Sep 142023
 
 September 14, 2023  Posted by at 8:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  39 Responses »


Claude Monet The Wooden Bridge 1872

 

White House Tells Media How To Cover Biden Impeachment (RT)
White House Tells Media To “Ramp Up Scrutiny” of Impeachment Inquiry (Turley)
Hunter Biden Sues Former Trump Aide Who Published Laptop Materials (Sp.)
RFK Jr. Telegraphs Threat to Vacate Democrat Party (PJM)
Does Putin Realize The Danger In Projecting The Image Of A Weak Russia? (PCR)
EU States Tell Zelensky They Won’t Hand Over Draft Dodgers (RT)
China And India Have ‘Low Intellectual Potential’ – Zelensky Aide (RT)
Russia’s Pivot To The East Is ‘Irreversible’ (RT)
The South China Sea’s Resource Wars (Frank)
Musk Gave Control Of Starlink To Pentagon – Biographer (RT)
‘Weaponized Govt Agencies’ “Don’t Wish Good Things For Me” – Elon Musk (ZH)
Great Reset Visionaries Stumble Upon An Unexpected Roadblock (Schlevogt)
Was There A “War On Terror” Or A War On The American People? (PCR)

 

 

Biden map

 

 

War Games in the Black Sea – Now What? w/ Col Doug Macgregor

 

 

Hunter

 

 

Emmer

 

 

 

 

These are the same people who impeached Trump based on lies invented from whole cloth by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Who made sure the FBI sat on the laptop for 4-5 years. Who had 51 intel guys and gals declare all its contents Russian disinformation. Those same people.

White House Tells Media How To Cover Biden Impeachment (RT)

White House lawyers have reportedly written a letter directing CNN, the New York Times and other US media outlets to scrutinize Republican lawmakers more aggressively as they try to impeach US President Joe Biden. CNN and other recipients of the letter acknowledged getting the missive on Wednesday. “It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, wrote in the letter. He added that the impeachment efforts should “set off alarm bells for news organizations.” US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) launched the impeachment effort on Tuesday, directing committees of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to open a formal inquiry.

He said allegations of influence-peddling and solicitation of bribes by the Biden family “paint a picture of a culture of corruption.” Even before receiving any guidance from the White House, some US media outlets already appeared to be trying to protect the president. CNN and Associated Press, for instance, suggested that Republicans were trying to prosecute Biden without having evidence to justify their investigation. Those outlets apparently ignored such evidence as the sworn testimony of IRS whistleblowers and the records of bank transfers that lawmakers have already revealed. By launching impeachment proceedings, congressional committees will gain more power to subpoena documents that could help prove or debunk the allegations.

Veteran US journalist Matthew Keys, who has worked for such outlets as Reuters and Fox News, said the White House directive on impeachment coverage was “not OK.” He added, “The White House should not be encouraging, influencing or interfering in the editorial strategies of America’s newsrooms, including CNN and the New York Times.” The letter could backfire, Keys said, because “any time the media does try to hold Republicans to account, those lawmakers can simply counter by questioning whether it’s actual journalism or something encouraged by the Biden administration.” Legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, said the directive “has an uncomfortable feeling of marching orders to the media.”

By trying to influence coverage of the impeachment inquiry, he argued, the administration “removes any pretense of separation between the Biden personal legal team and the White House Counsel’s Office.” Sams, who also serves as a senior adviser to Biden, claimed that Republicans had failed in nearly nine months of investigation to “turn up any evidence of the president doing anything wrong.” He added that impeachment is “grave, rare and historic,” and the press must treat the claims of Republicans with “appropriate scrutiny.” The White House official attached a 14-page appendix to his memo providing talking points to address Republican “lies.” Democrats previously controlled the House and twice impeached then-President Donald Trump.

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Turley’s take: “..the White House is now calling for the media to again form the wagons around the President and attack the impeachment effort as it did the laptop and the corruption investigation.”

White House Tells Media To “Ramp Up Scrutiny” of Impeachment Inquiry (Turley)

[..] a system by consent rather than coercion. Given that long concern, a letter drafted by the Biden White House Legal Counsel’s Office was striking in a call for major media to “ramp up their scrutiny” of House Republicans “for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.” The message is curious and concerning, particularly in the aggressive role being played by the White House Counsel’s office under Stuart Frank Delery. First, as I have previously noted, the White House is now actively involved in pushing narratives and denying factual allegations linked to the Biden corruption scandal. That could create Nixonian-type allegations of the abuse of office in the use of federal employees to counter impeachment efforts. Second, the letter was drafted by Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office.

So White House lawyers are now enlisting the media in a counter media campaign against impeachment? The letter removes any pretense of separation between the Biden personal legal team and the White House Counsel’s office. Sams has been the most aggressive White House official in actively swatting down allegations of corruption as well as the President’s documents investigation. Third, the letter calls for the media to actively support the White House account. The draft of the letter is a call for what I have previously criticized as “advocacy journalism” where reporters frame stories to advance their own viewpoints or values. Sam wrote “[c]overing impeachment as a process story – Republicans say X, but the White House says Y – is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable.”

In other words, media should (and it has for years) refuse to give equal attention to allegations agains the Bidens and instead tell the public what the truth is. It is a call for media to tailor the coverage to push the position of the White House against this effort to ramp up the investigation into corruption. It is an approach that is already embraced by many in the media. [..] The letter has an uncomfortable feeling of marching orders to the media. This is a media that followed the lead of Biden associates in spreading the false story that the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation. This is the media that refused to acknowledge the authenticity of the laptop until only recently — long after the presidential election. This was the media that only recently admitted that President Biden has been lying about denials related to his son’s influence peddling. Yet, the White House is now calling for the media to again form the wagons around the President and attack the impeachment effort as it did the laptop and the corruption investigation.

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“..the suit against Ziegler does not admit the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden but does assert the data belongs to him..”

Hunter Biden Sues Former Trump Aide Who Published Laptop Materials (Sp.)

Attorneys for Hunter Biden have filed a suit against Garrett Ziegler, who has been publishing emails and photos allegedly from Hunter Biden’s now infamous laptop, alleging that he violated California state and federal computer fraud laws in doing so. The suit, filed in California, specifically accuses Ziegler and a non-profit organization he runs called Marco Polo, of violating the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act and the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. On the Marco Polo website, Ziegler published tens of thousands of emails, photos and videos purportedly from the laptop. Similar to Hunter Biden’s lawsuit against laptop repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, the suit against Ziegler does not admit the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden but does assert the data belongs to him.

The lawsuit also accuses Ziegler of hacking an encrypted backup of Hunter Biden’s iPhone that was on the laptop, something he seemingly admitted to doing during a December 2022 interview. Mac Isaac, who says he first gave the laptop to the FBI and later to former President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has also sued Hunter Biden, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and two US media outlets for defamation and civil conspiracy. Both lawsuits are pending. Ziegler is a former Trump aide who worked under trade adviser Peter Navarro. The lawsuit describes him as “a zealot who has waged a sustained, unhinged and obsessed campaign against [Hunter Biden] and the entire Biden family for more than two years.”

[..] The California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CCCDAFA) is designed to prosecute hackers. It forbids individuals that “accesses and without permission takes, copies, or makes use of any data from a computer, computer system, or computer network, or takes or copies any supporting documentation, whether existing or residing internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network,” with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or commit a crime. However, the law is not clear on who owns the data contained within the laptop. According to Delaware law, where the laptop was reportedly left, abandoned property belongs to the individual tasked with caring for it after reasonable attempts to contact the original owner have been made. But the law is less clear if that would limit ownership to the laptop itself, or if it would include the data contained within.

