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Debt Rattle July 13 2025

Jul 132025
 
 July 13, 2025  Posted by at 9:21 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Road in Tahiti 1891

 

• Trump To Impose 30% Tariffs On Mexico, European Union (ZH)
• Tariff Windfall Drives Surprise $27 Billion US Budget Surplus in June (ET)
• US Lawmakers Move To Curb Trump’s Control Over Ukraine Aid (RT)
• Trump Sees Zelensky As ‘Primary Obstacle’ To Ukraine Peace – FT (RT)
• Trump Denies Coverup In Jeffrey Epstein Case (RT)
• Nvidia CEO Makes Pit Stop At White House Before China Trip (ZH)
• Why John Brennan Belongs in Prison (Harsanyi)
• The Democratic Party Civil War Just Escalated Big Time (Margolis)
• How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mamdani? Democrats Don’t Know (Caldwell)
• Americans Fighting For Ukraine Should Lose Citizenship – Tucker Carlson (RT)
• Tucker Carlson Reveals Who He Thinks Funded Jeffrey Epstein’s Crimes (VF)
• Ukraine To Receive German-funded Long-range Weapons This Month (RT)
• Baltic Sea Will Remain Common Despite NATO Fantasies – Russian Ambassador (Sp.)
• France Is Sweating Its Brains Out Thanks To The EU’s Climate Madness (Marsden)

 

 

Benz

Lacalle

Gaetz
https://twitter.com/MsKristaMonroe/status/1943896573844304013

Kirk

Miller

Scott

 

 

 

 

Has anyone seen a counterproposal from Europe? A dialogue even? Doesn’t that silence make them guilty by association?

• Trump To Impose 30% Tariffs On Mexico, European Union (ZH)

President Trump on Saturday morning fired off two trade warning letters via Truth Social, threatening to impose 30% tariffs on all Mexican and European imports starting August 1. The warning to Mexico hinges on action to curb the flow of fentanyl and dismantle drug cartels, while the threat to Europe demands an end to long-standing trade imbalances driven by EU tariffs and non-tariff barriers. This caps off a week of letters sent to America’s top trade partners, with tariff threats used as a negotiation tool by the Trump administration to seal deals.

“Despite our strong relationship, you will recall, the United States imposed Tariffs on Mexico to deal with our Nation’s Fentanyl crisis, which is caused, in part, by Mexico’s failure to stop the Cartels, who are made up of the most despicable people who ever walked the Earth, from pouring these drugs into our country,” Trump said in the letter addressed to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. He continued, “Mexico has been helping me secure the border, BUT, what Mexico has done, is not enough. Mexico still has not stopped the Cartels who are trying to turn all of North America into a Narco-Trafficking Playground.”

Here are the key points in the letter:
• 30% tariff will apply to all Mexican imports unless action is taken.
• Tariff waivers will be granted for companies that build or manufacture in the U.S.
• If Mexico raises tariffs in retaliation, the U.S. will match them on top of the 30%.
• Adjust tariffs if Mexico successfully confronts the cartels and halts fentanyl trafficking

The second letter by Trump was addressed to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, in which he informed Brussels that he would impose a 30% tariff on all EU products starting August 1, unless long-standing trade imbalances—driven by EU tariffs and non-tariff barriers—are addressed. “The European Union, despite having one of our largest Trade Deficits with you. Nevertheless, we have decided to move forward, but only with more balanced and fair TRADE,” the president said.

He emphasized:
• The U.S. market is open and fair, but EU practices have created an unsustainable trade deficit.
• The 30% tariff applies separately from any sectoral tariffs and will be higher for goods transshipped to avoid it.
• No tariffs will be applied if EU companies manufacture within the U.S.
• The EU must allow full market access to the U.S. or face higher tariffs.
• Retaliatory EU tariffs will be met with additional levies.

Trump warned that this trade deficit with the EU is a “major threat to our Economy and, indeed, our National Security!”

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The tariffs story is almost everywhere presented in a negative light. There’s a flipside.

• Tariff Windfall Drives Surprise $27 Billion US Budget Surplus in June (ET)

New data from the Treasury Department show that surging tariff revenues in June helped the U.S. government post an unexpected budget surplus of $27 billion, offering a rare fiscal bright spot amid persistently high federal deficits and suggesting that President Donald Trump’s tariff policies are becoming a significant source of government revenue. After running a $316 billion deficit in May, the government recorded a surplus of just over $27 billion last month, according to data released on July 11 by the Treasury Department. The tariff windfall helped narrow the fiscal year-to-date deficit to $1.34 trillion—a slight 1 percent improvement from the same period last year. By contrast, June 2024 saw a $71 billion deficit. A key driver of the improved balance was a record-breaking surge in customs duties.

The Treasury data released on Friday show that tariff collections soared to $27 billion in June alone, pushing total tariff revenues since October to $108 billion—the highest ever recorded for the first nine months of a fiscal year. June’s haul marked a significant jump from May’s prior record of $22 billion and was about 93 percent higher than the $56 billion collected during the same nine-month span of the previous year. So far in July, customs duties have added another $2.4 billion to federal coffers, according to daily Treasury figures. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has predicted even higher tariff revenues in the months ahead. Speaking at a July 8 White House Cabinet meeting, he said the United States is on track to collect $300 billion by the end of calendar year 2025, noting that the “major” tariffs imposed under the Trump administration did not start until the second quarter.

https://twitter.com/TRUMP_ARMY_/status/1943691228291399938

Since returning to the White House for a second term, Trump has imposed 10 percent universal tariffs on trading partners, along with reciprocal tariffs announced in April on a number of nations, depending on the trade barriers they have with the United States. Trump initially applied a 90-day pause to most of the reciprocal tariffs, and later signed an executive order that extended the reprieve to Aug. 1. In recent days, the president sent letters to several countries—including Japan, South Korea, and Thailand—informing them that reciprocal tariffs ranging from 25 to 40 percent will be imposed after Aug. 1 unless they agree to reduce trade barriers and negotiate bilateral deals. Trump has said the higher duties will substantially boost government revenue.

“The big money will start coming in on Aug. 1st. I think it was made clear today by the letters that were sent out yesterday and today,” he said during the Cabinet meeting. Bessent also cited a June 4 report from the Congressional Budget Office projecting that tariff revenues could total $2.8 trillion over the next decade—a figure he said the administration believes is understated. Trump said he won’t extend the Aug. 1 deadline for countries to start paying reciprocal tariffs, signaling a firm stance after earlier suggesting flexibility for nations offering trade concessions.

In one recent round of letters, Trump announced new tariffs as follows: 25 percent on Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Tunisia; 30 percent on Bosnia and Herzegovina and South Africa; 32 percent on Indonesia; 35 percent on Bangladesh and Serbia; 36 percent on Cambodia and Thailand; and 40 percent on Burma (also known as Myanmar) and Laos. In each letter, Trump noted that the tariffs might be lowered if countries open their markets and reduce non-tariff barriers, emphasizing that persistent trade deficits pose “a major threat” to U.S. economic and national security. More recently, Trump sent another round of letters, noting that Algeria, Iraq, Libya, and Sri Lanka will each be charged a 30 percent tariff, Brunei and Moldova will face a 25 percent tariff, and the Philippines will face a 20 percent tariff. The president has also announced that Canada will face 35 percent tariffs starting on Aug. 1.

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War guarantee.

• US Lawmakers Move To Curb Trump’s Control Over Ukraine Aid (RT)

A bill authorizing more Ukraine aid and barring the Pentagon from unilaterally halting arms shipments has passed the Senate Armed Services Committee. The measures are part of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense bill that outlines the Pentagon’s priorities and funding for the next fiscal year. The bill comes as tensions have risen between Congress and the White House over aid pauses earlier this year. In March, President Donald Trump temporarily halted all Ukraine assistance and intelligence sharing, while earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth paused weapons deliveries, citing the need to review dwindling Pentagon stockpiles. Aid resumed earlier this week after Trump expressed frustration over delays in the peace process and said Ukraine needs weapons to “defend” itself.

Media reports later suggested Trump had not been informed of the latest suspension and struggled to explain whether he had approved it. The new NDAA draft was passed in a bipartisan vote this week. It “reaffirms” US support for Ukraine, extends aid through 2028, increases annual authorizations from $300 million to $500 million, and requires the Pentagon to continue intelligence support for Kiev, according to a summary released on Friday. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, however, said the bill also includes language blocking the Pentagon from halting aid or intelligence sharing without congressional approval. She noted that provisions listed in the bill “put guardrails” on the Trump administration “to make sure promised military assistance continues to flow to Ukraine.”

A separate version of the NDAA drafted by House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers extends aid through 2028 but keeps it capped at $300 million per year. It also prohibits the Trump administration from halting funds without written justification to Congress and requires Hegseth to report regularly on support to Ukraine. The House committee will vote on its version on Tuesday. The bill must pass committee votes before being submitted for a full congressional vote. Ukraine has received nearly $115 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian US aid since its conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. The military component of this sum has come through congressional bills such as the NDAA and the Presidential Drawdown Authority, a fund capped by Congress that allows the president to send US weapons directly to Kiev.

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So get rid of him instead of giving him weapons.

• Trump Sees Zelensky As ‘Primary Obstacle’ To Ukraine Peace – FT (RT)

US President Donald Trump continues to regard Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky as the main hurdle to resolving the conflict, despite his recent criticism of Moscow, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing sources. Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, Trump said he was “unhappy” with Putin, claiming the Russian leader did not want to end the conflict. “We get a lot of bullsh*t thrown at us by Putin,” Trump said. The US president added that while Putin was “very nice all the time,” it turned out to be “meaningless” for ending the fighting. Later, he announced a “major statement” on Russia soon amid reported discussions in Washington over imposing a 500% tariff on countries that buy Russian energy and goods.

However, two unnamed senior officials involved in defense and security talks with Washington told the FT that there was little indication the White House had actually adopted a more pro-Kiev stance. Ukraine’s backers, the report said, are “still assuming Trump was predisposed to seeing Putin as his main negotiating partner in any settlement and Zelensky as the primary obstacle to a workable peace deal.” One official pointed to “a little bit of overexcitement based on a shift in tone,” while cautioning that “we’re not seeing that translate into major actions.” The FT report echoes a New York Times article in June claiming that the US president is “exasperated” with both Putin and Zelensky, but “reserves special animosity” for the Ukrainian leader, viewing him as a “bad guy” pushing the world towards a global conflict.

In May, Trump openly criticized Zelensky, suggesting that “everything out of his mouth causes problems.” The fiercest public clash between the two came in February at the White House, when Trump accused Zelensky of ingratitude and “gambling with World War III.” Commenting on Trump’s remarks targeting Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is “calm about this,” adding that “we are committed to continuing our dialogue with Washington and our policy of repairing the significantly damaged bilateral relations.” Russia maintains it is open to a diplomatic settlement of the Ukraine conflict, but in a way that would address its “root causes” and its security concerns. Moscow insists on Ukraine’s neutrality, recognition of the “territorial reality on the ground,” as well as demilitarization and denazification.

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Simple denials won’t work. See Pandora’s box.

• Trump Denies Coverup In Jeffrey Epstein Case (RT)

US President Donald Trump has pushed back against claims of a coverup in the Jeffrey Epstein case, defending his administration’s handling of the release of files related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender’s death in jail.nSome of Trump’s allies, including journalist Tucker Carlson and former adviser Steve Bannon, have criticized a report by the Department of Justice and the FBI, which found no evidence of a list of powerful individuals to whom Epstein trafficked underage girls. The report also found no signs of foul play in Epstein’s 2019 death at a Manhattan correctional facility, which was ruled a suicide. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump claimed that the so-called Epstein Files were created by prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands,” he wrote. “Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it?” he added. Trump defended his Attorney General Pam Bondi and argued that federal agencies should instead focus on investigating Democrat-linked scandals and corruption, as well as the 2020 presidential election, which he continues to claim was rigged in favor of Joe Biden. “LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB – SHE’S GREAT!” Trump wrote. He previously said that the Epstein case has been used to distract from more pressing issues, including the deadly floods in Texas.

FBI Director Kash Patel also dismissed the allegations. “The conspiracy theories just aren’t true, never have been,” he wrote on X. Critics have pointed to a minute-long gap in the surveillance footage outside Epstein’s cell on the night of his death, claiming the tape had been doctored. Bondi, however, denied that there was anything suspicious about the video. The debate surrounding the case has reportedly caused a rift within the government, with several news outlets claiming that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is considering resignation.

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“Also on Thursday, Nvidia became the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion… ”

• Nvidia CEO Makes Pit Stop At White House Before China Trip (ZH)

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met with President Trump at the White House on Thursday, just days before a trip to China. The meeting comes as Nvidia—now the world’s most valuable chipmaker (and world’s most valuable company)—remains largely shut out of China’s semiconductor market due to U.S. export restrictions. While the conversation wasn’t disclosed, Huang likely focused on the urgent need to restore Nvidia’s ability to sell advanced AI chips in the world’s second-largest economy. CNBC’s Megan Cassella reported Thursday afternoon that Huang met with Trump. No details about the meeting were released, but the president praised Nvidia in a Truth Social post: “NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs”… “COUNTRY IS NOW ‘BACK.'”

Also on Thursday, Nvidia became the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion… This was a symbolic milestone for capital markets and the current bull cycle. In a separate report, Bloomberg noted that Huang’s White House visit comes just days before he is scheduled to travel to Beijing, where he will meet with senior Chinese officials and attend the International Supply Chain Expo. Huang has been vocal in recent months about the combined impact of the Biden-Harris regime and the Trump-Vance administration’s export restrictions on advanced AI chips to China. In May, he told investors, “The $50 billion China market is effectively closed to U.S. industry.”

However, the Trump team cancelled a planned rule by former President Joe Biden called the “AI diffusion rule,” promising fewer restrictions later this year on which countries could receive Nvidia’s advanced AI chips. “The world is right now hungry, anxious to engage AI,” Huang said, adding, “Let us get the American AI out in front of everybody right now.”

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“No, I’m not under the impression Brennan will end up in prison, where he likely belongs, or even see an indictment…”

• Why John Brennan Belongs in Prison (Harsanyi)

Former CIA Director John Brennan is one of the most contemptible and shady people in public life. Few people have abused their position, power, and access with such impunity and hubris. So, it was a pleasure to read a Fox News report that the FBI has launched a criminal investigation into Brennan, along with former FBI Director James Comey, for possible wrongdoing related to the Trump campaign-Russia collusion probe, including making false statements to Congress. No, I’m not under the impression Brennan will end up in prison, where he likely belongs, or even see an indictment. The statute of limitations has largely sunset. And even if they hadn’t, the notion there will be any reckoning is remote.

My modest hope is that perhaps a better accounting of his corruption for the historical record will destroy Brennan’s reputation forever, which shouldn’t be a heavy lift. Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe released a report on the origins of the Intelligence Community Assessment that concluded Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump. It was more or less as one might have expected. One of the things we learned, however, was that Brennan claimed in 2017 testimony before Congress that the Steele dossier, an oppo doc paid for by Hillary Clinton and Democrats, wasn’t “in any way” used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment. In a 2023 House interview, Brennan claimed the “CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele Dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment.”

The problem is that newly declassified CIA emails allegedly show Brennan not only repeatedly pressing for insertion of the Steele dossier’s claims but doing it over the objections of others. In one 2016 email, Brennan allegedly disregarded warnings from his deputy that the dossier would undermine “the credibility of the entire paper.” When two CIA mission center leaders responsible for Russia challenged him about integrating a poorly constructed partisan document into the Intelligence Community Assessment, Brennan overruled them, insisting: “My bottom line is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.” Now, there is always a chance that Ratcliffe’s report is skewed to make Brennan’s emails look more incriminating than they were. We’ll have to see. We already know that Brennan has for years lied about having insider knowledge of an unprecedented seditious criminal conspiracy against the United States.

When Robert Mueller’s investigation was unable to pull together a single indictment related to “collusion,” Brennan shrugged it off by saying that he may have “received bad information.”He hadn’t. “Trump is scared of me because I know too much about Russia’s election meddling,” Brennan would tell the press. When special counsel John Durham released his report on the origins of the FBI’s investigation of the “collusion” investigation, we learned that Brennan, despite spinning unhinged conspiratorial rants nightly on cable television, knew there was nothing there. Indeed, Durham reports that Brennan had admitted to investigators that there had been “no conspiracy.” Yet, as Durham points out, only days later, the former CIA director was on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” contending the opposite, using his former position to suggest there was still much to be divulged.

To understand what little regard Brennan had for truth or position, recall a 2020 email uncovered by the House Judiciary Committee. In it, former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who was working with the Biden campaign to concoct “a talking point” to “push back on Trump” during the final presidential debates, asked Brennan to sign on to the infamous “disinformation” letter that claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian plant. “Ok, Michael, add my name to the list. Good initiative. Thanks for asking me to sign on,” Brennan replied. That’s all it took for the former director of the CIA to sign his name onto a letter that would be the ostensive reason for a major story implicating a presidential candidate with corruption to be censored by virtually every legacy media outlet and major social media platform. One hopes his legacy will now be irreparably tarnished.

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“..the Democratic Socialists of America..” Doesn’t sound American to me.

“..The Democratic civil war is no longer a distant threat. It’s here, it’s ugly, and it’s escalating.”

• The Democratic Party Civil War Just Escalated Big Time (Margolis)

The Democratic Party’s internal fractures are no longer simmering beneath the surface—they’re erupting into open warfare. The latest salvo comes from within the party’s own ranks, as the far-left wing grows increasingly emboldened to challenge the establishment’s authority. What we’re witnessing is not just a disagreement over policy or tactics, but a full-blown civil war for the soul of the Democratic Party. Democratic Socialist allies of Zohran Mamdani are reportedly laying the groundwork for primary challenges against several incumbent congressional Democrats in New York City—potentially even targeting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Following Zohran Mamdani’s primary win last month, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) declared that “this movement is bigger than one person, election, city, or organization.”

“We encourage all people inspired by the Zohran campaign to join their local DSA or YDSA chapter and get involved so we can continue to fight alongside Zohran and DSA elected officials across the country to create the future we all deserve,” the group said in a statement. Now that message appears to be turning into action. DSA leaders are reportedly weighing primary challenges against several prominent House Democrats representing New York City—including Jeffries, as well as Reps. Ritchie Torres, Jerry Nadler, Dan Goldman, and Yvette Clarke. Jeffries, who two years ago succeeded longtime House Democratic leader and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been criticized by some of New York City’s far-left leaders as a moderate and establishment Democrat.

