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Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Debt Rattle June 10 2023

Jun 102023
 
 June 10, 2023  Posted by at 8:44 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


Edgar Degas Les repasseuses (women ironing) 1884

 

• Reminder, What Was in The Mar-a-Lago Documents (CTH)
• So About Trump’s Second Indictment (Denninger)
• Snowden Weighs In On Trump’s Classified Docs Indictment (RT)
• The Great DOJ Werewolf Hunt (Jim Kunstler)
• To The Pompous But Dim-Witted Critics Of Russia (Medvedev)
• A War Long Wanted (Matthew Hoh)
• Biden’s Reputation Hinges On Kiev’s Counteroffensive – Politico (RT)
• When Could West Pull the Plug on Military Assistance to Kiev? (Sp.)
• West Planning ‘Second Ukraine’ In Moldova – Moscow (RT)
• Ukraine Shifts Timeline For Crimean Incursion (RT)
• Media: One Side “Says” – The Other “Provides No Evidence” (MoA)
• Asia, Not Europe As A Laboratory For The Multipolar World (Lukyanov)
• Saudi Crown Prince Threatened To Damage US Economy – Media (RT)
• Ban Use Of Fossil Fuels In Making Wind Turbines And Solar Panels (CSD)
• Media Blames Climate Change For Canada Wildfires Despite Multiple Arrests (LSN)
Over 66% Of US At Risk Of Power Outages Due To Green Transition (JTN)
• New Twitter Files: FBI Worked With Ukraine To Censor Twitter Accounts (Fox)

 

 

 

 

RFK vaccines

 

 

RFK on Ukraine

 

 

 

 

Chomsky China

 

 

 

 

Tucker pedophilia

 

 

 

 

Sundance brings the receipts.

“President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him..”

“..if you peel away all the layers of lies, manipulations and corruption, what you find at the heart of their conduct is fear. The need for control is a reaction to fear. What do they fear most? …..THIS!”

• Reminder, What Was in The Mar-a-Lago Documents (CTH)

The NSA compliance officer notified NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers of unauthorized use of the NSA database by FBI contractors searching U.S. citizens during the 2015/2016 presidential primary. That 2016 notification is a classified record. The response from Mike Rogers, and the subsequent documentary evidence of what names were being searched, is again a classified record. The audit logs showing who was doing the searches (which contractors, which agencies and from what offices), as noted by Director Rogers, were preserved. That is another big-time classified record. In addition, we would have Admiral Rogers writing a mandatory oversight notification to the FISA court detailing what happened. That’s a big and comprehensive classified record, likely contained in the documents in Mar-a-Lago… and then the goldmine, the fully unredacted 99-page FISA court opinion detailing the substance of the NSA compromise by FBI officials and contractors, including the names, frequency and dates of the illegal surveillance.

That is a major classified document the Deepest Deep State would want to keep hidden. These are the types of documents within what former ODNI John Ratcliffe called, “thousands of pages that were declassified by President Trump,” and given to both John Durham and Main Justice with an expectation of public release when the Durham special counsel probe concluded. That is why the DOJ has to make their moves now. The Durham probe has concluded. In short, President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him. However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are the same institutions who control the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.

These examples of evidence held by President Donald Trump reveal the background of how the DC surveillance state exists. THAT was/is the national security threat behind the DOJ-NSD search warrant and affidavit. The risk to the fabric of the U.S. government is why we see lawyers and pundits so confused as they try to figure out the disproportionate response from the DOJ and FBI, toward “simple records”, held by President Trump in Mar-a-Lago. Very few people can comprehend what has been done since January 2009, and the current state of corruption as it now exists amid all of the agencies and institutions of government.

Barack Obama spent 8 years building out and refining the political surveillance state. The operators of the institutions have spent the last six years hiding the construct. President Donald Trump declassified the material then took the evidence to Mar-a-Lago. The people currently in charge of managing the corrupt system, like Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Chris Wray and the Senate allies, are going bananas. From their DC perspective, Donald Trump is an existential threat. Given the nature of their opposition, and the underlying motives for their conduct, there is almost nothing they will not do to protect themselves. However, if you peel away all the layers of lies, manipulations and corruption, what you find at the heart of their conduct is fear. The need for control is a reaction to fear. What do they fear most? …..THIS!

People forget, and that’s ok, but prior to the 2015 MAGA movement driven by President Donald J Trump, political rallies filled with tens-of-thousands of people were extremely rare – almost nonexistent. However, in the era of Donald J. Trump the scale of the people paying attention has grown exponentially. Every speech, every event, every rally is now filled with thousands and thousands of people. The frequency of it has made us numb to realizing just how extraordinary this is. But the people in Washington DC are well aware, and that makes President Trump even more dangerous. Combine that level of support with what they attempted in order to destroy him, and, well, now you start to put context on their effort. The existence of Trump is a threat, but the existence of a Trump that could expose their corruption…. well, that makes him a level of threat that leads to a raid on his home in Mar-a-Lago.

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“There is every reason to believe that the cover-up of this is why there is a war in Ukraine right now and is directly why tens of thousands are dead..”

• So About Trump’s Second Indictment (Denninger)

…. I don’t care. I should, of course. We all should. But I don’t. I don’t because nobody else has for thirty years when it comes to wild-eyed felony violations of the law, each carrying ten years in prison for each and every person involved, that occur by the tens of thousands every day. I’m talking about 15 USC Chapter 1 and violations that, collectively, amount to roughly 15% of the entire federal budget, all of which every one of us pays for, and another several trillion in “private” spending which we also pay for via crazily-hiked “insurance” premiums and similar. We pay for it in $500 medications that cost $10 anywhere else in the world, procedures that are billed at a thousand percent over what they cost anywhere else in the world, we’re billed at different rates depending on who your insurance carrier is, which for most people is not a choice they actually have (it comes through their job) and more.

I also don’t care because on the same day this indictment was announced it was also announced that the FBI has had hard evidence that both Hunter Biden and Joe Biden himself took $5m in bribes each and the target of same was explicit policy actions by the government which, I remind you, Joe Biden bragged about on national television — yet he still sits in the Oval Office. There is every reason to believe that the cover-up of this is why there is a war in Ukraine right now and is directly why tens of thousands are dead, infrastructure has been destroyed and tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money have gone to waste prosecuting same. Never mind that Biden committed the very same offense according to the record, the FBI knew it, and covered it up before the midterm elections; they knew Biden had classified documents in multiple places he had no right to possess — including in his garage.

We, the people of this nation, have allowed this, along with the original coup, where literal murder took place at Maidan and members of our government, including sitting Senators, cheered same on, to occur — all while our current President was vice-President and Obama, who was President at the time presided over that entire sordid mess and he too is still a free man. So…… do I care that the government has done this? No. We didn’t care enough to do anything about any of the above for three decades, a million Americans are dead over the last three years because of said medical monstrosity, tens of thousands of Russians and Ukranians are dead because of what our government has done over there, we have a sitting Senator who on camera stated that the killing of Russian soldiers was a “great investment” and our current sitting President appears to have taken a five million dollar bribe which the FBI knew about three years ago, prior to the election for the specific purpose of actual corrupt purpose WHILE IN OFFICE, they have done nothing about it and the American people have let all this go on for decades.

Mark Levin

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“Then said Jesus unto him, put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword..”

• Snowden Weighs In On Trump’s Classified Docs Indictment (RT)

Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of state secrets is common behavior in Washington and typically goes unpunished, former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has argued in response to the former US president’s indictment. “All kidding aside, it’s not wrong to say that the indictment of Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents is a case of selective prosecution,” Snowden said on Friday in a Twitter post. “Spilled secrets are very much the currency of Washington, and Trump was not alone in splashing them around. He was just the least graceful.” Trump was charged with 37 felonies in a federal grand jury indictment that prosecutors unsealed on Friday. He’s accused of knowingly retaining classified documents after leaving office, conspiring to keep federal authorities from retrieving them and obstructing an investigation into their whereabouts.

Snowden marked the 10-year anniversary this week of his exposure of mass spying on US citizens by their government. He said Trump failed to fix the system that has now come back to haunt him. “It’s hard to feel sorry for a man who had four years in the White House to reform that broken system and instead left it in place to the detriment of the American public. He is caught within the same gears his own hands once turned,” Snowden tweeted. Some observers pointed out that Trump is being prosecuted under the same law – the Espionage Act – that Washington has wielded against Snowden and WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange. As president, Trump declined to issue pardons for both men, who were charged with crimes after exposing US government wrongdoing.

“Then said Jesus unto him, put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” Snowden said, using a Bible verse to point out the irony of Trump’s latest legal predicament. Snowden has railed against the US government’s abuse of secrecy since 2013, when he exposed the widespread NSA spying on American citizens. He was forced to seek refuge in Russia after Washington annulled his passport mid flight, eventually becoming a Russian citizen. Asked on Friday what he’d do if he were the US president, he said, “I’d surely reduce the number of things we classify by more than 99% – and you would not find the remainder in my bathroom or behind my Corvette.”

Snowden’s quip alluded to allegations that Trump had classified records stored in a bathroom at his Florida resort, as well as revelations earlier this year that President Joe Biden improperly kept secret documents and stored them in multiple locations, including the garage at his home in Delaware. Trump and his allies have argued that Biden weaponized the justice system to take out his top opponent in the 2024 presidential election, all while being excused for his own mishandling of state secrets. Trump also argued that he had the authority to declassify the records in his possession, unlike Biden, whose documents were acquired when he served as vice president. The former president blasted Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the indictment against him, as a “deranged lunatic” with a history of political bias.

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“Unlike the Donald Trump werewolf hunt, the “Joe Biden” classified-docs-in-a-garage case is moving at the speed of an Amtrak train with a broken Johnson rod stuck on a sidetrack outside Joppatowne, Maryland, in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve.”

• The Great DOJ Werewolf Hunt (Jim Kunstler)

At long last you know what those plangent cries of Russia! Russia! Russia! ringing across the land signify: America has been turning into Russia, Joe Stalin-vintage, since 2016, just as Lon Chaney turned into a werewolf on-screen back in 1941. Trump Derangement turns out to be an extreme presentation of mass Species Identity disorder, a national altered state that (Wikipedia says): “…typically involves delusions and hallucinations with the transformation only seeming to happen in the mind and behavior of the affected person.”

Clinical lycanthropy is a very rare condition and is largely considered to be an idiosyncratic expression of a psychotic or dissociative episode caused by another condition such as Dissociative Identity Disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or clinical depression. It has also been associated with drug intoxication and withdrawal, cerebrovascular disease, traumatic brain injury, dementia, delirium, and seizures…. However, there are suggestions that certain neurological conditions and cultural influences may result in the expression of the human-animal transformation theme that defines the condition.”

So, now we are to have a grand show trial, in the Stalinist mode, of presidential candidate (and werewolf) Donald Trump on charges actually concocted off-site in the Lawfare laboratory of Commissar for Werewolf Activities Andrew Weissmann and sidekick, Brookings Institute fellow Norm Eisen, late counsel to the House Committee that impeached the werewolf with disappointing results over a telephone call to Ukraine in 2019. And, yes, that would be the same Andrew Weissmann who previously (but surreptitiously) led the team of intrepid Lawfare werewolf exorcists fronted by dementia victim Robert Mueller. Mr. Weissmann’s previous two-year-long werewolf hunt was a bust, too, of course. The werewolf slipped off into the moonstruck night to gnaw on Democrat loins again!

This time Mr. Weissman’s front-man is federal attorney Jack Smith, new to the werewolf hunting scene, packing a seven-shot indictment of silver bullets, aiming to show America how it’s done. And just in case he misses those shots, he’s got another gun strapped to his ankle chambering silver bullets engraved with “Jan 6” on the slugs. If you think our world has gotten interesting, better buckle into your Big Boy lounger because this werewolf movie is going places like none before. You may have noticed the timing of this new werewolf hunt has a near-magical synchronicity with oddly identical circumstances shimmering around the current occupant of the White House — another case of misplaced official papers. Unlike the Donald Trump werewolf hunt, the “Joe Biden” classified-docs-in-a-garage case is moving at the speed of an Amtrak train with a broken Johnson rod stuck on a sidetrack outside Joppatowne, Maryland, in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve.

But those purloined classified papers may be the least of “Joe Biden’s” concerns. Why, just the other day a single “whistleblower” document turned up in the House Oversight Committee’s SCIF — a special room for the performance of secret rituals — suggesting that “JB” was on the receiving end of $5 million gratis from some generous soul connected to a Ukrainian natgas company. That payday, for services left murky, when “JB” happened to be Barack Obama’s vice-president, came around the same period as yet other multi-million-dollar gift parcels from China, Russia, and Romania flew into a long list of companies operated by “JB’s” son Hunter, with no known business other than receiving large sums of money and then writing checks to various Biden family members. “Well Sonofabitch…!” as the president himself once said apropos of legal doings in Ukraine.

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A tweet.

• To The Pompous But Dim-Witted Critics Of Russia (Medvedev)

To the pompous but dim-witted critics of Russia, and those who somehow managed to put all of their memory down the drain: let’s once again go through some of the major military operations of the U.S. and NATO after World War II.

1950 – The US is leading an intervention by the UN forces during the Korean War.
1954 – The US participates in the military coup in Guatemala and the follow-up intervention.

1961 – The US is launching the Bay of Pigs Operation in order to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba.
1964 – The US gets massively involved in the Vietnam war.
1981 – The US incites the civil war in Nicaragua.

1989 – The US invades Panama.
1999 – NATO’s war against Yugoslavia.
2001 – The US starts a war in Afghanistan.
2003 – The US launches a war in Iraq.
2011 – NATO’s first intervention in Libya.
2014 – The US and its allies invade Syria.
2015 – NATO’s second intervention in Libya.

The list is far from complete but quite telling. None of the major regional conflict of the past decades did without either direct or indirect involvement of American “benefactors.” The outcome is millions of dead people. Their blood is on the hands of ALL the American presidents, of various corrupted bastards, and other demented old men from the US Administration and US Congress. And yet, after all this, some seniles like Biden and other hypocrites have the nerve to criticize Russia for its actions aimed at protecting its own compatriots and defending its historical territories? Who are you to open your foul mouths? Just zip it up!

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“NATO expansion was a cash bonanza for a weapons industry that originally saw destitution as the fruit of the Cold War’s end..”

• A War Long Wanted (Matthew Hoh)

At the end of the Cold War, the military-industrial complex faced an existential crisis. Without an adversary like the Soviet Union, justifying massive arms spending by the United States would be difficult. NATO expansion allowed for new markets. Countries coming into NATO would be required to upgrade their armed forces, replacing their Soviet-era stocks with Western weapons, ammunition, machines, hardware and software compatible with NATO’s armies. Entire armies, navies and air forces had to be remade. NATO expansion was a cash bonanza for a weapons industry that originally saw destitution as the fruit of the Cold War’s end. From 1996–1998, US arms companies spent $51 million ($94 million today) lobbying Congress. Millions more were spent on campaign donations.

Beating swords into plowshares would have to wait for another epoch once the weapons industry realized the promise of Eastern European markets. In a circular and mutually reinforcing loop, Congress appropriates money to the Pentagon. The Pentagon funds the arms industry, which, in turn, funds think tanks and lobbyists to direct Congress on further Pentagon spending. Campaign contributions from the weapons industry accompany that lobbying. The Pentagon, CIA, National Security Council, State Department and other limbs of the national security state directly fund the think tanks and ensure that any policies promoted are the policies the government institutions themselves want.

It is not just Congress that is under the sway of the military-industrial complex. These same weapons companies that bribe members of Congress and fund think tanks often employ, directly and indirectly, the cadre of experts that litter cable news programs and fill space in news reporting. Rarely is this conflict of interest identified by American media. Thus, men and women who owe their paychecks to the likes of Lockheed, Raytheon or General Dynamics appear in the media and advocate for more war and more weapons. These commentators and pundits seldom acknowledge that their benefactors immensely profit from the policies of more war and more weapons.

The corruption extends into the executive branch as the military-industrial complex employs scores of administration officials whose political party is no longer in the White House. Out of government, Republican and Democratic officials head from the Pentagon, the CIA and the State Department to arms companies, think tanks and consultancies. When their party retakes the White House, they return to the government. In exchange for bringing their rolodexes, they receive lavish salaries and benefits. Similarly, US generals and admirals retire from the Pentagon and go straightto arms companies. This revolving door reaches the highest level. Before becoming Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State and Director of National Intelligence, Lloyd Austin, Antony Blinken and Avril Haines were employed by the military-industrial complex. In Secretary Blinken’s case, he founded a firm, WestExec Advisors, devoted to trading and peddling influence for weapons contracts.

There is a broader level of commercial greed in the context of the Ukraine War that cannot be dismissed or ignored. The US fuels and arms the world. US fossil fuel and weapons exports now exceed its agricultural and industrial exports. Competition for the European fuel market, particularly liquid natural gas, has been a primary concern over the last decade for both Democratic and Republican administrations. Removing Russia as the key energy supplier to Europe and limiting overall Russian fossil fuel exports worldwide has greatly benefited American oil and gas companies. In addition to wider commercial trade interests, the sheer amounts of money the American fossil fuel business makes as a result of denying Europeans the option of buying Russian fossil fuels cannot be disregarded.

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Not true. The Biden team has been busy covering their hurt butts from day one. They will simply blame Zelensky. “We gave you everything and you f*cked up!”

• Biden’s Reputation Hinges On Kiev’s Counteroffensive – Politico (RT)

Washington’s future military support for Ukraine and President Joe Biden’s reputation depend largely on the outcome of Kiev’s counteroffensive against the Russian forces, senior American officials have told Politico. The White House “anxiously watches” Kiev’s attempts to retake territories it lost to Russia, the US outlet reported on Thursday. If the counteroffensive succeeds, Ukraine would be able to count on additional military and economic assistance from the US and its allies, but if it fails, Western support may dry up, with Kiev facing calls to find a swift diplomatic resolution to the conflict, the report said. Five US officials, who spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that they weren’t sure if lawmakers would vote for more aid for President Vladimir Zelensky’s government when funds approved last year are depleted.

The House Republicans may use any setbacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to derail the efforts of the Democrats to boost military aid, they pointed out. According to the outlet, Washington has been increasingly unhappy about Ukrainian attacks inside Russia such as an attempted drone strike on the Kremlin in early May and the assassinations of military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky and journalist Darya Dugina. Those moves by Kiev have led to “several private, stern admonishments in diplomatic backchannels,” it added. The political uncertainty in the US and developments on the ground in Ukraine are among “mounting concerns that could sully Biden’s hoped-for triumphant return to the world stage” at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July, the officials stressed.

The gathering in the Lithuanian capital will be a “key moment” for the American leader, who’ll face questions about US security guarantees for Kiev, the deliveries of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine and its potential membership in NATO, Politico pointed out. During his meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi SuNak on Thursday, Biden expressed belief that the administration will “have the funding necessary to support Ukraine as long as it takes” and that this support will be “real.” Earlier that day, senior US officials told CNN that the AFU had suffered “significant” casualties in its unsuccessful attempts to mount a counteroffensive against the Russian forces over the past week. Kiev’s troops have been met with “greater than expected resistance” when trying to break through Russian lines, they said. According to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Ukraine has lost around 5,000 soldiers and 100 tanks in combat since Sunday.

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“..such a scenario is fraught with a “very rapid collapse” of the Zelensky regime because it can no longer exist without Western assistance..”

• When Could West Pull the Plug on Military Assistance to Kiev? (Sp.)

Touching upon Kiev’s chances to get the F-16s, Podolyaka suggested that “If the so-called counteroffensive ends up at least in a draw, or with some small victories for the AFU, then, of course, the fighter jets will be in place in Ukraine.” But if the AFU sustains a defeat, then “it is quite possible” that the Americans and Europeans will think that the supply of the F-16s to Kiev is irrelevant, he said, adding “everything will depend on the results of the battle that is now unfolding.” When asked if the West will continue increasing its military supplies to Kiev given the AFU’s stuttering attempts to launch a counteroffensive, the military expert referred to what he described as Americans and Britons’ practical approach to things.

“They are business people. They understand that if the project is unsuccessful, then it is not worth investing in it. And they are already directly saying and hinting to the Kiev regime that ‘if you don’t achieve any significant results as a result of the counteroffensive, […] then there will be a decrease in investments,” according to Podolyaka. He explained that such a scenario is fraught with a “very rapid collapse” of the Zelensky regime because it can no longer exist without Western assistance.

“Militarily, the Ukrainian state would have been destroyed long ago but for the West’s aid. […] The Zelensky regime will fall or [be] significantly weakened as soon as Western assistance dries up, something that Kiev is afraid of. That is why they have launched this suicidal counteroffensive, knowing about all the risks related to the decision,” Podolyaka noted. Giving his insight into when it is relevant to expect the above-mentioned “significant results,” he underlined that one should wait and see how developments will further unfold given the fact that the AFU will almost certain try to reverse the tide of the battle in its favor in the coming days.

[..] Deputy chief of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev also commented on the matter, writing on his Telegram page that “While Fogh Rasmussen previously was not a very smart person, he has now completely fallen into doctrinaire dementia.” He also warned that a possible scenario of NATO forces being deployed to Ukraine may have a negative impact on the US. “What does Uncle Sam think about this? After all, they’ll be impacted too. […] This is what happens when one becomes a freelance adviser to all sorts of greedy scumbags like former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and other corrupt Nazis at an inappropriate time,” Medvedev added.

Dwelling on the issue, Podolyaka, in turn, said that he was “sure that Poland will try to seize a significant piece of land from Ukraine”, something that he added cannot be resolved without the Polish entering Ukrainian soil. He added that while the probability of the scenario of Polish forces being stationed in Ukraine remains, this won’t take place right now because Warsaw “will wait for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to fall apart” as a result of the Russian special military operation. At the same time, Poland hopes that Russia will be purportedly weakened due to NATO’s actions and that it will allow Warsaw to claim and annex the territory of Western Ukraine in line with the 1939 borders,” he concluded.

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Losing on one front is not enough?!

• West Planning ‘Second Ukraine’ In Moldova – Moscow (RT)

The US and its allies are looking to use the former Soviet Republic of Moldova to contain Russia and turn it into “a second Ukraine,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin has warned. “Absolutely irresponsible, absolutely short-sightedly, the West is eyeing Moldova for the role of a second Ukraine, and, unfortunately, the current Moldovan leadership is actively involved in this,” Galuzin told Rossiya 24 broadcaster on Thursday. The government in Chisinau “walks the path of a pro-Western policy; takes part in the anti-Russian policy of the US and its satellites; follows the path of initiating that same escalation in relations with Russia” as Kiev did in the years leading up to its current conflict with Moscow, he pointed out.

According to the diplomat, the Russian side is not doing anything to stoke tensions with the people of Moldova – a small nation of 2.6 million people, sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania. “Those are not our methods,” he insisted. In May, the EU launched a partnership mission in Moldova under its Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), with the proclaimed aim of helping the country with crisis management and tackling hybrid threats. The bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the move was necessary due to “continued Russian attempts to destabilize Moldova with hybrid actions.” Galuzin also said the EU’s mission was anti-Russian in its very essence, as it is designed to further strengthen Chisinau’s pro-Western course and direct the country towards confrontation with Moscow. While pursuing closer ties with the West, the country’s officials are ignoring the interests of a large portion of Moldova’s population, who want good relations with Russia and don’t believe in stories about the perceived “Russian threat,” the deputy FM added.

Earlier this week, Moldova’s parliament terminated agreements on military cooperation and tackling the aftermath of natural disasters with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – an organization comprised of Russia and most other former Soviet republics. Last month, President Maia Sandu claimed that membership in the CIS was “not beneficial to the citizens of Moldova, and we proceed from the interests of the citizens.” In late May, NATO said it had “mutually beneficial” relations with Moldova, as the US-led military bloc has been helping the country “with efforts to reform and modernize its defense and security structures and institutions.” NATO also described Chisinau as a “valued contributor” to the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, where 40 Moldovan troops are deployed.

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Keep them out of Crimea!

• Ukraine Shifts Timeline For Crimean Incursion (RT)

A spokesman for Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) has downplayed a failed prediction made by his boss, Kirill Budanov, who had claimed that Ukrainian troops would enter Crimea by the end of spring. The new target is sometime this year before the weather turns cold, the official insisted. When asked about Budanov’s inaccurate assessment by the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper on Friday, spokesman Andrey Yusov said it was not “a bookmaker’s bet or a date on a tear-off calendar.” “But the overall situation and the wider assessment remain the same: Ukraine will definitely return Crimea. And then Budanov’s words would be prophetic,” Yusov claimed. He declined to set a more specific deadline, citing battlefield uncertainties, but suggested that the touted breakthrough would happen “while it is warm.”


 Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014, after the local population voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move following a Western-backed armed coup in Kiev. The Ukrainian government and its supporters rejected the outcome of the plebiscite, and claim that the territory is illegally occupied. Budanov has made several predictions on when Ukrainian troops would supposedly enter Crimea. In May 2022, he set the end of the year as the deadline, while in October he claimed Kiev would “liberate” Crimea in the spring of 2023. He publicly expressed confidence in that time frame as late as April. Russian officials have warned that an attempted military invasion of Crimea would be countered with major resistance. The pushback would “obviously involve the use of all defensive measures, including those articulated in the nuclear doctrine,” Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of the Security Council and former Russian president, told journalists in March.

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“Did any of the U.S. or NATO leaders really think that the Ukrainian forces would have a f***ing chance by senselessly running into well prepared Russian defenses?”

• Media: One Side “Says” – The Other “Provides No Evidence” (MoA)

“Ukraine Mounts Multiple Attacks on Russian Occupiers” – New York Times – June 8, 2023. On one side – just flat out statements taken for granted: “Three senior U.S. officials, as well as military analysts, said that a long-awaited major Ukrainian counteroffensive appeared to be underway, after months spent mobilizing and training new units, and arming them with advanced Western weapons … Kyiv said little about the intensified fighting, neither confirming nor denying Russian claims, and Ukrainian officials have said they will not discuss details for reasons of operational secrecy. A Ukrainian deputy defense minister, Hanna Malyar, said a battle was underway in the area of a larger town about 10 miles away in the neighboring Donetsk region, Velyka Novosilka, but it was unclear if she was referring to the same clash.

The other side’s claims are depicted as dubious: “The Russian war bloggers, who have become a major source of information from the front lines, said Ukraine’s forces had suffered heavy losses, though such claims could not be confirmed and in the past have often been exaggerated. The Russian account, like most claims about what was happening at the front, could not be confirmed independently, but videos verified by The New York Times showed a Ukrainian armored vehicle near Velyka Novosilka hitting a land mine.” I could add a dozen more pieces that follow the scheme. Ukrainian or U.S. claims lead the piece without being put into doubt. Russian counterclaims come a few paragraphs down and are immediately said to lack any evidence.

By the way: What the New York Times claims to have confirmed via video is just one of many screw ups on the Ukrainian side that can be seen these days. Over the last 48 hours I have watched half a dozen drone videos of Ukrainian vehicles rumbling in tight columns over open fields, without minesweepers, without smokescreen or artillery cover, only to get blown up in minefields and massacred by anti-tank missiles. No seasoned platoon or company leader would plan and execute attacks like that but, watching those videos, I doubt that the Ukraine still has any of those. Then we have this:

“Ukrainian forces have suffered losses in heavy equipment and soldiers as they met greater than expected resistance from Russian forces in their first attempt to breach Russian lines in the east of the country in recent days, two senior US officials tell CNN. One US official described the losses – which include US supplied MRAP armored personnel vehicles as “significant.” Did any of the U.S. or NATO leaders really think that the Ukrainian forces would have a f***ing chance by senselessly running into well prepared Russian defenses? Really???

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“.. a couple of landmark events at the 2023 edition. Perhaps the most interesting was Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu’s refusal to meet Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin on the margins..”

• Asia, Not Europe As A Laboratory For The Multipolar World (Lukyanov)

Last week, Singapore hosted the annual Asian Shangri-La Dialogue security conference. It has been organized for over 20 years by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. It’s probably the most representative forum in the region, even though the agenda is set by Westerners. It’s also arguably still the most accurate indicator of the general Asian mood and is now beginning to dictate the general global atmosphere. There were a couple of landmark events at the 2023 edition. Perhaps the most interesting was Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu’s refusal to meet Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin on the margins. The démarche was quite clear, although both ministers’ speeches expressed the unacceptability of confrontation, the consequences of which could be catastrophic.

Washington and Beijing have opposing visions in their assessment of future possibilities. In the US, there is a clear and almost unanimous view that Beijing is a rival that must be reined in at almost any cost. And those that shape opinion believe it will get worse. China is outraged that the US itself is dismantling a system of relations that has enriched both sides to their mutual satisfaction for decades. In Beijing’s view, the Americans are overstepping the bounds of reason by demanding that their Asian partners submit to their interests – or even whims. From Washington’s point of view, allowing China to continue to rise means having a challenger for world domination in the near future, with whom a clash is inevitable. Not a good position to be in. Thus, the paradox is that while both sides are openly preparing for confrontation, they are very wary of it.

Neither side is confident of imminent success. Logically, China’s primary interest is to postpone the moment of conflict as long as possible, if it is to be seen as inevitable. After all, Beijing has always been a catch-up actor, and on the military side it has much less experience than the Americans. The latter, on the other hand, may assume that the sooner the relationship is clarified, the better their chances of success. Of course, the US is now involved in a confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, and the prospect of a second front in Asia is worrying. This would not necessarily be a direct military engagement (no one believes this is likely in the short term), but a general increase in politico-military tensions, draining resources in that direction. The recent dangerous proximity of warships in the South China Sea is a familiar sight to the various Baltic and Black Sea confrontations. At the same time, diplomatic and intelligence contacts are taking place to “keep the lines of communication open.” However, these are much less busy than in the recent past.

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Biden has no idea how the world has changed. He goes in there and says: You ungrateful desert rat! I remember what we did for you! And MbS will say: I’m too young to remember, but I still do know what WE did for YOU!.

• Saudi Crown Prince Threatened To Damage US Economy – Media (RT)

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman privately threatened to harm the American economy after President Joe Biden warned Saudi Arabia of “consequences” for agreeing an oil production cut with Russia, the Washington Post reported, citing leaked material. The Biden administration had said it would re-evaluate relations with the kingdom following a decision by Riyadh to slash crude production against the wishes of the US.The Crown Prince, who is widely referred to as MBS, warned that he would not deal with the US administration anymore if Biden penalized Saudi Arabia. He also promised “major economic consequences for Washington,” the Post reported on Thursday. The threat was contained in a classified document that was leaked on a Discord server, but it was not clear whether the remark was part of intercepted communications or a message sent privately to the US.

Biden made his dissatisfaction with Riyadh clear last October after the OPEC+ group of major oil producers including Russia agreed to cut production by two million barrels a day. Washington was working to punish Moscow with sanctions on its oil trade over the conflict in Ukraine. “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done with Russia,” the US president said in an interview with CNN at the time, without specifying any possible measures. On the campaign trail before his election, Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the Crown Prince’s alleged role in the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which Riyadh blamed on rogue agents.

This threat never materialized, with White House insiders indicating that the Biden administration had opted against jeopardizing bilateral relations. Under a decades-old arrangement, the US provides security to Saudi Arabia, and in exchange retains access to its oil, which the kingdom trades for dollars, propping it up as a global currency. A number of top US officials recently traveled to Saudi Arabia, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken. These relations contrast with the reportedly poor personal chemistry between Biden and MBS, who have not met since last July. The 37-year-old Saudi Crown Prince, who is responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the kingdom in lieu of his father, King Salman, reportedly mocks Biden in private, making fun of his gaffes and mental lapses. Critics of the US president have accused him of caving in to Saudi pressure.

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“It is the height of hypocrisy to pretend that solar panels and wind turbines will save us from ‘evil’ fossil fuels..”

• Ban Use Of Fossil Fuels In Making Wind Turbines And Solar Panels (CSD)

New York state Sen. George Borrello, R-Wyoming County, has introduced a bill to require that all wind turbines, solar collectors and infrastructure for producing green energy be manufactured and constructed without the use of fossil fuels. His bill would also apply to the manufacture and distribution of electric vehicles. If the bill were to become law, it would be the end of renewable energy. There’s no feasible way to manufacture and transport wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles without fossil fuels. Borrello is well aware of this fact and said he suspects most of his colleagues in the New York Legislature do too.

Like a resolution that was introduced in the last Wyoming legislative session earlier this year that would’ve banned auto dealerships from selling electric vehicles, the goal of Borrello’s bill is to get people thinking a bit harder about the outcomes of extreme green energy policies. “The intent of the bill is to start an honest conversation about the reality of wind turbines and solar panels,” Borrello told Cowboy State Daily. “These energy sources are praised as the answer to reducing emissions and saving the planet. However, rarely discussed is the environmental damage that results from the manufacture, transport and installation of these systems.” In the last session of the Wyoming Legislature, Sen. Jim Anderson, R-Casper, sponsored a resolution requiring the state’s auto dealerships to phase out the sale of electric vehicles by 2035.

Anderson and the co-sponsors never intended the resolution to pass. They only wanted to start a conversation about bans on the sale of gas-powered vehicles that were adopted in California and considered in Colorado. He was successful. After Cowboy State Daily first reported on the measure, Anderson was interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business and Newsmax, as well as news outlets in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida and Pennsylvania. “It was successful at starting the conservation and getting a lot of comments from the ignorant,” Anderson told Cowboy State Daily. He said it’s possible he’ll pursue similar legislation in future sessions, perhaps a bill rather than a resolution, which is nonbinding. With bans on the sale of gas-powered cars in California and New York, along with bans on natural gas hookups in new construction, Anderson said more conversation is needed.

“There’s so many of these stupid laws being passed. It’s really getting out of hand,” Anderson said. Borrello said solar panels require the mining of rare earth metals, which is done with diesel-powered machinery, and they are typically manufactured with coal-fired electricity. Likewise, metallurgical coal is burned to forge steel for the foundations of wind towers. Diesel-powered heavy equipment, Borrello continued, transports the components, prepares the sites and assembles the structures. “It is the height of hypocrisy to pretend that solar panels and wind turbines will save us from ‘evil’ fossil fuels, when the reality is that renewables — just like modern life as we know it — cannot exist without them,” Borrello said.

Patrick Moore

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“..statistics from Canadian National Fire Database reveal that wildfires across Canada have decreased in recent years, having peaked in 1989..”

