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Debt Rattle September 11 2024

Sep 112024
 
 September 11, 2024  Posted by at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Pablo Picasso Bather 1908

 

• Trump Says Debate Performance Against Harris His Best Ever (Sp.)
• Harris Tried to ‘Hide Her Imposter Syndrome’ in Debate – Psychiatrist (Sp.)
• The Votes and Who Counts Them (Jim Kunstler)
• Melania Trump Demands ‘Truth’ About Shooting of Husband (RT)
• Michigan Supreme Court Blocks RFK Jr.’s Bid to Remove Name From Ballot (ET)
• More Ukrainians Want Talks With Russia – WSJ (RT)
• Ukraine Conflict ‘Much Worse’ Than Americans Are Being Told – Trump (RT)
• Slovakia PM Fico Accuses World Of Ignoring Ukraine’s ‘Nazi Troops’ (RT)
• Modi’s Peace Plan: How India Is Navigating The Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• Durov Still Does Not Get It (Karganovic)
• Russian Security Chief Explains West’s Key ‘Mistake’ (RT)
• Kremlin Explains Putin’s Decision on UN General Assembly (RT)
• Elon Musk May Be Summoned to UK Parliament for Questioning on X Activities (Sp.)
• US ‘Going Bankrupt Extremely Quickly’ – Musk (RT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

RFK Trump

 

 

Numbers

 

 

RFK unify

 

 

Mail-in

 

 

judge Joe Brown

 

 

Lara

 

 

Elon SNL

 

 

 

 

Don’t see much commentary on the debate yet. But predictably, both sides will have seen their candidate win.

What’s remarkable is that the Dems all of a sudden want another debate, something they strongly opposed before. That would seem to indicate that they don’t think Kamala won this one.

• Trump Says Debate Performance Against Harris His Best Ever (Sp.)

Former US President Donald Trump said following his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that he had his best debate performance ever, despite Trump believing that the moderators were aiding Harris. “I thought that was my best Debate, EVER, especially since it was THREE ON ONE,” Trump said on Tuesday via Truth Social. People are calling Trump’s performance a “big win,” the former president also said. The Harris campaign likewise praised her debate performance and suggested a second debate in October. Donald Trump criticized President Joe Biden for not making an effort to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin in two years to try to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. “He [Biden] hasn’t even made a phone call in two years to Putin, hasn’t spoken to anybody. They don’t even try and get it. That is a war that’s dying to be settled,” Trump said on Tuesday night in his debate against his Democratic rival Kamala Harris.

Trump said in a presidential debate that he wants the Ukraine conflict to come to an end immediately and claims he will be able to immediately broker a peace plan if reelected. “I want the war to stop, I want to save lives,” Trump said on Tuesday night in the debate against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Trump said he would speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, adding that he would also be able to get both leaders to negotiate and end the conflict. It is in the United States’ best interest to get the Ukraine conflict resolved quickly, Trump added. The campaign of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris said that the second debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump should take place next month, Harris-Walz campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.

“Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris or going backwards with Trump,” O’Malley said after the first presidential debate concluded on Tuesday night. “That’s what they saw tonight and what they should see at a second debate in October. O’Malley also said that Harris is ready for a second debate but questioned whether Trump is ready. Kamala Harris said during a debate with former US President Donald Trump that the United States does not have troops in any conflict zone around the world.

“As of today, there is not one member of the US military who is in active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world – the first time this century,” Harris said on Tuesday evening. The US military has had forces deployed in countries around the world under the Biden administration, including Syria, Iraq and Jordan. During the June debate between Trump and US President Joe Biden, Biden falsely claimed that he was the only president to not have any troops die anywhere in the world. In August 2021, 13 US military servicemembers died during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, due to a suicide bombing at the airport in Kabul. Moreover, in January 2024, three US troops were killed by a drone attack in Jordan.

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“Trump also claimed Harris wants to do a second debate because she “got beaten.”

• Harris Tried to ‘Hide Her Imposter Syndrome’ in Debate – Psychiatrist (Sp.)

Less than two months away from the US presidential election, former POTUS Donald Trump faced off against current Vice President Kamala Harris in a highly anticipated debate on Tuesday night. Donald Trump “made some good points” during the presidential debate, while vice president Kamala Harris got through by “skirting the issues,” board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman told Sputnik. Overall, the face-off was described as “extremely disturbing” by the best-selling author based in Beverly Hills, California. She noted that former California Attorney General Kamala Harris had prepared for the debate “more than for anything else in her life. Even the law boards.”
“In order to hide her imposter syndrome, she memorized lines that she hoped would derail Trump. Imposter syndrome is where someone knows they don’t have the qualifications for the position they are in, so they feel like an imposter.

Kamala doesn’t have the qualifications to be vice president, no less president. She has to know Biden picked her to be vice president because she is a ‘woman of color.’ He picked her to get votes from these demographics, not because she was the most qualified,” the pundit remarked. As for Trump, he was “overly concerned with not wanting to seem out of control” if he took Harris’ bait, the psychiatrist said. She remarked that one of Trump’s “best lines” was when he called out the VP over her father, Donald J. Harris, “for being a Marxist, which we all know is true.” “He knew where the bones were buried and he should have exposed more of them. At times, Kamala exposed her weakness by grimacing and trying to get at Trump more strongly, such as when she resorted to accusing him of being a criminal. His retorts to that were to call it what it was – lawfare,” noted the writer.

Looking ahead, Dr. Lieberman voiced hope that there would be a second debate between Trump and Harris and the former president would have a chance “to expose more of her sinister plans for America.” VP Kamala Harris and former POTUS Donald Trump faced off on Tuesday for their first presidential debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday. After the 90-minute event, hosted by ABC News, Trump told the media that he believed it was his “best debate ever.” Trump also claimed Harris wants to do a second debate because she “got beaten.” The Republican presidential contender has not yet committed to another one-on-one later this month.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1833450191552451008

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jim tells me his host server is/was down, but his articles are also on Substack…

• The Votes and Who Counts Them (Jim Kunstler)

“The world is a dangerous place to live — not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” —Albert Einstein. When The New York Times tells you that the United States Constitution is a threat to democracy — As it did on the front page of its August 31 edition — you know that you are in thrall to exceedingly subtle minds. The Times only employs persons, both birthing and other, of the subtlest minds. You can tell because they are credentialed by our country’s finest institutions of educational credentialing. They come to The Times fully equipped with the armamentarium of advanced, progressive, innovative, nuanced, cutting-edge modes of understanding our world — which, you’ll agree, is a pretty goshdurned complex place, and rather niggardly in yielding its secret workings. Hence, The Times has concluded that the Constitution is flawed, perhaps fatally, because it allowed for the election of Donald Trump once, and now, possibly, a second time:

“It’s no surprise, then, that liberals charge Trump with being a menace to the Constitution. But his presidency and the prospect of his re-election have also generated another, very different, argument: that Trump owes his political ascent to the Constitution, making him a beneficiary of a document that is essentially antidemocratic and, in this day and age, increasingly dysfunctional.” The Constitution does not stipulate a particular election day, but subsequent US law established the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the day for federal elections (the states can establish their own election dates for state and local offices). This changed beginning in the year 2000, when Oregon legislated to conduct all elections by mail-in ballot and other states followed with alterations to voting methods beyond a single election day.

The Covid-19 pandemic prompted states to permanently relax rules on absentee ballots and expand mail-in voting, under guidance from the federal agencies such as the CDC, while the CARES Act of 2020 provided emergency funding to implement procedures for mail-in voting in order to reduce in-person voting that might enable the spread of Covid-19. All of that followed orderly legislative procedure. The result was widespread ballot fraud, especially in crucial swing voting districts, much of it arrant. Contrary to official narratives out of the “Joe Biden” administration and the salient organs of corporate news, the allegations of widespread fraud were not “baseless” nor were they “conspiracy theories.” Subtle minds schooled in nuanced, cutting-age modes of analysis agreed to ignore documentary evidence of ballot fraud because it disfavored their preferred candidate, “Joe Biden.” Subtler judicial minds subsequently dismissed challenges to official tallies.

Other shenanigans such as the $400-million that Mark Zuckerberg (Meta and Facebook) injected into swing districts for “election administration and voter turn-out,” via his Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), was not adjudicated in any court. The upshot of the “Zuckerbucks” prank was that polling offiicials in many precincts were replaced by Democratic Party activists who ended up counting the votes. The Federal Election Commission (after “Joe Biden” became president) decided that under federal campaign finance law, the contributions were not seen as illegal — though the “Zuckerbucks” scandal did lead to legislative reform in several states.

You might suppose in the years since the 2020 election that opportunity would be seized to materially correct the weaknesses of mail-in ballots, early voting, ballot “harvesting” practices, giant “balloting centers,” and the use of vote-tallying machines (Dominion, etc.) with modems allowing for Internet hackery. The best and simplest reform would be a return to paper ballots cast only on one election day, with voter ID and proof of citizenship (accomplished prior in voter registration), conducted in smaller, distributed precinct polling places that make hand-counting of ballots practical. Alas, this was too difficult for Congress, while the subtle, nuanced, cutting-edge minds working in news media were not interested in such straightforward reform and did not advocate for it.

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”There is definitely more to this story, and we need to uncover the truth..”

• Melania Trump Demands ‘Truth’ About Shooting of Husband (RT)

Former First Lady Melania Trump has called for answers to “uncover the truth” behind the attempted assassination of her husband, former President Donald Trump, nearly two months ago. Trump narrowly escaped death when Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire on him during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. The incident was a “horrible, distressing experience” for the family, Melania said in a video posted on X on Tuesday. ”Now, the silence around it feels heavy. I can’t help but wonder: Why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech?” The would-be assassin positioned himself on a nearby rooftop that provided an unobstructed view of the Republican candidate. One bullet grazed the former president’s right ear, resulting in one attendee’s death and injuries to two others. The shooter was subsequently killed by Secret Service agents.

The House of Representatives unanimously voted to create a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination. Comprised of seven Republicans and six Democrats, the task force aims to examine potential security lapses at the federal, state, and local levels of law enforcement that preceded the incident. In an interview last month, Trump accused President Joe Biden and his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, of being partly responsible for the assassination attempt. “I think to a certain extent it’s Biden’s fault and Harris’ fault,” he said, claiming they “were making it very difficult to have proper staffing in terms of Secret Service” and “weren’t too interested in my health and safety,” while promoting rhetoric that could have encouraged the shooter. ”There is definitely more to this story, and we need to uncover the truth,” Melania said in the video, which appears to promote her upcoming memoir.

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“..a significant cost to the integrity of the election: the voters will be improperly denied a choice between persons who are actually candidates, and who are willing to serve if elected..”

