Nov 212023
 
 November 21, 2023  Posted by at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  50 Responses »


Walter Langley Never morning wore to evening but some heart did break 1894

 

Israel’s War on Hospitals (Chris Hedges)
The Campaign for the Destruction of the West Has Succeeded (Paul Craig Roberts)
US May Want ‘Wider War’ in Middle East to ‘Take Out Iran’ (Sp.)
US Embarks On Proxy War Against Iran (Bhadrakumar)
‘Russia Should Be More Active In Palestine Peace Efforts:’ Iranian FM (Cradle)
Sexism Thwarted Prevention Of Hamas Attack – Haaretz (RT)
Ukraine ‘Concerned’ About Western Push For Russia Talks – Security Chief (RT)
US Media Acknowledges True Situation in Ukraine Special Op Zone (Sp.)
Why Murdoch Rushed to Meet Zelensky in Kiev (Sp.)
US Offers ‘Sedative Pill’ To Collapsing Ukraine – Moscow (RT)
US Financial Death Spiral – John Rubino (USAW)
Biden Donors, Advisers Struggling Over How to Address President’s Age (Sp.)
McCarthy: GOP ‘Even Closer’ to Biden Impeachment (Sp.)
The Blob and Its Mobs (Kunstler)
As Elon Promised, X Files Suit Against Media Matters (ZH)

 

 


Mr. Fish

 

 

Nap/Crooke

 

 

All made up – Larry Johnson

 

 

Nap/Ritter: Nukes

 

 

Ritter: Israel will not exist

 

 

Macgregor – Ukraine is defeated | A disaster for Israel

 

 

 

 

“It speaks of Palestinians as a dehumanized mass. There are no mothers, fathers, children, teachers, doctors, lawyers, cooks, poets, taxi drivers or shopkeepers. Palestinians, in the Israeli lexicon, are a single contagion that must be eradicated.”

Israel’s War on Hospitals (Chris Hedges)

Israel is not attacking hospitals in Gaza because they are “Hamas command centers.” Israel is systematically and deliberately destroying Gaza’s medical infrastructure as part of a scorched earth campaign to make Gaza uninhabitable and escalate a humanitarian crisis. It intends to force 2.3 million Palestinians over the border into Egypt where they will never return. Israel has destroyed and nearly emptied the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia is next. Israel is deploying tanks and armored personnel carriers around the hospital and has fired rounds into the building, killing twelve people. The playbook is familiar. Flyers are dropped by Israel over a hospital telling people to leave because the hospital is a base for “Hamas terrorist activities.”

Tanks and artillery shells rip away parts of the hospital walls. Ambulances are blown up by Israeli missiles. Power and water is cut. Medical supplies are blocked. There are no painkillers, antibiotics and oxygen. The most vulnerable, premature babies in incubators and the gravely ill, die. Israeli soldiers raid the hospital and force everyone out at gunpoint. This is what happened at Al Shifa hospital. This is what happened at Al Rantisi Children’s Hospital. This is what happened at Gaza’s main psychiatric hospital. This is what happened at Nasser Hospital. This is what happened at the other hospitals that Israel has destroyed. And this is what will happen at the few hospitals that remain. Israel has shut down 21 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals, including Gaza’s only cancer hospital. The hospitals still operating have severe shortages of basic medicine and supplies. One by one the hospitals are being picked off. Soon there will be no health facilities left. This is by design.

Tens of thousands of terrified Palestinians, forced to evacuate by Israel, their homes blasted into rubble, seek refuge from the relentless bombing by camping out in and around Gaza’s hospitals. They hope the medical centers will not be targeted by Israel. If Israel abided by the Geneva Conventions they would be correct. But Israel is not carrying out a war. It is carrying out a genocide. And in a genocide, a population, and all that sustains a population, is obliterated. In an ominous sign that Israel will turn on the Palestinians in the West Bank once it is done flattening Gaza, armored vehicles have surrounded at least four West Bank hospitals. The Ibn Sina Hospital has been raided by Israeli soldiers along with the East Jerusalem Hospital.

Israel’s settler colonial state was founded on lies. It is sustained by lies. And now, when it is grimly determined to carry out the worst slaughter and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the 1948 Nakba, or “catastrophe,” that saw 750,000 Palestinians ethnically cleansed and some 50 massacres by Jewish militias, it spits out one grotesque absurdity after another. It speaks of Palestinians as a dehumanized mass. There are no mothers, fathers, children, teachers, doctors, lawyers, cooks, poets, taxi drivers or shopkeepers. Palestinians, in the Israeli lexicon, are a single contagion that must be eradicated.

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“Christian” Evangelical ministers claim that with genocide of the Palestinians, Israel is only taking what God gave them..”

The Campaign for the Destruction of the West Has Succeeded (Paul Craig Roberts)

Over the course of my life I have watched the American people, indeed, the peoples of the West, abandon civilization and civilized behavior. Today nothing is important throughout the Western World except money. Even people with money don’t care what they look like. People dress like slobs. They behave worse. Four-letter words are common parlance in conversations between men and women. There is no longer such a thing as “polite society.” Feminism taught women to throw away chastity and to be promiscuous, and with chastity went female modesty. When I walk on the beach, females from young girls to grandmothers are sporting the stripper’s G-String, Their entire buttocks are displayed. The tiny patch in front gets smaller and smaller. Not long ago I saw a young women without a top. She had two strips of tape across her nipples.

It wasn’t that long ago that feminists were claiming the men had turned women into sex objects. What nonsense. What man wants his 14,15,16, 17, 18 year old daughter or his wife displaying their nakedness to the public? Not long ago there was a news report that a young woman had offered her virginity for sale on the Internet. I have been trying to imagine what my mother and my aunts’ reaction would have been to such a report. It is now common for attractive young women in naked provocative poses to advertise online: “I am selling my pussy.” Is this a prostitute soliciting customers? What has become of women? How did American girls get turned into harlots?

Wherever you look, all standards have come down. It wasn’t that long ago that American women would not appear in pubic or in a department store without being in a suit or a dress with stockings and high heels. Now you can’t tell by looking the rich from the poor. Sin spreads like contagion when sexual perversion is normalized and when the accumulation of money is the social goal, no matter how it is acquired. The result is that the social resistance to sin and depravity weakens. Today the governments of the Western World cheer on Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. “Christian” Evangelical ministers claim that with genocide of the Palestinians, Israel is only taking what God gave them. The fact that God dispelled the Jews for their wickedness is left out of the discussion.

This is so sick that it shows that Christianity is no longer a force for moral, humane behavior. If Israel can exterminate Palestine, anything goes. For decades the main function of education in the West has been to demonize the West and to present the West as an exploiter of the non-white world. This long-established campaign against the West was intended to destroy the West, not to reform it. The gentile agnostic liberals and the Zionists led the campaign to discredit and undermine the West. The campaign for the destruction of Western Civilization has succeeded. Will the neoconservative delusion that Washington is independent of reality and can purchase US hegemony while showing itself to the world as the enabler of Palestine genocide come crashing down?

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“..control of the full extent of territory ruled by the Biblical Israelites, which would include portions of modern-day Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia..”

US May Want ‘Wider War’ in Middle East to ‘Take Out Iran’ (Sp.)

The United States may be hoping for a broader conflict to break out amidst Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in order to damage Iran and other foes, according to author Jeremy Kuzmarov.The claim was made on Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Monday as Kuzmarov discussed the geopolitical situation in the Middle East with hosts John Kiriakou and Michelle Witte.“The leadership in the United States and Israel are hardline neoconservatives,” said Kuzmarov, who also serves as the managing editor of CovertAction Magazine.“I think they have their own desires in the Middle East,” he added. “They may want to draw in other countries and have a wider war so they can finally take out Iran.”While Kuzmarov suggested US President Joe Biden may be slightly less hawkish than politicians such as former US Vice President Dick Cheney, he insisted the US commander-in-chief should still be considered a “neoconservative,” a political movement traditionally associated with an interventionist foreign policy.

Kuzmarov said the Israeli government also favors an aggressive military stance in the region. “Israel wants to control southern Lebanon,” he said. “I think they have plans for ‘greater Israel,’” the military analyst added, referring to the belief by some in the country that Israeli land should extend into Gaza and the West Bank. Some Israelis use the term to advocate for control of the full extent of territory ruled by the Biblical Israelites, which would include portions of modern-day Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Israel currently occupies a portion of Western Syria known as the Golan Heights and frequently engages in bombing campaigns in the country. The Middle Eastern nation has been involved in periodic wars with its neighbors since its founding in 1948.“I think they [Israel] feel emboldened that the US is behind them and they can go forward with their plan until the Palestinians are crushed,” said Kuzmarov.

“I think they’re excited, this is their moment they’ve been waiting for for years, to crush the Palestinians and take over everything. And that’s what they’ve always wanted, certainly the Likud Party.” “They have plans for how they can transform the whole area economically,” Kuzmarov added. “And I think they’re pursuing those goals.” Biden also spoke of “a better future for the Middle East” during his recent Oval Office address, referring to a US-led plan to build a rail corridor through the region. Some analysts have suggested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like to formally annex Gaza in order to ensure control over natural gas discovered off the coast of the disputed territory, which would be transported via a new pipeline. Access to the deposits would increase exports to the United States and other allies, where energy costs have soared due to sanctions on Russia and Venezuela.

“The Iranians in my view have played this whole thing over the last six weeks perfectly,” said Kiriakou, noting the country’s restraint after the Israeli prime minister called for an attack on their historic foe in the hours after Hamas’ October 7 operation. Kiriakou also praised China’s attempts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, claiming the Asian superpower is “serious about being the peacemakers in the Middle East.” “The likes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan appreciate that, with the US… not seen as an honest broker in the region,” he added. Kuzmarov agreed that China is “starting to build its stature in the world arena” by attempting to navigate tensions between world powers, such as when they negotiated an historic agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia earlier this year.

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“The hardline opinion in the US is that the militant groups attacking the US forces are acting at Iran’s behest. This allegation is an old US-Israeli bogey..”

US Embarks On Proxy War Against Iran (Bhadrakumar)

A massive US naval deployment in a wide arc of the so-called Greater Middle East is under way — stretching from Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean, into the Red Sea and the Bab el Mandeb and into the Gulf of Aden and all the way into the Gulf of Oman. This deterrent display may transform as large scale offensive operations and aims to rework the geopolitical alignments and bring them back to the traditional grooves of intra-regional rivalries in the Gulf region. Ship spotters first said that as of Thursday, the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its escorts were sailing just outside the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf of Oman, and were approaching the Persian Gulf. A Pentagon official confirmed the location but would not say whether the carrier will enter the Persian Gulf passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

The US naval build-up in the region consists of another carrier strike group as well — USS Ford and its escorts — which last week moved away from Israeli coast and is now re-positioned to the south of Crete, according to ship spotters, apparently beyond the missile reach of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Apart from the two carrier strike groups, the US deployment also includes a three-ship Bataan Amphibious Ready Group with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit and several guided-missile destroyers — USS Bataan and USS Carter Hall operating in the northern portion of the Red Sea, and USS Mesa Verde in the Eastern Mediterranean along with the command ship USS Mount Whitney. Additionally, there are some number of US attack submarines in the region, but the Pentagon does not typically disclose their locations — except for a rare disclosure recently by the US Central Command of the transit on November 5 of nuclear guided-missile submarine USS Florida to the east of Suez.

The most obvious explanation for such a formidable naval buildup is that it is part of the US effort to keep the current conflict in southern Israel and Gaza contained. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets and anti-tank missiles into Israel from Lebanon; Iran-backed Shia militant groups are attacking US bases in Iraq and Syria; and Houthi rebels in Yemen are firing missiles towards Israel. During the period since October 17, there have been at least 58 attacks on US bases, mostly in Iraq. The hardline opinion in the US is that the militant groups attacking the US forces are acting at Iran’s behest. This allegation is an old US-Israeli bogey and keeps surging whenever Iran is in the crosshairs and/or there is requirement of a blame game. Expert opinion, including in the US, has always been wary of it.

Longtime observers estimate that while Tehran is openly helping the various resistance groups operating in the Middle East to push back the US and Israel, that does not exactly make these groups “Iranian proxies”. Thus, it transpired that Iran was taken by surprise by the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7. According to Reuters, at a recent meeting in Tehran with Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of the group’s political bureau, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei brought this up. At any rate, it is a known fact that the US establishment is well aware of the ground realities of its state of play with Iran and has not hesitated to use back channels to lean on Tehran to use its good offices with the Shia militant groups operating in Iraq to exercise restraint. But the bottom line is that Iran too has its limitations in such extraordinary times such as today when hatred and anger towards the US and Israel has risen to a crescendo in the Muslim countries.

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“..due to the approach adopted by the US and Israel in the region, if the crimes against the people of Gaza and the West Bank are not stopped, any possibility could be considered, and a wider conflict could prove inevitable.”

‘Russia Should Be More Active In Palestine Peace Efforts:’ Iranian FM (Cradle)

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on 19 November to discuss regional developments and attempts to end the war in Gaza. Amir-Abdollahian stressed that significant efforts are needed to stop the violent displacement and killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and voiced his wish for Moscow to play a more active role in trying to bring an end to Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign. “Resistance will determine the final outcome,” Amir-Abollahian noted. The two foreign ministers also spoke about the US role in the war, saying that Washington was planning on extending theviolence rather than taking action to bring it to an end.

“The [US] claims to be seeking an end to the war, but in practice, it escalates the intensity and spreads the sphere of the [US]-Zionist war,” Amir-Abdollahian said. For his part, Lavrov expressed that he was disappointed with Israel’s refusal to stop the attacks on Gaza and made note of the need to continue discussions set to put an end to the war and free captives. “The schedule of upcoming contacts and a number of other topical issues on the bilateral and international agenda of mutual interest were also touched upon,” the Russian foreign ministry media brief said, noting that the Iranian side that initiated the call. The two nations have been prominent in their attempts to bring the war between Palestinian factions and Israel to an end.

Amir-Abdollahian previously revealed that Iran has been holding back-channel communications with the US to bring peace to the region. “We said that Iran does not want the war to spread,” Amir-Abdollahian said in an interview with the Financial Times on 16 November. “But due to the approach adopted by the US and Israel in the region, if the crimes against the people of Gaza and the West Bank are not stopped, any possibility could be considered, and a wider conflict could prove inevitable.” On 15 November, Lavrov said Russia told Israel: “You cannot buy security, which we are convinced you need, by delaying the creation [of a] Palestinian state, and by [criminally] reducing the territory which was designed for the Palestinian state by the United Nations.”

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“..female surveillance troops said months before the incursion that something unusual was about to happen..”

Sexism Thwarted Prevention Of Hamas Attack – Haaretz (RT)

The deadly Hamas attack on Israel could have been prevented if an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit made up of women and tasked with monitoring Gaza had been listened to, an unnamed soldier told the newspaper Haaretz, citing sexism as the reason for the lack of attention paid to their reports. In an article published on Friday, the women, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had repeatedly reported recent activity by the Palestinian militant group. According to the outlet, female surveillance troops said months before the incursion that something unusual was about to happen. They reportedly saw militants briefing near the border fence, training to hit tanks and disable cameras, and increased drone activity in the area.

“It’s a unit made up entirely of young girls and young female commanders,” one interviewed soldier told the outlet. “There is no doubt that if there were men sitting at those screens, things would look different.” The women said that on the day of the Hamas raid, “no one told us there was such a high level of vigilance,” referring to claims by senior security officials that they had warned of possible infiltration into border communities. According to one soldier, three or even two hours would have allowed them to prepare. “The IDF left us like sitting ducks” she said, noting that combat troops “at least had weapons and were killed like heroes” while the female observers “were abandoned by the army and simply slaughtered without having any chance to defend themselves.”

In late October, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he had been warned of Hamas’ intentions “under no circumstances and at no stage.” He apologized and deleted the statement shortly after a wave of criticism from Israeli officials and politicians. The New York Times has reported that both Netanyahu and top Israeli security officials underestimated the threat from Hamas and did not devote the resources necessary to counter it, in the belief that Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah posed a greater danger. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 and taking about 240 people hostage, according to Israeli officials. In response, Netanyahu declared the country to be at war, and the IDF launched massive air strikes and a ground operation in Gaza. Palestinian officials say the death toll on their side has exceed 13,000, with most casualties being children and women.

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“..Ukraine needs more Western funding and support to restore its 1991 borders and become an economic powerhouse once more..”

Ukraine ‘Concerned’ About Western Push For Russia Talks – Security Chief (RT)

The government in Kiev is worried that its Western backers are calling for peace out of an irrational fear of Russia, Aleksey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on Monday. Danilov spoke via video link to the annual conference of the Halifax International Security Forum, a Washington, DC-based NGO funded in part by the Canadian government. “Ukraine is concerned by the fact that discussions among certain partners have intensified regarding the need for negotiations, consultations, meetings with the Russians to discuss the issues of the war in Ukraine, a ceasefire, etc,” Danilov said, according to a transcript posted by his office. He attributed this to a “rudimentary fear” of Russia and argued that the West should follow Ukraine’s example instead, as Moscow “only understands the language of force.”

According to Danilov, the current conflict is “a struggle between democracy and tyranny,” with the West and Ukraine on one side, and Russia, China, Iran and North Korea on the other. If Russia is not defeated, the world should expect a new “axis of evil” within 15-20 years that would include “some European countries” as well, he insisted. “Ukraine and the Ukrainian people will fight to the end. We are sure of our victory.” President Vladimir Zelensky’s top security official described Ukraine’s ideal of victory as “controlled decomposition of Russia into several parts” leading not just to “regime change” in Moscow but the “de-sovereignization… denuclearization and demilitarization” of the neighboring country. Meanwhile, he said, Ukraine needs more Western funding and support to restore its 1991 borders and become an economic powerhouse once more.

“Ukraine has every chance to become a strategic project of the West, which will demonstrate the full power of the vitality of democracy and the defense of universal values,” Danilov insisted. “The West must confirm that it is and remains the First, and a victorious Ukraine will serve as a convincing narrative in the modern confrontation between slavery and freedom!” Earlier on Monday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Kiev to offer moral support for Ukraine, but had no new military assistance to announce. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the outlet CNBC that Ukraine is “utterly dependent” on US funding to keep paying the salaries of government workers, calling the continued funding of Kiev a “critical priority” for US national security. Washington has blown through most of the congressionally approved funding for Ukraine and the White House has been trying to pressure Congress to pass more, so far with no effect.

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“..the Kiev regime is drafting people over 40 years old, as the Ukrainian youth has already been “successfully” sacrificed for the NATO interests..”

US Media Acknowledges True Situation in Ukraine Special Op Zone (Sp.)

Russia will liberate about 20 percent of the current Ukrainian territory, approaching Kiev, Peter Van Buren, editor at The American Conservative, wrote on Monday. More and more Western media outlets have acknowledged the true situation on the ground in the special operation zone, realizing the scale of Western propaganda, which has managed to cover it up for almost two years. “Amidst a flood of propaganda, the story was always the same: Ukraine was pushing back the Russians with weapons provided by a broad range of agreeable NATO benefactors. Between Ukrainian jet fighter aces with improbable kill ratios to patriotic female sniper teams with improbable hair and makeup, Russia was losing,” the journalist clarifies. It is all the more surprising to see common sense coming from an article in a US media outlet which points out that the conflict itself could have been avoided had it not been for US meddling.

Van Buren cites former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who outright stated the simple fact that: “The only people who could resolve the war over Ukraine are the Americans. During the peace talks in March 2022 in Istanbul, Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They had to coordinate everything they talked about with the Americans first. However, nothing eventually happened. My impression is that nothing could happen because everything was decided in Washington.” Now, after almost two years of bragging about the constant supply of “almighty” Western weapons to Ukraine, it is becoming a new trend among US and European journalists to talk about a stalemate in the conflict and peace negotiations. It took only about two months for the NBC News to come from “Ukrainian counteroffensive is making ‘tangible progress’ against Russia, Blinken tells NBC News,” to “U.S., European officials broach topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine, sources say,” underscoring a significant change in public opinion on the crisis.

At the same time, the situation in Ukraine is getting worse, regardless of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s dreams. Time reports that the Kiev regime is drafting people over 40 years old, as the Ukrainian youth has already been “successfully” sacrificed for the NATO interests. Van Buren emphasizes the “manpower gap” as the main issue hindering Ukrainian success. The editor is both surprised that the Russian military has been destroying the “all-powerful” NATO equipment and unwilling to believe it, putting it down to the poor training of the Ukrainian soldiers. “It didn’t hurt that Russia’s capability versus NATO equipment was surprisingly good, or perhaps the Ukrainians’ handling of sophisticated Western arms was surprisingly bad,” the article says. Unfortunately for the US government, as the Palestine-Israel conflict rages on, Americans have been losing interest in the Ukraine crisis, which has become “boring,” Van Buren argues.

Americans like simple pictures: the good guy vs the bad guy, just like in a comic book. The events should take place far away, as usual for the US, just so there is no danger for the spectator; however, footage should be top-notch, and the map should be easy to follow, as simple as possible, just like in American football, the article clarifies. “Americans, both the people and their government, distracted by the greatest propaganda tools ever imagined (the media), seem capable of focusing on only one bright shiny object at a time. In the case of wars, a new bright shiny object must include two clear sides, one good and one pure evil, with one preferably an underdog, daily combat footage which can be obtained without too much danger, and a football game-like progression across a map that is easy to follow. It should not be boring,” the newspaper clarified.

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“..the media he now owns remains the most powerful source of information for Republicans,” a majority of whom have recently become highly skeptical on continuing to fund the Ukrainian military..”

Why Murdoch Rushed to Meet Zelensky in Kiev (Sp.)

Lachlan Murdoch, who took the reins of Fox Corp. and News Corp. last week, met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev over the weekend. So what exactly prompted this trip? Lachlan, 52, is the eldest son of now-retired Rupert Murdoch, an Australian-born American media mogul, who announced his retirement in September. Last week, Lachlan Murdoch officially became the sole chair of News Corp and the executive chair and chief executive of Fox. Remarkably, the first foreign leader the new head of the media empire hastened to meet was none other than Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to Axios, Lachlan Murdoch traveled to the Ukrainian capital over the weekend, accompanied by two reporters – Benjamin Hall from Fox News and Jerome Starkey from the Sun.

Hall conducted an interview with Zelensky that is expected to be aired on Tuesday night’s episode of “Special Report with Bret Baier,” according to the media outlet. The report suggested that Lachlan Murdoch’s visit with Zelensky is of importance given that the media he now owns remains “the most powerful source of information for Republicans,” a majority of whom have recently become highly skeptical on continuing to fund the Ukrainian military. Indeed, a new survey by Gallup has indicated that 62% of Republicans believe that the US is “doing too much” to help Kiev, a surge from 50% in June. Likewise, the Ukraine aid issue is losing GOP support in the US Congress.

The trend is apparently driven by Ukraine fatigue, Kiev’s failure to succeed in its counteroffensive attempt, and, most notably, Israel’s war against Hamas, declared by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the Islamist surprise attack on October 7. Zelensky mentioned his meeting with Lachlan Murdoch in a Facebook* post on Monday, while the newly appointed media chairman declined to comment on his Kiev tour via his spokesperson, as per Axios. Meanwhile, it is known that Lachlan used to talk to Zelensky previously. According to the US mainstream press, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son reportedly held a telephone conversation with the Ukrainian president in March, weeks before they ousted Tucker Carlson, the American political commentator and writer who hosted the eponymous nightly talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox from 2016 to 2023.

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“The situation on the front and in the Ukrainian state institutions is on the verge of complete collapse..”

US Offers ‘Sedative Pill’ To Collapsing Ukraine – Moscow (RT)

Washington has announced yet another military aid package for Ukraine worth some $100 million, after the Pentagon warned earlier this month that it was running critically low on funds allocated for Kiev and will be forced to begin reducing the tranches. The latest package, announced on Monday, will include one High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) with additional ammunition, as well as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and an unknown number of 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds. On top of that, the US military will supply Kiev’s forces with cold weather gear, TOW missiles and small arms ammunition. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin paid an unannounced visit to Kiev on Monday, during which he had held talks with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and once again promised “the United States’ steadfast support for Ukraine.”

Russian officials called Austin’s visit a “mission of moral support,” while Moscow’s ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said that the newly-announced “deadly gift” is designed to convince Ukrainian offficials that “they are still in the game and masters count on them.”“The message about another American arms supply to the regime is nothing more but a sedative pill prepared by overseas ‘benefactors’ for Zelensky. The situation on the front and in the Ukrainian state institutions is on the verge of complete collapse,” Antonov noted.

Ukraine is completely reliant on US aid for the functioning of both its military and civil society, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted on Monday, claiming that military aid to Ukraine was a “critical priority” for US national security. However, the Pentagon has already spent most of more than $60 billion allocated funding for Kiev, with only around $1 billion dollars left. “We have had to meter out our support for Ukraine,” Department of Defense deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters earlier this month, adding that, although the Pentagon will continue sending military aid packages, they are “getting smaller.” Both the Pentagon and the White House urged Congress to pass a new spending bill on Ukrainian aid so supplies can continue, but no such legislation has been adopted so far.

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“The debt goes up, the interest on the debt goes up and that raises the debt even further, and you just spiral out of control. We are there right now.”

US Financial Death Spiral – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino has a new warning about being fooled into thinking the economy is improving because inflation and interest rates have fallen some recently. Rubino says, “If the U.S. government is running crisis level deficits, which it is right now, borrowing money and paying interest on it means we are in a financial death spiral. The debt goes up, the interest on the debt goes up and that raises the debt even further, and you just spiral out of control. We are there right now. The official U.S. debt is $33.5 trillion. It’s growing by $1.7 trillion a year, and $1 trillion of that is interest costs. Interest costs are rising as the overall debt goes up. Then throw in this incredibly reckless military spending in the guise of foreign aid, and you get a society that has completely lost control.

That’s where we are now. We are in the blowoff stage of a 70-year credit super-cycle. Those things do not end with a whimper, and they certainly do not end with a soft landing. They end with a bang, and the bang is going to be centered on the currency. People are going to look at this and say, ‘Do I really want to hold the currency or bonds of a country that is destroying its finances at this trajectory and this scale?’ The answer will be ‘No.’ At that point, it is game over for a deeply indebted economy. We are headed that way fast, and these wars are taking us that way even faster.” If the Fed keeps raising interest rates, the economy tanks, but you protect the dollar. If you cut interest rates, you spike inflation even more, and the U.S. dollar tanks.

Rubino says in the end, we get a “massive reset,” and the everything bubble explodes. Rubino says the dollar is going to decline and, at some point, it starts to go into freefall in terms of buying power. Rubino explains, “If a currency starts to decline in a disorderly way, then you have a massive financial crisis on your hands. That is definitely where Japan is right now. The U.S. is headed that way fast. So, once we reach that point, there is no fix. Then it is only a matter of time that everybody realizes that there is no fix, and they just bail on the whole experiment, and that’s where we are headed.” Rubino talks about plunging home prices, more trouble coming in the commercial real estate market and why you need gold and silver as core assets during a currency reset.

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“Literally everyone is talking about it, even amongst donors. But the response is always: ‘What are you going to do?’”

Biden Donors, Advisers Struggling Over How to Address President’s Age (Sp.)

Advisers to Joe Biden are reportedly considering a number of strategies to address concerns about the American president’s advanced age.“The one number in the polling that was concerning… had to do with age, and that is one thing you can’t reverse no matter how effective Joe Biden is behind the scenes,” said Democratic adviser David Axelrod, referring to polling showing the majority of Americans believe Biden is too old to serve another term as president.“In front of the camera, what he’s projecting is causing people concerns, and that is worrisome,” said Axelrod. Biden’s advisers have reportedly acknowledged the president sometimes appears frail in public appearances. They’ve responded to the issue by considering minimizing the distances the president walks on camera and having him wear more comfortable shoes.

Advisers are also attempting to prevent the president from climbing stairs when possible. Biden generated attention early in his term when he was filmed stumbling while ascending the stairs to Air Force One; the octogenarian president has slipped while walking up the steps to the presidential plane as recently as September. Biden also attracted attention last year when he fell from his bicycle while exercising in his home state of Delaware, turning an attempt to demonstrate the president’s physical fitness into another gaffe. While Biden allies admit he occasionally appears physically weak, they insist he’s still mentally capable of fulfilling responsibilities. But the president has been widely known for being gaffe-prone throughout his career. Some worry his propensity towards verbal flubs is only exacerbating worries over this age.

Donors are advising Biden’s team to “lean in” on the issue, portraying the president’s age as a source of wisdom and encouraging them to portray him as an affable “Grandpa Joe” in contrast to his likely rival, former US President Donald Trump. “I think the strategy is not to even address it, to consider questions like that stupid or silly,” said one anonymous donor who took issue with the campaign’s strategy thus far. “Literally everyone is talking about it, even amongst donors. But the response is always: ‘What are you going to do?’” One political operative worried the campaign has become defensive over the issue, claiming, “They bristle in ways that aren’t helpful.”

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“No one in America would have known that President Biden has lied, that they did receive money from China…that he did get involved in the business dealings..”

McCarthy: GOP ‘Even Closer’ to Biden Impeachment (Sp.)

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy recently offered an update on Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against US President Joe Biden, revealing officials were inching ever close to a potential presidential ouster.“We have systematically followed every place the facts have taken us each and every day,” McCarthy said in a Sunday interview with US media. “And now it’s moved even closer because now we’ve got the subpoenas going in to get the bank statements.” McCarthy claimed a number of alleged revelations stemming from Republicans’ investigation. “No one in America would have known that President Biden has lied, that they did receive money from China…that he did get involved in the business dealings,” said McCarthy, referring to long-running claims of the US president’s involvement in his son Hunter Biden’s controversial business dealings in foreign countries.

Biden has denied the accusations, saying he lacked knowledge of his son’s business ventures – a claim seemingly contradicted by recent evidence. Hunter Biden is currently being tried on federal weapons charges.“We found all of this, the shell companies no one knew about prior,” added McCarthy. “This is important.” Biden has criticized House Republicans’ efforts, which in recent days led to the issuing of subpoenas to the president’s friends and family members. Special counsel Richard Sauber responded in a letter obtained Friday, calling the subpoenas “harassment to the president to score political points.”

“You appear so determined to impeach the president that you have misrepresented the facts, ignored the overwhelming evidence disproving your claims, and repeatedly shifted the rationale for your ‘inquiry,’” wrote Sauber to House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH). Sauber claimed House Republicans’ efforts lack “constitutional legitimacy” because the inquiry was launched without a full vote of House members. Comer responded to the letter also claiming Republicans’ investigation “has unearthed new facts that contradict the White House’s and President Biden’s personal attorney’s narrative of the events.”

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“Perhaps they’ll be drawn to the church basements in town. That might be us next year.”

The Blob and Its Mobs (Kunstler)

Perhaps the anxious gloom pervading this year’s Thanksgiving is due to the dread of what comes next. No one in the public arena says that 2024 will be anything but much worse than what we’ve already lived through in this ongoing crackup of our country, and their expressed utterances are probably not as dark as their private, inner thoughts. The gang behind “Joe Biden” has successfully jacked our country into chaos. Something similar has got Europe and the rest of the Anglosphere in its thrall. Half of the public is grossly misinformed by The News, and swallows every proffered lie. The other half can’t get traction to storm this slippery slope of blob despotism.

So, the table is set. You have probably commenced the preparations for the ritual meal. We started with the cranberries last night, since the condiment has only two ingredients and would store well for four days. It came out badly. There was some rot in the berries that we couldn’t detect just by looking and sorting out some obviously bad ones. I hear a lot of chatter that the fresh food supply chain in America is broken. The bad link in the chain is apparently the trucking system. The truck lines can’t get enough workers to load the refrigerator trailers, so the fruits and vegetables spend too much time sitting on the loading dock, where they start to . . . turn. You have to wonder if this is a harbinger of greater disruptions to come, maybe widespread hunger, and you know what that leads to.

We’re going all out for the Thanksgiving feast here, a big fresh turkey, of course, and way more side-dishes than necessary for a dozen friends at the table. I live in a relatively poor county in deep upstate New York and I have to wonder how many people around here will go without a Thanksgiving feast this year, how many are suddenly mired in misfortune, default on a home mortgage, car sliding into the re-po zone, no job, no prospects, in despair, hungry. Perhaps they’ll be drawn to the church basements in town. That might be us next year.

Those of us outside the blob and their mobs know that our country has to be rebuilt somehow, and that rebuilding it must include assurances of personal liberty. I’m grateful and thankful this year that there are enough of us who understand what’s at stake and are prepared to fight against slithering tyranny. Do you see where things stand this Thanksgiving? It feels like the edge of something because it is the edge of something.

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Picked the wrong target.

As Elon Promised, X Files Suit Against Media Matters (ZH)

Early Saturday morning, Elon Musk posted that his social media platform X will be “filing a thermonuclear lawsuit” against left-leaning non-profit Media Matters and “all those who colluded” for “completely misrepresenting” the real user experience on X. Musk added that X would file the lawsuit on Monday, which prompted even more malarkey on X as the day wore on with so many pro-censorship leftists clinging to the hope that Musk was not going to follow-through, with one CNBC reporter going so far as claiming “Musk may have been lying, like he has done before.” Well, he wasn’t lying, and time’s up for the Media Matters manipulators… The lawsuit, just filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division, alleges the organization’s tactics were manipulative and deceptive. The suit claims:

Media Matters has opted for new tactics in its campaign to drive advertisers from X. Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare. Media Matters executed this plot in multiple steps, as X’s internal investigations have revealed. First, Media Matters accessed accounts that had been active for at least 30 days, bypassing X’s ad filter for new users. Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers. The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers.

But this activity still was not enough to create the pairings of advertisements and content that Media Matters aimed to produce. Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts. Media Matters omitted mentioning any of this in a report published on November 16, 2023 that displayed instances Media Matters “found” on X of advertisers’ paid posts featured next to Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist content. Nor did Media Matters otherwise provide any context regarding the forced, inauthentic nature and extraordinary rarity of these pairings.

However, relying on the specious narrative propagated by Media Matters, the advertisers targeted took these pairings to be anything but rare and inorganic, with all but one of the companies featured in the Media Matters piece withdrawing all ads from X, including Apple, Comcast, NBCUniversal, and IBM—some of X’s largest advertisers. Indeed, in pulling all advertising from X in response to this intentionally deceptive report, IBM called the pairings an “entirely unacceptable situation.” Only Oracle did not withdraw its ads. The truth bore no resemblance to Media Matters’ narrative. In fact, IBM’s, Comcast’s, and Oracle’s paid posts appeared alongside the fringe content cited by Media Matters for only one viewer (out of more than 500 million) on all of X: Media Matters. Not a single authentic user of the X platform saw IBM ’s, Comcast’s, or Oracle’s ads next to that content, which Media Matters achieved only through its manipulation of X’s algorithms as described above. And in Apple’s case, only two out of more than 500 million active users saw its ad appear alongside the fringe content cited in the article—at least one of which was Media Matters.

[..] Texas AG Ken Paxton has officially opened an investigation into Media Matters for potential fraudulent activity: “The Office of the Attorney General (“OAG”) is opening an investigation into Media Matters for potential fraudulent activity. Under the Texas Business Organizations Code and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the OAG will vigorously enforce against nonprofits who commit fraudulent acts in or affecting the state of Texas. Attorney General Paxton was extremely troubled by the allegations that Media Matters, a radical anti-free speech organization, fraudulently manipulated data on X.com (formerly known as Twitter). “We are examining the issue closely to ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left-wing organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square,” said Attorney General Paxton.

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Albanese

 

 

Just stop oil
https://twitter.com/i/status/1726482376187171116

 

 

Climate science

 

 

 

 

WEF terrorism

 

 

Fractals
https://twitter.com/i/status/1726574104739029119

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 192023
 
 November 19, 2023  Posted by at 9:51 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  26 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Women Picking Olives 1889

 

Time’s Up for Netanyahu and Biden (Dan Siegel)
Biden Is Fully Signed Up To Genocide In Gaza (Cook)
Israel is Shutting Down its Human Laboratory in Gaza (Chris Hedges)
US Strategy In Ukraine, Middle East Means Progress – Biden (TASS)
Were the Biblical Prophets Anti-Semitic? (Michael Hudson)
Time To Come Clean On Israel’s Nuclear Status – Türkiye (RT)
Arab Nations Won’t ‘Clean Mess After Israel’ – Jordan (RT)
Elon Musk Plans “Thermonuclear” Lawsuit Against Media Matters (ZH)
Comer: White House ‘Obstructing’ Biden Inquiries (ZH)
One Law for Trump, No Law for Biden (NCP)
Colorado Judge Rejects Effort to Bar Trump from Ballot (Turley)
‘Clean Energy’ Fails A Basic Economics Test (RM)
Global Warming Might Not Happen Quite As Fast As We Thought (Tel.)

 

 

 

 

Nap, Johnson & McGovern

 

 

All Lost, Total Failure Achieved | Scott Ritter

 

 

 

 

Mearsheimer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1726006149093212310

 

 

UN

 

 

Letters

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The issue is not that Biden is too old. His policies are too old. The American Empire is no more.”

Time’s Up for Netanyahu and Biden (Dan Siegel)

We can tell the world is changing when tens of thousands of Texans rally in the capital of America’s most important red state to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and freedom for Palestine. No longer can the Israeli government enforce its deadly calculus of 10 (or 50? or 100?) Palestinian lives for each Israeli killed in its futile effort to suppress Palestine’s struggle for self-determination. No longer can an American President assume that the public will support propping up an Israeli government whose constant, murderous violations of international law bring us daily exposure to the violence and deprivation imposed on the Palestinian population.The issues are no longer whether Israel should survive and whether Hamas’ murders must be condemned. Those are the easy questions. Countless millions of us have moved on.

The question for today is what the world will do to enable the Palestinian people to live in peace and security in a nation where their children enjoy the opportunities most Americans and Europeans take for granted. No one suggests that this challenge can be easily resolved, but the first step is for the U.S. to stop supporting the most right-wing government in Israel’s history from imposing unlimited violence and deprivation on Gaza while accelerating violent settler expansion in the West Bank. Israel’s strategies to ensure its survival and the means it chooses to defend itself should no longer enjoy unquestioned American support. Netanyahu’s government has exhausted its legitimate right to defend itself against the Hamas attack. It has already killed 11,000 Palestinians and provided no evidence that any of them were responsible for Hamas’ violence.

Israel’s air campaign against Gaza relies on the “emergency” American appropriation of $14 billion in military aid. American weapons have been designated for Israeli settlers stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank. U.S. officials know that Israel’s actions will not lead to peace. So do Israeli leaders, including many in the military. Netanyahu and his government survive because they have American support, including Jews who continue to maintain that criticism of the Israeli government is the equivalent of antisemitism. Many of us disagree. Recent polling demonstrates that the American public is evenly divided on support for the Israeli bombing of Gaza. Organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street represent ever growing numbers of American Jews. We are no longer cowed from describing Israel’s actions against the people of Gaza as genocide or its policies in the West Bank as apartheid. We are no longer intimidated by an American Jewish establishment that wields specious and exaggerated accusations of antisemitism and harassment to silence critics of the Netanyahu government.

[..] This is Joe Biden’s Lyndon Johnson moment, the time for him to follow LBJ’s 1968 decision to withdraw from the campaign for reelection. The issue is not that Biden is too old. His policies are too old. The American Empire is no more. We need leaders ready to engage the emerging multipolar world, who do not imagine that the U.S. is going to war over Taiwan, who welcome sharing power with the nations of Europe and the BRICS countries. The end of America’s uncritical support of the Israeli government can be the first step in creating leadership for a world at peace.


The Dance of the True Landowners

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“Those who survive face a genocidal policy, starving them of food, water and power.”

Biden Is Fully Signed Up To Genocide In Gaza (Cook)

The White House faces a dilemma. It has the power to stop the death and destruction in Gaza in its tracks, at any time of its choosing. But it chooses not to. The US is determined to back its client state to the hilt, giving Israel licence to wreck the tiny coastal enclave, seemingly whatever the cost in Palestinian lives. But the optics – and that is all that concerns Washington – are disastrous. TV images have shown hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing their destroyed homes, on a scale unseen since Israel’s earlier mass ethnic cleansing operations of 1948 and 1967. Even the western media is struggling to obscure the veritable mountain of crushed and bleeding bodies in Gaza. The known death toll has now surpassed 11,000, with thousands more buried under rubble. Those who survive face a genocidal policy, starving them of food, water and power.

