German Foreign Minister and Green Party member Annalena Baerbock promised that she would stand with Ukraine “as long as you need us” and explicitly said that she would be supportive of Ukraine “no matter what my German voters think,” even as Germans face freezing to death in winter due to energy shortages. She said that the sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine will remain instead of demanding a diplomatic resolution between Russia and Ukraine.Journalist Alex Christoforou said that EU leaders, including Joseph Borrell, the foreign minister of the EU, Jens Stoltenberg of NATO, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and French President Macron promote sacrifice by the European people in order to continue the war in Ukraine. The Green Party in Europe is pro-war and is following the neo-liberal model that also supports the corporate takeover of government. Christoforou said that Ukraine has been used for years for money laundering and wealthy elites are upset with Russian President Putin for disrupting their game.
Federal officials in the Biden administration have held secret and illegal censorship meetings with social media companies to suppress Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech, and to ban or deplatform those who share unauthorized views about COVID and vaccines
The evidence for this comes out of a lawsuit brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance and the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana (Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry) against President Biden, filed in May 2022
Monthly, a Unified Strategies Group (USG) meeting took place — and may still be taking place — between a wide variety of government agencies and Big Tech companies, during which topics to be censored and suppressed were/are discussed
Censored topics included stories involving COVID jab refusal, especially those involving military refusals and consequences thereof, criticism against COVID restrictions and their effects on mental health, posts talking about testing positive for COVID after getting the jab, personal stories of COVID jab side effects, including menstrual irregularities, and worries about vaccine passports becoming mandatory
Discovery documents obtained so far have identified more than 50 federal employees across 15 federal agencies, engaged in illegal censorship activities. Emails from the strategic communications and marketing firm Reingold also reveals outside consultants were hired to manage the government’s collusion with social media to violate Americans’ Constitutional free speech rights
In a September 1, 2022, article,1 the Post Millennial reveals how federal officials in the Biden administration have held secret censorship meetings with social media companies to suppress Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech, and to ban or deplatform those who share unauthorized views about COVID and vaccines.
The evidence for this comes out of a lawsuit2 brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance and the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana (Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry) against President Biden, filed in May 2022.
During the discovery process, the plaintiffs sought to identify “all meetings with any social media platform relating to content modulation and/or misinformation,” which is how we now know that such illegal meetings did, in fact, take place.
Illegal Collusion to Suppress Free Speech
Monthly, a Unified Strategies Group (USG) meeting took place — and may still be taking place — between a wide variety of government agencies and Big Tech companies, during which topics to be censored and suppressed were/are discussed.
Censored topics included stories involving COVID jab refusal, especially those involving military refusals and consequences thereof, criticism against COVID restrictions and their effects on mental health, posts talking about testing positive for COVID after getting the jab, personal stories of COVID jab side effects, including menstrual irregularities, and worries about vaccine passports becoming mandatory.3 According to the New Civil Liberties Alliance:4
“… scores of federal officials … have secretly communicated with social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech federal officials disfavor. This unlawful enterprise has been wildly successful.
Under the First Amendment, the federal government may not police private speech nor pick winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. But that is precisely what the government has done — and is still doing — on a massive scale not previously divulged.
Multiple agencies’ communications demonstrate that the federal government has exerted tremendous pressure on social-media companies — pressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed …
Communications show these federal officials are fully aware that the pressure they exert is an effective and necessary way to induce social-media platforms to increase censorship. The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even griped about the need to overcome social-media companies’ ‘hesitation’ to work with the government …
This unlawful government interference violates the fundamental right of free speech for all Americans, whether or not they are on social media. More discovery is needed to uncover the full extent of this regime — i.e., the identities of other White House and agency officials involved and the nature and content of their communications with social-media companies.”
Jenin Younes, litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance added:5
“If there was ever any doubt the federal government was behind censorship of Americans who dared to dissent from official COVID messaging, that doubt has been erased. The shocking extent of the government’s involvement in silencing Americans, through coercing social-media companies, has now been revealed …”
Federal Agencies Involved in Free Speech Suppression
Documents obtained so far have identified more than 50 federal employees across 15 federal agencies, who participated in these censorship meetings or otherwise engaged in illegal censorship activities.6 This includes officials from:
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Election Security and Resilience team
Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis
The FBI’s foreign influence taskforce
The Justice Department’s (DOJ) national security division
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence
White House staff (including White House lawyer Dana Remus, deputy assistant to the president Rob Flaherty and former White House senior COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt)
Health and Human Services (HHS)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
The Office of the Surgeon General
The Census Bureau
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The State Department
The U.S. Treasury Department
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission
Emails from a strategic communications and marketing firm called Reingold7 also reveals that outside consultants were hired to manage the government’s collusion with social media to censor Americans. For example, Reingold set up a “partner support portal” for the CDC so that CDC officials could link emails to the portal for easier flagging of content it wanted censored by social media companies linked to the portal.
Big Tech Companies Involved in Government Censorship
On the private industry side, notable tech participants in the censorship meetings include:
Google
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Reddit
Microsoft
Verizon Media
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Wikimedia Foundation
While some social media companies may have “hesitated” to censor on the government’s behalf at times, Facebook was certainly an eager beaver from the get-go. As early as February 2020, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in contact with the State Department, offering its services to help “control information and misinformation related to coronavirus.”8
As you might expect, the White House has not cooperated with discovery and have fought to keep communications secret — especially with regard to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s correspondence — claiming all White House communications as “privileged.”
However, executive privilege does NOT apply to external communications, so the plaintiffs called on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to “overrule the government defendants’ objections and order them to supply this highly relevant, responsive and probative information immediately.”
September 7, 2022, Judge Terry Doughty did just that. The Biden administration’s claim of executive privilege was rejected and Doughty ordered the White House to hand over any and all relevant records.9 That includes correspondence to and from Fauci, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and many others. According to the judge’s order, they have three weeks to comply.
Examples of Illegal Government Censorship
On Twitter,10 Missouri AG Schmitt has shared a long list of examples of government censorship, including one document in which Clarke Humphrey, COVID-19 response digital director at the White House, asked Facebook to take down the Instagram account “anthonyfauciofficial,” a parody account dedicated to making fun of Fauci.11 Facebook complied.
