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Debt Rattle April 23 2024

Apr 232024
 
 April 23, 2024  Posted by at 8:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Gustav Klimt The Park 1909

 

• Alina Habba Rages As Judge Approves Trump’s $175 Million Bond (ET)
• Will Trump Testify? (Victoria Taft)
• Trump Urges “Peaceful Protest” As Day 1 In Hush-Money Case Ends (ZH)
• Trump Sold-Out His Base to Shovel $95 Billion to Ukraine and Israel (Whitney)
• Supreme Court Denies Bid to Expand No-Excuse Mail-In Ballots in Texas (ET)
• Biden Targets Radical IDF Unit With Sanctions to Placate His Voters (Sp.)
• US Forced Israel To Abandon Larger Attack On Iran – NYT (RT)
• Will Zionism Self-Destruct? (Alastair Crooke)
• US Goes ‘Slippery Slide’ With Sending Its Military Personnel to Ukraine (Sp.)
• The Bad Faith Olympics (Kunstler)
• Polish President Rejects Own PM’s ‘Pre-war’ Warning (RT)
• Biden Fears RFK Jr. as He Gets on Another Ballot (Sp.)
• Michael Brenner: The Moral Depravity of Western Imperialism (Sch.)
• No, It Does Not Matter Why the Man Lit Himself on Fire (Turley)

 

 

Still trying to understand this.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1782508137582608427

 

 

Bannon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782461540442263664

 

 

Something Amazing is Developing with this Presidential Immunity SCOTUS Case…

Mike Davis:
— Can the Trump 47 Justice Department charge Obama for Capital Murder for murdering 2 Americans in a drone strike?
— Can the Trump 47 Justice Department charge Biden for the illegals pouring into the US, and their resulting crimes?

What to do? What to do? Trump says he should have “ABSOLUTE Immunity” . “Absolute” is the key word here… As it stands, the Constitution does say a President has Absolute Immunity from many lawsuits (not all)… BUT…. Trumps case is under legal dispute to determine whether or not a President has immunity from CRIMINAL Liability or Prosecution. No President in history has ever been charged for a crime, as the Constitution currently stands. A major precedent will be set with this SCOTUS ruling this Thursday… I believe this ruling may be closing some loopholes to go after others.. The wordage is going to be very very important.

 

 

Tulsi Kamala 2019

 

 

Tucker Ukr

 

 

Zel

Zel 2006

 

 

Founding Fathers

 

 

 

 

“…in one hour, that judge and the attorney general realized they had no idea what they were talking about… and we came to an agreement that everything would be the same…”

• Alina Habba Rages As Judge Approves Trump’s $175 Million Bond (ET)

Former President Donald Trump and New York Attorney General Letitia James reached an agreement on April 22 regarding his $175 million bond in his New York civil case, imposing additional restrictions while resolving concerns about the funds’ security. The attorney general argued that Knight Specialty Insurance Company (KSIC) lacked a “certificate of qualification” and that President Trump still had access to the Charles Schwab account pledged to the insurer as collateral. Judge Arthur Engoron accepted the April 22 agreement, which gave KSIC exclusive control over the account. The state made the offer after Chris Kise, President Trump’s attorney, provided oral argument. The attorney general established five bond conditions this morning that allow President Trump to use a non-New York company as a traditional license surety to cover the $175 million he was ordered to pay.

KSIC is unauthorized by the New York Department of Financial Services, which bond experts have said is a victory for President Trump. “[The company] is probably charging Trump less and they accepted a pledge rather than actually receiving $175 million in cash,” Bruce Lederman, a commercial and real estate litigator who has dealt in bonds for more than 40 years, said. All of President Trump’s attorneys agreed to the settlement stipulations, which are expected to be memorialized by the end of the week. The five bond conditions include retaining the collateral in a Schwab account and restricting KSIC from trading or withdrawing any of the funds for anything other than payment of the bond. “The state was not looking to be vindictive,” Mr. Lederman told The Epoch Times. “They are looking simply to be guaranteed that they are geting paid if they win the appeal, and they were sufficiently satisfied that if these five conditions were met, they would get paid.”

[..] President Trump defended the bond outside the courtroom at his criminal trial. “We put up cash and the number is 175,” President Trump said. “She shouldn’t be complaining about the bonding company. The bonding company would be good for it because I put up the money. I have plenty of money to put up.” After the hearing, President Trump’s lawyer in the case, Alina Habba, fumed at the judge’s incompetence, “he doesn’t even understand basic principles of finance,” and at AG James’ “this is where your taxpayer dollars are going America…witch hunt after witch hunt after witch hunt…” Habba continued to excoriate the whole farce: “…in one hour, that judge and the attorney general realized they had no idea what they were talking about… and we came to an agreement that everything would be the same…”

Read more …

“The media have called this case a “hush money” case, but one of our crafty commenters called it the Hush Trump case. Touche’.

• Will Trump Testify? (Victoria Taft)

Will Donald Trump testify at his New York City at the Hush Trump bookkeeping trial? Testimony is underway in the trial of former President Trump, who is charged with a bookkeeping issue of misreporting payments in 2017 as legal fees instead of campaign expenses. His overarching crime, by the Manhattan district attorney’s lights, is a federal election crime, which boils down to Trump stealing the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton won New York in 2016 by a nearly two-to-one margin, so clearly this trial is on the up-and-up. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg dredged up this trial from the dead after federal elections officials and the previous DA as well as Bragg himself declined to bring this case years before. But after Biden’s DOJ parachuted in a Trump specialist attack dog to go after the former president, the Democrats decided to throw everything against the wall to prevent him from being reelected.

Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr, who can’t stand the former president, calls this case an “abomination… obviously political …and a real threat to liberty.” Better late than never, Bill. He’ll be out with his 2020 observations by, hmmm, let’s say next year. The witness list is out, and the first person to take the stand in this non-televised drama will be the former publisher of the National Enquirer, who paid porn performer Stormy Daniels money for exclusive rights to her story and then killed it. That’s not a crime, but it will dovetail nicely with the prosecution’s index horribilis that they will use as distractive chaff from this “abomination.” The Enquirer paid Daniels $150,000 while Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, who will also testify, paid her $130,000. Trump personally paid Cohen for his legal activities by more than doubling the amount and giving him a $60K spiff for his legal services.

This is the “crime” for which Trump is dragged through the courts. Since it has been, as the lawyers like to say, “bootstrapped” to an unspecified federal elections crime (which the feds said wasn’t a federal elections crime) it has suddenly gone from a civil case to a criminal case. Robert Costello, Cohen’s former attorney, will testify for the defense, according to the witness list. Trump is not on the witness list, but a defendant can always decide if he wants to testify during the trial. Trump has told the world he will testify. “I don’t know, I’m testifying. I tell the truth. I mean, all I can do is tell the truth,” he said recently. “And the truth is,” he continued, “that there’s no case, they have no case.” Last week he answered “yes” when a reporter yelled the question as he entered the Manhattan courthouse. One of Trump’s appellate attorneys, Will Scharf, told CNN recently that he thinks if he decided to testify Trump would do well. “If the jury decides based on the facts and the law, there’s no way President Trump can be convicted,” he said. Scharf says Trump “would be a compelling witness” if he chooses to testify.

In the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, Trump testified for less than four minutes. One can imagine the cross-examination of Trump by prosecutors using the list of bad acts that have nothing to do with his case, getting him flustered and angry and showing the jury what a bad guy he is. Trump can be cool and calm, but they’ll do everything they can to rattle him on the stand, obviously. The media have called this case a “hush money” case, but one of our crafty commenters called it the Hush Trump case. Touche’. When a judge shuts up the defendant but not the other trial participants you can’t help but wonder if the fix is in. Where else will you read that in this censorious media world that we’re living in?

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“His entire financial livelihood depends on President Trump’s destruction,” he said of Mr. Cohen. “You cannot make a serious decision about President Trump relying on the words of Michael Cohen.”

• Trump Urges “Peaceful Protest” As Day 1 In Hush-Money Case Ends (ZH)

Day one of former President Donald Trump’s so-called “hush-money” trial concluded early on Monday after Judge Juan Merchan said that an alternate juror can visit a dentist appointment (despite previously telling Trump he would have attend every day without fail – missing his son’s graduation – or face jail). Judge Merchan had previously planned to adjourn the trial at 2 p.m. ET due to the Passover holiday. But he said Monday that it would adjourn at 12:30 p.m. He previously said he would end at 2 p.m. on Tuesday for the holiday. Jack Phillips reports, via The Epoch Times, that the early adjournment came after prosecutors and defense lawyers make their respective cases for why the former president should be convicted or acquitted. In the case, President Trump is accused of falsifying business payments during the 2016 campaign by allegedly paying a former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to bury negative stories.

At issue were claims from an adult film performer, Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, that she was engaged in a relationship with the former president. President Trump has denied her claims and has pled not guilty. An attorney for the former president spoke to the jury, asking them to “use your common sense” when they assess the case. “We’re New Yorkers. It’s why we’re here,” Todd Blanche said. “There will be a very swift not guilty verdict” if they decide based on the evidence involved, he said. “You told all of us, you told the court, you told me, you will put aside whatever views you have of President Trump,” Mr. Blanche told the jury as he wrapped up his arguments. “The 34 counts, ladies and gentlemen, are really just pieces of paper,” Mr. Blanche said of the indictment. “None of this was a crime.”

Mr. Blanche was critical of Ms. Clifford, saying that she has earned income and fame from her allegations about an alleged affair that occurred in 2006. “She also wrote a book. She was paid for a documentary,” Mr. Blanche says of Ms. Clifford, adding that courts have sided with President Trump’s legal disputes with Ms. Clifford. As for Mr. Cohen, Mr. Blanche accused him of profiting off his criticism of President Trump. “His entire financial livelihood depends on President Trump’s destruction,” he said of Mr. Cohen. “You cannot make a serious decision about President Trump relying on the words of Michael Cohen.” “He has a goal, an obsession with getting President Trump,” Mr. Blanche said of Mr. Cohen, who is expected to be a witness. “I submit to you that he cannot be trusted.”

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Mike Whitney. A different view.

• Trump Sold-Out His Base to Shovel $95 Billion to Ukraine and Israel (Whitney)

The man who is most responsible for the $95 billion giveaway to Ukraine and Israel, is the same guy who pretends to oppose America’s “wasteful” foreign wars. Donald Trump. It was Trump who consulted with Speaker Mike Johnson about the contents of the Ukraine aid package, just as it was Trump who concocted the idea of issuing loans instead of dispersing the standard welfare handout. It was also Trump who said: “I stand with the Speaker, (Mike Johnson)” after which he added that Johnson is doing “a very good job.” A “good job”?? So, secretly collaborating with the Democrat leadership to push through a bill that “reauthorizes FISA to spy on the American people without a warrant, (bans Tik Tok) fully funds Joe Biden’s DOJ that has indicted President Trump 91 times, and giving Biden’s political gestapo a brand new FBI building bigger than the Pentagon,” while not providing a dime to protect the southern border from the swarms of people entering the country illegally, is doing a “good job”?

The question we should all be asking ourselves is why has Trump decided to participate in this scam? He keeps saying that if he was president, he’d end the war in Ukraine in a day. If he’s sincere about that, then why did he collaborate on a bill that will drag the war out for another year or two? This is from a Twitter post by political analyst Michael Tracey: “Mission Accomplished. It is done: Donald Trump and the House GOP just completed one of the most epic swindles in political history, with Trump personally effectuating the largest-ever dispersement of Ukraine funding through his emissary, “MAGA Mike Johnson” (as Trump lovingly calls him) The $61 billion passed this afternoon is likely enough to underwrite the brutal, pointless trench warfare for at least another year or two. This after the same old endless media screeching that Trump and MAGA Republicans were being brainwashed by Putin and would never fund Ukraine. That fundamental hoax continues — only this time Trump was in on it…. Michael Tracey, Twitter.

And the response from Luca Cabrilo: “Michael you’re 100% spot on. Trump could have at any point killed this monstrous bill if he wanted to, but he didn’t. He even let MAGA Mike go on TV and say that he and Trump are “100% agreed” on the Ukraine funding Trump screwed his base on this one, no other way about it.” Michael Tracey again: “He didn’t just “not kill it,” he personally facilitated its passage..” Here’s more background from Tracey: “The bill, designed after consultations between Mike Johnson and Trump, mysteriously gives the President the ability to forgive the purported “loan” to Ukraine — immediately after the November election…

And if that’s not brazen enough for you, here’s the catch: The funds eligible for “loan forgiveness” are the direct budgetary infusions to Ukraine — meaning the money that pays for the salaries of Ukrainian government workers and so forth — NOT the military “aid,” which comprises the vast majority of the package. So, only $8 billion of the $61 billion allocated to Ukraine is even *eligible* for “loan forgiveness” under the terms of this gargantuan bill. And even that was a fake “loan” to begin with — it never had to be paid back at all!

