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Debt Rattle June 21 2026

Jun 212026
 
 June 21, 2026  Posted by at 10:14 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  31 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Self portrait with pipe 1886


• Vance ‘Skeptical’ That Iran Closed Hormuz Strait Again (ZH)
• UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer Expected To Resign On Monday (ZH)
• New Air Force One Turns the Presidency Back Into a Statement (David Manney)
• Biden Admin Buried Whistleblower Report Alleging Fauci Lied To Congress (JTN)
• President Trump Notes Opposition Effort to Destroy DC Reflection Pool (CTH)
• The Left is Trying to Sabotage the Reflecting Pool (Margolis)
• Trump -v- Meloni (CTH)
• Moderate Expectations of Acting DNI Bill Pulte (CTH)
• Trump: Ukraine War Would Never Have Started If Russia Remained In G8 (ZH)
• Zelensky Threatens To Attack Belarus (RT)
• The Nord Stream Narrative Explosion: Why You’ve Only Read Half The Story (RT)
• Elon Musk vs. the Democrats: Outcomes vs. Process (Soukup)
• Is the iPhone Birth Control? (AmG)

 


 

https://twitter.com/TRUMP_ARMY_/status/2067995272538661070?s=20 https://twitter.com/GlobalDiss/status/2068228841101762741?s=20 https://twitter.com/LangmanVince/status/2068126070407102493?s=20 https://twitter.com/MrWhiplash_/status/2068012044117504192?s=20 https://twitter.com/QuantumGuard17/status/2068083408958599666?s=20

 


 


Merry solstice!

One way to deal with Iran: Just ignore their statemennts.

“Pentagon Declares Safe Passage Remains ‘Intact Today’

• Vance ‘Skeptical’ That Iran Closed Hormuz Strait Again (ZH)

Vice President JD Vance has newly told Fox News that he’s ‘skeptical’ of the morning reports and claims that the Iranians once again ‘closed’ the Strait of Hormuz.


US Central Command is also trying to portray that all is well. It issued this statement after the Iranians announced it closed the vital oil transit waterway: Commercial ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz increased June 20 as U.S. forces continued operating in the general area to support freedom of navigation. Safe passage through the international waterway remained intact today as 55 merchant ships transited, moving large amounts of cargo and more than 17 million barrels of oil to global markets.

The Joint Maritime Information Center issued an advisory this week affirming safe passage for all vessels along a designated route that is free of arbitrary requirement claims or impediments. The Pentagon says it is remaining vigilant with regional forces on high alert. Overall, it seems the White House is keep to at least see its delegation get in the same room with the Iranians in Switzerland. This will certainly be a real start in terms of face-to-face engagement, after the MoU was remotely signed by each side.

Iran says Hormuz Strait Closed Again
As has become the ‘norm’ after well over 100 days of war – which some pundits have been calling the “third Gulf war” – there are deeply conflicting headlines emerging Saturday. On the one hand, diplomacy based in Switzerland is said to be in motion, with a potential top level Trump delegation (led by Witkoff and to be joined later by Kushner reportedly/allegedly) – but fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in south Lebanon still rages, with the death toll climbing, and also with Hezbollah rockets still landing against IDF positions as well as in northern Israel.

Will the US and Iranian sides actually meet in Europe for the ‘technical’ side of further talks toward final peace? Saturday has seen reports of Iran having again ‘closed’ the Strait of Hormuz, citing Israeli aggression in Lebanon, after Tehran has insisted that the tenuous freshly signed MoU included a Lebanon ceasefire and peace. The latest newswires out of Iranian state media:

IRAN SAYS HORMUZ TO CLOSE, CITING CEASEFIRE VIOLATION: TASNIM
IRAN SAYS STRAIT OF HORMUZ HAS BEEN CLOSED: TASNIM
IRAN’S IRGC NAVY SAYS HORMUZ STRAIT CLOSED TO ALL VESSELS: FARS
*VESSELS WARNED TO AVOID STRAIT OF HORMUZ OVER SECURITY: FARS

VP Vance Expected in Switzerland, But He’s Ambiguous in FOX Appearance

https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/2068334966660837678?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2068334966660837678%7Ctwgr%5E27d3c3b6010ec53a8064cf4ef0e71d788bf1410d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fdiplomacy-back-motion-witkoff-kushner-en-route-switzerland-despite-overnight-rising

And yet, some of the same state sources have been saying that an Iranian delegation will travel to Switzerland where it will seek to hold Washington to its commitments. “In Switzerland, we intend to press for the fulfilment of the other side’s commitments and clarify how they plan to act on their obligations,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, according to Fars, also as cited in Al Jazeera. Per the same report Saturday mid-morning (US time): “The delegation will leave for Switzerland in a few minutes, Mehr news agency also reported. The spokesperson also said that if the US refuses to implement its commitments, Iran will respond with necessary measures.” Vance non-committal in Saturday FOX interview:

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The UK is very close to being ungovernable. These guys are all so unpopular. Just 2 years ago, Rishi Sunak had to go.

• UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer Expected To Resign On Monday (ZH)

Keir Starmer’s premiership appears to have entered its final act. Just over a week after Andy Burnham stormed back into Parliament with a crushing by-election win, the Prime Minister is – according to senior Labour figures cited by The Observer – preparing to set out a timetable for his own departure, with a “clear statement” possible as early as Monday. It would be a remarkable collapse. Starmer led Labour to a landslide less than two years ago. He now looks unable to command the confidence of his own benches for much longer, with cabinet ministers, union leaders and donors reportedly among those who have been involved in the conversations about his future.


Burnham, the outgoing Greater Manchester mayor, did not just win Makerfield – he buried it. Official figures show him taking 24,927 votes, 54.8% of the total, beating Reform UK’s Rob Kenyon by a 9,231-vote margin in a seat where Nigel Farage’s party had been threatening to turn Labour’s crisis into a rout. The result gives Burnham the Commons seat he needs, clears his path to a leadership challenge, and leaves Starmer’s position looking terminal.

Also, Starmer’s former Chief of Staff – Morgan McSweeney – was the sacrificial lamb in the Mandelson scandal (recall that Starmer appointed Jeffery Epstein pal Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US). McSweeney also targeted Zerohedge, The Federalist and Breitbart in a clandestine campaign against alternative-media outlets. He resigned in February, two weeks before Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of passing insider info to Jeffrey Epstein in 2009, when he was serving as Business Secretary.

Markets Eye The Monday Open The political risk did not go unnoticed by bond traders. UK 10-year gilt yields climbed to 4.84% on Friday, up roughly 0.09 percentage points on the session, as markets weighed Burnham’s victory, domestic political uncertainty, and the possible fiscal implications of a future leadership bid. With markets shut over the weekend, the next read comes at Monday’s open, and any Starmer statement setting out an exit timetable will land straight into it.

Burnham is due to be sworn in as an MP on Monday and to meet Starmer early in the week, with a cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday. Senior Labour figures expect a “deliberate slow march in good order” – most likely a September handover timed to the party conference – rather than an immediate vacuum.

According to the report, Burnham’s supporters claim he has secured backing from more than 201 Labour MPs if Starmer refuses to step down voluntarily. The Observer framed that as a critical number because it would represent more than half the Parliamentary Labour party and would make it increasingly difficult for Starmer to argue that he still commands the confidence of his own side. A formal challenge requires far fewer names. Under Labour’s rules, any challenger needs nominations from 20% of Labour MPs – currently 81 – plus the required support from local parties and affiliates. On every count, the door is open.

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It turns Boeing into the past tense.

• New Air Force One Turns the Presidency Back Into a Statement (David Manney)

President Donald Trump stepped onto the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews and did what he often does best: he turned a government asset into a message. The new Air Force One, a converted Boeing 747-8 once owned by Qatar, is bigger, sharper, and painted in the red, white, and blue colors Trump has wanted for years. https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2068049231911194715?s=20


It’s not just an airplane; for better or worse, it’s a flying argument about how Trump sees the presidency. The Air Force calls the jet a VC-25B Bridge aircraft that’s meant to serve while Boeing finishes the long-delayed replacement planes that were supposed to modernize presidential travel. From Newsmax: The new aircraft eschews the Kennedy-era robin’s egg blue exterior of the old plane for a bolder look, with the underbelly of the plane painted navy blue with a red stripe above it. The plane’s left side, where the president boards, features the presidential seal, while the tail of the aircraft has a massive American flag on it.

“The workmanship of this plane is, when you see it, you won’t believe it,” Trump said from inside the massive Andrews Air Force Base hangar, as a couple hundred assembled Air Force personnel looked on. He spoke after stepping off the new plane in a dramatic flourish, as his signature tune “God Bless the USA” played. The gift from Qatar is serving as a so-called “bridge” aircraft to carry the president until the new planes ordered directly from Boeing arrive. That is currently slated for 2028.

The administration formally accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar last year to be used as the presidential airplane, despite questions about the ethics and legality of accepting such an expensive gift from a foreign nation. Trump has insisted in the past that he would not fly around in the Qatari jet once he leaves office and said it would instead be donated to a future presidential library. The Air Force has said in the past that security modifications to the jet would cost less than $400 million.

Any U.S. Air Force aircraft carrying the president uses the call sign Air Force One, so the name belongs to the mission, not one specific plane. The old blue-and-white 747s remain part of the fleet, but the Qatari jet now gives Trump something Boeing hasn’t delivered on time: a visible upgrade. Also from Newsmax: Other government jets that carry other top administration officials will also use the similar red, white and navy color scheme, the Air Force said earlier this year.

An Air Force spokesperson, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive plans, told The Associated Press that the two current planes, known as VC-25As, will not be retiring. Instead, they will remain in the fleet until the new Boeing planes, referred to as VC-25Bs, come into service, the spokesperson said. It is unclear how the older jets will be used but the spokesperson said that both the Qatari jet as well as the VC-25As will be available for use and “the Presidential Airlift Group will select the appropriate aircraft for each mission based on operational requirements.”

The controversy was baked in from the start: the jet came from Qatar, and critics raised legal, ethical, and security questions as soon as the deal became public. A foreign government giving a luxury aircraft to the United States for presidential use is bound to draw fire. Trump’s answer has been typically blunt, framing the plane as a smart deal for taxpayers because America needed a bridge aircraft while Boeing dragged its feet. Security concerns deserve a real answer. Air Force One isn’t a campaign bus with wings; it’s a command post, a communications hub, and a symbol that must keep working during a crisis.

