May 102024
 


Carl Spitzweg The raven 1845

 

Jack Smith Has Few Options in Trump Case, Say Former Prosecutors (ET)
Trump Announces ‘Major Motion’ Filed in New York Appeals Court (ET)
Democrats Attack Judge for Delaying Trump Florida Trial (Turley)
Putin Doesn’t Bluff (Jim Rickards)
US Defenseless Against Russian Hypersonic Missiles, Iranian Drones – DoD (Sp.)
Boeing’s Setbacks Show Why US Industries Lose Competitive Edge (Sp.)
Aging US Fleet and Drained Stockpiles No Match for China and Russia (Sp.)
Biden Denies Economic Reality In Car Crash CNN Interview (MN)
Tucker Carlson Interviews Biden Accuser Tara Reade (RT)
Whole West Is Working To Supply Ukraine – Putin (RT)
West ‘Trying To Distort’ History Of WWII – Putin (RT)

 

 

 

 

Fani more

 

 

Larry Johnson

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evidence tampering. Throw out the whole case. Not salvageable.

Jack Smith Has Few Options in Trump Case, Say Former Prosecutors (ET)

A federal judge’s ruling this week that postponed former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case represents a significant legal win for the former president, legal analysts say. A former federal prosecutor, Renato Mariotti, wrote that there is virtually “nothing” special counsel Jack Smith can do to speed the process up. “Realistically there is nothing Jack Smith can do to move the Mar-a-Lago case forward to trial before the election. Judges have extremely broad discretion over their trial calendar, which is what gives Judge Cannon the ability to avoid setting a trial date at this time,” Mr. Mariotti wrote on social media. Another former federal prosecutor, Brandon Van Grack, wrote that Mr. Smith’s team will have “a bumpy ride” ahead of them because of Judge Cannon’s “numerous other scheduled hearings on pretrial motions” from President Trump and two co-defendants, which he indicates that Judge Cannon believes “have merit.”

Harry P. Litman, a law professor and a former U.S. attorney, echoed those claims, saying that the case is now in a “deep freeze” after the latest order. Meanwhile, multiple television legal analysts claimed that with her latest order, Judge Cannon is intentionally trying to delay the case. The Epoch Times contacted the court for comment. “This is news but it’s hardly unexpected. Judge Cannon seems desperate to avoid trying this case. This isn’t justice. defendants aren’t the only ones with speedy trial act rights, we the people have them too,” wrote former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, who currently works for MSNBC, on Tuesday afternoon. But Tim Fitton, the head of the Judicial Watch legal group, wrote that complaints about Judge Cannon’s decisions are unwarranted, arguing that such a timeline “is normal and not surprising.”

“But the Left’s election riggers and civil rights abusers believe that Trump has no rights and will attack Judge Cannon for proceeding normally in this case and for not violating Trump’s constitutional rights,” he wrote on X, formerly known Twitter. In that post, he pointed out that Mr. Smith’s team last week submitted court papers to Judge Cannon essentially saying that his team misled the court because the contents of a box of documents were re-arranged. Prosecutors did not disclose the exact reason why the materials may have been shifted. “There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” Mr. Smith’s team wrote, adding that the update contrasts with what they told the judge several weeks ago during a hearing.

The boxes in question have “items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full,” they added. After the disclosure, President Trump wrote his Truth Social platform that he believes Mr. Smith should be arrested before calling for the case to be immediately dropped.

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“‘I’ve been doing this for 60 years, and I don’t understand what crime he’s been charged with. Nobody understands this. I just don’t get the crime. There’s no evidence of any crime whatsoever..”

Trump Announces ‘Major Motion’ Filed in New York Appeals Court (ET)

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday confirmed that his lawyers asked a New York state appellate court to issue a ruling on a judge’s gag order that prohibits him from speaking about certain individuals connected to his ongoing trial. His team filed a motion on Wednesday, which has been sealed and is inaccessible, according to the court docket. The Manhattan district attorney’s office filed a response to the motion, but it was also sealed. While speaking with reporters outside the courthouse on Thursday morning, President Trump confirmed the move. Anonymously sourced reports published Wednesday said that it was a motion to expedite the ruling. “I just want to let you know that we’ve just filed a major motion in the appellate division concerning the absolutely unconstitutional gag order, where I’m essentially not allowed to talk to you about anything meaningful that’s going on in the case. And many good things are going on with the case. It shouldn’t have been filed,” he said. During his comments to reporters, he did not go into specifics about the motion.

The former president is under a gag order that prohibits him from making public statements about potential witnesses, court staff, prosecutors’ staff, or family members. Judge Juan Merchan, who issued the order and later expanded it, ruled that President Trump violated his directive 10 times before threatening to jail the former president if he makes future comments that he believes violate that order. Previously, the New York Court of Appeals rejected the former president’s bid to pause the trial while he battles the gag order. They also rejected an attempt to pause the enforcement of the order, which was issued in March after prosecutors requested it. His lawyers have argued that the gag order violates the former president’s First Amendment right to free speech, noting that he is currently the leading Republican presidential candidate. But earlier this week, Judge Merchan fined the former president for a 10th time for an April remark that he made to a media outlet about the Manhattan jury pool, which he said was “95 percent” Democratic.

The judge then said that a $1,000 fine isn’t enough and that he might have to jail the former president, although he did not go into specifics about how that would look like. “Your continued willful violations of this court’s orders threaten to interfere with the … administration of justice,” Judge Merchan said before issuing a warning about possible jail time. The former president, in response, criticized the judge and wrote on Truth Social that he is now not allowed to respond publicly to “lies and false statements” made about him during the New York trial. It came after witness Stormy Daniels made salacious allegations about President Trump during her first trial appearance, which President Trump has denied. According to emails reviewed by The Epoch Times, the Trump campaign also used the judge’s threat as a means to fundraise for his presidential campaign. “The liberal judge in New York just threatened to THROW ME IN JAIL,” read one of the emails, adding that they want him “in HANDCUFFS.”

During his remarks to reporters on Thursday, the former president also quoted multiple legal analysts’ commentary on the case to say that it should never have been brought against him. Those analysts, which President Trump read aloud from a piece of paper, stated prosecutors revived the case after more than seven years in a politicized attempt to harm his 2024 reelection campaign. “‘I’ve been doing this for 60 years, and I don’t understand what crime he’s been charged with. Nobody understands this. I just don’t get the crime. There’s no evidence of any crime whatsoever. This is a sham,’” President Trump said, quoting retired Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz. The trial is expected to last another two weeks. On Thursday, Ms. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, again took the witness stand and was grilled by defense attorneys about whether she was using her allegations against President Trump to make money for herself and bolster her name recognition.

President Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels for her silence ahead of the 2016 election about the alleged encounter. President Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies Ms. Daniels’ claims. The case is seen by some as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions President Trump faces. But the chances of the other three, going to trial before the election are growing more distant. He has pleaded not guilty in all the cases. The former president’s cases in Georgia and Washington were paused by the respective judges overseeing them. Meanwhile, in a major legal win, a Florida federal judge suspended his classified documents case indefinitely after prosecutors revealed that the contents of an evidence box were inexplicably rearranged.

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” this is a case where justice delayed is justice.”

Democrats Attack Judge for Delaying Trump Florida Trial (Turley)

While pundits, politicians and the press have long expressed outrage over attacks on judges by former President Donald Trump, many are now attacking any judge who delays any trial of Trump before the election. Democrats have accused Judge Aileen Cannon of being politically compromised, if not conspiratorial, in her delay of the Florida trial over the mishandling of classified documents. Yet, there is ample reason for the delay that many of us anticipated in this type of case when it was filed. For months, many of us have said that we doubt that this type of trial could be held on the rapid schedule demanded by Special Counsel Jake Smith. Smith has repeatedly sought to curtail trial review and even appellate rights of Trump to advance his schedule. His office has made convicting Trump before the election the overriding objective of its motion — a sharp departure from past Justice Department efforts to avoid trials to influence elections.

As a criminal defense counsel, I have handled classified material cases and they are notoriously slow. Smith could have prosecuted this case in the shorter time frame if he simply charge obstruction. That would have also eliminated the glaring contrast with the handling of the Biden investigation into the current president’s retention and mishandling of classified material. Smith decided to charge an array of document charges related to classified material. The defense must have access, review, and can appeal issue related to the classified procedures. Yet, Smith wanted both the array of document charges and a fast track to trial. The Supreme Court has agreed with Cannon that Smith desire to secure a conviction before the election is not the overriding consideration. Judge Cannon is faced with recent admissions that the government mixed up files in the boxes and staged the famous photos of document strewn over a floor with classified jackets. Most importantly, disputes over the relevant documents continue as expected in the case. Nevertheless, leading democrats are denouncing Cannon as a partisan hack.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on federal courts and oversight subcommittee, said accused Cannon of “deliberately slow-walking the case.” Ignoring the fact that similar cases have taken much longer to go to trial, Whitehouse simply declared “it is hard for me not to reach the conclusion that this [judge] is deliberately slow-walking the case to put it into a position where should [Trump] be elected, he can order that the investigation and prosecution be terminated.” His colleague Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) insisted that Cannon was “managing this case in a way that is making it highly unlikely that it will be resolved in a timely fashion.” Coons added “Justice deferred is often justice denied.” It is a bizarre statement. Classified documents cases routinely take longer to go to trial. The alternative is to cut off the ability of the defense to fully review the documents and review objections for resolution before trial. Yet, because the defendant is Trump and these Democrats want the trial to influence the election, such defense protections are now evidence of judicial bias.

They, of course, ignore that Cannon has ruled repeatedly against major Trump motions in the case. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Cannon’s “at it again, doing everything she can to delay.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), offered the most telling line. He said “I question whether this judge understands the magnitude or the legal import of this trial.”Indeed, it is the timing as much as the charges that makes this so important to the Justice Department and the Democrats. Smith has crafted this case to impact the election and the failure of the court to support that effort is apparently grounds for recusal. Blumenthal called for such a motion before the window is lost before the election: “It’s a classic dilemma for justice that a particular judicial officer may be conducting a trial that could be better done by somebody else.” Despite the statement of his colleague Coons, this is a case where justice delayed is justice.