Schmitt also shared emails12,13 between a senior Facebook official and the surgeon general, stating, “I know our teams met today to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.” This email came on the heels of the surgeon general’s July 2021 “misinformation health advisory.”
The CDC also coordinated with Facebook, providing them with talking points to debunk various claims, including the claim that spike protein in the COVID shots is dangerous and cytotoxic. In a July 28, 2021, email, a CDC official provided Facebook with the following counter-narrative, taken straight from the “How mRNA Vaccines Work” section on the CDC website:14
“Messenger mRNA [sic] vaccines work by teaching our cells to create a harmless spike protein …” (Emphasis in the original.)
Fast-forward to mid-June 2022, and the CDC was suddenly less sure about the harmlessness of the spike protein.
Up until then, the words “harmless spike protein” had always been bolded, but in this June revision, they removed the bolding, along with an entire section in which they’d previously claimed that mRNA was rapidly broken down and spike protein did not last more than a few weeks in the body.15 Clearly, the truth was catching up to them and certain lies were getting too risky to hold on to.
CISA also reached out to Google, Meta (Facebook’s parent company), Microsoft and Twitter for help, shortly after the DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board was announced.16 Fortunately, public outcry put an end to this Orwellian Ministry of Truth before it got started.
When Censorship Becomes Election Interference
According to The Washington Times:17
“Details about the Biden administration’s conduct raised the hackles of Republican lawmakers. ‘Confirming that this is the most dangerously anti-free speech administration in American history AND that Facebook … is nothing but an appendage of the deep state,’ Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, said on Twitter as he shared news of the court filing.”
Other lawmakers are also getting involved. In an August 29, 2022, letter18,19 to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin requested records of the government’s contacts with social media companies to ascertain whether the FBI and/or DOJ did, in fact, instruct them to censor information about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal by falsely referring to it as “Russian disinformation.”20
Zuckerberg has also been asked21 to provide any correspondence involving the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story, especially as it pertains to the FBI’s instructions to censor this political hot potato — something he openly admitted in a recent Joe Rogan interview (see video above).22
Lawmakers Pursue Legislation to Penalize Gov’t Censorship
Three Republican House Representatives on the House Oversight and Reform, Judiciary, and Commerce committees — Reps. James Comer of Kentucky, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington — have also introduced the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act23 (HR.8752), aimed at preventing federal employees from using their positions to influence censorship decisions by tech platforms.
The bill would create restrictions to prevent federal employees from asking or encouraging private entities to censor private speech or otherwise discourage free speech, and impose penalties, including civil fines and disciplinary actions for government employees who facilitate social media censorship.
While the U.S. Constitution clearly forbids government censoring and restricting free speech, HR. 8752 could be a helpful enforcement tool, as people might tend to think twice when they know there’s a real and personal price to pay.
The “Scariest Paper Of 2022” Reveals The Terrifying Fate Of Biden’s Economy: Millions Are About To Lose Their Job
For much of the past year (and certainly at the time, more than a year ago, when the so-called experts, central bankers and macrotourists were still yapping about “transitory inflation” and other things they were wrong about and do not understand), we were warning that at some point the Fed will realize that it is simply impossible to contain supply-driven inflation through stubborn rate hikes which instead would lead to a dire alternative – millions in mass layoffs and newly unemployed workers …
… and will revise its 2% inflation target higher, a move which will send every risk asset – from high-beta trash and meme stonks, to blue-chip icons, to bitcoin and cryptos limit up.
To remind readers of this coming phase shift, we most recently warned in June that “at some point Fed will concede it has no control over supply. That’s when we will start getting leaks of raising the inflation target“…
Well, it turns out that we were right, and not just about the coming mass layoffs, but also about the inflation target leaks. But first, lets back up a bit.
A little over one year after nobody expected the Fed would be hiking rates like a drunken sailor until some time in late 2023 or 2024, it has now become fashionable to not only predict that the Fed will keep hiking rates at every FOMC meeting and at the fastest pace since the near-hyperinflation of the 1980s, but that the central bank will somehow manage to avoid a hard landing (i.e., the hiking cycle won’t end in a recession or depression), even though every single Fed tightening cycle since 1913 has ended in disaster.
An example of this was the statement by former Fed vice chair (and PIMCO’s “twice-revolving door”) Rich Clarida, who told CNBC that “failure is not an option for Jay Powell,” adding that “I think they’re going to 4% hell or high water. Until inflation comes down a lot, the Fed is really a single mandate central bank.”
Of course, if one could hike rates in a vacuum that could work – after all, Clarida himself, who admits he got this year’s soaring inflation dead wrong when he was still a daytrading god and part oft he Fed in 2021, said that the Fed may as well have just one mandate, namely to tame inflation. But what so few seem to recall is that the Fed is “hiking to spark a recession“, or as CNBC’s Steve Liesman put it, there is no such thing as “immaculate rate hikes” meaning that rate hikes have dire tradeoffs in other sectors of the economy. In other words, if the Fed’s intention is to spark a recession, it will spark a recession… leading to millions of Americans losing their jobs, something which even Elizabeth Warren appears to have grasped.
Yet due to the recency bias of Biden’s trillions in stimmies, and a world where workers – whether working form home or the office – have virtually all the leverage, few today can conceive of a world where inflation is zero or negative and is instead replaced with millions in unemployed workers, an outcome which one could (or rather should) say is even worse for the ruling democrats than roaring inflation. At least, with runaway prices, most people have a job and their wages are rising (at least nominally, if not in real terms).
However, the higher rates rise, the closer we get to that inevitable moment when the BLS – unable to kick the can any longer – admits what has been obvious to so many for months: the US is facing a labor crisis of epic proportions with millions and millions of mass layoffs. And for those to whom it is not yet obvious, we urge to read a WSJ op-ed published by none other than Jason Furman, who is not some crackpot republican but Obama’s own top Economic Adviser from 2013-2017 and currently economic policy professor at Harvard.