The Air Force says the aircraft completed modification and flight testing. The public doesn’t need every classified detail, but it does need confidence that a foreign-owned plane was scrubbed, rebuilt, and tested to the standard required for a president of the United States. Boeing’s failure hangs over the whole rollout. The company won the contract for the next presidential aircraft years ago, and the delivery date kept sliding. The Air Force now expects the first new VC-25B presidential aircraft around mid-2028. In normal Washington fashion, delay became background noise. Trump has a way of pulling that noise into the open and forcing everybody to look at it.

The new plane also breaks with a visual tradition older than many voters. The Kennedy-era blue had grace and carried history, but it also came from another age, when the presidency still tried to look above the fray. Trump has never believed that power should whisper; his Air Force One looks like a flag, a billboard, and a challenge all at once. Some will call it gaudy, others will call it overdue, but nobody will miss it in the sky. That’s the real political story. Trump understands that symbols work because people see them before they study them. A border wall, a Space Force uniform, a restored military parade, and a new presidential aircraft: all of it tells voters that national power should look like national power.

His critics recoil because they believe the performance cheapens the office. Those are the same people who also believed the Obama administration was the most scandal-free government in history, and that President Joe Biden was more energetic and sharper than people much younger working around him. Trump supporters cheer because they believe the old restraint often looked too much like surrender. Both sides have something to argue about here. The Qatar connection should be examined, the security work should be serious, and most importantly, Boeing should answer for years of delay.

But the larger point is simple enough: the presidency is never just paperwork, policy, and process. It’s also presence. Trump’s new Air Force One may be temporary, but the message isn’t. He wants America to look strong again, even when it’s sitting on a runway. After years of scolding, managed decline, and apologetic leadership, that message still lands with millions of people who want their country to stop acting embarrassed by its own power.

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Who’s going to go to jail?

• Biden Admin Buried Whistleblower Report Alleging Fauci Lied To Congress (JTN)

An intelligence community whistleblower formally accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of lying to Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Biden administration took the unusual step of yanking the complaint from the government’s independent watchdogs and referring it instead to the political appointee overseeing the Health and Human Services Department, bombshell memos released by departing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard show.


The effort to divert the investigation of Fauci to then-HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra occurred shortly after the government’s top pandemic doctor engaged in a discussion with the CIA about evidence that workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China had been sickened in fall 2019, potentially explosive evidence that the virus emerged from a lab leak at the very facility where Fauci’s office was funding dangerous research on bat viruses, the memos show.

“On the 3 sick WIV researchers, Dr. Fauci said key gaps that need to be filled are 1) If they were sick, what does their medical records show; 2) Do we have blood culture of these sick researchers; and 3) Did we ask China about/for this information?” one summary of the June 2021 meeting at the CIA stated. Despite the evidence of a potential lab leak sickening workers, Fauci continued to double down on his claim that the COVID-19 virus had emerged naturally from a wet-market in the same areas as the lab. Fauci also continued to insist in congressional testimony that his office had not funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, a claim that an intelligence official believed was false and potentially prosecutable, the memos show.

Shortly after the June 2021 CIA meeting, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence received a whistleblower complaint formally alleging that Fauci testified falsely to Congress. “The complaint alleges Dr. Fauci provided false testimony to Congress related to the conduct of gain of function research at the National Institutes of Health, thereby ‘misleading the American people and Congressional oversight,’” Acting Intelligenve Community Inspector General Tamara Johnson wrote Aug. 11, 2021, to then-DNI Avril Haines.

Rather than refer the alleged lie to the independent watchdog at HHS, which was responsible for probing misconduct in Fauci’s office, Haines referred the concerns instead to Becerra, a Biden political appointee who is now running to be California governor.] Johnson also made clear she didn’t want to send the complaint to her peer at HHS, the inspector general. “The general dispute about ‘gain-of-function’ research is already in the public domain making it highly probable that the HHS-OIG would already be aware of the allegation that the Dr. Fauci’s testimony was inaccurate (albeit from a different source, not our ICWPA submitter). Consequently, we determined there would be no merit in referring the matter to HHS OIG,” she wrote.

Gabbard said the documents she released late Thursday in her final hours as DNI demonstrate that government officials, including Fauci, engaged in a cover-up to mislead the public about how the COVID-19 pandemic started. “The tactics used to hide the truth are straight from the deep state playbook: politicized self-serving leaders like Dr. Fauci covered up their own wrongdoing and abuses of power, manipulated intelligence, lied to Congress, and undermined a duly elected President by restricting his access to vital facts needed to keep the country safe,” Gabbard said, “It’s time the American people learn the real story.”

Fauci, who retired before President Donald Trump returned to the White House, has repeatedly denied in engaginfg in wrongdoing or lying to Congress. But he did accept a pardon from President Joe Biden in late 2024. Beyond the intelligence community whistleblower’s allegations, Gabbard said she too believed Fauci lied to Congress on another matter in 2024 when he claimed he had not talked to intelligence agencies about virus research.

“The correspondence released today directly contradicts Fauci’s 2024 testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic,” her statement said. “In that hearing, while under oath, Fauci was repeatedly asked whether he spoke to ‘FBI, CIA, DIA or any U.S. intelligence agency concerning viral research’ before, during, or after the pandemic. Fauci repeatedly dodged the questions, before falsely stating, ‘not to my knowledge about COVID.'” Two GOP senators — Rand Paul and Ron Johnson — told Just the News this week they believe the Trump DOJ should challenge the legality of Fauci’s pardon — which was signed by an autopen — and try to prosecutor Fauci.

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Is it Reflecting Pool or Reflection Pool?

• President Trump Notes Opposition Effort to Destroy DC Reflection Pool (CTH)

Team Algae and Filth has been busy at work, supported by CNN, ABC and various leftist media, in an attempt to grow algae back in the DC reflection pool, and cut out the newly installed lining. A few arrests have been made by DC park police. Yes, these folks are that unstable. Liberalism is a mental disorder.


President Trump responds to the effort via Truth Social:
“We’ve cleaned, renovated, and beautified over 45 Monuments and Memorials, 28 Statues, and 22 Fountains in Washington, D.C. Things are really looking good in our Nation’s Capital, and add to that the fact that when I became President, Crime was rampant, and now, Washington, D.C., is one of the Safest Cities anywhere in the United States. However, we’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool, which sits between The Washington Monument and The Lincoln Memorial.

Just like three days ago, they destroyed the grass outside of the Pool, they’ve also done everything possible to hurt the inside surface that was just installed. No different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work. Lightweight ABC Reporter, Jonathan Karl, was seen sticking his hand into the Pool, and trying to rip the rubber off of the surface. The algae is 75% gone, and the condition will soon be completely remedied, and the area that was vandalized, fortunately, is just a small area of damage, and will be fixed early next week. It’s a shame that the Radical Left Lunatics, most likely Dumocats, who have spent their lives trying to ruin our Country, are free to do so. Law Enforcement is actively investigating this situation and will hopefully have it resolved soon. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

~ DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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Leave it alone!

• The Left is Trying to Sabotage the Reflecting Pool (Margolis)

The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool has become the latest target in the left’s war on anything Donald Trump touches, and the radical left isn’t even trying to hide it anymore. According to reports circulating on social media, the National Guard and Park Police have ramped up patrols around the reflecting pool amid threats from leftists vowing to sabotage the recently renovated landmark. Independent journalist Nick Sortor sounded the alarm on the brazen plot. “American workers are pushing around the clock to finish the pool by July 4, but liberals have a vested interest in destroying it for some reason,” Sortor wrote.


We all know the reason: Trump Derangement Syndrome. It’s truly a shame how badly these people want to humiliate our country on the world stage, and they’re not even subtle about it anymore. President Trump confirmed on Friday in a Truth Social post that vandals damaged the newly renovated pool, and he didn’t hold back. Trump pointed out that his administration has cleaned, renovated, and beautified more than 45 monuments and memorials, 28 statues, and 22 fountains in the nation’s capital, and that Washington, D.C., has gone from a crime-ridden disaster to one of the safest cities in the country on his watch.

“We’ve had some real problems with vandalism at the beautiful reflecting pool,” Trump wrote. “Just like three days ago, they destroyed the grass outside of the pool; they’ve also done everything possible to hurt the inside surface that was just installed.”Days before Trump’s birthday on June 14 and the UFC event held at the White House, someone carved “86 47” into the grass on the National Mall itself. The U.S. Park Police are reportedly investigating that incident too. Trump said the vandals used chemicals similar to those deployed elsewhere on the National Mall in an apparent effort to destroy and demean the freshly completed work.

He also called out ABC’s Jonathan Karl by name, saying the reporter was caught on camera sticking his hand into the pool and trying to tear off the sealant on the surface. Trump said the algae plaguing the pool is now 75% gone and that the damaged section, which he described as small, will be repaired early next week. “It’s a shame that the radical left lunatics, most likely Dumocrats, who have spent their lives trying to ruin our country, are free to do so,” Trump wrote, adding that law enforcement is actively investigating the situation. On Thursday, a video surfaced showing the phrase “86 47” painted on the bottom of the pool. It’s the latest entry in a disturbing pattern.

Think about that for a second. These people are so consumed by hatred for one man that they’re willing to deface national monuments, vandalize sacred public spaces, and scrawl assassination-coded slogans into the grass just to make a point. They don’t care about the country. They don’t care about the symbols that belong to all Americans, regardless of party. They hate Trump so much that they’ll destroy anything out of spite. This is who the left has become. Not protesters with grievances, but vandals with grudges, willing to wreck a national treasure rather than let Trump’s D.C. cleanup succeed. The investigations are ongoing, but the message from radical leftists is already loud and clear: if Trump built it, they want it destroyed.

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That photo does it for me.

• Trump -v- Meloni (CTH)

On the heels of the G7 in France, U.S. President Trump and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni have been engaged in a geopolitical spat. The core of the issue centers on Italy’s refusal to allow the U.S. military to conduct flight operations for the conflict against Iran from U.S. airbases in Italy. President Trump, Vice-President Vance, Secretary of State Rubio and Secretary Hegseth have all remarked on their disappointment with Italy and Spain that has led to a full review of U.S. NATO operations in Europe.