• Michigan Supreme Court Blocks RFK Jr.’s Bid to Remove Name From Ballot (ET)

The Michigan Supreme Court has denied Robert F. Kennedy’s request to have his name removed from the state’s general election ballot, reversing a lower court ruling and closing the last legal avenue available to Kennedy in the case. In a split 5–2 ruling issued on Sept. 9, the Michigan Supreme Court reinstated the original ruling by the Michigan Court of Claims, which denied Kennedy’s motion for mandamus relief, an extraordinary legal remedy that requires a plaintiff to demonstrate a clear legal right and that the defendant, in this case the Michigan Secretary of State, has a clear duty to act. The high court ruled that Kennedy did not provide a clear legal basis requiring the removal of his name from the November ballot and failed to identify a law that would leave no room for discretion in this matter on the part of election officials.

“Plaintiff has neither pointed to any source of law that prescribes and defines a duty to withdraw a candidate’s name from the ballot nor demonstrated his clear legal right to performance of this specific duty, let alone identified a source of law written with ‘such precision and certainty as to leave nothing to the exercise of discretion or judgment,’” reads the majority opinion, which reversed an appeals court’s decision that sided with Kennedy and reinstated the lower court’s decision that dismissed his request with prejudice. Michigan Supreme Court Justices Brian K. Zahra and David F. Viviano dissented. They argued that there was no statute prohibiting Kennedy from withdrawing from the election and no practical reason to deny Kennedy’s request to remove his name from the ballot before ballots were printed. Their dissent focused on harm to voters, contending that keeping Kennedy on the ballot would confuse voters and distort the true electoral choice.

“There is, however, a significant cost to the integrity of the election: the voters will be improperly denied a choice between persons who are actually candidates, and who are willing to serve if elected,” the dissenting justices wrote. “The ballots printed as a result of the Court’s decision will have the potential to confuse the voters, distort their choices, and pervert the true popular will and affect the outcome of the election.” Days before the Supreme Court decision, the Michigan Court of Appeals argued that Kennedy had a “clear legal right” to withdraw, emphasizing that no specific statute prevented a presidential candidate from stepping down, even one nominated by a minor party. Kennedy, who had been nominated by the Natural Law Party, withdrew from the presidential race on Aug. 23 and endorsed former President Donald Trump. At the time, Kennedy said he wanted his name removed in key swing states so as not to draw votes away from the former president.

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“..57% of the public wanted dialogue with Russia to begin..”

• More Ukrainians Want Talks With Russia – WSJ (RT)

An increasing number of Ukrainians want Kiev to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Moscow, the Wall Street Journal has reported. In its article on Tuesday, the US outlet acknowledged that “some Ukrainians are asking a question that had until recently been taboo: Is it time to try to negotiate?” According to the article, opinion polls show that support for talks with Russia has been “creeping upward” in Ukraine since the failure of Kiev’s much-hyped counteroffensive last year. While it contended that a majority of Ukrainians still want their country to keep fighting to retake all territories captured by Russia, it did not provide exact figures. Another poll, published by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in early August, suggested that 57% of the public wanted dialogue with Russia to begin.

The outlet cited a 33-year-old school teacher from the southeastern city of Zaporozhye, who said that she is willing to give up any part of territory in exchange for peace so that her husband could return home from the front line. “Where can we go with this war?” she wondered. The group that is most skeptical about a peace deal with Russia is the Ukrainian military, with one recent survey showing that only 18% of active-duty troops and veterans are in favor of the talks, the article read. According to the same poll, 15% of soldiers and veterans said they would join an armed protest if Kiev signs an unfavorable agreement with Moscow. The members of the military who spoke to the WSJ said that they were concerned that Russia could use a pause in the fighting to prepare for a new attack on Ukraine and that seeking peace with concessions would mean that the sacrifice of their fallen comrades had been in vain.

During his meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky suggested that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine should end “this fall.” According to Zelensky, in order for this happen, NATO must keep arming Kiev and increase pressure on Moscow to agree to the Ukrainian peace plan, which calls for the withdrawal of Russian forces from all territories that Kiev considers its own, including Crimea, and for Moscow to pay reparations and submit its officials to war tribunals.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that Moscow had “never refused” negotiations with Kiev, but stressed that they should take place “not on the basis of some ephemeral demands but on the basis of the documents that were agreed to and actually initialized in Istanbul” in late March 2022, when the sides last sat at the negotiating table. During the talks in Türkiye, Ukraine was willing to declare military neutrality, limit its armed forces, and vow not to discriminate against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees, Putin said.

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“Don’t kid yourself… We are playing with WWIII, and we have a president that… Where is our president?”

• Ukraine Conflict ‘Much Worse’ Than Americans Are Being Told – Trump (RT)

Donald Trump has claimed that President Joe Biden’s Ukraine policy – now fully adopted by his Democratic rival Kamala Harris – is dragging the US into a third world war. He reiterated that he would settle the conflict “in 24 hours” if elected president this November, even before being sworn in. During a debate with Harris on Tuesday, Trump asserted that the conflict would never have occurred had he still been in the White House in early 2022. When asked if he wanted Kiev to win, the Republican replied that he wanted “the war to stop.” “I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being wasted… People are being killed by the millions…. It’s so much worse than the numbers you’re getting, which are fake,” he claimed, without clarifying the source of those estimates.

The moderator pressed for a direct answer, inquiring whether Trump believes “it’s in the US’s best interest for Ukraine to win this war.” “I think it’s in the US’s best interest to get this war finished and just get it done. We need to negotiate a deal because we have to stop all these human lives from being destroyed,” Trump insisted. The former president then claimed he had a “good relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that everything has “gone to hell” since he left office. “When I saw Putin building up soldiers on Ukraine’s border, I thought: ‘Oh, he must be negotiating; it must be a strong point of negotiation,’” Trump stated. ”Well, it wasn’t, because Biden had no idea how to talk to him. He had no idea how to stop it… And it is only getting worse; it could lead to World War III,” he added. “Don’t kid yourself… We are playing with WWIII, and we have a president that… Where is our president?”

“They threw him out of the campaign like a dog… We have a president that doesn’t even know he’s alive.” “I will get it settled before I even become president,” Trump promised. “If I win, when I’m president-elect… I’ll get them together.” Harris countered by claiming that the only reason Trump says “this war would be over within 24 hours” is that he would simply give it up. “And that’s not who we are as Americans,” she added. The Vice President went on to tout her role in consolidating Western support for Ukraine, claiming that because of “the work that I and others did,” along with the provision of “air defense, ammunition, artillery, javelins, and Abrams tanks,” Ukraine remains an “independent and free” country.

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“The international community should recognize that troops using Nazi insignia, who often appear to act as such, cannot fight in Ukraine.”

• Slovakia PM Fico Accuses World Of Ignoring Ukraine’s ‘Nazi Troops’ (RT)

People eager to condemn the atrocities committed by the Third Reich are at the same time turning a blind eye to Ukrainian troops wearing Nazi symbols today, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has lamented. The head of the government gave a speech at the holocaust museum located at the former site of the Sered concentration camp on Monday in western Slovakia, in which he highlighted the need to educate new generations about the crimes committed by Nazis during World War II before bringing up the Ukraine conflict. “We all talk about fascism, Nazism, while silently tolerating units moving across Ukraine that have a very clear label and are connected to movements that we consider dangerous and forbidden today. Since it is a geopolitical fight, nobody cares,” Fico said.

“I want to pay tribute to the victims, not with pathetic speech, but I want to call for action,” he added. “The international community should recognize that troops using Nazi insignia, who often appear to act as such, cannot fight in Ukraine.” Kiev has embraced as heroes Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with Nazi Germany while the symbols and ideology of the Third Reich have been popular among growing right-wing forces in the country for decades. The Azov battalion, accused of war crimes and atrocities, is infamous for its open embrace of bigotry and white supremacism, although its successor unit claims to have mostly eradicated such people from its ranks. Ukrainian troops have repeatedly been filmed brandishing Nazi iconography on their uniforms and weapons, including during the ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region.

In a widely publicized incident, two Ukrainian soldiers filmed themselves imitating invading Wehrmacht troops while harassing an elderly Russian civilian. The man went missing after the encounter. Thousands of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators made their way to Western nations, such as Canada, when the Axis powers were defeated in 1945. Some of them were later used by the CIA in attempts to destabilize the USSR during the Cold War. Just last week, Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa expressed reservations against releasing the list of some 900 alleged Nazi criminals who fled to the country after the war. Making the names public may embarrass the country’s Ukrainian community, officials told the media. The Slovakian prime minister is a vocal critic of Western support for Kiev against Moscow. The Ukrainian Nazi link is one of the reasons he has cited in explaining his position.

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“India refused, stating publicly that Zelensky’s plan was not the only one to be considered, as other peace plans were also on the table..”

• Modi’s Peace Plan: How India Is Navigating The Ukraine Conflict (RT)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to play a role in promoting a negotiated resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. He has India’s national interest in mind, as the nation of 1.4 billion people needs a peaceful international environment in which to grow, especially when it is at a critical stage in its development process and aims to become the third largest economy before the end of the decade. India has historical ties of friendship and trust with Russia; its defense ties with Moscow are crucial for its security. It is also strengthening its ties with the US and EU, which are its major economic and technology partners, and with whom people-to-people ties are very strong. While Russia does not interfere in New Delhi’s ties with its Western partners, the US and the EU have wanted India to dilute its ties with Moscow. American sanctions, especially on its financial sector, are, in any case, interfering in India’s ties with Russia.

India has a philosophy of ‘vishwabandhu’- “friendship with all in the world”- which cannot be practiced in a revived Cold War-type global situation that has seen the virtual collapse of multilateralism. It would want to preserve its ties with Russia and build them further, even as it seeks to expand its ties with the US and Europe. This presents an increasingly difficult diplomatic challenge. India is not unaware of the complexities of the Ukraine conflict and the challenge of finding common ground between the diametrically opposed Ukrainian and Russian positions on issues of territory, Ukraine’s NATO membership, etc. The Ukrainian position has the support of the US, NATO and the EU, who continue to arm and fund Kiev. They remain determined that Russia must not be allowed to win the war as that would threaten the security of Europe. The issue goes well beyond Ukraine; it is one of a future security architecture of Europe that rejects Russia as a partner.

India is party to several UN resolutions, and formally subscribes to the rhetoric that sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as international law and the UN Charter, should be respected; however, this does not offer a pathway to a resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. In any eventual resolution, some territorial adjustments will be inevitable, as will the security-related aspects inherent in the issue of Ukrainian membership in NATO. A security formula will have to be found outside the NATO framework. Modi has made it known on more than one occasion that he is ready to contribute to a peace process in Ukraine in whatever possible way. He reiterated that message at his summit meeting with Putin in July this year. In August, he visited Kiev with a view to closing the circle and pressing for the peace option.

That visit ended in some controversy. Zelensky pushed his 10 point peace plan,(add comma) and for establishing its peace credentials(remove semi-colon) Ukraine pressed India to join the communiqué issued at the end of the Peace Summit in Switzerland in June. India refused, stating publicly that Zelensky’s plan was not the only one to be considered, as other peace plans were also on the table, that all stakeholders had to be involved, and innovative solutions needed to be explored. India’s readiness to promote peace on consensual terms was reiterated. Be that as it may, by making a most uncomfortable trip to Ukraine, Modi created more diplomatic space for India, allowing it to manage Western pressures and shift from a perceived pro-Russian stance to a position of greater neutrality.

