Edward Hopper Railroad sunset 1929
Tucker Ep. 3
https://twitter.com/i/status/1668761705982066688
Ep. 3 America's principles are at stake pic.twitter.com/eJNSUVvvqY
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 13, 2023
Ukraine counteroffensive advances…
Cruz
We have learned of credible evidence that Joe Biden received a $5 million bribe from Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company.
Now we’re told there is evidence of that on audio tapes.
These are allegations of serious misconduct. pic.twitter.com/XXUnSvTsKT
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 13, 2023
Marco Polo
Australia's Sky News discusses @MarcoPolo501c3 releasing a 630-page report with 2,020 citations that thoroughly documents 459 crimes committed by the Biden family & their business associates.
•140 business crimes
•191 sex crimes
•128 drug crimes pic.twitter.com/mky0sqpKvo— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) June 13, 2023
This map, spanning over 600 million light years on a side, shows that our Milky Way Galaxy is on the edge of the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies, which is connected to the Great Attractor — an even larger grouping of galaxies
Disinformation
https://twitter.com/i/status/1668637917399621633
Georgescu
8 MILLION CHILDREN MISSING: Former United Nations Executive and Former President of the Club of Rome for Europe confirms that the Oligarchs who rule our world (The Committee of 300) are Pedophiles who control the systems of global child sex trafficking and control the UN and WEF.… pic.twitter.com/sD6iZcqT9b
— Truth Justice ™ (@SpartaJustice) May 21, 2023
https://twitter.com/i/status/1668784894946803713
Putin: We were forced to try to end the war that the West started in 2014 by force of arms. And Russia will end this war by force of arms, freeing the entire territory of the former Ukraine from the United States and Ukrainian Nazis. There are no other options. The Ukrainian army of the US and NATO will be defeated, no matter what new types of weapons it receives from the West. The more weapons there are, the fewer Ukrainians and what used to be Ukraine will remain. Direct intervention by NATO’s European armies will not change the outcome. But in this case, the fire of war will engulf the whole of Europe. It looks like the US is ready for that too.
“..the leading Republican candidate who handily defeats the enfeebled incumbent in every poll so far conducted.”
• The Rape of Lady Justice (Patrick Lawrence)
Now we have a Miami grand jury handing up indictments on 37 charges related to the documents case. Of these, we must note, 31 counts come under the Espionage Act of 1917. This escalates matters very considerably. A former president and a current contender for the presidency now faces the gravest charge for which American law provides. Trump now keeps company with, among others, Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden — others charged under the Espionage Act since the Wilson administration passed this unambiguously unconstitutional law to silence those critical of America’s entry into World War I a century and some ago.
The D.A. in Atlanta is currently investigating, with a view to possible indictments, allegations that Trump interfered in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election. Jack Smith, the special counsel running the Mar-a–Lago investigation, has another one going in Washington, where a grand jury is considering indicting Trump on charges he incited whatever the liberals are calling the protests of Jan. 6, 2021, these days — a coup, a riot, an insurrection, who can keep track? These are criminal cases. On the civil side, there is the preposterous case of E. Jean Carroll, a never-heard-of-her writer who won a $5 million judgment last month based on her claim that Trump assaulted her in a Bloomingdale’s dressing room in (are you ready?) the early 1990s, yet 15 years earlier than the wholesome Stormy alleges she had her go-around with The Donald. Carroll, keeping the ball in the air, is now going for an additional $10 million in damages.
I will no longer use “the former president” to describe the former president. From here on out it will be “the leading Republican candidate” to run against the enfeebled Democratic incumbent next year. Make that “the leading Republican candidate who handily defeats the enfeebled incumbent in every poll so far conducted.” How’s this for a succinct second mention? There is most certainly a revenge factor behind this legal onslaught against the leading Republican candidate who handily defeats …. Democrats have never got over Trump’s triumph over Hillary Clinton seven years ago, when history was supposed to end and orthodox neoliberalism was to reign without challenge as it is now and ever shall be amen. Trump Derangement Syndrome lives, in short.
But we must look forward to understand events on the legal side over the past couple of months. What we now witness is an open-and-shut case of liberal authoritarians’ misuse of the judiciary to keep Donald Trump out of the political process because they are correctly uncertain they can defeat him by way of it. I am all but convinced that the Biden Justice Department does not give much of a damn whether or not the cases against Trump end in convictions. If I am right, the objective is to keep him tied up in judicial rope until the election next year is fought and won. We are already hearing from the nitwittier of mainstream commentators, Rachel Maddow among them but not alone, that it would be fine were Justice to drop all charges providing Trump commits not to run next year.
