In part 1 of this mini-series within a series (the prequel covered COVID, we’ll wrap with Gaza), I covered the post-Cold War years when Joe Biden ran point in the US Senate under the Clinton and Bush 2 administrations.
In part 2, I covered Joe’s misleadership role as Vice President up to the success of the Maidan Coup in 2014.
And this bad boy is going to finish out Biden’s term as VP, during which his portfolio included a nearly free hand in Ukraine because Obama was busy hanging out with Jay Z or some shit.
It’s too bad, because Obama seems to have been one of the few decision-makers in his administration with anything approaching a clear-eyed view of the situation.
In early 2016, Obama was quoted by The Atlantic Monthly’s Jeffrey Goldberg in a piece entitled “The Obama Doctrine”:
Obama’s theory here is simple: Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one, so Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there.
“The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-nato country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do,” (Obama) said.
I asked Obama whether his position on Ukraine was realistic or fatalistic.
“It’s realistic,” he said. “But this is an example of where we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for. And at the end of the day, there’s always going to be some ambiguity.”
…
“There is no evidence in modern American foreign policy that that’s how people respond. People respond based on what their imperatives are, and if it’s really important to somebody, and it’s not that important to us, they know that, and we know that,” (Obama) said. “There are ways to deter, but it requires you to be very clear ahead of time about what is worth going to war for and what is not. Now, if there is somebody in this town that would claim that we would consider going to war with Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, they should speak up and be very clear about it. The idea that talking tough or engaging in some military action that is tangential to that particular area is somehow going to influence the decision making of Russia or China is contrary to all the evidence we have seen over the last 50 years.”
I realize that’s chicken feed compared to the vast sums Biden would pour into the Ukrainian black hole, but it was big money in its day. Back before RussiaGate when most Americans agreed with Obama’s 2012 remark that “the 1980s called, they want their foreign policy back” in response to Mitt Romney declaring Russia “our #1 foreign policy challenge”
Despite presiding over the beginning of the Ukrainian Civil War from 2014 on, Obama’s term was seen as time wasted by true freedom-loving patriots like The Atlantic Council’s Adrian Karatnycky, who wrote the following for Foreign Policy in 2023:
Obama’s Russia policy, including his embrace of the doctrine of Kremlin escalation dominance, has continued to shape U.S. policy during the Trump and Biden administrations. Although Donald Trump behaved badly toward Ukraine by trying to enlist Kyiv in his efforts to weaken presidential rival Joe Biden, he greenlighted the shipment of Javelin anti-tank weapons in 2017 and 2019. Nonetheless, years of fierce debate merely over sending Javelins stifled discussion of other weapons needed by Ukraine, including air and missile defense, battle tanks, fighter jets, and long-range missiles. These could have made Ukraine more secure before 2022, and some of them are still not in Ukraine’s arsenal today.
To his credit, Biden advocated arming Ukraine with defensive weapons when he was vice president under Obama. But when he became president himself, Biden brought many of the architects of Obama’s timid approach to Russia back into the government. As a result of their influence, from the moment in the fall of 2021 when the U.S. government knew Putin was planning to invade to the start of the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the United States lost a crucial window in which to provide Ukraine significant new weapons and the training to use them. Instead of much-needed howitzers, tanks, multiple-launch rocket systems (such as HIMARS), and heavy ordnance, Washington doled out modest assistance enabling not much more than partisan resistance.
But that’s enough about what Biden couldn’t do as Obama’s VP; let’s look at what he and the policies he backed did do to land Ukraine and the EU in deep doo-doo.
If It’s 2014, That Must Be Crimea Seceding
There’s no way to discuss the events of 2014 without taking a bracing dip into the Black Sea waters surrounding that most strategic of peninsulas, Crimea.
Yeah, yeah, the official Western narrative is that Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine under military pressure from Putin in a patently rigged vote.
And it does seem to be true that the Crimean parliament voted 61-3 to hold the referendum after the building was taken over by unmarked troops.
But I’ve got to point out that Maidan company commander Volodymyr Parasuk bragged after the 328-0 vote in the Rada to remove Yanukovych and install the Maidan government that “our people simply came up to the Verkhovna Rada and detained the deputies, so that they would sit and work and not run off anywhere”.
This followed Parasuk’s threats from the main stage of Maidan of an armed assault on the presidential administration and the Rada that preceded Yanukovych fleeing Kyiv the night before the vote.