Modi has spoken to Biden about his Ukraine visit and has also briefed Putin. Talk of some form of Indian mediatory role in Ukraine gained attention after Putin said at the Eastern Economic Forum at Vladivostok last week that he and Modi had exchanged perspectives on the Ukraine conflict and insights from his visit to Kiev. Contrary to some commentary in India suggesting that Modi’s visit to Ukraine signaled a shift in India’s ties with Russia, Putin acknowledged these peace initiatives. He stated that he respected Russia’s friends and partners — especially China, Brazil, and India —which have genuinely sought to resolve the conflict and that he was in constant communication with them on this issue.

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“..the premise that a person cannot be held criminally liable for third-party acts, is a naïve and utterly misguided approach.”

“..on another level he is just a computer nerd and his incoherent actions and statements are proof of that..”

• Durov Still Does Not Get It (Karganovic)

After being released on bail from a French prison, Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov made several statements which indicate that he is labouring under grave illusions about the nature of his predicament. He described the action of the French authorities, which resulted in his arrest and detention on French territory, as “surprising and misguided.” He then went on to question the legal premise of his detention and subsequent indictment, which is that he could be held “personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram.”) It is disappointing to see a thirty-nine years old sophisticated cosmopolitan adult, traumatised as he must be by his recent experiences, reasoning like a child. One should have expected a person of Durov’s wealth to secure competent legal assistance to help him understand the legal “facts of life” pertaining to his case.

There are two basic facts that the lawyer selected by Durov to represent him should have explained to his client. Incidentally, that lawyer is extremely well wired into the French establishment and the judicial system which is persecuting his bewildered protégé. It would not be uncharitable to say that his loyalties are dubious. The first and most fundamental of these facts is the political nature of the case. Durov’s predicament cannot be properly understood apart from that reality. Recognition of that fact does not exclude entirely the effective use of legal arguments and remedies but it marginalises their practical impact. The second important fact that a conscientious legal professional already in the first interview would have made clear to his client is that in the real world in which Durov is facing grave criminal charges, indulging intuitive notions of justice, including the premise that a person cannot be held criminally liable for third-party acts, is a naïve and utterly misguided approach.

Pavel Durov is a highly intelligent and, in his field, very accomplished individual. But on another level he is just a computer nerd and his incoherent actions and statements are proof of that. Contrary to what he seems to think possible, and as incompatible as that may appear to be with the concept of natural justice, under specific circumstances an individual can be criminally charged for the acts of third parties. Mechanisms that make that possible already are firmly in place. We would not necessarily be wrong to characterise those mechanisms as repugnant to the natural sense of justice, or even as quasi-legal. But formally they are well established and are integral components of criminal law. Tyrannical political systems are free to invoke those instruments whenever they decide to target a bothersome non-conformist such as Pavel Durov.

Whilst on the one track relentless pressure is undoubtedly being applied to the conditionally released but still closely supervised Durov to accede to the demands of deep state structures and turn Telegram’s encryption keys over to security agencies, on a parallel track the legal case against him is being constructed. It will be based on some variant or derivative of the theory of strict liability. The exact contours of that variant are yet to be defined as the case proceeds, and everything will depend on how the defendant responds to the combination of carrots and sticks that are now being put in front of him.

Since no evidence is being offered to prove that acting personally in his capacity as Telegram CEO Durov was complicit in any of the incriminating activities listed in the charge sheet, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that some version of strict liability will be the vehicle of choice to make the accusations stick. Unless he capitulates, the objective is to put him away for a long time, or at least to threaten him credibly with such an outcome in order to exact his cooperation. Strict liability is a convenient tool because it offers many shortcuts to the Prosecution. It achieves the desired effect in the absence of proof of specific intent and regardless of the defendant’s mental state, thus eliminating for the prosecution major evidentiary hurdles.

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“..in 1994 then-President Boris Yeltsin told his US counterpart, Bill Clinton, that “Russia has to be the first country to join NATO.”

• Russian Security Chief Explains West’s Key ‘Mistake’ (RT)

The US and its allies missed an opportunity to neutralize Russia by fully embracing it in the 1990s, Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu believes. In an interview with Rossiya-24 channel aired on Tuesday, the former defense minister recalled how in 1994 then-President Boris Yeltsin told his US counterpart, Bill Clinton, that “Russia has to be the first country to join NATO.” “If at that point they fast-tracked us into the European Union… I believe we would have lost our sovereignty by today. The resources and natural deposits that our country has would have been largely redistributed and snatched,” Shoigu said. Russia was in a deep financial hole in the mid 1990s and relied on foreign aid to remain afloat, so it would have willingly gone into the Western fold, if offered, the official argued.


Clinton Yeltsin 1996

Shoigu recalled that, at the time, he was monitoring the arrival of tranches of foreign subsidies to rush to the government and get some funding to pay salaries to workers at the Emergencies Ministry, which he headed. ”They’ve made a mistake. They should have gotten us into the EU as soon as possible. And we would be like the EU members: just a command from across the ocean, we would be folding our paws and getting ready to jump through a hoop,” Shoigu mused in this week’s interview. As an example of European compliance with US whims, Shoigu cited the scandal involving French helicopter carriers of the Mistral class, which Russia ordered in 2011 for its Navy.

The deal was called off after the 2014 armed coup in Kiev, an attempt to punish Moscow for accepting breakaway Crimea as a new Russian region. Washington pressured Paris into tearing up the contract with Russia by leveraging the size of a pending fine on a French bank, Shoigu claimed. He was apparently referring to the Paris-listed BNP Paribas, which in June 2014 agreed to enter a guilty plea with the Americans in a case of sanctions avoidance and to pay a $9 billion penalty to close the case. According to the French authorities, scrapping the Mistral deal at the last minute and selling the ships to Egypt instead came at a net loss of €409 million ($450 mn).

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“The US is a country that doesn’t fulfill its obligations as a host country of the UN headquarters in the best way. So, it’s probably not the best place to travel right now..”

• Kremlin Explains Putin’s Decision on UN General Assembly (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend this year’s high-level session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York because the US is not a suitable host for such events, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. The UN General Assembly opens on Tuesday and will end on September 30. It will culminate with a week of high-level events between September 23 and 27, which will feature speeches by numerous world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and French President Emmanuel Macron. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is also expected to attend and deliver a speech on September 25. Commenting on Moscow’s participation, Peskov signaled that Putin has no plans to fly to New York.

“He hasn’t gone there in recent years. The US is a country that doesn’t fulfill its obligations as a host country of the UN headquarters in the best way. So, it’s probably not the best place to travel right now,” the spokesman said. The last time Putin personally addressed a UN General Assembly session was in 2015, while in 2020 he delivered a pre-recorded speech at the event. After the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the US imposed sanctions on numerous top Russian officials, including Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. However, under the 1947 Headquarters Agreement between the US and the UN, Washington is obliged to grant diplomats and representatives of member states immunity and unimpeded access to UN headquarters.

Against this background, the Russian delegation to the UN General Assembly will be headed by Lavrov. Russian officials have on numerous occasions accused the US of failing in its UN obligations, pointing to long delays in issuing visas to Russian diplomatic personnel. In April 2023, the US also declined to grant entry to Russian journalists accompanying Lavrov to UN headquarters, with officials in Washington accusing them of spreading “propaganda.” Lavrov denounced the decision, claiming that the US “had done something stupid.” Washington, he added, “showed what its sworn assurances about protecting freedom of speech, access to information, and so on are really worth.”

Read more …

“If an official summons is ignored, MPs may consider it a lack of respect for parliament, but this sanction is only symbolic..”

• Elon Musk May Be Summoned to UK Parliament for Questioning on X Activities (Sp.)

The British parliament may summon US entrepreneur Elon Musk to testify about the activities of his social network X, in particular on the issue of moderation and the fight against hateful content, Financial Times reported on Monday. Ruling Labour Party parliamentarian Dawn Butler told the newspaper that the American entrepreneur would be invited as a witness. Butler is running to head the parliamentary science and technology committee, the publication said. Such committees examine the activities of ministers, civil servants and leading figures in a particular field within the framework of a certain issue. “It is vital for the committee to formally examine the use of algorithms in pushing hateful material — and the moderation of such content — on X and other social media platforms,” Butler said.

The British lawmakers can summon someone to answer questions from the committee, but they cannot force them to attend. If an official summons is ignored, MPs may consider it a lack of respect for parliament, but this sanction is only symbolic, the publication says. In August, British officials complained that X did not cooperate with the authorities in removing posts that posed a threat to national security during the wave of unrest. Musk himself, against the backdrop of mass protests in Britain, predicted a civil war in the country, a statement that caused discontent in London.

Read more …

“..the US would have to pay over $1.2 trillion in interest on the debt in the coming 12 months, which is reportedly equal to about 25% of government revenue..”

• US ‘Going Bankrupt Extremely Quickly’ – Musk (RT)

The cost of servicing the vast US federal debt now outstrips the defense budget, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has claimed in an interview with the All-In podcast. He added that the country is “going bankrupt extremely quickly.” The US Treasury announced in late July that the national debt had surpassed $35 trillion, having soared by a trillion in a six-month period. In June, the US House Of Representatives passed its version of the annual defense policy bill that authorizes a record $895 billion in spending, marking an increase of 1% compared to the previous fiscal year. “Interest payments on the national debt are now higher than the entire Defense Department budget and rising,” Musk said, warning that the US is “going bankrupt extremely quickly.”

The tycoon stressed that every trillion dollars of debt added is money that “our kids and grandkids are going to have to pay somehow.” Earlier this week, the tech billionaire shared a post on his X platform (formerly Twitter) by an account focused on finance and economics, stating that the US would have to pay over $1.2 trillion in interest on the debt in the coming 12 months, which is reportedly equal to about 25% of government revenue. Earlier this month, Musk warned that the current rate of government spending was putting the US in the fast lane to bankruptcy, and that government overspending was stoking inflation. In August, the US Labor Department reported that annual inflation had dipped below 3% in the previous month for the first time since 2021. Prices of goods and services went up by 2.9%, while core inflation, which excludes the food and energy industries, rose by 3.2% over the previous 12 months.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

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Home › Forums › Debt Rattle September 11 2024

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  • September 11, 2024 at 8:40 am #168696
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    Pablo Picasso Bather 1908   • Trump Says Debate Performance Against Harris His Best Ever (Sp.) • Harris Tried to ‘Hide Her Imposter Syndrome’ in
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle September 11 2024]

    September 11, 2024 at 9:46 am #168698
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Is Musk delusional?
    Where’s Elon’s gratitude?

    September 11, 2024 at 10:17 am #168699
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/chinese-spy-case-sheds-light-state-level-security-woes-intelligence-experts-warn

    I suppose the Chinese “threat” is real otherwise Zerohedge.com wouldn’t have published it.

    I also suppose the Chinese threat pales in comparison to the Israeli/Jewish infiltration and control of all aspects of American life.

