Shares of Credit Suisse plunged nearly 10% in Europe’s morning session, after the Financial Times reported the Swiss bank’s executives are in talks with its major investors to reassure them amid rising concerns over the Swiss lender’s financial health.
Spreads of the bank’s credit default swaps (CDS), which provide investors with protection against financial risks such as default, rose sharply Friday.
They followed reports the Swiss lender is looking to raise capital, citing a memo from its Chief Executive Ulrich Koerner.
Jacinda Ardern and the woke war on free speech
The New Zealand PM is the kindly face of 21st-century authoritarianism.
Brendan O’Neill
Tyranny has had a makeover. It’s no longer a boot stamping on a human face forever. It isn’t a gruff cop dragging you into a cell for thinking or expressing a ‘dangerous’ idea. It isn’t a priest strapping you to a breaking wheel. No, authoritarianism is well-dressed now. It’s polite. It has a broad smile and speaks in a soft voice. It is delivered not via a soldier’s boot to the cranium but with a caring liberal head-tilt. And its name is Jacinda Ardern.
New Zealand’s PM, every online liberal’s favourite world leader, has gone viral over the past 24 hours following the circulation of the shocking speech she gave at the UN last Friday. Before the assembled leaders of both the free world and the unfree world, Ms Ardern raised the alarm about a new ‘weapon of war’. It’s a ‘dangerous’ one, she said. It poses a grave ‘threat’ to humankind. It threatens to drag us headlong into ‘chaos’. We must act now, she pleaded with the powerful, so that we might disarm this weapon and ‘bring [the world] back to order’.
What is this terrible weapon, this menacing munition, that Ms Ardern so passionately wants to decommission? It’s freedom of speech.
She was talking about words. Seriously. About ideas, disagreement, dissent. Her speech focused on the alleged scourge of ‘mis- and disinformation online’. We must tackle it, she said. She acknowledged that some people are concerned that ‘even the most light-touch approaches to disinformation’ could come across as being ‘hostile to the values of free speech’. You’re damn right we are. But us global elites must nonetheless root out virtual bullshit because it can ‘cause chaos’, she said.
Really getting into her stride, she said speech can sometimes be a ‘weapon of war’. Some people use actual weapons to inflict harm, others use words: ‘The weapons may be different but the goals of those who perpetuate them is often the same… [to] reduce the ability of others to defend themselves.’ ‘War is peace’, said Big Brother. Big Sister Jacinda Ardern sees it a little differently: war is speech. Words wound, ideas kill – that’s the hot take of this globe-trotting luvvie against liberty.
And she really is talking about ideas. Modern politicians who wring their hands over ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ are usually just talking about beliefs they don’t like. So at the UN, Ms Ardern gave climate-change scepticism as an example of one of those ‘weapons of war’ that can cause ‘chaos’. ‘How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists?’, she asked. Critiquing climate-change alarmism, calling into question the eco-lobby’s hysterical claims that billions will die and Earth will burn if we don’t drastically cut our carbon emissions, is an entirely legitimate political endeavour. In treating it as a species of Flat Earthism, as ‘disinformation’, the new elites seek to demonise dissenters, to treat people whose views differ to their own as the intellectual equivalent of warmongers. Barack Obama also claims that ‘misinformation’ about climate change – which, in his view, includes painting the environmentalist movement in a ‘wildly negative light’ – is a threat to the safety of humanity. Be mean about greens and people will die.
Call me a ‘weapon of war’, but I believe freedom of speech must include the freedom to be negative – even wildly so – about eco-activists. Activists, by the way, whose hype about the end of the world could genuinely be labelled misinformation. But they are never branded with that shaming m-word. That’s because misinformation doesn’t really mean misinformation anymore. It means dissent. Deviate from the woke consensus on anything from climate change to Covid and you run the risk of being labelled an evil disinformant.
