René Magritte Le Mal du Pays (Homesickness) 1940
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798909398288392653
Trump Dr Phil
My one on one interview with President Donald Trump. In depth. No holds barred. A must watch. pic.twitter.com/a5SuCgVsdW
— Dr. Phil (@DrPhil) June 7, 2024
Yale Law professor
Yale Law Professor Has Brilliant Plan for Trump Legal Team to Overturn 'Guilty' Verdict Before the Election
"Could Trump actually be put in jail? You bet he could."
"Each count of this 34 count indictment has a maximum penalty attached to it of four years. Well, that's four… pic.twitter.com/47neHaqPtB
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) June 6, 2024
Bomb jobs – The Arsenal of democracy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798965632022819096
Holder
One of the most amazing clips ever. CNN host asks Eric Holder what would happen if Trump gets re-elected and he chooses a corrupt AG. pic.twitter.com/Ame68Xxsyy
— MAZE (@mazemoore) June 6, 2024
Trump Arpaio
President Trump realized Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in the crowd and invites him on stage to say a few words:
SHERIFF JOE: “I told my wife, I finally found the only hero I ever had, and it’s [Trump].” pic.twitter.com/BWmGfvt7qy
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 6, 2024
Roseanne
Roseanne Barr on Joe Biden: “How come no one looks out for the poor guy? Nobody protects him. They keep shoving him out in places that he doesn’t belong.. he should be in a home. Jill is making her husband go out on stage when he craps his pants at the drop of a dime.” pic.twitter.com/f7TGMhoToo
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 7, 2024
Roseanne Barr says she thinks Diddy is about to get the ‘Epstein Treatment’:
“I think he’s going to be the one that goes down… he’ll probably be the only one. Certainly Bill Clinton won’t, certainly everyone else on that list that went more than 25 times won’t..” pic.twitter.com/Y4kBFXlXmz
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 6, 2024
Making sure that Trump cannot use it on appeal?!
• Trump Judge Flags Facebook Post Suggesting Possible Mistrial (RT)
The judge presiding over the New York criminal case in which former US President Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felony charges has notified defense lawyers and prosecutors of a social media post indicating possible jury misconduct, raising questions over whether the verdict could be nullified. Judge Juan Merchan sent a letter to attorneys in the case on Friday, flagging a comment that was apparently posted on the New York State Unified Court System’s Facebook page on May 29, the day before Trump’s guilty verdict was announced. The author, identified as Michael Anderson, said, “My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted. Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!” Merchan gave no indication of whether he considered the post to be legitimate, and he didn’t ask the prosecution or defense teams to do anything in response.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799193726557868517
The judge said the court “became aware” of the pre-verdict comment and was therefore bringing it to the attention of parties in the case. Jurors were given strict instructions not to discuss the case or their deliberations with anyone besides each other. If those rules were proven to have been violated, Trump could seek a mistrial to have his conviction thrown out based on jury misconduct. The jury deliberated from May 28 to May 30 before finding Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to boost his chances of winning the 2016 presidential election. Lawyers for the ex-president had unsuccessfully sought a change of venue in the case, arguing that they couldn’t get a fair trial with a jury in one of the most staunchly Democrat cities in the nation.
It’s not clear whether Anderson was actually related to one of the 12 jurors; nor has it been verified that he posted his message before the verdict was declared. Nevertheless, Trump supporters quickly seized on Merchan’s letter as further evidence that the trial wasn’t fair. “If true, this is likely headed to a mistrial because a juror isn’t allowed to discuss the case with family or friends like this,” conservative podcast host Robby Starbuck said. “Big deal.” Former federal prosecutor Joyce Alene said that it was smart for Merchan to notify the parties of the potentially incriminating post and hold a hearing to resolve the issue. “Why does a clear record matter?” she asked. “Because Trump will raise this on appeal to argue for reversal. Now, both sides have notice of this issue, and there’s an opportunity to get all of the details and facts out so that if there is nothing to this, it won’t affect the appeal.”
Juror
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799191685735305423
“The West is losing four wars in one – economically (in trade and debt), financially (de-dollarization and international payment systems), militarily (in Ukraine in battle and in a comparison of weapons systems) and geopolitically with a massive loss of influence around the world..”
• Putin’s 4D Chess: West ‘Losing’ War on Four Fronts (Sp.)
Tens of thousands of sanctions leveled against Russia by Western countries have paradoxically failed to crush the Russian economy, and on the contrary the country is seeing economic growth at rates almost unprecedented in its post-Soviet history. “We have set a goal to enter the top four largest economies in the world,” President Putin said during his speech at SPIEF on Friday. “Just last week the World Bank made additional calculations and put Russia in fourth place. We found ourselves ahead of Japan. Russia ranks fourth in terms of purchasing power parity GDP.” But Russia won’t rest on its laurels, Putin said, noting that the difference in GDP remains “small,” that other countries are not standing in one place, and that “leadership positions need to be constantly confirmed and strengthened.”
To that end, Putin outlined an economic growth and investment strategy over the next six year period, including, among other things, a drive toward increased self-sufficiency, a substantial jump in capital investment, changes to the tax code, and a renewed push to attract private investment. Highlighting Russia’s reorientation in trade and payments away from the West toward the developing world, the Russian president said the West had “been dealt a significant blow,” largely “by Western countries themselves,” with countries boosting trade in currencies other than the dollar and the euro. At the same time, Putin said, the hegemon of the Western economic order, the United States, faces serious financial straits which would be even more serious were it not for its continued plunder of developing nations. “They have a current account deficit of a trillion dollars. What is this? I think, everyone will understand what I’m talking about. This is neocolonialism in its modern iteration. Using the monopoly position of the dollar, the United States consumes a trillion dollars a year more than it produces. They seem to be pumping out these resources from other countries,” Putin said. He added that America’s gargantuan debt, which runs in the tens of trillions of dollars, is not backed by any tangible assets.