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“You may assume that Houthi rebels in Yemen want to avoid attacks by the U.S., but they don’t care — they live in caves anyway, so you can’t bomb them into the Stone Age because they’re already there//”

Putin Doesn’t Bluff (Jim Rickards)

One of the persistent problems in intelligence analysis is what experts call “mirror imaging.” This is jargon for an analytic flaw in which the analyst assumes that his beliefs and preferences are shared by an adversary. Instead of looking at the adversary as he actually is, the analyst is looking in a mirror while assuming he is looking at the adversary. This is an extremely dangerous flaw. You may be rational, but the mullahs who rule Iran are not. You may believe that leaders want economic growth, but Communist Chinese leaders elevate the party over all other considerations including the well-being of their people. You may assume that Houthi rebels in Yemen want to avoid attacks by the U.S., but they don’t care — they live in caves anyway, so you can’t bomb them into the Stone Age because they’re already there. Nowhere is this flaw more apparent today than in the U.S. intelligence analysis of Vladimir Putin.

In 2008, President Bush said that Ukraine and Georgia should join NATO. A few months later, Putin invaded Georgia, annexed part of its territory and destroyed Georgia’s chances of joining NATO. In 2014, the U.S. backed a coup d’état in Ukraine that deposed a duly elected leader. Three months later, Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine and made it part of the Russian Federation. In 2021, NATO began formal processes to admit Ukraine as a member. In February 2022, Russia began a special military operation that’s resulted in 500,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers. Some estimates are even higher. Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO are now zero. In every case, U.S. analysts did not believe Putin would take the steps he did because they thought it might somehow weaken Putin or Russia. That’s mirror imaging at its worst. The truth is Putin doesn’t bluff. When he says he will do something, he does. When he says he will react to some Western act, the reaction takes place.

Putin said if the West steals Russian assets, Russia will retaliate by seizing billions of dollars of direct foreign investment in Russia owned by major European companies such as Siemens, Total, BP and others. And sure enough, just days after Biden signed legislation to authorize the theft of Russian assets, a Russian court ordered $440 million be seized from JPMorgan. The escalation in the asset seizure war has begun. Putin will win in the end. Unfortunately, escalation is also increasing on the geopolitical front. The U.S. and some of its European allies are becoming increasingly desperate about Ukraine’s ability to hold off Russia on the battlefield. The recent $61 billion aid package for Ukraine (about two-thirds of which will go to U.S. defense companies) won’t be nearly enough to reverse the tide. The U.S. and its NATO allies have already given just about all they can afford to give Ukraine without jeopardizing their own security. The problem isn’t a lack of money but a lack of weapons and ammunition. Before the aid package was approved, critics complained that Ukraine was losing because the U.S. was withholding desperately needed materiel. But that’s not really true.

The Europeans could have simply bought the weapons from the U.S. and delivered them to Ukraine. They didn’t. Why? Because the weapons simply weren’t there. Yes, there will always be a supply of weapons flowing to Ukraine — they’re not going to run out completely. But Ukraine won’t have nearly enough weapons and ammunition to undertake meaningful offensive operations against the Russians. They’ll just have enough to keep them in the fight, which is the goal of NATO. Unfortunately for Ukraine, the problems run much deeper than a lack of equipment. They’re also running out of trained manpower. Former commander Valeriy Zaluzhny has suggested Ukraine needs an extra 500,000 troops. But they’re having trouble finding new volunteers. An estimated 650,000 fighting age men have fled Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Russian army is even larger than it was before the invasion, and Russian industry is churning out weapons and ammunition at astonishing rates.

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“..could we knock down 99 percent of those missiles coming in?”

US Defenseless Against Russian Hypersonic Missiles, Iranian Drones – DoD (Sp.)

The crisis in Ukraine and escalating tensions in the Middle East have demonstrated that the US’ $886 billion defense budget has not translated into real-world capabilities on the ground. Now, an explosive verbal exchange on Capitol Hill has revealed that North America’s skies are defenseless against not only Russian, but even Iranian missiles. An otherwise boring and formulaic briefing by senior Pentagon officials to lawmakers from the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces went off the rails on Wednesday after subcommittee Chairman Angus King took the floor and forced Department of Defense officials to reveal that North America is helpless against adversaries it has spent years agitating around the world. “The truth is we have no defense for hypersonic missiles – yes or no? Mr. Hill, any defense on the hypersonic missile?

You’re the commander of an aircraft carrier in the Greenland Gap. If we have a hypersonic missile launched from Murmansk [traveling at] 6,000 miles an hour, what do you do?” King asked, querying Deputy Secretary of Defense for Space and Missile Defense John Hill. “We have some systems to defend in the terminal stage but we need more, you’re correct, Senator King… that our hypersonic defenses are inadequate and we do need [more]. SM-6 is in the Navy’s terminal range [capability], the Patriot – I’ll let General Gainey speak to the specifics on that. Those are examples but no argument, we need to focus on hypersonic defenses,” Hill responded. “So why are we talking about 2029 and even stretching that out? This is next year kind of stuff. I don’t get your budget,” King countered, referencing the lack of focus on anti-hypersonic capabilities in current US defense spending plans.

“What we faced in the budget this year – it was a difficult year, particularly with the Fiscal Responsibility Act caps that we had to work with. There were must-pay bills that we had to work with for the personnel, the salaries, the health care, inflation costs. When you get down to the point of where you get down to the discretionary types of things where you can really control your choices,” Hill said. “But that’s your mission – your mission is missile defense,” King retorted. “The budget decisions are made at a higher level and so you’re trading off between readiness or your future investments,” Hill said. “Well let me put the question another way: let’s say what happened on April 14 [Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attack on Israel, ed.] happened over the Arctic Ocean – 300 missiles, drones, UAVs came across the Arctic Ocean toward Canada and North America. Could we do what Israel and we and other countries did – could we knock down 99 percent of those missiles coming in?” King asked. “No chairman,” Air Force General Gregory Guillot, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), responded.

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One major accident away from bankruptcy.

Boeing’s Setbacks Show Why US Industries Lose Competitive Edge (Sp.)

Boeing’s problems keep piling up. The company faces a new inquiry over B787 Dreamliner safety inspections and is feeling the blowback from sanctions on Russia. Passengers and crew members have been evacuated from a Corendon Airlines Boeing 737-800 after one of the plane’s tyres burst during landing in Turkey. The accident occurred on Thursday at Gazipasa, an airport near the Turkish town of Alanya. It was the third serious incident involving one of the aviation giant’s aircraft in just two days, the Daily Mail noted. Bad news has dogged Boeing for the past few years, undermining its profits and driving down its share price. Earlier this week, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) opened a new probe into whether the Seattle-based corporation broke rules during inspections of its long-haul B787 Dreamliner passenger jet, and whether its employees falsified aircraft records.

The FAA announced last month that Boeing had “voluntarily” revealed that some of its employees had not performed required tests to confirm adequate bonding and grounding of the fasteners connecting the wings to the fuselage, and had then falsely reported the checks had been completed. Quoting a source familiar with the issue, CBS News said as many as 450 aircraft could be affected, including around 60 airframes still on the production line. According to the FAA, the aircraft still in Boeing’s possession are undergoing re-inspection, while the company maintains that the reported “misconduct” would not pose an “immediate safety-of-flight issue.” The FAA’s latest inquiry comes on the heels of a US Congressional investigation into the safety culture and manufacturing standards at Boeing. Sam Salehpour, a Boeing quality engineer, told Congress last month that the industrial giant was cutting corners to speed up production — which is fraught with acute safety risks.

The whistle-blower also complained that Boeing employees raising red flags over quality issues were “ignored, marginalized, threatened, sidelined and worse.” He told Congress that he was afraid of being subjected to “physical violence” after exposing the aerospace corporation’s flaws Two other Boeing whistleblowers, Joshua Dean, former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, and John “Mitch” Barnett, a former Boeing employee, passed away in May and March, respectively. Dean died after a short illness, while Barnett was found dead in an apparent suicide. Barnett and Dean both raised the alarm over manufacturing defects in Boeing’s 737 Max and other planes, after a series of crashes involving the aircraft. In January, all 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes were temporarily grounded by the FAA after a door panel blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight. The same month, an oxygen leak was discovered on board a Boeing 737. Remarkably, the aircraft was scheduled to carry US Secretary of State Antony Blinken from the Davos World Economic Forum.

At least ten more whistle-blowers, including former and current employees, are ready to testify against the aerospace company, the Independent reported, quoting lawyers for both Dean and Barnett. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Boeing is facing a new problem stemming from anti-Russia sanctions, imposed by the US over Moscow’s special operation in Ukraine. As a result, the industrial giant cannot deliver enough B787 Dreamliners. According to the WSJ, the trouble was caused by a lack of heat exchangers – temperature-regulating parts for the B787 – which were previously produced in Russia. Even though the production was shifted to the US and the UK, new factories have proven incapable of keeping up with demand.

Boeing’s inability to obtain enough heat exchangers disrupted the pace of Dreamliner manufacturing. The company was forced to warn investors that it will not deliver as many planes as anticipated this year. American Airlines blamed Dreamliner delays for its decision to suspend some international and long-haul flights this year and next. Boeing also severed ties with a major Russian titanium supplier and halted selling spare parts and maintenance services to Russian airlines that operate its passenger planes. The WSJ admitted that US anti-Russia sanctions significantly backfired on Boeing and jet manufacturing in general, naming Russia “a big player in the global aerospace supply chain.”

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China possesses approximately 370 warships, compared to the US fleet of 291 vessels. In 2023, China added 30 ships to its fleet [..] the US built only two warships last year..”