“His leadership has left a vacuum that organizations like DSA are filling. I think that is more important right now,” New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter co-chair Gustavo Gordillo told CNN. Democratic socialist state Sen. Jabari Brisport, whose district includes some of the same areas of Brooklyn as Jeffries House district, argued in a statement to Fox News that the longtime congressman is “rapidly growing out of touch with an insurgent and growing progressive base within his own district that he should pay more attention to.” Top Hakeem Jeffries adviser Andre Richardson is sounding the alarm over rumblings of a left-wing primary challenge, lashing out at the Democratic Socialists circling Jeffries’ seat. “Our response will be forceful and unrelenting. We will teach them and all of their incumbents a painful lesson on June 23, 2026.”

Jeffries, for his part, feigned ignorance about the whole thing. “I have no idea what these people are talking about,” he told CNN, before pivoting to the usual script about “pushing back against extremism”—as if the radicals threatening to take his job aren’t in his own party. Despite praising Zohran Mamdani’s far-left campaign and defending him from Trump’s criticism, Jeffries, along with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Sen. Chuck Schumer, has stopped short of endorsing the DSA-backed Democratic nominee for mayor. That’s probably not a coincidence. What’s truly astonishing is the Democratic leadership’s inability—or unwillingness—to confront this rebellion head-on. Instead of standing up to the radicals, too many establishment figures are cowering in fear, hoping the storm will pass.

But appeasement only emboldens the insurgents. Every time a figure like Mamdani gets away with slandering party leaders, the fringe left grows stronger and more brazen. If the Democratic Party continues down this path, the results will be catastrophic for them… which make is so enjoyable to watch. A party consumed by internal warfare cannot hope to govern, let alone offer a compelling alternative to the opposition. The radicals may think they’re winning, but in reality, they’re burning down the very house they claim to want to lead. The Democratic civil war is no longer a distant threat. It’s here, it’s ugly, and it’s escalating. The question now is whether any adults are left in the room to stop the madness before it’s too late.

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In one extreme blue pocket, they manage to get an extreme candidate elected. And then draw the conclusion they should do that all over the country.

• How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mamdani? Democrats Don’t Know (Caldwell)

The meteoric rise of New York City Democrat mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani poses a major question for Washington Democrats—is his brand of Palestinian activism, economic interventionism, and pro-LGBTQ+ rhetoric the future of their party? The 33-year-old state assemblyman’s trouncing of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the city’s party primary has brought to light a host of controversial positions: supporting taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries on his campaign website, proposing government-run grocery stores, and refusing to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” among other things. Asked how he views a candidate who does not condemn phrases which many consider genocidal, Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, chose a live-and-let-live approach.

“There’s no candidate in this party that I agree 100% of the time with,” he replied. “To be honest with you, there’s things that I don’t agree with Mamdani that he said. But at the end of the day, I always believe … that you win through addition, you win by bringing people into your coalition. We have conservative Democrats, we have centrist Democrats, we have labor progressives like me, and we have this new Democrat, which is the leftist.” But what works in New York City might not work in the swing districts and swing states that decide who has power in Washington. But Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who has consistently supported Israel, said of Mamdani, “Everything that I’ve read on him, I don’t really agree with virtually any of it politically. So that’s just where I’m at as a Democrat. I mean, he’s not even a Democrat, honestly.”

Fetterman, much like swing-state Democrat Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, has generally chosen moderated rhetoric over doubling down on progressive rhetoric since Republican President Donald Trump’s victory in November. Slotkin, asked shortly after Mamdani’s mayoral primary victory how she interpreted the development, chose to focus on Mamdani’s cost-of-living proposals, while shying away from commenting on his more controversial platform planks.“People, just like in November, are still really focused on costs and the economy, and their own kitchen table math, and they’re looking for a new generation of leadership,” Slotkin said, adding, “It reinforces that you may disagree on some key issues, but understanding that people are concerned about their family budget, that is a unifying thing for a coalition.”

Slotkin, who narrowly won her Michigan Senate seat in November by just over 19,000 votes out of more than 5.57 million cast, or 48.6% to 48.3%, emphasized economic issues throughout her campaign and warned as early as September 2024 that the Democrats’ presidential candidate, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, was “underwater in our polling.” For now at least, Democrats in Washington appear to not know what to do with Mamdani. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has still not endorsed Mamdani, despite his primary win. When asked, he consistently chooses to mention Mamdani’s proposals to address the high cost of living in New York City. Jeffries has applied a bit of pushback against Mamdani’s rhetoric on the Israel-Hamas war, though, particularly his repeated refusals to condemn “globalize the intifada.”

“‘Globalizing the intifada,’ by the way of example, is not an acceptable phrase, and he’s going to have to clarify his position on that,” Jeffries said after Mamdani’s victory. “With respect to the Jewish communities that I represent, I think our nominee is going to have to convince folks that he is prepared to aggressively address the rise in antisemitism in the city of New York.” It remains to be seen how Mamdani’s rise as a national face of the Democratic Party will affect Democrats’ chances outside of their dark-blue urban centers of support. Democrats are seeking Senate seat pickups in 2026, for example, in states such as Maine and North Carolina—far removed from New York. Vice President JD Vance has accused Mamdani of creating a coalition of “downwardly mobile, college-educated people” and carved-out ethnic blocs by pandering to shared hatreds.

“That’s an interesting coalition. Maybe it works in the New York Democratic primary. I don’t think it works in the United States at large,” the vice president said in a July 5 speech in San Diego. Rural America and moderate voters appear to be the target for Democrats going into the midterms. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is now running ads against GOP incumbents such as Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin and Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, accusing them of attacking rural hospitals with the recently passed Republican budget reconciliation bill’s restructuring of Medicaid. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is also trying to appeal to moderate voters ahead of a difficult 2026 reelection campaign. As Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” was considered, he joined just three other Democrat senators to vote for an amendment to the bill that would have discouraged states from issuing Medicaid payments to illegal immigrants. That’s a far cry from Mamdani who has openly called for “standing up for our sanctuary city policies” in New York City.

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Any foreign countrry. Including Israel.

• Americans Fighting For Ukraine Should Lose Citizenship – Tucker Carlson (RT)

Americans who fight for other countries, including Ukraine and Israel, should be stripped of their US citizenship, journalist Tucker Carlson has argued. Speaking at a conservative conference in Tampa, Florida called Turning Point USA on Friday, Carlson was asked whether he believes US nationals can pledge allegiance to two countries at once. The former Fox News categorically denied the notion of double loyalty. “I think anybody… who serves in a foreign military should lose his citizenship immediately. There are a lot of Americans who’ve served in the IDF, they should lose their citizenship. There’s a lot of Americans who’ve served in Ukraine and they should lose their citizenship. You can’t fight for another country and remain an American. Period.”

He added that common sense dictates that “no man can serve two masters.” “You can only really pledge your loyalty to one person or one country,” he added. Under US law, there are no automatic penalties for serving in a foreign military. The US has never signed the 1989 UN Mercenary Convention, which aims to ban the recruitment, use, financing, and training of mercenaries. However, since the late 19th century, the US government has been prohibited from employing organizations that offer “quasi-military armed forces for hire,” meaning it cannot use the services of private military contractors such as Blackwater. Carlson’s remarks come after CNN reported in January that more than 20 US citizens had been reported missing in action in Ukraine.

In late 2024, Russian officials reported that around 6,500 out of 15,000 foreign mercenaries who had arrived in Ukraine had been killed. In recent months, several US citizens have been convicted in absentia in Russia for what are described as mercenary activity and “terrorist acts” in Russia’s Kursk Region, where a now-defeated Ukrainian incursion was launched last year. In May, Aleksandr Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, said that a total of 902 individuals had been charged with engaging in mercenary activity. Courts have delivered guilty verdicts against 97 mercenaries from 26 countries. Moscow has repeatedly warned that it treats foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine as legitimate targets.

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“..it’s extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government. Now, no one’s allowed to say that that foreign government is ISRAEL ..”

• Tucker Carlson Reveals Who He Thinks Funded Jeffrey Epstein’s Crimes (VF)

Just this Friday night, Tucker Carlson named who he believes really FUNDED Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. What he said is guaranteed to make many in Washington furious. And there’s no taking it back now. On Tuesday, Tucker Carlson delivered two theories on why Pam Bondi won’t release the Epstein Files. Theory #1 was “Trump is involved.” But Carlson thought this explanation was not very likely. Then came Theory #2, which was that Carlson believed “intel services are at the very center of this story—US and Israeli—and they’re being protected.” “I think that seems like the most plausible explanation,” Carlson said. “And we have every right to ask on whose behalf was he working? How does a guy go from being a math teacher at the Dalton School in the late 70s with no college degree to having multiple airplanes, a private island, and the largest residential house in Manhattan? Where did all the money come from?” Carlson asked.

https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1943857723658940431

Then came the big claim. “And no one has ever gotten to the bottom of that because no one has ever tried. And moreover, it’s extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government. Now, no one’s allowed to say that that foreign government is ISRAEL because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that’s naughty,” Carlson said. “There is nothing wrong with saying that,” Carlson continued. “There is nothing hateful about saying that. There’s nothing anti-Semitic about saying. There’s nothing even anti-Israel about saying that.” Someone who agrees with Carlson’s assessment is CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou. On Wednesday, he told the story of the recruitment of a copy machine repairman who earned his CIA operational officer a big promotion.

At first, Kiriakou laughed at the notion of a copy machine repairman being useful, but then he realized the brilliance of the plan when he learned that the repairman secretly sent every document from a prime minister’s office straight to the CIA. How did he do it? By planting a tiny device on the copy machine. This flow of information was pure leverage for the CIA: “You know what they’re thinking. You know their next move. You know who their enemies are and who their allies are. Maybe it’s their position on trade negotiations. Maybe the prime minister has a health problem you need to plan for. You never know what might come through,” Kiriakou explained. “That ONE critical nugget is all it takes.”

That, he says, is EXACTLY what Epstein was to Israeli intelligence: someone with access (like the copy machine repairman) who quietly delivered leverage on the world’s elite. Back to Carlson. He addressed the claims that he’s taking money from the Qatari government head-on. What was his reaction to this claim? He literally laughed out loud. “Maybe I was taking tons of money from some bad country. One of the bad countries you’re not allowed to talk about or like—Qatar!” Carlson said before bursting into laughter. “That’s the most hilarious [claim]. Qatar is kind of controlling our conversation. Qatar. Evil Qatar,” he mocked.

An audience member asked if Carlson was laughing, and he confirmed, “I am laughing.” “I’ve actually been to Qatar. It’s awesome. Never taken a dollar from the Qataris or the Qataris or whatever they’re called. Great country. But even if I was, like, on the payroll of Qatar, which I guess I’m like—I can’t now. But even if I was [taking money], it still wouldn’t make the question any less relevant. Why is this [war with Iran] a good idea?” Carlson asked. “And their refusal to answer that question lets you know right away that you are not dealing with a person of good faith. You’re dealing with a propagandist who is trying to control you.” What’s your take on Carlson’s claim about Israeli intelligence? Is he exposing an uncomfortable truth, or is he chasing attention and controversy?

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“..Dmitry Peskov accused Germany of “competing with France in primacy for stoking the war..”

• Ukraine To Receive German-funded Long-range Weapons This Month (RT)

Ukraine will receive its first batch of long-range missiles financed by Germany by the end of July, a top German general has said, acknowledging that Kiev’s battlefield situation is deteriorating. In an interview with ZDF, Major General Christian Freuding, who oversees the coordination of Berlin’s military support for Kiev, said Germany is “ready to make these weapons systems available.” Ukraine will receive the weapons “by the end of this month,” Freuding stated, adding that they will arrive “in high three-digit numbers.” He did not specify which missiles will be delivered or what their range is. ”We need weapons systems that can reach deep into Russian territory and attack depots, command facilities, airfields, and aircraft,” Freuding said.

He went on to say the deliveries stem from a contract between Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and its domestic weapons industry, backed by German funding secured in late May. Freuding stressed that Germany is not providing Kiev with long-range Taurus missiles with a range of 500km. Despite Ukraine’s pleas, Berlin has been reluctant to approve deliveries, arguing that doing so could escalate the hostilities and draw Germany into the conflict. He acknowledged that Ukraine is facing mounting battlefield challenges, noting that Russia is making “small but steady” gains, forcing Ukrainian units to retreat to deeper defensive lines. In the air, the situation has “worsened in recent weeks,” he said, citing a single night when Kiev came under an attack involving more than 700 drones and dozens of missiles.

The Russian Defense Ministry has said it only attacks military-related facilities and never targets civilians. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed support in late May for developing Ukraine’s own long-range weapons. He said that while Kiev will receive German financial backing to procure these systems, it will not face restrictions on how it uses them. Russia has warned against Western military aid to Ukraine, saying it will only prolong the conflict without changing the outcome. Responding to Merz’s announcement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Germany of “competing with France in primacy for stoking the war,” warning that these moves hinder peace efforts. He added that supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine would bring an “inevitable escalation.”

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Will anyone open fire?

• Baltic Sea Will Remain Common Despite NATO Fantasies – Russian Ambassador (Sp.)

The Baltic Sea will remain a common space for all regional states, no matter what NATO countries “fantasize” about, Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin said in an interview with Sputnik. “Whatever the alliance’s countries fantasize about, the Baltic Sea was, remains and will be a common space for all states in the region without exception,” Barbin said. He said the course chosen by Denmark and NATO countries to militarize the Baltic Sea region has no future. The ambassador said the increase in military activity does not delay, but increases the risk of a conflict, especially in the absence of direct dialogue and mutual trust between Russia and NATO.

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Overwhelming idea: You’re guilty so you don’t deserve A/C.

“Like the outdated idea that every woman should anchor her existence around a husband and kids, the anti-A/C dogma should stop where logic and personal freedom begin..”

• France Is Sweating Its Brains Out Thanks To The EU’s Climate Madness (Marsden)

Paris was melting last week, flirting with 40°C and zero chill. Apparently, the moment was ripe for an epiphany. I was in an Uber, as one does when public transport becomes a slow cooker. I always enjoy chatting with the driver – usually Algerian or Moroccan. We got to talking about our lives and what led us to France. At one point he looked at me and said, “No husband, no kids, and you have air conditioning! You’re totally cheating at life!” “Cheating,” huh? Interesting word choice. So opting out of the standard life script is breaking the rules? But whose rules? The ones written by the establishment – whichever power structure has successfully colonized your brain.

I was fortunate to have been raised by parents who believed in free thought, not groupthink, and who told me that you should be able to do anything you want with your life as long as you’re not harming others. Which is a long way of saying that if I want to crank the A/C during a heatwave in my own home, it’s nobody’s business. Especially not that of some guy in the front seat of a Peugeot who thinks that I’ve short-circuited the Matrix. But the fact that he grouped air conditioning with not having kids or a man says a lot. It’s not just cultural expectations, but also the deep programming of state-sanctioned virtue that has come to dominate cultural norms. And in France, one of the strangest markers of virtue is rejecting modern cooling technology.

The week was so blisteringly hot that the French government anticipated shutting down 1,350 schools so kids could sweat it out at home instead of in class. Even the local public swimming pool had to close – the one place that usually offers relief – because the deck hit 50°C and the water was bathtub temperature. Instead, the French spent the day playing what I call the “Blinds and Windows Game.” Open everything in the morning. Close it all when the heat starts. Pull the blinds down just right so the sun hits the metal outside instead of the window glass. I opted out. I’ve got better things to do than play around with my window coverings. So I turned on the air conditioning.

My neighbors were not fans. I’ve had a mob of French residents of my building bang on my door demanding that I turn it off. Why? Because they spotted the portable A/C exhaust tubes poking out my window. Having ignored them, I later received a formal letter with instructions on when I was allowed to use it. According to them, that would only be when they collectively decide that the temperature justifies it – and only during certain hours. “For the well being of everyone,” they wrote, before launching into a sermon about how A/C is bad for the environment and ruins it for everyone else.

Give me a break. This is a country powered by decarbonized nuclear energy, so the climate change excuse doesn’t work here. But even without that, they invent new reasons: It causes “thermal shock.” It gives you neck spasms. It’s “unnatural air.” It’ll make you sick… Like the outdated idea that every woman should anchor her existence around a husband and kids, the anti-A/C dogma should stop where logic and personal freedom begin. No, gyms shouldn’t be set to 26°C in the summer because some guy wants to do five squats and scroll on his phone without feeling “chilly” during a heatwave. You shouldn’t be sweating through your clothes at the movies. And hospitals and nursing homes shouldn’t feel like a slow death in a convection oven.

But the moment far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen suggested a “grand plan for air conditioning” a few days ago, the narrative defenders of the establishment status quo promptly lost it. “Air conditioning saves lives. Letting people die in hospitals, or letting children or vulnerable people suffer because there is no air conditioning, is completely absurd,” Le Pen said in the National Assembly. The opposition Ecologists’ national secretary Marine Tondelier shot back that “air conditioning won’t suffice.” Guess they’re still hoping to lower the Earth’s thermostat manually. Since they’re clearly failing, despite all the lifestyle sacrifices they’ve extracted from us, maybe we could at least normalize cooling the rooms we actually live in.

Apparently not. France’s Ecological Transition Minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher of Macron’s Renaissance party, said that it was okay to “air condition vulnerable people” but “not everywhere.” Because “global warming.” Oh, please. Go yell at your German Green pals from the last coalition government, that had to fire up coal plants that dump filth into Europe’s air, all because their sacred renewables can’t carry the load.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Autism
https://twitter.com/Censored4sure/status/1943754763062952419

https://twitter.com/SimonDixonTwitt/status/1943769455567548819
https://twitter.com/AlpacaAurelius/status/1943753190295711921

Parrots

Leopard
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1943917020208091433

Emanuel
https://twitter.com/DrClownPhD/status/1943792667160457554

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 30 2025

Jun 302025
 
 June 30, 2025  Posted by at 9:12 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Van Gogh painting sunflowers 1888

 

• China’s Economy Spirals With No End in Sight, Says Kyle Bass (ET)
• Canada Hands Big Win To Trump, Suspends US Tech Firm Tax (JTN)
• Elon Musk Escalates Attack On Trump’s Mega Bill (RT)
• Iran Could Rebuild Nuclear Program Within Months – IAEA Chief (RT)
• No Weapons-Grade Enrichment In Iran – Foreign Ministry Spokesman (RT)
• Top Economist: Trump May Have ‘Outsmarted All of Us’ on Tariffs (Margolis)
• One-World Government Greater Threat Than AI, Climate Change – Peter Thiel (ZH)
• Serbian Protesters Claim Blocking Traffic in 18 Cities Nationwide (Sp.)
• West Starts to See It Can’t Inflict Strategic Defeat on Russia – Lavrov (Sp.)
• Justice Kagan’s Own Words Come Back to Haunt Her on Injunctions (Margolis)
• Elie Mystal’s MSNBC Meltdown Over Trump Is One for the Ages (Margolis)
• MSM Claims MAHA “Threatens To Set Women Back Decades” (ZH)
• Baltic Sea’s WW2 Chemical Legacy Demands Russia-NATO Cooperation (RT)

 

 

 

 

Thank you for your donations overnight. Don’t stop now!

