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Debt Rattle October 20 2024

Oct 202024
 
 October 20, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


René Magritte The endearing truth 1966

 

• Media Still Tries To Suggest Trump Is ‘Exhausted’ (JTN)
• Trump’s Polymarket Surge Powered By $30 Million Bet By Just 4 Accounts (ZH)
• Is Kamala Harris a Plagiarist? (Turley)
• House Democrats Say Trump Overcharged Secret Service at His DC Hotel (Sp.)
• Zelensky’s Only “Victory Plan” Is NATO Boots On The Ground (ZH)
• France Backs Zelensky’s ‘Victory Plan’ (RT)
• Orban Blasts Zelensky’s “More Than Frightening” Victory Plan (ZH)
• Moscow Warns of Direct NATO-Russia Conflict if Ukraine Joins Alliance (Sp.)
• Ukraine Peace ‘Must Be Lasting’ – Putin (RT)
• Russia Has “Unlimited” Energy Resources – Putin (RT)
• US To Pay $20 Billion Into Loan For Ukraine – FT (RT)
• Secret US Intelligence Files On Israel Leaked – CNN (RT)
• Assassinations Continue, But Israel Will Not Win The War (SCF)
• Police Escalate Britain’s War on Independent Journalism (Cook)
• The Geoeconomic Drivers of SCO-BRICS Synergy (Pepe Escobar)

 

 

 

 

Tyrus

College degree

Moonshot

Old man

Seal
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847392365977227537

Californicated
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847427727630180417

RFK

 

 

 

 

Elon EU

Elon Covid

?!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847403452126687462

Garland
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847645637417771209

Elon sharks

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smells like desperation?! “Politico ran a headline on Friday reading “An ‘exhausted’ Trump says no to another interview”..”

• Media Still Tries To Suggest Trump Is ‘Exhausted’ (JTN)

Former President Donald Trump is beating back rumors and reports of exhaustion in the final stretch of his reelection campaign with a rigorous schedule of in-person rallies and interviews that has far outpaced his much younger Democratic opponent. Politico ran a headline on Friday reading “An ‘exhausted’ Trump says no to another interview”. The article pointed to Trump’s backing out of an interview with The Shade Room and cited anonymous “people familiar with the conversations” in reporting that a “Trump advisor” had said Trump was “exhausted” and “refusing [some] interviews.” The story further pointed to Trump’s cancellation of other interviews this week, including with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” which the campaign attributed to a scheduling conflict. A Trump campaign official confirmed to Just the News that it never set or discussed a date to appear on The Shade Room and that it also had a scheduling conflict that precluded a separate NBC appearance.

Three times as many interviews
Concerns over age and ability to handle the rigors of office proved fatal to the political career of President Joe Biden, 81, whose performance in a debate against Trump this year reignited scrutiny over his age and mental competence and ultimately pushed him to step aside. At 78, Trump has also faced some questions over his age and mental acuity, albeit not to a comparable extent. Last month, Axios ran an article highlighting that Trump had held fewer rallies per month compared to his 2016 cycle. One of the contributing factors, the outlet asserted, was that “he’s older.” The Trump campaign adamantly denies such claims. “This is unequivocally false,” Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Just the News of the Politico article. “President Trump has been running laps around Kamala Harris on the campaign trail and has sat down for nearly three times as many interviews as she has, including a contentious interview with Bloomberg this past week which Kamala declined. President Trump has more energy, and a harder work ethic, than anyone in politics.” Indeed, there is plenty in Trump’s active campaign schedule to contrast with that of Vice President Harris, 59.

Rally frequency
Since becoming the Republican Party nominee in mid-July, Trump has held at least 41 conventional rallies — one in which he narrowly missed being felled by an assassin’s bullet — across every battleground state, including multiple weeks in which he has headlined two or more events. That figure includes joint appearances such as his rallies with Turning Point, but does not include media hits. Harris, by contrast, became the Democratic nominee in early August and has since held at least 14 conventional rallies. Trump held five rallies between his confirmation as the GOP candidate and Harris’s ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket. To compare the same period, Trump has held at least 36 rallies to Harris’s 16 since she became the Democratic nominee. Both figures include weekend appearances by either candidate. Trump held rallies in Detroit, Mich.; and Latrobe and Lancaster, Pa.; while Harris appeared in Detroit, Mich.; and Atlanta, Ga.

83 interviews as opposed to 44
Apart from standard rallies, both campaigns have of course made numerous appearances on legacy media, as well as podcasts, video platforms, and in other media. A Wall Street Journal breakdown of their respective appearances, moreover, showed Trump again outpacing Harris in virtually all mediums. As of July 15, Trump has made 28 appearances on what the outlet deemed “Legacy TV” compared to Harris’s 12 since Aug. 6. In those intervals, Trump made 10 radio appearances to Harris’s seven. Trump further made 10 print appearances to her two, seven podcast hits to her two, and appeared in an X space. Both made three video appearances. A running tally of interviews from Fox News, moreover, tracks the combined interviews for both the major candidates and their running mates. Since the formation of the Harris-Walz ticket in August, the outlet states, Harris and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., have sat for a combined minimum of 44 non-scripted interviews. Trump and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, meanwhile, have conducted at least 83.

Press conferences: Harris not held one yet
Trump has held at least six press conferences since early August in which he fielded media questions, while Harris has not held a single formal news conference in her capacity as a candidate, according to Fox News. Though she has delivered remarks in an official capacity as the vice president, offering updates on hurricane relief efforts and other issues, she has kept questions limited in those instances. Despite her recent “media blitz” in which she appeared on a string of friendly podcasts and programs, some media insiders don’t expect Harris to include a formal press conference before the end of the election cycle. Speaking to Fox News, conservative Radio Libre host Jorge Bonilla said Harris was “highly unlikely” to hold such an event “because the media have enabled and encouraged her ‘plexiglass basement’ strategy.”

Exhausted

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“Elon Musk [..] describing betting markets as “more accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line.”

• Trump’s Polymarket Surge Powered By $30 Million Bet By Just 4 Accounts (ZH)

Few recent developments in the 2024 White House race have been as swift and seemingly prophetical as a huge October swing toward Donald Trump in the crypto-based Polymarket online betting marketplace. From even odds at the start of the month, the odds of a Trump victory have surged to 60%, while the odds of Kamala Harris win have fallen to 40%. Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting the move is largely the work of just four accounts that have together plowed $30 million into bets on the former president. What’s more, the timing of the four accounts’ moves suggests they could be controlled by a single owner. Polymarket has engaged outside experts to scrutinize transactions in presidential election betting, an unnamed source told the Journal. The four accounts have concentrated on bets that Trump will come out atop the electoral college count, but have also dabbled in side-wagers on individual state contests, as well as taking some flyers on Trump winning the popular vote.

That’s a long shot indeed, as Polymarket currently gives Trump only a 32% chance of doing that. “There’s strong reason to believe they are the same entity,” Arkham Intelligence CEO Miguel Morel tells the Journal: The accounts betting big on Trump—Fredi9999, Theo4, PrincessCaro and Michie—were all funded by deposits from Kraken, a U.S.-based crypto exchange, according to Arkham. They behave in a similar fashion, systematically placing frequent bets on Trump and stepping up the size of their bets at the same time, Arkham found. The oldest of the accounts was created in June, while the newest was created this month. In its report, the Journal worked to substantiate the notion that the concentrated bets represent some form of intentional narrative-control scheme, saying “[Trump’s] surge might be a mirage manufactured by a group of four Polymarket accounts,” a view embraced by crypto investor Adam Cochran, a self-described right-of-center Harris-backer.

To its credit, however, the Journal also tapped Rutgers University stats professor Harry Crane, who noted that other betting markets also have Trump in the lead, and that big bettors routinely nudge all manner of market odds. “Purchasing a large number of shares on one outcome does not require any ulterior motive or effort to manipulate the market,” he said. Americans are officially barred from Polymarket, and a source “familiar with the matter” has assured Reuters that the four accounts behind the $30 million wave of bets are not owned by an American, a conclusion that rests on the firm’s practice of certifying large traders to verify they aren’t using VPNs to hide their origins.

As the Polymarket surge began in early October, Trump-backer Elon Musk publicized Trump’s then-3% lead in the odds, describing betting markets as “more accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line.” In addition to the 60% chance of a Trump victory, Polymarket now has the GOP with an 81% chance of taking over the Senate, but gives Democrats a 51% chance of controlling the House of Representatives.


The highest it got, on Oct. 18

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“..an opponent of Trump could probably copy “War and Peace” word-for-word and would still be showered with literary awards..”

• Is Kamala Harris a Plagiarist? (Turley)

Kamala Harris this week faced accusations of plagiarism over multiple sections of her book, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer.” This is not the first such accusation, Harris was accused of lifting a story from Martin Luther King. In 1965, King described “a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with her mother.” King recounted how the policeman asked the little girl “‘What do you want?’ and the little girl looked at him straight in the eye and answered, ‘Fee-dom’.” Harris would later tell the story of how her mother asked her “Kamala, what’s wrong? What do you want?” and I wailed back, “Fweedom.”

As found by various media outlets, the new allegations from her book would qualify as plagiarism despite the denial of the campaign. It is doubtful it will matter to many voters in the hardened political silos of this election. However, it could prompt a long-needed discussion about how we handle plagiarism in academia. “I wrote my own book, unlike Kamala Harris, who copied hers from Wikipedia.” That criticism, from vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, was only the latest salvo in what has become known as the “the Plagiarism War.” Like virtually every aspect of our lives, plagiarism has become politics by another means. It is hardly new. President Joe Biden admitted to plagiarism long ago. The seriousness of the allegation often depends on how sympathetic the media is toward the author.

Vice President Kamala Harris was accused of plagiarizing her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer.” Immediately, the New York Times ran a column citing a “plagiarism consultant” named Jonathan Bailey who suggested that, while Harris plagiarized from sources like Wikipedia, it was nothing to “make a big deal of it.” Bailey took to social media Monday to confirm he had not done a full analysis of the book and that his “quotes were based on information provided to me by the reporters and spoke only about those passages.” The response set off conservative media, which argued that the mainstream media would have had a very different response if the allegations were made against Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.” The fact is, an opponent of Trump could probably copy “War and Peace” word-for-word and would still be showered with literary awards in this political environment.

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A ridiculous “report” 4-5 years later.

• House Democrats Say Trump Overcharged Secret Service at His DC Hotel (Sp.)

Donald Trump during his presidency overcharged Secret Service agents to stay at his DC hotel, treating the agency “as an ATM,” a new report by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee alleges. “One source of payments discussed in this report is the U.S. Secret Service, which Donald Trump treated as his own personal government ATM, extracting from it exorbitant rates his hotel imposed while Secret Service agents protected him, his children, and even foreign leaders whose own payments received by Trump violated the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause,” the report said. According to the Democratic report, Trump’s hotel often did not just charge the Secret Service as much as 300% or more above the authorized federal government rates, but also charged it “far more than hundreds of other patrons, including members of a foreign royal family and a Chinese business interest.”

The report stated that it wants to ensure that taxpayer funds appropriated to the Secret Service are expended to fulfill its protective missions and “not to violate the Constitution by lining the president’s pockets.” The report also focuses on payments made by federal and state officials staying at the hotel, as well as individuals who allegedly sought and often obtained federal jobs in the Trump administration and presidential pardons. The Secret Service has recently been in the spotlight due to failures that led to the attempted assassination of the former president during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. One of the bullets fired by the shooter grazed Trump’s right ear, leaving him wounded. The gunman also killed an audience member at the rally and wounded two others. In a report published on Thursday, an independent panel reviewing the assassination attempt revealed “deep flaws” in the Secret Service. The panel warned that “another Butler can and will happen again” unless the agency is reformed.

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“..if one examines Zelensky’s victory plan it’s as if someone somewhere must have promised him a fresh supply of NATO troops..”

• Zelensky’s Only “Victory Plan” Is NATO Boots On The Ground (ZH)

Ukraine’s “victory plan”, presented this week to NATO officials and both candidates (Trump and Harris) for the 2024 US presidential election, has been widely criticized as a non-starter specifically because it does not address the key obstacle facing their ability to stop Russia’s steady strategic advance. That key obstacle is manpower, which Ukraine does not have. The problem is not blatantly admitted, but implied by numerous officials with inside knowledge of the war. US politicians (Democrats and Neocons) have been pressuring Ukraine to lower the conscription age to 18-24 year old men, a move which the nation has tried to avoid. Why? Because the Ukrainians worry that if they do there will be no viable men left to start families and replenish the population after the war is over. That’s not a very optimistic appraisal of the situation on the front lines.