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“..in the long run, we need the French model: Everybody votes on the same day, everybody has a photo ID, everybody’s accounted as a person..”

• Supreme Court Denies Bid to Expand No-Excuse Mail-In Ballots in Texas (ET)

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a legal challenge to a Texas law that requires voters under the age of 65 to provide justification to vote by mail, meaning that the Democrat-aligned attempt to sharply expand “no-excuse” mail-in ballots in the Lone Star state has failed, with implications for other states. According to an April 22 order list, the high court denied petition for a writ of cetriorari in a case that stems from a federal lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of the Texas Democratic Party and several voters who requested that Texas lift its age-based limitations on no-excuse mail-in voting. Texas law only allows individuals to vote by mail without a qualifying excuse, like sickness, if they are 65 years or older. In their original complaint, which made its way through a number of lower courts before ending up before the Supreme Court, the petitioners alleged that the Texas voting law violates the 26th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits denying the right to vote due to age.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the appeal means that the Texas law stays in place, delivering a win to election integrity advocates who argue that no-excuse mail-in voting is prone to fraud and makes elections less secure. At the same time, the high court’s decision to deny certiorari is a setback for groups who see laws like Texas’s age-based limits on no-excuse mail-in ballots as “voter suppression” or an unfair attempt to impose barriers to voting for certain groups, in this case younger voters. The high court’s decision not to hear the appeal has broader implications, however, since six other states–Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee–have similar laws on the books that let older voters to request absentee ballot without having to provide any justification. Public opinion in Texas over the issue of no-excuse mail-in voting is split, according to some polls.

In their initial petition filed in 2020 on behalf of the Texas Democratic Party and a group of voters amids the COVID-19 pandemic, the plaintiffs requested that Texas lift its age-based restrictions to no-excuse mail-in voting, citing public health risks related to the outbreak. A district court judge sided with the plaintiffs in May 2020, temporarily blocking the Texas law. Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas officials then filed an appeal with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which paused the district court’s ruling while the appeal played out. The plaintiffs then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reimpose the district court’s decision to freeze enforcement of the age-based limits to no-excuse mail-in voting, or to take the case up for review, but the high court rejected both requests.

Ultimately, the 5th Circuit voided the lower court’s May 2020 order in full. This led the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint in the district court, this time asserting other claims, including ones of racial discrimination under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and arguing that the age limitations on mail-in ballots violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th and 26th Amendments. In a July 2022 order, the district court judge dismissed all of the plaintiffs’ claims, leading to another appeal before the 5th Circuit, which ultimately affirmed the district court’s decision to dismiss. The plaintiffs filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court in December 2023, asking the high court to declare Texas’s age-based voting law unconstitutional.

[..] The Supreme Court ruling comes amid a broader fight between those who see election integrity efforts as “voter suppression” and those who believe that the security of U.S. elections is too lax and should be tightened. According to a running tally by the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, expansive voting laws far outpaced restrictive ones in 2023. At least 53 expansive voting laws were introduced last year in at least 23 states, compared to 17 restrictive laws being passed in 14 states, suggesting that the election integrity movement is falling behind. Amid concerns over voter fraud, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently suggested that to win the presidential election in November, Republicans need to outvote Democrats by a significant margin. “Everybody who wants an honest election should know that in the long run, we need the French model: Everybody votes on the same day, everybody has a photo ID, everybody’s accounted as a person,” Mr. Gingrich said in a February interview on Fox News.

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All else remaining equal…

• Biden Targets Radical IDF Unit With Sanctions to Placate His Voters (Sp.)

Axios reported Saturday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to imminently announce sanctions against the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, with the measures expected to stop the battalion’s fighters from being able to receive US military assistance and training. Officials confirmed the looming sanctions to the Times of Israel, indicating on Monday that other Israeli military and police units accused of human rights abuses may also be targeted. However, one of Axios’s sources said others will not be affected after being probed and deemed to have “remedied their behavior” in unspecified ways. The US investigation into Netzah Yehuda goes back to before the current Palestinian-Israeli escalation, with the State Department starting a probe of the unit in December 2022 after troops were caught engaging in violence against Palestinian civilians. One such incident led to the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian-American man.

“Sanctions must not be imposed on the Israel Defense Forces,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Saturday, assuring that his government would “act by all means against these moves.” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant echoed Netanyahu’s sentiments, heaping praise on Netzah Yehuda and assuring that its soldiers operate “in accordance with the values of the IDF and in accordance with international law.” Gallant warned that even if the infantry unit was the only one targeted by sanctions, it would cast “a heavy shadow on the actions of the IDF” and affect “the entire defense establishment.” The Israeli military moved the Netzah Yehuda battalion – which consists mostly of ultra-Orthodox and hardcore Zionist forces, out of the West Bank and away from contact with the Palestinians in late 2022, but no actions were taken to punish members suspected of human rights abuses. Gallant said the unit has been used in Israel’s operation “to dismantle Hamas brigades in Gaza” after last fall’s escalation.

It’s not clear what impact the sanctions will have. The US has donated tens of billions of dollars in military equipment to Israel (including $26 billion in a tranche approved by the House of Representatives on Saturday), and it’s unclear how Washington plans to keep track of weaponry to assure that it doesn’t fall into the Netzah Yehuda battalion’s hands. Netzah Yehuda is a distinct unit within Israel’s armed forces in that it’s made up almost entirely by radical Zionists, Dr. Simon Tsipis, a Tel Aviv-based international relations expert, told Sputnik, commenting on the US plans These forces have “an aggressive attitude toward the Palestinians, and there have been many cases of the violation of the rules of war, aggression toward civilians who live around these Jewish settlements” in the West Bank, the observer explained, noting that this aggression stems from the fighters’ Zionist perspective that all Palestinians are “direct enemies.”

As far as the US administration’s sanctions plans, “this is an attempt to kill two birds with one stone,” Tsipas believes. In the first place, sanctions are designed “to create the appearance of punishing Israel,” he said, with Biden and the Democrats seeking desperately to regain “at least part of the Arab and Muslim vote” in the upcoming election amid the president’s plunge in the polls. The restrictions are not meant to weaken Israel’s military capabilities overall, Tsipis stressed, suggesting the decision to target Netzah Yehuda signals the Democrats’ displeasure with Netanyahu’s hard-right Zionist and religious right coalition. “This is a blow to Zionism as an ideology, not an attempt to influence Israel so that it stops, suspends or is otherwise unable to continue its military operations in the Gaza Strip, or even the [potential] upcoming war with Iran,” the observer said.

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“Israeli and American officials stressed that Washington wanted West Jerusalem to avoid provoking Iran into an escalating series of tit-for-tat strikes and counterstrikes..”

• US Forced Israel To Abandon Larger Attack On Iran – NYT (RT)

Israeli leaders planned a “much more extensive counterstrike on Iran” after Tehran launched a drone and missile barrage on Israel last weekend, but were pressured to pare down the operation by the US and its allies, the New York Times reported on Monday. Israel targeted Iran with a handful of drones and air-launched missiles on Friday, according to US officials and anonymous Israeli sources who spoke to the newspaper. While Western officials believe that an Israeli missile hit an Iranian airbase, Tehran has only acknowledged being attacked with small quadcopter drones, with Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian describing the aircraft as “children’s toys” that were easily shot down. West Jerusalem initially intended a much wider wave of strikes targeting military sites across the country, including near Tehran, anonymous Israeli officials told the outlet.

However, the US, UK, and Germany exerted “concerted diplomatic pressure” on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and forced him to settle for a more limited response, the officials said. Such a response “avoided significant damage, diminishing the likelihood of an escalation,” the New York Times reported. The Israeli military has not commented on the report, and has stuck to its usual policy of refusing to confirm or deny strikes on foreign soil. The latest round of escalation between Israel and Iran began on April 1, when an Israeli airstrike allegedly hit the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus. The strike killed seven officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, including two high-ranking generals. Tehran warned that it would retaliate, and two weeks later launched multiple waves of missiles and kamikaze drones at Israel. Most of the Iranian projectiles were intercepted, but with more than 300 drones fired, air defenses were overwhelmed and multiple missiles reached their target, damaging an Israeli air base.

Netanyahu initially planned immediate retaliatory strikes, but was talked out of it during a phone call with US President Joe Biden, the New York Times reported last week. In both last week’s report and Monday’s, Israeli and American officials stressed that Washington wanted West Jerusalem to avoid provoking Iran into an escalating series of tit-for-tat strikes and counterstrikes. The plan appears to have succeeded. “As long as there is no new adventurism by Israel against our interests, then we are not going to have any new reactions,” Amirabdollahian stated on Saturday. With some of Netanyahu’s hardline political allies criticizing the supposedly “lame” response, the officials who spoke to the New York Times insisted that the strikes demonstrated “the breadth and sophistication of Israel’s military arsenal,” the paper paraphrased.

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“Iran’s missiles were able to penetrate directly into Israel’s two most sensitive and highly defended air bases and sites. Behind the whooping western rhetoric lies Israeli shock and fear. Their bases are no longer ‘untouchable’. ”

• Will Zionism Self-Destruct? (Alastair Crooke)

In the summer following Israel’s 2006 (unsuccessful) war on Hizbullah, Dick Cheney sat in his office loudly bemoaning Hizbullah’s continuing strength; and worse still, that it seemed to him that Iran had been the primary beneficiary from the U.S. 2003 Iraq war. Cheney’s guest – the then Saudi Intelligence Chief, Prince Bandar – vigorously concurred (as chronicled by John Hannah, who participated in the meeting) and, to general surprise, Prince Bandar proclaimed that Iran yet could be cut to size: Syria was the ‘weak’ link between Iran and Hizbullah that could be collapsed via an Islamist insurgency, Bandar proposed. Cheney’s initial scepticism turned to elation as Bandar said that U.S. involvement would be unnecessary: He, Prince Bandar, would orchestrate and manage the project. ‘Leave it to me’, he said. Bandar separately told John Hannah: “The King knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself, nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria”.

Thus began a new phase of attrition on Iran. The regional balance of power was to be decisively shifted towards Sunni Islam – and the region’s monarchies. That old balance from the Shah’s time in which Persia enjoyed regional primacy was to be ended: conclusively, the U.S., Israel and the Saudi King hoped. Iran – already badly bruised by the ‘imposed’ Iran-Iraq war – resolved never again to be so vulnerable. Iran aimed to find a path to strategic deterrence in the context of a region dominated by the overwhelming air dominance enjoyed by its adversaries. What occurred this Saturday 14 April – some 18 years later – therefore was of utmost importance. Despite the bruhaha and distraction following Iran’s attack, Israel and the U.S. know the truth: Iran’s missiles were able to penetrate directly into Israel’s two most sensitive and highly defended air bases and sites. Behind the whooping western rhetoric lies Israeli shock and fear. Their bases are no longer ‘untouchable’.

Israel also knows – but cannot admit – that the so-called ‘assault’ was no assault but an Iranian message to assert the new strategic equation: That any Israeli attack on Iran or its personnel will result in retribution from Iran into Israel. This act of setting the new ‘balance of power equation’ unites the diverse Fronts against the U.S.’ “connivance with Israeli actions in the Middle East, that are at the core of Washington’s policy – and in many ways the root-cause of new tragedies” – in the words of Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Ryabkov. The equation represents a key ‘Front’ – together with Russia’s war against NATO in Ukraine – for persuading the West that its exceptionalist and redemptive myth has proved to be a fatal conceit; that it must be discarded; and that deep cultural change in the West needs to happen. The roots to this wider cultural conflict are deep – but finally have been made explicit. Prince Bandar’s post-2006 playing of the Sunni ‘card’ was a flop (in no small part thanks to Russia’s intervention in Syria).

