Jul 262025
 


Rembrandt van Rijn The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds 1634

 

Absolutely Not – Senators Want Special Counsel to Investigate Obamagate (CTH)
DNI Tulsi Gabbard Reacts to former DNI James Clapper Hiring Lawyers (CTH)
Barack Obama ‘Not Going to Be Indicted’ but There’s Good News (Margolis)
Actually, Obama Can Be Indicted. Here’s Why (Margolis)
Revenge or Justice? (Victor Davis Hanson)
“Baseless?” (James Howard Kunstler)
Zelensky’s Days are Numbered, He’ll Be the Ultimate Loser (Sp.)
Out of Grace: Zelensky Loses US Backing: Larry Johnson (Sp.)
Zelensky Broke The American Controls – and Now Faces The Consequences (RT)
Putin-Zelensky Summit Only Possible To Finalize Peace Deal – Kremlin (RT)
UK Could ‘Easily’ Stab US In The Back – Patrushev (RT)
Trump Makes Alina Habba Acting US Attorney In NJ (ET)
Israel Just Drew A New Map – Without Saying It Out Loud (Blade)

 

 

 

 

Nunes
https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/1948415920554324305
Tulsi

Rebate


hack
https://twitter.com/LarryOConnor/status/1947628066974359870

judge
https://twitter.com/RodDMartin/status/1948560536066511060

 

 

 

 

Sundance points out that a special counsel is counterproductive, because it won’t have the cross-agencies (silos) powers that Tulsi has. Guess the fact that Lindsey Graham is the one asking for a special counsel, should alert us.

Absolutely Not – Senators Want Special Counsel to Investigate Obamagate (CTH)

Senator Lindsey Graham (Judiciary Committee) and Senator John Cornyn (SSCI) are requesting Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint a special counsel to look into the Obama administration’s weaponization of the U.S. Intelligence Community to target Donald Trump with fabricated smears and false evidence using a fraudulent Russia connection. This should be an immediate hard no for a few reasons. Number one, the special counsel process is where investigations go to die intentionally as a design of the legislative branch defense process. Second, the special counsel would not have cross-silo access to exfiltrate information unless it was accompanied by very specific Presidential authority. It just will not work. The intelligence community information that exposes the plot will be found in very distinct ‘silos’, essentially the intelligence agencies that house the information.

Additionally, inside each of the silos there is a formal and informal process to designate that information based on its internally defined national security value. An example of silo retention can be found in the issue of the FBI housing information in “prohibited access” files. These files are not even discoverable by most internal search efforts. Within the Sentinel system there are “Restricted Access” files that are used to control who can view the file information (sources and methods etc.). The FBI or investigative official (think authorized special counsel) can see the file but cannot access the information within it without a higher clearance level. In these files the Special Counsel can request access and then review. However, recently people discovered there are “Prohibited Access” files that makes the file invisible to both outside and inside searches or queries and are exclusively controlled by the FBI Director and FBI Deputy Director.

This is an example of a sub-silo (secret file keeping) within a distinct silo (FBI, Sentinel system). A special counsel would never discover the “prohibited” files, because there’s no way from outside the system to find it. It’s a little complicated but DNI Tulsi Gabbard has been finding, declassifying and releasing these ‘prohibited access’ types of information, because as Director of National Intelligence -her clearance and position- allow her to gain full administrative level access to the entire metadata of IC information. Tulsi can essentially log into all of the 18 intelligence agencies and review everything in the data storage system. A special counsel, regardless of authority, cannot do this. President Trump can demand full administrative access for himself and so can DNI Tulsi Gabbard. The rest of the silo administrators can only see the information inside their silo.

This limited access issue is how the intelligence agencies hide information. They rely on the inability of external reviewers to see the full scope and then cross reference to all other silos using the same terminology, data points and search sequences.

EXAMPLE – Making up an operational name like “Zero Footprint“, when DNI Tulsi Gabbard is looking at that operation, she can see the full scope of information related to Zero Footprint as the information goes from the White House (finding memo) to the CIA, to the State Dept, to the Pentagon, to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), possibly to the Joint Chiefs and then beyond to international partners (whole or part information shared). DNI Gabbard can see the entire continuum, cross reference each step in the process, see who handled the organization, communication, logistics, assignments and track each process, which enables her to map the inputs and outcomes along with the timeline. She can even see the briefings (or lack therein) to the Gang of Eight or PDB as they are recorded.

A special counsel has nowhere near this capacity. In the example above, the research required to find, extract, cross-reference, organize and then assemble the totality of all information related to such a large intelligence operation (fyi, Zero Footprint was real), takes a lot of time and effort. Tulsi Gabbard is able to designate very specific aides to assist in this process, but the demand on her time is extreme even with help. DNI Gabbard recently told Fox News (video below) she was/is using AI as a tool to do autonomous spider crawls through the various silos looking for information that pertained to specific points, phrases, times, dates and people within the 18-agency silo system. Hundreds of thousands of “return positive” files must then be sifted and reviewed for connection to the participants, and again timelines become the key.

This is a big shift in the use of AI data search engine capability within the national security information space; however, it is exactly what I have been talking about for the past several years as I traveled back and forth to DC. Now, keep in mind what I am describing above is “non-public” information. If you want to really understand the insanity of how the silos operate, you need to accept the same filing and hiding system exists even within public information. The congressional staff don’t even know what the other congressional staff are doing with information from within two different committees, like the Senate Judiciary Committee (FISC oversight) and the Senate Homeland Security Committee (DOJ-NSD), or Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (FBI – Cointel).

In essence, there is little to no information sharing within the silo process, even within the guys on the “same team,” and making matters worse sometimes a research team can gain information that is much more pertinent to the other guys looking at similar issues from within another silo. Discovering this is beyond frustrating; however, it does explain how independent researchers who share on open-source crowd sharing platforms can walk down a research trail much faster. Bottom line, a Special Counsel is an exercise in futility, unless that special counsel has the same review and extraction capability as President Trump and/or DNI Tulsi Gabbard. The best option is a team of investigators within Tulsi Gabbard’s office to continue the digging and connecting the information; then share the discoveries with DOJ officials. Previously, I said a small group within the National Security Council might also be able to deliver a similar outcome. Lastly, a tip-line allowing the private sector crowdsourcing to push puzzle pieces toward the research team might also be a big help.

Read more …

“Our representatives were never representing us. The true DC enemy is ‘We The People‘..”

DNI Tulsi Gabbard Reacts to former DNI James Clapper Hiring Lawyers (CTH)

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appears with Greta Van Susteren to discuss the ongoing release of Intelligence Community documents showing how President Obama intelligence officials conspired to manufacture a false intelligence assessment, frame Donald Trump and begin the Trump-Russia narrative. At the end of this trail of manufactured evidence, we will inevitably end up at the Robert Mueller investigation. The continuum of the Trump-Russia narrative starts with Hillary Clinton (Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie), then transfers to the FBI (James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok); which includes the DOJ National Security Division (AG Lynch, DAG Yates, Mary McCord), then goes through the backdoor to Barack Obama (Susan Rice, Lisa Monaco) and the Legislative Branch (SSCI), and eventually elevates with DNI James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan manufacturing the 2017 intelligence product.

All of that collective effort, all of the former created inputs, eventually culminates into the Robert Mueller Special Counsel (Andrew Weissmann) and the Lawfare ideologues charged with upholding the manufactured premise. In my opinion, the greatest legal exposure is going to be with the Mueller team because that group intentionally and purposefully knew the information being received was fraudulent – yet they used it anyway. Keep in mind that John Durham laid the Mueller/Weissmann probe naked to their enemies. Unfortunately, Weissmann and Mueller do not have enemies in Washington DC, amid any party {. Our representatives were never representing us. The true DC enemy is ‘We The People‘ – and we choose to fight them. When Robert Mueller (silo 2) appeared before a congressional committee in June 2019 to answer questions about his Russia election interference report, he was asked about the origination of Trump-Russia.

Mueller’s jaw-dropping response was, “That was not in my purview.” Wait, how can your existence be predicated on investigating Trump-Russia, and yet the origin of Trump-Russia is not in your “purview”? See the problem?!

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The Supreme Court created a lot of leeway for what a president does in his official capacity. In what capacity did Obama sonspire against Trump?

Barack Obama ‘Not Going to Be Indicted’ but There’s Good News (Margolis)

Thanks to the evidence already released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, it’s now clear that Barack Obama engaged in corrupt efforts to sabotage President Trump. And we’re likely just scratching the surface. More damning revelations are almost certainly on the way. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean Obama will ever see the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jail cell, even if he deserves it. But don’t confuse a lack of prosecution with vindication. During a recent appearance on Real America’s Voice, investigative journalist John Solomon joined Steve Bannon to unpack the formation of a new Department of Justice Strike Force reportedly focused on unraveling the criminal conspiracy behind the Russia collusion hoax and the government’s weaponization against President Trump. And while Obama’s fingerprints are all over the operation, Solomon made it clear that a formal indictment is highly unlikely.

“What the team will do is they’ll bring in all the different skill sets,” Solomon explained. “I think the National Security Division will be brought in. Ironically, that’s the same division that pursued Donald Trump on the classified documents but took a dive on Joe Biden’s.” According to Solomon, this newly formed strike force is modeled after the methods used to break down organized crime families. The process will focus on collecting “overt acts of the conspiracy,” then analyzing the timeline to determine whether the statute of limitations applies or if charges can be brought due to long-hidden evidence. Grand juries, subpoenas, and strategic interviews are all expected. “There’ll be lots of work and then there’ll be grand jury subpoenas. There’ll be significant interviews going on,” Solomon said. “You’ll look for your cooperating witnesses.”

The goal? Reel in the smaller fish first. “One of the things that they do is they roll up people on the low end of the scale early, and then they try to get them to turn on their bosses and get us the truth,” he said. It’s the same strategy that brought down mob bosses and drug kingpins, and now it’s being turned inward, toward the deep state.Names like John Brennan and James Comey are among those believed to be in the DOJ’s crosshairs. But then came the elephant in the room: Barack Obama. “If the ultimate targets are someone like a John Brennan or … James Comey or Barack Obama — who, by the way, is not going to be indicted. Anyone who thinks Barack Obama’s going to be indicted: it’s not going to happen,” Solomon admitted.

That legal shield, ironically, may come courtesy of Donald Trump himself. “President Trump’s immunity victory last year in the Supreme Court’s gonna protect Barack Obama. Barack Obama should send a thank-you card to Donald Trump,” Solomon quipped. But while Obama may avoid prosecution, that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook entirely. “You could imagine a scenario where they lay out a conspiracy, and Barack Obama is named as an unindicted co-conspirator,” Solomon continued. “That would be one hell of a legacy for the 44th president.” Indeed, while Obama will almost certainly avoid legal consequences, the political and historical fallout could be devastating. If he’s officially named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to frame his successor, and the people who carried out that plot end up in prison, his legacy won’t just take a hit; it’ll be permanently disfigured. It’s hard to claim innocence when everyone who did your bidding goes down for the crime.

A scenario like that isn’t something CNN or MSNBC can memory-hole, no matter how hard they try. No, Barack Obama won’t be frog-marched out of his Martha’s Vineyard mansion. But if this investigation follows through, the myth of his “scandal-free” presidency could collapse under the weight of a conspiracy that once masqueraded as patriotism but now reeks of abuse, corruption, and cover-up. Obama may not go to jail, but history may render its own indictment.

Read more …

SCOTUS: “The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law.”

Actually, Obama Can Be Indicted. Here’s Why (Margolis)

This week, investigative journalist John Solomon told Steve Bannon that despite all the evidence that has been declassified linking Barack Obama to the Russiagate hoax, Obama won’t and can’t be indicted for his role in the Russian collusion hoax. “Anyone who thinks Barack Obama’s going to be indicted: It’s not going to happen,” Solomon admitted. “President Trump’s immunity victory last year in the Supreme Court’s gonna protect Barack Obama. Barack Obama should send a thank-you card to Donald Trump.” But is Solomon right? The case Solomon is referring to, Trump v. United States (2024), was, of course, extremely consequential, but also widely misunderstood. Democrats branded the ruling as the Supreme Court granting “blanket immunity” for presidents, but that’s not what it does at all.

While the Court recognized a degree of immunity for official acts of the presidency, it drew a sharp line between what a president does in his constitutional role and what he does as a private individual or political actor. From the ruling itself: “It is these enduring principles that guide our decision in this case. The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law.” With that in mind, the ruling does not give presidents the power to break the law with impunity. If a president lies to federal investigators, commits fraud, or abuses power outside the scope of his official duties, he can still face prosecution. The Court explicitly left the door open for criminal charges—even against sitting or former presidents—if the conduct in question was personal, political, or unrelated to the legitimate functions of the presidency.

And, let’s be honest: What Barack Obama did during the Russian collusion hoax wasn’t just political—it was a calculated abuse of power far outside the bounds of his official role. If a president lies to federal investigators, forges documents, or uses the office for personal or political revenge, those are not protected actions. He can be charged under the same criminal statutes as anyone else. For example, 18 U.S.C. § 1001 makes it a crime to lie to federal officials. Wire fraud, under 18 U.S.C. § 1343, covers schemes involving deceit through electronic communication. Other statutes—like aiding and abetting (18 U.S.C. § 2), being an accessory after the fact (18 U.S.C. § 3), or even seditious conspiracy (18 U.S.C.§ 2384)—can all apply if the president helps orchestrate or cover up unlawful acts.

That brings us to the documents released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, which suggest Barack Obama may have done exactly that. The material is nothing short of explosive. It confirms that Obama’s inner circle—including James Clapper and John Brennan, under Obama’s direction—engineered a political smear campaign disguised as an intelligence assessment. According to the files, a high-level meeting in December 2016, led by Obama’s top national security officials, launched the coordinated leaks to the media about so-called Russian election interference—even though pre-election intelligence assessments found no such evidence.

