3/30/20, Dennis Miller Show on RT with guest Dana Carvey, screen shot from RT video a few minutes ago. More screen shots at end of this post.
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3/5/2020, “Dennis Miller, Emmy winner and SNL alum, to host new interview show on RT America,” RT.com, Washington, DC
“RT America is excited to launch “Dennis Miller +1,” an interview show hosted by American actor, comedian, talk show host and five-time Emmy award winner Dennis Miller. The program will premiere on Monday, March 9, 2020 at 9 pm ET, with new episodes airing on Mondays and Wednesdays.
With “Dennis Miller +1,” RT America viewers can expect Miller’s same off-beat style, sparkling wit, sagacity and snark that have made him a star.
“What do I like in an interview? I like it when the host asks a question and then listens to the guest’s answer and then reacts to that answer
with an amplification through the next question,” Miller said of his
new project. “I promise you, I will not sit here finding myself overly
precious and thinking only about my next query. I’m going to have a conversation!”
Legendary broadcaster Larry King congratulated his colleague.
According to King, “Dennis Miller is an amazing person. He is not only
very, VERY funny, but his intellect is sharper than any comedian out
there. When you combine his talent, smarts and humor, it’s going to be
one terrific conversation. I look forward to watching him on Dennis Miller +1.”
“The entire planet is currently having a rather spirited back and forth, and it will be nice to jump back into the game. I aspire to walk in the footsteps of the industry’s best, true legend, Larry King, with whom I have been collaborating over the past year on his show and with whom I will now have the pleasure to be working on a regular basis,” said Miller.
King has been hosting “PoliticKing with Larry King,” developed exclusively for RT America, since 2013. Miller was a cast member of “Saturday Night Live” from 1985 until 1991. He later hosted “the Dennis Miller Show” by Tribune Entertainment, “Dennis Miller Live” on HBO for eight years and “Dennis Miller”
on CNBC. He also hosted a nationally syndicated self-titled talk radio
program. He has appeared in numerous films and television shows and
specials. Miller has made frequent appearances on RT America as guest host for King, sitting in for the eponymous broadcasting icon.
“It is a perfect show for intellectuals who are thirsty for sophisticated humor,” said Mikhail Solodovnikov, head of RT America. “Our first episode is already available on the Portable.TV app a few days ahead of the television premiere.” On the first episode of his show, Miller talks to actor and comedian Jeff Dunham.
Dedicated to the top US stories and the country’s most pressing issues, RT America is the proud home of “PoliticKing” with legendary broadcaster Larry King, prime-time blockbuster “News with Rick Sanchez,” special news program “News.Views.Hughes” with Scottie Nell Hughes, daily financial show “Boom Bust,” the Emmy-nominated “On Contact” with Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, “America’s Lawyer” with hall-of-fame lawyer Mike Papantonio, “World According to Jesse” with former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, “The Big Picture” with Holland Cooke, satirical late-night show “Redacted Tonight” with comedian Lee Camp, media-critique magazine “Eat The Press,” daytime shows “In Question,” “Watching the Hawks” and “Sports HQ.””
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Added: Following are 3 additional screen shots from Dennis Miller’s RT show with guest Dana Carvey, 3/30/20
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3/5/2020, “Dennis Miller, Emmy winner and SNL alum, to host new interview show on RT America,” RT.com
3/30/20, Dennis Miller Show on RT with guest Dana Carvey, screen shot from RT video a few minutes ago
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3/30/20, “Open Letter to Chinese Government Highlights MSM Hypocrisy," Daniel Lazare, Strategic Culture
“The Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal have written an open letter to the Chinese government urging it to reverse its “damaging and reckless” decision to expel their reporters amid a spiraling COVID epidemic.
The letter makes all the usual points about a “free flow of reliable news and information” in
the middle of a growing international emergency. And however clichéd,
such sentiments are correct since access to the broadest possible
sources of information is indeed essential if the world is to make it
through the crisis.
