Sep 082025
 
 September 8, 2025  Posted by at 10:06 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  48 Responses »


Banksy Bataclan emergency door 2018

 

Putin and Trump ‘Will Prevent WWIII’ – Kremlin Envoy Dmitriev (RT)
Macron’s Government Is Collapsing. Ukraine Should Worry (RT)
Putin Notes an Underlying Issue Within Ukraine that Impedes Negotiation (CTH)
Peace in Ukraine ‘Easier Without Brussels Hawks Fueling War’ (Sp.)
Orban: EU’s Next 7-Year Budget to Become Last One If Bloc Does Not Change (Sp.)
THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS (Paul Craig Roberts)
Trump Astride at 7 Months (Victor Davis Hanson)
Truth About CV19 Vax Awakens Public – Karen Kingston (USAW)
Thoughts on Robert F Kennedy Jr Congressional Testimony (CTH)
Trump Threatens ‘War’ On Chicago Over Immigration (RT)
29 Million Deaths Linked To EU and US Sanctions (RT)
US in ‘Very Deep Negotiations’ With Hamas to End Gaza Conflict – Trump (ET)
Globalists’ Attacks on Russia Linked to Its Rich Natural Resources – Dmitriev (Sp.)
Gold & Silver Sniffing Out Risk & Fear – Bill Holter (USAW)
Bessent Doubles Down On Tariffs, Predicts Economic Surge (ZH)
Once Were Relevant (el gato malo)

 

 

BLM

Optimus

Conor
https://twitter.com/CilComLFC/status/1964731216751648805

Chicago
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1964735109900439575

 

 

 

 

Do let’s start the day, and the week, with some optimism.

Putin and Trump ‘Will Prevent WWIII’ – Kremlin Envoy Dmitriev (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, are bringing the end of the Ukraine conflict closer, Kirill Dmitriev, a presidential aide on international economic affairs, has said. He added that the diplomatic efforts of the two men could prevent World War III. Dmitriev, who is also the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, wrote on X on Saturday: “Stalin, Roosevelt & Churchill won WWII. Putin & Trump will prevent WWIII.” He accompanied his post with a picture of the Soviet, US, and British leaders made during the historic 1945 Yalta Conference, which laid the foundations for the post-war order after the defeat of Nazi Germany.

https://twitter.com/kadmitriev/status/1964424166498619598?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1964424166498619598%7Ctwgr%5E4cb35d87737794ec695f4472c5464573d6efc307%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Frussia%2F624235-putin-trump-prevent-wwiii%2F

He also pushed back against former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who suggested that Moscow is not serious about negotiations to end the conflict and urged more Western weapons for Ukraine. “Wrong. Peace is close precisely because of Trump-Putin dialogue. Idiotic [former US President Joe] Biden’s approaches failed. Isolation attempts failed. Sanctions failed. Dialogue, respect, understanding each other, problem-solving to find [a] long-term solution is the way,” Dmitriev said. Breaking a long hiatus in top-level talks between the US and Russia, Putin and Trump have held several phone conversations and met face-to-face in Alaska in mid-August.

While no ceasefire agreement was reached at the Alaska summit, the two sides praised the engagement as highly productive. Following the talks, Trump said that Ukraine cannot hope to join NATO or reclaim Crimea. On Friday, Putin struck a cautiously optimistic tone about the prospects for ending the conflict, noting that “there is light at the end of the tunnel,” but noted that if no diplomatic solution is found, “we will have to reach all the goals through arms.” Moscow has insisted that a sustainable resolution to the conflict is possible only if Ukraine commits to neutrality, demilitarization, denazification, and recognizes the new territorial reality on the ground.

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“Kiev’s guarantees are cast into doubt, and Moscow can argue convincingly that Europe’s talk of peace is inseparable from its rush to militarize.”

Macron’s Government Is Collapsing. Ukraine Should Worry (RT)

France’s government is once again on the verge of collapse. Prime Minister Francois Bayrou faces near-certain defeat in a confidence vote over a disputed austerity plan, a showdown that threatens President Emmanuel Macron’s authority at home and casts doubt on Paris’ ability to deliver on its ambitious promises abroad – including security guarantees for Ukraine.

France in meltdown – how bad is it this time? Bayrou has staked his survival on a confidence vote scheduled for Monday, September 8. At issue is an austerity package worth €44 billion, meant to shrink France’s deficit from 5.4% of GDP in 2025 toward 4.6% in 2026. Under EU fiscal rules, the official ceiling is 3%, so Brussels is pressuring Paris to cut deeper. But the plan – which includes reducing public holidays and raising healthcare contributions – has triggered anger at home. Trade unions are preparing strikes, while opposition parties from the far left to the far right have pledged to vote against Bayrou. With his government already in a minority, few in Paris believe he can survive.

Macron’s friend, savior, or dead weight? Francois Bayrou is one of the most familiar names in French politics. He leads the centrist Democratic Movement (MoDem) and has been mayor of the city of Pau since 2014. Back in 2017, his endorsement was crucial for Macron, giving the then-upstart candidate credibility in the political center. As president, Macron briefly made him justice minister, and after Michel Barnier was forced out in late 2024, Bayrou was elevated to prime minister to hold together Macron’s fragile coalition. But with his budget collapsing and support evaporating, the man once hailed as a stabilizer is now being blamed for dragging Macron further into crisis.

How did one budget plan blow up the PM’s career? In France, governments can invoke Article 49.3 of the Constitution to force a bill through the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, without a vote. The mechanism has existed since 1958 and is legal, but risky: once Article 49.3 is triggered, opposition lawmakers have 24 hours to file a no-confidence motion. If that motion passes, the government falls. Bayrou’s decision to use 49.3 turned his €44 billion austerity plan into a survival gamble. Bayrou chose confrontation over compromise. By tying his austerity program directly to a confidence vote, he hoped to project resolve. The package included unpopular measures such as cutting public holidays and raising healthcare charges. Instead of rallying deputies behind him, the move united nearly every opposition faction. The far-right National Rally, the Socialists, and the leftist France Unbowed all declared they would vote him out, filing no-confidence motions that set up a showdown on Monday. What was meant to be a show of strength turned into political suicide.

Macron without Bayrou – what’s left of his power? If Bayrou falls, Macron is left exposed: he’s going to have to pick between two bad options. He can install a Socialist prime minister to get a budget through parliament, effectively conceding control of domestic policy. Or he can gamble on snap elections, which polls suggest would hand more seats to Le Pen’s National Rally. With Macron’s approval ratings already scraping historic lows, either choice would deepen the sense of a weakened presidency. Commentators warn that if markets lose confidence in France’s ability to control its 5.4% of GDP deficit and 110% debt-to-GDP ratio, the country could face a crisis reminiscent of Britain’s “mini-budget” turmoil under Liz Truss.

Where does Bayrou actually stand on Ukraine? On foreign policy, Bayrou has been a vocal supporter of Kiev. In March 2025, he openly criticized Washington for pushing Ukraine to negotiate peace with Moscow, calling such demands “unbearable.” He argued that pushing concessions would humiliate Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and amount to rewarding Russia. Inside Macron’s government, Bayrou has been one of the strongest advocates of sustained European backing for Ukraine, insisting that Paris must stand firm.

And Ukraine – what happens when Paris goes quiet? For Kiev, French instability brings real costs.
• Cash flow: The €3 billion pledged for 2024 but still not disbursed was meant to cover weapons and financial aid. But such spending has to pass through the annual budget. With Bayrou’s plan collapsing and parliament in revolt, securing new funds will be politically and legally harder for any caretaker government.
• Losing an ally: Bayrou’s exit would strip Kiev of one of its most reliable advocates inside the French cabinet. By contrast, opposition parties – and even voices within Macron’s camp – have been more skeptical of pouring money into Kiev while cutting spending at home. His departure strips Macron of a key advocate inside the cabinet.
• Security guarantees in limbo: Macron has positioned France as the organizer of the “Coalition of the Willing,” where 26 countries promised postwar guarantees for Ukraine, potentially including a reassurance force. Such a plan requires stable leadership, funding commitments, and parliamentary approval. A government in turmoil cannot push through the legal and financial framework needed to turn pledges into reality.
• ‘Armed to the teeth’ peace plan: Macron has also announced an extra €6.5 billion in defense spending for 2025-2027, lifting France’s annual budget from about €47 billion in 2024 to €64 billion by 2027 – a roughly 35% increase. This blurs the line between “peace guarantees” and outright militarization, reinforcing Moscow’s argument that Europe’s settlement talk is cover for escalation.

If France wobbles, is the EU still ‘united’? The fallout would reach Brussels as well. The EU relies on France, the bloc’s second-largest economy, to underwrite collective aid to Kiev, yet the €3 billion pledge Paris made for 2024 is in doubt. That damages the bloc’s credibility as a reliable funder at a time when Germany is reluctant to shoulder the costs alone. Macron has also styled himself as the champion of “strategic autonomy,” calling together with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for a stronger European defense role. But as the Financial Times has noted, those ambitions collide with weak finances and political divisions. With France paralyzed, the EU’s claim to speak with one voice looks hollow, and existing rifts – from Hungary’s open skepticism to Slovakia’s resistance on energy and sanctions – are harder to conceal.

Bottom line Bayrou’s downfall would leave Macron weaker at home and less credible abroad. France’s ability to anchor the EU’s Ukraine policy looks shaky, Kiev’s guarantees are cast into doubt, and Moscow can argue convincingly that Europe’s talk of peace is inseparable from its rush to militarize.

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Machine translation?!

Putin Notes an Underlying Issue Within Ukraine that Impedes Negotiation (CTH)

I have often said that Russian dialogue is essentially different from Western dialogue in that Russian speaking is direct and without pretense. This difference is very visible when outlining positions built on pragmatic acceptances. Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked about the status of negotiations with Ukraine. President Putin notes some of the internal political issues within Ukraine must be deconflicted in order for discussions to proceed. Without these issues resolved, discussion is futile.

Russian President Vladimir Putin: “First. After all, quite recently, the leadership of the Kyiv regime, mildly speaking unflatteringly of us, and excluded all possibility of direct Contacts. Now we see that they are asking for these contacts, at least Offer. I have repeatedly said that I am ready for these contacts. At the news conference in Beijing, which you mentioned, I said that there is no point in I don’t see much of it. Why? Because it will be agreed with the Ukrainian side is almost impossible on key issues. Even if there is a political will, What I doubt is that there are legal and technical difficulties that are that any agreements on territories must be confirmed in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine at a referendum. In order to hold a referendum, martial law must be lifted, Martial law is not carried out. If martial law is lifted, it is necessary to immediately hold presidential elections.

After the referendum, if it is held, regardless of the results, it is necessary to obtain a decision of the Constitutional Court. And the constitutional court does not work, because after requests, as I understand it, to the Constitutional Court about the legitimacy of the current government, the court evaded these decisions, and the head of the regime He simply ordered the guards not to let the chairman of the Constitutional Court into the working place. This is the kind of democracy there. And the chairman of the Supreme Court is just sitting in prison on corruption charges. It is well known that Ukraine has enough of this Corruption. But why was it necessary to send the chairman of the supreme court to prison to plant, it is not very clear. Although it is clear that it came to destruction their judicial system as such. This is another of the striking signs of “democracy” current Ukrainian authorities.

Therefore, this endless process is going nowhere. Nevertheless, we said that we are ready for a summit meeting. Listen, the Ukrainian side wants this meeting and offers this one Meeting. I said: ready, please come, we are definitely completely We will provide working conditions and safety, the guarantee is one hundred percent. But if We are told we want to meet with you, but you go there for this meeting, it seems to me that these are just their excessive requests to us. I repeat once again: if someone really wants to meet with us, we Ready. The best place for this is the capital of the Russian Federation, the hero city Moscow.” {SOURCE}

Vladimir Putin: “We have an open dialogue with President Trump. There is an agreement that in case of We can call, contact, and talk to each other. He knows that I am open to these conversations; And he too – I know about it. But so far, we have not had conversations in Europe based on the results of these consultations. Actually, it was difficult for me to do this, I had just come from China, I’m here. We have no problems with communications here. First. Secondly, regarding possible military contingents in Ukraine. This is one of the root causes of Ukraine’s involvement in NATO. Therefore, if there are some troops appear, especially now, in the course of hostilities, We proceed from the assumption that these will be legitimate targets for their destruction.

And if solutions are reached that lead to peace, to long-term peace, then I simply do not see any point in them being on the territory of Ukraine, that’s all. If agreements are reached, let no one doubt that Russia will comply with them in full. We will respect those guarantees security, which, of course, must be worked out both for Russia and for Ukraine. And I repeat once again: of course, Russia will agree to these agreements execute. In any case, no one has discussed this with us on a serious level, that’s all.”

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“Brussels, “the capital of diplomacy..”

Peace in Ukraine ‘Easier Without Brussels Hawks Fueling War’ (Sp.)

It would be easier to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis if the “hawks” in Brussels stopped fueling the conflict, the Russian Embassy in Belgium said on Sunday. “It is obvious that if the ‘hawks’ in Brussels and other Western capitals stop fueling the war and support peace efforts, including those undertaken by US President [Donald] Trump, then it will become much easier to achieve peace,” the embassy wrote on Telegram. Instead, the Belgian government is becoming more and more Russophobic, misleading its citizens about Russia’s alleged intent to attack Brussels, the embassy added. Earlier in September, Belgian Defense Minister Thomas Francken said that Moscow was capable of “infiltrating” one of the NATO member states by 2030 under the pretext of protecting the Russian-speaking minority in it, while at the same time attacking Brussels, “the capital of diplomacy,” with drones and missiles.

“The flawed logic offered to ordinary citizens confirms that the current Belgian leadership is rapidly moving away from its previously declared moderation in foreign affairs and is increasingly joining the ranks of the most Russophobic part of the EU and NATO, pursuing an extremely dangerous course of inciting confrontation with our country,” the statement read. The Russian embassy dismissed the allegations, adding that the policies pursued by the Belgian government result in significant economic and social costs, which Belgian citizens are forced to pay.

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“..its days are numbered, it would fall apart on its own, there would no point in even leaving it..”

Orban: EU’s Next 7-Year Budget to Become Last One If Bloc Does Not Change (Sp.)

The European Union is in a state of disintegration, and if there are no radical changes, the next seven-year budget will be the last one for the community, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“I believe that the European Union has now entered a state of disintegration. And if it continues like this — and the likelihood of this is very high, — then the EU will go down in history as a depressing result of a noble experiment,” Orban said, speaking at the opening of the political season in the city of Kotcse. The Hungarian prime minister recalled that the European Union must now adopt a new common budget for 2028-2035.

“Even if we manage to pass this budget — which we may have serious doubts about — but if we do, it will be the last seven-year budget of the European Union. If things continue like this, I consider it completely impossible to pass a common budget after 2035,” he emphasized. The Hungarian Prime Minister proposed a possible way out of the crisis: the formation of four “circles,” so that the outermost one would include countries that want to cooperate in the field of security and energy security, which could include not only EU member states, but also Turkey, the United Kingdom and Ukraine; the second circle would include countries that have a common market, similar to the EU’s internal market; the third circle would include eurozone countries with a common monetary policy, and the fourth would unite countries that want a close political union with common political principles.

“Only such a flexible structure of circles can ensure interaction between European countries at different levels of cooperation… If we do not move to this order, the European Union will fall apart,” Orban concluded. Orban previously stated that if the European Union continued its economic policy, its days are numbered, it would fall apart on its own, there would no point in even leaving it, and the period during which something could be radically changed is two to three years. According to the politician, Europe will fall apart before our eyes if the liberals in power in Brussels are not replaced by representatives of patriotic governments, “purges” are needed, similar to those taking place in the United States.

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“Britain is being over-run again. First the Romans. Then the Anglo-Saxons. Then the Vikings. Then the Normans. In all previous times, the British fought. But not this time.”

THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS (Paul Craig Roberts)

The British nation no longer exists. A Muslim immigrant-invader has been appointed Home Secretary. She is in charge of immigration, borders, and the police. When the ethnic British elected Starmer, they signed their death warrant. The 1939 English song, “There’ll always be an England,” turned out to be mistaken.

British political parties have concluded that ethnic British self-rule is racist. The Conservative Party chose an Indian Prime Minister. The Labor Party chose a Muslim Home Secretary. The leader in waiting of the Conservative Party is an African woman. The Mayor of London is a Muslim. Immigrant-invaders are also mayors of 18 British cities, including the largest ones. Rape of white ethnic British females by immigrant-invaders, due to non-enforcement of law, has become a de factor right of immigrant-invaders. Raped ethnic British females who complain about being raped risk arrest for “offensive statements” and “hate crimes” against a protected class–immigrant-invaders. The ethnic British people have recently been protesting their treatment by their government, but with insufficient force to be effective.

Britain is being over-run again. First the Romans. Then the Anglo-Saxons. Then the Vikings. Then the Normans. In all previous times, the British fought. But not this time. The Muslim world has claimed Britain. England as an ethnic British nation is a lost cause.


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“..the Left’s strategy is that of the kamikaze: to destroy Trump at the cost of destroying the Democratic Party.”

Trump Astride at 7 Months (Victor Davis Hanson)

President Donald Trump’s greatest achievement within six months was simply ending illegal immigration as we had once known it—without “comprehensive immigration reform” or any other rhetorical trickery. It remains difficult to find, much less deport, the 10 to 12 million illegal aliens who entered in the last four years. Those who helped break the law, by design or indifference, now believe it was moral to destroy federal immigration law but immoral to uphold it. And it is still unclear whether former President Joe Biden’s handlers deliberately sabotaged their own border for political and demographic purposes out of sheer orneriness or utter incompetence. Many of the Left’s cherished totems—massive Green New Deal subsidies, the diversity/equity/inclusion industry, biological males competing in women’s sports, and the U.S. Agency for International Development revolving door—are either comatose or in their death throes.

The historic drop-off in military recruitment reversed shortly after Trump took office. Republican voter registration is up, and Democrat registration is down. Abroad, Trump finds remarkable successes. For now, there are pauses in the fighting between India and Pakistan, Egypt and Somalia, Cambodia and Thailand, Rwanda and Congo, Serbia and Kosovo, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. Much credit is due to Trump for brokering ceasefires. Iran will not get a bomb in the next four years—as seemed likely when Biden left office. The Middle East’s current most grotesque terrorist cadres and states—Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis—are far weaker than they were when Trump entered office in January. There is at least some engagement in envisioning the outlines of a ceasefire in Trump’s inherited Ukraine War.

The rub is finding the degree of ordnance necessary to convince Putin that increasing Russia’s casualties to more than one million will endanger his own dictatorship sooner than destroy Ukraine. Breaking up the new three-billion-person China/India/Russia nexus hinges on ending the war. The economy is still strong. Gas prices are at historic lows. Increases in all types of energy production proceed full bore. Current gross domestic product, inflation, unemployment, and the stock market—all at one time or another said to be in a crisis state—remain strong. Talk of an impending recession or hyperinflation is mostly muted. No one quite knows either the full effects of Trump’s tariffs—especially given the injunctions issued by left-wing district justices—or of the promised over $10 trillion in foreign investments.

Much of Trump’s agenda will hinge on whether interest rates are lowered, Republicans survive the midterms, and the degree to which unelected left-wing lower-court justices can be stopped from hijacking the Constitution and de facto running the country. As for the Democrat opposition, there is no counter agenda, no shadow government responsible leadership, and no willingness to craft bipartisan legislation. Instead, the Left’s strategy is that of the kamikaze: to destroy Trump at the cost of destroying the Democratic Party. Otherwise, Democrats seek to prove so obnoxious in demonizing Trump that they create such mass hysteria that the weary electorate figuratively lies down, closes its eyes, covers its ears, and screams nonstop, “Make them all go away!”

Former foul-mouthed vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is now reduced to a ghoulish status. He recently boasted to an audience that rumors of Trump’s death—who survived two assassination attempts last summer—will thankfully one day prove true. The top of the failed ticket, Kamala Harris, wanders aimlessly without an office, constituency, audience, or ideas. To remain viable, she knows she must continue touring and speaking. But Harris accepts that the more anyone hears her word salads, the more they will remember her 2024 train wreck. Head of the Democratic Party, Ken Martin, now screams that Trump is a fascist. But by what standards does he judge? Did Trump try to take his rivals off state ballots? Does he advocate for destroying the filibuster, the Electoral College, and the 156-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, or packing the Senate by admitting two new states?

Are local, state, and federal prosecutors—a la Bragg, James, Smith, and Willis—coordinating with the White House and the Justice Department to indict Trump’s current chief adversaries, such as Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, or Josh Shapiro? Did Trumpers hire a foreign spy to concoct a fake hit dossier on Democrat grandees? Are his subordinates now spreading it to the media. Are 51 conservative former CIA contractors and retired spooks swearing that Newsom or Harris is working with the Russians, Chinese, or any of our enemies? The greatest Democrat fear? That it has so institutionalized excessive executive orders, ad hominem lawfare, lower-court usurpation, state nullification of federal law, and federal intervention in higher education, the energy industry, and the nation’s open spaces that their own legacies empowered Trump and now will boomerang upon themselves—as the public applauds the karma.

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“And nearly five years later, every single thing Kingston predicted about the CV19 bioweapon vax has been proven true.”

Truth About CV19 Vax Awakens Public – Karen Kingston (USAW)

Karen Kingston is a biotech analyst and former Pfizer employee that warned in her very first appearance on USAWatchdog in September of 2021 that the “CV19 Vaccines are Poison.” Nearly five years ago, Kingston said, “They are only intended to poison, mutate, cause genetic mutations, and kill adults and children. They contain advanced medical technologies called lipid nanoparticles that are made of hydrogel, which contain graphene oxide (poison to humans) . . .. There are strong immunosuppressants, different types of chemotherapies that could suppress your immune system while being injected by something that is going to highjack your immune system . . .. and actually produce this disease-causing genetic material that can cause cancers, inflammatory diseases, genetic disorders, infertility and etc.”

And nearly five years later, every single thing Kingston predicted about the CV19 bioweapon vax has been proven true. The latest example showing the deadly and debilitating disaster that is the CV19 vax comes from a new peer reviewed study that “Finds COVID-19 ‘Vaccines’ Increase Risk of Multiple Cancers — CONFIRMS Fears of ‘Turbo Cancer’ Epidemic.” There are also diseases of “epidemic” proportions with heart, immune system and brain function, to name a few more. Maybe this is why Florida, just today, ended all vaccine mandates. Many of these ‘vaccines’ contain deadly and debilitating mRNA. This ban also includes the CV19 “vaccine.” Kingston reports, “The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law, ALL of them, EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM,” says Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joe Ladapo.