“The evidence that we have found and that we have released directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment,” Gabbard stated. So obviously, the evidence suggests Obama is not innocent. The only real question now is whether he’ll ever be held accountable—or if the system will once again protect one of its own. That’s an entirely different question.

Read more …

“Obama-era officials and Clinton-campaign activists destroyed President Trump’s own credibility to sustain a workable relationship with a nuclear Russia..”

Revenge or Justice? (Victor Davis Hanson)

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard just released a trove of apparently once-classified documents — with promises of much more to follow. The new material describes the role of the Obama administration’s intelligence and investigatory directors — purportedly along with former President Barack Obama himself — in undermining the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. In addition, their efforts extended to sabotaging the 2016-2017 presidential transition and, by extension, the first three years of the Trump presidency. The released documents add some new details to what over the last decade has become accepted knowledge. Congressional committees, special prosecutors, and the inspectors general had all previously issued reports that largely confirmed the general outlines of the skullduggery that began in 2015-16.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign, later aided by the top echelon of the FBI, CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence, sought — falsely — to seed a narrative that Trump had colluded directly with Russia to win unfairly the 2016 election. When that campaign gambit failed to alter the 2016 results, the Obama administration doubled down during the transition to undermine the incoming Trump presidency. Next, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “all-star” legal team found no evidence of direct Trump-Putin collusion to hijack the election. But his investigation did sabotage 22 months of Trump’s first term, marked by constant leaks and hysterical rumors that Trump was soon to be convicted and jailed as a “Russian asset.” By 2020, the frustrated intelligence agencies and former “authorities” now absurdly further lied that Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop had “all the earmarks” — once again — of Russian interference.

So, what could be new about Gabbard’s latest release? One, after the 2016 election of Donald Trump but before his inauguration, Obama convened a strange meeting with his outgoing intelligence and investigatory heads — CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and a few others. Contrary to a four-year Democratic Party narrative that “18 intelligence agencies” had long claimed Russian collusion, the top directors apprised Obama that their expert colleagues had found no such evidence of Trump-Putin collusion. Yet outgoing President Obama allegedly directed them to ignore such an assessment. Instead, they began spreading narratives that President-elect Trump had been colluding with the Russians. Leaks followed. Media hysteria crested. And soon Mueller and his left-wing “dream team” of lawyers targeted President Trump.

Further new information may confirm that Brennan’s CIA — and those he briefed in the Oval Office — had known for some time that the Russians themselves were confused about why they were falsely being accused of colluding with Trump to rig the election. Of course, Russian operatives, like their Chinese counterparts, often seek to cause havoc in American institutions, such as hacking emails or spreading online disinformation. But they may have been nevertheless curious why Hillary Clinton was making such false accusations that they were working directly with Trump, and why the Obama administration was acting upon them. Obama has now claimed these new charges are outrageous and beneath the dignity of the presidency. He did not, however, flatly contradict the new information. He should have issued an unambiguous denial that he had never ordered his intelligence chiefs in December 2016 to ignore their associates’ assessments and instead to assume Trump’s collusion with Putin.

These sustained efforts of the Clinton campaign, Obama appointees, and ex-intelligence chiefs and their media counterparts between 2015 and 2020 severely undermined the 2016 Trump campaign. They bushwhacked the 2017 presidential transition. They hamstrung the Trump presidency. And they may well have hurt Trump’s 2020 election bid. Summed up, here is the damage caused by the Trump-Putin collusion lies: 1. They emboldened “experts” in 2020 to again lie blatantly and shamelessly to the American people that the incriminating Hunter Biden laptop was yet another fake product of Russian interference to help reelect Trump. 2. The media were equally guilty. Journalists partnered with current and ex-Obama appointees by disseminating fake documents like the Steele dossier and working with giants like Twitter and Facebook. During the 2020 campaign, the FBI and social media sought to censor accurate news stories that the laptop was indeed authentic and already verified as such by the FBI.

3. These operations may have had serious consequences for U.S. foreign policy. Dictatorial Russia is an adversary of the U.S. But by needlessly and falsely claiming that Russia had intervened in two elections directly to partner with Trump, Obama-era officials and Clinton-campaign activists destroyed President Trump’s own credibility to sustain a workable relationship with a nuclear Russia. In addition, the lying and extra-legal operations of the FBI and CIA only further convinced the paranoid Russians that they could not trust the U.S. government — given it had been engaging in the very conspiracy lies that were more akin to its own than America’s. Obama, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and others will likely never face legal consequences for the damage they’ve done to our institutions and foreign policy. But that does not mean they should be exempt from an ongoing and disinterested effort to find and finally expose the whole truth.

Read more …

“If you can arrest a former president named Donald Trump, you can arrest a former president named Barack Obama.” — Peachy Keenan on “X”

“Baseless?” (James Howard Kunstler)

Don’t you think it’s time for The New York Times to stop using the cliché “baseless” when referring to allegations — now, actually, official accusations— of the seditious conspiracy to run President Trump out of office after the 2016 election? Of all the fake “journalistic” blurts emanating from this bastion of degenerate sell-outs, “baseless” is the fakest, as if the word printed in a headline were so magically potent, the sheer assertion of it can make all your problems just — poof! — go away. It’s the thought process of wicked children who fail to develop a sense of true or false, right or wrong, who grow into adults specially licensed, by some new perversion of the social contract, to get away with anything. And those wicked children have become America’s managerial class, the elite who are supposed to do your thinking for you op-ed style, the credentialed experts, such as Tony Fauci, “economist” Paul Krugman, DEI avatar and NPR honcho Katherine Maher, Harvard law prof Lawrence Tribe. . . the list is interminable, but you get the picture.

This class is also the owner / operator of America’s political Deep State, which by 2016 had grown into a colossal racketeering operation, money-laundering gazillions of taxpayer dollars into NGOs dedicated to the country’s cultural and political destruction while it processed campaign donations into fantastic fortunes for people officially earning less than $200-K a year. The racket also managed to pay for the support of multitudes allergic to working for living, as long as they were available for riots and ballot-harvesting drives. It was working at such a high pitch by the end of Barack Obama’s two terms, with the most stupendously privileged creature in the Boomer bestiary ready to take her “turn” in the Oval Office — after amassing a $300-million-plus fortune serving as US senator (salary, $174-K / year) and Secretary of State (salary $199,700 / year, then) — that you must imagine the mighty freak-out at the prospect of one Donald John Trump, outsider vulgarian extraordinaire, promising to step in and drain the whole massive, putrid, necrotic, parasitical nepo-infested quagmire of predatory grifters, leaving them gasping for their lives on the stinking Potomac mudbanks like so many grunions dying on the beach at Redondo.

Barack Obama, apparently, Darth Vadar-ized himself and was handed a light-saber (Hillary’s Steele dossier) by John Brennan, Grand Duke of Planet Intel. . . and the rest should have been history — but instead festered in the US body politic for more than ten years like an inflamed tuberculoma and is now bursting out of the Beltway’s peritoneal cavity in a spectacular spray of ordure, sticking to everyone and everything like a thousand tails pinned on the everlasting Democratic donkey. Alas, Babylon-on-the-Potomac. . . . Also: “baseless,” my ass. . . . The basis for all this mischief is in the process of having proof supplied by the one figure, DNI Gabbard, in a position to retrieve the evidence, in writing, from the various heavily ring-fenced agencies over which she is the ultimate overseer, which has not been done before, especially back in the crucial weeks of late 2020 when John Ratcliffe was in that position. The reason Tulsi succeeded this time where Ratcliffe did not is probably due to newly available A-I systems which make collation of cross-searches much easier through the countless servers of the many intel agencies. And so, now it pours forth day by day.

That’s where things stand and the dust has not even begun to settle, with former President Obama seemingly hoisted on the petard of his own making back in December of 2016. Whether or not all the declassified info can be crafted into prosecutable cases is not yet determined, but you might imagine it will come together soon enough, if at all possible. It may not add up to treason per se, but there are plenty of other serious charges generally proceeding from deprivation of rights under color of law (18 U.S.C. § 242), to seditious conspiracy, i.e., overthrow of the president (18 U.S.C. § 2384) to stuff a number of former officials into orange jumpsuits behind bars.

Read more …

“The longer that Zelensky holds on and continues the fight with the encouragement of the West, he’s going to lose more and more..”

Zelensky’s Days are Numbered, He’ll Be the Ultimate Loser (Sp.)

“Russians hold all the cards. Zelensky has no cards. All he can do is play games and placate Trump,” says Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the US Office of the Secretary of Defense, in an interview with Sputnik. According to Maloof, Zelensky is stalling for time, hoping to paint Russia as an unreliable negotiator and gain favor with Trump. The Kremlin, however, has stated that any Putin-Zelensky talks are premature, as no common ground exists yet. “The longer that Zelensky holds on and continues the fight with the encouragement of the West, he’s going to lose more and more,” Maloof warns.

Zelensky is also facing unrest at home. On July 22, Ukrainians protested his attempt to take control of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). “I think the internal strife is going to have to be accelerated to the point where [Zelensky] is going to have to focus all of his attention on that if he intends to survive politically. But I think his days are numbered,” says Maloof. He suggests that Ukrainians may soon act to “get what’s left of Ukraine back on a stable footing with proper governance and representation.”

“Right now, the Russian perspective is that Zelensky is not a valid leader because his term had expired as president and he’s operating under martial law,” the analyst points out. Western support is also faltering, particularly after Zelensky’s controversial NABU/SAPO law, which contradicts the 2015 Ukraine–US–EU agreement on governance and foreign oversight. The West still holds financial leverage over Ukraine, while “the ultimate loser in the end will be Zelensky,” Maloof concludes.

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“There is nothing that Zelensky can point to where he can say, hey, I’ve got great support here, and I’m in good favor with Washington..”

Out of Grace: Zelensky Loses US Backing: Larry Johnson (Sp.)

Volodymyr Zelensky is facing his first wave of mass protests since 2022 — and it’s a bad omen for him, veteran ex-CIA and State Department official Larry Johnson tells Sputnik. The trouble has brewed for the past month, according to the pundit. “We had a news article by Seymour Hersh… that indicated that his sources from the CIA and Department of Defense were telling him that Zelensky was on his way out, that they’re going to get rid of him,” Johnson says. Johnson says the first impression is the protests looked staged: Pre-printed signs, some oddly in English, while Ukrainians mostly speak either Ukrainian or Russian.

Protested Zelensky’s power grab over the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), but not forced conscription, or the failure to return bodies and pay families who have lost loved ones in the war. “The fact that there are rumors circulating that Washington wants to get rid of Zelensky is a sign that the relationship is not what it was two years ago under Biden,” the CIA veteran says. Zelensky tried to appoint his ex-Defense Minister Rustem Umerov as ambassador to the US, but Washington rejected it. Despite promises, Trump has no weapons to send — just deals to sell arms to Europe to pass to Ukraine. Signs show the US has grown tired of Zelensky. “There is nothing that Zelensky can point to where he can say, hey, I’ve got great support here, and I’m in good favor with Washington,” Johnson concludes.

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If anyone wants to get rid of anyone else in Kiev, they just accuse them of corruption and embezzlement. Can’t miss.

Zelensky Broke The American Controls – and Now Faces The Consequences (RT)

On July 22, large-scale demonstrations broke out in major Ukrainian cities – Kiev, Lviv, Kharkov, and Odessa – and continue to this day. The protests erupted after the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) approved a law limiting the authority of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), effectively placing them under the control of the Office of the Attorney General. This legislation came shortly after NABU and SAPO launched an investigation into former Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Chernyshov, one of Zelensky’s closest allies. Officials in Zelensky’s Office claimed that the reform was necessary to improve coordination among government bodies amid ongoing military operations and to combat Russian influence over anti-corruption institutions.

However, public outrage stemmed not only from the law itself but also from the rapid centralization of power in Ukraine. Protests persisted even after Zelensky restored the independent functioning of NABU and SAPO. Below, RT explores the motives behind the dismantling of these anti-corruption agencies and why the protests pose a threat to Zelensky’s administration. When Vladimir Zelensky took office in 2019, he vowed to support anti-corruption efforts, urging anti-corruption agencies to investigate all cases and hold even high-ranking officials accountable. However, those promises were never fulfilled. On July 22, the Rada passed Bill No. 12414, originally addressing amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code related to disappearances of people during wartime.

However, MPs from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party added amendments that effectively restructured NABU and SAPO, placing them under the control of the Attorney General, who is appointed by the president. Notably, many MPs who voted in favor of the bill and received it with applause are themselves under investigation by these anti-corruption bodies. The official justification for targeting NABU and SAPO was the investigation into Chernyshov, a presidential ally considered a candidate for prime minister, who faced allegations of abuse of power and illicit enrichment. A major corruption scandal in the construction sector emerged, making Chernyshov the highest-ranking official within the president’s team to be embroiled in such an inquiry.

According to the publication Ukrainskaya Pravda, Zelensky ordered the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to protect Chernyshov from arrest. Despite the allegations, the court did not suspend him from his post; however, he was eventually dismissed, and the ministry disbanded. Another notable case involves NABU’s investigation into Rostislav Shurma, the former deputy head of the President’s Office. After the case was initiated, he fled to Germany. In July, German authorities, in collaboration with NABU, conducted a search of his residence in the suburbs of Munich. NABU was preparing charges against Timur Mindich, a long-time friend of Zelensky and co-owner of Studio Kvartal-95, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported. He is suspected of embezzlement in the energy sector and drone production.