• Media Blames Climate Change For Canada Wildfires Despite Multiple Arrests (LSN)

Despite the arrest of multiple arsonists, the mainstream media in Canada seems intent on attributing the nation’s recent wildfires to “climate change.” As wildfires continue to spread across western, and now central and eastern Canada, burning forestland and homes, the mainstream media continues to imply that climate change is the main culprit, despite a growing number of reports showing that arsonists have been arrested for allegedly setting dozens of fires. “Several arsonists have been arrested in the past weeks in different provinces for lighting forest fires,” People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier tweeted. “But the lying woke media and politicians keep repeating that global warming is the cause.”

The severe nature of the wildfires has caused Canadians to wonder why they have spread so rapidly, especially as many of the affected areas are not typically impacted by wildfires of this degree or at this time of the year. In the past months, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have arrested several arsonists who have been charged with lighting fires across several provinces including Nova Scotia, Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta. The motive behind lighting the fires is unclear. One Albertan, John Cook, has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of arson after setting a string of wildfires in and around Cold Lake, a hamlet near Edmonton. In addition to damaging vehicles and structures, Cook was charged with setting aflame the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Cherry Grove, Alberta.

A Vancouver man charged with arson has been released until his trial on October 9, with Cpl. Michael Gauthier asserting that he is not a risk to light further fires. “This incident was not random in nature and we do not believe there is risk to other members of the public or businesses from the individual who was arrested,” Gauthier stated. Despite the numerous arrests, mainstream media outlets continue to publish articles attributing the wildfires to climate change. “Rise in extreme wildfires linked directly to emissions from oil companies in new study,” the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported. “Canadian forest fires are the latest costly climate disaster that public accounts fail to capture,” another CBC headline read.

“Climate change is increasing the risks of wildfires in the country, experts say,” Global News attested. Despite these claims, statistics from Canadian National Fire Database reveal that wildfires across Canada have decreased in recent years, having peaked in 1989. Notably, the mainstream media outlets attributing the increase of wildfires to climate change have received funding from the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which is actively pushing for increased bans on using natural resources in Canada to combat “climate change.”

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“the electric grid is operating ever closer to the edge” resulting in higher chances of “more frequent and more serious disruptions.”

• Over 66% Of US At Risk Of Power Outages Due To Green Transition (JTN)

At least two-thirds of America is expected to be hit with summer blackouts due to President Joe Biden’s push to end the use of fossil fuels, according to the organization that oversees the nation’s power grid stability. A 2023 “Summer Reliability Assessment” published by North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) cites “new environmental rules” cracking down on power plant emissions as a culprit. In May, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) threatened to shut down coal plants that fail to meet an effective zero-carbon emissions mandate by 2038. The problem, according to NERC, is that the U.S. government is creating greater energy demand by pushing out traditional energy sources (coal, natural gas and nuclear) for less reliable and insufficient alternatives like solar and wind power.


“Natural gas supply and infrastructure is vitally important to electric grid reliability even as renewable generation satisfies more of our energy needs,” NERC wrote in the assessment. NERC’s president, James B. Robb, warned Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee members that “the electric grid is operating ever closer to the edge” resulting in higher chances of “more frequent and more serious disruptions.” Robb also referred to natural gas as “fuel that keeps the lights on” and said improving its infrastructure is “required” to keep America’s grid afloat.

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“..authentic news outlets and reporters who cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules..”

• New Twitter Files: FBI Worked With Ukraine To Censor Twitter Accounts (Fox)

The latest Twitter Files uncovered the FBI requesting the social media company to censor accounts accused of spreading misinformation about the Ukraine-Russia war and collect their personal information. A special agent from the FBI reached out to Twitter with a list of accounts according to The Grayzone News host Aaron Maté, who reported on the latest Twitter Files. “The FBI is helping Ukraine censor Twitter users, including journalists,” Maté reported. “The FBI aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to ban Twitter users and collect their data. Twitter declined to censor journalists targeted by Ukraine.” Maté was included on the list of accounts.

FBI Special Agent Aleksandr Kobzanets, the assistant legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, reportedly contacted a pair of Twitter executives in March 2022 on behalf of Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the SBU. The agent reportedly sent a list of 163 Twitter accounts, stating that “These accounts are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” Along with the list of accounts, the agent also reportedly forwarded a request from Ukraine’s SBU, which said, “we kindly ask you to take urgent measures to block these Twitter accounts and provide us with user data specified during registration.” However, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety at the time, responded to the FBI about how they would check the authenticity of some of the accounts listed, but he shared concerns with censoring American and Canadian journalists.

“In an initial look, they do appear to be a mix of individual accounts (that may or may not be authentic), some official Russian accounts (including state media accounts which are already labeled under our policies), and even a few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. Aaron Mate),” Roth wrote. “Our reviews are going to focus first and foremost on identifying any potential inauthenticity,” he continued. “In general, though, authentic news outlets and reporters who cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules absent other context that might establish some kind of convert/deceptive association between them and a government.”

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Mantis

 

 

Doggo tornado

 

 

Awwww

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle June 9 2023

Jun 092023
 
 June 9, 2023  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


Laura Knight The Green Sea, Lamorna 1918

 

• Ukraine Has Taken ‘Significant’ Losses This Week – US (RT)
• West Has Done Everything For Ukraine – Biden (RT)
• Kiev Needs Deadlier Weapons – US Lawmakers (RT)
• Ukraine Gave Up Peace Deal With Russia Under US Pressure — Patrushev (TASS)
• Kakhovka Attack Lines Up With West’s Scorched Earth Scenario for Ukraine (Sp.)
• FBI Document Alleges $5 Million Bribe Paid To Joe Biden By Burisma Exec (ZH)
• McCarthy: Unconscionable for Biden to Indict Leading Opposing Candidate (Sp.)
• Mar-a-Lago Indictment Designed to Make Trump Reelection ‘Impossible’ (Sp.)
• I Didn’t Order Nord Stream Sabotage – Zelensky (RT)
• Biden Admin Waging Class War Against Working Americans – Michael Hudson (Sp.)
• Russia Being Robbed By The West – Kremlin (RT)
• EU Demands Answers Over ‘Instagram Pedophile Network’ (RT)
• South Africa Won’t Enforce ICC Putin Warrant – Minister (RT)
• Assange Dangerously Close to Extradition After High Court Rejects Appeal (RSF)
• Pentagon Struggling To Explain All 437 Earth Genders To Aliens (BBee)

 

 


This is a Royal Mail stamp from 1981 bearing a profile of the late Queen – same hammer symbols, same tyrant uniform. McCarthyite fanatics opposed to any criticism at all of the apartheid Israeli state are trying to cancel this anti-fascist protest from our culture. @rogerwaters

 

 

Stone Putin

 

 

 

 

Zel before

 

 

 

 

Sachs China

 

 

 

 

JFK Peace Speech

 

 

 

 

 

 

US media say the counteroffensive has started. Ukraine denies. Whatever it is, is a disaster.

• Ukraine Has Taken ‘Significant’ Losses This Week – US (RT)

The Ukrainian military has suffered “significant” casualties in its faltering attempt to mount a counteroffensive against Russian forces, US officials told CNN on Thursday. While Kiev has kept quiet about its losses, Moscow estimates that the offensive has already cost Ukraine almost 5,000 lives. Ukrainian troops hoping to break through Russia’s defensive lines have met “greater than expected resistance from Russian forces,”the American network reported, citing anonymous “senior US officials.” CNN’s sources described how Russian forces used anti-tank missiles and mortars to put up “stiff resistance” and inflicted “significant” casualties, as the Ukrainians struggled to get their Western-provided vehicles through densely-laid minefields. After months of delays and mixed messages from Kiev, Ukraine’s counteroffensive began on Sunday with an attack by six mechanized and two tank battalions along five sections of the frontline near Donetsk, and in other regions to the north and south.

Further attacks followed, and although pro-Ukrainian sources described these thrusts as “probing” attacks, it was clear by the beginning of this week that the counteroffensive had begun in earnest. The fiercest fighting took place on Wednesday night along the frontline near Zaporozhye, where the Russian military has spent several months constructing multiple lines of minefields, trenches, gun emplacements, and anti-tank obstacles. The Ukrainian 47th mechanized brigade attacked with a total strength of up to 1,500 troops and 150 armored vehicles, but Russian troops – backed by artillery and air support – repelled the assault, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Thursday. Key to Russia’s defense has been its suppression of Ukraine’s air defense systems, allowing its fighter jets and attack helicopters to operate with impunity over the frontline.

The minister claimed that during a two-hour battle, the enemy lost 30 tanks, 11 armored personnel carriers and up to 350 troops. According to Shoigu’s daily updates, Ukraine has lost around 4,995 soldiers and almost 100 tanks since Sunday. Despite the apparently colossal losses, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN earlier this week that Washington believed “that the Ukrainians will meet with success in this counteroffensive.” However, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, urged caution, telling the network on Monday that it was “too early to tell what outcomes are going to happen.” “Everyone knows perfectly well that any counteroffensive in the world without control in the skies is very dangerous,” Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in a Wall Street Journal interview on Saturday, adding that “a large number of soldiers will die” during the operation.

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How to distance yourself from failure.

• West Has Done Everything For Ukraine – Biden (RT)

Washington and its allies have exhausted their efforts to arm and prepare Ukraine for its counteroffensive against Russian forces, US President Joe Biden has claimed after meeting with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the White House. “We’ve done everything we could, collectively but individually in the United States, to make them ready, to support ..,” Biden told reporters on Thursday in a joint press briefing with Sunak in Washington. He called Kiev’s faltering attempts to mount an attack “an evolving situation where we’re very optimistic.” The US president made his comments amid reports that Ukrainian forces have suffered “significant” casualties as they battle to break through Russia’s defensive lines in the former Soviet republic. CNN admitted on Thursday that Ukraine’s troops were meeting “greater than expected resistance” and were struggling to get their Western-provided vehicles through minefields.

The long-discussed counteroffensive apparently began with a large-scale attack on Sunday, but met with withering firepower from Russian forces. Kiev admitted that its forces were “shifting to offensive actions” in some areas, but dismissed claims of its failures and losses as Russian propaganda. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian forces lost more than 3,700 troops, 52 tanks and hundreds of armored vehicles during the first three days of their attacks. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Tuesday that only 71 Russian soldiers were killed over the same period. He added on Thursday that Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade retreated after losing 350 men and 30 tanks in the latest attack on the Zaporozhye front. Asked whether he expected to get new funding approvals from the Republican-controlled Congress to continue providing aid to Ukraine, Biden vowed “unwavering support” for Kiev. Lawmakers have approved $113 billion in Ukraine aid since February 2022. NATO members plan to discuss long-term security commitments for Kiev at a summit next month in Vilnius.

“Long-term security to deter future aggression after this war ends is the goal, and we’re advancing this goal by providing the support Ukraine needs now on the battlefield and helping them strengthen their military over the long term,” Biden said. “I believe we’ll have the funding necessary to support Ukraine as long as it takes.” Biden argued that while some lawmakers have begun to question whether the US should continue to provide aid to Ukraine, he sees broad agreement on the consequences of failing to do so. Sunak touted increases in UK defense spending, saying, “We’re lucky to have America’s investment in European security, but we need to share the burden alongside you.” He suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin was betting on NATO members to tire of supporting Kiev. “I think it sends a strong signal to him that there is no point in trying to wait us out. We’re not going anywhere. We will be here for as long as it takes.”

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They want US missiles to be fired at targets inside Russia.

• Kiev Needs Deadlier Weapons – US Lawmakers (RT)

Members of Congress have urged US President Joe Biden to provide even more advanced weaponry to Ukraine, including longer-range missiles that the White House previously warned could trigger World War III. Kiev must be given Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to strike distant targets in Russia’s supply lines, nine lawmakers said in a letter to Biden on Thursday. The bipartisan group, led by Colorado Democrat Jason Crow, dismissed concerns that such weapons could escalate the conflict or leave US missile supplies too depleted. “We also understand the administration’s stated desire to maintain US stockpiles for future fights, but Ukraine is currently on the front lines in a fight for freedom in a war with immediate and long-term US national security implications,” the lawmakers said.

“The fight for global peace and security is playing out in Ukraine, and we believe this merits a drawdown from our existing stocks of this important capability.” ATACMS missiles can strike targets as far as 300 kilometers (190 miles) away. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said last July that the Biden administration wouldn’t send such long-range missiles to Ukraine because such a precedent could provoke a wider conflict if used to attack targets in Russian territory. However, the UK has since supplied Kiev with an unspecified number of its own Storm Shadow long-range missiles, a decision that was apparently run by Washington first. While Britain has consistently pushed its allies to supply Kiev with heavier armaments, nothing happens without the US approval, NBC News reported last week.

Biden’s professed reluctance to take other potentially escalatory steps has crumbled as the conflict drags on. Last month, he agreed to allow US allies to provide F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, while in January he approved plans to send M1 Abrams tanks to Kiev. Those concessions weren’t enough for the representatives behind Thursday’s letter. In addition to pushing for ATACMS missiles, they called for Biden to give more tanks and fighter jets to Ukraine, as well as additional Patriot air-defense systems. “Helping Ukraine fight and win is a US national security imperative and signals to the world that thee US will stand by our fellow democracies,” the nine lawmakers said. They called on Biden to do everything in his power, including using his authority under the Defense Production Act to accelerate weapons output, to give Ukrainian troops everything they need to mount a counteroffensive.

Kiev’s long-heralded attack apparently began on Sunday, and Biden said on Thursday that the US and its Western allies had already done everything they could to support the operation. According to CNN, the Ukrainian military has met with “greater than expected resistance” from Russian forces. Ukraine has lost more than 4,000 troops and dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in its failed attacks this week, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

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“in the morning, they [members of the Ukrainian delegation] gave [the proposals] to us during the negotiations and in the evening they said: ‘No, we give them up.’”

• Ukraine Gave Up Peace Deal With Russia Under US Pressure — Patrushev (TASS)

The Ukrainian leadership was ready to settle the conflict with Russia but gave up under the US pressure, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said on Thursday. “Had it not been for the US pressure on those whom they installed at the head of Ukraine, this situation would have not happened, Even the Ukrainian leaders themselves were ready for signing a peace treaty and gave Russia written proposals that we, in principle, approved,” Patrushev said, obviously referring to the negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Turkey in March last year. However, as Patrushev went on to say, “in the morning, they [members of the Ukrainian delegation] gave [the proposals] to us during the negotiations and in the evening they said: ‘No, we give them up.’”

“This happened only because the United States had put pressure on them and said that no negotiations must be held,” the secretary of Russia’s Security Council stressed. As Patrushev pointed out, “there are interested parties in this conflict,” first and foremost, the United States and Great Britain. The first Russian-Ukrainian negotiations after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine took place in Belarus in early March 2022 but the talks yielded no tangible results.

A new round of negotiations took place in Istanbul on March 29, 2022, following which Russian Delegation Head, Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky announced that Moscow had for the first time received Kiev’s principles of a possible future agreement in witting, stipulating, in particular, Ukraine’s neutral, non-aligned status commitments and its refusal to deploy foreign troops and armaments, including nuclear weapons, on its soil. Russia pulled out its forces from the Kiev and Chernigov areas. However, the negotiations on the peaceful settlement were totally frozen after that and, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said, Kiev gave up the accords reached in Istanbul. In October last year, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky enacted a decision by the country’s National Security and Defense Council on banning any talks with Putin.

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“For Russia, these same territories are a kind of “shrine,” he said. “These lands were settled and developed by our ancestors. We fought for these lands in two world wars. We are not indifferent to these territories, or the people living there.”

• Kakhovka Attack Lines Up With West’s Scorched Earth Scenario for Ukraine (Sp.)

The fallout from Tuesday’s attack on the Kakhovka dam continues to mount, with the Kremlin characterizing the incident as a “barbaric act” ordered “at the suggestion of [Kiev’s] Western curators,” and a calamity which has unleashed a “large-scale environmental and human disaster. A US-based private Earth imaging company released before and after satellite photos showing the consequences of the flooding, with much of the town of Novaya Kakhovka in Russia’s Kherson completely submerged in water, together with other settlements on both the Russian and Ukrainian-controlled sides of the river. A European Space Agency satellite tracking water levels June 5, 6, and 7 showed the extent of the rising water levels across the region over the three days.

Ukrainian and NATO officials quickly blamed Moscow for the disaster, calling it an “ecological catastrophe.” Russia, which has borne an equal share of the direct fallout of the flooding, plus the prospects of the loss of water in the North Crimean Canal and cooling water for the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, dismissed the claims, pointing out that Kiev had been attacking the Kakhovka hydroplant and its environs for well over a year before Tuesday morning’s fatal blow. The Kakhovka dam attack is another example of the Zelensky regime’s absolute disregard for casualties and destruction in the ongoing NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine, and another demonstration of the West’s cynical maxim of “fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian,” says prominent Russian military observer Alexey Leonkov.

“When there are no impressive battlefield victories, but one needs to raise the degree of the demonization of Russia, one can really go all out. The regime in Kiev and those who control it do not care whatsoever about what happens to Ukraine in the future, or speaking more precisely, its people. They want to leave for Russia a territory in accordance with scorched earth tactics – destruction, an embittered population, preferably with environmental pollution, radioactive residues or perhaps [the fallout from] biological weapons,” Leonkov, the editor of Arsenal Otechestva, a Russian military affairs magazine, told Sputnik. Leonkov is convinced that Ukraine’s military and government lack any real independence, and carry out the policy of Western powers paying the bills.

Kiev’s patrons are “absolutely uninterested in Ukraine’s lands or the people who live there…They do not care how many people will die, how many cities and villages are destroyed, how many environmental disasters and other calamities they face. They don’t give a damn about it,” the observer said. For Russia, these same territories are a kind of “shrine,” he said. “These lands were settled and developed by our ancestors. We fought for these lands in two world wars. We are not indifferent to these territories, or the people living there. That’s why we are trying to conduct a military operation, not an all-out war that destroys everything and everyone…Our enemy, and this is clear, consists of [30 countries], all of them members of the NATO bloc. This adversary…has already stated that they will [strive to] realize their goals ‘to the last Ukrainian.’

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The FBI has known for 3 years that Biden was paid for services to Burisma when as VP he was in charge of Ukraine for Obama. “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired..”

• FBI Document Alleges $5 Million Bribe Paid To Joe Biden By Burisma Exec (ZH)

Someone has leaked the contents of the stonewalled FBI document, form FD-1023, which alleges that President Joe Biden was paid $5 million by an executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, where his son Hunter sat on the board. This, according to a confidential human source, who told this to the FBI during a June 2020 interview, according to Fox News. The form, dated June 30, 2020, is from a “highly credible” confidential human source who had detailed multiple meetings and conversations they had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, beginning in 2015. The CHS had been working with the FBI as a regular, reliable source of information since 2010, and has been paid approximately $200,000 by the bureau.

The Burisma executive sought the advice of the confidential source, a business professional, on gaining U.S. oil rights and getting involved with a U.S. oil company, the sources familiar with the documdnt said. The Burisma executive was speaking with the confidential source to “get advice on the best way to go forward” in 2015 and 2016 According to the FD-1023 form, the confidential human source said the Burisma executive discussed Hunter’s role on the board. The confidential human source questioned why the Burisma executive needed his or her advice in acquiring access to U.S. oil if he had Hunter Biden on the board. The Burisma executive answered by referring to Hunter Biden as “dumb.” -Fox News According to the Burisma executive, the company had to “pay the Bidens” because Ukraine’s lead prosecutor, Victor Shokin, was investigating Burisma.

According to the CHS, he suggested that the Burisma executive “pay the Bidens $50,000 each,” to which the Burisma executive replied “not $50,000,” it is “$5 million.” “$5 million for one Biden, $5 million for the other Biden,” the executive reportedly said. The $5 million payments appeared to reference some sort of “retainer” Burisma intended to pay the Bidens in order to ‘clean up’ several issues – including the investigation led by Shokin. Another source told Fox it was a “pay-to-play” scheme. The CHS believes that the $5 million payment to Joe Biden and $5 million to Hunter happened, as the Burisma executive said he “paid” the Bidens is a way “through so many different bank accounts” that investigators would not be able to “unravel this for at least 10 years.” The document also makes reference to ‘the Big Guy,’ thought (and as seen on Hunter’s laptop) to be a reference to Joe Biden.

According to the Burisma executive, they “didn’t pay the Big Guy directly.” Meanwhile, sources tell Fox that the Burisma executive appears to be at a “very, very high level” of the company, with one source suggesting it could be the president, Mykola Zlochevsky – though the executive’s name is redacted in the document. Biden notably bragged on camera about a quid-pro-quo arrangement to have Shokin fired. “I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in,’ I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden said in 2018 at a Council for Foreign Relations event, recalling a conversation with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired,” he continued. “And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

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“..Trump is facing seven counts that include willful retention of national defense information, corruptly concealing docs, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements.”

• McCarthy: Unconscionable for Biden to Indict Leading Opposing Candidate (Sp.)

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Thursday it was “unconscionable” for US President Joe Biden to indict “the leading candidate opposing him” – ex-President Donald Trump. “Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America. It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him,” McCarthy said on Twitter. “Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades. I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.” McCarthy’s remarks reiterated similar sentiments aired by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who blasted the “weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies” as a “mortal threat to a free society.”

“We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation,” he continued, claiming that a DeSantis White House would “excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.” Earlier Thursday, Trump revealed on Truth Social that “the corrupt Biden administration” had informed his lawyers that he had been indicted in a federal investigation over alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Florida residency, and was summoned to appear in court on Tuesday. The ex-president expressed despair over the indictment, pointing out that he is being prosecuted as polls show he is by far the leading candidate among both Republicans and Democrats.

US media reported on Thursday that Trump is facing seven counts that include willful retention of national defense information, corruptly concealing docs, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the classified documents case and the other three criminal probes he is involved in, including charges of falsifying business records and the former president’s alleged involvement in the events on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

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“Joe Biden is a Democrat and therefore his classified documents are a mere oversight and not the foundation–shaking treachery Trump’s documents represent..”

• Mar-a-Lago Indictment Designed to Make Trump Reelection ‘Impossible’ (Sp.)

Former US President Donald Trump earlier reported that his legal team had been informed that he was being indicted over his retainment of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence. The revelation came just after it was reported prosecutors had formally informed Trump’s lawyers that he was the subject of their Florida investigation. Michael Shannon, a political commentator and columnist for Newsmax, told Sputnik that he believes the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and alleged obstruction of justice is part of a larger politically-motivated scheme designed to prevent the former president from running for his old seat in the 2024 election.
“This is all part of the process to indict Trump and make it difficult — if not impossible — for him to run for reelection,” Shannon asserted. “The entire investigation, raid on Mar–a–Lago and subsequent developments are entirely political and constitute a genuine attack on democracy.”


Shannon pointed to classified documents that were found at US President Joe Biden’s Delaware home and at the Biden Penn Center in Washington, DC, as evidence that the Mar-a-Lago investigation is politically driven. Earlier reports revealed that documents had been retrieved from the garage area of one of Biden’s homes, a development that later saw the president joke that they were secured along his beloved Corvette. “Joe Biden is a Democrat and therefore his classified documents are a mere oversight and not the foundation–shaking treachery Trump’s documents represent,” Shannon said. The commentator added that while classified documents were also found in the possession of former US Vice President Mike Pence, “the left doesn’t view him as a threat to Biden, the Pence documents are also no big deal.”

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We know.

• I Didn’t Order Nord Stream Sabotage – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed he had no knowledge of an alleged plot by his government to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipelines. The plan was reportedly uncovered by a European nation, which subsequently informed Washington. “I am president and I give orders accordingly,” Zelensky said, as cited by Politico on Thursday. “Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way.” The alleged intelligence tip was reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday, based on leaked classified Pentagon materials. The pipelines, which were built to carry gas from Russia to Germany, were ruptured by powerful explosions last September, and the newspaper claimed that the US had learned of Ukrainian preparations for a sabotage operation three months prior from an unidentified ally.

The alleged mission was run by Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, rather than rogue agents, the Post claimed. Zaluzhny was placed in charge so that Zelensky “wouldn’t know about the operation” and could maintain plausible deniability, it was reported. “I didn’t know anything, 100%,” the president said in the interview. “I said, ‘Show us proof. If our military is supposed to have done this, show us proof.’” According to the Post, Ukraine wanted to blow up the pipelines following NATO’s BALTOPS naval exercise in June 2022. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh previously claimed that the drills were used as cover to plant remotely triggered explosives, but stated that it was US and Norwegian divers who had done so, acting on orders from US President Joe Biden. Washington and Oslo have denied Hersh’s allegations.

Zelensky’s ability to control his own secret services was previously placed in question by other materials in the trove of leaked Pentagon documents, which were allegedly shared by US Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira. One of the documents stated that the US believed that the Ukrainian agents behind an attack in March on a Russian airborne radar stationed in Belarus had not informed the president about their plans.

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“..there is no way that the government was going to default on its Treasury debt because, after all, the Treasury debt is held by the wealthiest 10%..”

• Biden Admin Waging Class War Against Working Americans – Michael Hudson (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden’s economic policies have further enriched financial elites at the expense of working class Americans, Prof. Michael Hudson, US economist and former Wall Street analyst, told Sputnik’s New Rules podcast. Biden struck a debt ceiling deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with a great deal of fanfare late last month following Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s apocalyptic prognoses with regard to a US “imminent” default. According to Hudson, however, these dramatic warnings were meant to obfuscate the Biden administration’s real objectives “There was never any debt crisis at all,” Hudson told Sputnik. “The government could have simply continued to pay its bills for projects that Congress had already approved, there is no way that the government was going to default on its Treasury debt because, after all, the Treasury debt is held by the wealthiest 10% and the government is not going to do anything that hurts the 10% and benefits the 90%.”

What really happened, as per economist, was a bipartisan agreement on a further redistribution of wealth from the 90% to the 10%. However, the Democrats could not just go for it as they have always positioned themselves as a pro-labor and pro-economic justice party. Hence, there had been a month-long “good guy-vs-bad guy wrestling match” between the president and the GOP, according to Hudson. Eventually, Biden “reluctantly” agreed on cuts to social programs, cancellation of support to the poor. One should bear in mind that Joe Biden is from Delaware – a “state where most corporations in America have their head offices because the Delaware rules are so pro-corporate and anti-labor that corporations want to be there.” “It’s all just a made up,” Hudson continued. “When they talk about cutting back the government debt, what they mean is cutting back social services.

They would like to do what Biden and [Barack] Obama wanted to do after 2009. They want to cut back Social Security. They want to privatize it as if that will somehow solve the problem. They want to cut back medical care. They want to cut back most social programs, so that the money that the government does spend will be exclusively to support the financial sector, the military sector, the insurance sector, and the real estate sector.” To illustrate his point Hudson referred to the fact that just a day after the debt agreement was struck and social programs were cut, some GOP congressmen, namely Senator Susan Collins from Maine, called for greater military spending to help fund the US proxy war in Ukraine. These military budget increases would come at the expense of US social programs, the economist pointed out.

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“..as of mid-May, EU countries had frozen more than €200 billion ($215 billion) in assets belonging to the Bank of Russia, as well as over $25 billion in private funds..”

• Russia Being Robbed By The West – Kremlin (RT)

The seizure of Russian state assets and reserves and those of its citizens, by Western countries, should be perceived as outright theft, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has insisted. He made the statement during a press briefing on Thursday, having been asked about Russian investors’ intentions to prepare a class action lawsuit to unlock the frozen assets. “In different ways, but the government and the entrepreneurs have been robbed by the West,” he stated. According to Peskov, the Russian government and the country’s businesses are looking for ways to protect their interests and return the seized assets, though that is likely to be a very long and difficult process. Peskov noted that Russian entrepreneurs are limited in their rights in EU courts, while the efforts to defend their rights are absolutely justified and should be continued.


Moscow has been hit by multiple waves of Western sanctions since the conflict with Ukraine broke out last February. European Commission spokesman, Christian Wiegand, said recently that as of mid-May, EU countries had frozen more than €200 billion ($215 billion) in assets belonging to the Bank of Russia, as well as over $25 billion in private funds. He argued that the European Union had a legal avenue allowing it to seize frozen Russian assets and use them for the subsequent reconstruction of Ukraine. Moscow has described Western attempts to transfer the seized assets to Ukraine as “barbarism,” and “theft” that violate international law. The Kremlin has also warned that Russia will respond in kind if necessary.

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Pizza.

• EU Demands Answers Over ‘Instagram Pedophile Network’ (RT)

The European Union’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has called on social media giant Meta to take “immediate action” against child pornography on its platforms, after the Wall Street Journal and Stanford University identified Instagram as a major hub for illicit material. Breton commented on the WSJ report in a tweet on Thursday, saying that Meta’s voluntary code on child protection “seems not to work” while vowing to personally question company CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the issue at an upcoming event.“Zuckerberg must now explain [and] take immediate action. I will discuss [this] with him at Meta’s HQ in Menlo Park on 23 June,” he said, adding that new regulations under the EU’s Digital Services Act will force tech firms to “demonstrate measures to us or face heavy sanctions” after they take effect on August 25.

Published Wednesday, the Journal report was a result of a joint investigation between the outlet and researchers at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, finding that Meta’s Instagram “helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage-sex content.” Algorithms on the social media site actively promote such illegal material, the researchers claimed, even helping to guide users to those selling child pornography through Instagram’s “recommendation systems,” which were said to “excel at linking those who share niche interests.” While Meta acknowledged that it is not able to remove all underage sexual content on Instagram, the company told the Journal that it has created a special task force for that purpose, claiming it has taken down 27 different “pedophile networks” over the last two years.

It added that it had removed thousands of hashtags which sexualize children and altered the site’s recommendation scheme since speaking to the WSJ. Instagram is not the only large social media platform found to host child pornography, with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk vowing make the issue “Priority #1” after purchasing Twitter last year. Another Meta-owned site, Facebook, has also struggled to get a handle on child exploitation content circulating online.Together with Instagram, the company flagged more than 20 million examples of such material in 2020, well outpacing Meta’s competitors, according to data gathered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

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“..if Putin were to be arrested by “say, Germany… all our missiles would fly to the Bundestag, to the Chancellor’s office.”

• South Africa Won’t Enforce ICC Putin Warrant – Minister (RT)

South Africa will not enforce the International Criminal Court’s warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Thursday. “The Deputy Chairperson of the Security Council of Russia has indicated that anyone who arrests President Putin will be tantamount to a declaration of war,” Ntshavheni said, referring to a statement by Dmitry Medvedev in March. At the time, Medvedev declared that if Putin were to be arrested by “say, Germany… all our missiles would fly to the Bundestag, to the Chancellor’s office.” “I don’t think this country wants us to declare war with Russia,” Ntshavheni added.

In mid-March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for children’s rights. The court accused them of the “forcible transfer of population,” referring to Moscow’s efforts to evacuate children from combat zones amid hostilities with Ukraine. As a signatory to the 2002 Rome Statute, South Africa is obliged to enforce the warrant. However, the country is also hosting this year’s BRICS summit in August, at which the leaders of the world’s largest emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are due to meet.

Despite media reports suggesting that South Africa had asked China to host the summit, Ntshavheni told reporters that “nothing has changed,” and that the meeting would still go ahead in Johannesburg as planned. Moscow dismissed those reports as a hoax last week. Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, Obed Bapela, a deputy minister in the South African presidency, said that the government was working on legislation that would make its national law outrank that of the ICC. If parliament passes the bill, Pretoria could then “give itself exemptions of who to arrest and who not to arrest,” Bapela explained.

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“It is absurd that a single judge can issue a three-page decision that could land Julian Assange in prison for the rest of his life,,“

• Assange Dangerously Close to Extradition After High Court Rejects Appeal (RSF)

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is deeply concerned by the UK High Court’s decision rejecting WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s appeal against his extradition order, bringing him dangerously close to being extradited to the United States, where he could face the rest of his life in prison for publishing leaked classified documents in 2010. In a three-page written decision issued on 6 June, a single judge, Justice Swift, rejected all eight grounds of Assange’s appeal against the extradition order signed by then-UK Home Secretary Priti Patel in June 2022. This leaves only one final step in the UK courts, as the defence has five working days to submit an appeal of only 20 pages to a panel of two judges, who will convene a public hearing. Further appeals will not be possible at the domestic level, but Assange could bring a case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Rebecca Vincent, RSF’s Director of Campaigns: “It is absurd that a single judge can issue a three-page decision that could land Julian Assange in prison for the rest of his life and permanently impact the climate for journalism around the world. The historical weight of what happens next cannot be overstated; it is time to put a stop to this relentless targeting of Assange and act instead to protect journalism and press freedom. Our call on President Biden is now more urgent than ever: drop these charges, close the case against Assange, and allow for his release without further delay.

Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, made a statement on Twitter: “On Tuesday next week my husband Julian Assange will make a renewed application for appeal to the High Court. The matter will then proceed to a public hearing before two new judges at the High Court and we remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States where he faces charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the U.S. government.”

This is the latest stage in more than three years of legal proceedings in UK courts, as the US government has made its case to extradite Assange in order to try him on 18 counts in connection with WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked classified documents that informed public interest reporting around the world. Although the first instance court ruled against extradition on mental health grounds, the Court of Appeals overturned the decision in consideration of diplomatic assurances presented by the US government. Assange would be the first publisher prosecuted under the Espionage Act, which lacks a public interest defence. He faces a combined total sentence of a possible 175 years in prison.

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“Everything is gender,” SecDef Austin explained. “Even this table is gender.”

• Pentagon Struggling To Explain All 437 Earth Genders To Aliens (BBee)

Interstellar peace talks broke down Wednesday after Pentagon officials were unable to adequately explain the intricacies of all 437 Earth genders to aliens from outer space. “Okay, for the last time,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin during the third hour of talks with extraterrestrials. “Demigender are people who identify partially with one gender at the same time as another. This is totally different from Bigender, which is when a person identifies as two genders and can switch between them. Do you understand now?” “This isn’t at all confusing.”

The aliens spoke via telepathy, communicating easily without the hindrance of language barriers, yet were still unable to understand why their human counterparts kept derailing talks about joining an alliance of free planets to argue that sex and gender are two different things — or even that a developmental condition such as autism can be a gender. “Everything is gender,” SecDef Austin explained. “Even this table is gender.” President Biden was present at the meeting but was unable to communicate due to a failure by alien lifeforms to create a telepathic link to his brain. [Is this man even alive?] asked Xylor Sieth IV. [Is corpse a gender?]


