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Debt Rattle September 27 2024

Sep 272024
 
 September 27, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Pablo Picasso The bathers 1918

 

• Ukraine ‘Is Gone’ – Trump (RT)
• Trump Agrees To Meet Zelensky (RT)
• Trump Pushes Narrative That Iran Is Trying to Kill Him (Antiwar)
• US Doesn’t Want Ukraine In NATO – Erdogan (RT)
• Biden Behind Nord Stream Sabotage – Russia’s Top MP (RT)
• NATO Outlines Plans In Event Of War With Russia (RT)
• Biden Drains Remaining Ukraine Aid Funds (RT)
• US Congress ‘Happy to Be Lied to’ in Service of American Imperialism (Sp.)
• Moderator for VP Debate Tied to Donations for ‘Lincoln Project’ (HUSA)
• Former CDC Director Robert Redfield Praises “Make America Healthy Again” (ZH)
• The Assault on America’s Defining Principles (Turley)
• What Happens if We Hold College and Nobody Comes? (Turley)
• Taxes and Tariffs and Trade: Trump’s Plan To Bolster The Economy (JTN)
• FBI Claims it Doesn’t Have DNC’s Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Footage (HUSA)
• Appeals Court Seems Skeptical of New York Civil Fraud Suit Against Trump (ET)
• FBI Specialist Urges Americans to Prepare For Hardship (MN)
• Boeing Machinists on Strike Have a Historic Opportunity (Sawant)

 

 

 

 

Trump ad

 

 

Melania

 

 

Holistically


https://twitter.com/i/status/1839095068537532889

Bidenomics

 

 

Rogan Chamath

 

 

Eric Adams
https://twitter.com/i/status/1839436032888221900

 

 

Bug
https://twitter.com/i/status/1839019582985744422

 

 

RFK food

 

 

Loverboy

 

 

Ballots
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838887620253728832

 

 

USB stick

 

 

 

 

“Millions and millions of people, including all of these great soldiers, they’re dead. Those gorgeous buildings with golden towers are demolished and lying broken on their side. Ukraine is gone. It’s not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns.”

• Ukraine ‘Is Gone’ – Trump (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has hammered Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky for refusing to negotiate with Russia, arguing that the country is now “obliterated” while Kiev is reduced to sending “young children and old men” to the front lines amid its conflict with Moscow. Zelensky is currently visiting the US to attend the UN General Assembly in New York and pitch his so-called ‘victory plan’ to key figures in President Joe Biden’s administration. Republican lawmakers, however, have condemned Zelensky for publicly criticizing Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance. He incited further ire among Republicans when he appeared at an event at a munitions plant organized by Pennsylvania Governor Joshua Shapiro, a key ally of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

At a rally in North Carolina on Thursday, Trump accused Zelensky of “making little nasty aspersions” toward him, before turning to the Ukrainian leader’s handling of the conflict with Russia. “The country is absolutely obliterated,” he declared. “Millions and millions of people, including all of these great soldiers, they’re dead. Those gorgeous buildings with golden towers are demolished and lying broken on their side. Ukraine is gone. It’s not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns.” “And Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” he continued. “But now Ukraine is running out of soldiers. They’re using young children and old men because their soldiers are dying.”

While the Ukrainian military does not publish casualty figures, the Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Kiev’s losses at around half a million men. Ukraine’s manpower shortage has been well documented by Western media outlets, and the country’s top general acknowledged earlier this month that recruits are often sent to fight after as little as six weeks’ training. Trump argued that Biden and Harris could have “easily” struck a deal with Russia to prevent the conflict from ever starting. Instead, through “a lot of bad statements and stupid statements,” Biden “egged it on.” “And we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal,” Trump said, referring to Zelensky. “Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”

Russia and Ukraine reportedly agreed to a peace deal during talks in Istanbul in 2022. The agreement would have involved Ukraine declaring military neutrality, limiting its armed forces, and vowing not to discriminate against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees. However, Zelensky withdrew from the talks at the last moment. According to Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and several Ukrainian media reports, the US and UK were instrumental in convincing Zelensky to abandon negotiations. Trump maintains that he would settle the conflict “in 24 hours” if elected president this November. Zelensky, however, has stated that the former president “doesn’t really know how to stop the war,” while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that he doesn’t “think there is a magic wand” that can stop the fighting overnight.

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“Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”

• Trump Agrees To Meet Zelensky (RT)

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has announced he will meet with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on Friday in New York. Zelensky has met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the Democrats’ candidate for the presidency in the November election. He has also sought a meeting with Trump. “I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 at Trump Tower,” the former and possibly future US president announced at a press conference in New York City on Thursday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Trump had posted a message from Ukraine’s deputy ambassador to the US, relaying Zelensky’s request for a meeting, to his TruthSocial platform. “Dear Donald, I hope you’re doing well. I recall our recent phone call – it was really good,” Zelensky wrote. “All of us in Ukraine want to end this war with a just peace. And we know that without America this is impossible to achieve.

That’s why we have to strive to understand each other and remain in close contact.” “You know I always speak with great respect about everything connected to you, and that’s how it should be,” the Ukrainian actor-turned-politician wrote, adding that he would “really like for our meeting to take place.” The request came after Trump criticized the “little nasty aspersions” Zelensky had made about him and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, in an interview published last Sunday. At a campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump described Ukraine as “absolutely obliterated” and accused Biden and Harris of “feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before.” “We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal,” Trump said, referring to Zelensky. “Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”

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Not a very high level of credibility. Who feeds him this? Warmongers?!

• Trump Pushes Narrative That Iran Is Trying to Kill Him (Antiwar)

On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump pushed a narrative being spread by US intelligence officials that Iran is trying to kill him even though there’s no evidence of Iranian involvement in either attempt on his life. Trump’s campaign said they were briefed on the alleged Iranian threat by officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is led by Avril Haines. “Big threats on my life by Iran. The entire US Military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again,” Trump wrote on X after the briefing. “Not a good situation for anyone. I am surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before.” The claim that Iran is plotting to kill Trump was first made by a CNN report back in July, following the assassination attempt by Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot and killed by the Secret Service.

The report acknowledged there was no evidence Crooks was linked to Iran, which was reaffirmed on Tuesday by intelligence officials speaking to The New York Times, who stressed there was no Iran connection to the July shooting. The Times report also said there was no evidence that Iran was connected in any way to Ryan Routh, who was arrested on September 15 and recently charged with attempting to assassinate Trump. Routh is a staunch supporter of the Ukraine proxy war and traveled to the country to help recruit fighters for the Ukrainian foreign legion. Despite the lack of evidence, Trump suggested at a campaign event on Wednesday that Iran might have been involved in the two assassination attempts. “As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve – but possibly do – Iran,” he said at an event in North Carolina.

“If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens,” Trump added. The claims about Iran come amid soaring tensions in the Middle East as Israel has dramatically escalated its bombing campaign in Lebanon, a situation that could potentially turn into a full-blown war between the US and Iran. But Iran’s actions over the past year have shown they’re not interested in war with the US. For example, when Iran launched a reprisal attack on Israel in response to the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria, Iranian officials said they warned the US 72 hours in advance. The US denied the claim, but Turkey and Jordan confirmed they were given notice, which would have gotten back to the US. Iran and the US also engaged in indirect negotiations in Oman to avoid escalation.

Iran’s new president, Masoud Peseshkian, has also taken an extremely diplomatic tone toward the US since coming into office and wants direct negotiations with Washington. “We are not hostile towards the US. They should end their hostility towards us by showing their goodwill in practice,” Pezeshkian said last week. “We are brothers with the Americans as well.” Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) occasionally vow they will take revenge for Trump’s assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who headed the IRGC’s Quds Force. But in response to recent allegations, Iran has said Trump should be punished for the killing in a court of law. “These accusations are unsubstantiated and malicious,” Iran’s mission to the UN said in response to the CNN report in July. “From the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Soleimani. Iran has chosen the legal path to bring him to justice.”

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“..the US, first and foremost, does not want to see Ukraine as a NATO member. And many NATO countries do not want Ukraine to be a member-state.”

• US Doesn’t Want Ukraine In NATO – Erdogan (RT)

The US is the main opponent of Ukraine joining NATO, although many other countries in the bloc are also against Kiev’s potential membership, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. While Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘victory plan’ stresses NATO accession, Erdogan told NBC News on Wednesday that “the US, first and foremost, does not want to see Ukraine as a NATO member. And many NATO countries do not want Ukraine to be a member-state.” Zelensky is currently in the US, where is he promoting the plan and is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington on Thursday. “These are not questions to be rushed,” he added. “And when making our minds, when we are taking our decisions, we always take into consideration the stance of other NATO member states, we discuss those possible questions around the table and make the final decision accordingly,” Erdogan stated.

When asked directly if Ankara would accept Ukraine in NATO, Erdogan replied that “we are going to follow the developments, the deliberations, and reach a final decision accordingly. These are not decisions to be rushed in an excited way.” He also spoke about Türkiye’s ties with Russia, describing them as “multidimensional, political, economic, cultural, defense industry related. There are many dimensions, dimensions there and our solidarity, our interaction, has been going on and economically every day, these relations are expanding.” A unanimous decision by all members is required to expand NATO. Finland and Sweden, who became the latest nations to join the bloc in 2023 and 2024 respectively, had to overcome strong initial opposition from Türkiye, which accused them of harboring members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group by Ankara.

A senior US State Department official told AP on Tuesday that the political element of Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ focuses on how to assure the Ukrainian population that they will be welcomed into Western institutions such as the EU and NATO, assuming they continue to fight Russia or if a negotiated settlement with Moscow is achieved. NATO declared at a 2008 summit in Bucharest that Ukraine, along with another former Soviet Republic, Georgia, would join the US-led bloc at some stage. After the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other officials repeatedly claimed that Kiev was on track to becoming a member, but never announced a specific timeline for accession. Moscow, which views NATO as hostile and vigorously opposes its eastward expansion, highlighted Kiev’s aspirations of joining the bloc as among the main reasons for launching its military operation against Ukraine in February 2022.

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Yet another narrative (retelling) pops up: “..a privately-funded operation masterminded by a now-disgraced Ukrainian intelligence officer..”

