Engoron Archives - The Automatic Earth

John Bolton was really enthusiastic about the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.

“No one is above the law.”

I wonder if he feels the same way about today’s FBI raid on his house. pic.twitter.com/hsBPGzJbak

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 22, 2025

https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/1958690745189376151

GDP

German GDP is a train wreck.

Investment falling more than expected.
Government spending is rising more than feared.
Consumption is worse than estimated.

Everything moving in the wrong direction.

via Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/XzHuOvs3Ki

— Daniel Lacalle (@dlacalle_IA) August 22, 2025

Orlov – Ukraine is dying

Inevitably, CNN et al are talking almost exclusively about Trump seeking revenge when something like this happens. We’ll have to wait and see what it is about. An interesting detail is that they went to the trouble of asking a judge to sign off on the warrant. Which he did. That indicates there is at least something credible here.

• FBI Raids Home of John Bolton As Patel Says “NO ONE Is Above The Law” (ZH)

In a bombshell of a development, federal agents conducted a raid on the Maryland residence of former National Security Advisor John Bolton on Friday morning, according to various breaking sources. One source connected to the investigation has described that the search was aimed at locating potentially classified documents that authorities suspect Bolton may still have in his possession. nThere are no indicators as of yet that Bolton, who was Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, has been arrested or taken into custody. “NO ONE is above the law,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted to X Friday morning, but without giving direct reference to the Bolton house raid. “FBI agents on mission.”

According to NY Post, which first revealed the raid: Federal agents went to Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., at 7 a.m. in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump administration official told The Post. …The probe — which is said to involve classified documents — was first launched years ago, but the Biden administration shut it down “for political reasons,” according to a senior US official. The FBI are reportedly sorting through papers and boxes: rump has been a longtime fierce critic of Bolton, after Bolton had long ago started going after Trump. Just this week, Bolton was on CNN and prime news shows blasting Trump’s dealings with Putin and the Ukraine negotiations. “I don’t think there’s a peace deal anywhere in the near future,” he said while criticizing the commander-in-chief’s tactics while recently speaking to CNN.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1958857350435029104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1958857350435029104%7Ctwgr%5Ee0853c47c85c9ebfcb96432e5680a2a02ec194db%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Ffbi-raids-maryland-home-john-bolton-patel-says-no-one-above-law

Back in January Bolton had been among former top officials, and Trump adversaries, to get their costly security protections stripped. Axios also recalls that Bolton wrote in a foreword to his memoir that was published last year the words: “a mountain of facts demonstrates that Trump is unfit to be President.” Publication of the book had been delayed so that the White House could review its content for any potential security breaches or disclosure of sensitive information. Mainstream media is being quick to suggest the house raid is an act of retribution. “Bolton was vocal in his criticism of the president after working in the first Trump administration. Trump has aggressively used the power of the presidency to punish political foes,” Axios observes.

“We really don’t know if something that has occurred most recently, whether they uncovered something that they believe is sort of evergreen, that this is still a viable criminal case.“

• Turley: John Bolton Could Face Years in Prison (Salgado)

After the FBI raided John Bolton’s house on Friday, legal expert Jonathan Turley noted that the allegations against Bolton could potentially result in years of prison if they are true. The Donald Trump-Kash Patel FBI reportedly raided Bolton’s home and office in search of classified documents. As my colleague Kevin Downey Jr. reported, Trump and co. have yet to confirm the report officially, but Patel and his deputy co-director Dan Bongino hinted on X that it was true and the raid was part of enforcing the law. Turley, when he commented, noted that allegations such as those leveled against Bolton could, if proved in court, lead to decades in prison.

Speaking to Fox News, Turley — who, after all, is left-leaning — would not commit to saying whether he thought the raid was justified, but he did explain how serious the crime is that Bolton seemed to indicate he had committed in a previous book. “It is intriguing here because these are long standing allegations that the book indicated were referenced classified material that he may have acquired while he was in the administration. We’re not clear as to what that is, but it would suggest that is could be national defense information,” Turley said. “The reason that’s important is that creates a heightened potential penalty. So you can have penalties that range from five to 20 years.” Bolton previously and briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser before turning on the president during his first term and becoming an aggressive and persistent critic.

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley says John Bolton could be facing very serious prison time since the charges likely involve national defense:

"It could be national defense information. That creates a heightened potential penalty … 5 to 20 years."

John Bolton is in serious legal… pic.twitter.com/hZ6FyA20VJ

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 22, 2025

Significantly, Turley continued, “20 years tends to be the sentences for concealing information, obstructing justice — simply having classified information can weigh in at about 10 years, and there are often multiple counts, because each of those documents could be charged separately. So there is a strange history here.” Of course, the raid is particularly interesting to Trump supporters because Bolton pontificated so self-righteously about the outrageous Biden FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, saying that no one is above the law. That is exactly what Patel posted on X Friday after the report came out of the raid on Bolton‘s home and office.

Turley added on Fox, “So you had these allegations coming out as early as the first Trump administration. Then there was an allegation that the Biden administration essentially scuttled a further look at this case, and now we have this new development.” Interestingly, Turley believes there might be a fresh reason to investigate Bolton, which the public has yet to see. He said, “We really don’t know if something that has occurred most recently, whether they uncovered something that they believe is sort of evergreen, that this is still a viable criminal case.“

Bolton – Turley starts right before 10 min mark

“NATO has expanded six times since the two leaders’ conversation in 2000, adding 12 more countries during this time.”

• Bill Clinton Was Ready To Consider Russia In NATO – Declassified Docs (RT)

Former US President Bill Clinton promised Russian President Vladimir Putin that he would consider membership for Russia in NATO, according to newly declassified documents. Clinton also claimed that the military bloc’s expansion would not threaten Moscow, the files show. The statements were made during a meeting between the two leaders in the Kremlin on June 4, 2000, according to White House minutes published on Thursday by the National Security Archive, an independent research institute at George Washington University. “From the outset of the NATO enlargement process, I knew that it could be a problem for Russia. I was sensitive to this, and I want it understood that NATO enlargement does not threaten Russia in any way,” Clinton is quoted as saying.

“I am serious about being ready to discuss NATO membership with Russia.“ He added that he understood that “domestic considerations inside Russia” prevent this, but over time the country “should be a part of every organization that holds the civilized world together.” According to the documents, Putin said he “supported” the idea. Last year, in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, Putin said he had brought up the subject with Clinton. While Clinton agreed at first, he later dismissed the idea after talking to his team, the Russian leader said. Had Clinton agreed, it would have led to a new period of “rapprochement” between Moscow and the military bloc, Putin added. NATO has expanded six times since the two leaders’ conversation in 2000, adding 12 more countries during this time.

After “wave after wave of expansion… we were constantly told: ‘You shouldn’t fear this, it poses no threat to you’,” Putin said in June, adding that “they simply dismissed our concerns, refusing to acknowledge or even consider our position.” “We know better than anyone what threatens us and what does not,” he said. Moscow has cited Kiev’s ambition to join NATO as one of the core causes of the current conflict, which it views as a proxy war being orchestrated by the military bloc against Russia.

“One would like to believe so, but for now this tunnel looks more like a maze, one that the United States and Russia still have to find their own way out of – while also leading others out.”

Paul Craig Roberts reposts this article from Ivan Andrianov, Founder and CEO of IntellGlobe Solutions (https://igs.expert/), a “strategic consulting firm specializing in geopolitical risk analysis, international security, and political forecasting”. It is endlessly long, this is just a small part, but it’s interesting. The first mention I see of Exxon Mobil being allowed back in to Russian oil and gas. Putin and Trump have more on their minds than just Ukraine, namely economic cooperation.

• Anchorage – A Light At The End of The Tunnel? (Andrianov)

Before turning to the high politics discussed at the summit in Anchorage, Alaska, it seems appropriate to point to two seemingly positive moments that somehow passed almost unnoticed. First, at the post-talks press appearance, Vladimir Putin read from a prepared text. Moreover, he skipped four pages, setting them aside. And second, Russia allowed America’s ExxonMobil to reclaim its stakes in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project. The Russian president’s decree was published on August 15, the day of his meeting with Donald Trump. The document supplemented a decree that in October 2022 transferred the Sakhalin-1 operator into Russian jurisdiction; at that time, instead of ExxonMobil, the operator became LLC “Sakhalin-1”.

What does this tell us? Despite many media claims, one can state that not only the summit, but also the visit to Moscow by U.S. President’s special envoy Steve Witkoff – after which the decision for a personal meeting of the two leaders was announced – was preceded by serious preparatory work that simply cannot be done in a few days. Nor can one prepare a speech text in the thirty minutes that elapsed between the end of the talks and Trump and Putin walking out to the press. As for the return of the American energy giant’s stake in the oil project, given all the bureaucratic and legal formalities, I will venture to say it took more than a month.

So all that remains is to congratulate the negotiators of our two countries, who not only managed to set up this meeting, but also avoided premature leaks that could have given opponents of the Russian-American dialogue a chance, if not to derail the Alaska summit, then at least to complicate it. Such concerns existed on both the Russian and the U.S. sides. Now to how Russia’s expert and political circles assess the outcome of this meeting, which has already been called historic in both Washington and Moscow. I hope what is meant is that it will become a point of reference from which relations between our countries begin to return to normal.

As for the results of the summit, the prevailing view in Moscow is that they should be assessed as successful for both sides. The fact there were no sensations or “breakthroughs” is a sign of the seriousness of what occurred – an acknowledgment by both parties of the complexity of the situation. The sides’ positions have been laid out (to each other and, in fact, to everyone) and, I hope, are not subject to reversal. That is a result. The presidents of the two countries accomplished the minimum tasks they set for this meeting. Trump showed that he is, in effect, the only Western leader who can, in principle, conduct a constructive dialogue with Russia. At the same time, the U.S. president demonstrated to his Euro-Atlantic partners that the outcome of the West’s interaction with Russia depends on him – and on no one else.

Moscow demonstrated that its demands are recognized and that its security must be taken into account in all variants of a peaceful settlement. This is a fundamental breakthrough. Everything before this proceeded from the simple idea that the West would present Russia with certain conditions to which it was supposedly to agree. The conditions shifted, but the approach remained. Moscow has now achieved that a resolution is possible only through dialogue and with due regard for Russian interests. Another important point – voiced for the first time by both sides – is that European countries bear responsibility for pushing the Ukrainian conflict to a high level of escalation. More importantly, it was finally stated in earnest – not only by Russia – that achieving a long peace is far more significant than the terms for a short-term ceasefire, under cover of which the West will try to rearm the Ukrainian army. Trump said as much in a tough phone call with Zelensky and EU leaders.

In this context, two scenarios are forecast for the future development of relations between the Kremlin and the White House. The first – call it the optimal one – is that Russia and the United States resolve the central problem in their bilateral relations and reach an acceptable settlement on Ukraine. Then the remaining issues, including strategic stability, Arctic cooperation, and strategic arms reductions, can be handled quickly and easily. And cooperation in hydrocarbons would be arranged in the spirit of Trump’s favored deal-making. Putin opened the road toward resolving the hydrocarbons question with a decree on potential foreign stakes in the “Sakhalin” project.

The second option is that the conflict goes unresolved due to the actions of European countries and their destructive policies. In that case Trump will try to “jump out” of the conflict, but with serious political losses and without any noticeable economic dividends. And Russia will continue grinding down the Ukrainian army, pursuing by military means the objectives announced at the outset of the special military operation (SMO) and reaffirmed by Putin in June of last year.

“Putin will only sit down with Zelensky if they are already at the goal line of having worked out a permanent peace deal.”

You see the Exxon Mobil deal, and then there would be new attacks?

• Trump Laments Stalled Ukraine Peace Talks, Urging New Attacks On Russia (ZH)

Now, merely a week out from when Presidents Trump and Putin met in Alaska, the White House’s admirable peace efforts seem to be unraveling and even hopelessly stalled. Many independent-minded analysts had from the very start said that this conflict will ultimately be settled on the battlefield. The Wall Street Journal too seems to be coming around to this view: On Monday, President Trump boasted about quickly brokering peace to end the bloody Ukraine conflict. By Thursday, he was saying that Kyiv had no chance of winning the war without new attacks on Russia. “It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense,” Trump posted on social media. “Interesting times ahead!!!” His turnaround underscored the fading optimism about Trump’s latest push to end the war.

Indeed this is another example of the West trying to have its cake and eat it too, as Trump strongly hints that Ukraine must take the offensive while simultaneously lamenting that Putin and Zelensky are not getting together in a hoped-for summit. Trump is essentially saying Ukraine cannot win the war unless it launches attacks on Russia. “It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country,” Trump had explained further in his Truth Social statement. The WSJ in its analysis then turns to one of the big factors which is sure to stymie talks from Moscow’s point of view: security guarantees for Ukraine: U.S. and European officials are still negotiating the makeup of a peacekeeping force that would aim to deter future Russian attacks against Ukraine if a peace deal was reached. Even that idea was quickly rebuffed by the Kremlin and raised questions about Trump’s willingness to commit to a major role for the U.S. military.

With much of his plans still unrealized, Trump is confronted with the uncertainties that have dogged him for the past seven months: How willing is he to pressure Putin, and how far is he willing to go in backing Zelensky? As we highlighted before, the ‘logic’ of this is contradictory and will lead nowhere. Why would Russia agree to end its military operations if in the end NATO-like ‘security guarantees’ are to be given to Ukraine as a reward?…to quote Moon of Alabama. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reminded the US and its Western allies on Thursday that President Putin has “repeatedly said that he is ready to meet, including with Zelensky, if there is understanding that all issues that require consideration at the highest level have been worked out thoroughly” by experts and ministers.

To translate, Putin will only sit down with Zelensky if they are already at the goal line of having worked out a permanent peace deal. This has been reiterated in a Friday foreign ministry statement: LAVROV: PUTIN-ZELENSKY MEETING NOT PLANNED YET — KREMLIN SAYS SUMMIT POSSIBLE ONLY AFTER AGENDA IS AGREED. And as RT outlines further, “Moscow maintains that any lasting settlement must eliminate the root causes of the conflict, address Russia’s security concerns, and recognize current territorial realities, including the status of Crimea and the four former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia in 2022.” This means there must be the permanent neutrality of Ukraine, the formal ceding of territories, and that the Russian neighbor cease being militarized by NATO.

Reuters also describes, “Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.” And per Bloomberg: “A full ceasefire or peace agreement in Ukraine remains unlikely this year, with even the prospect of a partial truce fading, according to JPMorgan emerging market and policy strategists.”

“President Trump suggested after Anchorage several points which we share, and on some of them we agreed to show some flexibility…”

• Russia Ready To ‘Show Flexibility’ On Trump’s Ukraine Proposals – Lavrov (RT)

Moscow has agreed to consider a number of US President Donald Trump’s proposals to resolve the Ukraine conflict, but Vladimir Zelensky has rejected them all, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with NBC News on Friday. Trump put forward the initiatives following his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week, Lavrov said. “President Trump suggested after Anchorage several points which we share, and on some of them we agreed to show some flexibility,” Lavrov told NBC. According to the top diplomat, Trump brought up the proposals in his meeting with Zelensky and some of his Western European backers in Washington on Monday.

He clearly indicated, it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no NATO membership, including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelensky said no to everything. Lavrov added that the Ukrainian leader has also refused to rescind “legislation prohibiting the Russian language.” “Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit,” he said, but added that as things stand, “there is no meeting planned.” Trump suggested that the next stage of peace negotiations should be a one-on-one meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders before a potential trilateral peace summit. Zelensky “has to show some flexibility,” he told Fox News on Tuesday.

On Thursday, however, Lavrov said that Kiev is showing no interest in a sustainable peace with Moscow. He pointed to statements made by Zelensky aide Mikhail Podoliak, who said that Ukraine would seek to regain any territories “de facto” left to Russia in a peace deal, and that Kiev would seek to join a military alliance, even if not NATO. According to Lavrov, these goals are at odds with the joint peace efforts being undertaken by Putin and Trump. Moscow has long insisted on a peace agreement that eradicates the underlying causes of the conflict. It has demanded that Ukraine maintain neutrality, stay out of NATO and other military alliances, demilitarize and denazify, as well as accept the new territorial reality.

“..unnamed figures in Russia had suggested using the system against Kiev’s “decision-making centers,” but Putin refused. “Absolutely not,” was the Russian leader’s response [..] if such a strike had taken place, “there would have been nothing left.”

• Putin Vetoed Oreshnik Strike On Kiev – Lukashenko (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin vetoed a proposal to strike the administrative center of Kiev with Moscow’s new Oreshnik missiles, his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko has said. The Oreshnik, Russia’s newly developed medium-range hypersonic missile system which can travel at speeds of up to Mach 10, has already entered serial production. The system, which analysts claim cannot be intercepted, can carry nuclear or conventional warheads, and release multiple guided warheads. Speaking to reporters in Minsk on Friday, Lukashenko claimed that unnamed figures in Russia had suggested using the system against Kiev’s “decision-making centers,” but Putin refused.

“Absolutely not,” was the Russian leader’s response, according to the Belarusian president, who added that if such a strike had taken place, “there would have been nothing left.” Putin has previously said that the West has been trying to provoke Russia into using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, but noted that there has been no need for such measures. “I hope it won’t be necessary,” he said in May. The Oreshnik was first battle-tested in November 2024 when it struck Ukraine’s Yuzhmash defense facility in Dnepr. Its destructive power in conventional form has been compared by Russian officials to a low-yield nuclear strike.

Lukashenko stressed that Moscow is committed to a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict, recalling that Putin refrained from striking civilian targets in Kiev when Russian forces reached the city’s outskirts in early 2022, later withdrawing forces altogether. At the time, Moscow described the move as a goodwill gesture ahead of a potential peace deal, which Kiev declined to sign after being urged by the UK to continue fighting. Russia and Ukraine resumed direct talks in Istanbul in May 2025 and have since held three meetings. While no settlement has yet been reached, Moscow has maintained that it is open to negotiations. Officials stress, however, that any agreement must address the root causes of the conflict and reflect the new realities on the ground.

“Gabbard has been critical of the West’s hawkish approach to the Ukraine conflict, suggesting that it was caused by NATO’s refusal to acknowledge Russia’s “legitimate security concerns”…

• Gabbard Bars Intel Sharing On Russia-Ukraine Talks – CBS (RT)

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has ordered all information about the ongoing Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations be withheld from US intelligence partners, CBS News reported on Thursday, citing sources. Several unnamed US officials familiar with the matter told the outlet that the memo, which is dated July 20, directed intelligence agencies to classify all relevant data and subject analysis as NOFORN – not to be shared with foreign partners, including members of the Five Eyes intelligence framework, which includes the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. nThe reported memo strictly limits the distribution of such materials to the agency from which they originated.

However, it does not appear to bar the sharing of diplomatic or military operational intelligence collected outside the US intelligence community, such as security information shared with Ukrainian forces. CBS also cited several former US officials who warned the directive’s sweeping scope could erode trust between Washington and its allies built on open intelligence sharing. Others, however, disagreed, pointing out that such a move is not unprecedented in US practice and that withholding information in areas of diverging interests is common among Five Eyes partners. Gabbard has been critical of the West’s hawkish approach to the Ukraine conflict, suggesting that it was caused by NATO’s refusal to acknowledge Russia’s “legitimate security concerns” regarding Ukrainian membership in the bloc.

The reported directive preceded the talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Alaska on August 15. That meeting – to which neither Ukraine nor any of the US allies were invited – concluded without an agreement on a ceasefire or a peace deal, although both leaders praised the talks as constructive. In the days following the Alaska talks, Trump hosted Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and European leaders at the White House. Talks focused on finding a path to settling the conflict and security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump later told Zelensky that he had to “show flexibility” and reiterated that Kiev would not join NATO.

Finland’s WWII history is not pretty. Not a great example. But everybody much prefers to ignore it, and that’s a bad idea.

• The Neutrality Fraud: The West Is About To Trick Ukraine Again (Bobrov)

At the Washington summit on Monday, one guest stood out. The extended session of Euro-Atlantic leaders – hastily convened at the White House right after Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Zelensky – brought together the usual heavyweights: the US, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and the heads of NATO and the EU. Yet seated at the same table was someone who, at first glance, hardly seemed to belong in that club of power brokers: Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb. To an outsider, it might have looked odd. Why was the Finnish leader invited when the leaders of Poland, Hungary, and the Baltic states were not? The answer lies not in protocol courtesy but in the role Stubb now plays. His presence was a nod to a man whose career embodies the whole project of “Euro-Atlantic solidarity” – a project now under strain since Trump’s return to the White House.

Stubb is a cosmopolitan in every sense: a Swedish Finn, married to a Briton, educated in South Carolina, Bruges, Paris, and London. A golfer who bonded with Trump on the green, but also a seasoned foreign minister in the late 2000s, Stubb has become a rare kind of adviser – someone Trump listens to on European security in an administration where career diplomats are almost absent. It is telling that the Washington summit did not produce a US ultimatum forcing Ukraine into a peace deal with Moscow. Instead, the focus was on designing security guarantees for Kiev – an alternative to NATO’s Article 5, since membership in the alliance is no longer on the table. And behind that shift, many suspect, stands Stubb. He is quietly becoming the architect of a new Western security system, built on an openly anti-Russian foundation.

In Washington, Stubb framed his vision in a phrase that quickly went viral: “We found a solution in 1944 – and I believe we can find one in 2025.” He was alluding to Finland’s peace treaty with the USSR after World War II, and suggesting that Ukraine could follow a similar path. But here’s the catch: Stubb’s version of “Finlandization” bears little resemblance to the original concept. In his model, Ukraine would follow Finland’s supposed example – joining the EU and NATO structures, becoming part of the Western economic and military infrastructure, and, in practice, turning itself into a forward operating base against Moscow. That vision assumes a militarized society, stripped of industrial potential, and defined by an ethnonational identity designed to fence out Russian influence through the Russian-speaking population.

This is not Finlandization. It is its opposite. The original model, coined during the Cold War, described something very different: a small country leveraging its geography to live in peace with its powerful neighbor. Finland, after 1944, accepted tough compromises – ceding 10% of its territory, declaring neutrality, abandoning the dream of ethnic exclusivity. The payoff was stability, prosperity, and the chance to serve as a bridge between East and West. Helsinki became a symbol of détente in 1975 when it hosted the CSCE Final Act, a milestone in Cold War diplomacy. Finland’s economic boom – from Nokia to Valio, from Stockmann to Tikkurila – was rooted in precisely that balancing act: trading and cooperating with both blocs, and especially with nearby Leningrad. Neutrality allowed Finland to spend less on guns and more on butter, and that choice paid off.

Could such a model have worked if, back in 1944, the Finnish leadership had doubled down on nationalism? Almost certainly not. It took Marshal Mannerheim’s pragmatism – and his readiness to compromise – to give Finland a viable future.

Inside countries’ borders.

• More War Is On Its Way (Paul Craig Roberts)

For decades the British and European governments regardless of party in power have allowed millions of unassimilable people of color to walk into the countries and abuse the white women while white taxpayers are given the responsibility for their housing and upkeep. The governments, and the professors of course, call what are in fact immigrant-invaders “migrants.” “Migrants” has a legal connotation to it, but there is nothing legal about the entry. You try it, white person. Try to walk into the UK or a European country without a passport and, if required, a visa, and visible means of support. So why is it OK for immigrant-invaders to do it?

In 1973 Jean Raspail described in The Camp of the Saints the total collapse of the French belief system and that of other white ethnicities that left the leadership classes in the West without the will to protect their peoples and their cultures. The same has occurred among Democrats in the US. The Democrats would not permit President Trump during his first term to close the border with Mexico. The Obama and Biden regimes not only left the border open, they also used taxpayers money to recruit immigrant-invaders and finance their trek into America. Very quickly white American business people created businesses that made money by providing upkeep at taxpayers’ expense for the immigrant invaders. These private profit-making operations are called “asylum accommodation programs.” In the US the pretense that the immigrant-invaders are just doing Americans a favor by rushing to fill jobs Americans would not take was put to the lie by the bus stations, airports, and hotels filled with immigrant-invaders living off the taxpayers’ wallet.

Some American communities have been overwhelmed by Democrat regimes depositing huge numbers of immigrant-invaders in their communities. This is also the story in Britain and Europe. The ongoing and increasing rapes and crime have finally sparked a rebellion in a number of British communities. The UK government is being forced to disperse the large numbers of young male immigrant-invaders warehoused in hotels into the wider community. The UK government is trying to commandeer thousands of residential houses so the immigrant-invaders can be dispersed and made less visible than the current concentrations. The rent, utilities, council tax, and repairs will all be paid for by taxpayers. And, of course, the provision of homes for the 109,343 “asylum seekers” who entered Britain in the year ending last March, a 15% increase from 2024, drives up rents and house prices, thus further burdening ethnic British. And still the UK government has no inclination to stop the overrunning of Britain by immigrant-invaders.

Yet this same government is so very concerned that Ukraine’s borders be protected by British taxpayers that the government has agreed to purchase billions of dollars of American weapons to send to Ukraine at British taxpayers’ expense to protect Ukrainian borders. It is the same all over Europe. How can this mindlessness of British and European governments be understood and explained? The only answer I can give is that the intellectual class destroyed the belief system. For decades white people have been denounced in university classrooms as racist exploiters. More recently these denunciations have entered the elementary schools. Affirmatory statements in support of Western civilization have disappeared from Western education. Today the program is multiculturalism, which means the replacement of white values and white culture with a tower of babel. And that is what every European country, the UK, Canada, and the US have become.

A tower of babel cannot be united and has no common purpose. It is these towers of babel that now find themselves arrayed against three powerful countries with far more homogeneous populations and, perhaps, enough self-belief to resist. In the US the only unified Americans are Trump’s MAGA-supporters. They are ordinary people fed up with the denigration and decay of their country. Hillary Clinton dismisses them as “Trump Deplorables.” In the UK and Europe anyone who represents the ethnic basis of the countries is dismissed and harassed as a “fascist.” Only France has a political party based on national ethnicity, and the leader of the party has been banned by the French establishment from running for office for five years. She was convicted on orchestrated charges that she embezzled European Union funds. If the conviction had failed, some other bogus charge would have been pulled out of the hat.

The British, European, and American societies are the weakest possible societies before dissolution. In the US the establishment is more opposed to Trump than to Russia and China. Societies as weak as the West cannot prevail in war. The cause that is driving the West to disastrous war is the agenda of the Zionist neoconservatives. This cause is known as the Wolfowitz doctrine of American hegemony. By American they mean Israel’s hegemony, for which American lives, money, and reputation have been used blatantly during the first quarter of the 21st century resulting in the destruction of five countries for Greater Israel, six if we include Palestine. Iran, number seven, is in waiting. For the neoconservatives, Iran is a more desirable target than Russia. Iran stands in Israel’s way, whereas Russia does not. What the so-called “Ukrainian peace process” is probably about is Trump’s withdrawal of the US as a direct participant so that Trump can focus the US on Iran for Netanyahu. If this is a reasonable interpretation, than progress in the Ukraine negotiations simply means more and wider war.

Very strong from law professor Turley.

• Engoron’s Half-Billion-Dollar Miscalculation: Court Tosses Trump Fine (Turley)

In New York, a court revealed that a leading citizen had cooked the books by inflating questionable figures without any support in reality. Moreover, his wild overvaluation was widely viewed as motivated by his self-aggrandizement. The final reported figures are so absurdly inflated that they were rejected in their entirety. In the end, he was off by over half a billion dollars. That man is Judge Arthur Engoron. After a New York appellate court unanimously threw out Engoron’s absurd half-a-billion-dollar judgment and interest against President Donald Trump, the irony was crushing. It was Engoron who seemed, as he characterized Trump witnesses, as having “simply denied reality.” It made his notorious reliance on an assessment of Mar-a-Lago as worth between $18 million and $27.6 million seem like good accounting. In the end, he could not get a single judge to preserve a single dollar of that fine.

For some of us who covered that trial, the most vivid image of Engoron came at the start. He indicated that he did not want cameras in the courtroom, but when the networks showed up, Engoron took off his glasses and seemed to pose for the cameras. It was a “Sunset Boulevard” moment. We only need Gloria Swanson looking into the camera to speak to “those wonderful people out there in the dark!” and announcing “all right, [Ms. James], I’m ready for my close-up.” The close-up was not a good idea, and, on appeal, it was perfectly disastrous. The court found little legal or factual basis for his fine. The purported witnesses not only did not lose a dime, but they testified that they made money on the loans and wanted new loans with the Trump administration. That did not move Engoron. From the start, he was speaking to those “wonderful people out there.”

You did not have to go far. In both the civil and criminal trials of Trump in New York, there was a carnival atmosphere in the street outside the courthouse. It was really not derangement as much as delirium. Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James had injected lawfare directly into the veins of New Yorkers. Pledging in her campaign to bag Trump (without bothering to name any crime or violation), James was elected based on her recreational rather than legal appeal. Yet, James could not have succeeded if she had not had a judge willing to ignore reality and cook the books on the fines. She needed a partner in lawfare. She needed Engoron. Even for some anti-Trump commentators, the judgment was impossible to defend and some acknowledged that they had never seen any case like this one brought in New York.

Judge David Friedman gave Engoron a close-up that would have made Swanson wince. He detailed how the underlying law “has never been used in the way it is being used in this case – namely, to attack successful, private, commercial transactions, negotiated at arm’s length between highly sophisticated parties fully capable of monitoring and defending their own interests.” He accused Engoron of participating in an effort clearly directed by James as “ending with the derailment of President Trump’s political career and the destruction of his real estate business.” Other judges said that Engoron’s fine was so off base and engorged that it was an unconstitutional order under the Eighth Amendment, protecting citizens from “cruel and unusual” punishments. So, Engoron not only inflated the figures but shredded the Constitution in his effort to deliver a blow against Trump.

Trump can now appeal the residual parts of the Engoron decision imposing limits on the Trump family doing business in New York. Some of those limits could be moot by the time of any final judgment. Ironically, if Engoron had shown a modicum of restraint, he might have secured a victory. During the trial in New York, I said that he would have been smart to impose a dollar fine and limited injunctive relief. That, however, required a modicum of judicial restraint and judgment. Instead, Engoron chose to walk down the stairway into infamy. He was off by half a billion dollars, which could put him in the Bernie Madoff class of judges. In other words, if he wanted to be remembered on that first day, Arthur Engoron succeeded.

“The problem with the future is that it is both unpredictable and inescapable.” — Tarik Cyril Amar

• By the Batch (James Howard Kunstler)

Please everybody, extricate yourselves from the mud-wallow of cynicism. Naysayers arise and open your eyes! Sleepwalkers and black-pillers, smell the coffee and wake up! Sob-sisters dry your tears! We are marching into a promised land of accountability after all. Our country, you well know, has been sore beset under a long-running seditious coup orchestrated by an ever more insane Bolshevik-Jacobin syndicate of political reprobates seeking to erase every boundary between the real and the unreal since 2016, a year that now lives in infamy. All their malice and roguery has been focused on the odd figure who somehow rose to lead the opposition to their burgeoning color revolution, Mr. Trump, who, through some alchemy of fortitude, managed to evade their many-footed depredations — to get re-elected.

Of course, you’ve also noticed that psychological projection is the heart of the seditionists’ game. Whatever ploy or subterfuge they accuse you of, is exactly what they are doing. Their mainstay is the phrase conspiracy theory. Whenever one of their many turpitudes is carried out — such as a rigged election — your notice of it is labeled a conspiracy theory. In fact, their long train of activities to turn the country upside-down and inside-out has been one drawn-out seditious conspiracy. And that is liable to be precisely one of the charges lodged against them — but surely not the only charge.

You have seen news (anywhere but in The New York Times) that grand juries are being convened here and there to scrutinize a whole lot of bad behavior by a whole lot of officials who recklessly wielded their power, who betrayed the nation, who broke institutions, destroyed lives, careers, and households, and, as an added insult, attempted to make you swallow one patent absurdity after another — a Potemkin president, drag queens in the schools, a massive invasion of alien mutts across an open border, Saint George Floyd and “mostly peaceful protests,” math is racist, boys in girls’ sports and locker rooms — all in their campaign to destroy American cultural coherence while they seized totalistic political control and sniped their adversaries off the game board. (Just look how they destroyed Rudolf Giuliani, a heroic figure who saved New York City in the 1990s.)

Grand juries are a sign that something serious is up. Evidence is being gathered by a new FBI, no longer dedicated to just covering-up its past crimes. A sign of how serious this effort is: the hiring last week of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as Co-Deputy FBI Director. Mr. Bailey, you may recall, presided over the Missouri v Biden lawsuit (2022) about the “Joe Biden” White House’s efforts to coerce social media into censorship. The SCOTUS killed the case on spurious grounds for “lack of standing to sue.” But the government censorship crusade was a hallmark affront to the Constitution in the years’ long seditious conspiracy against the American people. It could even return as a criminal— not a civil — case this time, since censorship was so central to the overall coup.

Plausible?

• Ghislaine: Father Was Intel Asset, Trump ‘Never Inappropriate’: Transcripts (ZH)

The DOJ has just released transcripts and audio from two days of interviews last month with Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who said that President Trump was “never inappropriate with anybody” while he and Epstein were associates, and that her father was an intelligence asset. “Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world?” asked Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in Tallahassee, Florida last month. “Absolutely never, in any context,” Maxwell replied. “I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way,” Maxwell said in another segment. Maxwell also said her father, the late Robert Maxwell, was an intelligence asset…

Ghislaine Maxwell CONFIRMS on tape she never witnessed President Trump doing anything inappropriate:

"I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. In the times I was with him he was a gentleman in all respects." pic.twitter.com/038wSnzS6v

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 22, 2025

Robert Maxwell, a media tycoon and former Labour MP, was notably given a state funeral in Jerusalem after ‘accidentally’ falling off his Yacht, the “Lady Ghislaine.” He was long speculated to have been a secret agent for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence office that is equivalent to the CIA. By proxy, that suspicion has led to speculation that the intelligence agency Epstein was associated with was the Mossad as well. “It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Epstein had connections to the [Israeli intelligence community],” said Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown, whose investigative reporting was the reason that the Epstein case was reopened after it was buried by federal prosecutors in 2008. “Robert Maxwell certainly had those kinds of connections, and Epstein had a close relationship with Robert Maxwell.” Ghislaine, however, said that her father and Epstein never met.

So Maxwell says she never deliberately had contact with Mossad, then says she wouldn't know if Epstein did. But the clearest Israeli intelligence links in the story relate to Ehud Barak, who was the head of Aman, Israeli Military Intelligence, which is much bigger than Mossad. pic.twitter.com/S25qhvzNuO

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) August 22, 2025

She also does not believe Epstein killed himself. She also provided some tricky answers about Mossad… “I do not believe he died by suicide,” said Maxwell, who added that she has no idea who might have killed him. Also interesting is that Ghislaine admitted to being “part of the beginning process of the Clinton Global Initiative.”

Ghislaine Maxwell tells the DOJ she believes Jeffrey Epstein funded or arranged financing for the Clinton Global Initiative as well. pic.twitter.com/iOydUplfRU

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) August 22, 2025

“If that is what they wanted, they would’ve had plenty of opportunity when he wasn’t in jail.”

• Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself – Maxwell (RT)

Jeffrey Epstein’s confidante Ghislaine Maxwell has said she does not believe the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender committed suicide behind bars. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for trafficking women to Epstein, was interviewed by the Department of Justice last month due to renewed interest in the case. According to a transcript released Friday, Maxwell told investigators, “I do not believe he died by suicide, no.” She dismissed the idea that an outside party could have ordered a “hit” on Epstein, adding, “If it is indeed murder, I believe it was an internal situation.” When asked if Epstein could have been targeted because he possessed damaging information on powerful figures, Maxwell said, “I do not have any reason to believe that. And I also think it’s ludicrous.”

She added, “If that is what they wanted, they would’ve had plenty of opportunity when he wasn’t in jail.” Maxwell also denied that Epstein engaged in blackmail or kept a “client list” linked to sex trafficking. Epstein was found dead in 2019 in his cell at a Manhattan correctional facility while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Democrats, along with some conservative figures, have accused President Donald Trump of a coverup after FBI and DOJ reviews denied the existence of an “Epstein list.” Trump, who has said he ended his friendship with Epstein long before his 2008 conviction, described the accusations as part of a Democrat-led discreditation campaign.

“I’m not aware of any blackmail. I never heard that. I never saw it and I never imagined it..”

• Maxwell Claims Epstein Had No ‘Client List’ (RT)

Jeffrey Epstein’s confidante Ghislaine Maxwell has denied that the late financier and convicted sex offender blackmailed his powerful associates. On Friday, the US Department of Justice released audio and a transcript of Maxwell’s interview last month with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking women to Epstein, was questioned amid renewed speculation that Epstein kept a “client list” of individuals he was accused of trafficking women to. Asked whether Epstein maintained “a black book or a client list,” Maxwell replied: “There is no list that I am aware of.”

According to her, the claims originated in 2009 from Brad Edwards, a lawyer representing several of Epstein’s victims. “I’m not aware of any blackmail. I never heard that. I never saw it and I never imagined it,” Maxwell said. She also denied that President Donald Trump engaged in any improper conduct during his friendship with Epstein. “I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way,” she said. Trump has maintained that he cut ties with Epstein long before his 2008 conviction and was previously unaware of the allegations against him.

“Multiculturalism, as a philosophy, can only survive if effectuated by a state that subsidizes fragmentation.”

• Why Would We Want Bad People Here? (Ben Shapiro)

This week, news emerged that the Trump administration has been setting new standards with regard to incoming immigrants. According to Axios, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will now take into account the “positive attributes” of migrants entering the country; such attributes can include community involvement and educational level. Instead of simply seeking to rule out those with records of misconduct, the new system seeks to screen for better immigrants — immigrants who will enrich America. Along the same lines, the CIS will now disqualify applicants who engage in or support “anti-American activity.” As USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser explained, “America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies. … Immigration benefits — including to live and work in the United States — remain a privilege, not a right.”

Metrics for anti-Americanism include “circumstances where an alien has endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused the views of a terrorist organization or group, including aliens who support or promote anti-American ideologies or activities, antisemitic terrorism and antisemitic terrorist organizations, or who promote antisemitic ideologies.” Shockingly, there are those who are concerned about such standards. Presumably, America can’t be truly free unless we allow in those who support terrorist groups; one day, if we’re lucky, they can even run for mayor of New York or Congresswoman of Michigan. Such are the supposed blessings of liberty bestowed on foreigners by the free speech clause of our Constitution. Professor of sociology Jane Lilly Lopez of Brigham Young University told the Associated Press, “For me, the really big story is they are opening the door for stereotypes and prejudice and implicit bias to take the wheel in these decisions. That’s really worrisome.”

This, of course, ignores that there are evidentiary standards for any allegations of anti-Americanism; skin color or country of origin wouldn’t presumably be enough to bar someone on grounds of anti-Americanism. But for the left, the only excuse for a pro-American ideology must be some form of subtle racism. Meanwhile, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, objected that the new standards were reminiscent of McCarthyism. This ignores the fact that during the Cold War, America did in fact screen for membership in the Communist Party under the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, and that refugees and immigrants were screened by American law enforcement agencies to ensure that they were not agents of a foreign power or sympathetic to America’s enemies.

Undergirding all of these objections is a simple and ugly proposition: that becoming an American requires no actual investment in America, and that America ought to be a gigantic agglomeration of disassociated populations. Such a proposition would have been de facto impossible before the rise of the welfare state; people immigrating to the United States generally left places with greater security for an America without security but with grand opportunity, which meant that new immigrants had to learn English, learn a trade, and embrace the Anglo-American cultural and legal traditions of the country in order to succeed. With the rise of an enormous and durable social safety net, the math suddenly changed: People could immigrate to the United States without assimilating in any serious way, and could maintain their pre-American cultures in toto. Multiculturalism, as a philosophy, can only survive if effectuated by a state that subsidizes fragmentation.

That process must now be reversed. And that can only be done by raising the bar to admission. Good immigrants make America stronger. Bad immigrants make it weaker. Treating all immigrants similarly isn’t just foolish; it’s dangerous. And the Trump administration is right for recognizing that root reality.

“Palantir founder Peter Thiel has invested in JD Vance since 2013, and the PayPal mafia which includes Elon Musk have never diverged.”

• JD Vance Extensive Interview with Laura Ingraham (CTH)

The social media conversation was triggered by an article in the Wall Street Journal which claimed Elon Musk was reconsidering, actually setting aside the third-party option, and was likely to back JD Vance as his 2028 presidential nominee instead. Factually, for those in the minority who are intellectually honest non-pretenders, the framework of the subsequent online discussion from that WSJ article was laughable. Personally, I wanted to ridicule anyone who was buying into the nonsense that Musk and the Tech alliance (Ellison, Thiel, Sacks, Andreesen, et al) had another option in mind other than Vance.

Silicon Valley is a singular organism when it comes to their collective interests. Palantir founder Peter Thiel has invested in JD Vance since 2013, and the PayPal mafia which includes Elon Musk have never diverged. There is no way Thiel, Musk and the Tech alliance are going to support anyone other than Vance. By the time we get to 2028 they will have a total investment of money and time that spans 15 years in Vance. JD Vance will be the Silicon Valley candidate. JD Vance knows this. As the conversation about bringing Elon Musk back into the Trump camp is triggered, it is not coincidental that JD Vance becomes the conduit. If JD Vance wants to be the presidential nominee in 2028, he will rely on Musk and crew; there is no other candidate for Silicon Valley.