But the letter would have been a lot more convincing if the three papers had spoken up on Mar. 2 when the Trump administration moved to expel sixty Chinese journalists working for five news organizations that the White House regards as little more than state propaganda outfits.
Moreover, they’d be on even firmer footing if they had not actively cheered on the most dangerous anti-media effort of all, the U.S. crackdown on the TV news service RT, formerly known as Russia Today, that began in November 2017.
The crackdown on RT was in some ways even worse than McCarthyism since the latter was at least about something real and important,
which is to say a Communist movement that controlled roughly forty
percent of the global population and was pressing in on capitalism from
every side. If the ruling class seemed spooked, it was facing a challenge of unprecedented dimensions.
But the threat this time around was about something entirely made up, i.e. the belief that Russia had supposedly used various dark arts to trick Americans into voting for Trump. The nonsense began in January 2017 when [a small selection of individuals hand picked from only a few of the many US spy agencies by Clapper and Brennan from] the CIA, NSA, and FBI “assessed” that Vladimir Putin had interfered in the previous year’s election [Nov. 2016] in order “to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability” and, in the process, boost Trump. The report was entirely devoid of evidence, yet the press took it as gospel. Even worse, the intelligence report included a seven-page annex accusing RT of engaging in “criticism of U.S. and Western governments as well as the promotion of radical discontent,” running “numerous reports on alleged U.S. election fraud and voting machine vulnerabilities,” contending that U.S. election results cannot be trusted and do not reflect the popular will,” and hosting third-party candidates who contend that “the U.S. two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a ‘sham.’” [All 100% true! Many thanks to RT].
Imagine–a foreign news service daring to suggest that U.S. politics were flawed! If papers like the Times or Post had the slightest inkling of self-respect, they would have laughed themselves silly over such hyper-sensitivity and told the CIA to grow a thicker skin. But they didn’t. Instead, they worked themselves up into ever greater levels of indignation. Within a few months, the New York Times was warning that “if there is any unifying character to RT, it is a deep skepticism of Western and American narratives of the world and a fundamental defensiveness about Russia and Mr. Putin” and that, thanks to snazzy graphics and snappy repartee, the network had put together “the most effective propaganda operation of
the 21st century so far, one that thrives in the feverish political
climates that have descended on many Western publics.” [So what?]
Of course, one might observe that outlets like CNN and MSNBC are characterized by a deep skepticism of Russian narratives, so what’s the difference? But that wouldn’t be fair since everyone knows that America is right and Russia wrong and that any comparison between the two is automatically invalid, isn’t it? [This is exactly what we’re told the Soviet Union was like. No criticism of government allowed].
Not to be outdone, the Washington Post–official slogan: “Democracy dies in darkness”–ran not one but two op-eds (here and here) calling on the federal government to require RT to register as a foreign agent, a step the Trump administration would dutifully take just two months later.
So the big two turned out to be more aggressive than the Trump administration in reducing journalistic diversity and using the power of the state to undermine a foreign competitor.
Finally, just a month ago [Feb. 2020], the Times ran a front-page article declaring – queue the ominous music – that Radio Sputnik, RT’s sister outlet, had begun “broadcasting on three Kansas City-area radio stations during prime drive time.” Horror of horrors, the station was bombarding Missourians with Russki propaganda criticizing impeachment, the media, and the U.S. political system in general and informing that, in the words of one Sputnik host, that “the masses of poor and working people don’t have access to even the most essential things.” [Very true].
Where did Radio Sputnik come up with such a notion? Doesn’t everyone know that perfect equality reigns in the United States and that anyone who says otherwise must be working for a foreign power?
In fact, while America never tires of touting its devotion to the First Amendment, it loses control when a foreign news service turns tables by engaging in journalism that is cheeky and irreverent. It wants a free press, which is to say one that is free to repeat over and over again how perfectly wonderful America really is. But it does not believe in a free press that allows foreigners to say the contrary.”
