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Debt Rattle November 2 2026

Nov 022026
 
 November 2, 2026  Posted by at 10:24 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  17 Responses »


Edward Hopper Hotel lobby 1943


• Qatar Signals Talks ‘Breakthrough’ As Khamenei Warns (ZH)
• Iran’s Araghchi Hopes For ‘Rationality’ From US (ZH)
• Polish PM Tusk Says He Won’t Back Down (ZH)
• Finland’s President Defends Calling Putin (RT)
• Macron’s Riot Problem Isn’t the Mystery He Says It Is (Eric Florack)
• Ukraine’s Public Debt Has Surged 130-Fold Since 2006 (RT)
• Millions Embezzled In Fraud Scheme At Ukrainian Defense Firm – Probe (RT)
• European Commission Begins Reevaluating Emissions Trading System (CTH)
• The Ilhan Omar Immigration Fraud Case Is Bigger Than We Thought (Margolis)
• Ilhan Omar’s Marriage Application To ‘Brother’ Surfaces With Bizarre Errors (ZH)
• Alina Habba Says Grenell Blocked $5.6M Of Billionaire Husband’s Donation (ZH)
• “The Pope Doesn’t Take Sides” (Turley)

 

 

 

 


Iran is still threatening the US:

“..Iran’s Retaliation Will Have ‘No Geographical Limits’ If Attacked..”

Tomorrow’s the US midterms. After that Trump is free to attack Iran. He doesn’t appear to have much choice.

The Iranians attempt to drag him along, as they can do like no other.

Iran puts itself on equal footing withe the US. Trump does not, and never will.

Trump wants to make sure they have no nukes, and no control over Hormuz.

They know this, but still haven’t given in on either point.

The IRGC has murdered at last 40,000 of its own people in the recent past.

They don’t care about thesee lives, onl;y about their own.

Bibi threatened to nuke Iran, and Trump said no, we will take care of this.

And now he has to. He didn’t want them to have nukes, anyway.

• Qatar Signals Talks ‘Breakthrough’ As Khamenei Warns (ZH)

Could this be the actual breakthrough coming after many months of prior claimed negotiation ‘breakthroughs’ and false starts? Just when the prospect of even getting back to the negotiating table seemed as remote as ever, Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed is reporting that planned direct talks are back on.


Regional sources are indeed calling this a “breakthrough” in hitherto indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran, with an American delegation soon expected to join Iranian officials for direct talks in Doha.The midterm election in the US is just a handful of days away, and President Trump has strongly signaled he might renew a major bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic.

Picking up on the Saturday Qatari report, Times of Israel writes, “Citing sources close to mediation efforts led by Qatar and Pakistan, the report says the sides have agreed on preliminary measures concerning Iran’s nuclear program, navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and financial incentives for Tehran, with China and Russia set to serve as guarantors of an agreement.”


“The reported progress follows what Axios describes as more than 12 hours of talks between Qatari mediators and Iranian officials in Tehran yesterday, aimed at averting renewed US strikes on Iran after the November 3 midterm elections,” it adds.

Al Arabiya English says it has obtained key points from the preliminary draft framework for restarting US-Iran negotiations and has published the following list:
• Iran could transfer its highly enriched uranium stockpile to an agreed third country or reduce its enrichment level
• The Strait of Hormuz could reopen to international maritime traffic within seven days of an initial understanding
• China could potentially serve as a guarantor of the implementation and sustainability of any agreement
• Direct US-Iran negotiations could be held in Doha instead of Istanbul
• Iranian measures on the nuclear file and maritime security would be matched by clearly defined US measures to ease sanctions, blockades and economic restrictions
• An independent verification mechanism would assess compliance before each subsequent phase of implementation
• Neither side would be required to make substantial concessions without receiving corresponding, independently verifiable commitments
• A dispute-resolution mechanism involving mediators and guarantor parties would address delays or violations to help prevent renewed military escalation

But none of this means that Iranian leadership is going to sit idly by and let the Trump administration dictate the terms, as it continues sticking by its seven conditions for ending the war. By now it should be clear that Tehran does not trust Trump or Netanyahu when it comes to efforts to achieve peace.


Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has on Saturday put his military on heightened alert, ordering military commanders to ensure an immediate and desvastating response to any threat, and notably without geographical limitation. “Any level or type of threat must be met with an immediate, impactful, and geographically unrestricted response,” the Ayatollah – who has not been seen in public since the war began – has stated.

This was reportedly the result of a meeting with senior military commanders – itself a very rare thing if indeed happened, again given that he’s not so much as been seen in public since the assassination of his father. Al Jazeera describes the significance further, writing that “Iranians have been emphasising that if a new wave of war comes, Iran is going to go beyond the locations that it has hit in the previous rounds.”


“Khamenei is also saying that if the war restarts, then it’s going to be up to Iran to determine when it’s going to end and on what terms,” the regional commentary adds. “This is quite a huge thing because it’s saying that the terms of diplomacy will be up to Iran now.” So these planned next Qatari talks could be the last big diplomatic effort at restarting a peace and dialogue track, or else it could be bombs away and runaway escalation.

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He’ll get his rationality.

• Iran’s Araghchi Hopes For ‘Rationality’ From US (ZH)

On Sunday Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi weighed in on current peace discussions which are being mediated via Qatar. He expressed that Tehran is ready to egage in serious diplomacy but hopes to see ‘rationality’ from the US side. We previously featured details of a draft framework being offered and examined.


“We are making our efforts in this direction and hope that there is rationality on the other side to prefer diplomacy to other paths,” Araghchi said. The statement comes amid widespread reports that the Trump White House could order a new major bombing campaign soon after Tuesday’s midterm elections.But he also alluded to the fresh orders that Iran’s supreme commander-in-chief, which is the Ayatollah, conveyed to senior military officials.

“Our armed forces also have a very clear mission and, drawing on the experiences of the past t

wo wars, are much stronger than before,” the FM stated. Iran says Hormuz could be reopened within two days if conditions met… Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had on Saturday put his military on heightened alert, ordering military commanders to ensure an immediate and desvastating response to any threat, and notably without geographical limitation.

“Any level or type of threat must be met with an immediate, impactful, and geographically unrestricted response,” the Ayatollah – who has not been seen in public since the war began – stated.


This was reportedly the result of a meeting with senior military commanders – itself a very rare thing, given that he’s not so much as been seen in public since the assassination of his father. Al Jazeera described the significance further, writing that “Iranians have been emphasising that if a new wave of war comes, Iran is going to go beyond the locations that it has hit in the previous rounds.” Meanwhile some alarming videos have surfaced over the weekend showing results of some of the latest Iranian attacks on tankers.

https://twitter.com/ATLAS_PULSEe/status/2116886463736651975?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2116886463736651975%7Ctwgr%5E9bcfb66ca012febfb97a1a9002a8db943d049390%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Firans-araghchi-hopes-rationality-us-amid-signs-renewed-war-could-erupt


As for the status of indirect negotiations between Tehran and Washington, Araghchi also said, “Consultations are ongoing but we have not yet reached a definitive conclusion because this conclusion depends on the answers the other side gives to our questions. There was no plan to negotiate with the American side during this trip.” So the talks are still not yet ‘direct’ and it’s unclear on if there are plans to engage in such.

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Coup.

What I did notice is the people protesting in the street all seem to be pro-President.

• Polish PM Tusk Says He Won’t Back Down (ZH)

Pro-EU Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk defended his decision to suspend top court judges and accused the opposition of resorting to violence in an attempt to destroy the rule-of-law. As Bloomberg reports, Tusk said in a TV address on Saturday that the Constitutional Tribunal in its current form isn’t independent and his government’s attempts to fix it have been sabotaged by the Law & Justice party and President Karol Nawrocki.


“We have waited too long to be intimidated and to back down now,” Tusk said. “I’m confident that the Constitutional Tribunal will begin to function as it ought to – independently, autonomously, and in accordance with the Constitution.” Tusk went on to accuse conservative nationalist opposition leaders of wanting to “destroy democracy and rule of law” in a speech addressing the ongoing constitutional crisis.