AndIran, has come in from the cold and is firmly anchored as a primary regional power. It is the strategic partner to Russia and China. And Gulf States today have switched focus instead to money, ‘business’ and Tech, rather than Salafist jurisprudence. Syria, then targeted by the West and ostracised, has not only survived all that the West could ‘throw at it’ but has been warmly embraced by the Arab League and rehabilitated. And Syria is now slowly finding its way to being itself again. Yet even during the Syrian crisis, unforeseen dynamics to Prince Bandar’s playing of Islamist identity versus Arab socialist secular identity were playing out:

I wrote then in 2012: “Over recent years we have heard the Israelis emphasise their demand for recognition of a specifically Jewish nation-state, rather than for an Israeli State, per se”; – a state that would enshrine Jewish political, legal, and military exceptional rights. “[At that time] … Muslim nations [were] seeking the ‘undoing’ of the last remnants of the colonial era. Will we see the struggle increasingly epitomised as a primordial struggle between Jewish and Islamic religious symbols – between al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount?” To be plain, what was apparent even then – in 2012 – was “that both Israel and its surrounding terrain are marching in step toward language which takes them far away from the underlying, largely secular concepts by which this conflict traditionally has been conceptualised. What [would] be the consequence – as the conflict, by its own logic, becomes a clash of religious poles?”

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“I’m not quite sure how big the US embassy is in Kiev, but I doubt it’s enough to set up a maintenance workshop for, I don’t know, Abrams tanks or something like that..”

• US Goes ‘Slippery Slide’ With Sending Its Military Personnel to Ukraine (Sp.)

Troops from the US and other NATO countries will be in Ukraine fighting Russian troops within a year, security and international relations expert Mark Sleboda predicted on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Monday. “We (The United States) were at trainers and advisers and CIA and special forces [in Ukraine], and now already, we’re at logistics and maintenance personnel. It’s quite clear where this is going,” Sleboda began. “US troops and [troops] from several other NATO member states will most likely be on the ground in Ukraine fighting the Russians within a year.” On Saturday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that includes $61 billion earmarked to support Ukraine, however, Sleboda explains that it will not have a major effect on the battlefield. “It will, maybe, slow Russian forces down a little bit. That’s the extent of what the $61 billion [will do].

And, in another six months or perhaps a year, they’ll be back, demanding more from the US taxpayer to try to prop up the Kiev regime a little longer.” One underreported aspect of the bill is that a large portion of it is going towards replenishing US weapon stockpiles and not weapons that will end up on the battlefield in Ukraine. “I would say, that of the $61 billion, actually only $14 billion of that is going to go to Ukraine for direct military aid and weapons,” Sleboda explained. “It sounds like a lot of money, it’s really not considering that just one Patriot battery of 6 to 8 launchers costs more than $1 billion, and they’ve already lost several of them.” The Patriot surface-to-air missile system is considered the most advanced anti-aircraft system in Ukraine’s arsenal. However, the first confirmed Russian destruction of a Patriot system occurred back in May 2023. Since then, several more have been taken out, including two last month.

The reports of an increased US presence in Ukraine were presented as “they’re going to be working out of the US embassy,” in Kiev, Sleboda said, but that assertion is far from reality, he argued. “I’m not quite sure how big the US embassy is in Kiev, but I doubt it’s enough to set up a maintenance workshop for, I don’t know, Abrams tanks or something like that,” Sleboda jokes. “So it almost certainly means that these US troops will be out and about in Ukraine, probably not too far from the front line. And you can certainly see the slippery slide. While the aid shows that, despite some hype in the media, the US is not “giving up on Ukraine,” Sleboda notes that it doesn’t change the calculus for the Russian government, who expected the aid to pass last year after US President Joe Biden requested it in August. “You already have Ukrainian military commanders speaking anonymously, of course, to the Financial Times, saying that this isn’t actually going to change much,” Sleboda recounted.

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“Very soon, Ukraine will be reduced to medieval living conditions — no lights, no phones, no Internet, no shopping, no ability to conduct modern warfare. End. . . of. . . story.”

• The Bad Faith Olympics (Kunstler)

Did it warm your heart to see all those blue and yellow Ukrainian flags waved by our elected officials in Congress Saturday night with the passage of the $60-plus-billion aid bill to the Palookaville of Europe? You realize, don’t you, that the tiny fraction of that hypothetical “money” — from our country’s empty treasury — that ever reaches Ukraine will rebound on the instant into Mr. Zelensky’s Cayman Islands bank account. The rest of the dough enters the recursive shell-game between US weapons-makers and the very hometown folks in Congress waving those blue and yellow flags, who will receive great greasy gobs of fresh “campaign donations” from the grateful bomb and missile producers. No wonder they’re cheering. What the $60-plus-billion won’t do is provide any fresh arms and equipment to Ukraine’s sad-sack army soon enough to prevent Russia from bringing this cruel, stupid, and unnecessary war, which we started, to a close.

Yes, we started it, not Russia, in 2014 with our Intel blob overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych in the so-called “Maidan Revolution of Dignity” (what Wikipedia calls it). And for what reason? To jam Ukraine into NATO as a prelude to “weakening” Russia sufficient to bust it up and gain control over Russian oil, ores, and grain. Yes, that was actually the neocon’s game, equal parts megalomania and hubris, a fiasco as strategically ill-fated as Hitler’s push to gain control of Russia’s oil fields via Stalingrad in 1942-3. With failure and humiliation looming in Ukraine, the blob’s objective for now, in theory, is the vain hope of prolonging the hostilities just long enough to get its hologram president, “Joe Biden” re-elected, so that said blob can continue its amoebic digestion of what’s left uneaten by it in our sore-beset republic. You’ve got to wonder, of course, what this blob thinks will remain to rule over when it’s done gobbling up everything and jailing everyone from sea to shining sea who objects.

You tell me what conceivable way Ukraine can prevail in this proxy war now without just tripping off the civilization-ending nuke exchange? America does not have enough tactical missiles and artillery shells at hand to send over there. What we did have is gone. NATO never had much to begin with. Ukraine has run out of available cannon-fodder to conscript from its dwindling population. Despite Mr. Macron’s recent bluster, NATO can’t raise a credible army, or even agree on which country would send what. Nobody is riding to the rescue. Instead, Russia is fortifying its home-grown armaments industry and its military while systematically turning off the electricity all over Ukraine by blowing up the power stations. Very soon, Ukraine will be reduced to medieval living conditions — no lights, no phones, no Internet, no shopping, no ability to conduct modern warfare. End. . . of. . . story.

This is apt to play out much faster than America’s blob-controlled news media will be able to lie about. I’d guess it can be functionally over before mid-summer. The result will be yet another humiliation on the “Joe Biden” scorecard. When it’s over, you can be sure the Russians will abstain from an end-zone dance so as not to provoke America’s genius-losers into some final petty grand act of requital. Russia will just soberly declare what is self-evident: that for centuries Ukraine has been in its sphere-of-influence, as Mexico is in ours, and that they have reestablished the natural order of things in that corner of the world.

Read more …

Tusk and Duda don’t belong together.

• Polish President Rejects Own PM’s ‘Pre-war’ Warning (RT)

There is no imminent threat of a military conflict breaking out in Europe, Polish President Andrzej Duda has said, contradicting the country’s prime minister. Late last month, Donald Tusk claimed that the continent was in a “pre-war era.” The prime minister argued at the time that “literally any scenario is possible.” Tusk also warned that “no one in Europe will be able to feel safe” if the West fails to provide Ukraine with enough weapons, allowing Russia to prevail in the conflict. When asked whether he shared the prime minister’s grim outlook during an interview with Poland’s Fakt media outlet on Monday, Duda replied in the negative.

“If we act responsibly, and we are acting responsibly so far, there will never be a war, because we will always be powerful enough to not be worth attacking,” he said. According to the Polish president, credible deterrence helped the West to prevent the Cold War from turning into a military confrontation. He suggested that the West today should emulate this strategy by arming up. He also said his country was ready to host the nuclear weapons of NATO allies as part of a sharing scheme within the bloc if such a decision were made. Earlier this month, UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps echoed Tusk’s assessment, claiming that “we have moved from a post-war to a pre-war world.” He argued that the West needed to beef up its defense spending.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell also subsequently stated that the “possibility of a high-intensity conventional war in Europe is no longer a fantasy.” Moscow has repeatedly denied having any intention of attacking NATO member states. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed such claims as “nonsense,” suggesting that Kiev’s backers were using the supposed threat of a Russian attack to “extract additional expenses from people, to make them bear this burden [of funding Ukraine] on their shoulders.”

Read more …

“RFK Jr. has been even more of a staunch supporter of Israel than Biden or Trump. In December, he said that Palestinians are arguably “the most pampered people by international aid organizations in the world.”

• Biden Fears RFK Jr. as He Gets on Another Ballot (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden’s campaign and the DNC are upping their efforts to stop the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including opening up a department dedicated to stopping the independent’s campaign. On Friday, the Biden campaign released an ad featuring several members of the Kennedy family endorsing the President over their relative who is running for the same spot. Fifteen members of the Kennedy family have also publicly endorsed Biden. Additionally, according to US media, the Biden campaign has been dumping opposition research and claiming in press conferences that a vote for RFK Jr. is a vote for former President Donald Trump. They have also been challenging RFK Jr.’s ballot access, like in Hawaii where their efforts were shot down by a judge on Saturday.

Democrats have long blamed third-party candidates for their election failures. In 2000, Green candidate Ralph Nader was blamed for George W Bush’s victory over former Vice President Al Gore, despite more registered Democrats in Florida voting for Bush than Nader. Then in 2016, Green candidate Jill Stein was blamed by Democrats for Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, despite the Libertarian candidate (and former Republican governor) Gary Johnson far outperforming Stein. Nevertheless, Democrats are worried yet again about third-party candidates, particularly since Kennedy is already on the ballot in four swing states: Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada and North Carolina. Kennedy has qualified for nine ballots so far. “There will be a clear choice facing voters this November and the more they learn about RFK Jr, the more they will recognize that a vote for him is a vote for Donald Trump,” Matt Corridoni, a spokesperson for the DNC, told US media.

But polling data and Kennedy’s donor list don’t seem to back that up. In a recent national poll, Trump leads Biden by 2% in a two-way race, 46% to 44%. But when the race is expanded to include Kennedy, Green candidate Jill Stein and former Bernie Sanders surrogate Cornel West, Trump’s lead flips, with Joe Biden leading 39% to 37%. Kennedy receives 13%, Stein grabs 3% and West pulls in 2%. The poll also notes that 15% of people who said they would vote for Trump in a two-way race say they would vote for Kennedy, compared to just 7% of Biden supporters who switched to Kennedy when given the chance. Meanwhile, an analysis of Kennedy’s donor list revealed that he has received roughly $224,000 in donations from donors who gave to Trump’s 2020 campaign, compared to $105,000 that came from supporters of Biden’s 2020 campaign.

Despite these metrics, Trump and his campaign have treated Kennedy with a lighter touch. Trump previously said he likes him personally. He also seems to be working on making Democrat fears that Kennedy will siphon off votes from Biden become a reality. In March, Trump called Kennedy the “most Radical Left Candidate by far” in the 2024 race and slammed his support of environmental issues. “I guess that would mean that RFK Jr. is going to be taking away votes from Crooked Joe Biden. And he should because he is actually better than Biden. He’s much better than Biden. If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden,” Trump said in the video.

However, one group of disaffected former-Biden voters who will likely not be voting for RFK Jr., are the ones upset with the Biden administration for its support of Israel and its campaign in Gaza Sixty-nine percent of young Democratic voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war, and RFK Jr. has had some good polling numbers among young voters in the past. However, RFK Jr. has been even more of a staunch supporter of Israel than Biden or Trump. In December, he said that Palestinians are arguably “the most pampered people by international aid organizations in the world.”

Read more …

“..mass psychosis of government leaders who consistently make global decisions through a distorted lens completely detached from reality..”

• Michael Brenner: The Moral Depravity of Western Imperialism (Sch.)

Professor Michael Brenner joins this episode of Journalists for Sale to discuss the moral emptiness of Western empire, most visibly expressed through its unequivocal support of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Brenner details how this depravity manifests not only in the form of mass slaughter and total disregard for human life, but also through mass psychosis of government leaders who consistently make global decisions through a distorted lens completely detached from reality. Only this can explain their escalations in Ukraine at every turn, their “acknowledgement” of Palestinian life yet total complicity in its destruction and the mass censorship being imposed upon dissidents by the ruling class, most recently at the University of Southern California. Brenner’s wealth of knowledge and impressive ability to articulate the philosophical implications of this ongoing lunacy form a unique analysis one can’t quite get anywhere else but from the man himself.