Aging US Fleet and Drained Stockpiles No Match for China and Russia (Sp.)

The US Navy faces delays in vessel repairs and a sluggish pace in construction of new warships. The crisis was reported by the US Naval Institute (USNI) and the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), according to Asia Times. Diana Maurer, Director of Defense Capabilities and Management at the Government Accountability Office, testified to the Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee on May 1. She revealed that fewer than 40 percent of US Navy ships had completed repairs on time, despite available space in shipyards. According to the GAO, “the Navy has not developed a full cost and schedule estimate for its Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) – an effort to improve its dry docks, facilities, and equipment – and reports that it will not be able to do so until Fiscal Year 2025.” Maurer signaled that shipyard conditions are second only to F-35 Lightning II sustainment costs, raising the alarm over the Navy’s readiness.

In his own congressional testimony, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James Kilby acknowledged that issues related to “ship production and repair” rank among the top challenges confronting the US Navy today. The US Navy’s ship design practices are largely outdated, which contributes to the slower pace, less predictable costs and performance outcomes of warship construction when compared to commercial shipbuilding. According to GAO, the Navy has been slow to embrace new design tools such as 3-D modeling and digital twinning, and still provides its contractors with 2D design data for legacy ship classes. Shipbuilders also complain that the Navy is usually slow to provide vendor-furnished information (VFI) – the documents that shipyards need as input to engineering and design products – to feed digital models. The Navy’s contractors want clearer technical tasks as well as funding for acquiring and implementing new digital tools.

The issue has been raised amid the US growing competition with China and the Biden administration’s saber-rattling over the island of Taiwan and the South China Sea. At the Senate panel’s hearing, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan from Alaska lamented that the building of new submarines and surface warships in the US is well below the pace set by China. Last July, a leaked US Navy intelligence briefing slide published by The War Zone revealed that China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than that of the US. While the People’s Republic’s shipyards have a capacity of over 23.2 million tons, the US capacity is less than 100,000 tons according to the leaked presentation, which was confirmed as authentic in September 2023 by a US Navy spokesperson.

The US Naval Institute admitted in 2021 that China already boasted the world’s largest navy, while in February 2024, US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) commander Admiral Samuel Paparo warned that Beijing was winning the shipbuilding numbers game. According to Congress, China possesses approximately 370 warships, compared to the US fleet of 291 vessels. In 2023, China added 30 ships to its fleet, 15 of which were large surface combatants including cruisers, destroyers. and an additional aircraft carrier. By contrast, the US built only two warships last year.

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“..claiming that inflation was 9 percent when he came into office, when in reality it was 1.4 percent..”

Biden Denies Economic Reality In Car Crash CNN Interview (MN)

During a brutal CNN interview aired Wednesday, Joe Biden looked shocked when host Erin Burnett reeled off a list of stats detailing how bad the economy is. Instead of suggesting how he is going to improve the situation, Biden denied any of it was real and claimed every poll showing Americans favouring Trump on the economy is wrong. “Voters, by a wide margin, trust Trump more on the economy,” Burnett noted, before listing possible reasons for that including the cost of buying a home having doubled, real income accounting for inflation being down, economic growth being way short of expectations and consumer confidence being near a two year low. “Are you worried that you’re running out of time to turn [the economy] around?” Burnett asked Biden. “We’ve already turned it around,” Biden bizarrely claimed, before adding that “the polling data has been wrong all along.”

When Burnett pointed out that Grocery prices are up almost a third, Biden shrugged it off and claimed Americans “have the money to spend.”

He repeated the tired lie about creating millions of jobs that everyone knows is complete rubbish because he’s including jobs that were reinstated from the pandemic:

Biden also told an absolute whopper, claiming that inflation was 9 percent when he came into office, when in reality it was 1.4 percent. After Biden took office, inflation surged to rates unseen since the early 1980s, peaking at an annual rate of 9.1 percent in June 2022, a full 17 months after he took office. Yet, he is claiming it was ALREADY at 9 percent. Since Biden took office, the average prices of goods and services have increased 19 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. By comparison, during Trump’s four years in office, prices increased by 8 percent, or roughly 2 percent per year, which is the normal annual rate of inflation.

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Good thing he went to see her.

Tucker Carlson Interviews Biden Accuser Tara Reade (RT)

American journalist Tucker Carlson has released a 22-minute interview with RT contributor and former US Senate aide Tara Reade, who rose to prominence after accusing Joe Biden of having sexually assaulted her back in 1993. The interview was recorded in Moscow, where Reade moved last year due to concerns for her safety in the US. In 2020, at the height of the US presidential election campaign, Reade publicly accused Biden of having subjected her to a “violent sexual assault” on the Capitol grounds in 1993. She was working on the Democratic senator’s team at the time. In a 2021 interview, President Biden said the incident “never happened.” In her interview with Carlson, Reade recounted how the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI had “harassed” her, claiming that she had even received “death threats. According to the former aide, US authorities built a case against her after accessing her email and social media accounts.

She added that, while the FBI and the DOJ had come close to indicting her, they wouldn’t disclose what her supposed crime was as the whole case was “sealed.” Reade suggested that the real reason behind the legal proceedings was her failure to ‘shut up’ about the sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by Biden. She claimed that the mainstream US media had lapped up “innuendos” about her, with most outlets working as “proxies of the US government.” Reade added that, in addition to her sexual harassment allegations against Biden, her recent criticism regarding the state of the US economy as well as the “proxy war against Russia via Ukraine” had made US authorities view her as a “traitor.” She said this was all the more “heartbreaking” because she had spent years working for the Democratic Party, and “believed in it wholeheartedly.” “I’ve never committed a crime. I’m not a traitor. I’m not a spy,” she told Carlson.

Tara Reade

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Who is the weak link?

Whole West Is Working To Supply Ukraine – Putin (RT)

The collective West has been working tirelessly to arm Ukraine against Russia, seeking to destroy it in its present form throughout the conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. He made the remarks while hosting a group of military commanders in the Kremlin who have distinguished themselves in the special operation against Ukraine. The meeting took place on Tuesday after Putin’s inauguration for his fifth term in office, but was released only on Thursday amid Victory Day celebrations. “We know, and you know this better than anyone else, the enemy has enough modern tools, since the entire Western community is working for our enemy, dreaming about Russia ceasing to exist in its current form,” Putin stated.

The collective West itself has created a “system of confrontation,” believing Russia to be a “weak link” in it, the president explained. The conflict with Ukraine, however, has already proven that is not the case and the West was mistaken, Putin stated. “I am sure they are now convinced that this was far from the reality, and rather the opposite is true,” he said. Putin underscored the need to further develop military technologies and be “one step ahead” of the country’s adversaries in order to be “successful.” Among other things, Putin commended on the efforts of Russian civil society to actively support the country’s troops and supply the military with assorted additional tools, ranging from mask nettings to sophisticated drones.

“In our country, as we often say, the so-called people’s military industrial complex is growing now. To be honest, when I meet with those who are in one way or another involved in such activities, the combat work in the civilian sphere, I, frankly, am surprised myself,” Putin stated. In order to be truly effective, however, civilian crowdfunded projects still require the state’s involvement and support, the president said. “Of course, all this must be concentrated in a certain way, everything must be sorted into the right places in a certain way, and supported at the state level. That’s what we are doing,” Putin concluded.

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“..based on the desire to justify current followers of the Nazis..

West ‘Trying To Distort’ History Of WWII – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has used his address at the military parade in Moscow celebrating the 79th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany to accuse the West of “distorting the history” of the conflict. He also accused the US-led bloc of wielding “colonial policies” aimed at elevating a few nations by restraining the development of other sovereign states. According to Putin, Western nations “would like to forget the lessons of World War II.” “We see how they are trying to distort the truth about World War II – it interferes with those who are accustomed to building their essentially colonial policy on hypocrisy and lies. They demolish memorials to true fighters against Nazism and place traitors and Nazi collaborators on pedestals,” the president said. He called this revanchism policy a “mockery of history” based on the desire to justify current followers of the Nazis.

“These [actions] are part of the general policy of Western elites of inciting more and more regional conflicts, interethnic and interreligious hostility, and restraining the development of sovereign independent states,” Putin stated, noting that no country or military bloc has a right to do so, which World War II proved. We reject any state or alliance’s claims to exceptionalism. We know what the exorbitance of such ambitions leads to. This year’s Victory Day celebration is taking place amid a tense geopolitical situation due to the Ukraine conflict, in which most Western states have firmly taken Kiev’s side. Over the past two years, many Western leaders have been spreading what Moscow calls Russophobia, claiming that Russia may attack Europe if it secures victory in Ukraine. Putin emphasized that while Russia would do everything possible to prevent a global conflict, it will not allow anyone to threaten its own safety and sovereignty.

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Eva

 

 

17 million

 

 

1000s

 

 

Feather star

 

 

Bees

 

 

Break
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Home Forums Debt Rattle May 10 2024

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  • #158734

    Carl Spitzweg The raven 1845   • Jack Smith Has Few Options in Trump Case, Say Former Prosecutors (ET) • Trump Announces ‘Major Motion’ Filed in
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 10 2024]

    #158735
    aspnaz
    Participant

    You may be rational, but the mullahs who rule Iran are not.

    Jim Rickards is a muppet.

    #158736
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Passengers and crew members have been evacuated from a Corendon Airlines Boeing 737-800 after one of the plane’s tyres burst during landing in Turkey.

    Michelin make those tires, but the MSM would hate to miss an opportunity to blame Boeing. It is a bit like blaming Ford because your tire blew out on the road, who does that?

    #158737
    aspnaz
    Participant

    The US Navy faces delays in vessel repairs and a sluggish pace in construction of new warships.

    It’s tough building warships when your contractors are stealing the money; good job the contractors are owned by your friends, otherwise you would get nothing.

    #158738
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    #158739
    Dr. D
    Participant

    The Raven: Checking his mail.