The issue became personal at the G7 when President Trump ignored Meloni’s repeated attempts to repair the friction. President Trump was no longer tolerating the two-faced approach. Actions speak louder than words.



Understanding, a very specific image sensitivity Prime Minister Meloni carries, President Trump stated, “Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France. She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon (But so did NATO, for that matter!). She wouldn’t even let us use Italy’s landing strips or runways, a great logistical inconvenience, and this despite the fact the U.S. contributes hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year to protect Italy, and other “so-called” NATO Allies. Now, after the United States defeated Iran militarily, she wants to be friends again in order to get her “numbers up.” No thanks!!!
~ President DJT

Meloni then hit back with: “these constant, unprovoked attacks are senseless. As for my popularity, being your friend certainly has not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you. My popularity depends on my ability to defend Italy’s national interest, and that is exactly what I have always done,” Meloni said in a post on Instagram. She added that “in any case, my popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.”

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“The entire DC system is fully aware of the corrupt nature of the FBI as it functions.”

• Moderate Expectations of Acting DNI Bill Pulte (CTH)

A lot might be said, but little of it will be grounded in reality. Here’s a general outline that may provide context for the next few weeks. > First, contrary to popular opinion, leaks from inside the IC related to activity within the ODNI will likely come as an outcome from bad actors in the FBI and the attached liaison office. {EXAMPLE HERE} As you may or may not be aware, every intelligence community silo has a liaison attached to the office of the Director of National Intelligence. What that means is that every IC agency has a person(s) inside the ODNI that can then be the source of information within the larger parent silo. The most frequent leaking child from within the parent agency is the FBI liaison. Understand this reality and you begin to understand frustration around Kash Patel’s inability to control his agency.


Second, contrary to popular opinion, CIA Director John Ratcliffe will not be able to partner with Acting DNI Pulte in the same direct manner he was with fully confirmed DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Despite the ODNI technically sitting atop the CIA within the construct of the overall Intelligence Community, there are rules about information flows to non-confirmed “acting” positions. Deputy DNI Aaron Lukas will have more intelligence capabilities than Pulte.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe will likely not be the source of conversation about this standard, the information to Pulte will likely come from the DNI Legal Counsel Jack Dever, and/or Deputy CIA Director Michael Ellis who also carries the role of General Counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency.

When SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner says he is in communication with IC leadership about isolating Acting DNI Bill Pulte from national security information, he is likely outlining contact with the general counsel of the DNI or CIA, or with the Intelligence Community Inspector General’s office. That said, the National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, could mitigate some of that isolation by requesting IC information Pulte may desire to review.

Regarding ‘declassification’ authority. CTH is not sure what power an Acting position as DNI carries as it relates to independent cross-silo declassification authority. However, information presented to the President can be declassified by the President. The key is to get the silo stakeholder to approve the release, then take to the Office of the President for approved public release pending stakeholder redactions. That is the basic outline of limitations that could become pertinent. However, the Acting DNI can do something very valuable. The ADNI can ‘manage’ the office and how it operates. Pulte can make staffing decisions as well as curb the issues within the liaison offices.

I somewhat predict that Pulte could find the problem with FBI leaking; he could even do something about it – with presidential support. Unfortunately, this would put Pulte on a collision course with FBI Director Kash Patel. It’s an issue that needs to be dealt with, but the timing is not good considering the looming midterm election. A more likely scenario is Kash Patel’s unchecked deep state FBI analysts/agents will be managed without Patel’s direct involvement. Essentially, none of the ‘good guys’, and there ain’t that many ‘good guys’, have any trust in the FBI silo.

The entire DC system is fully aware of the corrupt nature of the FBI as it functions. The ‘establishment’, including Mark Warner and Tom Cotton, is favorable to the FBI. Meanwhile, the ‘reformers’, and I suspect that might include HPSCI Chairman Rick Crawford, are not. The larger IC elements will watch this play out, dropping their thumbs on the narrative (via selected leaking) as it pertains to their individual interests. There’s a reason why scrutiny against Patel has lessened from within the DC mechanisms.

Ironically, all the negative information against Pulte will almost certainly come from the FBI, it will just be positioned as if it comes from another silo. Watch carefully and we just might catch them in real time Ultimately, all of the bad actors within the IC (both branches of government) want “702” reauthorized, so this does create a subject that can be leveraged for actionable value to the office of the President. All of that said, Pulte remains an unknown entity within the larger IC system, and his motives and intentions are generally also unknown. It will be interesting to watch things unfold, and to see exactly who is willing to surface as an ally.

Yeah, that!

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He needs to address the nazi issue.

• Trump: Ukraine War Would Never Have Started If Russia Remained In G8 (ZH)

This isn’t the first time that President Trump has said something like this, but he’s newly explained in a wide-ranging fresh interview with Axios published Friday his view that the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine likely would likely have been averted if Russia had remained a member of the then-Group of Eight (G8). “You probably wouldn’t have the war with Russia and Ukraine if they did,” Trump told the publication, referring to the decision to expel Moscow, making the group the G7.


The forum “would have been much better” had it maintained its original structure, with Russia included. He laid ultimate blame in the fresh remarks on former President Barack Obama. It was during the Obama administration, in 2014, that Washington pushed allies to expel Russia from the group of leading economies over its takeover of Crimea through a ‘popular referendum’. Trump this week attended G7 Summit held in Evian-les-Bains, France. “They should have kept the G8. You probably wouldn’t have the war with Russia and Ukraine if they did, but Obama didn’t want Putin there,” Trump said.

“It used to be the G8. (It) would have been much better if they kept that that way,” he added. Again, this is not the first time he’s articulated this view: Trump has expressed this position before — in June 2025, he made a similar statement, blaming Obama and former Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau for Russia’s exclusion from the G8. He’s long attacked Biden and the Democrats for setting the conditions for the war to start. But beginning a year ago he also started basically blaming everyone – from Zelensky to Putin to Biden.

“That’s a war that should have never been allowed to start and Biden could have stopped it and Zelensky could have stopped it and Putin should have never started it,” Trump said last year. “Everybody is to blame.” nTrump added at the time: “If Biden were competent and if Zelensky were competent, and I don’t know that he is, we had a rough session with this guy — he just kept asking for more and more.” As for Putin, he has seemed to welcome this repeat rhetoric from Trump stating that Russia should belong to the G7/G8. Without doubt, Moscow would welcome an invitation back in.Among Russia’s conditions for final peace settlement in Ukraine, a prospect which still seems a long way off, would be the lifting of US and EU sanctions, and readmittance to the global economy.

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The ungovernable UK pushes war elsewhere.

• Zelensky Threatens To Attack Belarus (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has issued an ultimatum to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, threatening him with military action if Belarus fails to dismantle the air defense radar array along its southern border, just days after a deadly Ukrainian drone strike on a bus carrying a children’s soccer team from the country. Earlier this week, Lukashenko said that those seeking to drag his nation into the conflict “will have to pay dearly for that,” demanding answers from Kiev regarding the strike on the bus and other “provocations.” The attack in Russia’s Bryansk Region left six children injured and killed the wife of a Belarusian school soccer team coach who was accompanying the young athletes to a Russian seaside resort.


Kiev has denied responsibility, while Zelensky claimed that it was Lukashenko who must “be honest” and prove Minsk’s peaceful intentions by removing air defenses and relay transmitters along the border with Ukraine. “I think one week would be enough for him to accomplish this,” the Ukrainian leader stated at a press conference in Kiev on Friday. “If he does not do it, we will.” Lukashenko has repeatedly said that Belarus has no intention of engaging in a war against any nation and “is not threatening anyone.” Zelensky, however, stated that there was “no need for unnecessary words,” and issued another veiled threat against the Belarusian oil refining industry.

“Just like his, for example, oil refining industry,” Zelensky said, claiming that Minsk is one of Russia’s “main” suppliers of petroleum products. “Can this be stopped? I am sure that it is within his power.”Belarus, a close Russian ally, has largely stayed out of the conflict since 2022, while calling on Moscow and Kiev to engage in dialogue and expressing its readiness to contribute to a diplomatic resolution. In September 2025, Lukashenko stated that he was ready to meet Zelensky personally to discuss possible compromises, but the Ukrainian leader rejected the offer.

In November, Minsk released 31 Ukrainian citizens from detention in a “goodwill gesture” at the request of Kiev and US President Donald Trump, who was also seeking to mediate the conflict.Over the past few weeks, Zelensky has been ramping up his rhetoric about an allegedly growing threat posed by Belarus – and threatened it with a preemptive strike. Earlier this year, the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces warned that Kiev had already identified some 500 potential military and logistical targets across the country.

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Explains a bit better why Hersh’s story is the right one. It’s f**king difficult.

• The Nord Stream Narrative Explosion: Why You’ve Only Read Half The Story (RT)

The Nord Stream saga has taken a turn for the absurd, with a new book claiming that the star saboteur who blew up the gas pipelines was a Ukrainian erotic model-turned-deep sea diver. This detail is the latest addition to an ever-shifting story – while one key coincidence has completely flown under the radar. nPublished on June 19, ‘The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Greatest Sabotage in History’ promises an inside look at the operation that destroyed the Nord Stream lines. Author Bojan Pancevski doesn’t quibble with the ‘official’ story circulated by the German media – that a Ukrainian commando unit carried out the attack, but adds some pulp-fiction flourish to the tale.


Pancevski claims that a former erotic model identified only as ‘Freya’ was “the bravest diver in the whole group,” without whose experience diving to depths of 100 meters the operation could not have been pulled off. Another of the divers was sick with Covid-19, but Pancevski nevertheless claims he carried out the kind of dive that has killed experienced military frogmen before. After the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, ‘Freya’, a Ukrainian who posed naked for soft-porn magazines before turning to diving, apparently “contacted a dubious intelligence unit through her diving colleagues,” and volunteered her services. Asked if she would be willing to take part in the costliest act of industrial sabotage in history, ‘Freya’ supposedly replied “where do I sign.”

Most of Pancevski’s claims cite Ukrainian intelligence sources, with his imagination filling in the gaps (Pancevski insists that the alleged saboteurs inherited their appetite for risk from the Zaporozhian cossacks of the 15th century). Marketed by its publisher as “compelling as a spy thriller,” the book is, according to a New York Times review, pitched “a little too eagerly in the direction of Hollywood.”