Parlatore
Defense attorney says DOJ abrogated Trump's attorney-client privilege using secret arguments the defense wasn't allowed to see or appeal — says Jack Smith is setting an "extraordinarily dangerous" precedent where the government will now try to "charge you for asking a question" pic.twitter.com/oMpJwkin9P
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 13, 2023
“NARA didn’t assist Trump’s team in archiving documents during the transition — unlike it did for the five prior presidents — then made a criminal referral over the documents it didn’t assist in archiving?”
• Trump 1st POTUS in 40 Years Who Feds Didn’t Help Archive Classified Docs (GP)
As we all now know, former President Donald Trump has been indicted on 37 counts of willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements after a special counsel investigation. However, was the president set up by the federal government? That is a possible defense that floated into a letter to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in April by Trump’s attorneys, in which they allege the National Archives and Records Administration “has become overtly political and declined to provide archival assistance to President Trump’s transition team” — the first such incidence of this to happen in 40 years. And there’s a reason why NARA usually aids presidents in the transition.
As The Associated Press noted in a January piece about the Presidential Records Act, the Classified Information Procedures Act and other statutes in question here, Trump is “hardly the first president to mishandle classified information.” For instance, while the Presidential Records Act was signed by President Jimmy Carter, it didn’t apply to his administration. The AP reported Carter “found classified materials at his home in Plains, Georgia, on at least one occasion and returned them to the National Archives, according to the same person who spoke of regular occurrences of mishandled documents. The person did not provide details on the timing of the discovery. “An aide to the Carter Center provided no details when asked about that account of Carter discovering documents at his home after leaving office in 1981.
” It’s notable that Carter signed the Presidential Records Act in 1978 but it did not apply to records of his administration, taking effect years later when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated,” the AP’s account continued. “Before Reagan, presidential records were generally considered the private property of the president individually. Nonetheless, Carter invited federal archivists to assist his White House in organizing his records in preparation for their eventual repository at his presidential library in Georgia.” In a letter to House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio in April, former Trump lawyer Timothy C. Parlatore argued that NARA’s cooperation with the outgoing Trump administration differed starkly with what the agency had done with every president since Carter.
“When President Trump left office, there was little time to prepare for the outgoing transition from the presidency. Unlike his three predecessors, each of whom had over four years to prepare for their departure upon completion of their second term, President Trump had a much shorter time to wind up his administration,” Parlatore wrote. “White House staffers and General Service Administration (‘GSA’) employees quickly packed everything into boxes and shipped them to Florida. This was a stark change from the standard preparations made by GSA and National Archives and Records Administration (‘NARA’) for prior administrations.”
“There’s no more conversation about the other candidates,” he added. “You’ve made Donald Trump the nominee by indicting, effectively.”
• Trump Could Turn Latest ‘Bizarre’ Bid to Jail Him to His Advantage (Tweedie)
Federal charges against Donald Trump will only keep him in the media spotlight and help his bid for the presidency, commentators say. Trump is due to appear at a federal court in Miami later in Tuesday for the first hearing over boxes of White House documents found in an FBI raid on his Florida mansion at the Mar-a-Lago golf resort. Writer and editor Jim Kavanagh told Sputnik that the charges would only help Trump as the Republican primaries to select a candidate for the 2024 election loom. “For some reason, they’re terrified of Donald Trump. This is what this just demonstrates, their political fear of Donald Trump. And that’s going to be the problem,” he said. “Clearly they hate Trump for some bizarre reason,” Kavanagh said.
“Normally people in his position, people who are oligarchs or people who are party presidents, even when they do investigations of them, they do the limited hangouts. They don’t go too far with it.” In the wake of charges levelled against Trump in New York for alleged campaign finance violations, the editor of online magazine The Polemicist said President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party administration and “never-Trump” Republicans were looking for any charges to pin on the former president. “I think what it does is it proves to everybody that they’re afraid of Donald Trump,” Kavanagh said. “And that’s the most damning thing I can think of, damning for the Democrats and damning for the American political situation as a whole, that Donald Trump is such a big political presence.”
The writer called the obsession with attacking Trump “bizarre.” “The franticness, the obsessiveness with which they need to feel the need to attack this guy is bizarre to me,” Kavanagh said. “It demonstrates their weakness. They’re helping him, they’re helping to keep him at the center of the political conversation… there’s no use to this for anybody.” Attorney Steve Gill told Sputnik that while federal prosecutors had a strong case against Trump, the case was still “obviously politically motivated.” “The only reason Melania didn’t testify is she would have had to have talked about why did the FBI agents ramble around in her underwear drawer,” Gill said, while Trump could legitimately ask when the Justice Department would act “over all of the documents Joe Biden was stashing completely unsecured in his garage.”