Comet

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)

It has a period of 80,000 years. The last time it was this close, Earth was inhabited by Neanderthals.

We'll never see it again.pic.twitter.com/7yJG36k30J

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 22, 2025

SuperMoon

On the night of September 7-8, 2025, nearly 7 billion people — about 85% of the world population — will witness a total lunar eclipse coinciding with a SuperMoon. pic.twitter.com/Dj7BsnnT4l

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 22, 2025

Bridge
https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1958823961984475259

The beauty of Ruyi Bridge in Taizhou, Zhejiang China.

It's made up of three bridges across the Shenxianju Valley and it features a glass-bottomed walkway.pic.twitter.com/lbz0IukSF9

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 22, 2025

Nose
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1958917981661974986

Baby
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1958882816554303986

Church

Borgund Stave Church in Norway was built between 1180 and 1250 AD constructed from wood,

entirely without nails.

pic.twitter.com/4vBHEJRhKW

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) August 22, 2025

Wallace line

THE INVISIBLE LINE THAT SPLITS THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

Across Indonesia runs a border you can’t see, but nature never ignores.

On Bali, you’ll find tigers, elephants, and rhinos. Just 22 miles east on Lombok, it’s kangaroos, koalas, and giant lizards.

Almost nothing crosses, not… https://t.co/H6rtLRs7KC pic.twitter.com/pQtdigjK0z

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 22, 2025

Ring of fire

WHAT IF THE RING OF FIRE BLEW UP ALL AT ONCE

The Ring of Fire is a 25,000-mile horseshoe of 450 volcanoes around the Pacific, and if they all erupted at the same time… basically game over.

Source: GeoAllDay IG pic.twitter.com/xqgOFjS9po

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 22, 2025

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Debt Rattle August 22 2025

Aug 222025

August 22, 2025 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 7:23 am Finance Tagged with: allegiance, Appeals Court, Ed Martin, Engoron, F-35, Letitia, Newsom, security guarantee, Tulsi Gabbard 47 Responses »

Georgia O’Keeffe Sunflower, New Mexico I 1935

• Appeals Court Tosses Trump’s $454 Million Civil Fraud Judgement (ZH)

• Putin ‘Looks Out’ For Russia’s Interests – Vance (RT)

• Zelensky Says Meeting With Putin ‘Definitely Not In Moscow’ (RT)

• Russia Insists It Has Veto Power Over Any ‘Security Guarantees’ (ZH)

• Kiev’s European Backers Want F-35 ‘Security Guarantee‘ – The Times (RT)

• Ukraine Could Recruit ‘Millions’ of Foreigners – MP (RT)

• Ukraine Not Interested In Peace – Lavrov (RT)

• “Daddy” Trump and Western Europe’s Oath of Allegiance (Bordachev)

• Trump Dominated and Humiliated the EU. Publicly (Lukyanov)

• Ukraine’s Future – A Steppe Corridor – A Neutral, Transit-oriented State (MoA)

• DNI Gabbard Reduces Staff 40%, Eliminates $700 Million in IC Spending (CTH)

• Tulsi Stares Down UK, Scoring Another Big Win for American Consumers (Green)

• FBI Director Kash Patel Outlines Current Status of FBI Reform Effort (CTH)

• Matt Gaetz Interviews Ed Martin On Adam Schiff, Jan 6 Committee (CTH)

• Previous History Indicates that War Is Our Future (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Scandal Threatens to Unravel Newsom’s Gerrymandering Power Grab (Margolis)

• Chris Cuomo Declares the Democrat Party ‘Dead’ (Margolis)

Ursulahttps://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1958188510344630425

Sasha Stone on Substack writes: "The hardest work Newsom has ever done is slicking back his hair for a photo op. He’s survived nothing. He’s built nothing. He stands for nothing. And in that way, he’s the perfect representative for today’s Democratic Party."

— James Howard Kunstler (@Jhkunstler) August 21, 2025

https://twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1958290851228184763

Lutnick

It’s official. We have finalized our historic U.S.–EU Framework Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced trade. The EU has agreed to open its $20 Trillion market. The second largest in the world behind the great USA

This deal:
➡️ Eliminates EU tariffs on all U.S. industrial…

— Howard Lutnick (@howardlutnick) August 21, 2025

Slavery
https://twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1958212350802026523

JGB

Japan’s 30-year bond yield has spiked to 3.10% – the highest level on record. A preview of what’s coming for the US if we don’t get our deficit/debt spiral under control. The chickens eventually come home to roost. pic.twitter.com/RsF7KqzHTG

— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) August 21, 2025

https://twitter.com/Megatron_ron/status/1958477133963030829

This concerns the case where the Trump Organization supposedly defrauded banks that already did their due diligence, by overestimating the value of its assets to get better loans. In the immortal words of Judge Arthur Engeron: “..engaged in frauds that “leap off the page and shock the conscience…”

Not sure it is what it seems. Trump calls it a complete victory, perfect even, but from what I can see the appeals court only struck down the “excessive penalty”. The rest appears to stand. Perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Letitia James’s office say they “won’t be dropping the case”. Of coure, Letitia shouldn’t have an office at all anymore, anymore than Engeron should be a judge.

• Appeals Court Tosses Trump’s $454 Million Civil Fraud Judgement (ZH)

A New York appeals court has tossed out a $454 million civil fraud judgement handed down last year against Donald Trump, his family, and his company. While the Appellate Division’s First Department upheld the ruling, it found that the $454 million penalty was excessive and at odds with the Eighth Amendment. “The documentary evidence supports Supreme Court’s conclusion that the Attorney General made a prima facie showing that each defendant participated in the fraudulent scheme,” reads the opinion. “The trial record is also replete with evidence supporting the court’s determination that the individual defendants had the requisite intent to defraud, a necessary element of each Penal Law claim.” The decision comes after New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office asked an appeals court last August to uphold the $454 million civil fraud judgment against Trump.

The appellate judges, however, said of the judgement; “while harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award to the State.” In response to the decision, President Trump claimed ‘TOTAL VICTORY in the FAKE New York State Attorney General Letitia James Case!” “The amount, including Interest and Penalties, was over $550 Million Dollars. It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before. This was a Case of Election Interference by the City and State trying to show, illegally, that I did things that were wrong when, in fact, everything I did was absolutely CORRECT and, even, PERFECT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The case can now be appealed by either side to the state’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals.

“Today’s ruling by the New York appeals court is a resounding victory for President Trump and his company,” Trump’s former personal attorney, Alina Habba, said in response. “The court struck down the outrageous and unlawful $464 million penalty, confirming what we have said from the beginning: the Attorney General’s case was politically motivated, legally baseless, and grossly excessive.” Following a three-month civil trial last year, Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable for inflating his net worth to secure better business deals, writing in his decision that Trump and his co-defendants engaged in frauds that “leap off the page and shock the conscience,” adding “Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again.”

Trump has long claimed that the case was politically motivated, saying “I’ve been persecuted by someone running for office,” referring to NY Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case – and is currently under investigation for her own real estate fraud. In his February decision, Engoron temporarily barred Trump and his family from leading New York-based companies, along with the $454 million fine. With interest, the penalty was closer to half-a-billion dollars. Trump denied all wrongdoing – arguing that the alleged victims in the case were sophisticated banks who were happy to go into business with the Trump Organization, and profited from the deals. Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers argued that James violated the statue of limitations, misapplied the relevant law, and encouraged the excessive penalty.

BREAKING: New York’s appeals court has thrown out the unprecedented, politically-motivated $465 million civil penalty that Letitia James tried to hit Trump with in 2024.

They tried to impeach him, bankrupt him, imprison him, and assassinate him. They failed. pic.twitter.com/VFZ7GqZYZx

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 21, 2025

“Vance said he was “more soft-spoken than you would necessarily expect” from the way he’s portrayed by Western media.”

• Putin ‘Looks Out’ For Russia’s Interests – Vance (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is “looking out for the interests” of his country, US Vice President J.D. Vance has said. According to Vance, both Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump prioritize their nations’ interests, which explains the respect each has for the other. Vance made the remarks following Trump’s meeting with Putin last week in Alaska and a phone call between the two on Monday, during talks with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and EU leaders. Trump called the talks “productive” and said a settlement of the Ukraine conflict was now more realistic. Asked to describe Putin on Laura Ingraham’s show on Wednesday, Vance said he was “more soft-spoken than you would necessarily expect” from the way he’s portrayed by Western media.

“He’s very deliberate. He’s very careful. And I think fundamentally he’s a person who looks out for the interest – as he sees it – of Russia,” Vance said. He added that “while [Putin and Trump] often disagree about issues,” the US president is willing to work with the Russian leader on achieving a Ukraine settlement, which Vance called “an important goal for America.” On Monday, Trump said he had started arrangements for a one-on-one meeting between Putin and Zelensky, to be followed by a trilateral summit. Moscow has not confirmed any plans for the meetings, but proposed to elevate the level of heads of delegations at talks with Ukraine.

Putin has not ruled out meeting with Zelensky but has insisted it must follow tangible progress in negotiations. He has also questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy, noting that his presidential term has expired and warning that any agreement he signs could be overturned. Commenting on a potential Putin-Zelensky meeting, Vance said he and Trump both support it and believe it should happen even if not all issues are resolved beforehand. He described Ukraine’s call for post-conflict security guarantees and Russia’s demand that Kiev recognize the current realities on the ground as the main obstacles in negotiations.

This is what you get when you appease the piano dick in the Oval Office; nonsensical drivel. You can either let him talk, or you can have peace. Can’t have both.

• Zelensky Says Meeting With Putin ‘Definitely Not In Moscow’ (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has ruled out meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, saying he prefers talks to be held in a “neutral” part of Europe. Speculation about a possible Putin-Zelensky meeting arose after the Russian president met with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, last week in Alaska. Trump later met with Zelensky and EU leaders, followed by a 40-minute call with Putin, and posted on Truth Social that he had “begun the arrangements for a meeting [between Putin and Zelensky] at a location to be determined.” Media reports claimed Putin had suggested Moscow as a venue. “There can definitely be no meeting in Moscow,” Zelensky told reporters on Thursday, without elaborating. He said he wants the US to coordinate the negotiations with Russia, but also would like Kiev’s European allies involved.

“I would like Europe to be present as well. The negotiations must take place in a neutral part of Europe,” he said, suggesting Austria, Türkiye, and Switzerland as options. The Kremlin has not confirmed any plans for a Putin-Zelensky meeting, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow was ready to raise the status of its delegation-level peace negotiations with Ukraine. Lavrov said Putin raised the idea after his call with Trump. Putin has not ruled out meeting Zelensky but has insisted that it could only come after the negotiation process has produced tangible progress. Moscow has also questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy, noting his term as president has expired and warning any deals he signs could be overturned by his successor.

Trump said this week he preferred that Putin and Zelensky meet before a potential three-way summit be held. He called his talks with Putin in Alaska “very productive” and said a settlement was now more realistic. Media reports have claimed Washington is planning a three-way summit between Putin, Trump, and Zelensky in Hungary. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto confirmed on Thursday that Budapest would be a realistic venue, including for a potential one-on-one between Putin and Zelensky, arguing Hungary is the only Western country that has maintained a “fair, mutually respectful” relationship with all sides. Zelensky, however, dismissed Hungary as a venue, citing its efforts to block EU military aid to Ukraine.

“Putin agreed to European and U.S. security guarantees..”

He agreed there would/could be some. He never agreed to any specific ones.

“Lavrov’s remarks were a potent sign that Moscow’s maximalist demands in the war haven’t shifted despite a surge in diplomatic engagement in recent days.”

• Russia Insists It Has Veto Power Over Any ‘Security Guarantees’ (ZH)

Now nearly a week out from last Friday’s historic Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, the White House has had to temper its positive predictions on the peace process, after prematurely touting that a Putin and Zelensky bilateral meeting was on the horizon. By Wednesday the Kremlin had made it clear this is not yet the case. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued some non-committal statements, watering down what appeared an already vague commitment. A future direct meeting with the Ukrainian leader – a president which Moscow previously dubbed illegitimate – would have to be prepared “gradually… starting with the expert level and thereafter going through all the required steps.”

A separate Russian official has stated that “it shouldn’t be a meeting for the sake of a meeting” – highlighting that despite Trump’s strong diplomatic efforts, Russia remains ‘open’ but doesn’t consider the warring sides to have bridged key major gaps on peace terms just yet. On Thursday The Wall Street Journal underscored that there’s yet another key divide – the question of future security guarantees and how they will be monitored or implemented: Russia warned on Wednesday that it should effectively hold veto power over any action to assist Ukraine after a peace deal is reached, rendering planned Western security guarantees for Kyiv moot and delivering a setback to negotiations championed by President Trump.

…Lavrov’s insistence that Russia must have a say in how any security guarantees for Ukraine would be enacted contradicted the Trump administration’s assertion that Putin agreed to European and U.S. security guarantees at the Alaska summit on Friday. Lavrov’s remarks were a potent sign that Moscow’s maximalist demands in the war haven’t shifted despite a surge in diplomatic engagement in recent days. Western security assurances to deter against future Russian invasions are key to getting Ukraine to sign on to a peace deal. Russia has never wavered on insisting that NATO or Western forces never be allowed to patrol or have a presence in Ukraine. Moscow’s war justification from the beginning has been focused on the question of NATO expansion, and demanding permanent Ukrainian neutrality.

Strangely, while President Trump has this week assured Russia of ‘no US boots on the ground’ – the White House spokesperson at the same time suggested there could be some kind of pledged US or Western air support as part of future security guarantees. But the messaging has been contradictory as at the same time Trump has been pledging ‘minimal’ American involvement in any future security guarantees for Ukraine. Moscow will likely present the targeted Mukachevo plant as military or ‘dual use’ in nature… Geopolitical news source Moon of Alabama reacted as follows:

”While Russia is confidently prosecuting the war in Ukraine towards its inevitable end. Meanwhile the ‘West’ is still negotiating with itself about the conditions under which it will have to capitulate. Discussions continue about ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine even as the only serious ones are those that Russia is willing to give. The confused arguments about ‘guarantees’ are reflected in the reports of them. Consider this nonsense: “A security guarantee could encompass a wide range of issues. In return for Russia ending its invasion, a security pact could include a pledge of U.S. air support for any European-led operations should Russian troops resume their assault.”
If Russia ends the war NATO-like ‘security guarantees’ are to be given to Ukraine as a reward?

Indeed, it’s as if Trump and his top officials still don’t understand the core problems, or at least purposefully ignore what remain the root causes to this war. Trump wants to see more rapid momentum and engagement come out of the Alaska summit, hoping for a Putin-Zelensky summit within days or weeks. But that’s very unlikely to happen, also given Zelensky – with the encouragement of the more hawkish European allies – has still not offered substantive compromise. He reportedly isn’t even willing to lift restrictions on the use of the Russian language in public discourse or media.

They will forever try to push against, and beyond, the red lines.

• Kiev’s European Backers Want F-35 ‘Security Guarantee‘ – The Times (RT)

Kiev’s Western European backers have asked the US to deploy F-35 jets to Romania as “security guarantees” to help end the Ukraine conflict, The Times reported on Wednesday. In addition, they reportedly want Washington to supply Kiev with Patriot and NASAMS interceptor missiles, as well as “permission to fly spy planes over the Black Sea.” US President Donald Trump on Tuesday told Fox News that he had ruled out deploying American troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia but that air support was possible. “They are willing to put people on the ground. We’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably… by air,” he said.

Senior Western European and US military chiefs have since met in Washington to discuss the “logistics” of a security package, The Times wrote. NATO already runs what the paper described as “policing missions” over the Black Sea from the Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase in Romania, its largest European airbase. The facility was used by US forces during their invasion of Iraq and would most likely serve as a base for the F-35s, The Times wrote. European NATO countries also reportedly want guarantees that they would have access to US satellite and intelligence data, according to the newspaper.

Moscow has previously warned that any airfields, in any country, will be legitimate targets if they host jets participating in combat missions against Russian troops involved in the Ukraine conflict. Russia has also repeatedly warned that it will consider any NATO troops deployed in Ukraine as valid military targets – whether they are sent under the guise of “peacekeepers” or otherwise. Any such deployment risks a direct clash and “uncontrollable escalation” between Russia and the West, Moscow has said.

“..there are millions of people in the world who are ready to fight against Russia, especially given the financial compensation…This is realistic,” he said.”

• Ukraine Could Recruit ‘Millions’ of Foreigners – MP (RT)

Ukraine should recruit for its military “millions” of foreigners willing to fight against Russia, lawmaker Aleksey Goncharenko has proposed. The MP was addressing Kiev’s frontline manpower crisis and the harsh ongoing conscription campaign, which he likened to the Nazi Gestapo. Speaking at a Ukrainian parliamentary session on Wednesday, Goncharenko, a member of the European Solidarity party led by former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, voiced outrage over the brutality of press gangs and proposed that Kiev could sidestep the issue by relying on foreign fighters. “We need to engage in foreign recruitment – there are millions of people in the world who are ready to fight against Russia, especially given the financial compensation…This is realistic,” he said.

Goncharenko earlier proposed dismantling Ukraine’s current military-managed recruitment system and replacing it with a civilian-run one. “Instead of all this, there are the shameful Territorial Recruitment Centers, which are already behaving just like the Gestapo,” he said, referring to the secret police of Nazi Germany that was notorious for its numerous atrocities. “This cannot continue. It must be immediately corrected, because otherwise, if the people stop believing in the state, we will lose the state,” he added. Russia has warned that foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine are treated as “legitimate targets” and has on numerous occasions struck bases where they have been deployed. In 2024, the Russian Defense Ministry said that more than 13,000 foreign mercenaries have fought on Ukraine’s side since 2022, and that nearly 6,000 had been killed.

Ukraine announced a general mobilization shortly after the start of the conflict, barring most men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. In 2024, Kiev lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 and tightened mobilization rules to replenish mounting battlefield losses. The forced conscription campaign has regularly featured violent clashes between draft officers and reluctant recruits, thus triggering discontent in the country. On Wednesday, several media outlets cited what they described as a leaked Ukrainian military index obtained by Russian hackers suggesting more than 1.7 million Ukrainian troops have been killed or declared missing since the start of the conflict.

“He suggested that Ukraine’s refusal to discuss a settlement before receiving security guarantees is intended to preserve what he called the “neo-Nazi, Russophobic regime” in Kiev.”

• Ukraine Not Interested In Peace – Lavrov (RT)

Kiev is openly demonstrating it has no interest in long-term peace with Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, pointing to recent remarks by Ukrainian officials. Following the summit in Alaska between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, and subsequent talks in Washington with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and European leaders, the US administration said a peace deal had become more feasible. The White House described the outcome of the talks as progress, noting there was “a light at the end of the tunnel.” At a press conference on Thursday, Lavrov confirmed that significant progress had been achieved during the Alaska summit. However, he underlined that Ukrainian officials continue to comment on a possible resolution “in a very specific way that shows they are not interested in a sustainable, fair, long-term settlement.”

He pointed to a statement by key Zelensky adviser Mikhail Podoliak, who recently stated that Kiev would acknowledge that some regions are “de facto” lost to Russia. However, once Kiev secures security guarantees it would seek to regain them and demand that the West impose sanctions aimed at weakening Russia and damaging its economy. According to Lavrov, such rhetoric demonstrates that the Ukrainian leadership, encouraged by its Western sponsors, are pursuing goals antithetical to the joint efforts of Trump and Putin to eliminate the root causes of the crisis. Instead of working toward a settlement, Lavrov argued, Kiev and its backers want to aggravate those causes further by forming anti-Russian military alliances. He suggested that Ukraine’s refusal to discuss a settlement before receiving security guarantees is intended to preserve what he called the “neo-Nazi, Russophobic regime” in Kiev.

The minister also accused Kiev’s European sponsors of trying to “disrupt” the peace agenda by ignoring Russia’s interests and demanding security guarantees for a country “that professes neo-Nazi values, grossly violates the rights of national minorities, legislatively tries to exterminate the Russian language in all spheres of life, prohibits the canonical Orthodox Church.” “I hope this recklessness will fail and we will continue to follow the course agreed upon by President Putin and President Trump,” Lavrov said.

“The central lesson of Washington was the EU’s dependence – and its public acceptance of subordination to American leadership. The White House gathering laid bare the infantilization of Western Europe.”

• “Daddy” Trump and Western Europe’s Oath of Allegiance (Bordachev)

American politics has always been part performance, part power play. Domestic and foreign policy alike are wrapped in spectacle, but the drama often conceals deeper realities. This week’s meeting between Donald Trump and Western Europe’s leading politicians in Washington was a vivid example. What looked like theatre – leaders lined up in the Oval Office, each playing their role – carried consequences of genuine strategic weight. The real subject of the summit was not Ukraine. Attempts to resolve that conflict continue, but its outcome will be determined far from Brussels, Paris, or Berlin. The central lesson of Washington was the EU’s dependence – and its public acceptance of subordination to American leadership. The White House gathering laid bare the infantilization of Western Europe.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is said to have previously described Trump as “Daddy,” and the metaphor has stuck. The Europeans behaved as children trying not to provoke a temper: flattering, nodding, adapting themselves to his moods. There were even reports of EU and British officials advising Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on how to thank the American president, what words to use, even what clothes to wear. Absurd? Perhaps. But this is the political reality of the West today: the EU no longer behaves as a political entity with its own agency. Its leaders perform before Trump in hopes of appeasement. To be fair, Washington has never shown great delicacy in dealing with its allies. From De Gaulle to Schroeder, European leaders have often found their views brushed aside by American presidents. But the context is new.

Facing unprecedented competition with China and with its ability to skim rents from globalization fading, and under pressure from shifting energy and trade patterns, Washington no longer feels compelled to show even symbolic respect for Western Europe. The only alternative for the US would be full-scale self-isolation – a path floated in the last election but one for which Americans remain unprepared. On the contrary, despite its weakness, Europe now represents Washington’s last major platform for maintaining global influence. In the Middle East, even monarchies traditionally dependent on American defense are asserting independence. Across Asia, only Japan and South Korea remain fully loyal, though even they quietly maintain contact with Moscow.

Thus, the Americans must finish what previous administrations began: breaking Western Europe completely to their will. Trump, with his showmanship, has simply made the process more theatrical and humiliating. The Washington meeting crystallized this reality. The leaders of Britain, Germany, France, and Italy – the core of Western Europe – were required to stand on stage and sign a statement endorsing US policy on Ukraine. The heads of the EU and NATO joined in. Each leader searched for his or her own words of submission, and all found them. What looked absurd was in fact deadly serious. It was not about Ukraine’s fate – Kiev is merely a bargaining chip. It was about these European leaders publicly renouncing their autonomy. In practice, it was an oath of allegiance to Washington. From Russia’s perspective, three conclusions follow.

First, the EU and Great Britain cease to exist as independent actors. After the Cold War, it was briefly fashionable to speak of European strategic autonomy. As late as 2003, Germany and France opposed the US invasion of Iraq. Today, such defiance is unimaginable. Western Europe has become an appendage of the United States. Second, Russia’s strategy towards the region must change. For years, Moscow calculated that other European states, though dependent, could still act with partial independence and might support Russian interests under the right circumstances. Indeed, Russia’s most serious clashes with the West occurred when Western unity fractured. That assumption can no longer stand. Western Europe is now firmly absorbed into Washington’s orbit – a cog in a larger American machine. Third, Russia and China must reassess their approach. Beijing still regards the EU as a potential neutral partner in its rivalry with Washington. But the Oval Office spectacle shows this is an illusion. Treating Western Europe as independent risks undermining the strategic interests of both Russia and China. The same applies to India and other BRICS partners who maintain strong ties to states in the region: they, too, must rethink their assumptions.

“Faced with this reality, Western Europe has chosen a strategy of unrestrained flattery. Leaders believe that by praising Trump, they can slip their own disagreements into the conversation.”

• Trump Dominated and Humiliated the EU. Publicly (Lukyanov)

From a theatrical point of view, Monday’s Washington summit between US President Donald Trump and Western Europe’s leaders was a vivid spectacle. Each official played their role, some with greater skill than others. But behind the carefully staged performance, the real story emerged: the region’s inability to act as a political entity in its own right. Contrary to media spin, the meeting was not about Ukraine. Attempts to resolve the crisis continue, but its outcome will ultimately be decided not in Brussels or Berlin, but by non-European powers. The real lesson from Washington lay in the display of Western Europe’s dependence. Every move by these Western European leaders was aimed at one goal: not angering the American president. In the words of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump has become “Daddy” – a figure to be placated with smiles, tributes, and flattery.

Leaders compared notes on how best to manage his moods, even down to reportedly advising Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on what to wear, what to say, and how to thank him. This might sound absurd. But that is the political reality of the transatlantic relationship. The EU no longer acts with autonomy. Its politics revolve around managing the temper of a man in Washington. Of course, Trump’s personality is unique, but it would be a mistake to reduce the issue to character. The essence is deeper: Western Europe has suddenly realized the scale of its strategic, political and economic dependence on the United States. Put bluntly, the half-continent can do very little without America – even in matters that directly touch its own interests. This dependency did not appear overnight. Ironically, it deepened under Joe Biden.

With his rhetoric of “unprecedented transatlantic solidarity,” the former president made Western Europe carry much of the political and economic burden of the conflict with Russia. The United States reaped the economic benefits, while the costs were shifted to the Old World. Trump has simply made this arrangement overt. He openly treats the Europeans not as partners, but as tools. In his eyes, the EU exists to finance American priorities and later to handle the technical details of a post-settlement Ukraine. Western Europe’s “position” counts for little if it differs from Washington’s. The recent trade talks proved the point: negotiations went America’s way, and his guests accepted it. Faced with this reality, Western Europe has chosen a strategy of unrestrained flattery. Leaders believe that by praising Trump, they can slip their own disagreements into the conversation.

But the approach is self-defeating. Trump regards praise not as persuasion but as recognition of self-evident truth: if you admire me, I must be right. Join me, and keep applauding. Brussels reassures itself that this humiliation is temporary, the product of one unusual leader. When Trump leaves, normality will return. But the illusion will not last. For over two decades – since the presidency of George W. Bush – Washington has been steadily shifting its strategic focus away from Europe. This course has been consistent across parties and presidents. It will not change after Trump. And given the current willingness of EU leaders to grovel, future US presidents will expect no less.

“A close economic and political partnership with Russia, unwanted or not, is indeed the most likely future for whatever is by then left of Ukraine.”

• Ukraine’s Future – A Steppe Corridor – A Neutral, Transit-oriented State (MoA)

While Russia is confidently prosecuting the war in Ukraine towards its inevitable end. Meanwhile the ‘West’ is still negotiating with itself about the conditions under which it will have to capitulate. Discussions continue about ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine even as the only serious ones are those that Russia is willing to give. The confused arguments about ‘guarantees’ are reflected in the reports of them. Consider this nonsense: “A security guarantee could encompass a wide range of issues. In return for Russia ending its invasion, a security pact could include a pledge of U.S. air support for any European-led operations should Russian troops resume their assault.” If Russia ends the war NATO like ‘security guarantees’ are to be given to Ukraine as a reward? How is that supposed to compute? Russia started this war to prevent a further extension of NATO into Ukraine. Why should it end the fighting if, in consequence, Ukraine would end up as a quasi-member of that pact? All the ‘security guarantees’ talk is just obfuscation of the attempt by some European leaders to prolong the war by further dragging the U.S. into it:

“Days before the [sanctions] deadline expired, Putin invited Witkoff to Moscow and offered a proposal, seen by the White House as sufficient grounds to set up last week’s Alaska summit meeting. There, Putin succeeded in convincing Trump that an immediate ceasefire to allow for complex peace negotiations was not required, allowing Russia to continue its attacks on Ukraine, without the risk of new U.S. sanctions. The move alarmed European leaders, who raced to Washington on Monday to back up Zelensky during a meeting at the White House. After the meeting, they appeared satisfied by Trump’s openness to security guarantees. If Putin does not accept the terms, that could make the Kremlin the obstacle to Trump’s peace deal, insulating Ukraine from having to choose between untenable concessions of territory and inviting Trump’s ire.“

Russia is not going to allow any of this: “[O]n Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov struck a blow at another major part of Trump’s peace effort, downplaying expectations for a swift bilateral meeting with the Ukrainian president, and further blocking the prospects for any deal on security guarantees for Ukraine. He said Russia would only agree to the measures if it had an effective veto over future efforts to defend Kyiv.” Russia will simply stick to its plan: Russia’s conditions to end its war would essentially subvert Ukraine’s sovereignty, neuter its military and seize territory in eastern Ukraine that it has not captured in battle. Moscow wants to also permanently bar Ukraine from NATO and other international groupings and prevent it from hosting foreign troops — terms that would force Ukraine into a close, unwanted economic and political partnership with Russia.

A close economic and political partnership with Russia, unwanted or not, is indeed the most likely future for whatever is by then left of Ukraine. Some Ukrainians, like the former presidential advisor Alexander Arestovich, do understand that: “The key task for Ukraine today in all these Alaskan tales is to preserve political independence in the long term… Ukraine has only one way to preserve it: acknowledging the shared symbolic capital with Russia and Belarus, adopting a neutral status, and building good-neighborly relations with Russia and Belarus while maintaining political independence and the unique role of a “crossroads of worlds”- between Russia and Europe. Economically, the most promising role is that of a “steppe corridor” – between Russia, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and the EU.

In short, this is about a fundamental shift in project orientation – from a narrow, nationalist one to a broad, transit-oriented one. In a sense, this could be called a “Great Return” – to Ukraine’s natural historical and cultural role. By way of analogy – modern Kazakhstan. … In conclusion, the fundamental challenge for Ukraine lies not in tactical maneuvers but in recognizing the strategic perspective: the necessity of reimagining its role as a neutral, transit-oriented state in order to preserve independence in the emerging geopolitical order.

Tulsi may well be the most effective member of the Trump admin so far.

• DNI Gabbard Reduces Staff 40%, Eliminates $700 Million in IC Spending (CTH)

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has announced a major shift in reducing the role of the Intelligence Community and eliminating the politization of intelligence information. As we have discussed on these pages for several years, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created shortly before the Obama administration took power, and subsequently the fledgling organization was weaponized for domestic influence operations. DNI Tulsi Gabbard takes a major step in addressing this problem. In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose. What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their ideological opposition became the target of the new national security system.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard announced a long-overdue transformation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to refocus on executing its core national security mission with integrity in the most agile, effective, and efficient way. This will reduce ODNI by over 40% by the end of fiscal year 2025 and save taxpayers over $700 million per year and better enable ODNI to focus on fulfilling its critical role of serving as the central hub for intelligence integration, strategic guidance, and oversight over the Intelligence Community. ODNI was created after the horrific Islamist terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, exposed systemic failures across the Intelligence Community (IC). Its purpose was to integrate intelligence from and provide oversight over all IC elements (currently 18) in order to ensure the intelligence provided to the President and policymakers is timely, accurate, and apolitical.

Unfortunately, two decades later, ODNI has fallen short in fulfilling its mandate. “Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence,” said DNI Tulsi Gabbard. “ODNI and the IC must make serious changes to fulfill its responsibility to the American people and the U.S. Constitution by focusing on our core mission: find the truth and provide objective, unbiased, timely intelligence to the President and policymakers. Ending the weaponization of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people’s trust which has long been eroded. Under President Trump’s leadership, ODNI 2.0 is the start of a new era focused on serving our country, fulfilling our core national security mission with excellence, always grounded in the U.S. Constitution, and ensuring the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.”

ODNI 2.0 eliminates redundant missions, functions and personnel, and makes critical investments in areas that support the President’s national intelligence priorities, and focuses on rebuilding trust, exposing politicization and weaponization of intelligence, holding bad actors accountable, saving American tax dollars, and focusing on our core mission: protecting the safety, security, and freedom of the American people. Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01. DHS came along in 2002 and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed. When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

The preexisting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dept of Justice (DOJ) were then repurposed to become two of the four pillars of the domestic national security apparatus. However, this new construct would have a targeting mechanism based on political ideology. The DHS, ODNI, DOJ and FBI became the four pillars of this new institution. Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government. We were not sleeping when this happened, we were wide awake. However, we were stunningly distracted by the economic collapse that was taking place in 2006 and 2007 when the engineers behind Obama started to assemble the design. By the time Obama took office in 2009, we sensed something profound was shifting, but we can only see exactly what shifted in the aftermath. The four pillars were put into place, and a new Fourth Branch of Government was quietly created.

As Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard has begun to take down the political surveillance system. Yesterday, it was announced that Tulsi Gabbard fired twenty of the “according to those familiar with the matter” people. Another ten from the group “who spoke on the condition of anonymity.” And seven of the “officials close to the issue.” Her work continues.

https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/1958328737017254066

All kinds of small-town politicians come up with rules and regulations that they insist apply to the entire world.

“..it came as no surprise that the administration stood (and still stands) firm alongside Cupertino in protecting Americans’ rights against British predations — with echoes of 1776.”

• Tulsi Stares Down UK, Scoring Another Big Win for American Consumers (Green)

The United Kingdom has a problem with the U.S.: It’s that pesky Bill of Rights and our refusal to surrender our rights to Britain’s censorship and due-process-busting domestic spying schemes. Enter, stage right: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. I reported earlier this week that 4chan’s notorious internet pranksters hired a couple of big-name law firms, after Britain threatened the American-based company with a £20,000 fine, followed by hefty daily fines, if the group failed to impose Britain’s censorship rules on 4chan’s users everywhere in the world — including in the U.S. 4chan’s representation called the actions of Britain’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) an “illegal campaign of harassment against American technology firms.”

But Britain’s censorious Online “Safety” Act of 2023 isn’t the only foreign threat to American freedoms. They also have their Orwell-inspired Investigatory Powers Act, which pitted His Majesty’s Craptaculent Government up against one of the biggest companies in the world: Apple. Back in February, Britain ordered Apple to create a backdoor in its iPhone operating system, allowing British authorities to snoop on the entire contents of anyone’s iPhone, anywhere in the world — without a warrant, without notification, without nothin’. Arguably worse, under the Investigatory Powers Act, Apple was forbidden to even tell British users that their privacy was compromised by force of law. Apple calls its end-to-end iPhone encryption — that means nobody can see your data but you — Advanced Data Protection (ADP), and they weren’t about to have some Limeys break it for a billion users around the world.

Britain’s hope was that Apple would quietly corrupt user privacy without anyone being the wiser, but rather than destroy user privacy, Apple did what I called “the best wrong thing.” Instead of giving London the key to every iPhone in the world, in February the company warned British users that they would soon lose ADP and their privacy, too. Apple explained that it would no longer offer ADP “to new users and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature.” That’s a terrible thing to have to do, but at least UK users weren’t lied to about the security of their cloud and on-device storage. “We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK,” the company explained, “given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy. Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent than ever before.”

President Donald Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook have worked closely together in the past, despite some yuge political differences. So it came as no surprise that the administration stood (and still stands) firm alongside Cupertino in protecting Americans’ rights against British predations — with echoes of 1776. Trump sicced Tulsi on the Brits. Wisely, after months of wrangling behind closed doors, the Brits finally caved. “Neither the U.S. nor U.K. governments have made any formal announcement about the matter,” Apple Insider reported, but “given the secretive way the U.K. has tried to handle the matter, there may not even be any confirmation on that side of the Atlantic.” We don’t yet know what went on between Trump, JD Vance, Gabbard, and their UK counterparts, but we can see the result.

“Over the past few months, I’ve been working closely with our partners in the U.K., alongside POTUS and VPOTUS,” Gabbard posted to X yesterday, “to ensure Americans’ private data remains private and our Constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected.” “As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties.” With that out of the way, Apple might be able to re-enable ADP for UK users, although that part remains unclear at the time of this writing. Regardless, Americans got a big win today, courtesy of Cupertino and the Trump White House.

It’s time for Kash to come with concrete facts. People have only so much patience.

• FBI Director Kash Patel Outlines Current Status of FBI Reform Effort (CTH)

FBI Director Kash Patel appeared on Fox News Business with Larry Kudlow to discuss the current status of several FBI efforts, including the targeting of international terrorists. Within the interview, Director Patel notes there is an ongoing review of any/all information that surrounds the weaponized use of the FBI under previous leadership. Kudlow narrows in on the FBI raid to Mar-a-Lago, and digs down for details as to whether Patel is investigating the targeting of President Trump post 2020 election. In recent joint appearances with Kash Patel, there appeared to be frustration by President Trump as the Director waxed philosophically about the excellence of his agency while the American electorate looked on with great suspicion. Shortly thereafter came an announcement that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey would be joining the FBI leadership team as a Co-Deputy Director. The current appearances by Director Patel follow the announcement of Bailey’s addition to the team.

Martin would appear to have a broad agenda. Letitia, Schiff, Jan 6…

• Matt Gaetz Interviews Ed Martin On Adam Schiff, Jan 6 Committee (CTH)

Matt Gaetz is one of the few members of congress who reviewed the activity of the J6 Committee after it was disbanded. In this interview, Matt Gaetz discusses the activity of the J6 Committee with DOJ Working Group leader, Ed Martin. Ed Martin is now tasked with assembling all of the various information from open source, classified and declassified documents while reviewing them for potential criminal violations. Gaetz asks Martin whether any of the J6 activity is positioned to be a part of Ed Martin’s criminal activity review.

I chewed quite a bit on the term “Previous History”. As in: what other kind is there?

• Previous History Indicates that War Is Our Future (Paul Craig Roberts)

Our time is much like Europe during 1912-1914 and 1938-1939. War is brewing, and unlike the earlier periods today the countries likely to be involved, with the exception of Russia, China, and Iran, are not trying to avoid it. Between 1912-1914 the French President Poincare, Russian Foreign Minister Izvolski, later Russian ambassador to France, and Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov were deeply involved in a conspiracy to cause a war between Russia and France (with British approval and involvement) on one side and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other. Poincaire’s goal was to recover Alsace-Lorraine for France. The Tsar’s ministers wanted Constantinople in order to control the straits that are the entrance from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. Harry Elmer Barnes tells the story based on the notes the conspirators wrote to one another over the years the conspiracy was prepared and put into operation.

For telling the truth, Barnes, a top of the line American historian, lost his position at Columbia University. The official narrative was that Germany caused the war, a claim for which there is zero evidence. But assigning historical blame to Germany kept attention off the French-Russian conspiracy. As Barnes own fate proved, it did not pay for a historian to tell the truth. The road to professional success was to create a narrative that justified the winners. And the “winners” were actually winners because the Germans were deceived, having foolishly trusted US President Wilson’s “Fourteen points.” The German emperor, a cousin of the British king and Russian Tsar, did everything he could to avoid war, and Germany was the last to mobilize. The country responsible for war is never the last to mobilize.

Both the Germans, the British, and possibly the Tsar were disadvantaged by being unaware of the French-Russian conspiracy for war. The assassination of the Austrian Archduke and Austria’s punitive response to Serbia, was turned by propaganda into the cause for war. Most likely, the assassination was a part of the French-Russian war plot. Regardless, a dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia ended up causing a war that killed millions of people in the major European powers and enabled Lenin to overthrow the Russian government. France got Alsace-Lorraine, and Russia got a revolution. Austria-Hungary was destroyed along with the German monarchy. The result was the Versailles Treaty that ensured World War II. The flower of the British leadership class was destroyed along with British financial strength. Turkey remained in control of Constantinople.

Barnes, like David Irving, bases his history on official documents, whereas most historians create a career for themselves by justifying the winners and aligning with the rising political, social, and economic forces. Izvolski arranged for Russian gold to be poured into bribes of French newspapers to silence war opponents, to make a case for war, and to bring Poincare into the French presidency. Russia also bribed leading Serbian politicians to engage in intrigues against Austria-Hungary. We are watching the same thing today, only we don’t know it. The media don’t tell us. They too are bribed. When we look at the American Witkoff and the nominal Russian Dmitriev, what is their real role? Could they be bribe makers whose job it is to produce outcomes that make their principles appear successful? One can hear the patriotic American’s disbelief: “Our country, never!”

But we know of the Clinton’s collection of bribes that have enriched their family. We know of the Hunter-Joe Biden collection of bribes and payoffs. Was the letter Trump’s wife had delivered to Putin about the alleged Ukrainian children the product of an Israeli bribe to get the focus off of Israel’s extermination of Palestinian children? As the realities of what is really underway are not exposed to the light of day, the populations in the US and Europe really have no idea what is going on. Commentators, depending on who is paying them, either spread optimistic hopes or allege Trump is selling out Ukraine. The reality is different.

The reality is that the world is headed into war because of (1) the US foreign policy imperative of American hegemony, and (2) the apparent problem the Russians have of putting themselves in the hands of their hopes instead of acknowledging reality. When a country’s foreign policy doctrine requires the prevention of the rise of any country that can serve as a constraint on its unilateralism, and there are rising countries, there can be no peace. In 1939 the British government gave a guarantee to Poland similar to the NATO guarantee the West wants to give Ukraine. The immediate consequence was World War II.

