“We’re all the targets of these wars. We’re the ones whose clicks decide whose side wins out.” – Peter Singer, co-author of “LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media”
Shit dawg, the free Subscribers to Paulokirk are “UnSubscribing” and “Deplaning” in droves, like Jews on that Sinking Titanic scurrying for another ship from which to disease and chew holes in!
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“Over a very short period of time, a handful of tech geeks have become among the most powerful figures in all of politics and war.”–Peter Singer
We will soon go through some of the elements of the rap sheet of former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who just died at age 100, that may not be as well known as other misdeeds, the biggest being the Greenspan put, which then became the Bernanke/Yellen/Powell put. But to prove that he was not as well respected even in his heyday as the press then would have you believe, a story from a finance professional prominent enough to be regularly invited to the Economics Club of New York talks:
One time, when I was on the last shuttle flight from Washington DC to New York, Greenspan was on the same plane. I debated whether I would be willing to die in a crash if it killed Greenspan too. I quickly concluded “yes”.
In other words, during Peak Greenspan, many skeptics held their tongues rather than fight the tape of the media cheerleading.
But an even bigger and less well-known Greenspan sin was allowing unregulated derivatives trading. As we explained long form in ECONNED, the 2008 crisis was not a housing crisis but a derivatives crisis of instruments that referenced particularly risky subprime exposures. The entire subprime market was not big enough to produce more than at worst something a big nastier than the saving & loan crisis, nor a near failure of the global financial system. But credit default swaps and CDO composed heavily of CDS referencing BBB-subprime tranches created exposures of 4 to 6 times the real economy value and concentrated them at systemically important, overleveraged financial institutions.
And Greenspan’s pathological neglect and the systemic effects greatly predate the famed row of Greenspan and Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin against CFTC chair Brooksley Born over regulation of credit default swaps, with Born lost. Greenspan ushered in the widespread use of derivatives which are used almost entirely for speculation, thus diverting resources and “talent” into socially destructive activity. And as we will soon explain, the explosive growth of over-the-counter derivatives markets was a major driver of demand for securitized products.
In the early 1990s, your humble blogger had one of the two top derivatives trading firms, O’Connor & Associates, as a client. Their big competitor was Bankers Trust. My time with O’Connor showed me that it took an extremely high level of sophistication, in staff training, risk modeling, internal organization (as in trader/position management) and IT (where O’Connor was bleeding edge, running the biggest UNIX network in the world ex DARPAnet itself). It was way too easy for mere mortals to blow themselves up; O’Connor did some advising to Fortune 500 companies who had done just that. The idea that a sophisticated multinational like Proctor & Gamble could claim to have been victimized when they should have damned well known what they were doing is a further testament to the high skill level needed to manage derivatives operations properly.
I recall gasping out loud, I believe in 1996, when I read in Institutional Investor that Greenspan was adopting a “Let a thousand flowers bloom” approach to regulatory oversight of derivatives risk at banks, as in doing nothing. But Greenspan believe that reputational risk would keep industry participants on good behavior.
In reality, I later learned that JP Morgan was in a big push to get its version of Value at Risk models adopted. I won’t belabor as to how, but JP Morgan clearly thought this would give them a competitive advantage.
The result was that regulators came to operate in a close to blind manner, much like a doctor treating blood pressure as a reliable indicator of patient health, when it needs to be included with other measures. And we will skip over how badly VaR models performed in the crisis.
Forgive us for the deep dive, but ECONNED explained how the free markets’ approach to derivatives was a, if not the, major driver of the 2008 crisis, to create more AAA-rated paper to secure derivatives positions. The AAA tranches in most securitizations account for 70% to 80% of face value. From ECONNED:
Some have argued that the parabolic increase in demand for repos was due in large measure to borrowing by hedge funds. Indeed, Alan Greenspan reportedly used repos as a proxy for the leverage used by hedge funds. Others believe that the greater need for repos resulted from the growth in derivatives. But since hedge funds are also significant derivatives counterparties, the two uses are related.