The attorney also stressed that the charge sheet against Trump was excessively long. “Out of the 15 boxes that were at Mar-a-Lago, they’re talking about 131 documents, so they’re overcharging,” Gill said. “Of these 37 counts, 31 of them are repetitive. So they have to keep saying the same thing over again.” Fellow attorney Robert Patillo believed Trump was guilty, but asked why the Democrats and the “deep state” would risk making Trump more popular by casting his as a martyr. “This makes Trump look like he’s persecuted, makes Trump seem that he’s the victim in this situation,” Patillo said. “So why would you want a political persecution against Trump that helps him in the polls, to basically clear of the entirety of the Republican field.”
Ramaswamy
I challenge every US Presidential candidate to join me in standing for TRUTH. Commit to pardon Donald Trump for these federal charges on Day 1, or explain why you won’t. No one should hide. Not Biden. Not DeSantis. Not Haley. Not Pence. Not RFK. Not Scott. Not anyone. Principles… pic.twitter.com/qYP3fUrE5R
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) June 13, 2023
“..they’re so desperate to avoid Judge Cannon, they lied on the form,” says Patel. “They went forum shopping for a jurisdiction favorable to their case.”
• Special Counsel Lied in Trump Indictment (Lee Smith)
The Justice Department’s special counsel team led by Jack Smith lied in the 37-count indictment filed last week against former president and GOP 2024 frontrunner Donald Trump. Page 45 of the 49-page document is a form that prosecutors are required to submit with the indictment. Question number eight asks, “Does this case relate to a previously filed matter in this District Court.” If yes, the questionnaire continues, who was the judge? The correct answer of course is yes. In August, Trump brought a suit in the southern district of Florida to request a special master to review the classified documents seized by the FBI in its raid on his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. Nevertheless, under the signature of Assistant Special Counsel Jay Bratt, the Smith team answered no — even though the DOJ’s classified documents case is directly related to Trump’s suit.
“They just flat-out checked the ‘no’ box,” says former Trump administration senior official Kash Patel. The one-time federal public defender and federal prosecutor explains that “the indictment requires information for the district court that the prosecutor must be helpful on to facilitate case flow, like asking if there’s a related case. And the rules says that a related case must go the same judge.” The judge in the previous case was Aileen Cannon. Appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020, she ordered the DOJ to stop its review of the seized documents and appointed the special master that the former President requested. Despite an appellate court overturning her decision, “they’re so desperate to avoid Judge Cannon, they lied on the form,” says Patel. “They went forum shopping for a jurisdiction favorable to their case.”
And according to Patel, formerly based in Miami where he tried dozens of cases, that wouldn’t be hard to find. “There are two dozen, maybe 30 judges in that district who would have loved to preside over the trial of the century. Instead, the special counsel drew the one judge they didn’t want to draw, where it should have gone anyway, Judge Cannon.” The court rotation, or “wheel,” randomly landed the case on Cannon’s desk. And now the pathologically anti-Trump mob is directing its fire at her, demanding she recuse herself. “Even if she is personally convinced that she could preside impartially and without any bias or appearance of bias,” Cannon must recuse herself, said Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe. Failing to do so, Tribe told the media, “would violate a federal law regarding a judge’s impartiality.” And if she doesn’t go willingly? Deep State blocking back Norman Eisen says that the chief judge of the district court should strip the case away from her.
“..Trump may have a better chance running on this case than defending against it..”
• Is Special Counsel Smith Singing to an Empty Room? (Turley)
For almost two years, I have written that the most serious threat against Trump would come out of Mar-a-Lago. That torpedo has now hit. Trump’s team is fooling itself if it does not recognize that this has caused damage below the waterline. All indictments tend to diminish with time and adversarial process. As of this writing, we have not heard yet from the defense on these allegations. However, the indictment is full of quotes from lawyers and others made under oath or to federal investigators. If false, either would be grounds for criminal charges. It could also get worse. Trump’s aide, Walt Nauta, has also been charged. According to reports, the Justice Department pressured Nauta and his lawyer for him to flip as a government witness.
Indeed, the defense has charged that prosecutor Jay Bratt suggested that the Justice Department might sink Nauta attorney Stanley Woodward’s application for a federal judgeship unless his client cooperates and changes his testimony. This indictment is clearly designed to concentrate Nauta’s mind on cooperation. If he were to flip (as the person who allegedly moved or concealed these documents), Trump would face a potentially insurmountable case. The problem for the Justice Department is that it has made itself unbelievable in the eyes of many in the public. After years of overt bias and targeting of Trump, polls show that the majority of Americans view the FBI as a politically compromised organization. The use of this type of speaking or “talking” indictment is clearly directed more at the public than at the court or the defendant.