I’ll also quote Canadian-Ukrainian scholar Ivan Katchanovski (remember him from last time when a 2025 Ukrainian court confirmed his version of who shot who in the Maidan) who wrote about that 328-0 Rada vote (he also claims that videos of the session show about 262 deputies present for the vote):
“Many others voted under threat of violence by the far-right group of Maidan snipers, the Maidan Self-Defense, and a mob which surrounded the parliament. The commander of the far-right-linked Maidan company of snipers admitted that his group impelled, by force, deputies from the Yanukovych Party of Regions to vote for his removal.”
Do you think those numbers held following the violence in Maidan and the fall of Yanukovych, the President backed most strongly by Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine?
But, the main point to make about Crimea is that the Russian Black Sea Fleet was already there and had been since 1783.
No Russian leader, even drunk Yeltsin, would have voluntarily surrendered the country’s only warm-water port.
First Rosemont Seneca Partners partner Devon Archer got his board seat on the day Joe Biden visited Kyiv) and then three weeks later Rosemont Seneca Partner partner Hunter Biden got his. And boy did he, partner.
The Senate Republicans claimed that his significant contribution to Rosemont Seneca’s vast experience and expertise in natural gas and doing business in Ukraine brought Hunter $50,000/month, but since a lot of people are rationally skeptical of GOP committees, we’ll go with the total of $708,302 which hit Hunter’s bank account between June 2014 and October 2015 (good work if you can get it).
“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part. Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don’t believe now, when I look back on it — I know that there was — did nothing wrong at all,” Hunter Biden told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is…a swamp in — in — in many ways? Yeah.”
“I gave a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways to try to do some harm to my father. That’s where I made the mistake,” said Biden. “So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever.”
And then the brutal Robach went for the jugular:
“If your last name wasn’t Biden,” Robach asked, “do you think you would’ve been asked to be on the board of Burisma?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably not, in retrospect,” he said. “But that’s — you know — I don’t think that there’s a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn’t Biden.”
“Because my dad was vice president of the United States. There’s literally nothing, as a young man or as a full grown adult that — my father in some way hasn’t had influence over. It does not serve either one of us,” Biden continued.
Definitely not!
The disgusting part of all this otherwise totally cool, yet totally hot, natural gas action was that two totally uncool party poopers (NERDS!) crawled out of the administration and tried to object.
Deputy Secretary of State George Kent made a big hoo rah of his virtue when the (totally unfair and partisan) Senate GOP compelled him to testify:
George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, testified Tuesday that he worried that Hunter Biden’s position at the firm Burisma Holdings would complicate efforts by U.S. diplomats to convey to Ukrainian officials the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality rules surrounding the deposition.
Kent said he had concerns that Ukrainian officials would view Hunter Biden as a conduit for currying influence with his father, said the people. But when Kent raised the issue with Biden’s office, he was told the then-vice president didn’t have the “bandwidth” to deal with the issue involving his son as his other son, Beau, was battling cancer, said the people familiar with his testimony.
Apparently this Kent dude just didn’t get it: Beau had cancer! This was a difficult time!
Also State Department energy envoy Amos Hochstein also talked to the Senate committee and claimed that raised the topic of Hunter’s Burisma board seat with Biden in October 2015, and Hunter asked to see him in November.
Cannily Hochstein called out the real issue with the Vice POTUS’s son taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a shady Ukrainian company:
“we, the government, had seen increased traffic in Russian language in pro-Moscow outlets that were trying to create some kind of rift between the U.S. and Ukraine or to undermine the U.S. efforts, and that they were using Hunter Biden’s name in those articles to sow that doubt.”
Fortunately, Hunter getting his beak wet didn’t interfere with Hochstein doing his job:
“Hunter Biden’s presence on the board did not affect my day-to-day work or anybody else’s that I came in contact with… it was just something that I learned, and it was a data point.”
And what happened when Hunter invited him out to coffee in Georgetown?
“I shared with him that the Russians were using his name in order to sow disinformation.
…
It had been a tough several months on him, and I told him how worried I was about him and his father and his family.
…
(Hunter) had specifically mentioned that he had joined the board and was working on issues that were present and future, and that these were areas that had occurred in the past that he had no knowledge of.
In my conversation with Hunter Biden, I did not recommend that he leave the board… I don’t believe that was my place to have that discussion, one way or the other.
