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Debt Rattle November 23 2024

Nov 232024
 
 November 23, 2024  Posted by at 9:53 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Titian The rape of Europe 1560-62

 

• In the Weeds of the Swamp (Kunstler)
• Ukrainians Have Stolen Up To Half Of US Aid – Ex-Polish Deputy Minister (RT)
• Trump Eyes Richard Grenell As Special Envoy For Ukraine (RT)
• Ukrainian Military Plans For 2025 ‘Derailed’ – Moscow (RT)
• RFK Jr.’s Plans for Reshaping HHS Draw Strong Reactions (ET)
• Trump Names Billionaire Scott Bessent As Treasury Secretary (ZH)
• Washington Chose to Go to War with Russia (Paul Craig Roberts)
• World ‘Very Close To Point Of No Return’ – Scott Ritter (RT)
• US Investor Eyes Nord Stream 2 Purchase, Citing Strategic Value for US (Sp.)
• White House Refuses to Recognize Responsibility for Escalation in Ukraine (Sp.)
• Musk on His ‘To-Do List’ on Time Cover: We Need to Colonize Other Planets (Sp.)
• NY ‘Hush Money’ Judge Grants Trump Request To File For Dismissal (ZH)
• Israel Preparing to Attack Iranian Nuclear Facilities (Sp.)
• European States Vow To Arrest Netanyahu (RT)
• US Senator Threatens Invasion of Netherlands (RT)
• HBO Delivers Blow Against the Anti-Rowling, Anti-Free Speech Movement (Turley)
• British Operation KISS – “Kill Instantly Skripals” – Has Failed (Helmer)
• G20 Knocks Out G7 Agendas (Pepe Escobar)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1859755179836371333

App

Cuts

DOGE

Ruhle

Ron Paul
https://twitter.com/Rothmus/status/1859512945127854571

Celente

 

 

 

 

 

 

“RussiaGate is starting to look like ancient history to many, but it is a giant slime trail of sedition and treason involving many people who are still very much alive..”

• In the Weeds of the Swamp (Kunstler)

Okay, you’ve had enough post-election euphoria. Time to wake TF up. Rats from inside the walls of the Deep State are trying to gnaw their way into the Trump cabinet. Ever hear of an outfit called Cipher Brief? Of course not. Cipher Brief is sort of the McKinsey of blob-world (a.k.a. the “national security” network), a combination Human Relations / Public Relations firm, totally spooked-up with former CIA officers. Quite a few of the spooks who signed the infamous letter in October 2020 that said Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation” are contractors there. They all knew the heinous laptop was genuine, though, and they did it anyway to queer the election for “Joe Biden.” Why? Because. . . Trump. One Cipher Brief operative is a character named Dan Hoffman, a retired CIA “clandestine service” officer who ran the agency’s Middle East Bureau, among other things. He’s now a sometime talking head on Fox News.

Hoffman has scuttled his way to the sidelines of the Trump transition team, trying to punk them on personnel. I received my own intel about Dan Hoffman and his current operations. “Hoffman talks the talk,” I’m informed. “He was involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. He is 100-percent Deep State. They think he is a brother-in-arms. He is not. Hoffman and the people around him are in direct contact with Tulsi Gabbard [DNI-designate] and John Ratcliffe [CIA Director-designate]. Remember, agency ops officers are trained to be all things to all people, to manipulate them, detect their vulnerabilities, and exploit them. Their game vis-a-vis Donald Trump? To kneecap his attempts to lower tensions world-wide, stop efforts to reduce and reform the intel and defense communities, push a generally Globalist policy agenda, keep the American ‘empire game’ running so they can cash out, and keep non-Beltway Americans from having any say in our foreign policy.

“Hoffman is not a minor figure. He is heading up the cabal trying to co-opt Ratcliffe and Gabbard. Understand that [this group] essentially took over Agency operations during the so-called Global War on Terror [GWOT] after 9/11. Not only did these assholes lead America into the quicksand of the Middle East, they feathered their own nests and those of their buddies with hundreds of millions in ‘contracts’. . . they cooked up the Ukraine War . . . . Nobody associated with Cipher Brief should be anywhere near Ratcliffe or Gabbard, period. They should be blacklisted. They are the people who worked to take down Trump, and now they are trying to cover their tracks and sneak into the new administration.” Dan Hoffman, remember the name.

And thus, the chatter this week about former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Mike Rogers (a.k.a. Admiral Michael S. Rogers) floated as the next Director of the FBI. Oh, really? Not a joke (har har)? Mike Rogers was DNI throughout the first years (2016-17) of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” op to take down the then-new president Donald Trump using Hillary Clinton’s concocted “Steele Dossier,” known to be utter bullshit by all involved at the highest levels, but used anyway. Mike Rogers was in office when the FBI took down new National Security Advisor Mike Flynn in February, 2017, for talking to the Russian ambassador. (Since when are high US officials not allowed to speak with foreign diplomats?) By the way, Mike Rogers was endorsed for the FBI job this week by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, one of the chief managers of The RussiaGate op, which included “Crossfire Hurricane,” and the FBIs programmatic lying to the FISA court.

RussiaGate is starting to look like ancient history to many, but it is a giant slime trail of sedition and treason involving many people who are still very much alive, and some who are still in positions of power (Christopher Wray). It is going to be re-litigated in the new administration, but many other crimes just as sinister, carried out under color-of-law by the FBI and its parent, the Department of Justice (DOJ), have followed since then. For instance: the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol instigated by “confidential human resources” (FBI plants), and actual FBI agents — labeled “the insurrection” by blob publicists. It was engineered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, General Mark Milley, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, and others to prevent a public review of election irregularities in the joint session of Congress convened to certify the electoral vote. It succeeded splendidly, and was promptly converted into one of the worst national mind-fucks in US history. Debate over dubious vote-counts was squelched and objections were never allowed to be heard. From that sprung the “Big Lie” that anyone voicing skepticism over the 2020 election is a criminal — and thus, the two preposterous federal cases (plus the Fulton County, GA, case) cooked up against Mr. Trump three years later.

There is also the matter of the pipe bomb op at the DNC and RNC headquarters blocks away from the US Capitol the same hour of the same day, 1/6/21, when, for no good reason, Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris hid-out in the DNC building. (Why would she not have been attending the joint session of Congress in the Capitol at that hour when the signal achievement of her life to-date was to be grandly announced in front of all her colleagues?) I will tell you why: because the pipe bomb was supposed to be Plan-A for disrupting the electoral vote certification — to set off wild alarms about “terrorism” and scatter the lawmakers. It just happened that the riot at the Capitol (Plan-B) successfully stole the show and Nancy Pelosi got what she said she was “waiting for” — the means to permanently knock Donald Trump off the game-board.

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Americans too:

“..war-related corruption is linked not only with Ukraine, but also the supplier nation..”

• Ukrainians Have Stolen Up To Half Of US Aid – Ex-Polish Deputy Minister (RT)

Ukraine did not receive as much foreign aid as claimed by the administration of US President Joe Biden, and whatever help it did get was largely embezzled, a former Polish deputy minister has claimed. Up to a half of the funds that reached Kiev was stolen by Ukrainian officials, Piotr Kulpa has alleged. The political commentator previously held several posts in the Polish government, serving as deputy labor minister in the mid-2000s, and is currently a regular contributor on Ukrainian online shows. Kulpa is a vocal supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump, as evidenced by his remarks to Ukrainian journalist Lana Shevchuk on Thursday. “Everyone understands that war-related corruption is linked not only with Ukraine, but also the supplier nation,” he said. “Who would ever believe that the US burned through $2 trillion in Afghanistan? It’s delusional!”

US aid programs are a mechanism to “write off large sums of money that finance shady systems under the Democratic Party’s control,” he alleged. The incoming Trump administration could review government finances and discover the truth that “Ukraine got very little” compared to the amounts mentioned in public statements, Kulpa claimed. “But they will also find something else: that a huge portion of the funds was stolen in Ukraine. From 30% to 50%, regardless of the nature of the aid,” he added. If Kiev were to recover all the embezzled money for the Ukrainian budget, the country would have enough for a year, Kulpa said. He denounced senior Ukrainian officials, whose regular salaries and bonuses he believes are outrageously high.

“It’s a spit in the face of every Ukrainian,” the former minister asserted. “To every European and American taxpayer. This system is criminal from start to finish.” Trump and his allies have been highly critical of the amount of assistance that the Biden administration has sent to Kiev. The president-elect has argued that EU nations should assume the burden of propping up Ukraine, while the American government should focus on its own priorities. US concerns about graft in Kiev have been reflected in some government documents, such as a report that Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch’s office released last week. It said corruption “continues to complicate Ukraine’s efforts to achieve its EU and NATO aspirations.”

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“..he has advocated for the creation of “autonomous zones” in the conflict area..”

• Trump Eyes Richard Grenell As Special Envoy For Ukraine (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump is considering Richard Grenell, a veteran of his previous administration, for the position of special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources. Grenell served as Washington’s ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence. Trump’s plans to appoint a high-ranking diplomat tasked with “find[ing] a resolution, to get to a peace settlement” were first reported by Fox News last week, with its source saying the person in the position will have “a lot of credibility.” Four Reuters sources confirmed that Trump is thinking about creating the position of special envoy, with Grenell considered as a potential candidate. However, there is no guarantee that the position will be created, though the president-elect is strongly leaning toward doing so, the article said.

Grenell, a seasoned diplomat and political operative, served as the US ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020, and as acting director of national intelligence for several months in 2020. Days after his appointment as envoy to Berlin, Grenell faced criticism for what many EU leaders saw as his crude disregard for diplomatic finesse and nonchalant attempts to influence the domestic political landscape, as he urged European capitals to cut business ties with Iran while openly voicing support for local right-wing parties. As for Grenell’s stance on the Ukraine conflict, he has advocated for the creation of “autonomous zones” in the conflict area and insisted that Ukraine should not be brought into NATO anytime soon, a stance shared by many on the Trump team.

Supporters of Grenell point to his long diplomatic career and deep knowledge of European affairs, according to Reuters. He served as special presidential envoy for Serbia-Kosovo peace negotiations from 2019 to 2021. In September 2020, he brokered an agreement between the country and its breakaway region, which paved the way for economic normalization and helped defuse tensions at the time. Trump has vowed to swiftly put an end to the Ukraine conflict. One of the reported plans includes Kiev suspending its NATO ambitions and agreeing to a freeze along the current front line. Russia has ruled out a freeze of the conflict, insisting that all of the goals of the military operation, including Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification, should be fulfilled.

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“..ground down” Kiev’s best military units..”

• Ukrainian Military Plans For 2025 ‘Derailed’ – Moscow (RT)

Russian forces involved in repelling a Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Region have “ground down” Kiev’s best military units and have effectively “derailed [its] entire campaign of 2025,” Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov has claimed. Kiev sent some of its best-armed and most experienced troops across the northern border in August, claiming that securing control of Russian territory in Kursk would be of great benefit. Ukrainian officials said the move would slow down Russian advancement elsewhere on the front line and give their country an important bargaining chip in eventual peace talks. Belousov has visited a command and control site operated by the ‘North’ group of forces, responsible for Russia’s response to the Ukrainian operation, the Defense Ministry reported on Friday. The ministry released footage in which the minister praised soldiers and officers for thwarting Kiev’s plans for next year after hearing a report by General Aleksandr Lapin, the commander of the ‘North’ battlegroup.

Belousov was also given a tour of an exhibition of NATO weapons captured during the fighting, including communications equipment, drones, small arms, and man-portable heavy arms. He was told that much of the hardware was inferior to its Russian equivalent. The minister personally awarded military decorations to several service members who had shown valor on the battlefield. Moscow has described the Ukrainian incursion as a major turning point in the armed conflict. No peace talks can happen before all of Kiev’s troops are pushed out of Kursk Region, senior Russian officials have said. Ukrainian forces have suffered more than 34,500 casualties and lost hundreds of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and other pieces of heavy weaponry in the operation, the Russian military has claimed.

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“He is dangerous to the health and well being of every American..”

• RFK Jr.’s Plans for Reshaping HHS Draw Strong Reactions (ET)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has vowed to “make America healthy again” through his platform as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The possibility of that happening has drawn praise from many Republican lawmakers and vaccine and food safety advocates. Multiple Democratic legislators and public health officials have criticized President-Elect Donald Trump’s nomination, calling Kennedy a “danger” to public health. Fighting chronic disease, improving children’s health, and addressing corporate influence on government agencies were vital parts of Kennedy’s campaign platform when he ran for president as a Democrat and then an independent. Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and backed Trump in August. He previously told The Epoch Times that it was a “heart-wrenching decision” and a necessary step toward achieving his mission of saving Americans from the chronic disease epidemic.

Under the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign, Kennedy aims to curtail what he calls the chronic disease epidemic by addressing the so-called “corporate capture” of federal health agencies and removing toxic chemicals from the nation’s food supply, among other objectives. Trump’s naming Kennedy as his HHS secretary has drawn strong reactions. Donna Shalala, who was HHS secretary under former President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001, said Kennedy is not qualified for the position. “The nomination of RFK Jr. for HHS by President-elect Trump is shocking. … He is dangerous to the health and well being of every American,” Shalala wrote on X. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on X that Kennedy would be the person to “detox the place after the Fauci era,” in reference to former NIH director Dr. Anthony Fauci. Kennedy and Paul have both been outspoken critics of Fauci’s policies related to vaccines and the public health response to COVID-19.

[..] Kennedy has said that he will urge Trump on day one to declare a national emergency for chronic disease. Kennedy said he believes little will change until the influence of giant or private corporations on the FDA, the CDC, and the Department of Agriculture is addressed. At a roundtable organized by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in September, Kennedy said these agencies “advance the mercantile and commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry that has transformed them and the food industry into sock puppets for the industry they’re supposed to regulate. Kennedy has vowed to dismiss the officials who lead those agencies and appoint replacements. “FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” he wrote on X on Oct. 25, adding his support for raw milk, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, foods with healing properties, and natural remedies such as sunshine.

In September, Kennedy told The Epoch Times that he would revamp the NIH to focus on the causes of autism, autoimmune diseases, and neurodevelopment diseases instead of developing drugs and serving as an incubator for pharmaceutical products. He has also vowed to lead efforts to address the issue of chemicals in ultra-processed foods. He told Fox News he would “get processed food out of school lunch immediately” and said federal food assistance such as food stamps should not go toward junk food.

RFK

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“..work to create an economy that places growth at the forefront, especially through our coming world energy dominance..”

• Trump Names Billionaire Scott Bessent As Treasury Secretary (ZH)

After Trump appointed Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary and Kevin Warsh was clearly being groomed as Powell’s replacement at the Fed, it was just a matter of time before the most important appointment in the Trump admin was made. That happened late on Friday when president-elect Donald Trump nominated Scott Bessent to lead the Department of the Treasury, ending days of speculation after other names emerged as competitors to the reported favorite. “Scott is widely respected as one of the world’s foremost international investors and geopolitical and economic strategists. Scott’s story is that of the American Dream,” Trump said in a statement on the nomination. Bessent, 62, is a Wall Street veteran who once worked for George Soros, and founder of international macro investment company Key Square Group. He served as a key economic adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Others contenders for the role included Howard Lutnick, the chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Partners. He co-chairs the Trump–Vance transition team, which is in charge of selecting administration candidates, vetting personnel, and crafting policy. Lutnick was ultimately chosen on Nov. 19 to lead the Department of Commerce. Kevin Warsh, 54, a former Morgan Stanley banker and former Federal Reserve Board governor, likewise entered the conversation. He became the leading candidate for treasury secretary on the betting website Polymarket after reports emerged that the president-elect was expanding his search to fill the position. In his statement on Bessent’s nomination, Trump said that economic policy under his administration would maintain the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status, fortify the United States’s position as the world’s strongest economy, and invigorate the private sector.

“As a lifelong champion of Main Street America and American industry, Scott will support my policies that will drive U.S. competitiveness, and stop unfair trade imbalances, work to create an economy that places growth at the forefront, especially through our coming world energy dominance,” Trump said. The president-elect also noted Bessent’s deep family roots in South Carolina, saying that he belongs to a historic French Huguenot Church, which members of his family founded in the 1680s, in the port city of Charleston. Like his predecessors, Bessent will now oversee a vast portfolio to employ the president’s economic agenda. As the Epoch Times notes, the two immediate issues Bessent will grapple with will be averting a default as the national debt ceiling limit will expire on Jan. 1, 2025, and extending the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act due to expire at the end of next year.

More importantly, Bessent will also be tasked with the delicate, if not conflicting, job of championing Trump’s trade proposals, including across-the-board tariffs, on one hand, while keeping the debt and deficit in check and preventing bond yields and the dollar from rising too high, too fast, as an even more rapid tightening in financial conditions will surely tip the US economy into recession.

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“We Are Faced with the Extraordinary Event that..”

• Washington Chose to Go to War with Russia (Paul Craig Roberts)

This interview from two days ago explains the dangerous situation into which the Biden Regime has placed life on earth by Washington’s conscious decision to go to war with Russia. The Russian government made it completely clear that a decision to fire missiles into Russia means the West is at war with Russia. Nevertheless, the insane West fired missiles into Russia. Putin responded with a demonstration of a new hypersonic missile that completely destroyed a Ukrainian armaments production facility. The missile travels at speed that the West has no capability to intercept and was designed to carry nuclear warheads. The message to the West is clear: If you persist in your war with Russia, you can expect widespread destruction. What will the insane West do? Will it come to its senses, or is it more important to widen the war in order to lock Trump in and prevent him from reaching a peaceful end to the conflict?

The Russian-hating Jew that Washington installed as its agent in Ukraine is demanding a “strong response” from the West. In other words, Zelensky is demanding Europe and the US put themselves at risk of destruction simply because Russia responded to a missile attack by the West from Ukrainian soil with a missile attack on a Ukrainian military facility. What sense does this make? None. It is unclear that the American people and those of Europe will survive their acceptance of the theft by the Democrats of the 2020 US presidential election. The consequence of the theft of the presidential election was an insane regime in Washington that has consistently step-by-step widened a local conflict into a war of the West with Russia. The British have not helped the situation by electing a prime minister as unhinged as Biden. In the West it seems that only Hungary’s Viktor Orban understands the seriousness of the situation.

I will briefly review the situation as Putin has stated it to the Russian people and to the dumbshits ruling in the West. Putin said the West’s missile attack on Russia drastically changed the nature of the conflict in Ukraine. The conflict has been transformed into a war of the West against Russia. This intentional decision by the West to go to war with Russia was taken despite Russia’s clear warning. Putin reminded everyone that the conflict in Ukraine was provoked by Washington which refused Russia’s peaceful approach of the Minsk Agreement and refused Russia’s request for a mutual security agreement. Putin made the point that Washington and NATO have deliberately escalated the conflict and are making it into global war. Putin pointed out that Washington has deliberately “destroyed the system on international security” and is “pushing the whole world toward a global conflict.”

Putin made the point that although the West has no defense against Russian missiles, Russia prefers diplomacy to war, but if the West persists in war, the West will suffer the consequences Certainly, Ukraine’s retention of Donbas, formerly a part of Russia herself that Soviet leaders attached to the Soviet Union’s Ukrainian province, is not worth a devastating, perhaps final, war. What madness is driving the West’s irresponsible attitude toward life? It appears to be the neoconservatives’ agenda of US and Israeli hegemony, egged on by profit and power for the US military/security complex and the unrealistic belief of Americans in their invincibility. The question before us is: Will the hubris of the West destroy the World?

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“They are ‘Trump proofing’ NATO, Ukraine and the deep state..”

• World ‘Very Close To Point Of No Return’ – Scott Ritter (RT)

Russia’s strike on a Ukrainian defense industrial facility using a new hypersonic ballistic missile system has shown the West that a policy of further escalation will lead to devastating consequences, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said. America’s recklessness in dealing with Russia, as well as underestimating Moscow’s readiness to respond, has already brought the world dangerously close to an all-out nuclear war, the former US marine officer claimed on the ‘Judging Freedom’ YouTube show on Thursday. Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the country’s military successfully hit a Ukrainian target with a new intermediate-range ballistic missile called the Oreshnik. The strike was a response to Kiev using US-made ATACMS and HIMARS systems, as well as British-made Storm Shadow missiles in strikes on internationally-recognized Russian territory earlier this week, he added.

The missile launch is a clear signal to the West that Moscow was not bluffing when it said the US and its allies would not get away with aiding Kiev in striking Russia with Western-made weapons, Ritter argued. “The missile that they used is a nuclear-capable system. It had a conventional warhead but could be used for nuclear purposes. Putin basically said that this missile can cover all of Europe and that in the future, he will mirror every action by Ukraine and the West; that any escalation will immediately be responded to,” Ritter told the host of Judging Freedom, Andrew Napolitano. The former UN weapons inspector also called the development a “qualitative advancement” that brought a completely new type of weapon to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Everyone who believed that Russia was bluffing “has now been put on notice” that it is not, he added.

A continuation of the current Western policy towards the Ukraine conflict and Russia would be dangerous and irresponsible under such circumstances, Ritter believes. “We are very, very close to reaching the point of no return when it comes to a nuclear war,” he warned. He particularly slammed remarks by US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) spokesman Rear Admiral Thomas Buchanan, who said on Thursday that Washington was ready to launch nuclear strikes but would only do so “on terms that are most acceptable to the US.” Such statements sound as if the US is ready for a “pre-emptive strike” against Russia, Ritter said, adding that taking out Russia’s nuclear capabilities first was “the only way an exchange works that you can walk away from.” Such rhetoric is bound to put Moscow on edge, according to the former UN weapons inspector.