Sources indicate detectives may possess recorded conversations involving Mindich in which Zelensky is mentioned. These cases involving the Ukrainian leader’s close associates triggered the crackdown on the anti-corruption agencies. This narrative has been confirmed by The Times and The Economist. On July 21, the SBU and prosecutors conducted extensive searches related to NABU employees, targeting over 80 locations nationwide. Law enforcement acted aggressively, using armed groups to force people to the ground without presenting search warrants. Later, the agency reported the detention of Ruslan Magomedrasulov, the head of NABU’s regional office. Investigators claim his father is a Russian citizen, and he failed to disclose this before obtaining access to state secrets. Allegedly, he assisted his father in conducting business in Russia, and his mother reportedly receives a pension from the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and “makes pro-Russian comments” online. He is expected to face charges for “aiding Russia.”

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Putin already has a job. He can’t go sit at a table for endless negotiations.

Putin-Zelensky Summit Only Possible To Finalize Peace Deal – Kremlin (RT)

A summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky should only take place to finalize a peace settlement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Zelensky has repeatedly called for a face-to-face meeting with Putin in the past several months. The Ukrainian delegation has also proposed the idea during rounds of bilateral talks in Istanbul, framing such a summit as essential to ending the conflict. While the Kremlin has not ruled out a possible Putin-Zelensky meeting, Russian officials have consistently emphasized that the groundwork must be laid first.

“A summit meeting can and should put a final point in the settlement and record the modalities and agreements that are to be developed in the course of expert work. It is impossible to do the opposite,” Peskov told reporters on Friday. Following the third round of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul this week, the Kremlin spokesman accused Kiev of prematurely pushing for a summit. “They are trying to put the cart before the horse,” Peskov said, stressing that “work needs to be done, and only then can the heads of state be given the opportunity to record the achievements that have been made.” Moscow has consistently pointed to concerns about Zelensky’s legal authority.

While Russia has stated it is open to negotiations with him, officials have warned that any documents signed under Zelensky’s name could face legal challenges in the future. Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024. He has refused to hold new elections, citing the ongoing state of martial law in Ukraine. Russia has argued that his status as head of state is no longer valid and that legal authority in Ukraine now lies with its parliament. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has suggested that Zelensky’s insistence on meeting both Putin and US President Donald Trump may be aimed at getting “a massive legitimacy boost” and using the meetings as a pretext to further delay elections.

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“The United Kingdom would not hesitate to sabotage a potential thaw in US-Russia relations..”

UK Could ‘Easily’ Stab US In The Back – Patrushev (RT)

The United Kingdom would not hesitate to sabotage a potential thaw in US-Russia relations, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Friday. Nikolay Patrushev, a longtime national security official and senior Kremlin adviser, accused London of being prepared to carry out a false flag in order to derail efforts by US President Donald Trump to resolve the conflict in Ukraine and normalize ties with Moscow. “If necessary, London would easily stab Washington in the back. I believe officials in the White House realize what kind of ‘ally’ they are dealing with,” Patrushev told RIA Novosti.

His comments followed a statement last month by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which alleged that British intelligence was directly involved in orchestrating covert Ukrainian operations. The SVR claimed the UK had acquired torpedoes of Soviet and Russian design for potential use in a false flag incident – specifically, a staged attack on an American naval vessel in the Baltic Sea. Since Trump’s return to office in January and the departure of Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, Russian officials have frequently pointed to London as the primary force behind the continued conflict in Ukraine. They argue that the British government’s firm support is an obstacle to peace and a strategic effort to block reconciliation between Washington and Moscow.

Moscow has portrayed the Ukraine conflict as a NATO-driven proxy war meant to weaken Russia at the expense of Ukrainian lives. Past reporting by The New York Times and The Times of London has confirmed that both US and British officials have played more active roles in directing Ukrainian military strategy than publicly acknowledged by their governments.

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Why did the U.S. district court judges of New Jersey refuse Habba and pick her assistant? i haven’t seen a single reason. Just because they could?

Trump Makes Alina Habba Acting US Attorney In NJ (ET)

President Donald Trump withdrew his nomination of Alina Habba to serve as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, a Justice Department official confirmed on Thursday. The development comes after a federal court declined to retain Habba in the role of U.S. attorney for New Jersey and opted to install Desiree Leigh Grace. On Tuesday, U.S. district court judges of New Jersey selected Grace, who was Habba’s first assistant, to serve as U.S. attorney as Habba’s 120-day term in the office was reaching its end. Attorney General Pam Bondi then fired Grace in response to the judges’ decision. “[Habba] has been doing a great job in making NJ safe again. Nonetheless, politically minded judges refused to allow her to continue in her position, replacing Alina with the First Assistant,” Bondi wrote on X after the decision.

“Accordingly, the First Assistant United States Attorney in New Jersey has just been removed,” she said. “This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers.” A Justice Department official told The Epoch Times that Trump withdrew Habba’s nomination to be New Jersey’s U.S. attorney, and she was appointed first assistant U.S. attorney. This means Habba becomes the acting U.S. attorney, as the position is now vacant after Grace’s firing. “Donald J. Trump is the 47th President. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General. And I am now the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey,” Habba wrote in a statement posted to X. “I don’t cower to pressure. I don’t answer to politics. This is a fight for justice. And I’m all in.”

Earlier on Thursday, Grace wrote on LinkedIn that she’s honored the judges selected her “on merit” and that she is prepared to follow that order and “begin to serve in accordance with the law.” “I’ve served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. I’ve been promoted four times in the last five years by both—including four months ago by this administration. Politics never impacted my work at the Department. Priorities change, of course, and resources are shifted, but the work and the mission were steady,” Grace said.

However, due to Habba now serving as acting U.S. attorney, Grace likely can no longer assume that office. Habba previously served as Trump’s defense attorney in multiple court cases. Last week, Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney of the Northern District of New York, John Sarcone III, was rejected by judges on that district court. Bondi then appointed Sarcone as a “special attorney” to her, granting him the powers of a U.S. attorney indefinitely.

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“By offering the far right a symbolic prize on annexation, Netanyahu appears to be stalling a government collapse..”

Israel Just Drew A New Map – Without Saying It Out Loud (Blade)

In a significant yet non-binding move, the Israeli legislature has overwhelmingly approved a declaration urging the immediate extension of Israeli sovereignty over Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley. The motion, which passed by a vote of 71 to 13, was backed by right-wing and center-right factions including Likud, Shas, Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit, and Yisrael Beiteinu. The text declares that the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas — referred to in Israeli political discourse as the “Simchat Torah Massacre” — proves that the creation of a Palestinian state poses a mortal danger to Israel’s existence. “The Knesset declares that the State of Israel has the natural, historical, and legal right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” the resolution reads.

“The Knesset calls on the Government of Israel to act without delay to apply sovereignty… over all areas of Jewish settlement in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley.” Though labeled symbolic, Palestinian experts view the vote as laying the bureaucratic foundation for a permanent Israeli presence and governance in the West Bank, the heartland of a future Palestinian state as envisioned by international consensus. Saad Nimr, professor of political science at Birzeit University in the West Bank, told RT the implications of the Knesset’s move are far-reaching. “This is not symbolic at all,” Nimr said. “It means these settlements are now treated as Israeli cities. They’re no longer ‘occupied’ under military law. This is the legal and bureaucratic infrastructure of annexation.”

He continued: “The Israeli ministries — not the military — will now oversee health, welfare, planning, and infrastructure in these areas. It’s not about theory. It’s about bulldozers, budgets, and expansion.” Dimitri Diliani, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, echoed that sentiment. “To describe the vote as symbolic is dangerously naive,” Diliani warned. “In Israeli politics, symbolism is often a precursor to de facto annexation. While the Knesset motion lacks binding legislative authority, it institutionalizes consensus in both government and opposition to expand the State of Israel’s settler-colonial project with new domestic political legitimacy.” Diliani added that members of the Knesset are already pushing legislation to replace the internationally recognized term “West Bank” with the biblical “Judea and Samaria” — further entrenching a nationalist narrative in Israeli law.

Many analysts see the vote not only as ideological, but also as a tactical political maneuver to preserve Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition. “It’s quite clear this was a political exchange,” said Nimr. “[The leader of the National Religious Party–Religious Zionism Bezalel] Smotrich and [the leader of the Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”) party] Ben Gvir threatened to leave the government if negotiations in Doha led to a Gaza ceasefire. This vote is Netanyahu’s way of keeping them on board.” By offering the far right a symbolic prize on annexation, Netanyahu appears to be stalling a government collapse – even as truce talks with Hamas continue under Qatari mediation. Diliani described the move as “opportunistic,” adding: “It’s designed to pre-empt mounting international legal scrutiny, particularly after the International Court of Justice advisory opinion in July 2023, which declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal.”

The reaction from the international community was swift but toothless. Jordan condemned the vote as “a blatant violation of international law.” The European Union and the Arab League issued similarly worded rebukes, reaffirming their commitment to a two-state solution. But both Palestinian analysts were unshaken by the lack of meaningful repercussions. “The historical record teaches us that international consensus does not always translate into action,” said Diliani. “Israel’s alignment with key Western powers, particularly the United States, has only grown stronger – even amid documented live-streamed Israeli genocide in Gaza and tremendous war crimes in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.” He cited continued US military support, which amounts to $3.8 billion annually in aid and has reached nearly $20 billion in additional military assistance since the war on Gaza began in October 2023.

“Israel continues to enjoy extensive trade privileges with the EU,” Diliani added. “Over three-quarters of a million illegal colonial Israeli settlers reside in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Yet the response from the international community remains negligible. Absent deterrent sanctions or accountability mechanisms, Israel interprets this as tacit permission to proceed.” Nimr was equally scathing. “Israel went into this decision with an overwhelming majority in the Knesset. That means they don’t care about the international community’s opinion. The EU witnessed with their own eyes the genocide in Gaza, the use of hunger as a weapon, and still didn’t take any real action.” “If there is no punishment,” Nimr said, “it’s interpreted as agreement. So now, they feel they have a green light.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Macron


play

hose

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jul 212025
 


Saul Leiter Harlem 1960

 

Tulsi Gabbard To Release More Obama Russiagate Files (ZH)
DNI Gabbard on Obama’s Effort to ‘Subvert the American People’s Will’ (Hoge)
Director Gabbard Explains Her Motive (CTH)
Tulsi Gabbard Releases Background Information of Trump-Russia Op (CTH)
Tulsi Gabbard Expands Power of DNI Office – Now Comes the Counter Attack (CTH)
Trump Endorses Gabbard’s ‘Russiagate’ Coup Claims (RT)
Kremlin Rules Out Imminent Putin-Trump Meeting (RT)
Russiagate Only Tip pf Iceberg In Western Demonization of Russia (RT)
EU Working Hard To Portray Russia As ‘Devil Incarnate’ – Kremlin (RT)
Putin Did Better Job Than Any German Leader – Tucker Carlson (RT)
Full Assault On The Media Machine: Trump Slashes USAID (Kolbe)
Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restore Funding To US Propaganda Outlet (RT)
Ukraine Unlikely To Join EU In The Near Term – Merz (RT)
German General Urges Ukraine To Strike Russian Airfields (RT)
France Wants To Nuke Holidays To Fund A Fantasy War With Russia (Marsden)
Europe’s Online Censorship Laws Could Restrict Americans Too (ET)
EU Hatching Secret Electric Car Plan – Bild (RT)
Banning Alternative für Deutschland: A Nightmare Scenario (Eugyppius)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/1946748695921496150

Nunes

Flynn

farage
https://twitter.com/newstart_2024/status/1946572812350787858

Benz Brazil
https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/1946696591173390593

Bibi


https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1946966643382591578

Sachs

 

 

 

 

Inevitably, a lot of Tulsi and Obamagate today. Watched some CNN yesterday, and it hasn’t dawned there yet. It will. Much of our coverage here comes from Sundance, at Conservative Tree House/The Last Refuge, who has ben focusing on Tulsi and her DNI post for a long time, because he saw the potential. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was established years ago to bring info from agencies such as FBI AND CIA together, but these agencies have protected their “turf” of course. Tulsi is the first to put ODNI in a position where it oversees the other intel offices, instead of being some sort of subsidiary to them. Plus, obviously, they were all involved in Obamagate. They were integal parts of the treasonous conspiracy.

Tulsi Gabbard To Release More Obama Russiagate Files (ZH)

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says she’ll release more information next week to follow up on her bombshell declassification of documents that show “overwhelming evidence” of the Obama administration laid the groundwork for the years-long Trump-Russia collusion investigation after President Trump won the 2016 election. “We will be releasing more detailed information about how exactly this took place, and the extent to which this information was sought to be hidden from the American people, hidden from officials who would be in a position to do something about it,” Gabbard told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. “Accountability is essential for the future of our country, for the American people to have any sense of trust in the integrity of our democratic republic.”

“Accountability, action, prosecution, indictments for those who are responsible for trying to steal our democracy is essential for us to make sure that this never happens to our country again,” Gabbard continued. Gabbard told host Maria Bartiromo; “I really cannot fathom” how special counsels Robert Mueller and John Durham missed evidence of this “years-long coup against President Trump.” “There is no rational or logical explanation for why they failed,” she said, adding “The only logical conclusion that I can draw in this … is that there was direct intent to cover up the truth about what occurred and who was responsible and the broad network of how this seditious conspiracy was concocted and who exactly was responsible for carrying it out.”

Among other things, Gabbard’s team unearthed a Sept. 12, 2016 intelligence community assessment that “foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber attacks” on election systems. At the time, Russia was being accused of setting up troll farms and hacking the DNC email servers (Seth who?). And of course, once legitimized by the Obama administration, a steady stream of leaks suggesting that Russia was behind Trump’s 2016 victory started appearing in the Washington Post and other outlets in “sweeping and systemic fashion.”

