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Debt Rattle November 16 2024

Nov 162024
 
 November 16, 2024  Posted by at 9:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  48 Responses »


Arnold Böcklin The Isle of Life 1888

 

• This Time Trump Really Means Business (Lukyanov)
• Your Trump Investment Guide (James Rickards)
• The Great ‘Splainin’ Cometh (James Howard Kunstler)
• Democratic Senators Demand Musk Be Probed For Russia Ties (RT)
• There Are No “Easy Wars” Left To Fight (Alastair Crooke)
• RFK Jr. vs. Big Pharma Goliath: Drug Makers, Big Food and the FDA (Sp.)
• Has Matt Gaetz Been Set-up for Eviction from Public Life? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Tulsi Gabbard Right Pick to Shake-Up US Spy Agencies – Giraldi (Sp.)
• Tulsi and the Establishment Meltdown (Tom Woods)
• Trump Makes Brilliant Choice for the Next White House Counsel (Turley)
• X Sees Return Of Major Advertisers Under Fire From FCC (ZH)
• Germany’s AfD Urges UN to Investigate Nord Stream (Sp.)
• Trump’s Win Means End Of Zelensky – Ukrainian MP (RT)
• No Use Blaming Britain For Kiev’s War Policy – Ukrainian MP (RT)
• Laboratory Head Given Licence To Lie In Novichok Show Trial (Helmer)
• How Did A Puritanical Nation End Up Idolizing Transvestites? (Frascolla)

 

 

Wow.

 

 

Avengers

Blanche

Alina

Tuberville

Target
https://twitter.com/i/status/1857136364531429859

Vivek

Watters

Lara Logan start 5:00min

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps fitting that the best(?!) overview comes from Russia.

• This Time Trump Really Means Business (Lukyanov)

US President-elect Donald Trump has moved quickly to form his proposed new administration. His team is better prepared to take power than it was in 2016 – when neither the candidate himself nor the vast majority of his supporters believed he could win. It’s too early to draw far-reaching conclusions, but in general, the composition of the preferred government reflects the ideological and political coalition that has gathered around the president-elect. From the outside, it may look motley, but so far it is all in line with Trump’s views. Contrary to the perception actively propagated by Trump’s opponents, he is not an unpredictable and inconsistent eccentric. More precisely, we should separate his character and mannerisms, which are flighty, from his overall worldview. The latter has not changed, not only in the years since Trump entered big politics, but more generally in his public life since the 1980s.

It suffices to look through the old interviews of the famed tycoon to see this: ‘Communism (in the broadest sense) is evil’, ‘the allies must pay up’, ‘the American leadership does not know how to make favorable deals but I do’, and so on. Trump’s personal qualities are important. But more importantly, in a somewhat cartoonish way, he embodies a set of classic Republican notions. America is at the center of the universe. However, not as a hegemon that rules everything, but simply as the best and most powerful country. It must be the strongest, including (or especially) militarily, in order to advance its interests wherever and whenever it needs to. Essentially, there is no need for Washington to get directly involved in world affairs at all. Profit is an absolute imperative for the future president (he is a businessman), and this does not contradict conservative ideals. America is a country built on the spirit of enterprise.

Hence his rejection of over-regulation and his general suspicion of the extensive powers of the bureaucracy. In this, Trump joins forces with the equally flamboyant libertarian Elon Musk, who promises to rid the state of a hodgepodge of bureaucrats. Musk himself is unlikely to be hanging around the president’s office for long, but politicians who think along these lines are likely to be there. An important difference between the new Trump cohort and traditional Republicans is a significantly lower degree of ideologization of politics in general and international politics in particular. Domestically, the rejection of an aggressive agenda in the spirit of the Woke movement and the imposition of the cult of minorities (which the Republicans call ‘Marxism’ and ‘communism’) plays an important role. It’s about imposition, because the human right to any lifestyle is not in itself questioned by conservatives.

For example, key figures around Trump – ardent supporter and former ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell and billionaire Peter Thiel – are married to men. In foreign policy, the conceptual difference is that Trump and his entourage do not believe, as the Biden White House does, that at the core of international relations is the struggle of democracies against autocracies. This does not mean ideological neutrality. The idea of the ‘free world’ and criticism of ‘communism’ (in which they include China, Cuba, Venezuela, and by inertia, Russia) plays an important role in the thinking of many Republicans. But the defining factor is something else – intolerance of those who for various reasons do not accept American supremacy.

Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael Waltz, for example, speaks negatively and disparagingly of Russia, but not in terms of a need to be ‘re-educated’, but because it interferes with America. Marco Rubio, who is being considered for secretary of state, does not oppose regime change in his ancestral homeland of Cuba, but is otherwise not a militant supporter of American intervention anywhere. The undoubted priority of the Trumpists and those who have joined them is to support Israel and confront its opponents, first and foremost Iran. Last year, Elise Stefanik, the likely US ambassador to the UN, publicly shamed the presidents of leading American universities in Congress for alleged anti-Semitism. It is worth remembering that the only really effective use of force in Trump’s first term was the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the special forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Trump is not a warrior. Threats, pressure, violent demonstrations – yes. A large-scale armed campaign and mass bloodshed – why? Perhaps because of the peculiarities of relations with China, which is clearly seen as the number one rival. Not in a military sense, but rather in the political and economic sphere, so any ‘war’ with it (forcing it to accept terms favorable to America) should be cold and ruthless. This also applies in part to Russia, though the situation is very different. All of this is neither good nor bad for Moscow. Or to put it another way, it’s both good and bad. But the main thing is that it is not the way it has been up to now.

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How far will Trump go in implementing The American System?

• Your Trump Investment Guide (James Rickards)

Now that Trump is on his way to the White House as the 47th president, it’s not too soon to start building a portfolio that will outperform the stock market in the early years of the new Trump administration. This kind of active asset allocation requires close attention to prospective policy details and their possible impact on specific business models. Not all stocks will perform well under the new administration. Some will perform brilliantly. Let’s first review the likely Trump policies and then consider their impact on certain stocks and sectors. The Revival of the American System. Under the guidance of Trump advisors Robert Lighthizer (former U.S. Trade Representative) and Peter Navarro (former Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy), Trump will pursue a twenty-first-century version of what was originally known as the American System.

The American System was invented in 1790 by Alexander Hamilton and supported by a succession of U.S. presidents and leading political figures including George Washington, Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight Eisenhower. There were opponents who favored agrarian interests over manufacturing interests, including early members of what later became the Democratic Party such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. Yet, their financial failures, including the liquidation of the First Bank of the United States (an early central bank with limited powers) and difficulties in financing the War of 1812 led to the success of the mercantilist and manufacturing programs of the American System leaders.

The American System relied on the following policies:
• High tariffs to support manufacturing and high-paying jobs
• Infrastructure investment (public and private) to support productivity
• A strong army and navy to protect the U.S. but not to fight foreign wars
• A central bank with limited powers to provide liquidity to commerce

To the extent there was government spending, it was for productive projects such as canal and road building and later to support railroads. To the extent that early central banks existed, they were for secure lending to sound entities (including the U.S. government) and not for purposes such as printing money, fixing interest rates or “stimulus.” The entire program could be summarized as sound money, smart investment and a strong military in the service of high-paying American jobs. The American System prevailed from 1790 to 1962 with occasional periods of agrarian ascendency and some disruptions such as the Civil War. Beginning after World War I, the neo-liberal movement of Austrian economists and libertarians began to promote globalist policies of open borders, open capital accounts, and free trade. Of course, free trade is a myth because of subsidies and non-tariff barriers. Comparative advantage is obsolete because the factors of production are highly mobile.

Taiwan had no comparative advantage in semiconductors in 1979, but today they dominate global production. They made that happen through a Taiwanese version of the American System. In contrast, the neo-liberals were living an ideological fantasy in which globalism was to displace sovereignty. At a minimum, their goal was the encasement of sovereigns in a larger orb of multilateral institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, WTO and the United Nations. Beginning with the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the Trade Act of 1974, and successive rounds under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (today the WTO), the U.S. embraced the neo-liberal consensus including drastic tariff cuts. As jobs moved offshore to take advantage of cheap labor, capital followed as direct foreign investment.

The result was the hollowing-out of U.S. manufacturing, wage stagnation, slower growth, greater debt, and a succession of failed wars. The open border policy of Biden-Harris is consistent with neo-liberal views on the end of sovereignty but is a death knell for American jobs and social cohesion. Trump, Lighthizer, Navarro, and others will return the United States to the pre-1962 glory days with the revival of the American System. Foreign companies will be free to sell goods to Americans but only if they are manufactured in the U.S. This will lead to a wave of inbound investment in the U.S., a reduction in U.S. trade deficits, a stronger dollar (as the world demands dollars to invest here), and higher wages for U.S. workers. Higher wages will raise real incomes, stimulate consumption, decrease income inequality and expand the tax base to help reduce deficits without raising tax rates.

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“The meltdown has gotten so heavy liberal bureaucrats are ready to form antigovernment militias and fretting about black helicopters” – Max Blumenthal

• The Great ‘Splainin’ Cometh (James Howard Kunstler)

In July 27, 1794, the non-insane members of the Convention, or national legislative body in Paris, suddenly turned on the rabid Jacobin leader Maximillian Robespierre and overthrew his ruling tyrannical bunch — who had killed 40,000 of their fellow countrymen in the paranoid orgy known as The Reign of Terror. The next day, Robespierre rode the tumbrel to his own appointment with “the national razor” and the Thermidorian Reaction was on! By the way, in one of their many acts disordering French society, the Jacobins had changed the calendar, renamed all the months, and changed the weeks from seven to ten days (to eliminate Sundays as a holy day of rest in their anti-church crusade). Thus, Thermidor, the month of mid-summer. This was but a small part of their proto-communist agenda, but you see in it the flavor of their radical extremism.

The Woke Democrats of recent times were our Jacobins, and the election of November 5, 2024, marks the kick-off of America’s Thermidorian Reaction. The crazies have been overthrown and our country awaits a restoration of norms in culture and law. No more sexualizing of children, no more flood of criminal mutts across the US border, no more furtive censorship of public speech, no more creative lawfare, no more women on the battlefield, no more “anti-racist” racism in the workplace, no more intel takeover of everyone’s private life. . . you get the picture. Many abiding mysteries about how this happened — even of what exactly did happen — remain to be sorted out by law and by history. That is probably because so much of the Woke Revolution was provoked by state-of-the-art mind-fuckery out of the giant intel blob’s psy-ops lab.

This blob, you understand, had grown to be a colossal racketeering operation with many branches and ever-spreading roots, and it cast its spells over the populace to protect these interests — which, of course, involved huge revenue streams. Perhaps its most potent spell was the manipulation of women’s emotion, harnessing female psychodrama as the propellant for mass social discord. In a nation of absent fathers, damaged children, and broken male-female relations, Donald Trump was painted as the ultimate archetypal tyrant Daddy figure to deflect the public’s attention from the actual tyranny growing under the US intel blob and its Globalist sidekicks. Case in point: RussiaGate, a long-running hysteria of fabricated accusations, a fabulous medley of scurrilous gossip, engineered at the highest levels of our government for the express purpose of wrecking Mr. Trump’s first term in office. “Witch hunt” was exactly the right term.

