VIncent van Gogh Railway carriages 1888
Tom Renz modRNA
BREAKING: The #FDA #CDC #Pfizer & the rest misled the world. They claimed the COVID-19 vaccines were mRNA & that meant MESSENGER RNA (which occurs in life everywhere). It is NOT. The #mRNA is modRNA. #modRNA is a lab created hybrid designed to create changes in your genes. It… pic.twitter.com/ZfIYr5S0Wg
— Tom Renz (@RenzTom) August 19, 2023
Macgregor
The swamp is chalk full of corruption.
— Douglas Macgregor (@DougAMacgregor) August 20, 2023
Chef
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691902649484956065
“In the case of Ukraine, we are dealing with a regime that is pursuing a murderous policy towards the territory under its control. African leaders, on the other hand, are not at all willing to take risks for the interests of France and the United States.”
• West’s Attempt To Create A Ukraine Scenario In Niger Is Faltering (Bordachev)
The development of the situation surrounding the possible invasion of Niger by the troops of certain countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is remarkably reminiscent of the discussions that took place on the eve of this summer’s Ukrainian “counter-offensive.” The West’s African states are in no hurry to embark on a risky adventure. Meanwhile, the US and its Western European allies are urging them to do so. Just as they have been pushing the Ukrainian military to attack fortified Russian positions throughout the spring of 2023. But there is a significant difference. In the case of Ukraine, we are dealing with a regime that is pursuing a murderous policy towards the territory under its control. African leaders, on the other hand, are not at all willing to take risks for the interests of France and the United States.
Therefore, what was a tragedy in Ukraine may turn out to be a farce in West Africa, with the end result being an amicable agreement between all parties concerned. In both cases, however, the main reason is the same: the West’s desire not to get directly involved in military adventures and to use others to achieve its goals. And if, in the case of Ukraine, the motive for such behavior is fear of retaliation from Russia, in Africa it is a lack of opportunity and desire. All the more so as France and the US are convinced that the ECOWAS political regimes close to them are themselves interested in overthrowing the military authorities in Niger. There are reasons for this. The coup in Niger on July 26 was the fourth in the region in less than two years (after Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea).
It clearly enjoys the support of a section of the population in one of the world’s poorest countries. In other ECOWAS countries, the situation is far from festive and the civilian authorities have every reason to fear a domino effect on themselves. There is reason to believe that the combined forces of Nigeria and several other countries in the community will be sufficient to bring the arrested President Bazoum back to power. The only thing lacking is adventurism: So far, African leaders have preferred to adopt a wait-and-see attitude, albeit with a show of determination. Paris and Washington, for their part, are acting in an easily recognizable manner: They are paying lip service to a peaceful solution, while in practice they are demanding that ECOWAS countries use force against the generals in Niger.
It cannot be ruled out that military support has also been promised, as there are still significant French and American contingents in the country. But direct Western intervention is unlikely. First, it would involve a certain amount of risk and the need to take responsibility for the consequences. And, secondly, a direct attack on a sitting government by Western forces would be extremely bad in terms of the battle for the hearts and minds of the developing world. In essence, the days when the US and its Western Europeans friends could attack any sovereign state on a whim are long gone. The last example was NATO’s aggression against Libya in 2011. Much has changed since then. The bloc is now trying to convince the world of its good intentions. This is especially true in the context of their struggle against Russia, which the West accuses of doing what it has been doing for two decades.
Africa wants peace.
• How The US And France Created A Niger Mess For Themselves (Bhadrakumar)
France has ceded the leadership in the emergent situation to Washington. As a political scientist and professor at the French Institute of Political Studies, Bertrand Badi, puts it, this “is a very significant humiliation in the African context and shows that he [Macron] made a mistake in his calculations.” Badi went on to make an interesting point that fundamentally, France has failed to “get rid of all its colonial history.”“The great drama of France is that it doesn’t know how to turn the page, in France’s inability to redefine itself… France, since independence by the African states, has pursued a schoolteacher diplomacy based on the temptation to give lessons and distribute punishments.” Badi concluded that France probably did not understand that African societies have changed since then.