In “Inflation and the Scariest Economics Paper of 2022“, Furman summarizes a paper written by Johns Hopkins macroeconomist Larry Ball with co-authors Daniel Leigh and Prachi Mishra of the International Monetary Fund released by the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, whose conclusion is as follows: “To bring price increases down to 2%, we may need to tolerate unemployment of 6.5% for two years.”
In other words, just as we said, inflation – much of which is supply-driven, which the Fed can do nothing about – will force the Fed to crush the economy by keeping rates for much longer, the result of which will be many millions in unemployed workers, or as Furman puts it, the paper “shows why the Federal Reserve will likely need to maintain its war on inflation, even if unemployment continues to rise.”
What is more remarkable about Furman’s read of the economist paper is that in addition to its primary theme (the lack of labor slack, or labor tightness, is responsible for some 3.4% of underlying inflation in July 2022), the paper admits precisely what we have been saying all along – that the Fed can’t control supply-side variables:
The paper also argues, convincingly in my view, for a different measure of underlying inflation. Fluctuations in energy and food prices are generally due to factors outside the control of macroeconomic policy makers. Geopolitics and weather have elevated the inflation rate in recent years. Plunging gasoline prices are temporarily lowering the inflation rate now. That’s why economists since the 1970s have focused on “core” inflation, which excludes food and energy.
But food and energy aren’t the only things people buy that are subject to supply-side volatility. Prices of new and used cars, for example, have gyrated over the past two years for reasons that are mostly unrelated to the strength of the overall economy. Both regular and core inflation are based on taking averages of price increases and can be distorted by large changes in outlier categories. The median inflation rate calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland drops outliers to remove these distortions.
According to Furman, median inflation – which is a statistically better measure of the underlying inflation that policy makers can actually control – is well above the Fed’s preferred headline inflation print (which fell to zero in July on a sequential basis and has stabilize) and shows no sign of moderating and has run at a 6.6% annual rate in the last three months.
But the “scariest” part of the new paper, Furman reveals, is when the authors use their model to forecast the unemployment rate that would be needed to bring inflation down to the Fed’s 2% target. He explains why this is so scary:
The authors present a range of scenarios, so I ran their model using my own assumptions… Under these assumptions, which are more optimistic than the authors’ midpoint scenario, if the unemployment rate follows the Federal Open Market Committee’s median economic projection from June that the unemployment will rise to only 4.1%, then the inflation rate will still be about 4% at the end of 2025. To get the inflation rate to the Fed’s target of 2% by then would require an average unemployment rate of about 6.5% in 2023 and 2024.
Where is unemployment now: it’s 3.7% (6.014 million unemployed workers vs 164.746 million civilian labor force). This matters, because according to one of the most erudite economist Democrats, by the end of the Biden admin in 2024, the unemployment will have to soar to 6.5% for inflation to plunge to the Fed’s historical target of 2.0%
What does this mean in absolute numbers? Assuming a modest increase in the US labor force, a 6.5% unemployment rate in 2024 would translate into no less than 10.8 million unemployed workers, an 80% increase from the 6 million today!
Still think that politicians – and especially Democrats – will sit quietly and blindly ignore how high the Fed is hiking rates if it means that to normalize inflation back to 2% it means nearly doubling the number of unemployed Americans (and a crushing recession to boot). Spoiler alert: no, they won’t, and this may be one of the very rare occasions when Elizabeth Warren is actually right to worry about what the coming mass layoff wave means for Democrats… and the 2024 presidential election.
So what should the Fed do? Well, according to Furman, the Fed has four options:
First, place more emphasis on the ratio of job openings to unemployment and median inflation as it assesses the tightness of labor markets and the underlying rate of inflation.
Second, the new paper shows how much easier it will be to tackle inflation if expectations remain under control. The Fed should follow up on Chairman Jerome Powell’s tough talk at Jackson Hole with meaningful action such as a 75-basis-point increase at the next meeting.
Third, be prepared to accept the unemployment rate rising above 5% if inflation is still out of control.
While we doubt #3 is actionable, what is more remarkable is Furman’s final proposal: it’s the one that, like the Dude’s proverbial rug, ties the room together and sets the stage for what is coming:
Finally, stabilizing at a 3% inflation rate is probably healthier for the economy than stabilizing at 2%—so while fighting inflation should be the central bank’s only focus today, at some point the Fed should reassess the meaning of victory in that struggle.
And just in case his WSJ proves too complicated for some mainstream experts and economists, here it is in truncated, twitter format:
And there you have it: remember what we said on June 21: “At some point Fed will concede it has no control over supply. That’s when we will start getting leaks of raising the inflation target.” Well… there it is.
And while mainstream economists and the market may require quite a few months to grasp what is coming, it is the only way out of a crisis of commodities – as Zoltan has repeatedly and correctly put it – and which central banks have no control over, and thus will have to move not only the goalposts but the entire football field to avoid a social revolt or something even scarier.
While we wait, we can’t help but snicker at what the 79-year-old figurehead in the White House tweeted today…
… because what Biden calls “the strongest economic recovery in recent history” is – even according to Democrats – about to be the biggest economic disaster in modern history.
“Nothing To Do With Man” – Astrophysicist Says Climate-Cultists “Are On A Gravy Train” To Make Money
This year’s heat waves and subsequent droughts resulted in the hottest summer in recorded European history, according to a report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) – an EU-funded Earth observation agency.
“We’ve not only had record August temperatures for Europe, but also for the summer, with the previous summer record only being one year old,” said Freja Vamborg, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Of course, this ‘record’ heat in the summer has prompted activists to trot out the same old tropes that this ‘confirms climate change’ is having a catastrophic effect on the world already. With the energy crisis facing Europe, this is not a particularly comfortable topic as numerous nations abandon – albeit apparently temporarily – their green policies in favor of not letting their citizenry starve or freeze.
Given that it’s all ‘settled science’, the following RT News anchor was probably expecting a rote response to his questions about climate change.
He was in for a big surprise…
Piers Corbyn – physicist, meteorologist, and elder brother of former UK Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn – explained to the shocked RT anchor that the climate “has always been changing, but this has nothing to do with man”
The astrophysicist instead believes that changes in the Earth’s climate and its weather are dictated primarily by cyclical activity on the surface of the sun (and not, pointedly, by the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere).