Read more …

“..as lay persons, most of us would hazard to say that it is not “normal” or “valid” to set oneself on fire in a protest..”

• No, It Does Not Matter Why the Man Lit Himself on Fire (Turley)

The scene outside of the New York courthouse holding the Trump trial has become a microcosm of our deep political divisions and rage this month. Images of citizens screaming at each other from across security barriers have played out nightly on news programs. But few were prepared for what occurred Friday night, when a man threw flyers in the air, poured a flammable liquid on himself and lit himself on fire. Some immediately rushed to use the incident to fuel their own rage. On the far left, postings and comments declared MAGA supporters were lighting themselves and “MAGA Terrorist just set himself on fire.” For many, it seemed a fact too good to check. Even after the police and fire officials explained that the material distributed by the man did not seem to relate to the trial, journalists pushed for a connection to the pro-Trump protesters. Officials reported that the flyers concerned wacky conspiracy theories related to schools and other matters.

Max Azzarello, 37, of Florida worked briefly for Rep. Tom Suozzi (D., N.Y.), but has a criminal record of property offenses that included throwing a glass of wine on a photo of Bill Clinton. We know little of his political views beyond his conspiracy obsessions. However, does it really matter? What should be clear is that he was a deeply disturbed individual. Yet even self-immolation may no longer be treated as per se evidence of mental illness. In today’s politics, even setting yourself on fire can be rationalized. An event was held recently at UCLA in which two psychiatrists appeared to rationalize self-immolation in the cause of people in Gaza. Ragda Izar and Afaf Moustafa were reportedly discussing the self-immolation in front of Israel’s embassy of airman Aaron Bushnell in February to protest Israeli policies. It was referred to as a “revolutionary suicide” on the panel on “Depathologizing Resistance.”

UCLA’s Izar stated that Bushnell “carried a lot of distress…but does that mean that the actions he engaged in are any less valid?” She suggested that it is “normal to be distressed when you’re seeing this level of carnage [in Gaza].
Moustafa is quoted as saying that “Psychiatry pathologizes non-pathological…reactions to a pathological environment or pathological society. It’s considered illness to choose to die in protest of the violence of war but perfectly sane to choose to die in service of the violence of war.” There have been a few prominent historical self-immolations in protest, including the famous case of Thich Quang Duc, who burned himself alive to protest the Vietnam War in 1963. However, as lay persons, most of us would hazard to say that it is not “normal” or “valid” to set oneself on fire in a protest.

The dividing line between rage and reason has always been contextual. In my forthcoming book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how we have faced regular periods of rage in our history. How one views rage depends largely on the underlying viewpoint. This country was born in rage with the Boston Tea Party, where a riot with massive property damage is celebrated as a moment of liberation. Yet even self-immolation may now be viewed as somehow valid when used to oppose Israeli policies or other “distressful” realities. If Azzarello was motivated by his view of a conspiracy among educators or Trump’s trial, would his self-immolation also be viewed as valid?

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Trump SNL

 

 

RFK Autism
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782611008713806295

 

 

David Martin

 

 

Wind

 

 

Kate
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782425377094455494

 

 

Dog is not impressed
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782645630227173683

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Home › Forums › Debt Rattle April 23 2024

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  • April 23, 2024 at 8:25 am #157578
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    Gustav Klimt The Park 1909   • Alina Habba Rages As Judge Approves Trump’s $175 Million Bond (ET) • Will Trump Testify? (Victoria Taft) • Trump U
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 23 2024]

    April 23, 2024 at 9:44 am #157579
    Red
    Participant

    For Germ:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13327833/Footballer-Mattia-Giani-drops-dead-taking-shot-goal-Romas-Gianluca-Mancini-paying-tribute-striker-26.html

    https://news.meaww.com/so-strange-internet-stunned-as-tik-toker-and-club-rat-director-eva-evans-suddenly-dies-at-29

    https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/woman-who-made-everyone-laugh-29021627

    https://www.nj.com/sports/2024/04/red-sox-world-series-champion-dies-suddenly-of-cardiac-event-at-54.html

    April 23, 2024 at 9:47 am #157580
    aspnaz
    Participant

    https://www.swentr.site/russia/596424-putin-greetings-jews-passover/

    Very nice of him, but he knows his Jews destroyed Russia once – don’t tell me you forgot the Bolshies – but Russia came back. I suspect that Putin is aware that his genocide loving citizens are trouble with a big T. He will do what he can to make them welcome, he will also destroy them if they start their usual shit, which they will, they always do.

    April 23, 2024 at 10:30 am #157581
    tboc
    Participant

    The United States is a debtors prison masquerading as a nation.

    April 23, 2024 at 10:33 am #157582
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Did it warm your heart to see all those blue and yellow Ukrainian flags waved by our elected officials in Congress Saturday night with the passage of the $60-plus-billion aid bill to the Palookaville of Europe?” — Kunstler

    Ukraine is our flag now. Kiev is our capital. “Ukraine First!” “Make Ukraine Hate Again.”

    Other quotes: “Russia is fortifying its home-grown armaments industry and its military while systematically turning off the electricity all over Ukraine by blowing up the power stations. “

    Hey, how’d that “Digital Reality” testcase go? With a digital ID, digital government, digital everything? Oh…about as well as here where the power goes out regularly too. Boy how tragic they didn’t eliminate cash in 2020, things would have gone GREAT!

    “Trump Lawyer Rages At “Waste Of Taxpayers’ Dollars” As Judge Approves Trump’s $175 Million Bond In New York Civil Case
    “…in one hour, that judge and the attorney general realized they had no idea what they were talking about… and we came to an agreement that everything would be the same…”

    That’s shocking. It means that the Judge and AG have residual remnants of embarrassment and shame.

    “Trump Urges Supporters To “Peacefully Protest” As Day 1 ‘Opening Arguments’ In Hush-Money Case Concludes Early

    Doesn’t he know “Peacefully protest” means “Riot”? Only if he told them to riot, “Get in their faces” and “Burn it all down” would it be peaceful. Possibly not even then unless they kidnapped Supreme Court Justice.

    “Former Obama White House Senior Policy Advisor Charged With ‘Child Sex Offenses’

    Not much snarky you can say about this. Of course? Why now? Of course the FBI didn’t arrest him, it took being in England?

    The breaking out and waving Ukrainian flags on the Congressional vote bugs me more than I thought it would. Passed on Hitler’s famous birthday, Ukraine is the new and most direct Nazi regime, so it’s the best example of a Nazi flag they’re waving. It’s also not the American Flag, meaning their allegiance is openly to a foreign country and people and therefore MUST be against the American country and people. It was also illegal on Congressional “law”, and they also didn’t care. So, let’s go get all their names and addresses and arrest them all. We know who is who, and who voted for (+2/3 as I’ve said). Right before the crash, the “Shift” here, we got a most perfect head count of who’s independent and who did what they were told and sold out their country to murder and theft, last chance.

    All that’s left now is to have the US$ and system lock up, and use that to take them all out. If you couldn’t vote against even those three things (including FISA), there are no excuses.

    Australia and X: This has been going on and might want to be re-stated, this is the Church stabbing, right? How is it “Misinformation” to post a video, or as Elon personally didn’t post it, for “Someone” to post it? Again, you are very definitively a Publisher if you post and un-post stuff, and in no wise a “Social Media Platform”. Okay, so…if you’re a “Publisher”, then the Government is demanding you remove things they don’t like, that’s (in America) direct 1A violation of Free Speech, with a beacon and bells on top.

    His statement, below, is a complete hash of incomplete catch-phrases, slogans, half-arguments, and subject changes. I can’t follow it at all, because I am rational, and he sounds like a lunatic to me. Like if anyone said that to me in person I’d think he was a 4th grader who took crack. So on all counts: 1) not an adult 2) not rational 3) not coherent 4) not logical, 5) not actionable 6) not legal. 7) widely accepted and applauded by wide sections of the population, as they are all dumber than Idiocracy.

    “Trump says he should have “ABSOLUTE Immunity”

    Yes, but they conflate, “Make up s—t” because of the use of words here. NO ONE has “Absolute Immunity” in the colloquial, normal sense. Ever. That’s also not what they’re saying or arguing at all. The ONLY question is, WHEN you decide to indict and arrest Trump, does he have to be impeached FIRST. That’s it. And why? Because whatever he did MIGHT be in execution of his official duties as President, without interference (ie extortion). WHO decides if the President is broadly and clearly outside his duties? CONGRESS. Both houses. If he is, it takes but a couple days to impeach and convict, then FIRE AWAY with the normal, follow up arrests and trials. No “Absolute” anywhere, at all, about it, ever.

    THIS IS THE NORMAL PROCESS EVERYBODY KNOWS. Why are they confounding what could not possibly be simpler? (A: Lies intended to murder, that is, by making neighbors hate and kill each other, in a religious Civil War) You know they’re liars, they have always been liars, they have never not been liars, STOP BELIEVING THEM. If they said it; it’s a lie.

    “• Trump Urges “Peaceful Protest” As Day 1 In Hush-Money Case Ends (ZH)

    What no Antifa guys driving through crowds, burning policemen and lighting themselves on fire? Well that’s a letdown. The more Antifa kills themselves, the better I like it.

    “Mr. Blanche was critical of Ms. Clifford, saying that she has earned income and fame from her allegations about an alleged affair that occurred in 2006.”

    She also said there was no affair. She made it up. Might want to lead with that. She was also sleeping with Cohen for money, NYS definition of Prostitution. Might want to follow there, although it remains an allegation.

    “• Trump Sold-Out His Base to Shovel $95 Billion to Ukraine and Israel (Whitney)

    Might want to follow Luongo on this one. I’m as mad as anyone, but this is inside-inside baseball, arcana of arcana about procedural rules. What they were up to was for Mitch etc to remove but two GOP men, take out Johnson, and therefore get a single man majority to Congressionally remove Trump from the Election rolls altogether. Like that. Or other. Sure he can appeal, but too late, like last time. Johnson then gets Morton’s Fork where he and the GOP will lose because they caved, or lose because Trump is knocked out long term (he’s too old to run in 2028, nor will there be a country remaining). This went well. And why?

    BECAUSE 90% OF THE GOVERNMENT ARE TRAITORS.

    WTF do you THINK is going to happen when that’s true? All completely bought off with thin-air money? OBVIOUSLY they have no engagement with “Law”, “Rules” nor anything else. They’ll all be chucked out and/or hung if hey lose. We think they’re “Normal innocents” just on the wrong side. They’re not. They were all at Epstein island, ordering Takeout from P Diddy, maybe a pizza or a hot dog. ALL of them. …They wouldn’t be there if they weren’t, The End. If there wasn’t this level of blackmail over them back from their pre-Congress days, they’d never have been allowed near it in the first place. Once they are all felons, probably pedos, what’s the difference anymore? Take the bribes, order in more girls, murder some opponents, whatever. Nothing matters then. Like Dick Turpin, once you’re a highwayman, every other crime is free. Crime, crime away!

    So we don’t have an “Election” wrangling as we know it. It’s a violent coup where you’re fighting J Castro or Uncle Josef who will shoot you with a fake cake-box as soon as looking at you if he can.

    Stop being a child. This is very, very serious, Ms Whitney. How can you not already know this?

    No? Okay, how about this: TRUMP IS GIVING ALL UKRAINE TO PUTIN. Nobody want to accuse this, Mrs. Pelosi? I will. You’re helping. They didn’t quite get over the edge, so Putin needed another month or two to collapse a week before the election. None of that $61B will reach Ukraine in arms, it’s irrelevant, it only keeps the war going long enough for complete collapse, then complete cleanup any way Russia feels like, and most probably the collapse of NATO, Europe, then us immediately thereafter.

    They act like the money is real. It has steps, none of which can occur as they take “Time”. It’s not even “Real” for us: we don’t pay taxes, we just print and inflate. At $36,000 Billion, $60B is a rounding error, throw it on the tab, we’re not paying that either, OR the original $36T because we’re going to collapse. What’s the dif? Again, I would not do any of this, because it’s wrong, but I’m out here with that happy latitude to say so, not inside where I have to figure which enemy to shoot first.

    “• Supreme Court Denies Bid to Expand No-Excuse Mail-In Ballots in Texas (ET)

    When you break and ignore the law at every turn, for any and no reason, every where, every time, does it really matter? They’ll just break this law and all the others, then like FISA, say you don’t have “Standing” to ask.

