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Debt Rattle March 6 2026

Mar 062026
 
 March 6, 2026  Posted by at 10:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  78 Responses »


Mark Chagall I and the village 1911


• Iran Isn’t Moving Public Opinion—Trump Is (DS)
• Iran Says Strait Of Hormuz Open (ZH)
• Trump to Replace Kirsti Noem at DHS With Mullin (Matt Margolis)
• EPIC FURY: Trump’s Play to Starve the Dragon? (Stephen Green)
• Division, Derision and the Economics of the Thing (CTH)
• Churchill Saw the Cold War Coming (David Manney)
• Hemispheric Boss Level: Epic – Venezuela Edition (CTH)
• Pam Bondi Subpoenaed In Epstein Investigation By House Oversight Panel (ZH)
• German Top Court Issues Two Landmark Rulings In Favor of Free Speech (RMX)
• The Atlantic Says Pete Buttigieg Is a Real Man (Robert Spencer)
• The Biden Autopen Probe Ends The Way So Many Others Do (David Manney)
• Hungary To Block Every EU Decision On Ukraine Over Oil Blockade – Orban (RT)
• Russia Could End Gas Supplies To EU Immediately – Putin (RT)

 


 

https://twitter.com/DanielLDavis1/status/2029298437813146048?s=20

 


 

 


 


Trump’s influence is outta here..

• Iran Isn’t Moving Public Opinion—Trump Is (DS)

When it comes to Iran, Americans’ opinions aren’t necessarily reflective of what’s happening on the battlefield—but rather their feelings about President Donald Trump. That’s according to veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen, founder of the Napolitan Institute. As the conflict intensifies in the Middle East, Rasmussen said his polling suggests that Americans’ views on Iran appear to be driven less by U.S. military action and more by their broader opinions of Trump. At a Wednesday briefing, Rasmussen said public reaction to the unfolding situation in Iran has remained stable since Saturday—and is similar to Trump’s overall job approval numbers.


When voters were asked whether they approve or disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation in Iran, 42% said they approve. That figure is close to Trump’s overall job approval rating of 45% in the same polling. The consistency in Rasmussen’s surveys indicates that opinions on Iran are tracking closely with existing political opinions of Trump—rather than shifting in response to news headlines. Only 32% of voters say they are following news about Iran “very closely,” underscoring another key finding: most Americans are not immersed in the details of military strategy or regional politics. As Rasmussen noted, few voters consider themselves military experts, and that reality may help explain why public opinion has shown little change since Saturday’s strikes.

Polling conducted Saturday afternoon—immediately after news broke of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran—found that 40% of voters favored the strikes. Days later, after extensive news coverage, that number has not changed. Support remains at 40%, according to the Napolitan Institute’s latest survey.n nOpposition also moved only marginally. Initially, 46% said they opposed the attacks. That number has since moved up by just one percentage point. In other words, despite intense media focus, public sentiment has barely shifted.

One area where Rasmussen did observe some movement was on expectations of success. On Saturday, 55% of voters said they believed it was likely the mission would succeed in bringing about regime change in Iran. That number has since fallen five percentage points to 50%. Rasmussen, however, emphasized that this shift does not represent a collapse in confidence. Rather than moving from optimism to pessimism, respondents appear to have shifted into a more uncertain category—from believing success is likely to saying they are unsure what will happen next. The broader picture remains steady. Iran is not reshaping public opinion—it’s reflecting it.

Ultimately, Rasmussen argued, public opinion will hinge on outcomes. If the mission produces significant change, removes what many view as a destabilizing regime, and does so with minimal American casualties and limited cost, voters are likely to judge it positively. If not, the political consequences in the midterms could be significant.

Rasmussen noted that Trump has only a couple of weeks before he begins to lose support, with 55% of voters opposed to him sending U.S. troops to the ground. If something drastic happens, such as a rise in U.S. casualties, Trump’s support for Iran could lessen even quicker. For now, however, the numbers suggest that Americans are viewing events in Iran largely through a domestic political lens—and the perception of the president himself continues to shape reactions more than developments in the headlines.

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Open for China.

• Iran Says Strait Of Hormuz Open (ZH)

“Some are criticizing us [Iran], saying that we have closed the Strait of Hormuz. We do not believe in closing the Strait of Hormuz at all,” Iranian military commander Amir Heydari told Iranian state TV on Thursday.


The first sign that the critical maritime chokepoint was partially open came late Wednesday night, when we were among the first to report that a China-linked bulk carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz without incident, a notable development given earlier reports and market chatter that Iran might allow only Chinese-linked ships to transit. Shortly after our report that the Iron Maiden vessel made it through the narrowest part of the waterway unharmed, Bloomberg also reported on the development, noting that the ship had changed its destination signal to “CHINA OWNER.” LKatest activity in the Strait.


Earlier this week, Iran’s IRGC said that any vessel sailing through the waterway “could be at risk from missiles or rogue drones,” according to the semi-official Fars News Agency. China has urged peace and called for an immediate ceasefire to the U.S.-Israeli Operation Epic Fury to “prevent further escalation of tensions and stop the conflict from spreading and engulfing the entire Middle East.” Everyone knows why China is calling for peace: the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s cheap oil flows have effectively been closed to the world’s second-largest economy, and that pressure is likely to be used as leverage by President Trump in his upcoming visit to China.

Trump has said the U.S. will offer insurance for tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz and, if necessary, provide naval escorts to help restart energy flows as the commercial shipping lane remains heavily disrupted. Beijing is likely asking this question: “Will Trump Seize Or Destroy Iran’s Oil Export Island?”

Even with ten or more tankers and other vessels reportedly hit by IRGC drones in or around the Strait, intelligence and military analysts told Reuters that the IRGC could sustain drone attacks in the waterway for months. The Strait has not been fully closed, in part because the Trump administration spent the week degrading Iran’s naval capabilities, but the disruption is still severe because major European and global insurers have abruptly pulled or canceled war-risk coverage for the region.

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“..will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas..”

• Trump to Replace Kirsti Noem at DHS With Mullin (Matt Margolis)

UPDATE: President Trump has announced on Truth Social his intention to nominate Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) as the next Homeland Security Secretary. “I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026,” Trump wrote. “The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.’”


Original Article: President Donald Trump is allegedly preparing to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. “The president has already been asking aides and congressional Republicans for names of potential replacements, the advisers said.” “The final straw for Trump was Noem’s combative hearing Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which showed bipartisan frustration with Noem’s leadership, the advisers said. Noem’s decision to allot $200 million on an ad campaign, featuring herself urging those living illegally in the U.S. to self-deport, had already rankled the president for months for its self-promotional style. At the hearing, Noem told Senators that the President had signed off on the ad campaign–an assertion that upset Trump, who told senators and advisers he had not signed off on such a campaign.

Trump does, however, frequently change his mind, especially when it comes to firing officials. He has previously told aides he doesn’t want to make personnel decisions based on Democratic messaging or media pressure.” NBC News similarly reports that Trump has been “speaking this week with Republican lawmakers about his displeasure with Noem and has made clear in those conversations that he is considering replacing her, according to two Republican lawmakers, a person familiar with White House’s thinking and three people familiar with the president’s private discussions.”White House officials have reportedly name-dropped two potential replacements: Sens. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.).

No decision has been made by the president, the sources say, but that he has told lawmakers that he is unhappy with Noem’s testimony this week before House and Senate committees.Noem has been at the forefront of Trump’s signature policy agendas: the deportation of immigrants, the restricting of immigration and the clamping down of the U.S.-Mexico border. Her ouster would mark the first time a Cabinet secretary has exited in Trump’s second term. The NBC News report cites Noem’s response to questions about her role in approving contracts, the aforementioned $200 million ad campaign in particular, as the flashpoint. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) described President Donald Trump as “pissed” over her response.

“The president of the United States called me, and I’m not going to speak for him, folks, but, I would put it this way: his recollection and her recollection are different,” Kennedy said. “I can assure you, he is not happy with her,” another lawmaker said. “She did horrible in the hearings and has made a lot of errors.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that “Time will tell” as to whether Noem will be replaced. While the White House did not comment, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told NBC News, “Secretary Noem serves at the pleasure of the President. She is honored to serve the American people and lead DHS. Under her leadership, we have the most secure border in American history, 3 million illegal aliens left the United States, and we now have the lowest murder rate in 125 years.”

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“..it fulfills my desire to welcome Russia back into the West for the first time since the Bolsheviks ruined everything.”

• EPIC FURY: Trump’s Play to Starve the Dragon? (Stephen Green)

Bloomberg reported Thursday that Beijing “told the country’s top oil refiners to suspend exports of diesel and gasoline” as Operation Epic Fury continues disrupting oil shipments out of the Persian Gulf. “China’s curbs just six days into a war reflect a scramble across Asia to prioritize domestic needs as the crisis in the Middle East deepens.” China imports “about 11 million barrels of crude per day,” my Townhall colleague Walter Curt added on X this morning, “with roughly 40-45% of that flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.” And yes, while China is a net importer of oil and natural gas — and yugely so — the Communist nation exports refined products including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and marine bunker fuel, largely to Southeast Asian, South Pacific, and African nations.


But not as of today. “Officials from the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner,” Bloomberg [paywalled link] continued, “called for a temporary suspension of refined product shipments that would begin immediately.” It isn’t just China, either, according to the same report: “With virtually no oil or fuel making its way out of the Persian Gulf since US and Israeli attacks began at the weekend, refiners from Japan to Indonesia and India have begun cutting back run rates and suspending exports.”= I had a brief item about this earlier today on Instapundit, but the news kept nagging at me because it’s worth a deeper look — and, as it turns out, the petroleum exports angle might be the least interesting part.

The first addition, as Curt noted, is that China’s “strategic petroleum reserves are estimated by analysts at around 90-100 days of total consumption,” which ought to be more than enough for a war hardly anyone expects to last that long. But Politico reported Thursday that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) asked the Pentagon “to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days but likely through September.” As I wrote earlier this week, I hope for a short campaign, but maybe that isn’t in the cards. Or maybe CENTCOM’s request — leaked to Politico for worldwide dissemination — is a warning to whoever is in charge of Iran that we won’t quit before they do, so they might as well quit now.

Another possibility is that the Trump administration did indeed want to send a message, but to Beijing, not Tehran. “We’re willing to disrupt Persian Gulf oil exports until it hurts you because we have all we need for ourselves and our friends right here, thank you very much, Comrade Xi.” If that is the case — and probably nobody outside the administration has anything better than informed guesses — it certainly fits the developing broader picture we’re getting of President Donald Trump’s strategic vision. The short version is first securing the Western Hemisphere (Panama Canal, Venezuela, Cuba) from the worst of Chinese influence, then putting the squeeze on them elsewhere to re-establish American dominance. Iran is the Middle East lynchpin of Beijing’s global ambitions, so it’s my belief that Trump sees that regime as something that must be removed or co-opted.

The rest… well, this is pretty wild stuff involving Russia, courtesy of tech and finance guy G.C. Cooke: The argument is that a back-channel deal is already taking shape. Russia, increasingly squeezed and looking for off-ramps, begins redirecting energy exports toward Western markets. Out of self-interest, not friendship. In return, Moscow gets energy revenue guarantees and a pathway back to the global trading system. Canada, with its existing Arctic and energy ties, becomes the diplomatic bridge.

The result is a North American–Russian energy alignment that removes China’s last major source of leverage. You might want to click over to X to read Cooke’s entire piece because it’s fascinating stuff — but not before finishing up here, naturally. I’ll admit up front that I have a natural bias toward buying into Cooke’s theory, because it fulfills my desire to welcome Russia back into the West for the first time since the Bolsheviks ruined everything. West + Russia isn’t always a natural fit — it took a determined effort by Peter the Great to make it happen the first time, and very little effort by the got-dam Communists to blow it apart.

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I do remember, but I also forgot a lot. Back in 2015, people were laughing at Trump’s chances.

• Division, Derision and the Economics of the Thing (CTH)

Do you remember this moment during the 2015 republican presidential debates when all of the candidates were on stage and leading control outlet Fox News (Bret Baier) purposefully asked the candidates: “… is there anyone on stage, unwilling tonight, to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the republican party, and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person. Again, we are lo oking for you to raise your hand now if you won’t make that pledge tonight.

The need for control is a reaction to fear. The question was intentionally constructed to create both an optic and a narrative Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and the republican party were purposefully shaping. Collectively the professional republicans were desperately afraid Donald Trump would run as an independent candidate.


I bring us back to that moment because it is the key to understand where we are even today. This was the core of the matter. This is the “trillions at stake” aspect. This is the economics of the thing as it first manifest. Why did Donald J Trump stand against them all?nFor many years before that moment, a small group of us had been outlining why it was urgent for MAGAnomics to take charge of the U.S. economy; because underneath both wings of the UniParty in Washington DC was a system that few understood. Prior to 2016, the United States Chamber of Commerce (U.S CoC), a private K-Street lobbying consortium, were the negotiators for every single trade deal done from the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).


The U.S. government (USTR, POTUS and Congress) was the trade stakeholder who signed the agreements; however, the actual nuts and bolts of what the trade deal included, the terms and conditions, were negotiated by the US CoC. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce represented the corporate interests of their Wall Street clients. After all, the corporations paid the CoC and the business model of the CoC is dependent on the corporations. This is the larger background for how decades of trade agreements ended up with offshoring, the Rust Belt, diminished domestic manufacturing, and increased corporate profits.

This is the core mechanics of how a U.S. manufacturing economy was shifted to a “service driven economy.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was writing the trade deals. The CoC would then fund the politicians who would approve the trade deals. The CoC would also finance the presidential candidates. When President Trump ran for office in 2016, his trade, manufacturing and economic policies were against the interests of the entire business network that controlled trade. The U.S. CoC poured money into Hillary Clinton’s campaign and their main GOP partner in the enterprise, Mitch McConnell. When Trump won the election, he completely shut out the CoC from any involvement in U.S. trade negotiations. Trump literally put himself, Wilbur Ross, and Robert Lighthizer in control.

The CoC was apoplectic but powerless to stop this action. CoC President Tom Donohue could not even get an appointment to see President Trump in the White House. The only thing the CoC and Tom Donohue could do was to fund anyone who would assist them in removing the existential threat that Trump represented. That’s what they did. With the CoC removed from influence, President Trump, Wilbur Ross and Robert Lighthizer began the painstaking process of taking the Wall Street profit tentacles off U.S. trade policy. In essence, President Trump put the interests of the American citizens back into the top priority of the U.S. govt, as it pertained to the biggest of all big picture items, the U.S. economy. That’s why in 2018 and 2019 the U.S. economy was on fire with growth.

All of that MAGAnomic background remained in place when President Trump retook control in 2025, and now we are starting to see the positive economic effects again resurface. However, that collective UniParty opposition still remains, albeit significantly diminished by the refusal of President Trump to move away from America-first policy.

The core of the opposition to all of President Trump’s actions, remains almost exclusively an outcome of the economics of policy the DC system no longer controls. It’s about the money. It will always be about the money. The division we are encountering in the MAGA ranks, is specifically driven by those same financial interests who opposed candidate Donald Trump a decade ago. When it came to trade policy, economic policy, tariff policy and the confrontation with China, there was not one iota of difference between any of the 17 republican candidates in that 2016 election. There was not one degree of divergence from the traditional corporate economic policy of the 30 years that preceded that moment on stage. Every one of the republican candidates aligned with the CoC message.

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First thought: how deep Britain has fallen since.

• Churchill Saw the Cold War Coming (David Manney)

Eighty years ago today, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood before an audience at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. President Harry S. Truman sat beside him on stage. Although Churchill was out of office, his words carried enormous weight in a world still recovering from World War II, but which believed that peace had arrived. Churchill believed something else entirely. His speech, titled “The Sinews of Peace,” warned that a new political and military divide had already taken shape across Europe. One phrase from that afternoon would become permanently embedded in modern history.


“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.” Churchill believed Western leaders misunderstood Soviet intentions after the victory over Nazi Germany failed to secure unity among former allies. Instead, Stalin’s government expanded influence through political pressure, intimidation, and military presence across the eastern half of Europe.

Churchill didn’t deliver the speech casually; he’d spent months studying reports on Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe. British diplomats warned that democratic governments were being pushed aside. Communist parties supported by Moscow steadily gained power. Churchill feared Western hesitation would allow Stalin’s system to harden into permanent control. The speech called for a strong alliance between the United States and Britain to defend democratic institutions, maintain military readiness, and prevent further Soviet expansion. Churchill argued that strength and cooperation offered the best path to preserving peace in the postwar world.

Churchill knew that while the world looked forward to putting the horrors of war behind, events at the beginning of 1946 portended an even darker future ahead. In the wake of the Allied victory, the Soviet Union had begun shaping Eastern Europe in its image, bringing the governments of many nations into line with Moscow. On February 9, Premier Joseph Stalin gave a speech in which he declared that war between the East and West was inevitable. On February 22, the American Ambassador to Moscow, George F. Kennan, sent the famous “Long Telegram” warning of the Soviet Union’s perpetual hostility towards the West.

Communist parties supported by Moscow steadily gained power. Churchill feared Western hesitation would allow Stalin’s system to harden into permanent control. The speech called for a strong alliance between Britain and the United States to defend democratic institutions, maintain military readiness, and prevent further expansion. Churchill argued that strength and cooperation offered the best path to preserving peace in the postwar world. The immediate reaction proved mixed. Many Americans admired Churchill’s wartime leadership, yet some political leaders believed his warning sounded too confrontational toward a former ally. President Truman never formally endorsed every line of the speech, though his decision to invite Churchill to speak in Missouri suggested sympathy with its message.

“The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe inspiring accountability to the future. If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after-time. It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall guide and rule the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.”

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“President Trump wants Venezuela to have stability. Venezuela needs dollars and both the coordinated sale of Venezuela oil and Venezuela gold (47 tonnes in strategic reserve) will provide those dollars to retain stability and seed economic growth projects.”

• Hemispheric Boss Level: Epic – Venezuela Edition (CTH)

Sometimes you have to sip coffee slowly, while taking in the landscape. About a month ago President Donald J Trump bombed Caracas, engaged the U.S. military with a direct firefight against Venezuela military & security forces, then snatched regime dictator Nicholas Maduro out of the country to face criminal charges in the United States. Yesterday, Maduro’s replacement, President Delcy Rodriquez, stood on the steps to the Venezuela presidential office and publicly thanked Interior Secretary Doug Bergum for the kindness and support of President Donald Trump. That reality represents a level of hemispheric ‘ultimate boss’ that boggles the mind. But wait, it gets better. There’s video (prompted):

Before going further to current events, let us remind ourselves of a few details. Sandwiched between the Venezuela Maduro operation and the recent Operation Epic Fury in Iran, approximately three weeks ago, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth convened a gathering in Washington of all the defense chiefs and senior military officials from 34 Western Hemisphere countries. As most of you will remember, securing the national security of the entire Western Hemisphere, was outlined in the national defense strategy document released by President Trump. In addition to setting the priorities for the United States focus, the report details the Trump administration perspective on the world as broken down into specific regions.