President Trump is also questioning the CV19 vaccines and is demanding the vaccine makers justify the safety of their products. Trump said in part on Truth social, “With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW. . .. I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as “BRILLIANT” as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why??? Kingston says, “President Trump is demanding that Pfizer shows its data. . .. One report from June of 2022 from Pfizer and people calling in and they recorded it. Pfizer recorded nearly five million adverse (CV19 vax) events across nearly 1.5 million people. The most common were neurological. There were nearly 750,000 nervous system disorders. . .. This is really scary. . .. This was in a period of 18 months.” Kingston says there were at least a dozen other CV19 vax studies that were never released and were kept from the public.

Did Pfizer stop the shots and alert President Trump about this? NO! Now, even top former CDC officials are trashing the CV19 shots. Kingston says, “Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a CDC director, just repeated what HHS Secretary Kennedy said in 2021, and that is the CV19 vaccine is ‘the deadliest vaccine ever made.’ (So-called fact checkers said back in 2021 this was not true. In 2025, with millions of victims dead, it most certainly IS TRUE.) My point is Daskalakis repeated what Kennedy said in 2021 recently on MSNBC. They are putting it out there. They can’t undo the damage that has been done. RFK Jr. just revoked more than $500 million in research projects of mRNA. There have been a lot of movements, and it is interesting Trump is calling on the drug companies to step in and disclose their information. The last time they disclosed their information, it was horrible. . .. By the way, a lot of data they submitted to the FDA has never been released.”

Multiple top people at the CDC recently have quit or been fired. Also, the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the CV19 vax has been terminated. This move makes many now liable for adverse vaccine reactions. Maybe this is why CVS and Walgreens have restricted the CV19 vax after this announcement. Kingston calls what is happening now “a watershed moment of awakening” for the people who want the ugly truth to come out for the CV19 vax. Kingston says, “It’s all criminal, and this is what I have always said. This is the data.”

Now, Kingston says people need treatment to “detox” from the ill effects of the CV19 vax. Let’s hope the treatment starts soon and we don’t wait another five years to start saving lives of the CV19 vaccine injured.

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“DANCING FUCKING NURSES!

See, that’s why.”

Thoughts on Robert F Kennedy Jr Congressional Testimony (CTH)

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. appeared before the Senate Finance Committee after U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez was fired and four senior officials have resigned amid growing tensions over vaccine policies and public health directives. I have not commented on what happened during the hearing, nor shared the numerous confrontational segments of wide distribution, because the background context of the hearing itself is challenging to discuss in stable mindset without blowing a blood pressure cuff. However, here goes.

COVID-19 is the name of the disease caused by the SARS-CoV2 virus. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) – Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (CoV2), colloquially referred to as “COVID-19”, was a man-made influenza (flu) virus created in a laboratory in Wuhan China, using “gain of function” research grants from the United States government. The virus escaped the laboratory and became a pandemic influenza virus as it spread throughout the world. The response to the release of the virus, the mitigation effort, was organized by global intelligence services and coordinated through western military cooperation. The military and intelligence services coordinated the mitigation efforts with various national health services, the compliance rules and subsequent restrictions upon Americans were a downstream consequence.

Everything within the mitigation process was fraught with governmental fear, widely ridiculous panic, over-the-top reactions and a level of political pressure never before seen in modern history. All of the rules and restrictions were genuinely crazy at the time events were happening, and in hindsight review none of the mitigation efforts made any sense whatsoever. Commonsense was thrown out the window as mass formation psychosis spread like wildfire with a hurricane. Approximately a year after the COVID-19 virus was unleashed a quickly created and untested genetically modifying serum called a “COVID-19 vaccine” was then promoted to the world as the most important element in virus mitigation. There was never, NEVER, a more heavily pushed and forced mandate by the entirety of western collective government, and global intelligence systems, as the modern compliance effort to force citizens to take the “vaccine.”

Ultimately, the vaccine rules, demands, mandates and economic compliance pressures, divided the various nations into two sets of people: (1) those who took the vaccine, and (2) those who did not. Much like the COVID-19 mitigation rules themselves, the pressure to take the vaccines was unrelenting. The United States Government, through various emergency declarations and legal processes, mandated compliance forcing the vaccine upon people who did not want to take the untested, unverified and eventually determined unsafe genetically modifying serum. Within the control systems deployed by government, including the panel who were recently questioning HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr., non-compliance with the “vaccine” mandate was not optional. Every regulatory and enforcement element of government was deployed to coerce and ultimately force compliance to take the vaccine.

The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments) was subverted, manipulated and legally twisted at the behest of government officers, including President Joe Biden using emergency powers. Families were torn apart as the dynamic of the compliant -vs- the non-compliant played out in every relationship. Socially, the cohesive nature of acceptable behavior was destroyed. Children were forcibly taken for vaccinations and parents who would not comply with the vaccine were legally held accountable, threatened, ostracized and ridiculed. During the panic, industries were taken over by government, hundreds of thousands of unnecessary and unneeded ventilators were built, portable hospitals were erected in football stadiums and convention centers by military and national guard, they were never used; forced lockdowns were mandated and travel was restricted by local, state and federal authorities.

People were not permitted to work; the economy was shut down and the workforce was divided into essential -vs- nonessential positions. All of it was madness. In the USA the entire weight of the scientific community and healthcare industry was leveraged by the intelligence agencies, military and government politicians, to force compliance with all the rules and regulations as determined by “experts” in the field of health and science. This was the largest psychological control operation ever deployed against the American people, and anyone who stood up against the system of forced compliance was immediately identified, removed, shutdown, had their social media presence blocked, and every element of the government regulation used to silence their dissent.

The President Biden administration used their emergency powers to collaborate with and force social media platforms and tech systems to control the electronic messaging and communication of the American people. Private industry was forced into compliance and small business were forcibly shutdown if they did not adhere to the rules and regulations of the various enforcement mechanisms. The federal, state and local police were used as armed compliance officers to monitor the behavior of the American people and control their activity. Government checkpoints were put into place to verify status as “essential” during travel, and vaccination compliance documents were required for commerce and social engagements.

Four years later the larger American population now realizes all of what took place was built on a foundation of fraud and lies. Four years later we discover the rules, regulations and compliance techniques were carried out with no official scientific basis. Worse still, the untested and unsafe vaccine -forced upon millions of Americans- is now identified as killing hundreds-of-thousands of innocent victims who were completely healthy until they were injected with a genetically modifying serum of unknown consequence. To protect themselves from the consequences of their conduct, all of the officials who engaged in the process of mandated vaccine deployment are now hiding the data in an effort to avoid the consequences.

This is the background for newly appointed and highly skeptical HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to appear before congress and explain the changes he is making to a U.S. healthcare system that was shown to be completely broken by the example of SARS-CoV-2. I have not previously commented about the RFK Jr hearing, genuinely because discussing…. THE MURDEROUS FUCKING ACTS OF BIDEN’S GOVERNMENT DURING COVID-19 FORCED VACCINATIONS… is beyond my capacity for stable-minded discussion. Congress sits there, arguing narratives from perches, as if we the people have completely forgotten the madness that took over the entire healthcare system.

DANCING FUCKING NURSES!

See, that’s why.

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“..the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution..”

Trump Threatens ‘War’ On Chicago Over Immigration (RT)

US President Donald Trump has ramped up threats to deploy federal troops to Chicago for an immigration crackdown, warning that the city “will soon find out” why he renamed the Defense Department the “Department of WAR.” The warning follows Trump’s order to dramatically ramp up deportations in Democrat-led cities after riots swept Los Angeles earlier this year. On Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social what appears to be an AI-generated meme showing him in military uniform with the Chicago skyline, helicopters, and flames in the background. Above the image, Trump wrote: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning… Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

The caption to the meme read: “Chipocalypse Now,” a play on the 1979 film ‘Apocalypse Now’, which includes the line: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Trump offered no further details.Trump’s warning has drawn massive pushback from local officials. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker wrote on X that the president “is threatening to go to war with an American city,” adding, “Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.” Illinois Representative Mike Quigley told Politico at Chicago’s Mexican Independence Day parade that Trump spoke “like a true tyrant.” “The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson wrote on X.

Illegal immigration has been a central focus of Trump’s presidency. On Inauguration Day, he vowed to deport “millions and millions” of undocumented immigrants. Since then, he has expanded border security, tripled Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention funding, cut humanitarian programs, and detained thousands of illegal migrants, among other regulatory measures. Saturday’s post adds to Trump’s repeated threats to include Chicago in his list of cities targeted for expanded immigration enforcement. In June, his administration deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles, followed by Washington, DC, after mass pro-immigration riots. Trump has also suggested that Baltimore and New Orleans could face similar measures.

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Over 50 years.

“..564,258 deaths per year, similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict..”

29 Million Deaths Linked To EU and US Sanctions (RT)

Western sanctions contributed to nearly 29 million excess deaths worldwide over five decades – a toll comparable to that of wars, according to a recent study. The research, published last month in the Lancet Global Health, has gained attention around the world. Examining age-specific mortality in 152 countries from 1971 to 2021, using statistics from the Global Sanctions Database, researchers compared mortality rates before and after sanctions, tracking long-term trends to estimate their toll in excess deaths. They focused on three sanctioning authorities: The UN, the US, and the EU (and its predecessor). “We estimate that unilateral sanctions over this period caused 564,258 deaths per year, similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict,” the authors noted, with a total of 28.8 million deaths across the 51-year span.

We found the strongest effects for unilateral, economic, and US sanctions, whereas we found no statistical evidence of an effect for UN sanctions. Most excess deaths occurred among the most vulnerable – the very young and the elderly. “Our findings reveal that unilateral and economic sanctions, particularly those imposed by the USA, lead to substantial increases in mortality, disproportionately affecting children younger than 5 years,” the study said, noting that the age group accounted for 51% of the total death toll. The report found that the sanctions undermine economic and food security, often causing hunger and health problems among the poorest. Additionally, the dominance of the dollar and euro in global transactions allowed the US and EU to amplify the impact of their sanctions.

At last year’s BRICS summit, member nations called for “unlawful unilateral coercive measures” to be eliminated, warning of their disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable. Members have increasingly avoided the dollar “to shield themselves from US arbitrariness,” Moscow has said. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a fairer global governance system based on mutual respect and opposition to Western dominance. Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the proposal as especially relevant when “some countries still do not abandon their desire for dictatorship in international affairs.”

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What i see coming is deep alright.

US in ‘Very Deep Negotiations’ With Hamas to End Gaza Conflict – Trump (ET)

The United States is in “very deep negotiations with Hamas” to bring an end to the current conflict in the Gaza Strip, President Donald Trump announced on Sept. 5. Hamas, which continues to hold hostages taken from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has so far rejected any deals to end the nearly two-year Israeli military campaign across the Gaza Strip, despite widespread death and destruction throughout the territory. Addressing the ongoing hostage situation and the surrounding conflict, Trump reiterated calls for Hamas to release all of the remaining hostages in a bed to end the carnage. “We said let them all out right now. Let them all out, and much better things will happen for them. But if you don’t let them all out, it’s going to be a tough situation. It’s going to be nasty. That’s my opinion. Israel’s choice, but that’s my opinion,” the president said during a White House press briefing.

In recent weeks, Israeli forces have been ramping up operations in Gaza City, which is located towards the northern end of the embattled strip of territory. The Israeli military has claimed responsibility for strikes targeting high-rises in the city, and footage has shown strikes toppling at least one tower there. As many as 20 captives may still be alive, though Trump said “there could be some that have recently died, is what I’m hearing.” “I hope that’s wrong,” he added. The bodies of around 30 more captives also remain in the Gaza Strip. Hamas released a video on Sept. 5 with Israeli hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal. In the video, apparently dated Aug. 28, Gilboa-Dalal states that he and other hostages are being held in Gaza City and fear they will be killed in the intensifying Israeli operation.

Trump offered few specifics about what Hamas is requesting in negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages. “They’re asking for some things that are fine,” Trump began, when asked about Hamas’s demands, but said the initial Hamas attack on Israel—in which around 1,200 were killed and thousands more were wounded—must be taken into consideration in the negotiations. Throughout the conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has articulated a goal to ensure Hamas is defeated and that the Gaza Strip can never become a haven for the group or similar militants opposed to Israel.

In an Aug. 10 speech, Netanyahu said the Gaza City takeover plan is not part of an indefinite Israeli occupation of the strip. At the same time, he indicated the plan is for Israel to have “overriding security responsibilities” for the territory, while allowing a “non-Israeli, peaceful civil administration. Netanyahu said Gaza’s post-Hamas civil authority must be one that “doesn’t educate its children for terror, doesn’t pay terrorists, and doesn’t launch terrorist attacks against Israel.” Netanyahu said these terms would disqualify the Palestinian Authority—which has partial governing authority in the West Bank—from stepping in as Gaza’s eventual civil authority.

In a Sept. 6 statement, Hamas representatives said, “The movement affirms its openness to any ideas or proposals that achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, unconditional entry of aid, and a real prisoner exchange through serious negotiations via mediators.”

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“rich natural resource reserves, estimated at $75 trillion..”

Globalists’ Attacks on Russia Linked to Its Rich Natural Resources – Dmitriev (Sp.)

Russian Federal Agency for Mineral Resources (Rosnedra) has completed the development of a geological exploration program for new Russian regions and is coordinating this work, the Agency’s representative earlier said. Globalists’ attacks on Russia are linked to its rich natural resource reserves, estimated at $75 trillion, Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev, who is also the Russian president’s special representative for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries, says.

“Russia is Number 1 in the world with an estimated $75 trillion natural resource value. That’s also why it is constantly attacked by globalists and the deep state. Russia has partnered and will build new partnerships with the leading countries for joint resource development,” Dmitriev said on X. According to estimates by the international agency Statista for 2021, which RDIF CEO cites, after Russia, the top five countries in terms of natural resource reserves include the United States ($45 trillion), Saudi Arabia ($34 trillion), Canada ($33 trillion) and Iran ($27 trillion).

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“..capital from all over the world will be trying to get off the railroad tracks because gold and silver cannot default.”

Gold & Silver Sniffing Out Risk & Fear – Bill Holter (USAW)

Precious metals expert and financial writer Bill Holter worked side by side with his business partner Jim Sinclair for more than a decade. No two people knew more about markets and money than them. Two years ago, Sinclair, aka “Mr. Gold,” passed away. Now, the baton has passed to Holter, who is the new “Mr. Gold.” Holter warns one explosive new all-time high, hitting day after day, for the yellow metal is signaling big trouble coming. Holter explains, “There is a huge breakout. In my opinion, the metals market is sniffing out risk and fear. . .. They funded literally trillions of dollars by borrowing in yen. Now, what has happened, the Japanese yield curve has gone from basically zero to over 1.6 % on a ten-year (bond) and 3.2% on a 30-year (bond).

So, that carry trade now is being squeezed because the yen has gone higher . . . your cost to carry has gone higher because Japanese yields have gone higher. So, the gold market is looking at the Japanese carry trade in the process of blowing up. It is sovereign bonds across the world. If you look at interest rates worldwide, they are actually going higher.” If the Fed cuts interest rates later this month, it may not be good news. The bond market could rebel. Holter says, “You could see bond prices drop and yields go higher. There is also a very high probability with lower Fed rates that the dollar weakens.” Earlier this year, Holter called the global economy a hyper-levered house of cards. The leverage has gotten worse, much worse.

Holter says, “There is a turbocharge to this, and when I say turbocharge, it’s fear. It’s fear of bankruptcy. It’s fear of default. The world is clearly over-levered, and there are going to be sovereign defaults left and right going forward. The only two monies that cannot default on the planet are gold and silver.” So, is there going to be a big crash coming soon? Holter says, I don’t know if it is going to be September, October or whatever, but you look at the math and the valuations. The valuations are ridiculous. Look at the math on sovereign debt all over the world. Look at the math on the amount of debt outstanding and margin debt, and this is a huge credit bubble. Credit bubbles do not go away quietly. Credit bubbles burst and markets collapse. The problem now is there is so much debt in the system and the system is so big the central banks together cannot stand against the tsunami of bankruptcies that are coming. There is no white knight this time.”

Holter (aka, the new Mr. Gold) says, “The vast majority of wealth will seek a safe haven that cannot evaporate or be taken away. It’s going to be gold and silver. You are going to see a bull market in gold and silver unlike any bull market in any field ever. . .. Gold and silver will make financial history because capital from all over the world will be trying to get off the railroad tracks because gold and silver cannot default.” In closing, Mr. Gold says if you just divide the amount of official gold held in the US Treasury by the official US government debt, you get about $135,000 per ounce gold price and around $6,700 per ounce silver price. Holter says with $2 quadrillion in derivative debt, who knows how high the price of gold and silver can go. One thing for sure is gold and silver cannot default.

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Well, the jobs numbers were pretty bad… Let’s start there.

Bessent Doubles Down On Tariffs, Predicts Economic Surge (ZH)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed back Sunday against growing concerns that the U.S. economy is sliding toward a “jobs recession,” defending the administration’s trade policies, tariffs, and fiscal strategy while signaling confidence that growth will accelerate by year’s end. In a wide-ranging interview on NBC’s Meet the Press (full interview at the bottom), Bessent rejected forecasts from economists at Moody’s Analytics and elsewhere who have warned that slowing hiring trends and manufacturing job losses point to deeper weakness. Instead, he argued that recent data is noisy, revisions are likely, and that President Donald Trump’s economic agenda remains on track to deliver a “substantial acceleration” in the fourth quarter.

Host Kristen Welker opened the interview by citing Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi, who recently described the U.S. slowdown as a “jobs recession.” Asked if he agreed, Bessent pushed back: “We’re not going to do economic policy off of one number,” Bessent said. “Good policies are in place that are going to create good high-paying jobs for the American people.” He added that August is “the noisiest month of the year” for employment data and stressed that significant revisions are common: “We need good data before we jump to conclusions.” Pressed on manufacturing job losses since the April rollout of the administration’s new tariffs, Bessent urged patience, noting that factories “can’t be built overnight” citing a “record amount of investment intentions” already underway.

He highlighted July’s passage of the administration’s flagship tax and infrastructure package – the One Big Beautiful Bill, which included full expensing for factories and equipment. According to Bessent, many companies were “holding back” investment until the bill passed and are now planning major capital expenditures and expansions. Still, U.S. manufacturing employment has declined by 42,000 jobs since April, even as the White House has promised a “manufacturing renaissance”” Bessent attributed some of the perceived weakness to flawed data collection and suggested that upcoming revisions could wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs previously reported under the Biden administration. “We’re going to get revisions next week that may be as big as an 800,000-job downward revision,” Bessent said. “I’m not sure what these people who collect the data have been doing, but we need good data.”

The interview grew tense as Welker pressed Bessent on widespread reports from U.S. manufacturers that tariffs are increasing costs and forcing layoffs. Companies including John Deere, Nike, Black+Decker, and the Big Three automakers have warned investors that tariffs are adding hundreds of millions – in some cases billions – in unexpected expenses. Goldman Sachs recently estimated that 86% of tariff costs have ultimately been borne by U.S. companies and consumers. Bessent rejected those conclusions outright. “For every John Deere, we have companies telling us the tariffs have helped their business,” he said, citing meetings with executives at Treasury. “They’re increasing capital expenditures and expanding employment. And if things are so bad, why was GDP up 3.3% and why is the stock market at a new high?”

When asked directly whether tariffs amount to a tax on U.S. consumers, Bessent responded flatly: “No, I don’t.” He also dismissed Goldman Sachs’s analysis, quipping: “I made a good career trading against Goldman Sachs.”

Read more …

X thread.

Once Were Relevant (el gato malo)

i don’t think western europe and canada understand how little their opinions matter anymore. once, at least europe was relevant, but today? both are failing, no-growth, collapsing demographic failures that are rapidly losing anything like their high trust, flourishing cultures as they are eaten by the davos/WEF culture collapsers and the occupying armies they invite. both are dying regimes held up by censorship and political suppression. they are overrun by barbarian invaders to whom they are too effete and butthurt to advocate resistance. the contrast with eastern europe, which refuses to fall for this societal suicide pact (likely because they have living memory memories of communism) could not be more stark in both economics and culture.

of course the EC elites hate an american return to vibrance and strength. it highlights how badly they themselves lack this. their misery demands company that america will no longer provide. it will be fun to watch and see if they can learn to defend themselves. it’s not that america is dying. it’s that we’re getting ready to live again by escaping this nonsense. it’s europe who is on the table in critical care. i hope their smug senses of self-importance can keep them warm in the coming conquest by caliphate and the green death of watermelon politics. those who advocate the US imitating the serfdom surrender of europe and canada have been far too dominant for far too long. and their 15 minutes are up. i wonder when spencer will realize this?

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https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1964688908857250278

Owls

Scott

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 242025
 


Henri Matisse Olive trees at Collioure 1906

 

John Bolton Under Investigation for Violations of the Espionage Act (CTH)
Why Would Putin Want To Meet With Zelensky? (Ryumshin)
Trump Wants To ‘Coax’ Russia But ‘Pressure’ Ukraine Into Talks – Politico (RT)
“Or Do We Do Nothing, and Say It’s Your Fight” (CTH)
Pentagon Has Restricted Ukraine From Striking Russian Territory – WSJ (RT)
Ukraine Issues Military Warning To Belarus (RT)
: Even After Trump Humiliation, Europe Insists That Peace Is War (Escobar)
The CBO Just Dropped a $4 Trillion Truth Bomb (Margolis)
Canada Announces End to All Retaliatory Tariffs – Trump Gives Nothing (CTH)
The One That Got Away: Letitia James and the Perils of Trophy Fishing (Turley)
The Media Flips Out Over Trump Claim—But Once Again, He Was Right (Margolis)
Trump’s Smithsonian Review Is Long Overdue (Mike Gonzalez)
Multi-Front Effort to Protect Clintons While Framing Trump (Bruner)
Deep State Entrenched In US Intel Community – Gabbard (RT)
Trump Says ‘Dangerous’ Chicago Next After Addressing Crime In DC (JTN)
Judge Releases Alleged Gang Member Kilmar Abrego Garcia From Jail (Margolis)
President Trump Announces US Govt Takes 10% Stake in INTEL (CTH)

 

 

https://twitter.com/PrometheanActn/status/1959324424122896435

Deep breath
https://twitter.com/ThePatriotOasis/status/1959056669838909859

Shell
https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/1959057789021823001

Prime time
https://twitter.com/Chicago1Ray/status/1959002765637619980

FIFA
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1958946393864675608

CO2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Espionage is a few grades up from classified files in a closet.

John Bolton Under Investigation for Violations of the Espionage Act (CTH)

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton is a well-documented neocon, who operates inside the business model of selling U.S. foreign policy influence for personal gain. His activity mirrors that of former Senator John McCain in many regards. John Bolton sold his access, contacts and ability to influence policy to the highest bidder. In DC parlance they call that a “consultant.” When the consulting is contracted for a specific national interest, the title shifts to “lobbyist.” That was his job, and all of Washington DC knows it. Washington DC operates on this business model; the entire system will be soft to criticize Bolton and many will likely defend him. The FBI raid on his residence and office has led to a considerable amount of speculation.