Brokers and traders often need to post collateral for derivatives as a way of assuring performance on derivatives contracts. Hedge funds must typically put up an amount equal to the current market value of the contract, while large dealers generally have to post collateral only above a threshold level. Con- tracts may also call for extra collateral to be provided if specified events occur, like a downgrade to their own ratings. (Recall that it was ratings downgrades that led AIG to have to post collateral, which was the proximate cause of its bailout.) Cash is the most important form of collateral. Repos can be used to raise cash. Many counterparties also allow securities eligible for repo to serve as collateral.
Due to the strength of this demand, as early as 2001, there was evidence of a shortage of collateral. The Bank for International Settlements warned that the scarcity was likely to result in “appreciable substitution into collateral having relatively higher issuer and liquidity risk.”
That is code for “dealers will probably start accepting lower-quality collateral for repos.” And they did, with that collateral including complex securitized products that banks were obligingly creating.
Jews:
Israel is now openly threatening to use nukes against the world.
Ironically, this is exactly why they should be disarmed and their future statehood called into serious question, why the Zionist project should have never begun.
Violent tribalism + and existential victim narrative is the most dangerous combination possible. And it’s fundamental to Israeli identity.
There are only two possible outcomes- either they rule the world and all bow to their chosenness, or they keep picking fights until the whole world turns on them and they are destroyed.
The slippery part is that it’s not just Israel; they have dragged the entire global Jewish population into this adversarial and unconscionable position. And the real power structure of Israel is dispersed across the global network of Jewish billionaires and bankers that support it and represent the true power of the project.
Pepe pepe Pepto-Bismol . . .
Geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar paints a picture of a highly volatile regional situation, centered on fragile, behind-the-scenes negotiations between the US and Iran taking place in Switzerland. Crucially, these talks are not direct; they are mediated entirely through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries, with Pakistan described as the architect of the emerging memorandum of understanding.
A major sticking point threatening the agreement is the ongoing military operations in southern Lebanon by Israel. Escobar identifies this as a “fatal crack,” as continued fighting undermines US assurances and violates Iran’s red lines. Compounding the tension, Mossad, under its new chief, is reportedly adopting a more aggressive strategy to destabilize the Iranian government.
On the financial front, a key element involves $12 billion to $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar stepping in to underwrite these funds should US commitments falter. This financial realignment accompanies a broader security shift, as Saudi Arabia reportedly looks to Pakistan—not the US—for its security umbrella, citing reports of Pakistani military deployment on Saudi soil.
Escobar warns that Iran’s willingness to continue negotiating despite ongoing violations of its red lines risks internal backlash and could significantly weaken its regional deterrent capabilities.
KKK? Fucking a thousand times worse than those cunts:
Among the 93 Palestinian female detainees enduring horrific treatment in Israeli rape and torture dungeons are three pregnant women who are allowed no reprieve on humanitarian grounds by their Israeli tormentors.
In a statement on Monday, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) shared details of abuses faced by Amina Shaher al-Tawil, Dana Anad Joudeh, and Manar Ibrahim Ibrahim, all of whom are being held in the occupation’s Damon Prison in Haifa. It described the conditions of their incarceration as “difficult and tragic.”
The PPS statement revealed that detainee Amina (37), from Qalqilya, is four months pregnant. She is the mother of four children and the wife of a former prisoner who spent a total of 19 years in Israeli dungeons. Israeli forces abducted her on March 18, 2026, on charges of “incitement.”
Jews: Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak coordinated closely with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in pursuit of mineral, oil, and gas resources in Africa after Barak’s resignation as Israel’s defense minister in 2013, according to documents published by the U.S. Department of Justice and hacked emails from Barak’s Gmail account reviewed by Drop Site News.
Epstein played a pivotal role in Barak’s transition from the military to the private sector by packaging privatized Israeli intelligence services for sale to police states around the world. Together, the two men marketed security and surveillance products to foreign governments seeking to stabilize civil conflicts during the tumultuous early 2010s.