By the weekend, Israel’s declared war on Hamas had shifted into an open war on Gaza’s hospitals. Medicins San Frontieres reported that al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City had been bombed repeatedly and its power cut off, with horrific scenes of premature babies dying after their incubators had stopped functioning. Staff who tried to evacuate, as Israel had ordered them to, were shot at. Similar scenes unfolded at al-Rantisi hospital. Western publics are growing increasingly incensed. Protest marches have attracted numbers not seen since the mass demonstrations against the Iraq war 20 years ago. Western allies are finding it harder to obscure and justify their complicity in what are indisputable Israeli crimes against humanity. French President Emmanuel Macron broke ranks at the weekend. His message was summed up bluntly by the BBC: “Macron calls on Israel to stop killing Gaza’s women and babies.”

In private, US allies in the Middle East are pleading with the US to use its leverage to restrain Israel. Meanwhile, Washington is only too aware of how quickly Israel’s regional opponents could get dragged in, dangerously expanding and escalating the conflict. Its immediate response has been desperate, and preposterous, stop-gaps to ease the criticism, including from 500 administration staff who submitted a letter to Biden on Tuesday protesting the White House’s blanket support for Israel. Those measures have included the president calling for “less intrusive action” from Israel towards the hospitals, shortly before Israeli forces were reported storming al-Shifa, and rumours that Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who joined the US attack on Iraq in 2003 in violation of international law, might serve as the West’s “humanitarian coordinator” in Gaza.

But what the Biden administration really needs is a cover story to justify the fact that it is continuing to supply the weapons and funding needed by Israel to carry out its crimes in broad daylight. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken set out his stall last week at the G7 summit. The goal is to shift the focus away from Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza, and Washington’s backing for them, to a purely theoretical discussion about what might happen after the fighting ends. Outlining his post-war “vision” for Gaza, Blinken said: “It’s also clear that Israel cannot occupy Gaza. Now, the reality is that there may be a need for some transition period at the end of the conflict… We don’t see a reoccupation and what I’ve heard from Israeli leaders is that they have no intent to reoccupy Gaza.”

Toddler

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“There remain plenty of Palestinian test subjects in the West Bank. Gaza will be closed for business.”

Israel is Shutting Down its Human Laboratory in Gaza (Chris Hedges)

The Palestinians are human laboratory rats to the Israeli military, intelligence services and arms and technology industries. Israel’s drones, surveillance technology — including spyware, facial recognition software and biometric gathering infrastructure — along with smart fences, experimental bombs and AI-controlled machine guns, are tried out on the captive population in Gaza, often with lethal results. These weapons and technologies are then certified as “battle tested” and sold around the world. Israel is the 10th biggest arms dealer on the planet and sells its technology and weapons to an estimated 130 nations, including military dictatorships in Asia and Latin America. Israeli weapons sales totalled $12.5 billion last year. Its close relationship with these military, internal security, surveillance, intelligence-gathering and law enforcement agencies, explains the fulsome support Israel’s allies give to its genocidal campaign in Gaza.

When Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to condemn the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian resistance groups as a “terrorist attack” and said “terrorism is killing innocent children in Palestine,” Israel immediately halted all sales of defense and security equipment to Colombia. This global cabal, dedicated to permanent war and keeping its populations monitored and controlled, has hundreds of billions of dollars a year in sales. These technologies are cementing into place a supranational corporate totalitarianism, a world where populations are enslaved in ways that past totalitarian regimes could only imagine. The genocidal assault on Gaza is another chapter in the century-long ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by the Israeli settler colonial project. It is accompanied, as is true for all settler colonial projects, by the theft of natural resources, land, water and the natural gas in the Gaza Marine fields, 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, which could contain up to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

In a world of diminishing resources, especially water in the Middle East, and the dislocations caused by the climate crisis, Gaza is the prelude to a frightening new world order. As democracies wither and die, as economic inequality expands, as poverty and desperation mounts, the global ruling class will increasingly do to us – once we become restive and attempt to rebel – what they are doing to the Palestinians. It is not a far cry from Gaza to the camps and detention centers set up for migrants fleeing to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. It is not a far cry from the carpet bombing in Gaza to the endless wars in the Middle East and the global south. It is not a far cry from the anti-terrorism laws used to criminalize dissent in Israel to the anti-terrorism laws introduced in Europe and the U.S.

On Oct. 7, Palestinians in Gaza escaped from their laboratory cage. They went on a killing spree against their sadistic masters. Almost 12,000 Palestinians have been killed and some 30,000 wounded, including 4,700 children, since Oct. 7 in the hurricane of shells, bullets, bombs and missiles that are turning Gaza into a wasteland. Nearly 3,000 Palestinians are missing or buried under the rubble. Soon Palestinians will be convulsed by infectious diseases and starvation. Those who survive, if Israel succeeds in its ethnic cleansing, will become refugees, yet again, over the border in Egypt. There remain plenty of Palestinian test subjects in the West Bank. Gaza will be closed for business.

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“Biden expects the US policy to bring “more hope, more freedom, less rage, less grievance, less war.”

US Strategy In Ukraine, Middle East Means Progress – Biden (TASS)

The policy being pursued by Washington in Ukraine and the Middle East would bring progress and make the United States more secure, US President Joe Biden said in his article for The Washington Post. According to Biden, against the backdrop of “so much violence and suffering – in Ukraine, Israel, [the] Gaza [Strip] and so many other places – it can be difficult to imagine that something different is possible.” “We must never forget the lesson learned time and again throughout our history: Out of great tragedy and upheaval, enormous progress can come,” he maintained. Biden expects the US policy to bring “more hope, more freedom, less rage, less grievance, less war.” “That is the strategy that my administration will continue to lead — in the Middle East, Europe and around the globe. Every step we take toward that future is progress that makes the world safer and the United States of America more secure,” he emphasized.

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Ecoomist Michael Hudson knows his Bible.

Were the Biblical Prophets Anti-Semitic? (Michael Hudson)

Were the prophets self-loathing Jews? Are those who criticize today’s right-wing politicians abolishing the land’s courts of justice, urging the mass murder of civilians and destroying an entire society’s infrastructure anti-Semites? Does commenting that October 7th did not occur “in a vacuum,” as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres did – even indeed after characterizing it as an atrocity – make one an anti-Semite? What I find most amazing is that no religious scholars are pointing out that Netanyahu’s claim to be following a Biblical covenant as his excuse for committing genocide to seize Palestinian land and destroy its existing population is a travesty of what actually is written in the Bible. By a sleight-of-hand like that of a stage magician trying to distract the audience’s attention from what really is happening, Netanyahu has evoked what he claims to be a Biblical excuse for Israeli genocide.

But what he pretends to be a covenant in the tradition of Moses is a vicious demand by the judge and grey eminence Samuel telling Saul, the general whom he hopes to make king: “Now go and smite Amalek [an enemy of Israel], and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” (1 Samuel 15:3). These were not the Lord’s own words, and Samuel was no Moses. And there was no blanket promise to back the Jews regardless of their behavior. And indeed, in following Samuel’s demand for conquest – as a means of making Saul popular enough to be made king – Saul broke the Lord’s commandments about proper religious ceremonial and dietary behavior.

One would have no idea from Netanyahu’s celebration of the compact between Samuel and Saul to become popular by military conquest that Saul’s misbehavior led Samuel himself to rebuke Saul and tell him that the Lord had decided that another man must be found to be king of Israel. It was not the Lord offering that command to destroy Amalek, but a prophet anxious to place a king on the throne. Invocation of such a command is prima facie evidence of an intention to commit genocide. But that seemed less important to Netanyahu than pandering to the desire for revenge amongst Israelis. Netanyahu makes no mention of the fact that Saul disobeyed the Lord’s commandments and the Lord rejected him as king. Nor does Likud acknowledge the context, a few chapters earlier in I Samuel 12:15, describing the corrupt rule of judges and Samuel’s warning that “if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you,” and the Lord’s warning that “if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away.”

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“Israel’s nuclear weapons must be inspected beyond any doubt before it is too late. We will follow this through…”

Time To Come Clean On Israel’s Nuclear Status – Türkiye (RT)

Türkiye will ask international inspectors to determine whether Israel has nuclear weapons in its possession, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Saturday. Speaking to reporters on his flight home from Germany, the Turkish leader noted that Israel is among the very few countries that are not parties to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Erdogan said that Ankara would ask the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate whether the Jewish state has a nuclear arsenal. “Moving forward with this is very important in terms of balancing strategic interests in the region. We will continue to put pressure [on Israel],” Erdogan said.

“Israel’s nuclear weapons must be inspected beyond any doubt before it is too late. We will follow this through. I also call on the international community not to let this go.” Although experts widely believe that Israel maintains a secret nuclear weapons program, the country does not confirm or explicitly deny its existence. Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu caused outrage across the Muslim world this month when he floated the idea of dropping a “nuclear bomb” on the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netahyau suspended the minister from cabinet meetings following his incendiary comments. Erdogan has strongly criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza, labeling it a “terror state” and accusing the Israel Defense Forces of committing war crimes against the Palestinians.

Netanyahu responded by accusing the Turkish president of supporting “the terrorist state of Hamas.” The current round of violence between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7 when Palestinian militants attacked Israeli communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking over 200 hostages. Israel responded with airstrikes and a ground invasion of Gaza. More than 12,000 Gazans have been killed by the bombardment, according to local officials.

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“How could anybody talk about the future of Gaza when we do not know what kind of Gaza will be left once this aggression ends?”

Arab Nations Won’t ‘Clean Mess After Israel’ – Jordan (RT)

Arab nations have no plans to put boots on the ground in Gaza as part of post-conflict peacebuilding after the fighting between Israel and Hamas ends, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in Bahrain on Saturday. The Arab world would not “clean the mess” supposedly created by Israel, he added. The post-conflict fate of the Palestinian enclave has emerged as a pressing topic amid the continued fighting between Israel and the Gaza-based Hamas militant group. In early November, roughly a month into the escalation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country would manage “overall security” in Gaza for an “indefinite” period of time after hostilities end.

At the same time, even Israel’s closest allies opposed the idea of what they called “occupation” and a “blockade” of the enclave. Last week, US State Secretary Antony Blinken said that there should be “no reoccupation of Gaza” and “no attempts to blockade or besiege” it. The enclave should not be “a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks” either, he added. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that the US and the EU were pushing for UN peacekeeping forces in the enclave after the end of the Israeli operation. On Monday, the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said that a post-conflict peacebuilding framework should be developed “in collaboration with the United States and Arab states.”

Minister Safadi insisted on Saturday that a two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians would be the only way forward. “Let me be very clear. I know speaking on behalf of Jordan but having discussed this issue with many, with almost all our brethren, there’ll be no Arab troops going to Gaza. None. We’re not going to be seen as the enemy,” the foreign minister said. He also accused the current Israeli government, led by Netanyahu, of aiming to dislodge Palestinians from Gaza. The foreign minister also called such plans a “direct threat” to Jordan’s national security.

The Arab nation’s top diplomat then said that any real plans for post-conflict peacebuilding could only be drawn after the end of the Israeli operation. “How could anybody talk about the future of Gaza when we do not know what kind of Gaza will be left once this aggression ends?” Safadi asked. West Jerusalem’s military operation in Gaza has been ongoing since October 7, when Hamas launched its own surprise attack against Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. More than 200 people, including both military and civilians, as well as foreign nationals, were taken hostage in the Hamas attack. Israel responded by massive bombardments of the enclave, followed by a ground operation, which have claimed more than 11,000 Palestinian lives, according to Gaza officials.

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“They created three new accounts, each following only a small number of accounts posting objectionable material. By relentlessly refreshing their timeline—13 times more frequently than an average user—they were able to capture screenshots of major corporate advertisements alongside the targeted content. This revelation exposes Media Matters’ calculated strategy: generating these screenshots as leverage to compel major advertisers to withdraw their ads from X.”

Elon Musk Plans “Thermonuclear” Lawsuit Against Media Matters (ZH)

Early Saturday morning, Elon Musk said his social media platform X will be “filing a thermonuclear lawsuit” against left-leaning non-profit Media Matters and “all those who colluded” for “completely misrepresenting” the real user experience on X. “This week, Media Matters for America posted a story that completely misrepresented the real user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers,” Musk said. Media Matters shared a report Thursday that showed “white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories” content next to “ads for major brands like Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity (Comcast).” Musk outlined, “X has seen a number of attacks from activist groups like Media Matters and legacy media outlets who seek to undermine freedom of expression on our platform because they perceive it as a threat to their ideological narrative and those of their financial supporters.” He said these rogue groups are “trying to use their influence to attack our revenue streams by deceiving advertisers on X.” Musk detailed how the Media Matters’ report was nothing but garbage:

[..] Earlier this week, Musk responded to an X post that criticized “Western Jewish populations” and said Jewish people were pushing “hatred against whites.” He added, “You have said the actual truth.” As a result of the report, Apple, Disney, and IBM pulled ad spending this week. On Thursday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino tried to calm concerns about the platform: “When it comes to this platform — X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world — it’s ugly and wrong. Full stop.” [..] Musk added the lawsuit will be filed “when the split second court opens on Monday,” adding in a separate tweet that “many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech.”

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“Remember when Democrats just up and impeached Trump twice with way less evidence?”

Comer: White House ‘Obstructing’ Biden Inquiries (ZH)

Tensions are simmering in Washington as House Republicans intensify their probes into President Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and the family’s business dealings, sparking a fiery standoff with the White House. The White House, meanwhile, has made clear to House Republicans that they won’t play ball – leading to accusations that the Biden White House is “obstructing” their investigative efforts. Spearheaded by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the Republicans are aggressively pursuing over 20 subpoenas issued to Biden staffers and family members. “We just received a letter from the Special Counsel to the president making it clear the White House intends to continue obstructing our investigation,” reads a post on X from House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY)

“We also need to know if these classified materials aided the Bidens’ global influence-peddling enterprise that brought in tens of millions for the Bidens and their associates,” Comer said on Friday. “This obstruction does not deter us, and we will continue to follow the facts and hold President Biden accountable to the American people.” In a scathing four-page letter pushing back against the inquiry, a senior White House attorney, Richard Sauber, hit back, accusing the GOP of twisting facts and pushing a narrative loaded with “distortions and falsehoods.” Sauber’s letter lambasts the Republicans’ efforts as “congressional harassment” and a mere play to “score political points.” Adding to the complexity, the White House accuses the Republicans of withholding critical information and shifting goalposts when their allegations are countered or debunked.

This claim points to a deeper narrative battle, where each side accuses the other of misinformation and evasion. Meanwhile, Hunter Biden’s representatives have dismissed the subpoenas as a political charade but have signaled a willingness for a public address at an appropriate time. Similarly, James Biden’s attorney has highlighted the committee’s review of private bank records, suggesting that the necessary transparency is already in play. Remember when Democrats just up and impeached Trump twice with way less evidence?

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“..Biden’s Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of charging his chief opponent for re-election with a federal crime that the current president was under investigation for..”

One Law for Trump, No Law for Biden (NCP)

If you ever needed to see the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican in the eyes of the current Department of Justice, Special Counsel Robert Hur just provided it. For years, like former President Donald Trump, Joe Biden has held classified documents all over the place, for example, in his unsecured garage, in his “think tank” at the University of Pennsylvania, and at his lawyer’s office. Unlike the 45th president, however, the current occupant is just going to get a stern talking to. Like Hillary Clinton in 2016, the likely Democratic nominee will not be charged with a crime even though anyone else under the same circumstances likely would. Who’s excited to live under a two-tiered system of justice?

The prosecutor investigating why classified documents ended up at President Biden’s home and former office is preparing a report that is expected to be sharply critical of how he and his longtime aides handled the material, but the probe isn’t likely to result in a criminal case, according to people familiar with the matter, reports The Wall Street Journal. Since his appointment in January, Special Counsel Robert Hur has interviewed roughly 100 of Biden’s aides, colleagues and family members, including his son, Hunter, culminating in a two-day interview with the president last month. The documents in question date to Biden’s time as vice president during the Obama administration as well as his days in the U.S. Senate. The number of interviews Hur’s team has conducted indicates it cast a wide net in trying to answer questions about how the material was packed and handled and wound up at an office Biden used at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a Washington-based think tank, and in the garage of his home in Wilmington, Del., alongside his vintage Corvette.

Among those Hur spoke to were Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was an aide to Biden in the Senate and his national security adviser when he was vice president; current White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan; top White House political aide Steve Ricchetti and Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain. Democratic allies in the media have already begun to spin the fact that these exact same crimes are being treated wildly differently. CNN writes, “A decision to not pursue charges is likely to draw criticism from Donald Trump and his allies. They have long drawn parallels between Hur’s investigation with that of special counsel Jack Smith, who earlier this year brought charges against the former president related to his own handling of classified documents after he left the White House.

But key differences between the two probes abound, including the fact that the National Archives repeatedly tried and failed to get back documents in Trump’s possession. At one point, the FBI secured a search warrant to search his Florida estate. Biden’s attorneys, on the other hand, quickly notified the National Archives of the materials found in his possession.” Unlike Trump, the Biden family has been alleged to have profited from keeping classified documents. Evidence showed that Hunter Biden had demanded a key to the office where some of the documents were held at the University of Pennsylvania. The request raised some eyebrows, and later House Oversight Chairman James Comer said in April that it appears that Hunter Biden “sent one of the classified documents to a “partner” at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy.” It has previously been reported that many of the boxes holding classified documents were connected to Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom.

The current controversy surrounding both Biden and Trump has reminded many political commentators of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and the special treatment she received from the Obama Justice Department. The initial FBI investigation into her obvious breaking of the law concluded in July 2016, with then FBI Director James Comey announcing that although Clinton and her staff had been “extremely careless” in handling classified information, there would be no criminal charges filed. Biden has been accused of using the government to punish his adversaries for decades, including using his power as a senator to attack his wife’s ex-husband. Over the summer, Biden’s Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of charging his chief opponent for re-election with a federal crime that the current president was under investigation for. Trump received seven counts against him, including conspiracy to obstruct, willful retention of documents, and false statements. The trial is scheduled to start on May 20, 2024.

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“[t]o lump the Presidency in with any other civil or military office is odd indeed and very troubling to the Court,,”

Colorado Judge Rejects Effort to Bar Trump from Ballot (Turley)

Colorado Judge Sarah Wallace has become the latest jurist to reject the effort to bar former president Donald Trump from the ballot under the novel 14th Amendment theory. I have long been a vocal critic of the theory, which I view as historically and legally unfounded. I also view it as arguably the most dangerous theory to arise in decades. While Wallace reached the right conclusion, she committed, in my view, fundamental errors in her analysis on the free speech elements of the case. The case involves a chilling effort of Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold to use her office to prevent voters from being able to cast their ballots for Trump, one of the leading candidates for the presidency. Like other challengers, she claimed to be protecting democracy by denying voters the ability to vote for their preferred candidate on the basis of this dubious theory.

Polls show Trump and Biden in a statistical dead heat at 42% (Biden) to 38% (Trump) which is within the margin of error. Judge Wallace rejected the use of the amendment to prevent voters from voting for Trump in the 2024 election, declaring that “[t]he Court holds there is scant direct evidence regarding whether the presidency is one of the positions subject to disqualification.” In her 102-page ruling, Wallace declared that “[a]fter considering the arguments on both sides, the Court is persuaded that ‘officers of the United States’ did not include the President of the United States. It appears to the Court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section 3 did not intend to include a person who had only taken the Presidential Oath.”

Accordingly, “[t]he Court orders the Secretary of State to place Donald J. Trump on the presidential primary ballot when it certifies the ballot on January 5, 2024,”The scope of the provision is one of the inherent questions presented by this theory. The disqualified offices are enumerated in the section and start with “Senator or Representatives in Congress.” It then lists “electors of President and Vice President,” and then ends with the catchall phrase of “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State.” U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 3. 302. As the court notes, “[t]o lump the Presidency in with any other civil or military office is odd indeed and very troubling to the Court because as Intervenors point out, Section Three explicitly lists all federal elected positions except the President and Vice President. Under traditional rules of statutory construction, when a list includes specific positions but then fails to include others, courts assume the exclusion was intentional.

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“It turns out, going green is not just about saving the planet; it’s an expensive affair..”

‘Clean Energy’ Fails A Basic Economics Test (RM)

The once-glorified clean-energy stocks are now facing their darkest days, plunging the industry into a financial abyss that threatens America’s ambitious environmental aspirations. The much-touted green revolution is looking more like a red alert as the sector hemorrhages tens of billions in market value.Sure, we’re told that hundreds of billions is still pouring into renewable energy projects, despite the fact that the stock market seems to have declared a resounding “no thanks” to these ventures. The iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund), the poster child for the industry, has nosedived by over 30% this year and a whopping 50% since the dawn of 2021. Not to be outdone, specific sectors are getting their fair share of punishment. The Invesco Solar ETF is down over 40% in 2023, while the First Trust Global Wind Energy ETF is witnessing losses of about 20% this year and a grim 40% since January 2021. It seems the wind has been knocked out of their sails.

Blame it on rising interest rates, the industry’s newfound nemesis. These higher rates have not only increased costs but also put a damper on consumer enthusiasm, leading to a nosedive in stock valuations for companies that once promised a green utopia but are now struggling to turn a profit. Solar companies such as SolarEdge and Enphase Energy are feeling the burn as demand for their products dwindles. Meanwhile, wind energy giant Orsted is singing the blues, with shares plummeting after revealing potential multibillion-dollar write-downs on its offshore wind projects in the US. In Germany, after the Nord Stream sabotage, because, you know, energy geopolitics and straightforward plans always go hand in hand, a whopping 77% of skeptics are shaking their heads, expressing disbelief that the nation will magically conjure up 80% of electricity from renewables by 2030. I guess turning skepticism into solar power hasn’t quite hit the mainstream yet.

Switzerland, the poster child for phasing out nuclear power, is now flexing its green muscles by entertaining the idea of keeping nuclear plants running longer, because who needs a clear exit strategy when you can just extend the atomic party until 2040? In the US, the demise of two New Jersey wind projects is just the tip of the iceberg, with inflation, sky-high interest rates, and a supply chain in shambles throwing a wrench into the gears of Joe’s climate ambitions. Despite a whopping $369 billion in federal aid from his climate law, clean energy projects are dropping like flies. Even the postponement of a Kentucky EV battery plant by Ford and General Motors trimming their EV plans couldn’t escape the economic tempest. It seems the only thing rising faster than hopes for a clean energy revolution is the cost. But hey, who needs affordable, reliable energy when we’ve got grand climate goals, right? Biden’s green plans are becoming a chilling reality check, and it’s not just the polar ice caps feeling the heat.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? Not too long ago, clean energy was hailed as the savior of our planet, but now it seems the green agenda is drowning in a sea of red ink. The S&P Global Energy index, once a shining star, has seen its value halved since 2020 – a spectacular fall from grace. Fast forward to the present, and we witness the mighty green stocks taking a severe beating. Despite the EU and US governments offering billions in tax credits and subsidies to support the so-called green transition from Russian oil and gas, investors are losing confidence faster than you can say “renewable.” The S&P Global Clean Energy Index has experienced a gut-wrenching 30% freefall in 2023, with the biggest quarterly outflow of $1.4 billion. The once-booming sector now holds a 23% decline in total assets under management, a far cry from its heyday just a few months ago.

Blame it on the current economic climate, they say – high interest rates, soaring costs, and supply chain woes are the villains of this melodrama. And let’s not forget China, the puppet master of the solar supply chain, flooding the market with cheap alternatives, undermining the EU’s dreams of a local green market. As utility stocks struggle to convert to green energy, the sector’s operating margins are squeezed. The final nail in the coffin? NextEra Energy Partners cutting its growth target by half, sending shockwaves through the renewable industry. I dismiss the sell-off as overblown, but the damage is done, and confidence in renewables has hit rock bottom. So, what’s the moral of this green tale? It turns out, going green is not just about saving the planet; it’s an expensive affair. As the renewable energy stocks hit rock bottom, analysts are left wondering: is it time to buy, or is the green dream truly over?

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You been sold down the river.

Global Warming Might Not Happen Quite As Fast As We Thought (Tel.)

Plants will absorb 20 per cent more carbon dioxide than predicted by the end of the century, a new study has found, suggesting climate models are overestimating how fast the planet will warm. Trinity College Dublin said its research painted an “uncharacteristically upbeat picture for the planet” after finding models had failed to take into account all the elements of photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, green plants use light energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide, water and minerals into the sugars they need for growth. Scientists thought climate change could weaken the process, but the new research suggests plants can adjust to the temperatures, efficiently absorbing carbon dioxide, producing extra nutrients, and continuing to thrive.

They found that on a global scale, the amount of carbon converted during photosynthesis could be up to 68 per cent greater by the end of the century compared to the start of the century, and 20 per cent more than some current models suggest. Silvia Caldararu, assistant professor at Trinity’s School of Natural Sciences, said: “What our study shows is that ecosystems could take up more CO2 out of the atmosphere than previously thought, which would mean lower CO2 concentrations, so a less steep rise in temperature. “So yes, that would give us a bit more time to reach net zero. But it is important to note that we predict a lot of this drawdown will happen towards the end of the century, while we need to cut emissions now, or possibly yesterday.”

Plants take up a huge amount of carbon dioxide every year, slowing down the effects of climate change, but experts have been uncertain whether that would continue as the climate changes. In recent years, observations have shown that the carbon dioxide uptake by plants is increasing, which is likely driven in part by increased vegetation growth caused by carbon rises. An increase in the ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide not only removes it from the atmosphere, but more growth brings down land temperature and mitigating effects on climate change globally indirectly. Although climate modellers have attempted to include estimates for this carbon sink, the researchers found that most models were not complex enough to understand the true resilience of plants to climate change.

Researchers found that under the extreme RCP 8.5 warming scenario, a pathway where greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow unmitigated, plants would take a fifth more carbon dioxide from the air than currently expected.The RCP 8.5 scenario predicts a temperature increase of about 4.3C by 2100, relative to pre-industrial temperatures. However, the authors cautioned that land ecosystems only absorb about a quarter of human emissions, so the extra benefit would take that up to around 30 per cent.

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Weirdest ever video?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1725817257417457838

 

 

Stick insect

 

 

Snoopy

 

 

 

 

Orang

 

 

Danny Boy – Sinéad O’Connor

 

 


Whenever they tell you it can’t be done in the modern age, show them Dresden. What’s been achieved in Dresden is the most inspiring architectural feat for decades. Everything you see in the bottom image was built, from scratch, in the last 20 years. The city was a gem of German Baroque architecture, completely levelled by Allied bombings during WW2 – more than 80% of the buildings in the historic city center were either damaged or totally destroyed. Heartbreakingly, the wonderful Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) lay in rubble for decades, under the East German communist regime which refused to rebuild it. It was left in a pile as a “memorial against war” for 50 years. When the Berlin Wall finally fell, the people endeavored to bring it back.

Work began in 1993 to piece the church back together, brick by brick; every stone in the pile was sorted and carried off to be analyzed. Except for the brand new dome, it was reconstructed using as much original stone as possible, to the exact specifications of the original (as much as could be pieced together from old photographs). The work took 11 years, and in 2005, the Frauenkirche was reconsecrated – rising like a phoenix from the ashes. It was finished one year ahead of schedule and just in time for the city’s 800-year anniversary celebrations. In a remarkable gesture, the gilded orb and cross atop the new dome were crafted by an English goldsmith – whose father partook in the bombing of the city in 1945.

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 192023
 
 October 19, 2023  Posted by at 9:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  19 Responses »


Henri Matisse Bathers by a River 1910

 

Biden Calls Hamas Attack Worse Than 9/11 (RT)
Rushing Into Catastrophe (Paul Craig Roberts)
Israel Delaying Gaza Invasion for Fear of Hezbollah Attack (Tweedie)
Decency Becomes Indecent (Patrick Lawrence)
Israel’s Culture of Deceit (Chris Hedges)
A Half-Century Ago, Another Major Intel Failure Saw Israel’s Leader Resign (IC)
Lavrov: Palestinian-Israeli Conflict May Escalate Into Regional One (Sp.)
US Army Too Weak to Win War in Middle East – Tucker Carlson (Sp.)
Russia Says ‘Masks Are Off’ After US Vetoes UNSC Resolution on Ceasefire (Sp.)
Zelensky Is In Danger Of Being Left Behind By The US (Bowes)
US Facing Military Recruitment Crisis – NYT (RT)
UK Arrests Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray for Supporting Palestine (ICH)
Elon Musk Considers Removing X Platform From Europe Over EU Law (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Time is The Fire In Which We Burn

 

 

Trump WHO
https://twitter.com/i/status/1714421357058961906

 

 

 

 

Biden born
https://twitter.com/i/status/1714671167184003519

 

 

The Ottoman Empire disintegrated as a result of the Arab Revolt. Israel too will have to vacate its occupied territories and make space for a state of Palestine, which of course, will be a crushing defeat for the U.S. and marks the end of its global dominance.
M.K. Bhadrakumar

 

 

From Alexander Aston: a side by side comparison of a Palestinian rocket strike and an Israeli bombing from the 2021 conflict.

 

 

 

 

Why not just worse than WWII, while you’re at it…

Biden Calls Hamas Attack Worse Than 9/11 (RT)

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday argued that the Hamas attack on Israel was worse than the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and vowed that America would “forever” stand with the Jewish state. At least 31 Americans were among “more than 1,300 innocent Israelis” killed by Hamas on October 7, Biden told the audience in Tel Aviv, from the music festival near the Gaza border to the nearby villages and kibbutzes. “Children slaughtered. Babies slaughtered. Entire families massacred. Rape, beheadings, bodies burned alive,” Biden recited, comparing Hamas to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and their atrocities to “pure unadulterated evil” that cannot be rationalized or excused.

“Since this terrorist attack took place, we have seen it described as Israel’s 9/11. But for a nation the size of Israel, it was like fifteen 9/11s,” Biden said. “The scale may be different, but I’m sure those horrors have tapped into some kind of primal feeling in Israel, just like it did and felt in the US.” The US leader urged Israelis to not get “consumed” by the “all-consuming rage” they surely feel, noting that the Americans were also enraged after 9/11, “and while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.” Biden noted that Hamas “does not represent the Palestinian people,” who are “suffering greatly as well.” The people of Gaza “need food, water, medicine, shelter,” and the US has asked Israel to agree to humanitarian deliveries from Egypt to the Palestinian territory – so long as they are inspected and do not go to Hamas.

The US has pledged $100 million in new humanitarian assistance to both Gaza and the West Bank, to support more than a million displaced and conflict-affected Palestinians, Biden announced. According to Biden, peace will only come with a “two-state solution” and the recent attacks have only strengthened his “commitment and determination” to get that done. “You are not alone. As long as the United States stands – and we will stand forever – we will not let you ever be alone,” Biden told the Israeli audience, concluding, “Israel will be a safe, secure, Jewish, and Democratic state today, tomorrow, and forever.”

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“We are experiencing on the part of Israel and the US a total lack of judgment. The risks are being ignored. It is starting to look like the Armageddon that Revelation describes.”

Rushing Into Catastrophe (Paul Craig Roberts)

The Biden regime refuses to defend US borders but does not hesitate to rush aircraft carrier task forces and the 101st US Airborne Division to defend Israel’s borders. “We have Israel’s back,” endlessly proclaims America’ Jewish Secretary of State. “America can afford two wars,” proclaims America’s Jewish Secretary of the Treasury. But forget protecting our own border and the burdens on American taxpayers. It seems our government is captured and risks our lives and welfare in the interest of another country. It seems everyone in Washington, Republicans and Democrats, especially Republicans, have intense war fever. While Washington quickly escalated the conflict by deploying US military forces to the area, the Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, blames escalation on Iran and issues a threat: “if you escalate this war, we’re coming for you.” Graham continues with his threats, in our name, to Iran saying the US will “knock Iran out of the oil business.”

Like Israel and the Jewish-American neoconservatives, Graham’s target is the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah: “I am poised to use military force to destroy the source of funding for Hamas and Hezbollah.” Another House Republican, this one from Texas, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, says he is writing legislation for authority to commit the US military to Israel’s war on Palestine. What we are witnessing is Republicans who are as extreme as Hamas. Is this insanity real, or is this showmanship, with political campaign funding in mind, for the US military/security complex who will greatly benefit from America “affording two wars?” We are also witnessing the total failure of Western leadership, not only in Washington but throughout the Western world. Instead of escalating the situation by sending military forces, Washington should have used its offices to calm matters down. Why did not Washington calm the situation down instead of blowing it up?

Moon of Alabama speculates that the US forces accumulating in the war zone are a “war fleet,” the purpose of which is to finally bring regime change to Syria and kick out the Russians in an act of revenge for the Russians preventing President Obama’s planned overthrow of the Assad government. I can understand that the Biden regime’s neoconservatives want to continue their policy of cleansing the Middle East for Israeli expansion, but how safe is it to assume that Putin will run away with his tail between his legs? This would finish Putin as a leader of the dissident world and probably also finish him inside Russia. A show of Russian cowardice would certainly provoke an escalation of NATO’s involvement in Ukraine. It seems certain that a US attack on Syria would result in military conflict between the US and Russia.

The Israelis have been massacring Palestinians and stealing their country bit by bit since 1947, and no one has ever done anything about it. The UN passes resolutions, but the US vetoes them. So this final time Netanyahu expects no opposition, indeed, he expects help from the US and its empire in the commission of his war crimes. It is clear to me that the situation is awash in miscalculations. Hezbollah is a match for Israel. Indeed, the militia has twice defeated the vaunted Israeli Army and driven them out of Lebanon despite Israel’s air power. Syria’s army is battle hardened from fighting the mercenaries Washington sent to overthrow Assad. Like Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran has fervor and a large number of missiles that can hit Israel. If, as is claimed, 5,000 missiles from Hamas overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome, the Iron Dome has no chance against 100,000 or 200,000 missiles.

If Israel’s army is sent into Gaza, Hamas will keep it there, and Israel risks being overrun by Hezbollah, Syria, and Iraq and Iran should they care to participate. Faced with Israel’s defeat, Washington would commit its forces with catastrophic consequences. We are experiencing on the part of Israel and the US a total lack of judgment. The risks are being ignored. It is starting to look like the Armageddon that Revelation describes. The problem for humanity is that it has developed weapons that are capable of destroying all life, and these weapons are in the hands of emotional people incapable of restraint and reason. I have been, and continue to be, concerned about the conflict in Ukraine spiraling out of control. The situation developing in the Middle East is more dangerous. There doesn’t seem to be sufficient recognition of this danger. The war propaganda from the presstitutes is extreme and blinds people to reality. Those in office think they are in control, but they are not. Possibly Russia could prevent a wider conflict by raising its military presence in Syria, but Putin is not proactive. You tell me, where are the leaders to prevent a catastrophe?

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“..the likelihood of Hezbollah launching a major operation on Israel’s northern border sharply increased on Wednesday and Thursday following a series of developments in the region.”

Israel Delaying Gaza Invasion for Fear of Hezbollah Attack (Tweedie)

Israel seems holding back on an invasion of the Gaza Strip for fear that Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement will open a second front in the north. Some 199 Israeli soldiers are being held prisoner, along with dozens of civilian hostages, in the Palestinian territory since Hamas and other militant groups launched a surprise attack from the enclave on October 7. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under political pressure following the humiliation, has vowed to invade Gaza and destroy Hamas. Meanwhile, the likelihood of Hezbollah launching a major operation on Israel’s northern border sharply increased on Wednesday and Thursday following a series of developments in the region. The Palestinian Authority blamed the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for a deadly bombing of the al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza that killed at least 500 people — an atrocity which sparked immediate protests across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

Earlier that day, Israel bombed the family home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, currently hundreds of miles away in Qatar, killing 14 people. And on Thursday morning the Palestinian WAFA news agency reported that a mob of Zionist settlers “under heavy protection from the Israeli police” had stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem — Islam’s third-holiest site and under the custodianship of neighbouring Jordan. War correspondent Elijah Magnier told Sputnik that the recently announced massive build-up of US forces in the region was intended to guard against the campaign Hezbollah has threatened if Israel launches a ground offensive in Gaza. Those forces include two US Navy carrier strike groups led by the USS Gerald Ford and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, a US Marine amphibious landing ship with 2,000 marines and F-35 strike aircraft, a squadron of US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle jets and another of A-10 close support aircraft.

“It is because the Americans with the Israelis believe there is a second front that is going to open up with Lebanon on the northern Israeli-Lebanese borders,” Magnier pointed out. “And this possibility is very much alive, because we’ve seen since the 7th of October the exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel.” The war reporter said statements from Israeli government ministers left “absolutely no doubt” that an assault on Gaza would go ahead.”The problem lies in another place. So how long is this Israeli invasion of Gaza going to take? Is it going to be limited only to the north — That is a narrow part of Gaza, so the Israelis are not engaged in a large part?” he asked. He said Israel was wary of withdrawing its forces, including the Golani Brigade, one of just five regular non-reservist brigades in the IDF and which has with experience of fighting Hezbollah, to the south “They don’t want to move them from the front on the northern borders and to take them to Gaza because they are much more afraid of Hezbollah,” Magnier explained.

The Islamic resistance movement is “better trained, they have more experience the way engage with Israel in multiple wars in the past, and they fought against ISIS (aka Daesh)* in Iraq,” he added. “They fought against ISIS and al-Qaeda* in Syria. And they are better equipped with modern technology and long range missiles, drones, anti-ship missiles, everything.” Israel has called up a reported 350,000 army reservists — totalling around a tenth of the country’s workforce — since October 7. “To have reservists going into a deadly trap in Gaza, these reservists need some time to go in and to be trained,” Magnier said — time which Israel does not have. Therefore the Israel strategy is “to level Gaza in the area they want to go in: so they destroy all the buildings and they don’t have civilians because they would be either under debris or killed or have left the area.”

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“No, we, the one nation with the power and influence to stop the most nakedly racist case of violence in the IDF’s long history of such aggression, will do nothing to prevent it.”

Decency Becomes Indecent (Patrick Lawrence)

There have been many, very many singular moments among America’s purported leaders and assorted officials and commentators since Hamas staged its daring assault on southern Israel on the morning of Oct. 7. Let us consider a few of these moments and draw some conclusions. Let us look closely at what is being said and what the American public is now urged to think and accept as Israeli forces prosecute a campaign against Gaza’s 2.1 million people so extreme as to suggest ethnic cleansing is, as many have long argued, the ultimate Israeli project. “Well, there have been some members of Congress who have called for a ceasefire, and they have not gone as far as backing the administration’s call for support for Israel.” This was a reporter’s observation at a press conference last week that featured President Joe Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean–Pierre, and Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser.

Jean–Pierre’s response merits careful parsing for the large implications we find in it. In my read it reflects Washington’s increasing desperation as Israel’s conduct toward Palestinians tips into a savagery no rational human being can defend. “So, look, I’ve seen some of those statements this weekend. And we’re going to continue to be very clear,” Jean–Pierre replied. “We believe they are wrong, we believe they’re repugnant, and we believe they’re disgraceful.” Let’s not miss what transpired in those few seconds. To call for a ceasefire as the Israeli Defense Forces level an entire city and turn a million human beings into refugees — murdering many children and noncombatants in the process — is humane by any serious definition. To describe such a call as wrong, repugnant, and disgraceful is to assert that what is ordinarily decent must now be cast aside as indecent.

At this point, Washington’s defense of Israel becomes as baldly obscene as the apartheid state’s long record of lawless aggression toward the Palestinian population. Pressing on in a tone that is combative and unmistakably defensive all at once, Jean–Pierre added, “Our — our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds — hundreds of Israelis. There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.” Not two sides, asserted twice. This, too, has implications we must consider. Later at the same presser, another White House correspondent asked Jake Sullivan, “Is the goal the destruction of Hamas? … What is — where do you draw the line? Is there a red line of where do you draw that line of what you need to accomplish?”

Good questions, if inarticulately posed. To which Sullivan replied, “I’m not here to — to draw red lines or issue warnings or give lectures to anybody.” Translation: No, we, the one nation with the power and influence to stop the most nakedly racist case of violence in the IDF’s long history of such aggression, will do nothing to prevent it.

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“Those of us who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel’s Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories — required under the rules of American journalism — although we know they are untrue.”

Israel’s Culture of Deceit (Chris Hedges)

Israel was founded on lies. The lie that Palestinian land was largely unoccupied. The lie that 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders. The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine. The lie that Israel faced annihilation in 1967, forcing it to invade and occupy the remaining 22 percent of Palestine, as well as land belonging to Egypt and Syria. Israel is sustained by lies. The lie that Israel wants a just and equitable peace and will support a Palestinian state. The lie that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. The lie that Israel is an “outpost of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.” The lie that Israel respects the rule of law and human rights.

Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are always greeted with lies. I heard them. I recorded them. I published them in my stories for The New York Times when I was the paper’s Middle East Bureau Chief. I covered war for two decades, including seven years in the Middle East. I learned quite a bit about the size and lethality of explosive devices. There is nothing in the arsenal of Hamas or Islamic Jihad that could have replicated the massive explosive power of the missile that killed an estimated 500 civilians in the al-Ahli Arab Christian hospital in Gaza. Nothing. If Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) had these kinds of missiles, huge buildings in Israel would be rubble with hundreds of dead. They don’t. The whistling sound, audible on the video moments before the explosion, appears to comes from the high velocity of a missile. This sound gives it away.

No Palestinian rocket makes this noise. And then there is the speed of the missile. Palestinian rockets are slow and lumbering, clearly visible as they arch in the sky and then tumble in free fall towards their targets. They do not strike with precision or travel at close to supersonic speed. They are incapable of killing hundreds of people. The Israeli military dropped “roof knocking” rockets with no warheads on the hospital in the days leading up to the Oct. 17 strike, the familiar warning given by Israel to evacuate buildings, according to al-Ahli hospital officials. Hospital officials also said they had received calls from Israel saying “we warned you to evacuate twice.” Israel has demanded that all hospitals in northern Gaza be evacuated. Following the strike on the hospital, Hananya Naftali, a “digital aide” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza.” The post was quickly deleted.

Since the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Palestinian resistance fighters, which reportedly left some 1,300 Israelis dead, many of them civilians, and saw some 200 kidnapped as hostages and taken to Gaza, Israel has carried out 51 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza that have killed 15 healthcare workers and injured 27, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Out of 35 hospitals in Gaza, four are not functioning due to severe damage and targeting. Only eight of the 22 UNRWA primary healthcare centers are “partially functional,” the WHO says. The brazenness of Israeli lies stunned those of us who reported from Gaza. It did not matter if we had seen the Israeli attack, including the shooting of unarmed Palestinians. It did not matter how many witnesses we interviewed. It did not matter what photographic and forensic evidence we obtained. Israel lied. Small lies. Big lies. Huge lies.

These lies came reflexively and instantly from the Israeli military, Israeli politicians and Israeli media. They were amplified by Israel’s well-oiled propaganda machine and repeated with a cloying sincerity on international news outlets. Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic regimes. It does not deform the truth, it inverts it. It paints a picture that is diametrically opposed to reality. Those of us who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel’s Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories — required under the rules of American journalism — although we know they are untrue.

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“..Ha’aretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, said Netanyahu “bears responsibility” for the attack. On Tuesday, the newspaper published an editorial titled “Netanyahu: Resign Now!”

A Half-Century Ago, Another Major Intel Failure Saw Israel’s Leader Resign (IC)

In 1973, amid blistering tensions over Israel–Palestine, Arab coalition forces led by Egypt and Syria carried out a surprise attack, successfully pushing Israel, for a time, out of the occupied Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli intelligence noticed the Egyptian military buildup but incorrectly assessed that they were simply military exercises — an error repeated by the Israeli intelligence this past week, according to a news report. Just before the Hamas attack on Friday, Israeli security chiefs took part in a high-level meeting to discuss whether Hamas’s irregular activity was the prelude to an invasion or simply a military exercise, Axios reported on Thursday. Instead of anticipating the invasion, the chiefs — including the Israeli Defense Forces’ chief of staff, head of military intelligence, and Shin Bet director — decided to wait for more intelligence.

The two attacks a half-century apart also took U.S. intelligence by surprise. In 1973, Robert Gates, then a high-ranking CIA analyst who would later become CIA director and secretary of defense, was providing a briefing on the unlikeliness of military conflict in the Middle East when he learned of the Yom Kippur invasion on the radio. An intelligence community postmortem declassified in 2009 revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts had in fact looked at the question closely and incorrectly judged that there would be no attack despite “plentiful” and “ominous” signs that there would be an invasion. “To intelligence historians, the October 1973 War is almost synonymous with ‘intelligence failure,’” says a report by the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence about the Yom Kippur War.

Israel’s prime minister at the time, Golda Meir, oversaw a victory over the Arab forces — just as Israel’s military will vanquish Hamas and pummel the Gaza Strip — but she faced steady criticism for having ignored warnings from King Hussein of Jordan that a war with Egypt and Syria was imminent. Under pressure to resign, Meir later did. Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under fire for having ignored repeated warnings from Egyptian intelligence. In one such warning, Egypt’s intelligence minister, Gen. Abbas Kamel, personally called Netanyahu days before the attack, warning of “something unusual, a terrible operation,” according to the Israeli news outlet YNet.

Eighty-six percent of Israelis believe their government and Netanyahu are to blame for the attack, according to a new poll released Thursday. More than half of Israelis believe Netanyahu should resign. Shortly after the raid, the editorial board of Ha’aretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, said Netanyahu “bears responsibility” for the attack. On Tuesday, the newspaper published an editorial titled “Netanyahu: Resign Now!”

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“We believe any approaches should be based on a balance of interests of the parties, and not the imposition of someone’s interests at the expense of the interests of others”

Lavrov: Palestinian-Israeli Conflict May Escalate Into Regional One (Sp.)

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict may escalate into a region-wide one, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday. “As for the Gaza Strip, the risk of this crisis escalating into a region-wide conflict is quite serious,” Lavrov told reporters. “We are observing attempts to blame everything on Iran and we consider them quite provocative. The Iranian leadership, I believe, takes a fairly responsible, balanced position and is calling for preventing this conflict from spreading to the entire region and neighboring countries,” Lavrov said. Russia and Turkiye are in contact on the situation in the Middle East, Sergey Lavrov added.

At a press point in Pyongyang, Lavrov was asked to comment on Turkiye’s initiative to create a system of guarantor countries for the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for peaceful settlement. “We are ready to discuss any constructive proposals. This initiative, which I heard the other day, is clearly dictated by the desire to achieve de-escalation and normalize the situation. What exactly is meant, we would, of course, like to hear from our Turkish friends with whom we are in contact on this issue as well,” Lavrov said. “We believe any approaches should be based on a balance of interests of the parties, and not the imposition of someone’s interests at the expense of the interests of others. It seems to me that the Turkish initiative is dictated by the desire to ensure such a balance. We will be ready to cooperate to consider it,” he said.

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Nice talk with Ramaswamy veers into stupidity.

US Army Too Weak to Win War in Middle East – Tucker Carlson (Sp.)

The US will lose in the war in the Middle East if Russia, China and Turkiye are drawn into it, said former Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson in his program on social network X (formerly Twitter). “The stakes are much higher than many Americans realize. It is easy to imagine several other countries being drawn into the conflict between Israel and Hamas. These countries include Russia, Iran, Turkiye, China, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and probably many others,” Carlson said. According to the journalist, some may support Israel and the US, but most of the countries involved in the conflict will join forces against Washington.

“And that’s going to be a problem. The US military is weaker than it has been in the past 50 years,” Carlson said. The journalist added that the US Army has been exhausted by two senseless conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been fragmented from within by the Pentagon’s “buffoonish” policies. “This is not the time for a world war. We will lose it. But our Commander-in-Chief doesn’t realize that,” Carlson said. The journalist also criticized a recent statement by US President Joe Biden, in which the latter, in the context of supporting Ukraine and Israel, described the United States as “the most powerful country in the history of mankind”. “Pride precedes destruction. It always has and always will,” Carlson concluded.

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We will not have a ceasefire!

Russia Says ‘Masks Are Off’ After US Vetoes UNSC Resolution on Ceasefire (Sp.)

The United States showed its true intentions when it vetoed the UN Security Council resolution seeking a humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy said on Wednesday. “The masks are off. No matter how hard the Americans tried to appear as peacekeepers, they ultimately failed. A huge foreign policy failure for Washington,” Polyanskiy stressed. Earlier in the day, the US vetoed a Brazilian-drafted UN Security Council resolution that calls on Israel to rescind its evacuation order for Gazans. Russia and the United Kingdom abstained. Russia sought to amend the draft resolution to include a condemnation of “indiscriminate attacks” against civilians in Gaza, “in particular heinous strike against al-Ahli hospital,” and also to include a call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. The UN Security Council rejected both proposed amendments.

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“This fresh conflict, complete with alleged barbaric atrocities, is a far easier sell..”

Zelensky Is In Danger Of Being Left Behind By The US (Bowes)

Earlier this month, the world was shocked at terrorist attacks on Israel by hundreds of Hamas fighters. Not only did it signify the beginning of a new escalation in the age-old struggle between Jews and Palestinians, it also potentially marked a pivot point in political and military support for Vladimir Zelensky’s Ukraine. Before the savage Hamas attacks and the biblically brutal Israeli response, the US and its NATO allies were almost exclusively focused on Ukraine while occasionally glancing nervously toward China. Now, as the Western media spins into overdrive with its gaze firmly locked onto the Middle East, Kiev’s woes are set only to increase as attention shifts away from Kiev and towards Israel, Palestine, and Iran.

It’s worth noting that prior to the Hamas assaults, the trajectory of support for Ukraine already showed signs of waning. Mere months ago, the idea that previously stalwart allies like Poland would be openly questioning the wisdom of their no-strings-attached support for the war-torn state – likening it to a “drowning man” – would have been unthinkable. Couple this with widespread European war weariness, Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive, and collapsing public support for the war in the West, and it was already facing an uphill battle to maintain support from its “partners,” its people, and most importantly American political elites. The last thing Zelensky needed was a globally significant escalation in the Middle East to draw precious resources further away from the proxy war he is fighting against Russia on behalf of Washington. Indeed, a sceptic might suggest that the Hamas escalation offers an irresistible and previously unavailable route for the US to back out of its commitments to Ukraine.

Considering the imminent US presidential election, a ‘good guy vs. bad guy’ conflict with Hamas can be easily spun as an existential threat to a long-time crucial ally and partner, Israel. In contrast, the proxy war in Ukraine is becoming increasingly troublesome for US President Joe Biden, politically and financially. This fresh conflict, complete with alleged barbaric atrocities, is a far easier sell. Meanwhile, despite public pronouncements to the contrary, enthusiasm for sending military aid to Ukraine has been diminishing. Not to mention that the West simply doesn’t have the manufacturing capacity to fuel a large-scale ground war even in Ukraine, let alone a wider conflict. Another crucial issue has been the calamitous cost of Zelensky’s failed counteroffensive. This long-telegraphed manoeuvre, which was supposed to defeat Russia, has depleted Kiev’s manpower, materiel, and reputation in the West without delivering any gains on the battlefield. Instead, it has done nothing but compound the quietly inevitable sense in the West that Kiev will have to seek accommodation with Moscow and concede territory in the process.

It is beyond doubt that the emerging conflict in the Middle East threatens the continuity of physical and ‘emotional’ support for the Ukrainian proxy war. That’s not to say that it doesn’t concern Russia – it does. However, it does not bode well for Zelensky. As pressure to hold elections builds, he looks increasingly vulnerable, with a distinct sense of desperation leaking into the narrative. This was subtly evident when Grant Shapps, the new British secretary of state for defence, recently parroted the stock response when quizzed on the ability to “run two wars” at the same time, he responded that “Zelensky will be reminding us all, not only why it’s very important that we still maintain this battle, and show that we can so that Putin doesn’t win, but also don’t get distracted by the wider issues.” He added, “The war in Europe is absolutely at the forefront of our minds.” This reassurance is, of course, exactly the kind of thing that ominously happens publicly when the opposite is increasingly true in the background.

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“..up to 77% of young people in the United States cannot enlist for a variety of reasons, including being overweight, drug abuse, or having physical or mental impairments..”

US Facing Military Recruitment Crisis – NYT (RT)

The US Army, Navy and Air Force are facing shortfalls in recruitment targets this year, as the Pentagon struggles to compete with civilian employment, while up to 77% of young people have been deemed ineligible to enlist, the New York Times said on Tuesday. By the end of its recruitment year on September 30, the US Army fell short of its target of adding 65,000 people to its ranks, the NYT says, instead ending up with about 50,000 new personnel. It is the third successive year that the army has not met its goal, prompting military bosses to cut unfilled positions and shrink its active duty membership to 452,000 from 485,000 in 2021.

The recruitment logjam has created “an existential issue for us,” Army Secretary Christine E. Wormuth told reporters this month, even as some branches of the military relax recruitment standards and even offer financial compensation of up to $75,000 to join. Primary factors in the stalled recruitment effort include many Americans seeking employment in the private civilian sector, as well as large sections of US youth being deemed ineligible to even apply. A recent report by the US Department of Defense concluded that up to 77% of young people in the United States cannot enlist for a variety of reasons, including being overweight, drug abuse, or having physical or mental impairments. The US Navy also fell short by about 7,500 hires this year, despite recruitment initiatives, including financial incentives. Even the Air Force, traditionally considered an attractive destination for new recruits, added about 10% less than expected.

“It’s been getting harder to recruit, and the military expects it to continue to get harder,” David R. Segal, a University of Maryland professor who studies historical enlistment trends, said according to the NYT. However, one US military branch not experiencing such issues is its Marine Corps. By the September 30 deadline, the Marines had already exceeded its goal of 28,900 enlistments – and did so with little-to-no extra perks or financial incentives. “Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine,” a Marine Corps commandant said earlier this year, according to the Times. “That’s your bonus.”

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“Under international law, atrocity crimes must not only be punished but also prevented.”

UK Arrests Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray for Supporting Palestine (ICH)

Craig Murray was detained on Monday under the UK’s so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act after he returned from a trip to Iceland. Before his arrest, he had taken part in a pro-Palestinian protest outside Iceland’s parliament building. In another X post on Sunday, Murray had clearly indicated his support for Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. On the same day, Murray reposted an earlier X post by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, calling on the world body to intervene for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s ongoing bloody war against the Gaza Strip, adding, “Under international law, atrocity crimes must not only be punished but also prevented.”

His detention came amid an all-out war waged by the Israeli regime against the besieged Gaza Strip, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 2,800 Palestinians and injured close to 11,000 others. The war was waged after an operation by Gaza’s resistance groups, which has so far left some 1,200 Israeli forces and illegal settlers dead and close more than 200 others captive. The resistance factions launched the operation in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said those supporting Hamas following the operation would be “held to account,” vowing support for the Israeli regime and pledging readiness on the part of London to provide Tel Aviv with military assistance.

Upon arresting Murray, British authorities seized his phone and other electronic devices. He was also questioned about attending the pro-Palestinian protest outside the Icelandic parliament. A former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Murray was sacked by the country’s Foreign Office for criticizing the host country’s human rights record as well as vehemently opposing the United States administration’s extraordinary rendition program, which involved torturing terrorism suspects. Following his sacking from the British diplomatic service, Murray embraced journalism and human rights activism, and established his own blog to publish his views and findings.

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What is this? China?

Elon Musk Considers Removing X Platform From Europe Over EU Law (Sp.)

US billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is considering removing his social networking service X (formerly known as Twitter) from Europe amid the European Union’s investigation into compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA), US media reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the company. Musk is increasingly frustrated with having to comply with the EU’s regulation, one of the insiders told the media, adding that the entrepreneur has discussed the removal of the X application’s availability in the region or blocking users in the EU from accessing the app — the way Meta* is blocking users in Europe from accessing its Treads app. Musk has met with European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton at least twice this year about what X needs to do to comply with the regulations, but he has lost patience with the situation, the magazine cited one of the people as saying.

In August, the EU adopted the DSA — a set of regulations aimed at creating a safer digital space across the EU, which requires online platforms to have effective and transparent systems for content moderation and remove false, misleading, or harmful information. Earlier Wednesday, the European Commission published a set of recommendations for member states to “coordinate their response to the spread and amplification of illegal content, such as terrorist content or unlawful hate speech,” to ensure compliance by online platforms with the DSA and enable its prompt enforcement. Breton said last week the European Commission sent X a formal request for information, which he called “a first step in our investigation to determine compliance with the DSA.”

Last week, Musk and Breton had a spat after the commissioner said he sent a letter to Musk requesting a reply within 24 hours to claims that X is spreading illegal content and disinformation about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Breton informed Musk that if an investigation is launched into the presence of prohibited materials on X, penalties may be imposed up to 6% of the company’s global revenue under the EU laws. Musk then responded, asking Breton to provide a list of violations to let the public see them and underscored that the social media platform is an open source and is transparent.

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Togo

 

 

Blinds
https://twitter.com/i/status/1714608514553848124

 

 

Optics

 

 

Kazakh
https://twitter.com/i/status/1714693070728376430

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 112023
 
 October 11, 2023  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1972

 

US Support for Israel May Set Off Total Middle East Upheaval – Ex-Envoy (Sp.)
The War Has Started (Illaik)
The Israel-Palestine War Is Washington’s Fault (Inlakesh)
US Funding May be Diverted From Ukraine to Israel (Sp.)
Zelensky Blames Putin For Hamas Attack On Israel (HE)
Khamenei Distances Iran From Hamas Operation (ZH)
Saudi Arabia Expresses ‘Unwavering’ Support For Palestine (RT)
The Civilization Of The Antichrist (Alexander Dugin)
Special Counsel Hur May Prove the Ultimate Punchline in Washington (Turley)
Washington Moving ‘Illegal’ Bioresearch Operations To Africa – Moscow (RT)
EU Issues Ultimatum To Elon Musk (RT)
Finland-Estonia Undersea Pipeline In Baltic “Deliberately Damaged” (ZH)
The US Is On The Verge Of Becoming A Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

In what is only typical, I’ve seen stories about 40 beheaded babies everywhere. That is Putin eats babies territory. Don’t touch it. Reality is bad enough.

“Throughout the fake “Hamas beheaded 40 children” psyop, there wasn’t a single image of one of the supposed beheaded babies, no images of them when they were alive, no names nor ages, and no parents family members or came forward to say their child had been beheaded. It was all based on unverified claims and “beliefs” from the Israeli military.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blevins

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

Mental gymnastics”

More mental gymnastics:

@Thom_Hartmann Oct 8: “Hamas apparently knew how to get around Israel’s Iron Dome defenses. They probably learned this from Iran. Iran almost certainly got the information from Russia. And who gave it to Russia? Sure looks like it was Donald Trump, at the request of Putin..”

 

 

Rabbi

 

 

 

 

Pepe Escobar: “Israel bombed to smithereens St. Porphyrius Orthodox Church in Gaza: built 1,616 years ago, the third oldest church in the world.”

 

 

 

 

“The Israeli-US “pipedream” fostered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that relations with Saudi Arabia are going to normalize is now also “gone” for the foreseeable future..”

US Support for Israel May Set Off Total Middle East Upheaval – Ex-Envoy (Sp.)

The United States will support Israel in all actions it takes against Hamas in Gaza after the killing of over 1,000 Israelis in Saturday’s incursion, but this will set off an anti-US wave across the Middle East and the wider Muslim world, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman told Sputnik. Israel formally declared a state of war on Sunday, a day after Hamas invaded Israeli territory and committed the greatest slaughter of civilians in the 75 year history of the Jewish state. On Monday, Israel put the Gaza Strip under full blockade, with no food, gas or electricity supplies. Both Israel and Palestine have so far reported hundreds of dead and thousands of injured as a result of the escalation.

“The United States will support Israel reflexively but this will set off a much wider anti-US reaction across the Middle East and the wider Muslim world,” Freeman, who also served as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the Clinton administration, said in an interview. The crisis is unlikely to be confined to Israel and Gaza and will metastasize to other neighboring countries, Freeman warned. “The geopolitical dangers could very well rapidly spread to Lebanon and Syria,” he said. The Israeli-US “pipedream” fostered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that relations with Saudi Arabia are going to normalize is now also “gone” for the foreseeable future, Freeman believes. The Biden administration itself appears to have been caught off guard by the ferocious suddenness and success of Hamas’ invasion, Freeman suggested. “National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan last week made the truly idiotic claim that the Middle East region had reached a reassuring level of stability,” he said.

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“.. the Americans sent messages to the Resistance Axis – specifically Iran and Hezbollah – saying, essentially: “We don’t want this to escalate. We want and need stability on the Lebanese border with Israel. We are urging you not to interfere in this war.”

The War Has Started (Illaik)

Hamas did not coordinate its military operation with any of its Resistance Axis allies. It also did not plan to achieve the stunning results that were soon to follow. The Qassam Brigades’ immediate goal was only to destroy Israeli army positions around the Gaza Strip and capture as many soldiers as possible, which they could later exchange for the thousands of Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons. But the Palestinian resistance forces were taken by surprise at the laxity of the occupation army. Contrary to expectations, they stumbled upon security vacuums and poorly guarded military sites in which a large number of enemy soldiers and officers were fast asleep. It was this unexpected opportunity that prodded the Palestinian fighters to reach for bigger gains.

Hamas’ military leadership planned to carry out this operation in complete secrecy. Just weeks earlier, their fighters had conducted military maneuvers/exercises that were observed by the Israelis. But Tel Aviv’s rather complacent intelligence assessment had been that “Hamas is training for what it does not dare to do.” The Israelis, in short, thought that Hamas was merely flexing in order to gain financial concessions for Gaza. No actual operation was ever expected by Israel’s military brass. The veil of secrecy over the operation also extended to the Hamas fighters who carried out the attack. Sources close to Hamas say that their cadres believed, until the morning of the operation, that they were assembling for a training exercise, not for the real thing.

Very few knew details of the comprehensive attack plan. Even Hamas’ allies in Lebanon and Iran learned of the operation at zero o’clock and not a moment before, according to well-informed sources in the Resistance Axis. Even for this axis, the Hamas operation went beyond all possible expectations. Although true that many of the Hamas tactics employed are shared among the Axis’ fighters in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen, the innovation in the Al-Aqsa Flood operation was the signature of the Al-Qassam Brigades, and particularly its brilliant leader Muhammad Deif. The operation was coordinated with remarkable professionalism: accurate and detailed intelligence was amassed, high-level training exercises organized, secrecy was paramount, and superior coordination was established between the myriad drones, paratroopers, and vast majority of Hamas fighters who crossed into the occupation state, through tunnels and above ground.

Al Qassam also planned to target Israeli communications towers and all military sites surrounding Gaza. From a military perspective, this was a near-perfect operation that led to the destruction of all the facilities of the Israeli army’s “Gaza Division” and the annihilation of entire Israeli brigades. For Israel, this was a total humiliation – something it had never experienced before, even in the devastating 1973 Arab-Israeli war. With the support of the collective west, Israel is now assembling a plan to restore its deterrence. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood didn’t only affect the Israelis – it has also endangered western deterrence throughout West Asia and the Arab world. The decline in Israel’s deterrent capacity correlates directly with the weakening of western hegemony in the region.

While Israel has been scurrying around to mobilize its troops and equipment for a counterattack, the Americans sent messages to the Resistance Axis – specifically Iran and Hezbollah – saying, essentially: “We don’t want this to escalate. We want and need stability on the Lebanese border with Israel. We are urging you not to interfere in this war.” The messages were sent on 7 October, as events unfolded, and through more than one medium. Hezbollah’s response was seen on the ground the very next morning, when it bombed Israeli army positions in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms. This was a warning message, which was clarified further by Hezbollah’s Executive Council Chief Hashem Safi Al-Din when he said: “We will not remain neutral in this battle.” Neither will Washington, which immediately announced $8 billion in aid to Israel, and sent an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The US cannot afford for Israel to take more losses, but how far will they go to deter Tel Aviv’s adversaries?

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“..Biden has abandoned the idea of reviving the Iran nuclear deal and of ending the war in Yemen. He also decided to try and inflict a death blow on the Palestinian cause for statehood.”

The Israel-Palestine War Is Washington’s Fault (Inlakesh)

The Declaration of Principles, the first agreement in the Oslo Accords, was signed on the White House lawn over 30 years ago. The accords were supposed to solve the conflict in a span of five years, but failed due to America’s inability to function as a truly neutral peace broker. During the administration of US President Donald Trump, Washington abandoned the two-state solution altogether, through the pursuance of normalization deals between Arab nations and Israel. The issue of Palestinian statehood, which the UN agrees should be solved through a two-state solution, was sidelined as a non-issue and the one bargaining chip possessed by the Palestinians, Arab-Israeli normalization, began to be taken off of the table.

How did the Palestinian political parties respond to normalization in 2018? They overwhelmingly chose non-violent struggle, including in Gaza, where Hamas endorsed the ‘Great March of Return’, a mass protest movement which lasted around a year. Most of the protesters were peaceful, but it was the relatively small groups of Palestinians committing sabotage and anti-Israeli aggression at the border fence that made the news. In response, Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinians and injured almost 10,000. On the Israeli side, there was not a single dead soldier or civilian, while Israeli snipers targeted women, children, journalists, disabled people, and medical workers, according to a UN human rights report on the demonstrations. How did the US react to hundreds of thousands of unarmed Palestinian protesters marching on the separation fence between Gaza and Israel? It ignored them and continued to pursue Arab-Israeli normalization.

Under the Biden administration, the two-state solution was also sidelined and the plight of Palestinians was ignored as insignificant. Instead of seeking a solution to the violence which has been steadily escalating to levels not seen in 20 years, during the course of the past two years – especially in the West Bank – Biden has chosen to look the other way and has pursued Saudi-Israeli normalization instead. A deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel would also have the potential to collapse the Iranian-Saudi rapprochement, brokered earlier this year by China, in addition to potentially dragging Washington into an open confrontation with Yemen. Instead of seeking to fulfill the foreign policy pledges made at the start of his term in office, Biden has abandoned the idea of reviving the Iran nuclear deal and of ending the war in Yemen. He also decided to try and inflict a death blow on the Palestinian cause for statehood.

What Hamas just did from Gaza would never have happened if the US had pursued a somewhat rational approach to the region. It could even have been prevented if the US had presented a political plan to de-escalate rising tensions in the occupied territories. Instead, the American government decided to overlook the armed groups in Gaza while attempting to completely dismantle their cause. And all of this for what? A fancy photo op that Biden can use to steer the Democratic Party to victory in the presidential election in 2024, by claiming that he brought peace to the Middle East.

Due to the current conflict, normalization doesn’t seem to be on the table anytime soon anyway, which would mean Hamas’ offensive has not only dealt a blow to Israel, but also to the US. Now that Israel is at war with Gaza, what is the US doing? It is condemning one side, while arming Israel and greenlighting any action it takes. Initially, Washington even refused to urge a ceasefire, in contrast to the push for one from Moscow and Beijing. The White House refuses to acknowledge its role in creating the current violence and carries on with the exact same rhetoric and policy decisions that led to the horrifying war we see today.

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“The Republicans especially and the American people, frankly, have had enough of Ukraine..”

US Funding May be Diverted From Ukraine to Israel (Sp.)

The White House is seeking to attach Ukraine funding to the urgent package for Israel, in a hope that it will help circumvent House Republicans’ opposition to further assistance to Kiev, according to the US mainstream press. House Republicans have signaled strong support to Israel and speeded up efforts to elect a new House speaker. For its part, the White House has reportedly decided to capitalize on the momentum and pair urgent funds to Tel Aviv with a Ukraine military package. Biden officials are said to have held talks with top House and Senate figures to secure additional military supplies for Israel. Per the US press, the request could come to the US Congress as early as next week. “The funding is probably going to be diverted more to Israel,” Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the US Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik.

“And I think the American people see that the Ukrainians just were not able to muster a counteroffensive and billions of dollars were expended and nothing to show for it. So Europeans are thinking the same way. And as we approach a winter which promises to be much more severe than in previous years, they’re going to be looking more inward in the European countries to their needs that are critical needs to survive. So I think in terms of US funding, first of all, nothing is going to get passed because we can’t get a House speaker and the House cannot take up anything unless and until it has a permanent House speaker.” It is unclear how big the Israeli package would be. However, per Maloof, Israel’s lobby in DC appears to be much stronger than the Ukrainian one.

Prior to the Israeli-Hamas war, the Biden administration was considering seeking a $100 billion package for Ukraine. However, some Freedom Caucus Republicans have already signaled they are against merging Israel and Ukraine aid in one bill. “They shouldn’t be tied together. I will not vote to fund Ukraine,” GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia told the US press. “I think the White House proposal will be D.O.A. or dead on arrival unless the House and the Senate are in some kind of a mood whereby they give a bulk of stuff to funding to Israel and maybe a very small token portion to Ukraine. But I don’t know that. The Republicans especially and the American people, frankly, have had enough of Ukraine,” Maloof said. [..] Maloof suspects that the Israel-Hamas conflict could “explode into something much, much larger than just between Israel and the Palestinians.” “So we may be dealing with at least two conflicts at once,” he said, adding that the US is concurrently poking China over the Taiwan Island. It appears the US could easily outstretch itself.

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“..helping Russia in destroying freedom in Europe..” Sounds a bit desperate.. How would that get you your funding back anyway?

Zelensky Blames Putin For Hamas Attack On Israel (HE)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a video on Monday blaming the attacks on Israel by Hamas on Russia and Vladimir Putin. The attacks have resulted in a war between the IDF and Middle Eastern terrorist organizations, mostly taking place in and around the Gaza Strip. He posted the video to X, with the caption: “We have data very clearly proving that Russia is interested in inciting war in the Middle East. So that a new source of pain and suffering would erode global unity and exacerbate cleavages and controversies, helping Russia in destroying freedom in Europe. We can see Russian propagandists gloating. We can see Moscow’s Iranian friends openly extending a helping hand to those who attacked Israel.

All of this represents a much greater threat than the world is currently aware of. The world wars of the past were triggered by local aggressions. We know how to counter this threat. We have already prepared the necessary steps. And our primary goal is to protect the need for maximum global unity.” Zelensky stated, “We see Moscow’s Iranian friends openly supporting those who attacked Israel… “We are preparing the appropriate steps. And most importantly, we are defending the need for maximum unity in the world,” he claimed. “I am grateful to all the leaders and states who are now fully aware of the danger and are ready to work together to keep the situation under control to give the obvious sponsors of terror from broader interference,” he continued, seemingly referencing Russia.

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“Lebanon is not yet a war zone. However, it’s an area of operation. But it seems it’s also a space for both sides to exchange messages..”

Khamenei Distances Iran From Hamas Operation (ZH)

The Israeli army has reportedly issued an order for citizens to evacuate the Metula settlement, which lies just along the northern border with Lebanon. This after a salvo of some 15 rockets was fired from southern Lebanon in a suspected Hezbollah operation. “In response to the launches identified from Lebanese territory toward Israeli territory, IDF soldiers are currently responding with artillery fire,” regional sources report. The IDF said it intercepted several of them, while most landed in open fields. Things are steadily escalating there: “A senior Israeli officer was killed in a confrontation with militants on the frontier with Lebanon on Monday, Israel’s military has confirmed. The [Israeli] military said troops and aircraft killed two “terrorist infiltrators” who had crossed into Israeli territory. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed that they were its members. Later, at least three militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement were killed as the military attacked sites in Lebanon in response to mortar fire.”

Still, both Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have thus far narrowly avoided a spiral into all-out war at the Israel-Lebanon border. “What’s happening here seems to be a kind of contained tension. Lebanon is not yet a war zone. However, it’s an area of operation. But it seems it’s also a space for both sides to exchange messages,” an Al Jazeera’s correspondent, Ali Hashem, has observed. Iran, meanwhile, has been on the defensive after major US media, especially the Wall Street Journal, cited US sources who alleged Tehran supported, funded and helped plan Hamas’ deadly rampage across southern Israel on Saturday. There’s speculation that the Iranians fear Israel’s Netanyahu government could begin targeting sites inside Iran. A regional source reports Tuesday on the unprecedented softening of rhetoric from Iran’s leadership, related to Hamas and Israel as follows:

“Iran’s supreme leader has strongly rejected any involvement in the Hamas movement’s surprise attack on Israel. The public maneuvering, which involved Ayatollah Ali Khamenei strikingly repeating his rejection of an Iranian role three times in a 90-second span, follows controversial claims in US media that Tehran helped plan the Oct. 7 blitz. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a high-ranking Iranian source told Amwaj.media that Khamenei’s remarks—his first since the Hamas offensive—may have been sparked by “him seeing the direction of the Israeli public diplomacy campaign.” Rejecting concerns of an impending Israeli attack as Khamenei’s underlying motive, the source said the supreme leader’s comments are “pre-emptive” as opposed to reactive.”

Addressing the rare decision by Khamenei to be so vocal in his rejection of an Iranian role in the Palestinian blitz, a second senior source in Tehran told Amwaj.media, “Give me one reason why he should do otherwise.” Also speaking anonymously given the sensitivity of the matter, he continued, “Why should one give them the perfect justification they need for an attack?” At the same time, the source dismissed the notion that being so explicit in rejecting a role in the Hamas attack indicates a sense of weakness on the part of Iran.

The Pentagon has meanwhile warned both Iran and Hezbollah against jumping into the conflict in a fresh statement: “The senior US official said Iran, Hezbollah and other groups backed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “should think twice” before joining in the war. “Iran-backed adversaries like Lebanese Hezbollah should not question the commitment of the US government to support the defense of Israel,” the official added. “We believe that the folks in the region understand what those capabilities are,” the White House’s National Security Council coordinator John Kirby, a former US Navy rear admiral, told reporters Monday evening. This as the following just came across the news wires: “US MAY DEPLOY A SECOND AIRCRAFT CARRIER NEAR ISRAEL: WSJ”

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The US tried to use the Saudi-Israel talks to tear apart the Muslim world. But Russia/China just brought Saudi and Iran together.

Saudi Arabia Expresses ‘Unwavering’ Support For Palestine (RT)

Saudi Arabia continues to support the “legitimate rights” of Palestinians, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a phone call on Monday, Saudi media reported. The latest escalation in Gaza, which broke out after a surprise attack on Israel by the Hamas militant group over the weekend, poses a threat to security and stability in the entire Middle East, the crown prince said, according to the Saudi Gazette. The kingdom plans to take “proactive efforts” and collaborate with international and regional powers to prevent the conflict between Israel and Hamas from spilling over to other parts of the Middle East, bin Salman said, adding that his nation is also seeking to bring a “swift end” to the hostilities.

He further emphasized the importance of humanitarian law and refraining from targeting civilians, while insisting that Saudi Arabia stands by the Palestinians in their pursuit of a “dignified life… [the] realization of their hopes and aspirations,” as well as a “lasting peace,” according to the Saudi Gazette. Bin Salman also discussed the situation in Gaza with Jordanian King Abdullah bin Al-Hussein and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Both conversations were largely focused on preserving regional stability and preventing the conflict from spreading, the outlet reported. Riyadh’s statements came amid the latest flareup of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following a massive attack on Israel by the Gaza-based Hamas militant group. Militants fired thousands of rockets at Israel and launched a cross-border raid over the weekend.

More than 900 Israelis, including over 100 military personnel, died in the initial attack and follow-up clashes, Israeli authorities said. Israel responded with a massive bombing campaign against Gaza, also announcing a total blockade of the exclave, cutting it off from fuel, water, and food supplies. The Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 510 Palestinians had been killed and 2,751 injured in Israeli air raids as of Monday. The UN said on Tuesday it would launch an investigation into war crimes committed during the latest escalation, adding that it was in possession of “clear evidence” of violations by both sides. On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Israel and the Palestinian militants to refrain from further violence, and offered Ankara’s services as a mediator in any potential peace talks. He also said that his nation could facilitate a prisoner exchange if requested.

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“Muslims were not enemies of Ukraine and allies of Russia (with the exception of eschatologically awakened Iran and Syria), but now they will be..”

The Civilization Of The Antichrist (Alexander Dugin)

The escalation of Israel’s war with Palestine will undoubtedly consolidate the Islamic world. Conservatives in the West are again talking about defending the ‘Judeo-Christian civilization in the face of Muslims’, and the radical ideology of Hamas provides them with a convenient excuse for this. However, a society of deep atheism, materialism and legalization of all kinds of perversions, which has long since abandoned traditional theology and values (and orientations), cannot be considered either Christian or Jewish. If the West, as it is now, supports Israel, it is seriously guilty of something. After all, if the devil’s civilization is on your side, then you have done something wrong.

There is no such thing as a Judeo-Christian world, it just doesn’t make sense. The Islamic world, on the contrary, exists and in it, the traditions are still strong. It turns out that it is not the Judeo-Christians against the Muslims, but the Muslims against the satanic culture, against Dajjal. Biden’s idea of combining the theme of support for Ukraine with support for Israel, only underlines this: the West is always on the side of those who submit to its hegemony and serve it. Muslims were not enemies of Ukraine and allies of Russia (with the exception of eschatologically awakened Iran and Syria), but now they will be. Russia is the pole of a multipolar world. Islam is the pole of a multipolar world. Both poles oppose the West’s desperate attempts to save unipolarism and its global dominance at any cost, even at the cost of a world war.

The Palestinian conflict with Israel was not the frontline of a conflict of civilizations. Now it is. Just as the tensions between Russia and Ukraine were regional in character until the Nazis in Kiev were supported by the West, the war in Ukraine has become the frontline of a global confrontation between multipolarity and unipolarity. The scope of this confrontation is growing. The situation is becoming more and more sinister. Already, billions of people on the planet are convinced that the collective West and its allies are absolute evil and the civilization of the Antichrist. Democrats, globalists and neoconservatives are leading humanity straight into the abyss. Which, strictly speaking, is what demons are supposed to do.

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Hur’s job appears to be ‘under the carpet sweeper’.

Special Counsel Hur May Prove the Ultimate Punchline in Washington (Turley)

A neutron and Special Counsel Robert Hur walk into a bar and order two drinks. When Hur asks how much they owe, the bartender responds, “come on, for you guys, you know there’s never a charge.” Unfortunately, for the prosecutor tasked with investigating President Joe Biden, it may not prove a laughing matter. In many ways, Hur is the neutron prosecutor. He may have spent two days interviewing Biden on the discovery of classified material going back decades in various offices and home locations. But we already know that the Justice Department has long maintained a policy against the charging of a sitting president. There are no such problems for Hur’s colleague. Jack Smith was appointed to investigate former President Donald Trump. He is the ultimate proton prosecutor. Smith has aggressively pursued Trump in two different jurisdictions with a long litany of charges, including alleged criminal conduct tied to his removal and retention of classified material.

In comparison, Hur appeared to disappear. There was no word of any grand jury or the issuance of subpoenas. His interview this week was the sign of life for a prosecutor who seemed headed for milk cartons. I have long disagreed with the Justice Department policy as without foundation in the Constitution. There is no question that the best course in dealing with a felonious president is to first remove the president from office through the impeachment process and then indict the former president in the wake of the Senate conviction. However, even the Justice Department admitted in reaching this policy during the Clinton administration that “[n]either the text nor the history of the Constitution” is “dispositive” on this question.

It simply rendered an internal opinion against indictments of a sitting president as a matter of “considerations of constitutional structure.” That is particularly a problem in what could be a strong case. We still do not know whether fingerprints were taken off the documents found in various locations associated with the President. Unlike Smith’s investigation, there have been no strategic leaks from Hur’s investigation. On its face, the President claims that he had no knowledge of these documents appears dubious at best. Some classified material reportedly goes back to Biden’s time as a senator — material that he would have had to remove from a sensitive compartmented information facility or secure room on Capitol Hill. More importantly, the documents from the Obama Administration were removed when Biden left as vice president. They were then divided and repeatedly moved to different locations.

That suggests not just knowledge but a purpose. Why were they divided and some documents were found in his garage and possibly his library? If Hur found fingerprints that contradict Biden’s statements, he could face not just some of the same charges brought against Trump but also possible false statement or obstruction charges. Notably, Biden used counsel to conduct searches and (as in the Trump case) additional classified materials were found after the Biden team said that they had finished their searches. There are serious questions over whether, in allowing uncleared counsel to search through these documents, evidence may have been lost in how they were stored or appeared in locations like the garage. Hur can bring charges against third parties, who would not be barred from indictment under the DOJ policy. But what does Hur then do if he has evidence against the President himself? He could wait to see if Biden does not run for reelection or loses in 2024.

He could ask for a reconsideration of the policy, which was poorly supported during the Clinton Administration as a rationale for blocking any indictment for perjury by the Office of Legal Counsel. Absent such moves, the public may face the glaring contradiction of proton and neutron prosecutors where Smith pursues a former president with abandon while Hur is left with investigating with no possibility of an immediate charge. It is the type of question that Attorney General Merrick Garland should be eager to answer. Indeed, it should have been clarified at the outset with the mandate given to Hur. Garland, however, has maintained a position as a virtual spectator, disavowing any role in the ongoing investigations. He is neither neutron nor a proton. He is literally without mass. So the question is whether Hur can get anything other than free drinks in Washington. The answer to that question may prove to be the best punchline of all.

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There’s Metabiota again. Hunter Biden.