Although the story plumbs the depths of 1960s spy-caper silliness, it is no more far-fetched than the official narrative to date. In the most recent retelling of the operation, Der Spiegel claimed in February that a “Ukrainian secret commando unit” approached the CIA in spring 2022 with plans to blow up the four individual gas pipelines that make up the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 connectors. Der Spiegel’s Ukrainian sources told the outlet that the CIA “liked the plan,” shared technical data on the pipelines, and was even willing to finance the operation, until it abruptly withdrew its support in early summer.

The Ukrainians, or so the story goes, went ahead and blew up the pipelines without American permission, using a rented yacht to transport the explosives to the blast sites. The latest report is unlikely to raise any eyebrows in Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has dismissed the entire premise of a small team of Ukrainians pulling off an operation beyond the capability of most state militaries as “ridiculous.” To understand just how ridiculous the German story is, it’s necessary to jump back to 2022.

A junction in the story
On September 26, 2022, a seismometer on the Danish island of Bornholm detected two spikes consistent with underwater explosions – one just after 2am, and another just after 7pm. Danish and Swedish authorities then determined that both Nord Stream 1 lines had been destroyed and one Nord Stream 2 line damaged roughly 60 km northeast of Bornholm, while an explosion around 25 km southeast of the island had destroyed the other Nord Stream 2 line.

As images of bubbling gas leaks hit international media, a separate story went almost entirely unreported: less than 24 hours after the second round of blasts, Poland and Norway celebrated the opening of the Baltic Pipe, a gas pipeline transiting Norwegian gas to Poland via Denmark, passing over Nord Stream just south of Bornholm.

Built between 2020 and 2022, the Baltic Pipe joins the larger Norway-Netherlands Europipe II in the North Sea. It allows 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas to reach Poland every year – less than a tenth of Nord Stream’s capacity, but enough to cover two-thirds of Poland’s total imports in 2024. Poland sells some of this gas on to other EU countries, which after the destruction of Nord Stream were guaranteed to need a new source for the foreseeable future.

[..] Means:
The Nord Stream pipelines sat on the seabed at a depth of between 80 and 110 meters. At this depth, divers must breathe hypoxic Trimix gas, carry around 90 kg of equipment, and spend (very roughly) 90 minutes decompressing on the way up for every two minutes spent on the seabed. Furthermore, a single diver or pair of divers would rarely attempt more than one of these dives in a single day, meaning the crew of the yacht – described in one report as “not the vessel anyone would choose” for such a mission – would have had to remain at sea amid active military exercises for days on end.

RT spoke to a scuba diving expert who said it was “not impossible, but highly unlikely” that a small team of divers could pull off such an operation. Even 50-meter dives can kill the most experienced military divers, but the divers of the US Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center in Florida possess the equipment and the know-how to carry out engineering operations at this depth. The CIA recruited these divers, commandeered a Norwegian mine-hunting vessel, and planted shaped explosive charges on the pipelines in June 2022, Hersh’s source claimed.

{..] Opportunity:
Planting each charge was an hours-long endeavor, and the presence of military divers wouldn’t go unnoticed, unless they had an excuse to be in the area. NATO’s BALTOPS exercises gave the CIA the cover it needed. Running from June 5 to June 17, the BALTOPS drills involved 14 NATO states, and included US-led experiments with mine-hunting drones and deep-sea communications technology in the Baltic Sea.

Hersh predicted that American and German intelligence agencies would soon come up with an alternate story and feed it to friendly media outlets. In April 2023, The New York Times, Die Zeit, and Der Spiegel published the first versions of this tale.

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“Tesla was the nation’s largest EV auto seller at the time, and 100 percent of its vehicles were fully electric. Yet Musk and his company were left off the Biden team’s guest list.”:

• Elon Musk vs. the Democrats: Outcomes vs. Process (Soukup)

Years ago, when my oldest son was a Boy Scout, he was asked to write a report/make a presentation on a modern American “hero.” He chose Elon Musk, and I, of course, rolled my eyes so hard they nearly popped out of my head. I knew Musk was a successful businessman, but I also knew that he was both an advocate for and a seasoned manipulator of Big Government. Tesla, for example, received a $465 million Department of Energy loan in 2010 under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, a Big Government scheme to encourage private companies to advance Big Government priorities (namely, fighting Climate Change by reducing carbon emissions).


Likewise, Tesla was, at least at the time, commercially viable only because of the more than $1 billion ($7,500/vehicle) in federal EV tax credits claimed by its buyers. Without government greasing the proverbial wheels a bit, Tesla would have struggled to get the literal wheels rolling out the sales floor doors. Moreover, Musk publicly acknowledged that he voted for Obama and presented himself as part of the “green” business revolution, men and women who could and would “do well by doing good.”

My, how things change.

Just a short decade later, Elon Musk is, indeed, regarded as a genuine hero by most on the American political Right—and by anyone who favors free enterprise—while he is loathed and actively derided by his former friends and allies on the Left. Especially this past week, after the SpaceX IPO made him the world’s first trillionaire, the Democrats and other leftists who once loved him, partnered with him, and sang his praises loudly have shown nothing but contempt for him and hatred for his inarguable business success. As the controversial Democratic Senate nominee from Maine, Graham Platner, ominously put it, “Elon Musk just became the world’s first trillionaire. Let’s make sure he’s also the last.”

How, exactly, did we get here? The biggest part of the story is Musk’s own political evolution, which proceeded slowly, in stages, but was accelerated at a handful of inflection points. Of these inflection points, two stand out among the others.

The first of these took place during President Biden’s first year in office. Biden and his administration were knee-deep in pushing a new, far more aggressive climate agenda. On his first day in office, Biden issued 17 executive orders, several of which addressed climate change and other environmental matters. Most notably, he signed an order to reinstate the nation’s participation in the Paris Accords, thereby placing a policy-making emphasis on electrification and decarbonization. A big part of that effort—as would be evinced in the “Inflation Reduction Act” passed the following year—was pushing the purchase of electric vehicles.

To that end, on August 4, 2021, Biden hosted an EV “summit” at the White House. He invited three EV makers—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis—to watch him sign another executive order, this one mandating that half of all new vehicles sold in the United States by 2030 be EVs. Of the three, GM had the largest percentage of its sales derived from fully electric vehicles—1.5 percent. Ford sat at 1.3 percent, and Stellantis didn’t even have an electric vehicle for sale in the American market. Meanwhile, Tesla was the nation’s largest EV auto seller at the time, and 100 percent of its vehicles were fully electric. Yet Musk and his company were left off the Biden team’s guest list.

What GM, Ford, and Stellantis did have, of course, was the support of the United Auto Workers Union. In fact, the three also just happened to be the largest UAW employers. Tesla, by contrast, had long fought the unionization of its factories and had been embroiled in a rather ugly dispute with the UAW. In response to the snub, Musk vented a bit, tweeting: Biden held this EV summit. Didn’t invite Tesla. Invited GM, Ford, Chrysler, and UAW. EV summit at the White House, didn’t mention Tesla once and praised GM and Ford for leading the EV revolution. Doesn’t it sound a little bias? It’s not the friendliest of administrations. Seems to be controlled by the unions.

Just under a year later, Musk reached the second inflection point, which also turned out to be his breaking point. In May 2022, the S&P 500 ESG Index conducted its annual rebalancing. And when it did, it removed Tesla. ESG stands for “environmental, social, and governance” investing, a strategy that purports to push corporations to address issues beyond traditional profits and losses, focusing on the broader societal impacts of their operations. I wrote a whole book about ESG (The Dictatorship of Woke Capital) in which I made the case that its flaws are numerous and disqualifying. One of the most significant of these is that ESG has no set definition. It means whatever its practitioners decide it means in the moment, based on little more than preference and convenience. And this is precisely where the S&P’s index ran into problems with Tesla.

By any objective measure, Tesla should have been a mainstay of any investment strategy focused on environmental benefits. It was and is a pioneer in carbon reduction strategies in the personal transportation market. What could be more environmentally friendly than that? The S&P, however, objected to Tesla’s procedural strategies, or lack thereof. It argued that Tesla didn’t have a published “low-carbon strategy,” or verifiable “codes of conduct.” It noted that the automaker had been accused of racial discrimination and didn’t do a great job of handling a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation. In short, the ESG index tossed the innovator in “E” technology off its list of acceptable companies because it valued the process of the ESG strategy more than it did the outcomes.

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What?

• Is the iPhone Birth Control? (AmG)

When I call you up, your line’s engaged


have had enough, so act your age

We have lost the time that was so hard to find

And I will lose my mind

If you won’t see me . . .

Time after time

You refuse to even listen

I wouldn’t mind

If I knew what I was missing

—The Beatles, “You Won’t See Me”

As one heads into senescence, the milestones begin to fade in the rearview mirror. Yet every now and again, something jars the memory to refocus your recognition of such milestones and on how time has truly flown. Recently, I was reminded that nearly an entire generation of Americans has been born after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. As a Gen Xer born before the introduction of the answering machine, I felt the weight of my sixty years, along with a gnawing anxiety about the future.

No, not because I won’t be around all that much longer. Despite the myths of the ubiquitous cult of youth promoted by our callow commercial culture, the increasing aches and pains accompanying my journey into old age are an insistent reminder that no one lives forever. Rather, my concern is how few Americans will be born to replace me and the other older members of our aging nation. As reported by Elise Winland in Zeale News, a new study suggests the 2007 introduction of the iPhone has played a significant role in the declining U.S. fertility rate.

Written by Caitlin K. Myers and Ezekiel Hooper and issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the title of the working paper says it all: “Is the iPhone Birth Control? Causal Evidence from AT&T’s 2007–2011 Carrier Monopoly.” The study’s methodology is straightforward, as are its implications for our nation. As succinctly explained by Ms. Winland: “The paper draws on a natural experiment created by Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T. When the iPhone launched in June 2007, it was available only on AT&T’s network until February 2011, giving researchers a way to compare areas with different levels of early iPhone access.”

While this deal was fortuitous for the researchers, the consequences were disastrous for the nation’s birth rate. According to Myers and Hooper: The diffusion of the iPhone deepened the decline in births among women under 30 while suppressing the rise in births among older women. Overall, the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33–52% of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15–44. National-survey evidence on time use and sexual behavior is consistent with the iPhone reducing in-person interactions, increasing pornography use, and reducing sexual frequency.