The “lame duck” administration of President Joe Biden might have made a U-turn on allowing Kiev to use Western long-range weapons for strikes on undisputed Russian territory to make life difficult for their successors, opined Ritter, a former RT contributor. “They are ‘Trump proofing’ NATO, Ukraine and the deep state” in order to make the Ukraine conflict problem “so hard” that President-elect Donald Trump will not be able to resolve it as he intends, he said. Trump has vowed to swiftly end the Ukraine conflict upon assuming office. One possibility would be to force Ukraine to drop its NATO ambitions and agree to freeze the conflict, according to reports. Moscow has ruled out the latter, insisting that all the goals of its military operation – including Ukraine’s demilitarization and denazification – must be fulfilled.

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Much of it was financed by Gazprom. They won’t sell.. You gonna seize control?

• US Investor Eyes Nord Stream 2 Purchase, Citing Strategic Value for US (Sp.)

American investor Stephen P. Lynch has expressed an interest in buying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if it is put up for auction as part of the bankruptcy proceedings in Switzerland, The Wall Street Journal reports. “An American investor with a history of dealmaking in Russia has asked the U.S. government to allow him to bid on the sabotaged Nord Stream Pipeline 2 if it comes up for auction in a Swiss bankruptcy proceeding,” the report said. According to sources cited by the newspaper, Lynch expressed determination to buy the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline and applied to the US Treasury in February for a license to negotiate its construction with entities under US sanctions, noting that many investors might avoid the auction due to the difficult geopolitical situation. Lynch has advocated to US officials and lawmakers that owning the pipeline would give the United States a powerful tool in negotiating peace with Russia to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, while also supporting broader American strategic objectives.

“The bottom line is this: This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for American and European control over European energy supply for the rest of the fossil-fuel era,” the newspaper quotes Lynch as saying. The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Europe, were hit by explosions on September 26, 2022. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden have not ruled out deliberate sabotage. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has opened an investigation into it as an act of international terrorism. Russia has repeatedly requested information on other countries’ investigations into the explosions, but never received it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

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“Every step of escalation comes from Russia. They are the ones who are escalating it..”

• White House Refuses to Recognize Responsibility for Escalation in Ukraine (Sp.)

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday declined to acknowledge that US President Joe Biden’s authorization of long-range strikes on Russia with ATACMS missiles had contributed to escalating the conflict, instead placing the blame on Russia. “Every step of escalation comes from Russia. They are the ones who are escalating it,” she alleged when asked whether Biden’s decision to authorize strikes using long-range ATACMS missiles deep into Russian territory was a factor in escalating the conflict in Ukraine. Jean-Pierre claimed that neither Ukraine nor the United States bears responsibility for the escalation. The launch of a Russian missile will not deter US policy towards Ukraine, the press secretary added. The United States will continue to provide new weapons packages to Ukraine and work to expedite their delivery, she said.

Washington has not seen any signs of Russia preparing to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, the White House spokesperson admitted. Washington is not seeking war with Moscow but will continue to send weapons to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh added. Russia notified the US briefly before launching an intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine, the Pentagon spokesperson acknowledged. Earlier in the day, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia fired a non-nuclear hypersonic version of a ballistic missile, striking a Ukrainian arms manufacturer in the city of Dnepropetrovsk in response to Kiev’s use of US and UK longer-range weapons to strike Russian territory.

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“I am trying to make life multiplanetary to maximize the probable lifespan of consciousness..”

• Musk on His ‘To-Do List’ on Time Cover: We Need to Colonize Other Planets (Sp.)

US entrepreneur Elon Musk, commenting on his “to-do list” on the cover of Time magazine, has said that it is not really his checklist, but that some items are needed to achieve a global goal of human colonization of other planets. Earlier in the week, Time released the cover of its December issue featuring the entrepreneur and his alleged tasks or accomplishments, including two items that have not yet been completed, including reducing US government spending by $2 trillion and flying to Mars. “To be clear, I have not done any media interviews and this is not actually my checklist. I am trying to make life multiplanetary to maximize the probable lifespan of consciousness. Some of the items below are needed for that,” Musk said on X.

Last month, Musk said that if Trump won the US presidential election, the entrepreneur would reduce state budget spending by $2 trillion. The presidential election took place in the United States on November 5. Republican candidate Donald Trump, who served as the US president from 2017-2021, was declared the winner by all leading race callers and networks. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris conceded defeat in an address to supporters. The Electoral College will vote in accordance with the will of the voters on December 17, and the new Congress will approve the results of the vote on January 6. The presidential inauguration will take place on January 20.

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Even Merchan folds. Alvin Bragg: Bye!

• NY ‘Hush Money’ Judge Grants Trump Request To File For Dismissal (ZH)

Liberals will be tearing what’s left of their hair out even more this morning as Judge Juan Merchan just granted President-elect Trump’s request to file a motion to dismiss the charges in the Stormy Daniels’ ‘hush money’ case and removed the sentencing date for the president-elect from the schedule. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) is opposing that request. Instead, Bragg floated that Merchan could freeze the proceedings while Trump is in office, meaning the conviction would remain on the books but sentencing wouldn’t occur until 2029, at the earliest. Merchan ordered Trump to file his formal motion asking for dismissal by Dec. 2 and Bragg to respond by Dec. 9. Merchan also confirmed the stay in sentencing for Trump, which was requested by both Trump and Bragg attorneys.

The sentencing was scheduled for Nov. 26, but on Friday, Merchan said that date “is adjourned.” The judge will then decide how to proceed. In a letter to Merchan on Wednesday, Trump defense attorney and now-nominee for Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche demanded the case against President-elect Donald Trump be tossed. “On November 5, 2024, the Nation’s People issued a mandate that supersedes the political motivations of DANY’s ‘People,’” Blanche wrote. “This case must be immediately dismissed.” Blanche said that “immediate dismissal of this case is mandated by the federal Constitution, the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, and the interests of justice, in order to facilitate the orderly transition of Executive power following President Trump’s overwhelming victory in the 2024 Presidential Election.” Trump’s imminent return to the White House has already pumped the brakes on his other criminal prosecutions.

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Russia guards Iran.

• Israel Preparing to Attack Iranian Nuclear Facilities (Sp.)

The Israeli authorities reached a consensus at all levels of the security system and political echelon on the need to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israeli news portal Walla reported, citing a high-ranking source. Israel also allegedly has the technological capability to carry out such an attack, the report said on Thursday. Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, the source noted. Economic sanctions against Tehran serve only as a deterrent and are not intended to eliminate Iran’s nuclear project, the source added.

Last week, the Axios news portal reported that Israel’s attack on Iran that took place in late October destroyed an active top secret nuclear weapons research facility of the Parchin military complex and affected the country’s capability to resume nuclear arms research. The destroyed facility reportedly was a part of Iran’s Amad nuclear weapons program, which Tehran is believed to have halted in 2003. In late October, the Israel Defense Forces said that they struck military targets in Iran in response to the October 1 attacks on the Jewish state. Media reported that the Israeli attack on Iran was limited to military assets and did not target nuclear or oil facilities.

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Britain joined in.

• European States Vow To Arrest Netanyahu (RT)

Several Western states have pledged to execute an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Hague-based court on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas commander Ibrahim al-Masri. West Jerusalem claims that al-Masri is already dead. The warrants are for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity linked to the Gaza conflict. The decision has elicited mixed reactions in the West. Several nations emphasized their respect for the independence of the court, while others voiced support for Israel. The Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, and Norway all claimed they would meet their commitments and obligations under the Rome Statute and international law.

However, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto stressed that the ICC was “wrong” to put Netanyahu and Gallant on the same level as Hamas. Austria also said that it would obey the decision, but its foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg, added that the warrant was “utterly incomprehensible.” Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp assured the country’s parliament that the authorities would act on the warrants and avoid non-essential contacts with those named. Geert Wilders, the head of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, a member of the ruling coalition, condemned the decision, saying that the Israeli authorities are being confronted with arrest warrants instead of receiving international understanding and support.

Earlier this month, the Dutch capital saw rioting between Israeli soccer fans, who chanted anti-Palestinian slogans, and pro-Palestinian locals. In France, Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said that potentially acting on the warrants was a “complex legal issue” while admitting the importance of acting in line with ICC statutes. At the same time, Lemoine declined to say whether France would arrest Netanyahu or Gallant if they came to the country. Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban denounced the ICC’s decision, telling a state radio station that he would invite the Israeli leader to Hungary.

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ICC.

• US Senator Threatens Invasion of Netherlands (RT)

US Senator Tom Cotton has lashed out at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He invoked a US law which greenlights the use of military force against the Netherlands-based court. The Republican senator threatened the ICC by referring to the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, informally referred to as the ‘Hague Invasion Act’, which permits the US president to use “all means necessary and appropriate” to free Americans or allied individuals detained at the request of the court. The ICC on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the Gaza conflict. Chief prosecutor Karim Khan also announced similar charges against Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif.

Cotton condemned the ICC in a post on X on Thursday, branding it a “kangaroo court” and labeling its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, a “deranged fanatic.” “Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it,” Cotton warned. Passed by Congress in 2002, the ‘Hague Invasion Act’ was designed to shield US personnel from the court’s jurisdiction. It authorizes military action to rescue any American or allied citizen held by the court in The Hague. Civil rights groups argued the law aims to intimidate nations that support the ICC treaty. Washington, Israel’s main ally, has opposed the court’s decision, and a number of US politicians have called for the White House to impose sanctions on the ICC for issuing warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

The EU, however, has taken a different stance. Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, and Norway are among the countries that have said they will comply with the ICC’s request. While Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute, under the treaty that established the court, Netanyahu and Gallant could be detained in any of 124 countries that recognize the its authority. The ICC has accused Netanyahu and Gallant of using starvation as a method of warfare in Gaza, and deliberately depriving the enclave’s civilian population of essential supplies such as food, water, and medicine without any “obvious military necessity.” The charges are part of a broader ICC investigation that includes alleged crimes Hamas committed during its October 7 attacks on Israel.

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JK Rowling should be celebrated. She created an entire world of her own. How many people can say that?

• HBO Delivers Blow Against the Anti-Rowling, Anti-Free Speech Movement (Turley)

This week, HBO delivered the corporate version of the Expelliarmus or disarming curse for the long-standing cancel campaign targeting “Harry Potter” creator J.K. Rowling. We have been discussing this campaign against Rowling, a feminist who has opposed transgender policies that she views as inimical to the rights of women. The cancel campaign against Rowling has been extreme and unhinged from blacklisting her books to even barring the playing of Harry Potter games in pubs. Even authors who support Rowling’s free speech have been targeted. Nevertheless, HBO, which has also been targeted in the past, is now saying enough. Rowling’s work will continue to be featured and developed by the company.

HBO has enraged the anti-Rowling movement by announcing that it will not yield and will continue to work with the author: “J.K. Rowling has a right to express her personal views. We will remain focused on the development of the new series, which will only benefit from her involvement.” It added that “her contribution has been invaluable.” HBO has a new upcoming Potter series set to premiere on HBO’s Max streaming platform in 2026. Both Harry Potter stars, Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter, and Emma Watson, who played Hermine Granger, have joined the criticism of Rowling. However, the criticism itself is not the primary problem, even if they unfairly characterize Rowlings’ actual statements. That is a use of their own free speech rights.

However, the cancel campaigns are far more damaging for free speech, as I discuss in my book, The Indispensable Right. The issue of cancel campaigns came up in my recent debate at Harvard Law School on free speech with Professor Randall Kennedy. Kennedy defended cancel campaigns as the exercise of free speech. There is no question that such campaigns involve the act of free speech as people rallying for or against viewpoints. However, the impact of such campaigns, particularly in higher education, is to limit the diversity of viewpoints and reinforce an orthodoxy on our campuses. It is not to express a view but to seek to silence an opposing view. It is the antithesis of free speech values in higher education.

It also has a damaging effect on an academic community. When students see faculty supporting the canceling of conservative, libertarian, or dissenting speakers, it is hardly an invitation to speak freely yourself in class. The same is true for publishers. We have discussed companies discontinuing publication of Rowling’s work and both editors and writers joining blacklisting campaigns against her and others. We have even seen the embracing of book burning. For the activists behind this massive cancel campaign, HBO’s announcement is nothing short of a corporate Cruciatus (torture) Curse. However, both the arts and free speech are the winners in Rowling’s continuing to produce and expand her legendary body of work.

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Motive: “..they believed Sergei Skripal was planning to return home to Russia, and that the GRU was planning an exfiltration operation..”

• British Operation KISS – “Kill Instantly Skripals” – Has Failed (Helmer)

This is the comic book version of what really happened, as revealed by the clumsiest judge in England – Anthony Hughes (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley, lead image, right). Even if all the evidence presented to Hughes and already endorsed by him is true – on the record of six and half years of British Government investigations and twenty-one days of hearings with concealed witness faces, censored documents, missing CCTV — there remains no direct evidence that the Russians attacked the Skripals by poisoning their front-door handle when they were inside their home, four hours before their collapse. Instead, Hughes and his lawyers have directed the police and other witnesses to stretch their circumstantial evidence and dictated their inferences of Russian guilt. In New York, the legal textbook difference between direct and circumstantial evidence is this.

To stretch the circumstantial evidence and inferences beyond the criminal standard of reasonable doubt, Hughes has prevented direct evidence from being presented, stopping the Skripals from testifying themselves. Their Home Office lawyer purportedly representing the Skripals in the hearings has said nothing at all; Hughes’s lawyers have manipulated witnesses with leading questions; alternative explanations for the circumstantial evidence have been blocked by Hughes from the hospital doctors and independent experts. The way in which this has been done is comic book jurisprudence. The judges of the former British empire aren’t laughing; this is how they say the means and opportunity of a capital crime must be prosecuted, then judged.

The CCTV and other evidence presented at the Hughes hearings shows the Russians knew they had been marked by MI6 from the minute they booked their flights and landed at Gatwick Airport; and they then encouraged the video recording which took place, often mugging in front of the CCTV cameras for that purpose. There is no evidence of their coming close enough to the Skripal house, or to Sergei and Yulia Skripal in person, in order to attack them. Ergo, the evidence of the murder act is missing; the evidence of the murder weapon is missing; the evidence of the murder attempt at the bench is missing. Means, opportunity, motive are all missing from the British prosecution of the Russians for the crime. Yulia Skripal has testified that the poison attack took place when she and her father were sprayed as they were eating lunch inside Zizzi’s Restaurant. They then walked outside, felt ill, sat down on a city bench, and collapsed. Yulia Skripal’s evidence indicates the attackers were British.

The refusal of the British chemical warfare laboratory to name the weapon by its organophosphate name, and reveal its molecular composition and mass conceals the origin of the weapon. In police, forensic or courtroom practice, this is the equivalent of concealing ballistic evidence determining whether a fatal bullet was fired from the gun in the alleged shooter’s hand. The evidence, collected by the police and Porton Down agents, then analysed by Porton Down, then announced publicly by then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson days before he told Prime Minister May’s meeting of Cabinet, is as likely to be of a British-made organophosphate nerve agent subsequently called Novichok as of a Russian-made nerve agent. What motive: why would the British attack the Skripals?

Their reason was that they believed Sergei Skripal was planning to return home to Russia, and that the GRU was planning an exfiltration operation on March 4, 2018. The Russians knew that MI6 would be suspicious, so they prepared decoys. These are the two men, Alexander Petrov (Alexander Mishkin) and Ruslan Boshirov (Anatoly Chepiga), now accused of the Novichok attack. The British planned to kill the Skripals but camouflage the operation, as they have done. Motive was pressing for the British if Sergei Skripal had returned to Russia, revealing himself in Moscow to be one of the first successful triple agents in modern espionage history. The Russian exfiltration failed; the British failed to execute the Skripals on the spot; for a few minutes from her hospital bed on March 8, Yulia Skripal revealed what had happened before she was put into an artificial coma, then silenced with a tracheostomy on March 21, and kept incommunicado ever since.

The British camouflage for their operation – Operation KISS, “Kill Instantly the Skripals” — relied on the door-handle as “ground zero” – the original source of the Novichok – and on Porton Down to replace the inconclusive or negative tests conducted by doctors treating the Skripals at Salisbury District Hospital. A corpse had to be found, dead enough not to be able to testify otherwise as Yulia Skripal had done. That turned out to be Dawn Sturgess, who died at her home on June 30, 2018, of cardiac arrest and brain hypoxia after consuming a combination of sleeping and anti-anxiety medications, cocaine, and fentanyl. The Novichok weapon, fabricated in a perfume atomiser by MI6 and Porton Down, was then placed on Sturgess’s kitchen table for the police to discover eleven days after her drug binge and collapse; and after medics and police had failed to find it through multiple and repeated searches

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“..trade with the US represents only 2.4 percent of Chinese GDP..”

• G20 Knocks Out G7 Agendas (Pepe Escobar)

The G20 summit in Rio earlier this week offered the quite intriguing spectacle of a deeply divided world, geopolitically and geoeconomically, trying to put on a brave ‘holiday in the sun’ face. There was plenty of fluff to amuse attentive audiences. French President Emmanuel Macron surrounded by a beefy security detail strolling on Copacabana beach near midnight; European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen barefoot in the sand, stunned by the lapping waves; the White House lodger, US President Joe Biden – with his expiry date in less than two months – missing the G20 family pic because he was talking to a palm tree. Right before the summit, Biden posed on a soundstage in the rainforest, complete with two giant teleprompters, pledging to save the Amazon just as his handlers in Washington let leak the “authorization” for Ukraine to attack targets inside the Russian Federation with ATACMS; a qualified preamble for a possible WWIII.

With Rio providing the ultimately gorgeous set, at the very least, tempers at the renovated Museum of Modern Art, the G20 venue with the Sugarloaf in the background, were bound to mellow out. This even allowed for a short, tense handshake between Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a true leader of the Global South, and Argentina’s President Javier Milei, a US asset who hates Lula’s guts. The populist Brazilian head of state, whose political capital transcends all barriers, was, of course, an impeccable master of ceremonies, but the real star of the show was Chinese President Xi Jinping – fresh from his previous triumph, when he was for all practical purposes coronated King of Peru during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima – complete with the inauguration of the $1.3 billion port of Chancay, the new South American node of the Pacific Maritime Silk Road. As China is all about global connectivity corridors, Chancay-Shanghai became an instant new motto ringing all across the Global South.

Beijing’s prime role as an engine and cooperation propeller across Asia–Pacific also applies to most of the G20 members. China is the largest trading partner of the 13 APEC economies, and is responsible for 64.2 percent of Asia-Pacific’s economic growth. This prime role extrapolates to China’s BRICS colleagues among the G20, as well as brand-new BRICS partner-nations such as Indonesia and Turkiye. Compare that with the G7/NATOstan contingent of the G20, starting with the United States, whose main global offerings range from Forever Wars and color revolutions to weaponizing of news and culture, trade wars, a tsunami of sanctions, and confiscation/theft of assets. So, predictably, there was some serious underlying tension permeating the G20, especially when it came to the face-off between the G7 and the Russia-China strategic partnership. Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t even bother to attend, sending his uber-competent Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov instead.

As for Beijing, after 7 years of combined Trump-Biden trade and tech war, the Chinese economy continues to grow by 5.2 percent a year. Exports now account for only 16 percent of China’s GDP, so the economic powerhouse is far less vulnerable to foreign trade machinations. And the US share of that 16 percent is now only 15 percent; that is, trade with the US represents only 2.4 percent of Chinese GDP. Even under what can be described as NATOstan’s all-out tech sanctions, Chinese tech firms are growing at warp speed. As a result, all western tech companies are in deep trouble: massive retrenchment, factory downsizes, and shutdowns. Meanwhile, China’s trade surplus with the rest of the world has expanded to a record one trillion US dollars. That’s what horrified Western economists qualify as China on a “collision course” with some of the world’s biggest – yet dwindling – economies.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Carvey
https://twitter.com/i/status/1859790685542482146

 

 

Volvo

 

 

Goat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1859924986032447632

 

 

Fright

 

 

Henson
https://twitter.com/i/status/1859646855803801928

 

 

Quarry

 

 

Street food

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle November 21 2024

Nov 212024
 
 November 21, 2024  Posted by at 9:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  90 Responses »


Giovanni Bellini The Feast of the Gods c1514 (completed by his disciple, Titian, 1529)

 

• Biden Seeking To Forgive Ukraine’s Debts (RT)
• Michael Flynn Calls For ‘Urgent’ Early Removal Of Biden (RT)
• Zelensky’s Cash Cry: Ukraine Facing Defeat If US Purse Strings Cut (Sp.)
• It’s My World War III Party And I’ll Cry If I Want To (QTR)
• Russia’s New Nuclear Policy Leaves US and NATO Facing Strategic Dead End (Sp.)
• ‘Almost No Chance Of Survival’ – Zaluzhny To Troops (RT)
• Russia Reveals Retaliation For Western Seizure Of Its Assets (RT)
• ‘Contours Of A Trump Peace Deal’ (ZH)
• DOGE Shares Examples Of Gross Government Waste (MN)
• Where Life and Freedom Stand (Paul Craig Roberts)
• How Alvin Bragg Would Create a New Constitutional Creature (Turley)
• Nord Stream Saboteurs Linked To CIA – Spiegel (RT)
• Israel To Annex West Bank – Seymour Hersh (RT)
• UK Police: No Video Evidence Of Russians’ Involvement In Skripal Case (TASS)
• The BRICS Spirit: Alive And Well In South Africa (Pepe Escobar)

 

 

 

 

Gaetz
https://twitter.com/i/status/1858902032578408858

Friedman

CNN superheroes
https://twitter.com/i/status/1858984256900354159

Lara

Sachs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1859018689838006695

Rabies

 

 

 

 

Developing… What impact would this have on an audit?

• Biden Seeking To Forgive Ukraine’s Debts (RT)

Outgoing US President Joe Biden has decided to write off about $4.7 billion in taxpayer-funded loans to Ukraine as part of a broader effort to bolster Kiev before President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year. Since February 2022, the US Congress has approved more than $174 billion in aid packages to support Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. The latest tranche, approved in April, included over $9.4 billion in “forgivable loans” to help fill the gap in Kiev’s budget. “We have taken the step that was outlined in the law to cancel those loans,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday, confirming that Biden seeks to write off half of that amount, or roughly $4.7 billion. Cancelling the debt is in the “national interest of the United States and its EU, G7+, and NATO partners,” the State Department claimed in a letter to Congress dated November 18, according to Bloomberg.