    “Trump Mulls Deploying Special Forces To Assassinate Mexican Drug Lords: Report 

    Those guys are the rogue CIA. Kill them all.

    “Bob Iger Insists Disney Stock Drop Not Caused By Failure Of Latest Movie ‘Gay Black Pinocchio Protests For Palestine’ –BBee

    “’The Jews Killed Christ!’ Says Man Whose Sin Killed Christ” — BBee

    For the election season: “12 Women Come Forward Alleging They Were Sexually Assaulted By Whoever Trump’s VP Pick Is
    — Bbee

    Speaking of being a joke, how can this not be a set up?
    “Chris Cuomo Admits Taking “Regular” Doses Of Ivermectin After Previously Saying Those Who Took It Should Be “Shamed”

    “Ivermectin was a boogeyman during COVID. That was wrong. We were given bad information about Ivermectin. The real question is, why?” Why, Chris? Perhaps its because you and Don Lemon were on-air daily providing a constant stream of misinformation …”

    “‘Joe Rogan was right. … that’s not what matters. What matters is, the entire medical community knew that Ivermectin couldn’t hurt you.”

    Joe Rogan being right and you attacking him nearly to death IS what matters. It matters a lot. “But let’s not worry about who did what to whom…” “What difference does it make at this point???” — Hillary.

    ““My doctor was using it during COVID on her family and on her patients, and it was working for them. So. They were wrong to play scared on that. Didn’t know that at the time…”

    YOU got it outlawed, illegally stopped doctors using it, ILLEGALLY prevented pharmacies from dispensing it. And we DID know it at the time: that doctor knew, clearly, WE knew – that’s why we were talking, Dr. Fauci knew – he put his signature on the SARS paper that used related drug HCQ. So EVERYBODY knew. You STOPPED them.

    Hey, is tackling a guy trying to save a drowning man a crime? That contributes to multi-mass death? Gotta think so. Man 2, contributing to a death? 2-5, possibly as long as 10 years? Do you get a new charge for each time you were on camera and re-upped the prevention of saving people? Lies kill, people. And Lies kill people. That’s why you can’t tolerate them, nor the liars. How about I go swap the “Aspirin” and “Poison” labels in the grocery store for you. Victimless crime! All I did was slightly misrepresent it, aka “Lie”. It’s just a paperwork error!!

    Speaking of crimes that contribute to mass murder: “CISA, FBI Resuming Talks With Social Media Firms Over Disinformation Removal, Senate Intel Chair Says

    Yeah, I remember the “Monitor and Regulate speech” clause in the Constitution. Illegal in every way, but also where does the money come from? If government is too small, they don’t have 30,000 extra people around to do this stuff. Shut off the money. Nothing stops without the money. Remember that expert this week, “Why do we tax if we just print the money anyway?” A: “Duhhh, I dunno…” That’s this: WE are the taxed. WE hold the purse strings. Then they run through the HOUSE for budget. If you print money instead of taxing, WE are no longer their masters, the BANKS are. THEY now hold the purse strings. Shut off the money.

    “We Asked 380 Top Climate Scientists What They Felt About the Future: They are terrified, but determined to keep fighting.” The Guardian

    Determined to keep hiding data and refusing discussion. No data, No discussion: That’s Scienz!™ And reporting complete made-up irrelevant crap? That’s The Guardian!™

    Speaking of Cuomo reversal, this popping up all over, why the change of heart?
    “No One Knows What Universities Are For –Bureaucratic bloat has siphoned power away from instructors and researchers.” The Atlantic

    Atlantic. Being anti-college. Going full Mike Rowe/Dirty Jobs. Okay 25 years too late, way, WAY over the horizon but why now? Like Ivermectin, we’ve been saying this for decades in public and were all told we were stupid, ignorant, hateful, neanderthals. But now, it’s okay! All good!!! Approved Big Brother sez so, so you will be popular at the Mean Girlz table again.

    Cartoon: Congress is really a self-parody isn’t it? Normally cartoonists have to hyperbole and exaggerate, but nope.

    Okay, being useful, THE PEOPLE HAVE TO SEE THIS. They have to see what’s going on, and they’re BUSY, busy not collapsing in bankruptcy, so it has to be pretty big and really stupid to get their attention. Yes, being here $100k is about middle class now, but note that’s on two incomes (which it also shouldn’t be. Thanks to doubling the labor pool and abandoning/abusing all kids by removing their mothers) $100k is BARE middle class. Two at $70k each would be upper middle class. Problem? …And then something happens…Like the woman VP stays home for the kids 3-5 years. Health issue. Someone gets unemployed or starts a business, etc. Then it’s all blown up again. Instability is something “Capitalism” doesn’t like. It likes to invest in predictability then get the returns of that risk on investment. Think of it like buying a very specific bending machine. Or a college education. You need to pay that back for a bit, then after reaching zero, make a little on it to do the next thing. That takes TIME where nothing changes. No stability = disaster = high risk, which is what inflationary crashing is. Everyone goes to the casino instead of working because the risk is the same but possible payoffs are higher.

    “Fani Willis and Nathan Wade had sex in the Fulton County evidence office.”

    Is that evidence tampering? “What is this DNA???”

    Larry Johnson – reminds me Dr. Rich should get on the speaking circuit. I wanted to remind that if he does, which seems possible, the Navy may cut off his pension and if he has something really interesting to say (and sounds like he might) they’ll kill him. It’s only responsible to mention it, esp if I keep haranguing him about it, I want to admit I do know why that’s not an easy option. I understand. But then respect when Ritter or Johnson does this too.

    Okay, If I had Ritters’ control files – and I don’t know his situation, I just want to say this as an idea – I’d say, “Hey, you did bad things? (Yes) You want to redeem yourself? (Yes) You’re a Marine? (Yes) Put yourself right in the line of fire and get shot at every day getting our message out. As long as you do that, we’ll just put you on the bottom of the pile of people we need to expose and discredit. Right? You’re burning daylight, pilgrim, this is your one chance.”

    Now do you see why I don’t care if his information is good? — I – am not his investigator and prosecutor, if it were on my desk, I’d have to act on it, but it’s not. Like Ike, I only care if what he’s telling us is TRUE. And so far it seems to be. People do bad things: do we just KILL them, their lives are over, forever? That seems like a psychopath. Or is there REDEMPTION, can they pay their debt? Offset the bad with good action?

    Christianity has redemption. Others don’t. So what do you do if you’re “Born bad”, and there’s no redemption? There’s no end of fighting. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” Dick Turpin HAS to kill everyone, as it makes no difference after the first gold watch – you can’t hang twice. DON’T make it like that. You won’t like the results. We’ve ALL done bad things – perhaps terrible things – give it a rest.

    “Evidence tampering. Throw out the whole case.”

    Yes, but did Jack have SEX on the evidence? I mean before he/they mailed it to Mar a Lago.

    “a box of documents were re-arranged. Prosecutors did not disclose the exact reason why the materials may have been shifted.”

    Oh, I think we know why now…

    “‘I’ve been doing this for 60 years, and I don’t understand what crime he’s been charged with.”

    The crime is: We Don’t Like You. You will bring our century of theft to an end. Convicted in NY, then the Democratic Speaker Johnson will pass a law removing Trump from the election. It doesn’t have to be Legal. Or Logical. #Logos has got nothing to do with it. Logos, order, is our enemy. In a #Logos, rational, sane world, we’d all be school janitors and not Judges and Congressmen. You want us to go back there? Nuh-uh.

    “• Democrats Attack Judge for Delaying Trump Florida Trial (Turley)

    Expect one to show up there with a roll of duct tape to kidnap, and/or shoot up the baseball field he’s on. It’s tradition.

    “As a criminal defense counsel, I have handled classified material cases and they are notoriously slow. Smith could have prosecuted this case in the shorter time frame if he simply charge obstruction.”

    Yes, but ALSO if it was pressed WHEN IT HAPPENED, and not decades later. That’s against the law (but extremely hard to prove): you can’t just keep known felonies on the people in your town and blackmail them all with that you will finally remember and press charges if they don’t do your bidding. If you’re aware of a crime, you have to prosecute it, or it drops. In a “Speedy trial”.

    But that’s the law and we don’t do that. How many levels here now?

    1) Don’t prosecute
    2) Prosecute some not others
    3) Prosecute the person not the crime
    4) Delay prosecution for leverage
    5) Wiretap everyone without a warrant to get evidence.
    6) Fish for evidence to convict the man, not crime
    7) Slow walk the investigation/prosecution

    …I’m sure the list of 4A, etc illegalities would be identical to the Black’s Law Encyclopedia, so I’ll spare you. If it’s illegal, they do it first and foremost. The law is not a defense against immoral people and bad actors. YOU are. YOU need to stop them, with YOUR morality, your actions.

    But where does “Morality” come from, something larger than yourself? But “What is ‘Truth’ anyway?” Pontius Pilot said.

    “One of the persistent problems in intelligence analysis is what experts call “mirror imaging.” This is jargon for an analytic flaw in which the analyst assumes that his beliefs and preferences are shared by an adversary.”

    It’s called being a Retard. Rickards is being nice. They also follow like every other of 15 Logical Fallacies.

    “You may be rational, but the mullahs who rule Iran are not.”

    Like this one: Ad Hominem Attacks. A retard. The mullahs are perfectly rational, they just have different root assumptions than you. Like “God exists.” There’s a difference.

    “• US Defenseless Against Russian Hypersonic Missiles, Iranian Drones – DoD (Sp.)

    They need us to be attacked, have a world war, so they can default on the debt. I swear to God that’s what this is. Why should they care? Dr. No claims he’ll keep them all safe in their bunkers. Honest. If it collapses without WWIII everyone will know who’s responsible and hang them.

    So “Please Russia, we’re helpless – flap flap – I’m just a poor bird with a broken wing – flap flap” Cue blue-leaning space lasers. And Aurora Black-bombers.

