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Debt Rattle July 15 2026

Jul 152026
 
 July 15, 2026  Posted by at 9:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  27 Responses »


Claude Monet Japanese Footbridge 2 1899(?)


• Trump Backs Off 20% Fee Plan For Hormuz (ZH)
• The US Needs to Hit Iran Harder to End the War (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Iran War 3.0 (Alastair Crooke)
• Two Ever-Widening Wars Bring World to Armageddon Moment (Paul Craig Roberts)
• UK Government Lobbied For Putting Migrants And Trans People On BANKNOTES (MN)
• Ann Widdecombe Murder was Political Assassination by Far-Left Extremist (CTH)
• Trump’s White House Front Entrance Improvements (O’Brien)
• Trump Pays E jean Carroll $5m In Damages Over Sexual Abuse And Defamation (BBC)
• Kamala Harris’s Humiliating WNBA Speech Is Painful to Watch (Margolis)
• Ro Khanna Launches Bid as Class Warrior with Expanded Wealth Tax Pledge (Turley)
• War of Words Turns Ugly After EU Migration Vote (RT)
• US House To Vote On Bill Making Daylight Savings Time Permanent (JTN)
• Bill to End Birthright Citizenship by Following Kavanaugh Roadmap (JTN)
• The Digital Euro: Control and the End of Financial Privacy (Daniel Lacalle)
• Mick Jagger Defends Elon Musk (MN)

 


 

https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2076696919640858730?s=20

 


 


See what fits. Trump does that in the open.

• Trump Backs Off 20% Fee Plan For Hormuz (ZH)

It’s the return of another TACO Tuesday as President Trump in a lengthy Truth Social missive appears to have reversed his plan to collect a 20% of cargo fee for international vessels wishing to transit the Strait of Hormuz. “Oil is flowing like never before,” he began (except it’s not…), before writing, “Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States. Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future.” He echoed the same in follow-up with reporters at the White House:


So Gulf allies, and likely officials within his own cabinet, have talked Trump out of the 20% collection scheme idea, which would have likely in the end just shifted leverage back over to Iran, given its own much cheaper passage protocol scheme.

US OIL PARES GAINS, WTI TRADES NEAR $78/BBL

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“We did the hard work. They’re no longer a threat. We’ve taken out their 47-year, half-a-trillion-dollar military investment.”:

“They don’t ever hit Israel because Israel has announced that their response will be disproportionate and aimed at the surviving government.”

• The US Needs to Hit Iran Harder to End the War (Victor Davis Hanson)

We’re now in the 134th day of, quote-unquote, “the war with Iran.” I’m speaking on July 12. But we got to remember that we really only had March and April. We started on Feb. 28, about 38 days until we stopped fighting on April 8. So, we’re really talking about 90-plus days of negotiations and 38 days of actual fighting. That should tell us something about what the Iranian strategy is. They want to talk, talk, talk, and they do not want to fight, fight, fight. We want to fight and get over and go home, and they don’t. And they … because of the length of the negotiation vis-a-vis the kinetic part, they may be in an advantaged position.


Part of the problem is that we have knocked out at least three centers of the four of their government. The theocracy with the death of Khamenei and the disabling of his son and killing of many of the others is sort of inert. We’ve taken out a lot of the heads of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. There’s a lot of military planners that were central to Iran’s military, industrial, nuclear complex that are gone, and we have a few elected leaders. And so that’s who we’re dealing with, but we’re not sure if they are good cops and the rest of what’s left are bad cops, or if anybody’s any cop.

So, where do we go from here? What’s happening right now is we have no war and no peace. That is about every day and a half or every other day, what’s left of the bad cops—that is, the theocracy, the military, and the Guard Corps—freelance, and they hit one of the Gulf states or a tanker. Notice they don’t ever hit Israel. They don’t ever hit Israel because Israel has announced that their response will be disproportionate and aimed at the surviving government. So, they don’t do that. We haven’t said that. But every other day they do that, and now we’re starting to respond disproportionately, and that means for every 50 or so strikes, we have 120 or 130. But that itself will go on and on and on.

What we need to do is to find a way to do two things: one, stop their ability to make any strikes, and that can be accomplished in various ways. We can either stop all of their supplies, and I mean all of them. That is, we can take out their airlift capacity, their airport. We can take out all the rail lines over land to China. We can take out the Caspian Sea ports. We cannot allow any seaborne traffic into Iran. And we can take out their electrical generation plant, short out the grid, take out more. We can stop their ability to make war rather than just hunt for an individual target, a missile target or a launcher pad or something like that.

And then we have to make the conditions for which we can go home. We did the hard work. They’re no longer a threat. We’ve taken out their 47-year, half-a-trillion-dollar military investment. There’s a lot of other interests that would like the Gulf open, particularly the Gulf Council states, the Europeans, the Japanese, the Chinese, South Koreans. So, we need to make Iran so weak, if they do not want to negotiate, and we’re not going to get into this tit-for-tat cycle, that these other countries will be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

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Alastair Crooke is no fan of Trump. That’s why he sees the US losing vs Iran.

To make his point, he drags US polls and even the AI market into the equation. But what have they to do with the Iran war?

“Essentially, Trump has plunged into an escalatory trap, seemingly in part out of pique at his collapsing polls at home.”

Has anyone else seen those collapsing polls? I haven’t. Anyone?

“.. the “hurt” being experienced by Trump back home in the context of his fading political prospects, but also by his dislike for any personal humiliation.”

..”his fading political prospects”, “personal humiliation”: we’re not watching the same movie.

“A downturn in the AI market would send shockwaves throughout the entire economic ecosystem.

A market downturn in the US – exacerbated by an energy crisis – could spell disaster for Trump’s midterm hopes.”

I give up.

• Iran War 3.0 (Alastair Crooke)

When the US Navy, in co-ordination with Qatar and Oman, tried to slip a convoy of four vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, via Omani waters, last Tuesday night – rather than pass via Iran’s officially approved route – Trump may have imagined (or been told) that with the massive funeral for the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei under way, that Iran would not react as the US Navy attempted to force open an American corridor. Trump however, misread the Iranian jibe – Hormuz is its “atomic weapon.” Iran will not relinquish it.


Trump insists – in clear contradiction to the terms set out in paragraph five of the MoU – that Iran has no right to interfere with any ship trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Iran nonetheless is acting within the terms of the agreed de-escalation framework, and has warned repeatedly that it would strike any vessel circumventing the Iranian control mechanism. Iran responded directly to Trump’s challenge to Iranian control of the Strait by striking two vessels with missiles and a third with an armed drone. A fourth Qatari-owned tanker, laden with liquefied natural gas, was set ablaze, forcing its crew to abandon the stricken vessel.

These Iranian ripostes provoked Trump to order American air strikes against Iranian targets; to reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s oil exports; and to revoke the MoU framework he had signed with what he called the “Iranian scum” – thus ending the ceasefire. “We hit them hard last night,” Trump said at the NATO summit in Ankara. “We will probably hit them hard again tonight.” Trump did hit Iran again Wednesday night – even though Iran had not attacked another vessel seeking to by-pass the Iranian corridor. In response, Iran launched ballistic missiles and drones at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Muwaffaq Al-Salti airbase in Jordan.

Vice-President Vance is saying to Iran, “If you try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the American military will respond. It’s that simple” – i.e. Iran either keeps the Strait fully open to all, or the US will keep hitting it, as it did on Tuesday night. Iran insists that it is the US that has violated the MoU and (via the spokesman for Iran’s Parliamentary National Security Committee) warns that further attacks by the US on Iran will be met by a comprehensive all-out surprise offensive by Iran – and potentially by other options too, such as an Iranian withdrawal from the NPT, changing the country’s nuclear doctrine, and closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait alongside the Strait of Hormuz.

So, Vice-President Vance is saying if Iran restricts Hormuz (i.e. it stays open to friendly states’ vessels) the US will escalate. And Iran is responding to this threat by warning that it will escalate militarily – two strikes for every one American strike – and that they may also turn to new doctrines of warfare. Essentially, Trump has plunged into an escalatory trap, seemingly in part out of pique at his collapsing polls at home. He did, however, directly put himself in this situation by trying to “act cute” during the Khamenei funeral pre-occupations in order to try to gain a “quick win.”

How long will this escalatory episode last? Certainly, it will not lead to the opening of the Strait; nor bring a return of the status quo ante that preceded the war. As long as Iran maintains its ability to exert control over Hormuz, there is no basis to assume that the situation will return to what it was. On the contrary, and more likely, the crisis will accelerate the onset of looming global economic crisis that could last until the economic pain becomes acute, as the drawdown on sour crude continues – and as the effects on the real economy in the West become visible. With shortages of munitions and the drawdown on air assets from the Middle East already beginning, Trump probably lacks the wherewithal to go full “Iran War 3.0.”

[..] It is not certain that this new US policy will work. The world is changing rapidly. Their expected triumph of Israel over the Middle East has resulted in failure. Trump’s MoU ploy to open Hormuz likely will fail, too. The connected war on Russia and the siege of China are faltering too – and Israel’s (until now unassailable) hold over the US is in question too. A senior US democrat, Rahm Emanuel, and potential 2028 US Democratic presidential candidate, spoke in Israel yesterday; he warned in no uncertain terms that Israel “has lost the world’s support, become a ‘regional pariah,’ [and that its] alliance with the US is ‘at a crossroads’.”