“The growth in the Russian economy (outpacing Western economies) is spectacular and it shows that the 15,000 sanctions applied by the West have blown back on them,” British academic and author Rodney Atkinson told Sputnik, offering his key takeaways from Putin’s speech. “The West is losing four wars in one – economically (in trade and debt), financially (de-dollarization and international payment systems), militarily (in Ukraine in battle and in a comparison of weapons systems) and geopolitically with a massive loss of influence around the world,” Atkinson explained. To make matters worse, the political and economic commentator stressed that the hostility with which the West has responded to the metamorphosis of a unipolar world order into a multipolar one has only made matters worse for itself thanks to its selfish and short-sighted policy elites.
“Even before the 20-year expansion towards Russia and the 2014 Maidan-instigated war, European imperial ambitions and US neocon aggression were unpopular. Now that the Global South has witnessed recent events and the BRICS offer an alternative and the US has descended into record debt and industrial weakness, it is very difficult for the West to recover its influence. Plagued by geopolitical ignorance, financially irresponsible policies and weak leadership, the US and its allies may not even survive as one of the poles of the multi-polar world,” Atkinson said.
Atkinson emphasized the madness of the West’s logic of slapping sanctions against a country the size of Russia with its abundance of food, mineral and energy resources. What’s worse (for the West) is that Moscow has been trailblazing a path to independence which can be emulated by other nations. “Import substitution by Russia and the unwillingness of Western companies to leave Russia (1,600 international companies have left Russia since 2022 but there are more than 2,100 left) and the substitution of national currencies for dollar-based trade (i.e. rupee, yuan, ruble) all show the Global South that there are alternatives to a Western-based system based on sanctions,” Atkinson said.
“..Putin explained. It is now June 2024, and in order to do this, I feel, it will take a year. He will be tolerated until the spring, until the beginning of next year..”
• West Will Remove Zelensky – Kremlin (RT)
The US and its allies will tolerate Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky until he has served his purpose, at which point he will be replaced, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman gave an interview to Izvestia on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), where he addressed recent remarks by the president about the likely fate of Zelensky. “Obviously, he will be removed,” Peskov said. “Obviously, reducing the mobilization age will cause an increasing wave of negativity in Ukrainian society.”
Peskov’s comments came as clarification to statements made by Putin on Wednesday, in a meeting with the heads of international news agencies that lasted more than three hours. At one point, the Russian president noted that the US has been pressuring Ukraine to mobilize increasingly younger men. According to Putin, Washington has already compelled Kiev to lower the draft age from 27 to 25, with a view of moving it down to 23 next, and then to 20 or straight to 18. “The law has to be passed and certain steps have to be taken,” Putin explained. “It is now June 2024, and in order to do this, I feel, it will take a year. He will be tolerated until the spring, until the beginning of next year at the very least. When it is done, they will say goodbye.”
Ukraine is currently losing around 50,000 troops per month and is able to mobilize only 30,000 replacements, leaving Kiev with an unsolvable problem, Putin added. The West already has “a few candidates” lined up to serve as president of Ukraine, according to the Russian president. Earlier in the conversation, Putin said that Zelensky had effectively carried out a coup by extending his presidential term past May 20, when it legally expired. Zelensky has argued that Ukrainian law forbids elections during a state of emergency, so he has to stay in office until the end of the conflict with Russia. The Ukrainian constitution, however, contains no such provisions – and in fact stipulates that the head of the parliament should assume power.
“..The two officially met for the first time in 2011..”
• Kremlin Responds After Biden Claims He’s Known Putin For 40 Years (RT)
Vladimir Putin wearing KGB uniform in 1980. © Wikipedia
It is often difficult to fathom what US President Joe Biden means with his statements, including when he claims to have known his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for 40 years, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Biden lashed out at Putin during an interview with ABC News on Thursday, saying: “I have known him for over 40 years. He has concerned me for 40 years. He is not a decent man. He is a dictator.” Speaking on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday, Peskov stated that Putin “does not react and will not react” to insults such as Biden’s. The spokesman added that he could only express regret that “in international politics at this level such rhetoric and such expressions are employed regarding a head of state.”
Referring to Biden’s claim that he has known the Russian leader for four decades, Peskov added that “sometimes one can only wonder what the US president means, including when he speaks about [knowing Putin for] 40 years.” Some commentators have already “rolled back time to understand what Putin was doing 40 years ago. One can make very deep analytical conclusions about how Biden could have become acquainted with him [at that time],” Peskov said, prompting laughter from journalists. The presidential spokesman was apparently referring to the fact that 40 years ago, the then 32-year-old Putin was working for the Soviet security agency, the KGB. Biden was 41 at the time, serving as senator for the US state of Delaware. The two officially met for the first time in 2011, when Putin held the post of prime minister under President Dmitry Medvedev, and Biden was US vice president in the administration of Barack Obama.
Posting on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, conservative commentator and former US Senate staffer Steve Guest wrote that by claiming he had known Putin for four decades, the 81-year-old Biden was “either… lying or he is admitting he was in contact with a KGB agent since 1984 or Biden’s brain is so cooked that he doesn’t know what on earth he is talking about.” The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week, citing dozens of people who have been in contact with Biden recently, that beyond his frequent mental gaffes in public, the president is also showing “signs of slipping” in closed-door meetings with US lawmakers. Biden has directed insults at Putin throughout his presidency, among other things calling the Russian leader a “killer” in 2021 and a “crazy SOB” in February. The Kremlin has denounced the comments as “shameful,” but has declined to respond with equally harsh rhetoric.