The height of Ukraine’s successful push-back against Russian forces in 2022 just happened to coincide with the height of the foreign mercenary presence in the region, with tens-of-thousands of highly experienced contract soldiers from the US and Europe helping the Ukrainians counter the maneuver warfare tactics of the Russians. However, when the Russian tactics changed to attrition, the mercenary pipeline suddenly slowed to a trickle. The mainstream media suggests that the reason the foreign fighters stopped showing up was because the “romance of the war” was gone. It is more likely that it’s because western soldiers are rarely trained to fight under attrition warfare conditions, making death a far greater possibility. The point is, Ukraine no longer has a pool of foreign fighters to fall back on and their recruitment efforts a bearing little fruit.

Young men are conscripted or in some cases kidnapped by military police, thrown into vans, dropped off at training centers and then dumped on the front lines within a few weeks. Manpower is the key to war, and it’s the one thing Ukraine has not received from NATO governments. But if one examines Zelensky’s victory plan it’s as if someone somewhere must have promised him a fresh supply of NATO troops. In fact, Zelensky’s only plan seems to be immediate NATO membership which would then, under NATO treaty, requires the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine for mutual defense. In other words, the Ukrainian plan would facilitate WWIII. Key elements of the plan include a formal invitation to join NATO, the lifting by allies of bans on long-range strikes with Western-supplied weapons deep into Russia, a refusal to trade Ukraine’s territories and sovereignty, and the continuation of the incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region.

The Kremlin dismissed the plan with a spokesman saying Kyiv needed to “sober up”. Indeed. Russia is never going to willingly give up their territorial gains in the Donbas, especially when their troop levels are higher than ever and they are taking towns at the fastest pace since the beginning of the war. The refusal to negotiate on territory makes peace impossible and requires a vast surge in troop strength for Kyiv to have any chance of a new offensive. Ukraine is reportedly losing their gains in the Kursk region with rumors of a full retreat now swirling. This claim seems to be supported by Ukraine’s evacuation of civilians from the Sumy region just across the border from Kursk.

Once again, the manpower simply doesn’t exist to make any of Zelensky’s goals possible. The real question is, is Ukraine worth it? According to surveys in the US and Europe the majority of the public says “no.” They will not support troops on the ground in Ukraine, nor do they want to risk WWIII with Russia. Because of this fact, it behooves Zelensky and his NATO backers to set aside any notions of a victory plan and start considering the wisdom of a peace plan.

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France wants war.

• France Backs Zelensky’s ‘Victory Plan’ (RT)

France would work to rally Western countries behind Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s “victory plan,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said during his visit to Kiev on Saturday. “A Russian victory would be a consecration for the law of the strongest and would push the international order towards chaos,” Barrot told reporters during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrey Sibiga. “That is why our exchanges must enable us to make progress on President Zelensky’s victory plan, and to rally as many countries as possible around it.” The diplomat reiterated that Paris would “support, again and again, Ukraine’s resistance against Russian aggression.” Barrot said that France was “open” to the idea of inviting Ukraine into NATO. “It is a discussion that we are having today with our NATO partners,” he said.

Zelensky unveiled his five-point plan in a speech to Ukrainian lawmakers this week, which includes demands that were previously rejected by Kiev’s Western backers, such [as] an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join NATO and the lifting of restrictions on the use of foreign longer-range weapons for strikes deep inside Russia. NATO has maintained that it would be impossible to admit Ukraine into the alliance until the conflict is resolved, while US President Joe Biden said on Friday that there was “no consensus” on whether to greenlight the use of ATACMS missiles and other weapons for strikes on Russian territory.

During his trip to Kiev, Barrot also announced that France would deliver the first batch of Mirage 2000 fighter planes in early 2025. The French Air Force is currently training Ukrainian pilots and aircraft technicians. Kiev has long argued that Western jets, such as the Mirage 2000s and the US-made F-16s, would be crucial to reverse the tide on the battlefield as the Russian troops have been steadily gaining ground in the Donbass in recent months.Moscow has repeatedly said that no amount of foreign military aid would stop Russian troops in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described Zelensky’s plan as “a set of incoherent slogans.”

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“Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ is the shortest path to unleashing World War III, so Hungary does not support it.”

• Orban Blasts Zelensky’s “More Than Frightening” Victory Plan (ZH)

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s office has issue a strong negative response to Ukrainian Presdient Volodymyr Zelensky’s “victory plan” – which was presented before European Union leaders this week. Zelensky’s plan, if implemented, would be the shortest path to World War III, a statement by the political director of the Hungarian prime minister’s office said. The response further stressed that the EU must be willing to embark on a path of negotiations, de-escalation, and ultimately peace. Orban had posted his initial reaction to the plan on social media on Thursday, which began, “Today President Zelenskyy will present his plan for victory. What he outlined yesterday in the Ukrainian parliament was more than frightening.” It continued, “Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ is the shortest path to unleashing World War III, so Hungary does not support it.”

And referencing Ursula von der Leyen, he wrote further, “I am one of those who urge the European Union to change its current strategy. The European Union went into this war with a badly organized, badly executed, badly calculated strategy, for which the president of the Commission bears the main responsibility.” “We are losing this war, so the strategy is not working. But this does not mean that we need more war, more dangerous and long-range weapons — it means that we need to change from a war strategy to a peace strategy. We need a cease-fire and peace talks!” he stressed in apparent reference to Europe and the NATO alliance.

Orbán pledged that he will lobby German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron to start negotiations with Moscow “on behalf of the entire EU” as soon as possible in order “to find a way out of this situation.” [..] The Hungarian PM has recently made it clear that he doesn’t share the same enthusiasm for Ukraine’s risky Kursk offensive (which started in August) as other European leaders, having expressed the desire for a ceasefire in the southern Russian oblast, and expressing the need to safeguard European energy supplies ahead of winter.

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“Kiev’s possible accession to NATO in the current conditions will eliminate the possibilities of a political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukraine conflict..”

• Moscow Warns of Direct NATO-Russia Conflict if Ukraine Joins Alliance (Sp.)

A Russian diplomat expressed hope that there are reasonable politicians in the leadership of the alliance who are aware of the destructive consequences that inviting Ukraine into NATO could bring. Kiev’s possible accession to NATO in the current conditions will eliminate the possibilities of a political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukraine conflict and make the alliance’s direct involvement in military operations against Russia inevitable, Aleksey Polishchuk, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s second department for the Commonwealth of Independent States’ countries, told Sputnik. “We constantly warn about the threat of Ukraine’s NATO accession,” Polishchuk said, when asked to comment on Szijjarto’s statement about the possibility of direct Russia-NATO confrontation.

Ukraine’s potential accession to the alliance “will put an end to the possibilities of a political and diplomatic settlement, making it inevitable that the alliance will engage directly in hostilities against Russia, and lead to an uncontrolled escalation,” the official said. Earlier this week, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told RIA Novosti that Ukraine’s accession to NATO would mean a direct confrontation between the alliance and Russia, and lead to World War III.
In early October, NATO’s new Secretary General, Mark Rutte, visited Kiev. He stated that Ukraine will eventually become a full member of the military bloc, and Russia has no veto power on this matter. However, he did not specify any timeline. President Vladimir Putin has pointed out that Ukraine’s potential NATO membership poses a threat to Russia’s security, which was one of the reasons for the start of the special military operation.

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“Moscow is looking to achieve “conditions for long-term, sustainable and lasting peace that provide equal security for all participants in this difficult process..”

• Ukraine Peace ‘Must Be Lasting’ – Putin (RT)

Moscow is interested in a lasting peace with Kiev, but not a short-lived truce, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Russia’s goal is to ensure its long-term security interests, Putin stressed during a meeting on Friday with the heads of leading BRICS media agencies at the presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow. “If we are talking about some kind of peace processes, then these should not be processes related to a ceasefire for a week, two weeks, or a year, so that NATO countries [which support Ukraine] could rearm and stock up on new ammunition,” he said. Moscow is looking to achieve “conditions for long-term, sustainable and lasting peace that provide equal security for all participants in this difficult process,” the Russian leader explained.

Putin stressed that the Russian authorities “respect and understand” the determination of their “friends” in BRICS and elsewhere to see the Ukrainian crisis resolved “as quickly as possible and by peaceful means.” Moscow realizes that the conflict is “an irritating element in international affairs, in European affairs, in the economy, and so on. We, like no one else, are interested in ending it as quickly as possible and, of course, by peaceful means,” he said. Russia is ready to return to talks with Ukraine, but only on the basis of the document drawn up in Istanbul in late March 2022, when the sides last sat at the negotiating table, the head of state insisted. Putin said last month that during the talks in Türkiye, Kiev was willing to declare military neutrality, limit its armed forces, and stop discriminating against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading world powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees.

“The document did not come into force only because the Ukrainians were ordered not to do this. The elites in the US and some European countries felt the desire to seek Russia’s strategic defeat,” the Russian president said at the time. On Wednesday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky finally made public his so-called ‘victory plan’ for the conflict between Kiev and Moscow, in a speech to the national parliament. According to Zelensky, the scheme does not include negotiations with Russia, but calls on the West “to strengthen Ukraine” in order to reach a diplomatic solution. “This plan can be implemented. It depends on our partners. I emphasize: on partners. It definitely does not depend on Russia,” he claimed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has suggested that Zelensky’s plan is merely a roadmap for continuing the hostilities. Peace can only be achieved if the government in Kiev “sobers up” and acknowledges the roots of the problems that led to the fighting, he insisted.

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“..beneficial cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is helped by the fact that they are neighbors and do not need to transport fuel and other goods by water..”

• Russia Has “Unlimited” Energy Resources – Putin (RT)

Russia has an unlimited amount of energy resources, President Vladimir Putin said during a BRICS media gathering on Friday. He noted the importance of commodity exports to China, and described Russia as the most reliable supplier. Putin said mutually beneficial cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is helped by the fact that they are neighbors and do not need to transport fuel and other goods by water. “The entire border is shared, and the energy resources in Russia are simply unlimited,” Putin stated. Chinese representatives are happy to buy Russian energy resources, the president noted, adding that Russia ranks fourth in its share of China’s trade. Russia’s trade with China topped $65 billion in the first half of this year, with levels of natural-resource exports hitting new highs, Vedomosti reported in July, citing Chinese customs data.

Exports of Russian goods to China jumped 4% year-on-year, surging to a record $65.2 billion between January and June of this year, with oil and gas supplies accounting for nearly 90% of shipments, according to the latest figures. During that period, China purchased mineral oil and other petroleum products worth $50 billion, compared to $47 billion in the same period of last year. Russia has the world’s largest natural gas reserves and is the second-largest producer of natural gas. It is the third-largest producer of oil, accounting for over 12% of global production, and its share of the enriched uranium market is estimated at 40%. The country is also among the ten largest producers of nickel, and the world’s third largest producer of titanium.

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“The contribution will be repaid using profits generated by Moscow’s frozen assets, the paper reports.”

• US To Pay $20 Billion Into Loan For Ukraine – FT (RT)

The US is set to provide up to $20 billion to Ukraine as part of a G7 loan, which will then be repaid using proceeds generated by the Russian assets immobilized by the West as part of Ukraine-related sanctions, Financial Times has reported, citing sources. Kiev’s backers have been trying to accelerate negotiations over the loan in an effort to secure funding to Ukraine before the end of the year, due to mounting concern that Washington’s aid to the country could be cut off if Donald Trump wins the upcoming US election, FT noted, in an article posted on Friday. The former US president has repeatedly threatened to scale back assistance to Kiev if he were elected. The US and its allies have frozen an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian state after the Ukraine conflict broke out in 2022. The bulk of the money, nearly €197 billion ($214 billion) is being held by Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear.