And finally, a “black swan” now can be observed swimming in increasingly sunlit waters – Eric Katz writing in Notus writes that, “a draft report inside the US Treasury Department is set to warn of the risks posed by the artificial intelligence market, likening key aspects of it to the dotcom bubble that upended the US economy when it burst in the early 2000s.” Treasury analysts wrote – “Career Treasury analysts found that AI firms are more deeply entrenched in the US economy than their dotcom predecessors and pose significant risk to the entire system if financial conditions change, productivity goals are missed or various choke points stymie growth.”

A downturn in the AI market would send shockwaves throughout the entire economic ecosystem. A market downturn in the US – exacerbated by an energy crisis – could spell disaster for Trump’s midterm hopes.

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Over the top: “Never in history has a country’s leader displayed such refusal to recognize an existential threat.”

“..In my thinking at this time, the world without its wish is heading into two big wars.

• Two Ever-Widening Wars Bring World to Armageddon Moment (Paul Craig Roberts)

“Russia open to Turkey selling S-400 air defense systems to UAE, sources say” “The Russian government views the potential sale of S-400 air defense systems currently operated by Turkey to the United Arab Emirates in a “positive light”, multiple sources familiar with the issue told Middle East Eye, while cautioning that negotiations have yet to be completed.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirms that the Kremlin is discussing with Turkey the transfer of the S-400 Russian air defense system to Iran’s enemies. This shows you what a piece of shit ally Russia is. Money comes first and nothing else matters. Helmer quotes a Russian source:


” I expect no limits to what the Kremlin will stoop in their money-making now. You can expect, a year from now, Russian S-400s and 500s will be sold direct to the Emiratis and Saudis. No doubt about it. Strictly speaking, the Turks do not have to do a resale. They will say they are giving military defensive cover, jointly with Europe and the US, to the Arabs; the Russians will go along with that.” My understanding is that the operative range of the S-400 covers the entire Persian Gulf and likely Israel and Jordan as well. In other words, the S-400 completely disarms Iran.

Here is my speculation about how this surprising deal is being put together. When Turkey purchased the S-400, a purchase that is inexplicable. Why would the Kremlin deliver the technology of the world standard–the S-400–to a member of NATO? Is the answer the stupid Kremlin chasing money at the cost of Russia’s existence? Helmer’s sources think so. Or was it an ill-conceived plot to bribe Turkey away from NATO into Russia’s orbit? If so, it did not work.

Putin has needlessly, gratuitously, left Russia mired in a 4.5 year old conflict that due to Putin’s irresolution and prevarication has moved from Donbas to deep inside Russia. Putin now faces state-of-the-art drones produced in Germany and transported without Russian interference to Ukraine where they are guided by US targeting systems into attacks on Russian refineries and fuel storage. Russia has been sufficiently damaged that Russia now must import diesel fuel. Putin pretends that this is not war, merely a terrorist operation. Never in history has a country’s leader displayed such refusal to recognize an existential threat.

Putin has been trying to stay afloat by riding two contending horses. One is the horse of the Russian military and patriotic citizens. The other horse is the horse of the Russian oligarchs whose wealth was stolen from the state during the period of the Soviet collapse. My solution, which I presented to the Soviet Union in its last year was not followed, and a few seized the wealth of the country. Those who stole Russia’s wealth were the West’s allies against Russia from day one. And these pro-American, not pro-Russian, interests are 50% of the advice that the Kremlin receives.

Here is what is what is happening. Krill Dmitriev has told Putin that the more the Kremlin sucks up to Trump, the more likely the Ukrainian Conflict will be reconciled by mutually profitable business deals, which is the aim of the Russian Oligarchs. The point was made to Putin that protecting Israel and the American Gulf states that host the US attacks on Iran from attack by Iranian missiles wins brownie points that can free Russia from the sanctions on its oligarchs..

Where does all this go? In my thinking at this time, the world without its wish is heading into two big wars. All of humanity will be destroyed. No where in the governments of the world is there any capability to comprehend the reality that confronts them. Each dumbshit government has its own narrative, and none of them are correct. Where are the leaders of humanity? Why are there none?

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Ungovernable. You can’t make plans like this and then move on.

• UK Government Lobbied For Putting Migrants And Trans People On BANKNOTES (MN)

The UK’s own Cabinet Office pushed hard to overhaul banknotes by elevating LGBT+ and ethnic minority figures, claiming historic greats like Winston Churchill gave an “incomplete picture” of British identity. This push came just before the Bank of England decided to ditch those same towering historical figures for images of hedgehogs and foxes. This latest revelation exposes the ideological machinery at work inside Whitehall. While the public recoiled at the idea of swapping national heroes for animals, government officials were actively lobbying for even more radical identity-driven changes.


In a letter to the Bank of England’s chief cashier last summer, officials from the Office for Equality and Opportunity – part of the Cabinet Office and led by Bridget Phillipson – argued that current historical figures reflected “limited dimensions of British identity.” They called for “greater representation of women, disabled people, ethnic minority communities and LGBT+ individuals” to “send a strong signal of progress and recognition.”

The whole saga is particularly ridiculous because the core argument for axing Churchill and other giants was that they were supposedly too “ideologically divisive” for modern Britain. Yet officials simultaneously pushed to install figures selected explicitly through the lens of identity politics and group representation – an approach guaranteed to be far more polarizing in practice. It reveals the selective outrage: traditional British heroes are labeled divisive for their achievements, while injecting contemporary activism onto the currency is framed as unifying “progress.”

The intervention has sparked accusations that Labour elements conspired to sideline Britain’s most celebrated figures. Shadow minister Alex Burghart slammed the move: “Labour tried to deny any involvement in the cancellation of Winston Churchill and other British heroes. But government officials have been caught red-handed conspiring with the Bank of England to remove them from our banknotes.” He added that banknotes “should feature the greatest Britons – the historic figures that unite our country. They shouldn’t be chosen on the basis of Labour’s equality laws.”

This diversity drive unfolded alongside the Bank of England’s decision to replace Churchill on the £5 note, Jane Austen on the £10, J.M.W. Turner on the £20, and Alan Turing on the £50 with images of British animals, plants, and landscapes. The Bank cited a public consultation where a majority favored nature themes, partly for security reasons on new polymer notes. Critics have pointed out the irony, noting Alan Turing – a gay war hero – was already featured, yet the push continued for broader “under-represented” groups. Suggestions reportedly included figures tied to events like the Empire Windrush. This fits a longer pattern of institutional discomfort with Britain’s historic icons. Our earlier coverage highlighted the absurdity of trading Churchill for hedgehogs and the broader erosion of national symbols.

A serious nation honors the leaders who defended its freedom and shaped its character – not because they tick modern demographic boxes, but because their achievements built the country whose currency circulates today. Swapping out the likes of Churchill for foxes and badgers, while civil servants agitate for identity politics on money, signals a profound loss of confidence. Britain’s history is not a problem to be diluted. It is the foundation worth preserving.

https://twitter.com/ColinKi54036475/status/2076414880307974512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2076414880307974512%7Ctwgr%5Ec3aa6dba427f4106565dfe9c313c6b6c3629a430%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmodernity.news%2F2026%2F07%2F13%2Fthe-uk-government-lobbied-for-putting-migrants-and-trans-people-on-banknotes%2F
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Pay attention Britain.

“.. the reality was her murderer drove over five hours to kill her. “

• Ann Widdecombe Murder was Political Assassination by Far-Left Extremist (CTH)

78-year-old Ann Widdecombe was a well-known conservative in British politics. She was a staunch defender of free speech, a direct opponent to leftist cultural Marxism and an advocate for the commonsense Reform Party. Widdecombe was against abortion, gay rights, transgender advocacy and wokism writ large. Ms. Widdecombe was beaten to death in her home Wednesday July 8th around 12:30pm by an assailant who drove 270 miles to kill her. Immediately the police said her murder was not politically motivated and not connected to foreign or domestic terrorism.


Despite the credulous claim that her brutal murder was not political in nature, the reality was her murderer drove over five hours to kill her. This was an obvious premeditated, calculated and targeted murder. However, the politically correct leftist media and political institutions within U.K. government, were desperate in trying to deny the obvious. Yesterday, the British Counterterrorism Police took over the investigation. “Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, said that as a result of “new information and evidence,” specialist counterterrorism officers were “now leading on the investigation into the horrific murder.”” {citation} Today, it is admitted that her killer had a library of communist and Marxist ideology.


(DAILY MAIL) – […] Yesterday the probe was taken over by Counterterrorism Policing South East which announced the suspect had been re-arrested on suspicion of commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. The suspect, who remains in custody, was the son of a teaching assistant. Relatives said he had become reclusive after the sudden death of his engineer father last year. […] In a dramatic escalation, counter terrorism officers yesterday took over the investigation into the killing of the former Tory minister. It came after the discovery of Russian communist literature and other items of political ideology at the home of the suspected killer. […] Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood confirmed yesterday that the British white suspect, who the Mail is not naming, was not known to the Government’s deradicalisation programme, Prevent. Police are making inquiries about his mental health. (more)

Leftism is a violently dangerous ideology. Those who believe in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion as well as cultural rights and genderisms are intolerant in the extreme. Their ideological arguments do not stand up against scrutiny, natural laws or historic outcomes. As a result, their emotions drive the internal sense of self-hate outward to attack others. These are deeply disturbed, emotionally unstable people. Democrats, Socialists, Communists writ large are extremely dangerous once they achieve power. The larger the population they control or target, the larger the killing field.

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“Trump the builder has looked at our nation’s capital and its iconic landmarks with a critical eye..”