He says he won’t pardon Hunter because he knows he doesn’t have to..
• Some Dads Don’t Pardon (Manley)
The maximum sentence for the first son’s most serious charge is 10 years in prison, but if he is convicted he would most likely face a lighter sentence. US President Joe Biden said he would not pardon his son, Hunter Biden, if he is convicted in his criminal trial in Delaware. The president sat down for an interview with ABC News in Normandy, France during a trip in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the WWII D-Day landings. During the interview, the president was asked if he would accept the outcome of his son’s trial in Wilmington, Delaware, to which he said, “Yes.” During the interview, Biden said that former President Donald Trump got a “fair trial” and said the “jury spoke”. The president also said he would not pardon his son if he is convicted, which he has reportedly been saying for months. Biden issued a personal statement on Monday offering support for his son and said he was a father as well as the president.
“I’ve been very clear — the president is not going to pardon his son,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters in December. Former Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, said on social media that Hunter Biden’s trial is a “smoke screen”, and is “designed to make the prosecution of Trump appear nonpartisan, yet the outcome of the Hunter trial doesn’t matter” because the president “can and will pardon him.” The trial is on felony charges related to the first son’s efforts to obtain a .38 revolver from a gun shop in 2018 while allegedly battling drug addiction. Prosecutors allege that in October 2018, the president’s son visited StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply in Wilmington to purchase the gun but say he lied about his drug addiction.
The younger Biden is now facing charges of false statement in purchasing of a firearm, false statement related to information required to be kept by a federal firearms licensed dealer, and possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. This is the first time that the son of a sitting president has faced a criminal trial. On Thursday, the widow of Hunter Biden’s late brother, Hallie Biden, testified. Following Beau Biden’s death in 2015, Hunter began an affair with Hallie Biden who said she “panicked” when she found a Colt Cobra revolver in Hunter’s vehicle on October 23, 2018. She said she threw it away in a trash can as a result. Hallie claims that Hunter smoked crack on a “daily” basis or “frequently” during her testimony. However, she told the jury that she did not see Hunter Biden abusing drugs or alcohol for most of the month of October.
Prosecutors said that they will rest their case on Friday and that they have two more witnesses – a DEA drug specialist and an FBI chemist. Meanwhile, the defense counsel said they would call two or three witnesses and would likely rest their case by the end of the day on Monday. The trial comes on the heels of Trump’s own criminal trial, the conclusion of which found the former president guilty of 34 felonies, making him the first president in US history to be criminally convicted. Hours before leaving office, Trump himself pardoned 70 people and commuted the sentences of 73 others. Of the 143 people he excused, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and his former top fundraiser Elliott Broidy, were on the list. Others he pardoned included those committed of fraud schemes, the illegal use of a disadvantage business enterprise to receive government-funded construction contracts, a Google engineer sentenced for stealing a trade secret, bank fraud over the 2009 collapse of a mortgage company, and the ex-husband of a Fox News host.
51 former spooks (+ Blinken) to prosecute… for election interference..
• Media Shrugs as Biden Laptop is Authenticated in Federal Court (Turley)
Watching the coverage this week out of Delaware was like finding oneself in a parallel universe. There were ABC, NBC, CBS, the Washington Post and other news outlets reporting matter-of-factly that the Hunter Biden laptop showed no evidence of tampering and was both real and authentic. These are the same outlets, and some of the same reporters, who eagerly spread the false claims that the laptop was “Russian disinformation.” Yet, what followed the testimony of FBI agent Erika Jensen was absolute crickets. There was no effort to track down the signatories of the now-debunked letter from former intelligence officials just before the election. In the letter, figures such as Leon Panetta, former CIA director in the Obama administration, claimed that the laptop had all the markings of a Russian disinformation effort by intelligence services. (Panetta continued to make the assertion even in late 2023 in pushing what the federal government is now calling a “conspiracy theory.”)
There was no attempt by the media to confront associates of the Biden campaign (including now Secretary of State Antony Blinken) who pushed a long effort to get former intelligence officials to sign a letter. There was no attempt to question President Joe Biden, who made this false claim in the presidential election to deflect any questions about the evidence of corrupt influence peddling on the laptop. Years ago, I wrote that the Biden campaign had pulled off the single greatest political trick in history. As I wrote back then, the key to this Houdini-esque trick was to get the media to invest in the deception like audience members called to the stage.Houdini used to make his elephant Jennifer disappear on stage every night because he knew that the audience wanted her to disappear. They were part of the act. The Bidens made the media part of the act, and these reporters have to back the illusion or admit that they were part of the deception.
They are all laptop deniers, but they know that there are few who will call them to account for their conspiracy theory. Rather, it is social media where readers can see videos of leading media claiming that the laptop is the work of Russian intelligence. In 2020, CBS News’ Lesley Stahl literally laughed mockingly at then-President Donald Trump when he raised the Hunter Biden laptop and what it revealed about the Bidens. Figures like former Chief of Staff at the CIA and Department of Defense Jeremy Bash, who told MSNBC that the laptop “looked like Russian intelligence” and “walked like Russian intelligence.” He dismissed the relevance of the laptop before the election by declaring that “this effort by Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post and Steve Bannon to cook up supposed dirt on Joe Biden looks like a classic, Russian playbook disinformation campaign.”