“Independents and moderates understand instinctively what this means: a government so cynical it ignores its own laws in order to draw maps that guarantee one-party rule.”

• Scandal Threatens to Unravel Newsom’s Gerrymandering Power Grab (Margolis)

A group of California legislators is calling for the feds to step in after credible allegations that Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies are orchestrating a brazen scheme to gerrymander California congressional districts. As we’ve previously reported here at PJ Media, Newsom has been promising to fight back against Texas Republicans’ controversial mid-cycle redistricting plan, which, of course, was done to offset Democrats’ blatant gerrymandering in blue states, which has inflated their representation in Congress. The problem is that California’s constitution flatly forbids mid-cycle redistricting, and the process for changing the system is no simple matter. Voters have already weighed in twice — in 2008 and 2010 — to strip politicians of their gerrymandering toys and hand the pen to an independent commission.

But now Newsom is bulldozing those safeguards voters established to boost his national profile before he runs for president. He plans to yank control away from the Citizens Redistricting Commission and back into the hands of his loyalist Democrats. Newsom looks less like a “progressive” reformer and more like a backroom operator addicted to power grabs. That’s why Assembly members Carl DeMaio, James Gallagher, Leticia Castillo, Heath Hadwick, David Tangipa, and State Sens. Tony Strickland and Marie Alvarado-Gil just fired off a formal request to the Department of Justice. Their letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi calls on the DOJ to investigate “corruption and violation of federal law” tied to Newsom’s redistricting scheme.

“We write to request that the US Department of Justice consider opening an immediate investigation into allegations of corruption and illegality involving members of the California state legislature and their current redistricting scheme,” the letter states. “As you may be aware, California state legislators — upon the Governor’s demand — have initiated an unprecedented and unnecessary mid-cycle redistricting effort. Article 21 of the California state constitution expressly prohibits such an effort and public opinion is solidly against the idea of mullifying the independent Citizens Redistricting Commission and handing the power back to politicians to manipulate the lines of their own districts.” The letter continues:

“In recent days alarming allegations have surfaced that may explain why state legislators are proceeding forward with such a blatantly unconstitutional and politically unpopular proposal. Specifically, various media outlets are reporting that several members of the state legislature may have not only engaged in drawing the lines of these maps to benefit themselves politically but may be providing their vote for these proposals on the condition that the maps are drawn to benefit themselves. As just one example, KCRA reported that one powerful senator “had one of the new, targeted districts drawn specifically for him in exchange for his support of the redistricting plan.” This kind of backroom dealing and possibility for vote-trading by politicians is the very reason why California voters passed ballot initiatives in 2008 and again in 2010 to take redistricting powers away from the Governor and state legislature.

But here’s the key part right here: “We believe that the backroom dealings may rise to an unlawful level of bribery and vote trading. It is quite possible that federal laws could have been violated in the scheming surrounding these backroom deals over maps. Aside from possible criminal misconduct, we are also concerned with numerous potential violations of federal law related to the process of redistricting and the proposed maps being approved by the state legislature. Public confidence in the integrity of our state legislature is of paramount importance. As such we ask that you review this matter and determine whether a federal investigation is warranted at this time.”

If true, these accusations don’t merely flout the state constitution; they veer directly into federal criminal territory. Bribery, vote trading, the manipulation of congressional maps to benefit oneself politically: These aren’t just morally grotesque; they invite a Justice Department investigation for potential violations of election law. And for once, it’s not just Republicans raising the alarm. Independents and moderates understand instinctively what this means: a government so cynical it ignores its own laws in order to draw maps that guarantee one-party rule. Newsom may think he’s untouchable, but the demand for a DOJ probe suggests that the tide could be turning. If this investigation gains traction, the scheme designed to lock in permanent power for the left could unravel quickly for Newsom, for his allies, and for the illusion of accountability in Sacramento. The governor may soon learn that Californians don’t just oppose corruption; they’ve had more than enough of it.

“Today, it’s all provocative bulls**t all the time. No responsibility. No accountability. You just move on to the next. And it gets us views, it gets us clicks, but it’s not getting us to a better place.”

• Chris Cuomo Declares the Democrat Party ‘Dead’ (Margolis)

Chris Cuomo, the brother of NYC mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo, reflected on the state of the Democratic Party today during an interview with Benny Johnson on his podcast. There, he delivered a stark verdict: The Democratic Party is dead. Drawing on his personal political lineage, Cuomo pointed out a fundamental shift that has erased the party he once knew and fought for. “My brother’s a Democrat. I don’t know why, but he is. Uh, my father was a Democrat. I know exactly why he was, but his party doesn’t exist anymore,” Cuomo said. “And while I had disagreements with my father about different issues, I knew what principles were guiding him.” Cuomo recalled his father’s era, a time when the Democratic Party was distinctly focused on protecting the little guy and maintaining a balanced role for government.

“My father’s battle was against trickle-down economics and Reagan Republicanism,” he explained. “The Democratic Party that he fought for and the Republican Party that he fought against — neither exists anymore.” Cuomo described his father’s party as one that said, “Take care of the little guy, take care of the little guy, take care of the little guy. Stay out of our bedroom. Stay out of my heart. Just do all the government we need, but only the government we need. And we’re a secular society. Don’t put anything else on me.” According to Cuomo, his father’s Democratic Party embraced a capitalism that offered opportunity in a free market, rejecting socialism while supporting necessary public services like education and entitlements. He emphasized, “No Democrat ever argued for anything else. No Democrat would’ve argued for open borders. You know — none of this. My father would’ve done none of this.”

Discussing how politics has flipped since his father’s time, Cuomo noted that today’s left champions cultural elitism, dictating how people should speak and raise their children. Meanwhile, the Republicans have become anti-establishment champions for the little people trampled upon by the elites, a complete reversal from previous alignments. He said, “They flipped in terms of their operative animus and their constituencies out of convenience and time.” “So, my father’s party is no more,” Cuomo continued. “He believed that the opportunity to be part of a free market was exactly why his parents — illiterate, okay? Uh, unsophisticated, untrained except, uh, with a heart, you know, three sizes too big, filled with ambition and dreams — [came here], to be able to compete, you know? Without some feudal system on your head in rural Italy, where they were telling you who you could be and how you could be. [They believed that] was worth everything.”

When it came to the current chaotic and provocative political environment, Cuomo expressed deep frustration with the lack of responsibility and accountability. He lamented the constant push for controversy over constructive dialogue: “Today, it’s all provocative bulls**t all the time. No responsibility. No accountability. You just move on to the next. And it gets us views, it gets us clicks, but it’s not getting us to a better place.” Chris Cuomo is absolutely right about what the Democratic Party has become. It’s no longer even pretending to fight for the little guy. It exists to serve the coastal elites and their agenda. If Democrats ever cared about everydayAmericans, that was long ago and only for show. Now they thrive on outrage, scandals, and clickbait while ignoring the real problems facing the country. Cuomo’s blunt assessment simply confirms what millions of us already know: The Democratic Party has lost its way and turned its back on the very people it once pretended to represent.

Messerschmitt
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1958500458441429133

Judge Caprio died yesterday

The compassion of Judge Frank Caprio
pic.twitter.com/VrbYzWaGgR

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) August 21, 2025

Final video from “the world’s nicest judge,” Frank Caprio, who sadly passed away todaypic.twitter.com/CJfHuKTP7G

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 21, 2025

Swan

Little kids performing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake pic.twitter.com/wt1PDYSj08

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 21, 2025

Build a road to move a church
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1958480858978935039

200

One of the most fascinating facts about the ocean, is that there are whales alive today who were born before Moby Dick was written.

Some of the bowhead whales in the icy waters off of Alaska today are over 200 years old.pic.twitter.com/4x9n5Fc3BL

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 22, 2025

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

Debt Rattle August 23 2024

Aug 232024

August 23, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:08 am Finance Tagged with: Engoron, FBI, international terrorist, Letitia, Nord Stream, posthuman globalist madness, Queen Elizabeth, RFKJr 76 Responses »

Salvador Dali Spain 1936-38

• Russian Residency Law Helps Westerners Escape Posthuman Globalist Madness (Sp.)

• ‘Muslim Women for Harris’ Disbands After DNC Controversy (RT)

• Trump Says He Was Queen Elizabeth II’s ‘Favorite President’ – Daily Mail (RT)

• New York AG Asks Appeals Court to Uphold Trump $454 Million Judgment (ET)

• Secret Service Agents Placed on Leave After Trump Assassination Attempt (RCP)

• Judge Rules RFK Jr. Can Sue Biden Admin Over Censorship (ZH)

• Tucker Carlson, Trump Jr. Pushed Kennedy to Endorse Donald Trump (Sp.)

• Ukraine Tried To Attack Russian Nuclear Plant – Putin (RT)

• Czech President Sounds Like An International Terrorist – Moscow (RT)

• Moscow Charges CNN Journalist With Illegal Border Crossing (RT)

• Nord Stream Ecocide & Fall of Germany ‘Engineered by Western Powers’ (Miles)

• FBI Promises Continued Crackdown on US Journalists, Dissidents (SP.)

What’s that glass for again?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1826334945733964243

Gouge

"Why didn't the corporations gouge for 40 years if that's what caused [inflation]? How did it suddenly happen? They learned how to gouge 3.5 years ago?!!”

Completely demolishing Kamalas conspiracy theory.
pic.twitter.com/PlZc1mIYwf

— aka (@akafacehots) August 21, 2024

2025
https://twitter.com/i/status/1826513047201944040

Russell Crowe

.@joerogan and @russellcrowe point out the obvious, “The person that's actually in office is saying what she's going to do if she gets in office….She's been in there for three f%%%ing years.”

For every promise Kamala makes using vague rhetoric or poor policy proposals—whether… pic.twitter.com/J9E29XMJtO

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 21, 2024

Bill
https://twitter.com/i/status/1826445094905675913

Trump SNL 2015

Did you know?

In 2015, Donald Trump appeared in an SNL skit depicting what life would be like in the White House in 2018: pic.twitter.com/424kMkC6dM

— Wojciech Pawelczyk (@WojPawelczyk) August 22, 2024

Oprah

Amazing how everybody turned on him when he decided to run as a Republican. This video speaks for itself. pic.twitter.com/V9QqUfFDpd

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) August 22, 2024

Von Trump

.@realDonaldTrump | This Past Weekend #526 pic.twitter.com/zy6pfStBjJ

— Theo Von (@TheoVon) August 21, 2024

https://twitter.com/i/status/1826346571400970330

“..a “satanic new wave” of ideas which are “very popular among the Western elite, but absolutely disgusting to the rest of humanity.”

• Russian Residency Law Helps Westerners Escape Posthuman Globalist Madness (Sp.)

Russia has rejected globalism and now serves as a safe haven for Westerners who are feeling oppressed by neoliberal destructive ideas in their homeland, US journalist Timothy Kirby told Sputnik. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on August 19 providing foreigners who share Russia’s spiritual and moral values, and who seek to escape the West’s destructive neoliberal ideals, with a temporary residence permit in Russia. “The law provides Westerners something that they’ve sought for a long time – the opportunity to move to Russia,” Timothy Kirby, an American-born journalist and radio host, told Sputnik. Earlier, Western foreigners couldn’t immigrate to Russia without a legal basis, but now “the door has finally started to open,” he added. Under the new law, the temporary residence permit would be granted outside the quota approved by the Russian government, and without the need for confirmation of the applicants’ knowledge of the Russian language, Russian history, and basic laws.

However, they would have to submit a written statement, stating reasons for moving, to their local Russian diplomatic mission or consular office. In addition, Putin has instructed the Russian Foreign Ministry to draw up a list of states imposing destructive neoliberal values. “In a lot of ways, Russia is the country that is leading the fight against some of the absolute madness that comes from the West,” Kirby added, referring in particular, to the absurd idea that “gender” is some sort of social construct that has nothing to do with one’s sex assigned at birth. Another Western theory says that patriarchy is designed to “repress women for some reason, even though women aren’t particularly repressed,” he continued. Kirby emigrated from the US to Russia in 2006 and calls himself “an advocate for life in Russia” for those who oppose a “satanic new wave” of ideas which are “very popular among the Western elite, but absolutely disgusting to the rest of humanity.”

“Russia and the Russian people are facing the challenges of the 21st century; a lot of intellectuals would basically call it the era of postmodernism,” Kirby said. “The average person in Russia, whether they understand it or not, rejects this. Russians have chosen to remain human, to keep going with society, to reject globalism, to reject some sort of post-human and post-modern bizarre future. And that’s a good thing… And God bless Russia for it.” Conservative Westerners have been relocating to Russia for quite a while. Speaking to Sputnik last year, Father Joseph Gleason, an American-born Orthodox priest, had expressed hopes that moving to Russia could be simplified for family-oriented, hard-working Christian immigrants. Gleason moved to Russia with his wife and eight children in 2017 to escape the Western aggressive neoliberal agenda. Since then, he has been assisting other conservatives to settle in the country.

“Now, in America, there are cases of people losing their jobs, not being able to find a new job, being denied an education, and not being able to get into a university – simply because they’re opposed to homosexual behavior, and because they’re opposed to this lie of homosexual marriage, or because they’re opposed to transgenderism,” Gleason told Sputnik in August 2023. Earlier this month, Irina Volk, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, announced that another American Christian family is seeking shelter in Russia. Leo and Chantelle Hare and their three children decided to move to Russia as traditional, moral and family values are increasingly under attack in the US. In the future, the Hares plan to obtain Russian citizenship. The couple understands that the level of education and security is higher in Russia, and that the state protects traditional values and provides support to large families, stated Volk while speaking to the press.

Didn’t see much on Kamala’s speech last night. It’ll come.

Note: what are the odds they have a bet going behind the curtain, that they can elect even the least competent person president?

• ‘Muslim Women for Harris’ Disbands After DNC Controversy (RT)

The campaigning group Muslim Women for Harris has disbanded following reports that pro-Palestine speakers were denied a platform at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago. Pro-Palestinian activists and allied groups have been demanding that US Vice President Kamala Harris commit to cutting military aid to Israel and push more urgently for a ceasefire in Gaza. They had planned to voice their position at the DNC, which wrapped up on Thursday. “We cannot in good conscience continue Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, in light of this new information from the Uncommitted movement, that VP Harris’ team declined their request to have a Palestinian American speaker take the stage at the DNC,” the group wrote in a statement on Instagram. “We pray that the DNC and VP Harris team makes the right decision before this convention is over. For the sake of each of us,” it added.

Earlier on Thursday, Abbas Alawieh, one of the leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement, said Democrats had refused to allow Palestinian-Americans to speak at the DNC. “We think that’s unacceptable. We think that this is the party where we shouldn’t be silencing people’s voices,” he said in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter). Speaking to Al Jazeera, Alawieh argued that “the Palestinian speaker situation is a mistake on the party’s end.” He and other activists launched a sit-in outside the convention venue to protest the decision. According to the Washington Post, the Democratic leadership was concerned that a pro-Palestinian speech would “threaten the unity” displayed at the convention. No specific reason was given for the denial, however, the newspaper said.

During her DNC speech on Thursday night, Harris said that the White House was “working around the clock” to secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas and to reach a “ceasefire deal.” At the same time, the Democratic presidential candidate reaffirmed that she “will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.” Harris became the Democratic candidate after US President Joe Biden quit the race last month. She will face Republican nominee Donald Trump on Election Day in November.

Ha ha ha! He knows how to get them going. “..the Queen “said it to friends of mine that ‘President Trump was my favorite president.’”

Why couldn’t she have liked him? She spent her whole life without any real human contact. Wouldn’t she have longed for that? And here’s someone who acts natural with her, and who holds the job perhaps closest to hers: president of America.

• Trump Says He Was Queen Elizabeth II’s ‘Favorite President’ – Daily Mail (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has insisted that he was in Queen Elizabeth II’s good graces following claims to the contrary in a new biography of the late monarch. In an interview with the Daily Mail on Wednesday, the Republican firebrand dismissed Craig Brown – the author of ‘A Voyage Around the Queen’ – as a “sleazebag” who is “looking for some publicity for a book that probably is phony.” Trump met the late monarch twice during his term in office. The first time was in 2018 when she received him and his wife informally for tea. The following year, the then-US head of state was greeted with a full state banquet. Observers at the time claimed that Trump had violated royal protocol on several occasions. The Daily Mail quoted the 78-year-old as insisting that the Queen “said it to friends of mine that ‘President Trump was my favorite president.’”

The former president went on to characterize his relationship with the late British monarch as “great” and “unbelievable.” “She liked me and I liked her,” he claimed, recounting how they had “spent hours together at a state dinner.” According to Trump, the author of the biography had intentionally smeared him with “totally false” allegations in a bid to promote his work. The book suggests that Queen Elizabeth II found Trump “very rude,” and told another guest that she had “particularly disliked” the way he looked over her shoulder, as if in search of someone more interesting. ‘A Voyage Around the Queen’ also describes how the monarch supposedly believed Trump “must have some sort of arrangement” with his wife Melania, “or else why would she have remained married to him?”

In July 2018, Trump, along with the first lady, had tea with Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle toward the end of his UK trip. He later described the monarch as a “fantastic woman… smart and sharp [with] so much energy.” However, observers were quick to point out several instances in which Trump had apparently broken etiquette. First, he failed to greet the Queen properly, omitting to bow. Melania, too, failed to perform the customary “small curtsy.” While not strictly obligatory, these are considered good manners and implicitly expected of officials visiting the royal family. Later during the meeting, Trump walked ahead of the Queen and turned his back to her while inspecting the royal guard – both gestures were viewed as impolite.

Hard to believe that this pops up again. Then again, how many days to the election? Remember, this (also) seeks to defend Engoron’s claim that Mar-a-Lago is worth $18-26 million.

Letitia James and Arthur Engoron pay no price and run no risk here. They can run the system against Trump till the cows come home. And they will still get paid.

• New York AG Asks Appeals Court to Uphold Trump $454 Million Judgment (ET)

New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office asked an appeals court on Wednesday to uphold the $454 million civil fraud judgment against former President Donald Trump from earlier this year. In a 168-page submission, state attorneys said there is “overwhelming evidence” supporting Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoran’s Feb. 16 decision finding that Trump misrepresented his wealth to insurers, banks, and other entities to build his real estate empire. Trump appealed that ruling in July. Among other things, he and his attorneys argue that the judge, who they say “struggled to understand basic banking concepts” before handing down the penalty, made an erroneous decision. State attorneys, responding in their submission to the First Department of the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division on Wednesday, said that Trump’s appeal is filled with “meritless legal arguments.”

They say his appeal disregards substantial evidence from the bench trial that demonstrated “fraud and illegality on an immense scale.” “Supreme Court’s liability determinations are supported by overwhelming evidence that, in each Statement, defendants used a variety of deceptive strategies to vastly misrepresent the values of Mr. Trump’s assets,” Assistant Solicitor General Daniel S. Magy wrote, referring to annual statements they said misrepresented Trump’s wealth. Magy said that Trump, along with his company and top executives, engaged in deceptive practices to maintain loans worth more than $500 million and illicitly gained more than $360 million in profits. “On appeal, defendants tellingly ignore almost all their deceptions. Instead, they primarily argue that [the New York State Office of the Attorney General] failed to prove that defendants’ counterparties relied on the misrepresentations to their financial detriment,” Magy added.

“But it is well-established that neither reliance nor victims’ losses—which are elements of common-law fraud—is required for fraud or illegality claims where, as here, [state attorneys] seeks disgorgement and injunctive relief rather than damages or restitution.” In his July appeal, Trump’s attorneys objected to the legal mechanics of James’s lawsuit, arguing that it used a statute—meant to protect consumers from being ripped off—“in a way never seen before.” Trump and his attorneys argued that there were “no victims and no losses.” They contended that the case should never have gone to trial, the statute of limitations barred some allegations, and the state shouldn’t be policing private business transactions. They also argued that the ruling is a disaster for the New York economy, as it gives the attorney general’s office “limitless power to target anyone.”

State attorneys, defending the statute of limitations, argued that the law empowers the attorney general to act against fraudulent business conduct, regardless of whether it directly “targets consumers, small businesses, large corporations, or other individuals or entities.” They also rejected Trump’s claims that the case should never have gone to trial and that the state should not interfere in private business transactions. The Appellate Division has scheduled the appeal’s oral arguments for Sept. 26. A ruling is expected about a month later, shortly before the end of Trump’s presidential campaign. The outcome of the appeal could see the court uphold, modify, or overturn Engoron’s ruling. The $485 million sum continues to accrue interest while the appeals process plays out. Trump has paid a $175 million bond to halt collection while he appeals. Should the ruling be upheld, Trump and his sons will be liable for the full sum.

“..I’m talking about a big group of former agents [who] are on fire about what happened here – they are horrified about what’s going on with this agency.”

But it’s already forgotten… No media.

• Secret Service Agents Placed on Leave After Trump Assassination Attempt (RCP)

Three weeks ago, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe angrily pushed back on senators’ calls to immediately fire or discipline key agents directly responsible for the security failures that led to the assassination attempt against former President Trump at last month’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Since that time, Secret Service leaders have placed several members of the Pittsburgh Field Office on administrative leave, according to three sources in the Secret Service community. (Administrative leave occurs when a federal employee temporarily leaves their position and work duties – either because of a misconduct investigation or medical or mental health issue. These employees usually still receive pay and benefits, but those decisions are left to the discretion of agency leadership.) While these members of the Pittsburgh Field Office were placed on leave, a different set of agents, several assigned to Trump’s permanent protective detail, are still on the job providing Trump protection, the sources say.

They remain operational even though they too were deeply involved in devising the Butler rally’s security plan. The differing treatment of the two teams is spurring internal dissension and speculation that the Pittsburgh office could bear the brunt of the serious security failures that day, even though there’s plenty of blame to go around. During a joint Senate committee meeting July 30, Rowe said he couldn’t understand or defend why the roof where shooter Thomas Crooks fired from wasn’t better secured. He said the Secret Service is investigating whether any employees broke the rules or didn’t follow established protocol to protect obvious vulnerabilities. If so, he said they would be held accountable through the agency’s disciplinary process and face punishment, including termination.

Yet, Rowe and other senior officials back in Washington headquarters should share the blame, these sources argue. The agency’s top brass were almost certainly involved in declining at least some of the security assets requested for the Butler rally despite a heightened threat level brought on by a specific Iranian assassination plot against Trump. Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in late July amid bipartisan outrage over her lack of transparency about the rally security failures. But critics in Congress and the Secret Service community are calling for more accountability in the wake of the worst security failure since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.

Dan Bongino, a popular conservative personality who spent 11 years in the Secret Service, has blasted his former agency’s “apocalyptic security failure” and called for a full house-cleaning of the upper leadership ranks in its Washington headquarters. Rowe, he said, is just as bad, if not worse than Cheatle because he was her hand-picked deputy and played a key role in her management decisions. “My Secret Service colleagues I worked with, where nothing like this ever happened at our advances, are horrified at Ron Rowe, ashamed at what this agency has become,” he said in on his podcast the day after Rowe testified before the Senate. “… I’m not talking about a small cadre of them. I’m talking about a big group of former agents [who] are on fire about what happened here – they are horrified about what’s going on with this agency.”

“..Kennedy would be censored by the action of one Government Defendant in response to another.”

• Judge Rules RFK Jr. Can Sue Biden Admin Over Censorship (ZH)

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can continue to pursue his lawsuit against the Biden administration over censorship at the direction of the government. The decision comes after a June ruling by the Supreme Court, which established who can sue the Biden administration for violating their First Amendment rights when government officials pressured social media companies to suppress free speech did not have standing to sue. According to District Court Judge Terry Doughty, Kennedy meets the standard set by the Supreme Court because there is “ample evidence” to show he was censored at the direction of government actors, and is at “substantial risk” that the censorship will continue, the Daily Caller reports.

Under the Supreme Court’s Murthy v. Missouri ruling, Doughty explained that “a court must make specific findings that a particular defendant pressured a particular platform to censor a particular topic before the platform suppressed a particular plaintiff’s speech on that topic.”

Kennedy was named by one of the “Disinformation Dozen” – and was specifically targeted by the government over what they alleged was COVID-19 misinformation, Doughty noted in his ruling – adding that there is “not much dispute” that Kennedy, and his organization – Children’s Health Defense, “were specifically targeted by the White House, the Office of Surgeon General, and CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency].” “The Court finds that there is further risk for future risk injury here because Kennedy is a 2024 presidential candidate,” wrote Doughty. “For example, if, hypothetically, the FBI saw a piece of information related to the 2024 presidential election posted by the Kennedy campaign on social media that it deemed to be ‘misinformation,’ then it reached out to CISA, who worked closely with the EIP, who then removed the posts, Kennedy would be censored by the action of one Government Defendant in response to another.”

“Doughty granted Kennedy an injunction in February blocking multiple federal agencies from coercing or significantly encouraging platforms to suppress protected speech, which he put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling. In response to the government’s appeal, the Fifth Circuit in July sent the case back to the district court to rule on the plaintiffs’ standing.” -Daily Caller. According to New Civil Liberties Alliance litigation counsel Jenin Younes, “It is gratifying that Judge Doughty found RFK, Jr. and Children’s Health Defense have standing, even under the draconian requirements the Supreme Court developed in Murthy,” adding “We are assessing next steps for the Murthy plaintiffs in light of Judge Doughty’s opinion, which will also assist us in crafting discovery requests to ensure we can demonstrate standing going forward.”

He did it a few hours ago.

• Tucker Carlson, Trump Jr. Pushed Kennedy to Endorse Donald Trump (Sp.)

Independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was pushed to support Republican nominee Donald Trump by people including journalist Tucker Carlson and the former president’s son Donald Trump Jr., NBC News reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter. Kennedy has not yet endorsed Trump, although he is scheduled to address the nation about his “path forward” on Friday, after running mate Nicole Shanahan said the campaign is considering dropping out and supporting Trump. Carlson, Trump Jr., and business executive Omeed Malik have been privately working to persuade Kennedy to end his campaign and endorse Trump instead, the report said on Wednesday. Kennedy is set to announce the suspension of his campaign on Friday and back Trump, the report said. However, talks are still ongoing, the report added.Kennedy endorsing Trump would not come as a surprise to Democrats, Harris campaign communications chief Michael Tyler told Sputnik on Thursday.

RFK

America is lucky it’s not in a civil war right now, yet we are in a kind of cold civil war. What is this experiment we call America? Let us look back and remember who we are, and how our greatest leaders—like Abraham Lincoln—comported themselves in the face of civil war. We must… pic.twitter.com/KiaHXYpPph

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 21, 2024

Note that none of Ukraine’s backers speaks out.

• Ukraine Tried To Attack Russian Nuclear Plant – Putin (RT)

Ukrainian forces have attempted to strike Russia’s Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), President Vladimir Putin has said during a cabinet meeting. Kiev sent thousands of troops into Russia’s Kursk Region earlier this month, attempting to reach the town of Kurchatov, where the nuclear facility is located. Moscow has declared the incursion an act of terrorism and has deployed additional troops to repel the invaders. “Last night, the enemy attempted to strike the atomic power plant,” Putin said at a cabinet meeting on Thursday afternoon. “The International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] has been informed. They promised to come themselves and send specialists to assess the situation. I hope they actually do so.” The IAEA already has observers working at the Zaporozhye NPP, Europe’s largest such facility. The mission was deployed in the summer of 2023, as Ukrainian troops attempted to seize the plant.

Earlier this month, a Ukrainian drone attack set one of the cooling towers at the plant on fire. Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev has discussed the situation at both power plants with IAEA director Rafael Grossi, and invited him to visit Kursk to personally assess the situation, according to the Russian media. Grossi has accepted the invitation and is planning to visit Kursk next week, an IAEA spokesman told AFP. Afterwards, he will visit Kiev and speak with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. According to Grossi, the IAEA is very concerned about any combat operations near the Kursk NPP, since it operates the same kind of reactors as the infamous Chernobyl NPP.

“They don’t have a protective dome around them, just the normal roof, which means that the reactor’s core is pretty exposed,” Grossi said. The presence of troops within artillery range “is a source of enormous concern to me and the agency,” he added, without specifying which forces he meant. Moscow has repeatedly criticized the international agency for never identifying the perpetrator of the attacks on nuclear facilities, even though the IAEA staff has known perfectly well that Kiev is to blame. Last week, Russian military journalist Marat Khairullin reported that Ukraine was preparing a “dirty bomb” for a false flag attack on either the Kursk or Zaporozhye NPP. Moscow said it was taking the report seriously and warned that any such attack would be met immediately with “tough military and military-technical countermeasures.”

“..when he claimed that the Nord Stream gas pipelines were a “legitimate target” for Ukraine..”

• Czech President Sounds Like An International Terrorist – Moscow (RT)

Czech President Petr Pavel sounded like an international terrorist when he claimed that the Nord Stream gas pipelines were a “legitimate target” for Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Pavel made the remarks in response to an article in the Wall Street Journal, which reported last week that Kiev had carried out the September 2022 sabotage that ruptured the key infrastructure built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Western Europe. Speaking to the Novinky.cz news outlet on Wednesday, the Czech president argued that if the Nord Stream attack “was aimed at cutting off gas and oil supplies to Europe and [the flow of] money back to Russia, then… it would be a legitimate target [for Ukraine].” Pavel stressed, however, that he does not have “clear incriminating” proof that Kiev was behind the sabotage.

Responding to Pavel’s remarks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova wrote in a Telegram post on Wednesday that they were “too much, even for such an eccentric fringe [figure].” “Previously, such ‘ideas’ were only voiced by representatives of banned international terrorist cells,” she added. As an example, Zakharova shared calls by senior figures in Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and Al-Qaeda for their supporters to target the US, which according to the Russian diplomat are similar in nature to the remarks by the Czech president. Sources claimed to the Wall Street Journal that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky had initially approved the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, but later tried to call it off under pressure from the CIA. However, the then-Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, allegedly allowed the operation to continue.

The article by the US outlet was published on the same day that Germany issued its first arrest warrant over the Nord Stream blasts. A suspect, believed to be a Ukrainian diving instructor, was identified as ‘Vladimir Z,’ according to media reports. Kiev has denied any role in the Nord Stream sabotage, insisting that Russia blew up its own infrastructure. Moscow has dismissed the allegation as “ridiculous.” Senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have previously pointed the finger at the US as the possible culprit behind the Nord Stream explosions. They have argued that Washington had the technical means to carry out the operation and stood to gain the most, considering that the attack disrupted Russian energy supplies to the EU and forced a shift to more expensive US-supplied liquefied natural gas.

“..the Ukrainian military “accompanied” Walsh and had reviewed the videos his crew filmed prior to their release “for operational security reasons.”

• Moscow Charges CNN Journalist With Illegal Border Crossing (RT)

Russian authorities have charged CNN chief international security correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, who had been reporting from the Ukrainian-held town of Sudzha, with illegally crossing the state border. Similar charges have been brought against two journalists working for the Italian broadcaster RAI as well as two Ukrainian reporters. Kiev’s forces overran Sudzha, which had a pre-conflict population of 5,000, during their incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region, which began on August 6. Although many residents have fled the area, some civilians remain. Walsh was part of the team of Western reporters who arrived in Sudzha at the invitation of the Ukrainian government. They traveled in an armored convoy with Ukrainian soldiers, filmed damaged buildings in the center of the community and spoke to remaining civilians, some of whom were taking refuge in a shelter.

According to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the Ukrainian military “accompanied” Walsh and had reviewed the videos his crew filmed prior to their release “for operational security reasons.” The Ukrainians “had no editorial control” over CNN’s reporting, however, he added. CNN rejected Moscow’s accusations, insisting that the channel “has delivered factual, impartial reporting covering both the Ukrainian and Russian perspectives on the war.” It said that Walsh had acted “in accordance with the rights afforded to journalists under the Geneva Convention and international law.”

Moscow has accused the Western reporters of providing “propaganda” on behalf of Ukraine. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova argued this week that foreign journalists embedded with the Ukrainian troops were staying silent on “Kiev’s crimes against civilians” and “manipulating public opinion.” According to Russian officials, at least 31 civilians were killed during Ukraine’s attack on the Kursk Region and 143 were wounded. Since 2022, the EU has banned several Russian news organizations, including RT, citing “systematic information manipulation” in connection to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Moscow has responded by banning dozens of Western news outlets.

“The more serious issue is that Germany is really losing its position as an economic giant, as an economic superpower..”

• Nord Stream Ecocide & Fall of Germany ‘Engineered by Western Powers’ (Miles)

The United States must answer some day for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline and the resultant collapse of its German ally’s economy, says analyst George Szamuely. The senior research fellow at London’s Global Policy Institute joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program this week to discuss the controversial incident, which some experts claim represented “the largest single methane gas” release ever recorded. “It’s always remarkable that the most belligerent actors in any drama are the ones who are the furthest away from the action,” said Szamuely, responding to reports that the UK has taken a leading role in providing drones and other equipment for Ukraine’s proxy war against Russia. “The British have been consistently the most belligerent on Ukraine. “If the stakes are so high, why don’t you get involved directly yourself?” the analyst wondered. “Why are you allowing Ukraine to do all the heavy lifting? …

They [the United States] have been consistent in thwarting any possibility of any kind of negotiated outcome, any temporary ceasefires, temporary resolutions. And without doubt they are involved, and they have been involved in this incursion into Kursk. “There is no way in the world it can be done, an invasion, without very accurate satellite intelligence. You can’t do it. You can’t just simply launch an invasion without knowing the terrain, the exact disposal of Russian forces. So clearly this was engineered by the Western powers, the British obviously – the British are now boasting about it – but above all, the Americans.” German authorities claimed they had found a new lead in the case of 2022’s Nord Stream pipeline explosion last week, pinning the blame on a small group led by a Ukrainian diving instructor. The whereabouts of the new suspect are conveniently unknown, the officials claimed.

Germany’s economic growth has cratered in the wake of the country’s loss of cheap Russian natural gas, with the European Commission estimating the country’s GDP will only expand by .1% this year. Polling has shown most Germans remain concerned over the lack of clarity over the pipeline’s explosion, which has widely been alleged by journalist Seymour Hersh and others to have been engineered by the United States. “The more serious issue is that Germany is really losing its position as an economic giant, as an economic superpower,” said Szamuely. “It’s now steadily going from one quarter after another into recession. But even more seriously, the German industries are being sidelined. They’re moving out of Europe and they’re being priced out of markets because there’s just simply the energy costs. They’re now really going through the roof.”

“It has been cheap Russian energy that has powered this German economic miracle,” he noted. “So it doesn’t have it anymore. Germany is ceasing to be competitive and that’s why Germany is now invariably in a recession.” Host Garland Nixon agreed that the situation is “very dangerous,” speculating that the US and its allies are likely escalating their involvement in the Ukraine proxy war to attempt to negate the threat of a newly-reelected President Donald Trump seeking to end the conflict. Szamuely suggested that Republican allies such as notorious neoconservative Lindsay Graham would likely move to impeach Trump in such an event.

“It’s ironic because they talk about media manipulation, they talk about false narratives, they talk about misinformation and so on and so forth… It’s not that they are scared of misinformation, it’s that they’re scared of the truth.”

• FBI Promises Continued Crackdown on US Journalists, Dissidents (SP.)

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly plans to continue its “crackdown” on journalists and other dissidents connected to foreign news organizations, with criminal charges under consideration. The agency’s plans were revealed by anonymous officials cited Wednesday in The New York Times. “This month, F.B.I. agents searched the homes of two prominent figures with connections to Russian state media: Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector and critic of American foreign policy, and Dimitri K. Simes, an adviser to former President Donald J. Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016,” the controversial newspaper reported. “More searches are expected soon, some of the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss investigations. Criminal charges are also possible, they said.” Electronic equipment was reportedly seized from Ritter, while Simes claimed agents removed artwork from his home in Virginia and froze multiple bank accounts. Both men are American citizens.

Attorney and independent journalist John Jackman joined Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program Thursday to discuss the development. “The reach of the deep state – the FBI, CIA – they’re looking at all of us right now,” said Jackman. “They’re really looking to just chill free speech. That’s really what it is at the core of all of this.” “And they’re using all of these different legal justifications – FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act – to justify coming after a dissident,” he claimed. “That’s really what it is.” Originally passed in 1938, the Foreign Agents Registration Act was initially conceived as a response to Nazi propaganda during the runup to World War II. The law was revised during the Cold War era to target people engaging in alleged political lobbying, but a handful of prosecutions under the act before 2015 resulted in no criminal convictions. FARA has been enforced more frequently in recent years, however, chiefly against figures associated with Trump.

“The First Amendment should be being screamed from the rafters by the ACLU,” said host Steve Gill in response to the apparent acts of political intimidation. “Why aren’t they defending Scott Ritter? You know, when you’ve got the Democrats having their convention, why aren’t they screaming, in addition to democracy, First Amendment?” “These are politically motivated at the end of the day,” agreed Jackman. “It’s just really what they are. And, they can give all of these different excuses for why they’re targeting certain individuals, but it’s facially obvious.” “We’re heading to another election cycle here in just a couple of months. And so we’re going to start hearing ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.’ Russia is going to be in the paintings, they’re in the walls. They’re everywhere.” “What you’re seeing is not people who are actually, in most cases, even in direct coordination with any legitimate institutions that are based in Russia,” he added. “But it’s people who, on their own accord, are speaking what they feel is the truth, right? … It’s because they’re looking at the world, they’re determining that our media is lying to us at every turn.

Our government, especially on issues of foreign policy, has lied to us repeatedly, the Ukraine war [and] the conflicts between Israel and Palestine being some of the latest examples.” Ritter has been paid small amounts of money for contributing articles to the website for the Russian television network RT, according to the former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, with Ritter retaining ultimate control over the content of his writing. The former UN weapons inspector’s career suffered after he prominently rejected US officials’ claims of alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction during the runup to the United States’ catastrophic war on the Middle Eastern country in the early 2000s. Ritter has offered his analysis to Russian radio and television programs along with other prominent dissidents such as John Kiriakou, a former CIA intelligence officer who was sentenced to prison after revealing the agency’s secret torture program.

“There’s some conflation; I think they’re starting with Russia because if that works then they can move on to, you know, sort of the Martin Niemöller [dynamic],” said host Ted Rall, referring to the German pastor’s famous poem. “First they came for RT, then they came for etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.” “We’re in an environment, in a geopolitical environment that we haven’t been in in a long time,” Jackman observed. “This really does remind me quite a bit of McCarthyism, but I think that this might even be a level beyond that. Because today we’re in a situation where the fundamental dynamics of the elites, the ruling class in this country, are shifting in such a way that their reality is kind of being pulled out from underneath them.” “It’s ironic because they talk about media manipulation, they talk about false narratives, they talk about misinformation and so on and so forth… It’s not that they are scared of misinformation, it’s that they’re scared of the truth.”

Dog walking
https://twitter.com/i/status/1826339502320951512

Donkey

This donkey is reunited with the girl who raised it
pic.twitter.com/6UTmz8Sn1Y

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) August 21, 2024

Test

Test haha pic.twitter.com/9d1yUifC7R

— Enez Özen (@Enezator) August 22, 2024

Octo shark

Octopus meets a Swell shark
pic.twitter.com/k8xIsQcqwD

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) August 22, 2024

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Debt Rattle July 24 2024

Jul 242024

July 24, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:20 am Finance Tagged with: 25th Amendment, Blinken, Cheatle, Engoron, Gaza, Harris, Hungary, impeach, Kamala, Secret Service, Trump 74 Responses »

Salvador Dali Spain 1936-38

• Blinken Dubiously Hails Harris As A ‘Leading Voice’ Of US Foreign Policy (ZH)

• Harris Starts Race Down 9 Points, Even Worse Than Biden (ZH)

• US Lawmaker Seeks to Impeach Harris Over Handling of Border Crisis (Sp.)

• Harris Would Purge Biden’s Team – WSJ (RT)

• Kamala Harris Lost 92% Of Her Staff In 3 Years – Watchdog (RT)

• “He’s Alive!!” (Quoth the Raven)

• Democratic Bigwigs Threatened Biden With 25th Amendment

• Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle Resigns (ZH)

• The Party Of ‘Democracy” Will Now Choose Your Candidate For You (McMaken)

• Trump Asks Appeals Court to Overturn $454 Million Civil Fraud Judgment (ET)

• UK Military Problems ‘Much Worse Than Thought’ – Defense Secretary (RT)

• Almost Half of EU Members Wanted to Hold Top Diplomats Meeting in Hungary (Sp.)