“For one thing science doesn’t do settled opinions,” Corbyn says.
“And for another they are all wrong.”
“Surely man has something to with this,” exclaims the struggling new anchor, to which Corbyn responds:
“No, the only connection is that man is here at the same time as the sun and the moon are doing things.”
The frustrated anchor falls back to consensus, asking “so how come then that so many climate change scientists disagree with you and they get so much support for that?”
Corbyn’s laughing response was straightforward:
“…those that say this are just trying to make money… They’re on a gravy train for heaven’s sake.”
A sunspot that is pointing straight towards Earth and is fast expanding has been seen by scientists. This sunspot has the potential to send an attack of solar energy our way in the coming days, according to Newsweek.
A few days ago, the sunspot, which was given the designation of AR3085 after the “active region” of the sun in which it first formed, was hardly a blip on the radar. According to SpaceWeather.com, it has now increased in size by a factor of ten, transforming into a pair of sunspots that each measure almost as far as the circumference of the Earth. This animation illustrates the progression of the spot over the course of about two days.
Credit: Spaceweather.com
According to SpaceWeather, a number of solar flares, which are huge bursts of electromagnetic radiation that snap off from the surface of the sun and blast forth into space, have been spotted “crackling” in the area. Solar flares are a type of solar activity that can be dangerous to earth if they are large enough.
The good news is that all of the flares that are occurring right now belong to the C-class, which is the weakest of the three classes of solar flares that government satellites monitor. In most cases, flares of the A-, B-, and C-classes are not powerful enough to have a discernible effect on Earth.
According to NASA, flares of the X-class have the potential to cause widespread radio blackouts, damage satellites, and knock out ground-based power grids.
If the spots continue to enlarge over the next several days, it is possible that they could emit more powerful flares that will go toward Earth. This could put satellites and communication systems in jeopardy. There is not, however, any immediate threat at this time.
On the surface of the sun, huge, dark patches characterized by intense magnetic fields may take the shape of sunspots. According to Space.com, the reason these areas, which often have a width comparable to that of planets, look darker is because they have a lower temperature than the rest of their surroundings.
They originate at areas of the sun’s surface where bands of the magnetic field get entangled and tight, so obstructing the passage of hot gas emanating from the inside of the sun and giving rise to colder, darker regions on its surface.
Solar flares are often caused by the accumulation of magnetic energy at the sun’s surface. When there are a greater number of sunspots present on the sun at a certain period, there is a greater chance that solar flares may occur.
There is a correlation between the sun’s 11-year cycle of activity and the frequency of sunspots and solar flares. This cycle alternates between times of high sunspot density and periods of low sunspot density around once every ten years or so.
It is anticipated that the next solar maximum, also known as the time of greatest sunspot activity, will occur in the year 2025. It is anticipated that during the days of the sun’s peak activity, as many as 115 sunspots would form on the surface of the sun.
Solar activity has been increasing over the last few years, and since spring of 2022, there have been a number of X-class flares that have swept across our globe, often occurring within a few of days of one another.
This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. As time ticks away toward the next solar maximum, there is a good chance that there will be a greater rise in the number of sunspots and solar flares.
So you’ve been devoting months, years, or perhaps even decades of your life to your spiritual practice.
But unlike physically tangible pursuits, there’s no easy way to know if you’re ‘making progress’ or not when it comes to your inner spiritual life.
If you’re wondering whether you’re actually growing and evolving and whether spiritual growth is indeed occurring in your life, keep reading.
What is Spiritual Growth?
Spiritual growth is the process of awakening to your true nature, purpose, and potential. When you undergo spiritual growth you experience an expansion in awareness and insight, also known as higher consciousness.
All spiritual growth has one objective: to help you embody your Soul or Higher Self. Once you are able to shift from ego to Soul, there is the potential for you to experience what is understood as spiritual enlightenment, self-realization, “heaven,” Oneness, or moksha in varying degrees.
Spiritual Growth: 12 Signs You’re Growing and Evolving
Here are the major signs that you’re growing and evolving on a spiritual level:
1. You embrace challenges as lessons and opportunities
Whether your car has just broken down, or someone you love is terribly ill, you sense that there’s an underlying lesson and opportunity in the obstacle before you. Instead of feeling like a victim, you feel like a student of life. In other words, you see that life is not happening to you, it is happening for you.
2. You see through the seduction of the material world
Once upon a time, you might have loved buying expensive things, focusing on enhancing your social status, earning more money, or even indulging in spiritual materialism. But now, you understand that the material world doesn’t ultimately bring you the deep happiness you seek.
3. Your sensitivity has heightened
In the past, you might have been living in a numb state where you were disconnected from your body, heart, mind, and soul. But now, you are a great deal more aware of what is going on inside and around you. As such, you might experience more empathic suffering, which can often feel like both a curse and a gift.
4. You feel more love and compassion (for yourself, others, and the world)
With heightened sensitivity, you also feel more connected to yourself and the world. You may feel higher levels of compassion and true empathy for others – even those who are harmful to themselves, others, and the planet. Your open heart brings you more joy, but also more pain. And yet, your heart is slowly learning how to expand and hold that pain.
5. You stop seeing life in black-or-white dualistic thinking
If you’ve been taught anything by your spiritual awakening, kundalini awakening, or dark night of the soul, it’s that there’s more to life than meets the eye. Something that may seem negative may turn out to be positive. Something that seems beautiful may actually be ugly deep down. Everything and everyone have two sides that are interdependent – nothing is totally black or white.
6. You can show more understanding toward difficult people
Because you can see underneath the surface of a person’s behavior – and the various wounds and traumas that may have caused them to misbehave – you no longer carry as much anger or resentment as you once did. You find it easier to show tolerance and understanding toward others, no longer reacting with as much judgment, condemnation, or self-righteousness.
7. You see that life is cyclical and like a spiral
Instead of getting stuck in one mode of being or mindset, you’re beginning to see that life is cyclical. There are good times and bad times. After spring comes autumn and after day comes night. All things are destined to come and go, rise and fall. As such, you don’t get as affected as you once did when life waxes and wanes – it’s just part of life and the journey of Ensoulment.