    “• Biden Targets Radical IDF Unit With Sanctions to Placate His Voters (Sp.)

    “Sanction” is like a Congressional “Censure”: it means precisely nothing. Nothing happens, at all, except we give another 20,000 bombs for free. It’s adorable how Nutsy jumps right in as if any of this matters, this little make-believe, let’s-pretend of little children. Pew Pew!

    “• US Forced Israel To Abandon Larger Attack On Iran – NYT (RT)

    Well that must be a lie. Why? The NY Times reported it, QED, I rest my case. Nutsy can’t win, totally lost, so he blamed the United States, which is our purpose on earth: to be blamed. All countries do whatever they want until something happens, then they say (Like Europe) “The United States wouldn’t let us.” “They made us.” When a minute ago, you ignored everything we ever said. How. Convenient. I want a country to blame too.

    “• Will Zionism Self-Destruct? (Alastair Crooke)

    It already did. But the “eschatology” is critical here. That is to say, the “End Times”, what is a nation’s purpose and their destiny. Israel is already dead, but it will take a while to fall. 6 ½ years perhaps? Where they build a temple of abomination and goose-step around doing…whatever? Seems likely. They think that is THEIR destiny, and Iran/Islam is looking for THEIR Mahdi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi Then the CHRISTIANS jump in as the Madhi appears immediately before the return of Christ. As an American, I want to ignore all of them and stay over here uninvolved. Collapsed if necessary, while we rebuild. Not interested in the least, and I deeply expect Christ would agree.

    Addendum: now is this REAL, or are they hitchhiking, riding on a deep cultural story that pre-exists, like the villainous parasites they are? Re-interpreting a single word from nothing to their goals, like they did the Scofield Bible? Well, even if they do believe it – which I doubt, being atheists, “satanists” (in rough description) and far weirder – they are certainly EXAGGERATING to gain POWER to direct the world to their goals. So because it matches doesn’t mean it’s real: it more likely means you were imitating it. Imagine Cortez KNEW the Aztec prophesy of the White Man’s return. OF COURSE he would imitate it to conquer an empire. So with these guys, and all men, of course.

    However, and sadly, this is most probably the retarded bulls—t we’re going to have to put up with for the next 10 years shortly. I’m already sick of it and it hasn’t started yet.

    Let’s put it this way: Creativity is connection to Source and satanists have cut themselves off from Source. Satanists have no creativity so they can only imitate God, re-enact his stories in mockery, which drives them crazy. They can only hijack, imitate, obey. Re-creating Armageddon is the ultimate imitation. This is exactly the behavior of people who have Trump live rent-free in their heads, furiously thinking of him night and day, waking and sleeping. Dips—ts.

    ““If we act responsibly, and we are acting responsibly so far, there will never be a war,”

    You’re already in a war, maybe you noticed. Time exists. That’s the past, not the future.

    “discuss the moral emptiness of Western empire, most visibly expressed through its unequivocal support of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.”

    I mean, maybe? But WHO? ¾ of Americans don’t care. Among the few who do, half are on each camp. Even technically, we support – and essentially arm – both sides. They constantly confound the US PEOPLE, their Government, the Wealthy, and other subgroups. They’re not the same thing, and you have to pay attention and say what you mean. I hope they all die, and Europe too. Doesn’t bother me a bit. I’m just not paying for it. THEN you have my interest. THEN I’m involved. Other than that, it’s your business, and it’s halfway around the world. I ain’t your Daddy. We ain’t the World Police. Figure it out. When I withdraw all foreign aid, all weapons, all regional army bases, you’ll figure it, won’t you? It’ll all be settle right quick, won’t it?

    Is that bad?

    “KENNEDY: “The cost of autism is now a trillion dollars a year. My generation, I’m 70, you’re 60.”

    They’re trying to keep my attention on people I have no interest or business with, while they’re killing me and my family one by one. 100,000 deaths in opioids alone per year now. So, no, that’s not bad. Protect ourselves and our countrymen first, then waaaaaay down the list – and I never expect to have time – involve myself in other people’s business.

    “WHO will gain the power to “suspend all civil liberties”

    Will they? ‘Cause I won’t obey that either. You can SAAAAAY you have the right and power over all kinds of stuff. MAKING them is something very different. …You got to stop the very CONCEPT that if “They” say, the Elite say, a court says, a parliament, that you have any moral indication to do anything. There is no “we” here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8LeS0lf7XQ (Nixon, a few minutes in) So “They” tell us “we” have to sign up, be drafted, and go die. “We” have to sacrifice our economy, our children, marriage, health, any hope of owning a house. Uh, no. Every X, Millennial, Zoomer will say, “THERE IS NO WE”. What is this “We” stuff? There is YOU, and YOU are trying to kill me. Same with the WHO here. Only people over 50 have the slightest buy-in. And the mentally retarded. And reporters, but I repeat myself.

    Do we and Europe LOOK like we’re in the mood to obey about masks and theft right now? Far more likely the WHO will cease to exist if they try it.

    Reviewing the “Loose Nuke” theory, it just can’t hold at all. Again, so someone lit up a nuke, put it on a plane. 1) No former threats, no comments. 2) The U.S. was also unaware as no threats, no orders to withdraw, no comments. 3) The plane then flew over other airspaces, no comments. 4) The airspace it was supposed shot down over is U.S. airspace, no comments. 5) So Russia took over “American” airspace to knock it down, which has a 10-year stable standoff there, no comments. 6) Russia says nothing about it, not even hints, no comments. 7) A loose, live nuke, of the highest possible security to recapture AND disassemble/examine is lying on the ground in the Middle East, nobody mobilizes, no search teams, no “Broken Arrow”, no action, no comments. 8) IF Israel had nuked Iran, WHAT would they have said? Russia did it? It wasn’t a nuke? Iran bombed themselves? (This is not an exaggeration, all these things have been said.) That’s why the stage has to be set beforehand, with comments.

    So essentially two: Believe people still talk, posture, and arrange. And if there was a loose nuke in the desert you would see the world’s most panicked treasure hunt, with all nations (and arms dealers) involved. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

    “When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James

    April 23, 2024 at 11:20 am #157583
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Trump Sold-Out His Base to Shovel $95 Billion to Ukraine and Israel

    Yes, indeed he did

    But there is only one choice in the uni-party

    Mike Johnson is a Judas Goat

    A Jew-diss Goat

    So is Trump

    The whole election is a Punch & Judy Show (Pedo Joe is a Trans Judy)

    A World Professional Wrestling Match

    A Demented Pedophile in one corner, a Carnival Barker in the other.

    The Choice that’s no choice

    The Empire of Lies, Thieves, Thugs and Murderers

    April 23, 2024 at 11:20 am #157584
    Dr. D
    Participant

    (Comments on this quote wrote: “Yeah, especially those conspiracy theorists” aka “People who read.”)

    Towns are falling so fast in Ukraine, I can’t keep up. They’re not a lot of territory, but it matters because “Never fight a land war in Asia”, they fight the ARMY, not the land. This means the ARMY has no men, cannon-fodder to fill the holes. Wherever Russia finds they refuse to defend, they take it. Obviously this gets easier every minute, as there is now NO air defense and SU25 air attacks at will, along with unlimited FABs at say, Chasiv Yar. All you want, whatever you want, as long as you want, forever. Given Ukraine — and all Europe — has nothing, Russia can now amass in force back at Bakhmut, 10-20,000 fresh, rested men to take the field whenever Ukraine decides to collapse.

    On the Ukr side, the Nazi brigades refuse to fight — being either more cowardly or smarter than the general ranks, take your pick. Two have essentially ceased to exist, all dead. Two more were nearly dead, out to be R&R refreshed, but stopped (of course) and ordered to keep fighting. Like non-stop, every minute, since 2022. Suuuuuure that’ll go just great. Nothing says winning and general morale, like that.

    All this one minute before Congress (aka “Republicans) sign a pointless “Let’s-lose-money” bill. So suppose they sign, we’re pissed, Ukraine falls the next day. Explain to the people? Okay, how many weeks before that situation wears off? 5? 10? So if Ukr falls, 1June, Europe fails in a financial run on collateral, then 48 hours later the U.S. financial market locks up, tell me exactly how you explain this to the voters?

    Oh, and to keep order, keep oligarchic Lambo-crack-son Bezos dick-rocket control, you’re going to ORDER THEM AROUND, with the new financial system, a CBDC, and a WHO treaty right then are you? Hahahahaha! Yeah, I don’t see anyone being in the mood right then. You can SAY anything you feel like: nobody’s listening. Left, Right, Center will tell you to pound sand.

    That’s all timing, but that’s what I see here.

    But sure, you can believe Biden can activate the Tranny army while well-armed Patriots won’t go home and lock the doors if you want to. Nuh-uh.

    April 23, 2024 at 11:22 am #157585
    Oroboros
    Participant

    @tboc

    Nice turn of phrase!

    April 23, 2024 at 11:28 am #157586
    Oroboros
    Participant

    INTERVIEW: Washington insiders now call it Epstein Island Large: Colonel Douglas Macgregor and George Galloway

    Bought & Payed For

    “The US government consists of 535 lobbyists, says Colonel Douglas MacGregor. All of them, with very few exceptions, are bought men…”

    April 23, 2024 at 11:31 am #157587
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Ukraine Approaching Sudden Collapse | Larry C. Johnson & Nima

    Larry bitch slaps Nazilenskys clown show.

    Time running out in UkroNaziland.

    April 23, 2024 at 11:42 am #157588
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The largest causalities always happen not when two armies are facing off but when one army’s lines collapse and they cut bait and run.

    Ukronaziland has lost roughly 600,000 KIA at this point with twice that number permanently disabled from catastrophic wounds.

    Ukronaziland has already sacrificed an entire generation, there is no future for them because the birth rate was already way below replacement before the SMO and Ukrainian women voted with their feet and basically left the corrupt, pimped out whorehouse of a country called Ukraine.

    Unless they mass surrender soon, the worst causalities for Nazilensky’s ‘army’ will begin as their lines crack under the massive, slow Russian pressure.

    Like a giant hydraulic piston, the Russians are crushing the Ukro forces.

    The end is nigh

    April 23, 2024 at 12:02 pm #157589
    aspnaz
    Participant

    The man who is most responsible for the $95 billion giveaway to Ukraine and Israel, is the same guy who pretends to oppose America’s “wasteful” foreign wars. Donald Trump. It was Trump who consulted with Speaker Mike Johnson about the contents of the Ukraine aid package, just as it was Trump who concocted the idea of issuing loans instead of dispersing the standard welfare handout. It was also Trump who said: “I stand with the Speaker, (Mike Johnson)” after which he added that Johnson is doing “a very good job.” A “good job”?? So, secretly collaborating with the Democrat leadership to push through a bill that “reauthorizes FISA to spy on the American people without a warrant, (bans Tik Tok) fully funds Joe Biden’s DOJ that has indicted President Trump 91 times, and giving Biden’s political gestapo a brand new FBI building bigger than the Pentagon,” while not providing a dime to protect the southern border from the swarms of people entering the country illegally, is doing a “good job”?

    Trump is deep state, same as Biden; it is all theatre. I have been saying this for a while now. He is making his bed with facours and he does not care who he destroys in the process. Of course, most of his voters are the mentally retarded Christians, the ones thinking that it is their job to make some Jewish fairytale come true. The insanity of it all, it is amazing that anybody takes any of this seriously.

    Mr Operation Warp Speed is back with his old tricks. His “I can fix Ukraine in 24 hours” was obviously based on him buying off the Jew Zelensky. Then his fix for Gaza was obviously buying off the Jew Netanyahu. American tax payers vote for this moron, can you believe it.

    I wonder what percentage of this bill comes back to Trump in a brown envelope.

    April 23, 2024 at 12:09 pm #157590
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Israeli leaders planned a “much more extensive counterstrike on Iran” after Tehran launched a drone and missile barrage on Israel last weekend, but were pressured to pare down the operation by the US and its allies, the New York Times reported on Monday.

    The US and it allies? The only ally that counts is Israel, so that makes no sense. You don’t see the USA sending billions in aid to the UK, Germany etc, if anything the USA is trying to destroy Europe. But there again, this is the NYT, so its news is meaningless anyway, they can’t even get this lie sorted out properly.

    April 23, 2024 at 1:12 pm #157591
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Just remembering how Iran stood up to the Western powers when they banned unvaccinated from doing anything and got everyone jabbed and locked down to save all their people from a cold. Doing what they were told – like now – creating the feeling of ‘different’ countries.
    All just administrative states with different flavours of bankers.