    Ratio
    1,400,000,000 to 15,700,000

    No one is saying these ppl vote, act or engage in criminal activity as a monolithic block. I mean some folk suggest that about the Chinese, but who except the racist, delusional few believe over a billion people can be made to goose step to the same tune.

    September 11, 2024 at 10:24 am #168700
    tboc
    Participant

    the Nielson viewers numbers will reveal the winners in last night’s spectacle
    who advertised before the spectacle and who advertised after the spectacle
    viewers before, viewers at the half way point, viewers at the completeion, viewers thirty minutes after

    “the pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray……….”Penny Lane

    Doc Rich – the whole group are aberrant personalies

    September 11, 2024 at 10:30 am #168701
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “[CIA Director] Burns and Moore observed that “there is no question that the international world order – the balanced system that has led to relative peace and stability and delivered rising living standards, opportunities and prosperity – is under threat in a way we haven’t seen since the cold war.” By us.

    When was this supposed peace and prosperity of which you speak? We’ve been in a CIA-driven foreign war every day of my life, and now, 5 wars, 10 wars, who can keep count? What prosperity? Income levels and standards of living have dropped every day of my life THANKS to your 10 concurrent ongoing illegal wars every day of my life.

    And did the Iraqis and the Libyans REALLY think that their nations are far more stable thanks to you and us?

    But as your team says: “A million dead kids? A good start; it was worth it.”

    “Germany’s Scholz Wants ‘Faster Pace’ Of Progress Toward Peace In Ukraine

    NOW they want peace. When every bomb in half the world has already gone off, some of them in Russia. AFTER Iron Cross tanks invaded. AFTER they lost, both the war, and the bonds, and elections. Now. Now Scholz will START, kinda-maybe getting a date together to talk about the date together of the negotiations. GFY.

    “Only Six Countries Operate Nuclear Submarines

    Talk about out-of-context, WHY would anyone ever need them? Nuclear missiles, delivered off your coast. That’s it. Other subs (diesel) is cheaper, smaller, and quieter. So this is for OFFENSIVE people to ATTACK others. Well good! Only six nations out of 200 are trying to invade and kill anyone. …What’s that? My nation owns almost all of them? Yeah, I know. Never Forget.

    “Watch : Donald Trump And Kamala Harris Debate: Kamala can’t blow this one.”

    Ah, the jokes write themselves, don’t they? Actually, she probably could. We’d all believe anything this election, and the Democrats would still support her. Obviously, since that how she got here.

    “CNN Journalist Suggests It’s Unfair to Ask Kamala About “Policy Detail”

    All the more reason for her to blow this one! What else would she do with her debate time if she can’t talk? She has her mouth full. I don’t know what to say: I didn’t do it; she did. I would tell her not to, but too late for that.

    Smokey and the Commie: Well one side seems to be continuously enlivened and having harmless fun. But history shows that fun is on the wrong side of history, and censorship always wins, right?

    “REPORT: 20% of mail-in ballots were fraudulent in the 2020 election according to a study conducted by the Heartland Institute.” (PA)

    Actually all of them were, the PA Supreme Court ruled that all the election changes were illegal, as not done through Legislature. Arguing from lies on lies. Why? Well probably because you’re arguing against power, where you reject their lie and they don’t concede. So you move to a lie that might have more traction, then lower and lower until one sticks and erodes their power. Why that works I don’t know, but that’s not truth.

    “the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris or going backwards with Trump,”

    Great expression of The Religion of Progress. ALL places forward are good. ANYTHING in the past is bad. Like air and water, they were in the past, they’re bad. Reminds me of the old corporate slogan “Change is good! Don’t be afraid of change.” Yeah, well change is also bad if you’re doing something retarded, which you usually are. Change is bad when you’re installing a new call center system or rules that are far worse than the last one so everyone quits, which is usually the case these days, and 99% of the time if it’s a computer.

    Because we all know, if you light a candle, and open a bottle of wine, both of which are from the past, you then have to get a slave and do a lynching, which are also from the past. No I am not kidding. They say, “Maybe we should move back to the wages of 1960” they say, “But then we’d have to install separate drinking fountains”. What do you do when that’s the universal level of discussion? It makes “Idiocracy” look genius-level. I say “I’d like to ride a horse now” and they say, “Well we’d have to sink all our nuclear subs and build 100 viking longboats then, and we just don’t have the time.”

    Go Forward, not backward. Corollary: this is the UniParty into the UniFuture. “There can be only one™” …Future. …And that future is Fully-Automated Luxury Space Communism. (or just “Communism” for short. No: just ask them. They’ll joyfully tell you that’s the goal.) If you want an apple tree for your kids to climb on, sorry, you’re flat out of luck. No open fires. No brewing beer. No bare feet. No dirt for 10,000 light years. Definitely not birth, that’s messy. You WILL wear the leotard Onesie or be fired from Star Fleet. All uniforms, clothes, and behaviors are the same. That’s Diversity!™

    Just watch their language, you know who they are. Never stop talking. And they are clearly the profoundly mentally ill.

    “As of today, there is not one member of the US military who is in active duty in a combat zone,”

    Huh? We’re literally in Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, etc. A NATO head was just killed in “South of south “Poland” today.

    “• Melania Trump Demands ‘Truth’ About Shooting of Husband (RT)

    What is this? There was an assassination? Someone was shot? And no report on it yet, to anyone? I’ll fill you in on Martensen, two police that were there, nobody knows what they were doing. De nada. Now literal months later, no one asked. They were in the upper window and went into all four rooms, opened all four windows, then left. Note the timing here: they’ve been here all day, setting up for only ONE minute: the minute Trump is on stage. That’s the whole reason they, and a week’s worth of work, exist. But according to them, the VERY minute Trump takes the stage, they all abandon their posts, and ONLY that minute, while Crooks is up Clang! Clang! Clang! Throwing his gun and backpack on the steel roof, when they could look out the window and hit him with a shoe. Scat you! You’d expect even people inside could hear that.

    We KNOW they could hear everyone on the lawn shouting “He’s on the roof! He’s got a gun!” because everyone on the lawn could hear it. So if you’re in the window 10 feet above you hear it. Then say, “Meh, they got this.” and go help look for Crooks by abandoning your post, breaking all orders, and leaving the gun and windows open behind you. Yup!

    Have to re-set how that works: Rule One, ALL and Every security detail, ALWAYS: NO OPEN WINDOWS. Ever. They tape them shut so you can see if they’ve been tampered at a distance. They had four, not just their own, but SPECIFICALLY went into the other rooms and opened them all, on purpose. Then the snipers said, “Huh, open windows! Well finally! After all these years! I do not find that suspicious at all.” And did nothing.

    Then the minute Trump was up, they ALREADY KNEW Crooks was missing. And that ALREADY WAS a security threat since Hercules 2 abandoned their post, pivoted from the south to the north, and aimed at that building. That means something major was happening. Then Secret Service said, “All clear, please put the President on stage while our backpack suspect is missing and Hercules is wildly trying to find the target.” Yup. Official consensus reality.

    Hey, do you know the OTHER reason that’s not allowed? Because the best way to do this is, Pop! Shoot you in the face, take YOUR gun, your sniper nest, and shoot back. Then you don’t need to carry anything and walk in grey man like Jason Bourne. Duh. So No open windows. No leaving the tripod IN the open window, already sighted for range.

    That’s not the best part. Who are the two who broke every rule, abandoned every post, opened, every window, then left? Well one is Mr. OfficerTattoo-Sleeve. Why is that important? Because witnesses who claim there was a second shooter said that shooter had a tattoo-sleeve, shooting out of the building window.

    Anyone have any questions? No, I guess? Congress is asking Beaver Police if they offered them radios. One person was fired. For multiple murders and attempted murders of a President. Golly gee! However will she cope with being FIRED after decades at six-figure incomes and full life health care? Shucks. Well, our work here is done…

    Well, if anything would have happened, they would investigate, so I can only conclude, like Alexa and Google, that Trump was not shot. What assassination? If someone was shot, surely the world’s largest police state would look into it a little, right? That’s what police states are universally for, right? To protect the people?

    “• Russian Security Chief Explains West’s Key ‘Mistake’ (RT)

    Evil is as evil does. These guys couldn’t take the win, the Cold War ended. They had to GRIND it. They had to make all nations subservient, crawling subservient, obeisant to the United States. Backtrack: After 20 year of the CIA constantly trying to start a worldwide nuclear exchange, CONSTANTLY, for any reason (see the Reagan movie), and knowing there was like nothing left of the CIA-fighting White Hats that had constantly been shoved out then, under Nixon, the CIA’s 2nd coup, (official reality now, see “Deep Throat”) and so on, what remained of practical sense re-calibrated and tried to get just the MAJOR issue done. And put in behind only ONE guy, for ONE task, Reagan, having to screw and displace “Mr. NWO” CIA Director Bush to do it. …And good thing they did, in hindsight. Bush was both completely, universally evil, AND really, dangerously competent, unlike so many after him. It’s very likely if he would have gotten in, understated as he was, we’d be in a NWO one-government fascist state today. …I mean more than now, they’re decades behind schedule.

    So Reagan got in, and can’t SAY what he’s up to. Or the CIA and WSJ would stop him. But it wasn’t entirely a secret either, as his Star Wars plan revealed. He’s throwing bones to the MICMAC, invading bulls—t nations for the CIA, anything they want to get space for this ONE thing. — A thing they can’t see because they’re mentally-ill psychopaths: Reagan was going to END the Cold War by NOT #winning it. Just ending it, and with it ending the nuclear threat the CIA was eventually going to get popped off. We can’t stop THEM, the whole KPop Derp State at this time, with our levels of power, but we can stop THIS. So telling the CIA, MICMAC that we were going to WIN, …and spend!!! Biggest spending evah!!! Banks, Euro-control all on board!!! He instead bankrupted the USSR and reformed them. Not bombing, not invading.

    …But that takes time, and by the time it was running, had concluded, two Presidents and Clinton was in charge. He couldn’t entirely, fully get in, but cranks like Nuland were running it, trying to get this level they had always dreamed of, to WIN Russia, and TAKE everything, where Russia ceases to exist…a dream of 1947. Jesus, a lifetime before. Two generations before. Do these guys ever adjust their antenna? And really 1847, and the UK Crimean war, of the British Monarchy on the Russian Monarchy, their cousins. THAT is where this goes back to.

    But Reagan handed them this win, and in their overreach they lost it TWICE. Because they are just THAT. INCOMPETENT. Incompetent, mouth-breathing, glue-sniffing inbred morons. Lost the peace dividend, which also would have won the U.S. voters. AND lost Russia as a colony and fiefdom. So by 1994, Harris supporter and #1 Fan, Dick Cheney, was already saying we had to preemptively nuke them. …While they were flat and had nothing, 10 year drop in life expectancy. …But while he’s a mentally-ill psychopath, he wasn’t wrong. If they didn’t do it then, Russia would get off the leash and be free, stopping their One-world fascist dream. Nightmare.

    So their key mistake? TO GO TOO FAR. Russia loved the West and was all on board in 1989, 1994. They would indeed have taken any EU, they would have won the culture, then like the United States, be entirely undermined, neutered, and consumed. Gay AF. But that wasn’t ENOUGH. They had to have MOAR.