However, as some background details start to come out, it appears CIA Director John Ratcliffe provided FBI Director Kash Patel with specifics on the international travels and efforts of Bolton. That CIA referral has led to an FBI investigation under the auspices of potential violations of the espionage act, where Bolton would have leveraged current or prior classified intelligence information as part of his influence business. Almost identically to former Senator John McCain, John Bolton was well known to intersect with the nation of Qatar as part of his operation. Qatar has deep pockets and a long-identified influence operation throughout the middle east, sometimes playing both sides. Qatar is also the playground for the CIA. While it is yet unknown which nation and which activity Bolton was likely engaged in, the highest probability centers around the deepest pockets, which would also put Bolton on the CIA radar. With President Trump in the White House, there is a big market for the services of people like John Bolton who operate a specific militaristic mindset against the Trump administration.

NEW YORK TIMES – “The information that provided the basis for the warrant to search John Bolton’s home on Friday was based on intelligence collected overseas by the C.I.A., according to people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, provided Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, with limited access to the intelligence. It involved the mishandling of classified material by Mr. Bolton, the people said. The search of the home and office of Mr. Bolton, who was national security adviser during President Trump’s first term, was a major escalation of a long-running inquiry into whether he collected or leaked sensitive national security information, law enforcement officials said. The nature of the intelligence collected overseas is not known. The F.B.I. obtained the search warrant after presenting evidence to a federal judge. Mr. Bolton’s office declined to comment. The C.I.A. and F.B.I. regularly cooperate on counterterrorism investigations. It is unusual for the C.I.A. to so prominently provide information for a high-profile investigation of a former U.S. official.”

Also from The New York Times: “[…] The investigation into Mr. Bolton seeks to determine whether he illegally shared or possessed classified information, according to people familiar with the case who requested anonymity to describe details of a continuing investigation. The key criminal statute involved in those potential crimes is part of the Espionage Act. Another potential criminal statute in the investigation is one that bars the unauthorized removal of classified documents or material. The information that provided the basis for the warrant to search Mr. Bolton’s home was based on intelligence collected overseas by the C.I.A., according to people briefed on the matter. John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, provided limited access to the intelligence to Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director. The intelligence involved the possible mishandling of classified material by Mr. Bolton, the people said.”

• Did John Bolton have access to classified information about national security policy, yes.
• Would John Bolton leverage that knowledge for personal material gain, again yes.
• Did Bolton operate in the same industry as almost all DC influence agents, yup.
• Does this investigation of Bolton create an increased sense of anxiety amid all those who operate on the same system, oh heck yes.
• What does the investigation of Bolton mean to the larger network of corrupt influence peddling in DC, we don’t know yet.

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“…a Putin-Zelensky summit may still happen. Not because it will resolve the war, but because it serves the broader game of diplomacy. The real audience is not Zelensky at all. It is Trump…”

Why Would Putin Want To Meet With Zelensky? (Ryumshin)

There were no surprises in the latest round of Ukraine diplomacy. After his much-publicised meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, US President Donald Trump followed up with talks in Washington with Vladimir Zelensky and his European backers. The result was predictable: the peace process derailed once again. The conditions set out by Russia in Anchorage are already forgotten. Instead, the West is now obsessing over the prospect of a direct Putin-Zelensky encounter. The Americans have already mapped out not one but two meetings: a bilateral summit between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, and a trilateral session that would include Trump. According to reports, Hungary has been floated as the preferred venue. Western media even claim that Putin himself requested a meeting with Zelensky, supposedly in Moscow. The Trump administration insists that Russia has agreed to everything.

A game for Trump’s benefit
Yet the Kremlin remains silent, issuing only vague references to “raising the level of delegations.” This studied ambiguity recalls the build-up to the Putin-Trump summit and suggests that the idea cannot be dismissed outright. The truth is simple: such a meeting is not required by “objective realities” or common sense. It is dictated instead by the dynamics of a process that has turned into a performance designed to hold Trump’s attention.n Putin’s meeting with Trump on 15 August was not about reaching a breakthrough. It was a political gesture to demonstrate Russia’s openness and to shift responsibility onto Ukraine and the European Union. The West is now trying to turn the same tactic against Moscow: framing Russia as the obstacle to peace and forcing Putin into a face-to-face encounter with Zelensky.

Kiev and Western European capitals are pushing Russia to accept “security guarantees” for Ukraine, something Moscow has been proposing since 2022. But the way these guarantees are now being drafted makes them deliberately unacceptable for Russia. EU leaks suggest demands that amount to little more than NATO membership in disguise: permanent Western troops on Ukrainian soil, binding guarantees from the alliance, and no recognition of territorial realities. The Kremlin cannot simply reject such proposals outright. Doing so would allow Trump to walk away from the process and pin the blame on Moscow. For that reason, Russia may ultimately have to go through the motions of agreeing to a summit. What would such a meeting achieve? Little of substance. Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on every meaningful issue. Moscow hopes its military superiority will translate into concessions, but Kiev shows no willingness to compromise.

Ukraine refuses to recognise territorial changes, rejects the idea of troop reductions or exchanges, and continues to demand reparations. Even the tentative agreement to keep NATO membership off the table has been undermined by Zelensky’s insistence on NATO-style guarantees. The only factors that might soften Ukraine’s stance – the collapse of its front lines, a breakdown of EU support, or the United States walking away from the conflict – are nowhere in sight. As long as Zelensky stays unyielding, any summit would have the same outcome as the earlier Medinsky-Umerov talks: limited progress on humanitarian issues, no peace deal. Yet the point of such a meeting is not to make peace with Zelensky. It is to keep Trump engaged and maintain strategic uncertainty. For that reason alone, Moscow has good reason to appear open to the idea of a summit.

If the Kremlin does agree, the key will be to control the format. Ideally, the talks should be trilateral, with Trump at the table. This would prevent Kiev from spinning the outcome as a diplomatic victory and would ensure that Washington remains responsible for the process. The choice of venue is also critical. Hungary, with its friendlier stance toward Moscow, would be an acceptable host. Predictably, Ukraine and the Western Europeans will resist such a move. But Zelensky’s preferences are ultimately secondary. If Trump can be persuaded to attend, the Ukrainian president will have little choice but to follow. In this sense, the goal is not to negotiate with Zelensky but to shape the atmosphere around him. A carefully staged summit could place pressure on the Ukrainian leader, making him appear weak and pushing him toward concessions he might otherwise resist. His visit to Washington earlier this year already showed how vulnerable he is to Trump’s personal style and political leverage.

None of this should be confused with a real peace process. Russia does not expect to sign a final settlement with Zelensky, nor is Ukraine prepared to compromise. But appearances matter. By showing openness, Moscow avoids being cast as the spoiler while placing the burden of intransigence on Kiev. That is why, paradoxically, a Putin-Zelensky summit may still happen. Not because it will resolve the war, but because it serves the broader game of diplomacy. The real audience is not Zelensky at all. It is Trump.

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“Moscow should be ‘coaxed’ into peace talks with Ukraine, whereas Kiev can be ‘pressured’ due to its dependence on Western aid…”

Trump Wants To ‘Coax’ Russia But ‘Pressure’ Ukraine Into Talks – Politico (RT)

US President Donald Trump believes Moscow should be ‘coaxed’ into peace talks with Ukraine, whereas Kiev can be ‘pressured’ due to its dependence on Western aid, Politico reported on Friday, citing sources. The sources claimed that Trump sees Russia as holding “the upper hand” in the conflict. The report follows speculation over a potential summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. The idea emerged after Trump met Putin in Alaska – their first face-to-face encounter since 2019 – then held talks with Zelensky and EU leaders. Trump later said he had “begun the arrangements” for a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, which he believes could accelerate peace efforts. He described his talks with Putin as “very productive,” but said Zelensky “has to show some flexibility” ahead of any summit.

“[Trump] has long believed that Russia has the upper hand in the war itself and needs to be coaxed into peace talks,” one former US official told Politico. “Ukraine, on the other hand, relies heavily on the US for weapons and intelligence. So there are more pressure points to get them to accept a deal.” Putin has not ruled out meeting Zelensky but insists it must follow real progress in negotiations. Moscow has also questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy, pointing to the fact that his presidential term has expired. Zelensky claimed this week he was ready to meet, but only in a “neutral” part of Europe and with the participation of his EU backers.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC on Friday that Moscow had agreed to “show flexibility” on several issues that Trump raised during the Alaska summit. However, he said Zelensky “said no to everything” that Trump later proposed to him, including neutrality for Ukraine and territorial concessions. “Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit,” Lavrov reiterated. “But as things stand, there is no meeting planned.” Sources told Politico that while some officials worry the Russia-Ukraine talks are stuck in a “grind,” the US president remains optimistic. Trump said on Friday that he will announce a “very important decision” on Ukraine within two weeks, the nature of which will depend on how the positions of Moscow and Kiev shape up.

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“For the first time President Trump indicates he’s willing to take a full retreat position from the effort…”

“Or Do We Do Nothing, and Say It’s Your Fight” (CTH)

A very interesting response from President Trump against the U.S. President stepping back and awaiting Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to organize their teams and schedule a bilateral discussion. President Trump has said he expects the diplomatic teams of Zelenskyy and Putin to coordinate a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy in the next two weeks. As noted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sometimes it just takes putting the principals into the same room to break the logjam. However, both regimes have entrenched ideologues who are positioning for maximum leverage. President Trump is asked what he will do if Zelenskyy and Putin cannot or do not organize a meeting.

For the first time President Trump indicates he’s willing to take a full retreat position from the effort, “or do we do nothing, and say it’s your fight.” Doing nothing seems to indicate the U.S. withdraws all support and lets them fight to the point of defeat or surrender. Doing nothing is actually doing something quite remarkable. In the background of all of this, DNI Tulsi Gabbard has issued a directive telling all of the intelligence agencies all information regarding the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations is not to be shared with U.S.-allied intelligence partners. […] “The memo, dated July 20 and signed by Gabbard, directed agencies to not share information with the so-called Five Eyes, the post-World War II intelligence alliance comprising the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, multiple U.S. intelligence officials told CBS News.”

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Still…reports of many drone attacks inside Russia this morning.

Pentagon Has Restricted Ukraine From Striking Russian Territory – WSJ (RT)

The Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from striking deep inside Russia with American-supplied missiles, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing US officials. According to the paper, the Department of Defense has been preventing Kiev from firing long-range ATACMS missiles since late spring. On at least one occasion, Washington reportedly turned down a Ukrainian request to hit a target on Russia’s internationally recognized territory. The WSJ linked the policy shift to President Donald Trump’s effort to “entice” Moscow during peace talks. Last week, Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since 2019 in Alaska, and several days later held talks with the leaders of Ukraine, NATO, the EU, and several European states in Washington.

Although Trump urged Moscow and Kiev to reach a peace deal as soon as possible, he said on Thursday that Ukraine has “no chance of winning” without striking Russia. Trump has also criticized the previous administration for providing unconditional military aid to Ukraine and in February accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of “gambling with World War III.” Russia has warned that by supplying Ukraine with weapons, Western countries are de facto directly participating in the conflict. Moscow has listed an end to foreign military aid as one of its conditions for a lasting ceasefire.

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“The agreement commits both countries to defend each other’s sovereignty with all available means.”

Ukraine Issues Military Warning To Belarus (RT)

Ukraine has told Minsk to stay away from its borders during upcoming joint military exercises with Russia to be held in Belarus. The warning came ahead of the ‘Zapad-2025’ military drill, scheduled for September 12–16. Belarus allowed Russian forces to use its territory when the conflict with Ukraine escalated in February 2022. Since then, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has repeatedly said that Minsk has no intention of attacking Kiev and will only resort to military action if his country is attacked In a statement on Friday, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry accused Belarus of aiding Moscow and issued a caution.

“We warn Minsk against reckless provocations and urge it to remain prudent, refrain from approaching the borders, and avoid provoking Ukraine’s Defense Forces,” Kiev’s Foreign Ministry has said. This year’s military exercises, which include counter-sabotage operations, drone warfare, electronic interference scenarios, and assaults, will also feature the Russian Oreshnik intermediate-range hypersonic missile, according to Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin. First battle-tested in November 2024 in a strike on Ukraine’s Yuzhmash facility in Dnepr, Russian officials have compared its conventional destructive power to that of a low-yield nuclear strike.

“This is an important element for our strategic deterrence – as the head of state demands, we must be prepared for anything,” Khrenin told the state news agency Belta. He warned that NATO is using Zapad-2025 as a pretext for its own drills, citing Poland’s deployment of 30,000 troops near Belarus as the main concern. Belarus, a close ally of Russia, signed a bilateral security treaty with Moscow in December 2024. The agreement commits both countries to defend each other’s sovereignty with all available means. In 2023, Russia deployed tactical nuclear weapons and short-range ballistic missiles on Belarusian territory, citing tensions with the West. Lukashenko has also called for the accelerated delivery of Oreshnik systems, which could be stationed in Belarus before the end of 2025.

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“..the future borders between a re-weaponized Europe and a Russia that will inevitably inflict on it a massive strategic defeat.”

: Even After Trump Humiliation, Europe Insists That Peace Is War (Escobar)

It took just one pic to imprint on posterity the utter humiliation of the EUrotrash political elites in Year 2025: the Coalition of the Twats, in the Oval Office, lining up like a bunch of frightened schoolkids, severely reprimanded by His Master’s Voice – the Headmaster cum Circus Ringmaster. That was also neatly described as Trump breaks Europe over his knee. Of course, President Putin had already predicted it, over six months before the fact: “I assure you, Trump, with his character and persistence, will restore order quite quickly. And all of them, you’ll see, soon all of them will stand at the master’s feet and gently wag their tails.” The White House humiliation sealed the deal, and reconfirmed an obsession: for the EUrotrash “leadership”, at all levels when it comes to relations with Russia, Peace is War.

Brandishing their warped logic, they cannot possibly understand that if Ukraine is instrumentalized – actually since before Maidan in 2014 – to harass and destabilize Russia in its western borders, Russia will forcefully counter-attack. That’s at the heart of the Russian concept of “underlying causes” of the Ukraine tragedy, which must be thoroughly addressed if there is any real shot at Trumpian or not Trumpian “peace”. In the Big Picture, that translates as the Empire of Chaos and Russia sitting down to set up a new “indivisibility of security” arrangement – just like Moscow proposed in December 2021: then, it was met by a non-response response. EUrotrash Inc.’s new delirium is to attribute to itself the design of the future borders between a re-weaponized Europe and a Russia that will inevitably inflict on it a massive strategic defeat.

It’s a very long shot to imagine that Trump is capable, by himself, of imposing a new strategic reality on the warmongering yet penniless Coalition of the Twats. Whatever happens to rump Ukraine, Trump, based on his own twist and turn vociferations, actually wants Europe to “contain” Russia from now on, using an arsenal of ridiculous expensive American weapons. So what changes is the character of this particular chapter of the Forever Wars: it will be fought by the Coalition of the Twats, and not by Americans. In the short term, that also unveils the only strategy available for the EUrotrash/Kiev combo: outlast Trump until the 2026 mid-terms, destroy the remainder of his presidency, and be secure with the return of the mega-Russophobe gang in 2028.

Which Dead Hand will prevail?
An old school Deep State hand, who had privileged access to all Cold War era honchos, sums up the pitfalls ahead for Russia: “Russia is taking too long to neutralize Ukraine, allowing time for NATO to reignite diversions. While the snail offensive in Ukraine does save lives, NATO seeks to weaken Russia’s strategic position in the Balkans and elsewhere that can cost far more lives in the future. If the Slavs in the Balkans are crushed that can strategically weaken Russia’s overall position, and that is far more costly than a major lightning offensive a la Stalin in Russian Ukraine. Russia must finish this war now and turn to its southern problems in the Balkans and the intrigues in Baku.”

Trump of course is oblivious to these Big Picture niceties. At best he admits, to Fox News, that “Ukraine will not regain Crimea” and “Ukraine will not join NATO.” But he does not seem to mind that “France, Germany and the UK want to deploy troops in Ukraine” as part of the new kabuki: “security guarantees”. That is an inter-galactic red line for Moscow. In parallel, it’s wishful thinking to believe that Putin is now finally ready to negotiate “peace”. This is not about peace; it’s always about coming up with incontrovertible facts on the battle field, because Moscow knows this war will only be won in the battle field.

Russian forces have reached the final Ukraine defensive line in Donbass: Slavyansk-Kramatorsk. And is fast encircling key strongholds near Pokrovsk and Konstantinovka. Talk about a strategic/psychological turning point. From there, the – steppe – sky is the limit. Compound it with the combined hacking of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – which revealed that Kiev’s losses, in terms of dead and missing, amount to a staggering 1.7 million. All of the above means that we are fast approaching the fateful moment when the victor dictates the full terms of the enemy’s capitulation. No need to march to Bankova in Kiev and plant the Russian flag.

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“..the changes in tariffs will reduce total deficits by $4.0 trillion altogether.”

The CBO Just Dropped a $4 Trillion Truth Bomb (Margolis)

Ever since Trump’s first term, the political and media establishment told us that his trade policies were reckless, destructive, and doomed to wreck the U.S. economy. Every so-called expert on cable TV preached that they would crush American consumers, tank the stock market, and send our economy into a spiral. We’re still waiting for that to happen. Here we are in Aug. 2025, and the Congressional Budget Office just dropped a bombshell that completely shatters the left’s narrative against Trump’s tariff strategy.

“As of August 19, we estimate that the effective tariff rate for goods imported into the United States has increased by about 18 percentage points when measured against 2024 trade flows. We project that increases in tariffs implemented during the period from January 6, 2025, to August 19 will decrease primary deficits (which exclude net outlays for interest) by $3.3 trillion if the higher tariffs persist for the 2025-2035 period. By reducing the need for federal borrowing, those tariff collections will also reduce federal outlays for interest by an additional $0.7 trillion. As a result, the changes in tariffs will reduce total deficits by $4.0 trillion altogether.” That’s no rounding error. The numbers are simply eye-popping, and they tell the story that the media doesn’t want you to know.

Let’s put that in perspective. Back in June, the CBO had already stunned critics by predicting Trump’s tariffs would shrink the deficit by $3 trillion. That was based only on trade actions taken through May 13. Trump, naturally, celebrated the news on Truth Social. “I am pleased to announce that the Radical Left Representatives working at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have now admitted how incredible my Tariff strategy has been, saying that, ‘Trump’s Tariffs reduce the deficit by $4 Trillion Dollars,’” he wrote. “When I began my Tariff policy suggestions, they refused to acknowledge the potential SUCCESS that would be derived. Deficits are DOWN, Taxes are DOWN, Energy is DOWN, Prices generally are DOWN, the only things that are UP are, Take Home Pay, the Stock Market, and our Country, which is the ‘HOTTEST’ anywhere in the World. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Of course, the CBO is cautious to note its projections assume these trade policies remain in place indefinitely. It also didn’t factor in several adjustments announced just this past week: new EU tariff arrangements on August 21, a 25% tariff hike on imports from India starting Aug. 27, and the suspension of duty-free shipments under $800 coming Aug. 29. In other words, the real revenue picture could easily turn out even stronger than the current forecast. Here’s the bigger point no one in the mainstream press will admit: tariffs, when wielded strategically, can be a double win. They level the playing field for American producers, whom foreign governments have undercut for decades by gaming the system, and they generate revenue that actually reduces the insane borrowing spree Washington politicians tried to normalize.

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“If that recap sounds bad for Canada, trust me – it’s way worse. Really bad, horrible – terrible even. So far beyond bad, the light from where horrible starts could not reach the Canadian terrible place for a year. Not good.”

Canada Announces End to All Retaliatory Tariffs – Trump Gives Nothing (CTH)

The Canadian govt led by Prime Minister Mark Carney has completely capitulated to the power and influence of President Trump. While explaining how the United States has fundamentally changed the entire landscape of global trade, the leader of the Snow Mexicans announces he is dropping all countervailing and retaliatory tariffs against the USA and getting nothing in return. Total and complete surrender by Canada; there is ZERO upside for Canada – NADA, Zippo, Zilch. Prime Minister Mark Carney made the announcement, then faced the ire of the assembled media who were furious about the details within the statement. The Canadian people had been promised an “elbows up” fight to the end. Instead, today they got down on their knees and begged Trump to retain the USMCA.

Complete and utter capitulation by Canada. No digital services taxes. No countervailing duty tariffs. No reciprocity tariffs on Steel and Aluminum. No retaliatory tariffs (reciprocal/baseline). Meanwhile, the USA keeps 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum against Canada, and Canada only gets 25% tariffs against U.S. steel/aluminum. In addition, Canada has pledged to continue gaslighting their citizens, while wasting time, effort and resources on a hope to retain the USMCA, while refusing to admit to themselves that President Trump intends to dissolve it. If that recap sounds bad for Canada, trust me – it’s way worse. Really bad, horrible – terrible even. So far beyond bad, the light from where horrible starts could not reach the Canadian terrible place for a year. Not good.

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“Plainly, her ultimate goal was not ‘market hygiene’ . . . but political hygiene, ending with the derailment of President Trump’s political career and the destruction of his real estate business.”

The One That Got Away: Letitia James and the Perils of Trophy Fishing (Turley)

New York Attorney General Letitia James is going to need a bigger fish or a smaller trophy wall. For months, James has paraded her victory over President Donald Trump in her civil judgment of half a trillion dollars. It did not matter that many of us denounced the judgment as grotesque and raw lawfare. Now, however, the appellate court has replaced that mounted Marlin with a mere minnow. It threw out the financial penalty as unconstitutional and unwarranted. Even that downsized catch may have to be pulled down, since Trump can appeal the decision to leave the injunctive relief — including limits on doing business in New York — in place. The problem is that this over-stuffed guppy has cost the people of New York tens of millions of dollars in staff, security and other costs.

It was all just the cost of doing business with James, who ran on the pledge to bag Trump on something — anything! — if elected. For James, it was worth it. For her base, the case was never about the merits or the law. James offered lawfare against political opponents, and New York Democrats elected her with a gleeful malice. They were thrilled as James suggested that she was going to seize Trump buildings after the judgment and sought a massive bond. Notably, even the judges who sided with James on her ability to bring this case were critical of her ethics or judgment in running on bagging an individual on unnamed crimes or civil actions. They simply chose not to do anything about it. It was Judge David Friedman, who, on the appeal, offered an unblinking account of how James abused the legal system.