Many more psychodramas followed, all of them artificially cooked up by various branches of the blob: impeachments #1 and #2; the FBI-induced J-6 riot and the fake House J-6 inquiry that followed; the roll-out of DOJ-inspired fake criminal and civil cases that tied-up Mr. Trump in courtrooms through the year, and most especially the hostile news media’s presentation of all these things as one great big everlasting frenzy of on-screen women shrieking at the Daddy-figure, Donald Trump, like thirteen-year-old girls in fugues of hormonal disruption. The voters, subject to years of trips laid on them, were eventually able to see through all this induced psychodrama as to how they were being manipulated, and on November 5, they finally revolted.

Their quandary was probably epitomized by the absurdity of watching men in women’s sports — spiking volleyballs on the girls’ heads, bashing them on the lacrosse field, humiliating them in the swim lanes — and, more to the point, being helpless to do anything about it, because the officials in-charge under “Joe Biden” said it must be, no matter what you think and feel about what you are seeing. The New York Times, your field-guide to blob-think, is warning its dwindling readership of psychodrama addicts that Donald Trump will now take out his “grievances” on the noble, self-sacrificing bureaucracy that manages things so well in this land. As usual, The Times misleads and misinforms. These are the grievances of the nation that has seen its law and its culture twisted into new orders of wickedness that leave daily life in the USA perverted, dishonored, and grotesquefied.

So now Mr. Trump has picked a cabinet that scares the blob to death — for good reason. They are aiming to systematically disarm and disassemble the blob. They are a team of serious and intelligent warriors and they mean business, in particular Gaetz, Gabbard, Kennedy, Ratcliffe, and Homan, with Elon and Vivek riding shotgun. (A new FBI Director has not yet been named.) You must wonder how the blob is planning to defend itself, for it surely will resist.

Many of us believe that the two recent assassination attempts against the now-President-elect were blob-sponsored operations. Everybody expects they’ll try again. But it’s possible that the American system still has enough mojo to self-correct. A whole lot of public officials have a whole lot of ‘splainin’ to do. It looks like they will be compelled to now, including the public health officers who brought us Covid-19 and the mandated, ineffective-and-harmful mRNA vaccines. There’s every reason to believe that the ‘splainin’ can take place in correct proceedings according to law: hearings, grand juries, courts. We do have actual laws against racketeering, abuse of power, election fraud, bribery, malicious prosecution, sedition, treason, and conspiracy to commit all those crimes. Pay attention: all that is distinct from lawfare, which is making-up crimes, faking crimes, and faking procedure. You are going to see a demonstration of how law differs from lawfare. It ought to have a salutary effect on our national esprit. And that should motivate us to get on with the job of repairing the damage done to our country.

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Seamlessly switching from Trump to Musk.

• Democratic Senators Demand Musk Be Probed For Russia Ties (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk should be investigated over media claims that he communicated with several senior Russian officials in recent years, two top Democratic senators have demanded in a letter. Jack Reed, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Jeanne Shaheen, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, raised concerns about the media allegations in a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland and Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch on Friday. In October, at the height of the US presidential election, the Wall Street Journal claimed that Musk had communicated with several top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, as recently as this year.

Musk oversees billions of dollars in US government contracts as CEO of SpaceX. As the tech billionaire claims to hold top secret level security clearance, and manages extremely sensitive government contracts, his potential communication with Russia is a risk, the senators said. “These relationships between a well-known US adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in US government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder,” they wrote. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blasted the pre-election WSJ claims about the billionaire’s alleged phone calls with Putin as “disinformation.” Historically, there was only one call between the two, he said.

“It was before 2022, they spoke over the telephone,” Peskov stated, adding that they discussed Russia’s scientific progress, and likely future developments. “There were no contacts between Musk and Putin after that, and all claims otherwise are false.” The spokesman noted the claims are likely related to the “extremely confrontational electoral political fight” in the US. After his victory in the US presidential race, Donald Trump announced that Musk will head the future Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The initiative will aim to cut trillions of dollars in “waste and fraud” in annual US government spending, “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said on Thursday. Musk said his role in DOGE “is going to be a revolution.”

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“The Israeli media term it a ‘dream team’ for Netanyahu. It certainly looks that way.”

• There Are No “Easy Wars” Left To Fight (Alastair Crooke)

Israelis, as a whole, are exhibiting a rosy assurance that they can harness Trump, if not to the full annexation of the Occupied Territories (Trump in his first term did not support such annexation), but rather, to ensnare him into a war on Iran. Many (even most) Israelis are raring for war on Iran and an aggrandisement of their territory (devoid of Arabs). They are believing the puffery that Iran ‘lies naked’, staggeringly vulnerable, before a U.S. and Israeli military strike. Trump’s Team nominations, so far, reveal a foreign policy squad of fierce supporters of Israel and of passionate hostility to Iran. The Israeli media term it a ‘dream team’ for Netanyahu. It certainly looks that way. The Israel Lobby could not have asked for more. They have got it. And with the new CIA chief, they get a known ultra China hawk as a bonus.

But in the domestic sphere the tone is precisely the converse: The key nomination for ‘cleaning the stables’ is Matt Gaetz as Attorney General; he is a real “bomb thrower”. And for the Intelligence clean-up, Tulsi Gabbard is appointed as Director of National Intelligence. All intelligence agencies will report to her, and she will be responsible for the President’s Daily briefing. The intel assessments may thus begin to reflect something closer to reality. The deep Inter-Agency structure has reason to be very afraid; they are panicking – especially over Gaetz. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have the near impossible task of cutting out-of-control federal spending and currency printing. The System is deeply dependent on the bloat of government spending to keep the cogs and levers of the mammoth ‘security’ boondoggle whirring. It is not going to be yielded up without a bitter fight.

So, on the one hand, the Lobby gets a dream team (Israel), but on the other side (the domestic sphere), it gets a renegade team. This must be deliberate. Trump knows that Biden’s legacy of bloating GDP with government jobs and excessive public spending is the real ‘time bomb’ awaiting him. Again the withdrawal symptoms, as the drug of easy money is withdrawn, may prove incendiary. Moving to a structure of tariffs and low taxes will be disruptive. Whether deliberate or not, Trump is keeping his cards close to his chest. We have only glimpses of intent – and the water is being seriously muddied by the infamous ‘Inter-Agency’ grandees. For example, in respect to the Pentagon sanctioning private-sector contractors to work in Ukraine, this was done in coordination with “inter-agency stakeholders”.

The old nemesis that paralysed his first term again faces Trump. Then, during the Ukraine impeachment process, one witness (Vindman), when asked why he would not defer to the President’s explicit instructions, replied that whilst Trump has his view on Ukraine policy, that stance did NOT align with that of the ‘Inter-Agency’ agreed position. In plain language, Vindman denied that a U.S. president has agency in foreign policy formulation. In short, the ‘Inter-Agency structure’ was signalling to Trump that military support for Ukraine must continue. When the Washington Post published their detailed story of a Trump-Putin phone call – that the Kremlin emphatically states never happened – the deep structures of policy were simply telling Trump that it would be they who determine what the shape of the U.S. ‘solution’ for Ukraine would be.

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“If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags..”

• RFK Jr. vs. Big Pharma Goliath: Drug Makers, Big Food and the FDA (Sp.)

Donald Trump has tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for HHS chief – the top advisor to the president on health-related matters, and chief administrator overseeing the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, Medicare and Medicaid. Here’s what he can actually do to make real change. Fixing even a fraction of the problems contributing to America’s health crisis could prove daunting, with the nation facing an obesity epidemic (over 70% of American adults are obese or overweight), an addiction scourge (15% use illicit drugs, 20% suffer from alcohol dependency), a prescription drug crisis (66% use at least one prescription medication), contaminated drinking water (a concern for nearly half of the population), skyrocketing autism (which affects one in 36 children, compared to about one per 1,000 in the 1980s), and other serious health-related issues.

Kennedy has recognized the gargantuan scope of the challenge, saying in a recent interview that the US health care system as it’s presently set up means there’s “nothing more profitable” than keeping Americans sick “for life,” with chronic disease a big business he estimates to be worth some $4.3 trln (i.e. about five times the size of the US’s 2024 defense budget). Kennedy has yet to lay out the details of his agenda as potential Trump Health and Human Services Secretary, including for make good on promises to rein in Big Pharma, but has dropped important hints in recent interviews and speeches about:
• negotiating with drug companies on medication costs,
• barring major pharmaceuticals from being able to spend billions of dollars on television advertising, which he has characterized as a disguised form of lobbying and insurance against media criticism,
• ending vaccine mandates, at least for federal agencies and the military, and lobbying to do so at the state level, while preserving Americans’ rights to make an informed choice,
• reforming vaccine research standards. Kennedy has been outspoken in his criticism of former chief presidential medical advisor Anthony Fauci and others at the NIH over US-funded gain of function research thought to have ultimately caused the Covid crisis.

As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy would also be responsible for America’s food safety regulations, an area of government he has said repeatedly has been captured by big corporations. On this front, Kennedy could:
• encourage municipalities to get rid of fluoride in tap water, citing fluoride’s long-suspected impact IQ levels in children,
• push to ban or at least restrict artificial food coloring, additives and chemicals,
• restrict processed foods in school lunches, and roll back subsidies for corn and soy,
• end perceive FDA overregulation on “stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma,” as he suggested in a recent X post.
• RFK Jr. also wants federally-funded medical schools to focus more on nutrition, and to create a national fitness standard like the one promoted by his uncle – President John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy has promised to take on conflicts of interest between regulators and the entities they’re meant to be regulating – citing money given to the FDA by Big Pharma, and corporate links to health and dietary advisories. The HSS Secretary job requires Senate approval, meaning Kennedy’s selection could become a daunting uphill battle come January, especially if Big Pharma and Big Food use their lobbying muscle to pull strings to block his appointment. Battle lines are already being drawn, with GOP senators promising to give him a shot, calling his selection “a bad day for Big Pharma,” and his candidacy a “brilliant” move by Donald Trump. Senate Democrats have rushed to dub Kennedy a “fringe conspiracy theorist” spouting “outlandish views on basic scientific facts,” over his much-publicized vaccine hesitancy, and argued that his selection “would be nothing short of a disaster.”

Senior officials from agencies Kennedy would be tasked with overseeing also called him out, with Clinton-era HHS chief Donna Shalala saying he’s “totally unqualified” and “dangerous” to America and the world. Former Obama HHS chief Kathleen Sebilius, meanwhile, has expressed hopes that Kennedy would get bogged down in the agency’s bureaucracy. “He has no organizational management experience, and HHS is one of the largest domestic organizations,” she said, highlighting the agency’s 83,000 employee workforce and massive $1.7 trillion budget. Kennedy has expressed readiness to work with the HHS and its subordinate agencies, but warned naysayers in top jobs, including at the FDA, that he will not tolerate efforts to block his initiatives. “If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags,” he wrote in a tweet last month.