• Hungary Issues €6.5bn Ultimatum To Ukraine (RT)

• EU May Not Be Right Fit For Hungary – Finnish FM (RT)

• Israel Has Reduced Water Access in Gaza by 94% Since October (Zhang)

Colbert Trump

He thanked Trump for running for President in the beginning! pic.twitter.com/ZmRi1rq3tl

— Johnny Midnight ⚡️ (@its_The_Dr) July 23, 2024

Student visas

Kamala Harris may not be eligible to be President because her parents were in the USA on student visas (one expired!) when she was born, according to legal scholar Dr. John Eastman. pic.twitter.com/YlGZZsHUWO

— The Absolute Truth with @EmeraldRobinson (@AbsoluteWithE) July 23, 2024

She’s going to dump little Blinkie…

• Blinken Dubiously Hails Harris As A ‘Leading Voice’ Of US Foreign Policy (ZH)

At a moment President Biden hasn’t been seen by anyone – or even photographed – in about a week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday is seeking to assure the public that the president will remain “intensely focused” on work that remains in the next since months, chiefly foreign policy issues. Blinken cited Biden’s work on “bringing peace to the Middle East and dealing with Russia’s ongoing aggression” – though we can imagine the reality is that admin officials and a teams of staffers, and not Biden himself, will be handling these things. The other dubious statement from Blinken concerned Vice President Harris’ supposed foreign policy credentials…

“Blinken, speaking to reporters, said Vice President Kamala Harris has been a leading voice for U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy, adding that she was a very strong, effective and deeply respected voice for the United States around the world,” as cited in Reuters. This begs the question: is she a “deeply respected voice” around the world? A clip of Harris previously weighing in on the Ukraine crisis from 2022 has resurfaced and is going viral. We should look no further than this…

https://twitter.com/i/status/1815166419731972451

Is this something that Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping respects? Or are they laughing? Blinken on Tuesday continued to claim that somehow she’s a foreign policy heavyweight. “I’ve seen her not only around the world, but I’ve seen her on the most critical foreign policy questions of our time, in the Situation Room at the White House, at the Oval Office with the president,” he told a press briefing. And now the endorsements are rolling in from Democratic national security insiders, per The Washington Post: Some of the most senior foreign policy leaders in the Democratic Party endorsed Vice President Harris’s bid for president on Tuesday, declaring in an open letter that she has more international experience than most recent incoming presidents and expressing confidence that she is the “best qualified person” to lead the country.

The more than 350 signatories to the letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post, add to voices within the Democratic Party seeking to cement Harris’s role as nominee following President Biden’s withdrawal from his reelection bid on Sunday. They include former national security advisers Susan Rice and Thomas E. Donilon; former secretaries of state John F. Kerry and Hillary Clinton; former secretaries of defense Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta; and former top intelligence officials Michael Hayden and James Clapper. Let the Democratic deep state’s crowning begin. But Trump actually previously summed up her experience and ‘statesmanship’ more accurately in the following clip. But we are being told she is going to “stand up to dictators” and command respect around the world. Perhaps more accurately she would serve as a useful puppet for the Washington foreign policy blob, in continuation of the same ole interventionist and neocon policies which have marked the past couple decades, much like Biden.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1808504862386049227

There are already polls that cast her as the winner…

• Harris Starts Race Down 9 Points, Even Worse Than Biden (ZH)

Democrats’ enjoyment of the Kamala Harris campaign’s “new car smell” may prove short-lived, as a brand new poll shows the vice president trailing former President Trump by a whopping 11 points among likely voters — matching up even worse than President Biden, who trailed by 10. The Forbes/HarrisX survey was conducted July 19-21 — that’s after the Republican convention but before Biden was forced to withdraw from the race. “Kamala Harris starts her 2024 battle behind Trump, who is enjoying a strong post-convention bump,” said HarrisX chief pollster Dritan Nesho. “If the polls don’t start to close and show better traction for her, Biden’s decision to step aside for Harris may be a case of ‘too similar, too late.’ That said, Vice President Harris alleviates concerns among the democratic base and is better able to sway undecided independents and suburban women, showing some promise.”

In an ominous note for the Harris campaign, aside from her worse margin against Trump, in her head-to-head matchup, fewer voters were undecided than they were in a Biden-Trump scenario. Among likely voters, Trump led Biden 49%-39% with 12% undecided. However, versus Harris, Trump led 51%-40%, with 9% undecided. “Democrats are jumping out of the frying pan into the fire,” Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller told Fox News. “They may have gotten rid of one problem with Joe Biden, but they’ve inherited a whole new problem with Kamala Harris.” Continuing a well-established trend, Harris’s job-approval rating is as bad as Biden’s: both scored a dismal 38% approval. She did a little better than Biden among younger voters, with 42% of those between age 18 and 34 approving of her performance, compared to 36% for Biden. So far, there are few single-state polls gauging a Trump-Harris contest, and none that were taken since she became the presumptive nominee.

While the numbers are bound to change after Americans are subjected to a Harris-friendly media blitz, they still give some insight into where she’s starting from: An Atlanta-Journal Constitution poll has Trump winning Georgia by 4.6% over Harris, compared to 3.5% over Biden. In a result that shows Democrats clearly on the defensive on the 2024 chessboard, a New Hampshire Journal poll has Trump up 0.9% in Granite State — where the GOP hasn’t won in 24 years. In a glimmer of hope for Democrats, Harris is doing better than Biden in Pennsylvania, but still trails Trump in the pivotal state by 2%. Conversely, Harris is polling worse than Biden in Nevada, losing to Trump by 10%. The results are sure to grind the gears of the many Democratic mega-donors who favored a “mini-primary” to select Biden’s replacement atop the 2024 ticket, rather than simply coronating Harris, a demonstrably terrible candidate who didn’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses in 2020.

“Her breathtaking incompetence as Border Czar has allowed a crisis of drugs, rape, and murder to flood the streets of America,” the Daily Caller reported..”

• US Lawmaker Seeks to Impeach Harris Over Handling of Border Crisis (Sp.)

US Congressman Andy Ogles introduced articles of impeachment against US Vice President Kamala Harris for her handling of the border crisis and her role in covering up President Joe Biden’s lack of fitness to serve. “Time and again, Kamala Harris has refused to uphold her oath to the US Constitution, and she must be impeached. Her breathtaking incompetence as Border Czar has allowed a crisis of drugs, rape, and murder to flood the streets of America,” the Daily Caller reported Ogles as saying. Moreover, Harris breached the public’s trust by failing to invoke the 25th Amendment after it became clear that Biden was mentally and physically unfit to serve as president, Ogles reportedly said. The resolution calls to impeach Harris for high crimes and misdemeanors.

US Congresswoman Elise Stefanik also introduced a resolution on Tuesday to condemn Harris’ handling of the border crisis. “House Republicans will vote on my resolution to condemn Kamala Harris’ failure as Joe Biden’s border czar. Kamala Harris’ failed leadership led to the most catastrophic open border crisis in history,” Stefanik said in a statement. Stefanik’s resolution condemns Harris’ failure to secure the United States’ borders, affirms the American people deserve elected officials who will execute policies to fix the border crisis and states that the continuation of the Biden administration’s border policies would be disastrous for the United States.

“..national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wouldn’t likely be extended in their current roles..”

• Harris Would Purge Biden’s Team – WSJ (RT)

Kamala Harris is unlikely to keep the current crop of national security officials, should she win the US presidential election in November, according to sources quoted by the Wall Street Journal. President Joe Biden dropped out of the re-election race on Sunday, endorsing his vice-president for the top of the ticket. While the Democrats still need to officially confirm Harris as their nominee, media speculation about her presidency is already rampant. “Key Biden appointees, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wouldn’t likely be extended in their current roles,” the Journal claimed late on Monday, citing anonymous current and former US officials. While Harris “hasn’t had an opportunity to define her own brand of foreign policy,” the Journal claimed that she “might ultimately align herself more closely with the progressive elements” of the Democrats and put some conditions on US support for Israel.

The Journal described Harris as the current administration’s “most ardent senior-level advocate of securing a cease-fire in Gaza,” citing a passage from her speech in Selma, Alabama in March when she criticized the “inhumane conditions” in the Palestinian enclave. Arab American Institute founder Jim Zogby told the outlet that he spoke with Harris by phone last October and believed that she has shown “far greater empathy” for Palestinians than Biden or the rest of the White House. According to NBC News, Harris is “widely expected to continue” Biden’s foreign policy if elected, but “appears more willing to publicly criticize” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “express empathy for the plight of Palestinian civilians” in Gaza. Having Harris run might help the Democrats with Arab-Americans, younger voters and progressives, an anonymous source told NBC, as she is not associated with Biden’s support for Israel. Biden picked Harris as his running mate in August 2020, reportedly as part of a deal to secure the nomination. She had dropped out of the race for nomination herself in late 2019, before the primaries even started.

Blinken was Biden’s long-time foreign policy and national security adviser before his current appointment as head of the State Department. Sullivan spent three years advising Biden during the administration of Barack Obama, before joining Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Austin reportedly struck up a friendship with Biden’s son Beau, who had served in Iraq as his staff officer in 2008-2009, and later briefed Biden as the head of US Central Command. A “central role” in a Harris administration would be played by Philip Gordon, who is currently her national security adviser, the Journal said. He is a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations, who worked at both the National Security Council and the State Department, notably as Victoria Nuland’s predecessor at European and Eurasian Affairs. He has also been a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior adviser at Albright Stonebridge Group.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1815780103969808868

“..she could be far less competent” than Biden, “which is hard to believe.”

• Kamala Harris Lost 92% Of Her Staff In 3 Years – Watchdog (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris has a staggering staff turnover rate of 91.5%, transparency watchdog OpenTheBooks reported on Monday, citing disclosures from the Senate. The revelation came days after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris as his replacement. An NGO that monitors government spending, OpenTheBooks has analyzed the list of titles and names of the staffers at the Office of the Vice President that was lifted from the semi-annual report of the Secretary of the Senate. “As of March 31, 2024, only four of the initial 47 staffers from the first year are still employed – consistently and without interruption – by the vice president,” the group said.

The turnover rate for Biden’s staffers is 77%, as only 127 of his initial 560 White House employees have remained in their position since 2021, OpenTheBooks said. Harris’ problems with retaining staff have been reported in the past, with The Hill describing her team as a “revolving door.” The political news website said in the summer of 2022 that more than 13 “high-profile aides” had left the vice president in less than a year. Axios has cited “burnout, better opportunities and concern about being permanently branded a ‘Harris person’” as some of the reasons behind the high turnover rate at the vice president’s office.

Biden announced that he was leaving the race on Sunday, after weeks of growing concerns among Democrats and their supporters over his declining health and the ability to defeat former President Donal Trump in November. Although Biden and multiple prominent Democrats have backed Harris as the party’s candidate for the presidency, the nominee will be officially decided at a convention next month. During her first campaign rally on Tuesday, Harris accused Trump of wanting to “take our country backward,” and spreading “chaos, fear and hate.” Trump, in turn, has accused Harris of failing to tackle the illegal immigration crisis at the US border with Mexico, suggesting that “she could be far less competent” than Biden, “which is hard to believe.”

“We’ve gone from Biden saying he won’t run again to Kamala Harris securing his delegates, fundraising cash and the backing of the entire party in less than 72 hours. Why can’t government display this shocking level of efficiency all the time?”

• “He’s Alive!!” (Quoth the Raven)

After six days of darkness, the leader of the free world has made a physical appearance, exiting a vehicle, mumbling incoherently at reporters, and carefully ascending the stairs of the smaller AF1… “He’s Alive!!” Unless this is a ‘cheap fake’? We’ll wait to hear from KJP for confirmation. [..] Before I even start with my analysis, I want to make the point that I hope President Biden is doing fine and on the path to recovery from Covid, as his doctor claimed in a letter (I’ll discuss below) that he was. I hope we can take the administration at their word, but I also think it’s helpful to not ignore mounting critical questions for our country. I don’t want to start the morning off with hyperbole or sensationalism, honestly, but rather with what, in my opinon, has developed as a legitimate question over the last 24 to 48 hours: is the current President of the United States still alive and/or fit to lead?

Ever since dropping out of the presidential race on Sunday via a letter with a signature that has been in question and conspicuously lacking the seal of the White House or President of the United States, President Joe Biden has failed to turn up anywhere in person. The swift decision to drop out of the race, combined with the announcement last week that Biden tested positive for Covid and would “self-isolate” —which incidentally came out after Biden said he would consider dropping out if it were due to a ‘medical condition’—combined with endless unproven rumors swirling on social media about a medical emergency, have left people no choice but to sadly consider a worst-case scenario. Since Biden was last spotted on July 17 exiting Air Force One, he hasn’t been seen publicly, though reports have put him at his home “recovering” in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

As questions about Biden’s health began to swirl more and more over the last 48 hours, Biden‘s doctor released a note supposedly claiming Biden is on the path to recovery from Covid and had been administered Paxlovid. He wrote: “President Biden completed his eighth dose of Paxlovid [an antiviral COVID-19 medication] this morning,” O’Connor wrote. “His symptoms have improved significantly. His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature remain absolutely normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. His lungs remain clear. “The President continues to tolerate treatment without any difficulty and will continue Paxlovid as planned. He continues to perform all of his presidential duties.” There was one little peccadillo I found interesting enough about this letter that I wanted to point out.

Maybe it is overanalyzing and reading too much into things, but as an English major who sat through hundreds of hours of linguistics courses, I can’t help but notice things sometimes. The use of the word “absolutely” before “normal” in the above paragraph is a filler word. It’s unnecessary. It doesn’t add anything to the point that the sentence is trying to make, namely that Biden’s temperature is normal. I have found that in some cases people add filler words when they’re trying to be overly convincing. I’m not saying this is the case in this instance, but every single news anchor who gave Donald Trump shit for constantly using the words “tremendous,” “strong,” “powerful,” and “big league” should tap back into that instinct, read this letter from Biden’s doctor, and let me know if I’m onto something or not.

Then we had Biden calling into a Kamala Harris campaign event yesterday. His scratchy voice boomed from the sky while a staffer hurriedly affixed a Presidential seal to the podium, as if he were there in person. Bizarre. During the same endorsement, Kamala Harris appeared to almost admit Biden was on a recording (as opposed to being on the phone live). Also bizarre is that the whole power structure of the Democratic Party and the 2024 campaign has shape-shifted without the presence of the current President of the United States in about three days. We’ve gone from Biden saying he won’t run again to Kamala Harris securing his delegates, fundraising cash and the backing of the entire party in less than 72 hours. Why can’t government display this shocking level of efficiency all the time?

“That debate was a set-up(!) to convince Democrats that he (Biden) couldn’t run for president..”

“..party members “will be strongly encouraged” to instead support Arizona senator and former astronaut, Mark Kelly, for president at the DNC in Chicago..”

• Democratic Bigwigs Threatened Biden With 25th Amendment

Joe Biden had to withdraw from the US presidential race late last week after threats by high-ranking Democrats to forcibly remove him from office – the New York Post (NYP) reports, citing unnamed sources. The well-orchestrated “palace coup” has been in place for weeks, with Biden fighting it “every step of the way,” the sources claimed, referring to “anger, paranoia and frustration” allegedly shown by the 46th US president, as the party elite piled pressure on him. The top Democrats had threatened to invoke the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution to stop Biden from seeking re-election, the insiders argued, recalling that the document authorizes the vice president, and members of the Biden administration, to declare the president unfit for service. According to the insiders, part of the “elaborate” strategy to remove Biden from the presidential race involved permitting him to debate Republican candidate and former US President Donald Trump last month.

“That debate was a set-up to convince Democrats that he (Biden) couldn’t run for president,” one source insisted. POTUS’ disastrous performance during the 90-minute event shocked many in his party, prompting them to urge the 81-year-old to withdraw from the race. In the wake of the debate, POTUS’ son, Hunter Biden, suddenly became more involved in his father’s day-to-day business, insisting on attending every official and unofficial meeting, per the insiders. With Biden already endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, the party members “will be strongly encouraged” to instead support Arizona senator and former astronaut, Mark Kelly, for president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago slated for August, the sources added.

Failed murder. Loose ends everywhere.

• Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle Resigns (ZH)

US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned, one day after a contentious session with House lawmakers over security failures that facilitated the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on July 13, both NBC and ABC News report. Her resignation comes after a bipartisan grilling on Monday, with numerous Republicans and at least one Democrat lawmaker demanding she resign, as her agency fell short of its “zero-fail mission.” Cheatle’s testimony came after a Sunday night announcement from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that the DOJ was forming an independent review panel charged with examining the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Of course, Mayorkas and Biden are ‘grateful’ to Cheatle for her ‘decades of public service,’ which was great aside from that whole almost getting Trump killed thing.

In one notably heated exchange on Monday, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told Cheatle that she was ‘full of shit today,’ after Cheatle continued to give vague, or no, answers to pointed questions. We also learned yesterday that the Secret Service has no recordings of radio communications from the 13th. She also admitted to using encrypted apps on her personal phone to conduct official business. During one exchange with California Democrat Ro Khana, Cheatle didn’t realize that a former Secret Service Director in charge during the Reagan assassination attempt stepped down. The unusual Sunday night announcement from Mayorkas came about 12 hours before Cheatle’s 10 am Monday appearance before the House Oversight Committee, which Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has touted as “must-watch TV,” telling CNN, “She’s got a lot to answer for. And those concerns are bipartisan.” Underscoring that notion, Oversight Committee member and Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle has already demanded that Cheatle resign, via a statement released Saturday.

That panel has been given 45 days to perform its review. While new experts may be added shortly, it initially has four members:
• Obama Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
• Fran Townsend, a homeland security advisor to President George W. Bush
• Mark Filip, who was deputy attorney general to George W. Bush
• David Mitchell, former Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security for the State of Delaware

Damning information about the Secret Service’s handling of Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania continues to emerge. On Saturday, the agency was caught in a lie: Having repeatedly denied that Trump’s campaign was denied additional security resources it had requested, the agency was exposed as having done just that, via a report from the Washington Post. On Friday, the world learned that would-be assassin Thomas Crooks was able to fly a drone over the event site just a few hours before he opened fire. The Secret Service typically bans drone flights at secured sites; but it’s unclear if such a prohibition was at least nominally imposed at the rally.

Crooks was identified as a suspicious individual more than an hour before he opened fire from a rooftop only about 450 feet from Trump’s podium. At the time, he’d already been observed in possession of a range finder and carrying a duffel bag. Later, he was spotted on a rooftop 20 minutes before all hell broke loose. As it did, female agents assigned to the DEI-focused protective detail appeared to falter under fire — even struggling with holstering a weapon. In the aftermath of the shooting, Cheatle’s credibility took a sharp downturn when, asked why no Secret Service agent was posted atop ideal sniper roost used by the shooter, she told ABC: “That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof.”

“..it’s not the GOP that’s claiming to be the guardian of the vox populi while conspiring to undermine that vox at every turn..”

• The Party Of ‘Democracy” Will Now Choose Your Candidate For You (McMaken)

On Sunday, July 21, President Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential campaign via a text-only post on Twitter/X. Less than an hour later, Biden – also via a text-only post on Twitter/X – endorsed vice president Kamala Harris for the presidency. Thus, in just a few minutes, the ruling party in Washington completely erased the primary election process from one of the country’s major parties.That is, the same Democratic party that tells us it is the party of “democracy” just completely cut ordinary voters out of the selection process for the Democratic nominee. Instead, the Democratic nominee in 2024 will be chosen by a small group of elite party insiders. We’re told there will be an “open convention” in Chicago to choose the nominee, but all that means is that that there is no pre-determined nominee going into the convention. In any case, however, the nominee will be chosen by delegates and superdelegates (i.e., wealthy party elites like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) behind closed doors.

The Democratic party’s efforts to circumvent the primary process are quite remarkable for a ruling coalition that lectured the general public endlessly in 2020 about how Donald Trump was allegedly a “threat to democracy” and how “democracy is on the ballot.” Yet, this is what we’ve come to expect from political elites who use the term “democracy” as a propaganda term. For these people, the term has no objective meaning, it just means “something we like.” “Anti-democratic,” in contrast, just means “something we don’t like.” Moreover, its use as a propaganda term can be seen in the way that “democracy” is used in the same way as “revolutionary” by Marxist regimes. In such cases “revolutionary” is code for “in favor of the ruling elites” and “something we like.” Similarly, the opposite of “democracy” in a Marxist regime is “counterrevolutionary” or “bourgeois.” Those terms were essentially code for “against the ruling party” and “thing we don’t like.”

Such terms have no actual content in the usual sense of a word. Thus, the term “democracy” simply means “good” and “not democratic” means “evil.” For example, President Joe Biden delivered two major speeches in 2022 on how “democracy” will supposedly be abolished if his opponents win. In November of that year, former president Barack Obama solemnly intoned that if Republicans win in Arizona, “democracy as we know it may not survive.” This is repeated among the party’s media allies. One writer at Salon chastised voters for daring to let their votes be influenced by economic concerns when “democracy is under threat.” One New York Times headline bemoaned the apparent reality that voters don’t seem interested in “saving democracy” when it’s supposedly all so clear that “democracy is in peril.” At no point in these jeremiads is it ever explained how a vote for the out-of-favor candidate will actually end elections or universal suffrage or any other event or institution associated with democracy.

In Biden’s September 2022 speech in Philadelphia, he went on for twenty minutes about an imagined threat to democracy, without ever actually defining what democracy is. One was reminded of Fidel Castro howling in his multi-hour speeches about the threat to “the revolution” from insidious imperialists and counterrevolutionaries—by which he meant anyone who opposed his regime. The term “revolutionary” had no connection to actual revolution in this context. It simply meant “something my regime likes.” Meanwhile, the elites have gone to great lengths to ensure that no actual democracy—in the technical or traditional sense—has taken place in the nomination process. The Democratic Party made it clear that it would not allow any presidential hopefuls to challenge Biden to a debate. Early Democratic challengers Congressman Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson were told to get lost.

The most significant challenger within the party, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was effectively expelled from the party in October 2023. He was forced to declare his candidacy as an independent candidate soon after. So, after denying Democratic voters the chance to vote on Kennedy or anyone else, the party has now also denied the voters the chance to vote on Harris or whoever else the party elites will decide is the nominee in 2024. I don’t mention any of this to burnish the reputation of the Republican Party, by the way. Those of us who remember the Ron Paul campaigns in 2008 and 2012 remember how the GOP conspired to torpedo his campaign, going so far as to change the convention rules, ex post facto, to deny Paul a prime-time speaking position and to disenfranchise his delegates. Yet, it’s not the GOP that’s claiming to be the guardian of the vox populi while conspiring to undermine that vox at every turn.

“..after Justice Engoron’s decision, it gives the state attorney general’s office “limitless power to target anyone,“ including ”political opponents..”

“..no company will want to come to New York to do business, and many businesses are fleeing,” his attorneys wrote. “The economic aspects of this decision are a disaster for New York.“

• Trump Asks Appeals Court to Overturn $454 Million Civil Fraud Judgment (ET)

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump on July 22 asked a New York appeals court to overturn the $454 million New York civil fraud judgment that was handed down earlier this year. In court papers filed with First Department of the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, the state’s mid-level court, his lawyers wrote that Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 16 finding, that claimed former President Trump made false statements to insurers, banks, and other entities about his wealth, was incorrect. “Based on the ruling in this case, no company will want to come to New York to do business, and many businesses are fleeing,” his attorneys wrote. “The economic aspects of this decision are a disaster for New York.“ The New York Attorney General’s office ”has used the statute in a way never seen before,” they added. The lawyers said “there were no victims and no losses,” adding that the former president’s business partners “raved internally about their business with him and were eager for more.”

In their appeal, they contended that the judge made an “erroneous” decision and, during the case, “struggled to understand basic banking concepts” before he handed down the fine. They further said that he erred in rejecting an earlier appeals court decision regarding the statute of limitations for the case, arguing that New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil lawsuit should have been dismissed. The former president’s team also contended that after Justice Engoron’s decision, it gives the state attorney general’s office “limitless power to target anyone,“ including ”political opponents,” according to the 116-page filing. “If Appellants’ conduct constituted ‘fraud’ […] then that word has no meaning, and [New York Attorney General’s] power to seize and destroy private businesses is boundless—and standardless,” the attorneys added.

Before the trial, Justice Engoron rejected many of the Trump attorneys’ objections as the case proceeded, at one point equating them to the plot of the movie “Groundhog Day” and fining some of the lawyers $7,500 each for “repetitive, frivolous” argument. The Appellate Division previously denied former President Trump’s bid to end the case on statute of limitations and other grounds. After the judge handed down the judgment, former President Trump posted a $175 million bond in April to halt its collection and prevent interest from accruing. The move also blocked Ms. James from seizing some of his assets in New York City while he appeals the matter. The Epoch Times contacted the New York Attorney General’s office for comment Tuesday. In a statement to multiple news outlets, Ms. James’ office said that the appeal filed Monday repeats some arguments that were already rejected. “We won this case based on the facts and the law, and we are confident we will prevail on appeal,” a spokesperson said.

Former President Trump, the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election in November, has maintained his innocence in the fraud case, saying he’s being unfairly targeted. Should former President Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, have to pay the entire judgment, it could imperil his cash reserves, although he might be able to recoup some of those losses due to his large stake in Trump Media, which owns his Truth Social platform. Earlier this year, he was ordered in a separate case to pay nearly $84 million in damages after a New York jury found that he defamed a writer, E. Jean Carroll. In May of this year, he was convicted by a Manhattan jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to payments made during the 2016 campaign. Sentencing for that case is scheduled for September.

The Manhattan case may be the only one of four cases against former President Trump that goes to trial before the November election. A federal judge in Florida last week dismissed federal charges involving his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, arguing that the special counsel appointed in that case, Jack Smith, was improperly appointed by the Department of Justice. Mr. Smith has vowed to appeal the judgment. Two other election-related cases brought against him in Washington and Georgia have been stalled, and it’s not clear when either will go to trial, if ever. The former president had pleaded not guilty to all charges in the four cases.

True across the board for NATO countries. Who still think that if you add up all these losing propositions, you end up with a winner.

• UK Military Problems ‘Much Worse Than Thought’ – Defense Secretary (RT)

The British Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force are all struggling with “hollowed out forces, procurement waste, [and] low morale,” British Defense Secretary John Healey has warned. In a grim assessment of the state of the UK military, Healy told the British Army’s annual Land Warfare Conference in London on Monday that the nation’s armed forces face “very serious challenges,” according to Sky News. “We now also see that these problems are much worse than we thought,” added the defense secretary, who has been in office for just over two weeks as part of the new Labour government. Healey also said he wants to establish “a new era for UK defense” in the face of “rapidly increasing global threats.” The new British government launched a thorough defense review earlier this month after Labour’s general election victory. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has insisted that Britain should be better prepared for “a more dangerous and volatile world.”

The government has set out a “roadmap” to spending 2.5% of national income on defense. Britain is a member of NATO, which requires that member states spend at least 2% of GDP on their militaries. The conference in London was also attended by the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, General Valery Zaluzhny, who delivered a speech claiming that a Third World War may be approaching as a result of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Zaluzhny was removed from his post as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces by Vladimir Zelensky in February following the failed 2023 counteroffensive. London has been a vocal supporter of Kiev since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. The British government has delivered almost £12.5 billion ($16.1 billion) in aid to Kiev as of the beginning of July.

Earlier this month, Starmer pledged to provide £3 billion ($3.87 billion) a year in military support to Ukraine until 2030/31 and “for as long as needed.” Zelensky visited London last week to meet with Starmer and attend a cabinet meeting. The British leader told Zelensky that London would speed up the delivery of aid to Kiev, claiming that “Ukraine is, and always will be, at the heart of this government’s agenda.” London and Kiev also signed a framework agreement which included a £2 billion ($2.6 billion) loan to finance Ukraine’s defense needs. The Russian diplomatic mission in London warned that further support for Kiev would only worsen the conflict and the situation on the ground in Ukraine.

Cracks in the unity?!

• Almost Half of EU Members Wanted to Hold Top Diplomats Meeting in Hungary (Sp.)

At this week’s EU Foreign Affairs Council, countries of the European Union were divided on the matter of where to hold the next gathering of the bloc’s foreign ministers, with almost half preferring Budapest instead of Brussels, which was picked by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Politico reported on Tuesday. On Monday, Borrell said that the next meeting of the foreign ministers would be held in Brussels, not Budapest, due to Hungary’s position on Ukraine. In total, 13 countries said that they preferred to meet in Budapest, while five others, especially states in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, said that they would boycott the gathering in the Hungarian capital, according to Politico. In the end, Borrell picked Brussels in a move that aims to “send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal,” to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the newspaper added.

The informal meeting of EU foreign ministers was initially scheduled to be held in Budapest in late August to mark the beginning of Hungary’s EU presidency. Earlier in July, Orban met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of his diplomatic efforts to open up lines of communication to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. He also met with US presidential candidate Donald Trump. Some EU leaders protested what they see as Orban’s misuse of the bloc’s rotating presidency.

“Ukraine stopped the flow of oil through the Druzhba pipeline last week..”

“Ukraine stopped receiving electricity from Slovakia and Romania as of midnight on Tuesday..”

• Hungary Issues €6.5bn Ultimatum To Ukraine (RT)

Budapest will block funds the European Union has earmarked for Ukraine until Kiev resumes the transit of Russian crude oil to Hungary and Slovakia, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. Ukraine stopped the flow of oil through the Druzhba pipeline last week, citing its sanctions against Russian energy giant Lukoil, thus depriving the two EU members of an estimated 30-40% of their needs. “As long as this issue is not resolved by Ukraine, everyone should forget about the payment of the €6.5 billion of the European Peace Facility compensation for arms transfers,” Szijjarto announced on Tuesday. “Ukraine’s decision to not allow Lukoil to transit oil supplies through Ukraine poses a fundamental threat to the security of energy supplies to Hungary and Slovakia,” Szijjarto said, describing Kiev’s move as “unacceptable and incomprehensible,” as well as incompatible with its aspirations to join the EU.

Szijjarto also reminded the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that Hungary – along with Slovakia and Poland – came to Ukraine’s aid in early July, sending enough electricity to stabilize Kiev’s energy system. Hungary supplied 42% of Ukraine’s electricity in June, Szijjarto noted. According to unconfirmed reports from Ukrainian local media, Ukraine stopped receiving electricity from Slovakia and Romania as of midnight on Tuesday. Kiev has had to resort to imports after Russian air and missile strikes disabled most of its domestic generation capabilities. Moscow has described the strikes as reprisal for Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure.

Poland has already protested Hungary’s move, saying that it would deprive Warsaw of €2 billion it needs to modernize its armed forces. “This is a huge disappointment for me,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said. Kiev’s official explanation for embargoing oil deliveries was that Lukoil revenue could be used to support the Russian military. One Ukrainian lawmaker, however, suggested to Politico that the blockade has a secondary purpose, to pressure Hungary into changing its policy on arming Kiev. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has long refused to send Ukraine any weapons, train any Ukrainian troops, or allow the use of Hungarian territory for EU or NATO arms shipments, insisting that Kiev should sue for peace with Moscow as soon as possible.

If only you could push it into the ocean…

• EU May Not Be Right Fit For Hungary – Finnish FM (RT)

The EU may not be the “right reference group” for Hungary, considering the apparent divergence in views between Budapest and the bloc, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen has suggested. She accused Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban of giving the impression that he was representing the EU during his recent visits to Russia and China to discuss the Ukraine conflict. Speaking after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, Valtonen stressed that Hungary – which currently holds the rotating EU presidency – is not entitled to represent the 27-nation bloc as its foreign policy views “do not correspond to the official line of the union.” “Of course, it is up to the individual country to do so,” Valtonen told the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper. “But at some point, it may be worth asking whether the European Union is the right reference group if the ideas differ so fundamentally from our common values.”

Budapest took over the rotating presidency of the EU Council at the start of July. The body defines the bloc’s overall political direction and priorities. Hungarian Prime Minister Orban then embarked on what he called a Ukraine “peace mission,” aiming to find a resolution to the conflict by holding talks with its “five main actors” – Ukraine, Russia, China, the EU, and the US. As part of the mission, he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, triggering the ire of EU leaders. Orban stressed he does not need a mandate from Brussels to promote peace and that his discussions cannot be considered official talks. The European Parliament last week condemned Orban’s visits, particularly to Moscow, describing them as “a blatant violation of the EU’s treaties and common foreign policy.” The EU has also been outraged by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s speeches to the UN Security Council, in which he has accused the bloc of pursuing a “pro-war policy” with its military and financial support for Ukraine.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has criticized Szijjarto by declaring that “the European Union is not at war,” and has called for a discussion on “what to do with Hungary’s presidency of the EU Council in the next few months.” In a rebuke of Orban’s solo diplomatic efforts on Ukraine, the EU’s next informal meeting of foreign and defense ministers will take place in Brussels instead of Budapest, Borrell said on Monday. He called the change of venue “a signal’ to Hungary. Moscow has said the EU’s criticism of Orban over his Ukraine peace initiative proves that Brussels has resolved to support Ukraine militarily, and that its pro-war policies will not change. Budapest is due to retain the EU presidency until January 1, 2025, when it will pass to Poland.

“..cut water access in Gaza to 6 percent of levels that were already insufficient for regular life..”

• Israel Has Reduced Water Access in Gaza by 94% Since October (Zhang)

Oxfam has warned that Israel’s longstanding policy of using water as a weapon against Palestinians has reached its peak amid Israel’s genocide, with water access for Palestinians in Gaza now at a small fraction of pre-genocide levels as Palestinians die of dehydration, starvation and disease. According to a report on Israel’s water deprivation policies by Oxfam, Israel has reduced water access in Gaza by a whopping 94 percent since October. This means Palestinians only have access to an average of roughly 4.7 liters of water per person per day, or only about 1.2 gallons a day. In the supposed “humanitarian safe zone” in al-Mawasi — which Israeli forces have attacked relentlessly — Palestinians only have access to an average of 2.5 liters per day, the report said. This paltry amount of water must be used for all purposes: drinking, cooking, bathing, laundry, and more. It is far less than the minimum of 15 liters needed per day in emergencies, as determined by UN officials.

This dramatic reduction in water access is the result of Israel’s sustained attacks on Gaza’s water infrastructure, Oxfam said. Israel has destroyed 100 percent of wastewater treatment plants in Gaza and has destroyed all water desalination plants and water sanitation warehouses in Gaza City, while destroying the vast majority of infrastructure in other parts of the Strip. The report found that Israel has damaged or destroyed five sanitation sites every three days just since October. This amounts to nearly 70 percent of water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza being compromised by Israel. “The Israeli military’s operations in Gaza have repeatedly committed violations of international humanitarian law depriving people of access to water, an indispensable resource for their survival, by damaging or destroying water infrastructure, contaminating water sources, and blocking supplies needed to enable water production,” the report says.

Meanwhile, delivering water in humanitarian convoys is nearly impossible due to Israel’s aid blockade, the report says. Maintaining what is left of sanitation infrastructure is its own challenge, as Israeli forces have targeted maintenance workers within Gaza as part of their attacks on all systems supporting life in Gaza. “My colleagues and I have been living through a nightmare these past nine months, but we still feel it’s our responsibility and duty to ensure everybody in Gaza is getting their minimum right of clean drinking water,” Monther Shoblak, general manager of Gaza’s water utility, said in a statement. “It’s been very difficult, but we are determined to keep trying – even when we witness our colleagues being targeted and killed by Israel while undertaking their work.

Israel’s current attacks on water access are part of its decades-long campaign to exercise control over basic needs in Gaza in order to kill Palestinians through deprivation. As a result of Israel’s deprivation campaign, water access was already subpar in Gaza before October. Though the World Health Organization recommends a daily quantity of 100 liters per day for regular activities, as of March 2023, Palestinians in Gaza had access to only about 83 liters per day, while those in the occupied West Bank had access to 89 liters a day. Israelis, including those who live in illegal settlements in the West Bank, have access to almost 250 liters a day, by comparison. This means that Israel, over the course of its nine months of genocide in Gaza, has cut water access in Gaza to 6 percent of levels that were already insufficient for regular life.

Orca great white

Apex Predator showdown: Orca vs Great White Shark pic.twitter.com/i7WVScfU5S

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) July 21, 2024

Log
https://twitter.com/i/status/1815659908815024506

Beethoven
https://twitter.com/i/status/1815679190546473075

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Debt Rattle June 22 2024

Jun 222024

June 22, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: amnesties, Engoron, freeze, national service, NATO war train, Orban, Steve Bannon, Trump 67 Responses »

Henri Matisse Reading woman in violet dress 1898

• Biden Haemorrhaging Voters In All Demographics (MN)

• Trump Points To ‘Cause’ Of Ukraine Conflict (RT)

• Trump Talks Ukraine, NATO And Hints At “The Next AI Trade” (ZH)

• Trump Seeks Recusal of NY Civil Fraud Judge Who Fined Him $454 Million (ET)

• Appeals Court Denies Steve Bannon’s Emergency Bid to Avoid Prison (ET)

• Biden Regime Amnesties 350,000 Illegal Aliens (Paul Craig Roberts)

• A Door Closes, A Window Opens (Kunstler)

• Simon Says Freeze (Manley)

• Putin’s Peace Initiative Is Russia’s Fourth Proposal On Ukraine – Lavrov (TASS)

• Kiev Talking To EU About Extraditing Ukrainian Citizens (RT)

• Medvedev Cites Facts Of Zelensky Usurping Power (TASS)

• Hungary ‘Won’t Ride NATO War Train’ – Orban (RT)

• Orban Says West’s Quest To Defeat Russia In Ukrainian Conflict Hopeless (TASS)

• British PM Threatens Teens With Sanctions For Refusing National Service (RT)

Nap Doctorow

Doctorow: Putin Saved the World ‼️ pic.twitter.com/Q4x6H39fu3

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) June 20, 2024

O’Leary
https://twitter.com/i/status/1804208288503890169

What does Marc Elias do in my Twitter feed?

Through delay, the Supreme Court has effectively conveyed immunity on Donald Trump. He has gotten what he wanted—to push off his federal criminal trial until after the election. pic.twitter.com/wDT7S28XHx

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) June 20, 2024

And how about Jim Acosta? Never seen those people before on this platform. Did they buy their way in?

Trump today isn't the candidate he was in 2016 or 2020.

Now a convicted felon and found liable for rape and financial fraud, Trump has made his plans for a second term clear: revenge.

We cannot allow a convicted felon motivated solely by self-interest back in the White House. pic.twitter.com/SkeOW4aZZo

— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) June 20, 2024

“The report also notes how Biden’s support among Black and Latino women is in free fall, calling it “especially striking.”

• Biden Haemorrhaging Voters In All Demographics (MN)

Analysis By The New York Times reveals that support for Joe Biden among women is at a 20 year low for any Democrat. The polling shows that Donald Trump has an eight-point lead over Biden among women. The turnaround is once again insane. Four years ago, Biden led Trump by 13 points among women. Now, Trump has gained 21 points. The figures were gleaned from the Times’s average of more than 30 polls conducted since January. The Times notes “Overall, twice as many women say they were better off financially under Mr. Trump.”It adds that “Young women, a key constituency that Democrats are hoping to retain this cycle, were nearly three times as likely to say things were better for them financially under Mr. Trump than Mr. Biden.” The report also notes how Biden’s support among Black and Latino women is in free fall, calling it “especially striking.”

“He is winning among Black women in the KFF survey by 58 percentage points, but that represents a significant drop from his 86 percentage point margin among Black women in the approach to the 2020 election, according to an average of New York Times/Siena College polls from that election,” the report notes. It adds that “Biden’s lead with Hispanic women has also shrunk substantially, to about 12 points.”As we previously highlighted, Biden’s loss of support among Black voters as they shift allegiance to Trump is historic. CNN data reporter Harry Enten expressed shock at just how much support Biden has lost among the demographic, noting “We’re careening towards a historic performance for a Republican presidential candidate, the likes of which we have not seen in six decades.”

Meanwhile yet another poll, this one from Quinnipiac, shows that Biden’s support among young voters is plummeting. “Biden is out of step with young people on a number of key issues,” Aidan Kohn-Murphy, the founder of Gen-Z for Change, which was previously TikTok for Biden, told the Washington Post. He called “the frustrations of young progressive leaders a barometer of widespread dissatisfaction among Gen Z voters.” Pundits and Democratic insiders have suggested that the upcoming debate against Trump is Biden’s final chance to turn things around, and if he doesn’t he could be forced to stand down.

'This Is The Entire Election': Van Jones Says If Biden 'Messes Up' During Debate, 'It's Game Over' pic.twitter.com/RMvaAg3FMu

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 20, 2024

“..Blinken told Moscow that Ukraine would join NATO and that Washington thought it was OK to put nuclear weapons there. “So no wonder the Russians hit the roof..”

• Trump Points To ‘Cause’ Of Ukraine Conflict (RT)

Russia’s intervention in Ukraine was triggered by the irresponsible and provocative rhetoric of US President Joe Biden and his administration about Kiev joining NATO, Donald Trump has said. Trump, who is seeking a rematch with Biden for the presidency in November, made the comments during a conversation on foreign policy with ‘All-In’ podcast co-host David Sacks on Thursday. “For 20 years, I heard that if Ukraine goes into NATO, it’s a real problem for Russia. I’ve heard that for a long time. And I think that’s really why this war started,” Trump said. The Republican presidential candidate pointed out that there had been no talk about armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine when he was in the White House, but as soon as Biden replaced him, things began to deteriorate. “I thought that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin may be – well, look, he’s a good negotiator, I thought he was going to be doing that for negotiation purposes,” Trump said.