Mueller, of course, found ‘insufficient evidence’ that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, while Durham – appointed by Bill Barr (son of the guy who hired Jeffrey Epstein for a teaching job & then oversaw Epstein’s death as AG) – accomplished nothing more than a strongly worded letter about the FBI’s handling of the Trump-Russia probe. “I don’t know what excuse there is for those who supposedly investigated this previously, whether it was Durham or others, that they were not able to put together the dots and ultimately show the truth to the American people,” said Gabbard, who then stressed that AG Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel will need to now gather up evidence and decide whether to press charges. (lol. lmao even)

“There must be indictments of those responsible, no matter how powerful they are and were at that time, no matter who was involved in creating this treasonous conspiracy against the American people. They all must be held accountable,” Gabbard continued. “For the American people to have any sense of trust in the integrity of our democratic republic, accountability, action, prosecution, [and] indictments for those who are responsible for trying to steal our democracy is essential for us to make sure that this never happens to our country again.”

Jeffrey Who?

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“..it’s still stunning to hear her directly accuse former President Obama of what some would call treason..”

DNI Gabbard on Obama’s Effort to ‘Subvert the American People’s Will’ (Hoge)

We’ve been reading about it for years, listened to countless segments on cable news and talk radio, and yet in a way, some people have almost become inured to it. Nothing will ever happen, they say. No one will ever be held to account. I’m talking about the Deep State’s multi-year effort to take down Donald Trump, of course. As we reported, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard dropped bombshell claims Friday and issued a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, saying that former president Barack Obama and miscreants in his intelligence circle tried to subvert the will of the American people and in effect stage a coup in 2016 and beyond. The DNI appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Friday night, and although some of what she had to say is similar to her Friday statement which our Susie Moore reported on, it’s still stunning to hear her directly accuse former President Obama of what some would call treason:

“This is such an important issue, and I just want to start by saying that this is an issue that is important to every single one of us as Americans. This is not a partisan issue. It has to do with the integrity and the strength of our Democratic Republic, and it [her report] lays out this over 100 documents that you’re referencing that I released—declassified and released—spells out in great detail exactly what happens when you have some of the most powerful people in our country, directly, leading at the helm, President Obama and his senior most national security cabinet, James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, and Susan Rice and others, essentially making a very intentional decision to create this manufactured politicized piece of intelligence with the objective of subverting the will of the American people…”

https://twitter.com/SaveUSAKitty/status/1946385400664084717?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1946385400664084717%7Ctwgr%5E9750053197695824b9a9850d5fac65fd53735614%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Fbobhoge%2F2025%2F07%2F20%2Fdni-gabbard-details-jaw-dopping-info-detailing-obamas-effort-to-subvert-the-american-peoples-will-n2191863

Gabbard’s boss Donald Trump has been appreciative of her efforts:

In another post on Truth Social, the president wrote, “Congratulations to Tulsi Gabbard. Keep it coming!!!” In a Saturday appearance on “Fox and Friends,” she called the efforts a “treasonous conspiracy.” In her “Hannity” segment, meanwhile, she flat-out accused Obama and Co. of attempting what was essentially a coup: “Their goal was to essentially not accept the decision of the American people, and to use this manufactured politicized intelligence as a means to enact what would become essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”She went to describe how Obama told his intelligence folks to jump, and they said, “How high?”

“Then DNI James Clapper took the lead on what President Obama wanted done, and which was essentially create a document that tells us not if, but how Russia interfered with the election. President Obama delivered the conclusion that he wanted the Intelligence Community to reach, and directed them to find and essentially create and manufacture the intelligence to support the conclusion that President Obama wanted to deliver to the American people.” Once they reached their desired conclusion, the Deep State and their lackeys in the media leapt into action, she said, and the rest is history (impeachments, special counsel reports, FISA warrants, increased tensions with Russia… the list goes on). Asked if she thought there were prosecutable crimes in evidence here, Gabbard had a one-word answer. “Yes.” But she did elaborate: “I’m referring all of these documents that we have that we have found and uncovered, referring them to the Department of Justice for further investigation, accountability and action, not just investigation, but action.

Accountability has to take place. The American people’s ability to have faith and trust in the integrity of our Democratic Republic is literally what’s at stake, and therefore the future of our ability to exist as the country that we know it.” Even after all this time, it’s still amazing to me that this went on in our own country—and that many who rely on the nation’s corrupt media for their information are hearing about it for the first time. The “Hannity” clip is a little over eight minutes, but I encourage you to listen to the whole thing and soak in what Tulsi has to say. Questions remain: Will Obama respond? Will Adam Schiff suddenly appear with the Russia-collusion evidence he’s been promising for so many years now? What are the DOJ’s next steps? Things are likely to get very interesting indeed in the months ahead.

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“Many in Washington DC do not like Tulsi Gabbard for exactly the reasons she explains in this interview. Her motives to release all the information are the opposite of former AG Bill Barr who wanted to see it remain hidden.”

Director Gabbard Explains Her Motive (CTH)

Tulsi Gabbard does an excellent job explaining exactly why the information about who constructed the Trump-Russia collusion narrative needs to be in the spotlight. In this interview DNI Tulsi Gabbard outlines how damaging it is to our constitutional republic when we allow systemic corruption to go unaddressed. Many in Washington DC do not like Tulsi Gabbard for exactly the reasons she explains in this interview. Her motives to release all the information are the opposite of former AG Bill Barr who wanted to see it remain hidden. Bound by no other agenda, DNI Tulsi Gabbard is doing something very few people have the fortitude to continue doing. Listen carefully to her words because they have been backed up by action. What people do speaks so loudly, often we cannot hear a word they are saying. In this example, her words and actions are exactly the same. Let’s hope Attorney General Pam Bondi is influenced by Tulsi Gabbard.

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“Tulsi Gabbard is not under any restriction on her review. That’s the difference. Where Durham was not permitted to go, DNI Tulsi Gabbard is going. Her release of the information is specifically because she is empowered to look at this information and release it..”

Tulsi Gabbard Releases Background Information of Trump-Russia Op (CTH)

The Trump-Russia collusion story was always a targeted false smear intended to generate a special counsel and hamstring the surprising winner from the 2016 election, Donald Trump. The Russia-Collusion narrative was always an Intelligence Community op against Donald TRump. Yesterday, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard released a tranche of background information, [114 pages of information], showing how the Obama administration intentionally and with great purpose fabricated the entire story. Staying focused on the trail of evidence held deep within the ODNI office, is why Tulsi Gabbard has been targeted for removal over the past several weeks. Kudos to Tulsi Gabbard for staying on mission – Great job.

What the evidence shows is a focused targeting operation intended to fabricate a false premise by the United States Intelligence Community, through the Office of former DNI James Clapper. The op was green-lighted by Barack Obama as a way to impede the agenda of incoming President Donald Trump. All three branches of government collaborated on the scheme. WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Friday, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard revealed overwhelming evidence that demonstrates how, after President Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, President Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.

• In the months leading up to the November 2016 election, the Intelligence Community (IC) consistently assessed that Russia is “probably not trying … to influence the election by using cyber means.”
• On December 7, 2016, after the election, talking points were prepared for DNI James Clapper stating, “Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the US Presidential election outcome.”
• On December 9, 2016, President Obama’s White House gathered top National Security Council Principals for a meeting that included James Clapper, John Brennan, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe and others, to discuss Russia.
• After the meeting, DNI Clapper’s Executive Assistant sent an email to IC leaders tasking them with creating a new IC assessment “per the President’s request” that details the “tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election.” It went on to say, “ODNI will lead this effort with participation from CIA, FBI, NSA, and DHS.”
• Obama officials leaked false statements to media outlets, including The Washington Post, claiming, “Russia has attempted through cyber means to interfere in, if not actively influence, the outcome of an election.”
• On January 6, 2017, a new Intelligence Community Assessment was released that directly contradicted the IC assessments that were made throughout the previous six months.

After months of investigation into this matter, the facts reveal this new assessment was based on information that was known by those involved to be manufactured i.e. the Steele Dossier or deemed as not credible. This was politicized intelligence that was used as the basis for countless smears seeking to delegitimize President Trump’s victory, the years-long Mueller investigation, two Congressional impeachments, high level officials being investigated, arrested, and thrown in jail, heightened US-Russia tensions, and more. “The issue I am raising is not a partisan issue. It is one that concerns every American. The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.

Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people,” said DNI Tulsi Gabbard. “Their egregious abuse of power and blatant rejection of our Constitution threatens the very foundation and integrity of our democratic republic. No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. The American people’s faith and trust in our democratic republic and therefore the future of our nation depends on it. As such, I am providing all documents to the Department of Justice to deliver the accountability that President Trump, his family, and the American people deserve.”

Is there new information within the release? Yes and No. All of the outlined activity, the release of the emails and communication within the scheme team, is not new. However, the new part is the evidence. The facts now public to support all previous claims made here and by others, this time with greater detail that cannot be refuted. If you have been reading here for a while THE DOCUMENTS tell a story that is well known. We were able to piece this together even without knowing how the corrupt actors were talking to each other about their specific roles, responsibilities and motives. The documents provided by Tulsi Gabbard are the evidence of a serious coup against incoming President Trump by actors within government. The end of their IC effort culminated in the Robert Mueller investigation. Tulsi is providing the path to the avatar Mueller represented and all of the actors who participated with him.

Some will ask why John Durham never found this information, and/or shared it publicly. The answer to that question is not hard to understand. John Durham was NEVER allowed to look at the government actors in the Trump-Russia narrative. Durham was not allowed to look at how the U.S. Intelligence Community participated. Durham was ham-strung from the outset of his review and investigation, by Attorney General Bill Barr. Bill Barr never let John Durham focus on the govt side of the Trump-Russia collusion story. Tulsi Gabbard is not under any restriction on her review. That’s the difference. Where Durham was not permitted to go, DNI Tulsi Gabbard is going. Her release of the information is specifically because she is empowered to look at this information and release it. Special Counsel John Durham never had that authority. Gabbard provides a top cover memo on Page #67 that highlights who were the “Principal” actors in the scheme: This list of names is key.

Many of them will be familiar to you from all of the research we have poured into the Trump-Russia conspiracy. I would draw attention to the “Justice” participants. Main Justice Attorney General Loretta Lynch and DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord. Again, confirmation that Mary McCord was one of the key participants. McCord is still one of the Lawfare leads against Trump with her friend, Norm Eisen. Interestingly, Deputy AG Sally Yates was not a participant. Instead it was left to AG Loretta Lynch and more importantly Mary McCord. I would also draw attention to the “Chair” of the organization, Susan Rice. This memo released by DNI Gabbard outlining Rice’s participation as Principal and Chair of the op, in combination with her infamous Jan 5, 2017, memo, puts context to Rice’s legal exposure.


Why do I say legal exposure, because Susan Rice is on record saying she was not a participant and never heard of the FBI investigation underpinning the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Obviously everything above is now a provable lie. Look at that highlighted box from Susan Rice’s lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, and remember in his March 20, 2017, testimony Comey said, “The White House was informed through the National Security Council,” (the NSC).FBI Director James Comey was protecting himself against the spygate surveillance of Trump, by leveraging his prior notification to the White House. Comey was signaling, ‘you cant get me for spying on Trump without getting Susan Rice and Barack Obama’, who knew about it.

Does the January 20, 2017, Susan Rice memo look different now? I would also draw attention to the “FBI” lead on the Trump-Russia collusion meeting, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe was entrenched in Crossfire Hurricane, and it makes sense for him to lead the Trump-Russia collusion story as a cover for the prior fraudulent investigation.Factually, everyone listed in that participation memo for their various agencies (silos) is a co-conspirator in the scheme; an intelligence operation to manufacture a false premise, a Trump-Russia collusion story.Tulsi Gabbard deserves appreciation for her efforts on releasing these background documents. However, information without accountability should not be the objective. Attorney General Pam Bondi needs to put some teeth into these findings.

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“..the DNI *CAN BE* deployed like a super strong cross-silo inspector general’s office. Force the other IC silos to comply with the demands of the DNI. This has never been done. But the DNI has this unique power..”

Tulsi Gabbard Expands Power of DNI Office – Now Comes the Counter Attack (CTH)

Many people are questioning why Tulsi Gabbard is able to discover and expose activity by the Obama administration and the Intelligence Community, yet prior office holders did not. Last year, when asked for approaches that could assist a Trump Term-2, I outlined the possibilities for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). What we are seeing today is running in direct parallel to that original outline. As our conversation expands, and we await the counter attack against her, perhaps it is worth a revisit. I will explain the predictable counter attack at the end.

August, 2024 – The ODNI was created as an outcome of the 9-11 Commission recommendations. In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose. Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01. DHS came along in 2002, and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed. When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

Here is the weird part. The ODNI was formed in 2004, with the intent for the office to be the pivot point of a national security radar. The DNI was intended to provide information to domestic agencies about foreign terror networks that would prevent something like 9-11 from happening again. However, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has never, not for one day, operated on this intent. This is why they are such a critical position from my perspective. The office was new, not established yet as a functioning silo, when Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived in 2009. They quickly dispatched an idiot, James Clapper, into the operation so they could weaponize around the offices’ fulcrum point. Prior to the DNI office existing, the CIA radar would sweep externally and then report to the Office of the President.

The DNI was intended to take external radar sweep (CIA) and make it a full 360° circle, adding a sweep inside the USA that would be handled by the Dept of Homeland Security. The DHS sweep and the CIA sweep would then be combined into a central collection hub called the ODNI. Everyone with responsibility for “national security” could access the ODNI material. Essentially and presumably, post 9-11 nothing like jihadists practicing to fly airplanes would be missed again; at least that was the intent. The weird part is that because the DNI was immediately weaponized, the office has never functioned to the purpose of its intent. No one truly knows what the office possibilities consist of, because no one has ever seen anyone try to functionally control the hub. If you think I’m joking about the intent of Obama and John Brennan using the DNI, watch this video. This is before Brennan became CIA Director; this is when Brennan was helping Barack Obama put the pillars into place.