• Trump’s White House Front Entrance Improvements (O’Brien)

Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) tends to enter the ludicrous stage for its sufferers most quickly when President Donald Trump wants to do something that’s inarguably good, mostly to the benefit of future administrations and future generations of visitors to Washington, D.C. Trump the builder has looked at our nation’s capital and its iconic landmarks with a critical eye ever since he took up residence in the White House in 2017. So, in his second term, he’s decided to do something about the problems he’s seen simply by fixing things up. Seriously, who can argue with that? The left, the Democrats, and the legacy media can, that’s who.


My colleague David Manney covered earlier iterations of this issue. And so, we’ve become all too familiar with the ludicrousness the left compulsively dishes up every time the Trump administration tackles another improvement project. The left is now so predictable and so fake about its outrage, it should come as no surprise that, with Trump setting his sights on the front door to the White House, the left would pretend to have a meltdown.

First, let’s take a look at the project, which was specifically prompted by a request from the U.S. Secret Service (USSS). The federal agency has wanted to bolster the front entrance to the White House with “security-focused upgrades” in a project that is expected to take months to complete, CNN has reported. The front entrance to the White House is at the North Portico of the building.

As much as you know CNN wanted to outright blame Trump for every facet of this story and spin it all into a negative, the cable news network said on its website, “The changes, which sources said have long been advocated by the US Secret Service, are aimed at fortifying the White House entrance at the North Portico, which has recently been obscured by scaffolding and a tarp as workers repair the exterior columns at President Donald Trump’s request… But unlike many of Trump’s projects around the White House — from hanging gold signage to paving the Rose Garden — the work on the front door is not cosmetic, and instead focused on enhancing its security, the White House official said.”

CNN further reported that in addition to the front entrance, security fencing is planned for Lafayette Park, “which surrounds the north side of the White House.” Keep in mind, the White House grounds are already fenced off and have several layers of intense security, some that you can see, most that you cannot. Reports are that the USSS, not the president, want to better secure the park so that when there are “presidential movements,” they don’t have to continually erect temporary security barriers. The goal, CNN reported, was to arrive at “a more permanent solution to the existing patchwork of temporary barricades, what officials describe as ‘comprehensive yet flexible fencing strategy for varying security risk.’ The permanent fencing is meant to make it easier to shut down the road when needed.”

The administration is going through all of the proper channels in deciding on the fencing, which means a proposal has been sent by the USSS, the White House, and the Department of Interior to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. That commission will look at the proposal with an eye towards the aesthetic and with historic preservation standards in mind. So, how is the left taking it? Well, Trump is turning Washington into a police state, of course.

The Lincoln Project decided to channel its TDS by using the USSS’s requested security upgrades as proof that Trump wants to be president for life.

On both the fencing story and the front door story, even though it’s clear that the USSS is behind the major changes, someone in the Democrats’ spin room has come up with the “never leaving” theme.

I happen to agree with the left here. Why is the USSS making such a big deal about security around the White House? It’s not like anything bad ever happens around there or could even happen. Just one more conservative conspiracy theory, I think.

Well, OK, there was the time leftists literally tried to breech the White House security perimeter and burn the White House down, but if Trump wasn’t president at the time, they wouldn’t have had to do it. In fact, he made them do it. And they were just peaceful protests, anyway.

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This is so bad, it makes you fear for America. New York hates Trump.

• Trump Pays E jean Carroll $5m In Damages Over Sexual Abuse And Defamation (BBC)

US President Donald Trump has paid writer E Jean Carroll more than $5m (£3.7m) in damages three years after he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her in a civil case, her lawyers confirmed. “Today, we are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment the jury awarded her as a result of that verdict,” Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, said in a short statement on Tuesday. Trump was pushing to delay the payment, in order to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision not to hear his appeal of the case. But last week, the judge overseeing the case ordered him to pay the damages.


A representative from Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the payment. A statement from Carroll’s legal team confirmed that she had been paid more than $5.62m – the $5m awarded in damages plus the interest accrued during the appeal. Carroll, a former magazine columnist who is now 82, accused Trump of attacking her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan, and later defaming her on his Truth Social website in a 2022 post denying her allegations. In 2023, a New York jury unanimously awarded Carroll the damages over her claim. Trump denied the allegations.

Trump put the damages into a court-controlled account shortly after the verdict, and it was held there while the appeals process played out. Lawyers for Trump decried the judge’s ruling that he must pay, calling the case a “hoax” and “Witch Hunt” which they alleged had been funded by Democrats. Trump has repeatedly alleged that Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the civil trial, improperly admitted evidence that prejudiced the jury against him. A federal appeals court agreed with the jury’s verdict last year and said Kaplan did not make errors that would warrant a new trial.

The Supreme Court last month declined Trump’s request to consider the case, clearing the way for the money to be paid to Carroll.Carroll cheered the ruling at the time, writing on her Substack blog: “WE WON!” “THIS WIN IS FOR EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD!” Carroll wrote. Trump has also appealed against another jury’s decision in 2024 finding the president liable for defaming Carroll in a separate instance and awarding her nearly $84m. A panel of federal judges denied his appeal last year.

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Why do they keep her around?

• Kamala Harris’s Humiliating WNBA Speech Is Painful to Watch (Margolis)

Did you know that Former Vice President Kamala Harris is a fan of the WNBA? Okay, she probably couldn’t name more than a couple of teams if you quizzed her, even if she studied all night, but the takeaway here is that she went to a game on Sunday and was given the opportunity to speak to the Los Angeles Sparks (that’s one of the teams) after the game. And it was bad. Following the Sparks’ 102-87 win over the Chicago Sky, Kamala made her way to the team’s locker room to share a few words with the players. In her brief remarks, she praised the growth the WNBA has seen in recent years (though she didn’t thank Caitlin Clark) and congratulated the team, not just for the win, but for what she called the players’ broader impact.


“You are having an incredible impact. I travel our country; young girls, boys, people of every gender, background, race, watch the W and understand how inspiring it is,” Kamala said in her speech.Every gender? Good lord, how many different leagues will the NBA have to subsidize now? “So keep doing what you’re doing,” Kamala continued. “You guys are impacting people who you will never meet, people who may never know your name or mine, but they are aware of what you are doing. And it is giving them a sense of their value and their dignity and what they have a right to expect from this world. So, congratulations on this game, but congratulations, as much as anything else, for the path you guys are charting. It is extraordinary to watch.”

It’s a good thing she waited until after the final buzzer to say any of that. Imagine trying to run out for tip-off after hearing your “impact” summarized in a sentence that long. The Sparks might have lost by 30. To put it mildly, Kamala has never been known for her oratory skills or deep insight. She has a reputation for being a vacuous moron, and this speech (if you even want to call it that) did nothing to change it. She is about as exciting and uplifting as a can opener, and she still found a way to underperform even that. Emily Compagno tore into the speech Monday night on The Five, and she didn’t hold back.

“I feel like there should be a global policy against having her anywhere near a locker room pregame,” Compagno said on The Five. “Because I can think of nothing more deflating than listening to her and what she has to say. Sophie Cunningham did more for the WNBA in her two seconds of being a ring girl at the UFC fight, which was so explosive and awesome, than the vice president. I feel sorry for those women who are actually seeking any type of inspiration from her.” As Compagno went in, the Fox News chyron running at the bottom of the screen did some of the work for her. It read “Kamala Airballs Her WNBA Speech,” which is the kind of headline you can’t buy and definitely can’t spin.

“But we’re not surprised by this,” Compagno said. “And the unfortunate part to me is that she is still being enlisted as somehow a mouthpiece of the Democrat Party. She continues to flop in all of her speeches. I think fundraising continues to work, which surprises me. But I love this chyron so much, because she just whiffs every single time. I don’t understand why. The fact that her speeches — that lack substance, both in policy and actual ignition — continue to be spread throughout.”

“Whiffs” is generous. Kamala has had years, an entire presidential campaign, and a vice presidency to figure out how to talk to a room and inspire someone beyond her own ego.

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The Democratic Party is one big vacancy. Cue the likes of Ro.

• Ro Khanna Launches Bid as Class Warrior with Expanded Wealth Tax Pledge (Turley)

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) just moved to outbid his Democratic colleagues in the presidential auction. With the radical left sweeping away establishment figures in favor of socialists, various prospective presidential candidates are offering up key institutions in their effort to appease the mob. The Supreme Court has been the starting bid. Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Josh Shapiro have yielded to the mob and embraced court packing. Khanna is not to be outdone. After his disastrous campaigning for Graham Platner, Khanna is returning to a sure winner: Class warfare.


Last week, Khanna confirmed that the “billionaire tax” is just the start and that they will go on to target the wealth of other citizens as an untapped resource of new revenue. For years, some of us have warned that the billionaire tax was a ruse. Sponsors like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Khanna were using billionaires as an easy political target, but they were unlikely to stop there. The challenge is to get the tax through the courts, which is why it is so essential to pack the court. Warren notably was an early advocate of both changes. I discuss the tax in my book “Rage and the Republic” as an example of the “eat-the-rich” politics used by demagogues from ancient Athens to the French Revolution.

Politicians seek to divide a population into “haves” and “have-nots” with the promise that citizens could have it all if only they are given back power. Warren tried to use the tax to restart her moribund 2020 presidential campaign. During one debate, she dramatically told the rich she was coming after “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts.” She thrilled the crowd by greedily rubbing her hands together after saying she would take some of the wealth of fellow candidate John Delaney, a self-made millionaire.

The problem is that a federal billionaire tax (which is distinct from California’s billionaire tax that will be on the upcoming state ballot) is, in my view, completely unconstitutional. The federal government secured the right to tax individuals in 1913, but the 16th Amendment only approved income taxes. As made clear by Warren, Democrats want to tax people for the things that they bought after paying their taxes from homes to art to boats. If they can pack the Court and greenlight a billionaire tax, there would be no limit to then moving the threshold wealth level downward. Once that Rubicon is crossed, Democrats would suddenly be able to tax trillions in the property and possessions of citizens.