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“That the Democrats stood down from stealing the presidency in 2024 doesn’t mean they didn’t steal House and Senate seats..”

• Has Matt Gaetz Been Set-up for Eviction from Public Life? (Paul Craig Roberts)

I have had a horrible thought. Of all of Trump’s appointees, Matt Gaetz and Robert Kennedy will be the most difficult to get confirmed. And Gaetz has resigned from the House of Representatives where he is the most effective member against the ruling establishment. Was his appointment as Attorney General a trick to get him out of public life? Robert Kennedy’s appointment was said to be in doubt because he would be hard to confirm, but so would Gaetz. Gaetz’s high profile powerful position scares to death the corrupt Justice (sic) Department, the corrupt FBI, the corrupt Democrats, and the corrupt ruling elites. Perhaps the Senate will let Trump have his appointments without confirmation as recess appointments, so non-confirmation is not an issue.

It is revealing that there were no confirmation worries about Trump’s appointments of his Zionist war cabinet. Some claim that it is not a war cabinet, that Stefanik, Waltz, Rubio, and Hegseth have been cured of their Zionism by Israel’s massacre of Palestinians. Perhaps, but I have not heard a recantation from a single one of the “die-for-Israel” crowd. Certainly, Huckabee, sent by Trump as ambassador to Israel, and Witkoff, sent by Trump as his Special Envoy to the Middle East, will not take exception to Israel’s claim to title to Palestine. So how are they going to bring about any Israeli restraint? Isn’t it curious that Trump didn’t appoint anyone inclined to rein-in Israel?

That the Democrats stood down from stealing the presidency in 2024 doesn’t mean they didn’t steal House and Senate seats. The Republicans barely did well enough to change a thin Democrat Senate majority into a thin Republican majority, and it seems there was little, if any, change in the House. In contrast, when Reagan won in 1980 the Republicans captured 12 Democrat seats in the Senate. It is suspicious that Trump’s convincing win did not carry over into Congress.

Trump is taking Republican members of Congress as appointees into his administration. Republican governors can appoint replacements until the next election, but the appointed replacements might be vulnerable as they were not elected. Matt Gaetz was secure in his base. Will his appointed replacement be as secure? We can be thankful that Trump has appointed some officials who fight for the correct causes. We can keep hoping that Trump will make a difference.


https://twitter.com/i/status/1857135399887405420

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“It is likely that Trump appointed her to shake up the intel community, which is regarded by many as the black heart of the deep state..”

• Tulsi Gabbard Right Pick to Shake-Up US Spy Agencies – Giraldi (Sp.)

President-elect Donald Trump nominated the former Democratic congresswoman and a 21-year army reserve veteran to oversee the bewildering array of 18 US spy agencies in his incoming administration. “A foreign policy and national security appointment that has created considerable dissent is that of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence [DNI],” Philip Giraldi, a former CIA operations officer with experience in Europe and the Middle East, told Sputnik. The CIA veteran said much of the dissent comes from inside the ‘intelligence community’, including active officers and former staff of organizations like the CIA and NSA. Objections to Gabbard’s nomination have focused on her lack of intelligence experience, claiming she will “be unable to perceive problems among an unruly 18-member intelligence community,” the pundit said.

But Giraldi countered that she was “smart, experienced and capable enough to gather her own staff around her that will guide her way through the shoals of Washington DC.” “To my mind, she is an excellent choice, coming from outside of the intelligence community ‘club,’ and could be an effective and ethical DNI,” he added. The former CIA officer noted that Gabbard is viewed as a “peace candidate” for her opposition to endless overseas wars, the US military occupation of parts of Syria and the demonization of China. But she is also known for her support for Israel, currently waging a war against the Palestinian territory of Gaza. “It is likely that Trump appointed her to shake up the intel community, which is regarded by many as the black heart of the deep state,” Giraldi said. “She will, of course, be both helped and handicapped by being provided with plenty of ‘direction’ by a president who is fundamentally ignorant of foreign policy and national security issues.”

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“If Gaetz gets in, I do believe he will cut the legs out from under the giant lawfare operation that has grown up around his office in recent years..”

• Tulsi and the Establishment Meltdown (Tom Woods)

[..] let me say a quick something about Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. Tulsi is said to be “unqualified” because she doesn’t come from the existing cabal of liars and propagandists who have never told the American public the truth in their lives. Rep. Abigail Spanberger in particular is horrified at the prospect that our intelligence world might not bombard us 24 hours a day with lies that would insult a second grader: “As a former CIA case officer, I saw the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community put their lives on the line every day for this country — and I am appalled at the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to lead DNI. Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics [sic] in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin. As a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security.”

Rep. Spanberger is a “former CIA case officer,” which means we should favor the opposite of whatever she says. She claims to be concerned about “conspiracy theories,” when it was contractors with her beloved CIA who spun the absurd theory that Russia had come up with the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop (honestly, if you’re going to pretend a foreign power invented a story, make it not as weird and random as “the president’s son had a laptop with stuff on it”). She is deeply worried about someone who “cozies up to dictators” — the CIA would never do that! It just installs them. Here’s what our friend Dave Smith had to say about the present situation:

“A lot of crazy things have happened in this country over the last few years, so you may have forgotten this one minor story from eight years ago: The US intelligence agencies framed the sitting US President for treason. They all knew that Donald Trump wasn’t involved in a conspiracy with the Russians, but they lied. Well, that President is back AND the boss of the Intelligence agencies is now, not only someone completely outside of that conspiracy, but someone who was slandered with that same accusation, by the same nasty woman whose campaign came up with the whole Trump frame job to begin with.”

Interesting times. As for Matt Gaetz, they really don’t like him. John Bolton says Gaetz “must be the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history.” National Review Online has a predictable article against him. JD Vance snapped back: “The main issue with Matt Gaetz is that he used his office to prosecute his political opponents and authorized federal agents to harass parents who were peacefully protesting at school board meetings. Oh wait, that’s actually Merrick Garland, the current attorney general.” They’re appalled that the attorney general isn’t being chosen from D.C. swampdom, because that’s what they’ve come to expect. But John F. Kennedy didn’t do that, and neither did Ronald Reagan. If Gaetz gets in, I do believe he will cut the legs out from under the giant lawfare operation that has grown up around his office in recent years — and this, rather than genuine concerns about his qualifications (these people care about qualifications all of a sudden?) is what the people screaming about him are actually worried about.

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“Do not let his various degrees fool you. He is neither an egg-headed nor lace-curtained lawyer. He is an intellectual who knows how to scrap..”

• Trump Makes Brilliant Choice for the Next White House Counsel (Turley)

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General has consumed most of the media attention in the last week. Indeed, it seems to have sucked the oxygen out of this city. The media frenzy over Gaetz and a couple of other nominations has served to brush over an appointment that should be universally praised: William McGinley as the next White House Counsel. I had the pleasure of teaching Bill at George Washington Law School, and he is ideal for this position, particularly at this critical time in our country. Bill was one of my students in first-year torts in the mid-1990s. He was a gifted student who knew early on that he wanted to work along the borderline of law and politics. It is an area where GW has long excelled, and Bill was quickly recognized as one of the rising stars among young Republican lawyers. (Notably, Bill attended my class a couple years after prior Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway).

Bill received a B.A. in history from UCLA and a master’s in history from California State University. During his first summer, when other students were seeking summer internships with firms, Bill clerked for the Republic National Committee (RNC) and delved into the world of law, politics, and policy. Upon his graduation, his rise in the profession can only be described as meteoric. At a young age, he would serve as Deputy General Counsel to the RNC and coordinate the national campaigns for candidates and ballot initiatives. He also served as counsel to the RNC Standing Committee on Rules, the powerful group that establishes the framework for the party and its conventions. Bill ultimately became the General Counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) before becoming a partner at some of the most prestigious law firms, including Patton Boggs and Jones Day.

He also remained active as an alumnus at GW Law School, supporting other students in pursuing their careers in Washington, D.C., and other cities. Bill has all the qualities of an ideal White House Counsel. He can offer the President the clarity of judgment and foresight needed in this position, which requires the authority to give needed direction on the best course for achieving goals and unwanted advice when needed. That is the model of past successful White House Counsels, like the late C. Boyden Gray. It requires the trust of a president that, while the advice is sometimes inconvenient, his counsel seeks to facilitate, not frustrate, his legacy.

Bill is a tenacious and seasoned fighter with the “street cred” to be taken seriously by everyone in this city. He also has a deep-seated love for the law and legal education. Trump found a White House counsel who knows this city and how to get things done despite the deep partisan divides. Do not let his various degrees fool you. He is neither an egg-headed nor lace-curtained lawyer. He is an intellectual who knows how to scrap. He is someone who not only has a deep understanding of history but also someone who knows how to make history. Trump picked wisely with Bill McGinley, and I am particularly proud of his success as a leader in our profession.

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“Section 230 only confers benefits on Big Tech companies when they operate, in the words of the statute, “in good faith.”

• X Sees Return Of Major Advertisers Under Fire From FCC (ZH)

While Mark Cuban and other sore losers are leaving X to shout into the void, several major advertisers have returned to the platform. Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Brothers, Discovery and Lionsgate Entertainment have all resumed ad spending on the social media giant – albeit this is more of a toe-dip than a full recommitment. According to Adweek, the brands collectively spent less than $3.3 million on X from January to September 2024, a far cry from the $170 million spent during the same period in 2023. Either way, it’s an admission that pulling ad spend over ‘hate speech’ and ‘antisemitism’ was nothing more than a giant virtue signal, particularly considering Facebook and Instagram’s long history of providing a safe forum for child sexual abuse. While a global survey by Kantar of senior marketers across 20 countries found that 26% of them plan to cut spending on X in 2025, the 2024 election may have changed that.

“X’s owner now has the ear of the president-elect, a man who has a long history of helping his friends, and punishing his enemies,” said Max Willens, senior analyst at Emarketer. “Sending at least a trickle of ad spending toward X may be seen as good for business, albeit in an indirect way.” Speaking of the tide turning, the woke cabal of advertisers trying to starve conservative platforms out of a voice is now coming under fire (have we mentioned lately that we really appreciate our premium subscribers?). In a Wednesday letter to Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple, and Meta, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr accused them of having “participated in a censorship cartel that included not only technology and social media companies but advertising, marketing, and so-called “fact-checking” organizations as well as the Biden-Harris Administration itself.”

“The relevant conduct extended from removing or blocking social media posts to suppress their information and viewpoints, including through efforts to delist them, lower their rankings, or harm their profitability.” Carr then suggested that their protection from liability under Section 230 may be on the line. “As you know, Big Tech’s prized liability shield, Section 230, is codified in the Communications Act, which the FCC administers. As relevant here, Section 230 only confers benefits on Big Tech companies when they operate, in the words of the statute, “in good faith.” Wow… Carr then set his sights on NewsGuard – which Jonathan Turley notes has been long accused by conservatives “of targeting conservative and libertarian sites and carrying out the agenda of its co-founder Steven Brill. Conversely, many media outlets have heralded his efforts to identify disinformation sites for advertisers and agencies.”