The Justice Department usually prefers a bare-bones indictment, to withhold a full account of its evidence before it has to turn it over to the defense. Smith wanted to show the public that it can trust the government, despite its behavior over the last seven years, as shown most recently by the report of Special Counsel John Durham. This is also the reason Smith turned this indictment into a virtual picture book for public consumption. The Justice Department has left little room for trust among many citizens, and Smith is hoping that these images can change that perspective. But this indictment is likely to do better in the court of law than it does in the court of public opinion. Just as many have Trump fatigue, many also have DOJ fatigue.
This is the third consecutive election in which Trump is being hounded by allegations of crimes. It was immediately preceded by a clear political prosecution in New York State. In other words, the DOJ may have long ago lost the room for this production. That does not mean that Trump can face this deluge of 37 counts and come out dry. The odds favor the government in this type of case. Yet the question is whether there will be a case to prosecute after November 2024. Indeed, whatever the merits of a self-pardon, Republican candidates are already indicating that they would also consider pardoning Trump themselves if they are elected. That is why Trump may have a better chance running on this case than defending against it.
Putin had a meeting with “military correspondents”.
• Putin: Ukraine Fails in All Directions of Counteroffensive (Sp.)
Kiev is so far failing in all directions of their counteroffensive, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday, adding that the Ukrainian military has suffered heavy casualties. “The enemy was not successful in any of the directions. They have heavy losses,” Putin said during a meeting with military correspondents. The president mentioned that the Ukrainian military is currently attacking at the Shakhtyorsk and Vremevka directions “but fail to reach the front line.” In total, Ukraine is attacking from four directions, Putin added. “This is a large-scale counteroffensive using, as I said quite recently publicly, reserves prepared for these purposes. It has been going on since [June] 4, and continues to this day, right now,” Putin said. The president also noted that the Ukrainian forces” lost more than 160 tanks [during their counteroffensive], while we lost 54. Some of them can be recovered and repaired.”
“According to my calculations, this is about 25% or maybe 30% of the volume of the equipment that was delivered from abroad, that is about it. It seems to me that if they objectively calculate them, they will agree with this number, but as far as I have seen from open sources, Western sources, that is almost what they say, I think. So the offensive is underway, and the results today are what I just said,” Putin told military correspondents Ukraine lost 160 tanks and 360 armored vehicles during the counteroffensive, and this is only what Moscow sees, the president added. “As for armored vehicles, there are even more serious [losses]. They have lost over 160 tanks and over 360 armored vehicles of various types during this time. This is just what we register. There are also losses that we do not see, which are inflicted by high-precision long-range weapons on clusters of personnel and equipment. So in fact, there are more of them, these losses, on the part of Ukraine,” Putin concluded.
The Russian president noted that with Kiev importing all its weapons and equipment from foreign countries Ukraine’s defense industry will soon completely cease to exist since it is producing nothing. “Ukraine’s defense industry will soon completely cease to exist. What are they producing? They are importing ammunition, equipment, weapons, everything. So one cannot live and last long. That is why the issue related to demilitarization is in a very practical dimension,” Putin highlighted. Russia definitely had no interest in the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant (HPP), this tragedy had entailed severe consequences for new Russian regions, and the responsibility for this lies with Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “But as we understand, we are definitely not interested in this, because these are serious consequences for those territories that we control and which are Russian — this is the first point.
And the second point — well, unfortunately, I will say a strange thing, but nevertheless, unfortunately, it slowed down their counteroffensive in this direction. Why do I say unfortunately? Because it would be better if they were advancing there. It is better for us, because it would be really bad for them to attack there. But since such a flood occurred, then, accordingly, the offensive did not take place,” Putin told reporters. The president stressed that the Ukrainian side was to blame for the tragedy at the Kakhovka HPP. “Well, it is clear who is to be blamed, the Ukrainian side was striving toward this. You know, I am not going to say things 100% now that I am not sure about, because by and large we did not record big explosions before the destruction occurred, at least that is what I was told. But they purposefully repeatedly attacked with HIMARS Kakhovka HPP. Maybe they had planted some kind of explosives there, I do not know now,” Putin said.
“Having met with Russian technology, Western technology turned out to be not on par, neither in terms of armament, nor in armor, nor in maneuverability..”
• Why Can’t Western Weapons Save Day for Ukraine’s Counteroffensive? (Sp.)
The first days of the well-advertised Ukrainian counteroffensive have borne no tangible results prompting disappointment among Western military analysts. What’s behind the failure? “I would say that the counteroffensive is less than what [the West] expect[s],” Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the US Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik. “The extent to which the Ukrainians are undertaking any so-called counteroffensive is more of a probing action than an actual assault and onslaught.” Per Maloof, the failure could be largely attributed to poor planning, lack of manpower, resources and training. The Ukrainian military has so far failed in all directions of their counteroffensive, despite receiving billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment from the US and its NATO allies.