That is precisely what Khanna finally admitted last week in a Substack post, arguing that “the tax should not stop at billionaires; it must reach centimillionaires. The tax has to reach all fortunes $50 million and up.” The wealth tax is the closest this country has come to an open redistribution-of-wealth effort, a core agenda item for the rising socialist movement. Other countries such as France tried wealth taxes with disastrous results. Not only did it fail to generate the expected revenue (the wealth left the country en masse), but it also had to be rescinded. In Norway, the government kept reducing the level of targeted assets to six-figure thresholds.

The national tax is meant to address the growing disaster in California, which has reportedly lost trillions as the wealthy flee the high-tax state. Khanna and other Democrats hope to give the wealth nowhere to flee by taking this “hunt-the-rich” effort national. In making this pitch, Khanna is trying to achieve the political stunt of the century. Khanna is reportedly worth roughly half a billion dollars thanks to his wife’s inheritance. He is not alone among the super wealthy Democrats declaring themselves the champions of the proletariat.

After all, there’s Illinois Gov. Jay Robert “JB” Pritzker, who also inherited his fortune. In a July interview with CNN, Pritzker virtually begged the mob that he is a different kind of billionaire, pointing at Trump billionaires as the rightful targets (not him with $4.3 billion). Others found themselves on the wrong side of the mob. Rep. Dan Goldman, who inherited a massive fortune of almost $300 million as a trust baby, unwisely promised to help subsidize his congressional reelection campaign from his family fortune. Goldman fell flat with the socialist and increasingly antisemitic base — and was crushed by over 30 points.

Khanna hopes to stay ahead of that mob by leading it to the homes of other wealthy citizens. As for California, the state is already showing how class warfare does not quite work if the upper classes simply leave with their wealth, businesses and jobs.

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“A Swedish MEP has filed criminal charges after a Danish colleague told her to “go home” in a social media post..”

• War of Words Turns Ugly After EU Migration Vote (RT)

A dispute over an immigration bill passed by the European Parliament has escalated into a criminal complaint, with a Swedish MEP accusing a Danish colleague of racist hate speech over a social media comment, The Guardian reported on Monday. A Swedish MEP of Iraqi descent, Abir Al-Sahlani, filed the complaint with Swedish police against Danish MEP Kristoffer Storm. He told her to “go home” in response to her post criticizing anti-immigration chants that followed the passage of a law aimed at speeding up the deportation of illegal migrants. She has also lodged a formal complaint with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.


The dispute stems from last month’s approval of the Return Regulation, the toughest anti-immigration legislation passed by the EU in recent years. The measure allows member states to establish ‘return hubs’ outside the bloc to accelerate the deportation of illegal migrants. After the vote, chants of “send them back!” erupted in the chamber. In a speech condemning the outburst, Al-Sahlani called it “a new low level, even for the fascists on the far right.”

“I have never felt as unsafe in this parliament as after the voting about the Return Regulation, because the shouting of the far right was not against the political opponent… It was about ordinary people who did no other crime than looking for a better life in Europe,” she said. Storm rejected accusations that his response online was racist. Speaking to Politico, he said the phrase “go home” referred to leaving the parliamentary chamber, arguing that if Al-Sahlani found the democratic decision and lawmakers’ reactions so upsetting, “she would have been better off leaving the chamber.”

The clash comes amid growing tensions over migration across the EU. According to Eurostat, the bloc received more than 8.5 million immigrants from outside the bloc in 2023 and 2024, and immigration remains one of the most divisive issues in European politics. Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump claimed that European countries had deteriorated to the status of “Third World countries” because of their immigration policies.

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We can talk about it for years. Occupational therapy.

• US House To Vote On Bill Making Daylight Savings Time Permanent (JTN)

The U.S. House will vote this week on a bill making daylight savings time permanent, despite warnings from medical, education and safety organizations. The Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, which would end the nearly nationwide biannual clock changing and make daylight savings time permanent year-round, advanced out of committee Monday afternoon. States that use standard time year-round – currently only Arizona and Hawaii – before the law goes into effect wouldn’t have to change.


House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., testified in support of the bill, which Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., introduced. Pallone argued that changing the clocks every year is widely unpopular with Americans and that making daylight savings time permanent would boost the tourism industry. n“The real question is, why do we still change our clocks?,” Pallone said. “It’s getting harder and harder to justify.” Besides the U.S. tourism industry, retail and golfing industries have long lobbied Congress to permanently set the clocks an hour ahead.

“Our industry is uniquely tied to daylight, and the number of playable hours directly affects the number of rounds we can offer, the staff we employ, and the revenue we generate, especially in the late afternoon and early evening,” National Golf Course Owners Association CEO Jay Karen told lawmakers in 2025. bWe ask the Senate to consider the practical and economic consequences of losing evening daylight.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation, National Association of Convenience Stores, the American Farm Bureau Federation and others have expressed support for making daylight savings time permanent.

But medical professionals, education advocates and safety professionals overwhelmingly support making standard time permanent instead. “By artificially shifting the clock time an hour forward, daylight saving time causes a misalignment between clock time and solar time, interfering with our circadian timing and resulting in a condition known as ‘social jet lag,’’ the American Academy of Sleep Medicine stated in its opposition to the bill. “This condition is associated with an increased risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and depression. If daylight saving time becomes permanent, then Americans will be living with social jet lag year-round.”

The American Medical Association, American College of Occupational Medicine, National Sleep Foundation, American Federation of Teachers, National School Boards Association, National Safety Council, and dozens of other organizations have endorsed permanent standard time. Congress tried to implement permanent daylight savings time in the 1970s. The two-year trial lasted less than a year, however — in a 1974 speech on the Senate floor, the former U.S. senator for Kansas Bob Dole said the change “is a classic example of the Congress legislating blindfolded”

“It has caused great inconvenience and in some cases hazard. It appears to me that the better part of wisdom might be outright repeal,” Dole said. “After spending the first 3 weeks of winter daylight time in Kansas, I became more convinced than ever that its hardships, inconvenience, and real hazards are too great to justify its continuation.” If the Sunshine Protection Act does pass the House on Tuesday, its future in the Senate is uncertain as it will need at least 60 votes to pass.

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Birthright Citizenship is 150 or so years old. It’s old. Nobody else has it. There are no slaves anymore.

• Bill to End Birthright Citizenship by Following Kavanaugh Roadmap (JTN)

Indiana Republican Sen. Jim Banks introduced legislation Monday that seeks to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants by labeling them as children of “invaders” under federal law. The legislation was inspired by a roadmap suggested by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last month following a ruling that determined President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting automatic citizenship for certain individuals born in the United States violated the 14th Amendment.


Kavanaugh wrote a separate concurring opinion that stated that although the president’s order had conflicted with federal birthright citizenship law, Congress could amend the statute to create new exceptions, according to Fox News. Banks’ legislation would codify Trump’s 2025 executive order declaring illegal migration across the southern border an “invasion,” and change the Immigration and Nationality Act to exclude children of such “invaders.” The senator’s “Citizenship Act” legislation reads: “Any person who enters the United States without authorization or for the purpose of engaging in birth tourism is considered an invader.”

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump has not given up hope that his attempt to end birthright citizenship could pass and he has called for the high court to have a rehearing on the issue. Rehearings are not unprecedented but extremely rare. “The Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision was an unprecedented assault on American sovereignty, and we must do whatever it takes to save our country,” Banks told Fox News. “I’m leading the Citizenship Act to reverse the effects of this consequential ruling and ensure the millions of illegal aliens that invaded our country can’t continue to exploit our immigration system.”

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It’s about control, plain and simple.

• The Digital Euro: Control and the End of Financial Privacy (Daniel Lacalle)

European Union lawmakers in Strasbourg have now agreed on their position regarding the digital euro, approving it in a vote on the 8th of July 2026. With this position, the European Parliament can start talks with national governments on the details of the design and functioning of the digital euro.


The ECB argues that the digital euro is required to preserve the benefits of cash in a digital age and protect Europe’s monetary sovereignty, while offering a fast, secure, widely accepted public means of payment. However, it is not a neutral or purely technological upgrade to Europe’s payments infrastructure. It is a political and technological project that may embed surveillance, monetary control, and fiscal dominance into the very structure of the currency.

EU lawmakers are now debating the regulation that will define the legal status, privacy framework, and holding limits of the digital euro, with the ECB openly lobbying for strong legislation to support what it calls a collective step forward for Europe. This means the most significant features, including programmability, limits, data access, and the role of commercial banks, will be decided in Brussels and Strasbourg rather than by markets or citizen demand.

The ECB sells the digital euro on four main promises: more efficient payments, greater monetary sovereignty, financial inclusion, and higher privacy than current private electronic payment systems. Not one of those claims holds up once you look at them, even briefly.

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The article says the interviewer is annoyed. I see none of that. Jagger makes sense.

• Mick Jagger Defends Elon Musk (MN)

Mick Jagger just delivered a masterclass in cutting through media spin, leaving a leftist New York Times podcaster visibly rattled as he clarified that his “mad mogul” lyric about Elon Musk was actually a compliment. The Rolling Stones legend refused to play along with the expected narrative during the interview, pushing back firmly when the host, David Marchese, presumed the line was a diss. Instead, Jagger highlighted Musk’s real-world achievements in space, crediting him with stepping up where government agencies have fallen short.