The report is a brutally honest review of the current state of geopolitical benefits, risks and threats as they pertain to vital U.S. interests. The report outlines a critically renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere. Now, back to Secretary Bergum’s visit. At the same time as Interior Secretary Bergum is meeting with key government and private sector partners to discuss strategic mineral development (ie. deconflict dependency on China via independent development), oil production for U.S. hemispheric security (Iran output offsets), Venezuela announced the transfer of 1,000 kilos (more than a ton) of gold reserves for sale on the U.S. market {SOURCE}.

Venezuela needs stability. Hemispheric Boss President Trump wants Venezuela to have stability. Venezuela needs dollars and both the coordinated sale of Venezuela oil and Venezuela gold (47 tonnes in strategic reserve) will provide those dollars to retain stability and seed economic growth projects. This coordinated approach secures the economic future of Venezuela and simultaneously secures the energy security of the Western Hemisphere while geopolitical operations continue in other regions, like the confrontation with Iran.

In essence, President Trump is isolating the Western Hemisphere from collateral economic damage that is likely to happen as the U.S. begins to take down the leading sponsors of global conflict. As things are in flux, the close and controlled partnership with Venezuela can offset/mitigate a lot of chaos. While the ongoing Iran confrontation happens in the middle east, and in combination with the priority of the National Security Strategy, President Trump then convenes a meeting of hemispheric leaders in Florida this weekend. The Latin-America meeting in Doral is being called the “Shield of the Americas Summit.” The Trump administration has made it a priority to assert dominance over the Western Hemisphere, where China previously built influence through massive loans and expansive trade.

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced President Trump will host heads of state from “Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and maybe some others as well.” So, let’s put it all together. President Trump proactively secured the border, targeted narcotraffickers, confronted narcoterrorists, targeted Mexican drug cartel leadership, leveraged the DOJ to indict regional actors, pushed China out of control in the Panama Canal, took out Nicholas Maduro, took control of Venezuela oil production – both for the security of the U.S. and benefit of the Venezuelan people, removed the discounted oil benefit for China and reasserted stability in the Western hemisphere.

Then, with all that in place, he turned toward Iran…. but, proactively planned for a ‘Shield of the Americas Summit’ before the Iran operation began and scheduled it while Operation Epic Fury continues. Jumpin’ ju-ju bones. That outline and timeline is not supposition; it is what took place. And, yeah, we just watched “interim” Venezuela President Delcy Rodriquez react to what she is witnessing happening all around her. Accepting all of this, I would not be in the least surprised to see President Rodriquez in Doral this weekend. This my friends, is a level of strategic boss maneuvering beyond anything we have ever witnessed before. […

– “Interior Secretary Doug Burgum landed in Venezuela on Wednesday to begin talks about a potential rare earth minerals partnership, just weeks after the U.S. arrested former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. FOX Business exclusively joined Burgum on the trip. President Donald Trump‘s administration views Venezuela’s untapped resources as a potential alternative to relying on China for critical minerals, FOX Business has learned. While in Venezuela, Burgum will also help expand the relationship between U.S. oil companies and the Venezuelan government. The secretary will meet with the current Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez to continue the growing relationship between the two countries.Burgum is the first member of Trump’s Cabinet to leave the country since the U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on Saturday.”

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“AG Bondi claims the DOJ has released all of the Epstein files. The record is clear: they have not,” Mace wrote on X..”

• Pam Bondi Subpoenaed In Epstein Investigation By House Oversight Panel (ZH)

House investigators are hauling in Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer for what lawmakers say is a troubling disappearance of documents tied to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The House Oversight Committee voted 24-19 on Wednesday to subpoena Bondi for a deposition, escalating a fight with the Department of Justice over its handling of records from the sprawling Epstein investigation. Lawmakers say the DOJ may have pulled tens of thousands of pages from public view despite a federal law requiring the material to be released.


The move was spearheaded by Rep. Nancy Mace, who blasted the Justice Department earlier in the day and accused officials of misleading the public about what has actually been disclosed. [Though we would point out that Mace herself vowed to reveal her tits, only to redact them with grainy footage.] “AG Bondi claims the DOJ has released all of the Epstein files. The record is clear: they have not,” Mace wrote on X, calling the saga “one of the greatest cover-ups in American history.” .@RepNancyMace’s motion passed. We voted to subpoena Pam Bondi and to release the files of those who sexually harass others in Congress. This is about transparency and going after predators, not politics.


Four Republicans – Reps. Lauren Boebert, Scott Perry, Tim Burchett and Michael Cloud – joined Democrats on the panel to force the subpoena through. The dispute centers on the Epstein Transparency Act, passed almost unanimously by Congress last year. The law ordered the Justice Department to publicly release its trove of investigative material related to Epstein and his convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. In January, the DOJ released more than 3 million documents tied to the case. But the department later said it would not release the remaining files, estimated to include another 2.5 million documents. Since then, watchdogs and journalists say the situation has gotten even murkier.

According to reports, thousands of records that had briefly been available online have vanished from the public database. CBS News reported Tuesday that more than 47,000 files – totaling about 65,500 pages – were taken down by late February. Some of the withheld records reportedly included internal FBI interview summaries and notes – including material tied to a woman who has accused President Donald Trump of sexual abuse when she was a minor. Trump has never been charged with wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and has said he had no knowledge of the financier’s criminal conduct.

The Justice Department has not publicly explained why the documents were removed or why millions more remain under wraps. CNBC said the DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Bondi’s forthcoming deposition could become one of the most explosive congressional confrontations yet in the long-running battle over the Epstein records – a case that has fueled years of speculation about powerful figures tied to the late sex offender.

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In Europe these days, defending free speech is big news..

• German Top Court Issues Two Landmark Rulings In Favor of Free Speech (RMX)

The wave of police searches and prosecutions in Germany may be facing a new hurdle after Germany’s top court, the Constitutional Court, issued two landmark rulings strengthening freedom of expression. However, Fatina Keilani, editor in Welt’s freedom of expression department, said that these two decisions have gone largely unnoticed by the public, an oversight that she finds remarkable. Writing in Welt, Keilani reports that the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe handed down two resolutions in December that push back against what she describes as hasty convictions for insults. The rulings stem from two separate cases in which individuals used sharp, even offensive language against public officials and medical staff — and were criminally sentenced for it.


As Remix News has extensively reported, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of such cases in recent years. Some of these cases have even attracted international attention and led to questions about freedom of speech and growing repression in Germany.Just late last month, German prosecutors launched investigations into dozens of comments under just one post criticizing Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with one user calling him “Pinocchio.” A number of constitutional lawyers were quick to slam the investigations, with one labeling it “hysterical madness.” Now, Germany’s top court is strengthening freedom of expression at a worrying time.

The first case involved a retired police officer whose son attended a high school during the Covid pandemic. Angered by the school’s testing requirements, the father sent the headmaster a series of emails accusing him of serving a “fascist system and its henchmen” and of “fascist cadre obedience.” The Göppingen District Court sentenced him to a fine of 70 daily rates of €80 each for insult. He lost every appeal before taking his case to Karlsruhe — where he finally prevailed. The Constitutional Court found that his right to freedom of expression had been violated, ruling that the lower courts had not examined the meaning of his statements carefully enough, nor struck an adequate balance between free expression and the protection of personality.

Keilani quotes the court directly: “Part of this freedom is that citizens can attack officials they consider responsible in an accusatory and personalized way for their way of exercising power, without having to fear that the personal elements of such statements are removed from this context and form the basis for drastic judicial sanctions.” The second case involved a man who had been placed in a psychiatric hospital on multiple occasions and subjected to coercive measures. In a letter to his lawyer in 2023, he described hospital staff as a “psychiatric mob.” When he applied to have the letter formally served, a senior bailiff refused on the grounds that its content was punishable. The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court upheld that refusal — but Karlsruhe disagreed.

The Constitutional Court was pointed in its criticism, noting that the Higher Regional Court’s entire reasoning had been reduced to just two sentences, and that it had made no real weighing of the fundamental right to free expression at all. The case has been sent back for reconsideration. For Keilani, both rulings carry a significance that extends beyond the individual cases. She situates them within a broader climate of concern, noting that “numerous decisions against freedom of expression have recently raised doubts in Germany about the rule of law and about the stability of the courts with regard to this crucial fundamental right.”

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They make their own problems. Kamala, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, only their moms would vote for them….

• The Atlantic Says Pete Buttigieg Is a Real Man (Robert Spencer)

Among the kingmakers, queenmakers, and they/themmakers of the far left is a stubborn contingent that clings to the belief that the cure for what ails the nation’s self-styled “progressives” has been right there among them for several years now, and that his name is Pete Buttigieg. The failed transportation secretary has the gift of being acceptable to both the Democrat Party’s leftist establishment and power-to-the-people-right-on-let’s-burn-the-house-down wing, and while there really isn’t a dime’s worth of difference ideologically between the two factions, that’s still an unusual accomplishment.


Yet Pete is not polling all that well, coming in a weak second in a recent poll. It’s a crowded field with no clear frontrunner: Buttigieg’s 16% was better than Kamala Harris’ 13%, but Gavin Newsom led the pack with 20%. And he has a big weakness, one that Kamala Harris herself identified in September 2025, as she surveyed the smoking ruins of her 2024 presidential campaign and tried to figure out whom to blame.= One of the groups she hit upon was the same American people she had just been trying to convince to vote for her. Kamala’s post mortem of the 2024 election was that Americans were just too racist to vote for her, and too besotted with traditional morality to embrace a homosexual who was “married” to a man, such as Pete.

“As Kamala Harris rushed to pick a running mate last year,” The Atlantic reported last September, “her ‘first choice’ was her close friend Pete Buttigieg, but she decided that it would be ‘too big of a risk’ for a Black woman to run with a gay man.” In her excuse-making volume 107 Days, Harris explains that Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man. But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.” She adds tellingly: “And I think Pete also knew that—to our mutual sadness.”

Pete has to have noticed an Aug. 2025 poll that showed him with exactly zero support among black voters. Leftist sports analyst and possible future presidential candidate himself Stephen A. Smith told Bill Maher: “He doesn’t move us.” He said he would leave Maher and his audience to speculate as to why that was, but it was clear: Smith was suggesting that black voters didn’t want to vote for a gay man — the same reason why Harris left him off the 2024 ticket.

And so one of the left’s flagship propaganda organs, The Atlantic, has now decided to try to give Pete a little boost, and what a boost it is. From the photo that accompanies the article, it’s clear what’s going on here: Buttigieg is sitting alone at a booth in a diner, nursing, as it were, a cup of coffee. He has a mustache and a tightly trimmed beard just barely covering his chin. He’s looking off frankly and forthrightly into the distance, a man with nothing to hide and nothing to fear. The title is “Pete Buttigieg in the Wilderness,” an attempt at a double entendre encompassing both Pete’s also-ran status among the 2028 presidential hopefuls and his new attempt to project a rugged masculinity, as the subtitle makes clear: “He has a beard, a splitting maul, and a house in Michigan. Is that enough to convince America that he’s a man of the people?”

Wait a minute. He has a beard and a splitting maul? I’ve heard this tune before: long, long ago, when America was a very different place, we had a presidential candidate who had famously been a rail-splitter in his youth, and who grew a beard right around the time he became president. Is Pete Buttigieg trying to make us think he is the new Lincoln, ready to do the hard work to unify our tragically fractured nation? It won’t work. It can’t work. Abe Lincoln never posed grinning in a hospital bed with his “husband” and the two infants they had just bought, er, that is, adopted. Abe Lincoln never had to project the image of being a man; he simply was one.

The left has now become so deeply encased in its arrogance that it thinks that a couple of props and a soulful expression are enough to rescue Pete Buttigieg from the weakness and incompetence he has displayed for years, as well from the increasing unpopularity of the woke delusions he so energetically embraces. If The Atlantic’s puff piece is remembered at all by the time the 2028 campaign begins in earnest, it will be as an embarrassing attempt to make a deeply unpalatable candidate attractive. The Democrats may indeed nominate Pete in 2028, but if they do, they’ll soon find that his candidacy is still suffering from the same epic deficiencies that The Atlantic is so pathetically trying to cover for now.

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Actually, Trump just threw out all of Biden’s autopen decisions. 92% in total…

• The Biden Autopen Probe Ends The Way So Many Others Do (David Manney)

Tell me if you’ve heard this before. Former President Joe Biden avoids charges after federal prosecutors closed the probe into his use of an autopen to sign pardons and other documents. Prosecutors in Washington reviewed the case, examined whether Biden authorized the signatures himself, and decided there were no crimes committed. Like March that comes in like a lion, the investigation launched with big promises but ended quietly, adding to the increasingly rotten pattern in which scandals evaporate without consequences.


Last June, President Donald Trump ordered an investigation into whether the Biden administration used an autopen to sign key presidential documents, such as pardons, months after Mr. Trump had claimed his predecessor’s pardons were illegitimate. Mr. Trump told Attorney General Pam Bondi and the White House counsel in a memo to probe what he claimed was a “conspiracy” to “abuse the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline.”

The order cited a number of executive actions by Biden, including pardons and judicial appointments, and argued: “There are serious doubts as to the decision-making process and even the degree of Biden’s awareness of these actions being taken in his name.” Despite concerns that lawmakers and conservative media had about Biden’s lack-of-mental state in his final months, suggesting staff overstepped their roles … crickets. What are we left with? Another grand declaration of justice that crumbles into nothing, leaving everyone to wonder if some secret shield protects the powerful or if the whole thing was just hot air from the beginning.

Jeanine Pirro leads as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and her office reviewed Biden’s pardons and actions. Prosectors couldn’t find any law that bans the use of an autopen if the president approves it. Without proof, the case gets dropped. How shocking to discover that the evidence falls short again, as if the system is designed to let big fish swim free while wasting everybody’s time and taxpayer money with empty threats. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) chairs the House Oversight Committee, which issued a report on Oct. 28, 2025, that blasted Biden’s final months in office. The report claims aides hid Biden’s condition and limited his involvement and accessibility. Comer referred the findings to Bondi, demanding a full probe.

Yet, here we sit, with zero charges and the same old excuses: lack of evidence or whatever mechanism kills these things before they bite. The way this bullscat so often repeats, it drains any sense that serious oversight still exists. The committee targeted Biden’s physician and senior aides with scrutiny over decisions. I hope they scrutinized them with a raised eyebrow or two. Some witnesses invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to speak. Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, along with his brother and a sister, right before exiting office. I’m sure all those pardons were above board, right? [..] https://twitter.com/GreereMedeea/status/2028870849718108499?s=20

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“Last month, Orban placed a double veto on EU initiatives..”

• Hungary To Block Every EU Decision On Ukraine Over Oil Blockade – Orban (RT)

Ukraine has reportedly rejected a proposed EU mission to inspect the pipeline. Orban said Budapest will not give in to “Ukrainian blackmail,” vowing to “dismantle the oil blockade” and to use Hungary’s veto power in Brussels for as long as necessary. “Until the situation is resolved we will block every European Union decision that is important to Ukraine,” he said.


Last month, Orban placed a double veto on EU initiatives, blocking Brussels’ planned €90 billion ($106 billion) emergency loan for Kiev, as well as the bloc’s 2th package of sanctions on Russia. The EU has called for a total ban on Russian energy by 2027, despite some bloc members remaining heavily reliant on Russian crude. While hosting Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto at the Kremlin on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Moscow is a reliable supplier of energy. “We have always fulfilled all our obligations and, of course, we intend and are ready to do so in the future,” Putin said.

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“Budapest and Bratislava have accused Kiev of “blackmail…”

• Russia Could End Gas Supplies To EU Immediately – Putin (RT)

Russia may withdraw from the European gas market and redirect its supplies elsewhere without waiting for the EU to ban its imports, President Vladimir Putin has said. The president made the remarks on Wednesday after he hosted Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto at the Kremlin. “There’s no political motive here. But if we’re going to get shut off in a month or two, we’d be better off stopping now and moving to countries that are reliable partners, and establishing ourselves there. But that’s not a decision yet, it’s just me thinking out loud, so to speak. I’ll definitely instruct the government to work on this issue with our companies,” Putin told Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin.


Moscow could redirect supplies to “emerging markets” instead, given the EU’s repeatedly stated intention to phase out Russian resources completely, Putin suggested. The energy crisis in the EU is the result of the “misguided policies” pursued by the bloc’s authorities over “many years,” he said. Russia “has always been and remains a reliable energy supplier” for all its partners, including the European nations, the president noted. Moscow is ready to continue work in such a manner with those partners “who are themselves reliable,” he added.

“For instance, with those in Eastern Europe, Slovakia, and Hungary. We supply them with our energy resources, both oil and gas, and we intend to continue to do so in the future. And the leadership of these countries will pursue the same policy as today, namely, being reliable for us,” the president explained. Following the meeting with Putin, Szijjarto revealed that Budapest has secured oil and gas supply guarantees from Moscow. Russia and Hungary have agreed to work on diversifying energy resource supply routes, he said. “We agreed that if transport routes become unavailable for various reasons, we will always seek alternative solutions. For example, if pipeline oil transportation continues to face difficulties, we will consider maritime transport options,” the diplomat said in a video address posted on Facebook.

Hungary, as well as Slovakia, has recently experienced a disruption in Russian crude supplies after Ukraine shut down the Druzhba oil pipeline in late January. Kiev has claimed the artery was damaged in Russian long-range strikes, which Moscow has denied. Budapest and Bratislava have accused Kiev of “blackmail,” alleging it deliberately halted the supplies for political reasons and threatened retaliation.Slovakia ended its emergency electricity supply scheme for Ukraine, while Hungary vetoed a proposed €90 billion ($106 billion) EU loan for Kiev as well as the latest package of anti-Russian sanctions.

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https://twitter.com/ShiningScience/status/2029414985991111103?s=20

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 4 2026

Mar 042026
 
 March 4, 2026  Posted by at 9:42 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  76 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Landscape Under a Stormy Sky 1889


• The War’s Going Pretty Well, Ackshully (Stephen Green)
• President Trump, Rubio Warn Iran ‘Hardest Hits Are Yet To Come’ (JTN)
• Trump Makes It Painful to Be a Liberal, Blue-Haired Gorgon (Kevin Downey Jr.)
• ‘ Their Whole Currency Is Lying’ (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Are White Nations Too Far Gone To Recover? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Iran: The Last Stand against Baal (Alexander Dugin)
• Persian Gulf Goes Dark For Container Shipping; No Detour Left (FreightWaves)
• Spain and UK Response to Iran Conflict Shows NATO Weakness and Duplicity (CTH)
• Briitish Muslims and UK Reaction to US Strikes Against Iran (CTH)
• Zelensky Warns Iran War Could Starve Ukraine Of Critical US Arms (ZH)
• European Commission Wants Your Free Speech. X Is In the Way (Adina Portaru)
• OpenAI Rewrites ‘Sloppy’ Pentagon AI Deal After Backlash Over Surveillance (ZH)
• Video Released of Clintons’ Deposition Over Epstein (Lucas)
• Rep. Ted Lieu Spreads Bizarre Conspiracy Theory in Congress Hearing (Turley)
• Supreme Court Delivers Key Victory for Parental Rights in California (Turley)

 


 

Stephen Green: “Carlson on Monday repeated propaganda claims that Qatar and Saudi Arabia caught Mossad agents planting bombs to massacre Arab civilians — something that literally never happened.”

https://twitter.com/ivan_8848/status/2028617747534430335?s=20

 


 

 


 


“Iran is losing this war, badly,” [..] “Because if they weren’t, the Gulf states part of the map below would be absolutely awash in red icons.”