“Let’s call things by their name,” he said. “For years in Poland there exist organisations and politicians who wish to destroy democracy and rule of law.” As a reminder, the pro-European government said the suspension is necessary to restore judicial independence, while critics from the opposition have likened it to a “coup d’etat.”

~~~~~

It is approaching 24 hours since Poland was dramatically plunged into a Constitutional crisis. Starting Friday night, Prime Minister Donald Tusk staged a forced takeover of one of the country’s top courts, prompting Polish President Karol Nawrocki to abrubtly turn back his plane which was en route to Africa for a scheduled state visit.

“At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning,” he wrote on X. The globe’s attention then turned to Warsaw and site of the Constitutional Tribunal, where police had surrounded it, and prevented the independent body’s leaders from entering its grounds.

Protesters also soon descended, after it was revealed that the court’s longest-serving judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska had suspended Bogdan Swieczkowski, the tribunal’s president. The country’s main anti-Tusk opposition decried the blatant judicial power-grab. President Nawrocki, an ally of the previous nationalist and Right-wing government is now in a desperate battle against Tusk’s pro-EU government for ultimate control of the judiciary.

Tusk’s ruling coalition has been trying for weeks to remove judges appointed under the previous PiS government, and now the trigger has been pulled in the most obvious of ways – with the clash literally spilling into the streets amid a stand off with police. After disembarking his plane upon his abrupt return to Warsaw Friday night, President Nawrocki physically attempted to gain entry amid unpredented displays of scuffles breaking out at the top court:


Outside the court the Associated Press observed clashes with police as the crowds grew and security blocked all entrances, even to top court officials:

“Hundreds of anti-government protesters rallied overnight around a top court in Poland to denounce the suspension of the tribunal’s president, for which they blame the country’s pro-European government. Police said they detained three protesters after some threw objects at the officers and tried to break through the security fence around the court.”

The primary responsibility of the tribunal is conducting judicial review to verify that Polish statutes adhere to constitutional standards. The Friday night chaos started when it was the Polish official agency PAP which was the first to report that court chief Bogdan Sierczkowski and his number two, Bartlomiej Sochanski, were suspended for a month by order of Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska.

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Putin is Satan. No talking to him.

“Alexander Stubb has said it was important for him and Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Store to hear the Russian leader’s stance on Ukraine firsthand..”

• Finland’s President Defends Calling Putin (RT)


Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb has defended the phone conversation he and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store had with Russian leader Vladimir Putin earlier this week following criticism from some Moscow hawks in Europe.


The two Nordic leaders made the rare phone call on Tuesday, with discussions focusing mainly on the Ukraine conflict, as well as security in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea. The conversation followed US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg last week and subsequent consultations in Oslo involving Stubb, Store, and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.

Both Moscow and Kiev have since agreed to take part in a fourth round of US-mediated trilateral talks that is expected to take place in Abu Dhabi in November, with European countries excluded from the peace process, according to the Kremlin.

Appearing on Yle’s Ykkosaamu (Morning One) program on Saturday, Stubb noted that Tuesday’s call was the first time since becoming Finland’s president that he had spoken with Putin. Stubb emphasized the importance of hearing firsthand the Russian leader’s view of the root causes of the Ukraine conflict, describing the direct exchange of opinions as a “turning point.”

Stubb said he and Store reopened the “channel of communication” with Moscow at Kiev’s request and relayed Zelensky’s messages to Putin after consultations with US and Ukrainian representatives. He emphasized, however, that Helsinki was “not acting as any kind of peace mediator here.” Both Nordic leaders earlier specifically pointed out that they were not speaking on behalf of Europe.

The Finnish president clarified that aside from the Ukraine conflict, he and Store brought up the security of their respective countries, which both share an extensive border with Russia.Among other things, the two Nordic leaders used the opportunity to “clear up some misunderstandings” regarding the Baltic Sea, reaffirming their adherence to international maritime law and the principle of freedom of navigation.

Stubb defended what he described as the “first confidence-building measure” by noting that “Russia is our neighbor now and will remain our neighbor in the future,” with bilateral relations liable to resume at one point. In the wake of their call with Putin, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen accused the two Nordic leaders of breaking European ranks, claiming the conversation had “not been coordinated with the rest of us” – an objection echoed by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Responding to these criticisms, Stubb stressed that he and Store extensively briefed Zelensky and multiple EU leaders afterward. Most Western European leaders shunned direct contact with Moscow after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 in an attempt to diplomatically isolate Russia. However, in recent weeks they have mounted an effort to secure a seat at the negotiation table as Moscow and Washington ramp up diplomatic work aimed at resolving the conflict.

Commenting on his phone conversation with the two Nordic leaders, Putin stated on Thursday that Russia supported “any steps aimed at restoring full-fledged and comprehensive relations” with European countries.“After all, there are people in Europe who, unlike some others, do not want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia but instead want to establish some kind of constructive dialogue,” the Russian president explained.

He also reiterated that Moscow is not seeking a broader conflict with the EU or NATO.

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How Macron can say with a straight face that there are no invaders.

• Macron’s Riot Problem Isn’t the Mystery He Says It Is (Eric Florack)

The French republican tradition insists on one national identity, so the government largely refuses to sort its citizens by ethnicity, and INSEE, the French statistical agency, operates under real legal restrictions on the subject. A French citizen is French. No hyphens, no ethnic boxes. No worries about who you import and no worries, either, about those who decide they don’t want to be French at all, but foreign invaders.


As ideals go, it’s worthwhile, if you ignore reality. Declaring everyone part of the same national community doesn’t make them participate in it. You can decree national unity. You can’t manufacture social cohesion by pretending the question doesn’t exist. And refusing to count makes the hard questions harder, not easier.

The truly maddening part is that Macron knows this. In the very same speech, he blamed the violence on “far-left groups” that, along with plenty of ordinary criminals, unleashed violence without restraint. So he identified the arsonists by name and then pretended to be baffled about who lit the match. That isn’t leadership. That’s a man reading two different speeches at once.

And if you want to know what those groups stand for, look at what they set on fire tonight: American and Israeli flags. Not even French flags. Ask yourself what American and Israeli flags have to do with French school budgets, or the price of a liter of diesel. Not a blessed thing, of course. But it has everything to do with the worldview of the people throwing the Molotov cocktails. In their eyes, the Judeo-Christian West is the villain. America and Israel are the West at its most confident, so those flags burn first, and the cost-of-living grievances are just the costume.

There are real complaints underneath all this. No question of that. Energy prices in France were 21.3% higher in September than a year earlier, pushing overall inflation to 3.1%. A government that can’t keep schools staffed has earned some anger. But Macron’s answer has been a speech, a “crisis unit,” and a promise that lessons will be learned. He also had to answer for being spotted with his wife at a Céline Dion concert the night the riots broke out. Meanwhile, about 70,000 police and gendarmes had to be deployed nationwide to keep the lid on.

The French voters see it. Far-right presidential hopeful Jordan Bardella called Macron’s speech “lamentable” and “cowardly,” and said the government can no longer even protect its own people. Over on the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon says the government alone is responsible for the destruction. When the far right and the far left agree you’ve failed, you’ve probably failed. France picks Macron’s successor in May, and from where I sit, the job is going to someone who isn’t confused about who is burning the place down. Assuming France exists as such by that point.

They’re not alone, though. Many countries have succumbed to the demands of Brussels on the matter of citizenship, with Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Belgium, among them. And in every single case, officials in those countries blame living costs, unemployment, extremists, or “inequality.” Immigration never makes the list. Nor does a lack of cultural assimilation. But there again, why would they admit that their own hands were a part of that mess?

Now, before anyone on this side of the Atlantic gets too comfortable sneering at the French, remember that we have our own versions of these people, and some of them are on the ballot Tuesday. (I’m looking at YOU, Michigan).

In last week’s column, I talked about the DSA’s slate of candidates and how far into the Democrat Party they’ve gotten. The ideology that burns American and Israeli flags in Paris is the same one that considers ICE a “rogue” agency and sees our own police as the enemy. The only difference is how far along each country is.

We still have time to do better. That starts Tuesday.

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“The IMF has warned that Kiev’s finances are unsustainable without restructuring and continued foreign assistance..”

Kiev is beyond broke, but Euope wants to fight Putin.

Kiev’s debt is Europe’s debt.

• Ukraine’s Public Debt Has Surged 130-Fold Since 2006 (RT)

Ukraine’s state and state-guaranteed debt has surged roughly 130-fold in national currency terms over the past two decades, according to figures from the country’s Finance Ministry. In recent months, Kiev has been struggling to plug multi-billion-dollar holes in its budget while pleading with its reluctant backers in the EU for more assistance.


The ministry released the updated figure on Tuesday, putting debt at 9.54 trillion hryvnias ($212.61 billion) as of late September, compared with 73.29 billion hryvnias ($14.51 billion) in September 2006.

The staggering increase is partly explained by the hryvnia’s depreciation, with the currency losing nearly 90% of its value against the US dollar over the same period. However, the increase remains substantial even in dollar terms, with the debt expanding 14.6-fold. It has also more than doubled from $97.95 billion at the end of 2021, just before the escalation of Kiev’s conflict with Russia in February 2022.

Foreign governments and international institutions now account for 66.4% of Ukraine’s debt portfolio, much of it on preferential terms, which helps to alleviate the financial burden. Kiev has a debt repayment schedule extending through 2061 and is obliged to pay almost $33 billion to global financial institutions in interest and servicing costs alone, on top of the principal of almost $107 billion. For comparison’s sake, Ukraine’s 2021 GDP was around $200 billion.

Ukraine’s dire financial strain did not escape the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which warned in July that Kiev’s debt “remains unsustainable” without restructuring and further preferential foreign assistance.

Kiev’s financial burden came into the spotlight in late summer when Vladimir Zelensky disclosed an unexpected $27 billion defense funding gap – which emerged after his 40-day PR ‘pressure campaign’ on Russia – and urged Brussels to frontload part of its €90 billion loan earmarked for 2027.

The EU, however, refused to validate the figure and approve further assistance, urging Ukraine to make progress on stalled governance and anti-corruption reforms to unlock funding that was already available. In early October, Kiev managed to plug the gap with austerity measures and by convincing the EU to defer some payments for weapons until the next year.

Still, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas acknowledged on Thursday that European leaders were finding it increasingly difficult to justify continued assistance to Kiev because “everyone is tired of this war,” while urging Western governments to continue supporting Ukraine.

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100 schemes just like it. Corruption like maybe some African nations have seen.

• Millions Embezzled In Fraud Scheme At Ukrainian Defense Firm – Probe (RT)

A former head of a state-owned Ukrainian defense company is suspected of embezzling millions of dollars through fake mediation deals, the country’s anti-corruption bodies have said. Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced in a statement on Friday that the scheme had cost the government 1.1 billion hryvnia (around $43 million).


The Western-backed agencies, which frequently target Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s inner-circle, didn’t name the suspect, only saying that he used to lead a subsidiary of Ukrspecexport, a state-run company with exclusive rights to export and import military hardware. According to the investigators, the former head of the state-run firm signed a deal with a foreign company in 2015 for it to provide mediation during the sales of Ukrainian military products abroad.

However, it had been established that the Ukrainian firm had conducted all of the negotiations with a customer from a Middle Eastern country on its own, and the foreign company wasn’t involved, they said. Despite this fact, the official signed falsified documents about mediation services being provided by the foreign company and transferred millions to it as payment, the statement read. The actions of the suspect are being qualified as large-scale embezzlement and forgery of government papers, it added.

Ukrainskaya Pravda reported later in the day that, according to its sources, the official in question is Taras Shiyko, who now holds the positions of the deputy director of Ukroboronprom, a state-run conglomerate comprised of Ukraine’s arms makers. The fraud scheme relates to his time as the head of Progress, a state-run export and import company. Shiyko became part of an anti-corruption case earlier this year, involving the suspected embezzlement of 32 million hryvnia (around $700,000).

Zelensky’s government has been rocked by a series of corruption scandals involving people close to him since November 2025, when NABU and SAPO accused Timur Mindich, a longtime associate of the Ukrainian leader, of masterminding a $100 million kickback scheme involving state contracts in the energy sector. Other investigations have implicated former Ukrainian ministers, diplomats, and senior officials.

NABU’s latest high-profile case targeted an alleged protection racket involving scam call centers and officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office. Although he was not personally named as a suspect, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko left Ukraine before being dismissed by parliament last month, according to Ukrainian media.

Critics accuse Zelensky of leading a sprawling corruption network which permeates his government, allegedly helping him maintain power and enriching those involved. A poll issued by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) last month suggested that the Ukrainians consider corruption to be a bigger problem for the country than the conflict with Russia.

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“.,.to Restore EU Oil Refining Capacity

They never replaced what they took away. They ignored they use energy at all.

• European Commission Begins Reevaluating Emissions Trading System (CTH)

,This is an interesting potential shift in energy position for the European Union. There has been zero investment by the EU nations in oil refining capacity. Simultaneously, Europe is now realizing they need diesel and jet fuel. Under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), refineries have an ever-diminishing cap on carbon emissions, and they receive fewer ‘free’ pollution allowances over time.


This means oil refining costs go up steadily, increasing the cost of operating the dirty carbon facilities, while these same refineries must adhere to stricter environmental rules and pollution limits under the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED). The entire regulatory system was created to eliminate gasoline, diesel and eventually jet fuel.

As the EU is now discovering, their climate change policies have been executed but the global and EU drop in demand has not occurred at the same pace. The EU is now in a position where the percentage of their own oil refining production is lower than their needs. More energy dependency has been created.

With the EU energy analysts now saying they don’t have the fuel capacity to support the political demands for a war with Russia, in combination with President Trump continually affirming the U.S. will not get involved in any expanded conflict, the European Union is now reevaluating how to increase domestic fuel production.

EUROPE – Over the past couple of decades, Europe has pursued some of the world’s most ambitious clean energy policies, aiming to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Hardly surprisingly, Europe is now further along the clean energy transition compared to its western peers, with renewables accounting for roughly half of the continent’s power mix compared to about 26% by the U.S. However, Europe is now being forced to reckon with its decision to ditch some of its fossil fuel assets as yet another global energy crisis unfolds just years after the 2022 energy crisis.

[…] the continent has been forced to rely more heavily on imported refined products, exposing it to geopolitical risks. The Iran and Ukraine wars have led to a spike in oil and gas prices, with EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen terming geopolitical instability and the prolonged diesel squeeze a “wake-up call” for the bloc.

[…] Central European nations like Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia have been pressuring the European Commission to establish a long-term protective strategy for Europe’s oil refineries. They have called for refineries to be protected from carbon leakage and given access to EU funds to upgrade.

[…] now, Brussels is looking to rethink its long-standing approach to the domestic oil-refining industry. On Wednesday, the European Commission launched the first High-Level Dialogue with the European oil refining sector. Co-chaired by Dan Jørgensen (Commissioner for Energy and Housing) and Andrius Kubilius (Commissioner for Defence and Space), the forum discussed Europe’s energy security, industrial competitiveness and defense readiness amid recurring geopolitical disruptions.

Participants mapped out short-term responses to supply disruptions stemming from ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, noting that EU refineries currently supply approximately 70% of jet fuel and 85% of diesel consumed across Europe. (read more)

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I keep asking myself: How did she become worth $25 million?

Did she bring that from Somalia?

• The Ilhan Omar Immigration Fraud Case Is Bigger Than We Thought (Margolis)

When DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin sat down with Fox News on Friday, he delivered some delicious news about the federal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).


“This isn’t just a case that’s targeting one individual,” Mullin explained. “This is a large case that we have presented to the DOJ, and the DOJ is leading the investigations.” Mullin credited the Homeland Security Investigations agents who searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on October 12 and hauled out boxes of material. Those agents “did a lot of investigation to be able to present the case to them,” he said.

The probe dates back to 2009, when Somalia-born Omar married Ahmed Elmi. Investigators want to know whether that marriage was part of an immigration fraud conspiracy, and whether Omar lied on government paperwork to become a citizen. Elmi is a British citizen who, we recently learned, describes himself as gay, and the evidence points to him being her brother, with the marriage allowing him to remain in the country legally.

Investigators are also scrutinizing her House financial disclosures, which may have padded her net worth by tens of millions of dollars. The New York Post reported Friday that on Omar’s certified 2009 marriage license from Hennepin County, Minn., her surname was crossed out, swapped for “Elmi,” and then switched back to “Omar.” The rest of Omar’s personal history only adds to the mess. She reportedly had her staff change her birth year from 1981 to 1982 so she could appear to have obtained naturalization as a minor through her father in 2000.

The FBI and DHS examined the brother-marriage allegations back in 2016, while Omar was running for the Minnesota legislature. Now that the case is alive again, the usual suspects are crying foul. Former President Barack Obama publicly criticized the probe, apparently forgetting that the investigation first got rolling while he was still in the White House. “I’ve made this very, very, very, very clear: we’re enforcing our nation’s laws across the board equally, and we’re going to continue to do that,” Mullin said in response to Obama.

He added that political standing buys no one a pass. “I don’t care where you’re seated, and I don’t care how you’re registered to vote, I don’t care what your job title is,” he continued. “We use it equally.” Mullin also turned the weaponization charge back on the people making it, arguing that Democrats “came after their political enemies like President Trump, and they know they weaponized our DOJ and FBI.”

Earlier in the interview, he made the same point about the Omar probe specifically. “We’re enforcing our nation’s laws, and we’re going to do that. We’re not weaponizing. We’re not using political theater on this,” Mullin said. “We’re going to let the facts play out, we’re not playing politics with this — I said this from day one, we’re not playing politics with anybody’s lives.”

This is going to be fun.

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“If we’ve had a foreign nationalist occupying a seat in Congress, that’s a problem,” she said, adding that Congress would be “failing to do their job.”

• Ilhan Omar’s Marriage Application To ‘Brother’ Surfaces With Bizarre Errors (ZH)

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s 2009 Minnesota marriage license application to Ahmed Elmi, the man accused of being her brother, shows her surname written as Omar, crossed out and changed to Elmi, then changed back to Omar, according to a certified copy from Hennepin County obtained by the New York Post.


The name changes could matter because the Justice Department is investigating whether the Somalia-born Minnesota Democrat fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship in 2000 by failing to use her true legal name and birthdate. That case grew out of an earlier probe into whether Omar committed immigration fraud by marrying Elmi, a British citizen.

The document arrives weeks into an escalating federal effort. Homeland Security Investigations agents raided Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on Oct. 12 as part of the immigration fraud probe. In a court filing last week, the Justice Department referred to her as “Congresswoman Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” A source familiar with the investigation told the Post that Omar is not her real name and that her birth surname is Elmi, the same as the man she married.

The application is dated Feb. 12, 2009. One question asks whether the bride and groom are related by blood or adoption, and the couple checked “no.” The first revision on the form reads “Ilhan Omar Elmi,” a version that differs from the name the Justice Department now uses in court. The document does not identify who filled it out, though all the entries appear to share one person’s handwriting.

An image of the application has circulated online for years. Alpha News, a Minnesota outlet, appears to have first published it in August 2016. Major news outlets gave it little attention until this month. Scott W. Johnson, a retired Minneapolis attorney and former Alpha News board member, has spent ten years investigating Omar’s alleged immigration fraud. “Questions should be asked. She’s never answered them,” Johnson said. “The whole thing was a joke. The marriage was a fraudulent marriage, brazenly fraudulent… It was entered into for a fraudulent purpose.”

A Christian minister married Omar and Elmi on Feb. 12, 2009, the same date the application bears. By then, Omar already had two children with Ahmed Hirsi, whom she had married in a 2002 Islamic ceremony that never became a legal marriage. In May 2009, Hirsi listed the address on the Omar-Elmi marriage license as his own home. Omar had a third child with Hirsi in June 2012 and finalized her divorce from Elmi in 2017. She legally married Hirsi in 2018, filed for divorce a year later, and married her current husband, Tim Mynett, in 2020.

The Justice Department first opened an investigation into Omar in 2016, under President Barack Obama, into whether Omar married her brother so he could get a green card. The Biden administration closed that probe in 2021 for two reasons. The five-year statute of limitations had run out, meaning prosecutors would have had to file charges by 2014, and the FBI could not interview Elmi, who had returned to the U.K.

Legal experts told the Post that federal investigators now appear focused on a possible conspiracy involving ongoing acts, such as misstating a birthdate, which the earlier statute of limitations may not bar. Civil denaturalization carries no statute of limitations and could lead to Omar’s deportation.

In an academic paper published in August, Elmi, a doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, identified himself as a “gay man of the East African diaspora.” Omar has broadly dismissed the allegations as a racist conspiracy theory and a politically motivated smear. Last week, MS NOW anchor Chris Hayes asked her directly whether she married her brother. “Not to my knowledge,” Omar said.


AJ Kern, a former Minnesota congressional candidate who has examined Omar’s immigration records and birthdate discrepancies, told the Post she sees the record as clear. “I think it’s pretty clear she married her brother and committed immigration fraud,” Kern said. Kern said the larger issue is the possibility of a non-citizen holding federal office.

“If we’ve had a foreign nationalist occupying a seat in Congress, that’s a problem,” she said, adding that Congress would be “failing to do their job.”

Read more …

If I got this right,Trump’s personal lawyer Alina Habba is married to a 25-year-old Turkish billionnaire with business interests in Venezuela and Congo?! Do I believe that?

• Alina Habba Says Grenell Blocked $5.6M Of Billionaire Husband’s Donation (ZH)

Alina Habba told President Trump in the Oval Office that Richard Grenell, the Trump ally who ran the Kennedy Center, never delivered roughly $5.6 million of a $17.6 million payment her husband wired at his direction, and White House counsel Will Scharf has been told to look into it. Grenell denies it all. The dispute has since turned toward Habba’s husband, Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon, his Venezuelan and Congolese business ties, and whose money the wire really was.


Richard Grenell and Alina Habba Mildon had once been close friends.


According to the NY Times, Habba brought the accusation to the Oval Office on Oct. 9, after the Times sent Mildon questions about his Venezuela business. She said Mildon made the payment in May 2025 at Grenell’s direction, believing about $5.6 million would be set aside for the Kennedy Center, and that the money never reached it. The wire itself went to TX-AT, a Texas security and defense equipment company, not to the Kennedy Center. Trump called in Scharf to hear her out.

Her account has moved. People familiar with the discussion told the Times she described the sum first as a donation of about $17 million, then as roughly $6 million, and eventually said most of the payment was a business transaction whose details remain unclear, with the remainder meant for the Kennedy Center. The Times said it had not verified her accusations.

The Times then reported on Oct. 17 that the $17.6 million came from a bank account linked to the Congolese government, not from Mildon himself. AllAfrica’s account of that report says the commercial arrangement behind the payment “remains unclear,” and that TX-AT and Congolese officials did not respond to the Times. The first documents sent to the White House on the couple’s behalf blacked out the sender’s name, Rio Times reported.


Turhan Mildon at the iKinshasa Financial Center, December 2023


Mildon, through a spokesman, has acknowledged advising Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and holding a Congolese diplomatic passport. His company, Milvest, built the Kinshasa Financial Center. None of that establishes that Congolese state money paid for anything in the dispute, and nothing published shows Tshisekedi or his aides knew of the wire. The Justice Department’s foreign-agent registry lists no registration for Mildon, Milvest, TX-AT, Grenell or Habba, according to the Rio Times.

Grenell has told the Times and Axios that he never received any payment from Mildon. “I’ve never asked for one cent to be sent somewhere else pretending it was for the Kennedy Center, and I’ve never received any payment from him at all,” he told Axios. He called the allegations “absurd” and told the Daily Beast, “Make him give proof to what he is saying.” He acknowledged consulting for TX-AT in 2024 but said he had no connection to the company when the wire was sent, and denied soliciting payments for it.


The Kennedy Center’s own records are thin. Mildon pledged $270,000 after a gala concert and paid it only the week the Times asked why he had not. The center says it is examining the relevant pledges and funds and will report to its board. Mildon’s lawyers also gave Scharf a text that allegedly shows Grenell offering to make Mildon the “American face down in V,” a reference to Venezuela. Grenell told the Times he never sent that message or anything like it.

That Venezuela thread is where the scrutiny now falls on Mildon. He has extensive business interests there, and U.S. officials and intelligence officers have examined his relationship with Alex Saab, the Maduro confidant who awarded him a cement contract. Mildon says he is 29, but U.S. documents and British corporate records list him as 25; he declined to explain the difference to the Times. Grenell was at the time Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela.

Scharf is still gathering evidence, Axios reported, and has been slow to receive records from Habba and Mildon’s attorneys. A Trump insider told Axios it is the “ultimate MAGA blood feud.” What would settle it is the wire’s true sender, what the $17.6 million was for, and what Grenell actually said to Mildon. None of those questions has an answer on the public record.

Read more …

“Should a Foreign Head of State Be Able to Vote in United States Elections?”

• “The Pope Doesn’t Take Sides” (Turley)

“So, the Pope doesn’t take sides. Prevost has another opinion, but we won’t do that now.” That funny quip from Pope Leo XIV (born Robert Prevost) referred to the historic game in Rome when the Villanova and Notre Dame basketball teams play each other.


However, a story this week raised a different question of when the Pope, as opposed to Prevost, can “take sides.” This month, American-born Pope Leo XIV became the first pope ever to vote in a U.S. election.

A longtime Chicago native, the Pope mailed an absentee ballot to Will County, and the clerk’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital that “Robert Prevost is on the list of individuals who requested a Vote by Mail ballot.” There is no question that the Pope can vote in the Holy See. Indeed, he is the ultimate and final vote in the Vatican, but can he actually vote in Illinois races (including the governor’s race involving incumbent Democrat J.B. Pritzker)? The answer appears to be yes, but it raises some novel questions.

Now, as a threshold matter, I want to shed some bias. I was raised Catholic in Chicago. No, that is not the bias. There is that lingering conflict with the Pope coming out as a White Sox fan. Many of us on the North Side hoped for a conversion to restore our faith in papal infallibility. However, he has remained entrenched in his South Side allegiance.

This column rises above that historic rivalry and does not suggest that White Sox fans can be challenged at the polls. (Besides, I previously explained that the Pope is a Cubs fan without knowing it.) Rather, what surprised me was that the head of a foreign state could vote in U.S. elections. The Vatican is a distinct nation with a diplomatic corps, a court system, a local government, and even a military in the form of the legendary Swiss Guards.

The Holy See Press Office declared, “Pope Leo XIV has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen whenever he was eligible to do so. The Holy See Press Office confirms that, in keeping with this long-standing practice of civic participation, he has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago.”

The Holy See maintains that Pope Leo retains his status as a U.S. citizen while serving as the head of a foreign nation. There is support for this position. The State Department has maintained that dual citizens do not have to choose between their countries, though it does not expect them to serve as the head of another country.

“U.S. dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country (or countries, if they are nationals of more than one). They are required to obey the laws of both countries, and either country has the right to enforce its laws. Claims of other countries upon U.S. dual-nationals may result in conflicting obligations under the laws of each country. U.S. dual nationals may also face restrictions in the U.S. consular protections available to U.S. nationals abroad, particularly in the country of their other nationality.”

Notably, the State Department requires dual citizens to use a U.S. passport to enter the country. Does that mean that, when traveling as head of state, Pope Leo has to use a U.S. passport? Unlikely, but intriguing. It strikes me as odd that a person can lead another country and still vote in U.S. elections. With all of those worried about Russian interference in elections, imagine if Putin could actually vote in U.S. elections. Obviously, Pope Leo is greatly loved and represents someone whose values are aligned with this country. Yet, he is also the head of state of a foreign nation.

Under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), military personnel and citizens abroad are allowed to vote in U.S. elections. It is no longer considered an absentee vote requiring an excuse but simply a mail-in ballot. The question is whether this right should be suspended when you assume a position in a foreign nation, let alone the head of such a nation.

Dual citizenship has long been debated over the difficult questions raised by nations with opposing values and interests. However, being the head of a foreign government with potentially opposing interests and actions to the United States creates a curious status. It turns out that when Gov. Pritzker met with the Pope last year, he was actually meeting with a constituent and voter.

I am most surprised that the Vatican does not have a policy against such voting, though this is admittedly unprecedented. I would think that the head of the Catholic faith and the head of a foreign government would have a single national citizenship running to the Holy See. All popes are selected from the global faithful by the College of Cardinals and thus have national citizenship with other countries.

In assuming their positions, the cardinals “pledge and swear, as individuals and as a group, to observe faithfully and scrupulously the prescriptions contained in the Apostolic Constitution.” They also reaffirm that they are not subject to countervailing allegiances or pressures from outside of the College: “And never to lend support or favour to any interference, opposition or any other form of intervention, whereby secular authorities of whatever order and degree or any group of people or individuals might wish to intervene in the election of the Roman Pontiff.”

However, it is fascinating that, once elected, Popes do not shed that status upon assuming the head of the Holy See.

It is an uncomfortable question since it also raises whether the head of a foreign government should have dual citizenship. Most people were legitimately thrilled (including myself) by the first American Pope and can view this as an unlikely “one-off.” However, it could just as easily happen with another nation and a dual citizen.

At the risk of my own excommunication, it seems a worthy question for discussion, even though I doubt any politicians would relish such a debate. For his part, Pope Leo stated before the Villanova-Notre Dame game that the Pope will not take sides in the U.S. elections, but Robert Prevost will.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 25 2026

Oct 252026
 
 October 25, 2026  Posted by at 9:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  24 Responses »


Detail of a fresco from the House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii, 2nd century BC


• Ukraine Says Starlink Speed Restrictions Lifted (JTN)
• Musk Admits SpaceX Throttled Starlink In Ukraine
• Kiev Retreats On Nazi Collaborator Tribute – Warsaw (RT)
• Zelensky Accuses Trump of ‘Totally False’ Statements (RT)
• Trump Is More Serious Than Ever About Cutting Deals With Putin (Korybko)
• Only Citizen-Patriots Can Save the West (J.B. Shurk)
• The Globalist Assault On America (Istvan Toth)
• Many Western Governments Won’t Survive (J.B. Shurk)
• MS NOW, Omar, and the Art of the Evasion (Turley)
• The Democrats Plan a Coup to Overthrow the Federal Government (IPaul Craig Roberts)
• The Deep Midterms (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Another October Surprise? (Kenneth R. Timmerman)
• A Final Appeal to Michigan’s Jewish Voters (Hanscom)

 

 

 

 


A lot of content today. Good thing it’s Sunday. Smiley.

• Ukraine Says Starlink Speed Restrictions Lifted (JTN)

Ukraine’s military has regained full access to Starlink satellite communications for drones and other fast-moving equipment after restrictions disrupted operations on the battlefield for more than a week, Ukrainian officials said. Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said monitoring systems confirmed stable connections for equipment traveling faster than 250 mph.


The speed restrictions affected Starshield, SpaceX’s military-grade satellite communications service, which Ukraine relies on for drone missions, military logistics and communications near the front lines. Khmara cited direct negotiations and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s diplomatic efforts with Washington as instrumental in restoring access. https://twitter.com/mtntallpaul/status/2113779495333253464?s=20

Read more …

“Because Kiev Violated Terms Of Service..”

It’s still not super clear, but from what I understand:

Ukraine broke into Starlink/Starshield, in order to make it work faster for their drones.

Starlink found this out and threw them out.

• Musk Admits SpaceX Throttled Starlink In Ukraine (ZH)

Elon Musk said Saturday that SpaceX throttled Starlink service in Ukraine, ending a week in which Washington and SpaceX pointed at each other over who limited the connection Kiev’s drones depend on, the Associated Press reported. The admission came after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said access to Starlink and Starshield had been restored to its earlier speeds.


Musk replied “Correct” on X and wrote that “Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be,” adding that Starshield, “a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them.” The rest of the post, as AP quotes it: “Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.”


Neither Musk’s post nor Hegseth’s reference to terms of service names a specific violation. The Defense Secretary said Tuesday that terms of service “ultimately need to be complied” with, but gave no detail, Stars and Stripes reported. Ukrainian officials said the speed limit arrived without warning, and Zelenskyy said terminals in EU countries worked at speeds above 112 mph, which suggested the cutoff was not a technical failure.

Musk’s account also sits awkwardly with what he said on Oct. 14. He then wrote that “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government” and that any limits on speed or use “are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” Straight Arrow News reported. On Saturday he claimed credit for closing the Starlink “loophole” while still insisting that Starshield, the military-grade system behind Ukraine’s drone operations, answers to the U.S. government, AP said.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk personally ordered the cap. One of its sources said he and President Trump discussed the move before it took effect, while others said they spoke only after it became public, and some U.S. officials said Musk acted alone. Administration denials have been broad. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “there was no foreknowledge,” Hegseth said “we haven’t pulled anything back,” and a White House official said “we didn’t slow down Starlink at all.” Trump has said he did not make the call but that Musk should not be blamed, AP noted.


The Journal later reported that Trump called Musk on Wednesday and asked him to lift the limits, a story ZH covered Thursday when Kiev said disruptions continued. Zelenskyy has since written that “the speeds are now where they need to be,” with restoration starting overnight, and Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara credited “direct dialogue” with Washington.

The cap, which Ukrainian officials put at about 100 mph, or 160 km/h, dropped terminals offline and, Zelenskyy said, caused interceptor drones to crash. It also landed as Kiev defied Trump’s calls to stop hitting Russian refineries. Oleksandr Merezhko, who chairs Ukraine’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, called it “an attempt at blackmailing us,” Newsweek reported. That is one Ukrainian lawmaker’s reading, and nothing in the reporting confirms a link.

Congress wants answers. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said that if Musk ordered the disruption, “that is likely a violation of law,” and Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) asked Hegseth on Oct. 19 to investigate and report to the defense committees within 30 days, per Stars and Stripes.

The restoration follows a new U.S. diplomatic push. AP said Russia agreed Wednesday to resume three-way talks with Washington and Kyiv next month, and Kyiv and Moscow agreed Friday to a localized ceasefire around occupied Oleshky, brokered by Melania Trump. Ukraine, meanwhile, kept striking Russian industry, with its General Staff claiming hits on a Tolyatti chemical plant and an Oryol electronics plant, and drones reaching Omsk, more than 2,000 kilometers from the border.

Read more …

“Vladimir Zelensky’s office has pledged to block a regional plan to honor UPA leader Roman Shukhevich, Polish officials claim..”

• Kiev Retreats On Nazi Collaborator Tribute – Warsaw (RT)

Kiev has moved to block a planned tribute to Nazi collaborator Roman Shukhevich, who was involved in the killing of an estimated 100,000 Poles during World War II ethnic purges, officials in Warsaw have claimed. The reported retreat comes amid a series of disputes between the two countries in recent months over Kiev’s veneration of Nazi-linked figures that have eroded Polish support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.


The controversy erupted on Tuesday when the Lviv Regional Council in western Ukraine voted to declare 2027 the Year of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and to celebrate the 120th anniversary of its commander Roman Shukhevich while deciding to organize “cultural, memorial, scientific, and mass media events,” as well as exhibitions and national patriotic rallies on the occasion.

The move triggered a fierce response in Poland, which regards the UPA as perpetrators of genocide against Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia and Shukhevich as a key “architect” of the massacres. Before becoming a UPA leader, Shukhevich served in Nazi Germany’s Nachtigall Battalion and the German-controlled 201st Schutzmannschaft Battalion, which operated in occupied Belarus.

On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk condemned the resolution as “unwise” and “suicidal tactics,” saying it “harms Ukraine,” while Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz called the move “unacceptable,” warning that it would deepen divisions between the neighboring countries. Meanwhile, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called for the resolution’s key sponsor, Lviv regional lawmaker Svyatoslav Sheremeta, to be put on a list of individuals deemed undesirable in Poland.

Following the backlash, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki said on Wednesday that officials of Vladimir Zelensky’s office had assured Warsaw that the controversial resolutions would not come into force. On Friday, Tusk echoed the claim, saying that Zelensky had personally signaled he would not endorse the resolution, adding that the Ukrainian leader was “unhappy” with the situation.

This also came after the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry called the Shukhevich tribute in Lviv “counterproductive to our current efforts aimed at further developing Ukrainian-Polish relations.” The ministry stressed that the local authorities had sought no advice from government bodies to assess the consequences of their actions.

An unnamed source in Zelensky’s office cited by Ukrainskaya Pravda went so far as to describe the decision as a “catastrophe.” “Ukraine looks erratic. We have just resolved the previous crisis – and now this,” the source said, accusing regional officials of pursuing “cheap one-day hype” despite knowing all too well what the resolution would lead to.