Importantly, Myers and Hooper are not asserting that the iPhone is the sole cause of the steep decline in America’s birth rate, which they cite as having dropped by 22 percent since 2007, again, the year of the iPhone’s introduction. For, as Winland notes, the researchers believe the nation’s record low birth rate of 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 “cannot be fully explained by the common explanations such as the Great Recession, increased access to contraception, rising housing and childcare costs, and delayed marriage.”

The researchers do argue that “studies imply that access to the iPhone reduced births by 4.5–8.0% at ages 15–19 and 3.2–6.6% at ages 20–24, with statistically significant but smaller declines among older cohorts.” (It is worth noting that the iPhone had a salubrious impact on reducing teen pregnancies; however, the enduring detrimental effects stemming from the loss of social interaction and its accompanying skills will be carried into the future by today’s teens.)

Anyone with a cursory acquaintance with Marshall McLuhan’s work will see his dictum, “the medium is the message,” at work here. Every new technology affects human beings, both in how they interact with that technology and in how they subsequently interact—or fail to interact—with other people by using it.

The math—specifically subtraction—is elementary: by spending more time in your virtual cocoon, you have less time for interacting with real human beings. One must therefore consider how much of the iPhone’s contribution to the birth dearth stems from the technology’s unconscious effects on its users. Indeed, unlike, say, birth control or a career choice, the iPhone is not being used deliberately to delay or prevent pregnancy. Rather, the birth dearth is exacerbated because the iPhone user is more rapt with the device and the stimulation it provides than by another person. After all, there are only so many hours in the day—and night.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/MrJohnJnr/status/2067995870952399138?s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle February 22 2024

Feb 222024
 
 February 22, 2024  Posted by at 9:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  48 Responses »


Joan Miró Personnages Rythmiques 1934

 

• Is Truth As Mighty As Evil? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• If Assange is Extradited No Journalist in World Is Safe (Ex-UN Expert (Sp.)
• Julian Assange’s Day in Court (Chris Hedges)
• US ‘Always Planned’ For Assange to Die in Prison (Sp.)
• New York AG Says She May Seize Trump Buildings, Assets (ET)
• New York’s Perverse Incentive in Pricing Trump Out of an Appeal (Turley)
• Biden Told His Campaign Staffers To Focus On ‘Crazy’ Trump Statements (RT)
• Biden Struggles To Board Air Force One (RT)
• Hunter Biden Goes Full Trump in a Flurry of Court Filings (Turley)
• Ukrainian Forces Failed to ‘Hold Their Own in Avdeyevka’ – Scott Ritter (Sp.)
• Russia Is ‘A War Machine’ – Trump (RT)
• Monkey With A Grenade: Nukes In EU Hands Would Be A Nightmare (Amar)
• Munich Conference Shows Evaporating Western Optimism On Ukraine (TASS)
• Narrative on Ukraine, Palestine Has Accelerated Western Media’s Decline (Sp.)
• ‘Sue and Settle’ Looks to Some Like Crony Democracy (RCW)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Stella

 

 

Greenwald

 

 

 

 

Ron Paul Assange

 

 


“This is actually insane and it’s by design. Biden is importing so many illegals that it’s enough to replace conservative voters in many swing states.”

 

 

Charles Payne
https://twitter.com/i/status/1760329617280295205

 

 

Trump ad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1760075223964000700
https://twitter.com/i/status/1760492879405776916

 

 

CIA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1760176467726479757

 

 

 

 

 

 

“.. there is nowhere in the West a countervailing power to the Evil that is engulfing us.. Try organizing one, and the FBI will arrest you or the CIA will assassinate you..”

• Is Truth As Mighty As Evil? (Paul Craig Roberts)

“In a compelling piece of live television, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was recently confronted by a COVID-19 vaccine injury victim during an unscripted question and answer session. Describing the pain and trauma he suffered, audience member John Watt told the Prime Minister how he had been left with no help at all after the vaccine caused him to develop a heart condition. Already under pressure over his links to a hedge fund that has seen massive returns from an investment in COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna, Sunak was like a rabbit caught in the headlights.” [..] people have finally realized that it was the Covid mRNA “vaccine” that did the harm. It also offers a possible, perhaps even likely, explanation as to why political leaders in the West all served as advocates for the death jab.

Were they alerted to the money-making opportunity in advance in order to be properly invested for the orchestrated “pandemic”? There are suspicions that Britain’s First Indian Prime Minister was. Today we know the facts. The mRNA jabs did not protect, did not prevent transmission, did not reduce the severity of the disease, but actually made the “vaccinated” more likely to catch Covid and to die or be injured from it. We also know that few of the deaths were from the virus. The deaths were from non-treatment with known effective preventatives and cures– ivermectin and HCQ–which were banned in order to go forward with the deadly “vaccination” and from mistreatment with ventilators. We know that the mRNA jabs have killed and maimed more people than the labratory-created virus itself.

And we know that no one has been held accountable. We know that the massive deaths and injuries from the death jab continue to be denied by the presstitutes and Big Pharma shills, such as the FDA, CDC, NIH, medical associations, and medical schools. We know that the corrupt medical profession continues to promote the death jabs.In other words, there is no shame, no sense of responsibility in the medical, media and political establishments. How can people stand for this? How can people stand for being callously murdered for profit and control? The public’s sheep-like response to mass murder guarantees another round of mass murder, just as the world’s refusal to do anything about the US-Israeli genocide of the Palestinians guarantees more genocides. Indeed, genocide is the agenda of the World Economic Forum and Bill Gates. They say there are too many people, and to save the planet the people have to be culled along with the cattle and sheep.

How can it be that elites can be so open about their intentions and they are not arrested? If you or I announced a plan to get rid of a single person, SWAT teams would descend on us. But the elite can announce their intention to eliminate 7.5 billion people and nothing happens. Not even Trump objects, nor Putin, nor Xi. These three are the only leaders the political world has. Why are they silent? Are they part of the plot, as so many now claim? Why would Trump, a billionaire with a beautiful wife, spend 8 years in the stress of persecution and indictment if he were part of the plot? He has lost 8 years of his life trying to represent the American people. I am certain that the rot in the intellectual mind of the West is not part of the Russian and Chinese mental framework. Moreover, if everyone was in the plot, it would not be a plot. It would be a happening that already would have happened.

The world’s problem is located in the West. It is a problem of lost belief in liberty and Christian morality. Indeed, it is the organized destruction of belief that has freed Satan and released him upon the world. How did it happen that the United States was transformed into the most immoral, other than Israel, government on earth, a servant of Satan.It was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who identified the problem in his famous speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2006. As he stood at the podium, his opening words referring to President George W. Bush, were “yesterday at this very podium stood Satan himself, speaking as if he owned the world. You can still smell the sulfur.”

I have spent my life in defense of the Constitution, sound economic policy and in defense of truth. It has been my great distress to see the widening gap between agenda-controlled narratives and truth. Evil is a powerful force, and truth alone is not a match for it. The pen is mightier than the sword, but it doesn’t seem to be mightier than Evil. As I have previously noted, there is nowhere in the West a countervailing power to the Evil that is engulfing us.. Try organizing one, and the FBI will arrest you or the CIA will assassinate you. No one will come to your defense.

Read more …

“Assange’s extradition would mean that the United Nations is totally irrelevant..”

• If Assange is Extradited No Journalist in World Is Safe (Ex-UN Expert (Sp.)

A legal team of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is fighting to prevent his extradition to the US where he will face 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse. Assange, who made classified data provided to him by Chelsea (born Bradley) Manning in 2010 public, shedding light on the US’ alleged war crimes during its invasions and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, could receive a prison term of up to 175 years. “If Assange were to be extradited to the United States, no journalist in the world would be safe,” Alfred de Zayas, professor of international law in Geneva, former UN independent expert on international order (2012-18), and a retired senior lawyer with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Sputnik. “Essentially it would mean that any journalist who publishes information that the US government does not like would be subject to persecution and prosecution. His extradition would set a very toxic precedent that the core principle of refugee law and asylum law no longer protects persons who have a well-documented fear of persecution, as codified in article 1 of the Geneva Refugee Convention.”

De Zayas explained that this principle, known as “non-refoulement”, is customary international law and its violation would entail breaches not only of the Geneva Refugee Convention but also of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the UN Convention against Torture (Article 3) and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. “Non-refoulement is peremptory international law, what we lawyers call ‘ius cogens’. It is peremptory international law, and also a fundamental norm enshrined in the domestic law of all civilized states,” stressed the professor. Furthermore, Assange’s extradition “would be the culmination of 14 years of vicious lawfare, of the destruction of the rule of law in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Ecuador, all complicit in this scandal and all too public,” argued de Zayas.

The retired UN expert highlighted that his colleague, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture Professor Nils Melzer, visited Assange in the UK’s Belmarsh prison and called his detention “torture,” and urged the WikiLeaks founder’s immediate release. “Melzer also published a book ‘The Trial of Julian Assange’ which documents the corruption of the administration of justice in the US, UK, Sweden and torture. His revelations are far more serious than the famous Emile Zola essay “J’accuse” that revealed in 1898 the trumped-up case against Alfred Dreyfus, who had been wrongly convicted of treason and banished to Devil’s Island. Melzer documents how the courts in the above countries have all abandoned their independence and have acted in the service of politics.”

De Zayas pointed out that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention examined the case and determined that Assange’s detention “constituted a violation of article 9 of the ICCPR and demanded his release.” In his capacity as UN independent expert on international order, de Zayas personally met Assange in 2015 at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and similarly demanded his release. The then UN expert also called for the adoption of a Charter of the Rights of Whistleblowers that should protect them from prosecution and ensure that the public is not kept in the dark about crucial matters. “Assange’s extradition would mean that the United Nations is totally irrelevant and that the calls by UN official organs and rapporteurs can be ignored in total impunity,” De Zayas concluded.

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“..all dusty Victorian props employed in a modern Anglo-American show trial.”

