Jun 252024
 
 June 25, 2024  Posted by at 9:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

 

Assange Leaves UK Prison To Finalize Plea Deal With US (RT)
US Escalated Ukraine Conflict to New Level in Sevastopol (Sp.)
Russia ‘Can’t Not Respond’ To Crimea Attack – Ron Paul (RT)
Between Kremlin Cup And General Staff Lip After Sunday Attacks (Helmer)
Putin’s “War” To Re-shape The American Zeitgeist (Alastair Crooke)
Article 5 Won’t Save Ukraine if It Joins NATO (Sp.)
Desperate Ukraine Needs Massive Debt Bailout (Miles)
Von der Leyen Must Go – Orban (RT)
EU To Bypass Hungarian Veto On Tapping Russian Assets – FT (RT)
The Land that Law Forgot: SCOTUS and the New York Legal Wasteland (Turley)
Boeing Faces Possible Criminal Indictment – Reuters (RT)
Death Of The Petrodollar: What Really Happened Between The US and Saudis? (RT)
Here It Comes (Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Julian


https://twitter.com/i/status/1805485661102772656

 

 

CNN gag order

CNN apology
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805282114255892876

 

 

Kim

 

 

Orban

 

 

Stop it!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805415390819824083

 

 

Disguise

 

 

 

 

“Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there..”

Assange Leaves UK Prison To Finalize Plea Deal With US (RT)

WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was released from a UK prison on Tuesday morning, his team has said. He has spent five years in the Belmarsh Prison in London while fighting extradition to the US, where he was indicted on 18 counts of disseminating classified information. According to the newly filed court documents, Assange will soon strike a plea deal in order to avoid further time behind bars. “Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there,” WikiLeaks wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.” WikiLeaks said that the international campaign to free Assange has created “the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalized.”

“As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom,” WikiLeaks wrote. According to a letter from the DOJ, Assange will appear in court in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, at 9 am local time on Wednesday. “We anticipate that the defendant will plead guilty to the charge… of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States,” the letter said. The DOJ said it expects Assange to return to his home country of Australia after the proceedings. Under Assange’s helm, WikiLeaks published multiple top secret files, including documents related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well a trove of US diplomatic cables.

In 2010, the organization published a video of a US military helicopter attacking civilians in Baghdad in 2007 after mistaking them for insurgents. Fearing extradition to the US, Assange spent seven years hiding inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He was ejected from the premises in 2019, when Ecuador revoked his asylum status. The activist was immediately arrested by British police and subsequently spent five years in Belmarsh after being found guilty of jumping bail. Assange’s legal team, family and associates have repeatedly described the conditions in Belmarsh as “torture” and warned that his health had significantly deteriorated behind bars.

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“Both ATACMS variants have cluster warheads, prohibited by the international Convention on Cluster Munitions — which the US declined to sign.”

US Escalated Ukraine Conflict to New Level in Sevastopol (Sp.)

Washington’s involvement in the Ukrainian missile strike on Sevastopol is undeniable, given that it was conducted with the US-made ATACMS missiles programmed by American specialists, while a US RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance drone was operating near Crimea that day, Russia’s Foreign Ministry stated on June 24. “The US is very complicit in this,” Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and international consultant, told Sputnik, commenting on the Ukrainian missile attack. “It had cluster bombs as munitions as well. Typically, for most countries it is not acceptable.” The expert said it was “highly likely the Global Hawk was providing reconnaissance, targeting information and potentially guidance information for the ATACMS itself. “ATACMS… essentially needs to coordinate with something. So, typically a lot of times drones’ or satellite information are used to help guide the target and guide the missile,” Rasmussen explained.

“ATACMS is pre-programed to some degree. But to ensure that it gets to its destination, there’s definitely communication of some type with an aerial drone system.” On Sunday at 12:15 pm local time, Ukraine attacked the Russian city of Sevastopol with five ATACMS missiles equipped with cluster bomblets. Russian air defenses intercepted four missiles, but the explosion of the fifth cluster warhead led to the death of four civilians with 153 more injured, according to local authroirties. The US government admitted in October 2023 that it had covertly provided Ukraine with a model of ATACMS with a range 165 kilometers. Longer-range ATACMS, capable of striking targets at a distance of up to 300 kilometers, were secretly included in the $300 million aid package and delivered to Ukraine in April. Both ATACMS variants have cluster warheads, prohibited by the international Convention on Cluster Munitions — which the US declined to sign.

In May, Politico reported that after Ukraine received ATACMS missiles, it also expressed interest in obtaining MQ-9 Reaper spy drones from the US, stressing that it needs new surveillance capabilities to strike Russian targets “deep behind the front lines.” EurasianTimes commentators suggested that “with the acquisition of the 300-kilometer-range variant of ATACMS, the thinking in Ukraine is that pairing it with an established unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) is the only way to attain some gains in the large artillery and ground systems-centric war.” The Defense Post also reported that US-made ATACMS and MQ-9 Reapers “could work in tandem in Ukraine, with the Reaper collecting target information and the ATACMS ensuring precision strikes.”

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“Are they going to twiddle their thumbs and walk away? They might – for a day or two – ponder it, but there will be something that they’re going to do.”

Russia ‘Can’t Not Respond’ To Crimea Attack – Ron Paul (RT)

There is tremendous popular pressure on Moscow to retaliate against the US over Sunday’s ATACMS missile strike on a beach near Sevastopol, former US Congressman Ron Paul has said. Five civilians were killed and over 150 injured by cluster munitions from a US-supplied missile launched by Ukrainian forces. Among the dead were at least two children. Paul, a retired lawmaker from Texas, described the strike as “a Ukrainian and American attack on Russia” on Monday’s Ron Paul Liberty Report. He added that some kind of escalation was inevitable after the US supplied long-range missiles to Ukraine and gave Kiev permission to use them for strikes deep inside Russia. “What’s Russia going to do about this?” Paul asked. “Are they going to twiddle their thumbs and walk away? They might – for a day or two – ponder it, but there will be something that they’re going to do.”

While Moscow might prefer a “minimal response,” Paul continued, “They can’t not respond.” The Russian public simply demands that something be done, he added. Russian Foreign Ministry officials summoned US Ambassador Lynne Tracy on Monday and told her that the “bloody atrocity” in Crimea would “not go unpunished.” According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian military fired five ATACMS missiles at Crimea. While Russian air defense systems destroyed four of the projectiles mid-air, the fifth was damaged, veered off course, and exploded over a packed beach.

The Kremlin has described the beach bombing as an act of terrorism that the US was as responsible for as Ukraine. The attack happened while a US drone loitered over the Black Sea, and ATACMS launches rely on targeting and intelligence provided by the Americans, Moscow’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said. Paul and his co-host, Daniel McAdams, wondered if the missile attack was a deliberate escalation to justify further direct involvement of NATO inside Ukraine. They approvingly quoted Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, who on Monday condemned the attack as something the US military should not be doing. “The only border our American military should be defending is our own border,” Greene wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

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“..the Special Military Operation is not in fact a war, and that Russian war tactics and strategy should be limited to retaliation, not to the defeat and demilitarization of the US and NATO on the Ukrainian battlefield.”

Between Kremlin Cup And General Staff Lip After Sunday Attacks (Helmer)

A salvo of five ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles was intercepted over the Uchkuevka beach at Sevastopol just after midday. In celebration of the 30-degree sunshine and the Orthodox Trinity holiday, there were a large number of people in the water and on the sand. The missiles were intercepted in the air, but shrapnel from the detonating warheads struck the beach. At latest count, four people were killed, two of them children; 151 people, including 27 children, were wounded; 82 were hospitalized, 13 of them in serious condition. Boris Rozhin, editor in chief of the Colonel Cassad military blog, was in Sevastopol and he reported from one of the hospitals to which the casualties were taken. His reports started at 12:23 local time and continued for almost twelve hours. Rozhin is one of the independent Russian war correspondents calling on the Kremlin to remove the limit which has been placed on attacking the US Air Force (USAF) drones and other NATO aircraft which operate over the Black Sea, in international waters off the Crimean shore, to provide flight course, evasion of Russian air defence units, and target coordinates to the American and Ukrainian ground crews operating the ATACMS batteries and executing the fire orders.

Russian reports indicate the launch point for the Sevastopol beach attack was Nikolaev on the Ukrainian mainland. If so, the range of the missiles was at least 300 kilometres – longer than the US has publicly admitted. This also means that to be effective in defence against the repetition of such attacks against civilians, the proposed Russian demilitarized zone for the Ukraine, or “sanitary zone” as Putin has called it, must stretch from Nikolaev westward to Kiev. Rozhin has blamed the US explicitly in language repeated by other military bloggers. They mean to say, as they have been repeating in recent weeks, that the USAF drones used in the Sevastopol attacks should be destroyed. Just after 1600 Moscow time on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry issued its bulletin. The text, auto- translated into English, reads:

Note that that the Ministry, and the General Staff behind it, target the US as directly engaged in the operation of the missile attack. However, they start by calling the attack a “terrorist” strike, not an act of war. The wording of the statement also avoids identifying the USAF drones and other airborne electronic warfare systems offshore from Crimea. Instead, it refers to “satellite intelligence”. These are ideological references, not military ones. The distinction between Ukrainian acts of terrorism and war is Kremlin policy. By terming such attacks, including the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow in March, terrorism but not war, the policy follows that the Special Military Operation is not in fact a war, and that Russian war tactics and strategy should be limited to retaliation, not to the defeat and demilitarization of the US and NATO on the Ukrainian battlefield.