8. You become less attached to mental stories
The more you become acquainted with your mind, the more you recognize that thoughts, ideas, and beliefs don’t actually define you. Instead, these mental occurrences are like clouds that float into the sky, and then eventually drift away. When you attach to mental thoughts and beliefs, you suffer. But when you recognize that your thoughts and feelings don’t define you – instead, you are the vast Consciousness beneath them – you find it easier to let go and find a sense of inner peace.
9. You find it easier to slow down and do nothing
Our thinking minds are always wanting us to “do,” “get,” “achieve,” “go-go-go!” but the soul, the spiritual center of our being, finds true nourishment in slowing down and enjoying life as it is. If you’re finding it easier to wind down, or at least catch the desire to constantly be “switched on” and change course, this is a clear sign of spiritual growth.
10. You are more interested in letting go of the old than gaining the new
As an ongoing student of the Tao Te Ching – an ancient wisdom text from the Taoist tradition – the topic of letting go constantly arises.
Among many verses on letting go, verse 44 packs quite a punch:
One’s own reputation—why the fuss?
One’s own wealth—why the concern?
I say, what you gain
is more trouble than what you lose
Therefore, a huge part of authentic spiritual growth is the capacity to be not only accepting of letting go, but actually preferring it to “gaining more.” The desire to accumulate is from the ego, but the desire to surrender and be free is from the soul.
11. You have more capacity to be discerning
Spiritual growth is not just about experiencing love, bliss, and expansion – although that is part of it. As we deepen and mature, spiritual growth is also about the capacity to think clearly and distinguish truth from falsehood. This ability to use the mind like a sword is what is known as spiritual discernment.
12. You can access more moments of ‘ordinary magic’
While it’s normal at the beginning of the spiritual journey to want glitch, glamor, and exciting sparkly experiences, the more we grow, the more we recognize the beauty of what is already here, right now. This ordinary magic can be accessed whenever we are present, grounded in the Now, and connected with the heart and soul.
The hospital’s video series features doctors and other health care professionals promoting the butchering of children.
JORDAN BOYD
Boston Children’s Hospital is promoting the mutilation of healthy kids who claim to be “transgender” via “gender-affirming” hysterectomies, sterilization, and chemical castration despite the irreversible mental and physical damage those procedures cause.
For years now, BCH has mutilated children’s sexual organs under the guise of “inclusive reproductive health care for people of all gender identities and anatomies.” That includes prescribing hormones that suppress menstruation in underage girls and block the increase of testosterone in minor boys, phalloplasties and metoidioplasties for 18-year-old girls who want penises, vaginoplasties for 17-year-old boys who want vaginas, chest reconstruction and breast augmentation for children as young as 15, and even medically unnecessary hysterectomies for girls whom the hospital deems eligible for surgery.
Just this week, BCH scrubbed a video titled “What happens during a gender-affirming hysterectomy?” after facing backlash for promoting the surgery for minors who can’t consent and do not have the mental capacity to make such a life-altering decision.
An archived version of the footage shows Dr. Frances Grimstad, an obstetrician-gynecologist, describing the process of rendering teen women infertile by removing key female reproductive organs in the name of affirmation.
“A gender-affirming hysterectomy is very similar to most hysterectomies that occur,” Grimstad happily explains. “A hysterectomy itself is the removal of the uterus, the cervix, which is the opening of the uterus, and the fallopian tubes, which are attached to the sides of the uterus.”
Grimstad notes that ovaries, which produce eggs, may also be removed in an attempt to convince young girls that they are boys.
BCH also appears to have taken down Grimstad’s profile on its website, but a bio on the Harvard Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression Health Equity Research Collaborative page describes how the OB-GYN has participated in “clinical and research work surrounding transgender and intersex reproductive health” for years.
“She has been involved in trans health advocacy since her own adolescence, when she decided to pursue medicine to address disparities in care faced by these communities,” the page, which also states Grimstad’s pronouns, says. “Her interests center around optimizing reproductive health outcomes for both populations including hormonal and menstrual management, surgical care and family planning.”
The playlist, designed to help families “understand” gender and LGBT issues, includes 90 videos (some of which are currently hidden) of doctors and other health care professionals promoting the butchering of children. Some topics highlighted in the clips include: “Recovery after chest reconstruction,” “Let’s talk about sex (for trans folks),” “Why is hair removal necessary before phalloplasty?,” “What is tucking?,” and “Fertility preservation: What transgender patients should know.”
BCH not only brags about starting “the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the United States,” but also claims that laws from Republican states that have legislated against the maiming of minors in the name of transgenderism “are in direct opposition to our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusivity, as well as the standard of care that we live by.”
A BCH blog post from April also condemns conservatives’ attempts to classify these procedures as “child abuse” and claims that “caring” for trans-identifying children means “supporting kids who are exploring their gender identity, transitioning socially (for example, changing their pronouns, using an affirmed name, or modifying their clothing), or pursuing medical care.” In the article, the author repeats lies, some of the same ones touted by the Biden administration, that declining to mutilate children will result in more suicides.
BCH’s webpage describing its genital mutilation operation and chemical castration regimens for minors even includes a section that details how doctors at the hospital should “ask you what language you use to describe your body and its functions,” even if those answers deny biological reality.
BCH did not immediately respond to The Federalist’s questions or request for comment
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Amazon.com Inc.’s $1.7 billion acquisition of robot vacuum cleaner company iRobot Corp. is a move by the megacorporation to use Roombas to map the interior of homes. This data type is a digital gold mine for Amazon because if marketers know more about what’s inside, they can easily create tailormade ads.
From a market perspective, Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot is to gain deeper insight into customers’ homes via the autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner called “Roomba.”
The latest model of the Roomba, called J7, has a front-facing, AI-powered camera that maps out each room and will identify nearly everything in its path, such as floor plans, where the kitchen is, which space is the master bedroom, and where the kids sleep, as well as items on the floor.
“Slightly more terrifying, the maps also represent a wealth of data for marketers. The size of your house is a pretty good proxy for your wealth. A floor covered in toys means you likely have kids. A household without much furniture is a household to which you can try to sell more furniture. This is all useful intel for a company such as Amazon which, you may have noticed, is in the business of selling stuff,” Bloomberg said.