Basically, NewsGuard bombards conservative sites with struggle-session questionnaire emails demanding explanations for the slightest of indiscretions, after which they issue a “report card” that advertisers use to justify pulling ad spend. As Carr notes in the letter; “It is in this context that I am writing to obtain information about your work with the one specific organization – the Orwellian named NewsGuard. As exposed by the Twitter Files, NewsGuard is a for-profit company that operates as part of the broader censorship cartel. Indeed, NewsGuard bills itself as the Internet’s arbiter of truth or, as its co-founder put it, a “Vaccine Against Misinformation.” Newsguard purports to rate the credibility of news and information outlets and tells readers and advertisers which outlets they can trust.” Carr suggests following NewsGuard’s ratings may constitute a violation of Section 230 (this is huge).

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“..we need to find out if members of the German government were aware of this incident before or after it occurred..”

• Germany’s AfD Urges UN to Investigate Nord Stream (Sp.)

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has called on the United Nations to prosecute an inquiry into the Nord Sream pipelines explosions and find out whether government officials were aware of this incident, party’s co-chair Tino Chrupalla said. “We believe that the incident needs to be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible must be held accountable. In particular, we need to find out if members of the German government were aware of this incident before or after it occurred. We have called for the establishment of an inquiry commission in the European Parliament and are now calling for a UN investigation,” Chrupalla told Turkish newspaper Aydinlik.

The Nord Stream 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 data on other countries’ investigations into the explosions, but never received it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

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“The Ukrainian leader governs like a king leading a “terrorist organization..”

• Trump’s Win Means End Of Zelensky – Ukrainian MP (RT)

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election means that Vladimir Zelensky will soon be removed from power, which will be great for Ukraine, exiled lawmaker Artyom Dmitruk has told RT. The Ukrainian MP fled from his home country earlier this year, saying he feared for his safety after taking a public stance against Kiev’s crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He went to the UK and is currently fighting an extradition request, which he claims is based on fabricated charges issued at Zelensky’s orders. The Ukrainian leader governs like a king leading a “terrorist organization,” Dmitruk said in an interview on Thursday, citing the effects that Zelensky’s policies had on the country. The incumbent government does not care about Ukrainian lives, persecutes political opponents, and enriches officials through corruption, he alleged.

“This man, he has managed to steal more than all previous presidents who robbed Ukraine. His money certainly has more blood on it than anyone’s,” the lawmaker said. Zelensky’s team was counting on Vice President Kamala Harris winning the election, which would have allowed the grift to continue, Dmitruk believes. He sees Trump’s victory as “a clear signal that their power is coming to an end.” “Zelensky must go,” he asserted. “I say: liberate Ukraine from Zelensky. This is my key political slogan.” “As a citizen, I wish Ukrainian issues were decided by Ukraine itself,” he added. “But thanks to all our previous presidents we have lost… sovereignty. Unfortunately, others now have to decide for us.” Dmitruk does not expect Trump to end the conflict “in 24 hours,” which he said he would do if elected. But reaching a peace deal would secure the president-elect’s legacy, which gives him a strong incentive to deliver, he reasoned.

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“When given a choice between peace and war, Zelensky helped himself by choosing war..”

• No Use Blaming Britain For Kiev’s War Policy – Ukrainian MP (RT)

Kiev’s confirmation that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson derailed peace talks with Russia in 2022 is an attempt to avoid responsibility for Vladimir Zelensky’s decision to seek a military victory, exiled Ukrainian MP Artyom Dmitruk asserted in an interview with RT on Thursday. Moscow and Kiev held several rounds of talks shortly after the conflict escalated in February 2022. In Istanbul, the two sides preliminarily agreed a draft truce, but Kiev later rejected the document and pulled out of the talks. David Arakhamia, the Zelensky-allied MP who led the Ukrainian delegation, confirmed in November 2023 that Johnson, the British prime minister at the time, had advised Kiev not to sign anything and “just continue fighting.” “Don’t put your responsibility on Britain and Boris Johnson personally. What is that? Is that some hide-and-seek game?” Dmitruk, a vocal critic of Zelensky, said.

The Ukrainian leader’s popularity was rapidly dwindling before the hostilities with Russia started, the lawmaker pointed out. The conflict provided justification to remain in power and keep enriching himself and his inner circle, he alleged. Zelensky’s term as president expired in May, but he refused to transfer power to the parliament speaker as mandated by the Ukrainian constitution. “Terrifying things happen during war. Terrifying things that generate huge money, bigger than anything anyone could ever make in Ukraine. And he leads it all,” Dmitruk claimed. When given a choice between peace and war, Zelensky helped himself by choosing war, the MP stated.

Dmitruk fled from his home country earlier this year after publicly criticizing Kiev for its intensifying crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the country’s largest religious organization, to which Dmitruk belongs. He claims to be a victim of political persecution. The lawmaker described the ouster of Zelensky as a key condition that he hopes will clear the way for peace, a new election, and national reconciliation. He hopes that the expected change in US foreign policy under the incoming president, Donald Trump, will help facilitate that outcome.

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It gets crazier as we go along.

• Laboratory Head Given Licence To Lie In Novichok Show Trial (Helmer)

Anthony Hughes, the retired judge (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley) directing the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry in London, opened the questioning of a senior British Government chemical warfare agent on Wednesday by telling him “you’re not bound by your statement, but by all means use it to refresh your recollection” — page 5. This is a licence to lie. The head of chemical and biological analysis at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down was given the cipher MK26 to conceal his name — his face screened from view in the videotape of the hearing — to do just that. Hughes also arranged for his assisting counsel, Andrew O’Connor KC, to give the government official this version of the witness oath. “May I ask you,” O’Connor said, “whether you have had an opportunity to read through this statement before giving evidence today? A. Yes, I have. Q. Are its contents true to the best of your knowledge and belief? A. Yes, they are. Q. Thank you.”

As Hughes and O’Connor know very well, the official oath in British courtroom practice is that witness swears his testimony “shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” In this case, the judge and his lawyer gave the witness a licence not to tell the whole truth. Just in case these licences to lie and to evade the truth were spotted by the public, O’Connor told MK26 that he and Hughes accepted his “statement does not contain everything that you can say about these matters because there are some further issues, further material that is covered by the restriction [secrecy] orders. A. Yes, that’s correct. Q. As a result, it’s right, is it not, that you will be coming back when the Inquiry sits in its closed sessions to give further evidence and on that occasion you will be able to provide the Chair with the information which you cannot provide today? A. Yes.” — page 6.

According to the exhibits MK26 had signed for the Inquiry, of the two pages of witness statement he had signed to the police on July 16, 2018, everything has been blacked out except one short paragraph giving the official accreditation of the workshops MK26 headed at the DSTL Porton Down. A second witness statement MK26 signed for the Coroners Court on August 20, 2019, comprises five pages, but they have all been censored. The only lines which remain say: “I have complied with, and will continue to comply with, my duty to the court to provide independent assistance by way of objective unbiased opinion in relation to matters within my expertise.” At the Bar this is recognized as the Queen Gertrude defence for lying; it comes from “the lady doth protest too much, methinks”, the well-known line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A Defence Ministry employee cannot be independent, or objective, or unbiased in relation to his official work orders.

The political significance of the Porton Down lying has been international. It was the foundation of the claim the British Government made to its NATO allies five weeks after Sergei and Yulia Skripal’s collapse that the UK was the target of a Novichok attack by Russia. According to a letter sent to the NATO headquarters by Sir Mark Sedwill, then the Prime Minister’s national security advisor and supervisor of intelligence operations, “I would like to share with you and Allies further information regarding our assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian state was responsible for the Salisbury attack. Only Russia has the technical means, operational experience and the motive. The OPCW’s. [Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons] analysis matches the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’s [DSTL Porton Down] own, confirming once again the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical of high purity that was used in Salisbury.

OPCW have always been clear that it was their role to identify what substance was used, not who was responsible… of course, the DSTL analysis does not identify the country or laboratory of origin of the agent used in this attack…We therefore continue to judge that only Russia has the technical means, operational experience and motive for the attack on the Skripals and that it is highly likely that the Russian state was responsible. There is no plausible alternative explanation.” Sedwill was lying. Porton Down was lying. OPCW repeated the lies it was given by the British. There was, there still is, a plausible alternative explanation. In his appearance at Hughes’s hearing this week, MK26 tried to conceal this with what an independent British organic chemist with comparable expertise to MK26 describes as “camouflage science – faulty assumptions, missing chemical names, speculative findings, a day of witchcraft.”

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Good question.

• How Did A Puritanical Nation End Up Idolizing Transvestites? (Frascolla)

A cause cherished by Mary Shelley and Harriet Taylor Mill’s husband is the equality of women with men. As bad as feminism is, and as bad as the world is for most Western women (who can’t start a family or find fulfillment in their jobs), there’s no denying that, in the 19th century, marriage could leave women to a private despotism of bad husbands. In the 20th century, the Unitarians were advocating for the equality of black people and, later, for gay people. What did the feminist, black and gay causes have in common? The fact that they proposed social reforms that went against society (it’s worth remembering that the U.S. is a country with deep racist roots). In practice, the moral rule ends up being to go against society – and that’s why the U.S. ended up embracing transvestites and putting them to read stories in children’s libraries.

Why did this doctrine gain so much traction in the U.S.? For two reasons, the main one being political liberalism. The United States was even more liberal than England, since, unlike the latter, it never prohibited Catholicism by law. Thus, the United States had nothing remotely similar to the Inquisition, and Unitarianism enjoyed the same freedom as any other religion. There is no room, in the institutional history of the United States, for the category of heretic. Nothing is heresy, everything is religion. Unitarianism spread like wildfire. If in 1774 they founded the first church in England, in 1805 (only 31 years later), they already had the rectorship of Harvard, and in 1825 they already had the sixth president of the United States. The United States became independent and constituted itself as a nation in 1776, that is, only two years after the founding of the Unitarian Church in England. Thus, we can say that the country existed for less than 30 years free of great Unitarian influence.

If the United States, being liberal, cannot adhere to any religious creed, and does not have any strong leader (such as an Emperor or a Supreme Leader), power ends up falling into the hands of technocrats trained by the most important universities. Unitarianism has this convenience of not seeing itself as a religion among others; thus, its principles are easily secularized – so much so that Mill’s On Liberty is a typical work of Unitarianism, but it is not seen as such. In addition to being considered secular, Unitarianism ended up giving rise to theological liberalism (which we have already discussed) and spreading through various churches and even synagogues. Protestants of any denomination ended up being divided between fundamentalists (who denied science) and liberals (who repeated the Unitarians). That is why we see so much transvestites and rainbows in the Episcopal and Anglican Churches, even though the thing arose in the Unitarian Church: both adhered to liberalism, instead of fundamentalism.

In view of this, ladies and gentlemen, what we can conclude is that the adoration of transvestites is an inevitable consequence of liberalism, and that the Inquisition burned too few people.