“Plainly, her ultimate goal was not ‘market hygiene’ . . . but political hygiene, ending with the derailment of President Trump’s political career and the destruction of his real estate business. The voters have obviously rendered a verdict on his political career. This bench today unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business.” The five appeals court judges fractured on the rationale for their opinions. Two of the judges — Dianne T. Renwick and Peter H. Moulton — correctly found that “the court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” The rest of the judges found other reasons to negate the damages while preserving the fraud judgment.

In the end, James could not get a single vote on appeal to support Judge Arthur Engoron’s ridiculous fine. Engoron, like James, will continue to enjoy the status of a folk hero in New York. But he will go down in history as a judge who yielded to the demands of the mob rather than the law. Yet nothing will change. With the exception of Judge Friedman, the mild rebukes of the appellate court of James show how Trump remains persona non grata, a disfavored figure who is entitled to no consideration, let alone sympathy, in New York. The most courage that Judge Moulton could summon was to say, “One can reasonably question whether a candidate running for the top law enforcement position in statewide government should make such pointed statements.” I suppose one could also reasonably question whether a judge faced with blatant, open targeting of a political opponent should do more than a judicial shrug.

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“..the president ensures laws are enforced, but he doesn’t personally enforce them..”

The Media Flips Out Over Trump Claim—But Once Again, He Was Right (Margolis)

FBI agents raided the Maryland home of President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton on Friday, as part of a “high-profile national security probe” involving classified documents. Ironically, the same people who cheered Joe Biden for weaponizing the Justice Department against Trump are claiming that the raid on Bolton’s home was politically motivated. Trump, for his part, denied having advance knowledge of the raid, stressing that while he has the authority to direct such actions, he prefers to stay out of them. “I don’t want — I tell [Attorney General Pam Bondi], and I tell the group, I don’t want to know,” he said. “You have to do what you have to do. I don’t want to know about it. It’s not necessary. I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. I’m actually the chief law enforcement officer — but I feel that it’s better this way.”

And the media, being the media, absolutely flipped out about that last statement where Trump claimed he’s the chief law enforcement officer. “President Donald Trump has bizarrely claimed he is the chief law enforcement officer of America while insisting he knew nothing about the FBI raid on John Bolton’s home,” opined The Daily Beast. “The comment was contentious not only because the Justice Department has traditionally operated at arm’s length from the White House, but because its own guidelines state that the U.S. Attorney General is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.” And, of course, CNN also jumped in. On Friday’s edition of “The Situation Room,” CNN’s Crime and Justice Correspondent Katelyn Polantz was also triggered by Trump’s claim.

“What Trump said that really jumped out at me is that he said that he hasn’t been briefed by the Justice Department yet, he expects that later in the day, but he said, ‘I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. I’m actually the chief law enforcement officer.’ But then he said he’s telling the attorney general, Pam Bondi, ‘you have to do what you have to do.’ And right now, he doesn’t know anything. I looked, the Justice Department on its own website says the attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government, not the president.” According to Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.”

In other words, the president ensures laws are enforced, but he doesn’t personally enforce them. That responsibility falls to subordinates like agency heads and the Department of Justice. That’s why, under the Constitution, it’s entirely fair to describe the president as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. It may not be a formal job title, but it is a functional reality. The bottom line is simple: Trump is right, and the media has once again made fools of themselves by putting attacks on Trump ahead of the facts. They twist themselves into knots over semantics just to attack Trump, even when the Constitution clearly spells out his authority.

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“In other words, a full lube job.”

Trump’s Smithsonian Review Is Long Overdue (Mike Gonzalez)

The White House last week informed Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, that it’s putting the museums under review—in other words, adult supervision. The news came in a letter that amounted to a major front in the Trump administration’s war to retake the culture. As I wrote in an X post quoted by The New York Times, “Given the Smithsonian’s behavior in the past few years—how it cataloged everything woke, how it gave the communist leader Angela Davis plenty of space, but not Justice Clarence Thomas, how it portrayed America in a poor light—this White House review is not a minute too soon.” The letter announcing the “comprehensive review” came from three top individuals engaged in this cultural Reconquista: Lindsey Halligan, the president’s special assistant; Vince Haley, director of the Domestic Policy Council; and Russ Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget.

The Times called it a “more direct shot across the bow” than an audit announced in June, which the Smithsonian Board asked Bunch to conduct. This time, it will be the administration itself that will take action. Of course, the forces that have spent the past two or three decades capturing the cultural institutions wasted no time in screeching at the very notion that the administration would conduct a thorough review of the institution’s museums. “Only historians and trained museum professionals are qualified to conduct such a review, which is intended to ensure historical accuracy,” Sarah Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association, fumed to the Times. “To suggest otherwise is an affront to the professional integrity of curators, historians, educators, and everyone involved in the creation of solid, evidence-based content.”

What a laughable assertion. There probably isn’t a single conservative among these “curators, historians, educators, and everyone involved.” Somebody should inform Weicksel that the administration is liberating the culture from the curators, directors, historians, and everyone else involved in the arts management profession at this point. In 2016, when Donald Trump first ran for office and the country was actually less polarized, Verdant Labs conducted a study based on campaign contribution data from the Federal Election Commission. It is contained in an interactive graph which breaks down the political affiliation of these professionals:

Museum Directors: 89 Democrats for every 11 Republicans
Museum Curators: 94 Democrats for every 6 Republicans
Art Conservators: 100% Democrats
Art Historians: 96 Democrats for every four Republicans
Art Administrators: 96 Democrats for every four Republicans
Art Advisors: 91 Democrats for every nine Republicans
Archaeologists: 94 Democrats for every six Republicans
Historians: 88 Democrats for every 12 Republicans

This is what complete ideological capture by the Left looks like. Harvard did not get a professoriat that is nearly 80% “liberal” or “very liberal,” and less than 3% “conservative” or “very conservative” among its Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty out of nothing. Obviously, the Left burrows in and hires only among its own kind. As Elizabeth Merritt wrote in a blog for the American Alliance of Museums days after Trump was elected in 2016, “We don’t necessarily create a very friendly work environment for people who don’t share a liberal, Democratic world view.” This is how ideological capture is achieved.

The numbers are not this lopsided because only progressives are smart or interested in the visual arts, literature, music, philosophy, theater, or any of the other components that roughly go under the heading of “culture” (though, yes, this is what the Left thinks). Hillsdale College, the nation’s top conservative institution of higher education, cares deeply about these arts. Recently, it considered whether to open a Museum Studies program, but decided against it out of concern that its students may not get positions at museums because leftist administrators would not hire conservatives. As to why ideological conformity is sought, the woke curators, directors, and conservators seek to use museums to disseminate their gender and race theories. As curator and former Director Olga Viso wrote in The New York Times in 2018, “Now is the time to be open to radical change. The next wave of decolonizing America’s art museums must succeed.”

The three Trump officials told Bunch that the administration wants to “assess tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals.” The review will focus on:
• Public-facing Content: A review of exhibition text, wall didactics, websites, educational materials, and digital and social media content.
• Curatorial Process: A series of interviews with curators and senior staff to better understand the selection process.
• Exhibition Planning: A review of current and future exhibitions, with particular attention to those planned for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
• Collection Use: Evaluation of how existing materials and collections are being used or could be used to highlight American achievement and progress.
• Narrative Standards: The development of consistent curatorial guidelines.

Accordingly, the administration wants the Smithsonian to cough up the following materials: exhibition plans and draft concepts on the 250th Anniversary Programming; catalog and programs on current exhibition content; full index of scheduled traveling exhibitions; curatorial materials; indexes of all permanent collections; teacher guidance for educational materials; copies of grants, and more. In other words, a full lube job. I still don’t believe that what is needed can be accomplished with Bunch at the helm—and there is the matter of the Smithsonian’s as yet unbuilt Latino Museum, which the administration wants to defund, but weak Republican appropriators in the House of Representatives just voted to continue to fund—but this review does indeed come not a minute too soon.

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“While the Clinton probes were throttled, the FBI raced to open a full investigation into Trump’s campaign on the flimsiest of tips — a conversation in a London wine bar —..”

Multi-Front Effort to Protect Clintons While Framing Trump (Bruner)

Newly unearthed documents show deep state government actors once again circling the wagons to protect Bill and Hillary Clinton — and suppressing evidence that implicated them. Last week, it was the FBI; this week, it is the IRS. In 2019, the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigations division quietly launched a probe into the Clinton Foundation’s tax practices, working closely with whistleblowers John Moynihan and Larry Doyle, financial experts who had compiled thousands of pages of evidence. According to internal agency memos reported by Just the News, IRS agents reviewed the evidence and at least one agent concluded it meant that the “entire [Clinton Foundation] enterprise is a fraud.” Agents then moved to treat the whistleblowers as cooperating witnesses and even set up secure computer servers to hold the material they had collected.

Then, without warning, the lights went out. “Can’t talk about the CF,” agents told the whistleblowers. By the summer of 2019, their inquiry was dead. Moynihan and Doyle are now battling the agency in Tax Court over the apparent shutdown of the investigation. The IRS’s abrupt reversal follows an earlier, more infamous pattern. In 2016, FBI field offices in New York, Washington, and Little Rock all opened probes into the Bill and Hillary Clinton Foundation, partly on the strength of Peter Schweizer’s 2015 bestselling book, Clinton Cash, which exposed numerous examples of the Clintons using the foundation while she was Secretary of State under President Barack Obama as a pay-to-play scheme for business and foreign government interests seeking political influence.

The book told the story of Uranium One, a US mining company that was sold to Russia’s state-owned nuclear agency after investors pledged more than $100 million to the Clinton foundation. That story was confirmed in a front-page story by the New York Times when the book was published and based on its material. The FBI field office investigations were proceeding until they were ordered by higher-ups to stop. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates ordered prosecutors to “shut it down.” Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe required his personal approval for every investigative step — effectively choking the cases.

The fallout from Clinton Cash was real. Clinton’s campaign staffers scrounged for advance copies of the book, while Hillary’s own pollsters flagged the Uranium One deal as her campaign’s biggest vulnerability in the early primary states. By January 2016, the FBI was looking into the book’s allegations — until the brakes were pulled. Appearing on an OANN program this week, Schweizer told host Matt Gaetz that the government’s double standard is unmistakable. “At the same time that they were killing an organic investigation into Clinton corruption… they were also creating a completely fictional investigation tying [Donald] Trump to Russia,” he said. Five FBI field offices had been involved before being shut down, including a satellite office in Africa. Schweizer called the saga proof of a new kind of corruption — “offshored, globalized corruption,” complete with political dynasties selling access and foreign oligarchs buying influence.

The contrast between the scuttled investigation of the Clinton foundation and the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the Trump campaign’s purported ties to Russia is glaring. While the Clinton probes were throttled, the FBI raced to open a full investigation into Trump’s campaign on the flimsiest of tips — a conversation in a London wine bar — green-lighting that investigation within three days. Clinton’s Russia vulnerabilities were turned into Trump’s burden, projected onto his campaign in a haze of innuendo. Put together, the picture is damning: the IRS dropped the ball in 2019, and the FBI and DOJ throttled their own field offices in 2016. The whistleblowers are still pressing their case, six years later. But the old memos are now re-surfacing, and the “deep state” will perhaps face a reckoning from what might be the largest political scandal of modern times.

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”These are dangerous people because they believe their views and opinions supersede the US constitution that they all swear an oath to uphold..”

Deep State Entrenched In US Intel Community – Gabbard (RT)

The US intelligence community has been infiltrated by deep state actors, busy with “inserting their own partisan political opinions and views” into intel products and effectively working against the American people, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has said. The DNI chief, who has repeatedly pledged to root out rogue actors from the US intel community, made the remarks on Thursday while speaking to FOX Business, stating that the deep state has created entire “pockets” within America’s intelligence agencies.“There were a lot of pockets where the Deep State actors were very entrenched and were politicizing their centers or their positions, either against the American people… [or] creating intelligence products and inserting their own partisan political opinions and views,” she told the network.

”These are dangerous people because they believe their views and opinions supersede the US constitution that they all swear an oath to uphold, to support and defend, and… those who are elected by the American people, specifically the president of the United States,” Gabbard added. The intelligence community has grown extremely politicized over the years and steered away from its intended goals and original mandate, Gabbard added. “It’s very simple. The mandate the intelligence community has is to find the truth and to tell the truth,” she stressed, adding that only sufficient transparency could ensure “actual accountability” for the intel community and produce a “real change.”

Earlier this week, Gabbard stripped security clearances from 37 current and former intelligence officials, accusing them of manipulating and politicizing intelligence. The move has become “the first step to aggressively get after our core national security mission, root out those deep state actors,” according to Gabbard. The list includes multiple prominent intel figures, including former NSA deputy director Richard Ledgett, former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research Brett Holmgren, and former principal deputy director of DNI Stephanie O’Sullivan.

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“Please come here first, because you know what, we’re going to help you..”

Trump Says ‘Dangerous’ Chicago Next After Addressing Crime In DC (JTN)

President Donald Trump says Chicago is next on his list of cities to focus on cleaning up crime. In December, after Trump was elected to a second non-consecutive term, Danielle Carter-Walters used public comments at a Chicago City Council meeting to call for the Trump administration to come to Chicago and make an example out of city officials. “Please come here first, because you know what, we’re going to help you,” Carter-Watlers said. On Friday, Trump said he’s cleaning up Washington D.C. and plans to address crime in Chicago next. “Chicago’s a mess,” Trump said from the Oval Office.

“You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent. And we’ll straighten that one out. Probably next. That will be our next one after this. And it won’t even be tough. And the people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to come now wearing red hats.” The president said he hasn’t talked with city officials like Mayor Brandon Johnson. “I haven’t spoken, he’s grossly incompetent. I haven’t spoken to them,” Trump said. “You know, when we’re ready, we’ll go in and we’ll straighten out Chicago just like we did D.C.. Chicago’s very dangerous. Great place I built. Great stuff there. I have a, I have the most beautiful building in Chicago, I think. But I hate to see what’s happened to Chicago.”

Johnson’s administration didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Asked about other possible federal enforcement earlier in the day Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the Trump administration is plotting against political opponents. “I’m not daring them to do anything, I’m just saying they don’t have a right,” Pritzker said Friday at an unrelated event. “Federal law and state law, separate endeavors and they don’t have a right to do the things that they are threatening to do.” While city wide murder is down 50% over the past four years, burglary, felony theft, misdemeanor theft and motor vehicle theft are all up a total of 40%.

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Uganda next?

Judge Releases Alleged Gang Member Kilmar Abrego Garcia From Jail (Margolis)

It’s hard to imagine that we live in a country where an illegal immigrant, accused of human trafficking, linked by law enforcement to MS-13, and once deported to El Salvador’s infamous maximum-security gang prison, could get to be free on U.S. soil, thanks to the kindness of a federal judge. Sadly, that’s apparently where we are. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant who should never have been here in the first place, is now heading back to Maryland to be with his wife and children as he awaits trial for human trafficking. “Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free,” Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Sean Hecker, said in a statement. “He is presently en route to his family in Maryland, after being unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government’s vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law. He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process.”

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, an Obama appointee, granted him release last month, though that release was delayed 30 days. According to Crenshaw, federal prosecutors and ICE had not sufficiently proven that he’s dangerous enough to be detained. If that doesn’t make your head spin, nothing will. Abrego’s immigration history is as messy as it gets. He entered illegally, won withholding of removal under an asylum loophole, and remained in Maryland with his wife and kids while ICE allowed him to do yearly check-ins.

In 2019, police in Maryland identified him in official documents as affiliated with MS-13, one of the most violent street gangs in the world. Judges later said that the evidence wasn’t conclusive, which is how the Left likes it; it demands airtight proof of gang membership before acting, as though credible law enforcement identification somehow means nothing. The Trump administration, recognizing the danger, labeled him an MS-13 member. Democrats and sympathetic judges later treated that “label” as though it were the real crime.

In 2022, during a Tennessee traffic stop, police caught Abrego Garcia driving a vehicle with nine passengers. At the time, he escaped charges. But earlier this year, federal prosecutors indicted him on smuggling-related counts. He pleaded not guilty and now calls it “vindictive.” Of course he does. In today’s climate, criminals are the victims and Americans are the afterthought. When the U.S. deported him, El Salvador sent Abrego to CECOT, a prison for cartel operatives and terrorists, where inmates rarely last long. He complained his life was at risk because rival gang members were intentionally mixed in. What’s ignored is that Abrego never should have been here in the first place. Yet the narrative paints him as a blameless victim of “lawless” Trump-era deportation policy.

If a suspected MS-13 member accused of trafficking who has already been deported once isn’t dangerous, then who is? DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin nailed it when she blasted the system last month: “The facts remain, this MS-13 gang member, human trafficker and illegal alien will never walk America’s streets again.” The catch, of course, is that ICE could still swoop in and detain him. Options are under discussion: whether to deport him back to El Salvador, Mexico, or even South Sudan. But the fact remains: right this very moment, Abrego Garcia is out.

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Intel does poorly. Trump doesn’t want to lose any more chips. Makes sense. Not “socialism”.

President Trump Announces US Govt Takes 10% Stake in INTEL (CTH)

After concerns were raised by congress that Intel’s current CEO Lip-Bu Tan was a venture capitalist investing in Chinese companies, a concern shared by President Trump, apparently things have changed considerably. Mr. Lip-Bu Tan came to the White House to address concerns about protecting U.S. national security interests. President Trump announces the U.S. government now has a 10% stake in the tech firm.

President Trump (Truth Social) – “It is my Great Honor to report that the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future. I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars. This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL. Building leading edge Semiconductors and Chips, which is what INTEL does, is fundamental to the future of our Nation. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Intel has been struggling for the past several years, and President Trump has been focused on getting Semiconductor and Chip manufacturing established in the USA, a big national security issue. The Trump administration has been negotiating a 10% stake in Intel by converting grants the company was awarded under former President Joe Biden. Obviously, I’m not a big fan of government collaboration with private corporations, but this approach aligns with a very specific national security issue. This sounds like something Commerce Secretary Lutnick and President Trump would structure as a win/win. Intel Public Statement Here: “The government’s investment in Intel will be a passive ownership, with no Board representation or other governance or information rights. The government also agrees to vote with the Company’s Board of Directors on matters requiring shareholder approval, with limited exceptions.”

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Sun
https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1959080653200163020
https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1959087009412391292

Sea dog
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1959251780774342700

Waterdog

IVM

3 little birds
https://twitter.com/KarluskaP/status/1959035597525262347

Chickadee

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 192025
 


Salvador Dali The Feeling of Becoming 1931

 

Hamas Names Israeli Hostages To Be Released First (RT)
Netanyahu: Trump “Emphasized” That The Gaza Ceasefire Is “Temporary” (ZH)
Trump’s 100 Executive Orders On Day One Promises Chaos, Huge Changes (Moran)
Trump’s First Day Executive Orders To Touch A Wide Range Of Subjects (JTN)
Top Priorities for Trump’s Presidency (ET)
Most Americans Share Trump’s Views – Poll (RT)
TikTok Goes Dark In The US (RT)
Marco Rubio Says No Clear Reason Why US Bankrolled Ukraine (SCF)
US Treasury To Take ‘Extraordinary Measures’ After Trump Inauguration (RT)
Trump Plans Huge Chicago Illegal Immigrant Raid – WSJ (RT)
Russia Warns Against UK-Ukraine Claims to Azov Sea (Sp.)
Frozen Future? Europe’s Energy Crisis Worsens Amid Gas War (Sp.)
New Juicy Details About How Biden Was Forced To Drop Out (Margolis)
The Man Who Probably Will Not Be Allowed To Lead Romania (Karganovic)
US Suspends EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak (ZH)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1880632659401212320

Noem

250

Maher

Speaker

Strzok
https://twitter.com/i/status/1880476390354755690

 

 

 

 

The ceasefire, which was due to start this morning at 6.30 GMT, was delayed because Hamas did not release the names of 3 female hostages to be freed. They blamed technical difficulties. A few hours later, Hamas released the names and the ceasefire officially started. Anyone’s guess how long it will last.

Hamas Names Israeli Hostages To Be Released First (RT)

Hamas has released the names of the three Israeli captives to be freed on the first day of the implementation of the ceasefire deal in Gaza, a Hamas spokesperson said in a post on Telegram. The move potentially clears the way for the truce to begin after an hours-long delay. Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to cancel the ceasefire with Hamas if the Palestinian militant group did not provide a list of the Israeli hostages to be released in the first phase of the truce.

Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said, “As part of the prisoner exchange deal we decided to release today: Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Shtanbar Khair, 31.” The three civilian women were taken hostage on October 7, 2023 during the Hamas onslaught in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 were kidnapped to Gaza. Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continued on Sunday even after the planned start time for the ceasefire had passed. Netanyahu said the truce “will not begin” until Hamas provides a list of hostages to be released as part of the agreement.

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Bibi lost the support of Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir today, as well as two others. His majority is now razor thin.

Netanyahu: Trump “Emphasized” That The Gaza Ceasefire Is “Temporary” (ZH)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued some surprisingly bold assertions in a national televised address given just 12-hours before the much anticipated Gaza ceasefire is set to go into effect Sunday morning. Both Biden and Trump have hailed and celebrated the deal, but it’s the Republican president-elect who is by and large receiving the most credit for seeing it to the finish line. Some Israeli media outlets have represented the whole thing as a ‘defeat’ for Netanyahu, who appeared to want to keep the war going until Hamas is completely eradicated. Among Netanyahu’s most provocative words on Saturday was his claim that he has the support of President-elect Trump in the scenario Israel feels it must abandon the ceasefire and keep fighting. He says he has Trump’s full backing to resume the war, and has claimed further that Trump too agreed that the truce is just “temporary”. Watch below:

“Netanyahu also asserted that he negotiated the best deal possible, even as Israel’s far-right Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he and most of his party would resign from the government in opposition to it,” Times of Israel notes of the remarks. And there’s some some last-minute details which threaten implementation of the ceasefire… The prime minister had warned earlier that a ceasefire wouldn’t go forward unless Israel received the names of hostages to be released, as had been agreed. His statement came almost three hours after Israel had expected to receive the names from mediator Qatar. There was no immediate response from Qatar or Hamas. But without doubt Netanyahu is feeling the pressure, both within but even more from external allies, especially Washington – which writes the checks for the Israeli war machine.

As for Netanyahu’s talk of the deal being ‘temporary’ it’s unclear whether the Trump team agrees with this assessment. There hasn’t been any initial reaction from Trump as he prepares for the inauguration Monday. But Trump without doubt wants a ceasefire to stick, and is likely to be celebrating its implementation during some of Monday’s inaugural remarks. He has vowed to wind down various conflict hot spots, especially Ukraine, and bring peace. He has also warned that there will be “hell to pay” if Hamas doesn’t uphold its end of the truce deal. This suggests Netanyahu could be telling the truth, or at least an interpretation of it. An initial small group of hostages are expected to be returned to Israel by Sunday evening, with hopeful families awaiting and on edge.

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“It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose,” said FDR. It’s a shame that this president will have to do both.”