This is the kind of dildo-riffic hairsplitting nonsense we can count on Democratic administrations to deliver. Good thing someone was alert to the possibilities for Russian disinformation presented by Hunter being on the take.
And we haven’t even gotten to “the Old Man” yet.
Killing Those Pesky Investigations & Lecturing Ukraine About Corruption
We’ve drifted pretty far from dear old Mykold Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma, so let’s get back to him and some issues that certainly had nothing to do with his perceived need to throw some chum Hunter’s way enlist the insightful and expert consulting services of Rosemont Seneca Partners, via Interfax Ukraine:
In April 2014, the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) froze (the accounts of Brociti Investments Ltd of former ecology minister of Ukraine Mykola Zlochevsky in the amount of $23 million). The investigation lasted for nine months. In early December of 2013, court hearings were held, and on January 20, 2015, the official decision on the illegality of the arrest of the company’s funds was issued.
Fortunately it was all cleared up and the money was released in January 2015 and “the old man” didn’t even have to do anything.
flame of hope was reignited by thousands of brave Ukrainians, some of you in this room, storming the Maidan, demanding a Revolution of Dignity. The world was transfixed. This time they were not going to be denied the future that so many of your country have longed for, for so long.
And the world was horrified when peaceful patriots were met by violence. They stayed at the Maidan day and night, facing down the Berkut in riot gear. For the first time since the Middle Ages, the bells of St. Mary [*sic] raised the alarm, calling the citizens of Ukraine to reinforce their brothers and sisters on the Maidan. Tens of thousands heeded the call bringing with them food, clothing, blankets, medical supplies, and their support. As the world watched — and I was literally on the phone with your former President urging restraint — as the world watched, the final assault came. Amidst fire and ice, snipers on rooftops, the Heavenly Hundred paid the ultimate price of patriots the world over. Their blood and courage delivering to the Ukrainian people a second chance for freedom. Their sacrifice — to put it bluntly — is now your obligation.
Then he sprinkled in a lot of anti-Putin talk, condemned “separatist thugs” in the Donbas, quoted his dad, Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke before getting down to the lecture:
…you also have a battle, a historic battle against corruption. Ukraine cannot afford for the people to lose hope again. The only thing worse than having no hope at all is having hopes rise and see them dashed repeatedly on the shoals of corruption.
And if the people resign themselves to exploitation and corruption for fear of losing whatever little they have left, that would be the death knell for Ukrainian democracy. We’ve taken so many critical steps already. But all of you know there’s more to do to finish this race. Not enough has been done yet.
As the Prime Minister and the President heard me often say, I never tell another man or another nation or another woman what’s in their interest. But I can tell you, you cannot name me a single democracy in the world where the cancer of corruption is prevalent. You cannot name me one. They are thoroughly inconsistent. And it’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption. The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform. The judiciary should be overhauled. The energy sector needs to be competitive, ruled by market principles — not sweetheart deals. It’s not enough to push through laws to increase transparency with regard to official sources of income. Senior elected officials have to remove all conflicts between their business interest and their government responsibilities. Every other democracy in the world — that system pertains.
Oligarchs and non-oligarchs must play by the same rules. They have to pay their taxes, settle their disputes in court — not by bullying judges. That’s basic. That’s how nations succeed in the 21st century.
Corruption siphons away resources from the people. It blunts the economic growth, and it affronts the human dignity. We know that. You know that. The Ukrainian people know that. When Russia seeks to use corruption as a tool of coercion, reform isn’t just good governance, it’s self-preservation. It’s in the national security interest of the nation.
I’m desperately concerned about the backsliding on the part of Kiev in terms of corruption. They made—I mean, I’ll give you one concrete example. I was—not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t.
So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him.
(Laughter.)
I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b*tch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.
Well, there’s still—so they made some genuine substantial changes institutionally and with people. But one of the three institutions, there’s now some backsliding.
The savvy crowd at the CFR got the joke fortunately and laughs were had aplenty. Definitely nothing corrupt about a sitting US Vice-POTUS threatening to withhold a billion dollars of appropriated money to remove another country’s chief prosecutor.
Even worse than the actual snitches were the digital snitches, though.
One email sent to Biden on May 13, 2017, with the subject line “Expectations,” included details of “remuneration packages” for six people involved in an unspecified business venture.