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“RFK Jr. abandoning the Democrats would all but ensure a defeat of the Brandon entity — and a brutal, landslide one at that..”

RFK Jr. Telegraphs Threat to Vacate Democrat Party (PJM)

The Democrat Party has a latent disaster on its hand vis a vis one RFK Jr. On the one hand, they are fully dedicated to sabotaging his campaign. Under no circumstances whatsoever will he be permitted to win the nomination. Even if he had 80%+ support from the electorate, the sick truth is that party leadership (influenced by the consultant and donor classes) would rather lose with Brandon than win with RFK Jr. because of what he’s liable to do to the Deep State and D.C. largesse were he ever to assume office. It would be a proverbial bloodbath for the administrative state and all of the grifters who feed on it. On the other hand, they need to keep RFK Jr. within the Democrat Party fold because if he were to go rogue and run third party — which he, frankly, should have been doing all along — it would be a veritable death knell for the Brandon entity’s prospects in 2024, which are wafer-thin as it is.

Whatever perceived threat Cornel West poses to Brandon’s re-election with his Green Party run, magnify that threat by 10x, 100x and you’re in the ballpark of what RFK Jr. would do to the party. It’s not outlandish to speculate that a strong third-party run by RFK Jr. might literally break the Democrat Party for years or possibly forever. That’s how sick of the party’s BS its own members, not to mention independents and non-voters (the largest, unserviced voting bloc in the country), are. RFK Jr. has already proven himself nearly bulletproof from relentless Democrat Party and corporate state media attacks — arguably on the same level in this regard as “Teflon” Don.

Here is RFK Jr., in an interview with Forbes, explaining what elaborate lengths the Democrat Party has gone to to rig the primary against him, outright threatening that he might drop his intra-party bid and turn his campaign into a third-party run:

“If the DNC is gonna make it, is gonna rig it so that it is simply impossible for anybody to challenge President Biden, and you know I need to look at other alternatives. Because I can’t go back to the people who support me, to my donors, and say you know, I’m just going to, I’m just in this to make a point, I need to show them a road to victory.” What is for now a threat — albeit apparently a sincere and credible threat — needs to be encouraged by everyone to evolve into reality. RFK Jr. abandoning the Democrats would all but ensure a defeat of the Brandon entity — and a brutal, landslide one at that — in 2024, which can be nothing but good news for all Americans, even delusional, loyal Democrats who don’t understand their own self-interest.

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Paul Craig Roberts: ” If Putin really wants to save lives, he should hurry up and win the war.”

Does Putin Realize The Danger In Projecting The Image Of A Weak Russia? (PCR)

Militarily and diplomatically weak EU countries, not one of which is capable of going to war, are stealing the cars, cell phones, and even soap of Russians who enter Europe as tourists. Why Russians want to be tourists in the EU that is aligned with the US and Ukraine against Russia is a mystery. Although Germany, for example, would be instantly defeated in a war with Russia, the German government feels secure in robbing Russians who come to Germany as tourists. How is it that such a weak country as Germany can feel secure robbing Russian citizens? Perhaps the answer is that by permitting a conflict to continue for 17 months against an impotent Ukraine, Putin has convinced Europe and the US that Russia is too weak to risk Western ire by winning in Ukraine.

Clearly the West believes this as we can see from humiliation after humiliation delivered to Putin and to Russia. Putin could not even attend the meeting of BRICS, his own creation, in South Africa without being arrested and turned over to the International Criminal Court. Clearly, no one is afraid of Putin and Russia. When you have enemies who do not fear you and even mock you, you can expect provocations to rise in intensity. You can also expect to demoralize your own people and your own army, thus encouraging your opponent to be more aggressive. This has been my concern since February 2022, not because I am on Russia’s side but because I believe the provocations will result in a wider, likely nuclear, war. Col. Douglas Macgregor has come to share my concern.

When asked recently in an interview to assess Putin as a war leader, Macgregor said that Putin is overly cautious and that there is concern in the Russian military that by allowing the conflict to drag on, Putin gives credibility to the propaganda that Russia is weak and this encourages more Western intervention. Prigozhin, the Wagner Group commander, had this opinion, and when he tried to get Putin’s attention he was falsely accused of attempting a coup and treason. It seems the Russian government and media invents false narratives just as does the West. Col. Macgregor says, “I am worried — if you don’t act quickly to end it, at some point, you’re in trouble — and he’s in trouble, his country is. So, I think there has to be an end to this — but you can’t end it at the negotiating table. If you march to the Dnieper River and send your tank columns into Kiev, then you have a shot at ending it. But if he sits where he is, I don’t know . . .”

Neither does Putin, but he continues to sit there all the while convincing the neoconservatives that Russia lacks the strength to launch an offensive even against a defeated Ukrainian army. Does Putin really want to convince the West that Russia is too weak to really fight or that he is too much of a goody two shoes compassionate liberal to be a war leader? It would be irresponsible to lead the West to such a dangerous conclusion. If Putin really wants to save lives, he should hurry up and win the war.

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Except for Poland.

EU States Tell Zelensky They Won’t Hand Over Draft Dodgers (RT)

The Czech Republic announced on Wednesday that it would not send military-age men who came as refugees back to Ukraine to be conscripted. Germany, Austria and Hungary have already made similar declarations. European conventions exclude extradition for things such as desertion or draft evasion, Justice Ministry spokesman Vladimir Repka told the outlet iDnes. However, he added that if Ukraine files individual extradition requests citing a specific criminal act they may have committed, Prague may give them consideration. Hungary has ruled out any extraditions outright. “We are not investigating any Ukrainian refugees to determine if they have been called up for military service. Hungary will not extradite them to Ukraine,” Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén told the outlet ATV on Wednesday.

“All refugees from Ukraine are safe in Hungary.” German officials who spoke to Deutsche Welle earlier this week said that Berlin did not intend to send draft-eligible refugees back, since desertion and draft evasion are not crimes under German law. There are over 123,000 Ukrainian men of military age who are in Germany as refugees, according to official estimates. Vienna was the first to refuse extradition of military-age men. There are about 14,000 potential draftees among the 101,000 Ukrainian refugees in Austria. “That would be a massive encroachment on our statehood, we would never do that,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry told the outlet Exxpress on September 7.

On the other hand, Poland has already begun sending some Ukrainian men back, according to Hungarian media reports. A senior lawmaker from President Vladimir Zelensky’s ruling party said in late August that Ukraine might seek extradition of draft-dodgers from the EU. The government in Kiev recently announced another round of mobilization in order to make up battlefield losses, which Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated at over 70,000 in the past three months of heavy fighting. Zelensky fired all draft commissioners last month and ordered a review of all medical exemptions from military service, citing widespread corruption. New rules were adopted allowing for the conscription of people with mental disorders, chronic diseases, tuberculosis and HIV.

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How to make friends when you need them most.

China And India Have ‘Low Intellectual Potential’ – Zelensky Aide (RT)

The people leading India and China lack the ability to predict the long-term consequences of their policies, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed. Mikhail Podoliak pointed to what he called “the problem of the modern world,” singling out India and China, in an interview with Ukrainian media on Tuesday. “The problem with these countries is that they do not analyze the consequences of their own moves. These countries, unfortunately, have low intellectual potential,” he said. Podoliak suggested that even though India has a lunar exploration program, it “does not mean that this nation understands what the modern world precisely is.”