Trump’s 100 Executive Orders On Day One Promises Chaos, Huge Changes (Moran)

Trump aides are calling it “Shock and Awe.” There will be 100 executive orders (EO) and other executive actions starting Monday, Jan. 20. Indeed, most executive actions aren’t going to “shock” a lot of people. Trump has talked about all of them in the campaign and during his years in exile since his defeat in 2020. The scope of some of the EOs is broader than some on the left have been predicting, and narrower than some on the right were hoping for. The audacious nature of the 100 EOs masks the probability that almost all of them will be challenged in federal court. Even if the challenges are eventually unsuccessful, some of the executive orders will be picked apart or canceled altogether. The EOs that have garnered the most interest and that have been the target of a hysterical scare campaign on the left are the orders relating to illegal aliens.

In fact, the first actions taken by Customs and Border Protection (CPB) will be to pick up illegal aliens who have committed felonies. “That’s the low-hanging fruit,” said Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford. “People that recently crossed, people that were legally present and committed other crimes, people that the court has ordered them removed — that’s well over a million people. Start working through that process.” In the meantime, Trump is going to reinstitute the most effective guard against illegal immigration in history: Title 42. The measure was adopted during the pandemic as a public health rule, but Trump is planning to stretch the definition to cover the current border crisis. This will set offer howls of outrage among open borders advocates and will be challenged in court. Trump has several other actions planned to secure the border.

New York Sun: “Trump could also move to allow use of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which would authorize some state and local law enforcement to aid Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, Axios has reported. On another front, Trump has vowed to issue an executive order to strip away birthright citizenship, which ensures children born to parents who do not have legal status in America are American citizens. That will likely set up a clash over the 14th Amendment that could wind up at the Supreme Court.” Trump has also promised to strip some federal funds from going to sanctuary states and cities. He tried the same thing during his first term, and was slapped down by appeals courts because, according to Eugene Volokh, the policy “ran afoul of constitutional limits on federal power and on executive power over the budget.”

Trump is hoping that the 54 judges he appointed to the appeals courts will take a different view of the constitutionality of denying funds to sanctuary cities. Other EOs that Trump is expected to sign include actions on energy and trade. “We will begin charging those that make money off us with Trade, and they will start paying, FINALLY, their fair share,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He also announced that on Jan. 20, he would develop an “External Revenue Service.” This new agency will “collect tariffs, duties, and all revenue” from overseas. On foreign policy, China should prepare itself. In addition to slapping China with tariffs, Trump has vowed to rescind its designated status of “permanent normal trade relations,” also known as “most favored nation.” The status was granted more than two decades ago as China prepared to enter the World Trade Organization.

Such a move is popular among congressional Republicans, who think granting China “normal” status and allowing the nation into the WTO was detrimental to the American economy. But the move would likely require congressional action. On Ukraine, although Trump has said he could stop the war in “24 hours,” it will take considerably longer, given the animosity between the two countries. But Ukraine’s President Zelensky finally appears ready to deal. How far he will go for a ceasefire will determine how long the negotiations take. Not all of Trump’s day-one actions will require an EO. Many of the actions will be to rescind Biden administration EOs. Trump is trying to do as much as he can as president, because he knows that once he’s forced to work through Congress, a quagmire will ensue.

This appears to be the fate of all presidents, present and future. Congress has abandoned its constitutional responsibility to govern. “It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose,” said FDR. It’s a shame that this president will have to do both.

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He won’t get much sleep.

Trump’s First Day Executive Orders To Touch A Wide Range Of Subjects (JTN)

President-elect Donald Trump is set to formally take office on Monday after which he is expected to sign an exploding ball of executive orders that will set the tone for his administration on key issues, namely border security and energy. On the campaign, Trump facetiously quipped that he would not act as a dictator or impose authoritarian rule “except for day one.” “We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. Other than that I’m not gonna be a dictator,” he told an amused Sean Hannity during a town hall event last year. Since then, reports have emerged that Trump could sign as many as 100 executive orders on his first day in office. Trump himself made a litany of “day one” promises while on the campaign trail that included moves on nearly every key issue.

Such promises included the convening of a task force to plan America’s 250th birthday, the start of mass deportations, the imposition of tariffs on Mexico, an end to birthright citizenship, the termination of migrant flights, deregulations, orders permitting the expansion of energy production, restrictions on DEI and other programs, and the rooting out of career bureaucrats who work against his agenda. Immigration and border security During a recent meeting with Republican senators, Trump adviser Stephen Miller highlighted planned actions on immigration to begin early in the administration as part of what the Associated Press called “executive punch unseen in modern times.” Among the most highly-anticipated order will be the return of the “Remain-in-Mexico” policy requiring that would-be asylees stay outside the U.S. ahead of their court dates.

Others are likely to address the completion of the southern border wall, Trump’s signature campaign promise from 2016, while others are expected to target groups of illegal aliens that recently entered the United States and those who have already been approved for deportation.Some of the immigration orders may stall, however, with the Senate evidently hesitant to speedily confirm some of his key nominees for posts relevant to those policies. Still, some of his border actions will need only the weight of the president’s signature. One of his key immigration promises was to implement an executive order directing federal agents to interpret the law in a way that would not grant the children of illegal immigrants American citizenship. Trump made that promise in May of 2023, at which time it generated considerable legal speculation about the likely challenges to such a dramatic reinterpretation of the law.

Trump promised to begin mass deportations on day one, but some sources have suggested the deportation numbers will be low at first and gradually build while the administration gets its apparatus in place. “You’re not going to see historic numbers in month one. You start to see a steady increase, and then it’ll keep building and building,” one source familiar with the administration’s plans told Politico. nIndependent of immigration, Trump reportedly plans to target energy production, in part by rolling back Biden-era executive orders and environmental regulations. Specifically, Trump has taken aim at the Biden administration’s natural gas export restrictions and electric vehicle mandates, vowing to end them on day one and to expand fracking in Pennsylvania.

The natural gas export ban was part of the Biden administration’s climate change initiatives and was ostensibly temporary, though it faced legal challenges and the Department of Justice in December asked the courts to halt proceedings, given the incoming Trump administration was likely to end the ban anyway. The electric vehicle mandate, meanwhile, was a regular fixture of Trump’s campaign, especially amid United Auto Workers’ lengthy strike. Trump made the argument that the Green New Deal and the Biden administration’s effort to transfer auto-manufacturing to electric vehicles would bankrupt the industry and result in additional offshoring of their jobs. “I will cancel her insane electric vehicle mandate. It’ll be ended on day one,” he promised.

Jan. 6 pardons? In December, Trump promised to pardon Jan. 6 participants on his first day, saying they were “living in Hell” as the Justice Department pursued charges over their involvement in the incident. More than 1,500 people have faced charges related to Jan. 6 but the scope of Trump’s planned pardons remains unclear, especially whether they will include those convicted of violent offenses. Trump’s actual day one schedule was changed last minute due to inclement weather, with the Inauguration itself being moved inside the Capitol Rotunda, a move not seen since President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985. After the swearing-in ceremony, Trump plans to travel to the Capital One arena, which will be open for the crowd to watch the ceremony on a large screen. After that appearance, he is expected to make his way to the White House to begin signing his many planned executive orders.

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He has to undo 4 years of “Biden”.

Top Priorities for Trump’s Presidency (ET)

Readers of The Epoch Times have identified border security, fiscal responsibility, and national defense as the top priorities for President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration. A poll of 26,740 readers, conducted between Jan. 10–13, points to these issues as key areas of focus, reflecting widespread concern over unchecked immigration, economic instability, and global security threats.

Meanwhile, write-in responses by readers of The Epoch Times highlighted strong support for government reform, coupled with opposition to progressive policies such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Border security and deportations topped the list, with 90 percent of respondents considering it “extremely important.” This aligns with Trump’s campaign pledge to launch what he has described as the largest deportation operation in American history, set to begin immediately after his inauguration on Jan. 20. “On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign a historic slate of executive orders to close our border to illegal aliens and stop the invasion of our country,” Trump said during a Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix in December 2024. Besides vowing to deport millions of illegal immigrants, Trump also plans to end birthright citizenship, in which anyone born in the United States is currently given automatic citizenship, including to parents of illegal immigrants.

Fiscal Discipline and Economic Stability. Government spending and debt reduction ranked as the second-highest priority, with 82 percent of respondents highlighting the need for fiscal discipline. Concerns over the ballooning national debt—now at $36.22 trillion—is a key concern. The president-elect has said he intends to address these issues through measures such as cutting wasteful spending and reforming federal agencies. To spearhead these efforts, Trump has proposed the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy tapped to lead the initiative. DOGE aims to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget.

“Your money is being wasted,” Musk said at a Trump rally in New York in October 2024, underscoring Trump’s commitment to tackle government inefficiency and cut wasteful spending. The federal government spent $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024—which was $1.83 trillion more than it collected in revenue—pushing the national debt up to $36.22 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. So far in fiscal year 2025, which runs until the end of September, the government has already spent $1.79 trillion.

The issue of debt sustainability, long a concern of fiscal conservatives, has clearly been on Trump’s radar. In a statement announcing the nomination of Scott Bessent to serve as his Treasury secretary, Trump said his administration would “reinvigorate the private sector, and help curb the unsustainable path of federal debt.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has warned about the unsustainable trajectory of federal debt, projecting it to climb to a hefty 181 percent of GDP by 2053. If left unchecked, this rising debt is expected to slow economic growth, increase interest payments to foreign creditors, and limit lawmakers’ flexibility to address future fiscal and economic challenges, according to the CBO.

Strengthening National Defense and Securing Elections. Military strength and national security emerged as the third most important priority, with 77 percent of respondents citing it as “extremely important.” Concerns over global threats from adversaries such as China and Russia have amplified calls for bolstering America’s defense capabilities. Trump’s proposed “peace through strength” agenda emphasizes modernizing the military, increasing operational readiness, and reinforcing U.S. deterrence on the world stage. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to reform the U.S. military, criticizing “woke” policies that he says undermine the nation’s warfighting capacity.

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More than his approval rating.

Most Americans Share Trump’s Views – Poll (RT)

Most Americans support Donald Trump’s policies, despite the president-elect’s approval rating hovering around 50 percent, according to a New York Times and Ipsos poll published on Saturday. The poll, which surveyed 2,128 adults between January 2 and 10, indicated strong backing for several of Trump’s key policy priorities, such as reducing illegal immigration and implementing protectionist measures against Chinese imports. More than two-thirds of respondents opposed offering so-called “gender-affirming care” to children, another major agenda item for Trump. Approximately 71% of Americans believe that no minors should be prescribed puberty-blocking drugs or hormones. Last month, Trump vowed to end “transgender lunacy,” promising to prohibit sex change surgeries for minors and keep trans athletes out of women’s sports.

Nearly four in five respondents agreed that athletes who were assigned male at birth but transitioned should not be allowed to compete against women in sports. A vast majority of respondents – 87% – supported deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records, one of Trump’s central talking points during his reelection campaign. More than half of respondents either strongly or somewhat supported the deportation of all illegal immigrants in the US, according to the poll results. Nearly two-thirds of respondents – including 54% of Hispanics and 44% of Democrats – favored deporting undocumented migrants who entered the US during President Joe Biden’s last four years in office. The Biden administration reversed several immigration restrictions set by Trump during his first presidency, contributing to a spike in illegal immigration.

Support for Trump’s promises to impose heavier tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports was nearly evenly split, but slightly leaning toward opposition. Approximately 46% supported raising tariffs on goods imported from China and Mexico, while 50% opposed such measures. Trump’s favorability rating remains just below 50%, according to data posted by poll aggregator website FiveThirtyEight on Friday. More than half of Americans view the entire US political system as broken, according to the NYT/Ipsos poll. Some 57% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans believe that the American political system has been broken for decades.

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TikTok itself pulled the plug. From yesterday: “The platform’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration and has thanked Trump for his readiness to work on averting the ban. Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has signaled that TikTok could remain operational if a “viable deal” is reached. “We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark,” Waltz said, adding that the legislation allows a 90-day extension for ByteDance to finalize divestiture.”

TikTok Goes Dark In The US (RT)

Some 170 million US users of the viral social media app TikTok faced a blackout of the service on Saturday, days after the Supreme Court passed a decision that could lead to a national ban of the platform. On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that TikTok needs to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, by Sunday or face a ban. Late Saturday, users in the US received an update for TikTok, blocking the application’s use and explaining the outage. “We regret that a US law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable,” the messages said. “We’re working to restore our service in the US as soon as possible.” TikTok warned about the possible suspension of its services in a statement on its newsroom page on Saturday.

“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” TikTok said in the statement. The Supreme Court’s decision stems from allegations that ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses a risk to US national security. According to the court, the app’s ownership could potentially allow the Chinese government access to American users’ data. TikTok has dismissed allegations that its Chinese ownership poses a threat, maintaining that it has “never shared” American users’ data with Beijing. President-elect Donald Trump has signaled that he will probably give the app a temporary reprieve from the ban to allow it to sell to a non-Chinese company. Trump will “most likely” give the app a “90-day extension,” he told NBC news in a phone interview on Saturday.

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Rubio is all about China.

Marco Rubio Says No Clear Reason Why US Bankrolled Ukraine (SCF)

It doesn’t bode well that the next U.S. Secretary of State begins his top-flight position in government by telling blatant lies and fatuities. Marco Rubio (53) is a sure bet to be confirmed as America’s most senior international envoy representing the new administration of President Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated in the White House on Monday. This week, Florida Senator Rubio appeared before the Senate in confirmation hearings for his post. Rubio has been a senator since 2011 and has served on foreign relations and intelligence committees. Despite bitter personal clashes with Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, Rubio was picked for the top diplomat post in the incoming administration. The confirmation is a done deal given his deep connections in Congress among Republicans and Democrats.

The ambitious son of Cuban immigrants is known for his hawkish views. He previously called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “thug” and described Russia as a “gangster state with nuclear weapons.” Any future trips to Moscow will be awkward to say the least, especially when the “tough guy” Floridian meets a real diplomat like Russia’s Sergei Lavrov. Strangely, though, this week, Rubio projected himself as the voice of reason and diplomacy. It was quite a U-turn. He told the Senate committee that the top priority of the Trump administration will be to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. That view aligns with Trump’s oft-expressed desire for a settlement to the three-year conflict. There’s a lot to parse in Rubio’s weasel words. He informed senators: ”It should be the official policy of the United States that we want to see it [the war] end… This is not going to be an easy endeavor… My hope is that it could begin with some ceasefire.”

Rubio was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the Ukrainian regime, believing that it would inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. Now, he has suddenly been overcome with seeming prudence and concern for peace by declaring that Ukraine cannot possibly win against Russia. Rubio went on: “In order to achieve objectives like the one that needs to occur in Ukraine, it is important for everyone to be realistic. There will have to be concessions made by the Russian Federation, but also by the Ukrainians, and the United States lends itself there. It’s also important that there be some balance on both sides.” So, you see what’s happening here. Rubio is uncharacteristically sounding like a peace envoy – after years of spouting belligerence towards Russia – and sneakily setting up the United States to be a kind of broker between two warring parties.

Note how he advocates concessions by both sides – Ukraine and Russia – without mentioning that the U.S. is a principal party to the conflict (albeit by using proxy Ukraine). He appeals to people to be “realistic” because Ukraine can’t win and it is “running out of Ukrainians.” This is after Rubio and countless other hawkish politicians in Washington pushed this war to the destruction of Ukraine, with over one million casualties from far superior Russian firepower. Rubio and his imperialist warmongering ilk have pushed this proxy war at the risk of inciting a nuclear conflagration with Russia. But it was the bit when Rubio tried to sound like the innocent diplomat deploring violence that peaked contempt for this pathetic Yes Man.

After acknowledging that the United States has supplied Ukraine with $175 billion in total aid, including at least $65 billion in military, since the eruption of conflict in February 2022, Rubio complained that it was “never clearly delineated what the end goal of the conflict was.” He added: “What exactly were we funding? What exactly were we putting money towards? On many occasions, it sounded like ‘however much it takes for however long it takes’. That is not a realistic or prudent position.” Marco Rubio is a liar. He knows full well from his deep involvement in U.S. imperialist machinations that the plan was to sponsor a NeoNazi regime in Kiev since the CIA-backed in 2014 to wage war on Russia for its calculated strategic defeat and conquest. Washington bankrolled Ukrainian fascists to do its dirty work. That’s exactly what it was funding. Now Rubio is pretending that it was all some kind of misadventure that needs to be brought to a settlement.

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Tuesday. Is that under Yellen or Bessent?

US Treasury To Take ‘Extraordinary Measures’ After Trump Inauguration (RT)

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said her department will take “extraordinary measures” to prevent the US from hitting the national debt limit on Tuesday, one day after President-elect Donald Trump takes office. In a letter to Congress on Friday, Yellen explained that the US will hit its roughly $36 trillion debt limit between January 14 and January 23, potentially leading to a default. To avoid this possibility, Yellen said the Treasury Department will use a number of accounting tricks, including pausing payments into civil service retirement accounts until Congress and the president agree to raise the debt ceiling again. Yellen did not say for how long her measures will forestall a default. sThe US debt ceiling was raised three times during President Joe Biden’s term in the White House.

Last month, Trump pressed House Republicans to include another raise in a stopgap spending bill, but the proposal was ultimately defeated by dozens of fiscal conservatives in the GOP. Trump has repeatedly said that the debt ceiling should be abolished altogether to avoid such near-yearly showdowns, arguing that the limit – which is intended to restrict government borrowing – is pointless when it is repeatedly raised. ”It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” he told NBC News last month. “The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge.” Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick to replace Yellen, has said he would work with Congress to repeal the debt ceiling if instructed by Trump.

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“The raid will begin on Tuesday morning and last all week..”

Trump Plans Huge Chicago Illegal Immigrant Raid – WSJ (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump will kick off his deportation drive with a large-scale raid in Chicago one day after his inauguration, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Hundreds of immigration officers are expected to take part in the raid. The raid will begin on Tuesday morning and last all week, with between 100 and 200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers deployed to the city, the newspaper reported, citing four anonymous sources. Officers will target illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds, although anyone present during arrests who entered the country illegally will also be detained, the sources said. Trump promised on the campaign trail that if elected, he would lead “the largest deportation operation in American history.”

In an interview with MSNBC last month, he said he would start by deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes inside the US, before moving on to “people outside of criminals.” There are thought to be anywhere between 11 million an 35 million illegal immigrants living in the US. The president-elect has appointed former ICE Director Tom Homan as his ‘border czar’, and tasked him with carrying out the deportations. “We’re going to start right here in Chicago, Illinois,” Homan said at a Republican dinner in the city last month. “And if the Chicago mayor doesn’t want to help, he can step aside. But if he impedes us, if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien, I will prosecute him.” Chicago was chosen as the location of the first raid because of its high numbers of illegal immigrants and Trump’s animosity with the city’s Democratic mayor, Brandon Johnson, the Wall Street Journal’s sources said.

Chicago is a so-called ‘sanctuary city’, meaning the city authorities do not ask about immigration status, and are forbidden from cooperating with federal immigration agencies such as ICE. Johnson has vowed to keep these policies in place, and on Wednesday, the Chicago City Council sided with him, voting 39-11 against a measure that would have allowed city police officers to work with ICE on immigration cases. In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Police Department said that while its officers would not take part in the upcoming raid, they “will not intervene or interfere with any other government agencies performing their duties.” More raids are expected to follow, the newspaper reported, adding that large immigrant centers such as New York, Los Angeles, Denver, and Miami are considered top targets for the Trump administration.

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“..the Azov Sea became Russia’s internal sea. Any claims to its waters are gross interference in the internal affairs of our country..”

Russia Warns Against UK-Ukraine Claims to Azov Sea (Sp.)

Russia will firmly suppress any attempts to lay claims to the Sea of Azov after it became its internal sea, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. “Neither Ukraine nor the UK has any room for cooperation in the Azov Sea. After the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions joined Russia in September 2022, the Azov Sea became Russia’s internal sea. Any claims to its waters are gross interference in the internal affairs of our country and will be severely suppressed,” Zakharova said.

Moscow considers this agreement to be nothing more than a PR stunt, she added. “Behind this, we see London’s long-standing desire to gain a foothold in these waters, especially in the Azov-Black Sea basin. Kiev, despite all its geopolitical claims, has been assigned only a supporting role in this,” Zakharova said. On Thursday, Ukraine and the United Kingdom signed a “One Hundred Year Partnership Agreement,” pledging to enhance maritime cooperation in the Baltic, Black and Azov seas.

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“..disrupted supplies to Austria, Italy and Central Europe, raising energy prices and prompting regional efforts to minimize the impact.”

Frozen Future? Europe’s Energy Crisis Worsens Amid Gas War (Sp.)

Ukraine’s halt to the transit of Russian gas, combined with sanctions imposed by the US on Russian oil and gas companies, pose a significant risk of plunging Europe into a new energy crisis. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban raised these concerns during his visit to Belgrade, where he held talks focused on energy challenges with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. “Recent developments in Europe’s energy supply are alarming,” Orban said in a video message aired on Hungarian television. “Ukraine has blocked a pipeline that supplied gas to Hungary, and the US administration has introduced sanctions that have driven up energy prices across Europe. The continent is hurtling toward another energy crisis,” Orban said.

The outgoing US government imposed sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas sector on January 10, targeting companies like Gazprom, Neft and Novatek, 183 tanker vessels and top executives. Serbia’s NIS, partly owned by Gazprom, was also affected, with the US demanding the cancellation of Russian investments by February 25. Combined with Ukraine’s block on Russian gas transit on January 1, the actions have disrupted supplies to Austria, Italy and Central Europe, raising energy prices and prompting regional efforts to minimize the impact.

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“..he did not argue, and he did not shout. “I need a week,” was all he said.”

New Juicy Details About How Biden Was Forced To Drop Out (Margolis)

“If you run and you lose to Trump, and we lose the Senate, and we don’t get back the House, that 50 years of amazing, beautiful work goes out the window,” Schumer told him. “But worse — you go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.” Schumer added, “If I were you, I wouldn’t run, and I’m urging you not to run.” Democrats spent years dismissing concerns over Mr. Biden’s age and mental fitness for the presidency, and ultimately spearheaded the effort to pressure him into stepping aside. Amusingly, the story makes clear that Schumer’s concern wasn’t over Biden’s ability to do the job.

For months, Mr. Schumer had been concerned that Mr. Biden was going to lose to Mr. Trump and cost Democrats Congress. It wasn’t that he thought Mr. Biden was not capable of the job. During their weekly conversations, the president often rambled, but he had always rambled. Once in a while, Mr. Biden would forget why he had called, but Mr. Schumer thought little of it. He was convinced that Mr. Biden could handle the job. According to the story, Republican attacks about Biden being old and senile were just too much to overcome—even though the mainstream media was rabidly pushing the Democratic Party line.