Not only France, but Western powers on the whole do not understand that the African people have a highly politicized mindset, thanks to the violent, bitterly fought national liberation movements. Unsurprisingly, Africa has been quick to adapt to the space opening up for them in the multipolar setting to negotiate with the ex-colonial masters. The savviness with which the coup leaders in Niamey are acting takes the breath away. General Abdourahmane Tchiani, the titular head of the coup, refused to meet Nuland. She and other US officials asked to see Bazoum in person when they visited Niger on Monday, but the answer was no. Even with a hefty $200 million of annual US aid at stake, the Nigerien generals weren’t interested in Nuland’s offer.
Instead, she had to sit across the table and negotiate with the commander of Niger’s Special Operations Forces and one of the leaders of the coup, Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, who serves as chief of defense. Barmou attended the US National Defense University and was trained at Fort Benning in Georgia. Yet, he was handpicked to threaten Nuland that the deposed president would be executed if neighboring countries attempted a military intervention to restore his rule. US Senator Chris Murphy later wryly remarked: “It’s a disturbing trend, and a sign of how badly misallocated our national security spending is on the [African] continent.” The Intercept has since revealed that Barmou was not the only US-trained Nigerien general involved in the coup. “Two weeks after Niger’s coup, the State Department has still not provided a list of the US-connected mutineers, but a different US official confirmed that there are ‘five people we’ve identified as having received [US military] training,’” the investigative news outlet said.
“We have no choice: either we will destroy their hostile political regime, or the collective West will eventually tear Russia to pieces”
• Ukraine Conflict ‘Could Last For Decades’ – Medvedev (RT)
The hostilities between Russia and Ukraine may end up dragging on for years or even decades, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday. For Russia, it is an “existential” conflict and a fight for its very existence, Medvedev, who is currently deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, wrote in a Telegram post. Russia must destroy and fully dismantle the Ukrainian state that is “terrorist in its essence,” making sure “this filth” never re-emerges again, he stressed. “Should it take years or even decades, then so be it. We have no choice: either we will destroy their hostile political regime, or the collective West will eventually tear Russia to pieces. And in this case, it will perish with us. Nobody needs this,” Medvedev wrote, presumably hinting at all-out nuclear destruction.
“Therefore, the only way is a complete dismantling of the state machine of the hostile country and absolute guarantees of loyalty for the future. They can only be provided by Russia’s control over everything that is happening and will happen in the territories of the former Banderite state. And we will achieve that.” For the collective West, on the contrary, the ongoing hostilities are a “strange war” and their support for it cannot last forever, Medvedev suggested. With such an approach to the conflict, the West is bound to end up defeated, he added.
“For them, this is a strange war in which people who are strangers to them are dying. And while they do not feel sorry for them, the West will never go beyond the point when its own interests get hurt too much,” the ex-president said, adding that the Western support for Ukraine will eventually dry up, as “someone else’s war sooner or later becomes boring, costly and irrelevant.” Over the course of the conflict, the West has poured lavish military and economic aid into Ukraine, with numerous top officials repeatedly stating their desire to see Russia defeated on the battlefield. Moscow has consistently urged the West to stop “pumping” Ukraine with assorted weaponry, warning that doing so only prolongs the hostilities and inflicts more damage on common Ukrainians without changing the ultimate outcome.
Parroting Putin.
• Milley: This Is An Existential Fight For Ukraine (Az.)
It’s probably too early to comment on any future things or ongoing negotiations or any of that kind of stuff. I would just say that there are various ways to accomplish those objectives. And I would say right now. This counteroffensive hasn’t run its course yet. So, we have to see where this thing ends up and then move from there,” the United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said, Report informs, citing the Washington Post.
No matter how much Russians refer to their rich and ancient history, this pompous bag of gas can only look at insulting them – ever more. While he is presented as the EU’s top diplomat. Which would put him on the level of Lavrov, Patruchev, Zakharova. Or, you know, Blinken, Vicky Nuland ..Imagine that! Borrell is not a diplomat, he is merely a “gas bag masquerading as a diplomat.” And he speaks for us Europeans… Can you name any US diplomats on the level of Lavrov et al?