“It can be,” SecDef Austin answered. “You’re catching on!” Pentagon spokesperson Jean Tangerine told reporters, “Honestly, this is a big part of why the government has kept alien life a secret for so long. They’re super bigoted and not ready for the public.” At publishing time, Xylor Sieth IV had asked to speak to Tucker Carlson instead.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goat

 

 

Gray whale

 

 


The first case of a crocodile who made herself pregnant has been identified in Costa Rica. She produced a foetus 99.9% genetically identical to herself. The phenomenon was observed in birds, fish, other reptiles, but never before in crocodiles

 

 

Baby thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle June 8 2023

Jun 082023
 
 June 8, 2023  Posted by at 9:32 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Piet Mondriaan Still Life with Gingerpot I 1911/12

 

• NATO States May Send Troops To Ukraine – Ex-Chief (RT)
• Russia Seeks To Replace ‘Nazi Regime’ In Ukraine – Patrushev (RT)
• Russia Wants US To Answer About How Its Weapons Used In Ukraine (TASS)
• Russia Calls For International Investigation Into Kakhovka HPP’s Dam Collapse (TASS)
• US Media Wages Disinformation Campaign Regarding Kakhovka Dam – Envoy (TASS)
• How Does This End Well? (Jim Rickards)
• Saudi-Russian Concord Is The Secret Behind OPEC+ (Bhadrakumar)
• Trump May Face More Criminal Charges Soon (RT)
• RFK Jr.’s Rising Profile Sparks Democratic Jitters (Hill)
• Tucker Carlson’s Twitter Debut Goes Mega-Viral (ZH)
• Fox Claims Tucker Carlson Violated Contract With Independent Twitter Show (Sp.)
• Hunter Biden Could Face Jail for Contempt of Court, Judge Says (ET)
• The Emergency State’s Plot to Override the Constitution (Whitehead)
• Two Tiers of Justice (Kash Patel)
• Snowden Reveals Why He Chose To Stay In Russia (RT)

 

 

 

 

Roger Waters

 

 

 

 

O’Looney

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I think the Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius.”

• NATO States May Send Troops To Ukraine – Ex-Chief (RT)

Former NATO secretary general-turned-Ukrainian presidential adviser, Anders Rasmussen, has claimed that some member states may volunteer to send their soldiers to Ukraine, if the country is not offered security assurances on a wide range of issues at an upcoming summit. Rasmussen, who has served as an adviser to Ukrainian presidents Vladimir Zelensky and Petro Poroshenko, said Kiev should be given written guarantees before NATO leaders meet in Vilnius, Lithuania next month, including for Western intelligence-sharing, weapons transfers and joint military training. “If NATO cannot agree on a clear path forward for Ukraine, there is a clear possibility that some countries individually might take action,” he said on Wednesday, according to the Guardian. “I think the Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius.”

After touring Europe and the United States in recent weeks to help gin up military support for Ukraine, Rasmussen argued that foreign troop deployments would be legal under international law if requested by Kiev. While NATO’s current secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, recently confirmed that some security assurances would be discussed at the summit, he stressed that full guarantees could only be offered to member states. The bloc first pledged to grant Ukraine membership back in 2008, and Kiev formally applied to join last September, but little progress has been made on the issue since. Several NATO members have become increasingly vocal about Ukraine’s future in the bloc, urging other Western countries to outline a clear path to membership. Earlier this week, sub-grouping of Eastern European NATO states known as the ‘Bucharest Nine’ issued a statement urging the bloc to “launch a new political track that will lead to Ukraine’s membership in NATO” at the Vilnius event, as well as a “more robust, multi–year, and comprehensive support package.”


Though Washington has also repeatedly affirmed that Ukraine will someday join the military collective, it has placed greater focus on the current conflict with Russia, hoping to resolve the issue of membership later on. However, US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told the Guardian on Wednesday that officials are now “looking at an array of options to signal that Ukraine is advancing in its relationship with NATO,” though did not specify what that might entail. Zelensky rejected any “substitute for NATO” and reportedly told Western partners that he would not attend the summit in Lithuania in July unless the bloc offers Ukraine “concrete” guarantees or a roadmap to full membership. Russia views NATO’s continued eastward expansion as a threat to its security and has cited member states’ aid to Ukraine as one of the reasons it launched the military operation in the neighboring state in February 2022. Moscow repeatedly said that Ukraine’s neutrality would be one of key conditions for a lasting peace.

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“..Lukashenko stated that Minsk and Moscow’s “only mistake” was failing to resolve the Ukrainian crisis much sooner..”

• Russia Seeks To Replace ‘Nazi Regime’ In Ukraine – Patrushev (RT)

There is no war between the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, claimed Russian Security Council chief Nikolay Patrushev, stating that the only “outright aggression” is coming from the US, which is using Ukraine as a tool to wage an undeclared war against Russia. During a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Volfovich, on Wednesday, Patrushev insisted that “Kiev’s Nazi regime,” which was invented by Washington and London, “must be replaced.” He also said Ukraine must be made into a neutral state, noting that the ongoing crisis in the country is not beneficial to anyone except Washington. The security official declared that the US had already “brought the whole of Europe to its knees,” seeking only to maximize benefits for the American economy by weakening the EU, which could have become one of the centers of a multipolar world.

He also noted that the US does not want Russia to be powerful and seeks to either dismember it or liquidate it “in order to have complete reign over the Eurasian territory and pump out resources.” To solve this problem, Patrushev stated that Washington and London have been using the capabilities of NATO and the EU, Ukrainian neo-Nazis and NGOs, and the government in Kiev, which they control. The official added that similar plans were held by the West for Belarus, especially after they unsuccessfully tried to carry out a color revolution in the country in 2020 and failed to install their own puppet government in Minsk via a coup d’etat. Patrushev insisted that Belarus was Russia’s closest ally and strategic partner and that it was vital for the two countries to further deepen their defense cooperation and jointly resist external sanctions and attempts to interfere in internal affairs.


Last week, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko stated that Minsk and Moscow’s “only mistake” was failing to resolve the Ukrainian crisis much sooner. He suggested that the two countries took too long trying to find a diplomatic solution and should have acted long ago, even before the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, which ousted the country’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich. Lukashenko claimed that hostilities were bound to break out sooner or later and that Moscow should have launched its military operation back in 2014-2015 when Ukraine “had neither an army nor resolve.”

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No answer will come.

• Russia Wants US To Answer About How Its Weapons Used In Ukraine (TASS)

The US authorities must give a concrete answer as to whether or not they know how American weapons are being used on the territory of Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing in comments on the attack on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant. Against the backdrop of the recent attack on the Kakhovka HPP, she pointed to a statement made last December by Ukrainian General Andrey Kovalchuk in an interview with The Washington Post, in which he said that the Ukrainian army had already conducted a test strike from a US HIMARS system on one of the dam’s gates to punch it and see how high the water level of the Dnieper River rises.

“Now, the question for [White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John] Kirby, [White House Press Secretary] Karin Jean-Pierre, all the people who are in charge of communications at the White House. <…> Were you aware of how American weapons, the weapons that are being supplied to Ukraine, are used?” she asked. “That trial tests of a terrorist attack against civilian infrastructure in third countries are being made? These are the questions that we directly pose in the public space before the White House; you must answer them,” she said, adding that the attack on the Kakhovka HPP “is certainly an act of terrorism.”


On Tuesday night, Ukrainian forces delivered a strike on the Kakhovka hydropower plant, presumably from an Olkha multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). The shelling destroyed the hydraulic sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. In Novaya Kakhovka, the water level exceeded 12 meters at one point, but is now receding. There are currently 15 population centers in the flood zone; residents of nearby towns and villages are being evacuated. The collapse of the hydro plant’s dam has caused serious environmental damage. Farmlands along the Dnieper River have been washed away, and there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal will become shallow.

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Yeah, like the Nord Stream probe.

• Russia Calls For International Investigation Into Kakhovka HPP’s Dam Collapse (TASS)

The situation with the collapse of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant’s dam should become the subject of a worldwide study and investigation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday. “Naturally, this is no longer the topic of the day or the topic of the week, it has already been put into the historical context – I’m talking about what happened yesterday at the Kakhovka HPP. This really should be a subject of worldwide study, research and investigation,” she said. “The reaction of the West in all such situations is 100% predictable. It is an endless desire to blame Russia for everything that happens, regardless of whether it actually happened or is a figment of the imagination,” the diplomat pointed out. Moreover, the reaction of the West “will always be like this,” she added.


The spokeswoman explained that this is part of the information and psychological warfare and “endless linking of all the negative things that happen in the Western countries, outside and on the periphery with our country, in order to maintain the hysterical attitude of their own population towards the situation around Russia, in Russia in general, and so on.” On Tuesday night, the Ukrainian military delivered a strike on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), presumably from an Olkha MLRS. The shelling destroyed the hydraulic valves at the dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. In Novaya Kakhovka, the water level has already exceeded 12 meters. There are currently 14 settlements in the flooded area, and a total of about 80 villages may be inundated. Residents of nearby settlements are being evacuated, though authorities have said no large-scale evacuations are necessary. The collapse of the plant’s dam has caused serious environmental damage. Farmlands along the Dnieper River have been washed away, and there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal will become shallow.

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Latest: whatever Ukraine does, it’s Russia’s fault by definition.

• US Media Wages Disinformation Campaign Regarding Kakhovka Dam – Envoy (TASS)

The US media has launched a targeted campaign regarding the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant in an attempt to shift the Ukrainian responsibility on Russia and to ‘whitewash’ the Kiev regime, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov told journalists on Thursday. “There is a targeted disinformation campaign going on in the US media around the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant,” he said. “There are many insinuations about the fact that Russia allegedly has blown up the most important infrastructure facility,” Antonov continued. “Administration officials have framed their rhetoric as if the Russian Federation were in any case responsible for all incidents that occur during the Ukrainian conflict.”

“Such an approach does not stand up to scrutiny. This is another desperate attempt to “whitewash” the Kiev regime, which deliberately shelled the station for many months,” the Russian ambassador stated. According to Antonov, “We have witnessed yet another gross violation of International humanitarian law by Ukraine.””A terrorist attack that led to an ecological disaster, large-scale flooding of settlements and farmland. Endangered the functioning of the North Crimean Canal,” he continued. “Experts have yet to assess the imminent consequences for the cooling circuit of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant as a result of this tragedy.”


“Washington patrons never criticize Kiev. All actions of the regime are approved of, while any strikes, that Russians suffer from, are encouraged,” Antonov noted. “This is a textbook example of an ill-conceived, flawed position that has already caused serious upheavals in the world. However, this is obviously not enough for the United States, and terrorist acts of Ukraine will receive further support.” “According to the American logic, the main idea is not to slow down assistance to Kiev. Ensure its illusory victory. Not only military specialists, but also political technologists are apparently involved in the United States to solve this problem,” the Russian ambassador added.

Dnepro

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“..Biden has created a major drag on world trade on top of the other headwinds already facing the global economy..”

• How Does This End Well? (Jim Rickards)

[..] many of the most important countries in the world are maintaining a neutral stance and are not supporting U.S. sanctions. These neutral parties include India, China, South Africa, and Brazil, which collectively include almost 40% of the earth’s population. India, China and Brazil are three of the ten largest economies in the world and collectively produce 24% of global GDP. What’s new about the recent sanctions report quoted above is the U.S. is now getting desperate about the failure of sanctions to damage Russia or change Russian behavior in Ukraine. The U.S. has begun imposing what are called secondary boycotts. This means that the sanctions do not target Russia directly, but target countries that do business with Russia and do not follow U.S. orders.

For example, China is reported to be selling semiconductors to Russia even as Brazil sells aircraft and India sells drones. China and India also purchase oil from Russia. It is also reported that South Africa has begun weapons sales to Russia. All of these sales are in violation of U.S. sanctions. Reportedly, the U.S. will begin imposing separate sanctions on China, Brazil, India, and South Africa for not adhering to U.S. sanctions. These new secondary boycott sanctions will not be well-received. China, Brazil, India, and South Africa will not passively absorb the secondary boycotts. They will retaliate in their own way. The tit-for-tax sanctions will not impede Russia at all, but they will lead to a further contraction of world trade, something last seen during the Great Depression.


Biden claims that the sanctions will not end until Russia withdraws entirely from Ukraine, including Crimea. Not only will Russia not withdraw, it continues to make major military and territorial gains. A Ukrainian offensive won’t fundamentally change that reality, unless it somehow manages to overcome very long odds. This means the sanctions will continue indefinitely. It also means Biden has created a major drag on world trade on top of the other headwinds already facing the global economy. Investors will be well-served by allocating assets toward cash, gold, and other hard assets. These will be the real winners as the war in Ukraine drags on.

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“Their potential to be key players in the emerging multipolar world is giving Washington the jitters. ”

• Saudi-Russian Concord Is The Secret Behind OPEC+ (Bhadrakumar)

A curious thing happened in Vienna on Sunday just as the 35th Ministerial Meeting of OPEC+ was about to start at its headquarters. Three princely western news organizations – Bloomberg, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal – were barred from entering the OPEC premises. When asked about it, pat came the reply: “This is our house.” Indeed, OPEC officials were left with no option other than an unorthodox way of “mood setting,” given their heightened sensitivity about the wild stories disseminated in the western media about disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two high flyers in OPEC+. To be sure, OPEC+ touches raw nerves in Washington even seven years after the group took shape as the brainwave of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).

The two leaders intended that they would have more control over the global crude oil market. The impetus to realism on the part of Moscow and Riyadh has only grown since 2016, and will crystalize further after the US-led G7 inserted itself into rule making in the world oil market last year, threatening to fragment the entire ecosystem. Neither Russia nor Saudi Arabia can afford a break-up of OPEC+. In fact, had there been no OPEC+ today, there would be an urgent need to create one, as both Moscow and Riyadh have, in different ways, come under US pressure on account of their global pre-eminence as energy producers. Their potential to be key players in the emerging multipolar world is giving Washington the jitters.


Saudi Arabia has formally applied for BRICS membership and sought to join the New Development Bank, the multilateral development bank established by the BRICS states and headquartered in Shanghai, China. In fact, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud was present in Cape Town last week for the BRICS ministerial meeting. On the sidelines, Bin Farhan met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The Russian readout underscored the depth and profundity of the current level of relations between the two counties. Saudi Arabia is tiptoeing toward BRICS at a historic juncture when the group is reportedly all set to create its own currency at its forthcoming summit in Durban, South Africa. This, of course, will be a calamitous development for the petrodollar the pillar of the western banking system – and holds the potential to create a new global oil market.

Read more …

“Federal prosecutors have notified former President Donald Trump in a letter that he is the target of a criminal investigation..”

• Trump May Face More Criminal Charges Soon (RT)

The US Department of Justice has informed ex-President Donald Trump that he is under criminal investigation linked to alleged mishandling of classified material, multiple news outlets reported on Wednesday. Trump’s legal team received a letter from prosecutors this week stating that the former leader is the target of a grand jury probe into whether he illegally retained secret files at his private residence after leaving office in 2021, unnamed sources told CNN, Fox News, Politico and other outlets. The move could indicate that special counsel Jack Smith is preparing to make a charging decision on the case. He was tapped for the role not long after federal agents raided Trump’s Florida estate in August 2022, ultimately turning up thousands of pages of government records, including over 100 classified documents. Around 200 other files were voluntarily handed over by Trump’s attorneys prior to the raid.


Smith has reportedly called in several Trump associates in recent weeks to testify before the grand jury, including one of his lawyers, Evan Corcoran, as well as Taylor Budowich, a former spokesperson, and ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, Trump declined to confirm whether he had been notified of the investigation, but said he had not been told that he would be charged. The ex-president has denied all wrongdoing in his handling of documents, and even filed a lawsuit in Florida to contest the materials seized from his Mar-a-Lago residence last year. While the DOJ’s access to the documents was briefly suspended, the government was later authorized to use the files for its investigation following an appeal. DOJ procedures state that “target letters” can be sent to those for whom there is “substantial evidence linking him or her to the commission of a crime,” allowing them to testify in their own defense ahead of an indictment. They are often sent not long before charges are handed down.

Trump lawyer


DC_Draino: Signed letter from President Trump on Jan 19, 2021, the day before he left office, declassifying “Crossfire Hurricane” docs showing Obama, Biden, the CIA, DOJ, and FBI spied on him. Now you know why they raided Mar a Lago. To steal back evidence of their crimes.

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How RFK helps the Republicans..

• RFK Jr.’s Rising Profile Sparks Democratic Jitters (Hill)

Democrats are growing concerned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s profile is rising just as President Biden embarks on a challenging campaign to keep the White House out of Republican control. Kennedy, an anti-vaccine proponent who launched a primary bid against Biden this spring, is doing unexpectedly well in some polls and receiving increasing media attention as a result. He has also been on a press tour this week that included a Twitter Spaces discussion with Elon Musk and digital town hall with journalist Michael Smerconish. Democrats widely consider Kennedy to be a problematic fringe candidate who freely spreads conspiracy theories. But his relatively decent poll numbers, as well as his media-ready image as an heir to the famous political dynasty, have caused some to worry he could gain steam and potentially distract from the task of reelecting Biden in 2024.

“Democrats would be foolish to mock or belittle RFK Jr. Every time we make fun of those who hold fringe positions, we lose,” said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist and former campaign aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “The Democratic Party acting smug never works.” Kennedy has indeed stirred up some untapped anger within his own party; Democrats have seen him rise to double digits in several recent polls, leading some establishment figures to acknowledge the parts of his message that may be resonating with voters. A recent Fox News survey placed Kennedy at 16 percent support among registered voters. And a CNN poll released Friday shows him with 20 percent of support among Democratic and Democratic-leaning respondents.


“Take RFK seriously, Biden,” Ceraso said. “If you don’t, we can create a stronger Republican Party that beats us in 2024. Like Bernie did in 2016, RFK has the potential to activate fringe anger if we mock them.” On Monday, the environmental lawyer made a series of unconventional campaign moves that caught the media’s attention. He participated in a SiriusXM-streamed interview with Smerconish, where he called himself an “an evidenced-based person” and doubled down on his nonconformist views on vaccines while defending his candidacy. “It’s not like the Soviet system where the party would, you know, pick the candidates,” he said about his challenge to Biden, arguing that Americans need to see democracy in action.

Read more …

“..Twitter as a platform is not in direct competition with Fox..”

• Fox Claims Tucker Carlson Violated Contract With Independent Twitter Show (Sp.)

Fox News notified former show host Tucker Carlson that his new independent program published via Twitter violates his contract with the network, US media reported, citing a copy of a letter from Fox to Carlson’s attorneys. On Tuesday, Carlson posted the first episode of an independent program on Twitter, following his departure from Fox News earlier this year. Shortly after posting the premiere, Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar sent Carlson’s lawyers a letter claiming Carlson is in breach of his contractual agreement with his former employer, the report said. “In connection with such breach and pursuant to the Agreement, Fox expressly reserves all rights and remedies which are available to it at law or equity,” the letter said, as quoted in the report.

Carlson’s legal team objects to Fox’s efforts to block the new program, arguing that Twitter as a platform is not in direct competition with Fox, the report said, citing a source familiar with their thinking. Another source familiar with the matter reportedly said that Fox executives told Carlson that the network intends to keep him sidelined until 2025. Any legal action by Fox would violate Carlson’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech under the US Constitution, his lawyers reportedly said. “Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” the report quotes Carlson attorney Bryan Freedman as saying in a statement.


Fox News believes it has been working in good faith to reach an amicable agreement with Carlson, another source reportedly said. Carlson has previously claimed that Fox News first violated their contract with him by breaking promises made “intentionally and with reckless disregard for the truth,” according to a letter sent by Carlson’s attorneys. Carlson was reportedly removed from the Fox News lineup as part of a settlement agreement with Dominion Voting Systems.

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“71.6 million views in less than 24 hours..”

• Tucker Carlson’s Twitter Debut Goes Mega-Viral (ZH)

Tucker Carlson’s first Twitter broadcast went mega-viral Tuesday night, racking up 71.6 million views in less than 24 hours. During the 10 minute monologue, Carlson slammed Ukraine war mongers, and took the media to task for ignoring the “bombshell of the millennium” in which a government whistleblower revealed that craft developed by non-human intelligence has been recovered by governments around the world. “Nobody knows what’s happening. A small group of people control accesses to all relevant information. And the rest of us don’t know. We’re allowed to yap all we want about racism, but go ahead and talk about something that really matters and see what happens. If you keep it up, they’ll make you be quiet. Trust us. That’s how they maintain control,” said Carlson.

Needless to say, Tucker’s first broadcast knocked it out of the park, further validating Twitter as a legitimate platform for major media (that isn’t “Brought to you by Pfizer” so to speak). For context, Fox News’ 7pm broadcast of Jesse Watters reached 2 million viewers on June 5th, per Mediaite, while the Fox News rotation which has replaced Carlson’s 8pm time slot hit just 1.5 million viewers Monday night. Tucker also seemingly put Twitter owner Elon Musk on notice, saying towards the end of his monologue; “As of today, we’ve come to Twitter, which we hope will be the short-wave radio under the blankets,” adding “We are told there are no gatekeepers here.” “If that turns out to be false, we’ll leave … But in the meantime, we are grateful to be here.”


Meanwhile, rich kid propagandist Taylor Lorenz made an absolute ass of herself trying to criticize Carlson’s views – tweeting “It’s wild to see what a fish out of water he is on the internet: no jump cuts, no background music, no catchy thumbnail or video title. Not sure how he’s going to stack up against even an average streamer or youtuber.” Oh… The losers at Business Insider picked up on Lorenz’s tweet, casting doubt on Carlson’s future, claiming: “-Tucker Carlson is in trouble, if his first livestream is anything to go by. -The first episode of his Twitter stream debut lacked the shine of his Fox News glory days. -Without the chyron and quick cuts, Carlson must now compete with the likes of Alex Jones — and he’s losing.” We think we know what’s going on here…

Read more …

Not as long as Joe is the Big Guy..

• Hunter Biden Could Face Jail for Contempt of Court, Judge Says (ET)

Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, has been ordered to appear in person before an Arkansas judge in July to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt of court, and if the proceedings don’t go his way, he could face time behind bars. The president’s son is facing a child support case in Arkansas in which he was ordered by the presiding judge in May to hand over information on his finances. Attorneys representing Lunden Alexis Roberts, the mother of Hunter Biden’s child, filed a motion on May 18 to hold the president’s son in contempt of court after alleging he had failed to fully answer questions relating to his ability to pay child support. Judge Holly Lodge Meyer issued an order on June 5 (pdf) that Hunter Biden must appear on July 10 at the Independence County Courthouse in Batesville to explain “why he should not be held in contempt.”

In Arkansas, contempt of court is a Class C misdemeanor punishable by fines and jail time. In her order, Meyer said that she would consider “punishment or sanctions” against Hunter Biden, including “incarceration for civil contempt until such time as the defendant fully answers discovery for a period of up to six months” and “incarceration for criminal contempt for a period of up to six months.” Initially, Biden denied that the child was his, but a DNA test confirmed that he is the father. In 2020, the two agreed that Biden would pay an undisclosed amount of child support. Terms of the agreement are sealed because they contain sensitive personal information, including the amount of monthly support and each party’s source of income.

However, Biden later asked the court to review the child support arrangements because his financial situation had changed, leading to the case now being considered before the court. He appeared before Independence County Circuit Court in Batesville on May 1. During that hearing, his attorney said that Biden had been paying $20,000 per month in child support, for a total of up to $750,000 since the support order was signed. At that hearing, the judge ordered Biden to provide information on his income from his artwork, investments, employment, gifts from friends, and other sources. The judge also said she couldn’t rule on the amount of child support because neither side had provided enough information in the discovery process to move forward.

Roberts’s attorneys have complained that the Biden team was dragging its feet in the discovery process and filed a motion on May 18 for Biden to be held in contempt. Clinton Lancaster, a lawyer for Roberts, argued in the motion for contempt that Biden had been ordered to do something but didn’t and that this “is a habit and a game for Mr. Biden.” Lancaster continued that Biden doesn’t want to disclose his income and “says that he is somewhat financially destitute” despite living in an oceanfront home in Malibu and going on foreign trips. During the hearing in early May, the judge said she would press Biden’s legal team to fulfill their commitments in the discovery process. In the June 5 order, she wrote that she was hereby giving Biden notice to appear in person at the Independence County Circuit Court on July 10 and “show cause, if any exists, why he should not be held in contempt.”

Read more …

Create an emergency, use the powers.

• The Emergency State’s Plot to Override the Constitution (Whitehead)

The seeds of this ongoing madness were sown several decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.“ Comprising the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, these directives (National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20), which do not need congressional approval, provide a skeletal outline of the actions the president will take in the event of a “national emergency.”

Just what sort of actions the president will take once he declares a national emergency can barely be discerned from the barebones directives. However, one thing is clear: in the event of a national emergency, the COG directives give unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the president. The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended. Essentially, the president would become a dictator for life. It has happened already. As we have witnessed in recent years, that national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.The emergency powers that we know about which presidents might claim during such states of emergency are vast, ranging from imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus to shutting down all forms of communications, including implementing an internet kill switch, and restricting travel.

Yet according to documents obtained by the Brennan Center, there may be many more secret powers that presidents may institute in times of so-called crisis without oversight from Congress, the courts, or the public. Remember, these powers do not expire at the end of a president’s term. They remain on the books, just waiting to be used or abused by the next political demagogue. So, too, every action taken by the current occupant of the White House and his predecessors to weaken the system of checks and balances, sidestep the rule of law, and expand the power of the executive branch of government makes us that much more vulnerable to those who would abuse those powers in the future. Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents (Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.) have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill.

The Executive Branch’s willingness to circumvent the Constitution by leaning heavily on the president’s so-called emergency powers constitutes a gross perversion of what limited power the Constitution affords the president. As law professor William P. Marshall explains, “every extraordinary use of power by one President expands the availability of executive branch power for use by future Presidents.” Moreover, it doesn’t even matter whether other presidents have chosen not to take advantage of any particular power, because “it is a President’s action in using power, rather than forsaking its use, that has the precedential significance.”

Read more …

“It is government gangsters against everyone else….”

• Two Tiers of Justice (Kash Patel)

The elite set of individuals that sit atop our federal agencies have completely weaponized our entire government apparatus. It is no longer a one-off “mistake,” but rather the intentional creation of a two-tier system of justice that has gone unchecked. The resulting impact is a death knell for American faith in all three branches of government. Allow me to preface with one important factor: This is not an indictment of the men and women who are our “boots on the ground.” They remember every day why they signed up to serve. They investigate real crimes, protect the public from acts of terror, and root out rampant corruption. These men and women across the country serving in all agencies remain heroes and are equally as frustrated with the leadership at the top of our federal government.

The two-tier system of justice is not Democrats vs. Republicans. It is anyone who is part of the administrative state and the D.C. beltway versus those who seek to destroy this political demon of the deep state. It is government gangsters against everyone else. When it comes to the U.S. government, there are no coincidences. Anything that masquerades as such is a strategic move to protect the upper echelons from ceding power to the proletariat they once rose from. Whether it’s Russiagate, Impeachment #1, Impeachment #2, Jan. 6 Committee, Hunter’s laptop, classified docs, or an intel letter from 51 of our highest “servants,” they layered this two-tier system of justice by doing the same thing at each level – breaking the law. Illegal surveillance, unlawful congressional overreach, and judicial hustling have joined forces, and the result is a destruction of justice.

Case in point: Christopher Wray, a stunning example when it comes to the dual standard of justice and hypocrisy. Wray violated a congressional subpoena. By doing so, the director of the FBI has continuously broken the law and simultaneously destroyed the leadership reputation of the FBI. The days of justice and accountability within our federal government are fleeting, at best. What if you violated a congressional subpoena, what are the ramifications? No need to wonder, just ask Steven Bannon and Peter Navarro. Don’t count on this DOJ to police its own, especially when the narrative being put forth by the document in question nukes the radical left’s pyramid of Jenga justice.

Yesterday, he had one final out, and showed his true lack of institutional control, or better yet its hijacking. He told Chairman Comer to pound sand, so now Congress must hold the line. Ransack these agencies and departments, and hold those who exploit the two-tier system of justice accountable – every single one of them. For starters, take their money, take their fancy government toys, and take Wray’s government-funded G5 jet. You must produce these critical documents and show them to the world, then do it again and again.

Read more …

Chose?!

• Snowden Reveals Why He Chose To Stay In Russia (RT)

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has said he had to seek refuge in Russia after exhausting other options for obtaining protection from the US government after his exposure of the spy agency’s illegal mass surveillance program. Other nations either didn’t want to cross Washington or were not confident they could stop Snowden from being kidnapped by a US “blackbag squad,” he said in an interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald on Tuesday. In June 2013, Snowden met with a group of journalists in Hong Kong to disclose the trove of classified materials that he took from the NSA. His plan was then to travel via Moscow to Cuba and later to a Latin American country, which would grant him political asylum. “We had contacts, we had assurances [that] this would probably be our best bet,” he recalled.

Initially he hoped that some European nation, such as Germany or France, would shelter him, but “every diplomat that we talked to in Europe basically said this is not going to work, they’re gonna cave.” By the time Snowden landed in the Russian capital, the US had revoked his passport, effectively trapping him in the airport lounge. While he was there, the US orchestrated the forced landing of a Bolivian government plane carrying then-President Evo Morales, who was returning home from Moscow. The US authorities suspected that Snowden was onboard. “Even the Russians were shocked at the extremity of this conduct,” Greenwald said, referring to a conversation he had with a Russian consul, who recognized his name when the journalist applied for a visa to visit Snowden in Moscow.


The whistleblower came to the conclusion that even if a more powerful nation were to welcome him, “you’ve got to travel over a lot of vassal states on the air path to get there.” “I was out of options. I applied for asylum in Russia. I was granted it and actually I’ve been left alone quite remarkably since then, which is all that I can ask for, given the circumstances,” he suggested. Snowden received Russian citizenship last year. This fact is often brought up by critics, who accuse him of disloyalty to his nation of birth, a notion that Greenwald said he wanted to address. The talk was part of a special ten-year-anniversary reunion, which also featured filmmaker Laura Poitras. She and Greenwald were part of the inner circle that broke the surveillance story.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Bees

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Schrödinger’s War – And Orwell’s

Jun 072023
 
 June 7, 2023  Posted by at 5:05 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  11 Responses »


Thomas Cole The Course of Empire – The Arcadian or Pastoral State 1834

 

 

Physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 tried to explain the (consequences of the) uncertainty principle, defined by Werner Heisenberg as a core theme of Albert Einstein’s view of quantum mechanics, to … Albert Einstein. The latter must have been thrilled. Even though he did not like the uncertainty principle (God does not play dice). The thought experiment became known as “Schrödinger’s cat”. Since you cannot know both a particle’s position and its speed -and that’s just one example-, you have to assume all possible outcomes are valid (superposition). Only when you “look” does one particular outcome become the “reality”. It’s all part of the subatomic “world”.

Wikipedia: “In Schrödinger’s original formulation, a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor (e.g. a Geiger counter) detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation implies that, after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality resolves into one possibility or the other.”

 


Dhatfield

 

As I’m trying to explain this, I very much have to wonder if I get it right. And I always thought that follows the uncertainty principle too: I can understand it and not understand it both at the same time. A physicist might fare a bit better, but it won’t come easy.

 

This is what I was thinking of with regards to the war in Ukraine. Before the fighting started, all possible outcomes seemed equally possible. If you did not look too closely at numbers of soldiers and weaponry, that is. But once it did start (when Schrödinger’s box was opened), it became clear very rapidly that Ukraine had no chance of winning. So why are we still acting as if the box remains closed? Because that way we get to spend billions more on armory, and we get western people to support Zelensky and his neo-nazis as those same people suffer from high prices for everything. Any outcome is still possible!

Take the Kakhovka dam narrative, or Nord Stream or any of the numerous other examples. When both sides accuse each other of perpetrating a certain event, Schrödinger’s box remains closed. Which is exactly what our politicians and arms makers desire. They don’t want us to know that they’ve been beaten by Russia, because you would no longer support their policies and their arms purchases. They want “superposition”. They can’t very well declare victory -though they try-, but they don’t need to either. They need uncertainty. Politicians, arms makers and media. They all profit from keeping you in the dark.

The best comment on Kakhovka I’ve seen perhaps comes from @CheburekiMan on Twitter: “Restoring water flow to the North Crimean Canal was top priority for Russia, the very first act of the SMO. Before Kiev shut off the flow in 2014, the canal was supplying 85% of Crimea’s water. So much depended on it, from crops to industry to drinking water, that’s how important it is. Now the pro-Ukraine bleating sheep want people to believe that Russia would wreck the dam, empty the reservoir and cause serious harm to its own people by running the canal dry. It’s so bonkers that one has to seriously consider such ideas are the result of brain damage, or perhaps fetal alcohol syndrome.”

 

Where Orwell comes in is in the terminology. Where “War equals Peace”. The EU pays its member states for the second hand weapons they “donate” to Kiev, through something called the European Peace Fund (aka Facility). Mass weapons deliveries that get huge numbers of people killed, are labeled “Peace”. Zelensky touts a plan labeled a Peace Plan, which demands Russia give back all territories, pay war reparations, deliver Putin et al to some international criminal court etc. The chance of that happening is of course zero, but as long as Schrödinger’s box remains closed, anything is possible. Still, it is a War Plan, not a Peace Plan.

Similarly, Zelensky and his international backers are organizing a Peace Summit, where everybody is invited except Russia. That makes it a War Summit. The suggestion made to westerners is that this is a globally supported initiative, but it is only a small part of the world population (10%?) that supports it. NATO+Japan+Australia. Did I leave anyone out? New Zealand? Ha ha ha, I read that Jacinda Ardern was made a dame. If you know a better illustration of how deep we’ve sunk, I’m game.

 

All the rest of the world is much more interested in the economic developments that involve BRICS+. 31 and counting nations have expressed interest in joining. And they’re not going to risk their potential role in that over a local fight far away that they know is long decided. US/NATO, in provoking this war, have lost not only the fight, but much more importantly, their economic power. Recently, the G7 were talking about what they were going to do in Central Asia. Which is basically all the “-Stans” left over after the Soviet Union dissolved. But the G7 is not going to do anything, it has no power there anymore. All these countries want to join the BRICS+. Why would you join a waning power if you have a shot at joining a power in its ascendancy, that all your neighbors are also joining?

The same attitude is prevalent in Africa, South America, East Asia, etc. Full of countries that remember how they were treated through the years by first Europe and then the US. The world has changed beyond recognition since the start of Russia’s SMO, and the “globalist west” is the only “region” that doesn’t recognize this. The USD won’t be replaced tomorrow as the reserve currency, but it doesn’t have to be. The process goes step by step, and is unstoppable. Hemingway’s famous words about how you go bankrupt (first gradually, then suddenly) have us on the wrong foot here. We only look at the “suddenly” part when it comes to the reserve currency, and ignore all the “gradually” steps. And then one day we will wake up and everything’s changed.