    BTW this video is slow and long but covers good ground from an insider regarding the 1908 takeover of the US through trusts etc…

    Norman Dodd

    April 23, 2024 at 1:15 pm #157592
    zerosum
    Participant

    Can you rely on copilot to give unbiased truth?

    Questioning COPILOT – POT VERSUS THE KETTLE – CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE

    make me a list of words that are anti palestinians
    Copilot Using the web
    Certainly. Anti-Palestinianism refers to prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination directed at the Palestinian people for various reasons. Here are some manifestations of anti-Palestinian sentiment:

    Dehumanization: The portrayal of Palestinians as less than human, perpetuating stereotypes and denying their rights and dignity.
    Disinformation and Propaganda: Deliberately circulated false information that fuels anti-Palestinian racism and xenophobia.
    Biased Media Coverage: Some media outlets exhibit an anti-Palestinian bias, which can influence public opinion and perpetuate negative stereotypes.
    Hateful Rhetoric: The use of inflammatory language that fosters animosity and violence against Palestinians12.
    It is essential to promote understanding, empathy, and respect for all individuals, regardless of their background.
    ———–
    make me a list of words that are anti-Semitic terms and tropes.

    https://www.jns.org/ajc-releases-latest-edition-of-most-common-anti-semitic-terms-and-expressions/

    The American Jewish Committee released on Tuesday an updated and expanded edition of Translate Hate, the group’s widely used glossary of common anti-Semitic terms and tropes.

    According to AJC, the date of the 2021 edition’s release commemorates the second anniversary of the fatal attack on Chabad of Poway, Calif., and includes more than 40 terms and expressions that are examples of anti-Semitism, explaining their nature when used in certain contexts and their origins.

    The need for the glossary was reinforced by AJC’s 2020 State of Antisemitism ins America report, which indicated that while 53 percent of Americans are familiar with the term and know what it means, nearly half do not; 21 percent have never heard of the word; and 25 percent have heard the word anti-Semitism but don’t know what it means. These results were called a “stunning lack of awareness” about anti-Semitism.

    https://www.ajc.org/translatehateglossary?utm_campaign=report2023&utm_source=AJC.org&utm_medium=splash&utm_content=AntisemitismReport23TH

    American Jewish Committee’s Translate Hate glossary empowers you to identify, expose, and report antisemitism. Click on the terms below to learn more about how antisemitic tropes, words, and symbols hide in plain sight – from the internet to pop culture.
    ————
    You
    make me a list of words that are anti-Ukrainian
    Copilot
    Using the web
    Certainly. Anti-Ukrainian sentiment, also known as Ukrainophobia or anti-Ukrainianism, encompasses animosity towards Ukrainians, Ukrainian culture, the Ukrainian language, and Ukraine as a nation. Scholars categorize this sentiment into two types:

    Discrimination Based on Ethnic or Cultural Origin:
    This type involves xenophobia, racism, and broader anti-Slavic sentiment.
    Stereotypes associated with this type include:
    Ukrainians eat lots of salo (a traditional Ukrainian dish).
    Ukrainians are perceived as greedy, sly, cunning, and dishonest.
    Some falsely claim that Ukrainians lack education and culture.
    There is an unfounded association of Ukrainians with antisemitism.
    The Ukrainian language is sometimes derogatorily referred to as a broken dialect of Russian1.

    Conceptual Rejection of Ukrainian Identity and Culture:
    This type rejects Ukrainians as a genuine ethnic group.
    It is based on the belief that Ukrainian identity and language are “unnatural” because they were “artificially formed”.
    Some Russian nationalist authors have propagated the idea that Ukrainian identity and language were created to “undermine” Russia1.
    In addition to these stereotypes, within the context of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, Russian propaganda has perpetuated narratives associating Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazism. However, it is essential to recognize that millions of Ukrainians served in the Red Army during World War II against Nazi Germany, debunking this stereotype1.

    Let us strive for understanding, empathy, and respect across cultures and nations.
    ————
    You
    make me a list of words that are anti Russian
    Copilot Using the web
    Certainly Anti-Russian sentiment, also known as Russophobia, refers to dislike, fear, or hatred directed toward Russia, Russian people, Russian culture, or Russian policy1. Here are some manifestations of anti-Russian sentiment:

    Discrimination Based on Ethnic or Cultural Origin:
    This type involves xenophobia, racism, and broader anti-Slavic sentiment.
    Stereotypes associated with this type include:
    Ukrainians eat lots of salo (a traditional Ukrainian dish).
    Russians are perceived as greedy, sly, cunning, and dishonest.
    Some falsely claim that Russians lack education and culture.
    There is an unfounded association of Russians with antisemitism.
    The Russian language is sometimes derogatorily referred to as a broken dialect of Russian.
    Conceptual Rejection of Russian Identity and Culture:
    This type rejects Russians as a genuine ethnic group.
    It is based on the belief that Russian identity and language are “unnatural” because they were “artificially formed”.
    Some have propagated the idea that Russian identity and language were created to “undermine” other cultures.
    In recent times, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, anti-Russian sentiment has escalated globally. People have expressed solidarity with Ukraine through humanitarian aid, corporate boycotts, and protests. However, some have directed their anger toward anything associated with Russia or its people. Examples include canceling Russian cultural performances and advocating for the expulsion of Russians from certain countries2. These actions can perpetuate discrimination and harm innocent individuals.

    Let us strive for understanding, empathy, and respect across cultures and nations.

    ———
    You
    make me a list of words that are anti Trump
    Copilot
    Using the web
    Certainly. Here are some words that have been used to describe President Donald Trump based on public opinion:

    Incompetent: Reflecting concerns about his ability to perform effectively in office.
    Arrogant: Suggesting a perception of overconfidence or self-importance.
    Strong: Acknowledging his powerful presence as a figure.
    Idiot: A derogatory term implying lack of intelligence.
    Egotistical: Describing excessive self-centeredness.
    Ignorant: Highlighting perceived lack of knowledge or awareness.
    Great: A positive word used by some respondents.
    Racist: A term associated with controversial statements and policies.
    A——: A strong negative expression.
    Narcissistic: Referring to excessive self-love or self-centeredness1.
    It’s important to note that attitudes toward President Trump often revolve around his personality rather than just his policy or ideology. While some view him as strong and determined, others find him arrogant, egotistical, or even incompetent1. Public opinion can be diverse and multifaceted, reflecting the complexity of any political figure.
    ——–

    April 23, 2024 at 1:40 pm #157593
    zerosum
    Participant

    Does it make a difference if you read social media

    The Bad Faith Olympics

    CLUSTERFUCK NATION – BLOG
    April 22, 2024
    The Bad Faith Olympics
    ———-

    April 23, 2024 at 1:53 pm #157594
    John Day
    Participant

    Last night WES expounded on his boyhood pyrotechnic “character-building”:

    “We used to put Lady fingers in empty .22 cartridges and aim them with a small pipe.
    We also used to put 2 inchers in empty 30-30 cartridges and shotgun cartridges and shoot them straight up via a pipe and then try and catch them.
    We even put little paper parachutes with strings on top of the cartidges too.
    If aimed correctly we could place an empty 30-30 cartridge onto the roof of a house!
    Then hiding in the tall grass, we would watch the bewildered home owner step outside to investigate the loud thud hitting their roof!
    Then the time delayed firecrackers on the road for the local police patrol!”
    Doc Robinson ran some parallel experiments, as did I. Making bottle rockets out of an aluminum-foil cap over a matchhead and heating it externally works. Dad was a Marine. I stole .45 bullets and stuck them to train tracks instead of pennies a couple of times, but I did not wait long enough for a train to eventually come, so I am not sure what happened. The bullets were never there when I went back.
    I played with fire in piles of leaves, too.
    What KIND of character was I “building”?
    😮

    April 23, 2024 at 2:13 pm #157596
    John Day
    Participant

    @Dr. D: Thanks for the fever-dream efforts again this morning. Good work again.
    I think I mostly agree again.

    April 23, 2024 at 2:27 pm #157597
    John Day
    Participant

    Jonathan Turley can’t deal with self-immolation as a form of political speech. It freaks him out too much. He “can’t go there”. A “pantywaist”, he is… It is healthier than genocide, isn’t it?
    This guy Max is a criminal for throwing a glass of wine on a picture of Bill Clinton, a “conspiracy theorist”, who seems to have torched himself in protest of “The Great Taking”, followed by “The Great Reset” new-fascism-for-surviving-submissives. https://ellenbrown.com/2023/10/03/the-great-taking-how-they-plan-to-own-it-all/
    That seems like it might have some validity, but Turley declares it to “not matter” what he did it for.
    Maybe Turley is in denial, still thinks that he “owns stocks and bonds”…
    How quaint.
    Put on your Big Girl Panties, Mr. Turley!

    April 23, 2024 at 2:38 pm #157598
    jb-hb
    Participant

    we did the foil over matchstick thing

    If you couldn’t get real fireworks nor bullets but were very patient, you could still snip several large matchboxes of matchheads off into a coffee can, put the lid back on with a small hole, throw lit matches at the hole until one makes it in, still lit, and dodge very quickly.

    April 23, 2024 at 3:02 pm #157599
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    @ Dr. John Day – thx for the tips!

    April 23, 2024 at 3:02 pm #157600
    poppie
    Participant

    Dirty Jobs 521 Fireworks Technician

    You may need to adjust the playback speed

    April 23, 2024 at 3:03 pm #157601
    Noirette
    Participant

    On, top post: “US forced Israel to abandon larger attack on Iran” – NYT

    https://swentr.site/news/596414-israel-iran-larger-attack/

    That the NYT publishes this means it is ‘real serious’.. some traps, dangers, must be avoided.

    1. Israel attacks, via bombing, the Iranian Embassy / Consulate in Syria. = War-crime and violation of the Vienna Convention, the GE convention, etc. The int’l community (UN, etc.) does NOT react. Imagine if the US Emb. in France was attacked! Heh.

    2. Iran pauses to think this out, to talk to ppl, reportedly via intermediary Oman, probably also via Swiss Emb. in Teheran (CH represents US in Iran) to the USA + Others.
    Iran decides to make a demonstration to signal their strength -> being able to repell possible attack(s), the capacity to attack Isr., as a move for signalling deterrence -> message, hey! WATCH OUT. Everybody is warned, and nobody is killed.

    Then the US freaks out, NO war with Iran (I have been saying this for ages..) Isr., Netanyahu plays the US. An agreement is made, we – Isr. – will stop escalating w. Iran, won’t riposte, we can forget all that, in return you let us continue ethnic cleansing / genocide in Rafah.

    So the horrors in Palestine will continue. Until Isr. achieves its aims, i.e. destruction and take-over of the Gaza strip, killing / expulsion of all Palestinians, plus, impunity for settler pogroms against Arabs in the West Bank, that is going to the future.

    April 23, 2024 at 3:04 pm #157602
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Years ago I was told a tale of kids who would borrow their dads’ revolvers to play cops and robbers.

    They would replace the primers on spent brass, then add some red wax. It was pretty effective for shooting each other.

    One day, they were chasing each other across a road in the forest right when a cop was driving through – had to hit the brakes suddenly. He got out, made the kid hand over his revolver, inspected it, asked him about it.

    The kid explained their method with the primers and wax. Cop said “Say, that’s a pretty neat trick.” handed the gun back, drove off.

    April 23, 2024 at 3:23 pm #157603
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Mononucleosis – I had a bad case of it in high school, out for a couple months. Repeated high fevers. Even eating pudding felt like broken glass in my throat.

    My advice is don’t treat it casually like a fever or flu that you can beat in a few days or maybe a week. Fight it actively and persistently. Make sure to have plenty of liquid food on hand and to diligently eat regularly whether you feel like it or not.

    Shakes, smoothies, vitamins ground to dust and mixed in or whatever. Looking back, that’s the thing I most think about was the food situation. Couldn’t get solid food down because my throat was in such pain. Not sure if that’s everyone’s experience with Mono.

    Based on my own experience, I’d say whatever you can try that will help is worth doing and doing VERY consistently instead of waiting weeks and saying oh this is dragging on I should start something.

    Doctors, would the usual things – zinc, quinine, quercitin, NAC, etc help?

    Getting mono was a real downer because I’d gotten a girlfriend only a couple months before and we were head over heels for each other when the mono struck.