• Russia Is A ‘Gas Pump With an Atomic Bomb’ – Borrell (RT)
The Russian economy is small compared to the other major geopolitical players, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in an interview with El Pais news outlet published on Saturday. Speaking about relations between the EU and China, Borrell said that Beijing, unlike Moscow, is a “real geopolitical player” which should not be underestimated or isolated. Russia, on the other hand, is too weak in economic terms due to its dependency on energy exports. “Russia is an economic dwarf, it is like a gas pump whose owner has an atomic bomb,” Borrell stated. Nevertheless, the diplomat claimed that Russia poses a threat to EU security, pointing to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which he said is practically “on the EU’s border.” This is not the first time Russia has been compared to a gas pump. In 2014, the late US Senator John McCain said Russia is “a gas station masquerading as a country,” saying the government is little more than an energy exporter.
The Russian government has acknowledged its dependency on oil and gas, but has worked to diversify its income sources and reduce the share of exports of natural resources in its budget. This summer, speaking at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country has been able to greatly reduce its dependency on energy revenue this year, noting that this is due to the robust development of the trade and service sectors. According to data from Russia’s Finance Ministry published in July, oil and gas income in the first half of 2023 amounted to 3.4 trillion rubles ($36.1 billion), half the amount that the budget gained from energy sales last year and a mere 27% of the total budget revenues. Meanwhile, non-oil and gas revenues surged by around 18% year-on-year, and amounted to roughly 9 trillion ($95.6 billion), or 73%, of the total budget income.
“..their officially declared objective is to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia.”
• Western Calls For Ukraine Peace Talks A ‘Tactical Ploy’ – Lavrov (RT)
The US and its allies do not want the Ukraine conflict to end and their purported peace initiatives are merely attempts to buy Kiev time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview published on Saturday. Geopolitical issues need to be discussed “not with [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters,” Lavrov said earlier this year. Negotiating directly with the Americans would make sense, he told the magazine International Affairs when asked about the idea. “The problem, however, is that the United States has no intention of ending the conflict,” Lavrov explained, noting that “their officially declared objective is to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia.”
Prospects for negotiations between Russia and the West “are non-existent at this stage,” Lavrov said, while Kiev “Western sponsors are constantly pushing them to up the ante.” Insisting on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘peace formula’ at meetings in Copenhagen and Jeddah – to which Russia was not invited – “hardly demonstrates an intention by the West to negotiate with Russia,” Lavrov said. Moscow has dismissed Zelensky’s ten-point list of demands as an unacceptable ultimatum unrelated to reality. Russia has repeatedly tried to negotiate, from the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements to the “drastic attempt to convey our concerns to Western capitals” in December 2021, Lavrov noted.
The West “arrogantly rejected” Moscow’s initiative and ramped up deliveries of weapons and ammunition to Kiev instead. “We regard the Westerners’ hypocritical calls for talks as a tactical ploy to buy time once again giving the exhausted Ukrainian troops a respite and the opportunity to regroup, and to send in more weapons and ammunition,” Lavrov said, adding that “this is the path of war, not a peaceful settlement process.” Angela Merkel, the former chancellor of Germany, admittedlast December that the 2015 Franco-German proposal in Minsk was “an attempt to give Ukraine time” to build up its military. This was then confirmed by former French President Francois Hollande.
“..the West wants to do away with our country as a serious geopolitical rival..”
• West Has Shown Its ‘True Russophobic Face’ – Lavrov (RT)
Washington and Brussels have openly unleashed a hybrid war against everything Russian, dropping their masks after decades of pretending to be civilized international partners, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with International Affairs, published on Saturday. “Many of our former partners have been concealing their Russophobic nature under the veil of hypocrisy, but have now shown their true face in all its glory,” he said. “However, there is also the flip side of the coin here, since the Global Majority saw the true face of those who went as far as [to] aspire to a monopoly in defining the so-called universal values.” “Today’s West is steered by people like Josep Borrell who divide the world into a blooming ‘garden’ and ‘the jungle,’ where the latter clearly applies to most of humanity,”Lavrov added.