In the exchange, Jagger explained the context behind the lyric from the new Rolling Stones album Foreign Tongues. He pointed to the rescue of the stranded NASA astronauts last year, noting that Musk’s SpaceXprovided the transportation NASA couldn’t. ]Jagger told the interviewer: “It’s not nagging, but people hear one word and they don’t really listen to the line. So it’s like, ‘Mick Jagger has a go at Elon Musk.’ You’re not listening to the line, you’re only listening to ‘Musk.’ … even though I do call him mad.”

Marchese’s expression totally changed from smiling to frowning in an instant when Jagger refused to confirm the interviewer’s gleeful expectation that the singer would criticise Musk. He continued: “When I wrote that, I was thinking that because of him, they were able to get those astronauts back that were stuck because he provided the transportation because NASA couldn’t provide the transportation…” “Who would you trust to get you into space?” Jagger continued, adding “Would you trust Boeing or would you trust NASA or would you trust mad mogul Mr. Musk? It’s really a side-winding compliment because he was the one I remembered was able to do that when the others couldn’t.”

Jagger exposed how Marchese had completely misinterpreted the lyrics of the song, making him look foolish.The podcaster pressed on, noting Musk was the only person named on the album, implying significance. Jagger stood his ground, adding that “mogul doesn’t always go down well, either,” and the host again showed how one dimensional he is by suggesting “No one likes a mogul.” Jagger was clearly exhausted with the exchange as Marchese simply refused to understand what the singer was getting at.

In another recent NYT interview, Jagger contrasted his approach to performing live with Bruce Springsteen’s rabid anti-Trump activism, emphasizing that his job is to give fans a great time, not sermonize. Jagger’s nuanced expression underscores a refreshing independence in an industry often dominated by predictable elite consensus, and his clarity cuts against the grain of performative outrage. Moments like this expose the disconnect between coastal media bubbles and ground-level realities.

The Rolling Stones continue to prove their enduring relevance not by chasing trends, but by staying true to a no-nonsense ethos that prioritizes delivery over dogma. Jagger’s unapologetic take serves as a subtle rebuke to those who weaponize art for division rather than unity through great music and honest reflection. Jagger gets it – focus on what works, entertain the audience, and let results speak louder than spin. In a free society, that kind of straight talk is exactly what keeps culture vibrant against efforts to enforce conformity.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 19 2024

Aug 192024
 
 August 19, 2024  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  90 Responses »


Winslow Homer Salt Kettle, Bermuda 1899

 

• Democrats Could Make Kamala Harris President Before Election (MN)
• What If Kamala Harris Isn’t an Idiot? (Tom Luongo)
• Illegal Border Crossings in US Miraculously Drop to Four-Year Low (Sp.)
• Free Abortions Fully Booked At Democratic Convention (RT)
• ‘Deeply Flawed’ Judgment: Experts Slam Kamala Harris’ Economic Program (Sp.)
• Trump Blasts Harris On Inflation (RT)
• US Budget Deficit Rises to All-Time High Under Biden (Sp.)
• Poland Allows Border Guards To Shoot At Migrants (RT)
• EU Warns Elon Musk Again, Fears Far-Right Groups’ Narrative (Jay)
• Most Ukrainians ‘Hate’ Zelensky – Lukashenko (RT)
• Moscow Denies WaPo Claims About Secret Russia-Ukraine Talks (RT)
• The Baltic States And Finland Are Ruled By Nazis (Sonja van den Ende)
• Hezbollah Has $150 Bln in Israeli Infrastructure in Its Sights (Sp.)
• Many Germans Remain Uneasy Over Prospect of Looming Digital Euro (Sp.)
• UK PM’s Approval Rating Down 26 Percentage Points Since Election (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Colbert

 

 

No plan

 

 

Patent

 

 

Flynn

 

 

Millennial
https://twitter.com/i/status/1824896826019127689

 

 

 

 

She could be president without ever getting a single vote.

• Democrats Could Make Kamala Harris President Before Election (MN)

An opinion piece in The Hill posits that Democrats could spring the ultimate October surprise by making Kamala Harris president before the election in November. Douglas MacKinnon notes that “This is already the most surreal presidential election of our lifetimes,” and that it could get even more bizarre. He adds, “I wrote several times in this space over the last two years that I never believed Biden would be the nominee, and I was proven right. I also honestly believe Trump will pull away from Harris come September and October.” “So, what then? How would the Democrats and the Harris campaign react to that?” MacKinnon wonders.

He suggests that “At some point, might it become politically expedient to the Democrats to elevate Harris to the presidency for the remainder of the campaign?” adding “Is anything off the table in this weird election cycle? I don’t think so.” As is well documented, Democrats could invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office. But at this point, it would be clearly a political move. Biden has not been running anything for three years anyway. MacKinnon suggests the 25th may not even be needed, noting that Biden could even enter the Democratic National Convention and say “I’ve had it. I’m done. I am resigning from my office and going back to Delaware.” It’s a bit far fetched, but who knows with the state of this election cycle.

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“I think we’d all do well to put away the memes and get serious about making sure that we make this a November 5th to her not to remember..”

• What If Kamala Harris Isn’t an Idiot? (Tom Luongo)

On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, after a coup against their former standard-bearer Joe Biden, we face a very disturbing question. What if Kamala Harris isn’t the idiot the media has made her out to be? Harris was clearly chosen for this role. She’s been groomed for it for nearly two decades. She isn’t the best of a list of bad choices. The Democrats drove the good choices from the party and blocked others becoming a part of it. There were no Democratic primaries, folks. She was placed as Biden’s Vice-President to have the inside track on this gig when they decided Joe finally had to be dragged from the stage. The coup was penciled in on the Gantt Chart at Evil Corp. Central for the weekend of July 13th. In 2020, Harris voters roundly rejected her for President, getting zero delegates before being roasted by Tulsi Gabbard. She dropped out despite being the darling of the media and the donor class. Going into those primaries, she was the establishment’s pick.

Once she failed they moved to Plan B: rig the game for Biden. They said, “We’ll install a mushroom so corrupt we can make him do whatever we want Joe just wants his money and his ice cream.” So you force Harris onto Joe. Or the other way around… never mind she’s too old for him. Meanwhile Harris waited. She let Joe take the heat. She said little, did less and then is installed, tabula rasa, into a campaign just days after a failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump to steal even that thunder. We were never allowed to discuss her culpability, along with the cabinet, as to how Biden could have been running the country for the past three years without them invoking the 25th amendment out of pity for the man if nothing else. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot Democrats don’t have emotions other than hate and envy. She was installed as the candidate to front-run an insurgency at this week’s convention by Hillary Clinton and her merry band of Neocons. Don’t expect them to take this sitting down, there are likely to be some sparks this week in Chicago, even if they don’t turn into a bonfire.

So, that leads me to ask my question, not because I think Harris is some latent IQ160 or anything. I asked my question because this is a woman who faced zero real voters and is one vote-rigging operation away from the presidency. So, maybe she’s a genius when measuring her political intelligence. What if we’ve all been led down the primrose path of stooping to Trump’s level coming up with cute memes about her vast collection of knee pads or her inappropriate laughter at tragedy? What if that is exactly the means to lull us all into thinking there’s no way anyone will vote for this woman? And if this was any normal (a nebulous term these days at best) election, I would agree with you. But, for 90% of the fifty elections the US is going to hold for its president, who you vote for doesn’t matter. This is, as always, a five state race. All that matters is printing/counting the right number of votes in those five states and the rest is just a Benny Hill skit. Harris chose uber-commie and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate to what, exactly? Shore up the only state that voted for Walter Mondale in 1984? Really?

No, it was to do a few things: • Signal that they didn’t need Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to win there. • Continue Obama’s antipathy towards Israel. They don’t need “The Jews” anymore. • Put the Quarter-Black HR Nanny in charge of the cucked White Guy. After that, all you have to do is use AI and special effects to make fake crowds supporting fake polls and faker ads to sell everyone on the idea that this woman is what Americans want to rule them over this… The sad part is that too many people still think this is all just part of the game. But it isn’t. It’s nothing more than the same playbook run in 2020 to create just enough plausible deniability that Harris can win this election before they steal it and dare us to do one damn thing about it. Or did you miss how upset the French and British are at their recent outcomes? So, Kamala cackles her way through scripted interviews. She and Walz dance around bringing “joy!” to the world. But when you actually get her talking about policy, about what she believes in, the cackling stops, the fangs come out, it’s just communism all the way down.

I was asked by Sputnik News to comment on her announced economic plan. In short, it’s the same warmed-over ‘Eat the Rich,’ politics of envy the Democrats have used for decades to set the table for a class war where the soon-to-be permanent underclass is used to finish off destroying the middle class so that they both can live in squalor and be thankful for whatever thin gruel is left over. Those that don’t like it can go die in a meat grinder overseas somewhere else. Hey, at least it’s ‘3 hots and a cot’ right? Or is her ascension to the throne the moment when everyone gets just uncomfortable enough for the wolf to come out in a few million of us? No, I don’t think Harris is at all stupid. And I think we’d all do well to put away the memes and get serious about making sure that we make this a November 5th to her not to remember.

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Who’s doing the counting?

• Illegal Border Crossings in US Miraculously Drop to Four-Year Low (Sp.)

The crisis at the US’ southern border with Mexico has dogged the Biden administration throughout its tenure in office. In the run-up to the 2024 election, the Harris campaign and friendly media have gone to great lengths to downplay the vice president’s once much-touted status as the administration’s “border czar.” US Customs and Border Patrol’s migrant encounter numbers along the southwestern border with Mexico have hit a four-year low, new figures suggest. “In July, the Border Patrol recorded 56,408 encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border,” the agency said in a press release, referring to the border between Mexico and the US states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. CBP said its “operational statistics” for last month “show a significant decline in migrant encounters during the first full month after a Presidential Proclamation issued June 4, 2024 by President Biden to temporarily suspend the entry of certain noncitizens across the southern border.