 

 

 

 

Trade deal
https://twitter.com/ThePatriotOasis/status/1939334146050183536

NO

Never

 

 

AOC

 

 

Dmitry Orlov: NATO is DONE

 

 

Snowden

 

 

 

 

Take Bass seriously. He is no fool, and he does have a reputation to care about.

• China’s Economy Spirals With No End in Sight, Says Kyle Bass (ET)

Communist China is grappling with the most severe economic crisis in its history, a downturn that the regime will not recover from, according to Kyle Bass, founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management. “There is nothing that is going to bail China out of their economic spiral. They’re having a real estate crisis, a banking crisis, a youth unemployment crisis, and now they need to be worried about their current account,” Bass said in an interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” that aired on June 26. Bass said U.S. tariffs and declining trade threaten China’s economic advantage, which is its trade surplus with the United States.

China’s exports to the United States plunged by 35 percent in May compared to a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data. “China’s once bright spot is now in question,” Bass said. “I actually am surprised it’s not down more.” China has also been hit hard by capital flight. In 2024, Bass said, China experienced a massive outflow of both foreign direct investment (FDI) and portfolio investment totaling about $500 billion, pointing to the gap between its trade surplus of about $980 billion and its current account surplus of about $420 billion. China is also facing unsustainable debts. When combining China’s sovereign debt and local government financing debt, Bass estimated that the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio should be roughly 350 percent, which he said is difficult to manage considering the various economic challenges.

Another indicator of China’s financial crisis is the performance of China’s bond market, Bass said. As of June 27, the yield on China’s 10-year sovereign bond is approximately 1.64 percent, compared to 4.26 percent for the U.S. 10-year Treasury “So the Chinese government is pretty good at lying about whatever they want to lie about, but the bond market kind of tells the truth, and the bond markets telling you that China is in an economic winter,” Bass said. China’s economic troubles have persisted for several years, highlighted by the collapse of major real estate developers Evergrande and Country Garden, which marked the onset of the current property crisis in 2021. In February, the national unemployment rate reached 5.7 percent, the highest in two years, while the youth jobless rate topped 16.9 percent.

Adding to the concerns, consumer prices fell for a fourth consecutive month in May, while industrial profits decreased by 9.1 percent compared to a year earlier, underscoring deepening deflatory pressures in the world’s second-largest economy. Despite China’s economic struggles, the United States continues to rely on China for certain imports, particularly rare earths and pharmaceutical ingredients. According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the United States imported 70 percent of its rare earths from China between 2020 and 2023. In the face of China’s leverage over these items, Bass said that the United States retains the ultimate “trump card” through its control of the global dollar system. “They don’t have the ability to purchase things around the world in yuan or RMB because no one accepts a currency they don’t trust or that doesn’t trade,” Bass said.

Bass stated that the United States should signal to Beijing its intention to sever China’s access to the dollar system, the very moment the regime initiates military action against Taiwan. “Deterrence is something that we should all be engaging in to try to stop China from being militaristically belligerent with Taiwan,” Bass said. “That is a better first move on our part than sending carrier strike groups of our brave men and women into the Taiwan Strait in a kinetic conflict with China … tens of thousands of our men and women will die if that happens.” The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims Taiwan as a renegade province, intent on annexing the island, though the regime has never exercised authority there. Taiwan is a de facto independent nation with its own democratically elected government, military, constitution, and currency.

Read more …

Canada/Carney comes with a whole new tax, retroactive to 2022 no less, that would cost US firms billions. Trump reacts by suspending trade talks, and Canada suspends the tax. Thinking: oh well, no harm done. But trust has been hurt gravely, while Carney’s hands are still empty. What were/are they thinking?

• Canada Hands Big Win To Trump, Suspends US Tech Firm Tax (JTN)

Canada announced Sunday night it was suspending a tax on U.S. technology firms that had caused President Trump to suspend trade negotiations between the two nations, handing a major victory to the American president. The Canadian government said it was suspending enforcement of the tax that was due to be collected starting Monday, saying the action was taken “in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States.” Prime Minister Mark Carney informed the Trump administration of the decision, and the two sides plan to resume trade talks on or about July 21. Trump had called the tax on technology firms an “attack” on America, and suspended trade talks Friday in an effort to pressure Canada.

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“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!”

• Elon Musk Escalates Attack On Trump’s Mega Bill (RT)

Billionaire Elon Musk launched a renewed attack on US President Donald Trump’s budget bill on Saturday, calling it “utterly insane” and warning that it would hurl America into “debt slavery” and destroy millions of jobs. The dispute between the two men who were once close allies turned ugly earlier in June over Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s outburst came hours before Senate Republicans narrowly advanced the bill in a 51-49 procedural vote, with Vice President J.D. Vance on standby to break a potential tie. Musk took to X to condemn the legislation, writing, “The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!”

In a series of posts, he accused the bill of favoring “industries of the past” – likely a jab at fossil fuel subsidies – while undermining future-focused sectors like renewable energy and tech. Musk claimed that the bill’s $5 trillion debt ceiling hike would put the US in the “fast lane to debt slavery,” citing polling data that suggests GOP voters oppose the bill over fiscal concerns. After leaving the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk criticized the bill’s deficit impact, calling it a “disgusting abomination.” Trump retaliated by accusing Musk of having sour grapes over lost electric vehicle subsidies – a reference to federal incentives that had benefited Tesla. Musk escalated by insinuating that Trump had ties to late financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, while Trump considered cutting SpaceX contracts. Later, Musk apologized, and Trump suggested that he could forgive him.

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“So you cannot disinvent this. You cannot undo the knowledge that you have or the capacities that you have.”

• Iran Could Rebuild Nuclear Program Within Months – IAEA Chief (RT)

Iran could resume uranium enrichment within months, despite recent US and Israeli airstrikes on its nuclear facilities, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi has stated. In an interview with CBS News released on Sunday, Grossi said the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, including Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, inflicted “a very serious level of damage,” but some of the assets are “still standing.” “The capacities they [Iran] have are there. They can have, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that,” he added, while acknowledging that even the Iranians likely do not yet know the extent of the damage.

According to the IAEA chief, Iran maintains a significant industrial capacity. “Iran is a very sophisticated country in terms of nuclear technology, as is obvious. So you cannot disinvent this. You cannot undo the knowledge that you have or the capacities that you have.” Grossi went on to say that concerns about Iran’s nuclear program cannot be put to rest through a military solution. “I think this should be the incentive that we all must have to understand that… you are not going to solve this in a definitive way militarily. You are going to have an agreement,” he said, expressing hope that IAEA inspectors would soon have access to the country’s nuclear sites again. Iran has barred the inspectors from its nuclear facilities, accusing the agency of distorting facts in a recent report, which Tehran claims served as justification for the Israeli and US strikes. Grossi responded by saying: “Really, who can believe that this conflict happened because of a report of the IAEA? And, by the way, what was in that report was not new.”

The comments come after a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, during which the US and Israel conducted airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites. US President Donald Trump claimed the strikes “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities and warned of further attacks if Iran pursues nuclear weapons. Several US media outlets have suggested, however, that the damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was limited. Tehran has denied that it has plans to produce a nuclear weapon and maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, stressing that it wants to reserve the right to enrich uranium for civilian use.

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“Please, you can go through the reports by the IAEA and show me one single clue or evidence of Iran’s nuclear program deviating from peaceful purposes.”

• No Weapons-Grade Enrichment In Iran – Foreign Ministry Spokesman (RT)

Iran has no plans to obtain nuclear weapons but reserves the right to enrich uranium for civilian use, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told RT on Saturday. He condemned recent Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities as dangerous and unprovoked. Baghaei dismissed Israeli claims that Tehran had been secretly developing nuclear weapons, which were cited as justification for the attacks. Reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) support Iran’s position, he added. “I think Iran has made it clear for the past two or three decades that it is not seeking nuclear weapons,” Baghaei said. “There has never been weapons-grade enrichment in Iran. Please, you can go through the reports by the IAEA and show me one single clue or evidence of Iran’s nuclear program deviating from peaceful purposes.”

“It is a matter of fact that Iran’s nuclear program remains totally peaceful,” he stressed. The spokesman referred to remarks by the global watchdog’s chief, Rafael Grossi, who stated earlier this month that the agency has found no evidence of “a systematic effort” by Iran to develop nuclear arms. Baghaei also voiced frustration with the IAEA for not strongly condemning the strikes. “What is expected from the IAEA and its Board of Governors is to remain loyal to their responsibilities and mandates by condemning, unambiguously, the US and Israeli regime’s attacks on our nuclear facilities,” he said.

He further defended Iran’s right to enrich uranium under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). “The US is offering a very dangerous interpretation of the NPT – that developing states have no right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It is not acceptable for any responsible, decent member of the NPT,” Baghaei said. Earlier this week, Iran’s parliament passed a bill to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, accusing the agency of providing “a pretext” for the attacks.

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“..even some of the most respected voices in economics are forced to admit that Trump’s tariffs have delivered results that the so-called experts said were impossible.”

• Top Economist: Trump May Have ‘Outsmarted All of Us’ on Tariffs (Margolis)

Donald Trump has a knack for making the so-called experts look foolish, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the ongoing debate over tariffs. The political and economic elite have ridiculed Trump’s approach, insisting that his tough stance on trade would backfire, cause a recession and cripple the U.S. economy. Yet despite all the apocalyptic predictions, the economy hasn’t gone south, and predictions of a looming recession have been quietly walked back. Recently, a prominent anti-Trump economist admitted what many on the right have been saying from the beginning: Trump’s tariff strategy wasn’t the reckless gamble the media made it out to be.

Instead, it was a calculated move designed to protect American workers, revive domestic manufacturing, and put America’s interests first. A prominent Wall Street economist who had slammed President Trump’s tariffs earlier this year now says that the president may have “outsmarted all of us” with his controversial trade policies. Torsten Sløk, chief economist at investment giant Apollo Global Management, said that while the uncertainty surrounding trade policy has already started to weigh on the economy, Trump could lower tariffs on most of the US trading partners while using the levies to boost federal revenue.

Sløk suggested in a recently posted analysis that the administration’s approach may be more strategic than previously thought. The optimistic outlook stands in stark contrast to his earlier position. In April, Sløk warned that Trump’s tariffs could trigger a recession by summer, particularly harming American small businesses and potentially halting the flow of goods from China to the US, leading to layoffs and a broader economic slowdown. Let’s be honest—Trump’s critics never gave him a fair shake. They scoffed at his insistence that America was getting fleeced by China and other trading partners. They dismissed his warnings about the hollowing out of our industrial base. They mocked his promise to bring jobs back to the heartland. But now, even some of the most respected voices in economics are forced to admit that Trump’s tariffs have delivered results that the so-called experts said were impossible.

Now, economists such as Sløk have egg on their faces. “Extending the deadline one year would give countries and US domestic businesses time to adjust to the new world with permanently higher tariffs,” Sløk writes. “It would also result in an immediate decline in uncertainty, which would be positive for business planning, employment, and financial markets.” He added, “This would seem like a victory for the world and yet would produce $400 billion of annual revenue for US taxpayers. Trade partners will be happy with only 10% tariffs and US tax revenue will go up. Maybe the administration has outsmarted all of us.” The reality is that Trump’s tariffs leveled the playing field. For decades, American workers have been forced to compete with countries that exploit cheap labor, ignore environmental standards, and manipulate their currencies.

The globalist consensus—championed by both parties in Washington—left our factories shuttered and our communities devastated. Trump dared to challenge that consensus, and the results speak for themselves. Manufacturing jobs have made a comeback. Wages for blue-collar workers have risen. And, perhaps most importantly, America has regained leverage on the world stage. Trump’s willingness to use tariffs as a bargaining chip forced our trading partners to the negotiating table and secured better deals for American workers. Trump’s approach wasn’t about starting trade wars for the sake of it—it was about restoring American strength. He understood that economic power is national power, and he wasn’t afraid to use every tool at his disposal to protect American interests. The fact that even his critics are now coming around to his way of thinking is a testament to his vision and leadership.

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Just as people are saying Peter Thiel is the biggest threat.

• One-World Government Greater Threat Than AI, Climate Change – Peter Thiel (ZH)

In a wide-ranging interview on the future and global existential risks, billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel raised alarms not only about familiar threats like nuclear war, climate change, and artificial intelligence but also about what he sees as a more insidious danger: the rise of a one-world totalitarian state. Speaking to the New York Times’ Ross Douthat, Thiel argued that the default political response to global crises—centralized, supranational governance—could plunge humanity into authoritarianism. Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, shared his worries using examples from dystopian sci-fi stories. “There’s a risk of nuclear war, environmental disaster, bioweapons, and certain types of risks with AI,” Thiel explained to Douthat, suggesting that the push for global governance as a solution to these threats could culminate in a “bad singularity” – a one-world state that stifles freedom under the guise of safety.

Thiel critiqued what he described as a reflexive call for centralized control in times of peril. “The default political solution people have for all these existential risks is one-world governance,” Thiel observed, pointing to proposals for a strengthened United Nations to control nuclear arsenals or global compute governance to regulate AI development, including measures to “log every single keystroke” to prevent dangerous programming. Such solutions, the investor warned, risk creating a surveillance state that sacrifices individual liberty for security.

Drawing on historical and philosophical analogies, Thiel referenced a 1940s Federation of American Scientists film, One World or None, which argued that only global governance could prevent nuclear annihilation. Thiel juxtaposed this with a Christian theological framing: “Antichrist or Armageddon?” In both, the billionaire said he sees a binary choice between centralized control and catastrophic collapse. Yet, Thiel questioned the plausibility of a charismatic “Antichrist” figure seizing power through hypnotic rhetoric, as depicted in apocalyptic literature. Instead, he offered a modern twist: the path to global control lies in relentless fearmongering about existential risks.

“The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop,” Thiel explained. The billionaire contrasted this with earlier visions of scientific progress, like those of 17th- and 18th-century Baconian science, where the threat was an evil genius wielding technology. Presently, Thiel argued, the greater political resonance lies in halting scientific advancement altogether. “In our world, it’s far more likely to be Greta Thunberg than Dr. Strangelove,” he quipped, invoking the radical Swedish climate activist as a symbol of anti-progress sentiment. On AI specifically, Thiel struck a balanced tone, tempering both utopian and apocalyptic predictions. “One question we can frame is: Just how big a thing do I think AI is?” he asked himself. “My stupid answer is: It’s more than a nothing burger, and it’s less than the total transformation of our society.”

Thiel compared AI’s potential impact to the internet in the late 1990s, suggesting it could create “some great companies” and add “a few percentage points” to GDP, perhaps boosting growth by 1% annually for a decade or more. However, the billionaire expressed skepticism that AI alone could end economic stagnation, viewing it as a significant but not revolutionary force. While Thiel expressed nuanced views on artificial intelligence, his venture capital firm, Founders Fund, is aggressively backing the technology. Namely, it recently led a $600 million investment in Crusoe, a vertically integrated AI infrastructure provider. “The biggest risk with AI is that we don’t go big enough. Crusoe is here to liberate us from the island of limited ambition,” Thiel said at the time.

Read more …

Organic or Soros? They call for civil war.

• Serbian Protesters Claim Blocking Traffic in 18 Cities Nationwide (Sp.)

Student protesters in Serbia reported blocking roads and traffic interchanges in 18 cities in the country on Monday night. On Saturday evening, the ultimatum expired that student protesters and opposition supporters issued to the authorities on June 25, demanding that they set a date for early parliamentary elections and remove the tent city of the president’s supporters in front of the Serbian parliament, the Assembly. On Sunday, they added a third demand — the release of all detained participants in the protest action from June 28 to 29. On their social networks and on a website dedicated to the protests, the students listed 24 locations in Belgrade where they blocked traffic until their demands were met, and 18 cities in Serbia from Subotica in the north to Zajecar in the southeast of the country, where they set up pickets on roads and interchanges.

Government agencies have not yet issued a statement on this matter; on social networks, protesters are distributing videos of blocked roads, often using garbage containers and other improvised materials. Earlier, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said that 48 interior ministry employees had been injured during the riots in Belgrade on Sunday night, and 77 people had been detained. According to Dacic, 22 people sought emergency medical care, two of them with serious injuries. Radio and Television of Serbia reported the detention of eight more suspects in crimes against the constitutional order on Sunday. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that no fatalities during the riots in Belgrade on Sunday night was “only a miracle.”

Protesting students and opposition supporters threw firecrackers and various objects at a police cordon near the park in front of the Serbian presidential administration on Saturday evening, and heavily equipped police used tear gas, batons and pushed the crowd back. According to police director Dragan Vasiljevic, the police were forced to use physical force after demonstrators tried to break through the cordon for 5-6 minutes. The Serbian Interior Ministry reported on Saturday that a protest in Belgrade demanding early parliamentary elections had gathered 36,000 participants. Protesters in Belgrade called for the destruction of Serbia in a civil war, the parliament’s speaker and former prime minister Ana Brnabic said on Sunday night.

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“..are openly trying to return to the days when France and Germany wanted to conquer Europe, primarily the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union..”

• West Starts to See It Can’t Inflict Strategic Defeat on Russia – Lavrov (Sp.)

The West probably starts to understand that it will not be able to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday. “We have very close ties in all areas, and they are of particular importance, especially in the current very difficult and radically changed international situation, when we are witnessing an unprecedented confrontation between our country and the collective West, which has decided once again to go to war against us and inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, using the Nazi regime in Kiev as a ram. The West has never been able to do this, and it won’t work this time. They’re probably starting to figure it out,” Lavrov said during his meeting with Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubayev.