At 1715 the Kremlin followed with a communiqué headlined: “The President reached out to the Government’s social bloc and the military following the attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against Sevastopol.” The two-paragraph statement said: “Vladimir Putin has been in touch with senior officials from the Government’s social ministries and agencies and healthcare institutions on an ongoing basis considering the urgency of providing care to the attack victims. The President has also been interacting with the military. The Ukrainian Armed Forces targeted Sevastopol with an intentional missile strike in the afternoon of June 23, using five ATACMS US-made tactical missiles. The attack left at least 124 people wounded or injured, to a varying degree of severity, including 27 children.”

The president’s statement was issued from the Kremlin in Moscow. Putin, who had returned from his visit to North Korea and Vietnam on June 20, has remained in the Moscow area. As he prepared to leave Vietnam on June 20, Putin was asked by a Kremlin pool reporter from Kommersant what he has meant by his threats to attack the US and NATO sources of the Ukrainian missile and drone attacks on Russian targets in Crimea, the Donbass, and the hinterland regions. “Andrei Kolesnikov: Kommersant newspaper, Andrei Kolesnikov. Can the use of Western long-range weapons be viewed as an act of aggression? Overall, can the shelling of Belgorod and Russian territory in general be viewed as an act of aggression? Vladimir Putin: This matter requires further investigation, but it is close. We are looking into it. What are we dealing with in this case? Those who supply these weapons believe that they are not at war with us.

As I have already said, including in Pyongyang, we reserve the right to supply our weapons to other regions of the world. I would not rule out this possibility in terms of our agreements with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. We can also adopt the same position on the question of where these weapons end up. Take the West, for example. They supply weapons to Ukraine, saying: We are not in control here, so the way Ukraine uses them is none of our business. Why cannot we adopt the same position and say that we supply something to somebody but have no control over what happens afterwards? Let them think about it. Therefore, at this stage, our primary objective is to defend against these strikes.”

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“Putin dismisses devices such as ‘ceasefires’ or ‘freezes’. He is seeking something permanent..”

Putin’s “War” To Re-shape The American Zeitgeist (Alastair Crooke)

The G7 and the subsequent Swiss ‘Bürgenstock Conference’ can – in retrospect – be understood as preparation for a prolonged Ukraine war. The three centrepiece announcements emerging from the G7 – the 10 year Ukraine security pact; the $50 ‘billion Ukraine loan’; and the seizing of interest on Russian frozen funds – make the point. The war is about to escalate. These stances were intended as preparation of the western public ahead of events. And in case of any doubts, the blistering belligerency towards Russia emerging from the European election leaders was plain enough: They sought to convey a clear impression of Europe preparing for war. What then lies ahead? According to White House Spokesman John Kirby: “Washington’s position on Kiev is “absolutely clear”: “First, they’ve got to win this war”. “They gotta win the war first. So, number one: We’re doing everything we can to make sure they can do that. Then when the war’s over … Washington will assist in building up Ukraine’s military industrial base”.

If that was not plain, the U.S. intent to prolong and take the war deep into Russia was underlined by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan: “Authorization for Ukrainian use of American weapons for cross-border attacks extends to anywhere [from which] Russian forces are coming across the border”. He affirmed, too, that Ukraine can use F-16s to attack Russia and use U.S. supplied air defence systems “to take down Russian planes – even if in Russian airspace – if they’re about to fire into Ukrainian airspace”. Ukrainian pilots have the latitude to judge ‘the intent’ of Russian fighter aircraft? Expect the parameters of this ‘authorisation’ to widen quickly – deeper to air bases from which Russian fighter bombers launch. Understanding that the war is about to transform radically – and extremely dangerously – President Putin (in his speech to the Foreign Ministry Board) detailed just how the world had arrived at this pivotal juncture – one which could extend to nuclear exchanges.

The gravity of the situation itself demanded the making of one ‘last chance’ offer to the West, which Putin emphatically said was “no temporary ceasefire for Kiev to prepare a new offensive; nor was it about freezing the conflict”; but rather, his proposals were about the war’s final completion.= “If, as before, Kiev and western capitals refuse it – then at the end, that’s their business”, Putin said. Just to be clear, Putin almost certainly never expected the proposals to be received in the West other than by the scorn and derision with which they, in fact, were met. Nor would Putin trust – for a moment – the West not to renege on an agreement, were some arrangement to be reached on these lines. If so, why then did President Putin make such a proposal last weekend, if the West cannot be trusted and its reaction was so predictable?

Well, maybe we need to search for the nesting inner Matryoshka doll, rather than fix on the outer casing: Putin’s ‘final completion’ likely will not credibly be achieved through some itinerant peace broker. In his Foreign Ministry address, Putin dismisses devices such as ‘ceasefires’ or ‘freezes’. He is seeking something permanent: An arrangement that has ‘solid legs’; one that has durability. Such a solution – as Putin before has hinted – requires a new world security architecture to come into being; and were that to happen, then a complete solution for Ukraine would flow as an implicit part to a new world order. That is to say, with the microcosm of a Ukraine solution flowing implicitly from the macrocosm agreement between the U.S. and the ‘Heartland’ powers – settling the borders to their respective security interests.

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“..an attack on one is an attack on all” does not automatically trigger a US military response.”

Article 5 Won’t Save Ukraine if It Joins NATO (Sp.)

As NATO members prepare to celebrate the alliance’s 75th anniversary in Washington next month, the US and key allies including the UK and Germany are debating how strongly to commit to Ukraine’s NATO bid. Washington and Berlin rejected a European plan to provide Ukraine with an “irreversible” path to the organization earlier this week, instead offering a “lighter commitment” with no concrete timeline, according to British newspaper The Telegraph. The Kiev regime has repeatedly urged the West to accept it into NATO. However, even if Ukraine were admitted, it would not be guaranteed NATO boots on the ground or greater assistance than it already receives. It is widely believed that Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty unquestionably commits NATO members to provide military support should one of them be attacked. In reality it doesn’t, according to US academics, legal experts and lawmakers.

Article 5 reads: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them . . . shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking . . . such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. But Article 11 further explains that the treaty’s “provisions [shall be] carried out by the Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional processes.” The treaty’s language actually means that it’s up to NATO member-states and their respective legislatures to determine whether and how to come to the rescue of their peers.

“It is possible for the US and other Western countries to stay out of a conflict that involves a NATO country without having to break their alliance commitments,” Dan Reiter, a professor of political science at Emory University, and Brian Greenhill, an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany of the State University of New York wrote for The Conversation earlier this week. “The NATO treaty’s language contains loopholes that let member countries remain out of other members’ wars in certain situations.” The political scientists draw attention to the fact that whereas the treaty envisions the possibility of using military force in the event of an external attack it “does not include a clear definition of what an ‘armed attack’ actually is.” Previously that allowed NATO to argue that a violent act against a member wasn’t necessarily “enough” to define it as an “armed attack,” the academics note. According to Reiter and Greenhill, NATO members “have only formally invoked Article 5 once” in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, helping Washington patrol its skies from mid-October 2001 to mid-May 2002.

Nonetheless most NATO member states chose not to send troops to Afghanistan when the US declared war on the Taliban*. The academics point out that NATO states who didn’t join Washington’s “war on terror” were neither seen as breaking the alliance’s treaty nor sanctioned or ejected from the alliance. Additionally, NATO members have also used the issue of geography to stay out of their peers’ conflicts, according to the academics. Thus when the UK and Argentina went to war over the Falkland Islands in 1982, the US and other NATO states referred to the fact that the treaty provides for restoring and maintaining security in “the North Atlantic area.” The Falkland Islands – also known as the Islas Malvinas – are a South Atlantic archipelago. Last June, Senator Rand Paul addressed the issue of Article 5’s common defense provision to underscore that “an attack on one is an attack on all” does not automatically trigger a US military response.

“The Constitution grants to Congress the sole authority to determine where and when we send our sons and daughters to fight. We cannot delegate that responsibility to the president, the courts, an international body, or our allies,” Paul said. The senator condemned those he claimed deceive the public about what America’s commitments under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty really are.

On December 6, 2023, US President Joe Biden urged American lawmakers to green-light a US aid package for Ukraine by claiming that otherwise “we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops — American troops fighting Russian troops if [Russia] moves into other parts of NATO.” “We’ve committed as a NATO member that we’d defend every inch of NATO territory,” Biden insisted. Moscow has resolutely rejected the idea of attacking any NATO member state as absurd. However, even if such a scenario occurred, it would be up to US lawmakers, not President Biden, to decide whether the US would put boots on the ground to protect its ally. “Any military confrontation between Russia and NATO would surely be of a substantial nature, scope, and duration — and would therefore require congressional authorization,” the Brennan Center for Justice (BCJ), a nonprofit law and public policy institute at New York University’s School of Law, explains.

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Bottomless.