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Stallone

 

 

duckpuppy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1857071025617285467

 

 

Paddle

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 3 2024

Nov 032024
 
 November 3, 2024  Posted by at 9:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  86 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Field with Flowers near Arles 1888

 

• “The American System” Made America Great (Rickards)
• Elon Musk Asks Ron Paul To Join Department Of Gov’t Efficiency (ZH)
• House Speaker ‘Really Bullish’ Washington Will Be All-GOP Town In January (JTN)
• House Speaker Plan: Moving Bureaucrats From DC To Reshape Government (JTN)
• Candidates’ Final Tours: A Flustered Harris, And A Joyful Trump (Whedon)
• People Aren’t Garbage. Partisan Politics Is (Matt Taibbi)
• Trump, Vance Take Aim At Renewable Energy, Many Communities Already Did (JTN)
• Polymarket’s Trump-Bullish Whale: “Absolutely No Political Agenda” (ZH)
• Leftists Predict Hysterical Dystopian Future (ZH)
• Kiev Officials ‘Ready’ For Potential Trump Presidency – WaPo (RT)
• West’s Rules-Based Order To Collapse Soon – Medvedev
• West Sees Red Over Failed Second Color Revolution In Georgia (SCF)
• Novichok: UK Government Sedated The Skripals To Stop Them Talking (Helmer)
• Brutally Murdered 13 Years Ago, Gaddafi Is Only Growing More Beloved (Fetouri)

 

 

 

 

Maher
https://twitter.com/i/status/1852565201515630859

In the bag

Tucker

Fulton County

RFK

Dec. 5?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1852539432395845815

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1852686204921426042

Baris

Jesse

 

 

Tucker Grand Finale With President Donald Trump in Glendale, AZ (start at 1.12?!, Trump at 1.38)

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Donald Trump recently did an interview with John Micklethwait, Bloomberg’s top editor and a former editor of The Economist. Micklethwait made the tired point that Trump’s tariffs would raise prices and be bad for Americans.”

• “The American System” Made America Great (Rickards)

Most of us have been taught that free trade is good and that tariffs are bad. And on the surface it certainly seems true. The theory of free trade based on comparative advantage was advocated by British economist David Ricardo in the early 19th century. Ricardo’s theory said that trading nations are endowed with attributes that give them a relative advantage in producing certain goods versus others. These attributes could consist of natural resources, climate, population, river systems, education, ports, financial capacity or any other factor of production. Nations should produce those goods as to which they have a natural advantage and trade with other nations for goods where the advantage was not so great. Countries should specialize in what they do best, and let others also specialize in what they do best. Then countries could simply trade the goods they make for the goods made by others.

All sides would be better off because prices would be lower as a result of specialization in those goods where you have a natural advantage. It’s a nice theory often summed up in the idea that Tom Brady shouldn’t mow his own lawn because it makes more sense to pay a landscaper while he practices football. For example, if the U.K. had an advantage in textile production and Portugal had an advantage in wine production, then the U.K. and Portugal should trade wool for wine. But if the theory of comparative advantage were true, Japan would still be exporting tuna fish instead of cars, computers, TVs, steel and much more. The same can be said of the globalists’ view that capital should flow freely across borders. That might be advantageous in theory but market manipulation by central banks and rogue actors like Goldman Sachs and big hedge funds make it a treacherous proposition.

The problem with this theory of comparative advantage is that the factors of production are not permanent and they are not immobile. If labor moves from the countryside to the city in China, then suddenly China has a comparative advantage in cheap labor. If finance capital moves from New York banks to direct foreign investment in Chinese factories, then China has the comparative advantage in capital also. Trump understands this, Micklethwait doesn’t. Trump didn’t just make polite conversation in the interview. He called out Micklethwait by saying, “It must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you that you’re totally wrong.” Ouch! Micklethwait certainly isn’t alone. Listening to hysterical commentary from the mainstream media about Trump’s tariffs, one would think his policies were in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Nothing could be further from the truth. By advocating tariffs, Trump actually wants to return to what made America great in the first place. In fact, tariffs are as American as apple pie. From 1790–1962, the United States pursued high tariff policies under a program known as the American System. It was created by George Washington’s secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who drafted a report to Congress called the Report on Manufactures presented in 1791. Hamilton proposed that in order to have a strong country, America needed a strong manufacturing base with jobs that taught skills and offered income security. To achieve this, Hamilton proposed subsidies to U.S. businesses so they could compete successfully against more established U.K. and European businesses. These subsidies might include grants of government land or rights of way, purchase orders from the government itself or outright payments. This was a mercantilist system that encouraged a trade surplus and the accumulation of gold reserves.

Hamilton’s plan was later proposed on a broader scale by Kentucky Sen. Henry Clay. This new plan began with the Tariff of 1816. Later on, Abraham Lincoln adopted the American System as his platform in the election of 1860, and it became a bedrock principle of the new Republican Party. It was affirmed by William McKinley at the end of the 19th century and by Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. The 19th and early 20th centuries were a heyday of the American System. This period was characterized by enormous economic growth and population expansion by the U.S. The American System was also accompanied mostly by low inflation or even deflation (which increases the purchasing power of everyday citizens) despite occasional financial panics and some inflation during the Civil War. The key takeaway is that America grew rich and powerful from 1787–1962, a period of 175 years, using tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to trade to nurture domestic industry and protect high-paying manufacturing jobs.

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Ron Paul was made for this.

• Elon Musk Asks Ron Paul To Join Department Of Gov’t Efficiency (ZH)

With just two days left before the presidential election, Libertarians are waking up Saturday to a bunch of buzz on X about a potential “Ron Paul Revolution” in the White House—only possible if Donald Trump wins next week. On Friday evening, AFpost wrote on X, “Ron Paul says he wants to join Elon Musk to cut government waste in second Trump administration.” Musk chimed in on X: “It would be great to have Ron Paul as part of the Department of Government Efficiency!” Ron Paul responded: “I’d be happy to talk with you about it, Elon.” X users instantly went bananas on the prospect that Musk would give Ron Paul a role in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, only if Trump wins. For months, Musk and Trump have been discussing DOGE, which the billionaire would serve as “Secretary of Cost-Cutting” – a government agency that doesn’t exist yet…

Musk would basically take his skills as a successful manager – in which he slashed 80% of the Twitter workforce a few years ago to make the ‘free speech’ social media platform operate more efficiently. In August, Musk said the goal of DOGE was to cut wasteful spending by the federal government and roll back massive regulations that stifle the economy. Musk recently said DOGE could identify “at least $2 trillion in cuts” as part of a formal review of federal agencies. This would also mean tens of thousands of job cuts—if not more—across the federal government. Just imagine if Trump wins, Musk and Ron Paul would wind down unneeded federal agencies like a scene from Argentina’s Javier Milei.

You hear that, Libertarian… Deal of a lifetime. And Libertarians, even Trump’s VP JD Vance, is coming around to Ron Paul’s argument on the Federal Reserve. Ron Paul had fun on X in the overnight hours. Delayed over the years … but now entirely possible. For decades, Ron Paul has proposed a smaller government by eliminating several wasteful federal agencies, ending foreign wars, eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends, eliminating the estate tax, and—everyone’s favorite—abolishing the Federal Reserve. This has become true over the years. The only problem is when federal government spending accounts for 22.7% of the US GDP (in fiscal year 2023), reducing this spending could spark a recession. However, if Trump wins, DOGE could be messaged to the American people as a way to curb sky-high inflation sparked by disastrous ‘Bidenomics.’

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“..Hispanics are no longer a Democrat bloc, that they have become free agent voters..”

• House Speaker ‘Really Bullish’ Washington Will Be All-GOP Town In January (JTN)

House Speaker Mike Johnson told Just the News on Thursday he is increasingly confident that Republicans will sweep control of Congress and the White House in next Tuesday’s election, saying Hispanics, Blacks, Jews, union workers and other Democrat-leaning constituencies are switching parties over frustration the country is moving in the wrong direction. “I feel really bullish,” Johnson said in a wide-ranging interview with the John Solomon Reports podcast when asked about the GOP’s chances for a clean sweep of Washington D.C. “….I believe we’re going to win unified government with Republicans back in the White House and controlling the Senate, and we grow the House majority.” Johnson said the election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris presented a rare moment in U.S. history where voters could choose between two White House holders – a former president and a current vice president – based on their records and not just their promises.

“I genuinely believe we’re going to have an historic demographic shift in this election,” he said. “I think when all the analysis is done on the other side of this, they will see that we had a record number of Hispanic and Latino voters, for example, coming into the Republican Party, a record number of Black and African-American voters, Jewish voters, union workers. I mean, people who have not traditionally been in our camp are coming now. “And the reason is because they’re desperate for change, and they know the unique thing about this presidential contest is that both of these persons have had an administration. This isn’t theoretical…. They know what life is like under Harris and Biden, and they know what it was like under Trump, and I think that has a big effect across the board and all the way down the ballot,” he said.

Johnson’s comments follow several recent polls noting demographic shifts toward Trump by several Democratic constituencies even as Harris holds a commanding leading with female voters. The Speaker also reacted to comments the new CEO of the Spanish-language TV network Univision, Daniel Alegre, made on the John Solomon Reports podcast on Wednesday that Hispanics are no longer a Democrat bloc, that they have become free agent voters driven by issues and are shifting this election toward Trump and the GOP.

“Hispanic and Latino voters are just like everybody else, and they they’re so fed up and fired up about the cost of living and rising crime rates in all their communities.,” Johnson said, adding that border security has become another compelling concern for Latino voters. “And then also, on top of that, remember that Hispanic and Latino voters are very family oriented,” he added. “Many of them have deep religious traditions and beliefs, and they see the Democratic Party abandoning all of these sort of foundational principles. And they’ve had enough, and I think they have the same frustration everybody else does. I think that’s why they’re coming into our camp.”

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” I just think there’s almost unlimited potential in front of us, and we’ve got to seize that moment..”

• House Speaker Plan: Moving Bureaucrats From DC To Reshape Government (JTN)

House Speaker Mike Johnson says Republicans have an ambitious plan to reshape and shrink federal government if they win the election. That vision includes a plan to deport tens of thousands of federal bureaucrats from Washington and relocate them to middle America. In a wide-ranging interview this week with Just the News, Johnson said he and other GOP leaders wants to move federal agency offices, personnel and assets from the nation’s capital to bring them closer to the people they serve and farther from the monied special interests that often hijack policy and spending. “There’s a lot of talk about uprooting, you know, these entrenched bureaucracies and putting them out elsewhere around the country,” Johnson told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

He explained such a re-invention of the monstrous federal bureaucracy with more than 2 million federal workers and contractors would integrate with former President Donald Trump’s plan to name billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to lead a government efficiency office and also tie to fiscal conservatives’ vision to eliminate federal bureaucracies and send monies to the states in the form of block grants. The Louisiana Republican said the deportation of Washington bureaucrats would also create a natural shrinkage in the size and cost of government, “That accomplishes a lot of important goals but the first would be that you don’t have all these career civil service law protected bureaucrats,” he said. “Some of them have been camped out of these agencies for decades. They’re nameless, faceless. We don’t know who to hold accountable,” he said.