The immobilized funds have generated €3.4 billion ($3.7 billion) in interest as of mid-July, according to the depository. Moscow has denounced the freeze as “theft” and said that any seizure of its funds would be against the law and would further undermine global trust in the Western financial system. In June, G7 members agreed to grant Kiev a $50 billion loan to be financed by interest from the frozen Russian assets. The US and the EU were initially expected to provide $20 billion each as Canada, Japan and the UK were set to jointly lend the rest of the massive loan. Later, to reassure allies that the bloc’s sanctions regime on the funds is not lifted, Brussels proposed a three-year extension of the EU’s mandate to freeze Russian assets. EU lawmakers have been renewing their sanctions every six months by unanimous decision, meaning that each vote may bring about a break in restrictions. Hungary opposed the proposal, and announced plans to postpone the decision until the US presidential elections on November 5.

Last week, the EU approved its own contribution of up to €35 billion to the G7 loan, but the bloc would need to contribute less if Washington provided the full $20 billion, Reuters reported last week. The funds, which will be managed by the World Bank, will be used for several purposes, including defense or humanitarian needs. US senior officials, however, told FT that Washington would provide the full agreed $20 billion, even if the EU failed to convince Hungary’s premier Viktor Orban to drop his veto on extending EU sanctions, which had previously been voiced among the US demands. According to two sources cited by the paper, G7 finance ministers will make a statement on the distribution and structure of the loan on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank meetings on October 25.

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“An unnamed US official confirmed the authenticity of the documents to CNN, describing the leak as “deeply concerning.”

• Secret US Intelligence Files On Israel Leaked – CNN (RT)

The US has launched an investigation after its highly classified intelligence reports about Israel’s preparations for possible strikes on Iran were leaked online, CNN reported on Saturday, citing three people familiar with the matter. The apparent security breach occurred amid unprecedented tensions between Israel and Iran as the Jewish state had vowed to respond to a barrage of missiles fired by Tehran in the beginning this month. On Friday, two documents were posted to the anonymous Telegram channel Middle East Spectator, which covers events in the region and is critical of Israel. The first document, apparently prepared by the Pentagon’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, says that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had “continued key munitions preparations and covert UAV activity on October 16 almost certainly for a strike on Iran.”

The second document contains a detailed report about a “large-force employment exercise” conducted by the Israeli Air Force on October 15-16. An unnamed US official confirmed the authenticity of the documents to CNN, describing the leak as “deeply concerning.” The official told the network that the ongoing probe is aimed at determining who had access to the top secret files that eventually made their way to social media. The Telegram channel, which published the documents, released a statement on Saturday, claiming that it had received the files from “an anonymous source on Telegram who refused to identify himself.” The channel further claimed that it had “no connection to the original leaker.”

On October 1, Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in response to the war in Gaza and the assassinations of top members of pro-Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. According to the IDF, the majority of the projectiles were intercepted. The only direct casualty by the attack was a Palestinian man from the West Bank who was killed by a falling missile fragment. Israel did not specify how and when it would retaliate, with some reports saying that the IDF were planning to strike military targets in Iran, rather than nuclear or oil facilities. Israel would make “final decisions based on our national interest,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Thursday.

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“As much as intelligence can generate strategic benefits for one side, it is the military itself that decides the outcome of a conflict by fighting on the battlefield – where Tel Aviv has so far failed..”

• Assassinations Continue, But Israel Will Not Win The War (SCF)

Israel continues its strategy of carrying out as many targeted killings as possible. After killing Ismail Hanyeh, Tel Aviv managed to eliminate the then “new” Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar during a joint artillery, drone and sniper attack on the city of Rafah. It is possible that Sinwar’s exact location was obtained through Israeli intelligence sources in conversation with the IDF, which shows that Tel Aviv does indeed have an efficient system of control and surveillance. Israel has been known worldwide in recent decades for maintaining an efficient intelligence system and controlling the internal and external activities of its citizens. However, since October 7, 2023, Israeli intelligence has undergone a gradual process of discrediting, mainly due to the fact that it was not efficient in predicting Operation Storm Al Aqsa.

Many analysts began to doubt Israel’s capabilities after these events, while others began to spread conspiracy theories about alleged Israeli deliberate inaction to provoke a war. All of these narratives seem similarly unfounded. On the one hand, they exaggerate Israel’s power, while on the other, they downplay the seriousness of the Zionist regime’s capabilities. Israel does indeed have a very efficient intelligence system, capable of monitoring the internal and external activities of its citizens. However, this system is not infallible and can make serious mistakes – such as the October 7th, which appears to have been the result of Israeli intelligence neglecting Gaza due to the strategic priority of monitoring Iran. The failure of Israeli intelligence resulted in the current war, which has been the greatest historical humiliation for Israel since its founding.

However, the capabilities of Israeli intelligence cannot be diminished. Local agencies have a great capacity to obtain sensitive information and are willing to use any method to assassinate people identified as “legitimate targets.” This is how Israel has managed to kill several Palestinian, Lebanese and possibly Iranian leaders in recent months. Information is obtained from reliable sources, passed to military or intelligence-linked professional assassins, and then ambushes and sabotages are successfully carried out. Having failed militarily, Israel will certainly escalate its actions in the intelligence arena, betting on the tactic of targeted assassinations to try to demobilize the enemy, affecting the morale of the Resistance troops. The main problem with this type of strategy is that it has already proven ineffective several times, especially against cohesive groups united by strong ties of ideology, religion and political agenda – as is precisely the case with Hamas and all the other militias of the Axis of the Resistance.

Sinwar was assassinated because he was the leader of Hamas – and he became the leader of Hamas because Hanyeh was assassinated before him. This line of assassinated leaders is likely to continue, as this is the expected fate of almost all major leaders of the Resistance’s organizations. In the end, a war is not won by intelligence alone. As much as intelligence can generate strategic benefits for one side, it is the military itself that decides the outcome of a conflict by fighting on the battlefield – where Tel Aviv has so far failed. It is possible that more Resistance leaders will die in the future, but that does not change the fact that Israel is unlikely to win this war, with the policy of targeted assassinations being just a way to disguise the military incompetence of the Zionist regime.

Read more …

“This isn’t about terrorism at all. It is about frightening those opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the West’s collusion in it, into silence.”

• Police Escalate Britain’s War on Independent Journalism (Cook)

The U.K. government and police — the British state — made clear Thursday they are waging a war of intimidation against the country’s independent journalists in a desperate attempt to silence them. Ten Metropolitan police officers made a dawn raid on the home of investigative journalist Asa Winstanley and seized his electronic devices under the U.K.’s draconian Terrorism Act. A letter from the Met indicates that the associate editor of The Electronic Intifada is being investigated by the force for “encouraging terrorism.” Winstanley is the latest — and most high profile – independent journalist to be targeted by counter-terrorism police in recent weeks. Earlier, Richard Medhurst was arrested at Heathrow airport on returning to the U.K. Then Sarah Wilkinson was arrested and her home ransacked.

Winstanley has repeatedly embarrassed the British establishment by exposing its covert and deep ties to Israel and its collusion with the Israeli lobby. In his book Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn, Winstanley exposed in shocking detail how anti-Semitism was weaponised against the former Labour leader. The book would have made uncomfortable reading for his successor, Sir Keir Starmer, now Britain’s prime minister, because it documents his role in the smear campaign. While in opposition, Starmer’s Labour Party threatened to expel Winstanley as a member – he resigned in protest instead – and have made legal threats against him.

As The Electronic Intifada website notes: “Now that Labour is the UK’s ruling party, it has the potential to use the apparatus of the state against those it views as its own – or Israel’s – political enemies.” There is precisely no reason for police to raid Winstanley’s home or seize his electronic devices. The preposterous accusation of “encouraging terrorism” clearly relates to his online work, which is fully in the public domain. The British state wants to insinuate through the dawn raid and confiscation of his devices that he is somehow harbouring secret or classified information, or in illicit contact with terror groups, and that incriminating evidence will be forthcoming from searches of those devices. It won’t. If there were any real suspicion that Winstanley had such information, the police would have arrested him rather making a public show of a 6 a.m. raid and search they knew beforehand would turn up nothing.

This isn’t about terrorism at all. It is about frightening those opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the West’s collusion in it, into silence. If the British state is going after someone like Winstanley, you are supposed to conclude, they will surely soon come for me too. Even the name of the “counter-terrorism” raid is performative: “Operation Incessantness.” The message the state wants to send is that it will not rest till it has us all behind bars. Don’t believe this nonsense. The police have nothing on Winstanley. Exposing information about Israel and its genocide, and the British government’s culpability, is not a crime. At least not yet. They want you to think it is, of course. They want you scared and mute. Because every time you go out and protest, you remind the world that the British government, and their bully-boys in blue, are the real criminals – for enabling genocide.

Read more …

Mongolia.

• The Geoeconomic Drivers of SCO-BRICS Synergy (Pepe Escobar)

One week before the absolutely crucial BRICS summit in Kazan, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held a summit in Islamabad. This convergence is important in more ways than one. The summit in Pakistan involved the Council of the Heads of Government of SCO member-states. Out of it came a joint communique stressing the need to implement decisions taken at the SCO annual summit last July in Astana: that’s where the heads of state actually gathered, including new SCO full member Iran. China, following the rotating SCO chairmanship of close ally Pakistan – now under a dodgy administration fully endorsed by the military goons who keep ultra-popular former Prime Minister Imran Khan in jail – has officially taken over the SCO presidency for 2024 to 2025. And the name of game, predictably, is business.

The motto of the Chinese presidency is – what else – “action”. So Beijing took no time to start promoting further, faster synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), whose predominant power is Russia. Cue to the Russia-China strategic partnership fast advancing trans-Eurasia economic corridors. And that brings us to a couple of key connectivity subplots featured prominently at the Islamabad summit. Let’s start with the fascinating Steppe Road – which is a Mongolian idea crystalizing as an upgraded economic corridor. Mongolia is an observer at the SCO, not a full member: reasons for it are quite complex. Still, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin raved about the Steppe Road with his SCO interlocutors. The Mongolians came up with the idea of a Taliin Zam (“Steppe Road” in Mongolian) back in 2014, containing no less than “Five Great Passages”: a maze of transport and energy infrastructure to be built with investments totaling at least $50 billion.

These include a 997 km-long transnational expressway linking Russia-China; 1,100 km of electrified railway infrastructure; the expansion of the – already running – Trans-Mongolian Railway from Sukhbaatar in the north to Zamyn-Uud in the south; and Pipelineistan of course, as in new oil and gas pipelines linking Altanbulag in the north to Zamyn-Uud. Mongolian Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai was as enthusiastic as Mishustin, announcing that Mongolia has already finalized 33 Steppe Road projects. These projects happen to neatly align with Russia’s own Trans-Eurasian Corridor – a connectivity maze which includes the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Trans-Manchurian Railway, the Trans-Mongolian Railway and the Baikal Amur Mainline (BAM).

Back in July at the SCO summit, Putin and Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh spent quite some time discussing the finer strategic points of Eurasian logistics. Then Putin visited Mongolia in early September for the 85th anniversary of the joint Soviet-Mongolian victory over the Japanese at the Khalkhin Gol River. Putin was received as a rock star. All that makes perfect strategic sense. The Russia-Mongolia border is 3,485 km-long. The USSR and the Mongolian People’s Republic established diplomatic relations over a century ago, in 1921. They have been working together on key projects such as the Trans-Mongolian gas pipeline – yet another Russia-China connection; modernization of the Ulaanbaatar Railway joint venture; Russia supplying fuel to the new Chinggis Khaan International Airport; and Rosatom building a nuclear power plant.

Mongolia harbors the proverbial wealth of natural resources, from rare earth minerals (reserves may reach an astonishing 31 million tons) to uranium (prospective reserves of 1.3 million tons). Even as it applies what is called the Third Neighbor approach, Mongolia needs to maintain a careful balancing act, as it is on the radar non-stop of the US and the EU, with the collective West pressing for less Eurasia cooperation with Russia-China. Naturally Russia holds a major strategic advantage over the West, as Moscow not only treats Mongolia as an equal partner but can provide its neighbor’s needs when it comes to energy security. What makes it all even more enticing is that Beijing envisions the Steppe Road as “highly consistent” with BRI, complete with the proverbial enthusiasm hailing the synergy and “win-win cooperation” between both projects.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day

 

 

He tried
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847560247075897399

 

 

Brown bear
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847410666183020553

 

 

Dog bear
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847677256442777706

 

 

Artwork
https://twitter.com/i/status/1847337882119524482

 

 

Beethoven

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home › Forums › Debt Rattle October 20 2024

Viewing 37 posts - 1 through 37 (of 37 total)
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  • October 20, 2024 at 8:50 am #171967
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer
    Keymaster

    René Magritte The endearing truth 1966   • Media Still Tries To Suggest Trump Is ‘Exhausted’ (JTN) • Trump’s Polymarket Surge Powered By $30 Mill
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle October 20 2024]

    October 20, 2024 at 10:47 am #171971
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Caution: Cannot be unseen

    Richard D. Wolff & Michael Hudson |

    How the U.S. Took Over the World:

    The End of International Law!