• The War’s Going Pretty Well, Ackshully (Stephen Green)

“The dog did nothing in the night-time,” a confused Inspector Gregory said to Sherlock Holmes, who replied, “That was the curious incident.” Without glossing over the losses suffered by American, Israeli, or coalition forces — not to mention the civilians targeted by Iran’s terrorist regime — in the first few days of Operation Epic Fury, Iran is so far the dog that didn’t bark. Or, more accurately, tries to bark but not much comes out.Or at least that’s my impression after seeing a nifty map of all of Iran’s attacks, courtesy of a generally reliable X user calling himself Plane Fag. Sorry, I don’t name X users. “I popped over to GeoConfirmed’s website… and it verified the impression I’d got from my OSINT feed: Iran is losing this war, badly,” PF posted early Monday. “Because if they weren’t, the Gulf states part of the map below would be absolutely awash in red icons.” Here’s PF’s map:



The data is roughly 30 hours old now, but the current map — which you can see for yourself at this link — doesn’t look all that much worse. “It’s normal to go after an enemy’s C3 (command, control, communications) to disrupt their ability to pass on orders and co-ordinate attacks, but by erasing almost all of Iran’s most senior military and political leadership in one stroke, there wasn’t even anyone to give those orders even if C3 had been intact,” PF added. “Operating on their own initiative and/or pre-planned strikes, they’re just not massing enough fires to achieve salvo weights that can effectively saturate defenses.”Translated into civilian speak: You’ve got to fire a lot of missiles or drones all at once at a single target to overwhelm defenses, and Iran either lacks the physical ability or the command cohesion to do so.

Roughly half of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers are believed to be destroyed, and that’s a number that can only go up. I’d also add that Tehran announced that it had closed the Straits of Hormuz, but the spice oil still flows. So, yes, the war’s going pretty well. There are at least three caveats, though.The longer the bombings continue, the greater the likelihood of being “one mechanical failure or magical BB away from having an American held prisoner or worse,” as CDR Salamander put it in that column I linked to yesterday. Along a similar line, Iran’s terror attacks (via missile, drone, or direct) are meant to create cracks in the coalition (even such as it is), and Tehran might have some success there.

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin got on the phone Monday with Emirati and Qatari leaders, and according to the Kremlin, both agreed that both men “emphasized the need for an immediate ceasefire and a return to the political and diplomatic process.” (But a caveat within the caveat: That’s to be expected of both Qatar and the UAE. Keep an eye on Riyadh, though. If it starts to waver, then SecState Marco Rubio will be knee-deep in shuttle diplomacy before breakfast.) Finally, there’s the missile/interceptor logic. Does the coalition run out of ballistic missile and drone defenses before Iran’s offensive capabilities are smothered or the regime collapses/cries uncle? All while the clock ticks on the coalition and that “magical BB” gets a lucky hit on an F-35.

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“The State Department has urged Americans currently in the Middle East to leave their respective countries in light of the escalating conflict.”

• President Trump, Rubio Warn Iran ‘Hardest Hits Are Yet To Come’ (JTN)

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued stark warnings to Iran Monday that the “hardest hits” in its new conflict in the region is still to come if it does not agree to end its nuclear program. The United States and Israel launched missiles at Iran over the weekend, which resulted in the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini. Iran has since retaliated by targeting Israel and U.S. bases in several Middle Eastern countries.Trump told CNN that he thinks the U.S. side of the conflict is “going very well,” and warned Iran that bigger hits could still be coming.


“We’re knocking the crap out of them,” Trump said. “We’ve got the greatest military in the world and we’re using it … We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon.” The president also commented that the U.S. was ahead of schedule in the amount of damage it has caused Iran, but that he anticipates the attacks will last approximately one month. Rubio echoed the president’s comment, stating that the next phase of U.S. attacks on Iran will be “more punishing” than the ones they have dealt it so far.

“The hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military. The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now,” Rubio told reporters. “The objectives of this operation are to destroy their ballistic missile capability and make sure they can’t rebuild it, and make sure that they can’t hide behind that to have a nuclear program.” The State Department has urged Americans currently in the Middle East to leave their respective countries in light of the escalating conflict.

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“Even back in the early 2000s, I knew better. Thus, my days as a Big Apple Bolshie ended. On September 11, 2001, I became a Republican.”

• Trump Makes It Painful to Be a Liberal, Blue-Haired Gorgon (Kevin Downey Jr.)

As some of you know, I was a big ole New York City liberal for many years. I was really bad at it, and I got increasingly worse. Back in 2003, a white lib friend with a bachelor’s from Brown and a need to downplay zher privilege once “bravely” decried “systemic racism,” while chugging a $10 IPA and occasionally checking its $700 phone (big money in 2003). As zhe spoke, I silently recalled my first racially motivated ass-kicking. I was six or seven years old, growing up in Detroit. They were older, bigger, and there were more of them. Two held my arms while one or two beat the potato salad out of me. Another bigger kid bopped my five-year-old sibling. My helplessness to save him still infuriates me.


I had never even been in a fight. In all seriousness, I thought we had been thumped by members of the Jackson Five. Humiliatingly, one of them was Janet. FACT-O-RAMA! To be a devout libstain in New York City, one must have a tenuous-at-best grasp on reality. A lack of verisimilitude isn’t shameful; it’s a necessity. Logic is a roadblock that your bald, vegan batwanger-in-law can capriole over with a tumulus of Care Bear virtue, though phantom as it may be. Is it just me, or does that last FACT-O-RAMA! try too hard? Let’s continue…Anyhoo, to the well-to-do apparatchik, black folks in the U.S. are constant victims of white racism, and illegal immigrants don’t rape and kill. Yet somehow, I am responsible for all of the terror they totally “don’t” commit.

Even back in the early 2000s, I knew better. Thus, my days as a Big Apple Bolshie ended. On September 11, 2001, I became a Republican. Days later, as I lay in my room, smelling the bodies of my fellow New Yorkers burning in the heap that used to be the World Trade Center, I watched George W. Bush assure We the People that Islam was “the religion of peace.” That’s when I left the Republican Party and became a nuisance of the New World Order. Today, I not only do not possess the delirium to be a leftist, but I am also sickened by those who do.As a comedian, I can read a room like nobody’s business. My weakness is that I assume everyone sees what I see, and that’s not the case.

I assumed everyone saw what I saw, including that:

• states, even red ones, were kidnapping kids if their religious parents refused to fillet their child’s genitalia if the kid so deemed

• people were fired if they didn’t use the selected “pronouns” of the mentally ill incel in the next cubicle

• communism is everywhere

But, man oh man, the prerequisites necessary to be a Democrat today require a level of denial not seen since your friend’s creepy Uncle Gerhard told you the Holocaust never happened. If you want to wave the chimerical flag of liberal virtue today, you have to pretend:

• Hamas isn’t a bunch of evil rapists; they are “victims”
• the mullahs of Iran aren’t genocidal animals who behead women who think for themselves and toss gay men off of buildings; they are “austere religious scholars”
• men in makeup aren’t responsible for more mass shootings than their population would suggest; you are just a “transphobic” conservative who doesn’t understand “bigotry”

• You were told to be “inclusive” to groups of radical miscreants seeking to treat your kids’ genitals like Waffle House hash browns, and render them diced, shredded, and scattered, and it’s groovy to take those kids from your home if you refuse to play along.
• We were informed that trans decepticons were being “genocided” despite the reality that trans people are slaughtering WAY more people than their populations would represent, usually kids.
• And lefty stool samples are defending the trans animals gunning down innocent children

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“I think their strategy, to tell you, was kind of a Muhammad Ali “Rope-a-Dope” where they were going to ride it out.”

• ‘ Their Whole Currency Is Lying’ (Victor Davis Hanson)

Jack Fowler: Victor, your thoughts if we don’t take action because Iran is, despite what happened a few months ago, the bombing of the enrichment and the nuclear facilities, they are constructing new facilities even deeper in some other mountain. But is there any doubt in your mind that if Iran goes unchecked for the next months or years, that there will not be a catastrophe from them having nuclear capability?


Victor Davis Hanson: No, you can’t negotiate with them because their whole currency is lying, and they’re fanatic ideologues. And they have a supernatural view of what’s going to happen, and they’re on the right side of Cosmic Divinity and all of these ideas. I think [former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani in a disputed statement, but I think it was accurate, said that Israel was a one bomb state, and that was the advantage that you got half the Jews in the world in one place, where all you needed was one bomb. So you can’t negotiate.

I think their strategy, to tell you, was kind of a Muhammad Ali “Rope-a-Dope” where they were going to ride it out. And then [President Donald] Trump would be gone in three years, and people would be angry, and you’d get a Joe Biden, or better yet a type of puppet of the Left. But better yet, you would get an [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] or a “squad” member, or a [Gavin] Newsom or [Kamala] Harris, and then you’re home free to get the bomb.] Because they would not do anything. That was the strategy. I think it would’ve worked actually if Trump had let him off the hook. So now the question is the domestic support. When the statue [of Saddam Hussein] fell in April of 2003, I think most polls showed that George Bush had a popularity rating of between 80% and 90%.

There was a controversy over the carrier flag “Mission Accomplished” because there was a little bit of terrorist activity. I was in Washington at the Naval Academy, and I remember distinctly that Chris Matthews, I was watching CNN, who ended up despising Bush, was a big critic. He said, “We’re all neocons now,” on the air. And then I remember Andrew Sullivan, who was sort of a chameleon in his political views, but mostly started out as, I guess, a British conservative, but ended up very left-wing. He was all for it. There was a guy who did little green footballs. Remember that little podcast? I knew the guy. He was a nice guy.

I rode a bike with him once and he was all in, and then all of a sudden the insurgency came. And the American casualties started and everybody adopted. And then there was a Vanity Fair on the neocons that they felt had been the architects, Richard Perle, David Frum, Bill Crystal, and all of them, had adopted, I guess you would call it my beautiful war and your lousy occupation. And the scapegoat they focused on was [former Secretary of Defense] Don Rumsfeld. If you just get rid of Dom Rumsfeld, everything will be okay. What I’m saying is that domestic support will depend on how many American casualties, how quick is it over, and how effective are the results.

If it is over within three weeks, and there’s a revolution and they have some type of transitional government, unlike Iraq, then everybody’s going to say, I was for it all along. Even the ones that were against it. If, on the other hand, they start shooting down planes or they hit an American base or they take out a frigate or something, they get a lucky shot on a carrier, and we don’t get a change and we stop, then everybody said I was never for it.

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” Is a country with a population this uninvolved, this completely stupid, really a superpower?”

• Are White Nations Too Far Gone To Recover? (Paul Craig Roberts)

For decades, Americans have been brainwashed about the virtues of being a Tower of Babel. The liberal-left calls it “multiculturalism” and sings its praises. I have in front of me evidence of the extent to which our ethnic American nation has disappeared. It exists in the form of a notice from a Medicare supplement provider, that is, an insurance company that for a premium will ensure a person against the medical expenses that Medicare will not pay. In other words, Medicare only provides partial protection. To be insured, you have to pay for a private insurance policy.


The notice from the supplement provider lists the languages in which customer representatives can supply assistance. English, of course, and Spanish, America’s second language. Arabic, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, German, Gujarati, Vietnamese, Hindu, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Farsi, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Tagalog, and Urdu. These are languages in which just one Medicare supplement company can provide assistance. The list for Medicare itself, which I once saw, list 50 or more languages in which it provides assistance.

For a Medicare supplement company to provide assistance in 20 languages for Medicare covered persons is expensive to the company and implies that there are many people in America who speak these languages, but not English. Think about this for a moment. How many countries have a world population in place of an ethnic population that is the basis of the countries name? Does Israel have a world population? Does Japan? Does China, Indonesia?

What multiculturalism does is to destroy nations. Multiculturalism replaces nations with Towers of Babel. This process has gone the furtherest in the white ethnic countries. For example, the red state of Texas faces a vote whether to permit Sharia law in Texas and whether to permit Israeli indoctrination as a mandatory requirement in Texas education. Insouciant white Americans have sat on their butts while the liberal-left stole their country from them and turned it over to immigrant-invaders. Is a country with a population this uninvolved, this completely stupid, really a superpower? Or is it instead a nation that has defeated itself by its own insouciance?

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Dugin aka Putin’s philosopher. “Now the cult of Baal reigns supreme, the cult of the golden calf, the cult of global power, the cult of the United States and Israel. This is a civilization of violence, Satanism, cannibalism, perversion, and pedophilia.”

• Iran: The Last Stand against Baal (Alexander Dugin)

What happened on the first day of the US and Israel’s war against Iran fundamentally changes the balance of power in the world and the rules of international politics. Trump has already said that international law does not exist: ‘What is moral is what I consider to be moral.’ In principle, in the wake of the abduction of Maduro and the establishment of direct external control over Venezuela, and now after the strikes on Iran, with the targeted destruction of the military-political and religious leadership of the country — a sovereign power that was willingly in negotiations with the United States — it is no longer possible to talk about rules, laws, or any norms of international relations in the world.


Indeed, now only the right of the strong, the right of the quick, applies. Whoever strikes faster or acts faster is right. Everything else becomes merely supplemental justification. That is, it is now important to strike a decisive blow against the enemy, break his resistance, destroy his leadership, and strike at his main military and energy facilities. After that, you can frame it however you want, justify it however you want, and spend a long time sorting it out.

I think that now almost everything depends on how long and how decisively Iran can resist. If it continues to wage war even after the destruction of its political leadership, if it does not surrender, does not raise the white flag, and does not capitulate, then this could end badly for the West itself. After all, then everyone else will start acting in exactly the same way, paying no attention to anything and overestimating their own potential regardless of their legal status. This will give free rein to many regional powers, which will do whatever they want. This could very quickly lead to the use of nuclear weapons — perhaps in the Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict, perhaps in others. There are definitely no rules anymore.

In short, if Iran continues its resistance under new leadership, this could have very serious consequences for the West itself, affecting Trump, the US, and NATO countries. But if the situation with Venezuela repeats itself – either the new leadership declares surrender, or the military is simply unable to continue fighting – then the war will be short. If this proves to be the case, then we should expect a similar scenario. There is no doubt that Trump and the West, seeing that this scheme works, will simply turn to eliminate Russia’s main political and military-political leadership as their next move.

Today, it is already clear that we are acting indecisively. Following the same model, we could be struck right in the middle of the next negotiations with Kushner and Witkoff. Perhaps even with a nuclear weapon. Therefore, I believe that the situation is critical for us. We did not stand up for Venezuela or Iran, and China is also remaining neutral. But in such a case, China will be next after us. And then the “kingdom of Epstein” will reign over the whole space of mankind.

I would like to emphasize that today we can already say that we are not just dealing with the liberal West. Liberalism has quickly faded away and disappeared from the agenda. No one talks about liberal values or democracy anymore — all that is in the past. Now the cult of Baal reigns supreme, the cult of the golden calf, the cult of global power, the cult of the United States and Israel. This is a civilization of violence, Satanism, cannibalism, perversion, and pedophilia. And this “pedophilic civilization of Baal” is dropping its masks before our very eyes and going on the attack in earnest.

From all points of view, what is happening now is very reminiscent of the End Times. If we do not find the strength within ourselves to comprehend the situation, we will find ourselves in a catastrophic position. Many insist that “this is no time to panic,” but sometimes it is better to take what is happening seriously than to assume that we will get through it unscathed. Now it is clear that we will not get through it unscathed: Iran is the last thing standing in the way of a direct war between the civilization of Baal and Russia.

If we had enough will and determination (although I have serious doubts about this), we would have to start acting according to the same rules that everyone else besides us is already acting on. That is, we could eliminate the military and political leadership of Ukraine and, without paying attention to any costs, we could solve the tasks of the Special Military Operation. By the way, against the backdrop of names world powers are using, like “Shield of Judah,” “Operation Epic Fury,” and “Seal of the Flood,” I would rename our modest Special Military Operation “Sword of Katechon.” And that would immediately change a lot.

But I’m afraid we won’t dare to do that and will continue with the same old song. And then, I repeat, missiles will fly into Moscow right in the middle of negotiations with Kushner and Witkoff, literally following the Iranian scenario. The civilization of Baal is simple: it repeats the same scenarios over and over again, and they work every time, because everyone thinks that this only applies to Gaddafi, Hussein, Milosevic, Mubarak, Nasrallah, Assad, or Khamenei, but not to themselves. Thus, step by step, the civilization of Baal achieves its goals.

Therefore, either we mobilize urgently, or the situation will become extremely difficult. And if we still harbor any illusions, then there is some kind of profound falsehood at large within our own camp. This is especially noticeable against the backdrop of what has happened in Iran, which is a catastrophe of global proportions. Wonderful people, remarkable spiritual leaders, have been killed. For comparison, it would be like the Patriarch of Moscow, the President, the Chief of the General Staff, and all the key ministers were killed at the same time, along with more than a hundred schoolgirls, innocent souls, killed by missiles. After such an event, is it possible to remain indifferent and pretend that it does not particularly concern us, that it is not our business?

Therefore, if we endure all this and remain silent, then next time they will do the same to us. That is why I am absolutely certain that in the current situation, we should immediately declare a state of emergency, at least at the highest level of government. After all, the situation is becoming simply critical for us.

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“There is no viable alternative to getting containers in or out of ports such as Jebel Ali by ocean if the Persian Gulf is off limits..”

• Persian Gulf Goes Dark For Container Shipping; No Detour Left (FreightWaves)

Ocean lines flee Strait of Hormuz as Iran targets Persian Gulf ports While tanker vessels came under fire in the Strait of Hormuz, container lines were suspending operations to Persian Gulf ports following the joint Israel-U.S. attack on Iran. Media reports said ports in the United Arab Emirates and Dubai’s port of Jebel Ali were hit by Iranian missiles, and that Tehran had attacked at least three tankers in the strait. A fire began at Jebel Ali after an incoming drone was intercepted. While the strait has not been officially closed, several liner operators suspended operations to the Persian Gulf, and ordered their vessels to seek shelter.


Hormuz is the gateway for Persian Gulf energy transport, with about 20% of the world’s crude oil supply passing through its waters. While futures prices ticked up late Sunday, analysts note that 80% of Iran’s oil is sold to China, so it’s unclear what the extended effect could be on global markets.The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre, which monitors maritime security in the Middle East and Indian Ocean region, reported a number of attacks against vessels on Sunday. Shipping was caught in the crossfire after Tehran responded following Saturday’s Epic Fury attack that killed Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other high-ranking government and military officials.