Russia is open for honest efforts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, but it is not ready for scheming, which is the preferred approach of some European leaders, Sergey Lavrov said. “As [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin has said recently, we are ready to defend a just settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. We are open to honest work, but we are not ready for the kind of scheming that some European leaders have been forcing us to engage in,” Lavrov said after a meeting with Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Zheenbek Kulubaev. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz lack common sense and are trying to reestablish France’s and Germany’s control over Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

Lavrov commented on Merz and Macron’s op-ed for the British newspaper, in which the two said that “the main source of instability for Europe comes from Russia” and called on Europe to arm itself. “I believe that these quotes alone are enough for a person who has some understanding of what is happening in Europe and follows events to understand that these people have completely lost common sense and are openly trying to return to the days when France and Germany wanted to conquer Europe, primarily the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union,” Lavrov said. Sergey Lavrov said that he had discussed labor migration with his Kyrgyz counterpart, Zheenbek Kulubaev, adding that Russia expected migrant workers to comply with the rules of stay.

“We attach great importance to the compliance with the rules of stay by foreign citizens in our country… We are interested in the influx of migrant workers, and our Kyrgyz friends are also interested in making the people, who go to work in Russia, feel at ease. Do achieve this, it is necessary that everyone regulate their status,” Lavrov said. Sergey Lavrov said that he had discussed the situation in Iran and Ukraine with his Kyrgyz counterpart, Zheenbek Kulubaev. “Of course, special attention was paid to the situation in the Middle East, the Palestinian problem, and the situation around Iran,” Lavrov said. Lavrov expressed Russia’s gratitude to Kyrgyzstan for its position on Ukraine.

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“This can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stuck for the years that it takes to go through a normal proces..,”

• Justice Kagan’s Own Words Come Back to Haunt Her on Injunctions (Margolis)

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., released Friday, finally put the brakes on the reckless abuse of nationwide injunctions by lower courts—and has Democrats in full meltdown mode. The left’s favorite judicial weapon just got neutered, and the hypocrisy is impossible to ignore. The liberal wing of the court didn’t do itself any favors, either. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent was so horrible that Justice Amy Coney Barrett felt compelled to call it out in the majority opinion. But Justice Elena Kagan’s credibility also took a direct hit. In a stunning display of judicial flip-flopping, Kagan’s own words from 2022 have come back to haunt her, exposing the left’s all-too-familiar habit of changing the rules when it suits their political objectives.

Nationwide injunctions have been the left’s go-to tactic for derailing conservative policy at the stroke of a single judge’s pen. Under Trump, district judges from deep-blue enclaves repeatedly issued sweeping orders to block administration policies nationwide at an unprecedented pace, no matter how tenuous the legal grounds. Despite all the apocalyptic rhetoric, there’s no doubt that the left’s current position on nationwide injunctions is purely political—and Justice Elena Kagan accidentally proved it. How? Well, Justice Kagan, who dissented in this case, was singing a very different tune just a couple of years ago. Back in 2022, when President Biden was in the White House and conservatives were the ones seeking relief from his executive orders, Kagan was openly skeptical of nationwide injunctions. “This can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stuck for the years that it takes to go through a normal process,” she said.

That’s not some out-of-context paraphrase—it’s her own words, on the record. Fast forward to 2025, and suddenly Kagan’s skepticism has evaporated. Now that Donald Trump is back in the Oval Office, she’s all-in for the same judicial overreach she once panned. It just goes to show you who the real partisans on the court are. They aren’t adhering to any particular judicial philosophy or the Constitution, they care only about whether a particular ruling hurts or benefits the Democratic Party. This isn’t just about one justice’s hypocrisy. It’s a window into the left’s broader approach to power. When they control the levers of government, they demand deference and restraint from the courts. When they’re out of power, they want unelected judges to act as a permanent veto against any policy they dislike. It’s not about the Constitution or the separation of powers—it’s about maintaining their grip on the bureaucracy by any means necessary.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc. is a must-needed correction, that frankly, should have been bipartisan. It restores a measure of balance and puts an end to the judicial free-for-all that has plagued our system for far too long. And if Justice Kagan and her allies are upset, maybe they should reread their own words from just a few years ago. Consistency, after all, used to be a virtue. But in today’s Democratic Party, it’s just another casualty of the endless war for power. The Supreme Court just restored the rule of law—and the left can’t handle it.

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Trump aims to murder Canadian journalists?!

• Elie Mystal’s MSNBC Meltdown Over Trump Is One for the Ages (Margolis)

Elie Mystal’s latest outburst on MSNBC’s airwaves wasn’t just over the top—it was an embarrassing display of unhinged, irrational fearmongering. Speaking with host Ali Velshi, Mystal launched into a bizarre hypothetical that quickly devolved into the kind of wild-eyed rant you’d expect from a late-night Internet forum, not a supposedly serious political analyst on national television. Though I guess since this was MSNBC, it makes sense. “Imagine Donald Trump wants to do something illegal to you, Ali Velshi. Imagine that he wants to murder you,” Mystal began. “Imagine that he and Stephen Miller release an entire policy explaining about how they can murder Canadian journalists who are working in America because they’re taking the jobs from real American journalists, right?” The absurdity of the scenario was matched only by Mystal’s apparent belief that this was a reasonable way to discuss a Supreme Court ruling.

He continued, painting a picture where Velshi, upon learning of this imaginary murder plot, goes to court to stop Trump and his “plan to murder me.” According to Mystal, the court would agree with Velshi, issuing an injunction to prevent his assassination. “And so, you’re like, ‘Great, awesome!’ And you go home. And then Pat Kiernan shows up and he’s like, ‘What about me? I’m also a Canadian journalist.’” The parade of Canadian journalists supposedly fearing for their lives grew as Mystal added, “Ashley Banfield shows up too, ‘I’m also the, a Canadian, what, what about me?’” The legal logic here is as tortured as the scenario itself. Mystal claims the courts would tell these other journalists, “Well, I can’t help you ’cause Ali Velshi is the one who sued.” He insists that every individual would need to file their own lawsuit to avoid being murdered by the president—an assertion so detached from reality it borders on performance art.

“And while the Supreme Court is deciding who the Ali Velshi can’t be murdered, uh, injunction applies to, guess what? Donald Trump starts murdering people. That is the upshot of yesterday’s decision,” Mystal declared, as if the highest court in the land had just greenlit a presidential killing spree. He then tried to tie this fevered fantasy back to the actual ruling, claiming, “Donald Trump has declared that he is going to do an unconstitutional thing, and various people have been able to secure the court’s order that he cannot do the unconstitutional thing to them. And basically, what the Supreme Court has said is that, ‘Well, you had said something about um, um, um, Jimmy, but you didn’t say anything about Consuela, so we’re gonna deport Consuela while the Supreme Court figures it out.’ That is what the court said.”

This isn’t legitimate legal analysis. It’s barely coherent political commentary—more a cartoonish distortion of facts and law, aimed at stirring fear and outrage instead of informing or persuading. The Supreme Court’s decision, regardless of your view on it, did not authorize murder, nor did it claim that only individual lawsuits can protect against government overreach. Keep in mind, Trump’s executive actions have consistently fallen within established executive authority. If they hadn’t, left-wing groups wouldn’t have needed to shop around for friendly judges willing to block his policies. Mystal’s tirade perfectly illustrates how hyperbole and hysteria have replaced sober, reasoned debate in some media circles. Mystal’s performance was not just embarrassing—it was a disservice to anyone seeking to understand the real implications of Supreme Court decisions. Instead of offering insight, he chose to indulge in moronic hypotheticals that insult the intelligence of viewers and trivialize serious legal issues. If this is the standard for legal commentary on cable news, it’s no wonder public trust in the media is at an all-time low.

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Our women can only be free if we poison ourselves.

• MSM Claims MAHA “Threatens To Set Women Back Decades” (ZH)

An increasing number of Americans are abandoning processed foods and taking control of their own food supply chain—planting backyard gardens and sourcing meat, eggs, dairy, and pantry staples directly from local markets and farms. The trend, which is gaining momentum under the “Make America Healthy Again” movement—and even noted by Goldman—reflects a broader push for food independence and a return to community-based sourcing. Not everyone is on board with MAHA — especially not the feminist journalists at SELF (owned by the corporate media company Condé Nast), who recently penned an article that reads like a hit piece against MAHA. Erica Sloan’s critique of MAHA is that food independence is unrealistic and burdensome for women in the modern progressive world.

In her article titled “How the MAHA Food Agenda Threatens to Set Women Back Decades,” Sloan writes… But it’s what MAHA isn’t saying that’s most important: Stoking so much fear around these vital industries implies that Americans—more specifically, the mothers of America—need to find a different way to feed their families. “Women do a disproportionate share of the kind of work that the MAHA movement is asking people to do, which is to grow their own food, to prepare all of their food from scratch, and to avoid processed food and even packaged foods,” Norah MacKendrick, PhD, associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University and author of Better Safe Than Sorry: How Consumers Navigate Exposure to Everyday Toxics, tells SELF. Even today, with approximately 60% of women working outside the home, women still spend about two hours more on housework daily and cook more than twice as many meals a week as men do. The implication that our current food system is inherently unsafe just stands to pile on the labor.

“In order for a family to eat a diet of mostly homegrown or even just homemade meals… that’s going to be a lot more work for women and mothers especially,” Dr. MacKendrick says. It’s an ideal that the MAHA moms have already embodied—and that would be not only unrealistic but unfair to expect from all American families. Decades?

The angle that Sloan uses to bash MAHA via a quote from some woman in acemedia is entirely flawed, that’s because MAHA doesn’t force anyone to grow their own food or make everything from scratch—it simply raises awareness about the systemic failures of Big Food and Big Pharma and empowers families to reclaim control where possible. Some folks plant gardens, while others buy from local ranchers and farmers. The movement calls for informed choices and better public policy—not a return to the primitive 1800s—or is asking women to live like the modern-day Amish. Heaven forbid women to cook from scratch for their families! More nonsense from the PR journalist … MAHA’s villainization of food processing just adds the burden of cooking from scratch to women’s plates. The journalist concluded the article with this: “Processed and ultraprocessed items are also functional necessities for many, and can spark joy. And again, some of them have positive nutritional value.”

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Cooperate? But Russia!

• Baltic Sea’s WW2 Chemical Legacy Demands Russia-NATO Cooperation (RT)

Recovering ammunition still buried on the Baltic Sea floor after World War II must be an international effort rather than a unilateral action by any one nation, an expert has told RT. Germany recently completed a pilot project to recover the sunken munitions, prompting concerns about potential implications for the environment. An estimated 1.6 million tons of wartime ammunition, primarily left by Nazi Germany, are scattered across the seabed of the North and Baltic seas. While most of them are conventional shells, some 40 tons contain deadly chemical agents, such as mustard gas, phosgene, and other compounds. The munitions have been deteriorating over the decades and now pose a hazard to the marine environment and, potentially, to coastal areas.

The recovery and disposal of the munitions must be organized through an international effort to minimize the risks of a major environmental catastrophe in the Baltic, Bernhard Trautvetter, a German publicist and peace activist, believes. “The question was how to deal with the recovery of these poison time bombs for the biosphere of the Baltic Sea. Of course, due to the corrosion of these vessels, there is a danger for the fish and the plants, and other countries,” Trautvetter told RT on Sunday. The NATO states of the Baltic region, as well as Russia, which has access to the waterway through its Kaliningrad enclave and the St. Petersburg area, must join forces to “pull this time bomb out of the world,” he added.

Berlin launched a recovery project in 2023, starting the work in Lubeck Bay. The pilot phase concluded in April of this year. The German authorities declared it a success yet admitted some adjustments were needed for areas with a high density of discarded ammunition. Russia has long raised concerns over the toxic legacy of World War II in the Baltic, calling for an international recovery operation. However, Moscow was effectively left out of this effort due to its souring relations with the West.

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Kookaburra

Alu cats

Happy
https://twitter.com/IndiaTales7/status/1938917738224984129

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 29 2024

Dec 292024
 
 December 29, 2024  Posted by at 11:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


René Magritte Morning star 1938

 

• There Is No Pardoning The Biden Administration (Eric Utter)
• Court Orders Biden Administration To Stop Selling Border Wall Material (JTN)
• Trump Will Restore US Rule of Law by Pardoning January 6 Protesters (Sp.)
• Top German Newspaper Editor Quits Over Musk Op-Ed (RT)
• Trump Supports Immigration Visas Backed By Musk (NYP)
• Trump Asks Supreme Court To Delay Decision On Banning TikTok in US (JTN)
• ‘Godfather of AI’ Issues New Warning To Humanity (RT)
• Ukraine Heading For Disaster – Slovak PM Fico (RT)
• US Senator Slams Biden’s $1.25 Billion Weaponry Package For Ukraine (RT)
• US Congress Urged To Expose ‘Sexual Slush Fund List’ (RT)
• CDC Can’t Substantiate COVID Vaccine Ingredient Claims (JTN)
• Telegram Blocks Russian Media In EU (RT)
• Fani Willis To Be Slapped With Subpoenas (ZH)
• US and UK Seek to Force Russia Out of Syria, Destabilize Middle East (Sp.)
• A Fishy Story of Cable Sabotage In The Baltic Sea (SCF)
• Europe: The Fall of the Holy Renewable Empire (Godefridi)
• IEA’s ‘Net Zero’ Bias Undermines Global Energy Security (JTN)

 

 

 

 

All of sudden, Bannon goes after Musk. Wonder why.

Hegseth

 

 

 

 

“The Biden administration has helped make a mockery of common sense—if not of reality itself..”

• There Is No Pardoning The Biden Administration (Eric Utter)

This is going to be controversial to many, but I am going to tell it like I see it, so damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. The Biden administration, set up as it was by the Obama administration, has been a clear and present danger to the United States of America. In almost every way imaginable. It has tanked an economy that otherwise was on the way to (an almost inevitable) rapid, post-pandemic recovery, causing pain to countless American families. Speaking of the pandemic, its ludicrous lockdown policy, and a host of other counterproductive and destructive policies, caused immeasurable physical, mental, and emotional harm to millions of people—and summarily destroyed many small businesses, particularly restaurants. It fostered a growing oligarchy by ensuring certain government-approved giant corporations prospered while the small businesses were devastated.

It nourished this budding fascism even as it took every opportunity to baselessly label Donald Trump and his supporters as “fascists.” Similarly, it incessantly talked of “saving our democracy” even as it tried to destroy it by pushing for the end of the Electoral College and the filibuster, supporting the advent of congressional representation for Washington, D.C., urging the granting of statehood to Puerto Rico, and, most egregiously, going to any and all lengths to get rid of its chief political opponent, Donald J. Trump. It is still doing all it can to obstruct the will of the people, as was evident in its post-election auctioning off materials for the border wall for pennies on the dollar, as well as in placing various other roadblocks in front of the incoming administration. (In other words, it is doing everything possible to counteract the will of the people. Doesn’t sound very democratic to me.)

Leaving the border wide open for years has created the greatest current—and latent—security threat the nation has ever faced. Period. In colluding with the social media giants to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, or with foreign agents to concoct the Russian-collusion hoax, Democrats have shown, time and again, they will do anything to attain and retain power. The Biden administration made that abundantly clear…seven ways from Sunday. In its constant use of lawfare and its “accountability for thee but not for me” perversion of the justice system, it has created a two-tiered system of justice that is deeply anti-American and monstrously pernicious. And that is troubling—and frightening—to most Americans.

The Biden administration has helped make a mockery of common sense—if not of reality itself—with its official inability to define what a woman is, and to simultaneously approve of “gender reassignment” surgeries and procedures (even for the very young)…and biological men in women’s locker-rooms, bathrooms, and on their sports teams. It has done grievous damage to our culture—and unity—by endlessly promoting the absurd ideologies of DEI and CRT. Its unwillingness to ever be available, accountable, or transparent is only matched by its overwhelming desire and propensity to lie to the very citizens it is supposed to serve. Which we have seen in its attempts to protect itself, smear Trump and his supporters, give a pass to the Chinese spy balloon, and in its flat-out refusal to tell Americans anything resembling the truth about the drone fiasco that has been ongoing for over a month.

The non-answers and gibberish that has spewed from the mouths of “government officials,” has been truly mind-blowing…on this and numerous other matters. As if all of this weren’t enough, its foreign policy may yet lead to our destruction. It essentially surrendered to goat-herders in Afghanistan, leaving behind billions of dollars of high-end military equipment, more than a dozen dead Americans, and our reputation and dignity. It has bizarrely coddled Iran while playing hardball with Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. And it seems almost determined to get us directly involved in a shooting war with Russia, if not a nuclear one. To me, this is far worse than incompetence, more than malfeasance. To me, it spells T-R-E-A-S-O-N.

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“..we will hold his Administration accountable for illegally subverting our Nation’s border security until their very last day in power..”

• Court Orders Biden Administration To Stop Selling Border Wall Material (JTN)

A court on Friday ordered President Joe Biden’s administration to stop selling border wall construction materials ahead of the next presidential administration. The administration has been selling excess border wall materials for low prices ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term. It comes after Biden halted construction of the wall, and Congress authorized the administration last year to dispose of unused border wall materials as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that the administration has confirmed that it will oblige the court order and stop disposing of any further border wall materials over the next 30 days, according to Fox News.

“We have successfully blocked the Biden Administration from disposing of any further border wall materials before President Trump takes office,” Paxton said in a statement. “This follows our major victory forcing Biden to build the wall, and we will hold his Administration accountable for illegally subverting our Nation’s border security until their very last day in power, especially where their actions are clearly motivated by a desire to thwart President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda.”

The order comes after Texas promised to help Trump finish building a wall along the United States southern border with Mexico. Trump previously pleaded for the Biden administration to stop selling material for the wall, claiming it was an almost “criminal act.” “What they’re doing is really an act, it’s almost a criminal act,” he said. “They know we’re going to use it and if we don’t have it, we’re going to have to rebuild it, and it’ll cost double what it cost years ago, and that’s hundreds of millions of dollars because you’re talking about a lot of, a lot of wall.”

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“..he will be restoring the rule of law instead of the rule of arbitrary power..”

• Trump Will Restore US Rule of Law by Pardoning January 6 Protesters (Sp.)

On January 6, 2021, a crowd of supporters of then-President Donald Trump breached the United States Capitol Building in Washington, DC, over concerns that the 2020 presidential election was rigged “If Trump follows through on his promise [to pardon January Sixers], then he will be restoring the rule of law instead of the rule of arbitrary power,” retired CIA intelligence official Larry Johnson tells Sputnik. According to Johnson, Trump’s “action to correct the abuse is surrounding the incarceration of the January 6 protesters will put the judicial system on notice that it must follow the law and be blind with respect to people’s political views.” The CIA veteran believes that the incident was a staged intelligence operation, carried out by FBI agents and undercover operatives with support from both the CIA and the Pentagon, and coordinated with Democrats.