“Long before the president’s disastrous debate performance, Mr. Schumer had privately concluded that the barrier of Mr. Biden’s age was too much for him to overcome,” the report says. The debate wound up being “a gift” in the eyes of Chuck Schumer, because it became “a forcing mechanism to start an overdue discussion about the president’s political viability.” As concerns mounted over President Biden’s ability to continue his campaign, Biden continued to refuse to step aside, sending a defiant letter on July 8 declaring his intention to stay in the race, angering congressional Democrats. At a tense July 11 meeting, frustrated senators demanded proof of Biden’s fitness, with some warning their silence would soon end.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told Mr. Biden’s aides that the silence from the majority of Democratic senators should not be interpreted as a sign of support. It was out of respect and affection to allow Mr. Biden time to gracefully exit the race, but it would not last forever, he said, because if they continued to vouch for his fitness, they would be “lying.”. As support from the caucus was crumbling, Schumer ultimately was the one who went to Biden’s beach house to “deliver his own blunt message.” Mr. Schumer said if he had even a 50 percent chance of winning, he would probably keep going. “Fifty-fifty, to do this, to stay here; it’s worth it,” he said. “But, Mr. President, you’re not getting the information as to what the chances are.”

When he asked whether Mr. Biden had talked to his pollsters about his chances of winning the race, the president shook his head. “Well, I have talked to them,” Mr. Schumer said. “My guess is you have about a 5 percent chance. None of your pollsters disagree with me.” Only twice did Mr. Biden interrupt to ask a question, and both times it was: “Do you really think Kamala can win?” Mr. Schumer said that he didn’t know, but that she had a far better chance than Mr. Biden did. (Mr. Biden has since made it clear that he disagrees. In an interview with USA Today, the president said of whether he could have defeated Mr. Trump: “It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes.”) […] At the time, Mr. Biden revealed little of his own thinking, but he did not argue, and he did not shout. “I need a week,” was all he said.

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“..what passes for “Western democracy.”

The Man Who Probably Will Not Be Allowed To Lead Romania (Karganovic)

Calin Georgescu rightfully has a huge grievance against what passes for “Western democracy.” He is the clear first-round winner in the Presidential elections held in Romania late last year. Yet his projected even more resounding victory in the second round, scheduled for early December 2024, was scrapped (as the BBC indelicately put it) following a Romanian Supreme Court ruling that the electoral process was marred by alleged hybrid warfare interference conducted by Russia on Georgescu’s behalf.

How do you “scrap” elections in a vibrant democracy such as Romania, which also happens to be a member in good standing of NATO and the European Union, which are bastions of liberal freedoms and the rule of law? Well, you do it by making up a bogus dossier on the political candidate that you dislike and by ordering the local judiciary to act on it as if it were genuine evidence. The dossier purporting to document the alleged interference was so patently phony that at its first sitting to consider the matter the Romanian Supreme Court dismissed it out of hand. This show of integrity did not sit well at all with the paladins of the rules-based order. So they ordered the judges to reassemble forthwith in their chambers and to get it right this time. On 6 December the distinguished Romanian jurists did just that and obediently reversed their ruling issued just four days previously.

Citing Article 146 (f) of the Romanian Constitution concerning the legality and correctness of the presidential elections, the Court ordered that the “entire electoral process will be integrally redone.” So the result of the first round was duly “scrapped” and along with it the second round as well. The second round, which was in progress as the judges hurriedly improvised their new ruling, was stopped in its tracks. As even the Atlantic Council, no friend of elections which go the wrong way, was compelled to admit “the rollout of the decision was somewhat fumbled, as it became public while polling stations were already open for the [Romanian] diaspora in the second-round presidential election, and by the time the process was stopped, around 53,000 citizens abroad had already voted.” Scrapped just in time, because the Romanian diaspora was known to be a hotbed of Georgescu supporters.

The Presidential election was set by the judges for an unspecified date in the future. Some rumours suggest that it might be in May of this year, or whenever it is that the stage can be prepared to ensure the right outcome. In the meantime, Klaus Iohannis, who should have relinquished his post in December to his successor, is now as legally “expired” as his Ukrainian colleague Zelensky. But that does not seem to bother any of the vociferous champions of the democratic process. Iohannis after all is their man. The Romanian public, however, do not seem to take kindly to electoral interference by the compliant judges and their string-pullers, who are widely suspected of being located abroad but not in Russia. Thousands have been marching in the streets of Bucharest and other major cities to oppose the cancellation of the elections.

How much good it will do them in a country that has embraced the principles of Western democracy remains to be seen. The protagonist of this political earthquake who was not permitted to democratically establish his credentials as the new President of Romania, Calin Georgescu, ever since his first-round triumph has been subjected to the full measure of calumny that is reserved for those whom the globalist system perceives as a non-team-player and a threat. The hope was evidently that he would be successfully discredited and simply fade away, allowing the charade of “democratic elections” with a prearranged outcome to be repeated whenever it is judged safe to do so.

Expectedly, the Georgescu affair with its scandalous implications has been largely ignored by the collective West media, except for a few derogatory observations here and there at the banned candidate’s expense. The Georgescu story might have died a quiet death but for the professionalism of American podcaster Shawn Ryan, who decided to perform a public service by travelling to Romania to find out first-hand what the electoral commotion was all about. The result was a remarkable interview with the man who by all reasonable estimates should be sitting today in the Presidential office in Bucharest. It is worth viewing carefully and in its entirety for the insights it affords into the sombre times in which we happen to live.

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Suspend them, but not Fauci? How does that work?

US Suspends EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak (ZH)

EcoHealth Alliance, the nonprofit that Dr. Anthony Fauci used to offshore risky gain-of-function research 6 months before the Obama administration banned it, has finally been cut off by the US Government – along with its former president, Peter Daszak, for a period of five years following scrutiny over its work in Wuhan, China ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic. The decision by the Department of Health and Human Services was based on findings by the House Oversight Committee, which announced on Friday that EcoHealth and Daszak had been disbarred. “Justice for the American people was served today,” said Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in a statement.

“Bad actor EcoHealth Alliance and its corrupt former President, Dr. Peter Daszak, were formally debarred by HHS for using taxpayer funds to facilitate dangerous gain-of-function research in China. Today’s decision is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer, but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide.” EcoHealth funding had been suspended in May by HHS, which recommended a permanent ban on funding the nonprofit. “Given that a lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely origin of COVID-19, EcoHealth and its former President should never again receive a single cent from the U.S. taxpayer,” Comer continued. As journalist Paul Thacker noted in June, the NIH lied about EcoHealth’s gain-of-function research, feeding lies to reporters, while lying to Congress.

Meanwhile, former NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci ‘prompted’ the fabrication of a paper by a cadre of scientists aimed at disproving the Covid-19 lab-leak theory. According to US Right to Know, emails obtained in 2020 revealed that a statement in The Lancet authored by 27 prominent public health scientists condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” was organized by employees of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit group that has received millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funding to genetically manipulate coronaviruses with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The emails obtained via public records requests show that EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak drafted the Lancet statement, and that he intended it to “not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person” but rather to be seen as “simply a letter from leading scientists”.

To review; The US was doing risky gain-of-function research on US soil until 2014, when the Obama administration banned it. Four months before the ban, Dr. Fauci offshored it to Wuhan, China through New York nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance. After Sars-CoV-2 broke out down the street from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fauci engaged in a massive campaign to deny the possibility of a lab-leak from the lab he funded, and instead pin the blame on a yet-to-be discovered zoonotic intermediary species.

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Clock
https://twitter.com/i/status/1880287757505032366

 

 

Clean

 

 

Tree

 

 

Real love
https://twitter.com/i/status/1880380928050213339

 

 

Shaolin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1880282013938380849

 

 

Remora
https://twitter.com/i/status/1880158153200865331

 

 

Frens

 

 

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Jul 162017
 
 July 16, 2017  Posted by at 9:19 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  1 Response »


Piet Mondriaan The Grey Tree 1912

 

Global Stocks Soared $1.5 Trillion This Week – Now 102% Of World GDP (ZH)
Central Bankers Are Always Wrong…Especially Before A Bust – Ron Paul (ZH)
How Brexit Is Set To Hurt Europe’s Financial Systems (R.)
Britons Face Lifetime Of Debt: BOE Warns Over 35 Year Mortgages (Tel.)
Is Russiagate Really Hillarygate? (Forbes)
The Way Chicago “Works”: Graft, Corruption, Connections, Bribes (Mish)
France’s Macron Says Defense Chief Has No Choice But To Agree With Him (R.)
France Calls For Swift Lifting Of Sanctions On Qatari Nationals (R.)
Is California Bailing Out Tesla through the Backdoor? (WS)
Brazil To Open Up 860,000 Acres Of Protected Amazon Rainforest (Ind.)

 

 

No markets. No investors.

Global Stocks Soared $1.5 Trillion This Week – Now 102% Of World GDP (ZH)

Thanks, it seems, to a few short words from Janet Yellen, the world’s stock markets added over $1.5 trillion to wealthy people’s net worth this week, sending global market cap to record highs. The value of global equity markets reached a record high $76.28 trillion yesterday, up a shocking 18.6% since President Trump was elected. This is the same surge in global stocks that was seen as the market front-ran QE2 and QE3. This was the biggest spike in global equity markets since 2016.

For the first time since Dec 2007, the market value of global equity markets is greater than the world’s GDP…

Of course – the big question is – how long can ‘they’ keep this dream alive?

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“Actually, the longer it takes to hit, the better it is for us…”

Central Bankers Are Always Wrong…Especially Before A Bust – Ron Paul (ZH)

The global dollar-based monetary system is in serious jeopardy, according to former Texas Congressman Ron Paul. And contrary to Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s assurances that there won’t be another major crisis in our lifetime, the next economy-cratering fiat-currency crash could happen as soon as next month, Paul said during an interview with Josh Sigurdson of World Alternative media. Paul and Sigurdson also discussed false flag attacks, the dawn of a cashless society and the dangers of monetizing national debt. Paul started by saying Yellen’s attitude scares him because “central bankers are always wrong – especially before a bust.”

“There is a subjective element to when people lose confidence, and when is the day going to come when people realize we’re dealing with money that has no intrinsic value to it, we’re dealing with too much debt, too much bad investment and it will come to an end. Something that’s too good to believe usually is and it usually ends. One thing’s for sure, we’re getting closer every day and the crash might come this year, but it might come in a year or two.” “The real test is can it sustain unbelievable deficit financing and the accumulation of debt and it can’t. You can’t run a world like this, if that were the case Americans could just sit back and say “hey, everybody wants our money and will take our money.” Paul advised that, for those who are already girding for the crash by buying gold and silver and stocking their basements with provisions like canned food and bottled water, the rewards for their foresight will only grow with the passage of time.

“Actually, the longer it takes to hit, the better it is for us. The more we can get prepared personally, as well as warn other people, about what’s coming.” “It’s a sign that the authoritarians are clinging to power so they can collect the revenues collect the taxes and make sure you’re not getting around the system. That’s what the cashless society is all about. But it won’t work in fact it might be the precipitating factor that people will eventually lose confidence when the crisis hits. They say the crisis hasn’t come – welI in 2008 and 2009 we had a pretty major crisis and what we learned there is that the middle class got wiped out and the poor people got poorer and now there’s a lot of wealth going on but it’s still accumulating to the wealthy individual.” “People say it might not come for another ten years – well we don’t know whether that’s necessary but one thing that’s for sure when a government embarks on deficit financing and then monetizing the debt the value of commodities like gold and silver generally goes up.

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Anyone think the concentration of finance in the City is maybe not such a great idea? As, you know, for the people?

How Brexit Is Set To Hurt Europe’s Financial Systems (R.)

Interviews with scores of senior executives from big British and international banks, lawyers, academics, rating agencies and lobbyists outline some of the dangers for companies and consumers from potentially losing access to London’s markets. The EU needs London’s money, says Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England. He calls Britain “Europe’s investment banker” and says half of all the debt and equity issued by the EU involves financial institutions in Britain. Rewiring businesses will be expensive, though estimates vary widely. Investment banks that set up new European outposts to retain access to the EU’s single market may see their EU costs rise by between 8 and 22%, according to one study by Boston Consulting Group.

A separate study by JP Morgan estimates that eight big U.S. and European banks face a combined bill of $7.5 billion over the next five years if they have to move capital markets operations out of London as a result of Brexit. Such costs would equate to an average 2% of the banks’ global annual expenses, JP Morgan said. Banks say most of those extra costs will end up being paid by customers. “If the cost of production goes up, ultimately a lot of our costs will get passed on to the client base,” said Richard Gnodde, chief executive of the European arm of Goldman Sachs. “As soon as you start to fragment pools of liquidity or fragment capital bases, it becomes less efficient, the costs can go up.”

UK-based financial firms are trying to shift some of their operations to Europe to ensure they can still work for EU clients, but warn such a rearrangement of the region’s financial architecture could threaten economic stability not only in Britain but also in Europe because so much European money flows through London. European countries, particularly France and Germany, don’t share these concerns, viewing Brexit as an opportunity to steal large swathes of business away from Britain and build up their own financial centres. Britain alone accounts for 5.4% of global stock markets by value, according to Reuters data. Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU financial services chief, said the EU will still account for 15% of global stock markets by value without Britain, and that measures were being taken to strengthen its capital markets. But he added: “Fragmentation is preventing our financial services sector from realising its full potential.”

Industry figures have similar concerns. Jean-Louis Laurens, a former senior Rothschild banker and now ambassador for the French asset management lobby, told Reuters: “If London is broken into pieces then it is not going to be as efficient. Both Europe and Britain are going to lose from this.” London is currently home to the world’s largest number of banks and hosts the largest commercial insurance market. About six trillion euros ($6.8 trillion), or 37%, of Europe’s financial assets are managed in the UK capital, almost twice the amount of its nearest rival, Paris. And London dominates Europe’s 5.2 trillion euro investment banking industry.

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Familiar patteren: first blow a bubble, then warn about it.

Britons Face Lifetime Of Debt: BOE Warns Over 35 Year Mortgages (Tel.)

British families are signing up for a lifetime of debt with almost one in seven borrowers now taking out mortgages of 35 years or more, official figures show. Rapid house price growth has encouraged borrowers to sign longer mortgage deals as a way of reducing monthly payments and easing affordability pressures. Bank of England data shows 15.75pc of all new mortgages taken out in the first quarter of 2017 were for terms of 35 years or more. While this is slightly down from the record high of 16.36pc at the end of 2016, it has climbed from just 2.7pc when records began in 2005. The steady rise has triggered alarm bells at the Bank, prompting regulators to warn that the trend risks storing up problem[s] for the future if lenders ignore the growing share of households prepared to borrow into retirement. Several lenders including Halifax, the UK’s biggest mortgage provider, and Nationwide have raised their borrowing age limits to 80 and 85 over the past year.

Bank figures show one in five mortgages are taken out for terms of between 30 and 35 years, from below 8pc in 2005, as the traditional 25-year mortgage becomes less popular. David Hollingworth, a director at mortgage broker London & Country, said the trend showed that an increasing share of borrowers were struggling with affordability pressures, and deciding that lengthening the term will offer leeway as house price growth continues to outpace pay rises. However, he said most borrowers were unlikely to stick with the same deal, with most having a desire to review that later and potentially peg [the extra interest costs] back . Mr Hollingworth added that longer mortgage terms were also better than interest-only deals that were prevalent before the credit crunch. The Bank noted in its latest financial stability report that there was little evidence that borrowers were signing up for longer mortgage deals to circumvent tougher borrowing tests for homeowners introduced in 2014.

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Fusion GPS.

Is Russiagate Really Hillarygate? (Forbes)

The most under covered story of Russia Gate is the interconnection between the Clinton campaign, an unregistered foreign agent of Russia headquartered in DC (Fusion GPS), and the Christopher Steele Orbis dossier. This connection has raised the question of whether Kremlin prepared the dossier as part of a disinformation campaign to sow chaos in the US political system. If ordered and paid for by Hillary Clinton associates, Russia Gate is turned on its head as collusion between Clinton operatives (not Trump’s) and Russian intelligence. Russia Gate becomes Hillary Gate. Neither the New York Times, Washington Post, nor CNN has covered this explosive story. Two op-eds have appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The possible Russian-intelligence origins of the Steele dossier have been raised only in conservative publications, such as in The Federalist and National Review.

The Fusion story has been known since Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a heavily-footnoted letter to the Justice Department on March 31, 2017 demanding for his Judiciary Committee all relevant documents on Fusion GPS, the company that managed the Steele dossier against then-candidate Donald Trump. Grassley writes to justify his demand for documents that: “The issue is of particular concern to the Committee given that when Fusion GPS reportedly was acting as an unregistered agent of Russian interests, it appears to have been simultaneously overseeing the creation of the unsubstantiated dossier of allegations of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians.”

Former FBI director, James Comey, refused to answer questions about Fusion and the Steele dossier in his May 3 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Comey responded to Lindsey Graham’s questions about Fusion GPS’s involvement “in preparing a dossier against Donald Trump that would be interfering in our election by the Russians?” with “I don’t want to say.” Perhaps he will be called on to answer in a forum where he cannot refuse to answer.

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And don’t think it’s over. The pension chips are yet to fall.

The Way Chicago “Works”: Graft, Corruption, Connections, Bribes (Mish)

Those who wish to understand how things work in Chicago need read a single article that ties everything together:

“Teamsters Boss Indicted On Charges Of Extorting $100,000 From A Local Business. A politically connected Teamsters union boss was indicted Wednesday on federal charges alleging he extorted $100,000 in cash from a local business. John Coli Sr., considered one the union’s most powerful figures nationally, was charged with threatening work stoppages and other labor unrest unless he was given cash payoffs of $25,000 every three months by the undisclosed business. The alleged extortion occurred when Coli was president of Teamsters Joint Council 25, a labor organization that represents more than 100,000 workers in the Chicago area and northwest Indiana. Coli, 57, an early backer of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, was charged with one count of attempted extortion and five counts of demanding and accepting prohibited payment as a union official.”

[..] Former governor Rod Blagojevich is now in prison for a 14-year sentence. He was found guilty of 18 counts of corruption, including attempting to sell or trade an appointment to a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. He faces another eight years in prison after an appeals court upheld the sentence in April of this year. No other state can match this claim: 4 OUT OF PREVIOUS 7 ILLINOIS GOVERNORS WENT TO PRISON The way Chicago “works” is the same way Illinois “works”. Corrupt politicians get in bed with corrupt union leaders and screw the taxpayers and businesses as much as they can. Sometimes they get caught. Teamster boss Coli just got caught after all these years of extortion. His deals with Mayor Emanuel screwed Chicago taxpayers. Emanuel promised reforms and transparency but reforms and transparency stop once campaign donations are sufficient enough.

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Macron plays Napoleon.

France’s Macron Says Defense Chief Has No Choice But To Agree With Him (R.)

French President Emmanuel Macron said his defense chief has no choice but to agree with what he says, a weekly newspaper reported on Sunday, after his top general criticized spending cuts to this year’s budget. “If something opposes the military chief of staff and the president, the military chief of staff goes,” Macron, who as president is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, told Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD). Macron said on Thursday that he would not tolerate public dissent from the military after General Pierre de Villiers reportedly told a parliament committee he would not let the government “fuck with” him on spending cuts.

De Villiers still has Macron’s “full trust,” the president told JDD, provided the top general “knows the chain of command and how it works.” “No one deserves to be blindly followed,” De Villiers wrote in a message posted on his Facebook page on Friday. De Villiers’ last Facebook post is an open letter addressed to new military recruits that makes no mention of Macron. But it was perceived by French media as targeting the president’s earlier comments.

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Macron wants to be a global force too. While he has nothing to say in Europe.

France Calls For Swift Lifting Of Sanctions On Qatari Nationals (R.)

France called on Saturday for a swift lifting of sanctions that target Qatari nationals in an effort to ease a month-long rift between the Gulf country and several of its neighbors. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt imposed sanctions on Qatar on June 5, accusing it of financing extremist groups and allying with the Gulf Arab states’ arch-foe Iran. Doha denies the accusations. “France calls for the lifting, as soon as possible, of the measures that affect the populations in particular, bi-national families that have been separated or students,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters in Doha, after he met his counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani. Le Drian was speaking alongside Sheikh Mohammed, hours after his arrival in Doha. He is the latest Western official to visit the area since the crisis began.

Later in the day he flew to Jeddah, where he repeated his concerns about the effects of the standoff in a televised press appearance with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. Jubeir said any resolution of the worst Gulf crisis in years should come from within the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. “We hope to resolve this crisis within the Gulf house, and we hope that wisdom prevails for our brothers in Qatar in order to respond to the demands of the international community – not just of the four countries,” he said. [..] Le Drian, who will visit the UAE and Gulf mediator Kuwait on Sunday, follows in the steps of other world powers in the region, including the United States, whose Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to find a solution to the impasse this week.

Officials from Britain and Germany also visited the region with the aim of easing the conflict, for which Kuwait has acted as mediator between the fending Gulf countries. In a joint statement issued after Tillerson and Sheikh Mohammed signed an agreement on Tuesday aimed at combating the financing of terrorism, the four Arab states leading the boycott on Qatar said the sanctions would remain in place.

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The Tesla tulip.

Is California Bailing Out Tesla through the Backdoor? (WS)

The California state Assembly passed a $3-billion subsidy program for electric vehicles, dwarfing the existing program. The bill is now in the state Senate. If passed, it will head to Governor Jerry Brown, who has not yet indicated if he’d sign what is ostensibly an effort to put EV sales into high gear, but below the surface appears to be a Tesla bailout. Tesla will soon hit the limit of the federal tax rebates, which are good for the first 200,000 EVs sold in the US per manufacturer beginning in December 2009 (IRS explanation). In the second quarter after the manufacturer hits the limit, the subsidy gets cut in half, from $7,500 to $3,750; two quarters later, it gets cut to $1,875. Two quarters later, it goes to zero. Given Tesla’s ambitious US sales forecast for its Model 3, it will hit the 200,000 vehicle limit in 2018, after which the phase-out begins.

A year later, the subsidies are gone. Losing a $7,500 subsidy on a $35,000 car is a huge deal. No other EV manufacturer is anywhere near their 200,000 limit. Their customers are going to benefit from the subsidy; Tesla buyers won’t. This could crush Tesla sales. Many car buyers are sensitive to these subsidies. For example, after Hong Kong rescinded a tax break for EVs effective in April, Tesla sales in April dropped to zero. The good people of Hong Kong will likely start buying Teslas again, but it shows that subsidies have a devastating impact when they’re pulled. That’s what Tesla is facing next year in the US. In California, the largest EV market in the US, 2.7% of new vehicles sold in the first quarter were EVs, up from 0.4% in 2012, according to the California New Dealers Association. California is Tesla’s largest market.