Bash added that it made Trump an effective agent of Russian intelligence since he kept referencing the laptop: “[when] Rudy Giuliani suddenly comes forward with these mysteriously created emails, probably hacked through a Russian intelligence operation, we have to acknowledge the fact that the President of the United States is supporting, is condoning, is welcoming a Russian intelligence operation in 2020. … This is collusion in plain sight.” Bash, like others behind the conspiracy theory, was later given an intelligence position by Biden.
“.. there are facilities that the entire US Congress and their families will be safe with, if we get to a nuclear stage. But they don’t care about the actual people. They don’t care about their own people..”
• Retired US Army Officer: West Pushing World to Brink of Nuclear War (Sp.)
Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with foreign journalists on June 5 within the framework of the 27th annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). Addressing the Ukraine conflict the Russian president noted that Western weapon deliveries to the Kiev regime, coupled with the approval to hit targets deep inside Russia, is fraught with severe escalation risks. “How do you respond to this use of weapons and allowing them to attack and basically violate the sovereignty of Russia itself?” Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and international consultant told Sputnik. “If we look at these attacks, they’re not targeting military targets, or they’re targeting strategic targets. They’re targeting civilians, many of them, or strategic targets as well. It’s essentially, basically authorizing and supporting terrorism.”
Russia is aware of the fact that while Ukrainian military personnel can participate in the selection of targets for long-range NATO-grade missiles, decisions to strike are made by those who supply the weapons, the president emphasized. Putin made it clear that Russia will respond and consider various options to do this. To illustrate his point, the president suggested delivering weapons to third countries confronting NATO member states involved in the Ukraine conflict. “Why do we not have the right to supply our weapons of the same class to those regions of the world where attacks on sensitive facilities will be carried out… The answer may be asymmetric. We will think about it,” Putin remarked. For his part, Rasmussen said that, “He could be looking at something that’s not the typical type of response, but much broader, perhaps looking at other areas of the world, perhaps looking at where weapons are originating from, or where advisers or intelligence information is gathered to provide for firing. Perhaps we’re looking at Western efforts in the Middle East or in Asia.”
While Russia pursues a policy of no first use (NFU) of nukes, Putin did not rule out using all means available to Russia if the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are threatened in accordance with its nuclear doctrine. “Russia, and to another extent China as well, has been very patient,” Rasmussen highlighted. “They have been measured in their responses to different situations. (…) We need to have a grasp, and President Putin has shown a much more understanding and grasp of where we are in this situation. He went on to say that, unfortunately, Western leaders continue to move up the escalation ladder being completely detached from reality. “[Western leaders] really would not accept failure. It’s scary. They’re moving the world to the precipice, to the cliff. And they would rather destroy the world, I think. It’s astonishing that we’ve somehow come to the point with leaders that have very little vision,” Rasmussen said.
“Sometimes I think that they have their nuclear-hardened bunkers for senior decision makers. I mean, there are facilities that the entire US Congress and their families will be safe with, if we get to a nuclear stage. But they don’t care about the actual people. They don’t care about their own people,” Rasmussen said. The expert lamented the fact that the Western establishment is trying to silence voices in the US and Europe which are warning against raising stakes in Ukraine and bringing the ongoing proxy war with Russia to a direct confrontation. Rasmussen particularly referred to the US authorities’ decision to seize the passport of former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter to prevent him from traveling to Russia. Given all of the above, it’s hardly surprising that Western elites are eager to fight for the last Ukrainian in its proxy war against Russia, the expert remarked. During the meeting with foreign journalists, Putin drew attention to the US behind-the-scenes efforts to force the Kiev regime to lower the draft age to 18 in order to replenish its huge losses on the battleground.
According to Putin, the Ukrainian Army loses about 50,000 soldiers a month, with sanitary losses accounting for only 50% of them. “I said 50,000, but this is the most modest estimate. These are 50,000, this is what we see on the battlefield,” the president said, adding that Russia’s losses are several times less with an approximate one-to-five ratio. “The unacceptance of the Western leaders to recognize this clearly shows they do not care or have any ambitions or any desire to support Ukraine itself,” the military expert said. “Their entire desire is to try to weaken Russia. And it has been a complete failure. Yet politically they don’t want to accept that.” “It’s almost as if Western leaders are living in a parallel universe and they couldn’t care less. They do not care about the Ukrainian people whatsoever. They don’t care about Ukraine as a country. They do not care. They’re purely using it as a tool and it has not been working. The Ukraine project is a failure and the current leadership will not accept it,” Rasmussen concluded.
“Anyone who goes against US national security goals, including the escalation of tensions with Russia, is “deemed an enemy of the state – literally..”
• US Won’t Tolerate Dissent On Russia Narrative – Scott Ritter (RT)
Western governments need the people to perceive Russia as a threat, so they target anyone who tries to show the reality of the country, American political commentator Scott Ritter said at a St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) panel on Friday. Ritter was invited to take part in an RT-hosted panel discussion on Western efforts to vilify Russia. He was not able to do so in person because his passport was seized by the US authorities just as he was boarding a plane, so he joined the event remotely via video link. The former US Marine and UN weapons inspector in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq became a vocal critic of Washington’s foreign policy in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of the Middle Eastern country.
Anyone who goes against US national security goals, including the escalation of tensions with Russia, is “deemed an enemy of the state – literally,” he told the audience. ”It comes down to perception vs. reality, and perception is going to win if you are not able to put an alternative point of view out there. It’s a constant struggle.” The US and its allies need Russia as an enemy, since they are consolidating resources on the pretext of countering a threat, Ritter, who is an RT contributor, explained. Apart from Ritter, the event gathered several high-profile speakers, including Tara Reade – a former aide to Joe Biden – former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, and the great nephew of Otto von Bismarck, Alexander von Bismarck.