For the intents of this outline, the takeaway is how the DNI office has never been used for good. In a strategic way, that can be used to our advantage if you are talking about leveraging silos against each other. Example: The DNI can assemble material from any silo. Meaning the DNI can reach into any IC silo and extract anything they want. Under the original authorities given to the DNI, this authority exists. So, let’s spread the wings on this office and do exactly what it is permitted to do, only this time extract for the purpose of showing the President what is happening in every silo. In essence, the DNI *CAN BE* deployed like a super strong cross-silo inspector general’s office. Force the other IC silos to comply with the demands of the DNI. This has never been done. But the DNI has this unique power.

The DNI can make the FBI, DOJ, DOJ-NSD, DoD, DoS and CIA provide anything and everything they demand. Instead of the other silos using blocks and threats against the office of the President, use the authority of the DNI to get them without confrontation. Then use the DNI to declassify the documents (if requested by POTUS), instead of the originating silo. Can you see how the DNI office can be repurposed to be a seriously strong weapon in the toolbox of the President, against the schemes of those inside the various IC silos? The DNI becomes much more important than the CIA Director, NSA Director, FBI Director, Attorney General, etc, because the DNI can just show up and say, “give me this.” That’s the whole functional purpose of the DNI office that has never been exerted; let’s flippin’ use it.

Let’s use the office of the DNI as the central information hub that takes information from inside the corrupt silos, then provides that information to the President who puts sunlight upon it. Each corrupt silo penetrated with disinfectant. This could begin a process to pull down the shadow operations and let the American public see what has been happening inside our IC apparatus. To accomplish this approach, the National Security Advisor to the President (NSA), would be the person who tells the DNI exactly what they are looking for.

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“Trump hailed Gabbard and her team as “fantastic on prosecuting Obama and the ‘thugs’ who have just been unequivocally exposed on highest level Election Fraud.”

Trump Endorses Gabbard’s ‘Russiagate’ Coup Claims (RT)

US President Donald Trump has praised National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard for “exposing” a coup plot against him by the administration of former President Barack Obama. On Friday, Gabbard unveiled over 100 pages of newly declassified documents detailing what she described as a coordinated effort by senior Obama-era officials – spearheaded by Obama himself – to politicize intelligence and falsely accuse Trump of colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election. The operation led to the launch of the years-long Trump-Russia collusion probe known as ‘Russiagate,’ which Gabbard described as “a years-long coup against [Trump].” In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump hailed Gabbard and her team as “fantastic on prosecuting Obama and the ‘thugs’ who have just been unequivocally exposed on highest level Election Fraud.”

Trump, who has long rejected allegations of Russian ties as fake and unproven, congratulated Gabbard and urged her to “keep it coming!!!” Gabbard’s disclosures include documents indicating Obama ordered officials to discard prior intelligence assessments that found no evidence of Russian involvement in Trump’s campaign or victory and replace them with new claims blaming Russia that were based on discredited sources and fabricated data. She said these false claims were then leaked to the media. The result, she argued, led to the two-year probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which found evidence of Russian interference but did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s team and Moscow, as well as Trump’s impeachments, indictments, and escalating tensions with Russia.

White House deputy press secretary and presidential aide Harrison Fields said on Fox News the documents were the “predicate” for a decade of attacks on Trump. He labeled the Obama presidency “the most corrupt we’ve ever seen” and criticized the mainstream media for pushing the Russiagate story. Fields noted that Gabbard’s announcement coincides with an ongoing probe into the Russiagate hoax but declined to elaborate. The documents name several officials Gabbard alleges participated in the “conspiracy,” and she vowed to hand all evidence to the Justice Department, warning that “no matter how powerful, every person involved… must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

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“..it is possible, and in time it will definitely happen. It is essential.”

Trump will have to profoundly apologize to Putin for 10 years of fake US accusations.

Kremlin Rules Out Imminent Putin-Trump Meeting (RT)

A face-to-face meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, will definitely happen, but the time has not yet come, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. The Times reported earlier this week that a trilateral meeting between Putin, Trump, and Chinese President Xi Jinping could take place in September during a military parade in Beijing, marking the 80th anniversary of victory over imperial Japan in World War II. The Russian president has already confirmed that he will attend. The Kremlin, however, said it has no knowledge of a potential meeting between the leaders. Speaking about potential talks between Putin and Trump in a clip from an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin released on Sunday, Peskov said, “it is possible, and in time it will definitely happen. It is essential.”

A meeting might be necessary “for signing some major agreements that will be reached over time after a huge amount of work has been done. But this time has not yet come, this work still needs to be done,” he stated. The two leaders have talked on the phone several times in recent months, mainly focusing on ways to resolve the Ukraine conflict, with Trump saying earlier this month that he is “unhappy” and “disappointed” in Putin. Regarding Trump’s comments about Putin, Peskov said, “everybody has already gotten used to his rather tough and straightforward rhetoric. At the same time, he confirms his intentions to continue to do everything possible to facilitate a peaceful settlement” between Russia and Ukraine.

“In fact, President Putin has repeatedly spoken about his desire to switch the Ukrainian settlement onto a peaceful path as quickly as possible. This is a long process; it requires effort and it is not easy, and apparently in Washington there is an increasing understanding of this.” The Kremlin has said the third round of Russia-Ukraine negotiations will likely take place in Istanbul, though a date has not yet been set.

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“..to “fully comprehend” Russiagate, it must be viewed as only a small part of a broader Western campaign to demonize Russia, “that goes decades back.”

Russiagate Only Tip of Iceberg In Western Demonization of Russia (RT)

US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard’s revelations about the role of former President Barack Obama’s administration in the Russiagate scandal are “shocking,” but they expose only the surface of a broader Western anti-Russia campaign, Professor Oliver Boyd-Barrett has told RT. On Friday, Gabbard released newly declassified documents describing a coordinated effort by senior Obama-era officials – led by Obama himself – to falsely accuse Donald Trump of colluding with Russia during the 2016 election. The documents indicate that Obama ordered officials to discard intelligence assessments that found no Russian involvement in Trump’s campaign and replace them with claims blaming Moscow based on fabricated data.

The scandal led to the years-long Trump-Russia probe known as ‘Russiagate.’ “This is an extraordinary moment, that the head of intelligence in the US has made such a bold, in some ways shocking, statement of the truth,” Boyd-Barrett, a professor at Bowling Green State University and author of an in-depth study of Russiagate, said on Saturday. He noted the moment was especially striking as Gabbard called for prosecution of those involved in what she described as a “coup” attempt. Boyd-Barrett, however, emphasized that to “fully comprehend” Russiagate, it must be viewed as only a small part of a broader Western campaign to demonize Russia, “that goes decades back.”

“It’s part of a much deeper agenda – we’re talking Russia narrative… the broader context of an anti-Russian campaign that was stoked artificially around the time of the late 90s when the West had so clearly decided that NATO was going to move eastwards regardless of whatever anyone in Russia or anyone in the US had to say,” he said. He also warned against reducing Russiagate to a personal political ploy, noting that blaming it solely on Obama or Hillary Clinton’s election anxiety is “too simple an explanation.” Moscow has repeatedly denied interfering in the US electoral process.

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Brussels is no fan of Tulsi.

EU Working Hard To Portray Russia As ‘Devil Incarnate’ – Kremlin (RT)

The EU is demonizing Russia in order to keep the Ukraine conflict running as Brussels still has not given up hope of suppressing Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. In May, the EU adopted the €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument to support members that are willing to invest in defense. The move came as part of a larger military buildup drive that began in the bloc after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022 with the goal of countering what it perceives as the ‘Russian threat’. Moscow has dismissed claims that it intends to attack NATO countries as “nonsense,” saying that Western politicians are seeking to scare their populations to justify increased military spending.

In an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin released on Sunday, Peskov said the EU “is creating an enemy for itself, doing focused, professional work both in their own society and abroad in order to portray Russia as the devil incarnate… in order to ensure the continuation of the conflict, in order to suppress Russia.” The Kremlin spokesman added that there are discussions underway in the EU “about who will be paying for the feast.” Earlier this week, several EU countries rejected a plan proposed by US President Donald Trump for European NATO member states to buy American weapons for Ukraine. “Thank God the anti-Russian and militaristic ecstasy does not have universal backing” in the bloc, Peskov said.

Moscow has warned against supplying Western weapons to Ukraine, arguing that they only prolong the conflict and increase the risk of a direct clash between Russia and NATO. In the interview, Peskov noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has repeatedly spoken about his desire to bring the Ukrainian settlement on to a peaceful path as quickly as possible.” Russia has stated that it is ready to negotiate peace with Ukraine, though it has accused Kiev and its Western backers of not being interested in finding a long-term solution that addresses the root causes of the conflict.

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“Your country is a mess because your leaders suck..”

Putin Did Better Job Than Any German Leader – Tucker Carlson (RT)

The German people should be angry at their own government that ruined their country rather than at Russian President Vladimir Putin, US journalist Tucker Carlson has told the Berlin-based newspaper Bild. A large portion of the two hour interview released on Saturday was devoted to Carlson’s interview with Putin from February 2024. During the exchange, the US journalist repeatedly curbed Bild deputy editor-in-chief Paul Ronzheimer’s attempts to condemn the Russian leader over the Ukraine conflict. After Ronzheimer referred to Putin as a “criminal,” Carlson replied: “I am not defending Putin, who I think has done a great job for Russia. Much better job than any German leader. That is for sure.”

“Your country is going down, Russia is going up. You should be mad at your own leaders. You are mad at Putin instead,” he argued. According to Carlson, Angela Merkel – who served as German chancellor from 2005 to 2021 – was far more deserving of being branded a “criminal” because “she wrecked your country through mass migration… It will not recover in your lifetime or mine.” Carlson suggested that the current authorities in Berlin are attacking Putin and Russia in order to distract the public from migration and economic problems in Germany, which is expected to end 2025 in recession for the third year in a row. Your country is a mess because your leaders suck. That is the fact. You are mad about that. So, they take your anger and they are like: ‘Oh no, it is Putin’s fault. It is Putin’s fault.’ Ok, got it,” he said.

Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Germany was becoming “dangerous again” for Russia, after German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated that Bundeswehr troops must be prepared to “kill” Russian soldiers if necessary. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier that by supporting Kiev in the conflict with Moscow “Germany is sliding down the same slippery slope it already followed a couple of times in the last century – down toward its own collapse,” referring to the defeats suffered by the country in the First and Second World Wars.

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“Driven by the spirit of liberty, future citizens will demand the return of what defines sovereign individuals: the right to property, to free expression, to personal autonomy. ”

“Trump’s government is also dismantling its overseas media empire. That includes defunding over 1,000 journalism-related NGOs worldwide that previously received USAID support. In the U.S. alone, up to 19,500 USAID employees and contractors could lose their job..”

Full Assault On The Media Machine: Trump Slashes USAID (Kolbe)

After fierce internal disputes and the resignation of Elon Musk as a government advisor, the United States has now entered a new phase of fiscal consolidation. On Friday, the House of Representatives cleared the way for the first major round of budget cuts. And it’s a heavy hitter. If you believe the steady drumbeat of European media coverage, the U.S. is on the verge of sovereign default. At first glance, the numbers do indeed resemble a fiscal horror show: After the devastating Biden years, federal debt has ballooned to 120 percent of GDP. The current deficit stands at a glaring 6.5 percent. In the coming months, $9 billion in outstanding debt must be refinanced—Washington has little room to maneuver. What’s routinely omitted in media coverage, however, is the fact that the U.S. remains the issuer of the world’s reserve currency, and can, if necessary, print its way out of the mess.

Europe’s hope for a premature American collapse—as both a justification for its own policy failures and a welcome distraction—will likely end in bitter disappointment. At first glance, it might seem odd that President Trump prioritized sweeping tax cuts over budget discipline. But look more closely, and the move reveals itself as part of a deliberate offensive strategy. In Trump’s America, the motto is: green light for the private sector first, then clean house in the bureaucratic stables. Anyone seriously doubting that Americans are capable of implementing fiscal cuts has not yet grasped the political force of the Trump administration. Even Elon Musk—the founder of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), created to deepen budget reform efforts—lost patience with the slow grind of bureaucracy and quit in frustration. But in the bigger picture, that’s a mere footnote.

Because now, it gets serious. Building on DOGE’s groundwork, the first multi-billion-dollar rescission package is now being deployed: NPR reports that $9.4 billion in spending will be slashed with the stroke of a pen. Trump’s first real punch in the fight over federal expenditures goes straight to the heart of the left’s media apparatus—USAID. Though nominally a humanitarian agency funding foreign aid projects, USAID has functioned in practice as a massive subsidy engine for the progressive media ecosystem operating worldwide. That era now appears to be over. This propaganda leviathan stretched its tentacles across the globe, reinforcing and exporting the globalist green-left agenda that Europeans know as the Green Deal, the “green transformation,” or the politics of open borders.

Like in Europe, paternalistic structures have gradually taken hold in America—but better camouflaged, given the poor reputation of state control in the land of liberty. Media outlets bankrolled by USAID opened the floodgates to government messaging, constructing a vast machine to manipulate public opinion. How else could the American public be kept in the dark for four years about Joe Biden’s mental decline? Such a sustained deception requires close coordination between political and media actors, with the latter willingly co-opted into state control. That Trump is starting his fiscal consolidation by targeting the beating heart of this media leviathan is no coincidence. Trump 2.0 is not a mere replay of 2016. Inside the White House, they’ve got the enemy and its structures clearly in their sights.