Something big needs to be done to help the Bay Area company, which has lost money every single year of its ten years of existence. And taxpayers are going to be shanghaied into doing it. To make this more palatable, you have to dress this up as something where others benefit too, though the biggest beneficiary would be Tesla because these California subsidies would replace the federal subsidies when they’re phased out. It would be a rebate handled at the dealer, not a tax credit on the tax return. And it could reach “up to $30,000 to $40,000” per EV, state Senator Andy Vidak, a Republican from Hanford, explained in an emailed statement. This is how the taxpayer-funded rebates in the “California Electric Vehicle Initiative” (AB1184) would work, according to the Mercury News:

“The [California Air Resources Board] would determine the size of a rebate based on equalizing the cost of an EV and a comparable gas-powered car. For example, a new, $40,000 electric vehicle might have the same features as a $25,000 gas-powered car. The EV buyer would receive a $7,500 federal rebate, and the state would kick in an additional $7,500 to even out the bottom line.” And for instance, a $100,000 Tesla might be deemed to have the same features as a $65,000 gas-powered car. The rebate would cover the difference, minus the federal rebate (so $27,500). Because rebates for Teslas will soon be gone, the program would cover the entire difference – $35,000. This is where Senator Vidak got his “$30,000 to $40,000.”

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Money changes everything.

Brazil To Open Up 860,000 Acres Of Protected Amazon Rainforest (Ind.)

The Brazilian environment ministry is proposing the release of 860,000 acres in the National Forest of Jamanxim for agricultural use, mining and logging. The government’s order was a compromise measure after protests from local residents and ecologists who claim that the bill could lead to further deforestation in the Pará area. If approved, the legislation will create a new protection area (APA) close to Novo Progresso. Around 27% of the national forest would be converted into an APA, the ministry said. Carlos Xavier, president of a lobbying group in Pará to decrease the size of the Jamanxim forest, said the APA would bring economic progress to the region. According to the ministry, the bill includes stipulations to reduce conflicts over land, prevent deforestation and create jobs. The measures were criticised by environmental groups.

“The bill is seen as an amnesty for illegal occupation of the conservancy unit,” said Observatório do Clima on its website, claiming that the government “yielded to pressure” from the rural lobby. Carlos Xavier, president of a lobbying group in Para to decrease the size of the Jamanxim forest, said the APA would bring economic progress to the region. In 2016, deforestation of the Amazon rose by 29% over the previous year, according to the government’s satellite monitoring, the biggest jump since 2008. Mongabay, an environmental science and conservation website, reports that experts using satellite images have identified illegal logging activities to the east of the BR-163 highway, in Pará state. The BR-163 protests involved stopping trucks from unloading grains at the riverside location of Miritituba, where barges carrying crops are transported en route to the export markets. ATP, the Brazilian private ports association, calculated that the highway protests would result in losses of $47m.

Read more …

May 142015
 


Walker Evans Street Scene, Vicksburg, Mississippi 1936

The US Economy Is Signalling An Iceberg And We’re Out Of Lifeboats (Guardian)
Central Banks Are Running Low on Ammunition (Bloomberg)
America’s Future Got $7 Trillion Worse Since the Financial Crisis (Bloomberg)
The US Economy Has Left Behind 20 Million Americans (MarketWatch)
Epic Global Bond Rout Is A QE Success Story – But It Won’t Last (AEP)
Foreign Money Pours Into US Real Estate, and It’s Not Just Houses (Bloomberg)
Greece Will Stay In Euro Even If It Defaults, Renzi Adviser Says (Bloomberg)
Greek Minister Sees ‘Only 10%’ Chance Of Failure In Creditor Talks (Bloomberg)
Greek Government Mulls Reforms With Eye On Deal As Some Resist (Kathimerini)
The Greek Bailout Crisis Didn’t Have to Happen (Slate)
The World’s Top Currency Dealers Are ‘Untouchable’ (MarketWatch)
Five Reasons Chicago Is in Worse Shape Than Detroit (Bloomberg)
Many Americans Agree With Bernie Sanders’ Brand Of Socialism (MarketWatch)
“We The People” Need To Circle The Wagons: The Government Is On The Warpath (ZH)
The Secret Corporate Takeover Of Trade Agreements (Stiglitz)
2600 People Arrested Since 2012 Too Injured To Enter Baltimore Jail (CopBlock)
Is The Only Purpose of a Corporation to Maximize Profit? (Bruce Bartlett)
McCain, Saakashvili Appointed To Ukraine Reform Advisory Team (RT)
Pope Francis to Congress: Capitalism Must Change (Bloomberg)
Over 40% Of US Honeybee Colonies Died In The Past Year (WSJ)

“This could be the start of a worrying trend.” Huh? The start?

The US Economy Is Signalling An Iceberg And We’re Out Of Lifeboats (Guardian)

As the economic news from the eurozone improves by a notch (although not in Greece, inevitably), US consumers are sending the opposite signal. Sluggish retail sales in the first quarter of the year were, we were told, caused by a cold snap. There would be a spring bounce, investors assumed, as supposedly confident Americans spent their windfalls from the lower oil price. Well, it didn’t happen in April: yesterday’s figures were flat, and the weather-related explanation is wearing thin. This could be the start of a worrying trend. Indeed, if Americans are preferring to use excess cash to pay down debt, it’s hard to see why they would change their minds now. The oil price has started to rise again and long-term bond yields are also on the up, reducing opportunities to remortgage at a cheaper rate.

Economists assume that this “soft patch” for the US economy is now so soggy that the US Federal Reserve will, again, postpone its attempt to raise interest rates. A hike next month is seen as a non-starter; it will come in September, at the earliest. But what if the run of weak numbers points to something more severe? On cue, HSBC economist Stephen King yesterday published a weighty analysis titled “the world economy’s titanic problem” that pointed out that it has been six years since the trough of the last US recession. “If history is any guide, we are probably now closer to the next one,” he said. Business cycles always turn, and after six years of growth, even at a pedestrian rate, the current recovery is old.

One could make the same point about the UK, where the economic weather tends to follow that of the US, with a lag. King’s point – which explains the Titanic reference – is that policymakers are out of lifeboats if a recession were to arrive. The US Fed has dealt with past recessions by cutting interest rates by at least five percentage points. That is obviously impossible today because rates are still on the floor. To change the metaphor, the arsenal is bare: “Whereas previous recoveries have enabled monetary and fiscal policymakers to replenish their ammunition, this recovery – both in the US and elsewhere – has been distinguished by a persistent ammunitions shortage,” says King. “This is a major problem.”

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Central banks should have stayed on the sidelines, but it’s too late now.

Central Banks Are Running Low on Ammunition (Bloomberg)

“The world economy is like an ocean liner without lifeboats.” That’s the headline in HSBC Chief Economist Stephen King’s latest note. What he’s getting at is that with interest rates sitting at or near record lows in economies across the globe, central banks could be set for major struggles if the economy starts to sour.

If another recession hits, it could be a truly titanic struggle for policymakers. … Remarkably enough, it’s six years since the last recession, suggesting the next one may not be too far away, yet there is a total absence of traditional policy ammunition.

In past recoveries, policymakers on both the fiscal and monetary side have been able to raise rates and “replenish their ammunition,” as King puts it. This recovery has proved otherwise. King says this is a huge problem.

In all recessions since the 1970s, the US Fed funds rate has fallen by a minimum of 5 percentage points. That kind of traditional stimulus is now completely ruled out. Meanwhile, budget deficits are still uncomfortably large and debt levels uncomfortably high: while the US fiscal position has improved, it remains structurally weak.

Although the Federal Reserve is the most discussed, it’s not just the U.S. central bank that has embarked on this historical move. King notes that several other regions have similar narratives. The European Central Bank appears to be committed to quantitative easing until September 2016. The Bank of Japan is basically in the same boat. The Bank of England may not be increasing its balance, but it has yet to raise rates. Fiscal positions, meanwhile, are mostly poor, at least when compared with those pre-crisis. So what options do central banks actually have at this point?

Here’s what King’s report looks at:
• Reducing the risk of recession
• Reverting to quantitative easing
• Moving away from inflation targeting
• Using fiscal policy to replace monetary policy
• Using fiscal and monetary policy together in a bid to introduce so-called “helicopter money”
• Pushing interest rates higher through structural reforms designed to lower excess savings, most obviously via increases in retirement age.

Regarding his first point, how exactly can fiscal and monetary policy reduce the risk of the next recession? Well, it’s not easy. According to King, new safeguard regulations such as increasing bank capital might work in a narrow sense, but not every crisis is the same.

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And here’s the inevitable result of the Fed actions:

America’s Future Got $7 Trillion Worse Since the Financial Crisis (Bloomberg)

Still feeling uncomfortable about that tax bill you owed last month? Think about it this way: If you didn’t pay it, America’s fiscal future would look even worse than it does now, six years out from the financial crisis. Driven by higher interest costs, Social Security and Medicare for baby boomers, as well as tax cuts made permanent in 2012, the federal debt held by the public is expected to hit $40 trillion in 2035, according to calculations by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget based on Congressional Budget Office estimates. Back in 2009, soon after President Barack Obama took office, the forecast for the 2035 burden was at least $7 trillion lower.

In 2035, the debt will almost equal the size of the U.S. economy; four years later it will match the previous record, set in 1946, at 106% of gross domestic product, the CBO estimated last year. Compare that to the 2014 debt burden of $12.8 trillion, or 74% of GDP.
The economy just isn’t growing fast enough to keep pace with the costs of caring for the soaring ranks of the elderly, and the discrepancy between spending and revenue is estimated to widen in the next few decades. Republicans say their proposal passed by Congress last week will save $5 trillion and balance the budget within a decade. The Obama administration likes to tout how it’s reduced the budget deficit by three-fourths and is on track to narrow further.

Either way, the number of people paying Social Security taxes is expected to grow more slowly than the number of those receiving the entitlements. The number of taxed workers will increase 20% between now and 2045, while beneficiaries of Social Security’s Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) funds will increase 57% over the same period, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees. As a result, there will be about two taxpayers per beneficiary in three decades, down from almost three now. For comparison, the same ratio was 3.4 to 1 in 2000.

Higher spending on debt servicing and entitlements means less money for other purposes, such as education or research. It also means some hard decisions at some point. In order to prevent debt from becoming an even bigger portion of GDP, the U.S. needs to increase taxes by 7.5% or cut spending by 7%, said Marc Goldwein, vice president and policy director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington advocacy group. To bring the ratio more in line with the historical level of 40%, taxes would have to go up 13.5%, according to Goldwein. The later any action is taken, the deeper the spending cuts or the higher the tax increases would have to be.

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Classic lowballing.

The US Economy Has Left Behind 20 Million Americans (MarketWatch)

Last month, when Baltimore was burning after a young African-American man died in police custody (six officers were subsequently charged), I did a Google search to find what David Simon thought about it. Simon, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun, was the creator and show runner of “The Wire,” which ran for five seasons on HBO and which Entertainment Weekly called the greatest television show ever. It was a brilliant narrative of the struggle for survival in a violent, drug-riddled Baltimore neighborhood much like the one that went up in flames. In my search, I came across an interview Simon did with Bill Moyers a few years ago in which he declared: “ ‘The Wire’ was not a story about America; it’s about the America that got left behind. … These really are the excess people in America. Our economy doesn’t need them — we don’t need 10% or 15% of our population.”

Have 10% to 15% of the U.S. population really been left behind? I contacted Simon at his website to ask where he got the number, but he didn’t get back to me. So I did my own calculations, and he’s actually not too far off. With a little help from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces the famous monthly jobs reports, I added up several categories of the unemployed, the underemployed and people on some form of public assistance. My conclusion: About 20 million Americans, roughly 10% of adults of working age, have at best marginal ties with the U.S. economy. I excluded the elderly, because most of them are retired and getting Social Security, and children, whose lives and futures are often collateral damage in the economic struggles of their parents.

Here’s how it adds up:
• 2.5 million are among the long-term unemployed, which the Labor Department defines as being out of work and actively seeking work for 27 weeks or more. That’s less than half what it was in 2009, but it’s still high.
• 6.6 million Americans are working part-time for economic reasons but would prefer to work full time.
• Another 2.1 million are marginally attached to the labor force, according to the Labor Department. That means they are “not in the labor force [but] want and are available for work, and … have looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months.”
• Nearly 5 million adults from age 18-64 are collecting Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits, which go to people who can’t work because of various disabilities.
• Almost 1 million adults receive public assistance from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and General Assistance (GA), according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those are temporary cash payments with some work requirements that replaced the old welfare system under welfare reform. • In 2013, 3.3 million Americans earned the federal minimum wage or less, according to the Pew Research Center. If you think they haven’t been left behind, try living on $7.25 an hour. Grand total: 20.4 million adults. Now, there is some overlap, and Labor Department figures are for people from 16 to 64, while the other stats cover those from 18 up. But those caveats aside, 20 million is a reasonable ballpark number — and a disturbing one.

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No, Ambrose, this is the sound of failure.

Epic Global Bond Rout Is A QE Success Story – But It Won’t Last (AEP)

Occam’s Razor is the sharpest way to cut through tangled explanations for the epic rout in global bond markets. The simplest explanation is the best. “Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora.” Bond yields are soaring because the world’s central banks have demonstrably done enough for now to stop deflation taking hold. The short-term monetary cycle is turning. The reflation trade is on. The broad M3 money supply has been growing at a 7pc rate in the US over the past six months (annualized), and nearly 8pc in the eurozone. Fiscal austerity has run its course as well. Budget policy is no longer contractionary in either of the world’s two biggest economic blocs. Unless the normal mechanisms of monetary policy have broken down altogether – which is possible, but would you bet your pension on it? – the burgeoning M3 data point to a reflationary revival of some sort later this year.

John Williams, the once dovish head of the San Francisco Fed, told Yahoo! Finance on Tuesday that the US economy is “running a little bit hot”. Rightly or wrongly, he chose to dismiss the economic relapse in the first quarter as a weather-blip. The world’s monetary superpower is chomping at the bit. Hedge funds were asking for trouble by driving yields on 10-year German Bunds to a historic low of 0.07pc in mid-April. Trouble is what they got. Three weeks later, Bunds are trading at 0.65pc. The paper losses across the spectrum of global bond markets is roughly half a trillion dollars. Put another way, Bank of America says the €2.8 trillion of eurozone debt trading at negative yields has just shrunk to €2 trillion. It calls this a “positioning purge”.

The mistake was to bet on an acute shortage of sovereign bonds once the European Central Bank launched its €60bn monthly blitz of quantitative easing. Bunds were thought to have a special “scarcity premium” since they are dying out. The German government is running a fiscal surplus of 0.5pc of GDP this year. Markets ignored known evidence that bond yields rose by 80-120 basis points during the various bouts of QE in America, which is what one would expect as recovery builds and the risk of deflation abates. Contrary to mythology, QE does not work by lowering bond rates. It works through a different mechanism: by causing banks to “create” money.

ECB president Mario Draghi has accomplished his first goal, even if he might silently be cursing the newfound strength of the euro. The eurozone is clawing its way out of depression. The growth rate of nominal GDP growth has risen from 1.1pc at the start of the year to 1.5pc, subtly altering long-term debt dynamics for the crisis states of southern Europe. They are no longer quite so close to a debt-deflation trap. The one-year “inflation swap rate” – measuring expectations – has jumped by almost 100 basis points since October in the eurozone. The five-year contracts are starting to catch up. This is a short-term cyclical upswing. It does not in itself narrow Europe’s North-South rift in competitiveness, and does not magically turn EMU into an optimal currency area. It does buy time.

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We accept monopoly money.

Foreign Money Pours Into US Real Estate, and It’s Not Just Houses (Bloomberg)

Blockbuster real estate deals are back and breaking records as cash from around the globe pours into U.S. office buildings, apartment complexes and other investment properties. Commercial real estate transactions jumped 45% by dollar volume in the first quarter, an increase driven by sales of multiple buildings or entire companies, according to research firm Real Capital. Since then, GE. agreed to sell real estate assets to Blackstone and Wells Fargo in a deal valued at about $23 billion, the largest property purchase since the financial crisis. As the pot of money set aside for U.S. commercial real estate grows, competition for the best properties is pushing investors to buy in bulk.

Based on the pipeline, which includes the GE deal, the second quarter may be one of the biggest on record for property transactions, according to Real Capital. “It’s so hard to get things on a single-asset basis,” said Janice Stanton, an executive managing director at commercial brokerage Cushman & Wakefield. “You’re starting to see larger and larger transactions.” Real estate deals surged to $129 billion during the three months through March, marking the most active start to a year since 2007, according to Real Capital. The largest was Blackstone’s $8.1 billion sale of IndCor Properties, an owner of industrial buildings, to GIC Pte, Singapore’s sovereign-wealth fund. Demand for property from warehouses to skyscrapers is booming, helped by more than six years of Federal Reserve efforts to stimulate economic growth by keeping interest rates low, and stockpiles of cash from overseas investors seeking a haven.

About $24 billion in foreign capital flowed to U.S. properties in the first quarter, more than half the total for all of 2014, according to Cushman. That number is poised to grow further because the majority of sovereign wealth funds – investors such as GIC – have yet to hit their target allocations for real estate, according to Preqin Ltd., an alternative-assets research firm. Total property allocations for such funds now top $6.3 trillion, more than double the amount in 2008, London-based Preqin said in a report this month. Surging prices for the best buildings in big cities such as New York and San Francisco are driving the real estate recovery. Centrally located office towers are fetching prices 33% above records set in 2008, according to an index from Real Capital and Moody’s.

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“In the face of an extraordinary event, you would also witness some extraordinary support” for Greece..”

Greece Will Stay In Euro Even If It Defaults, Renzi Adviser Says (Bloomberg)

Greece will remain in the euro even if it fails to meet a debt payment, according to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s economic adviser. Filippo Taddei, a key aide to Renzi during his overhaul of the euro region’s third biggest economy, said that “nobody knows” whether Greece can meet its debt obligations from one day to the next. As a result, “plans are being set” at European level to mitigate the effect of a Greek default, he said in an interview in Rome on Tuesday. “It’s an intellectual and analytical mistake to think that a default on Greek debt would automatically bring Greece out of the euro,” Taddei said. “The euro is not just an economic project but has a strong political project, and it is very hard to envisage a united currency without Greece.”

Taddei’s comments are the strongest public indication yet that Greece’s euro-area creditors are preparing a plan in case Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government is unable to meet a payment on its outstanding debt. The Greek economy returned to recession in the first quarter, European Union statistics showed on Wednesday, two days after Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said that Greece will run out of cash within a couple of weeks unless it gets help. Italy, which saw 10-year bond yields soar to more than 7% in November 2011 at the height of the debt crisis, would again suffer “additional volatility,” if Greece got into more difficulty, Taddei said. Similar Italian debt yielded about 1.82% [today]. “In the face of an extraordinary event, you would also witness some extraordinary support” for Greece, Taddei said.

Plans are being drawn up in “the proper European” forums to prepare for a possible default. While Taddei declined to be drawn on specifics, he said that European institutions were now “a lot more attentive, a lot more ready to respond” to such volatility than during previous financial crises. “We all learned that European institutions in general were not very active and were not very quick at addressing the crisis, or the shock, or the consequences of the crisis. But I think that lesson has been learned and now there is increased awareness that you have to react quickly,” Taddei said. “We will be ready to act.” That includes taking part in any third rescue package for Greece. Italy, he said, “will always take part in any effort to safeguard the euro.”

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“I’m sorry to say that this huge cost for the economy is the basic negotiating weapon of the other side..”

Greek Minister Sees ‘Only 10%’ Chance Of Failure In Creditor Talks (Bloomberg)

The chances of a breakdown between Greece and its creditors are small, as neither of the two sides is willing to risk the breakup of the euro area, Greece’s administrative reform minister said. “I estimate that the chances of rift are only 10%, as I have faith that reason will prevail,” George Katrougalos, 52, said in a telephone interview from Athens on Tuesday. “We are in a trajectory heading towards agreement for the simple reason that neither of the two sides wants a rift.” Europe’s most indebted state is locked in talks with its creditors over the terms attached to its €240 billion bailout. Uncertainty over the country’s future in the euro area has triggered a liquidity squeeze, which pulled the economy back into a double-dip recession.

“We have moved from Grexit to Grimbo, as Greece is in limbo,” said Katrougalos, who is also a professor of public law. “This liquidity crunch, which is caused by the European Central Bank not adhering to its responsibilities, doesn’t allow the Greek economy to grow.”Without access to capital markets, Greek lenders are bleeding deposits and relying on €80 billion of Emergency Liquidity Assistance, extended by the country’s central bank, to stay afloat. The European Central Bank, which can block the ELA provision, has so far resisted the Greek government’s demands to allow Greek lenders to buy more treasury bills, as the use of central bank funds to finance the state would go against EU treaties.

Sorbonne-educated Katrougalos said the ECB’s stance and the refusal of euro-area member states to disburse bailout funds are tactics creditors are using to force the Greek government to capitulate to their demands.“I’m sorry to say that this huge cost for the economy is the basic negotiating weapon of the other side,” the minister said. “They bring time limits to reach a deal to the brink, as a negotiating tactic. This is not proper behavior among partners.”Despite the lengthy negotiations, the minister believes a compromise will be reached. “Only if the logic in the back of the minds of some of our peers – which says that a government of the left shouldn’t be allowed to succeed – only then we will not reach an agreement,” he said.

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‘Emergency’ meetings are a daily event.

Greek Government Mulls Reforms With Eye On Deal As Some Resist (Kathimerini)

The government’s strategy in negotiations with creditors and a raft of possible measures, including tax reforms, that could form the basis of an agreement, dominated a marathon cabinet meeting on Wednesday chaired by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The meeting, which ran late into the night, was aimed at examining a wide range of changes to the tax system as well as possible privatizations ahead of technical-level talks that are due to resume in Brussels on Thursday. Officials also discussed the possible timing for drafting some of these changes into legislation in a bid to show good will and convince the European Central Bank to relax liquidity restrictions on Greece.

Comments by cabinet members earlier in the day gave a mixed picture of the government’s intentions with some insisting that it remained focused on reaching a deal while others suggested there should be no compromise with the demands of Greece’s creditors, despite the increasingly tight liquidity situation. Speaking in Parliament, Energy Minister Panayiotis Lafazanis, who heads SYRIZA’s radical Left Platform, said, “This government will not surrender,” noting that “those who believe we will step back from our red lines are deluding themselves.” He was referring to SYRIZA’s pre-election pledges to protect pensions and the rights of workers.