• Biden Behind Nord Stream Sabotage – Russia’s Top MP (RT)

US President Joe Biden “was behind” the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz helped him tank his country’s economy in the aftermath, Vyacheslav Volodin, the head of the Russian State Duma, has claimed. The senior legislator commented on Thursday on the second anniversary of the explosions, which disabled the undersea connectors built to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany, noting the failure of European investigators to name the culprit. There have been accounts in the media suggesting possible scenarios, “which were occasionally laughable,” he said. “Washington and Biden personally were behind the Nord Stream bombing. His interest was to cut Western Europe off from cheap Russian gas and force it to buy it from America at a price three times higher,” he said.

The German economy took a hit and is now in recession due to a loss of competitiveness, Volodin added, “which means that the people of Germany were punished instead of Washington, as Biden and Scholz took money out of their pockets.” “You cannot pin this one on some ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ and civilian divers,” Volodin stressed. On Tuesday, the German news outlet Der Spiegel published its latest retelling of the events of September 2022. It mostly repeats the story that a privately-funded operation masterminded by a now-disgraced Ukrainian intelligence officer conducted the sabotage with the blessing of former General Valery Zaluzhny. The Western press has been repeating similar versions of this story for months. Spiegel claimed to have identified the divers, saying that most were civilians, but the group was led by a commando.

The operation was first contemplated years before the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, it stated. Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that Biden had ordered the sabotage of Nord Stream in a February 2023 article. He said US military divers had secretly planted explosives to destroy the pipelines at a significant depth, using a NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea as a cover. The White House has denied the accusations, but Russian officials have called the story plausible. Prior to the destruction of Nord Stream 1 and 2, senior US officials, including Biden, had issued threats to destroy the Russian-German pipelines.

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They’re trying to sell a story: “..a large number of frontline casualties without the capability to airlift them for treatment..”

• NATO Outlines Plans In Event Of War With Russia (RT)

NATO would have to deal with a large number of frontline casualties without the capability to airlift them for treatment in the event of a major war with Russia, its logistics chief has said. Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, the head of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC), outlined the difficulties that troops would face in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. “The challenge will be to swiftly ensure high-quality care for, in the worst case, a great number of wounded,” Sollfrank said. The environment of a hypothetical conflict with Russia would be completely different from what the US and its allies faced in Afghanistan and Iraq, he added. Unlike insurgents in the Middle East, Russia has the military capability to threaten NATO aircraft, Sollfrank noted, predicting that medical evacuations would have to be conducted on the ground.

“For planning reasons, all options to take a great number of wounded to medical installations need to be considered, which includes trains but potentially also buses,” the NATO official said. Ukraine is currently using hospital trains to evacuate injured troops from the front line, as reported by CNN earlier this month. The NATO logistics command, which is based in the southern German town of Ulm, recently staged an exercise based on coordinating medical evacuations, Reuters said. JSEC contingency plans would require a legal foundation for issues such as the expedited transportation of narcotics across national borders, Sollfrank said. He also called for a ‘military medical Schengen’ – similarly to how the bloc needs a ‘military Schengen’ to rapidly deploy troops and weapons to the eastern flank, according to the official.

The US and its allies have claimed that Russia may be planning to attack NATO, and that the West can delay or prevent that outcome by arming Ukraine. The bloc has been expanding in Europe for decades, in violation of assurances given before Moscow agreed to German reunification in 1990. The Russian government has cited NATO’s approach to its borders and the bloc’s intention to add Kiev to its ranks as key causes of the Ukraine conflict. Officials in Moscow have denied having any aggressive intentions toward NATO, which they consider a hostile force that must be deterred.

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“The mechanisms allow payments to arms manufacturers and permit weapons to be drawn directly from American military stockpiles..”

• Biden Drains Remaining Ukraine Aid Funds (RT)

US President Joe Biden announced nearly $8 billion in military aid to Ukraine on Thursday, releasing the remaining funding authorized by Congress. Lawmakers recently declined to extend the availability of certain funds beyond next week’s deadline. The funding includes $2.4 billion under the Pentagon’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and $5.5 billion under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). The mechanisms allow payments to arms manufacturers and permit weapons to be drawn directly from American military stockpiles. The latter sum was set to expire at the end of this month, which marks the end of the fiscal year in the US. The White House had hoped that the US Congress would allow the PDA money to be spent at a later point. However, legislation passed on Wednesday did not include any such clause, reportedly following resistance from Republicans skeptical of the continued bankrolling of Kiev.

Biden announced the decision on military aid during a meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who is in the US to promote his ‘victory plan’ in the conflict with Russia. Zelensky has said he wanted the US president to be the first to see the proposal as it heavily relies on American aid. According to the Wall Street Journal, US officials have previewed the plan but found it “unimpressive.” The US president said Kiev will receive an additional Patriot surface-to-air system, more munitions and drones, as well as a new capability, the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW). The glide bomb has a range of up to 130km when dropped from a high-flying aircraft. Some supporters of Kiev’s cause have criticized the 11th-hour drawdown of funds by Biden. Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican from Missouri, claimed it was “typical of this administration to wait until the last possible moment to announce full use of the PDA.”

Zelensky’s visit also triggered complaints from members of the GOP, after he criticized the Republican presidential ticket and visited an ammunition factory in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, without a single Republican official present. Senior party members have accused the Ukrainian leader of campaigning for the Democrats. They also alleged that the Biden administration facilitated potential meddling in the 2024 presidential election by organizing Zelensky’s Pennsylvania visit and spending taxpayer money on it.

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“..most of Congress was very happy to be lied to and would have denounced Blinken for the truth.”

• US Congress ‘Happy to Be Lied to’ in Service of American Imperialism (Sp.)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is facing calls to resign after a damning report suggested he willfully misled Congress to keep US military aid flowing to Israel. Analysis by the investigative reporting nonprofit ProPublica revealed that Blinken defied the findings of multiple government bodies that concluded Israel was deliberately blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Blinken ignored the advice of multiple officials with the State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID), testifying before lawmakers that Tel Aviv was not interfering with the flow of aid. US law forbids the provision of military equipment to any country obstructing American humanitarian assistance. Journalists Dan Lazare and Robert Fantina joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday to discuss the scandal, which has led the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to call on Blinken to resign.

“This is business as usual,” said Fantina. “The United States doesn’t respect international law and doesn’t respect its own laws if those laws somehow get in the way of its quest for power and profits. So the fact that Blinken lied to Congress, blatantly lied – and this wasn’t something that was inconsequential, this caused the starvation, the continued starvation and the slaughter of innocent people.” “We’ve said before that the United States is enabling this genocide by continuing to arm Israel and by increasing its arms shipments to Israel,” he continued. “So the fact that Blinken is lying should really surprise no one. Other international organizations that aren’t affiliated with any nation have said repeatedly for months that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid. And yet the United States denies this, or at least Blinken did.”

The human rights organization Amnesty International affirmed Israel was stemming the flow of humanitarian assistance earlier this year, characterizing Tel Aviv’s actions as a “tightening” of its “16-year-long suffocating blockade” of Gaza. Israel has tightly controlled the amount of food and other basic necessities allowed to enter the Palestinian territory since June 2007, when it decided to dismantle its settlements in the Gaza Strip. However, Israel has exerted control over the strip of land, which is considered sovereign Palestinian territory under international law, since 1967, when it seized land intended to form the basis of a Palestinian state in the region. The US has served as the country’s strongest backer in the decades since, with Israel becoming the United States’ largest cumulative recipient of foreign aid. Observers claim the US backs the country as a crucial beachhead in a geopolitically vital region where Israel serves as a proxy for US interests against Iran and other adversaries.

“Israel is engaged in a brutal war, which is now spreading dramatically and it will continue doing so,” said Lazare, claiming Israel is inarguably using the flow of humanitarian aid as an instrument of war. “It’s all irrelevant. I mean, war is the cessation of law, and, therefore, calling on warmakers to obey the law strikes me as kind of contradictory.” “If you’re acting on behalf of the [US] government or any kind of imperialism, you are free to lie to Congress at will, the laws against lying to Congress only apply to those which the empire sees as a threat,” posited host Garland Nixon. “Congress does not mind being lied to if it thinks it benefits the empire,” Lazare agreed. “In general there are lies Congress likes and lies Congress doesn’t like. And, therefore, it’s Congress’ power of decision, power to decide which lies are okay and which lies are not. And generally the okay ones are those that further America’s imperial ambitions.” Sam Perlo-Freeman, a researcher with the group Campaign Against Arms Trade, agreed, claiming simply, “most of Congress was very happy to be lied to and would have denounced Blinken for the truth.”

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“..it quickly became clear that some of its members were growing increasingly unhinged with Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

• Moderator for VP Debate Tied to Donations for ‘Lincoln Project’ (HUSA)

The husband of one of the two moderators in next week’s CBS News debate featuring vice presidential candidates J.D. Vance and Tim Walz appears to have made two donations of $250 apiece to the controversial Lincoln Project during the 2020 election. Records from the Federal Election Commission show that Ali “Yado” Yakub, the husband of Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, contributed on July 2 and Sept. 26 of that year to the anti-Trump super-PAC. Voting records confirmed that the address listed was the residence of Yakub, who was registered as a Republican, and Brennan, who was registered as an independent.Many have observed that registration offers no indication about political preference, with Democrats during the recent primary—in which President Joe Biden ran largely uncontested—frequently changing their party identification to vote against Trump.

Yakub also made contributions to ActBlue in 2019, including two that were earmarked for the primary campaign of future Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Headline USA reached out to both Brennan and Yakub by phone and email but received no response. The Lincoln Project—founded by high-profile NeverTrump ex-Republicans Rick Wilson, George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen, John Weaver and Jennifer Horn—initially appeared to be a sort of principled response by members of the GOP establishment to Trump’s takeover of the party. However, it quickly became clear that some of its members were growing increasingly unhinged with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The group lost all credibility when, in January 2021, allegations emerged that co-founder John Weaver had engaged in sexual impropriety with young, male staffers and had allegedly solicited boys as young as 14. The bombshell led to an exodus of the group’s more influential figures, such as former John McCain campaign chief Steve Schmidt, who had become a registered Democrat the month prior. Only two of its charter members—Rick Wilson and Reed Galen—are currently associated with the group, which has grown more radical and outlandish, notoriously engaging in a stunt in which it staged a fake neo-Nazi rally and attempted to blame Trump supporters.

It also has run ads pushing blatant disinformation, such as attempting to suggest that Trump would monitor and arrest people for attempting to obtain an abortion. Trump has repeatedly emphasized that the issue is now at the state level and will remain so if he is re-elected, while noting that he personally favors exceptions for abortions in a set of specific, narrowly tailored circumstances. Moreover, the Lincoln Project has sought to falsely tie Trump to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which he has repeatedly disavowed and denied any association with. The project launched in April 2023, well before Trump was the presumptive nominee, and was designed as a series of policy proposals for use by whichever candidate prevailed.