US Central Command on Sunday denied Iranian claims that it hit the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln with a ballistic missile.Maersk, CMA CGM and Mediterranean Shipping Co. suspended or shifted vessel services to the region. CMA CGM also announced an Emergency Conflict Surcharge of $2,000 for 20-foot, $3,000 per 40-foot and $4,000 per refrigerated container. The surcharge covers all Red Sea ports in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Djibouti, Sudan and Eritrea, as well as Persian Gulf destinations. Maersk prior to the outbreak of hostilities said the deteriorating security situation led it to divert the MECL service to the United States and ME11 to North Europe away from the Suez Canal route and around Africa. The carrier had only recently restarted regular rotations through the Red Sea.

Iran-sponsored Houthi rebels in Yemen warned they would resume attacks that all but shut down Suez transits for the largest container carriers since late 2023.“There is no viable alternative to getting containers in or out of ports such as Jebel Ali by ocean if the Persian Gulf is off limits,” said Xeneta analyst Peter Sand, in an email to FreightWaves. “Carriers will instead omit these calls on east-west services and drop boxes at a least-worst alternative port for onward transportation by road. This will cause severe disruption and port congestion at a regional level, but will not have a major impact on a global scale when compared to the seismic influence of conflict in the Red Sea.”Sand noted ex-Asia container rates had ticked up since Feb. 15 as the US massed forces near the Gulf.

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“Once, again President Trump’s lack of trust in NATO proved correct.”

• Spain and UK Response to Iran Conflict Shows NATO Weakness and Duplicity (CTH)

When addressing Greenland’s strategic value within U.S. Arctic defense efforts, President Trump argued that although the European Union and NATO insisted there was no need for American control —promising instead to marshal their combined military strength to defend the territory— he remained skeptical of their assurances. Trump’s remarks were met with swift shock and visible dismay. Pearls were clutched and jaws stood agape.However, it only took a few weeks for a moment of clarity to surface following the Israeli/U.S. decision to strike Iran and eliminate the long-standing nuclear threat. Suddenly Great Britain and Spain tell the U.S. they will not allow American military use of their joint airbases. Once, again President Trump’s lack of trust in NATO proved correct.


This visible example of unidirectional self-interest is happening at the same time European and British leadership are requesting demanding the United States provide the security guarantees for their Ukraine ambitions. The contrast is stark. Concerns about Islamist extremism within the U.K. appear to influence the thinking of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. With a significant number of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries now living in Great Britain, some argue that actions perceived as antagonizing more radical elements abroad could have domestic repercussions within the U.K. That said, the contrast in support is so stark that opposition leadership inside the U.K. are now confronting the British Prime Minister.

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Britain is no longer a Christian nation. Do you see how serious that is? Your world is gone. You will never get it back.

• Briitish Muslims and UK Reaction to US Strikes Against Iran (CTH)

Susan Kokinda and the Lyndon LaRouche network give their perspective on the British reaction to the U.S. strikes against Iran. The analysis has value from a review of the historic relationship of the British imperialist policy toward matters of foreign entanglement and the control mechanisms that have historically flowed from the U.K As a consequence of British government policy much of the Kokinda analysis accurately touches on the root cause of U.K response. However, the emphasis on the modern UK government as the lead of a global network is not always as severe or πcomplicated as the Lyndon LaRouche network would espouse. WATCH:



Great Britain has imported a large percentage of extreme Islamists. As Iran is confronted, and as Israel is viewed as a significant beneficiary to that confrontation, the leftist British government -represented by majority base supporting Prime Minister Keir Starmer- is politically trying to retain stability. Starmer does not want to upset the Muslim population within the U.K. That is a significant political facet undiscussed in the Kokinda review of British response. Additionally, the Trump Doctrine in confronting totalitarian dictators, or oppressive government systems, has always been to support the rise of the authentic nationalist voice of the nation in question.

President Trump has no personal or policy motive to drive the outcome when the authentic rise of the voice happens. Instead, he seeks to remove the anti-American sentiment carried by the former -hopefully replaced- regime. In all of President Trump s prior foreign policy examples we see he focuses on creating opportunity for liberty and freedom, but he does not seek to determine how that liberty and freedom are ultimately expressed so long as there is no negative outcome to American interests. President Trump positions the United States to remain the biggest, most powerful and influential nation in the world.

To the extent that Chinese tentacles need to be severed, Trump policy delivers. (North Korea, Panama Canal, Canada, Venezuela, Iran) To the extent that malicious actors in the world need to be removed, his policy delivers. (Venezuela, Iran) To the extent that American economic interests are represented in all of the outcomes, he forces reciprocity. (Canada, EU, NATO, ASEAN, trade tariffs) America-First. Let each nation compete on equal footing; but let there be no doubt America has the biggest footprint.

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“At a moment the depth of American arms supplies and ammo stockpiles are in question given the rate of expenditure in the new Iran war ..”

• Zelensky Warns Iran War Could Starve Ukraine Of Critical US Arms (ZH)

This isn’t the first time the world’s attention has shifted away from the Ukraine war, but it certainly marks the biggest other conflict to erupt throughout the four-year long war in Eastern Europe. Every time there is a ‘distraction’ – President Zelensky takes pains to try and refocus attention on Kiev’s plight, quite naturally. At a moment the depth of American arms supplies and ammo stockpiles are in question given the rate of expenditure in the new Iran war, the Ukrainians are rather nervous to say the least. Zelensky has freshly warned that deeper US involvement in the conflict with Iran could disrupt the steady flow of American weapons that Ukraine depends on in its war against Russia.


Of course, Ukraine was issuing desperate pleas for more arms and ammo even long before Trump’s Operation Epic Fury kicked off. On slowed arms flows, he said as quoted in WSJ: “We understand that a long war–if it is long–and the intensity of the military actions will affect the amount of air defense we receive,” Zelensky told reporters on Monday, according to audio of his remarks published by Ukrainian media.m Zelensky said he spoke to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz about the issue of weapons supplies to Ukraine, and was in contact with other allies. So far, he added, there are no signs of any delays.

“Everyone understands that, for us, this is a matter of life,” Zelensky said of the arms Ukraine receives through the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, a program European allies use to purchase weapons from the U.S. for Ukraine. But then again America’s Gulf allies, who are also desperate for anti-air replenishment, consider this moment a matter of life and death too.WSJ notes further, “Ukraine has said it desperately needs PAC-3 interceptor missiles for the Patriot systems supplied by the U.S.” Further, “The U.S. has been using its own Patriot systems to protect U.S. military bases and the airspace of allied countries in the Middle East from Iranian retaliatory strikes.”

So it seems like Zelensky’s arms wish list will be further delayed – not for lack of money, but simply based on rate of slow replenishment, but mostly Washington’s new conflict theatre priority: Iran and the Gulf. What’s worse is that the war is already threatening expansion across the whole Mideast region, as the conflict spreads to Lebanon. Still, Ukraine has come out in favor of Trump’s strike on Iran, given especially that Russia uses Iranian suicide drones in the Ukraine conflict, and has from nearly the start.

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We need Trump to stop this. He will, because the Digital Services Act will bother Americans too. But what a mess.

• European Commission Wants Your Free Speech. X Is In the Way (Adina Portaru)

Last week, Elon Musk’s X launched a landmark legal challenge against a $140 million fine issued by the European Commission last December under the Digital Services Act, an EU censorship law. The case was filed at the General Court of the EU, which hears high-stakes challenges to EU regulatory and enforcement actions.The commission claims the fine, the first to be issued under the DSA, was for alleged transparency and procedural breaches, all of which X denies. But the real reason the company was targeted is clear: X is a free speech platform, and Elon Musk refuses to implement online censorship in the EU and around the world.


This case, which ADF International is proud to support, concretizes the severe threat to free speech posed by the DSA. The EU law, which came into force in 2024, requires “very large online platforms,” like X, Meta, and Google (platforms with more than 45 million users per month), which operate or are accessible in the EU, to remove so-called “illegal content.” “Illegal content” is defined in line with a plethora of anti-free speech legislation across EU countries, such as in Germany, where it is illegal to insult a politician (Section 188 German Criminal Code). The legislation additionally requires platforms to “mitigate” so-called “systemic risks,” such as “negative effects” on “civic discourse,” “electoral processes,” and “gender-based violence.”

Codes of conduct have also been added to the legislation regarding “disinformation,” “hate speech,” and guidelines on electoral processes and the protection of minors, resulting in 153 pages of additional regulations that were never voted on. Platforms face massive fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover for non-compliance with the DSA and can even be suspended in the EU. The vague terms used in the legislation and codes of conduct are extremely broad and lack precise legal definitions, meaning they are ideal tools for the commission to censor disfavored views. And the commission’s reach extends far beyond Europe through the DSA.

A recent report from the House Judiciary Committee showed big tech platforms face immense pressure from the commission to set their global content moderation rules to censorial DSA standards. This means the EU law is censoring speech not just in Europe, but also in the United States and around the whole world. The case of Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen demonstrates what DSA censorship will look like in practice. After six years of criminal prosecution, Päivi is awaiting a verdict from the Supreme Court of Finland for tweeting a Bible verse. She was prosecuted under the “War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity” section of Finland’s criminal code. Under the DSA, censorial laws like this will become the global baseline.

Since Elon Musk bought X and turned it into a free speech platform, Brussels has been clear about its hostility toward the platform. Former European Commissioner Thierry Breton issued a stark warning in 2023 stating: “You can run but you can’t hide … fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA. … Our teams will be ready for enforcement.” Former commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova added: “Twitter has attracted a lot of attention, and its actions and compliance with EU law will be scrutinized vigorously and urgently.” In this context, it’s clear why the commission gave X the first-ever DSA fine last December. They were sending a message to all big tech platforms about what will happen to platforms that refuse to accept censorship. That is what makes X’s legal challenge so important – they are fighting for the right of citizens around the world to freely express their views online. In this case, X is challenging the centralized powers given to the commission by the DSA, which it argues violate its right to due process and are contrary to the rule of law. The commission is able to set the rules for content moderation, set up the infrastructure, launch investigations, and issue penalties under the DSA, all with no meaningful oversight. If this is allowed to stand, the EU will have the unchallenged ability to police the global public square, with dire consequences for online free speech.

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Question: Did OpenAI -the system-really write it, or was it their owners/lawyers? Ifthelatter, what does that say about the quality of the system?

Here’s what to do: Let OpenAI write two scripts: one in favor of OpenAI, one in favor of the Pentagon.

Let Grok, Anthropic et al do the same.

• OpenAI Rewrites ‘Sloppy’ Pentagon AI Deal After Backlash Over Surveillance (ZH)

OpenAI – which millions of users trust with everything from legal documents to tax returns – is revising its newly signed contract with the US Department of War, just days after it was announced that they would replace Anthropic for use in government systems because the rushed rollout “looked opportunistic and sloppy.” Hours after negotiations collapsed between the Pentagon and rival startup Anthropic on Friday, the San Francisco-based company agreed to supply its AI models for use in classified military operations. The breakdown followed talks with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over how the government could deploy advanced AI tools.


OpenAI initially described its agreement as containing “more guardrails than any previous agreement for classified AI deployments, including Anthropic’s.” But on Monday, CEO Sam Altman said the company was working with the department to add explicit contractual language barring the intentional use of its systems for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons or nationals. “The AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of US persons and nationals,” Altman said the revised terms would state, adding that intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency would be excluded from the deal for now. So – while OpenAI has likely bought some legal cover with these changes, there’s always the possibility of unintentional use. From a Monday update to OpenAI’s statement on the deal:

“Throughout our discussions, the Department made clear it shares our commitment to ensuring our tools will not be used for domestic surveillance. To make our principles as clear as possible, we worked together to add additional language to our agreement. This language makes explicit that our tools will not be used to conduct domestic surveillance of U.S. persons, including through the procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information. The Department also affirmed that our services will not be used by Department of War intelligence agencies like the NSA. Any services to those agencies would require a new agreement.

The new language reads: “Consistent with applicable laws, including the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, National Security Act of 1947, FISA Act of 1978, the AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals.For the avoidance of doubt, the Department understands this limitation to prohibit deliberate tracking, surveillance, or monitoring of U.S. persons or nationals, including through the procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information. The Department of War plans to convene a working group made up of leaders from the frontier AI labs, cloud providers, and the Department’s policy and operational communities.

OpenAI will participate and expect this will be an important forum for ongoing dialogue on emerging AI capabilities, privacy, and national security challenges going forward. These updates build on the framework we announced last week and we hope will help create a pathway for other labs to work with the Department going forward.

* * *
OpenAI says it can uphold its own red lines through a mix of contractual provisions and technical controls. The company says it will deploy models via cloud access rather than installing them directly onto military hardware and will keep its personnel involved in the loop. It has reiterated that its technology cannot be used to direct autonomous weapons systems. Altman suggested the company was comfortable relying in part on existing law. “Anthropic seemed more focused on specific prohibitions in the contract, rather than citing applicable laws, which we felt comfortable with,” he said Saturday.

But by Monday, he acknowledged concerns about how AI systems could enable large-scale data gathering.“We shouldn’t have rushed to get this out on Friday. The issues are super complex, and demand clear communication,” Altman wrote in a message to employees reposted on X. “We were genuinely trying to de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome, but I think it just looked opportunistic and sloppy.”The updated language would “prohibit deliberate tracking, surveillance or monitoring of US persons or nationals, including through the procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information,” according to the company.

The Pentagon’s pivot to OpenAI came after Anthropic’s negotiations unraveled over two core red lines articulated by its CEO, Dario Amodei: no domestic mass surveillance and no use of AI in lethal autonomous weapons systems – and would require the Pentagon to seek approval to use it in the heat of battle.. According to the Financial Times, Hegseth sought language permitting the models for “all lawful use.” Anthropic executives argued existing U.S. law could allow mass AI-enabled data collection and pressed for tighter contractual safeguards until new legislation was enacted. Discussions reportedly stalled over terms governing the mass collection of publicly available data.

The Pentagon had signaled openness to revising phrasing that Anthropic viewed as overly broad, and senior figures at the company believed a deal was close. But negotiations ultimately fell apart.Since then, the Trump administration has moved aggressively against Anthropic. President Donald Trump has directed agencies to phase out the company’s tools. The Treasury Department, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac all announced they would end Anthropic contracts – with full dis-integration to occur within six months. The Pentagon also designated the company a supply chain risk.

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All 4,5 hrs at the link.

• Video Released of Clintons’ Deposition Over Epstein (Lucas)

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released full video of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimonies about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The depositions for each before the bipartisan panel lasted 4.5 hours. Hillary Clinton was deposed last Thursday. Bill Clinton was deposed on Friday, the first time a former president has been compelled to testify before Congress. Clinton said he first flew on Epstein’s plane in 2002 and took trips to Asia, Africa, and Europe. Clinton said his former treasury secretary, Larry Summers introduced him to Epstein. He said that Epstein was interested in funding brain research and other humanitarian work.


“He knew I was planning to set up a global network to provide lots of AIDS medicine to as many people as possible as quickly as possible,” Clinton said of Epstein. Clinton said his relationship with Epstein ended when the humanitarian team expanded. “A lot of other people who might do better, and who really cared about the work, came forward,” Clinton said. The former president said Epstein “never asked me anything untoward.” He later added, “There was nothing that I saw when I was around him. It made me realize he was trafficking women.”

During the Democrats’ questioning, Clinton was asked if he was aware of President Donald Trump’s interaction with Epstein. “I don’t want to leave the impression, since there was no follow up question, he never, the president never, this was 20-something years ago, never said anything to me to think he was involved in anything improper with regard to Epstein, he just didn’t,” Clinton said. Hillary Clinton was asked how she felt about photos of her husband in the pool at the home of Epstein, which were published in batches of the Epstein files released by the Justice Department. The former secretary of state replied she was not there to provide opinions.

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“Lieu’s rave about the alleged murder of a child made the National Inquirer look like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.”

• Rep. Ted Lieu Spreads Bizarre Conspiracy Theory in Congress Hearing (Turley)

Years ago, Rep. Ted Lieu (D., Cal.) demanded that “Facebook should do more internally to regulate fake news and point out fake news.” This week, he finally made his case for such private censorship. Lieu went full conspiracy theorist during a congressional hearing this week, leaving many gobsmacked. Lieu’s rave about the alleged murder of a child made the National Inquirer look like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In an age of rage, Lieu knows that you must go louder and bigger to be heard above the mob. Facts are now passé and Lieu is known for sensational claims like claiming that “Trump is broke.”


At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Epstein files, Lieu won the race to the bottom with his colleagues in making outrageous, unsupported claims. It was a moment reminiscent of the recent face-planting by Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Cal.) in disclosing the names of powerful men shielded by the Administration in the scandal. (Four had no connection to Epstein). He suggested that Trump not only abused a minor, but that she was later bumped off to keep her from speaking. What Lieu does not inform the public is that his blockbuster disclosure was based on the unverified account of an anonymous man, who worked as a limo driver in 1995. The bizarre account claimed the driver picked up Trump and overheard him on the phone with someone called “Jeffrey” and made references to “abusing some girl.” The driver said that he wanted to pull over and “hurt[] him”.

Driver Dan Ferree has self-identified as the source referenced by Lieu. Ferree reportedly has posted hundreds of politically anti-Trump and extreme memes to his Facebook account, including a recent image of Trump in what appears to be a casket. He has also reportedly claimed that he was stalked by Trump associates. In a defamation case, Ferree would be difficult to pass off as a credible source for a publication. The use of such sources is a familiar tactic in Washington. During the Chandra Levy scandal, politicians and pundits piled on Rep. Gary Condit (D., Cal.) as the presumptive murderer of the congressional intern. The source cited by Vanity Fair’s Dominick Dunne turned out to be a “horse whisperer” in Dubai who said that he had heard Condit arranged for her murder. (Condit was later cleared in the case).

Ferree is only marginally better than a horse whisperer as a source of Lieu. Ferree told the FBI that he met a young girl who told him she had been raped by Trump and Epstein at a “fancy hotel.” He claimed that the young girl was later found with her head “blown off.” He said that, while the officers at the scene thought it was murder, the coroner later ruled it a suicide. There was no proof of such a case. It appears that Lieu knew or suspected that the source of the allegation was unhinged or unreliable because he later re-posted only two of the three pages of the statement to the FBI. The third page included other bizarre claims about the Oklahoma City Bombing and a drunk Hillary Clinton.

Lieu decided it was best to withhold the third page and the details of a raving, drunken Hillary Clinton and an effort to frame an innocent man for the Oklahoma bombing. It seems that he was not aggrieved that the FBI did not investigate that part of Ferree’s allegations.Nevertheless, at an earlier event, Lieu declared: “Why are Republicans so interested in Bill and Hillary Clinton? It’s because they’re trying to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files thousands and thousands of times. In those files, there’s highly disturbing allegations of Donald Trump raping children, of Donald Trump threatening to kill children.”

What is striking is how so many politicians supporting the crackdown on disinformation on the right are purveyors of such disinformation. From the Russian conspiracy hoax to the flogging of migrants by Border agents, members and the media have regularly spread false accounts with impunity. It is not considered disinformation if it appears on BlueSky or MS NOW. The intentional omission of the third page of the allegation puts this disinformation effort in a particularly menacing light. This was not some hair-triggered posting that failed to research the underlying story. This was a knowing effort to later re-post the sensational allegation while removing a third of the document that undermined the credibility of the source.