Johnson continued, saying “The idea is, if you move the agency to, you know, northern Kansas or southwest New Mexico, or wherever it is around the country, then some of the swamp dwellers they will not desire to follow the job to the new, less desirable location,” he added. “They love the swamp. You know they want to stay. They’ll turn them into lobbyist or something to stay in D.C.” The mass transfer and departure of bureaucrats then leads to a “business reorganization proposition” for federal government, he said. “You’ve got agencies that you can scale down because you have empty cubicles and … almost all the agencies are bloated and inefficient,” he said. “So you can scale that down. And then in the cubicles that you do need to fill, we’ve had America First Policy Institute and some of our other think tanks that have been working to develop a notebook full of highly qualified, previously vetted, limited government conservatives who have expertise in these areas.”

Johnson’s comments were the most sweeping he’s made about a congressional vision for shrinking the budget and reshaping the budget. He said the process would take a “blowtorch” to the regulatory state and align government agencies in the aftermath of a historic Supreme Court ruling this summer that reversed a decades old “Chevron doctrine.” Under the new ruling, federal bureaucrats can’t make up or interpret their own regulations and simply must enforce those authorized by Congress. “We have a once in a lifetime, yeah, once in a lifetime opportunity to really claw back article one authority to the legislative branch under the Constitution and have an administration that is in tune with that whole agenda. So look, I just think there’s almost unlimited potential in front of us, and we’ve got to seize that moment,” Johnson said.

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“We’ve done something that’s unprecedented, and we’ve had fun, but now we have to get, hopefully, to work.”

• Candidates’ Final Tours: A Flustered Harris, And A Joyful Trump (Whedon)

With the election just days away, both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are in the final stretch of their campaign tours, but the tones of each couldn’t contrast more, with Trump on offense and on message and Harris playing defense against the political far-left at her own rallies. Though Harris initially attempted to portray her campaign as one of “joy”, Trump has taken on an almost jovial tone as polling and betting odds increasingly paint him as the favorite. His recent Madison Square Garden rally, moreover, was an offensive play in the heart of Democratic territory and saw tens of thousands of people gather in the Big Apple for what he later deemed a “love fest.” Polling data shows a tight contest, with Trump holding a 0.3% lead in the RealClearPolitics average. That outlet currently projects Trump to win 287 electoral votes to Harris’s 251. Polymarket betting odds also favor Trump to win with a 61.1% chance to Harris’s 39.0%.

Though the race remains in tossup territory, the Trump campaign is quite optimistic. Campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio, this week, released a memo highlighting the difference in polling between this election and 2020. The key point was that, in every swing state, Trump is polling better than in 2020 by a significant margin. “I point this out NOT to stoke overconfidence or complacency, but to illustrate just how close this election is and that victory is within our reach,” he wrote. “It is crucial we do not get distracted by the media noise and remain focused on our closing message, persuading the few remaining undecided voters and turning out our base.” The Trump campaign appears to have taken his words to heart. Kicking off the week with his blowout rally at Madison Square Garden, Trump proceeded to hold event after event all across all the key battlegrounds, often doing two rallies per day.

Election weekend will see him go beyond that and hold three rallies each on Saturday and Sunday, with four more scheduled for Monday. While two are set for North Carolina, Trump plans to appear in Salem, Va., as the Old Dominion appears competitive. His Saturday events come off of Friday rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin. His Sunday will feature rallies in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia while his Monday will see him hold four more, two in Pennsylvania and one each in North Carolina and Michigan. Trump opened his Michigan rally, by applauding the crowd sizes and positive energy of his events, including stunts such as driving a garbage truck after President Biden called his supporters “garbage.” “They’ll never be anything like what we’ve done,” he said of Democratic rallies. “We’ve done something that’s unprecedented, and we’ve had fun, but now we have to get, hopefully, to work.”

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“It’s the people who define us by votes who are garbage, not the other way around.”

• People Aren’t Garbage. Partisan Politics Is (Matt Taibbi)

The cycle was the usual nonsense. At a Donald Trump rally in Manhattan a comic called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Joe Biden emerged from his crypt to croak, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” The Internet exploded. Reporters were dispatched around the country to gauge how much more pissed off everyone was now. ABC’s take interviewing Harris supporters in Pennsylvania was, “Voters view one another across partisan divide with increasing animosity.” They quoted humans-in-the-street, who all felt strongly. “I would say that some of them are garbage,” said Samantha Leister, 32, while Shawn Vanderheyden, 44, opined, “I just think they are uneducated, and they believe all the lies.” ABC summed up the cultural divide: “Interviews with voters in battleground states reveal that it’s only growing deeper and more insurmountable.”

Surely people know it, but this is all a trick. First, campaign writers only talk to people at campaign events, so the pool of quotes is automatically pared to holders of Very Strong Political Opinions. Second, the odd “Who cares?” answer is instinctively culled by campaign writers as commercially/politically unhelpful. Non-voters or even just people who care more about other things than Harris/Trump — UFOs, knitting, the girl in biology class — ruin the suspension of disbelief. You end up reading copy that hugely over-represents that strange subset of people who define themselves by their votes. When I was first sent to cover campaigns in 2004, a year in which 40% of eligible voters didn’t bother, I was troubled by the absence of non-voters in coverage.

A Rolling Stone editor with whom I rarely worked rolled eyes and said, “We don’t cover them because they’re not part of the fucking story,” which I instantly knew wasn’t true, but I was new and to my shame I didn’t say anything. The numbers of non-voters exposed how inconsequential presidential politics was for most people. It measured the number of people left behind or out, and leaving the non-enthused out of the shot was journalism’s way of covering the holes in the charade. Two years later I was embedded with a group of Oklahoma reservists sent to work as MPs in Iraq. Sgt. Stephen Wilkerson was the team commander. He wore a tattoo on his foot with an arrow pointing to his big toe that read, TAG GOES HERE. His nickname was “Stretch-Nuts” because it was said he could balance a Heineken bottle on his ball-skin. On my first day he asked what I do. I cover presidential elections, I said. He made a jerk-off gesture. That was the last mention of politics on the trip.

In the roughly twenty years since the act of not voting, or even just not really really caring about presidential politics, has been villainized. Now the emotionally healthy person, the one who has a life and isn’t consumed with fears about the Next Hitler, is assumed to harbor secret sympathies, as bad as the worst MAGAT. This is different from the old scam. Now the person who shrugs and says “Who cares?” is called a liar. Everyone must care the way they do, and if you don’t care in that right way — every waking minute, with chewed nails and a carefully weeded social circle to match the correct vote and attitude set — you’re garbage. Many of us have seen in recent years what this hounding has done even to friends or relatives, turning them to Flatland characters, two-dimensional nerve cases scanning everyone for signs of unsuitability. Whatever happens next week, I don’t ever want to be that. It’s the people who define us by votes who are garbage, not the other way around.

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“In 2014, one wind project was canceled. Since then, the total number has grown to 464 wind projects shot down, as well as 281 solar projects.”

• Trump, Vance Take Aim At Renewable Energy, Many Communities Already Did (JTN)

While it’s been difficult for voters to determine exactly where Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris truly stands on energy, former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, each discussed their views at length on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. Vance, who appeared on the podcast Thursday, spent several minutes discussing energy with host Joe Rogan. Vance said he and his wife took a road trip through Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas and for miles all they could see were wind farms. “This is beautiful American countryside that used to be green rolling hills, and now you have these disgusting, dystopian wind turbines. I’m sorry. They are ugly. I will die on this hill. They’re ugly. I don’t want them in American society,” Vance said. The wind energy industry is running up against more and more opposition. Much of it comes from grassroots efforts at the local level.

Energy watchdog Robert Bryce maintains a database of renewable energy projects that have been scrapped, most often because of community opposition. In 2014, one wind project was canceled. Since then, the total number has grown to 464 wind projects shot down, as well as 281 solar projects. The wind industry doesn’t appear to believe these community concerns are valid. The Associated Press reported on comments wind energy lobbyists made at a conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey Tuesday, claiming that concerns about wind projects are driven by “misinformation.” The industry is vowing to fight against it. Paulina O’Connor, executive director of the New Jersey Offshore Wind Alliance, told the Associated Press that she has trouble predicting “what crazy thing they’re [wind energy opponents] going to come next.” Bryce told Just the News that, while lobbyists the Associated Press quoted are dismissive of communities’ concerns, developers are going to find it harder and harder to get a welcoming response.

“The public acceptance of wind energy is exhausted. People don’t want to live near these massive turbines, and they are expressing that in many [places] across the country, from Maine to Hawaii,” Bryce said. Among the concerns that wind lobbyists described as “misinformation” was the claims that offshore wind is killing whales. During his appearance on the Rogan podcast, Trump commented on these concerns. “I wanna be a whale psychiatrist. It drives the whales fricking crazy. And something happens with them, but for whatever reason, they’re getting washed up onshore and you know, they’re ignored by these environmentalists. But they don’t talk about it.” Trump said. The Associated Press, which has received millions of dollars from political advocacy groups that promote the wind and solar industry, reported that these claims are “unsubstantiated” based on the fact that federal agencies tasked with carrying out the Biden-Harris goal of building 30 gigawatts of offshore wind have denied any connections between offshore wind and whale deaths.

While it’s true that wind turbines aren’t directly killing whales, whale advocates argue that the noise of the construction causes harm that results in the animals swimming into vessel traffic. Robert Rand, founder of the acoustics consultancy company Rand Acoustics, has surveyed noise levels from pile driving and sonar survey vessels. Both studies found that the incidental harassment authorizations — permits that offshore wind developers are required to obtain to conduct activities that may adversely affect marine animals — don’t impose sufficient mitigation requirements to protect marine animals. Rutgers professor Apostolos Gerasoulis performed a statistical analysis and found a strong correlation between where whales are dying and offshore wind development.

Besides growing opposition to offshore wind, especially after a blade broke off a wind turbine near Nantucket and scattered debris across multiple beaches, the offshore wind industry is struggling financially. An offshore lease sale in the Gulf of Maine netted only 4 bidders on 439,096 acres that were offered, and the bids came in at $50 per acre. A 2022 auction for a lease area off the coast of New York and New Jersey sold 6 leases on 488,000 acres for $8,955 per acre. The sale may be the last for at least a year, as a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act prohibits offshore wind lease sales without offering up oil and gas lease sales. The Department of Interior’s five-year offshore oil and gas lease shale program offers the fewest leases in the program’s history.

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“..leftist major media outlets are setting America up for post-election social unrest by perpetuating a fiction that the race is a close one.”

Be that as it may, there have been some major shifts at Polymarket. Overnight, Trump has fallen from 67% to 55%. Wisconsin and Michigan are now Harris. The House has gone Democrat.