Johnson elaborates that the subsequent Democrat-led January 6 panel was nothing short of a “political show trial that matched anything done during the Stalin era in the Soviet Union.” He assesses the persecution of January Sixers as an “overreach by the Department of Justice” aimed at intimidating Trump’s base. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to pardon most of January 6th actors, stressing that he would begin addressing this issue “in the first hour” of his presidency. To date, over 1,100 individuals have been convicted, with more than 600 sentenced to prison terms. Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the right-wing Proud Boys movement, received the longest sentence—22 years in federal prison.

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Does Musk contradict himself?

“Despite being far-right, AfD represents political realism…”

“..their portrayal as far-right is clearly false.”

• Top German Newspaper Editor Quits Over Musk Op-Ed (RT)

“I have always enjoyed running the opinion pages of Welt and Welt am Sonntag. Today, an article written by Elon Musk appeared in Welt am Sonntag. I handed in my resignation yesterday, after it went to print,” Eva Marie Kogel wrote on X. The billionaire owner of SpeceX, Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) wrote the article after praising AfD on social media. In his op-ed, the major ally of US President-elect Donald Trump hailed AfD as “the last spark of hope” for Germany. The billionaire insisted that its “pragmatic” approach will usher in a revival of the country, while arguing that other parties are out of touch with regular people. “The traditional parties have failed Germany. Their policies have led to economic stagnation, social unrest and an erosion of national identity,” Musk wrote.

“Despite being far-right, AfD represents political realism that resonates with many Germans who feel that their concerns are being ignored by the establishment.” Musk further defended the AfD, stating that “their portrayal as far-right is clearly false.” According to German media, the publication of the op-ed sparked intense debates among the staff at Die Welt, with some viewing it as meddling in the snap parliamentary election, which is scheduled for February 2025. Jan Philipp Burgard, Die Welt’s senior reporter, penned a rebuttal to Musk, calling his praise of AfD “fatally flawed” and arguing that it was “a big mistake” not to label the party as far-right.

Another Die Welt journalist, Franziska Zimmerer, insisted in her own op-ed that the text written by Musk “should not have appeared” in the paper. “Election appeals, no matter the party, have no place in independent media,” she wrote. Founded in 2013, AfD has been pushing for the tightening of asylum laws and fighting organized crime and Islamic extremism. The party has become more popular in recent years, winning its first regional election in Thuringia in September. The 2025 election was called after the ruling three-party coalition collapsed due to the conflict over budget.

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As I said yesterday, there are people who abuse the H-1B program. So you can stop the program, or stop the abuse.

• Trump Supports Immigration Visas Backed By Musk (NYP)

President-elect Trump told The Post Saturday he supports immigration visas for highly skilled workers, appearing to side with Elon Musk in the roiling intra-MAGA debate on the issue. “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump said by phone, referring to the H-1B program, which permits companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” added Trump, who restricted access to foreign worker visas in his first administration and has been critical of the program in the past. Musk and other tech barons argued this week that the H-1B visa program is critical to ensuring American companies can find highly skilled labor which may not be easily available in the U.S. labor force and must be expanded.

MAGA hardliners want Trump to follow through with his promise to promote US workers and impose tougher restrictions on immigration. Trump’s Saturday comments come a day after Musk vowed to go to “war” on the issue, telling one mocking opponent to go “f–k yourself.” The flare-up happened after X user Steven Mackey jabbed the billionaire’s defense of the program by using the billionaire’s own words against him. “Stop trying to optimize something that shouldn’t exist,” a line often used by Musk, Mackey wrote. “Let’s optimize H-1B,” he sarcastically added. Musk fired back: “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.” “Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend,” he added, paragraphing a memorable line from the 2008 comedy “Tropic Thunder.”

The tech billionaire has been criticized by MAGA diehards including Laura Loomer and Ann Coulter — who say the H-1B visa program has been abused and needs to be sharply curtailed. And influential voices around Trump have publicly begun turning on Musk as well. “Someone please notify ‘Child Protective Services’— need to do a ‘wellness check’ on this toddler,” former White House Counselor Steve Bannon jeered at the X boss in a Saturday post to his account on Gettr. Musk said his passion for the issue stemmed from wanting America to remain competitive by attracting “the top ~0.1% of engineering talent” which he said was essential for “America to keep winning.” Vivek Ramaswamy, who is slated to run the Department of Government Efficiency with Musk, backed Musk and offered a critique of American society. “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence,” Ramaswamy wrote on X.

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“He appears to have taken a heightened interest in keeping the short-form video app available in the U.S. upon learning his popularity among younger voters on it.”

• Trump Asks Supreme Court To Delay Decision On Banning TikTok in US (JTN)

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday asked the Supreme Court to delay a potential ban on the social media platform TikTok until after his inauguration on Jan. 20. President Joe Biden signed a law in April that to ban platform from app stores in the United States starting January 19, unless its China-connected parent company ByteDance divests its shares of the app. The Supreme Court is set is begin hearing oral arguments on Jan. 10, nine days before the deadline. Trump has suggested that he could keep the social media app around after he takes office, even under its current ownership by a Chinese company. He appears to have taken a heightened interest in keeping the short-form video app available in the U.S. upon learning his popularity among younger voters on it.

The ban stems from concerns that the app could operate as an extension of the Chinese government. But the company has strongly denied being “owned or controlled by any government or state-controlled entity.” Trump attorney D. John Sauer on Friday said the incoming president holds the “electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns,” according to The Hill. “In light of these interests – including, most importantly, his overarching responsibility for the United States’ national security and foreign policy – President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture, and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office,” Sauer wrote in a brief. The Supreme Court is expected to begin hearing oral arguments on Jan. 10, nine days before the deadline.

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“You see, we’ve never had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before.”

• ‘Godfather of AI’ Issues New Warning To Humanity (RT)

Artificial intelligence could lead to human extinction within three decades with a likelihood of up to 20%, according to Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneering figure in AI and recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. This marks an increase from a 10% risk, his estimate just a year ago. During an interview on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday Hinton was asked whether anything had changed since his previous estimate of a one-in-ten chance of an AI apocalypse. The Turing Award-winning scientist responded, “not really, 10% to 20%.” This led to the show’s guest editor, the former chancellor Sajid Javid, to quip “you’re going up.” The computer scientist, who quit Google last year, responded: “If anything. You see, we’ve never had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before.”

The British-Canadian scientist, who received this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to AI, highlighted the challenges of controlling advanced AI systems. “How many examples do you know of a more intelligent thing being controlled by a less intelligent thing?…Evolution put a lot of work into allowing the baby to control the mother, but that’s about the only example I know of,” Hinton, who is often called ‘the Godfather of AI’, said. He suggested “imagine yourself and a three-year-old. We’ll be the three-year-old,” compared to a future AI that would be “smarter than people.” Hinton noted that progress has been “much faster than I expected,” and called for regulation to ensure safety. He cautioned against relying solely on corporate profit motives, stating, “the only thing that can force those big companies to do more research on safety is government regulation.”

In May 2023, the Center for AI Safety released a statement signed by prominent scientists in the field, including Hinton, warning that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” Among the signees are Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Yoshua Bengio, considered an AI pioneer for his work on neural networks. Hinton believes that AI systems could eventually surpass human intelligence, escape human control and, potentially, cause catastrophic harm to humanity. He advocates dedicating significant resources to ensure AI safety and ethical use, also emphasizing an urgent need for proactive measures before it’s too late. Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at Meta, has expressed views contrary to Hinton’s, stating that the technology “could actually save humanity from extinction.”

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“..would “never agree to Slavs killing each other in the name of any geopolitical interests and efforts to weaken and distract Russia.”

• Ukraine Heading For Disaster – Slovak PM Fico (RT)

The Ukrainian government is pushing the country towards ruin by trying to serve the interests of the West, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico claimed in a Facebook post on Friday. Fico said that he finds it “incomprehensible” that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky continues to refuse a ceasefire with Russia, and is instead “dragging the entire country into disaster.” The Slovak premier predicted that Ukraine will pay “a huge price for this Western adventure in the form of the loss of territory and the presence of foreign troops.” Fico stressed that he would personally never join Western politicians who “openly support war” and would “never agree to Slavs killing each other in the name of any geopolitical interests and efforts to weaken and distract Russia.”

In the video, he also hit out at Zelensky, who has repeatedly attacked Fico in public speeches and on social media. The prime minister argued that the West is only granting Zelensky’s requests for “selfish political and power reasons.” “However, I am not your subordinate servant who cannot express his own opinion and who has an obligation only to help you and not to expect anything from you,” Fico added. He condemned Zelensky’s pledge that Kiev will stop transporting Russian gas deliveries to Slovakia after January 1, warning that the move would severely damage the EU economy. Fico warned that Bratislava could consider a number of reciprocal measures, including cutting electricity supplies to Ukraine.

“Stopping the transit of Russian natural gas through Ukraine is not just a hollow political gesture. It’s an extremely costly move, one that we, in the European Union, will pay for,” Fico stressed. The prime minister also announced that aside from continuing to push for a ceasefire and encouraging the start of peace talks, Slovakia will also offer itself as a “suitable country for organizing any peace negotiations at any level.” Fico noted that he proposed the idea of Bratislava hosting negotiations to Russian President Vladimir Putin during his recent visit to Moscow. The Russian leader has since told reporters that Moscow would not be opposed to the idea.

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Ukraine won’t win because of another $1.25 billion being poured in 3 weeks before Jan 20. So what other goal could this have than money laundering?

• US Senator Slams Biden’s $1.25 Billion Weaponry Package For Ukraine (RT)

Utah Senator Mike Lee has criticized the proposed allocation of a new lavish weaponry package for Kiev, calling it ‘money laundering.’ The Republican senator took to X on Sunday, responding to an AP post reporting on a looming $1.25 billion weaponry package, expected to be announced by the outgoing Biden administration shortly. “Please no more money to Ukraine. There’s only so much they can launder,” Lee wrote on his account with the ‘BasedMikeLee’ handle, accompanying the post with a picture of the Ukrainian flag bearing the “Universal symbol for money laundering” inscription. The upcoming package is expected to include a “significant amount” of various munitions, including missiles for NASAMS and HAWK anti-aircraft systems, munitions for Stinger MANPADs, as well as artillery shells in 155- and 105-mm caliber, AP reported, citing unnamed US officials.

The package comes as a part of an effort by the outgoing administration to pour as much weaponry into Ukraine as possible before President-elect Donald Trump takes over on January 20. The announcement is reportedly expected to be made on Monday. Senator Lee has been highly critical of Washington’s enduring military aid for Ukraine, ramping up his rhetoric after the November election was won by Trump. Among other things, the senator accused the outgoing administration of trying to derail the expected effort by the next president to bring the Russia-Ukraine conflict to its end.

“Congress must not give [Biden] a gift to further sabotage President Trump’s peace negotiations on the way out the door,” Lee said in late November, in the wake of media reports of the White House quietly asking Congress to allocate an additional $24 billion in Ukraine-related spending. Republican fiscal hawks have consistently criticized requests for unrestricted spending without necessary structural reforms. President Biden’s reported appeal for additional funding for Ukraine arrived amidst uncertainty regarding the future of US policy toward the conflict as President-elect Trump has repeatedly claimed he could end the war within 24 hours and has expressed a strong interest in negotiating a resolution to the hostilities.

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“..the OCWR disbursed over $17 million to resolve nearly 300 cases, covering issues like sexual harassment, discrimination, and pay disputes.”

• US Congress Urged To Expose ‘Sexual Slush Fund List’ (RT)

Republican Representatives Thomas Massie from Kentucky and Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene have urged the US Congress to disclose the names of lawmakers who have used taxpayer money to settle workplace disputes, including sexual harassment claims. Since 1997, over $17 million has been paid out for such cases. In a post on X on Thursday, Massie highlighted the issue, stating that “Congress has secretly paid out more than $17 million of your money to quietly settle charges of harassment (sexual and other forms) in Congressional offices.” The lawmaker insisted that the names of the representatives involved must be released. Taylor Greene supported Massie’s call, writing on X that she wishes to release the “congressional sexual slush fund list.”

She emphasized that taxpayers should not have been responsible for these payments in the first place, or for “all the other garbage that they should not have to pay for.” The Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR), established in 1995, oversees these settlements. Between 1997 and 2017, the OCWR disbursed over $17 million to resolve nearly 300 cases, covering issues like sexual harassment, discrimination, and pay disputes. The office does not disclose the identities of those involved in the settlements. Former Representatives Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) have also expressed support for releasing the names associated with these settlements. Brooks stated that taxpayer money should never be used to secretly bail out harassers, advocating personal accountability to deter misconduct. Chaffetz concurred, asserting that taxpayers deserve transparency.

This renewed demand for transparency follows the release of a House Ethics Committee report accusing former Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz of using illegal drugs and paying tens of thousands of dollars for sex, including with a minor. Gaetz has vehemently denied the allegations and has in turn proposed a plan to expose the individuals involved in harassment settlements. The OCWR has previously stated that a significant portion of the cases it handles involve employees not directly affiliated with the House or Senate, such as from the Library of Congress or the Capitol Police. Additionally, settlements reached outside the OCWR, like the 2015 case involving the late Democratic Michigan Representative John Conyers, are not included in the disclosed figures.

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“..been caught empty-handed when asked for data to support its claim, on the same “myths and facts” page, that “nearly all the ingredients” in the therapeutics are found “in many foods – fats, sugars, and salts.”

• CDC Can’t Substantiate COVID Vaccine Ingredient Claims (JTN)

Federal public health agencies are known for black-and-white public service announcements that portray their favorite COVID-19 treatments as universally beneficial without providing supporting data, particularly the effectiveness of each new vaccine formulation. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner-nominee Marty Makary once accused the current officeholder, Robert Califf, of wildly exaggerating data in claiming that since-rescinded bivalent vaccines, which targeted two COVID strains, showed a “significant reduction in hospitalization and death in all populations examined, which is clinically meaningful.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which similarly claims COVID vaccines are safer than infections for all populations, has now been caught empty-handed when asked for data to support its claim, on the same “myths and facts” page, that “nearly all the ingredients” in the therapeutics are found “in many foods – fats, sugars, and salts.”

The Informed Consent Action Network and Mississippi Medical Professionals for Informed Consent filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all documents including “studies, journal articles, manufacturer data, etc.” that are “sufficient to show the foods that contain the same ingredients as those found in the COVID19 vaccines” to verify the CDC’s claim. They also asked for data on foods that contain the ingredients listed in the vaccine inserts, in another five FOIA requests: “recombinant spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus … nucleoside-modified messenger RNA …extracts from the soapbark tree” and exotic-sounding chemicals such as “methyl-alpha-D-mannopyranoside,” and evidence that the body responds the same to an ingredient whether eaten or injected. The CDC’s response to the broadest request? Its National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases does not have “any documents pertaining to your request.”

The FOIA officer told the entities to ask the FDA for the data because “the subject matter expert notes that ingredients in specific vaccines fall under the responsibility of the FDA,” and also told them how to appeal the agency’s response up the FOIA command chain. “Typically, if one agency points us to another, ICAN will have us submit the same requests to that other agency although here, ICAN was questioning the evidence justifying a statement on CDC’s own website so it’s unclear why CDC would have no records yet FDA would have them,” ICAN’s lawyer Elizabeth Brehm told Just the News in an email. She shared the agency’s responses to all six FOIAs, which gave the same no-records response but also cited various CDC and FDA pages, including kinds of vaccine ingredients and examples, such as the stabilizer gelatin and “residual inactivating ingredient” formaldehyde, and a long explanation of why certain ingredients are in vaccines.

“CDC’s approach to truth and data is a joke,” Brehm’s colleague Aaron Siri, who leads the effort, wrote on X. ICAN alleged the agency’s shrugging response shows it’s violating the Information Quality Act by not being able to “substantiate the quality of the information it has disseminated.” The agency’s inability to back up its public messaging comes as the feds continue hiding safety data, healthcare workers worldwide express hesitancy toward COVID vaccines and some state public health agencies ditch one-size-fits-all recommendations. Another FOIA filer beat the FDA this month, with a federal judge ordering the agency to produce its emergency use authorization file on the Pfizer COVID vaccine by June 30, 2025.

The FDA argued the EUA file isn’t covered by Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency’s FOIA request for the “biological product file” in the formal application for licensing, but U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman quoted its own press release on the vaccine’s formal approval, which said it used and builds on the EUA’s data. The Biden administration pulled out all the stops to delay the release of the FDA’s COVID vaccine safety data that are kept apart from the public Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, in response to Just the News litigation. The docket shows the feds secured a stay of the proceedings before Donald Trump’s election victory. The case is scheduled to resume five months into the second Trump administration.

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Nothing to do with propaganda. Just plain censorship.

• Telegram Blocks Russian Media In EU (RT)

The Telegram channels of multiple major Russian news outlets were rendered inaccessible across the EU on Sunday. The affected channels now display a plaque stating that access to their content has been restricted over alleged “violation of local laws,” with all the content unavailable. According to media reports, the affected channels include such Russian majors as RIA Novosti, Izvestia, Rossiya 1, Channel One, NTV and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. While it was not immediately clear whether the bans are EU-wide, the restrictions have been reportedly rolled out in Poland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy and the Czech Republic. The EU has taken multiple hostile steps against Russian media amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev – and even before it.

Some of the media affected in the apparent Telegram ban, namely Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Izvestia and RIA Novosti, were slapped with a broadcasting ban in the bloc in May. At the time, the EU Council claimed the outlets were under the “permanent direct or indirect control” of the Russian leadership, and played an “essential and instrumental” role in the hostilities. No official statements have so far been made on the matter, either by Telegram, the EU as a whole or by individual members of the bloc. The apparent ban of Telegram channels has been condemned by senior Russian officials, including Senator Alexey Pushkov, who heads the media policy committee of the country’s upper chamber, the Federation Council.

“I believe that the blocking of the RIA Novosti Telegram channel and other Russian mass media, including Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta in a number of EU countries, is a continuation of the effort to create an informational iron curtain between Europe and Russia,” he told RIA Novosti. The latest hostile move has likely been prompted by the “weakening media positions” of Western leadership, especially on the Ukrainian conflict and domestic policies, Pushkov suggested. The ban is reminiscent of restrictions imposed in the EU on RT, which has long been the prime target for hostile actions in the West against Russian state-affiliated media. RT had all its Telegram accounts blocked across the bloc early into the Ukrainian conflict in March 2022.

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Try Jack Smith next. Get them under oath.