The Dems are all about #MeToo, but they force Tara Reade to flee the country.
“I don’t think the US wants their citizens to know how good it is because the Russian state provides education, medical care, and housing in a way that America does not..”
• Tara Reade: If Biden is Reelected, ‘We’re Looking at World War III’ (Sp.)
If Biden is reelected for another four years, “we’re looking at World War III,” Tara Reade, a writer, and former assistant in Joe Biden’s Senate office, told Sputnik. “There’s no question, that’s where we’re at right now,” she said on the sidelines of the 27th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). “So the administration is very hawkish, the people around him and behind him. His leadership is feeble at best. I don’t even know if he’ll last that long, much less through the campaign. So no, I don’t think America economically and existentially can survive Joe Biden and his administration,” Reade said. Tara Reade, a former staffer in Biden’s US Senate office, spoke out about allegedly being sexually assaulted by the current president in 1993 after several women reported Biden’s unwelcomed “touching.” She was also spurred on by the #MeToo movement.
However, after telling her story in 2019 about then-candidate Joe Biden, she found herself branded “a Russian asset.” The Biden administration has vehemently denied her claims.Reade currently lives in Russia, where she has continued writing, and hosts a podcast. She claims she was forced to move to Russia because the FBI was harassing her, noting that they issued sealed subpoenas against her social media accounts. Weighing in on her impressions of life in Russia under sanctions, she extolled the thriving economy of the country, and how safe she felt living here. “Russia is so safe. It’s safer than the United States actually. You have a much lower crime rate. And I have been here a year and I can’t tell you how much I love it,” said Reade.
The former Senate staffer lauded everything from the culture to the food and the efficiency of the transportation. She added that her travels had taken her outside Moscow, and everywhere across the country she witnessed, “a lot of development and building because …Russians have a thriving middle class and working class.” “I don’t think the US wants their citizens to know how good it is because the Russian state provides education, medical care, and housing in a way that America does not. So we have 700,000 homeless right in comparison to Russia where there is virtually no homeless.” People in Russia enjoy “a better standard of living because the economy is really thriving,” said Reade, pointing to the 5.7% growth rate of one of the world’s largest economies. “That’s a thriving economy. That’s a sign that things are going the right direction,” underscored Tara Reade.
“You cannot have 1% of the world that stands on the neck of the 99% of the world and expect that to continue..”
• US Faces ‘Economic Degradation And Misery’ Due To Foreign Policy – Hinkle (RT)
Washington is wasting money on foreign policy blunders like Ukraine, instead of improving the lives of American people, US journalist Jackson Hinkle has said.The political commentator was one of the guests for a discussion panel on US information warfare against Russia, which RT hosted on Friday as part of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). He lampooned the administration of US President Joe Biden for trying to justify continued military assistance to Ukraine by highlighting its intention to spend the money at home to ramp up military production. Biden and other senior officials have repeatedly used this narrative when a White House appropriation request stalls in Congress due to Republican opposition.
It was a “pragmatic” decision to tell the Americans that “the money is actually going to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, which are, of course, historic friends of the American people, right?” Hinkle joked. People in the US would rather see the funds spent “to fix our roads, our infrastructure, the trains that are blowing up, the planes that are cruising,” he added. But there are also indirect consequences, since the US is antagonizing the rest of the world with its foreign policy, Hinkle warned. As Washington loses its clout, Americans face “economic degradation and misery,” he said, adding that America’s claim to global hegemony is leading it towards disaster. “Unipolarity cannot exist. You cannot have 1% of the world that stands on the neck of the 99% of the world and expect that to continue,” he said.
“[Otto] used to say: if Russia and Germany go together and be friends together, then Europe will be well,” he stated.”
• Most Germans Disagree With Berlin On Russia Policy – Bismarck Descendant (RT)
The Western mainstream media is distorting reality regarding Russia and doesn’t reflect what people really think of the country and its actions, German politician Alexander von Bismarck, great nephew of his nation’s first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, has claimed. Speaking during an RT panel discussion titled ‘The Empire of Evil: Has the West Successfully Demonized Russia?’ at the 2024 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday, the politician argued that the media toeing the line drawn by Western governments regarding Russia and the Ukraine conflict. Berlin and its Western partners sided with Kiev when the conflict began in 2022, and has been instrumental in supporting Ukraine’s military effort with financial aid and sanctions against Moscow. Bismarck, however, said ordinary Germans are not fooled by the anti-Russian narrative.
“[The view of] the German political elite on Russia is very different to the rest of Germany. 80% don’t believe what our government does and says… The mainstream media want to push the people, they want to give another picture, but most young people look not at the mainstream – they look at the social media and […] the thinking of the young people is other than the political elite,” he stressed. Bismarck also stated that the policy of painting Russia in an unfavorable light dates back to the days of the Cold War, when the US wanted to promote the idea of “the crazy Russian people” in West Germany. The general opinion of those living in East Germany always focused on separating people from politics when forming opinions on Russia and Russians, he added. The politician signaled that his renowned ancestor, who at one point served as an envoy to Russia, would not have approved of the current state of relations between Moscow and Berlin.
“[Otto] used to say: if Russia and Germany go together and be friends together, then Europe will be well,” he stated. He added that he has faith in the younger generation, which has an opportunity to communicate globally through social media and form opinions without the influence of political agendas, to change Berlin’s policies. Otherwise, Bismarck warned, Germany may find itself “the biggest loser” in the Ukraine conflict by continuing to act on orders from Washington. “The younger generation… they look to many countries and say: yes, America does bad things, they only think about themselves for money, and Europe pays for this conflict, and Germany is the biggest loser in the whole of Europe,” he stated.