President-elect Donald Trump stated on the campaign trail that he would not oppose Congress approving more aid to Ukraine as long as the assistance is given in the form of loans rather than taxpayer-funded gifts. Rebranding some of the aid as loans was one of the key adjustments that helped push through the $61 billion April package after a months-long standoff between Republicans and the White House. Senator Rand Paul has vowed to block the cancellation of the debt, arguing that it places an unfair burden on American taxpayers. “Tonight, I’m forcing a vote on my resolution to prevent Biden from turning Ukraine’s debt into America’s problem. His proposal places the burden of funding Ukraine’s businesses, farmers, and corrupt bureaucrats on the shoulders of hardworking Americans,” Paul wrote in a statement on X on Wednesday.

The Ukrainian government is almost entirely reliant on Western aid to keep its economy afloat. In September, Kiev adopted its draft budget for 2025, predicting a deficit of 75% and estimating it will need between $12 billion and $15 billion to cover the shortfall. Ukraine’s public debt exceeded $152 billion as of July, according to the Finance Ministry. The cost of servicing the loans has surged from $900 million to $5.2 billion this year, as calculated by the Russian newspaper Vedomosti after reviewing Kiev’s financial data.

In October, G7 states finalized a separate $50 billion loan for Ukraine, backed by profits accrued from approximately $300 billion in Russian assets currently frozen in the West. Despite US pressure to confiscate the assets entirely, the International Monetary Fund has so far opposed this course of action, fearing it could undermine trust in the Western financial system. Moscow has denounced the asset freeze as “theft” and warned that tapping into these funds would be illegal and set a dangerous precedent. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov promised on Wednesday to initiate retaliatory measures mirroring the West’s actions. “If Western countries have decided to use our assets and income from our assets, the Russian side will also implement appropriate actions,” the finance minister stated.

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“The current House of Representatives must impeach Biden for endangering the United States..”

Will Flynn have a post in the new admin?

• Michael Flynn Calls For ‘Urgent’ Early Removal Of Biden (RT)

Retired US Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn has urged Vice President Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment to prevent President Joe Biden from “sleepwalking” into a third world war after he permitted Ukraine to use ATACMS missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory. While Washington has not officially confirmed granting such permission, the Russian Defense Ministry has said Kiev has already used the US-supplied missiles to target Russia’s Bryansk Region. Additionally, Biden this week decided to supply Ukraine with anti-personnel landmines, breaking his 2022 promise to restrict their use. “The current House of Representatives must impeach Biden for endangering the United States,” Flynn wrote in a post on X, arguing that his former boss was impeached for much less.

“Harris should immediately invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Biden – he’s sleepwalking us into WWIII. Let’s at least put constitutional pressure on Harris because Joe’s poor memory makes him unaccountable.” In the meantime, President-elect Donald Trump’s allies and potential appointees, such as former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is tapped to become US Attorney General, should not stay silent, and should reveal “the identities of the deep state operatives pulling the strings of the presidency, urging Biden to act recklessly,” Flynn said. “Incoming US officials must make contact with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to deescalate the situation,” he added, drawing parallels to his own conversation with a former Russian ambassador, which made him one of the key figures in the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy. “Different circumstance but same outcome – deescalation,” he noted.

Trump appointed Flynn as an adviser shortly after taking office in January 2017. However, Flynn was forced to resign less than a month later after being accused of misleading officials about a phone conversation with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the US at the time. The controversy fed into broader allegations that the Trump campaign had colluded with Moscow to win the election, an allegation that Trump strongly denied, accusing Democrats of staging a “witch hunt.” In 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his call with Kislyak but later withdrew his plea, claiming the government had tried to frame him. The Justice Department dropped the charges against Flynn in 2020, and Trump pardoned him later that year.

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Yes.

• Zelensky’s Cash Cry: Ukraine Facing Defeat If US Purse Strings Cut (Sp.)

Terminating US military aid to Kiev would lead to Ukraine’s defeat in its armed conflict with Russia, Volodymyr Zelensky said. “If they cut [it], I think we will lose,” Zelensky said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday when asked what would happen if the United States halted or reduced military funding to Ukraine. The conflict in Ukraine is now in “the most difficult period,” Zelensky noted, adding that Ukraine would face great danger, if there’s no unity among European countries on the Ukraine issue and “what is most important, unity between Ukraine and the United States.” The Ukrainian leader believes that President-elect Donald Trump has the potential to bring an end to the conflict. “It will not be simple, but I think if, to use all the issues that the United States has, yes, he can,” Zelensky stated.

During his election campaign, Trump pledged that he could resolve the Ukraine conflict through negotiations, repeatedly asserting that he could manage to achieve such an accomplishment in just one day. Russian officials believe the issue is far too complex for such a simple solution. Trump has also frequently criticized US policy on the Ukraine conflict and derided Zelensky personally, labeling him the “greatest salesman” for taking home multibillion-dollar aid packages from the United States upon each of his visits. Russian officials have repeatedly excoriated the supply of arms to the Kiev regime, stressing that these shipments are unlikely to influence the outcome of the special military operation, while also heightening the risk of escalation. Volodymyr Zelensky is known for criticizing his Western backers for getting caught up in what he calls “internal political games” instead of dishing out more money to the Kiev regime.

“This is impossible to understand. It is impossible to agree to this. And it will be impossible to forget; the world will remember this,” Zelensky famously said, when referring to the $60 billion in cash stuck in Congress. Recently, a video clip went viral showing the Ukrainian comedian-turned-politician asking for even more weapons, just moments after Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin announced a substantial $250 million aid package for Kiev. “Yes, we are grateful very much for every support package that is provided to Ukraine from you, but we need more weapons,” Zelensky demanded. Russia believes that arms deliveries to Ukraine hinder a resolution, directly involve NATO countries in the conflict, and are “playing with fire.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that any shipments containing weapons for Ukraine would be legitimate targets for Russia. He said the US and NATO are directly involved in the conflict, not only through weapons supplies but also by training personnel in the UK, Germany, Italy, and other countries. The Kremlin has stated that the West’s weapon supply to Ukraine does not contribute to negotiations and will have a negative effect.

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“..what rational explanation could there be for the Biden administration’s sharp policy changes over the last 48 hours?

• It’s My World War III Party And I’ll Cry If I Want To (QTR)

To some degree, it’s expected that an outgoing administration would try to get as many of their policy initiatives through before the next administration takes hold of the reins on January 20. But what can be said about the Biden administration’s sudden urge to approve Ukraine’s use of U.S.-provided missiles for deeper strikes into Russia, relaxing restrictions on long-range weapon deployment? Previously, Biden firmly resisted such approval, intent on avoiding any escalation he believed might pull the U.S. and NATO into direct confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. Now, all of a sudden, it seems like a good idea?Just when you thought the Biden administration couldn’t leave one more flaming brown paper bag of dogshit on the steps of the White House for President Trump… Among all of the failed policy ideas over the last four years, our foreign policy and our southern border have been the two most dangerous blind spots for our country, in my opinion.

Not only have we actively pursued a strategy of avoiding peace talks between Ukraine and Russia—and not only are there semi-decent arguments for the United States being the catalyst for the Russia-Ukraine war floating around—but escalating tensions with just two months to go before Donald Trump takes office is a new kind of incompetence. Following Biden’s approval of such missiles to be used, on Tuesday morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered his country’s threshold for nuclear weapon use, allowing for a potential nuclear response even to conventional attacks supported by nuclear powers Biden’s new long-range missile approval .Also on Tuesday, Russia claimed to have intercepted five of six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles fired by Ukraine at a military site in the Bryansk region, while Ukraine reported hitting an ammunition depot, according to ABC News.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the strike an escalation: “If the long-range missiles are used from the territory of Ukraine against the Russian territory, it will mean that they are controlled by American military experts and we will view that as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia and respond accordingly.” For me, this move straddles a familiar line between incompetence and outright nefariousness. It’s frightening that there are so many policy prescriptions in the United States that leave me baffled as to whether or not people are just exceptionally stupid or if they have malevolent intent. The most glaring issue of this sort always used to be monetary policy for me. Today, foreign policy has stolen the spotlight. The outgoing administration knows damn well that the incoming Trump administration is going to try and negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine in a way the Biden administration didn’t.

They also know that the incoming administration will not be as keen to provide foreign aid for Ukraine as the Biden administration was. Because just two weeks after Election Day, we spent this morning having a serious discussion about the potential for a nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia. And while diplomats backed off their rhetoric fairly quickly Tuesday morning, the entire dust-up doesn’t happen unless the Biden administration goes out of its way to actively make it happen. So explain this to me like I’m a child: if the Biden administration really does seek a good-natured transition between the administrations, as indicated by Biden and Trump’s cordial-looking meeting days ago at the White House, what rational explanation could there be for the Biden administration’s sharp policy changes over the last 48 hours?

We’ve already seen the effects of President Trump winning the election on foreign policy. It was just hours after Trump’s win that headlines about Hamas seeking a ceasefire started to make their way around the globe after Trump’s win. And, following suit, there’s no reason to believe that Trump won’t ease tensions between Russia and Ukraine and eventually broker peace…unless the Biden administration actively goes out of its way to derail it before it happens. I know it sounds sensationalist, but I have seen the Biden administration fuck things up in short order over the last four years: food prices, the immigration surge, weaponizing government, vilifying police and good Samaritans, encouraging petty crime and looting and letting men punch women in the face in boxing rings in the name of ‘transgender equality’. To be frank, the damage this administration has done to our country throughout just one term has been breathtaking. And sadly, this means I believe it’s reasonable to be worried about what the Biden administration may do in the next month and a half as it relates to our foreign policy.

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“..effectively excludes the possibility of victory over the Russian armed forces on the battlefield..”

• Russia’s New Nuclear Policy Leaves US and NATO Facing Strategic Dead End (Sp.)

The expanded list of grounds for Russia to use nuclear weapons in the updated nuclear deterrence policy effectively eliminates the possibility of defeating the country on the battlefield, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin said on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Russia released a presidential decree outlining the basic principles of the country’s policy on nuclear deterrence. The document sets out among other things that a massive aerial attack on Russia, including with the use of cruise missiles and drones, could trigger a nuclear response.

“The statement by President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin on amendments to the … [nuclear deterrence policy] was met with caution by the West. They understand that the adjustments announced by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin largely devalue the efforts of the United States and NATO to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on our country, and the planned expansion of the list of grounds for the use of nuclear weapons effectively excludes the possibility of victory over the Russian armed forces on the battlefield,” Naryshkin said in an interview with the National Defense magazine.

The West realizes the need for greater restraint in relations with Russia in order to avoid getting involved in a catastrophic military conflict, the official said, adding that “enemies are forced to admit that the Russian president’s determination to firmly defend the country’s fundamental interests by all available means narrows the room for maneuver for Washington and Brussels.”

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“Learn not to be afraid of death.”

• ‘Almost No Chance Of Survival’ – Zaluzhny To Troops (RT)

Ukrainian troops currently being trained in the UK to fight Russia must steel themselves to face death and kill without a second thought, Kiev’s ambassador in London, Valery Zaluzny has told the soldiers. The four-star general previously served as commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces. The speech that Zaluzhny gave at a bootcamp in southern England was shared by The Sun on Tuesday, after the tabloid joined the official’s tour of the military facility. British Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard accompanied the Ukrainian general-turned-diplomat. ”Remember that the war is becoming more cruel with every day. It leaves almost no chance for survival,” Zaluzhny warned the trainees. “Learn not to be afraid of death.” He urged the troops to develop military camaraderie, to become brothers on the battlefield, and to look after each other.

”It’s not enough to save yourself and your friend, your brother,” he stated. “You still need to complete the task. To do this, you will need to kill. To kill without hesitation.” “Love each other and remember Ukraine. If you are gone, maybe someone else will take your place, but Ukraine will be preserved,” Zaluzhny added. In February, Zaluzhny was removed from his military position and later from the armed forces altogether. Vladimir Zelensky sacked him after the general publicly disputed the Ukrainian leader’s vision on how the fight against Russia should proceed. Zaluzhny argued at the time that the conflict had reached a stalemate and Ukrainian forces should entrench. The balance has since swung in favour of Russia, whose troops have made significant progress in recent months.

The UK is among the staunchest supporters of Kiev’s bid to achieve a military victory against Russia. Former prime minister Boris Johnson infamously told the Ukrainians to “just fight,” after Kiev and Moscow agreed a draft truce in 2022. The British military has trained over 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers so far, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. Zelensky dispatched Zaluzhny to the embassy in London in May. Some people suggested the appointment was intended to remove the popular ex-military leader as a potential political rival.

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“Therefore, we have also frozen the resources of Western investors, Western financial market participants and companies. The income from these assets will also be used..”

• Russia Reveals Retaliation For Western Seizure Of Its Assets (RT)

Russia will launch retaliatory measures which mirror the West’s expropriation of the country’s sovereign assets, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has said. In an interview with Rossiya-1 TV on Wednesday, Siluanov said that Russia will use income from the frozen assets of Western investors. The measures will be taken in response to the implementation of unfriendly actions by the Western countries, he added. “We are doing exactly the same. If Western countries have decided to use our assets and income from our assets, the Russian side will also implement appropriate actions,” the finance minister stated. “Therefore, we have also frozen the resources of Western investors, Western financial market participants and companies. The income from these assets will also be used,” Siluanov elaborated.

The US and its allies have frozen an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. The bulk of the funds, around €197 billion ($207 billion), are being held at the Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear. Euroclear has estimated that these Russian assets generated €5.15 billion ($5.4 billion) in interest in the first three quarters of this fiscal year. Last month, the US announced a decision to use the proceeds from the frozen assets to repay a multibillion-dollar loan to Kiev. The G7 states in October finalized a massive $50 billion loan to Ukraine, which will be backed by profits accrued on Russian assets currently immobilized in the West.

Russia has repeatedly warned that seizing its assets would amount to “theft” and would violate international law and undermine reserve currencies, the global financial system, and the world economy. The International Monetary Fund has also been raising concerns that such actions could undermine trust in the Western financial system. Siluanov earlier warned that global players are closely following the story involving the Russian assets and are drawing their own conclusions. While the finance minister did not elaborate on the amount of Western assets currently held in Russia, previous calculations by RIA Novosti put the figure at roughly equal the size of the Russian funds frozen abroad. The news agency reported that total foreign direct investments in the Russian economy by the EU, G7, Australia, and Switzerland amounted to $288 billion as of the end of 2022.

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“The question is how to avoid a deal that locks the West into a possible direct confrontation with Russia one day.”

• ‘Contours Of A Trump Peace Deal’ (ZH)

In a lengthy investigative report, Reuters has presented what it says is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initial reaction to the incoming Trump administration’s plans to pursue ceasefire negotiations leading to a final end of the Ukraine war, which reached its 1,000th day this week. As Putin “eyes contours of a Trump peace deal,” five sources privy to Kremlin thinking say that Putin is “open” to discussing a ceasefire with Donald Trump, but will reject giving up territory acquired in Ukraine’s east – namely the annexed Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. A key sticking point will also be that Kiev totally abandons ambitions to join NATO. The Wall Street Journal revealed earlier this month that the current options being considered by Trump all involve imposing a ‘freeze’ on the war, which to Kiev’s dismay would involve “cementing Russia’s seizure of roughly 20 percent of Ukraine” while imposing a 20-year suspension on Ukraine pursuing NATO membership.

And now, Reuters writes, “In the first detailed reporting of what President Putin would accept in any deal brokered by Trump, the five current and former Russian officials said the Kremlin could broadly agree to freeze the conflict along the front lines.” The Kremlin is believed less interested in a short-term truce, fearing that it would just be used to rearm Ukraine, and that the same problems which caused the war would persist. Putin said at the Valdai discussion group weeks ago, “If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of any good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine.””Why? Because this would mean that Ukraine will be constantly used as a tool in the wrong hands and to the detriment of the interests of the Russian Federation,” he added. Thus from Moscow’s viewpoint, a solid and lasting peace deal would permanently address those elements which could lead to resumption of future conflict. Putin had emphasized a deal must reflect “realities” on the ground.

“Putin has already said that freezing the conflict will not work in any way,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters on Tuesday. “And the missile authorization is a very dangerous escalation on the part of the United States.” Perhaps the most important part of the Reuters report is seen in the following: “While Russia will not tolerate Ukraine joining NATO, or the presence of NATO troops on Ukrainian soil, it is open to discussing security guarantees for Kyiv, according to the five current and former officials. Other Ukrainian concessions the Kremlin could push for include Kyiv agreeing to limit the size of its armed forces and committing not to restrict the use of the Russian language, the people said.” This certainly creates a diplomatic opening. Ukraine officials are demanding robust security guarantees agreed to by Russia and backed by the West. They will especially press this point if Kiev is forced to abandon its NATO membership aspirations.

Mostly likely this would center on locking in security guarantees backed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. Importantly, a Russian official cited in the Reuters report acknowledged there will likely be no agreement unless Ukraine is granted security guarantees, but that for Moscow it all hinges on one thing: “The question is how to avoid a deal that locks the West into a possible direct confrontation with Russia one day.” But with two months still to go with the Biden administration, and his hawkish national security officials bent on constant escalation (recklessness which is now being paralleled in the UK’s greenlighting Storm Shadow missiles launched on Russian territory), will the region even make it to Jan.20 before exploding into bigger NATO-Russia war?

Moon of Alabama has observed of the latest escalatory policies issued from the White House: U.S. president Joe Biden was found to be too senile to stand for re-election. But that does not hinder the powers that be to let him launch world war III. After ‘allowing’ Ukraine to fire U.S. controlled ballistic missiles onto targets in Russia the Biden administration is adding largely prohibited antipersonnel mines into the mix. Over 160 countries, including Ukraine, have signed treaties which prohibit the use of antipersonnel mines. During his campaign Biden had spoken against the use of such weapons. Ukraine is still vowing to fight on, despite all the reports of President-elect Trump’s plan to push hard for peace. Zelensky on Wednesday said his country “will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory – based on the borders it gained after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.”

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“The video also highlights how the government spent $750,000 to determine if Neil Armstrong said “One small step for man” or “one small step for ‘a’ man,” with the outcome determined to be “inconclusive.”

• DOGE Shares Examples Of Gross Government Waste (MN)

The newly formed Department of Government Efficiency has shared some examples of the kind of obscene government waste that it will abolish. The X account of the department shared a video of Senator Rand Paul highlighting absolutely mental programs and studies that the US government has funded recently. One example was pumping a hundred grand into an experiment to determine whether gin or tequila makes a sunfish more aggressive. Another involved almost one million dollars towards a study to discover whether cocaine makes Japanese quail more “sexually promiscuous.” The video also highlights how the government spent $750,000 to determine if Neil Armstrong said “One small step for man” or “one small step for ‘a’ man,” with the outcome determined to be “inconclusive.”

Paul also discovered that $2 million went toward the “construction of a kelp and shellfish nursery in Maine.” Paul has been doing this for years with his ‘Festivus’ report. DOGE also highlighted the monumental amounts of money that are unaccounted for in government. As we previously highlighted, Vivek Ramaswarmy, who is heading up DOGE with Elon Musk, recently announced that DOGE will shut down entire government agencies as part of its effort to abolish waste.

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“Without the Constitution, the United States does not exist. A geographical area (apparently without borders) still exists, but without the Constitution it is not America. It is something else.”

• Where Life and Freedom Stand (Paul Craig Roberts)

As readers know, I have emphasized from the beginning of the conflict in 2022 that Putin himself has widened the war by trying to limit it to Donbas, thus permitting the continuation of the regime in Kiev to continue fighting the war. By not promptly knocking out Ukraine, Putin permitted Washington and NATO to get more and more involved. Every weapon system Washington and Europe said would not be supplied to Zelensky was supplied. The long range missiles that President Biden said would not be permitted to strike inside Russia are now permitted, limited at first but certainly to be expanded. By the time Trump is in office, the situation can be too poisonous to be resolved. Who is willing to lose face in an agreement? The US and NATO or the Kremlin? My answer to readers’ questions is that we are not yet at war with Russia, but that is the direction in which we are headed. What is driving us toward war is the neoconservatives’ agenda of US hegemony.

My view might be optimistic. Strong nationalist forces inside Russia resent the humiliations Putin has accepted. They resent the West’s attitude that Russia is dirt under its feet. Putin has support, but he is limited in the number of violations of Russian red lines he can ignore. I suspect that that limit is near at hand. What can Trump do? He can call Putin, ask him to hold his response until Trump is in office and can cancel the missile permission. If Trump hasn’t already called Putin, Trump has betrayed his supporters. To give assurances to Putin is not an easy thing for Trump to do. The American print and TV media and NPR would present Trump as helping Russia win the war with Ukraine by preventing US missiles fired from Ukraine into Russia. The entire CIA/FBI/Democrat/media “Russiagate” operation could be revived, which, of course, would distract Trump from his agenda.

Trump’s weaker-kneed appointments along with his warmonger appointments might begin criticizing Trump, eroding his support. After 107 years of Western propaganda against Russia–Lenin, Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev–Americans see Russia as an enemy. Coming to peace with an enemy can easily be portrayed as a sell-out of the nation. To turn from the question whether Trump can accomplish peace to the question whether he can accomplish an American restoration: As I have explained, the United States is the Constitution. Without the Constitution, the United States does not exist. A geographical area (apparently without borders) still exists, but without the Constitution it is not America. It is something else.