The West has spent decades cynically transforming neighboring Ukraine into a “hostile military bulwark against Russia by nurturing an entire generation of politicians ready to declare war on our shared past, culture and everything Russian,” according to Lavrov. Western capitals even openly admitted that reaching a peaceful settlement in Ukraine was never part of their plan, and that the Minsk agreements were originally designed to “buy some time to prepare a military scenario and deliver weapons to Kiev.” “I think that the essential thing we must understand in this regard is that the West wants to do away with our country as a serious geopolitical rival,” the top Russian diplomat said.
They have not hesitated to use subversive methods and perform acts of sabotage, as was the case with the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea. Lavrov also accused Washington and its allies of using all possible coercive means to prevent Russia’s partners from engaging in economic and other kinds of cooperation, while also “making outrageous efforts to disconnect Russia from international cooperation mechanisms in culture, education, research, and sports.” One thing that the West fails to understand, according to Lavrov, is that “Russia will use all means to defend its people and its vital interests,” and thus would be better for the opponents to realize that “confrontation with Russia is futile and switch to more civilized” means for achieving a balance of interests.
“..spending on Ukraine aid stood at $130 billion, while 15 million Americans did not have medical insurance and 30 million people in the US lacked food stamps..”
• Zakharova Says Kiev Elite Preying On US Taxpayers (TASS)
The Ukrainian authorities are preying not only on their own people but also on US taxpayers, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement. “The Kiev elite is preying not only on its fellow citizens but also on American taxpayers. Not so long ago, US presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pointed out in an interview that Washington’s spending on Ukraine aid stood at $130 billion, while 15 million Americans did not have medical insurance and 30 million people in the US lacked food stamps,” she noted. Still, in the Russian diplomat’s words, on August 14, the Pentagon announced another aid package to Kiev worth $200 mln. “It will particularly include ammunition for Patriot missile systems and HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, as well as anti-tank missile systems. Washington’s military aid to Ukraine has exceeded $43.7 billion since Joe Biden took office as US president,” Zakharova emphasized. “Besides, on August 10, the White House asked the US Congress to approve another $24 billion in aid for Ukraine, including $13.1 billion worth of military assistance,” she added.
To achieve what?
• West’s Overall Aid To Kiev Over Past Year Exceeds $160 Bln – Lavrov (TASS)
The West’s overall assistance to the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky regime over the year of the special military operation exceeded 160 billion US dollars, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the International Affairs magazine. “In terms of money, the West’s aggregate assistance to the Zelensky regime over the year of the special military operation exceeded 160 billion US dollar, including military aid of 75 billion US dollars,” he said. “By the way, according to the estimates of the Washington-based The Heritage Foundation NGO, the United States has already allocated around 113 billion US dollars to Ukraine, or some 900 dollars from each household, plus 300 dollars as interests for servicing corresponding debt obligations. Huge sums, especially amid the difficult situation in the global economy.”
According to the top Russian diplomat, round 50 countries of the so-called “Ramstein coalition” for military support for Ukraine “are actually involved in the armed conflict on the part of the Kiev regime, which does not hesitate to use terrorist fighting methods.” “Large-scale weapons supplies, including cluster and long-range munitions, are being sent to Ukraine,” he said. “NATO instructors take part in planning operations of the Ukrainian army, NATO intelligence data are being used.” Meanwhile, Western leaders keep on repeating like aa mantra that they will continue to help Kiev as long as it takes, Lavrov noted. “Of course, this is their choice and the Zelensky junta’s decision to go on fighting until the last Ukrainian,” he went on.