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“What Plaintiffs seek is to force the State to respect their enduring federal constitutional rights as citizens of the United States.”

• Supreme Court Delivers Key Victory for Parental Rights in California (Turley)

The Supreme Court on Monday issued an important order on its shadow docket in Mirabelli v. Bonta. The court granted an emergency appeal filed on behalf of Catholic parents by the Thomas More Society, blocking a state law that barred parental notification that their children had changed their gender identity. I previously wrote about the case after heralding the decision of District Court Judge Roger Benitez, who wrote a powerful opinion in support of the rights of all parents. He wrote: “The Attorney General on behalf of the State of California says Plaintiffs’ lawsuit is “properly understood as seeking a federal constitutional exemption from the California constitutional right to privacy, as applied to gender identity in the school context.” State Defs’ Oppo to Plaintiffs’ MSJ, Dkt 256, at 9. But the Attorney General gets it upside down. Plaintiffs do not ask the State to magnanimously permit a sort of federal constitutional exemption. What Plaintiffs seek is to force the State to respect their enduring federal constitutional rights as citizens of the United States.”


The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed his injunction. For years, some of us have been raising the attacks on parental rights. That is why this order is so notable. I recently wrote about this fight in Michigan, where parents secured the right to sue to defend their rights against the Rockford Public School District. The District refused to inform them of gender identity changes in their children. While it only restores the injunction during the pendency of the litigation below, it reflects a clear notion of the likelihood to prevail on the merits. There remains ambiguity on where individual justices fall on the issues. The parents raised both free exercise and substantive due process challenges. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wanted to go further in ruling on the merits in favor of the parents.

In her opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett rules for the parents, not the teachers, in the case. In her concurrence with the Chief Justice and Justice Kavanaugh, she focuses most on explaining why a view in favor of substantive due process is consistent with the decision in Dobbs. The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented. Justice Kagan decried the rejection of California’s priorities and objected to “throwing over its policies in a slapdash way.” Justice Sotomayor was the only member of the Court who opposed all of the parents’ and teachers’ claims. Without writing a dissenting opinion, she would have denied their application in its entirety.

The decision puts even greater focus on another case. Last year, I wrote about a startling decision in Foote v. Feliciano in which the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled against parents in a similar challenge. Massachusetts parents Marissa Silvestri and Stephen Foote demanded notice of any gender identity change of their child after learning that the 11-year-old child had self-declared as “genderqueer.” The First Circuit dismissed the challenge, holding “as per our understanding of Supreme Court precedent, our pluralistic society assigns those curricular and administrative decisions to the expertise of school officials, charged with the responsibility of educating children.”

The petition for review to the Supreme Court is now pending. Foote could allow the Court to reaffirm the fundamental rights of parents and, most importantly, clearly establish the standard for review in future cases. The previously stated in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) that “the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” It is time for the Court to back up that constitutional right with clear and robust protections.

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https://twitter.com/Lissa4Maga/status/2028645571804729596?s=20 Thiel Bloom Cancer https://twitter.com/ShiningScience/status/2028759204232941763?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle February 26 2026

Feb 262026
 
 February 26, 2026  Posted by at 10:39 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Piet Mondriaan Composition No. 10 1939-42


• Cuban Regime Kills Four in Shootout With Florida Vessel (Sarah Anderson)
• CNN’s Instant Poll of the State of the Union Will Trigger the Left (Margolis)
• A Masterclass in Giving a Speech Without Giving a Speech (Stephen Green)
• Which Party Represents Americans? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Sen. Chris Murphy Joins Pledge to Throw Trump Figures in Jail (Turley)
• Trump Admin to Launch New Free Speech Site to Combat Censorship Abroad (ET)
• A Continental Revolution Is Brewing In Europe (Zemánek)
• RFK Jr. Defends Trump’s Glyphosate Order (ET)
• EU To Start Permanent Ban on Russian Oil 3 Days After Hungarian Election (CTH)
• Solidarity Simulacra: Zelensky’s Four-Year Reality Check (RT)
• Moscow Will Respond If NATO Gives Nukes To Nazi Regime In Kiev – Medvedev (RT)
• Zelensky Demands €90 Billion EU Loan (RT)
• Bill Gates Begins Apology Tour Over His Epstein Ties (ZH)
• Fani Willis Plotted Trump Case Closely With Biden DOJ, J6 Democrats (JTN)
• Comey’s Leaker Claims The Epstein Files Shouldn’t Have Been Released (Pinsker)

 


 

https://twitter.com/tesla_archive/status/2026300209794630110?s=20 https://twitter.com/_MAGA_NEWS_/status/2026280929224986641?s=20

 


 

 


 


Are the Cubans especially jittery for some reason?

• Cuban Regime Kills Four in Shootout With Florida Vessel (Sarah Anderson)

The Cuban regime may have just sealed its fate. Cuba’s Interior Ministry announced on Wednesday that four men on a Florida-registered vessel, possibly a speedboat, were shot and killed by its Border Guard after entering Cuban waters near Santa Clara Province. Six other people aboard the boat were wounded. The regime claims that the people on board the vessel shot at the Border Guards first. It’s not yet clear if the people on board were United States citizens, though many are assuming so since the boat was registered in the U.S. The Interior Ministry’s full statement reads:


“On the morning of February 25, 2026, a violating speedboat was detected within Cuban territorial waters. The vessel, registered in Florida, United States, with registration number FL7726SH, approached up to 1 nautical mile northeast of the El Pino channel, in Cayo Falcones, Corralillo municipality, Villa Clara province.” When a surface unit of the Border Guard Troops of the Ministry of the Interior, carrying five service members, approached the vessel for identification, the crew of the violating speedboat opened fire on the Cuban personnel, resulting in the injury of the commander of the Cuban vessel.


As a consequence of the confrontation, as of the time of this report, four aggressors on the foreign vessel were killed and six were injured. The injured individuals were evacuated and received medical assistance. In the face of current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its determination to protect its territorial waters, based on the principle that national defense is a fundamental pillar of the Cuban State in safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region.


Investigations by the competent authorities continue in order to fully clarify the events. There’s been no word from President Donald Trump or Secretary of State Marco Rubio yet — Rubio is currently in Saint Kitts and Nevis for a CARICOM meeting, where the situation in Cuba has been a hot topic. Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (R-Fla.) has issued a statement, calling for an immediate investigation into the “massacre.” Gimenez, who was born in Cuba, also suggested that “his regime must be relegated to the dust bin of history!”

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“Let that line marinate: two-thirds positive .. “

• CNN’s Instant Poll of the State of the Union Will Trigger the Left (Margolis)

After Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address, CNN political director David Chalian broke down the network’s instant poll — and it didn’t exactly produce the outrage or “failing Trump” narrative that the left likes to see. It was the kind of segment that left-wing pundits will be scrambling to spin before breakfast. You could tell the numbers would be bad for the left when Chalian immediately began qualifying the findings. “I just want to take a moment here to explain. This is a poll of speech watchers,” he began. “So it is not a poll that is reflective of the population overall.” Yeah, that’s kind of how polls of speeches work. Thanks for reminding us. But seriously, the fact that he made sure to emphasize that point twice, you just knew. It was like he was really about to say, “Hey, don’t get too happy, MAGA world.”


Oh yeah, and there was another caveat before he began. “What we know about people who tune in to State of the Union addresses,” Chalian added, “they tend to be fans of the president, whichever president is giving the speech.” He explained that the “polling universe here is about 13 points more Republican than the overall population usually is.” You ready? “So just keep all that in mind as we go to the results,” Chalian continued, doing damage control in real time. “Get this reaction from those that watch the speech tonight. 38% said they had a very positive reaction to the speech, 25% somewhat positive, 36% negative.” He paused just long enough for the math to sink in. “So roughly two-thirds in the positive territory, one-third negative among speech watchers.”


Let that line marinate: two-thirds positive ..

On CNN.

For Donald Trump.


https://twitter.com/WarMachineRR/status/2026530396821758073?s=20 Chalian also noted that among speech watchers, 64% “say his policies will move the U.S. in the right direction.” But here’s a metric I think is really important: the change from pre-speech to post-speech. According to the poll, before the speech, 54% of speech watchers said Trump’s policies would move the United States in the right direction — a 10-point jump. “So Donald Trump made some progress with people watching the speech from their pre-speech expectations to what they saw in the speech itself,” Chalian observed. “And that 64% number, that’s pretty much in range across all of his State of the Union addresses, in his first term, last year, the joint session, that’s about what we’ve seen is roughly two-thirds have walked away from his speeches thinking he’s going to move it in the right direction.”

https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/2026531073459355793?s=20


Since this is CNN, Chalian still tried to cast the moment as a low point, even though most people who tuned in clearly liked what they heard, and even he had to admit that it was a good night for Republicans running in this year’s midterm elections. “If you’re a Republican on the ballot in 2026, I think you leave this speech being as happy as you could possibly be that he sort of stuck to the script on the economy,” Chalian said. “He gave red meat to the base on immigration, and they can leave the hall tonight and sort of take that out on the campaign trail.”

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“Trump addressed exactly one person: the American watching at home.”

• A Masterclass in Giving a Speech Without Giving a Speech (Stephen Green)

Let’s set aside “the optics,” what the polls might show in a few days, who got “destroyed,” how many “truth bombs” Trump dropped, the “What it All Means” chin-scratcher pieces — ugh, I give up. I went MEGO again just mentioning those things, so that’s the last of them you’ll see in this column, and also, you’re welcome. But President Donald Trump’s whirlwind, time-defying performance left me (and maybe you, too) with a nagging question/realization that I’ll try to explain today: How do you give a speech — particularly a speech of two hours — without giving a speech? It was the longest State of the Union in history, but it was no slog.


“I wasn’t even planning to watch the whole thing and I just kept watching,” blogfaddah Glenn Reynolds posted to Instapundit last night, and my friend and partner in thoughtcrime Stephen Kruiser added in today’s Morning Briefing, “It may seem weird to say it about a speech of that length, but there was an economy to it that made it effective.” Plenty of the non-speech speech was scripted, of course, primarily penned by Ross Worthington. The wrap was particularly effective, and delivered with a grace that Trump throws aside whenever he likes. But not this time: “The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended. It still continues, because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot. And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder, and more glorious than ever before.”

Good stuff. But what people will and ought to remember are the moments when Trump at least appeared to go off-script. One instant classic example was when he called on Congress to outlaw insider trading — by Congresscritters. The ad-lib — and you can watch Trump wait for the perfect moment to sink the barb — comes at the 0:29 mark. “They stood up for that, I can’t believe it.”But then Trump pauses and waits again, the audience primed for a segue into the next topic, when he sinks the second barb, this one more direct: “Did Nancy Pelosi stand up, if she’s here? Doubt it.”

If. She’s. Here. A joke inside the joke that followed the joke. There were many such seemingly unscripted moments, particularly when Trump addressed his guests in attendance, or presented TWO Congressional Medals of Honor.While the congresscritters in attendance all played their party-mandated roles, Trump wasn’t speaking to them. He was speaking to us. More than that, I think he was speaking for us. That’s how a billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star manages to maintain what we used to call “the common touch.” Bill Clinton — who grew up without any of Trump’s privileges — had to whack audiences over the head with how common he was. “I feel your pain,” indeed. Trump, on the other hand, does it more subtly.

Did I really just write “subtly” about Trump? Indeed, I did. Not quite a speech, Trump’s SOTU, I noted on Instapundit today, was more like a conversation — with the American people, with heroes in attendance, and even at times with surly Dems — that made the two hours fly. But the real secret is that Trump wasn’t speaking to the pundits with their mostly pre-written chin-scratchers based on the text of Trump’s talk. Trump addressed exactly one person: the American watching at home.

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” Just as Democrats have made it clear that they represent illegal aliens and not American citizens, Republicans have made it clear that they represent Israel and not American citizens”

• Which Party Represents Americans? (Paul Craig Roberts)

For sometime I have made the point that America’ s enemies are at home, not in Iran, Russia, and China. Last night at Trump s State of the Union speech, the Democrats proved me to be correct. Trump asked the members of the US Congress to stand up if they agreed with his statement: the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. Many Democrats did not stand, which proves my point that if Democrats represent Americans at all, Democrats represent Americans as second-class citizens whose interests are sacrificed to illegal immigrant-invaders.


This is not an endorsement of Republicans. Unlike Democrats, Republicans do not hate white Americans. But Republicans, along with many Democrats, do sacrifice America’s interest to Israel’s. The US fights Israel s wars at the expense of American blood, money, and reputation. Federal state and local governments censor and punish Americans for criticizing Israel. Criticism of Israel is gradually being turned into an antisemitic hate crime, which means among other things that Americans cannot criticize the genocide and destruction of Palestine. In some American states, a person who is a critic of Israel cannot hold a state job or provide goods and services under contract to the state.

Currently in Texas the Israel lobby has brought a vote before the Texas legislature that incorporates Israeli propaganda as a mandatory part of statewide education in Texas. Is a bought and paid for Texas legislature going to permit Israel to shape the outlook of the rising American generation? If so, will it be an American generation or an Israeli one? Just as Democrats have made it clear that they represent illegal aliens and not American citizens, Republicans have made it clear that they represent Israel and not American citizens. The representation of Israel is manifest in the chant you can’t be an American if you don’t love Israel. Allegedly, America is a democracy, but neither political party represents Americans who are forced to support Israel and illegal aliens.

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Dems want, no, need, to see Trump not as The Other Party, but as The Enemy. i wonder why that is.

• Sen. Chris Murphy Joins Pledge to Throw Trump Figures in Jail (Turley)

Before the State of the Union, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) joined other leaders in promising Americans that the Democrats will unleash a revenge tour after taking power in November, pledging to start throwing Trump people in jail when they retake Congress. Murphy went on MS NOW to feed the rage addiction that has taken over his party.We recently discussed how Susan Rice joined the mob in stating that “When it comes to the elites, you know, the corporate interests, the law firms, the universities, the media … it’s not going to end well for them.”mShe followed other Democrats, assuring voters that, if they returned Democrats to power, they would crack down on their political opponents.


Republicans and law enforcement are now regularly called “Nazis” and “fascists” by Democratic leaders. Some are promising arrests from the President to individual police officers. Last week, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner promised to “hunt down” ICE officers like “Nazis.” Democratic strategist James Carville previously threatened that “collaborators” may be treated in the same way as they were after World War II. Gov. Tim Walz, who has called ICE officers “Gestapo,” said that this may be our “Fort Sumter” moment, a triggering event for a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Democratic members have been warned that they have to join the mob or be devoured by it. Bravo star and liberal podcast host Jennifer Welch praised footage of a “No Kings” protester celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk. After playing the clip, Welch laughed with joy and declared, “So listen up, Democratic establishment. You can either jump on board with this s—, or we’re coming after you in the same way that we come after MAGA. Period.” Murphy clearly got the message and added his voice in declaring that “they’re going to get their clocks cleaned this November, and a bunch of people are probably gonna end up going to jail.” It is a curious pledge, since the Democrats could retake the House and Senate in November. That would not give them the ability to throw people into jail even if they had actual crimes to charge.

What is clear is that the Democratic Party has now decided to try to ride the rage wave to power, leading the mob with such reckless rhetoric. In “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution,” I explore the rise of what I call the “new Jacobins,” establishment figures who are calling for radical changes to our constitutional system and for retaliation against political opponents. It is a book about revolutions and how they can consume those who start them.These Democratic politicians will learn this lesson from history that they are likely to be devoured by the very mobocracy that they are unleashing through rage politics.

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Europe depends on it. A dark curtain is about to be drawn.

• Trump Admin to Launch New Free Speech Site to Combat Censorship Abroad (ET)

In response to what the Trump administration says is a rising tide of censorship in Europe, the State Department is launching a new app that will give users worldwide access to content that has been censored in other countries. This includes not only Europe but also China and Iran. The platform, called Freedom.gov, will go live over the next several weeks, according to the State Department, and will be operable on iOS and Android devices.“Freedom.gov is the latest in a long line of efforts by the State Department to protect and promote fundamental freedoms, both online and offline,” the State Department stated in an email to The Epoch Times. “The project will be global in its scope, but distinctly American in its mission: commemorating our commitment to free expression as we approach our 250th birthday.”


Lauding the move, Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, a civil rights legal group that has been critical of recent EU speech laws, stated on X that “for 250 years, this is what America does,” citing examples such as Radio Free Europe, which broadcast into communist countries during the Cold War. “If Europe’s bureaucrats don’t want you to see it, that tells you everything,” Tedesco stated. “Because even if your government fears freedom—ours doesn’t.” The First Amendment, which prohibits the U.S. government from “abridging the freedom of speech,” has provided a legal restraint against government censorship that most other countries lack.

Recent European speech laws, most notably the Digital Services Act (DSA), were ostensibly written to combat what lawmakers deemed “hate speech,” “harmful speech,” and “misinformation,” as well as pornography and abusive AI deep fakes. But critics of European speech codes say they are becoming increasingly draconian. In 2025, Virginie Joron, a French member of the European Parliament, called the DSA a “Trojan horse for s urveillance and control.” In Finland, Paivi Rasanen, a member of parliament, was charged for quoting Bible verses online in 2019, criticizing her church’s participation in a gay pride event. “I never imagined that quoting the Bible in a Twitter post would lead to years of criminal charges, yet this is now the reality in Europe,” she told The Epoch Times.

In Germany, illegal online speech could include insulting government officials. German police conducted early morning raids in June 2025 as part of Germany’s 12th annual “day of action against hate-posts,” and arrested 140 residents in the process. In the UK, people praying silently in the vicinity of abortion clinics were arrested in 2023 and 2025. Left-wing ruling parties in Canada are likewise working to remove religious exemptions from their “hate speech” laws. Increasingly, U.S. companies are facing extensive fines for allowing online posts that are illegal in Europe. In December, social media company X was fined $140 million for violating EU speech laws.

Such fines on U.S. tech companies, both for speech code violations and for what the EU deems to be anti-competitive behavior, could become a trade issue for the Trump administration. In January, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the “EU makes more from fines on US tech, than tax from ALL of public European tech,” noting that in 2024, the EU fined American tech companies a total of 3.8 billion euros. In addition, legal experts have warned that Europe’s online censorship laws could also silence Americans if U.S. tech companies are forced, on a global basis, to take down content that violates EU speech codes.

A House of Representatives report released on Feb. 3 and titled “The Foreign Censorship Threat” stated that “The European Commission, in a comprehensive decade-long effort, has successfully pressured social media platforms to change their global content moderation rules, thereby directly infringing on Americans’ online speech in the United States.” According to the Digital Services Act, illegal online speech could include anything that is prohibited in any EU member country. And in one of the more explicit efforts to regulate speech globally, European Commissioner Thierry Breton warned X owner Elon Musk during the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign that his company could face penalties for posting an interview with Trump.

In a 2025 interview with The Epoch Times, Andrew Puzder, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, stated: “When a company like Facebook or Twitter or X has to change its algorithm, and that algorithm might impact the free speech rights of Americans, that’s something that we really can’t tolerate. I know President Trump is not going to allow a foreign government to restrict the free speech rights of American citizens in ways that even our own government couldn’t restrict them.”