Indeed, one of the most striking things about Ardern’s speech was her claim that if the elites ignore ‘misinformation’, then ‘the norms we all value’ will be in danger. This is the most common cry of the 21st-century authoritarian – that speech can have a destabilising and even life-threatening impact, especially if it concerns big crises like climate change or Covid-19. So ‘climate deniers’ are a threat to the future of the human race and thus may be legitimately silenced. ‘Lockdown deniers’ threaten to encourage the spread of viral infection and thus may be legitimately gagged. The spectre of crisis is cynically used to clamp down on anyone who dissents from the new global consensus. Images of Armageddon are marshalled to justify censorship of troublemakers. ‘Chaos’, as Ardern calls it – that’s what will unfold if your reckless, dangerous ideas are given free rein.
To see how authoritarian the desire to clamp down on ‘misinformation’ can be, just consider some of the other world leaders who likewise used the platform of the UN to call for tougher controls on speech. Muhammadu Buhari, the brutal ruler of Nigeria, focused on his nation’s ‘many unsavoury experiences with hate speech and divisive disinformation’ and joined the calls for a clampdown on the ‘scourge of disinformation and misinformation’. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, bemoaned the ‘disinformation’ against his nation. The chattering classes cheering Ms Ardern for standing up to ‘fake news’ are implicitly cheering Buhari and Lavrov, too. They are as one with that woke kween when it comes to chasing ‘misinformation’ from the public sphere.
Freedom of speech is in peril. And it isn’t only threatened by obvious strongmen – like the corrupt rulers of Nigeria or the theocratic tyrants of Iran – but also by a smiling PC woman who is feverishly fawned over by virtue-signallers the world over. Ms Ardern’s UN speech exposed the iron fist of authoritarianism that lurks within the velvet glove of wokeness. From her brutal lockdown, which forbade even New Zealand’s own citizens from returning to their home country, to her longstanding war on ‘extremist’ speech, this is a woman who poses as liberal but can’t even spell the word. If you want a picture of the future, don’t imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever – imagine Jacinda Ardern putting her arm around your shoulder and telling you with a toothy smile that you’re going to have to sacrifice your liberty to save the world from chaos.
Planet America 10:30AM – 11:02AM
Hurricane Ian continues its trail of destruction, but Biden and DeSantis must put politics aside during the storm; the bipartisan move to prevent another January 6 attack; Biden’s senior moment as he summons the dead.
I think I saw this the other day. Worse than last season. You know the formula. Most used word is not “the” “and” “but” etc but “Trump”. Why are the showing a senior moment? Biden wouldn’t be mentioned otherwise.
Chas & John. Saddest, overpaid fwits in Oz.
We saw early on in the war that Russia infantry were not up to Western standards. Basic skills drilled into the average Australian or US infantryman were just not there.
Would not have mattered much if they had obtained air dominance, but that has not occurred.
They have a training problem. It is unlikely to resolve.
They’re f***ed. We can only hope that the Hines are similarly useless.
Ted, FTA TV is a fountain of anti-Trump and anti-Republican propaganda, and TheirABC and SBS are the worst offenders.
There is a program hosted by George Steph-many opouleses, and he used to be Bill Clinton’s mouthpiece. There have been ‘documentaries’ about Hillary’s ‘struggles’ because she is a wymmenses. Also, ‘documentaries’ about how Trump is a racist, sexist, capitalist pig who is trying to destroy America.
On SBS, which is fascinated with Hitler, the anti-Trump programs are often scheduled before or after the Hitler ones. Very subtle, eh?
TheirABC, which is probably the largest media outfit in the country, has sent out a relentless stream of anti-Trump stories since the day he came down the escalator. I don’t think I have ever seen a single story there that acknowledges that he did anything good.
Most Australians are not obsessed with politics, and the impression they get of Trump and the Republican Party is designed to mislead.
“Bros,” billed as an all gay comedy, is a box office disaster.
Total receipts for Thursday and Friday came to just $1.84 million. With another $2.5 million coming on Saturday and Sunday, “Bros” stands to make less than $5 million for its entire opening weekend.
“Bros” doesn’t have a huge budget — $25 million at most. But the movie has had a tremendous amount of publicity and marketing, a blanketing that most films would give their popcorn up for. This just means that the public at large had no interest in seeing not only a gay rom com, but one with graphic sex scenes.
Movie-goers are homophobic.
That’s the reason being given for the flop.