“Then all of a sudden, they attacked, and I said, ‘what’s going on here?’” According to the former president, one of the key issues was the rhetoric coming out of the White House. “Biden was saying all of the wrong things. And one of the wrong things he was saying [was] ‘no, Ukraine will go into NATO’,” Trump said. Sacks pointed out that in January 2022 or thereabouts, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Moscow that Ukraine would join NATO and that Washington thought it was OK to put nuclear weapons there. “So no wonder the Russians hit the roof,” he noted. “Well, let’s say you were running Russia. You wouldn’t be too happy,” Trump replied. “And that’s always been off the table. It’s always been understood that that was a no-no,” he added, addressing Kiev’s potential NATO membership.

Floating the idea of Ukraine in NATO was “very provocative,” Trump said. “And now it’s even more provocative. I hear routinely they’re now talking about Ukraine entering NATO. And now I hear France wants to go in and fight. Well, I wish them a lot of luck!” Putin has specifically pointed to Western statements about Ukraine’s possible membership in the US-led bloc as a security threat Moscow could not ignore. Ukraine’s neutrality has been one of the non-negotiable Russian conditions for the conflict to end. NATO has argued that its “open door” policy is essential and that no one had the right of veto over it, but also that its expansion eastward was not the cause of the conflict. In an interview with Time magazine earlier this month, Biden claimed that the US is “the strongest nation” because of NATO expansion, and that he told Putin he would get “NATOization of Finland” instead of “the Finlandization of NATO” during their June 2021 summit in Switzerland.

Wait a minute. Didn’t Biden, Blinken and the deep state media tell you that Russia invading Ukraine was totally ‘unprovoked’? pic.twitter.com/8jRHeFlvsB

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) June 21, 2024

“Ukraine would’ve never happened, the Israeli attack would’ve never happened, and inflation would’ve never happened – those are three big things..”

• Trump Talks Ukraine, NATO And Hints At “The Next AI Trade” (ZH)

Just two weeks after Craft Ventures co-founder David Sacks hosted a high-profile fundraiser for former President Trump at his Silicon Valley mansion, filled with venture capitalists and tech elites, Trump made an appearance on Sacks’ podcast on Thursday, covering a wide range of topics from taxes and tariffs to energy to artificial intelligence to foreign policy decisions to Ukraine to China to Covid to immigration and many other issues the Biden administration seems to be failing on. The podcast features Sacks, entrepreneurs Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg, who spoke with Trump for about 50 minutes – asking intelligent and clear questions. There were no ‘gotchas’ like you see with corporate media activists. Sacks began the interview by explaining how business leaders at his fundraiser expressed tremendous difficulty in today’s economy under the Biden administration.

“You got the crypto guys who just want a framework. They just want the government to tell them how to operate – and they can’t get that. You have no M&A happening right now in tech. The real estate guys can’t get loans because interest rates are through the roof, and there’s a credit crunch. So I think one of the common themes we just heard across that dinner was that it was just so hard to do business right now,” Sacks said. He then asked the former president: “What are the three things that you would do to kind of get things moving again, you know if you’re reelected?” Trump responded: “Regulation Regulation and Taxes – Okay. I gave the biggest tax cut in the history of our country a lot to the business,” adding, “As you know, companies were paying 40% 45% including state and city taxes in many cases, and we got it down to 21% – would like to get it down lower.”

Trump defended his tariff proposals against criticism that they would spark more inflation, asserting the policy was essential for maintaining the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. He stated he would penalize countries that abandoned their peg to the dollar by slapping them with tariffs on their products coming in the US, adding, “With tariffs, it gives you a tremendous power.” Trump then pivoted to energy, in which he said, “We have more liquid gold under our feet,” referring to fossil fuels. He focused on energy independence and the need for reliable power, not necessarily overloading the nation’s power grid with unreliable wind and solar. The former president appears to have been sold on ‘The Next AI’ trade and the importance of powering up America for the digital age. “To be a leader in AI, the amount of electricity that is like double what we have right now and even triple what we have right now,” he said, adding that “a windmill turning with its blade knocking out the birds and everything else is not going to be able to make us competitive.”

Trump also said, “Nuclear is okay with me … and you have to do it in a way that makes sense,” explaining that the future of America’s nuclear power plant revival is likely to be based on small, advanced reactors instead of massive plants. Sacks then shifts the conversation to foreign policy, asking Trump, “Can you guarantee that no matter what, you’re not going to put American boots on the ground in Ukraine?” Trump responded: “I wouldn’t do it. It’s different for France. You know they’re neighbors, and more or less, we have an ocean in between. It’s different for Germany, although Germany’s much less involved than it should be, and other countries, but uh, you know, we have a big ocean in between.” “Ukraine would’ve never happened, the Israeli attack would’ve never happened, and inflation would’ve never happened – those are three big things,” Trump continued.

“..this Court may have engaged in actions fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities attendant to donning the black robe and sitting in judgment,”

• Trump Seeks Recusal of NY Civil Fraud Judge Who Fined Him $454 Million (ET)

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump demanded a recusal of a New York civil fraud trial judge over allegations that he discussed the case with a third party. “Allegations have surfaced revealing this Court may have engaged in actions fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities attendant to donning the black robe and sitting in judgment,” Trump attorneys Alina Habba and Clifford Robert wrote in a motion on Thursday. In the motion, his attorneys cited public comments made by a real estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey to a local NBC affiliate that he had allegedly spoken with Judge Arthur Engoron several weeks before the judge fined the former president $454 million for falsely inflating his and his company’s assets. At the time, a spokesperson for the judge denied anything wrong occurred. “I actually had the ability to speak to him three weeks ago. I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, ‘I need to go.’ And I walked over and we started talking. … I wanted him to know what I think and why … I really want him to get it right,” Mr. Bailey said in the interview.

Later, he said that the ”word Donald Trump” was never mentioned in their conversation. In his comments to NBC, Mr. Bailey claimed that the judge asked him “a lot of questions” and he “gave him everything I knew.” He added, “He had a lot of questions, you know about certain cases. We went over it.” The judge has not publicly responded to Mr. Bailey’s specific claims. No witnesses have confirmed the lawyer’s allegations about the conversation. Meanwhile, a New York State’s Office of Court Administration spokesman denied that the conversation took place about the Trump case, adding that Judge Engoron’s decision was not influenced by any outside forces. The Epoch Times contacted the court administration office for comment last month but received no reply. “No ex parte conversation concerning this matter occurred between Justice Engoron and Mr. Bailey or any other person,“ court spokesperson Al Baker told multiple news outlets.

”The decision Justice Engoron issued February 16 was his alone, was deeply considered, and was wholly uninfluenced by this individual.” But attorneys for the former president argued that the alleged conversation with Judge Engoron violated the New York Code of Judicial Conduct because it was not disclosed to the former president’s counsel. “Mr. Bailey has publicly stated that these communications with this court occurred mere weeks prior to issuance of the decision and final judgment in this case,” the Trump attorneys claimed. “The code flatly prohibits such communications.” The motion also took issue with the court’s statement last month that Judge Engoron wasn’t influenced, saying that it “does nothing to mitigate the perception of impropriety created by the fact of the ex parte communication.” Ex parte communication is a type of interaction by a judge with people interested in the outcome of a case, including a juror, witness, parties, attorneys, and law enforcement personnel. They are generally prohibited because they can influence the outcome of the case.

“The Code does not carve out an exception for short conversations or communications this Court subjectively or defensively deems insignificant. Rather, the Code seeks to prevent a judge from acting in a way that would undermine the integrity of the proceedings and the judiciary more broadly,” former President Trump’s attorneys added. The former president has appealed Judge Engoron’s judgment against him, saying that the fine was “in excess of its jurisdiction.” New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the civil lawsuit in 2022, seeking to penalize the Trump Organization and asking the judge to bar the former president from doing business in New York state. In his decision, Judge Engoron ruled that the “defendants submitted blatantly false financial data” as they attempted to borrow money at better loan rates, which resulted in ”fraudulent financial statements.” “Indeed, Donald Trump testified that, even today, he does not believe the Trump Organization needed to make any changes based on the facts that came out during this trial,” the judge wrote.

“Bannon should not go to prison before the Supreme Court considers his forthcoming petition for certiorari,” or appeal..”

• Appeals Court Denies Steve Bannon’s Emergency Bid to Avoid Prison (ET)

A federal appeals court late on June 20 denied Steve Bannon’s emergency request to delay his prison sentence. In a split ruling, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that Mr. Bannon’s request “does not warrant a departure from the general rule that a defendant ’shall … be detained’ following conviction and imposition of a sentence of imprisonment.” Mr. Bannon, 70, who was an adviser to President Donald Trump, was convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison. He had been allowed to remain free pending an appeal, but after the appeals court in May rejected his appeal, the judge recently ordered him to report to prison on July 1. Defendants can remain free if they raise a “substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal [or] an order for a new trial” and Mr. Bannon had done that, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said previously. However, in light of the appeals court ruling, that was no longer the case, Judge Nichols said on June 6. He gave Mr. Bannon leave to seek a stay of his order, which, if granted, would delay the prison sentence.

Mr. Bannon has said he was relying on counsel when he declined to cooperate with congressional subpoenas. In an emergency motion to the appeals court, his lawyers said that there is a substantial question surrounding whether people who rely on the advice of counsel can be prosecuted under a law that bars “willfully” not complying with subpoenas from the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate. In Licavoli v. United States, a 1961 ruling, the appeals court concluded that deliberately refusing to abide by congressional subpoenas was a violation of the law. That a defendant did so “upon the advice of a lawyer is no defense,” the court said at the time. While both Judge Nichols and an appeals court panel cited Licavoli in denying Mr. Bannon’s arguments, Mr. Bannon’s lawyers said that the Supreme Court would likely reject the precedent if presented with the case. “As the panel acknowledged, the Supreme Court has since emphasized the ‘general’ rule‘ that ’willfully’ means a defendant must act with ‘knowledge that his conduct was unlawful,’ an interpretation that strongly favors Mr. Bannon,” they wrote.

“But the panel felt obligated to disregard the Supreme Court’s “‘general’ rule” because of the sixty-year-old decision in Licavoli. The Supreme Court itself is not so bound, however, and there is at least a fair chance that court would stick to its general rule—and adopt Mr. Bannon’s interpretation of §192—which necessarily makes the issue a ’substantial’ one.”Prosecutors, on the other hand, urged the court to deny Mr. Bannon’s motion, asserting he has failed to show that he’s raised a substantial question of law or fact as needed. U.S. Circuit Judges Cornelia Pillard, appointed under President Barack Obama, and Bradley Garcia, an appointee of President Joe Biden, sided with the government. Mr. Bannon “argues that the Supreme Court, or this court sitting en banc, is likely to overrule our squarely applicable decision in Licavoli v. United States,” they said. But the judges said that the nation’s top court “has treated the willfulness requirement of the contempt of Congress statute in ways that ‘firmly support … Licavoli’s holding.’”

They added later: “Bannon’s proposal—that to prove willful default the government must establish that the witness knew that his conduct was unlawful—cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s approach to the statute. If an assertion of good-faith reliance on advice of counsel excused a witness’s wholesale noncompliance, even as it is plainly unavailable to a more cooperative witness who appears but refuses to answer certain questions, Congress’s power of inquiry would be ‘nulli[fied].’” In a dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, an appointee of President Trump’s, wrote that the Supreme Court could very well end up ruling in favor of Mr. Bannon. “For a court unbound by Licavoli, like the Supreme Court, the proper interpretation of ‘willfully’ in Section 192” is “a ‘close’ question or one that very well could be decided the other way,” he said. Due to this, “Bannon should not go to prison before the Supreme Court considers his forthcoming petition for certiorari,” or appeal, the judge added.

“The decision has been made to turn the US into a Tower of Babel..”

• Biden Regime Amnesties 350,000 Illegal Aliens (Paul Craig Roberts)

The anti-American Biden Regime is fully intent on turning the once proud United States of America into a Tower of Babel. During Biden’s 3.5 years in the White House, his open, undefended border policy has allowed 3.6 million immigrant-invaders to occupy large areas of the US. California and Seattle, Washington, now hire immigrant-invaders to police American citizens. When citizens are policed by illegals, is it any longer their country? Various American cities in the hands of democrats want to legalize voting by immigrant-invaders. Democrat members of Congress want to hire immigrant-invaders as US soldiers. The question before us is: Does US citizenship any longer have any value and any meaning?

Polls show that Hispanic Americans themselves support the deportation of immigrant-invaders. Hispanic Democrats say they are going to vote for Trump. According to the report, they see the Biden regime’s open border policy “as a slap in the face when millions of people not only did not have to go through the process but on top of that, are getting resources that they don’t qualify for.” The Biden regime could not care less as the intention is to steal the election yet again, or imprison Trump, or assassinate him. The decision has been made to turn the US into a Tower of Babel. That train has left the station.

“The roster of “Joe Biden’s” failures is so deep that all Mr. Trump has to do is remind the audience what they well-know adds up to an apparently deliberate effort to wreck the nation..”

• A Door Closes, A Window Opens (Kunstler)

Now that the gunplay and colorful flash-mobbery of Juneteenth has concluded, it’s on to next week’s big debate between the two major party candidates — if debate is even the right description for what is more like a joint press conference conducted by one candidate’s PR firm. What does the reality-starved public think it will see? Probably anything but a fair fight. It’s hard to imagine what possessed “Joe Biden” to decide this was a good idea for him (unless he wasn’t the decider). Since we’re in an era of archetypal psychodrama, the event looks more like a ritual sacrifice. His recent public performances have been, shall we say, less than reassuring in both utterance and physical poise. He comes off as Captain Queeg meets Mr. Magoo. So, you have to wonder if some ancient tropism-of-the-mind steers him to certain destruction, egged on by those of his own faction who will benefit from his exit.

The sordid spectacle of the Alvin Bragg prosecution has backfired spectacularly as even the president’s own cheerleaders begin to perceive the frightful dishonesty of a politicized DOJ that could just as easily be turned on them. Rachel Maddow and Joy Behar rehearsed their persecution fantasies for all to see on air this week — and, of course, and as usual, it was a sheer psychological projection of what their own party has been up to for eight long years. One supposes that “Joe Biden” will follow exactly that script next Thursday, as he accuses Mr. Trump of being “a dictator,” Adolf Hitler 2.0, seeking to use the levers of power to terrorize the defenders of democracy. It’s hard to see how he might get away with that. All Mr. Trump has to do is aver to the long list of malicious prosecutions, including the ones aimed at himself, launched lately against “JB’s” opponents.

And he might throw in the regime’s lust to suppress free speech and truth itself — as in the Hunter Biden laptop monkey-business and hiding the facts around the Covid-19 fiasco. Speaking of which, this would be the best opportunity for Mr. Trump to come clean, if he can, about his role in the mRNA vaccine roll-out that has now morphed into what looks like the biggest disaster in modern medicine. It appears obvious that, as president, Mr. Trump was buffaloed by “the experts” in a culture that worships expertise. How exactly would he have opposed the White House Coronavirus Task Force headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci? And backed by the combined forces of the CDC, the FDA, the NIAID, the NIH, and every medical board from sea to shining sea? Should he have just said, Nah, we’re not gonna do that? I don’t think so. But there won’t be a better moment, or a bigger audience, to explain how all that actually worked, and went wrong.

Since Mr. Trump’s temperament has drawn the most intense objurgation from his detractors, the easiest thing he can do in this debate is just mind his manners, and not allow himself to be baited or taunted. The roster of “Joe Biden’s” failures is so deep that all Mr. Trump has to do is remind the audience what they well-know adds up to an apparently deliberate effort to wreck the nation: the open border and the growing record of atrocious crimes committed by illegal aliens plus the immense anxiety about the intentions of jihadists and other nefarious foreigners ushered in by Homeland Security; the idiocy of our role in the Ukraine War and how easily the conflict could be concluded by willing negotiation; the cratering on-the-ground economy of goods and services (minus government hand-outs, bail-outs, subsidies, and statistical shell games); the out-of-control Deep State intel blob that is eating away at our basic liberties; the insane race-and-gender hustles aimed at sowing hatred and disordering normal modes of human relations; and much more that has been done to insult and humiliate the people of this land.

I wrote in the comments yesterday that I saw a huge increase in anti-Trump tweets on my X. When I see Mary Manley write “Trump has repeatedly forgotten who the current president is..”, that feels the same.

• Simon Says Freeze (Manley)

The fundraiser appeared to be the second time that Biden had wandered away from the stage of a political event and needed to be guided back by another political leader. While critics of the president say his cognitive abilities are failing, the White House has shot back that Republicans are manipulating videos and spreading “disinformation”. A recent star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles has sparked a debate about whether or not US President Joe Biden froze on stage and had to be snapped back to reality by former President Barack Obama, whom Biden was vice president to. The claim was first published by the New York Post on Sunday, who said the president had to be led off stage by Obama in an awkward moment. The sitting president, the former president, as well as the celebrity late-night host Jimmy Kimmel stood for applause following a 45-minute interview at the Peacock Theater. But while the men stood for applause, “Biden’s gaze seemed to become fixed on the crowd for a full 10 seconds until [Obama] took his wrist and led him offstage,” the New York Post claimed.

The Biden campaign reportedly raised more than $30 million at the event where Hollywood stars including George Clooney, Julia Robert and Barbara Streisand headlined. Tickets to the event ranged from $250 to $500,000. The Biden campaign is trying to fight back against the financial upswing of former President Donald Trump’s campaign which raised more than $50 million during an April fundraiser in Florida. Polling has also shown Biden falling behind Trump in key states including Arizona, Nevada and Florida. However, hundreds of anti-Israel protesters swarmed the event and attempted to block entry to the fundraiser. According to the Post, protesters shouted such chants including, “Biden, Biden you’re a liar, we demand a ceasefire.” Police were called in to keep the protesters away from the theater, but no arrests were made, the Post said, citing the Los Angeles Police Department. The White House hit back against the claims that Biden had froze, and accused right-wing critics of selectively editing videos in a “misinformation” campaign against the president.

The White House shared footage of what they say was the president pausing to take in the applause. “It tells you everything that we need to know about how desperate Republicans are here,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Monday’s daily press briefing. She added that “the manipulated videos [are] done in bad faith”. Last week, the Post also shared a clip of the US leader apparently freezing during a skydiving demonstration in Italy on Thursday where he was meeting with other G7 leaders. Biden seemed to walk away from the group of leaders to speak to a parachuter when Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had to reel him back in for the photo op. Both Biden and Trump have been criticized for their age and mental health. Trump is just three years younger than Biden who is 81-years-old. Biden has often stumbled over his words, fallen on a stairway and said hello during a White House event to a former congresswoman who had recently died.

Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly forgotten who the current president is, and identified his former ambassador to the UN as the former speaker, has often mispronounced simple words and repeatedly rambled and followed tangents during his speeches, US News reported. The American psychologist Dr. John Gartner claimed that Trump – America’s apparent presidential frontrunner – first showed intermittent examples of mental collapse in 2017 and that “now, he is getting worse.” “He can’t get through a whole rally without revealing himself. And, because this is a progressive illness, he will continue to get worse. And if he is like most patients like this, at some point, he is literally going to fall off the cognitive cliff and he will be completely incapacitated,” Gartner told The Hill.

And don’t expect a fifth.

• Putin’s Peace Initiative Is Russia’s Fourth Proposal On Ukraine – Lavrov (TASS)

The peace initiative that Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined on June 14 is Moscow’s fourth proposal on settling the Ukraine conflict, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. “Now we have come up with the next, actually fourth proposal from Russia [on Ukrainian settlement] in the form of an initiative by President Putin on June 14,” the top diplomat said at a press conference after a session of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) Council of Foreign Ministers. Had the agreement on the political settlement not been disrupted in February 2014, Ukraine would have now been within the 1991 boundaries that “it dreams so sweetly now,” Lavrov said.

Ukraine itself “destroyed its territorial integrity with the hands of those who came to power through a bloody state coup and began to impose Russophobic and Neo-Nazi rules,” Russia’s top diplomat stressed. “Agreements were reached in Minsk in February 2015 and, had they been implemented, Ukraine would have restored its territorial integrity but, of course, already without Crimea. But Ukraine showed no desire to preserve its territorial integrity at the cost of providing elementary autonomous rights to Donbass, Lugansk and Donetsk, including the right to speak in their mother tongue,” he went on to say.

“The next stage, when a chance was missed again to keep Ukraine’s territorial integrity in some form involved the Istanbul accords of April 2022 that also guaranteed Ukraine its territorial integrity but based on the realities that had emerged on the ground by that time,” the Russian foreign minister said. “And again, as you know, Western handlers prohibited [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky to sign these agreements,” Lavrov said. “I have no doubts that serious politicians, and some have remained there somewhere, understand the need to use some intellectual and diplomatic skills and begin to think about realpolitik instead of concocted illusions,” Russia’s top diplomat said.

“Some German politicians have since floated other “incentives” to entice Ukrainians to return home, including stripping them of welfare payments..”

• Kiev Talking To EU About Extraditing Ukrainian Citizens (RT)

Kiev is holding negotiations with Brussels on the potential extradition of any Ukrainians who crossed into the bloc illegally, Interior Minister Igor Klimenko told the US-funded broadcaster RFE/RL. Ukraine’s border guards are struggling to stem the flow of men fleeing the country to evade military service amid continued mobilization efforts. “We are consulting with our colleagues from the European Union,” Klimenko said when asked if Kiev would like the EU to extradite those who have crossed illegally. “These negotiations will continue regarding the possible return of our citizens,” he added. Ukraine announced a general mobilization in February 2022, and barred most men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country. Kiev’s draft campaign has been marred by widespread corruption; thousands have attempted to depart illegally by either forging documents or attempting to bypass border controls.

Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly said they want individuals of military age to be returned from abroad. In October last year, Klimenko revealed that authorities were seeking ways to “justly” penalize citizens who had fled abroad to avoid conscription. Multiple EU states, including Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, have refused to consider such extraditions, arguing that Ukrainians must be treated as refugees in the bloc. Some German politicians have since floated other “incentives” to entice Ukrainians to return home, including stripping them of welfare payments. In the interview published on Friday, Klimenko admitted that the EU was “mostly” unanimous in its rejection of extradition. He also confirmed that border guards are detaining “dozens of people every day” who seek to cross the border illegally, either by swimming across rivers, traversing forests and mountains or using fake documents at checkpoints.

In early June, the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service said that at least 45 men had died of drowning and other causes in attempts to depart. Klimenko also admitted it is “difficult” to man the nation’s western border because of a lack of personnel. “The border with Romania, with Slovakia, Poland, Moldova, Hungary is minimally protected on our side” he said. The minister refused to reveal the total number of border detentions since the start of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow, but said “tens of thousands” was an exaggeration. Some 12,700 men have illegally crossed from Ukraine into Romania alone since the start of the conflict, RFE/RL has reported, citing border police.

“..the head of the now dying state has emphatically dashed the constitutional status of the Verkhovna Rada as the sole representative and legislative body..”

• Medvedev Cites Facts Of Zelensky Usurping Power (TASS)

Vladimir Zelensky has been usurping power long before his presidential authority expired on May 21, 2024 by committing a number of political crimes, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said. “The talentless buffoon and his clique of gangsters had long before stopped giving a damn to the Constitution of their own state, and began joyfully, nostrils flared in drug-induced excitement, greedily grab the power,” Medvedev wrote on his VKontakte page. He explained that in 1999, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine stated that the aim of the functional division of state power into legislative, executive and judicial (see Article 6 of the Constitution of Ukraine) was to prevent any of the branches from fully assuming the state power. Article 75 of the Ukrainian Constitution says that the sole body of legislative power in Ukraine is the Parliament — the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

“Article 106 of the said Constitution states that the head of the state ‘signs laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine,’ and ‘has the right to veto laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with their subsequent return for repeat consideration by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine,'” Medvedev noted, pointing out that, according to the Ukrainian Constitution, the president may not sign a law only when he used his veto right and returned it to the Parliament for reconsideration. “However, to the head thug of a criminal community zelensky the Base Law is null and void. As his country’s president, he neither signed nor ‘returned for repeat consideration’ (did not veto) as many as 32 laws, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada! Just think: he simply hid them in his drawer thus depriving the people of regulating a huge number of issues. He began doing it occasionally back in 2020, and then systematically, since February 2022, as Russia started fighting against the Bandera regime,” Medvedev stressed.

“In this way, the head of the now dying state has emphatically dashed the constitutional status of the Verkhovna Rada as the sole representative and legislative body,” the Russian Security Council deputy chairman noted. Medvedev pointed out that in 2019, Zelensky “assigned control over preparation of proposals on signing or vetoing laws – all on the sly and by an arbitrary edict – to the head of his so-called office, a weird character surnamed Yermak who de-facto became the second (or the first?) person of the country 404. To put it plainly, established a criminal conspiracy with him in order to usurp power.” “The conclusion is simple: these operetta characters turned into criminals back in 2020. Their goal is plain: to establish dictatorship of their own. The fact that their unlawful actions weren’t met with due response in Ukraine eventually led to the special military operation,” the Russian official said.

In his opinion, “hiding behind a sham declaration of presidential elections cancellation, the Kiev camarilla hopes to profit from the war till the very last day and fight till the very last Ukrainian.” “The only possible way to treat zelensky and his accomplices is as criminals who committed a felony under the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Article 109). The decrees they issue are illegitimate and cannot be executed. The officials they appoint are not authorities. They are impostors and have no right to issue edicts,” Medvedev concluded.

“I can pull the emergency brake. The train will stop, and we Hungarians will get off this train..”

• Hungary ‘Won’t Ride NATO War Train’ – Orban (RT)

The US appears intent on continuing to fight Russia in Ukraine and hopes to win, but Hungary is acting to counter this destructive policy, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. The vocal opponent of the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict expressed fresh criticism during a weekly interview on Kossuth Radio on Friday. “It appears that the Western world, led by the Americans, wants to defeat Russia, with the Germans playing the role of extras,” Orban claimed. He described the strategy as “hopeless,” adding that it is disastrous for the Ukrainians and Russians dying on the battlefield and is potentially escalatory. The Hungarian leader claimed, however, that “we have already slowed the train to war,” citing the outcome of the recent European Parliament elections in which his party enjoyed success while some pro-Ukrainian groups suffered setbacks.

The Hungarian government has secured assurances from both outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and his presumed successor, Mark Rutte, that Budapest will not be dragged into a “mission” that the US-led bloc is establishing in Ukraine, the prime minister said. Hungary will not contribute troops, weapons, or money to the plan, Orban vowed. “I can pull the emergency brake. The train will stop, and we Hungarians will get off this train,” he said. “And if we become very strong and the stars are lucky, we will convince the driver not to go any further.” Moscow has described the Ukraine conflict as a US-initiated proxy war.

After several member states publicly said this month that they will allow Kiev to strike targets deep inside Russia with Western-supplied weapons, President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow could supply similar arms to enemies of the West. French President Emmanual Macron, who has called on NATO countries not to rule out troop deployments to Ukraine, was among the EU leaders to have suffered the biggest in the European Parliament elections. He subsequently dissolved the French parliament, and is facing the threat of becoming a lame duck for the rest of his term as his political alliance contemplates a potential wipeout in the national legislature. Supporters of the NATO involvement in the Ukraine conflict say its mission will be limited to training Ukrainian troops on the country’s soil.

“..even if we succeed, which is not at all realistic, we will have to pay such a high price that it will not be worth it..”

• Orban Says West’s Quest To Defeat Russia In Ukrainian Conflict Hopeless (TASS)

Western countries led by the United States and supported by Germany want to defeat Russia in Ukraine, but these plans are hopeless and will cost such a high price that they are simply not worth it, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the Kossuth radio. “The situation looks like the Western world wants to defeat Russia with the help of Germany under the leadership of the United States,” the prime minister said. “I think it is hopeless. And even if we succeed, which is not at all realistic, we will have to pay such a high price that it will not be worth it,” Orban emphasized.

While blaming Russia for the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, he pointed out that the main reason for the conflict was Kiev’s intention to join NATO. “In the end, the question is whether Ukraine will become a NATO member or not. This war is about Sevastopol, where there will be a NATO flag or a Russian flag at the exit to the Black Sea. The Russians say that the Russian flag is flying there now, and they don’t want to change it to a NATO flag, and they don’t want to border NATO countries,” the Hungarian prime minister said.

A man leading his party into a historic defeat might want to tone it down a notch..

• British PM Threatens Teens With Sanctions For Refusing National Service (RT)

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has followed up on his controversial election promise to introduce mandatory national service for UK teenagers with a warning that objectors could face significant restrictions. The scheme, which would see youngsters volunteer with community groups or join the armed forces, was announced by Sunak last month. He argued that the measure would help revive the “national spirit” and provide “life-changing opportunities for our young people.” National service in the UK, previously introduced during WWI and WWII, was ended in 1960. Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Sunak was asked about the possible consequences for people who decline to take part in the compulsory activity, which would extend to all 18-year-olds, male and female. The prime minister suggested that possible sanctions for those avoiding service could include restrictions on access to financial services and driving licenses.

Under the scheme, British youths will be required either to join the military full-time for one year or volunteer one weekend per month at community organizations such as the police or the National Health Service (NHS). Sunak has insisted that the program would provide young people with “life-changing opportunities” and “real world skills” and would help create a “shared sense of purpose among our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our country.” A pilot version of the program is planned to be launched in September of next year if the Conservatives remain in power, and is expected to cost British taxpayers around £2.5 billion ($3.19 billion) a year.

According to the Daily Mail, the plan to reintroduce national service was drawn up by Sunak and his team in secret. The authors behind the 40-page document have argued that it is necessary to expand the UK’s armed forces in the face of “growing international threats posed by countries such as Russia and China.” Sunak’s scheme has been heavily criticized by opposition parties. “This is not a plan – it’s a review which could cost billions and is only needed because the Tories hollowed out the armed forces to their smallest size since Napoleon,” a Labour spokesman stated last month. Other members of the opposition party have accused Sunak of trying to get 18-year-olds to fix the problems that the government has created.

Neuralink

Nolan Arbaugh on Joe Rogan talking about how Neuralink would be unstoppable for first-person shooters (Call of Duty, Quake, Fortnite) pic.twitter.com/GW8vjSUtba

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) June 21, 2024

Cats
https://twitter.com/i/status/1804123146456326533

Francisco
https://twitter.com/i/status/1803965056423747911

Jaguarundi

The jaguarundi is a wild cat native to the Americas that shows several features seen in mustelids such as otters and weasels. This is a rare footage, because it's shy and reclusive.pic.twitter.com/Bm2kybBWJk

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 21, 2024

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Debt Rattle April 22 2024

Apr 222024

April 22, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:36 am Finance Tagged with: Avenatti, Elon Musk, Engoron, exit strategy, kiddie porn, mobilization law, Sidney Powell, Trump 45 Responses »

Wassily Kandinsky Contrasting Sounds 1924

• Biden Asks Americans To Choose Between Freedom And Democracy (RT)

• Mobilization Law Condition For New Supplies Of Arms To Kiev By NATO (TASS)

• Ukraine Can Win – Zelensky (RT)

• French Party Leader Says US Aid to Ukraine Only Leads to New Casualties (Sp.)

• Musk Decries Lack Of ‘Exit Strategy’ In Ukraine Conflict (RT)

• Moscow Issues Dire Warning After Ukraine Aid Bill (RT)

• ‘No Consensus’ In West On Seizing Russian Assets – WaPo (RT)

• Trump Arrest Would Cause Nationwide ‘Civil Unrest’ – CNN Analyst (RT)

• $454 Million Trump Penalty Judge Set to Rule on Validity of Reduced Bond (ET)

• Michael Avenatti Flips, Willing To Testify On Trump’s Behalf (ZH)

• Judges Dismiss Disciplinary Effort by Texas State Bar vs Sidney Powell (ET)

• UN Plans Tyrannical Future for You – Alex Newman (USAW)

• US Lawmakers Scared Of Being Framed For ‘Kiddie Porn’ – Tucker Carlson (RT)

Still no internet at home. Getting it back is like a handicap race.

Llama3, king of LLMs (Large language model).Taking over from Chat GPT.

Tucker Rogan

Tucker Carlson reveals how the 2017 Trump presidential campaign opened his eyes to how corrupt the government truly is after being CAUGHT spying on his campaign:

"I was watching that campaign and particularly his campaign that they were spying on him—That turned out to be true… pic.twitter.com/oA0Z5pcKub

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 21, 2024

Tucker Alex Jones

Alex Jones spells out why the elites have failed at stopping Elon Musk.
Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones discuss Elon Musk, the culture war, and the global elites.
Source: Tucker Carlson Network (YouTube) pic.twitter.com/1AuwkE5fcr

— Camus (@newstart_2024) April 21, 2024

RFK

RFK Jr. at Michigan rally: “I’m gonna put the entire US budget on blockchain”

“Every American can look at every budget item in the entire budget, anytime they want, 24 hours a day.”

“We’re gonna have 300 million eyeballs on our budget, and if somebody is spending $16,000 for a… pic.twitter.com/aqJ1JNUpxc

— Holden Culotta (@Holden_Culotta) April 22, 2024

Freeman

This is undoubtedly the best analysis I've heard to date of the Iran strike on Israel. It's long-ish (about 10 minutes) but absolutely worth listening to.

The man speaking is Chas Freeman, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and, very relevant to the topic, former US… pic.twitter.com/lmiTB43024

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 22, 2024

Sheetz

A few days ago, Biden meandered dazed & confused around a Sheetz convenience store in PA.

Now he’s suing Sheetz for racial discrimination because they refuse to hire criminals, aka people who fail criminal background checks.

Are you awake yet?pic.twitter.com/BYdGoyZzQn

— Monica Crowley (@MonicaCrowley) April 21, 2024

“Are you ready to choose unity over division? Dignity over demolition? Truth over lies? Are you ready to choose freedom over democracy? Because that’s America..”

• Biden Asks Americans To Choose Between Freedom And Democracy (RT)

US President Joe Biden has implored his supporters to choose “freedom over democracy,” in the latest of a long series of gaffes and verbal blunders. Conservative pundits viewed the incident as more proof that the 81-year-old is unfit for office. Speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Biden rattled off a string of buzzwords as he asked voters whether they would choose him over former President Donald Trump in November’s presidential election. “Are you ready to choose unity over division? Dignity over demolition? Truth over lies? Are you ready to choose freedom over democracy? Because that’s America,” he exclaimed. Biden’s “freedom over democracy” line drew a mix of laughs and applause from the crowd, and ridicule from conservative pundits and influencers.

“When people were concerned about Ronald Reagan having cognitive decline near the end of his second term, it was nothing like this,” the Conservative Brief wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Look in the mirror and ask yourself, truthfully, if this is the man you want in charge of our security, our economy, and our country for another four years?” Biden has a long history of similar slip-ups, and was ridiculed for a 2019 campaign speech in which he declared: “We choose unity over division. We choose science over fiction. We choose truth over facts.”

Republicans insist that Biden’s cognitive faculties are declining, and that this decline has accelerated over his three years in the White House. Video footage of the president shaking hands with imaginary people, getting lost when out in public, and telling reporters that he had just met with long-dead world leaders have served to bolster their case. In February, US Justice Department prosecutor Robert Hur opted not to charge Biden for mishandling classified documents, noting in a report that the president suffered extreme memory lapses and didn’t possess the “mental state of willfulness” needed to commit a crime.

They’re drafting men who are too old, too handicapped, too unmotivated. It doesn’t seem to matter.

• Mobilization Law Condition For New Supplies Of Arms To Kiev By NATO (TASS)

Passing of a harsh bill on mobilization in Ukraine to make up for the army’s losses was a condition for new supplies of arms to Kiev by NATO countries, a diplomatic source in Brussels told TASS. “Passing of a new harsh bill on mobilization in Ukraine was a condition for new supplies of weapons by NATO countries. Arms supplies are only reasonable if a large number of military personnel able to use those weapons in defense and assault operations is available, and if losses are swiftly made up for, for doing which new soldiers should be actively drafted into the military,” the diplomat said. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed the bill into law to tighten mobilization rules on April 16. The document tightens the mobilization procedure and penalties for draft evaders, and also refines the categories of those subject to mobilization. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are expected to be drafted.

On April 19, an online meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council at the level of defense ministers was held, where Ukrainian Defense Minister reported about the situation on the ground and about plans to draft soldiers for the country’s armed forces. After the meeting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a press conference that he expected new statements by the alliance’s countries on arms supplies to Kiev, including air defense systems, cruise missiles and 155mm ammunition, in the near future. On April 20, the US House of Representatives adopted a package of bills, which includes $60 bln military aid for Kiev among other things. A joint meeting of foreign and defense ministers of EU countries in Brussels is scheduled for April 22. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has brought up the issue of urgent supplies of new air defense systems to Kiev.

“..Maria Zakharova predicted that the US will eventually face a “loud and humiliating fiasco on par with Vietnam or Afghanistan.”

• Ukraine Can Win – Zelensky (RT)

Ukraine has a chance of victory in the conflict with Russia now that the US House of Representatives has approved more weapons for Kiev, President Vladimir Zelensky claimed in an interview with NBC on Sunday. The remarks came a day after a new aid bill, which authorizes an additional $61 billion in support for Ukraine, was passed by American lawmakers. The emergency spending had been stalled in Congress since last fall over concerns from Republicans that Washington lacked a strategy either for victory or a peace settlement. “I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces, I pray, and we will have a chance at victory if Ukraine really gets the weapons systems, which we need so much,” Zelensky said. He urged the US to wrap up final adoption of the legislation as soon as possible in order to start sending more weapons. The bill has yet to be passed by the US Senate, which is scheduled to vote on it on April 23. After that, it proceeds to President Joe Biden, who has said he will sign it.

“We want to help get things as fast as possible so that we get some tangible assistance for the soldiers on the front line as soon as possible – not in another six months,” the Ukrainian leader said. He specifically requested more air defense systems and longer-range missiles, arguing that the Ukrainian army is suffering losses due to the lack of both. “We need long-range weapons to not lose people on the front line because we have, we have casualties because we cannot reach that far,” he said, adding that another delay would mean more casualties. “If we get it in half a year… we’ve had the process stalled for half a year and we’ve had losses in several directions. Losses in men, in equipment.” Zelensky admitted that victory is far from guaranteed. “Now we have the chance to stabilize the situation,” he stated. “There are so many variables, so many factors.” He continued to rule out talks with Moscow, claiming that neither President Vladimir Putin nor any high-ranking Russian officials can be trusted.

The aid package authorized by the House is not solely intended for new weapons shipments. According to Politico, the biggest chunk of the money ($23 billion) will go to replenishing US stocks already used to provide arms to Ukraine. Only about $14 billion would go to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which the Pentagon uses to buy new weapons systems for Kiev from US defense contractors, according to The Guardian. Another $10 billion in aid was designated as a repayable loan to appease some Republicans, the newspaper said. Moscow responded by reiterating that Washington is causing Ukraine to “fight to the last Ukrainian” with its weapon shipments. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova predicted that the US will eventually face a “loud and humiliating fiasco on par with Vietnam or Afghanistan.”

Not every European is a warmonger. But those are nowhere near power.

• French Party Leader Says US Aid to Ukraine Only Leads to New Casualties (Sp.)

Another batch of US military assistance to Kiev worth nearly $61 billion will not change the course of the Ukraine conflict and will only lead to new casualties, The Patriots party leader Florian Philippot said on Sunday. On Saturday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that will unlock $60.84 billion in Ukraine-related aid. The Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act was passed in a 311-112 vote, with one abstention. “This vote will not change anything, it will only lead to more casualties! To serve the interests of the financial predators who profit from this war!” Philippot said on X.

The politician also called on the French to stop sending money and arms to Kiev, saying that they were “destroying and endangering themselves.” He also suggested that France should withdraw from NATO, engage in dialogue with Russia and seek negotiations as soon as possible. Western countries have been providing military aid to Kiev since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow has consistently warned against continued arms deliveries, saying this would lead to further escalation of the conflict.

French forces arrive in Odessa, Ukraine.

BREAKING NOW: ⚠️ French forces arrive in Odessa, Ukraine..

MASSIVE DEVELOPMENT.. pic.twitter.com/rHDB1ZGCgr

— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) April 21, 2024

Forever war.

• Musk Decries Lack Of ‘Exit Strategy’ In Ukraine Conflict (RT)

The parties involved in the Ukraine conflict need to work on ways to bring it to a close, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk suggested on Saturday. Responding to an X (formerly Twitter) post by fellow billionaire David Sachs, in which the latter commented on the House of Representatives approving a long-delayed emergency spending bill that includes new funding for Kiev, Musk noted that the conflict was turning into “a forever war.” “My biggest concern is that there is no exit strategy, just a forever war where kids die in trenches from artillery or charging machine guns and snipers through minefields,” Musk wrote.

Musk did not elaborate on his position towards the aid bill itself this time, but in late March he noted that it “should be contingent on proper accounting of how [the funding] is used and a plan to resolve the conflict.” Musk has not explicitly taken sides during the Ukraine conflict. He did supply Kiev with free Starlink internet terminals and access to the satellite-based network but later refused to activate the service near the Russian port city of Sevastopol in Crimea over fear that Ukraine could use the technology to escalate the conflict by attacking Russia’s Black Sea Fleet with guided drones. In February, Musk said the US should stop aiding Ukraine altogether as there was “no way in hell” Russia would lose the war.