Washington Moving ‘Illegal’ Bioresearch Operations To Africa – Moscow (RT)

The US is transferring dual-purpose biological research activities to Africa, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Monday, citing Pentagon documents. According to Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who leads the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces, the move is in response to Moscow’s efforts to expose Washington’s illegal military-biological operations. He also cited the worsening “epidemic situation near biosites in the European region.” “The documents at our disposal confirm the activities of key Pentagon contractors on the African continent – in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Uganda, and South Africa. Customers on the part of the US government are the DTRA [Defense Threat Reduction Agency], the National Security Agency, and the US Department of State,” Kirillov added.

Moscow has repeatedly accused the US of plotting biological warfare against it and other countries. Last year, Russian UN representative Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council that Moscow had discovered at least 30 Ukrainian laboratories engaged in disease research, including anthrax and cholera, funded and supervised by the US. In May, State Duma Deputy Speaker Irina Yarovaya expressed concern over Washington’s interest in biological weapons, describing it as a highly concealed and unpredictable form of mass destruction that could become a global issue. The US has denied the claims. On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry reiterated its previous concerns about “unauthorized” sample collection by Metabiota, which it referred to as a “key Pentagon contractor” during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

According to the chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops, the company’s lack of transparency, which prompted concerns from the World Health Organization, resulted in the illegal export of live Ebola virus samples to the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infections. “Predictable deterioration of the disease situation near American biosites is forcing the governments of many African states to take another look at the necessity and expediency of co-operation with the United States. For example, in 2022, Metabiota operations in Africa were terminated because the company’s illegal practices raised too many questions at the level of national governments,” Kirillov claimed.

The San Francisco-based Metabiota was a partner in the $200 million USAID-funded ‘Predict’ epidemiological research project, which concluded in 2019. Several reports, including one by the Associated Press in 2016, claimed that during the 2014 Ebola outbreak the company made a series of “costly” mistakes in its efforts to combat the disease in Sierra Leone. Metabiota employees contributed to flawed laboratory results, disrupted collaborations, and put people at risk of the deadly virus, according to the outlet, which cited leaked documents and interviews with international health responders.

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“..list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them.”

“Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.”

EU Issues Ultimatum To Elon Musk (RT)

A top European Union official has demanded a crackdown on “disinformation” on X (formery Twitter), warning that the bloc would take action against site owner Elon Musk if he allowed “terrorist content” to circulate on his platform. In an “urgent letter” addressed to Musk on Tuesday, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton recalled the “very precise obligations” set out under the bloc’s internet regulation laws. He urged for stricter enforcement on X, claiming there had been a deluge of false information related to ongoing fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants. “Following the terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel, we have indications that your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU,” he said, adding that when X receives “notices of illegal content,” it must “be timely, diligent and objective in taking action and removing the relevant content.”

While Breton offered no examples of “violent and terrorist content” making the rounds on the platform, he went on to state that “public media and civil society organizations” had reported numerous cases of “fake and manipulated images,” including “repurposed” photos from unrelated conflicts and “footage that actually originated from video games.” The official said he expected a “prompt, accurate and complete response” from Musk’s team within 24 hours, and warned that “penalties can be imposed” if EU authorities find that X is not complying with the bloc’s primary internet regulation, the Digital Services Act (DSA). Musk later reacted to the letter in a social media post, asking Breton to “list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them.” He added that “Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.”

Breton declined to cite any particular cases of misinformation, instead stating that Musk is “well aware of your users’ – and authorities’ – reports on fake content and glorification of violence.” Under the DSA, websites and search engines can be fined up to 6% of their global turnover if they are found in violation of the rules. However, while the law will not be fully enforced until early 2024, sites designated as “very large online platforms” – or those with more than 45 million monthly users, such as X – were expected to meet the requirements starting in August. The violent flare-up in Israel erupted over the weekend, after Hamas – the Palestinian group that governs Gaza – sent waves of commandos and rockets into Israeli towns. The Israel Defense Forces have retaliated with heavy airstrikes on Gaza, which have continued into Tuesday night. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed on all sides of the conflict since Saturday, according to local officials, with thousands more injured.

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Finland has asked NATO to investigate. With a straight face.

Finland-Estonia Undersea Pipeline In Baltic “Deliberately Damaged” (ZH)

Months after famed journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh revealed the US blew up the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea in September 2022 during a covert operation under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise, yet another undersea gas pipeline, this time, connecting Finland and Estonia has allegedly come under attack. Gasgrid Finland and Elering, the Finnish and Estonian gas system operators, detected an “unusual” leak in the 77-kilometer (48-mile) interconnector in the early morning hours on Sunday. “Based on observations, it was suspected that the offshore pipeline between Finland and Estonia was leaking,” Gasgrid Finland said in a statement. “The valves in the offshore pipeline are now closed and the leak is thus stopped.”

ERR News reported that the Estonian Navy started surveying the pipeline with its equipment on Monday, while the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service will also be involved in the investigation. While the Finnish operator gave no reason for the suspected leak on Monday, Finnish officials, one day later, have now said their investigation of the leak will be on the premise of sabotage. “FINNISH DAILY ILTALEHTI, SWEDISH PUBLIC RADIO, CITING FINNISH GOVERNMENT SOURCES: ESTONIA-FINLAND SUBSEA GAS PIPELINE HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY DAMAGED” … queue Western media outlets who will likely place blame on Moscow – just as they did after the September 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream undersea pipeline that once connected Germany with cheap natural gas from Russia.

In early 2023, journalist Seymour Hersh published a bombshell report as his first Substack post that the US blew up the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline as part of a covert operation under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise. Last month, on the first anniversary of the bombing, he posted an article titled “A Year of Lying About Nord Stream, deals with motive. What was the United States’ motive?” His sources said told him: “Biden administration blew up the pipelines but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine. It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russia gas—and that Germany and then NATO, for economic reasons, would fall under the sway of Russia and its extensive and inexpensive natural resources. And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.”

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Interview. “..the US has no journalists, only propagandists, and the rule of law has been discarded. The United States is on the verge of becoming a tyranny. That is the American political crisis.”

The US Is On The Verge Of Becoming A Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)

There are currently no legal proceedings against the Biden family. The US Department of Justice and the FBI have instead protected both Biden and his son despite the massive evidence in their hands, such as the incriminating information on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the classified national security documents dating from his days as Vice President found in Joe Biden’s homes, car, garage, and storage places. The legal charges brought against Trump are like all the others since 2016–Russiagate, impeachments, document gate, stripper gate, January 6 Insurrection. They have no basis in reality or in law. They are brought by Trump-hating black prosecutors in New York state, New York city, and Fulton County, Georgia, and are nonsensical on their face.

Trump and his co-defendants have to pay attention to the charges, because the prosecutors are known enemies of Trump and his supporters, the judges are Democrats who don’t want Trump as president, and the trials will be held in Democrat jurisdictions where the juries will be Democrat and largely black. There is no outcry against this legal atrocity from the legal profession, the law schools, the bar associations, and very little from Congress. So we face the possibility that Trump can be falsely convicted and forced to spend the rest of his life in appealing the convictions. How the American people will take this I do not know. It might make them very angry and unwilling to accept the use of law as a weapon against Trump and the traditional American electorate. On the other hand, the people might conclude that their country has been lost and nothing can be done, give up, and submit to the rule of unaccountable power.

Everywhere the people see the political use of law for punishment by every federal department in the Biden Regime. Mike Lindell, a Trump donor, has been slapped with five audits by the Internal Revenue Service. Lawyers cannot defend Trump without being punished. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York, has been slapped by the IRS with a tax and penalty bill of $550,000 and a lien on his home. Elon Musk is being investigated by the US Security and Exchange Commission for his purchase of Twitter. Democrats hate Musk, because he revealed that the FBI had secretly forced Twitter to censor all who disagreed with the Biden Regime’s narratives. The list is long. I will define for you American’s political crisis. The belief system has collapsed.

The elites no longer believe in the Constitution that defines the country. Students in law schools and journalism schools are taught that the US Constitution is a racist document and an instrument of white oppression of people of color. They are taught that the Constitution stands in the way of “social progress,” by which they mean the use of law not as a shield of rights but as a weapon for coerced change based on ideological beliefs and commitments. What it boils down to is this: In America you are no longer innocent until proven guilty. You are guilty because you are white, or because you are a Trump supporter. No other evidence is necessary. The Democrats have put 1,000 Trump supporters in prison because they attended a rally for Trump.

Traditionally, American liberals based their demands for reforms not on appeals to good will but on denunciation of existing society. This made it easy for the Cultural Marxists to march through the institutions and discredit Western civilization and the institutions that embody it. Today in American universities no student ever hears anything affirmatory about his country. Instead, they learn that it is something that must be reconstructed. Journalism students learn that objectivity is no longer the purpose of reporting and that news is a weapon to be used to remake society. Law students learn that law is not a protector of rights but a weapon to be wielded to revolutionize society. Consequently, the US has no journalists, only propagandists, and the rule of law has been discarded. The United States is on the verge of becoming a tyranny. That is the American political crisis.

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“Tigger is quite big enough,” said Piglet.
“He isn’t REALLY very big.”
“Well, he SEEMS so.”
Pooh was thoughtful when he heard this, and then murmured:
“Whatever his weight in pounds, shillings, and ounces,
He always seems bigger because of his bounces.” A.A.Milne

 

 

Lids

 

 

 

 

Leopard
https://twitter.com/i/status/1711988297596018975

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 302023
 
 September 30, 2023  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Rene Magritte Memory 1948

 

We Don’t Serve a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Says Retiring US General Milley (Sp.)
Biden Warns of Trump’s ‘Extremist Movement’ (ET)
The New York Buildings That Donald Trump Could Lose (BBC)
RFK Jr Plans To Announce Independent Run For President (PM)
US House Republicans Plot to Oust McCarthy Amid Looming Shutdown (Sp.)
Elon Musk Decries ‘Witch-Burning’ Of Russell Brand (RT)
Nazi Hunter Steven Rambam: Trudeau Knew He Applauded a Monster (Sp.)
The Striking Similarities in the Menendez and Biden Cases (Turley)
Two-Punch (James Howard Kunstler)
Ukraine Demands ‘Full’ EU Membership (RT)
Germany-Ukraine Joint Arms Production Venture a Money Laundering Scheme (Sp.)
Ukrainian Troops Reportedly Refuse Battle Orders Due to Heavy Losses (Sp.)
Russia-China Partnership Defangs US Empire (Pepe Escobar)
Can The US Defeat Russia In The Lithium Battery War? (Helmer)
Biden Administration Reports Dangerous African Immigrant At Border (BBee)

 

 

“If you’re 35 or older, you’ve had LESS shots in your entire life than a 6 month old baby on today’s CDC schedule.”

 

 

Excellent Tucker Romanovs

 

 

coastguy – watch!

 

 

 

 

Zelenskler/Hitlensky
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707455933918675430

 

 

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707573905135669384

 

 

 

 

Munger

 

 

RoganBrand

 

 

 

 

He called a potential adversary behind the back of his commander-in-chief. Sure smells like treason. What if Milley’s subordinates had done the same with him?

We Don’t Serve a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Says Retiring US General Milley (Sp.)

“We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.” Those were the defiant words of US General Mark Milley on Friday. They’ve been broadly interpreted by national media as a thinly-veiled rebuke of Donald Trump in a prolonged exchange that has seen the former president suggest the execution of the US military’s highest-ranking member. Milley delivered the remarks at a ceremony at Fort Myer, Virginia, marking his retirement from a position he first took in 2018 at the behest of Trump himself. The comments were prompted by a post Trump made on his Truth Social platform last week suggesting the general had committed a “treasonous act” amounting to a capital offense in the waning days of his administration.

Trump’s post read in part: “This guy [Milley] turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Trump was referring to a phone call Milley reportedly made to Chinese counterparts after events at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 reportedly surprised and alarmed the world power. Milley claims he took the unprecedented action with the approval and cooperation of other military officials, but that didn’t stop Republican Senator Rand Paul from criticizing the move.

The backchannel contact was first revealed in 2021 in an excerpt from Bob Woodward and Bob Costa’s book “Peril” documenting the final days of Trump’s presidency. According to the journalists, Milley had secretly called Chinese military officials once before in 2020 after receiving intelligence that China feared Trump would attack them in an “October surprise” before the election. Reportedly concerned about the former president’s mental state after January 6, Milley additionally forbade officers at the National Military Command Center from carrying out any instructions without going through the general first. Some Republicans have claimed such actions would represent a violation of the chain of command set forth in the US Constitution.

Milley also responded to Trump this week in an interview with US television where he claimed he would take “adequate safety precautions” to protect himself and his family after the remarks. “I wish those comments had not been made, but they were,” said Milley. “We will take appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family.” [..] “The [US military’s] Joint Force… is the most lethal and capable military in the world,” Milley said in his speech on Friday. “We are currently standing watch on freedom’s frontier with a quarter of a million troops deployed in 150 countries.”

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“I have come to honor the McCain Institute and Library because they are home to a proud Republican who put country first..”

Biden Warns of Trump’s ‘Extremist Movement’ (ET)

President Joe Biden delivered a speech about democracy on Sept. 28 in Arizona, a key battleground state for the 2024 election. He took aim at his predecessor, President Donald Trump, and expressed concerns about a “dangerous” trend unfolding in the United States. “As I’ve always been clear, democracy is not a partisan issue. It’s an American issue,” President Biden said. “But there is something dangerous happening in America. There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. The MAGA Movement.” According to the White House, this is the fourth speech by the president focused on democracy. President Biden began his speech by honoring the legacy of his late friend and colleague Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and announcing the creation of the McCain Library.

Mr. McCain’s family and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, were among those in attendance during his speech in Tempe, Arizona. “I have come to honor the McCain Institute and Library because they are home to a proud Republican who put country first,” President Biden said. “Not every Republican—not even the majority of Republicans—adhere to the extremist MAGA ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with Republicans my whole career. “But there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA extremists.” The president delivered his speech a day after the second Republican debate in California, during which the candidates displayed no signs of narrowing the gap with former President Trump, the Republican frontrunner for 2024.

On Sept. 28, the House Oversight Committee held the first hearing of its impeachment inquiry into President Biden. It focused on President Biden’s potential involvement in his son’s business dealings during his tenure as vice president under President Barack Obama. The challenges don’t end there for the 46th president. President Biden faces continued low approval ratings as the majority of Americans are unhappy with his handling of the economy. In a mid-September NBC News poll, independent voters gave President Biden a dismal 36 percent approval rating. More than 3 in 5 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they would prefer a nominee other than President Biden, according to a recent Washington Post–ABC News poll.

President Biden spoke out against the former president’s recent social media post in which he accused the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, of committing treason. President Trump suggested that Gen. Milley had colluded with China, a conduct he said would have once resulted in death. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been death!” President Trump wrote on Sept. 22 on his Truth Social platform. “Although I don’t believe the majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening,” President Biden said during his speech in Arizona. “Hardly any Republican called out such hated statements.” He later urged Democrats, Republicans, and independents to stand up for democracy. “Put our country first. We can’t take democracy for granted,” President Biden said.

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707695467294077436

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The prosecutors refer to “lender-ordered appraisals”. But we haven’t seen any complaints from lenders. We’re talking properties and loans worth billions of dollars, and they WOULD complain if cheated.

The New York Buildings That Donald Trump Could Lose (BBC)

Long before Donald Trump stepped into the White House, his glitzy and glamorous real estate empire helped make him a nationally recognised star. Now, a judge’s ruling that his business committed massive fraud has thrown the fate of some of the former president’s flagship properties into doubt. On Tuesday, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered that some of Mr Trump’s companies be removed from his control. Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and is expected to appeal. The ruling was part of a lawsuit filed against Mr Trump and his family by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who asked the judge for a summary decision that certain facts in the case were beyond dispute in the hope of speeding up the impending trial.

It severely limits Mr Trump’s ability to do business in New York, the place where he launched the real estate empire that thrust him into the national spotlight. What the ruling means for Mr Trump’s properties, however, remains uncertain. The Trump Organization could be forced to hand over control to a court-appointed receiver, or ultimately have to sell some of its most iconic landmarks. Mr Trump’s lawyers have asked for more clarity on which properties could be affected. The judge has yet to give a definitive answer. For Mr Trump, the stakes are potentially high. Earlier this year, Forbes estimated that his New York properties alone are worth $720m (£589m), a sizable chunk of his estimated $2.5bn fortune. Let’s take a look at some of the properties that Mr Trump might lose.

Trump Tower– Located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the 58-floor Trump Tower is among the most recognisable properties bearing Mr Trump’s name. The building is the headquarters of the embattled Trump Organization and has been home to Mr Trump and several of his family members. The building – which was developed by Mr Trump and inaugurated in 1983 – has also featured prominently in popular culture, including serving as the location for Batman’s Wayne Enterprises in Christopher Nolan’s 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises. Mr Trump’s penthouse condominium that spans the top three floors of the building is also among the properties highlighted in James’ lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that Mr Trump artificially inflated the triplex’s value, by repeatedly saying it was more than 30,000 sq ft (2,790 sq m) in size, significantly larger than the 11,000 sq ft listed in property records. The penthouse was valued at $327m in 2015, a price that the lawsuit called “absurd”. “Tripling the size of the apartment for purposes of the valuation was intentional and deliberate fraud,” the lawsuit reads. “Not an honest mistake”.

40 Wall Street – Originally completed in 1930, the 72-story neo-Gothic tower in the heart of New York’s financial district was purchased by a Trump-controlled company in 1995. The building’s website proudly boasts that the purchase was “one of the great real estate deals of all time”. Since the purchase, the building’s tenants have included global giants such as American Express, defunct investment bank Bear Stearns and Hilton Hotels & Resorts. In the New York lawsuit, prosecutors alleged that the values given by Mr Trump and the Trump Organization “far exceeded the values determined by professionals” in lender-ordered appraisals. In 2012, for example, the property was valued by the company at $572m in financial statements – more than twice the value reached by the outside appraisals. By early this year, the building had been added to a lender watchlist because of concerns over rising expenses and vacancies, according to Bloomberg.

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People disagree who he would take votes away from: Trump or Biden.

RFK Jr Plans To Announce Independent Run For President (PM)

Robert F Kennedy Jr, who launched his campaign for the Democrat presidential nomination in April, reportedly has plans to announce a run as an independent candidate. According to Mediaite, Kennedy plans to make the announcement on October 9 in Philadelphia, with a text message viewed by the outlet stating that his campaign is planning “attack ads” against the Democrat National Committee to “pave the way” for his announcement. “Bobby feels that the DNC is changing the rules to exclude his candidacy so an independent run is the only way to go,” a Kennedy campaign insider told the outlet. On Saturday, the New York Times published a piece stating that Kennedy met with Libertarian Party chair Angela McArdle in July, at a Memphis conference.

“He emphasized that he was committed to running as a Democrat but said that he considered himself very libertarian,” McArdle said, adding that “We’re aligned on a lot of issues,” including the threat of the “deep state.” “My perspective is that we are going to stay in touch in case he does decide to run,” Ms. McArdle said. “And he can contact me at any time if that’s the case.” “It would be very bad” if Kennedy runs as a Libertarian, said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a Democrat group helping coordinate efforts to stop the No Labels group who is also trying to run a third-party ticket. “We’ve been very clear that third parties in close elections can be very dangerous and would almost certainly hurt the president. That would be true of a No Labels candidate and it would be true of RFK.” According to RealClearPolitics average of polls between September 7 and 19, Kennedy is around 50 points behind Biden, with BIden polling at 65 percent and Kennedy at 14.9.

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That could make the shutdown last much longer.

US House Republicans Plot to Oust McCarthy Amid Looming Shutdown (Sp.)

A group of far-right members of the Republican Party in the US House of Representatives is seeking to replace House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in order to ensure more conservative legislative decisions amid the risk of a government shutdown in the United States, US news outlet reported, citing people familiar with the endeavor. It is still unknown whether the Republicans will set their plan in motion or if it is just an attempt to show McCarthy the depth of their dissatisfaction with his positions on certain legislative matters, the newspaper said, adding that despite this uncertainty, some far-right members of the Grand Old Party (GOP) believe that removing McCarthy is “inevitable” and “imminent” and that it is going to happen soon enough.

If the Republican group succeeds in ousting the House Speaker in the midst of the shutdown, a protracted battle will begin within the party to appoint someone new to the position. This struggle would block all the legislative actions of the US Congress, which would threaten to further halt the work of the country’s government, the newspaper added. Given the potential disagreements among the Republicans, should the vote happen, the fate of McCarthy as speaker would be decided by the House Democrats, since the proposal to remove the speaker must be backed by a majority of House members, the report said. Democrats have not yet decided whether to defend McCarthy or vote against him, it added, citing people familiar with the Democratic leadership’s thinking.

Far-right House Republicans believe a member of McCarthy’s leadership team, Tom Emmer, should become the new speaker, as he has a better chance of delivering more conservative decisions, the newspaper said, adding that Emmer himself is not really interested in the possibility. “I fully support Speaker McCarthy. He knows that and I know that,” Emmer told the newspaper, adding that he has “zero interest in palace intrigue.” The US Congress is attempting to coordinate the budget before the end of the month to avoid a government shutdown. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have proposed short-term measures, although there are differences between the two bills. The Senate proposal includes more than $6 billion in aid to Ukraine, which some Republican lawmakers have opposed. The House proposal includes border security measures, which the Democrat-majority Senate is unlikely to approve.

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“I think this witch-burning instinct might be deep-seated, frankly.”

Elon Musk Decries ‘Witch-Burning’ Of Russell Brand (RT)

Efforts to condemn actor Russell Brand and silence him based on unproven rape allegations – made at a time when he’s challenging establishment orthodoxies on such issues as the Ukraine conflict and Covid-19 vaccines – mark a “witch-burning phase” in Western cancel culture, US tech billionaire Elon Musk has warned. “It can’t be guilty until proven innocent because obviously, we’re just sort of in the witch-burning phase here, where just being declared a witch is enough to make you a witch and be burnt,” Musk said on Thursday in an X Spaces interview. “I think this witch-burning instinct might be deep-seated, frankly.”

Brand has been at the center of a media firestorm since the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper and Channel 4 TV reported earlier this month that four women had accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape, between 2006 and 2013. He claimed last week that UK government officials had pressured social media companies to censor his commentaries. YouTube demonetized Brand’s videos in response to the allegations, cutting off a source of income that generated an estimated £1 million ($1.2 million) for the actor and comedian. Rumble and X (formerly known as Twitter) are among the platforms that haven’t taken action against Brand.

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski issued an open letter criticizing a “deeply inappropriate” push by UK MP Caroline Dinenage to demonetize Brand’s videos. Musk, who bought X last October for $44 billion, called it an “odd coincidence” that the campaign to silence Brand was happening “when Russell is really gaining traction, questioning a lot of the conventional wisdom.” Brand also has been pilloried for spreading “conspiracy theories,” he said, adding, “I think we’re running out of conspiracy theories that didn’t turn out to be true.”

Brand has denied having nonconsensual sexual relations with anyone. Musk cautioned against a rush to judgment, saying, “We can’t have that, you know, because obviously, anyone could be accused at any time of false charges, and we can’t be destroying their lives on the basis of potentially false accusations.” Musk made his comments on the same day that he traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas, for a firsthand look at the US border crisis. “Why do so many American politicians from both parties care 100 times more about the Ukraine border than the USA border?” asked Musk, who posted a livestream video from the scene.

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“And they are not extradited. They are not denaturalized. They are not deported like the US does. They are not prosecuted inside Canada, which they should be.”

Nazi Hunter Steven Rambam: Trudeau Knew He Applauded a Monster (Sp.)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has officially apologized for a “deeply embarrassing” incident in the national Parliament, where a Waffen SS veteran was warmly greeted by Canadian politicians. “This was a mistake that has deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada. All of us who were in this House on Friday deeply regret having stood and clapped even though we did so unaware of the context,” the Canadian PM said in a brief statement to journalists. Trudeau stressed that Canada is especially sorry for “the situation that [they] put President Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation in” given that this “egregious error” is being used by Russia’s “propaganda.” Still, Trudeau’s hypocrisy has been called out by Steven Rambam, a private investigator and Nazi hunter based in New York, publicly known for his pro bono activities, which have included the location and investigation of nearly 200 Nazi collaborators and war criminals in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia.

“This narrative that’s springing up that everyone was surprised, that it was a big shock and they can’t believe there’s such a person in Canada,” Rambam told Sputnik. “It’s ridiculous. Look, this person made no secret of who he was. He even had a website until yesterday. He posted and disseminated photos of himself in his SS uniform. He wrote about his experiences in the SS 14th Grenadiers. There’s a scholarship in his name in a university in central Canada, in Alberta. I mean this is ludicrous that people could possibly have been surprised by who he was and what he did.” During the Second World War, Hunka served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as SS Galichina. The unit was created by Nazi Germany in 1943 and was composed of Ukrainian nationalist militants. The division was responsible for the ethnic cleansings of Jews and Poles, which was committed with exceptional brutality.

“So this is not a small criminal. He didn’t pick someone’s pocket or steal $100 from a store. This is an alleged mass murderer who killed old people, allegedly, who allegedly killed children with his comrades in the SS Galicia Division,” Rambam noted, reiterating that it’s virtually impossible that the Canadian authorities were totally unaware about who Hunka is. Poland’s Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek announced Tuesday that he had “taken steps” toward “the possible extradition” of Yaroslav Hunka to Poland. The unit Hunka served in was particularly responsible for burning alive up to 1,000 Polish villagers, including elderly, women and children, in Huta Pieniacka in 1944. “Does it help that they are finally threatening to bring him to justice? Yes,” said Rambam. “Is there any chance at all that this will happen? No, absolutely not.

Canada does not extradite Nazi war criminals. They have never extradited a Nazi war criminal. This is not the only Nazi war criminal who was requested from Canada. And they are not extradited. They are not denaturalized. They are not deported like the US does. They are not prosecuted inside Canada, which they should be. Nothing is done to these people. I can give you a list of many, many more people who, frankly, were as bad or worse than Hunka and who died peacefully in their beds in Canada.” In fact, it did not take a lot of skill to find former Nazis in Canada as they never hid their real names, Rambam pointed out. “They were absolutely unafraid, unashamed. No remorse, no apology, no nothing,” he said.

“To tell you what I did, we very, very easily, disturbingly easily, were able to compile a list of approximately 1,000 alleged war criminals, Nazi war criminals, members of the Ukrainian units, members of the Latvian Arajs Kommando, murderers that committed crimes in Belorussia, the police units in Lithuania, the special Einsatzkommandos of the Nazis that went all across Europe with the so-called holocaust of bullets and gas vans. All of these people had representatives in Canada. Of the thousand, because we knew that we couldn’t pursue a thousand people, it would be a project for the next 15 years of our lives, we selected the 200 worst on the list.” “I will tell you that one of them was a Ukrainian and the description of his crimes that we had from our sources, it was just one line ‘specialized in the murder of children.’ Specialized in the murder of children. So there are other Ukrainians like Mr. Hunka that came to Canada. Of these 200 people, as private persons, I mean, yes, we’re investigators, we have special skills, but we were operating not as law enforcement, but as private persons, we were able to find approximately 170 of them.”

Babi Yar

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Note the one difference.

The Striking Similarities in the Menendez and Biden Cases (Turley)

In February 2019, Sen. Bob Menendez was having nightmares. The Democratic senator from New Jersey said he was haunted by a question that “keeps me up at night” — whether President Donald Trump was compromised by the Russian government because of past secret dealings. Menendez’s restless nights also may have had something to do with the fact that at the time, he was allegedly accepting lavish gifts from various sources in exchange for using his Senate seat to bestow favors. The indictment of Menendez and his wife last week included details ofalleged bribes that went to the senator in exchange for revealing sensitive, nonpublic information to Egyptian contacts less than a year before his sleep-deprived speech. Menendez denied the accusations on Friday. However, even if half of this indictment is true, Menendez is toast.

He was able to dodge a bullet in 2017 when a jury hung over a separate series of corruption charges involving lavish gifts. This time, the Justice Department says it has photos of thousands of dollars in cash stuffed in clothing, a luxury car, gold bars and other gifts. That would keep anyone up at night, but there may be one other insomniac this week: Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell. The Menendez indictment likely proved chilling reading for Lowell, who not only represents President Joe Biden’s son but also represented Menendez in his prior bribery trial. There are striking similarities between the Menendez and Biden cases. While Hunter Biden was allegedly selling access to and influence with his father, he also allegedly received massive payments. His associate Devon Archer told Congress that they were selling the Biden family “brand,” and that Joe Biden was “the brand.”

Like Menendez, Hunter Biden allegedly received a luxury car from his foreign clients. For the senator, the Justice Department says it was a $60,000 Mercedes-Benz. For the president’s son, investigators say it was a $142,000 Fisker sports car. Menendez allegedly received gold bars worth up to $120,000. Biden received a diamond allegedly worth $80,000. Indeed, the alleged object of these payments was influence with then-Vice President Biden, when he was the presiding officer of the Senate. Menendez was one of the nation’s most powerful senators at the time. There are also dealings that reference Hunter Biden and his associates in the Menendez matter. When the senator was trying to arrange for Joe Biden to host a foreign event, an aide to Menendez reportedly reached out to Hunter Biden’s associates.

While the president’s son is accused of peddling influence, in Menendez’s case, it is his wife who is accused of acting as a go-between with those trying to buy the senator’s attention. Nadine Menendez allegedly had lunches and countless communications with people, who, according to the indictment, sought favors from the senator. Nadine Menendez allegedly knew the co-defendants before she married the senator in 2020. The couple met at an IHOP, but he fittingly proposed to her in 2019 at the Taj Mahal on a trip to India. The setting for the proposal would foretell the lavish gifts to come. Like Hunter, Nadine started an international consulting company, Strategic International Business Consultants, after being unemployed before meeting the senator. She found ample business.

Like Hunter, she is accused of marketing her ability to deliver access to her husband. In March 2020, she allegedly texted an Egyptian official that “anytime you need anything you have my number and we will make everything happen.” There is of course a major difference between the Biden and Menendez cases: Menendez and his wife are being criminally charged for their alleged influence peddling. The Justice Department has not only let the statute of limitations run out on the most serious tax charges against Hunter Biden, but it also has not charged the president’s son under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Despite charging figures like Paul Manafort for similar accusations, prosecutors have avoided charges in the Biden case that would put Hunter at the center of a corruption prosecution. Instead, they sought an embarrassing “sweetheart deal” that collapsed in court.

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“Don’t let these white supremacist, “far-right” MAGA nut-jobs drag us out of the comfortable warm, moist darkness we thrive in — perfect conditions for continued blob growth..”

Two-Punch (James Howard Kunstler)

So, here at week’s end we see these two rather momentous issues juxtaposed: the battle over how to finance that blob-infested monster in DC; and the battle to expose the crimes of a real-life Manchurian Candidate president. Neither battle is going all that well for the minority of citizens who want to live in a pro-reality society. If we follow the fiscal trend, all the tax revenue we can grudge up will barely cover the annual interest on our $30+trillion debt. If we can’t boot out the brain-dead cat’s paw in the White House, then say goodbye to the rule of law and liberty with it.

The people we elect to Congress don’t want to be accountable for specifically authorizing spending on the blob’s multitudinous pet projects. So, they depend on multi-thousand-page omnibus bills nobody can ever scrutinize, and continuing resolution dodges to postpone any necessarily painful action on a budget. Therefore, a dissenting coterie in the House proposes to play hard-ball over de-funding the blob, that is, a government shutdown of unknown duration, until gaslight is replaced by sunlight. The blob itself sends out a frantic S.O.S. Don’t let these white supremacist, “far-right” MAGA nut-jobs drag us out of the comfortable warm, moist darkness we thrive in — perfect conditions for continued blob growth!

After all, these Congresspersons have their lobbyist-donors to answer to, and they’d better come up with the right answer — or else their chance of eventually retiring as multi-millionaires, like Nancy Pelosi did, might slip away. Of course, the joke would be on them (and the rest of us) if it eventually costs a million dollars for a slice of pizza when they try to cash-out. Or is there some dirty secret involved here — for instance, that the blob has also taken over whatever remained of the US economy, too. So that defunding the blob also blows a hole in that putative economy? Or maybe not. Maybe the regular economy can breathe a little again with the blob’s boot off its neck. Let’s go ahead and shut off the flow for a week or two, see what happens.

[..] There’s reason to be discouraged that the people we elect can bring the two great issues of the moment — the blob’s budget and the impeachment of “Joe Biden” — to satisfactory conclusions. They are arguably pseudopods of that very blob, whose very existence is being threatened now, and they have to worry about their shots at becoming multi-millionaires, too. The weeks ahead will inform us if there’s anything that can be salvaged of our federal government or whether we must make other arrangements.

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That status would give them access to billions upon billions in give-aways and cheap loans.

Ukraine Demands ‘Full’ EU Membership (RT)

Ukraine demands complete accession to the EU and will not accept any substitute proposed by incumbent member states who envision a tiered system of candidates, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal has told Politico. “We want to be a fully-fledged member because Ukraine today is the unique country across the world that has paid such a huge price for its will to become a European Union member,” the senior official insisted. Earlier this month, a report commissioned by France and Germany recommended breaking down the EU’s expansion process into more phases to “ensure a merit-based approach and to manage potential conflicts.” A four-tiered system ranking nations from “inner circle” down to a “European Political Community”was proposed.

Eight nations and the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo currently have active talks with the EU about possible accession. National leaders will discuss enlargement and reform plans during a summit in Granada, Spain next week. Shmygal emphasized that Ukraine is not aiming for a lower-tier status and anticipates full membership within two years. In explaining what sets Ukraine apart, he pointed to the significant and widespread public support for EU accession among its population. Previously, other senior Ukrainian officials asserted that their nation should be granted membership due to their perceived role in defending the EU from potential Russian invasion. It’s worth noting, however, that Moscow has not indicated any intention to engage in armed conflict with any EU member state.

In a recent Politico interview, Shmygal provided insights ahead of a formal assessment by Brussels regarding Ukraine’s progress in implementing the required reforms as a candidate state last year. The European Commission is anticipated to make a recommendation next month regarding the commencement of formal accession talks. The prime minister vowed that his country “would not be bringing problems” to the EU and, on the contrary, would help it tackle energy dependence, security, defense, and broader economic issues. Currently, Kiev relies on foreign aid to conduct its military campaign against Russia and pay government expenditures. Joseph Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, noted in an interview with The Guardian last week that Ukraine “would be the only country that would be a net beneficiary”should it be granted membership. He added, however, that Kiev’s inclusion in the bloc would also end a “sleeping siesta” period for enlargement.

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None of the money “invested” will ever be seen again.

Germany-Ukraine Joint Arms Production Venture a Money Laundering Scheme (Sp.)

German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has received the go-ahead from the country’s Federal Antimonopoly Office to set up a joint venture with the Ukrainian Defense Industry, previously known as Ukroboronprom. According to Rheinmetall, “The JV [joint venture] is to be based in Kiev and engage in service and maintenance as well as the assembly, production and development of military vehicles.” The developments come as a US newspaper reported that Kiev is due to host Western officials and international arms manufacturers for a forum on Friday, touted as an opportunity to increase weapons production inside Ukraine. The newspaper cited Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba as saying that representatives of 165 military contractors from 26 nations are expected to take part in the forum.

Alexei Leonkov told Sputnik that Kiev and Berlin are currently writing up an agreement of intent, which is presented as if the decision on the JV has already been made. Actually, however, there are several factors that make these plans by Berlin and Kiev doubtful, the Russian analyst pointed out. First and foremost, Ukraine is involved in hostilities, which means that its industrial sector is often exposed to Russian missile attacks and those conducted by Russian long-range combat drones, according to Leonkov. Secondly, cash-strapped Ukraine’s national debt will soon approach 100%, namely, it will be a bankrupt state in the near future and it remains unclear how investments into the country can be made. The analyst warned that investors’ hopes for some kind of economic effect from the possible JV may never be met because it’s not clear who will make payments.

Last but not least, Rheinmetall – a high-tech company – will most likely have to spend its own money to train Ukrainian workers so that they can be on a first-name basis with German technology, as per Leonkov. “The only thing that can be done is, on the one hand, to do some PR, and on the other – to knock out money that will never be spent on creating the JV’s workshops and production sites. One can easily point the finger at Russian missiles that allegedly destroyed JV sites,” the analyst said, calling the Kiev-Berlin project “a money laundering scheme.” He stressed that even if there was no Russian special military operation in Ukraine, creating the JV could take plenty of time. “This project is at the level of crazy people. Making plans when your ship is already sinking is tantamount to the captain of the Titanic making plans that he will sail, for example, to Beijing next time. So no serious investor will invest in the project, which is a very attractive project in terms of money laundering,” the Arsenal Otechestva editor underscored.

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Wouldn’t be surprising. Certain death appeals to few people.

Ukrainian Troops Reportedly Refuse Battle Orders Due to Heavy Losses (Sp.)

The Russian Defense Ministry has reported that the 47th Mechanized Brigade had to be withdrawn from the Rabotino area of the Zaporozhye region by the Ukrainian command due to the soldiers’ reluctance to carry out combat missions in the face of mounting casualties. According to information shared on the Telegram channel of the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian command is currently carrying out the withdrawal of the 47th Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) from the Rabotino area of the Zaporozhye region as soldiers are reluctant to take on combat orders after the losses they suffered.

The Russian Armed Forces are heavily engaged in the defense of the Zaporozhye direction. Last week, Russian military units successfully repelled eight attacks from enemy assault groups from the 65th Mechanized and 71st Jaeger Brigades in the Verbovoye and Rabotino areas. The Ministry of Defense also announced that the UAF suffered significant losses during the fighting, including over 330 soldiers, 32 armored combat vehicles, 38 vehicles and 25 field artillery pieces. Earlier in the day, the Defense Ministry announced that Russian paratroopers using anti-tank vehicles had neutralized a Ukrainian military observation post on the right bank of the Dnepr River.

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‘..If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together.’

Russia-China Partnership Defangs US Empire (Pepe Escobar)

China’s State Council has released a crucial policy paper titled ‘A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions’ that should be read as a detailed, comprehensive road map for a peaceful, multipolar future. That is if the hegemon – of course faithful to its configuration as War Inc. – does not drag the world into the abyss of a hybrid-turned-hot war with incandescent consequences. In sync with the ever-evolving Russia-China strategic partnership, the white paper notes how “President Xi Jinping first raised the vision of a global community of shared future when addressing the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2013.”
That was ten years ago, when the New Silk Roads – or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – was launched: that became the overarching foreign policy concept of the Xi era.

The Belt and Road Forum next month in Beijing will celebrate the 10th anniversary of BRI, and relaunch a series of BRI projects. “Community of Shared Future” is a concept virtually ignored across the collective West – and in several cases lost in translation across the East. The white paper’s ambition is to introduce “the theoretical base, practice and development of a global community of shared future.” The five key points include building partnerships “in which countries treat each other as equals”; a fair and just security environment; “inclusive development”; inter-civilization exchanges; and “an ecosystem that puts Mother Nature and green development first,” as Xi detailed at the 2015 UN General Assembly. The white paper forcefully debunks the “Thucydides Trap” fallacy:

“There is no iron law that dictates that a rising power will inevitably seek hegemony. This assumption represents typical hegemonic thinking and is grounded in memories of catastrophic wars between hegemonic powers in the past.” While criticizing the “zero-sum game” to which “certain countries” still cling to, China completely aligns with the Global South/global majority, as in “the common interests of all peoples around the world. When the world thrives, China thrives, and vice versa.” Well, that’s not exactly the “rules-based international order” in play. When it comes to building a new system of international relations, China prioritizes “extensive consultation” among equals and “the principle of sovereign equality” that “runs through the UN Charter.” History and realpolitik, though, dictate that some countries are more equal than others.

This white paper comes from the political leadership of a civilization-state. Thus it naturally promotes the “increase of inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony” while elegantly remarking how a “fine traditional culture epitomizes the essence of the Chinese civilization.” Here we see a delicate blend of Taoism and Confucianism, where harmony – praised as “the core concept of Chinese culture” – is extrapolated to the concept of “harmony within diversity”: and that is exactly the basis for embracing cultural diversity. In terms of promoting a dialogue of civilizations, these paragraphs are particularly relevant:

“The concept of a global community of shared future reflects the common interests of all civilizations – peace, development, unity, coexistence, and win-win cooperation. A Russian proverb holds, ‘Together we can weather the storm.’ “The Swiss-German writer Hermann Hesse proposed, ‘Serve not war and destruction, but peace and reconciliation.’ A German proverb reads, ‘An individual’s effort is addition; a team’s effort is multiplication.’ An African proverb states, ‘One single pillar is not sufficient to build a house.’ An Arabian proverb asserts, ‘If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together.’ “Mexican poet Alfonso Reyes wrote, ‘The only way to be profitably national is to be generously universal.’