Desperate Ukraine Needs Massive Debt Bailout (Miles)

With Kiev’s gloomy financial prospects showing no sign of improving, one British newspaper is insisting that Western bondholders must forgive a substantial portion of the country’s arrears. “Kiev was already in a complex debt situation going into the war, having restructured its private debt in 2015,” noted the Financial Times broadsheet in an editorial published Sunday. “The country must now balance borrowing to fund the war with managing old debt obligations.” “Doing so is a tricky juggling act,” the paper’s editorial board observed, claiming substantial Western investment would be needed as the country rebuilds. At stake in current negotiations is $20 billion owed to private bondholders, just a small portion of the government’s $152 billion in overall outstanding debt. Ukraine’s debt payments have been paused since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukraine conflict but are scheduled to resume in August.

A recent G7-backed deal to reduce the amount owed by 60% was rejected by investors last week, who counteroffered a 20% write-down. “The war has gone on longer than expected,” the paper noted. Multiple reports have revealed the United States intervened to quash peace talks between Moscow and Kiev early on in the conflict, with Volodymyr Zelensky eventually issuing an edict preventing the country from negotiating with Russia. Washington’s sabotage of efforts to end the war was finally acknowledged by The New York Times and other mainstream outlets earlier this month. The editorial proposes three options for Ukraine – a default, another pause of payments, and continued insistence on a more significant debt reduction. Another pause would see the interest on the debt continue to balloon, while a default would further damage the country’s reputation and distract from the country’s efforts on the battlefield as Moscow appears poised to deliver a knockout blow.

Kiev was widely acknowledged as a perilous environment for foreign investors for decades before the current conflagration, with British newspaper The Guardian calling Ukraine “the most corrupt nation in Europe.” Corruption has remained endemic among government officials since the country’s independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Last year, defense minister Oleksii Reznikov was fired after millions of dollars of fraud was uncovered in procurement deals for the country’s armed forces. Ukraine has meanwhile relied on aid from Western countries merely to continue funding basic government services, a fact that has created controversy as increasing numbers of Americans tell pollsters they believe the US is spending too much money propping up the Kiev regime. Controversial investment firms like BlackRock and JPMorganChase are set to receive billions of dollars in profit from reconstruction efforts, with Ukraine’s indebtedness set to perpetuate Western influence in the country for years to come.

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“I’m not happy about the way things are going,” Orban said. “We have a structural problem.”

Von der Leyen Must Go – Orban (RT)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has called for Ursula von der Leyen to be replaced as president of the European Commission, describing the five years of her tenure as the “worst” in the history of the EU. He told reporters from the German media group Funke on Sunday that the EU’s green transition had gone against the economic and industrial interests of the bloc, while its migration package had also proven entirely unsuccessful. “The past five years have been perhaps the worst five years in the history of the EU. The successes of the European Commission and the Brussels elite are weak,” Orban said. The EU needs efficient leadership and there are “plenty” of talented politicians “capable of doing this job,” the Hungarian prime minister said. He claimed that the results of the recent European Parliament elections had also shown that people want change in Brussels.

Voters shifted significantly to the right in the elections earlier this month, with ruling coalitions in Germany and France being comprehensively trounced by right-wing parties. “But as it looks now, the same ruling coalition will remain in power. I’m not happy about the way things are going,” Orban said. “We have a structural problem.” Centrist parties retained a majority in the European Parliament, with von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP) winning 190 seats. She is seeking a second term as European Commission president, declaring that her goal is to “build a broad majority for a strong Europe,” and to keep Brussels on a “pro-Ukraine path.”

Members of the European Parliament will have their say in confirming the next Commission president in a vote scheduled for 18 July. Von der Leyen will have to win a majority of MEPs’ votes. Orban also said that if Europeans want to “keep pace with the Americans,” they will have to “rise up again.” He lauded former US President Donald Trump, saying he has “101% confidence” in him, and described him a “man of peace” because he “didn’t start a single war.” Orban has long been a vocal critic of the West’s approach to the Ukraine conflict, particularly its arms shipments to Kiev.

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“..the bloc’s workaround was “sophisticated as every legal decision, but it flies.”

EU To Bypass Hungarian Veto On Tapping Russian Assets – FT (RT)

The European Union has developed a scheme to use profits from frozen Russian assets to secure a $50 billion loan for Ukraine, which will be used to purchase arms, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell and other sources. The loophole effectively bypasses Hungary’s opposition to legislation that would have allowed the EU to hand over interest accrued on Russian funds to Ukraine. In an interview with the FT, Borrell said that since Budapest had opposed an EU agreement to transfer revenue to Ukraine, it “should not be part of the decision to use this money.” He added that the bloc’s workaround was “sophisticated as every legal decision, but it flies.” The West froze around $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets when the Ukraine conflict escalated, trapping around $280 billion in the EU.

Earlier this year, Brussels proposed seizing the interest earned on the assets to acquire weapons for Ukraine. The suggestion faced resistance from Hungary, a vocal critic of the West’s approach to the Ukraine conflict, particularly its arms shipments to Kiev. Under the US-led initiative, proceeds generated by Russia’s frozen assets from next year will be used to pay off the loan. The legal loophole allowing the EU to tap Russian assets is likely to suffice in guaranteeing the payout of the loan, the outlet said, citing officials familiar with the matter. However, Budapest can still block an EU decision to extend sanctions on Russian funds, which has to be renewed every six months by the bloc’s 27 members, the officials added.

To placate Hungary, the EU proposed a deal under which its share of the bloc’s funds would not be used to purchase weapons for Ukraine in exchange for not vetoing other members transferring the revenue to Kiev, according to Borrell. “We have offered Hungary: your money will not be used to support Ukraine in any means. Not just lethal, but on anything,” Borrell said. The proposal, however, has been rejected by Budapest. Moscow has denounced the decision to transfer profits from its assets to Ukraine as a blatant and illegal “expropriation.”

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Note the Pacific Ocean in the cover. And Canada.

The Land that Law Forgot: SCOTUS and the New York Legal Wasteland (Turley)

In 1976, Saul Steinburg’s hilarious “View of the World from 9th Avenue” was published on the cover of the New Yorker. The map showed Manhattan occupying most of the known world with wilderness on the other side of the Hudson River between New York and San Francisco. The cartoon captured the distorted view New Yorkers have of the rest of the country. Roughly 50 years later, the image has flipped for many. With the Trump trial, Manhattan has become a type of legal wilderness where prosecutors use the legal system to hunt down political rivals and thrill their own supporters. New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) ran on a pledge to bag former president Donald Trump. (She also sought to dissolve the National Rifle Association.) Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg also pledged to get Trump. Neither specified how they would do it, but both were elected and both were lionized for bringing controversial cases against Trump.

Just beyond the Hudson River, the response to these cases has been far less positive. James secured an obscene civil penalty of almost half a billion dollars without having to show there was a single victim or dollar lost from alleged overvaluation of assets. Through various contortions, Bragg converted a dead misdemeanor case into 34 felonies in an unprecedented prosecution. New Yorkers and the media insisted that such selective prosecution was in defense of the “rule of law.” This week in the Supreme Court, a glimpse of the legal landscape outside of Manhattan came more sharply into view. It looked very different as the Supreme Court, with a strong conservative majority, defended the rights of defendants and upheld core principles that are being systematically gutted in New York. In Gonzalez v. Trevino, the court held in favor of Sylvia Gonzalez, who had been arrested in Castle Hills, Texas in 2019 on a trumped-up charge of tampering with government records. She had briefly misplaced a petition on a table at a public meeting.

This was a blatant case of selective prosecution by officials whom Gonzalez had criticized. She was the only person charged in the last 10 years under the state’s records laws for temporarily misplacing a document. She argued that virtually every one of the prior 215 felony indictments involved the use or creation of fake government IDs. Although the charges were later dropped, the case reeked of political retaliation and selective prosecution. There is no evidence that anyone else has faced such a charge in similar circumstances. Yet when she sued, the appellate court threw her case out, requiring Gonzales to shoulder an overwhelming burden of proof to establish selective prosecution for her political speech. The justices, on the other hand, reduced that burden, allowing Gonzalez to go back and make the case for selective prosecution.

Unlike the Trump case, the criminal charges against Gonzales were thrown out before trial. For Trump, selective prosecution claims were summarily dismissed, even though no case like Bragg’s appears to have ever been brought before. The Bragg case is raw political prosecution. No one seriously argues that Bragg would have brought this case against anyone other than Trump. Indeed, his predecessor rejected the case. Yet people were literally dancing in the streets when I came out of the courthouse after the verdict against Trump. In fact, the selectivity of the prosecution was precisely why it was so thrilling for New Yorkers. [..] It all comes down to the legal map. As even CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig observed, this case of contorting the law for a selective prosecution would not have succeeded outside of an anti-Trump district. On the New Yorker map circa 2024, once you cross the Hudson River eastward, you enter a legal wilderness.

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“..FAA investigators found dozens of quality-control shortcomings, including the use of dish soap and a hotel key card as makeshift tools.”