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“Schäfer had been living under considerable worry and stress because of the current COVID-19 pandemic. “His main concern was whether he could manage to fulfill the huge expectations of the population, especially in terms of financial aid,” Bouffier said on Sunday. “For him, there was clearly no way out. He was disappointed and so he had to leave us. That has shocked us, has shocked me.””…“Seven days ago the German chancellor went into quarantine after a doctor who gave her a vaccine tested positive for the virus. The country has banned public meetings of more than two people and imposed tight border restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread of the outbreak.”
3/29/20, “German minister commits suicide after ‘coronavirus crisis worries’," AFP via AsiaOne, Frankfurt
“Mr Thomas Schaefer, the finance minister of Germany’s Hesse state,
has committed suicide apparently after becoming “deeply worried” over
how to cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, state premier Volker Bouffier said on Sunday (March 29).
Mr Schaefer, 54, was found dead near a railway track on Saturday. The Wiesbaden prosecution’s office said they believe he died by suicide.
“We are in shock, we are in disbelief and, above all, we are immensely sad,” Mr Bouffier said in a recorded statement.
Hesse is home to Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, where major lenders like Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have their headquarters. The European Central Bank is also located in Frankfurt.
A visibly shaken Mr Bouffier recalled that Mr Schaefer, who was Hesse’s finance chief for 10 years, had been working “day and night” to help companies and workers deal with the economic impact of the pandemic.
“Today, we have to assume that he was deeply worried,” said Mr Bouffier, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“It’s precisely during this difficult time that we would have needed someone like him,” he added.
Popular and well-respected, Mr Schaefer had long been touted as a possible successor to Mr Bouffier.
Like Mr Bouffier, Mr Schaefer belonged to Dr Merkel’s centre-right CDU party.
He leaves behind a wife and two children.”...Schafer image: AFP…Map, shutterstock
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Additional source: "The 54-year-old regularly appeared in public in recent days, for example, to inform the public about financial assistance during the coronavirus crisis."
3/29/20, “German state finance minister Thomas Schäfer found dead.” dw.com
“Police suspect Thomas Schäfer died by suicide after his body was found on train tracks near Wiesbaden. He was the finance minister for the state of Hesse, where Germany’s financial center Frankfurt lies.
“The body of a man identified as Thomas Schäfer, the finance minister of the German state of Hesse, was found on a high-speed train line in the town of Hochheim between Frankfurt and Mainz, police confirmed Saturday.
The presence of a body on the tracks was first reported by
witnesses to paramedics, who were unable to initially identify the
remains due to the extent of the injuries.
Investigators said an investigation on the scene confirmed the identity of the man as Schäfer and that the death was likely a suicide. Police did not immediately release further details of the case.
The politician apparently left a note before taking his own life, German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, citing sources close to the investigation. The note, according to the report, referenced Schäfer’s reasons for taking the step.
According to media in the state of Hesse, the 54-year-old regularly appeared in public in recent days, for example, to inform the public about financial assistance during the coronavirus crisis.
Schäfer had “considerable worries” over COVID-19
Schäfer was a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats (CDU). He had been active in Hessian state politics for more than two decades and was finance minister for almost 10 years.
Germany’s financial capital, Frankfurt, lies in Hesse and is the state’s biggest city.
Schäfer had been widely expected to succeed state premier, Volker Bouffier, if he decided not to stand for re-election in 2023.
In a statement, Bouffier said that the state’s leadership has received the news with “sadness and disbelief.”
Bouffier also said that Schäfer had been living under considerable worry and stress because of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
“His main concern was whether he could manage to fulfill the huge expectations of the population, especially in terms of financial aid,” Bouffier said on Sunday. “For him, there was clearly no way out. He was disappointed and so he had to leave us. That has shocked us, has shocked me.”