The rest of the world sees Schrödinger’s box as open. Only the west thinks that it’s still closed, and all possible outcomes are still viable.

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 7 2023

Jun 072023
 
 June 7, 2023  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  24 Responses »


Caspar David Friedrich Woman before the Rising Sun 1818

 

• Col. MacGregor: ‘It’s Time to Slash Our Defense Budget’ (21CW)
• Tucker Carlson Steamrolls Ukraine Propaganda In New Show (RT)
• Minsk Agreements Allowed Me To Arm Ukraine – Poroshenko (RT)
• There Never Was an Offramp in Ukraine (Luongo)
• Ukraine Considered Dirty Bomb Attack Against Russia – FSB (RT)
• Russia Reveals Battle Casualties (RT)
• Russia Regrets Its Kakhovka Warnings Were Not Heard – Nebenzia (Sp.)
• Hungary Decries ‘Sanctions Hysteria’ (RT)
• Arms Sent To Ukraine Could End Up In Other Parts Of The World – Hungary (RT)
• US Knew Ukraine Planned On Bombing Nord Stream – WaPo (RT)
• People Ask Me ‘Where Is Ukraine’ – German FM Baerbock (RT)
• First There Were Neo-Nazis, Then There Were No Nazis, Then There Were (Lawrence)
• What’s Next (James Howard Kunstler)
• Scandal Bigger Than Biden Bribery: FBI Election Interference (Fed)

 

 

@CheburekiMan : Restoring water flow to the North Crimean Canal was top priority for Russia, the very first act of the SMO. Before Kiev shut off the flow in 2014, the canal was supplying 85% of Crimea’s water. So much depended on it, from crops to industry to drinking water, that’s how important it is. Now the pro-Ukraine bleating sheep want people to believe that Russia would wreck the dam, empty the reservoir and cause serious harm to its own people by running the canal dry. It’s so bonkers that one has to seriously consider such ideas are the result of brain damage, or perhaps fetal alcohol syndrome.

 

 

Right before the attack, Ukraine filled up the lake..

 

 

Hageman

 

 

 

 

Rowan

 

 

 

 

Prigozhin

 

 


Mel Gibson Funds Tim Ballard Child Rescue Missions!

 

 

 

 

“..the US is not even remotely equipped to fight a modern war of combined forces – and will not be for many years..”

• Col. MacGregor: ‘It’s Time to Slash Our Defense Budget’ (21CW)

The US military is losing in Ukraine, and will continue to loose – despite blowing $1 trillion per year on so-called ‘defense.’ In this recent episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, guest Col. Douglas Macgregor explains why America’s bloated and ever-expanding Pentagon military budget. As it turns out, much of its $1 trillion per annum slush fund is wasted on top-heavy contracts and boondoggle projects which never see the light of day on the battlefield. What NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is now demonstrating as that the US is not even remotely equipped to fight a modern war of combined forces – and will not be for many years (assuming they attempt to revamp their forces to fight a 21st century ground war).

Read more …

“Of all the people in the world, our shifty, dead-eyed Ukrainian friend in the tracksuit is uniquely incapable of blowing up a dam. He’s literally a living saint..”

• Tucker Carlson Steamrolls Ukraine Propaganda In New Show (RT)

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has released the first episode of his new series on Twitter, taking Western news agencies to task for one-sided reporting on the conflict in Ukraine and open hostility toward anybody voicing dissenting views. Dubbed ‘Tucker on Twitter,’ the show’s first 10-minute segment was shared on the social media platform on Wednesday night. The clip opened with a monologue on the Ukrainian attack on a major dam in Russia’s Kherson region this week, which Carlson dubbed “an act of terrorism.” “Blowing up the dam may be bad for Ukraine, but it hurts Russia more, and for precisely that reason the Ukrainian government has considered destroying it,” he said, going on to observe that a Ukrainian general admitted to planning attacks on the Kakhovka dam facility in comments to the Washington Post last December.

Tucker

While Carlson said he had little doubt that Kiev was behind the strike, he noted that several American media outlets had already suggested that Moscow may have arranged the attack on itself, claiming they view Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as simply “too decent for terrorism.” “Of all the people in the world, our shifty, dead-eyed Ukrainian friend in the tracksuit is uniquely incapable of blowing up a dam. He’s literally a living saint, a man in whom there is no sin,” he went on, describing the general attitude within the mainstream press. The pundit drew comparisons to last year’s attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which were built to carry natural gas from Russia into Germany.


Though Carlson argued it was “obvious” that Ukraine had carried out the sabotage, he said US media outlets had little interest in investigating, helping to make Americans among “the least informed people in the world.” “Not only are the media not interested in any of this, they are actively hostile to anybody who is. In journalism, curiosity is the gravest crime,” he continued, adding that while media outlets lie, “mostly they just ignore the stories that matter.” Carlson parted ways with Fox in April, a major shake-up for the media giant given the prominence of his prime-time program, ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’ He later announced that would move his content to Twitter, where he has released other stand-alone segments similar to his former show. In his signoff for Wednesday’s episode, the host voiced hopes that Twitter would be a venue with “no gatekeepers,” but vowed to leave the site should that turn out to be false.

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A proud man.

• Minsk Agreements Allowed Me To Arm Ukraine – Poroshenko (RT)

Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has boasted about his role in rebuilding his country’s military under the cover of the Minsk agreements. The documents were supposed to reconcile Kiev with eastern regions that had not endorsed the 2014 Western-backed coup. “Do you know how many battalions I had north of Kiev when I became president? Zero. What about the state budget? Below zero. What about working tanks? A pittance,” the former leader said, describing the state of Ukraine nine years ago in an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper published on Monday. Poroshenko took office in June 2014, as the post-coup Ukrainian government was attempting to quash a rebellion in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions with military force. The two Minsk agreements were adopted with Poroshenko at the helm.

They were supposed to de-escalate the conflict and reintegrate the regions into Ukrainian political systems under wide autonomy, but Kiev stonewalled their implementation. Instead, Poroshenko told the newspaper that his government had opted for a military buildup with the help of foreign sponsors. “Immediately after the signing, I invited NATO instructors, bought weapons and vehicles. During my presidency we built an army,” he declared. The former president insisted that this had allowed Ukraine to prepare for the current confrontation with Russia. Moscow cited Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk accords, its continued attacks on Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as NATO’s encroachment into Ukraine as key reasons for the launch of its military operation in February 2022. Russian officials have claimed that the Minsk agreements, which were mediated by France and Germany, were negotiated in bad faith.

Former French President Francois Hollande and ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel have since confirmed that the deals were intended to buy time for Kiev. Poroshenko suffered a landslide defeat to Vladimir Zelensky, the current president, in the 2019 election. The comedian-turned-politician promised to reverse his predecessor’s bellicose policies and reconcile with Donbass. However, Zelensky performed a U-turn after coming to power, as extremist nationalist forces objected to any attempts to negotiate. In the interview, Poroshenko endorsed the opinion of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who argued last week that Minsk and Moscow should have “resolved” the Ukrainian situation in 2014-2015, instead of pursuing diplomacy. Poroshenko implied that his government would have been toppled in that scenario.

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“What do you call a hundred thousand dead Slavs fighting over swampland? A good start.”

“Waffle House Waitress Nikki Haley is out repeating the lie that Russia will take all of Poland and the Baltics if he wins on CNN. It doesn’t matter that she’ll get 1% of the primary vote, her job is to reinforce the narrative..”

• There Never Was an Offramp in Ukraine (Luongo)

Before the war officially started who blew up power stations denying Crimea power in the fall of 2015, creating blackouts and real civilian hardship? Who is on record saying that the Minsk Agreements were simply a time-buying exercise to arm Ukraine and freeze Russia for the war we have today? Who staged a terrorist attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge? Who has tested the waters on attacking the dam? Whose leadership continues to go around the world desperately trying to convince rational people that this irrational ethnic war between tribes of Slavs is a fight for the future of western civilization? Who intentionally helped stoke simmering hatred of all things Russian across the entirety of Eastern Europe to push the world to this moment? In short, who armed Ukraine while never once acting with one ounce of humility or basic human decency to find a solution that didn’t involve thousands of dead Slavs?

The answer is the same people accusing Russia today of blowing up a dam that severely weakens their strategic position in southern Ukraine. [..] It’s the same pattern as Nordstream, the chemical attacks in Ghouta and Khan Sheykoun, MH-17 and a host of other attacks on civilians over the past decade since Putin helped thwart Obama’s “Coalition of the willing” to take out Assad in 2013 following Ghouta. Everything in Ukraine is downstream (all puns intended) of that. Everything. It’s all one big long policy decision after another. In this respect Ukraine has been a series of moves on a chess board leading to a particular outcome. And that outcome will be a full-fledged war between NATO and Russia over Ukraine. It’s what everyone in power actually wants, even when they mouth words to the contrary. EU officials like Michel, EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and now presidential candidates in the US say the same thing.

There can be no victory for Russia in Ukraine. It would be the end of the West. Waffle House Waitress Nikki Haley is out repeating the lie that Russia will take all of Poland and the Baltics if he wins on CNN. It doesn’t matter that she’ll get 1% of the primary vote, her job is to reinforce the narrative. We’ve all been waiting for the next big ‘disaster’ to up the ante in Ukraine. It’s been too quiet for too long. Now with the fighting intensifying along multiple fronts, this move is it. So, with it done what does it mean? The most obvious is that this materially weakens Russia’s position in Kherson and then Crimea. It follows that this is just the prelude to the long-expected full on attack on Crimea.

It could be some weird statement by the Ukrainians that they are looking for an offramp by drawing an impassable barrier between their territory and Russia’s but I’ll need to see a lot more evidence of that before I can even contemplate it. Because Occam’s razor reminds us of the intense need to take not only Ukraine to the next level but the entire Davos Great Reset agenda there as well. For more than a year the West, primarily the US with a lot of British assistance, have tried to craft a humanitarian crisis narrative around Russia to justify a wider war. This is just the latest example of their handiwork The Ukrainians want this to elicit sympathy from gaslit morons with Ukraine flags in the Twitter name. The Brits need this because their centuries-long feud with Russia simply cannot end with a whimper in Ukraine.

The US thinks they need this because of the ridiculous Great Powers mind virus unleashed on us by our colonial “betters.”Davos needs this because you can’t roll the world up into your total control if there are any great nations left. When viewed through the lens of the power-mongers who unleashed this war I leave you with one last question. What do you call a hundred thousand dead Slavs fighting over swampland? A good start.

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“..Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) has a special branch operating light aircraft, which are intended to fly undetected at low altitudes..”

• Ukraine Considered Dirty Bomb Attack Against Russia – FSB (RT)

Ukrainian military intelligence considered detonating a “dirty bomb” on Russian territory, the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow has claimed. Preparations for the “terrorist attack” were revealed during an investigation into Kiev’s use of light planes for clandestine missions against its neighbor, the agency said. According to an FSB statement released on Tuesday, Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) has a special branch operating light aircraft, which are intended to fly undetected at low altitudes. The planes can smuggle supplies to saboteurs or conduct surprise bombing sorties, the FSB claimed.

The Russian agency released footage of an interview with an alleged Ukrainian pilot who was intercepted while flying one such mission. Identified as Dmitry Shimansky, he was detained in May in Tula Region some 200km south of Moscow, when his plane landed to deliver drone parts and explosives for a planned attack on a Russian military airfield. The pilot claimed that the GUR leadership had considered using the same tactics to prepare a dirty bomb attack in Russia. A dirty bomb is a conventional explosive device covered with radioactive material, which contaminates a large area around it after detonating.

The FSB also published an interrogation video of another apparent Ukrainian captive, a military pilot named Aleksandr Morozov, who said he was arrested after being forced to land when his small plane was damaged during a secret mission in Russia. His task was to bomb a fuel depot in Bryansk Region bordering Ukraine, he explained. The incident was initially reported in April. The Russian government has accused Ukraine of launching a series of sabotage operations on its soil, including two separate kamikaze drone strikes in Moscow. The first attack last month targeted the Kremlin, while the other resulted in three drones hitting residential buildings in and around the Russian capital on Monday last week. The incident prompted a retaliatory strike on the GUR’s headquarters in Kiev.

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“The losses of Ukraine’s armed forces since June 4 include 3,715 personnel [..] the Russian military suffered 71 dead, 210 wounded..”

• Russia Reveals Battle Casualties (RT)

Ukrainian forces lost over 3,700 men and more than 50 tanks in a futile attempt to break through on several fronts, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Tuesday. He also revealed Russian casualties during the three days of heavy fighting. “Over a three-day period, the Ukrainian regime began the long-promised offensive on multiple sections of the front, concentrating a large amount of men and materiel for that purpose,” Shoigu said in a video address. The losses of Ukraine’s armed forces since June 4 include 3,715 personnel, 52 tanks, 207 armored vehicles, 134 cars, five airplanes, two helicopters, 48 field artillery pieces and 53 drones, Shoigu said in a video message.
“Unfortunately, this was not without casualties of our own,” the defense minister added.

While defeating the adversary’s attempt to advance, the Russian military suffered 71 dead, 210 wounded, and the destruction of 15 tanks, nine armored vehicles, two cars and nine artillery pieces, according to Shoigu. The heaviest fighting took place Monday, with five Ukrainian brigades attacking on seven sections of the frontline. In these clashes, the Ukrainians suffered more than 1,600 casualties and the loss of 136 vehicles, 79 of which were of foreign origin, Shoigu explained. Of the 28 destroyed tanks, eight were German-made ‘Leopards’ and three more the French wheeled AMX-10. Ukraine “suffered significant and incomparable losses” and did not achieve any of its objectives, the Russian defense minister noted.Shoigu accused the Ukrainian government of destroying the Kakhovka dam in order to cover its flank along the Dnieper River and prevent a Russian advance, while freeing up troops from that part of the front to redeploy in order to make up the losses elsewhere.

As proof that Ukraine was behind what he called a terrorist act, Shoigu noted that the Dnepropetrovsk hydroelectric plant – under Ukrainian control, further up the river – significantly increased the water flow and contributed to the flooding. Kiev has blamed Moscow and denied any responsibility for the disaster. Shoigu seldom comments on the course of operations personally, usually leaving the combat reports to the department spokesman, Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov. Meanwhile, the Uk rainian defense ministry has urged everyone to keep quiet. Fighting continued on Tuesday, with the Ukrainian forces suffering 260 more casualties, five tanks, four armored vehicles, and nine artillery pieces – including a French Cesar and an American M777 – the Russian Defense Ministry said in an evening update.

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“At the end of October 2022, we circulated an official document of the UN Security Council, a note from the permanent mission on the Kiev regime’s plans to destroy the Kakhovka HPP..”

• Russia Regrets Its Kakhovka Warnings Were Not Heard – Nebenzia (Sp.)

Russia regrets that the international community did not hear its warnings last October about the potential threat that the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and dam would pose, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia said on Tuesday. “We have warned the international community and UN leadership about this threat,” Nebenzia said during a UN Security Council meeting, in reference to an October 2022 letter that stated Ukrainian forces were planning on destroying the dam through sea mines or a missile strike. “At the end of October 2022, we circulated an official document of the UN Security Council, a note from the permanent mission on the Kiev regime’s plans to destroy the Kakhovka HPP [hydroelectric power plant].

We regret that our calls to the secretary-general to do everything possible to prevent this horrifying crime were not duly heeded.” The letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres detailed Russian military had registered enemy airstrikes targeting the power station’s locks, with the intention of flooding the area. The correspondence had urged Guterres to “do everything” he could in order to avoid the incident. Nebenzia also condemned the behavior of the UN Secretariat for its ‘politicized’ statements and for not condemning Kiev over the attack. “We are deeply bewildered that the UN Secretariat repeatedly fails to condemn the attacks perpetrated by the Kiev regime citing insufficient information,” he told the Security Council.

The UN envoy emphasized that statements blaming Russia for the incident use the same flawed logic as claims that Moscow played a role in the Nord Stream destruction. “Such conclusions reek of schizophrenia,” he said, underscoring the danger posed by such a narrative. Nebenzia took the opportunity to further point out that Kiev had considered undertaking such an operation as far back as last year, a plan reported on by US media in December. The 2022 report detailed that Ukrainian military conducted test strikes on one of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant’s floodgates. At the time, officials admitted the test was a success but that it would be considered as a “last resort.”

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“..there are some European leaders who suffer from an ever-increasing war psychosis..”

• Hungary Decries ‘Sanctions Hysteria’ (RT)

Europe finds itself in the throes of the most severe crisis since WWII, partly due to its leaders’ reliance on economic sanctions to punish Russia over Ukraine, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday. He said that those measures have instead backfired on the continent. Speaking at the Budapest Peace Forum, the minister said that the Ukraine conflict has brought upon Europe the most serious security and economic challenge in the last 80 years, coupled with enormous risks for further escalation. Without naming any names, Szijjarto said that “there are some European leaders who suffer from an ever-increasing war psychosis” and added that Europeans were paying the price for the conflict. “The war is taking place here, European people are dying, and the effects of the war are most severe in Europe.”

Szijjarto said that the EU had plunged into “sanctions hysteria” and allowed the US to goad it into a race revolving around which European country would deliver more weapons to Ukraine. He stated that the EU’s sanctions against Moscow had neither ended the fighting in Ukraine, nor brought Russia to its knees. “One year, three months, two weeks after the outbreak of the war, while debating the eleventh package of sanctions, I think it is clear to everyone that the two objectives associated with the imposition of sanctions have failed, both of them,” he said. At the same time, “the European economy has suffered more damage,” the minister stressed, pointing out that the bloc’s competitiveness had “plummeted” while European consumers have to pay much more for energy than Americans or Chinese.

“That is why we demand an immediate ceasefire, we demand that peace negotiations begin, which at least offers a hope that a sustainable, long-term security-giving peace will be established in our region,” he said. Since the start of the Ukraine conflict, Hungary has repeatedly called for peace talks between Moscow and Kiev, offering to act as a mediator. While decrying sanctions on Russia as counterproductive, Budapest has likewise refused to send weapons to Ukraine and banned their transit via Hungarian territory.

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“..the country has been “the first to be exposed to the danger of escalation” given its proximity to Ukraine, with which it shares a border.”

• Arms Sent To Ukraine Could End Up In Other Parts Of The World – Hungary (RT)

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has warned that the vast quantities of foreign arms sent to Ukraine will help to ignite chaos elsewhere in the world after the conflict with Russia ends, voicing fears of new crises in “unstable regions.” Delivering the keynote address at the Budapest Peace Forum on Tuesday, Szijjarto outlined the government’s stance toward the ongoing conflict, saying it will have broader consequences beyond Ukraine’s borders. “There are many regions of the world where even a small part of the weapons sent to Ukraine could lead to serious instability. Violence and terror may increase in the already unstable regions, which could lead to another wave of migration,” he said. “What guarantee is there that the weapons delivered to Ukraine will not be transferred to other countries?”

The official went on to argue that only an end to the fighting could guarantee Hungary’s security, pointing out that the country has been “the first to be exposed to the danger of escalation” given its proximity to Ukraine, with which it shares a border. “This is why we demand an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations, at least giving hope that a sustainable, long-term peace will be established in the region,” Szijjarto continued. He added that Hungary views the conflict “completely differently” from many of its Western allies, suggesting some partners have little interest in ending the bloodshed. While the FM maintained that there is a “global pro-peace majority” in favor of a ceasefire deal, he said that camp is under “a lot of pressure from the war supporters,” which include Western officials, media outlets and NGOs.

Szijjarto also denounced the “sanctions hysteria” overcoming many European Union members, but said the penalties have done nothing to end the fighting in Ukraine and failed to wreck Russia’s economy as intended. Instead, he claimed the EU has sustained “more damage” from its own measures, deeming the campaign a failure. The diplomat has previously sounded alarms about the lack of oversight for the billions of dollars in Western weapons saturating Ukraine, noting that such arms may someday appear in Africa and create “serious security risks” for the continent. Budapest has resisted pressure to supply lethal weaponry to Kiev since the conflict with Moscow erupted in February 2022, with the country’s parliament even passing a law to prohibit such arms transfers last year. It has also largely bucked the US-led sanctions spree on Russia, with Prime Minister Viktor Orban among the most vocal critics of the policy in the EU.

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Yeah yeah. We’re not buying. Curious timing too: the day after the dam, let’s talk pipelines.

• US Knew Ukraine Planned On Bombing Nord Stream – WaPo (RT)

American spies knew for months that Ukrainian state operatives planned on destroying the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing leaked Pentagon documents. While the report implicates Kiev in the act of sabotage, it does not disprove the theory – put forward by journalist Seymour Hersh – that the US took out the pipelines. The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines were destroyed in a series of near-simultaneous explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm in September. The blasts severed a key conduit for Russian natural gas to Europe, effectively removing the possibility of European countries lifting their sanctions on Moscow and restarting gas purchases.

Three months earlier, the Post reported, “the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces,” General Valery Zaluzhny. The CIA learned of the plot from an unnamed European intelligence agency with an agent in Ukraine, the newspaper claimed, citing Pentagon documents shared on a Discord server in February by a US Air National Guard member. Ukrainian officials, who have previously claimed that Russia destroyed its own pipeline, did not respond to the Washington Post’s request for comment. The CIA likewise remained silent, and the White House refused to answer when asked “whether US officials tried to stop the mission from proceeding.”

The story is similar to earlier reporting by the New York Times, which claimed in March that a “pro-Ukrainian group” took out the gas lines, and by Germany’s Der Spiegel, which claimed that the group used a rented yacht to transport explosives to the blast site. These theories have been contradicted by American reporter Seymour Hersh, who claimed in February that the Biden administration ordered the CIA to bomb the conduits with the help of the Norwegian Navy. The rented yacht story, Hersh said afterwards, was planted in the US and German media as a red herring by the CIA and its German counterpart, the BND.

The yacht appears again in the Washington Post’s latest report, only in this telling, the would-be bombers planned on renting it from a port in a different European country. The Post’s report does not offer any evidence exculpating the US from eventually carrying out the bombing. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in March that he “fully agrees” with Hersh’s conclusions. Prior to the publication of Hersh’s report, Putin blamed the explosions on “the Anglo-Saxons,” a Russian colloquialism for the US-UK transatlantic alliance. The Russian president argued that the US in particular benefited from the attack due to its position as a competing gas supplier to Europe.

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“Firstly, ‘Where were you when we needed you?’ And also, ‘Where is the Ukraine actually?’”

• People Ask Me ‘Where Is Ukraine’ – German FM Baerbock (RT)

Many nations across the world do not share the West’s assessment of the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock admitted on Tuesday. According to the minister, the conflict has garnered less interest in many parts of the world and she has even been asked where Ukraine is located on her diplomatic trips. Instead of focusing on Ukraine, people are blaming Western nations for abandoning them in their own hours of need and accusing the West of caring little about the rest of the world, she said. “I have heard [this] all over the world: Firstly, ‘Where were you when we needed you?’ And also, ‘Where is the Ukraine actually?’” the minister told an event hosted by the private Brazilian university Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) in Sao Paulo.

People in Latin America and elsewhere “perceive the threat of this war differently than we do in Europe,” Baerbock said. Ordinary citizens in Brazil believe the price of “rice and beans… in the supermarket this week is more important than what happens in a country that is 11,000 kilometers away,” Baerbock added. She then claimed that it was the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev that is “driving up the prices of food around the world” and urged Brazilians to help in doing “everything we can to ensure that there is finally peace in Ukraine again.” Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took office in January, has repeatedly called for peace between Russia and Ukraine. He has insisted the two nations need a mediator to facilitate peace talks. He also presented a vision of an international “peace club” aimed at resolving the conflict during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in March.

Lula has also been critical of the approach the West took by providing weapons to Kiev. The US and its allies “had the option not to enter the war the way they did,” he said in April, adding that Washington and Brussels rushed to support one side of the conflict, “without spending time trying to negotiate.” Kiev and its Western backers have rejected several peace initiatives floated by other nations, including Mexico, China and, most recently, Indonesia. Last week, Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto suggested a plan involving a demilitarized zone along the existing contact line between the Russian and Ukrainian troops, monitored by UN peacekeepers. He also proposed holding UN-sponsored referendums to determine the future of disputed territories. Ukraine immediately branded Jakarta’s plan a “surrender” proposal that it said would only benefit Moscow. Russia has maintained that it welcomes all initiatives aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine.

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“..because they are proud of themselves, and these are the kinds of things proud people wear. I was just wearing mine the other day.”

Russia: dude.. they’re literally nazis
American Liberals: no they arent
Ukraine: yes we are
American Liberals: stop reinforcing Russian propaganda

• First There Were Neo-Nazis, Then There Were No Nazis, Then There Were (Lawrence)

And now we have the case of Thomas Gibbons–Neff, a square-jawed former Marine covering the Ukraine war for The Times—strictly to the extent the Kyiv regime permits him to do so, as he explains with admirable honesty. This guy is serious times 10, he and his newspaper want us to know. Tom’s job this week is to persuade us that all those Ukrainian soldiers wearing Nazi insignia, idolizing Jew-murdering, Russophobic collaborators with the Third Reich, gathering ritually in Nazi-inspired cabals, marching through Kyiv in Klan-like torch parades are not what you think.

Nah, our Tom tells us. They look like neo–Nazis, they act like neo–Nazis, they dress like neo–Nazis, they profess Fascist and neo–Nazi ideologies, they wage this war with the Wehrmacht’s visceral hatred of Russians—O.K., but whyever would you think they are neo–Nazis? They are just regular guys. They wear the Wolfsangel, the Schwarze sonne, the black sun, the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head—all Nazi symbols—because they are proud of themselves, and these are the kinds of things proud people wear. I was just wearing mine the other day. The slipping and sliding starts early in “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History,” the piece Gibbons–Neff published in Monday’s editions. He begins with three photographs of neo–Nazi Ukrainian soldiers, SS insignia plainly visible, that the Kyiv regime has posted on social media, “then quietly deleted,” since the Russian intervention began last year.

“The photographs, and their deletions,” Gibbons–Neff writes, “highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II.” Complicated relationship with Nazi imagery? Stop right there, Mr. Semper fi. Ukraine’s neo–Nazi problem is not about a few indiscreetly displayed images. Sorry. The Ukrainian army’s “complicated relationship” is with a century of ultra-right ideology drawn from Mussolini’s Fascism and then the German Reich. As is well-known and documented, the neo–Nazis who infest the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the AFU—among many other national institutions—have made idols of such figures as Stepan Bandera, the freakishly murderous nationalist who allied with the Nazi regime during the war.

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“The national transexual struggle-session draws to a close with SecDef Lloyd Austin canceling the upcoming drag shows on our military bases. What else have they got? Slavery reparations?”

• What’s Next (James Howard Kunstler)

What’s next? Western Europe, facing its own collapse, will turn on America and refuse to continue pretending it can help out in Ukraine. NATO falls apart. (What to do with those vacant office buildings and idle employees?) Europe will have enough problems with its cratering industries and banking system. It may even be obvious to a few heads-of-state that the best outcome is to simply allow Russia to pacify and demilitarize the age-old borderland. After all, for the rolling decades since World War Two, Ukraine was not a problem for anyone until America made it one. There will be no face-saving for the “Joe Biden” regime, either, which is reaching its own collapse phase. Last week’s face-plant at the Air Force Academy was the harbinger of things-to-come.

Today (Monday), FBI officials must walk over to the House oversight Committee an internal FD-1023 document revealed by a whistleblower to contain allegations of a Biden family $5-million bribery scheme with foreign actors. Of course, the substance of this criminal mischief is not news. What’s news is that the allegations contained in the doc come from a “trusted” confidential human source, meaning that, according to the FBI’s own rules, the allegation should have been dealt with expeditiously. Instead, the Bureau sat on it for three years. The FD-1023 doc is dated 2020, months before that year’s presidential election. The source is also alleged to be from Ukraine. Will committee members be allowed to photo-copy the doc, or transcribe what’s in it? Wouldn’t it be amusing if Committee Chairman James Comer personally walks it over to the Xerox machine?

What would the FBI officials do? Body check him? What if it turns out that the doc is full of redactions — blacked out. Like a big, fat practical joke from FBI Director Christopher Wray. (They’ve done it before.) Remember, Mr. Wray is already under threat of a contempt citation for stalling on this matter. But he’s obviously caught between that old rock and a hard place, since the doc appears to prove that, at least, the FBI has obstructed justice, and of the worst sort, a potential case of presidential treason. Mr. Wray may even be colored as an accomplice in it. Or maybe it will all amount to nothing because all bad deeds go unpunished in the degenerate era that precedes collapse. Even so, it seems the regime is running out of insults to launch against the people who consent to be governed by it.

The national transexual struggle-session draws to a close with SecDef Lloyd Austin canceling the upcoming drag shows on our military bases. What else have they got? Slavery reparations? Rep Cori Bush (D-MO) has introduced a bill to pay $14-Trillion to the descendants of slaves. I’m sure that’ll work, both as a unifying action to bring together the quarrelsome diverse peoples of our land, and as a purely fiscal measure. The fate of the financial system will probably shove all of that aside, anyway. Everybody with more than half a brain is waiting for it to crack up, meaning a generalized vanishing of American wealth as expressed in cratering markets, failing banks, and a broken currency, in some vicious combo. Nothing else, it seems, can quite get the people’s attention.

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“..America can survive select injustices, but it cannot withstand a corrupt bureaucracy that obstructs justice and interferes in elections.”

• Scandal Bigger Than Biden Bribery: FBI Election Interference (Fed)

The confidential human source (CHS) behind the detailed allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions was reportedly “highly credible” and used by the FBI in multiple criminal investigations dating back to the Obama administration. [..] Friday’s revelation that the CHS was “highly credible” and had served as a source in multiple prior criminal investigations — including ones run under the Obama-Biden administration — proves Grassley is properly focused on the FBI. Yes, the CHS’s allegations offer more evidence of a Biden family pay-to-play scandal, and unraveling any criminal conduct by the Biden family remains important. But more significant to the future of our country is uncovering government actors responsible for violating the rule of law: America can survive select injustices, but it cannot withstand a corrupt bureaucracy that obstructs justice and interferes in elections.

Yet that is precisely what occurred, according to the whistleblower. He claimed that “in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters’ team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.” The whistleblower further alleged that the FBI HQ team that handled the Auten assessment, after concluding the reporting was disinformation, placed the information in a restricted access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s information could access. Now knowing the CHS behind the FD-1023 was not just “trusted,” as Grassley had previously indicated, but “highly credible,” and relied upon in multiple criminal cases dating back to the last time Biden worked for the executive branch, makes the whistleblower’s accusations even more damning because those additional facts mean the agents had reason to believe the buried accusations were true.

Not only does this evidence suggest FBI headquarters obstructed justice, but the date of the CHS’s report indicates those responsible for misbranding the intel as disinformation sought to interfere in the 2020 election. As Grassley’s colleague in the House, James Comer, revealed, the CHS report was dated June 30, 2020, and while the allegations against candidate Biden came from a “highly credible” CHS, the FBI closed them. According to the whistleblower, FBI headquarters closed out the source even though some of the allegations had already been verified and other details could have been verified. In contrast, when the bureau received a vague tip from an Australian diplomat of unknown veracity that a low-level Trump volunteer had claimed the Russians possessed dirt on Hillary Clinton, within days FBI headquarters opened an investigation into the Trump campaign.

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Kiev’s Long Term Plans To Blow Up The Kakhovka Dam

Jun 062023
 
 June 6, 2023  Posted by at 11:27 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


Thomas Cole The Course of Empire – The Savage State 1834

 

 

I had some discussion with Andrew about this article, since the December 2022 WaPo article he refers to was not the first time Kiev’s plans to blow up the dam were mentioned. There was this, for instance, 2 months earlier. Then again, Andrew is right in saying that the WaPo piece is the first where people other than Zelensky mention it. And we agree that now blaming the attack on Russia is really out of left field. Those darn Russkies keep on aiming for their own feet. And that’s the only thing(s) they can hit.

 

 

Andrew Korybko:
 
The partial destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on early Tuesday morning saw Kiev and Moscow exchange accusations about who’s to blame, but a report from the Washington Post (WaPo) in late December extends credence to the Kremlin’s version of events. Titled “Inside the Ukrainian counteroffensive that shocked Putin and reshaped the war”, its journalists quoted former commander of November’s Kherson Counteroffensive Major General Andrey Kovalchuk who shockingly admitted to planning this war crime:

“Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages. The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off.”

His remark about how “the step remained a last resort” is pertinent to recall at present considering that the first phase of Kiev’s NATO–backed counteroffensive completely failed on Monday according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Just like Ukraine launched its proxy invasion of Russia in late May to distract from its loss in the Battle of Artyomovsk, so too might does it seem to have gone through with Kovalchuk’s planned war crime to distract from this most recent embarrassment as well.

The abovementioned explanation isn’t as far-fetched as some might initially think either. After all, one of complexity theory’s precepts is that initial conditions at the onset of non-linear processes can disproportionately shape the outcome. In this context, the first failed phase of Kiev’s counteroffensive risked ruining the entire campaign, which could have prompted its planners to employ Kovalchuk’s “last resort” in order to introduce an unexpected variable into the equation that might improve their odds.

Russia had over 15 months to entrench itself in Ukraine’s former eastern and southern regions that Kiev still claims as its own through the construction of various defensive structures and associated contingency planning so as to maintain its control over those territories. It therefore follows that even the most properly supplied and thought-out counteroffensive wasn’t going to be a walk in the park contrary to the Western public’s expectations, thus explaining why the first phase just failed.

This reality check shattered whatever wishful thinking expectations Kiev might have had since it showed that the original plan of swarming the Line of Contact (LOC) entails considerable costs that reduce the chances of it succeeding unless serious happens behind the front lines to distract the Russian defenders. Therein lies the strategic reason behind partially destroying the Kakhovka Dam on Tuesday morning exactly as Kovalchuk proved late last year is possible to pull off per his own admission to WaPo.

The first of Kiev’s goals that this terrorist attack served was to prompt global concern about the safety of the Russian-controlled Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which relies on water from the now-rapidly-depleting Kakhovka Reservoir for cooling. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that there’s “no immediate nuclear safety risk”, but a latent one can’t be ruled out. Should a crisis transpire, then it could throw Russia’s defenses in northern Zaporozhye Region into chaos.

The second goal is that the downstream areas of Kherson Region, which are divided between Kiev and Moscow, have now been flooded. Although the water might eventually recede after some time, this could complicate Russia’s defensive plans along the left bank of the Dnieper River. Taken together with the consequences connected to the first scenario, this means that a significant part of the riparian front behind the LOC could soon soften up to facilitate the next phase of Kiev’s counteroffensive.