Boeing Faces Possible Criminal Indictment – Reuters (RT)

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly considering a criminal indictment of aerospace giant Boeing for allegedly violating the terms of a 2021 settlement that shielded the company from charges over airliner crashes that killed 346 people. Prosecutors have recommended to senior DOJ officials that charges be filed against Boeing, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing unnamed people familiar with the department’s deliberations. A decision on whether to prosecute the company is due by July 7. The DOJ claimed in a court filing last month that Boeing had breached a 2021 agreement over allegations that the company defrauded federal aviation authorities in connection with fatal 737 MAX airliner crashes in 2018 and 2019. Under the settlement, the aircraft maker avoided prosecution by agreeing to pay a $2.5 billion fine and implement new compliance and ethics practices to prevent violations of US fraud laws.

Boeing responded by arguing that it had honored the terms of the 2021 agreement. However, the company has suffered a spate of safety incidents in recent months, including an inflight blowout of a door panel on a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines. The Alaska scare occurred just two days before the DOJ settlement was scheduled to expire. Prosecutors had previously agreed to seek formal dismissal of the deferred fraud charge as long as Boeing complied with the deal’s terms over a three-year period. Apart from the legal compliance issues, Boeing has reportedly failed a federal safety audit of its manufacturing processes in the wake of the midair door blowout. The New York Times reported in March that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigators found dozens of quality-control shortcomings, including the use of dish soap and a hotel key card as makeshift tools.

The FAA also launched a probe of possible falsification of inspection records at a Boeing factory in South Carolina. No final decision has been made by the DOJ on indicting Boeing, and internal discussions remain ongoing, Reuters said. Potential charges could go beyond the scope of the 2021 fraud settlement. One of the sources said other options include extending the earlier settlement agreement or imposing stricter compliance terms on Boeing. While the manufacturer might accept having an outside compliance monitor or paying a financial penalty, facing criminal charges or being forced to enter a guilty plea could be “too damaging” to its business, Reuters said. Boeing is a major defense contractor, and its government revenue might be jeopardized by a criminal conviction.

Read more …

“..when its economic foundation has eroded, it can only be maintained for so long by bluster and smoke and mirrors.”

Death Of The Petrodollar: What Really Happened Between The US and Saudis? (RT)

It is said that works of fiction can often convey certain truths better than a newswire. That is perhaps the light in which to view reports circulating around the internet recently about the expiration of a 50-year ‘petrodollar’ treaty between the US and Saudi Arabia. The agreement is a piece of fiction. The spurious reports appear to have originated in India or in the murky tangle of websites aimed at crypto investors. There was an official agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia signed in June of 1974 and another, secret one reached later that year according to which the Saudis were promised military aid in exchange for recycling their oil proceeds into US Treasuries. The deal whereby Riyadh would sell its oil in dollars was informal, and there was no expiration date. The petrodollar system as we have come to known largely grew organically.

However, this fiction points to an underlying truth: the petrodollar has entered a long twilight from which there will be no return. No other economic arrangement has done more to ensure American preeminence over the last half-century. Yet in its essence it represented an implicit oil backing to the dollar that would be maintained. To borrow an idea originally expressed by financial analyst Luke Gromen, it is ultimately America’s inability and unwillingness to maintain this backing that is gradually dooming the system.

[..] We are now accustomed to the proliferation of unbacked currencies, so it’s hard to appreciate just how unusual the petrodollar arrangement was for a world long used to dealing with some form of gold standard. It’s one thing for a government to insist that a currency be accepted within its own borders, but to propose that another country part with real goods – such as oil – for money backed by absolutely nothing would have been a tough sell in past eras. Yet the US managed to do that and more. But such an arrangement would never have been sustainable for so long – longer than the gold-backed Bretton Woods lasted – based on military power and backroom dealings by cabals of diplomats alone. While Washington has always acted with a certain sense of impunity, believing there to be no viable alternative to the dollar, for the several-decade-long golden age of the petrodollar there was at least an economic justification for it. It worked well enough for the rest of the world that, until recently, no major bloc emerged to oppose it. There also was the long shadow of Paul Volcker to give it credibility.

However, just as the US reneged in 1971 on its obligation to convert dollars into gold, it later reneged on its implicit obligation to maintain the value of the dollar against oil. Since then, Washington has shed all semblances of fiscal restraint and any pretense of managing the dollar in the best interests of everyone. Instead, it now wields the greenback as a weapon in a desperate bid to roll back the very events it helped set in motion by not preserving the integrity of the currency in the first place.The US is now fighting to maintain all the benefits of this broken system, the responsibility for which it is neither equipped nor willing to take any longer. If the dollar isn’t pegged to gold and isn’t even implicitly backed by oil, and Washington won’t preserve its integrity, then it is hardly up to the task of facilitating trade in critical resources. A system as deeply entrenched as the petrodollar won’t disappear overnight, but when its economic foundation has eroded, it can only be maintained for so long by bluster and smoke and mirrors.

Read more …

“A decision against the government should lead to the release of many J-6 prisoners and perhaps lawsuits for malicious prosecution under the Federal Tort Claims Act..”

Here It Comes (Kunstler)

Did you entertain feelings of doom during last week’s brain-withering heat-wave? The sheer anxious waiting and wishing for it to end was a nice analog to the stifling psycho-political miasma oppressing this nation — alternately known as the republic (for which we stand) and “our democracy,” as “Joe Biden” likes to style his regime of lawfare, warfare, and garish state-sponsored depravity. Well, rejoice and ring them bells! The political weather is breaking. The week ahead looks like an all-you-can-eat, steam-table banquet of consequence. The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) teased last week with an opening round of lesser decisions on bump stocks for rifles, abortion pills for women inconvenienced by motherhood, and a few other interesting cases. The court’s term draws to a close with the end of June. Pending are several cases liable to rattle the windows and shake down the walls.

One is the question as to whether the government can use private company proxies to censor constitutionally protected free speech (Murthy v. Missouri). The case has been simmering for years, with lower court actions that took a dim view of the intel blob’s coercive intrusions into social media. Probably the most galling part of the story is that virtually every act of censorship and de-platforming was committed against those telling the truth about some vital public issue, whether it was the danger and ineffectiveness of the Covid vaccines, or the probity of the 2020 elections, or the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop and its dastardly contents. That is, the government’s actions were entirely in the service of lying to the American people. This raises a greater question that redounds from the courts onto the November election: just why is the US government so deeply invested in all that lying?

The answer is obvious: it has been engaged in nefarious activities that it seeks to hide and deny. And all of that has served to wreck the country. Even worse, the government has gaslit half of the public into cheerleading and rolling over for all that dishonesty, so as to keep them “safe” from hobgoblins such as “misinformation.” Considering “Joe Biden’s” cratering poll numbers, it looks like the public is tired of this incessant lying and is fixing to vote his regime out of office. We begin to see evidence that even some hardcore regime hacks are breaking out of that consensus trance, for instance, the Cuomo brothers denouncing the lies around lawfare and Covid. Andrew, once the New York state AG himself, told the shocked studio audience on Bill Maher’s HBO gabfest, beloved by Wokesters, that the Alvin Bragg case never should have been brought to trial. His brother Chris has been telling his podcast followers that Covid policy was a fiasco and the vaccines were harmful, and he apologized for his prior shifty reporting on all that when he had a CNN show.

Also upcoming at SCOTUS: Fischer v the United States, as to whether the DOJ tortured a federal statute on shredding financial records to overcharge J-6 rioters. In 2015 the court limited the scope of that law (part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act), but Attorney General Merrick Garland used it anyway as an all-purpose dragnet to prosecute hundreds of people who merely paraded through the US Capitol — which provided legal footing for the House J-6 committee to color that event dishonestly as “an insurrection.” A decision against the government should lead to the release of many J-6 prisoners and perhaps lawsuits for malicious prosecution under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). It would also toss out the pertinent charges in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s DC case against Donald Trump for supposedly fomenting an “insurrection.”

Read more …

 

 

 

Lion
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805479152293708084

 

 

Hero
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805023820769550376

 

 

Newborn
https://twitter.com/i/status/1805227011545178183

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle June 25 2024

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 61 total)
  • Author
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  • #162009

      • Assange Leaves UK Prison To Finalize Plea Deal With US (RT) • US Escalated Ukraine Conflict to New Level in Sevastopol (Sp.) • Russia ‘Can’t
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle June 25 2024]

    #162012
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Never thought I’d see this day; Assange is FREE!!
    It took too long and was as wrong as 2 left shoes from the get go…
    Happy as I am to see this; I am not optimistic for the future…

    #162015
    Dimitri
    Participant

    The EU’s economic war on Le Pen – The market’s attack dogs are targeting National Rally

    What is playing out today in France, then, is nothing new. And yet, there is something unprecedentedly brazen about the ECB’s latest attempt at electoral manipulation. What we are witnessing is effectively an unholy alliance between an increasingly discredited national elite and the supranational institutions of the EU against the common “populist” threat. The strategy should be clear by now: the EU creates an artificial financial panic and national elites then use that to scare voters away from the “wrong” candidate. As an MP from Macron’s party told Le Figaro: “First and foremost, we need to scare people… to show the consequences and financial risks of the [National Rally’s] proposed measures.”

    https://unherd.com/2024/06/the-eus-economic-war-on-le-pen/

    #162018
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Fossil Fuel, CO2 Emissions Hit Record High In 2023

    Hey, you know what the greatest contributor to CO2 is? War and the Pentagon. So let’s go anti-war, who’s with me? Green Party say no. They are pro-CO2, pro-war.