“But, historically, the United States cannot boast a good reputation in terms of supporting its allies.” In this context, he recalled that the termination of the US military assistance to South Vietnam in 1973 and to the Ashraf Ghani regime in Afghanistan in 2021 ended up in the immediate fall of the authorities loyal to Washington. “And present-day Ukraine practically totally depends on Western money and weapons supplies,” he stressed. Lavrov noted that the west “is seeking to eliminate Russia as a serious geopolitical rival.” “This is why Washington and Brussels have unleashed a hybrid war against us,” he said. “And it is supplemented by the unprecedented sanction pressure.
The Americans are using the carrot-and-stick policy in a bid to make our partners to refuse from economic and other cooperation with Russia.” They don’t’ hesitate to resort to blatant sabotage, like in the case with the explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipelines running across the Baltic Sea, or taking efforts to remove Russia from the mechanisms of international cooperation in the areas of culture, education, science, and sports. “Evidently, these and other aggressive measures are geared to weaken, exhaust Russia,” Lavrov noted. “They are seeking to maximally drain out our economic, technological, and defense capacities, to limit our sovereignty and make us drop our independent foreign and domestic policy.”.
Pretty sure we’re better off following Macgregor’s numbers.
• Total Ukraine War Troop Deaths, Injuries Approaching 500,000: US Officials (ZH)
A surprisingly blunt and revealing Friday report in The New York Times cites US officials who estimate that total war casualties in Ukraine among both sides are at nearly 500,000 dead and wounded. “The number includes as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops,” the Times wrote based on the unnamed officials. “The Russian numbers dwarf the Ukrainian figures, which the officials put at close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded.” To put these grim and tragic figures in perspective, the United States military involvement in Vietnam over the course of a nearly two-decade period resulted in about 58,000 Americans killed. Given Kiev doesn’t release official casualty numbers, the US officials cited in the Times report are estimating, but it generally lines up with the immense numbers of Ukrainian losses the Kremlin has presented in evaluating the counteroffensive.
But Western sources have consistently said that Russian losses are more staggering. The NY Times has characterized the now largely stalemated conflict as a war of attrition, with Russia having the manpower and supply lines keep the upper-hand and to far outlast: “Ukraine has around 500,000 troops, including active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops, according to analysts. By contrast, Russia has almost triple that number, with 1,330,000 active-duty, reserve and paramilitary troops — most of the latter from the Wagner Group”. As for Russia, the West has accused it of habitually undercounting its own casualty rates. Last January, US Chief of the Joint Staff Mark Milley asserted that Russian forces had suffered losses at “significantly well over 100,000”.
Likely many of the recent casualties on each side were from the months-long battle for the city of Bakhmut. President Zelensky has come under recent criticism for pouring so many resources and manpower into what was a losing battle. That’s when many reports emerged of large amounts of completely untrained and underequipped Ukrainians being shipped to the frontlines. The military analysis source 19fortyfive.com has assessed that the defense of Bakhmut was an incredible risk and gamble which didn’t pay off, and led to a very poor start to the now faltering counteroffensive: “However, Zelensky chose to press the fight anyway. For months, senior U.S. leaders warned the Ukrainian president the battle was unwinnable and to move to other defensive positions.
Not only did he refuse to withdraw to a superior fighting position, he ordered his men not to give up so much as a single building, forcing them to fight to the death. Month after month, Zelensky sent brigade after brigade to reinforce Bakhmut in an effort to reverse the tide. Not only was it painfully obvious that military fundamentals made clear there was little rational hope of stopping Wagner’s drive to capture Bakhmut, but many of those brigades Zelensky sent in futile aid to help Bakhmut were also urgently needed in the upcoming spring and summer offensive. Two days after Bakhmut’s fall, Zelensky was still defiant, claiming the city had not fallen. In 2022, Zelensky’s tenacity and unwillingness to compromise resulted in blunting Russia’s invasion and then inflicting two major operational defeats.”
While Ukrainian forces held out for longer than most predicted, it was a very costly loss, and at the same time it’s anything but clear that it put a significant dent in Russian force strength. 19FortyFive concludes that it’s certainly not Washington’s fault (despite the persistent complaint to this end of Zelensky officials)… “No one can claim the United States didn’t give Ukraine every chance to find out if it could succeed on the battlefield, as we provided literally thousands of armored vehicles, millions of shells, missiles, and bombs, and training and intelligence support – along with scores of billions in other aid.” And the publication emphasizes, “But that help did not produce a Ukrainian victory.”