    Boeing: Okay so I’m an investor and we’re about to start WWIII. I’d love to buy Boeing, but the price is too high to buy in here. What do you do? There are hundred billion at stake as Boeing is that size company. Could I pay off a few, 10 million to assembly and airport workers, a mere $5k per Congressmen to “Look into it” for me? Now there’s a motive.

    “The US Navy faces delays in vessel repairs and a sluggish pace in construction of new warships.”

    I mean, that IS a problem. However, all surface ships can be destroyed from space with 100% certainty. Do you really want, is it really worth it to invest in surface ships right now? We I say “We can’t make ships” I more mean we can’t make ANY ships, like dredging barges, cargo to oil rigs, bulk tankers, etc, not so much Navy cruisers, although the two work together and we need to retain that knowledge.

    “We’ve already turned it around,” Biden bizarrely claimed, before adding that “the polling data has been wrong all along.”

    The two argument defenses are #Opposites. And you tell me this is not a staged setup?

    “US Senate aide Tara Reade, who rose to prominence after accusing Joe Biden of having sexually assaulted her back in 1993.”

    Now you see why women don’t come forward. This is now your life legacy and all you worked for. You did a thousand things, were a staffer doing good work, and THIS is all anyone will remember. …And that’s ASIDE from being slandered/exiled/killed. Democrats with rolls of duct tape will be prowling your driveway, as they do all Supreme Court Justices (while Garland doesn’t care).

    “the FBI and the DOJ had come close to indicting her, they wouldn’t disclose what her supposed crime was”

    Crime? We don’t need no steenking crime! We make s—t up! We plant evidence. We’ll mail it to your house.

    “These [actions] are part of the general policy of Western elites of inciting more and more regional conflicts, interethnic and interreligious hostility, and restraining the development of sovereign independent states,” Putin stated,

    Note: WHO would do such a thing? Make war, division, strife, poverty, worldwide, universal? And why? What is their religious foundation for promoting such a world?

    Dolores Cahill, Scientist.

    She can’t be a Scientist: she has evidence and discusses data. We all know “The Science is Settled™” “Tony (The Science) Fauci said it. I believe it. That settles it.” Science is when you DON’T repeat experiments. When you hide/classify/destroy data.

    Fauci is god. He alone has the sole truth, he alone chooses life, and death.

    #158740
    Red
    Participant

    “The truth is we have no defense for hypersonic missiles – yes or no? Mr. Hill, any defence on the hypersonic missile?
    It would seem the US military is spending a lot of R&D on DEW as the next generation weapons. My question would these even work against hyper/supersonic missiles? Would the plasma dome building up from the speed as a bow shock wave not absorb incoming lasers, microwave, particle beams that get close, effectively neutralizing them?

    #158741
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    The whole east vs west thing is no different than the republican vs democrat thing. Corporations under 1 big umbrella corporation. Coke vs Pepsi, both owned by Blackrock. It’s theatre, a fucking show, shadows on the cave wall. You’re under world government, have been your whole lives, engrossed in the illusions they provide to manipulate you.

    #158742
    Oroboros
    Participant

    • Biden Denies Economic Reality In Car Crash CNN Interview

    Tons of Duh’merican moron tards still think he’s the Best!

    • Putin Doesn’t Bluff

    The Psycho-Satanists have never encounter a global leader who doesn’t bluff

    The Russians will ascend to Heaven with clean consciences while the West will descend to Hell with dirty ones.

    • Boeing’s Setbacks Show Why US Industries Lose Competitive Edge

    Boeing has become a bunch of manna grubbing talentless has-been hacks grifting and treading water in the stagnant cess pool of Duh’merican incompetence. RIP

    • Aging US Fleet and Drained Stockpiles No Match for China and Russia

    The Empire of Lies -Lies -Lies is only 11 hypersonic cruise missiles from having ZERO carrier “strike” groups left afloat.

    You hear me correctly, ZERO carriers left.

    Duh’merica might as well have 11 Battleship ‘strike’ groups to threaten with.

    Hahahahahahaahahahahahahahahaaha!

    Impotent pimps, thugs and goons and no industrial base threatening the global majority with it’s limp weenie.

    #158743
    John Day
    Participant

    This is the biggest thing since 2005, and that one faced away from earth. These 6 are coming our way.
    SIX SOLAR STORMS ON THEIR WAY TO EARTH | S0 News May.10.2024

    #158744
    Oroboros
    Participant

    ” It’s theatre, a fucking show, shadows on the cave wall. You’re under world government, have been your whole lives, engrossed in the illusions they provide to manipulate you.”

    Trump is the Punch, Pedo Joe is the Judy

    The whole ‘Trump trial thing’ is also theater

    It looks like a “Professional Wrestling” match for the Rubes

    .

    .

    .

    #158745
    Oroboros
    Participant

    German AfD Party Politician Convicted for Warning About Gang Rapes.

    The Verden regional court in Lower Saxony has upheld a verdict against Rotenburg AfD leader Marie-Thérèse Kaiser for incitement to hatred. The 27-year-old was also found guilty in the appeal hearing on Monday of inciting hatred against Afghan local workers.

    For this, the politician now has to pay 100 day fines (a type of fine related to daily income of the convicted) plus a fine of €60, a total of €6,000. In Germany, you are considered to have a criminal record if you are sentenced to pay more than 90 day fines.

    The charge was based on a post that Kaiser had spread on her social media accounts in August 2021. In it, she wrote: “Afghanistan refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for ‘unbureaucratic’ acceptance; Welcoming culture for gang rape?”

    Among other things, the politician linked to an article showing that Afghans in Germany are particularly heavily involved in gang rape.

    .

    #158746
    zerosum
    Participant

    Executive summary

    the weak link
    saber-rattling
    debunked lie with lies

    No defense for hypersonic missiles
    No defense for Electronic Warfare.

    USA Proxies Wars – Ukraine, Israel
    The Ukraine problems run much deeper than a lack of equipment.
    They’re also running out of trained manpower.
    They are running out of bankers to fund their war.

    Israel murdered +35,000 Palestinians
    The West was mistaken and will not admit that it made a mistake
    Ignoring People Power
    ————

    #158747
    tboc
    Participant

    it is always ecouraging to find common ground
    aspnaz – #158735
    biker – #158741
    biker i was born in 1951, i accept your position as valid

    #158749

    Kayfabe.

    #158750
    John Day
    Participant

    Six Solar Storms Incoming https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/six-solar-storms-incoming

    Caitlin Johnstone, Empire Managers Explain Why This New Protest Movement Scares Them
    The US secretary of state and a Bilderberg surveillance tech oligarch have both made some very interesting admissions about the burgeoning protest movement against the US-backed slaughter in Gaza and the problems it poses for the empire they help run.
    During a vitriolic rant about university demonstrators at the Ash Carter Exchange on Innovation and National Security on Tuesday, Palantir CEO Alex Karp came right out and said that if those on the side of the protesters win the debate on this issue, the west will lose the ability to wage wars.
    For those who don’t know, Palantir is a CIA-backed surveillance and data mining tech company with intimate ties to both the US intelligence cartel and to Israel, playing a crucial role in both the US empire’s sprawling surveillance network and Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. Karp is a billionaire who sits on the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group and regularly features at the World Economic Forum and other platforms of plutocratic empire management.
    “We kind of just think these things that are happening, across college campuses especially, are like a sideshow — no, they are the show,” Karp said during his rant. “Because if we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the west, ever.”
    Everyone should listen very carefully to Karp’s words here, because he’s giving the whole game away. He’s making it very clear how crucial it is for the empire to stomp out this protest movement and the zeitgeist upon which it rides, because the very existence of the imperial war machine depends on it…
    ..After bemoaning Israel’s lack of success at “PR” regarding its Gaza assault, Romney just came right out and said that this was “why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature” —  with “us” meaning himself and his fellow lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
    “How this narrative has evolved, yeah, it’s a great question,” Blinken responded, saying that at the beginning of his career in Washington everyone was getting their information from television and physical newspapers like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
    “Now, of course, we are on an intravenous feed of information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond,” Blinken continued. “And of course, the way this has played out on social media has dominated the narrative. And you have a social media ecosystem environment in which context, history, facts get lost, and the emotion, the impact of images dominates. And we can’t — we can’t discount that, but I think it also has a very, very, very challenging effect on the narrative.”
    Notice how he said the word “narrative” three times? That’s how empire managers talk to each other, because that’s how they think about everything. This is because empire managers are always acutely aware of something that normal human beings are not: that real power comes from manipulating the stories — narratives — that people tell themselves about their reality…
    ..They understand that power is controlling what happens, but true power is controlling what people think about what happens. They understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/empire-managers-explain-why-this

    ‘Israel’ bombs Rafah, uses white phosphorus
    In light of the ongoing ceasefire negotiations and various calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli occupation has intensified its aggression on various areas of the Gaza Strip.
    Israeli artillery shelling targeted the eastern areas of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip and the eastern Al-Zaytoun neighborhood near Gaza City.
    In the central Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes carried out a raid on an agricultural land in the Juhr al-Dik area, and another on al-Maghraqa area, north of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
    In the southern Gaza Strip, the area east of Rafah witnessed heavy artillery shelling and heavy gunfire from a helicopter, while Israeli warplanes fired phosphorus bombs. https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel–bombs-rafah–uses-white-phosphorus

    Israel is preventing the UN from accessing the Rafah crossing in the Gaza Strip, according to a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
    “We are currently not present at the Rafah crossing because the COGAT office has refused to allow us access to this area,” said Jens Laerke at a regular press conference in Geneva. Rafah is the main crossing point for humanitarian aid going into Gaza.
    COGAT — the Coordinator of Government Activities in the [occupied Palestinian] Territories — is the Israeli government’s coordination office, which is run by the army.
    “We have been told that there will be no crossing of individuals or goods inward or outward at the present time,” explained Laerke. “This has a huge impact on the amount of [aid] inventory we have.”
    He pointed out that the UN has a “very small stock” of fuel for humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip and that it is “about enough for one day” due to the closure of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. The UN official added that fuel enters through Rafah only and that this “stock is for the entire humanitarian operation in Gaza.” https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240508-israel-prevents-un-from-using-rafah-crossing/

    Palestinians Too Starved to Flee Rafah Before Israel’s Genocidal Invasion , Israel has been conducting a U.S.-supported starvation campaign in the enclave as a weapon of war. https://trendsinthenews.substack.com/p/palestinians-too-starved-to-flee

    #158751
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    They need us to be attacked, have a world war, so they can default on the debt. I swear to God that’s what this is. Why should they care? Dr. No claims he’ll keep them all safe in their bunkers. Honest. If it collapses without WWIII everyone will know who’s responsible and hang them.”