• Polymarket’s Trump-Bullish Whale: “Absolutely No Political Agenda” (ZH)

While still guarding his anonymity, the mysterious man who’s bet more than $30 million on a Trump election victory via the Polymarket prediction marketplace has come forward to assert that his wagers aren’t intended to sway the election, but simply to profit from an outcome he’s highly confident in. “My intent is just making money,” said the man who describes himself as a Frenchman and former US resident who was a trader for American banks. In an exclusive interview with the Wall Street Journal via Zoom, he used the pseudonym “Théo,” saying he wanted to remain anonymous out of a desire to conceal the extent of his assets from his children and friends. The Journal said he was “sport[ing] a short, neatly trimmed beard” and spoke English with a small accent. Here’s how the Journal described the precipitation of the interview, and the paper’s process to ensure it wasn’t talking to an imposter:

“Théo emailed the Journal after the publication of an Oct. 18 article about his wagers. To prove that he was behind the Polymarket wagers, the Journal asked him to place a bet on whether Taylor Swift would announce that she is pregnant in 2024—one of the many small, nonpolitical wagers available on the platform. Minutes later, Polymarket’s website showed that one of the four accounts, Theo4, had placed a small bet on Swift’s pregnancy. ” In that original Oct. 18 article, the Journal gave some credit to the idea that the concentrated bets may represent some form of intentional narrative-control scheme meant to benefit Trump. Théo emailed the Journal to refute that theory, writing, “I have absolutely no political agenda.” In his subsequent interview, Théo told the Journal he’s a veteran trader with a history of risking tens of millions of dollars when he discovers a high-confidence trade — and said that’s what he sees in the chance to wager on a Trump victory.

When news broke of the whale’s huge wagers on Trump, Polymarket engaged outside experts to scrutinize transactions in presidential election betting, an unnamed source told the Journal at the time. Last week, Polymarket said it had contacted the whale and confirmed it was a French citizen with an extensive financial services and trading background. “Based on the investigation, we understand that this individual is taking a directional position based on personal views of the election,” the firm said. Théo said his conviction on a Trump victory rests on pollsters’ failure to capture the full extent of Trump’s support in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, and his belief that the “shy Trump voter effect” still endures in 2024. “I know a lot of Americans who would vote for Trump without telling you that,” he said, while also scoffing at the possibility that pollsters have improved their methodologies this time around. Having been previously accused of trying to shape the election, Théo dished out an accusation of his own, saying leftist major media outlets are setting America up for post-election social unrest by perpetuating a fiction that the race is a close one.

Théo thinks Trump is poised to rout Harris, which is why he has more than $30 million on Trump reaching 270 electoral votes, with the potential to receive $80 million if he’s right. He says his $30 million on Trump represents most of his liquid assets. Théo also has bets on a Trump popular-vote victory, along with bets on various swing-state wins. He also gave some insights into how he’s been trading: He started quietly in August by betting several million dollars on Trump, using an account with the username Fredi9999. At the time, Trump and Harris had roughly even chances on Polymarket. Théo spread out his wagers over multiple days and weeks to avoid causing a price spike. Still, as his bets grew, Théo noticed other traders were backing away from quoting prices when Fredi9999 was buying. That made it harder for Théo to get attractive prices. He created the other three accounts in September and October to obscure his purchasing, Théo said.

Single-handedly accounting for 25% of the contracts on a Trump electoral college win and 40% of the bids on a popular vote victory, Théo would have a hard time pulling money off the table without pushing the value of his contracts down. Speaking of which, the electoral college version of a Trump win peaked on Wednesday at 76 cents (with a dollar payoff if Trump wins). However they’ve taken a big dive since — plunging to 57.5 cents as this is written in the wee hours of Saturday morning. [..] If you’re itching to buy the dip, note that Americans are officially barred from Polymarket. You can thank your all-powerful, all-knowing, Constitution-violating federal government for protecting you from yourself: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission fined the platform in 2022 for allegedly providing illegal trading services, prompting Polymarket to bar Americans going forward.

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“JD Vance as dictator for life? Conservatives banning contraception? Elon Musk as an immortal techno god who spies on the masses using X and AI?”

• Leftists Predict Hysterical Dystopian Future (ZH)

The secret to understanding the average progressive mind is to first realize that everything they do revolves around a deeply ingrained fantasy world in which they are rebels; righteous underdogs fighting against “the system” or “the patriarchy.” Leftists cannot function within their collectivist ideology without first creating a fascist bogeyman to revolt against. If they were to ever realize that they are, in fact, the establishment and the authoritarians, their entire world view would collapse. This is why you will continue to see content like the election propaganda video below, no matter how ridiculous the premise might be. Leftist activists create these narratives, not because they are necessarily convincing to most people, but because they need to convince themselves that they are still the good guys.

JD Vance as dictator for life? Conservatives banning contraception? Elon Musk as an immortal techno god who spies on the masses using X and AI? Global warming destroying the planet and creating a Mad Max future in which the homeless are forced into concentration camps? The only thing missing is the forced birthing ceremonies from The Handmaid’s Tale. The video credits cite a handful of progressive NGOs as references for donations (including Vote.org) but little on who specifically made it. The relevant issue is the insight this gives into the insanity of left activists. They cling to so many assumptions they have been proven wrong about time after time (global warming), and they also imagine a world in which conservatives are the elites searching for immortality. They seem to be projecting the habits and hobbies of the very globalists that fund leftist groups today.

One could argue that perhaps this is gaslighting – They’re accusing conservatives of scheming to rule the world when they are the people that actually want control. That could be, but the conspiracy theories surrounding “Project 2025” suggest a Q-Anon level of delusion going on that feeds directly into bizarre narratives like those in the video. Leftists have to believe they’re fighting the good fight, even though they’re actually useful idiots for the establishment. This desperate need to take on the role of “freedom fighter” doesn’t mesh very well with reality. Keep in mind, for nearly two decades progressives have enjoyed expanding political and social power, with nearly every western government, every major NGO, every corporation, every legacy media outlet and every Big Tech platform dominated by woke ideology. From ESG to DEI to LGBTQ+ and beyond, Americans and much of the west have been endlessly bombarded from every angle by leftist propaganda.

Their war on conservative principles and individual freedom nearly came to a crescendo during the covid pandemic when they claimed the power to take away people’s access to the economy if they refused to accept an experimental vaccine and follow the mandates to the letter. Surveys showed a disturbing number of Democrats supported the outright destruction of constitutional freedoms in the name of forcing people to adhere to medical mandates based entirely on lies. Leftists also supported the widespread censorship of conservative voices on everything from the covid vaccine, to the lockdowns, to climate change, to Hunter Biden’s laptop. This censorship was spearheaded by the Biden Administration acting in violation of the constitution as they worked closely with Big Tech companies to shut down dissent. They aren’t fighting “the man”, they are the man. Ridiculous AI generated political videos like the one above are not going to change that.

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“There is optimism in Zelensky’s office that he could forge a personal bond with Trump..”

• Kiev Officials ‘Ready’ For Potential Trump Presidency – WaPo (RT)

Officials in Kiev reject the notion that an election victory for Donald Trump would spell disaster for Ukraine, despite his criticisms of US aid to Kiev and pledges to quickly end the conflict with Moscow, the Washington Post reported on Friday. Two unnamed members of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s team told the paper that the Republican presidential candidate’s “negative” messaging on Ukraine was “just campaign rhetoric” that will not necessarily correlate with his actions if he wins the election on November 5. There is a belief in the Kiev government that Trump would not want to look weak on the global stage by turning his back on Ukraine and, as a result, might make more decisive moves to support Kiev, WaPo said.

“With Russia advancing on the battlefield for the past year,” the Ukrainian officials believe that the status quo, which is likely to be maintained if Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris prevails in the race for the White House, is “not working,” the report read. Because of this, they suggested that “a drastic change” in US policy towards Ukraine could actually “be good” for Kiev. There is optimism in Zelensky’s office that he could forge a personal bond with Trump and eventually turn him into a supporter of Kiev, WaPo said. However, some Ukrainian officials, who talked to the paper, acknowledged that there is a “higher potential for a downside” if Trump wins a second term, and expressed concern that he would pressure Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Russia in exchange for peace.

Last month, Trump said on the PBD Podcast that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was “a loser” and that Zelensky “should never have let that war start.” He described the Ukrainian leader as “one of the greatest salesmen I have ever seen,” referring to his ability to persuade the Biden administration to provide him with more military aid every time he comes to Washington. The Republican presidential candidate also reiterated his claim that he “will settle the Russia-Ukraine [conflict], while I am president-elect,” but did not reveal how he might achieve this. Back in June, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented on media reports of that Trump’s team was developing a roadmap for settling the Ukraine conflict, and stressed that “the value of any plan lies in the details and whether it takes into account the situation on the battlefield.” Peskov reiterated that Moscow remains ready for negotiations, but only if Ukraine recognises the realities on the ground.

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“.. the rules-based order is actually what that the West believes “is right”, adding that “once you are out of this order, you’re a perpetrator.”

• West’s Rules-Based Order To Collapse Soon – Medvedev

The so-called rules-based order imposed by the US and its allies on the global scene is an unstable structure, which is about to fall apart, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said in an exclusive interview with RT. Creating crises such as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in various places is how the US is trying to rule the world, Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, told the broadcaster on Saturday. “So, the more crises they create, the better, they think, the situation is for America… It makes money from weapons, supplies, and by allocating money to its defense industry,” he said. “The Americans are getting what they want at the price of more blood and casualties. This is why the Americans are engaging in feeding the war. But that system is coming to an end,” the former president warned.

The authorities in Washington “feel the world is falling out from under their feet and they are resisting it in every way possible,” he said.This is why the Americans see BRICS and other unions currently being created around the globe, in which the US has no say, as “hostile,” Medvedev explained. Washington and its allies accuse the members of those groups of “violating the rules-based order,” but, at same time, cannot explain what this order is,” he said. “I have carefully picked through the legal text and studied it: it is incomprehensible. It is not clear what the order is and who approved it. It is really just an idea of the US and its allies, while mostly in NATO, of how best to do business in the world,” the former president stressed. According to Medvedev, the rules-based order is actually what that the West believes “is right”, adding that “once you are out of this order, you’re a perpetrator.”

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“Western media reported that “Western pollsters” claimed that there were voting irregularities. What were Western pollsters doing in Georgia in the first place?”

• West Sees Red Over Failed Second Color Revolution In Georgia (SCF)

The United States and European Union are threatening consequences for Georgia after its citizens voted “the wrong way” – for peaceful relations with Russia and traditional moral values. Farcically, this is while the U.S. heads into presidential elections that are mired in chaos and recriminations over vote rigging and buying of votes by oligarchs and big businesses. Welcome to Western-style democracy where if you vote the way the powers-that-be want, it’s a fair election. If you vote the wrong way, it’s a rigged, flawed result that should be ignored or, worse, overturned. Such was the heated reaction from Western states to the electoral victory of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party last weekend in the South Caucasus nation. The party campaigned on a strong, clear platform for pursuing peaceful neighborly relations with Russia.