“Our sincere condolences go to his closest relatives,” he added.
Outgoing CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said Schäfer’s sudden
death “shocked me, shocked all of us” in the party. “It has hit us and
left us sad and stunned,” she wrote on Twitter.
One of the candidates to succeed Kramp-Karrenbauer as leader of the
party, Friedrich Merz, and possible successor to Merkel as chancellor
wrote on Twitter about his shock at the death.
“News about the sudden death of Thomas Shäfer has deeply shaken me,” Merz wrote on Twitter. “As a personal and politician he was one of our best – this is a difficult loss. We will mourn him with his wife and children.”
Lawmakers from other parties also paid tribute to Schäfer.
Left party member of the Bundestag Fabio De Masi wrote on Twitter “We
often no longer recognize politicians as people or the burdens they
carry away from politics.”
Green politician Kordula Schulz-Asch wrote “I am stunned by the death
of Thomas Schäfer. My deepest condolences and thoughts to his family at
this time.”
Schäfer leaves behind a wife and two children.”...Schafer image: AFP…Map, shutterstock
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“The United Nations Human Rights Council formally condemned the U.S., called on all member states to break the sanctions, and even began discussing the reparations Washington should pay to Venezuela.”
3/27/20, “With a Quarter of the World’s Population Under US Sanctions, Countries Appeal to UN to Intervene,” Mint Press News, Alan MacLeod
“Eight countries, representing around one-quarter of all humanity, say that Washington’s actions are undermining their response to the COVID–19 pandemic sweeping the planet.”
“The
governments of China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia,
Syria, and Venezuela – all under sanctions from the United States – sent a joint statement to the United Nations Secretary-General, the UN’s High Commissioner on Human Rights and the Director-General of the World Health Organization calling
for an end to the unilateral American economic blockade, as they are,
“illegal and blatantly violate international law and the charter of the
United Nations.”
The eight countries,
representing around one-quarter of humanity, say that Washington’s
actions are undermining their response to the COVID–19 pandemic sweeping
the planet. “The destructive impact of said measures at the national level, plus their extraterritorial implication, together with the phenomenon of over-compliance and the
fear for ‘secondary sanctions,’ hinder the ability of national
governments” in procuring even basic medical equipment and supplies,
including coronavirus test kits and medicine. It is a “hard
if not impossible deed for those countries who are currently facing the
application of unilateral coercive measures,” to cope, they conclude.
The letter was shared on Twitter by Joaquin Perez, Venezuela’s Permanent Ambassador to the UN.
“That
U.S. sanctions are “blatant violations of international law,” the
letter states, is not in doubt. As the American Special Rapporteur to
the UN, Alfred de Zayas, notes, only sanctions expressly verified and imposed collectively by the UN Security Council can be considered legal; any unilateral punishment is, by definition, illegal. De Zayas, a legal scholar, notes that sanctions are tantamount to a “collective punishment” against a population, an explicit violation of multiple articles of the UN Charter, the foundation of international law.
De Zayas traveled to Venezuela
last year, describing the U.S. sanctions as akin to a medieval siege and
accusing the Trump administration of “crimes against humanity.” The United Nations Human Rights Council formally condemned the U.S., called on all member states to break the sanctions, and even began discussing the reparations Washington should pay to Venezuela, noting that Trump’s sanctions were designed to “disproportionately affect the poor and most vulnerable.” None of this was reported in any major American media outlet at the time.
The sanctions meant that Venezuela was unable to import key medicines for conditions like cancer and diabetes, leading to scores of deaths. A 2019 report
from the Washington-based Center for Economic Policy Research
conservatively estimated the sanctions killed 40,000 Venezuelans between
mid-2017 and 2018.
Yesterday, the Trump administration turned the screw tighter, putting out a bizarre hit on President Nicolas Maduro, offering $15 million to anybody who could bring him to them in chains. Other
key figures like Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino and Head of the
Constituent Assembly Diosdado Cabello also had bounties placed on their
heads, supposedly because they were part of a drug trafficking ring.