So Eichner is blaming homophobia for his movie flopping when less than five percent of homosexuals bothered to show up.
A whopping 95 percent of gays did not bother to see Bros, and we know that number is actually higher. Not everyone who saw Bros was gay. They might be gay now. But they weren’t before they saw the movie. (Relax, Wendy, it’s a joke.)
No CV virus ever existed. It was entirely fictitious from the very start. Anyone still pretending like it was ever a real thing is still playing a game.
Across Shanghai’s Xuhui district, identical cameras are are popping up above shop doors. Three shop owners have told me that they’ve been put up by authorities to check that people are scanning QR codes. I’ve asked the government if this is indeed the case.
It looks like this bloke has tracked the flight direct out of the USA that took out Nord Stream. It hooked up with re-fueler for over an hour then proceeded to drop the weapon and immediately head back to the USA without landing in Europe.
The Reserve Bank returned to a “business as usual” 0.25 percentage point increase in the official interest rate on Tuesday, as it slowed rate rises to assess the economic outlook.
It looks like this bloke has tracked the flight direct out of the USA that took out Nord Stream. It hooked up with re-fueler for over an hour then proceeded to drop the weapon and immediately head back to the USA without landing in Europe.
If the US is not prepared to respond to the question that requires a Yes or No answer, the conclusion would be that they did it.
Who is really in charge at the White House? It may be someone who had power enough to get Brandon in so that the strings could be easily pulled.
From Monkey Werx
If we look at the Kenyan’s administration and look at his politics …. speculation that he is calling out the shots in the White House.
The data points to the United States …..So many data points that makes sense that is would be the United States…..We’re headed to war…..
Australian shares powered to their strongest session in more than two years after the Reserve Bank surprised markets by slowing the pace of monetary tightening, sparking a decline in local bond yields and the Aussie dollar.
The RBA lifted the cash rate by 0.25 of a percentage point to 2.6 per cent, below market and economist expectations for a half-percentage-point increase.
The decision triggered the biggest intraday drop in three-year government bond yields since October 2008, when the RBA cut by a full percentage point heading into the global financial crisis, Bloomberg said.
Markets scaled back expectations for the peak cash rate from over 4 per cent before the RBA decision to about 3.5 per cent. Pricing for the November meeting implied a 22-basis-point increase.
The Australian dollar dropped as much as 1 per cent before recouping much of those losses to trade around US64.75¢.
The S&P/ASX 200 rallied 3.8 per cent, or 242.4 points, to 6699.3, while the broader All Ordinaries jumped 3.7 per cent to 6905.3. All 11 sharemarket sectors posted gains of at least 1.9 per cent, with The Lottery Corporation the only stock listed on the benchmark index to finish in the red.
Tuesday’s advance marked the benchmark’s biggest one-day rise since its 3.9 per cent gain on June 16, 2020.
“The RBA’s started to signal tapering and its move highlights the fact that while the US may need a recession to get inflation under control, it’s not clear that Australia does,” said David Bassanese, chief economist at BetaShares.
“The RBA could be seeking to avoid the recession we don’t have to have.”
Top seed Novak Djokovic claimed his first title since winning Wimbledon in July with a dominant display against Marin Cilic at the Tel Aviv Open.
Djokovic did not face a break point in the first set as he beat second seed Cilic in his first regular tournament since his All England Club triumph.
The world number seven never looked likely to drop his first set of the tournament in a 6-3 6-4 victory.
He had only played in the Laver Cup since his 21st Grand Slam title win.
“I played some very good tennis, I think. I [didn’t] drop a set the entire week,” said the 35-year-old Serb.
“I hadn’t played a tournament in three months so it was really extra motivation for me to really do well, particularly because people have been so friendly and so supportive of me throughout the week.”
Trump devised ‘Superman stunt’ to boast of Covid recovery
The former US leader planned to leap from a wheelchair, even ordering staff to buy the superhero T-shirts, before the plan was abandoned, a new book has revealed.
“WHITE LIVES MATTER”, was the message stamped on the back of t-shirts worn by Ye, alongside conservative political pundit Candace Owens and several models (including Lauryn Hills’s daughter Selah Marley.)