“This spending doesn’t help Ukraine. Prolonging the war doesn’t help Ukraine,” he stated at a forum on X Spaces. Last month, Musk also warned that the “real question” in the conflict now lies in how much territory Kiev will lose before it agrees to sit down to peace talks with Moscow.Russia has repeatedly said that it was open to peace negotiations if Ukraine accepts the “reality on the ground.” Moscow also warned that Western aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine only exacerbate and prolong the conflict. The US, meanwhile, is getting closer to approving another $61 billion for Kiev. After being passed by the House, the Ukraine aid bill is set to be voted on by the Senate later this week.

Retaliatory strike

Simulation of a retaliatory strike against Russia after Putin uses nuclear weapons pic.twitter.com/rq4F7VAOeV

— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) April 21, 2024

“..Washington no longer betting on a Ukrainian victory against Russia, but hoping to keep Kiev afloat until the US presidential election in November…”

• Moscow Issues Dire Warning After Ukraine Aid Bill (RT)

The approval of a large aid package for Ukraine by the US House of Representatives is the same as funding terrorism, according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. In a post on her Telegram channel on Saturday, Zakharova said that the potential allocation of further military assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan would only aggravate the crisis in the world. “Military aid to the Kiev regime is direct sponsorship of terrorist activities, funds sent to Taiwan is interference in the internal affairs of China, while aid sent to Israel is a straight way to unprecedented escalation of a conflict in the region,” she said. On Saturday, the lower house of the US Congress passed a $95 billion package that includes almost $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, including funds for the purchase of weapons and military equipment.

Most of the rest is allocated to Israel and Taiwan. The Senate is poised to vote on the bill on April 23 with final passage expected by the end of the week. Washington is driving deeper into a hybrid war with Russia, Zakharova said in a separate statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry, adding that the US would end up facing a “loud and humiliating fiasco on a par with Vietnam or Afghanistan.” The spokeswoman said “the US is ready to pump Ukraine with weapons so that Kiev could fight to the last Ukrainian, and continue to terrorist acts against civil objects on Russian sovereign territory and civilians, as well as sabotage attacks and killings of journalists.” Zakharova stated that ordinary Ukrainians were being “forcibly driven to slaughter as cannon fodder” with Washington no longer betting on a Ukrainian victory against Russia, but hoping to keep Kiev afloat until the US presidential election in November.

How to make $6 billion out of $300 billion look like a victory.

• ‘No Consensus’ In West On Seizing Russian Assets – WaPo (RT)

EU officials are reluctant to bow to US pressure and transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, fearing that Moscow’s retaliation would be aimed primarily at the bloc rather than America, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. As part of unprecedented sanctions over the Ukraine conflict, Western countries have frozen around $300 billion in Russian assets in a move denounced by Moscow as “theft,” with many Western officials suggesting the money could be used to help Ukraine. The bulk of this sum is located in European countries, while the US only holds around $6 billion. In recent months, there have been several proposals on how to use this money to help Ukraine. While the US has pushed for the more hardline option of outright seizing the funds, the EU has proposed using the profits generated by the assets to help Ukraine.

Another option under discussion is to use the assets as collateral to secure loans for Kiev. According to the Post, EU officials are reluctant to confiscate the Russian assets due to concerns that the move “could breach international law, discourage investors from trusting the euro and invite Russian retaliation.” They have also pushed back against the US proposal to seize the funds as Europe holds most of the frozen assets, and “any Russian retaliation will probably fall on Europe, not the United States.” According to an unnamed US Treasury official, both the EU and US agree that “more needs to be done for Ukraine, but there is no consensus on specifics.” He added that “we’re thinking of the Russian sovereign assets as a sustainable medium-to-long-term solution for this funding problem.”

The report comes as the US House of Representatives passed the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act (REPO) on Saturday, which could allow the administration of US President Joe Biden to seize Russian assets in US banks and transfer them to Ukraine for reconstruction. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned that Russia will not leave the potential seizure unanswered, adding that the move could undermine the principle of the “inviolability of private… and state property,” as well as causing “irreparable damage to the US image.”

“The judge, Juan Merchan, will hear arguments from the prosecution on Trump’s alleged violations of the gag order on Tuesday.”

The gag order is illegal. We need the Supreme Court to confirm that.

• Trump Arrest Would Cause Nationwide ‘Civil Unrest’ – CNN Analyst (RT)

The possible arrest of former US President Donald Trump for violating his court-imposed gag order would trigger rioting and deal a potentially fatal blow to President Joe Biden’s re-election chances, CNN analyst Mark Preston warned on Friday. Trump is currently on trial in Manhattan for allegedly misreporting ‘hush-money’ payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels. Since last month, he has been forbidden from making public statements about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg or the jurors working on the case, and from uttering anything that could interfere with the work of the court. Nevertheless, the former president has spoken to reporters outside the Manhattan courthouse every day this week, and Bragg’s team claims that he has already violated this gag order at least seven times.

In one instance, Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday to share a quote from Fox News host Jesse Watters, who claimed that “undercover liberal activists” were “lying to the judge in order to get on the Trump jury.” However, if the trial judge were to place Trump in a holding cell “for a few hours,” the end result would be “civil unrest across the country, certainly in some cities,” Preston said in a panel discussion with CNN host Jim Acosta. “And two, politically, if I’m the Biden campaign, I don’t want to necessarily see him in jail, because that’s just going to get people more inflamed and more fired up,” he added. The judge, Juan Merchan, will hear arguments from the prosecution on Trump’s alleged violations of the gag order on Tuesday.

“People are allowed to speak about me, and I have a gag order, just to show you how much more unfair it is,” Trump said outside the courthouse on Friday. The former president blasted the order as unconstitutional, telling reporters that it “has to come off.” Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge Biden in November’s presidential election. Despite the ongoing trial in Manhattan and three other criminal cases in the works, he is currently leading the incumbent in most polls by between one and ten points.

Thumbscrews. “The attorney general is requesting that President Trump be required to post a replacement bond within seven days.”

• $454 Million Trump Penalty Judge Set to Rule on Validity of Reduced Bond (ET)

After weeks of trying to secure a bond and arguing to an appeals court that a $454 million bond was “impossible,” former President Donald Trump secured a $175 million bond to stay judgment only to now have to make the case all over again why this should satisfy the New York Attorney General and stop her from seizing his properties. On April 22, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, the trial court judge who set the $454 million judgment, will hear the attorney general’s challenge to the sufficiency of President Trump’s bond. The $175 million figure had been set by the appellate division of the New York Supreme Court, and President Trump has frequently criticized Justice Engoron for “ignoring” appeals court orders, such as when he allowed evidence past the statute of limitations set by the appellate division during the trial.

The attorney general has sought to cast doubt on the stability of LA-based Knight Specialty Insurance Company (KSIC), calling it a “small insurer” and arguing it is not authorized to do business in New York. They argued that KSIC has never before written a surety bond, and has “a total policyholder surplus of just $138 million.” Amit Shah, president of the insurance company, demanded the court compel the attorney general to show cause, or prove the allegation that the insurance company is not sufficient. Mr. Shah submitted a sworn affidavit explaining that KSIC now has control over a bank account of President Trump’s that will maintain $175 million cash for the duration of the appeal. The insurance company entered into a collateral agreement with the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Mr. Shah submitted documents establishing that his company is in “good standing” and was approved for excess line eligibility in New York in June 2021.

“As an eligible excess line insurer in the state of New York, KSIC is, therefore, properly authorized to issue the surety on behalf of Defendants,” he stated. This authorization stands as long as the insurance company meets the Excess Line Association of New York’s requirement of maintaining a minimum $47 million policyholder surplus, and Mr. Shah stated his company is maintaining a $48 million surplus minimum. He added that as of the end of 2023, the insurance company had $539 million in assets and $138 in equity, and its parent company, Knight Insurance Company, had on a consolidated basis $1 billion in assets and $1 billion in equity. The parent company also maintains $56 million in cash and $937 million in marketable securities to support reinsurance obligations. “At my direction, KSIC also performed diligence to confirm its legal authority to act as surety before issuing the subject bond,” Mr. Shah stated. “Although KSIC had not before placed a surety bond in New York, KSIC is an excess line insurer in the state of New York.”

The attorney general also took issue with the fact that KSIC does not have “exclusive right” to the account containing $175 million in cash, and highlighted the fact that it would need “two days’ notice” to move that cash. State attorneys urged the court to “not rely on KSIC’s financial summary” because the insurance company “sends 100% of its retained insurance risk to affiliates in the Cayman Islands,” which they argued “artificially bolsters its surplus.” They argued that excess line insurers are only authorized if the management is found “trustworthy and competent,” and KSIC did not qualify because “its management has been found by federal authorities to have operated affiliated companies within KSIC’s holding company structure in violation of federal law on multiple occasions within the past several years.”

Knight is under The Hankey Group of financial companies, which includes the affiliate Westlake Financial Services LLC. The attorney general argued that Westlake was found to have “violated numerous federal laws by pressuring borrowers through the use of illegal debt collection tactics, including using phony caller ID information, falsely threatening to refer borrowers for investigation or criminal prosecution” in 2015 by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The company was fined and provided $44 million in restitution to consumers. The attorney general is requesting that President Trump be required to post a replacement bond within seven days.

Serving a 19-year sentence. He’s in a bad spot.

• Michael Avenatti Flips, Willing To Testify On Trump’s Behalf (ZH)

Imprisoned former CNN demigod Michael Avenatti has come out in support of Donald Trump, telling the NY Post that he’s willing to testify on Trump’s behalf after being in contact with Trump’s legal defense team about his willingness to testify against his former client, Stormy Daniels. “The defense has contacted me,” Avenatti told the Post in a phone call from Terminal Island, a minimum-security federal prison in Los Angeles where he’s serving a 19-year sentence for extortion, tax evasion, fraud, embezzlement and other federal crimes.”I’d be more than happy to testify, I don’t know that I will be called to testify, but I have been in touch with Trump’s defense for the better part of year,” Avenatti continued. A person close to the former president confirmed the ongoing discussions.

While Avenatti made his name as one of Trump’s most ferocious critics — and even publicly called for Trump’s indictment in 2018 — the defense attorney sang a different tune from the clink. “There’s no question [the trial] is politically motivated because they’re concerned that he may be reelected,” Avenatti said. “If the defendant was anyone other than Donald Trump, this case would not have been brought at this time, and for the government to attempt to bring this case and convict him in an effort to prevent tens of millions of people from voting for him, I think it’s just flat out wrong, and atrocious. “I’m really bothered by the fact that Trump, in my view, has been targeted. Four cases is just over the top and I think there’s a significant chance that this is going to all backfire and is going to propel him to the White House,” he added. -NY Post.

According to Avenatti, “Depending on what happens, this could constitute pouring jet fuel on his campaign.” Avenatti captured national attention in 2018 while representing Stormy Daniels, the porn star who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006, and was paid $130,000 by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen in 2016 in order to allegedly buy her silence. In November 2018, however, Avenatti’s world began imploding after he was booked on charges of domestic violence. Less than 18 months later he was convicted of trying to extort Nike for up to $25 million. And in 2022, he was found guilty of pilfering $300,000 in book advance money from Daniels – and pleaded guilty to federal fraud and tax charges in the same month.

Well, they did get her out of the way for years.

• Judges Dismiss Disciplinary Effort by Texas State Bar vs Sidney Powell (ET)

Sidney Powell, a lawyer who filed lawsuits after the 2020 election, got a win in Texas after an appeals court ruled that the Texas bar did not prove that she engaged in misconduct or fraud. A panel of judges on the Fifth District of Texas Court of Appeals in Dallas ruled Wednesday that the state bar’s arguments lacked merit and evidence. They found that state bar prosecutors “employed a ’scattershot’ approach to the case” that had alleged Ms. Powell did not have a reasonable basis to file lawsuits that challenged the 2020 election’s outcome in battleground states. “The Bar employed a ‘scattershot’ approach to the case, which left this court and the trial court ‘with the task of sorting through the argument to determine what issue ha[d] actually been raised,’” Justice Dennise Garcia wrote in the court’s ruling. “Having done so, the absence of competent summary judgment compels our conclusion that the Bar failed to meet its summary judgment burden.”

A separate court had sided with Ms. Powell in the case last year, finding “numerous defects” in the evidence presented by the State Bar of Texas Commission for Lawyer Discipline. The court also found that the bar couldn’t provide evidence that she filed frivolous lawsuits. “Under these circumstances and on this record, we conclude the trial court did not err in granting Powell’s no-evidence motion for summary judgment,” the appeals court wrote. The State Bar of Texas Commission for Lawyer Discipline has not yet issued a statement on the matter. A representative for the Texas State Bar told Reuters that the commission would meet to determine its next steps but declined to comment further. “The Dallas Court of Appeals has affirmed the Texas state court’s dismissal of the Texas Bar’s case against Powell. After three years of litigation, the Court of Appeals held the Bar had no evidence Powell violated any disciplinary rule in filing four federal lawsuits in the aftermath of the 2020 election,” she said in a statement this week after the court’s decision.

In court papers filed with the appeals court, Ms. Powell disputed the bar’s allegations that she provided altered evidence in her legal filings. She said the documents were provided by other attorneys involved in the case. The court appeared to agree with her arguments. “Regardless of whether the challenged conduct must be knowing, intentional, or otherwise, a question we need not resolve here, it is axiomatic that dishonesty involves some conscious perversion of truth,” the judge wrote Wednesday. Following the 2020 contest, Ms. Powell was among the most prominent attorneys to file lawsuits, alleging there was enough fraud in battleground states that swung it in favor of President Joe Biden. A federal judge in Detroit sanctioned Ms. Powell and other lawyers in 2021 over the lawsuits. The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals largely upheld those sanctions, and the U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear Ms. Powell’s appeal.

Ms. Powell in October 2023 pleaded guilty in Georgia and took a plea deal with Fulton County prosecutors after she was charged with illegally attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. President Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, has also been charged in the case. He and more than a dozen other co-defendants in the case have pleaded not guilty. President Trump has said the Fulton County case is an attempt to interfere with the 2024 election, describing the charges as baseless. Under the terms of her plea deal, Ms. Powell had to write an apology. “I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” she wrote in the letter, made public in December. Fani Willis, the embattled Democrat district attorney of Fulton County who presented the charges to a grand jury, said that the apology letters needed to include “real contrition” but that they did not need to be long. Jenna Ellis, another lawyer who was charged and took a plea deal in Fulton County, also wrote an apology letter. However, she read hers aloud in court while pleading guilty.

In response to Ms. Powell’s apology letter, President Trump wrote on social media last year that Ms. Powell never worked for him in an official capacity. “Sidney Powell was one of millions and millions of people who thought, and in ever increasing numbers still think, correctly, that the 2020 Presidential Election was rigged & stolen,” he wrote on Truth Social. He added that Ms. Powell “was not my attorney and never was.” If she was, “she would have been conflicted,” the former president wrote at the time. “Ms. Powell did a valiant job of representing a very unfairly treated and governmentally abused General Mike Flynn, but to no avail. His prosecution, despite the facts, was ruthless. He was an innocent man, much like many other innocent people who are being persecuted by this now Fascist government of ours, and I was honored to give him a Full Pardon,” he added.

“We are at war, and everyone needs to put on the full armor of God.”

• UN Plans Tyrannical Future for You – Alex Newman (USAW)

Award-winning journalist Alex Newman, author of the popular book “Deep State” and the new best-selling book called “Indoctrinating Our Children to Death,” says the UN’s quest for total tyrannical control of your life is coming sooner than you could imagine. Newman explains, “The bigger story here that people are not paying attention to is the UN is coming together in September . . . and they are having ‘The Summit of the Future.’ They are telling us they are going to bring out radical drastic reforms in the structure of the UN . . . and the power of the UN. Think of it as the biggest power grab ever at the global level. The Secretary General of the UN (António Guterres) has put out briefs where he is calling for the UN to be the one world global dictatorship with him at the helm.

In emergencies, the UN would have all power in emergencies and have all power to oversee emergency response. . . . They say the crisis could be a climate crisis, an economic crisis, environmental crisis, pandemic crisis, black swan crisis or maybe something from outer space. So, basically, anything could be a crisis, and when the Secretary General declares a crisis, all power and authority would go to the UN. This is like a blank check on the wealth and liberty on every person on the planet, and this is coming soon. It is eminent. This is coming in September at the UN, and it is a power grab of historic proportions. They know their time is short, and they are going for the big enchilada here. This is really a summit for a tyrannical future. . . . They want control of every aspect of your life.”

If you think the “depopulation” or murder program by the Deep State is some sort of conspiracy theory or myth, think again. Newman says, “One of the interesting things about going to the UN conferences is they are totally open and totally transparent about the fact that they think there are way too many of us on this planet. We are taking up their space and consuming their resources. They say this openly. They say there are way too many people having way too many babies, and we have to drastically cut back on the number of people on the planet. They have a whole agency dedicated to this called the UN Population Fund.” One sure fire way to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time is war. Newman says, “They have understood, the globalists, the Deep State, the evil doers and the sick cabal, have understood for a very long time that war was the best mechanism for bringing about their totalitarian one world government.

This is not speculation on my part. This is what they say. Their game plan is war, famine, energy crisis and economic crisis. These are all tools and catalysts for accelerating this agenda. If millions of people die in a third world war, and it does not matter if it is Iran and Israel, or China and Tiawan, or Ukraine and Russia, it really does not matter, they want millions and millions of people dead so people will give up their attachment to the nation state, self-government and individual liberty and give up anything, money or freedom, anything to make it stop.” Don’t lose hope because Newman also talks about all the things you can do to not comply with tyranny. Newman also points out what state and local governments can do and are doing to resist this UN total control of everything. Newman says, “We are at war, and everyone needs to put on the full armor of God.”

“They’re afraid of the agencies,” he stated, adding: “That’s not compatible with democracy.”

• US Lawmakers Scared Of Being Framed For ‘Kiddie Porn’ – Tucker Carlson (RT)

Members of Congress consistently vote in favor of mass surveillance programs because they’re “terrified” that intelligence agencies will plant “kiddie porn” on their computers if they speak up, American journalist Tucker Carlson has claimed. Carlson appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Friday, hours before the US Senate voted to renew Section 702 of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Ostensibly created to allow intelligence agencies such as the FBI and CIA to surveil the communications of foreigners, Section 702 allows these agencies to access data ‘indirectly’ collected from millions of American citizens without a warrant. According to Carlson, a number of lawmakers actually opposed this renewal, but did not admit this publicly. “People don’t say that because they’re worried about being punished,” Carlson told Rogan.

“They’re worried about someone putting kiddie porn on their computer. Members of Congress are terrified of the intel agencies. I’m not guessing at that. They’ve told me that, including people on the [intelligence] committee, including people who run the intel committee.” “They’re afraid of the agencies,” he stated, adding: “That’s not compatible with democracy.” “It’s playing out in front of everyone, and no one cares and no one does anything about it,” Carlson continued. “I think the reason is because they’re threatened. And if you look at the committee chairmen who allowed this s**t to happen year after year… I know them. And they have all the things to hide. I know that for a fact.” Apart from the supposed threat of surreptitiously-planted child pornography, Carlson claimed that it’s “very common” for lawmakers to have “a drinking problem or a weird sex life,” which agencies could easily expose if these politicians refuse to do their bidding.

Carlson is not the first influential conservative to claim that elected representatives are being blackmailed. Back in December, Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett, a Republican, suggested that his colleagues opposed a motion to release the names of notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s clients because they would have been implicated in sex crimes. Unnamed forces in Washington use “the old honey pot” to blackmail politicians and force them to “vote for crazy stuff,” he told conservative podcast host Benny Johnson at the time. A year earlier, a nude video of Rep. Madison Cawthorn was leaked a month after he claimed to have been invited to drug-fueled orgies by older members of Congress. Washington, he said at the time, is rife with “sexual perversion.”

In case you missed it, Tucker Carlson says Intelligence agencies BLACKMAlLED Congressmembers.

The media won't tell you this.

“They’re worried about someone putting kıddie p**n on their computer. Members of Congress are terrified of the intel agencies.

I’m not guessing at… pic.twitter.com/4UnXcNJNo5

— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) April 21, 2024

Lion

Wait for it… pic.twitter.com/NzycPXczZe

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 21, 2024

Alligator
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782065990462775475

Collie

A border collie gently guiding ducklings into a puddle pic.twitter.com/IWwvp3BB80

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 21, 2024

30 seconds

He got permission to act like a normal dog for 30 seconds while he was on duty. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/x01P4mdQhE

— Figen (@TheFigen_) April 21, 2024

Cobra

Cobra on a golf course fleeing from a mongoose pic.twitter.com/DcK0wvZQ0A

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 21, 2024

Joey
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782098219826311633

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Debt Rattle March 26 2024

Mar 262024

March 26, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:29 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, blob, bond, ceasefire, Crocus, Engoron, Letitia, neurowarfare, Security Council, SPAC, Trump 70 Responses »

Hieronymous Bosch The Haywain Triptych c.1516

• UK Court To Issue Ruling On Julian Assange Extradition Tuesday Morning (ZH)

• Trump Bond Reduced To $175 Million At 11th Hour (ZH)

• Trump Net Worth Tops $6.4 Billion On SPAC Deal (ZH)

• Musk Reveals Major Political Flip (RT)

• The Nuland – Budanov – Tajik – Crocus connection (Pepe Escobar)

• The American Explanation For The Moscow Terror Attack Doesn’t Add Up (Trenin)

• ‘Kill Them All’ – Medvedev Enraged By Moscow Terror Attack (RT)

• ‘Kill Them All’: Inside the Israeli Blockade on Gaza Aid (Loffredo)

• UN Security Council Demands Immediate Gaza Ceasefire As US Abstains (AlJ)

• Macron’s Punctured Balloon of a ‘Geo-Political EU’ (Alastair Crooke)

• Single EU Army Unrealistic – Borrell (RT)

• In Blob We Trust (Kunstler)

• January 6th Continues to be a Tragedy in the Eye of the Beholder (Turley)

• Weaponizing Reality: The Dawn of Neurowarfare (Pabst)

Dana White
https://twitter.com/i/status/1772322279566823708

Get Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1772331781724774609

Watters Trump

The Democrats were prepared to climax today – anticipating a huge Trump loss in his civil fraud case today. Their bubbles burst when his bond was slashed… and he ended up making billions. pic.twitter.com/NPMcxy4e5a

— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) March 26, 2024

Tucker Trump

Jonathan Karl says Tucker Carlson told him Trump is ‘far more radical’ on Ukraine than he lets on in public:

“He said Trump agrees with me far more than he lets on in public. He’s far more radical on this than he lets on in public.”

pic.twitter.com/cBJ2ehoYdL

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) March 26, 2024

Tucker Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1772403117423829205

The ruling will come at about the time I post this. Say a prayer for Julian.

• UK Court To Issue Ruling On Julian Assange Extradition Tuesday Morning (ZH)

A Decision on extradition to the US following last months court hearing where lawyers for Julian Assange detailed evidence of a "truly breathtaking plan" by the CIA to murder the publisher will be given tomorrow, 26th March, 10.30am, Royal Courts of Justice, London #FreeAssange pic.twitter.com/GpWVMANJSq

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 25, 2024

On Tuesday London’s High Court will finally rule on the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The court is expected to deliver a decision on if he can appeal his extradition to the United States, where he would face espionage and related charges for publishing state secrets. WikiLeaks has said the written ruling is expected to be delivered by 10:30 am London time (6:30am ET). After this, all his appeal opportunities in the UK legal system will have been exhausted. Stella Assange, his wife, has warned that if the court rules against Assange, he could be on a plane to US soil days following. He would be removed from the high security Belmarsh prison for a trial in the US on espionage-related charges and publishing state secrets, where a 175 year jail sentence would await him.

WikiLeaks has been urging all Americans to put pressure on the Biden administration to drop its case against Assange by calling House representatives and telling them to support H.Res.934. The bill, introduced by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) requests that the Biden White House halt the proceedings against Assange. The bill reads: “This resolution expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that regular journalistic activities, including the obtainment and publication of information, are protected under the First Amendment and that the federal government should drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange.” Editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsson has commented on what Assange’s prosecution and possible extradition means for the future of press freedoms.”It cannot be underestimated, the effect that it will have,” he said.

“If an Australian citizen publishing in Europe can face prison time in the United States, that means no journalists anywhere are safe in the future.” However, as we detailed last week, the Biden administration might be looking for a way to bring the 14-year long legal drama to an end. A last Wednesday WSJ report said, “The U.S. Justice Department is considering whether to allow Julian Assange to plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information, according to people familiar with the matter, opening the possibility of a deal that would end a lengthy legal saga triggered by one of the biggest classified intelligence leaks in American history.” A plea deal means the whole crisis for him and his family could finally come to an acceptable and peaceful end after all of these years.

“Justice Department officials and Assange’s lawyers have had preliminary discussions in recent months about what a plea deal could look like, according to people familiar with the matter, a potential softening in a standoff filled with political and legal complexities,” according to details in the WSJ report. “The talks come as Assange has spent some five years behind bars and U.S. prosecutors face diminishing odds that he would serve much more time even if he were convicted stateside.” In February of this year, Assange’s cause received a big boost when his native Australia issued formal request to the US and UK that charges against Julian Assange be dropped. The motion adopted by Australian parliament at that time emphasized “the importance of the UK and USA bringing the matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia.”

“The new order also stayed Engoron’s order barring Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump from serving as officers and directors of New York companies for two years..”

• Trump Bond Reduced To $175 Million At 11th Hour (ZH)

A New York court of appeals has significantly reduced the bond required to stop his properties from being seized by authorities from $454 million to $175 million, in order to appeal his New York civil fraud trial. The decision by a five-judge panel of appellate court judges, comes after the real estate mogul’s lawyers argued that it was “impossible” to obtain an appeal bond of $454 million after approaching over 30 surety companies without success. Trump also said he would have to sell properties in a “fire sale” to raise cash. Had the court denied Trump’s request, and he had failed to obtain the full bond amount, Trump was at risk of losing his bank accounts, followed by some of his properties.

His attorneys had asked the appeals court to either waive the bond requirement or reduce it, arguing that the $464 million judgement against Trump and his family was likely to be overturned on appeal.v In the Monday decision, the appeals court also stayed Engoron’s ruling barring Trump from serving as an officer or director of a NY company for three years, and which had barred Trump and his corporate defendants from applying for loans from New York lenders over the same period. The new order also stayed Engoron’s order barring Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump from serving as officers and directors of New York companies for two years. Trump has 10 days to post the bond.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1772318816485392427

Letitia
https://twitter.com/i/status/1772291761718882432

“..it seems that Biden’s campaign staff – which even former President Barack Obama essentially admitted are total morons, need to go back to the drawing board..”

• Trump Net Worth Tops $6.4 Billion On SPAC Deal (ZH)

Former President Donald Trump’s net worth topped $6.4 billion on Monday following the completion of a 29-month-long SPAC deal involving his social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, as well as the reduction of the bond due in his NY civil fraud trial in order to appeal a $454 million verdict. And while Trump’s gains on the SPAC deal with Digital World Acquisition Corp may just be on paper (and any meaningful sales when his six-month lockup expires would likely tank the price), the $4 billion boost was enough to include Trump in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which tracks the top 500 wealthiest people in the world.

Earlier on Monday, Trump was granted a vastly reduced bond requirement of $175 million in order to appeal his NY civil trial over his real estate. In response, Trump quickly said he would post it. The completion of the SPAC merger came despite last-minute lawsuits from investors and executives, as well as a settlement with the SEC. The timing couldn’t be worse for Democrats – as the 2024 Biden campaign picked this moment in time to copy Trump’s name-calling strategy, dubbing the former president “Broke Don.” While that was based on a recent campaign finance report showing that Biden out-raised Trump in February, it seems that Biden’s campaign staff – which even former President Barack Obama essentially admitted are total morons, need to go back to the drawing board. Or not… as long as curbside voting and uncreased 2am ballot drops that nobody is supposed to discuss are a thing.

“I think we need a red wave or America is toast..”

• Musk Reveals Major Political Flip (RT)

The US needs a red wave and will be finished if the Republican Party does not prevail in the 2024 presidential election, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday. The billionaire, who had previously revealed he voted for Joe Biden in 2020, has since criticized the incumbent US president and clashed with his administration. Musk has repeatedly criticized Biden’s handling of the Southern US border crisis and has accused Democrats of being “controlled by the unions.” “I voted 100% Dem until a few years ago. Now, I think we need a red wave or America is toast,” Musk wrote on X. According to media reports, the entrepreneur became increasingly critical of Biden after Tesla, the top-selling electric-car company in the US, was excluded from a White House summit on EVs in 2021.

Last year Musk revealed that he had doubts he’d be voting for Biden in the 2024 presidential election. As of yet, however, he hasn’t endorsed Biden’s rival Donald Trump. “I think I would not vote for Biden,” Musk told a DealBook summit in November, adding “I’m not saying I’d vote for Trump.” Earlier this month the New York Times reported that Trump had met with Musk in Florida, as the former US president seeks a major cash infusion for his reelection campaign. Musk confirmed the meeting but maintained that he is not donating to the Republican’s campaign. “I was at a breakfast at a friend’s place and Donald Trump came by, that’s it,” he told former CNN host Don Lemon last week, adding that Trump had not requested any financial assistance. “I’m not paying his legal bills in any way, shape or form. And he did not ask me for money,” Musk said.

“A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K..”

• The Nuland – Budanov – Tajik – Crocus connection (Pepe Escobar)

Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA. Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus. One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine, Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.

The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K. The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile; adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor become disposable. Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware of what he was carrying,

As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the Taliban. Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”). The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay.

“..Moscow would be removing one of its most important self-imposed constraints – not to touch Kiev’s senior leadership..”

• The American Explanation For The Moscow Terror Attack Doesn’t Add Up (Trenin)

Ukraine, true to form, and alone among the nations of the world, has suggested that the Crocus City atrocity was an operation carried out by Russia’s own secret services, launched to facilitate a further tightening of the political regime and a new wave of mobilization. Clearly nonsensical, this interpretation invoked in many Russian minds the old proverb, “liar, liar, pants on fire.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his five-minute address to the nation on Saturday, refrained from rolling out the Kremlin’s own version. His words and his demeanor were calm, but the style of his remarks was stern. Those behind the attack “will be punished whoever they are and wherever they may be,” the president declared. The direction of Putin’s thinking was revealed by the two facts – not conjectures – he raised: that the terrorists, having fled the scene of the assault, had been apprehended not far (100km or so) from the Ukrainian border, and that “information” had been obtained that they intended to cross the border into Ukraine, where “they had contacts.”

At this point, nothing is firmly established. The results of the Russian investigation will be enormously important. If Moscow concludes that the attack was conceived, planned, and organized by the Ukrainians – say, the military intelligence agency GUR – Putin’s public warning would logically mean that the agency’s leaders will not just be “legitimate” targets, but priority ones for Russia. Since an attack of such gravity would almost certainly have required the approval of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the “guarantee” that Putin informally gave to foreign leaders (including Israel’s then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett) that Russia would not target Zelensky personally, would presumably be lifted. If so, Moscow would be removing one of its most important self-imposed constraints – not to touch Kiev’s senior leadership.

Two separate articles on two separate topics saying ‘Kill Them All’. Sign of the times.

• ‘Kill Them All’ – Medvedev Enraged By Moscow Terror Attack (RT)

The perpetrators and masterminds of Friday’s deadly terrorist attack at a Moscow concert venue must be killed without mercy, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. At least 137 people have been killed and over 180 were wounded when several men armed with assault rifles opened fire inside the Crocus City Hall and then proceeded to set the concert venue ablaze. Four men suspected of carrying out the attack have been captured. Two of them have confessed in court, and are set to remain in custody until late May. They all face life in prison. “Everyone asks me. What to do? … Should they be killed?” wrote Medvedev, currently deputy chair of the National Security Council, in a Telegram post on Monday. “It should and will be done,” he stressed, adding: “It is much more important to kill everyone involved. Everyone. Who paid, who sympathized, who helped. Kill them all.”

Medvedev earlier stated that “Terrorists understand only terror in response” and that “all of them must be found and mercilessly destroyed as terrorists – including officials of the state that committed such an atrocity.” The former Russian president vowed to “avenge each and every” victim of the Crocus City Hall attack, regardless of country of origin and status, insisting this “is now our legal and main goal.” Medvedev’s comments come amid growing calls among the country’s lawmakers to restore the death penalty, which has effectively been banned in Russia since 1996. While the Russian criminal code technically has a provision for capital punishment, courts are de facto banned from handing down such a sentence.

Cultivated hatred.

• ‘Kill Them All’: Inside the Israeli Blockade on Gaza Aid (Loffredo)

Setting out on a bus caravan through illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Loffredo arrives at the Kerem Shalom crossing to Gaza, filming Israeli citizens as they physically block trucks loaded with flour and other essential goods. There, a reservist who served in the military assault on Gaza confesses to an array of war crimes, including blowing up the offices of UN centers dedicated to providing food to the local population. Loffredo then joins nationalists on a march toward Gaza, where they hope to establish new settlements after the population is violently driven out.

Too much pressure for the US.

• UN Security Council Demands Immediate Gaza Ceasefire As US Abstains (AlJ)

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) demands an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the release of all hostages as the United States abstains from the vote. The remaining 14 council members voted in favour of the resolution, which was proposed by the 10 elected members of the council. There was a round of applause in the council chamber after the vote on Monday. The resolution calls for an immediate ceasefire for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in two weeks, and also demands the release of all hostages seized in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7. “The bloodbath has continued for far too long,” said Amar Bendjama, the ambassador from Algeria, the Arab bloc’s current Security Council member and a sponsor of the resolution. “Finally, the Security Council is shouldering its responsibility.”

The US had repeatedly blocked Security Council resolutions that put pressure on Israel but has increasingly shown frustration with its ally as civilian casualties mount and the UN warns of impending famine in Gaza. Speaking after the vote, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield blamed Hamas for the delay in passing a ceasefire resolution. “We did not agree with everything with the resolution,” which she said was the reason why the US abstained. “Certain key edits were ignored, including our request to add a condemnation of Hamas,” Thomas-Greenfield said. She stressed that the release of Israeli captives would lead to an increase in humanitarian aid supplies going into the besieged coastal enclave. The White House said the final resolution did not have language the US considers essential and its abstention does not represent a shift in policy.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the US failure to veto the resolution is a “clear retreat” from its previous position and would hurt war efforts against Hamas as well as efforts to release Israeli captives held in Gaza. His office also said Netanyahu will not be sending a high-level delegation to Washington, DC, in light of the new US position. US President Joe Biden had requested to meet Israeli officials to discuss Israeli plans for a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. White House spokesperson John Kirby said the US was “disappointed” by Netanyahu’s decision. “We’re very disappointed that they won’t be coming to Washington, DC, to allow us to have a fulsome conversation with them about viable alternatives to them going in on the ground in Rafah,” Kirby told reporters.

Tucker Israel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1772273844591489260

“..Ukraine tries to retreat into unprepared and near indefensible terrain..”

• Macron’s Punctured Balloon of a ‘Geo-Political EU’ (Alastair Crooke)

The general view in Europe was that Macron was playing complex mind-games, firstly with the French people, and secondly with Russia. Nevertheless, it seems that there could be some substance to Macron’s sabre-rattling: The French Chief of Army Staff said he has 20,000 troops ready to be inserted in 30 days. And the Head of Russia’s SVR Intelligence Agency, Naryshkin, more modestly assessed that France seemingly is preparing a military contingent for sending to Ukraine, which at the initial stage, will be about two thousand people. Just to be clear however, even a 20,000-man division by standards of classical military theory is supposed to be able to hold at maximum, a 10km-front. An insertion of two or twenty thousand French troops would change nothing strategically; it would not halt the vastly larger Russian steamroller, grinding on westwards. So what is Macron playing at? Is this all bluff, then? Likely, it is part ‘grandstanding’ by Macron, pre-occupied to present himself as ‘Mr Strongman Europe’ – particularly toward his French constituency.

His posturing comes however, at a more significant conjunction of events for the so-called ‘Geo-political EU’: Clarity: Light has pierced, and has illuminated a space hitherto occupied by shadows. It is now as clear as it can be – after Putin’s overwhelming win in elections on a record turnout – that President Putin is here to stay. All the western shadow-play of ‘régime change’ in Moscow simply shrunk to naught in the bright light of events. Snorts of anger can be heard from some quarters in Europe. Yet they will subside. There is no choice. The reality, as Marianne newspaper, quoting a senior French officer, derisively noting in respect to Macron’s Ukraine’s posturing: “We must make no mistake, facing the Russians; we are an army of cheerleaders” and sending French troops to the Ukrainian front would simply be “not reasonable”. At the Élysée, an unnamed advisor argued that Macron “wanted to send a strong signal … (in) milli-metered and calibrated words”.

What pains the EU ‘neocon ever-hopefuls’ more is that Putin’s clear electoral victory coincides, almost precisely, with an EU (and NATO) humiliation in Ukraine. It is not just that the AFU appears to be in a cascading implosion, but that the retreat is accelerating, as Ukraine tries to retreat into unprepared and near indefensible terrain. Into this grim EU prospect is that second shaft of clarifying light: The U.S. is slowly but surely turning its back on the financing and arming of Kiev, leaving Europe’s impotence exposed for all the world to see. The EU simply cannot substitute for the U.S. pivot. Yet more hurtful for some is that a U.S. retreat represents a ‘punch in the guts’ for much of the Brussels leadership, who had fallen on the Biden Administration with almost indecent glee, upon Trump’s leaving of office. They used the moment to proclaim the cementing of a pro-Atlanticist, pro-NATO EU. Now, as former Indian diplomat MK Bhadrakumar perfectly defines it, “France [is] all dressed up – with nowhere to go”:

You just take more EU taxpayers’ money and hand control over it to Americans.

• Single EU Army Unrealistic – Borrell (RT)

The EU must increase its military strength and internal cooperation, but that does not mean it should aspire to a single army, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has said. In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday, the foreign policy chief insisted there is a “strong consensus” among EU members on boosting the bloc’s defense capabilities, both in terms of its military industry and armed forces. “This is not a question of creating the singular European army,” Borrell said, adding that all 27 EU members are free to decide their own defense policies. Instead, the armies of EU members need to be “more interoperational” in order to strengthen the bloc’s defense, the diplomat argued.

“They have to create a European pillar inside NATO. Europeans have to take more responsibility for our defense,” Borrell stated, adding that this includes fostering a close partnership with the US within NATO. “We have to increase our military capacities… But it is utopical to believe that we are going to cancel the 27 armies to create a single one. What we have to do is to be more realistic,” Borrell said. The bloc is well aware of the harsh realities of the modern world and is preparing accordingly, he added. In January, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani publicly supported the creation of a joint European army, an idea that has been debated for several years, arguing that the force could be used for peacekeeping missions and conflict prevention.

The proposal, however, met resistance from several EU members, including Denmark and Poland. Copenhagen argued that “NATO is the cornerstone of our collective security,” and that defense remains a matter of national sovereignty. Warsaw insisted that EU action on defense must be complementary to NATO efforts. Since the start of the Ukraine conflict, EU member states have considerably ramped up defense spending, with plans to increase it to €350 billion ($380 billion) in 2024. In recent weeks, several Western leaders have also called on the bloc to prepare for a full-scale war with Russia, which they claim could break out within the next few years. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no plans or interest whatsoever in attacking NATO countries. Moscow, however, has for years voiced concern about the expansion of the US-led military bloc towards its borders.

“..the blob is our government now; there is no government except the blob..”

• In Blob We Trust (Kunstler)

You’ve got to ask yourself: really, who seems to hanker more for a red-hot World War Three, “Joe Biden” or Vlad Putin? Since “Joe Biden” is only a figment of American politics, first you’d have to ask: a figment of what? Answer: A figment of our greater intel blob, led, of course, by the Central Intelligence Agency. Which is to say, the blob is our government now; there is no government except the blob. We are the United Blob of America! In Blob We Trust should be printed on our money. That being the case, blob policy rules. And since deception is one of the blob’s chief duties, we mere sniveling citizens should expect to be deceived at every turn about everything. So, when the blob’s news cut-out, The New York Times, serves up a comprehensive history of the gang known as ISIS-K Monday morning after the Moscow Crocus Concert Hall Massacre, you might suspect that some deception is afoot.

ISIS-K immediately took credit for the Crocus Massacre. K stands for Khorasan, a set of provinces in eastern Iran, leaking over into Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISIS-K supposedly evolved out of the original ISIS that sought to establish an Islamic caliphate out of Iraq and Syria. After Mr. Trump broke it up in 2019, the gang regrouped in K-land, deeper in central Asia. Curiously, this ISIS-K has carried out attacks against Iran, where it lives. Go figure. . . . Its progenitor, the plain old ISIS-no-K was responsible for the horrific Bataclan Theater massacre in Paris, 2015 and the suicide bombing of the Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena, UK, 2017. They’re sort of the Concert-Massacres-R-Us of terror orgs — you really couldn’t find a better patsy for the Crocus op.