The dismissive remarks were in the context of Beijing and New Delhi’s refusal to support Kiev in its conflict with Moscow. Podoliak complained that India, China and Türkiye were “profiting” from the war by maintaining trade with Russia. “Technically, it is in their national interests,” he acknowledged, before presenting his view of what would benefit China in the long-run. “China should be interested in Russia disappearing, because it is an archaic nation that drags China into unnecessary conflicts,” he claimed. “It would be in their interest now to distance themselves from Russia as far as possible, take all the resources it has, and take part of the Russian territory under their legal control. In fact, they will do that,” he added.

Following the interview, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman urged Podoliak to clarify his remarks, when asked about them during a media briefing on Wednesday. Podoliak has a record of lashing out at nations, organizations and public figures seen as not sufficiently supportive of Kiev. Among his latest targets was Pope Francis, whom he had branded an “instrument of Russian propaganda” who “continues to reduce the influence of Catholicism in the word to zero.” The pontiff had encouraged Russian Catholics to cherish their nation’s historic legacy. The Ukrainian official also recently hit out at Elon Musk, who Podoliak claimed “enabled evil” by refusing Kiev’s request to use his Starlink communications system to launch drone attacks against the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

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“Even if we imagine that we will once again be friends with the West, that they will lift their sanctions, our businesses will not return to the West..”

Russia’s Pivot To The East Is ‘Irreversible’ (RT)

Russia is steadily reorienting trade and business cooperation toward Asia and away from the “static” West, Presidential Business Rights Commissioner Boris Titov told RIA Novosti on Wednesday. Speaking on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Titov stated that while the process initially started as a political response to Western sanctions against Moscow, it has since evolved and is now based entirely on economics. “Until recently, the process of Russia’s turn to the East was largely due to political reasons, but today everything has changed dramatically… Now we can say with certainty that this turn is irreversible, and it is based not on political, but primarily economic reasons,” the ombudsman said.

Titov claimed that while the Western economy is well-developed, it is already “too heavily invested and sluggish.” “In the East, on the other hand, everything is booming, moving forward rapidly, developing rapidly. And this applies not only to China, India, and Indonesia, but also to many other countries. They are the center of development today, not Europe, our main consumers of energy are there, finally,” the Russian official added. According to Titov, Russian entrepreneurs have already realized that doing business in the East is more lucrative.

“Even if we imagine that we will once again be friends with the West, that they will lift their sanctions, our businesses will not return to the West… It is much more interesting to enter the developing markets of the East and grow together than to remain static in the West,” Titov concluded. Russia has steadily developed ties with countries in the Global East and South in recent years, although the process has greatly accelerated due to the conflict in Ukraine and the ensuing Western sanctions against Moscow. In recent months, Russia has become the top supplier of oil to both China and India, as well as the largest European exporter to China overall.According to a recent survey by the state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), 67% of Russians approve of the eastward pivot, with only 11% against it.

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“By some estimates, that seabed may contain 1,000 times more rare earth elements than those below dry ground..”

The South China Sea’s Resource Wars (Frank)

You could call it a race to the bottom, with China leading the charge. In December 2022, that country unveiled its Ocean Drilling Ship, a deep sea mining (DSM) vessel the size of a battle cruiser set to be operational by 2024. Instead of weaponry, however, the ship is equipped with advanced excavation equipment capable of drilling at depths of 32,000 feet. On land, the Chinese already hold a virtual monopoly on metals considered vital to “green” energy development, including cobalt, copper, and lithium. Currently, the Chinese control 60% of the world’s supply of such “green” metals and are now eyeing the abundant resources that exist beneath the ocean’s floor as well. By some estimates, that seabed may contain 1,000 times more rare earth elements than those below dry ground.

It’s difficult to believe that devastating the ocean’s depths in search of minerals for electric batteries and other technologies could offer a sustainable way to fend off climate change. In the process, after all, such undersea mining is likely to have a catastrophic impact, including destroying biodiversity. Right now, it’s impossible to gauge just what sort of damage will be inflicted by such operations, since deep-sea mining is exempt from environmental impact assessments. (How convenient for those who will argue about how crucial they will be to producing a greener, more sustainable future.)

The U.N.’s High Seas Treaty, ratified in March 2023, failed to include environmental rules regulating such practices after China blocked any discussion of a possible moratorium on seabed harvesting. As of 2022, China holds five exploration contracts issued by the U.N.’s International Seabed Authority (ISA), allowing the Chinese to conduct tests and sample contents on the ocean floor. While that U.N. body can divvy up such contracts, they have no power to regulate the industry itself, nor the personnel to do so. This has scientists worried that unfettered deep-sea mining could cause irreparable damage, including killing sea creatures and destroying delicate habitats.

“We’ve only scratched the surface of understanding the deep ocean,” said Dr. Andrew Chin, a scientific adviser to the Australian-based Save Our Seas Foundation. “Science is just starting to appreciate that the deep sea is not an empty void but is brimming with wonderful and unique life forms. Deep sea ecosystems form an interconnected realm with mid and surface waters through the movement of species, energy flows, and currents. Not only will the nodule mining result in the loss of these species and damage deep sea beds for thousands of years, it will potentially result in negative consequences for the rest of the ocean and the people who depend on its health.”

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The biographer didn’t understand everything Musk told him. That leads to strange confusion.

Musk Gave Control Of Starlink To Pentagon – Biographer (RT)

Elon Musk gave the US military full control over a “certain amount of Starlink equipment” and can no longer influence how the system is being used to aid Kiev’s war effort, his biographer has unveiled, claiming the tech mogul wished to end his involvement in a scheme that could “cause a nuclear war.” Speaking to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius for an interview published on Wednesday, Musk biographer Walter Isaacson was asked about the billionaire’s decisions regarding Starlink, a constellation of satellites designed to provide global internet access and phone service which has also been used by the Ukrainian military.

Musk was initially “critically supportive” of Kiev and allowed near-full access to the Starlink system, according to Ignatius, who wondered why the entrepreneur eventually became “very nervous” and began restricting the range of the satellites, including in sensitive regions such as Crimea. “I’ve talked to him during this whole thing, and there was late one night, he said, ‘Why am I in this war?’ He said, ‘I, you know, created Starlink so people could chill and watch Netflix movies and play video games. I did not mean to create something that might cause a nuclear war,’” Isaacson replied. The author went on to say that Musk “decided to sell and give total control over a certain amount of Starlink equipment, Starlink services to the US military so that he no longer controls the geofencing,” adding that the SpaceX CEO “no longer controls the terms of use” for the satellites.

Isaacson said Musk had also developed a “military version of the Starlink” dubbed “Starshield,” suggesting that he hoped to pass off the project to the military. “I think that was his way of saying, ‘I got to get out of this. Even I don’t believe I should have this much power,’” the biographer continued. Musk has come under fire over his refusal to help Ukrainian forces attack Moscow’s Black Sea fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol – a revelation which only came to light in an excerpt from Isaacson’s biography published last week. The tech billionaire reportedly opted to prevent Kiev from using Starlink to guide naval drone strikes on Russian ships, fearing Russia might use nuclear weapons in retaliation to what he called a “mini-Pearl Harbor.”

While Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mikhail Fedorov purportedly demanded that Musk turn the system back on, he was refused, with Musk explaining that Kiev “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat” by attacking Crimea. The SpaceX CEO later claimed their services in the region around Crimea were not turned on at the time because his company was not allowed to provide coverage there due to US sanctions against Russia.

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“..the reason it was turned off was because the United States has sanctions against Russia, which includes Crimea, and we are not allowed to turn on connectivity to a sanctioned country without explicit permission..”

Note that Musk calls Crimea Russian…

‘Weaponized Govt Agencies’ “Don’t Wish Good Things For Me” – Elon Musk (ZH)

“I don’t know really what their issue is.” That’s how the world’s richest man describes the apparent ‘beef’ that the Biden administration has with him (apart from him calling them on their bullshit and enabling a free-speech platform for others to discuss non-approved narratives). Specifically, Elon Musk told the panel on the ‘All-In’ Podcast Summit yesterday: “…there does seem to be some significant increase in the weaponization of government and really sort of misuse of prosecutorial discretion in many areas… I think this is really a dangerous thing for there to be partisan politics with government agencies.” “Elon, does the Biden administration have it out for you, and why?” All-In host entrepreneur David Sacks asked Musk. “Ha. What ever gave you that idea?” Musk joked.

“I don’t think the whole administration has it out for me,” he added. “But I think there’s probably aspects of the administration… or aspects of interests aligned with President Biden who probably do not wish good things for me.” As a reminder, DOJ and SEC are currently investigating Tesla for allegedly allocating funds to a secret project to build Musk a house – which Musk has denied (and Walter Isaacson’s biography also confirms has been dropped). Additionally SpaceX is being investigated by DOJ for not hiring illegal immigrants (no, seriously). Then there’s the FAA nitpicking over SpaceX approval: “The only thing holding back the second planned Starship at this point is regulatory approval,” signifying that they are only waiting for FAA for their next launch.

Regarding Tesla, Musk focused on the company’s operations in China. He expressed concerns about China’s military capabilities, noting, “there will come a point in the not too distant future where China’s military strength in that region far exceeds America’s.” This point underlined the broader geopolitical considerations he takes into account in his business ventures, which brings us back to Starlink and the recent controversy over Ukraine demanding him enable the satellite web service for an attack on Crimea. Musk made it clear that Walter Isaacson – his biographer – had misunderstood the situation and that the initial decision to not allow access to Starlink around the Crimean border was due to sanctions from the Biden administration.

“Starlink have provided connectivity to Ukraine since the beginning of the war and as the Ukrainian government has said, Starlink was instrumental in the defense of Ukraine – although the media forgets to mention that.” Musk explains that “at the time [the attack] happened, the region around Crimea was turned off… and the reason it was turned off was because the United States has sanctions against Russia, which includes Crimea, and we are not allowed to turn on connectivity to a sanctioned country without explicit permission – which we did not have from the US government.”

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Work from home.

Great Reset Visionaries Stumble Upon An Unexpected Roadblock (Schlevogt)

The Center for the History of the Russian Diplomatic Service, a Moscow-based museum, proudly guards a mysterious gift that then Secretary of State of the United States Hillary Clinton handed over to her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, during a meeting in Geneva in 2009: a button to be pressed symbolically to reboot the relationship between the two countries. However, the gadget carried the Russian imprint peregruzka The Center for the History of the Russian Diplomatic Service, a Moscow-based museum, proudly guards a mysterious gift that then Secretary of State of the United States Hillary Clinton handed over to her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, during a meeting in Geneva in 2009: a button to be pressed symbolically to reboot the relationship between the two countries.

However, the gadget carried the Russian imprint peregruzka, meaning “overload,” instead of the deceptively similar word perezagruzka, which is the correct translation of “reset.” Likewise, recent transformative changes to the post-pandemic workplace around the globe seem to indicate that the much-touted Great Reset of capitalism increasingly is viewed as a burden too heavy to bear for humankind and an idea soon to be shelved in a virtual cabinet of curiosities. In June 2020, only months after the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the World Economic Forum (WEF), in cooperation with the Prince of Wales, started the Great Reset Initiative. Its basic idea was to leverage the fluidity of the dramatic global health crisis to push through lasting fundamental changes to capitalism on a world-wide scale and thus avoid a rerun of the Great Depression.

Thinking about the aftermath of the pandemic, Klaus Schwab, the chief executive officer of the WEF, rejected incremental, ad hoc and stop-gap measures. Instead, he envisioned a systemic revolution, encompassing radical transformations in every country, every aspect of society and economy, and every industry. The seemingly all-inclusive Great Reset Transformation Map, which features several overlapping categories, shows that the vision also includes one aspect of the future of work, that is, redesigning jobs.

To achieve his lofty aspirations, which he described as “unprecedented,” Schwab promulgated the following three broad priorities of a Great Reset agenda, which partially builds on ideas that he had already suggested prior to the pandemic: (1) interventions to achieve fairer market outcomes, (2) investments to reach shared goals such as equality and sustainability, and (3) leveraging the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” for the public good, especially in health care and the social sphere. In a Foreign Affairs article published in 2015, Schwab conceptualized the Fourth Industrial Revolution as a set of radical breakthroughs benefiting humankind, achieved by a convergence of emerging technologies in the physical, digital and biological domains. It follows the preceding three industrial revolutions, which were triggered by mechanical, electrical and digital inventions and innovations respectively.

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“The “Muslim threat” was played to such an extent that the Attorney General said, “we need every tool available to us,” by which he meant getting rid of the US Constitution.”

Was There A “War On Terror” Or A War On The American People? (PCR)

In response to 9/11, Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft told an obedient Congress on a Wednesday to have a sweeping expansion of executive power and dramatic curtailment of American’s civil rights ready in bill form by the end of the week. As Matt Taibbi reminds us, “Congress quickly delivered with ‘roving’ wiretaps, warrantless searches, ‘trap and trace’ searches, law enforcement and intelligence access to grand jury information, use of FISA monitoring for non-foreign situations, reduction or elimination of predicate requirements for FBI investigations, and elimination of judicial review for most of these activities, among many other things in the USA PATRIOT Act. It all passed on October 26th.”

These measures had nothing whatsoever to do with fighting Muslim terror. To the contrary, these measures gave the government the power to terrorize Americans. Try to name Muslim terror attacks on America other than, if you believe the official narrative, 9/11. You can’t, because there aren’t any. Terror attacks on America were so non-existent that the FBI had to search for confused people and groups, convince them, enhanced with monetary bribes, to adopt a FBI prepared terror attack, and then arrest them before the attack could be attempted. The FBI always explained that “the public was never in danger” as control of the operation was in FBI’s hands. But the public is very much in danger from the police state measures that Taibbi lists. “Muslim terror” was so conspicuous by its absence that Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano announced that Homeland Security was being refocused on domestic American “extremists,” which has come to mean Trump supporters against whom the US government is deploying the police state measures.

The first part of the “war on terror” was against Americans’ civil liberties. The second part of the war was on Israel’s opponents in the Middle East. In the case of Iraq and Libya entire countries were destroyed, millions killed and maimed, and displaced to Europe and the US with the strange result of importing Muslims who were said to be terrorists into the Homeland. Ask yourself how Americans managed to fall for the propaganda that the US was under widespread attack from Muslims. The “Muslim threat” was played to such an extent that the Attorney General said, “we need every tool available to us,” by which he meant getting rid of the US Constitution.