For decades the US Constitution has been under fierce attack from liberal-left intellectuals, professors, law schools, political activists, politicians, and some judges. The US Constitution, once a revered document, has been misrepresented as a white racist entitlement to privilege that prevents Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. For a couple of decades law schools have turned out graduates taught to see the US Constitution as a document that is in the way of progress. The 14th Amendment prohibits status-based privilege, such as advancement based on race, gender, and sexual preference, that DEI uses to destroy a merit-based system. The alleged privileges that white people are said to have are to be given instead to “people of color.” Over the course of American history there have been occasions when the Constitution was breached in the name of “national security” or some other fake cause. But the attacks were repelled.

Today the US Constitution is so weakly supported that it lacks the support of the US House of Representatives, the US Senate, and the President-elect Donald Trump himself. The oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution no longer has any meaning. Trump has often emphasized that America’s internal enemies are more formidable than external ones. But do we now count Trump among them? Trump has lent his support to the attack on the US Constitution by House Republicans and Senate Democrats. The latest attack on America has taken the form of the Antisemitism Awareness Act. This act which the Republican Speaker of the House got passed several months ago, and which Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is trying to have passed as part of the defense appreciations bill, violates the First and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution by creating special protections for Jews by giving Jews and Israel immunity from criticism.

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“..defer any sentencing “until after the end of defendant’s upcoming presidential term.”

That would not work.

• How Alvin Bragg Would Create a New Constitutional Creature (Turley)

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg pushed Tuesday to create a new constitutional creature: the layaway president. It was once common for stores to hold expensive items that you really wanted but could not make the payment. So they were tagged and kept on the shelf until you were ready to redeem your item. For Bragg, that leaves Donald Trump tagged until 2029. In a filing before Manhattan Justice Juan Merchan, Bragg suggested that the court should stay the pending criminal case and defer any sentencing “until after the end of defendant’s upcoming presidential term.” That would allow a city prosecutor to put a leash on a sitting president for four years. Trump would govern by the grace of this local judge and district attorney. In the meantime, pundits and politicians could portray the president as free on a type of work release program. The suggestion is appalling to most of the people in the country, including the majority of voters who voted for Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats ran on this and other cases in the election. The result was arguably the largest jury decision in history. That being said, I do not believe that the mere election of a president negates jury verdicts on 34 criminal counts. But ample reasons exist to overturn those verdicts or to dismiss this case. For example, after the verdict, the Supreme Court rendered its immunity decision barring the use of certain evidence against a president. Some of the evidence used in the Manhattan case likely fell within one of the protected categories. The prosecutors not only elicited testimony from Trump aides in the White House but then doubled down on the significance of that evidence in their closing arguments. Merchan could declare that the court cannot rule out the impact of such testimony on the final verdict. Even if Merchan, as expected, does not dismiss the case on the basis for the immunity decision, the trial was rife with reversible error.

This was a raw exercise of lawfare and Merchan did little to ensure fairness toward the defendant. Yet none of those errors can be likely addressed until Merchan reaches final decisions on the motion to dismiss as well as the sentencing question. While that will mean that Trump could, upon possible sentencing, formally become a convicted felon, the matter can then be finally pried out of the hands of Merchan and taken to higher courts for review. The worst possible option is the one suggested by Bragg, who would adopt the popular persona of Trump’s turnkey. The President would be seen by many as governing on a type of conditional status from one of the most politically compromised prosecutors in the country. For Bragg and other Trump opponents, that may be far more satisfying than a sentencing now given the unlikelihood of any jail component. After the years and millions spent on the case, it would be the ultimate buzz kill to have Trump sentenced to some fine or other non-carceral penalty.

Many Democrats want to have Trump govern with an asterisk of a “President pending sentencing.” Instead, Trump would govern with the clock ticking toward a sentencing date.

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They still invent new stories all the time.

• Nord Stream Saboteurs Linked To CIA – Spiegel (RT)

A Ukrainian group that is allegedly behind the Nord Stream gas pipelines’ explosion in September 2022 has had “longstanding connections” to the CIA, Der Spiegel reported in a lengthy piece published on Wednesday. US agents trained some members of the sabotage team for many years, including its purported mastermind, Roman Chervinsky, according to the German outlet. The US-trained group had been “planning and carrying out clandestine operations for the Ukrainian security apparatus for years,” Der Spiegel reports, adding that its members also set their sights on the Russian gas pipelines as early as in 2019, some three years before Moscow launched its military operation against Kiev. The pipelines delivered up to 60 billion cubic meters of gas to Germany every year, covered around 16% of the EU’s natural gas needs as of 2018 and half of Germany’s annual demand as of 2021. They have been “a thorn in Washington’s side,” Der Spiegel writes.

Prior to the blasts, senior US officials, including President Joe Biden, had repeatedly criticized the project and urged Berlin to give up on its follow-up Nord Stream 2 project. Nord Stream 2 has never been operational since Germany halted its certification process not long before the start of the Russian military operation in February 2022. Der Spiegel named Roman Chervinsky – a Ukrainian colonel with a long history of serving with various Ukrainian intelligence agencies – as the mastermind behind the operation. The paper maintains that the act of sabotage was carried out by “a ragtag group” of divers, including about a dozen people who were hired and trained by Ukrainian intelligence operatives connected to the CIA. Chervinksy, who first served as the head of the counter-espionage department at the Ukrainian domestic security service (SBU) and then joined the nation’s military intelligence (HUR), was first named as the mastermind behind the Nord Stream sabotage by the Washington Post last year. He dismissed the allegations as “Russian propaganda” at the time.

In its piece, Der Spiegel stated that its journalists were able to talk to Chervinsky, who is under investigation in Ukraine on unrelated abuse of authority charges. The man neither confirmed nor denied his involvement in the operation but praised it as a “blessing” for both Ukraine and Germany. According to the outlet, Chervinsky was one of the Ukrainian security officials picked by US intelligence and trained for years. Washington sought to establish ties with “trustworthy” Ukrainian security officials and keep those activities secret from Moscow, the paper said, adding that “the most important goal was to set up capable sabotage units.” The paper also stated, citing its Ukrainian source, that the explosives used in the operation were “not manufactured in Ukraine.” However, the source refused to reveal where they had come from. Der Spiegel also claimed that it identified almost all people involved in the operation but refused to reveal their identities, arguing that they could become targets for both Russian and Ukrainian security services.

Earlier this month, a renowned German diving specialist questioned the narrative pushed by the Western media about a small Ukrainian team being behind the sabotage. Dr. Sven Thomas stated at that time that explosions of such scale could have only been caused by something similar to military-grade bottom mines with a yield equivalent to around 1,260 kilograms of TNT. Planting them would have required a large vessel and not just the yacht supposedly used by the Ukrainians. Moscow has dismissed Western media reports about a Ukrainian team as implausible. Last month, Danish media reported that US Navy warships had been operating near the Nord Stream pipelines shortly before the explosions.

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It’s Hersh, so it’s true.

• Israel To Annex West Bank – Seymour Hersh (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government intends to announce the formal annexation of the West Bank in the coming weeks, a source has told the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. According to Hersh, Israel has been “fortified by bombs and funding” from Washington and is ramping up the expulsion of Palestinians from northern Gaza to the south of the enclave. Meanwhile, the religious parties that “dominate” Netanyahu’s cabinet are demanding full control over both occupied Palestinian territories. “I was told this week by a well-informed Washington official that the Israeli leadership will formally annex the West Bank in the very near future – perhaps in two weeks – in the hope that the decisive step will end, once and for all, any talk of a two-state solution and will convince some in the skeptical Arab world to reconsider financing the planned reconstruction of Gaza,” Hersh wrote in an article on his Substack on Wednesday.

If true, the move would coincide with the last few weeks of US President Joe Biden’s administration and create a new “reality on the ground” by the time President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. During his first term in the White House, Trump recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. Israel declared war on Gaza-based Hamas last October, following a series of deadly raids by the Palestinian militants into Israeli territory. Around 1,100 Israelis died in the October 7 assault, while an estimated 250 were taken captive. Almost 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israeli military operation, while another 104,000 more have been injured, according to local authorities. The Israeli military and police have also cracked down on Palestinians in the West Bank, which is run by Fatah, a Palestinian faction at odds with Hamas.

The West Bank and Gaza were annexed by Jordan and Egypt, respectively, after the 1949 conflict that ended with the newly formed State of Israel in control of most of the Mandate for Palestine territory. Israel captured both in the 1967 war. International law considers the West Bank and Gaza to be occupied territories, and multiple UN resolutions have called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in those territories. Hersh is an internationally renowned investigative reporter who earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up by the US military during the Vietnam War. He has also reported on the abuses of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib and the CIA’s domestic spying operations. More recently, Hersh has blamed the US for the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany, an allegation that Washington has denied.

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The novichok was not Russian, it ‘escaped’ from a British lab.

• UK Police: No Video Evidence Of Russians’ Involvement In Skripal Case (TASS)

The UK police has no CCTV video footage to prove the involvement of Russian citizens Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov in the March 4, 2018 Salisbury incident, according to a report published as part of the public inquiry hearing into the case. According to the report, CCTV cams were not installed on Christie Miller road in Salisbury, where former spy Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia lived at the time of the attack. At the same time, the police suggests that the perpetrators smeared the doorknob with the Novichok agent on March 4, 2018, during their second visit to Salisbury. The document says that Petrov and Boshirov arrived in Salisbury at 11:45 a.m. on March 4, 2018. Police suspects them of using Novichok between 12:00 and 12:15 p.m., but have no evidence to substantiate their claims. Only at 12:16 were Petrov and Boshirov caught on a CCTV cam at a nearby road. Sergey and Yulia Skripal were at home over that period, the report says.

According to London, former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergey Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia, were exposed to an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury on March 4, 2018. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow strongly rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ever had any program aimed at developing such a substance. Experts from the United Kingdom’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down were unable to identify the origin of the substance allegedly used in the attack on the Skripals.

On July 4, 2018, the British police reported an incident in the town of Amesbury where two people had been taken to the hospital in critical condition after being affected by an unidentified substance. London’s Metropolitan Police later confirmed that the man and the woman had been poisoned with the same nerve agent that had been used on the Skripals. The woman – 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess – died on July 8, while her partner – 45-year-old Charlie Rowley – survived.

London claims that the Russian government was involved in the Skripal poisoning, using the A234 nerve agent, while Sturgess became an accidental victim after getting a bottle that Rowley had collected in a park thinking it contained perfume. Moscow strongly rejected the allegations. The Russian Foreign Ministry has sent dozens of diplomatic notes to the British Foreign Office, demanding that London provide Moscow with access to the investigation and the affected Russian nationals, as well as requesting legal assistance and offering cooperation, particularly in a joint probe. The public inquiry hearing has begun in Salisbury on October 14, and later continued in London. It is expected to be completed in the first half of December.

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“Africa, with 20% of the earth’s landmass [..] and 30% of the globe’s natural resources [..] accounts for only 2.8% of the world’s GDP..

• The BRICS Spirit: Alive And Well In South Africa (Pepe Escobar)

At the APEC annual summit in Lima, Comrade Xi Jinping was practically coronated as the King of Peru, as a lively moveable feast celebrated the brand new $1.3 billion Chancay-Shanghai Maritime Silk Road across the Pacific. There could hardly be a more auspicious counterpart to the action in South America than to gather in BRICS member South Africa to discuss African Unity in a Multipolar World, as well as the perennial plagues of racism, fascism, Russophobia and other forms of discrimination. The meetings were coordinated by the Mouvement Russophile International (MIR), who is not only Russophile but most of all, multi-nodal-phile (italics mine). It’s as if this was an extension of the memorable BRICS 2024 summit in Kazan.

In Kazan, BRICS de facto expanded out of 9 members, adding 13 member-partners and reaching 22 nations (Saudi Arabia, an immensely complex case, remains on the fence). BRICS+ now largely surpasses the – waning – influence of the G20, whose annual summit is ongoing in Rio, at least focused on social issues and the fight against poverty and hunger, and not war. Still, the crisis-riddled G7/NATOstan did try to hijack the agenda. For all practical purposes, and borrowing from one of Xi’s metaphors, BRICS+ has already set sail exploring the lineaments of a new, just, fair world order. In Johannesburg, the sterling analytical quality of South African interlocutors, plus contributions from Mali and Senegal, was a source of pure joy.

[..] Unequal Africa in numbers is always a staggering proposition – inviting deep reflection. What could be defined as The Big Five – Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa – are responsible for no less than half of Africa’s GDP. Three of these are now full BRICS members, and the other two are BRICS partners. Pretoria-based legal expert Dr. Andre Thomashausen provided extra startling figures. Africa, with 20% of the earth’s landmass – in which China, India, U.S. and Europe could easily “fit” – and 30% of the globe’s natural resources (including critical minerals such as lithium), not to mention 17% of the world’s population (1.3 billion people), accounts for only 2.8% of the world’s GDP. The conclusion is inevitable: the IMF and the World Bank ultimately failed Africa. In 2025, Africa will be home to no less than 8% of the world’s poor.

A new pan-Africa development model, away from the Bretton Woods system, is beyond imperative. And Russia has all it takes to play a leading role. No African nation implemented or enforced western sanctions on Russia. As Thomashausen recalled, at the 2023 St. Petersburg Economic Forum President Putin offered to donate grain to African nations, and later did not condemn military coups in West Africa, unlike the African Union – totally understanding the anti-colonization drive. Russia is strategically replacing France in West Africa and strongly supports the Alliance of Sahel States (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso). Thomashausen noted that even as Russia’s involvement in Africa lags compared to other powers, Moscow managed to accumulate considerable soft power with only 5% of Chinese investments, creating political leverage with deals in agro-industries, security, nuclear energy and mining: ‘It has all but eliminated French influence. Its security service offerings have trumped U.S. and EU.”

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Shanahan

 

 

Chlorine dioxide

 

 

Ripple

 

 

Cinnamon

 

 

Parrot?!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1859177855260737900

 

 

Mom and dad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1859245611981090976

 

 

Cities

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 30 2024

Apr 302024
 
 April 30, 2024  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  59 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Road in Tahiti 1891

 

• Musk and Sacks Slam Washington’s ‘Forever War’ Ukraine Plan (RT)
• Russia’s Mideast Clout ‘Very Strong,’ US Looks ‘Ridiculous’ – Macgregor (Sp.)
• Biden Looks To Prevent Future President From Ending Ukraine War (ZH)
• Alvin Bragg and The Art of Not Taking Law Too Seriously (Turley)
• The Interlocking of Strategic Paradigms (Alastair Crooke)
• Supreme Court Rejects Elon Musk’s “Free Speech” Appeal In SEC Case (ZH)
• Hunter Biden’s Lawyers Threaten Fox News (RT)
• Tucker Carlson Interviews Conservative Russian Philosopher Aleksandr Dugin (RT)
• Pep Talk on a Dark Day (Kunstler)
• US Working To Prevent ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu (Antiwar)
• The Travesties of the Trump Trials (Victor Davis Hanson)
• The Shieldmaiden Takes the Field Against The Destroyers of the West (PCR)

 

 

Eva
https://twitter.com/i/status/1784988182351684056

 

 

BDay
https://twitter.com/i/status/1784805906586194412

 

 

jerry
https://twitter.com/i/status/1784720323864150058

 

 

The storm
https://twitter.com/i/status/1784969043864125524

 

 

Mike Davis
https://twitter.com/i/status/1785051038317175226

 

 

Passover

 

 

 

 

“..Sacks described Ukraine’s failed 2023 summer counteroffensive against Russia as “one of the biggest debacles in the history of modern warfare.”

• Musk and Sacks Slam Washington’s ‘Forever War’ Ukraine Plan (RT)

Two of America’s most influential tech entrepreneurs, Elon Musk and David Sacks, have expressed concern over a security agreement currently in the works between the US and Ukraine. Former PayPal chief David Sacks took to X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday to warn that the controversial $61 billion in aid to Kiev approved by Washington earlier this month “was just the beginning.” He was commenting on a statement made by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who said that his team and the administration of US President Joe Biden were “working on fixing specific levels of support… for the next ten years, including armed support, financial, political, and joint arms production.” “The next two US presidents won’t be able to switch it off,” Sacks, who’s also the founder of the corporate social network Yammer, wrote on X. In separate posts the entrepreneur went on to mention recent reports that NATO allies were working to “Trump-proof” weapons for Ukraine and claimed that the goal of the current US administration was “to turn Ukraine into a Forever War.”

“This is insane. The forever war,” Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote in response to Sacks’ posts. The US will vote for a new president in November. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has spoken out against “handing out gifts of billions and billions of dollars” in aid to Kiev and said earlier this month that his team was considering “doing it in the form of a loan.” According to Politico, the US and other Western countries have been looking into a range of options that could help maintain the flow of arms to Kiev if Trump becomes president. Last month, Sacks described Ukraine’s failed 2023 summer counteroffensive against Russia as “one of the biggest debacles in the history of modern warfare.” In a post on X, the venture capitalist suggested that the Washington elite should be held accountable for talking up the ill-fated operation.

Musk has also long voiced criticism about Washington’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict. Last week, he challenged the Biden administration to define what a Ukrainian “victory” would look like after a senior US official claimed that with Washingon’s help Kiev can defeat Russia. US lawmakers approved $61 billion in additional aid for Ukraine earlier this month, after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) overrode opposition in his own party to pass the bill with unanimous Democrat support. The Biden administration ran out of funding for Ukraine aid earlier this year after using up $113 billion in previously approved assistance packages. Republican lawmakers have argued that Biden is merely prolonging the bloodshed in Ukraine without offering a clear strategy for victory or a peace deal with Russia.

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“The Gaza crisis, pundits noted, threw into focus the erosion of Washington’s power in the region.”

• Russia’s Mideast Clout ‘Very Strong,’ US Looks ‘Ridiculous’ – Macgregor (Sp.)

The US has been trying to maintain a facade of diplomacy amid the tectonic geopolitical shifts currently underway, while in fact blatantly continuing to push its own regional interests. This holds true for Washington’s stance with respect to the latest spiral of the Middle East crisis. Russia’s position in the Mideast is “strong,” while the Unites States looks “ridiculous,” is the frank assessment given by retired US Army Col. Douglas Macgregor in a new post on X. Casting a critical eye on the US strategy in the Middle East, the former Pentagon advisor wrote: “Strategically, Putin holds all the cards in the Middle East. He is widely respected in the region and has practiced restraint. If you look at this like a branding exercise, our branding is seriously damaged in the Middle East. We look ridiculous and Russia looks strong.”

The Middle East crisis continues to simmer, with Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip generating a massive humanitarian crisis and Palestinian civilian death toll. However, the Biden administration, which continues to provide Israel with security assistance, has been woefully inept in its crisis management efforts. Suffice it to recall how Joe Biden was snubbed by Middle East allies and the failed shuttle diplomacy of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Since then, Washington has refused to join calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, and directly fueled further violence in the Middle East by launching strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

Numerous pundits have told Sputnik that there are obvious signs that the US can no longer dictate to Middle Eastern players what to do, and even Israel has been disinclined to follow Team Biden’s orders. Meanwhile, US-led efforts to isolate Russia with respect to the Middle East have failed spectacularly. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s highly successful Mideast tour in December 2023 to meet with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud sent a strong message to the world. The West’s botched bid to smear Russia was underscored by international observers, as they looked upon the pomp and ceremony with which the Russian leader was welcomed in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia – longstanding US allies. The Gaza crisis, pundits noted, threw into focus the erosion of Washington’s power in the region.

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Dangerous.

• Biden Looks To Prevent Future President From Ending Ukraine War

Soon on the heels of President Biden last week signing into law a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine’s defense, President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday indicated that he’s working with Washington on a bilateral security agreement which would last ten years. “We are already working on a specific text,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address. “Our goal is to make this agreement the strongest of all.” “We are discussing the specific foundations of our security and cooperation. We are also working on fixing specific levels of support for this year and the next 10 years.” He indicated it will likely include agreements on long-term support centering on military hardware and joint arms production, as well as continuing reconstruction aid. “The agreement should be truly exemplary and reflect the strength of American leadership,” Zelensky added.

But ultimately a key purpose in locking such a long-term deal in would be to keep it immune from potential interference by a future Trump administration. Below is what The Wall Street Journal spelled out last year: “The goal is to make sure Ukraine will be strong enough in the future to deter Russia from attacking it again. More immediately, Ukraine’s Western allies hope to discourage the Kremlin from thinking it can wait out the Biden administration for a potentially more sympathetic successor in the White House. Western officials are looking for ways to lock in pledges of support and limit future governments’ abilities to backtrack, amid fears in European capitals that Donald Trump, if he recaptures the White House, would seek to scale back aid. Trump has a wide lead in early polling in the Republican presidential primary field, but soundly lost the 2020 election to President Biden and has been indicted in four criminal cases in state and federal courts.”

We and others have previously underscored that NATO and G7 countries are desperately trying to “Trump-proof” future aid to Ukraine and the effort to counter Russia. As for its first new weapons package in the wake of the $61 billion being authorized, the Biden administration has announced new arms packages totaling $7 billion. The US has vowed to rush the weapons to Kiev, given that by all indicators its forces are not doing well on the frontlines. “We are still waiting for the supplies promised to Ukraine – we expect exactly the volume and content of supplies that can change the situation on the battlefield in the interests of Ukraine,” Zelensky had said over the weekend. “And it is important that every agreement we have reached is implemented – everything that will yield practical results on the battlefield and boost the morale of everyone on the frontline. In a conversation with Mr. Jeffries, I emphasized the need for Patriot systems, they are needed as soon as possible.”

But all of this means the war will be prolonged, and this puts negotiations much further away on the horizon, despite what are now daily acknowledgements of Ukraine forces being beaten back. Currently the governments of Greece and Spain are being pressured by EU and NATO leadership to hand over what few Patriot systems they possess to Kiev. The rationale is that they don’t need them as urgently as Ukraine does.