The U.S. is also turning up the heat on COVID-19 plagued Iran. Senior Washington insiders like Newt Gingrich are dreaming that their sanctions will finally bring about regime change in the Islamic Republic. Sanctions led to the Iranian rial losing 80 percent of its value, with both food prices and unemployment doubling.
While medicine is technically exempt from sanctions, in reality,
Washington has frightened away any nation or corporation from doing
business with Tehran. Even as coronavirus was raging through the
country, no nation was willing to donate even basic supplies to Iran.
Eventually, the World Health Organization stepped in and directly
supplied it with provisions. An October report from Human Rights Watch noted that “the overbroad and burdensome nature of the US sanctions has led banks and companies around the world to pull back from humanitarian trade with Iran,
leaving Iranians who have rare or complicated diseases unable to get
the medicine and treatment they require.” At least 2,378 Iranians have
died of COVID-19, many of them needlessly….
The sanctioned countries warn that Trump’s actions are killing not only Americans at home but people all over the world. “We
cannot allow for political calculations to get in the way of saving
human lives,” they conclude. However, precisely because the U.S. has so
much power on the world stage, it is unlikely their protestations will get them very far.”
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Bill Gates, 2/18/2017: Bill Gates said everyone must rehearse for pandemics with “germ games and other preparedness exercises so we can better understand how diseases will spread, how people will respond in a panic and how to deal with things like overloaded highways and communications systems.”…UK Guardian
3/25/2020, “Military tanks on union pacific train heading south of Los Angeles,” You Tube (“just relocating inventory“)
March 27, 2020, “The War on Death," Off-Guardian, CJ Hopkins
“Yes, that’s right, global capitalism (a/k/a “the world”) is now at war with Death…which is great news for authoritarians! No more bothersome critical thinking. The time for questioning our leaders is over. It’s time to shut up and follow orders. We’re in a global state of emergency, folks!
We’re talking lockdowns, soldiers in the streets, abrogation of our constitutional rights, arbitrary arrests, indefinite detentions, round-the-clock media fear-propaganda…the whole totalitarian megillah!…
And, just like after those terrorist attacks, the world has united and forcefully responded. No, we haven’t
invaded Iraq again (well, actually, we did bomb them a little), but we
have locked down almost the entire planet, virtually shut down the
global economy, and are scaring the masses into a state of unprecedented mass hysteria.
Police are patrolling the streets of Europe, checking people’s “permission-to-go-outside” papers.
In the U.K., soldiers are standing by to assist with “protecting possible quarantine zones,” or to “cope with the breakdown of civil society.” Israel is tapping its formerly secret collection of everyone’s mobile phone records to identify people who might be infected, and assorted “others who need to be quarantined.”
[Image: “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” 1956 movie about conformity, police encourage public to help search for persons who wouldn’t surrender to groupthink]
Macron (now relieved of his Gilets Jaunes problem!) is ready to “rule by decree” if necessary. California is “prepared to enact martial law.” The U.S. military is “prepared to deploy in support of potential extraordinary missions,” including “quelling civil disturbances.”
The U.S. Department of Justice is asking Congress for the power to detain people indefinitely. The British Parliament is on the brink of passing an emergency “Coronavirus Bill” that will (among other unsettling provisions) grant authorities the power to arrest and indefinitely quarantine anyone they deem a “potentially infectious person” … or, in other words, pretty much anyone they want.
As if that wasn’t dystopian enough, according to a report in Politico:
“Counter-terrorism troops have been redeployed across Italy to beef up police forces throughout Italian cities. Patrol cars are now circulating in every major city in Italy with a monotone male voice
warning citizens over a loudspeaker not to leave their residences or
risk a ticket. ‘GO BACK INTO YOUR HOMES,’ the voice warns.””