• Fani Willis To Be Slapped With Subpoenas (ZH)

Lawmakers in Georgia have been granted the authority to serve subpoenas on Fulton County DA Fani Willis as part of an inquiry into her prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump. In a Monday ruling revealed later in the week, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura Ingram allowed the Georgia Senate to compel Willis’s testimony – giving her until Jan. 13 to argue that the lawmakers’ demands are overly broad, or seek confidential information. Willis plans to appeal the ruling, the Epoch Times reports. “We believe the ruling is wrong and will appeal,” said Willis’s attorney, former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes. Earlier this year, a state Senate committee was formed over allegations of misconduct by Willis during her prosecution of Trump and his co-defendants (one of whom revealed that Fani hired her lover to help with her prosecution).

In August, the committee subpoenaed Willis, who then skipped a September hearing, delaying the inquiry. Her attorney argued that the committee’s subpoenas are overly broad and lack legitimate legislative purpose – and that they seek confidential information. Republican state Senator Greg Dolezal applauded the ruling. “Judge Ingram has ruled the state Senate does indeed have the power to subpoena D.A. Fani Willis,” Dolezal wrote on X. “We’ll see you soon, Madam D.A.” As the Epoch Times notes further, scrutiny of Willis intensified after the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled earlier in December to disqualify her from the Trump case. The split 2–1 decision cited an “appearance of impropriety” stemming from her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

While both Willis and Wade have admitted to the relationship, they said it began after Wade was hired and ended before Trump’s indictment. Willis’s office filed a notice of intent to ask the Georgia Supreme Court to review the decision. This came after earlier rulings, including one by Judge Scott McAfee, who described Willis’s actions as a “tremendous lapse in judgment” and allowed her to continue prosecuting Trump if Wade stepped aside—a condition that was met. The Senate committee’s investigation also highlights concerns over Willis’s hiring of Wade, which legislators allege created a “clear conflict of interest” and defrauded taxpayers. Following the court of appeals’ decision to disqualify Willis, Trump proclaimed the election case “dead” and alleged corruption within her office.

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“There’s zero interest or intent on the part of the US to promote either democracy or stability” in the region..”

• US and UK Seek to Force Russia Out of Syria, Destabilize Middle East (Sp.)

The outgoing Biden administration and the British leadership are looking to maintain chaos in the Middle East while regarding the Russian military presence in Syria as a force hindering their plans, according to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). The SVR stated that the CIA and MI6 are developing plans to organize a series of terrorist attacks on Russian military facilities in Syria using ISIS* fighters armed with drones as their proxies. “This is just one more egregious example of the US poking the bear. And up to this point, the bear has not eaten the poker,” retired CIA intelligence official Larry Johnson tells Sputnik. The US and its allies believe that they “can inflict enough damage on Russia that it’ll pull out of Syria and withdraw its presence from those military bases” since they misinterpret Moscow’s patience as weakness, according to Johnson.

The SVR noted that the US and UK hope these terror provocations would also cast a shadow on the new Syrian authorities as being incapable of controlling the situation on the ground. Meanwhile, the US also intends to maintain control over oil-rich areas of Syria east of the Euphrates River under the pretext of fighting ISIS, according to the SVR. “The interests of the US are very simple. It’s oil control. They’ve had control of some of the oil in the east for at least eight or nine years—so this is not new,” Johnson stresses. “There’s zero interest or intent on the part of the US to promote either democracy or stability” in the region, the pundit concludes.

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“It is significant that NATO intelligence agencies are turning their attention to cutting off Russia’s oil exports via the Baltic Sea.”

• A Fishy Story of Cable Sabotage In The Baltic Sea (SCF)

This week saw yet another incident of alleged submarine cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea. A power line running along the seabed from Finland to Estonia was reportedly disrupted. Western news media have fingered a tanker carrying Russian crude oil as being responsible, with the implication that the damage was caused deliberately. In recent weeks, there have been other incidents of alleged sabotage of telecommunication cables under the Baltic Sea. On November 17, a data link between Finland and Lithuania was damaged. The next day, on November 18, another internet line lying on the seabed from Finland to Germany was reportedly cut. Both cables were said to have been wrecked by external force. Germany’s defense minister Boris Pistorius and other Russophobic politicians have insinuated that the alleged sabotage is a form of “hybrid warfare” being waged by Russia and possibly with China’s help in the case of the November incidents.

Moscow and Beijing have categorically denied any involvement in interfering with subsea infrastructure in the Baltic region. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the accusations against Russia of aggravated damage as “absurd” and, he noted, typically made without any verifiable evidence. Conveniently, following the latest incident this week, NATO head Mark Rutte is assuring Finland, Sweden, and the Baltic states that the alliance is responding to their calls for more security by increasing the alliance’s military forces for patrolling the sea lanes. Any independent criminal investigator would easily find credible answers to the question of Cui Bono (Who Gains?).

Cables are cut with unusual frequency (suggesting not accidental damage); the people reporting the damage do so without showing evidence (we are relying on their version); the accusations are basely leveled at Russia without evidence but reliant on Russophobic prejudice; the accusations, in turn, are cited to make calls for increased NATO protection; and NATO duly provides the requested “protection”. One upshot is that the NATO military is giving itself a license to increase warships, warplanes and surveillance systems on Russia’s northern flank – all under the pretext of “responding to Russian sabotage”. Such a move is, of course, part of the long-term strategic attempt to encircle Russia, threaten its national security and destabilize its sovereignty. In other words, this is all part of the long-term geopolitical confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO bloc and Russia, in which the war in Ukraine is but one theater.

The control of the Arctic sea routes and resources is a top strategic goal of the United States and its Scandinavian NATO partners, in particular. Russia has a natural advantage in the Arctic region owing to its geography. One way of tipping the balance of advantage is for NATO to militarize the region. Another strategic aim is to curb Russian cargo shipping via the Baltic Sea. Tankers operating from the Russian Baltic Sea ports of Primorsk, Ust-Luga, St Petersburg, Vyborg and Vystok provide a vital maritime route for Russian crude oil exports. It is significant that NATO intelligence agencies are turning their attention to cutting off Russia’s oil exports via the Baltic Sea.

There is huge consternation, as our columnist Ian Proud alluded to last week, among Western enemies that unprecedented economic sanctions imposed over the last decade have failed to cripple the Russian economy. Indeed, far from it, Russia’s economy is powering ahead, partly because its oil and gas exports are finding alternative world markets to the traditional European ones which have been cut off by their unilaterally imposed sanctions against Russia. A telling headline in European Pravda (a CIA-sponsored propaganda outlet) was this: “Why the EU still fails to restrict Russian oil exports and what should be done instead”. The article went on to state: “The volume of seaborne crude oil exports from Russian ports in the Baltic Sea accounts for approximately 60% of Russia’s total maritime oil exports… Sooner or later, the EU or a coalition of Baltic Sea countries, together with Norway and the United Kingdom, will be forced to implement restrictive measures against this maritime oil trade.”

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Dunkelflaute.

• Europe: The Fall of the Holy Renewable Empire (Godefridi)

Solar and wind power production falls drastically during unfavorable weather conditions. It happens, in fact, every year. This condition, however, now has far-reaching economic and environmental repercussions, revealing the flaws in an energy policy based on intermittent renewable energies. Why does Germany, while having one of the highest carbon footprints, now consume the most expensive electricity in Europe? How did the country lose its energy autonomy? For the last fifteen years, Germany invested massively in solar and wind energy, while sabotaging its own nuclear power stations. By 2023, renewable energies accounted for 55% of electricity production in the country. In 2022, it was only 48%.

The main contribution to renewable energy has comes from wind power, at 31% of total production, followed by solar power at 12%, biomass at 8%, and other renewable sources such as hydroelectricity for the remaining 3.4%. In 2024, renewable energy accounted for almost 60% of German electricity production in the first half of the year. This production level, however, is smoothed out over a given period and does not reflect moments of crisis such as the “Dunkelflaute.” Literally “flat, dark calm,” Dunkelflaute is characterized by a simultaneous lack of wind and sun in winter, when demand for electricity in Germany is at its highest. These episodes last from a few days to several weeks, with wind and solar production sometimes falling to less than 20% of their capacity, and sometimes nothing. On December 12 of this year, for example, German electricity production from wind and solar power was 1/30th the demand for it.

Renewable policies would be bearable if they were based on a sustainable energy source — indifferent to the weather — such as nuclear power. In 2011, however, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, Germany abruptly decided to phase out nuclear power, and gradually shut down fully operational plants. This decision reduced the country’s capacity to produce stable, predictable electricity and instead made heating, cooling and so on cruelly vulnerable to fluctuations in renewable energy sources. In short, when there is neither wind nor sun in Germany, the lights go out. The phase-out of nuclear power has left Germany incapable of being self-sufficient in energy, especially during Dunkelflaute. The country imports electricity on a massive scale from France, Denmark and Poland, and has to use coal and lignite to produce electricity.

Germany’s massive imports of electricity also lead to colossal increases in electricity prices for its neighbors. The prices are indeed staggering. In 2024, the household price of electricity in Germany was the highest in Europe, at €400/MWh, reaching peaks of €900/MWh during Dunkelflaute episodes, compared to a much lower European average. By comparison, the average price in nuclear-powered France and Finland was €250/MWh over the same period (2024). And, in the United States, rates are 30% lower than in France. How is all that “sustainable” for Europe? But this is “for the planet”, right? Not even close. Despite its commitment to so-called green energies, Germany still has a high carbon footprint due to its increased reliance on coal and lignite to make up for energy shortfalls.

In 2024, the country remains the second-largest emitter of CO2 per unit of energy produced in Europe, with a significant proportion of electricity coming from fossil sources. Ten times more CO2 per unit of energy produced than France. Germany’s high electricity prices are leading to the relocation of its industry, as companies look for sites where energy costs are more affordable. How can you stay viable when you pay three times more for electricity than your competitors? (Natural gas prices are even worse: five times more expensive in Europe than in the USA.) Whole swathes of Germany’s proud industry are collapsing. We only remember the big names — VW, BASF, Mercedes-Benz — but every big company that disappears or downsizes takes with it a myriad of small and medium-sized enterprises that end up collapsing along with it. Energy-intensive sectors such as metallurgy and chemicals are particularly hard hit.

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The influential International Energy Agency (IEA) was once a valuable informational source on global oil supplies..”

• IEA’s ‘Net Zero’ Bias Undermines Global Energy Security (JTN)

The influential International Energy Agency (IEA) was once a valuable informational source on global oil supplies. Policymakers worldwide, as well as the petroleum industry, placed a lot of stock in its reports and projections. A new report by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, details how the agency has evolved in the past few years into a political advocacy organization helping to advance the so-called energy transition. This has undermined the objectivity of the agency’s forecasts, leading to bad energy policy, such as the Biden administration’s moratorium on liquified natural gas (LNG) export permits. It’s also negatively impacted the oil and gas industry, the report also argues. “It’s unfortunate they’ve intentionally changed the mission of this agency from what it originally was to just another narrative pusher. We’ve got plenty of those. Every major media organization serves that function,” energy analyst David Blackmon told Just the News.

Beginning in October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a cartel of major oil-producing countries, initiated an embargo on exports of crude oil, creating a “energy crisis” in the U.S. This was prior to the development of shale resources in the U.S., which has made the U.S. the largest global producer of oil and gas. In 1973, the U.S. was heavily dependent on oil from the Middle East, and the embargo drove up the price of crude oil nearly 400%. In the wake of the embargo, the United States and other oil-consuming allies established the IEA as an autonomous intergovernmental organization, tasked with ensuring the security of oil supplies. It also created a coordination mechanism by which nations could address vulnerabilities in oil supplies and respond effectively to supply disruptions and subsequent price shocks. As part of this mission, the agency provides forecasts of energy supply and demand.

These forecasting documents “carry tremendous influence on the world’s collective perception of future energy trends. In doing so, they exercise enormous influence on energy policy, the investment decisions of public, publicly-traded, and privately-held companies and associated financing from public and private entities alike,” the report explains. Over the past five years, the report states, the IEA has placed greater emphasis on helping to advance an energy transition toward the goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, a goal that was endorsed by a vote of the agency’s governing board. The report explains that this shift in direction politicized the agency’s forecasts. A profoundly impactful change, according to the report, was its decision to abandon in its forecasts a “business as usual” scenario.

This scenario provided a baseline in which only policies that were already adopted and implemented were modeled. This was replaced with policy scenarios in which additional but unspecified policies are adopted to achieve net-zero policy targets, “no matter how realistic or aspirational those targets may be.” The “business as usual” scenario, the report explains, was necessary for evaluating the costs and benefits of energy and climate policies. Without that baseline, policies to address climate change have no such baseline for such an assessment. The report contrasts the IEA with the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a federal agency entirely separate from the IEA. The U.S. EIA forecasted robust global natural gas demand through 2050, but the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2023 scenario projection had natural gas demand peaking this decade and declining thereafter. In enacting the pause on LNG export permit approvals, Biden administration officials cited the IEA forecasts, ignoring its own EIA data.

“No one doubts the importance of U.S. LNG to the world energy economy. It is a perverse irony that an international organization established to boost energy security now produces ‘reference’ modeling scenarios that one of its founding members [the United States] is using to justify a policy that undermines energy security,” the report states. From overly optimistic assumptions of EV adoption rates to a failure to consider critical mineral sourcing needed for a green energy expansion, Barrasso’s report highlights several examples of poor policy decisions inspired by the IEA’s biased forecasting. Besides the impact on policymakers, the agency’s forecasts, the report argues, are “tailor-made” to “discourage investment in oil and gas while promoting decarbonization targets few believe will happen.”

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Gator

 

 

Frens

 

 

Window
https://twitter.com/i/status/1873051759142420974

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 24 2024

Mar 242024
 
 March 24, 2024  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  29 Responses »


Edvard Munch Spring 1889

 

• It’s War: The Real Meat Grinder Starts Now (Pepe Escobar)
• This Is Not ISIS – RT Editor-in-Chief (Sp.)
• Scott Ritter: Moscow Terrorist Attack Doesn’t Look Like ISIS’ Handiwork (Sp.)
• Ukraine Becomes Den of Terrorism in Europe With Help of West – Zakharova (Sp.)
• It’s Time For Russia To Give The West A Nuclear Reminder (Dmitry Trenin)
• “Crocus City Hall” Attack In Moscow Suburb And More (Doctorow)
• Why Russia Won’t Cede Baltic Sea Positions (Sp.)
• US Whips Up Fear of Russian Bugaboo to ‘Subjugate Europe’ (Sp.)
• Israel Announces Major Land Grab In West Bank (RT)
• China Behind Pan American Highway (ET)
• Sir Thomas More and the Biden Corruption Scandal (Turley)
• How The Police State Muzzles Our Right To Speak Truth To Power (Whitehead)
• The Hertz Meltdown Reveals the Scale of the EV Debacle (Jeffrey Tucker)

 

 

Something doesn’t seem to add up here.

 

 

Bill Maher Trump

 

 

Black vote

 

 

J6

 

 

Kevin O’Leary: This is not America

 

 

Shaman

 

 

Fani
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771728518851817940

 

 

 

 

“..the most feasible mastermind is Kyrylo Budanov [..] The “spy chief” who happens to be the top CIA asset in Kiev.

• It’s War: The Real Meat Grinder Starts Now (Pepe Escobar)

Exhibit 1: Friday, March 22, 2024. It’s War. The Kremlin, via Peskov, finally admits it, on the record. The money quote: “Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it, not to mention the territory of new regions.” Translation: the Hegemon-constructed Kiev mongrel is doomed, one way or another. The Kremlin signal: “We haven’t even started” starts now. Exhibit 2: Friday afternoon, a few hours after Peskov. Confirmed by a serious European – not Russian – source. The first counter-signal. Regular troops from France, Germany and Poland have arrived, by rail and air, to Cherkassy, south of Kiev. A substantial force. No numbers leaked. They are being housed in schools. For all practical purposes, this is a NATO force. That signals, “Let the games begin”. From a Russian point of view, Mr. Khinzal’s business cards are set to be in great demand.

Exhibit 3: Friday evening. Terror attack on Crocus City, a music venue northwest of Moscow. A heavily trained commando shoots people on sight, point blank, in cold blood, then sets a concert hall on fire. The definitive counter-signal: with the battlefield collapsing, all that’s left is terrorism in Moscow. And just as terror was striking Moscow, the US and the UK, in southwest Asia, was bombing Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, with at least five strikes. Some nifty coordination. Yemen has just clinched a strategic deal in Oman with Russia-China for no-hassle navigation in the Red Sea, and is among the top candidates for BRICS+ expansion at the summit in Kazan next October. Not only the Houthis are spectacularly defeating thalassocracy, they have the Russia-China strategic partnership on their side. Assuring China and Russia that their ships can sail through the Bab-al-Mandeb, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with no problems is exchanged with total political support from Beijing and Moscow.

Deep in the night in Moscow, before dawn on Saturday 23. Virtually no one is sleeping. Rumors dance like dervishes on countless screens. Of course nothing has been confirmed – yet. Only the FSB will have answers. A massive investigation is in progress. The timing of the Crocus massacre is quite intriguing. On a Friday during Ramadan. Real Muslims would not even think about perpetrating a mass murder of unarmed civilians under such a holy occasion. Compare it with the ISIS card being frantically branded by the usual suspects. Let’s go pop. To quote Talking Heads: “This ain’t no party/ this ain’t no disco/ this ain’t no fooling around”. Oh no; it’s more like an all-American psy op. ISIS are cartoonish mercenaries/goons. Not real Muslims. And everyone knows who finances and weaponizes them. That leads to the most possible scenario, before the FSB weighs in: ISIS goons imported from the Syria battleground – as it stands, probably Tajiks – trained by CIA and MI6, working on behalf of the Ukrainian SBU.

Several witnesses at Crocus referred to “Wahhabis” – as in the commando killers did not look like Slavs. It was up to Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic to cut to the chase. He directly connected the “warnings” in early March from American and British embassies directed at their citizens not to visit public places in Moscow with CIA/MI6 intel having inside info about possible terrorism, and not disclosing it to Moscow. The plot thickens when it is established that Crocus is owned by the Agalarovs: an Azeri-Russian billionaire family, very close friends of… Donald Trump. Talk about a Deep State-pinpointed target. ISIS spin-off or banderistas – the sponsors remain the same. The clownish secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, was dumb enough to virtually, indirectly confirm they did it, saying on Ukrainian TV, “we will give them [Russians] this kind of fun more often.”

But it was up to Sergei Goncharov, a veteran of the elite Russia Alpha anti-terrorism unit, to get closer to unwrapping the enigma: he told Sputnik the most feasible mastermind is Kyrylo Budanov – the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. The “spy chief” who happens to be the top CIA asset in Kiev.