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“..This circular reasoning is already incredibly creative, but the actual evidence used to propel this ball through the machine is even wackier..”:”

• Alvin Bragg and The Art of Not Taking Law Too Seriously (Turley)

Rube Goldberg, the inventor of bizarre machines that performed simple tasks through dozens of mechanical steps, was once asked about the essence of creating such fantastic, illogical machines. He replied “An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn’t take his education too seriously.” After the first week of testimony, the trial of Donald Trump is increasingly looking like a mad prosecution machine by lawyers who don’t take law too seriously. I have long been a critic of the Bragg indictment as legally incomprehensible. However, I must confess that after a week of testimony, some of us have developed a weird fascination with the utter madness of the scene unfolding in Manhattan. It was not until the second week of proceedings that Bragg even revealed part of his theory of criminality. For months, even liberal legal analysts have expressed dismay that Bragg’s indictment had not clearly stated what specific crime that Trump sought to conceal by allegedly misrepresenting payments to former adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

The premise of the prosecution always had that Rube Goldberg feel. It was so implausible as to be impossible. After all, the base charge is a simple misdemeanor under a New York law against falsifying business records. Trump paid Cohen hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and costs, including $130,000 for a nondisclosure agreement with Daniels. Bragg is vague as to what should have been noted on the ledgers for the payments. It is not even clear if Trump knew of this expense’s designation as a legal cost. However, it really did not matter, because the misdemeanor has been as dead as Dillinger for years. The dead misdemeanor was shocked back into life by claiming that it was committed to conceal another crime. Under New York’s penal law, section 175.10, it can be a felony if the “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”

For months, Bragg has suggested that the “other crime” was the violation of federal election laws, suggesting that the payment was really a campaign contribution Trump made to himself that was not properly recorded. The problem is that the Justice Department investigated that crime already and decided that it was not a viable criminal claim. It did not even seek a civil fine. Bragg’s predecessor and Bragg himself rejected the theory behind this prosecution. But then a pressure campaign led Bragg to green-light a prosecution roughly eight years after the 2016 campaign. In the trial, Bragg added a type of frying pan flip to his Rube Goldberg contraption by arguing that Trump may have been trying to hide his violation of another dead misdemeanor under yet another New York election law prohibiting “conspir[ing] to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”

In other words, Trump was conspiring to try to win his own election. This even though the notations were made after he had won the election, and even though Trump was running for a federal, not a state office. So again, what is the unlawful means? The machine then flips you back to the beginning — seeking “to influence the election.” There are still the federal election violations, but that theory was rejected after an investigation. And if it were a real crime, it would be brought by federal, not state prosecutors. There are also the misdemeanor falsifications of business records under section 175.05. So Bragg would use one dead misdemeanor to trigger a second dead misdemeanor to create a felony on the simple notations used to describe payments for a completely legal nondisclosure agreement.

This circular reasoning is already incredibly creative, but the actual evidence used to propel this ball through the machine is even wackier. Bragg decided to start with a witness to discuss an affair that is not part of the indictment. David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid, had supposedly been paid to kill a story of a Trump affair with a different woman, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. Pecker proceeded to make the prosecution case even more convoluted. On cross examination, Pecker admitted that Trump told him that he knew nothing about any reimbursement to Cohen for any hush money, that he had killed or raised such stories with Trump for decades before he ever announced for president and that he had also killed stories for other celebrities and politicians, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tiger Woods, Rahm Emanuel and Mark Wahlberg.

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“..the Middle East paradigm interlinks directly with the Ukraine paradigm..”

• The Interlocking of Strategic Paradigms (Alastair Crooke)

Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT, has provided a forensic analysis of the videos and evidence emerging from Iran’s 13th April swarm drone and missile ‘demonstation’ attack into Israel: A ‘message’, rather than an ‘assault’. The leading Israeli daily, Yediot Ahoronot, has estimated the cost of attempting to down this Iranian flotilla at between $2-3 billion dollars. The implications of this single number are substantial. Professor Postol writes: “This indicates that the cost of defending against waves of attacks of this type is very likely to be unsustainable against an adequately armed and determined adversary”. “The videos show an extremely important fact: All of the targets, whether drones or not, are shot down by air-to-air missiles”, [fired from mostly U.S. aircraft. Some 154 aircraft reportedly were aloft at the time] likely firing AIM-9x Sidewinder air to air missiles. The cost of a single Sidewinder air-to-air missile is about $500,000”.

Furthermore: “The fact that a very large number of unengaged ballistic missiles could be seen glowing as they reenter the atmosphere to lower altitudes [an indication of hyper-speed], indicates that whatever the effects of [Israel’s] David’s Sling and the Arrow missile defenses, they were not especially effective. Thus, the evidence at this point shows that essentially all or most of the arriving long-range ballistic missiles were not intercepted by any of the Israeli air and missile-defense systems”. Postel adds, “I have analyzed the situation, and have concluded that commercially available optical and computational technology is more than capable of being adapted to a cruise missile guidance system to give it very high precision homing capability … it is my conclusion that the Iranians have already developed precision guided cruise missiles and drones”.

“The implications of this are clear. The cost of shooting down cruise missiles and drones will be very high and might well be unsustainable unless extremely inexpensive and effective anti-air systems can be implemented. At this time, no one has demonstrated a cost-effective defense system that can intercept ballistic missiles with any reliability”. Just to be clear, Postol is saying that neither the U.S. nor Israel has more than a partial defence to a potential attack of this nature – especially as Iran has dispersed and buried its ballistic missile silos across the entire terrain of Iran under the control of autonomous units which are capable of continuing a war, even were central command and communications to be completely lost.

This amounts to paradigm change – clearly for Israel, for one. The huge physical expenditure on air defence ordinance – 2-3 billion dollars worth – will not be repeated willy-nilly by the U.S. Netanyahu will not easily persuade the U.S. to engage with Israel in any joint venture against Iran, given these unsustainable air-defence costs. But also, as a second important implication, these Air Defence assets are not just expensive in dollar terms, they simply are not there: i.e. the store cupboard is near empty! And the U.S. lacks the manufacturing capacity to replace these not particularly effective, high cost platforms speedily. ‘Yes, Ukraine’ … the Middle East paradigm interlinks directly with the Ukraine paradigm where Russia has succeeded in destroying so much of the western supplied, air-defence capabilities in Ukraine, giving Russia near complete air dominance over the skies.

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“..to have a company lawyer approve his social media posts..”

• Supreme Court Rejects Elon Musk’s “Free Speech” Appeal In SEC Case (ZH)

Another day, another chapter in the Elon Musk vs. SEC saga. The US Supreme Court declined to hear Elon Musk’s appeal regarding his ongoing “Twitter sitter” case, Bloomberg reported on Monday, keeping Musk’s agreement with the SEC to have a company lawyer approve his social media posts in place. Musk, without success, had argued that the 2018 agreement infringed upon his constitutional right to free speech. The decision marks the latest development in Musk’s lengthy, ongoing dispute with the SEC, which started after he tweeted in August 2018 that he had “funding secured” for a potential $80 billion take-private deal for Tesla. As a result, Tesla stock rocketed higher the day of. Following Musk’s tweet, the SEC filed a lawsuit alleging shareholder deception and, shortly after, Musk settled with the SEC, agreeing to step down as Tesla chairman and pay a $20 million fine.

In 2021, Musk reopened the dispute by conducting a Twitter poll regarding selling 10% of his stock. This prompted the SEC to issue subpoenas to Musk and Tesla. Musk then sought to annul his pre-screening agreement, but his arguments were dismissed by a federal appeals court last year. Musk’s lawyers had argued to the Supreme Court that the agreement was a “quintessential prior restraint that the law forbids.” They said in their appeal: “The pre-approval provision at issue continues to cast an unconstitutional chill over Mr. Musk’s speech whenever he considers making public communications.” In its brief, the SEC responded: “This court has consistently held that, in resolving litigation, parties may choose to waive even fundamental constitutional rights.”

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Time warp: “..the story appeared to be “Russian disinformation.”

• Hunter Biden’s Lawyers Threaten Fox News (RT)

Lawyers representing Hunter Biden have accused Fox News of a “conspiracy to defame” the US president’s son, demanding that the media outlet take down nude images of their client and retract reports suggesting that the Biden family engaged in an overseas bribery operation. Attorneys claimed that Fox had unlawfully published “hacked” photos of Biden and knowingly reported “debunked” bribery allegations. “Fox knows that these private and confidential images were hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital materials,” the lawyers said in a letter to the cable news network. CNN obtained a copy of the letter, which indicated that President Joe Biden’s son “anticipates” suing Fox. The lawyers insisted that Fox issue corrections and on-air retractions, including statements by its top hosts admitting that “they have been sharing a debunked allegation from a source who has been federally indicted.”

Media reports about the Biden family’s alleged influence-peddling scheme stemmed from files on a laptop computer that Hunter Biden left behind at a Delaware computer repair shop. He forfeited ownership of the computer and its contents when he failed to pay his bill and pick up his laptop. When the New York Post reported on the alleged Biden family scandal in October 2020, just weeks before the presidential election, former US intelligence officials falsely claimed that the story appeared to be “Russian disinformation.” Social media outlets censored the bombshell laptop report. Several of the same major media outlets that dismissed the story as disinformation later verified key documents on the laptop – long after Joe Biden had been elected. Fox aired a six-part mock trial of Hunter Biden on its Fox Nation streaming platform in October 2022. The report included the bribery allegations, as well as photos showing the president’s son in the nude or engaged in sexual acts.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers demanded that the mock trial be removed from all streaming services. They argued that Fox also published articles based on statements from FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who was indicted earlier this year for allegedly making false claims that the owner of Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid bribes to the Bidens. “Then, in a brazen show of no remorse, rather than walk back the story and correct the record, Fox double-downed on the debunked bribery allegation and used Smirnov’s indictment to claim this is an intimidation tactic aimed at silencing whistleblowers, to blame the FBI for its credulity, and to suggest an even deeper conspiracy,” Hunter Biden’s lawyers said in the letter. However, US House lawmakers continue to investigate alleged Biden family corruption, citing bank records and other evidence.

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“..a writer who writes about big ideas,” claiming that his books have been “banned by the Biden administration” in the US. “You cannot buy them on Amazon..”

• Tucker Carlson Interviews Conservative Russian Philosopher Aleksandr Dugin (RT)

American journalist Tucker Carlson has released a 20-minute interview with high-profile Russian philosopher and political commentator Aleksandr Dugin. The conversation was published on Carlson’s YouTube channel on Monday. Western media have described Dugin as “Putin’s brain” due to his supposed influence on President Vladimir Putin and the Russian elite. A fervent critic of the West and a foreign policy hawk, Dugin passionately supports Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and has stated that an independent Ukrainian state “should not exist.” In 2022, his daughter Darya was killed in a car bombing, which the Russian authorities said had been orchestrated by Ukrainian agents. Several US media outlets subsequently cited unnamed US intelligence officials as saying that Washington believes that the Ukrainian authorities were indeed involved in the assassination.

Carlson introduced Dugin as “a writer who writes about big ideas,” claiming that his books have been “banned by the Biden administration” in the US. “You cannot buy them on Amazon,” he said. During the conversation with Carlson, Dugin argued that liberal ideology, which became de facto uncontested in the West since the fall of the Soviet Union, is leading to the demise of the concept of families. “Family is [being] destroyed in favor of this individualism,” he said, adding that the natural progression of liberalism will lead to “abandoned human identity.” “Next phase: new liberalism. Now it is not about the rule of a majority, but it is about the rule of minorities. It is not about individual freedom, but it is about woke-ism,” Dugin said. “It is not democracy. It is totalitarianism.”

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“When Barack Obama warned America to not underestimate Joe Biden’s ability to fuck things up, was that some kind of joke?”

• Pep Talk on a Dark Day (Kunstler)

You realize, don’t you, that what’s going on in our country is the collapse not just of an empire, or an economy, but a comprehensive paradigm of human progress. The hallmark of post-war life in Western Civ was supposed to be a return to sanity after the mid-twentieth century fugue of mass psychotic violence. The wish for just and rational order was not entirely pretense. But that was then. Now that we are going medieval on ourselves, the not-so-ironic result will be our literally going medieval, sinking back into a pre-modern existence of darkness, superstition, and penury, grubbing for a mere subsistence in the shadow of scuffling hobgoblins, our achievements lost and forgotten.

What’s most appalling is that our governing apparatus is visibly willing that to happen. When Barack Obama warned America to not underestimate Joe Biden’s ability to fuck things up, was that some kind of joke? After all, it was Mr. Obama and his fellow blobsters — the cabal of Intel spooks, covert Marxist bureaucrats, lawfare ninjas, globalist megalomaniacs, post-liberal think tankers, weapons grifters, degenerate billionaires, and assorted mentally-ill camp followers — who inflicted Joe Biden on the body politic. And then ran him on the country like some demon algorithm designed to wreck the USA as fast as possible.

The source of anguish in all that is the struggle to understand why they would want that to happen. What debauched sense of history would drive anyone to such lunatic desperation? It’s a cliché now to say that the Democratic Party has turned its traditional moral scaffold upside down and inside out. It acts against the kitchen table interests of the working and middle classes. It’s against civil liberties. It demands mental obedience to patently insane policy. It’s avid for war, no matter how cruelly pointless. It’s deliberately stirring up racial hatred. It despises personal privacy. It feeds a rogue bureaucracy that has become a veritable Moloch, an all-devouring malevolent deity. And now, rather suddenly, it aligns itself with a faction that seeks to exterminate the Jews.

And how did the opposition to that epic divergence into bad faith turn so flabby? How did the Republican Party roll over and wheeze so feebly while the FBI ran amok swatting grandmothers in dawn raids, and the US attorney general made justice a whore, and a Republican Congress allowed the Frankenstein agency of Homeland Security to flood the country with its enemies and give them gobs of operational cash? If Mr. Trump was unappetizing to them as a leader, why were they unable to produce an alternative figure of standing and stature at least equally resolute? They look like traitors and cowards.

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“..Any criminal investigation against Netanyahu also implicates President Biden..”

• US Working To Prevent ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu (Antiwar)

The US and Israel are working together to prevent the International Criminal Court from issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other high-level Israeli officials, Israeli media has reported. Haaretz reported that the Israeli government is working under the assumption that arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief-of-Staff Herzi Halevi could be issued as soon as this week. The report said that the US is already engaged in an effort to block the warrants. Walla reported that Netanyahu is “under unusual stress” over the potential warrants and is leading a “nonstop push over the telephone” to prevent them with a focus on contact with the Biden administration.

In a statement on Friday, Netanyahu said an arrest warrant wouldn’t stop Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. “Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the International Criminal Court in the Hague to undermine its basic right to defend itself,” he said. “While decisions made by the court in the Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they will set a dangerous precedent that threatens soldiers and public figures.” Neither the US nor Israel are parties to the ICC, and the US has a contentious history with the court. In 2002, then-President George W. Bush signed a bill into law that would authorize the use of force to free any US service members or government officials brought to the ICC, which is based in the Hauge.

The controversial law, known as the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, authorizes the US to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the” ICC, and is nicknamed the Hague Invasion Act. The Trump administration sanctioned ICC officials for their investigation into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan. The Biden administration reversed the sanctions but continued to put pressure on the court, which worked since the ICC announced it would “deprioritize” its investigation of US forces in Afghanistan.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Biden administration changed its attitude toward the court and backed its arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was issued in 2023. But now that Israel is being targeted, the US will likely resort back to its pressure tactics. Any criminal investigation against Netanyahu also implicates President Biden since he has provided so much support for the Israeli campaign in Gaza. Israel is also facing pressure from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), another Hague-based court that rules it’s “plausible” Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza, a ruling the US has rejected. The main difference between the two courts is that the ICC prosecutes individuals while the ICJ deals with disputes between countries.

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“..most of the indictments either had no prior precedent in criminal law or will likely never be used again, at least against anyone left-wing..”

• The Travesties of the Trump Trials (Victor Davis Hanson)

Do not believe the White House/mainstream media-concocted narrative that the four criminal court cases—prosecuted by Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Jack Smith, and Fani Willis—were not in part coordinated, synchronized, and timed to reach their courtroom psychodramatic finales right during the 2024 campaign season. These local, state, and federal Lilliputian agendas were designed to tie down, gag, confine, bankrupt, and destroy Trump psychologically and physically. They are the final lawfare denouement to years of extra-legal efforts to emasculate him. Indeed, the nation is by now worn out by these serial assaults on constitutional norms: the Hillary-funded Steele dossier subterfuge; the pre-election Russian laptop disinformation campaign; the two impeachments without special counsel reports; the impeachment Senate trial of a private citizen; the effort to remove Trump’s name from state ballots; the ongoing attempt to emasculate the Electoral College; or the radical opportune changes in state election laws to ensure massive mail-in balloting.

Recently, Andrew McCarthy has reviewed in depth this coordination between White House personnel and prosecutors, long known and long denied by the left. Biden, for example, had complained to aides about Attorney General Merrick Garland’s tardiness in getting special federal prosecutor Smith appointed—and thus apparently ensuring Trump was convicted before the election. Nathan Wade, Fani Willis’s now-fired paramour prosecutor, visited and consulted with the White House counsel’s office when he was acting supposedly as a purely local county prosecutor. The January 6th left-wing-dominated congressional committee consulted with the Biden administration in sending forth its criminal referrals about Trump’s purported role in the protests. And to handle his pseudo-indictment against Trump, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hired Biden Justice Department official Vincent Colangeio.

Two, the prosecutors’ delayed criminal indictments and E. Jean Carroll’s civil suit were predicated only on Donald Trump running for reelection. After his 2020 defeat, the loss of the two Republican senate seats in Georgia, and the January 6 demonstrations/riot, Trump was written off by pundits as politically toxic. Then his historic comeback in the subsequent year terrified the left. The reboot prompted the subsequent indictments and suits years after the purported crimes. It was left unsaid that had Trump not been a conservative Republican and leading presidential candidate, he would have never been indicted. Three, most of the indictments either had no prior precedent in criminal law or will likely never be used again, at least against anyone left-wing. Moreover, many of the writs relied on manipulation of statutes of limitations.

Neither Bragg nor any other local prosecutor had previously transformed a supposedly local affidavit misdemeanor into a supposed federal campaign finance violation, a gambit so preposterous that it had been passed on by federal attorneys. Letitia James was the first New York Attorney General to indict a state resident for the supposed crime of overvaluing real estate to obtain a loan, which was paid back timely and in full, to the profit of lending institutions. No bank, after auditing Trump’s assets and viability to pay back loans, was unhappy to loan to him. But all were quite happy to profit from the hefty interest—and would likely be happy to loan to him again. James sought to make Trump a criminal without ever finding a crime, much less a victim. Nor, until the checkered and unethical career of Fani Willis, had any local prosecutor ever indicted an ex-president for a supposedly improper phone call questioning whether all the state’s votes had been fully counted.

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Paul Craig Roberts likes Eva’s long blond hair.

• The Shieldmaiden Takes the Field Against The Destroyers of the West (PCR)

A young Dutch female lawyer has undertaken the task of encouraging white Europeans to take a stand against the replacement of countries consisting of ethnic nationalities, such as Germans, English, French, Italians, Dutch, Spanish, Hungarians, with towers of babel. In our world today, as in George Orwell’s novel 1984, words are turned upside down and have the opposite of their meaning. Diversity now means “sameness” with no country’s population corresponding to the ethnicity of its name. Destroying the diversity afforded by white ethnic nations is the goal of the EU tyrants and “President” Biden who recently stated, as Tucker Carlson reported, that getting rid of white America was a good thing.

The young woman taking on the Shieldmaiden’s role is Eva Vlaardingerbroek. She states the obvious fact that Europeans must take a stand against the huge demographic shift brought by mass migration orchestrated by their leaders or risk becoming a minority in their home countries. This is a fact, but the traitors orchestrating our erasure have made it racist to say so. The question before us is whether she will be prosecuted for a hate crime. Throughout the Western world it has become dicey for a white person to defend white people, white history, and white accomplishments. As law is already being used against people and organizations who are white, such as President Trump and VDare in New York and President Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, once whites are a minority, the hatred and demonization that has been created of whites will be used to obliterate them. In The Camp of the Saints the first law passed by the new regime prohibits marriage between white people. White skin is bred out of existence. Perhaps a few will be kept in cages in zoos as an example of white evil.

When asked by Remix News at CPAC Hungary 2024 how European ethnicities should deal with accusations of racism for resisting demographic replacement in their home countries, Eva Vlaardingerbroek answered that response is impossible because our enemies have defined defense of Western civilization as racism. “So you have to pick a side. Of course, you’re going to be attacked if you say, ‘Hey, this continent, Europe, has been predominantly White for the entirety of its history, and now suddenly within one generation, a few bureaucrats have decided against the will of the people that we should suddenly be a minority,’” she said. Actually, European whites are already a minority in their own countries–and not only in their main cities–because half of them are indoctrinated against themselves and are aligned with the immigrant-invaders against their own kind. This 12 minute speech by a clear-thinking young Dutch woman says it all:

The question before us is why did leaders of the Western nations decide to destroy ethnic diverse nationality in Europe and the West by turning all Western countries into towers of babel? This was the question raised by the last Briton, Enoch Powell, in 1968. In his speech he warned that the British nation was being replaced and said that the clash of hostile cultures within a country would result in rivers of blood. Of course, Powell had to be put down, and he was. But he has proven to be right. The rivers of blood are not the result of armed conflict between race-based armies. Rivers of blood are forming from small streams from the racial murder of white people, from gang rapes of white women, and the sharp rise in crime that is dissolving British society. The war against white people is being fought by legal means. The immigrant-invaders are obtaining legal power over the white ethnic citizens.

In California the Democrats are content with illegal immigrants being police officers. A bill has been introduced in Congress to fill our military ranks with them. Immigrant-invaders have many allies in the universities, school systems, lawyers, police, and legislators. Whites, not immigrant-invaders, have limits put on their speech and protest rights. Immigrant-invaders have achieved the protection that Jews have against “hate speech,” “hate thoughts,” “hate crimes.” But white gentiles have no such protections. Police everywhere delight in the expansion of their reach as it elevates their power. In the UK white police are quick to grab a fellow white and charge him with a “hate crime” against an immigrant-invader. In years past I reported from the Swedish media that Swedish women raped by immigrant-invaders fear to report the rape as they could be charged with racism. Swedish men fear to stop a rape as Swedish authorities might designate the rescue of the Swedish woman as a hate crime. These are worst than Powell’s rivers of blood, because the white population cannot fight back.