    October 20, 2024 at 10:54 am #171972
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “”This Is Illegal”: British Labour Party Sending Staff To Campaign For Kamala In Swing States”

    Luongo. But it ain’t London hiring Steele, throwing elections, and trying to get their colonies back or nothin’. That’s cray-cray. We’re just seeing things.

    “Hezbollah Kamikaze Drone Targets Netanyahu’s Private Residence

    About time. These guys will be far less interested if it cost them anything.

    “Goldman shockingly says that S&P500 will only deliver 1% annual real return over the next 10 years “

    So does Cullom. And Smith. And for good reason. That’s really a best case but it will happen because it’s the maximum pain trade. Japan for 40 years. Cullom also points out what’s the Inflation return on the 100-year Dow? ZERO. And that almost makes sense, actually, you’re averaging the economy with the stocks in said economy. But seen another way, that means you get dividends. …Which you won’t get with even a 2% fee, OR if you miss in and out of any of the component companies in the tracker.

    That’s what Moriarty says as well: there are ZERO markets. The only thing that moves markets is sentiment. That’s it. Why? If they needed oil yesterday they need it today. If they needed copper yesterday, they need it today. Things don’t move that fast, so why do prices? A: Sentiment. That’s it. Armstrong says the same, markets don’t move on facts, they move on EXPECTATIONS. Aka, “Sentiment”.

    Trump is speaking like Hitler”

    You mean like calling people “Deplorable” “Cockroaches” etc. That every one in his whole party are KKK members (A Democratic institution) even and especially the Black ones, and you need to run a coup to “Save Democracy”? Don’t ask me, ask Democrat Comedian Jim Gaffigan who said so at the Catholic dinner yesterday.

    Well, since I pick on Democrats and Communists every day (but I repeat myself) let me repeat the baseline: Liberals think Conservatives are evil, but Conservatives think Liberals are misguided. Therefore when it comes to action, one shoots all Congress on the baseball field, contests and starts impeachment on every President, and has assassinated many. The other doesn’t, or show me. Because they think you’re possibly good, worthy of redemption, but wrong, and are trying to reach and educate you.

    “remove college degree requirements for federal jobs”

    Melei just ordered a literacy test for Federal employees in Argentina. I expect many will fail. I’m not sold on a degree specifically, but how do you test competency? A: Only by results, a meritocracy, of which we have none. That’s the whole POINT of government.

    “Former CDC Director Dr. Redfield compares the #MAHA movement with JFK’s Moonshot.”

    It’s subtle, but I think so. Since Americans have tuned out (why bother, everything is a lie) it takes a while for them to hear about it. Then it’s not President so to speak, so they need to think about what it is and why, and whether it’s plausible. Then slowly you’re like, yes, yes, and yes, so why not take a chance on it? It’s something we can all agree on and get behind. So slowly means a pivot to “Sure”. That’s my impression sitting here, and to some extent with women.

    Kamala: I dunno, I think she sounds a lot better like this, passionate and direct, driven, as if she might do something. Now of course all that is a lie, and she’ll use the passion to say, round up black children and sell them to prison corporations, but I think it looks good. So, took four years but she finally learned one thing. AFTER the voting has started. But heck, voting started 6 months ago when they started printing and filling out fake ballots, which is why they can’t remove RFK’s name from them. Awk-ward!

    All “Musk” Companies being sued. This is…um...the end of all corporations, the corporate structure under law, and possibly worldwide? Don’t want to overstate it.

    The very POINT of ANY Corporation is “Limited Liability Structure”, that there are RULES about it. We all know what the rules are, from birth. What the EU is saying is there are NO rules about corporations, no laws, and Corporations don’t exist.

    If they can steal SpaceX for Twitter, because Elon is a shareholder, why can’t they steal GM from Amazon, because— I —am a shareholder? What’s the difference? Literally none. Okay, let’s say it’s because he’s CEO. And why not CFO, consultant? Nevermind. ALL Corporate boards are interlocking. It’s been a scandal for decades, and the interlocking members are all Nazis from Blackrock, installing themselves as Club members on Exxon and Disney. So if a guy sits on the Board of Alcoa and also the NY Times, I can steal both of them?

    The EU says yes. Corporations no longer exist. Only POWER.

    I mean, yes, we all know that, that you’re all thieving criminals and Nazis, but you’re not supposed to SAY that. Now all corporations have to Re-incorporate and flee EU forever. Like Volkswagen. They LOSE all money in Europe and have only one profitable division: China, which the EU is ALSO trying to shut down.

    Now, Why? Because they believe all things are a big pot of money you won’t share with us. They live in a dead world with dead hearts. These corporations are just sitting there like Viscounts, on their Feudal Estates, and you just take them, re-own re-title them, like the King. So we’ve reinvented Feudalism. They’re not. They are money FLOWS, and the money only flow when there are rules, (and work) and the rules are only when OTHER people get things: get stock, get dividends, get Boeing parts to fix their airliner and sell seat tickets. The EU is stopping ALL of that.

    So? All Commerce Stops. #Winning! WE might not be the late Roman Empire, where money fled for 1,000 years due to criminal regulation, but they are.

    “He’s going after EVERY state who dares to pass legislation to strengthen their election laws & clean up their voter rolls!”

    Of course he is. But he can’t, that’s why we have States” and a Federal system. We forget because we use the name “Federal”, “Federal Government” all the time for all sorts of sub-meanings, but let’s re-name it as the “Federation of Sovereign States”. That law is still there, underneath, always been, never changed. The difference for 120 years is who has the MONEY. The MONEY is being cut off to the “Federal” level, the Central Committee, so they’re unable to adequately bribe the sub-states. Bye bye honey.

    Since voting and voting methods are invented, established, and decided by the States (legislatures), WHAT is he suing? What basis? You got trouble my friends. And suppose Pennsylvania says “No”? AND? WTF is Garland going to do? Kick them out of the Union? Not accept their voting electors?

    Literally, Kansas could “Just decide” they’re not doing public election and decide their Electors in Kansas Legislature subcommittee. By a D20 dice. Legal. So Garland is gong to…what? They say this is the deficiency in the American system, but like many organic structures, Is it? Or when a thing is not flattened in to monoculture, is it actually stronger and more resilient, although messy?

    As far as I can tell: Garland has no jurisdiction. THAT is what people, reporters, even probably Turley can’t understand. They believe only in Central Power, and give it its power by believing so. GFY, sir. If you leave the ring-fence of D.C. we’ll arrest you in all 50 states for Civil Rights violations.

    Republican v. Democrat Platform.

    No, no TWO planks to the platform. They also kill babies. At birth. That’s a TOP platform, almost #1, and they’re fighting for it although they are already legally allowed to do so.

    “would qualify as plagiarism despite the denial of the campaign. It is doubtful it will matter to many voters”

    …It won’t matter, Not when they can kill babies, it won’t. There’s nothing more important than that. Yummy yummy!

    “• House Democrats Say Trump Overcharged Secret Service at His DC Hotel (Sp.)

    Seems pretty weak sauce, but okay, show me. Aaaaaand that’s the problem with Ds vs Rs: We all say, “Show me evidence, let’s hear the allegations, etc” and the D’s stonewall everything, always, ever, even when it’s on camera like running ballots through, or everybody knows like Biden tottering. But what ya gonna do? Be evil? Nah.

    We have the Sane and the Insane.

    “• Zelensky’s Only “Victory Plan” Is NATO Boots On The Ground (ZH)

    Covered this yesterday, but you can cut it to one sentence: “Start a nuclear war with Russia, or we in Ukraine will start one ourselves.” Yes, that’s called Extortion, maybe you’ve never met a Ukrainian before. I’m sure Presidents will love this line of reasoning, and obey immediately.

    “The diplomat reiterated that Paris would “support, again and again, Ukraine’s resistance against Russian aggression.”

    For PCR: see why Russia being only in Donbas, and not occupying the whole country works again? What would be the appearance if Russia were at Lviv and massing on Poland? They “Planned” this, so like J6, they just say it anyway. As if it happened. But everybody is like “Russia don’t mean what you think it mean” like, doesn’t seem like they’re planning on Paris, so…

    If they’d leveled Ukraine in the first week, were ethnic cleansing, and re-building std Russian bases in their new territories, then what? PLUS they still accomplish task #1: Ukraine is so retarded they keep sending the whole nation in there and no matter how many hundred times they lose, Ze STILL tells them to fight every inch of territory, and hold to the last man. Okey-dokey then!

    “Kiev has long argued that Western jets, such as the Mirage 2000s and the US-made F-16s, would be crucial to reverse the tide on the battlefield”

    And that’s just one of MANY reasons they’re retarded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_2000 Another 50 year old jet. Hey, can we send you 50 year old uniforms, 50 year old rations, and 50 year old tactics? Sound good? That’s what Australia is doing, by the way. They’re like “We’re sending a MILLION!!!!! Tanks!!!!” Yeah, every tank that is in pieces, doesn’t start, is an obsolete expensive piece of junk with a VIN number, we’re sending it for toxic disposal in Kiev. No. This is how you lose FASTER.

    “In early October, NATO’s new Secretary General, Mark Rutte, visited Kiev. He stated that Ukraine will eventually become a full member of the military bloc,

    Running history, Russia has written statements (but not a treaty, as if signing a treaty with the Anglos would mean anything anyway) that NATO would never move East. THEN it’s in the Ukrainian CONSTITUTION that they were neutral, gave up their nukes. AND NEVER JOIN NATO. In the Constitution. Oops! When we paid $6B to run the UN Illegal, illegal violent illegal coup to install an illegal government, with a UN illegal President, they just CHANGED the Constitution. Illegally.

    This is why you cannot allow little lies, which with the Anglos (everyone I know or deal with) they will instantly turn into big, feelin’-kinda-rape-y lies.

    Now their Constitution has a MUST-JOIN Nato clause, IIRC. We set up our country with a “Must cause worldwide nuclear Armageddon” as a baseline premise, same as Israel. But: same people, so…

    Takeaway: Obviously it’s then possible for Ukraine to be neutral, etc, because they were for 30 years and nothing happened, nobody noticed. Wasn’t until we paid billions and billions of dollars rather than fixing bridges at home and killin’ North Carolinians that any problems started there. If Ukraine ceased to exist, no American would notice or care. Sorry. So then if Ukraine can vaporize and no one would notice, surely they can be neutral and no one would notice. Right? Problem solved. All your problems are made up. On purpose. (Mostly for money, but murdering people is a nice side benefit)

    “• Ukraine Peace ‘Must Be Lasting’ – Putin (RT)

    As stated, it was lasting for 90 years from the revolution to 2014. Must be pretty darn easy to have peace in that part of the world then.

    “• Russia Has “Unlimited” Energy Resources – Putin (RT)

    That’s why I’m bemused reading “Resource Limitations” blogs from UK every day. Like: they own newspapers in Britain, right? They have books? Oh wait: they DON’T? All the papers like RT are BANNED? Well that explains a lot. They write at interminable length about how there’s no more oil, energy, solar, we’re-all-gonna-die, while Russia is signing “Unlimited” 100-year contracts with 1 BILLION people. Like, too small? Not enough people to get on your radar and matter? YES, I thought this same thing, for years, but THEN I read a book. I looked around me. Gawar was supposed to be dead 10 years ago: why isn’t it? IRAN hasn’t turned on the spigot yet. We’re not drilling three coasts, i.e. all of North America. Maybe put that in your equations? The seen and the unseen.

    Now YES, in BRITAIN, you’re f—ked. You had oil and you pumped it. That was a stellar chance, and what did you do with Thatcher’s astonishing wealth? Added 10 million Africans on the Dole. So yes, for YOU, all these predictions might be true. Your world IS going to end because you’re retards. But you’re the pimple on the end of the nose of the world, same as Easter Island. No one else has these problems but you. You’re Iceland now.