But wait, it gets even better than that. In Missouri, prosecutors have charged an idiot who licked some items at Walmart as a “terrorist.” I kid you not, a Coronavirus Terrorist. I could go on, but I think you get the picture (if you need more examples, check this Twitter thread).
The point is, the global capitalist empire (for whatever reasons, real or imagined) has turned on the MINDLESS HYSTERIA machine, and dialed it up as high as it goes. People are in full-blown headless chicken mode. No one (or hardly anyone) is thinking, or listening to dissenting opinions, or paying attention to official statistics, or common sense, or anything else that contradicts the War on Death narrative.
The British tabloids are publishing horror stories about “doctors” standing by and helplessly watching as patients slowly suffocate to death.
According to such stories, not only are these “doctors” unable to treat
roughly 400 patients with any of the UK’s over 8,000 ventilators, but,
apparently, patients whose hearts have stopped (and who are therefore
unconscious) are also now capable of “dying in agony” with “terror in their eyes.”
According to The New York Times, the Coronapocalypse has begun in Elmhurst, where the authorities have called in the refrigerator trucks to haul away the mountains of corpses, after 13 people who “had tested positive” died (of something) in the course of one day.
The rest of the corporate media are running moment-by-moment deathometer updates, apocalyptic prognostications of the millions or billions who are possibly going to die, and of course the latest on which celebrities have been infected and are clinging to life, or experiencing mild, cold-like symptoms, or absolutely no symptoms whatsoever.
[Image from 1956 film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, central characters run to escape capture by townspeople who will force them to conform to groupthink]
Greta suspects she might have been infected! Prince Charles! Colton Underwood (whoever that is), Tom Hanks, and even Idris Elba! Just the other night, celebrated playwright Terrence McNally (who was 81, and had a history of lung cancer and COPD) was struck down in the prime of his life!
In short, the authorities have whipped the masses into an orgy of shrieking, white-eyed FEAR of this new, evil, “invisible enemy”
that is coming to kill them and their families. Millions of people (now
confined in their homes of the horrors their therapists’ accountants’
doctors have personally witnessed on the war’s “front lines,” and hunt down any infected persons, or potentially infected persons (or otherwise uncooperative persons) who might have gone outside for some air) have taken to the Internet to pump up the hysteria, share totally un-sourced personal accounts.
So, that’s the good news for you authoritarians! For the rest of us … yeah, not so good.
Oh, I almost forgot the bad news. The bad news is … well, the bad news is Death. The bad news is, you are going to die. I’m going to die. We are all going to die. All of us. We are going to die. We are going to die of … well, something. Cancer. A heart attack. A stroke. The flu. Diabetes. Alzheimer’s disease.
Possibly a coronavirus. Maybe even this coronavirus.
In fact, a lot of us are dying right now, according to the Internet,
around a hundred per minute … which, it goes without saying, is
unacceptable, and a tragedy, and something we need to take drastic
action to prevent at all costs.
We can’t let these Russian dissension sowers, neo-Nazi accelerationists,
and coronavirus-sympathizers confuse us. They want to convince us that
Death is, yes, scary, and sad, but inevitable, and natural. How utterly
heartless and insane is that?!
No, we need to close our minds to that nonsense. People are
dying! This is not normal! Death is our enemy! We have to defeat it! We need to hunt down and neutralize Death! Root it out if its hidey hole and hang it like we did with Saddam!
I’m not kidding. There is a war on, people! GloboCap is taking the gloves off again. (You remember what happens when the gloves come off, don’t you?) So get your mind right and get with the program or get ready to face the consequences.
Relax, I’m not referring to all these tanks (2:34 in the NBC video). I’m referring to other consequences. I am not some crazy conspiracy theorist. Plus, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has assured us there’s no cause for concern:
“If and when National Guard or military units are deployed to the streets of L.A., trust me, I’ll let you know.”