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“Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis..”

• Former CDC Director Robert Redfield Praises “Make America Healthy Again” (ZH)

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield, who served during the Trump administration, wrote an editorial in Newsweek praising President Trump’s decision to join forces with Robert Kennedy Jr. to “make America healthy again.” “We know chronic disease is more than 75 percent of the country’s $4 trillion annual health care expenditure. Unfortunately, we have become a sick nation. We’re paying too much for chronic disease, and this must change. It’s time to make America healthy again,” Redfield wrote in the op-ed published on Tuesday. After more than four decades in public health, Redfield believes the former president “chose the right man [RFK Jr.] for the job” to combat the processed foods industrial complex, which has ignited an obesity crisis across the Heartland.

“For instance, obesity in American children has increased dramatically since John F. Kennedy’s presidency, from around 4 percent in the 1960s to almost 20 percent in 2024,” he said, adding, “The causes of childhood obesity are complex, but a primary origin is clearly the modern American diet of highly processed foods.” He explained the causes for this obesity crisis are primarily due to “special interest and corporate influences on our federal agencies.” Redfield pointed out that “Kennedy is right” about the corporate capture problem of federal agencies.

Kennedy is right: All three of the principal health agencies suffer from agency capture. A large portion of the FDA’s budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies. NIH is cozy with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and its scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs NIH licenses to pharma. And as the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I know the agency can be influenced by special interest groups. Redfield acknowledges that agency capture is a serious issue, highlighting that federal agencies responsible for regulating food and medicine are possibly compromised by the food industrial complex and big pharma. Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis instead of promoting exercise and safe, clean food.

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Enemies of the Constitution. They will end the country.

“..an explosion of books and articles laying out a new vision of “democracy” unconstrained by constitutional limits on majority power..”

• The Assault on America’s Defining Principles (Turley)

Kamala Harris declared in Tuesday’s debate that a vote for her is a vote “to end the approach that is about attacking the foundations of our democracy ’cause you don’t like the outcome.” She was alluding to the 2021 Capitol riot, but she and her party are also attacking the foundations of our democracy: the Supreme Court and the freedom of speech. Several candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination, including Ms. Harris, said they were open to the idea of packing the court by expanding the number of seats. Mr. Biden opposed the idea, but a week after he exited the 2024 presidential race, he announced a “bold plan” to “reform” the high court. It would pack the court via term limits and also impose a “binding code of conduct,” aimed at conservative justices. Ms. Harris quickly endorsed the proposal in a statement, citing a “clear crisis of confidence” in the court owing to “decision after decision overturning long-standing precedent.”

She might as well have added “because you don’t like the outcome.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) has already introduced ethics and term-limits legislation and said Ms. Harris’s campaign has told him “that your bills are precisely aligned with what we are talking about.” The attacks on the court are part of a growing counterconstitutional movement that began in higher education and seems recently to have reached a critical mass in the media and politics. The past few months have seen an explosion of books and articles laying out a new vision of “democracy” unconstrained by constitutional limits on majority power. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, is author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” published last month. In a 2021 Los Angeles Times op-ed, he described conservative justices as “partisan hacks.”

In the New York Times, book critic Jennifer Szalai scoffs at what she calls “Constitution worship.” She writes: “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.” She frets that by limiting the power of the majority, the Constitution “can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow.” In a 2022 New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for liberals to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.” Others have railed against individual rights. In my new book on free speech, I discuss this movement against what many professors deride as “rights talk.” Barbara McQuade of the University of Michigan Law School has called free speech America’s “Achilles’ heel.”

In another Times op-ed, “The First Amendment Is Out of Control,” Columbia law professor Tim Wu, a former Biden White House aide, asserts that free speech “now mostly protects corporate interests” and threatens “essential jobs of the state, such as protecting national security and the safety and privacy of its citizens.” George Washington University Law’s Mary Ann Franks complains that the First Amendment (and also the Second) is too “aggressively individualistic” and endangers “domestic tranquility” and “general welfare.” Mainstream Democrats are listening to radical voices. “How much does the current structure benefit us?” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said in 2021, explaining her support for a court-packing bill.

“I don’t think it does.” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said at the Democratic National Committee’s “LGBTQ+ Kickoff” that “we’ve got to reimagine” democracy “in a way that is more revolutionary than . . . that little piece of paper.” Both AOC and Ms. Robinson later spoke to the convention itself. The Nation’s Elie Mystal calls the Constitution “trash” and urges the abolition of the U.S. Senate. Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law School complains that Americans are “slaves” to the Constitution.

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“..many departments have purged their ranks of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians.”

• What Happens if We Hold College and Nobody Comes? (Turley)

In the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht asked “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” As someone who has been a teacher for over 30 years, I find myself increasingly asking the same question as trust and enrollments fall in higher education. Trust in higher education is plummeting to record lows. According to recent polling, there has been a record drop in trust in higher education since just 2015. Not surprisingly, given the growing viewpoint intolerance on our campuses, the largest drops are among Republicans and Independents. There has been a precipitous decline in enrollments across the country as universities worry about covering their costs without raising already high tuition rates. From 2010 to 2021, enrollments fell from roughly 18.1 million students to about 15.4 million. There are various contributors to the drop from falling birthrates to poor economic times.

However, there is also an increasing view of higher education as an academic echo chamber for far left agendas. For many, there is little appeal in going to campuses where you are expected to self-censor and professors reject your values as part of their lesson plans. That fear is magnified by surveys showing that many departments have purged their ranks of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians. In my new book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculties replicate their own views and values. One survey (based on self-reporting) found that only nine percent of law professors identified as conservative. Some anti-free speech advocates are actually citing higher education as a model for social media in showing how “unlikeable voices” have been eliminated.

Many of those “unlikeable” people are now going elsewhere as schools focus on degrees in activism and denouncing math, statistics, the classics, and even meritocracy as examples of white privilege. Schools offering classic education are experiencing rising enrollments, but the growing crisis has not changed the bias in hiring and teaching. Despite repeated losses in courts, universities and colleges continue to deny free speech and diversity of thought. The fact is that this academic echo chamber may be killing educational institutions, but the intolerance still works to the advantage of faculty who can control publications, speaking opportunities, and advancement with like-minded ideologues. We have seen the same perverse incentive in the media where media outlets are seeing plummeting readers and revenue.

Journalism schools and editors now maintain that reporters should reject objectivity and neutrality as touchstones of journalism. It does not matter that this advocacy journalism is killing the profession. Reporters and editors continue to saw at the limb upon which they sit due to the same advantage for academics. For reporters, converting newsrooms into echo chambers gives them more security, advancement, and opportunities. Recently, the new Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis was brought into the paper to right the ship. He told the staff “let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.” The response from reporters was to call for owner Jeff Bezos to fire Lewis and others seeking to change the culture.

Read more …

“I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America.”

• Taxes and Tariffs and Trade: Trump’s Plan To Bolster The Economy (JTN)

In a bid to build a broader coalition, former President Donald Trump has outlined a vision of tax cuts, import tariffs, and “reciprocal trade” to preserve and restore American industries. Since coming down the escalator of Trump Tower in 2015, the Republican standard bearer has espoused unconventional trade policies and dragged much of the GOP kicking and screaming toward protectionism. His tenure saw the U.S. renegotiate trade agreements with its neighbors, resulting in the United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement (USMCA), while also waging a trade war with China seeking to curb some of Beijing’s abuses. His signature tax plan, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, saw the doubling of the standard deduction and the reduction of the corporate tax rate to 21%. As he has sought to contrast himself with Harris, Trump has highlighted both elements of his economic plan and doubled down on the tax cuts and tariffs approach.

“So, as your president, here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth,” he said at a Tuesday event in Savannah, Ga. “I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America.” “It all goes away if you don’t make your product here and hire American workers for the job,” he warned. His message, so far, appears to have resonated with working class voters, notably the traditionally Democratic-leaning union workers. After internal polling showed that its members decidedly favored Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined to endorse a candidate, marking the first time in decades that the union had not backed a Democrat for president.

In recent weeks, Trump has unveiled a litany of tax relief proposals, most of which involve either simplifying the system or eliminating taxation on certain sources of income entirely. Speaking at a New York rally last week, Trump vowed to restore state-and-local-tax (SALT) deductions for federal tax returns in an about-face after signing the TCJA, which imposed a $10,000 cap on SALT deductions. “I will cut taxes for families, small businesses and workers, including restoring the SALT deduction, saving thousands of dollars for residents of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other high cost states,” he said. Earlier this month, he pledged to eliminate all taxes on overtime work as well, saying “[t]he people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country … It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break.”

Trump has also promised to end taxation on Social Security benefits, a proposal that has drawn broad support from the public across most age brackets, according to recent polling. Among the most notable of his campaign pitches, however, has been a pledge to eliminate taxes on tips, which he announced at a June rally in Nevada in a bid to win over service workers in the critical battleground. Separate from pledging further tax cuts, he has also made the TCJA a central fixture of his campaign. Many of the act’s cuts are set to expire next year and he has begun to focus on the adverse impacts for taxpayers of permitting those cuts to sunset.

Using information from the Tax Foundation, the Trump campaign this month launched a website, dubbed kamalataxincrease.com, breaking down the average cost to tax-paying families by state. The site estimates that a Harris-proposed tax plan would cost families an average of $2,580.57 in additional taxes per year. The TCJA lowered the corporate tax rate to 21%, but Trump vowed to go further in his Tuesday speech, promising a “manufacturing Renaissance” through a “15% Made in America tax rate.” “We’re cutting the business tax from 21% to 15% which makes us the most competitive tax anywhere on the planet, but only for those who make their product in the USA. See, that’s an incentive,” he said. “[P]eople are going to be pouring in. Companies are going to be pouring in.”

Read more …

They’re trying to run out the clock. “Massie then called for answers on the matter before Election Day.”