US Border Patrol encounters in July were 32% lower than in June 2024 and were the lowest monthly total along the southwest border since September 2020.” Last month’s figures are also “lower than in July 2019, and lower than the monthly average for all of 2019, the last comparable year prior to the pandemic,” the agency added. Biden’s June proclamation moved to restrict asylum eligibility for illegal aliens entering the United States via the southern border, with some 92,000 individuals ejected from the US and sent to their home countries on 300+ repatriation flights – with removals ballooning to their highest level since 2010. The proclamation came after years of increasingly harsh criticism of Biden’s border policy by Republicans, and fears among Democrats that the issue may cost them the White House in November. A Fox News poll this week found that some 87% of would-be voters consider the situation at the southern border a serious concern, with 44% dubbing it an “emergency” and 43% a “major problem,” and the issue found to be a concern among all demographics, including among black Americans, Hispanics, women, and registered Democrats.

Some 71% of respondents blamed the Biden administration for failure to enforce the border, with 57% also saying that former President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans deserve some of the blame for blocking legislation on comprehensive immigration reform. The border crisis is tied with abortion at 14% as the second most important issue in this year’s election behind the economy (38%). The Biden administration facilitated the crisis at the southern border almost immediately after entering office in 2021 by moving to repeal a series of hardline Trump-era immigration directives and vowing to scrap Trump’s signature border wall in favor of a digital “smart wall” which never materialized. An estimate earlier this year suggested that over 7.3 million illegal aliens had entered the United States since Biden took office in 2021.

After Biden announced last month that he would not be seeking a second term, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’s campaign sought to distance the candidate from her status as the administration’s “border czar” – a title bestowed on her by US media in March of 2021. Harris’ handlers have gone to stupefying lengths to dismiss the “border czar” moniker, to the point where some media have released “fact check”-style articles assuring that Harris was never really a “border czar,” despite ample reporting from 3.5 years ago using the epithet to refer to her. Donald Trump and his allies have dubbed the situation at the southern border a “disaster” and an “invasion” that could “destroy our country.” Some have also attacked those mainstream Republican lawmakers who voted for nearly $100 billion for wars earlier this year abroad while consciously ignoring the border crisis.

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Beyond my understanding.

• Free Abortions Fully Booked At Democratic Convention (RT)

A mobile clinic offering free abortions and vasectomies outside the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago was fully booked out even before the event got underway, organizers have announced. Conservatives have mocked the party for “neutering” its voters. Planned Parenthood, the US’ largest provider of abortions, declared on Wednesday that it would be sending a mobile clinic to Chicago for the DNC on Monday and Tuesday. Parked outside the convention, the clinic will offer “free vasectomies and medication abortion,” the organization announced on X, adding that there would be a waiting list for vasectomies.On Sunday, the day before the convention is set to begin, Planned Parenthood announced “all free vasectomy and medication abortions are filled.” Conservative pundits and social media users ridiculed the idea of parking an “abortion bus” at the DNC.

“The average Democrat man is masked, vaxxed and rendered infertile via Planned Parenthood abortion food truck,” The Columbia Bugle, a right-wing news account, tweeted. “Democrats busy deleting their next generation from existence,” conservative writer Peachy Keenan wrote, adding: “I mean, okay.” “I thought this was fake but it’s not,” Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene commented on Saturday. “Planned Parenthood is going to provide free vasectomies and abortions at the Democratic National Convention this upcoming week. It’s hard to even comprehend and it’s truly heartbreaking. Being a mother is the most precious gift, choose life.”Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s candidate for the presidency, has urged Congress to pass a law guaranteeing nationwide access to abortion.

Her opponent, former President Donald Trump, appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, a 1973 ruling that de-facto guaranteed the right to abortion under the Constitution’s right to privacy. However, Trump is less hardline on the issue than many Republican lawmakers, and supports the rights of individual states to set their own abortion laws. Trump helped draft the Republican Party’s platform, which was published after its convention last month. For the first time in four decades, the platform does not call for a nationwide abortion ban, instead stating that the GOP will “oppose late-term abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF [fertility treatments].”

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“If Ms. Harris really believes in this price-fixing, she lacks the most basic understanding of economics..”

• ‘Deeply Flawed’ Judgment: Experts Slam Kamala Harris’ Economic Program (Sp.)

Kamala Harris’ plan is based on the idea that state intervention can fix almost everything in the economy, including soaring prices – a notion questioned by many familiar with social sciences and history. The price ceiling for grocery stores proposed by US presidential candidate Kamala Harris will surely lead to shortages, The Wall Street Journal says in an editorial article titled “Kamala Harris endorses Nixonomics.” The authors accuse the US VP of having a poor understanding of how the economy works and dubbed her stance left-wing populism that has never worked out. “If Ms. Harris really believes in this price-fixing, she lacks the most basic understanding of economics,” the article reads. According to the outlet, Richard Nixon, the 37th POTUS, was the only other president who attempted to introduce a price ceiling, and the policy ended badly.

“He [Nixon] had to stage a humiliating retreat amid shortages and market dislocations, and prices immediately soared when controls were lifted,” they recalled. Kamala Harris is not learning from her own mistakes, the article suggests. During her term as second-in-charge after Joe Biden, inflation has soared, and as a result, Americans are struggling with high prices. Yet Kamala Harris believes the situation can be fixed with more cash injections into the US economy – a move that could cause prices to skyrocket, including the real estate market. “The Biden-Harris inflation has made homes unaffordable for most young families, and her brainstorm for that is . . . more subsidies,” the article says. However, the authors suggest Kamala Harris may have said what she did simply in order to buy public support – and if that is the case, “her cynicism is also telling.” But if she plans to walk the walk apart from talking the talk, her intentions reveal “a candidate whose economic judgment is deeply flawed,” the article concludes.

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“..saying that she’s going to lower the cost of food and housing starting on day one, but day one for Kamala was three and half years ago, so why didn’t she do it then?”

• Trump Blasts Harris On Inflation (RT)

US Republican nominee Donald Trump has hammered Vice President Kamala Harris over the Biden administration’s record on inflation, and likened a campaign pledge she recently made to rein in price growth to measures used in communist nations. Speaking on Saturday at a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania, the Republican nominee mocked his rival for her vow to pass the first federal ban on price gouging on food if she is elected president. “Right yesterday Kamala laid out her so-called economic plan, saying that she’s going to lower the cost of food and housing starting on day one, but day one for Kamala was three and half years ago, so why didn’t she do it then?” Trump exclaimed. Earlier this week, Harris pointed to the cost of items such as bread and ground beef, claiming that large food manufacturers are boosting profits and accusing some grocery chains of not passing along savings to customers.

The Republican nominee blasted his rival’s “socialist” approach to price controls, calling her “comrade Kamala,” and adding that she had gone “full communist.” “It will cause rationing, hunger and skyrocketing prices,” he said. “Just like [the Biden-Harris administration’s] Inflation Reduction Act, which is one of the great scams of all time. Inflation has been so bad, it’s gone up much more than 50%. They say 30%, 40% — many more people are being devastated.” Trump stressed that the “radical liberal policies” of recent years under the administration of President Joe Biden have caused “horrific inflation” that has decimated the middle class and “gutted the finances of millions of American families.”

“They have no idea, they’re grossly incompetent people. Real incomes are down by over $2,000 a year. Think of that, minimum, and ours up five times that amount, more than five times that amount. Her price hikes have cost a typical household a total of $28,000, and that’s called the Kamala Harris inflation tax. She was there for everything.” Price growth spiked to 9.1% year-on-year in June 2022 before beginning to subside as the Federal Reserve embarked on a series of interest rate hikes. Nevertheless, annual inflation had remained at over 3% before dropping to 2.9% this past July, the first time it has dipped below the 3% mark since March 2021.

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“The United States has been in a state of chronic excess of expenditures over income for almost a century..”

• US Budget Deficit Rises to All-Time High Under Biden (Sp.)

The US budget deficit during the presidency of Joe Biden has hit the all-time high at $6.6 trillion, according to Sputnik calculations based on data from the US Treasury Department. The US government’s expenses over three and a half years under Biden exceeded revenues by $6.6 trillion — the highest in the entire history of these statistics. Thus, in 2021, the indicator amounted to $2.8 trillion, or to 13% of GDP. The following year, the negative balance decreased to $1.4 trillion, or 6.3% of GDP, but last year it increased to $1.7 trillion, or 7.6% of GDP. Over the first six months of this year, it amounted to $758.2 billion, and the share of GDP on a rolling annual basis was 5.5%. His predecessor, Donald Trump, accumulated a total deficit of $5.6 trillion. At the same time, under Trump, there was a maximum annual negative budget balance of $3.1 trillion, or 15.5% of GDP, in the coronavirus-peak year of 2020.

Barack Obama became the only American leader in this century who managed to reduce the US budget deficit by the end of his presidency, to $2.2 trillion from $5.1 trillion under George W. Bush. However, Bush was the last president under whom the US budget posted a full-year surplus of $130 billion in 2001. The United States has been in a state of chronic excess of expenditures over income for almost a century; the last time there was a long period of surplus was from 1920 to 1930. The only US leader after World War II with a budget surplus was Harry Truman (1946-1950), and the largest government spending surplus was under Ronald Reagan at $1.34 trillion. The US finances such a gigantic budget deficit from the national debt, which in July for the first time exceeded the $35 trillion mark, and just two weeks later grew by another $160 billion.