• Julian Assange’s Day in Court (Chris Hedges)

By the afternoon the video link, which would have allowed Julian Assange to follow his final U.K. appeal to prevent his extradition, had been turned off. Julian, his attorneys said, was too ill to attend, too ill even to follow the court proceedings on a link, although it was possible he was no longer interested in sitting through another judicial lynching. The rectangular screen, tucked under the black wrought iron bars that enclosed the upper left hand corner balcony of the courtroom where Julian would have been caged as a defendant, was perhaps a metaphor for the emptiness of this long and convoluted judicial pantomime. The arcane procedural rules — the lawyers in their curled blonde wigs and robes, the spectral figure of the two judges looking down on the court from their raised dais in their gray wigs and forked white collars, the burnished walnut paneled walls, the rows of lancet windows, the shelves on either side filled with law books in brown, green, red, crimson, blue and beige leather bindings, the defense lawyers, Edward Fitzgerald KC and Mark Summers KC, addressing the two judges, Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Johnson, as “your lady” and “my lord” — were all dusty Victorian props employed in a modern Anglo-American show trial.

It was a harbinger of a decrepit justice system that, subservient to state and corporate power, is designed to strip us of our rights by judicial fiat. The physical and psychological disintegration of Julian, seven years trapped in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and nearly five years held on remand in the high-security HM Prison Belmarsh, was always the point, what Nils Melzer the former U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture calls his “slow-motion execution.” Political leaders, and their echo chambers in the media, fall all over themselves to denounce the treatment of Alexei Navalny but say little when we do the same to Julian. The legal farce grinds forward like the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Charles Dickens’ novel Bleak House. It will probably grind on for a few more months — one can’t expect the Biden administration to add the extradition of Julian to all its other political woes. It may take months to issue a ruling, or grant one or two appeal requests, as Julian continues to waste away in HM Prison Belmarsh.

Julian’s nearly 15-year legal battle began in 2010 when WikiLeaks published classified military files from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — including footage showing a U.S. helicopter gunning down civilians, including two Reuters journalists in Baghdad. He took refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy, before being arrested by the Metropolitan Police in 2019 who were permitted by the Ecuadorian embassy to enter and seize him. He has been held for nearly five years in HM Prison Belmarsh. Julian did not commit a crime. He is not a spy. He did not purloin classified documents. He did what we all do, although he did it in a far more important way. He published voluminous material, leaked to him by Chelsea Manning, which exposed U.S. war crimes, lies, corruption, torture and assassinations. He ripped back the veil to expose the murderous machinery of the U.S. empire.

The two-day hearing is Julian’s last chance to appeal the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel. On Wednesday the prosecution will make its arguments. If he is denied an appeal he can request the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a stay of execution under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But the British court may order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction or may decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard by the court.

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“If [Julian Assange] is sent to the US, they’re just going to delay the trial as long as they can so that they can guarantee that he’ll die in jail..” “That’s always been the plan.”

• US ‘Always Planned’ For Assange to Die in Prison (Sp.)

On Tuesday, the final appeal for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange to avoid extradition to the United States began. Days earlier, his wife and lawyer, Stellar Assange, warned that if the journalist is not released soon, the stress of the case and his confinement could kill him, adding that he “will die” if extradited to the US. “His health is in decline, mentally and physically. His life is at risk every single day he stays in prison, and if he’s extradited, he will die,” Stellar Assange said at a media briefing in London. Julian Assange, an Australian national, could face up to 175 years in prison if extradited to the United States on espionage charges. But the US has no plans for Assange to stand trial in the United States, Dan Kovalik, a professor, human rights lawyer and peace activist told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Tuesday. “If [Julian Assange] is sent to the US, they’re just going to delay the trial as long as they can so that they can guarantee that he’ll die in jail,” Kovalik explained. “That’s always been the plan.”

Kovalik noted that there is documented evidence that the CIA plotted to kill Julian Assange in 2017 which revealed their intentions. “Here’s a guy, even if you believe everything is true that they’re charging him with, he is not charged with any violent crime. There’s no reason for him to be in jail while he awaits extradition… They’re holding him so that he’ll die,” Kovalik said. The US government would like to avoid an actual trial with Assange, Kobalik contended, because their misdeeds would come to light. “[Defense lawyers] could call a former secretary of state [or] a former secretary of defense. It would be a circus and it would not go well for the United States.” “People would be called from the US government, present and past, to talk about their crimes, to talk about the war crimes, the things that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed. So they don’t want any part of that,” Kovalik predicted.

Co-host Wilmer Leon mentioned the seeming lack of support in US media for Assange, even as WikiLeaks’ revelations are reported on by those media outlets. Pointing to a Washington Post article that included the passage “US prosecutors want him to stand trial. They allege he violated the Espionage Act when he conspired to obtain thousands of classified documents related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” “Well, if he has conspired to obtain, then what does The Washington Post do? What does The New York Times do? What do most mainstream media outlets do as they gather information for their stories?” Leon asked. “They even gathered [information] from WikiLeaks,” Kovalik replied. “The New York Times, The Washington Post…. And those papers haven’t stood by Julian Assange when they’ve used his materials for their own stories. It’s just a disgrace. “I mean, the whole thing is just a travesty. It’s an absolute travesty of any idea of due process and justice,” he concluded.

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“..while also noting that she has her eyes on the Trump Building in Lower Manhattan..”

• New York AG Says She May Seize Trump Buildings, Assets (ET)

New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Feb. 20 that she’s prepared to seize former President Donald Trump’s buildings and assets if he can’t pay the penalty imposed in the state’s civil fraud case. The former president was recently ordered to pay nearly $355 million and barred from doing business in New York state for three years by state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron. During an interview with ABC News, Ms. James said that it was “really not my business” if President Trump doesn’t have the money to pay the penalty, while also noting that she has her eyes on the Trump Building in Lower Manhattan. “If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek, you know, judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” she said.

“We are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers, and yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day,” she added, referring to the Trump Building. President Trump’s attorneys have vowed to appeal the case; he and his attorneys have described the case as a “political witch hunt” and the verdict as “manifest injustice.” Throughout the trial, the Trump team accused Justice Engoron of judicial malpractice, and the president has asserted that he should be the one being awarded damages. Responding to the Trump camp’s intention to appeal and their sentiment, Ms. James expressed confidence that her office would prevail. “I cannot be paralyzed by fear. And I cannot allow anyone to bully me into silence. And I cannot allow anyone to have a chilling effect on the work that I do and this office does each and every day,” Ms. James said. President Trump’s legal team has argued that no fraud occurred and that the state attorney general failed to prove intent to defraud.

He has said that there were “no victims because the banks made a lot of money.” In her comments on Feb. 20, Ms. James rejected such arguments, reportedly saying that financial fraud isn’t a victimless crime. The attorney general reportedly said that leveling the playing field is within her wheelhouse and that if the average person isn’t allowed to inflate the value of their assets to secure loans, then neither should President Trump. Ms. James brought the lawsuit against President Trump and his co-defendants in 2022. Justice Engoron found President Trump liable and ruled that he inflated his assets to get better loans weeks before the trial began. In addition to civil fraud cases, President Trump faces four criminal cases ahead of the 2024 elections. These include a case related to “hush money” payments before the 2016 elections, two cases related to his attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 elections, and a case related to the handling of classified documents.

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“..you have nothing to fear from confiscatory actions unless you are Trump in New York. Which is precisely why this decision should be overturned..”

• New York’s Perverse Incentive in Pricing Trump Out of an Appeal (Turley)

Oscar Wilde wrote that “moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” Justice Arthur Engoron took that line to heart with his absurd imposition of $455 million in fines and interest against Donald Trump and his corporation. It succeeded wonderfully with New Yorkers, who celebrated the verdict like a popular public execution. It also worked wonderfully to make it difficult to appeal. Much of the criticism of the decision focused on the unprecedented use of the law and the excessive size of the fine. The New York statute has been on the books for decades and has always been something of an anomaly in not requiring an actual victim or loss to justify disgorgement or fines. Even the New York Times agreed that it could not find a single case in history where this statute was used against an individual or a company that did not commit a criminal offense, go bankrupt, or leave financial victims.

Engoron then combined that unprecedented application with an equally extraordinary penalty, which is greater than the gross national product of some countries. He disgorged hundreds of millions in a case where not one dollar was lost by anyone. Indeed, the “victims” wanted to get more business from Trump and are now being prevented from doing so by Engoron. There is also an added inequity to Engoron’s decision. Under New York law, Trump cannot appeal this ruling without depositing the full amount, including interest, in a court account. Even for Trump, $455 million is hard to come by. Likewise, a bond would require a company to guarantee payment for a defendant who has been barred from doing business in New York and is facing the need to liquidate much of his portfolio.

Nothing succeeds like excess for judges like Engoron. By imposing this astronomical figure, he can make it difficult or impossible for a defendant to appeal, absent declaring bankruptcy or selling off assets at distress prices. The excessive fine and its basis raise serious statutory and constitutional questions. Many of us believe it should be substantially reduced or tossed out entirely. First, however, Trump must come up with almost half a billion dollars to park with the court. Even with a bond, the high costs of securing a guarantor could come at a premium. It would cost a fortune to the bond holder just to carry the risk even if Trump prevails on appeal. The combination of the draconian fine and the threshold deposit for appeal has produced a shudder throughout the New York business community. The city is already experiencing an exodus of businesses and individuals from the top tax brackets. Rising crime, taxes, and eat-the-rich politics have made New York a hostile environment for businesses. At a time with rising costs from undocumented migrants, even Mayor Eric Adams is alarmed about the loss of his high earners.

The case brought by Attorney General Letitia James was unnerving for many. James previously sought to dissolve the National Rifle Association and campaigned on bagging Trump on some unnamed offense. The ecstasy expressed by many in the city reinforced the image of a thrill-kill chase around the island of Manhattan, like a corporate version of “Lord of the Flies.” Watching the celebrations probably caused many executives to check time shares in Florida. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has rushed to assure businesses that there is “nothing to worry about” after the corporate public execution of Trump and his company. But the best that politicians like Hochul and Adams can offer is that you have nothing to fear from confiscatory actions unless you are Trump in New York. Which is precisely why this decision should be overturned.

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“..in an effort to portray Trump as unstable and not fit for the presidency..”

• Biden Told His Campaign Staffers To Focus On ‘Crazy’ Trump Statements (RT)

US President Joe Biden has personally instructed his reelection campaign aides to intensify their focus on rival Donald Trump’s “inflammatory” statements, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing two insider sources. The Democrat reportedly told his most senior staff to concentrate on the “crazy sh*t” the Republican frontrunner says in public in an effort to portray Trump as unstable and not fit for the presidency. “Donald Trump is the polar opposite of everything President Biden stands for and has accomplished since he took office, and the campaign’s top priority over the next nine months will be laying out that stark choice for voters,” Ammar Moussa, director of rapid response for the Biden campaign, told CNN in a statement.