In the first week alone, the Kiev regime forces lost thousands of casualties, along with more than a dozen of German Leopard 2 tanks, nearly two dozen of US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and several French AMX-10 RC light tanks. The pictures of destroyed Western military equipment have already been circulated by the media and social networks. The Russian armed forced has destroyed a vast amount of Ukraine’s military equipment since day one of the special military operation, including: 442 airplanes and 238 helicopters, 4,585 unmanned aerial vehicles, 426 air defence missile systems, 9,939 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 1,122 combat vehicles equipped with MRLS, 5,100 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 10,927 units of special military equipment, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
“For some reason, the West believed that the appearance on the battlefield of Western equipment, especially Leopard tanks, would confuse the Russian army, and the Russian army would give up its principles, but the West miscalculated he,” Anatoliy Matviychuk, military expert and retired colonel, who has experience in combat operations in Afghanistan and Syria, told Sputnik. Matviychuk has drawn attention to the fact that the Russian military has repeatedly participated in local conflicts and peace missions starting from 1979. Therefore, despite all the shortcomings of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian military equipment has undergone development and is up to date in terms of modern warfare challenges. “Having met with Russian technology, Western technology turned out to be not on par, neither in terms of armament, nor in armor, nor in maneuverability,” said the expert He placed special emphasis on maneuverability flaws of Western armored vehicles.
Per him, the Eastern European military theater with its freeze, river floods, mud, swamps and other critical weather conditions became a serious challenge for the NATO military equipment. The Ukrainian military has faced a plethora of logistic problems including that the German 60-ton battle tanks could not cross some of Ukraine’s bridges. Europe and the world have suddenly realized that Western-style equipment is not “second to none” in many respects, that it has its own shortcomings, along with its advantages, according to the military analyst. Russia’s relatively rapid obliteration of Western weapons and lack of any tangible victories on the front could affect weapons supplies, according to Sputnik’s interlocutors. “I think countries will begin to see that whatever they’re putting into the mix is getting destroyed rather quickly,” said Maloof.
“Bradleys have already been destroyed. They are sitting ducks. Some Leopard tanks have been destroyed already. The countries that have them cannot continue to supply unless they go into a war time production. And their economies cannot support that right now. They’ve got to start facing reality. They’re not doing that despite the political rhetoric of support. And I think this gives Ukraine a very false sense of not only bravado but a false sense of support. That is not going to continue, because reality dictates otherwise. Look, the European industries are hurting because they on their own cut off their nose to spite their face by cutting off all oil and gas from the east, from Russia. Their quality of life has depreciated greatly. This is going to affect Europe for decades to come.”
Completely bonkers. They just hired a few people to say it’s harmless.
• US to Provide Ukraine With Depleted Uranium Rounds for Abrams Tanks (Antiwar)
The Biden administration is expected to provide Ukraine with controversial depleted uranium ammunition for use with US-made Abrams tanks, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of enriched uranium and is extremely dense, making it a good material for penetrating armor. But depleted uranium is radioactive, and it’s been linked to cancer, birth defects, and environmental damage in areas it’s been used, including Iraq, where US forces frequently fired the toxic munitions and the impact is still being felt today. According to the Journal report, there has been a debate within the White House over whether or not to provide Ukraine with depleted uranium rounds. Some officials have raised concerns about the criticism the US could face for providing weapons that might cause health and environmental damage.
The Pentagon has been pushing for the US to arm the Abrams tanks it sends to Ukraine with depleted uranium. The US is refurbishing old Abrams tanks that are expected to arrive in Ukraine by the fall. US-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles can also be armed with depleted uranium, earning them the nickname “tank killer.” Earlier this year, the White House refused to say if it would provide Ukraine with Bradleys armed with the controversial ammunition. The UK has sent depleted uranium rounds to Ukraine for use with the British-made Challenger 2 tanks. The British took the step despite Russian warnings that it would treat Ukraine’s use of the radioactive ammunition the same as a dirty bomb. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his decision to deploy nuclear weapons to Belarus was a response to the UK arming Ukraine with depleted uranium.
“We were said, ‘No, dig trenches and kill as many Russians as you can before it’s over.”
• West Told Us ‘To Kill As Many Russians’ As Possible – Ukrainian MOD Chief (RT)
In the initial days of the conflict in Ukraine, Kiev’s Western backers wanted its forces to make do without military aid and “kill as many Russians” as they could before admitting defeat, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov has told Foreign Policy magazine. Before NATO leaders pledged to back Ukraine’s war effort for “as long as it takes,” the quantity and quality of arms that the West was willing to send to Kiev was unclear in the days and weeks after Russian forces entered the country. “We asked, ‘can we have stingers?’” Reznikov told Foreign Policy in an interview published on Tuesday. “We were said, ‘No, dig trenches and kill as many Russians as you can before it’s over.’ People thought our victory was impossible.”
