How bad has the military-industrial complex gotten? The arms industry donates tens of millions of dollars every election cycle, and the average taxpayer spends $1,087 per year on weapons contractors compared to just $270 for K-12 education.
The Military-Industrial Complex Has Never Been Worse
Inside the high-security Influenza Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two experienced scientists were pulling ferrets out of their HEPA-filtered cages on a Monday in December 2019. Another researcher, still in training, was also in the room to watch and learn.
Lab-created bird flu virus accident shows lax oversight of risky ‘gain of function’ research
If we do not build left-right coalitions on issues such as militarism, health care, a living wage and union organizing, we will be impotent in the face of corporate power and the war machine.
There Are No Permanent Allies, Only Permanent Power
In a January article for Foreign Affairs, former Peruvian presidential candidate Julio Armando Guzmán depicts increased Chinese investment in Latin America as an existential threat to the region’s democracies.
The tedious China scare in Latin America
Related:
NED: FALL 2022 REAGAN-FASCELL DEMOCRACY FELLOWS
NED/CIA’s candidate lost the 2021 Peruvian general election and is calling for regime change in Peru, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and El Salvador!? 🧐💭
The meltdown in DC risks turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy: Routine inter-state relations becoming a full-blown crisis.
Washington inflates the China balloon threat
Related:
The world press is actively discussing the results of the first US-Africa Leaders Summit since 2014, held on December 13-15 in Washington.
At first glance this event may seem successful. The forum was attended by delegations from 49 countries plus the African Union and the permanent secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area. Only the leaders of those countries that were not invited because of their “non-compliance with democratic standards” (Guinea, Mali, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Eritrea) were not in attendance. It should be noted that the leader of Chad, who also came to power in an unconstitutional way, was at the summit. Apparently, his “authoritarianism” did not interfere with US principles since the country is close in its political positions to the West, primarily to France.
On the first results of the US-Africa Leaders Summit (archived)
What Is Behind Claim Joe Biden ‘Laundered’ Billions in Ukraine Aid via FTX?
Multiple tweets, posted between November 12-15, 2022, claim that Ukraine sent billions of dollars sourced from foreign aid to FTX, which was then sent back to the Democratic party.
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Caught in the tailwinds of the scandal, many onlookers have pointed out the links between FTX and U.S. political parties, particularly the Democrats.
Bankman-Fried’s personal contributions to the Democrats have been public knowledge for some time, and he was the subject of a Politico profile in August 2022 that described him as the “newest megadonor,” but he has also made contributions to Republicans.
He tweeted on November 5, 2022, that he was “a significant donor in both D and R primaries. Supporting constructive candidates across the aisle to prevent pandemics and bring a bipartisan climate to DC. And working with them to support permissionless finance.”
“As part of this, @rsalame7926 [FTX Executive Ryan Salame] and I signed up campaigns to accept crypto; and gave some, including millions to Senate & House Republicans.”
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Earlier this year, it was reported by The Intercept that FTX executive Ryan Salame started American Dream Federal Action, his own super PAC focused solely on electing Republicans, into which he invested millions of dollars.
Salame also contributed to the Republican Senate Leadership Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund. These donations were also reported, as per The Intercept article above, prior to the collapse of FTX.
The underlying implication among the claimants—that the Democratic Party was the sole beneficiary of donations stemming from FTX wealth—is provably false.
Related:
FTX’s SBF has made donations to Republican and Democrat parties
First, if there was any money laundering, both Democrats and Republicans were involved. Second, I don’t believe anything that Hal Turner says because he was an FBI Informant,
Army launches coup in Burkina Faso amid mass protests against France
The ousted junta leader, [Paul-Henri Sandaogo] Damiba, was widely seen as too closely linked to France. Late Saturday, there were protests outside the French embassy in Ouagadougou and the French Institute in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso. Video on social media showed residents with lit torches outside the French embassy, and other images showed part of the compound ablaze. The crowds also vandalised the French Institute.
Related:
Burkina Faso: Another Coup Led By U.S-Trained Soldier
[Paul-Henri Sandaogo] Damiba is a highly trained soldier, thanks in no small part to the U.S. military, which has a long record of training soldiers in Africa who go on to stage coups. Damiba, it turns out, participated in at least a half-dozen U.S. training exercises, according to U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM.
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Ms. Cat’s Chronicles.
The second thought was a byproduct of the first. The prospect of sudden escalation reminded me of a podcast conversation I listened to seven weeks into the war—a conversation that left me more worried than ever that American foreign policy is not in capable hands. The killing of Dugina, in a roundabout way, corroborates that worry.
The conversation was between Ryan Evans, host of the War on the Rocks podcast, and Derek Chollet, who, as Counselor of the State Department, reports directly to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Chollet was recounting diplomatic discussions between Moscow and Washington that had taken place before the invasion. He said something that had never before been officially confirmed: The US had refused to negotiate with Russia about keeping Ukraine out of NATO.
What bothered me wasn’t this disclosure; I’d already gathered (and lamented) that the Biden administration had refused to seriously engage Russia’s main stated grievance. What bothered me—and kind of shocked me—was how proud Chollet seemed of the refusal.
After all, when negotiations aimed at preventing the invasion of a nation you’re friends with are followed by the invasion of that nation, that’s not success, right? Apparently by Chollet’s lights it was.
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Last week John Mearsheimer (who seven years ago predicted eventual Russian invasion if the NATO expansion issue wasn’t addressed) published a piece in Foreign Affairs warning that as this war drags on, “catastrophic escalation” is a real possibility. Some people dismissed scenarios he sketched as conjectural. Yet exactly one day after his piece appeared, the real world provided us with a new scenario: daughter of iconic Russian nationalist murdered, leaving her aggrieved father to whip up support for a longer and bloodier and possibly wider war. Every day of every war brings the possibility of an unsettling surprise.
…
Listening to Chollet talk about what a strategic loss this war is for Putin, I was struck by how excited he sounded about that and by how youthful and naïve his excitement seemed. It would have been poignant if it weren’t scary. And I’ve seen no evidence that his boss at the State Department is more reflective than he is. Our foreign policy seems driven by two main impulses—macho posturing and virtue signaling—that work in unfortunate synergy and leave little room for wisdom.
Bringing this tragic war to a close is something that’s hard to do in the near term and is impossible to do without painful compromise. But I see no signs that the US is even contemplating such an effort, much less laying the groundwork for it. I worry that Chollet’s attitude in April—what seemed like a kind of delight in the prospect of a war that is long and costly for Russia—may still prevail in the State Department. So it’s worth repeating:
(1) A massively costly war for Russia can be a massively costly war for Ukraine and, ultimately, for Europe and for the whole world; and (2) Every day this war continues there’s a chance that we’ll see some wild card—like the murder of Daria Dugina—that makes such a lose-lose outcome more likely.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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