Poso “You will see terror attacks on Russian civilians, this is what Victoria Nuland wants”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771545163732496857

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“Basic sleight of hand. The level of a railway thimble-rigger,” she added. “It has nothing to do with ISIS. It’s Ukrainians.”

• This Is Not ISIS – RT Editor-in-Chief (Sp.)

Ukraine and the West have resorted to false flag operations to persuade everyone that ISIS* was behind the terror attack in the Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow, said Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Sputnik’s parent media group Rossiya Segodnya. The head of the media group stressed that the names and faces of the perpetrators are already known to authorities and that the terrorists gave everything away during interrogation. “It immediately became obvious why US media were claiming in unison that it was ISIS,” she said. Simonyan explained that the perpetrators were chosen to carry out the attack in a manner that would allow the West to persuade the international community that ISIS was behind the attack. “Basic sleight of hand. The level of a railway thimble-rigger,” she added. “It has nothing to do with ISIS. It’s Ukrainians.” She added that the enthusiasm displayed by Western media when they tried to persuade everyone that ISIS was responsible even before arrests were made gave them away completely.

“This is not ISIS. This is a well-coordinated team of several other, also widely known, abbreviations,” Simonyan concluded. In the hours following the attack, Western media insisted that radical jihadist organization ISIS was behind it, while Ukrainian officials also said that they had nothing to do with the tragedy. However, suspects were detained in Russia’s Bryansk region near Ukrainian border. According to the data provided by law enforcing agencies, they had a support base on the other side of the border. Moreover, while Kiev rushed to deny its involvement into the shooting, Ukrainian secret services have a long track record of terror attacks on Russian territory, from shelling in the Belgorod region to assassinations of political scientist Daria Dugina and journalist Vladlen Tatarsky.

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“Who was behind this attack? Who are the masterminds? The Russian security services will find out. But whoever they are, they reside in Ukraine.”

• Scott Ritter: Moscow Terrorist Attack Doesn’t Look Like ISIS’ Handiwork (Sp.)

Over 100 civilians were killed after a group of armed terrorists stormed a concert and started indiscriminately shooting at the audience. The perpetrators have since been apprehended by Russian authorities and an investigation has been launched to uncover the truth behind this tragedy. Washington’s attempts to pin the blame for the March 22 terrorist attack in Moscow on ISIS* appears suspect due to the perpetrators’ behavior, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik. Pointing out the fact that the terrorists were apprehended while fleeing towards Ukraine, Ritter remarked how “people of violence” have a tendency to “navigate towards their ‘true north’” at the end of the day.

“What I mean by that is, let’s take a special forces team operating behind enemy lines: if they’re compromised, they try to go home, they try to escape and evade towards the friendly lines,” he explained. “ISIS has loyalty to their perverted version of religion, God. Their ‘true north’ is to become martyrs, to navigate home to heaven.” “But that’s not what these terrorists did,” he continued. “Their true north was Ukraine, and they were navigating toward Ukraine. And that’s all we need to know about this. This was an attack that was linked to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Who was behind this attack? Who are the masterminds? The Russian security services will find out. But whoever they are, they reside in Ukraine.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1771611851953991972

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Ukraine: corruption, money laundering and terrorism. No coincidence, a set-up.

• Ukraine Becomes Den of Terrorism in Europe With Help of West – Zakharova (Sp.)

Ukraine has been turning into a center for the spread of terrorism in Europe for the past 10 years with the help of the West, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. A shooting occurred on Friday evening in the Crocus City Hall concert venue just outside Moscow, followed by a massive fire. A Sputnik correspondent who witnessed the attack reported that at least three men in camouflage had broken into the music hall, shooting people point-blank and throwing incendiary bombs. According to the latest data from the Russian Investigative Committee, at least 115 people died in the terrorist attack and many others were injured, with the number of those killed expected to increase.

“The main thing is that the US authorities do not forget how their information and political environment linked the terrorists who shot people at Crocus City Hall with the banned terrorist organization ISIS [banned in Russia]. Now we know in which country these bloody criminals planned to hide from persecution — Ukraine. The very country that, with the help of Western liberal regimes, has been turning into a center for the spread of terrorism in Europe for the past ten years,” Zakharova said on Telegram.

Zakharova
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“–most importantly– to bring the enemy to a halt and encourage it to engage in serious dialogue.”

• It’s Time For Russia To Give The West A Nuclear Reminder (Dmitry Trenin)

Strategic stability is usually understood as the absence of incentives for a nuclear-armed power to launch a massive first strike. Typically, it’s viewed primarily in military-technical terms. The reasons why an attack may be contemplated are usually not taken into account. This idea emerged in the middle of the last century, when the USSR had achieved military-strategic parity with the US and the Cold War between them had entered a “mature” phase of limited confrontation and some predictability. The solution to the problem of strategic stability was then seen in the constant maintenance of contacts between the political leadership of the two superpowers. Which led to arms control and transparency in arranging their respective arsenals. However, the first quarter of the 21st century is ending in conditions very different from the relative international political stability of the 1970s. The US-centric world order established after the end of the Cold War is being seriously challenged and its foundations are visibly shaken.

The global hegemony of Washington and the position of the collective West as a whole is weakening, while the economic, military, scientific and technological might and political importance of non-Western countries –first and foremost China, but also India– are growing. This is leading to a deterioration in relations between the US and other power centers. The two largest nuclear powers, Russia and the US, are in a state of semi-direct armed conflict. This confrontation is officially regarded in Russia as an existential threat. This situation has become possible as a result of the failure of strategic deterrence (in its geopolitical dimension) in an area where Russia’s vital interests are present. It should be noted that the main cause of the conflict is Washington’s conscious disregard –for three decades now– of Moscow’s clearly and explicitly expressed security interests. Moreover, in the Ukrainian conflict, the US military and political leadership has not only articulated, but has publicly expressed, the mission of using its proxy to inflict a strategic military defeat on Russia, despite its nuclear status.

This is a complex undertaking in which the collective economic, political, military, military-technical, intelligence and informational capacity of the West is integrated with the actions of the Ukrainian armed forces in direct combat against the Russian army. In other words, the US is trying to defeat Russia not only without using nuclear weapons, but even without formally engaging in hostilities. In this context, the declaration by the five nuclear powers on January 3, 2022, that “nuclear war should not be waged” and that “there can be no winners,” seems like a relic of the past. A proxy war between the nuclear powers is already underway; moreover, in the course of this conflict, more and more restrictions are being removed, both in terms of the weapon systems used and the participation of Western troops, as well as the geographical limits of the theater of war. It is possible to pretend that a certain ‘strategic stability’ is being maintained, but only if, like the US, a player sets the task of inflicting a strategic defeat on the enemy at the hands of its client state and expects that the enemy will not dare to use nuclear weapons.

Thus, the concept of strategic stability in its original form – the creation and maintenance of military-technical conditions to prevent a sudden massive nuclear strike – only partially retains its meaning under current conditions. Strengthening nuclear deterrence could be the solution to the real problem of restoring strategic stability, which has been seriously disrupted by the ongoing and escalating conflict. To begin with, it is worth rethinking the concept of deterrence and, in the process, changing its name. For example, instead of a passive, we should talk about an active form. The adversary should not remain in a state of comfort, believing that the war he is waging with the help of another country will not affect him in any way. In other words, it is necessary to put fear back into the minds and hearts of the enemy’s leaders. The beneficial sort of fear, it’s worth stressing.

It must also be recognized that the limits of purely verbal intervention have been exhausted at this stage of the Ukrainian conflict. Channels of communication all the way to the top must remain open around the clock, but the most important messages at this stage must be sent through concrete steps: doctrinal changes; military exercises to test them; underwater and aerial patrols along the coasts of the likely enemy; warnings about preparations for nuclear tests and the tests themselves; the imposition of no-fly zones over part of the Black Sea, and so on. The point of these actions is not only to demonstrate determination and readiness to use available capabilities to protect Russia’s vital interests, but –most importantly– to bring the enemy to a halt and encourage it to engage in serious dialogue.

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“..to prevent what has been until recently a conventional war contained within certain rules of conduct degenerating into a partisan war without rules..”

• “Crocus City Hall” Attack In Moscow Suburb And More (Doctorow)

The question of a shift from conventional warfare in which Ukrainian forces are being decimated, with or without Western military and financial help, to terrorist operations was already discussed in Western as well as Russian media a month ago when General Zaluzhny was about to be replaced as head of the Ukrainian military forces. There was speculation that his successor might well become Kirill Budanov, head of the Ukrainian military intelligence services and director of the campaign of sabotage and terror against Russia, which was even then yielding very impressive results while the regular army was floundering. Instead, Zelensky selected General Oleksandr Syrsky to replace Zaluzhny. Syrsky, as we know, was the general who threw away the lives of his soldiers in hopeless efforts to retain strategically unimportant towns and he has continued this military folly in the latest Ukrainian counter-attacks around Avdeevka.

Meanwhile, Budanov’s star has continued to rise. Yesterday’s carnage at the Crocus City Hall is only the latest and most publicized proof. ***** The Putin administration is clearly wary of pointing a finger at Kiev for this outrage. But the Russian public is surely going to put enormous pressure on the Kremlin to face up to the facts and to do something more than just another ‘revenge attack’ on Ukrainian military infrastructure such as was carried out several days ago in response to the latest Ukrainian incursions and missile attacks in the Russian border province of Belgorod, near Ukraine’s second city of Kharkov. There surely will be those Russian patriots who will call for a decapitating strike on Kiev to get rid of Zelensky and the neo-Nazis who de facto control his government at one blow. This has been achievable at any moment over the course of the past two years but was not done by the Kremlin for reasons that have nothing to do with its Christian faith guided humanitarian values.

No, the reason was to prevent what has been until recently a conventional war contained within certain rules of conduct degenerating into a partisan war without rules such as you commonly see in fratricidal military conflict. The fact today is that with the upsurge of spectacular terrorist attacks on and inside Russia Ukraine is de facto already engaged in all-out ‘partisan’ style warfare. The fact is that with the threat of a French directed invasion force entering Ukraine set out in the past week, with the delivery of F-16s to Kiev approaching, and with the delivery of nuclear enabled German Taurus cruise missiles still under discussion, the time for end-game division of what remains of Ukraine among the interested parties is here and now. The logic of the U.S. encouragement to Kiev to perpetrate exactly this kind of atrocity is obvious to anyone with eyes to see. It was precisely attacks like this, as for example during the Chechen wars and the Beslan school siege-massacre that Putin was enraged and responded violently. The decapitation of Kiev now will be very convenient also for Washington.

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“This must result in a clear Russian strengthening of military forces along the border with Finland.”

• Why Russia Won’t Cede Baltic Sea Positions (Sp.)

NATO is on a slippery slope towards further escalation after absorbing Finland and Sweden as Russia won’t stand by as the alliance tries to block its access to the Baltic Sea. That is according to Mikael Valtersson, former officer of Swedish Armed Forces, and former defense politician and chief of staff with Sweden Democrats. “NATO’s main goals in the Baltic Sea are to keep the sea and air lines open to Finland and the Baltic states in case of a conflict with Russia,” Valtersson told Sputnik. “Another important goal to do this is to deny Russian access to the Baltic Sea in case of conflict. This will make the situation for the Russian Kaliningrad enclave very difficult.” Tensions around the Baltic have escalated steadily, driven by NATO’s expansion since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Poland fell under the alliance’s aegis in 1999 followed by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania’s admission to NATO in 2004.

After previously-neutral Finland and Sweden joined the alliance, the Baltic Sea in principle became a ‘NATO sea’ with the exception of the two short Russian coastlines, the Swedish military veteran stressed Moscow has no other option but to respond to NATO getting closer to its borders by stepping up defenses of its north-western regions. Finland shares a 1,340 km (830-mile) border with Russia, making the matters particularly sensitive for both nations. In an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin in December 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Moscow had revived the Leningrad Military District and started concentrating military units there. “The enlargement of NATO with the admission of Sweden and Finland as members has clearly increased Russian security concerns,” Valtersson exlplained. “The main problem is the membership of Finland in NATO, since its closeness to the naval facilities at the Kola Peninsula, transportation routes to the Kola Peninsula and St. Petersburg. This must result in a clear Russian strengthening of military forces along the border with Finland.”

“In the long run a number of military systems ought to be deployed. First of all a large amount of air defense, especially long distance, must be deployed to both defend Russian territory but also to greatly reduce NATO capability to use Finnish air space and reduce the usage of air transports over the Baltic Sea to the Baltic states,” the military expert continued. Another important aim for Russia, according to Valtersson, is to develop methods to reduce NATO access to the sea lanes in the Baltic Sea. He suggested that new technologies such as sea drones could be used to that end. The Swedish military veteran added that a third pillar of Russian defense would be long-range weapons, which could keep important ground targets in Finland and the Baltic states, especially arms depots, in the crosshairs.

“A fourth important question to solve is the precarious situation of supplying Kaliningrad,” Valtersson observed. “This must probably be solved by large prestorage of resources so the enclave can withstand isolation for a couple of months.” “A fifth and final question to solve is to secure Russian territory from ground attacks. To succeed in this a large number of ground units must be deployed along the border with Finland and the Baltic states,” he concluded. “Fortifications such as those that were so successful in the Zaporozhye area last summer must also be established, at least at important choke points.”

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“Here in Europe, the war is now being used to whip up popular enthusiasm for war mobilization of the domestic economies and subjugation of the populace to authoritarian and unlimited powers of the ruling elite..”

• US Whips Up Fear of Russian Bugaboo to ‘Subjugate Europe’ (Sp.)

European politicians are doing their best to continue ratcheting up tensions with Moscow, with French President Emmanuel Macron reiterating that he may send thousands of troops to Ukraine, Baltic politicians allying with Paris on the issue, and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski saying it’s an “open secret” that NATO soldiers are already in the country. British and German media have done their part to add fuel the hysteria, citing a recent briefing to Bundestag lawmakers on purported plans by Russia to kick off a “full-scale ‘land, sea and air’ war” with NATO. “We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day…so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned in an interview earlier this year. This week, Polish President Andrzej Duda claimed it was a matter “of common sense” that “Putin, by putting his economy on a war footing, will have such military might that he will be able to attack NATO.”

Meanwhile, his top general, Polish Armed Forces Chief of Staff Wieslaw Kukula, has alleged that Russia is actively “preparing for a conflict,” and urging Europe to do the same. Europe’s defenses are in an unenviable state. Facing a major economic downturn and a $61 billion spending shortfall after giving roughly the same amount away to Kiev for NATO’s proxy war against Russia, European military leaders have warned that they could be left “throwing stones” within hours of a major conflict breaking out as arms and ammo stocks round dry. But the question no Western officials or media have been able to answer is why Russia – which has over the past three decades expressed a preference for economic cooperation with Europe, rather than fighting its western neighbors, would be interested in invading NATO and almost certainly triggering World War III. “The whole of NATO cannot fail to understand that Russia has no reason, no interest – neither geopolitical, nor economic, nor political, nor military – to fight with NATO countries,” President Putin said in an interview in December, emphasizing that Moscow and the bloc “have no territorial claims against each other” and could live peacefully.

The problem may just be that Russia is taking the hysterical outbursts by NATO officials and Western media at face value, instead of searching for the ‘man behind the curtain’ seeking desperately to keep tensions in place. “For the United States, the war in Ukraine has failed as a means of weakening Russia so that they can proceed with preparations to fight China. But it has succeeded spectacularly as a means of subjugating Europe. Washington now firmly has its knees on the neck of Europe,” veteran international relations and Russian affairs expert Dr. Gilbert Doctorow told Sputnik. Economically and politically, the US has been able to extract major concessions from the Europeans over the past two years, plucking hundreds of manufacturers from the continent thanks to an energy crisis sparked by the bloc’s “suicidal” decision to cut off Russian energy supplies, forcing the EU to purchase American LNG at four times the cost, and even trying to saddle Brussels with economic and military aid to Ukraine as Congress remains deadlocked over a $61 billion aid package.

“Here in Europe, the war is now being used to whip up popular enthusiasm for war mobilization of the domestic economies and subjugation of the populace to authoritarian and unlimited powers of the ruling elite,” Doctorow said. “What remains of free speech and other freedoms can be snuffed out in war hysteria. Moreover, the war fever is being used by [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen and the EU Commission in a bid to draw more power into Brussels at the expense of the national governments,” Doctorow warned. “Some countries are resisting, for example Prime Minister [Mark] Rutte of the Netherlands and even the mealy-mouthed German Chancellor [Olaf Scholz, ed.] are publicly opposed to the proposal of a European debt issuance to finance subsidies to the military production companies, all in spite of van der Leyen. Meanwhile, Macron is on the other side, pushing for greater European centralization for which is the proposed common investment in defense is a nice instrument,” the observer added.

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“..we promote the settlement movement with hard work and in a strategic manner across the country..”

• Israel Announces Major Land Grab In West Bank (RT)

The Israeli government has designated nearly 2,000 acres in the West Bank as state-owned land in a move described by rights groups as the biggest land grab on occupied Palestinian territories in decades. The expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is illegal under international law. In 2016, the UN Security Council described them as “a major obstacle to the vision of two States living side-by-side in peace and security.” Nevertheless, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich argued that the declaration of state-owned land in the Jordan Valley on Friday was “an important and strategic issue.”

“While there are those in Israel and the world who seek to undermine our right to Judea and Samaria and the country in general, we promote the settlement movement with hard work and in a strategic manner across the country,” Smotrich said in a statement, as quoted by the Times of Israel. According to local media, the designation of plots of land as Israeli paves a way for the construction of settler houses, as well as for commercial development. Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now described the declaration as the largest since the 1993 Oslo Accords, adding that “the year 2024 marks a peak in the extent of declarations of state land.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government gave a green light to the construction of more than 3,400 new settler homes this month, drawing more criticism from the UN and the Palestinian Authority.

“The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian State,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in his report to the Security Council on March 8. Smotrich said in February that the expansion of settlements was a legitimate response to Palestinian terrorist attacks. “Our enemies know that any harm to us will lead to more construction and more development and more of our hold all over the country,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

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“It’s like a boa constrictor that’s tightening and tightening around the United States..”

• China Behind Pan American Highway (ET)

If it’s ever completed, the Pan American Highway will stretch about 18,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina, opening up a land corridor the length of the Americas. It has gone unfinished for decades due to American and Panamanian concerns over the environment, crime, and disease—and more recently mass migration. The dangerous, rugged terrain acts as a natural barrier to travel from South to Central America. The bridge and road expansion will end near the town of Bocas de Cupe, in the Darién Gap. However, bridging the rivers has been considered one of the major obstacles blocking completion of the highway. The new project has worried some who fear completing the road into the Darién Gap will be a win for China and a loss for America.