    They’re trying to tell America we’re Iceland too, and need to act the same way. Hahahahahaha! No. No we are not, and if you’d like to eat, ever again, you’ll take that back. We have 1.9 billion acres of FOOD lands. We have so much food, we’re turning it into gasoline at a loss.

    “• US To Pay $20 Billion Into Loan For Ukraine – FT (RT)

    Compounding runaway interest rates: that’s now chicken feed and we’re still going to collapse. They need $200B just to get anywhere., but they can’t seem to get another Covid started.

    “• Assassinations Continue, But Israel Will Not Win The War (SCF)

    Read the Bible: “Israel” always goes insane, gets high on themselves, turns to evil, and is completely destroyed. That was God’s promise and he kept it.

    India repair: And it was raining.

    Beethoven (who was black) well that music sure seems obvious and inevitable until I hand you a blank sheet of paper and tell you to write a concerto on it. Only then does it seem like you shouldn’t criticize those who do.

    What else? Well, watch Jane Austen, when they have period music, it’s played in the period style, which is radically different than playing in the modern style as this woman is. So there’s another whole invisible layer here as large as the writing itself. Like the Rolling Stones or the Dead covering Leadbelly.

    October 20, 2024 at 10:55 am #171973
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Magritte does Kamala: We don’t have any bread but we have a PICTURE of bread. We have a WORD of bread. Isn’t that the same thing?

    October 20, 2024 at 11:15 am #171974
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Post

    Leaking through all over. Doesn’t matter without a point even though. I think the Social Engineers know that.

    October 20, 2024 at 11:36 am #171976
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    The real Inconvenient Truth is your Western governments are tools of jewish supremacism, and want you, the natives, dead.

    October 20, 2024 at 11:53 am #171977
    Dora
    Participant

    Harris looks tired.

    “Kamala Harris was on stage in Detroit today for a grand total of 6 minutes, 36 seconds.
    Recording artist Lizzo was with her and for some reason did not perform any music.

    Some event that was.

    Trump did an hour and 27 minutes in Detroit last night, btw.”

    https://x.com/TimMurtaugh/status/1847717380337913951

    October 20, 2024 at 12:53 pm #171982
    zerosum
    Participant

    Hate Trump!!!!
    Never Again, Never Again, Never Again!
    Threat to democracy!
    ————-
    Opppssss!
    Now what?
    suicide watch (depression got so bad that he had to be hospitalized. The regular or continuous monitoring of a person, who is considered to be at risk of committing suicide)

    What will happen to peaceful transfer of power?
    ————–
    A Trump Victory!
    A Russian Victory!
    A Palestinian/Iran Victory!
    ————
    A BRICS Victory!
    • The Geoeconomic Drivers of SCO-BRICS Synergy (Pepe Escobar)

    The geoeconomic drivers of SCO-BRICS synergy


    ———–
    A Peace Victory!
    “conditions for long-term, sustainable and lasting peace that provide equal security for all participants in this difficult process,” – Putin
    • Ukraine Peace ‘Must Be Lasting’ – Putin (RT)
    https://swentr.site/news/605940-peace-ukraine-putin-nato/
    ———
    An Independent Journalists Victory!
    ————
    A People Victory!
    win-win cross-border connectivity keeps on rolling, from the Steppe Road to New Silk Road corridors.
    ———

    October 20, 2024 at 1:31 pm #171984
    my parents said know
    Participant

    When Earth stands for final judgement and is asked: what did you ever do to deserve redemption?
    Earth shall say:
    We had Beethoven.
    And Earth shall be redeemed.

    October 20, 2024 at 1:53 pm #171986
    John Day
    Participant

    Preparing To Negotiate https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/preparing-to-negotiate

    Jim Kunstler looks at the negotiations necessary for a mostly-peaceful transition of power in Washington’s Imperial Court. This is all up in the air. The current criminal cabal controls and includes much of the military, security/spy apparatus, many state and regional officials, and big city political machines. It has invisible funds for assassins.
    ​ The Three Layers of Culpability
    ​ The Great Fright among the elite of the party ruling our country steals across the land chillingly now from sea to shining sea — as if all those ghouls, werewolves, zombies, and tormented wraiths assembled in the front yard Halloween displays send up one mighty wail of despair: Donald Trump will seek revenge against his enemies if you elect him! they scream into the pale moonlight.
    Well, he ought to, of course, and remember: they are your enemies, too — the FBI thugs battering down your doors at five in the morning, the malicious US attorneys manufacturing phony felonies, the Soros-owned DAs and party-owned judges, and the thousands of spooks from agencies both known and unheard-of surveilling your every move, every purchase, every journey, every thought. Consider that it is not whether Mr. Trump might seek revenge but whether justice, and the mental health of the nation, require an accounting for the real crimes of actual persons against the people of America lo these years of the Woke Jacobin Inquisition.
    Finally, as the days dwindle down to November 5, you understand exactly what motivates the three layers of evil heaping America with malice and punishment. Layer one: the officers of the political establishment, a.k.a., “the blob” or Deep State, both current and emeritus. You know now that they are motivated to stay out of courts-of-law (and, ultimately, prison). Figures such as John Brennan, Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Chris Wray, Anthony Fauci, Alejandro Mayorkas, Barack Obama, and many more, exude culpability for doing real harm to US citizens. They do not want to do time… They see Donald Trump’s poll number go hockey stick and they tremble in their Beltway mansions. On the Kubler-Ross transect of grief, they are just now wavering between the stages of anger and bargaining…
    ​..Second layer: the lawfare lawyer gang deployed to keep the blob safe from investigation and prosecution…
    ..Third Layer: the news media. The motives of these birds are the flimsiest: social status and professional stature. They operate within a self-referential reward bubble that provides psychological nourishment as long as they go along with the murmurations of their flock…
    ​ Now, whether Mr. Trump would actively seek revenge is a thing apart from the paranoia of his adversaries. On the one hand, he seems aware that his own place in history will rest not on looking backward to the harms inflicted on him as the sacrificial goat for the sins of “the deplorables” — the many Lawfare cases against him will likely be reversed in higher courts, or just dropped — but on attending to and fixing the many obvious, reality-based problems afflicting the nation: inflation, the horrendous debt, the libido for war induced by military contractors and neocons, the return of productive industry and jobs that pay living wages, sealing the border and expelling dangerous aliens, and stopping the race-and-gender hustles, to name a few things.​..
    ​..In 2016, Mr. Trump floated the idea of defaulting on US debt, or negotiating its terms. Sounded outrageous to some at the time. Now, with the BRICs org meeting to de-dollarize their trade arrangements, might be a ripe time to make such a move. He can reverse “Joe Biden’s” 2021 reversal of his border policies by executive order on day one… He knows (and you know) that there is a huge agenda of practical problems to face. Mr. Trump does not need the aggravation of stirring up further grievance and resentment among the defeated Wokesters…
    ..Since Mr. Trump is best known as a deal-maker, I believe he will seek to make a deal with the blob. The deal will be for them to cooperate in the prosecution of certain key figures in exchange for not demolishing their agencies altogether. Some of these people — Garland, Mayorkas, Fauci, Brennan, and Wray, for examples — really do need to do some ‘splainin’ in front of juries… We can’t pretend that nothing happened. Most of all, Mr. Trump has to defeat the sick belief that anything goes and nothing matters.​ https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/the-three-layers-of-culpability

    ​Where’s Diddy? Clinton Foundation links? How high does this go? Disney Employee Among 150 Arrested In Major Human Trafficking Bust https://www.dailyfetched.com/disney-employee-among-150-arrested-in-major-human-trafficking-bust/

    It’s not new, and in my opinion it is not Jeffrey Epstein, but somebody unlucky enough to look a lot like him who was garroted with a wire or nylon rope, and is only shown from upper lip to upper chest, notably not his ear. “New Jeffrey Epstein Autopsy Photo proves he didn’t Kill Himself” his Brother said. https://www.gospanews.net/en/2024/02/11/new-jeffrey-epstein-autopsy-photo-proves-he-didnt-kill-himself-his-brother-said/

    All #1971 names from Jeffrey Epstein’s black book are here: https://epsteinsblackbook.com/all-names

    October 20, 2024 at 1:55 pm #171987
    John Day
    Participant

    The Pentagon Wants to Use AI to Create deepfake internet users
    The Department of Defense wants technology so it can fabricate online personas that are indistinguishable from real people.
    ​ The offensive use of this technology by the U.S. would, naturally, spur its proliferation and normalize it as a tool for all governments. “What’s notable about this technology is that it is purely of a deceptive nature,” said Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute. “There are no legitimate use cases besides deception, and it is concerning to see the U.S. military lean into a use of a technology they have themselves warned against. This will only embolden other militaries or adversaries to do the same, leading to a society where it is increasingly difficult to ascertain truth from fiction and muddling the geopolitical sphere.” ​ https://theintercept.com/2024/10/17/pentagon-ai-deepfake-internet-users/​

    Trump: Biden is Too Tough on Netanyahu
    The Republican presidential candidate ridiculously claimed that Biden is “trying to hold” Bibi back, as the Israeli prime minister continued to ruthlessly bomb Lebanon and Gaza.​ https://newrepublic.com/post/187332/trump-biden-tough-netanyahu

    ​ Israel shoots, kills Palestinian woman during olive harvest in West Bank
    ​ A Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli occupation forces yesterday while harvesting olives in the northern occupied West Bank.
    The Ibn Sina Specialised Hospital in Jenin announced the woman’s death, stating she had succumbed to her injuries in the town of Faqqu’a, north of Jenin.
    ​ Earlier, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that its teams in Jenin had been called out to treat a 59-year-old woman from Faqqu’a who had been shot in the back, adding that they tried to resuscitate her, but she later died.
    ​ Eyewitnesses reported that the woman was shot while working in an olive field near the illegal Israeli Separation Wall.
    Also yesterday, Israeli settlers yesterday fired at Palestinian olive pickers in the town of Kafr Al-Labad, in Tulkarm.
    ​ Ayman Gharib, an anti-settlement activist, stated that Israeli forces arrived at the scene following the shooting and fired tear gas at the Palestinian farmers, causing several of them to suffer from suffocation.​ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241018-israel-shoots-kills-palestinian-woman-during-olive-harvest-in-west-bank/

    ​ The ‘General’s Plan’ in Gaza: A genocide by starvation
    ​ Netanyahu’s war success can be only measured by Israel’s scale of vengeance, as the toll of the murdered and injured has reached 150,000. Gaza has been turned into a living hell. A war that pervasively and systematically diminished Gaza’s economic capacity, following an 18-year blockade that crippled the economy and forced upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency.
    ​ Yet, Israel failed to bring any part of Gaza into submission. As a result, several Israeli generals, led by former national security adviser Israeli Maj-General Giora Eiland, contrived a new approach, the “General’s Plan”, to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza.
    ​ The General’s Plan is not exclusively a military strategy but rather an orchestrated noncombatant action, euphemistically termed to mask its true intention: genocide and ethnic cleansing through starvation. It calls first for the complete isolation of northern Gaza from the rest of the Gaza Strip. Second: compartmentalise northern Gaza into separate quarters and declare each section a war zone, forcing civilians to leave or become legitimate military targets.
    ​ The initial phase, which began in early October, blocked aid trucks from reaching the north and then segregated the Jabalia camp from its surroundings. In other words, genocide by attrition, one quarter at a time, in a slow motion.​ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241018-the-generals-plan-in-gaza-a-genocide-by-starvation/

    ​ Caitlin Johnstone: What’s Happening In Northern Gaza Proves Israel Lied About Everything
    Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed. He died not hiding behind civilians or disguised as a woman as Israel apologists have been claiming for a year, but alone and in uniform, fighting Israeli forces with one arm blown off by tank fire.
    Sinwar’s death will have no meaningful bearing on how Hamas or Israel conduct themselves, so it’s funny to see Israel supporters puffing their chests like this was some kind of achievement. Israel is going to keep bombing hospitals, shooting kids in the head, intentionally starving civilians, and working to steal Palestinian land just like it was doing yesterday, and Palestinians are going to keep resisting this just like they were doing yesterday.
    Nothing about anything has changed. If Israel were actually killing all these people with the goal of destroying Hamas then Sinwar’s death might be significant, but Israel’s goal is not destroying Hamas. Israel’s goal is the ethnic cleansing and annexation of Gaza. This is public knowledge at this point, and is not seriously debatable. The only victory Israel’s supporters can claim to have secured here is one of revenge…
    ​..Someone filming from their window in northern Gaza captured the moment when Israeli forces who had injured a child with a sniper drone launched an airstrike on the site after people ran to his rescue. Imagine being scared to run to the rescue of an injured child because you could be killed for it.
    ​ That’s the kind of nightmare Palestinians are facing in Gaza. One where a child injured by a flying robot could be being used as bait to draw rescuers to the scene in order to bomb them. One where people have to watch their family members burn alive right in front of them. One where they have to listen to their disabled loved one get ripped apart by dogs in the next room while they’re held at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers.​ https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/whats-happening-in-northern-gaza