• FBI Claims it Doesn’t Have DNC’s Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Footage (HUSA)

The FBI has claimed that it doesn’t have the Democratic National Committee headquarters’ security footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising—footage that would presumably show the discovery of a pipe bomb that was allegedly planted outside the DNC the night before. The FBI’s admission was revealed in a Friday letter from Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. In that letter, Cuffari said he asked the FBI to review the DNC security videos from Jan. 6—but was told that the bureau doesn’t have that footage. “On March 18, 2022, the FBI informed DHS OIG that it did not have any video footage from January 6, 2021,” Cuffari told Massie.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1838980352901079550

The letter to Massie was revealed Tuesday, the same day Revolver News published a report suggesting that the DNC pipe bomb footage was tampered with. Revolver reported that an unnamed DHS-OIG official viewed the DNC footage, and said that the footage clearly shows the pipe bomber planting a device on the evening of Jan. 5—something that the footage released by the FBI to the public doesn’t show. Revolver also reported that the DHS-OIG official had to go to the DNC to view the footage—raising questions about why the FBI doesn’t have video of one of the most significant crimes from the whole Jan. 6 fiasco. “We can only conclude that either the FBI is lying and did have footage, or they’re telling the truth and for some reason deleted the footage,” Revolver wrote on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris continues to be tight-lipped on the subject, despite the fact that her motorcade drove past the DNC pipe bomb on Jan. 6.

Harris left the Capitol at 11:21 a.m. arrived to the DNC at 11:25 a.m., but the nearby pipe bomb wasn’t discovered until 1:07 p.m. by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer. Some J6 researchers argue that Harris’s silence on the issue suggests that the U.S. government is engaging in a coverup with the pipe bomb case—perhaps because a government asset planted the bombs, or for some other unknown reason. On Tuesday, Massie raised that possibility again. “It’s almost as if they don’t want to know. Can you rule out that there were any confidential human sources involved in the whole pipe bomb thing?” Massie asked DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Horowitz said he didn’t “recall” whether any government assets were involved, but he’d have to go back and refresh his memory. Massie then called for answers on the matter before Election Day.

Read more …

“Mar-a-Lago is worth $18-26 million”. That alone closes the case.

• Appeals Court Seems Skeptical of New York Civil Fraud Suit Against Trump (ET)

Appeals judges in New York fielded multiple questions to the New York Attorney General’s Office on Sept. 26 indicating that they were skeptical of its application of an anti-fraud law to former President Donald Trump’s business practices. The questions came during oral arguments over Trump’s claims that the state Supreme Court erred in handling the civil fraud case, which resulted in a $489 million penalty for the former president. Trump’s attorney in the case, D. John Sauer, told a five-judge panel in the court’s appellate division that the judge and prosecutors flouted time limits on the claims involved. He noted that Attorney General Letitia James’s office pressed an overly broad interpretation of legally punishable fraud and that, regardless, the former president hadn’t committed fraud in his dealings with banks and others. Some of the judges questioned whether the state was acting within the bounds of its authority or had a legitimate interest in bringing the suit.

Justice David Friedman pressed New York Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale on whether there was any precedent for the attorney general suing over transactions involving sophisticated parties where neither “lost any money. “Every case that you cite involves damage to consumers, damage to the marketplace. … We don’t have anything like that here,” Friedman said. Vale argued that “there was absolutely a public impact and a public interest here.” “There are at least four different public harms from the kind of misconduct here,” she said. Vale also said that “when risk is injected into the market, that does hurt the counterparties and it does hurt the market as a whole.” Justice Peter Moulton asked, “How do we draw a line, or at least [put up] some guardrails to know when the AG is operating well within her broad, admittedly broad sphere of 63(12)?”

Moulton was referring to New York Executive Law 63(12), which is the statute James used in suing Trump. The statute allows the attorney general to apply for court intervention when “any person shall engage in repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business.” Part of Sauer’s argument was that the attorney general’s conception of fraud was too loose and noted that no one was victimized by Trump’s conduct. At one point, he told the court that under existing precedent, “there has to be a capacity or tendency to deceive, or atmosphere conducive to fraud.” “And what we’ve pointed out is that you have a situation where there were no victims, no complaints,” he said, also saying that Trump’s business partners did their due diligence.

Presiding Justice Dianne Renwick was skeptical that the statute required some kind of harm in order to prove fraudulent activity. She read the relevant portion of the statute and told Vale: “I don’t read harm or threat of harm in that, but the other side is saying that that is to be read into this statute. “Are there any cases where the language harm or threat to harm limits the scope of the attorney general?” Vale said that there weren’t “as to liability and not in cases like this where what the attorney general is seeking injunctive relief and disgorgement.”

Trump is currently facing a disgorgement of $489 million with interest accruing by the day. During oral arguments, Vale encountered multiple questions about the appropriateness of the disgorgement. Moulton told Vale that the disgorgement amount was “troubling.” “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by [the] Supreme Court to the harm that was caused here, where the parties left these transactions happy about how things went down?” he asked. Vale responded that “disgorgement looks at taking the gain away from the wrongdoer.” Although the amount was high, she said that “there was a lot of fraud … and illegality.”

Read more …

Posted the video yesterday. Here’s some backgroud added in.

• FBI Specialist Urges Americans to Prepare For Hardship (MN)

A former FBI specialist who was persecuted for questioning January 6 said during a hearing with lawmakers on Capitol Hill that Americans should stock up on food and prepare for hardship. Marcus Allen, a former FBI staff operations specialist, told the Judiciary Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government that he was deliberately targeted by higher ups for asking why there were so many federal informants in the crowd at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “The FBI questioned my allegiance to the United States, suspended my security clearance, suspended my pay and refused to allow me to obtain outside employment or even accept charity,” Allen testified The feds came down hard on Allen after he sent an email on September 21st, 2021 which his supervisors claimed contained hyperlinks to “extremist propaganda” from “questionable sources”.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who testified alongside Allen, is investigating the FBI’s security clearance and adjudication process, including the targeting of “political conservatives who were seen as loyal to Trump or resistant to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.” “There are no words strong enough to describe the impact the FBI’s lies about me have had on me and my family,” said Allen during an emotional statement. “The stress has taken a toll on our health and our children have suffered, traumatized by the thought of our door getting kicked in or Dad not coming home.” Allen added even more ominously: “This is a warning, to the American people I say.. I personally have no confidence the FBI will reign in its own conduct.” However, it was Allen’s final comments that raised many eyebrows.

The former FBI staffer urged Americans to use their right to vote despite any doubts they may have about election integrity. “My other recommendations are in the natural order,” Allen continued, “Arm yourself and know how to defend yourself, make three to four friends in your neighborhood and promise to come to each other’s mutual aid in times of hardship.” “And during the great depression, people stocked up their pantry, so I think that’s a good practice especially in our economic times, and make sure you have three to four months of food,” he added. Allen also urged Americans to pray and read the bible regularly.

Read more …

Boeing can’t afford any of this.

• Boeing Machinists on Strike Have a Historic Opportunity (Sawant)

In a potentially game-changing move, 33,000 Boeing machinists in the Pacific Northwest, unionized with IAM District 751, are on strike after rejecting the company’s initial insulting contract offer. A stunning 96 percent of the rank and file voted to go on strike, marking a sea change for the fight of working people at Boeing. For decades, Boeing’s executives and wealthy shareholders have, with the active help from Democrats and Republicans in Washington state and Washington D.C., enforced a decades-long brutal regime that has thrown both workers and safety standards under the bus in favor of short-term profit maximization for themselves. The strike offers an opening for the company’s workers to win historic gains and begin rebuilding a fighting union with a militant, active rank-and-file membership.

Like workers everywhere, Boeing machinists are fighting for decent wages and benefits in the face of the sky-high cost of living. The workers are demanding a 40 percent wage increase, which is the bare minimum they need given the ground they have lost in past sell-out contracts from the bosses, combined with historic inflation levels and high living costs in the region. They are angry at Boeing’s shell games, including the attempt to take away their annual employee bonuses (called “AMPP”), which they were promised in return for being forced to accept higher healthcare costs in a past contract. They are also demanding an end to the intolerable regime of mandatory overtime, which is running rampant at Boeing, denying workers the right to a life outside of work. The machinists are also fighting for a restoration of defined benefit pension, and full and retroactive reinstatement of pension for all workers.

The initial contract offer from the Boeing bosses came nowhere close to meeting these demands. What Boeing touted as a 25 percent raise over four years in the contract offer is, in reality, much less. When coupled with the cost of living and the removal of the annual AMPP bonus, the proposed raises don’t even make up for recent and future inflation, much less the severe blows from past contracts. The offer also fails to restore workers’ pensions.Since the strike began, Boeing has been forced to release a second contract offer, which includes a 30 percent pay increase over the next 4 years, up from 25 percent in the last offer. The strike has also forced Boeing to back down from their attempt to take away workers’ annual bonuses. But this new offer is still far less than what workers have been demanding and what they need, and workers immediately responded both on the picket line and in social media with their strong opposition to this totally inadequate offer, saying they must continue the strike.

The union leadership has now come out with a statement that says as much also, and which condemns the disgraceful way in which Boeing has attempted to undemocratically circumvent the union with this offer. Because of this, they are rejecting this new offer outright.In the Seattle area, a job at Boeing used to be highly sought after — it was a path to decent wages and benefits and relative stability. A common phrase among workers was “If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going.” With the attacks over the last 15 years, many new Boeing workers are instead being paid less than the Seattle minimum wage, and the company has had higher and higher turnover. These attacks on the workforce have gone hand-in-hand with the corporation’s major struggles in recent years with safety and quality control.

The strike comes in the wake of the machinists being sold out in a spectacularly shameful deal made over a decade ago in November 2013 by Boeing executives and shareholders with the Democratic Party-dominated Washington State Legislature, and Democratic Governor, Jay Inslee. The defined benefit pension plan, won by the unionized machinists in previous decades, was eliminated in one fell swoop. A defined benefit plan, which is currently accessible only to a small proportion of the workforce in the private sector and which was won through labor struggle, is a plan that guarantees retired workers a decent income for life. This was replaced by Boeing with a far weaker 401(K) retirement system that leaves workers at the mercy of the ups and downs of the stock market. This dramatically undermines annual retirement income, as well as shifting the risk away from the executives and major shareholders of big corporations like Boeing onto the backs of working people.