Michael Yon, a former war correspondent, has been covering mass migration through Panama for several years and has used social media to bring attention to the bridge’s construction and its implications. China would benefit through an alternate trade route around the Panama Canal, which is essential to global trade. But for the United States, it could open the floodgates to migrants from South America, he told the Epoch Times. Meanwhile, U.S. leaders have grown increasingly wary of the military implications tied to Chinese infrastructure projects being built in America’s backyard as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), particularly around the Panama Canal. In 2018, Panama signed on to China’s ambitious BRI project, dubbed a modern Silk Road, after publicly recognizing Taiwan as part of China, much to the surprise and concern of the United States.

The CCP aims to utilize the BRI “to amass power and influence at the expense of the world’s democracies,” U.S. Southern Command Commander Army Gen. Laura Richardson warned in March. She and other commanders in recent years have been sounding the alarm about China’s incursion into the Western Hemisphere. China “seeks to supplant the United States as the world’s leading economic and military power,” Gen. Richardson noted in a written statement to the House Armed Services Committee. Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, believes China’s economic development in the region threatens America’s influence and security. “If China displaces the U.S. in the Western hemisphere as the dominant economic power, then we lose our leverage,” Mr. Howell, formerly an attorney with the Department of Homeland Security, told The Epoch Times. China is encircling the United States with infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr. Howell said. “It’s like a boa constrictor that’s tightening and tightening around the United States,” he said.

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“..when a man takes an oath, he’s holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again.”

“The Democrats have allowed their very identity to drip through their open fingers..”

• Sir Thomas More and the Biden Corruption Scandal (Turley)

In the 1966 movie “A Man for All Seasons,” Sir Thomas More faces Richard Rich, an ambitious office seeker who would ultimately lie and betray him. In this British historical drama, More warns Rich that “when a man takes an oath, he’s holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again.” This week, Democrats appear to have finally drained away what remained of themselves and their party. For years, Democratic members and the media have demanded any evidence of the direct involvement or knowledge of President Joe Biden of the influence-peddling operation of his son, Hunter, and his brothers, James and Frank. In the hearing, witnesses testified under oath about specific meetings with Joe Biden discussing these foreign dealings and the family business interests. Bank records were introduced showing the transfers of millions going to Hunter and various Biden family members.

Faced with the evidence that the president lied about his lack of any knowledge or involvement in the influence peddling, the Democrats opened their fingers wider. Rep. Dan Goldman, D., N.Y., captured the problem for Democrats in even addressing any of the mounting evidence contradicting the president. Yet, Goldman has long shown a willingness to rush in where angels fear to tread. In previous attacks, Goldman repeatedly hit the Bidens with friendly fire when eliciting damaging answers from witnesses. Goldman has a habit of raising the worst evidence that his colleagues have avoided. In one hearing, he stumbled badly in raising the WhatsApp message where Hunter told a Chinese businessman that his father was sitting next to him and would not be pleased unless he sent him money. On another occasion, he prompted an IRS whistleblower to note that an email Goldman read into the record was actually a direct contradiction of the denials of the president.

In the latest misstep, Goldman pressed former Biden partner Tony Bobulinski on a proposal shared with Hunter and others to reserve 10% for “the Big Guy.” In other emails, Bobulinski was told to use such codes to avoid mentioning Joe Biden’s name. He was expressly identified as “the Big Guy.” Goldman snapped at Bobulinski, “Did anyone ever respond to that email?” Bobulinski responded “Yes, they did numerous times. Hunter himself did.” Goldman blurted out “you’re right” before angrily reclaiming his time to cut him off. Things did not prove any easier for other members. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D., N.Y., imploded by mocking Bobulinski and challenging him “It is simple, you name the crime. Did you watch him steal something?”

Bobulinski proceeded to rattle off a series of possible criminal acts and Ocasio-Cortez cut him off. She then bizarrely pretended that he did not just list the crimes and barked “What is the crime, sir? Specifically?” Bobulinski was not the only one confused and noted “you ask and answer the question, I answered the question, RICO, you’re obviously not familiar with…” That is when Ocasio-Cortez again cut him off with “Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. RICO is not a crime, it is a category. What is the crime?” With that, it appears that Trump has now been cleared of charges in Atlanta by no one other than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Racketeering is a crime and some of the crimes referenced by Bobulinski are commonly part of such conspiracies. The exchange captured the lunacy of the hearing as Democrats demanded evidence and then ignored it when it was repeatedly offered by witnesses and members.

Yet, Ocasio-Cortez was illuminating on one point. Neither she nor her colleagues were willing to admit the obvious. Few people now disagree that Hunter was openly engaging in influence peddling, which is a form of corruption that the government has long fought around the world. It is also clear that Joe Biden knew of that influence peddling not just from his son but newspaper accounts. He had knowledge of the corruption and facilitated it.However, Ocasio-Cortez wanted to ignore the millions of dollars acquired in influence peddling to press a witness on whether he saw the president steal something like a purse or a hubcap. The Democrats have allowed their very identity to drip through their open fingers. They have become a party that calls for censorship, ballot cleansing, and court packing. Now they are dismissing allegations of raw influence peddling after opposing every effort to investigate it.

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“..hese legislative attempts to redefine and criminalize speech are a backdoor attempt to rewrite the Constitution and render the First Amendment’s robust safeguards null.”

• How The Police State Muzzles Our Right To Speak Truth To Power (Whitehead)

Tyrants don’t like people who speak truth to power. Cue the rise of protest laws, which take the government’s intolerance for free speech to a whole new level and send the resounding message that resistance is futile. In fact, ever since the Capitol protests on Jan. 6, 2021, state legislatures have introduced a broad array of these laws aimed at criminalizing protest activities. There have been at least 205 proposed laws in 45 states aimed at curtailing the right to peacefully assemble and protest by expanding the definition of rioting, heightening penalties for existing offenses, or creating new crimes associated with assembly. Weaponized by police, prosecutors, courts and legislatures, these protest laws, along with free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, and a host of other legalistic maladies have become a convenient means by which to punish individuals who refuse to be muzzled.

In Florida, for instance, legislators passed a “no-go” zone law making it punishable by up to 60 days in jail to remain within 25 feet of working police and other first responders after a warning. Yet while the growing numbers of protest laws cropping up across the country are sold to the public as necessary to protect private property, public roads or national security, they are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a thinly disguised plot to discourage anyone from challenging government authority at the expense of our First Amendment rights. It doesn’t matter what the source of that discontent might be (police brutality, election outcomes, COVID-19 mandates, the environment, etc.): protest laws, free speech zones, no-go zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, etc., aim to muzzle every last one of us.

To be very clear, these legislative attempts to redefine and criminalize speech are a backdoor attempt to rewrite the Constitution and render the First Amendment’s robust safeguards null and void. No matter how you package these laws, no matter how well-meaning they may sound, no matter how much you may disagree with the protesters or sympathize with the objects of the protest, these proposed laws are aimed at one thing only: discouraging dissent. This is the painful lesson being imparted with every incident in which someone gets arrested and charged with any of the growing number of contempt charges (ranging from resisting arrest and interference to disorderly conduct, obstruction, and failure to obey a police order) that get trotted out anytime a citizen voices discontent with the government or challenges or even questions the authority of the powers-that-be.

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“Why in the world would anyone want to rent one of these things rather than a gas-powered car? You might be better off with a horse and carriage.”

• The Hertz Meltdown Reveals the Scale of the EV Debacle (Jeffrey Tucker)

The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revealed its ambition: to phase out gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles (EVs). Incredibly, this announcement comes as we are flooded with overwhelming evidence that EVs are a market loser. Indeed, the artificial boom and then meltdown of the EV market is a modern industrial calamity. It was created by government, social media, wild disease frenzy, far-flung thinking, and the irrational chasing of utopia, followed by a rude awakening by facts and reality. CEO of Hertz Stephen Scherr has been booted out due to a vast purchase of an EV fleet that consumers didn’t even want to rent. The company has now been forced to sell them at a deep discount and in a market where consumers are not particularly interested. Looking back, however, Scherr’s decision to bet everything on an EV boom was a disaster that was highly praised at the time.

Only last year, the company bragged: “This morning, [Hertz] was recognized by The White House for our efforts to expand access to electric vehicles across the country. Demand for EV rentals is growing and we’re here to help our customers electrify their travels.” Pleasing the Biden administration is not the same as pleasing consumers. The demand turned south fast in a real-world test of drivers. But that’s not all. Hertz could not make their investment pay no matter what they did. The key issues with EVs are as follows. The cost upfront is much higher. Financing charges are higher. They depreciate at a higher rate than internal combustion cars. The insurance is more expensive, by at least 25 percent. Repairs are much more expensive, if you can get them done at all, and take longer. Tires are more expensive and don’t last as long because the car is so heavy. Refueling is not easy and missteps here can have nightmarish consequences. They are more likely to catch fire. Any motor vehicle accident that impacts the battery can lead to repairs higher than the value of the car, that is totaled with so much as a scratch.

To top it all over, there is no longer any financial advantage to the driver. It now costs slightly more to charge under many conditions than to refuel with gasoline. The novelty of driving one for a day wears off after the first day. At first they seem like the greatest thing that ever happened, like an iPhone with wheels. That’s great but then the problems crop up and people start to realize that they are fine for urban commutes with home chargers and not much else. They make truly terrible rentals. Obviously, under rental conditions, people have to use charging stations rather than a charger in the garage. That means spending part of your vacation figuring out where to find one. Not all are superchargers, and if it is a regular charger, you are looking at an overnight wait. If you do find a station with fast chargers, you might have to wait in line. They might not work. You waste hours doing this. And you likely have to reroute your trip even to find a station without any certainty that you will get a spot with a functioning charger.

No one wants to do this. When you rent a car, all you want is a car that goes the distance. And typically car rentals are for going some distance else you would just take a taxi or a Lyft from the airport. You might need to drive several hours. And god forbid that this takes place in cold weather because that can reduce your mileage by half. Your whole trip will be ruined. Why in the world would anyone want to rent one of these things rather than a gas-powered car? You might be better off with a horse and carriage. Did Hertz think of any of this before they spent $250M on a fleet? Nope. They were just doing the fashionable thing. Again, I’m not knocking some uses for EVs. If you think of them as enclosed and souped up golf carts, you get the idea. They can be wonderful for certain urban environments so long as you don’t overuse them and have to get them repaired. You also have to be in a financial position to afford the higher costs all around, from financing to insurance to repairs and tires. And you have to be prepared to take a big loss on resale, if you can even manage to find a buyer.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Kory

 

 

Kate?!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771395851031834888
AI?!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771242436691366012

 

 

 

 

Baboon

 

 

Storm oil

 

 

Frens

 

 

Mama elephant
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771517926442484209

 

 

 

 

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Smokin’ a Pipeline

Sep 282022
 
 September 28, 2022  Posted by at 3:00 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


M.C. Escher Fish and Boat 1948

 

 

For the past 24 hours, I’ve been reading, and jotting down quotes, like an idiot, about the Nordstream pipes’ sabotage. Just trying to figure out what the hell happened. I doubt we will ever know who “killed Kennedy”, but we can try. I find it remarkable how eager certain parties are to blame Russia for blowing up its own infrastructure, how equally eager to discard alternative options, and most of all perhaps how eager “EU functionaries” are to claim they want a full investigation. Really? Even if your own allies did it?

Thinking that Russia blew up its own pipeline, while they could just close the tap, much easier and cheaper, appears to be very far fetched. In any Whodunnit you want some logic. First, my notes, from the past day, much from Twitter, plus some other sources, more or less in random order:

• Nord Stream 2 pipeline cost over 11 billion dollars and ten years to build. It’s going to take years to fix.

Note: it will take weeks, if not months, to just get started. Because all the gas will have to flow out first. The pipes were not active, but they were full of gas, over a very long distance. They were ready to go and supply Europe. Then when Germany suddenly reneged on the deal, where were they going to put the gas?

Laying (building) undersea pipelines is never an easy job, But the Baltic Sea adds a few extra problems, as per Lookout at the Saker :

Sitrep On Nord Stream 1 And 2 Gas Pipelines

The first step to building an offshore pipeline is to conduct extensive surveys of the seabed. In the case of NS2, this involved detailed seabed survey of areas potentially harmful to the building and operation of a pipeline. This was certainly the case for NS1 and NS2, especially in areas that were used to dump explosives and chemicals.


The Baltic Sea was the scene of maritime battles, laying of mines during WW2. Additionally, areas of it were used as a dumping ground for obsolete, damaged, or expired munitions & chemicals. This was widely carried out following the end of both world wars. “It is estimated that the Baltic Sea alone has around 50,000 tonnes of chemical munitions, 500,000 tonnes of conventional weapons, and 10,000 wrecks on its seabed.”

I loved this little bit:

• German Economy Minister Habeck: “speculations about the reason for nord stream 1 leak are currently forbidden.”

That’s German politics on its last legs. Y’all, shut up!

Nordstream has never been uncontested. This is from November 2015, at pipeline-journal.net:

Explosive-Laden Drone Found Near Nord Stream Pipeline

Ruling out sabotage, the Swedish military has successfully cleared a remote operated vehicle (drone) rigged with explosives found near Line 2 of the Nord Stream Natural Gas offshore pipeline system. The vehicle was discovered during a routine survey operation as part of the annual integrity assessment of the Nord Stream pipeline. Since it was within the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) approximately 120 km away from the island of Gotland, the Swedes called on their armed forces to remove and ultimately disarm the object. “We don’t consider it to be dangerous to merchant vessels or the pipeline at this point,” Jesper Stolpe, Swedish Armed Forces spokesman, told Radio Sweden. According to Stolpe, the cable used to control the drone and to set off the explosive was cut off, so at the moment the vehicle is relatively harmless.

And more recently, there was activity in the area as well. Guess who…

• Apparently US 6th Fleet undersea explosives specialists were “scoping out” the situation back in June.

• An expeditionary detachment of US Navy ships led by the universal amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge days ago was in the Baltic Sea. It was 30 km from the site of the alleged sabotage on the Nord Stream-1 gas pipeline and 50 km from the threads of Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline

• Tin Foil Hats: Russia and Germany were negotiating behind the scenes for gas, but a “3rd party caught on and put an end to it”.

• The Nordstream 2 pipeline allows Russia to send gas to Western Europe without paying transit fees to Ukraine and Poland. Russia just completed it in the teeth of massive opposition from Ukraine, Poland and USA. Now they are trying to convince you it was Russia who blew it up.

The mother of all coincidences:

• Baltic Pipe. This is the new Norway-Poland Baltic Pipeline that just coincidentally opened today.

• A former Polish defense minister has credited the United States with blowing up two Russian natural gas pipelines to Europe, Nord Stream 1 & 2, the day before Poland opened a major new pipeline from Norway. A new 900km pipeline “Baltic Pipe” will be opened today, a branch connecting from the Norway-Germany ‘“Europipe”. This branch bypasses Germany.

That former Polish defense minister, Radek Sikorski, [now] Chairman of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the US, and married to WaPo’s Anne Applebaum, writes “Thank you, USA”

• [..] looks like the pipeline attack wasn’t totally successful, as it failed to breach one of the NS2 lines – taking down only three of the four pipes. it will be interesting to see if there is any attempt to finish the job.

• Javier Blas, Bloomberg: The size of the Nord Stream pipeline gas leak is huge. According to the Danish armed forces, it measures about 1 kilometer in diameter. The smaller circle in the center is approximately 200 meters wide

• Each line of the pipeline consists of about 100,000 24-tonne concrete-weight coated steel pipes laid on the seabed. The pipelines have a constant internal diameter of 1.153m, according to Nord Stream. Sections lie at a depth of around 80-110m.

• The approximate locations of the leaks are in the Bornholm Basin area (mean depth of 43m), closest to the island. The depth is shallow enough for specialised diving operations as well as the use of Remotely Operated Vehicles, (as was the case for the construction of both pipelines). The shallow area of the Bornholm Strait separating the Arkona Basin from the Bornholm Basin has a maximum depth of 45 metres.

• The steel pipe itself has a wall of 4.1 centimeters (1.6 inches), and it’s coated with another 6-11 cm of steel-reinforced concrete. Each section of the pipe weighs 11 tonnes, which goes to 24-25 tonnes after the concrete is applied.

• Assessment is that the second, bigger explosion corresponded to more than 100 kilos of dynamite.

 

This gives us at least some idea. That Russia would kill its own $11 billion 10-year hard-fought investment makes little sense. Not impossible, but very unlikely. The US, however…

 

We have Biden in February this year:

And Victoria Nuland just before that:

 

Tucker Carlson summarized it pretty well last night:

 

But now we still don’t know Whodunnit.

Gonzalo Lira says it’s “The Americans Declared War On Europe”:

 

 

I’m sure the Americans had a role in it. But that’s not the same as saying they were the direct perpetrators. There are still other candidates. Let’s rule out Russia, unless someone comes with a good explanation for why they would have acted against their own interest -or the semblance of it.

Germany is another party to this. But they are suffering already, and may indeed have held secret talks with Russia about gas deliveries. Now, they can forget about that for a long time to come. There are voices saying today that the pipelines are damaged beyond repair. I’m not sure that’s true, maybe they can replace one damaged pipe segment with a non-damaged one, but it would certainly take a lot of time and money.

So we strike off Russia and Germany, and keep the US in the back of our heads. That leaves two very obvious parties. First, the Ukraine, which loves not having to compete with Nordstream. But as far as we know, Kiev doesn’t have the equipment and/or capability to blow up a pipeline 100 meters under water. They could have asked the US, though, true enough.

That leaves one country that no-one is talking about, but is in the thick of it all: Poland.

The Poles stand to profit in two different ways from the explosions (and unlike Ukraine, they have the equipment to make it happen). First, there is a pipeline from Russia to Germany that runs through Poland, and for which they can now demand a user fee if any gas would flow. Second, they just opened the Norway-Poland branch of the Norway-Germany “Europipe” yesterday, which is labeled the Baltic Pipe.

Poland can make a killing off of the situation. There’s no way they could pull it off without the US knowing about it, but that can be arranged.

 

This all still leaves me with a few questions. As I knew it would. For the same reason I don’t know who killed Kennedy. First, why did the CIA warn of an attack on Nordstream weeks in advance?

And second, why are people like Von der Leyen, Borrell etc. clamoring so loudly for a thorough investigation when the Whodunnit logic says it may well point to one of their allies? Do they know something they’re not telling, do they think they can suppress whatever comes out? To be continued.

 

 

 

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