    October 20, 2024 at 1:56 pm #171988
    John Day
    Participant

    ‘There is no day after’: What US, Israel want for Gaza after Sinwar’s death
    Analysts say US push for Gaza post-war phase is ‘unrealistic’ as Israel vows to continue fighting in besieged territory
    ​ .Within moments of the confirmation that Israeli forces had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, officials in the United States hailed the killing as an “opportunity” to turn the page on the war and move on to a “day after” for Gaza.
    ​ While offering no clear vision of what the future of the ravaged territory might look like, White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, described Sinwar’s killing on Thursday as a chance to “bring about a better day for the people of Gaza, the people of Israel, the people of the whole region”.President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala ​ Harris echoed that assertion in their own statements.
    ​ Israeli leaders, however, had a drastically different message. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war is “not over” and pledged that Israeli forces would operate in Gaza for “years to come”.​ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/18/there-is-no-day-after-what-us-israel-want-for-gaza-after-sinwars-death

    ​ At Least 31 Israeli Soldiers Wounded in Hezbollah Drone Strike Near Lebanon Border​, Hezbollah says war entering new ‘escalatory phase’
    On the Israel-Lebanon border, another overnight drone strike was carried out by Hezbollah against a gathering of Israeli troops in the border area.
    ​ Details are still scant, and so far, Israeli media has not published any stories on the matter. The reports coming from elsewhere indicate that at least 31 Israeli soldiers were wounded in this latest incident, which is being described as a “difficult incident.”
    ​ This is the second substantial incident of Israeli troop casualties resulting from a Hezbollah drone this week. Previously on Sunday evening, a drone strike hit the Israeli military base in Binyamina, killing four soldiers and wounding over 60 others.​ https://news.antiwar.com/2024/10/18/at-least-31-israeli-soldiers-wounded-in-hezbollah-drone-strike-near-lebanon-border/#gsc.tab=0

    ​ Iranian Proxies ‘Tried To Assassinate Me & My Wife’, Netanyahu Says After Drone Struck His Residence​ “The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake,” he said in an English statement on social media.
    ​ “This is the first time since the beginning of the war that a target affiliated directly with Netanyahu has been hit,” Axios reported, though details of the extent of damage have been scant. Neither he nor his wife or family had been present at the residence when the attack on the upscale Caesarea neighborhood occurred. Israel’s military appeared to be tracking the drone, which traveled some 70km from Lebanon, but anti-air defenses appeared to have failed, with not so much as warning sirens going off.​ [Wait, if they were “tracking” the drone​s, they could have set off sirens. What was really going on?]​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hezbollah-kamikaze-targets-netanyahus-private-residence

    ​ America’s ​’Most Dangerous Bomb​’ May Have Just Seen its First Combat Use in Yemen: GBU-57 Built to Strike Deep Underground
    ​ On the night of October 17 the U.S. Air Force deployed B-2 intercontinental range stealth bombers to launch large scale strikes against five targets in Yemen using bunker-buster bombs. The attack follows over a year of hostilities between Yemeni Ansurullah Coalition forces and the United States, United Kingdom and Israel, with a consensus having formed that efforts led by the U.S. Navy to cripple Yemeni fighting capabilities have fallen very far short of success. U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin referred to the attack as “a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened or fortified.” While the Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missiles, and air launched missiles deployed by carrier based F-18 fighters, are all not well optimised to penetrating hardened fortifications, the B-2 is considered the best optimised asset in the Western world for such operations. Previously during hostilities between the Ansurullah Coalition and a Saudi Arabian led coalition from 2015, the Royal Saudi Air Force failed to neutralise military facilities in deeply buried and well hardened fortifications, despite repeated efforts to target them. The use of the B-2 thus represents the culmination of close to a decade of efforts by multiple states using Western weaponry to neutralise key Yemeni arms storage and basing sites.
    ​ Targets of the B-2 attacks include three barrack areas and associated deep bunkers, each of which originally housed a Soviet Scud missile brigade from the 1980s onwards, and in the 2000s were equipped with North Korean Hwasong-5/6 missiles. The Ansurullah Coalition has since re-equipped with considerable numbers of entirely unique ballistic missiles, which are thought to have been developed with Iranian and possibly North Korean support. Each B-2 can carry up to 18,000 kilograms of ordinance, and has an intercontinental range allowing it to strike targets globally from bases in Missouri and on Guam. The nature of the target of the latest attacks, however, have raised considerable speculation that the bombers were equipped with GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, which are too heavy for almost any other combat aircraft to carry…
    ​..The GBU-57’s ability to penetrate some of the best hardened and most sensitive military sites across the world without crossing the nuclear threshold, thus giving the B-2 a particularly deep reach, makes them arguably the most dangerous bombs in the Western world. Their ‘usability’ as non-nuclear weapons is a key part of this.​ https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/dangerous-bomb-first-combat-gbu57

    ​ They need to drag the ​US into war with Iran: Israel says attack on Iran’s nuclear sites still on the table
    A senior Israeli cabinet minister revived the prospect of an attack on Iranian nuclear sites after media reports had suggested the United States had convinced its ally to focus its fire on Iranian military infrastructure.
    ​ Energy minister Eli Cohen, a former foreign minister, said on Friday Israel was “committed to preventing the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, and therefore, all options are on the table, including attacking nuclear facilities”.
    ​ He made the remarks in an interview with Israeli news website Walla News three days after a CNN report said Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had assured the US that any retaliatory strike on Iran would be confined to military targets.​ https://www.iranintl.com/en/202410187227

    October 20, 2024 at 1:57 pm #171989
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Leaked US Intelligence Documents Related To Israel’s Attack Preparations On Iran Appear Online​ [Who leaked, with what intentions, and is it “real”?]
    ​ A major leak of US classified documents has appeared online Saturday… or we should qualify alleged leaks of at least two TOP SECRET documents, with both marked NOFORN – which is among the highest classifications – given it indicates the specific intelligence cannot be shared with allied foreign intelligence agencies.
    ​ A breaking Axios report suggests their authenticity.​..
    ..The docs first appeared online Friday, but the Axios report has strongly pointed to the authenticity of leak.
    ​ The region has remained on edge as Israel prepares to retaliate against Iran for its Oct.1st ballistic missile attack which saw some 200 projectiles pummel various sites in central Israel, some of which were said to be Iranian hypersonics. Axios has noted that “The leak could be an attempt to disrupt the Israeli operation.”​ [Attempt by who?]
    ​ A US official told Axios that the alleged leak is “extremely concerning” – again implying authenticity. The leak is also being described as potential very serious breach within the US intelligence community…
    ..Israeli media has also begun to spotlight the leak.​
    Did Iran just hack and breach restricted US intelligence community servers?​ [Or did the Pentagon leak to rein-in Israeli zealots?]
    ​ As for content of the documents, they contain information on Israel’s military transferring advanced munitions, possibly readying them for a planned attack on the Islamic Republic. One of the classified docs has the following header:
    ​ Defense Forces Continue Key Munitions Preparations and Covert UAV Activity Almost Certainly for a Strike on Iran, 16 October 2024
    Axios has further commented on the top secret documents as follows:
    ​ It also states that according to U.S. signals intelligence, the Israeli Air Force conducted a large exercise this week involving intelligence planes and likely fighter jets trained for a possible attack against Iran.
    The alleged intelligence report also detailed preparations in Israeli drone units for an attack against Iran.
    ​ The Washington think tank community is outraged over the apparent major breach.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/leaked-us-intelligence-documents-related-israels-attack-preparations-iran-appear

    ​ Greek dockworkers block ammunition shipment to Israel
    Late last night a group of dock workers and union members at the Port of Piraeus stopped a container filled with bullets bound for Israel from being loaded onto a vessel. The action, led by the ENEDEP union and supported by other groups, was a stand against arms shipments fuelling Israel’s war on Gaza.​ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241018-greek-dockworkers-block-ammunition-shipment-to-israel/

    ​ Putin says Gaza war must end with establishment of Palestinian State
    ​ Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said on Friday that the war in the Gaza Strip must end with the establishment of a “full-fledged” Palestinian State, urging the Middle East Quartet to be reactivated in order to resume mediation efforts in the region, Anadolu Agency reports.​ “The primary solution to the Palestinian problem is the establishment of a fully-fledged Palestinian State. The Russian side has upheld this position since the Soviet era,” he remarked during a meeting with BRICS media managers in Moscow.​ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241018-putin-says-gaza-war-must-end-with-establishment-of-palestinian-state/

    ​Simplicius points out that Ukraine’s former and acting President Zelensky has stated that “Ukraine” needs either nuclear weapons or NATO Membership to be “secure”, which ignores the “security” available through friendship with Russia, the usual arrangement. There is speculation that Ukraine infers a potential nuclear threat against Western Europe here, more than against Russia, which will nip-it-in-the-bud. Anyway, they “don’t have such a program right now”. It has been rumored that Ukraine DID have such a program at the Zaporizhia nuclear plant, which made it an immediate objective for Russian forces in 2021.
    Something is making Ukraine rush, maybe the “certainty” of another Trump Presidency in 3 months, maybe more than that. Hints are dropped in and outside of Ukraine.
    Zelensky Once More Puts Allies Under Nuclear Shadow
    ​ A new central flashpoint around the issue of Ukraine obtaining nuclear weapons has suddenly taken hold of the narrative after Zelensky appeared to imply that Ukraine’s future can only be secured either via NATO or nuclear weapons. In fact, he said that’s what he explained to Trump and may be the real root kernel of his ‘Victory Plan’.​..
    ..A UK advisor named John Bew has played a kind of eminence grise or ‘oracle’ role in the Ukrainian war, giving citations for that claim. But here’s the big kicker. According to him, the Kursk operation was entirely a British one—which does accord with facts—and:
    ​ Starmer planned a major international charm offensive to get allies on board with Ukraine striking Russia, increased arms shipments, increased defence spending, the works. And Bew was central to this strategy. He was dispatched to Kiev personally to coordinate with Zelensky et al
    ​ In short, it was the UK’s last-ditch effort to compound some Ukrainian consensus and get a critical mass of support going, riding the ‘victory wave’ of what was to be a huge triumph. But the massive failure of Kursk appears to have unleashed the opposite, with the “oracle” John Bew abruptly but quietly resigning means—akin to Nuland’s foreboding departure—the whole British effort has collapsed…​ Now the UK won’t endorse Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’.
    ​ So, putting the pieces together. With Zelensky’s sudden “three month” urgency, his desperate threats of obtaining nukes, a schizo psyop about North Korean troops to drum up panic, Robert Fico’s ‘mysterious’ intimations of something big coming that will end the war, and many other small crumbs like the John Bew bailing bellwether—what do you get?
    ​ What the potpourri of intel seems to suggest to me, is everyone is sensing an end to the conflict, and Zelensky must have advanced warning that “support” could collapse even further—for instance with Trump now certain to win. As such, Zelensky could be on his last leg in designing a threat to change the calculus.
    ​ But here’s the angle most casual observers will miss: the nuclear threat is not toward Russia.​ You see, Russia isn’t worried about any low-grade, small yield dirty bomb. Why? Because if Ukraine dared use anything of the sort, Russia could nuke Ukraine to the stone age with impunity—meaning: no ally would come to Ukraine’s defense given the knowledge Ukraine used a nuke first. As such, this threat is meaningless toward Russia.
    ​ No, the threat is against Ukraine’s allies. It’s Zelensky’s long-awaited blackmail of his own “partners” with the message effectively being: “If you don’t save us, we’ll use nukes to force a confrontation between you and Russia, and burn the whole world down with us.”​ …
    ​..In another heated conversation laid out in Woodward’s book, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confronted his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, in October 2022.
    ​ “We know you are contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” Austin said, according to Woodward. “Any use of nuclear weapons on any scale against anybody would be seen by the United States and the world as a world-changing event. There is no scale of nuclear weapons that we could overlook or that the world could overlook.”
    ​ As Shoigu listened, Austin pressed on, noting that the U.S. had not given Ukraine certain weapons and had restricted the use of some of those it had provided. He warned that those constraints would be reconsidered. He also noted that China, India, Turkey and Israel would isolate Russia if it used nuclear weapons.
    ​ “I don’t take kindly to being threatened,” Shoigu responded, the book says.
    “Mr. Minister,” Austin said. “I am the leader of the most powerful military in the history of the world. I don’t make threats.”
    ​ The point is that the US was apparently extremely spooked and took the threat of nuclear use very seriously. This is now being used as explanation for why, precisely, Biden has been so careful of Russia’s red lines since that time, and has refused to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory.​ https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/zelensky-once-more-puts-allies-under