Email correspondence shows that Barak also drew on his lifelong Israeli intelligence connections to help expand his business footprint in Africa, including the services of former Mossad chief turned private military contractor Danny Yatom. Yatom served as director of the Mossad from 1996 to 1998, and became Barak’s top security adviser, followed by time in the Knesset until 2008. Since then, he has consulted for and served on the boards of various private security firms such as Global Strategic Group, a small outfit operating in central Africa led by several Israeli intelligence veterans from the Mossad and Shin Bet.
A proposal for a “Night Warfare Special Operations Unit” that was included in Barak’s Gmail account reveals that Global Strategic Group trained an elite special operations unit in the mineral-rich eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2013. The proposal, marked “classified,” included a case study of the Kivu conflict in which Yatom boasted that their firm’s training had turned the tide against the rebel March 23 Movement (M23) and ended the war.
The Congo case study and other communications from Barak’s inbox showing his contacts with Epstein and Yatom were published by non-profit whistleblower Distributed Denial of Secrets, as part of a series of document dumps from Handala, a hacking group with suspected ties to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The cache has been independently vetted and verified by Drop Site News.
Fucking Arendt:
Arendt wrestled with Zionism, and then with Israel, for over three decades: with force and passion, respect and scorn. She wrote hundreds of thousands of words, scores of articles and essays, and, most famously, the book Eichmann in Jerusalem. She derided Jewish political sovereignty yet argued fervently for a Jewish army and Jewish self-defense, the Jewish right to Palestine, and the creation of a specifically Jewish politics and a specifically Jewish world. (“A people can be a minority somewhere only if they are a majority elsewhere,” she observed.)
Arendt was a scathing opponent of assimilation and an ardent admirer of Zionist accomplishments—economic, political, intellectual, and social—in Palestine and, later, in Israel, though she also expressed disgust at actually-existing Zionism. She opposed the partition of Palestine and became a critic of Israel after the state was founded, though she unambiguously supported Israel in the 1967 and 1973 wars.
In short, her attitudes toward Zionism oscillated: not only between months or years or decades, but within them. These attitudes cannot be whittled down to “pro” or “anti,” despite the efforts of reductionists to do so. Arendt was sometimes right but, in my estimation, more often wrong, both in her analyses and in her predictions. Yet this is the least important aspect of her views.
Fucking Mate Sees it Only through Pink Jewish Colored Glasses: Israel decides a Democratic primary, and Trump’s Iran talks
“Israel was a key factor in a sweeping progressive win in New York’s Democratic primary. The same for Trump’s talks with Iran, now threatened by Israeli aggression in Lebanon.”
And let me tell you about an election that has plunged a nation into crisis, because it is exactly the kind of story that the Western media will either ignore entirely or report with the most carefully selected details, omitting the ones that make the whole thing look like what it is. Colombia held its presidential runoff on Sunday. The preliminary results show a razor-thin victory for Abelardo de la Espriella, a far-right multimillionaire with no prior political experience, over left-wing Senator Iván Cepeda, by a margin of 49.66% to 48.70%. That is 250,000 votes out of over 26 million cast, less than one percentage point, in an election riddled with fraud allegations, in a country with a long and unambiguous history of American interference in its democratic processes.
The winner is a US citizen who became naturalised in 2023, owns a $5.1 million home in Miami, ran businesses in Florida for years, is a registered Republican, and voted for Donald Trump in 2024. He was openly endorsed by Trump, who celebrated his ‘BIG’ victory on Truth Social.
He has pledged to ‘disembowel the left,’ move Colombia’s embassy to Jerusalem, and restore full diplomatic and military ties with Israel. And after declaring victory, his first instinct was to drive around Bogotá in a bulletproof box, a sort of pope-mobile for the far right, waving to the crowds from behind reinforced glass because he is apparently so confident in his democratic mandate that he cannot be in the same open air as the people he now claims to govern.
Then, in one of his victory speeches, he shouted: ‘Long live the people of Israel.’