While senior Ukrainian officials apparently distanced themselves from the controversy, the Lviv council’s original announcement remains accessible as of Saturday. Sheremet also previously defended the resolution, saying “This is our history, our heroes, and we must duly honor their memory.”

The dispute is the latest in a series of heated clashes between Kiev and Warsaw over Ukraine’s continued veneration of nationalist figures that collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.

In May, Zelensky awarded an elite Ukrainian special operations unit the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA,” prompting another diplomatic uproar, with Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripping the Ukrainian leader of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state decoration.

Read more …

How to make friends in 5 easy steps..

“The US president is “deflecting” and unfairly blaming Kiev’s strikes on Russian refineries for rising global diesel prices, the Ukrainian leader has claimed”

• Zelensky Accuses Trump of ‘Totally False’ Statements (RT)

President Donald Trump made “totally false” statements when he blamed rising US diesel prices on Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, Vladimir Zelensky has claimed, accusing the American leader of “deflecting the focus away from Iran.” Zelensky’s remarks came amid a growing spat with Trump, who has repeatedly accused Kiev of exacerbating the global energy crisis with continued attacks on Russian oil infrastructure.


Russia has historically been the world’s second-largest exporter of diesel fuel, behind only the United States, accounting for roughly 10% of global exports. Disruptions to Russian supplies have tightened the global market, driving up prices even in countries that do not directly import Russian fuel, including the US.

“The volume of diesel exports is so negligible from Russia that it has zero impact on prices in the US. That is totally false information,” the Ukrainian leader claimed during an appearance on Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast on Thursday.

If Trump cares so much about US energy prices, then “why do American companies export energy?” Zelensky wondered rhetorically. “Well, because how can the president of the United States ban private sector exports?… It sells and money comes in.” Zelensky accused Trump of unfairly “deflecting the focus away from Iran” and lamented that “everything gets shifted onto us and I’m made the target as the leader of our country.”

According to Zelensky, “the root of the problem” lies in the Strait of Hormuz, where crude exports and other maritime traffic have dwindled to a trickle following the start of the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran in February. Earlier this month, Zelensky similarly hit out at what he described as a “weak decision” by the Trump administration after Washington temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel exports to ease the global fuel crisis.

Moscow agreed to immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel to American and global markets, followed by 500,000 tons in November, another million tons shortly thereafter, and potentially another 3 million tons, depending on refinery capacity.

Washington struck the deal with Moscow after Zelensky had repeatedly ignored Trump’s requests to stop strikes on Russian refineries. “We said, you can do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries, because that’s a world problem that’s caused,” the US president recounted earlier this month.

“And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel,” Trump lamented, accusing Zelensky of wanting to “make problems for the world.” Trump also said he found it more difficult to deal with Zelensky than with Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggesting that Ukraine should get a new leader who would not obstruct Washington’s mediation efforts.

Rising fuel prices have become an increasingly pressing domestic issue for Trump ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. US diesel prices surged to record highs above $6.50 per gallon in September, with prices in California exceeding $8 in some areas. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that Zelensky was directly challenging Trump by refusing to accept a deal aimed at easing the global diesel shortage.

In recent months, Ukraine has ramped up long-range strikes on targets inside Russia, including civilian and energy infrastructure, amid continued setbacks at the front. Moscow has denounced the attacks as acts of terrorism and responded with strikes on Ukrainian military-related facilities.

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Trump is a man who cuts deals. Putin is not. He is a former secret agent.

But they still greatly respect each other.

“Although Putin might agree to some trade-offs in Ukraine as the quid pro quo for these deals, it’s not guaranteed, but they can still be clinched so long as Trump has the will to waive more sanctions without a ceasefire first.”

• Trump Is More Serious Than Ever About Cutting Deals With Putin (Korybko)

Putin’s top aide Yury Ushakov confirmed after Steve Witkoff’s latest meeting with Putin that “Other large-scale joint economic projects, which offer significant prospects for bilateral cooperation, were also discussed in detail; some of them are now nearing the implementation stage.” This followed Putin courting the return of US investment to Russia’s resource sector in early 2025 and Kirill Dmitriev recently confirming talks on nuclear-powered data centers.

Here are the five most promising joint opportunities:
* Oil & Gas
US stakes in Russia’s energy infrastructure and companies can incentivize it to get the EU to return Russia’s frozen assets through the sequence proposed here. They’d also serve as security guarantees against Ukrainian attacks on pain of the US cutting Ukraine off if it attacks assets in which Trump personally obtained stakes for the US. A separate injection of US capital into Russia’s energy industry as the new “deal of the century” can reshape the global industry by reducing dependence on the Gulf.

* Critical Minerals
Russia’s globally significant critical mineral deposits remain woefully underexploited, but with US stakes in this industry through the abovementioned sequence and separate capital injections, it can be brought online relatively quickly for accelerating the US’ diversification from dependence on China. Russia’s sparsely populated Siberia and Far East regions can also host pollution-heavy processing facilities far away from populated and agricultural areas. This makes joint investments extremely attractive.

* Data Centers
Per Dmitriev’s recent disclosure, talks on nuclear-powered data centers represent another promising opportunity for both countries. Russia’s globally significant critical mineral deposits could be processed in the country as proposed above and then immediately put to use within these facilities. That can greatly lower the cost of constructing them, while maintaining them would be similarly cost-effective through nuclear-powered means. This could lay the basis for global nuclear and tech partnerships too.

* Power Plants
Critical mineral processing facilities and data centers can also be powered by hydroelectric dams, not just nuclear power plants, and the US can obtain stakes in all four – the facilities, centers, dams, and plants – through the return of Russia’s frozen EU assets as proposed. Separate capital injections can help fund the costs of construction in exchange for greater stakes, and any excess electricity produced through new dams and nuclear power plants can be exported to Russia’s neighbors, both in Asia and Europe.

* International Logistics
The mineral deposits in which the US recently invested in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan can reach jointly owned processing facilities in Russia through the Trans-Siberian Railway and then onward to the global market. The same goes for the US’ related investments in similarly landlocked Mongolia. As the gatekeepers of the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage through their control of the Bering Strait, separate Arctic logistical cooperation is possible too, as is cooperation on nuclear-powered icebreakers.

“Trump Is More Serious Than Ever About Cutting Deals With Putin” in order for their long-negotiated resource-centric strategic partnership, the essence of which is described in the preceding hyperlinked analyses, to irreversibly shift the balance of the Sino-US systemic rivalry in the US’ favor. Although Putin might agree to some trade-offs in Ukraine as the quid pro quo for these deals, it’s not guaranteed, but they can still be clinched so long as Trump has the will to waive more sanctions without a ceasefire first.

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“The war for Western civilization is here.”

• Only Citizen-Patriots Can Save the West (J.B. Shurk)

In a previous essay, I wrote why “Many Western Governments Won’t Survive.” Now I will address why many Western nations will prevail, despite the destructive policies of their governments. Who will save the West? Citizen-patriots. Most Western governments have already proved themselves incapable of defending the West.


They cannot or will not defend their sovereign borders from foreign invaders. They will not defend Christian principles and prefer to mock (and even prosecute) followers of Christ. They will not defend their cultures, historic symbols, traditions, or beliefs. They will not defend private property or the fruits of a person’s labor and instead use taxes and regulations to steal more and more from citizens. They will not defend free speech or the right to self-defense. They will not defend the West’s rich intellectual inheritance accumulated over millennia and stretching from Jerusalem and Athens to Northern Europe and the Americas. They will not defend the West’s way of life.

Western governments have failed to protect the West, or worse, they have intentionally sabotaged the West through many decades of institutional duplicity, psychological warfare, moral decay, venality, public contempt, foreign allegiance, and self-hatred. As Western governments have led the charge to destroy Western nations, they can hardly be expected to save us from the very carnage that they have unleashed. Instead, the coming Western renaissance will arise with the people.

We have seen flickers of this incendiary social revolution since the turn of the century. After the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks on the United States, a patriotic fervor united Americans who promised each other, “Never again.” Many of us thought the West was finally prepared to defend its civilization from the scourge of Islamism.

Rather than securing Western civilization from its enemies, the U.S. government gave us an expansive domestic surveillance system that eliminated Americans’ privacy, twenty years of war filled with ephemeral successes, misguided “democracy-building” missions in parts of the world hostile to our presence, and an influx of Muslim immigrants into our hometowns.

President Bush and Congress spied on us with the USA PATRIOT Act while calling Islam a “religion of peace.” President Obama mocked American exceptionalism during a global apology tour and preposterously insisted that Muslims were instrumental to America’s founding.

Eventually, the same members of Congress who overwhelmingly voted for war in Asia and the Middle East repudiated American patriots who risked (or lost) their lives fighting Islamic warriors “over there” so that we wouldn’t have to fight them “over here.” In another instance of bitter irony, American veterans of those wars are often called “Islamophobes” and monitored in the U.S. as “potential domestic terrorists.”

New York City has a Muslim mayor from Uganda. Minnesota has a Muslim congresswoman from Somalia who might not even be a naturalized American citizen. Michigan has another Muslim congresswoman who hates America and loves Hamas. And Michigan might elect as senator a man with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Both the number of mosques and the number of Muslims in the United States have doubled since 9/11.

After the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, American patriots volunteered to defend Western civilization from Islamic conquest. Infuriatingly, the U.S. government imported Islamic civilization into America while patriots were too busy fighting elsewhere to defend the Bill of Rights and their countrymen at home. The sting of that betrayal will never dissipate.

Patriots in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and across continental Europe have felt that same sting of betrayal. No Western government ever asked its citizens for permission to cease enforcing national borders so that it could flood ancient homelands with foreigners.

The 2016 Brexit referendum in the U.K. was an after-the-fact vote on, among other things, Britain’s European Union-mandated open borders policies. After British patriots voted for the government to get out of the E.U. and secure the kingdom from further invasion, the British Establishment effectively ignored the outcome and flooded the U.K. with even more foreign nationals.

Aside from a few Central European countries whose people and leaders have doggedly resisted the E.U.’s attempts to replace native citizens with foreigners, Europe’s demographic composition has substantially changed this century. From 2015 to 2024, over six million foreigners settled in Germany, increasing its foreign-born population from 13% to 21%. During that time, the U.K. added over four million foreigners. Malta’s foreign-born population jumped from 9% to 32%.

A new documentary called Replacing Europe traces how European governments and Western NGOs use taxpayer funds to destroy once sovereign nation states with mass migration. As one critic of the E.U. Establishment puts it, “Bureaucracies in Brussels regulate everything except the influx that is changing Europe’s demographics permanently.” The end result was entirely predictable: 87% of criminal suspects in Germany are foreigners; 74% of sex crime suspects in Spain’s Basque region are foreigners; foreigners are responsible for 87% of thefts, 61% of sexual violence, and 60% of robberies on Paris public transport; 47% of violent criminals in Bavaria are foreigners; over 80% of North African asylum seekers in Switzerland are criminal suspects; and after covering up the atrocities of Muslim rape gangs who raped over a quarter of a million British girls over the last two decades, British authorities now hand out a booklet to invaders informing them that raping women and children is illegal in the U.K. and may negatively affect their fake asylum claims.

An evil has fallen upon all of Europe, and Western governments that have opened their nations to an invasion from violent foreigners are to blame. Western governments that aided and abetted illegal immigration into their countries are criminally liable and morally culpable for every rape, robbery, murder, and terrorist attack that foreigners carry out in Western lands. Western citizens who refuse to let their families and friends be raped or murdered are not “racists,” “bigots,” “Nazis,” or “white supremacists.” On the contrary, Western governments are guilty of crimes against humanity for actively assisting foreigners who intend to rape and murder Western citizens.

Read more …

“Trump stands firm against a consumerist Europe and a woke Democrat party.”

• The Globalist Assault On America (Istvan Toth)

While Democrats continue their political maneuvering in lockstep with their European globalist allies, Donald Trump is doing something remarkable. He’s prioritizing the interests of American farmers, truck drivers, and business owners over those willing to sacrifice American values for the chimera of international approval.


European leaders operate under the naive assumption that they can exploit American generosity indefinitely without consequence. Blinded by arrogance, they have made criticizing Donald Trump a national pastime, believing they can attack him with impunity while enjoying the benefits of U.S. economic strength. This isn’t partnership; it’s treating America like an endless ATM.

The recent global diesel crisis illustrates this hypocrisy. Many “liberal intellectuals,” including those in the United States, rushed to condemn potential restrictions on American diesel exports. They conveniently ignored the fact that millions of hardworking Americans might view such a move as a long-overdue act of fairness.

European elites have grown accustomed to viewing the United States not as a sovereign nation with its own needs and priorities but as an inexhaustible resource for their benefit. They demand loyalty from Washington but are unwilling to reciprocate, supporting Trump’s policies only when they fit neatly into their utopian vision of a borderless world.

European countries have fiercely resisted U.S. efforts to redistribute roles and financial obligations within NATO. Consider the numbers: The European Union has approximately 452 million people, the United States has 340 million, and Russia has just 140 million. Despite this demographic advantage, European nations have long expected the U.S. to defend them against Russia, whose economy is already strained by its war in Ukraine, without contributing their fair share. They call this “transatlantic solidarity.” A more accurate term would be “freeloading.”

This disregard for shared responsibility extends beyond military spending. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive is a prime example. Its complex supply-chain vetting requirements, including those affecting American dairy producers, threaten to impose substantial financial and administrative burdens on American companies, undermining their competitiveness. Even businesses serving primarily domestic markets can face compliance pressures through their relationships with European clients.

Essentially, Europe believes it has the right to exploit American energy resources, products, and markets while imposing its own regulatory demands. European leaders have no intention of backing down. This is the distorted reality they’ve constructed on the eve of crucial congressional elections.

The Democrat party: Globalism at Home and Abroad
But the assault on America doesn’t end with Europe. In lockstep with these globalist forces, the Democrat party is undermining America from within. While Trump addresses real issues such as fuel prices, job creation, and energy independence, Democrats engage in a kind of “political cosplay,” lost in a fantasy world of utopian ideals and disconnected from the struggles of everyday Americans.

Their domestic policies have devolved into a series of unproductive experiments. Their failure to secure the southern border has unleashed a wave of illegal immigration, fueling crime and overwhelming social services. The radical socialist programs they support require unsustainable taxation and government spending, threatening inflation and economic stagnation.

Dividing America: Elites vs. the Heartland
Democrats are widening the gap between Washington and the heartland. Coastal elites, comfortable in their offices and insulated from reality, view the problems of ordinary Americans as mere statistics or talking points for the next campaign rally.

Rather than strengthening the industrial base or supporting the middle class, Democrats devote resources to ideological wars and questionable social trends. They have weaponized the justice system against conservatives, while mainstream media and social networks suppress dissenting voices and censor conservative opinions. Their relentless cultural warfare, fueled by woke agendas and disdain for traditional values, threatens to erode America’s national identity.

It Is Necessary to Put America First
While Democrat activists continue to impose their radical agenda, Donald Trump is doing what any true patriot would do—defending his people. Unlike Democrats, who sacrifice national interests for the approval of European salons and globalist elites, Trump prioritizes Americans.

To Trump, the voice of a working-class American struggling with inflation matters far more than the demands of foreign leaders. He believes that ordinary Americans, not bureaucrats in Brussels or politicians in Washington, will make America great again.

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“Why would citizens defend governments that abuse them?”

• Many Western Governments Won’t Survive (J.B. Shurk)

Western governments have put themselves in mortal danger. They are actively doing things that are destroying their countries:
(1) replacing their native citizens with unassimilable foreigners;
(2) centralizing government power in unelected and unaccountable bureaucracies;
(3) censoring and criminalizing public dissent;
(4) offshoring industrial and manufacturing jobs;
(5) exacerbating energy costs and general inflation by demonizing hydrocarbons and pushing “global warming” delusions;
(6) increasing taxes, government spending, and public welfare in unsustainable ways;
(7) demolishing their nations’ historical identities, traditions, beliefs, and common cultures;
(8) providing foreigners with “free” homes, food, and educations, while accusing native citizens of being “racists,” “xenophobes,” and “white supremacists”;
(9) discouraging healthy marriages and stable families; and
(10) indoctrinating the youngest generations to believe that war, “climate change,” overpopulation, and economic collapse will prevent them from ever having happy, hopeful, purposeful futures.


Those are just ten ways that Western governments are hurting their citizens. There are many more. But a reasonable person should be able to read the above paragraph and understand that nations cannot survive under such a destructive barrage of harmful policies.

Western governments are waging wars against their own nations. The progress of these wars may look a little different in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Australia, Canada, and the United States, but what happens in one country soon enough spreads to all the rest. It is as if Western leaders got together many years ago and agreed that their countries would drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid and take long dirt naps.

Perhaps they formed this suicide pact during an “elite” gathering of the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, or the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Perhaps they chanted, “Build back better,” in unison while voting to euthanize the West.

Adversarial political parties ostensibly compete for control of Western governments, but, in reality, the party system is kabuki theater wherein the same special interests own the politicians on both sides of the aisle. Until so-called “populist” parties emerged in the West, voters were given merely the illusion of choice.

After all, the Conservative Party held power in the United Kingdom for fourteen years, and despite repeated promises to do so, its leaders failed to secure Britain’s borders from foreign invasion or to extract the kingdom from regulatory enslavement to the European Union.

In the United States, President George W. Bush calls President Bill Clinton his “brother” and Hillary Clinton his “sister” and once described Michelle Obama as his “best friend.” Establishment Republicans such as lame-duck senators Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, and Thom Tillis spend more time attacking President Trump and the 95% of Republican voters who support his MAGA policies than they do warning Americans about the growing number of communists in the Democrat Party.

Western nations have political Establishments that pretend to fight in front of the public but largely conspire behind closed doors and agree about most everything. We know this to be true because we have witnessed how these political Establishments work together to prevent “outsider” political candidates from reaching higher office or holding power.

In Europe, the political Establishment enjoy enforcing so-called “cordons sanitaire,” or “firewalls” meant to hinder the leaders of “unacceptable” political movements from obtaining power. In the Netherlands, the political Establishment have blocked Geert Wilders from becoming prime minister because of his opposition to mass immigration, Islamic supremacy, and the European Union and despite the fact that the party he leads has significant public support.

In France, the political Establishment have done the same thing to Jean-Marie Le Pen, his daughter Marine, and their National Rally because of the party’s pro-national-sovereignty and anti-immigration policies. In the United Kingdom, the political Establishment have blocked Brexit stalwart and Reform UK chief Nigel Farage from leadership roles in parliament. In Germany, the political Establishment have attempted to delegitimize the popular anti-immigration party, Alternative for Deutschland, by defaming its members as “domestic terrorists,” “Russian agents,” and anti-constitutional “national security threats.”

In the United States, Establishment Democrats and Republicans did everything they could to prevent President Trump’s election and then to remove him from office after he soundly defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. The Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, actively campaigned against Trump in 2016. So-called “conservative” political pundits, such as Bill Kristol and George Will, repudiated Republican voters and supported Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Even though Republicans controlled Congress, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan advanced the Clinton-Obama-Intelligence-Community operation to frame President Trump as a Russian spy.

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“The questions not asked..”

• MS NOW, Omar, and the Art of the Evasion (Turley)

“I am trying to figure out the way to do this.” Those words from MS NOW’s Chris Hayes say all you need to know (and likely all you will get) from his interview on Wednesday with Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. There is a litany of questions the liberal host never asked of Omar. Those questions have only increased over the years, leading to the current criminal investigation into immigration fraud. At points, Hayes sounded more like a supplicant than a journalist given his discomfort with asking pressing questions.


The interview had the journalistic nutritional content of a Slurpee that would give any liberal a sugar high and any non-liberal a stomachache. Many of us have stressed that these allegations are unproven, and that little evidence has been confirmed to support the underlying criminal charges. However, I have also written that Omar has been remarkably unforthcoming in rebutting the allegations or providing her own exculpatory information. Instead, she has spent years denouncing the allegations as racist or Islamophobic without addressing the specific claims.

While the Biden administration began aspects of these investigations years ago, Omar again sat for another prolonged interview without being pressed (beyond cursory questions) about long-standing allegations.

Hayes exhaustively explored Omar’s feelings and reactions to the recent search while largely avoiding any detailed questions about the very allegations that a Washington, D.C., judge found sufficient to show probable cause of criminal conduct. It may be useful to consider 10 questions not asked of Ilhan Omar. Asking these questions is not to assume that the underlying claims are true, but to establish the facts from Omar’s perspective.

Immigration fraud
It took 12 minutes for Hayes to mention immigration fraud, and he did so by asking her, “How seriously do you take it?” He then prefaced the fraud question with a laugh, saying, “I am trying to figure out the way to do this that doesn’t sound like I’m insane.”

Hayes then laughed further with Omar about questions of marriage fraud and said, “There are right-wing people who believe” these allegations, after Omar agreed that such questions are “insane.” Hayes made a series of statements about how “there is not even a kernel of truth” to these claims before inviting affirmations from Omar. He then made a general reference to “moving on to other allegations” without any details.

The questions not asked:

  1. It has been alleged that you are not using your birth name and the government is referring to you as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” What was your name at birth, and have you ever legally changed your name? Are you using a name that is different from your birth name on your birth certificate?
  2. You stated in the interview that the government did not remove DNA evidence. Various legal experts have said for years that such samples could put the allegation of marrying a relative to rest. Have you ever offered a DNA swab and, if not, why?
  3. Have you had any contact with your former husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, directly or indirectly, since becoming a member of Congress?
  4. Your father was reportedly a colonel in a brutal Somali regime. Is that true, and did your father fully report his Somali background when applying for citizenship? Also, have you ever confirmed the information your father submitted, and if not, why not?
  5. You stated that the issue in this case is whether you, as a 12-year-old child, were a mastermind of a fraud. However, that is not the allegation, correct? The allegation is that you obtained citizenship through your father’s naturalization after he represented that you were 17 years old and did not have to file for your own citizenship. Was that accurate, or were you, in fact, 18 years old at the time?
  6. Your staff reportedly tried to change your birthdate after your election to Congress on federal sites. Did you order this effort, or were you aware of it?
  7. Do you have conflicting documents showing that you were, in fact, 18 years old when you became a citizen?
  8. Reports indicate that this investigation changed after your sister sent you messages and that she is now cooperating with federal investigators. Are you aware of what those messages were, and what did she say in them?

Financial fraud In the interview, when Hayes moved on to Omar’s previous financial disclosure that she and her husband were worth $30 million before dropping to a little over $100,000, he again failed to address allegations that the drop in income was due to fraud. Instead, he asked about her “lifestyle,” then moved on to ask what it is like to be one of the least wealthy members of Congress.

Questions not asked:

  1. There are reports that the decline in your income was due to a drop in the value of your husband’s winery because of fraudulent practices, including selling empty barrels to investors under the guise of “wine to be aged.” Was that the reason for the adjustment, and when were you first informed of these fraud allegations?
  2. Your sister Sahra Noor reportedly listed a Minnesota home address when creating her Grit Partners Consulting business, which received millions in government contracts. That same address was used as a residence by figures convicted in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scheme. Were you or your sister involved in or aware of the fraudulent activities of Feeding Our Future? Have you ever intervened or taken any action in connection with your sister’s contracts or those of Feeding Our Future?

If Omar had answered them, any of these questions would have produced a scoop, but that was clearly not the purpose of this interview. Instead, Hayes spent more time asking Omar how she felt about former President Barack Obama defending her than asking about the specific fraud allegations she faces.Never has so much been expressed with so little said.

Hayes culminated the interview by asking, “Do you ever just want to tap out?” and Omar congratulated him on reaching the “real question.”Unfortunately, MS NOW tapped out of the interview long before that question was asked.

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“Democrats are preparing for an American color revolution in which they overthrow the United States instead of Ukraine or Georgia.”

• The Dems Plan a Coup to Overthrow the Federal Government (IPaul Craig Roberts)

[..] there are sufficient numbers of Democrats alienated from MAGA Americans and the existing social institutions and Constitution of the US to have a go at seizing power. Some of the interview hosts accustomed to thinking that the two parties are the same and merely fight over the grift were skeptical. But we have confirmation from Democrats themselves.


An independent researcher Jennica Pounds discovered “thousands of new transcripts and hundreds of recordings” describing a well organized Democrat plot centered on 300 former Democrat AID officials and bureaucrats experienced at overthrowing governments, blue state governors, and community activists to seize power with the help of the Washington Post and other presstitute media in the event that they can assert a case that the Trump regime interfered with the midterm elections in order to keep Republicans in power.

Obviously, there are sources of money financing such a vast organization that is organized for a seizure of power. Laura Ingraham reported on Fox News the information revealing the Democrats’ plan to overthrow the US as presently constituted by the US Constitution and traditional social mores and values.

The Washington Post immediately jumped in to control the narrative by presenting the plot as a Democrat attempt to protect Democracy from Trump using the Insurrection Act to impose tyranny, whereas the way the plot works is that the Democrats flood the streets until Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, which becomes the justification for overthrowing the government.

Tapes of the discussions of the plot are revealing. One plotter, Luke Pickerel says: “We have to be the ones who are creating an organization that is explicitly anti-constitutional.” Danielle Reiff, another plotter, asks what “happens if we need to go extra constitutional to create the kind of transformation that we’d all like to see?”

In other words, Democrats are preparing for an American color revolution in which they overthrow the United States instead of Ukraine or Georgia.

The Washington Post covers up the plot as “noble resistance fighters struggling to hang on to the last remaining shreds of democracy in a world teetering on global right-wing fascism.” The overthrow of America is the work of patriots, not treason: “A small group of U.S. national security officials has been discreetly advising state governments and congressional lawmakers on how to prepare for the possibility that the Trump administration will attempt to interfere in November’s midterm elections,” the Post reported.

I will not be surprised if this revelation of an internal plot against America is dismissed as another tinfoil hat rightwing fantasy. When a population is as brainwashed, indoctrinated, insouciant, and deprived of valid information as the American population is, all truth becomes “conspiracy theory.”

• The true explanation of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination is a “conspiracy theory.”
• The true explanation of 9/11 is a “conspiracy theory.”
• The true explanation of Washington’s wars for Israel in the Middle East is a “conspiracy theory.”
• Indeed, all facts that do not fit the official narratives are “conspiracy theories.”

Truth is simply dismissed as it is inconvenient for self-serving agendas and the official narratives that support them.

My take on the Democrats’ plot against America differs from the one revealed by Jennica Pounds. In my explanation Trump doesn’t have to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to launch the Democrats’ plot against America. Democrats have already announced that they will use lawfare to dispense with Republicans. If the Democrats win the House or Senate or both in the midterm elections, they will unleash the use of law as a weapon against the Republicans, a weapon that they perfected in their eight year long criminal and civil attacks on Trump and his supporters.

As I recently explained in an article on my website, state Democrat attorney generals have explained how they have the power to destroy targets, as they did to the immigration site Vdare and almost succeeded in doing to Trump, without ever taking a charge to count to test its validity. They don’t need any evidence. The financial burden they impose on their victim and the presstitute media’s destruction of the victim’s character suffices to destroy the victim.

When we have a Democrat attorney general bragging openly about his power to destroy Republicans, you should be able to see that law in Democrats’ minds no longer serves justice but is wielded as a weapon to destroy enemies. America has crossed that threshold, and once crossed how do we go back? .

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“Rarely in American history have the two parties been so far apart or the choice between them so stark..”

• The Deep Midterms (Victor Davis Hanson)

There are two ways of looking at the midterms, now less than three weeks away. One is as a simple referendum on the issues and politicians of the day. The other involves a far deeper conflict of visions (as Thomas Sowell puts it): socialism versus capitalism, intrusive versus limited government, and the destruction of time-honored institutions and traditions versus their preservation and renewal.


Rarely in American history have the two parties been so far apart or the choice between them so stark. In brief, Islamist-sympathizing socialism is on the ballot against free-market capitalism and American exceptionalism.

The new Islamist-allied socialist Democratic Party is confident, largely because the party holding the White House has increased its share of House seats in a midterm election only three times since 1900. Each of those exceptions arose under unusual circumstances.

In 1934, FDR was still riding the wave of his New Deal promises to end the Depression.
In 1998, Bill Clinton enjoyed backlash support after the Republicans’ unpopular impeachment inquiry, at a time when the economy was robust, and the budget was finally being balanced.
In 2002, George W. Bush had united the nation after 9/11 and had not yet begun what proved to be an unpopular Iraq War.

In other words, the party in the White House has gained House seats in only about 10% of the 31 midterms over the past 126 years. Pundits also point to President Donald Trump’s approval rating, now below 40% in most polls, and the persistently high price of regular gasoline ($4.33). Uncertainty over the 33-week Iran war, they argue, makes it difficult for Trump to preserve his majorities in either the House or the Senate.

Those are the issues ostensibly at stake. But the choice goes much further than that: Voters face a “deep” midterm election that will help determine the very future existence of the nation. The new Democrat agenda is not about lowering gas prices. Americans are being asked to hand Congress to what has become the most radical major party in U.S. history, as socialists and neo-communists believe they can finally win statewide races across the country. What would that entail?

Lawfare
The Democrats have not outlined any agenda other than “Trump! Trump! And more Trump!”. If they win the House, Democrats plan to spend the next two years impeaching, investigating, and hounding Trump, his administration, and his family. Their aim is to block new Republican legislation and paralyze the remainder of his presidency.

The Iran War
The Left condemns the effort to denuclearize Iran as a lost war, even though the United States has nearly destroyed the Iranian theocratic apparatus along with much of the country’s nuclear, military, industrial, and economic infrastructure—at a relatively low cost in blood and treasure by historical standards.

An enfeebled Iran, stripped of its military and economic dominance and facing an uncertain future, would no longer be able to blackmail or threaten Europe and North America as a nuclear-armed theocracy. Its terrorist clients would also lose funding, weapons, and leadership, with profound consequences for the Middle East.

When the war ends—as it soon will—and gas prices return to previous levels, policies already in place, including tax cuts, deregulation, foreign investment, energy development, and advances in AI, should help fuel an economic boom.

But the Democrats’ plan is simply to withdraw from Iran, count on the goodwill of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to guarantee free passage in the Strait of Hormuz, allow Iran to resume full oil production, and accept the Iranian regime’s word that it will no longer threaten the Gulf states or Israel and cease its decades-long support for the terrorist proxies—Hezbollah, Hamas, and, more recently, the Houthis.

Energy
The party that has repeatedly blocked federal oil and gas leases, canceled the construction or reconstruction of dozens of pipelines, and spent billions of dollars to subsidize unreliable, costly, and inefficient solar and wind power is now promising to lower the price of fossil fuels? Who really believes that?

Instead, the Left has vowed to end the production of natural gas, diesel, and gasoline as quickly as possible. Voters need only look at the once robust British and German economies, now struggling after years of restrictions on oil and natural gas exploration and development, as well as Germany’s elimination of nuclear power.

We should recall Barack Obama’s energy secretary Steven Chu. He infamously let slip that his goal was to keep American energy prices at European levels. In the U.K. and Germany, gasoline is currently around $9 a gallon—a great thing for Democratic Socialists who see high fuel prices as the best way to cool the planet and remain in power.

Gasoline in the United States now averages only $4.33 despite Iranian oil being off the market, attacks in the Gulf, and Iran’s attempted blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The reason is that Democrats were prevented from blocking new fossil fuel leases, pipelines, refineries, and fracking between 2017 and 2021 and again from 2025 onward.

Immigration
Almost none of the current Democrat candidates—at least until the eve of the 2024 election—criticized the Biden administration’s destruction of the southern border, much less the open-armed embrace with which it welcomed some 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens, including 500,000 criminals.

The Left wants to dismantle border enforcement and the wall and to ensure that the current near-zero level of illegal immigration expands to the Biden administration’s peak of 10,000-plus illegal entries per day. Voters may be disturbed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement detentions, but they should remember a high-profile ICE presence was only necessary because the border was effectively eliminated by Joe Biden.

By contrast, it is almost impossible now to find Biden’s millions of illegal aliens who were deliberately dispersed by the Left throughout the country—and particularly into Democrat sanctuary-city states. The Left will never close the border. Nor will it ever allow immigration to become entirely legal, meritocratic, diverse, and manageable, because to do so would cut off the Left’s supply of future constituents.

Fraud
Some estimates put aggregate current federal-program fraud at nearly $500 billion annually. There is also widespread welfare and social services fraud concentrated in blue states like California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York.

In these states, welfare and social services are generous and, by design, subject to little scrutiny. Fraud is treated as a minor problem in what Democrats regard as a successful effort to attract voters with federal and state dollars. Few major Democrat officeholders sincerely denounce such fraud, since doing so could cost them votes.

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“The Democrats would love the Iranians to pull off their own October Surprise this year. “

• Another October Surprise? (Kenneth R. Timmerman)

The Democrats first invented the term “October Surprise” in 1980, to describe what they claimed were secret efforts by the Reagan campaign to delay the release of our hostages in Tehran until after that year’s presidential election. vDepending on the version you read, the negotiations with Iranian intermediaries were conducted by vice-presidential nominee George H.W. Bush or by Reagan’s campaign manager and future CIA Director, Bill Casey.


Abolhassan Banisadr, who was Khomeini’s spokesman during his brief exile in France and later became the Islamic Republic’s first president until he broke with Khomeini in June 1981, was absolutely convinced the October Surprise was real. But neither he, nor Democrat conspiracy-theorists such as Gary Sick, were ever able to prove it. I interviewed most of the alleged co-conspirators as a young journalist in Paris in the mid-1980s, and I can tell you definitively: it never happened.

But that hasn’t stopped the Democrats from believing it was true in 1980, and continuing to attempt their own October Surprise against Republican presidents ever since.vPresident Trump this week accused Iran of “making up fake hits, mines, and everything else” in an effort to drive up the price of oil before the midterms. vAnd they have had some success, with the price of Brent crude briefly spiking to $116/barrel and West Texas crude topping $102, primarily because of supply bottlenecks in Asian markets.

The job of Republicans and the President is to convince Americans that high gas prices are a small price to pay for preventing a nuclear-armed Iran with missiles pointed at us and at Israel. And those who argue Iran does not have ICBM capabilities, let me remind you: they don’t need them.

As I pointed out in Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, the IRGC has long practiced launching a nuclear payload from a surface vessel, such as a tramp steamer loitering, say, two hundred miles off our coast. Some in the military refer to this as the “SCUD in a bucket scenario.”

Big diplomatic efforts appeared to make a comeback this week. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov went to Tehran to discuss a potential peace deal that would require the IRGC to send the “nuclear dust” to Russia in exchange for an end of the U.S. economic and military blockade. A Qatari-owned news outlet, al-Araby al-Jadeed, even claimed that this would be part of a “breakthrough agreement” announced this week, and was tied to a future Russia-U.S.-China summit.

Well, that didn’t happen. Why? Because as I have been saying since cows learned to come home at night, the Revolutionary Guards will never ever give up their nuclear weapons capabilities. Without them, they would cease to exist.There are only two ways to get Iran to give up the nuclear dust. Take it from them by force, or get the people of Iran to hand it over once we have armed them and they replace the Islamic regime.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the UAE was carrying out military strikes inside Iran, apparently with ground troops. And on Thursday, video appeared on X of huge explosive fires at an aluminum plant at Arak, where the IRGC was making oxidizer for solid fuel missiles.