    Damn good summary. Scary, but accurate, and really concise. All we need now is a solution, but wait! We already have one. Time.

    #158752
    John Day
    Participant

    Israeli spokesperson denies reports of ‘full blown famine’ in Gaza [Have a listen…]
    In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya English’s Riz Khan, spokesperson of the Israeli prime minister rejected reports of a “full blown famine” in northern Gaza.
    https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2024/05/08/israeli-spokesperson-denies-reports-of-full-blown-famine-in-gaza

    Gaza rescue teams discover third mass grave in ruins of Al-Shifa Hospital
    Seven mass graves holding hundreds of bodies have so far been discovered in three hospitals that were decimated by the Israeli army
    The chairman of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Ramy Abdu, said that the grave contains the bodies of “dozens of Palestinians, including women, children, and patients, executed by Israel.” https://thecradle.co/articles/gaza-rescue-teams-discover-third-mass-grave-in-ruins-of-al-shifa-hospital

    Rafah’s main maternity hospital stops admitting patients due to Israeli operation
    The agency said that the hospital had been handling about 85 out of a daily total of 180 births in Gaza prior to an escalation of fighting on the outskirts of Rafah https://tass.com/world/1785775

    What it’s like to be used as a human shield by the Israeli army
    Israeli soldiers rounded up Ahmad Safi and his male family members in Khan Younis and made them stand atop a sand dune for 12 hours as the soldiers took cover behind them during a firefight with Palestinian resistance fighters. This is their story. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/what-its-like-to-be-used-as-a-human-shield-by-the-israeli-army/

    Israeli Jews are only united by killing Palestinains now. The real reason Israel is invading Rafah
    “The Zionist entity is faced with hard choices on all sides,” Odetallah told Mondoweiss. “It has no clear vision for the war, it hasn’t been able to achieve any of its stated goals, and there are no achievable goals in Rafah. Given the effect of the October 7 events, this has a deep effect on Zionist society altogether.”
    “Netanyahu is only a small part of the picture,” Odetallah explains. “All of Zionist society is faced with a difficult reality — it has built itself in the past years around the idea that it had no serious external threats left. Even the internal divisions that had started before October 7 were part of Israel’s impulse of having achieved some sense of superiority and stability, all of which has been shattered.”
    “All of this has pushed ‘Israel’ to try and reinvent itself and the entire Zionist project, similar to 1948,” Odetallah details, arguing that Israel will try to “regenerate its own society,” of which the army is a reflection, “by projecting force” onto it enemies, which in practice means “displacing large numbers of Palestinians.”…
    ..Israel has continued to refuse the return of all displaced Palestinians to the ruins of their homes in the north of the Strip, while Israeli settler groups have been pressing for resettling Gaza, with the vociferous support of Ben-Gvir.
    “The displacement of Palestinians as a precursor to settling in their place, as well as the projection of military superiority over the region, are both essential parts of how ‘Israel’ defines itself,” Odetallah told Mondoweiss. “Yet, the regional and international atmosphere seems to be unready to accept the mass displacement of Gaza’s people. In light of this new reality, and with no way out of it, the Zionist entity has no other choice but to continue the war, moving forward without a horizon.”
    Meanwhile, leaked reports indicated that the proposed deal that Hamas accepted was essentially the same proposal that the U.S. had previously adopted. On Tuesday, the U.S. announced it had put a shipment of offensive arms to Israel on hold as a reaction to the invasion of Rafah…
    ..“But this moment is a challenge to the very nature of the century-long Zionist experiment. This is why it needs to reinvent itself, and why the war will not stop even if a ceasefire is actually reached in Gaza.” “The Zionist entity will most probably continue this war in different rounds,” Odetallah concludes. “It won’t be limited to Gaza, but will extend it to its northern front with Lebanon, and even to other parts of Palestine’s geography, like the West Bank.”
    Odetallah expects that “the war might take on different forms, but all of them will be equally bloody.” “Since it is now incapable of restoring its previous sense of security and superiority,” he says. “The entity’s only choice seems to be blood, blood, and more blood.” https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/the-real-reason-israel-is-invading-rafah/

    #158753
    John Day
    Participant

    This is a human-narrative. “Poor Joe”… Hapless President Biden Caught Between Unhappy Base, Unrepentant Israel
    “I think Israel would’ve wanted to see Hamas rejecting any deal on that,” said Unal after reports emerged the Palestinian group had accepted a proposal negotiated with the help of the US, Egypt and Qatar. “That would have cleared the way for Israel, particularly the Netanyahu government, to undertake that awful military operation in Rafah… It has certainly placed Israel in a very difficult corner in that sense. So Hamas has won the tactical game.”
    “That doesn’t mean that that is going to stop Israel,” he explained. “Don’t forget, the United States is the only country perhaps in the world that has so much leverage over Israel. On the one hand, yes, there is the Israeli lobby, which is very powerful in the United States. But at the same time the United States has enormous influence and leverage over Israel.” [last used under George H.W. Bush]…
    ..Jamarl Thomas claimed Biden’s efforts to assuage Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have apparently won him little favor as the US president is caught between a dissatisfied base and an Israeli leadership that seems to regard him with contempt.
    “He’s not getting credit from Israel for all the support he’s given,” said Thomas. “I mean that deranged speech that he gave yesterday as they are killing all these – I was watching pictures of babies hanging out of buildings from that attack and Joe Biden, at the exact same time, goes out and gives a speech bringing up the Holocaust as if what happened 50, 60 years ago justifies a genocide that’s happening now.”
    “He is trying to have his cake and eat it, too, and he is losing both,” he claimed. “Many of those people – the way that Israel sees it, and the way that the Israel lobby sees it – [think] that Joe Biden is abandoning Israel. That’s the way they view it… any pressure that he puts on them at all is taken as a rebuttal of Israel as an outright item, despite the fact that his own party is hitting him for basically giving this complete allegiance to Israel.” https://sputnikglobe.com/20240509/hapless-president-biden-caught-between-unhappy-base-unrepentant-israel-1118344791.html

    Biden Accused Of Helping Hamas As Israelis Fume Over Threat To Halt Weapons https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-accused-helping-hamas-israel-furious-over-threat-halt-weapons

    Growing numbers of Ukrainians are opting out of compulsory military service, while agriculture production plummets
    Another reason for the popularity of draft evasion is, strangely enough, the sexual overtones involved. When hundreds of thousands of men in the country have died, become disabled, or are suffering from mental disorders brought on by trauma, women are preferring the young, healthy men still remaining who can avoid death or crippling injury, and who can support them through life, according to readings of social media. Attention to such details by women is yet another reason why young men are avoiding military service in every possible way and undertaking personal training in running or swimming, in place of weapons training on a firing range.
    The new, unofficial heroes of Ukraine are the men who manage to escape from the country or otherwise escape from the clutches of military recruiters or from the training officers assigned to ‘make soldiers out of them’. For so may younger Ukrainians, the new, ‘model’ man is young, with long legs and in great physical shape, able to fight off or run away from an overweight or slow-moving military man tasked with dragging them into military service.
    Young people are deliberately practicing swimming, and stories of such are gaining popularity on the Internet. The training is just in case, one day, they need to escape the country by crossing a border river. They practice for months to run fast and swim well. Escaping from already conscripted soldiers has become a survival quest, a sign of good health and courage. Growing numbers of young people believe that if you are in a Ukrainian military uniform, it means you couldn’t run fast enough or you couldn’t fight off the military recruiters using your fists, and you have no money to bribe your way out. You are tagged as a ‘loser’ destined to die in a trench from artillery fire. https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/growing-numbers-of-ukrainians-are-opting-out-of-compulsory-m

    Not sure about this, but it’s a consideration: Russia has an anti-satellite NUKE currently in orbit that could render lower orbit UNUSABLE https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-05-08-russia-anti-satellite-nuke-orbit-space.html

    Very Good from Mike Mihajlovik, Russian Tactical Nukes [i] The red line warning to the West or something “else”? https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/russian-tactical-nukes-i

    #158754
    John Day
    Participant

    Gilbert Doctorow, ‘The Great Game’: Alexander Dugin in a new light
    Alexander Dugin came to the attention of Western media in August 2022 when his daughter Darya Dugina, an activist journalist, was brutally murdered by a car bomb set by Ukrainian terrorists. The more likely intended target had been Dugin himself.
    Going back well before the Ukraine conflict, Dugin had made a name for himself as the philopher-adviser to President Putin and promoter of a modern day version of the Eurasianist world view that was first developed in Russia before the First World War and later promoted into the 1930s. He put forward a Eurasianist identity for Russia to distinguish it on the world stage. This Eurasianism may be kindly described as eccentric, less kindly as quackery…
    ..Dugin explains where Western Civilization has taken a wrong turn that arises from excesses of Liberalism which follow directly from its underlying stress on the individual and liberation from all outside collectivist constraints, beginning with religion, state and ending with sex and humanity…
    ..Dugin explains the West’s hatred for Russia in relation to the West’s total intolerance of other countries’ values and interests which collides with Russia’s determined defense of its sovereignty. The more Russia successfully resists the economic, informational and military attack of the Collective West, the greater the encouragement to China, to the Islamic world, even to Africa and Latin America to resist diktats from Washington. In this way, by acting defensively Russia threatens the US led world order.
    The next most important point addressed in the interview is why Russian elites for so long in the 1990s and beyond thought that the false idea of brotherhood with the West was realizable. The answer lies in the way that they moved the riches which they made in Russia to the West and then became hostages to that offshore wealth. Even today, those who have not physically moved themselves out of the country to where their money is persist in what Dugin calls the hallucinatory belief that after the war is over, life will return to the pre-war normal of globalism.
    According to Dugin, the stresses and price that Russia is now paying in gold and blood while prosecuting the Special Military Operation are creating a new society, a new country, a new ‘sovereign’ elite. https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/05/09/travel-notes-st-petersburg-april-may-2024-installment-three/