The intensity of the trade battles with Brussels shows Trump has identified the core of green-socialist globalism exactly where many suspected: Brussels, London, and Davos. And Trump appeals to those yearning for freedom, for open markets—including in the media—with steadfast resolve. With the stroke of his pen, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)—America’s equivalent of ARD and ZDF—has been stripped of its $1.1 billion in federal funding. The blow to PBS and NPR is severe. A historic day for freedom of speech—and a precedent Germany can only dream of. In Germany, a self-absorbed, taxpayer-funded media aristocracy holds the reins—merged with political power into a unified cartel of opinion. In contrast, in the U.S., a single signature is enough to start dismantling media manipulation, climate-hysteria weather maps, and perverse woke pedagogy—as if the madness had never happened.

Future generations will ask how it was possible that taxpayers funded such a cynical, parasitic opposition with their own money—day after day—broadcast into their homes, where they were lectured with hypermoralistic fervor. But those same generations will also hold in their hands a manual of libertarian reform—a playbook for liberation from neo-feudal control. In the offices of the statists and central planners—in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin—this development is being watched with alarm. Once the message of Milei’s success in Argentina or Trump’s reforms in the U.S. spreads, it will trigger a wave of uncomfortable questions. Driven by the spirit of liberty, future citizens will demand the return of what defines sovereign individuals: the right to property, to free expression, to personal autonomy.

They will demand a lean state—a mere administrator of essentials—that neither educates nor intrudes upon individual lives. That’s the dream. But on the road to the Isles of the Blessed, hard work lies ahead. Budget reform will require a lumberjack’s resolve. And the axe is already swinging in the White House. The cuts don’t stop at domestic public media. Trump’s government is also dismantling its overseas media empire. That includes defunding over 1,000 journalism-related NGOs worldwide that previously received USAID support. In the U.S. alone, up to 19,500 USAID employees and contractors could lose their jobs. These are the days of reckoning.

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There’s always a judge out there somewhere willing to play Preident.

Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restore Funding To US Propaganda Outlet (RT)

A federal judge has ordered the administration of US President Donald Trump to restore funding for state-run Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), ruling that the decision to stop the support was “unprecedented” and lacked any basis. RFE/RL was a key tool for spreading Western propaganda in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War and was funded by the CIA. The outlet currently receives nearly all of its funding from Congress. The Trump administration has sought to cut funding for RFE/RL and several other state-linked outlets. It has denounced the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the body that oversees state-funded media, saying it is “not salvageable,” while indulging in “obscene overspending.” The administration also claimed it is crawling with “spies and terrorist sympathizers.”

Consequently, the USAGM essentially froze funding for RFE/RL and refused to enter into a new contract with the outlet after the previous agreement expired in March. This led to staff furloughs and programming cuts, though the EU stepped in to fill the budgetary gap. On Friday, Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Trump administration lacks the legal authority to refuse Congress-approved funding of more than $70 million, arguing that they provided no clear basis for the move. ”It is unprecedented for an agency to demand that entirely new terms govern its decades-old working relationship with a grantee entity,” he wrote.

He went on to rebuke the USAGM for a lack of responses to RFE/RL to negotiate a new agreement, describing it as “stonewalling” and adding that the agency went dark for days or even weeks. The “USAGM’s flagrant disregard for its funding responsibilities” caused RFE/RL to suffer “mass furloughs, cancelation of programming, and inevitable damage to the global influence that RFE/RL has built over decades,” the ruling said. RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus welcomed the court’s decision. “This victory provides our journalists with the momentum necessary to continue reaching the nearly 47 million people each week… With this ruling, RFE/RL can continue to advance US national security interests.”

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Next 10 years.

Ukraine Unlikely To Join EU In The Near Term – Merz (RT)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has downplayed the prospect of Ukraine joining the EU in the near future, saying it is unlikely to happen during the bloc’s current budget cycle, which runs through 2034. Some EU officials had suggested the country could become a member much earlier. Ukraine made EU accession a national priority in 2019, formally applying in 2022 shortly after the escalation of the conflict with Russia. It was granted candidate status later that year, with the European Commission suggesting Kiev could join by 2030 if it made sufficient progress in areas such as political and judicial reforms, as well as in combating organized crime and corruption. Merz made the remarks on Friday during a press conference with Romanian President Nicusor Dan in Berlin.

“For us, the absolute top priority is, first and foremost, to do everything possible to end this war,” he said, adding, “then we’ll talk about the reconstruction of Ukraine.” That process, he said, would take “a number of years” and likely fall outside the EU’s current medium-term financial outlook. EU membership requires the unanimous approval of all 27 member states. While Brussels supports Kiev’s bid, some of the bloc’s nations – including Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland – remain opposed, arguing that Ukraine’s institutions and economy are unprepared and that membership would place an unbearable financial strain on the union. Moscow strongly opposes Ukraine’s NATO ambitions, but initially took a neutral stance on EU membership. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in March that Kiev had the “sovereign right” to join, as long as the bloc remained focused on economics.

However, amid a broader drive among European NATO states to boost their militaries, Russian officials have grown more critical. In June, the EU redirected approximately €335 billion ($390 billion) in Covid relief funds towards military uses. The month before that, Brussels introduced a €150 billion debt and loan instrument to back its members’ armed forces and military industrial sector. The funding will also be made available to Kiev. Russia has condemned those steps, accusing both NATO and the EU of “rabid militarization.” Former President Dmitry Medvedev said the EU now poses “no less of a threat” to Russia than US-led NATO.

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10 years too late.

German General Urges Ukraine To Strike Russian Airfields (RT)

Ukraine should consider striking Russian airfields and weapons factories deep inside the country to alleviate pressure on the front, a senior German general has suggested. Speaking during a Bundeswehr podcast on Saturday, Major General Christian Freuding, who oversees Germany’s military assistance to Ukraine, gave Kiev advice on weakening Russia’s offensive power.“You can also indirectly affect the offensive potential of Russian strike forces before they are deployed,” Freuding said. “Use long-range air warfare assets to strike aircraft and airfields before they are used. Also, target weapons production facilities.” Freuding also lamented that despite Western sanctions, Russia has increased its production of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic systems.

“We must reconsider whether our economic measures have been sufficient and where we can apply further pressure, particularly to limit Russian production capabilities,” he said. The general also pointed to the limitations of US-made Patriot air defense missiles against waves of Russian drones. “It [a drone] costs around €30,000-50,000 ($34,000–58,000) depending on the model. It’s wasteful to shoot it down with a Patriot missile costing over €5 million. We need countermeasures that cost €2,000–€4,000, especially as Russia aims to further increase its production capacity,” he explained. Last year, the administration of former US President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use American long-range weapons to strike inside Russia, though with significant restrictions on range and target selection. Media reports at the time indicated that Kiev was not allowed to hit major Russian airfields.

Meanwhile, Freuding confirmed earlier this month that Ukraine would receive the first batch of long-range missiles financed by Berlin before the end of July. Germany, however, has been reluctant to send Taurus long-range missiles due to escalation concerns. Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Germany was becoming “dangerous again,” after German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Bundeswehr troops must be prepared to “kill” Russian soldiers if necessary. Moscow also accused the German leadership of supporting “confrontation” and pursuing an “aggressive mobilization of Europe against Russia.”

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France is (going) bankrupt.

France Wants To Nuke Holidays To Fund A Fantasy War With Russia (Marsden)

The day after French President Emmanuel Macron said that, in the year 2027 alone, he would blow another roughly €60 billion on weapons for some fantasy war with Russia that France isn’t even in, the French prime minister proposed axing some statutory holidays in an effort to balance the books.Dude just hit a third rail and electrocuted his political career. There are two things the French hold sacred. The first is their sprawling social safety net, which they fund with sky-high taxes and from which they get diminishing returns. And the other is their numerous beloved paid vacation days. Macron’s handpicked prime minister, longtime establishment centrist fixture François Bayrou, has chosen to mess with the one thing that unites the nation more than even football: their time off.

Why would he want to do that? So the French can work more. So the activity generated can be taxed. Because the government is super broke. Bayrou says that he has to find another €44 billion in the state’s couch cushions to keep France’s ballooning debt and borrowing costs from setting off more investor panic and bond-dumping. Normally, the government doesn’t even touch the budget until September, when legislators return from their sacred summer break, which of course they’re not being asked to sacrifice in the interests of austerity. But Bayrou says that he wants to get a head start because the public needs time to digest his ‘let’s cancel holidays’ pitch.

Or maybe he just needs a running start at the cliff that he’s about to hurl himself off. Because both the anti-establishment right and left will almost certainly vote non on his holiday cuts, possibly triggering a no-confidence vote. Or rather, another one. He’s survived eight so far. But with a proposal so ludicrously unpopular, this cat’s ninth political life may be about to bite the dust. It’s been a year since the last election, so France could legally have another one anytime now. Which would make it three elections in as many years. And it’s not like those are free either, by the way.

So here he is, Prime Minister Bayrou, waxing all poetic about national sacrifice, while at the same time proposing to axe the Easter Monday state holiday in April, and the one that falls on France’s WWII Victory Day on May 8: “I think this is the last station before the cliff and the crushing by the debt. We must call it by its name. It is a mortal danger for a country,” Bayrou said. Hear that, Frenchies? Accept his proposal or the country gets fatally knifed. No mention of cutting anything else from the budget, huh? Not a whiff of trimming that €170-billion deficit from any of the other more glaring bloated line items? He said that he has zero interest in messing with Macron’s new 5% of GDP for NATO defense spending, despite France not actually being in a war.

“We planned to double the budget by 2030, we are actually going to double it by 2027,” Macron had just announced. “To this end, a review of the military planning law will be presented in the autumn. And I call on the National Assembly to vote on it,” he said. Look, I’m no Inspector Clouseau, but I think I just may have an idea of where they can find a super big line item so they don’t have to keep nickel and diming French workers.As one might imagine, this is going over like canned Cheez Whiz with the average French citizen who depends on those clustered April-May-June holidays to build “bridges” from midweek days off to weekends – or maybe even use them to dig full-blown “tunnels” under entire work weeks.

The government is now asking ordinary people to surrender rest so it can look fiscally responsible without touching bloated defense budgets or elite entitlements. It has decided that its taxpayers’ time, and ultimately, their lives are less valuable than its agenda. And what does it say about a country when it kills a peace holiday commemorating the end of a world war to pay for hypothetical ones? France isn’t under siege, but its leadership is acting like it is. “Since 1945, freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously,” Macron told French soldiers in a speech around the Bastille Day national holiday. “To be free in this world, we must be feared. To be feared, we must be powerful,” he said.

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This is where tariff threats may come in handy.

Europe’s Online Censorship Laws Could Restrict Americans Too (ET)

For many Americans, talk of a crackdown in Europe on “hate speech” and “misinformation” may seem a faraway issue, but legal experts say that Europe’s online censorship laws could affect Americans, too. Starting July 1, social media companies and internet service providers operating within the EU that do not comply with laws that ban content deemed illegal there could be fined up to 6 percent of their global revenue, according to the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). The European Commission states that the DSA, originally passed in 2022, “protects consumers and their fundamental rights online by setting clear and proportionate rules.”

On July 1, the DSA integrated its Code of Conduct into the act, requiring online platforms and search engines to comply with the censorship laws of all member states or face punitive fines. Proponents of the DSA state that the law was passed in response to escalating cases of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim statements in Europe. Meanwhile, critics, like Virginie Joron, a French member of the European Parliament, have called it a “Trojan horse for surveillance and control.” “What was sold as the Digital Services Act is increasingly functioning as a Digital Surveillance Act,” Joron told attendees at a May conference hosted by the Alliance Defending Freedom. Joron accused the European Commission and some parliamentarians of having “seized upon the DSA as a political tool to control speech, particularly targeting platforms like X, Facebook, and Telegram.”

The concern among policy experts is that Europe’s speech laws could compel online platforms to institute restrictive policies worldwide, in order to comply. “The DSA generally cannot directly compel technology companies to censor American speech, but it creates an incentive to do so,” David Inserra, a fellow for free expression and technology at the Cato Institute, told The Epoch Times. “At some point, companies may find it easier just to change their policies to align with more restrictive laws, thus having American speech effectively regulated by Brussels—thus the name the ‘Brussels effect.’” Legal analysts say that the Digital Services Act is open to political manipulation because of its imprecise language regarding what is illegal for people to say, as well as a complex and ever-changing array of online speech prohibitions.

“Through very vague and loose definitions of illegal content and ‘hate speech’ and ‘misinformation,’ this becomes a blueprint for restricting speech online,” Adina Portaru, senior counsel for ADF International, told The Epoch Times. “If you take the narrow definition of ‘hate speech—incitement to hatred—then you realize that, once again, whoever has the power to define ‘hatred’ is the one who defines if you are breaching the law or not.” According to a September 2024 analysis by Therese Enarsson, a European attorney, “the DSA provides a very broad legal definition for illegal content,” which it defines as speech that does not comply with the laws of the EU or any member state. “Similarly to illegal content, the DSA does not attempt to define what constitutes hate speech,” Enarsson states. “This is unfortunate, seeing that platforms must adapt their systems to combat such speech.”

This means that content posted by someone in Romania would have to be taken down if it conflicts with speech laws in France, creating a lowest-common-denominator threshold for suppressing content. The DSA also states that it “specifically recognises the role of trusted flaggers to identify and flag hate speech online and to allow action against it”—a role that’s analogous to the collaboration between “fact-checkers” and social media companies in the United States to police online speech. “We’re speaking about Europe, but of course we can also speak of situations whereby you have an American citizen posting something here in the U.S. and with the internet being an online environment globally, somebody can flag that in Europe, and according to the DSA, that speech will be removed from the entire platform,” Portaru said.

In addition, this process of flagging and fact-checking often includes a left-leaning bias, studies show. A 2023 survey of 150 “experts on misinformation” published in the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review found that nearly 85 percent of the respondents were on the political left.