The campaign is said to be concerned that voters have forgotten the “outrageous and unacceptable” aspects of Trump’s presidency and are looking at Biden’s predecessor’s tenure through “rose-colored glasses.” Last week, Biden repeatedly took aim at his rival over Trump’s suggestion that he would not defend America’s NATO allies who are falling behind in their defense spending targets. The president described Trump’s attitude as “appalling” and “un-American.”

The instruction to harp on Trump’s divisive statement was reportedly handed down to staffers before special counsel Robert Hur described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” in his report about the president’s mishandling of classified documents. The White House pushed back against Hur’s unflattering characterization of the president, and Biden has himself insisted that he has no problems with memory. “I know what the hell I’m doing,” he told reporters at a press conference this month. He, nevertheless, raised some eyebrows at the same event when he mixed up the names of the leaders of Egypt and Mexico while discussing the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. An ABC-Ipsos poll published earlier this month found that 86% of voters believe Biden should not run for reelection due to his age. He is the oldest president in US history and would be 86 by the end of a second term if reelected.

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And that’s on the small stairs at the back of the plane.

“..Americans 65 and older who are on Medicare are required to take a “cognitive assessment” as part of their annual “wellness visit.”

• Biden Struggles To Board Air Force One (RT)

US President Joe Biden tripped twice on Tuesday as he boarded Air Force One for a flight to California. Although the White House has insisted he is in excellent health, the 81-year-old Democrat has persistently refused to take a cognitive test during his annual health exams. Cameras at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland captured Biden stumbling while going up the steps to the presidential jet, barely avoiding a fall. The latest incident comes as the president faces public demands to have his mental acuity checked. Biden “should come out and debate and to show the American public that he has the cognitive capacity to do this very, very difficult job,” his former challenger for the Democratic nomination Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now an independent candidate, said last week.

Meanwhile, 84 House Republicans wrote an open letter demanding that the commander-in-chief submit to a cognitive test, or face being replaced under the 25th Amendment. “If you are too mentally impaired to stand trial, as your own Department of Justice claims, then we are concerned that your mental state is not at a competent level to serve as the leader of the free world,” said the letter, written by former White House physician Ronny Jackson, who treated presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump before becoming a congressman from Texas. The letter came after special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s improper handling of classified documents, concluded that the president should not be charged because it would be difficult to persuade a jury that an “elderly man with a poor memory” could have committed a serious felony.

Biden is due for his annual physical, though the White House has not revealed the date of the examination. Following his last physical, in mid-February 2023, Dr. Kevin O’Connor declared Biden “healthy, vigorous” and “fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Biden had two brain surgeries in 1988, to deal with life-threatening aneurysms. Dr. O’Connor’s report said that “an extremely detailed neurologic exam” found no indication of stroke, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease, but noted that the president did not take a cognitive test. Under the 2011 Affordable Care Act – passed when Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president – Americans 65 and older who are on Medicare are required to take a “cognitive assessment” as part of their annual “wellness visit.”

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“The only thing that remains is for Hunter to declare that he is only trying to Make America Great Again..”

• Hunter Biden Goes Full Trump in a Flurry of Court Filings (Turley)

Last week, some of us were struck by how Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis seemed to morph into the man she is prosecuting in Georgia. In her mocking, combative testimony February 15, Willis lashed out against the media, the lawyers and many in the public for questioning her ethics in hiring her former lover as lead prosecutor. Where former President Donald Trump was roundly condemned for such testimony in court, Willis was celebrated by many as showing that she is a “great lawyer” and righteous champion. Now, Hunter Biden also seems to have gone full Trump in court and no one appears to have noticed. In a flurry of motions, Hunter is seeking to dismiss indictments in two states. However, his arguments are strikingly familiar. He is challenging the appointment of the special counsel, alleging selective prosecution and raising strategic leaks as reasons to strike all of his pending charges.

The motions are ripped from the pages of Trump challenges, which were widely panned by the media. No longer. Hunter has filed a flurry of nine separate motions seeking to dismiss charges against him. His arguments included challenging the authority of special counsel David Weiss as improperly appointed. Hunter maintains that “this prosecution is not legally authorized because David Weiss was unlawfully appointed as Special Counsel and Congress has not appropriated funds for the Special Counsel’s investigation or this prosecution.” He argues that DOJ regulations instruct the attorney general to appoint a special counsel from outside the government, but Weiss was working as U.S. attorney for Delaware. During the recent Trump appeal in Washington, there was also a claim that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s work was unconstitutional, though the challenge was based on the absence of an authorizing statute.

Hunter is also arguing selective prosecution and that the Justice Department caved into political pressure to target him despite a lack of criminal evidence. Much like Trump, Hunter is also arguing that leaks showed the bias and hostility of the Justice Department against him. At the same time, Hunter is pursuing a challenge to the underlying gun law that his father has championed as strengthening gun control laws. Worst yet for many on the left, Hunter is adopting an argument from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun rights groups in calling such laws unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. Hunter is pursuing the arguments from Bruen v. New York Rifle & Pistol Association, which his father has condemned. He insists that requirements that you not be an actual drug addict run against the history and tradition of the Second Amendment.

If he pushed forward on these claims, Hunter Biden could face opposition from the Biden administration in seeking to expand Second Amendment protections in court. Yet, if successful, he would be the first Biden to be honored by the NRA. Hunter is also adopting one of the most criticized practices of Trump in attacking the whistleblowers who came forward with allegations against him. Where Trump attacked the whistleblowers in the Ukraine controversy, Hunter has attacked IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler. Hunter is also arguing selective prosecution and that the Justice Department caved into political pressure to target him despite a lack of criminal evidence. Much like Trump, Hunter is also arguing that leaks showed the bias and hostility of the Justice Department against him.

Of course, adopting the same arguments and rhetoric of Trump does not make you Trump. That appears the critical distinction for many in the media, as it was for Willis. These arguments are being soberly analyzed on media platforms where Trump’s prior arguments were categorically rejected. The only thing that remains is for Hunter to declare that he is only trying to Make America Great Again by nullifying independent counsels and expanding the Second Amendment. Indeed, it could be the start of a Biden MAGA movement.

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“Russian strength grows every day. Not only are they not suffering horrific losses on the battlefield, but they’re getting stronger..”

• Ukrainian Forces Failed to ‘Hold Their Own in Avdeyevka’ -Scott Ritter (Sp.)

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin earlier this week that an operation to take control of Avdeyevka was carried out with minimal losses. According to Shoigu, an area of 31.75 square kilometers has been freed as a result of the capture of the town from Ukrainian nationalists. Speaking to Sputnik, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter said that Ukraine lost the battle of Avdeyevka for several reasons, the most dominant of which is that they simply don’t have the firepower necessary to stabilize the battlefield. “They [Ukrainian forces] have no more artillery rounds that enable them to flood the battlefield, break up Russian attacks, and support counterattacks. They don’t have air defenses to stop Russian air power from coming in and dominating the battlefield. They have insufficient drones to replace artillery fire support. Simply put, the Ukrainians are unable to hold their own on the battlefield,” Ritter pointed out, describing the situation as “the Avdeyevka end game.”

When it comes to the unmanned aerial vehicles, “even when Ukrainian soldiers use the drones because they can’t stop the Russian air power, the drone operators are targeted and eliminated,” according to Ritter. He recalled that Ukrainian troops had been “pushed out of Avdeyevka, heavily fortified, if not the most heavily fortified, position in the entire Ukrainian defensive lines.” The former US Marine Corps intelligence officer underlined that when freeing the town, “the Russians didn’t suffer the heavy casualties that the Ukrainians claimed. “But the notion that the Russians lost everybody, there’s nothing left, is absurd. Russian strength grows every day. Not only are they not suffering horrific losses on the battlefield, but they’re getting stronger,” Ritter emphasized.

He suggested that the liberation of Avdeyevka could be “the beginning of the end of the Ukrainian combat cohesion along their entire front line.” “Avdeyevka is not a one-off situation, it is the situation that will be replicated again and again, until which time Ukrainian military is no longer able to mount a cohesive defense. At that point of time, the special military operation will come to an end, because the goal of demilitarization would have been achieved,” Ritter underscored. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) earlier said in a statement that the liberation of Avdeyevka “made it possible to push the front line away from Donetsk, significantly securing the city from terrorist strikes by the criminal Kiev regime.” The MoD added that the Russian military’s Tsentr (Center) Battlegroup continues offensive operations to further liberate the Donetsk People’s Republic from Ukrainian nationalists.

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“..[It’s] what they do. They’ve defeated Hitler, they’ve defeated Napoleon..”

• Russia Is ‘A War Machine’ – Trump (RT)

Russia is a “war machine” that has defeated powerful invaders in the past, former US President Donald Trump said during a town hall meeting on Tuesday, as he explained his opposition to sending billions of dollars in additional aid to Ukraine. Trump, who is seeking a new presidential term in this year’s election, highlighted Russian military prowess after the town-hall host, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, cited Kiev’s desperation to get the American money. “They say without that money, Ukraine will definitely lose the war, which would then empower Vladimir Putin and endanger our allies,” Ingraham said, referring to an argument made by US President Joe Biden.

Trump reiterated his earlier claims that, were he in the White House, the hostilities would not have erupted and that he could end them “in 24 hours” should voters put him back in the Oval Office. He also argued that EU nations, for whom the stakes in the conflict are higher than for the US, should pay more to support Kiev. “They have to start paying up,” he stated. “We have an ocean in between us. They don’t have that ocean,” he said. “You know why they have not paid? Cause nobody asked them.” “I feel very bad… Remember this: you are really up against a war machine in Russia. [It’s] what they do. They’ve defeated Hitler, they’ve defeated Napoleon,” Trump added Republican opposition in the US House to more aid for Ukraine stands in the way of an appropriation of over $60 billion for Kiev under a bill that was passed by the Senate this month.

The Biden administration claims that by keeping the flow of weapons into Ukraine the US would prevent a direct confrontation with Russia in the future. After defeating Kiev, this argument assumes, Moscow will certainly attack a NATO member, forcing Washington to send its troops to the rescue. Russia’s leadership has denied having such an intention and sees the Ukraine conflict as one triggered by NATO encroachment. The only scenario in which Russian troops could be sent into a NATO member state such as Poland is if it were attacked by the US-led military bloc first, President Vladimir Putin told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a recent interview. “You don’t need to be an analyst to understand that getting involved in a global war goes against common sense. A global war would bring all of humanity to the brink of destruction,” the president explained.