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But Hungary cannot stop them?

• Poland Allows Border Guards To Shoot At Migrants (RT)

Polish President Andrzej Duda has signed legislation that expands the use of weapons by the military, police, and border guards, and exempts them from criminal liability for employing live fire, his office has said. Duda approved the ‘Act on Support for the Activities of Soldiers and Officers’ on Wednesday as Poland celebrated Armed Forces Day, the head of the presidential office, Malgorzata Paprocka, announced on Thursday. The new law allows the military to take part in operations within the country in peacetime and sets out the rules for the use of firearms in these situations by troops. Among other things, it introduces an amendment to the Polish Criminal Code that excludes criminal liability if a soldier guarding the border fires a weapon in order to protect their life or the life of another person, even if it is done in violation of the existing rules.

According to Duda, the legislation “will allow the border and other places to be protected even better, even more efficiently, while also increasing the safety of the Polish soldier.” The country’s parliament, the Sejm, passed the bill mid-July, a month and a half after a Polish soldier succumbed to his injuries after being stabbed by a migrant through the fence erected by Warsaw on the border with Belarus. In June, three Polish troops were detained for firing warning shots at the border. Two of them faced accusations of abuse of power and endangering the lives of others. The Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Michael O’Flaherty, urged Warsaw against introducing the changes, saying in a letter that “international law requires states to reduce as far as possible the adverse consequences of the use of force.”

The law could lead to the disproportionate use of force and abusive incidents not being properly investigated, O’Flaherty warned. The leader of The Left parliamentary group, Anna Maria Zukowska, was also among the critics of the legislation, saying in the Sejm that it violates the constitution. According to Poland’s principal law, the priority is the protection of human life, not the border, she argued. An influx of migrants on the Poland-Belarus border has continued since 2021. Warsaw has accused Minsk of deliberately organizing asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East and sending them towards Poland in what it calls “hybrid actions aimed at destabilizing Poland and other EU member states.” The authorities in Minsk have denied these claims.

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“..perhaps it was a blessing that [Ursula von der Leyen] was kept out of the spotlight, given that she has her fair share of graft allegations and cases pending against her.”

• EU Warns Elon Musk Again, Fears Far-Right Groups’ Narrative (Jay)

The EU has just scored a double whammy against itself as yet another letter sent to Elon Musk blows up in its face. Just recently an official working in its highest echelons sent a warning letter to the billionaire pointing out that his social media platform X needs to moderate some of the content it’s allowing to be posted. The letter, written by Thierry Breton, the EU’s Internal Market commissioner in charge of enforcing the draconian Digital Services Act (DSA), insisted that Musk had an obligation to censor potentially “harmful content” on his platform. But what is “harmful” content in the view of the EU? In real terms, the harmful content which is spooking the European Commission is from far-right groups – as Brussels sees these groups and their expansion as an existential threat and believes they need to be silenced.

Musk, since taking over Twitter and rebranding it simply X, has allowed a number of these activists and organisations the freedom of expression believing that it is important to allow all political voices to have a platform to spout whatever they want. The Commission seems to be setting itself up for a huge fall with Musk determined to expose it and its dirty games it plays with huge corporations – in a bid to control more and more of the information that social media platforms circulate. The EU wants to police the internet and, like the U.S., has a series of new rules in place which will effectively allow it to shut down those on social media whose content does not correspond with its own narrative. Yet this letter from Breton is not the first and it would appear that the European Commission has a fatal attraction to Musk who seems hell-bent on humiliating Brussels in the months to come.

In July, Breton announced that the European Commission considered X to be in violation of the DSA and claimed it was poised to his X with massive fines unless it agreed to restrictions on “hate speech” and “misinformation.” According to Musk, there was a dirty deal on offer by the Commission. “The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us,” Musk wrote in response. “The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.” Breton vocally denied the existence of such an offer, but Musk replied he was looking forward to “a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth.” These two letters show that the European Commission considers both Trump and far-right groups on X to be a major obstacle to its ambitions and even its longer-term stability.

Presently, the European Commission is frantically backpedalling and carrying out a face-saving operation as if it were to be established that doing such dirty deals in smoke-filled rooms with huge U.S. firms was the norm, the fallout and damage to the EU’s reputation could be immeasurable, perhaps prompting a mass resignation of all its commissioners like in 1999 when they had to resign under a cloud of corruption allegations. Some may argue that Ursula von der Leyen is also inept for not even being in the loop about the French letters but few would be shocked to learn that she has an ephemeral control of the Commission even on a good day and perhaps it was a blessing that she was kept out of the spotlight, given that she has her fair share of graft allegations and cases pending against her.

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“..the few “rabid” nationalists remaining in Ukraine “no longer set the trend,” therefore, the country has been “de-nazified..”

• Most Ukrainians ‘Hate’ Zelensky – Lukashenko (RT)

The Ukrainian government is out of touch with its own people, who do not want to die in the conflict with Russia, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said, adding that Vladimir Zelensky has lost the support of the majority of the people. In an interview with Russia 1 TV released on Sunday, Lukashenko claimed that Kiev’s neo-Nazi ideology does not resonate with the population of the country. “There are no longer any Nazis,” he said, arguing that the few “rabid” nationalists remaining in Ukraine “no longer set the trend,” therefore, the country has been “de-nazified” – one of the stated goals of Moscow’s military operation in the neighboring state

According to Lukashenko, around 70% of Ukrainians “hate Zelensky because he promises one thing and does another; because people are dying.” He did not elaborate on the statistics behind his estimates, but noted that his nation has recently faced a large inflow of Ukrainians of fighting age who are “fleeing from the war” with their families.Belarus provides some of them with work and accommodation, Lukashenko said, while others have moved on to Western nations. “Out of them, 99% are men who do not want to fight.” Poll results published by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology in early June indicate that around 43% of Ukrainians believe democracy is in decline under Zelensky. Of those, 28% blame the government, while 11% pointed to the conflict with Russia as the main cause.

Almost half of the respondents said that economic conditions, including transparency and the government’s fairness towards businesses, have worsened during Zelensky’s rule. Zelensky remains in power despite his term officially expiring on May 20. He canceled this year’s election, citing martial law which he imposed due to the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin has argued that the Ukrainian leader’s legitimacy as president has expired. According to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Zelensky’s approval rating stood at 17% even before his term formally ended. “Over 70% of the public distrusts all Ukrainian media, while about 90% would like to leave the country,” the SVR said in May, adding that the situation has sparked concerns among Kiev’s Western backers as well.

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“..Putin said there can be no talks with those “who conduct indiscriminate strikes on civilians.”

• Moscow Denies WaPo Claims About Secret Russia-Ukraine Talks (RT)

Russia and Ukraine have not been involved in any “direct or indirect” talks that could have been derailed by Kiev’s cross-borer incursion into Kursk Region, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told journalists on Sunday. She was asked to comment on a Washington Post article which claimed, citing sources, that the Ukrainian attack thwarted secret indirect negotiations between Moscow and Kiev regarding a potential moratorium on striking energy infrastructure. The supposed talks were said to be mediated by Qatar, the outlet wrote on Saturday. “No one has derailed anything,” Zakharova said, explaining that the two sides have not discussed any “security regimes” for critical infrastructure facilities. She went on to say that threats to energy facilities such as the nuclear power stations in Zaporozhye and Kursk come from Kiev, not Moscow.

Earlier, a Russian journalist had reported that Kiev was plotting a “false flag” attack involving a dirty nuclear bomb either at the nuclear plant in Zaporozhye or Kursk. Commenting on the matter, the Russian Defense Ministry said it takes such reports seriously and vowed a swift and harsh response to any such attacks. Moscow has called on the UN to condemn the alleged plot, while Kiev has denied the claims. According to Zakharova, Moscow and Kiev have not engaged in any talks since spring 2022, except for prisoner exchanges facilitated by third-party mediators. Peace talks held over the first months of the conflict collapsed after Kiev withdrew from them due to what Moscow claims was Western interference. Ukraine had “all the chances” to resolve the conflict through negotiations, the spokeswoman said. Moscow repeatedly stated that it was ready to enter into negotiations at any moment as long as the situation on the ground was taken into account.

Kiev banned any talks with the current Russian leadership at the national level through a presidential decree signed in 2022. The move came after four former Ukrainian regions voted overwhelmingly to join Russia. This June, Moscow put forward another peace initiative, Zakharova noted. At the time, President Vladimir Putin said Russia was ready to immediately open peace talks with Kiev if it withdrew its troops from the four regions that joined Russia in 2022 and committed to maintaining neutral status. According to Zakharova, Kiev reacted to this “goodwill gesture” by launching an incursion into Kursk Region, where Ukrainian forces were “deliberately killing medics, rescuers, and volunteers, as well as attacking civilian transport.” In the wake of the attack, Putin said there can be no talks with those “who conduct indiscriminate strikes on civilians.”

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“..the SS battalions in the Baltic States (as in the Netherlands, Belgium and France) consisted of volunteers, that is what is said in their files. In Estonia it consisted of 70,000 men who joined the SS.”

• The Baltic States And Finland Are Ruled By Nazis (Sonja van den Ende)

This article will show you how much the Baltic states and Finland have been radicalized and can be called fascist states, they themselves call it democracy, not realizing that they are fascist and follow the principles of National Socialism as was preached by the German political party NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) which was led by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s. Recently there was yet another incident, one of many, this time in Estonia, where in the town of Johvi the monument of two SS veterans from the Second World War was taken out of the cellars of the museum, cleaned up and put on display again. Georg Sooden was a volunteer in the SS 20th Estonian Division (The Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS).