    …So evil is as evil does, and they defeated themselves once again, as is forever with raw evil. So join the winning side.

    “• Elon Musk May Be Summoned to UK Parliament for Questioning on X Activities (Sp.)

    After they just arrested Durov? Yeah, I don’t think so.

    “asset for many intelligence agencies at the same time before being installed as the President”

    That’s why, like Biden, “Obama” isn’t running things. He never was. So who is? People we didn’t elect and never see? Is that bad?

    “Biden: What more do you need to see?”

    Um, ANY research at all??? And back to the single thing they can’t understand: my not being vaccinated doesn’t risk you AT ALL. …If your vaccine works at all, right? Still over everyone’s head. Even today, 10,000 times hearing that later.

    …Aaaaaaaand turned out the vax didn’t work since everyone who took it got Covid. Or everyone I know anyway.

    Astra was banned in 5 countries, so it wasn’t safe either. This is consensus reality. …Still doesn’t matter. Just ask: they’ll lose their minds. Even now, after they’ve all had Covid, and lived, 6 times.

    September 11, 2024 at 10:59 am #168702
    tboc
    Participant

    put a little flesh on the “whole group” and “the numbers”
    the entire consumer economy who refuse to alter their behavior in any way and wittingly participate in the destruction of their societal environment and celebrate the most dysfuntional human attributes as leadership
    that qualifies as aberrant writ large

    now back to the regularly scheduled program

    September 11, 2024 at 11:02 am #168703
    tboc
    Participant

    thousands and thousands of words and never the word we
    at 100 bucks a they or these we could fix some things
    not the point i guess

    September 11, 2024 at 11:11 am #168704
    tboc
    Participant

    everyone who believes the underlying costs of everything has risen at the same rate as the price

    sit down and shut up

    how much have profits risen?
    as much as the market will bear
    responsibility only to the share holders
    and you bought your shares on margin at a dead cat bounce and had to liquidate at a loss and are now no longer a share holder

    enjoy the payments on whatever shiny new bauble you don’t own

    September 11, 2024 at 11:21 am #168705
    poppie
    Participant

    I know this is one of many factors motivating for or against peace. If peace happens we will get an accurate count of who is left alive. Sibling factors to that. Where are the biolabs? Where are the children? Where did the money come from? Where did the money go? How many corpses are not ukrainian? Title to the land? Reparations? Its all cleaner if Russia goes to the western border with demilitarize denazify, audit, hold elections, withdraw, sue Blackrock and NATO for damages. Maybe that all needs to go with tariffs on the west.

    September 11, 2024 at 11:30 am #168706
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Now Kamala is credible, defeated the Trump (in TDS and media minds) and people believe she can win, the next phases is fixing the vote count … Go Kamala, cheat like there is no tomorrow.

    September 11, 2024 at 11:30 am #168707
    tboc
    Participant

    one thing a person can be sure of is that few understand the economic meaning of futures contracts.
    that bauble you are renting was produced from materials contracted for before production began
    the losses that will be presented as real will defray any tax liability from profits generated during the inflationary period
    the commodities markets are already pricing in the profits for the next inflationary period
    however you are being taxed with every discretionary purchase which is the buffer that protects the casino

    value discovery is the precursor to price discovery and that concept is lost on the consumer economy
    shiny and cheap prevail

    reckon purse strings are irrelevant to those without a purse

    Tesla Model X Plaid: $94,990

    September 11, 2024 at 11:38 am #168708
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Lara Trump – 700 trained Republican poll watchers applied in Detroit … only 50 were accepted.

    OVER 2300 Democrats were accepted?!

    Go Kamala, show them that all the bullshit counts for nothing, it is the biggest cheat that wins. Your guys showed them last time, but they can’t learn their lesson, so do it again … until the USA is being run by a black woman whore who fucked a black mayor for a boost in her career … who said the dumb women in power never made it there by screwing men …. it is a meritocracy after all, the merit is just not in job skills.

    September 11, 2024 at 11:50 am #168709
    tboc
    Participant

    1992 – ‘The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period.’

    and that will be the case to the last Ukrainian and the last Palestinian

    September 11, 2024 at 12:00 pm #168710
    John Day
    Participant

    NYT teaser blurb in my inbox to get me to subscribe:
    Harris Puts Trump on the Defensive in a Fierce Debate
    Kamala Harris took the debate stage, shook Donald Trump’s hand and then spent the next 90 minutes making every effort to get under his skin.

    That’s not exactly what I saw. It was not about Kamala.

    WES reported pretty well last night.
    Harris appeared more functional and competent than I expected. (Was she really fed the actual questions?)
    Harris’ time in the hotel room with the Trump impersonator was effectively spent. Not Slow Joe Biden, but a capable college student of IQ:116, but no actual initiative or gravitas.
    Harris caved when asked about Israel/Palestine and turned off “both sides”

    Trump hardened when he saw Harris’ game and talked right past her to American voters and the oligarchic elites, making a strong case that he was the tough “wartime president”, which Bush II claimed to be, while Cheney really was.
    Trump’s make-up was different and better, and he came on strong.

    He’s completely OK with genocide, but it is being done wrong…
    Maybe he’ll replace Bibi…

    September 11, 2024 at 12:17 pm #168711
    John Day
    Participant

    Pick Your Parasites https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/pick-your-parasites

    Can Nationalist-Team-Trump offer the global-financial-elites a better business deal than the DNC Wall-Street-globalists can? Maybe… Everything hinges on bleeding the productive economy for their profit, but there are different ways to go about that. These excerpts from a Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff interview may cast some light…

    Michael Hudson interview: The Myth That the US is Rapidly Approaching Bankruptcy​
    ​ Michael Hudson: Well, when Republicans and now the Democrats, ever since Obama, sought to frighten voters into supporting an attack on Social Security by trying to privatize it with the right-wing congressional commission he sponsored, there’s been a lot of deceptive rhetoric about the federal debt and how the budget deficit forces us to make hard choices, hard for the people, the 90% of the population who are going to have their social spending, Social Security, and other basic government programs squeezed out by what the both Democrats and Republicans want to cut back.
    The real problem leading to bankruptcy today is private debt. There’s no problem at all with government debt going bankrupt. Governments don’t go bankrupt. They can always print the money…
    ..Well, I want to put this debt issue in perspective. And in order to do that, I think it’s necessary to think in terms of balance sheets. In one way or another, it’s a question of who, whom. To whom does the U.S. government owe its debts?…
    And I’ll explain later, the government has no intention or likelihood of having to pay a large part of its foreign debt.
    So the second point that’s important to start with is to recognize that one party’s debt is another party’s assets. The government debt is a preferred asset of most of the economy.
    So let’s look at who holds the government debt as an asset. Well, with all of today’s gloom and doom talk, it may surprise people to say that the U.S. debt is perhaps the most desirable financial asset on the planet. That’s why so much of it is owned by the wealthiest layer of the U.S. population…
    ..And these Treasury securities that foreign governments hold are to finance the U.S. budget deficit that is a result largely of U.S. military spending to create the 800 military bases we have around the world to surround countries and sort of force them not to abandon the dollar standard, but they’re financing their own encirclement and their own basic U.S. military buildup against them.
    And that makes the U.S. foreign debt to foreign central banks a free lunch. The U.S. can just spend it as much as it wants. The dollars that it spends end up in the foreign central banks of Europe and also of China.
    And foreign central banks don’t have an alternative unless they’re to use these dollar inflows and buy gold or something else. And of course, if they do that, the United States declares them an enemy for trying to de-dollarize and essentially declares a financial war on them.
    Well, this free lunch is something that nobody expects to be repaid. The U.S. is not able to create enough of a balance of payment surplus to pay Germany and France and China and Russia and Japan, all of the securities that it owes them…
    ..When the oil war happened in 1974 and the OPEC countries quadrupled their price, the price of oil, they were told, you can charge whatever you want for your oil, but you have to keep all of your savings, all the receipts you get from this oil, you have to keep that in US currency. We’re not going to let you buy US companies, but you can buy stocks and bonds, but basically you have to put it in US banks to buy treasury bills. You can’t really spend it for anything at all. You’re stuck with it. And if you don’t do that, we will treat that as an act of war…
    ..If the government wants to spend money into the economy, it asks the Federal Reserve to buy US Treasury securities. So the Federal Reserve owns these securities and the banking system owns US securities as backing and reserves for its own deposits and loans. That’s how banks work, holding reserves. So this part of the US debt also isn’t supposed to be paid. And there’s no way that the US is going to go bankrupt. If the US had no debt at all, there’d be no government debt to hold as bank reserves. There’d be no reason for the Federal Reserve to exist. You can see the problem.
    ​ So just like the paper money in your pockets, this other Federal Reserve holding, foreign bank holding of government debt are not expected to be repaid. And I think this kind of financial maneuvering shows that the United States doesn’t really have to borrow. It can really, in effect, print the money. But when it prints the money, this money it prints, just like issuing paper money, the money it prints is counted as a debt to the Federal Reserve. So it’s all a wash transaction, sort of the illusion of a debt that somehow is in trouble…
    ​..Chinese officials have told me that they don’t expect the US dollar really to go down. They’re reducing their holdings of dollars in favor of gold and other foreign currencies, but they still hold enormous amounts of dollars because they expect them essentially to remain a strong currency.
    ​ So basically, the enormous increase in wealth that the wealthiest 10% of Americans have made since the Obama bank bailout in 2008, this stemmed from the fact that the US debt has been thrown under the finance and created the largest bond market boom in history.
    ​ This bond market boom has only benefited the wealthiest financial classes.​ So here’s wage level and income for the bottom 90%, flat. For the top 10%, it’s gone up and up.​..
    ​ Richard Wolff (Germany): I think maybe I can help in this regard because there really isn’t a contradiction between the notion of the financial markets that the dollar is the safest place or the safest form in which to hold your wealth, the dollar obligations of the United States government given the way the world is working…
    ​..Here’s the unspoken assumption of the private world, which we’ll see is reasonable. The assumption is that the United States government, despite the level of debt it’s involved in and despite its shrinking global footprint, has an internal political capability of making sure that the people who hold that debt will not be in any way damaged by how this problem gets solved.
    ​ In other words, what they’re doing is they’re saying you can afford to keep your wealth here, which we need you to do, and here’s what we’ll do in exchange. We’ll make sure that the angry people who are going to have to pay the freight of all of this will not be able to disrupt it…
    ..So the American people say, okay, don’t pay the interest on the debt. There it is. Then you have 800 billion bucks right now, and that’s way more than you need to give us free education, free health care, and all the rest we’ve just asked for. Do that. We elected you. Do that. And if you don’t do that, we will unelect you and replace you with people who will.​
    ​ Oh my gosh, say all the people in the world who own the debt.
    ​ That’s a very important point that Michael made. For every debt, there’s somebody holding that debt for whom it is an asset, and they want to protect their assets. They don’t want there to be a risk that the United States government will stop paying interest on the debt.
    ​ So the American government’s pledge to them, unspoken but very real, don’t worry, we will cut back on everything to the American people to preserve your interest in getting paid off for that debt that you own and that you invested in. You European rich people, you potentates around the world ripping off your own populations and investing it in dollars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll protect you who don’t elect us but who fund us. And we will screw the American people because you elect us but you don’t fund us…
    ​ Michael Hudson: This is the big squeeze that has been planned now for 20 years, the plan to take social spending out of the hands of government and to privatize it. Well, what are they going to do?
    They’re not going to simply say, we won’t pay Social Security, because that’s a contractual obligation that the government has settled up. But what they say is, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take the Social Security Fund and we’re going to create a government grant to, let’s say, BlackRock and other money management companies to manage the Social Security in the form of a huge privatized mutual fund, just like the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Malaysia was handled by Wall Street and criminally just ripped off by the financial managers.
    That’s what financial managers do. That’s what Goldman Sachs was criminally prosecuted for, for the billions of dollars that it embezzled from the money that it was supposed to be handling as a fiduciary from the Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund.
    They want to do that with all of the Social Security Fund and they want to take this money, the government funding for Social Security that you’re paying every month, and all that’s going to be paid into this mutual fund that’s going to buy U.S. stocks and bonds.
    And the financial sector says, if we can do that, this will create a huge stock market bubble. Boom. Because look, all this money, instead of being paid into the government to finance its war spending and the other spending that governments do, now it’ll be spent on the stock market.
    And thank heavens, the stock market is so over debt leveraged now. It’s so almost insolvent that we’ve saved the stock market Ponzi scheme from the brink of insolvency.​ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/the-myth-that-the-us-is-rapidly-approaching-bankruptcy.html