    ​ Being an U.S. “ally” means silently watching your own destruction
    ​ We’re gradually discovering, from the hysterical tone of Janet Yellen and Blinken, that if anything is falling, it’s American hegemony, whose containment strategies have so far only resulted in even stronger and more capable opponents. After all, it’s hard work that shapes character. The rentier capitalist elite of the West is too used to the easy money of royalties to be able to compete with those who have never abandoned industry, agriculture and truly productive activities.
    ​ The fact is that, in the Washington Post, David Ignatius, a researcher linked to the U.S.’s largest think thank, based on work by the Rand Corporation itself, says that analysts say the U.S. is entering a decline from which few powers have recovered…
    ​..Curiously, it is from RAND itself that the best advice comes. In its study “The Fates of Nations”, two reflections are suggested which, considering their content and topicality, have no other destination than the political power based in Washington: 1. When nations stand between victory in war or national collapse (between the sword and the wall, I say), the punitive and coercive imposition of conditions is not an adequate path to success in rivalries; 2. Excessive ambition and oversized strategic scope contribute to many types of failure.
    ​ These reflections are the current portrait of the U.S.: wanting to extend itself everywhere, it is beginning to open cracks in the center, because the larger the surface, the thinner the cover; taking positions of strength in all situations — threatening all contenders with sanctions — causes those involved and those who might be the target of these actions to flee and become averse. If we add to this the fact that, according to various sources, Trump’s team of advisors has proposed that he impose penalties on countries that want to reduce their dependence on the dollar, we can already see that 2024 is going to be a terrible year for the world’s largest reserve currency. For now, gold has never been higher and almost 1/3 of the oil traded in 2023 was in currencies other than the dollar…
    ..The administration headed by Biden operates as if it still had all the power on its side and, lacking the strength it normally relied on, adopts the stance of sabotage, disruption and causing instability in the “business environment” of its own “allies”, when they are in the way between China and U.S.’s “national security” needs.
    In Mexico, threats have been made — no one has confirmed them — against the López Obrador government if it persists in its intention to allow BYD factories to be set up so that they can make use of the exemption from customs duties applicable to the USMCA free trade agreement. The U.S. itself is unilaterally saying that the rules agreed between the three countries no longer apply to Mexico, without Mexico, supposedly a party to the agreement, having any say in the matter. If this situation isn’t proof of who’s really in charge when a country signs an “agreement” with the U.S…
    ..If the Think Tank and research institutes themselves suggest to the U.S. political elite that the best approach would be cooperation, respect for the sovereignty of others and, above all, not trying to get everywhere, it is not for lack of informed knowledge that these elites behave so savagely. Their objective is very clear, and consists of creating such an insecure, unpredictable and erratic environment for Chinese companies that they should abandon their desire to set up and trade with Europe and Latin America, without it being possible to say that it was the U.S. itself that sabotaged the economic development of countries that claim to be “allies”.
    ​ The means used range from unilaterally changing the rules, their own rules, promoting agendas such as “decoupling” or “derisking”, or, if necessary, and as Nord Stream proves, directly destroying supporting infrastructures, subverting democracies by organizing judicial coups and color revolutions, threatening sanctions and other penalties. In the last resort, war is even promoted, as was done in Ukraine and is now being attempted in Taiwan…
    ..The terms under which the “national security” of the USA is defined, its protection grows at the pace of the destruction of the sovereignty, economy and freedom of its “allies”. Being an “ally” with the USA does not guarantee immunity against economic interference, subversion and sabotage, quite the opposite. It guarantees that this interference is carried out more easily, as the traditional defenses that result from national sovereignty do not exist. To be a friend of the USA today is to watch its own destruction and remain silent.​ https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/05/08/being-us-ally-means-silently-watching-your-own-destruction/

    ​ Meryl Nass MD, Telegraph newspaper claims UK will not sign Pandemic Treaty , They do not provide the source for the claim. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/telegraph-newspaper-claims-uk-will

    Meryl Nass MD points out that these emergency powers are desperately desired. Any ruse will be employed. The WHO Falsely Claims to Have Published Final Pandemic Treaty Draft in Required Time Before Key Vote​ https://merylnass.substack.com/p/the-who-falsely-claims-to-have-published

    Meryl Nass MD, Are the pandemic treaty negotiations falling apart? Has the fraud that this is a “member state led process” been revealed?
    It never was about health. Or equity. It was always about surveillance and control.​ https://merylnass.substack.com/p/are-the-pandemic-treaty-negotiations

    #158755
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ University Nabs $42 Million for ‘Pandemic Preparedness’ 2 Weeks After Firing Scientist for Questioning COVID Shots for Kids
    Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, fired professor Patrick Provost, Ph.D., for publicly questioning the safety and necessity of COVID-19 vaccines for children. Two weeks later, the university received $42 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to set up a center to prepare for future pandemics.​ https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/patrick-provost-fired-canada-covid-vaccine-safety-kids/

    ​ US presidential candidate had ‘dead worm’ in brain – NYT​ , RFK Jr. had revealed the condition in legal proceedings over a decade ago​ ​(Cysticercosis​, pork tapeworm)
    ​ In 2010​ … RFK Jr. was experiencing “brain fog” and memory loss so severe, he turned to top neurologists for advice about a possible tumor, according to the Times. One New York doctor gave him a different opinion, however: a dead parasite.
    ​ The anomaly seen on the scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Kennedy said in a 2012 deposition.
    ​ In the same legal interview, Kennedy said he “clearly” had cognitive problems, including short-term and longer-term memory loss. In a subsequent interview with the Times, however, he attributed those to mercury poisoning, caused by his fish-heavy diet at the time.
    ​ Blood tests found mercury levels 10 times higher than the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers safe, Kennedy said, adding that he fully recovered after undergoing chelation therapy to remove the heavy metal from his body.
    ​ According to the Times article, the cyst containing the dead worm remained in Kennedy’s brain and did not require treatment, nor did he have any aftereffects from it. He said he did not know what type of parasite it may have been or how he contracted it, though he suspected it was on a trip to South Asia.​ (Pork tapeworm fecal-oral transmission.)​ https://swentr.site/news/597248-presidential-candidate-worm-brain/

    ​It is a good idea to get some cash and get shopping done during the day today. This will likely disturb power grids and electronic transactions; the biggest event since 2005.
    SIX SOLAR STORMS ON THEIR WAY TO EARTH | S0 News May.10.2024​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKGlGCIiyZE

    #158756
    zerosum
    Participant

    Fluff News
    You
    Explain 5w of fluff news
    Copilot Using the web
    Sure, I’d be happy to explain the “5W” in the context of fluff news. The “5W” stands for Who, What, When, Where, and Why. These are fundamental questions that provide a complete picture of any news story, including fluff news. Here’s how they apply:

    Who: This refers to the people involved in the news story. In fluff news, this could be a celebrity, a local hero, or even a pet!

    What: This is the event or situation that has occurred. In fluff news, this could range from a funny incident, a heartwarming act of kindness, to an interesting discovery.

    When: This is the time at which the event occurred. It could be a specific date, time of day, or a more general timeframe.

    Where: This refers to the location where the event took place. It could be a specific place like a city or a country, or a more general area.

    Why: This is the reason or cause behind the event. In fluff news, the ‘why’ might often be light-hearted or uplifting.
    Fluff news, also known as soft news, is typically more entertaining and less serious than hard news.
    It often focuses on unusual or entertaining stories and can be a refreshing change from more serious news topics.
    However, just like hard news, it’s important that fluff news answers these 5W questions to provide a complete story to the readers.

    You
    How does fluff news impact society?
    Copilot Using the web

    Fluff news, also known as soft news or constructive journalism, can have several impacts on society:

    Mental Health: Exposure to constant hard news can be stressful and negatively impact mental health1.
    Fluff news provides a break from the constant stream of serious news, potentially reducing stress and promoting mental well-being.

    Perception and Behavior: News can shape our perception of risk, the content of our dreams, and even our chances of having a heart attack2.
    Fluff news, being generally positive and uplifting, can help create a more optimistic outlook.

    Quality Perception: Contrary to some beliefs, constructive journalism is not perceived as lower-quality “fluff” journalism3.
    It can be a valuable part of a balanced news diet, providing depth and diversity to news coverage.

    Community Building: Fluff news often highlights positive events and individuals in the community, which can foster a sense of community and promote positive social interactions.
    However, like all types of news, fluff news should be consumed in moderation as part of a balanced news diet.
    It’s also important to note that while fluff news can have positive effects, it should not replace critical news consumption, which is essential for informed citizenship.

    #158757
    zerosum
    Participant

    Canada gives $76 million to Germany, to supply, air defenses system, to Ukraine, to be destroyed by Russia.

    #158758
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @zerosum

    And notice how fluff news (and hard news too, actually) will NEVER include enough of the 5 W’s to make conclusive sense out of it. Something (or many things) will be missing, which leave the reader probably wanting to fill in the gaps so that they can understand the “newsiness” of it and move on with their lives. Unfortunately, the only way to do that (other than pursue your own line of independent deep-dive research) is to listen to more bullshit fluff news.

    Quite a racket. Only a deeply deranged crazy person would purvey such a product. The prosecution rests its case.