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You know the answer in advance. Thing is, Russia got a deal with Bolivia. Lithium OPEC.

Can The US Defeat Russia In The Lithium Battery War? (Helmer)

In January of this year the United States Geological Service (USGS) reported the reserves of the nine leading countries in the world which mine lithium, the new fuel to power electric batteries. Chile led, followed by Australia, Argentina, China, and the US which claims to have one million tonnes. Russia was left out of the USGS chart. Russian sources report its lithium reserves are currently between 3.5 million and 5 million tonnes; that’s at least three times more than the US. The US is also much more limited in its capacity to develop new domestic lithium mines compared to Russia. Bolivia was also omitted from the US Government chart because its reserves were called unproven resources. In fact and in the ground, Bolivia leads the lithium world with 21 million tonnes.

The difference between what USGS reports and what happens next isn’t the distinction in geologists’ terminology between reserves and resources. It’s US Government policy to stop, sabotage and destroy Russia’s ability to meet its lithium requirement from its own, domestic sources, or by importing from friendly countries like Bolivia. In response, a new plan for combining lithium mining projects in Bolivia and Russia will produce a surplus of Russia’s foreseeable requirement for lithium battery production. But not only that. Allied in technology sharing, investment, trade, and political agreement, the two countries will protect each other in the conservation of the lithium market. If everything goes according to plan, Russia, Bolivia, and the three BRICS states – Argentina, Brazil and China – will dominate the trade in global lithium.

They are already discussing the formation of a collective marketing organisation – a lithium OPEC. Unless the US can stop them. In the latest official paper issued by the State Department on July 23, “the bilateral relationship between the United States and Bolivia” is “strained. Despite these challenges, the United States maintains a strong and respectful relationship with the Bolivian people, with whom we work to advance human rights, entrepreneurship, and cultural and educational initiatives…However, the United States remains concerned by anti-democratic actions and the politicization of the legal system.” This is how the lithium war is starting.

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“He’s here to…here to…he’s got all of the…he runs the…the…the thing. Rocketship.”

Biden Administration Reports Dangerous African Immigrant At Border (BBee)

As the migrant crisis along the southern U.S. border continued to intensify, a new threat emerged, leading the Biden administration to warn the populace of the presence of a dangerous African immigrant sighted at the border. “This is serious, folks,” President Joe Biden said in brief remarks to reporters. “We’ve received reports of a very menacing African man roaming the region. Everyone knows I’m a long-time advocate for keeping an eye on these African fellas. This one is especially dangerous. He’s here to…here to…he’s got all of the…he runs the…the…the thing. Rocketship.” Despite thousands of unvetted and undocumented foreign nationals pouring across the border every day, the federal government and the mainstream media have continued to remain largely silent on the topic.

The sudden appearance of this African man, experts say, may finally force the Biden administration to address the issue of border security. “They can’t afford to ignore it now,” said Dr. Blake Rumsey of the Foundation for Discussion. “For whatever reason, this particular African man seems to really have them spooked.” The White House was uncharacteristically quick to comment on the news from the border. “Border safety is now a priority,” said gay and black Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “This African man poses a serious threat to America’s national security and democracy itself. When he gets up from his nap, the president will take this very seriously.” At publishing time, the federal government had announced the deployment of military resources to apprehend the African man.

“Elon Musk went to the southern border to investigate illegal crossings & his interview of local sheriffs & officials now has +81 million views. CNN gets ~474,000 viewers per day”

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Antibiotics

 

 

Rain frog

 

 

 

 

Moment

 

 

Gecko

 

 


UK lighthouses

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 122023
 
 September 12, 2023  Posted by at 8:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  47 Responses »


Claude Monet O Rio (The River) 1881

 

Zelensky ‘Senses’ Weakening Western Support (RT)
Zelensky Threatens To Terrorize Europe (MoA)
Ukrainians Blame Zelensky For Corruption – Poll (RT)
EU Believes Ukraine Is ‘A Very Corrupt Country’ – Politico (RT)
Blinken Contradicts Ukraine On Peace Negotiations (RT)
Elon Musk Responds To Ukraine ‘Treason’ Claims (RT)
Medvedev Advocates Suspending Diplomatic Relations With EU (TASS)
Russian Customs Chief Accuses EU Of ‘Total Lawlessness’ (RT)
Brazilian Court To Decide About Putin If He Attends G20 Summit – Lula (TASS)
Lies And Pretence In New London Novichok Hearing (Helmer)
The Gun Charge Against Hunter Is the Way of Covering Up the Real Issues (PCR)
The “Why Not” Culture: The Georgia Final Report Should Worry Us All (Turley)
The Mills of the Gods (Jim Kunstler)
9/11 After 22 Years (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

RFK

 

 

 

 

Trump 9/11


https://twitter.com/i/status/1701253565702938885

 

 

 

 

Isaacson

 

 

“A judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that former President Trump has ‘presidential immunity’ and cannot be sued over statements he made about 2020 election fraud.”

 

 

 

 

He’s directly threatening Europe now:

“..the millions of Ukrainian refugees now residing in foreign nations. They have generally “behaved well,” but if the hosts “drive these people into a corner,” the end result will not be “a good story” for Europe..”

Zelensky ‘Senses’ Weakening Western Support (RT)

If Western nations do not maintain their assistance to Kiev, they could face defeats at the ballot box and trouble from the millions of Ukrainian refugees they host, President Vladimir Zelensky has warned. In an interview with The Economist, Zelensky complained about weakening support from senior Western officials, which he claimed to have seen in their eyes during meetings. “I see that he or she is not here, not with us” contrary to spoken assurances, he said, according to the interview published on Sunday. According to Zelensky, failure to support Ukraine amounts to siding with Russia in the conflict, which escalated into open hostilities in February 2022. “If partners do not help us, it means they will help Russia to win,” he stated.

Zelensky believes that Western voters will not forgive their leaders if they “lose Ukraine.” Further trouble may also come from the millions of Ukrainian refugees now residing in foreign nations. They have generally “behaved well,” but if the hosts “drive these people into a corner,” the end result will not be “a good story” for Europe, the president added. The Ukrainian leader said he is “morally” ready for a long war with Russia, but this will require the country to switch to a “totally militarized economy.” He added that now is “a bad moment” for peace talks with Russia, due to the lackluster battlefield progress over the three months of Kiev’s summer ‘counteroffensive’. Moscow has estimated Ukrainian losses during the push at over 66,000 troops and 7,600 heavy weapons.

The Economist noted that the Zelensky government had built up expectations for the offensive, but now he is “carefully adjusting his message to reality.” The Ukrainian president also appeared to take credit for the drone attacks deep inside Russian territory, which Kiev formally refuses to claim as its own. Explaining his strategy, he said public support for the Russian government will fall “because our drones will land.”In a “long war,” Moscow will lose regardless of how the Russians feel because the Russian economy will fail, he added. The Russian government expects the economy to grow by 2.5% or more in 2023. Recent forecasts by the World Bank and the IMF have upgraded their predictions for Russia due to strong industrial production and higher-than-expected energy revenues.

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Moon of Alabama noticed it too.

“I have seen such threats from low ranking individuals of the fascist Bandera fringe. They spoke of terrorism they would unleash in the West should it end its support for Ukraine. That the Ukrainian president now reinforces such threats shows how deeply he immersed himself in that mindset..”

Zelensky Threatens To Terrorize Europe (MoA)

The Economist published another interview with the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski. It includes his usual unrealistic platitudes about not ending the war until Russia has completely pulled back. Speaking with an English language media he didn’t miss to mention the ever misunderstood story about Chamberlain’s move in Munich: “Tapping loudly on the table, Mr Zelensky rejects outright the idea of compromise with Vladimir Putin. War will continue for “as long as Russia remains on Ukrainian territory”, he says. A negotiated deal would not be permanent. The Russian president has a habit of creating “frozen conflicts” on Russia’s borders (in Georgia, for example), not as ends in themselves but because his goal is to “restore the Soviet Union”. Those who choose to talk to the man in the Kremlin are “tricking themselves”, much like the Western leaders who signed an agreement with Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938 only to watch him invade Czechoslovakia. “The mistake is not diplomacy. The mistake is diplomacy with Putin. He negotiates only with himself.”

In 1938 Chamberlain had no other choice but to give in on Czechoslovakia. Britain was not ready for war and the parts Hitler wanted to annex from Czechoslovakia had undeniably a largely German population: “He contended that Sudeten German grievances were justified and believed that Hitler’s intentions were limited”. Zelenski goes on to threaten, in rather unthankful fashion, those countries which have delivered aid to Ukraine but may want to cut their losses: “Curtailing aid to Ukraine will only prolong the war, Mr Zelensky argues. And it would create risks for the West in its own backyard. There is no way of predicting how the millions of Ukrainian refugees in European countries would react to their country being abandoned. Ukrainians have generally “behaved well” and are “very grateful” to those who sheltered them. They will not forget that generosity. But it would not be a “good story” for Europe if it were to “drive these people into a corner”.

I have seen such threats from low ranking individuals of the fascist Bandera fringe. They spoke of terrorism they would unleash in the West should it end its support for Ukraine. That the Ukrainian president now reinforces such threats shows how deeply he immersed himself in that mindset. A previous Economist story shows that Ukraine has already set up the necessary infrastructure to wage a terrorist campaign: “In modern Ukraine, assassinations date back to at least 2015, when its domestic security service (SBU) created a new body after Russia had seized Crimea and the eastern Donbas region. The elite fifth counter-intelligence directorate started life as a saboteur force in response to the invasion. It later came to focus on what is euphemistically called “wet work”.

“Valentin Nalivaychenko, who headed the SBU at the time, says the switch came about when Ukraine’s then leaders decided that a policy of imprisoning collaborators was not enough. Prisons were overflowing, but few were deterred. “We reluctantly came to the conclusion that we needed to eliminate terrorists,” he says. A former officer of the directorate describes it in similar terms. “We needed to bring war to them.” In 2015 and 2016 the directorate was linked to the assassinations of key Russian-backed commanders in the Donbas; Mikhail Tolstykh, aka “Givi”, killed in a rocket attack; Arsen Pavlov, aka “Motorola”, blown up in a lift; Alexander Zakharchenko, blown up in a restaurant.

Intelligence insiders say the SBU’s fifth directorate is playing a central role in counter-Russia operations. From there it is just a short step towards total war: “Meanwhile, a long war of attrition would mean a fork in the road for Ukraine. The country would lose even more people, both on the front lines and to emigration. It would require a “totally militarised economy”. The government would have to put that prospect to its citizens, Mr Zelensky says, without specifying how; a new social contract could not be the decision of one person. Almost 19 months into the war, the president says he is “morally” ready for the switch. But he will only broach the idea with his people if the weakness in the eyes of his Western backers becomes a “trend”. Has that moment come? No, not yet, he says. “Thank God.” Does Zelenski know of any country with a totally militarized economy that survived? I have yet to hear of one.

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“..78% of Ukrainian adults see Zelensky as “directly responsible” for Kiev’s corruption problem..”

“..only 18% of Ukrainian adults disagreed with the statement that Zelensky bears responsibility…”

And we hand him tens of billions.

Ukrainians Blame Zelensky For Corruption – Poll (RT)

The vast majority of Ukrainians believe that President Vladimir Zelensky is at fault for widespread corruption in the country’s government and military, a new study has revealed. The poll, released on Monday, found that 78% of Ukrainian adults see Zelensky as “directly responsible” for Kiev’s corruption problem. It was conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Charitable Foundation and the Kiev International Institute of Sociology. Prior to the launch of Russia’s military offensive in February 2022, Ukraine consistently ranked among the world’s most corrupt nations, but it was touted as a bastion of freedom and democracy as the US and its NATO allies rallied public support for massive aid to Kiev. However, Ukrainian corruption remains a concern and could hinder the country’s bid to join the European Union, an unidentified Western diplomat told Politico on Monday.

Ukraine is a “very corrupt country,” the diplomat said, adding that Zelensky’s plan to use the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to prosecute graft cases could “send the wrong message.” Upon landing in Kiev for a surprise visit on Monday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock reportedly said Ukraine needed to step up its efforts to fight corruption. The Ukrainian poll was conducted from July 3 to July 17 in face-to-face interviews with thousands of citizens across the country. There were no major differences in findings based on region or socioeconomic factors. Respondents aged 60 and older took a harsher view, with 81% saying Zelensky was responsible for government corruption. The rate was 70% in the youngest segment, ages 17 to 29. Overall, only 18% of Ukrainian adults disagreed with the statement that Zelensky bears responsibility.

Documents obtained by the International Association of Investigative Journalists in 2021 showed that Zelensky and his business partners set up offshore companies to purchase lavish properties in central London. Zelensky transferred his stake in one of the companies to an aide just before he was elected president in 2019. Supporters of former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko accused Zelensky and his associates of using their offshore accounts to evade taxes. Zelensky has purged officials in his government for alleged corruption, including an embezzlement scheme involving humanitarian aid. Just this month, he sacked Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov, who came under fire earlier this year over purchases of military rations at inflated prices. However, the new defense chief, Rustem Umerov, is reportedly under investigation for alleged crimes in his previous job.

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If everyone’s corrupt, who investigates?

EU Believes Ukraine Is ‘A Very Corrupt Country’ – Politico (RT)

Widespread corruption in Ukraine could hamper Kiev’s bid for EU membership, a western European diplomat told Politico on Monday. He said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s efforts to tackle the problem have also alarmed Brussels. Ukraine applied for membership in the European Union last February, and was formally granted candidate status four months later. Although European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to address the issue of enlargement during her state of the union speech on Wednesday, and EU Council President Charles Michel has vowed to admit all candidate nations by 2030, Ukraine’s bid could be hamstrung by rampant corruption. Ukraine is a “very corrupt country,”an anonymous western European diplomat told Politico.

“We want to give a positive signal to Ukraine but things such as this proposal to give more power to [Ukraine’s] intelligence [services] over corruption can send the wrong message.” The proposal in question was raised by Zelensky last month. Following a purge of allegedly corrupt officials at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Zelensky announced that he would task the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) with probing and prosecuting corruption cases, taking investigative power away from the country’s multiple anti-graft agencies. The SBU reports solely to Zelensky. Representatives of Ukraine’s existing anti-corruption agencies told Politico last month that by making the SBU the only body allowed to investigate these cases, Zelensky is essentially giving himself the power to decide which corrupt officials to prosecute and which ones to shield.

There is precedent for these fears, the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (ACAC), Vitaly Shabunin, said. Oleg Tatarov, the deputy head of Zelensky’s office, was under investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) last year, when the case was unexpectedly transferred to the SBU. “It was buried there,”Shabunin said. “Now [Zelensky’s] office wants to make that into practice.” Ukraine has for years been ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, as of 2022, the country ranked 116th out of 180. Aside from corruption concerns, disputes between Ukraine and European nations over agriculture could also hold up Kiev’s membership bid. Ukrainian farmers could undercut their European counterparts with cheap grain exports, meaning that the EU will likely have to reform its Common Agricultural Policy if Ukraine is to be admitted, Politico noted.

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“..Russia controlled more land last month than it did at the beginning of the counteroffensive..” But Blinken said Ukraine reclaimed 50%.

Blinken Contradicts Ukraine On Peace Negotiations (RT)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed that the Ukrainian government will agree to peace talks with Russia if Moscow offers to negotiate first. Ukrainian leaders have argued otherwise, however, and insist that peace “needs to be won on the battlefield.” “Thus far, we see no indication that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin has any interest in meaningful diplomacy,” Blinken told ABC News on Sunday. “If he does, I think the Ukrainians will be the first to engage, and we’ll be right behind them,” he added. Blinken and other top American officials have long insisted that the Ukrainian government will decide when to seek peace with Russia, and that the US will continue to supply Kiev with weapons until that time comes.

Ukraine agreed in principle to a Turkish-mediated peace deal in April 2022, but walked away from the agreement after a visit to Kiev by then-British prime minister Boris Johnson. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has since issued a decree forbidding any negotiations with Putin’s government, as well as repeatedly vowing to take back the territories of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea – the latter of which voted to join Russia in 2014 – by force. Retaking this land, however, has proven costly for Kiev. More than three months into its long-awaited summer counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military has lost more than 66,000 troops and 7,600 pieces of heavy weaponry, according to the latest figures from the Russian Defense Ministry.

In exchange, Kiev’s forces have only managed to reclaim a handful of villages near Zaporozhye, while Russia controlled more land last month than it did at the beginning of the counteroffensive, according to the Washington Post. Nevertheless, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba declared last week that the conflict “cannot be ended by simply bringing belligerent parties to the table for negotiations.” “It needs to be won on the battlefield for Russia to become serious about negotiating peace,”Kuleba added. Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but that any peace deal would have to take into account the “new territorial reality” – that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea will never be ceded back to Ukraine. Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said negotiations would be held “not with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.”

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“..if anyone is treasonous, it is those who call me such. Please tell them that very clearly.”

Elon Musk Responds To Ukraine ‘Treason’ Claims (RT)

American tech billionaire Elon Musk has responded to criticism over his refusal to help enable a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian naval forces in Crimea by pointing out that he’s a citizen of only the US and isn’t obliged to fight for Kiev. “I am a citizen of the United States and have only that passport,” Musk said on Monday in a post on his X (formerly Twitter) social media platform. “No matter what happens, I will fight for and die in America.” He added that in light of the fact that the US Congress hasn’t declared war on Russia, “if anyone is treasonous, it is those who call me such. Please tell them that very clearly.”

At issue is Musk’s decision last year to prevent his Starlink satellite network from being used to guide Ukrainian naval drones for an attack against the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean coast. When news of Musk’s refusal came to light last week, US media outlets suggested that he had been traitorous, and Ukrainian presidential aide Mikhail Podoliak accused him of “committing evil and encouraging evil.” The Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder gave Ukraine free use of more than 20,000 Starlink terminals after Russia launched its military offensive against Kiev in February 2022. His aim was to keep Ukrainians from losing internet access and communications capabilities amid the conflict.

However, Musk expressed concern about his network being used for offensive purposes and potentially playing part in triggering a wider conflict. He therefore refused Kiev’s pleas to extend the country’s Starlink coverage all the way to Sevastopol. “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.” CNN host Jake Tapper argued on Sunday that Musk had “effectively sabotaged” an American ally, and he asked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken whether the “capricious billionaire” should therefore face “repercussions.” Blinken declined to condemn Musk and pointed out that Starlink had been a vital tool for Ukraine’s defense.

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..”straightforward and honest Brussels bosses” who “told all Russians directly and without beating around the bush: you are second-class people for us.”

Medvedev Advocates Suspending Diplomatic Relations With EU (TASS)

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has called for suspending diplomatic relations with the EU in response to the EU decision to bar Russian citizens from entering the EU with everyday personal items, calling it a spit in the face of every Russian. “What should we do about it? Certainly not impose tit-for-tat retaliatory restrictions on EU citizens. We are not racists, in contrast to many leaders of those countries whose relatives served in the SS (Schutzstaffel, the notorious paramilitary organization under Germany’s Nazi regime – TASS). Moreover, those [Europeans] who travel here usually have a love and appreciation for Russia. It would be better just to suspend diplomatic relations with the EU for a while.

And to call our diplomatic personnel home,” Medvedev suggested, commenting on the European Commission’s clarification on the EU’s ban on importing automobiles, smartphones, suitcases and shampoo, among an entire range of items, into the EU from Russia, even for strictly personal use. Medvedev mockingly “praised” the EU leaders, calling them “straightforward and honest Brussels bosses” who “told all Russians directly and without beating around the bush: you are second-class people for us.” And the EU’s decision is clearly not meant as just punishment for what Brussels sees as the “criminal and aggressive regime in the Kremlin.” Rather, “this is a spit in the face of every citizen of Russia,” Medvedev emphasized. In suggesting measures to suspend Moscow’s diplomatic relations with the EU, Medvedev noted that only such a move could make Brussels officials truly afraid, “because embassies are [traditionally] evacuated before certain very specific events.”

“Who knows what else these ‘orcs’ from that immense ‘Mordor’ are capable of?” Medvedev asked sarcastically, using a common derogatory slur used in the West to refer to Russia and Russians, equating them to the goblin-like humanoid creatures in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel “The Lord of the Rings.” The European Commission’s clarification dated September 8 bans the import from Russia to the EU of goods listed in Annex 21 to EU Regulation No. 833/2014, regardless of the purpose of their use and the duration of stay in the EU, including cars with less than 10 seats. The EC emphasized that it does not matter whether the vehicles are being used for private or commercial purposes. The list contains a wide range of all sorts of items from cellular telephones and audio and video recording devices, to suitcases, hold-alls, articles of clothing, toothpaste, shampoo and other hygiene products.

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“Goods that are classified as prohibited – even shampoo and toilet paper – should be confiscated..”

“..at least “they have not banned [Russian nationals] from wearing pants when crossing the border.”

Russian Customs Chief Accuses EU Of ‘Total Lawlessness’ (RT)

Russia’s interim customs chief has blasted the European Commission’s instruction to EU member states to confiscate personal possessions of arriving Russian tourists. “How do we take the European Commission’s ban on traveling by personal car or with smart phones? Well, it’s utter nonsense,”Ruslan Davydov told journalists on Monday on the sidelines of an economic forum in the city of Vladivostok. The EU slapped wide-ranging sanctions on trade with Russia over the Ukraine conflict. Last Friday, however, Brussels explained that the restrictions should also apply to items for personal use brought by tourists crossing the bloc’s border. Goods that are classified as prohibited – even shampoo and toilet paper – should be confiscated, according to the clarification. The European Commission urged “EU operators [to] identify, assess, and understand the possible risks of sanctions circumvention” when conducting customs checks.

Davydov branded the decision as “total lawlessness” that defies the normal logic of customs controls. Moscow has little influence on the policies, since the EU broke all cooperation with Russia, he noted. “The way they regulate customs procedures on their soil can only invoke regret and incomprehension,” he added. But at least “they have not banned [Russian nationals] from wearing pants when crossing the border.”=The official assured that the Federal Customs Service, which he heads, shall not adopt a similar policy regarding tourists arriving from the EU. The Russian embassy in Helsinki urged citizens on Sunday not to travel to Finland in cars with Russian license plates, citing the risk of seizure stemming from the new guidelines.

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Lula opens the door and closes it at the same time. Putin as Schrödinger’s president: “..the decision [on a possible arrest] is within the power of the judiciary, not my government..”

Brazilian Court To Decide About Putin If He Attends G20 Summit – Lula (TASS)

The issue of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrest during his visit to the G20 summit in Brazil in 2024 will be considered by the country’s court taking into account the arrest warrant issued for the Russian leader by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the country’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said. “If Putin decides to attend [next year’s summit], the decision [on a possible arrest] is within the power of the judiciary, not my government,” Reuters quoted the politician as saying. On September 9, in an interview with the Indian TV channel Firstpost, Lula da Silva said that as long as he was president of Brazil, “he [Putin] will not be arrested without the authorization of the authorities.” At the same time, Reuters pointed out the president questioned Brazil’s membership in the ICC. He recalled that neither Russia, China nor the US are members of the organization.

According to the leader, such agreements harm developing countries. On March 17, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, alleging that they were responsible for the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. It could theoretically be executed if the Russian leader arrives in one of the countries that recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. Moscow has rejected such accusations, calling “the very phrasing of the question” outrageous and pointing out that Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, so its decisions are null and void for Russia.

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“Sergei Skripal, the original target and survivor of the Novichok attack allegations in the official narrative, must never be allowed to testify publicly..”

Lies And Pretence In New London Novichok Hearing (Helmer)

In a London courtroom last week, lawyers for the British government and the presiding judge, Lord Anthony Hughes (lead image, centre), revealed they will resist the efforts of the Dawn Sturgess family to obtain a multi-million pound settlement in compensation for what they claim, and the government says, was her death five years ago from Novichok poisoning by Russian state agents. Secrecy is the key, not only to the big money claim, but to the government’s aim to defeat it and at the same time preserve the official story that the Kremlin ordered and carried out the chemical warfare attack in England in 2018.

Lord Hughes is defending the government’s effort to keep secret enough of the evidence in the case to block Adam Straw KC and Michael Mansfield KC, the Sturgess family lawyers, from demonstrating that the British security services should have known in advance – and did know enough — to have protected Sturgess from the Russian cause of her death. Their argument has been that for this negligence a very large sum of money should be paid to Sturgess’s heirs, to Rowley, and to the lawyers. The judge, the government, and the lawyers have agreed, however, there is one secret they must all keep. Sergei Skripal, the original target and survivor of the Novichok attack allegations in the official narrative, must never be allowed to testify publicly to what he knows.

To cover this up, Straw, Mansfield, and a lawyer representing the British press lied in court last week, claiming they want “open justice” from the secret services and the police. According to Jude Bunting KC representing the media, “open justice is about avoiding ill-informed speculation about proceedings and, insofar as material is in the public domain because of assertion, or even because of state-sponsored [Russian] misinformation, that is all the more reason for disclosing that material in open rather than in closed.” Hughes claimed to be seeking the same openness. “One of the difficulties of this inquiry and this case…is that everybody popularly supposes that they know the answer. They may or may not be right, but the purpose of the inquiry is to find out.” Hughes was pretending.

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Paul Craig Roberts. “The gun charge is just a way of getting rid of the real charges..”

The Gun Charge Against Hunter Is the Way of Covering Up the Real Issues (PCR)

Conservatives and Republicans are gleeful that the DOJ has been forced off its sweetheart gun charge deal for Hunter and might now have to bring a felony gun charge. The conservatives and Republicans do not realize that the gun charge is the least serious or important of the charges and that by making the gun charge the issue the real issues, which are threats to Joe Biden, don’t get a day in court. The gun charge is just a way of getting rid of the real charges. Moreover, if Hunter is convicted, something a Democrat jury is unlikely to do, and doesn’t get a suspended sentence, Joe will pardon him.

The conservatives and Republicans don’t understand that they and President Trump, not the Bidens, are the prosecutors’ target. We now have a black quota-hire Fulton County prosecutor adding US Senators and Trump lawyers to her racketeering indictment. The ridiculous indictment is so broadly framed that anyone who expressed doubt about the election is covered by the indictment. When you give power over law to people who see law only as a weapon with which to get enemies, you destroy the rule of law. That’s what the dumbshit white liberals have done.

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“..But the question is whether such requests are evidence of a crime…”

The “Why Not” Culture: The Georgia Final Report Should Worry Us All (Turley)

With the release of the special grand jury final report in Georgia, the nation finally was able to see what foreperson Emily Kohrs last February was giggling about in interviews. Call it the “Why not?” report. Back then, when Kohrs was asked if there were recommended charges, she chuckled and said, “Can you imagine doing this for eight months and not coming out with a whole list of recommended indictments? It’s not a short list. It’s not.’” In addition to nodding at an expected Trump indictment, she added, “There may be some names on that list that you wouldn’t expect.” After all, why not? The final product did not disappoint. The members recommended 39 people for prosecution, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and former Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.).

They also included lawyers who argued for recounts or investigations into alleged election fraud. While the report expressly claims that the Fulton County District Attorney’s office did not create the list, it was the office of Fani Willis that presented the law, the evidence and potential targets to the special grand jury. During that process, these members concluded that politicians voicing support for the former president and his allegations could be criminally charged for doing so. The news that Willis did not indict Graham and others infuriated many on the left. Liberal websites were inundated with comments like “I want all the enablers charged, tried, and given long sentences as traitors to our country” and asking why the list did not include Senators Grassley, Cruz, Lee and “147 current and former members of the House, just to name a few.”

[..] The question is when advocacy or inquiries or negotiations become criminal acts. Willis’s first grand jury clearly believed that senators who called for recounts or Raffensperger’s resignation should go to prison. The comparison between their recommendations and the eventual indictment does not clearly answer how such acts are distinguishable as crimes. The same lack of limiting principle is evident in the new theory being pushed by various experts under the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from ballots on the grounds that he “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” Beyond the tendentious claim that the Jan. 6 riot was an actual insurrection, they also maintain that the provision is self-executing, requiring no vote of Congress for secretaries of state to bar Trump from next year’s ballots.

Even though Trump has not been charged, let alone convicted, of insurrection (or even incitement), these advocates believe that he can be removed from the ballot because of his election claims, his inflammatory rhetoric and his delay in calling for supporters to leave the Capitol. This is one of the most dangerous legal theories to arise in decades. This week, Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes aptly described the claimed right to disqualify as a “radical” measure that would “encompass every elected office in our government — state, local, federal, and so forth.” Indeed, Democrats have called for barring not just Trump but 120 Republicans in Congress from running for office.

As with the Georgia special grand jury, the question is “Why not?” If the standard is “giving aid or comfort” to insurrectionists, then why not throw hundreds of other Republicans who supported the challenge to certification on Jan. 6 off the ballot? And while we’re at it, why not bar every lawyer who helped file claims of voting fraud from ever running for office? They all gave aid or comfort with their actions. By this reasoning, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and other Democrats could have been barred from ballots for opposing Trump’s certification in 2016 without any basis, along with leaders such as Hillary Clinton, who continued to call the election “stolen” for years. In 2016, there were also violent riots in Washington opposing Trump’s inauguration, thanks in no small part to such rhetoric. We can then have different candidates of both parties removed from ballots in every state.

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“Mr. Gaetz pushed through an agreement that the process to remove and replace the Speaker of the House could be activated by one vote. Mr. Gaetz reiterated last week that he means business. He’s the one vote.”

The Mills of the Gods (Jim Kunstler)

Do you think that more than half of the US public may be getting a little irked with “Joe Biden’s” lawfare elf, AG Merrick Garland, as he rolls one innocent J-6 protester after another into decades of hard-time for strolling through the US Capitol building — while the special counsels assigned to only a few of the Biden family crimes play hide-the-salami with due process? For all their cheap talk about “our democracy,” it’s a little scary to see what Democratic Party lawyers actually think of the legal system that is supposed to allow a society based on liberty to function fairly. Court filings last week indicate that Special Counsel David Weiss is about to indict Hunter Biden on that gun charge they have used as the joker in a three-card Monte game for going on five years.

Last time, they ran the game before Delaware federal judge Maryellen Noreika, she detected a teeny-weeny, sneaky clause in the plea agreement to a watered-down gun charge that would have granted immunity to Hunter B from any other past wrongdoing, including, of course, the entire alleged Biden family racketeering operation that had the First Son acting as prime broker and bag-man for tens of millions of dollars in bribes from foreign actors in countries less than friendly to US interests, funneled into any number of Biden family shell corporations. Judge Noreika nixed the plea agreement. Now, Mr. Weiss’s crew seems to be saying that the immunity clause is still tied to any plea deal answering a forthcoming September 29 indictment.

The move would appear to be timed to exactly the moment that a House impeachment committee would begin its inquiry into the Biden family’s moneygrubbing activities. In ordinary House committee hearings, DOJ officials like to use the excuse of “an ongoing investigation” to demur from answering questions. Merrick Garland has done this dozens of times. Will they now try to upgrade that to “an ongoing prosecution?” Could that move lead to a constitutional impasse, requiring the Supreme Court to rule? Or does a House impeachment panel enjoy special privileges of inquiry? It also appears that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FLA) intends to force the issue of opening an impeachment ASAP against “Joe Biden.” In last January’s maneuvering to seat a new Republican House majority, Mr. Gaetz pushed through an agreement that the process to remove and replace the Speaker of the House could be activated by one vote. Mr. Gaetz reiterated last week that he means business. He’s the one vote.

The argument that Republicans should leave hands-off “Joe Biden” so they can run against the feeble old grifter in 2024 is preposterous because there is no way that the “JB” can possibly run for reelection under any circumstances. It’s just another trip being laid on the American public — and one that illustrates how tragic and dangerous is the absence of an honest news media for challenging such insolent gambits. The President can barely totter into a room now without making some embarrassing pratfall or gaffe. He couldn’t possibly survive a debate, especially with all the new records of his crimes unearthed since the last time around in 2020 when he pretended to know nothing about his son’s business dealings.

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“..it is pretty clear who is responsible for 9/11 and why. Many Americans today understand what really happened..”

“It is paradoxical that President Trump is in the dock for questioning an election, while Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives, and the whore media that covered up for them, never faced a single charge.”

9/11 After 22 Years (Paul Craig Roberts)

Today is the 22nd Anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon known as 9/11. A generation of 22-year olds has grown up after 9/11, and the event probably means nothing to them. They learn that it was an attack on America like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 disappears into history. It is unlikely that anyone under 40 is much concerned with 9/11. A 40-year old today would have been 18 in 2001 and would likely dismiss 9/11 concerns as conspiracy theory. Today’s youth are more likely to be marching in support of sexual perversion than wondering about the source and purpose of the 9/11 attack.

Over the years I have reported the mounting evidence provided by scientists and by architect Richard Gage’s Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth until the organization he created removed him at the request of the government, effectively destroying the organization. But for me the proof that 9/11 was an inside job has always been that no one in government and security agencies was ever held accountable for the worst humiliation ever inflicted on an alleged “superpower.” Instead, it took a year before the White House even agreed to an official coverup with the 9/11 Commission, another in the long line of commissions like the Warren Commission that validates the official story. If a few young Saudi Arabians had actually defeated the entire national security apparatus of the United States, the White House would have been screaming, and heads would have rolled.

The neoconservatives had just called for a “new Pearl Harbor” so they could launch their wars of destruction of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East. They immediately blamed 9/11 on “Muslim terrorists” and began their invasions that halted only when Russia blocked the neoconservatives’ overthrow of Syria. So it is pretty clear who is responsible for 9/11 and why. Many Americans today understand what really happened, but the government will never admit it. It takes decades for the truth to come out, and by then everyone affected by the event is dead, and the event becomes ancient history. It is paradoxical that President Trump is in the dock for questioning an election, while Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives, and the whore media that covered up for them, never faced a single charge.

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Great Depression
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701337655886102874

 

 

Smile
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701205047835521236

 

 

Left my heart

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 102023
 
 September 10, 2023  Posted by at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  26 Responses »


Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Fall of Icarus 1558

 

Wrongheaded US Leadership in Ukraine – Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, Nap (Sp.)
Ice Cracking Sounds On Frozen Lake of US-Russia Relations (Bhadrakumar)
Musk Talked To Russian Ambassador Before Starlink Decision – WaPo (RT)
Musk: US Military Vulnerability Due to Slow Production Rate, Like Ukraine (Sp.)
NATO’s DU ‘Perfect Storm’ of Toxic Pollution in Breadbasket Ukraine (Tweedie)
Biden Admin Likely Violated 1st Amendment On Social Media: 5th Circuit (ZH)
Ukraine Will Be Ready To Join EU In Two Years – Kiev (RT)
G20 Declaration On Ukraine A ‘Blow To Western Countries’ (Sp.)
Russia and China Have Effectively Ditched The Dollar – Moscow (RT)
The Daunting Physics of ‘Bidenomics’ (Rall)
World Is ‘Laughing At’ The US – Alaska Governor (RT)
‘Greedflation’ Ravaging Western Europe – Nikkei (RT)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wants His Party Back (ET)
Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Drops Bombshell (GP)
Japan’s Mount Fuji ‘In Real Crisis’ – Officials (RT)

 

 

Japan vaccine

 

 

 

 

Hoax

 

 

 

 

Obama Minimize
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700313493428228549

 

 

 

 

DARPA McCullough

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excellent conversation.

“Tony, look at a map,” and just look at the progress that “has not been made by Ukraine..”

Wrongheaded US Leadership in Ukraine – Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, Nap (Sp.)

The United States is blatantly lying about the botched Ukrainian counteroffensive, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson said in an interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano on his Judging Freedom podcast. “Tony, look at a map,” and just look at the progress that “has not been made by Ukraine,” said the retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official, as he commented on recent remarks made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kiev. During his unannounced visit to the Ukrainian capital, Blinken, standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, touted that the Ukrainian military had made “real progress” in its counteroffensive in the “last few weeks.” The Ukrainian president’s assessment of the battlefront developments “matches our own,” continued Blinken, who went over to Kiev to pledge a new aid package for Ukraine worth over $1 billion.

In fact, “Russia has been steadily pushing to the [west],” Johnson said, pointing out that the battle of Artemovsk was the “last big conflict” on the battlefront that Ukraine’s military was engaged in. “They [the US] don’t understand Russian defensive tactics,” Johnson emphasized. In May 2023, the Russian military liberated Artemovsk (also known as Bakhmut), a Donbass city reduced to ruins in over eight months of brutal house-to-house fighting. The Artemovsk operation destroyed tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries, while Russia built up its reserves and prepared defenses in Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson for Kiev’s much-heralded summer offensive

“Americans have been had,” added Ray McGovern, a former top US intel analyst, who also joined the Judging Freedom podcast. He pointed out that, “Billions of money had gone to Ukraine, with a lot of it syphoned off.” He told the host that America was “losing” in the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Nevertheless, senior-level members of the US intelligence community continue “to delude themselves, their colleagues, the press, and the public,” regarding the actual developments on the ground, specified Larry Johnson. These officials refused to wake up to the reality that Ukraine was experiencing “shortage of ammunition, shortage of manpower, trouble recruiting people,” etc.

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“What distinguishes Umerov is that he was a key negotiator at the peace talks with Russia in Istanbul last year in March, which actually resulted in an agreed document … Again, he was instrumental in negotiating the Black Sea Grain Initiative..”

Ice Cracking Sounds On Frozen Lake of US-Russia Relations (Bhadrakumar)

Meanwhile, on September 6, Blinken embarked on quite an untypical visit to Kiev. There was no fire in his belly. For once, he didn’t threaten Russia or ridicule Putin from Ukrainian soil. Nor did Blinken show much enthusiasm for Kiev’s counteroffensive. Rather, his focus was on the war’s horrific trail causing human suffering, Ukraine’s post-conflict recovery as a democracy and its economy’s reconstruction. Blinken said repeatedly that he was undertaking the visit on Biden’s instruction. In the presence of President Zelensky, Blinken stated:

“We are determined in the United States to continue to walk side by side with you. And President Biden asked me to come, to reaffirm strongly our support, to ensure that we are maximising the efforts that we’re making and other countries are making for the immediate challenge of the counteroffensive as well as the longer-term efforts to help Ukraine build a force for the future that can deter and defend against any future aggression, but also to work with you and support you as you engage in the critical work of strengthening your democracy, rebuilding your economy.”

Stirring words, but there was no boastful talk of liberating Crimea, carrying the fight into the Russian camp or forcing Russia to vacate the annexed territories and negotiating with Russia only from a position of strength. At Blinken’s joint press availability with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, the latter claimed that they had a “substantive” discussion on providing long-range rockets, ATACMS to Kiev. But Blinken sidestepped the topic. The most unusual thing about Blinken’s visit was that it spilled over to a second day. This must be the first time Blinken spent a night in Ukraine. Blinken had a rather tight schedule on the first day meeting Kuleba, Zelensky and Prime Minister Denis Shmigal, but the itinerary for the second day [September 7], was left open. Obviously, he came to Kiev for some serious discussions.

Conceivably, Biden could be interested in starting peace talks between Moscow and Kiev now that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed to meet its politico-military objectives, and there are worrisome signs of support waning in America and Europe for the proxy war, while a Russian offensive could deal a knockout punch on Ukraine’s military. Both Russian and western estimates are that close to 65-70,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in these past 3 months alone since Kiev’s “counteroffensive” began. Meanwhile, in an interesting coincidence, on September 6, Ukraine’s parliament Verkhovna Rada approved the appointment of Rustem Umerov as the new Defence Minister replacing Alexei Reznikov. A Crimean Tatar born in Uzbekistan (USSR), Umerov has no previous military background. But he is trusted by Zelensky and is acceptable to the Americans.

What distinguishes Umerov is that he was a key negotiator at the peace talks with Russia in Istanbul last year in March, which actually resulted in an agreed document (from which Zelensky subsequently retracted under Anglo-American pressure.) Again, he was instrumental in negotiating the Black Sea Grain Initiative (so-called grain deal between Ukraine and Russia) which became operational in July last year at Istanbul. These are straws in the wind that must be duly noted.

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Even RT gets it upside down: “..secretly instructed engineers to turn off coverage..” No, he did not. There was never any coverage to be shut down. He declined to activate it.

Musk Talked To Russian Ambassador Before Starlink Decision – WaPo (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk spoke to Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, before making the decision to switch off his Starlink satellite internet service in Crimea last September to thwart a Ukrainian attack on the peninsula, the Washington Post has reported. On Thursday, the paper published more details about Musk cutting Starlink coverage to prevent a Ukrainian seaborne drone strike on the Russian Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol. The events that occurred have been described in a biography of the tech billionaire by historian Walter Isaacson that is due to hit shelves next week. With Kiev’s forces poised to launch their attack, Musk spoke with Antonov, who told him that a strike on Crimea, which became part of Russia after a referendum in 2014, “could lead to a nuclear response” by Moscow, Isaacson said in his book.