See? Everything is perfectly fine. No one is preparing for martial law. Those tanks just returned from the Middle East and are “being sent back home to Texas.” This kind of thing happens all the time. It has nothing to do with the global lockdown.
I don’t know about you, but I’m extremely relieved … for a moment there I thought we were in trouble.”
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Among comments
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“Richard Le Sarc
One of the Guardian presstitutes
reported today’s UNSC [UN Security Council] goings-on. The USA
attempted to blame China for the outbreak, and generally acted as the
psychopathic bullying thug it is, but
the Guardian presstitute spent half of its report spewing hatred at
Russia (who else?) for wishing face to face meetings to continue in the
UNSC. That, according to a ‘Western diplomatic source’, constituted some grand conspiracy to take over the world, or some such other gibberish. Cerebral CoVid 19, or business-as-usual?”
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“TWO US aircraft carriers in the Pacific have been taken out of action after the first at-sea coronavirus outbreaks on board. At least 25 sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt tested positive for the killer virus, forcing the ship to port in Guam with estimates it will take 25 days to test all 5,000 crew members on board….Berthing compartments, or sleeping quarters where a dozen sailors are often packed into spaces not much larger than an average kitchen, will become birthing compartments for the virus.”…Additional source: 3/27/20, “Coronavirus Outbreak: US Navy’s Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carrier Diverted After Dozens Aboard Test Positive,” IBTimes.com
3/28/20, “It Is A Time Of Crisis And U.S. Foreign Policy Is Becoming Unhinged,” moon of alabama
“The Trump administration is reacting to the pandemic stress by lashing out at perceived internal and external enemies. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is leading the external onslaught.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for an “immediate global ceasefire” to focus on fighting Covid-19. He has appealed for the “waiving of sanctions that can undermine countries’ capacity to respond to the pandemic.”
But Washington is not listening.
Requests from Venezuela and Iran for emergency IMF loans to buy medical supplies were blocked by U.S. interventions.
Just a month ago Pompeo announced an increase of sanctions against Iran. The sanctions block money transfers. They make it impossible for Iran to import the medical equipment it urgently needs to counter the epidemic.
While the U.S. renewed the sanction waiver which allows Iraq to import electricity and gas from Iran the waiver is now limited to only 30 days. One third of Iraq’s electricity depends on those imports from Iran and, if the waiver is not renewed, its hospitals will go dark just when the epidemic will reach its zenith.
Parts of the Trump administration are even pressing for a wider war against alleged Iranian proxy forces in Iraq:
“The Pentagon has ordered military commanders to plan for an escalation of American combat in Iraq, issuing a directive last week to prepare a campaign to destroy an Iranian-backed militia group that has threatened more attacks against American troops. [Solution: End illegal US presence there.]
But the United States’ top commander in Iraq has warned that such a campaign could be bloody and counterproductive and risks war with Iran….
Some top officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Robert C. O’Brien, the national security adviser, have been pushing for aggressive new action against Iran and its proxy forces — and see an opportunity to try to destroy Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq as leaders in Iran are distracted by the pandemic crisis in their country. [Iran men over age 60 have very weak lungs so are dying fastest. This is due to 1980s poison gas attacks by Iraq with gases produced by US and others].
Military leaders, including Defense Secretary Mark
T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, have been wary of a sharp military escalation, warning it could further destabilize the Middle East
at a time when President Trump has said he hopes to reduce the number
of American troops in the region.” [We’ve learned that nothing Trump says should be taken seriously. “Tweet. Cave. Repeat.”]
The plan is lunatic. One can not “destroy” Kataib Hezbollah and other Iraqi Shia groups which Iran helped to build during the war against ISIS. These groups are part of political parties with deep roots in the Iraqi society.