In fact, the geographic scope of Kiev’s “unconventional softening operation” might even expand to Crimea due to the threat that Tuesday morning’s terrorist attack could pose to the peninsula’s water supply via its eponymous canal. The regional governor said that sufficient supplies remain for now but that the coming days will reveal the level of risk. While Crimea still managed to survive Kiev’s blockade of the canal for eight years, there’s no doubt that this development is disadvantageous for Russia.

The fourth strategic goal builds upon the three that were already discussed and concerns the psychological warfare component of this attack. On the foreign front, Kiev’s gaslighting that Moscow is guilty of “ecocide” was amplified by the Mainstream Media in spite of Kovalchuk’s damning admission to WaPo last December in order to maximize global pressure on Russia, while the domestic front is aimed at sowing panic in Ukraine’s former regions with the intent of further softening Russia’s defenses there.

And finally, the last strategic goal that was served by partially destroying the Kakhovka Dam is that Russia might soon be thrown into a dilemma. Kiev’s “unconventional softening operation” along the Kherson-Zaporozhye LOC could divide the Kremlin’s focus from the Belgorod-Kharkov and Donbass fronts, which could weaken one of those three and thus risk a breakthrough. The defensive situation could become even more difficult for Russia if Kiev expands the conflict by attacking Belarus and/or Moldova too.

To be absolutely clear, the military-strategic dynamics of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine still favor Russia for the time being, though that’s precisely why Kiev carried out Tuesday morning’s terrorist attack in a desperate attempt to reshape them in its favor. This assessment is based on the observation that Russia’s victory in the Battle of Artyomovsk shows that it’s able to hold its own against NATO in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that the bloc’s chief declared in mid-February.

Furthermore, even the New York Times admitted that the West’s sanctions failed to collapse Russia’s economy and isolate it, while some of its top influencers also admitted that it’s impossible to deny the proliferation of multipolar processes in the 15 months since the special operation began. These include German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, former US National Security Council member Fiona Hill, and Goldman Sachs’ President of Global Affairs Jared Cohen.

The military-strategic dynamics described in the preceding two paragraphs will inevitably doom the West to defeat in the New Cold War’s largest proxy conflict thus far unless something major unexpectedly happens to change them, which is exactly what Kiev was trying to achieve via its latest terrorist attack. The reason why few foresaw this is because Kovalchuk admitted to WaPo last December that his side had previously planned to blow up part of the Kakhovka Dam as part of its Kherson Counteroffensive.

It therefore seemed unthinkable that Kiev would ultimately do just that over half a year later and then gaslight that Moscow was to blame when the Mainstream Media itself earlier reported the existence of Ukraine’s terrorist plans after quoting the same Major General who bragged about them at the time. Awareness of this fact doesn’t change what happened, but it can have a powerful impact on the Western public’s perceptions of this conflict, which is why WaPo’s report should be brought to their attention.

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 6 2023

Jun 062023
 
 June 6, 2023  Posted by at 9:18 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Jules Adolphe Breton The Song of the Lark 1884

 

• Hydroelectric Dam In Kherson Partially Destroyed – Mayor (RT)
• Ukraine Launches Its Counterattack (MoA)
• Ukraine ‘Well Prepared’ For Counteroffensive – Top US General Milley (RT)
• NATO Unprepared To Fight Russia – Former US General (RT)
• Kiev Renews Offensive In Donbass For 2nd Day – Russian Official (RT)
• Ukraine To Forgo F-16s In Summer Counteroffensive: Defense Minister (Az.)
• Wagner Captures Russian Commander As Prigozhin Feud With Army Escalates (G.)
• Kiev Denies Death Of Intel Chief (RT)
• Russian Governor Reacts To Kiev-Backed Militants’ Demand For Meeting (RT)
• Polish Militants Claim Involvement In Attack On Russia (RT)
• Ukraine Operates Network Of Saboteurs Inside Russia – CNN (RT)
• Russia Sees No Prospects For Further Extension Of Grain Deal (TASS)
• Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NYT)
• Should Beijing Shoulder Some Of The Local Governments’ Debts? (SCMP)
• Ice Shelves Surrounding Antarctica Grew In Overall Size From 2009-2019 (DS)

 

 

 

 

Comey

 

 

McCain

 

 

 

 

Comer

 

 

Musk RFK

 

 

 

 

Zlatti71: Overnight (Sun-Mon), losses of the enemy in the Zaporozhye Direction and Southern Donetsk Region amounted to nearly 17APCS, 11IFVS, 9 Tanks, and beyond 900+ personnel. The advance of the enemy was only 700 metres near Velkya Novoselika; the enemy attempted to go on the offensive in Avdeevka however suffered significant losses and retreated.

In the Ugledarisky and Pobjeda (Marinskoye Tactical Region); the AFU attempted to probe the villages around Pobjeda; suffered losses amounting to nearly 250 personnel and 8 vehicles and retreated. On the Ugledarisky Tactical Region, the AFU attempted to probe the villages of Myliske and Pavlovka, however, suffered losses amounting to 13 vehicles (5 SMVs and 8 IFVs and APCs) and around 5 tanks.

In total, losses are nearing 2,000 personnel and almost 45 destroyed vehicles from one night of attack. Battles continue today, as the AFU is attempting another large-scale probing attack. Western vehicles are involved.

 

 

 

 

Michael Tracey: “Another round of “Russia keeps blowing up its own critical infrastructure for reasons no one can explain.” According to the allegations, Russia’s novel strategy for prosecuting the war is to bomb itself constantly..”

• Hydroelectric Dam In Kherson Partially Destroyed – Mayor (RT)

The Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam in Russia’s Kherson Region, located on the Dnepr River upstream from the city of Kherson, suffered significant damage on Tuesday morning, according to a local official and several videos shared on social media. The upper part of the key infrastructure was “destroyed as a result of a strike,” the mayor of Novaya Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, confirmed to RIA Novosti. While several of the dam’s floodgates were damaged and unleashed an uncontrolled stream of water, the underwater structure itself withstood the attack, the official claimed. Leontyev described the incident as a major “terrorist act” and said the water level downstream had risen by up to 2.5 meters, but added there was no need for evacuations thus far.


He noted that the area has seen higher water levels during previous floods caused by heavy rainfall, but emphasized that local officials were focused on helping citizens as they prepare for a worst-case scenario. “All services work in the city, all administration employees are in place. Electricity, gas, internet, communications are available,” the mayor continued. The dam was reportedly struck around 2am local time. A video captured from a drone has circulated on Telegram, purporting to show the aftermath of the attack, with streams of water seen flowing through the breach. Moscow has repeatedly blamed Kiev for numerous attacks on the Kakhovskaya dam, warning that a breach could result in the deaths of thousands of civilians. In turn, Ukraine has claimed that Russia was planning to blow up the dam in a false-flag operation aimed at framing Kiev for the flooding.

The persistent threat was cited as one of the main reasons for evacuating civilians from certain communities in the area, and an eventual pullout of Russian forces from the city of Kherson to the left bank of the Dnepr River. Russian military and civilian officials, including acting Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo, warned at the time that many areas in the region, including the city of Kherson, could be flooded if the Kakhovskaya dam were destroyed. Kherson Region was officially declared part of Russia in early October, together with Zaporozhye Region and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, after people in those territories overwhelmingly supported the move in referendums. Kiev and its Western backers have labeled the votes a “sham” and vowed to recapture the territories using any means necessary.


Ukraine considered blowing up the dam to paralyze Russian forces who were defending the city of Kherson – and even “conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates” – a former head of Ukraine’s Operational Command South, Major General Andrey Kovalchuk, admitted in an interview with the Washington Post in December.

Dam

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“..three lines of well prepared positions ten kilometer apart from each other. Each line consists of tank obstacles, mine belts, prepared anti-tank positions to monitor and counter potential breach attempts..”

“..Two days fighting with such losses would destroy a brigade’s battle capability. 24 days with such losses would in effect destroy the entire fist of 12 brigades UkrAF has gathered for the counteroffensive..”

• Ukraine Launches Its Counterattack (MoA)

The long announced Ukrainian counter offensive has started. New Ukrainian units, never seen before, have come to the front. The attack was launched by Ukraine for political reasons under pressure from its ‘western’ sponsors. Militarily it is unlikely to become successful but it will eat away at whatever is left of Ukraine’s military capabilities. Attacks happened all around the front. In the north towards Belgograd, to the east and, with the most forces, towards the south. There was so far little to no success in any of the attacks. The daily report by the Russian Ministry of Defense list as Ukrainian losses over the last 24 hours 910 soldiers, 16 tanks, 33 armored combat vehicles/infantry fighting vehicle and some 30 trucks. So far only the most forward positions of Russian troops have been attacked. There are two to three well organized defense lines behind those. The Russians can fall back whenever needed and let the artillery and air force destroy their oncoming enemies.


As I wrote previously about any attacks in the direction of Tokmak and Melitopol: “From the point of strategic value the chosen target is the right one. However, it is also the one where the Russian military has prepared its strongest defense lines. In military books this is known as ‘echeloned defense’ with three lines of well prepared positions ten kilometer apart from each other. Each line consists of tank obstacles, mine belts, prepared anti-tank positions to monitor and counter potential breach attempts and well prepared artillery support from behind the next defense line. To crack such a nut without air support and without significant artillery advantage is nearly impossible.


Source: @Inkvisiit, Scribblemaps

There may still come larger attacks in other directions. But how many could there be? As a former Swedish officer notes:

“June 4th UkrAF scaled up offensive operations on the Southern Front, but the losses are too high for long time success. Earlier operations were mainly reconnaissance in force with platoon and company sized combat groups. Yesterday the Ukrainian forces seemed to be battalion sized combat groups. According to Russian MoD 8 UkrAF battalions was involved in offensive operations SE of Mala Tokmachka (1), at the Vremivka salient (2) and East of Vuhledar towards Velikonovoselovka (3). The fighting was intense, but on most places Ukrainian forces was turned back, mainly by intense Russian artillery and air attacks. On some places UkrAF succeeded in capturing a couple of hundred meters. [If the Russian numbers are true], the prospects for a Ukrainian counteroffensive looks very dim.

This is even if we don’t take into account the ongoing intense Russian air and artillery offensive against UkrAF troop concentrations, ammunition and fuel depots. With losses of over 1000 KIA and WIA that means that a Ukrainian brigade of 4000 man loose at least 25 percent of its manpower. That’s on the brink of making a brigade unusable. Two days fighting with such losses would destroy a brigade’s battle capability. 24 days with such losses would in effect destroy the entire fist of 12 brigades UkrAF has gathered for the counteroffensive. With losses of around 12 brigades, 25 000 KIA/WIA, 250 tanks and 1000 IFVs/APCs all the strategic reserves UkrAF has built during the last 6 months would be gone. In exchange the Ukrainian side could have advanced maybe 10 km on some places or more generally 2-3 km along maybe half the southern front. Once again, IF the Russian claims are true, RuAF must feel relieved and UkrAF very worried by the results of the fighting on the Southern front June 4th.”

I strongly suspect that the Russian military will let the Ukrainian attacks run their course to then launch its own larger scale attacks against weakened Ukrainian defenses.

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“Milley has repeatedly stated that Ukraine is unlikely to achieve its goals – which include seizing Crimea – by military force..”

• Ukraine ‘Well Prepared’ For Counteroffensive – Top US General Milley (RT)

Ukraine is “very well prepared” for its long-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told CNN on Monday. However, Ukrainian forces suffered heavy losses in a multi-pronged attack earlier in the day, and Milley cautioned that it’s “too early to tell”if the offensive will achieve its goals. Citing the “training, ammunition, advice, intelligence, etc” provided to Kiev by its Western backers, Milley claimed that Ukraine is “very well prepared” to retake territory from Russian forces. Ukrainian officials have promised for months to launch a counteroffensive, which was initially set to take place in spring. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed on multiple occasions that his military was “ready” for the anticipated push, but walked back these statements by saying that he needed more time, and Western weapons, to prepare for the operation.

Throughout this preparatory period, Ukraine reportedly lost around 50,000 servicemen in the battle for the Donbass city of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, as Russian missiles and drones continuously pounded ammunition dumps, fuel depots, and command centers, often deep into Western Ukraine. Amid mixed messages from Kiev and with its combat potential seemingly degraded by the fighting in Artyomovsk, the Ukrainian military launched what appeared to be the beginning of a counteroffensive on Sunday. Throughout Sunday and into Monday morning, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that Kiev’s forces attacked with six mechanized and two tank battalions along five sections of the frontline near Donetsk, and in other regions to the north and south.


The Russian military repelled the attacks with airstrikes and artillery fire, inflicting “significant losses”on the Ukrainians, the ministry said. According to Moscow, Ukraine has lost around 900 soldiers, 16 tanks, and 33 armored vehicles across the entire frontline since Sunday. Milley has repeatedly stated that Ukraine is unlikely to achieve its goals – which include seizing Crimea – by military force. Speaking to CNN on Monday, he continued to hedge his bets, saying that it is “too early to tell what outcomes are going to happen.”

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Whatever:

“Morawiecki claimed earlier this year that Moscow would follow its campaign in Ukraine with “the next offensive, potentially on the Baltic states, or Finland, or Poland, or Romania or Moldova, any other country bordering.”

• NATO Unprepared To Fight Russia – Former US General (RT)

NATO would not be able to move troops and equipment eastwards fast enough to stop a hypothetical Russian invasion of Europe, a retired US general has warned. “Being faster than the Russians to get to a critical place is the only metric that matters for effective deterrence, and we still can’t do that,” Ben Hodges, a former commander of US Army Europe, told the Washington Post on Monday. “Military mobility is still a problem. It is better than it was five years ago, but that’s not the metric that matters.” Almost one year earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the bloc would increase its number of high-readiness troops from 40,000 to 300,000, without explaining which countries would provide these soldiers or pay for their deployment.

All NATO has said is that 100,000 will be deployable within ten days and the rest within a month. Estonian officials are unhappy with the arrangement, the newspaper reported, and are seeking guarantees that reinforcements would arrive “not when Russian aggression starts, but from the moment we see the first indicators and warnings,” Estonian military chief Gen. Martin Herem told the Post. “If you look at a map, then how much of Estonia and for how long will we have to cede territory?” before NATO troops would arrive, Herem asked. No matter how prepared the troops are, Hodges noted that NATO would struggle to get heavy equipment to the battlefield to back them up, as there are not enough bridges and tunnels wide enough to transport armored vehicles throughout Europe, nor enough train cars to carry them.

Some countries also doubt the commitment of their allies. Until NATO leaders work out a plan to field Stoltenberg’s promised 300,000 troops, soldiers are stationed along Russia’s borders under bilateral agreements. Germany leads a NATO battle group in Lithuania, but has opposed the creation of a permanent brigade there. This has led the Lithuanians to worry that if war were to break out, political disagreement in Berlin could delay the arrival of reinforcements, former NATO assistant secretary general Camille Grand told the Post.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly claimed that Russian forces will continue to press into Europe unless Kiev is given enough Western weapons to fend them off, while Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki claimed earlier this year that Moscow would follow its campaign in Ukraine with “the next offensive, potentially on the Baltic states, or Finland, or Poland, or Romania or Moldova, any other country bordering.” The Kremlin has never expressed any intention of striking NATO territory, a move that would instantly bring Russia into war with the entire alliance. Moscow has repeatedly warned the West against deepening its involvement in the conflict by supplying arms to Kiev, arguing that doing so will prolong the fighting while making NATO members de-facto participants.

Ukr Bollywood

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Sounds costly.

• Kiev Renews Offensive In Donbass For 2nd Day – Russian Official (RT)

Ukrainian forces are attempting a major push against Russian troops for a second day, Vladimir Rogov, a Zaporozhye Region administration official, reported on Monday. The first effort on Sunday was repelled, with Kiev losing some 250 people and over a dozen tanks, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The offensive began near the village of Vremevka in Donetsk Region early on Monday morning, Rogov said on social media. He assessed the maneuver as being better organized and involving more Ukrainian troops than the assault on Sunday. Kiev has long promised to launch a major counteroffensive against Russia. However, in recent weeks Ukrainian officials have explained delays by claiming that the country needs more Western weapons first. The operation on Sunday was described as “large-scale” yet “unsuccessful” by the Russian military.


The attack, which was carried out by Ukraine’s 23rd and 31st Mechanized Brigades, was repelled, the Defense Ministry reported, adding that Kiev lost more than 250 service members, 16 tanks, three infantry vehicles, and 21 armored vehicles in the clashes. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky confirmed to the Wall Street Journal last week that his army was ready to commence the much-touted counteroffensive, claiming he expected it to be a success. His government considers the full takeover of all lands lost to Russia as the only acceptable result of the conflict. The US and its allies have pledged to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. Moscow has described the hostilities as part of Washington’s proxy war against Russia. Russian officials have also said that by pumping weapons into Ukraine Western nations are simply prolonging the conflict but will not be able to change the outcome.

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Somehow we seamlessly moved into Summer Counteroffensive.

• Ukraine To Forgo F-16s In Summer Counteroffensive: Defense Minister (Az.)

Ukraine’s defense minister says his country will forgo F-16 fighter jets but use all ground-based equipment in its widely anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces this summer, Report informs. Oleksii Reznikov spoke in an exclusive interview with NHK on Sunday in Singapore, where he had joined senior defense officials from Asian and Western nations at a major security forum. When asked about the F-16 jets long coveted by Ukraine, Reznikov said they “will not be game changing this summer.” Some Western countries are training or have offered to train Ukrainian pilots to fly the aircraft.


Reznikov said it will take time to train Ukrainian pilots and that Ukraine will also have to arrange with its partners to secure engineers and technicians who can maintain and repair the sophisticated jets. He said Ukraine would be ready to deploy F-16s in the autumn or winter. Reznikov refused to answer a question about the view that Ukraine had launched “shaping operations,” which involve attacks on weapons storage facilities and other logistics bases to prepare for the counteroffensive.

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It’s just one drunk commander. Nothing escalated. Or do you think the army likes drunk commanders?

• Wagner Captures Russian Commander As Prigozhin Feud With Army Escalates (G.)

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group of mercenaries has captured a Russian commander, as the notorious leader further escalates his feud with the regular army. In a video posted on Prigozhin’s social media channels, Lt Col Roman Venevitin, the commander of Russia’s 72nd Brigade, tells an interrogator that, while drunk, he had ordered his troops to fire on a Wagner convoy. In the footage, which resembled clips of prisoner of war soldiers, Venevitin said he acted because of his “personal dislike” for Wagner and then apologised. Last week, Prigozhin accused the Russian army of trying to blow up his men as they were pulling back from the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut.

The businessman, who is best known as “Putin’s chef” because of his catering contracts with the Kremlin, also claimed his men had discovered explosives, which he said were planted on purpose by defence ministry officials. The Russian ministry of defence has yet to comment on the footage. Two close family members of Venevitin confirmed to the Guardian that the man filmed in the video was their relative. Prigozhin, who has been arguing with top military officials for months, announced last week that his troops had largely pulled back from Bakhmut, most of which they captured last month after taking heavy casualties. The city is now believed to be controlled by the regular Russian forces.


The latest incident again exposes the rifts in Moscow’s war machine. It also comes amid an increase in fighting along the frontlines in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, leading to speculation that Kyiv has launched its much-anticipated counteroffensive. Some nationalist pro-war commentators said Wagner’s arrest of a senior Russian soldier attested to Prigozhin’s growing influence within the Kremlin. “Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose subordinates posted a video in which they mock a senior officer and an entire brigade commander … is allowed to do whatever he wants. He is considered as the highest caste!” Igor Strelkov, a retired Russian special operations officer and popular military blogger, wrote on his Telegram channel.

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Now both Zaluzhny and Budanov have disappeared from the radar. Why would they? And what’s the link to the new high precision satellite system Scott Ritter was talking about?

• Kiev Denies Death Of Intel Chief (RT)

Officials in Kiev have dismissed recent media reports about the alleged death of Kirill Budanov, the head of the Ukrainian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), as a Russian “disinformation” attempt. The Ukrainian spymaster has not made any public appearances for around a week. The last time Budanov appeared in public was in video published by the GUR on May 29, a day before a Russian missile strike on Ukrainian “decision-making centers.” Since then, the GUR has only published a written statement by Budanov on June 4 but has not posted any official videos of him. Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed in late May that the GUR headquarters was one of the targets of the Russian strike. The Russian Defense Ministry said that all of the “designated targets” had been successfully hit.

The strikes came in response to a Ukrainian drone attack targeting Moscow earlier the same day. Several residential buildings were damaged in the attack, with two people suffering minor injuries. The Defense Ministry described the drone raid as a terrorist attack staged by the “Kiev regime.” The ‘Center for Countering Disinformation’ run by the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said that all the reports about Budanov’s alleged death are “fakes” aimed at “sowing panic” among Ukrainians. It did not provide any evidence to disprove the reports or make any statements about Budanov’s whereabouts. In May, Budanov vowed to “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of the earth until the complete victory of Ukraine.” He also claimed responsibility for supposedly assassinating “many” Russian public figures, without giving any names though.


The Kremlin subsequently said that Budanov’s words only prove that Russian President Vladimir Putin was right when he launched the Russian military operation in Ukraine. “We are essentially talking about a nation that is a de-facto sponsor of terrorism,” the presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Russian media in mid-May in response to Budanov’s words. RIA Novosti reported earlier that Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, had sustained a severe injury to his head in another Russian strike. The general has not made any public appearances since mid-May. Kiev also branded those reports as fake. Zaluzhny’s Telegram channel has since said he held two phone conversations with top US officials but has posted no new videos of him.

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“He branded the RDK and the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ militants as “scoundrels, bastards, murderers and fascists..”

• Russian Governor Reacts To Kiev-Backed Militants’ Demand For Meeting (RT)

Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Sunday that he was ready to meet the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a neo-Nazi group of Russian nationals fighting for Kiev, if the militants return two of Moscow’s soldiers that were shown as captives in a recent video. “If [the Russian soldiers] are alive, [I’ll be at] the automobile border-crossing point Shebekino between 17:00 and 18:00,” Gladkov said in a video address published on his Telegram channel. He was referring to a border crossing separating Russia’s Belgorod Region from Ukraine’s territory. The governor was responding to a video published by the RDK and the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ – two neo-Nazi groups that previously claimed responsibility for several incursions into Russia this spring. Footage published by the militants shows them standing next to two Russian POWs, with one of them apparently injured.

Denis Nikitin, the RDK leader, claimed on the video that his fighters had entered the town of Novaya Tavolzhanka in Belgorod Region and offered to meet Gladkov in a local church “for a talk” in exchange for the POWs’ release. Gladkov said the fate of “our boys that are at the hands” of the militants was the only thing that prevented him from outright dismissing the militants’ offer. He branded the RDK and the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ militants as “scoundrels, bastards, murderers and fascists,” blaming them for civilian deaths. Later on Sunday, the defense ministry in Moscow said its troops and border guards had successfully repelled an attack by a sabotage group that had sought to enter Russian territory from Ukraine. The militants attempted to cross a river near Novaya Tavolzhanka but were struck with artillery and dispersed. The militants then had to fall back to Ukrainian territory, the ministry’s statement added.


A previous incursion by the RDK took place in late May. The attack left one civilian dead and 12 people injured, the Russian authorities said at that time. The Russian Defense Ministry announced in the wake of the raid that “over 70 Ukrainian terrorists, four armored combat vehicles, and five pickup trucks” had been destroyed in the militants’ clash with the Russian forces. Photos and videos released by the Russian ministry showed Western armored vehicles and equipment used by the Kiev-backed militants before being destroyed by the Russian troops. The Pentagon and the US State Department expressed doubts regarding the authenticity of the images. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the sabotage group had used equipment and small arms provided by several NATO nations, including the US.

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“..the group collaborated with the Russian Volunteer Corps, a neo-Nazi unit of Russian nationals fighting on behalf of Ukraine under the authority of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry..”

• Polish Militants Claim Involvement In Attack On Russia (RT)

Polish militants fighting for Ukraine released a statement on Sunday claiming their involvement in an attack on Russia’s Belgorod Region. The announcement, accompanied by alleged photo and video evidence, was shared on social media accounts of the so-called “Polish Volunteer Corps.” The statement appears to refer to an incursion by saboteurs into the Grayvoron District of Belgorod Region, which took place on May 22. The “Polish Volunteer Corps” said it unequivocally confirmed its role in the operation, stating that the group collaborated with the Russian Volunteer Corps, a neo-Nazi unit of Russian nationals fighting on behalf of Ukraine under the authority of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. In a bid to prove its role in the May 22 raid, fighters from the Polish Volunteer Corps shared videos, in which they can be seen with Ukrainian T-72B tanks, American HMMWV armored vehicles, and Mi-8 helicopters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The governor of Belgorod Region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, also mentioned the presence of Polish citizens among the saboteurs. On his Telegram channel, he recounted the story of a woman, whose husband – a member of the local self-defense forces – was killed in front of her. According to Gladkov, the woman was held captive by two Ukrainians, and she stated that the other group members were Poles and Americans. Previously, the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry discussed the involvement of the “Russian Volunteer Corps” and members of the “Freedom of Russia” legion in the Belgorod Region operation.


However, the “Russian Volunteer Corps” issued a statement on Sunday denying that members of the “Polish Volunteer Corps” had crossed the Russian border. The group claimed on social media that their Polish fellow combatants were involved in tasks such as prisoner escort, along with military and medical logistics, but strictly within the borders of Ukraine. Warsaw has insisted it has nothing to do with the Polish militants fighting for Kiev. “The activities of Polish volunteers supporting Ukraine in the fight against Russia should not be identified with the authorities of the Republic of Poland”, said Stanislaw Zaryn, spokesman for the coordinating minister of the country’s special services.

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That’s obvious.

• Ukraine Operates Network Of Saboteurs Inside Russia – CNN (RT)

Ukraine has cultivated a network of well-trained agents and Ukrainian sympathizers inside Russia to perform acts of sabotage across the country, CNN has reported, citing officials familiar with US intelligence. Kiev is believed to have provided those people with Ukrainian-made drones in order to stage attacks on Russian territory, the outlet claimed in an article published on Monday. The unnamed US officials also told CNN that those pro-Ukrainian agents were responsible for an attempted drone attack on the Kremlin in early May and that the UAVs used in it were launched from inside Russia.

At the time, two drones were disabled by air defenses while trying to strike the historic fortified complex in central Moscow. Ukrainian officials denied being involved, but Moscow labeled the incident “a pre-planned terrorist act” and an attempt on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s life by Kiev. CNN’s sources couldn’t say if those saboteur cells had anything to do with another drone attack on Moscow that took place last Tuesday. Several residential buildings in the capital were damaged in the raid, with two people suffering minor injuries. Three of the incoming drones were suppressed by electronic warfare measures, while five others were shot down by air defenses, according to the Russian military.


Two officials told CNN that Ukraine had been delivering whole UAVs and spare parts to build them to its agents via smuggling routes that had been allegedly established in Russia by Kiev. The issue of who is controlling those saboteurs is a “murky” one, according to CNN. However, it pointed out that US officials believed some agents within Ukraine’s intelligence community were involved in these attacks. Following the drone strike in Moscow a week ago, Putin accused Ukraine of “terrorist activity,” as well as trying to provoke Russia to come up with a tit-for-tat response.

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Russia can ship it all to Africa by itself. But Ukraine cannot.

• Russia Sees No Prospects For Further Extension Of Grain Deal (TASS)

Russia sees no prospects for extending the grain deal again, but consultations with UN representatives on existing agreements continue, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin told reporters on Monday. When asked by TASS about the chances of extending the grain deal he replied: “We do not see them, but we continue, of course, consultations with UN representatives on both parts of those package agreements that, as you know, were signed in July last year.” The diplomat stressed that Ukraine has been putting forward various conditions for the implementation of the grain deal, which has already brought the situation to a standstill. “We have said several times that ammonia is included in the agreements that were signed in Istanbul. This implies that it should be exported and sold as a mutually beneficial commercial transaction.


Unfortunately, putting forward various kinds of requirements, as Kiev does, is very bad, and has already brought the situation to a standstill,” the deputy foreign minister said. Vershinin also recalled that the Russian side proceeds from the fact that “the concluded and existing agreements must be implemented in full.” “This means – without distortions in one direction or the other,” he stressed. The senior diplomat also announced that the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) in Istanbul has resumed ship inspections under the grain deal. “As far as we know, the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul is working to overcome all the problems that arise, based on the procedural rules that were unanimously approved last year. It is assumed that there will be a consensus solution to emerging problems. Now these inspections are being resumed,” he said.

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Note: I don’t subscribe to the NYT or any other outlet. That would go against the idea of being open to and for everyone: accept no paywalls anywhere. Through a mirror site, though, is OK. That’s also how I can do RT etc. Either post the entire article or make sure it’s available via a mirror site.

As for this NYT piece: Yeah, why not compare the Confederate flag with the swastika? No shame.

“Wearing Nazi symbols helps our enemies spread lies about our friends being Nazis — NY Times”

• Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NYT)

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian government and NATO allies have posted, then quietly deleted, three seemingly innocuous photographs from their social media feeds: a soldier standing in a group, another resting in a trench and an emergency worker posing in front of a truck. In each photograph, Ukrainians in uniform wore patches featuring symbols that were made notorious by Nazi Germany and have since become part of the iconography of far-right hate groups. The photographs, and their deletions, highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II. That relationship has become especially delicate because Russian President Vladimir Putin has falsely declared Ukraine to be a Nazi state, a claim he has used to justify his illegal invasion.

Ukraine has worked for years through legislation and military restructuring to contain a fringe far-right movement whose members proudly wear symbols steeped in Nazi history and espouse views hostile to leftists, LGBTQ movements and ethnic minorities. But some members of these groups have been fighting Russia since the Kremlin illegally annexed part of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014 and are now part of the broader military structure. Some are regarded as national heroes, even as the far-right remains marginalized politically. The iconography of these groups, including a skull-and-crossbones patch worn by concentration camp guards and a symbol known as the Black Sun, now appears with some regularity on the uniforms of soldiers fighting on the front line, including soldiers who say the imagery symbolizes Ukrainian sovereignty and pride, not Nazism.

In the short term, that threatens to reinforce Putin’s propaganda and giving fuel to his false claims that Ukraine must be “de-Nazified” — a position that ignores the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish. More broadly, Ukraine’s ambivalence about these symbols, and sometimes even its acceptance of them, risks giving new, mainstream life to icons that the West has spent more than a half-century trying to eliminate. “What worries me, in the Ukrainian context, is that people in Ukraine who are in leadership positions, either they don’t or they’re not willing to acknowledge and understand how these symbols are viewed outside of Ukraine,” said Michael Colborne, a researcher at the investigative group Bellingcat who studies the international far right. “I think Ukrainians need to increasingly realize that these images undermine support for the country.” In a statement, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that, as a country that suffered greatly under German occupation, “We emphasize that Ukraine categorically condemns any manifestations of Nazism.”

So far, the imagery has not eroded international support for the war. It has, however, left diplomats, Western journalists and advocacy groups in a difficult position: Calling attention to the iconography risks playing into Russian propaganda. Saying nothing allows it to spread. Even Jewish groups and anti-hate organizations that have traditionally called out hateful symbols have stayed largely silent. Privately, some leaders have worried about being seen as embracing Russian propaganda talking points. Questions over how to interpret such symbols are as divisive as they are persistent, and not just in Ukraine. In the American South, some have insisted that today, the Confederate flag symbolizes pride, not its history of racism and secession. The swastika was an important Hindu symbol before it was co-opted by the Nazis.

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Major “growth” engine. But always problematic.

• Should Beijing Shoulder Some Of The Local Governments’ Debts? (SCMP)

China’s local government debt crisis is approaching a tipping point as concerns over city and county government default risks mount and Beijing’s willingness to offer enough support to avert a meltdown is questioned. Late last month, Kunming, capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, denied online reports that its local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) were having difficulty repaying debt after one of them was involved in a last-minute scramble to repay 2 billion yuan (US$282.3 million) on May 21. LGFVs were created to aid off-budget financing, especially for infrastructure spending, but weak disclosure requirements have led to concerns about hidden debt risks.

In April, a government think tank in Guizhou warned that the province, which neighbours Yunnan, could not manage its debt on its own and needed help from the central government. The report was subsequently removed by censors. Over the past few years, Beijing has stepped up its supervision of local government debt in a bid to curb risks and has said that local governments should not count on a state bailout. But Yu Yongding, a prominent economist and former central bank adviser, said the central government’s approach of relying on local governments to sort out their debt problems was wrong. “Local governments are the offspring of the central government, and the central government must also assume certain responsibilities,” Yu wrote in a blog post published on May 4 by the Economists 50 Forum, a Chinese think tank.

“Importantly, resolving local government debt should not lead to a further decline in economic growth. Of course, moral hazard cannot be encouraged. Those who are directly responsible for causing the deterioration of local debts should also bear corresponding responsibilities.” Yu estimated that the central government only contributed around 0.1 per cent of infrastructure spending, compared to nearly 60 per cent by LGFVs, which incurred higher borrowing costs. Hu Jie, a former senior economist at the US Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and now a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said the ratio of local debt to gross domestic product (GDP) in many provinces was already “too high”.

And deleveraging “too quickly” might trigger a series of defaults, Hu told the Shanghai-based news website guancha.cn in an interview published at the end of last month. “But when a local government has problems and cannot clean up the mess, the central government cannot stay out of it,” Hu said. There are no official figures for local governments’ off-balance sheet borrowing but most estimates indicate it has been growing.

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After the Covid “The Science” debacle, we must be sceptical here too.

• Ice Shelves Surrounding Antarctica Grew In Overall Size From 2009-2019 (DS)

The ice shelves surrounding Antarctica grew in overall size during the 11 years to 2019, according to dramatic new evidence published by three climate scientists from the University of Leeds. The growth was significant with overall shelf area increasing by 5,305 km2, adding 0.4% to the total shelf area in the 11 years under review. The paper has just been published by the influential European Geosciences Union, but it raises questions within the ‘settled’ climate science narrative, so it is highly unlikely to be covered by mainstream media.

The Leeds researchers looked at satellite data to measure the annual calving position and area of 34 ice sheets accounting for 80% of the Antarctica coastline. They found reductions in the area on the Antarctica Peninsula and West Antarctica of 6,693 km2 and 5,563 km2 respectively were outweighed by growth in East Antarctica of 3,532 km2 and 14,028 km2 in the large Ross and Ronne-Filchner ice shelves. The largest retreat occurred on the Larsen C shelf when 5,917 km2 was lost in a single calving event that made alarmist headlines around the world. The largest increase, noted in slightly less media detail, was the 5,889 km2 advance on the Ronne platform.