    ​ ‘We’re living a Lie’: Astronaut reveals shock realization after viewing Earth from Space
    ​ Former NASA astronaut Ron Garan returned to Earth after spending 178 days in space with a profoundly changed worldview.
    Garan now believes many of the planet’s issues could be addressed if more people experienced what scientists call the “overview effect.”
    ​ Garan, who traveled more than 71 million miles in a total of 2,842 orbits, realized that Earth is more fragile than he initially thought.
    ​ “When I looked out of the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi-like flashes of lightning storms, I saw dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them and I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet’s atmosphere. In that moment I was hit by the sobering realization.”
    ​ Ronald came to the understanding that every living thing on Earth was being kept alive by a very thin layer and people don’t realize just how connected we all are.
    ​ “I saw an iridescent biosphere teaming with life, I didn’t see an economy, but since our human-made systems treat everything including the very life-support systems of our planet as the […] subsidiary of the global economy, it’s obvious from the vanish point of space that we’re living a lie,” he added.
    ​ Ronald has urged people to shift their thinking for the overall benefit of humanity and move from thinking “economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy”.​.. ..William Shatner, best known for his role as James T. Kirk in the Star Trek series, noted after his visit to space, “It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered.” He described the contrast between the “vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below” as overwhelming and filled with sadness.
    ​ “Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna… things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind,” Shatner lamented.​ https://en.interaffairs.ru/article/we-re-living-a-lie-astronaut-reveals-shock-realization-after-viewing-earth-from-space/

    ​ Israel’s Gaza genocide has produced ‘ecosystem of genocidal methodologies’
    ​ Dr. Zarni, a world-renowned genocide scholar, said he is not comfortable in creating a hierarchy of evil (and crimes) but he is prepared to say that Israel is “resorting to Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel)-like policies of collective punishment with the intent to bring about the physical destruction of the population of Gaza.”…
    ​..Dr. Zarni said the Israeli regime’s kill rate of children and infants in the besieged territory is “far worse” than the number of children slaughtered at the Mauthausen Concentration camp in Hitler’s native upper Austria.
    ​ “The SS slaughtered 23,000 children at Mauthausen in roughly 7 years ( between the autumn of 1939 and Spring of 1945) whereas Israel has brought about the direct murder or death of 17,000 Gazan children and infants in mere 11 months,” the scholar and activist told the Press TV website.
    ​ While the world is still debating whether the Israeli regime is committing genocide and war crimes in Gaza, Dr. Zarni said the “moral majority” of the world – as evidenced by the protests around the world, in both Global North and Global South – “are not debating about Israel’s crimes in Gaza.”
    ​ “It is Western politicians, Western states, ideological institutions such as the media, universities, and thinktanks – themselves built via settler colonialist genocides and colonial loot, theft and pre-colonial slavery and slave trade – that are splitting legal hair and propagating this lie of “Israel has the right to defend itself,” he emphasized.
    ​ He said that based on his studies and research of the Cambodian genocide, the Nazi genocide or the Burmese genocide of Rohingya, the Israeli genocide in Palestine has produced what he calls “the ecosystem of genocidal methodologies.”
    ​ “I will say that Israel’s Zionist project of establishing, maintaining and expanding the Jewish majority (or supremacy) state has produced what I call “the ecosystem of genocidal methodologies” with a singular mission of destroying, at varying speeds, the native population of Palestine,” he noted.​ https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/09/732974/israel-genocide-gaza-produced-ecosystem-genocidal-methodologies-scholar

    West Bank: armed Jewish settler attacks Palestinian children on first day back to school​ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240909-west-bank-armed-jewish-settler-attacks-palestinian-children-on-first-day-back-to-school/

    September 11, 2024 at 12:18 pm #168712
    John Day
    Participant

    Israel demolishes 45 agricultural homes near Hebron​ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240909-israel-demolishes-45-agricultural-homes-near-hebron/

    ​ Moon of Alabama, Zionists Are Calling For More War And May Well Get It
    The daily Israeli murder campaign in Gaza continues unabated.
    ​ Netranyahoo is blocking (vid) any proposal for a ceasefire by adding new conditions to the already agreed upon details. His latest quest is to get permanent military control of the so called Philadelphia Corridor which designates the borderline between Egypt and Gaza.
    ​ There are two international agreements, brokered by the U.S. and agreed upon by Egypt and Israel, which prohibited anything more than a temporary light force in the corridor:
    ​ The US had assured Egypt that Israel’s actions along the border would comply with both the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 2005 Memorandum of Understanding. These agreements place clear limitations on Israel’s military presence near Egypt’s borders, allowing only small Israeli units for security purposes, and were designed to ensure stability and avoid prolonged occupation in sensitive areas.
    ​ Netanyahoo does not care at all what the White House might have promised to Egypt…
    ​..Former war cabinet member Benny Gantz on Sunday said Israel should shift its focus toward Hezbollah and the Lebanese border, warning that “we are late on this,” …
    ​ “The time for [action in] the north has come,” said Gantz on Sunday during the Middle East America Dialogue (MEAD) summit in Washington, DC, adding, “Actually, I think we are late on this.”
    ​ Netanyahoo agrees:
    ​ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged his government on Sunday to prepare for “changing the situation” on the northern front with Lebanon given the ongoing clashes and mounting tensions.
    ​ Speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting, he said the situation in the north cannot go on, calling on the army and all security agencies to prepare for change on the front.
    The government is committed to returning all residents of the north safely to their homes, he added, while describing Hezbollah in Lebanon as Iran’s “strongest” arm.
    ​ Meanwhile, Israeli security sources told local media that the battle with Lebanon is “imminent”, but the timing for it hasn’t been set yet…
    ..The intentional targeting of medical personnel is a tactic that Israel is also using in Gaza.​ Hizbullah and its friends do not believe that any new Israeli action is yet imminent:​ The latest flurry of Israeli threats regarding an imminent military operation in Lebanon are only aimed at “intimidation,” diplomatic sources said.
    ​ “They are also aimed at blocking the latest Iranian-American rapprochement, whose first signs have appeared in the agreement reached in Iraq, which would not have happened without an Iranian green light,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Monday.
    ​ Iraq and the United States have agreed on a phased pullout of the U.S.-led anti-jihadist coalition but have yet to sign a final agreement, the Iraqi defense minister said Sunday.​ https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/09/zionists-who-call-for-more-war-may-well-get-it-.html#more

    ​ A member of Knesset (the Israeli parliament) has claimed that the regime would launch a full-blown war on Lebanon “in a matter of days.”
    Nissim Vaturi, a member of Likud and the Knesset’s foreign affairs committee, made the remarks to the regime’s Kan public broadcaster on Monday.
    ​ “There is no other way,” he alleged, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was of the same opinion and that “this is something that will develop in the coming days.”​ https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/09/732951/Israel-war-Lebanon-Hezbollah

    CENTCOM Chief Visits Israel To Discuss Iran and Lebano​n, The IDF presented Gen. Kurilla with its ‘operational plans’ for Lebanon​ https://news.antiwar.com/2024/09/09/centcom-chief-visits-israel-to-discuss-iran-and-lebanon/

    ​ Top Israeli rabbi blesses soldier accused of Gaza rape
    ​ An Israeli rabbi with strong links to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling party was filmed blessing a solider standing trial for raping Palestinian prisoners from Gaza. Rabbi Meir Mazuz told the accused soldier that he would be found completely innocent, ‘what did you do? Beat the enemy? So what?’ After the soldier’s lawyer, Attorney Demari, told the rabbi they had proof the victim was lying, the rabbi responded ‘but what if it were true? Don’t we have the right to act like this?’​ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240909-top-israeli-rabbi-blesses-soldier-accused-of-gaza-rape/

    September 11, 2024 at 12:20 pm #168713
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Jonathan Cook, Israeli Torture Chambers Aren’t New
    For many years I lived just up the road from Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where new film of Israeli guards torturing Palestinians en masse has been published by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.
    ​ I drove past Megiddo prison on hundreds of occasions. Over time I came to barely notice the squat grey buildings, surrounded by watch towers and razor wire.
    ​ There are several large prisons like Megiddo in Israel’s north. It is where Palestinians end up after they have been seized from their homes, often in the middle of the night. Israel, and the Western media, say these Palestinians have been “arrested,” as though Israel is enforcing some kind of legitimate legal procedure over oppressed subjects — or rather objects — of its occupation.
    ​ In truth, these Palestinians have been kidnapped.​ https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/09/israeli-torture-chambers-arent-new/

    Syria warns Israel about ‘unforeseeable consequences’ of its atrocities​ https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/09/732990/Syria-warning-Israel-aggression-regional-countries-Hama