Roomba’s surveillance from within the home is pure digital gold, as Amazon’s ambition to learn more about the customer will allow marketers to sell more junk.
Vice News said, “leaked documents acquired by Motherboard revealed that one of the goals of Astro [Amazon’s robot] was to create a robot that intelligently plotted out the interior of a user’s homes, even creating heat maps of highly trafficked areas.”
Amazon customers haven’t received Astro well for privacy reasons, and the same could happen with robot vacuums following the acquisition. Some on Twitter are already calling the Amazon/iRobot deal “pure dystopia.”
People are starting to catch onto Amazon’s mass surveillance program of the household:
So, what iRobot brings to Amazon is the ability to embed its vast surveillance infrastructure into what appears to be a harmless vacuum, but just as Echo smart speakers are always ‘listening,’ perhaps the vacuum will always be watching.
As a reminder, Amazon has a frightening partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency — maybe it’s time to ditch the Roomba.
All the Data Amazon’s Ring Cameras Collect About You
The popular security devices are tracking (and sharing) more than you might think.
PHOTOGRAPH: FORTGENS PHOTOGRAPHY/SHUTTERSTOCK
IF YOU WALK through your local neighborhood—providing you live in a reasonably large town or city—you’ll be caught on camera. Government CCTV cameras may record your stroll, but it is increasingly likely that you’ll also be captured by one of your neighbors’ security cameras or doorbells. It’s even more likely that the camera will be made by Ring, the doorbell and security camera firm owned by Amazon.
Videos shared from security cameras and internet-connected doorbells have also become common on platforms like Facebook and TikTok, raking in millions of views. “Ring impacts everybody’s privacy,” says Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Most immediately, it impacts the people who walk down the streets every day, where the cameras are pointing out.”
While Ring is far from the only maker of smart doorbells and cameras—Google’s Nest line is another popular option—its connections to law enforcement have drawn the most criticism, as when it recently handed over data without warrants. So, what exactly does Ring collect and know about you?
What Ring Knows About You
Whenever you use any tech, it’s collecting data about you. Spotify uses the data it collects to work out your mood, Slack knows how many messages you send. Ring’s products are no different. Ring’s privacy policy—running 2,400 words—and its terms of service detail what it collects about you and how it uses that information. In short: It’s a lot.
Ring gets your name, phone number, email and postal address, and any other information you provide to it—such as payment information or your social media handles if you link your Ring account to Facebook, for instance. The company also gets information about your Wi-Fi network and its signal strength, and it knows you named your camera “Secret CIA Watchpoint,” as well as all the other technical changes you make to your cameras or doorbells.
In March 2020, a BBC information request revealed that Ring keeps detailed records of people’s doorbell activity. Every doorbell press was logged. Each motion the camera detected was stored. And details were saved every time someone zoomed in on footage on their phone. In just 129 days, 4906 actions were recorded. (Ring says it does not sell people’s data.)
Ring can also collect the video and audio your camera records—the system doesn’t record all the time, but it can be triggered when it senses movement. Ring says its cameras can detect movement “up to 155 degrees horizontally” and across distances of up to 25 feet. This means there’s a good chance cameras can be triggered by people walking down the street or pick up conversations of passersby. According to tests by Consumer Reports, some Ring cameras can record audio from about 20 feet away.
Jolynn Dellinger, a senior lecturing fellow focusing on privacy and ethics at Duke University’s school of law, says recording audio when someone is on the street is a “serious problem” for privacy and may change how people behave. “We operate with a sense of obscurity, even in public,” Dellinger says. “We are in danger of increasing surveillance of everyday life in a way that is not consistent with either our expected views or really what’s best for society.” In October 2021, a British woman won a court case that said her neighbor’s Ring cameras, which overlooked her house and garden, broke data laws.
Ring’s privacy policy says it can save videos of subscribers to its Ring Protect Plan, a paid service that provides an archive of 180 days of video and audio captured. The company says people can log in to the service to delete the videos, but the company may ultimately keep them anyway. “Deleted Content and Ring Protect Recordings may be stored by Ring in order to comply with certain legal obligations and are not retrievable without a valid court order,” the privacy policy says.
Ring can also keep videos shared to its Neighbors’ app—an app where people and law enforcement agencies can share alerts about “crimes” and post their videos of what is happening around the homes. (There are rules about what people are allowed to post.)
Ring’s privacy policy and terms of service allow it to use all this information it collects in multiple ways. It lists 14 ways the company can use your data—from improving the service Ring provides and protecting against fraud to conducting consumer research and complying with legal requirements. Its privacy policy includes the ambiguous statement: “We also may use the personal information we collect about you in other ways for which we provide specific notice at the time of collection and obtain your consent if required by applicable law.” Ring spokesperson Sarah Rall says this could apply if the company added features or use cases that are not already covered by its privacy policy. “We would provide additional notice or get permission as needed,” Rall says.
While Ring’s privacy policies apply to those who purchase its devices, people who are captured in footage or audio don’t have a chance to agree to them. “Privacy, security, and customer control are foundational to Ring, and we take the protection of our customers’ personal and account information seriously,” Rall says.
Ultimately, you agree to give Ring permission to control the “content” you share—including audio and video—while you own the intellectual property to it. The company’s terms of service say you give it an “unlimited, irrevocable, fee free and royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide right” to store, use, copy, or modify content you share through Neighbors or elsewhere online. (Audio recording can be turned off in Ring’s settings.)
“When I went out to buy a security camera last year, I looked for ones only that did local storage,” says Jen Caltrider, the lead researcher on Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included, which evaluates the privacy and security of products. Caltrider says people should try to keep as much control of their data as possible and not store files in the cloud unless they need to. “I don’t want any company having this data that I can’t control. I want to be able to control it.”
How Ring Works With Police
Ring’s deals with police forces—both in the US and the UK—have proved controversial. For years, the company has partnered with law enforcement agencies, providing them with cameras and doorbells that can be given to residents. By the start of 2021, Ring had partnered with more than 2,000 US law enforcement and fire departments. Documents have shown how Ring also controls the public messaging of police departments it has partnered with. “There is nothing mandating Ring build a tool that is easily accessible and helpful to police,” Guariglia says.