“In later conversations with a few other people, he [Musk] seemed to imply that he had spoken directly to [Russian] President Vladimir Putin, but to me he said his communications had gone through the ambassador,” the historian wrote. According to Isaacson, Musk concluded that “allowing the use of Starlink for the attack… could be a disaster for the world.” He therefore took matters into his own hands and secretly instructed engineers to turn off coverage within 100km of the Crimean coast. As a result of the move, the six explosive-laden Ukrainian drones, which relied on Starlink for navigation, “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.” Musk started receiving “frantic” calls from Kiev as soon as the Ukrainians realized that the satellite service wasn’t working.

They tried to explain to the billionaire that the drones were “crucial to their fight for freedom,” but Musk still refused to switch Starlink back on. He argued that Ukraine was “going too far and inviting strategic defeat” by targeting Crimea, Isaacson wrote. The historian also claimed that Musk had discussed the situation with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, explaining to them that he didn’t intend for Starlink to be used for offensive purposes. Musk provided a slightly different account of events in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), saying that Starlink was never active around Crimea and that he simply turned down Ukrainian calls to provide coverage in the area.

“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” he argued. Commenting on revelations from Isaacson’s book, Mikhail Podoliak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, said that Musk’s decision was the result of “a cocktail of ignorance and big ego.” The billionaire “committed evil” by allowing the Russian fleet to continue striking Ukrainian targets with Kalibr missiles, he claimed. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy head of the country’s Security Council, described Musk as “the last adequate mind in North America” for preventing a strike on Crimea.

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It’s going to take many years.

Musk: US Military Vulnerability Due to Slow Production Rate, Like Ukraine (Sp.)

US military vulnerability primarily “stems from the slow pace of production,” American entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk has pointed out. The tech guru took to his social media platform X (formerly Twitter), to comment on last year’s post by the company Anduril Industries. On its five-year anniversary, the military technology company had argued the need for a joint effort if it was expected to “transform US and allied military capabilities with advanced technology.” We need “a new group of defense technology companies to Reboot the Arsenal of Democracy,” the firm had stated. The entrepreneur also emphasized that making new prototypes is easy, but putting them into production is hard.

This comes as the third month of Ukraine’s botched counteroffensive has wrapped up, with the Kiev regime unable to boast any significant military gains, while US stockpiles of munitions are getting “dangerously low”. As of August 30, 2023, Ukraine has reportedly lost 466 airplanes, 247 helicopters, 6,234 unmanned aerial vehicles, 433 air defense missile systems, 11,570 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 1,146 fighting vehicles equipped with MLRS, 6,128 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 12,528 special military motor vehicles since the beginning of the special military operation.

Meanwhile, the US unveiled the latest military package for the Kiev regime, worth $250 million, late in August, including AIM-9M missiles for air defense, munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, mine-clearing equipment, Javelin and other anti-armor systems and rockets, three million rounds of small arms ammunition, as well as other items. However, by continuing to funnel military aid to Kiev the US is reportedly fast-depleting its own military caches of various weapons. Thus, depletion of US stockpiles of 155mm artillery shells (for howitzer use) was recently cited in a US report, with the additional revelation that Washington was sending Kiev 155mm and 105mm shells for the simple reason that it no longer had adequate stockpiles of 155mm shells.

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“..high-level radioactive waste contaminants can be found in uranium waste streams that then get made into depleted uranium.”

NATO’s DU ‘Perfect Storm’ of Toxic Pollution in Breadbasket Ukraine (Tweedie)

NATO-supplied depleted uranium (DU) rounds will contaminate Ukraine’s ‘breadbasket’ grain-growing regions with radioactive waste, a nuclear watchdog has warned. This week the US followed the UK in announcing the supply of the controversial armor-piercing rounds for the M1 Abrams tanks it is supplying to the Kiev regime. British Challenger 2 tanks equipped with DU penetrators have already seen action in the Zaporozye region — with at least one meeting a fiery end. Depleted uranium is the left-over material from the enrichment process used to make fuel rods for nuclear power reactors and — at higher levels — elements of nuclear weapons. The concentration of fissile uranium-235 isotope in depleted uranium is about 0.3 percent, 40 percent of the level of element in its unenriched state, but it still emits around 60 percent as much atomic radiation as natural uranium.

Most of that is in the form of alpha particles from U-238 and U-234 — the most harmful form of radiation if ingested into the body — with beta particles given out by decay products that form within a few weeks. Watchdog Kevin Kamps told Sputnik that US national security spokesman John Kirby’s claim that DU penetrator rods were not radioactive or carcinogenic was simply not true. “Depleted uranium munitions are really intended to be armor piercing. They can bust tanks, they can penetrate through concrete,” Kamps explained. “It’s because they’re so dense. Uranium is the densest isotope an element on the periodic table.” The harmful nature of DU is well understood, the expert pointed out. “Uranium in nature is hazardous to begin with,” Kamps said. “It’s a toxic heavy metal. It is what they say as mildly radioactive, which is kind of a misnomer, radioactivity is hazardous even in mild form.”

He added that DU is often mixed with radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. “In both the United States, where this depleted uranium munitions is coming from, but also in other countries, there’s a mixing of uranium waste streams off of the enrichment process,” Kamps noted. “And what that can often mean is high-level radioactive waste contaminants can be found in uranium waste streams that then get made into depleted uranium.” What makes DU even more toxic is its pyrophoric properties — the material ignites on hitting its target, as well as pulverizing into microscopic dust from the near-hypersonic velocity impact. “It’s kind of the perfect storm of hazard. You’ve got toxic heavy metal, you’ve got radioactivity that can be contaminated with much higher level radioactivity from high-level radioactive waste,” Kamps stressed. “And then it turns into a fine dust that you can breathe in, that blows on the wind, that settles on the water and flows downstream and downwind and harms people and other living beings all along the way.”

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I posted Justin Hart’s tweet yesterday, with a long list of officials affected by the decision. Will they stop?

Biden Admin Likely Violated 1st Amendment On Social Media: 5th Circuit (ZH)

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that several Biden administration officials had likely breached the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to moderate or take down content they deemed problematic. And here is Exhibit A of that First Amendment-crushing coercion and collusion… which obviously began in the Trump-era under Anthony Fauci. ZeroHedge was banned from Twitter one day after this email. In an unsigned 75-page opinion, three 5th Circuit judges agreed with the plaintiffs that the administration “ran afoul of the First Amendment” by at times threatening social media platforms with antitrust action or changes to law protecting them from liability.

However, as The Epoch Times’ Aldgra Fredly reports, the three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed much of an injunction issued by a Louisiana judge that restricted Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration from communicating with social media companies. The court said that the White House, Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the FBI “likely coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content” in violation of the First Amendment. “It is true that the officials have an interest in engaging with social media companies, including on issues such as misinformation and election interference,” the three-judge panel said in a 74-page ruling (pdf) on Sept. 8. “But the government is not permitted to advance these interests to the extent that it engages in viewpoint suppression,” they added.

The court found that the officials made “express threats” and “inflammatory accusations” by saying that the platforms were “poisoning the public” and “killing people.” The platforms were told they needed to take “greater responsibility and action.” “Then, they followed their statements with threats of ‘fundamental reforms’ like regulatory changes and increased enforcement actions that would ensure the platforms were ‘held accountable’. But, beyond express threats, there was always an unspoken ‘or else,'” it added. The court also said the officials encouraged social media platforms to moderate content by “exercising active, meaningful control over those decisions,” particularly concerning the platforms’ moderation policies.

According to the ruling, the FBI “regularly met with the platforms, shared ‘strategic information,’ frequently alerted the social media companies to misinformation spreading on their platforms, and monitored their content moderation policies.” “But, the FBI went beyond that—they urged the platforms to take down content. Turning to the Second Circuit’s four-factor test, we find that those requests were coercive,” it added. The judges emphasized that the government cannot supervise a platform’s content moderation decisions and cannot impose “legal, regulatory, or economic consequences” if they refuse to comply with a given request. “Social media platforms’ content-moderation decisions must be theirs and theirs alone,” the court asserted.

The attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, along with several social media users, had sued last year, saying Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter engaged in censorship as a result of repeated urging by government officials and threats of heightened regulatory enforcement. The lawsuit said the censored views included content questioning anti-COVID-19 measures such as masks and vaccine mandates and allegations of election fraud.

Watters 5th circuit

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Not going to happen.

Ukraine Will Be Ready To Join EU In Two Years – Kiev (RT)

Ukraine should be ready to become an EU member in the next two years, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishina told Voice of America on Friday. As Kiev’s official responsible for “European and Euro-Atlantic integration,” she says her nation is one of the “best prepared” for such a step. “I believe that two years would be enough for full preparedness,” Stefanishina said, when asked about Ukraine’s EU prospects. She also vowed to do “10 times more than we do now” to achieve the goal once the conflict with Moscow ends. However, the minister admitted that the timeline would ultimately be determined by the “course of war.”

According to Stefanishina, Ukraine remains one of the “best prepared [nations] for the EU accession” since it is “a big part of the European economy” even in the midst of armed conflict. The country is one of the EU’s “top 20” import partners and the Ukrainian domestic market is “the biggest” on the territory of Europe, she stated. At the same time, she admitted that Ukraine’s economic role in the EU would remain largely agricultural. “With all those agricultural lands… there can be no reality, in which Ukraine stops being an agrarian country,” she said. The bloc itself has been in no rush to accept Kiev into its ranks. EU officials have refused to set specific timelines for Ukraine’s accession, saying that it must first address issues such as rampant corruption and introduce comprehensive legal reforms. In 2022, France said that the process might eventually take years.

In early September, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg warned that fast-tracking membership for Ukraine would spell “geostrategic disaster” since it would show that some nations are “more equal than others.” Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy also said on Friday that accepting the ex-Soviet republic into both the EU and NATO would increase Washington’s sway over the EU dramatically. Kiev might also join NATO even sooner than the EU, Stefanishina proposed, saying that the US-led military bloc would be happy to have a member with “one of the strongest armies” after, she said, it beats Moscow. The minister admitted, though, that Ukraine’s accession to the alliance is a “political decision,” while still maintaining that this decision was “taken in Vilnius,” which hosted the latest NATO summit.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky produced a scandal at the meeting in mid-July, when he condemned NATO for what he called “indecisiveness” over a lack of a clear roadmap for Kiev’s membership. He allegedly angered US officials to the extent that they briefly considered withdrawing Ukraine’s invitation to the bloc. Then British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace also criticized Kiev over its lack of gratitude for Western military aid, explaining that the US and its allies were “not Amazon.”

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“I think that following Putin’s non-participation in this forum, our country’s exit from the organization is also possible. We must give preference to those platforms that can implement our projects and our ideas. BRICS can do this, the SCO can do this, but the G20 cannot ,” [Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee Andrei] Klimov said.

G20 Declaration On Ukraine A ‘Blow To Western Countries’ (Sp.)

The declaration of the G20 summit in India was a blow to the West, a British business newspaper reports, adding that this highlights the lack of global consensus in support of Kiev. The G20 leaders earlier in the day said in the New Delhi Summit Declaration that they had different views on and assessments of the Ukraine conflict during discussions of the issue, but all of them jointly call for respect for the UN Charter. “That statement, hammered out over weeks of negotiations between diplomats, is a blow to western countries that have spent the past year attempting to convince developing countries to condemn Moscow and support Ukraine,” the newspaper wrote. “The New Delhi summit declaration refers only to the ‘war in Ukraine’, a formulation that supporters of [Kiev] such as the US and NATO allies have previously rejected as it implies both sides are equally complicit,” the report added.

Russian G20 Sherpa Svetlana Lukash, meanwhile, emphasized that the declaration demonstrates the group’s balanced position on the Ukraine conflict and its intention to settle all conflicts around the world. “As for the Ukrainian case, I can say that the negotiations were very complex and, above all, the collective position of the BRICS countries and other partners has borne fruit … What we have been hearing all year, that the Ukrainian conflict is worsening the food security situation, is now reflected in a balanced way,” Lukash told journalists. Half of the group’s members refused to accept Western narratives, she said, adding that a “consensus language” had been used in the declaration. In addition, the G20 members have agreed to work jointly for peace, security, and conflict resolution around the world, Lukash said.

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“At the beginning of 2022 it was hovering around 25%, now it is exceeding 80%.”

Russia and China Have Effectively Ditched The Dollar – Moscow (RT)

The de-dollarization of Russia-China trade is practically complete, according to Georgy Zinoviev, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s First Asian Department, as cited by RIA Novosti. The official said the share of the US dollar in mutual settlements between the neighboring nations has substantially shrunk over the past two years. “The share of national currencies in Russian-Chinese payments is growing at an extremely rapid pace,” Zinoviev told the news agency. “At the beginning of 2022 it was hovering around 25%, now it is exceeding 80%.” He added that the volume of trading in the ruble-yuan pair on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) outpaced volumes in the dollar-ruble pair long ago. According to Zinoviev, Russian and Chinese businesses are “rapidly moving away from the ‘toxic’ Western currencies, opting for the ruble and yuan as more reliable and safe way of payment.”

The diplomat noted that Moscow and Beijing have developed vital tools to make it possible to “facilitate all necessary transactions as much as possible,” despite international political and economic instability that significantly affects financial institutions and their ability to efficiently operate. The changes reflect Russia’s move away from transactions in the currencies of ‘unfriendly countries’ against the backdrop of sanctions. Earlier this year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the country no longer trusts the dollar, calling it “a completely unreliable instrument.” Zinoviev’s comments come ahead of the 8th Eastern Economic Forum, which kicks off on September 10 in Vladivostok, Russia. Most of the discussions at the annual event will focus on trade, business, and investment.

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“..In the short term — i.e., between now and the presidential election—prices would need to fall back to pre-Biden levels. The average US gas price in January 2021 when Biden took office was $2.42 per gallon. Now it’s $3.95..”

The Daunting Physics of ‘Bidenomics’ (Rall)

Democrats are confident enough about how things are going that “Bidenomics” is at the center of their case for another four years in the White House; however, this is a rosy picture few voters can see as Americans consistently give US President Joe Biden low marks for his handling of the economy. “I’ve never seen this big of a disconnect between how the economy is actually doing and key polling results about what people think is going on,” Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, told US media. What gives? Jason Furman, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under the Obama White House, points to a yearslong trend that only ended recently: wages haven’t kept up with inflation, leaving the average worker $2,000 worse off than during the final year of the Trump presidency.

“The way to think about that is people were in an incredibly deep hole because of inflation and we’re still not all the way out of that hole,” Furman says. The problem for Biden is, what people would need to have happen in order to feel that inflation was truly behind them would be horrible for the economy – not to mention his prospects for reelection: deflation. During our lifetimes, ideal economic conditions in a healthy economy feature an annual official inflation rate in the single digits, a policy economists call inflation targeting. Prices rise, but if wages go up even faster employees are happy. Low inflation incentivizes consumers to buy sooner rather than later, when prices will be higher. But, as Furman points out, that hasn’t been the case lately. Airfares went up 28.5% in 2022. Butter rose 31.4%. Eggs a whopping 59.9%. So we’re displeased.

What will it take to convince voters that inflation is no longer a problem? In the short term — i.e., between now and the presidential election—prices would need to fall back to pre-Biden levels. The average US gas price in January 2021 when Biden took office was $2.42 per gallon. Now it’s $3.95. The Federal Reserve’s efforts to reduce inflation appear to be working. Prices are rising at a slower rate and that’s the problem for Democrats. Mechanical physics provides a helpful parallel. Many economists and political analysts seem to think of inflation rate as analogous to velocity. In their view, reducing the inflation rate from 8% to 3% is a victory for inflation-targeting fiscal policy. Indeed, if a 3% inflation rate (coupled with wages that rise faster than 3%) remains in effect indefinitely, people will eventually feel good (or less bad) about the economy. As the economist John Maynard Keynes observed a century ago, however, “in the long run, we will all be dead.” And the Democrats’ calendar is much shorter than that, a mere 14 months.

Before inflation-affected consumers can be persuaded to tap their feet to “Happy Days Are Here Again,” they’ll have to pass through several stages of recovery. First, they’ll feel less bad. Then comes meh. Penultimately, they’ll see themselves paying off credit card and other debts they ran up during the inflationary period. Only after those lingering financial hangovers are past will they be able to achieve what feels like the final stage, prosperity: earning enough to pay one’s bills while setting a surplus aside in the form of savings. With Americans’ credit card debt hitting the staggering benchmark of $1 trillion and rising, we are currently in the “less bad”/”meh” stage. But it’s hard to see what Biden or the Fed or anyone else can do in order to promote a sunnier view of the economy.

A lower inflation rate—even an ideal one in the low single digits—still means higher prices. We will probably not see $2.42 per gallon gas, the price in early 2021, any time soon, if ever. Gas prices will likely continue to increase to $4.00 and $4.05 and $4.10 and on and on and on, adding minor injury to gaping wound.

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“..So 2024 can’t come soon enough for most of us.”

World Is ‘Laughing At’ The US – Alaska Governor (RT)

The US government’s decision to cancel oil and gas drilling licenses and forbid further drilling will “hobble” the country’s economy and makes no sense except to advance the green agenda, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has declared. President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday canceled seven ten-year oil and gas drilling licenses granted to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) by former President Donald Trump. Biden’s Department of the Interior followed up this decision by issuing a proposal to forbid future leases on more than 40% of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

Biden said that these two measures “will help preserve our Arctic lands and wildlife,” adding on Saturday that he would “continue to take bold action to meet the urgency of the climate crisis and to protect our lands and waters for generations to come.” Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Dunleavy said that “this makes absolutely no sense from any perspective unless your goal is to drive up the cost of oil and gas so much that it makes certain renewables cheaper.” Dunleavy, a Republican, claimed that Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran are “laughing” at Biden’s energy policy. “They’re laughing together at the United States of America,” the governor said. “I can’t find anywhere in, really the history of nation-states or empires, where they worked at hobbling themselves to such a degree that’s happening currently with this administration. So 2024 can’t come soon enough for most of us.”

Gasoline prices have soared under Biden, reaching a record average high of just over $5 per gallon last June, up from around $2 when the president took office. Prices began to rise when Biden signed an executive order in January 2021 banning new oil and gas licenses on federal land, and spiked as the conflict in Ukraine rocked global energy markets. Ahead of last year’s midterm elections, Biden attempted to stabilize gasoline prices by draining the US’ strategic petroleum reserve, and by unsuccessfully lobbying the Saudi-led Organization of Petroleum Exporting States to cut production. The AIDEA argues that Biden has no legal right to rescind existing drilling licenses and told Fox News that it intends to challenge the decision in court.

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“..Roughly 50% of price increases in the region resulted from local companies passing higher costs on to consumers..”

“..growth in corporate profits accounted for 45% of inflation in Europe last year..”

‘Greedflation’ Ravaging Western Europe – Nikkei (RT)

Inflation continues to rage in Western Europe, with monthly consumer prices soaring by over 14% in the UK and more than 10% in Germany, according to a Nikkei report. Some retailers have been hiking prices out of proportion with their underlying costs, it claimed. Roughly 50% of price increases in the region resulted from local companies passing higher costs on to consumers, the outlet estimated. Consumption has slumped across the region as price increases have outpaced wage growth. Nikkei cited an analysis of annual results from 70 European food retail and manufacturing companies by the management consultancy Oliver Wyman, which reportedly found that absolute EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) rose by 11% at food retailers and 12% at manufacturers in 2022, compared to the previous year. That growth was mostly driven by increased revenues.

“Companies in the food sector viewed the inflation context as an opportunity to review their price management,” Rainer Muench, partner at Oliver Wyman, was quoted as saying.

According to the IMF data, cited by Nikkei, growth in corporate profits accounted for 45% of inflation in Europe last year, higher than the 40% attributed to the higher cost of imports. A survey of households by the European Commission reportedly found the perceived rate of inflation over the past year has risen to 26% among low-income families, the highest in 20 years. Earlier this year, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey accused domestic retailers of driving ‘greedflation,’ claiming that certain businesses were “overcharging customers” as millions of families struggle to make ends meet. The BoE has also warned that British households and businesses need to accept that they are worse off and should stop asking for wage increases and pushing prices higher.

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“I’m running against a larger challenge because I am facing an entire infrastructure that is against me, from my own party and Big Tech and the pharmaceutical industry.“

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wants His Party Back (ET)

On a steamy summer morning, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. strode into a hotel conference room in Columbia, South Carolina, amid a barnstorming town hall tour of a state where Joe Biden won close to 49 percent of the vote in the 2020 Democratic primary. Mr. Kennedy spoke about his 2024 presidential campaign. Democrat pundits say he is a fringe candidate who spreads conspiracy theories. Polls show him with the highest favorability rating of any presidential candidate. There is no path for Mr. Kennedy to defeat President Biden, critics claim, despite questions about President Joe Biden’s age and mental fitness, low approval ratings, and surveys showing that Americans are concerned about the economy. Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee voted to give its full support to the president.

Mr. Kennedy agrees that unseating an incumbent president in the same party is a daunting challenge but disagrees with doubters who say he has no chance of securing the nomination. The 2024 presidential nominee will be announced during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next summer. Until then, Mr. Kennedy intends to continue to press his case. “The DNC has around $2 billion, and they’re spending that money generously to try to marginalize me in many ways, but I think most Democrats care about one thing more than anything else, which is to beat Donald Trump,” Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times. “I think President Biden cannot do that. I can.” Mr. Kennedy is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963; and the son of Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot and killed after a campaign speech while running for president in 1968.

During his town halls and meet-and-greets, Mr. Kennedy tells stories from time spent with his uncle and father and connects them to his presidential campaign. He wants to continue his father’s legacy of uniting Americans from all economic classes and ethnic backgrounds. “I think we do that by telling the truth to people. My dad did it that way. He talked about uncomfortable issues but talked about the truth. I think people are tired of being lied to by the government, by the media,” Mr. Kennedy said. “My dad ran against an incumbent president in his own party (Lyndon B. Johnson) during a divisive time. I’m running against a larger challenge because I am facing an entire infrastructure that is against me, from my own party and Big Tech and the pharmaceutical industry.”

RFK

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“..because I refused to lie about President Trump it cost me twenty-two years of my life.”

Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Drops Bombshell (GP)

“They asked me to LIE about President Trump in order to indict him,” Enrique Tarrio exclusively told the Gateway Pundit. “I told them to pound sand, and because I refused to lie about President Trump it cost me twenty-two years of my life.” “The truth is, I could have been home,” said Tarrio. “I could have been home a long time ago. I could be in my warm ass bed right now, laughing at the world, without a problem…and all I had to do in order to do that WAS LIE ABOUT TRUMP. All I had to do was confirm a lie.” Tarrio opened up to the Gateway Pundit after he was sentenced to decades in prison by the Dishonorable Judge Kelly on Tuesday.

He told us that the prosecutors in the Department of Justice attempted to coerce him into signing a false statement that would implicate President Trump by swearing that “through several degrees of separation and connections, Tarrio had communicated with Trump regarding ‘plans’ for January 6th.” On Friday night The Gateway Pundit held a Twitter space with Enrique Tarrio as special guest. TGP reporters Cara Castronuova and Alicia Powe organized Friday night’s Twitter Space. During Friday night’s Twitter Space Enrique Tarrio repeated his accusations against the Biden regime. Later in the discussion Enrique disclosed two names of Biden officials who were in the meeting when he was pressured by federal agents to lie about President Trump.

Enrique Tarrio announced two DOJ officials who were in the room during this meeting: ** DOJ Lead Prosecutor Jocelyn Ballantine ** Assistant US Attorney Jason McCullough Jocelyn Ballantine was a DOJ attorney staffed on General Michael Flynn’s prosecution. The DOJ admitted to altering evidence in Flynn’s case and the government eventually dropped the case against General Flynn. Ballantine was caught lying during a DOJ investigation of Strzok and McCabe. She still holds a job as a top official in Merrick Garland’s DOJ.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1700542330682347608

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No, not “climate change”. Tourism. In Athens, numbers of visitors to the Acropolis are being limited. New York City is severely cutting into AirBnB rentals.

Japan’s Mount Fuji ‘In Real Crisis’ – Officials (RT)

Mount Fuji, one of Japan’s sacred mountains and a popular pilgrimage site, could become less attractive if the number of tourists is not brought under control, the local authorities warn. “Fuji is screaming in pain. We can’t just wait for improvement,” Masatake Izumi, a Yamanashi prefectural government official, told CNN during a tour for foreign media on Saturday, adding that “overtourism” needs to be tackled urgently. Izumi was quoted by Reuters as saying that “Fuji faces a real crisis” because of the “uncontrollable” flow of tourists. “We fear that Mount Fuji will soon become so unattractive, nobody would want to climb it,” he said.

According to government officials, the post-Covid tourism boom has brought thousands of hikers to the mountain, causing environmental damage and placing extra pressure on the first aid services. Despite the introduction of a campaign urging visitors not to litter, with volunteers removing tons of trash each year, both hikers and caretakers complain about overcrowding and the piles of litter left along the path. Mount Fuji ranger Miho Sakurai told reporters that there are “way too many people on Mount Fuji at the moment,” including many inexperienced “first timers,” often underdressed, poorly equipped, and prone to hypothermia or altitude sickness. As a result, rescue requests have increased by 50% from last year and one person died in April in a climbing accident.

An active volcano known for its picturesque snowcap and one of Japan’s national symbols, the mountain was recognized as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 2013. The number of visitors to Fuji more than doubled between 2012 and 2019 to 5.1 million, according to CNA news agency. This week, government officials met to discuss “overcrowding and breaches of etiquette” across high-traffic tourist spots, with Yamanashi Governor Kotaro Nagasaki proposing the construction of a light railway to control the number of people accessing the site. “We need a shift from quantity to quality when it comes to tourism on Mount Fuji,” Nagasaki said. A local ranger called the prospect of Mount Fuji losing its heritage status “devastating.”

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Kids having fun
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700240513838760320

 

 

Water filters are now labeled “pesticides” (because they contain silver).

 

 

Elephants
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700575172858675668

 

 

Tuna

 

 

CGI

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 


Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Fall of Icarus 1558

 

Wrongheaded US Leadership in Ukraine – Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, Nap (Sp.)
Ice Cracking Sounds On Frozen Lake of US-Russia Relations (Bhadrakumar)
Musk Talked To Russian Ambassador Before Starlink Decision – WaPo (RT)
Musk: US Military Vulnerability Due to Slow Production Rate, Like Ukraine (Sp.)
NATO’s DU ‘Perfect Storm’ of Toxic Pollution in Breadbasket Ukraine (Tweedie)
Biden Admin Likely Violated 1st Amendment On Social Media: 5th Circuit (ZH)
Ukraine Will Be Ready To Join EU In Two Years – Kiev (RT)
G20 Declaration On Ukraine A ‘Blow To Western Countries’ (Sp.)
Russia and China Have Effectively Ditched The Dollar – Moscow (RT)
The Daunting Physics of ‘Bidenomics’ (Rall)
World Is ‘Laughing At’ The US – Alaska Governor (RT)
‘Greedflation’ Ravaging Western Europe – Nikkei (RT)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wants His Party Back (ET)
Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Drops Bombshell (GP)
Japan’s Mount Fuji ‘In Real Crisis’ – Officials (RT)

 

 

Japan vaccine

 

 

 

 

Hoax

 

 

 

 

Obama Minimize
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700313493428228549

 

 

 

 

DARPA McCullough

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excellent conversation.

“Tony, look at a map,” and just look at the progress that “has not been made by Ukraine..”

Wrongheaded US Leadership in Ukraine – Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, Nap (Sp.)

The United States is blatantly lying about the botched Ukrainian counteroffensive, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson said in an interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano on his Judging Freedom podcast. “Tony, look at a map,” and just look at the progress that “has not been made by Ukraine,” said the retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official, as he commented on recent remarks made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kiev. During his unannounced visit to the Ukrainian capital, Blinken, standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, touted that the Ukrainian military had made “real progress” in its counteroffensive in the “last few weeks.” The Ukrainian president’s assessment of the battlefront developments “matches our own,” continued Blinken, who went over to Kiev to pledge a new aid package for Ukraine worth over $1 billion.

In fact, “Russia has been steadily pushing to the [west],” Johnson said, pointing out that the battle of Artemovsk was the “last big conflict” on the battlefront that Ukraine’s military was engaged in. “They [the US] don’t understand Russian defensive tactics,” Johnson emphasized. In May 2023, the Russian military liberated Artemovsk (also known as Bakhmut), a Donbass city reduced to ruins in over eight months of brutal house-to-house fighting. The Artemovsk operation destroyed tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries, while Russia built up its reserves and prepared defenses in Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson for Kiev’s much-heralded summer offensive

“Americans have been had,” added Ray McGovern, a former top US intel analyst, who also joined the Judging Freedom podcast. He pointed out that, “Billions of money had gone to Ukraine, with a lot of it syphoned off.” He told the host that America was “losing” in the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Nevertheless, senior-level members of the US intelligence community continue “to delude themselves, their colleagues, the press, and the public,” regarding the actual developments on the ground, specified Larry Johnson. These officials refused to wake up to the reality that Ukraine was experiencing “shortage of ammunition, shortage of manpower, trouble recruiting people,” etc.

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“What distinguishes Umerov is that he was a key negotiator at the peace talks with Russia in Istanbul last year in March, which actually resulted in an agreed document … Again, he was instrumental in negotiating the Black Sea Grain Initiative..”

Ice Cracking Sounds On Frozen Lake of US-Russia Relations (Bhadrakumar)

Meanwhile, on September 6, Blinken embarked on quite an untypical visit to Kiev. There was no fire in his belly. For once, he didn’t threaten Russia or ridicule Putin from Ukrainian soil. Nor did Blinken show much enthusiasm for Kiev’s counteroffensive. Rather, his focus was on the war’s horrific trail causing human suffering, Ukraine’s post-conflict recovery as a democracy and its economy’s reconstruction. Blinken said repeatedly that he was undertaking the visit on Biden’s instruction. In the presence of President Zelensky, Blinken stated:

“We are determined in the United States to continue to walk side by side with you. And President Biden asked me to come, to reaffirm strongly our support, to ensure that we are maximising the efforts that we’re making and other countries are making for the immediate challenge of the counteroffensive as well as the longer-term efforts to help Ukraine build a force for the future that can deter and defend against any future aggression, but also to work with you and support you as you engage in the critical work of strengthening your democracy, rebuilding your economy.”

Stirring words, but there was no boastful talk of liberating Crimea, carrying the fight into the Russian camp or forcing Russia to vacate the annexed territories and negotiating with Russia only from a position of strength. At Blinken’s joint press availability with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, the latter claimed that they had a “substantive” discussion on providing long-range rockets, ATACMS to Kiev. But Blinken sidestepped the topic. The most unusual thing about Blinken’s visit was that it spilled over to a second day. This must be the first time Blinken spent a night in Ukraine. Blinken had a rather tight schedule on the first day meeting Kuleba, Zelensky and Prime Minister Denis Shmigal, but the itinerary for the second day [September 7], was left open. Obviously, he came to Kiev for some serious discussions.

Conceivably, Biden could be interested in starting peace talks between Moscow and Kiev now that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed to meet its politico-military objectives, and there are worrisome signs of support waning in America and Europe for the proxy war, while a Russian offensive could deal a knockout punch on Ukraine’s military. Both Russian and western estimates are that close to 65-70,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in these past 3 months alone since Kiev’s “counteroffensive” began. Meanwhile, in an interesting coincidence, on September 6, Ukraine’s parliament Verkhovna Rada approved the appointment of Rustem Umerov as the new Defence Minister replacing Alexei Reznikov. A Crimean Tatar born in Uzbekistan (USSR), Umerov has no previous military background. But he is trusted by Zelensky and is acceptable to the Americans.

What distinguishes Umerov is that he was a key negotiator at the peace talks with Russia in Istanbul last year in March, which actually resulted in an agreed document (from which Zelensky subsequently retracted under Anglo-American pressure.) Again, he was instrumental in negotiating the Black Sea Grain Initiative (so-called grain deal between Ukraine and Russia) which became operational in July last year at Istanbul. These are straws in the wind that must be duly noted.

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Even RT gets it upside down: “..secretly instructed engineers to turn off coverage..” No, he did not. There was never any coverage to be shut down. He declined to activate it.

Musk Talked To Russian Ambassador Before Starlink Decision – WaPo (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk spoke to Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, before making the decision to switch off his Starlink satellite internet service in Crimea last September to thwart a Ukrainian attack on the peninsula, the Washington Post has reported. On Thursday, the paper published more details about Musk cutting Starlink coverage to prevent a Ukrainian seaborne drone strike on the Russian Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol. The events that occurred have been described in a biography of the tech billionaire by historian Walter Isaacson that is due to hit shelves next week. With Kiev’s forces poised to launch their attack, Musk spoke with Antonov, who told him that a strike on Crimea, which became part of Russia after a referendum in 2014, “could lead to a nuclear response” by Moscow, Isaacson said in his book.

“In later conversations with a few other people, he [Musk] seemed to imply that he had spoken directly to [Russian] President Vladimir Putin, but to me he said his communications had gone through the ambassador,” the historian wrote. According to Isaacson, Musk concluded that “allowing the use of Starlink for the attack… could be a disaster for the world.” He therefore took matters into his own hands and secretly instructed engineers to turn off coverage within 100km of the Crimean coast. As a result of the move, the six explosive-laden Ukrainian drones, which relied on Starlink for navigation, “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.” Musk started receiving “frantic” calls from Kiev as soon as the Ukrainians realized that the satellite service wasn’t working.

They tried to explain to the billionaire that the drones were “crucial to their fight for freedom,” but Musk still refused to switch Starlink back on. He argued that Ukraine was “going too far and inviting strategic defeat” by targeting Crimea, Isaacson wrote. The historian also claimed that Musk had discussed the situation with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, explaining to them that he didn’t intend for Starlink to be used for offensive purposes. Musk provided a slightly different account of events in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), saying that Starlink was never active around Crimea and that he simply turned down Ukrainian calls to provide coverage in the area.

“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” he argued. Commenting on revelations from Isaacson’s book, Mikhail Podoliak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, said that Musk’s decision was the result of “a cocktail of ignorance and big ego.” The billionaire “committed evil” by allowing the Russian fleet to continue striking Ukrainian targets with Kalibr missiles, he claimed. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy head of the country’s Security Council, described Musk as “the last adequate mind in North America” for preventing a strike on Crimea.

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It’s going to take many years.

Musk: US Military Vulnerability Due to Slow Production Rate, Like Ukraine (Sp.)

US military vulnerability primarily “stems from the slow pace of production,” American entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk has pointed out. The tech guru took to his social media platform X (formerly Twitter), to comment on last year’s post by the company Anduril Industries. On its five-year anniversary, the military technology company had argued the need for a joint effort if it was expected to “transform US and allied military capabilities with advanced technology.” We need “a new group of defense technology companies to Reboot the Arsenal of Democracy,” the firm had stated. The entrepreneur also emphasized that making new prototypes is easy, but putting them into production is hard.

This comes as the third month of Ukraine’s botched counteroffensive has wrapped up, with the Kiev regime unable to boast any significant military gains, while US stockpiles of munitions are getting “dangerously low”. As of August 30, 2023, Ukraine has reportedly lost 466 airplanes, 247 helicopters, 6,234 unmanned aerial vehicles, 433 air defense missile systems, 11,570 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 1,146 fighting vehicles equipped with MLRS, 6,128 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 12,528 special military motor vehicles since the beginning of the special military operation.

Meanwhile, the US unveiled the latest military package for the Kiev regime, worth $250 million, late in August, including AIM-9M missiles for air defense, munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, mine-clearing equipment, Javelin and other anti-armor systems and rockets, three million rounds of small arms ammunition, as well as other items. However, by continuing to funnel military aid to Kiev the US is reportedly fast-depleting its own military caches of various weapons. Thus, depletion of US stockpiles of 155mm artillery shells (for howitzer use) was recently cited in a US report, with the additional revelation that Washington was sending Kiev 155mm and 105mm shells for the simple reason that it no longer had adequate stockpiles of 155mm shells.

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“..high-level radioactive waste contaminants can be found in uranium waste streams that then get made into depleted uranium.”

NATO’s DU ‘Perfect Storm’ of Toxic Pollution in Breadbasket Ukraine (Tweedie)

NATO-supplied depleted uranium (DU) rounds will contaminate Ukraine’s ‘breadbasket’ grain-growing regions with radioactive waste, a nuclear watchdog has warned. This week the US followed the UK in announcing the supply of the controversial armor-piercing rounds for the M1 Abrams tanks it is supplying to the Kiev regime. British Challenger 2 tanks equipped with DU penetrators have already seen action in the Zaporozye region — with at least one meeting a fiery end. Depleted uranium is the left-over material from the enrichment process used to make fuel rods for nuclear power reactors and — at higher levels — elements of nuclear weapons. The concentration of fissile uranium-235 isotope in depleted uranium is about 0.3 percent, 40 percent of the level of element in its unenriched state, but it still emits around 60 percent as much atomic radiation as natural uranium.

Most of that is in the form of alpha particles from U-238 and U-234 — the most harmful form of radiation if ingested into the body — with beta particles given out by decay products that form within a few weeks. Watchdog Kevin Kamps told Sputnik that US national security spokesman John Kirby’s claim that DU penetrator rods were not radioactive or carcinogenic was simply not true. “Depleted uranium munitions are really intended to be armor piercing. They can bust tanks, they can penetrate through concrete,” Kamps explained. “It’s because they’re so dense. Uranium is the densest isotope an element on the periodic table.” The harmful nature of DU is well understood, the expert pointed out. “Uranium in nature is hazardous to begin with,” Kamps said. “It’s a toxic heavy metal. It is what they say as mildly radioactive, which is kind of a misnomer, radioactivity is hazardous even in mild form.”

He added that DU is often mixed with radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. “In both the United States, where this depleted uranium munitions is coming from, but also in other countries, there’s a mixing of uranium waste streams off of the enrichment process,” Kamps noted. “And what that can often mean is high-level radioactive waste contaminants can be found in uranium waste streams that then get made into depleted uranium.” What makes DU even more toxic is its pyrophoric properties — the material ignites on hitting its target, as well as pulverizing into microscopic dust from the near-hypersonic velocity impact. “It’s kind of the perfect storm of hazard. You’ve got toxic heavy metal, you’ve got radioactivity that can be contaminated with much higher level radioactivity from high-level radioactive waste,” Kamps stressed. “And then it turns into a fine dust that you can breathe in, that blows on the wind, that settles on the water and flows downstream and downwind and harms people and other living beings all along the way.”

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I posted Justin Hart’s tweet yesterday, with a long list of officials affected by the decision. Will they stop?

Biden Admin Likely Violated 1st Amendment On Social Media: 5th Circuit (ZH)

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that several Biden administration officials had likely breached the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to moderate or take down content they deemed problematic. And here is Exhibit A of that First Amendment-crushing coercion and collusion… which obviously began in the Trump-era under Anthony Fauci. ZeroHedge was banned from Twitter one day after this email. In an unsigned 75-page opinion, three 5th Circuit judges agreed with the plaintiffs that the administration “ran afoul of the First Amendment” by at times threatening social media platforms with antitrust action or changes to law protecting them from liability.

However, as The Epoch Times’ Aldgra Fredly reports, the three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed much of an injunction issued by a Louisiana judge that restricted Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration from communicating with social media companies. The court said that the White House, Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the FBI “likely coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content” in violation of the First Amendment. “It is true that the officials have an interest in engaging with social media companies, including on issues such as misinformation and election interference,” the three-judge panel said in a 74-page ruling (pdf) on Sept. 8. “But the government is not permitted to advance these interests to the extent that it engages in viewpoint suppression,” they added.

The court found that the officials made “express threats” and “inflammatory accusations” by saying that the platforms were “poisoning the public” and “killing people.” The platforms were told they needed to take “greater responsibility and action.” “Then, they followed their statements with threats of ‘fundamental reforms’ like regulatory changes and increased enforcement actions that would ensure the platforms were ‘held accountable’. But, beyond express threats, there was always an unspoken ‘or else,'” it added. The court also said the officials encouraged social media platforms to moderate content by “exercising active, meaningful control over those decisions,” particularly concerning the platforms’ moderation policies.