Victor Davis Hanson sees just the little parts, but not the connection.
• The Myth That Biden Had Nothing To Do with the Prosecutions of Trump (VDH)
Given Politico was publicly reporting six months ago about Biden’s anger at the pace of his DOJ’s prosecution of Trump, does anyone believe his special counsel, Jack Smith, was not aware of such presidential displeasure and pressure? Note Smith had petitioned and was denied an unusual request to the court to speed up the course of his Trump indictment. And why would Biden’s own Attorney General, Garland, select such an obvious partisan as Smith? Remember, in his last tenure as special counsel, Smith had previously gone after popular Republican and conservative Virginia governor Bob MacDonald. Yet Smith’s politicized persecution of the innocent [MacDonald] was reversed by a unanimous verdict of the U.S. Supreme Court. That rare court unanimity normally should have raised a red flag to the Biden DOJ about both Smith’s partiality and his incompetence. But then again, Smith’s wife had donated to the 2020 Biden campaign fund. And she was previously known for producing a hagiographic 2020 documentary (“Becoming”) about Michelle Obama.
Selecting a special counsel with a successful record of prior nonpartisan convictions was clearly not why the DOJ appointed Smith. The White House’s involvement is not limited to the Smith federal indictments. Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis’s paramour and erstwhile lead prosecutor in her indictment of Trump, Nathan Wade, met twice with the White House counsel’s office. On one occasion, Wade met inside the Biden White House. Subpoenaed records reveal that the brazen Wade actually billed the federal government for his time spent with the White House counsel’s staff — although so far no one has disclosed under oath the nature of such meetings. Of the tens of thousands of local prosecutions each year, in how many instances does a county prosecutor consult with the White House counsel’s office — and then bill it for his knowledge? Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s just-completed felony convictions of Trump were spearheaded by former prominent federal prosecutor Matthew Colangelo.
He is not just a well-known Democratic partisan who served as a political consultant to the Democratic National Committee. Colangelo had also just left his prior position in the Biden Justice Department — reputedly as Garland’s third-ranking prosecutor — to join the local Bragg team. Again, among all the multitudes of annual municipal indictments nationwide, how many local prosecutors manage to enlist one of the nation’s three top federal attorneys to head their case? So, apparently, it was not enough for the shameless Bragg to campaign flagrantly on promises to go after Trump. In addition, Bragg brashly drafted a top Democratic operative and political appointee from inside Joe Biden’s DOJ to head his prosecution. Not surprisingly, it took only a few hours after the Colangelo-Bragg conviction of Trump for Biden on spec to start blasting his rival as a “convicted felon.” Biden is delighted that his own former prosecutor, a left-wing judge, and a Manhattan jury may well keep Trump off the campaign trail.
So, it is past time for the media and Democrats to drop this ridiculous ruse of Biden’s White House “neutrality.” Instead, they should admit that they are terrified of the will of the people in November and so are conniving to silence them.
“More than twenty states have “motor-voter laws” that automatically register anybody with a driver’s license. And these enrollees don’t even have to cast their ballot..”
• Time to Jettison the Animals (Kunstler)
The most astounding part of America’s “Joe Biden” three-plus-years thrill ride is that the Party of Chaos and Hoaxes was able to pretend until just a few days ago that this political phantasm could run for re-election. Now, regime insiders are forced to confess that they can’t hide it anymore. They spilled the beans as “unnamed sources” this week in a huge Wall Street Journal article. The president is going necrotic in full view of the whole world. His mind is gone. He looks ridiculous when he shuffles in front of the cameras. He utters obvious absurdities and lies. His wife has to lead him around like a dog on a leash. Everyone can see it. He’s got to go. ASAP.
The embarrassing ineptitude has been on view since the 2020 campaign, yet his handlers managed to flimflam half the country ever since, thanks to a news media captured by intel blob gaslighters and to half the country’s susceptibility to mass formation psychosis — fear driven thought disorder — that gave cover to treasonous actors seeking to save their asses even if they had to wreck the USA doing it. Who were these actors? The Clintons and the coterie around them, steeped in financial crime and sex trafficking; the Obama coterie of anti-white racists and bungling Marxists; the batshit-crazy Woke race-and-gender hustlers working to derange the merit-based social order (and get paid for doing it); the congressional grifters living off Pharma and Pentagon loot; the agency top bureaucrats who became a corrupt praetorian guard for all the above players, now desperate to evade accountability.
Everything they’ve done since 2020 has been in the service of covering up their crimes, and each hoax has just compounded the damage done to our country. The Covid-19 prank was pulled to enable mail-in ballot fraud so as to assure a permanent government-by-blob, of which the Democratic Party is now a mere tentacle. We don’t know yet whether the mRNA vaccine module of the prank was a deliberate effort to kill a lot of people or a grievous blunder by greedy drug-makers, or some wicked combo — with assistance from the WEF or China.
They can’t afford to lose their grip on the levers of power in the 2024 election — lose control of the Justice Department, the FBI, and the so-called “national security” apparatus, especially. The open border is just an effort to illegally import and enlist a vast wad of potential new voters to ensure an election victory. More than twenty states have “motor-voter laws” that automatically register anybody with a driver’s license. And these enrollees don’t even have to cast their ballot. Their names can just be “harvested” systematically, attached to voting documents, and bundled to be submitted for them. Millions have entered the country illegally since 2021 at “Joe Biden’s” direct invitation. There’s nothing hidden about this — but all you see is the learned helplessness of actual US citizens unable to stop it.