The foundation of the American police state was established on the basis of only one attack, 9/11, falsely attributed to Muslims. If the Muslims were really capable of outwitting the entirety of the US national security apparatus, why did they stop with the WTC? With such glorious success, why did they not continue? Why instead did the FBI have to create fake terror events in order to keep the public believing we were under attack? Notice how we are always “under attack.” If it is not Muslims, it is Covid, or Donald Trump.

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Problem
https://twitter.com/i/status/1702054366390235603

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 232023
 
 August 23, 2023  Posted by at 8:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  59 Responses »


Jessie Willcox Smith From The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald 1920

 

Trump to Miss Debate as There’s ‘Less to Lose by Not Showing Up’ (Sp.)
A Letter To Our Betters (Lundrum)
Biden’s Personal Interest in Firing Ukraine Prosecutor Targeting Burisma (Sp.)
McCarthy Threatens Impeachment Inquiry, Again (Manley)
The EU Doesn’t Know How To Not Be A Vassal Of The US Anymore (Blankenship)
West ‘Perplexed’ By Ukraine’s Strategy – NYT (RT)
Ukrainian Draft Dodgers Aggravating Troop Shortages – BBC (RT)
F-16’s For Ukraine Can’t Carry Storm Shadows (Sp.)
Putin: Russia Among World’s Top Five Economies, Overtakes Germany (Sp.)
De-Dollarization Is Irreversible – Putin (RT)
Fukushima Water Discharge ‘Irresponsible’ – China (RT)

 

 

 

 

Brink of War
https://twitter.com/i/status/1694143915602182430

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Myocarditis
https://twitter.com/i/status/1693744128314458248

 

 

Biological warfare
https://twitter.com/i/status/1693957169786294424

 

 

Escobar BRICS

 

 

 

 

If Trump is not there, nobody watches. If he IS there, nobody pays attention to the others. They can’t win.

No-one will watch a debate with Nikki Haley and Chris Christie. At the same time, Trump is on Tucker. A few hours later, he’s in Georgia.

Trump to Miss Debate as There’s ‘Less to Lose by Not Showing Up’ (Sp.)

Former US President Donald Trump had already planned to miss the first Republican primary debate since he is unquestionably the leading GOP candidate, but his impending arrest in Georgia the following day adds a new layer of volatility to the already-fragile state of US politics, a prominent commentator told Sputnik. The first Republican presidential primary debate for the 2024 US election race is set to air on Wednesday evening on Fox networks. Eight candidates are expected to attend the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, event, but missing will be the clear pack leader, former US President Donald Trump. The candidates expected to appear are Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; North Dakota Governor Dough Burgum; former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley; former US Vice President Mike Pence; former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie; former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson; US Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina; and New York-based entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Just hours after the debate, Trump is set to surrender himself to authorities in Fulton County, Georgia, in connection with federal charges that he illegally sought to overturn his loss in the Peach State in the 2020 election. Ajamu Baraka, international human rights activist, organizer, political analyst, and the national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, told Radio Sputnik on Tuesday that Trump’s absence could potentially be read as good or bad by his supporters, but that it was certainly bad for the legitimacy of the US political system for Trump to be facing such transparently political charges designed to stop his participation in politics. “There could be a backlash from either supporters of Trump if they believe this represents a certain kind of arrogance or it could be the opposite, that people believe that what the Republican candidates should do is to rally around the presumptive nominee of their party,” Baraka said.

“For Trump and his campaign, it’s understandable that he would not want to subject himself to the possibility of having to deal with some aggressive responses or comments coming from some of his opponents,” he noted. “There’s really a lot to lose in doing that and so they may have calculated that there’s less to lose by not even showing up.” Baraka said it was clearly “the predominant thinking within the Republican Party” that the nomination was Trump’s to refuse at this point, leaving little room for the other candidates to make a separate name for themselves at the Wednesday night debate. Indeed, the Iowa Poll, widely seen as the most reliable early poll for the primary race, found that Trump has by far the most solid support of any candidate: 68% said they won’t vote for anyone else.“What the Democrats seem not to understand is – the perception is that these prosecutions are politicized,” he explained.

“This is an attempt on the part of Democrats and Democratically-connected institutions and structures to undermine the ability of Donald Trump to run again. “I think that narrative is extending beyond the hardcore Trump supporters. People are raising questions around what appears to be a sort of piling-on, and indictments that have such a political character to them. We know they’re being framed as just some objective legal issues. And we know that the judge in Georgia, for example, claimed that she’s going to try this case without the politics. But very few people are in fact buying that. And it’s really a very dangerous situation because that perception is really helping to continue to undermine the legitimacy of US institutions.” “It’s a very dangerous strategy, but one in which Democrats believe that, in some kind of way, they’re going to create a condition or situation where someone, one of the Republican candidates, will then break from the pack,” he said. “That seems to be the thinking of many of the Democratic Party strategists.”

Baraka said that the Democratic officials in Georgia had displayed a “political inclination to make” Trump’s prosecution “into a spectacle” by treating him as if he is a flight risk and imposing limitations on his speech. “The main thing is: they want to degrade” Trump, he said. “They want those pictures, for example,” of Trump surrendering to authorities. “They have this belief that this is going to somehow undermine Trump. I think it’s going to have the opposite effect,” Baraka asserted. He accused them of having a kind of one-sided moral “blindness” that would inevitably lead to “political errors” on par with the second attempt to impeach Trump following the January 6, 2021, insurrection by his supporters at the US Capitol. “It’s all part of the process of the degeneration of politics in the US. It is incredibly dangerous because of the deepening economic crisis that we are facing. When you have the delegitimization of all of the US institutions then there’s no telling what may happen in terms of the politics here in this country. It’s very, very dangerous.”

Trump racism

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“President Trump’s only crime was to humiliate the lot of you, at every level and in both parties.”

A Letter To Our Betters (Lundrum)

To those who rule over us, though not by our own choice; To those who could not care less about this nation we call our home, but instead only care for their own power, glory, and enrichment; To those who consider themselves better than us, and view us with nothing but the utmost contempt: We know exactly who you are. Now, more than ever before, We The People have had the wool pulled from our eyes, due in large part to your own arrogance. You have ended up as our ruling class, through manipulation rather than merit, through deception rather than democracy, and through favoritism rather than free elections. And we know all this through the efforts of one man: The man that you are now attempting to sentence to hundreds of years in one of your gulags, all for the crime of exposing your treachery at the highest levels.

Most simply, Donald J. Trump committed a sin that, in your eyes, is far more egregious than such trivial crimes as bribery, sexual impropriety, abuse of power, or even outright treason. President Trump’s only crime was to humiliate the lot of you, at every level and in both parties. The damage to your ego is a far greater offense than any actual criminal wrongdoing committed by many career politicians of days gone by.That is why you now hunt the man with all the relentlessness of Ahab pursuing his White Whale. And that is why we are now more resolved than ever before to stop you. Quite simply, the fight to save Donald Trump is the fight to save America: His struggle now is unlike any smear, intimidation, and character assassination campaign faced by any other political figure in American history. And it is only so because you have made it so. The more viscerally you react to him, and the more deranged your attacks against him, the more determined his supporters become to stand by him through it all.