The Democratic Party justified this historic attack on both the Boeing machinists and working people statewide by claiming that it was necessary to save jobs. Boeing executives had carried out public extortion, threatening to take away the final assembly of the 777X aircraft out of Washington state, which would eliminate an estimated 10,000 union jobs. State and local Democrats from across the region insisted that the machinists accept the contract, and scandalously told them that if they didn’t, they would be responsible for not only the loss of their own jobs, but also the broader economic repercussions if Boeing were to move future production out of state.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Shots

 

 

Hurricane


https://twitter.com/i/status/1839079306586386738

 

 

Not impresssed
https://twitter.com/i/status/1839397581476257900

 

 

Jaguar

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home › Forums › Debt Rattle September 27 2024

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  • September 27, 2024 at 7:05 pm #169891
    John Day
    Participant

    Seeking The Way https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/seeking-the-way

    I presume that we are all looking for a way forward as a world, inhabited everywhere by human families, without nuclear World War-3. If I’m wrong, you might still find some interest in this view of the horizon, as events shape the near-future into potential forms. I will focus on the forms which don’t entail vast global destruction over a couple of hours.

    Gilbert Doctorow yesterday, Russia’s revised nuclear doctrine per today’s speech by Vladimir Putin
    ​ A little more than a week ago, just before British Prime Minister Starmer arrived in Washington for what was expected to be an announcement of joint approval of such use of the Storm Shadow, Vladimir Putin told journalist Pavel Zarubîn on the sidelînes of the St Petersburg Cultural Forum that Russia will consider use of British., American or other long range missiles against its territiory as changing the nature of the present proxy war into a direct Russia NATO war and will respond appropriately.
    ​ That was a vague threat. After all he did not specify what appropriately meant. However it was a sufficient change of tone from Moscow for the Pentagon to have taken note and for the Starmer visit to have been emptied of content: the White House said there was no change in its policy on the prohibition on strikes inside Russia…
    ..Moscow was proceeding on the assumption that Washington would give Zelensky the permission he seeks in a week or two when the furor died down.
    ​ Tonight’s Great Game has provided a lengthy video clip from Putin’s new and latest restatement of Russian nuclear doctrine which it explained in the lapidary clear terms of its own expert panelists​.
    ​ Underlying the new doctrine is a changed understanding of Washington’s nuclear strategy as it has evolved from global strike from the US triad to use of massive combined attack using tactical and strategic aircraft plus medium to long range cruise and hypersonic missiles based in Europe and in the Far East
    ​ The evolving situation in Ukraine fits into the new US vision of a decapitating strike on Russia that first destroys Russia’s land based nuclear force​.
    ​ Accordingly Russia now declares that any attack on its territory by a non nuclear state using missiles and other long range weapons such as the F-16 provided by and guided by a nuclear state (meaning the USA, Britain or France) will be considered as a joint attack by the nuclear and non nuclear state and will prompt a Russian nuclear attack on both.
    ​ Note the timing of the Russian announcement: it comes just before Biden’s meeting in Washington with Zelensky and while the UN General Assembly is in session. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavr​ov is presently in New York and is explaining the new nuclear doctrine to all those interested, of whom there are assuredly a great many world leaders.​ https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/russias-revised-nuclear-doctrine

    ​ Scott Ritter clarifies 2024 US doctrine to win against Russia, China and North Korea as pre-emptive decapitation, and explains the new nuclear precision-detonation technology, which optimizes missile-silo-destruction, which makes it feasible. Key term: “Launch on Detect”. Life, Pre-empted
    ​ Last week we came closer to a nuclear conflict between the US and Russia than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
    Today we are even closer.
    ​ Most scenarios being bandied about in the western mainstream media that involve a nuclear conflict between Russia and the United States have Russia initiating the exchange by using nuclear weapons against Ukraine in response to deteriorating military, economic, and/or political conditions brought on by the US and NATO successfully leveraging Ukraine as a proxy to achieve the strategic defeat of Russia.​ Understand, this is what both Ukraine and the Biden administration mean when they speak of Ukraine “winning the war.”…
    ..In early 2020 US Strategic Command conducted an exercise where the Secretary of Defense gave the launch instructions for a US Ohio class submarine to launch a Trident missile carrying W-76-2 low yield nuclear warheads against a Russian target in a scenario involving Russian aggression against the Baltics in which Russia used a tactical nuclear weapon to strike a NATO target.
    ​ The insanity of this scenario is that it ignores published Russian nuclear doctrine, which holds that Russia will respond with the full power of its strategic nuclear arsenal in the case of a nuclear attack against Russian soil.
    ​ Once again, US nuclear war planners believe that Russia is bluffing.
    There is another twist to this discussion.
    ​ While the US might assess that Russia would not seek a general nuclear war following the use by the US of low yield nuclear warheads, the problem is that the means of employment of the W-76-2 warhead is the Trident submarine launched ballistic missile…
    ​..The United States has long embraced a nuclear posture which not only incorporates the potential of a nuclear first strike, but, through declaratory policy statements, actively encourages America’s potential nuclear adversaries to believe such an action is, in fact, possible. David J. Trachtenberg, the deputy undersecretary of defense for policy during the Trump administration, said in a speech at the Brookings Institution in 2019 that a key aspect to the US nuclear posture was “keeping adversaries such as Russia and China guessing whether the US would ever employ its nuclear weapons.”
    ​ But the US takes the guesswork out of the equation. Theodore Postol points out, in a recent article in Responsible Statecraft, that a new fuse used on the W-76 nuclear warhead (not the low yield W-76-2, but rather the 100 kiloton version) has turned the 890 W-76 warheads loaded on the Trident missiles carried onboard the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines into weapons capable of destroying hardened Russian and Chinese missile silos with a single warhead…
    ..This means that, firing in a reduced trajectory profile from a position close to the shores of either Russia or China, the United States possesses the ability to launch a nuclear first strike that has a good chance of knocking out the entire ground-based component of both the Chinese and Russian strategic nuclear deterrent. As a result, Russia has been compelled to embrace a “launch on detect” nuclear posture where it would employ the totality of its silo-based arsenal the moment it detected any potential first strike by the United States.​ https://www.globalresearch.ca/life-pre-empted-scott-ritter/5868756

    ​ “NO, NO, No, No, NOOO! I’m NOT LISTENING!” US and EU strongly reject Russia’s ‘nuclear threat’
    ​The US and EU really did not expect such a move by the Russian Federation and therefore became noticeably tense.
    ​ US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words “irresponsible.” According to this “gentleman,” the US needs to declare that such nuclear rhetoric is unacceptable, especially when the UN General Assembly is taking place in New York, where the need for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is being discussed, among other things.
    ​ In turn, no less an inveterate Russophobe, the press secretary of the European Commission for Foreign Affairs and policy Security Council Secretary Peter Stano said the EU strongly rejects the “nuclear threat” from Russia.​ https://en.topcor.ru/51942-ssha-i-es-reshitelno-otvergajut-jadernuju-ugrozu-so-storony-rossii.html

    ​ Kremlin Says Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine Changes Are a Message to the West
    “This should be viewed as a certain message,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “This is a message that warns these countries of the consequences should they participate in an attack on our country by various means, not necessarily nuclear.”
    ​ Putin said the new doctrine will consider an attack on Russia by a non-nuclear state that’s supported by a nuclear-armed power as a joint attack, and it allows the use of nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack that poses a “critical threat to Russian sovereignty.”​ https://news.antiwar.com/2024/09/26/kremlin-says-russias-nuclear-doctrine-changes-are-a-message-to-the-west/#gsc.tab=0

    September 27, 2024 at 7:15 pm #169892
    John Day
    Participant

    Zelensky makes urgent in-person plea to Biden and Harris who highlights her contrasting approach to Trump
    ​ “In candor, I share with you, Mr. President, there are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations,” she said outside her ceremonial office next to the White House. ​“These proposals are the same of those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”​ While Harris did not specify who she was talking about, the implication was clear.​ https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/26/politics/zelensky-biden-harris-washington-visit/index.html

    ​ Not mentioned: Depth of strikes into Russia which will be carried out by NATO specialists operating these systems. Biden drains remaining Ukraine aid funds
    The US president’s authorization from Congress to spend the money expires next week​ https://swentr.site/news/604723-biden-ukraine-aid-drawdown/

    ​ Biden announces transfer of JSOW guided munitions to Ukraine
    US President Joe Biden announced the allocation of $8 billion to support Ukraine. He also said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would receive another package of military aid. It will include long-range guided aerial bombs JSOW.​
    ​ The statement said that Ukraine would also receive Patriot air defense systems and ammunition from the United States. The aid package would also include an expansion of the training program for Ukrainian F-16 pilots.
    ​ Politico wrote that the US is considering transferring JSOW guided munitions to Ukraine for use from F-16 fighters. The range of JSOW is 110 km. Navigation systems and thermal imaging homing heads were used in its creation.​ ​ https://www-kommersant-ru.translate.goog/doc/7183140?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

    Trump says Ukraine is ‘demolished’ and dismisses its defense against Russia’s invasion​ https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ukraine-putin-zelenskyy-0f4d539aa73a943474d779716e5fe42a

    ​ Look at Ukraine, please. NATO outlines plans in event of war with Russia
    NATO would have to deal with a large number of frontline casualties without the capability to airlift them for treatment in the event of a major war with Russia, the bloc’s logistics chief has said.
    ​ Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, the head of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC), outlined the difficulties that troops would face in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.​ “The challenge will be to swiftly ensure high-quality care for, in the worst case, a great number of wounded,” Sollfrank said.
    The environment of a hypothetical conflict with Russia would be completely different from what the US and its allies faced in Afghanistan and Iraq, he added.​ https://swentr.site/news/604713-nato-medical-schengen-russia/

    September 27, 2024 at 7:15 pm #169893
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Thanks Eleni. Russians obliquely mention “knowing who the enemy is”: How the Rothschilds Сashed In on Ukraine Since Neo-Nazi Coup in 2014
    Multinational asset firm Rothschild & Co was instrumental in the restructuring of Ukraine’s $20+ billion debt in July 2024, according to Western press.
    ​ It had reportedly been involved in arranging face-to-face meetings between Ukrainians and asset management firms, including Black Rock and Amundi, less than two months before the two-year payment moratorium expired on August 1.
    ​ The Rothschilds reportedly engaged IMF’s experts in the talks while the plan of grabbing Russia’s frozen sovereign assets was also on the table.
    The clan is believed to be cashing in on the Eastern European state through various schemes, including the future “restoration of Ukraine.”​
    ​ Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tapped a Rothschild & Cie to sell his assets in 2014. It turned out later that the companies weren’t sold but handed over to Rothschild Trust.​..
    ​..In 2017, Rothschild S.p.A. won the bidding for investment and banking services to Ukraine’s oil and gas company Naftogaz.
    The same year, the supervisory board of Ukraine’s state-owned lender PrivatBank asked a consortium of Rothschild, EY and FinPoint companies to restructure its funds.​..
    ​..In July 2023, Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Alexey Stolyarov (Lexus) tricked Alexandre de Rothschild, the executive chairman of Rothschild & Co, who told them that the banking clan has cooperated with the Kiev regime since 2017.
    ​ “We had excellent relationships with people in your government. We were mainly involved in attracting of lending funds,” de Rothschild told Vovan and Lexus thinking that he was talking to Volodymyr Zelensky.​ De Rothschild told the pranksters that the family company intends to take part in “the restoration of Ukraine”, including in energy, housing construction, and logistics. “You expressed the need for reconstruction financing in the total amount of more than $750 billion, starting in 2023 for a period of about ten years, and this is quite adequate,” the banker said.​ https://www.defenddemocracy.press/how-the-rothschilds-%d1%81ashed-in-on-ukraine-since-neo-nazi-coup-in-2014/