GD also declared support for traditional social and moral values, rejecting the Western pseudo-liberal agenda of promoting gender-bender LGBTQ+ identities, which was espoused by the Western-backed Georgian opposition parties. At the end of the day, Georgian Dream won a stunning victory, taking nearly 54 percent of the vote, translating into obtaining 90 out of a total of 150 parliamentary seats. Four opposition parties, which touted closer integration ties with NATO and the EU and acclaiming LGBTQ+ rights, won less than 38 percent of the vote. The Georgian people are to be commended for asserting their democratic rights in the face of massive Western interference in the election. Western money and NGOs amplified the opposition parties. If they had won, the new pro-Western administration would have turned Georgia into a second war front against Russia in conjunction with the NATO-backed Ukrainian regime.

Georgian and Ukraine have been at the center of the Western policy of expanding NATO around Russia’s borders. Both countries were declared future members of the military bloc as far back as 2008, although NATO membership is a red line for Russia. Fortunately, Georgian voters were aware of the geopolitical stakes and rallied to the cause of prioritizing peaceful regional relations and rejecting the notional security privileges of NATO. Western recriminations were fast and furious after the result. Western media reported that “Western pollsters” claimed that there were voting irregularities. What were Western pollsters doing in Georgia in the first place? Such entities sound more like a plant to stir post-election trouble.

As it turns out, there were indeed incidents of vote buying, ballot stuffing, and intimidation at polling stations. But videos showed that the incidents were agitprops organized by the Western-sponsored opposition parties. However, thankfully, such malfeasance was relatively minor and did not invalidate the overall final result. Georgia’s Central Election Committee declared the process to be free and fair. The authorized election invigilating body has given its verdict, and that should be the end of it.

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“As a result of having communicated with Yulia Skripal I was interviewed by the police and my statement recorded.”

• Novichok: UK Government Sedated The Skripals To Stop Them Talking (Helmer)

The British Government was exposed in the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry this week as keeping Sergei and Yulia Skripal unconscious to silence them. That was six years ago, when they were in Salisbury District Hospital in March 2018. Now, prevented from testifying in public at the public inquiry under way in London, they are still incommunicado, either in prison or dead. The evidence revealed in the published witness statements and transcript of testimony in four days of hearings at the Sturgess Inquiry October 28-31 shows that British Government officials have lied in public and lied on oath in the courts to conceal what they have been doing to accuse Russia of Novichok poisonings in the Salisbury area in 2018. The Inquiry records show that the chairman and judge, Anthony Hughes (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley), and the lawyers working for him are actively working to protect the lies and prevent contradicting evidence from becoming public. .

Surprise testimony by Dr Stephen Cockroft, the doctor who cared for Sergei and Yulia Skripal on their admission to Salisbury District Hospital (SDH) on March 4, 2018, has revealed that the British Government kept them heavily sedated in order to tell the courts and media that they were unconscious and unresponsive when they had revived. Government officials ordered the hospital to punish Cockroft from talking directly to Yulia Skripal when she came out of her coma on March 8, 2018. Cockroft’s evidence of March 8, 2018, directly contradicts the evidence given on oath in the High Court in London on March 20-22, 2018, by state officials and an SDH “treating consultant” – the name was kept secret in the published court report — that “Mr Skripal is heavily sedated following injury by a nerve agent. Ms Skripal is heavily sedated following injury by a nerve agent. Mr Skripal is unable to communicate in any way. Ms Skripal is unable to communicate in any meaningful way.”

Cockroft’s disclosures also contradict the script which Yulia Skripal read out at a MI6-supervised and Reuters-filmed appearance for two minutes at a US bomber base in the UK in May of 2018. Skripal claimed then “after 20 days in a coma I woke to the news that we had both been poisoned.” In fact, Yulia woke from her coma after four (4) days. On July 18, 2024, Cockroft told the Inquiry which questioned him for a second witness statement: “An untoward event took place on Thursday 8 March 2018. A colleague (Dr James Haslam) had ordered all sedation to be discontinued temporarily to Yulia Skripal. This is quite a common practice on Intensive Care Units (ICU) and we refer to it as a ‘sedation hold’ and would normally be planned and discussed with the team. Unfortunately, having ordered the sedation hold, Dr Haslam left the ICU without advising me. I was present on the ICU treating another patient. As a consequence, Yulia Skripal regained consciousness very quickly and was confused, frightened, trying to get out of bed and was pulling at her various vascular access lines and breathing tube.

Cockroft then revealed that because the sedation had been stopped and Yulia was no longer comatose, Cockroft was punished by Blanshard, the hospital’s chief doctor. “I tried to feedback my concerns to Dr Haslam, but he was of the opinion that nothing untoward had occurred, but when these events were reported back to the Medical Director (Christine Blanshard) she had a very different opinion and I was summoned to a meeting with her on Monday 12 March to discuss my management of the incident. There is no formal record of that meeting [sic], however I was suspended from working on the ICU with immediate effect until Yulia and Sergei had either been discharged or died. Apparently by having had a conversation with Yulia Skripal I had been unprofessional and should have left such a conversation to the security services. I was warned by Dr Blanshard that I should not discuss any aspect of the poisonings with colleagues or other individuals and advised that any such discussion would be treated as serious misconduct. As a result of having communicated with Yulia Skripal I was interviewed by the police and my statement recorded.”

The Salisbury hospital official who collaborated with government officials and police to conceal the condition of the Skripals in hospital; to threaten and sanction the medical staff; and to intervene in the treatment of the Skripals, was the SDH medical director, Dr Christine Blanshard. By enforcing sedation on the two patients for the government’s political purpose, without their consent when they were conscious, out of coma, and capable of communicating, Blanshard violated her Hippocratic Oath.

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“..the strongest military alliance in human history had just launched its first war in North Africa since France was defeated in Algeria in 1962..”

• Brutally Murdered 13 Years Ago, Gaddafi Is Only Growing More Beloved (Fetouri)

October marked 13 years since Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was brutally murdered by a NATO-supported mob of rebels in circumstances still buried under a barrage of deliberate disinformation. Yet 13 years on, Gaddafi is probably the most popular figure in the North African country. Is it just nostalgia that makes the general public yearn for a man who has long been dead, or is there something else that goes beyond mere nostalgia as a human emotion? On September 23, 2009, in his first and only speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Muammar Gaddafi described the UN Security Council as council of “horror.” He explained that the council, by the UN charter, is responsible for peace in the world but has only brought “more wars and sanctions.” What he did not know at the time was that the same UN organ would, less than two years later, authorize his removal and ultimately his murder by adopting resolution 1973, which gave the green light to all UN member states to interfere in Libya as long they notified the UN Secretary General of their intention to do so.

Resolution 1973, adopted on March 17, 2011, was the UNSC response to public demonstrations that engulfed parts of Libya in the previous month, in which people demanded better living conditions, housing, and jobs. By the time the issue was deliberated at the UN, what had been peaceful and legitimate public demonstrations had turned into an armed revolt led by various stakeholders, including Islamists and former terrorists, against the legitimate government. The wave of public discontent in Libya was part of wider public awakenings that began in neighboring Tunisia before moving to Egypt. In both countries, the West attempted to save President Ben Ali in Tunisia and later his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, but failed. There were no calls for military intervention to “protect” civilians in either country. With Libya, it was a completely different matter.

Faced with armed groups seeking to destabilize the country, the Gaddafi government responded, just like any other respected government would do, by using force against the armed rebellion. Under Gaddafi, Libya had seen similar events in the previous four decades, where Western-supported attempts were made not only to kill Gaddafi but also to bring about regime change by force. The government used force to contain the demonstration, but specifically targeting the armed groups that had sprung up among the peaceful demonstrators. In this chaos, many innocent people were killed and wounded, but nowhere near the inflated figures reported in Western media and publically talked about by Western politicians in their quest to widen the rift between the Libyan authorities and its citizens and to sow discord among the Libyans who were divided between supporters of Gaddafi and supporters of what became known as the February 17 Revolution.

William Hague, the UK’s foreign minister at the time, for example, told the world’s media that Gaddafi had already fled the country and was on his way to Venezuela, when in fact Gaddafi never left Tripoli – so Hague misled public opinion, which further inflamed the situation. Under pressure from veto-wielding permanent superpower members, the UNSC passed resolution 1973 under the pretext of the ‘Right to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine that, controversially, allows the UN to use military force to protect civilians when their government fails to do so. Paragraph 4 of the resolution called on all world countries to “take all necessary measures” to protect civilians in Libya, impose a no fly zone, and urged all UN member states to tighten the embargo already imposed on the country by UNSC resolution 1970, passed on February 26, 2011, referring the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC), to investigate the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly being committed on a large scale in Libya on the orders of Gaddafi himself, who was one of three officials indicated by the court.

Resolution 1970 was not passed based on concrete independent investigative reports of facts but, mainly, based on biased media reports. Neither the UN nor any of its relevant institutions investigated events on the ground to be able to lay blame, and the first official UN mission arrived in Libya in March and reported to the UNSC in April 2011. This means the UNSC adopted its two resolutions, 1970 and 1973, based on unverified media reports, unreliable witness statements and biased civil organizations accounts. By the time the UNSC adopted resolution 1973, Libya was already in a full-swing civil war between the armed rebels and government forces that, in being dehumanized by biased Western media, were called “Gaddafi brigades.” The rebels were actually a mix of terror organizations and locals who chose to fight the government.

They included groups such as Al-Qaeda, Ansar Al-Sharia, Al-Qa’ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and remnants of other groups and Afghan war veterans who infiltrated the country. By mid-March 2011, Libya was consumed by internal violent strife, its government boycotted by most countries, its voice drowned under the barrage of media lies and fake news, its officials banned from travel, and its leader being hunted day and night. The rebels fighting the government were being supplied, financed, armed, trained, and directed by the West and several Arab countries such as Qatar, Jordan, and United Arab Emirates. The stage was set for NATO to take over the military intervention. In fact, France, the US, and UK had already started bombing Libya by launching the first wave of missile strikes on Libyan air defense sites and radars in order to prepare the ground for imposing a no-fly zone. Even civil security forces, manning checkpoints around Tripoli, were bombed.

By the end of March 2011, Libya has become a “theatre of operations” and NATO launched “Operation Unified Protector” with an around-the-clock bombardment. That meant that the strongest military alliance in human history had just launched its first war in North Africa since France was defeated in Algeria in 1962. By the end of its operation, NATO had killed hundreds of Libyan women and children, destroyed private properties and infrastructure, all in the name of reinforcing international law and protecting civilian while the real agenda was far more sinister. The scenes of chaos, destruction, displacements, and killings continued from March to October, in which the Libyan army managed to hold back the rebels on the ground while facing NATO air bombardments. On October 20, 2011, Gaddafi was murdered in gruesome scenes and his body, alongside the bodies of his son and his defense minister, displayed for the horrified public to see.

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Rogan Fetterman

 

 

Eva
https://twitter.com/i/status/1852419256232636518

 

 

Dog fight

 

 

Dog kitten
https://twitter.com/i/status/1852392683748372979

 

 

Awesome

 

 

 

 

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