CENTCOM has been uncharacteristically quiet in recent weeks. Instead of acknowledging U.S. counterstrikes following Iranian attacks on shipping in the Gulf, they just bombed Iran’s largest naval base at Bandar Abbas this week in the early hours of Tuesday without a word.

All of this is part of President Trump’s strategy to downplay the Iran war and keep his powder dry for whenever he decides to launch the knockout blow everyone is expecting to come.

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Which America do you want?

• A Final Appeal to Michigan’s Jewish Voters (Hanscom)

Does New Zealand have a right to exist?


Retired Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz posed this question in an interview this week with JNS TV’s Jonathan Tobin, pointing out that the island country is the “paradigm of a colonial settler state.” He noted that British settlers, who had never been to an island in the Pacific, colonized New Zealand, murdered many Maori, and used what he called a fake treaty to set up a country.

By contrast, he said, the history of Jews in Israel goes back more than 3,500 years. He added that Jews have never stopped living in the land, while Palestinians have had many opportunities to establish their own state. Dershowitz then brought up Taishya Adams, the Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed candidate for mayor of Boulder, Colo., who won’t say that Israel has a right to exist but has never questioned New Zealand’s founding.

Adams isn’t the only Democratic candidate this cycle with an obsession with and pronounced hostility toward Israel, and Jewish Democrats in Boulder aren’t the only voters facing a test of their loyalty to the party.

Tobin noted that leading Jewish Democrats in Michigan are supporting Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race despite his alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. That includes Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.). Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who has endorsed El-Sayed, told Jewish Democrats they have a moral duty to put the world’s needs above “even our own survival.”

Tobin asked Dershowitz, who voted Democratic most of his life before leaving the party and registering as a Republican this year, whether there was any justification for Nessel’s position. Dershowitz’s answer should be required reading for any Jewish Democrat still considering voting for El-Sayed, a man who is unable to say that Iran is a bigger threat to the U.S. than Israel, and who said that “hurt people hurt people” after a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Michigan:

The idea of putting party before your own people is absurd. And, you know, Jews voted for Mussolini, too. If Jews lived in China, they would have voted for the Communist Party there too, as they supported Stalin. Many, many did during the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, even before being oppressed and, you know, thrown into the gulag or killed. Yeah.

And you know what? I knew a lot of Russian Jews because I represented them, and I’d meet sometimes, and they would say, “Oh, we’re not in danger. It’s only those Jews that are in danger, like Sharansky.” And, you know, the answer is always: first they come for the Sharanskys, then they come for the ordinary Jews, and then they come for the Catholics and the Protestants and everybody else. So you don’t have to be a single-issue person to be concerned about what’s happened with the Democratic Party today.

This is why Dershowitz now wants Democrats to be defeated in every election and why he supports President Donald Trump, probably the most pro-Israel U.S. president in American history. But is it Trump, or better yet, Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), that will ultimately keep way too many Jewish Democrats, even the ones concerned about the party becoming anti-Israel, in the Democratic tent?

In answer to this question, Dershowitz mentioned a Jew he knows very well: his wife. Although she left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent, she can’t bring herself to join the GOP. Dershowitz agreed with Tobin that it’s not about the issues but about the man.

Jewish Democratic voters need to look deep within themselves and ask why this man, who recognizes the existential threat Iran poses to Israel and the United States and who struck the Iranian regime in what Ben Shapiro called “the single bravest foreign policy move of my lifetime,” provokes such rage.

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https://twitter.com/TruthTrumpPost/status/2113735189046108513?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 26 2024

Jul 262024
 
 July 26, 2024  Posted by at 8:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  73 Responses »


Vasily Polenov Moscow courtyard 1878

 

• Biden’s Bitter Legacy Signals ‘Culmination of Betrayal’ (Sp.)
• Coup Upon Coup Upon Coup (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Trump Calls Kamala ‘Radical Left Lunatic’ Responsible for Biden Failures (Sp.)
• Trump Comments On Biden’s Drop-out Speech (RT)
• Is US Democratic System Crumbling? (Sp.)
• US’s Harris Vetting Dozen Potential Vice Presidential Candidates (Sp.)
• Harris to Uphold Russophobic US Dogma as World Seeks Multipolar Order (Sp.)
• US Police No Longer Trust FBI – Report (RT)
• The Assassination Attempt & the US Election-PCR interviewed (PCR)
• A Congressional investigation of the Assassination Attempt on Trump (PCR)
• Zelensky Gets The Ukrainian Trains To Run On Time (Helmer)
• As The State “Withers Away”, Multinationals Go On A Rampage (Karganovic)
• Israel Must End War In Gaza – Trump (RT)
• US Democrats Snub Netanyahu – Axios (RT)
• EU Won’t Support Hungary, Slovakia in Oil Transit Dispute With Ukraine (Sp.)
• Judge Refuses to Dismiss Trump Defamation Lawsuit vs ABC, Stephanopoulos (AmG)
• Federal Judge Rules Against Free Speech in Elementary Schools (Turley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Word soup
https://twitter.com/i/status/1815143381829390693

 

 

Bella Hadid
https://twitter.com/i/status/1815887379938542018

 

 

 

 

Chris M

 

 

 

 

“So Khrushchev called for eliminating all conflicts between us that would cause another crisis. Well, that’s what we need today. That’s the spirit we need..”

• Biden’s Bitter Legacy Signals ‘Culmination of Betrayal’ (Sp.)

Beltway media, including the traditionally Biden-loyal Washington Post, dubbed the lame duck president an “anti-icon,” saying his “brief, targeted” address was “pragmatic, muted and self-effacing,” and “a little bit hard to watch.” Biden’s top 2024 challenger, former president Trump, took to Truth Social to lambast “Crooked Joe Biden’s Oval Office speech” as “barely understandable, and sooo bad.” “Crooked Joe Biden and lying Kamala Harris are a great embarrassment to America – there has never been a time like this,” Trump wrote in his traditional bombastic fashion. “I look at what’s happening today through the scope of what’s been happening since…the end of the Cold War, since 1991,” former NYT and Bloomberg contributor-turned independent foreign affairs observer John Varoli told Sputnik, commenting on the meaning of Joe Biden’s address beyond their immediate implications.

“It’s just been a horrifying time in American history,” Varoli said of this period of roughly 35 years. “It is the most disgraceful, wicked period in American history. And it’s just the feeling of betrayal…The Biden years are the culmination of this betrayal. You have to understand, we Americans, young Americans like myself…met [the end of the Cold War] with enthusiasm, with optimism. We were like ‘this is all great. It’s going to be peace in the world. No nuclear war. We’re going to get along with Russia.’ We were so full of optimism that we were going to build a better world.” Instead, the journalist recalled, the decades since 1991 have been filled with US wars, regime change operations and other aggression, from the Gulf War and the bombing of Yugoslavia, to NATO’s expansion, culminating with the Euromaidan coup in Ukraine, all in the interest of building and propping up the American unipolar moment.

“What the hell’s wrong with these people?” was the natural reaction to these processes, Varoli said. “Then you realize, it was a plan. Professor Jeffrey Sachs said it. He saw it. He was there…This is nothing accidental…Biden is the culmination of this absolute insanity and madness. Imperial madness, imperial insanity, this bid for global domination.” mWhat’s taking place today in US politics is “basically the final chapter in [the] collapse” of “this whole imperial project,” according to the observer, with even mainstream outlets basically admitting, by reporting on Biden’s big donors pulling the plug on his reelection bid, that the US has turned into “an oligarchy.” “We are really now in uncharted territory, people just have no illusions. I did some research…[and] found a poll from 2022 that said 85% of Americans think there are serious problems with our political system. 85%! That was two years ago. Now it’s probably obviously like 100%. People say there could be a civil war. People just zone out. They become apathetic,” Varoli said.

“This is a crucial moment in American history,” Peter Kuznick, professor of history at the American University in Washington, DC and co-author of the book ‘Untold History of the United States’ together with film director Oliver Stone, told Sputnik. The historian pointed out that like Trump before him, Biden surrounded himself with neoconservative hawks, from Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan to Victoria Nuland, bringing the world closer to a world-ending conflict between the superpowers. “I’m very concerned about what’s going on in the world now. The situation in Ukraine is very troubling. As I wrote in a recent article coauthored with Ivana Hughes, the Columbia professor who heads the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are very concerned that the continued and increasing NATO militaristic policies in Ukraine, on top of the Russian invasion, putting the world on a glide path to World War Three and nuclear war. The fact that the Biden administration has effectively banned any discussion of diplomacy and simply doubles down on more advanced weaponry, and then gives Zelensky permission to use that weaponry to attack inside of Russia, has really made a bad situation even worse,” Kuznick said.

[..] “Whether it’s over Taiwan or it’s over the South China Sea, we’re heading for World War Three in the Pacific also. US Army General Minihan said he expects the US and China to be at war by 2025, and top Republicans in Congress said they agreed. Well, that’s horrifying also,” Kuznick stressed. Looking back to history, Kuznick recalled that “as Kennedy and Khrushchev learned” during the Cuban Missile Crisis, once an international crisis emerges, “there’s no way to control them.” “So Khrushchev called for eliminating all conflicts between us that would cause another crisis. Well, that’s what we need today. That’s the spirit we need,” Kuznick said.

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“..the bosses’ replacement choice, Vice President Kamala Harris, had entered no primary. She never won a single delegate. Harris also never captured a single delegate in her first and only presidential run back in 2020.”

• Coup Upon Coup Upon Coup (Victor Davis Hanson)

In March 2020, all the major Democratic primary candidates abruptly, mysteriously, and in near unison withdrew from the presidential race, ceding the nomination to Joe Biden. Yet Biden had lost the first three races in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada—and only won his first victory in South Carolina. Suddenly, on the eve of the Super Tuesday mega-primaries, the candidacies of front-runner Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and others simply evaporated. The fear of a front-runner Sanders’ socialist victory and nomination—and thus an enviable landslide loss to incumbent Donald Trump in the general election—had prompted the donor class and shadowy political insiders to act. And they did so by choosing a perceived moderate, old Joe Biden from Scranton. That required the coerced departures of all his far-left rivals, who had hitherto performed much better than Biden in the primaries.

Now front-runner Biden still displayed obvious symptoms of serious cognitive decline that had only seemed to mount through the 2020 campaign. And his dementia continued to accelerate during his first three years as president. Biden had deceitfully promised to conduct a healing campaign and a unifying presidency. But once in the White House, his extreme agendas proved the most divisive and far-left in nearly a century. Rumors of that prior March 2020 Faustian bargain emerged. The Bidens got to serve as useful moderate veneers. So, they enjoyed the ceremonial functions of the presidency while outsourcing the real operations to former Obama officials, consultants, and advisors. Indeed, Obama did not, as most ex-presidents do, exit Washington upon leaving the White House. Instead, he bought a mansion and stayed close by.

Democrats demonized anyone critical of Biden’s obvious mental decline. Their smearing crested during Biden’s now-aborted 2024 reelection bid, even as Biden could no longer display even a veneer of mental and physical engagement. Polls revealed an impending Trump landslide victory in November—and a massive Democratic loss of Congress. So suddenly on a Sunday, July 21—just days left before state ballots were formalized with the names of the parties’ official nominees, and on the eve of the Democratic convention—party bosses, mega-donors, and Obama puppeteers went into action for yet a third time. They reportedly threatened candidate Biden with a complete loss of any further campaign funding and raised the specter of invoking the 25th Amendment to end his presidency—should he not suddenly withdraw from the race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as his surrogate on the ticket.

In one moment, the choices of nearly 15 million Biden primary voters were vitiated. No delegates were consulted. No other alternative Democrat candidates were even considered. Biden was dethroned; Harris was coronated—without much public input or even knowledge of how or why. Democrat grandees stopped smearing Biden’s conservative critics, who had worried over his dementia. Instead, they now trumped opposition criticism of Biden’s decline. Yet Biden most certainly did not resign his presidency. Instead, he promised to serve out his remaining six months in office. So Democrat insiders not only removed their leading candidate, who for the prior six months had won all the 2024 primaries and almost all the delegates, but insisted that Biden keep Democrats and himself in power—but only if he agreed to quit the race. In sum, at the 11th hour of a two-year reelection effort, a cabal arbitrarily decided that Joe Biden might well lose the Democrats the White House and the Congress.

So, they reversed course, now claiming his dementia was so acute as to destroy their November prospects. But mysteriously, his decline was not severe enough to imperil the American people, whom Biden must continue to lead until January 20, 2025. Furthermore, the bosses’ replacement choice, Vice President Kamala Harris, had entered no primary. She never won a single delegate. Harris also never captured a single delegate in her first and only presidential run back in 2020. She then dropped out of the race even before the first Iowa and New Hampshire balloting. We have now witnessed three left-wing veritable coups. In 2020, covert actors decided to ossify the Democratic primary races. Next, they conferred the nomination on a clearly cognitively challenged Joe Biden. He was now tasked with serving as a useful moderate vessel for a virtual, even more radical, Obama third term.

The same operators next assumed virtual control of Biden’s presidential agenda, given his accelerating cognitive decline. When that charade could no longer be sustained, for a third time, they circumvented the normal transparent democratic process. So, they removed the once useful but now a liability Biden—while insisting that he was still fit enough to keep the left in power—until the anticipated Harris victory in November. And all of this was the shadow work of those who sanctimoniously lectured America that “democracy dies in darkness.”

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“She is a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country if she ever gets the chance to get into office. We’re not going to let that happen.”

• Trump Calls Kamala ‘Radical Left Lunatic’ Responsible for Biden Failures (Sp.)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is a “radical left lunatic” who is the driving force behind failed policies of the Biden administration. “Lying Kamala Harris has been the ultra-liberal driving force behind every single Biden catastrophe,” Trump said during a rally in North Carolina Wednesday evening. “She is a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country if she ever gets the chance to get into office. We’re not going to let that happen.” Trump claimed Harris is unfit to lead and would be worse than President Joe Biden. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) intends to nominate a presidential candidate by August 7. The election will take place November 5. An aggregation of national polls by RealClearPolitics shows Trump leads Harris 47.6% to 45.9% as of Wednesday afternoon.

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“Crooked Joe Biden and Lyin’ Kamala Harris are a great embarrassment to America – there has never been a time like this!”

• Trump Comments On Biden’s Drop-out Speech (RT)

US President Joe Biden’s speech announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race was embarrassing for the country, according to his predecessor and current Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump. Biden gave a ten-minute speech from the White House on Wednesday evening in which he formally announced he was no longer seeking reelection this fall and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to replace him on the Democratic ticket. “Crooked Joe Biden’s Oval Office speech was barely understandable, and sooo bad!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Crooked Joe Biden and Lyin’ Kamala Harris are a great embarrassment to America – there has never been a time like this!” His campaign later released a photo of Trump on board his private jet posing next to the TV screen showing a tired Biden struggling with his lines.

“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merit a second term. But nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition,” Biden said at one point. The video announcement came three days after a post on X (formerly Twitter), in which Biden announced his exit from the race – but not from the presidency – in favor of Harris. The 81-year-old had been under growing pressure from his party leaders, donors and the media to step down ever since the disastrous June 27 debate against Trump, but kept insisting he was still in the race. On July 13, just before the Republican convention, Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Three days later, Biden’s staff announced that the president had caught Covid-19 and had to be flown to his Delaware home for recovery.

“It is not about his health. I can say no, that’s not the reason,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Wednesday, but would not say what the actual reason for Biden dropping out may have been. “If everyone acknowledges that he’s incapable of running a campaign, he’s clearly not capable of running the country,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters over the weekend. Harris has since taken over Biden’s war chest, printed signs and filmed a campaign video. She is yet to be officially nominated by the Democrats, but the party has said it would do so in a “virtual roll call” prior to the national convention, scheduled for August 19 in Chicago.

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You can’t just “install” someone in a democratic system.

• Is US Democratic System Crumbling? (Sp.)

A new survey by Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute has found that a staggering 62% of likely American voters fear this year’s election could be impacted by cheating, including 37% who are “very concerned.” 35% say they aren’t concerned about election cheating, including just 15% “not at all concerned.” “The fact that more than 60% of likely voters are concerned about election integrity should be a massive wake-up call to all those who refuse to admit that potential cheating in elections is a major problem,” Chris Talgo, editorial director of the Heartland Institute, said in an official statement. According to the survey, 18% of respondents said that in the 2020 election, they personally received more than one official ballot in the mail or received a ballot for someone who does not live at their address.

The pollsters pointed out that the number of those who received multiple mail-in ballots in 2020 is higher – reaching 20% – among voters of six battleground states, namely Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. President Joe Biden won in 2020 by outpacing his rival, then-POTUS Donald Trump, in a number of swing states by a razor-thin margin, which prompted speculation that the election was rigged. Around two thirds of Republican voters still believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and that Biden did not win fair and square.The 2020 election fueled a crisis of democracy in the US, The Wall Street Journal reported last August, adding that many Republican voters had lost faith in the nation’s electoral system, while others were afraid that the 2024 election would exacerbate existing controversies.

Joe Biden’s mental health issues, his abrupt decision to quit the race, and the Democratic Party’s latest push for Kamala Harris’ nomination have added to debate about the fairness of the process. Republicans argue that Harris should not be given automatic access to Biden’s “war chest.” Team Trump has already filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over Harris taking Biden’s campaign funds. Some activists argue that the abrupt replacement of Biden with Harris is “not democratic”. The left-wing Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization, in particular, lambasted the Democratic Party over “hypocrisy” for “installing” Harris as Joe’s successor.

“We do not live in a dictatorship. Delegates are not oligarchs. Installing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee and an unknown vice president without any public voting process would make the modern Democratic Party a party of hypocrites,” the group, which rose to prominence during the 2020 protests in the wake of African American George Floyd’s death, officially declared. Technically, Kamala is not yet the “nominee.” She could become the nominee after Democratic Party delegates vote for her. It is expected that the Democratic Party will have a virtual roll call vote to confirm their nominee between August 1 and 7, prior to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) scheduled to take place in Chicago on August 19-22.

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She will not win.

• US’s Harris Vetting Dozen Potential Vice Presidential Candidates (Sp.)

US Vice President Kamala Harris’ camp is vetting around a dozen of potential running mates, CBS News reported on Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter. The list reportedly features Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senator Mark Kelly, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Illinois Governor Jay Pritzker, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Some of the potential picks for vice president do not even hold elective office at the moment, a CBS correspondent said. On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Harris to be the Democratic Party’s nominee. Harris said on Tuesday that she had secured enough Democratic votes to become the party’s presidential nominee. If picked, Harris will take on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on November 5.

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“..when [Anatoly] Antonov, the current Russian ambassador, leaves, that he will not be replaced. I think [Russia will] downgrade relations..”

• Harris to Uphold Russophobic US Dogma as World Seeks Multipolar Order (Sp.)

Much speculation has emerged over Vice President Kamala Harris’ approach to US foreign policy in the days since the former California Attorney General was announced as Joe Biden’s chosen successor Sunday. Harris, who served in the US Senate from 2017 until 2021, has taken on a relatively low profile. Observers have speculated she has been deliberately tasked with selling controversial policies to the public during her time as Biden’s second in command, as when she was dispatched to Guatemala in 2021 to warn prospective migrants against coming to the United States. “Frankly, we don’t know what she’s going to do on the international scene. There’s nothing that she has said or done that gives us any indication of what her stance is on anything,” claimed commentator Michael Maloof.

The former senior security analyst at the US Department of Defense joined Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Wednesday to contemplate the possible foreign policy of a Harris administration as much of the world seeks development independent of the United States and the Western liberal world order. Host Jamarl Thomas suggested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address before a joint session of Congress Wednesday could be an early indicator of Harris’ approach to the politics of international affairs, if not the substance. Harris has made headlines by refusing to attend Netanyahu’s speech as polling shows Democratic Party voters increasingly sympathize with Palestinians in the long running conflict between Israelis and the indigenous inhabitants of the Levant. But Harris has agreed to meet with the controversial Israeli leader during his time in Washington, leading Thomas to suggest her apparent dispute with Netanyahu is “an optics issue” rather than a difference of policy.

“I agree,” responded Maloof. “She doesn’t want to be associated with him publicly… That’s why she’s not showing up at the joint session.” The analyst claimed Harris, who is some 22 years younger than President Biden, may be naturally inclined toward younger Americans’ sympathy for the Palestinian cause but would be constrained by the actions of her predecessor. Maloof suggested it would be especially difficult for the politician to chart a new course on relations with Russia, which remains locked in a US-backed proxy war with Ukraine. “I’m afraid that if they continue the policy toward Russia, as they are right now, that when [Anatoly] Antonov, the current Russian ambassador, leaves, that he will not be replaced. I think [Russia will] downgrade relations,” said Maloof. “We’re making it much more difficult to renew any relations.”

“We’re almost on the verge of a war because of a hoax,” he added, referring to the conspiracy theory that Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 US presidential election. “That’s basically what this amounts to and our relationships in the world are now complicated as a consequence.” “I’ve never seen within three and a half years how we have bungled things so poorly on the international scene when we have all these very smart, educated people at the helm, supposedly, and we’re going in the direction we’re going. It’s unbelievable.”

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“..have decided to no longer share actionable, substantive information on criminal and other intelligence-related activity” with the Bureau..”

• US Police No Longer Trust FBI – Report (RT)

Many US state and local law enforcement agencies are refusing to share vital information with the Federal Bureau of Investigation due to concerns that it has become partisan and politicized, according to a whistleblower report submitted to Congress. The 230-page report was compiled by an alliance of retired and active-duty agents and analysts, who spoke to more than 30 “independent, highly credible” sources across the US. “They are not only reluctant to work with the FBI but reportedly have decided to no longer share actionable, substantive information on criminal and other intelligence-related activity” with the Bureau, because they believe it “has been operating as a partisan federal agency motivated by a political agenda” in recent years, the report’s authors said. The report’s existence was first reported on Wednesday in the New York Post. The document itself was sent to the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees and posted online.

The group described a “crisis of confidence” in FBI-led task forces and a “disturbing loss of trust” in the Bureau as a whole, even as Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress about a “complex threat environment” that is unprecedented in his career. Most sources pointed to the FBI’s response to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol and the August 2022 raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago. One of the sources described the FBI’s behavior as “that of a Third World country” and argued it “should be dismantled and its personnel prosecuted and given long prison sentences.” Pressure to assist with “J6” cases has led to a belief that the Bureau is driven by a “partisan, political agenda.” One source said they could not understand why the FBI was not going after any other groups with the same fervor. Another said that local officers feared they could be targeted “because of their love for the US” and perceived as “domestic terrorists” based on how they vote.

Newer FBI agents “do not bother to conceal their distaste” for traditional political or religious views and openly identify themselves as “woke or liberal,” the head of a multi-agency task force said. Hired on the basis of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) guidelines, they are “completely worthless” and “the worst batch of people,” the whistleblowers said. The FBI academy at Quantico, Virginia at which new agents are trained “promotes a cult of narcissism” and arrogant superiority, while being intolerably politicized, the report claimed. Meanwhile, the Bureau’s Security Division has been abusing the security clearance process to purge conservative-leaning agents from its ranks. The whistleblowers urged Congress to force the resignation of Wray as “an extreme measure of last resort” and the only way to restore the Bureau’s reputation.

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“Trump has money, a beautiful and intelligent wife, and he is giving the remainder of his life to fighting a corrupt establishment that hates him.”

• The Assassination Attempt & the US Election-PCR interviewed (PCR)

Since 2016 Trump has been regarded by the ruling establishment as a threat to the power and control exercised by the Republican establishment, Democrat establishment, the material interests that control both parties, the media, and especially the military/security complex whose enemy Trump threatened to take away by “normalizing relations with Russia. ” Trump took away from the Republican establishment the power to choose the Republican presidential nominee. Indeed, he took control of the Republican Party away from the establishment. Trump defeated the Democrat establishment and the media by defeating the preferred establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, for president. Trump defeated the media by surviving their propaganda and by ridiculing the presstitutes.

His announcement that he was going to take the power away from the ruling establishment and give it back to the people enraged Washington and the material interests that control the government. His announced intent to normalize relations with Russia alarmed the armaments industry and security agencies, such as the CIA, FBI, NSA, that he was taking away the enemy that justified their power and their budgets. The establishment clearly perceives Trump as a threat.The establishment tried to deal with Trump with a plethora of concocted scandals: Russia-gate, two impeachments, porn star payoff which was turned into an indictment for “interfering with an election,” documents-gate, insurrection-gate, and criminal and civil indictments that have no basis in law and are falling apart, one being dismissed, two being put on hold while in one case the judges investigate the prosecutor for lying to the court and in another for allocating $700,000 in public funds to a lover.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that a charge on which 300 trump supporters were railroaded to prison is not a permissible charge. Given the failure of the establishment’s attempt to be rid of Trump, many expected an assassination attempt. The Secret Service’s total failure to protect Trump shows a lack of competence that is impossible to believe. The voids in the protection and the Secret Service director’s excuse for the shooter’s access are unbelievable. There might or might not be an investigation, but government investigations always clear the government. Remember the self-serving investigations of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, and the absurd official explanation of 9/11. There are likely to be more attempts on Trump’s life. If so, they will be explained as “copycat” attempts spurred by the “lone deranged shooter in Pennsylvania.”

In Europe, almost nobody had heard of J.D. Vance before Trump made him his running mate. How do you categorize Vance politically? Initially, J.D. Vance, influenced by the media’s demonization of Trump, was a Trump critic, but he came to the realization that the attack on Trump was an attack on America, particularly the Democrats and media’s open borders policy and normalization and legitimization of sexual perversity. Vance symbolizes a young generation which has zero confidence in the media and is beginning to think for itself. Vance opposes the transformation of the US into a Sodom & Gomorrah Tower of Babel.

Is Vance, who is half of Trump’s age, an indication of a generational change both in the Republican party and in US politics? That is Trump’s opinion, but only time will tell. It is difficult even for the sincere to resist the power and riches that the American establishment can bestow. Biden’s obvious mental decline has been progressing for some time. But why has his mental health and fitness for office only become an issue now and not much earlier? Biden’s performance in the first presidential debate and in the press conference were too shocking for the media to hide. Liberal media themselves confessed that they had “gaslighted” (deceived) the American public about Biden’s capability.

[..] In Europe, both Biden’s and Trump’s age is an issue: You were member of the Reagan administration, and Reagan became president at the age of 70. Why did Reagan become one of the most successful US presidents? Reagan achieved his two goals. One was to cure “stagflation,” which his supply-side economic policy did. The other was to end the Cold War, which he achieved with his rapprochement with Soviet leader Gorbachev. No presidents in modern times have such achievements. Additionally, Reagan radiated strength, humor, and a love for America. This made him likable and difficult for the liberal-left to successfully demonize.

Age is not a deterrent of effective leadership. Age brings wisdom. Not all people deteriorate with age at the same pace. I find it remarkable that the eight years of stress that Trump has been put through has not brought him a stroke or heart attack. I find it more remarkable that he is eager to undertake four more years of fighting for his country’s moral and economic renewal. Trump has money, a beautiful and intelligent wife, and he is giving the remainder of his life to fighting a corrupt establishment that hates him.

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It’s there, bipartisan and all. Does anyone have faith in it?

• A Congressional investigation of the Assassination Attempt on Trump (PCR)

There is competent analysis on the Internet of acoustic evidence indicating more than one shooter involved in the attempt on Trump’s life. Obviously, what is needed is a credible, brave, credentialed acoustic expert to analyze the acoustic evidence. This should be arranged by committees of the US Congress, such as the committees headed by Jim Jordan and James Comer. It is completely clear that neither the FBI, which has been trying to destroy Trump and his supporters for eight years, nor the Secret Service or Homeland Security can be trusted with the investigation. These agencies have zero credibility.

The challenge for the committees of Rep Jordan and Rep Comer is to find an expert who does not hate Trump, who does not earn his living doing police work, and who is brave and solid enough to withstand the denunciation that will be his if he finds more shooters than Crooks. Are the Republicans up to their responsibility, or are the Republicans content with Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation and the exposure of the Biden regime’s DEI personnel policy? Are Republicans afraid of hurting America’s reputation by possibly revealing a state plot against a presidential candidate?

America cannot survive another assassination or another 9/11 swept under the rug. This time there must be a real investigation, not another coverup left in the hands of the executive branch. Any investigation by the FBI, Homeland Security, the Secret Service is worthless. These are not agencies capable of speaking truth. A real investigation is urgent. The official narrative is being formed. The attempt on Trump’s life is going to be blamed on “operational failure” resulting from DEI and an inadequately budgeted Secret Service, and the assassination attempt will disappear into performance and budgetary issues. If there was a deep state assassination attempt and all evidence is not professionally examined, the deep state will have again succeeded and will continue on its path of frustrating the will of the American people.

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“..a year ago, the average daily number of Ukrainians killed in action (KIA) was 716. In the corresponding period of this month, the KIA level has jumped to an average of 1,948..”

• Zelensky Gets The Ukrainian Trains To Run On Time (Helmer)

Combat losses of the Ukrainian armed forces along the front have accelerated to a current average of almost two thousand men a day, according to the Russian Defense Ministry’s daily briefing and bulletin. The damage or loss of weapons is also growing fast. In the first week of July a year ago, the average daily number of Ukrainians killed in action (KIA) was 716. In the corresponding period of this month, the KIA level has jumped to an average of 1,948 — an increase of almost threefold. In the same week of 2023, the destruction or damage of US-made M777 artillery pieces was 8; in the first week of this month, the M77 loss number was 17. These loss rates for men and weapons have remained steady through this week.

The Ukrainians must assemble and deliver more fresh men and materiel to stave off defeat. The troops, artillery, tanks and other vehicles, plus ammunition, are delivered by train to railway stations along the front line. The Russian General Staff, headed by General Valery Gerasimov, knows the precise schedule of these trains, monitoring their departures and their speed in transit. They then prepare for their arrival at the front-line train stations where they are hit by a combination of missiles and glide bombs (FAB, Fugasnaya AviaBomba). This is the reality of the Russian summer offensive and Ukrainian counter-offensive without the political hype and propaganda.

In the Ukrainian version of the train war, the regime of Vladimir Zelensky is resisting effectively and increasing the cargo tonnage which Ukrainian Railways or Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) is managing to pull to or from the country’s western and southern borders. This, UZ calls winning by not losing. For the ports of Poland and Romania the war windfall is profitable; for their road operators and cargo truckers, not so. The Ukrainian consultancy GMK Center and its director, Stanislas Zimchenko, reported earlier this month that the principal gateway for railway movement of cargo into and out of the Ukraine is Romania, followed by Poland. In the first five months of this year, rail movement through Romania accounted for 9.3 million tonnes; Poland 6 mt; Slovakia, 4.2 mt; Hungary, 1.1 mt; and Moldova, 0.5 mt. It is unclear from the GMK report whether these tonnages include military cargoes and whether military cargoes are being disguised as civilian cargoes.

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“..Serbia, whose government is dead set on signing a Faustian bargain with Mephisto, in this case represented by Rio Tinto..”

• As The State “Withers Away”, Multinationals Go On A Rampage (Karganovic)

Rio Tinto is now adding lithium to its portfolio. In the Balkans it is positioning itself to become a major player in the global lithium trade. Some context might be illuminating. Less than a century ago, Anton Zischka lucidly suggested that a drop of oil is worth more than a drop of human blood.” That notion could be expanded nowadays to refer to a gram of copper, gold, cobalt, titanium, uranium, or lithium, among other commodities. “Ignoring lithium is a dangerous idea for a shrewd investor,” industry analysts advise. Goldman Sachs, which undoubtedly is well-qualified to judge in these matters, “has called lithium ‘the new gasoline’ which is surely a term not thrown about loosely by one of the world’s largest investment banks. After all, oil has been the most important commodity in the world for over a century. Could lithium be next,” market analysts are asking rhetorically.

As far as lithium specifically is concerned, the financial magazine Fortune, also reasonably well informed on the subject, recently asserted that “there is no dearth of companies that will claim a share of the expected lithium profits.” Why all the frenzy? What are the industrial uses of lithium that are generating such extraordinary excitement? Lithium and its compounds have several industrial applications, including heat-resistant glass and ceramics, lithium grease lubricants, flux additives for iron, steel and aluminium production, lithium metal batteries, and lithium-ion batteries. To this should be added rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and electric vehicles. These uses consume more than three-quarters of lithium production. In other words, lithium is not an ordinary commodity but a strategic asset since it is an indispensable component in products of enormous economic significance.

A major problem are the unavoidably catastrophic environmental and human health repercussions of lithium mining using currently available extraction technologies. That is not a problem that affects the life or health of Rio Tinto executives or stockholders, but it does impinge, and severely, on those directly involved in the mining process and the sustainability of the environment in which they live. That is because the lithium extraction process is dirty, literally and in the highest degree. We are told that “the extraction process, mainly through brine mining, poses significant risks, including water pollution and depletion, biodiversity loss, and carbon emissions. Every tonne of mined lithium results in 15 tonnes of CO2 emissions in the environment. In addition, it is estimated that about 500,000 litres of water are needed to mine approximately 2.2 million litres per tonne of lithium. This substantially impacts the environment, leading to water scarcity in already arid regions … soil degradation, and air contamination, raising concerns about the sustainability of this critical resource.”

The preceding comments are but a general and rather understated overview of the environmental consequences of lithium mining. For the grievous human health impact of the release into the ground, the water table, and the air of immense amounts of poisonous substances, which necessarily accompanies lithium mining, it might be helpful to consult some of Rio Tinto’s victims in the far corners of the world, such as villagers in Papua New Guinea and Madagascar, and the aborigines of Western Australia. These victims will soon be joined by more unfortunates in Serbia, whose government is dead set on signing a Faustian bargain with Mephisto, in this case represented by Rio Tinto. The classical definition of Faustian bargain is “a pact whereby a person trades something of supreme moral or spiritual importance, such as personal values or the soul, for some worldly or material benefit, such as knowledge, power, or riches”. That fits events unfolding in Serbia to perfection.

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You can’t continue to defend and support killing 40,000 people because a few hundred on the other side got killed. Big blind spot for Trump.

• Israel Must End War In Gaza – Trump (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has urged Israel to bring about a “fast” end to its war with Hamas, arguing that a drawn-out conflict is a “public relations” nightmare for the Jewish state. Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Trump said the war should end quickly “because they are getting decimated with this publicity, and you know Israel is not very good at public relations.” Trump was a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his term in the White House, and described himself as “history’s most pro-Israel US president.” He imposed sanctions on Iran at Netanyahu’s request, moved the US Embassy in Israel to West Jerusalem, and brokered the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize relations with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan. In the months since Israel declared war on Hamas in October, however, Trump has repeatedly called on Netanyahu to bring the conflict with the Palestinian militant group to a rapid conclusion.

“You have to finish up your war,” he told the Israel Hayom news outlet back in March. “You gotta get it done. And, I am sure you will do that. And we gotta get to peace, we can’t have this going on.” The destruction of civilian homes in Gaza, he said at the time, is “a very bad picture for the world. The world is seeing this… every night, I would watch buildings pour down on people. Go and do what you have to do. But you don’t do that.” In his interview with Fox, Trump also condemned the Democrats who protested Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday, and called for jail sentences for the protesters who burned American flags outside the US Capitol. Netanyahu is set to meet with US President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday afternoon, before traveling to Florida to meet with Trump at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Harris did not attend Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday, but will meet with him on Thursday, after his one-on-one talk with Biden.

In a post to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, Trump said he is “looking forward to welcoming Bibi Netanyahu” to Florida, referring to the Israeli leader by his commonly-used nickname. Trump promised a return to “peace and stability” in the Middle East, and in a later post, shared a letter he received from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who wished Trump “strength and safety” after the attempt on his life earlier this month. “Thank you,” Trump replied to Abbas. “Everything will be good.”