    ​ This man is Vladimir Putin’s personal messenger and negotiator, clothed in mystery, and not much liked by the Russian military. He is ready to negotiate at any time.
    SENDING A BOY TO DO A MAN’S JOB – VLADIMIR MEDINSKY TO NEGOTIATE ISTANBUL-II
    ​ On January 24, 2020, the Kremlin announced that Putin had removed Medinsky from the culture ministry, and instead appointed him an assistant to the President. There were no other details in the official announcement; nothing leaked then or later to the press on whether this was a demotion or promotion. What is certain is that Medinsky’s talk of cultural events was camouflage. Putin had told Medinsky he was changing his role for one of the most personal foreign policy operations on Putin’s agenda.​
    ​ This didn’t materialize in public until Medinsky appeared as the leader of the Russian delegation to negotiate end-of-war terms with the Ukrainian government in Istanbul between March 29 and April 1, 2022.
    ​ Medinsky was sharply criticized by the General Staff, State Duma, and press for the terms he initial​ed in the draft agreement.​..
    ..He reappeared publicly at the Kremlin on July 5, 2024, when Medinsky was listed by the Kremlin in negotiation of end-of-war terms between Putin and Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban, and through Orban, US presidential candidate Donald Trump. In the ​Kremlin communiqué of the Orban talks, Medinsky was ranked ahead of foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yury Ushakov. The Kremlin has not explained what the former expert on Russian culture and history was doing there…
    ​..A Moscow source confirms Medinsky was identified to Orban as Putin’s personal messenger. “He remains the chief negotiator but he has not been seen with the Chinese or with the Indians. This means that Putin is only serious about Orban – of course not about Orban, but Trump whom Orban went on to meet in Miami on July 11.”​…..(Putin)​ “I propose that we discuss this today. We have two speakers, Mr Medinsky and Mr Lavrov.”
    What Medinsky had to say about Russian history remains top secret. His Security Council speech has not been quoted on the Kremlin website; the Kremlin’s Telegram platform has ignored it. Asked for a copy or a summary of Medinsky’s remarks, the Kremlin press office replied: “If we get it, we’ll add it. Follow the website”. So far as Moscow political observers can remember, this is the first time that an official statement on Russian history has been classified.
    ​ Russian sources believe the reason is the same as Medinsky’s November 2019 meeting with Putin. It is camouflage. Only this time, the sources add, Putin’s purpose is to expose the camouflage himself, confirming he is ready for Istanbul-II, and is employing Medinsky in the president’s effort to override opposition to the end-of-war negotiations​… “Whatever Medinsky says is Putin’s thoughts exactly, more powerfully than Medvedev,” a Moscow source explains. “Putin wants the Americans to understand this.”
    ​ By making public Medinsky’s presence with Orban on July 5, and now at the Security Council on September 20, Putin is sending a signal to Trump, and also to the Biden Administration, that they should reciprocate with a negotiating signal of their own and stop the Kiev regime’s plans to escalate on the battlefield, with F-16 operations, and with long-range missile attacks on Russian territory.​..
    ​..He went on to study journalism and political science at universities in Moscow and then, at an unusually young age, he was posted to the Soviet (then Russian) Embassy in Washington in 1991-92. His arrival at the press department of the Embassy was registered by US counterintelligence as likely to indicate KGB cover. A Russian source comments: “Medinsky was definitely a KGB officer but low-level. Still, these guys have very high opinion of themselves just as Putin has of himself in Germany.”​.
    ​ Medinsky went on to a career in a variety of political party and government posts ever since.​..
    ​..At the end of February this year, Medinsky told the press he is ready to resume his end-of-war negotiations with the Kiev regime in Istanbul. “If they give us the assignment,” he is quoted as saying, “we’ll go.” In another press report of the same remarks, Medinsky responded to announcement of a new mediation effort by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by saying: “They will give the instructions – let’s go.”
    ​ In his version of Istanbul-II, Medinsky has implied — just as he has insisted on his interpretation of Istanbul-I — that Russia is not at war with the US and NATO, dismissing the range of demilitarization of Ukrainian territory required by the General Staff and the Security Council, and ignoring the terms of regional security proposed by the Russian Foreign Ministry in the draft treaties presented to the US and NATO in December 2021.
    ​ The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has confirmed Medinsky’s status in preparing for Istanbul-II. Medinsky “has conducted negotiations, so, of course, the entire array of developments is supervised by him,” Peskov said.​..
    ..Medinsky’s version of the end-of-war terms is flatly opposed by the General Staff. In the Security Council their case is argued by Deputy Chairman Medvedev. Medinsky’s appearance at the Security Council last week is a sign, Moscow sources believe, of the intensification of the debate between the Army and the President…
    ​..For the time being, no Russian mainstream media nor alternative press have reported Medinsky’s reemergence as Putin’s personal negotiator of end-of-war terms. ​ The military bloggers Boris Rozhin (Colonal Cassad) and Mikhail Zvinchuk (Rybar) refused to respond to questions about Medinsky’s role. Dmitry Rogozin, currently the senator representing Zaporozhye and a future presidential succession candidate, has not commented publicly on Medinsky as Putin’s spokesman for negotiations.
    ​ The Communist Party, which fiercely attacked Medinsky’s performance in Istanbul-I, has warned against the prospects for Istanbul-II but party leaders and the party spokesman refuse to answer questions on Medinsky’s current role.​ https://johnhelmer.net/sending-a-boy-to-do-a-mans-job-vladimir-medinsky-to-negotiate-istanbul-ii/#more-90348

    ​ Zelensky Visibly Agitated As Trump Dominates Meeting, Citing ‘Very Good Relationship’ With Putin
    ​ Tensions were certainly on display before and during the Trump-Zelensky meeting at Trump Tower in New York. Going into the meeting, both men looked stern-faced, with Trump making a series of casual remarks which appeared aimed at gently belittling the Ukrainian leader and putting him in his place. This comes days after Zelensky went after J.D. Vance, and came close to directly criticizing Trump himself for calling for ceasefire and talks with Moscow.
    ​ “We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin. And I think if we win I think we’re going to get it resolved very quickly,” Trump said in comments made before the press going into the meeting. But that caused an agitated Zelensky to poke back:
    ​ “I hope we have more good relations,” Zelensky cut in.
    ​ “Oh, I see,” Trump responded. “But it takes two to tango, you know, and I we’re going to have a good meeting today. And I think the fact that we’re even together today is a very good sign.”​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-criticizes-zelensky-reveals-private-message-just-friday-meeting

    Desperate-Looking Biden Administration Attempt to Get 21-Day Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire​ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/desperate-looking-biden-administration-attempt-to-get-21-day-israel-lebanon-ceasefire.html

    ​ Again. Sirens Blare Overnight As Yemeni Houthis Target Tel Aviv With Ballistic Missile
    Israel’s military has said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, and explosions were widely heard in the early night hours of Friday (local). “Following the sirens that sounded in central Israel, the surface-to-surface missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted by an ‘Arrow’ interceptor outside of Israeli territory,” the army said in a statement. “There is currently no change to the IDF Defensive guidelines,” it added.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/netanyahu-tells-military-keep-fighting-hezbollah-full-force-rules-out-ceasefire

    September 27, 2024 at 7:16 pm #169894
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Detailed investigative reporting on this one-way street. How Israel Torpedoed Washington’s Global Strategy. Mike Whitney​ https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-torpedoed-washington-global-strategy/5868661

    ​ Netanyahu rubs it in. Times of Israel, US, frustrated, says ceasefire plan rejected by Netanyahu had been coordinated with him
    PM had been expected to welcome initiative on arrival in NY, relate to it in UN speech. But after outcry at home, PMO says he never backed it and he vows to keep hitting Hezbollah​ https://www.timesofisrael.com/pms-rejection-of-lebanon-ceasefire-plan-shatters-ties-with-biden-tv-report/

    ​Anyway… Israel says it secured $8.7 billion military aid package from US https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4901552-israel-us-aid-package/

    ​ US Congress ‘Happy to Be Lied to’ in Service of American Imperialism – Analyst
    ​One analyst claimed lawmakers were “very happy to be lied to” by the US Secretary of State, claiming they “would have denounced Blinken for the truth.”
    ​ Secretary of State Antony Blinken is facing calls to resign after a damning report suggested he willfully misled Congress to keep US military aid flowing to Israel.
    Analysis by the investigative reporting nonprofit ProPublica revealed that Blinken defied the findings of multiple government bodies that concluded Israel was deliberately blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Blinken ignored the advice of multiple officials with the State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID), testifying before lawmakers that Tel Aviv was not interfering with the flow of aid.​
    ​ US law forbids the provision of military equipment to any country obstructing American humanitarian assistance.​ https://sputnikglobe.com/20240926/us-congress-happy-to-be-lied-to-in-service-of-american-imperialism–analyst-1120293423.html

    ​ Israeli Military Chief ‘Preparing’ for Ground Offensive in Lebanon​, At least 72 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon so far on Wednesday
    ​Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), said Wednesday that the Israeli military was “preparing” for a potential ground offensive in Lebanon.
    ​ Halevi told a group of IDF soldiers that their “military boots will enter enemy territory” and said Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon are part of the preparations for a ground invasion.​ “You can hear the planes above, we are attacking all day. Both to prepare the area for the possibility of your entry [into Lebanon], and also to continue causing blows to Hezbollah.”​ https://news.antiwar.com/2024/09/25/israeli-military-chief-preparing-for-ground-offensive-in-lebanon/#gsc.tab=0