Biden was identified as “Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC,” an apparent reference to the former Shanghai-based conglomerate CEFC China Energy Co.
His pay was pegged at “850” and the email also noted that “Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate.”
In addition, the email outlined a “provisional agreement” under which 80 percent of the “equity,” or shares in the new company, would be split equally among four people whose initials correspond to the sender and three recipients, with “H” apparently referring to Biden.
The deal also listed “10 Jim” and “10 held by H for the big guy?”
Neither Jim nor the “big guy” was identified further.
Resulting in this classic from Politico “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say” which featured the 51 former intelligence officials Morrell has rounded up signing a letter saying the laptop story has “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Brilliant, my hat is off. And it worked for a long time, until it fell apart in the end, as all lies must.
Outlet
What they published
What the outlet said later
New York Times, 14 Oct 2020
Glueck, Schmidt and Isaac: a report the social media companies “deemed so dubious that they limited access,” “based on material provided by Republican allies of President Trump”.
NYT, 16 Mar 2022: emails from the laptop cache “authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation”.
NYT, 16 Mar 2022: emails from the laptop cache “authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation”.
Sources linked in each row.
The real punchline came when Facebook and Twitter piled on. I don’t know why shitlibs find censorship so comforting- oh wait, because they’re full of shit, right. Nevermind.
“the FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma”; Facebook “temporarily demoted” the Post story; “It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.”
Sources linked in each row.
The real fun came in 2022 when The NY Post (who I normally loathe) got to run about a dozen victory laps as so many “credible outlets” had to eat crow:
And as much as I’d love to post dozens of sexy pics of Hunter snorting coke off of hooker’s asses or whatever, I’ve got to wrap this up so we’ll end with the most damning thing on the laptop.
‘Unlike Pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary’
Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.
The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.
An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf.
Hunter Biden’s access to lucrative financial opportunities also came with expectations — including kicking back as much as 50% of his earnings to his dad, text messages on his old laptop show.
“I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years,” Hunter Biden groused to daughter Naomi in January 2019. “It’s really hard. But don’t worry, unlike pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary.” Pop is Joe Biden.
The laptop — infamously abandoned at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019 — does not contain any direct evidence of such money transfers, but does show that Hunter was routinely on the hook for his father’s household expenses while Joe Biden was vice president.
Alright, next time I’ll wrap this monster up and cover the critical 2020-2024 era when the Ukraine Civil War turned into outright genocide, killing hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions.
Because it is inconceivable to American liberals that someone would prefer being a Russian citizen to being part of Ukraine, I no longer bother having that conversation with most of my friends and family.
Of course the war was entirely intentional on the part of the United States. Of course the europeans are absolutely foaming at the mouth rabid for WWIII, as long as they can keep a safe distance.
Doesn’t matter if it works. Russian dithering, indecision and incompetence, a Russian political class that wants to be liked and not feared, are what made this possible.
Similarly, yes Ukraine is fantastically, flamboyantly corrupt. I have bribed everyone from the post office and the fire department up through the Cabinet of Ministers. Corruption has only gotten worse since then.
So what? As long as the army keeps fighting, nobody cares.
One of my favorite aspects of the laptop story was the 51* intelligence agency veterans signing the Hunter Biden laptop letter, an open letter stating that the laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”.
The letter itself was classic disinformation — phrased for maximum deniability
We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.
When Politico headlined the claim the laptop was Russian disinformation, James Clapper, crying crocodile tears at being so misunderstood, complained about shoddy journalism. It didn’t stop Joe Biden citing the letter in a Debate and later in an interview on Sixty Minutes, claiming it was all a Russkie plot to get him.
The letter illustrates how the media system itself is manipulated to produce doubt and confusion and to bootstrap idle speculation into conspiracies, which are based on further idle speculation combined with a career dedication to the concept of Russia as adversary to the U.S.
On a side note, Craig Murray has a pleasant essay — a kind of travelogue narrating his recent trip to Yekaterinburg in the Russian Ural District. The trip was paid for by the Russian State and is interesting in part for the opportunity afforded the Reader to speculate on the uses Russia made of Murray. Murray offers no analysis but also doesn’t look away.
Murray has complained that this seemingly harmless essay has been severely suppressed across social media, so there is that — my reason for adding a link as I think suppression would have to do with Murray’s views on Ukraine.