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Kookaburra

 

 

Impossible

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 25 2024

Apr 252024
 
 April 25, 2024  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


Amedeo Modigliani Nu allongé 1917

 

• US Sided With Evil And Fascism – Russian Envoy (RT)
• Alvin Bragg Has His Trump Trial, All He Needs Now Is A Crime (Turley)
• Romney and the Wrong Question (Turley)
• Musk Concurs That Civil War Looming In West (TASS)
• Musk Warns Australia Against ‘Controlling Entire Internet’ (Sp.)
• Mitch McConnell Blames Tucker Carlson For Delaying Ukraine Cash (RT)
• Future Of The World Will Be Decided In Ukraine – Lukashenko (RT)
• All Ukrainian Presidents Are Thieves – Lukashenko (RT)
• Poland Ready To Help Ukraine Hunt Down Military-Aged Men (RT)
• Ukraine Conflict ‘A Bonanza’ For US Military – NYT (RT)
• G7 Could Take 10 Years to Catch Up With Russian Nuclear Fuel Output (Sp.)
• European Bureaucrats Serve America’s Economic Interests (Dionísio)
• Iran’s Nuclear Plans Are Clear. Just Read Its Own Islamic Law (Juma)
• Why Iran Decided Not To Attack Israel Again (Gurevich)
• Netanyahu Should Resign – Nancy Pelosi (RT)
• Unconventional Russian Warfare Threatening British Grannies – Wallace (RT)

 

 

 

 

Trump immunity
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782847341952729139

 

 

Watters trial

 

 

Alina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782784975521120376

 

 

Tucker Weak men

 

 

 

 

Julie Kelly


https://twitter.com/i/status/1783175943831367849

 

 

Arizona

 

 

mask
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783164740459762075

 

 

 

 

“..the US government has effectively been funneling billions of dollars into its own defense industry through the aid scheme..”

• US Sided With Evil And Fascism – Russian Envoy (RT)

The US government has made its choice in favor of war, siding with evil and supporting fascism, the Russian ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov has said, in comments on the latest massive American military aid package for Ukraine. On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden signed a long-stalled $95-billion foreign-aid package, including $61 billion for Ukraine. Biden said the US would start sending weapons and military equipment to Ukraine “in the next few hours.” Washington is balancing on the brink of a direct clash between nuclear powers, Ambassador Antonov told reporters following the news. The development strikes a severe blow to prospects for a hypothetical revival of Russian-American relations in the future, Antonov believes.

“For the sake of its greedy and insatiable defense industry, the [Biden] administration sacrifices the lives of ordinary people. With their decision, local politicians actually put an end to the fate of the entire state [of Ukraine], which is used as a ‘battering ram’ against Russia,” he stated. The high-ranking Russian diplomat accused the US administration of violating the UN Charter’s obligation to maintain ‘primary responsibility for international peace and security.’

“American aid will not save [Ukrainian President] Zelensky” he stressed, adding that any new weapons being sent by Washington to Kiev would be destroyed, and that the tasks and goals of Moscow’s military operation will be realized. The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that Washington’s lethal aid will not change the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine’s favor. According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, the US government has effectively been funneling billions of dollars into its own defense industry through the aid scheme.

Cheers

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“We’ve never seen a case like this one where a dead misdemeanor from 2016 could be revived as a felony just before the 2024 election..”

“Cohen will soon go on the stand and tell the jury it should send his former client to jail for following his legal advice.”

• Alvin Bragg Has His Trump Trial, All He Needs Now Is A Crime (Turley)

For many of us in the legal community, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump borders on the legally obscene: an openly political prosecution based on a theory even legal pundits dismiss. Yet Monday the prosecution seemed to actually make a case for obscenity. It wasn’t the gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst with a former Playboy Bunny or expected details on the relationship with an ex-porn star. It was the criminal theory itself that seemed crafted around the obscenity stan- dard Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described in 1984’s Jacobellis v. Ohio: “I shall not today attempt further to define [it]. . . . But I know it when I see it. The prosecution must show Trump falsified business records in “furtherance of another crime.” After months of confusion on just what crime underpinned the indictment, the prosecution offered a new theory so ambiguous and undefined, it would have made Justice Stewart blush.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that in listing Stormy Daniels payments as a “legal expense,” Trump violated this New York law: “Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” So Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy, by paying to quash a potentially embarrassing story and then reimbursing his lawyer Michael Cohen with other legal expenses. Confused? You are not alone. It’s not a crime to pay for the nondisclosure of an alleged affair. It’s also not a federal election offense (the other underlying crime Bragg alleges) to pay such money as a personal or legal expense. Federal law doesn’t treat it as a political contribution to yourself. Yet somehow the characterization of this payment as a legal expense is an illegal conspiracy to promote one’s own candidacy in New York.

In New York, prosecutors are expected to have extreme legal myopia: They can see no farther than Trump to the exclusion of any implication for the legal system or legal ethics. Of course, neither Bragg nor his office has ever seen this type of criminal case in any other defendant. Ever. We’ve never seen a case like this one where a dead misdemeanor from 2016 could be revived as a felony just before the 2024 election, The statute of limitations for this case’s misdemeanors, including falsifying payments, has expired. But Bragg (with the help of counsel and former top Biden Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo) zapped it back into life by alleging a federal election crime the Justice Department itself rejected as a basis for any criminal charge. It’s not clear Trump even knew how this money was characterized in records. He paid it to his lawyer, who had put together the settlement over the nondisclosure agreement.

Cohen will soon go on the stand and tell the jury it should send his former client to jail for following his legal advice. Besides running for president, Trump was married and had hosted a hit television show. There were ample reasons to secure an NDA to bury the story. Even if it was done with the election in mind, it is not unusual or illegal. There is generally no need to list such payments as a campaign contribution because the federal government doesn’t see them as a campaign contribution. It’s not even clear how this matter was supposed to be noted in records. What if the Trump employee put “legal settlement in personal matter” or “nuisance payment”? The crime itself may not be clear or even comprehensible. But the defendant’s identity could not be clearer, and the prosecutors are hoping the jury, like themselves, will look no further

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A case about nothing.

• Romney and the Wrong Question (Turley)

Yesterday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) had a much covered interaction with CNN’s Manu Raju who asked him about Trump’s criminal trial and whether he was guilty of the underlying criminal conduct. Romney responded “I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump’s character, and so far as I know you don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.” I have previously defended Romney in his votes on impeachment despite our disagreement on the constitutional standard. I also understand that he was making a more general comment on character. However, his response is precisely what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is seeking from the jury: a verdict on Trump as a person rather than the underlying criminal allegations. Trump is currently facing 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree regarding payments made to Daniels during the 2016 presidential election.

As I discuss today in the New York Post, many of us (including liberal legal experts) still question whether there is any crime alleged by Bragg. Raju reasonably asked Romney for his own view. Romney is an interesting person to ask. He is not only a critic of the President from within his own party but he is a former businessman who has had to deal with complex reporting and business obligations. Romney’s response must be encouraging for Bragg. Rather than address the ambiguous criminal allegation, Romney suggested that Trump was guilty as charged in having a tryst with a former porn star. The defense is not contesting the payment and the fact of the affair is not central to the allegations. The question is whether the payments were unlawfully denoted as legal expenses with the intent to somehow steal the 2016 election.

It is not a crime to use a NDA or other means to quash an embarrassing story. Bill Clinton had a host of lawyers quashing allegations of affairs and sexual assaults throughout his presidency. He ran into trouble when he committed perjury in the effort to hide what Hillary Clinton called one of his “bimbo eruptions.” Moreover, denoting this as a legal expense, on the advice of counsel, is not necessarily wrong. It is not clear how it should have been to be denoted as, according to Bragg. A “nuisance payment”? The campaign of Hillary Clinton and its general counsel Marc Elias hid the funding of the Steele dossier as a legal expense and was fined by the government for doing so. They litigated the question and insisted that that is precisely what it was. Romney is precisely what Bragg is looking for in these jurors. Smart and savvy, he still viewed the question of the trial as whether Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels.

If so, it was not a legal expense. Yet, quashing the story and avoiding any litigation was a legal matter with the eventual crafting of the NDA. There are a lot of motivations for NDAs of this kind. Trump was married. He was the host of a hit television show (with a clause on termination for scandalous conduct). And, yes, he was also seeking to be president. He wanted these stories killed and friends like David Pecker were helping in that effort. What those facts say about the former president’s “character” will remain a matter of public debate and, as Romney said, most long ago reached their own conclusions. Yet, it is the crime not the character of Trump that is at issue in Manhattan.

Alvin Bragg would like the trial to remain a verdict on character, which is why he started the trial discussing not the Daniels matter but an uncharged affair and settlement with a former Playboy bunny. It is why he fought hard (and succeeded) in being able to question Trump about past cases involving an alleged assault and fraudulent conduct. As legal experts continue this week to debate if there is even a crime alleged in the indictment, Bragg is making a case that Trump’s lack of character is beyond a reasonable doubt. To be fair, Romney was not giving a full interview on the case in his statement to CNN and may well have some reservations about the Bragg indictment. However, Bragg is likely hoping that “everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump,” including twelve jurors currently sitting in the Manhattan courtroom.

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“Musk said that migration issues in the US are threatening the very existence of the American state..”

• Musk Concurs That Civil War Looming In West (TASS)

US entrepreneur and one of the world’s wealthiest people Elon Musk has asserted that a civil war will break out in the West over the situation around migrants. “War will come whether we want it or not,” he wrote on the X social network commenting on remarks by Gad Saad, a Canadian professor of Lebanese origin, who insisted that “the path that the West is taking will result in civil war.” Saad said that Western countries are committing “civilizational suicide.” “Many Western men who are currently asleep at the wheel will wake up, and realize that they don’t like being pushed around in their homelands; they don’t like their women attacked; they don’t like their freedoms curtailed; they don’t like their faiths disrespected,” he noted. Earlier, Musk said that migration issues in the US are threatening the very existence of the American state. He also branded the US migration policy as insane because over the past three years it allowed more than 7 mln illegal migrants enter the country.

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Australia is just a little country. With little brains.

• Musk Warns Australia Against ‘Controlling Entire Internet’ (Sp.)

The X chief executive earlier denounced that a video of a stabbing attack on an orthodox bishop had been censored in Australia, with Canberra threatening X with a daily fine of $510,000 over the company’s reluctance to completely remove the footage. Elon Musk has made it clear he will not comply with Australia’s order to remove a video of a terror attack against a Sydney cleric from X (formerly Twitter). “Our concern is that if any country is allowed to censor content for all countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?” the tech billionaire tweeted. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO added that X has “already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers” in the US.

Per X, Canberra threatened it with a daily fine of $510,000 over the company’s unwillingness to remove the video across the globe. Musk’s remarks came after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese slammed the X owner as an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also above common decency.” Speaking to broadcaster ABC, Albanese added that “the idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out-of-touch Mr. Musk is.” This followed Australia’s eSafety Commission calling for X to completely remove the video from its platform for all users rather than just block the footage in the world’s sixth-largest country.

According to Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, “Every minute counts, and the more this content is up there, the more it is reshared, the more the velocity and the virality continues and we need to stem that.”
In the video, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Orthodox Church is seen being stabbed during a church service in the suburbs of Sydney that was being livestreamed on April 15. The non-fatal attack, which the authorities said was a terrorist act motivated by suspected religious extremism, quickly garnered multiple views online and reportedly led to protests near the crime scene.

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“I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson..”

• Mitch McConnell Blames Tucker Carlson For Delaying Ukraine Cash (RT)

The top-ranking Republican in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, has claimed Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin convinced too many “rank-and-file Republicans” that spending billions of taxpayer dollars on arming Kiev against Moscow was harming Americans and wrecking the economy. As a new multibillion-dollar US aid package to Ukraine was clearing the last procedural hurdles on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader McConnell attempted to pin the blame for months of delays on former Fox News anchor Carlson and former President Donald Trump. “I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson, who in my opinion ended up where he should have been all along, which was interviewing Vladimir Putin,” McConnell told a press briefing.

“He convinced a lot of rank-and-file Republicans that maybe this was a mistake,” he added, arguing that Trump’s “mixed views” on Ukraine aid further fueled confusion over the official narrative in Washington. “And then our nominee for president didn’t seem to want us to do anything at all,” McConnell claimed. “That took months to work our way through it.” Carlson recorded a lengthy interview with Putin in February, a first by a Western reporter since the conflict with Ukraine began. The pair discussed the ongoing hostilities and Moscow’s standoff with NATO. The exchange went viral globally, garnering over 200 million views on X (formerly Twitter) alone, yet critics accused Carlson of not being confrontational enough with the Russian leader. The American journalist argued that most Western media outlets lie to their audiences, mainly by omission, and that the point of his interview was “to have more information brought to the West so people could make their own decisions.”

“I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective,” Carlson said in February, looking back at his conversation with Putin. “There’s a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale that people do not understand.” US President Joe Biden requested additional cash for Ukraine last October after burning through $113 billion in previously approved spending bills. However, the request had been stalled until this week due to opposition from Republican lawmakers, who argued that Biden was merely prolonging Kiev’s conflict with Russia while offering no clear strategy for victory or a peace agreement. Most Republicans voted against the aid bill on Saturday, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) overrode his own party by enabling a vote and pushing it through with unanimous Democrat support.

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“Everyone understands that today’s Ukraine is a military range, where the future of the world order is partially decided..”

• Future Of The World Will Be Decided In Ukraine – Lukashenko (RT)

The Ukraine conflict is among the major events that will determine the future of the world, and the West is emerging weaker from it, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed on Wednesday. The leader of Belarus, a close Russian ally, addressed the situation in Ukraine during a keynote speech to the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a gathering of officials and public figures. He contrasted Kiev’s policies with those of Minsk, arguing that unlike its southern neighbor, his nation has preserved its independence under Western pressure. “Everyone understands that today’s Ukraine is a military range, where the future of the world order is partially decided. The largest nuclear powers indirectly, and now even directly, are waging a war on its territory,” Lukashenko stated.

“Meanwhile its authorities have sunk to the level of striking a bargain with the West to exchange weapons for the lives of Ukrainians. Watching this is painful,” he added. Kiev has miscalculated, Lukashenko argued, because “whoever is willing to serve a master for scraps will sooner or later lose.” Ukraine is risking its statehood after betraying its past and traditions, he also warned. The Belarusian leader described the entire conflict as the latest clash “between the West and the East,” and suggested that neither side has become stronger. The outcome of the confrontation “will not save the existing order,” Lukashenko further predicted. He urged the US and its allies to accept that their future role will be restricted as one of several centers of power that determine world affairs.

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“And they grew rich, but only very few, in the very ‘best’ traditions of Western European democracies..”

• All Ukrainian Presidents Are Thieves – Lukashenko (RT)

Ukraine has devolved into a Western-style oligarchy where all of its leaders are only interested in “plundering” the country and getting rich, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed. The president made the remarks on Wednesday during an address to the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a gathering of high-profile officials and public figures. Lukashenko fired a broadside at the neighboring country, accusing its presidents and “oligarchs” of stealing Ukraine’s riches. The process began immediately after Ukraine became an independent state following the collapse of the Soviet Union and has worsened over time, Lukashenko argued. “Just think – a prosperous country. The land is fertile, half of the periodic table in its soil, two seas, mines, industrial giants. The people are creative, hard-working. Live, be happy and grow rich. And they grew rich, but only very few, in the very ‘best’ traditions of Western European democracies,” the Belarusian leader said.

Every Ukrainian president, from “the first to the last one,” has been “plundering and stealing,” Lukashenko asserted, claiming that this inevitably led to political infighting and enduring unrest. “The oligarchs and those in power have gathered all the resources under their control. The oligarchs, having received the wealth created by the people, wanted power. They went into politics and began to drag bandits and people into their squabbles. The Maidans have begun,” Lukashenko stated. Ukrainian leaders, however, have consistently blamed the internal turmoil they created on foreign powers, primarily Russia and to a lesser extent Belarus, Lukashenko alleged. “They created the necessary image of the enemy, ‘the culprit behind the hardships and poverty of the people’ – Russia, as well as us, Belarusians. We, you see, are now somehow to blame,” the leader said.

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Hunt Them Down

• Poland Ready To Help Ukraine Hunt Down Military-Aged Men (RT)

Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has said Warsaw is willing to “help” Kiev repatriate men of fighting age, an unspecified portion of some 950,000 Ukrainians granted temporary sanctuary in Poland. Earlier this week, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry banned all men between the ages of 18 and 60 from receiving or renewing their documents, including passports, at consular offices outside the country. The Polish defense chief told the Polsat broadcaster on Wednesday that he was “not surprised” and supports Kiev’s move. “The Ukrainian authorities are doing everything to provide new soldiers to the front, because the needs are huge,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said. The Polish official said that Warsaw had previously offered to help Kiev track down those who dodge their “civic duty,” but noted that “the form of assistance depends on the Ukrainian side.”

“I think that many of our compatriots were and are outraged when they see young Ukrainian men in cafes and hear about how much effort it takes us to help Ukraine,” he added. Kosiniak-Kamysz also echoed Kiev’s official narrative that Ukrainians who could not avoid the draft have “justified grievances against their peers who have scattered around the world.” Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba claimed on Tuesday that the decision to strip Ukrainian men of their rights was “fair” and in line with controversial military mobilization reforms, which President Vladimir Zelensky signed into law this month. Zelensky’s reforms, set to take effect next month, will lower the draft age from 27 to 25, tighten exemptions, and oblige all men, regardless of eligibility, to report to a conscription office to “update” their personal data. According to EU officials, an estimated 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are living in the bloc. Kiev has identified that pool as a significant untapped source of manpower for the armed forces. However, asked in early April how many troops Kiev intended to mobilize, Zelensky dodged the question.

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“When new technology meets the brutality of old-fashioned trench warfare, the results are rarely what Pentagon planners expected..”

• Ukraine Conflict ‘A Bonanza’ For US Military – NYT (RT)

The US military is reportedly using the Ukraine conflict to test a new artificial intelligence technology that helps detect targets on the battlefield using drone footage, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Dubbed Project Maven, research into the technology was initially picked up as a government contract by Google six years ago, according to the outlet. However, after pushback from engineers and employees, who did not want to take part in building an AI tool for military use, the tech giant stepped away from the project, which was picked up by other contractors. Now, the technology is being tested on the front line in Ukraine, the NYT claims, as Western and Ukrainian officers, along with some of Silicon Valley’s top military contractors, are “exploring new ways of finding and exploiting Russian vulnerabilities.”

So far, the results of the testing have reportedly been “mixed.” While Project Maven allows commanders to identify the movements of Russian forces and use AI algorithms to predict their next steps, it has apparently been “difficult” to bring “21st-century data into 19th-century trenches.” One of the main barriers, the Times said, is that due to restrictions imposed by US President Joe Biden, the US military can only provide Ukrainians with a “picture of the battlefield” without giving precise targeting details. It is also unclear if the new technology would even be able to change the course of the conflict, given Russia’s ability to quickly adapt to technologies being used by the Ukrainian side.

“When new technology meets the brutality of old-fashioned trench warfare, the results are rarely what Pentagon planners expected,” the outlet said. Nevertheless, the Ukraine conflict remains “a bonanza for the US military” in the minds of American officials, and a testing ground for rapidly evolving technologies. “At the end of the day this became our laboratory,” Lt. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, who commands the US Army’s 18th Airborne Division, told the NYT. Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly decried increasing US involvement in the conflict. Moscow describes it as a proxy war being waged by Washington and its partners, using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” to further Western interests.

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“..it’s almost impossible to immediately make them as economically efficient as those in Russia. It had taken decades for Russia to set up its [nuclear fuel] production.”

• G7 Could Take 10 Years to Catch Up With Russian Nuclear Fuel Output (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden and his G7 have vowed to end imports of Russian nuclear fuel, but leading Western economies still lag behind Moscow in innovative atomic technologies, nuclear expert Valery Menshikov told Sputnik. The US Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) asserted in a recent press release that the Biden-Harris administration is doing whatever it takes to ensure the nation’s independence in terms of secure nuclear fuel supplies as well as to “re-establish US leadership in nuclear energy more broadly.” The agency stressed that President Joe Biden’s government is leading the “Sapporo 5” group, consisting of the US, the UK, France, Japan and Canada to support the growth of nuclear energy deployment around the world “free of Russian influence.” But the NE was forced to admit that Russia presently supplies around 44 percent of global uranium enrichment services and 20 to 30 percent of enriched uranium products used in the US and Europe.

To complicate matters further for the Sapporo 5, Russia is the only country selling high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which is indispensable for advanced nuclear reactors, on a commercial scale. President Joe Biden stated on April 19 that a US plant had managed to produce the first 200 lbs (90 kg) of HALEU and would make nearly a ton of the “powerful” nuclear fuel by the end of 2024. Given that in 2020 the US Department of Energy (DoE) projected that more than 40 metric tons of HALEU will be needed before the end of the decade to meet Washington’s pressing climate goals, those amounts are a drop in the ocean. “Undoubtedly, the speeches that Biden is now delivering are just another contribution to his collection of campaign promises. And since, the United States still depends on the supply of fresh enriched fuel for nuclear power plants, this task is one of the most important, including in political terms,” Valery Menshikov, member of the Public Council of Rosatom Corporation and member of the Council of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, told Sputnik.