    “It Took Nvidia 23 Days To Add $1 Trillion In Market Cap; Berkshire Hathaway Hasn’t Managed That In 60 Years

    https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/teaser_desktop_2x/public/2024-06/nvda%20berkshire.jpg?itok=5FKGPBuJNvidia

    PublicFine
    https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/476/528/d03

    Wait, what?

    “US Lawmaker Condemns Attack On Crimea Beach With American Weapons
    “Imagine if Russia, using a Russian satellite, fired cluster munitions on a Florida beach.

    When someone says maybe we shouldn’t drop cluster munitions on a vacation beach, that’s now news. Awwww, but I wanna…explain why NOT???

    Question on the Ike: HOW does it get home? Through the Suez? And how does the new one appear? Through the Suez? (No to both questions, the US Navy can no longer traverse the Suez. It’s that what they call a “Suez Crisis”? 1954?)

    “Netanyahu Ready to Wind Down Gaza Operations to Battle Hezbollah in North

    Like all the Western Colonists, calls a victory and crawls home. A loser.

    “Julian is free!!!!

    What da whut happened? UK has lost all power and control?

    “The @EPP, the leftists and the liberals have agreed to create a pro-war coalition in the European Parliament,”

    Ah Leftists, is there anything war can’t fix?

    “• US Escalated Ukraine Conflict to New Level in Sevastopol (Sp.)

    Yes, but also no as usual. It’s likely they were trying to hit another target (nearby base) and Russia is both jamming them off course and hitting them with small arms which breaks them apart…like falling to earth wherever that happens. That goes back to whether cluster itself is legal, but both countries are using them, so I guess yes. It’s a war, people. Don’t get started or I guarantee this will happen. About Florida beaches hit with cluster? I say why not? You want to get started in war, that’s a thing that can happen, and faster than you’d think.

    But, but we’re not there! As .Dotcom and everyone on the planet says, THERE ARE ZERO ATACMS WITHOUT TOTAL U.S. CONTROL. In the target, the guidance, the travel, the material, and the launch. All of it from landing in a shipping container in Amsterdam, on the truck all the way to Odessa, right through to its explosion over a small town and every person it lands on. We’re a full-service shop. We do it all. No Ukrainians required.™

    “According to White House Spokesman John Kirby: “Washington’s position on Kiev is “absolutely clear”: “First, they’ve got to win this war”.

    Well “They” are not going to win the war since “They” cannot target anything nor shoot anything above a pop-gun without full support of NATO stand-ins. That is YOU are fighting the war, not them. And we see that a different “They” feel like they’ve run out of time (rates are rising, need someone to blame) and are calling a draft in EU and America. TO DO WHAT??? Throw sticks and stones at them?

    “Ukrainian pilots have the latitude to judge ‘the intent’ of Russian fighter aircraft?”

    Sure! They’ll use their PutinTelepathy™. Everyone else does.

    “Such a solution – requires a new world security architecture to come into being; and were that to happen, then a complete solution for Ukraine would flow as an implicit part to a new world order.”

    NATO and Europe wanted this to be existential, that one or the other would die. Okay, sold. And the entire present Hegemon, the entire NATO/UN/Western structure, including colonial finance, now will cease to exist as before. War can’t end til then.

    What is that? The money collapses. They’ve said, I’ve said, nothing can happen until you fix the money. EU Currency is there, dropping 50% in usage over the dollar. It’s not a competitor, and may show that it was only ever Russian oil sales denominations that gave the illusion it was. The US$ is being dropped in all 200 countries at once, oil in rupees, yuan, real, bhat. And look at the valuations, which are COMPARATIVE, so don’t take them as absolute– if you want a sense of absolute value, compare to gold (or BTC) where the US$ is plummeting. That is, UK Pound is savaged, another leg down. 1:1. That was what, 7:1 before the 1970 inflation for them, AND the U.S. ALSO dropped 10-20x in 1970-80? What is that, an 80% devaluation since 1969? The Euro is little better, 1:1, dropping as fast as we are, with 20% inflation vs bacon.

    What’s 20% compounded, Alex? It’s been 2-3 years.

    Now they’re talking “Inflation drops”. NO IT DOESN’T. As Michael Pento take the time to point out (this is often glossed over) the American public doesn’t need bacon to rise at a less-fast rate, prices have doubled and they need bacon to be cut in HALF, drop 80%, back to “normal” to have any kind of “Recovery” over here. Eggs at $5? Oil is the thing that’s still cheap, and that’s because Ol’ Joe has made us utterly helpless during a war so he could buy an election.

    (Link bots)

    #162019
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Speaking of buying election, Dore (his wife) does Trudeau and Canada elections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZX1xCHFJB4

    Speaking of Canadian Idiot, (song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_TfBbR6L0M ) she’s like “He acts like a groomer! He was all handsome and stuff. But he lied to me and the other wymensssss.” AYFKM? She describes how he BOUGHT his election with $2k/person in Covid.

    AND YOU FELL FOR IT????????????

    Oh my Lord, Saints alive, save us. No wonder we’re in this state. I’d say “what’d you just get off the farm?” but I think the buddies at LetterKenny would have taken him out the back can given him a sound kicking before the first month. Where do they even FIND these jokers in Canada? What is she, 5? Has no suspicion no cynicism at all, doesn’t ask any questions? A: No, SHE’S A REPORTER. What? Yes, she, and her union, were all PAID BY TRUDEAU to STFU, she plays the quote of him bragging about it, and they didn’t think it was suspicious. Or relevant. Oh dear, you people. Maybe we can do a summer boot camp and rotate you through Letterkenny row by row so you all get a good kicking and know what a scam, a sex fiend, and drug dealer is. Cidiots.

    Hey, if um, bacon and houses dropped 80% as the only thing that would save the public, would that, um, cause any problems anywheres? Like collapse worldwide banking and the stock market overnight? Tax revenue, bond repayment, anything?

    Nah, it’ll be fine. This is fine.

    “• Article 5 Won’t Save Ukraine if It Joins NATO (Sp.)

    No because at this point Russia would just crush NATO. Now that depends on 2 things: 1) we go to total nuclear exchange as all game scenarios say, making it all irrelevant, 2) who owns the flying tictacs and volcano weapons, DEW, etc hypothesized to exist but not admitted. By like Solari for instance, but also admitted from time to time about our DUMBs. If we can bomb Russia from the moon, then we’re just sucking them in right now. Hypersonics are nothing.

    “Moscow has resolutely rejected the idea of attacking any NATO member state as absurd.”

    In a sense, yes, but no. They just said again, after months of saying IF you want to attack RUSSIA from NATO, that is, take off an F16, run some idiotic bait-and-switch, we-didn’t-really, then level Belgorod, then NO, Russia has clearly said they will level that base in Romania or Poland to ashes.

    Then game theory says, boom boom boom, three moves later, worldwide nuclear exchange. But that’s what the West WANTS. That’s the only thing that can save them. The hard part is resisting throwing them in that Bri’ar Patch.

    “• Desperate Ukraine Needs Massive Debt Bailout (Miles)

    By who? Mars? The West needs that massive debt bailout MORE. Remember not $36T but another $20T is missing in Solari, hidden in dept budget funds? Yeah, we’re bond-kiting, floating, backing, “counterfeit” bonds that were never officially issued. But someone will show up with the paper and try to collect. (Norway) Our deficit is twice what’s reported. But we’re not paying anyway, what’s the dif?
    (link bots)

    #162020
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Voters shifted significantly to the right in the elections earlier this month,”

    Yes, the Pro-gay-marriage, Anti-War “Right”.

    “The loophole effectively bypasses Hungary’s opposition to legislation that would have allowed the EU to hand over interest accrued on Russian funds”

    No it doesn’t, that’s illegal on its face. You can always find some lawyer to argue and make up something, that’s what lawyers are for. But “Just made it up” and “Also bought off the Judge” does not make legal reasoning.

    Okay, first principles: What’s the POINT of law? WHY do we have it? So there isn’t the law of the Jungle, of only POWER. How is that? Well, it works because people ACCEPT it. They say “The Law Sez”. Then stop thinking and point to it. Brain shuts off, Issue resolved and dispensed. Okay, great! Good idea, you win.

    One thing: Did you ask RUSSIA if THEY accepted it? Your courts, your laws, your rulings? Or are they going to bomb the f—k out of you if you try? Hey, um, how’s your law working now, First Principles? Oh you got a Lawyer to say? Great, hope you keep him handy as a human shield when Russia drops cluster munitions on all your condos.

    WTF is with these morons? Are they 5?

    pic
    https://c.tenor.com/c7Vl3DDlc0cAAAAC/i-feel-like-im-taking-crazy-pills.gif

    “This week in the Supreme Court, a glimpse of the legal landscape outside of Manhattan came more sharply into view.”

    The only place MORE a howling den of scum and villainy than NYC in the Empire is Washington D.C.. As we’ve just seen a bunch this year with whack decisions all over the place. “We make s—t up!” Okay, POLITICALLY these decisions are…expedient? But arising from a moral, logical, consistent worldview they are not. They just trashed 2A like 48 hours ago, infringing anything they like. In Dobbs they said murder is fine so long as the States do it. And so on. Fine, there’s always some of that, but don’t think it will save you. Don’t obey the USSC. YOU are the government. Do not comply.