None other than Kaja Kallas triumphantly announced that there is not a court in europe that will rule in favor of the Russian government on any matter, no matter what the circumstances. (To be fair, she simply said out loud what we all already know.)
So why should anyone expect media or social media to be any different?
A magnificent deep-dive covering decades, thanks so much Nat!! Awesome job.
Yes, the press all threw themselves over a cliff lying, smearing, ignoring facts right out in the open & pretending “Nothing to see here.” Not a fan of the NY Post, but that said, I always remember Malcolm X’s warning to his own community, “If you can’t tell the truth, you don’t even deserve freedom.” I love the little scrap you shared, concerning “First Rosemont Seneca Partners partner Devon Archer got his board seat . . .” Devon Archer such a brilliant name for a Deep State Bottom Feeder, I’m reminded of Sterling Archer, voiced by H. John Benjamin, an incompetent deep-state fixer/boob on the Adult Swim channel years ago.
A couple of interesting shares from bruce wilder, the first observation smart enough, the 2nd a bit weird as he often fears shady connections which aren’t actually real. E.g. claiming months back that Alex Pretti was put on an ICE Kill list, basically, for kicking out the taillight of an ICE vehicle some weeks before the killing, when the cameras showed that his execution came for unwisely showing up at a demonstration with a legal concealed-carry gun, on his back, which he never pulled nor brandished. He was killed as all could see for being a Gentleman, for picking up a random woman protester from the ground that ICE agents had thrown her down onto. Then the Killers freaked out that a Civilian had a gun and shot him 5-6x in the back (& allegedly also prevented a qualified EMT on the scene from trying to revive him.)
Craig Murray is a man of tremendous integrity who has paid a heavy price inside the UK for telling obvious truths about the Skripal False Flag Op, just as his Fellow Traveler Alaister Crook has. Between the 2 of them, the whole bizarre canard was shown to be utterly false. He’s a target for the same reason that the former Swiss NATO official Jacques Baud has been debanked and impoverished by the European Union. Having the temerity to state an obvious truth, “Russia is winning and will win the war with the Proxy Ukraine,” which is classified by Ursula and that gang as “Russian propaganda.” We can also recall that the disgraced Justin Trudeau also whined that nobody should ever in the future deplore the 2 Standing Ovations given to the former Waffen SS killer Yaroslav Hunka as to do so is “Pro-Russian propaganda.”
We Were Totally Wrong About Trump’s $5,000 Bribe Plan: Top Economist Explains
Dr. Steve Keen
Is a $5,000 dividend for every US citizen financially feasible? I use economic modeling software to test the reality of this proposal.
The proposal to provide a $5,000 dividend to every US citizen raises immediate questions about financial feasibility. Mainstream economic models often fail to account for the systemic impact of such a massive injection of liquidity, yet proponents cite legal frameworks like Amendment 25, Section 4 as a potential mechanism for implementation.
Using complex systems software, I test the validity of this US citizen payout by simulating its effects on the broader economy. This approach moves beyond simplified theories to analyze the actual fiscal policy outcomes. By applying rigorous economic modeling, we can determine whether such a payout is a viable solution or an inflationary trap.
Subscribe for weekly economic breakdowns, and let me know in the comments if you think a universal payout could actually work.
0:00 The $5,000 Promise: Fact or Fiction?
2:44 Where Does the Money Actually Come From?
5:28 Tracing the Path of a Government Bribe
10:47 The Role of Bonds and Central Bank Strategy
14:01 Why the 25th Amendment Won’t Save You
——–
Keen also reminds us that the importers pay the tariffs, which is why they are suing for a refund.
its bill clintons policies that gave us obama, and biden, then trump himself. clinton took a meat axe to america, and then biden repeated the idiots declaration that all america needed to do, was to buy stuff on the open market, instead of making it ourselves.
i remember under biden, he repeated that when he warned russia we have the most money, and can simply buy on the open market, what we need,
how did that work out for america? i wonder if the dips##ts were able to put two and two together, when they discovered they were about to run out of just about everything.
————
Bill Clinton emphasized that free trade allows the government to purchase what it needs on the open market, which is part of a broader strategy to open foreign markets and enhance economic growth. This approach was a key aspect of his administration’s trade policies, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum UC Santa Barbara
Thanks for the link Mr wilder.
Of course Craig Murray is suppressed.