    ​He seems deadly-serious: Russia will not let Ukraine obtain nuclear weapons under any circumstances, Russian President Vladimir Putin said speaking at a meeting with media representatives of the BRICS states. https://english.pravda.ru/news/world/160947-putin-ukraine-nuclear-bomb/

    October 20, 2024 at 1:58 pm #171990
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Zelensky’s Plan Sells Ukraine to West, Turns Army Into Private Military Company – Lavrov
    ​ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s so-called victory plan suggests that Ukraine will hand over its natural resources to Western allies in exchange for weapons and turn the Ukrainian army into a private military company, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
    ​ “Zelensky, in these points of his, spoke so veiledly about the economic side of the issue. According to the leaks, the secret annexes… stipulate that he is ready to place all of Ukrainian natural resources under the management of his Western masters, hand over controls over them, effectively to sell Ukraine,” Lavrov told reporters after a foreign ministers’ meeting on the South Caucasus.
    ​ Some leaks suggest that Zelensky’s main purpose is to get weapons no matter what, Lavrov added. He said that Western countries had already made it clear this was an “unacceptable scenario” that increased risks for the West.​..
    ​..Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova brushed off Zelensky’s “victory plan” as a set of incoherent slogans that would push NATO into a direct conflict with Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that the conflict would end when Kiev realized the futility of its policy.
    ​ Zelensky presented the three-point plan, which also includes three secret additions, in parliament on Wednesday. He proposed that allies invite Ukraine to join NATO, lift restrictions on strikes deep into Russia and deploy a “comprehensive non-nuclear deterrence package” on Ukrainian soil to contain Russia. The plan envisions an end to the conflict no later than 2025.​ https://sputnikglobe.com/20241019/zelenskys-plan-sells-ukraine-to-west-turns-army-into-private-military-company—lavrov-1120596517.html

    ​ The US will support Ukraine within the framework that corresponds to Washington’s strategic interests – Pentagon chief
    The head of the Pentagon said that Washington will continue to support Kyiv, but only to the extent that “corresponds to strategic goals.”​ https://en.topcor.ru/52671-ssha-podderzhat-ukrainu-v-teh-ramkah-kotorye-sootvetstvujut-strategicheskim-interesam-vashingtona-glava-pentagona.html

    ​ More collateral for loans to the west, which are going bad: Russia Poised To Cripple Ukraine Steel Industry By Seizing Vital Coal Mine
    ​ In what promises to be a major milestone in more than two-and-a-half years of war, Russia is closing in on the capture of a vital industrial asset: a Ukrainian coal mine that’s a cornerstone of the country’s steel industry.
    ​ Owned by Ukrainian firm Metinvest, the modern facility — opened in 1990 — is Ukraine’s largest mine for producing coking-coal, a specific grade used to fuel blast furnaces. It’s near the village of Udachne, about 10 kilometers west of the city of Pokvrosk, which is itself a key supply hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast. Per the latest reports, the Russian army is reportedly just 8 to 12 kilometers east of Pokrovsk…
    ..Steel is one of Ukraine’s principal industries, accounting for about a third of exports before Russia’s invasion. At that time, Ukraine ranked 14th in global steel production; by last year, it had fallen to 24th place. This year, Metinvest expected to unearth 5.3 million metric tons of coal in the mine near Pokrovsk.
    ​ Oleksandr Kalenkov, the head of Ukraine’s metals and mining industry lobbying group, explained the implications for the country’s steel industry when the mine falls under Russian control, telling Reuters it could slash projected 2025 steel production by upwards of 80%​. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-poised-cripple-ukraine-steel-industry-seizing-vital-coal-mine

    ​ Anti-drone buckshot (needs a close-range optical computer targeting system to hit anything coming close): Russia unveiled IGLA anti-drone cartridges for serial guns
    Russia introduced the IGLA anti-drone cartridges, designed specifically for use with the LEX series rifles. These cartridges represent a new approach to combatting small unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs] https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/10/17/russia-unveiled-igla-anti-drone-cartridges-for-serial-guns/

    No ​automatic turret​-shotgun to go on top of a truck or tank to rapidly detect and shoot​-down drones, yet: 9 Types of Anti Drone Weapons​ https://www.peoplesproject.com/en/9-types-of-anti-drone-weapons/

    October 20, 2024 at 1:59 pm #171991
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ New Claims That 10,000 North Korean Troops Are Being Sent To Fight Ukraine
    ​Thursday, Zelensky was in Brussels where he informed EU officials that North Korea is amassing a large amount of troops in Russia, readying them to fight in Ukraine.
    ​ “We know that there are 10,000 soldiers of North Korea, that they are preparing to send, fight against us,” he said in a briefing. This includes “land forces, other tactical personnel” and framed it as “the first step to a world war.”…
    ..On Friday, South Korean intelligence (the NIS) sought to vouch for Zelensky’s claims, saying it believes up to 12,000 North Korean troops are mustering in Russia, and that at least 1,500 have already arrived.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/new-claims-10000-north-korean-troops-are-being-sent-fight-ukraine

    ​ North Korean troops seen being equipped in Russia ahead of likely deployment to Ukraine
    ​ The North Korean troops are thought to be receiving training before being sent to the frontline in Ukraine, in what is thought to be a clear sign of the ever warming relations between Moscow and Pyongyang.
    ​ In a video shared with CNN by Ukrainian government organization, the Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security, a long line of soldiers can be seen queuing up to receive their uniforms. The soldiers are thought to be speaking in Korean although the low quality audio prevented their discussions from being fully understood.
    ​ Upon arriving in Russia, the North Korean recruits have been asked to fill out a questionnaire providing their sizing for hats, headgear, uniforms, and shoes. In a copy of the questionnaire shared with CNN, the top of the form is written in Russian whilst the various size options are written in Korean.​ https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/asia/north-korea-ukraine-russia-troops-uniform-intl/index.html

    ​ Dima at Military Summary covers, in the first 3 minutes, the Koreans arriving to help rid Russia of Ukrainian soldiers by the end of the year.
    Korean Troops Heading To Kursk Fierce Fighting Along The Oskol River Military Summary 2024.10.19​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnF6SK9ZUdk&t=629s

    ​ Dima at Military Summary follows up in the first 2 minutes of this video, explaining that if North Korean troops only help rid Russia of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk Oblast, then they are only operating in what every country recognizes as “Russia” and are completely within all interpretations of international law.
    Zoriane Captured Selydove On The Brink Kupiansk Frontline Splits Military Summary For 2024.10.20​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVUSdjYC-R4

    October 20, 2024 at 2:00 pm #171992
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ We take it for granted: DEVELOPING: Over 10 million people left in the dark from power grid failure in Cuba
    The electricity went out Friday in Cuba, affecting the entire island’s population of 10 million after one of its main power plants failed, according to Cuba’s energy ministry.​ The government had tried to keep the lights on earlier in the day by closing schools and having most state workers stay home in an effort to conserve energy. But it wasn’t enough, and by 11 a.m. the largest power plant went offline, causing a grid failure.​ https://endtimeheadlines.org/2024/10/developing-over-10-million-people-left-in-the-dark-from-power-grid-failure-in-cuba/

    ​ Egypt is going to get badly hurt by reallocations of Nile River water: The colonial legacy of this vital river threatens peace in Africa and beyond
    New agreements reached in the decades-long dispute over the Nile could change the water allocation of countries in its basin​. https://swentr.site/africa/605849-africa-dispute-nile-water/

    Trump Vows Education Overhaul: ‘Let the States Run the Schools’​ https://slaynews.com/news/trump-vows-education-overhaul-let-states-run-schools/

    ​ UK Police Raid Home, Seize Devices of Pro-Palestine Journalist Asa Winstanley Under ‘Terrorism Act’
    ​UK counterterrorism police on Thursday raided the home of Electronic Intifada associate editor Asa Winstanley under the Terrorism Act for what appears to be the suspected “crime” of vocally supporting Palestinian liberation.
    ​ Winstanley has been a pro-Palestine activist for ages and has done invaluable work exposing the lies, hoaxes and disinformation the Israeli government spread about October 7th.​ https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64699

    Election Interference: Meta Admits Facebook Censors Anti-Kamala Posts​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/election-interference-meta-admits-facebook-censors-anti-kamala-posts

    October 20, 2024 at 2:02 pm #171993
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Florida authorities on Oct. 16 sued the U.S. government, alleging that U.S. officials are illegally refusing to cooperate with Florida’s effort to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/florida-sues-federal-government-seeking-data-noncitizen-voters

    ​Why would our government lie to us about this? Inflation Is Really 40%, Not 21 % Since 2022 https://www.independentsentinel.com/inflation-is-really-40-not-21-since-2022/

    ​ 5-Year-Old Develops Autism After Being Forced to Get 18 Vaccines in 1 Day
    As part of a custody battle, a Tennessee judge ordered a family to vaccinate all three of their children, all of whom had never been vaccinated. Five-year-old Isaac immediately became ill and was eventually diagnosed with severe regressive autism.​.. ..According to Ihben, Burnett told the couple that it was his “personal opinion that not vaccinating your children is child abuse.” He then told the couple that whichever parent would be willing to vaccinate the children that same day would leave the courthouse with custody.​ “I said, ‘Your Honor, we have rights. It’s between the mom and their father,’” Ihben recalled. “Her attorney whispered to her, and she goes, ‘I’ll take them down and vaccinate them today.’”​ “I was so surprised, because me and my ex-wife didn’t agree on much, but we did agree on that,” Ihben said, referring to their views on vaccination.​ After the hearing, Ihben and his wife were granted joint custody of the children, with their mother as their primary guardian. Later that day, the children received their childhood vaccines — and Isaac immediately became sick.​ “My daughter had previous allergies … so the doctor refused to give her all in one day. They split those … She didn’t have any side effects from what I can see,” Ihben said. “[Joseph] was in the ICU for a couple of days but seems to be okay. But [Isaac] spent 12 days in the ICU, eight days with a 106-degree fever.”​ Isaac, who was 5 years old at the time, was “just a normal happy kid,” Ihben said.​ Today, Isaac has severe regressive autism. Ihben told The Defender:​ “He doesn’t talk. He wears a diaper. He eats out of a baby bottle 20-30 times a day, he has speech therapy and will require 24-hour care and supervision for the rest of his life. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/isaac-ihben-autism-vaccine-injury/

    ​ Big Food Gets Kids Addicted to Food Laced With Ingredients Banned by Other Countries
    ​ “Right now, American food companies are using toxic ingredients that [in other countries] are either banned or regulated differently, in the same products that they serve American citizens,” Hari added.
    ​ According to her, McDonald’s French fries contain 11 ingredients in the U.S., but only three in other countries. Skittles also uses 10 different artificial food dyes in the U.S., as well as titanium dioxide, which is “banned in Europe because it can cause DNA damage.”
    ​ Hari also noted that Kellogg’s pledge in 2015 to remove artificial food dyes from its cereal products by 2018 didn’t materialize.​ https://discernreport.com/big-food-gets-kids-addicted-to-food-laced-with-ingredients-banned-by-other-countries/