But this all goes far beyond President Trump. You dictate to us from your halls of marble, built ages ago by far greater men than you will ever be, and in so doing desecrate the memory of those who came before us. If our Founding Fathers could see the state of their nation today, they would either believe that the Revolution had failed; or, perhaps, they would even regret the Revolution altogether if this was the ultimate end result. You have actively led a widespread and systematic effort to erase our nation’s history, from the legacy of those very Founders to the statues and other monuments meant to stand through all of time as a tribute to their greatness. Whether by mobs of roaming thugs or by official decree, you have sought to tear down the very memory of those who built the nation that you now run.

You speak down to us from your houses of glass, eternally – and perhaps deliberately – oblivious to the two-tiered society you have created for your own benefit and at our expense. You claim to fight for “democracy,” and yet actively obstruct the will of we, the 63 million, from the moment our chosen leader laid his hand on the Bible. Your bureaucrats determined that an archaic “interagency consensus” should override the desires of the American people and their elected commander-in-chief. When he called out the corruption of one of your leading political puppets, and suggested that such corruption should be investigated, you responded by putting him through a nakedly political impeachment trial. You made a crime out of noticing a crime, even after the former Vice President quite literally confessed to committing the corrupt act to which President Trump was referring.

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Where does this leave Obama?

Biden’s Personal Interest in Firing Ukraine Prosecutor Targeting Burisma (Sp.)

New memos indicate that then-Vice President Joe Biden did not act in concert with the US government when he threatened to withhold $1 billion in Ukraine aid unless the Poroshenko government fired the prosecutor general who targeted Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian employer at that time. Joe Biden and Democrats have repeatedly stressed that his insistence on firing Ukrainian then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokhin back in December 2015 was consistent with the US policy of stamping out corruption in Ukraine. At the time, then-Vice President Joe Biden even went so far as to threaten then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that Washington would deprive Ukraine of a much-needed $1 billion loan guarantee in case the latter did not fire Shokhin. The conversation reportedly occurred in December 2015.

Biden openly bragged about the incident to the Council on Foreign Relations gathering in January 2018: “I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.” However, memos by Treasury and Justice Department officials obtained by Just the News, an independent US media outlet founded by award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon, indicate that the US government held Shokhin in high regard at the time and concluded that Ukraine had made progress in fighting endemic corruption, thus deserving the loan guarantee.

“Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its reform agenda to justify a third guarantee,” read an October 1, 2015, memo by the Interagency Policy Committee (IPC), a Barack Obama task force. Moreover, Senior State Department officials sent Shokhin a personal note saying they were “impressed” with his office’s work and invited him and his staff to Washington for a January 2016 strategy session prior to his sacking. Remarkably, an audio tape from March 2016 which appeared to record Biden and Poroshenko’s conversation showed that the Ukrainian president pointed out that there was no evidence that Shokhin and his office were anyhow mired in corruption: “Despite the fact that we didn’t have any corruption charges, we don’t have any information about him doing something wrong, I especially asked him … No, it was the day before yesterday. I especially asked him to resign,” Poroshenko allegedly told Biden in a tape released in 2020 by then-parliamentarian Andrii Derkach.

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McCarthy is the GOP. Trump is not.

McCarthy Threatens Impeachment Inquiry, Again (Manley)

House Republicans have been calling for impeachment proceedings against US President Joe Biden for months over allegations of financial misconduct during the Obama years. While initial calls were dulled, new reports suggest the initiative may be picked up once Congress comes back in session. US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) threatened, yet again, on Tuesday to launch an impeachment inquiry in September if the Biden administration fails to turn over documents said to be tied to an alleged bribery scheme involving the Biden family. It’s not clear, however, which documents McCarthy is seeking, nor from whom. Additionally, reports have suggested the so-called ‘missing’ files were not exactly requested by lawmakers. “The thing that holds up whether we do impeachment inquiry, provide us the documents we’re asking,” McCarthy said in an interview with Larry Kudlow. “The whole determination here is how the Bidens handled this.”

“If they provide us the documents, there wouldn’t be a need for impeachment inquiry. But if they withhold the documents and fight like they have now to not provide to the American public what they deserve to know, we will move forward with impeachment inquiry when we come back into session,” he added. The House speaker did clarify that they were looking for bank statements, as well as credit card statements. “The bank statements, the credit card statements and others. Show us where the money went, show us were you taking money from outside sources? And that would clear most of this up, but they seem to fight it every step of the way,” he added. Republicans have for months been making calls for an impeachment inquiry against US President Joe Biden over a pay-to-play scheme that is alleged to have taken place when the commander-in-chief served as vice president under the Obama White House. It’s alleged Hunter Biden used his father’s role as a means to get kickbacks at the time.

When asked about the impeachment inquiry into the president, McCarthy reportedly raised several allegations about Biden’s involvement in his son’s business dealings. In addition, he also criticized the decision to appoint a special counsel to oversee the ongoing probe into Hunter Biden. Attorney for the District of Delaware, David Weiss, was earlier appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the Hunter Biden case, a move that has prompted GOP attacks against Weiss as a result. McCarthy is presently claiming that the US House could also push forward an impeachment inquiry into Biden should Weiss refuse to hand over certain information to Congress. It’s worth noting that prior to the appointment announcement, reports indicated that Weiss had initially been blocked from the post.

“If they use this special counsel to say that they can’t provide us the information, then it just shows more politics. And it will not stop us. Then we would move to impeachment inquiry and we would be able to still get the documents that we need as we move forward,” McCarthy explained. McCarthy first floated the idea of an impeachment inquiry against Biden in July, explaining then that the motive was rooted over allegations that the US president was a willing participant in financial misconduct. However, the early summer initiative only came after the House speaker initially opted to shut down earlier impeachment calls that were being encouraged by the hard-right Republicans of the House Freedom caucus.

CNN DOJ Biden

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“In 2008, the EU’s economy was somewhat larger than America’s: $16.2tn versus $14.7tn. By 2022, the US economy had grown to $25tn, whereas the EU and the UK together had only reached $19.8tn.”

The EU Doesn’t Know How To Not Be A Vassal Of The US Anymore (Blankenship)

In terms of hard numbers, Jeremy Shapiro and Jana Puglierin of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank have stated: “In 2008, the EU’s economy was somewhat larger than America’s: $16.2tn versus $14.7tn. By 2022, the US economy had grown to $25tn, whereas the EU and the UK together had only reached $19.8tn. America’s economy is now nearly one-third bigger. It is more than 50 per cent larger than the EU without the UK.” The article goes on to describe a European Union that is dragging far behind the US and China in terms of quality universities, a less-than-pristine start-up environment, and lacking key benefits from its transatlantic peer – namely cheap energy. The Ukraine conflict has impacted the latter to the point that EU companies are paying three or four times what their American competitors are, with Washington being energy-independent and enjoying great domestic supplies. Meanwhile, energy from Russia is waning, European factories are closing in droves, and industry leaders are worried about the region’s future competitiveness.

The ECFR issued its own report on the matter in April, which is far blunter in describing the situation as a kind of “vassalization.” The summary of that report notes that the Ukraine war has exposed the EU’s key dependencies on the US, that over the course of a decade, the bloc has fallen behind the US in virtually every key metric, that it is deadlocked in disagreement and is looking to Washington for leadership. The ECFR noted two causes for this situation. Firstly, despite the widely understood decline of the US compared to the rise of China, the transatlantic relationship has been unbalanced in Washington’s favor over the last 15 years since the 2008 financial crisis. The Biden administration is keen to exploit this and assert itself in the face of a disjointed Europe. Secondly, no one in the EU knows what greater strategic autonomy could look like – let alone agree on it if they did. There exists no process to decide the EU’s future in an autonomous way given the current status quo, which means US leadership is necessary.