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“The future of the region is being written east of Brussels – and Marco Rubio’s tour confirmed exactly what Brussels fears most ..”

• A Continental Revolution Is Brewing In Europe (Zemánek)

When US Secretary of State Marco Rubio left the polite but brittle atmosphere of the Munich Security Conference and headed for Bratislava and Budapest, the contrast could not have been sharper. In Munich, the old guard of transatlantic liberalism clung to its vocabulary of ‘rules-based order’ and ‘shared values’, even as its political base erodes across the continent. In Central Europe, Rubio encountered something different: Governments confident in their mandates, unapologetic about sovereignty, and aligned with Donald Trump’s insistence that nations – not supranational bureaucracies – are the primary actors of history.


Last week’s visit was a statement of intent. Washington under Trump has made a deliberate choice: If Europe is to be a partner rather than a liability, it must be rebuilt from its healthiest political core. And that core lies not in Brussels, but along the Danube. In Bratislava, Rubio met with Prime Minister Robert Fico and President Peter Pellegrini. The agenda – regional security, nuclear cooperation, military modernization – was substantive. But the subtext was unmistakable. “Under President Trump, this administration is going to make not just Slovakia but Central Europe a key component of how we engage the continent and the world,” Rubio said. It was a diplomatic sentence with revolutionary implications.

For years, Central Europe was treated by Brussels as a problem to be managed: Too conservative, too attached to national identity, too resistant to cultural engineering. Now it is being treated by Washington as an asset to be cultivated. Fico’s remarks revealed why this shift matters. When he visited Moscow and Beijing last year in pursuit of Slovakia’s national interests, the reaction from EU institutions was furious – accusations, insinuations, moral lectures. Genuine diplomacy, in Brussels’ view, is acceptable only when it aligns with the prevailing orthodoxy. Yet from the White House, Fico encountered no hysteria – only what he described as “common-sense pragmatism.” The contrast speaks volumes.

Central European leaders have grown weary of an EU that polices internal politics more aggressively than it secures external borders. They have watched as energy supplies became instruments of political pressure and as ideological conformity became a condition of financial solidarity. Slovakia and Hungary have both experienced the weaponization of gas and oil transit routes by Kiev and Brussels – an illustration of how geopolitics, under Brussels’ watch, too often morphs into leverage against dissenting member states. Trump’s America reads the situation differently. Stability requires diversification, not dogma. Slovakia’s negotiations with Westinghouse Electric Company to build a new nuclear power plant by 2040, along with plans to expand its fleet of F-16 fighter jets, represent more than procurement decisions.

They symbolize a rebalancing: Energy sovereignty anchored in American partnership rather than EU dependency. Slovakia’s upcoming presidency of the Visegrad Group offers an even broader horizon. A potential V4-US summit would institutionalize what is already happening politically: The consolidation of a Central European bloc that sees Washington – not Brussels – as its most reliable strategic interlocutor. The Visegrad countries are not seeking rupture with the EU necessarily. They are seeking a radical reform within it. And they are finding in Trump’s America an ally that understands the difference.

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‘Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals,’ Kennedy said.

Poison or hunger.

• RFK Jr. Defends Trump’s Glyphosate Order (ET)

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Feb. 22 said that glyphosate is poisonous but necessary as he backed President Donald Trump’s recent order designating the production of the herbicide as critical to national security. In a lengthy post on social media, Kennedy said pesticides and herbicides are toxic. “When we apply them across millions of acres and allow them into our food system, we put Americans at risk,” he wrote. “Chemical manufacturers have paid tens of billions of dollars to settle cancer claims linked to their products, and many agricultural communities report elevated cancer rates and chronic disease. Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals.”


If the United States were to stop using the products, then “crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what [it is] witnessing today,” Kennedy said. He described Trump’s order as protecting national defense and the nation’s food supply, stating that Trump inherited the current agricultural system and that his administration is shifting from it without destabilizing the food supply. “We are accelerating the transition to regenerative agriculture by expanding farming systems that rebuild soil, increase biodiversity, improve water retention, and reduce reliance on synthetic chemicals, including pre-harvest desiccation,” Kennedy wrote.

“We are also driving the rapid adoption of next-generation technologies, including laser-guided weed control, electrothermal and electrical systems, robotics, precision mechanical cultivation, and biological controls that replace blanket spraying with precision intervention. “These solutions are not theoretical. Farmers are already putting them to work. Markets are scaling them. Now the federal government will act with urgency to expand their reach and accelerate adoption nationwide.” Kennedy said later: “The Make America Healthy Again agenda forces us to challenge long-standing assumptions about how we grow food, structure markets, and measure success in this country. Reform at this scale will test entrenched interests, and it will not move in a straight line.”

In his Feb. 18 order, Trump said herbicides with glyphosate are widely used in the United States and enable farmers to achieve high yields and low production costs. “There is no direct one-for-one chemical alternative to glyphosate-based herbicides,” the president wrote. “Lack of access to glyphosate-based herbicides would critically jeopardize agricultural productivity, adding pressure to the domestic food system, and may result in a transition of cropland to other uses due to low productivity.“Given the profit margins growers currently face, any major restrictions in access to glyphosate-based herbicides would result in economic losses for growers and make it untenable for them to meet growing food and feed demands.”

He designated production of glyphosate as a critical national security and directed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to ensure that there is an adequate supply of the herbicides and elemental phosphorus, one of the ingredients in the products. Some people supportive of the Make America Healthy Again movement criticized the designation. Kelly Ryerson, coexecutive director of American Regeneration, told The Epoch Times that it “doubles down” on a system that is making the U.S. population sick and killing the soil. “We already have a limited number of harvests left,” she said.

Bayer, which produces glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, just proposed a $7 billion settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits that allege that Roundup caused cancer. Bayer maintains that Roundup is not carcinogenic and can be used safely. That stance is shared by the Environmental Protection Agency, although the International Agency for Research on Cancer lists glyphosate as probably carcinogenic.

Kennedy, while running for president in 2024, said in a post on X that glyphosate was “one of the likely culprits in America’s chronic disease epidemic” and that the Department of Agriculture would, if he won the election, ban its use as a desiccant on wheat. His Make America Healthy Again Commission in 2025 also said that glyphosate studies “have noted a range of possible health effects, ranging from reproductive and developmental disorders as well as cancers, liver inflammation and metabolic disturbances.”

Kennedy said in a previous statement to The Epoch Times, after Trump signed the new glyphosate order: “When hostile actors control critical inputs, they weaken our security. By expanding domestic production, we close that gap and protect American families.” Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America, said in response to Kennedy’s post on X that she understands aspects of his position but that after about a year of the Trump administration being in power, officials have not worked to limit people’s exposure to pesticides. “We love you Bobby but this administration needs to keep their word,” she said in a Feb. 23 post on X. “We were promised specifically clean air, clean water, and addressing of the pesticides [in] our foods.”

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If the EU wins, everybody loses.

• EU To Start Permanent Ban on Russian Oil 3 Days After Hungarian Election (CTH)

I guess we can put this in the open admission file surrounding the all-out effort by the European Union to defeat Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban According to a leaked document received by Reuters, the European Union is scheduled to permanently ban all EU nations from importing Russian oil. They have scheduled the ban to trigger on April 15th, three days after the Hungarian election.


BRUSSELS, Feb 24 (Reuters) – “The European Commission will submit a legal proposal to permanently ban Russian oil imports on April 15, three days after Hungary’s parliamentary election, according to EU officials and a document seen by Reuters. Two EU officials told Reuters the timing was designed to prevent the oil ban becoming a major factor in Hungary’s election campaign. Hungary and Slovakia, still reliant on Russian oil imports, are strongly opposed to any ban.In the April 12 election, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his nationalist Fidesz party are facing the biggest challenge to their hold on power in 16 years.

The EU has already imposed sanctions on imports of seaborne Russian oil. But it wants to enshrine a full phase-out of Russian oil in legislation that would remain in place, even if a peace deal in the Ukraine war led to the EU lifting sanctions. nThe Commission plans to propose the Russian oil ban on April 15, according to a draft agenda seen by Reuters. Asked about the matter, a Commission spokesperson told Reuters the EU executive’s agendas were provisional and that it did not have a confirmed timeline for submitting the proposal.” (read more)

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“To UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the true goal of Tuesday’s get-together seemed to be ensuring that Ukraine keeps winning in the imagination of the Western public.”

• Solidarity Simulacra: Zelensky’s Four-Year Reality Check (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky brought some of his most ardent fans to Kiev to mark the fourth anniversary of his wartime leadership, but the supporting actors in the Ukraine Cinematic Universe had little to offer him.mA look at the guests who showed up suggests Ukraine’s backers are divided into those who have to and those who don’t. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council chief Antonio Costa arrived in Kiev on Tuesday morning, along with the leaders of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia, Norway, and Sweden. Von der Leyen declared “that Europe stands unwaveringly with Ukraine, financially, militarily, and through this harsh winter,” and promised to help Zelensky achieve “Peace on Ukraine’s terms.”

“In Kyiv for the tenth time since the start of the war.To reaffirm that Europe stands unwaveringly with Ukraine, financially, militarily, and through this harsh winter.To underscore our enduring commitment to Ukraine’s just fight.And to send a clear message to the Ukrainian”… pic.twitter.com/iULkEQji16 — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 24, 2026

In reality, von der Leyen’s plan to keep Ukraine afloat until 2028 with a €90 billion ($106 billion) debt-funded loan package has been vetoed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Von der Leyen arrived in Kiev empty handed, and in a video address to the European Parliament later on Tuesday, Zelensky held out the begging bowl once more, asking for the loan, for fast-tracked EU membership, and for more sanctions on Russia – which Orban has also vowed to veto. The European leaders who accompanied von der Leyen are in no place to help Zelensky either. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have long ago emptied their arms stockpiles, with former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis admitting in 2023 that he could only provide “political arguments” for arming the Ukrainian military, as Lithuania does not have its own “significant stockpile of weapons.”

All of the European leaders who visited Zelensky on Tuesday have authorized weapons purchases from the US for Ukraine under NATO’s PURL initiative. However, NATO’s European members have spent just over $4 billion on American weapons in the five months since August. When the US was arming Ukraine directly, it spent $10 billion every five months.

Where are the Americans?
The US, despite still indirectly arming Ukraine through PURL and providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data to its forces, remains the only Western power capable of forcing Zelensky to make the necessary concessions to resolve the conflict. Whereas the US has participated in three rounds of trilateral talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials, the Kremlin sees no point in talks with the Europeans. In the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, “the current generation of European leaders…have entrenched themselves too deeply in a posture of hatred towards Russia” to be taken seriously.

Not a single US official made the trip to Kiev on Tuesday. Their absence was conspicuous, after a year of Zelensky lobbying US President Donald Trump to visit the Ukrainian capital, and after a BBC interview on Monday in which the Ukrainian leader begged Trump to “stay on our side.” The British, French, Germans, and Italians also skipped the junket, choosing to send their messages of solidarity remotely during a meeting of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ later in the afternoon. If Zelensky hoped for something more concrete from the coalition, his hope was misplaced.

During the meeting of the 34-nation group, Ukraine received the promise of “full and sustained support,” according to a statement published by the UK, which co-chaired the virtual gathering. In reality, the coalition’s members could only echo Zelensky’s calls for more money and weapons, without actually offering any of either. Talk by coalition members France and the UK of sending troops to Ukraine remains a post-conflict hypothetical, and a red line for Russia. To UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the true goal of Tuesday’s get-together seemed to be ensuring that Ukraine keeps winning in the imagination of the Western public.

”We’ve got to shift the narrative,” Starmer said. “Whatever Putin tells himself and his people, Russia is not winning, and we must shift the narrative into that place with greater force and determination.” Starmer’s statement sums up the current state of play for Zelensky and his Western backers. Narrative management is the best they can offer. Think more ‘Ghost of Kiev’ myths instead of actual deliveries of fighter jets. More pomp and circumstance, troop reviews, and deal memos.

The danger exists that once Ukraine’s most committed European backers come to terms with the fact that they’ve poured all their money and political capital into a hopeless cause, drastic solutions could become more appealing. In that light, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on Tuesday accused Britain and France of plotting the “covert transfer of relevant European-made components, equipment, and technologies” for the production of nuclear weapons to Ukraine. Both nations are also reportedly considering handing over a French TN 75 warhead to Kiev, or encouraging the Ukrainians to build a dirty bomb.

While London and Paris have both denied any plot to supply Ukraine with nukes, one line in the statement stands out – that the leaders of Britain and France have “lost touch with reality.” When reality does catch up with Zelensky and his ‘Avengers’, the results will be messy.On February 24, four years to the day since the constant killing in Donbass escalated into open conflict, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky trudged through the snow outside his offices in Kiev to a Soviet-era air raid bunker with a camera crew in tow. In a concrete tunnel once built to ensure continuation of government in the event of a Western attack, Zelensky opened his fourth anniversary video address with a now-famous anecdote:

”Here I spoke with [US] President [Joe] Biden, and it was right here that I heard: ‘Vladimir, there is a threat, you need to leave Ukraine urgently’. And here I replied that I need ammunition, not a ride.” The quote was entirely fake – fabricated by US intelligence agents for Western consumption. But four years into a conflict that could have been easily settled in 2022, with tens of millions of Ukrainians dead, injured, or emigrated, and with his country sentenced to lifetimes of unpayable debt, Hollywood one-liners and Marvel-comic optics are all Zelensky has left.

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France and the UK are considering covertly handing nuclear capabilities or a ‘dirty bomb’ to Kiev, Russian intel has claimed..

• Moscow Will Respond If NATO Gives Nukes To Nazi Regime In Kiev – Medvedev (RT)

Russia would launch a nuclear response if NATO countries supplied atomic weapons to Ukraine, former President Dmitry Medvedev has warned. Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, was commenting to RT on Tuesday on claims by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) that London and Paris are considering ways to provide nuclear weaponry or related components to Kiev.m“I will be blunt and state the obvious,” Medvedev said, adding that the reported intention by the UK and France to hand over nuclear capabilities to the “Nazi regime in Kiev” would change the situation entirely. “This is a direct transfer of nuclear weapons to a country at war,” he stated.


According to the SVR, British and French officials are weighing the “covert transfer of relevant European-made components, equipment, and technologies to Ukraine,” and preparing an information campaign to portray any resulting capability as domestically developed. “There should be no doubt whatsoever that in such a scenario Russia would be forced to use any means at its disposal, including non-strategic nuclear weapons, against targets in Ukraine that threaten our country,” Medvedev stated. “And if necessary, against the supplier nations now implicated in a nuclear conflict with Russia. This is the kind of symmetrical response that the Russian Federation would be entitled to,” he added.

The SVR also alleged that another option under discussion was the provision of a complete French TN 75 nuclear warhead used on submarine launched ballistic missiles, or assistance in building a radioactive “dirty bomb” using conventional explosives and nuclear materials. Kiev could seek “more advantageous terms” in any negotiations if it possessed such weapons, the SVR suggested, adding that Germany had “prudently refused” to participate. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the reported plans as “potentially very dangerous,” saying they would threaten the global non-proliferation regime. Ukraine has argued that it gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees that later proved worthless. While a significant portion of Soviet nuclear forces were stationed in Ukraine, Kiev never controlled the missiles.

The 1994 Budapest Memorandums provided assurances – but not legally binding guarantees – to Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan that their territorial integrity would be respected after transferring Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia. At the 2022 Munich Security Conference, shortly before the Ukraine conflict escalated, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky suggested Kiev could reconsider its non-nuclear status.Moscow maintains that after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev, Ukraine’s new authorities breached the neutrality pledge underpinning its post-Soviet independence by making NATO membership a key foreign policy goal.

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“.. if approved, the EU loan would end up being stolen by corrupt Ukrainian officials..”

• Zelensky Demands €90 Billion EU Loan (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has demanded that the EU approve a €90 billion ($106 billion) loan backed by the bloc’s taxpayers that has been vetoed by Hungary. Provisionally agreed upon last December, the plan envisages an interest-free loan to Ukraine for 2026-2027, with €60 billion earmarked for military needs and €30 billion for “general budget support.” It would be covered through joint EU borrowing and only repaid if Ukraine receives war reparations from Russia. Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic opted out of contributing to the loan, which is estimated to result in up to €5.6 billion in annual interest payments for member states. The scheme was approved after the bloc failed to agree to use Russia’s frozen central-bank assets to finance Ukraine due to opposition from several member states over the legal hurdles and risks.


Addressing the European Parliament via video link on Tuesday, Zelensky said that “right now there is an important decision… on the table – €90 billion in support for Ukraine over two years.”“This is a real financial guarantee of our security and our resilience, and it must be implemented,” the Ukrainian leader insisted. On Monday, Hungary vetoed the EU’s proposed emergency loan for Ukraine, as well as the latest package of sanctions against Russia. Budapest accused Kiev of jeopardizing the “security of Hungary’s energy supply” by deliberately blocking use of the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline for political reasons. The transit of Russian oil to EU consumers via the conduit has been on hold since late January, with Kiev blaming Moscow for damaging it. Russia has denied the allegations.

Ukraine expects its Western backers to cover a budget deficit of around $50 billion this year. El Pais reported in October that the Ukrainian government could run out of money by April. Speaking last month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that if approved, the EU loan would end up being stolen by corrupt Ukrainian officials.

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It’s about money.

• Bill Gates Begins Apology Tour Over His Epstein Ties (ZH)

A week after Bill Gates abruptly pulled out as a keynote speaker at a high-profile global AI summit in India, the left-wing billionaire finally mustered enough nerve to “take responsibility for his actions” over his ties to late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a town hall meeting with Gates Foundation employees.The Wall Street Journal reports that Gates told employees at a town hall event for the foundation on Tuesday that he never spent time with Epstein’s victims, and never visited Epstein’s island. He revealed that Epstein later learned about two affairs he had with Russian women, but said those relationships did not involve Epstein’s victims. Gates said photos in the Epstein files show him with redacted women were taken by Epstein’s assistants after meetings. Did Gates fall into a Russian honeypot?


“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” Gates emphasized, according to a recording reviewed by WSJ journalists. Gates continued, “To be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him.” “It was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein” and bring Gates Foundation executives into meetings with the sex offender, Gates said, adding, “I apologize to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made.” Last week, the $86 billion philanthropic body’s last-minute decision to yank Gates was a major embarrassment and came as the Epstein fallout worsened, with many high-profile people under fire.

“Knowing what I know now makes it, you know, a hundred times worse in terms of not only his crimes in the past, but now it’s clear there was ongoing bad behavior,” Gates said. He gave credit to his ex-wife, who “was always kind of skeptical about the Epstein thing.” Gates told staff he began meeting Epstein in 2011, despite the financier’s 2008 guilty plea for soliciting a minor for prostitution. He said he was aware of the “18-month thing” that had restricted Epstein’s travel, yet continued the relationship, even after his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, raised serious concerns in 2013. He said the relationship continued through 2014 and that he flew on a private jet with Epstein and spent time with him in Germany, France, New York, and Washington. “I never stayed overnight,” he said, or visited Epstein’s island.