Rings’ terms of service say that the company may “access, use, preserve and/or disclose” videos and audio to “law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties” if it is legally required to do so or needs to in order to enforce its terms of service or address security issues. Government officials could include any “regulatory agency or legislative committee that issues a legally binding request for information,” Rall says. For the six months between January and June 2022, Ring says it had more than 3,500 law enforcement requests in the US.
In December 2021, researchers at New York University’s (NYU) Policing Project released an audit of Ring’s relationship with law enforcement and the way its Neighbors app works. (Ring provided data to the audit’s authors about how the service functions.) The report details concerns that Ring could exacerbate police bias against Black and brown communities and notes a lack of transparency around how Neighbors works.
“We see a lot of risk in having police responding to calls about homeless people or low-level drug use,” says Max Isaacs, a staff attorney with the Policing Project and a coauthor of the audit. “When police are relying on private devices like Ring devices, it creates a democratic deficit, because now police can greatly expand their surveillance capabilities,” Isaacs says. Citizen-on-citizen surveillance, which Isaacs calls “lateral surveillance,” lacks scrutiny. “They can have thousands of cameras in a jurisdiction … without any legislative oversight.”
In response to the NYU audit, Ring said it made more than 100 changes to its service. These changes hint at how the app may have previously been misused by law enforcement agencies. Police are now required to use official accounts to request content about crimes, Ring will not donate devices to law enforcement bodies, and it will “no longer will participate in police sting operations.”
Ring also agreed to stop citing the impact its cameras have on crime—previous claims say it reduces crime in areas—until that has been verified by an independent study. “Ring also reviewed all of its marketing and social media materials to remove any claims about crime reduction,” the report says. The change that will do most to protect people’s privacy may be the introduction of end-to-end encryption, which means the company can’t access recordings of users who have the feature enabled. However, it isn’t turned on by default. Here’s how to turn it on.
Update 10:30 am ET, 8-5-22: Ring spokesperson Sarah Rall’s statement that the company “would provide additional notice or get permission as needed” pertains to other ways Ring may use your personal information, not to its data-retention policies.
I’m publishing this early, on a Sunday, because there’s a little bit of chatter on the internet about a very strange Russian television commercial that’s been making the rounds, mostly on YouTube. That in itself is worth some commentary, but we’ll get back to that later, as it forms part of today’s high octane speculation. I was first made aware of this commercial last Friday (Aug 12, 2022) during our members’ vidchat when someone first mentioned it, and another member chimed in and said that they’d also seen it.
After the vidchat I quickly went searching for the commercial, and any information that might corroborate that the commercial is genuine, and indeed a product of the Russian government. Welll, according to this article from the U.K. Express, the commercial is indeed genuine, so I’m going to throw caution to the winds and run with it:
Now in case you missed the commercial itself while you were watching Sean Vannity on Faux News, or whoever-it-is on SeeBS or whatever, here it is:
So in that short minute, the case for moving to Russia is reduced to the following 16 points:
(1) delicious cuisine: check, I have to admit that I miss my mother’s beef Stroganoff, although she wasn’t Russian (for that matter, I also liked her chicken paprikash, and she wasn’t Hungarian either, but Orban makes a good case too);
(2) Beautiful women: well, check, at least they seem to know what women are in Russia (beautiful or not), and the last time I checked, they’re not letting men swimmers compete against women swimmers just because the former “identify” as the latter, which makes one wonder if Ron De Santis is either Russian, or a Russian agent. His lack of gender confusion is…well, it’s just highly suspicious;
(3) Cheap gas: well, that’s probably a check. I don’t know, because I haven’t bought any gas in Russia lately, or for that matter, ever. I imagine, however, that the way the Germans are wincing, it’s probably true. I know it’s not nearly as cheap here as it was when Orange-Man-Bad was president.
(4) Rich history: check, Russia certainly has that, and with several intriguing nooks and crannies well worth exploring. Take it from me, because I used to teach Russian history in college.
(5) World famous literature: again, check, and probably several checks. Dostoyevsky alone would have put Russia on the literary map, and he’s just one of very many. And while we’re on the subject, isn’t it a bit ironic and creepy that Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard resembles more the modern USSA than it does Russia, they having gone through their “cherry orchard” dark ages-evil empire moment called the Soviet Union? Who can forget the fun and frolic with Yezov, Yagoda, and Beria, huh?
(6) Unique architecture: yup, check: they have everything from Byzantine, classical, and European to that unique style that can only be called “Soviet Modern Ugly”, sort of the Russian equivalent in spartan ugliness to the German Bauhaus school, only the Soviet style isn’t nearly as ugly. The only uglier style is the Obama Presidential Library Style that infects modern America.
(7) Fertile soil: well, a probable check here. Again, I don’t know, and I’m the last person anyone should ask, because after years of careful and studious neglect, I’ve managed to kill my mother’s old Swedish ivy plant. I know nothing about soil conditions, and particularly Russian soil conditions, except I do know that the Russian government doesn’t like GMOs, has banned than, and that this has to be good for the soil. That one factoid alone makes me extremely suspicious of Western motivations in backing the regime in Kiev (and yes, I’m going to keep spelling it and pronouncing it that way, just to be irritating).
(8) Cheap electric and water: again, a probable check, because I don’t know, I’m not there. That said, we do have a couple of members of this website who actually maintain rather spacious apartments in St. Petersburg (a city full of that unique architecture) and when they told me how cheap their rent was for such a large city, I was flabbergasted, so I can believe the cheap water and gas, though I suppose like everywhere else, it depends on local conditions.
(9) Ballet: ok, check. I’m not a big ballet fan as one might have guessed, probably for the same reasons I’m just not a big opera guy. But, once that’s on the record, the music itself has become part of the standard repertoire. Who of us haven’t heard The Nutcracker or Swan Lake? If you haven’t, well, then that sort of makes the commercial’s point: you’re a modern western cretin, and the commercial isn’t targeting you to move to Russia. Had I been in charge of making the commercial for the Russian government and its evil-super-criminal-genius-and-never-to-be-trusted-byzantine-mastermind Vladimir Putin, I would have stressed “Great music” rather than ballet, with perhaps a snippet of Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev playing in the background.