    “• Boeing Faces Possible Criminal Indictment – Reuters (RT)

    Who’s after Boeing? Knocking out the U.S. Crown jewels? Not saying they’re not paying them to mismanage (like Disney) or paying workers or airport repairmen to make mistakes or the dog gets it. But this don’t wash and what’s the motive?

    Example: Tesla killed what like 2,000 people with self-driving and other cars? When called on it he told them to SEC, Suck Elon’s C— well, you get the idea. And he’s still a superfriend and pal, but not defense contractor Boeing? Que?

    “• Death Of The Petrodollar: What Really Happened Between The US and Saudis? (RT)

    Oh yeah, good reminder, like me, the Internets is now saying, “Um, there was a dated contract on the Petrodollar??? Anyone want to get me a copy, ‘cause nobody’s ever seen it.” Again, this popped up out of nowhere, got a lot of traction, and can only seem to be traced back to one account that always posts Bellingcat-level MI6 releases, and is always wrong. Not that it hasn’t ended – that’s good propaganda, that’s how it’s supposed to work. But WHY say this that isn’t true? Yeah, to trash the U.S, make us a Clown Show, kill our Bond Market, and therefore Save Europe in comparison. No dice.

    WE, have oil. WE, have food. Europe has a Clown Show surpassing ours AND neither of those things. So you want to tell me how the German Bund is par with the U.S. right now, that has no oil, no economy, and no prospects for the future? Really? Not like even an 8 point differential? Who do you think is more likely to default: the U.S. which never has, or Europe, which does every 50 years for centuries?

    Yellen has been bending the UST issues to ultra-short-term to control it but they’ve run out of time. We don’t need to be GOOD – we’re not. We just need to be LESS BAD than Europe, which is easy. Capital Flows. Core nation collapses LAST.

    #162021
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Nope, I’m wrong, that’s what “HereLetMeGoogleThatForYou.com” is for.

    uk-us
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IcrBt1BhNHQ/VIIxcStGKRI/AAAAAAAABBo/Q0NikFspkiA/s1600/GDP-decline-history-500×268.gif

    $1.50 to $1.00 is still 1/3rd though.

    #162022
    Dora
    Participant

    A mistake typo or a fraud?

    #162023
    tboc
    Participant

    it is the best of times, it is the worst of times

    #162024

    Julian can have breakfast with his wife and kids.
    Amen.

    #162025
    tboc
    Participant

    The Enlightenment has brought us to The Dark Ages

    replace human experience with authority
    base society soley on possiblility sans probability
    replace measurement with prediction
    return the Earth to the center of the universe
    doctrine and dogma become imperial

    “There is something irreversible about acquiring knowledge; and the simulation of the search for it differs in a most profound way from the reality.” ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer

    #162026
    Red
    Participant

    “Governor Moscow oblast, Andrei Vorobyov, confirmed in a Monday statement that three floors of the building have been overwhelmed by flames. “The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth floors are on fire,” Mash said Monday.”

    So how come it’s still standing? That should be enough to collapse it and at least one other nearby building.

    For a little perspective on the Canadian experience:

    #162027
    Oroboros
    Participant

    At it’s core, the Empire of Lies is based on Cowardice.

    It’s Military Industrial Mafia are cowards who base their power on only beating up on third world, third rate entities who can’t respond as peers.

    That’s not the case with Russia.

    Frankly I wish the Russians would give the Houthis hypersonic missiles that would outright sink a fucking Duh’merica carrier.

    The Empire of Lies is already trying to lie and hide what happened to the Eisenhower, imagine if it was at the bottom of the Red Sea.

    They would either have to admit they have no defense against Russia hypersonic missiles OR they would try to hide the fact the Ick was gone.

    Which do you think the Military Industrial Mafia cowards would take?

    More LIes Lies Lies or admit they are impotent against a nuclear Peer like Russia?

    .

    #162028
    Oroboros
    Participant

    They have already used the Full Rubber Face thing for Pedophile Presidementia Jo-jo.

    Half the Duh’merica public eats it up with a spoon.

    They clap like retarded circus seals, Arf Arf Arf Arf Arf Arf Arf Arf Arf Arf !

    A Has-been brainwashed diseased perverted ‘culture’ putrefying in it’s own waste.

    Behold the road to Hell

    Like boiling the frog to death one degree at a time

    .

    #162029
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks for the unapproved Arabic Eisenhower update last night, Doc Robinson https://alkhabaralyemeni.net/2024/06/25/265649/
    “Hit twice again this week”… Going to Germany, not “home”.

    Russian “asymmetric response” https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/ransomware-group-lockbit-claims-to
    Ransomware Group “LockBit” Claims To Have Breached US Federal Reserve, Says It Exfiltrated 33 Terabytes Of “Americans Banking Secrets”

    #162030
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Hang Mike Pence from the nearest lamp post

    .

    #162031
    John Day
    Participant

    @Oroboros: Naw, just put Mike Pence in a 2X3m cell in Belmarsh for 1900 days…
    ;-/

    #162032
    John Day
    Participant

    SCOTUS Ruling Deems Trump’s New York Conviction Unconstitutional on Two Key Grounds

    SCOTUS Ruling Deems Trump’s New York Conviction Unconstitutional on Two Key Grounds

    #162033
    John Day
    Participant

    Bankruptcy trustee discloses plan to shut down Alex Jones’ Infowars and liquidate assets
    https://apnews.com/article/alex-jones-infowars-bankruptcy-sandy-hook-e8bf9a3d11b9506abb18c285d3e7b138

    #162034
    zerosum
    Participant

    FOCUS ON RELEVANT INFORMATION

    American specialists,
    • US Escalated Ukraine Conflict to New Level in Sevastopol (Sp.)

    the Global Hawk was providing reconnaissance, targeting information and potentially guidance information for the ATACMS itself. “ATACMS… essentially needs to coordinate with something. So, typically a lot of times drones’ or satellite information are used to help guide the target and guide the missile,” Rasmussen explained.

    On Sunday at 12:15 pm local time, Ukraine attacked the Russian city of Sevastopol with five ATACMS missiles equipped with cluster bomblets. Russian air defenses intercepted four missiles, but the explosion of the fifth cluster warhead led to the death of four civilians with 153 more injured, according to local authoriies. The US government admitted in October 2023 that it had covertly provided Ukraine with a model of ATACMS with a range 165 kilometers. Longer-range ATACMS, capable of striking targets at a distance of up to 300 kilometers, were secretly included in the $300 million aid package and delivered to Ukraine in April. Both ATACMS variants have cluster warheads, prohibited by the international Convention on Cluster Munitions — which the US declined to sign.
    ————
    • Russia ‘Can’t Not Respond’ To Crimea Attack – Ron Paul (RT)

    The US directly engaged in the operation of the missile attack.
    ———
    • Putin’s “War” To Re-shape The American Zeitgeist (Alastair Crooke)

    The three centerpiece announcements emerging from the G7 –
    the 10 year Ukraine security pact;
    the $50 ‘billion Ukraine loan’;
    and the seizing of interest on Russian frozen funds – make the point.
    ————-
    • Article 5 Won’t Save Ukraine if It Joins NATO (Sp.)

    even if Ukraine were admitted, it would not be guaranteed NATO boots on the ground or greater assistance than it already receives.
    ———–

    • Desperate Ukraine Needs Massive Debt Bailout (Miles)

    “The country must now balance borrowing to fund the war with managing old debt obligations.” “Doing so is a tricky juggling act,” the paper’s editorial board observed, claiming substantial Western investment would be needed as the country rebuilds. At stake in current negotiations is $20 billion owed to private bondholders, just a small portion of the government’s $152 billion in overall outstanding debt. Ukraine’s debt payments have been paused since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukraine conflict but are scheduled to resume in August.

    Corruption has remained endemic among government officials since the country’s independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
    ——–
    Explain the implications
    • Death Of The Petrodollar: What Really Happened Between The US and Saudis? (RT)
    We are now accustomed to the proliferation of unbacked currencies,

    #162035
    Mr. House
    Participant

    @Dr. John

    So that article yesterday was two years old? I didn’t read the entire thing, but the jist of it was that china had been dealing with multiple outbreaks since 2018. If that is the case, wouldn’t the treatment of the virus in 2020 have been less of an unknown?

    #162036
    zerosum
    Participant

    June 25, 2024
    Ukraine SitRep: State And Military Continue to Deteriorate
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/06/ukraine-sitrep-state-and-military-continue-to-deteriorate.html#comments
    ————

    #162037
    zerosum
    Participant

    Reflection on possibilities
    Wouldn’t it be a pity if one of those monstrously huge and top-heavy container ships would run into one of the many “loose Ukrainian mines” which have yet to be fully swept or accounted for. Those mines would make for excellent plausible denials for interested parties.

    Posted by: aristodemos | Jun 25 2024

    #162038
    Noirette
    Participant

    On, Article 5 won’t save Ukraine if it joins NATO

    Article was very welcome, I was going to try and publicise Art. 5., which btw (I just checked again) appears immediately, in full, in first place, on a Google search.