Ice shelves around the coast of Antarctica play an important role in the cycle of ice production since they often buttress the glaciers behind them. Remove the plug and glaciers can move at a faster rate towards the coast. The shelves show considerable natural variation allowing alarmists to cherry-pick significant collapses into the sea to promote a hypothesis that the overall climate is breaking down. Typical of this coverage was an article by BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos in 2021 under a ‘climate change’ heading, noting, “The Antarctic ice shelf in the line of fire.” In 2017, i News reported comments broadcast by Sir David Attenborough said to warn that “Antarctica’s melting ice sheets could flood London by end of century”.

The above map displays the ice shelf areas in blue that have increased in size and colours in red those that have decreased. The two large blue areas are the Ross and Ronne-Filchner areas. Little loss is shown over the east of the continent with deficits concentrated in the West. In total, 18 ice shelves are said to have retreated and 16 larger platforms have grown in area. Overall, the shelves gained 661 giga tonnes of mass over the decade. The scientists note that using a ‘steady’ state process, by which they mean no change in any variable, would produce an estimate of substantial loss over the period. They argue their work demonstrates the importance of using “time-variable calving flux observations to measure change”.


In short, and in less scientific terms, check actual observations, and ignore make-believe computer models, and the resulting stories published by climate alarmists promoting the collectivist Net Zero project. It is not a surprise that ice shelves are currently thinning in parts of West Antarctica. The area is riddled with buried volcanos, with the recent discovery of another 91 bringing the known total to 138. Across the West Antarctica Rift System, their heights range from 300-12,600 ft. In addition, areas around the Thwaites-Pine Island-Pope glacier have a thin Earth crust causing one group of scientists to note that the “elevated geothermal heat flow band” is exerting a “profound influence on the flow dynamics of the Western Antarctica Ice Sheet”.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Alex Jones

 

 

Argentina TV

 

 


“The magnificent facade of Strasbourg Cathedral – what did they know in 1439 that we have forgotten?”

 

 

Twigs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1665568374146084864

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle June 5 2023

Jun 052023
 
 June 5, 2023  Posted by at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  31 Responses »


Rufino Tamayo Perro aullando (Howling Dog) 1960

 

• Ukrainian Army’s Offensive Attempt Failed – Russian Defense Ministry (TASS)
• Ukraine Lacks Weapons To Launch Counteroffensive – Zelensky Aide (RT)
• Is the United States Losing Its Control of Ukraine? (Snider)
• Belgium Questions Kiev About Attack Inside Russia (RT)
• Biden’s Health Is A National Security Issue – Ex-White House Doctor (RT)
• EU Desperate To Clamp Down On Musk’s Free Speech As ‘Disinformation’ (Marsden)
• Elon Musk Uses Team DeSantis Twitter Community Notes to Undermine Trump (CTH)
• American Airlines Struggles With Pilot Deficit, Grounds 150 Aircraft (ET)
• What Are German Fighter Pilots Doing in China? (Spiegel)
• Germany To Deploy Warships To Indo-Pacific (RT)
• Lawmaker Probing J6: ‘People Of Interest’ May Have Withheld Critical Intel (JTN)
• OPEC+ Countries To Perform Voluntary Production Cuts — Novak (TASS)
• Wave Of Defaults Looming – Deutsche Bank (RT)
• Police Omitted Folder Called ‘CIA’ From Laptop Of Assange Spy (El Pais)

 

 

Same person? Are we sure?

 

 

 

Woke Soros

 

 

 

 

Chemo

 

 

 

 

RFK Ukraine

 

 

 

 

Wokes

 

 

Website hosting Hunter Biden photo archive shut down for distributing child porn.

 

 

 

 

The start of the counteroffensive? The presence of Gerasimov in the frontline indicates Russia was not surprised.

• Ukrainian Army’s Offensive Attempt Failed – Russian Defense Ministry (TASS)

The Ukrainian armed forces failed to achieve success in a large-scale offensive on five front sectors in the south Donetsk area, official spokesman of the Russian Defense Ministry Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said. “The adversary launched a large-scale offensive from the morning of June 4 on five sectors of the front in the south Donetsk area by bringing into action 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades from strategic reserves of the Ukrainian armed forces with support from other military units and teams,” the spokesman said. “The adversary’s objective was to break through our defense on the most vulnerable front sector, in its opinion. The enemy failed to perform its tasks and had no success,” Konashenkov noted.


The adversary used six mechanized battalions and two tank battalions, the defense ministry’s spokesman informed. “As a result of skilled and sophisticated action of the Battlegroup East, the Ukrainian armed forces lost more than 250 persons, sixteen tanks, three mechanized infantry combat vehicles and 21 combat armored vehicles,” Konashenkov stressed. He particularly noted that Chief of General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov was at one of frontline command posts in this area.

Counter

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They will never be ready.

• Ukraine Lacks Weapons To Launch Counteroffensive – Zelensky Aide (RT)

Ukraine needs more weapons and ammunition to be able to carry out a successful counteroffensive against the Russian forces, the deputy head of President Vladimir Zelensky’s office has said. In an interview with British newspaper The Times on Saturday, Igor Zhovkva was asked why the much-anticipated operation by Ukraine, aimed at retaking land lost to Russia, still hasn’t been launched. “If you want to start a successful counteroffensive you need everything at your disposal, including artillery, armored vehicles and tanks, so probably we don’t have enough,” he replied. “More weapons is the No 1 topic in each and every conversation” that Zelensky had during his numerous foreign trips over the past month, Zhovkva, who is also the Ukrainian president’s top foreign affairs adviser, stressed. “Every country knows what kind of weapons we need from them, to protect our territory, stop the rockets,” the official added.

He also suggested that Russia has intensified its missile and drone campaign across Ukraine in recent months in a bid to deter the offensive by Kiev’s troops, which was expected to begin in spring. The UK “now is one of the leading countries in showing real incentive and courage in how to really bring victory to my country,” he stated, adding that other nations need to do more to assist Kiev. “Sorry, but the European countries are still too slow and not doing enough with sanctions” against Russia, Zhovkva insisted. Zelensky told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday that the Ukrainian military was “ready” for the counteroffensive, but did not say when exactly it will start. He also pointed out that Kiev would have wanted to see more weapons provided by the West, but that “we can’t wait for months” to launch the assault. Among other things, Ukraine needs 50 US-made Patriot air defense batteries to sufficiently protect its cities and troops on the battlefield ahead of the counteroffensive, Zelensky said.

With the price of a single Patriot battery estimated at $1.1 billion, the overall cost of the demand would be around $55 billion, which is more than the total amount of American military aid allocated to Kiev since the start of the conflict. The Ukrainian leader acknowledged that Russia’s air superiority would leave Kiev’s troops exposed and “a large number of soldiers will die” during the counteroffensive. Moscow has repeatedly warned that deliveries of weapons, including sophisticated ones, to Ukraine by the US and its allies could cross “red lines,” leading to a major escalation in the hostilities. Russia argues that the provision of arms, intelligence sharing, and training to Kiev’s troops already means that Western nations are de facto parties to the conflict.

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That’s what the US would like everyone to think: We had no idea!

• Is the United States Losing Its Control of Ukraine? (Snider)

In the very early days of the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was open to negotiating a peace. A proposed peace could have ended the war before tens of thousands of Ukrainians died and Ukraine’s infrastructure was devastated, on terms that satisfied Kiev’s goals. But the United States pressured Ukraine to go on fighting in pursuit, not of Ukraine’s goals, but of larger American ones. Putting an end to Ukraine’s negotiations with Russia, State Department spokesperson Ned Price remarkably said, “This is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine,” and insisted that Ukrainians go on fighting and dying for “core principles.” The United States got its way. Now a year later, with the war not going well for Ukraine and the country getting more and more desperate, Ukraine is forced to retreat to pursuing its own goals.

Ironically, that is increasingly taking the form of escalating the war in a way that now endangers American goals. Ukraine is now pursing its own security interests in a way that is extraordinarily dangerous to U.S. security interests. And they seem to be disregarding U.S. restrictions in pursuing them. Months of American permissiveness and failure to say no to Ukraine at each crossing of a red line has seemingly emboldened Ukraine to ignore U.S. limits and conditions on the use of American-supplied weapons. One of the key goals of the Biden administration is to stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes to defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity. That is Joe Biden’s promise to Ukraine. But a second key goal is to avoid being drawn into a direct war between NATO and Russia.

That is Joe Biden’s promise to Americans. A recent wave of Ukrainian attacks on the territory of Russia—not Donbas or Crimea, but the internationally recognized territory of Russia—threatens that promise and threatens the security of Americans. Ukraine has long promised “not to target Russian territory with weapons provided by the West.” They recently reiterated that promise, saying British supplied long range Storm Shadow cruise missiles “will be used only within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not inside Russia,” and when they provided the United States “flat assurances” that F-16 fighter-bombers won’t be used inside Russian territory.

But Ukraine did not keep those promises. In pursuit of their goals—understandably, since the U.S. insisted they postpone those goals and go on fighting the Russian military in pursuit of American goals—they have crossed the red line of U.S. limits and conditions on the use of American-supplied weapons and struck inside Russian territory. This defiantly independent military strategy is increasing the danger that the United States and NATO could get drawn into a war with Russia.

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There are videos that show ‘Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK)’ members speaking Polish.

• Belgium Questions Kiev About Attack Inside Russia (RT)

Brussels is concerned over media reports claiming that weapons it sent to Kiev were used by militants to launch incursions into Russia, several Belgian media outlets reported on Sunday, adding that the government will demand an official explanation from Ukraine on the issue. Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder and Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib will “contact the Ukrainian authorities and ask for clarifications,” the defense minister’s office confirmed to Belgium’s RTBF broadcaster. The documents accompanying each weapons delivery from Belgium “explicitly state” that the military equipment can only be distributed to the regular armed forces and used only to “defend” Ukrainian territory, the media added. “These weapons are therefore not authorized for isolated groups that have an internal Russian agenda,” a Belgian official told another local media outlet, Le Soir.

The Belgian media also described the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ and the ‘Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK)’ – two Kiev-backed militant groups that are said to be in possession of Western arms – as groups that have “neo-Nazi” members within their ranks. The RDK and the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ were responsible for several incursions into Russian territory in March and May 2023. Photos and videos published by the militants from their raid last month, as well as images released by the Russian Defense Ministry in the wake of the clashes with the militants, suggested that their sabotage groups made use of US and Polish armored vehicles, as well as Belgian and Czech assault rifles. The Pentagon and the US State Department expressed doubts regarding the authenticity of the images.

On Saturday, the Washington Post reported, citing sources linked to US intelligence, that the militants did use weapons and heavy equipment supplied to Kiev by their Western backers. The May raid ended up with the Russian forces killing “over 70 Ukrainian terrorists” and destroying “four armored combat vehicles, and five pickup trucks,” the Russian Defense Ministry said at that time. The incursion resulted in one civilian death and 12 injuries, according to Russian authorities. On Sunday, the two militant groups sought to launch another cross-border raid into Russia’s Belgorod Region, its governor said. The militants were “dispersed” and pushed back into Ukrainian territory, the defense ministry said later the same day.

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He was Obama’s physician too. Bet he was listened to back then.

• Biden’s Health Is A National Security Issue – Ex-White House Doctor (RT)

The White House is guilty of “malpractice” for allowing President Joe Biden to seek re-election while in such a state of physical and mental decline, former White House physician and Republican Congressman Ronny Jackson has told Fox News. Biden tripped and fell while leaving the stage after a commencement ceremony at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado on Thursday. Although the White House said Biden was “fine,” and had been surprised by a sandbag on stage, video footage showed the president apparently needing directions to find his way to the podium in the first place. “I don’t wanna sound like a broken record, but I’m just going to say it again: This man’s not fit mentally or physically to be our president, and it’s a bad situation for us,” Jackson told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Friday.

“I think his lack of physical ability and his physical decline is now starting to highlight the cognitive decline that we’ve been watching for so long now,” Jackson continued. “It’s a package that just doesn’t sell around the world, and it’s becoming a national security issue for us.”Jackson, who served as White House physician to Donald Trump and Barack Obama, has repeatedly warned about Biden’s mental health, declaring earlier this year that the 80-year-old president “doesn’t know where he’s at half the time and every day he brings us closer to an all-out war with Russia and China.” According to a recent NPR poll, 62% of Americans believe that Biden’s mental fitness is “a real concern about his ability to be president,” with 36% of Democrats and 69% of independents agreeing with this statement.

A Washington Post poll taken at the beginning of May also found that 62% of voters believe Biden to be in too poor a physical condition to serve effectively. Biden is already the oldest commander-in-chief ever to lead the US, and if elected in 2024 will be 86 years old leaving office. It “is just malpractice on part of the White House in the West Wing to allow this to be happening, for him to even be talking about running for another term,” Jackson told Hannity. “Somebody needs to be held accountable. People like Jill Biden and people that surround him and are supposed to love him and care about him, they should be doing something about this, and they should be stopping this because it’s a shame.”

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Breton: “I am the enforcer. I represent the law, which is the will of the state and the people..”

Idiot.

• EU Desperate To Clamp Down On Musk’s Free Speech As ‘Disinformation’ (Marsden)

European Union officials are having a meltdown, all because Twitter CEO Elon Musk has withdrawn the platform from a “voluntary” EU code of conduct for tech firms to combat so-called “disinformation.” And they have yet to cite a single actual example of it. EU Internal Markets Commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted, “You can run, but you can’t hide,” citing a legal obligation to prevent disinformation from August. He’s basically treating Musk, a guy who builds rockets and cars in America, like an unruly schoolchild, with Brussels in the role of the principal. French Digital Minister Jean-Noel Barrot even threatened to ban Twitter from the EU in a recent interview, citing the “grave” threat of disinformation. They’re basically accusing Musk of pre-crime, like in the movie ‘Minority Report’ where Tom Cruise’s character is chased down by the state before having committed an offense.

The EU is seeking to bring the very long arm of its authoritarianism down on Musk and other private tech players – however far outside the EU they might actually be – who refuse to abide by Brussels’ “Code of Practice on Disinformation,” concocted in 2018 and revised last year. Breton is even heading to Silicon Valley to check in on them. “I am the enforcer. I represent the law, which is the will of the state and the people,” he said about his trip. Sounds like Mr. Enforcer could use a good humbling from the people he purports to represent, and what better way for it to be delivered than through Musk, who envisions Twitter as the voice of the people and a platform for truly free expression. By withdrawing from the code, Musk is just the latest example of what seems to be a trend.

Facebook’s parent company Meta has already laid off moderators. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and others have also cut into their watchdog departments, citing cost-cutting measures. Perhaps policing narratives is bad for business. You have to wonder, though – if joining this EU pact is optional, then what exactly is the big deal? It’s not like there’s any guarantee that any of the signatories are actually reducing what the EU considers as disinformation. In fact, the whole concept of top-down policing of information flow raises suspicion about the potential marginalization of views and debates that oppose the establishment narrative. According to this EU code, tech platforms like Twitter are connected with “fact-checkers, civil society, and third-party organizations with specific expertise on disinformation.” The policy document adds that platforms also must report to an EU “Code Taskforce,” monitoring their efforts. Given that any such actors would implicitly have the EU’s stamp of approval, it’s not a stretch to imagine that they could effectively end up acting as enforcers or gatekeepers of the establishment narrative.

Musk himself is no stranger to this kind of systemic collusion between state actors and platforms to the detriment of contradictory debate and free information flow. It was his own release of the Twitter Files in the wake of his acquisition of the platform that brought to light the collusion between Twitter and Western government authorities to manipulate and censor public debate over Covid-19, for example, or to coordinate on certain narratives about geopolitical competitors (like Russia) – all under the guise of fighting “disinformation.” Speaking of which, it didn’t take long after Musk’s withdrawal from the disinfo code for the EU’s vice president for values and transparency – an Orwellian title, if there ever was one – to suggest that the ultimate beneficiary of Musk’s actions in withdrawing from the code wasn’t free speech and debate, but rather Russia.

“Bye, bye birdie,” Vera Jourova said. “Twitter has chosen a hard way to comply with our digital laws. Russia’s disinformation is dangerous and it is irresponsible to leave EU’s anti-disinformation code.” Right, because all facts and analysis that don’t align with the Western agenda has to be Russian, as these folks see it. The reasoning is just a step away from proclaiming Musk to be some kind of useful idiot for Russia, despite him also being a major Pentagon contractor.

Elon BBee

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Lawyer “sundance” has a elaborate theory. Can’t say I’m overly covinced.

• Elon Musk Uses Team DeSantis Twitter Community Notes to Undermine Trump (CTH)

The issue of Twitter’s financial status speaks to the motives of Musk that later surface – like his relationship with Fox News billionaire Rupert Murdoch. Once you see the connections, suddenly everything makes sense. Musk and Murdoch have intersecting interests. Elon Musk is in desperate need of revenue for his social media platform Twitter. By his own admissions, Twitter is currently in the red on an annual basis between $1.5 to $4.0 billion; that may go as high as $5 billion, depending on what happens over the next six months. Currently losing $100 million/mo, Musk is limited on how much he can pull from his other companies to support Twitter, and with $1.5 billion in debt service alone on the $12.5 billion borrowed for the Twitter purchase, Musk needs an income stream quickly.

Advertising revenue has dropped 50%. This is the motive for Musk to hire Linda Jaccarino, the former head of NBC Universal advertising, to bring urgently needed revenue to a platform currently considered too extreme for the DEI-minded corporate advertising executives. Musk is also captive to contracts with Bezos’ Amazon (AWS) and Google cloud services for platform data processing support. Those very expensive contracts – $1 billion and $2 billion respectively – do not expire until 2025. In short, Musk needs revenue. For Twitter, this reality drives his decision-making. Enter, Rupert Murdoch. Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and Harper Collins book publishing. Murdoch wants to control the outcome of the 2024 election and strongly supports Ron DeSantis on behalf of his Wall Street allies.

Murdoch financed DeSantis through the Harper Collins book deal, and Murdoch has turned his media outlets into advanced PR for the DeSantis campaign. The Murdoch media approach includes lengthy and friendly broadcast Fox News appearances, interviews and pundit advocacy, while the print side spins favorable stories. The Wall Street Journal and New York Post are doing the same. It is a full-court press to support DeSantis on behalf of the interests of Murdoch et al. Keep in mind, the RNC has given Fox News control over the kickoff GOP debate. Elon Musk needs money; this is not in question. Rupert Murdoch, supporting Ron DeSantis, wants control of the 2024 election outcome; also, this is not in question. These two facets form the baseline of a common interest.

Elon Musk launches the DeSantis campaign via Twitter Spaces – not accidental. Musk then uses his platform control mechanisms to amplify DeSantis and counteract the strong and visible platform support for Donald Trump. What outlet pushes the narrative that flows from the operation? Rupert Murdoch. NEW YORK POST – “Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign’s claims are already being hit with Twitter’s new “community notes,” which fact-check or offer context to dubious posts. In May alone, Team Trump and their surrogates were slapped with community notes on at least seven occasions — and were often cited for posting flat-out lies.” Christina Pushaw is a registered foreign agent working for the DeSantis campaign. Ms. Pushaw went from working in Ukraine, for Volodymyr Zelenskyy, directly to working in Florida as Ron DeSantis’ press secretary.

Pushaw was the person who gathered the “influence operation” over the past two years on behalf of the DeSantis 2024 operation. That operation was visible in 2022, denied in 2022, then finally admitted two weeks ago. Now working for the DeSantis campaign, Christina Pushaw – a fellow traveler from the George Soros network and schooling – has organized the same type of influence campaign used in Ukraine to support Zelenskyy, only this time she is exploiting social media and specifically Twitter. This is why she spent so much time recruiting ‘influencers’ in 2021 and 2022, and even tried to deny she was doing it.

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Cause: vaxx mandates and vaxx injuries.

• American Airlines Struggles With Pilot Deficit, Grounds 150 Aircraft (ET)

American Airlines, a leading carrier based in Fort Worth, is currently grappling with a significant challenge. The airline is unable to operate approximately 150 of its regional aircraft due to a persistent shortage of pilots, as revealed by CEO Robert Isom. Speaking at the Bernstein 39th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference, Isom stated, “We would deploy properly to markets that aren’t being served. We would do that today. It’s just we don’t have the pilots.” This issue arises at a time when the airline industry is witnessing a record demand for travel, particularly during the summer season. However, the capacity to meet this demand is constrained by the lack of pilots, leading to grounded planes and missed opportunities to capitalize on high ticket prices. Isom noted that the situation is more severe than the previous year when the pilot shortage began to significantly affect regional airlines as demand rebounded following the downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Looking ahead, Isom shared that American Airlines expects to acquire more pilots for its regional network over the next 18 to 24 months. Once these pilots are onboard, the grounded aircraft will be reintroduced into service in a manner that is expected to generate favorable unit revenues. He stated, “American anticipates getting more pilots over the next 18 to 24 months for the regional network, and those aircraft would be put back into service in a fashion that is going to produce unit revenues that are very favorable.” However, the challenge of pilot shortage is not unique to American Airlines. The airline industry as a whole is projected to face a deficit of nearly 80,000 pilots by 2032, as per a report by Oliver Wyman.

[..] The Biden administration put pressure on airlines to require vaccines as part of a broader strategy to boost inoculation rates in the country in October 2021. “While we are still working through the details of the federal requirements, it is clear that team members who choose to remain unvaccinated will not be able to work at American Airlines,” Doug Parker, American Airlines chief executive, told employees in an Oct. 1, 2021 memo. According to a group of attorneys, doctors, and other experts—and a pilot who says his career ended due to adverse reactions from a vaccine—the Federal Aviation Administration has been breaking its own rule that states pilots should not fly after having taken medications that have been approved for less than a year, The Epoch Times reported in December 2021.

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Almost funny.

• What Are German Fighter Pilots Doing in China? (Spiegel)

Bundeswehr fighter pilots usually enter retirement at 41, an age at which reflexes tend to grow duller and vision worse. Those who begin flying for the German Air Force at the age of 20 receive half of their final monthly salary as a pension once they reach 41. Most former pilots find it insufficient and look for secondary employment. The training of pilots in China began just over 10 years ago, with a former Bundeswehr pilot declaring a position at the Test Flying Academy of South Africa, which trains Chinese pilots. Sources in Berlin say the pilot did not transgress any formal restrictions with the move and point out that China at the time was not seen as an authoritarian rival. Germany was also providing official training to Chinese officers at the time. The naivete of this approach became clearer than ever last fall, when Australia arrested the American pilot Daniel Duggan.

He stands accused of having trained Chinese pilots, just like his German counterparts – allegations which Duggan denies. He is currently behind bars and may be extradited to the United States. British agencies also sounded the alarm last fall. According to a British Defense Ministry announcement, up to 30 former Royal Air Force officers are thought to have provided training to Chinese fighter pilots in the last several years. They received the princely salary of 280,000 euros each for their services. Because the pilots violated no applicable laws, London announced it would be introducing a legal reform. American investigators believe that the imprisoned pilot Duggan was recruited by the Chinese company Lode Tech, which was founded by businessman Su Bin, the son of an officer in the People’s Liberation Army. Su lived for many years in Canada, where he operated an aviation company with 80 employees.

As later became clear, he also spied on behalf of the Chinese state. Su developed a particularly keen interest in the construction blueprints for the C-17, a transport plane developed by Boeing for the U.S. military. In the summer of 2014, Su was arrested, subsequently confessing that he had spent six years secretly collecting information for China. He had been able to rely on an extensive network of contacts in the aviation industry, making it possible for him to identify particularly interesting engineers and other professionals for his handlers back in China. With the help of phishing emails, hackers employed by the state were then able to find their way into company computer networks. In total, they were able to steal 630,000 pieces of data related to the C-17.

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How did Germany become so belligerent?

• Germany To Deploy Warships To Indo-Pacific (RT)

Germany will deploy two warships to the Indo-Pacific next year, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at an international summit on Sunday, amid ongoing regional tensions involving China and Taiwan, as well as the disputed South China Sea. In an address at the Shangri-La Dialogue security conference in Singapore on Sunday, Pistorius declared that the maritime passage, through which around 40% of Europe’s foreign trade travels, must be respected. “To this end, the German federal government sent a frigate to the Indo-Pacific in 2021, and will again, in 2024, deploy maritime assets,” Pistorius said at the conference, which was attended by many of the world’s most influential defense officials.

These assets, Pistorius said, would comprise a frigate and a supply ship – but he stressed that the maritime deployment is not being undertaken to counter actions of any specific actor in the region. “To the contrary,” he continued, “they are dedicated to the protection of the rules-based international order that we all signed up to and which we all should benefit from.” Berlin and Beijing maintain key trade links, but the deployment of the warships to the South China Sea in 2024 could potentially lead to headaches as Germany seeks to juggle its security and economic interests.

In 2021, a German warship was deployed to the region for the first time in almost two decades. Other Western countries have also increased their military presence in the area amid concerns about Beijing’s territorial objectives, particularly in relation to Taiwan. Beijing has asserted that the South China Sea is its exclusive maritime zone. However, about seven years ago, a tribunal under the terms of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea firmly rejected Beijing’s territorial claim to the waters. Despite this, China has installed military outposts on at least three islands in the sea.

Last month, Beijing expressed its “significant displeasure” at a visit by German government minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger to Taiwan – which Beijing views as a breakaway province. China has frequently rebuked Western nations for engaging in diplomacy with leaders in Taipei, which it views as a part of its sovereign territory under the ‘One-China’ principle. On Saturday at the same conference in Singapore, Pistorius said he had “made it clear” to Beijing that he expected China to end its practice of enlisting former German military pilots to help train its own forces. This followed a report by German news magazine Spiegel on Friday, which said China had been receiving such training for years, and that security officials in Berlin were concerned that the military knowledge of German and NATO forces were being discussed.

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The only newsworthy part of the long article is at the bottom: it was all scripted.

• Lawmaker Probing J6: ‘People Of Interest’ May Have Withheld Critical Intel (JTN)

Loudermilk also revealed that he is reviewing the work of the Democrat-led House Jan. 6 investigative committee that wrapped up its work last year, and has found some shocking evidence that much of its public hearings were stage managed. “We found out in the in the documents that I acquired from the Jan. 6 committee is the written script of every member of the committee. Just like you would have on a teleprompter or if you memorize a script for a movie,” he said. “And so every single aspect of their hearings was scripted for a Hollywood type of emotional appeal to the American people.”


He said Republicans now running the House administration committee are taking a different approach to elicit facts, no emotion. “We just recently had a hearing with the chief of the Capitol Police. There was nothing scripted about it,” he said. “We did have certain questions that we wanted to ask, but each member had their questions. The chief wasn’t given a script in advance. … These hearings from the January 6 Select Committee were Hollywood productions.”

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Voluntary? There’s some pressure being applied.

• OPEC+ Countries To Perform Voluntary Production Cuts — Novak (TASS)

Commitments on voluntary reduction of oil production assumed by certain OPEC+ countries will be honored, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on the air with the Rossiya-24 TV channel. “The agreement has performance above the target lately because there is a range of counties not taking up their quotas. As regards the decisions made on voluntary reduction since May, third party source data will be available in mid-June but we see from discussions, from the exchange of opinions between heads of delegations, that these agreements are performed, including Russia performing in full scope. That is why I am confident that the reduction announced additionally since May 1 will be implemented,” Novak said. Russia will extend its voluntary oil production cut by 500,000 barrels daily until the end of December 2024, the deputy prime minister said earlier.

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The tightest Fed and ECB policy in 15 years is colliding with high leverage built upon stretched margins..”

• Wave Of Defaults Looming – Deutsche Bank (RT)

A cycle of boom and bust will return this year and a wave of corporate debt defaults is imminent, particularly in the US and Europe, Deutsche Bank has warned. According to the bank’s annual study released on Wednesday, defaults by companies will become more commonplace compared with the last 20 years. Deutsche expects default rates to peak in the fourth quarter of 2024. The bank projected peak default rates to reach 9% for US high-yield debt, 11.3% for US loans, 4.4% for European high-yield bonds, and 7.3% for European loans. The estimated US loan peak default rate is a near all-time high, compared to a peak of 12% during the 2007-2008 global financial crisis and 7.7% during the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, the study showed.

“Our cycle indicators signal a default wave is imminent,” Deutsche economists wrote. “The tightest Fed and ECB policy in 15 years is colliding with high leverage built upon stretched margins. And tactically, our US credit cycle gauge is producing its highest non-pandemic warning signal to investors, since before the GFC [Global Financial Crisis].” Strategists noted that the magnitude and length of the cycle could come as a surprise. “Although our forecasts just presume a return of the Boom Bust cycle, not a GFC-style shock,” they added.

Aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks, including the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank as they continue to fight runaway inflation, have raised global recession risks, Deutsche warned. The EU’s largest economy, Germany, has already entered recession. “We suspect the next recession will be the first since the US tech bubble to inflict more pain on credit markets than the real economy,” experts cautioned. “Corporate leverage is elevated. And global credit markets derive more of their revenue from manufacturing and the sale of physical goods than the real economy at large,” they concluded.

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Who cares what the judge orders?

• Police Omitted Folder Called ‘CIA’ From Laptop Of Assange Spy (El Pais)

David Morales — the owner of the Spanish security company that spied on Julian Assange during his prolonged stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London — kept the work he did for the CIA on his laptop. It was all marked under the initials of the U.S. intelligence agency, according to a new examination of his MacBook, to which EL PAÍS has had access to. The word “CIA” appears several times on a Western Digital-branded external hard drive, on which Morales kept the projects and operations that his company — UC Global, S.L. — was contracted to deliver. Morales’ personal files, which were previously unknown to investigators, builds on the allegations and evidence that Morales — a former Spanish soldier — spied on the meetings that the WikiLeaks founder and his lawyers held at the Embassy of Ecuador to the United Kingdom, and sent that information to the U.S. intelligence agency.

These files were stored on a number of folders marked with the terms “CIA,” “Embassy” and “Videos,” along with other labels. The appearance of this new evidence has been a surprise in the case against Morales in Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional. None of these computer records previously appeared in the initial copy made by the police, when officers categorized the material seized from the security contractor when he was arrested in September 2019. All of this material was uploaded to a cloud storage system within the judicial systems, so that all parties involved in the case could review it. The arrest and indictment of Morales took place weeks after an investigation by EL PAÍS revealed the videos and audios that UC Global employees had recorded while the Australian was preparing his defense with his lawyers.

The discovery of these new clues about the CIA’s spying on the cyberactivist — who remains imprisoned in a London jail — is no accident. Assange’s lawyers found problems when downloading the records uploaded to the cloud. They managed to get Judge Santiago Pedraz — who is overseeing the case — to authorize a second copy of the material seized by the agents. A new digital document dump offered a clear picture that the police had not pieced together. Now, a report by the experts called by Assange’s lawyers credits the appearance of “a very relevant volume of material, which was not included in the original [police] copy.” Forensic analysis describes the copy of the hard drive as containing “multiple pieces of evidence.” In this second dump, the mentioned folders have appeared, including the one that UC Global labelled as “CIA.”

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David Martin

 

 


We have been going through a Long Singularity for a century and a half. To put that in context, as species, we spent 19,960 centuries making better types of stone hand axes. It isn’t surprising that it feels hard to keep up. https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/becoming-strange-in-the-long-singularity

 

 

Mickey

 

 

Kingfisher

 

 

Duck

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle June 4 2023

Jun 042023
 
 June 4, 2023  Posted by at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  27 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh The harvest 1888

 

• Kiev Demands $55 Billion Worth Of Weapons From West (RT)
• Ukraine ‘Ready’ To Launch Counteroffensive – Zelensky (RT)
• Russia’s Newest Satellites To Change Course Of Ukraine Conflict – Ritter (TASS)
• Zelenskyy To Be Investigated For “High Treason” In Ukraine (Muir)
• Western Weapons Used In Ukrainian Raid Inside Russia – WaPo (RT)
• Croatian President Blasts Use of ‘Slava Ukraini’ in Croatia (Sp.)
• Russia Controls $12.4 Trillion Worth Of Ukraine’s Resources (BI)
• Possible Outcomes Of War In The Ukraine (Jim)
• The Demon in America’s Sacred Narrative (Vlahos)
• J6 Panel Added Audio To Silent Security Video For Primetime Hearings (JTN)
• The Overzealous Prosecutors of January 6th (Ted Rall)
• Why Elon Musk’s Visit Is Important For China (Fomenko)
• Russiagate’s Missing Pieces (Seymour Hersh)
• You Need a War Strategy – Catherine Austin Fitts (USAW)
• Pakistani Military Ordered Press To Stop Covering Imran Khan (IC)

 

 

 

 

Play by play

 

 

 

 

Macgregor: Russia is going on the offensive

 

 

Nap/Ritter

 

 

Bunch of boring old fools

 

 

TSLA

 

 

@GeromanAT tweets: MOD Reports: 280 new units have been formed from the 300,000 mobilized last Autumn. It is described as the largest such callup in Russia’s history since WW2.

Some thoughts on this, as an often asked question in chat has been, “where are the mobilized men?” At this point I think the answer is clear: they have been training and working behind the line of contact. That is, Russia did not simply scoop up 300,000 men and throw them to the front as Ukraine has been doing some 7+ times now, but actually formed an entirely new, professional Army with them It’s worth noting that the size of the entire U.S. Marine Corps is around 180,000 in total (including admin, clerical, maintenance, etc). This is yet another sign that Russia is in no hurry and is quite comfortable taking the time to properly re-train and equip these men and form new units proper.

It should also be noted that this new army is cohesive. Same uniform, same training, same language, same communication, same doctrine – and a training regimen born from experience in the SVO. Meanwhile Ukrainian units are being trained in multiple countries by different instructors with multiple incongruent programs, doctrines, and kit. Ukraine itself is aware of this problem, which is why they have allocated Leopard tanks to one unit and Bradley IFVs to another and so forth, instead of mixing them up across the board.

The problem for Ukraine nonetheless remains: a lack of consistency in doctrine and kit across units. There is no “universality” in such, and as such, Schroedinger’s Offensive remains in the box because these units cannot effectively coordinate together. Meanwhile, Russia now has a second modernized and cohesive Army formed in addition to the small portion of it’s existing Army already dedicated to the SVO. Where and how this new Army will be employed (defense in depth, counter offensive operations??) I can not say. But that MOD now makes this statement inclines me to believe the mobilized Army is increasingly ready for work.

Via Slaviangrad

 

 

 

 

They’ve “only” gotten $37 billion so far.