This paints quite an interesting picture. Many commentators, including myself, have long documented the decline of the US and attributed it to a number of factors: less of an attractive environment for foreign direct investment (FDI), financial instability, corruption, and internal political turmoil. This is, of course, relativized to China, which has seen immense economic growth since the founding of the People’s Republic and particularly over the past four decades. But under the smoke screen of a fumbling America and a growing China, the EU has likewise fallen in stature. As for the two causes noted by the ECFR, they seem to be intertwined. Many of the key issues that have faced the EU, from migration to the banking crisis to Covid-19, have stemmed directly from the non-federal nature of the EU.

And the current political crises are a result of Euroskepticism, i.e. a backlash against what is perceived as an overreach from Brussels by some political organizations within the bloc. The EU is a complicated and sometimes cumbersome bureaucracy that is cherished by some, reviled by others, and, under these assumptions, is an impediment to strategic autonomy. The ECFR essentially argues for the EU and Western European capitals to lean into the transatlantic partnership, but on terms favorable to themselves. This includes creating an independent security architecture within and complimentary to NATO, creating an economic NATO of sorts and even pursuing a European nuclear weapons program. At least the former two are acceptable, as abandoning the US outright would be politically foolish for the EU at this juncture. It certainly needs to develop a transatlantic free-trade agreement that puts an end to American trade protectionism.

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“even the most experienced units have been reconstituted a number of times after taking heavy casualties.”

West ‘Perplexed’ By Ukraine’s Strategy – NYT (RT)

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is struggling because some of Kiev’s best troops are “in the wrong places,” the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing senior US and UK officials speaking on condition of anonymity. The offensive’s main objective is to reach the Sea of Azov, cutting off Crimea from the Russian mainland, but Ukraine currently has more troops on the eastern front – facing Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut – than in the “far more strategically significant” south, according to the Times. “American planners have advised Ukraine to concentrate on the front driving toward Melitopol… and on punching through Russian minefields and other defenses, even if the Ukrainians lose more soldiers and equipment in the process,” the newspaper said.

The Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Ukraine had lost 45,000 dead and over 5,000 vehicles in the past two months of fighting, without going past the Russian screening line. “Only with a change of tactics and a dramatic move can the tempo of the counteroffensive change,” a US official told the newspaper, though others argued that even that may be too little, too late. Kiev’s insistence on keeping a large force in the east is particularly “perplexing” to American and British officials, as Western doctrine calls for commitment to a clear main effort. They argue that a smaller force could serve to pin down the Russian defenders, and while Ukraine theoretically has enough troops to retake Artyomovsk, doing so would “lead to large numbers of losses for little strategic gain.”

General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, his British counterpart Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli all urged Ukraine’s top general Valery Zaluzhny to focus on the southern front in the August 10 call, the Times said. Zaluzhny supposedly agreed. Just five days later, however, President Vladimir Zelensky was touring the “Soledar sector” near Artyomovsk, visiting the neo-Nazi ‘Azov’ unit and speaking about the importance of that front. According to the Times, Ukraine has started to redeploy some units to the south, but “even the most experienced units have been reconstituted a number of times after taking heavy casualties.”

Kiev is currently “tapping into its last strategic reserves,” and unnamed Western analysts worry that Ukrainian forces “may run out of steam” by mid-September, even before a change in weather turns the ground into impassable mud. The Times itself noted that US criticism comes from the perspective of officers “who have never experienced a war of this scale and intensity,” and that the US war doctrine “has never been tested in an environment like Ukraine’s, where Russian electronic warfare jams communications and GPS,” and there is no air superiority. Ukraine launched its much-hyped offensive in early June, but has so far failed to gain any significant ground, losing many Western-supplied tanks and armored vehicles in the process.

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“The groups exist throughout Ukraine and some have as many as 100,000 members..”

Ukrainian Draft Dodgers Aggravating Troop Shortages – BBC (RT)

Ukraine is struggling to reinforce its troop numbers due to “constant” heavy casualties suffered in the conflict with Russia and the population’s unwillingness to replace those no longer able to serve, the BBC reported on Tuesday. “The country constantly needs to replace the tens of thousands who’ve been killed or injured,” the British state broadcaster said, adding that many Ukrainian troops are exhausted following 18 months of hostilities with Moscow. According to the broadcaster, Ukrainians have formed mass chat groups on social media to share ways of dodging conscription, including providing tip-offs on Telegram of draft patrol officers’ routes. The groups exist throughout Ukraine and some have as many as 100,000 members, the BBC added.

Thousands have already fled Ukraine in an attempt to avoid the draft, while others are planning to do so, the BBC claimed. It said that those fleeing often bribe officials, including recruitment officers, to ensure safe passage abroad. Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky dismissed every single regional military official responsible for conscription following a series of corruption scandals. The Ukrainian authorities had previously opened 112 criminal cases against territorial draft center officials, Zelensky revealed at the time. Ukrainian defense officials have described the alleged offenses committed by those responsible for the draft campaign as “shameful and unacceptable.” Fired personnel will be replaced by combat veterans unfit for active duty, Zelensky said in early August, claiming that they had “no cynicism” and could be trusted.

According to the BBC, officers involved in the recruitment campaign stand accused of employing increasingly heavy-handed tactics. People have allegedly been summoned to recruitment centers for registration, often only to be seized on the spot and deprived of the chance to return home, the broadcaster claimed. Draft officials are also accused of using “harsh or intimidating tactics,” the British broadcaster said, while fresh recruits can reportedly find themselves on the front lines “with just a month of training.” The report comes as Kiev struggles with the much-hyped counteroffensive against Russian forces launched in early June. According to Moscow, Ukrainian troops have failed to make any significant progress, often only reaching the first line of Russian defenses.

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They find that out now?

F-16’s For Ukraine Can’t Carry Storm Shadows (Sp.)

According to reports in US media, the plan to supply Ukraine with US-made F-16 Falcon fighter jets has hit a snag, since the aircraft are not presently compatible with the British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles previously given to Ukraine to enhance its long-range aerial strike capability. That has raised a new question among politicos: should the US send compatible cruise missiles to Kiev alongside the F-16, such as the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) with its 575-mile range? Alexander Mikhailov, head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, told Sputnik on Tuesday that the situation exposes the unplanned and haphazard way in which NATO is scrambling to send Kiev any weapons they can find, but especially older ones.

“It seems to me that both the British and aviation armaments [industries] will find a technical opportunity to place their missiles on the F-16,” he said. “I think the issue here is quite technically solvable. It seems to me that, in general, we need to wait for the delivery of aircraft.” “We are again dealing with promises to assist in the supply of weapons, promises to establish training for pilots. But we don’t see specific products,” he said. “This story is very similar to the story of American tanks, which started in November of last year, when the Americans first promised their Abrams tanks and simultaneously dragged European partners into these promises, then they themselves stalled the supply of tanks, citing a lack of a structural base, a lack of a repair base, a shortage of all this in Poland or on the territory of Ukraine,” Mikhailov noted.