Russia maintains leadership in global uranium enrichment services, Sputnik’s commentator stressed, adding that neither US nor European scientists have been able to achieve enrichment capacities matching those of their Russian peers. Russian nuclear fuel is also comparatively cheaper, Menshikov pointed out. The expert recalled that the Russo-US nuclear fuel trade started immediately after the collapse of the USSR: the 1992 Megatons to Megawatts Program envisaged the recycling of weapons-grade uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium used to produce fuel for American nuclear power plants. Over the decades, Russia routinely delivered large volumes of enriched uranium to the US.

The expert expressed doubts that the US will be able to completely stop purchases of Russian nuclear fuel by 2028, as Biden has pledged. “The problem is that the process [of making nuclear fuel] is very complex,” Menshikov said. “The most important thing is that while it is possible to launch such productions, it’s almost impossible to immediately make them as economically efficient as those in Russia. It had taken decades for Russia to set up its [nuclear fuel] production.” When it comes to the European Union (EU), the situation is complicated by the fact that there are 19 Russia-designed reactors within the bloc. The list of countries which have Russian-made nuclear equipment includes Slovakia, Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. Although some European countries, such as Finland, have recently halted cooperation with Russia, others — like Hungary — are proceeding with new projects.

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“What appears on the horizon, without any in-depth national discussion, after being approved by the Council and the European Parliament, is a global austerity package, on a European scale..”

• European Bureaucrats Serve America’s Economic Interests (Dionísio)

Once again, the European bureaucracy is living up to the saying that “what has born crooked, late or never is straightened out”. This is the case with the European Union, which was built as a political response to a reality that is no longer there — the socialist bloc — and which, when faced with the absence of its vital force, embarked on an erratic process of enlargement, aimed above all at provoking Russia, creating the conditions for NATO expansion and responding to the monopolies’ growing need for new markets and new sources of skilled and cheap labor, as is the case in Eastern Europe.

Within this framework and in response to the same needs, the EU is once again reissuing a recipe already widely known to the peoples of the South. While there is widespread recognition that the budgetary criteria contained in the Stability and Growth Pact constitute a stranglehold on public investment and is responsible for the short-term vision that has left the member states hostage to the financial authoritarianism of Brussels, at a time when the European bloc is losing more and more ground to the economies with which it has to compete, the unelected supranational power of the EU is once again proposing, this time to all Europeans, something that none of these peoples would ever vote for: austerity for the next four years (at least).

What appears on the horizon, without any in-depth national discussion, after being approved by the Council and the European Parliament, is a global austerity package, on a European scale, applicable to almost all the countries of the Union, which has been given the pompous name of “New Economic Governance Framework” and which is based on instruments such as the “Debt Sustainability Analysis” and “Specific Fiscal Plans” per member state, which will be developed within the framework of a 4-year adjustment period, which can be extended to 7. If the Stability Pact was not enough to bring most of the countries to austerity, this time EU autocracy is working to leave no one behind. Every country must bring to an end every evidence or memory that a social state has once worked with huge success.

That’s why we have to say that “it’s coming in handy”! At a time when countries should be investing absolutely decisively in industrialization, innovation and conquering a place at the top of the future technological chain, as China and Russia are doing and the US is going into brutal debt to do, what do the accountants in Brussels decide to do? Postpone the race, calling into question the targets they themselves have set for 2030 and 2050. Once again, the story of the well-behaved and thrifty countries versus those that don’t know how to govern themselves is being repeated. But this time, with the exception of five countries (Cyprus, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark and Ireland), all the others will have to tighten their belts and cut 100 billion from their public budgets right in the first year of adjustment. Incidentally, 100 billion is more or less what the EU has offered the Kiev regime to date (in January 2024 it was 85 billion euros according to the Kiel Institute). And any of those lucky countries is important for the financing of the pluriannual European budget.

Assuming that this mass economic destruction is the continuation of a process that began with subprime, from which European economies had to pay for the losses of American banks, and continued with the NATO/Russia conflict in Ukraine, which has not only deprived European countries of important production factors, at a low price and with guaranteed quality and quantity… How should the European Union act, especially knowing that in Biden’s USA, the implementation of Inflation Reduction Act is well underway, with a vast investment program in key technological areas such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries, photovoltaic panels and semiconductors?

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“..Iran’s nuclear doctrine is based on a fatwa (a ruling based on Islamic law) issued by the country’s Supreme Leader..”

• Iran’s Nuclear Plans Are Clear. Just Read Its Own Islamic Law (Juma)

In light of the direct conflict that broke out between Israel and Iran, rumors that the Islamic Republic could produce nuclear weapons began circulating again. In addition, just a few days ago Reuters and other media outlets quoted a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying that Iran may review its nuclear doctrine following Israeli threats. The US, EU, and Israel have long feared that Iran may produce nuclear weapons, and have used this threat to justify their actions against the Islamic Republic. However, it is important to understand that Iran’s nuclear doctrine is based on a fatwa (a ruling based on Islamic law) issued by the country’s Supreme Leader. According to this fatwa, the production of nuclear weapons is a sin. However, Iran’s opponents do not believe in the sincerity of this ruling and, they suggest, it can be renounced at any time.

On April 17 and 18, the first Tehran International Conference on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation took place. The motto of this conference was “Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear weapons for no one.” There, Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser to the Supreme Leader of Iran, read Ayatollah Khamenei’s message in front of officials and members of various international delegations and organizations. “All of you know that, in the absence of the Imam Mahdi, whose coming is expected by the Shiites, the Shiite legal system is based on the opinion of authoritative and highly competent experts in the field of Islamic law (which Iran’s decisions are based on). These religious scholars issue fatwas which clearly indicate whether any action is permissible or not. One [important] issue is the permissibility of the production and use of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons) …”.

Ayatollah Khamenei had carefully analyzed the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by the Americans in Japan as well as the use of chemical weapons against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, and stated his position on this issue: “We believe that, besides nuclear weapons, other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological weapons, also pose a serious threat to humanity. The Iranian nation, which is itself a victim of chemical weapons, feels more than any other nation the danger that is caused by the production and stockpiling of such weapons, and is prepared to make use of all its facilities to counter such threats. We consider the use of such weapons as haraam [forbidden] and believe that it is everyone’s duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster.” In the period from 2010 to 2015, other religious authorities, such as ayatollahs Makarem Shirazi, Jafar Subhani, Noori-Hamedani, and Javadi Amoli, also issued fatwas that prohibited the production and use of weapons of mass destruction.

But can the issued fatwas be changed or canceled? Can Iran’s position in this regard change? From a theological point of view, certainly not. Islamic law states clear reasons for this. Nuclear weapons and the radiation which results from their use threaten the environment, causing the destruction of crops and the death of offspring. Verse 205 of Surah al-Baqarah says: “And when he goes away, he strives throughout the land to cause corruption therein and destroy crops and animals. And Allah does not like corruption.” The protection of the environment, the preservation of the life of living beings and plants is every Muslim’s obligation under Sharia, Islamic law. The production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, even if they are never used, may endanger the lives of people on the planet as a result of human error. According to Islamic law, this is unacceptable. Islam believes that a victory must be achieved by reasonable, lawful, and humane means. As for the rules of warfare, Islam strictly prohibits the killing of civilians, women, children and the elderly, as well as attacks on civilian infrastructure.

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“..they prefer to pretend that they are fighting for peace. The very peace for which no stone should be left unturned on this planet. But that will come later..”

• Why Iran Decided Not To Attack Israel Again (Gurevich)

Iran has again threatened Israel with a harsh response to aggression. The army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will make those who cross red lines regret it, said the Deputy Chief of the Army for Coordination, Habibollah Sayyari.Meanwhile, Israel has refrained from speaking out against Tehran. Politicians have focused their rhetoric on Hamas. In particular, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to increase military and political pressure on the Palestinian group in the near future in order to motivate it to release hostages, writes the Times of Israel. The good news is that there will be no Iran-Israel war. At least not at this stage. Tehran has chosen not to react vociferously to the Israeli air force’s retaliatory strike, dismissing all reports of the destruction of the radar protecting the Natanz nuclear centre as Zionist intrigues.

Well, the bottom line is that we have two air raids attributed to Israel and one very large Iranian strike. In the latter case, everything was official and the Islamic Republic can therefore claim an entry in the Guinness Book of Records with an article on the largest number of UAVs and ballistic missiles involved in a single offensive operation. Incidentally, we do not know what the real effect of the large-scale attack was. Iran, like Israel, is carefully hiding data on the damage. However, the political consequences of such events are far more important. And, as usual in the Middle East, a dozen seemingly unrelated problems have become intertwined. After the Iranian strike, for example, Western countries began to advise Israel not to react, and rumour has it that the Jewish State was negotiating for the right to launch a military operation in Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza.

Then in the end, it could no longer remain patient and responded. The Iranians had options. The Ayatollahs could have said that Israel had again crossed all the red lines. This would have led to further escalation, but might have protected Hamas. But Iran, for its own reasons, ignored the Palestinians and reported through the press that nothing serious had happened. The reason for this peacefulness is probably that they saw a working alliance between Israel, Jordan and the Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf. This is precisely the nightmare that the Iranians have done their utmost to prevent. They even restored diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in 2023. But apparently confrontation with the Shiites is more important to moderate Sunnis than dislike of the Jews.

According to military analysts, if the Israeli Air Force did attack Iranian air defences, it means that the Israelis probably flew over Jordan or the Arabian Peninsula to carry out the task, and it is unlikely that this was done without the consent of the Hashemite Kingdom or the Saudis. As a result, the military alliance is not only defensive, which means that virtually all of Iran’s proxies in the region, including Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, are at risk. For now, however, this is all a hypothetical picture. Its implementation requires the normalisation of Israel’s relations with Riyadh and, as part of the deal, the signing of a defence agreement with the US, as well as American-Israeli goodwill for the establishment of a nuclear capability in Saudi Arabia. And all this has to happen before the end of June. Otherwise, Washington will not be able to get the relevant decisions through Congress because of the upcoming election. Obviously, the Iranians believe that further escalation will only accelerate the process described above. That is why they prefer to pretend that they are fighting for peace. The very peace for which no stone should be left unturned on this planet. But that will come later.

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“..she doesn’t know whether the Israeli leader is “afraid of peace, incapable of peace, or just doesn’t want peace.”

• Netanyahu Should Resign – Nancy Pelosi (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace in Gaza and “should resign” from his position, former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said. She made the remarks on Monday in an interview with Irish public broadcaster Raidio Teilifis Eireann (RTE) during her visit to the country. Pelosi criticized the Israeli leader’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack which saw Palestinian militants kill over 1,100 people on Israeli territory and take around 250 hostages. The former House speaker cited the recent resignation of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence chief Major General Aharon Haliva over the failure to prevent the attack, before pointing the finger at Netanyahu.

“We recognize Israel’s right to protect itself. We reject the policy and the practice of Netanyahu – terrible. What could be worse than what he has done in response?” Pelosi told the outlet. “He should resign. He’s ultimately responsible,” she added. When asked if Netanyahu is a “block” to peace, Pelosi replied that “he has been for years,” adding that she doesn’t know whether the Israeli leader is “afraid of peace, incapable of peace, or just doesn’t want peace.” She went on to argue that Netanyahu been an “obstacle to the two-state solution, I emphasize the word, ‘solution.’”

Health authorities in Gaza have estimated that more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed amid Israel’s siege of the enclave, which has included extensive bombardment as well as a ground incursion. Earlier this month, Pelosi joined more than 30 US Congress members who signed a letter urging President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to halt weapons transfers to Israel. The change of tune in Washington, Israel’s key ally, followed the killing of six aid workers from the World Central Kitchen humanitarian organization. The IDF targeted the group’s convoy in what it claimed to be a tragic mistake, despite the food supply mission being closely coordinated with the military.

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Cyber crime is part of Russian warfare, apparently. Impoverishing grannies…

• Unconventional Russian Warfare Threatening British Grannies – Wallace (RT)

The UK is facing certain forms of “unconventional warfare” waged by its enemies, potentially including Moscow-backed online scams that target the elderly, former British Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace has claimed. The Conservative MP, who resigned from the cabinet last August, told Sky News on Wednesday that the world today reminded him of the interwar periods during the last century. The situation, Wallace explained, is similar to “the 1930s, but with an added challenge of terrorism and a challenge of unconventional warfare.” As examples of the latter, he cited “disinformation campaigns, the enemies in this country using cyber to divide us, to rob from us, to spy on us, and to create frictions in our society.”

When asked by host Kay Burley which nation posed the biggest threat to the UK, Wallace said it was Russia. ”Many of the big cyber-crime syndicates are based in Russia, curiously protected by the Russian state,” he claimed. “They are the ones robbing your granny and my parents with phishing emails. So, Russia is directly challenging us at all levels.” Earlier this month, British police reported busting a UK-founded international ring of scammers, which since 2021 alone has stolen from some 70,000 victims in the country. Thirty-seven people were arrested around the world in the LabHost case, the force reported. The statement didn’t mention Russia.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Climate Emergency

 

 

Wealth
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783136306400497981

 

 

Your value
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783165842433474992

 

 

 

 

Cub


https://twitter.com/i/status/1782896073578582350

 

 

Baby Hippo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782886328171905240

 

 

Scratch

 

 

Healed

 

 

Adrenochrome

 

 

Robotina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783391212558262482

 

 

Cabal full movie

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 24 2023

Mar 242023
 
 March 24, 2023  Posted by at 8:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Gustav Klimt Pine forest II 1901

 

• US Facing New Global Reality Post Xi-Putin Summit, Says Expert (TASS)
• US ‘Uneasy’ About China’s Peace Plan For Ukraine – Media (RT)
• Pompeo Warns Of Biden Administration’s ‘Enormous’ Mistake (RT)
• The ‘Junior Partner’ Meme Gives No Insight To Real Changes (MoA)
• ‘The United States of America Is Our Enemy,’ Says Medvedev (TASS)
• Medvedev Says Diplomacy Doesn’t Always Work, Special Op Was Right Move (TASS)
• Effects Of Depleted Uranium In Ukraine Cannot Be Controlled – Zakharova (TASS)
• Nato Chief: West Must Brace To Support Ukraine In A Long War (G.)
• Ukraine Deployed Over 80,000 Servicemen Around Bakhmut – Prigozhin (TASS)
• Ukraine Welcomes ICC Office (RT)
• Hungary Says It Won’t Arrest Putin (RT)
• House Judiciary Committee Expands Probe Into Alvin Bragg (PM)
• CIA Planted Nord Stream Stories in NYT, German Outlets – Hersh (Celente)
• Biden Played Direct Role in Addressing Hunter’s Business Deals (Turley)
• FOIA Document Shows Government Anticipated Mass Vaccine Injuries (Horowitz)

 

 

 

 

Marseille
https://twitter.com/i/status/1638887827999174656

 

 

OZ

 

 

 

 

Blinken
https://twitter.com/i/status/1638925911905955841

 

 

AI

 

 

 

 

“..the US and the entire West have to consider this rapidly changing international environment, and that it may be better to cooperate with it, rather than to lose more and more influence by opposing this peace plan..”

• US Facing New Global Reality Post Xi-Putin Summit, Says Expert (TASS)

A German political activist urged the United States and its Western allies to pay heed to rapid changes underway in the international arena following Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s Moscow visit. In an interview with TASS on Wednesday, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the US-based Schiller Institute, said that China’s peace proposal “is not only endorsed by Russia, but is supported by the entire Global South.” “The initial reaction of [US] President [Joe] Biden was to reject it, as did some other leaders of the EU. But it is now becoming clear to the whole world who is trying to establish peace, and who is trying to prolong and escalate the war,” Zepp-LaRouche emphasized, when asked whether the Chinese leader’s visit to Russia could usher in peace in Ukraine.

According to her, Western establishments “are still completely underestimating the reality that there is a powerful renaissance of the non-aligned spirit occurring right now.” “The countries of the Global South are determined to end colonialism for good in its new cloth, and they do not want to be drawn into a geopolitical conflict between the US and Russia, or between the US and China, with whom many of them have very beneficial economic ties,” she underscored. Zepp-LaRouche praised as spectacular China’s diplomatic success “in getting Saudi Arabia and Iran to return to diplomacy and cooperation,” and said that Beijing had proven that “it can be a surprising peacemaker.” “So, the US and the entire West have to consider this rapidly changing international environment, and that it may be better to cooperate with it, rather than to lose more and more influence by opposing this peace plan,” she noted.

In February, the Chinese Foreign Ministry published a position paper on a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine. The twelve-point document includes calls for a ceasefire, respect for the legitimate interests of all countries in the field of security, settlement of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, the exchange of prisoners of war between Moscow and Kiev, as well as the cancellation of unilateral sanctions imposed without a corresponding decision of the UN Security Council. In the published document, China described dialogue and negotiations as the sole way of resolving the crisis in Ukraine and called on all parties to support Moscow and Kiev in “moving toward each other”, urging a resumption of direct dialogue as soon as possible. The world community should create conditions and provide a platform for the resumption of talks, the document emphasized.

Following talks with Xi on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that many provisions of China’s peace plan on Ukraine could be used as a basis for the conflict settlement whenever the West and Kiev were ready for that. At the same time, he pointed out that so far, “no such readiness” could be seen.

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“..with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claiming that China does not have “much credibility” on the issue..”

• US ‘Uneasy’ About China’s Peace Plan For Ukraine – Media (RT)

There is a “sense of unease” in the White House about the consequences of its dismissal of the Chinese peace plan for Ukraine, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing an unnamed official in the administration of President Joe Biden. In February, the US publicly brushed off the roadmap for peace presented by China for the conflict between Russia and its neighbor. However, Bloomberg reported that Washington now fears it could be “backed into a corner” by Beijing’s proposals, with the Biden administration said to be concerned that it has created the impression that the US does not want peace. America’s stance could be used by Beijing to convince nations that are weary of the conflict that the US has no interest in ending the hostilities, Bloomberg added.

“China will likely ramp up messaging that the US is opposed to a ceasefire, that the US is opposed to the end of the war,” former Pentagon official Bonny Lin, who is now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the media outlet. The Bloomberg report follows a three-day visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow this week, during which he held extensive talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Moscow had previously welcomed the Chinese peace initiative for Ukraine, and during this week’s talks Putin expressed his readiness to discuss and build upon it. He also reiterated that Moscow is willing to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

The peace plan presented by China called for the resumption of talks between Moscow and Kiev. It also condemned unilateral sanctions, and urged the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations to be upheld. Along with Washington, other Western powers largely brushed off the initiative, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claiming that China does not have “much credibility” on the issue. However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken did later admit that the plan includes “positive elements.” Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized the Biden administration for failing to prevent what he described as a “wedding” between Moscow and Beijing. Downplaying the increasingly close ties between Russia and China “is an enormous strategic mistake,” Pompeo insisted.

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“They have allowed the Russians and the Chinese to come together in this way and it presents enormous risk to the US and every citizen..”

• Pompeo Warns Of Biden Administration’s ‘Enormous’ Mistake (RT)

The Biden administration is making “an enormous strategic mistake” by downplaying the importance of rapidly expanding Russia-China ties, Mike Pompeo, who served as US secretary of state under Donald Trump, has said. The alliance between Moscow and Beijing “may be a shotgun wedding, but they’re still married,” Pompeo told Fox News on Wednesday. “To hear the White House play this down as if it’s insignificant or unimportant is an enormous strategic mistake,” he said. Pompeo, who was speaking hours after Chinese Xi Jinping concluded his landmark visit to Moscow, where multiple deals were signed, stressed that China has been “getting energy at a discounted price” from Russia.

“Think about that. American manufacturing companies are paying full freight for energy today and the Chinese are getting a 15, 20% discount on each barrel of oil, allowing them to continue to dump their products here in America,” he explained. The former secretary of state also claimed that “at least for today, the Chinese Communist Party is providing lethal assistance to Ukraine, almost certainly.” He was apparently referring to Russian forces fighting Ukraine, not Kiev itself. Weapons for Ukraine are being provided by the US and its NATO allies, together with funds, intelligence and training for troops. Beijing has previously denied claims that it’s supplying or planning to supply arms to Moscow amid its conflict with Kiev, calling such allegations by Washington “false.”

Russia has also insisted that it relies on locally made weaponry in its military operation. “Now, the Biden administration has failed. They have allowed the Russians and the Chinese to come together in this way and it presents enormous risk to the US and every citizen,” Pompeo continued. Commenting on Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said he didn’t believe that there was an alliance between Moscow and Beijing, reiterating his earlier suggestion that it was just “marriage of convenience.” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin sees “a potential backer” in Xi, but “whether it results in anything, we’ll see,” Kirby remarked during a briefing on Tuesday.

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“..changes “the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years.”

“A hundred years ago the world had just seen off a big war. Four big empires, the Russian, German, Austria-Hungarian and the Ottoman had suddenly vanished. The U.S. had stepped onto the international scene..”

• The ‘Junior Partner’ Meme Gives No Insight To Real Changes (MoA)

Is there really a ‘junior partner’ in the Russian Chinese relations? Does Russia really need China more than China needs Russia? Well, who of two, Russia and China, has all the stuff that is needed for a modern life? I mean energy, minerals, commodities, foodstuff plus the abilities to retrieve and process all of them into useful products. It is obvious that Russia has all this stuff right within its borders. China, on the other side, is mostly importing these things through rather fragile sea routes. China has a naval problem that can only be solved with Russian weapons. So who is really in need of whom? China has obviously more people than Russia. But for all the Chinese riches these are still less well off than the people in Russia.

On purchase power parity base (PPP) Russia’s GDP per capita in 2022 was $31,962 while China’s was $21,291. When the Russian GDP per capita is 50% higher than the Chinese one can it really be a ‘junior partner’ in this? I don’t think so. I believe that Russia and China see themselves as equals. That is certainly true for the relation between President Putin and President Xi. Two equals who together do great things: As he left a state reception at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping turned to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and said the world was undergoing changes “the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years.” “And we are the ones driving these changes together,” he said. “I agree,” Putin replied, shaking hands with the Chinese leader in an exchange that was captured on camera.