• Kiev Demands $55 Billion Worth Of Weapons From West (RT)

Ukraine needs dozens of US-made Patriot air defense system batteries if it hopes to protect its infrastructure and troops on the battlefield against Russian air superiority, President Vladimir Zelensky told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in an interview published on Saturday. The total cost of his demand exceeds the amount of money Washington has already spent on military assistance for Kiev. Patriot is the “only system in the world” capable of intercepting certain advanced types of Russian missiles, Zelensky claimed, adding that “there is a weapon” supposedly capable of drastically reducing Russian capabilities when it comes to airstrikes and missile attacks.

In May, Kiev claimed its troops had managed to intercept a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile using a Patriot air defense system. Moscow denied those claims, adding that Ukraine routinely exaggerates the effectiveness of its air defenses. In the interview, Zelensky maintained that as many as 50 Patriot batteries would be needed to sufficiently protect Ukraine’s cities and its troops on the battlefield ahead of the much-touted counteroffensive. Launching the operation without such air defenses means “a large number of soldiers will die,” he said. “Everyone knows perfectly well that any counteroffensive without air superiority is very dangerous,” the president added. Each Patriot battery costs around $1.1 billion, according to estimates by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank, cited by Forbes.

The total cost of Zelensky’s demand thus translates to a military aid package worth $55 billion, which is more than the total amount of US military aid allocated to Kiev thus far. Washington has provided Ukraine with $37 billion worth of military assistance since its conflict with Russia escalated in February last year. This has included only two Patriot batteries so far. The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that both went on combat duty in April. Kiev has repeatedly asked its Western backers for more air defense systems, as well as Western-made aircraft – something the US and its allies were reluctant to provide until recently. Ukraine’s problems with air defenses were exposed in purportedly classified Pentagon assessments leaked online. Analysis in late February predicted that most types of Soviet missiles would be gone by May, according to a WSJ report.

In late April, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov admitted that Ukraine’s missile stockpiles for the Soviet air defense systems were depleting. “We need to replenish them with something else,” Reznikov said at that time. Apart from Patriots, the US and its allies have also provided Ukraine with other air defense systems, including the US-made NASAMS, Germany’s IRIS-T air defense missile systems, and Gepard anti-aircraft tanks. In February 2023, the head of the German Armed Forces Association (DBwV), Colonel Andre Wustner, warned that the $2 billion worth of military aid Berlin provided to Kiev had left Germany’s military with a shortage of essential hardware.

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Launch it when? 2025?

• Ukraine ‘Ready’ To Launch Counteroffensive – Zelensky (RT)

Ukraine is ready to launch its long-awaited offensive, President Vladimir Zelensky told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in an interview published on Saturday. He did not reveal the exact date, but said Kiev can no longer “wait for months.” The operation is likely to inflict heavy losses on the Ukrainian troops, and might not go exactly as planned, Zelensky admitted, adding that Russia retaining air superiority would inevitably mean Kiev’s forces will be exposed to enemy fire. “I don’t know how long it will take,” Zelensky said, commenting on the operation’s potential timeframe. He added that “it can go a variety of ways, completely different.” The president admitted that the military equipment and weapons supplied to Ukraine by its Western backers are still not enough. “We would like to have certain things, but we can’t wait for months,” he said.

Zelensky also highlighted the need for stronger air defences, and claimed that the US-made Patriot systems are virtually the only ones in the world capable of countering certain Russian missile types. He said Ukraine would need as many as 50 Patriot batteries to ensure sufficient air defenses. The lack of such protection means “a large number of soldiers will die,” during the offensive, he added. In May, Kiev claimed that its forces had managed to intercept a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile, using a Patriot air defense system. Moscow denied the claim, and accused Ukraine of routinely exaggerating the effectiveness of its air defenses. Ukraine has long been discussing a counteroffensive against Russia to reclaim territories that Kiev considers as its own. It has postponed the operation several times, citing a lack of ammunition, weapons, and even adverse weather conditions.

Back in mid-May Zelensky claimed Kiev was ready to launch the offensive, while maintaining it needed more Western weapons. Ukrainian troops have suffered massive casualties since the start of the conflict, according to various estimates. A Pentagon document leaked earlier this year and cited by The Washington Post said that between 124,000 and 131,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed or wounded since the start of the hostilities. Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov has rejected this assessment, saying the number of his troops killed in the conflict was less than the death toll from the earthquakes that hit Türkiye and Syria in February. The combined estimated fatalities in the two countries amounted to more than 55,000. Reznikov later apologized for the comparison, deemed insensitive by some people in the affected areas.

In May, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said the Ukrainian armed forces had sustained over 15,000 battlefield casualties in April alone. And in April, Ukrainian Brigadier General Sergey Melnik, deputy commander of the Ukrainian force grouping stationed in the northeastern Kharkov Region, admitted to Spanish newspaper El Pais that Ukraine had already lost most of its experienced troops to deaths and injuries. “The problem is that we have a lack of people and equipment,” he said at the time, adding that Kiev had to rely on “people without military experience.”

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“It can see through clouds, it can see through rain. It can see through everything. High resolution radar, and they are seeing everything right now,” he said.

• Russia’s Newest Satellites To Change Course Of Ukraine Conflict – Ritter (TASS)

Russia’s new radar surveillance satellites will allow Moscow to change the course of the conflict in Ukraine, former US intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector to Iraq Scott Ritter said. Ritter pointed out that the Russian Federation recently launched “the first of several radar surveillance satellites that have a resolution of up to one meter, which means it can see everything.” “It can see through clouds, it can see through rain. It can see through everything. High resolution radar, and they are seeing everything right now,” he said.


“You can’t hide anything from the Russians anymore,” Ritter stressed. “And it’s going to have a fundamental shift in how this [Ukrainian] conflict goes because all that stuff that’s been brought – can’t hide it,” he continued, referring to Western weapons coming into Ukraine. “They [the weapons] are all detected now and they’re all getting programmed into the Russian target database. And the Russians are gonna start hitting this stuff, more and more and more and we see evidence of this already,” Ritter pointed out, adding that in his opinion this conflict would become “unsustainable for the Ukrainian sometime by the end of summer, early fall.”.

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“..these appointments have led to tens of thousands of dead Ukrainians. The MP demanded that the traitors be held accountable for serious crimes against the Ukrainian people.”

• Zelenskyy To Be Investigated For “High Treason” In Ukraine (Muir)

The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv issued a ruling to oblige the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation to start a pre-trial investigation in connection with the possible treason of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, former Verkhovna Rada deputy Geo Leros said on May 30 in his Telegram channel. “Let me remind you that the pocket SBI refused to investigate Zelenskyy’s high treason when he appointed FSB agents to key positions in the SBU, but we were obliged by the court to enter information into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations and begin a pre-trial investigation,” the former deputy said. He cited a photograph of a copy of the ruling of the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv, by which the court obliges the State Bureau of Investigation to conduct a pre-trial investigation at the request of Leros.

In his message on the Telegram channel, the deputy clarified that the court ordered to initiate a criminal case “against Zelensky and co” under Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (high treason). According to Mr Leros, Zelenskyy himself, the head of the presidential office Andriy Yermak, his deputy Roman Mashovets, as well as the ex-chairman of the SBU Ivan Bakanov and the former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Ruslan Demchenko are the main defendants, thanks to whom FSB agents were allegedly appointed to the special services. According to Mr Leros, these appointments have led to tens of thousands of dead Ukrainians. The MP demanded that the traitors be held accountable for serious crimes against the Ukrainian people.

Here is a Translation of the text: This is the letter translated: PECHERSKY DISTRICT COURT OF THE CITY OF KYIV Case No. 757/21124/23-k RESOLVED IMEHEM OF UKRAINE On May 30, 2023, the Investigating Judge of the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv – T.V. Ostapchuk, under the secretary – K.S. Lymar, with: complainant – Leros H.B. representative of the complainant – lawyer Sayenka V.V. having considered in an open court session in the courtroom in Kyiv the proceedings on the complaint of Leros Geo Bagratovych about the inaction of the investigator, regarding the failure to submit information to the EDPR according to the application dated April 26, 2023 Mo23d9/7-2023/88804, – Guided by Part 2 of Art. 376 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, investigating judge, – RESOLVED: Complaint of Leros Geo Bagratovych against the inaction of the investigator, regarding the failure to provide information To ERDR by request from 04/26/2023 N2379/7-2023/88804 on the commission of a criminal offense and to start a pre-trial investigation, about which to inform the applicant. Praise is not subject to appeal. The full text of the resolution will be announced on June 2, 2023 at 1:50 p.m. T. B. Soup *2606*82433888*1*

Donbass

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Everybody knows. But now it’s out in the open.

• Western Weapons Used In Ukrainian Raid Inside Russia – WaPo (RT)

Military equipment and small arms provided by several NATO nations, including the US, ended up in the hands of militants who launched a cross-border raid into Russia’s Belgorod region in May, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing sources linked to US intelligence. At least four tactical vehicles initially supplied to the Ukrainian military by the US and Poland were employed in the May raid, raising concerns about Kiev’s commitment to fulfilling the demands of its Western supporters, the sources told WaPo. The US and its Western allies have consistently expressed opposition to the use of Western arms by Ukraine in attacks on Russian territory. They also urged Kiev to “carefully track the billions of dollars’ worth of weapons that have flowed into the country,” WaPo reported.

The attack in question occurred in late May, and in response, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that “over 70 Ukrainian terrorists, four armored combat vehicles, and five pickup trucks” had been destroyed in the clash in Belgorod. The remaining militants were subsequently forced back into Ukraine and targeted by Russian artillery. The incursion resulted in one civilian death and 12 injuries, according to Russian authorities. The Russian military shared a series of photographs showing what appeared to be destroyed Western equipment abandoned by the militants. Some of the images depicted two M1151A1 Humvee armored cars stuck in bomb craters, while others displayed two M1224 MaxxPro armored vehicles. An AMZ Dzik-2 armored car, manufactured in Poland, was also visible in the images.

Kiev attempted to distance itself from the raid by claiming it was carried out by the “Freedom of Russia Legion” and the “Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK),” the neo-Nazi units responsible for a similar attack in the Bryansk Region in March. The Pentagon and the US State Department expressed doubts regarding the authenticity of the images. The State Department also said that the US “does not encourage or enable attacks inside of Russia.” Washington also does not “support the use of US-made equipment … for attacks inside of Russia,” it added. According to the Washington Post, videos published by the “Freedom of Russia Legion” and the RDK militants themselves showed fighters using the Czech-made CZ Bren and Belgium’s FN SCAR assault rifles.

Both types of weapons were provided to Ukraine by the respective nations, the paper said, adding that “Bren and SCAR rifles are commonly distributed to Ukraine’s soldiers” and foreign fighters who travel to Ukraine to combat Russian forces. A spokesperson from the Belgian Defense Ministry informed the Washington Post that they only provided weapons to “official authorities and the regular army” in Ukraine, placing responsibility on Kiev for their usage. [..] The use of Western military supplies in an attack on Russian territory raises the issue of Kiev’s accountability, Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think-tank, told WaPo. The Ukrainians “are clearly complicit here,” Cancian, a retired US Marine Corps officer, added.

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“I’ve been suffering like Jesus to get people to stop using ZDS,” Milanovic said, but at this point, “if you don’t understand why, I can’t educate you.”

“That’s the chant of the most radical chauvinists of Western Ukraine, who worked with the Nazis and killed thousands of Jews and Poles..”

• Croatian President Blasts Use of ‘Slava Ukraini’ in Croatia (Sp.)

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said Wednesday that there’s “no difference” between the phrase “Slava Ukraini” (‘Glory to Ukraine’) and the chant used by the World War II-era Nazi collaborationist regime in Croatia. Using shorthand for the Ustasha slogan “Za dom spremni” (“For the homeland, ready”), Milanovic told reporters: “There’s no difference between ZDS and Glory to Ukraine.” “That’s the chant of the most radical chauvinists of Western Ukraine, who worked with the Nazis and killed thousands of Jews and Poles,” Milanovic explained, adding, “I don’t want to hear it in Croatia.” “I don’t care that some leaders seem to like it,” he continued. “They should come up with a different slogan.” “I’ve been suffering like Jesus to get people to stop using ZDS,” Milanovic said, but at this point, “if you don’t understand why, I can’t educate you.”

Like their counterparts in Ukraine, nationalists in Croatia have long embraced the chant in spite of — or in many cases, because of — its strong associations with the terrors of the Third Reich.And like “Slava Ukraini,” the Croatian chant came into frequent use after the Ustasha declared an independent state in April 1941 following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia. Mass murders of Serbs and Jews quickly ensued — well before Nazi Germany officially enacted its Holocaust policies. Milanovic has argued on multiple occasions that the usage of the notorious Ustasha chant does more harm than good for the country’s image. But it’s possible there are political considerations at play as well.

In those same remarks to reporters, Milanovic urged Croatian politicians to “stay away from both Russia and Ukraine” because “Kiev is far away, and Moscow even farther. Milanovic has long criticized EU and NATO policy towards Russia and has condemned Western governments for intentionally pushing Moscow to intervene in the hostilities in Ukraine. He was placed on Kiev’s semi-official Myrotvorets ‘hit list’ in January for allegedly spreading “Kremlin propaganda” months after publicly ruling out the possibility of Ukrainian troops training in Croatia. As a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) that succeeded the Croatian Communist Party, Milanovic has faced serious pushback from the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which has spawned numerous political crises with its use of the ZDS slogan but currently holds a majority in parliament.

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From August 2022. But valuable background.

• Russia Controls $12.4 Trillion Worth Of Ukraine’s Resources (BI)

Russia now controls at least $12.4 trillion worth of Ukraine’s key natural resources, including energy and mineral deposits, according to an analysis for The Washington Post by SecDev. If the Kremlin succeeds in annexing Ukrainian land seized during Russia’s invasion, Kyiv would lose almost two-thirds of its deposits, the report said, denying the country of its essential economic pillars. Based on SecDev’s review of 2,209 deposits, Moscow controls 63% of Ukraine’s coal, 11% of its oil, 20% of its natural gas, 42% of its metals, and 33% of its rare earths, including key minerals like lithium. Some of that was seized during Russia’s takeover of Crimea in 2014 or the war with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. But since its invasion began in February, Russia has steadily increased its advance into Ukraine while overtaking the country’s economic strongholds.


Using a tally from SecDev and Ukrainian industry, the Washington Post reported that Russia has seized 41 coal fields, 27 natural gas sites, 14 propane sites, nine oil fields, six iron ore deposits, as well as several sites for titanium, zirconium, strontium, lithium, uranium, and gold. While Ukraine is known as a top exporter of grains, the report said it also possesses 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals and metals, while also serving as a top source of fossil fuels. Ukraine still has control over most of its oil ans gas reserves. But the vast majority of its natural resource wealth that’s under the Kremlin’s control is comprised of coal deposits. SecDev estimated that about 30 billion tons of hard coal deposits worth $11.9 trillion are in Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine.

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“My guess is that Global American Empire nukes stopped working a long time ago, but some Russian nukes still work.”

• Possible Outcomes Of War In The Ukraine (Jim)

In World War I, the incapacity to mount further attempts at war of movement was followed by 100 days of increasingly rapid and costly German defeats and retreats in attritive warfare, and it became apparent that if the Germans did not make peace on any terms they could get, then eventually there would be attritive warfare all the way to Berlin, most German men would die, and Berlin would be flattened. So they cut a deal where they handed over their heavy weapons, but the army and the nation remained an army and a nation. Without that deal, the war would likely have gone on for years, with enormous costs for everyone, but by far the greatest costs for Germans. And a sane and capable Global American Empire would accept, in a hundred days or so, the deal that Putin has been offering – assuming it will still be on offer after major retreats and losses in attritive warfare.

But a sane and capable Global American Empire would probably have been capable of winning. So a possible and likely outcome is that the war goes on till Kiev starts being flattened and most Ukrainian men are dead. Which may well take quite a while. At which point there is a significant likelihood that Nato will be thrown in to relieve Kiev. In a full war between Russia and Nato, neither side has any incentive to refrain escalating all the way to nukes. If Nato intervenes the rationale will be that quick decisive victory is attainable, which is unlikely to be the case. So, nukes. Do anyone’s nukes still work? My guess is that Global American Empire nukes stopped working a long time ago, but some Russian nukes still work. Nukes were and are made out of components that deteriorate over time, and have to regularly refurbished, reconditioned and sometimes rebuilt.

And if you are not testing, your maintenance process is likely to go off the rails when the men that built those bombs retire. The test ban treaty was a stealth slow motion nuclear disarmament treaty. If someone’s nukes still work, this is likely to bring the war to a quick and decisive end, with relatively small destruction and casualties. I estimate that only about twenty percent of Americans would die in the course of losing a nuclear war, deaths insignificant compared to abortion and all that, and destruction insignificant compared to the Rust Belt and all the Detroits. No big deal in the broad historical sweep that this blog looks at. If, on the other hand, technological decay means we fight World War I all over again, but this time political decay means that it is fought all the way to the end, the death and destruction could be considerably greater. But perhaps, in a hundred days or so, while the Global American Empire still holds most of the Ukraine, as the Germans still held most of Europe, the Global American Empire will figure out that it is 1918-11-11 all over again.

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“So all-consuming, so all-powerful is the American sacred narrative that, in over 250 years, there has been no significant historical break in the unyielding American drive for Jihad.”

• The Demon in America’s Sacred Narrative (Vlahos)

America is a Religion. On July 4, 1776, the United States was baptized with these words: “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor”. By this oath, a nation was born and launched on its mythic passage of becoming. The Founders—our “creators”—had imagined more than a nation, however. They had also drafted the story arc of a divinely heroic journey, centering the United States as the culmination (to be) of History. This is America’s sacred narrative. Since its founding, the United States has pursued, with burning religious fervor, a higher calling to redeem humanity, punish the wicked, and christen a golden millennium on earth. While France, Britain, Germany, and Russia stalked the world in search of new colonies and conquests, America has steadfastly hewed to its unique vision of divine mission as “God’s New Israel”.

Whereas the mythical narratives of other great powers were cruelly self-centered, American scripture was—and remains today—“To Serve Man”. Thus, among all the revolutions unleashed by Modernity, the United States declares itself—in its own scripture—to be the trailblazer and pathfinder of humanity. America is the exceptional nation—the singular, the pure-of-heart, the baptizer, and redeemer of all peoples despised and downtrodden: The “last, best hope of earth”. This is the catechism of the American Civil Religion. In the world’s eyes, all this may seem like a ritual of self-serving vanity, yet the Civil Religion is the national article of faith for Americans. It is Holy Writ, which takes rhetorical form through what Americans take to be History. Yet this vision of history is better understood as a body of sacred literature, in many ways comparable to Islam.

[..] Our sacred literature defines American identity as a grand narrative arc endowed by God—to be realized through a recurring series of ever-ascending epiphanic stories: a historical cycle of ecstatic struggles shaping America’s mythic passage of becoming and culminating in an apocalypse—“revelation” or “unveiling” (Ancient Greek apokálupsis). Within these apocalyptic cycles, the hidden meaning of the American sacred story arc is revealed only through the realization of universal democracy. As with Islam, the American religion too culminates in an apocalypse. As such, the American story arc can only be fulfilled through battle. Every “peak life” moment in the American sacred narrative has been realized through mutual sacrifice and the transcendental power of victory in battle.

From its founding moment to today, war has been the anvil of America, and blood its divine annealing. Not only is each major American war regarded as a benchmark of progress toward a millenarian Grail, but each American generation has been encouraged to move the yardstick forward. While not every struggle succeeded, each drive built a launchpad for the next big push. So all-consuming, so all-powerful is the American sacred narrative that, in over 250 years, there has been no significant historical break in the unyielding American drive for Jihad.

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A true Hollywood production.

• J6 Panel Added Audio To Silent Security Video For Primetime Hearings (JTN)

The Democrat-led House Select Committee to Investigate Jan. 6 doctored a key piece of its evidence, adding audio to silent U.S. Capitol Police security footage used to create a dramatic video montage for the opening of its primetime hearings last summer, according to a Just the News review of the original raw footage and interviews. In at least two instances identified by Just the News, the panel’s sizzle reel that aired live and on C-SPAN last June failed to identify that it had overdubbed audio from another, unidentified source onto the silent footage. Multiple current and former Capitol Police officials as well as key lawmakers and congressional aides confirmed that the closed-circuit cameras that captured the video do not record sound and that it was added afterwards.

A former spokesman for the Jan. 6 committee told Just the News that the panel was supposed to clearly mark any video that was dubbed with another audio source, and it did so on some occasions in the sizzle reel. But Just the News identified two key pieces of Capitol Police closed circuit television (“CCTV”) footage — one from an inside angle showing the dramatic breach of a key entrance to the Capitol by rioters and the other an aerial view of the agitated crowd outside – from a camera system that Capitol Police officials confirmed did not have sound recording capabilities. Yet, the footage shown by the committee inexplicably included sound on the video montage they produced. That video is without any disclaimer showing the audio had been dubbed.

The chairman of the current GOP-led House Administration subcommittee that continues to investigate the security failures of the Jan. 6 tragedy blasted the decision to dub audio without informing the public, saying it was further proof Democrats wanted to sway opinion rather than gather facts. “What the American people want to know is the truth, and this was nothing but a Hollywood production,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., told the Just the News, No Noise television show Friday night. “The committee spent $18.5 million, at least that’s what we know of, to write a dossier against Donald Trump and to create this Hollywood production. And when I looked at the videos, it’s clear, it’s apparent to me that it is a Capitol police security video film, and there is no audio whatsoever.” “And so yes, it was dubbed on there for dramatic effect” Loudermilk continued, “And that shows that what they were trying to do is sway public opinion, not just get the truth out.”

[..] Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said if the video evidence was altered and the public wasn’t told, it warranted an investigation and forensic exam by Congress and would likely have resulted in serious repercussions had it occurred in a court of law. “Well, if this is true, if they really did dub the tapes without telling the public, if a lawyer did that, that lawyer would be disbarred,” Dershowitz said. “It would be fraud if a person introduced that as testimony and didn’t disclose that it had material added. That would be a form of perjury. “We ought to be able to prove that forensically, without any doubt, and we ought to be able to get the evidence of who added the words, where the words came. … We have to get all the facts. But once the facts are known if it confirms what you’ve said, this is a very, very serious ethical and perhaps even legal breach.”

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“Nothing Rhodes did, in the aggregate, comes close to taking a life—yet he will go behind bars for the same period of time as a stone-cold killer.”

• The Overzealous Prosecutors of January 6th (Ted Rall)

“Government,” observed the 14th century Arab political theorist Ibn Khaldoun, “is an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself.” Draconian prison sentences handed down to those involved in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot highlight this truism. Though he didn’t enter the Capitol that day, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, 57, received 18 years in federal prison for seditious conspiracy under a law whose retrograde origins and vague definition ought to worry those who care about due process. Florida chapter leader Kelly Megg will serve 12 years for the same offense. Peter Schwartz, 49, who attacked police officers at the Capitol with a chair and then chemical spray, got 14 years. Richard Barnett, who was photographed with his feet resting on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk, received 4.5 years.

The US Department of Justice has obtained prison sentences in at least 250 of the thousand-plus January 6th-related cases it is prosecuting. The DOJ is also undermining defendants’ ability to hire attorneys by asking judges to issue fines big enough to offset donations to legal-defense funds. Like most Americans, I am disgusted by the events of January 6th. The rioters rioted without cause even to protest; there was insufficient evidence of irregularities in the 2020 election to believe US President Joe Biden hadn’t won. Many of them succumbed to idiotic nonsense; they believed in QAnon and Pizzagate. Too many were xenophobic, racist, homophobic partisans of the far-right, the embodiment of what the historian Richard Hofstadter described as the paranoid style in American politics.

Rhodes, who also participated in the 2014 standoff by far-right anti-government extremists at the Bundy Ranch, would probably despise me and my left-wing politics. (Though, you never know. Rhodes’ Oath Keepers supported Edward Snowden.) I abhor the defendants and their politics, as well as their actions on January 6th. Yet I can see that the events of that day, shocking as they were, have been exaggerated by Democrats and their media allies in order to gain partisan advantage. Now, they are being punished beyond reason. A reasonable person cannot conclude that these punishments fit the crime. The average prison term for a person convicted of murder in the United States is 17.5 years. The average term for rape is seven years.

Nothing Rhodes did, in the aggregate, comes close to taking a life—yet he will go behind bars for the same period of time as a stone-cold killer. Appropriate January 6th charges would include burglary, trespassing and vandalism and, in cases like those who called for violence against government officials, menacing. Rhodes, however, was sentenced as a terrorist. His real offense was challenging the authority of the government at its seat of power. The riot caused $1.5 million worth of damage to the Capitol building, the same amount New York City paid to renovate a nondescript children’s playground in Harlem. One Capitol Hill police officer died, the following day. The coroner attributed his passing to natural causes; prosecutors did not file charges against anyone in that incident.

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Businessmen take the place of politicians.

• Why Elon Musk’s Visit Is Important For China (Fomenko)

Twitter owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk went on a tour of China this week. It was his first visit to the country since 2019, after a hiatus during the Covid-19 pandemic. Musk met with China’s foreign minister Qin Gang, before later meeting Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang. During these meetings, he discussed his Tesla factory in Shanghai for electric cars, as well as the Lithium battery supply chain. Although in practice it was all about business, the political symbolism of the trip on both sides is unmistakeable. Beijing did not keep Musk’s visit low-key nor leave it by the wayside, but placed it on a megaphone and amplified it aggressively through its media channels. It wanted the world to know very clearly that not only was a major American tech figure and entrepreneur in town, but was engaging with its leaders.

When was the last time an American politician or official visited Beijing and got such a reception? While not discounting the fact that few will do so for political reasons, even those who do, be it Anthony Blinken or Wendy Sherman, are given a frosty and hostile reception. In fact, since the “spy balloon” incident at the beginning of the year, China has even gone as far as putting high-level communications with the US on ice completely. The refusal to meet with US Secretary of Defence Llyod Austin at the Shang-ri-la dialogue in Singapore, is one such example. But that does not mean China is not interested in engaging with the US at all. Rather, China sees engaging with American politicians as a waste of time, and instead sees greater political gain in using high profile individuals such as Elon Musk to drive practical and results-based engagement.

Apple CEO Tim Cook also conducted a similar trip to China earlier this year. What is the purpose and message? Despite surging tensions and uncertainties, Beijing continues to see the American business community, who are not Anti-China by nature of what they do, as its best bet. Right now, US politics is in a race to the bottom concerning China. The atmosphere of US foreign policy debate is lethally toxic, lost in a maelstrom of paranoia, irrationality and mass hysteria over Beijing. Politicians compete to shout the loudest on who can vilify China, seek to regularly provoke tensions over matters such as Taiwan, and of course lock the debate by accusing anyone who questions their narrative as being soft on Beijing. This has created an echo chamber which has made it impossible to improve relations on a political level.

But the business community is different, because American companies see financial opportunity in China and its market, something they have engaged with for over 40 years. Behind the scenes, businessmen attempt to lobby politicians to ensure their interests are preserved, even if they aren’t having much luck when it comes to China, and this has made them perhaps the only consistent voice in opposing the anti-China rhetoric pushed by Washington DC over the past few years. While of course they are forced to contemplate the political risks of engagement, a factor they cannot control and that politicians can use to coerce them, they are a moderating voice of reason. And on that premise, someone like Elon Musk is very important. Although his political viewpoint is very right wing, and he is of course South African, rather than American, it is undeniable that he has established himself as one of the most influential businessmen in the US right now, and fortunately for Beijing he has an open mind and amicable attitude towards China. In taking control of Twitter, one of the world’s most influential social media platforms, Musk has pursued a policy of free speech which has rolled back anti-China measures implemented by its predecessor CEO Jack Dorsey.

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Underwhelming, Sy.

• Russiagate’s Missing Pieces (Seymour Hersh)

Durham, to his credit, did follow the leads that came to his office, but he left them in secrecy—perhaps in the Classified Appendix or perhaps completely off the record. He was seen by some as being mandated only to investigate FBI management shortcomings and believed the public needed a full accounting of the FBI bungling. It was not clear whether Durham, had he decided to expand the parameters of his inquiry to include the implications of the intelligence about the Clinton campaign, would have been allowed to do so. As Durham himself writes, “any attempted prosecution premised on the Clinton Plan intelligence would face what in all likelihood would be insurmountable classification issues given the highly sensitive nature of the information itself.”

The issue with Durham may be that he was the wrong man in what could never be the right job. He had made his reputation with the help of others in the FBI and Justice Department. They had provided him with much of the evidence he used in his Mafia investigations—undercover agents, access to information, wiretaps and extra manpower for manpower for analysis and surveillance. He had made and kept friendships current over the years. But there are no shoulders to lean on when one is investigating colleagues in Washington. It was not clear to some who worked with him whether Durham understood the ease with which the FBI could game the FISA process and get their way with the special court; nor that he understood the extent to which the serious operators in the intelligence community thought themselves to be above the law. I will never forget a lunch I had in a Chinese restaurant down the highway from the CIA headquarters with a bunch of covert operators from the Middle East.

They were making fun of what they depicted as bumbling FBI gumshoes—this was just after 9/11—and I angrily asked one of them how he could mock the FBI when they all had to work together to solve the crime. His answer: “Sy, the FBI? The FBI? They catch bank robbers. And we rob banks. And the NSA? You expect me to work with guys who carry protractors in their shirt pockets and are always looking down at their brown shoes?” In the end, and to Durham’s credit, he stuck to his guns and said what he thought about those who wished him to expand his inquiry deeper into the actions of the Clinton campaign in this footnote: “To be clear, this Office did not and does not view the potential existence of a political plan by one campaign to spread negative claims about its opponent as illegal or criminal in any respect.” He added, however, that for a campaign to “knowingly provide false information to the government” would be another matter.

How to distinguish the two is the crux of the issue. In his failure—if that’s the right word for it—to get the whole story, Durham resembles one of the blind men in the ancient Hindu parable about a group of blind men inspecting an elephant. Each of the inspectors describes a small part. The elephant is the campaign to link Trump to Russia. The mainstream press, running with the later discredited Russiagate narrative, portrays Trump as a puppet of Putin or even as a double agent of Moscow dating back to the Soviet era. And Durham sees himself merely as the lawyer who was ordered to investigate FBI managerial shortcomings. The public only sees parts of the picture. There is more to know.

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“..when you deal with true evil, and that is what we are dealing with, it’s really easy to get discouraged or give up hope..”

• You Need a War Strategy – Catherine Austin Fitts (USAW)

Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), Publisher of The Solari Report, financial expert and former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush 41 Admin.), says, “You’ve got people actually trying to kill you. . . . You don’t need an investment strategy, you need a war strategy because this is a war. . . . You cannot do business with criminals, in particular, criminals who are above the law and have sovereign immunity or the DOJ treats them like they have sovereign immunity. We had the Durham Report, and it came out and they announced, oops, we had no evidence (on President Trump) and we are not going to prosecute anybody. That is sovereign immunity. . . . The middle class is getting creamed, and at the root, we are watching the centralization of wealth using central bank mechanisms and it is a policy and a strategy. I left Washington years ago, and I was saying there is money disappearing from the federal government.

I said if they keep doing this, they are going to have to depopulate or they are going to have to lower life expectancy or lower our standard of living. We have to deal with this, and I said I am not going to go along. You can kill people with a bioweapon (like the CV19 bioweapon injections), but you can also kill people with a pen. First, they killed people with a pen before we started with the pandemic.” Fitts contends to not expect any big interest rate cuts anytime soon. A pause, maybe, a rate cut– forget it. CAF explains, “They are going to do whatever they have to do to protect the dollar. It would not surprise me on the next meeting they pause (rate hikes) . . . but there is no doubt if they have to raise interest rates to protect the dollar, they are going to do it. They get a lot more benefit being the reserve currency than taking another recession and wiping out another round of the middle class.”

CAF contends the dark powers want to destroy wealth. CAF says, “I think we need our own reset. ‘The People’s Reset,’ and the key to our reset is it has to be a for-profit revolution. We have to get in the business of building wealth and not allowing them to destroy our culture of being wealth builders. . . . I am going to help other people be productive, and I am going to do it in a way that produces and creates family wealth, personal wealth and community wealth. You know what wealth does? That is the seed corn of democracy. Without wealth, there will be no democracy. There will be bolshevism and tyranny. They are shrinking our wealth, and we cannot permit that. We have to be wealth builders, and it starts with every individual protecting their wealth . . . and using their wealth to help others . . . . So, we have got to be wealth builders if we are ever going to dig our way out of this.”

CAF details the deflation with this depopulation coming from the CV19 bioweapon/vax. CAF also says your chances for survival go way up if you take action now and goes into detail on the steps you need to take to thwart evil people trying to kill us off and “harvest” our wealth. In closing, CAF says, “. . . It pays to have a hard shell and just never quit. Just keep learning . . . and begin anywhere. . . . “Turtle Forth” is about never quitting, and this is important because when you deal with true evil, and that is what we are dealing with, it’s really easy to get discouraged or give up hope. You can’t do that . . . . What you’ve got to protect at all cost is your faith, your hope and your love.”

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How is this different from what happened to Trump?

• Pakistani Military Ordered Press To Stop Covering Imran Khan (IC)

The Pakistani military invited the owners of the country’s major media organizations to Islamabad this week for a secret meeting to discuss coverage of the ongoing political and constitutional crisis, Pakistani journalists familiar with the gathering told The Intercept. The invitation was not one that could be refused, and the message was equally direct: Cease all coverage of former Prime Minister Imran Khan amid his ongoing clash with the military. Following the meeting, which has not been previously reported, top editors at news organizations across Pakistan issued directives to their journalists to pause coverage of Khan, said the Pakistani journalists, who requested anonymity for fear of their safety. An inspection of Pakistani media sites reveals a stark change. Earlier this week and every day for years before, Khan was a leading subject of coverage. He has effectively vanished from the news. The ban was confirmed by more than a half-dozen Pakistani journalists. “They have lots of levers to hurt media companies.”

Khan is at the center of a political crisis that has paralyzed Pakistani cities, prompted clashes and riots targeting the all-powerful military, and seen tens of thousands of his political supporters sent to prison. You wouldn’t know that from reading the Pakistani press today, even as he continues a campaign against an attempt by the military to exclude him and his party from contesting upcoming elections. The recent crisis began when Khan was hit with corruption charges, which he and supporters of his political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, claim to be a political exercise aimed at excluding him from politics. Khan, a former cricket player and philanthropist, has become Pakistan’s most popular politician by galvanizing public anger against the country’s dynastic political parties.