The Essendon CEO has quit after one day. Piss weak. I’ll never go to or watch AFL ever again until they ditch gay pride round and the indigenous round. It’s all divisive BS.
Good find Steve. I’d like to see the timing of the explosions recorded by Sweden and compare that with the time that flight was over the pipelines.
There was approximately an hour’s difference between between the two pipeline’s destruction and that could be accounted for with the refuelling operation over Germany.
I’m thinking that there’s a few European nations who are wondering if they should’ve stayed neutral.
Good on him. There is a sh*t load of evidence about what has gone on around the world, chiefly the NHS (UK) and the Fauci hospital “health” protocols in the USA which has bumped so many with this “treament” under the guise of covid treatment.
I’ve said it before, all the doctors and nurses that willingly participated need to be taken to the cleaners.
If someone drives Fauci’s nose into his skull…..good! A noose would be better.
***********
Stew Peters Show:
Dr. Bryan Ardis joins alongside attorneys Michael Hamilton and Dan Watkins to detail their MASSIVE lawsuit exposing the deadliness of Remdesivir!
The Sun
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Sounding like 2008
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Peanuts
Beetle Bailey
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Dilbert
Dennis
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Blondie
Family circus
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Putin and colleague translated
Back in 5 minutes, just going to make a few quid
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Thanks Rosie.
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To get us in the mood for Tuesday’s RBA decision
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Colonel Douglas MacGregor allowed back on Fox News, but only for two minutes.
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George Galloway with another George
33:16 – 45:32 George Szamuely on #NATO #nordstream2
https://youtu.be/nEEhwJWNh34?t=1996
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However, it is legal to ride/hire an e-Scooter from a licenced company in the cities of Yarra, Melbourne, Port Phillip and Ballarat. Because of the patchy nature of the rollout, & the limited publicity it received, it’s little wonder that the sight of hire e-scooters flitting around “legally” has encouraged private owners out onto the roads. Police enforcement of the rules was pretty low-key until the current crackdown brought on by the recent fatality.
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Just take a leaf out of Zelensky’s book – “They are what they are”.
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Garrison
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Miranda Devine is on the money about how Senile Joe Biden is bring shame to the USA.
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Not the usual headline
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PJW
Bad Luck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCfcoMoMhV4
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Jacinda Ardern and the woke war on free speech
The New Zealand PM is the kindly face of 21st-century authoritarianism.
Brendan O’Neill
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Terrible TV (funded by you) for the day –
I think I saw this the other day. Worse than last season. You know the formula. Most used word is not “the” “and” “but” etc but “Trump”. Why are the showing a senior moment? Biden wouldn’t be mentioned otherwise.
Chas & John. Saddest, overpaid fwits in Oz.
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We saw early on in the war that Russia infantry were not up to Western standards. Basic skills drilled into the average Australian or US infantryman were just not there.
Would not have mattered much if they had obtained air dominance, but that has not occurred.
They have a training problem. It is unlikely to resolve.
They’re f***ed. We can only hope that the Hines are similarly useless.
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Chinese.
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Ted, FTA TV is a fountain of anti-Trump and anti-Republican propaganda, and TheirABC and SBS are the worst offenders.
There is a program hosted by George Steph-many opouleses, and he used to be Bill Clinton’s mouthpiece. There have been ‘documentaries’ about Hillary’s ‘struggles’ because she is a wymmenses. Also, ‘documentaries’ about how Trump is a racist, sexist, capitalist pig who is trying to destroy America.
On SBS, which is fascinated with Hitler, the anti-Trump programs are often scheduled before or after the Hitler ones. Very subtle, eh?
TheirABC, which is probably the largest media outfit in the country, has sent out a relentless stream of anti-Trump stories since the day he came down the escalator. I don’t think I have ever seen a single story there that acknowledges that he did anything good.
Most Australians are not obsessed with politics, and the impression they get of Trump and the Republican Party is designed to mislead.
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The tragi-comedy of Bros
Why would non-woke peoples want to watch this for entertainment?
Should be far more enjoyable watching paint dry.