Elon Bibi

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“That’s what total victory means. And we will settle for nothing less.”

• US Democrats Snub Netanyahu – Axios (RT)

Around half of House and Senate Democrats opted to stay away from a speech Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered before a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday, Axios has reported. The invitation to Netanyahu divided lawmakers, particularly Democrats. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said in June the prime minister’s address would symbolize “the US and Israel’s enduring relationship” and “offer the opportunity to share the Israeli government’s vision for defending their democracy.” A number of prominent progressives, most notably Sen. Bernie Sanders, said at the time they would not attend the speech over Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza following the October 7 attacks by Hamas, calling him a “war criminal.”

According to a headcount conducted by the news outlet, some 100 House Democrats and 28 Senate Democrats were in attendance, meaning that around half of both caucuses skipped the session. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Dick Durbin, Tim Kaine, Jeff Merkley and Brian Schatz were among the boycotters. Republican Thomas Massie also skipped the session. He said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that he did not want to be a “prop” for Netanyahu, arguing the speech was an attempt to bolster the PM’s “domestic political standing in Israel and to quell int’l [international] opposition to his war.” Netanyahu said he sought to “present the truth about our just war” to Congress, during his first visit to Washington since the escalation of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel launched an invasion of Gaza following an October 7 surprise attack by the militant group Hamas, in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken hostage. However, Israel has drawn widespread international criticism due to the mounting death toll and deepening humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave. In early May, Washington put the delivery of weapons to Israel on hold amid calls for it to scale back its assault on Rafah, the city sheltering most of Gaza’s more than two million people. Netanyahu told US lawmakers that Israel will not stop until it has destroyed the military capabilities of Hamas, put an end to its rule in Gaza, and released all the hostages taken in the October attack, adding: “That’s what total victory means. And we will settle for nothing less.” More than 39,100 Palestinians have been killed and over 90,000 have been injured since the beginning of the Israeli campaign, according to Gaza health authorities.

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You don’t support your members, you support a none-member. But of course.

• EU Won’t Support Hungary, Slovakia in Oil Transit Dispute With Ukraine (Sp.)

The European Union has denied its support to Hungary and Slovakia after they sought to force Ukraine to restore Russian oil transit to the bloc, the Financial Times reported citing sources familiar with the matter. EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the FT that Brussels would need more time to gather evidence and assess the legal situation. Eleven of the EU nations attending a meeting of trade officials on Wednesday backed his stance and none took the side of Budapest and Bratislava, diplomats told the FT. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday that Hungary and Slovakia had asked the European Commission to launch consultations with Ukraine after it stopped the transit of oil through the Druzhba pipeline. Szijjarto also said that Hungary would not approve the allocation of 6.5 billion euros ($7 billion) for arms sent to Ukraine through the European Peace Facility until the issue was resolved.

Ukraine’s trade agreement reportedly contains a clause that provides for the possibility of suspending oil transit. An EU diplomat was quoted as saying by FT that disruption in Russian oil supplies would have a “huge impact” on the central European nation. Last week, Szijjarto said that Ukraine stopped the transit of Lukoil’s oil. The Slovak Economy Ministry confirmed that the country was not longer receiving oil from the Russian oil giant, which was sanctioned by Ukraine. Slovakia’s Slovnaft refinery imports Russian crude from another supplier, but the country is discussing the current situation with Ukraine.

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“Stephanopoulos referred to Trump as “liable for rape” 10 different times in the interview with Mace..”

• Judge Refuses to Dismiss Trump Defamation Lawsuit vs ABC, Stephanopoulos (AmG)

On Wednesday, a federal judge rejected a motion by ABC News and George Stephanopoulos to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed against them by former President Donald Trump. As reported by The Hill, the lawsuit stems from an interview in March where Stephanopoulos, while talking to Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), repeatedly described President Trump as being “liable for rape” following the judgement in a civil lawsuit filed by disgraced former author E. Jean Carroll. The jury in that case technically found Trump liable for sexual assault, but not for rape. In her 21-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga rejected ABC’s multiple claims to protection, including their assertion that they were not liable for defamation under the “fair reporting privilege.” The network pointed to a prior ruling by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, who previously ruled that it did not constitute defamation when Carroll herself described Trump as guilty of rape, claiming that the legal distinction “is minimal.”

“Here, of course, New York has opted to separate out a crime of rape; and Stephanopoulos’s statements dealt not with the public’s usage of that term, but the jury’s consideration of it during a formal legal proceeding,” Judge Altonaga, an appointee of George W. Bush, said in her ruling, determining that the issue at hand was whether or not Stephanopoulos’ statements were substantially true. “Once again, the Court does not find that a reasonable jury must — or even is likely to — conclude Stephanopoulos’s statements were defamatory,” Altonaga continued. “A jury may, upon viewing the segment, find there was sufficient context. A jury may also conclude Plaintiff fails to establish other elements of his claim … But a reasonable jury could conclude Plaintiff was defamed and, as a result, dismissal is inappropriate.”

Stephanopoulos referred to Trump as “liable for rape” 10 different times in the interview with Mace, even as the congresswoman pushed back on his assertions. The lawsuit against ABC and Stephanopoulos, which was filed in Miami, is seeking an unspecified amount of money in compensation for damages. President Trump declared the ruling to be a “big win” for his case. In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump said that “before you know it, the fake news media will be forced by the courts to start telling the truth.”

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“Principal Jesus Becerra at Viejo Elementary punished a seven-year-old girl named B.B. in the lawsuit for writing “any life” under a “Black Lives Matter” picture..”

• Federal Judge Rules Against Free Speech in Elementary Schools (Turley)

District Court Judge David Carter delivered a crushing blow against free speech rights in elementary schools in an outrageous case out of Orange County. Principal Jesus Becerra at Viejo Elementary punished a seven-year-old girl named B.B. in the lawsuit for writing “any life” under a “Black Lives Matter” picture. Judge Carter issued a sweeping decision that said that she has no free speech rights in the matter due to her age and that the school is allowed to engage in raw censorship. He is now being appealed. The message from the school seems to be that black lives matter but free speech does not. The school found a kindred spirit in Judge David Carter. After a lesson on Martin Luther King, B.B. gave her picture to a friend, believing the inclusive image of four shapes of different races and the words would be comforting to a friend. However, when that child showed the picture to a parent, a complaint was filed that B.B.’s pictures was insensitive and offensive. Becerra responded by disciplining the child for her inclusive picture.

Becerra should be fired, but his extreme views and lack of judgment is hardly unique in education. The far greater damage was created by Carter’s opinion. Judge Carter ruled that B.B. has no free speech to protect due to her age, but that “students have the right to be free from speech that denigrates their race while at school.” Judge Carter added that “an elementary school … is not a marketplace of ideas… Thus, the downsides of regulating speech there is not as significant as it is in high schools, where students are approaching voting age and controversial speech could spark conducive conversation.” The court leaves a vacuum of protected rights that he fills with what seems unchecked authority for the school: “a parent might second-guess (the principal’s) conclusion, but his decision to discipline B.B. belongs to him, not the federal courts.”

The Pacific Legal Foundation, has now filed a petition with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Chelsea Boyle and her child, B.B. In my view, Judge Carter is dead wrong, though I expect he will find support among some of the judges on the Ninth Circuit. The Court applies the famous ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), as a license for sweeping censorship and discipline. Yet, the Court in Tinker that students have free speech rights and that any restrictions require evidence of “interference, actual or nascent, with the schools’ work or collision with the rights of other students to be secure and to be let alone.” It then imposes a high standard that it must “materially disrupt[] classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.” This disruption must be “caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.”

However, what is more disturbing is the disconnection of the right from anything but a narrow functionalist view of free speech. In my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I criticize the functionalist approaches that tie the protection of free speech to its function in advancing a democracy. I argue for a return to the view of free speech as a natural or human right — a view that was popular at the beginning of our Republic but soon lost to functionalist rationales. Those rationales allow for the type of endless trade offs evident in the Carter decision. Carter’s functionalist or instrumentalist approach makes it easier to simply discard any free speech rights in elementary students. In my view, they have free speech rights as human beings as do their parents. Under Carter’s approach, schools can engage in a wide array of indoctrination by declaring opposing political and social views to be “disruptive.”

Ironically, my book criticizes Judge Carter in another case over his failure to consider free speech concerns. In his decision in the January 6th case involving John Eastman, Carter dismisses his arguments that he had a right to present his novel theory against certification of the election. While many of us disagreed with Eastman, there was a concern over efforts to strip lawyers of their bar licenses and even use criminal charges against such figures. However, what concerned me the most was sweeping language used by Carter in his decision. Carter’s narrow view of free speech and his expansive view of state authority is hardly unique. B.B. is devoid of free speech protections even in his outrageously abusive case. The reason is that she is not of an age where her speech is viewed as worthy of protection. It is an example of the distortive and corrosive effect of functionalism in free speech jurisprudence in my view.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Dog park

 

 

Tetris
https://twitter.com/i/status/1816250484535030224

 

 

Santorini

 

 

 

 

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Putin’s Grip on Power

Jul 012023
 
 July 1, 2023  Posted by at 12:00 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


Albert Bierstadt Storm in the Mountains c1870

 

 

Andrew Korybko:

 

It was earlier advised to “Be Very Skeptical Of US Intel Claiming That Surovikin May Have Helped Plan Prigozhin’s Coup”, and now two new developments lend even more credence to those suspicions. The “investigative project” of exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was designated by Russia as a foreign agent last year due to his operations being funded by Ukraine, shared “documents” with CNN purporting to show that over 30 senior military and intelligence officials are secretly VIP Wagner members.

The outlet reported on these alleged findings around the same time that they published former Vice President Mike Pence’s answer to the question that one of their journalists asked him during his unannounced visit to Kiev regarding his opinion of whether or not President Putin has full command of his military. He claimed that this is an “open question” in light of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed coup attempt last weekend, thus suggesting that Russian leader is struggling to exert his authority.

These two back-to-back news items were intended to leave their audience with the impression that the President Putin remains at risk of being overthrown by his armed forces, which is nothing but an artificially manufactured information warfare narrative designed to sow doubts about his leadership. It simultaneously attempts to influence him and his circle into carrying out large-scale purges that could adversely affect the special operation while also making the public think that he’s weak if he doesn’t.

The New York Times earlier admitted that “American officials have an interest in pushing out information that undermines the standing of General Surovikin, whom they view as more competent and more ruthless than other members of the command. His removal would undoubtedly benefit Ukraine, whose Western-backed troops are pushing a new counteroffensive that is meant to try to win back territory seized by Moscow.” It’s with this motivation in mind that the latest reports should be interpreted.

No honest observer on either side of the debate really thinks that an exiled Ukrainian-funded oligarch and one of the US’ previously most powerful neoconservatives have President Putin’s best interests in mind when suggesting that he’s at risk of being overthrown if he doesn’t purge the Russian military. To the contrary, the only reason why these insincerely expressed concerns were publicly shared and then amplified by one of the world’s top Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets was for subversive purposes.

What’s curious to note is that the MSM and their putative competitors in the Alt-Media Community (AMC) are each aggressively pushing weaponized conspiracy theories to their respective audiences in the aftermath of recent events. The first wants folks to think that last weekend’s regime change plot involved high-level military-intelligence collaborators who might soon give it a second shot out of desperation to preempt their supposedly impending purge if President Putin doesn’t remove them first.

At the same time, top influencers in the second have suggested that President Putin colluded with Prigozhin to stage a so-called “false flag coup” to redeploy Wagner to Belarus and/or expose internal enemies, thus implying that he ordered that group’s chief to shoot down Russian pilots. It’s unclear whether those who propagate this totally ridiculous theory actually believe it, but this baseless innuendo is nevertheless anti-Russian to the core by hinting that its leader therefore committed treason too.

The reality is that Western intelligence agencies masterfully manipulated Prigozhin’s rivalry with the Defense Ministry, the paranoia that this provoked, and his delusions of grandeur after Wagner led Russia to victory in the Battle of Artyomovsk to plant the seeds in his mind for carrying out a coup. He therefore functioned as the West’s most potentially destabilizing “useful idiot” in history who risked sparking a civil war that was only narrowly averted at the last minute as was explained here and here.

While it’s possible that senior military-intelligence officials are VIP Wagner members, that can’t be known for sure until the FSB’s investigation concludes, which might even determine that there’s truth to this claim whether in whole or in part but that it isn’t evidence of a deeper and more serious plot. In any case, the speculation of those Ukrainian-backed and US figures like Khodorkovsky and Pence respectively should be seen as meddling since they don’t have innocent intentions in talking about this.

They only want to manipulate the public’s perceptions of President Putin and the state of affairs in Russia, which their MSM allies like CNN are helping them do by maximally amplifying their messages. Likewise, those in the AMC who spew anti-Russian conspiracy theories about Prigozhin’s failed coup attempt such as suggesting that President Putin was in on it and thus colluded to have his own country’s pilots shot down by Wagner are also scheming to manipulate the public, albeit a different segment.

Taken together, they represent complementary efforts of the same destabilization operation that’s actively underway in the aftermath of last weekend’s events, which aims to manipulate perceptions among the MSM’s and AMC’s audiences alike about what recently took place. These weaponized conspiracy theories are being deployed to discredit President Putin, his government, and the Russian security services in the minds of their targets, and those who launder them are these three’s enemies.

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 27 2023

Jun 272023
 
 June 27, 2023  Posted by at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  33 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Interior of a restaurant 1887

 

• Putin: Mutiny Organizers Wanted Russian Soldiers to Kill Each Other (Sp.)
• Western Experts Salivated Prospect of ‘Doom’ and ‘Civil War’ in Russia (Sp.)
• Washington Expected More Bloodshed From Wagner Mutiny – CNN (RT)
• Ukraine Failed To Exploit Wagner Coup Attempt – NYT (RT)
• Biden Officials Worry That Ukrainian Offensive is ‘Behind Schedule’ (Sp.)
• Prigozhin’s Farce Is Over And It Is Clear Who Has Won (MoA)
• Prigozhin Mutiny Was Monster Acting Against His Creator- Borrell (G.)
• Investigation Into Case Surrounding Prigozhin Continuing (TASS)
• Prigozhin’s Gambit – Treason By Any Other Name (Scott Ritter)
• John Kerry Says Iraq Invasion Was Based On Lie (RT)
• Coup Coo (Kunstler)
• Who is Lying? Merrick Garland or the Whistleblowers? (Turley)
• ‘Journalism is Not a Crime’: Experts Lambast EU Media Freedom Act
• Germany Opposes EU Plan To Steal Russian Assets – FT (RT)
• Germany, France Want To End Veto Rights In The EU This Year (RMX)

 

 

Prigozhin is in Belarus. Putin has given permission for Wagner fighters to move to Belarus as well. They will then be 100km from Kiev. The Chinese noticed this too:

Ukraine will need to deploy troops to guard Kiev.

 

 

Watters
https://twitter.com/i/status/1673479291315814401

 

 

General Mark Milley wanted to attack Iran and blame it on Donald Trump. This was “exclusively obtained” by CNN…

 

 

 

 

RFK vaccine

 

 

Brett Tolman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1673374501516591104

 

 

Dr. Fukushima
https://twitter.com/i/status/1673365972764196864

 

 

 

 

“Those who want to move to Belarus may do so freely, the president added.”

• Putin: Mutiny Organizers Wanted Russian Soldiers to Kill Each Other (Sp.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has chastised the organizers of the recent aborted mutiny perpetrated by forces of the PMC Wagner Group, stating that these people betrayed not only their country and their people but also the men whom they duped into participating in this “crime.” In a speech delivered today from the Kremlin, Putin said that Russia’s enemies and the “neo-Nazis in Kiev” along with their Western sponsors wanted the same outcome as the mutiny organizers: an internecine conflict in Russia where Russian soldiers would have been killing each other. He pointed out that the mutiny organizers were well aware of the fact that their mutiny would have been inevitably crushed, and that their actions were ultimately aimed at weakening Russia.

At the same time, he stressed that the vast majority of the Wagner Group’s soldiers and commanders are “Russian patriots devoted to their people and state,” who proved their patriotism “with their courage on the battlefield, liberating Donbass and Novorossiya.” He thanked Wagner Group members who stopped before crossing the “final line,” and said that they can now continue serving Russia by signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense, or any other law enforcement agency, or to return home to their families. Those who want to move to Belarus may do so freely, the president added.

Putin thanked all Russian servicemen, law enforcement officers and special services’ members who “stood in the way” of the mutineers and “remained faithful” to their duty during this crisis, as well as members of the Wagner Group who did not participate in the mutiny. The Russian president also expressed his gratitude to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for “his efforts and contribution to the peaceful resolution of the situation.” Putin did add, however, that it was the “consolidation of the entire Russian society that played a decisive role” in resolving this crisis.”

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“Russians will be killing Russians, probably in large numbers, unless Prigozhin surrenders..”

• Western Experts Salivated Prospect of ‘Doom’ and ‘Civil War’ in Russia (Sp.)

Western press, politicians, and “Russia watchers” prophesized “doom” and “civil war” in Russia upon the PMC Wagner Group’s mutiny, only to learn later that they were profoundly wrong. On June 23, Wagner PMC leader Evgeny Prigozhin announced that he and his 25,000 men were kicking off a “march of justice” towards Moscow amid the private military group’s feud with the Russian Ministry of Defense, prompting the Federal Security Service (FSB) to charge the Wagner chief with inciting an armed mutiny. While Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the PMC leader against irresponsible and treasonous actions, Prigozhin’s mutiny of June 23-24 caused nothing short of euphoria in the Western media sphere. Tom Nichols, a staff writer at The Atlantic, immediately projected on June 23 that the unfolding “crisis” could change the course of the conflict in Ukraine and lead to “a lot of bad things” in Moscow “in the next few days, or even hours.”

Eurasia Group scholar Ian Bremmer echoed Nichols on June 24: “Prospects for Ukraine’s counteroffensive – which hasn’t gone well to date – improving by the minute,” he claimed on Twitter. “In a slow, unfocused sort of way, Russia is sliding into what can only be described as a civil war. If you are surprised, maybe you shouldn’t be,” wrote Anne Applebaum, an American journalist and spouse of Polish MEP Radoslaw Sikorski, who thanked the US government for the destruction of Nord Stream in a later-deleted tweet last year. Former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, went even further by claiming that the “civil war” was already underway and promised a “big fight”: “Russians will be killing Russians, probably in large numbers, unless Prigozhin surrenders,” the American diplomat tweeted on Saturday.

The Hill joined the chorus, predicting “combat and potential doom”: as per the media, passions of ordinary Russians could be “enflamed” and “it’s conceivable that some Russian soldiers will defect.” “Much depends on how swiftly Putin can put down the rebellion, or indeed whether he can. Expect curfews and martial law in Rostov and possibly other cities,” the media forecast. The New York Times referred to Wagner’s “seizure” of Rostov-on-Don as a “grave threat to President Vladimir Putin’s government.” While security had indeed been heightened in Moscow and in Rostov-on-Don, there had been no signs of a gathering storm or a mounting civil unrest in the country. The Associated Press reported that in Moscow “downtown bars and restaurants were filled with customers.”

The media added that “at one club near the headquarters of the FSB, people were dancing in the street near the entrance.” An apparent cognitive dissonance with regard to the “civil war-that-never-happened” reached its apogee in the West after the news that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko struck a deal with Prigozhin and the latter’s announcement that the PMC Wagner Group was returning to its field camps. Some Western netizens couldn’t believe their eyes, claiming that “the odds of this being true are slim to none.” McFaul also seemed perplexed by the sudden turn of events which brought to naught the West’s “Russian civil war” fantasies: “I was wrong about this. Eager to learn why. There is so much to this story that we don’t know yet,” the diplomat tweeted.

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When Wagner took over the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, not a shot was fired that I read about. Isn’t that weird?

• Washington Expected More Bloodshed From Wagner Mutiny – CNN (RT)

The US expected more resistance to the coup attempt by the Wagner private military company as Evgeny Prigozhin advanced on Moscow, a source has told CNN, predicting that the aborted insurrection would be “a lot more bloody than it was.” The intelligence community in Washington claims to have had advance information about Prigozhin’s actions, according to reports in the US media, and also believed it would result in greater bloodshed. “I do know that we assessed it was going to be a great deal more violent and bloody,” the source told CNN. Prigozhin staged the coup on Friday evening in what he described as an attempt to oust senior Russian military officials, whom he accused of treason.


His forces, which are armed with heavy weapons, had faced little resistance in capturing the headquarters of the Southern Military District, one of territorial commands of the Russian Defense Ministry, in the city of Rostov-on-Don. They were moving unopposed towards Moscow when Prigozhin called off the insurrection on Saturday after accepting a deal with the government, which had been mediated by Belarus. He cited the desire to avoid bloodshed as his reason for stopping. During the brief uprising, Prigozhin claimed that his forces had shot down a Russian attack helicopter. There are uncorroborated reports of several more military aircraft being downed by the Wagner Group, and suggestions that the businessman agreed to pay compensation for the deaths caused by his actions. There was also some fighting along the route, with 19 homes reportedly damaged in Voronezh Region, according to local authorities.

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Blinken always gets it wrong. He’s sort of like Jim Cramer.

• Ukraine Failed To Exploit Wagner Coup Attempt – NYT (RT)

Ukraine was unable to capitalize on the coup attempt in Russia by the Wagner private military company, the New York Times has claimed, citing unnamed US officials. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had earlier suggested that the events had created potential “openings” for Kiev to improve its position on the battlefield. In a report on Sunday, the NYT quoted anonymous “American officials and independent analysts” as acknowledging that “there did not seem to be any immediate defensive gaps to exploit” in Russian lines. The article noted that, “according to a preliminary analysis,” no Russian units in eastern and southern Ukraine abandoned their positions on Friday or Saturday as the attempted insurrection was in full swing.

It went on to emphasize that on Saturday alone, Russian forces reportedly fired some 50 missiles at various targets across Ukraine. American officials cited by the paper predicted that, at least in the short term, the “front lines in Ukraine are likely to remain unchanged.” The NYT added, however, that Ukraine is still likely to attempt to use the “chaos caused by Mr. Prigozhin” to its advantage. The article suggested that supposedly “weakening morale” among Russian troops could be one of the factors that potentially helps Kiev make gains. The paper concluded, however, that “it is too soon to determine the long-term implications” of the failed coup attempt. Speaking to CBS News on Sunday, Blinken described Wagner’s attempted rebellion as a “direct challenge to Putin’s authority,” arguing that it “raises profound questions” and “shows real cracks.”

The diplomat went on to claim that this “creates even greater openings for the Ukrainians to do well on the ground.” Blinken suggested that Wagner’s actions had created a “real distraction” for the Russian leadership, who will now have to “sort of mind their rear.” Blinken’s assessment appeared to echo that of other top US officials, as reported by Politico on Sunday. Wagner rebelled on Friday against Russia’s military leadership. The head of the private military company, Evgeny Prigozhin, agreed to end the uprising and withdraw his forces in exchange for “security guarantees,” as part of a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday. The same day, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukrainian troops had mounted several attacks, which it claimed had all been repelled.

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“..the Ukrainian forces have so far demonstrated remarkable aptitude to losing that military hardware and taking heavy casualties without making any meaningful gains in the field..”

• Biden Officials Worry That Ukrainian Offensive is ‘Behind Schedule’ (Sp.)

As the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” that started earlier this month now appears to be grinding to a halt, with Kiev troops failing to breach even the first Russian defensive line, US government officials have apparently become somewhat disappointed by this turn of events. According to one US newspaper, White House officials have been privately fretting about the progress of the Ukrainian offensive while publicly urging people to be patient, with one senior administration official describing its results as “sobering.” “They’re behind schedule,” the official reportedly said. The newspaper also notes that, despite failing to produce any meaningful gains on the battlefield, Kiev forces have already lost a considerable amount of military hardware that was supplied to them by the West.


Over 15 percent of the Bradley infantry fighting vehicles – at least 17 out of 113 – provided to Kiev by the United States have been destroyed or damaged during the futile attempt by Ukrainian forces to reach Russian defensive lines, if the media outlet’s information is to be believed. In the beginning of this month, Ukrainian forces launched what appears to be the much-anticipated “counteroffensive” that the regime in Kiev has been announcing for months. Despite being provided vast quantities of Western military hardware and weaponry by the US and its allies and receiving training from NATO instructors, the Ukrainian forces have so far demonstrated remarkable aptitude to losing that military hardware and taking heavy casualties without making any meaningful gains in the field.

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When Lukashenko called, Prigozhin already knew what was up. He had all of 3,000 men with him. Lukashenko offered him a way out that Putin had authorized. He didn’t have to convince him to give up, just offer the way out.

• Prigozhin’s Farce Is Over And It Is Clear Who Has Won (MoA)

The Prigozhin’s insurrection farce is over. I had predicted that it would not take long to end: In twelve or so hours things are likely to have calmed down. About eight hours after I published the above Prigozhin had given up and left the scene. Prigozhin had launched his hopeless mutiny after the Defense Ministry had demanded that all his men sign contacts with the Russian army. That would have taken away the autonomy of his Wagner outlet and with it a large chunk of his profits. The run of his troops towards Moscow was a desperate attempt to get Putin’s attention and to make him reverse the ministry’s plans. To justify his move Prigozhin had claimed that Russian miliary forces had attacked a Wagner camp and killed a number of its troops. To prove that he published a video that shows some trash in the woods but no dead soldiers. It was an obvious fake.

Putin had already publicly agreed to the ministry’s plans and he is not the man who reverses his decisions on a dime, or under pressure. After Putin’s Saturday morning TV speech, during which he accused Prigozhin of treason without naming him, it was clear that there was no chance for the mutiny to have any success. Many of Russia’s governors and high ranking military soon assured Putin publicly of their loyalty. As far as is known none of Wagner’s military commanders and only a few thousand of its 25,000 troops had joined Prigozhin in his lunatic run. No one in Russia changed sides or supported him. When the Wagner troops entered Rostov on the Don the people who talked with his soldiers were critical of their presence. When Wagner were leaving without further bloodshed the people applauded. To interpret that as support for Prigozhin, as some ‘western’ analysts did, is false. The people were just happy that the whole stunt was over.

Finally the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, likely on request from Putin, got Prigozhin on the phone, used some very strong words and negotiated a deal. If Prigozhin goes into exile in Belarus he will not be bothered any further. But the Russian prosecutors will not close the treason case against him. Should he again make a hassle he will likely end up in jail. Prigozhin may be allowed to take some of his troops with him to Belarus. But the large majority will come under the command of the Russian military and will be transformed into some special unit. The French foreign legion may be an good example for such a force and its potential use. In previous years Prigozhin’s companies had made large profits by catering to the needs of the Russian military. The contracts they have will likely end and his personal fortune will take a big hit. The good days are over for him.

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Yes, yes, Josep. Go home now. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

• Prigozhin Mutiny Was Monster Acting Against His Creator- Borrell (G.)

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny in Russia was “the monster acting against his creator”, the EU’s foreign policy chief has said. “The political system is showing fragilities, and the military power is cracking,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Luxembourg as he arrived for a meeting with ministers from across the 27-member bloc. Wagner group mercenary forces under Prigozhin seized control of military headquarters in southern Russia and began to move towards Moscow on Saturday before suddenly heading back to eastern Ukraine after a deal with the Kremlin. “The most important conclusion is the war against Ukraine launched by Putin and the monster that Putin created with Wagner, the monster is fighting, the monster is acting against his creator,” Borrell said.

Borrell said the instability in Russia was dangerous given its nuclear arsenal and would be top of the agenda at the Luxembourg summit, where ministers voted through a promise to top up Ukraine’s military funds by €3.5bn (£3bn). “Certainly it is not a good thing to see that a nuclear power like Russia is going into a phase of political instability,” he said. EU foreign ministers were scrambling to digest the fallout from the mutiny at their meeting. The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said Putin was destroying his own country with his “brutal war of aggression” in Ukraine. “We are seeing massive cracks in the Russian propaganda,” she added. Baerbock said the EU would focus on helping Ukraine in its fight to let its people live in peace and freedom.

The Swedish minister Tobias Billström said it was too early to do an analysis but that the weekend’s events brought Ukraine’s potential membership of the EU into sharp focus. The most important thing was supporting Ukraine so it could win back its territory, he added. “We will have a good opportunity to sit down and talk about the future policy with regard to Ukraine, when it comes to EU integration,” Billström said. “And when it comes to giving both political, military, humanitarian and financial support to Ukraine, until Ukraine has restored its territorial integrity completely.”

Finland’s new foreign minister, Elina Valtonen, said: “It’s too early to tell where this will lead to. But of course, it’s pretty obvious that the events of the weekend will have continued effect on how Putin is seen internally, but also on how Russia is seen to the outside world. “It is common for authoritarian states that everything seems to be very stable until one day, nothing is stable any more. And I expect such a development for Russia as well.” The ministers are also expected to approve the 11th round of sanctions against Russia, aimed at stopping Putin from circumventing previous sanctions by using third countries to ship crude oil and other products around the world.

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Prigozhin’s private jet was spotted in Belarus this morning. Reportedly, the probe is now closed.

• Investigation Into Case Surrounding Prigozhin Continuing (TASS)

The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed to TASS on Monday. “The criminal case against Prigozhin has not been closed. The investigation is continuing,” the source said. Kommersant newspaper reported on Monday that as of the morning of June 26, the criminal case concerning the organization of the armed mutiny involving Prigozhin has not been closed and continues to be investigated by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).


On Saturday, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said that, on June 23, FSB investigators opened a criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin under Article 279 of the Russian Criminal Code for organizing an armed mutiny. The case was initiated after Prigozhin’s Telegram channel published statements that his units were allegedly attacked and appealed to supporters to come out against the country’s top military leaders. The crime is punishable by 12 to 20 years in prison. The Russian Defense Ministry denied information about Russian strikes on the “rear camps of the Wagner PMC.” Russian President Vladimir Putin made a televised address to Russian citizens, servicemen and law enforcement agencies, slamming the ongoing events as a stab in the back.

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Scott Ritter lagging behind the events.

• Prigozhin’s Gambit – Treason By Any Other Name (Scott Ritter)

Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind—Yevgeny Prigozhin has become a witting agent of Ukraine and the intelligence services of the collective West. And while there may be those within Wagner who have been unwittingly drawn into this act of high treason through deception and subterfuge, in the aftermath of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Russian nation on June 24, and Yevgeny Prigozhin’s impolitic reply, there can be no doubt that there are only two sides in this struggle—the side of constitutional legitimacy, and the side of unconstitutional treason and sedition. Anyone who continues to participate in Prigozhin’s coup has aligned themselves on the wrong side of the law and have themselves become outlaws.

Having taken Wagner down this unfortunate path, one needs to examine the motivations—stated and otherwise—that could prompt such a dangerous course of action. First and foremost, Prigozhin’s gambit must be looked at for what it is—an act of desperation. For all its military prowess, Wagner as a fighting force is unsustainable for any period without the logistical support of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The fuel that powers Wagner’s vehicles, the ammunition that gives its weapons their lethality, the food that nourishes its fighters—all comes from the very organization that Prigozhin has set his sights on usurping. This reality means that to succeed, Prigozhin would need to rally sufficient support behind his cause capable of not only sustaining his gambit but offsetting the considerable power of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Federation which, if left intact, would be able to readily defeat the forces of Wagner in any large-scale combat.

In short, Prigozhin is looking to create a so-called “Moscow Maidan” designed to replicate the success of the events of early 2014 in Kiev, where the constitutionally elected government of President Victor Yanukovych was toppled from power through violence and force of will that was orchestrated by Ukrainian nationalists supported by the US and Europe. The fantasy of a “Moscow Maidan” has been at the center of the strategy of the collective West and their Ukrainian proxy from the very start. Premised on the notion of a weak Russian president propped up by a thoroughly corrupt oligarch class, the idea of creating the conditions for the rise of sufficient domestic unrest capable of bringing down the Putin government like a proverbial house of cards was the primary objective of the sanctions regime imposed by the West after the initiation of the Special Military Operation (SMO) on February 24, 2022.

The failure of the sanctions to generate such a result compelled the collective West to double-down on the notion of collapsing the Russian government, this time using a military solution. The British Prime Minister pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to forgo a negotiated settlement to the conflict that was ready to be signed in Istanbul on April 1, 2022, and instead engage in a protracted war with Russia fueled by tens of billions of dollars’ worth of military and financial assistance designed to inflict military losses on Russia sufficient to trigger domestic unrest—the elusive “Moscow Maidan.” This effort likewise failed.

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“He actually voted in the Senate to authorize the invasion, however. When Rochebin pushed him on the apparent double standard, Kerry began speaking about “climate justice.”

• John Kerry Says Iraq Invasion Was Based On Lie (RT)

The US-led invasion of Iraq was completely different to the current Ukraine conflict, Washington’s special envoy for climate change John Kerry has told French TV channel LCI. He appeared on LCI’s Sunday evening show hosted by Darius Rochebin, who had previously interviewed him for a Swiss outlet in 2017. Rochebin tweeted a video segment of the interview, in which he confronted Kerry about the West accusing Russia of aggression regarding Ukraine. The French journalist noted that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was an actual war of aggression, based on the lie that Baghdad secretly possessed weapons of mass destruction. “No,” Kerry replied. “Because there’s never even been, you know, a process of direct accusation of President [George W.] Bush himself.”

He added that there had been “abuses” in the course of that conflict, and that he “spoke out against them.” When Rochebin asked him directly whether the Iraq War had been a crime of aggression, Kerry repeatedly denied it. “No, No, No. Well, you didn’t know it was a lie at the time. The evidence that was produced, people didn’t know that it was a lie,” the former diplomat said, before telling Rochebin that he doesn’t intend to “re-debate the Iraq War” at this point. Kerry also claimed he was opposed to the war at the time and thought it was the wrong thing to do. He actually voted in the Senate to authorize the invasion, however. When Rochebin pushed him on the apparent double standard, Kerry began speaking about “climate justice.”

The Bush administration accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of having chemical and biological weapons, as well as being somehow involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The ‘evidence’ for WMDs offered to the media and the UN Security Council turned out to be entirely fabricated, and no such weapons were ever found. Likewise, no connection between Baghdad and Al-Qaeda was ever established. The 2003 invasion and the subsequent occupation of Iraq was carried out without UN approval, by what Bush called a ‘coalition of the willing’. The US, the UK, Australia and Poland provided troops for the attack, though Washington later claimed 44 more countries had offered some kind of support. Kerry ran against Bush in 2004 but lost. He later served as secretary of state in the Barack Obama administration, and was appointed climate change ambassador by the current president, Joe Biden, in 2021.

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“..Mr. Zelensky might use some of his NATO missiles to zap it, but Russia has video surveillance and recording equipment at every angle around the joint and the world will know five seconds after how it was blown up..”

• Coup Coo (Kunstler)

Let’s address one nagging question: why did Mr. Putin allow the Wagner Group private army to play the leading role countering the Ukraine offensive? Answer: because he was saving and building-up the regular Russian army to strength in the further event that NATO might finally jump into Ukraine with all its multi-national feet when all else fails. We’re left, of course, with the manifold mysteries of the coup’s hasty resolution. Mr. Prigozhin, we’re told, will be turned over to the custody of the Belarus president Lukashenko, to… to be done what with? To be put on the shelf like a bowling trophy? I’m sure…. If they can even find the bugger now. (I’d look in Africa, where sundry Wagner units have been operating — Priggy must have had a plane standing by in Rostov.)

In any case, we know the rest: Wagner troops who did not participate in the coup get folded into the regular army, and said regular army takes over duty along the front in Ukraine. Mr. Putin, despite all these insults, will continue to seek a diplomatic end to all this nonsense, and he might get it sooner rather than later. Germany and France, among Euro others, must be sick of these shenanigans. Can Ukraine even carry on much longer? President Zelensky, the comedian, seems to have gone mad-dog now. He just cancelled next year’s election, which makes him… what? Dictator? So much for America’s democracy export program. He’s also issued warnings to the effect that Russia is about to blow up the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.

Such an act would supposedly trigger direct intervention by NATO, according to the policy promoted by war-hawk US Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal. The nuclear plant is under Russian control. Mr. Zelensky says they have set mines in it. The scenario is pretty absurd. Nobody believes it. Of course, Mr. Zelensky might use some of his NATO missiles to zap it, but Russia has video surveillance and recording equipment at every angle around the joint and the world will know five seconds after how it was blown up. From his latest photographs, it looks like Mr. Zelensky is in the terminal throes of a cocaine rapture, and his actions are consistent with that state of mind. He must know that he’s not long for this world. And our country, the USA, must know that this Ukraine gambit is another lost cause on our long march of military misadventures.