And yet, even that prank may not work to keep the Party of Chaos and Hoaxes in power. Designated candidate “Joe Biden” is obviously so far gone that even actual citizen voters under the mass formation spell can’t be counted on anymore. His poll numbers look abysmal. He’s scheduled to debate his opponent, the outlaw Donald Trump, on June 27. If his handlers allow that to actually happen, it will be like the unmasking scene in The Phantom of the Opera: brain-ringing horror, from sea to shining sea! Of course, an insult to the zeitgeist that severe will force the party leaders into some ‘splainin’, and I personally doubt they will be able to ‘splain their way out of it. Did all of you Democrats not notice?
“On a very personal level, these are torturous discussions with their family members about whether or not they have to leave the country to avoid being unconstitutionally and illegally detained..”
• FBI Agents Fear Being Jailed By Trump – McCabe (RT)
Former US intelligence and law enforcement officials are fretting that they may face retribution, including incarceration, if Donald Trump wins back the presidency in November, an ex-deputy director of the FBI has claimed. Andrew McCabe, who was fired by the Trump administration in 2018 for lying to investigators about a media leak, revealed his fears in a CNN segment on Thursday. Now working as an analyst for the media outlet, he called the prospect of a potential Trump victory in the presidential election “terrifying” and “frightening.” “If he feels like he’s been wronged in some way, then he focuses on revenge and vengeance,” McCabe said. “And so, he’s made it perfectly clear that that’s what he’s going to do.” McCabe did not spell out what he and other Washington officials had done to make themselves enemies of the former president, but some of their clashes with Trump are well known.
Trump has accused the US Department of Justice (DOJ) of trying to help block his return to the White House by filing bogus criminal charges against him. Just last month, Trump said FBI agents were “locked and loaded” to potentially shoot him when they raided his home for classified documents in 2022. The FBI improperly spied on a Trump campaign staffer in 2016 and lied to the US FISA court to obtain warrants in a probe of alleged Russian interference in that year’s election. The agency also covered up its knowledge that the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy narrative was false. A high-level FBI agent and his mistress, an FBI lawyer, discussed the use of the Russia investigation as an “insurance policy” to ensure that Trump did not win the election. Trump suggested in 2019 that McCabe and other FBI leaders had committed treason. More than 50 former intelligence agency officials put their thumbs on the scale in the 2020 election when Trump was running against Joe Biden.
They falsely claimed that a Biden influence-peddling scandal – reported by the New York Post just weeks before the election – appeared to stem from “Russian disinformation.” McCabe said he has spoken to many former intelligence and law enforcement colleagues who are trying to assess the risks they would face in a second Trump presidential term. “On a very personal level, these are torturous discussions with their family members about whether or not they have to leave the country to avoid being unconstitutionally and illegally detained. I mean, people are actually worried about being thrown in jail or grabbed in some sort of extrajudicial detention.” Trump runs the risk of “dismantling and gravely incapacitating” the DOJ and the FBI, McCabe argued. “That is something that Americans on both sides of the political aisle should be worried about. We depend on those institutions to protect us, and he is proposing to tear them down.”
“She must be turned out of office. But for this salutary change to happen, the rightist parties must achieve big results on June 9th.”
Hmm. I’d say if she plays her cards, she’ll become the elected head.
• Power Play: Von der Leyen Faces Showdown in EU Leadership Race (Sp.)
With the European Parliament (MEPs) elections taking place on June 6-9, the chances of the European Commission’s head Ursula von der Leyen keeping her job are slimming. Rising non-systemic right-wing mobilization may boost Eurosceptic MEPs, challenging von der Leyen’s pro-American stance. Loss of support in the European Council adds to her woes. On the eve of the Euroelections, Politico has published a story headlined “Charles Michel Plots A Revenge Against Ursula Von Der Leyen.” The story attracted a lot of attention, since the position of the European Commission’s president is crucial. The president heads the whole executive branch of power inside the EU. But that is not all: only the commission and its head can present draft laws for the vote in the European Parliament, which gave von der Leyen (VDL) some legislative leverage, too.
During her mandate, VDL made several controversial steps, which make her, too, a divisive candidate. These steps included:
• Invitation of embattled and impoverished Ukraine to the EU and a promise of speedy membership amid the protests in Poland and Rumania against cheap Ukrainian exports;
• Non-collegial way of running EU policy, with even the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell telling El País* that “she should not take personal credit for all the successes of the European Commission”;
• active lobbying of greater involvement of the EU in anti-Russian sanctions and of EU member countries in military aid to Ukraine, which led to protests from Hungary and the non-systemic right wing in France and Germany.No wonder that news about von der Leyen having a powerful enemy in the person of Michel, the head of the European Council, attracted attention. Gilbert Doctorow an international relations and Russian affairs analyst accused VDL of “usurping” power. “The biggest usurper is, of course, the Commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen who has taken into her hands all manner of decision-making which under her predecessors was left to the [European] Council, meaning the heads of state acting together, or to individual EU member states,” he told Sputnik. “She must be turned out of office. But for this salutary change to happen, the rightist parties must achieve big results on June 9th.”
Several European media outlets have recalled that VDL became the president of the European Commission in 2019 in an undemocratic way, with Michel’s European Council involved. As Germany’s Der Spiegel reported, von der Leyen did not win an honest vote in the newly elected European Parliament with many candidates running. Instead, her candidacy was “handpicked at a confidential meeting” of the European Council. An unelected institution, the European Council is a body that unites presidents and prime ministers of the EU’s member countries. This time, von der Leyen, most likely, will have to go through a real election through the European Parliament, without the European Council throwing its weight behind her candidacy. So, relying on its own calculations, Politico concludes in another headline, “Von der Leyen needs 361 votes to keep her job.” But this is a tricky challenge.