Now, Reznikov boasted, Ukraine has been given “Bradleys, Strykers, Abrams, Leopards, and more,” and will soon be equipped with American-made F-16 fighter jets. The White House maintains that American arms deliveries to Ukraine – worth more than $40.4 billion to date – are intended to help Kiev score as many battlefield successes as possible before the conflict is eventually settled at the negotiating table. However, some American officials and lawmakers are more direct with their views. “The Russians are dying,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky during a visit to Kiev last month. “It’s the best money we’ve ever spent.” The Kremlin called Graham’s statement “cannibalistic,” and Russian officials have repeatedly pointed to similar utterances from the Ukrainian government as proof that the military operation must be seen through to its conclusion.
Reznikov told Foreign Policy that Ukraine intends to drive Russian forces back to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders, which would involve capturing the historically Russian territory of Crimea. He insisted that Russia would not defend its land with nuclear weapons – as Russian nuclear doctrine prescribes – calling the nuclear threat “a bluff.” Despite their promises to retake Crimea, Ukrainian troops are currently faltering as they attempt to breach Russian defensive lines near Zaporozhye. The Russian Defense Ministry estimates that Kiev has lost thousands of troops and scores of Western-provided vehicles in more than a week of attacks without the cover of air support. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the losses of the Ukrainian army “impressive” and blamed the country’s government for taking actions that pushed the situation to the current “tragic” state.
“.. it may take months or years before the weapons, which come under the banner of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, are contracted by the department..”
And then it still needs to be manufactured..
• Pentagon Will Replace Destroyed Ukrainian Armor – US State Media (RT)
The Pentagon will announce on Tuesday a new presidential drawdown of its stockpiles in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russia, Voice of America has reported, citing anonymous officials. The $325 million worth of equipment will include Stryker and Bradley armored vehicles that “can replace those damaged and destroyed in the Ukrainian counteroffensive currently underway,” defense sources told the US government-funded outlet on Monday. The upcoming aid package is set to become the 40th of its kind since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict started in February 2022. Washington has allocated over $100 billion for Ukraine-related spending, including some $40 billion in direct assistance.
In addition to new armored vehicles, the new package will include munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), the sources said. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley are visiting Brussels this week to attend a series of NATO meetings. One of the gatherings will be of the so-called Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a key vehicle for coordinating weapons supplies to Kiev by Washington and its allies. Last week, the Pentagon announced the allocation of an additional $2.1 billion in weaponry for Ukraine, though the hardware in that package must be manufactured rather than drawn from American stockpiles.
Bloomberg suggested that it may take months or years before the weapons, which come under the banner of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, are contracted by the department. Last week, Kiev launched its long-expected counteroffensive, pitting its Western-provided tanks and other weapons against Russian defensive positions. So far the thrust has been largely unsuccessful and costly, a fact acknowledged even by some media outlets sympathetic to Ukraine. sMoscow perceives the conflict as part of a US-led proxy war against Russia. It has warned that flooding Ukraine with weapons simply increases the cost of the war but will not alter its outcome.
“No one has refuted what he had said. They’ve just offered alternative stories.”
• Nord Stream Scoop, Ukraine and Nuclear War – Ray McGovern (SchP)
Let’s begin with Hersh’s report. I know Sy Hersh, he’s a friend of mine. There’s no better reporter or meticulous observer of the rules of reporting, namely protecting your sources, that there’s no one better. Okay. And that’s why precisely why sources come to Sy, so to speak. So he had it right, in my view. No one has refuted what he had said. They’ve just offered alternative stories. Okay. Now, about three weeks after Sy issued his report on Substack. No publication would receive and publish it. Fewer of prize winning. Revealer of My Lai in the works and no one would publish science. That speaks volumes as well. Anyhow, three weeks after, as I recall, I had an opportunity to brief the U.N. Security Council. Professor Jeffrey Sachs from Columbia first briefed them via video stream and then I briefed them in person.
They’re sitting around that horseshoe desk. I couldn’t stop thinking about Colin Powell, and anyhow. So I reached them. And the morning of the briefing, we had a paper circulated by the Danes and the Germans and the Swedes saying, We’re deep into our investigation of the Nord Stream pipeline blow up. We don’t need any help. We got it covered. We certainly don’t need a U.N. Security Council to get involved. We got we got a cover that was circulated to everyone on the Security Council that morning. Okay. So those were the talking points. They got the memo, so to speak. Okay. So everybody talked to those talking points. And the Russian ambassador Nebenzya, said, you know, this is kind of hard to understand. Here’s an act of war. Here’s the U.N. Security Council established precisely for the purpose of looking into these things.
