sholz and Germany, the “leaders of Europe”.

 Putin’s rationale for threatening the attack on Ukraine is that Ukraine has traditionally been a part of the old Soviet Union, and that the West should agree that Ukraine will never be a member of NATO.  Putin would probably be strategically satisfied to absorb the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine, and to extract an agreement that Ukraine never join NATO.

 But what about the crippling sanctions on Russia threatened by Biden, Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, John Kirby and others?  As with much in the Biden administration, this is so much talk, talk, talk.

 Really debilitating sanctions against Putin would be cancelling the startup and operation the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, removing Russia from the Belgian Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) banking system, and personal sanctions against Putin himself and other Russian oligarchs. 

 Does anyone think that the socialist oriented European Union, or Germany or the international banking community will impose such sanctions on Russia and Putin?  Not too much chance, unless Putin maybe invades the Baltic states and Poland, a persistent fear that I observed when visiting those countries.

 Many in the West tend to view Putin’s Russia as similar to the old Soviet Union.  Modern Russia has a GDP slightly larger than Mexico.  Putin is posturing like the old Soviet Union in creating this crisis about Ukraine, presumably aiming to extract concessions about the future of Ukraine.

 It’s particularly hypocritical how the Russian “teddy bear” cozied up to the nasty, big old Chinese dragon at the Beijing Olympic ceremonies.  Another opportunity for Xi Jinping to flex China’s considerable muscles on the world stage.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 7, 2022

Killing Over 6 Million People and Getting Away With It

 

Killing Over 6 Million People and Getting Away With It

 The weaponized Corona virus Covid-19, that escaped from the Wuhan, China biological laboratory in late 2019, has killed over 900,000 Americans, and nearly 6 million people world-wide, as of early February, 2022.

 Rather than condemning the Chinese Communist Party for this egregious crime against humanity, accident or not, the CCP is being rewarded by allowing them to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.  What kind of a twisted, reversed world do we live in?

 Dystopian novels like George Orwell’s “1984”, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” come to mind as examples.

 Orwell’s ”1984” depicts a state where daring to think differently is rewarded with torture, where people are monitored every second of the day, and where party propaganda trumps free speech and thought.  “1984” gave us “groupthink”, “newspeak, “doublethink” and other pithy epithets.  Sounds like the CCP to me.

 In Huxley’s society, emotions and individuality are conditioned out of children at a young age, and there are no lasting relationships because “everyone belongs to everyone else”.  Citizens are sorted to be of a certain class, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. The Alphas are bred to be leaders, and the Epsilons are bred to be menial labourers.  Doesn’t this sound like modern identity politics as practiced by the CCP?

 In Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”, the people in his society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive very fast and watch excessive amounts of television on wall-size sets.  Sound familiar?

 The Biden crime family have deep economic ties to communist China, and according to some accounts, have enriched themselves to the tune of multi-millions of dollars, including ten percent for the “big guy” (old Joe himself).

 President Trump imposed tariffs and other sanctions on China, but these seem to have melted away once the Bidens came to power. 

 So, the CCP just gets away with their “gain of function” research at the Wuhan lab and the escape of a deadly pandemic, and gets rewarded with the 2022 Winter Olympics, while the Bidens count their Chinese sourced millions.  Sounds like the plot of another dystopian Novel, perhaps “How the Bidens and the CCP Screwed the World”?

 Ray Gruszecki

February 7, 2022

Milk, Dairy and Such

 

Milk, Dairy and Such

 I just finished watching a documentary on milk and dairy production and consumption in modern times.

 Nearly all milk these days is pasteurized or homogenized or processed in some way.  Premiums are paid for “organic” milk (produced without growth hormone or other chemicals), and also for “raw” milk, ostensibly straight from the cow.

 I was raised in a rural area in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and the milk that I drank for 10-12 years would probably qualify these days as both “organic” and “raw”, without being called that.  No chemicals were uses of which I’m aware, and the milk came “straight from the cow”.  Milk in glass bottles with paper=tab caps were kept cool in a natural spring where we picked it up each Sunday after church.  Butter and cream and cheeses made by the farmerwere also “straight from the cow” and were handled in similar fashion.

 Cows like green apples, and in the spring of the year this was reflected in the taste of the milk, and of the cream which rises to the top portion of the milk bottle.

 I relate all of this because we just drank the milk and ate the “raw” dairy products without too much thought about bacteria and such.  I’m sure our guts were tuned to a disease resistance no longer possible with our puerile conventional dairy products.

 Later on in my teens, I worked on a dairy farm shoveling cow manure in winter, and bailing hay in summer.  My recollection is that the milking barns and machines were kept quite clean, but the farmers were not anal about it.

 Ray Gruszecki

February 3, 2022