    ​ Netanyahu Refuses a Gaza Ceasefire on Any Terms
    ​ Aaron David Miller is an American Middle East analyst, author, and negotiator. Miller worked for the US Department of State for 24 years and as an advisor on Arab-Israeli negotiations.
    ​ Miller said on CNN on September 4, that the ceasefire deal between Netanyahu and Hamas will not happen, because the sticking point is not the Philadelphia Corridor, it is about Netanyahu’s seat in office.​..
    ​..Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are in the streets demanding that Netanyahu sign a ceasefire deal to release their hostages. Israeli opposition leaders and Israeli peace activists are demanding a ceasefire and a change in the government.
    ​ The International Court of Justice ruled that the occupation of Palestine was against international law.
    ​ Hamas, the Palestinian resistance, is holding to their condition for the Israeli military to pull out completely of Gaza to accept the ceasefire between the two sides. But, Netanyahu is sticking to his demand of keeping troops inside Gaza on the Egyptian border, referred to as the Philadelphia Corridor.
    ​ Hamas has kept Netanyahu from achieving his military goals in Gaza. No senior Hamas leaders have been killed in Gaza, and the military wing of Hamas is still strong and fighting.
    ​ Hamas started a fight on October 7 which galvanized the international community on the side of the Palestinians. The two-state solution is cited by the US, and the UN as the only solution to the conflict.​ The only country against the two-state solution is Israel.
    ​ Netanyahu asked AIPAC to put pressure on US President Joe Biden to drop out of the race. Biden was demanding Netanyahu make a ceasefire deal, to release Israeli hostages as well as stop the bloodshed in Gaza.
    ​ Netanyahu Will Prolong the War on Gaza Until Trump Takes Office
    Biden’s decision to drop out of the race for re-election came just days after Netanyahu reneged on a ceasefire promise to Biden.
    ​ Netanyahu refused to comply with Biden because Netanyahu’s freedom depends on staying in office. If he goes against his right-wing religious extremist allies, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, they will drop his government like a hot potato.
    ​ If Netanyahu is out of office and has no immunity, he will serve jail time for the corruption charges he was found guilty of.​..
    ​..Netanyahu is betting on VP Kamala Harris winning over Trump. Despite that former President Donald Trump did more for Israel than any previous president, Trump has never forgotten that Netanyahu endorsed Biden in the 2020 election. Israel has thousands of citizens who hold US citizenship as well and vote in US elections.
    ​ Trump is well known for shutting down foreign wars which are a financial drain on the American taxpayer. If Trump is elected, Netanyahu might get a phone call telling him the billions of dollars in weapons and cash to Israel are being cut off, and demanding Netanyahu sign a ceasefire deal.​..
    ​..Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace in Gaza and Israel. The Israeli hostage families feel betrayed by their government, and their loved ones are forgotten and dying in Gaza.​ https://www.globalresearch.ca/netanyahu-refuses-gaza-ceasefire/5867329

    ​ Nineteen Palestinians Reported Killed in Israeli Strikes on al-Mawasi Camp in Gaza
    The camp has been designated a ‘safe zone’ by the Israeli military but has been repeatedly targeted​ https://news.antiwar.com/2024/09/09/forty-palestinians-reported-killed-in-israeli-strikes-on-al-mawasi-camp-in-gaza/

    ​ 1,400 aid trucks stuck at crossing awaiting entry to Gaza: Borrell
    Speaking from the Egyptian city of Rafah on the border with Gaza, the EU foreign policy chief reveals the bloc is considering a proposal to impose sanctions on two Israeli ministers.​ https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel–refusing-to-allow-1-200-aid-trucks-into-gaza–eu-s

    September 11, 2024 at 12:20 pm #168714
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ ‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 339: Israel winds down West Bank operation, continues blockade
    ​ Palestinians in Nablus held a funeral procession for a Turkish-American activist killed by Israeli forces in Beita. Meanwhile, Israel continued to close its borders with Jordan for the second day in a row following a shooting at Allenby bridge.​ https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-339-israel-winds-down-west-bank-operation-continues-blockade/

    ​ Nuland confirms West told Zelensky to abandon peace deal
    ​ “Relatively late in the game the Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going and it became clear to us, clear to the Brits, clear to others that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on,” she said of the deal being discussed by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Türkiye’s largest city.
    ​ The proposed agreement included limits on the kinds of weapons that Kiev could possess, as a result of which Ukraine “would basically be neutered as a military force,” while there were no similar constraints on Russia, the former diplomat explained.
    ​ “People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal and it was at that point that it fell apart,” Nuland said.
    ​ The veteran diplomatic hawk, who during her time in the State Department was renowned for her hostility towards Russia, quit the post of under secretary of state for political affairs in March this year. Nuland played a key role in the violent Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, which toppled Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich.​ https://swentr.site/news/603708-ukraine-istanbul-us-nuland/

    ​ Jim Kunstler, The Votes and Who Counts Them
    “The world is a dangerous place to live — not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” —Albert Einstein
    ​ When The New York Times tells you that the United States Constitution is a threat to democracy — As it did on the front page of its August 31 edition — you know that you are in thrall to exceedingly subtle minds. The Times only employs persons, both birthing and other, of the subtlest minds. You can tell because they are credentialed by our country’s finest institutions of educational credentialing.
    ​ They come to The Times fully equipped with the armamentarium of advanced, progressive, innovative, nuanced, cutting-edge modes of understanding our world — which, you’ll agree, is a pretty goshdurned complex place, and rather niggardly in yielding its secret workings. Hence, The Times has concluded that the Constitution is flawed, perhaps fatally, because it allowed for the election of Donald Trump​ once, and now, possibly, a second time:
    ​ “It’s no surprise, then, that liberals charge Trump with being a menace to the Constitution. But his presidency and the prospect of his re-election have also generated another, very different, argument: that Trump owes his political ascent to the Constitution, making him a beneficiary of a document that is essentially antidemocratic and, in this day and age, increasingly dysfunctional.”​ https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/the-votes-and-who-counts-them

    ​ Alastair Crooke, Enabling a “Brutus” to slay the Elon Musk “Caesar”
    ​ In the Washington Post on Monday, the headlines read: Musk and Durov are facing the revenge of the regulators. Former U.S. Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, in the British Guardian newspaper, published a piece on how to ‘rein-in’ Elon Musk, suggesting that “regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest” on lines of that which befell Pavel Durov recently in Paris.
    ​ As should be clear to all now, ‘war’ has broken out. There is no need for further pretence about it. Rather, there is evident glee at the prospect of a crackdown on the ‘Far-Right’ and its internet users: i.e. those who spread ‘disinformation’ or mal-information that ‘threatens’ the broad ‘cognitive infrastructure’ (which is to say, what the people think!).​..
    ​ Professor Frank Furedi observes:
    ​ “There is an unholy alliance of western leaders – Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz – whose hatred of what they call populism is undisguised. In his recent visits to Berlin and Paris, Starmer constantly referred to the threat posed by populism. During his meeting with Scholz in Berlin on 28 August, Starmer spoke about the importance of defeating “the snake oil of populism and nationalism”.​..
    ..So, what is the source of the élite’s anti-populist hysteria? The answer is that the latter know that they have become severed from the values and respect of their own people and that it is only a matter of time before they are seriously challenged, in one form or another…
    ​..Why war?
    Because, after the 2016 U.S. election, the U.S. political backroom élites blamed democracy and populism for producing bad election outcomes. Anti-establishment Trump had actually won in the U.S.; Bolsonaro won too, Farage surged, Modi won again, and Brexit etc., etc.​..
    ..By 2023, the New York Times was running essays headlined: “Elections Are Bad for Democracy”…
    ​..Cultural War
    ​ 2016 represented the onset of cultural war, as Mike Benz has described in great detail. A complete outsider, Trump had crashed through the System’s guardrails to win the Presidency. Populism and ‘disinformation’ were the cause, it was held. By 2017, NATO was describing ‘disinformation’ as the greatest threat facing western nations.​..‘
    ​..Democracy’ they said, was no longer to be defined as a consensus gentium – i.e. a concerted resolve amongst the governed; but rather, was to be defined as the agreed ‘stance’ formed, not by individuals, but by democracy-supporting institutions. [ie. what used to be called “oligarchy”]​.
    ​ Once re-defined as ‘an alignment of supporting institutions’, the second ‘twist’ to the democracy re-formulation was added. The Establishment had foreseen a risk that were a direct info-war on populism pursued, they themselves would be portrayed as autocratic and imposing top-down censorship.
    ​ The solution to the dilemma of how to pursue the campaign against populism, according to Benz, lay in the genesis of the ‘whole of society’ concept whereby media, influencers, public institutions, NGOs and allied media would be corralled and pressured into joining an apparently organic, bottom-up censorship coalition focused on the scourge of populism and disinformation.​ This approach – with the government standing at ‘one removed’ from the censorship process – seemed to offer plausible deniability of direct government involvement…
    ​..An outwardly bland ideological alignment focussed on ‘our democracy’ and ‘our values’ would nonetheless allow for the re-integration of these enduring structures to foreign policy (hostility to Russia; support for Israel; and antipathy towards Iran) to be re-formulated as the appropriate rhetorical slap in the face to the Populists.
    ​ The war may escalate; It may not end with a disinformation eco-system. The New York Times in July posted an article arguing how The First Amendment is Out of Control and in August another piece entitled, The Constitution is Sacred. Is it Also Dangerous?
    ​ The war, for the moment, is targetted at the ‘unaccountable’ billionaires: Pavel Durov, Elon Musk and his ‘X’ platform. The survival or not of Elon Musk will be crucial to the course of this aspect of the war: The EU’s Digital Service Act was always conceived to serve as ‘Brutus’ to Musk’s ‘Caesar.
    ​ Throughout history, self-regarding and self-enriching élites have become dangerously contemptuous of their peoples. Crackdowns have been the usual first response.​ https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/09/09/enabling-a-brutus-to-slay-the-elon-musk-caesar/

    ​ A Midwestern Doctor, We Must Never Forget 9-9-21 , How Biden’s Mandates Devastated America and His Presidency (I just got fired, but I’m fine.)
    ​ Recently, a rather extraordinary turn of events happened. The sitting president was forced to drop out of his re-election campaign because his cognitive impairment was undeniably exposed to the country through a presidential debate and his party then turned against him. I and many others hold the opinion that over the last 3 years, Biden experienced cognitive and neurological decline, that this decline perfectly paralleled his zealous endorsement of the COVID vaccines​ (5 shots total for Joe) , and that causality can be established since that same decline has been seen in many others following COVID vaccination (especially older adults with pre-existing cognitive impairment).
    ​ On 9/9/21, Biden gave one of the most divisive speeches in American history. There he announced his illegal workforce mandate (which was later struck down by the Supreme Court), repeated a series of known lies about the COVID vaccine and repeatedly attempted to incite hatred against the unvaccinated. Since the entire conference was 27 minutes long (which made it too long to watch), I spent a while trimming it down to the key points. The primary reason I made this article was to highlight this video, so please consider watching it (and take note of how much more lucid and coherent he was just three years ago).​ https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/we-must-never-forget-9-9-21

    September 11, 2024 at 12:21 pm #168715
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ A New Paper by Tanriverdi, et al. Supports My 2022 Finding that the Spike Protein Induces a Lethal Cancer Phenotype​, Walter M. Chesnut
    Spike Proteins, like cancer cells, can be seen as an “invasive species” which generate a pro-tumorigenic microenvironment. No wonder cancer surges.​ https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/a-new-paper-by-tanriverdi-et-al-supports

    ​Dr. Mercola, Magnesium 101 — A Comprehensive Guide to Its Health Benefits https://www.globalresearch.ca/magnesium-101-guide-health-benefits/5867467

    September 11, 2024 at 12:23 pm #168716
    Clueless Honky
    Participant

    I only saw ~5 minutes of the debate. (Question to Kamala about changing policy- especially regarding fracking. And question to Trump asking if he had any regrets over J6).
    Kamala bumbled, but dramatically less than usual.
    Trump, however, seemed incredibly flustered. Thrown off by a Kamala attack about his bankruptcy after his huge inheritance. And a Kamala reference to his “Very Fine People on both sides” about Charlottesville.
    Once again, I only watched a little over 5 minutes (that’s all I could stand), but in that time, I imagine an uninformed independent voter would say Trump was crushed and likely lost the whole election.
    Maybe he later regained some ground. I don’t know.
    Did anyone see evidence of that?.