1/
Box Office:
“Bros” May Score Just $5 Million Weekend After Disastrous Opening Night
Movie-goers are homophobic.
That’s the reason being given for the flop.
2/
Homophobia?
Math Proves 95% of Gays Avoided Billy Eichner’s ‘Bros’
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ASX is up 2.5% today.
Cue Philip Lowe …
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Dr Derek Knauss
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Big BrotherZe Schwab Bugs are watching you1/
WEF | Lumirithmic | Metaverse
2/
Test case trial in China
Coming to the WEF West soon.
Cameras
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0.25%.
Pissweak.
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RBA:
..
Morons.
You expect inflation to get worse than the current 6+ % and you come out with only a quarter percent increase?
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Well done.
It looks like this bloke has tracked the flight direct out of the USA that took out Nord Stream. It hooked up with re-fueler for over an hour then proceeded to drop the weapon and immediately head back to the USA without landing in Europe.
I’d say, sprung.
Skip to 5:30 for the details.
************
Monkey Werx US:
SITREP 10.3.22 – The HAAWC Missile System – If it looks like a duck!
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The news from MSM is clearly one-sided to show Russia as bad and Ukraine as the victim.
If, as MacGregor says, Washington is not willing to communicate with Putin, can we blame Putin for what he does?
And no one but Poland wants to go to war with Russia.
Why not? Don’t they want to defeat evil Putin and save the world?
……
Propaganda can be from both sides. Can MSM be relied on to report accurately?
No, a news video of a man moving inside a body bag was not filmed in Ukraine
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ASX200 now up 3.5% 🔥
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If the US is not prepared to respond to the question that requires a Yes or No answer, the conclusion would be that they did it.
Who is really in charge at the White House? It may be someone who had power enough to get Brandon in so that the strings could be easily pulled.
From Monkey Werx
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AFR
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The Poles want to start a world war again.
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A lesson for anyone wishing to do the same, particularly with spirits.
It’s a public service announcement worth repeating.
************
Reverend Simon Sideways:
Muslims die drinking home brew
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Things that never happened
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White Lives Matter
“WHITE LIVES MATTER”, was the message stamped on the back of t-shirts worn by Ye, alongside conservative political pundit Candace Owens and several models (including Lauryn Hills’s daughter Selah Marley.)
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/the-oz/lifestyle/hugely-irresponsible-critics-slam-kanyes-white-lives-matter-shirt/news-story/7193d7e9cd83044480da6728a113682b
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A bloke walking his dog.
*************
woof bark growl:
Cash 2.0 Great Dane visits an indoor shopping mall 31
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Shut up horseface
GBNews
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Cash, playing around with other dogs and no longer in show mode like you see him with human interactions.
Good to see that tail wagging.
*********
woof bark growl:
Cash 2.0 Great Dane making new friends at Omelveny Park
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The Essendon CEO has quit after one day. Piss weak. I’ll never go to or watch AFL ever again until they ditch gay pride round and the indigenous round. It’s all divisive BS.
Anzac day should never EVER go away.
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Good find Steve. I’d like to see the timing of the explosions recorded by Sweden and compare that with the time that flight was over the pipelines.
There was approximately an hour’s difference between between the two pipeline’s destruction and that could be accounted for with the refuelling operation over Germany.
I’m thinking that there’s a few European nations who are wondering if they should’ve stayed neutral.
Report comment
Good on him. There is a sh*t load of evidence about what has gone on around the world, chiefly the NHS (UK) and the Fauci hospital “health” protocols in the USA which has bumped so many with this “treament” under the guise of covid treatment.
I’ve said it before, all the doctors and nurses that willingly participated need to be taken to the cleaners.
If someone drives Fauci’s nose into his skull…..good! A noose would be better.
***********
Stew Peters Show:
Dr. Bryan Ardis joins alongside attorneys Michael Hamilton and Dan Watkins to detail their MASSIVE lawsuit exposing the deadliness of Remdesivir!
Dr. Ardis Files Lawsuit For MASS EXTERMINATION: DEADLY Remdesivir Drug Aims To MURDER MILLIONS!
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Peanuts
Beetle Bailey
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Dilbert
Dennis
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