And, you know, it’s sort of hard. What’s the hesitation? And and the Chinese representative gave him very, very strong support. I noticed that the Brazilian representative was sitting just about four people down from me, was sort of shuffling his feet and hemming and hawing. And what he said was very mediocre, like, I don’t know, pretty much I don’t really have instructions. Well, that that put that judgment off for a couple of weeks. I think about three weeks since there was a resolution had to be acted on. And so the vote finally came. And when I saw the vote, I saw I first saw the reports. Hey. Russia, for. China, for. Brazil, for. Anybody against? Nobody against. Nobody against? The 12 were all abstentions. Good. You setting a new record for abstentions, though?
Ray McGovern
“The US is demanding “a result from neo-Nazis – to break through the Russian positions,” no matter the cost, Antonov claimed..”
• US Using Ukraine As ‘Iron Baton’ – Moscow (RT)
The US has no plans to push for a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict, and is instead using Kiev as a weapon against Russia to achieve its own goals, Moscow’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, claimed on Tuesday. In a statement on Telegram, the envoy warned Washington is “being deeper and deeper dragged into the abyss of the Ukrainian crisis,” after the US unveiled its latest security assistance package to Kiev worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Antonov accused the US of pushing the situation in Ukraine to “an even greater tragedy” while pressuring dozens of other countries to supply Kiev with weapons in a bid to inflict “a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield.”
The US is demanding “a result from neo-Nazis – to break through the Russian positions,” no matter the cost, Antonov claimed. The envoy also suggested that the White House was keen to demonstrate “success” in the fight against Russia in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. “Americans are not ready to stop at anything. They are not interested in negotiated solutions. Nobody is bothered about the fate of Ukraine, which is used only as an iron baton against Russia.” However, the ambassador insisted that Western weapons would not turn the tide of the conflict, warning that the arms “will again be turned into a pile of twisted metal.”
On Tuesday, the administration of US President Joe Biden unveiled a new $325 million military assistance package, bringing the total value of security assistance provided to Kiev since the start of the conflict in February 2022 to more than $40 billion. As part of the measure, the US has committed to supply Ukraine with additional rocket and artillery munitions, Stinger anti-aircraft systems, and two-dozen armored vehicles. The announcement came after Ukraine launched its long-expected counteroffensive against Russia. Kiev’s troops have thus far failed to gain any ground and have suffered heavy losses, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.
Next false flag target?
• Safety On Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant Ensured After Dam Breach – Operator (RT)
Russia will ensure the safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant following the Kakhovka dam disaster, Renat Karchaa, an adviser at the country’s national nuclear operator Rosenergoatom, said on Tuesday evening. “We can say with high confidence that the nuclear safety of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant will be maintained in full,” Karchaa told TV channel Rossiya-24. He added that a mobile pumping station was being delivered from a nuclear plant in Smolensk in order to help cool the reactors if necessary. Five of ZNPP’s six power units are shut down. One reactor is currently producing a low level of power to keep the facility operational. Normally, the plant relies on the Kakhovka Reservoir for water to cool its reactors. The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, which sits close to the front line separating Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, broke on June 6, flooding the city of Novaya Kakhovka, as well as Kherson and surrounding areas.
The water levels have since gradually dropped, according to Vladimir Saldo, a top Russian regional official. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi warned earlier that the destruction of the dam could disrupt the normal functioning of the ZNPP. He said on Sunday that the water level by the Zaporozhye Thermal Power Plant, which is located not far from the nuclear facility, had decreased significantly, however, “water pumps continue to be operable.” Grossi, who arrived in Kiev on Tuesday, plans to visit the nuclear power plant and assess the risks. Moscow and Kiev have blamed each other for the dam disaster. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Ukrainian troops “repeatedly” fired rockets at the dam during their conflict with Russian forces.
Archer knows a lot. Like Hunter, he was also on Burisma’s board. Will he sing?
• House Oversight Panel Subpoenas Former Hunter Biden Associate Devon Archer (ET)
The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to Devon Archer, the former long-time business partner of Hunter Biden, as part of its ongoing investigation into the business dealings of the Biden family. The committee, led by Chairman James Comer, is particularly interested in Archer’s involvement in the family’s international business deals, which included countries like China, Russia, and Ukraine. The subpoena compels Archer to testify at a deposition before the panel on June 16, focusing on attempts by foreign nationals to influence high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members through financial incentives. In a letter to Archer’s attorney, Comer emphasized the importance of Archer’s role, highlighting his multiple meetings with then-Vice President Biden, including at the White House.