    #158760
    John Day
    Participant

    The first solar flare arrived 6 hours early with a level-4 geomagnetic storm.

    #158761
    John Day
    Participant

    NOAA holds briefing about upcoming severe solar storm

    #158762
    John Day
    Participant

    Russia started Kharkov offensive today https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6KHZtb4b0Q

    #158763
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Celticbiker said

    Corporations under 1 big umbrella corporation. Coke vs Pepsi, both owned by Blackrock.

    So the people power abandoning Bud Lite really just transferred the money to another balance sheet? Why do super poor people think they have economic power, the rich own almost everything and the bits they don’t own, like your shitty house, they don’t really want to own. The only way to hurt them would be to stop drinking beer, but then they would own whatever you drink instead, even just water. A little bit like being in jail, the guards own your ass.

    #158764
    John Day
    Participant

    Actual Collusion? Missouri AG Accuses Biden DOJ Of Coordinating With Trump Prosecutors
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/actual-collusion-missouri-ag-accuses-biden-doj-coordinating-trump-prosecutors

    #158765
    aspnaz
    Participant

    https://www.swentr.site/news/597330-latvian-police-detentions-victory-day/

    Well done to these people for celebrating their heritage, the war fought and suffered by their ancestors. They reveal to us that not all of the people in these countries are subdued by their powerless politicians, PR stigma and the pressure from the followers, there are still some with balls and their own minds. Mind you, the pressure from the followers is always intense, it is easier to go along with power, be the bully boy’s little pet, than stand up for something.

    #158766
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    John Day already said he didn’t know.

    Here’s a question worth contemplating.

    What motivated Stephen Miles to join a nurse anaesthetist Albert Shimkus on this panel about the abandonment of medical ethics…controlled opposition….the illusion of debate and discernment…..the delusion that nurse anesthetists stand professionally bound by The Hippocratic Oath?

    Here’s Albert: AlbErt J. shiMkUs, Jr.
    Task Force Members | 165
    Associate Professor, National Security Affairs, Naval War College
    Professor Albert J. shimkus, Jr., joined the national security Affairs faculty in december 2006 and was appointed course director for the Policy Making and Process and contemporary staff Environment courses in May 2007. he now teaches in the leadership sub-courses. he enlisted in the U.s. Air Force in 1965 and completed a tour of duty at bien hoa Air base, south vietnam, in 1967 and 1968. he graduated from george Washington University in 1981 with a bachelor of science in nurse Anesthesia degree and practiced as a nurse anesthetist (crnA) for over 25 years with numerous tours in support of deployed forces. he earned a Master of Arts degree in national security and strategic studies from the naval War college in 1993. he had numerous leadership tours while on active duty, including Executive officer, U.s. naval hospital, naples, italy; commanding officer, U.s. naval hospital, guantánamo bay, cuba, and Joint task Force surgeon, JtF gtMo; navy Medicine’s team leader for brAc 2005; deputy commandant, naval district Washington; and commanding officer, medical treatment facility Usns coMFort. shimkus taught in the naval War college’s national security decision Making department for two years as a mil- itary faculty member and in the college of distance Education for six years. he retired from the U.s. navy as a captain (06) in 2007 after a 39-year career.

    Here’s the full read:

    https://hrp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/IMAP-EthicsTextFinal2.pdf

    Hint: not all commissioned officers are created equal

    #158767
    aspnaz
    Participant

    https://greenwald.locals.com/post/5586131/as-the-daily-wire-publicly-negotiated-a-debate-with-candace-owens-it-secretly-sought-and-obtaine

    Trump’s gang are just the same as the democrats, few really believe in the constitution, they are all leeches looking to benefit themselves by pandering to power. A gag order for liking certain tweets on X? This is beyond pathetic, this is the same as the democrats playbook, there is no difference, they are all shite and need to be swept away along with their brainless followers.

    Not that I believe in American democracy, it is a joke and the American people are still trying to work out what the punchline means …. duh! Trump is just another candidate approved of and financed by the owners. Like all politicians, he will not do what he tells you he will do, he will actually do what his owners tell him to do. Operation warp speed, all the Israel stuff, murdering the Iranian general and now money to Ukraine and Israel to extend the killing, now he is inviting you to view his big dick by claiming he will assassinate drug dealers; what a hopeless dope. Anyway, the people spreading drugs in the USA are the oligarchs and nothing will ever happen to them unless the people decide to use their only power. All theatre for the followers.

    #158768
    zerosum
    Participant

    The first solar flare made my lap top computer shut down and reset.
    I was out transplanting a tomato
    I did not feel an EMP

    #158769
    aspnaz
    Participant

    https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1015021

    Good to see some of GenZ enthusiatic for traditional Chinese crafts. It is amazing how almost every culture has toys that involve building stuff, it must quench some human desire in the youngest of us.

    #158770
    zerosum
    Participant

    The head of British Columbia’s public service said Friday there was high confidence that cybersecurity attacks targeting the provincial government’s networks were conducted by a state or state-sponsored actor.

    #158771
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @aspnaz

    . . . and the bits they don’t own, like your shitty house, they don’t really want to own.?

    Oh, they own that, too. Lox, stock and bagel. and a fair bit of multi-hypothecated collateral all of that real estate provides for them, too.

    #158773
    Susan C
    Participant

    to: aspnaz #158736

    Passengers and crew members have been evacuated from a Corendon Airlines Boeing 737-800 after one of the plane’s tyres burst during landing in Turkey.

    Michelin make those tires, but the MSM would hate to miss an opportunity to blame Boeing. It is a bit like blaming Ford because your tire blew out on the road, who does that?

    You’re right. The other thing never mentioned is the airlines who bought the planes not doing recommended maintenance.

    #158774
    Oroboros
    Participant

    RFK Jr. Says He Supports A Mother’s Right To Drown Her Newborn At Chappaquiddick

    .

    U.S. — In a recent podcast interview, presidential candidate RFK Jr. confirmed his official position that every woman should be free to choose to drown her newborn in the Chappaquiddick River.

    “It’s not the government’s job to make reproductive decisions like this,” said RFK through a special translator that translated his RFK voice into a regular-person voice. “If a woman wants to poison, dismember, or drunkenly drive her newborn infant into the Chappaquiddick River and leave it there to drown, well, that’s none of my business.”

    RFK’s statement comes on the heels of other statements that have made him increasingly unpalatable to Conservatives, including support for DEI, gun control, higher taxes, and eating worm-infested undercooked pork chops.

    At publishing time, RFK Jr. had gained 3 percentage points among psycho-killer feminists.

    #158775
    WES
    Participant

    Political Show Trials:

    Political show trials are a crime it’s victum must helplessly suffer.
    Since it is not about the law, being innocent does not matter.
    Placing the show in a courtroom is merely good theatre.
    The victim gets a front row seat to watch themselves being convicted of a crime.
    The outcome is always a guilty verdict.the

    Trump is watching nearly 100 crimes being committed by the state against him.
    The state only needs one temporary guilty verdict to succeed.

    The Uniparty will immediately pouce and have Congress legally remove Trump’s name from the presidential ballot.

    The Uniparty will then mock the American people by parading it’s White House cadaver in their faces!

    Sanctions are always a tricky 2 edge sword.
    The US’s so called “Russia Sanctions” are really US Sanctions on things the US controls.
    Since these Sanctions are not aimed at Russia, that is why they don’t seem to be working very well.
    US Sanctions are to prevent the things the US controls, like it’s vassals and USD system from doing business with those the US doesn’t want to do business with.
    In essence the US is trying to isolate itself from other world competitors.

    Clearly the US is trying to protect the privilege of it’s world reserve currency status from being further eroded.
    This world reserve currency status allows the US to force the rest of the world to pay for it’s very large military.
    This large military is used to enforce and maintain the US’s world reserve currency status.
    ⁶P.S. Due to some unexpected weapon equalizers like drones/missiles, the US military hasn’t been nearly as effective USD enforcers as was expected.

    However this virtuous cycle has been slowly weakening to the point that our psychopath rulers have become alarmed with the feeling that they are going to lose their power over the world.

    This has likely triggered the large increase in US sanctions.
    This likely explains 2 new regional wars to create more chaos and instability for it’s other world competitors.
    One result has been to disrupt existing economic supply chains driving up inflation to try and to increase/decrease USD debt burdens.

    The jury is still out on this, but US Sanctions on using the USD by it’s competitors might be an effort to prevent or slow down USDs from suddenly flooding back into the US and causing hyperinflation.
    This would be aimed at all countries holding large amounts of US gov bonds, like Japan, not just China.

    Basically when you own the world’s reserve currency status, you can force other countries to buy your debt via trade imbalances.
    Basically exchanging potentially worthless paper IOU USDs for real goods.

    So over time China ended up owning over a trillion USDs of debt.
    (Japan and others too.)
    When you hold so much USD debt, like Japan and China, you have an unsolvable problem!
    How do you cash in that many USD?
    You can’t!
    Sort of like when you owe the bank a million dollars, and if anything goes wrong, then the bank suddenly has a big problem, not the borrower!

    So in the short term, the US doesn’t have a big problem!
    However UD debt holders sure do!
    If they try anything quick, their debts become instantly worthless!
    Note the slow but stead buying of gold by some of the world’s central bankers.
    Gold or commodities are the only small but slow escape paths.

    However, over the longer term the US faces a massive decline in living standards and lost of it’s power over others in the world because it will no longer be able to borrow or print USD without causing instant inflation!
    The US military will shrink accordingly.

    ßo solving this USD debt problem becomes everyone’s problem whether they like it or not!

    Another way to look at our changing world.

    The privileged are being pushed by the oppriessed to make the world more fair.
    The privileged don’t like losing their built in privileges, one little bit and are desperately fighting back, tooth and nail, to try and keep most of the world oppressed.
    But with less and less of the world supporting the self weakening privileged, the oppressed are slowly pushing to make the world more and more fair.

    #158776
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

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