    She hadn’t seen me in weeks, but when I was feeling a little better, I managed somehow to convince my parents to lend me the car. (IIRC I got mono almost immediately after passing the driver’s license test) Fortunately she was the one who answered her doorbell. I swiftly, deftly whipped out a roll of seran wrap, bap onto her face, rip, tossed the roll aside, kissed her, pulled the plastic square off – hi! It was a hit, fortunately.

    April 23, 2024 at 3:28 pm #157604
    jb-hb
    Participant

    …and the mono wasn’t the girlfriend’s fault. It was that damn trombonist at pep band who wanted to try playing my trumpet and didn’t tell me he’d been sick recently. Stupidity? Malice? I’ll never know.

    April 23, 2024 at 3:58 pm #157618
    Dimitri
    Participant

    Escobar’s reputation is in tatters

    “ Pepe’s reputation took an unprecedented hit after this fiasco, and the collateral damage is that he risks discrediting his prestigious Russian contacts by association, or at least those institutions that they represent in the event that the pro-BRI faction that speculatively patronizes him applauds what he did. China won’t gain anything unless this tangibly helps the pro-BRI faction supersede the balancing one, but Iran already benefits from so many people imagining that Russia is its “strategic military ally”.

    In spite of the present outcome compellingly making it seem like Iran is behind this – not to mention the previously cited evidence in support of this educated conjecture, Pepe’s trips to the Islamic Republic, and his long-running affiliation with its national media – someone else might still be responsible. It’s unlikely that he’ll burn his source even though they just burned him, but even if he did, his track record of false claims means that folks shouldn’t automatically believe him if he finally spills the beans to “save face”.

    https://korybko.substack.com/p/was-pepe-escobar-duped-by-a-foreign?

    April 23, 2024 at 4:03 pm #157619
    zerosum
    Participant

    Is anybody looking for missile targets to stop the war/genocide
    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/23/satellite-images-show-israeli-forces-gathered-for-gaza-escalation
    Satellite images show Israeli forces gathered for Gaza escalation
    Analysis of images by Al Jazeera’s Sanad unit shows hundreds of military vehicles deployed at bases near Gaza.
    By Al Jazeera Staff
    Published On 23 Apr 2024
    23 Apr 2024
    Israel looks ready to escalate its devastating war on Gaza after stationing troops and vehicles at nearby army bases and outposts just outside the enclave, according to satellite imagery obtained and assessed by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit.

    The analysis indicates that Israel has deployed more than 800 military vehicles to two bases. At least 120 vehicles are stationed at the northern border of the Gaza Strip and 700 are in the Negev desert, to the south.

    The satellite imagery also reveals that Israel has established nine military outposts just outside the enclave. Three were erected in November and December 2023 and six were set up between January and March of this year. The outposts house soldiers, operational command centres and military vehicles.

    The findings indicate that Israel plans to continue its war on Gaza, which was launched after Hamas’s surprise attack on Israeli communities and military outposts on October 7, despite global condemnation.

    Israel’s war has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, displaced most of the population and destroyed 62 percent of all homes.

    According to Israeli officials, about 1,139 people were killed in Hamas’s October 7 attack and about 250 were taken captive.

    Al Jazeera’s satellite analysis supports the view of several experts who say Israel will dedicate most of its military resources to its campaign in Gaza, despite having withdrawn the majority of its forces from the enclave in recent weeks.

    “My general sense is that the [Israeli] security establishment would be more likely to prioritise finishing off Gaza, then shifting to other threats – whether that be [the Lebanese group] Hezbollah or Iran,” said Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the European Council of Foreign Relations (ECFR).

    On the northern side of the border with the Gaza Strip, located approximately 2 kilometers from the Eli Sena entry area located near Gaza’s northern shore, analysis of satellite imagery shows the presence of approximately 120 military vehicles at the base.
    An analysis of satellite imagery shows the presence of approximately 120 military vehicles at the Zikim base, on the northern side of the border with Gaza [Planet Labs PBC]

    April 23, 2024 at 4:15 pm #157620
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Whose reputation is in tatters??

    Since Ritter seems to have “left the chat”, I’ll resurrect him.

      Ritter’s authoritative arguments discredit Pepe’s viral tweet from a technical perspective…”

    SCI Laurel Highland/Somerset’s Finest is an authority by quoting Jane’s Fighting Ships.
    Another sure sign the Apocalypse is upon us.

    I’ll go out on a limb that Pepe Escobar, nominally Hispanic, will soon meet an identical fate as Ritter’s Hispanic former sidekick and belated Gonzalo Lira.

    April 23, 2024 at 5:11 pm #157621
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks for the Korybko piece about Pepe Escobar, Dimitri https://korybko.substack.com/p/was-pepe-escobar-duped-by-a-foreign
    Pepe puts out a lot of thoughts, impressions and insights, and I like his work, but usually edit it pretty heavily. He likes to use a lot of words. He seems to like himself a lot. That’s ok. He does a lot of work.
    Nuke-armed Israeli F-35 shot down by Russia over Jordan seems like a Loooong stretch, though.

    April 23, 2024 at 5:55 pm #157623
    John Day
    Participant

    “Let Me Go Home, Okay?”: Mistrial Declared For Arizona Rancher Accused Of Killing Illegal Immigrant On His Property https://www.zerohedge.com/political/let-me-go-home-okay-mistrial-declared-arizona-rancher-accused-killing-illegal-immigrant
    “Based upon the jury’s inability to reach a verdict on any count,” said Arizona Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink, adding “This case is in mistrial.”

    According to one of Kelly’s defense attorneys, Kathy Lowthorp, just one juror was voting ‘guilty,’ which is why their legal team pushed for deliberations to continue.

    “There was one hold out for guilt, the rest were not guilty. So seven not guilty, one guilty,” said Lowthorp. “We believe in our gut that there was no way the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”

    April 23, 2024 at 5:58 pm #157624
    John Day
    Participant

    Migrant Child Rapist Won’t Be Deported Because It Would ‘Harm His Mental Health’
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/migrant-child-rapist-wont-be-deported-because-it-would-harm-his-mental-health
    The migrant has been in prison for TEN YEARS after attacking a teenage girl in 2014.

    GB News reports that an appeal claiming that the migrant wouldn’t be able to access care for PTSD or depression in the East African country has been successful.

    April 23, 2024 at 6:11 pm #157626
    John Day
    Participant

    Seattle Cops Arrest Christian Who Was Assaulted, Threatened For Reading Bible Aloud On Public Property
    Now appeals court delivers body blow to city’s ‘heckler’s veto’

    Seattle Cops Arrest Christian Who Was Assaulted, Threatened For Reading Bible Aloud On Public Property

    The ruling said, “The prototypical heckler’s veto case is one in which the government silences particular speech or a particular speaker ‘due to an anticipated disorderly or violent reaction of the audience. As such, it ‘is a form of content discrimination, generally forbidden in a traditional or designated public forum.’ The Supreme Court has emphasized as ‘firmly settled’ that ‘the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers, or simply because bystanders object to peaceful and orderly demonstrations.’ … ‘Listeners’ reaction to speech is not a content-neutral basis for regulation.’ …. It is apparent from the facts, including the video available from police body cameras, that the Seattle police directed Meinecke to leave the area because of the reaction his Bible-reading provoked at the Dobbs and PrideFest protests….”

    April 23, 2024 at 6:16 pm #157627
    zerosum
    Participant

    Student demonstrations: Calling for peace and ceasefire will get you arrested on trumped up charges.

    Copilot
    Using the web
    (Surprised by his/her/it answer.)
    In the tumultuous corridors of student activism, where voices echo with fervor and hearts beat in unison, a brave soul steps forward. Their plea is simple yet profound: “Peace! Ceasefire!” They raise their voice against the cacophony of conflict, urging reason to prevail over violence, compassion to overpower hatred.

    But alas, the powers that be, with their iron-clad fists and ink-stained decrees, brandish their trumped-up charges. The very words that should unite hearts now serve as shackles, chaining the advocate of peace. The scales of justice, once balanced, now tilt toward oppression.

    In this theater of dissent, where ideals clash and banners flutter, the student stands resolute. Their spirit unyielding, they march on, knowing that history’s pages are inked not only by the victors but also by the silenced, the oppressed, and the dreamers.

    And so, amidst the shadows of detention cells and courtrooms, the call for peace echoes—a beacon of hope, a plea for sanity. For in the heart of every student, there lies a seed of revolution, watered by tears, nurtured by courage. Let it bloom, let it flourish, until the world awakens to the melody of peace, and the trumped-up charges crumble like paper in the wind.

    April 23, 2024 at 6:30 pm #157628
    jb-hb
    Participant

    British police decide a man cannot simply exist on a public sidewalk while happening to be Jewish, needs to go somewhere else and be Jewish there.

    April 23, 2024 at 8:02 pm #157630
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    When I was a juvenile delinquent, we built a tiny cannon using a section of 1″ sprinkler pipe. We threaded a cap on one end, drilled a small hole for a fuse, and then filled and fired. Contents were powder from emptied ladyfingers, and the leftover paper as wadding. Ball was a Japanese ‘pinball’ (only remember the derogatory ‘pachinko’), about 8mm dia. We managed to kill a few old surfboards one afternoon before we lost interest.

    It’s probably possible to build a functional flintlock using fired clay. Then you need to brew beer to ensure a good supply of salt peter. 🙂

    April 23, 2024 at 9:23 pm #157631
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    Re the Australian federal government’s attempt to stop X broadcasting the stabbing attacks, I haven’t seen any of the videos of the ghastly events and don’t intend to. I don’t need to. The verbal reports have been quite enough. I don’t want to act like a disaster tourist, don’t wish to loiter around the scene of the crimes, don’t aim to learn how to murder or attempt to murder, analyse how I would have done it better or even defended myself better. There’s enough simulated murder and violence on free-to-air TV as it is. We don’t need training in it. Some people will wallow in what they see. I choose not to.

    It is clear that X is mightier than the Australian federal government, just as Facebook proved to be some time ago.

    April 23, 2024 at 9:31 pm #157632
    hexadec
    Participant

    Kunstler – his latest podcast with Catherine Austin Fitts was pretty interesting. She spoke of just how corrupt and criminal the federal government is. Also control files, as in we have a file on your transgressions we can control you with.
    An hour 19 minutes.

    KunstlerCast 399 — Catherine Austin Fitts Versus the Globalist Blob

    April 23, 2024 at 9:52 pm #157633
    John Day
    Participant

    Earth Day Late https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/earth-day-late