    It is very clear, nothing binding, ‘obligatory’, etc. about it, it is in effect ‘a memorandum of understanding’ for ‘mutual’ assistance, which can be requested, but only given IF… the giver decides to do so…

    The MSM and the war crazies misrepresent it entirely, but Zelensky, I am sure, knows the score on this, he is smart, greedy, loving the white powder, but not that dull, he is playing the game too.

    quote from article. According to Reiter and Greenhill, NATO members “have only formally invoked Article 5 once” in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, helping Washington patrol its skies from mid-October 2001 to mid-May 2002.

    Yes, afaik. It was understood by all those with some intel (info about what happened) or intelligence (capable of judging what caused the towers to crash down) that the USA was not *attacked* and did not need to be *defended.* However it was deemed expedient, and cheap, to Rah! Rah! on the US side after the‘horrific’ attack.

    Including Putin btw. Ex.:

    U.S.-Russian relations offer one bright counter to this otherwise gloomier international picture. Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to speak directly to President Bush. In that phone call, he expressed his condolences to the president and the American people and his unequivocal support for whatever reactions the American president might decide to take.

    from an article by Michael McFaul (2001)

    https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2001/10/us-russia-relations-after-september-11-2001?lang=en

    #162039
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    Sorry to be negative, but no, Julian is not free until this plea bargain deal is concluded in the Marianas (a US territory) and he sets foot in Australia and this bail condition is lifted also.

    I see too many opportunities for various authorities to renege on or abruptly change the terms and conditions so that Julian goes back into detention. Australia is currently doing an Assange on Daniel Duggan, a man whom the USA wants to extradite because apparently he trained some Chinese commercial pilots 12 years ago, beyond the statute of limitations, and not a crime in Australia. The USA reckons they were military pilots, really. One reliable commentator here reckons the whole thing is a politcally-motivated show trial.

    In 2007 an Australian, David Hicks, ill-advisedly involved himself in the al Qaeda mess, and found himself in Guantanamo Bay. He was freed but only after what in the media looked like the Australian government agreeing to a list of US terms and conditions bordering on the hysterical. Hicks was among the most dangerous men in the universe apparently, not to be trusted alone for a millisecond, etc etc.

    Another ,man here, David McBride, blew the whistle on war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. Who was punished – the military or the whistleblower? One guess.

    As we all know well, The System will not accept criticism. I won’t rest easy until Julian is back home with his wife and children. A long period of healing will ensue.

    #162041
    zerosum
    Participant

    It’s on the web. Did you know? Can you see the connections.?

    Victoria Nuland, born on July 1, 1961, in New York City, boasts a diverse ethnic heritage. Her father, Sherwin B. Nuland, hailed from Ukrainian Jewish roots, while her mother, Rhona McKhann, was a native of Britain. Raised as the sole child in a household that prized intellectual curiosity and global awareness, Victoria was immersed in a tapestry of cultural richness.

    Her educational odyssey laid the groundwork for her illustrious career. After graduating from Choate Rosemary Hall in 1979, she pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and international relations at Brown University, culminating in 1983. Immersed in Russian literature, political science, and history during her tenure at Brown, Victoria’s academic pursuits further fueled her insatiable appetite for knowledge.

    #162047
    zerosum
    Participant

    Hillary Clinton weighs in on Trump-Biden debate
    (ready to replace Biden before JULY)

    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/hillary-clinton-warns-trump-debate-140222248.html
    Clinton argued, “expectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.”

    Choosing between these candidates is choosing between “between chaos and competence” and “a convicted criminal out for revenge and a president who delivers results for the American people.”

    “That’s an easy choice,” Clinton wrote.

    #162049
    Noirette
    Participant

    heh 🙂 zerosum, she won’t give up until on her deathbed…

    #162050
    zerosum
    Participant

    Watch … Hillary, thundering around the corner, …. June
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13556445/joe-biden-legal-counter-fight-election-dropout.html

    How conservatives could make it very hard for Democrats to replace Biden with Hillary, on the 2024 ballot if he has a disastrous debate or steps aside
    By MORGAN PHILLIPS,
    PUBLISHED: 17:37 EDT, 21 June 2024

    We have concluded that the process for substitution and withdrawal is very complicated. We will remain vigilant that appropriate election integrity procedures are followed.’

    If Joe Biden were to withdraw at any point before the Democratic National Convention, it would be up to the delegates at the DNC to pick a new nominee. But from there, they can expect legal challenges from Republicans looking to prevent any other Democratic nominee from getting on the ballot in certain states.

    The Heritage Oversight project has set their sights on three contentious swing states where they believe taking Biden off the Democratic ticket would not allow anyone else to replace him: Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin.

    Wisconsin does not allow withdrawal from the ballot for any reason besides death.

    In Nevada, no changes can be made to the ballot after 5 p.m. on the fourth Friday in June of an election year or ‘a nominee dies or is adjudicated insane or mentally incompetent.’

    If Biden were to withdraw less than 60 days before the election Georgia his name will remain on the ballot but no votes will be counted.

    In Texas, the two party’s nominees have until the 74th day before the election to withdraw from the ballot. Some states, like South Carolina, do not allow candidates to withdraw for political reasons.

    ———

    #162051
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Let’s kick that Overton Window farther open a notch or so. If it’s okay to talk about Jews (and thank you again, @CelticBiker) then it’s okay to talk about Jesus. He is, after all and by certified statistical study, the most important and influential person in all of human history.

    By submitting peacefully to his own execution Jesus was basically telling the Evil One that if you try to end my existence by killing me then I will let you do precisely that, so as to PROVE once and for all that I CANNOT be killed, and that what I say is true.

    So The Evil Ones arrange nailing him to a cross until he was very publicly dead, and sure enough, his essence does NOT stop existing. It continues even to this day. Take a look at the historical record of mankind if you don’t accept that as a hard fact.

    Even the world’s staunchest atheist must admit that a LOT of people believe that the God they call Jesus lives on in spiritual form. Christians are not alone in their conscious awareness that there does exist a Divine Source of all reality. That firmly held knowledge continues to be broadly held as the most primary of all fundamental beliefs that humans have. That such beliefs are SPIRITUAL in nature is not a valid argument against the fact that they ARE beliefs and that the vast majority of humans believe them. In fact it makes the whole point. It is NOT material. It is simply something that people believe exists as a factual truth, and which NO ONE could possibly cause to NOT exist.

    Notice that the Universe is still here. I just checked again and sure enough it’s here and running smoother than a Swiss watch. The Divine Source of everything is still manifest for our enjoyment.

    He (for lack of a better word, like “God” for example) is not made of material. He is the non-material quintessential source of an inscrutable (to humans) Divine Thought, and thus spiritual (not material) in nature. Some people might call him an abstraction or an idea or a “faith”, or even a tripartite God, but regardless of what you call it the fact remains that God simply IS and that’s all there is to it, and you CAN’T kill Him.

    To not know and appreciate the profound implication of such a fundamental fact is the very essence of ignorance, and the stupidity of the actions that develop as the consequences of such deep ignorance is a dog’s breakfast to behold.

    The only way to not know such a patently obvious “First Principle” is to proactively decide, of your own free will, to deliberately NOT know what you were born knowing. You ARE consciously aware and there’s just no other way to explain that self-aware awareness. Unfortunately there are a lot of people actively engaged in getting you to disavow or ignore that crucial fact They usually do it for the hidden purpose of taking your stuff, bossing you around, or getting their own self out of a tight jam at your expense. Those folks tend to not be very good at doing much of anything else but they are REALLY good at lying, stealing candy from babies and keeping everyone in a perpetual state of existential fear by hurting weaker people.

    To want or seek the annihilation of a truth as fundamental as the very existence of truth itself is, in turn, insanity itself. Such derangement practically defines insanity. Only a fatally deranged mind would want to “kill” truth by proclaiming that the truth is a lie or that a lie is not. Would any rational entity want the truth of their own existence to instead be false? Of course not. That would be suicidal, and accounts for why suicide is rightfully considered to be a symptom of serious mental illness.

    Truth lives, lies die, take your pick. You are endowed with awareness and free will, so the choice really is yours. Not as easy at it looks, is it? That’s because your head is still teeming with all sorts of lies telling you that the truths in there ain’t true (and that the lies in there are valid).Sorting the two out usually hurts like the dickens.

    #162052
    zerosum
    Participant

    Be careful.
    It is Political Interference to want/think/say/demonstrate, for Canada to be out of NATO.
    ( There are strong/powerful people/expatriate/ “diaspora.” who make/influence the laws, who will oppose you.)

    #162053
    zerosum
    Participant

    D Benton Smith
    (We won’t change our minds because of differences of opinions.)
    1. You got to expand your thinking to include ALL living things.
    2. In a few modern words, Also, HE, is/lives/exists, in between space and time, called spacetime.

    (He (for lack of a better word, like “God” for example) is not made of material. He is the non-material quintessential source of an inscrutable (to humans) Divine Thought, and thus spiritual (not material) in nature. Some people might call him an abstraction or an idea or a “faith”, or even a tripartite God, but regardless of what you call it the fact remains that God simply IS and that’s all there is to it, and you CAN’T kill Him.)
    🙂

    #162054
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @zerosum

    Fully agreed on all of your points. I was trying to keep the word-count down.