He served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, when he was removed from office by a coalition of opposition parties. While his original rise to power was widely believed to have been patronized from behind the scenes by the military itself, after falling out with military leadership, Khan has become a fierce opponent of their domineering role in politics. In Pakistan, there is no bigger story than the battle between Khan and the military, which has played out in spectacular fashion, including the extrajudicial arrest of Khan from inside a courtroom, sparking nationwide protests and, eventually, a Supreme Court order to free him. Khan is also the No. 1 driver of ratings and web traffic to news organizations — until Thursday, when he virtually disappeared from the national news media.

The explicit directive from the military was not delivered in writing, said sources. A more vaguely worded order was issued by Pakistan’s Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, which oversees television stations, barring coverage of “hate mongers, rioters, their facilitators and perpetrators.” The directive does not name Khan, but its meaning is clear.

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Murrow

 

 

Titanic

 

 

Dr. Burkhardt died this week.

 

 

“It is man’s intelligence that makes him so often behave more stupidly than the beasts. Man is impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic. Thus, no animal is clever enough, when there is a drought, to imagine that the rain is being withheld by evil spirits, or as punishment for its transgressions. Therefore you never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. No horse, for example would kill one of its foals to make the wind change direction. Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, intelligent enough.”

Aldous Huxley

 

 

Birds and sheep

 

 

Lions

 

 


Eulophophyllum kirki is a katydid (bush cricket) found in Danum Valley Conservation Area in the state of Sabah, Malaysia and first described only in 2016. It’s been named for the photographer of the only known specimen, Peter Kirk [read more: https://buff.ly/3qrx8Xu]

 

 

Pink Fox

 

 

China road

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle June 3 2023

Jun 032023
 
 June 3, 2023  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


Paul Klee Hammamet with Its Mosque 1914

 

• NATO’s Big Gamble In Ukraine Has Failed (Zorawar Daulet Singh)
• Blinken Dismisses Calls for a Ceasefire: Build Up Ukraine’s Military (Antiwar)
• Ukrainian Counteroffensive Would Turn Into ‘Bloodbath’ – Orban (RT)
• Orban Delighted At Erdogan’s Victory Over ‘Soros’ Man’ (RT)
• Orban Warns Hungary Will Never Fight Russia (RT)
• Zelensky Talks Peace Summit With Scholz (RT)
• Europe Suffers Sharp Munitions Deficit Due To Military Aid Largesse (TASS)
• Russian Oil Giant’s Profits Soar Amid Sanctions (RT)
• Moscow, Kiev, EU Seeking Peaceful Solution To Ukraine Crisis – Special Envoy (TASS)
• China Special Envoy Urges Europe To Ponder Causes Of Ukrainian Conflict (TASS)
• Propaganda Perverts Reality In The Minds Of Americans (Scott Ritter)
• Who Can You Trust? (Jim Kunstler)
• FBI Relents, Agrees To Deliver Subpoenaed Memo Alleging Biden Bribery (JTN)
• China Has Tamed The World’s Most Powerful Explosive- Military Scientists (SCMP)
• Woke Twitter Employees Exit In Fallout Over What Is A Woman Censorship (Rebel)

 

 

 

 

Sandbags

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biden laptop

 

 

The Friends of BRICS, a preamble to BRICS+

Cape Town
https://twitter.com/i/status/1664657498668781570

 

 

 

 

BBee Musk

 

 

 

 

 

 

View from India. Zorawar Daulet Singh is an award winning author and strategic affairs expert based in New Delhi.

• NATO’s Big Gamble In Ukraine Has Failed (Zorawar Daulet Singh)

Fifteen months into the biggest land war in Eurasia since the Second World War, the tables have turned. US and NATO began with a confidence that a proxy war was the only way to roll back Russian influence in Europe. It was aimed to cut Russia down to size and snuff out the incipient multipolar order. On paper it was an ingenious, if diabolical, strategy. Ukrainian blood and NATO weapons would be more than a match for Russia. At the very least, western policymakers surmised, Russia would be bogged down in another protracted ‘Afghanistan’ or ‘Vietnam’ for years, while America would swoop across the world as a rejuvenated superpower. The opposite has occurred. On every front in this proxy war – it is more apt to classify the conflict as a limited great power war – US goals have fallen short.

The US’s Weak Hand The international community has stayed scrupulously away from lining up behind the West. Other than its loyal G-6 states in tow, Washington has witnessed a resounding rejection of NATO’s plan to demonise and contain Russia. The Global South has instead discovered an opportunity to advance their own interests and embrace a multipolar world order where weaker states can henceforth bargain for better deals with the major players. India’s foreign policy exemplifies this trend that can today be seen in South America, Africa, Middle East and even in parts of East Asia. Great power geopolitical alignments have also shifted adversely. China – the swing power for the West – has barely budged its position. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Washington has attempted to imagine cleavages between Moscow and Beijing that it could exploit for a new western rapprochement with China. Senior US policymakers, including the President, along with a flurry of European leaders have attempted to court the Xi Jinping regime in an attempt to nudge China away from Russia. But to little avail. The Chinese seem unwilling to jeopardise their partnership with Russia. With their own potential flashpoint right under their nose in Taiwan, Beijing fears a similar fate for itself in the future.

Unanticipated Economic Blowback The real trump card in Western hands has always been the economy: the legacy dominance of the US dollar, control over international supply chains, and the ability to arbitrarily impose collective sanctions and isolate a country. These are unique leverages that no other great power can claim to possess as of today. This is where the US truly felt it had the upper hand. It could not only destabilise Russia, perhaps even fatally, but also rewrite a new chapter on globalisation. Yet shockingly again, and despite dramatically severing European energy and industrial linkages with Russia, the blowback to the West has been more severe than the intended impact on the Russian economy. European economies are reeling from inflation and the spectre of de-industrialisation, fueled by a supply side energy and commodity crisis caused by western sanctions. Industrial giants like Germany have slumped into a recession. Economists can no longer deny just how critical the Russian commodity and energy link as well as market access was for European prosperity and industrial vitality.

How Russia Escaped, India Too But how did Russia escape its own economic strangulation? Very simply, the non-western world did not commit hara-kiri. China and India along with several other developing economies quickly replaced western markets, providing not only a lifeline to Russian exports but also drew unusual growth benefits of their own from discounted crude oil. Flushed with revenues, Moscow has been able to procure industrial components, machinery and consumer goods necessary for its basic economic stability. Trade with China is estimated to touch $200 billion in 2023, emulating a role played by Germany in the past. As a consequence, Russia defied the double-digit recession forecast for it in 2022 by only contracting by 2.1 percent. Even the IMF projects positive GDP growth for the Russian economy in 2023 and 2024.

The War Theatre: Advantage Russia Finally, it is in the war theatre itself where events have unfolded calling into question the entire geopolitical gamble of the West. After the initial phase when Russia received a rude shock about the full extent of NATO’s penetration and the systematic buildup of the Ukrainian armed forces since 2014, Moscow shifted to a strategy of attrition. This meant occupying territory – usually the primary objective of a war – became less important (other than of course the ethnic-Russian dominated Donbass and Crimea) than degrading and destroying the NATO-built force inside Ukraine. Classical war of manoeuvre with large tanks battles in vast open fields or direct assaults on entrenched Ukrainian positions – scenarios that NATO expected and trained the Ukrainian military for and for which it invested in major defence lines around the Donbass – were replaced by gruelling and bloody struggles for strategic cities and gateway towns. Russia has prevailed in all these major urban battles that will help it secure eastern Ukraine. At the same time, Russia has used its offensive firepower to freely strike at military, logistic, high value infrastructure, and command and control targets across Ukraine including in Kyiv. Russia adapted to fight an intelligent and relatively low casualty war of its choosing and not the one NATO had planned to bog it down in.

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Blinken seeks many more years of war:

“The United States will help Ukraine build a powerful, modern military, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a speech in Helsinki. Blinken stressed that Washington will continue to provide Ukraine with military assistance so that the Armed Forces of Ukraine can fight Russian aggression. He said the United States would help Ukraine build “the army of the future.” This, he says, means “a modern air force, air and missile defense, modern tanks and armored vehicles, the ability to produce ammunition, as well as training and support for combat readiness of forces and equipment.”

• Blinken Dismisses Calls for a Ceasefire: Build Up Ukraine’s Military (Antiwar)

The US will focus its efforts on arming Ukraine and not attempting to bring the war to a negotiated settlement, America’s top diplomat said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out a plan to massively expand Kiev’s military before talks begin. In a speech delivered in Finland on Friday, Blinken stated, “The United States – together with our allies and partners – is firmly committed to supporting Ukraine’s defense today, tomorrow, for as long as it takes.” He continued, “We believe the prerequisite for meaningful diplomacy and real peace is a stronger Ukraine, capable of deterring and defending against any future aggression.” Blinken dismissed the idea of even a temporary pause in the fighting. “Some countries will call for a ceasefire. And on the surface, that sounds sensible – attractive, even. After all, who doesn’t want warring parties to lay down their arms? Who doesn’t want the killing to stop?” He said.

“But a ceasefire that simply freezes current lines in place and enables Putin to consolidate control over the territory he’s seized…It would legitimize Russia’s land grab. It would reward the aggressor and punish the victim.” The Secretary of State offered an ambitious vision of Kiev’s future military capabilities. “America and our allies are helping meet Ukraine’s needs on the current battlefield while developing a force that can deter and defend against aggression for years to come.” He added, “That means helping build a Ukrainian military of the future, with long-term funding, a strong air force centered on modern combat aircraft, an integrated air and missile defense network, advanced tanks and armored vehicles, national capacity to produce ammunition, and the training and support to keep forces and equipment combat-ready.”

It is unclear how long it would take to build the deterrence force envisioned by Blinken. American arms stockpiles are dwindling as Washington attempts to transfer Kiev enough military equipment to keep its army fighting. The US additionally has plans to significantly increase arms transfers to Taiwan. Blinken claimed, “Our support for Ukraine hasn’t weakened our capabilities to meet potential threats from China or anywhere else – it’s strengthened them.” In November, the Wall Street Journal reported, “US government and congressional officials fear the conflict in Ukraine is exacerbating a nearly $19 billion backlog of weapons bound for Taiwan, further delaying efforts to arm the island.” Additionally, the White House may not have the support it needs in the Capitol for such a massive military buildup in Ukraine. Blinken asserted that “in America, this support is bipartisan.” However, at the beginning of May, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said future support for Ukraine would be contingent on success in Kiev’s long-planned counteroffensive.

Since McCaul’s statement, Ukraine has slowly lost more territory to Russian forces, including Bakhmut. Zelensky committed endless resources to the city in a months-long battle despite the advice from his Western backers. The White House is now preparing for the counteroffensive to fail. Washington’s strategy, as laid out by Blinken, calls for arming Ukraine and weakening Russia. “Russia is significantly worse off today than it was before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – militarily, economically, geopolitically,” he stated, adding, “President Putin has diminished Russian influence on every continent.” However, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the commander of US European Command, told Congress in April that Moscow’s ground forces are “bigger today” than before Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine last year.

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“..even someone like myself with a year-and-a-half experience of military service knows perfectly well… that if I attack, I’ll lose three times more than the one who is on the defense.”

• Ukrainian Counteroffensive Would Turn Into ‘Bloodbath’ – Orban (RT)

Everything must be done to avoid a Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces as it would have devastating consequences for Kiev, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. During an interview with Kossuth Radio on Friday, Orban stated that “even someone like myself with a year-and-a-half experience of military service knows perfectly well… that if I attack, I’ll lose three times more than the one who is on the defense.” Ukraine likely has a population of “somewhere between 20 to 30 million” at the moment, which is “a fraction” of what Russia has, he said. Russia’s population is over 146 million, according to data from the Federal Statistics Service.

The launch of a major counteroffensive by Kiev in such conditions “would be a bloodbath,” the Hungarian leader warned. “Even in the best-case scenario [for Kiev], no better result could be achieved… on the battlefield, than what could’ve been reached through negotiations even before the conflict,” he said. “We must do everything we can before the launch of a counteroffensive to convince the sides that ceasefire and peace talks are necessary,” Orban insisted. Ukraine has been planning a large-scale counteroffensive against the Russian forces for months, claiming it would allow Kiev to retake all territories lost to Russia, including Crimea.

The operation was expected to start in spring, but had been delayed on numerous occasions as Ukrainian officials complained about bad weather, a lack of ammunition, and the reluctance of the West to supply warplanes. Hungary has taken a balanced approach since the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. Budapest has supplied humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but refused to send arms to President Vladimir Zelensky’s government, unlike many fellow EU member states. Hungary has also consistently called for a peaceful settlement to the crisis and criticized the sanctions imposed by Brussels on Moscow, arguing that they have failed to achieve their goal and were hurting the EU more than Russia.

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”Had he won, up to 3 million of the 4 million refugees living in Türkiye would be flooding the Hungarian border by the end of the summer..”

• Orban Delighted At Erdogan’s Victory Over ‘Soros’ Man’ (RT)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban described the election victory of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu as a “huge relief” in a radio broadcast on Friday. “If Erdogan had not won, Soros’ man would have opened the borders to immigrants,” Orban claimed, referring to Kilicdaroglu as an agent of billionaire currency speculator and funder of liberal causes George Soros. Had he won, up to 3 million of the 4 million refugees living in Türkiye would be flooding the Hungarian border by the end of the summer, Orban presumed. “I didn’t just root for him, I prayed specifically for President Erdogan’s victory,” Orban continued. “It would have been a tragedy if he had not won.”

The prime minister argued that unlike Erdogan, Kilicdaroglu would have been a pro-war leader, potentially disrupting Russian gas supplies to Hungary and Serbia. Hungary receives the vast majority of its natural gas from Russia via the TurkStream pipeline, which carries gas from Russia to Southern Europe through Türkiye. Budapest has repeatedly blocked EU efforts to impose an embargo on Russian gas to punish Moscow for its military operation in Ukraine. Orban stressed the importance of convincing Ukraine and Russia “that a ceasefire is needed and that peace talks are necessary,” lamenting that “the vast majority in the EU is against us, they are at our throats.” He predicted a “bloodbath” if Kiev were to go ahead with its planned counteroffensive, pointing out that the odds were not on the Ukrainians’ side.

Erdogan officially won reelection on Sunday following a runoff vote, entering his third term with support from 52.14% of the electorate, according to Türkiye’s Supreme Election Council. While Kilicdaroglu ran on a globalist platform of restarting EU accession talks, improving relations with the country’s NATO allies, and rolling back many of Erdogan’s domestic reforms, he took a more forceful stance against open borders during the runoff, promising to send refugees back to their home countries. Erdogan consistently portrayed his opponent as hostile to traditional values, pro-terrorist, and pro-LGBT.

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“..as long as his government remains in power..”

• Orban Warns Hungary Will Never Fight Russia (RT)

Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has pledged not to “fight” Russia or let the country get dragged into the Ukraine conflict as long as his government remains in power. The prime minister made the remarks on Friday during an interview with local Kossuth Radio. Budapest sees the ongoing hostilities between Moscow and Kiev as a “close” yet “outside threat,” Orban explained. “We are not involved in the war, Hungary is not at war with Russia, and will not be for as long as this government is in place, certainly not,” the PM stated. Orban also slammed belligerent statements repeatedly made by “left-wing politicians” who have claimed their countries were “at war” with Russia already. The PM did not, however, point to any specific examples of such statements.

“When left-wing politicians say that ‘we are at war with Russia,’ while sitting at home in a comfortable armchair, they do not know what they are talking about. They have lost their minds. ‘We are at war with Russia’ is a statement that no sane person can afford since World War II.” Unlike fellow NATO and EU member states, Hungary has taken a neutral stance on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which began in February 2022. The country has refused to provide any military aid to Kiev and has even prohibited the flow of arms from third parties to Ukraine through its territory.

The country has also been opposing the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions, particularly those damaging its own vital interests, namely restrictions in the fields of conventional and nuclear energy. Budapest has consistently argued that the restrictions failed to meet their proclaimed goals and were hurting the EU more than Russia. At the same time, Budapest has been providing humanitarian aid to Ukrainian civilians who have been impacted by the crisis. Hungary has also repeatedly called for settling the conflict through a diplomatic solution.

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This is a war summit. Nothing to do with peace.

• Zelensky Talks Peace Summit With Scholz (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has said his recent meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz included talks on preparing for a “Global Peace Summit.” Earlier this week, media outlets reported that Kiev and its Western backers were planning to convene a global meeting centered on Kiev’s “peace formula,” which has already been rejected by Moscow. According to a statement published by Zelensky’s office, the president met with the German leader on the sidelines of the European Political Community Summit in Moldova’s capital Chisinau on Thursday. He thanked Scholz for “supporting the Ukrainian Peace Formula” and for his “readiness to join its implementation.” The two leaders also “discussed joint preparations for the Global Peace Summit and the involvement of the widest possible range of participants,” the statement noted.

The Ukrainian president urged Berlin to keep military aid flowing to Kiev, specifically air defense systems, citing the “escalation of Russian missile terror against Ukraine.” On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that French President Emmanuel Macron had offered to host the summit in Paris, with Denmark and Sweden also putting themselves forward as potential hosts. European officials have allegedly extended invitations to Brazil, India, China, and several other non-Western countries, with Russia being conspicuously absent from the list. Published late last year, Ukraine’s peace formula demands that Moscow withdraw its forces from all territories within Ukraine’s borders as established in 1991, including Crimea.

Moreover, the plan envisages Russia paying reparations for damage caused, and handing over officials accused by Ukraine of war crimes, to face international tribunals. Moscow has unequivocally rejected this formula, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov describing its terms as essentially the “capitulation of Russia.” Speaking on Friday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov noted that there are no indications that dialogue with Ukraine will be possible any time soon. He explained that the proposals floated by European nations have so far failed to accommodate Moscow’s security concerns, which are a priority for Russia. Earlier this week, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, expressed skepticism over the prospect of Russia engaging in peace talks with Ukraine in the near future.

The diplomat argued that Moscow seems intent on achieving a military victory over its neighbor, and that fighting is likely to continue throughout the summer. Aside from Ukraine’s own peace formula, there have been several plans suggested by other nations. Notably, China released its own 12-point roadmap on the first anniversary of the conflict in late February. While dismissed out of hand by the US, its NATO allies and Ukraine, the plan has been received favorably by several other nations, including Brazil and Russia.

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Many more years of war.

• Europe Suffers Sharp Munitions Deficit Due To Military Aid Largesse (TASS)

Europe is experiencing a palpable deficit of ammunition due to its generous military support for the Kiev regime, Italian daily La Repubblica reported on Friday. According to the newspaper, among other items, there is a shortage of shells and explosives for warheads. That said, Kiev cannot launch its much-hyped counteroffensive until it accumulates sufficient supplies. The US has already doubled its production from 200,000 to 400,000 shells a year, while in 2025 it hopes to surpass the one million mark. Meanwhile, in Europe this figure is at the level of just 50,000. According to La Repubblica, financing being provided by Brussels is aimed at changing the current state of affairs but, that said, the goal of churning out one million 155-mm shells “every 12 months appears to be overly ambitious.”


Earlier, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said that the EU plans to deliver another one million munitions to Ukraine in the next 12 months. According to him, 24 EU countries have joined the initiative to expand production of 155-mm artillery shells with 1 billion euros being appropriated for this purpose. He specified that the European Defense Agency, a branch of the EU, had taken the lead on this issue.

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“Production at the Sakhalin-1 project in Russia’s Far East jumped by 180%, quarter on quarter.”

• Russian Oil Giant’s Profits Soar Amid Sanctions (RT)

Net profits at Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft, jumped by 45.5% in the first quarter of this year compared to the previous three months, hitting 323 billion rubles ($4 billion) due to a rise in output, the company announced this week. Analysts polled by the Interfax had expected the figure to be far smaller, at $2.9 billion. Oil and gas production in the first quarter increased by 0.8% from October to December, exceeding four million barrels per day, Rosneft reported. Production at the Sakhalin-1 project in Russia’s Far East jumped by 180%, quarter on quarter. The company’s CEO Igor Sechin, however, warned that operations would be further impacted by Moscow’s decision to reduce its oil output by 500,000 barrels per day, or about 5%, in order to bolster global oil markets.


“While the cut did not have much influence on the Q1 2023 results, it will have a strong impact on the results of the following quarter,” he warned. Rosneft attributes the rise in profits to increasing energy sales to India and other ‘friendly’ states. India, the world’s third-largest crude importer, ramped up purchases of Russian oil shortly after the start of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine and the ensuing Western sanctions. New Delhi has repeatedly stressed that energy security is its top priority. It has chosen not to succumb to Western pressure and has continued to stock up on Russian supplies, even after the G7 price cap on Russian oil came into force late last year. Sechin said recently that Moscow and New Delhi had agreed to “substantially increase” the supply of crude oil to India and diversify its grades.

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China’s setting up the table. Next round, intentions won’t be enough.

• Moscow, Kiev, EU Seeking Peaceful Solution To Ukraine Crisis – Special Envoy (TASS)

Moscow, Kiev and the European Union vowed to work toward a peaceful solution to the Ukraine crisis, Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui said, commenting on his recent international tour. “The first thing that I felt clearly was that every side involved positively assessed China’s efforts. Everybody’s hoping for a peaceful solution to the [Ukraine] crisis,” Li told a briefing at the China Public Diplomacy Association. According to the Chinese envoy, both Russia and Ukraine, as well as the EU, support the stance of China which is seeking to resolve the conflict through political means. From May 15 to May 26, Li Hui visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany, the EU headquarters and Russia. During that tour, he met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, and diplomats from the aforementioned nations, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. His key goal, Li said, was to discuss the Ukraine conflict.

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“You ask why Russia took such actions. I will answer you with one phrase, which my Russian colleagues shared with me,” Li said. “They started the operation to protect the lives, property and security of the people of Donbass.”

• China Special Envoy Urges Europe To Ponder Causes Of Ukrainian Conflict (TASS)

The Chinese government’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, suggested on Friday that his European counterparts should ponder why the Ukrainian conflict had developed and why Russia had launched a special military operation in Ukraine. The Chinese envoy was speaking in response to a question from a Western journalist who asked him for clarification. “When I was in Europe, I invited my colleagues from European states to think hard about the root causes of the Ukrainian conflict,” Li said at a news briefing of the China Public Diplomacy Association in Beijing following his international tour. “They can all think hard and draw their own conclusions,” Li said. While explaining the reasons for the special military operation he referred to Russia’s arguments.


“You ask why Russia took such actions. I will answer you with one phrase, which my Russian colleagues shared with me,” Li said. “They started the operation to protect the lives, property and security of the people of Donbass.” As the Chinese diplomat specified, regardless of the causes of the Ukrainian crisis “it is necessary to restore peace as soon as possible through negotiations in a political way.” On May 15-26, Li Hui visited Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany, the EU headquarters and Russia. During this trip, he met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and with diplomats from these countries, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The task, as Li confirmed, was to discuss the Ukrainian conflict.

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“..I left the interrogation with a new appreciation of how deeply ingrained into the intellectual DNA of the official US government the Navalny and Ukrainian narratives have become..”

• Propaganda Perverts Reality In The Minds Of Americans (Scott Ritter)

At the end of April, my daughter Victoria and I departed New York City’s JFK airport, ultimately bound for the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, the first destination of what would be a 26-day, 12-city tour of Russia. While the official purpose of the visit was business (I was promoting my book, Disarmament Race, which has been published in the Russian language by the Komsomolskaya Pravda publishing house), the unofficial – and for me, most important – purpose of the visit was an opportunity to better understand today’s Russia. To do this, I was going to dig deeper into Russian history, get a better grasp of the culture, and, in the process, try to understand the “Russian soul” in as precise a manner as possible.

From my perspective, both objectives were accomplished. I’m inclined to believe that Komsomolskaya Pravda was pleased with the results of a tour that drew positive media coverage, resulted in well-attended town hall-style events involving vigorous question-and-answer sessions, and reportedly resulted in the initial print run of 10,000 books to be sold out in a manner of days. Through the considerable interaction I had with Russians of all walks of life, I came away with deeper insight into the complexity of what comprises the modern Russian nation circa 2023. However, divining an articulable definition of the Russian soul – if indeed possible at all – requires deeper introspection into the plethora of data and experiences captured during this journey than the passage of several days affords and is beyond the scope of this article.

I left on this adventure fully cognizant of the existence of an informational pandemic in America known as Russophobia, and I always believed that I was realistic as to the challenges that I would have to face in trying to convert my Russian experience into a fact-based vaccine to counter this disease of the American mind. However, the scale of the obstacles that I imagined overcoming paled in comparison to the reality that hit home literally as I stepped off the aircraft on our way back home, when Victoria and I were both pulled out of the passport checkpoint for an hours-long interrogation by investigators from Customs and Border Protection who specialize in travelers from designated nations such as Russia.

I will start by noting that the treatment my daughter and I received was professional and courteous. I understand the political reality of the times we live in, and the perceived necessity of questioning US citizens who travel to Russia while relations between our two nations are at an all-time low. My concern is not in the conduct of the interrogation, but rather the substance of the foundational information upon which the questions asked of me were based. As the CBP officer admitted, he had interviewed hundreds of Russians after the start of the military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The picture he had of Russia was singularly grounded in the perspective of political dissidents who had a bone to pick with President Vladimir Putin, and the narrative that they painted about Russia had become gospel for the CBP. By extension, it has heavily influenced the overall assessment by the US government, since these dissident debriefings constitute a major source of the primary intelligence used by national security analysts throughout the American intelligence community.

In short, my interrogation quickly became a debate between myself on the one hand, and a combination of Alexey Navalny (the imprisoned Russian opposition figure who most of the Russian dissidents support, according to the officer) and the Ukrainian government on the other. Virtually every point I made was immediately defined as “pro-Russian propaganda.” I tried to impress upon the CBP officer the reality of Russia, today, especially concerning both the high level of support for, and underlying criticism of, the Russian government about the military campaign in Ukraine. However, in the end my arguments, and the facts they were based upon, were categorized as “Kremlin talking points” no matter how hard I tried. I left the interrogation with a new appreciation of how deeply ingrained into the intellectual DNA of the official US government the Navalny and Ukrainian narratives have become, and how difficult it will be to root them out.

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WHO?

“The “trust horizon” (a concept introduced by the great Nicole Foss, late of The Automatic Earth dot com) is shrinking. You can no longer trust any distant authorities”

• Who Can You Trust? (Jim Kunstler)

Anyway, you must ask yourself: why on earth should I trust the WHO about anything? Did they not participate in laying a trip on the world with Covid-19? How did those lockdowns work out? Do you think they destroyed enough businesses and ruined enough households? How’s the vaccination program doing? Effective? Safe? Yeah, maybe not so much. Maybe killing a lot of people, wrecking immune systems, sterilizing reproductive organs, causing gross disabilities, shattering lives. Of course, in over three years neither the WHO nor the US medical authorities showed the slightest interest in helping to figure out how the Covid-19 virus was made in a lab, and exactly how it got loose in the world. Lately, Dr. Ghebreyesus has warned the world about much worse future pandemics supposedly coming down at us.

Oh? Really? What does he know that we don’t? That possibly new efforts to concoct chimeric diseases are ongoing in labs around the world? (You know that dozens of such labs were discovered in Ukraine as the war got underway there in 2022.) What’s Dr. Ghebreyesus doing to stop that? If US orgs and citizens are involved in this “research,” why doesn’t the WHO alert our government leaders so they can stop it. (Would they? I’m not so sure.) And, who is behind it this time? The Eco-Health Alliance again, like with Covid-19? By the way, that outfit got another whopping grant last fall from the NIH to “study” bat viruses — right after the NIH terminated a previous grant on account of The Eco-Health Alliance failing to turn over notebooks and other records. No, you cannot trust the WHO about anything. The “trust horizon” (a concept introduced by the great Nicole Foss, late of The Automatic Earth dot com) is shrinking. You can no longer trust any distant authorities.

You also cannot trust the US federal government (especially the executive branch behind “Joe Biden”). And notice: the trust horizon is shrinking just as the world is de-centralizing. This, you see, is the main contradiction behind all the Globalist’s twisted ambitions to control everything, including you. They are working against the current tide of human history which is pushing everything toward down-scaling, re-localization, and re-assertion of the sovereign individual person. That trend will become increasingly evident as things organized at the giant scale start to implode — giant retail chains, medical behemoths, hedge funds, big banks, you name it. The world no longer has the mojo for globalism. There’s reason to wonder these days whether the USA has the mojo to remain a unified national polity of states. Our federal government is not only financially bankrupt beyond any coherent reckoning, it is also morally bankrupt, and it has decided to make war against its own people. None of this is satisfactory and none of this is working. It’s time to figure out who and what you can trust and act accordingly.

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“Chairman Comer has been clear that anything short of producing the FD-1023 form to the House Oversight Committee is not compliance with his subpoena..”

• FBI Relents, Agrees To Deliver Subpoenaed Memo Alleging Biden Bribery (JTN)

Facing a potential contempt of Congress vote, FBI Director Christopher Wray relented and has agreed to bring a subpoenaed document from the Biden family investigation to Capitol Hill for lawmakers to inspect on Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced Friday. The document in question, an FD-1023, contains uncorroborated allegations that an informant provided the FBI in June 2020 alleging that Joe Biden, when he was vice president, was engaged in a bribery scheme to change US policy in return for $5 million to his family’s businesses, lawmakers have said. Congress was alerted to the document by an FBI whistleblower who raised concerns the allegations were never fully investigated. Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa demanded to see the document, and Comer followed with a subpoena.

As recently as Wednesday, Wray indicated he would not turn over the document in compliance with the subpoena, but would let lawmakers come read it at the FBI. But a deal was struck late Thursday for the FBI to bring the document to the Capitol, officials said. “Chairman Comer will receive a briefing from the FBI and review the document on Monday,” his committee told Just the News in a statement. “Chairman Comer has been clear that anything short of producing the FD-1023 form to the House Oversight Committee is not compliance with his subpoena. This unclassified record contains pages of details that need to be investigated further by the House Oversight Committee.” In a statement to Just the News, the FBI said it wanted to accommodate Congress while also protecting sensitive confidential human source information that often is recorded in memos even before it is corroborated.

“Director Wray offered to provide the Committee’s Chairman and Ranking Member an opportunity to review information responsive to the subpoena in a secure manner to accommodate the committee, while protecting the confidentiality and safety of sources and important investigative sensitivities,” the bureau said. “The FBI has continually demonstrated its commitment to working with the Committee to accommodate its request, from scheduling briefings and calls to now allowing the Chair to review information in person. The FBI remains committed to cooperating with the Committee in good faith.”

The bureau also cautioned that FD-1023 forms are “used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting by a confidential human source. Documenting the information does not validate it, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information verified by the FBI. “Revealing unverified or possibly incomplete information could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputations, create misimpressions in the public, or potentially identify individuals who provide information to law enforcement, placing their physical safety at risk,” it added.

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“In a recent war game, Chinese defence researchers sank an entire US aircraft carrier fleet in the South China Sea with 24 hypersonic missiles. Some military experts believe that these weapons used CL-20 warheads.”

• China Has Tamed The World’s Most Powerful Explosive- Military Scientists (SCMP)

A Chinese research team said they have significantly improved the safety of the world’s most powerful explosive by engineering a five-fold boost to its shock resistance capacity. The breakthrough could speed up the large-scale application of the explosive in battle, making Chinese weapons far superior in terms of destructive power, according to the scientists. CL-20 is the most deadly non-nuclear explosive in existence. When detonated, it can produce destructive shock waves with blast pressures many times higher than other common explosives like TNT and RDX. In a recent war game, Chinese defence researchers sank an entire US aircraft carrier fleet in the South China Sea with 24 hypersonic missiles. Some military experts believe that these weapons used CL-20 warheads.

The mass production of CL-20 is extremely difficult. China is the only country so far to possess such industrial capability and has used the explosive in some of its newest weapons, according to a US Energetics Technology Centre study commissioned by the Pentagon in 2021. But the use of CL-20 is still limited due to its sensitivity to shock, according to the Chinese team led by explosive scientist Guo Changping from the Sichuan Military and Civilian Co-Innovation Centre for New Energetic Materials. Guo and his colleagues developed a new nanotechnology that can help synthesise CL-20 composites with ultra-high stability. In a falling hammer test, the impact sensitivity or “H50 value” of the new CL-20 explosive was 68cm (26.8 inches), much higher than that of the original material at 13cm.

Falling hammer tests involve dropping a weight onto a sample of explosive material from a specified height and measuring whether it detonated. The height at which half of the samples detonate is known as the H50 value and is used as a measure of impact sensitivity. “CL-20 has a high mechanical sensitivity, which makes it prone to safety accidents during its development, production, storage, transport and use, due to friction and impact. Its safety performance needs to be improved,” Guo’s team said in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese Journal of Explosives and Propellants in April. “We are seeking a new method to break through the current technology barriers. It will inspire the design and preparation of high-security, high-energy propellants and explosive formulas of the future,” the scientists added.

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The video is now free for the whole weekend, not just 24 hours.

• Woke Twitter Employees Exit In Fallout Over What Is A Woman Censorship (Rebel)

Several high-profile Twitter employees have exited the company following their decision to undermine the leadership of Elon Musk in censoring the Daily Wire’s documentary on trans-affirming surgeries for minors, “What Is A Woman?” One of the employees in question, Maie Aiyed, who served as the company’s program manager for brand safety, was exposed for having previously published posts disparaging white people following her exit. Aiyed shared her departure from Twitter, colloquially referred to as “the bird app,” through a post on a verified account linked to her. Although the tweet did not detail the reasons for her exit, it extended gratitude to some of her colleagues.

The departure announcement coincided with the news of Ella Irwin’s resignation, the chief of Twitter’s trust and safety department, and the platform’s restriction on the premiere of The Daily Wire’s documentary, “What Is A Woman?”. Elon Musk confirmed on Friday that their departures were directly related to the effort to censor the documentary. Historical posts from Aiyed, exhibiting a pattern of dismissive remarks towards white people, resurfaced among users following the news of her departure. Her previous posts, dating back to 2017, ranged from undermining white individuals’ comprehension of other cultures to caricaturing their behaviors and preferences.

As detailed by Fox News producer Gregg Re, Aiyed tweeted various racial grievances against white people. In one instance, Aiyed even stated that she was “actively avoiding reading books by white authors.” Aiyed’s account portrays her as having Egyptian heritage, frequently posting about video games and an array of other subjects, often in a sardonic tone. LinkedIn data indicates that Aiyed has held the role of a program manager for Brand Safety Partnerships at Twitter in the San Francisco Bay Area since March 2022, a tenure that predates Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company. Her professional history includes employment at other major tech companies such as YouTube, Patreon, and Dropbox.

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