    I remember the first “Earth Day”, April 22, 1970. I was in 6th grade. Our teacher, who had been a student teacher the year before, was very enthusiastic about this new thing. It seemed like we might be taking a new and better direction, and in many ways, the US was. We spent a decade and a whole lot of money reducing pollution and starting some Superfund cleanups. We got smog controls, and the Hudson River eventually got fish again, and the unleaded gasoline led to an unexpected reduction in violent crime…
    ​ Maybe it should be called “Universe Day” ​, Josh Mitteldorf
    I learned from physics that the universe is alive. I learned from biology that evolution crafts ecosystems.
    ​ A child of the Space Age, I was drawn to study physics because I believed that the world could be understood from the bottom up. The world is made of particles that follow mechanical laws, and everything could be understood if I plumbed the broad implications of those laws.​..
    ​..Many physicists are deeply committed to the principle that there is no “creator”, so they reject the idea that the laws of physics could have been created by consciousness as a way to make a physical home for itself. The only way they can do this is to assume the existence of a “multiverse” an unimaginably large number of universes, each with its own physical laws. Almost all of these are incapable of supporting life, so there is no one in them to look back and ask questions about physics. This is supposed to explain the fact that we find ourselves in a universe built on such hospitable physics.
    ​ Life is not an opportunistic phenomenon that took the particles and laws that it found and happened on a way to create self-reproducing systems that could evolve. No, life is built into the fabric of the universe. Life is the reason that this universe is what it is. The universe is a response to life’s longing for a home.
    ​ At age 46, I was drawn to study biology. It was not the above reasoning that prompted my move out of physics. I became intrigued by the evolutionary paradox of programmed death.
    ​ Anyone who looks without theoretical preconception at the many ways that aging manifests in nature realizes that aging is a biological function. It is not a bug but a feature of the software. Aging is an epigenetic program.
    ​ But if we believe that all biological functions are products of evolution, we face a paradox: Fitness is about producing lots of babies. Fitness is about surviving robustly in challenging circumstances. Aging is the opposite of fitness. How could aging have evolved through a process of natural selection?
    ​ I was obsessed with this question from 1996 to 2001. I pursued dozens of hypotheses to dead end conclusions. My “eureka” moment came with a radical message, for which I have been a passionate advocate in the community of aging science and also in the field of evolutionary biology. In one sentence,
    ​ Evolution has worked to craft robust ecosystems.
    ​ Starting in 1966, mathematical theorists dominated the field of evolutionary biology with a concept of the “selfish gene”. Natural selection works at the lowest possible level. A gene is “fit” to the extent that it produces more copies of itself in the next generation. There is no such thing as a “fit individual” — only a collection of fit genes. There is no such thing as a “fit community” or a “fit species”. Natural selection might, in theory, operate on higher levels than the gene, but in reality, those higher level processes are too slow to matter.
    ​ This was the dogma introduced by R. A. Fisher, evangelized by George Williams, explicated theoretically by John Maynard Smith, presented to the public by Richard Dawkins.
    …and opposed by one man, David Sloan Wilson. During the era 1966 – 2005 when the “selfish gene” ruled evolutionary biology, Wilson was meticulously laying a mathematical foundation for what he called “multilevel selection”, MLS. Wilson interpreted the mathematics of the selfish gene through a lens invented by George Price. He detailed circumstances under which group selection might be able to override individual selection, leading to altruistic behaviors.​..
    ..Wilson became my mentor, and introduced me into the evolutionary community as co-author of my first evolution paper. But even for Wilson, “fitness of an ecosystem” was beyond the pale. The dynamics of George Price as realized in MLS theory could not support a mechanism as radical as selection among ecosystems. It was mathematically implausible.​..
    ..I was able to break out of selfish gene theory and MLS theory to understand aging when I realized that both those bodies of theory were built within an assumption of a stable ecosystem. But selfish genes are not compatible with a stable ecosystem. I was able to demonstrate this with mathematical models, and I consider this to be my principal contribution to science. Selfish genes very rapidly destroy the ecosystem in which they appear. This is how natural selection has so ruthlessly eliminated the selfish gene.
    ​ The fact that individual animals share a prey population ties their destinies tightly and inextricably together in a way that changes the fundamentals of evolutionary dynamics. All animals are forced to cooperate to preserve the pool of plants or animals on which their future depends. Selfish genes inevitably lead to overconsumption. No one can afford to be ruled by selfish genes.
    ​ The requirement of ecosystem stability changes everything about evolution, which is ultimately everything we understand about biology.​.. For four billion years, natural selection has been in the business of creating robust, homeostatic ecosystems. The scope of the “selfish gene” in this picture is limited indeed.​..
    ​..Earth Day
    ​ So we come, at last, to the theme of the day. Sharks and lions and killer whales and polar bears may look ruthless to us, but no predator is evolved to be as efficient as physically possible. All predators are smart enough to protect the prey upon which they depend. (“Smart” may be in their genes rather than their brains.)​ …
    ..Human brains have taken over from our genes and, just in the last few thousand years, have conceived the idea of turning nature into a “resource”. We have lost the knowledge that we are part of nature, and we have convinced ourselves that nature is something we can use.
    ​ Many indigenous peoples did not go astray in this way, but our dominant culture of the West used the temporary advantage that it gained via our exploitative mindset to subdue them…
    ​..In the 21st century, the study of molecular biology has vastly outpaced ecology. We have the illusion that life might be understood from the bottom up. We have the related and very dangerous illusion that if Gaia dies, that will be very sad, but humans will still be able to support our species using hydroponics and lab-grown food.
    ​ No. If Gaia dies, then we all die with her. Every species depends on an ecosystem, and no individual can live without robust ecosystem “services”. If we are really “selfish” then we will organize to restore nature as if our lives depended on it — because they do.
    ​ You don’t have to march in the streets. You don’t have to write to your Congressperson. You don’t even have to plant a garden. But please celebrate a living Universe and give yourself space to feel a part of Life.​ https://mitteldorf.substack.com/p/maybe-it-should-be-called-universe

    ​ Michael Brenner: The Moral Depravity of Western Imperialism
    ​ Brenner details how this depravity manifests not only in the form of mass slaughter and total disregard for human life, but also through mass psychosis of government leaders who consistently make global decisions through a distorted lens completely detached from reality. Only this can explain their escalations in Ukraine at every turn, their “acknowledgement” of Palestinian life yet total complicity in its destruction and the mass censorship being imposed upon dissidents by the ruling class, most recently at the University of Southern California…
    ..I think we’re at a moment of truth for both Washington, the Biden administration and the Israeli government. It’s both a moment of truth, it’s a moment of truth because they’re in a quandary, they’re in a dilemma…
    ..Hypersonic missiles is the kind that Russia has developed and which the United States does not possess. And trying to catch up. They come at such a speed as to make it impossible for even the most sophisticated defenses to intercept them. The other feature was something that I believe they call maneuverable
    What it means is that the warhead, the missile and warhead, has built into it such intelligence that it can see an anti missile coming at it and change its course to evade it. And apparently it has been shown, there is one video which depicts what happened. When the Iranians attacked this sort of air base in the Negev with the Americans, which is both where the American sophisticated equipment was located and the base from which the Israelis had launched their F 35s, which struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
    And you can see the missile is headed towards the base. You see the anti ballistic missile trying to intercept it on a line and the incoming missile does a sort of jog in dogleg. The anti ballistic missile flies harmlessly past it. The incoming missile resumes its previous trajectory and hits the base.
    Now, so what we know, just to sum it up, is that seven of those sophisticated ballistic missiles did hit that base. Four hit another Israeli air base in the Negev. One destroyed a Mossad sophisticated communications in the Golan Heights. And one actually hit the building in which was located the unit of the IDF, Israeli Defense Forces, that they believe organized the attack in Damascus…​
    ..And we should remind ourselves, something which has been overlooked. It was the position of the United States government to support and to encourage the expelling of the Gazans into the Sinai Desert. Secretary​ (Blinken) , and this is a matter of public record, it’s not opinion, it’s not speculation. Secretary of State went some weeks after October 7th, but still in the month of October, paid a visit to Cairo.
    ​ In Egypt and to King Abdullah in Jordan and press them in effect to open the gates and allow hundreds of thousands, if not a million, of Palestinians to vacate Gaza. And in fact, in Egypt, he held out a number of enticements to President Sisi, including writing off tens of billions. Of debt, which Egypt owes the United States, and a readiness to lobby on their behalf for the IMF to write off other billions, which Egypt owes the fund.
    ​ A​nd Sisi told him, ​”nothing doing​”​, the thought of having a million refugees, that would be a breeding ground for jihadi terrorists, which his government’s already trying to suppress​, In Sinai, it was intolerable, in addition to which he knew that if he were to accept that, he’d be overthrown. Because opinion, popular opinion in Egypt is so intense, in a way, that no government that would accept a proposition like that, no matter how autocratic, how ruthless​, could stand.​..
    ​..There is good reason to doubt that this Israeli leadership is capable at this point of making rational decisions. They’re so caught up in their own emotion, in their own biblically, supposedly foreseen turning point, in achieving all the great sort of prophecies, and that they seem to be unable to sit down and do a cool calculus, say, what are the possible costs? What are the possible benefits? What are the probabilities, what are the probabilities that we would get this response from Iran, that response from Hezbollah, and a key, what is the chance the Americans would indeed join us, which would give us a chance to reach our goals, or won’t, in which case Israel as we know it, will cease to exist.​.. And since they’re probably incapable of accepting a new reality in which they’ve been thwarted in all of their aims and purposes, they are most likely to launch a rather large attack on Iran. How large, we don’t know.
    ​ The position of the United States, has been much discussed and is in the news and as publicly stated is to convince the Israelis not to overreact by which they mean don’t react so massively that Iran will then respond with an equally massive and destructive attack on you​. ​And they’ve also said ​”we’re not going to participate​”, we’re not going to foreclose the latter​ by participating in the initial, any initial attack​, that you have in mind​. And then they’re trying to dissuade the Iranians​, with the implicit assistance of Russia and China, not, in a sense, to overreact if the expected Israeli strike is relatively limited. Now, that’s a very delicate game to play.​ https://scheerpost.com/2024/04/22/michael-brenner-the-moral-depravity-of-western-imperialism/

    US forced Israel to abandon larger attack on Iran – NYT​ , Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to destroy military sites near Tehran until Washington intervened, the newspaper has claimed​ https://www.rt.com/news/596414-israel-iran-larger-attack/

    Gaza War At 200 Days: IDF Pivots From Iran Threat Back To Hamas Operations​ “Israel bombarded northern Gaza overnight in some of the heaviest shelling in weeks, panicking residents and flattening neighborhoods in an area where the Israeli army had previously drawn down its troops, residents said on Tuesday,” Reuters reports.​… As for Rafah in the south, so far it seems the IDF’s planned offensive appears to be on pause. An estimated 1.5 million civilians are sheltering in the city, and the White House has urged the Netanyahu government not to attack it. Humanitarian aid groups currently say they don’t know what to expect. The US has urged that Israel evacuate civilians first, but these plans are anything but clear at this point. “I have no idea what the plan with the procurement of tents by the Israelis is,” the head of the UN humanitarian office in Gaza, Andrea de Domenico, told Al Jazeera. Recent days have seen dozens of casualties due to shelling of some areas, but a full assault is expected to be a humanitarian nightmare for the refugees there.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/gaza-war-200-days-idf-pivots-iran-threat-back-hamas-operations

    April 23, 2024 at 9:53 pm #157634
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Israel prepares Rafah evacuation with US, Arab assistance: Report
    Arab states, including the UAE and Egypt, are involved in plans to push Rafah’s civilian population into tent compounds near Khan Yunis​ The Israeli army is closing in on completing its plans for an assault on the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 23 April.​ WSJ cites Egyptian officials as saying that Israel’s plan to evacuate civilians from the city will take two to three weeks and will be carried out in cooperation with Washington, Cairo, and other Arab states, including the UAE.
    ​ The officials say Israel is planning on gradual deployments of troops to Rafah. The troops will concentrate on specific areas where Tel Aviv believes Hamas leaders are holed up.​ The entire operation – including the evacuations – is expected to take at least six weeks, according to WSJ.​ https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-prepares-rafah-evacuation-with-us-arab-assistance-report​ ​ Some 2,000 Palestinians have been found to be missing following the Israeli occupation army’s withdrawal from several areas across Gaza, spokesman for the Civil Defence in the Strip, Major Mahmoud Basal, has said. Speaking to the media yesterday, Basal said over 150 bodies were found and around 500 people were reported missing in the aftermath of the Khan Yunis massacre following the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces. He expressed deep concern regarding the fate of those missing, as their whereabouts are unknown, some of whom have been buried in unmarked graves​. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240422-official-2000-palestinians-missing-after-israel-army-withdrew-from-gaza/

    NYU, Columbia, Yale Crack Down On Demonstrators As Anti-Israel Protests Intensify​ The protests, which have been growing in size and intensity over the last week, were met with aggressive crackdowns from school administrators and police, as a wave of arrests, suspensions and canceled classes. Last week, officials at Columbia University called the cops to remove demonstrators who want the school to exit all investments that benefit the government of Israel amid the rising death toll in Gaza, which now stands at more than 34,000 according to local health officials.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyu-columbia-yale-crack-down-demonstrators-anti-israel-protests-intensify

    ​ President Biden Smears Pro-Palestinian Protesters as ‘Antisemitic’​ (Is the term “self-hating-Jews” going to make a comeback?​ Go “Biden”!)
    Some members of Congress are calling for the National Guard to be sent in to break up a protest at Columbia University​ Critics of the protests have accused the demonstrators of harassing Jewish students, which has been a common claim about recent college protests in general. Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, made the point on X that Jews are usually “overrepresented” among pro-Palestinian protesters at colleges. “Sometimes they’re the largest identity group. Maybe folks calling for cracking down on protesters in the name of Jewish safety should consider their safety too,” he said.​ https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/22/president-biden-smears-pro-palestinian-protesters-as-antisemitic/

    My Congressman, Lloyd Doggett voted against the war funding, and I called his office this morning to extend my heartfelt thanks to him; I spoke to a nice staffer.
    Sanders Pushes Amendment to ‘Cut Billions in Offensive Military Funding to Israel’
    “Enough is enough,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. “We cannot continue to fund this horrific war.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-military-funding-israel

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