“All that cackling must conceal an inner vacancy so vast that Judge Crater, DB Cooper, and the brigantine Mary Celeste might be roaming around in there, along with Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, and the Lost Colony of Roanoke.”
The reams of Biden family bank records that Mr. Comer of Kentucky has unearthed hither and yon, plus deal memoranda, video and audio recordings of dark confabs, and hundreds of tell-tale emails are of a different evidentiary nature than the roster of hypothetical thought crimes confabulated by Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, and Fani T. Willis. Personally, I would like, at least, to see impeachment hearings where all that hard evidence of Biden family bribery is methodically laid out for The New York Times and CNN to ignore. It will look like a game of chicken for a few days, but then the party honchos will “sadly” order Ol’ Joe to step aside before that grim spectacle goes too far. The Ukraine War will then be Kamala Harris’s to lose — depend on it — though nobody will care.
I have a feeling that Barack Obama will not be able to… how shall we say… work with her. All that cackling must conceal an inner vacancy so vast that Judge Crater, DB Cooper, and the brigantine Mary Celeste might be roaming around in there, along with Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, and the Lost Colony of Roanoke. And I cringe to imagine the meetings with Kamala where Susan Rice, Lisa Monaco, and Torie Nuland try to tell the poor simp what to do. It will look like one of those girlie beat-downs on an Oakland street-corner. Anyway, by that time the stock markets will be all a’crumble, all those Vanguard retirement funds will wash-up like so many writhing grunions on Cabrillo Beach, and your local bank will cap withdrawals at $500 a few weeks before executing the long-rumored bail-ins.
At that magic moment, the Democratic Party will have everything it has wished for. Of course, I can’t say the melodrama will play out exactly like that, in that sequence. But expect trouble in September. Expect disorder like you’ve never imagined. Think about retrieving whatever cash you have in the bank. Consider arming yourself for safety’s sake, if you live in a part of the country that allows it. Or maybe even if you live in the other parts. Lay in some beans and rice and some batteries. Buckle your mental seat belt. When August is over, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
“The 2020 election reportedly saw 155 million votes. There were roughly 168 million registered voters in 2020, which means that voter turnout in 2020 was an astonishing 92%.”
• Trump Can Prove It (Matt Kane)
There were concerns regarding Pennsylvania’s voting procedure long before any votes were even cast. The Keystone State’s Senate Republican Caucus and the Republican Party strongly argued that the state Supreme Court extending the deadline to count ballots violated the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause by taking away the Legislature’s authority to “set the times, places and manner of federal elections.” This was ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court just prior to Justice Barrett’s confirmation. This led to a 4-4 decision, which results in a “stay.” Had this been heard after her confirmation, it is likely Barrett would have ruled against the extensions that led to Biden’s constitutionally questionable “comeback.”
But of all the suspected fraud in 2020, Arizona was the first state that raised suspicions in real time. Despite not voting Democrat in a two-candidate presidential election since 1948, Fox News shockingly called the state for Biden after just 27% of the vote was reported. This sparked a forensic audit that concluded that the number of illegal votes exceeded Biden’s alleged 11-thousand-vote victory fivefold. When vote-counting was inexplicably halted on Election Night, Trump led all these states by six figures. A combination of any three of these states holding would have secured him a second term, which is why Democrats fought so hard to steal them. But even putting state-specific statistics aside, a basic analysis of election history signals the improbability of Biden receiving the number of votes he allegedly did.
Every general election since 2004 has seen between 120–130 million total votes. The 2020 election reportedly saw 155 million votes. There were roughly 168 million registered voters in 2020, which means that voter turnout in 2020 was an astonishing 92%. This is statistically improbable when you consider that countries such as Australia institute compulsory voting, which mandates that citizens vote or pay a fine. Yet its most recent turnout rate was in the high 80s. America voluntarily outpacing a nation that financially penalizes non-voters does not pass the smell test.