    September 27, 2024 at 7:17 pm #169895
    John Day
    Participant

    Israel calls up to 8000 reserves to enter conflict with Hezbollah
    ​The Israeli military announced Wednesday afternoon that two reserve brigades will be called up for deployment in Operation Northern Arrows.
    ​ “In accordance with the situational assessment, the IDF is calling up two reserve brigades for operational missions in the northern arena,” the IDF said.
    “This will enable the continuation of combat against the Hezbollah terrorist organization, the defense of the State of Israel, and create the conditions to enable the residents of northern Israel to return to their homes.”​ https://endtimeheadlines.org/2024/09/israel-calls-up-to-8000-reserves-to-enter-conflict-with-hezbollah/#google_vignette

    Lebanon braces for 1982-type Israeli invasion​, Lebanese civilians fleeing the south in expectation of an Israeli offensive to push Hezbollah out of border regions​ https://asiatimes.com/2024/09/lebanon-braces-for-1982-type-israeli-invasion/

    ​ Russian Missile Defences Block Israeli Attack on Western Syria
    The Russian Armed Forces have reportedly shot down 13 Israeli missiles over Syrian airspace, after the Israeli Air Force attempted to launch an attack on the city of Tartus in Western Syria on the Mediterranean coast…​ The Russian military presence in Syria is heavily concentrated in the Western province of Latakia, primarily around Khmeimim Airbase and a naval facility in the city of Tartus. Both facilities have gained growing strategic importance for Russia in recent years​… Russian air defence systems deployed at Khmeimim Airbase include the long range S-400 and S-300V4, the medium range BuK-M2 and the short range Pantsir-S, as well as various electronic warfare assets… While Israeli cruise missile attacks on Syria have consistently used subsonic missiles, the S-400 and S-300V4 have proven capable of intercepting targets travelling at hypersonic speeds of over Mach 8. Both can have engagement ranges of up to 400 kilometres, depending on the missiles they are equipped with, allowing them to engage targets across Israeli airspace and beyond. If either of the systems did fire on Israeli missiles, it would likely be their first ever kinetic use in the Syria theatre.​ https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russia-defences-block-israel-syria

    ​Andrew Korybko, Lavrov Reminded The World That Russia Is Committed To Ensuring Israel’s Security
    ​ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov used his latest interview with Sky News Arabia to remind the world about the true state of his country’s relations with Israel, to which Russia remains committed in ensuring its security contrary to what the MSM and AMC have claimed. He’s not “playing 5D chess” to “psyche out the Zionists” like some from the second media camp might imagine but is simply doing his job by articulating Russia’s foreign policy as it objectively exists. Here’s what he told his interlocutor:
    ​ “When some officials justify their actions by saying that they – the Jewish people – were victims of the Holocaust and therefore can be forgiven, this is a troubling trend. It is a sign of the exceptionalism characteristic of Hitler’s Germany and its ideology.
    ​ I have many friends in Israel. The vast majority of them understand that the issue of a Palestinian state must be resolved and that suppressing the natural rights of the Palestinian people is unacceptable.
    ​ Personally, I have good relations with many of my Israeli colleagues, including former ones. When speaking about the Middle East policy, President Vladimir Putin highlights Russia’s full commitment to security and fundamental interests of the State of Israel.
    ​ It is not for nothing that I mentioned the necessity of implementing the resolutions that require resolving the Middle East issues on a two-state basis, so that two independent and sovereign states, Israel and Palestine, exist as good neighbours, safely for each other and for the entire region. This essential approach needs no explanation; it complies with the interests of both Israel and Palestine.
    ​ We always stress in all our actions that no solutions are going to be viable if they fail to ensure Israel’s security, among other things, but not at the expense of the security of others.”​ …
    ​..The caveat though is that this should “not (be) at the expense of the security of others”, ergo why Russia continues to adhere to UNSC Resolutions calling for a two-state solution since it sincerely believes that this is essential to sustainably resolving the so-called ‘Palestinian Question’. This policy contrasts with Israel’s, which has unilaterally decided to ignore international law, thus lending false credence to the MSM and AMC’s claims that Russia is against Israel even though the aforesaid insight disproves that.​ Russian diplomats have worked hard to carefully balance between Israel and the Iranian-led Resistance Axis.​ https://korybko.substack.com/p/lavrov-reminded-the-world-that-russia

    ​ Israel Kills 39 More Palestinians in Gaza, Bombs Another School
    Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that Israeli forces killed another 39 Palestinians and wounded 86 in the previous 24-hour period.
    ​ The latest violence brings the ministry’s death toll since October 7, 2023, to 41,534 and the number of wounded to 96,092. The toll is an undercount since it doesn’t include the estimated 10,000 people who are missing and presumed dead under the rubble.
    ​ “There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry said on Telegram.​ https://news.antiwar.com/2024/09/26/israel-kills-39-more-palestinians-in-gaza-strikes-another-school/#gsc.tab=0

    September 27, 2024 at 7:17 pm #169896
    John Day
    Participant

    ​Destroying water lines and sewage systems causes cholera epidemics: Israeli bulldozers do extensive damage to West Bank infrastructure
    The military vehicles, deployed in Tulkarem and Jenin during two weeks of intense raids beginning in late August, “tore up mile after mile of streets and alleys, leaving sewage to seep into the deep ruts left behind,” the Times report said.​ https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/25/733960/Israeli-bulldozers-wreak-havoc-on-West-Bank-infrastructure

    ​ Iraqi resistance drone attack hits Israel’s Eilat port
    Iraq’s Islamic Resistance has launched a drone strike on the Israeli-occupied port of Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat) in response to Israeli atrocities in Lebanon and Gaza.​.. Social media videos showed smoke rising from the port area following the strike.​ https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/25/733965/Iraqi-resistance-drone-attack-hits-Israel-Eilat-port

    ​ Hezbollah’s rocket salvos pummel Israeli sites, settlements​
    Hezbollah’s resistance fighters launched 130 rockets in two operations, responding to the Israeli aggression on Lebanon.
    ​ On Thursday noon, Hezbollah announced that its fighters fired salvos of rockets at the settlement city of Kiryat Motzkin, one of four small cities that make up the densely-populated Krayot settlement to the north of Haifa.
    ​ The Resistance then renewed its rocket attacks on the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems military-industrial complex, located to the north of occupied Haifa, in the Zvulun Valley.
    ​ Islamic Resistance fighters then fired salvos of Falaq-2-type rockets at the settlement city of Kiryat Shmona, near the Palestinian-Lebanese border. Impacts of multiple rockets were recorded on Thursday.​ https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/hezbollah-s-rocket-salvos-pummel-israeli-sites–settlements

    ​ Hezbollah bombs Israeli arms factory, forces fighter jets to withdraw
    The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah announced Wednesday that its fighters launched rockets targeting a bomb material factory in Zikhron, occupied southern Haifa, using a barrage of Fadi-3 rockets.
    ​ For the second time on Wednesday, Hezbollah struck the settlement of Kiryat Motzkin with volleys of Fadi-1 rockets. Concurrently, Hezbollah’s air defense units engaged two hostile fighter jets near the Lebanese towns of Houla and Mays al-Jabal to force them out of Lebanese airspace.​ https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/hezbollah-bombs-israeli-arms-factory–forces-fighter-jets-to

    ​ Israel’s war on Lebanon: What arms does Hezbollah have?
    Group’s capabilities include missiles and drones as well as a large number of battle-hardened fighters, should Israel invade south Lebanon​ https://www.middleeasteye.net/explainers/israel-war-lebanon-what-arms-hezbollah-have

    September 27, 2024 at 7:18 pm #169897
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Reuters, 9/24/24, Exclusive: Iran brokering talks to send advanced Russian missiles to Yemen’s Houthis, sources say https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-brokering-talks-send-advanced-russian-missiles-yemens-houthis-sources-say-2024-09-24/

    Pravda, 9/26/24, Russia to transfer long-range anti-ship P-800 Onyx missiles to Yemeni Houthis, Yemeni Houthis to use Russian P-800 Onyx missiles to sink US aircraft carriers. https://english.pravda.ru/news/world/160745-russia-onyx-yemeni-houthis/

    ​ Yemen’s Houthis claim attacks on Israeli cities, US warships​, Iran-aligned group says it will continue its attacks on Israel until its ‘aggression on Lebanon and Gaza stops’.​ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/27/yemens-houthis-claim-to-have-targeted-israels-tel-aviv-and-ashkelon

    ​I read that there were 5 teams of assassins gunning for Trump. He needs protection. Iran is not in the room… Trump Pushes Narrative That Iran Is Trying to Kill Him
    The Trump campaign was briefed on alleged threats from Iran by Biden’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence​ https://news.antiwar.com/2024/09/25/trump-pushes-narrative-that-iran-is-trying-to-kill-him/#gsc.tab=0

    ​ India can never trust China. they have a long history. Indian Foreign Minister Throws Cold Water on the Idea of a BRICS Currency
    ​ The remarks by the highly respected Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar should put paid to the idea that a BRICS currency is coming soon, if ever. Jaishankar raises a series of particular issues consistent with a point we have made: that a common currency would require a very substantial legal and systems architecture. Agreeing on the legal structure would entail a reduction of sovereignty (BRICS rulings would have to supercede national courts) which seems contrary to the notion that BRICS is meant to increase, rather than reduce, national sovereignty. Jaishankar also points out, as we have, that the BRICS nations are too economically diverse (as in often divergent) to make a common scheme work easily if at all.
    ​ Jaishankar points out that bi-lateral currency deals work well enough and appear satisfactory to most BRICS members. That does leave unsolved the point that your humble blogger and Michael Hudson have raise: that absent mechanisms to encourage balanced trade such as the ones that were part of Keynes’ Bancor, many countries are likely to wind up with sustained trade deficits relative to particular trade partners. What happens when those countries wind up with a lot more of that currency than they want?​ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/indian-foreign-minister-throws-cold-water-on-the-idea-of-a-brics-currency.html

    September 27, 2024 at 7:19 pm #169898
    John Day
    Participant

    Holding to many bad loans… China Weighs $142 Billion Capital Injection Into Top Banks
    ​ China is considering injecting up to 1 trillion yuan ($142 billion) of capital into its biggest state banks to increase their capacity to support the struggling economy, according to people familiar with the matter.
    ​ The funding will mainly come from the issuance of new special sovereign bonds, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter. The details have yet to be finalized.​ https://archive.is/rZyFa#selection-1687.0-1691.189