“..if Budapest’s troops were to do so, they would be commanded by officers appointed by the US-led military bloc. “If this happens, then we have lost a very important part of our sovereignty..”
• EU Is In ‘War Psychosis’ – Orban (RT)
The EU has plunged into “war psychosis” in the Ukraine conflict, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, arguing that this mindset will almost certainly lead to the deployment of Western troops in the country. In an interview with Radio Kossuth on Friday, Orban said the West was “approaching the end of its possibilities” for the conflict between Moscow and Kiev to be ended, adding that “whoever claims that there is no immediate danger of war is deceiving people.” “Only a blind person does not see that there is a war psychosis in Europe, the logical conclusion of which will be the arrival of the military units of the Western European countries on the territory of Ukraine, at best not on the front line,” the prime minister said.
Orban said that, despite tensions reaching boiling point, “hope dies last” and the ongoing European Parliament election could defuse the crisis to a certain extent. According to the Hungarian leader, if the conflict does not spill beyond the Russian-Ukrainian front in the coming weeks, “as early as November if [US presidential candidate] Donald Trump returns, and with a good European election behind us, we can make a pan-Western, transatlantic peace coalition” to cease hostilities. Orban insisted that Hungary must refrain from taking part in any possible NATO mission in Ukraine, noting that if Budapest’s troops were to do so, they would be commanded by officers appointed by the US-led military bloc.
“If this happens, then we have lost a very important part of our sovereignty,” he said, adding that Hungary was already paying an economic price for the conflict. Budapest has consistently slammed the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict, warning that it could result in an escalation and direct NATO-Russia clash. The EU country has also opposed arms shipments to Kiev and called for immediate ceasefire talks. It has also pushed back against remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron, who had suggested that the West should not rule out the option of sending troops to Ukraine, warning that such a move could trigger World War III.
It’s like it is all on purpose. How many blunders is credible?
• Bob Iger, DEI, and Wokism Broke Disney’s Trust with America (AmG)
On May 7, 2024, in the wake of its successful battle to keep activist investor Nelson Peltz off its Board of Directors back in April (after which Peltz liquidated his Disney holdings, walking away with more than $1 billion), Disney CEO Bob Iger held Disney’s quarterly earnings call, during which its stock tanked almost 10%, losing $20 billion in its market cap. While it has recovered a bit, to $105 a share, it’s well below its 52-week high, $123.72, and off its all-time highest closing price of $201.91 on March 8, 2021. Those investors who abandoned Peltz in his proxy battle for two seats on the Disney Board of Directors can now lick their financial wounds. There is speculation in the financial community that if Disney stock again falls below $90 a share, Peltz could mount a third bid for two or more seats on the Disney board or possibly oust Iger.
It’s hilarious to watch the New York Times put its spin on the battle, saying Peltz lost his battle with Iger. Actually, Peltz and his Trian Partners investment group walked away with $1 billion. Yes, Peltz lost the battle, but he won the war. Despite the current dip, many stock analysts are predicting that Disney stock will rebound. That seems unlikely. Here are the reasons why things are likely to get worse, not better, for The Walt Disney Company for the remainder of 2024 and into 2025. Disney is one of America’s wokest companies. It sees itself as being out in front on cultural and social issues, especially where Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are concerned. This has been a huge issue in America’s—especially American parents’—loss of trust in the House of Mouse. You can’t watch this clip from Disney programming Vice President Latoya Raveneau bragging about how she pushed LGBTQ messages anywhere she could into Disney’s programming without parents seeing that agenda.
Because of this agenda, Disney parks, Disney feature films, Disney animation, and especially the Disney Channel have lost trust with many parents. Disney has lost its decades-long leadership in animation to NBCUniversal’s Dreamworks Animation studio. Its slate of feature films—with their bloated $250,000,000 production budgets requiring a $500,000,000 theatrical run to just break even—has been an unmitigated disaster. Along the way, it has destroyed two of the successful film franchises it acquired during Iger’s first term as CEO: Star Wars and Indiana Jones. And its long-delayed live-action remake of its own 1937 Snow White classic animated film is mired in its own disaster, mostly due to woke comments from its star, Rachel Ziegler. It was moved back a year from a March 2024 release to 2025. But could its theatrical release be scrapped entirely and go directly to the Disney+ streaming service?
Related to its film franchises, which also include Marvel and Pixar (which just laid off 175 employees), was the company’s $250,000,000 misadventure, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, a $6,000 two-night Star Wars-themed hotel experience that opened on March 1, 2022, and closed on September 30, 2023. It was forced to take a charge against earnings for this catastrophe. This disaster was documented in a four-hour viral video by YouTuber Jenny Nicholson that has received an incredible seven million views in a little more than two weeks. (That was 10 times the number of views CNN’s coverage of the debacle received.)
Marathon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798939190002155873
Dogbed
— Doglover (@puppiesDoglover) June 7, 2024
Argue
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798616700549759035
Maravilloso
Maravilloso. pic.twitter.com/fBUMAGBMPt
— Luis (@Thor_luisXVII) June 6, 2024
Productive
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798683288539697184
Car washer
He is the world's most expensive car washer pic.twitter.com/ArVDCRBaHe
— CLEAN CAR CLUB (@TheCleanCarClub) June 7, 2024
Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.