He said Epstein “talked about the kind of intimate relationship he had with a lot of billionaires, particularly Wall Street billionaires,” and that he could help raise money for global health nonprofits. “It definitely is the opposite of the values of the Foundation and the goals of the Foundation,” he said. “And our work is very reputation-sensitive. I mean, people can choose to work with us or not work with us.” No matter what, the Gates Foundation has a dark cloud hanging over it because of Gates’ involvement amid the deepening Epstein fallout.

Gates is worth billions, so why would he need Epstein to raise money for global health nonprofits? Something doesn’t pass the sniff test in this damage-control town hall he held for his foundation’s employees.

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“Joe Biden waived Trump’s executive privilege ..”

• Fani Willis Plotted Trump Case Closely With Biden DOJ, J6 Democrats (JTN)

Just the News and America First Legal win access to 8,000 pages of documents after extensive open records litigation. The memos include revelations on how Joe Biden waived Trump’s executive privilege specifically to aid Georgia prosecutors. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis coordinated extensively with the Biden Justice Department and White House as well as Democrats on the House Jan. 6 investigative committee as she built a failed criminal case against President Donald Trump and his allies related to their challenge to Georgia’s 2020 election results, according to a trove of internal communications obtained by Just the News.


The memos show that President Joe Biden’s top White House lawyer personally opened the door for Willis’ prosecutors to interview Trump administration officials by waiving claims of executive privilege, that federal prosecutors waived certain rights to allow the interviews to proceed before a state grand jury and that Willis’s team spoke glowingly of the congressional efforts to expose Trump’s involvement in the disputed election. “Our initial review of the report confirms you all have accomplished amazing things in the past year,” F. Donald Wakeford, a top deputy to Willis, wrote in a December 2022 email to Tim Heaphy, chief investigative counsel for the Democrat-run Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Just the News, alongside the nonprofit public interest law firm America First Legal (AFL), sued Willis for the records, under Georgia’s Open Records Law. Willis, a longtime Trump nemesis, sought to hide many of the records with claims of legal privilege during a prolonged legal fight. In a reaction to the lawsuit, Willis’ office this week dropped all privilege claims and released all the documents without any redactions, providing to Just the News — and the public — more information than it did to congressional Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.

“These documents reveal that the Biden Administration and the January 6 Committee were much more involved in District Attorney Fani Willis’s prosecution of President Trump than was previously believed. AFL was happy to represent Just the News to get Americans this new information,” said Will Scolinos, an attorney at America First Legal. The documents show a cozy relationship between the Biden administration and Willis’ staff, one that included a meeting between her outside special prosecutor Nathan Wade and the Biden White House.Wade, who admitted to a “personal relationship” with Willis outside the office, billed Fulton County $2,000 for an “interview with DC/White House” on Nov. 18, 2022, just as Willis’ probe was accelerating, according to the new records Willis was forced to disclose.

There is no further explanation in the documents for that interaction, and Fulton County told Just the News and its lawyers at AFL that Wade did not keep any records of what happened at that meeting. Calls to Willis for comment were not returned by publication time.= The new memos show that the Biden White House counsel’s office gave Willis’ prosecution team a major gift, waiving Trump’s ability to claim executive privilege and to block former administration officials from testifying.

Executive privilege is the implied authority of the U.S. president to withhold information that the executive branch possesses from Congress or the Judiciary on the grounds that a president is entitled to confidential advice before making decisions. It is a long-standing American tradition and the secrecy of presidential communications was first referenced by Chief Justice John Marshall in the landmark case Marbury v. Madison.

Ironically, President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder asserted the same privilege during investigations of the botched “Fast and Furious” gunrunning scheme. The Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press noted that “When a president invokes executive privilege, it may be among the most difficult walls to penetrate because the number of potential leakers with access to White House documents is limited and closely monitored.” In some instances, reporting has simply been prevented from reporting on an important issue because the blockade worked.

Biden, however, believed that the “extraordinary events” surrounding the “insurrection” on Jan. 6 in the U.S. Capitol, warranted waiving this historical understanding of the privacy of presidential communications, the new memos show.

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“He’s not a puppeteer. He’s simply a pervert.”

Oh no Scott Pinsker, he was the master puppeteer.

• Comey’s Leaker Claims The Epstein Files Shouldn’t Have Been Released (Pinsker)

But the common thread of leveraging sex to monetize relationships is 100% applicable. It happens a lot. And that’s the biggest blessing of the Epstein Files: It took the repulsive practice of peddling flesh for financial favors out of the shadows. Today, the whole world knows the truth. Sunlight really is the best disinfectant. Which is also why the PR pushback of the Deep State is so fascinating: On Feb. 23, the New York Times ran a remarkable op-ed: “The Epstein Files Should Never Have Been Released.” A few excerpts: [W]e should recognize the release of millions of pages of the Epstein files as both a sign of institutional failure and a cause for concern. If our justice system were working properly, the public would never have such access.


[…]The release of the files is also cause for concern because so much of the raw investigative material in them — untold layers of hearsay, unverified accusations and vague circumstantial connections — ought not be released for the public to pick over. […] When materials collected in a criminal investigation get released in bulk for public consumption, the justification for the coercive and privacy-invading tools we give investigators gets a lot weaker. Institutions claiming to protect user or customer privacy might be more likely to resist valid uses of these tools. Witnesses who would otherwise speak to investigators about sensitive matters might start to rethink whether they want to provide grist for internet searches.

What’s especially fascinating is the author of the New York Times’ piece: Daniel Richman, whom the Times described as a “former federal prosecutor.” But that’s not why Richman is famous. Daniel Richman is the Columbia Law School professor who leaked anti-Trump news stories on behalf of disgraced FBI Director James Comey to trigger a special counsel investigation. From ABC News (June 13, 2017): Who Is James Comey’s Friend and Leaker Daniel Richman? “Daniel Richman is the Columbia Law School professor through whom former FBI Director James Comey shared details of his contemporaneous memos about meetings with President Donald Trump to the New York Times.

Speaking before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, Comey said he wanted to get a record of his meetings with President Donald Trump “out into the public square” so he decided to ask a friend to share the content of his memo with a reporter. “Didn’t do it myself, for a variety of reasons. But I asked him to, because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. And so I asked a close friend of mine to do it,” Comey told Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). Collins asked who that was, and he responded, without providing a name, “A good friend of mine who’s a professor at Columbia Law School.” [emphasis added] Those “variety of reasons” began and ended with a list of one: It would’ve exposed Comey to criminal prosecution for leaking classified information.

PJ Media colleague and friend, Dave Manney, explored Richman’s twisted logic and elitist double-standard on secrecy: Daniel Richman wants the public to regret the files even as they read them, calling the dump a spectacle that highlights the Justice Department’s lack of confidence. I hate to tell him, but confidence died because the department slow-walked leads and cut sweetheart deals for decades. Americans didn’t ruin the system by demanding the truth. The people who protected Epstein and his ilk ruined it. He’s right — but the bigger story isn’t just Richman’s pretzel-shaped logic. It’s the intent behind it. Because Richman has proven himself to be a willing mouthpiece for the Deep State.

That’s how we all know his name. The New York Times might’ve described him as a “former federal prosecutor,” but that’s not why he’s famous. It’s his relationship with Comey that put him in the limelight. Based on precedent, it’s reasonable to assume he’s still speaking for James Comey. So why would the ex-FBI director — and hardline Trump critic — come out swinging AGAINST the release of the Epstein Files? After all, despite the hype and hoopla, none of the conspiracy theories about blackmail schemes, international espionage, and foreign governments were substantiated. If anything, the millions of Epstein documents and/or 300-plus gigabytes of data vindicated the government’s approach: It was less an elaborate cover-up and more a rich guy gaming the legal system on his own.[..]

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Debt Rattle October 5 2024

Oct 052024
 
 October 5, 2024  Posted by at 8:43 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Francisco Goya Witches’ Sabbath 1797-98

 

• Musk Says FEMA ‘Blocking’ Delivery Of More Starlinks In Devastated Areas (JTN)
• The Regime Wants Appalachia To Suffer (Bishop)
• October Surprise (Kunstler)
• The Reprehensible Audacity Of FEMA Being Broke (QTR)
• Elon Musk to Attend Trump Rally at Site of Attempted Assassination (ET)
• Donald Trump Takes His Biggest Lead Yet In Daily Mail Election Model (DM)
• Walz Makes the Case for the Most Anti-Free Speech Ticket in History (Turley)
• There Is Only One Important Decision Waiting to be Made (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Ukraine’s Mobilization Campaign ‘Gets Dirty’ – The Times (RT)
• They lie. They cheat. They steal. They bomb. And they spin (Pepe Escobar)
• Biden on Israel Response to Iranian Attack: ‘That’s Between Me and Them’ (Sp.)
• US, UK Digging Their Grave In Catastrophic War In The Middle East (SCF)
• US, Israel Reportedly Downplay Level of Destruction by Iran (Sp.)
• US Secret Service Struggling To Keep Staff – NYT (RT)
• New NATO Arctic Group is No Match for Russo-Chinese Cooperation (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Alina: It’s called desperation

 

 

 

 

 

 


https://twitter.com/i/status/1841955852825063617

 

 

OMG

Line in the Sand

 

 

Assange

 

 

Presler

 

 

 

 

$42 billion, zero people connected. And then this.

• Musk Says FEMA ‘Blocking’ Delivery Of More Starlinks In Devastated Areas (JTN)

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of blocking the delivery of additional Starlink units to help residents in areas devastated by Hurricane Helene to stay connected to the Internet. “FEMA is not merely failing to adequately help people in trouble, but is actively blocking citizens who try to help!” Musk wrote Friday in a post on X which included the following note he received from a SpaceX engineer on the ground in North Carolina. “Hey Elon, update here on site of Asheville, NC. We have powered up two large operating bases for choppers to deliver goods into hands. We’ve deployed 300+ starlinks and outpour is it has saved many lives,” the engineer wrote.

“The big issue is FEMA is actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own. It’s very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping. We are blocked now on the shipments of new starlinks coming in until we get an escort from the fire dept. but that may not be enough,” he added.

A text message Musk revealed in a second post said that the Federal Aviation Administration is throttling private flights in the North Carolina airspace which has made it harder to keep delivering more Starlink units and other emergency supplies. Former first daughter Ivanka Trump handed out Starlinks, hot meals and critical supplies in North Carolina on Wednesday. According to the texts from Musk’s team on the ground, FEMA showed up there and “starting blocking us.” The text message is consistent with comments made by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg regarding “temporary flight restrictions” that have been imposed on private flights and drones over areas damaged by the storm.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1841946537170972786

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“The counties most impacted by the storm disproportionately vote in ways the current regime does not like.”

• The Regime Wants Appalachia To Suffer (Bishop)

Americans from Florida to North Carolina continue to deal with the devastating consequences of Hurricane Helene, now the deadliest hurricane to hit the US since Katrina. The stories emerging from the region are heart breaking. The economic damage to property and the infrastructure will take years to recover from. Large parts of the area will never return to what they were. Many Americans may be unaware of the extent of the damage. Unlike Hurricane Katrina, which received non-stop coverage on cable news for weeks, with primetime anchors like Anderson Cooper visiting on location covering stories of human tragedy and government incompetent, Helene’s aftermath has received far less coverage. It is on social media platforms like X where folks will find horrifying stories of the stench of death still strong in difficult to reach areas, the lack of government assistance for those in need, and the courage of private efforts serving the area.

Some of this is explained by the time period we are living in. Escalation in the Middle East. A national election is on the horizon. A court decision releasing documents that allows the salivating press to re-litigate the events of January 6th, 2020 yet again. What cannot be ignored, however, is the extent to which the open hostility to which the nation’s most powerful institutions have had to the sorts of people that are overwhelmingly impacted by this storm, predominantly white, working class, and politically conservative. This horrific natural disaster is a reminder of the extent to which the regime hates the people who live there.

This was true prior to Helene, where Washington policies have impoverished this areas with policies ranging from the national impact of inflation and financialization to more specific regional impacts stemming from regulatory policy with specific impacts on the region impacted. The immediate aftermath, however, demonstrates the extent to which state reaction to a disaster impedes voluntary efforts to quickly mobilize and assist those in need. A combination of heavy-handed federal and state action has attempted to undercut recovery efforts, from grounding private helicopters seeking to rescue stranded victims, to the demands of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to stop citizens from flying drones near impacted areas seeking to locate those in need of help. Given the logistical strains that even the best organized response to a severe crisis would create, the voluntary organization of local human resources on the ground is essential to meaningful and quick recovery. Here, the priority of government actors has been to elevate their control over the situation at the expense of these efforts.

The allocation of emergency resources itself is deserving of extended scrutiny as well. The victims of this tragedy, like all Americans, have their wealth extracted by Washington to fill the coffers of large federal agencies like FEMA. This same agency, whose nominal priority is to assist Americans in the case of emergency, are already pleading poverty. Of course, these same agencies oversaw the redirection of over a billion dollars in recent years to subsidize migration into the country. The priorities are clear, emergency funds take a back seat to a regime that cares more about new arrivals than the families who lived in this country for generations. This predatory relationship between the regime and its citizens is systemic. The priorities of Washington will always stand in conflict with the people of Appalachia.

DC sees no problem with ordering the Tennessee National Guard to the Middle East at a time when their fellow Tennesseans are facing their own crisis. This relationship is also bipartisan in nature. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who has become very rich off the backs of the people who elevated him to political power, ignoring the victims of Helene on social media, while very focused on Israel and Iran. The regime will always prioritize its own interests, including the interests of what it has identified as their special privileged classes, over the interests of its people. Changing this parasitic relationship requires more than a change of political party in the White House, but a determined effort by those who seek to represent the interests of these people to strike at the root of this relationship.

Unfortunately, while elections alone are not adequate to address the victimization of Appalachia, it is reasonable to consider what impact the specter of politics is having on their current neglect. The counties most impacted by the storm disproportionately vote in ways the current regime does not like. Would America’s federal government deliberately undermine recovery efforts to try to achieve its own desired political ends? Would the corporate press deliberately fail to cover the inadequacy of these efforts, hoping to prevent a candidate it fears doesn’t win? For those that understand the true nature of the state, the answer is an obvious one. Our prayers are with the victims of Hurricane Helene, that they receive the help they need as recovery efforts continue, that they have the ability to build back their communities strong, and that they will one day be free of a regime that cares so little for them.

JD

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“Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s brand-new VP pick, is a fanatical far-left lunatic wearing the friendly armor of hapless, bloated oaf from the sticks” — Peachy Keenan

• October Surprise (Kunstler)

That same obvious void of conviction you see on Tim Walz’s labile face is on display with the feds’ response to mass tragedy in the Appalachian hurricane zone. It was a point in my book, The Long Emergency, that our national government would become increasingly impotent, ineffectual, and incompetent as conditions worsened — and now here it is. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), could not bestir itself to aid stricken citizens around the flood-ravaged region in North Carolina and Tennessee. Sec’y Mayorkas of Homeland Security said that FEMA was out of money which, in this season of political weirdness, is especially weird, seeing as how the nation’s fiscal year began Oct 1, and Congress’s continuing resolution for funding US agencies should assure that FEMA’s checkbook is full. What was up with that?

Well, everybody and his uncle has heard by now that FEMA (and many other agencies under Mayorkas’s DHS) commits tons of money to pamper the millions of mutts from foreign lands sneaking over the US border, with lots of assistance from NGO cut-outs funded by your tax dollars, who marshal groups of aliens south-of-the-border for the crossing, and then fly or bus them around our country for the special purpose of distributing them in swing voting districts to then coordinate with other NGOs devoted to registering non-citizens to vote in order to “harvest” their ballots. Quite an operation. Completely lawless and corrupt. And official! So, no aid for you, baskets of deplorables, shivering in the dark in your hills and hollows of Appalachia, your houses splintered, scant chattels lost, and your beloved hound-dogs carried away in the roaring torrents.

The money that might have helped you begin to recover from the complete devastation of your lives is paying for Guatemalans to bunk in the Roosevelt Hotel and order-in quesadillas and churros, and refill their government-issued debit cards so they can afford a few nice things as they wait for mysterious others to cast ballots in their names. This is the work of your Democratic Party, the party of chaos, party of the Woke mentally ill, party of wrecking the country, of America’s end times. And you’re going to vote for more of it? Of course not. And despite the attempts to knock him out of the arena with scores of utter bullshit lawfare cases, and efforts to shoot him dead, Mr. Trump keeps coming at them, an implacable, relentless force, the true Golden Golem conjured up by their catamite news media. Their inability to destroy him has wrecked their minds.

One surprising October surprise is advanced by whistleblower Mike McCormick on Substack (Midnight in the Laptop of Good and Evil). Mr. McCormick was White House stenographer under Presidents Bush II, Obama, and Trump. His job was to transcribe meetings, speeches, and interactions between major political figures. He was the proverbial fly-on-the-wall for years and years. He has seen and heard a lot and still hears a lot from people who know a lot. He says the Obama-Biden-Harris faction of the Deep State blob is anti-Israel and that Israel understands what this means. He says that Benjamin Netanyahu has told “Joe Biden” (or, let’s say, told errand-boys Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan) that if the blob engineers a phony victory for Kamala Harris, he will blow up the oil fields in Iran and the anti-Israel Democrats will have to pick up the pieces.

There it is, raw power politics, like so much meat on the table. “Joe Biden” cannot control Bibi. “Joe Biden” is too far gone and two weak, and Israel does not aim to let itself get wiped off the map, as Iran’s leadership never tires of saying. The blob, McCormick says, has to ask itself: does it help rig the election for Harris or stand down on all its ballot harvesting and other trickery and actually allow a real election to roll out? Surprise! Now, take your Kit-kat bar and go home.

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“What FEMA being broke today means not just that we have pissed away the money that we could have allocated for it to non-U.S. citizens — it’s far more insulting than that.”

• The Reprehensible Audacity Of FEMA Being Broke (QTR)

After the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene, FEMA has all of a sudden come out and said it doesn’t have enough funds to make it through hurricane season. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned this week that FEMA is running low on funds. “We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting,” Mayorkas said. “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.” While Mayorkas didn’t specify the exact funding needed, his comments reflect growing concerns from President Biden and lawmakers that a supplemental spending bill may be necessary this fall to support recovery efforts.

I’ve spent the last four years watching as millions of people have crossed unchecked through our southern border and have been treated like royalty by the Biden administration while everyday citizens struggle with rising prices, crumbling infrastructure, and the negative effects of suffocating regulation. I’ve also spent the last four years watching the United States dole out close to $50 billion in foreign aid, mainly to Ukraine to help it press on with a war that realistically it has little chance of winning, while shaking down waitstaff, Uber drivers and anybody using Venmo for purposes of more than $600 for tax receipts. And in my short time in the world of finance, I’ve seen enough omnibus spending bills—with funds allocated for things like border security in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Oman and family planning to halt population growth that “threatens biodiversity or endangered species”—to have developed a deep loathing for how our government and our Treasury manage finances.