Is it as simple as that? Not if you consider Scott Ritter’s theory that the first ISIS was a creation of the CIA, with the mission of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, considered by the blob to be an uber-bad dude, largely for enlisting Russia’s help in ending Syria’s civil war. And if you can actually figure out what Syria’s civil war was about, other than a US blob op to gain control of Syria and its oil, you could win a MacArthur Genius Prize. But you might also ask: did the United Blob of America hire ISIS-K to slaughter 137 Russian civilians Saturday night? And also: did it do so directly or indirectly, through cut-outs?

One blob weakness is that it can’t resist the impulse to telegraph its plans ahead of some dastardly act. Both “Joe Biden” and State Department war-hawk Victoria Nuland verbally signaled the op to blow-up the Nord Stream gas pipelines well before the act. Before “retiring” (or getting cashiered) from State this month, Ms. Nuland warned Russia to expect “some nasty surprises” in the days ahead. Was she fired for opening her big mouth? Now, a photograph has surfaced of one of the captured Crocus perps, Shamsidin Fariduni, posing in the Crocus concert hall date-stamped March 7. A set-up? A deep fake?

In any case, on March 8 the United Blob State Department issued a warning to Russia’s foreign ministry that something wicked was coming their way, and likewise warned our diplomatic personnel to steer clear of concert halls and other public venues. Was the Crocus op already well in motion? And was the blob trying to cover for Ms. Nuland’s big mouth by warning about something that was too late to stop? Whatever else you think about the Russians, they are not dumb bunnies. You can be sure they are carefully putting together the puzzle pieces, having already been careful to take the suspects alive. They were, incidentally, all in one car driving toward the Ukraine border when apprehended by Russian police. That is being considered “a clue” as to who their handlers are. But then, who is Ukraine’s handler? (Cue: thinking music.)

“To start to call opponents or critics terrorists has long been a problem on both ends of the political spectrum.”

• January 6th Continues to be a Tragedy in the Eye of the Beholder (Turley)

For years, I have maintained that January 6th was a disgraceful riot but not an insurrection. That issue came to a head with the litigation over disqualifying former president Donald Trump and similar calls to block dozens of Republican incumbents from ballots. Now, the protest that became a riot has been elevated from an insurrection to a terrorist attack. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other democrats are using the description despite no one being charged with insurrection or terrorism. On Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez declared to CNN host Jake Tapper that “We’re talking about an individual who ordered essentially a terrorist attack on the Capital of the United States in order to retain power.” In fairness to Ocasio-Cortez, she is not alone in such characterizations. For example, many of us were surprised when FBI Director Christopher Wray condemned the January riot at the U.S. Capitol as “domestic terrorism.” From a strictly legal basis, it was wildly inaccurate, in my view.

Liberal publications like Politico have railed against the Justice Department for not charging terrorism. That has been supported by some law professors. Those charged for their role in the attack that day are largely facing trespass and other less serious charges — rather than insurrection or sedition. While the FBI launched a massive national investigation, it did not find evidence of an insurrection. While a few were charged with seditious conspiracy, no one was charged with insurrection. Trump has never been charged with either incitement or insurrection. The media has fueled these claims. One year after the riot, CBS News mostly downplayed and ignored the result of its own poll showing that 76 percent viewed it for what it was, as a “protest gone too far.” They argue that this riot could simply be treated as “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.” However, so could other protests that result in property damage and criminal acts.

We have seen other legislative proceedings shutdown by protesters with members removed from the floor. The question is where to draw the line to avoid the arbitrary classification of some protests as terrorism and others as unlawful access or trespass. Nancy Pelosi called protesters at her home Russian plants. Politicians called a protest on the Tennessee House floor “an insurrection.” Such rhetoric excess easily inflames the public, but it creates lasting erroneous views of the law. That in turn can pose a real threat to free speech as the line between demonstrations and terrorism are blurred. Ocasio-Cortez’s view of what constitutes the crime of terrorism is dubious for many, particularly after she declared that racketeering is not a crime. However, there is pressure to ramp up rhetoric as we approach the 2024 elections. To start to call opponents or critics terrorists has long been a problem on both ends of the political spectrum.

“..the ethical ramifications of BCIs and other emerging neurotechnologies don’t stop at the consumer market or the workplace..”

• Weaponizing Reality: The Dawn of Neurowarfare (Pabst)

Billionaire Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface (BCI) company Neuralink made headlines earlier this year for inserting its first brain implant into a human being. Musk says such implants, which are described as “fully implantable, cosmetically invisible, and designed to let you control a computer or mobile device anywhere you go,” are slated to eventually offer “full-bandwidth data streaming” to the brain. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are quite the human achievement: as described by the University of Calgary, “A brain computer interface (BCI) is a system that determines functional intent – the desire to change, move, control, or interact with something in your environment – directly from your brain activity. In other words, BCIs allow you to control an application or a device using only your mind.” Developers and advocates of BCIs and adjacent technologies emphasize that they can help people regain abilities lost due to aging, ailments, accidents or injuries, thus improving quality of life.

A brain implant created by Swiss-based École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne (EPFL), for example, has allowed a paralyzed man to walk again just by thinking. Others go further: Neuralink’s goal is to help people “surpass able-bodied human performance.” Yet, great ethical concerns arise with such advancements, and the tech is already being used for questionable purposes. To better plan logistics and boost productivity, for example, some Chinese employers have started using “emotional surveillance technology” to monitor workers’ brainwaves which, “combined with artificial intelligence algorithms, [can] spot incidents of workplace rage, anxiety, or sadness.” The example showcases how personal the technology can become as it is normalized in daily life. But the ethical ramifications of BCIs and other emerging neurotechnologies don’t stop at the consumer market or the workplace. Governments and militaries are already discussing — and experimenting on — the roles they could play in wartime.

Indeed, many are describing the human body and brain as war’s next domain, with a 2020 NATO-backed paper on “cognitive warfare” describing the phenomenon’s objective as “mak[ing] everyone a weapon…The brain will be the battlefield of the 21st century.” On this new “battlefield,” an era of neuroweapons, which can broadly be defined as technologies and systems that could either enhance or damage a warfighter or target’s cognitive and/or physical abilities, or otherwise attack people or critical societal infrastructure, has begun. In this exploration of the race to apply the latest neurotechnologies to war and beyond, I investigated how the neuroweapons of tomorrow, including BCIs that may allow for brain-to-brain or brain-to-machine communication, have the capacity to expand conflicts into a new domain — the brain — while also bringing a new dimension to both hard- and soft-power struggles of the future.

CO2 has never driven temperature changes in the past. Never.

"The question of whether CO2 drives the climate is easily resolved. You can look back in time over hundreds of millions of years—CO2 levels have changed radically many times. Did this cause temperature change? No, absolutely not. CO2 has never driven temperature changes in the… pic.twitter.com/jYWnNhI1U9

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) March 25, 2024

Obamacare
https://twitter.com/i/status/1772279457711034482

Clock

Real Time, art installation by Maarten Baas, features manual creation and erasure of clock hands each minute.

The "Schiphol clock" has a man painting minutes on a translucent screen, actor Tiago Sá da Costa recorded for 12 hours to create the video.
pic.twitter.com/9FrEav2VIC

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 25, 2024

Safe

A magnificent safe.pic.twitter.com/gjDAZ814Km

— Figen (@TheFigen_) March 24, 2024

Pelican

This man helping a pelican with fishing wire stuck to its beak
pic.twitter.com/aHE4zUmIaP

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 25, 2024

Cheetah

Meet Kiki: Just a pregnant special needs cheetah who learned to sit from meerkats pic.twitter.com/HHcVyE50SF

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 25, 2024

Kung fu master

This monkey looks like a Kung-fu master pic.twitter.com/KmcHywdyTt

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 25, 2024

Boop

Predators exist

Hooman: boop pic.twitter.com/dXs4auRNWH

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 25, 2024

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Debt Rattle November 9 2023

Nov 092023

November 9, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: AstraZeneca, De Villepin, Engoron, Hamas, Hezbollah, House Oversight, Hunter Biden, Trump, Zelensky 71 Responses »

Hieronymus Bosch Adoration of the Magi c1472

• Another Interview With Dominique De Villepin On The Conflict In Palestine (MoA)

• ‘Catastrophic’ Mistake for US to be Drawn Into War With Hezbollah and Iran (Sp.)

• The Nothingness of a War Consciousness (Dennis Kucinich)

• Russia’s Public Pivot To Palestine (Pepe Escobar)

• Israel Attempt To Destroy Hamas Will Breed More Radicalisation – UN Expert (G.)

• The Incredible Lightness of Barack Obama (Victor Davis Hanson)

• ‘Open War’ May Break Out Within Kiev Regime Leadership – Analyst (Sp.)

• Ukrainian Women to Be Zelensky’s New Cannon Fodder (Sp.)

• ‘We Have A Plan’ – Zelensky (RT)

• Ukraine Will Bring War To EU – Hungary (RT)

• Wife of NY Judge In Case Against Trump Attacking Him On Social Media (PM)

• US House Panel Subpoenas Hunter & James Biden (Sp.)

• AstraZeneca Taken to Court Over “Defective” Covid Jab in Landmark Case (DS)

Trump Tucker

President Trump tells @ClayTravis and @BuckSexton he'll consider @TuckerCarlson for VP: "I like Tucker a lot. I guess I would consider him. He’s got great common sense."

More in the podcast: https://t.co/WvNDsUybBx pic.twitter.com/0n5r2EWQmN

— The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show (@clayandbuck) November 8, 2023

Tucker Greenwald

Ep. 37 The two defining tragedies of our time — the war in Ukraine and the presidency of Joe Biden — are both finally coming to an end.

TIMESTAMPS:
(00:17) Glenn Greenwald joins
(05:41) Will the Ukraine War Hawks ever apologize?
(07:25) Using foreign wars to punish Americans… pic.twitter.com/vTVXqNNPhT

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 7, 2023

Watters CIA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1722081720797675523

Election theft

THE COUP DE'TAT OF AMERICA: Italian Intelligence along with U.S. sworn testimony confirms the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election was stolen from President Trump. Satellites being controlled from Italy added votes to Biden to defeat Trump. Joe Biden is not the lawful U.S. President.… pic.twitter.com/S4d8Xzn32Y

— Truth Justice ™ (@SpartaJustice) November 9, 2023

Translated By Arnaud Bertrand, who says: “Another masterful interview on Gaza of Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, who IMHO is the best diplomat the West has produced in decades.”

“The wounds of history are awakening.”

• Another Interview With Dominique De Villepin On The Conflict In Palestine (MoA)

We are essentially dealing with a policy of vengeance from the Netanyahu government. Israel has the right to self-defense, but self-defense does not give an indiscriminate right to kill civilian populations. When you target an ambulance, you can always imagine that there was a terrorist in one of the ambulances, or not. But the result is that there are children, women who die. Every child, every woman killed, that’s more terrorists. Therefore, Israel’s objective, what Israel achieves, is exactly the opposite of what they wish. So, it is essential today to change this logic and return to a strategy that is sound. Hostages, everything must be done to secure their release. But let’s not forget: the Palestinian people are also taken hostage, by Hamas and by Israel.

And Hamas, we all know, cares little for the Palestinian people. So telling Hamas: “we will not lift the siege, we will not have a humanitarian truce until the hostages are released,” is a dialogue of the deaf. Benjamin Netanyahu is waging a war to do everything so that the political solution does not come to the table. And this is where the international community, Europe, the United States, must tell Benjamin Netanyahu that this war is not acceptable. It is not acceptable because it leads us directly [to escalation] – because we can see it well, from Hamas we will move to Iran, from Iran we will move to other targets, and we then enter into the logic of a clash of civilizations. When Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu says that on one side there is the people of light and on the other the people of darkness, we can see the kind of spiral we are getting into.

All the wars that have been going on for the past twenty years are wars that begin and do not end. These are frozen conflicts. We know how to start a war; we do not know how to end it. And Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu could control Gaza, it would change nothing. There will continue to be terrorist attacks, Israelis will continue to live in fear. We must get out of this. The second reason why this is yesterday’s war is that the war against terrorism has never been won anywhere. Force is not the answer, once again. Vengeance is not the answer. The answer is justice, and that is what all the peoples of the world, all those who today watch what is happening, call for justice. Today the direction we must follow is to prevent Benjamin Netanyahu from continuing his suicidal logic that will make Israel a besieged state. They can besiege Gaza, but they will be besieged. And do not think that tomorrow we will again have a pacified discourse with Saudi Arabia, with the Arab states that will normalize the situation: no! The wounds of history are awakening.

Israel’s interest is to have a responsible state at its side. And this responsible state, let’s stop splitting hairs, must clearly be the West Bank, all of the West Bank. It must be Gaza, with access between the two territories, and East Jerusalem. The problem, and this is the whole point of Benjamin Netanyahu’s escalation, is that Benjamin Netanyahu does not want it. And the policy of separation must be dignified. That is, it must confer to the Palestinians a state where they can live, a viable state, a true state, which can build itself and which will be all the more at peace… [Host: “Does that mean that the settlements in the West Bank have to be removed?”] Well, when we left Algeria, there were a million French who left Algeria. Today there are 500,000 Israelis colonizing the West Bank, and there are 200,000 in East Jerusalem. [Host: “They must leave the West Bank?”] Yes. Yes, that is history, that is responsibility, that is the price! I tell you solemnly, it is the price of security for Israel! And all those who today consider that it will never be enough are pursuing the worst policy.”

“Netanyahu has asked three successive American presidents to either attack Iran or to join with Israel to attack Iran, and the answer has been ‘no’ three times.”

• ‘Catastrophic’ Mistake for US to be Drawn Into War With Hezbollah and Iran (Sp.)

In an article for Al-Mayadeen earlier this week, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter argued that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu is trying to escalate the situation in Lebanon in order to draw the US into a multi-front war against Hezbollah and ultimately Iran. However, Ritter also argued that such a maneuver would not succeed, because Hezbollah won’t be goaded into a conflict that will put it at a disadvantage on the global stage. Ritter said if Hezbollah takes the initiative and launches a full-scale attack on Israel, “people will stop talking about Palestine. People will stop talking about Israel’s aggression, and they will now focus on a new front that will probably include Iran.”

“This is again why [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah speaks of perseverance. Perseverance means that you have to struggle through the difficult times to ensure that you are not distracted from the strategic vision,” Ritter said, adding that “Hamas is winning this fight. Israel cannot prevail. Israel cannot defeat Hamas on the ground. Israel has lost the propaganda battle globally; they have lost in the United States.” John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer and whistleblower about the US torture program, told Radio Sputnik’s “The Critical Hour” on Tuesday that Ritter and Nasrallah are right: the US cannot win a war against Hezbollah and should not get involved in such a fight.

“I think Scott Ritter is right. And, you know, I would remind everybody, too, if you recall a month ago, in the immediate aftermath, just in 24 or 48 hours after the Hamas attack on Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu said – and he said it definitively at the time – that the Iranians were behind it all, that that Iran was supplying weapons to Hamas, that Hamas couldn’t have pulled this off by itself, this had to be an Iranian operation. And it wasn’t an Iranian operation. But that was very consistent with Netanyahu’s thinking over the past two decades,” said Kiriakou, who is also the co-host of “Political Misfits” on Radio Sputnik. “Netanyahu has asked three successive American presidents to either attack Iran or to join with Israel to attack Iran, and the answer has been ‘no’ three times. And so now he sees this as an opportunity to bring the Americans in, to either help defeat Hezbollah while the Israelis focus on Hamas, or to defeat Iran, while the Israelis focus on Hamas. Because the truth of the matter is: Israel cannot fight a two-front war. It’s just not equipped,” Kiriakou said.

“Now, we heard from Netanyahu’s office today that the IDF is – their words – ‘deep in the heart of Gaza’. Well, good luck with that. Good luck with miles and miles of tunnels, good luck finding an enemy that is intertwined with the civilian population. Good luck. That doesn’t mean that the United States should be dragged into it. We have our own problems now with Ukraine and with what seems to be an overwhelming national desire to jump in on the side of the Israelis from a distance – but that doesn’t mean that we have to send American troops to help Israel fight its war.”

“The America that could be, our own hopes and dreams for a prosperous and secure nation, lie alongside the bodies of the men, women and children in those ruins.”

• The Nothingness of a War Consciousness (Dennis Kucinich)

We are now being presented, several times a day, with media examples of the effect of extreme violence visited on the captive people of Gaza. The images are heartbreaking. The reality unbearable. Bodies of Palestinian families strewn like refuse along a road that they had trekked as a path to safety. A car turns around at a checkpoint in Gaza, its occupants are hit with a shot from behind, from a tank and everything, the car and its occupants, disappear in a puff. A Palestinian journalist mourns his colleague, who only a half hour earlier, was reporting on air. After work, he went home, a bomb hit, killing him and his 11-member family. The video of his ruined house shows several children’s party dresses that lie amidst the rubble. The human family is in the rubble.

An ambulance convoy, filled with injured Gazans, under the supervision of medical authorities, headed to the Rafah border crossing, was struck by the Israeli air force with the stated suspicion that the vehicle, which was headed away from the battle, carried Hamas fighters. War reduces all nothingness. It is as if 10,000 Palestinians and more had never existed. But they did, just as the 1,400 Israelis killed on October 7 existed. They had birthdates, names, fragile exchanges of human emotion, of love of family, private moments in everyday life that confirmed their existence. Obliterated. Nothingness. Whatever media we consume, we see only a fraction of the massive display of inhumanity occurring in Gaza, the reduction of living, breathing, feeling people to objects. This is heartless. This is soulless. This reduces all of existence to the nothingness of smoke, human smoke.

The violence it is calculated. It is rooted in power politics, in racism, in apartheid, in twisted history, opportunism disguised as vengeance, statecraft as slaughter. We in America, are paying for the extermination of our fellow humans. Our weapons are creating carnage against helpless people. Our aircraft, our ships, our troops have entered the fray, greatly outnumbered. But we are not helpless. We must demand, now, that our government take a new direction, and soon, not only for a cease fire, but a ceasing of war, the end of arms sales to fuel war, the end of 800 military bases around the world; the end of the theft of our tax dollars for killing; the end of policies that pit people against each other, the end of the destructive psychology justifying violence to maintain “strategic balance,” the end of the false justifications for sending our troops into harm’s way.

It is an unfathomable, beyond the Orwellian, to commit ethnic cleansing and call it defense, to preach democratic values while practicing apartheid, to claim wholesale theft of property a right, to take Palestinians, their homes, kill their children, destroy their family, their culture, their history and deem it the fulfillment of a prophecy ordained by God. That this genocide is being visited upon the Palestinians by the descendants of those who suffered the utterly condemnable, indelible inhumanity of the Holocaust is incomprehensible. After all, who has suffered more than the Jews during the Holocaust? Entire families wiped out in a racist elimination plan. [..] Do not assume that it is only the artifacts of the humble, daily lives of Palestinians that lay buried in bomb craters. The America that could be, our own hopes and dreams for a prosperous and secure nation, lie alongside the bodies of the men, women and children in those ruins.

Leaving Gaza

This is the new Nakba.

Thousands of Palestinians leaving Gaza.

This is what Israel really wants.

It was never about “self-defense”.

It was always about ethnic cleansing and the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in Gaza so Israel can take over. pic.twitter.com/rBBhsHbXIB

— sarah (@sahouraxo) November 8, 2023

“This is not about Gaza, but about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The State of Palestine is an integral part of that solution.”

• Russia’s Public Pivot To Palestine (Pepe Escobar)

The Russian president made a direct connection between the American drive to extend “its global dictatorship” and the policy obsession with promoting non-stop chaos: “This chaos will help it contain and destabilize its rivals or, as they put it, their geopolitical opponents, among which they also rank our country, which in reality are new global growth centers and sovereign independent countries who are unwilling to kowtow and play the role of servants.” Crucially, Putin made a point to “repeat again” to both his internal and Global South audiences that, “the ruling elites of the United States and its satellites are behind the tragedy of the Palestinians, the massacre in the Middle East in general, the conflict in Ukraine, and many other conflicts in the world – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and so on.”

It is a vitally important point. By conflating the perpetrators of the Ukraine conflict and the war on Gaza – “the United States and its satellites” – the Russian president has effectively lumped Israel in with the western Hegemon and its agenda of “chaos.” Essentially, what this tells us is that the Russian Federation unequivocally aligns itself with the overwhelming majority of Global South/Global Majority public opinion – from the Arab world to all the lands of Islam and beyond, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Interestingly, Moscow aligns with the analyses by Iranian Leader Ayatollah Khamenei – a strategic partner of Russia – and Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, in his searing, sophisticated, Sun-Tzu tinged address this past Friday, on “the spider that is trying to entangle the entire planet and the whole world in its cobweb.”

Exhibit B on Russia’s official position, specifically on Israel-Palestine, came from Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, at a special UN General Assembly session on Palestine two days after Putin’s address. Nebenzya made it abundantly clear that Israel, as an occupying power, does not have “the right for self-defense” – a fact supported by a UN International Court consultative ruling way back in 2004. At the time, the court also established, in a 14 out of 15 judicial vote, that Israel’s construction of a massive wall in occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem, was against international law. Nebenzya, in legal terms, nullified the endlessly evoked “right to self-defense” argument brandished by Tel Aviv and the whole NATO galaxy. The Hegemon, Tel Aviv’s protector, recently vetoed Brazil’s draft humanitarian UN Security Council just because it did not mention Israel’s “right to self-defense.”

Even as he underscored that Moscow does recognize Israel’s right to ensure its security, Nebenzya stressed this right “could be fully guaranteed only in case of a fair resolution of the Palestinian problem based on recognized UN Security Council resolutions.” The record shows that Israel does not respect any UN Security Council resolution on Palestine. Exhibit C on Russia’s stand regarding Israel/Palestine was provided by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a press conference with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah Al-Sabah, two days after Nebenzya’s intervention at the UN. Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s priorities already stressed by Putin and Nebenzya: an urgent ceasefire, humanitarian corridors, and a return to the table to negotiate “an independent Palestinian state, as envisaged by the UN Security Council within the 1967 borders, which would coexist in peace and security with Israel.”

Lavrov stressed once again that several US-Israeli diversionary tactics are being employed “aimed at delaying (if not burying) the UN Security Council’s decision to establish a Palestinian state.” This, says the Russian foreign minister, implies condemning the Palestinians “to an eternal existence without rights. This will ensure neither peace nor security in the region, it will only drive the conflict deeper. And you won’t be able to drive it deep. The next ‘grapes of wrath’ will be sown, which will quickly ‘sprout.’” Lavrov’s analysis, as much as Putin’s, converges with Khamenei’s and Nasrallah’s: “This is not about Gaza, but about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The State of Palestine is an integral part of that solution.”

Russia is sowing the seeds to exercise the role of trusted mediator for all parties in Israel/Palestine – a role totally unsuitable for the Hegemon, especially after the tacit approval of the current Israeli ethnic cleansing of Gaza. It’s all here, clearly formulated by Lavrov: “It will be fundamentally important for us to know the unanimous opinion of the Arab world.” That is a message specifically targeting Sunni regimes vassalized by Washington. Then, when they get their act together, “we will support the Arab solution to this very difficult issue.”

”They live with fear, and their major fear is not to see their mother and father any more, either because they are killed or because the children themselves get killed..”

• Israel Attempt To Destroy Hamas Will Breed More Radicalisation – UN Expert (G.)

Israel’s attempt to wipe out Hamas in response to the attacks of 7 October is likely to breed only further radicalisation, besides being unlawful, the UN special rapporteur on theoccupied Palestinian territories has said. In an interview with the Guardian, Francesca Albanese also said the international community was “reaping the whirlwind” of failing to heed the concerns of those, including herself, who had criticised Israel’s “systematic repression of Palestinian human rights”. “We raised the alarm in the international community, the human rights community, but no one has really listened,” Albanese said. “Now it has reached a dangerous point of no return where the chances of peaceful coexistence have dropped vertically off a cliff. In fact, we are staring into an abyss.” Albanese, an Italian academic, has often been accused by Israel of displaying pro-Palestinian bias, a charge she denies.

She challenged Israel to consider what is in its own self-interest. “Half the infrastructure of Gaza has been destroyed. 9,000 people have been killed, 3,500 of them are reported to be children, over 1,000 of them are still under the rubble. How on earth is that going to lead to peace?” She doubted it was possible to eradicate Hamas, which she described as “not just a military presence but a political reality”. “Even if it was possible to eradicate Hamas, if [Israel] was to exterminate everyone, everyone, so not just the militants, but anyone who works for Hamas including service providers, even if that was possible, but Israel’s occupation remained in place, all the grievances would continue to grow and another resistance will emerge. It’s natural, it’s almost a law of physics. History confirms that.” Her most recent report as UN special rapporteur was on children in the occupied territories, and she said she fears for the further psychological damage inflicted over the last month.

“When you see children there, a profound trauma has gone across their tiny bodies,” she said. “They can speak like adults, they speak of the rights, they speak of the world they know and the world they want. They live with fear, and their major fear is not to see their mother and father any more, either because they are killed or because the children themselves get killed. “The parents of these kids say that they’re scared because they see what it is like for them, that there are fewer alternatives to armed resistance. And it’s difficult to keep the kids away from that path because so many hopes have been destroyed. … When they resist peacefully, and use international law such as the International criminal court or the international court of justice, the international community has been deaf. People feel left with nothing and this is a huge responsibility for the international community to reflect upon.”

X thread.

• The Incredible Lightness of Barack Obama (Victor Davis Hanson)

Joe Biden is caught in a quadfecta of corruption, cognitive decline, a failed agenda, and eroding polls. Amid this apparent vacuum, an opportunistic Barack Obama — who used to be more discreet in managing his third term—is reentering the arena. Last week, he came out as the overseer of the Biden administration’s AI agenda, even as his foundation’s “Democracy Forum” was warning Americans about the need for “inclusive capitalism” and the pathologies of “material consumption”—all this from a multi-mansioned multimillionaire. Now, Obama is weighing in on the Gaza war by undercutting his third-term presidential proxy.

Yet just as he seems somewhat clueless about the contradictions of an erstwhile “community organizer” turned into a hyper-capitalist, consumption-addicted elite, so too Obama has little self-awareness about how much of Biden’s unpopularity derives from his continuation of Obama’s own agendas on the economy, border, crime, race, foreign policy, and energy. His apparent obliviousness continues with his most recent odd assertion that, “The occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is [sic] unbearable.” But Obama surely concedes that Gaza has been autonomous and free of Israelis since 2005, and governed by a “one man, one vote, once” Hamas clique since January 2006. Obama added that, “If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth, and you then have to admit nobody’s hands are clean – that all of us are complicit to some degree.”

In truth, Obama’s blanket accusation is absurd. Over the last 17 years, an autonomous Hamas has managed to create both a hierarchy of billionaires ensconced in luxury Qatari hotels, and the most sophisticated subterranean tunnel city in the world—but little else except corruption, poverty, and violence for all concerned. Obama again seemed unaware of his own confession when he lectured, “nobody’s hands are clean” and “all of us are complicit”. Not quite, Barack.

Those most culpable for the current catastrophe are Obama and his team, who invited in Robert Malley to be their point man on Hamas; cooked up the “Shiite crescent” misadventure; snubbed the grass-roots Green Movement that sought to overthrow the Iranian theocracy; invited the Russians back into the Middle East after a 40-year hiatus; fled Iraq and fueled the ISIS caliphate; lifted sanctions on Iran, giving it a multibillion-dollar war chest that armed to the teeth Hezbollah and Hamas; estranged the U.S. from Israel; and created the media echo chamber that empowered the disastrous Iran Deal.

“What we can hear from what he’s saying and when he is giving some interviews, it’s seems the guy is losing his footing and he knows it.”

• ‘Open War’ May Break Out Within Kiev Regime Leadership – Analyst (Sp.)

The prospects of the 2024 presidential election in Ukraine taking place as intended seemed rather unlikely since the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022, since the martial law imposed in the country around that time effectively bars elections. This week, the Kiev regime boss Volodymyr Zelensky has also announced that he thinks “the time is not right” for elections in Ukraine. Commenting on this development, independent journalist Sonja Van Den Ende suggested that Zelensky appears “freaked out all the time” as of late, seeing how his army suffers defeat after defeat on the battlefield and his Western backers seem skeptical about Kiev’s odds of winning the Ukrainian conflict. “He is desperate,” Van Den Ende said, arguing that in this situation, elections are the last thing Zelensky wants. “He doesn’t want it because he knows he will be out.”

She argued that Kiev’s inability to defeat the Russian military has become increasingly apparent today, and Ukrainian forces’ attempts to pretend otherwise by launching drone strikes against Russia’s Crimean Peninsula cannot change that. “When countries lose the war, like Hitler did, in the end they get desperate and more radicalized,” van den Ende remarked. “And I think Zelensky is more radicalized now. What we can hear from what he’s saying and when he is giving some interviews, it’s seems the guy is losing his footing and he knows it.” Meanwhile, international relations security analyst Mark Sleboda noted that the United States seems to be “pushing” for Ukraine to hold next year’s presidential election, “even though, according to Ukraine’s constitution, they should not be held” under the martial law.

“But then why is the US pushing for elections, especially since all the real opposition is banned in the country?” Sleboda inquired. According to him, there are hints that the US government wants to “switch horses”, so to speak, by replacing Zelensky with one of Kiev regime’s top generals Valery Zaluzhny, “without going through the embarrassment of another US backed coup in the country to replace the leader so quickly after the last one.” Sleboda also observed that there seems to have been a falling out between Zelensky and Zaluzhny after the latter recently told British media that the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive turned out to be anything but a success.

Noting how one of Zaluzhny’s aides, Gennady Chistyakov, got killed by an explosion while celebrating his birthday earlier this week, Sleboda remarked that Ukrainian social media channels are just “full of speculation that this was a political hit. They also allege that this was a warning to Zaluzhny and taking one of his pieces off the board by Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Yermak who is seen as kind of a gray cardinal manipulating a lot of things within the regime.” “This seems a fairly credible version to me, considering the way they’re trying to cover this up and wash it away and the embarrassing feature of the whole thing. And that would indicate that we’re pretty much on the brink of open war between the Kiev regime’s political and military leadership,” Sleboda added.

Macgregor

It's all over, says Trump's ex-adviser, US Army Colonel Douglas McGregor

“The sooner they get Zelensky out of the way, the sooner they can come to some kind of agreement with Russia,” he says.

However, he said, it will take time before consensus is reached. There has to be… pic.twitter.com/wtF3pAB8S5

— Zlatti71 (@djuric_zlatko) November 9, 2023

“..”a step towards equality”..

“.. It also raised the age limit for women eligible for conscription from 40 to 60…”

• Ukrainian Women to Be Zelensky’s New Cannon Fodder (Sp.)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky submitted legislation to the country’s Verkhovna Rada – the parliament – extending martial law and general mobilization in the country for another 90 days starting from November 16 this Tuesday. The move comes as the Kiev regime is struggling to increase the number of troops in the nation’s army after the botched summer counteroffensive claimed the lives of over 90,000 soldiers. A general mobilization in Ukraine was announced immediately after the beginning of Russia’s special military operation on February 24, 2022. Under the law, military reservists between the ages of 18 and 60 have been eligible for conscription. In September 2023, Kiev called upon EU member states to deport alleged Ukrainian “draft dodgers” – something which European countries have largely refused to do so far – while in August, Zelensky ordered a full review of all mobilization exemptions granted by Military Medical Commissions (MMCs) starting from February 24, 2022.

It was earlier reported that those Ukrainians who did not want to fight gave hefty bribes to MMC officials to get fraudulent passes. In the course of the conflict, reports and video-evidence have emerged showing Ukrainian men being forcibly grabbed by conscription officers in various part of the country. Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) report that morale is low and that many conscripts are pushed to the frontline as “cannon fodder”, without proper training, protection or ammo. Meanwhile, a US newspaper has drawn attention to the Kiev regime’s effort to fill its soldier gap by mobilizing more Ukrainian women. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, roughly 43,000 women now serve in the nation’s armed forces which constitute a staggering 40% increase since 2021. Accordingly, the Ukrainian military canceled restrictions which prevented female recruits from serving as machine gunners, tank commanders, snipers and truck drivers. It also raised the age limit for women eligible for conscription from 40 to 60.

The newspaper noted that while the Ukrainian Army’s decision to draw more women and lift restrictions is “a step towards equality”, it “also reflects the tremendous toll” the Ukraine conflict has exacted. In fact, female recruits are no news for modern armies. Around 40,000 Russian women serve in the country’s Armed Forces. Of these, roughly 5,000 are officers, including 44 colonels. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 1,100 Russian military servicewomen are directly involved in the special military operation in Ukraine; a third of whom have received state awards. When it comes to Israel Defense Forces (IDF), women make up 33% of soldiers and 51% of its currently serving officers. Prior to Israel’s massive operation against Gaza, which brought together around 360,000 reservists of both genders, around 10,000 women served in the IDF in permanent service.

Per the US Department of Defense, women make up 17.3% of the active-duty forces in the US Armed Forces (231,741 servicewomen) and women also constitute 21.4% of the National Guard and reserves (171,000). However, the problem with Ukrainian female recruits is not the quantitative increase in the number to fill the existing gaps, but the dire situation at the front that may quickly turn them into cannon fodder.

Go away.

• ‘We Have A Plan’ – Zelensky (RT)

Ukraine has a strategy to continue its stalled counteroffensive push against Russia and will try to yield victories shortly, President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed. The president made the remarks on Wednesday as he appeared at the Reuters NEXT conference via a video link. “We have a plan. We have very concrete cities, very [concrete] directions where we go. I can’t share all the details but we have some slow steps forward on the south, also we have steps on the east,” Zelensky stated. While largely avoiding naming any exact locations where such activities are expected to happen, Zelensky promised certain “good steps near Kherson Region,”without elaborating further. Ukrainian forces have a plan for next year, but will “try” to show “battlefield results” by the end of 2023, Zelensky insisted.

“I am sure we’ll have success. It’s difficult,” he added. Zelensky’s remarks contrasted with the assessment given by his top general, Valery Zaluzhny, in an interview with The Economist published last week. The top military commander claimed the conflict between Moscow and Kiev had reached a WWI-style stalemate, with Russia having better chances given its far larger population and vast resources. This may “drag on for years” and“wear down” the country, with a“deep and beautiful breakthrough”unlikely, he warned. Zelensky has previously acknowledged the slow progress of the long-heralded counteroffensive launched by Kiev in early June.

While “some people”expected quick success, the drive ran into “certain difficulties,” Zelensky admitted. However, he somewhat shifted the blame for the lack of progress to Kiev’s Western backers, stating the country received less weaponry from abroad than it had originally hoped for. The botched counteroffensive has resulted in little to no territorial gains for the Ukrainian military, which sustained heavy personnel and material losses. According to Russian estimates, Kiev lost more than 90,000 soldiers in the push, with hundreds of military hardware pieces – including assorted Western-supplied vehicles – damaged and destroyed.

It already has. Billions worth of it.

• Ukraine Will Bring War To EU – Hungary (RT)

Conditions are simply not right for the European Union to consider membership for Ukraine, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday. His words came in response to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s enlargement proposal earlier that day in Lisbon. She had said that that the EU should commence “accession negotiations” with both Ukraine and Moldova, while upgrading the former Soviet republic of Georgia to official candidate status. “By admitting Ukraine, the EU would also get war, which obviously no one wants to happen,” Szijjarto said, according to Hungarian media. “Enlargement should serve to spread peace, not to bring war into the EU.” He said it would be “absurd” for Brussels to assess Ukraine’s progress in implementing reforms or rule of law or any other membership criteria, given the ongoing conflict.

“Right, there is a war in Ukraine, so we can see that neither media freedom nor freedom of speech is enforced, we can see that elections are not held either,”Szijjarto noted. Budapest’s standing position is that Ukraine needs to restore the rights of the Transcarpathian Hungarian community to the level they had in 2015, before Kiev’s drive to disenfranchise the Russian-speaking population. “Since, according to the European Commission, Ukraine has not met the conditions set for membership, we do not consider any further steps to be timely with regard to the accession negotiations with Ukraine,” the foreign minister concluded. According to Szijjarto, the bloc is facing serious security and economic challenges and is getting weaker, so if it’s looking to admit new members as a way of regaining strength, it should look to the Western Balkans, first and foremost Serbia, instead.

According to an EC report, the talks with Ukraine should begin once Kiev satisfies the remaining demands involving the fight against corruption, adopting an EU-compliant law on lobbying and “strengthening safeguards” for ethnic minorities. The EU has not admitted any new members since Croatia in 2013. Earlier this year, Brussels outlined a vague plan to expand by 2030, eyeing the rest of the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

“This is incredible bias,” Loomer wrote. “Less than 24 hours ago she posted tweets in which she said ‘F*CK TRUMP.’ ”

The judge must recuse himself but seems to enjoy the attention too much.

• Wife of NY Judge In Case Against Trump Attacking Him On Social Media (PM)

It has been revealed that the wife of the judge overseeing the civil case against Donald Trump in New York has been attacking the former president and his lawyer on social media. Dawn Marie Engoron’s posts came just days after her husband, Arthur, expanded a gag order against Trump and his legal team in order to prevent them from speaking publicly against anyone involved in the case. Screenshots obtained by investigative journalist Laura Loomer showed that Mrs. Engoron created, liked, and shared a number of anti-Trump posts, many of which were directly related to the trial. One post included an AI-generated image of Trump bald in an orange prison jumpsuit next to one of an old lady scrawling “F*ck Trump” on a brick wall. Another was simply the latter.

In another series of posts, Mrs. Engoron took aim at Trump lawyer Alina Habba, retweeting someone who described her as someone who “doesn’t know how to act in front of a judge,” and replying to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) with a story about The View’s Whoopi Goldberg mocking Habba as a “whiny baby.”Loomer became aware of Mrs. Engoron’s online behavior after the judge’s wife posted about her interview with Rep. George Santos (R-NY), which focused largely on the trial. After being exposed, Mrs. Engoron locked her account. “This is incredible bias,” Loomer wrote. “Less than 24 hours ago she posted tweets in which she said ‘F*CK TRUMP.’

She posted photoshopped pics of President Trump in an orange jump suit, she attacked me during my Live show last night for exposing her husband, and she is openly attacking President Trump’s lawyer [Alina Habba].” Loomer’s sentiments were shared by many who called on Engoron to recuse himself or “dismiss this nonsensical case.” “Where are all of the leftists asking Justices to recuse themselves over the political leanings of their spouses?” one user asked, referring to the backlash Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas faced over his wife’s views. Engoron has already fined Trump for violating the strict gag order after the former president went after the judge’s clerk on Truth Social.

Loomer

EXCLUSIVE: I have Uncovered screenshots from the X account of Dawn Marie Engoron, the wife of Leftist NYC Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the civil fraud against President Trump shows that she has been posting attacks on Trump from her account @dm_sminxs as the trial is… https://t.co/LynqZsciiz pic.twitter.com/07xcIo7Kma

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) November 8, 2023

“The House Oversight Committee has followed the money and built a record of evidence revealing how Joe Biden knew, was involved, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes..”

• US House Panel Subpoenas Hunter & James Biden (Sp.)

The US House Oversight Committee announced Wednesday that Chairman James Comer issued subpoenas for Hunter and James Biden, Rob Walker and others to appear for interviews as part of the investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings. “House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) today issued subpoenas to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, brother, James Biden, and Biden family associate, Rob Walker, to appear for depositions,” the release said. Comer also requested additional members of the Biden family and their associates appear for transcribed interviews, including the US president’s daughter-in-law Hallie Biden and sister-in-law Sara Biden, the release said.

The Kentucky lawmaker plans to send additional subpoenas and transcribed interview requests later this week. “The House Oversight Committee has followed the money and built a record of evidence revealing how Joe Biden knew, was involved, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes,” Comer said. “Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence.”In September, Comer issued subpoenas for Hunter and James Biden seeking to obtain their personal and business records. The Oversight Committee has disclosed since January that the Bidens and their associates had established more than 20 shell companies, amassing more than $24 million from sources in China and other countries.

Earlier this week, Comer said Joe Biden received a personal check for $40,000 in allegedly laundered money from China involving Hunter Biden’s companies. The latest comes after the top prosecutor in the Hunter Biden case told the House Judiciary Committee during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday that politics did not play a factor in filing charges against Hunter Biden. The meeting marked the first time a special counsel answered questions during an active probe before congressional lawmakers. Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty in October to three charges related to the possession of a firearm while he was under the influence of illicit drugs. The charges date back to gun forms from 2018.

“Victims of VITT – a new condition identified by specialists – question the Government’s monitoring of the vaccine’s rollout and its efficacy”

• AstraZeneca Taken to Court Over “Defective” Covid Jab in Landmark Case (DS)

The Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has been branded “defective” in a multi-million pound landmark legal action that will suggest claims over its efficacy were “vastly overstated”. The Telegraph has the story. The pharmaceutical giant is being sued in the High Court in a test case by Jamie Scott, a father-of-two who suffered a significant permanent brain injury that has left him unable to work as a result of a blood clot after receiving the jab in April 2021. A second claim is being brought by the widower and two young children of 35-year-old Alpa Tailor, who died after having the jab made by AstraZeneca, the U.K.-based pharmaceutical giant. The test cases could pave the way for as many as 80 damages claims worth an estimated £80 million over a new condition known as Vaccine-induced Immune Thrombocytopenia and Thrombosis (VITT) that was identified by specialists in the wake of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine rollout. …

The vaccine, which was heralded at its launch by Boris Johnson as a “triumph for British science“, is no longer used in the U.K. The Government recommends three other vaccines for its autumn booster programme. In the months following the rollout, the serious side-effect of the AstraZeneca jab was identified by scientists. Following this, it was recommend it no longer be given to the under-40s in the U.K. because the risk of receiving the jab outweighed the serious harm posed by Covid. AstraZeneca last night told the Telegraph that patient safety was its “highest priority”, that its vaccine, called Vaxzevria, had “continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile”, and that regulators around the world “consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side-effects”. It is understood AstraZeneca, in its legal response, denies causing Mr. Scott’s injuries.