    ​ Boeing merged with failing and corrupt McDonnell-Douglas ​in 1997. Engineering principles lost to ​money-suckers.​ Boeing Machinists on Strike Have a Historic Opportunity
    In a potentially game-changing move, 33,000 Boeing machinists in the Pacific Northwest, unionized with IAM District 751, are on strike after rejecting the company’s initial insulting contract offer. A stunning 96 percent of the rank and file voted to go on strike, marking a sea change for the fight of working people at Boeing. For decades, Boeing’s executives and wealthy shareholders have, with the active help from Democrats and Republicans in Washington state and Washington D.C., enforced a decades-long brutal regime that has thrown both workers and safety standards under the bus in favor of short-term profit maximization for themselves.​ https://scheerpost.com/2024/09/26/boeing-machinists-on-strike-have-a-historic-opportunity/
    ​
    ​ Trump’s Plan To Bolster The Economy
    ​ In a bid to build a broader coalition, former President Donald Trump has outlined a vision of tax cuts, import tariffs, and “reciprocal trade” to preserve and restore American industries…​ “So, as your president, here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth,” he said at a Tuesday event in Savannah, Ga. “I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America.”​ “It all goes away if you don’t make your product here and hire American workers for the job,” he warned.​ https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/wedtaxes-and-tariffs-and-trade-oh-my-trumps-plan-bolster-economy

    ​9.9% of respondents to EPA poll believe that humans are the dominant cause of climate change. EPA poll shows 90% reject the climate hoax. https://x.com/JunkScience/status/1838573685772255684

    ​ Lawfare​: Censorship by Wealth and Power​ Works Again: Journal pressured to retract study on covid-19 vaccine harms
    Vaccine manufacturer sues researchers for defamation and demands retraction of a study describing adverse events after covid-19 vaccination.​ https://blog.maryannedemasi.com/p/breaking-journal-pressured-to-retract

    September 27, 2024 at 7:20 pm #169899
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Get ’em if you can: Website for free COVID tests crashes as FDA appears to show September’s availability date
    Some visitors to the government’s website received a ‘service unavailable’ error message on Monday, indicating high demand for the tests.​ https://www.fastcompany.com/91195734/free-covid-tests-2024-website-crashes-fda-appears-availability-date

    ​ Fluoride in Water Poses ‘Unreasonable Risk’ to Children, Federal Judge Rules
    A federal judge rejected the EPA’s argument that the exact level at which fluoride is hazardous is too unclear to determine if the chemical presents an unreasonable risk, and ruled the agency must take regulatory action.​ https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/fluoridation-risk-kids-landmark-decision/

    ​I enjoyed talking to one of my med-school classmates, who had an undergraduate degree in Nutrition. She noted out loud one day that I was “a healthy snacker”. 😉
    Diet-Related Diseases Are the No. 1 Cause of Death in the US – Yet Many Doctors Receive Little to No Nutrition Education in Med School​ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/diet-related-diseases-are-the-no-1-cause-of-death-in-the-us-yet-many-doctors-receive-little-to-no-nutrition-education-in-med-school.html

    Former CDC Director Robert Redfield Praises “Make America Healthy Again”​ https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/former-cdc-director-robert-redfield-praises-make-america-healthy-again

    September 27, 2024 at 7:26 pm #169900
    citizenx
    Participant

    “Netanyhu’s speech to the UN should be required reading- and should spur high levels of concern. What is referenced as “lies” from a psychological perspective is a level of distortion that can only be labeled as psychosis. With the US/UK cartel at his back, fueling armaments in the billions and now appearing to promise “boots on the ground” for the coming invasion of Lebanon, the situation is a ramp up for World War III.

    In his speech, Netanyahu literally described the United Nations as a “swamp of antisemitic bile.”

    Israel is a Jewish Terrorist Rogue Regime- as is the US

    The world sat around with thumbs up buttholes while the New World Order abused everyone globally during ‘CoVid 19’. That will not happen again- swords are sharpened, lamp posts are waiting.

    Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Afghanistan, plus many others are prepared and willing to set Israel and its bitch America straight. Hundred million Americans have been abused and labeled as Terrorists by their own American Regime. Hundred million Americans are prepared and waiting to destroy Democratic filth.

    Nothing can or will save America/ Israel from their crimes and abuses against humanity.
    Tiny hats tremble in terror hiding in their bunkers, Liberals shake in fear every moment…

    Justice will be served, decency restored- not by Jews or Liberals.

    I love the smell of napalm in the morning, smells like victory…some day this wars going to end.

    https://x.com/PalestineChron/status/1839696056260440285?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1839696056260440285|twgr^e80436a977122a5b7cff4cd9db6fa74bad2f71ca|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.palestinechronicle.com%2Flive-blog-hezbollah-strikes-haifa-port-israel-strikes-syria-more-massacres-in-gaza-day-357%2F

    Want a better world? You’re going to have to fight for it.

    September 27, 2024 at 7:42 pm #169901
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    ”
    James Corbett appears on the SLOBODNI podcast
    on Z1 TV in Croatia
    to discuss the Future of Food,
    the transformation of the food supply,
    the attack on farming and farmers,
    and what we can do about this threat.
    ”

    https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/james-corbett-dissects-the-food-crisis

    September 27, 2024 at 8:17 pm #169902
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Well, my tale about the vax-requiring employer looks like it is going to be cut short.

    That other job came through offering $3 more an hour, which is huge at my bottom-feeding level. And fully remote.

    The vax-requirers made me jump through ALL the hoops – beg old workmates for references, interviews, background check, etc – all the hoops AND THEN “oh we require a vaccination”

    That should be in the JOB DESCRIPTION and in the screening interview. What the hell. Like… we want to cost the antivaxxers as much time, trouble, and emotional turmoil as possible, so put it absolute last in the process? Taking no count of the cost to the company to run the background check, multiple interviews, etc.

    There was always a very mean-spirited component to the whole notavax drama.

    I told the other guys I want to accept, so I’m just waiting for the paperwork now.

    September 27, 2024 at 10:48 pm #169906
    zerosum
    Participant

    Divide and conquers
    I f I can see it, so can the middle east.
    Peace.

    September 27, 2024 at 10:56 pm #169907
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    The jews are demons, minions of Satan, here to create Hell on earth, thru the control of money, which everyone is a slave to. As the madness escalates, insecurity ratchets up, your “money” turns to shit, when the lies and gaslighting no longer work, welcome to talmudland. Planned long, long ago. Them at the top, in complete control, you dead or on the bottom. For a 100 fuckin years, they’ve been bragging about it, jewstyle, but no one reads or listens, so here we are yes. A pornographic, inverted, debauched and depraved society, everyone a whore to money, owned and run by Demons. There is no voting your way out of this. That died with JFK. There’s a storm coming, can you feel it?

    September 27, 2024 at 10:58 pm #169908
    aspnaz
    Participant

    “In Wuhan, Robotaxis Put China’s Self-Driving Ambitions to the Test”
    https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1015767

    The Chinese are way ahead of the Americans in self-driving cars, but they cannot do it comprehensively, they are trying hard and have set up environments to test and develop them further, but people are still monitoring the car from a central point as it drives around. Tesla is basically Musk bullshit, Google self driving died a sudden death, I constantly wonder why people fall for all the American EV publicity stunts while the real leading edge is elsewhere.

    September 27, 2024 at 11:08 pm #169909
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Former US President Donald Trump has hammered Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky for refusing to negotiate with Russia, arguing that the country is now “obliterated” while Kiev is reduced to sending “young children and old men” to the front lines amid its conflict with Moscow.

    Trump always blames other people, it was not Trump’s fault that he funded Ukraine during his tenure in the doll’s house. It was Trump’s fault that people were locked down during Covid, he was the one telling people to stay at home, not go to restaurants etc. It was Trump’s fault that he gave big-pharma huge money and legal immunity in Warp Speed, during his tenure. It was not Trump’s fault that loads of people were put on ventilators and died. Now he is pretending that Iran is trying to kill him, as if his murder of the Iranian general back during his tenure was somehow justified. It is pathetic. But now we are being asked to believe that nothing was Trump’s fault, in the same way as nothing was ever Kamala’s fault. Leaders take responsibility for the actions of their teams, they are the ones who okay the decisions, they are the ones who should take responsibility if they are the wrong decisions. Both Trump and Harris seems to be unable to take responsibility for their decisions in office. Very pathetic.

    September 27, 2024 at 11:16 pm #169910
    aspnaz
    Participant

    On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump pushed a narrative being spread by US intelligence officials that Iran is trying to kill him even though there’s no evidence of Iranian involvement in either attempt on his life.

    Trump is owned by the Jews, the government agencies are owned by the Jews, Israel is owned by the Jews and Israel wants Americas to fight and die in a war against their biggest enemy Iran. Iran has not done anything to Israel, and Russia has stated that Iran is under their protection, but them Jews and Americans love the smell of death, they love to kill civilians, they want moar and Trump is riding that Jew wave.

    The war is simply the manifestation of oligarchs trying to steal stuff, they love to steal, they are criminals which is why they are so rich; you think you can become an oligarch through hard work? Wake up. As they sacrifice the plebs in their global game of chess, their assumption that the plebs are toothless deplorables is further vindicated.

    September 27, 2024 at 11:22 pm #169911
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Blinken ignored the advice of multiple officials with the State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID), testifying before lawmakers that Tel Aviv was not interfering with the flow of aid. US law forbids the provision of military equipment to any country obstructing American humanitarian assistance.

    The Jews own America, why would they have to obey the law? Same as the owner of a company, he does not have to obey HR’s rules. Get real folks.

    September 27, 2024 at 11:44 pm #169912
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Former CDC Director Robert Redfield, who served during the Trump administration, wrote an editorial in Newsweek praising President Trump’s decision to join forces with Robert Kennedy Jr. to “make America healthy again.”

    As I have said before, the Trump or Harris administrations will be the same old crowd with new PR branding. Redfield is a professional manager, he will do whatever his boss tells him, he is not trying to make America healthy, he is trying to make himself wealthy by doing the dirty deeds for big pharma. Same old, same old. Nothing changes. I do like his obvious bid for a job in the new administration, corrupt creeps know their own when they see them; he is joining the Jew team.

    September 28, 2024 at 12:58 am #169914
    my parents said know
    Participant

    To maximize the chaos that comes after,
    The trump will win; the jokers roar in laughter.

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