And if the government of our country doesn’t know, the people surely do. Have you noticed, the yellow-and-blue flags are not flying anymore? Even the most hardcore anti-Trump Democrats seem to understand what pounding sand down a rat-hole means when it comes to the many billions of dollars squandered on this stupid project while our cities rot and a whole lot more goes south in our own ailing homeland. Not to mention the parlous position of the American president himself, the spectral “Joe Biden,” skulking in his demon-haunted White House as evidence of his treasonous turpitudes mounts and mounts. Which leaves us to wonder whether our Intel Community may have stirred up the Russia coup as just another distraction from its own Biden-linked crimes against this nation.

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“[a]ny verifiable words or actions of my client in the midst of a horrible addiction are solely his own and have no connection to anyone in his family.”

• Who is Lying? Merrick Garland or the Whistleblowers? (Turley)

“I’m not the deciding official.” Those five words, allegedly from Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, shocked IRS and FBI investigators in a meeting on October 22, 2022. This is because, in refusing to appoint a special counsel, AG Merrick Garland had repeatedly assured the public and Congress that Weiss had total authority over his investigation. IRS supervisory agent Gary A. Shapley Jr. told Congress he was so dismayed by Weiss’s statement and other admissions that he memorialized them in a communication to other team members. Shapley and another whistleblower detail what they describe as a pattern of interference with their investigation of Hunter Biden, including the denial of searches, lines of questioning, and even attempted indictments.

The only thing abundantly clear is that someone is lying. Either these whistleblowers are lying to Congress, or these Justice Department officials (including Garland) are lying. The response from both Hunter Biden’s counsel and the attorney general himself only deepened the concerns. Christopher Clark, an attorney for Hunter Biden, responded to a shocking Whatsapp message that the president’s son had allegedly sent to a Chinese official with foreign intelligence contacts who was funneling millions to him. “I am sitting here with my father,” the younger Biden wrote, “and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

President Biden has repeatedly told the public that he had no knowledge or involvement in his son’s dealings. He maintained the denial despite audiotapes of him referring to business dealings, photos and meetings with his son’s business associates, as well as an eyewitness account of an in-person meeting. Clark did not deny that the above-quoted message had been sent. He only said that it was “illegal” to release the text (he did not explain why) and then added that “[a]ny verifiable words or actions of my client in the midst of a horrible addiction are solely his own and have no connection to anyone in his family.” Most of us expected a simple denial. Yet, after five years, Hunter has never even denied that the laptop was his. His team has continued with the same non-denial denials.

The transcript also details how investigators wanted to confirm the authenticity of the Whatsapp message through the company. The Justice Department reportedly shut down that effort. If Hunter Biden was evasive, Garland was irate. He denounced the allegations as “an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy, and essential to the safety of the American people.” The statement bordered on delusion. Polls show that a majority of the public now views the Justice Department as politically compromised and even engaged in election interference. The level of trust in the department under Garland is now lower than it was under his predecessor, Bill Barr.

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“..empowering EU governments to install spyware on journalists’ devices under the guise of “national security”..

• ‘Journalism is Not a Crime’: Experts Lambast EU Media Freedom Act

The European Media Freedom Act envisages installing spyware on journalists’ phones for the sake of “national security”. Sputnik sat down with some international observers to discuss how the provision correlates with the act’s name and basic European principles. “There is no legitimate reason to spy on journalists,” Lucy Komisar, an investigative journalist based in New York, told Sputnik. “Remember, this law targets people identified as journalists, not as spies or terrorists or criminals. Journalism is not a crime, unless Julian Assange does it. The real reason is to protect government officials from journalists reporting on officials’ misguided policies, abuses and corruption. It’s quite ironic in view of the EU’s self-congratulatory rules trumpeted as protecting peoples’ data from tech companies. Stealing data when a company does it is bad, stealing audio and written text when a government does it is just fine.”

The bloc’s new media regulation was proposed by the European Commission (EC) in September 2022. The initial draft stipulated that European governments could deploy spyware on journalists’ devices “on a case-by-case basis” to ensure national security or to investigate “serious crimes,” such as terrorism, human or weapons trafficking, exploitation of children, murder or rape. However, in May 2023, Politico obtained a document penned by French policy-makers who called to narrow journalists’ immunity under the new EU rules and strike what they called “a fair balance between the need to protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources and the need to protect citizens and the state against serious threats.” According to the media, Paris’ argument was accepted by the EC. As a result, the draft legislation was amended to loosen safeguards for the journalists’ immunity.

The EC’s original list of “serious crimes” allowing surveillance on reporters was replaced by a broader 2002’s Council Framework Decision of the European arrest warrant consisting of 32 offenses. The development triggered a storm of criticism from European journalist organizations, NGOs and activist groups. In particular, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), representing over 300,000 members, denounced the EU’s move as a “blow to media freedom”. The EFJ warned that empowering EU governments to install spyware on journalists’ devices under the guise of “national security” would in particular have a “chilling effect on whistleblowers” and confidential sources. “Since the eighteenth century when newspapers began to circulate, the secrecy of sources has been sacrosanct,” Professor Ellis Cashmore, the author of Screen Society and an independent media analyst, told Sputnik. “Journalists have, over generations, respected this and steadfastly refused to reveal sources. As recently as 2005, Judith Miller, a New York Times journalist, was sentenced to prison for not revealing sources. So, it is an extremely important principle in the media.”

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“Germany’s Justice Minister Marco Buschmann had studied the EU proposals for harvesting Russian Central Bank assets, and concluded they were legally unworkable.”

• Germany Opposes EU Plan To Steal Russian Assets – FT (RT)

Germany has raised objections to Brussels’s plan to use frozen Russian Central Bank assets for Ukraine’s reconstruction, warning of the legal and financial risks arising from such a move, the Financial Times reported on Monday. The European Commission has been working on a plan to raise billions of euros by requiring financial institutions holding immobilized Russian assets to hand over some of the profits they generate. However, many lawmakers from across the bloc have pointed out that the EU legal system only allows the assets to be frozen, not expropriated. According to the FT, senior German government officials voiced doubts that the EU’s plan can win sufficient support, due to the legal risks.

A Foreign Ministry official reportedly said Moscow “will have to pay for the damage it has caused in Ukraine” and insisted that Germany was doing “everything it legally can” to locate and freeze the assets of sanctioned Russian individuals and companies. The official, however, noted that the idea of using Russian funds for Ukraine’s reconstruction raised “complex financial and legal questions.” “It opens a can of worms,” another German official warned, adding that if the EU took money from the Russian Central Bank or reaped the profits from investing the funds, it would set a precedent for others to pursue, such as Poland, with its World War II reparation claims against Berlin. An unnamed official told FT that Germany’s Justice Minister Marco Buschmann had studied the EU proposals for harvesting Russian Central Bank assets, and concluded they were legally unworkable.

At a meeting with the European Commission last week, several diplomats reportedly urged caution on the proposal. The EU and its allies have frozen hundreds of billions of euros of Russian Central Bank assets as part of the sanctions policy. Officials have so far rejected calls to confiscate the assets outright, and have instead looked for ways to harvest some of the proceeds for Kiev, FT wrote. The report indicated that one option is for securities depositories to be required to make a windfall contribution from the profits generated, when they reinvest the proceeds of frozen Russian assets. Kiev reportedly believes the EU could raise €3 billion ($3.2 billion) a year from Russian Central Bank assets.

According to a senior Ukrainian official, it was also looking at an alternative scheme, whereby the commission could use seized Russian assets as collateral against which it could borrow to invest for a return, which would be designated for Kiev. “The challenge is to try to work out what is legally sound and defensible,” according to one EU diplomat involved in the discussions, who added: “It’s more complex than anybody thought at the outset.” Foreign ministers from the 27-nation bloc are expected to discuss the issue at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, officials involved in the planning of the meeting told the FT. Moscow has repeatedly condemned the EU’s seizure of its assets as theft. While addressing the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the measure as “medieval.”

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The ultimate power grab.

• Germany, France Want To End Veto Rights In The EU This Year (RMX)

In what may be the beginning of the end for European nations, Germany and France are determined to reform national rights, including the EU right of veto, this year. The debate has caused a stir in recent months, and in recent weeks, the measure has been put back on the agenda. France and Germany are convinced that a large-scale institutional reform of the European Union, including the abolition of the veto on European Council votes, could be achieved this year, French EU Affairs Minister Laurence Boone and German Minister of State Anna Lührmann told Euractiv. “This is one of the options we want to explore in order to maintain our position as a global player with the EU’s common foreign and security policy,” Lührmann said.

She added that “it would be an important signal in other policy areas if we were to move to qualified majority voting already this year” and expressed confidence that this would happen. The two ministers said that both countries consider it important to abolish unanimous voting in the European Council in areas such as foreign policy and taxation before the enlargement of the European Union. This could mean, for example, that Brussels would be able to implement a flat tax rate across the EU or even involve itself more deeply in the war, both moves that Hungary has rejected and in some cases even deployed its veto to stop.

Paris and Berlin claim abolishing the veto is a change that is possible without amending the EU treaties, a point hotly contested by a number of European parties, as it would not only give Brussels enormous power but also the largest states, such as Germany and France. This would subsequently allow for the EU to enact a liberal immigration policy, green rules and various other progressive goals without any hindrance from Hungary and other smaller, conservative nations. The introduction of qualified majority voting would remove the veto on foreign policy issues, which would mean that only 15 of the 27 member states — representing 65 percent of the EU’s population — would have to agree to make particularly important foreign and defense policy decisions affecting the EU as a whole. Laurence Boone told Euractiv that this would be “an important step toward greater integration and efficiency.”

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Mobula ray

 

 

Bat swim

 

 

 

 

1st steps
https://twitter.com/i/status/1673386327163674633

 

 

Throw in a donkey

 

 

Art
https://twitter.com/i/status/1673370199301537809

 

 


The oldest musical composition with musical notation still existing anywhere in the world is the Seikilos epitaph from Aydin (Turkey). The epitaphs’ Greek text reads:

“While you live, shine
have no grief at all
life exists only for a short while
and Time demands his due.”

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 14 2023

Mar 142023
 
 March 14, 2023  Posted by at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  78 Responses »


Louis Anquetin Girl Reading a Newspaper 1890

 

• Kremlin Explains Its ‘Only Option’ In Ukraine (RT)
• Doubts In Ukraine About Readiness To Mount Offensive -WaPo (RT)
• Xi Jinping Plans To Visit Moscow As Early As Next Week (TASS)
• Germany Is Not An Independent Nation – Patrushev (RT)
• Russia Insists On Objective Investigation Into Nord Stream Attack (TASS)
• Hungarian Defense Minister: Europe Can Send Troops To Ukraine (Az.)
• ‘Yanukovich Case’ Tantamount To Kiev’s Confession Of Coup – Former PM (TASS)
• Jan. 6 Attorney Alleges FBI Criminally Altered Evidence (ET)
• US Heading For Another Great Depression – Trump (TASS)
• Money Troubles (Kunstler)
• Sorry, No Empathy, No Bailouts And YES I MEAN IT (Denninger)
• Are The Evil Gods Returning? Or Is Evil Is Inside Us? (Ugo Bardi)
• House Dems Use Hearing to Attack Both Free Speech and a Free Press (Turley)
• mRNA Vaccine Contamination Much Worse Than Thought (DS)

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1634898813855866881

 

 

 

 

RFK Trump

 

 

TUCKER: Should the United States support regime change in Russia?
TRUMP: No. We should support regime change in the United States, that’s far more important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ischinger wants a “peace process” led by only one side of the conflict: US, UK, Germany and France. WTF?

• Kremlin Explains Its ‘Only Option’ In Ukraine (RT)

There are currently no conditions for a peace settlement in Ukraine, meaning Russia has no other option but to keep fighting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has argued. “The absolute priority for us remains and will always remain reaching the goals that we’ve set for ourselves. At this point in time, they can only be achieved through military means,” the official told journalists on Monday. Peskov was reacting to an article penned by veteran German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, who served as chair of the Munich Security Conference for over a decade. In a piece published by the Der Tagesspiegel daily on Sunday, Ischinger urged Western leaders to “start thinking about a peace process now” and create a special political contact group for the Ukraine conflict.

“In addition to arms deliveries and financial support, we have to offer perspectives to the growing chorus of questions by critics,” he argued. According to Ischinger’s proposal, the contact group would be led by the US, UK, Germany and France, with other nations and international organizations, including NATO, forming an “outer circle” of participants to lend legitimacy to any draft documents. The group’s task would be to prepare a ceasefire agreement and other paperwork to form the backbone for a post-conflict period. It would work alongside the so-called Ramstein Group, which funnels Western military aid to Ukraine. Ischinger stressed that the new initiative would not put pressure on Ukraine to negotiate.

The veteran German diplomat suggested a list of questions that the group would ask themselves, including: “Should a ceasefire agreement be endorsed by the UN Security Council?”, “Will there be a demilitarized buffer zone?”, and “Should the people in Crimea hold a referendum to decide who they belong to?”. Kiev has declared the full return of territories it claims as Ukrainian as a precondition for peace talks. Its national security council has also banned talks with Russia for as long as President Vladimir Putin remains in office. Moscow has argued that the Ukrainian government has effectively made peace talks impossible, and that Kiev has adopted its stance based on orders from the US, which is aiming to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

Macgregor
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635321905426178058

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“Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded..”

• Doubts In Ukraine About Readiness To Mount Offensive -WaPo (RT)

Kiev’s forces have been so “degraded” by a year of fighting against Russia that some Ukrainian officials doubt their ability to execute a planned spring offensive, the Washington Post has reported. The conflict has taken many of the most seasoned Ukrainian troops, with the arrival of inexperienced draftees changing the profile of the country’s military, the US paper pointed out on Monday. US and European officials have estimated that up 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the launch of Russia’s military operation last February, it added. Kiev keeps information abouts losses secret, even from its Western backers. “Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded,” a battalion commander in Ukraine’s 46th Air Assault Brigade, identified only by his call sign, Kupol, told the paper about his experienced troops.

And the poorly trained rookies that he’s been getting recently “just drop everything and run” as soon as the battle begins, the commander added. Another problem faced by Ukrainian troops is a shortage of ammunition, including artillery shells and mortar bombs, the Washington Post said, citing those fighting on the ground. “You’re on the front line. They’re coming toward you, and there’s nothing to shoot with,” Kupol said, describing the situation. “We don’t have the people or weapons,” an unnamed senior Ukrainian government official told the paper. He explained that casualties incurred by the side mounting an offensive are usually two or three times higher than on the defending side. “We can’t afford to lose that many people,” the official added.

“If you have more resources, you more actively attack. If you have fewer resources, you defend more. We’re going to defend. That’s why if you ask me personally, I don’t believe in a big counteroffensive for us. I’d like to believe in it, but I’m looking at the resources and asking, ‘With what?’ Maybe we’ll have some localized breakthroughs,” the source said. The official called the number of tanks promised to Kiev by the US and its allies “symbolic,” while some of other officials who talked to the paper didn’t believe that Western weapons would be able to reach the frontline in time. The newspaper also cited a US official, who said that – despite some gains on the battlefield recently – ammunition, manpower and motivation problems were even worse on the Russian side. However, no facts were provided to back this claim. As for Ukraine, the stakes will be “particularly high” in the coming months as Kiev’s Western supporters watch to see if the country can reclaim the initiative, the Washington Post noted.

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Zelensky wants to meet with Xi. He will not like that.

• Xi Jinping Plans To Visit Moscow As Early As Next Week (TASS)

Chinese President Xi Jinping intends to visit Moscow as early as next week, Reuters reported on Monday, citing sources. According to its information, the Chinese leader expects to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. No details were given. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that the Chinese president’s trip to Moscow could take place in April or May. Last December, Putin, in talks with Xi Jinping via video conference call, invited him to come to Moscow in the spring of 2023. In February, the Russian president received Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), member of the CCP Politburo Wang Yi in the Kremlin. Putin then expressed the hope that this visit would give an additional impetus to the development of bilateral relations between Moscow and Beijing. The previous face-to-face meeting between the Russian leader and his Chinese counterpart took place in September 2022 in Samarkand during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

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“..this scenario would seem plausible only to people who “cannot think logically.”

• Germany Is Not An Independent Nation – Patrushev (RT)

Germany is facing an inevitable economic decline after losing its access to Russian energy, but cannot do anything about it because it is not a sovereign nation, the secretary of the Russian National Security Council has claimed. “Germany tried for many years to build its economy on a combination of cheap Russian energy and advanced German technologies. Like no one else, it realizes that the terrorist attack against the [Nord Stream pipelines] will definitely cause the German economy to decline further,” Nikolay Patrushev said in an interview published in Argumenti i Fakti newspaper on Monday. The advantages that German businesses enjoyed by getting access to Russian fuel has long irritated the governments of the US and the UK, he continued.

But Berlin is not at liberty to continue cooperating with Moscow, “because the German nation is not independent.” “Washington imposes on Berlin its economic and environmental agenda and keeps a 35,000-strong military force on its soil. For years, the White House controlled [former chancellor] Angela Merkel, and now it forces the German leadership to side with the version of the pipeline sabotage that is advantageous to the US authorities,” Patrushev said, describing America’s treatment of Germany as “humiliating.” The remarks were part of Patrushev’s comments on the sabotage of the undersea pipelines, which were built to supply Germany with Russian natural gas. The Nord Stream links were ruptured by powerful explosions last September in what Russia has called a blatant terrorist attack.

A series of articles published by Western media this month claimed that Western intelligence services believe that a “pro-Ukrainian group” not associated with any government was behind the attack. Patrushev argued that, considering the training and equipment that such a complicated operation required, this scenario would seem plausible only to people who “cannot think logically.”

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“Berlin is well aware that close economic cooperation between Germany and Russia has never satisfied Washington and London..”

• Russia Insists On Objective Investigation Into Nord Stream Attack (TASS)

Moscow insists that an objective international investigation with its participation should be carried out on the Nord Streams sabotage. The one-sided versions being heard now do little to explain anything, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said. “I emphasize that any accusations that are not supported by the results of an impartial investigation cannot be trusted. Therefore, Moscow insists on an objective investigation with the participation of Russia and other interested countries. Without this, voicing one-sided subjective versions of the terrorist attack does not explain anything,” he told the Argumenty i Fakty weekly on Monday.

According to Patrushev, Russia still did not know for certain who was behind the terrorist attacks at the Nord Stream gas pipelines, and the country has not been included in the investigation of this “unprecedented terrorist act”. He stressed that the situation was also complicated by the planting of a fake leak published without any reference to the real source. “Resolving to cover up the true patrons of the crime, the pro-government Anglo-Saxon media, following orders from above, laid the blame on a certain group of Ukrainian terrorists. In essence, they once again pointed to the terrorist nature of the current Kiev regime. At the same time, the authors of the information campaign thought that no one would object to this version,” the Russian Security Council Secretary stressed.

In his opinion, the idea that the US and the UK were not involved in the terrorist attack “is obviously driven by the calculation that the audience lacks the ability to think logically, including the method of denial.” “Since newspapers are emotionally claiming that the act of sabotage was carried out by a group of Ukrainian terrorists, the question to ask is whether such a group exists at all and if it’s capable of doing such things. It’s no secret that activities like this require special ops units that are properly trained and equipped,” Patrushev noted. According to the security chief, the US and England certainly have such capabilities. Other NATO countries also use combat swimmers for sabotage tasks but only “with the consent and support of the country that determines the main agenda for NATO,” the official explained.

Patrushev also suggested considering who benefited from the attack. “Were the blasts advantageous for Ukraine or Germany? Kiev neither lost nor gained anything from the gas pipeline destruction. Moreover, such an act is not advantageous for the Zelensky regime, which actually begs Berlin to give more military and other aid, and has no use for such an act,” he said. Germany, who for many years has been trying to build its economy based on a combination of cheap energy resources from Russia and advanced German technology, knows better than anyone else that the attack on the pipeline would definitely lead the economy of Germany to a further decline, added the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. “At the same time, Berlin is well aware that close economic cooperation between Germany and Russia has never satisfied Washington and London,” he recalled.

Along with that, Patrushev pointed out that it has long been clear that today’s German state was not independent: Washington imposed its economic and environmental policy on Berlin and kept a 35,000-strong military contingent on its territory. “It is known that for many years the White House controlled [former German Chancellor] Angela Merkel, and today it is forcing the German leadership to go along with the US authorities’ version of the pipeline sabotage. Perhaps that is why [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz was urgently summoned to Washington for a meeting with [US President Joe] Biden. By doing so, the US continues to humiliate Germany, showing it its place,” he concluded.

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We’re working on it. But other than 30,000 Poles, which other country is ready to send troops?

• Hungarian Defense Minister: Europe Can Send Troops To Ukraine (Az.)

Europe’s tendency to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons and armored vehicles could lead to the deployment of troops to the conflict zone, Minister of Defense of Hungary Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said, Report informs. “Now we are at the point where we need to participate; we need to get involved, first by voting for sanctions, then with money, then only with defense means; now we already see that they are sending tanks, Leopard, fighter jets are also on the way, and if this continues, soldiers will be needed if Ukrainian human resources run out,” he said.

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“.. In October 2016, Ukraine’s new authorities stripped Yanukovich of the title of president..” That’s 2,5 years after the coup.

• ‘Yanukovich Case’ Tantamount To Kiev’s Confession Of Coup – Former PM (TASS)

The Kiev regime’s charges against the ex-president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, of illegal border crossing and incitement to desertion are tantamount to a confession a coup d’état was staged in Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine’s former prime minister Nikolay Azarov (2010-2014) said on Monday. “In any unclear situation in Ukraine the Kiev regime blames Yanukovich. It is alleged that on February 23, Yanukovich fled Ukraine and encouraged about 20 of his guards, who were members of the state bodyguard service, to emigrate. What idiot has concocted this case?! First, they themselves were yelling at the top of their lungs that Yanukovich had quit on his own and left the territory of Ukraine on February 21. Now they themselves have admitted that Yanukovich was on the territory of Ukraine on February 21, which means that there was no quitting on his part,” Azarov he wrote on his page on a social network.

The former prime minister urged Ukrainians to independently assess the inconsistency of the Kiev regime’s actions. On March 10, the Office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General announced that a district court in Kiev would hold hearings in absentia on the case of illegal border crossing and incitement to desertion against Yanukovich. The other defendant in this case is Konstantin Kobzar, the former chief of the head of state’s bodyguards. According to investigators, on February 23, 2014, Yanukovich and Kobzar illegally crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border twice and smuggled at least 20 people across it. On the same day, if the Prosecutor General’s Office is to be believed, Yanukovich, while staying on the territory of a military unit of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, was “instigating” his bodyguards commit desertion.

Yanukovich served as Ukraine’s president from 2010 to 2014. During the coup d’état in February 2014, he was essentially ousted from office by force and, faced with a threat to his personal safety, had to flee the country. In October 2016, Ukraine’s new authorities stripped Yanukovich of the title of president, and a month later launched criminal proceedings against him in absentia on charges of treason. In 2019, a court in Kiev sentenced Yanukovich in absentia to 13 years in prison.

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“Miller’s hidden messages reveal casual discussions among the FBI regarding the monitoring of codefendant Rehl’s trial strategy, Rehl’s defenses and ‘interesting’ points, and ways the government can get around Rehl’s defenses..”

• Jan. 6 Attorney Alleges FBI Criminally Altered Evidence (ET)

Rogers Roots, an attorney representing Dominic Pezzola, a Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach defendant, alleged on Sunday that the FBI had committed crimes by altering evidence and requested that the court appoint a special master to review the evidence. Roots’s move came days after the testimony of FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller, who was involved in the agency’s investigations of the Jan. 6 defendants. When cross-examining Miller, Nick Smith, an attorney representing Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean (listed as co-defendant on Pezzola’s case), revealed classified FBI emails that were hidden in a tab in an Excel spreadsheet, which included a directive to Miller to “destroy” 338 pieces of evidence and “edit out” an FBI agent from an informant report.

“Destroying evidence is a federal crime. It actually falls under a federal crime under more than one statute. The same goes with altering documents, altering records, that is a federal crime,” the John Pierce Law attorney told The Epoch Times in an interview on Sunday. In a filing on Sunday, Roots requested that Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee presiding over the case, either dismiss the case in its entirety or appoint a special master to independently review the FBI messages that were revealed in court. “The unceremonious and uninhibited nature of Miller’s discussion of committing these serious crimes suggests an FBI culture of corruption and lawlessness that must be immediately stopped, and fully investigated,” Roots said in the filing. A key question about these leaked messages is whether they fall under the scope of evidence in the case.

Roots said in the filing that the messages show a violation of due process, reiterating his argument in an earlier filing that the FBI’s monitoring of communications between a co-defendant, Zachary Rehl, and his attorney violated the Sixth Amendment, which prohibits invasion of the right to counsel (Matter of Fusco v. Moses). “Miller’s hidden messages reveal casual discussions among the FBI regarding the monitoring of codefendant Rehl’s trial strategy, Rehl’s defenses and ‘interesting’ points, and ways the government can get around Rehl’s defenses,” Roots said in the Sunday filing. In the filing, Roots requested the court dismiss Pezzola’s case with prejudice, appoint a special counsel, appoint a special master, schedule extensive evidentiary hearings, and release Pezzola from custody.

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“We will have a great depression far bigger and more powerful than that of 1929. As proof, the banks are already starting to collapse!!!”

• US Heading For Another Great Depression – Trump (TASS)

Former US President Donald Trump has blamed the incumbent, Joe Biden, for the economic problems of the United States and predicted a new Great Depression. “With what is happening to our economy, and with the proposals being made on the largest and dumbest tax increase in the history of the USA Joe Biden will go down as the Herbert Hoover (US President in 1929-1933) of the modern age. We will have a great depression far bigger and more powerful than that of 1929. As proof, the banks are already starting to collapse!!!” he wrote on his social network Truth Social on Monday.


On Friday, the California Department of Financial Protection announced the bankruptcy of the 16th largest bank in the US, Silicon Valley Bank. It serviced primarily employees of the high-tech sector workers and venture capital-funded companies, including some of the industry’s most well-established brands. According to CNN, this was the largest bank failure in the United States since the 2008 financial crisis. The Great Depression was a global economic crisis that began on October 24, 1929 with the stock market crash in the United States. It lasted until 1939. Industrial cities were the hardest hit, construction almost stopped, farm produce prices plummeted and mass unemployment ravaged the country.

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“..the interest rate hikes that Mr. Powell spoke of so confidently only days ago just got stashed into his folder labeled “Fuggeddabowdit.”

• Money Troubles (Kunstler)

Since banks today exist in a vast matrix of interconnected obligations — promises to pay this-and-that — fear grows that the rot from one bank, such as SVB, will infect many other banks that are no longer able to keep their promises about paying this-and-that, leading to a daisy-chain of things not getting paid. For an economy, that’s about the same as the blood ceasing to circulate in a body. The practice in situations such as this (say, as in 2008-09) is for the governing authorities — who supposedly rule over the banking world like gods — to rush to rescue these outfits with “liquidity,” money (or representations of it) as required to re-balance things, or, maybe provide the impression of re-balancing until something else can be figured out. The Jupiter and Minerva of American banking, Jay Powell and Janet Yellen, were faced with just that sort of call for divine intervention over the weekend as fear seeped into every nook and crevice of the money world that wealth was flaring away in the long-feared-of conflagration out of the dumpster banking had become.

Sunday morning, Ms. Yellen told CBS News “bailouts, no way” but by the afternoon Mr. Powell cried “bailouts, way,” and they had to get their story straight. They offered up $25-billion to bail out depositors for a smoldering system that will arguably require a trillion dollars or more of liquidity to quench the spreading fires. One thing looks for sure: the interest rate hikes that Mr. Powell spoke of so confidently only days ago just got stashed into his folder labeled “Fuggeddabowdit.” So, the campaign to control inflation must now yield to the urgent need to create a whole lot of money to spray over those fires.

You may have noticed that the value of your money has been slip-sliding away the past year or so. Peanut butter at five bucks a jar, and all. The situation at hand kind of guarantees that we’ll be seeing a whole lot more of that. And then the gods of money will have lost control of the interest rate console altogether. No more tweaking the broken knobs. More inflation will prompt US treasury paper holders to dump what they can while there’s still some value to retrieve. But the US has to issue more debt for all the bail-outs and theoretical buyers of new debt will perforce bid up the rates to keep up with inflation… and yet the US can’t possibly bear the burden of paying higher interest on its debt. Looks like the business model for running the USA is breaking down before our eyes.

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“What was featured in the stupidity of 2008? Allowing banks to run with no reserves..”

• Sorry, No Empathy, No Bailouts And YES I MEAN IT (Denninger)

The so-called “Chief Risk Officer” at SVB had a masters in….. public administration. Anyone care to bet if she passed any form of advanced mathematics — you know, like for example Calculus or Statistics? Do you think she understood exponents and why this graph made clear that concentration of risk and duration was stupid and likely to blow up in everyone’s face — including hers? How about Bill Ackman and the others on the Internet screaming for a bailout? How about the CFOs of public companies like Roku that stuck several hundred million dollars in said bank? Was it not widespread public knowledge (and available to anyone who took 15 minutes to do research, which you’d think someone would do before putting a hundred million bucks somewhere) that this institution was chock-full of VC-funded startup companies which, historically fail 90% of the time and their debt becomes impaired or even worthless?

Where are the indictments for fiduciary malfeasance among these people? It takes a literal five minutes with Excel to prove to yourself that if debt is rising faster than GDP no matter the interest rate eventually the interest payments on that debt will exceed all of the economy. This of course is impossible because you cannot use over 100% of anything as its not there, but long before you reach that point you’re going to have trouble putting food on the table, fuel in the vehicle and paychecks are going to bounce. It was for this reason that one of the first sections in my book Leverage, written after the 2008 blowup which I chronicled and laid bare upon the table featured exactly this chart.

The last bit of insanity was just 15 years ago by my math. Did we fix it? No. What was featured in the stupidity of 2008? Allowing banks to run with no reserves. Who did that? Ben Bernanke, who got it into the TARP bill that eventually passed and which I reported on at the time. It accelerated that which was already going to happen because Congress is full of people who think trees grow to the moon, leverage is never bad and exponents are a suggestion. Oh by the way, your local Realtor thinks so to as does, apparently, the former SVB “risk officer” who, it is clear, didn’t understand exponents — or didn’t care. The simple reality is that it must always cost to borrow money in real terms.

This means the rate of interest must be positive in said real terms, which means across the curve rates must be higher than inflation — again, in real terms, not in “CPI” which has intentional distortions in it such as “Owner’s Equivalent Rent” when you’re not renting a house, you’re buying it. Had said “CPI” actually had home prices in it then it would have shown a doubling in many markets in that section of the economy over the last three years. In other words housing alone would have resulted in a roughly 10% per year inflation rate, plus all the other increases, which means the Fed Funds rate should have been 300bips or so beyond that all the way back to 2020 — which would put Fed Funds at about 13% for the last three years. It isn’t of course but if it had been then all those “housing price increases” would not have happened at all. Incidentally even today the Fed Funds rate is below inflation and thus the crazy is still on.

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“We were mistreated by dumb bureaucrats, not by the minions of evil deities..”

• Are The Evil Gods Returning? Or Is Evil Is Inside Us? (Ugo Bardi)

[..] sometimes you have the sensation that something truly evil is moving in the world. Naomi Wolf expressed the idea most clearly in a recent post of hers. I could not explain the way the Western world simply switched from being based at least overtly on values of human rights and decency, to values of death, exclusion and hatred, overnight, en masse — without reference to some metaphysical evil that goes above and beyond fallible, blundering human agency. … “What we have lived through since 2020 is so sophisticated, so massive, so evil, and executed in such inhumane unison, that it cannot be accounted for without venturing into metaphysics. Something else, something metaphysical, must have done that. And I speak as a devoted rationalist.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking along similar lines. I even argued that worshiping the evil deity Baphomet could be a good idea for really nasty people who want to dominate the world. Overall, though, I think it is not the right explanation. No matter how inexplicable the rise of evil can look, it is still something that comes from inside us, not from the outside. Evil is us, eventually. The recent release of the “Lockdown Files” in Britain supports this idea. These files contain the messages sent and received by Matt Hancock, the British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care during the lockdown period in Britain. In these messages, Hancock doesn’t sound evil. He just writes as if he cared only about himself, and his personal prestige. He wanted to “own the exit,” and he didn’t care about the British people, whom he evidently considered a band of morons. We were mistreated by dumb bureaucrats, not by the minions of evil deities.

Now, I have a stated policy that I call the “Grokking Strategy” that consists in listening to everyone and trusting no one. So, I am perfectly willing to consider the hypothesis that the Hancock files are a psyop designed to divert the public’s attention away from the hidden forces that governed the reaction to the pandemic. On the whole, though, I think these files are genuine. They make sense, and they also match other examples of the same kind. For instance, we recently saw similar leaks of messages sent and received by the Italian equivalent of Hancock, Mr. Roberto Speranza, Minister of Health of the Italian government during the lockdown period. We can’t swear on the authenticity of these leaked messages, but they fit with the personality of Mr. Speranza. Like Hancock, he was clearly trying to “own the exit.” In late 2020, he published an autobiographical book designed to show how he had been valiantly fighting the virus and eventually had succeeded in squashing it. The book was quietly removed from the market when it turned out that the pandemic was not over. Now a printed copy is a rare collector’s item.

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The Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger hearing was unreal.

• House Dems Use Hearing to Attack Both Free Speech and a Free Press (Turley)

“At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Those words were first asked by lawyer Joseph Welch in his confrontation with Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) during the Senate’s infamous Army-McCarthy hearings. This week, nearly 70 years later, Welch’s words seem more relevant than ever after House Democrats savaged two journalists who attempted to explain a government effort to censor citizens. It was only the latest of a series of hearings in which FBI agents and other whistleblowers, experts and journalists have been personally attacked for raising free-speech concerns. Last week’s hearing showed definitively that we live in a post-decency era.

The latest attacks came as journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified about breaking the “Twitter Files” story, detailing how the FBI and other agencies secretly sought to censor or ban citizens from social media. In her opening statement, Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), the ranking member of the House Judiciary subcommittee, attacked them as “so-called journalists” and said they were “a direct threat” to the safety of others by reporting the censorship story. Taibbi pushed back, saying that “I’m not a ‘so-called’ journalist” and giving a brief description of his award-winning career at Rolling Stone magazine and other publications. Yet other committee members also attacked the honesty of the two journalists. And after failed efforts to claim they were Elon Musk’s corrupt “scribes,” or limited by him in their investigations, the committee members attacked their ethics.

The witnesses were attacked on everything but their choice of socks. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) even claimed that “being a Republican witness today certainly casts a cloud over your objectivity.” When Wasserman Schultz impugned the two journalists’ honesty and ethics, she immediately “reclaimed (her) time” to prevent them from defending themselves. When the subcommittee chair gave them a chance to answer her claims, Wasserman Schultz and her Democratic colleagues objected that a witness was allowed to defend himself after being blocked from doing so. In an earlier attack, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) prevented Taibbi from answering a question and dismissed his effort to defend his position, saying: “This is how it works now. I’ll ask the question and you try to provide an answer if you can.”

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“100 times greater than previously reported..” But Pfizer knew…

• mRNA Vaccine Contamination Much Worse Than Thought (DS)

The contamination of mRNA vaccines with DNA is far greater than initially thought at up to 35%, and the DNA’s role in inducing human cells to produce the spike protein long term has been confirmed, according to the latest research. Earlier this month, the Daily Sceptic reported on the work of Dr. Kevin McKernan and his team who had subjected the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to deep sequencing analysis and found alarming levels of DNA contaminants known as plasmids. These are small circular DNA molecules that in principle can self-replicate in bacterial and human cells and induce the cell to produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein long term. Each vaccine dose was found to contain billions of these plasmids.