Official figures from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) show at least 81 deaths in the U.K. are suspected to have been linked to the adverse reaction that caused clotting in people who also had low blood platelets. In total, almost one in five people who suffered from the condition died as a result, according to the MHRA’s own figures. … As many as 80 claimants could lodge legal cases with the High Court by the end of the year in a class action that threatens to undermine faith in the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine that was developed jointly with Oxford University. In Mr. Scott’s claim, his lawyers argue that he suffered “personal injuries and consequential losses arising out of his sustaining Vaccine Induced Immune Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia (VITT) as a result of his vaccination on April 23rd 2021, with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination”, which the legal claim alleges was “defective”.

They also argue that no warning of the risk of VITT was included in the product information on the date of supply of the vaccine. AstraZeneca issued press releases following clinical trials saying the vaccine – known as Vaxzevria – was between 62% and 90% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 depending on dosages, with an average of 70%. The legal claim states: “In fact, the absolute risk reduction concerning COVID-19 prevention was only 1.2%.” An absolute risk reduction measures how much the vaccine reduces an individual’s baseline risk of getting ill from Covid at a particular time. If Covid levels are low, the absolute risk reduction rate will be much lower too. This is different from a relative risk reduction, which compares the numbers of vaccinated people getting ill with those getting ill who did not receive the jab.

CO2

In stark contrast to dogma propagated by #ClimateScam cultists, the Earth's current CO2 concentration, just 0.04% of the atmosphere, is only a sixth of the Earth's historical average—a number dangerously close to the level at which plant life begins to die.

From a must-watch new… pic.twitter.com/L7HGmWEeTx

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) November 8, 2023

Massie Kerry

MUST-WATCH: Rep. Thomas Massie masterfully exposes John Kerry's #ClimateScam propaganda for the sheer undiluted nonsense that it is, in just two minutes.

"I think it's somewhat appropriate that somebody with a pseudoscience degree is here pushing pseudoscience in front of our… pic.twitter.com/ydurm3T2mi

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) November 8, 2023

Bigger boat

‘You're gonna need a bigger boat’
pic.twitter.com/KsP2TvVuLx

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) November 8, 2023

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

Debt Rattle November 7 2023

Nov 072023

November 7, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:52 am Finance Tagged with: Alina Habba, cannon fodder, Engoron, Gaza, Hamas, Hezbollah, Netanyahu, Trump 70 Responses »

Hieronymus Bosch St. John on Patmos 1489

• Hamas Political Wing Offered ‘Clemency’ for Hostage Release – Sy Hersh (Sp.)

• US to Transfer $320 Million in Precision Bomb Kits to Israel (Antiwar)

• US Diplomats Condemn Israel Policy – Politico (RT)

• Israel To Take Over ‘Security’ In Gaza – Netanyahu (RT)

• The ICC Must Investigate The Crime Of Genocide In Gaza (Jeremy Corbyn)

• Arab States Condemn Israeli Minister’s ‘Nuke Gaza’ Threat (RT)

• The Four Wars (Jim Kunstler)

• Trump: “I’m The Only One That Will Prevent World War Three” (SN)

• Judge Tells Trump’s Lawyers To ‘Control Him’ (RT)

• Jack Smith Could Be on Shaky Ground in Trump Charge (ET)

• Legacy Media Readies American Public for Ukraine’s Defeat (Sp.)

• ‘Rational Actors’ Ready To Take Power In Ukraine – Moscow (RT)

• Ukrainian Army Has ‘Run Out of Cannon Fodder’ – Former US Envoy (Sp.)

• Demographics Is Destiny (Denninger)

Habba

Alina Habba response to the Judge saying I’m not here to hear what he has to say: “Then why exactly am I being paid as an attorney and why exactly are taxpayers dollars being used in this court room. The answer is very clear. Because Ms. James… ‘wants to’ make a name for… pic.twitter.com/Bubi4R0xle

— ꪻꫝể ꪻꫝể (@TheThe1776) November 6, 2023

Alina Habba response to the Judge saying I’m not here to hear what he has to say: “Then why exactly am I being paid as an attorney and why exactly are taxpayers dollars being used in this court room. The answer is very clear. Because Ms. James… ‘wants to’ make a name for herself. She said this morning that the numbers don’t lie and it won’t lie in this case. Ms. James I have a message for you. The number didn’t lie when you ran for Governor and that’s why you dropped out. And the numbers don’t lie when President Trump runs for office in 2024 and those numbers are loud and clear. This country is falling apart and if we don’t stop corruption in court rooms, where attorneys are gagged. Where attorneys are not allowed to say what they need to say to protect their clients interest. It doesn’t matter what your politics are. Everyone has a right in this country to get up and put a defense. “

Right to defend
https://twitter.com/i/status/1721516768659714477

“We’re holding out clemency for the Hamas political leadership – giving them a chance to surrender the hostages and cling to life by moving them to the hospital..”

• Hamas Political Wing Offered ‘Clemency’ for Hostage Release – Sy Hersh (Sp.)

Israel, whose military claimed it has encircled Gaza City, and was poised to press on with its attack on Hamas despite widespread calls for a ceasefire or temporary pauses, has estimated that over 240 hostages are being held by the militant group. In secret talks with Israel, the political leadership of Hamas has been offered “clemency” in return for a release of the Gaza-held hostages, US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in an article on Substack. The offer was extended to the group’s political wing, who claim to have not been directly involved in the planning for the October 7 Hamas attack, sources told the journalist. “The thought was that if they agree to try their own people and order them executed, they will be given their lives while also exonerating Israel for the war,” an American official was quoted as saying.

As the Israeli military and political leadership hunt down members of the Hamas military “in the tunnels and rubble of Gaza City,” they have “orders are to shoot to kill on sight,” wrote the journalist. At the same time, the fate of the remaining hostages in Gaza has prompted Israel to come up with incentive for the Hamas political leaders to “save their own lives by arranging for Israeli hostages to be transferred to a basement in the besieged al-Shifa hospital.” Israeli military has insisted that the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip is a stronghold of Hamas. It earlier released 3D-rendered footage showing the alleged extent of a Hamas headquarters it says is burrowed deep underneath the Al-Shifa Hospital. Some Israeli officials “fear that time is running out” amid lack of understanding as to “how long the air in the tunnels will be breathable,” wrote the journalist, adding that there were hopes Israeli hostages could be moved to “safer, drier, and healthier quarters below ground in Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital.” “I was told that water and food would be available,” added Hersh.

“We’re holding out clemency for the Hamas political leadership – giving them a chance to surrender the hostages and cling to life by moving them to the hospital,” a source told the Pulitzer Prize-winner. In a “significant stage” in Israel’s war against Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have claimed it has encircled Gaza City, and divided the besieged enclave into two. It touted its looming operation to destroy the tunnels and Hamas’ military and civilian institutions. At the same time, it is estimated that militants are holding hostage over 248 soldiers and civilians, including foreign nationals. “Thirty-one of the hostages are seventy years and older—one is said to be a Holocaust survivor, and two are infants, aged four months and eight months, with no mother or father, and twenty-three under eighteen years of age,” an Israeli was cited as telling Hersh. The source added that the International Committee of the Red Cross “has not been pressuring Hamas to grant them access to the hostages, although it did seek almost immediate access to the two hundred Hamas prisoners in Israeli custody.”

Sy Hersh recalled that “a possible breakthrough” concerning the hostages “emerged in secret talks between Israel and Yahya Sinwar, a onetime prisoner of Israel who now directs the political wing of Hamas.” Sinwar issued a statement on October 28, that said: “We are ready to conduct an immediate prisoner exchange deal that includes the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for all prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance.” Since then, the Hamas leader and his colleagues have been informed by Israel that if they want to survive, they must “release the Israeli hostages and agree to begin holding immediate war-crime tribunals.” Sy Hersh underscored that the Israelis were seeking the death penalty “for those Hamas combat leaders who encouraged and then did nothing to stop the war crimes of their fighters.”

There has been growing global condemnation of Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza, with the Palestinian Health Ministry saying 10,022 people have been killed since October 7, including 4,104 children and 2,641 women. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Washington, London, Berlin, Rome, Santiago, other cities, demanding an immediate ceasefire, with many perceiving Israel’s actions as a “war crime.” While the “concept of an Israeli-instigated war-crimes tribunal amid a bombing campaign that has flattened much of Gaza may seem out of a bad novel,” wrote Seymour Hersh, he cited an Israeli expert with insider knowledge of the hostage talks as insisting that Yahya Sinwar “could be open to a deal.” “He is a fanatic and an ascetic… Dedicated to the cause. No family, very religious but got very friendly with Shin Bet [Israeli internal security] guys while in prison and was seen as not irrational. He will want a chance to give service to the cause. He will be open to a door,” the expert said. It was added that Sinwar and some Hamas officials “now in Qatar,” would hold out for a deal “to include a commitment that Israel would not come after them if a deal is made.”

“..the Pentagon has refused to say how much weaponry, equipment, and other types of aid it has provided Israel since October 7..”

• US to Transfer $320 Million in Precision Bomb Kits to Israel (Antiwar)

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the Biden administration is planning a $320 million transfer of precision-guided bomb kits to Israel, a show of support for the Israeli onslaught despite the growing civilian death toll. The report said the administration notified congressional leaders on October 31 that it intended to transfer Spice Family Gliding Bomb Assemblies, which turn unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions that can be fired by Israeli warplanes. The bombs will be transferred from weapons manufacturer Rafael USA to its Israeli parent company, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It’s unclear what funds will be used for the transfer or if Israel is purchasing the equipment.

Israel receives $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the US, and the Biden administration is looking to provide another $14 billion to support the Gaza campaign. In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, the US began immediately shipping new military equipment to Israel. According to the Journal, the Pentagon has refused to say how much weaponry, equipment, and other types of aid it has provided Israel since October 7. Besides the material support, the US is flying drones over Gaza, has special operations forces in Israel, and has deployed an enormous amount of firepower to the region. The news of the $320 million bomb transfer came as the death toll in Gaza surpassed 10,000, including over 4,000 children. US officials claim they are pressing Israel about the civilian casualties, but the administration refuses to condition military aid or use other leverage it has.

“When Israel supports settler violence and illegal land seizures or employs excessive use of force against Palestinians, we must communicate publicly that this goes against our American values..”

• US Diplomats Condemn Israel Policy – Politico (RT)

Lower- and mid-level diplomats at the US State Department have called on the administration of President Joe Biden to condemn Israel’s bombing of civilians and demand a ceasefire in Gaza, according to a leaked memo seen by Politico. The memo is the latest sign of division within the department over Israel. The memo calls on Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior diplomats to publicly demand that Israel agree to a ceasefire, and to align their public and private statements on the conflict, Politico reported on Monday. Criticizing Israel in private but not in public “contributes to regional public perceptions that the United States is a biased and dishonest actor, which at best does not advance, and at worst harms, US interests worldwide,” the memo reportedly states.

“We must publicly criticize Israel’s violations of international norms such as failure to limit offensive operations to legitimate military targets,” the message continues. “When Israel supports settler violence and illegal land seizures or employs excessive use of force against Palestinians, we must communicate publicly that this goes against our American values so that Israel does not act with impunity.” The memo was marked “sensitive but unclassified,” Politico noted, adding that it is unclear how many people signed it, and whether it was submitted to the department’s ‘Dissent Channel,’ which functions as a soapbox for employees to question policy decisions.

Several similar memos have been circulated since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, and Blinken met with a group of dissenting staffers late last month, the Huffington Post reported. A week before the alleged meeting, the State Department’s arms-transfer chief quit his job in protest, writing in his resignation letter that Washington’s rush to arm Israel was “shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse.” While Blinken has criticized incidents of violence against Palestinians by Jewish settlers, he has spoken more vaguely about the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza. “We’ve engaged the Israelis on steps that they can take to minimize civilian casualties,” he said on Monday, after the Gaza Health Ministry reported that more than 10,000 people had died in the enclave since Israel’s bombing campaign began a month ago.

Despite an overwhelming vote in favor of a ceasefire at the UN General Assembly late last month, Blinken has repeatedly rejected calls for a halt to the Israeli operation. Any pause in the fighting, he argued last week, would give Hamas time to “regroup and repeat what it did on October 7,” referring to the group’s assault on Israel that left around 1,400 people dead. Blinken’s aversion to a ceasefire was echoed in a memo sent to US diplomats at the outset of the conflict. The State Department email urged diplomats and communications staffers to steer clear of phrases such as “restoring calm,” “end to violence/bloodshed,” or “de-escalation/ceasefire,” and instead to emphasize the Jewish state’s right to “self-defense.”

“President Joe Biden said the move would be a “big mistake.” “It would be a mistake… for Israel to occupy… Gaza again..”

• Israel To Take Over ‘Security’ In Gaza – Netanyahu (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country will have to manage “overall security” in Gaza for an “indefinite” period of time after the current war with Hamas ends. Speaking to ABC News for an interview published on Monday, Netanyahu was asked about Israel’s long-term plans for the territory should it succeed in dismantling Hamas, suggesting the need for a lengthy deployment. “I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, have the overall security responsibility [in Gaza] because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it,” he said. “When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine.” The comments appear to contradict past statements from senior Israeli officials.

In announcing a major ground assault on the Palestinian enclave last month, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant emphasized that Israeli troops must not be responsible for “day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip.” While the official said Israel would establish a new “security reality” in the area after the current war, he suggested it would seek to hand off post-conflict governance to a third party. Even while vocally supporting Israel’s military operation against Hamas, Washington has warned of the perils of another Gaza occupation. During a recent interview with CBS, President Joe Biden said the move would be a “big mistake.” “It would be a mistake… for Israel to occupy… Gaza again,” he said. “But going in… but taking out the extremists, the Hezbollah is up north but Hamas down south, is a necessary requirement.”

Israel first occupied Gaza during the 1967 Six-Day War with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, and only withdrew its troops and settlers nearly 40 years later. It has maintained a tight blockade over the enclave in the years since, and has launched periodic bombing campaigns against Hamas since the group took control of Gaza in 2006. The latest round of fighting erupted last month on the heels of a Hamas terrorist attack which killed around 1,400 Israelis. The IDF has launched weeks of retaliatory airstrikes and gradually escalated a ground attack on Gaza, leaving more than 10,000 Palestinians dead, according to local officials.

No Jeremy. The ICC lost all credit when it charged Putin for kidnapping children.

• The ICC Must Investigate The Crime Of Genocide In Gaza (Jeremy Corbyn)

My last visit to Al-Shati refugee camp was early 2013. Located on the Mediterranean coast in the north of Gaza, Al-Shati was otherwise known as “Beach Camp”. Vendors sold fruit under multi-coloured parasols. Cats slept in the middle of narrow alleys. Children jostled over skipping rope in the shade. Beach Camp was established in 1948 after 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced in the Nakba. Initially, the camp accommodated around 23,000 refugees. In the following seven decades, that number grew to 90,000, cramped inside 0.5 square kilometres (0.2 square miles) of land – 70 times more populated than London’s city centre. People in Gaza have been living under a blockade for the past 16 years and the Israeli occupation controls most of what goes in and out of Gaza.

Beach Camp was no different – and people there largely relied on aid and services from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to survive, including a health centre, a food distribution centre and several school buildings. Beach Camp Primary School was beautifully maintained. I was allowed up onto the roof, where I could see the fence with Israel on one side. Out to sea were several Israeli patrol boats keeping Palestinian fishermen from sailing more than six nautical miles out. The school was run by inspiring and hard-working teachers, whose philosophy was to create a calm atmosphere for discovery, music, theatre and art. Some of the students showed me their work. Many were drawings of planes, fences and bombs. But there were other drawings too: of their parents, their brothers, their sisters and their friends.

All of the children, obviously, had underlying trauma, but they also had a desire to learn, share and play. On October 9, two days after the deplorable attack by Hamas in southern Israel, there were reports of an Israeli air strike on Beach Camp. This wasn’t the first strike on the camp. In May 2021, at least 10 Palestinians, eight of whom were children, were killed in an air strike. Nor was it the last. Beach Camp has been repeatedly targeted in the past three weeks. When I hear news of bombardment in Gaza, I think about that school at Beach Camp. I don’t know if it is still there. I don’t know if those children and teachers are still alive. I don’t know.

The Israeli army has dropped 25,000 tonnes of bombs onto a tiny strip of land, populated by 2.3 million people. There is no meaningful sense whatsoever that they are trying to avoid civilian deaths. More than 9,900 people in Gaza have been killed, including more than 4,800 children. Survivors still under siege are running out of the basic means of survival: water, fuel, food and medical supplies. Doctors are performing surgery without anaesthesia. Mothers are watching their babies fight for survival in incubators running out of electricity. People are being forced to drink seawater. More than 1 million people have been displaced from their homes.

“The Israeli military has dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza since October 7, equivalent in power to two of the nuclear bombs used on Hiroshima..“

• Arab States Condemn Israeli Minister’s ‘Nuke Gaza’ Threat (RT)

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other Arab states have all denounced Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu for suggesting that his country drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza. Eliyahu was suspended, but not fired, for his remarks. Speaking to Radio Kol Berama on Sunday, Eliyahu said that using nuclear weapons against the Palestinian enclave “is one of the possibilities,” after his interviewer said that this would “flatten” the area and “eliminate everybody there.” Eliyahu, a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, was indefinitely suspended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later on Sunday. The minister’s comments “show to what extent extremism and brutality have penetrated the Israeli government,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The fact that Eliyahu was not outright fired, the ministry continued, “reflects the Israeli government’s disregard for all values of humanity, morality, religion and law.” “These statements constitute a violation of international law, as well as incitement to commit grave violations of International Humanitarian Law, such as war crimes, and raise grave concerns of an intent to commit genocide,” the UAE said. Jordan released a similar statement describing Eliyahu’s comments as a “call for genocide and a hate crime that cannot be ignored,” while the Qatari Foreign Ministry said that it “strongly condemns the threat made by an Israeli minister to strike Gaza with a nuclear bomb and considers it a serious incitement to a war crime.” Eliyahu’s remarks revealed that “Israel possesses nuclear weapons, which is an open secret,” Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit declared.

The comments also “confirm the truth of the racist view Israelis hold against Palestinians,” he added. “This is the true face of the occupation government.” Despite Eliyahu defending his comments as “metaphorical,” he faced heavy criticism within Israel. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant condemned his “baseless and irresponsible words,” while opposition leader Yair Lapid called on Netanyahu to fire the minister for causing “harm to the families of the hostages, Israeli society, and our international standing.” The Israeli military has dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza since October 7, equivalent in power to two of the nuclear bombs used on Hiroshima, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor NGO said in a press release on Thursday. More than 10,000 people have been killed and 25,000 injured in the strip as a result of the Israeli bombardment and ground offensive, according to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.

“..We emerge from this catastrophe a nearly medievalized society with a steeply-reduced population, unable to resist China’s attempt to colonize us. Pretty scary, huh? Just let’s keep doing what we’re doing.”

• The Four Wars (Jim Kunstler)

Bringing us to War No. 3: The US Government’s war against its own citizens. This has been going on since Mr. Trump stepped onto the scene, and has included a semi-successful war against Mr. Trump personally — except that not only has it failed to put him out of business as a politician, it has substantiated many of the claims he made about corrupt and perfidious government that resulted in his election in 2016. All of that has only enhanced his polling numbers. And the lawless, bad faith court cases lodged against him have demonstrated the US government’s grievous fall into willful malfeasance that has the DOJ arresting and unfairly persecuting hundreds of innocent Americans that support Mr. Trump.

A big part of the government’s war against US citizens has been the bizarre Covid-19 episode and the long-running effort by public officials to deceive the population about it, including lockdowns and destruction of small businesses, the dishonest suppression of viable treatments, gross censorship about the harms of the mRNA vaccines, and trickery around the origins of the vaccines in the back rooms of our Department of Defense. Another front of this war is the wide-open Mexican border, a lawless state of affairs created as deliberate policy by our cabinet secretaries, and done at a time when there is tremendous animus against the US from many other nations who send thousands of sketchy young men into our country with no attempt by our border officials to determine who they are.

It looks like “Joe Biden’s” hash will be settled shortly when the House, reorganized under a young and vital new speaker, reveals the Biden family’s bank records and begins the process of impeaching the president for bribery. “Joe Biden’s” party pretends that this is not happening and appears to have no plan to deal with consequences. For the moment, they still stupidly tout him as their candidate for the 2024 election, another arrant falsehood you can add to the thousand-and one affronts against the public that this party has tried to put over. Many Americans suspect there will not be a 2024 election, specifically that whoever is president in the coming year will invoke yet another national emergency order to postpone it on spurious grounds. Many are also far from persuaded that the 2020 election that installed “Joe Biden” was honest and legitimate.

Which brings us to War No. 4: The American peoples’ war against a government gone rogue. Obviously, it is not underway yet, but it’s easy to see how it might develop. I think it could commence in the aftermath of a financial calamity that is visibly brewing in the debt markets. The net result will be a collapsed standard-of-living for everyone in the USA, the breakdown of supply lines and daily business, and a very sharp loss of legitimacy for the people who have been in charge of anything in this country. We emerge from this catastrophe a nearly medievalized society with a steeply-reduced population, unable to resist China’s attempt to colonize us. Pretty scary, huh? Just let’s keep doing what we’re doing.

“..we have unbelievable technology. It can shoot a needle out of the air, it is incredible.”

• Trump: “I’m The Only One That Will Prevent World War Three” (SN)

During a speech at the Florida Republican Party’s “Freedom Summit” in Kissimmee Saturday, Donald Trump declared that he is the only candidate who can prevent World War Three, warning that “we are closer than anyone understands” to “obliteration.” Trump also told the crowd that “When you think of it, how important elections are, you’d have millions of people alive right now if the 2020 election was not rigged. They would be alive. Ukraine, Israel. The attack would have never been made. All of these people would be alive, the cities would be thriving.” Trump pointed to the global chaos that is now further unfolding, noting “For four straight years, under the Trump administration, I kept America safe, I kept Israel safe, and I kept the entire world safe.”

“I kept my promise and recognized Israel’s eternal capital and opened the American embassy in Jerusalem,” Trump continued, adding “I also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and really, probably most importantly, but they did nothing with it, I withdrew from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, but they were supposed to do something with it. And you could have because Iran did not have any money.” “What is going on. What is going on now is shocking,” Trump urged, adding “All over the planet our enemies knew that if you tried to kill our citizens we will kill you. If you spill a drop of American blood, we will spill a gallon of your blood. That is what it was, and it was not a threat, that was just the way it was going to have to be. And we do it because we want to make sure we are not starting wars. We did not have to start wars.” Trump further noted, “In the debate with beautiful Hillary Clinton, she said, ‘Look at him. Look at the way he talks. He is going to get us into wars. He is going to start World War III.’

And I said, ‘No, no, it is the way I talked that will keep you out of World War III.’” He continued, “To every American is petrified that Joe Biden’s catastrophic weakness will bring our country to ruin, which he has a great chance of doing, he is close to that anyway. He’s close to economic ruin, I make you this promise, as your president, and nobody else can say it, I will restore peace through strength, and, yes, I am the only one that will prevent World War III, because we are very close to World War III.” Trump further warned, “this will not be a First World War or a Second World War. This will be obliteration, because the level of power, of weaponry of power you have never seen anything — you do not want to see it. When they talk about global warming, because in 250 years our ocean will be one inch higher, and they never mention the power of nuclear weapons, where one madman can do damage the likes of which nobody has ever seen before. It is just crazy. It is crazy to see it, it is crazy to talk about it.”

“But I will stop it, and it will happen very quickly. There will not be a World War III, and we are closer than anyone understands. To protect our citizens from foreign threats, I will build a state-of-the-art missile defense shield. We will build that. We will build that,” Trump vowed. He continued, “And it will be jobs for America. It will be built in America. We developed the technology, nobody else, by the way. A lot of people said we developed the technology. The technology was developed by us, and it works. You see it. Ronald Reagan wanted to do it, but at that time they did not have the technology. The concept was good, but we have unbelievable technology. It can shoot a needle out of the air, it is incredible. Would you feel a little safer, a little more comfortable if we can do that? And it is jobs, jobs in America.”

“When another Trump lawyer stood up to argue that Trump should be allowed to answer the questions in his own way, the judge shouted, “Sit down already. Sit down.”

• Judge Tells Trump’s Lawyers To ‘Control Him’ (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has taken the stand in the New York civil fraud case against him, angering the judge by criticizing the court and arguing that he is being attacked by politically motivated prosecutors around the country. The trial resumed on Monday with Trump testifying for the first time to rebut allegations by New York Attorney General Letitia James that he and other executives in his real estate organization fraudulently inflated the value of key properties to get favorable loan terms. James is seeking $250 million in damages in her lawsuit, which comes at a time when the ex-president also faces felony charges in four separate criminal cases against him. While being questioned by state attorney Kevin Wallace, Trump said, “You and every other Democratic district attorney, AG, US attorney were coming after me from 15 different sides – all Democrats, all Trump haters.”

He accused James of perpetrating a “political witch hunt” and claimed that Judge Arthur Engoron was biased against him. The judge repeatedly interrupted Trump’s testimony to complain that his answers were not directly responsive to the questions and veered off into political speeches. “This is not a political rally,” Engoron told Trump’s lawyers, suggesting that they “need to have a talk with him right now.” As the ex-president continued to offer his opinions on the case, the judge said, “I beseech you to control him if you can. If you can’t, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can.” At stake is the future of Trump’s real estate empire. The judge, who has already found Trump and his co-defendants liable for “persistent and repeated” fraud, will decide on penalties at the end of the trial.

He has said that he will dissolve some of Trump’s companies, which could result in the ex-president losing some of his most prominent New York properties. Trump, who is polling as the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential race, has called Engoron a “deranged, Trump-hating judge.” The loans related to the disputed property valuations have already been repaid. Trump testified on Monday that although he lowered the valuations on two of his properties, his holdings were actually worth more overall than claimed on the financial statements given to lenders. “The most valuable asset was the brand value,” he said. “I became president because of my brand.”

Christopher Kise, one of Trump’s lawyers, told Engoron that it was only fair for the American people to hear the ex-president’s views on the case. “This is a situation where you have on the stand a candidate for president of the United States,”Kise said. “The court needs to hear what he has to say about these statements.” Engoron shot back, “No, I am not here to hear what he has to say.”When another Trump lawyer stood up to argue that Trump should be allowed to answer the questions in his own way, the judge shouted, “Sit down already. Sit down.” Undeterred by the judge’s interjections, Trump said, “This is a very, very unfair trial – very — and I hope the public is watching it.”

“..everyone in this election is going to be talking about these cases,” the law professor said, “except one person under this gag order and that is Donald Trump.”

• Jack Smith Could Be on Shaky Ground in Trump Charge (ET)

Two analysts have noted that special counsel Jack Smith might be on shaky legal ground in his federal election-related case against former President Donald Trump. Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, said that the Trump charge of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding hasn’t been “extensively litigated” over the past several decades, adding that a ruling could come on whether it is appropriate in the former president’s case. Multiple defendants who were charged in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach have “argued that Congress certifying the electoral votes was not an ‘official proceeding’ and courts have universally rejected that argument,” she told Newsweek last week.

“This bigger question is, what satisfies the ‘corruptly’ requirement? Is it any criminal conduct, such as trespassing in the Capitol building or submitting fake electors? Or does the corrupt conduct have to relate to the other subsections of 1512, which prohibit destroying or concealing evidence?” she asked. She continued: “If the corruption requires consciousness of guilt, then Trump can argue that he genuinely believed the election was stolen. Either way, this issue will likely end up before the United States Supreme Court because it is a novel issue that affects hundreds of criminal defendants, including the former president.” Lawfare’s Roger Parloff wrote in a recent article that the Department of Justice (DOJ) recently won two “fragile” victories in two cases involving Jan. 6 defendants, and Mr. Smith has “relied on [a] statute” that was used by other prosecutors to charge at least 317 individuals in the Jan. 6 case.

“Smith has relied on that statute and its conspiracy equivalent, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k), for two of the four counts in his indictment against former President Donald Trump for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the 2020 election,” Mr. Parloff wrote. “Those counts, whose legal sufficiency Trump challenged in a motion to dismiss this week, are the most serious leveled against Trump in that case, carrying a maximum 20-year term of imprisonment.” Three appellants in a Jan. 6 case are now petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review a recent appeals court ruling that favored the DOJ, he noted, but he said that the D.C. appeals court judges “can’t agree about its holdings, and its holdings determine the viability of a 20-year felony that an ex-president and major presidential candidate now stands charged with violating.”

“Moreover, at the appeals court level, judges’ acceptance of the Justice Department’s interpretations of that law have been 100 percent correlated with the political party of the judge’s appointer,” he wrote. “If that trend continues, and if either case climbs one more rung up the appellate ladder, the department (and Mr. Smith) faces bleak prospects indeed.” The comments come as constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley warned that the gag order targeting President Donald Trump is “unconstitutional” and said that an appeals court ruling to rescind the order last week was a “quite significant” development. Several weeks ago, District of Columbia Judge Tanya Chutkan placed a gag order on the former president in the Jan. 6-related case, saying President Trump cannot speak about potential witnesses, court staff, or prosecutors. An appeals court in the district froze Judge Chutkan’s order late last week, with oral arguments being set for Nov. 20.

“They could have left it to continue, to continue while they reviewed it, but they decided perhaps in an abundance of caution to order this stoppage until they can give it a full review,” Mr. Turley, a professor for George Washington University, said on Fox News on Nov. 3. “The reason I think this could be quite significant is because I think the order is unconstitutional.” He added that it is “very odd” to issue the order because the same court “insisted on having this trial before the election, sort of shoehorned it in before Super Tuesday,” referring to the key GOP presidential nominating date. “And everyone in this election is going to be talking about these cases,” the law professor said, “except one person under this gag order and that is Donald Trump.”

“Russian victory in Ukraine would be a terrible blow to US interests, but not terrible enough to risk nuclear war.. ”

• Legacy Media Readies American Public for Ukraine’s Defeat (Sp.)

A visibly agitated President Volodymyr Zelensky defiantly denied on Sunday that the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine had entered a “stalemate,” assuring in an extensive interview with US media that Moscow has not “checkmated” Kiev, and that Ukraine still has many “different plans” to maintain the initiative. “Our military are coming up with different plans, with different operations in order to move forward faster and to strike the Russian Federation unexpectedly,” Zelensky said, in stark contradiction to Zaluzhnyi’s comments about the counteroffensive’s utter failure to penetrate Russian defenses. “As far as the situation on the front is concerned, of course I cannot provide all the details to you but nevertheless we are holding the initiative in our hands. You can imagine what over two years of a full-scale war is like.

Everybody gets tired. Even the iron gets tired,” Zelensky said. “I don’t think that this is a stalemate…We have done a lot,” he assured. Zelensky stressed that Ukraine could not proceed with its operations “barehanded,” “without relevant, proper weapons,” calling for more aid and assuring that money sent to Ukraine is “not aid to Ukraine,” but support for the US and the EU themselves, because Kiev is “defending our joint values.” The Ukrainian president rejected any possibility of negotiations with Russia, saying he didn’t “want to make any dialogue with terrorists,” and dismissing former President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to end the conflict in “24 hours.” Instead, the Ukrainian leader suggested, it would take him “24 minutes to explain [to] President Trump that he can’t manage this war.”

Western media have taken note of Zelensky’s shift in rhetoric, with one outlet pointing out that while the Ukrainian leader once assured the West of a speedy victory, now the message seems to be geared toward asking for more support to prevent the conflict from dragging on indefinitely, playing on the West’s fears of a protracted conflict with Moscow that cannot be won. But some observers have come out ahead of Zelensky, kicking off what seems like a carefully crafted campaign to prepare Western publics for defeat, or a least a “rethink” of what “victory” in Ukraine looks like. “Ukraine today finds itself worse off than it was last November. Its troops are exhausted and depleted, its weapons stocks are running low, and Western publics are more polarized over further support,” one pundit writing in a major US newspaper wrote.

“Ukraine’s counteroffensive was supposed to sustain political support for Kiev by proving that it could reconquer lost territory. Now, supporters of Ukraine might need to make the inverse argument: Ukraine is not reconquering substantial territory, and aid is needed indefinitely to forestall a devastating defeat.” Washington “might need to pivot from dreaming of victory to preparing to live with a stalemate,” since “there is virtually no appetite in the United States for direct war with Russia. Russian victory in Ukraine would be a terrible blow to US interests, but not terrible enough to risk nuclear war,” the observer stressed.

“The government in Kiev treats its own people as something “alien”..

• ‘Rational Actors’ Ready To Take Power In Ukraine – Moscow (RT)

Not all Ukrainian elites and politicians agree with Kiev’s current belligerent stance against Moscow, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said on Sunday while speaking at the ‘Russia’ exhibition in Moscow. “Rational actors” do exist in Ukraine but are currently “suppressed” by the Kiev government, he added. These forces are already “standing in the wings” and are ready to take power when the time is right, the former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) chief said, without elaborating who exactly he may be referring to. Patrushev also said that the Ukrainian governments after the Maidan coup, including the current one led by President Vladimir Zelensky, are “bound to answer” for all the atrocities committed in Ukraine since 2014, including the years-long persecution of the Russian-speaking minority and the people of Donbass, as well as the attacks on Russian civilians, public figures, journalists, and infrastructure.

“They will not be able to hide from a just people’s court like the former SS member Yaroslav Hunka,” Patrushev said, referring to a Ukrainian SS veteran hailed by Canada’s parliament during a visit by Zelensky in September. The incident sparked an angry reaction from Poland, Russia, and several Jewish organizations, and led to the resignation of Canadian House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota, who claimed that he was unaware of Hunka’s past. Russia has made it clear that it is not waging war against the Ukrainian people. President Vladimir Putin has said that Ukrainians have become the victims of Western political games and their own government’s policies. The government in Kiev treats its own people as something “alien,” Putin said during his annual address to the Russian parliament in February.

Ukrainians have been turned into “cannon fodder,” he argued, adding that the country had been pushed towards war with Russia since 2014, when Kiev sent military forces to confront the Donbass militias in the wake of the Maidan coup. “Responsibility for the incitement of the Ukrainian conflict, for its escalation and an increasing number of its victims rests fully with the Western elites and with the current Kiev regime,” he stated at the time. Earlier this week, Zelensky once again declared that Kiev will not talk to Moscow or make any concessions to Russia. He also denied reports that Western nations are pushing Ukraine towards peace talks with Russia. He did admit, though, that the country’s media and Ukrainians themselves were speculating about the idea of talks with Russia, adding that he was “surprised” by such sentiments.

“..Putin said that the West no longer has enough Ukrainian cannon fodder and they are thinking about Lithuanians and Poles.”

• Ukrainian Army Has ‘Run Out of Cannon Fodder’ – Former US Envoy (Sp.)

The Ukrainian Army has run out of cannon fodder for an offensive, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman said in an interview with the YouTube channel Dialogue works. “Ukraine is out of cannon fodder, and so NATO is out of cannon fodder too. If the whole program was to fight to the last Ukrainian, and you are running out of Ukrainians, you don’t have a policy,” he said. In his view, Ukraine “could lose” even more territory. As Freeman noted, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ failures on the battlefield have exposed “serious disagreements” within NATO. Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the West no longer has enough Ukrainian cannon fodder and they are thinking about Lithuanians and Poles. In early October, Putin said that Kiev’s offensive had failed, that the enemy’s attempts to advance had failed, and that the Ukrainian military had been halted and pushed back to its original positions, with Ukraine suffering an estimated 90,000-plus casualties.

“Run those fiscal deficits and you’ve told all the thinking adults that child’s standard of living, when they reach adulthood, will be one quarter of yours today assuming your children are as competent and intelligent as you are.”

• Demographics Is Destiny (Denninger)

Let’s face facts folks: Nobody who you want to have children will bring said children into a world where they believe said kids will get screwed. That doesn’t mean kids won’t come anyway; they will, for some. Some adults don’t care what happens to their offspring, some actually use them as meal tickets and more. Some people are also always going to be eternally optimistic and therefore none of this will factor into their decisions. And some will have “accidents” and for personal or religious reasons decide to bear and attempt to raise said kids. But none of that changes the basic facts: People who are of decently-competent intellect and of good character, in a world of technology where one can choose when and whether to reproduce, will only do so voluntarily if they believe it makes sense AND their offspring will get a fair shake.

Destroying the fiscal health of the nation by emitting 8% of GDP in unbacked credit via deficit spending is the exact opposite of such. Simple mathematics tells us that this results in you losing half your standard of living in less than ten years and it takes about 20 years to decide to have a kid, have said kid and raise him or her to adulthood. Run those fiscal deficits and you’ve told all the thinking adults that child’s standard of living, when they reach adulthood, will be one quarter of yours today assuming your children are as competent and intelligent as you are. Would anyone who has two IQ points to rub together have children in that situation, when the options facing said kid 20 years hence are privation to this degree or civil war (and the attendant risk of being dead!) to overthrow said government? NO.

Importing millions of unskilled workers who then drop kids who have parents with no skills, and thus no realistic means of learning much from said parents yet are citizens in the gambit to cheapen labor screws the next two generations sequentially. Oh sure, in two generations or so those kids having their own kids will “outgrow” that but then they are able to compute the same odds and they won’t have children either! Think I’m wrong? The data says I’m not; within two generations those who were the children of illegals stop having lots of babies too and its for the same reason, I’ll wager: They’re convinced their children will get screwed and have one quarter of THEIR standard of living — and they remember living eight to a one bedroom apartment!

You think all those glorious “vacation venues” bringing in H2 workers, and all those “tech” places with H1bs, mean parents have a great experience for their kids at lower cost? Maybe, but in addition they have seen the destruction it wreaks on said kids. Please explain how many of Americans you saw of college age working scooping ice cream or similar this summer to make enough money to go to college in the fall. Zero — or nearly so — right? That’s what I saw all over the country. Now if I’m 20, and thinking about making some kids, where are my kids going to be in 20 years? Unable to get a summer job and unable to afford college too. Many see this, keep their pants on and both Trojan and the birth control pill companies keep having decent quarterly reports.

Good jobs with nice pay tend to be concentrated around cities. How’s Chicago doing these days? Yeah, getting mugged while walking around North Michigan Avenue (assuming you don’t get shot, which is of course even worse) is great. Do you want to expose children you might have to that risk? Hmmmm….. probably not. Oh, and speaking of which how are you going to afford a place to live with said kids when the cost of housing and property taxes have skyrocketed by more than double over the last decade or so — and there’s a new round of screwing headed for you in this upcoming year’s bill, all so you can be a “sanctuary” for a bunch of Venezuelan fighting-age men who illegally came to the US! All of this is very conducive to choosing to bear children, right? I mean its not like you’re going to have to pay those property taxes at an ever-escalating rate for the next 20 years if you choose to have kids, right? Oh, wait…. you are!

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo

Cashew

The Worlds largest cashew tree is in Brazil. This looks like a sprawling forest canopy yet is just one tree

It is thought to be more than a thousand years old, an estimate based on growth characteristics. pic.twitter.com/G3oGdWCpyl

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) November 5, 2023

The Olive tree of Vouveson on the island of Crete, Greece, is one of the oldest olive trees in the world. Scientists from the University of Crete have estimated it to be 4,000 years old, which means that, when it sprouted, the last mammoths were still walking on Earth, someone in China was discovering bronze casting and the seventh Egyptian dinasty was declining.

The Minoan civilization was thriving and its monumental architecture was adorning the island of Crete. The first stones of the Palace of Minos at Knossos which inspired the myth of the Minotaur were laid. This tree saw the humans deeds for thousands of years, from the Bronze Age to the artificial intelligence and, possibly the most amazing thing, it continues to produce olives at every season.

Rangers discovered a one-year-old hippo, whom they have named Owen, alone and dehydrated near Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast after he became separated from his herd in 2004. They took him to a wildlife sanctuary in Mombasa, where he soon found a male tortoise with the same dark grey coloring as adult hippos. The tortoise initially hissed at Owen, warning him to stay away, but according to park officials the pair have since become inseparable.

The Aldabran tortoise, called Mzee, or “Old Man” in Swahili, now eats and sleeps beside Owen. Rangers say they could not have placed Owen with another herd of hippos as he would have been killed by an adult male. The park’s tourism manager, Pauline Kimoto, told reporters: “Since Owen arrived on 27 December, the tortoise behaves like a mother to him. The hippo follows the tortoise around and licks his face.”

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