    September 11, 2024 at 12:34 pm #168717
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Clash of Civilizations with Nihilism
    Bankers vs. Civilizational Revolutions

    https://fadilama.substack.com/p/clash-of-civilizations-with-nihilism

    September 11, 2024 at 1:05 pm #168718
    riesterm
    Participant

    @ Clueless Honky: I didn’t watch much of the debate either, but much to my surprise, I came away impressed with KH’s performance.

    In all the KH video I’ve seen, none of it was remotely like the performance KH gave last night.

    DT seemed rattled while KH was more articulate and practiced in her responses; cleverly coached.

    I am wondering how many others had a similar take on what happened last night.
    DT was off his game, it seemed. Not a good look, as they say.

    September 11, 2024 at 1:14 pm #168719
    zerosum
    Participant

    “facts of life”, grave illusions
    Control of Complexities
    It’s harvest time.
    Your priorities are Irrelevant and futile – Mother Earth
    ———–
    • US ‘Going Bankrupt Extremely Quickly’ – Musk (RT)
    https://swentr.site/business/603747-musk-us-debt-defense-budget/

    Who will not get their loans paid back?
    The cost of servicing the vast US federal debt now outstrips the defense budget.

    The national debt had surpassed $35 trillion,

    The current rate of government spending was putting the US in the fast lane to bankruptcy, and that the government overspending was stoking inflation.

    There is $1.2 trillion in interest on the debt, which is equal to about 25% of government revenue.
    ————–

    September 11, 2024 at 1:35 pm #168720
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Dems want the second debate because Kamala was actually and surprisingly good at her acting.

    September 11, 2024 at 2:44 pm #168724
    zerosum
    Participant

    The Debate
    Kamala Harris has finally revealed her policy proposals.

    They are the same proposals as Trump’s proposals.

    Only Promises and unachievable goals/objectives/policies due to no income.

    September 11, 2024 at 2:59 pm #168726
    jb-hb
    Participant

    The saddest part of the debate was that a reasonably intelligent person should have been able to absolutely curbstomp Kamela.

    WTF was that bit about Tariffs = Sales Tax? …therefore tariffs are the Worst Thing For Working Americans? (WTFWA)

    Yeah, nothing’s better for working class people than to have their manufacturing jobs being done in overseas sweatshops so shoddy merchandise can be shipped across the pacific to be sold in Walmart. Nothing better!

    Biden did the SAME Tariffs = Sales Tax/Tariffs = Inflation in his debate!

    Trump should have been able to say – look at the contempt they have for you. Look at how totally out of touch with reality, not that they genuinely believe this, but that they are so deranged that they think this LIE works on you. A SANE liar knows to fit their lies into #%&ing REALITY

    September 11, 2024 at 3:07 pm #168727
    jb-hb
    Participant

    My jaw dropped when KAMELA started going on about Covid coming out of CHINA! …and making out like this was something TRUMP was hiding and suppressing!

    Will this hit blue-square folks like another NPC download overwrite? NO cognitive dissonance?

    September 11, 2024 at 3:20 pm #168728
    jb-hb
    Participant

    NOVA H1 Audio Earrings – Earphones embedded in Earrings

    https://i.kickstarter.com/assets/032/382/722/2ad69358839b23791648fcab72098741_original.png?anim=false&fit=cover&gravity=auto&height=873&origin=ugc&q=92&width=1552&sig=hi3PzpDzL1G1p3wqvMi%2BkdyRG5OeWLBCshgdpoChnJo%3D

    NOVA H1 Audio Earrings are the first clip-on earphones on the planet. These Earrings are fully packed with the latest technology embedded in real pearls to provide you with music, phone calls and digital assistants all day long.

    Like conventional earrings, the NOVA H1 are placed on the earlobes and project the sound from inside the pearl straight into your ear canal.

    Thanks to our worldwide patented Directional Sound Technology, the sound travels from the earlobe to the ear canal avoiding sound leakage and keeping your conversations and music private and secure.

    Two tiny high-end microphones are integrated into each Earring providing the user with crystal clear phone calls and wind-noise cancelation.

    https://thedailyguardian.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Did-Kamala-Harris-Wear-A-Secret-Earpiece.jpg

    September 11, 2024 at 4:12 pm #168729
    Noirette
    Participant

    Demand for Justice: World Council for Health urges the immediate release of Dr. Reiner Füellmich

    “The international human rights community is demanding the immediate release of Dr. Reiner Füellmich, a lawyer and prominent critic of COVID-19 measures, who has been incarcerated since October 2023.”

    Sept. 10, 2024, quote:

    The international human rights community is rallying to demand the immediate release of Dr. Reiner Füellmich, a lawyer from Germany who has been in pre-trial detention for over 10 months. Arrested under dubious circumstances at Frankfurt Airport on October 13, 2023, Dr. Füellmich’s case has raised serious concerns regarding the legality of his detention and the integrity of the judicial process. Of the initial 18 charges made against Füellmich, only one remains regarding personal loans.

    https://worldcouncilforhealth.substack.com/p/demand-for-justice-world-council

    September 11, 2024 at 4:18 pm #168730
    John Day
    Participant

    @jb-hb: Link please. This looks like the same “earrings”. Google search of the image misdirects me, somehow.

    September 11, 2024 at 4:22 pm #168731
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nova-audioearrings/audio-earrings-earphones-made-earrings
    https://news.sky.com/story/trump-v-harris-debate-what-were-the-key-points-13212733

    September 11, 2024 at 4:30 pm #168732
    tboc
    Participant

    vote FOR Jill Stein
    and
    AGAINST every encumbent local, state and federal

    at least we will find out who was swimmin nekkid when the tide goes out
    would buying a whole new crop of representatives be inflationary?
    be dejected, things are going to get worse

    Did anyone hear Massie’s comments at the Budget Committee
    sixty eight, you do me and i’ll owe you one

    hire 60,000, um there are 25 members of the cabinet plus the VP and they do the hiring.
    Potus and advise and consent bunch select the cabinet
    200,000 federal employees in DC alone – guess who runs the show
    if the statement can be expanded to “I didn’t know anything” and “I didn’t do anything” i will concur and vote in November

    “Trump seemed flustered” – the man’s still got one good ear, i would be flustered too

    if the press outlined all of the points of importance and a defence of the Biden/Harris agenda for a week before the spectacle who would need Donna Brazille?

    all of this is as stale as a box of CrackerJacks left open at a bus stop in Miami for the month of July

    let’s switch the discussion to Paula Broadwell so we can debate some high level leadership and investigate the path to Ukraine and Palestine openly and honestly. Even better we can justapose the careers of Oliver North and Broadwell’s beau. You know, flesh things out.

    i know why Kamala is so happy now – “Happiness is a warm gun” Lennon

    “are you trying to show contempt for this court?”
    “Why no your honor, I’m trying to hide it” – Mae West

    September 11, 2024 at 4:33 pm #168733
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    ”
    By the 18th century Britain was already a vassal state to the Money Powers who owned the Bank of England

    The geopolitical upheaval the world is witnessing today is not a clash of
    “West vs. East” or Global North vs. Global South, rather it is a clash between

    nihilism promoted by the Money Powers and civilizations globally.
    ”

    https://fadilama.substack.com/p/clash-of-civilizations-with-nihilism

    September 11, 2024 at 4:52 pm #168734
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    @tboc

    …more than people recognize.
    Your reply instantly brought to mind Bezmenov, Gajdusek, Gallo and Fauci.

    Gallo and a bunch of rich friends of NIH bailed out that fucking unapolgetic, proud pedophile Daniel Carleton Gadjusek and welcomed him back to the convocation of scientists. No one, not one person welcomed me back for 1. uncovering disability fraud among Navy Nurses, corpsmen and one doctor and 2. Standing up against institutional child abuse, torture and murder GWOT-style. Nope, they just murdered my Congressman and resigned me to a series of entry-level temp jobs.
    Tell me pedophile rings and their apologists don’t run in the highest levels of government, medicine and academia in this country after you read Zoll’s Substack.

    Will Zoll could have collated his info from my posts over the years. It’s okay. No one owns it except the likes of Pediatrician Gajdusek (fellow traveler with The Navy’s Finest CAPT BRUCE MENELEY, hand selected by Admirals R. Nelson, Bill Roberts and Chris Hunter)

    A quick reminder:
    Bezmenov’s 4 steps (sounds like Ritter’s premeditated crowing at Lira)

    Stage #1 — Demoralization (This stage can take up to 20 years to complete.)Bezmenov described the First Stage, demoralization, as a process of gradually eroding the values and beliefs of a society until its members no longer have a clear sense of right and wrong.

    Stage #2 — Destabilization (This stage can last for 2–5 years)The Second Stage, destabilization, involves creating economic, social, and political chaos in a society.

    Stage #3 — Crisis (this stage can be completed in as little as six weeks)The Third Stage is a crisis, where the chaos created in the destabilization stage reaches a boiling point and a state of emergency is declared

    Stage #4 — Normalization (can last for decades)The Fourth and Final Stage is normalization, which involves the imposition of a new, authoritarian regime that claims to restore order and stability to the society.

    The best recruits in the eyes of the KGB (any group) were narcissistic, greedy, morally devoid individuals who can help destabilize their country of origin.

    Unbelieveable

    https://substack.com/@prussiagate/p-141056154

    September 11, 2024 at 4:57 pm #168735
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    ”
    The main differentiating factor lies in whether
    the political system is designed to serve

    the Money Powers or to serve society,

    regardless of what shape the political system assumes.

    Naturally a system based on civilizational heritage is more robust to attacks by the Money Powers empire
    ”

    https://fadilama.substack.com/p/clash-of-civilizations-with-nihilism

    September 11, 2024 at 5:55 pm #168737
    zerosum
    Participant

    Ukraine Truth
    For any ceasefire or peace Ukraine will have to admit that it gave up land to the “bankers”, investors and to Russia.

    September 11, 2024 at 6:21 pm #168738
    Dora
    Participant

    “Trump Says Debate Performance Against Harris His Best Ever ”

    If that debate was compared to a WWE pro wrestling match T was the “face” and Kamala plus the “moderators” were the tag-team “heels”.

    September 11, 2024 at 6:22 pm #168739
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    September 11, 2024 at 6:23 pm #168740
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    September 11, 2024 at 6:27 pm #168741
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Califorinacation Dreamin’

    I’ve been for a walk on a summer’s day…..

    .

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