Not ‘ long live Colombia.’ Not ‘ long live the Colombian people,’ the ones who had, allegedly, just elected him. Israel. It is the kind of detail that requires no commentary whatsoever, only repetition. A man who has just won the presidency of a Latin American nation, in a speech to his supporters, leads with a declaration of loyalty to a foreign government currently engaged in a genocide. You do wonder why he waited until after the election to hand in his loyalties quite so explicitly, but then gratitude has its own schedule, and the benefactors were waiting.
Max the Jew Blumenthal giving us the news on, err, Jews, he calls Zionists (an empty signifier) and Israelis (that does not exist).
Jews, man:
Katie Jew Halper, what a face, what a face:
Baraka highlighted claims that Israel actively meddled by compromising or manipulating the vote-tabulation software to guarantee the victory of a far-right candidate.
A decade-long dispute
Petro’s claims stem from a long-running grudge with Thomas Greg & Sons, a multinational security and printing company tasked with issuing Colombian passports and overseeing electoral logistics.
According to Petro, the firm cannot be trusted with the sensitive task of printing, delivering, and processing vote-counting forms.
While the president’s claims have widely been dismissed by electoral institutions as reckless, there is some foundation for them.
Following the 2014 legislative elections, the evangelical political party, MIRA, filed a legal petition against the Registrar’s Office, claiming a discrepancy between the ballot pre-count (filled out by citizen juries in a form known as E-14) and the digitized tally of the vote (filled out by officials in the E-24 form).
MIRA claimed to have evidence of manipulation of the software used for “voting, information, transmission, or tabulation of election results,” which was managed by a subsidiary of Thomas Greg & Sons.
After a lengthy four-year legal case, the Council of State (Consejo de Estado), the highest court overseeing the government, issued a ruling in favor of MIRA. It found evidence of destruction of electoral material and inconsistencies between the E-14 and E-24 forms.
Crucially, the Council of State said that it could not confirm that voting software had been sabotaged because it did not have access to the source code of the software during the elections.
Without the original code, it was impossible to know if the system had been tampered with.
The body issued a clear recommendation to prevent repetitions of the dispute in future elections: “Direct the Electoral Organization to acquire the necessary vote-counting software for use within the state—that is, software owned by the organization itself—which allows for full traceability of the vote-counting process from the polling stations through to the official declaration of the election results.”
In other words, it recommended that electoral authorities roll out their own software, rather than relying on third-party providers.
But 12 years later, Thomas Greg & Sons remains in charge of the electoral software; according to the Registrar’s Office, purchasing proprietary software and operating the corresponding data centers is not feasible.
While Petro aims his crusade against Thomas Greg & Sons, a firm with which he has clashed on a range of issues, there are other, more prescient threats to electoral integrity.
“I think that concerns about voters being coerced to vote are legitimate… but I think concerns that somebody will steal the election are overblown,” said Guzmán.
Colombia’s outgoing president is not the first to accuse Israeli-linked interests of interfering in foreign elections.
Earlier this month, French disinformation and digital interference watchdog Viginum linked Israeli firm BlackCore to digital influence and propaganda campaigns across Europe, Africa, and the US.
This affected elections and election campaigns in France, Scotland, Angola, Togo, and New York City.
Pro-Israel groups and lobbyists also played a role in funding the release of Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH), the former Honduran president and convicted drug trafficker, from US federal prison last year.
Leaked audios from JOH and other Honduran officials published earlier this year by Diario Red revealed a conspiracy led by Hernandez involving the US, Honduras, Israel, and Argentina to destabilize Latin American leftist governments.
“And I need to have that liquidity because we’re going to set up an office here with the support of some Republicans to be able to attack and eradicate the cancer of the left there in Honduras and throughout Latin America,” JOH is heard saying in one of the leaked audio recordings, adding that the main targets are Petro’s government in Colombia and Claudia Sheinbaum’s government in Mexico.
French watchdog reveals Israeli propaganda firm meddled in New York, Scottish, and African elections: Report
Digital footprints trace to an ‘information warfare’ firm targeting political figures opposed to Israel.