He’s intelligent, articulate and experienced on the world stage rather than acting as a state stenographer stooge. Can’t have that now, can we?
Thanks Nat for your insights, artful analysis and sardonic style. Love it.
Thanks to your commentariat as well.
Yeah, sincere thanks to bruce for the link. I really enjoyed the piece, haven’t read Murray in awhile, too much happening elsewhere, but he remains brilliant, and just as importantly, fearless. Smart not to take his devices on the plane and instead rely on support from the Russian Government when in country. I donated some money to him 3-4 years back, probably due to a thorough deep dive he did into the Skripal Hoax in the UK which really opened my eyes.
The thing that most fascinated me personally was the Cult around the slaughtered (rightly, in my view; you do not leave these Parasites around to plant their fangs in you again) Royal Family. It rather stinks of having your cake and eating it too, to Canonize them as Saints, make memorials to them, but be rightly glad they are gone at the same time!! Pragmatic, nonetheless, I think Russians are a mostly pragmatic people. The 2nd most interesting data point to me was the official who got pissed at Murray and wanted to interrupt, because you’re not even supposed to mention Gaza!! This confirms that the large #s of dual Russian-Israeli Jewish passport holders are NOT sincerely troubled by the Palestinian Genocide regime, but support it.
Always reluctant to engage with Bruce since his multiple ethno-nationalist, white supremacist posts some months back, saying that Hispanics/Latinos are not an actual identity, nor are gay people– bizarre!! I only identify with the former, and now that I have been in Mexico for nearly 2 months I can respond.
I do not look like the majority of people here, I am more than a head taller than most, even 2 or more heads taller than most of the women. I’m also thin, an Ectomorph, when the Native population here are mostly Mesomorphs, fattish, given that their ancestors survived famines. (I’m 1/4 Irish, my family survived the Brit-created famines by fleeing to USA. Now I’m fleeing USA to Mexico. Gotta survive.)
Still, since I speak Spanish well enough (if imperfectly for now) I am accepted as part of La Raza. And Mexico’s a North American country, there is a whole Continent south of me that is overwhelmingly Spanish/Portuguese melded with Native Meso-Americans.
I’ve never been much of a fan of Barnes, a bit of a Glibertarian, on the other hand good on some issues of Free Speech, choice as to what pharmaceuticals one can take, not being forced by the gov’t. etc.
I lost what little respect I had for him the first 1.5 years of Trump’s 2nd term, Alex Krainer for the same reason, they both believed that DJT’s “anti-War” beliefs were sincere, moronic. Barnes predicts major losses for the formerly powerful Trump coalition, groups like Hispanics (which he knows exist) and anti-War folks and even conservatives, Wisconsin etc. bailing out on the fat, senile loser.
He has good insight into Trump’s psychology having been in the Cult, says this term he just wanted to be Ghengis Khan or Alexander the Great, is senile and lost. I think it’s credible. Interesting times indeed.
Stephen Bobb
Because it is inconceivable to American liberals that someone would prefer being a Russian citizen to being part of Ukraine, I no longer bother having that conversation with most of my friends and family.
Nat Wilson Turner
@Stephen Bobb I’m right there with you. Been basically banned from the topic with my family for years. The propaganda runs deep.
Feral Finster
Of course the war was entirely intentional on the part of the United States. Of course the europeans are absolutely foaming at the mouth rabid for WWIII, as long as they can keep a safe distance.
Doesn’t matter if it works. Russian dithering, indecision and incompetence, a Russian political class that wants to be liked and not feared, are what made this possible.
Feral Finster
Similarly, yes Ukraine is fantastically, flamboyantly corrupt. I have bribed everyone from the post office and the fire department up through the Cabinet of Ministers. Corruption has only gotten worse since then.
So what? As long as the army keeps fighting, nobody cares.
Greg
So, SNAFU right?
The same tired shit from the same fucking people. There are no innocents in international relations, they’re all bastards, just like cops.
bruce wilder
One of my favorite aspects of the laptop story was the 51* intelligence agency veterans signing the Hunter Biden laptop letter, an open letter stating that the laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”.
The letter itself was classic disinformation — phrased for maximum deniability
When Politico headlined the claim the laptop was Russian disinformation, James Clapper, crying crocodile tears at being so misunderstood, complained about shoddy journalism. It didn’t stop Joe Biden citing the letter in a Debate and later in an interview on Sixty Minutes, claiming it was all a Russkie plot to get him.