A hundred years ago the world had just seen off a big war. Four big empires, the Russian, German, Austria-Hungarian and the Ottoman had suddenly vanished. The U.S. had stepped onto the international scene. In China the Kuomintang and the Communists founded the United Front to beat the rampant warlords the imperialists had created. (Russia helped with that.) Those were indeed times of great changes. We now see similar changes in this world. The U.S. empire and its proxies are in decline. The BRICS countries, led by Russia and China and rising, now have a bigger GDP(PPP) than the G7. Times have changed. The arrogance of the ‘west’ has ruined its own position in the world. A multitude of other powers have established themselves and are taking over. Russia and China together will see to that. Can the ‘west’ do something about this. I could. If it became humble and truly aware of its own position and of those of the rest of the world. But I for now see no way that it is going to happen. Certainly not anytime soon. Certainly not as long as its political discussions are made up from unfounded memes.

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“..the US’ position “is perfectly logical.” “What I can’t understand is the position of European leaders who are unable to make decisions that benefit Europeans..”

• ‘The United States of America Is Our Enemy,’ Says Medvedev (TASS)

The United States is currently a hostile country that seeks to cause as much damage to Russia as possible, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said. “They are our rivals, and today – let’s put it bluntly-they are our enemy. The United States of America is our enemy,” Medvedev pointed out in an interview with Russian media outlets, including TASS, and users of the VKontakte social media network. However, he pointed out that unlike EU nations, the US holds “a consistent stance.” “They are trying to cause us as much damage as possible, and, where feasible, even tear our country apart and put Europe under their spell in the worst way so that it is unable to move at all,” the Russian Security Council deputy chairman noted, adding: “The reason is that sometimes, the leaders that come to power there start getting clever, either withdrawing from NATO or suspending membership or doing something else.”


The Americans have now achieved their goal, Medvedev went on to say, pointing out that the US’ position “is perfectly logical.” “What I can’t understand is the position of European leaders who are unable to make decisions that benefit Europeans. All of their decisions benefit either certain rival political groups or the Americans,” the deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council said. He emphasized that European nations “are no longer an independent subject of international law as they have simply become a cash cow for the United States at the expense of their taxpayers.” “And they are doing it not even for ideological reasons, but out of stupidity and cowardice,” Medvedev concluded.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1639160121841385472

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“As a result, Russia would get a neighbor “who is not only a member of an unfriendly bloc but also plans to produce nuclear weapons..”

• Medvedev Says Diplomacy Doesn’t Always Work, Special Op Was Right Move (TASS)

There are situations where agreements are counterproductive and one needs to take steps like launching a special military operation, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Russian media outlets, including TASS, and users of the VKontakte social media network. “In my view, it makes no sense to negotiate in certain situations. One must ignore it, and in some cases make decisions like the one that was made on February 24 last year because agreements can be counterproductive in certain cases,” Medvedev pointed out, when asked if Moscow needed to make agreements with the countries that failed to see Kiev’s crimes.

According to him, Moscow tried for decades to convey some simple things to the West. “Guys, the Soviet Union collapsed. Yes, it’s sad but that is what happened, both because of the Soviet leadership’s incompetent policy and your external interference. The country fell apart but ties did not, and the people remained the same. How do you imagine that? Ukraine becoming part of NATO?” he said, clarifying Russia’s message. Meanwhile, Ukraine “had its own nuclear weapons complex,” Medvedev went on to say. As a result, Russia would get a neighbor “who is not only a member of an unfriendly bloc but also plans to produce nuclear weapons,” he noted. “I would like to point out that Ukraine’s leader spoke about this shortly before the start of the operation, in late 2021.

So do you want us to put up with it? Particularly in a situation where we have a dispute over Crimea because we consider it part of our land and they regard it as their territory. So imagine them joining NATO and launching a large-scale operation against our country under NATO’s umbrella – we cannot accept this,” Medvedev stressed. The politician stressed that Russia had proposed a draft agreement on security guarantees to Western countries. “They responded ‘no’,” Medvedev said. In his opinion, “the current ramifications are much more complicated than they would have been” had the document been signed last December.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1638809561045037057

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Iraq and Kosovo tell the story.

• Effects Of Depleted Uranium In Ukraine Cannot Be Controlled – Zakharova (TASS)

Radiation effects of depleted uranium shells, should these be used on the territory of Ukraine, will be impossible to control, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday. “Now the impact of used weapons and shells will be impossible to control either for neighboring states or for the states of the region. This simply cannot be done,” she said, while commenting on London’s intention to provide shells with depleted uranium to Kiev.


“It is possible to participate in the exchange of intelligence, it is possible to ask Washington to control the Kiev regime to ensure it should not carry out strikes at the territory of Poland or shoot down aircraft of some other countries, it is possible to do many other things, but no one can give instructions to radiation, it’s impossible to negotiate with it, there is no way of controlling it.” Zakharova recalled the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plant disasters. “Both tragedies still have dire consequences. Their scale is different, but the lesson is the same: it’s impossible to come to terms with radiation,” she added.

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Take from the Guardian. “..to enable the Ukrainians to retake territory to liberate more and more and more land..”

• Nato Chief: West Must Brace To Support Ukraine In A Long War (G.)

Vladimir Putin has no immediate plans for peace in Ukraine and so the west needs to brace itself to supply lethal aid to Kyiv for a long time to come, Nato’s secretary general has warned in an interview with the Guardian. Jens Stoltenberg said the Russian president was engaged in “a war of attrition”, and said he wanted Nato members to agree that spending 2% of GDP on defence as a minimum at the alliance’s next summit, in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. The fierce fighting, currently centred around Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, demonstrates Russia is willing “to just throw in thousands and thousands more troops, to take many casualties for minimal gains”, the Nato head said.

“President Putin doesn’t plan for peace, he’s planning for more war,” Stoltenberg continued, adding that Russia was increasing military industrial production and “reaching out to authoritarian regimes like Iran or North Korea, and others to try to get more weapons”. As a result, the US, UK, France, Germany and other western states had to be prepared to support Ukraine with weapons, ammunition and spares over a long time. “The need will continue to be there, because this is a war of attrition; this is about industrial capacity to sustain the support,” the secretary general said. At present, the combat was so intense that Ukraine’s use of artillery shells – 4,000 to 7,000 a day to Russia’s 20,000 – was outrunning western manufacturing.

“The current rate of ammunition expenditure is higher than the current production rate,” Stoltenberg said, although new contracts meant that was changing. Earlier this week, EU members agreed to supply Ukraine with a million rounds of shells, enough for six months or so. But heading into what is expected to be his final summit, Stoltenberg said he wanted Nato members to be prepared to spend more to reverse Russia’s invasion. Nato’s annual report, out on Tuesday, acknowledged that only seven of 30 member states – the US, UK, Poland, Greece and the Baltic countries – met the current defence spending target of 2% of GDP in 2022. France at 1.89% and Germany at 1.49% fell short, although both have committed to increases.

[..] A serious effort by China to act as a mediator in the conflict must be accompanied by an attempt “to understand Ukraine’s perspectives”, the Nato chief said, and to “engage with President Zelenskiy directly”. But while welcoming any peace initiative, he complained that Beijing had not yet condemned the Russian invasion. Stoltenberg thought the west had provided enough military equipment, including tanks, fighting vehicles and rocket artillery, “to enable the Ukrainians to retake territory to liberate more and more and more land” seized by Russia after the initial invasion in February 2022. The goal, he emphasised, was “to enable the Ukrainians to launch an offensive and to retake territory” although he said Nato was not a party to the conflict, with alliance members making their own decision on providing weapons and leaving battlefield calculations to Ukraine’s commanders.

Read more …

“..and prepared reserves of about 200,000 people..”

• Ukraine Deployed Over 80,000 Servicemen Around Bakhmut – Prigozhin (TASS)

The Ukrainian armed forces have gathered over 80,000 servicemen around Artyomovsk (the Ukrainian name of the city is Bakhmut – TASS), Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private military company, said in a video published on his press service’s Telegram channel on Thursday. “As of today, the enemy has deployed more than 80,000 [servicemen] around Bakhmut. This grouping is in Seversk, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka, Konstantinovka and Chasovoy Yar,” Prigozhin said. “The Ukrainians received a very large amount of various NATO equipment, various armored vehicles, Leopards tanks, which everyone is talking about, and prepared reserves of about 200,000 people,” he added.


According to Prigozhin, with the help of the accumulated forces, in addition to military action in Artyomovsk, the Ukrainian armed forces may try to strike the first blow in the direction of Belgorod. “They will try to go near Belgorod,” he theorized. The founder of the Wagner private military company indicated the Svatovo – Kremennaya contact line, where, in his opinion, they may try to “reach Valuiki.”

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Ukraine, like US and Russia, never ratified the Rome Statute. But it does get an ICC office?! And to look only at Russian “crimes”?

• Ukraine Welcomes ICC Office (RT)

Ukraine’s prosecutor-general signed an agreement on Thursday to allow the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open a representative office in Kiev. Andrey Kostin called it a “significant beginning” in the country’s relationship with the ICC, though Ukraine has still not signed the Rome Statute to accept its jurisdiction. “I am convinced that we will not stop until all those guilty of international crimes committed against Ukraine are brought to justice,” including the Russian military and political leadership, Kostin said after meeting with ICC Secretary Peter Lewis. The prosecutor’s visit to The Hague comes just days after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, alleging that the evacuations of children from the combat zone amounted to “forcible transfer of population.”

Kostin also praised ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, a British lawyer, for “tirelessly standing guard over justice,” and said Ukraine and the court were “building a more just world”together. The ICC itself acknowledged that Ukraine is not a party to the Rome Statute, the 1998 international treaty that established the ICC. However, the court noted that Kiev has selectively accepted its jurisdiction for alleged crimes committed beginning in November 2013 – when US-backed protests against the government, later known as the Maidan revolution, began – and for an indefinite period thereafter.

Russia never ratified the Rome Statute, and Moscow has responded to the warrant by saying the ICC has no authority or legitimacy. Former president Dmitry Medvedev said that the charges signaled a “complete collapse of international law.” Russian authorities have also initiated criminal proceedingsagainst Khan and ICC judges Tomoko Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aitala and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez, involved in issuing the warrant. The ICC also revealed that referrals for the alleged crimes in Ukraine came from a collection of countries, mainly EU and NATO members or otherwise allied with Washington. The US itself was not directly involved, however, as it too does not recognize the court. The US withdrew its signature in 2002 and passed a law allowing for a military invasion of The Hague in case any Americans or allies were detained there.

Read more …

Hungary did ratify Rome, but turns its back on the arrest warrant.

• Hungary Says It Won’t Arrest Putin (RT)

While the Hungarian government has yet to take an official position on the International Criminal Court’s war crimes warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, the prime minister’s chief of staff said on Thursday that the country’s constitution wouldn’t allow for its enforcement. “We can refer to the Hungarian law, and based on that we cannot arrest the Russian president … as the ICC statute has not been promulgated in Hungary,”said PM Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, addressing reporters during a press conference in Budapest. “These decisions are not the most fortunate as they take things towards further escalation and not towards peace,” Gulyas said in reference to the ICC warrant, qualifying it as his “personal, subjective opinion.”

Last week, the ICC called for the arrest of Putin and Russian children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of personal, command and indirect responsibility for “forcible transfer of population,” referring to Moscow’s efforts to evacuate children from the combat zone. Ukraine cheered the move, accusing Russia of “kidnapping” children. Moscow responded by saying the ICC has no authority or legitimacy, as Russia never ratified the 1998 Rome Statute that established the court. Former president Dmitry Medvedev said that the charges meant a “complete collapse of international law.” Russian authorities have also initiated criminal proceedingsagainst the ICC’s head prosecutor and three judges involved with the warrant.

Ukraine never ratified the Rome Statute either, but the government set up after the US-backed coup in 2014 announced it would accept its jurisdiction for crimes allegedly committed by Russia on its territory. Hungary did ratify the Rome Statute, and was actually among the NATO countries and other US allies that sent the ICC a criminal referral on Ukraine on March 2, at least according to the court. Washington was not directly involved, however, as the US does not recognize the ICC either. After withdrawing its signature on the Rome Treaty in 2002, the US Congress passed a law allowing for the use of military force to rescue any American or member of an allied military, should they be detained in The Hague.

Read more …

“Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is “having trouble” convincing members of the grand jury to hear the case..”

• House Judiciary Committee Expands Probe Into Alvin Bragg (PM)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent letters Wednesday to former special prosecutors Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz demanding documents and testimony relating to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority” amid the reported impending indictment of former President Donald Trump. Dunne and Pomerantz both resigned from their positions in the DA’s Office in January 2022 after Bragg’s initial reluctance to move forward with charges against President Trump. Since leaving the DA’s office, Dunne and Pomerantz have publicly criticized Bragg for refusing to aggressively prosecute the former president and now have even opened a law firm to bring lawsuits to prevent Trump from holding future office.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote in the letters “Your criticisms of Bragg’s investigation were widely reported. It now appears that your efforts to shame Bragg have worked as he is reportedly resurrecting a so-called ‘zombie’ case.” The letters asked Pomerantz and Dunne to turn over documents related to the Trump investigation, including communications with federal agencies and other staffers in the DA’s office and sit for transcribed interviews by the morning of March 27. On Monday, Jordan, Reps. Jim Comer (R-KY) and Bryan Steil (R-WI), the chairs of the Oversight and House Administration Committees sent a letter to Bragg requesting his testimony and documents which included the communications of Pomerantz and Dunne.

Jordan wrote, “In January 2022, soon after you took office, you expressed doubts about President Trump’s case and suspended the investigation.” News broke Wednesday that the grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump for his alleged involvement in a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election was told not to show up and would reconvene on Thursday amid reports that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is “having trouble” convincing members of the grand jury to hear the case.

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“..the explosions occurred in an area that had toxic seafloor sediments, which could prove to be worse for the marine life than the release of CO2..”

• CIA Planted Nord Stream Stories in NYT, German Outlets – Hersh (Celente)

Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday that the CIA planted stories about the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage in the New York Times and German magazine Die Zeit in a coordinated effort to discredit his story that it was the Biden administration behind the attack.“The disinformation professionals inside the CIA understand that a propaganda gambit can only work if those on receiving are desperate for a story that can diminish or displace an unwanted truth. And the truth in question is that President Joe Biden authorized the destruction of the pipelines,” an American intelligence source told Hersh. Hersh’s original story went into detail on how the U.S. and Norway allegdly carried out the elaborate bombing.

His theory is that President Joe Biden was concerned Germany would turn back to Russia for its natural gas if there was a cold winter and restart the pipeline. The White House called Hersh’s story completely false. Hersh brushed off the report in The New York Times that blamed the attack on a “pro-Ukrainian group.” Hersh seemed unimpressed with the report and laughed when reached by The Trends Journal. He joked, “I always thought either Somalia or Nepal were behind it.” The Times’s report cited unnamed U.S. officials who said they reviewed new intelligence about the pro-Ukraine group with no known ties to the Ukrainian government. Ukraine also denied any role in the attack. The paper said: The review of newly collected intelligence suggests they were opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but does not specify the members of the group, or who directed or paid for the operation.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said it supports Russia’s draft resolution that calls on the UN to launch an international investigation into the blast, according to The Global Times. The blast was an environmental disaster. Phys.org wrote, “the explosions took place near the Danish Island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. It has previously been estimated that more than 115,000 tons of natural gas escaped the damaged pipeline in just six days, with a greenhouse gas contribution of approximately 15 million tons of CO2—or the amount of carbon that can be absorbed by roughly 580 million trees in a year.” The report noted that the explosions occurred in an area that had toxic seafloor sediments, which could prove to be worse for the marine life than the release of CO2.

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“While many Democrats repeatedly stress that influence peddling is not criminal, it is corrupt and the Bidens appear to be a class in themselves..”

• Biden Played Direct Role in Addressing Hunter’s Business Deals (Turley)

Some of us have written for two years that President Biden’s denial of knowledge is patently false. It was equally evident that the Biden family was selling influence and access. There are emails of Ukrainian and other foreign clients thanking Hunter Biden for arranging meetings with his father. There are photos from dinners and meetings that tie President Biden to these figures, including a 2015 dinner with a group of Hunter Biden’s Russian and Kazakh clients. People apparently were told to avoid directly referring to President Biden. In one email, Tony Bobulinski, then a business partner of Hunter’s, was instructed by Biden associate James Gilliar not to speak of the former veep’s connection to any transactions: “Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u [sic] are face to face, I know u [sic] know that but they are paranoid.”

Instead, the emails apparently refer to President Biden with code names such as “Celtic” or “the big guy.” In one, “the big guy” is discussed as possibly receiving a 10 percent cut on a deal with a Chinese energy firm; other emails reportedly refer to Hunter Biden paying portions of his father’s expenses and taxes. Bobulinski has given multiple interviews that he met twice with Joe Biden to discuss a business deal in China with CEFC China Energy Co. That would seem obvious evidence. In addition, the New York Post reported on a key email that discussed “the proposed percentage distribution of equity in a company created for a joint venture with CEFC China Energy Co.” That was the email on March 13, 2017 that included references of “10 held by H for the big guy.”

The new emails show that, as early as 2015, [former Biden Communications Director Kate] Bedingfield told Hunter’s top financial lieutenant Eric Schwerin via email that Joe Biden approved a statement regarding Hunter’s board position. Yet, for years, Biden’s communications office repeated his denial of any involvement or knowledge. That stands in contradiction to Bedingfield’s 2015 email acknowledging that “VP signed off on this — will give this quote to reporters in my name shortly.” Bedingfield left the White House in 2023. The White House has continued the categorical denials. When confronted by Fox’s Fox News’ Peter Doocy on the transfer records showing millions sent from China, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded: “Look, I’m just not going to respond to that from here. Look, we have heard from House Republicans for years and years and years how — the inaccuracies and lies when it comes to this issue. And, I don’t even where to begin to even answer that question because, again, it’s been lies and lies and inaccuracy for the past couple of years and I’m just not going to get into it from here.”

The only reason that Biden would even attempt to maintain this clearly false defense is that he could count on a supportive media to blunt any attacks and limit inquiries. Of course, there is a difference with the Sgt. Schulz defense. Schultz was harmless and comical. The Biden influence peddling allegations is neither. Despite the striking lack of interest of many in the media, this is about millions of dollars paid to the First Family by foreign sources, including some with foreign intelligence ties. Influence peddling has long been the favored form of corruption in Washington. While many Democrats repeatedly stress that influence peddling is not criminal, it is corrupt and the Bidens appear to be a class in themselves. Yet, even with the clear contradiction of the President’s repeated statements to the public, Democrats still oppose any investigation into the alleged influence peddling. What made Sgt. Schultz funny is precisely why the Biden defense is collapsing. The refusal of the media to see what is now in plain view will convince no one. At some point, Democratic leaders will have to recognize the obvious or join the Bidens (and many journalists) in this cast of this theater of the absurd.

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In several steps, VAERS was massively expanded. They knew.

• FOIA Document Shows Government Anticipated Mass Vaccine Injuries (Horowitz)

[..] as Hebrew University Professor Josh Guetzkow reveals, not only did the CDC know about the vaccine injuries blowing up VAERS at record levels (even before the general public had access to them), the agency contracted with defense contractor General Dynamics to handle the database in anticipation of record use. Then, when the vaccines were released, the CDC had to up the contract to account for even more entries, yet showed no moral qualms about continuing with the campaign without disclosing these revelations to the public. Guetzkow, who has secured numerous FOIA’ed documents both in the U.S. and Israel throughout COVID, posted 69 pages of FOIA’ed documents and contracts from General Dynamics Information Technology to the CDC’s immunization safety office.


Thanks to his work, we already know from the previous FOIA’ed documents that the CDC’s $9.45 million contract with General Dynamics in August 2020 stated that officials anticipated 1,000 adverse event reports a day, with 40% of them being serious. Yet, like a cold serial killer soullessly counting his casualty list, the CDC was completely fine with going through with this campaign, as if it were the price that had to be paid to worship the spirit of the age – the modern-day Moloch. However, this document shows that as early as Jan. 15 – when most people still could have avoided these shots – the CDC was aware of record-setting reports that crushed even the agency’s initial cold-hearted, morbid expectations.

As you can see from page 8 of the pdf, General Dynamics warned the CDC that VAERS had blown through the expected 1,000 cases per day and even reached a level above 4,500 – to the point that GD couldn’t process the data. Mind you, they were never concerned with the human toll, just the logistics of the contract labor. They predicted a need for “reforecasting of staffing needs” to process all these reports. Already in December 2020, when the shots were only available for select people like doctors, there were over 19,000 reports and close to 344,000 website visits. It’s hard to see how this wasn’t organic from people genuinely in pain because there was no organized campaign in the United States to inform people of VAERS at the time. I myself (who obsessively focused on this) hadn’t heard of it until two months later.


By Feb. 15, General Dynamics reported a continued record-setting pace of reports and website visits, to the point that workers had to expand their VAERS ID reports to allow for seven digits instead of six. In April, officials reported that they had to hire an additional 200 staffers to deal with the backlog and continue to process 25,000 reports per week, well beyond the threshold they originally contracted for. As eligibility for the shots expanded for all age groups, they continued to process over 30,000 injury reports a week, yet the CDC never said a word about it. Not only did officials not take the products off the market, they began mandating them over late summer 2021, with some mandates that remain in place to this very day.

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20,000 year-old fossilized human footprints were discovered in Australia in 2006: they indicate the hunter who made them was running at ~37 km/h (or 23 mph), the speed of a modern Olympic sprinter, but barefoot and in sand

 

 

Black hole sound

 

 


The Ili pika (Ochotona iliensis) is a critically endangered species of mammal in the family Ochotonidae, endemic to northwest China. It was discovered in 1983: this is the first documented photo in 20 years, taken in 2015

 

 

Full frontal flip

 

 


Claude Monet in his Giverny garden in 1899.

 

 


What the inside of a tardigrade looks like
Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa, Corinna Schulze and Ricardo Neves

 

 

 

 

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