    #162055
    Mr. House
    Participant

    @Dr. D and JB HB

    You guys point out media and the absurdities it pushes as truth today, have you ever considered they do this on purpose? People base their entire identities on Pop culture these days, how better to rile people up that don’t take the bait you lay in other areas of society? Everything feels like they’re trying to start a war of all against all. Sometimes i think they pray at night for a “rightwing” backlash. Almost like they need it.

    #162056
    zerosum
    Participant

    In a few words: My way or the highway

    Safeguarding Canadian democracy in the age of growing digital disinformation

    Safeguarding Canadian democracy in the age of growing digital disinformation
    A host of measures are needed to educate the Canadian public and improve the country’s ability to respond to information threats.
    by
    Bessma Momani,
    Shelly Ghai-Bajaj
    March 5, 2024

    A diversifying threat landscape
    There are also indirect ways in which disinformation spreads within the Canadian information environment. We have long shared a unique, often embedded connection with the information space of the United States. As the convoy experience demonstrates, right-wing ideologies and narratives south of the border can influence perceptions and mobilization in Canada.
    https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2024/in-full/
    Published: 10 January 2024
    Global Risks Report 2024
    Download PDF

    At the same time, Canada’s diasporic communities. (Ukraine, Jewish, USA,), are also embedded in multiple information environments that include narratives and content circulating in home countries. Places in the Global South including Brazil, India, Nigeria, and the Philippines have seen digital disinformation used to influence domestic audiences, especially during elections.

    The digital platforms on which disinformation spreads – including Facebook, X and TikTok but also direct messaging apps like Telegram, WeChat, and WhatsApp – reach global audiences at a scale and speed previously unimaginable. Ethnocultural communities in Canada are often doubly exposed to disinformation emanating from their home countries and from within Canada.
    ————
    Sample//Example of disinformation (Truth)
    https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/595496-years-of-disinformation-have-led-us-to-local-canadian-style-convoys/

    Local Canadian convoy support builds on years of disinformation
    Much of the news coverage of the social media spread of Canada’s Freedom Convoys has emphasized speed, fakery and global reach; tracking how a few loud voices and fake accounts amplified by bots tied to firms well beyond Canadian borders helped to spin up Facebook groups with over a million followers in less than a week.

    BY MICHAEL COLARESI, LARA PUTNAM AND BETH SCHWANKE, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS – 02/24/22 11:01 AM ET
    (Michael Colaresi is the William S. Dietrich chair of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh; Lara Putnam is the UCIS Research professor, Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh; Beth Schwanke is the executive director of Pitt Cyber. All are researchers at the Pitt Disinformation Lab. )
    ———–
    Encrypted messaging platforms provide a high level of privacy and security to individual users. But they present a different set of challenges identifying disinformation threats. There is also the question of how information is perceived among groups of users who share some level of interpersonal communication, connection and trust.
    ————
    THE REPORT
    https://www.cyber.gc.ca/sites/default/files/cyber-threats-canada-democratic-process-2023-update-v1-e.pdf

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
    Foreign adversaries are increasingly using cyber tools to target
    democratic processes around the world. Disinformation has
    become ubiquitous in national elections, and adversaries are now
    using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to create and spread
    fake content. This report addresses cyber threat activity targeting
    elections, and the growing threat that generative AI poses to
    democratic processes globally and in Canada.
    ————

    #162057
    zerosum
    Participant

    Point of view
    FWIW, I supported the “Truckers” when they first left the West Coast as they passed by my door, but the movement against the Vax and Corporate Fascism, enforced by Turdeau, was far greater than just the trucks. The convoy was mainly vehicles smaller than the average Transport Truck.
    The WEF/Fauci/Bekind Bonnie Fear Campaign was on Full Throttle when the convoy arrived, peacefully, at Ottawa, and Turdeau, like the vacuous child that he is, shunned negotiation and diplomacy, and went right to the War Measures Act. No kidnapped British Diplomat, nor Quebec Cabinet Minister execution necessary for Trudeau, Jr. to get out his toy guns, puffed up chest and biggest nonsensical argument to quash reason and imprison better people than he will ever be.
    The Iceberg is turning over, in Canada, the U.S., Albion and squabbling Europe.
    Posted by: kupkee | Jun 25 2024
    —————-
    There have been many political and technical commentators saying that US is trying to find away to crawl out of Ukraine. One of those ways is to obviously put 100% of funding burden on the EU, which now with Ursula VDL getting a 2nd term and Kaja Kallas replacing Borrell as the new foreign director is more than likely to happen.

    If the FED raises interest rates, the EUR will literally crash on top of already turning into a non-export service economy. There is no reason for anyone keep savings in EUR. They will try to fight it through tightening dictatorship and control of bank accounts, but very deadly situation for Eurozone.

    Ukraine’s own economy at this point is made mostly out of foreign aid, that is, reliance on the crumbling Eurozone. Another pillar are bribes to Rada deputies and government officials, black market sales of weapons (also piling up into Europe for future Gladio ops), prostitution and gambling. The tax revenues are falling and the financials won’t tolerate any sort of disruption in foreign aid which can cause Hryvnia inflation. The energy sector has been destroyed, with transport switces between EU and Ukraine all but destroyed and domestic generation mostly destroyed.

    The place will turn into Detroit-on-steroids.

    Posted by: unimperator | Jun 25 2024

    ———

    #162058
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    What follows will make your brain explode from pituitary apoplexy the same as reading pro-semitic exchanges between Dr. D and DBS each day.

    In the Navy and, I suppose, the VA, there’s a special kind of f*cker….The RatF*cker.
    And this guy Shereef Elnahal MD, undersecretary for health, Deplorable White Guy from Johnstown Pa, combat veteran, sidekick of Scott Ritter at Camp Lejeune CAN BE SAID TO HAVE RATF*CKED THE PACT ACT. to a tune of 10x to 40x the benefit any real Veteran received from a successful claim in 1/100th the time and 1/1000th the paperwork.

    Avg Award for Shereef’s cronies: $66,000+

    OIG Report Puts Spotlight on Questionable Bonuses to Top VA Executives

      In September 2023, VA revealed that it had erroneously awarded $10.8 million in bonuses to 182 senior executives at its central office using retention provisions included in the PACT Act. The provisions had been meant to ensure difficult-to-replace employees with highly needed skills were incentivized to stay at VA

      That investigation has now been concluded, and the resulting report focuses blame on VA leaders, particularly Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal, MD

      incentive (CSI) bonuses can be issued when an employee possesses a high-demand skill or skill that there is a shortage of; that skill is directly related to their duties and responsibilities; and employment of an individual with that skill serves a critical, mission-related need. With regard to the $10.8 million provided to these executives, the investigators suggested that VA provided no market factors to justify the bonuses, the amount was determined haphazardly, and the executives were grouped together despite having a wide range of skills and being employed in different departments.

      Of the 182 executives, 148 were VHA employees whose bonuses were signed off on by Elnahal. The rest were VBA employees, signed off by Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs. The awards ranged from $38,986 to $106,473

      Elnahal announced that VISN directors and medical center directors would be receiving CSI bonuses equal to 25% of their base pay across the board. This came as a surprise to Elnahal’s HR team, since he had signed a memorandum the day before approving 25% for VISN directors and 20% for facility directors

      One HR senior executive described to investigators the stark contrast between the ease with which these bonuses were given to executives vs. the hoops required to jump through for low-level employee awards.

      “I can’t even give a GS employee a special contribution award for $250 without writing an entire page about how great they are and forms and process,” they were quoted as saying. “And this, with a stroke of a pen and three sentences, they’re saying these folks are critical because they’re critical, giving all these people this huge amount of money

    #162059
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://x.com/CaptCoronado/status/1805343006146576706
    Update: Russian revenge!! Reports are coming out that Russian air defense forces shot down an American RQ-4 Global Hawk, a $100 million dollar drone over the Black Sea!!!

    #162060
    zerosum
    Participant

    Newsweek
    https://www.newsweek.com › russia-us-spy-drone-black…
    14 hours ago — A Russian newspaper said Monday that the Russian Aerospace Forces may have downed an American RQ-4 Global Hawk spy drone.
    ————–
    https://www.eurasiantimes.com/russians-claims-mig-31-foxhound-shot-down/
    Russians Claim MiG-31 Foxhound ‘Shot Down’ US Global Hawk Drone After ATACMS Attack On Crimea
    By Sakshi Tiwari -June 25, 2024
    —————-

    ‘Reports’ come: ‘RQ-4B shot down over the Black Sea by a MiG-31’


    ‘Reports’ come: ‘RQ-4B shot down over the Black Sea by a MiG-31’
    By Boyko Nikolov On Jun 25, 2024

    UPDATES:

    American officials have dismissed claims circulated by Russian websites—often linked to the Russian Defense Ministry—that an “incident” occurred in the Black Sea yesterday. Specifically, the allegations suggesting a U.S. high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) reconnaissance drone, such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk or its Navy variant, the MQ-4C Triton, was “chased” and shot down by Russian fighter jets, potentially MiG-31s, have been denied.
    Bulgarian Military
    ————

    #162061
    aspnaz
    Participant

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-18/palantir-oracle-pfizer-ceos-meet-senators-on-israel-hostages

    Bend over American, here comes your friendly neighbourhood Jew to have his way with you. Be sure to say “Yes masser” when he has his way with you.

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