The letter illustrates how the media system itself is manipulated to produce doubt and confusion and to bootstrap idle speculation into conspiracies, which are based on further idle speculation combined with a career dedication to the concept of Russia as adversary to the U.S.
*plus 9 additional spooks whose names are secret
Nat Wilson Turner
Dammit how down leave that out? Gotta revise. Thanks!
bruce wilder
On a side note, Craig Murray has a pleasant essay — a kind of travelogue narrating his recent trip to Yekaterinburg in the Russian Ural District. The trip was paid for by the Russian State and is interesting in part for the opportunity afforded the Reader to speculate on the uses Russia made of Murray. Murray offers no analysis but also doesn’t look away.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2026/09/four-days-in-ekaterinburg/
Murray has complained that this seemingly harmless essay has been severely suppressed across social media, so there is that — my reason for adding a link as I think suppression would have to do with Murray’s views on Ukraine.
Feral Finster
@ Bruce:
None other than Kaja Kallas triumphantly announced that there is not a court in europe that will rule in favor of the Russian government on any matter, no matter what the circumstances. (To be fair, she simply said out loud what we all already know.)
So why should anyone expect media or social media to be any different?
Mark Level
A magnificent deep-dive covering decades, thanks so much Nat!! Awesome job.
Yes, the press all threw themselves over a cliff lying, smearing, ignoring facts right out in the open & pretending “Nothing to see here.” Not a fan of the NY Post, but that said, I always remember Malcolm X’s warning to his own community, “If you can’t tell the truth, you don’t even deserve freedom.” I love the little scrap you shared, concerning “First Rosemont Seneca Partners partner Devon Archer got his board seat . . .” Devon Archer such a brilliant name for a Deep State Bottom Feeder, I’m reminded of Sterling Archer, voiced by H. John Benjamin, an incompetent deep-state fixer/boob on the Adult Swim channel years ago.
A couple of interesting shares from bruce wilder, the first observation smart enough, the 2nd a bit weird as he often fears shady connections which aren’t actually real. E.g. claiming months back that Alex Pretti was put on an ICE Kill list, basically, for kicking out the taillight of an ICE vehicle some weeks before the killing, when the cameras showed that his execution came for unwisely showing up at a demonstration with a legal concealed-carry gun, on his back, which he never pulled nor brandished. He was killed as all could see for being a Gentleman, for picking up a random woman protester from the ground that ICE agents had thrown her down onto. Then the Killers freaked out that a Civilian had a gun and shot him 5-6x in the back (& allegedly also prevented a qualified EMT on the scene from trying to revive him.)
Craig Murray is a man of tremendous integrity who has paid a heavy price inside the UK for telling obvious truths about the Skripal False Flag Op, just as his Fellow Traveler Alaister Crook has. Between the 2 of them, the whole bizarre canard was shown to be utterly false. He’s a target for the same reason that the former Swiss NATO official Jacques Baud has been debanked and impoverished by the European Union. Having the temerity to state an obvious truth, “Russia is winning and will win the war with the Proxy Ukraine,” which is classified by Ursula and that gang as “Russian propaganda.” We can also recall that the disgraced Justin Trudeau also whined that nobody should ever in the future deplore the 2 Standing Ovations given to the former Waffen SS killer Yaroslav Hunka as to do so is “Pro-Russian propaganda.”
spud
should we be surprised that trump won twice, of course i was not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5pRKv-se9Y
We Were Totally Wrong About Trump’s $5,000 Bribe Plan: Top Economist Explains
Dr. Steve Keen
Is a $5,000 dividend for every US citizen financially feasible? I use economic modeling software to test the reality of this proposal.
The proposal to provide a $5,000 dividend to every US citizen raises immediate questions about financial feasibility. Mainstream economic models often fail to account for the systemic impact of such a massive injection of liquidity, yet proponents cite legal frameworks like Amendment 25, Section 4 as a potential mechanism for implementation.
Using complex systems software, I test the validity of this US citizen payout by simulating its effects on the broader economy. This approach moves beyond simplified theories to analyze the actual fiscal policy outcomes. By applying rigorous economic modeling, we can determine whether such a payout is a viable solution or an inflationary trap.
Subscribe for weekly economic breakdowns, and let me know in the comments if you think a universal payout could actually work.
0:00 The $5,000 Promise: Fact or Fiction?