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WE will decide what you can drive..

EU Hatching Secret Electric Car Plan – Bild (RT)

The EU is drafting legislation that could force rental and corporate fleets to switch to electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030, Bild reported on Saturday, citing sources in Brussels. The directive is reportedly being quietly discussed by the European Commission and could be unveiled as early as late summer before going to the European Parliament. The regulation is seen as a backdoor to accelerate the green transition and enforce the bloc’s combustion-engine ban, which mandates a 100% cut in CO2 emissions from new cars by 2035, effectively outlawing gasoline and diesel vehicles. Car manufacturers have criticized the plan as too costly and requiring full conversions of production lines.

The new rules will reportedly apply to all rental companies and businesses with car fleets across the bloc. If approved, such entities will only be allowed to purchase EVs, thus impacting around 60% of new car sales, Bild said. A Commission spokesperson confirmed that work is underway on such a plan but declined to provide details. Lawmakers warn the measure could harm Europe’s rental sector: companies such as Enterprise, Hertz, and Sixt already scaled back EV fleets in 2024, citing poor charging infrastructure, high repair costs, and weak resale values. EU MP Markus Ferber urged the Commission to drop the plan, calling it “unrealistic.” Sixt CEO Nico Gabriel agreed, warning that few vacationers rent EVs and that mandatory electrification would drive up rental costs due to charging infrastructure needs.

Critics say Europe’s green push is straining its auto industry and wider economy. Carmakers face penalties if they fail to boost EV sales and must spend heavily on new production lines, batteries, chargers, and grid upgrades. The transition also threatens jobs: automaker Stellantis warned this month it could close plants if it fails to meet EU deadlines. Former EU commissioner Thierry Breton warned the shift to EVs could cost 600,000 jobs. Manufacturers have called for subsidies and state support to avoid losing more market share to rivals in China and the US. Other sectors face similar problems, especially as Brussels phases out Russian energy, imports of which have dropped sharply in light of Ukraine-related sanctions. Russian officials have warned that rejecting its supplies will force the EU to rely on costlier alternatives or rerouted Russian energy via intermediaries.

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But also done in France, and almost the US.

Banning Alternative für Deutschland: A Nightmare Scenario (Eugyppius)

As all of my readers know, the Social Democrats (SPD) are fighting hard to force two hard-left justices onto the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. Although the vote failed last week because Friedrich Merz messed it up, the SPD remain determined to give Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf and Ann-Katrin Kaufhold the red robes. They might still succeed. This matters because Brosius-Gersdorf and Kaufhold have both argued in favour of ban proceedings against Alternative für Deutschland. What is more, both candidates would be appointed to the second senate of the Constitutional Court, which is the division responsible for banning political parties. And as if that were not enough, the SPD nominated both candidates in the wake of their party congress, where SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil said that banning the AfD was his party’s “historical duty.”

Many have therefore concluded that the SPD are trying to stack the court in advance of an application to prohibit Germany’s second-strongest political party, banish all of its elected politicians and seize all of its assets.I’m far from a sensationalist, and I’ve repeatedly discounted the likelihood of an AfD ban – not least because the German establishment and the left in particular have good reasons to keep the AfD around. Lately, however, I’ve begun to appreciate that there are deeper, systemic forces working against the AfD in this case. These forces are beyond anybody’s control and if nobody does anything, they may well end in political catastrophe that is much bigger than any single party.

Since the end of the Merkel era, the German left has become thematically scattered, and so they have retreated to the only coordinating issue the German left has ever had, which is hating the right. As climatism started to fade, the social welfare state exceeded its limits and mass migration went sour, AfD bashing became the sole unifying principle for much of the SPD, Die Linke and the Greens. Hating the right is particularly important because it keeps leftist politicians and their activist class on the same page. Without a crusade against the right, a great chasm opens between the antifa thugs who want to smash the state and destroy capitalism on the one hand and the schoolmarm leftoid establishment functionaries in the Bundestag who want to mandate gender-neutral language for the civil service on the other hand. What is more, the firewall against the AfD splits the right and keeps the shrinking left in government. It is a win-win for leftoids everywhere.

Recent events, however, show why things cannot continue as they are now indefinitely. Over time, our Constitutional Court will begin to fill with leftist justices supported by the left parties, who like the rest of the left will also want to ban the AfD. Brosius-Gersdorf and Kaufhold are omens here. Right now the system is held in perfect balance; the left talks a big game about wanting to stamp out the AfD, but they can always justify their hesitation by saying the outcome of ban proceedings is too uncertain. When the necessary judicial majority for an AfD ban is finally secured in Karlsruhe, everything changes. At that point, there will be no excuse for not proceeding with a ban. The activists and the NGOs will take to the streets if their political masters in Berlin don’t begin the process. The CDU will be brought around by media smear campaigns and antifa intimidation.

Keep in mind that this is not about the AfD, but about imperatives within the left itself. No amount of moderation, polite messaging or triangulation on the part of the AfD can get the left to stop or pursue other goals. Unless some exogenous force introduces a new unifying obsession for the left parties and their activists, they will never stop gnawing on this particular chew toy. Practically, this probably means that the AfD has an expiration date. If they can’t get into government at the federal level and if nothing else changes, they will find themselves facing ban proceedings before a court stacked with leftists who hate them in the next 10 or 15 years. The federal elections in 2029 seem like the last opportunity to normalise the AfD before this final escalation.

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60 minutes

US debt

gazelle

Cucsumber
https://twitter.com/Cat5SMASHICANE/status/1946671107739680959

Desert

 

 

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Dec 162020
 
 December 16, 2020  Posted by at 10:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  36 Responses »


Henri Cartier-Bresson Trafalgar Square on the Day of the Coronation of George VI 1937

 

Yes, HCQ Is Scientifically Proven Against COVID-19 (Rafaeli)
Swedish PM: Medical Chiefs Failed Us With Light Touch (Times)
The Most Lethal Virus is Not COVID. It is War (John Pilger)
COVID19 Relief Draft Provides $100 Billion Double-Dip Tax Deduction (Fang)
Trump Asking About Special Prosecutor For Hunter Biden (AP)
Pennsylvania Republicans Ask SCOTUS To Again Review Election Lawsuit (ET)
Michigan Legislature Committees Subpoena Election Evidence (JTN)
DNI Declassifies Brennan Notes, 2016 CIA Referral On Clinton Campaign (Fed)
Facebook, Twitter Execs Donated Big To Biden While Blocking Hunter News (NYP)
McConnell Takes Checks from Voting Machine Lobbyists (RS)
Hackers Used SolarWinds’ Dominance Against It In Sprawling Spy Campaign
Pompeo: Russia Sowing ‘Chaos, Conflict, And Division’ In Mediterranean (JTN)

 

 

 

 

Very long, I haven’t read the whole thing yet. Still, when it’s about saving lives, including your own… might as well read it..

Yes, HCQ Is Scientifically Proven Against COVID-19 (Rafaeli)

In this article I am not going to simply transform the treatment with HCQ (an acronym for hydroxychloroquine) from “not promising”, as the New York Times qualifies it, to “promising”. I will explain that it is scientifically proven, and in every possible scientific way. In addition, I will explain how and why the biggest journalistic blackout in human history is taking place right now. Yes, that’s right. I’m telling you here that the New York Times and almost all the other mainstream media are doing dirty, lousy quality journalism. As a result of this amateurism, a seismic tremor of gigantic proportions is being created at the moment, and without precedent, in the credibility of the mainstream world press, with unpredictable consequences for humanity in the coming decades.

And I warn you right now. I have no concern in producing a short article. There are many analyses to be done, nuances to be approached and many details that cannot be left out. The farce is so big and with so many actors, that it’ s almost unbelievable that it can be dismantled with day-to-day facts and simple logic There are scientific articles, facts and figures that no one wants to report or discuss. These studies have not become news in the major media nor have been cited by science journalists, but they have impacts like Muhammad Ali’s punches in the logic of those who claim that the drug does not work. Here they will come to the public. My main point of view in this article is the evolution of the arguments of people who insist that the drug is ineffective against COVID-19.

This is my third article on the subject. In the first one (in French, English, Portuguese), three months ago, I explained my personal view. I had the goal of making a choice between taking or not these drugs, in case of catching the virus. In it I have spoken about the political scenario and the incredible logical flaws of those who claim that the treatment does not work. I discussed how the “official story” is an incredible conspiracy theory and explained how the false narrative about this medication was formed, all in a timeline. In my second article, I lamented the shameful censorship, pretending to be of service to society, that has been present in today’s world. In addition, I explained the inversion of ideological values, in the West, between right and left, when dealing with this topic. (Originally published on France-Soir in French. Also with versions in Portuguese and English).

Now I write this third article, where I bring all the main news from the scientific world in the last three months. It is to disassemble the last arguments of those who say it doesn’t work. The world is standing still. There is panic and fear in the global population. More than one million three hundred thousand people have died. For the vast majority of these victims, a cure with a high percentage of success has been neglected. Another millions are depressed, with no prospect of life and happiness. All due to a perfect storm and gross errors. All conveniently taken advantage of by petty interests.

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All too common refrain: “I did not fail, all the others did.”

Swedish PM: Medical Chiefs Failed Us With Light Touch (Times)

Sweden’s health experts misjudged the resurgence of the coronavirus by recommending a light-touch approach, the prime minister said. The country, which has pursued a form of herd immunity strategy under Anders Tegnell, its chief epidemiologist, has been hit so hard by the second wave of infections that hospitals in Stockholm are struggling to cope. Stefan Lofven, the prime minister, told the Aftenposten newspaper that his medical advisers had not seen such a wave coming. “They talked about different clusters,” he said. Sweden’s neighbours, Finland and Norway, which adopted stricter social controls and have suffered fewer fatalities per capita, have offered medical help after Stockholm reported that 99 per cent of intensive care unit (ICU) beds were full and called for more staff.

Mr Lofven, who leads a Social Democrat-Green Party coalition, spoke hours before a commission examining Sweden’s handling of the pandemic concluded that it had failed to protect elderly people during the first wave. A high level of community spread was the biggest factor in the virus getting into care homes, the commission said. Sweden’s pandemic strategy, shunning lockdowns and masks, has been much debated as an alternative approach to tougher curbs. Schools, restaurants and businesses were largely left open while people were advised to maintain social distance and hygiene. The strategy was coupled with a goal to “ring-fence” the most vulnerable. As deaths mounted, especially at nursing homes, the commission said that it had failed to do so effectively.

The approach has been called reckless and cruel but it also won praise from people seeing it as more sustainable and business-friendly. About half of Sweden’s almost 7700 deaths have been nursing home residents. The country now faces a significant rise in cases and fatalities. Its statistical agency recorded a total of 8088 deaths from all causes last month, the highest mortality in any November in Sweden since the first year of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, when 16,600 people died. Since Friday 153 people have died from COVID-19 related causes, bringing the total to 7,667. There have been 320,000 confirmed cases.

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Word.

The Most Lethal Virus is Not COVID. It is War (John Pilger)

Not a year has passed since peace was declared in 1945 that Britain has not sent military forces to fight the wars of empire. Not a year has passed when countries, mostly poor and riven by conflict, have not bought or have been “soft loaned” British arms to further the wars, or “interests”, of empire. Empire? What empire? The investigative journalist Phil Miller recently revealed in Declassified that Boris Johnson’s Britain maintained 145 military sites – call them bases — in 42 countries. Johnson has boasted that Britain is to be “the foremost naval power in Europe”. In the midst of the greatest health emergency in modern times, with more than 4 million surgical procedures delayed by the National Health Service, Johnson has announced a record increase of £16.5 billion in so-called defence spending – a figure that would restore the under-resourced NHS many times over.

But these billions are not for defence. Britain has no enemies other than those within who betray the trust of its ordinary people, its nurses and doctors, its carers, elderly, homeless and youth, as successive neo-liberal governments have done, Conservative and Labour. Exploring the serenity of the National War Memorial, I soon realised there was not a single monument, or plinth, or plaque, or rosebush honouring the memory of Britain’s victims — the civilians in the “peacetime” operations commemorated here. There is no remembrance of the Libyans killed when their country was wilfully destroyed by Prime Minister David Cameron and his collaborators in Paris and Washington.

There is no word of regret for the Serbian women and children killed by British bombs, dropped from a safe height on schools, factories, bridges, towns, on the orders of Tony Blair; or for the impoverished Yemeni children extinguished by Saudi pilots with their logistics and targets supplied by Britons in the air-conditioned safety of Riyadh; or for the Syrians starved by “sanctions”. There is no monument to the Palestinian children murdered with the British elite’s enduring connivance, such as the recent campaign that destroyed a modest reform movement within the Labour Party with specious accusations of anti-Semitism.

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Capitol Hill is simply incapable of getting these, the most basic of things, right.

COVID19 Relief Draft Provides $100 Billion Double-Dip Tax Deduction (Fang)

A draft of coronavirus relief legislation, circulated by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, eschews direct payments to average Americans but contains an unusually generous handout to the very wealthy. The draft legislation, the Bipartisan Emergency COVID Relief Act of 2020, was released this week as part of a package of two major bills to confront the ongoing crisis. The draft of the first bill circulating on Capitol Hill contains a number of adjustments to the Paycheck Protection Program, the forgivable loan program that has served as the centerpiece of the government’s efforts to curb job loss stemming from the pandemic.

Many of the changes provide extended eligibility for expenses that can be reimbursed by the PPP program, including damage from looting and costs associated with cloud computing, as well as the construction of sneeze guards and other safety measures implemented by businesses. But one of the revisions in the legislation is a subtle yet radical change that would result in a major windfall for the highest-income Americans and large corporations. The bill provides that businesses claiming expenses reimbursed by PPP forgivable loans, which are already tax-free, can be further used as deductions when calculating taxable income. In other words, the change would allow a corporation that claimed $1 million in PPP reimbursements to apply that money as a deduction on its tax return, reducing taxable income by $1 million.