According to the ruling, the FBI “regularly met with the platforms, shared ‘strategic information,’ frequently alerted the social media companies to misinformation spreading on their platforms, and monitored their content moderation policies.” “But, the FBI went beyond that—they urged the platforms to take down content. Turning to the Second Circuit’s four-factor test, we find that those requests were coercive,” it added. The judges emphasized that the government cannot supervise a platform’s content moderation decisions and cannot impose “legal, regulatory, or economic consequences” if they refuse to comply with a given request. “Social media platforms’ content-moderation decisions must be theirs and theirs alone,” the court asserted.

The attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, along with several social media users, had sued last year, saying Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter engaged in censorship as a result of repeated urging by government officials and threats of heightened regulatory enforcement. The lawsuit said the censored views included content questioning anti-COVID-19 measures such as masks and vaccine mandates and allegations of election fraud.

Watters 5th circuit

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Not going to happen.

Ukraine Will Be Ready To Join EU In Two Years – Kiev (RT)

Ukraine should be ready to become an EU member in the next two years, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishina told Voice of America on Friday. As Kiev’s official responsible for “European and Euro-Atlantic integration,” she says her nation is one of the “best prepared” for such a step. “I believe that two years would be enough for full preparedness,” Stefanishina said, when asked about Ukraine’s EU prospects. She also vowed to do “10 times more than we do now” to achieve the goal once the conflict with Moscow ends. However, the minister admitted that the timeline would ultimately be determined by the “course of war.”

According to Stefanishina, Ukraine remains one of the “best prepared [nations] for the EU accession” since it is “a big part of the European economy” even in the midst of armed conflict. The country is one of the EU’s “top 20” import partners and the Ukrainian domestic market is “the biggest” on the territory of Europe, she stated. At the same time, she admitted that Ukraine’s economic role in the EU would remain largely agricultural. “With all those agricultural lands… there can be no reality, in which Ukraine stops being an agrarian country,” she said. The bloc itself has been in no rush to accept Kiev into its ranks. EU officials have refused to set specific timelines for Ukraine’s accession, saying that it must first address issues such as rampant corruption and introduce comprehensive legal reforms. In 2022, France said that the process might eventually take years.

In early September, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg warned that fast-tracking membership for Ukraine would spell “geostrategic disaster” since it would show that some nations are “more equal than others.” Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy also said on Friday that accepting the ex-Soviet republic into both the EU and NATO would increase Washington’s sway over the EU dramatically. Kiev might also join NATO even sooner than the EU, Stefanishina proposed, saying that the US-led military bloc would be happy to have a member with “one of the strongest armies” after, she said, it beats Moscow. The minister admitted, though, that Ukraine’s accession to the alliance is a “political decision,” while still maintaining that this decision was “taken in Vilnius,” which hosted the latest NATO summit.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky produced a scandal at the meeting in mid-July, when he condemned NATO for what he called “indecisiveness” over a lack of a clear roadmap for Kiev’s membership. He allegedly angered US officials to the extent that they briefly considered withdrawing Ukraine’s invitation to the bloc. Then British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace also criticized Kiev over its lack of gratitude for Western military aid, explaining that the US and its allies were “not Amazon.”

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“I think that following Putin’s non-participation in this forum, our country’s exit from the organization is also possible. We must give preference to those platforms that can implement our projects and our ideas. BRICS can do this, the SCO can do this, but the G20 cannot ,” [Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee Andrei] Klimov said.

G20 Declaration On Ukraine A ‘Blow To Western Countries’ (Sp.)

The declaration of the G20 summit in India was a blow to the West, a British business newspaper reports, adding that this highlights the lack of global consensus in support of Kiev. The G20 leaders earlier in the day said in the New Delhi Summit Declaration that they had different views on and assessments of the Ukraine conflict during discussions of the issue, but all of them jointly call for respect for the UN Charter. “That statement, hammered out over weeks of negotiations between diplomats, is a blow to western countries that have spent the past year attempting to convince developing countries to condemn Moscow and support Ukraine,” the newspaper wrote. “The New Delhi summit declaration refers only to the ‘war in Ukraine’, a formulation that supporters of [Kiev] such as the US and NATO allies have previously rejected as it implies both sides are equally complicit,” the report added.

Russian G20 Sherpa Svetlana Lukash, meanwhile, emphasized that the declaration demonstrates the group’s balanced position on the Ukraine conflict and its intention to settle all conflicts around the world. “As for the Ukrainian case, I can say that the negotiations were very complex and, above all, the collective position of the BRICS countries and other partners has borne fruit … What we have been hearing all year, that the Ukrainian conflict is worsening the food security situation, is now reflected in a balanced way,” Lukash told journalists. Half of the group’s members refused to accept Western narratives, she said, adding that a “consensus language” had been used in the declaration. In addition, the G20 members have agreed to work jointly for peace, security, and conflict resolution around the world, Lukash said.

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“At the beginning of 2022 it was hovering around 25%, now it is exceeding 80%.”

Russia and China Have Effectively Ditched The Dollar – Moscow (RT)

The de-dollarization of Russia-China trade is practically complete, according to Georgy Zinoviev, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s First Asian Department, as cited by RIA Novosti. The official said the share of the US dollar in mutual settlements between the neighboring nations has substantially shrunk over the past two years. “The share of national currencies in Russian-Chinese payments is growing at an extremely rapid pace,” Zinoviev told the news agency. “At the beginning of 2022 it was hovering around 25%, now it is exceeding 80%.” He added that the volume of trading in the ruble-yuan pair on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) outpaced volumes in the dollar-ruble pair long ago. According to Zinoviev, Russian and Chinese businesses are “rapidly moving away from the ‘toxic’ Western currencies, opting for the ruble and yuan as more reliable and safe way of payment.”

The diplomat noted that Moscow and Beijing have developed vital tools to make it possible to “facilitate all necessary transactions as much as possible,” despite international political and economic instability that significantly affects financial institutions and their ability to efficiently operate. The changes reflect Russia’s move away from transactions in the currencies of ‘unfriendly countries’ against the backdrop of sanctions. Earlier this year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the country no longer trusts the dollar, calling it “a completely unreliable instrument.” Zinoviev’s comments come ahead of the 8th Eastern Economic Forum, which kicks off on September 10 in Vladivostok, Russia. Most of the discussions at the annual event will focus on trade, business, and investment.

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“..In the short term — i.e., between now and the presidential election—prices would need to fall back to pre-Biden levels. The average US gas price in January 2021 when Biden took office was $2.42 per gallon. Now it’s $3.95..”

The Daunting Physics of ‘Bidenomics’ (Rall)

Democrats are confident enough about how things are going that “Bidenomics” is at the center of their case for another four years in the White House; however, this is a rosy picture few voters can see as Americans consistently give US President Joe Biden low marks for his handling of the economy. “I’ve never seen this big of a disconnect between how the economy is actually doing and key polling results about what people think is going on,” Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, told US media. What gives? Jason Furman, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under the Obama White House, points to a yearslong trend that only ended recently: wages haven’t kept up with inflation, leaving the average worker $2,000 worse off than during the final year of the Trump presidency.

“The way to think about that is people were in an incredibly deep hole because of inflation and we’re still not all the way out of that hole,” Furman says. The problem for Biden is, what people would need to have happen in order to feel that inflation was truly behind them would be horrible for the economy – not to mention his prospects for reelection: deflation. During our lifetimes, ideal economic conditions in a healthy economy feature an annual official inflation rate in the single digits, a policy economists call inflation targeting. Prices rise, but if wages go up even faster employees are happy. Low inflation incentivizes consumers to buy sooner rather than later, when prices will be higher. But, as Furman points out, that hasn’t been the case lately. Airfares went up 28.5% in 2022. Butter rose 31.4%. Eggs a whopping 59.9%. So we’re displeased.

What will it take to convince voters that inflation is no longer a problem? In the short term — i.e., between now and the presidential election—prices would need to fall back to pre-Biden levels. The average US gas price in January 2021 when Biden took office was $2.42 per gallon. Now it’s $3.95. The Federal Reserve’s efforts to reduce inflation appear to be working. Prices are rising at a slower rate and that’s the problem for Democrats. Mechanical physics provides a helpful parallel. Many economists and political analysts seem to think of inflation rate as analogous to velocity. In their view, reducing the inflation rate from 8% to 3% is a victory for inflation-targeting fiscal policy. Indeed, if a 3% inflation rate (coupled with wages that rise faster than 3%) remains in effect indefinitely, people will eventually feel good (or less bad) about the economy. As the economist John Maynard Keynes observed a century ago, however, “in the long run, we will all be dead.” And the Democrats’ calendar is much shorter than that, a mere 14 months.

Before inflation-affected consumers can be persuaded to tap their feet to “Happy Days Are Here Again,” they’ll have to pass through several stages of recovery. First, they’ll feel less bad. Then comes meh. Penultimately, they’ll see themselves paying off credit card and other debts they ran up during the inflationary period. Only after those lingering financial hangovers are past will they be able to achieve what feels like the final stage, prosperity: earning enough to pay one’s bills while setting a surplus aside in the form of savings. With Americans’ credit card debt hitting the staggering benchmark of $1 trillion and rising, we are currently in the “less bad”/”meh” stage. But it’s hard to see what Biden or the Fed or anyone else can do in order to promote a sunnier view of the economy.

A lower inflation rate—even an ideal one in the low single digits—still means higher prices. We will probably not see $2.42 per gallon gas, the price in early 2021, any time soon, if ever. Gas prices will likely continue to increase to $4.00 and $4.05 and $4.10 and on and on and on, adding minor injury to gaping wound.

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“..So 2024 can’t come soon enough for most of us.”

World Is ‘Laughing At’ The US – Alaska Governor (RT)

The US government’s decision to cancel oil and gas drilling licenses and forbid further drilling will “hobble” the country’s economy and makes no sense except to advance the green agenda, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has declared. President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday canceled seven ten-year oil and gas drilling licenses granted to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) by former President Donald Trump. Biden’s Department of the Interior followed up this decision by issuing a proposal to forbid future leases on more than 40% of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

Biden said that these two measures “will help preserve our Arctic lands and wildlife,” adding on Saturday that he would “continue to take bold action to meet the urgency of the climate crisis and to protect our lands and waters for generations to come.” Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Dunleavy said that “this makes absolutely no sense from any perspective unless your goal is to drive up the cost of oil and gas so much that it makes certain renewables cheaper.” Dunleavy, a Republican, claimed that Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran are “laughing” at Biden’s energy policy. “They’re laughing together at the United States of America,” the governor said. “I can’t find anywhere in, really the history of nation-states or empires, where they worked at hobbling themselves to such a degree that’s happening currently with this administration. So 2024 can’t come soon enough for most of us.”

Gasoline prices have soared under Biden, reaching a record average high of just over $5 per gallon last June, up from around $2 when the president took office. Prices began to rise when Biden signed an executive order in January 2021 banning new oil and gas licenses on federal land, and spiked as the conflict in Ukraine rocked global energy markets. Ahead of last year’s midterm elections, Biden attempted to stabilize gasoline prices by draining the US’ strategic petroleum reserve, and by unsuccessfully lobbying the Saudi-led Organization of Petroleum Exporting States to cut production. The AIDEA argues that Biden has no legal right to rescind existing drilling licenses and told Fox News that it intends to challenge the decision in court.

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“..Roughly 50% of price increases in the region resulted from local companies passing higher costs on to consumers..”

“..growth in corporate profits accounted for 45% of inflation in Europe last year..”

‘Greedflation’ Ravaging Western Europe – Nikkei (RT)

Inflation continues to rage in Western Europe, with monthly consumer prices soaring by over 14% in the UK and more than 10% in Germany, according to a Nikkei report. Some retailers have been hiking prices out of proportion with their underlying costs, it claimed. Roughly 50% of price increases in the region resulted from local companies passing higher costs on to consumers, the outlet estimated. Consumption has slumped across the region as price increases have outpaced wage growth. Nikkei cited an analysis of annual results from 70 European food retail and manufacturing companies by the management consultancy Oliver Wyman, which reportedly found that absolute EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) rose by 11% at food retailers and 12% at manufacturers in 2022, compared to the previous year. That growth was mostly driven by increased revenues.

“Companies in the food sector viewed the inflation context as an opportunity to review their price management,” Rainer Muench, partner at Oliver Wyman, was quoted as saying.

According to the IMF data, cited by Nikkei, growth in corporate profits accounted for 45% of inflation in Europe last year, higher than the 40% attributed to the higher cost of imports. A survey of households by the European Commission reportedly found the perceived rate of inflation over the past year has risen to 26% among low-income families, the highest in 20 years. Earlier this year, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey accused domestic retailers of driving ‘greedflation,’ claiming that certain businesses were “overcharging customers” as millions of families struggle to make ends meet. The BoE has also warned that British households and businesses need to accept that they are worse off and should stop asking for wage increases and pushing prices higher.

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“I’m running against a larger challenge because I am facing an entire infrastructure that is against me, from my own party and Big Tech and the pharmaceutical industry.“

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wants His Party Back (ET)

On a steamy summer morning, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. strode into a hotel conference room in Columbia, South Carolina, amid a barnstorming town hall tour of a state where Joe Biden won close to 49 percent of the vote in the 2020 Democratic primary. Mr. Kennedy spoke about his 2024 presidential campaign. Democrat pundits say he is a fringe candidate who spreads conspiracy theories. Polls show him with the highest favorability rating of any presidential candidate. There is no path for Mr. Kennedy to defeat President Biden, critics claim, despite questions about President Joe Biden’s age and mental fitness, low approval ratings, and surveys showing that Americans are concerned about the economy. Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee voted to give its full support to the president.

Mr. Kennedy agrees that unseating an incumbent president in the same party is a daunting challenge but disagrees with doubters who say he has no chance of securing the nomination. The 2024 presidential nominee will be announced during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next summer. Until then, Mr. Kennedy intends to continue to press his case. “The DNC has around $2 billion, and they’re spending that money generously to try to marginalize me in many ways, but I think most Democrats care about one thing more than anything else, which is to beat Donald Trump,” Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times. “I think President Biden cannot do that. I can.” Mr. Kennedy is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963; and the son of Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot and killed after a campaign speech while running for president in 1968.

During his town halls and meet-and-greets, Mr. Kennedy tells stories from time spent with his uncle and father and connects them to his presidential campaign. He wants to continue his father’s legacy of uniting Americans from all economic classes and ethnic backgrounds. “I think we do that by telling the truth to people. My dad did it that way. He talked about uncomfortable issues but talked about the truth. I think people are tired of being lied to by the government, by the media,” Mr. Kennedy said. “My dad ran against an incumbent president in his own party (Lyndon B. Johnson) during a divisive time. I’m running against a larger challenge because I am facing an entire infrastructure that is against me, from my own party and Big Tech and the pharmaceutical industry.”

RFK

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“..because I refused to lie about President Trump it cost me twenty-two years of my life.”

Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Drops Bombshell (GP)

“They asked me to LIE about President Trump in order to indict him,” Enrique Tarrio exclusively told the Gateway Pundit. “I told them to pound sand, and because I refused to lie about President Trump it cost me twenty-two years of my life.” “The truth is, I could have been home,” said Tarrio. “I could have been home a long time ago. I could be in my warm ass bed right now, laughing at the world, without a problem…and all I had to do in order to do that WAS LIE ABOUT TRUMP. All I had to do was confirm a lie.” Tarrio opened up to the Gateway Pundit after he was sentenced to decades in prison by the Dishonorable Judge Kelly on Tuesday.

He told us that the prosecutors in the Department of Justice attempted to coerce him into signing a false statement that would implicate President Trump by swearing that “through several degrees of separation and connections, Tarrio had communicated with Trump regarding ‘plans’ for January 6th.” On Friday night The Gateway Pundit held a Twitter space with Enrique Tarrio as special guest. TGP reporters Cara Castronuova and Alicia Powe organized Friday night’s Twitter Space. During Friday night’s Twitter Space Enrique Tarrio repeated his accusations against the Biden regime. Later in the discussion Enrique disclosed two names of Biden officials who were in the meeting when he was pressured by federal agents to lie about President Trump.

Enrique Tarrio announced two DOJ officials who were in the room during this meeting: ** DOJ Lead Prosecutor Jocelyn Ballantine ** Assistant US Attorney Jason McCullough Jocelyn Ballantine was a DOJ attorney staffed on General Michael Flynn’s prosecution. The DOJ admitted to altering evidence in Flynn’s case and the government eventually dropped the case against General Flynn. Ballantine was caught lying during a DOJ investigation of Strzok and McCabe. She still holds a job as a top official in Merrick Garland’s DOJ.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1700542330682347608

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No, not “climate change”. Tourism. In Athens, numbers of visitors to the Acropolis are being limited. New York City is severely cutting into AirBnB rentals.

Japan’s Mount Fuji ‘In Real Crisis’ – Officials (RT)

Mount Fuji, one of Japan’s sacred mountains and a popular pilgrimage site, could become less attractive if the number of tourists is not brought under control, the local authorities warn. “Fuji is screaming in pain. We can’t just wait for improvement,” Masatake Izumi, a Yamanashi prefectural government official, told CNN during a tour for foreign media on Saturday, adding that “overtourism” needs to be tackled urgently. Izumi was quoted by Reuters as saying that “Fuji faces a real crisis” because of the “uncontrollable” flow of tourists. “We fear that Mount Fuji will soon become so unattractive, nobody would want to climb it,” he said.

According to government officials, the post-Covid tourism boom has brought thousands of hikers to the mountain, causing environmental damage and placing extra pressure on the first aid services. Despite the introduction of a campaign urging visitors not to litter, with volunteers removing tons of trash each year, both hikers and caretakers complain about overcrowding and the piles of litter left along the path. Mount Fuji ranger Miho Sakurai told reporters that there are “way too many people on Mount Fuji at the moment,” including many inexperienced “first timers,” often underdressed, poorly equipped, and prone to hypothermia or altitude sickness. As a result, rescue requests have increased by 50% from last year and one person died in April in a climbing accident.

An active volcano known for its picturesque snowcap and one of Japan’s national symbols, the mountain was recognized as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 2013. The number of visitors to Fuji more than doubled between 2012 and 2019 to 5.1 million, according to CNA news agency. This week, government officials met to discuss “overcrowding and breaches of etiquette” across high-traffic tourist spots, with Yamanashi Governor Kotaro Nagasaki proposing the construction of a light railway to control the number of people accessing the site. “We need a shift from quantity to quality when it comes to tourism on Mount Fuji,” Nagasaki said. A local ranger called the prospect of Mount Fuji losing its heritage status “devastating.”

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Kids having fun
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700240513838760320

 

 

Water filters are now labeled “pesticides” (because they contain silver).

 

 

Elephants
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700575172858675668

 

 

Tuna

 

 

CGI

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 092023
 
 September 9, 2023  Posted by at 9:24 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  42 Responses »


René Magritte The Art of Conversation 1963

 

Hunter the Hunted? Biden Indictment May be Ruse to Prolong Cover-Up (Tweedie)
Biden’s New Campaign Ad Presents Him As Last Action Hero (ZH)
What Game Is Hunter Biden Playing? (Victor Davis Hanson)
Biden Impeachment Vote Could Take Place in Mid-September – Comer (Sp.)
White House Scolded Hillary for Asking Ukraine for Help With Afghan Exit (Sp.)
Zelensky On Starlink-Gate: Musk “Committing Evil” & Driven By “Big Ego” (ZH)
Scott Ritter: Ukrainian Counteroffensive’s Last, Desperate Push (Sp.)
US Using Ukraine To Weaken EU – Sarkozy (RT)
Ukraine ‘Threatening’ Poland – Minister (RT)
Pentagon’s Hypersonic Woes Due to ‘Very Delicate’ Physics Problems (Sp.)
France Seeks Pullout From Niger (Sp.)
Is The G20 Obsolete In An Increasingly Multipolar World? (Malyk)
The Unshakeable Putin-Erdogan Nexus (Bhadrakumar)
A Theory of the Game (Jim Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nap Sachs

 

 

The European Commission praised Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin for his efforts to fight corruption in a December 2015 progress report published nine days after then-VP Joe Biden demanded his ouster. The report flies in the face of Biden’s claims that the European Union joined his demands that Shokin be removed for being corrupt and obstructing anti-corruption reforms.

 

 

Trump Rapid City
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700353703079747841

 

 

Obama insider and author and biographer Joel Gilbert has claimed Michelle Obama is preparing to enter the 2024 race and become the Democratic presidential nominee allegedly due to Biden’s declining health.

 

 

Lara Logan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1699848500551328179

 

 

 

 

 

 

“David Weiss is a factotum, he’s a lickspittle. He does what he’s told for the Biden family. Always has, always will.”

Hunter the Hunted? Biden Indictment May be Ruse to Prolong Cover-Up (Tweedie)

Carter Clews, the president of Constitutional Rights PAC, Rory Riley Topping, a legal analyst at SpectrumNews 1 and opinion contributor at The Hill discusses the possible indictment of Hunter Biden with investigative journalist Dan Lazare. Looming charges against Joe Biden’s son Hunter may paradoxically be part of the long game of covering up his wrongdoing to save his father’s career, pundits have suggested. US media reported this week that special counsel David Weiss was planning to indict Hunter on illegal firearms possession charges before the end of the month. Carter Clews told Sputnik the indictment was an elaborate deception, but that “the American people aren’t that stupid.” “It’s all done for obfuscation,” Clews said. “David Weiss is a factotum, he’s a lickspittle. He does what he’s told for the Biden family. Always has, always will.”

He pointed out that a New York Post editorial column had already exposed how Weiss had “run interference” for Hunter Biden for five years. “If he wanted to indict Hunter Biden, he could have done it at any point during those five years,” Clews said. “All of the transgressions were there, all of the lawbreaking.” But by laying formal charges against the scion of the political family, the special counsel can declare all evidence sub judice and off-limits to journalists. “This will enable Weiss to refuse to turn over any more documents, to refuse to answer any questions: ‘well, you know, we have an indictment. There’s a very thorough, ongoing investigation’ — which will amount to nothing,” Clews argued.
He said the proceedings were a “three-part deception”

“They may be doing it to go to Joe and say: ‘we’re going to stick your son behind bars for the rest of his life, if you don’t declare that you’ve decided not to run for re-election’,” Clews said. “‘Toxic Joe’ is very difficult to get along with. And I’m sure they’ve approached him nicely and say maybe, maybe you should step aside come January or February. And he said: ‘no, I’m not doing that’.” Another aim may simply be to “dupe the American people once again… to deepen the cover-up, as I just said, to be able to say: ‘oh, no, we can’t comment. We can’t give you any information over this’. They have blocked every request from [Congress representative James] Comer, the Oversight Committee chairman for documents. And this will enable them to continue doing it and they will do it even more so.”

Legal analyst Rory Riley-Topping told Sputnik that many US citizens had wanted a “more expeditious process” of indicting the president’s son. “Had he been just a regular citizen, if you or I or anyone on the street was caught doing some of the things that Hunter Biden was doing, I think that we probably wouldn’t have taken five years to be indicted for some of those charges,” she pointed out. “That’s one of the main sources of frustration.” But she argued the Biden administration had left a timebomb for itself by obstructing and delaying the investigation. “But in a wonderful twist of irony, this is potentially going to trial during the campaign season. I think that’s something that the Biden administration certainly wanted to avoid” Riley -Topping said. “So in some sense, their strategy to drag this out and hope it went away ultimately backfired.”

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Hollywood at its worst.

Biden’s New Campaign Ad Presents Him As Last Action Hero (ZH)

“He entered Ukraine under the cover of night. And in the morning, Joe Biden walked shoulder to shoulder with our allies in the war-torn streets,” the narrator of a new one-minute Biden campaign ad begins. “Standing up for democracy in a place where a tyrant is waging war to take it away.” Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, where he’ll likely face Trump as the Republican nominee, the Biden team is focusing the reelection campaign around his surprise visit to Ukraine which took place last February. It’s being touted as the first time in American history that a sitting president traveled to an allied nation at war. “In the middle of a war zone, Joe Biden showed the world what America is made of,” the narrator says. “That’s the quiet strength of a true leader, who doesn’t back down to a dictator.”

So while his critics sarcastically refer to him as “sleepy Joe” – his supporters are envisioning him as some kind of last action hero being covertly whisked into a dangerous “war zone” in the dark of night. “Air raid sirens blared as the two men walked together,” the clip dramatically continues, showing Biden shoulder to shoulder with Zelensky. The video was timed to be released to coincide with Biden’s trip to the G20 summit in India, where he’ll likely have strong words for Putin, who will not be attendance. NBC writes of the spot entitled simply “War Zone”:

The new, 60-second advertisement will air in battleground states this weekend during the prime-time broadcast of “60 Minutes” while Biden is due to attend the G-20 Summit here, a gathering of leaders of the world’s largest economies that won’t include two geopolitical rivals, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. This comes as he’s set to pour yet billions more of American taxpayer dollars into Kiev’s coffers. Yet war observers and analysts have of late expressed intensifying concern over uncontrollable escalation in what’s now obviously a US-NATO proxy war against Russia. But Biden is doubling or tripling down, showing the world “what America is made of”, apparently.

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“Is it now, “Keep Hunter close and self-important — or else”?

What Game Is Hunter Biden Playing? (Victor Davis Hanson)

Hunter Biden’s attorneys sought to leverage federal prosecutors into agreeing to drop their charges — by threatening to call in as a pro-Hunter witness President Joe Biden himself and thereby likely invoke a constitutional crisis! In such a scenario, the president under oath would be forced to lie again that he had no knowledge of or involvement in Hunter’s illegal behavior. Or if he admitted the truth that he did, he would thus contradict years of his adamant denials. Why would Hunter put his father and president in such a publicity circus?

Hunter has lost an incriminating laptop by abandoning it at a repair shop. He has forgotten his crack pipe in a rental car. His illegally registered handgun turned up in a trash dumpster near a school. So would not the carefree Hunter insist that all the Bidens in the spotlight remain extra careful never to abandon incriminating drugs — especially in the White House. Yet in a West Wing first, recently cocaine was found lost in an entrance vestibule. Various media outlets claimed it belonged to someone in the “Biden family orbit.” One of two things explain the continuous reckless behavior of wayward son Hunter Biden: One, he is either still on drugs or so suffers from past addiction that he has lost all common sense and judgment, and simply cannot control his behavior.

Or, two, Hunter is an embittered, angry son. As the Biden bagman for foreign shakedown cash, he did the dirty work and most risked the legal exposure that made all the Bidens rich. Yet, instead of familial praise — or so the broke Hunter seems to whine on his laptop –Hunter gets no respect from those he enriched. And now he, not they, might first go to jail. As a result, does his continuous recklessness send a not so-subtle reminder to all the Bidens – his father the “Big Guy” especially? That is, Hunter is not going to take the fall. He will not end up in prison for decades while the other exempt Bidens continue to enjoy their ill-gotten riches, due to Hunter’s imaginative cons. No wonder the first family for months moved Hunter into the White House and put him on Air Force One. Is it now, “Keep Hunter close and self-important — or else”?

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Let’s see it.

Biden Impeachment Vote Could Take Place in Mid-September – Comer (Sp.)

The US House of Representatives could vote to impeach President Joe Biden as early as mid-September, James Comer, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said. Earlier in the week, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said a majority of House members support investigating Biden in order to move forward with impeachment proceedings. “I think the House will vote in September. And this is all up to [House Speaker] Kevin McCarthy … but he and I have had several conversations … I would predict that in the middle of September, we have a vote. I would predict that it passes,” Comer said in an interview with the news broadcaster. The lawmaker also said that the official inquiry could be useful in obtaining information from the National Archives and Records Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, which have allegedly slow-walked the investigation by postponing providing requested bank records of the Biden family.

Biden’s possible use of a pseudonym to communicate with his son, Hunter about foreign business dealings may have been precisely what prompted representatives to move forward with the investigation, Comer added. US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had earlier expressed support for a vote to launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden, amid reports that it could be launched without a proper vote. He said that the information gathered by the Republican Party allows the question of Biden’s impeachment to be raised. He said that the family of the US president was involved in a “culture of corruption”. McCarthy also stated that the investigation into the alleged involvement of the US president and his son in corrupt activities dictates the need to initiate the impeachment process. As the high-ranking congressman noted, such a procedure would expand the ability of the US legislature to gather information necessary for the investigation into the presidency.

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Madam President.

White House Scolded Hillary for Asking Ukraine for Help With Afghan Exit (Sp.)

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan reportedly scolded former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to help evacuate Afghan women during the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Citing the recently-published book “The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future,” US media reported on Friday that Clinton had asked Zelensky’s aide if she could board several Afghan women on military transport planes headed to Kiev. After Sullivan became aware of Clinton’s call, it’s alleged he questioned her methods and reportedly asked her: “What are you doing calling the Ukrainian government?”

Clinton later responded by explaining that she would not have to call Ukraine if the Biden administration would have done it in the first place. She subsequently assured Sullivan she would coordinate with US officials. However, as the book alleges, Clinton had already contacted world leaders in Canada, Qatar and Albania amid her efforts to evacuate 1,000 people out of Afghanistan who were said to be at-risk of being killed by the Taliban* once American forces fully departed the war-torn nation. The book’s author, Franklin Foer, explains that the list of women were referred to as “white scarves” since the Clinton camp instructed them to wear the specified head coverings so they were easily identifiable.

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He would have had to specifically order a lethal operation on the brink of WWIII. Not his style.

Zelensky On Starlink-Gate: Musk “Committing Evil” & Driven By “Big Ego” (ZH)

Since Elon Musk has apparently become Donald Trump – in that any lie/twist/gaslighting will do to further the narrative, no matter how false it is known to be – last night saw the mainstream media overwhelmed with circle-jerk-justified accusations that Musk meddled in the Ukraine-Russia war to stop a Zelenskyy-driven offensive (that likely would have turned the war and hailed victory ticker-tape parades up and down Kiev’s streets). Ok, admittedly that last bit was out hyperbole; but given a quick read of headlines from CNN and NBC, we could be forgiven for this view. Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled “Elon Musk.”

As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes. NBC led with the following headline: “Ukraine is furious with Elon Musk for thwarting an attack on Russia’s navy”. Tech billionaire Elon Musk has come under fire from Ukraine after it emerged he thwarted a major attack on the Russian navy. According to excerpts published by CNN, a soon-to-be-released biography of the SpaceX CEO claims that Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his Starlink satellite network over Russian-occupied Crimea last year in order to prevent a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s naval fleet. The mainstream media did not have to look too far to find someone willing to denigrate Musk: Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, blasted the tech billionaire on X, formerly Twitter, which Musk owns.

“Sometimes a mistake is much more than just a mistake,” Podolyak wrote. “By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via #Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities,” he added. “As a result, civilians, children are being killed,” Podolyak said. “This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego. However, the question still remains: why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realize that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?” Isaacson quotes Musk at the time as questioning “How am I in this war?” “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”

Couple quick questions – how would Musk know – pre-emptively – of the attack, and choose to disable Starlink? Is his intel better than Putin’s; better than the CIA’s? The spin here is utterly mind-blowing. In fact, according to Musk – who responded to the accusations on X, the details are the exact opposite to how CNN described them… In fact, Musk NEVER turned Starlink on in those controversial border zones – for exactly this reason, as he feared using this technology near borders could prompt an escalation in the war. In fact, Musk did not ‘turn Starlink off’ but refused to ‘turn Starlink on’ for Ukraine’s offensive. Which makes more sense to you – the richest man in the world unilaterally switching off internet access to pre-emptively thwart a secret attack by Ukraine on Russia in a Blofeld-esque move? Or the CEO of a major communications company refusing to enable his technology to be used to escalate a war that could well lead to armageddon?

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“..where you want to force the enemy to come in so you can hit them with artillery, to break up the attack, but not to hold and die..”

Scott Ritter: Ukrainian Counteroffensive’s Last, Desperate Push (Sp.)

Ukraine is gaining ground in its counteroffensive started in June, claimed NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday, addressing lawmakers at the European Parliament. Does that mean Ukraine has finally achieved a breakthrough after nearly four months and heavy casualties? “To answer that question, we have to know what the goals and objectives of the current phase of the Ukrainian counteroffensive are,” Scott Ritter, a military analyst and former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, told Sputnik. “We know that when they initiated this counteroffensive back in early June of this year, the goals were quite clear: to break through the first line of Russian defenses, the second line of Russian defenses, seize the town of Tokmak, and then use that as a launching point to penetrate deeper through the Russian defenses to seize the city of Melitopol, which would enable them to sever the land bridge between Crimea and Russia and bring Crimea under direct attack.

That was the stated objective put forward by General Zaluzhny, echoed by President Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials,” the military expert continued. However, these objectives have not been reached so far, per Ritter. Presently, the Ukrainians are claiming that they have put infantry units beyond the so-called “dragon’s teeth”, the concrete obstacles that constitute the first line of Russia’s defenses. In particular, the Kiev regime says its forces managed to take the villages of Verbovoye and Rabotino in the Zaporozhye region. Still, the Russian Ministry of Defense made it clear on September 7 and 8 that the Russian forces are continuing to successfully repel attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements. As Russian military blogger Rybar remarked on his Telegram account: it’s the best way “to turn Rabotino into a continuous conveyor of death for Ukrainian units.”

“The village of Rabotino was always meant to fall. If the Ukrainians put sufficient military power in a specific zone of operations, they should be able to advance and seize terrain that the Russians have decided will be defended, but not to the death. Rabotino was always meant to be part of the crumple zone in the fire element, defensive zone of the first line of defense. The purpose of Rabotino was to help break up the Ukrainian attacks, and it has done this magnificently,” said Ritter. What’s actually going on in Rabotino and Verbovoe is part of a new Russian defensive doctrine, explains the former Marine intelligence officer. “Russia always had a primarily defensive doctrine inherited from the Soviet times.

But this new defensive doctrine that’s being implemented, especially in the Zaporozhye front, is the brainchild of Lieutenant General Alexander Romanchuck, former deputy commander, I believe, of the 58th Combined Arms Army. He was sent to the Combined Arms Academy after participating in the early phases of the Special Military Operation. While he was at the Combined Arms Academy, he rewrote Russian defensive doctrine and then he was brought out of the Combined Arms Academy and given a leadership position in the Zapporozhye front in the Rabotino area.” In accordance with the doctrine, “the purpose of the forward defensive zone is to receive an enemy attack to help break it up, to use defensive belts, minefields, obstacles, what they call, ‘fire cauldrons’ or ‘sacks’ where you want to force the enemy to come in so you can hit them with artillery, to break up the attack, but not to hold and die,” explained Ritter.

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“We cannot continue to wage war by simply saying: ‘More weapons, more deaths, more resistance.’ How do you get out of this?”

US Using Ukraine To Weaken EU – Sarkozy (RT)

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out against Ukraine’s accession to the EU and NATO, arguing that the move would not bring peace to Europe and would chip away at the continent’s independence. Speaking to France 5 TV broadcaster on Wednesday, Sarkozy reiterated his calls for a compromise between Moscow and Kiev, noting that the conflict had already claimed the lives of around half a million of people, most of whom were Ukrainian. “But we continue because in the Boulevard Saint-Germain they are very brave in terms of sending young Ukrainians to die,” he added, referring to the street where many French government offices are located.

While denouncing Russia as an “aggressor” in the conflict, Sarkozy said he believed that Ukraine’s accession to NATO and the EU – which Kiev has been seeking for many years – would not lead to peace. “Because if you bring Ukraine into Europe, you strengthen American Europe as the Eastern European countries are dominated by the US,” he noted. According to Sarkozy, while Ukraine essentially expresses America’s wishes because it is heavily reliant on Washington’s military assistance, the same is not true for relations between Washington and Paris. “France has a unique voice… and does not align itself with American interests,” he said. While reiterating that he wants France to support Ukraine, Sarkozy said he believes that Ukraine should eventually receive security guarantees from the West but must remain neutral and continue to serve as a “bridge between the Slavic world of Russia and us.”

“We cannot continue to wage war by simply saying: ‘More weapons, more deaths, more resistance.’ How do you get out of this?” he asked. He claimed that the Ukraine conflict benefits only China, which he said is gaining clout by courting its partners in the BRICS economic group, and the US, which is profiting from arms sales and higher prices for liquefied natural gas. Last week, Sarkozy suggested that any compromise with Moscow would involve recognizing Crimea as part of Russia, a statement that triggered outrage in Kiev, with Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, calling the proposal “criminal,” and accusing Sarkozy of complicity in organizing “genocide and war.”

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Could blow up the EU?!

Ukraine ‘Threatening’ Poland – Minister (RT)

Ukrainian pressure tactics over Poland’s ban on grain shipments through its territory will not work, Minister for EU Affairs Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek said on Friday, responding to Kiev’s threat to take the issue to the World Trade Organization (WTO). According to the diplomat, Warsaw is not impressed by such a move, as the protection of Polish farmers and citizens is a top priority for the government. “This is a threat, and this is another element of pressure from the Ukrainian side,” he said. “These elements sometimes go beyond the certain boundaries of classical diplomacy on the part of Ukraine.” Szynkowski vel Sek added that the Polish authorities are not planning to lift the embargo imposed on the imports of Ukrainian agricultural exports that is due to expire on September 15.

Ukraine’s exports of grain, its major trade commodity, are currently banned from the markets of Poland, Hungary, and three other EU nations under a deal struck with the European Commission earlier this year to protect the bloc’s farmers from a glut of cheaper agricultural produce. The issue has driven a wedge between Kiev and the EU’s eastern members, which have been among Ukraine’s biggest supporters in its confrontation with Russia. The nations impacted by the glut have repeatedly pledged to impose unilateral import bans, in violation of the bloc’s common trade rules, if the EU decides to lift the restrictions.

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Who builds this for the Pentagon?

Pentagon’s Hypersonic Woes Due to ‘Very Delicate’ Physics Problems (Sp.)

Konstantin Sivkov, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, Doctor of Military Sciences, pointed out that the technology behind hypersonics is both old and new. “What is a hypersonic weapon? It allows you to hit targets using homing in the final stage and at the same time fly at hypersonic speed,” he summarized to Sputnik. “Many ballistic missiles that appeared in the world as intercontinental ones back in the 1950s also have hypersonic speed, but they do not maneuver on their flight path – but this is not the case for hypersonic weapons.” “The Americans cannot solve two problems: providing control over the flight of missiles at hypersonic speeds – that is, maneuvering – and the issue of ensuring the operation of targeting systems at hypersonic speeds.”

Dmitry Drozdenko, a military analyst and chief editor of the “Fatherland Arsenal” internet portal, told Sputnik that the LRHW was similar to Russia’s Avangard hypersonic weapon, which was the first to be announced in 2019. “That is, there is a standard container in which the rocket engine accelerates the warhead-laden glider up to a certain height and to hypersonic speed. At that point, it begins to maneuver in the atmosphere without an engine. The only difference is that our Avangard has a global strike capability: it can strike at the South or North Pole, even in Washington, even in Canberra – anywhere on the planet, with both nuclear and non-nuclear payloads.” Drozdenko explained the US has struggled to develop a usable hypersonic weapon because hypersonic technology is “subtle in the field of fundamental science.” “It is a very delicate topic,” he told Sputnik.

“Once upon a time there were problems with supersonic, if you remember the old stories, when the first jet aircraft had straight wings and propellers, and then they began to be made with wings angled back. It’s all related to the fact that when approaching the speed of sound, a shockwave occurs, which does not allow an effective increase in speed. Therefore, the wings were deflected back and this shockwave flowed back at supersonic speed.” “So at hypersonic speeds, physical phenomena also arise. That is, there are several barriers such as high temperatures – very high. The vehicle heats up a great deal. If we are talking about [Russia’s] Avangard, it heats up to the state of plasma” similar to a spacecraft’s reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, which also travels at hypersonic speed, he explained.

“The protective layer burns away as a result. The astronaut is not damaged, but at that moment the communication connection is lost. That is, it is a known fact that when they enter the atmosphere, radio communication is lost, because radio waves do not pass through the plasma.” “And here questions of control arise: a hypersonic weapon that flies for a long time at such speeds must, firstly, be refractory. That is, it should not burn out, otherwise it will not fly,” he said, adding that “This is a matter of materials science – maintaining high temperatures.” This, Drozdenko noted, was a key difference between reentry vehicles and hypersonic weapons: they have to be controlled and maneuvered, not just allowed to “ram the atmosphere with their belly” until they slow down.

“The task of hypersonic weapons like Avangard is to maneuver. This is the most important thing, so that air defense systems can neither detect it nor shoot it down. It needs a control system that can somehow analyze the external environment despite being in this plasma cloud. There is a whole complex of fundamental theoretical sciences – materials science, aerodynamics of high speeds – which current control systems and radio electronics do not have. This is a huge barrier.”

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US too. The troops are sittting ducks.

France Seeks Pullout From Niger (Sp.)