Japan deaths

The Moderna vaccine appeared to contain DNA contamination at around the ‘safe’ level set by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) at the equivalent of one part per 3,000 mRNA molecules, though it’s not clear how safe this level really is. The Pfizer vaccine, on the other hand, was found to contain DNA contamination at 10 times the ‘safe’ level, at one plasmid per 350 mRNA molecules. The DNA is part of the vaccine manufacturing process, providing the blueprint for the mRNA, but it should have been removed to at least the ‘safe’ level, though was not for reasons that are unclear. Now, Dr. McKernan and his team have undertaken further analysis and found that the level of DNA contamination is much greater than originally reported, with up to 35% of the vaccine product being this DNA contamination. They write:


This equates to 20-35% of the nucleic acid in each vaccine being expression vector. This is several orders of magnitude over the the EMAs limit of 330ng/mg. With these levels of contamination, RT activity from LINE-1 is not a prerequisite for genome integration. Molecular biologist Dr. Jessica Rose explains that this means each dose may contain trillions of DNA molecules, 100 times greater than previously reported: “The left-over expression vectors used to manufacture the mRNAs are at contamination levels 100-fold higher than originally proposed and imply trillions of DNA molecules per dose. This has implications for integration into our genome.”

Dowd
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635330030845980673

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Walking oats

 

 

 

 

Frens
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635226717806813185

 

 

Godfather

 

 

Heron

 

 

Shelter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635389575119147009

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle January 6 2023

Jan 062023
 
 January 6, 2023  Posted by at 9:42 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  93 Responses »


Dorothea Lange One nation indivisible. San Francisco 1942

 

• Putin Calls for Ceasefire, Ukraine Rejects, Biden Pushes for More War (Celente)
• White House Rejects Putin’s Christmas Truce As But A “Cynical Ploy” (ZH)
• Ukraine Warns Germany Of ‘Russians Outside Berlin’ (RT)
• US Won’t Fulfill Ukrainian Request – WaPo (RT)
• 2022: The World As We Knew It Ended. Decades Of Conflict Lie Ahead (Timofeev)
• Russian “New Mobilization Process” For Major Offensive Imminent? (ZH)
• Arrest Of Russian Outlet’s Journalist Is Blow To Press Freedom – Moscow (RT)
• The Coup We Never Knew (Hanson)
• The Ginni Thomas Investigation Ends Without a Mention in J6 Report (Turley)
• Trump Announces Plan To Destroy The Drug Cartels With The US Military (PM)
• Sotomayor Felt “Sense of Despair” Because Babies Would be Protected (LN)
• These Doctors Pushed Masking, Lockdowns on Twitter. But They Don’t Exist (SFS)
• Swiss Organization To Provide Safe Blood Transfusions From Unvaxxed (NN)
• What Caused Damar Hamlin’s Cardiac Arrest? Experts Weigh In (CHD)

 

 

 

 

Have the vaccines saved lives?

 

 

 

 

 

 

EV

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..the West wants to destroy Russia, so it provided Ukraine with more weapons than it could ever imagine and Zelensky’s goals grew..”

• Putin Calls for Ceasefire, Ukraine Rejects, Biden Pushes for More War (Celente)

Ukraine rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for a unilateral, 36-hour ceasefire to mark the celebration of Orthodox Christmas, calling Putin “hypocritical” for even suggesting laying down arms, albeit briefly. Mikhailo Podolyak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top adviser, took to Twitter and said Russian troops must withdraw from all occupied territories, and only then will they have a “temporary truce.” “Keep hypocrisy to yourself,” he concluded. Reuters reported that the Kremlin released the statement from Putin calling for the truce after a conversation with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

“Proceeding from the fact that a large number of citizens professing Orthodoxy live in the areas of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a ceasefire and allow them to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on Christmas Day,” Putin said, according to the report. Needless to say, Washington continued to promote war. President Joe Biden said the ceasefire was an effort by Putin to find breathing room. “He was ready to bomb hospitals and nurseries and churches” on 25 December and on New Year’s Day. I think he’s trying to find some oxygen,” he said. Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, said if Putin was sincere with his peace goals, he would withdraw troops. “A so-called ceasefire brings neither freedom nor security to people living in daily fear under Russian occupation,” Baerbock tweeted, according to Al Jazeera.

Ukraine’s position has been clear since the outbreak of war: all Russian troops must leave the country before any negotiated settlement can occur. But the West wants to destroy Russia, so it provided Ukraine with more weapons than it could ever imagine and Zelensky’s goals grew. Kyiv now wants Crimea and said it will not negotiate until Russian leaders face war-crime trials, which will never happen. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, spoke with Putin on the phone Thursday and called for the ceasefire. He said “calls for peace and negotiations should be supported by a unilateral ceasefire and a vision for a fair solution.” Putin, again, indicated that he is willing to negotiate for peace, but he will not part with any new territory.

Zelensky, meanwhile, warned that he expects a major Russian offensive after Putin mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops. “We have no doubt that the current masters of Russia will throw everything they have left and everyone they can muster to try to turn the tide of the war and at least postpone their defeat,” Zelensky said. “We have to disrupt this Russian scenario. We are preparing for this. The terrorists must lose.”

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NATO wants to keep up the fight.

• White House Rejects Putin’s Christmas Truce As But A “Cynical Ploy” (ZH)

Update(1553ET): The White House has rejected Putin’s call for a Christmas truce in Ukraine. The Russian leader earlier in the day ordered a unilateral 36-hour ceasefire for his forces starting Friday, which will still apparently be in effect despite Ukraine rejecting it. Presumably Russian forces have been told to cease firing along the line of contact starting on Orthodox Christmas Eve day (Friday), unless they are fired upon from the Ukrainian side. The Biden administration cast it as a “cynical ploy” in order for Russian forces to regroup. Biden himself said the ceasefire proposal isn’t “serious” – as The Hill cites of the president’s words: President Biden said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for a temporary, Christmas ceasefire is an effort to “find some oxygen,” dismissing that the Kremlin is serious about finding an off ramp for its assault against Ukraine.

The president said he was “reluctant to respond to anything Putin says,” but characterized the Kremlin as cynically attacking civilians over the December holidays. “He was ready to bomb hospitals and nurseries and church’s on the 25th and New Years — I mean, I think he’s trying to find some oxygen,” Biden added. At the State Department, spokesman Ned Price called Putin’s Christmas truce declaration a “cynical ploy… to rest, to refit, to regroup, and ultimately to re-attack, to re-attack with potentially even more vengeance, even more brutality, even more lethality, if they had their way.”

The majority of the populations in both countries are adherents of the Orthodox Church, with Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians traditionally celebrating Christmas on Jan. 7th. Germany was earlier in the day among the first Western countries to reject Putin’s announcement as inauthentic. And yet, ironically enough, calls have rang out from the West for months since the start of the conflict for Russian troops to cease fighting. One would think that any pause in fighting, however temporary, would be welcomed by the West – but alas not.

Update (1109ET): Within a mere hour after President Putin declared there would be a 36-hour ceasefire for all Russian forces along the line of contact in observation of Orthodox Christmas, Zelensky’s office has issued a firm rejection, calling it “hypocrisy” and demanding that all Russian troops must leave occupied territory immediately. Zelensky advisor Mykhailo Podolyak announced on Twitter, that Russian forces… must leave the occupied territories – only then will it have a “temporary truce”. Keep hypocrisy to yourself. He had earlier responded to Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill by calling the proposed Christmas ceasefire “a trap”. Ukrainian officials are also calling this a ploy for Russian forces to regroup and to take the momentum out of the Ukrainian army counteroffensive, which has been making some gains of late.

Update (1015ET): Shortly after Erdogan spoke with Putin this morning, the Russian leader has ordered a temporary cease-fire in Ukraine Friday and Saturday to mark Orthodox Christmas. The statement from the Kremlin cites earlier appeal from Patriarch Kirill for ceasefire over the holiday. Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill had previously said in a statement posted to the church’s official website: “I, Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and of all Rus, appeal to all parties involved in the internecine conflict with a call to cease fire and establish a Christmas truce from 12:00 on January 6 to 00:00 on January 7 so that Orthodox people can attend services on Christmas Eve and on the day of the Nativity of Christ.” [..] Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7th, and is a major holiday just as in the West during December (the Orthodox Church’s Julian calendar December 25 falls on January 7 on the West’s Gregorian calendar).

Bloomberg has meanwhile hinted at a negative response from Ukrainian leaders, given their initial reaction to Patriarch Kirill’s Christmas truce call: Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to cease fighting in Ukraine for 36 hours starting Friday at noon, Moscow time, in what appeared to be a rare sign of conciliation in an invasion that’s heading for its second year. The Kremlin said Putin gave the order Thursday for Russian Orthodox Christmas. It follows an appeal by the patriarch of that church, which has close ties to the Kremlin. Ukrainian officials denounced that as a trap. Kyiv has demanded Russia remove its troops from Ukraine as a condition for any ceasefire.

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Almost funny.

• Ukraine Warns Germany Of ‘Russians Outside Berlin’ (RT)

Should Germany fail to provide Ukraine with tanks, it will soon have to use them to defend its own capital from advancing Russian troops, Alexey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, warned on Wednesday. Speaking to Ukrainian TV, Danilov took a swipe at Germany’s leadership, particularly at Chancellor Olaf Scholz, criticizing him for refusing to send Kiev modern Leopard 2 battle tanks. If Scholz “wants the Germans to deploy German tanks to fight off the Russians outside of Berlin and Stuttgart, he could continue this game, conducting sociological surveys on whether they need to give us tanks or not,” he said. The official also highlighted the significance of the Ukraine conflict for Europe, adding that it poses “huge challenges” to the region.

“Those countries that understand that help us at 150% capacity. Those countries that are slowly wising up about the need to tackle this issue, they also started to act,” Danilov stated. While Berlin has been providing Kiev with large amounts of weaponry, it has been reluctant to supply it with modern Leopard 2 battle tanks. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had earlier explained that because no other country had made equivalent weaponry available to Ukraine, Berlin should not be the first one to do so. A December YouGov poll also showed that 45% of Germans do not want to send Leopard 2 tanks to Kiev, with another 33% saying they were in favor of such a step. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly voiced discontent over Germany’s stance on the matter, with Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba saying last month that Kiev does not understand why Germany is sending artillery but not heavy armor.

On Monday, Michael Mueller, who sits on the Bundestag’s Foreign Policy Committee, told the German media that Berlin would continue to refrain from any “ill-considered unilateral moves,” especially in the context of arms shipments. Such deliveries are possible only “in coordination with our NATO partners,” he said, adding that the US-led military bloc wants to avoid becoming a direct party to the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has long warned Kiev backers against sending weapons to Ukraine, arguing that it would only prolong the hostilities. President Vladimir Putin also accused the West of turning Ukraine into “a colony,” and using its people as “cannon fodder, a battering ram against Russia.”

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M1 Abrams main battle tank is scrap metal: “..tanks’ heavy fuel consumption and propensity to break down make them unsuitable for the Ukrainian military.”

• US Won’t Fulfill Ukrainian Request – WaPo (RT)

The US will not send M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing officials. Despite repeated requests from the Ukrainian government, no NATO power has donated Western-designed battle tanks thus far. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official said that the Abrams tanks’ heavy fuel consumption and propensity to break down make them unsuitable for the Ukrainian military. One of the heaviest main battle tanks in service worldwide, the M1 Abrams weighs in at 60 tons, with the latest M1A2 variant increasing this heft to more than 73 tons. An M1 Abrams tank costs more than $450 per mile in fuel and repairs, according to a 1991 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report adjusted for inflation.

The Abrams’ poor reliability was noted by the GAO. After a decade in service with the US military, the report stated that the average M1 Abrams needs its track replaced after as little as 710 miles, with engines typically suffering catastrophic “blowouts” after 350 hours of operation. However, the US Army insists that the latest M1A2 variant, which rolled off production lines in 2020, “is the most reliable Abrams tank ever produced.” Ukraine has repeatedly requested delivery of the American-made behemoths, portraying them as crucial to its war effort. Mikhail Podoliak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, put them on his “Christmas wishlist” in a social media post last month, while Zelensky has himself repeatedly asked the US and its allies for tanks since March.

Zelensky and his officials have singled out Germany in particular, asking Berlin for Marder infantry fighting vehicles and Leopard main battle tanks on multiple occasions. Germany has thus far rebuffed these requests, with lawmaker and Bundestag Foreign Policy Committee member Michael Mueller telling reporters this week that sending the tanks could trigger “an escalation that none of us want to imagine.” France on Wednesday became the first NATO member to announce the transfer of Western-made “light tanks” to Ukraine, although the vehicles in question – six-wheeled AMX-10 units – are outdated, and technically closer to armored fighting vehicles than tanks such as the Abrams or Leopard.

The French AMX-10s are similar in weight to the US-made Bradley Fighting Vehicle, with both coming in at less than 30 tons. US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the transfer of an unspecified number of Bradleys is currently being discussed in the White House. Russia has repeatedly warned the West against arming Kiev, saying that doing so will only serve to prolong the conflict, and risks making Western nations de-facto participants.

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“..It remains to be seen if the next cycle will not be the last for mankind..”

• 2022: The World As We Knew It Ended. Decades Of Conflict Lie Ahead (Timofeev)

In 2022, the remnants of the ‘end of history’ era finally became a thing of the past. However, there has not been a return to the Cold War either. Russian policy is mainly concerned about security interests. It is not derived from ideology, although it does include components of the identity of ‘the Russian world’, as well as historical motives for opposing Nazism. Russia does not offer a global ideological alternative comparable to liberalism – nor has China yet taken such initiatives. The end of the ‘end of history’ is notable for several other details. Firstly, a major power has risked giving up the benefits of the ‘global world’ overnight. Historians will argue about whether Moscow anticipated such harsh sanctions and the departure of hundreds of foreign companies so quickly. However, it is clear that Russia is vigorously adapting to the new realities and is in no hurry to return to US-centric globalization.

Secondly, Western countries have embarked on a very tough ‘purge’ of Russian assets abroad. Overnight, their jurisdictions ceased to be ‘safe havens’ where the ‘rule of law’ is followed. Now it is politics that calls the shots and Russia is the only harbor to which its citizens can return to relative peace. Stereotypes about the ‘stability and security’ of the West are breaking down. Of course, they are unlikely to begin a similar purge of other assets there. But looking at the Russians, outside investors are wondering whether they should hedge their risks. Thirdly, it turned out that in the West, they might face not only asset stripping, but outright discrimination on the grounds of nationality. Thousands of Russians ‘fleeing’ the ‘bloody regime’ have suddenly faced rejection and contempt. Others trying to prove that they are even bigger ‘Russophobes’ than their host partners are running ahead of the anti-Russian propaganda train. However, this does not guarantee that the stubborn dogmatists will embrace them.

The conflict between Russia and the West is likely to drag on for decades, regardless of how the conflict in Ukraine ends. In Europe, Russia will play the role of North Korea, while possessing much greater capabilities. Whether Ukraine has the strength, the will, and resources to become a European South Korea is a big question. Conflict between Russia and the West will lead to a strengthening of China’s role as an alternative financial center and source of modernization. A stronger China will only accelerate its rivalry with the US and its allies. The ‘end of history’ has ended with a return to its usual course. One of these is the collapse of the world order as a result of large-scale conflicts between centers of power. It remains to be seen if the next cycle will not be the last for mankind, given the risks of an open military clash between the great powers with a subsequent escalation into full-scale nuclear conflict.

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Ukraine makes up stories and the west duly repeats them.

• Russian “New Mobilization Process” For Major Offensive Imminent? (ZH)

Ukraine says it’s bracing for a major new Russian offensive, which will involve a large influx of new ground forces at a time Russian forces are under pressure and reportedly lacking enough manpower to maintain front lines, but did not give a timeline for the expected push. In fresh statements widely circulated Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia is planning a major “new offensive” which will involve a planned “new mobilization processes.” He suggested the new mobilization is imminent given recent Russian battlefield losses in the east, which includes the devastating strike on a barracks in the city of Makiivka, resulting an a huge Russian troop death toll.

“We have no doubt that the current masters of Russia will throw everything they have left and everyone they can muster to try to turn the tide of the war and at least postpone their defeat,” Zelensky said. “We have to disrupt this Russian scenario. We are preparing for this. The terrorists must lose.” Kiev had begun issuing these warnings of a major escalation by Moscow shortly after last month Putin referred to the Ukraine special operation as a “war” for the first time. As the The Hill also details: Some Ukrainian officials also warned last month about a potential new Russian offensive in January or February, including Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, a top commander in the Ukrainian army who told The Economist that Russia is preparing some 200,000 troops and could have another go at Kyiv.

Previously, Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov also issued a New Year message, and in it appealed to the Russian people, warning that Putin his about to declare martial law and close borders to men, in preparation for a new wave of mobilization. Reznikov called for Russians to resist these efforts and stand for peace in the video address… Within Russia, public opinion appears increasingly divided on how military and Kremlin leadership is executing the war, particularly in the wake of the Makiivka barracks attack, which left up to hundreds of Russian conscripts killed. Hawks within Russia in the meantime have continued pushing for a more muscular escalation in order to achieve the military objectives laid out since the start of the invasion. Others are calling for both sides to implement a Christmas truce this weekend in observation of Orthodox Christmas (Jan.7 according to the Julian calendar).

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“Just last month, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia protested French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to offer Russia security guarantees..”

• Arrest Of Russian Outlet’s Journalist Is Blow To Press Freedom – Moscow (RT)

The arrest of Sputnik Lithuania’s editor-in-chief is a violation of international norms of freedom of speech and the rights of journalists, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday. She called on international organizations to react appropriately to Latvia’s “overreach” in arresting Marat Kasem. “Riga has once again demonstrated that for it such values of a democratic society as media pluralism and the rights of journalists are nothing more than empty phrases,” Zakharova said in a statement. Earlier, the spokeswoman shared a video on her Telegram channel of Kasem speaking about the problems he was facing, noting that he had complained for years about pressure and mistreatment at the hands of governments in the Baltic states.

All the international organizations concerned with freedom of speech, who spent years ignoring Kasem’s safety concerns, should “finally justify their existence” and intervene, Zakharova argued. “It is not just a duty, but an obligation of the international community to do everything so these overreaching regimes would return to following the law,” she said. Kasem is a Latvian citizen, but has lived and worked in Moscow for the past several years. He returned to Latvia on family business just before New Year’s Eve. On Thursday, the authorities in Riga ordered his arrest and charged him with espionage and violating EU sanctions against Russia. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years behind bars. His lawyer has not yet been given the case files, and her request to release Kasem on bail has been denied. He is currently being held in Riga’s Central jail.

Moscow has complained about the ongoing persecution of several journalists in Baltic states back in 2021, prior to the conflict in Ukraine escalating. Kasem had been detained in Vilnius and deported from Lithuania as a “threat to national security” in 2019. His colleague Valentin Rozentsov, editor-in-chief of Sputnik Latvia, was detained and interrogated in Riga in 2018. The former Soviet republics have adopted a hardline stance on the conflict in Ukraine. Just last month, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia protested French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to offer Russia security guarantees, and demanded no exemptions on the ban on Russian fertilizer exports, despite EU concerns about potential famine in Africa.

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Lots of things changed and somehow became normal.

• The Coup We Never Knew (Hanson)

Did someone or something seize control of the United States? What happened to the U.S. border? Where did it go? Who erased it? Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally? Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws? Did Joe Biden issue an executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased? Since when did money not have to be paid back? Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow? When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal? When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent to dirty coal?

How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal? Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings? How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas—furious over a court decision on abortion? How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d—s”?

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth? And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared? How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call? Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television? Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees? When did we assume the FBI had the right to subvert the campaign of a candidate it disliked? Was it legal suddenly for one presidential candidate to hire a foreign ex-spy to subvert the campaign of her rival?

Was some state or federal law passed that allowed biological males to compete in female sports? Did Congress enact such a law? Did the Supreme Court guarantee that biological male students could shower in gym locker rooms with biological women? Were women ever asked to redefine the very sports they had championed? When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their freedom during a pandemic? In America can health officials simply cancel rental contracts or declare loan payments in suspension? How could it become illegal for mom-and-pop stores to sell flowers or shoes during a quarantine but not so for Walmart or Target?

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The emptiness expands.

• The Ginni Thomas Investigation Ends Without a Mention in J6 Report (Turley)

The Jan. 6 committee issued its long-awaited report at 2022’s end, with the expected breathless punditry. Spoiler alert: It turns out the culprit of this “whodunit” was … wait for it … Donald Trump. What’s more interesting is the dog that did not bark. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story “Silver Blaze,” the local inspector asks Sherlock Holmes, “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes responds, “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” When the inspector objects, “The dog did nothing in the night-time,” Holmes replies, “That was the curious incident.” In the 895-page report, the “curious incident” is the lack of any reference to Ginni Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife.

For months, members, the media and an army of pundits hammered away at the “smoking gun” texts Thomas sent to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and others calling the election stolen and demanding challenges to certifying the electoral votes. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was the first member of Congress to call for Justice Thomas to be impeached over his wife’s 29 messages. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) called for Thomas to resign immediately as a “corrupt jurist.” Former Sen. Barbara Boxer and others joined these calls. (Boxer was particularly ironic since she used the same underlying federal law to challenge the certification of George W. Bush’s election.) Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) demanded an investigation. On the committee itself, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) fueled the frenzy and demanded subpoenas for both Thomases.

The media also went into hyperbolic overload. Liberal sites demanded Thomas be impeached, citing “watchdogs” who turned out to be the same crowd that has long denounced the justice. MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan tweeted, “I have a question for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats: Why haven’t you impeached Clarence Thomas yet?” CNN and MSNBC commentator Tristan Snell tweeted that the couple had to be subpoenaed: “At best, they are material fact witnesses. At worst, they are co-conspirators to be charged with seditious conspiracy.” Professor Laurence Tribe (who declared Trump should be charged with attempted murder) also demanded the justice and his wife be subpoenaed. MSNBC’s Zeeshan Aleem declared in June that the scandal “keeps getting worse” but “the silver lining is that it will likely intensify calls for overhauling the high court, and help strip more people of the illusion that the Supreme Court is an apolitical branch of government and a neutral arbiter of the law.”

Activists like Sarah Lipton-Lubet, Take Back the Court Action Fund executive director, declared that “there’s much more to the story of Ginni Thomas’ participation in the January 6 attack that the House Select Committee and the American public deserve to know.” Yet it turns out what we knew was largely all we needed to know. There was not “much more to the story.” The entire Ginni Thomas scandal merited nary a mention in the massive report. Indeed, it doesn’t appear the committee had anything more than what we knew when the controversy began. The texts were never denied, and they weren’t surprising since Ginni Thomas was publicly supporting Trump and his claims. She was willing, moreover, to answer the committee’s questions voluntarily.

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Something’s not going right.

• Trump Announces Plan To Destroy The Drug Cartels With The US Military (PM)

Former President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would order the US military to declare cartels as enemy combatants if he were to be reelected president. Trump said that he would deploy the Navy and Special Forces to defend the security of the Western hemisphere. Trump made the announcement as President Joe Biden prepares to make his first trip to the southern border, after having previously said that there were “more important” things to deal with. “The drug cartels are waging war on America—and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels,” President Trump said in his announcement. “The drug cartels and their allies in the Biden administration have the blood of countless millions on their hands. Millions and millions of families and people are being destroyed. When I am back in the White House, the drug kingpins and vicious traffickers will never sleep soundly again.”

A statement from Trump lays out an action plan that he says will “destroy the drug cartels,” which includes steps such as:
• “Restore all Trump border policies and fully secure the border”
• “Deploy all necessary military assets, including the US Navy, to impose a full naval embargo on the cartels, to ensure they cannot use our region’s waters to traffic illicit drugs to the US”
• “Order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations”
• “Designate the major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations”
• “Cut off the cartels’ access to the global financial system”
• “Get full cooperation of neighboring governments to dismantle the cartels, or else fully expose the bribes and corruption that protect these criminal networks”
• “Ask Congress to ensure drug smugglers and traffickers can receive the Death Penalty”

“Joe Biden has spent the last two years dismantling the southern border,” the statement says. “Biden’s Open Borders policies are killing innocent Americans, ravaging American communities, enriching the cartels, and destabilizing large parts of Mexico and Latin America.” Trump’s statement points out that since Biden took office, 200,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses, with hundreds of thousands of pounds of fentanyl, heroin, meth, cocaine, and other illicit narcotics “pouring across our wide-open border and into American communities.” Enough fentanyl was seized at the border last year to kill every single American. “BOTTOM LINE,” Trump’s statement ends, “Biden has destroyed the border—President Trump will destroy the cartels.”

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From Abortion

• Sotomayor Felt “Sense of Despair” Because Babies Would be Protected (LN)

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed a “sense of despair” and sadness Wednesday about recent decisions by the conservative-majority court, including the Dobbs v. Jackson abortion case. Sotomayor and two other justices dissented in the historic June ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade and began allowing laws to protect unborn babies from abortion again. Research estimates at least 10,000 unborn babies were saved from abortions just in the first two months. Speaking at the Association of American Law Schools’ annual meeting in San Diego, Sotomayor said she feels “deeply sad” about the new direction of the court, according to Reuters. “I did have a sense of despair about the direction my court was going,” the Obama appointee said.

Although she did not mention the Dobbs case specifically, Sotomayor talked about feeling “shell-shocked” and “deeply sad” about recent rulings, adding: “It’s not an option to fall into despair. I have to get up and keep fighting,” Reuters reports. Sotomayor would have upheld Roe and continued to force states to legalize killing unborn babies for any reason up to viability, but she was overruled. Some of her arguments against Dobbs were based on false and misleading claims by the pro-abortion movement and have been debunked by researchers and doctors. The Dobbs decision may have been the most monumental ruling by the Supreme Court in decades. For nearly 50 years under Roe, American abortion laws were among the most extreme and permissive in the world.

Just a few other countries, including China and North Korea, allow elective abortions up to birth, as Roe did. As a result, more than 63 million unborn babies were legally aborted in the U.S. Now, because of Dobbs, state and local lawmakers may pass legislation to protect unborn babies again. Already 14 states are enforcing laws that limit or ban abortions and eight more are fighting in court to do the same. In November, voters also elected more pro-life lawmakers to their state legislatures in several states, paving the way for even more protections. Despite her pro-abortion leanings, Sotomayor recently did defend her conservative colleague Justice Clarence Thomas from unfounded leftist attacks, saying she knows he “cares about people.” Thomas joined the majority in Dobbs.

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Whatever.

• These Doctors Pushed Masking, Lockdowns on Twitter. But They Don’t Exist (SFS)

Last month, Dr. Robert Honeyman lost their sister to Covid. They wrote about it on Twitter and received dozens of condolences, over 4,000 retweets and 43,000 likes. Exactly one month later, on Dec. 12, Honeyman wrote that another tragedy had befallen their family. “Sad to announce that my husband has entered a coma after being in hospital with Covid. The doctor is unsure if he will come out,” they tweeted. “This year has been the toughest of my life losing my sister to this virus. This is the first time in my life I don’t see light at the end of the tunnel.” Again, the condolences and well-wishes rolled in. But there was a problem: Honeyman wasn’t real.

The transgender “Doctor of Sociology and Feminist studies” with a “keen interest in poetry” who used they/them pronouns was, in fact, a stock photo described on DepositPhotos, a royalty-free image site, as “Smiling happy, handsome latino man outside—headshot portrait.” Their supposedly comatose husband, Dr. Patrick C. Honeyman, was also fake. His Twitter photo had been stolen from an insurance professional in Wayne, Indiana. The two fake doctors, whose accounts urged extreme caution about Covid-19, were part of a network of at least four fake accounts that touted their ties to the LGBTQ+ community, vocally advocated for mask-wearing and social distancing, and dished out criticism to those they felt were not taking the pandemic seriously.

The Honeymans could not be reached for comment, as they do not exist. At publication time, Robert Honeyman’s account was no longer active. The fake doctors were uncovered by Joshua Gutterman Tranen, a self-described “gay writer” pursuing a master’s of fine arts at Bennington College. He saw Robert Honeyman’s tweet about their husband being in a coma, noticed people he followed also followed them, and thought that they might be part of the LGBTQ+ academic community. But after 10 minutes of googling, Gutterman Tranen concluded that Robert Honeyman’s photo was a stock image and their biography stretched boundaries of believability: an academic who left no traces on academic websites and had lost two family members to Covid in late 2022, despite masking and distancing.

The character looked like “liberal Mad Libs,” Gutterman Tranen said. “I’m a self-identified leftist, and I understand that people have a lot of different identities, but it felt concocted in the lab about how many identities and horrible experiences can we put on one person,” he said.

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“..Della Pietra has contacted hundreds of clinics all over Europe, all of which still don’t allow people “the human right of free blood choice.”

• Swiss Organization To Provide Safe Blood Transfusions From Unvaxxed (NN)

An organization in Switzerland called Safe Blood Donation has been set up to provide people all over the world with safe blood transfusions exclusively from people who remain unvaccinated against the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). The organization was founded in late 2022 by Swiss naturopath George Della Pietra. According to the group’s website, the group’s goal is to provide people all over the world with a way to receive life-saving blood transfusions while refusing to take the vaccines developed against COVID-19. “Be it an emergency, a scheduled operation or because you need regular transfusions for other medical reasons. This is where Safe Blood Donation comes into play as an intermediary,” reads a statement on the organization’s website.

The group will essentially act as a middleman to connect people all over the world with medical partners who are willing to accept blood donations and provide blood transfusions to people with health needs, but are hesitant to go to hospitals where they will almost certainly receive blood from vaccinated individuals. Della Pietra created his organization due to the release of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines causing disputes all over the world over blood treatments and transfusions. Specifically, people who are skeptical of the benefits that come with taking the experimental vaccines and doesn’t want their body tainted by the unsafe products. [..] Della Pietra has contacted hundreds of clinics all over Europe, all of which still don’t allow people “the human right of free blood choice.”

Furthermore, dozens of clinics he contacted have all refused to become a partner of the new organization. Some of these clinics are sympathetic, but claimed they do not want to be mentioned for fear of reprisals from the mainstream medical community. The founder further noted that his main goal is not to run Safe Blood Donation as a blood bank, noting that “this is not possible at the moment” due to legal concerns, but to act as a quick referral service “to match blood donors and recipients” who are then sent to a medical partner’s clinic where the safe, unvaccinated blood transfusion will be handled. In return for providing people with this service, members are also urged to “make themselves available as blood donors” for other people looking for unvaccinated blood transfusions.

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“..in all cases there has been “airtight privacy” about whether they were vaccinated and what their diagnosis was..”

• What Caused Damar Hamlin’s Cardiac Arrest? Experts Weigh In (CHD)

Damar Hamlin’s sudden collapse on live TV during Monday night’s NFL game triggered an avalanche of media coverage, with experts weighing in on what might have caused the 24-year-old player’s cardiac arrest after what appeared to be a routine tackle. Some news outlets quickly concluded Hamlin’s heart attack most likely was caused by commotio cordis, a rare phenomenon that occurs when a small and extremely fast-moving projectile — such as a baseball, hockey puck or lacrosse ball — strikes the chest in a precise location, disrupting the heart’s rhythm. The condition affects about 10-20 people per year, usually teenage boys. Most mainstream media reports rejected the theory that Hamlin’s cardiac arrest might be linked to COVID-19 vaccines, using terms such as “far-right,” “vile,” “anti-vaxxer” and “conspiracy theorists.”

However, Dr. Peter McCullough told “Good Morning CHD” host Aimee Villella McBride why he believes the vaccines can’t be ruled out. McCullough, an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist and leading expert on COVID-19 treatment, explained the possible role of the vaccines in cardiac arrest and other heart injuries among athletes. He explained that any physician watching replays of Hamlin’s collapse immediately starts thinking through a differential diagnosis of what could have caused it. He said: “Let me tell you that I did see head and neck contact with a tackle, which is not uncommon at all in football. Remember that the shoulder pads have a breastbone protector, [a] pretty substantial breastbone [protector], so they take helmets in the chest all the time.”

McCullough acknowledged that when a baseball hits an unprotected breastbone, it can precipitate a cardiac arrest, but said he was not aware of that happening in pro football, leading him to rule out commotio cordis. “And as I watched things unfold it was relatively clear that [Hamlin] was in a primary cardiac arrest,” he said. McCullough believes there is a public health obligation to disclose what happened. He said: “This is a player who is employed by a team, and the team and the league mandated the vaccine very publicly. “So we have a situation where we have a public figure, the public employer mandates the vaccine in a very public manner, there is a disclosure that 95% of the players have taken the vaccine, and the FDA says the vaccine causes myocarditis and the published peer-reviewed literature says that it can be fatal.”

“This is not a time for privacy,” McCullough said. “The public needs to know that diagnosis because he was under one of these mandates and this happened on the national and world stage.” McCullough said numerous athletes have collapsed on the field and been resuscitated, but that in all cases there has been “airtight privacy” about whether they were vaccinated and what their diagnosis was. “I think the Hamlin case is going to break through all this,” he said.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Cut a tree

 

 

Chinese exercise
https://twitter.com/i/status/1610702098198413313

 

 

1842 farmer

 

 

 

 

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Putin Made a Peace Offer. Take it.

Oct 062022
 
 October 6, 2022  Posted by at 5:34 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  17 Responses »



Ivan Aivazovsky Palace rains in Venice by moonlight 1878

 

 

Vladimir Putin has just about finalized the accession of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), plus the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, into the Russian state. This is a peace offer, even if precious few will recognize it as such. Putin was never eager to make this move, it took him 8 years to recognize the independence of DPR and LPR, but it was the only solution left.

As State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin put it this week: “..accession to Russia is the only way to save the people living in the four former Ukrainian territories from shelling by Ukrainian troops. “The only way to end this is reunification [with Russia].” Obviously, Ukraine and the west label the accession, and the referendums that “solidified” it, illegal, but it’s not under Russian law, and that is what counts for Putin.

After the votes, the situation was scrutinized by Russian Constitutional Court, the Duma, every institution that Russian law requires. Not perhaps international law, whatever that is, but why would Russia bother with that? How, for instance, does “international law” view the killing of 14,000+ Russians living in Ukraine since 2014, by Ukrainian forces?

The US-driven Maidan coup, where an elected president was ousted, in violation of “international law”, is a place to start. The ill-begotten hodge-podge patchwork state of Ukraine was always an accident waiting to happen. Cramming people together into a state who don’t like each other historically, has never been a bright idea. But since for 70 years or so, Ukraine was just a piece of the Soviet Union, there was a kind of peace for that time.

That changed when the wall came down and the Soviet Union dissolved. In the first decade or so after that, everyone was too busy taking care of themselves -especially the oligarchs and CIA agents in the country. But when the dust was settled, Putin was leader of Russia, and he prevented the US from taking over Ukraine -and much more.

This map that Elon Musk reposted a few days ago shows what we already know, that Ukraine as a country was a crazy idea. You can’t have that kind of division and expect a very long time to thrive. In 2012, Yanukovich was democratically elected, he had more votes, and in 2014, Nuland, McCain et al decided they did not like that.

 

 

Here’s a video of Petro Poroshenko, the chocolate prince who became the 2nd president, talking about the Russian speaking people in the east. For western Ukraine, they were little more than cattle. But there were more of them than of western Ukrainians, so a coup was needed. No problem for Nuland, but a problem for Putin. Russia protects Russians, wherever they live. Watch the English subtitles.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1577394416561623056

This is why Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 2022, that and the increasing threat of NATO-allied troops and equipment on the border. And said: no nukes, no NATO, no nazis. Of course, the nazis still have Zelensky under control, reneging on his campaign promise to seek peace, NATO moved close than ever, and boy, would they love to get their hands on some nukes.

And that is why Putin decided to take over the 4 regions. It was the only way he saw to protect the Russian people living there. He was, and is, probably right.