Critics of this idea, first circulated by a bipartisan set of legislators last summer, note that it provides an unprecedented tax advantage that overwhelmingly benefits investors and high-net-worth professionals. IRS rules have long prohibited tax-free government grants and reimbursements from being used as deductions. Steven Rosenthal, a tax expert with the Tax Policy Center, writing in his blog TaxVox, has noted that the proposal represents a “double dip” that abandons longstanding tax norms to provide “overly generous relief” that rewards “savvy, well-connected business and crowds out relief for others, undercutting the effectiveness of Congress’ aid.”

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Baseless, blah blah.

Trump Asking About Special Prosecutor For Hunter Biden (AP)

President Donald Trump is considering pushing to have a special counsel appointed to advance a federal tax investigation into the son of President-elect Joe Biden, setting up a potential showdown with incoming acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen.Trump — angry that out-going Attorney General William Barr didn’t publicly announce the ongoing, two-year investigation into Hunter Biden — has consulted on the matter with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and outside allies. That’s according to several Trump administration officials and Republicans close to the White House who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters.

Beyond appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the younger Biden, the sources said Trump is interested in having another special counsel appointed to look into his own baseless claims of election fraud. But if he’s expecting his newly named acting attorney general to go further than Barr on either matter, he could end up quickly disappointed.Barr on Monday evening announced he will resign effective next week, revealing his plans about a week after Hunter Biden publicly disclosed that he was under investigation related to his finances. It is generally Justice Department policy not to disclose investigations that are in progress, though the subjects of those investigations can. Rosen, the deputy attorney general, will step into the Justice Department’s top job in an acting role.

A longtime litigator, he has served as Barr’s top deputy since May 2019 but largely shies away from the spotlight. He said in a statement Tuesday he was “honored” to serve and “will continue to focus on the implementation of the Department’s key priorities.” Trump is still weighing his options, considering whether to pressure Rosen to make the special counsel appointment or, if needed, to replace the acting attorney general with someone more likely to carry out his wishes. He has even asked his team of lawyers, including personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, to look into whether the president has the power to appoint a special counsel himself. A key question will be whether Rosen can stand up to presidential pressure — and potentially withering attacks — in the waning weeks of the Trump administration. If not, Rosen could be cast aside in favor of others more willing to do Trump’s bidding.

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Watching the dice roll…

Pennsylvania Republicans Ask SCOTUS To Again Review Election Lawsuit (ET)

A group of Republicans in Pennsylvania on Tuesday has again urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up their lawsuit that challenges the 2020 election results in the state. The nation’s top court had previously rejected the group’s request for immediate injunctive relief to block Pennsylvania from taking further steps to certify the 2020 election results. At the time, the group’s lawyer, Greg Teufel, said the case was not over because his clients were planning to file a formal petition to ask the court to review the lawsuit, which they hadn’t filed the first time. The lawyer filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on Dec. 11, docketed by the court on Dec. 15, which argues that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was wrong when it dismissed their case because the justices thought the plaintiffs filed their case with unreasonable delay.

“This Court should not turn a blind eye to unconstitutional election laws that permit massive vote dilution and have a significant impact on election outcomes, as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did,” the petition (pdf) states. The case at hand—cited as Kelly v. Pennsylvania—argues that Act 77, a law that made voting by mail without an excuse legal in Pennsylvania, was enacted in violation of Pennsylvania’s constitution. The state constitution, the plaintiffs argue, prohibits absentee voting in Pennsylvania except for four limited circumstances. The lawsuit alleges that the state law is “another illegal attempt to override the limitations on absentee voting prescribed in the Pennsylvania Constitution, without first following the necessary procedure to amend the constitution to allow for the expansion.”

The lawsuit was filed by a Republican lawmaker Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and several GOP congressional candidates. In late November a Pennsylvania commonwealth judge, Patricia McCullough, issued a temporary injunction that would have prevented the state from taking further steps to complete the certification of the presidential race. She argued that “petitioners appear to have established a likelihood to succeed on the merits because petitioners have asserted the Constitution does not provide a mechanism for the legislature to allow for expansion of absentee voting without a constitutional amendment.” She also opined that the “petitioners appear to have a viable claim that the mail-in ballot procedures set forth in Act 77 contravene” the plain language of the provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which deals with absentee voting.

However, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiffs waited too long before the county of boards of election were required to certify the election results to bring the case, which could “result in the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voters” who voted by mail.

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“Only after these activities are concluded should this information be deleted for data privacy reasons.”

Michigan Legislature Committees Subpoena Election Evidence (JTN)

Concerned about possible election evidence being destroyed, members of a joint session of the Michigan Legislature’s House and Senate oversight committees on Tuesday voted to issue subpoenas to Detroit and the nearby suburb of Livonia demanding they surrender hard drives, emails, absentee voter counting board laptops and other election-related materials. One Senate Democrat reportedly joined his Republican colleagues in supporting the subpoenas. A Nov. 28 order memo from the State Bureau of Elections had followed the same protocol as prior elections and ordered the deletion by November 30 of “E-Pollbook laptops and flash drives … unless a petition for recount has been filed and the recount has not been completed, a post-election audit is planned but has not yet been completed, or the deletion of the data has been stayed by an order of the court or the Secretary of State.”

Tracy Wimmer, director of Media Relations for Michigian Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, told Just the News in a statement Thursday that she rejected Republicans’ concerns about the deletion memo. “The Bureau of Elections memo sent to clerks is the same memo that has been sent to clerks for years, including under the administration of now state senator Ruth Johnson,” Wimmer said. “Republican House and Senate legal counsel were provided this information days ago. The fact that members of their party is choosing to ignore these truths in a press release demonstrates they have no interest in preserving the integrity of our elections or democracy.”

Michigan State Senator Ruth Johnson, the Republican who supported the subpoena effort, told Just the News she had previously signed the same deletion order while she was secretary of state but the unusual nature of the 2020 election meant circumstances had changed. “Election integrity should not be a partisan issue, this information needs to be preserved while there are ongoing lawsuits, audits, and Oversight committee review of the November election,” Johnson said. “Only after these activities are concluded should this information be deleted for data privacy reasons.”

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Declassify all of it.

DNI Declassifies Brennan Notes, 2016 CIA Referral On Clinton Campaign (Fed)

Top U.S. intelligence officials were so concerned heading into the 2016 election that the Russians were aware of and potentially manipulating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s plans to smear Donald Trump as a Russian agent that they personally briefed President Barack Obama on the matter, newly declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents show. CIA officials also requested that the FBI investigate Russian knowledge of the Clinton campaign’s collusion smear operation. Newly declassified handwritten notes from former CIA Director John Brennan show that the U.S. intelligence community knew in 2016 that Russian intelligence was actively monitoring, and potentially injecting disinformation into, Clinton’s anti-Trump collusion narrative.

The intelligence concerning Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s campaign plans was so concerning to Brennan and other national security officials that they personally informed Obama of the matter in the Oval Office in the summer of 2016. The handwritten notes from Brennan were declassified by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe and provided to Congress on Tuesday afternoon. According to the declassified notes, Brennan and the U.S. intelligence community knew months prior to the 2016 election that the collusion smear was the result of a campaign operation hatched by the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“We’re getting additional insight into Russian activites from [REDACTED],” Brennan’s handwritten notes state. “Cite alleged approval by Hillary Clinton–on 26 July–of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to villify [sic] Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.” The notes appear to have been prepared by Brennan to memorialize a meeting held at the White House with the president and his top national security advisers. Included in Brennan’s notes are the responses of other participants in the briefing — including those of former White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, and former DNI James Clapper, but those responses are redacted.

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Why they should be treated as, and broken up like, AT&T.

Facebook, Twitter Execs Donated Big To Biden While Blocking Hunter News (NYP)

Facebook and Twitter executives poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, all while blocking the New York Post’s exposé about Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings. The revelation comes amid accusations from President Trump and other Republicans that Silicon Valley is censoring conservative voices, sparking a push for the companies to lose their liability protections. A review of Federal Election Commission records show Facebook’s vice president of public policy and chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, donated $99,440.01 to Democrats and Biden in the final weeks of the race.

Egan donated the maximum contribution of $2,800 to the former veep’s White House bid on Sept. 8 and Oct. 1 before ponying up a whopping $55,000 for the Biden Victory Fund and $35,500 for the Democratic National Committee. According to Biden’s website, the Biden Victory Fund is a joint fundraising effort among his campaign, the DNC, and the 47 state parties to help defeat Trump. As first reported by Fox News, she made no contributions to the president’s campaign. Likewise, Facebook’s chief financial officer, David Wehner, donated $2,800 apiece to Biden’s campaign and Democrat Amy McGrath’s failed bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

David Fischer, Facebook’s chief revenue officer, donated $2,800 to Biden’s bid during the Democratic primary, according to FEC records, and another $750 during the general election. But Fischer also donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic challengers in other key races, including Jamie Harrison’s unsuccessful campaign against Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Mark Kelly and John Hickenlooper’s successful Senate races in Arizona and Colorado. A number of Facebook vice presidents and Instagram’s chief financial officer also donated the maximum $2,800 to Biden’s White House bid.

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Just ban the damn things. If elections can be manipulated, they will.

McConnell Takes Checks from Voting Machine Lobbyists (RS)

In 2016, Russian hackers targeted voting systems in 21 states and, according to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, breached systems in Illinois and two counties in Florida, gaining access to information on millions of registered voters. In his report, Mueller described the Russian government’s interference in the 2016 elections as “sweeping and systematic.” Three years later, security experts warn that not enough has been done to address vulnerabilities in the U.S. election system. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations recently told Congress that “the threats just keep escalating,” adding that he viewed the 2018 midterms as a “dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020.”

In fourteen states, some 2018 midterm voters submitted their votes on touchscreens that did not produce paper trails necessary to verify their votes or audit election outcomes. If votes had been inaccurately processed in these precincts—whether through equipment errors or foreign hacking operations—election officials wouldn’t have been able to find or correct the problems. Several Democratic and Republican members of Congress have submitted legislation to shore up election security. Proposals from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) include replacing paperless electronic voting machines with hand-marked paper ballots and optical scanners, subjecting voting equipment vendors to rigorous cybersecurity standards, and requiring vendors to report cybersecurity incidents.

But all the bills have hit a roadblock. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has reportedly told his colleagues that he will not allow the Senate to vote on election security legislation this session.

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A whole article on SolarWinds without mentioing Dominion even once. Well done!

Hackers Used SolarWinds’ Dominance Against It In Sprawling Spy Campaign

On an earnings call two months ago, SolarWinds Chief Executive Kevin Thompson touted how far the company had gone during his 11 years at the helm. There was not a database or an IT deployment model out there to which his Austin, Texas-based company did not provide some level of monitoring or management, he told analysts on the Oct. 27 call. “We don’t think anyone else in the market is really even close in terms of the breadth of coverage we have,” he said. “We manage everyone’s network gear.” Now that dominance has become a liability – an example of how the workhorse software that helps glue organizations together can turn toxic when it is subverted by sophisticated hackers.

On Monday, SolarWinds confirmed that Orion – its flagship network management software – had served as the unwitting conduit for a sprawling international cyberespionage operation. The hackers inserted malicious code into Orion software updates pushed out to nearly 18,000 customers. And while the number of affected organizations is thought to be much more modest, the hackers have already parlayed their access into consequential breaches at the U.S. Treasury and Department of Commerce. Three people familiar with the investigation have told Reuters that Russia is a top suspect, although others familiar with the inquiry have said it is still too early to tell. [..] In a statement issued Sunday, the company said “we strive to implement and maintain appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards, security processes, procedures, and standards designed to protect our customers.”

Cybersecurity experts are still struggling to understand the scope of the damage. The malicious updates – sent between March and June, when America was hunkering down to weather the first wave of coronavirus infections – was “perfect timing for a perfect storm,” said Kim Peretti, who co-chairs Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird’s cybersecurity preparedness and response team. Assessing the damage would be difficult, she said. “We may not know the true impact for many months, if not more – if not ever,” she said. The impact on SolarWinds was more immediate. U.S. officials ordered anyone running Orion to immediately disconnect it.

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Oh please, make it stop. What clown will takeover from Pompeo?

Pompeo: Russia Sowing ‘Chaos, Conflict, And Division’ In Mediterranean (JTN)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has launched a verbal salvo charging that Russia continues to destabilize the Mediterranean, and that it sows “chaos, conflict, and division” in the region. Pompeo directed his comments Tuesday at his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who recently accused the U.S. of playing political games in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. “It’s unfortunate and unhelpful that Mr. Lavrov again gets the facts wrong and attempts to rewrite history,” Pompeo said in a statement. “The United States is working actively with allies and partners in the Eastern Mediterranean to promote greater stability, security, and prosperity.”

The comments come during a time of increased tensions between Washington and Moscow, and in the wake of reports that Russian hackers have breached U.S. government computer systems. Although he did not directly mention hacking operations, Pompeo charged Russia with spreading disinformation and undermining national sovereignty specifically in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean. “In Syria, Russia supports the Assad regime whose war against its own people has added to regional instability, led to a protracted humanitarian crisis, and displaced half the population,” Pompeo said. The secretary of state listed a number of Russian actions in Greece, Cyprus, Malta, and elsewhere.

“In Libya, Russia/ supported an assault on the/ Libyan capital, Tripoli, killing civilians and undermining the UN s efforts to bring peace to the country,” Pompeo said. Citing a litany of actions in Libya, Pompeo noted Russia had printed counterfeit Libyan dinars and has used its proxy mercenary army known as Wagner to fuel conflict.

Read more …

 

 

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