France, Italy and the Czech Republic have started to withdraw from Iraq. Denmark is also leaving and the UK is removing 50% of its force. There
are less then 5,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and a war on Kataib Hezbollah
could mobilized hundreds of thousands Iraqis to fight against the U.S.
occupation. Such a war would also involve Iran and the U.S. would certainly lose it.
The U.S. has currently two aircraft carrier groups in the Arab sea to threaten Iran. But those ships are of no use right now. They are ‘cruise ships with guns’. Nuclear powered five billion dollar petri dishes for novel coronavirus outbreaks. Two U.S. carrier groups in the Pacific are already out of action because they have larger outbreaks on board. It is only a question of time until the other carriers follow.
It is not only Iraq and Iran the U.S. is aiming at. The U.S. State Department cut its contributions to health care in Yemen just in time of the highest need:
“Officials with the United States Agency for International Development said the decision to halt funding, reported
earlier by The Washington Post, included exceptions for “critical,
lifesaving activities, including treatment of malnutrition as well as
water, sanitation and hygiene programs aimed at keeping people healthy
and staving off disease.”
But humanitarian officials said
the agency’s exceptions did not provide for continued funding of basic
health care programs, which are heavily reliant on foreign aid, and did not seem to take into account what might occur when the coronavirus begins to spread.”
Not happy with only messing up the Middle East the State Department also renewed its assault on Venezuela. On Thursday the Justice Department announced charges of ‘Narco-Terrorism, Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Crimes‘ against President Nicolas Maduro and 14 former or current officials. It put up a $15 million reward for Maduro’s arrest. [How pathetic].
It [falsely] alleges that Maduro worked with Columbian cartels to smuggle cocaine through Venezuela.
But here is a map of smuggling routes from U.S. ally Columbia where most of the cocaine is produced. It was shown during a Congress hearing. Whatever is smuggled through Venezuela is a tiny share compared to the huge stream that comes through the Pacific.
Whoever wrote and signed of the indictment also made a huge mistake. The charges included Clíver Antonio Alcalá Cordones, a former General in the Venezuelan armed forces, and put a $10 million reward on his head.
After the Justice Department indictment against him he came out and revealed that he was involved in coup plans in support of Juan Guaidó:
As a result of these videos, Venezuela’s Attorney General has opened an investigation into Juan Guaidó for an attempted coup.”
The U.S. blew it by accusing the one man that was willing to help its chosen clown and by not informing him before the indictment came out. That man then freaked out and blew the whistle. This is now threatening the whole opposition plan the U.S. concocted with Guaidó and the men behind him.
On Friday Alcalá Cordones decided it was unsafe for him to stay in Colombia. He ‘called up‘ the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and gave himself up. He was extradited to New York and will now become a ‘witness’ against Maduro who he has publicly opposed in the first place.
This chaos was certainly created by [Trump hire] Elliott Abrams, the neoconservative U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela. Abrams has a talent for messing things up.
U.S. foreign policy during the crisis has been abysmal. The U.S. angered China, the biggest producer of urgently needed masks and drugs, by calling the virus “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese virus”, a practice that stopped only after a phone call between Trump and Xi Jinping. It angered Germany when it tried to buy exclusive rights for a potential vaccine that is being developed there.
Requests
for support by multiple European allies were left unanswered while
China and Russia mobilized to help over 80 countries. Meanwhile Pompeo chastised Italy for accepting Cuban drugs and doctors.
There will be a large cost to pay for this when the pandemic is over. The U.S. has exposed itself as unreliable ally, as war mongering moron even at the worst time and as incapable of helping its own citizens.”…
“Posted by b on March 28, 2020 at 15:13 UTC | Permalink”
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Among comments
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"In blocking IMF loans to Iran and Venezuela, the US might have
actually done them a favour. Once you are in the clutches of the tentacles of the IMF, you are rat-fucked. Your economy will be sucked
dry by enforced austerity and foreign investment, until there is nothing
left.
Posted by: Antoinetta III | Mar 28 2020 17:21 utc | 26"
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