(10) Cheap taxi and delivery: well, a probable check on that one too, though I haven’t had to ride any Russian taxis or have any packages delivered in that country, although my guess is, yea, that’s probably true too.
(11) Traditional values: ok, check. You don’t get to dress up in outlandish costumery and purple hair, call yourselves “Pussy Riot”, and carry on in a lewd fashion in an Orthodox Cathedral and call it a “protest” without being clapped in the slammer; up to that point, apparently, it was ok to dress as outlandishly as your liked, and to call yourself whatever offensive name you wished; you just don’t get to do that in church.
(12) Christianity: ok, check. Granted, the Christianity in Russia is, well, Russian Orthodox by and large, but so what? When Kirill wakes up and realizes that the Church is missing a golden opportunity to put some real weight behind an Orthodox western rite complete with hierarchy, then who knows where that will lead. (Here’s a hint Kir: neither Antioch nor ROCOR know what they’re doing… dig in your archives long enough and you’ll find out what I’m talking about… have your people contact my people; let’s talk.)
(13) No cancel culture: well, ok, check, but with caveats: when are we talking about here? Certainly there was a lot of “canceling” being done under the aforementioned Mssrs Yezov, Yagoda, and Beria. But I grant the basic proposition: no one carted Pussy Riot off to a gulag; rather, one gets the impression that Pussy Riot would be entirely ok with putting the entirety of the Russian Church back in the gulag.
(14) Hospitality: check: this one deserves some ‘splaining. While I’ve not been to Russia, I have been around a lot of Russians, and yes, I can vouch for the hospitality. WARNING (and I learned this trick far too late to do me any good): don’t drink the vodka (the next point on the list). Claim that you’re an alcoholic. I’m still suffering a hang-over with a half-life of 243 years because I drank vodka with Russians, and I’ll still be suffering that hang-over long after I’m dead.
(15) Vodka: check (see point 14 above).
(16) An economy that can withstand thousands of sanctions. Well, ok, check. To listen to the western propatainment media tell it, Russia’s economy is on its last legs and will implode at any moment. Now, in my humble and uninformed opinion, that’s probably right up there with The Ukraine is Winning Hugely meme we’ve been watching. We’re supposed to be gloating that the Russian military is doing so poorly. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t, but I don’t see the American military anywhere close, and one wonders how its “reality fluid” approach to basic metaphysical categories would fare. If the captured American-and-NATO trained fascist military units are any indicator, then they wouldn’t fare too well. It was, after all, Russian 152mm cannon firing point blank into the Reichstag, and not German 15omm cannon firing point blank into the Kremlin, that ended the last little fascist saber-rattling episode, as I recall.
Finally, the commercial ends with a cheery “Time to Move to Russia” and then a not-so-cheery “Winter is Coming.”
Now I’ve taken a lot of time to review this commercial, because frankly, it intrigued me. Why produce such a thing at all? After all, Russian media has been all but totally banned in the west. In a way, it was easier when I was a boy to dial up the English language service of Radio Moscow than it is to tune into Russian television now. Why go to the production expense to produce such a commercial, when buying advertising time on Deutsche Welle or SeeBS or FAUX news or the Canadian Broadcorping Castration is a foregone negative conclusion? Why produce something that millions of people won’t see? Or rather, why produce something that the Western media and their masters won’t let millions of people see?
One obvious answer is that this commercial may be a typical dye-the-waters operation to see who is paying attention in the alternative media, and how the commercial circulates there. In which case, I’m happy to help. But the other possibility is that we’re also looking at the next phase of a campaign. If you’ve been paying attention to Russia lately, you’ll have noted that it’s not exactly on Mr. Globaloney’s bandwagon because it’s been insisting that there can be no global order that cancels national sovereignty, and more importantly, that global order does not arise without respect to culture and tradition. That’s a fancy way of saying that a merely technocratic approach to global order is doomed to failure. It’s a commercial deliberately designed to highlight the failures of the globalist cabal and their programs, and, indeed, to invite those who crave for an expression of traditional European culture to move to the one place where it still has a living expression, in spite of the best efforts of Bolshevik technocrats and their Pussy Rioting lackeys to crush it.
One can see this by contempleting the implied negative message of the commercial: (1) delicious cuisine, versus poor nutrition, “fast food” and eating bugs; (2) Beautiful women, versus not knowing what a woman is; (3) Cheap gas, versus alleged President Joe Bidenenko; (4) Rich history, versus people that cannot even read and who do not even know, nor are taught, their own; (5) World Famous Literature, versus a population that can barely write and scrawl its own name; (6) Unique architecture; versus collapsing footbridges designed by “inclusive and diverse” committees; (7) fertile soil; versus soil polluted and corrupted, and robbed of nutritional value by “argibusiness”; (8) cheap electric and water, versus alleged President Joe Bidenenko; (9) Ballet, versus the bump-whump of subwoofers in vehicles drumming out a primitive jungle beat and screaming unrelenting iambic pentameter, for everyone to hear; (10) cheap taxi and delivery; versus lockdowns (11) Traditional values; versus collapsing reality and epistemological solipsism; (12) Christianity, versus hollowed out ecclesiastical institutions, bishopettes, mangled and gutted “liturgies”, “inclusiveness” and empty churches, (13) no cancel culture, or rather, a culture period, and one not apologizing for existing.
The bottom line that I’m suggesting here is that this commercial is not a one-off. It’s but the latest chapter in a long series of messages of culture and tradition and history that post-Soviet Russia has been sending. So far, they’ve been sending that message – at the popular level at least – mostly to their own population. In so far as they have sent that message to the West, it’s been to the Western leaders, who, of course, are stupid and tone-deaf and unable to hear it. But the western populations… they are a different matter. This is a serious message, addressed to them. And I suspect it’s only the first of many. There is even a carefully calculated geopolitical aspect to it, but I’ll leave that for you to guess, and perhaps take it up at another time.
