CAPITALIST SICKNESS

The intensely neoconservative U.S. President Joe Biden is leading the world into a World War III against both Russia and China, but despite the U.S. spending annually around half of the entire planet’s military expenditures (not only in its ‘Defense’ Department but in its Treasury Department and other Government agencies), America is actually inferior to both Russia and China regarding leading-edge geostrategically crucial technologies of both nuclear and laser weapons, and is getting farther behind each year, because for both Russia and China their own national sovereignty is what their enemy, the U.S. Government, aims to conquer, whereas no one poses a threat to the U.S. Government’s continuing rule over its own people (it becomes increasingly a police-state).

Bruce Gagnon discusses the danger of Sweden and Finland joining NATO; the $40B gift to Ukraine is almost as large as Russia’s entire military budget of about $60B. And, we compared the US economy to the Russian economy: a “Tale of Two Countries.”

Kyiv has turned into quite the hot spot for celebrities – both First Lady Jill Biden and A-list actress Angelina Jolie have popped in recently, and now U2 members Bono and The Edge showed up in one of the city’s subway stations for an impromptu performance of the band’s hits, including Sunday Bloody Sunday. Jimmy and American comedian Kurt Metzger discuss Bono’s dubious history of embracing avatars of neoliberal policy like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Gates and George W. Bush.

The announcement that the Department of Homeland Security would be launching its own Orwellian Ministry of Truth called the “Disinformation Governance Board” was met with scorn and hostility from critics across the political spectrum. Now the Board’s putative head, Nina Jankowicz, has submitted her resignation, the initiative has been put on ice and the Washington Post’s chief social media mean girl, Taylor Lorenz, has written an unhinged piece decrying the online bullying that sent the new agency packing. Jimmy talks to The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and American comedian Kurt Metzger about the rise and precipitous fall of this ill-advised government censorship project.

Flying under the radar and unbeknownst to most, the World Health Organization is quietly pursuing an international treaty that would hand national sovereignty over healthcare decisions to the unaccountable global body, allowing the WHO to unilaterally declare pandemics and impose responses on individual nations. Not surprisingly, major WHO funder Bill Gates is fully supportive of the idea. Jimmy and American comedian Kurt Metzger discuss the possible consequences of this treaty and how the Microsoft founder would benefit from its signing.