“And at this time, the German Leopard tanks were already burning and the image of the German defense industry was burning and a lot of other troubles that Europe received which, as it were, followed the lead of the Americans with their eternal divorce.” “Now it’s a very similar story. The Americans would very much like European planes to fly to Ukraine. Moreover, the same Germans have third-generation Tornado aircraft, Europeans have Typhoons, Mirages, Rafales, and Gripens. And in principle, there is plenty to choose from, especially if the Europeans are more loyal. But the Europeans are no longer fooled by these American promises. Because after the story with the Abrams, when even the Challenger tanks arrived in Ukraine and several Leopards were sent to Ukraine and even participated in the hostilities, the Abrams did not appear in Ukraine.”

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PPP.

Putin: Russia Among World’s Top Five Economies, Overtakes Germany (Sp.)

Despite pessimistic forecasts, Russia is among the five largest economies in the world and has overtaken the Federal Republic of Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Council on Strategic Development and National Projects. According to the World Bank, the Russian Federation “has moved ahead of the Federal Republic of Germany in terms of purchasing power parity, in terms of the size of the economy,” Putin added. The president highlighted that this is one of the most important indicators. The president stressed that the growth rates are steady, including in industry, while the current budget situation is stable and risk-free. “The current budgetary situation is generally stable and does not carry risks for macroeconomic stability. In the second quarter, the federal budget deficit decreased almost eight times compared to the first quarter and totaled 264 billion rubles. In July, the budget balance was 458 billion rubles better than a year ago,” Putin clarified.

For July-September the budget will be reported with a surplus, and by the end of the year the excess of expenditures over revenues will amount to the planned 2% of GDP, Putin noted. According to the president, in a year and a half, the ruble’s share of payments for Russian exports has more than tripled, from 12% to 42%, and “if we count it together with the currencies of friendly countries, this share reaches 70%”. Domestic manufacturers are quickly filling the niches of foreign companies that have left, and Russia will continue to do the same, the president emphasized. On August 4, Sputnik calculated using data from the World Bank that Russia’s GDP by purchasing power parity (PPP) in 2022 for the first time ever exceeded $5 trillion, allowing the country to remain the world’s fifth-largest economy.

Earllier Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that the Russian economy had adapted to Western sanctions and was growing steadily, adding that, despite all attempts to cut it off from global production chains, logistics routes and financial systems, interest for the country’s economy was increasing. In early August, an American newspaper reported that the West’s strategy of imposing sanctions on Russian businessmen and their families proved to be ineffective. Russia’s ability to withstand the sanctions will be a subject for analysis in the future, according to the report.

Read more …

More PPP.

De-Dollarization Is Irreversible – Putin (RT)

The US dollar is losing its global role in an “objective and irreversible” process, the Russian president told participants at the BRICS Summit in South Africa on Tuesday. Vladimir Putin spoke by via videolink, after choosing not to attend the event in person.De-dollarization is “gaining momentum” he said, adding that members of the group of major emerging economies are seeking to reduce their reliance on the greenback in mutual transactions. The Russian leader said the five nations – Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa – are becoming the new world economic leaders, and that their cumulative share of global GDP has reached 26%. He noted that if measured by purchasing power parity, BRICS has already surpassed the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations – accounting for 31% of the global economy, compared to 30% for the G7.

Over the past 10 years, mutual investment between the BRICS member states has increased by six times. Their total investments in the world economy have doubled, while cumulative exports account for 20% of the global total, Putin said. Moscow is focusing on re-orienting its transport and logistics routes towards “reliable foreign partners,” including BRICS members, to ensure an uninterrupted supply of energy and food to the international market. Russia’s primary goals include developing the Northern Sea Route and the ‘North-South’ transport corridor, Putin stated. The first, passing through the Arctic Ocean, along Russia’s northern coastline, will ensure faster goods deliveries between Europe and the Far East. The second will connect Russia’s northern and Baltic ports to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, facilitating cargo movement between Eurasian and African nations.

“We are consistently increasing fuel, food and fertilizer supplies to the states of the Global South,” and actively contributing to global food and energy security, the Russian leader said. He blamed the current international food crisis on the West’s unilateral sanctions, describing them as “unlawful.” “Illegitimate sanctions… seriously weigh on the international economic situation,” and the “unlawful freezing of sovereign states’ assets” constitutes a violation of free trade and economic cooperation rules. The resource deficit and growing inequality worldwide are a “direct result” of such policies, the Russian president argued. He highlighted skyrocketing grain and food prices as the latest manifestation of this process, primarily affecting the most vulnerable nations.

Moscow is represented at the Johannesburg summit, which runs from August 22 to 24, by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Putin opted not to attend the event after a decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue a warrant for his arrest in March. The court based the order on Ukraine’s allegation that the Russian evacuation of children from the conflict zone amid hostilities between the two nations amounted to “unlawful population transfers.”South Africa is a signatory of the Rome Statute of the ICC, and the US and its allies had pressured it to detain Putin should he travel to the country. Moscow has repeatedly denied the ICC’s allegations and stressed that it does not recognize the court’s authority, declaring the warrant legally null and void. Although South African President Cyril Ramaphosa repeatedly stated that he would not carry out the order, claiming it would amount to a “declaration of war,” Moscow ultimately decided to send Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the BRICS summit to represent Russia.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1694133636101001423

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“IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi recently claimed the wastewater was safe enough for drinking and swimming. He did not respond to Beijing’s request to drink it himself, however.”

“..if the [..] water is truly safe, Japan wouldn’t have to dump it into the sea—and certainly shouldn’t if it’s not..”

Fukushima Water Discharge ‘Irresponsible’ – China (RT)

The Japanese government’s plan to discharge water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean is “extremely selfish and irresponsible,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday. “The ocean sustains humanity. It is not a sewer for Japan’s nuclear-contaminated water,” Wang told reporters at the daily press briefing, calling the Japanese plan “unjustified, unreasonable and unnecessary.” “Japan is putting its selfish interests above the long-term wellbeing of the entire humanity,” the spokesman added. “China is gravely concerned and strongly opposed to this.” Beijing intends to take all the necessary steps to “protect the marine environment, ensure food safety and safeguard people’s life and health,” Wang added, without adding specifics.

Earlier on Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that the dumping of waste water into the Pacific Ocean would begin on August 24, “weather conditions permitting.” For the past two years, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has sought approval to start dumping the water from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The plant produces 100 cubic meters of radioactive water every day, to keep its reactors from melting down, and TEPCO is running out of storage on site. The company intends to release a total of one million metric tons of water, starting with around 7,800 cubic meters over 17 days.

Tokyo insists that the wastewater has been treated and poses no danger to humanity or marine life, but Japan’s neighbors disagree. The ocean dump proposal has been endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which said its impact on the environment would be “negligible.” According to the UN nuclear watchdog, the wastewater contains about 190 becquerels of tritium per liter, well below the 10,000 becquerel limit set by the World Health Organization. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi recently claimed the wastewater was safe enough for drinking and swimming. He did not respond to Beijing’s request to drink it himself, however.

“China and other stakeholders have pointed out on multiple occasions that if the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water is truly safe, Japan wouldn’t have to dump it into the sea—and certainly shouldn’t if it’s not,” Wang told reporters on Tuesday. While Beijing did not specify measures it intends to undertake in response, China’s special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao have already said they would “immediately activate” import controls on Japanese seafood, covering live, frozen, refrigerated, and dried fish, as well as sea salt and seaweed.

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