About 70,000 mostly volunteers fought in this battalion, mainly against the Russian Red Army, notably in the battle of Krivasoo. Georg Sooden was killed in this battle as was his comrade Raul Jüriado also mentioned on the monument. A member of the Johvi council inaugurated the monument. In the Western information and/or media there is hardly any talk about these kinds of incidents and in particular the Baltic States have always defended themselves with the argument that they were “forced” to fight for the Nazis. But the Germans are known for their accuracy to document everything, so they did in this specific topic as well, the SS battalions in the Baltic States (as in the Netherlands, Belgium and France) consisted of volunteers, that is what is said in their files. In Estonia it consisted of 70,000 men who joined the SS.

In Latvia it was the 1st Latvia 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS together with the 2nd Latvia 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS it was called the Latvia Legion and consisted of 87,500 men. Lithuania did not officially have a Waffen SS battalion, but called itself the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force. But there was something else, something very terrible about the Lithuanians, most of them collaborated as policemen and carried out raids on Jews, Communists and dissidents. Almost all Jews of Lithuania were killed in the second world war, by Lithuanians, who carried out the executions. Lithuania is the southernmost of the Baltic states. During the Holocaust, about 90 percent of all Lithuanian Jews were murdered, one of the highest victim rates in Eastern Europe, the Netherlands had the highest victims rate of Western Europe.

In 2023 the BBC conducted an investigation in Lithuania and made a documentary (Dailymotion) in which the presenter went in search of the horrors of the Holocaust and found out that almost all Lithuanians were involved in the Holocaust and to this day it is NOT ALLOWED to be talked about. Also, all the SS bataljons mentioned were perpetrators in the siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Operation Barbarossa in Russia, killing and murdering Russians, Jews, Communists and dissidents. But history is being rewritten, Latvia (and the other states as well) is trying to do this with the help of all kinds of European Union funds. Latvia is a full member of the EU and can simply continue to spew its Russian hatred, conceal and justify the Holocaust committed by its own people. There is a whole site created with the help of the EU about the Baltic States with information (revisionism) about the Baltic States, the foundation is paid by the European Union. No word about this revisionism which took place after their independence in 1991 by other Western EU states.

Finland is a different story, they didn’t have such a big SS battalion during WWII, but since WWII they represent a fascist attitude, both politicians and citizens, especially against Russia. Recently, Finnish President Alexander Stubb spoke on CNN and stated “I felt that there was a potential existential threat coming from Russia”. An interview on his return to politics. He literally says in the interview that the “road to peace goes through the battlefield.” He is bragging along and says that Finland has the highest percentage in Europe, about eighty percent who are willing to die for their fatherland. Referring to the fear he says, fear lives in Finland when “Russia (always referring to President Putin) invaded Ukraine”. He also says that Finland tried to cooperate with Russia after the Cold War (1991) but it didn’t work, because Russia is not a “normal” state that respects the law!

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Under threat: 80 percent of its grain production, 70 percent of its dairy supplies and 40 percent of its meat supply.

• Hezbollah Has $150 Bln in Israeli Infrastructure in Its Sights (Sp.)

Tensions between Israel and the Lebanese political and militant group Hezbollah are a hair’s breadth away from a full-scale war amid back and forth border skirmishes, Israeli threats of an “extremely powerful” military operation and the assassination of a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut last month. Hezbollah reportedly has enough missile and drone firepower to wipe out up as much as $150 billion of key Israeli economic, industrial and food-growing facilities and assets in the country’s northern regions if tensions escalate into a full-scale confrontation. Estimates by Iranian media suggest the Lebanese militia’s capabilities threaten the “economic heart of Israel,” an area in the country’s north accounting for some 80 percent of its grain production, 70 percent of its dairy supplies and 40 percent of its meat supply.

A Hezbollah response to aggression targeting Israeli agribusiness giants like Tnuva or Adom may “paralyze” Israel’s food market, the report suggests. Over 60 percent of Israel’s oil refining and fuel production capacity is said to be concentrated around Acre Port, about 35 km south from the Lebanese border. That puts those sensitive economic targets in range of nearly all of Hezbollah’s known arsenal of missiles and drones. Drones have proven highly effective in overcoming Israel’s sophisticated air defense network — which is designed to handle an array of high-speed ballistic and cruise missile threats, but has proven less efficient in targeting slow-moving aerial vehicles flying close to the ground. Hezbollah released a video Friday showing off a large underground missile base, with the video said to send a “clear message” to Israel that “the resistance in Lebanon today” has weapons, equipment, capabilities and capabilities “stronger than at any time” since its creation.

Footage shows a tunnel network wide enough to drive rocket-launching trucks through, and disguised launch sites from which missiles can be launched without their carriers having to emerge to the surface. “Israel will face a destiny and reality it didn’t expect any day. War with [Hezbollah] extends across all of Palestine from the Lebanese border to the Jordanian border. To the Red Sea, to Kiryat Shmona, to Eilat,” the group warned. “These targets are in our possession, and these missiles are placed, deployed and focused on targets in perfect security,” the text accompanying the video added. Israeli media dubbed the clip “just the tip of the iceberg,” as far as Hezbollah’s true capabilities are concerned, with Jerusalem Post contributor Seth J. Frantzman suggesting the militia tends to play “its cards close to its chest, revealing its capabilities slowly and only showing a part of what it has.”

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“Estonia, Finland and the Netherlands have led the charge in cashless payments. In these countries, cash accounted for less than half of P2P transactions..”

• Many Germans Remain Uneasy Over Prospect of Looming Digital Euro (Sp.)

The European Central Bank began the “preparation phase” for the rollout of its ‘digital euro’ central bank digital currency (CBDC) scheme last October, but has held off on its implementation. In April, Deutsche Bundesbank president Joachim Nagel assured that “it may take another four or five years before [the CBDC] is actually implemented.” Cash-loving Germans are leading the charge in opposition to the digital euro among Europeans, with just under half saying they “probably” or “definitely” won’t use the new payment system if or when it arrives. A survey by the Forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis on behalf of Deutsche Bundesbank found that while 15% of respondents said they “definitely” would use the digital euro, and 35% are ready to give it a whirl, 25% “definitely won’t use” it, and 24% “probably won’t use” it. One percent of respondents were undecided. The representative survey queried 2,012 people this past April.

Germans are among the leaders in Europe when it comes to the ‘cash-is-king’ mentality, holding on to 500 euro notes long after other EU members’ central banks had dropped them. In 2019, a Bundesbank poll found that 88% of Germans would continue to prefer paying cash even after the 500 euro bill was no longer issued, with the note popular for large purchases. In the EU, the share of cash in P2P payments was above 80% in Germany, Cyprus, Slovenia, Greece, Italy and Austria in 2022. Estonia, Finland and the Netherlands have led the charge in cashless payments. In these countries, cash accounted for less than half of P2P transactions, according to European Central Bank data.
Germans and other Europeans have an array of concerns regarding CBDCs, from privacy and control over finances to fears of overdependence on technology in general.

The European Central Bank’s assurances that the new currency will remain private and secure using encryption and hashing don’t seem to assuage concerns, particularly among older generations. The European Central Bank is expected to make a decision on whether or not to implement the digital euro scheme by late 2025, although some of the region’s top bankers suggest its implementation may be put off, possibly until closer to the end of the decade. Unlike decentralized digital currencies like Bitcoin (which come with their own risks) CBDCs have garnered their share of criticism related to their centralization – specifically fears over finance-related censorship, increasing centralization and politicized control over spending and savings.

Proponents say the technology will promote innovation in payments, keep central banks central to monetary systems, encourage “social responsibility,” including through the potential programming of currencies to be spent only on a list of approved goods or services, ease the doling out of government assistance, and potentially even simplify financial transactions between countries as a workaround to sanctions. In the US, where opposition to state economic control is even stronger in some states than in European countries, opposition to CBDCs has taken on a political dimension, with former president and Republican nominee for president Donald Trump embracing Bitcoin and vowing to block the creation of a digital dollar on the campaign trail.

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All their “leading”politicians are hated.

• UK PM’s Approval Rating Down 26 Percentage Points Since Election (Sp.)

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating has fallen 26 percentage points since early July when he took office and 10 percentage points since early August, a poll conducted by the Opinium market research agency and The Observer newspaper has found. “Starmer’s net approval ratings are -7%, down 10 points from +3 at the beginning of August and down a hefty 26 points from +19% in his first approval rating as PM,” Opinium said on X on Saturday. In addition, 29% of Britons have a less favorable view of the Labour Party since its election victory, while 24% tend to view it more favorably, the poll showed. At the same time, former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s rating is at -30%, according to the survey. On August 11, The Telegraph newspaper reported that Starmer’s approval rating had fallen to its lowest level since the election amid widespread unrest in the country, citing a survey by sociological and consulting firm Savanta.

On August 6, YouGov released a study showing that almost half of the British population thought Starmer was doing a poor job in dealing with mass unrest. In late July, mass protests broke out in many cities in the UK after a 17-year-old teenager attacked children with a knife in the city of Southport. Three children were killed, several more children and two adults were taken to hospital in critical condition. The protests escalated into clashes with police and riots after rumors that the attacker was a refugee. It later became known that the attacker was born in the UK to migrants from Rwanda. Hundreds of people were detained, dozens of police officers were injured during the riots organized by supporters of far-right groups.

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Gervais
https://twitter.com/i/status/1824901315069460939

 

 

Driftwood
https://twitter.com/i/status/1825135492444094845

 

 

Dog with shoes

 

 

Ducks

 

 

Bridge
https://twitter.com/i/status/1825166657922171050

 

 

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