2:44 Where Does the Money Actually Come From?
5:28 Tracing the Path of a Government Bribe
10:47 The Role of Bonds and Central Bank Strategy
14:01 Why the 25th Amendment Won’t Save You
——–
Keen also reminds us that the importers pay the tariffs, which is why they are suing for a refund.
its bill clintons policies that gave us obama, and biden, then trump himself. clinton took a meat axe to america, and then biden repeated the idiots declaration that all america needed to do, was to buy stuff on the open market, instead of making it ourselves.
i remember under biden, he repeated that when he warned russia we have the most money, and can simply buy on the open market, what we need,
how did that work out for america? i wonder if the dips##ts were able to put two and two together, when they discovered they were about to run out of just about everything.
————
Bill Clinton emphasized that free trade allows the government to purchase what it needs on the open market, which is part of a broader strategy to open foreign markets and enhance economic growth. This approach was a key aspect of his administration’s trade policies, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum UC Santa Barbara
mago
Thanks for the link Mr wilder.
Of course Craig Murray is suppressed.
He’s intelligent, articulate and experienced on the world stage rather than acting as a state stenographer stooge. Can’t have that now, can we?
Thanks Nat for your insights, artful analysis and sardonic style. Love it.
Thanks to your commentariat as well.
Mark Level
Yeah, sincere thanks to bruce for the link. I really enjoyed the piece, haven’t read Murray in awhile, too much happening elsewhere, but he remains brilliant, and just as importantly, fearless. Smart not to take his devices on the plane and instead rely on support from the Russian Government when in country. I donated some money to him 3-4 years back, probably due to a thorough deep dive he did into the Skripal Hoax in the UK which really opened my eyes.
The thing that most fascinated me personally was the Cult around the slaughtered (rightly, in my view; you do not leave these Parasites around to plant their fangs in you again) Royal Family. It rather stinks of having your cake and eating it too, to Canonize them as Saints, make memorials to them, but be rightly glad they are gone at the same time!! Pragmatic, nonetheless, I think Russians are a mostly pragmatic people. The 2nd most interesting data point to me was the official who got pissed at Murray and wanted to interrupt, because you’re not even supposed to mention Gaza!! This confirms that the large #s of dual Russian-Israeli Jewish passport holders are NOT sincerely troubled by the Palestinian Genocide regime, but support it.
Always reluctant to engage with Bruce since his multiple ethno-nationalist, white supremacist posts some months back, saying that Hispanics/Latinos are not an actual identity, nor are gay people– bizarre!! I only identify with the former, and now that I have been in Mexico for nearly 2 months I can respond.
I do not look like the majority of people here, I am more than a head taller than most, even 2 or more heads taller than most of the women. I’m also thin, an Ectomorph, when the Native population here are mostly Mesomorphs, fattish, given that their ancestors survived famines. (I’m 1/4 Irish, my family survived the Brit-created famines by fleeing to USA. Now I’m fleeing USA to Mexico. Gotta survive.)
Still, since I speak Spanish well enough (if imperfectly for now) I am accepted as part of La Raza. And Mexico’s a North American country, there is a whole Continent south of me that is overwhelmingly Spanish/Portuguese melded with Native Meso-Americans.
Which leads to a not too Off-Topic link, the Duran interviewing Robert Barnes here– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzDMGcNHpVc
I’ve never been much of a fan of Barnes, a bit of a Glibertarian, on the other hand good on some issues of Free Speech, choice as to what pharmaceuticals one can take, not being forced by the gov’t. etc.
I lost what little respect I had for him the first 1.5 years of Trump’s 2nd term, Alex Krainer for the same reason, they both believed that DJT’s “anti-War” beliefs were sincere, moronic. Barnes predicts major losses for the formerly powerful Trump coalition, groups like Hispanics (which he knows exist) and anti-War folks and even conservatives, Wisconsin etc. bailing out on the fat, senile loser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzDMGcNHpVc
He has good insight into Trump’s psychology having been in the Cult, says this term he just wanted to be Ghengis Khan or Alexander the Great, is senile and lost. I think it’s credible. Interesting times indeed.
marku
Epic work Nat. Must have taken days to compile all those links. Thanks
Effing Biden gave us no bankruptcy for student loans and Thomas on the court.
I wish he had stopped there, but he is an overachiever when it comes to destruction.