“The pseudonyms were supposedly used to dodge discovery of the communications under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).”
• Joe Biden Juggled Aliases as He Peddled Power Via Hunter (Sp.)
President Joe Biden armed himself with several fake identities during his time as Barack Obama’s vice president when communicating with son Hunter, as well as the latter’s foreign business partners, emails from the notorious “laptop from hell” reveal, reported US media. Hunter Biden had abandoned this device in a Delaware repair shop in 2019. At least three pseudonyms: ‘Robert L. Peters’, ‘Robin Ware’ and ‘JRB Ware’, along with alternate email addresses were used by Joe Biden between 2014 and 2016, when sending messages to his son. Some concerned family issues, other communications pertained to official government business, such as upcoming talks with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, or Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. The pseudonyms were supposedly used to dodge discovery of the communications under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Thus, the private email address using the name Robert.L.Peters was where Joe Biden’s aide, John Flynn, was ostensibly instructed to send his daily schedule at least on 10 occasions in the period between May 18 and June 15. Regarding the above-cited call with the then-Ukrainian President, Hunter Biden’s name was copied onto a message dated May 26. It contained a note keeping the younger Biden in the loop about an “8.45am prep for 9am phonecall [sic] with Pres Poroshenko.” Hunter Biden had also been alerted to a meeting on his father’s schedule with Prime Minister Groysman on June 15, 2016. Subsequently the face-to-face led to an announcement of “$220 million in new assistance to Ukraine,” per records.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has sent a letter to the National Archives requesting any “document or communication in which a pseudonym for Vice President Joe Biden was included either as a sender, recipient, copied or was included in the contents of the document or communication, including but not limited to Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware.” Specifically, Comer hoped to get a look at emails released by the National Archives that are marked as “Email Messages To and/or From Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden related to Burisma and Ukraine.”
“Joe Biden has stated there was ‘an absolute wall’ between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as vice president, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family’s influence peddling. We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates. We also know that Hunter Biden and his associates were informed of then-Vice President Biden’s official government duties in countries where they had a financial interest. The National Archives must provide these unredacted records to further our investigation into the Biden family’s corruption,” stated James Comer.
I normally never use paywalled articles like the NYT’s. But this is free for me. Hoping it is for you, too. It’s interesting. Q: Why does the NYT run a lengthy aricle on this, at this time?
• Inside the Collapse of Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal (NY Times)
There were signs, subtle but unmistakable, that Hunter Biden’s high-stakes plea agreement with federal prosecutors might be on shaky ground hours before it went public in June, according to emails sent by his legal team to the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware. When one of Mr. Biden’s lawyers sent over the draft of the statement they intended to share with the news media, a top deputy to David C. Weiss, who had overseen the inquiry since 2018, asked to remove two words describing the status of the investigation, according to interviews and internal correspondence on the deal obtained by The New York Times. “Concluded” and “conclusion” should be replaced with the weaker “resolved,” the deputy said.
Six weeks later, the federal judge presiding over a hearing on the agreement would expose even deeper divisions and the deal imploded, prompting Mr. Weiss to seek appointment as special counsel with the freedom to expand the inquiry and bring new charges. The deal’s collapse — chronicled in over 200 pages of confidential correspondence between Mr. Weiss’s office and Mr. Biden’s legal team, and interviews with those close to Mr. Biden, lawyers involved in the case and Justice Department officials — came after intense negotiations that started with the prospect that Mr. Biden would not be charged at all and now could end in his possible indictment and trial. Earlier this year, The Times found, Mr. Weiss appeared willing to forgo any prosecution of Mr. Biden at all, and his office came close to agreeing to end the investigation without requiring a guilty plea on any charges.