“Both information that the Committee has reviewed and public reporting indicates that Mr. Archer played a significant role in the Biden family’s business deals abroad, including but not limited to China, Russia, and Ukraine,” Comer wrote. “Additionally, while undertaking these ventures with the Biden family, [Mr. Archer] met with then-Vice President Biden on multiple occasions, including in the White House. Mr. Archer’s testimony is critical to the Committee’s investigation.” The committee’s investigation aims to obtain communications and documents that could shed light on potential financial crimes or misconduct involving the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.
In his letter, Comer accused the Biden family of receiving significant amounts of money from foreign companies without providing clear legitimate services. “Mr. Archer is associated with corporate entities that the Committee has identified and the Biden family’s role in each of them,” Comer wrote. “Furthermore, he has significant information regarding the purpose of these companies and knowledge of relevant documents related to the Committee’s investigation.” The committee seeks to reform government ethics and disclosure laws to ensure transparency into the income, assets, and financial relationships of immediate family members of vice presidents and presidents, Comer said.
Watters
Senator Grassley just revealed that a highly credible FBI informant says the Burisma exec who allegedly bribed Joe Biden, has 17 audio recordings speaking with Joe and Hunter. This allegation should lead to the impeachment or resignation of Joe Biden, if true.
The FBI tried to… pic.twitter.com/1EOPB7DMyt
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) June 13, 2023
Like inviting Putin to NATO.
• Macron Asks For Invitation To BRICS Summit (RT)
French President Emmanuel Macron has asked South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for an invitation to the upcoming BRICS summit in Pretoria, French newspaper L’Opinion reported on Monday. Macron’s recent attempts to win over his African counterparts have fallen flat. Macron raised the possibility of attending the summit during a phone call with Ramaphosa earlier this month, L’Opinion stated, citing sources in the Elysee palace. According to one “well-informed” source, Ramaphosa was non-committal. “Presence at this summit was mentioned during the conversation between the two leaders, but Pretoria gave no indication of whether or not to extend this meeting to other international leaders,” the source said.
If Macron were to attend the summit, he would be the first leader of a G7 nation to do so. BRICS leaders and Macron apparently share a desire to overhaul the global financial and geopolitical order, with Macron hosting a conference in Paris next week aimed at overhauling the financial system to better benefit the developing world. Ramaphosa is due to attend the conference, and a cordial meeting between him and Macron could set the stage for the French president to make history in Pretoria. However, Macron’s relations with the rest of the BRICS bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – are fractious at best, and Paris has sent mixed messages to these nations. For example, Macron has called for peace negotiations in Ukraine and put himself forward as a potential mediator, yet has backed a Ukrainian-drafted peace plan that Russia categorically rejects, while continuing to send heavy weapons to Kiev.
Likewise, Macron has asserted that Europe must not follow the US into a confrontation with China, and has opposed the opening of a controversial NATO liaison office in Japan. However, he signed a joint communique with other G7 leaders last month labeling China “the greatest challenge to global security and prosperity in our time,” a position identical to that of the US. Meanwhile in Africa, Macron’s condemnations of Russia have irritated France’s former colonies on the continent, who see Russia as a more reliable partner than their former master. Since the term was first coined in 2001, BRICS has grown from an acronym into an informal alliance that has overtaken the US-led G7 bloc in its share of global GDP, has its own development bank, and counts Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Argentina among 19 prospective members.
10-year old girl
AUSTRALIA – Following the UN sex education guidelines, countries in lockstep now.
10 year old girls’ homework is to ask daddy about his erections and ejaculations.
The UN owns your children now. Dissent will not be tolerated. pic.twitter.com/L5bsGMEsOB
— Bernie's Tweets (@BernieSpofforth) June 13, 2023
This is the Sacra di San Michele, a 1,000 year old monastery in the mountains of northern Italy. It is one of the greatest achievements of Medieval architecture, and it inspired Umberto Eco to write The Name of the Rose…
MELO
Micromelo undatus, common name the miniature melo, is an uncommon species of small sea snail with a thinly calcified shell covered with undulating brown lines
[read more: https://t.co/bcrn86AMvy]
[uw.animals: https://t.co/nRa22r7CkL]pic.twitter.com/A4GF33IzbZ— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 13, 2023
Buffalo
Awww looks happy pic.twitter.com/UXiv95JZYq
— The Best (@Figensport) June 13, 2023
STOP
https://twitter.com/i/status/1668688202293452807
Blue Penguins are the smallest type of penguin. Adults grow just to an average of 33 cm (13 in) in height and 43 cm (17 in) in length. Due to their small size and bright color they are often called Fairy Penguins
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