Now, Ukraine and Zelensky claim there is a history that makes all of present day Ukraine a state with solid borders, culture, language etc., but it was only in 1922, 100 years ago, that the borders were drawn, under Soviet leadership, and, as I said, it was just a patchwork thing. There is a Ukrainian history, but it’s on a much smaller piece of land than what is today touted as Ukraine.

 

 

So, sorry, but there’s not much there. Russia, and Putin, were happy to have Ukraine as a friendly neighbor, they’re all Russians in a broad sense anyway, but not as a country that hosts nazis, NATO and perhaps nukes.

Now that the 4 regions have been declared part of Russia, there is no way back. Zelensky may have big words about taking lost territory back, including Crimea, but to do that, he would have to beat the no. 1 nuclear power in the world. And that is Putin’s peace offer: we’ve taken those parts of your country where you were shelling Russians, and you can have the rest of it, provided you don’t use it to threaten us, and “us” also means the 4 regions.

You may today have troops in a region that is considered Ukrainian, but it is now no longer that. It is Russian. And that is completely different from shelling people on your own territory. Add to that, that Europe is getting de-industrialized, and frozen, and hungry, and you should all ask yourselves if perhaps somewhere in this process you went off the rails. You can apply another 10 rounds of sanctions, but those also will hurt you more than us.

Russia is betting a safe bet: that the people currently in charge in the west, no longer will be when the winter is over. There will be some, but most will be thrown out by the people they failed when they bet on beating Russia with untold billions of funds provided to those in charge of the most corrupt country in Europe. Instead of their own citizens.

And as for the recent advances of the Ukraine/NATO army in the 4 regions: all those troops now find themselves on Russian territory. Which is exactly what everyone tried to prevent. Russia let them go for a while, and withdrew its troops, waiting for the territory to become Russian. And now it is.

Basically, Putin’s peace offer is: we have what we needed, now leave us alone. You know very well you can’t beat us, so let’s sit down and talk.

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 15 2021

Sep 152021
 
 September 15, 2021  Posted by at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Café, le soir, Arles 1888

 

• The Meaning of the FDA Resignations (Tucker)
• Considerations In Boosting Covid-19 Vaccine Immune Responses (Lancet)
• 1 In 7 Vaccinated Americans Have Dumped Friends Over Covid-19 Jabs (RT)
• Unvaccinated US Covid Patients Cost $5.7 Billion To Treat In Last 3 Months (F.)
• Ordeal by Narrative (Kunstler)
• Nearly Half Of ‘COVID Hospitalizations’ This Year Have Been Mild Or Asymptomatic (ZH)
• Israel Health Ministry Chief Says Covid Spread Reaching Record Heights (ToI)
• Israel Increases Hospital Staff to Fight COVID Surge (Haaretz)
• Suspensions Put Strain On Greek Health System (K.)
• France Health Worker Vaccine Mandate Comes Into Effect (G.)
• Bring In Measures Soon Or Risk 7,000 Daily Covid Hospitalisations – Sage (G.)
• Harrowing Account Of NSW ‘Hospital At Home’ Program (News.au)
• White House: 75% Of Adults Have At Least One Covid-19 Vaccine Dose
• Contaminated Pfizer Vaccines Reported In Several Japanese Cities (ZH)
• Milley Secretly Called Chinese Officials Out Of Fear Trump Would ‘Attack’ (Fox)
• CNN and WaPo Finger Milley as Leader of Military Coup Against Trump (CTH)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something’s afoot. Can’t imagine these two will be the only ones.

“This is a deep problem for actual scientists working within the bureaucracy because they know for sure that all of this is a pretense and that the government cannot win this war on the virus.”

• The Meaning of the FDA Resignations (Tucker)

Now to the striking resignation of two top officials at the FDA who were in charge of vaccine safety and administration. It was the Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Vaccines Research, Marion Gruber and Phillip Kause. They gave no reason for their departure, which is scheduled for October and November. The case is fascinating because 1) people rarely resign cushy government jobs unless a higher-paying, higher-prestige job in the private sector awaits, or 2) they are being pushed out. It’s rare for anyone in a position like to to resign over a principled matter of science. When I first read that they were going, I figured something else was up. These days, extremely weird things are going on within the Biden administration.

Even though his approval ratings are sinking, the president has to pretend that he has all the answers, that the science behind his mandates and virus war is universally settled, that anyone who disagrees with him is really just a political enemy. He has gone so far as to denounce, demonize, and legally threaten red-state governors who disagree with him. This is a deep problem for actual scientists working within the bureaucracy because they know for sure that all of this is a pretense and that the government cannot win this war on the virus. They simply cannot preside over more false promises, especially when the whole of their professional training is about accessing the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. So what can they do? In this case, it appears they had to get away before they dropped a bombshell.

The bombshell is called “Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses.” It appears in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet. The two top officials are among the authors. The article recommends against the Covid booster shot that the Biden administration, following Fauci’s advice, is suggesting as the key to making the vaccines work better and finally fulfill their promise. Fauci and company are pushing boosters because they know what is coming. Essentially we are going the way of Israel: most everyone is vaccinated but the virus itself is not being controlled. More and more among those hospitalized and dying are vaccinated. This same trend is coming to the US. The boosters are a means by which government can save face, or so many believe.

The trouble now is that the top scientists at the FDA disagree. Further, they think that the push for boosters is courting problems. They think the current regime of one or two shots is working as well as one can expect. Nothing is gained on net from a booster, they say. There just isn’t enough evidence to take the risk of another booster, and another and another. The authors knew this article was appearing. They knew that signing it under the FDA affiliation would lead to a push for their resignations. Life would get very difficult for both of them. They got ahead of the messaging and resigned before it came out. Very smart.

The signed article goes even further to warn of possible downsides. They point out that boosters might seem necessary because “variants expressing new antigens have evolved to the point at which immune responses to the original vaccine antigens no longer protect adequately against currently circulating viruses.” At the same time, there are possible side effects that could discredit all vaccines for a generation or more. “There could be risks,” they write, “if boosters are widely introduced too soon, or too frequently, especially with vaccines that can have immune-mediated side-effects (such as myocarditis, which is more common after the second dose of some mRNA vaccines, or Guillain-Barre syndrome, which has been associated with adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccines.”)

Read more …

Here’s the article Jeffrey Tucker was talking about.

Among the authors are Marion Gruber and Philip Krause, director and deputy director of the Office of Vaccines Research and Review at FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), who just resigned.

Conclusion: boosters are not needed. But take a look at Gamma in that graph.

Question: why did they resign only after approving Pfizer?

• Considerations In Boosting Covid-19 Vaccine Immune Responses (Lancet)

A new wave of COVID-19 cases caused by the highly transmissible delta variant is exacerbating the worldwide public health crisis, and has led to consideration of the potential need for, and optimal timing of, booster doses for vaccinated populations.1 Although the idea of further reducing the number of COVID-19 cases by enhancing immunity in vaccinated people is appealing, any decision to do so should be evidence-based and consider the benefits and risks for individuals and society. COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective against severe disease, including that caused by the delta variant. Most of the observational studies on which this conclusion is based are, however, preliminary and difficult to interpret precisely due to potential confounding and selective reporting. Careful and public scrutiny of the evolving data will be needed to assure that decisions about boosting are informed by reliable science more than by politics.

Even if boosting were eventually shown to decrease the medium-term risk of serious disease, current vaccine supplies could save more lives if used in previously unvaccinated populations than if used as boosters in vaccinated populations. Boosting could be appropriate for some individuals in whom the primary vaccination, defined here as the original one-dose or two-dose series of each vaccine, might not have induced adequate protection—eg, recipients of vaccines with low efficacy or those who are immunocompromised2 (although people who did not respond robustly to the primary vaccination might also not respond well to a booster). It is not known whether such immunocompromised individuals would receive more benefit from an additional dose of the same vaccine or of a different vaccine that might complement the primary immune response.

Read more …

With friends like that ….

• 1 In 7 Vaccinated Americans Have Dumped Friends Over Covid-19 Jabs (RT)

Many Americans have been jettisoning friends from their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic, and for those who have chosen to get vaccinated, views on the jabs are often the relationship-breaker, a new poll has shown. The survey, conducted earlier this month by researcher OnePoll, showed that 16% of respondents have ended at least three friendships in the past year and a half. About 14% of vaccinated Americans said they have severed relationships with friends who chose not to get inoculated against the virus. In fact, vaccinated respondents were nearly four times as likely as those who don’t intend to get the jabs – 66% to 17% – to have ended friendships during the pandemic. The poll showed that 97% of vaccinated people consider their former friends to be “full-blown anti-vaxxers” and said they could never get them to understand the importance of getting the shots.

Covid-19 vaccination is one of the most divisive issues driving a wedge between Americans. The 14% who cited the jabs as the reason for ending friendships compared with 16% who blamed political differences and 15% whose former pal was dating an ex-mate. Other reasons included discovering their friends were liars (7%) and having a friend make up stories about them (12%).Hollywood has apparently blessed the idea of dumping friends who decline to get vaccinated. Actress Jennifer Aniston – ironically, a star of the television series ‘Friends’ – said last month in an InStyle magazine interview that she had ended relationships with people who refused to get jabbed or chose not to tell her their inoculation status. “It’s a real shame,” she said. “I’ve just lost a few people in my weekly routine.”

The level of vaccine vitriol has escalated in recent weeks. Radio host Howard Stern recently blasted “all the s**theads in our country who won’t get vaccinated” and said those who don’t get the jabs should be denied hospital beds if they get sick. “Stay home, die there with your Covid,” he said. OnePoll said 81% of Democrat survey respondents were fully vaccinated, compared with 64% of Republicans and 69% of independents. About 57% of Republicans and 41% of Democrats said society is “too critical” of unvaccinated Americans. Tolerance for vaccine autonomy is waning in America, as President Joe Biden last week ordered all businesses with 100 or more employees to force their workers to get the shots. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” Biden said of unvaccinated Americans.

Read more …

Forbes moves into desperate propaganda.

“The vast majority of hospitalizations and nearly all deaths from Covid-19 are in unvaccinated people. The huge surge in demand for what few medicines are licensed to treat Covid-19 in the U.S. has triggered nationwide shortages and rationing of scarce supplies.”

• Unvaccinated US Covid Patients Cost $5.7 Billion To Treat In Last 3 Months (F.)

Preventable costs associated with treating unvaccinated American Covid-19 patients amounted to at least $3.7 billion in August and $5.7 billion since June, according to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation, as the disease rips through people who elected not to get free and highly effective vaccines. Around 187,000 Covid-19 hospitalizations could have been easily prevented by vaccination in August, research by Kaiser found, up from 68,000 in July and 32,000 in June. These preventable hospitalizations over the past three months cost the U.S. healthcare system around $5.7 billion, Kaiser estimates based on the average Covid-19 hospital bill of approximately $20,000.

The “ballpark figure is likely an understatement of the cost burden from preventable treatment of Covid-19 among unvaccinated adults,” according to the report, which noted significant variations in costs across the country, a “conservative” estimate of the proportion of Covid-19 patients who hadn’t been vaccinated and studies indicating a potentially much higher average cost than the $20,000 used (one cited put the figure at around $42,200). There are also “substantial” costs for outpatient Covid-19 treatment, the report said, though this was not factored into the analysis.

Due to laws preventing insurers from charging unvaccinated people higher premiums, the Kaiser report said the bill will fall on everyone as they will pay only “a small share of the cost” directly. This means a greater burden on the taxpayer and the risk of higher insurance premiums for businesses and workers, the report said. The costs of being unvaccinated are on the rise, however, with some employers charging higher insurance premiums to employees foregoing vaccination and others making it a condition of work. They are also facing elevated costs for healthcare as insurance companies walk back the waivers on out-of-pocket costs for Covid-19 hospital care introduced earlier in the pandemic.

The Covid-19 vaccines used in the U.S. are proven to be safe and highly effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death from Covid-19, including against the delta variant. They are also supposed to be free and have no out-of-pocket costs. Despite being readily available for months, some states still have very low vaccination rates and many have still not hit the target of partially vaccinating 70% of adults that President Joe Biden set for early July. While breakthrough infections are rare, they can and do happen, though vaccines slash the risks of long Covid, hospitalization and serious illness. The vast majority of hospitalizations and nearly all deaths from Covid-19 are in unvaccinated people. The huge surge in demand for what few medicines are licensed to treat Covid-19 in the U.S. has triggered nationwide shortages and rationing of scarce supplies.

Read more …

“..the distinguished American public servant will live out his last days in exile among the swooping fruit bats and grinning crocodiles, to the music of toucans screeching in the silk-floss trees (Chorisa speciosa).”

• Ordeal by Narrative (Kunstler)

Has doctor Anthony Fauci booked passage to Paraguay yet? Like, on a smallish container barge registered in Cote D’Ivoire, conveying a six months backlog of cars stolen out of Essex County, New Jersey, for detailing and re-sale way up that lazy river to Asunción? The captain has a comfortable guest cabin, price negotiable, but better bring your own food. The US Intel Community will not find the good doctor down there because they will not bother looking for him. And so, the distinguished American public servant will live out his last days in exile among the swooping fruit bats and grinning crocodiles, to the music of toucans screeching in the silk-floss trees (Chorisa speciosa).

Anyway, that’s my fantasy du jour. Walt Disney had it right: America’s fate would be a descent into pure fantasy as the final product of our many twentieth century triumphs. It is increasingly difficult, for instance, to sort fact from fantasy in Dr. Fauci’s magnum opus: the Covid-19 pandemic, starting from the premise that it actually exists. There was some kind of rumpus in Wuhan, China, in January of 2020… folks dropping dead in their tracks on the sidewalks (captured on closed circuit TVs)… folks getting the doors to their apartments welded shut… and then what? Not much indication of further freak-outs inside China since back then. Perhaps the virus has been raging over there all the while, but a million here, a million there, do you really notice the attrition in a land of 1.4 billion? Or did they just switch off that groove on their narrative machine? The CCP can do that, I hear.

Back in the USA, where you’d have to subtract a billion and then-some in population, something was surely killing folks, though, overwhelmingly, most of those folks were already sick, and old, pretty much in the check-out zone. In 2020, the death of old and sick people was declared… impermissible! Death suddenly had no place in the exceptional order of things American. (Ask old Uncle Walt, who reportedly had his head and its gelatinous contents cryogenically frozen, in expectation of future re-animation via science magic! Still waiting for him to come back….)

Of course, the new medical rules-of-engagement circa 2020 included the denial of early treatment with known common anti-viral drugs for folks coming down with early symptoms of the mystery illness. So, while pretending to object to the implacable fact of death — a certainty of the human condition, according to science — we killed a whole bunch of people by withholding treatment. And concurrently, we rolled out the vaccines promising to “protect everybody” only to learn that it provided other, even more diabolical, routes to death.

Read more …

This is why I don’t believe the CDC has been undercounting Covid deaths.

• Nearly Half Of ‘COVID Hospitalizations’ This Year Have Been Mild Or Asymptomatic (ZH)

A brand new study is calling into question how reliable and meaningful of a number of “patients hospitalized with Covid-19” in the U.S. is. Covid hospitalizations – the most common metric heard when discussing the seriousness of the pandemic – may not be nearly as meaningful of a number as many once thought. And don’t take it from us: The Atlantic published a stunning piece on Tuesday citing a new study that suggests “almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases”. The Atlantic had formerly called Covid hospitalizations “the most reliable pandemic number,” last winter. Now, after a nationwide study of hospitalization records was release, the publication is walking back its fervor on that statement.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School, Tufts Medical Center, and the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System took on the task of trying to figure out how serious Covid cases were in those hospitalized, and how many people counted as Covid hospitalizations were actually in the hospital for Covid, versus getting a Covid test after being admitted for something else. The study “analyzed the electronic records for nearly 50,000 COVID hospital admissions at the more than 100 VA hospitals across the country,” The Atlantic wrote. It “checked to see whether each patient required supplemental oxygen or had a blood oxygen level below 94 percent” in order to try and determine if cases met the NIH’s threshold for “severe COVID”.

What the study found was that from March 2020 to January 2021, 36% of Covid cases in the hospital were mild or asymptomatic. From January 2021 to June 2021, during the Delta variant’s spread, that number rose all the way to 48%. For vaccinated hospital patients, the number rose to a stunning 57%.

Read more …

Safe and effective.

• Israel Health Ministry Chief Says Covid Spread Reaching Record Heights (ToI)

Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash said Tuesday that the current wave of coronavirus infections is surpassing anything seen in previous outbreaks and that he is disappointed that a recent downward trend appeared to be reversing. Ash’s remarks via video call to the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee came as Health Ministry figures showed that over 10,000 new COVID-19 cases were diagnosed the day before and that the positive test rate was climbing. Pointing out that there is an average of 8,000 new infections each day, with occasional peaks over 10,000, he said, “That is a record that did not exist in the previous waves,” including the massive third wave at the end of last year.


Ash expressed some pessimism, though he observed that, belying fears, there wasn’t a large spike in infections following last week’s Rosh Hashanah holiday — the Jewish New Year — or the opening of the school year at the beginning of the month. After bringing daily infections down to little more than a dozen a day in June, Israel has been battling to control a resurgence of COVID-19 in what has been its fourth wave of infections since the start of the global pandemic. “A week ago we were in a clear downward trend; in recent days we’ve been seeing that decline stop, and the virus reproduction number is [again] above 1,” Ash said of the so-called R number, which indicates how many people each virus carrier will infect. Values above 1 show that the outbreak is growing, below 1 that it is shrinking. “I hoped that we would see a clearer drop, but we are still not seeing it,” he said.

Read more …

The boosters work.

• Israel Increases Hospital Staff to Fight COVID Surge (Haaretz)

Israel’s hospitals learned on Tuesday that they would receive funding to take on an additional 600 doctors and 1,500 nurses if the government’s forecasts are correct and the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients reaches 4,800 in the next month, with half of them being serious cases. But many health care leaders warned that the extra staff won’t have a profound impact anytime soon because it will take time for them to be trained in treating COVID-19 patients in the midst of a crisis. Their contribution will only be felt only weeks, if not months, after they are hired. Even if the new hires can get up to speed quickly, many doctors said the number of new staff that the government is offering isn’t enough to cope with the growing patient overload – and that is going to affect the quality of care.


Dr. Eytan Wirtheim, CEO of the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva and chairman of the Union of Hospital Directors, told an Israel Medical Association conference on Thursday that the staff additions were critical and that “it’s important that we begin today to fill all these jobs and shifts.” He said that in addition to the extra personnel, hospital chiefs had unsuccessfully sought an additional 300 beds for intensive care patients, 800 for internal medicine units and at least 300 for geriatric internal medicine wards. IMA Chairman Prof. Zion Hagai said the extra medical personnel would not help seriously ill patients in the current COVID-19 wave. “If anyone thinks that we have increased our capacity for new patients, the fact is we have changed nothing – we’ve just added beds without the ability to treat patients,” he told the conference. “What are they thinking? That they can just push a button and out comes a trained physician who can begin to work? Experienced nurses also need to be trained before they can enter coronavirus wards.”

Read more …

The PM bribes kids with 50 gigs of free data, to take a shot that won’t do them any good but can cause severe damage for the rest of their lives. Criminal.

• Suspensions Put Strain On Greek Health System (K.)

The suspension of unvaccinated doctors and other health workers in effect since September 1, meant as a warning and as an incentive to get inoculated, have resulted in personnel shortages across the public health system. According to the Health Ministry, some 5,500 health workers and other personnel at public hospitals have been suspended, with another 1,000 told they can’t work at primary healthcare centers. The problems are more acute in places with few personnel to begin with, such as on several islands, according to the union of state hospital employees. On the island of Naxos, for example, both surgeons, one of two microbiologists, two out of five lab technicians, two out of seven cleaners and five out of 30 nurses have been suspended. On the smaller island of Amorgos, four out of eight employees are not going in to work.

Newly appointed Health Minister Thanos Plevris tried to put a good spin on the situation. “There are certainly some dysfunctions – I want to be upfront – but those are manageable,” he responded Tuesday to a parliamentary inquiry by SYRIZA MP Andreas Xanthos, health minister in the previous leftist-led government. “We consider that, as the days pass and personnel that get vaccinated resume their duties, and with the activation of three-month contracts [with private sector healthcare providers], even these dysfunctions will be eliminated,” he added. In fact, officials are worried enough that they are considering relaxing the terms of the suspension, allowing personnel who have taken one of the two required vaccine doses back to work. No final decisions have been made about this.

The problem with health workers points to a more general issue concerning the reluctance of people to get vaccinated. Despite all sorts of enticements, incentives and ceaseless messaging, just 56% of the population is fully vaccinated. This drops to 49% for people aged 18-24, who are increasingly getting sick from the Delta variant of the coronavirus. And at schools, which opened Monday and are feared to become new bases for the spread of the disease, less than one in four 12- to 17-year-olds are vaccinated. It remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ promise over the weekend of 50 gigabytes of free data for the smartphones of 15- to 17-year-olds will provide any kind of inducement.

Read more …

This is going to be fun to watch.

• France Health Worker Vaccine Mandate Comes Into Effect (G.)

The French government faces a stand-off with tens of thousands of health workers and carers Wednesday over a new rule requiring them to receive a Covid-19 vaccine or face suspension without pay, AFP reports. Starting Wednesday, hospital staff, ambulance drivers, retirement home workers, private doctors, fire service members and people caring for the elderly or infirm in their homes – some 2.7 million people in total – must be able to prove they have had at least one shot of a vaccine. President Emmanuel Macron issued the ultimatum two months ago, but tens of thousands of carers remain unvaccinated.


One of France’s biggest public sector unions, the hardline CGT, has warned of a “health catastrophe” if the government suspends large numbers of health workers and bars private-sector doctors from practising. Defiant health workers have joined opponents of a new coronavirus “health pass” required for entry to restaurants, cafes and museums at weekly protests held across France in the past two months. On Tuesday, a few hundred people attended a union-led demonstration outside the health ministry in Paris.

Read more …

Where are the boosters?

• Bring In Measures Soon Or Risk 7,000 Daily Covid Hospitalisations – Sage (G.)

Between 2,000 and 7,000 people a day could be hospitalised with Covid in England next month unless the government urgently implements a “basket of measures”, government scientific advisers have warned as Boris Johnson made clear he hopes to avoid fresh restrictions. The prime minister confirmed on Tuesday that Covid passports, the return of mandatory mask-wearing and advice to work from home would be kept in reserve as the government’s “plan B”, to be introduced if the NHS is at risk of being overwhelmed. But newly published modelling from experts on the Sage advisory committee warn the government not to wait too long, with cases, hospitalisations and deaths all higher than a year ago despite the success of the vaccination programme.

Speaking alongside Johnson at a Downing Street press conference, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, also said experience of battling the virus showed “you have to go earlier than you think you want to, you have to go harder than you think you want to”. He said the UK was now at a “pivot point” where, if the situation worsens, it could do so rapidly. Modellers on the Sage committee expect cases to rise in the coming months after almost all restrictions were lifted this summer, documents show. Daily hospitalisations could plausibly peak at 7,000 in England next month, far surpassing the winter peak, which reached 4,500 UK-wide, according to the updated modelling. Currently about 1,000 people with Covid are being admitted to UK hospital wards each day.


But if enacted early enough, before a rise in cases becomes sustained, even light-touch measures could be sufficient to keep infections flat and prevent a damaging fresh wave of hospitalisations, the Sage documents say. “With the current levels of high prevalence combined with unknown behaviours, the burden on health and care settings could rise very quickly,” the scientists warn. They say “it could be a very difficult winter ahead” if acute Covid combines with other pressures such as long Covid, other infections like flu, or co-infection causes more serious illness. Even though 81% of UK adults are double-jabbed, nearly 6 million are unvaccinated and vulnerable to the highly-transmissible Delta variant now most Covid restrictions have been lifted.

Read more …

There’s a dark world down under. Good thing they banned IVM.

• Harrowing Account Of NSW ‘Hospital At Home’ Program (News.au)

The wife of a Sydney man stricken with Covid-19 has given a harrowing account of how the “hospital at home” program is operating revealing her husband was told to remain at home even when he was coughing up blood. The family, who spoke to news.com.au on the condition of anonymity, have raised serious concerns over the “call centre” approach to caring for patients which often involves call centre operators, not doctors or nurses, running through checklists of symptoms with patients. Doctors have raised concerns about the “hospital in the home” Covid treatment system after more than 15 people died at home since August 1. NSW has been left with little choice other than to rely on the hospital at home program after the number of Covid infected patients ballooned and the number of people in hospital and ICU continues to rise.

There are currently over 14,000 people with “active” Covid infection in NSW and the vast majority are being left alone at home to battle the illness. In the case of the 37-year-old man whose family spoke to news.com.au, he was “fit and healthy” and had no underlying conditions. “He is incredibly fit and healthy, a rugby player, he’s very into his health and his diet and fitness and doesn’t have any pre-existing health issues,’’ his wife said. “My husband was diagnosed on September 2. He had really mild symptoms at that point. He received a text. He was told to isolate. And they told him to stay home. They said they would call him every day,’’ she said. “But he didn’t have a GP contacting him. We just had NSW Health Unit contact which was like a call centre. He never really saw a doctor at all. He did have one phone call with a doctor.”

In the first week, she said she was given a list of things that would require her husband’s case to be escalated or taken to hospital. The woman is trapped in Victoria where she was trying to help him over the phone. “If you’ve got freezing cold skin and you can’t warm up no matter what you do. If you’ve got shortness of breath, chest pain, infrequent urination, and if you’re coughing up blood. So those are the things. We felt in good hands at that point. Then, he started to deteriorate,’’ she said. A week ago on Sunday, he started “coughing up blood and having respiratory distress”. “We monitored that overnight and on September 6, we called NSW Health to tell them that he was presenting with one of those symptoms, requiring hospitalisation along with shortness of breath,’’ the man’s wife said.

Read more …

And that’s where the fun starts.

• White House: 75% Of Adults Have At Least One Covid-19 Vaccine Dose

Three-fourths of U.S. adults have been vaccinated with at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, a White House official announced on Tuesday. White House COVID-19 Data Director Cyrus Shahpar marked the milestone in a tweet, saying the country “just hit” 75 percent of adults with at least one shot. He said that from Sunday through Tuesday, 1.51 million doses have been administered, with 681,000 newly vaccinated and 105,000 additional doses, while noting that there is “as usual, lower reporting over the holiday weekend,” referring to Labor Day. The U.S. reached the 75 percent threshold about a month after hitting 70 percent. Previously, President Biden had hoped to achieve the 70 percent mark by July 4.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s online tracker, last updated Saturday, showed that 74.8 percent of U.S. adults received at least one dose and 64 percent were fully vaccinated. The rate of vaccinations has picked up in recent weeks as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads throughout the country, leading to increased case counts, hospitalizations and deaths. The U.S. administered more than 939,000 vaccine doses on Saturday after a steady rise since mid-July, when the pace was closer to 500,000 a day, according to Our World in Data. Still, only slightly more than half of the overall U.S. population is fully vaccinated: 53 percent are fully vaccinated and 62 percent have received at least one dose.

Read more …

Are the Japanese the only ones looking?

• Contaminated Pfizer Vaccines Reported In Several Japanese Cities (ZH)

Several cities in Japan have reported ‘white-colored floating substances’ in Vials of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, according to Bloomberg. The vials came from lot FF5357, where white contaminants were first reported by Kamakura City in Kanagawa prefecture. On Tuesday, two more cities – neighboring Sagamihara and Sakai City in Osaka prefecture reported contaminated vials, however there were no reports of adverse reactions. In Sagamihara, white substances were reported at three different vaccination sites on Sept. 11, 12 and 14. The cities told Bloomberg that they will ask Pfizer for an analysis. Last month Moderna came under fire after black contaminants were found in multiple vials of their Covid-19 vaccine in Japan, causing the Japanese Ministry of Health to pull 1.6 million doses of the vaccine. According to NHK, “black substances” were found in syringes and a vial, while pink substances were spotted in a different syringe.

Read more …

“According to Pelosi, she spoke with Milley that day about “available precautions” to prevent Trump from engaging in military action.”

• Milley Secretly Called Chinese Officials Out Of Fear Trump Would ‘Attack’ (Fox)

During the final months of former President Donald Trump’s term, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley made two phone calls to Chinese officials in fear that Trump would create conflict with the communist nation, a new book has claimed. In the book, authored by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa, it is alleged that Milley made two secret phone calls, both to his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army. The book alleges that the phone calls took place prior to the 2020 presidential election on Oct. 30, 2020, and two days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, on Jan. 8, 2021.

According to the book, Milley contacted Li after he had reviewed intelligence that suggested Chinese officials believed the United States was planning an attack on China amid military exercises in the South China Sea. “General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be OK,” Milley told him during the first call, the book said. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.” The book, excerpted in the Washington Post, also stated that Milley told Li that he would warn him in advance should America decide to “attack.” “Gen. Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time,” Milley added, as reported by the book, “Peril,” which is set to be released next week. “It’s not going to be a surprise.”

The authors of the book also claim Milley contacted Li a second time to reassure him that the U.S. would not make any type of advances or attack China in any form, as Milley promised, “We are 100% steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.” Those phone calls, according to the book, were never mentioned to Trump, as Milley believed his mental state had declined following the election, something about which he shared his thoughts in a phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Jan. 8, the same day he called Li the second time. According to Pelosi, she spoke with Milley that day about “available precautions” to prevent Trump from engaging in military action.

Read more …

“They are using the opportunity of this book by Woodward and Costa to hit Milley, place the blame for Afghanistan in his lap, and make him the scapegoat so that Joe Biden and the other participants can avoid further scrutiny. ”

• CNN and WaPo Finger Milley as Leader of Military Coup Against Trump (CTH)

Today CNN, via Bob Woodward and The Washingon Post, via Robert Costa collaborate on a designed hit against one of the key corrupt actors on Team Two, Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley. CTH previously said this was coming: “Look for Joint Chief’s Chairman Mark Milley to be the guy who gets canned to protect Joe Biden. Mark Milley knows this is likely.” The framework of the CNN article is that General Milley: …”called a secret meeting in his Pentagon office on January 8 to review the process for military action, including launching nuclear weapons. Speaking to senior military officials in charge of the National Military Command Center, the Pentagon’s war room, Milley instructed them not to take orders from anyone unless he was involved.

“No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure,” Milley told the officers, according to the book. He then went around the room, looked each officer in the eye, and asked them to verbally confirm they understood. “Got it?” Milley asked, according to the book. “Yes, sir.” ‘Milley considered it an oath,’ the authors write. The framework of the Washington Post article paints Milley as even more rogue. A power hungry operator of the industrial military complex, defying civilian oversight:

[…] In a pair of secret phone calls, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa. One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that unseated President Trump, and the other on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol siege carried out by his supporters in a quest to cancel the vote. The first call was prompted by Milley’s review of intelligence suggesting the Chinese believed the United States was preparing to attack.

That belief, the authors write, was based on tensions over military exercises in the South China Sea, and deepened by Trump’s belligerent rhetoric toward China. “General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley told him. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.” In the book’s account, Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, stressing the rapport they’d established through a backchannel. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”

[..] You think CNN and the Washington Post only recently came to the understanding that General Mark Milley was a corrupt, politically motivated actor, working on behalf of the interests of the Deep State [4th Branch]? Of course not. They are using the opportunity of this book by Woodward and Costa to hit Milley, place the blame for Afghanistan in his lap, and make him the scapegoat so that Joe Biden and the other participants can avoid further scrutiny. Their play is transparent.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Moth
https://twitter.com/i/status/1437850086743101441

 

 

 

 

 

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The Swamp Swallowed Trump

Jan 092021
 
 January 9, 2021  Posted by at 4:32 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  30 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Blue Trees (Your Turn Will Come, My Beauty!) 1888

 

 

You would think that if there’s one group of people who’d recognize a coup if they saw one, it would be the American people. Because their intelligence services have been involved in almost all coups in the world for many decades; let’s say since WWII, to keep it simple.

Just in the most recent past, they staged and conducted coups in Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela and many other places (think Bolivia). Libya was the only real “successful” one, thanks to Gaddafi being sodomized with a bayonet, leading to Hillary’s giddy We Came, We Saw, He Died, the by far ugliest face of the US by a mile. That and the open-air slave markets that resulted from sodomizing to death the man who led Africa’s wealthiest country and gave his people benefits that Americans can only dream of.

And now Hillary’s crew are about to be handed the reins again. Or as Michael Tracey put it”: The new corporate authoritarian liberal-left monoculture is going to be absolutely ruthless – and in 12 days it is merging with the state. This [is] only the beginning. Duck for cover.

The screwed-up coups in Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela etc. would appear to signal that the CIA is not very adept (anymore?!) at organizing coups, or maybe they just chronically overestimate their skills at it. Whichever way it may be, they have done more damage to America and its standing in the world than Donald Trump could ever have dreamt of doing.

So you would think Americans would recognize a coup, but instead they’re the last group of people on the planet who would. Because their media doesn’t present them as coups. They’re labeled as spreading democracy, freedom etc., as standing up against the bad guys, and liberating innocent people -even if many of them die in the process. People dying is a feature of these coups, not a bug. People get shot, bombed, disappeared, in a word: killed.

 

Anyway, it’s way more and better than ironic that all these very deadly CIA-led operations are not labeled coups, but then the clowns and actors spectacle that took place in Washington DC this week, is. Which is possible only because they never told people what a coup actually is. Only then can you make them believe that some wanker in a furry viking helmet outfit is trying to overthrow the government. At the initiative of the democratically elected president, no less.

Are these people extremists and terrorists or are they clowns and actors? I would lean towards the latter option. A coup requires a plan, a playbook, most often elites who think they have a shot at taking over a country, which in turn requires support from at least part of an army. The best these folks could think of was sitting in Pelosi’s office and take selfies.

 

 

That doesn’t make the march on the Capitol a good thing, far from it, but there are a lot of people out there who don’t like the way the president they elected in 2016 has been treated by the MSM, his political opponents, and US intelligence. And after the theater that has been Russiagate, the Mueller debacle and the Zelensky call-based impeachment, maybe that shouldn’t be too surprising.

The main problem for Trump lately would appear to have been his legal representation. I’ve said all along: let the dice roll where they may, there are many questions surrounding the election and they have the right to go looking for answers to these questions.

But if you look at what the status is today of what the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Lin Wood have come up with, you think they might as well have been working for the other side. Still, we’ve at least seen the dice roll, and they came up they way they did. The process was allowed to proceed, and this is the outcome. This has misled Trump as well as his followers. They thought there was something substantial -and tanglible- there, because that’s what they were told all along.

This doesn’t mean the US should continue using voting machines, however. There are many countries that hold elections, and there are very few that either use those machines and/or see their elections contested. There’s a reason for that combination. These things can be manipulated, and they will be if they’re used. Get rid of them or this chapter will be repeated endlessly.

 

Then again, it all plays out well for anyone but Trump. And perhaps a few GOP’ers who stood by him. You could say, Trump entered the swamp and drowned in it, it swallowed him whole. Which is not to say that he’s such a perfect character, hell no, but he was the one and only chance to get rid of the power cabal that is DC. Which is a much bigger danger than he could ever be.

Where career politicians like Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell and Joe Biden can reside for decades, and be handed ever more handsome amounts of money by the lobbyists who write their laws, which benefit the corporations they work for. Trump was the chance to do at least something about this. They ate him alive.

Now the story is that Trump is/was the main danger, and that he was attempting a coup against his own government. To finish off the job, after being hunted down by the MSM for 4+ years, social media, for whom unceremoniously dumping Trump, after he was their main attraction for years -at least for clickbait-, was just a business decision dressed in some vague set of moral principles, are now simply deleting him.

And people cheer that. They don’t understand that from now on, as US president you serve at the behest, grace and kindness of the CIA, New York Times and WaPo, but even more that of @jack and Zuckerberg, and not that of the American people. As the noise about an attempted coup allows Team Biden to slip in Sally Yates, Susan Rice and Victoria Nuland and their whole gang of neocon warmongers.

The entire media focus on Trump served to hide what those people were doing behind the scenes all along. And now it’s time to duck for cover. They’re going to try and impeach him again, and then prosecute him, and erase everything he’s done, cheered on by the same media who never told you what a coup actually is. Because they are a big club, and he’s not in it, and neither are you.

And if you think you can vent an opinion on social media in the future that doesn’t coincide with that of the big club, perhaps you haven’t been paying attention.

 

 

 

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