But the correspondence reveals that his position, relayed through his staff, changed in the spring, around the time a pair of I.R.S. officials on the case accused the Justice Department of hamstringing the investigation. Mr. Weiss suddenly demanded that Mr. Biden plead guilty to committing tax offenses. Now, the I.R.S. agents and their Republican allies say they believe the evidence they brought forward, at the precise time they did, played a role in influencing the outcome, a claim senior law enforcement officials dispute. While Mr. Biden’s legal team agrees that the I.R.S. agents affected the deal, his lawyers have contended to the Justice Department that by disclosing details about the investigation to Congress, they broke the law and should be prosecuted. “It appears that if it weren’t for the courageous actions of these whistle-blowers, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose, Hunter Biden would never have been charged at all,” a team of lawyers for one of the I.R.S. agents said in a statement, adding that the initial agreement reflected preferential treatment.
[..] Precisely what happens next is unclear. Mr. Biden’s top lawyer has quit, and accused prosecutors of reneging on their commitments. And Republicans, who waged an all-out war to discredit the deal, are seeking to maximize the political damage to President Biden, seeing it as a counter to the four criminal prosecutions of Mr. Trump, their party’s presidential front-runner. Mr. Weiss had a few reasons to ask Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to appoint him special counsel. The status could grant him greater authority to pursue leads around the country, and could provide him with added leverage in a revamped deal with Mr. Biden. But he was also motivated by a requirement to produce a report that would allow him to answer critics, according to people with knowledge of the situation — an accounting that could become public before the 2024 election.
New Silk Roads.
• Central Asia is the Prime Battlefield in the New Great Game (Pepe Escobar)
There’s hardly a more relevant place across the Heartland to observe the current power play than Samarkand, the fabled “Rome of the East.” Here we are in the heart of ancient Sogdiana – the historical trade crossroads between China, India, Parthia, and Persia, an immensely important node of East-West cultural trends, Zoroastrianism, and pre/post-Islamic vectors. From the 4th century to the 8th century, it was the Sogdians who monopolized the caravan trade between East Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia, transporting silk, cotton, gold, silver, copper, weaponry, aromas, furs, carpets, clothes, ceramics, glass, porcelain, ornaments, semi-precious stones, mirrors. Wily Sogdian merchants used protection from nomadic dynasties to solidify trade between China and Byzantium.
The meritocratic Chinese elite, which reasons in terms of very long historical cycles, is very much aware of all of the above: that’s a key driver behind the New Silk Roads concept, officially known as BRI (Belt and Road Initiative), as announced nearly 10 years ago by President Xi Jinping in Astana, Kazakhstan. Beijing plans to reconnect with its Western neighbors as the necessary pathway towards increased pan-Eurasian trade and connectivity. Beijing and Moscow have complementary focuses when it comes to relations with the Heartland – always under the principle of strategic cooperation. Both have been engaged in regional security and economic cooperation with Central Asia since 1998.
Established in 2001, the SCO is an actual product of the Russia-China common strategy as well as a platform for non-stop dialogue with the Heartland. How different Central Asian “stans” react to it is a multi-level issue. Tajikistan, for instance, economically fragile and heavily dependent on the Russian market as a provider of cheap labor, officially keeps an “open door” policy to every sort of cooperation, including with the west. Kazakhstan and the US have established a Strategic Partnership Council (their last meeting was late last year). Uzbekistan and the US have a “strategic partnership dialogue,” set up in late 2021. American business presence is very much visible in Tashkent, via an imposing trade center, not to mention Coke and Pepsi in every Uzbek village corner shop.
The EU tries to keep up, especially in Kazakhstan, where over 30 percent of foreign trade ($39 billion) and investments ($12.5 billion) come from Europe. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev – extremely popular for opening up the country five years ago – nabbed $9 billion in trade deals when he visited Germany three months ago. Since the inception of the Chinese BRI a decade ago, the EU, by comparison, invested around $120 billion across the Heartland: not too shabby (40 percent of total foreign investment), but still below Chinese commitments.
Butterfly
https://twitter.com/i/status/1692843202816905677
Apeel
Beware of WEF and Bill Gates-funded Apeel – the dangerous new food coating that can't be washed off. pic.twitter.com/clgdQSWimW
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