    ​ This is the modern-day story of David and Goliath​
    The Port Hedland story​: Councilors from a small mining community called Port Hedland in Western Australia recently convened at a special council meeting to bring a Motion forward with evidence of DNA in the COVID-19 vials. It contained 3 exhibits including a report by David Speicher, a letter by The Honorable Russell Broadbent MP, Federal Member for Monash, dated 20 September 2024, and follow-up letter by The Honorable Russell Broadbent MP, Federal Member for Monash, dated 25 September 2024.
    ​ In summary,
    Dr. Speicher’s testing revealed DNA contamination levels between 7 to 145 times higher than Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) limit of 10ng per dose.
    ​ Mr. Broadbent has called upon the Prime Minister to suspend the use of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines due to the alarming findings contained in Dr. Speicher’s report. Mr. Broadbent has urged an immediate investigation and suspension of these products, pointing out that DNA contamination levels vastly exceed regulatory limits and that the Australian population must be protected.
    ​ Over 50 co-signatories from around the world explain in layman’s terms the adverse health effects caused by synthetic DNA contamination, emphasizing the risk of genomic integration, increased cancer risk, immune system disruption, and potential hereditary effects.​..
    ​..The motion was passed 5-2 on October 11, 2024.
    On October 13, 2024, it was announced that 537 additional Australian Councils were to receive the DNA contamination report.​
    ​ On October 15, 2024, a Daily Mail Australia Reporter wrote and published an article online that reports that on October 14, 2024, Western Australia’s Premier Roger Cook said that “the Covid vaccines [are] not dangerous” and said the Port Hedland council had “gone completely off the rails”. He also said that the Port Hedland council should “stick to their knitting”.
    ​ On October 18, 2024, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (the FDA of Australia) have publicly called this report ‘misinformation’ without bringing evidence forth to counter the evidences in the report, nor acknowledging the public statements made by Health Canada or the EMA on the SV40 subject matter. They did not present any new data to support their statements. In short, they reverted and referred to outdated information, and did not address this newly-raised issue.​ https://jessicar.substack.com/p/this-is-the-modern-day-story-of-david

    October 20, 2024 at 2:03 pm #171994
    John Day
    Participant

    Neocolonialism: Over half of African nations spend more on interest rates to creditors than public health: Report
    Data from World Bank shows that debt owed by the continent to private bondholders rose to $187 billion in 2022 from $25 billion in 2008​ https://www.downtoearth.org.in/africa/over-half-of-african-nations-spend-more-on-interest-rates-to-creditors-than-public-health-report

    ​ Viva Italia Tomato Plant Review: I think this is the first time that I am writing a review of a specific garden vegetable variety, but I have been very impressed with the Viva Italia tomato plants in both Austin and Yoakum, which I purchased and planted in late February, since I always push my luck on late freezes. The plants have dealt very well with heat and humidity, and have been the most disease resistant and vigorous of all of the tomato varieties I have grown. There are some browned out leaves low to the ground that I have not trimmed off. That’s all. Most of the other tomato plants have died, except Juliets, and Sungolds, both small tomato types, and both with a lot of browning and dying. One volunteer Sungold seedling from last year’s tomato-drops is doing better than most, and I will save seeds from that.
    We essentially have 3 tomato seasons in central Texas:
    Spring, where early production and canning are important in May, June and early July. These Viva Italias are not quite as early as Early Girl and Black Krim, in that order, but they are juicy tomatoes for canning, compared to most Roma types. Production is heavy by late spring.
    Summer Heat, where the usual goal is to keep the plants alive and await September and October rejuvenation and resumed production. We always notice what makes tomatoes in August, and this August was unusually mild, so we got some Juliets and Sungolds, as expected, but we also got Viva Italias, a medium tomato in August, and with a very nice flavor for general use. This was the Big News!
    Fall Rejuvenation, is the current season, and a bigger surprise, in a way, than getting some nice medium tomatoes in a mild August. These plants are kicking ass in production, which is very unusual for fall here, and they are the same plants that went into the ground in late February, showing excellent vigor and excellent disease resistance in this late season.
    General: Viva Italia is a large bush, not a vine, “determinate”, but I always cage even determinate types for a long growing season. Viva Italia makes a big plant and does not sprawl into a tangle of dying vines, as most of my other types do. It is almost the only determinate type plant with any life at all in mid October, and it is thriving.
    Here is one of the better reviews I found, but I ordered seeds elsewhere, and will buy some potted starts in early spring again if I find them. https://plantaddicts.com/viva-italia-tomato-plant?srsltid=AfmBOorzbCTy9TPRDyknkebreGMJ2Qyu7CdWietQSg7Z5EXIQ1XZexCQ

    them tomatoes

    October 20, 2024 at 2:04 pm #171995
    John Day
    Participant

    them tomatoes
    Oh well, I can’t get tomato pictures to post from either blog.

    October 20, 2024 at 2:17 pm #171997
    those darned kids
    Participant

    TRUMPZILLA VS MECHAKAMALA!¡!

    is a smoke screen for this (well, and, much, much more. but this..):

    https://www.arkmedic.info/p/would-you-like-plasmids-with-that

    October 20, 2024 at 3:11 pm #172002
    Noirette
    Participant

    Re. Police Escalate Britain’s War on Independent Journalism. (….)

    It is about scaring us into staying silent on Britain’s collusion in Israel’s genocide.

    – From top post.

    Arrests and harrassment in the UK of independent journos have been against those who are not gung ho about the Is – r killing spree (geno- c), or are pro – Pal in some fashion, that is, aren’t willing to proclaim that the right to murder Arab – Muslim Scum that is squatting on ‘their’ land is the Right Thing to Do, as in tune with Western Values, or whatever….

    Richard Medhurst, Sarah Wilkinson, Asa Winstanley, Richard Barnard, see link for him,

    https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-police-charge-co-founder-palestine-action-under-terrorism-act

    Others have been targeted.

    Guy Smallman, a veteran photojournalist and NUJ member whose coverage of protest activity appears throughout the UK press, was arrested on 25 June for aggravated trespass while standing on what he says was a public footpath, covering an ecological protest at a boating lake near former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Yorkshire residence. He has since been released on bail, with the police retaining £14,000 worth of camera equipment. He has not been charged.
    (…)

    Martin Pope, a British Association of Journalists (BAJ) member, spent 20 years working for the Daily Telegraph and has also contributed photography to The Guardian, The New Yorker and The Sunday Times. In April 2024, he was swept up in a pre-emptive arrest of protesters planning to target an arms company implicated in Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza. (…)

    https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2024/08/uk-journalists-fall-victim-to-new-police-tactics/

    Rich Felgate (2023) arrested at an environmental protest.

    UK police arrest journalist Rich Felgate while covering coronation protest

    Joshua Tartakovsky a British cit. arrested in Lebanon, Oct. 2024

    https://www.thejc.com/news/world/british-israel-journalist-arrested-in-hezbollah-controlled-area-of-beirut-dvrezbd2

    Matt Broomfield, who has worked in Kurdish-controlled north-east Syria, had his phone and laptop seized when he was questioned last month .. (2023)

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/sep/20/british-journalist-held-by-police-at-luton-airport-for-five-hours-without-arrest

    And there are many more, I don’t have a list, Reporters Without Borders doesn’t seem to have one either, though there is a lot of info there.

    October 20, 2024 at 3:44 pm #172004
    zerosum
    Participant

    Bankers are laughing all the way to the bank.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/which-donor-countries-are-pulling-their-weight-ukraine-aid
    Which Donor Countries Are Pulling Their Weight In Ukraine Aid?

    October 20, 2024 at 4:09 pm #172008
    TAE Summary
    Participant

    * Projection – noun: The externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety as in “Mercator Projection”

    * Labour Party to send staffers to stump for Kamala, officially known as the
    British Initiative Touting Campaign Harris Political Action Committee

    * Scientists have discovered something they’re calling a Negative Candidacy, where a nominated incumbent exits a race before they have actually entered it

    * Australia can’t join NATO but they’re hoping a pole shift might make it possible

    * Star Trek on Kamala Harris
    Scotty : Doctor, I’ve seen the captain feverish, sick, drunk, delirious, terrified, overjoyed, boiling mad… but up to now, I have never seen him red-faced with hysteria. We’ll have to take over the ship.
    Dr. McCoy : We’re talking about mutiny, Scotty.
    Scotty : Aye. Are you ready for the vote?

    * Dance like everything hurts. Love like you really need the money. Work like nobody’s watching.

    October 20, 2024 at 7:31 pm #172020
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Even a Media Whore like Time magazine has turned on Nazilensky

    .

    October 20, 2024 at 7:41 pm #172022
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Looks like STEM careers CRUSHED the touchy feelie “liberal arts”

    .

    October 20, 2024 at 7:43 pm #172023
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Dig that Theology bested by Performing Arts

    Are they the same thing now?

    October 20, 2024 at 7:46 pm #172024
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    October 20, 2024 at 7:48 pm #172025
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Just another marketing scam for a queer concept passed it’s due date.

    Touch Down!

    .

    October 20, 2024 at 7:50 pm #172026
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Nothing to see here, keep moving……

    .

    October 20, 2024 at 8:00 pm #172027
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    Health Care in Duh’merica be Like…..

    .

    October 20, 2024 at 10:44 pm #172028
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Hopeless?

    .

    October 20, 2024 at 11:33 pm #172029
    zerosum
    Participant

    The US navy knows. Will they do the smart thing?
    “The Black Sea Fleet is an illustrative example,” Rogozin was quoted as saying. “It was forced to change, basically, its residence due to the fact that our large ships became just big targets for unmanned enemy boats.”

    https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/ukraine-attacks-forced-black-sea-fleet-to-move-warships-from-sevastopol%2C-russian-official-says/87764638

    October 20, 2024 –
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been forced to move many warships from the naval base of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, due to attacks by Ukraine, a Russian-installed official was quoted as saying on Sunday.

    October 21, 2024 at 12:01 am #172030
    zerosum
    Participant

    The BRICS report
    https://pdfupload.io/docs/e1231f66

    October 21, 2024 at 12:07 am #172031
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Bullies must be stood up to and stopped. By definition, a bully is a coward. A bully, especially one imbued with a messianic, millenarian sense of supremacy, understands one thing: a united show of force. Israel’s regional serial killing needs to be stopped forthwith, and by force!

    https://www.unz.com/imercer/why-the-israel-occupied-levant-must-be-liberated-s-o-s/

    Indeed, but the world can see that none of the powerful nations, such as Russia or China, are going to stand for humanity against the USA in Israel. In fact the Russians evacuated some of the scum from Israel at the start of the genocide. Jews just show us how low humanity can get and that humanity cannot police itself, it needs natural disasters such as impacting asteroids to clean up its mess and allow the earth to start again. Even animals do not do what the Jews are doing, wanking and flashing while they murder people? What sort of sick parents created these scum, the whole race and religion is defiling humanity.

    October 21, 2024 at 12:18 am #172032
    zerosum
    Participant

    More to read at …
    https://english.almanar.com.lb/2237688
    Hezbollah’s Heavy Missiles Strike Haifa, Gatherings of Israeli Occupation Soldiers in Galilee

    October 21, 2024 at 1:30 am #172033
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    08:24

    CAF:

    It is a form of theatre.
    It is a form of entertainment.
    In other words you are not watching the coverage of a real campaign.
    It is a media event and it is theatre.

    It is astonishing though because if you look at the real nuts and bolts of political power and how to exercise it we have a portion of the country that is in the action room talking serious steps to reengineer the nuts and bolts of power back to freedom.

    The most astonishing and frightening fact is that we have allowed someone to serve as president who is clearly not capable.

    Who is really in control?
    Who is really in charge?

    We know from November 1963 on we went from a world where the president really was running the country in many aspects to a world where the president is simply an actor in a theatre.

    We are sending a message globally to the world that the president of the United States doesn’t run the United States

    Gold, Kamala, Trump, Control, Cash, Murder & Water – Catherine Austin Fitts

    October 21, 2024 at 1:32 am #172034
    aspnaz
    Participant

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/leaked-us-intel-confirms-israeli-nuclear-weapons

    Israel is pretending to be nervous, as is the USA, that retaliation could result in something life threatening for Israel. Neither Israel or the USA are realistic enough to actually be thinking that, they ride on the wave of arrogance, so they are simply playing Iran’s own game of wait and see.

    As for these leaks – very, very unlikely. They are releasing false info in the hope that as it is a “leak” people will take it seriously. Of course, it is not a leak, the Israelis are trying to fuck with the Iranians, trying to psych them out, but I have a feeling it will take a lot lot more than some fairy tale.

    One question; how will these nukes ever emerge from their launch tubes before being blown to shit by incoming hypersonic missiles?

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