France is considering several options for troops pullout from Niger, contacts with the Nigerien army continue and relate to operational and technical aspects, a French General Staff spokesman told Arabian broadcaster. Niger’s newly-appointed Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine said on Monday that French forces were staying in the country illegally and called for their swift departure. French forces have been largely confined to their air base in Niger’s capital, Niamey, since military leaders ousted Paris-backed President Mohamed Bazoum in late July. The West African bloc ECOWAS threatened military intervention if Niger’s military did not restore Bazoum to power.

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Without Xi and Putin it is. Just another politicized gathering.

Is The G20 Obsolete In An Increasingly Multipolar World? (Malyk)

You can count the number of cases in which Western governments have been genuinely interested in Africa’s wellbeing on the fingers of one hand. However, the sharp drop of Western influence on the continent is forcing former colonial powers to try rebranding themselves. The first step in this rebranding can be seen at the upcoming G20 Summit in New Delhi, which will see the African Union admitted as a permanent member of the organization – on a par with the European Union. Will that be enough to heal old wounds? Probably not, especially considering that the G20 meeting takes place after last month’s historic BRICS Summit in South Africa. The event brought together countries from across the Global South and announced the admission of six new members into BRICS, including two African countries – Egypt and Ethiopia. Hard to see how the G20 tops that.

It turns out that Western-centric groups are beginning to cede global leadership to the multipolar world organizations, mostly led by Russia, China and India. Is this trend taking over the politics of the G20? And what are the prospects for the G20 in a future world stage? The G20 Summit in New Delhi will take place without the leaders of Russia and China. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will head the Russian delegation, while Premier Li Qiang will head the Chinese one. As both leaders were among the main actors of the recent BRICS Summit, this turn of events may be regarded as a bad omen for the upcoming summit. Although Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov noted that Putin and Xi did not coordinate the refusal to attend the New Delhi Summit, the absence of these two leaders will be extremely significant.

Tony Kevin, former Australian ambassador to Poland and Cambodia and former carrier officer of the Australian Foreign Ministry, as well as the author of two books on Russia, ‘Return to Moscow’ (2017) and ‘Russia and the West’ (2019), highlighted to Sputnik that “the Russian President Putin and the Chinese President Xi have both sent a very clear signal by not attending the meeting.” In turn, Dr. Zhang Baohui, director of the Centre for Asian Pacific Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, claimed that the decision of the leaders of Russia and China not to attend the G20 “will indeed dampen the significance of this summit.”

“G20 was created as a concert system that incorporates the world’s leading powers so they can work together to resolve the biggest problems facing the globe. The absence of the top leaders of China and Russia pokes a hole in the G20 mechanism. The Ukraine war and many global issues ranging from climate to development need the cooperation of the world’s leading powers. As such, Xi and Putin’s absence will reduce the significance of this summit even though their representatives will be there,” he told Sputnik.

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“Russia is offering, on the one hand, the Wagner Group as gatekeepers, and on the other hand, food security for the continent. In one fell swoop, western propaganda was trashed..”

The Unshakeable Putin-Erdogan Nexus (Bhadrakumar)

Since the two heads of state last met in Astana last October, Moscow has gained the upper hand in the battlefields of Ukraine; the so-called grain deal involving Russia and Ukraine, brokered by Ankara under UN auspices, ran its course; security of the Black Sea region touched a new level of criticality as the Anglo-American obsession with Crimea surged; and, above all, Erdogan secured another term as president, which puts him in the hot seat to reverse Turkiye’s financial and economic crisis. In the full flush of his election victory, Erdogan made certain efforts to mend fences with the west, signaling a willingness to agree to Sweden’s induction into NATO and showing solidarity with Ukraine. In moves that could seriously upset Moscow, Ankara wantonly released Azov commanders who were captured by Russia in Mariupol last year and announced an intent to jointly produce weaponry with Ukraine.

Nonetheless, Moscow reacted cautiously. The Kremlin could afford to mark time since this is also an asymmetrical relationship where Russia holds the upper hand. Moscow could sense that Erdogan was not really “pivoting” to the west, but was rather showing an interest in improving western ties which had soured in recent years -and its outcome remains far from certain. Basically, Russia’s relations with Turkiye are fortified by the warm personal equations between Putin and Erdogan, and both leaders are consummate realists with shared interests and a keenness to challenge Western dominance in regional politics. Moscow is only too well aware that Turkiye’s hopes for membership in the European Union remain a far-fetched dream.

The “body language” of the meeting in Sochi confirmed that there is no change in the verve of the personal relationship between the two leaders. Television footage showed the two men smiling and shaking hands upon Erdogan’s arrival at Putin’s residence, where the Russian president suggested that his guest take a vacation in the Black Sea resort. In his opening remarks, Putin put Erdogan at ease by reassuring him upfront that the Russian offer to create a global “energy hub” in Turkiye is very much in the cards and will materialize soon. However, the icing on the cake is the proposed agreement that would facilitate free exports of grain from Russia to six African nations with the help of Turkiye and Qatar. In Erdogan’s presence, Putin announced:

“We are close to completing agreements with six African states, where we intend to supply foodstuffs for free and even carry out delivery and logistics for free. Deliveries will begin in the next couple of weeks.” The political and geopolitical resonance of this decision in Africa is simply immeasurable — Russia is offering, on the one hand, the Wagner Group as gatekeepers, and on the other hand, food security for the continent. In one fell swoop, western propaganda was trashed, with some help from Ankara.

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“Liberalism needed, above all, a sense of moral superiority, to heal an imperfect world, to be ahead-of-the-curve in mankind’s implacable march of progress toward perfection..”

A Theory of the Game (Jim Kunstler)

In cases of madness, there is often a dark, sordid secret behind the weird behavior that presents outwardly. In the group madness provoked by Hillary Clinton’s loss, the dirty secret was that she had actually bought the Democratic National Committee in 2016, meaning the machinery that runs the party. She used lavish contributions to the Clinton Foundation to accomplish that. And Hillary along with her foundation — and husband Bill, who had been reduced by late career misadventure to a kind of political fashion accessory — had committed any number of grave crimes against our country over the years, especially during her service as Barack Obama’s Secretary of State. Think: Skolkovo… Uranium One…. In 2016 Hillary used her ownership of the DNC to underhandedly de-rail the likely Democratic primary winner, Bernie Sanders, from being nominated.

The initial act of madness by the “Resistance” on Mr. Trump’s inauguration day was the women’s march of pink pussy-hats, so called, a symbolic exhibition of fleering female genitalia in Mr. Trump’s face, so to speak, as an act of defiance against the new national daddy figure (and his millions of deplorable supporters watching the ceremonies on TV). This proved to be a mere overture to the more extreme sexual acting-out that evolved in the years to follow, overall a campaign to horrify people of normal appetites, beliefs, and moral codes, culminating in the drag queen story hours aimed at maximally inducing outrage among people organized as families.

All of that psychodrama was hijacked, of course, by the serious neo-Marxists lurking among the Left, who used it in the usual neo-Marxian way: to overthrow everything in the established social order. And who were these? The circle around Barack Obama. And who was Barack Obama exactly? Good question. This mysterious figure who rose so swiftly from being, briefly, a mere state senator in Illinois, then to the US Senate — for only a few years, accomplishing next to nothing there — then to being nominated for president, and actually winning the 2008 election!

Since we’re speaking in terms of psychodrama, Mr. Obama was liberalism’s wish-fulfillment: a half-century after the Civil Rights movement, America elects the first black president (half-black, anyway)! Liberalism needed, above all, a sense of moral superiority, to heal an imperfect world, to be ahead-of-the-curve in mankind’s implacable march of progress toward perfection, and especially to set an example for how to live for all those gun-loving, bible-thumping, meth-smoking, opiate-scarfing, racist, rapist flyover rubes who would dare to vote for such misogynistic vermin as the TV-clown Donald J. Trump.

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Diver dog
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700098525835530502

 

 

Halitrephes maasi jelly.

 

 

Eagle

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 082023
 
 September 8, 2023  Posted by at 9:32 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Claude Monet Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son Dec 31 1874

 

US’ ‘Rigged Election’ To Blame For Ukraine Conflict – Trump (RT)
Musk ‘The Last Adequate Mind’ In America – Medvedev (RT)
The EU’s Best Weapon Against Free Speech Isn’t Working (Marsden)
Ukraine’s ‘Biggest Arms Supplier’ Orchestrated 2014 Maidan Massacre (GZ)
Zelensky Issues Ultimatum To EU Over Grain Ban (RT)
Ukraine ‘Has Never Been Closer’ To NATO Membership – Stoltenberg (RT)
Not Legally Possible’ for US to Transfer Seized Russian Assets to Ukraine (Sp.)
G20 Set To Expand (RT)
Leaked: CIA Front Preparing Color Revolution In Indonesia (MPN)
Germany Faces End Of Decades-Long Economic Boom – El Pais (RT)
General: NATO, US Intend To Open Front Against Russia In Caucasus (RT)
Pentagon Nixes Test of First-Ever US Long-Range c Weapon (Sp.)
House: ‘Evidence of Collusion’ Between Joe Biden and Hunter’s Partners (Sp.)
A Hunter Biden Indictment Could Bring a Surprising Challenge (Turley)
Special Counsel May Indict Hunter Biden by End of September (Sp.)
FDA Refuses to Provide COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Data to US Senator (ET)

 

 

RFK DNC

 

 

RFK Fauci

 

 

 

 

NYC Mayor Adams

 

 

 

 

Megyn Kelly

 

 

Orban Soros
https://twitter.com/i/status/1699770247081865247

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Nixon Ritter

 

 

 

 

“it’s good to get along.”

US’ ‘Rigged Election’ To Blame For Ukraine Conflict – Trump (RT)

Former president Donald Trump has claimed that the ongoing Ukraine conflict would never have begun if the 2020 US elections hadn’t been “rigged” and Joe Biden hadn’t replaced him and taken office. In an interview with American radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, Trump insisted that Russia would have never launched its military operation in Ukraine if he were still in the White House. “Ukraine is so sad,” Trump said. “[Putin] would have never done it if the election weren’t rigged, our election. It was rigged and stolen. If that election wasn’t rigged, if I were president, you would right now have millions of people living that are dead,” a transcript of the former president’s interview reads.

Trump went on to also claim that, if he were still president, “Taiwan would never be talked about right now,” and that he’d maintained close contact with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, even though they “were not close to him.” He also criticized the policies of Joe Biden, who he described as “the most corrupt and incompetent president” and warned that his leadership could lead the world to a nuclear war that’s going to result in World War III. “This man doesn’t have a clue,” Trump said. Last month, the former president also claimed in an op-ed published by Newsweek that the Ukraine conflict was influenced in part by the infamous Russiagate investigation – an FBI probe into Trump’s ties with Russia that was launched over allegations that he’d colluded with Moscow during his 2016 presidential campaign.

A report by special counsel John Durham earlier this year found that the FBI should have never launched the probe, as it was based on biased sources. Trump said the probe came “at a critical moment when we should have been reducing tensions with Russia” and instead undermined relations with Moscow and ultimately stoked a “mass hysteria”that pushed Washington to launch a “proxy war” against Moscow. In July, the former president suggested that that the US is in a “very stupid, dangerous position right now” because it does not have as many nuclear weapons as Russia. He insisted Washington should improve its relations with Moscow, claiming that “it’s good to get along.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1699807844420194319

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“Or, at the very least, in gender-neutral America, he is the one with the balls..”

Musk ‘The Last Adequate Mind’ In America – Medvedev (RT)

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has praised billionaire Elon Musk for refusing to allow Ukraine to use his Starlink satellite communications network for attacks on a Russian naval base in Crimea. The statement came after CNN published excerpts from Walter Isaacson’s book about Musk, where he detailed the rationale behind the businessman’s decision. “If what Isaacson has written in his book is true, then it looks like Musk is the last adequate mind in North America,” Medvedev, who is currently deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, wrote on his English-language account on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Thursday. “Or, at the very least, in gender-neutral America, he is the one with the balls,” the official added. According to excerpts from Isaacson’s book, quoted by CNN, Musk secretly ordered his engineers to disable Starlink service near Crimea last year to sabotage a planned Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

“Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes,” Musk reportedly said. After the CNN story appeared online, Musk took to X to explain that he had denied Kiev’s “emergency request” to activate Starlink all the way to the port city of Sevastopol, which hosts a Russian naval base. “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” Musk wrote. The businessman donated around 20,000 Starlink kits to Ukraine after Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring state in February 2022. Musk has since advocated for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, drawing ire from both Ukrainian and Western officials.

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“Musk should play along and take notes about the kind of censorship requests that are made of him by Brussels. Then he should publish them on Twitter..”

The EU’s Best Weapon Against Free Speech Isn’t Working (Marsden)

The European Commission has concluded in a new report that despite making pinky-promises to “mitigate the reach and influence of Kremlin-sponsored disinformation,” large social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook were “unsuccessful” in doing so. What a shocker that this research by oversight advocates has ended up advocating in favor of more oversight. Russia just happens to be the most convenient scapegoat. Using the same kind of smear tactics that the bloc has used previously – like when it included Russia alongside Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in previous security and threat reports – this time it involved conflating “pro-Kremlin” social media accounts with those that it considers to be “Kremlin-aligned” or “Kremlin-backed.”

[..] In a line that just begs to be read repeatedly out of sheer incredulity that someone could be so tone-deaf, the report notes that so-called Kremlin disinfo efforts are “designed to foment political and social instability among its adversaries by stoking ethnic conflict, promoting isolationism, and distracting public attention away from Ukraine and onto domestic affairs.” How dare the people of Europe insist that their leaders focus on the considerable problems faced by their own country and citizens, which have long been exacerbated by misguided national and EU-level policies, rather than riveting their attention to Ukraine! Indeed, if it wasn’t for those meddling Russians, Europe would be a utopia of sunshine and rainbows, everyone holding hands and singing Kumbaya, with nothing else for citizens to concern themselves with besides what’s happening in Ukraine.

The EU laments that “the Kremlin and its proxies captured growing audiences with highly produced propaganda content, and steered users to unregulated online spaces, where democratic norms have eroded and hate and lies could spread with impunity.” They have it all backwards. People wanting to engage in debate and discussion of topics and viewpoints that the EU — in all its arrogance as the self-appointed arbiter of truth — is keen to censor, have been driven to other platforms specifically because they support free speech in all its glory and imperfection.

“Over the course of 2022, the audience and reach of Kremlin-aligned social media accounts increased substantially all over Europe,” according to the report, adding that “the reach and influence of Kremlin-backed accounts has grown further in the first half of 2023, driven in particular by the dismantling of Twitter’s safety standards.” In other words, Elon Musk, who considershimself a “free speech absolutist,” came along and bought Twitter, leveled the playing field by opening up debate and reducing censorship, and what ended up happening is that people flooded to the platform as a refreshing alternative to the curated and censored Western establishment narrative that they’re spoon-fed elsewhere.

So what’s the EU going to do about it now? Well, mandatory compliance with its Digital Services Act is now in effect as of last month. This means that, theoretically, all the major social media platforms are obligated to work with the EU’s handpicked “civil society” actors to moderate and censor content – no doubt in alignment with the EU’s narrative. Musk should play along and take notes about the kind of censorship requests that are made of him by Brussels. Then he should publish them on Twitter in the interest of radical transparency and the kind of uncompromising defense of democracy to which the EU is constantly paying lip service as a pretext for its crackdowns on our fundamental freedoms.

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“European and American officials are loath to discuss Mr. Pashinsky, for fear of playing into Russia’s narrative that Ukraine’s government is hopelessly corrupt..”

Ukraine’s ‘Biggest Arms Supplier’ Orchestrated 2014 Maidan Massacre (GZ)

Years before emerging as Kiev’s top private weapons trafficker, ex-legislator Serhiy Pashinsky played a key role in the 2014 US-backed coup which toppled Ukraine’s democratically-elected president and set the stage for a devastating civil war. Though the notoriously corrupt former Ukrainian parliamentarian was condemned by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “criminal” as recently as 2019, a lengthy exposé by the New York Times has now identified Pashinsky as the Ukrainian government’s “biggest private arms supplier.” Perhaps predictably, the report makes no mention of evidence implicating Pashinsky in the 2014 massacre of 70 anti-government protesters in Kiev’s Maidan Square, an incident which pro-Western forces used to consummate their coup d’etat against then-President Viktor Yanukovych.

In an August 12 report on Ukraine’s new weapons-sourcing strategy, the New York Times alleged that “out of desperation,” Kiev had no option but to adopt increasingly amoral tactics. The shift, they say, has driven up prices of lethal imports at an exponential rate, “and added layer upon layer of profit-making” for the benefit of unscrupulous speculators like Pashinsky. According to the Times, the strategy is simple: Pashinksy “buys and sells grenades, artillery shells and rockets through a trans-European network of middlemen,” then “sells them, then buys them again and sells them once more”: “With each transaction, prices rise – as do the profits of Mr. Pashinsky’s associates – until the final buyer, Ukraine’s military, pays the most,” the Times explained, adding that while using multiple brokers may technically be legal, “it is a time-tested way to inflate profits.”

As the seemingly endless supply of cash from Western taxpayers provides a bonanza for arms manufacturers such as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, it similarly benefits war profiteers like Pashinsky. His company, Ukrainian Armored Technology, “reported its best year ever last year, with sales totaling more than $350 million” — a whopping 12,500% increase from its $2.8 million in sales the year before the war. Pashinsky is not the only racketeer benefitting from the elimination of anti-corruption measures in wartime Ukraine. Several suppliers previously placed on an official blacklist after they “ripped off the military” are now free to sell again, according to the Times investigation. The outlet downplayed this as an unfortunate, but ultimately necessary measure.

“In the name of rushing weapons to the front line, leaders have resurrected figures from Ukraine’s rough-and-tumble past and undone, at least temporarily, years of anticorruption [sic] policies,” the Times asserted, describing “the re-emergence of figures like Mr. Pashinsky” as “one reason the American and British governments are buying ammunition for Ukraine rather than simply handing over money”: “European and American officials are loath to discuss Mr. Pashinsky, for fear of playing into Russia’s narrative that Ukraine’s government is hopelessly corrupt and must be replaced.”

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“Zelensky expressed hope that Ukraine and Brussels will avoid a legal battle and that “unity will win. That truth will win.”

Zelensky Issues Ultimatum To EU Over Grain Ban (RT)

Kiev will go to an international arbitration court if the EU decides to prolong its ban on Ukrainian grain beyond September 15, Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky has warned. The curbs on deliveries of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower seeds to Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, which had been introduced in May, are set to expire next week. But the five EU members are now pushing for the ban to be extended at least until the end of the year, citing the need to protect their agricultural industries. “Ukraine is strongly against any further restrictions on the export of our grain,” Zelensky pointed out in an address published on his website on Wednesday. “We calmly watch as our grain becomes a source of good income for various European countries that process our agricultural products and make money on logistics,” he said.

“But how can we not-calmly accept the violation of the promises given to us, the violation of the Association Agreement, the violation of free market conditions,” he added, directly addressing the European Commission. During the conflict with Russia, Ukraine is “fighting for life and for our common European values” on land, at sea, in the air, and in cyberspace, the president claimed. “But if we have to fight for Ukraine and the foundations of our common Europe in arbitration, we will fight. We don’t want to, but we will fight in arbitration. If we need to fight on the platforms of international organizations, we will fight there as well,” he warned. However, Zelensky expressed hope that Ukraine and Brussels will avoid a legal battle and that “unity will win. That truth will win.” He also addressed the leaders of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, arguing that “any restrictions against Ukrainian exports now are a scaling-up of the destruction” caused by the fighting between Kiev and Moscow.

Politico reported on Wednesday that during a meeting with the European Commission earlier the same day, the ambassadors from other EU countries “either openly opposed the idea of extending the restrictions [on Ukrainian grain] or remained deeply skeptical” about such a move. France and Germany have been among the nations most critical of prolonging the curbs, it said. EU diplomats reportedly told the outlet that many countries understood the concerns of Warsaw, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, and Bratislava but wanted the European Commission to find alternative means to resolve the issue. Poland, which vigorously opposes the deliveries of Ukrainian grain despite being one of Kiev’s prime backers amid the conflict with Russia, and Hungary have already said they’ll come up with unilateral restrictions if the EU refuses to prolong the ban.

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aka they’re as far away as ever.

Ukraine ‘Has Never Been Closer’ To NATO Membership – Stoltenberg (RT)

Ukraine is closer than ever to joining NATO, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has claimed, adding that Russia “cannot veto” Kiev’s future membership. The NATO chief made the comments on Thursday at the European Parliament, where he briefed MEPs on cooperation between the US-led military bloc and the EU. Stoltenberg insisted that the two sides “share the same values [and] the same challenges.” Part of his address was dedicated to what NATO offered Ukraine at a recent summit in Lithuania. Kiev was not provided the roadmap to membership that it had requested, but was promised more military aid, representation through a newly created council, and an opportunity to skip a step that NATO candidates typically have to pass.

“And these three things, the interoperability, the NATO-Ukraine Council and removal of the requirement for Membership Action Plan for Ukraine, demonstrate that Ukraine has never been closer to a membership in NATO than now,” Stoltenberg declared. US President Joe Biden said ahead of the July summit that Ukraine would have to meet certain conditions before its bid was accepted. NATO member states have also ruled out Ukraine joining before the conflict with Russia is resolved. After the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev, Ukraine declared membership of the EU and NATO as its foreign policy priorities, enshrining these aspirations in its constitution. sThat stance helped fuel tensions with Russia, which considers NATO a hostile organization and has for decades objected to its expansion in Europe.

The bloc first promised that Ukraine would eventually become a member during a 2008 summit in Bucharest. Russia has requested that Ukraine be a neutral nation that does not host foreign military forces. In 2021, Moscow attempted to negotiate a security arrangement that would have addressed its concerns, calling on NATO to withdraw its military infrastructure from the Russian border and cease its expansion. The proposal, however, was rejected. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited NATO’s involvement in Ukraine as among the key reasons when Moscow began its military operation against Kiev last year. Speaking to MEPs, Stoltenberg reiterated NATO’s position that “Russia cannot veto membership for any sovereign independent state in Europe.”

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Highway robbery..

Not Legally Possible for US to Transfer Seized Russian Assets to Ukraine (Sp.)

The US said it would transfer the seized assets of Russian businessmen to veterans of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Thursday. The announcement was made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in Kiev, who indicated the amount transferred would be $5.4 million. Blinken, however, did not elaborate on the precise sum, from which accounts the money would be taken or when exactly the transfer would occur. Since the launch of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine in February 2022, Western powers have initiated several rounds of seizures of property and freezing of assets belonging to both Russian nationals and state institutions located in the West. The US has long asserted it would seek to transfer these assets to Ukrainian control, but has so far not attempted to do so.

Christopher C. Black, an international criminal lawyer with 20 years of experience in war crimes and international relations told Sputnik it was “not legally possible” to do what Blinken declared the US was doing. “It seems to me that the statements declaring their intentions to use seized assets to fund the Ukraine regime are more for propaganda purposes than for real economic effect. They make these announcements from time to time to try to humiliate Russia and show Russia who’s boss, or so they think,” Black told Sputnik, adding that such moves were aimed at harming Russian prestige. “But the opposite occurs. It is their [US] reputation and prestige that is undermined, their claimed adherence to the rule of law, to the right to property, to justice.

They reveal themselves for what they are and the consequence is that citizens and national governments will be reluctant to have any type of assets placed in those nations if they can be seized on any pretext. So it ends up harming their own economies and the world economic system.” “The issue of the use of illegally seized assets, whether cash or property or financial securities such as stocks, bonds is important to expose the nature of the governments involved,” Black said. “They continually talk about their ‘values’ and we see with this that one of their values is to raise theft and piracy to a standard practice.” “It is not legally possible to use such assets to provide Ukraine with funds to carry on the war against Russia,” Black asserted.

“The Canadian government has stated that they will sell the Russian aircraft that they illegally seized to give the money from the sale to Ukraine. The US and EU countries have promised to use other seized assets for the same purpose. But again, all of this is illegal, since the assets were simply ordered to be seized by government fiat, by-passing proper legal procedures and without any means for the owners to object,” the legal expert explained. “Assets can only be seized normally if a debt is owed and the creditor goes to court to get compensation and a court orders certain assets to be handed over to satisfy the debt, but no debts were involved. The NATO governments have just stolen these assets ignoring all legalities,” he said.

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G20 desperately seeks relevance..

G20 Set To Expand (RT)

Leaders of the G20 group of advanced economies have agreed to grant the African Union permanent membership of the organization, according to multiple media reports ahead of this week’s summit in New Delhi. The bloc of 55 African countries, which is currently classified as an “invited international organization” by the G20, would have the same status as the European Union within the group. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose nation currently holds the rotating G20 presidency, reportedly urged other leaders to accept the African Union into the group in a letter in June. “This will be a right step towards a just, fair, more inclusive and representative global architecture and governance,” the media quoted the document as saying.

“[The] prime minister is a strong believer in having a greater voice of the Global South countries on international platforms, particularly of African countries.” South Africa is currently the sole permanent G20 member representing the continent. Egypt and Mauritius – located in North Africa and off its eastern coast, respectively – are “invitees.” The African Union’s upcoming accession was confirmed by The Times of India newspaper, Bloomberg news agency, and Russia’s Vedomosti daily. The latter cited Svetlana Lukash, a Russian G20 sherpa, as its source. She noted that Moscow was among the first to support the candidacy after it was formally proposed last year by President of Senegal Macky Sall, who was also the chair of the African Union at the time.

The Senegalese dignitary argued earlier this year that the G20 would undo a great “injustice” by accepting the union into its ranks. African nations collectively hold eighth place in the world in terms of GDP, he told an economic event in France. Bloomberg said the US and its European allies intend to use the G20 leaders’ summit in India, which is scheduled for this weekend, to woo nations that have good relations with Moscow and Beijing. Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping will not be attending in person, opening a window of opportunity. The Europeans, in particular, see their support for the African Union’s bid as giving them clout among the nations of the continent, the outlet explained.

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Include Indonesia in BRICS ASAP.

Leaked: CIA Front Preparing Color Revolution In Indonesia (MPN)

Documents passed anonymously to MintPress News reveal the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a notorious CIA front, is laying the foundations for a color revolution in Indonesia. In February 2024, citizens will elect their President, Vice President, and both legislative chambers. Current maverick leader Joko Widodo, widely beloved by Indonesians, is ineligible for a third term, and NED is preparing to seize power in the wake of his departure. This operation is conducted despite the leaks indicating Jakarta’s foremost intelligence agency has expressly warned U.S. officials to stay put. The paper trail is a stunning insight into how NED operates behind the scenes, from which obvious inferences can be drawn about its activities elsewhere, past and present.

By the organization’s own reckoning, it operates in over 100 countries and disperses in excess of 2,000 grants every year. In Indonesia, these sums have helped extend the Endowment’s tendrils into various NGOs, civil society groups, and, most crucially, political parties and candidates across the ideological spectrum. This broad spread bet goes some way to ensuring U.S. assets, one way or another, will emerge victorious next February. However, a veritable army of NED operatives on the ground is also primed to challenge, if not overturn, the results should the wrong people win. Personal grants – in other words, bribes – from the Endowment have already secretly been distributed to Indonesians for staging anti-government protests. What skullduggery NED has in store for election day isn’t certain, although sparks are assured to fly. At the very least, these documents amply reinforce what Endowment cofounder Allen Weinstein openly admitted in 1991: A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

Joko Widodo – popularly known as Jokowi – is something of a rockstar. The first Indonesian leader not drawn from the country’s established political or military elite since its hard-won independence from the Dutch in 1949, he was born and raised in a riverside slum in Surakarta. From there, he fought to become mayor of his hometown in 2005, then governor of Jakarta in 2012, then President two years later. Every step of the way, Widodo has battled bureaucracy and corruption while pursuing programs to deliver universal healthcare, economic growth, radical infrastructure development, and material improvements to the lives of average citizens. Such is his domestic popularity that analysts routinely speak of the “Jokowi Effect.” After the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle named him their presidential candidate in 2014, their vote share leaped 30% in that year’s legislative election.

Widodo’s candidacy also reportedly stimulated Indonesia’s stock market and Rupiah currency due to his sparkling political and economic record. One might think burnishing the country’s finances to such a degree through sheer force of personality would make him an ideal leader from Washington’s perspective. Yet, the President has also prioritized “protecting Indonesia’s sovereignty” and limiting overseas influence in Jakarta. Moreover, he pursues an intensely independent foreign policy, much to the U.S. Empire’s chagrin. Widodo has encouraged leaders of Muslim states to reconcile and pushed for Palestinian independence. His Foreign Minister visits Palestine but refuses to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. He has also distributed sizable aid to oppressed Muslims abroad. Most egregiously, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he flew to both countries and urged their leaders to seek peace. When Jakarta hosted the G20 Summit that year, he invited not only Zelensky but Putin to attend despite fierce Western criticism.

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“The German model hinges on cost competitiveness, technological leadership in industry, and geopolitical stability, and “all of them are gone..”

Germany Faces End Of Decades-Long Economic Boom – El Pais (RT)

Germany’s decades of prosperity, which propelled it to become one of the world’s biggest economies, are coming to an end, Spanish daily El Pais claimed earlier this week, citing analysts. According to figures released by the International Monetary Fund in July, Germany is forecast to be the only major economy not to grow this year, with its GDP expected to decline by 0.3%. The German model hinges on cost competitiveness, technological leadership in industry, and geopolitical stability, and “all of them are gone,” according to journalist Wolfgang Munchau, as cited by the newspaper. “What has now emerged is an energy price crisis, new geopolitical divisions and technological shocks that pose existential questions about the future of the model,” Munchau said, adding that the world around Germany has completely changed.

Since the early 2000s the country has enjoyed continual strong growth driven by high employment rates and foreign demand from fast-growing economies such as China. Germany’s manufacturing sector, the mainstay of the economy, has been flourishing since 2003, fuelled by cheap energy from Russia and low-cost labor from Eastern Europe. Germany is expected to further rely on a massive level of exports and imports, “but the industries that were successful in the last two decades, namely the chemical and automotive ones, will not perform the same role in the future,” Clemens Fuest, director of the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (IFO), told El Pais.

According to Carsten Brzeski, the ING chief for Germany and the Eurozone, China – while still importing German products – has also become a strong rival. The expert added that pandemic-related challenges along with geo-political tensions have changed the world, but that Germany has also failed to invest and implement new reforms in time. Moreover, Fuest noted, public and private investments are hampered by overly complex planning procedures, restrictive regulations and bureaucracy that should be simplified by the government.

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Armenia.

General: NATO, US Intend To Open Front Against Russia In Caucasus (RT)

NATO and the US intend to open a front against Russia in the Caucasus, the former military attache of the Turkish Embassy in Azerbaijan, General Yucel Karauz told Report. Commenting on the post of Gunther Fehlinger, Chair of the European Committee for NATO Enlargement, on his X account calling Armenia to join NATO, the General noted that the Alliance wants to measure the reaction of Russia and the countries of the region with this statement: “Because Russia calls the Caucasus its backyard. Earlier, they took the initiative in the direction of Georgia joining NATO together with Ukraine. However, even after many years, Georgia could not become a member of NATO. This time, they made this call for Armenia.”

Karauz said he has received information that such a call will be made for Azerbaijan as well. According to him, the United States will also support this call and this means that NATO’s move is not against Azerbaijan: “Azerbaijan is a country with developed relations with NATO. Türkiye will definitely not allow any step against Azerbaijan. Armenia cannot become a NATO member without solving its problem with Azerbaijan, without complying with the conditions of the tripartite declaration signed between the leaders of Azerbaijan, Russia, and Armenia on November 10, without showing clean behavior towards Türkiye and Azerbaijan, and without removing the statements aimed at the territorial integrity of Türkiye from its constitution.”

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Years behind.

Pentagon Nixes Test of First-Ever US Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (Sp.)

Seeking to catch up to Russia and China, the Pentagon’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon has a reported range of over 1,725 miles and travels at roughly five times the speed of sound. The US military scrapped a test of what was meant to be the army’s first hypersonic long-range missile in its arsenal. The Pentagon did not specify the reasons for the cancellation. The Western media pointed out that this decision raises concerns whether the US will be able to compete in hypersonic warfare with Russia and China. Hypersonic LRMs have the ability to surmount traditional air defenses and can be armed with nuclear warheads.

The US Defense Intelligence Agency said in March that the US is losing the hypersonic race to China, and emphasized that this raises alarm bells concerning national security. According to media reports, the Army’s 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Washington is going to operate the first battery of eight LRHW missiles when they are fielded. In theory, the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon consists of a ground-launched missile equipped with a hypersonic glide body and associated transport, support, and fire control equipment.

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“Joe Biden “never built an ‘absolute wall’ between his family’s business dealings and his official government work — his office doors were wide open to Hunter Biden’s associates.”

House: ‘Evidence of Collusion’ Between Joe Biden and Hunter’s Partners (Sp.)

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who is leading Republican probes into Biden family finances, has expanded his request of the National Archives to seek more emails and documents from when Joe Biden served as vice president (VP) under Barack Obama. In particular, Comer asked for unredacted emails involving communications between the then-VP and business associates of his son Hunter’s now-dissolved firm Rosemont Seneca Partners and Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings. The House Oversight Committee chairman noted in a statement that Joe Biden “never built an ‘absolute wall’ between his family’s business dealings and his official government work — his office doors were wide open to Hunter Biden’s associates.”

Comer claimed that “[t]here is evidence of collusion in the efforts to spin media stories about Burisma’s corruption while Vice President Biden was publicly pushing an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine.” “Suspiciously, Hunter Biden’s associate had a media statement on Burisma approved by Vice President Biden himself the same day Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’ for help with the government pressure facing Burisma. Americans demand accountability for this abuse of government office for the benefit of the Biden family. The Oversight Committee will continue to pursue all evidence to provide much-needed transparency to the American people,” the GOP lawmaker added. The remarks come a week after Comer said that the National Archives has thousands of emails and records linked to a pseudonym allegedly used by POTUS to discuss foreign business with his son Hunter Biden.

“The National Archives has admitted to possessing 5,400 emails and records connected to then-VP Biden’s ‘Robert L. Peters’ email account,” Comer wrote on social media late last month. Comer’s House committee earlier requested information from the National Archives on the Robert Peters email address, which Joe purportedly used as a pseudonymous means of communication. This followed the House panel chair revealing a third batch of financial documents that showed evidence that the Biden family received millions of dollars from foreign businessmen during Joe’s vice presidency in 2014. Two previous packages of financial documents were released in March and May. They highlighted Biden’s family use of the Robinson Walker LLC bank account to receive money from a certain Chinese entity and dealings in Romania.

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“..the President may not be quite ready for his son to join actual hunters in advocating for sweeping gun rights protections, including drug users.”

A Hunter Biden Indictment Could Bring a Surprising Challenge (Turley)

After the spectacular collapse of his sweetheart deal with the Justice Department in court, Hunter Biden’s lawyer angrily told the prosecutors in open court to “just rip it up.” It appears, however, that the defense team does not want to shred one part of the deal: the diversion agreement to avoid any charge over his false statement to obtain a gun permit. The defense is now arguing that, since the two sides signed the agreement before the implosion in court, it is final and complete. The Justice Department thinks otherwise. It is arguing that neither the probation officer nor the Court agreed to the plea agreement to finalize it. Indeed, it was the sweeping immunity language buried in the gun charge section that led the Court to throw a flag on the play. Accordingly, the Justice Department is now pledging to indict Hunter by the end of the month.

Hunter, however, is insisting that the Justice Department will have to pry the agreement from his cold, dead fingers. Indeed, the President’s son may be channeling more from the National Rifle Association (NRA) than its catchline. If the court rejects the diversion agreement as executed, Hunter could be making an argument that will leave the Biden White House in something of a pickle. One obvious attack against a charge is to argue that the underlying law itself is unconstitutional. Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), anyone who is an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance,” including marijuana, is barred from possessing a gun and can face up to 10 years in prison.

However, recently the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled the law violated the Second Amendment in United States v. Daniels. The case involved a man who was arrested in possession of marijuana and two loaded firearms. The Fifth Circuit relief on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen v. New York Rifle & Pistol Association, which established that firearms laws must conform with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” President Biden denounced Bruen as a virtual abomination and has been a vocal supporter of the underlying law. Hunter, however, may now find himself in strange company in seeking to avoid any federal charge. In the appellate opinion, Judge Jerry E. Smith wrote that “Our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage.”

That sounds tantalizingly familiar, but is it enough for Hunter to go full Wayne LaPierre? If so, this would not be the first time that Hunter followed a path that his father has previously condemned in others. For example, for decades, Joe Biden has railed against “deadbeat dads” despite his son’s long effort to avoid paying child support to Lunden Alexis Roberts. Hunter spent years fighting support for his daughter Navy, even after a court confirmed that he was her father. Joe Biden himself only recently acknowledged the existence of Navy after routinely excluding her from the list of his grandchildren. Yet, the President may not be quite ready for his son to join actual hunters in advocating for sweeping gun rights protections, including drug users.

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Little reason to have faith in the special counsel.

Curious: The lawyers argue that Hunter’s plea deal is valid, even after the judge threw it out.

Special Counsel May Indict Hunter Biden by End of September (Sp.)

The development follows the appointment of David Weiss by US Attorney General Merrick Garland, who tasked Weiss with investigating Hunter Biden after a plea deal between Hunter and federal prosecutors fell apart, pushing the case closer to trial. Special counsel David Weiss is planning to bring an indictment against Hunter Biden by the end of September, court documents filed on Wednesday have revealed. The three-age filing comes in response to a gun possession case that saw Hunter accused of lying on a federal firearm form in which he indicated that he was not using drugs at the time. Officials did not outline which charges they intend to file in the case. The form dates back to 2018, and comes in addition to an ongoing investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, which allegedly include a pay-to-play scheme involving both Hunter and his father, US President Joe Biden.

Prosecutors are arguing that officials must obtain a grand jury indictment by September 29, 2023, in line with the Speedy Trial Act. The looming indictment comes weeks after an earlier plea deal in which Hunter Biden was allowed to completely avoid prison time collapsed in July. The agreement allowed the Biden son to also plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges in exchange for being placed on probation. Additionally, he agreed to a pretrial diversion on a separate gun charge, with the charge set to be dropped if he met certain conditions. Hunter Biden’s legal team has contended that prosecutors cannot file additional charges in the case, arguing that both sides had already come to an understanding through the since-trashed plea deal agreement that prosecutors cleared.

Weiss’ team maintains that a probation officer’s signature is necessary for ratification, which they claim did not occur in this case. Biden attorney Abbe Lowell, however, asserts that the signed and filed diversion agreement remains valid, and that Hunter has continued abide by the terms. “Mr. Biden has been following and will continue to follow the conditions of that Agreement, which the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed and signed and informed the Court on July 20, 2023 that the Probation Office had agreed to and had recommended be put into effect,” Hunter Biden’s lawyers wrote in response to the special counsel’s filing.

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Who runs this country? Not Congress, it seems..

“FDA is unable to comment on pending litigation..”

Just let it pend until after the election?!

FDA Refuses to Provide COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Data to US Senator (ET)

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the results of analyses on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in January. The request came after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said none of the safety signals it identified for the COVID-19 vaccines were “unexpected.” The two agencies have run different types of analyses on the system’s reports, which are primarily made by health care professionals. The CDC ran Proportional Reporting Ratio analyses, which involve comparing the number of reported adverse events to the number of adverse events reported after vaccination with other vaccines. The first time the agency ran analyses using the method for the COVID-19 vaccines, in 2022, hundreds of signals were triggered, files obtained by The Epoch Times show.

The FDA in 2021 started a different type of analysis, called Empirical Bayesian (EB) data mining. The Proportional Reporting Ratio results “were generally consistent with EB data mining, revealing no additional unexpected safety signals,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director at the time, told Mr. Johnson previously. Mr. Johnson demanded answers on that claim, prompting the CDC to point him to the FDA. The FDA recently responded to Mr. Johnson, telling him that it cannot provide the information he seeks. “FDA’s EB data mining analyses of adverse events contained in VAERS reports for COVID-19 vaccines are currently the subject of pending FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] litigation. FDA is unable to comment on pending litigation or provide information or data that is currently being considered in pending litigation,” the agency told the senator.

Mr. Johnson in a new letter told FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf that the claim was wrong. “As you are well aware, Congress has a right to information contained at U.S. federal agencies as it conducts its constitutional oversight responsibilities,” Mr. Johnson said. “It is outrageous that FDA would assert that pending litigation, and particularly FOIA litigation, would allow your agency to obstruct my congressional oversight,” he added. “Any pending litigation FDA may have relating to its EB data mining records has no bearing on its responsibility to comply with a congressional request.”

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Plimer

 

 

 

 

Vit. D

 

 

 

 

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