Another senior member of the Left Platform was widely quoted in the media as saying that Greece will be unable to reach a deal with creditors this month as the latter “keep yanking our chain” and that Greece might be forced to “go it alone.” Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis appeared more conciliatory. “We are working toward an honorable compromise,” he told Mega TV. “Immediate recourse to a referendum or elections is not in our plans right now.” Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis caused a stir earlier in the day when he said he could not guarantee that the government would be in power next January. He said his comments, which were in response to a question from one of hundreds of ministry cleaning staff who were rehired by the new administration, had been blown out of proportion.

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Without a restructuring blueprint, smaller parties will always get creamed.

The Greek Bailout Crisis Didn’t Have to Happen (Slate)

Everyone knows that bailouts have become overly politicized. The U.S. bailout during the financial crisis, which cemented “too big to fail” in the public consciousness, triggered hostility that helped spur a Republican landslide in the 2010 midterms. Now imagine if every one of the 900,000 or so commercial and consumer bankruptcy filings in the U.S. last year triggered bailouts. Creditors would eventually elbow each other for repayments; mayhem would ensue. In Greece the bailout has been marked by malfeasance, infighting, and decision-fumbling. A 2013 IMF report claimed that the fund underestimated the problems austerity might cause to the Greek economy and that Greece did not qualify on three of its four criteria before receiving the initial three-year, €30 billion loan.

The report also noted that the stimulus prioritized the health of Europe’s banking system over the Greek economy. For example, an early debt write-off was delayed for political reasons because of countries whose banks held Greek bonds. Debt restructuring, or an effort to renegotiate the terms and provisions of a debt, could be a valuable alternative to bailouts, or transfers of finances by a governmental body to rescue an entity that is not meeting its financial obligations. That’s because creditors aren’t impartial. Take the European Central Bank. It’s an invested stakeholder in the current standoff, with a €104 billion exposure that roughly equals 65% of Greek’s GDP.

In a way, it’s understandable that in early February, the ECB’s Governing Council removed a waiver that allowed Greece’s banks to post government debt as collateral for cash. But that led Greece to become reliant on emergency funds to stay afloat. Greek stocks then fell by as much as nearly 30% the following day, and depositors triggered a bank run. There have been many increases to the emergency ceiling, which is now €80 billion. The ECB has similarly strong-armed Ireland and Cyprus. It’s not that the ECB is wrong to pursue rules that benefit the eurozone; the terms of Greece’s bailout could still be changed midstream, but doing so would create legal headaches and other complications for the eurozone.

It’s that while bailouts may evoke a rescue operation of sorts for sovereign debtors, they can play out far differently. When countries like Greece risk going bankrupt, it can be an opportunity for bottom-feeding purchasers of distressed sovereign debt. Such private creditors, especially short-termers, might then either hock to another entity such as the ECB or IMF or hold on to assets and litigate until they recover those assets’ value. There ends up being not much of a rescue, but financial power plays that favor certain interests and assets over others. That has been one of the big criticisms of the Greek bailout. In March an IMF director reportedly told Greek’s Alpha TV that rescue funds were used for banks in France and Germany rather than to keep Greece afloat.

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Too big to touch. Break them down.

The World’s Top Currency Dealers Are ‘Untouchable’ (MarketWatch)

The world’s five largest foreign-exchange brokers ceded a significant chunk of their market share over the past year as regulators pressured them to shrink their operations while investigations into exchange-rate manipulation heated up. But though these dealers have retreated slightly, regulators will find it difficult to break their hold on the market, which they’ve dominated for decades, said analysts at Greenwich Associates, a research firm that, among other things, tracks changes in the foreign-exchange market’s structure. Three of the top five banks (Citigroup, Barclays and J.P. Morgan) are expected to plead guilty to charges of foreign-exchange manipulation, according to The Wall Street Journal. A fourth, UBS, which was the first to cooperate with investigators, will likely reach a settlement.

Maybe one or two more banks will join the ranks of the Deutsche Banks and Citigroups of the world, said Kevin McPartland, head of research for market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates. But a more extreme redistribution of market share is unlikely because of the sheer scale of investment needed to be a player in the massive foreign-exchange market, where turnover is measured in the trillions. “There will probably be more competition than there was in the past, but it’s hard to compete with the scale,” said McPartland said.

Many of the top dealers have a huge advantage when it comes to infrastructure. The top banks developed their own proprietary electronic-trading platforms years ago. They also have branches all over the world, which large clients find reassuring. Many of their smaller rivals depend on multi-dealer e-trading platforms, which pool liquidity from a consortium of banks. The market share of the top five banks shrank to 51%, from 53% in the past year, compared with 45% in 2011. The next five banks’ market share increased from 22% to 24%, while the banks that round out the bottom 10 of the 20 largest dealers saw their share rise from 14% to 15%. The rest of the market is controlled by smaller players.

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There goes your pension plan.

Five Reasons Chicago Is in Worse Shape Than Detroit (Bloomberg)

Forget all the nicknames attached to Chicago for generations – Windy City, City of Big Shoulders, the City that Works. This gleaming metropolis of 2.7 million people is now, along with Detroit, junk city. When Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Chicago’s debt on Tuesday to junk status, it deepened the city’s financial crisis and elevated comparisons to the industrial ruin 280 miles to the east. Chicago partisans, starting with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, argue vehemently that their city isn’t Detroit. They cite population growth, a diverse economy bolstered by an abundance of Fortune 500 companies, vibrant neighborhoods and a booming tourist trade. Yet here are five reasons, now more than ever, that suggest Chicago is akin to Detroit – or, by some measures, even worse. Or, as Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner put it last month: “Chicago is in deep, deep yogurt.”

BIG, SCARY NUMBERS: Chicago’s unfunded liability from four pension funds is $20 billion and growing, hitting every city resident with an obligation of about $7,400. Detroit’s, whose population of about 689,000 is roughly a quarter of Chicago’s, had a retirement funding gap of $3.5 billion, meaning each resident was liable for $5,100. A January 2014 report from Morningstar Municipal Credit Research showed that among the 25 largest cities and Puerto Rico, Chicago had the highest per-capita pension liability.

HOSTILE COURT: When Detroit filed for Chapter 9 in July 2013, a federal bankruptcy judge exerted his considerable powers and decreed that everyone – taxpayers, employees, bondholders and creditors alike – would get a haircut to settle the crisis. When the Illinois Supreme Court ruled on May 8, it said the state couldn’t cut pension benefits as part of a solution to restructure the state retirement system. That decision sent a clear signal to Chicago, which was trying to follow the state’s benefit-cutting lead. Where the Detroit judge acted, the Illinois justices told elected officials to clean up the mess of their own making.

POLITICAL PARALYSIS: Just as Detroit slid into bankruptcy after decades of economic and actuarial warnings, Chicago politicians have watched the train wreck rumble toward them for more than a decade. During that time, they skipped pension payments and paid scant attention to the financial damage being done. In 10 years starting in 2002, the city increased its bonded debt by 84%, according to the Civic Federation, which tracks city finances. That added more than $1,300 to the tab of every Chicago resident. In Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder acted when the crisis in Detroit couldn’t be avoided. He invoked a state law giving an emergency manager what amounts to fiscal martial-law power. In Chicago’s case, there’s no political pressure to invoke a similar law.

NO BAILOUT: Detroit’s bankruptcy filing allowed it to restructure its debt, officially snuffing out $7 billion of it by cutting pensions and payments to creditors. In Illinois, the nation’s lowest-rated state with unfunded pension obligations of $111 billion, Rauner had a blunt message last week in an unprecedented address to Chicago’s City Council: The city will get no state bailout.

DENIAL: After years of denial, Detroit officials finally, if grudgingly, agreed to major surgery. At least for now, Chicago’s Emanuel is sticking to his view that the Illinois Supreme Court’s rejection of a state pension reform law doesn’t apply to the city. “That reform is not affected by today’s ruling, as we believe our plan fully complies with the State constitution because it fundamentally preserves and protects worker pensions,” he said in a statement on Friday. Four days later, Moody’s begged to differ. “In our opinion,” it wrote, “the Illinois Supreme Court’s May 8 ruling raises the risk that the statute governing Chicago’s Municipal and Laborer pension plans will eventually be overturned.”

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“..the American public — crushed by stagnant wages, robbed of middle-class jobs by competition with low-wage countries, deprived of health care, burdened by student debt..”

Many Americans Agree With Bernie Sanders’ Brand Of Socialism (MarketWatch)

John Nichols, a writer for The Nation, titled his 2011 book, “The ‘S’ Word: A Short History of an American Tradition…Socialism,” precisely because, he said, “it is the subject of daily derision, a derision that is at once more intense and more ignorant than at any point in the long history of the United States.” That is due in no small part to the sharp right turn taken by the Republican Party and the steady stream of right-wing blather on radio and television, where “socialist” is used as shorthand for big government, welfare, high taxes, and any other nefarious policy Rush Limbaugh and his cohorts care to attach to it. But it is also due to the residue of the long Cold War demonization of communism and the failure of centrally planned economies in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba, and China.

Of course, the Marxism-Leninism of those countries is only one strand of a progressive socialist tradition that also includes social democracy in its various forms, which is still a vital political force in most European countries — most prominently in Scandinavia. Comfortable in the conviction that the U.S. is the biggest, strongest economy in the world with the highest standard of living, Americans have for decades tended to sneer at these European countries as inferior, bogged down economically by anti-business policies. But it is slowly dawning on wide portions of the American public — crushed by stagnant wages, robbed of middle-class jobs by competition with low-wage countries, deprived of health care, burdened by student debt and the astronomical costs of a college education — that this supposed superiority of ours is no longer true, if it ever was.

And that’s just the middle class. The rapidly growing pool of families below the poverty line, forced to work two or three jobs at subsistence wages just to scrape by, is also waking up to the fact that the famous “American dream” is no longer theirs. George Stephanopoulos, the ABC anchor whose career began as an aide to Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton in the 1990s, did a little sneering of his own recently when he interviewed Sanders on “This Week.” “I can hear the Republican attack ad right now,” Stephanopoulos said after Sanders expounded on the benefits of universal health care, a living wage, free higher education, access to child care, guaranteed pensions and other benefits enjoyed in “socialist” countries. “He wants America to look more like Scandinavia.”

Sanders blinked away his astonishment and replied, “That’s right. That’s right. And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong when you have more income and wealth equality? What’s wrong when they have a stronger middle class in many ways than we do, a higher minimum wage than we do, and they’re stronger on the environment?”

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“This vital truth, that the government exists for our benefit and operates at our behest, seems to have been lost in translation..”

“We The People” Need To Circle The Wagons: The Government Is On The Warpath (ZH)

Despite what some special interest groups have suggested to the contrary, the problems we’re experiencing today did not arise because the Constitution has outlived its usefulness or become irrelevant, nor will they be solved by a convention of states or a ratification of the Constitution. No, as I document in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the problem goes far deeper. It can be traced back to the point at which “we the people” were overthrown as the center of the government. As a result, our supremacy has been undone, our authority undermined, and our experiment in democratic self-governance left in ruins. No longer are we the rulers of this land.

We have long since been deposed and dethroned, replaced by corporate figureheads with no regard for our sovereignty, no thought for our happiness, and no respect for our rights. In other words, without our say-so and lacking any mandate, the point of view of the Constitution has been shifted from “we the people” to “we the government.” Our taxpayer-funded employees—our appointed servants—have stopped looking upon us as their superiors and started viewing as their inferiors. Unfortunately, we’ve gotten so used to being dictated to by government agents, bureaucrats and militarized police alike that we’ve forgotten that WE are supposed to be the ones calling the shots and determining what is just, reasonable and necessary.

Then again, we’re not the only ones guilty of forgetting that the government was established to serve us as well as obey us. Every branch of government, from the Executive to the Judicial and Legislative, seems to be suffering this same form of amnesia. Certainly, when government programs are interpreted from the government’s point of view (i.e., the courts and legislatures), there is little the government CANNOT do in its quest for power and control. We’ve been so brainwashed and indoctrinated into believing that the government is actually looking out for our best interests, when in fact the only compelling interesting driving government programs is maintain power and control by taking away our money and control.

This vital truth, that the government exists for our benefit and operates at our behest, seems to have been lost in translation over two centuries dominated by government expansion, endless wars and centralized federal power. Have you ever wondered why the Constitution begins with those three words “we the people”? It was intended to be a powerful reminder that everything flows from the citizenry. We the people are the center of the government and the source of its power. That “we” is crucial because it reminds us that there is power and safety in numbers, provided we stand united. We can accomplish nothing alone.

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Joe’s late to the game, and has little to add. And if your claim to fame is your link to Bill Clinton, you may want to take a deep breath.

The Secret Corporate Takeover Of Trade Agreements (Stiglitz)

When I chaired Bill Clinton’s council of economic advisers, when he was president, anti-environmentalists tried to enact a similar provision, called “regulatory takings”. They knew that once enacted, regulations would be brought to a halt, simply because government could not afford to pay the compensation. Fortunately, we succeeded in beating back the initiative, both in the courts and in the US Congress. But now the same groups are attempting an end run around democratic processes by inserting such provisions in trade bills, the contents of which are being kept largely secret from the public (but not from the corporations that are pushing for them). It is only from leaks, and from talking to government officials who seem more committed to democratic processes, that we know what is happening.

Fundamental to America’s system of government is an impartial public judiciary, with legal standards built up over the decades, based on principles of transparency, precedent, and the opportunity to appeal unfavourable decisions. All of this is being set aside, as the new agreements call for private, non-transparent, and very expensive arbitration. Moreover, this arrangement is often rife with conflicts of interest; for example, arbitrators may be a judge in one case and an advocate in a related case. The proceedings are so expensive that Uruguay has had to turn to Michael Bloomberg and other wealthy Americans committed to health to defend itself against Philip Morris. And, though corporations can bring suit, others cannot. If there is a violation of other commitments – on labour and environmental standards, for example – citizens, unions, and civil society groups have no recourse.

If there ever was a one-sided dispute-resolution mechanism that violates basic principles, this is it. That is why I joined leading US legal experts, including from Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley, in writing a letter to Barack Obama explaining how damaging to our system of justice these agreements are. American supporters of such agreements point out that the US has been sued only a few times so far, and has not lost a case. Corporations, however, are just learning how to use these agreements to their advantage. And high-priced corporate lawyers in the US, Europe, and Japan will likely outmatch the underpaid government lawyers attempting to defend the public interest. Worse still, corporations in advanced countries can create subsidiaries in member countries through which to invest back home, and then sue, giving them a new channel to bloc regulations.

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Damning.

2600 People Arrested Since 2012 Too Injured To Enter Baltimore Jail (CopBlock)

Over 2600 people arrested by Baltimore police since 2012 were too injured to enter the city’s detention center, jail records show. The Baltimore Sun reports that according to records, 123 of the detainees who weren’t admitted had visible head injuries, the third-most common ailment cited by officials while others had broken bones, facial trauma and lacerations. While the records do not indicate how the people were injured or whether they suffered their injuries at the hands of police, they do suggest that officers either ignored or did not notice the injuries. The report comes in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray last month, who died of a broken neck prosecutors say he suffered while riding in the back of a Baltimore police van. Six of the officers involved are facing criminal charges, including one charged with second-degree murder.

The incident sparked protests and rioting in the city, before Friday, when the U.S. Justice Department launched a civil-rights investigation into the department. Critics say the figures show that Baltimore police officers take little interest in detainees after they are arrested. This may result, law enforcement experts say, from officers not receiving adequate training to detect injuries or whether or not a detainee is faking being hurt in order to avoid jail. The United States Constitution guarantees health care to suspects before they are booked into jail. In the Gray case, prosecutors say the man requested medical care five times before his death. The Sun previously reported that dozens of Baltimore residents have accused the city’s police of inflicting injuries on them and disregarding their requests for medical help. The city has paid out almost $6 million in court judgments and settlements in response to over 100 lawsuits filed since 2011.

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Corporations have accumulated too much political power to allow for justice or common sense.

Is The Only Purpose of a Corporation to Maximize Profit? (Bruce Bartlett)

Historically, corporations were expected to serve some public purpose as justification for the benefits and privileges they receive from the state. But since the 1970s, the view has become widespread that corporations exist solely to maximize profits and for no other purpose. While the shareholder-first doctrine was supposed to solve the agency problem, in fact it has gotten worse as corporate executives enrich themselves at the expense of shareholders. Moreover, the obsession with current share prices as the only measure of corporate success may be destroying long-term value as companies cut back on investment to raise short-term profits. Tax policies designed to raise after-tax profits have done nothing to reverse these trends.

To conservatives, the corporation is often treated as the pinnacle of capitalist development. This justifies their deferential treatment of corporations in terms of taxation and government regulation, which, they claim threaten to kill the goose that lays golden eggs. In reality, the corporation wouldn’t exist in a pure free market. It is and always has been a creature of the state. For many years, corporate status was only granted to businesses deemed to be in the public interest, such as companies that built turnpikes and canals. But as time has gone by, the idea that corporations exist at the pleasure of the state and in the public interest has been forgotten.

Today, it is widely believed that corporations exist for the sole purpose of making a profit. Corporate executives who believe corporations have a social responsibility are considered old fashioned. But the costs of this new view of the corporation have been very high in terms of lost jobs and investment, and minuscule wage growth for more than a generation. Shareholders, the owners of the corporation, haven’t even benefitted that much from the laser-like focus on profit above all else because much of it has been siphoned off by corporate executives, who have enriched themselves at the expense of shareholders, and financial institutions that have encouraged companies to become highly leveraged.

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Put the crazies in charge!

McCain, Saakashvili Appointed To Ukraine Reform Advisory Team (RT)

Georgia’s fugitive ex-president Mikhail Saakashvili and hawkish US Senator John McCain have been approved as members of the newly-formed International Advisory Group that will help Ukraine’s president in “conducting reforms.” Saakashvili has been appointed as head of the new advisory group, says the statement on Ukraine’s presidential website. The list of members included in the advisory group mostly includes current and former European politicians. Among them are the German member of the European Parliament and the current Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs Elmar Brok, Sweden’s former Prime and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Slovakia Mikulas Dzurinda, and Lithuania’s former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius.

Back in February Saakashvili was appointed as a non-staff adviser to Poroshenko. The ex-Georgian president, who was in power from 2004 to 2013, faces numerous charges at home, including embezzlement of over $5 million, corruption and brutality against protesters during demonstrations in 2007. Georgia’s Chief Prosecutor’s Office launched proceedings to indict Saakashvili and place him on the international most wanted list, but Kiev refused to hand over the fugitive president, despite an existing extradition agreement between Ukraine and Georgia. Saakashvili is known for his strong anti-Russian stance, which garnered heavy US support. In August 2008 during his term in office Georgia launched an offensive against South Ossetia, killing dozens of civilians and Russian peacekeepers stationed in the republic.

Georgia’s shelling of Tskhinval prompted Russia to conduct a military operation to fend off the offensive. Despite Saakashvili’s claims that the conflict was “Russian aggression,” the 2010 EU Independent Fact Finding Mission Report ruled that Tbilisi was responsible for the attack. Meanwhile Senator John McCain, for years spearheading the anti-Russian and particularly anti-Putin crusade, said that while he “would love to do anything” to help Ukraine, he has not yet cleared his new appointment under the US Senate rules. “I was asked to do it both by Ukraine and Saakashvili and I said I would be inclined to do it but I said I needed to look at all the nuances of it, whether it’s legal under our ethics and all that kind of stuff,” McCain told BuzzFeed.

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Too late.

Pope Francis to Congress: Capitalism Must Change (Bloomberg)

Pope Francis will denounce the inequalities of capitalism when he becomes the first pontiff to address Congress on his visit to the U.S. in September, according to his closest adviser. Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, a fellow Latin American whom the Argentine pope has appointed to advise him on governing the church, said in an interview in Rome that Francis will speak “not as an enemy of the system or of the culture” but “as a shepherd who wants to make the world better, especially for those who do not have a voice.” On his election as leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, Francis called for “a poor church for the poor,” setting a humbler tone for his papacy that began with his decision to live in a modest residence.

At the same time, he’s set out an ambitious political agenda, from lobbying for a global climate accord to decrying the widening gap between rich and poor. Francis will present the lawmakers with “the same way of thinking that he expressed” in Evangelii gaudium, his first 2013 encyclical, or major papal writing, according to Maradiaga. In that document, Francis attacked the “idolatry of money” and a financial system “of exclusion and inequality,” adding: “Such an economy kills.” Free-market laws aim to “to produce the biggest revenue possible and the lowest costs possible,” Maradiaga, 72, said on Wednesday. “Change is needed, making capitalism more human, otherwise inequalities will continue growing and inequalities produce violence, frustration, pain and especially insecurity in every sense.”

Maradiaga, the archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, expressed the hope that the Republican-dominated Congress will hear the pope “with open hearts.” Francis, 78, will travel to Cuba Sept. 19-22, and then to Washington, where he will meet with President Barack Obama at the White House, to New York, where he will address the United Nations General Assembly, and finally to Philadelphia. The White House said in a March statement that the discussion between Francis and Obama will include “caring for the marginalized and the poor” and “advancing economic opportunity for all.” As the Vatican’s spokesman on developing countries’ debt at the IMF and the World Bank, Maradiaga helped negotiate a writedown for his native Honduras in the 1990s.

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“For the first time since the survey began five years ago, the summer loss rates exceeded the winter loss rates..”

Over 40% Of US Honeybee Colonies Died In The Past Year (WSJ)

More than 40% of U.S. honeybee colonies died in a 12-month period ending in April, extending a troubling trend that has scientists scrambling for a solution and professional beekeepers struggling to stay in business. The Agriculture Department said in its annual honeybee survey released Wednesday that beekeepers are starting to lose large numbers of bees during both the summer and winter—presenting scientists with a new wrinkle since die-offs had generally occurred during the cold winter months. “I think the situation is changing,” said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an expert on honeybees at the University of Maryland. “It remains bad but I don’t know if we can assume the same thing is happening year to year.”

For the first time since the survey began five years ago, the summer loss rates exceeded the winter loss rates, suggesting bees are becoming vulnerable during a time of the year they were thought to be healthy and robust. The most recent summer loss rate reached 27%, up from 20%. While the precise cause of the honeybee crisis is unknown, scientists generally blame a combination of factors, including poor diets and stress. Some bees die from infestations of the Varroa mite, a bloodsucking parasite that weakens bees and introduces diseases to the hive. Environmental groups also point to a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids.

In April, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would stop approving new outdoor uses for those types of chemicals until more studies on bee health are conducted. During the one-year period ending in April, beekeepers lost 42% of their colonies, according to the survey, marking the second-highest rate of loss since the Agriculture Department began tracking annual statistics in 2010. The loss rate was up from 34% during the previous 12-month period. Bee deaths present a considerable challenge to professional beekeepers, who spend substantial amounts of time and money to replenish their colonies. Many beekeepers, already in their 50s and 60s, are considering early retirement or are being forced out of the business due to the expense.

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