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“..Russia – that famous gas station sending out its shovel-wielding soldiers to capture German washing machines..”

• Monkey With A Grenade: Nukes In EU Hands Would Be A Nightmare (Amar)

With its farmers rebelling, its economy declining, and its traditional parties decaying, you’d think the European Union has enough to worry about at home. Yet its thoroughly detached elites love to think big. And what’s bigger than nuclear weapons? That’s how they have ended up falling for one of Donald Trump’s typically blunt provocations. The former – and likely future – American president has warned that NATO members not spending enough on defense won’t be able to count on US protection on his watch. Eminently sensible – why do declining but still comparatively wealthy EU states keep behaving like defense beggars? – Trump’s threat has triggered various predictable meltdowns. The White House archly tut-tutted about the “appalling and unhinged” rhetoric of a man who is not, unlike the current president Joe Biden, overseeing a genocide together with Israel.

Go figure, as they say in the US. On the other hand, many Republicans have displayed demonstrative insouciance, if not outright agreement. And that is certain to reflect what many ordinary Americans think as well; that is, if they think about Europe at all. And as if the Big Scary Orange Man hadn’t done enough damage yet, next came the Pentagon, which (sort of) revealed that Russia – that famous gas station sending out its shovel-wielding soldiers to capture German washing machines – is building, if not a Death Star, then at least something equally sinister out there in space: Sputnik déjà vu all over again, as America’s greatest philosopher might have said. All of that, of course, against a background of incessant NATO scaremongering, which, it seems, has succeeded in spooking NATO most of all.

No wonder then that inside EU-Europe, reactions to Trump’s taunting sally have been marked by serious abandonment anxiety. One of its symptoms has been a call for the bloc – or Europe’s NATO members; the issue is fuzzy – to acquire its own nuclear force. One way or the other, Christian Lindner, Germany’s minister of finance, made time from razing the state budget in an economy that his cabinet colleague, the children’s book author and minister of the economy, Robert Habeck, has just labeled “dramatically bad,” in order to pen an article calling for France (not subordinating its nukes to NATO) and Britain (not even in the EU anymore) – two small nuclear powers – to step in as the new security sugar daddies by expanding their nuclear umbrellas over everyone else.

Katarina Barley, eternally fresh-eyed vice president of the European Parliament and the top EU election candidate of the German Social-Democrats – a party leading a deeply unpopular government while approaching extinction in the polls – and Manfred Weber, head of the conservative faction in the European Parliament, have kept things more general: They simply suggest that the EU should get its own doomsday weapons, somehow. Donald Tusk, freshly re-established as Poland’s EU-subservient viceroy, has made similar noises. Well, who cares about details, right? That attitude of “on s’engage et puis on voit” has, after all, proven a smashing success in Ukraine. In reality, this is not a problem caused by Trump: That, in a world of more than one nuclear power, the US nuclear umbrella over any place other than the US itself is – and can only be – fundamentally unreliable is, of course, a perennial, structural problem. Those who prefer realism to wishful thinking have always understood this.

[..] The EU is a large bloc of countries in an increasingly unstable and lawless world where the ever-wider proliferation of nuclear weapons will be inevitable. Hypothetically, such an entity would be a candidate for owning such weapons. Yet, in reality, the EU lacks three essential qualities to even consider acquiring them: It is far too fractious, it has no serious concept of its own interests as apart from and, indeed, opposed to the US, and it lacks an elite that could remotely be trusted with weapons capable of ending the world. There, it is of course, not alone. But isn’t one US on planet Earth bad enough already?[..]

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“..Ukraine has still retained the scientific and industrial potential for the production of nuclear weapons..”

• Munich Conference Shows Evaporating Western Optimism On Ukraine (TASS)

The gloomy atmosphere at the annual Munich Security Conference showed that the West’s once-swaggering optimism on Ukraine has all but evaporated, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a comment on the Ukrainian crisis. “On February 16-18, the 60th Munich Security Conference was held, which was reduced to discussing the situation in Ukraine with a focus on how to forestall the complete collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We noted the dispirited atmosphere that permeated the meeting. There is no trace of the former optimism among the Western [cheerleaders for Ukraine],” the diplomat noted. “If just a year ago they were brimming with confidence in the imminent victory of their Kiev puppets, this time around they could barely conceal their skepticism and pessimism. Apparently, Europe and the United States are beginning to understand the impossibility of defeating Russia,” Zakharova stated.

At the same time, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that the international community should take very seriously the threats of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to reconsider the country’s renunciation of nuclear weapons. “In February 2022, Zelensky, in his speech at the very same Munich [Security] Conference, threatened to reconsider Kiev’s renunciation of nuclear weapons [under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum],” the diplomat said. “We are convinced that the international community should take such reckless statements very seriously. Moreover, Ukraine has still retained the scientific and industrial potential for the production of nuclear weapons that was created in the Soviet era.”.

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“His prospects for electoral success going forward are slim and none.”

• Narrative on Ukraine, Palestine Has Accelerated Western Media’s Decline (Sp.)

Over the past few months, multiple major legacy media outlets announced significant layoffs of their news departments, including CNN, LA Times and Vox, among others. The latest series of layoffs is part of a larger pattern going back years of former media institutions being gutted, closed or sold off. Historian and author Dr. Gerald Horne told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Tuesday that the decline of mainstream Western media was accelerated by the press’ narratives on the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine. “I think that an astute historian would point out that the Ukraine crisis helped to trigger or helped to accelerate the continuing decline of the news media,” Horne said, adding that the media crisis was “accelerated on October 7, 2023, because it’s no secret that the Zionist lobby has a stranglehold over a good deal of the US media.”

Horne also noted the US media coverage of the death of Alexey Navalny, particularly its lack of coverage of his documented Islamophobia. “We want to get an account of what happened when we pick up a newspaper or tune into CNN, but instead we oftentimes just get the current line of the neocons, or the neoliberals,” he explained, adding that there is “no guarantee” that CNN will be around by the end of the decade. The crisis goes beyond just the media, Horne argued, saying it is a crisis of “the entire capital system” and is part of “the inevitable demise of capitalism.”

“You see a similar crisis unfolding in Europe,” Horne said. “The party of [German] Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz is on the ropes because he has led his country into an abyss [by going] along with the Ukrainian caper and misadventures. His prospects for electoral success going forward are slim and none.” But it’s not only Scholz who’s headed down a troubled political future, Horne said, pointing out that French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are in similar positions. “All in all, it’s not a good look or good prognosis for the North Atlantic countries,” he concluded.

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“Sue-and-settle is part of an even broader effort known as “lawfare..”

• ‘Sue and Settle’ Looks to Some Like Crony Democracy (RCW)

When the Biden administration announced in 2022 that it would remove some 4 million acres of federal land in Western states from oil and gas exploration, environmental groups hailed the decision as a milestone in their fight against global warming. “With the oil and gas industry bent on despoiling American’s public lands and fueling the climate crisis, this is a critical opportunity for the Biden administration to chart a new path toward clean energy and independence from fossil fuels,” said Jeremy Nichols, a director with WildEarth Guardians. But Nichols could just as easily have slapped himself on the back: The administration’s move was part of a private settlement of a lawsuit filed by WildEarth and others over the objections of energy consortiums, whose efforts to intervene in the matter were dismissed.

A similar thing happened last August, when the Biden administration announced it had agreed to exclude 6 million acres of the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico seabed from exploration to settle a lawsuit brought by environmental groups, including the Sierra Club – an announcement that triggered operational delays for the industry and expensive litigation to overturn. Administration critics say these moves reflect the resurgence of a practice embraced by the Obama administration and rejected during Donald Trump’s presidency: “sue and settle.” The tactic is simple: An advocacy group sues a federal agency for failing to enforce laws or regulations. Agency officials and the plaintiffs then come to a private agreement and that deal is ratified by the courts via a binding consent decree.

The practice is common at every level of government. New York City, for example, is obligated to house and feed tens of thousands of migrants because of a consent decree it entered into to settle a 1979 lawsuit brought by advocates for the homeless. But it is most prevalent in the environmental field, where well-funded groups commonly sue the Environmental Protection Agency or the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior alleging failure to enforce provisions of the Clean Air Act or regulations regarding federal leases for energy production. Although such consent decrees do not have the force of laws passed by Congress or regulations issued by the government that have gone through formal review and allow for public comment, they set the rules of the road. Critics say it has allowed government to advance policy goals that cannot be achieved through normal democratic channels.

“It’s not really an adversarial lawsuit, and with a settlement agreement and consent decree the case is never really over,” said Dave Tryon, director of litigation at the free-market Buckeye Institute. “The EPA is anxious to increase its power and control; it’s always happy to expand that.” The legal maneuver represents, according to this view, a return to the proverbial smoked-filled backrooms of politics. Huddled privately, without input from citizens or businesses that may be adversely affected by the decisions – let alone the public at large – lawsuits that often involve parties more simpatico than adversarial are settled. The plaintiffs and defendants are familiar to one another from years in the environmental lobbying and litigation world – and because of the “revolving door” between environmental groups and Democratic administrations. These like-minded players approach the issue seeking similar goals, a process that has only intensified with the Biden administration and leftist environmental groups sharing the belief that global warming is an existential threat.

“Overall, it’s harkening back to the bad old days – they do this in order to avoid scrutiny and bypass the regulatory process,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, an advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research. “It’s a way to advance an agenda that may be rejected by voters. It’s a nefarious practice in which the agency and the environmental groups get what they want.” Sue-and-settle is part of an even broader effort known as “lawfare,” in which political parties and advocacy groups seek to achieve their goals not through elections or legislation but in the courts. This encompasses everything from President Trump’s “stop the steal” efforts to overturn the 2020 election through the courts to myriad efforts by Democrats, whose lawfare campaigns have ranged from getting courts to confiscate Trump’s businesses and charge him criminally to removing him from the 2024 ballot.

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Vivek Elon

 

 

 

 

Tiny house

 

 

Chain reaction

 

 

 

 

Cow steals shoes

 

 

Drinking water

 

 

Anaconda

 

 

 

 

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