So when sorry-ass Alejandro Mayorkas—who has sworn up and down for the last three years that there’s no crisis at the southern border while parts of the country have been overrun and overwhelmed by unchecked, undocumented, and sometimes criminal migrants—takes to publicly decrying that FEMA is out of money in the midst of one of the largest domestic disasters in the country’s history, it’s absolutely revolting to watch. Not only is it grotesque because of how we have squandered away hundreds of billions of dollars on things that everyday U.S. citizens are not going to see an impact from, but it’s even worse when examined under the umbrella of how we run monetary policy in this country. There once was a day when, if you needed to fund government entities, you actually had to have the revenue coming in from taxpayers because we couldn’t just print dollars ad infinitum anytime we wanted. Those were the days of sound money, and they are long gone.

What FEMA being broke today means not just that we have pissed away the money that we could have allocated for it to non-U.S. citizens — it’s far more insulting than that. It means that in a day and age where we can theoretically print endless fiat dollars and have an ‘infinite amount of cash’—an idea that I think is completely batshit insane, but our Fed governors don’t—that we still have not stocked the coffers of our domestic agencies with the bare minimum necessary for them to help the American people when they need to. In other words, if the money is all fake, and we can conjure up as much of it as we want without any consequences, as both political parties would have you believe over the last several decades, why should FEMA ever be asking for more money to help hurricane victims?

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The Trump team comes together one at a time: RFK Jr, Elon Musk, JD Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, Tucker Carlson, Mike Flynn, etc etc.

“The martyr lived. Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt..”

• Elon Musk to Attend Trump Rally at Site of Attempted Assassination (ET)

Elon Musk said on Oct. 3 that he will attend former President Donald Trump’s upcoming rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “I will be there to support!” Musk wrote on X, the social media platform that he mostly owns. Trump has a rally scheduled for Saturday at the Butler Farm Show, where he was struck by a bullet during an event in July. Authorities say Thomas Crooks, who was shot dead by a U.S. Secret Service agent, attempted to assassinate Trump. About 30 minutes later, Musk shared video footage of Trump rising to his feet and holding a fist up after surviving the attempted assassination. Musk said he endorsed the former president. “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Musk wrote at the time. “The martyr lived. Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt,” he wrote in a follow-up post.

The business mogul, who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said in another post on Thursday that backing Trump has become “essential to saving America!” Musk’s posts frequently support Trump and Republicans while denigrating Vice President Kamala Harris and members of the Democratic Party. Trump welcomed Musk’s endorsement at the time and said in a September speech that, if elected, he would, on Musk’s advice, create a government efficiency commission tasked with improving government operations. The exact security protocols in place for Trump’s next Butler rally have not been disclosed but the U.S. Secret Service says it is prepared. A spokesman told The Epoch Times in an email that the agency has, since the attempted assassination attempt, “made comprehensive changes and enhancements to our communications capabilities, resourcing, and protective operations.” Trump, he said, is receiving heightened protection.

The agency has said previously that Trump is receiving the same level of protection as President Joe Biden and Harris in the wake of the assassination attempt by Crooks and another apparent attempt by a man at a golf course in Florida. “Regarding the October 5th event in Butler, PA, we are coordinating closely with the Pennsylvania State Police as well as local law enforcement in and around Butler Township. We are also leveraging other federal security resources to expand personnel and technology,” the spokesman said. “To maintain the integrity of our protective operations, we cannot go into the specifics regarding the security enhancements. Residents in the area should expect traffic delays and an increased presence of state, local, and federal law enforcement as part of our efforts to ensure a safe and secure event.”

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“..Trump moves out to a 13-point lead from just five points earlier in the week.”

• Donald Trump Takes His Biggest Lead Yet In Daily Mail Election Model (DM)

With a month to go until the only poll that matters, former President Donald Trump has roared back into a substantial lead in our election model. A slew of recent surveys has shown him with leads in key battleground states. And when the data are processed through our DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners model it shows the former president winning in 56.7 percent of the simulations. As ever, the road to the White House appears to run through Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral college votes. For weeks it has been in ‘tossup’ territory. Now the model moves it to ‘lean Trump’ in what could be a decisive moment in the election race. Lose that state, and Vice President Kamala Harris would struggle to triumph even if she wins Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. With fewer paths to electoral college victory, Harris wins in only 43.2 percent of the simulations. It means that, overall, Trump moves out to a 13-point lead from just five points earlier in the week.

To be clear, this is not like a poll lead. Instead, it shows the frequency with which Trump wins the electoral college when our model crunches through all the thousands of possible permutations of states using all the latest available data (along with decades worth of election results combined with economic data.) Until now his highest point was a 10-point advantage last month, but that number has waxed and waned with fresh inputs of data. And the race remains incredibly close. Harris is on course to win the popular vote (as Democrats have done in seven of the last eight elections.) Minnesota is looking safer than ever for her, solidifying her electoral college floor, and she is two points stronger in Michigan, where both she and Trump campaigned Thursday. But the latest model outcome shows a clear direction of travel, said Callum Hunter, data scientist with J.L. Partners.

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“Harris and Walz are the dream team for the anti-free speech movement.”

• Walz Makes the Case for the Most Anti-Free Speech Ticket in History (Turley)

In the vice presidential debate Tuesday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pulled the fire alarm. His opponent, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, cited the massive system of censorship supported by Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate. Walz proceeded to quote the line from a 1919 case in which Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said you do not have the right to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater. It is the favorite mantra of the anti-free speech movement. It also is fundamentally wrong. In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss the justice’s line from his opinion in Schenck v. United States. Holmes wrote, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” As I discuss in the book, the line was largely lifted from a brief in an earlier free speech case. It has since become the rationale for politicians and pundits seeking to curtail free speech in America.

For example, when I testified last year before Congress against a censorship system that has been described by one federal court as “similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth,’” Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., interjected with the fire-in-a-theater question to say such censorship is needed and constitutional. In other words, the internet is now a huge crowded theater and those with opposing views are shouting fire. Goldman and Walz both cited a case in which socialists Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer were arrested and convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. Their “crime” was to pass out flyers in opposition to the military draft during World War I. Schenck and Baer called on their fellow citizens not to “submit to intimidation” and to “assert your rights.” They argued, “If you do not assert and support your rights, you are helping to deny or disparage rights which it is the solemn duty of all citizens and residents of the United States to retain.” They also described the military draft as “involuntary servitude.”

Holmes used his “fire in a theater” line to justify the abusive conviction and incarceration. At the House hearing, when I was trying to explain that the justice later walked away from the line and Schenck was effectively overturned in 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio, Goldman cut me off and said, “We don’t need a law class here.” In the vice presidential debate, Walz showed that he and other Democratic leaders most certainly do need a class in First Amendment law. As I have said, the Biden-Harris administration has proved to be the most anti-free speech administration in two centuries. You have to go back to John Adams’ administration to find the equal of this administration. Harris has been an outspoken champion of censorship in an administration that supports targeting disinformation, misinformation and “malinformation.” That last category was defined by the Biden administration as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”

In the debate, Walz also returned to his favorite dismissal of censorship objections by saying that it is all just inflammatory rhetoric. Recently, Walz went on MSNBC to support censoring disinformation and declared, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” That is entirely untrue and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the right called “indispensable” by the Supreme Court. Even after some of us condemned his claim as ironically dangerous disinformation, Walz continues to repeat it. This is why, for the free speech community, the prospect of a Harris-Walz administration is chilling. Where President Joe Biden was viewed as supporting censorship out of political opportunism, Harris and Walz are viewed as true believers. We are living through the most dangerous anti-free speech movement in American history. We have never before faced the current alliance of government, corporate, academic and media forces aligned against free speech.

A Harris-Walz administration with a supportive Congress could make this right entirely dispensable. Others are laying the groundwork for precisely that moment. University of Michigan Law School professor and MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade has said that free speech “can also be our Achilles’ heel.” Columbia law professor Tim Wu, a former Biden White House aide, wrote a New York Times op-ed with the headline, “The First Amendment Is Out of Control.” He told readers that free speech “now mostly protects corporate interests” and threatens “essential jobs of the state, such as protecting national security and the safety and privacy of its citizens.” Walz said in the debate that Vice President Harris is promoting the “politics of joy.” Indeed, the wrong people are perfectly ecstatic. Harris and Walz are the dream team for the anti-free speech movement.

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“The only relevant decision in the world at this time is whether Washington decides that Putin means what he says or that Putin is so averse to war that he will stand down..”

• There Is Only One Important Decision Waiting to be Made (Paul Craig Roberts)

Except for the neoconservatives whose agenda it is, I sometimes wonder if I am the only other person who understands what the Ukraine conflict is about. While we await Washington’s decision about firing missiles into Russia, I will explain how we reached the current crisis. In 2007 Washington declared war on Russia without announcing it. Putin provoked Washington’s secret declaration of war when he rejected Washington’s uni-polar hegemony at the Munich Security Conference. Washington’s first attack was a year later when, while Putin was distracted at the Beijing Olympics, Washington sent a US trained and equipped Georgian army into South Ossetia. The purpose was not to defeat Russia militarily. Instead, it was a calculated risk that Putin might stand down and to avoid a military conflict that the West could misrepresent as restoring the Soviet Empire, and allow the Russian protectorate to be absorbed into Georgia.

The American neoconservatives were gambling with lives not their own that Putin and thereby Russia would be weakened by giving in, thus opening more paths of aggression against Russia. The neoconservatives’ plot against Putin might have worked except the Georgian invaders killed Russian peace-keepers. In 2008 Putin was trying to resurrect Russian pride, which was lost with the Soviet collapse 1991, and could not turn his back on dead Russian soldiers in South Ossetia. He returned from China, sent in an army, and smashed the US trained and equipped Georgian army in 5 days.

All of Georgia, a province of the Soviet Union until 1991, was in Putin’s hands. The Western propaganda is that Putin is dangerous because he intends to recover the Soviet empire. Obviously, this is a lie, because Putin pulled the Russian army out and left Georgia an independent state. Following the US neoconservative’s failure in South Ossetia, which they mischaracterized as a “Russian invasion of Georgia,” the neoconservatives began pouring billions of dollars into Ukraine in order to create cadres, NGOs, and purchased politicians that would support the “Maidan Revolution,” which was Washington’s overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine that was living in profitable peace with Russia.

Again Putin was inattentive, this time distracted by the Sochi Olympics, and this time he did nothing. It is unclear why Putin allowed Ukraine to become Washington’s puppet state hostile to Russia and a candidate for NATO. The neo-Nazi state that Washington created began a number of operations against the Russian population in Donbas. The use of the Russian language was banned. Russians were accosted and killed in the streets by bands of Stepan Bandera’s followers. (Bandara fought for Nazi Germany against Russia during World War II.) The Russian parts of Ukraine, Donbas and Crimea, which were separated from Russia by Lenin and Khrushchev, asked Putin to protect them by re-admitting them to Russia. Putin accepted Crimea’s request as the Russian Black Sea naval base is in Crimea, but Putin refused the requests from Donbas, which had formed into two independent republics to protect themselves from slaughter by the Ukrainian army.

Putin, always cautious, was advised that if he accepted Donbass he would give credence to Western propaganda that Russia was restoring the Soviet Empire. Nevertheless, Putin knew he had to do something to protect the Donbas Russians. He concocted the Minsk Agreement. The Minsk Agreement kept Donbas as part of Ukraine, but gave the territory some autonomy, such as its own police and courts, to prevent persecution by Washington’s puppet in Kiev. Kiev and the two Donbas republics signed the Minsk agreement, and Germany and France promised to enforce it. Believing that the West had integrity, Putin was taken for a ride. Both the German Chancellor and French President later publicly admitted that they deceived Putin for eight years while Washington built and equipped a strong Ukrainian Army capable of conquering the two break-away republics in Donbas.

When during December 2021 and February 2022 Putin and Lavrov’s efforts to secure a mutual defense agreement between Russia and the West were met with extremely cold shoulders from Washington, NATO, and the European Union, Putin was faced with a large Ukrainian army about to invade the Donbas republics. Putin’s false hopes and mistaken belief in the West’s integrity left him unprepared, but he was forced to intervene and Russia, due to unpreparedness was forced to rely on a small private military force, the Wagner Group. As Putin had not prepared for the obvious conflict staring him in the face, he limited his intervention to Donbas to clearing out the Ukrainian forces, not to quickly prevailing in the conflict. The long conflict has given the West two years and eight months to involve itself and widen the conflict. As Putin never enforced any of the announced red lines, he has no credibility in the West. Recently, the NATO Secretary-General said NATO does not pay any attention to Putin, because he talks but never does anything.

Consequently, the world has reached the precise point I said would be reached. Putin has backed up so much that he has no more room. His back is to the wall. NATO, the British Prime Minister, and the neoconservatives are lobbying Washington to give a green light to US/NATO firing missiles into Russia from Ukraine territory. Understand, Ukraine hasn’t the capability and satellite targeting systems to fire the missiles. A missile attack on Russia can no longer be characterized as a “proxy war.” Putin himself has made this clear. Putin said that missiles fired into Russia means the US and NATO are at war with Russia and that Russia reserves the right to respond with nuclear weapons. A crisis is upon us. The only relevant decision in the world at this time is whether Washington decides that Putin means what he says or that Putin is so averse to war that he will stand down from his threat in order to avoid a wider conflict involving nuclear weapons.

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“..efforts to boost conscription are becoming increasingly deceitful, coercive and violent..”

• Ukraine’s Mobilization Campaign ‘Gets Dirty’ – The Times (RT)

Ukraine’s mobilization campaign is falling far short of targets, while the effort remains marred by violence, mistrust and rampant corruption, The Times reported on Thursday, citing local officials. According to the paper, Kiev has so far called up about one million soldiers and plans to increase that number by another 200,000 by the end of the year, but that mark remains difficult to reach. Moreover, “efforts to boost conscription are becoming increasingly deceitful, coercive and violent,” the outlet noted, citing the example of an Odessa conscript who was technically exempt from the service due to a chronic kidney condition, but was lured to the conscription office and sent to a training base anyway. An unnamed conscription officer in Odessa told The Times that “we’re not mobilizing even 20% of what is required.”

He noted that there is little enthusiasm among potential soldiers to respond to the summons, while his department is plagued by corruption, mismanagement and disillusionment. The bribes, the officer, added, can reach thousands of dollars while staff shortage means that employees have to perform multiple duties at once, including patrolling the streets. In addition, employees are threatened with being sent to the front if they underperform. In other cases, many of those who answer the mobilization call are often found to be unfit for service due to serious health conditions, including tuberculosis, hepatitis or HIV, the Times’ source said. Meanwhile, a 47-year-old Ukrainian recalled that he was eager to be called up and go to the front early in the conflict, but was denied at the time, and now has no desire to do so.

“Our government doesn’t support soldiers. They don’t have proper equipment and are forgotten about if they get injured,” the man explained. Ukraine announced general mobilization in February 2022 shortly after the outbreak of hostilities, barring most men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country. This spring, faced with mounting losses, Kiev lowered the draft age from 27 to 25, and significantly tightened mobilization rules, obliging potential service members to report to conscription offices for “data validation,” which in practice often means a ticket to the front. “font-size:11px;color: #353535;”As Ukraine’s mobilization campaign intensified, so did draft evasion, filling social media with videos of recruiters trying to catch eligible men on the streets, in gyms, and in shopping malls, sometimes leading to clashes.

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“..the name of the (new, deadly) game is U.S./Israel vs. Russia/Iran..”

• They lie. They cheat. They steal. They bomb. And they spin (Pepe Escobar)

Hezbollah has a seriously though spell ahead. Resources – especially supply of weapons and military equipment, through Syria and by air from Iran to Lebanon – will become increasingly scarce. Compare it to Israel’s unlimited supply chain from Exceptionalistan – not to mention tons of money. Israel intel is far from shabby – as commandos went deep, in secret, into Hezbollah territory collecting info on the fortification network. When – in fact if – they reach populated areas in Southern Lebanon, then it will be bombing dementia plus heavy artillery against residential areas. That operation might well be called Gaza-on-the Litani. It will happen only if Hezbollah’s complex network in southern Lebanon is cracked – a major “if”. Jeffrey Sachs, for all his good intentions, went as far as he could to characterize Israelis as judeo supremacist extremist terrorists. Virtually the whole Global Majority is now aware of it.

What comes next in Talmudic-Zio-con planning may include a ghastly false flag, possibly after the U.S. presidential election, for instance on a NATO vessel or on U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, to lock up the new administration into the long-planned U.S. war on Iran. Dick Cheney will have an orgasm – and croak.The BRICS summit in Kazan under the Russian presidency is less than three weeks away. In sharp contrast to genocide and serial wars in West Asia, Putin and Xi will be standing by the – open – door on behalf of BRICS+, welcoming scores of nations that are fleeing the collective West like the plague. Russia is now fully behind Iran – and as much as in floundering Ukraine, that means Russia at war with the U.S./Israel; after all the Pentagon is directly shooting down Iranian missiles, while Israel is the U.S.’s de facto pre-eminent state, fully, fiscally supported by U.S. taxpayers.

It gets trickier by the minute. Immediately after a very important meeting between Alexander Lavrentiev, Putin’s special envoy to Syria, and Ali Akbar Ahmadian, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Tel Aviv went Full Dementia – what else – and targeted warehouses of Russian forces in Syria.There was a joint Russia-Syria air defense response. What that shows is the Talmudic psychos not only obsessed on breathing fire against the Axis of Resistance but now also going after Russian national interests. This can get very ugly for them in a flash – and is yet one more illustration that the name of the (new, deadly) game is U.S./Israel vs. Russia/Iran.

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He’s real important.

• Biden on Israel Response to Iranian Attack: ‘That’s Between Me and Them’ (Sp.)

When asked for his opinion on how Israel should respond to the latest Iranian missile strike, US President Joe Biden said on Friday that it was between him and the Israelis. “That’s between me and them,” Biden told reporters. Israel has not yet determined how it will strike Iran but they should consider other options than targeting oil fields, President Biden noted. “The Israelis have not concluded … what they’re going to do in terms of the strike, that’s under discussion,” he said during the press briefing. “If I were in those shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields.” Biden also elaborated that the United States is considering imposing sanctions on Iran “right now”, including on the country’s oil sector. “That’s under consideration right now, the whole thing,” he elaborated, adding that he will not discuss the issue further at present.

POTUS also noted that he does not know whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to influence the presidential election in the United States, adding that he is “not counting on that.” “Whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that,” he told reporters during his first visit to the White House press briefing room. According to US media reports, Democrats, and in particular Senator Chris Murphy, have expressed their concerns that Netanyahu, with his harsh actions in the Middle East, is playing into the hands of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as this gives the latter the opportunity to accuse Biden of failing to resolve the conflict in the Middle East.

“I certainly worry that Prime Minister Netanyahu is watching the American election as he makes decisions about his military campaigns in the north end of Gaza. I hope this is not true, but it is certainly a possibility that the Israeli government is not going to sign any diplomatic agreement prior to the American election, as a means potentially to try to influence the result,” CNN quoted Murphy as saying in an interview for CNN. The Biden administration has made several attempts to resolve the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon through ceasefire agreements, which have so far failed.

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“An attack by Israel and the U.S. is reportedly imminent on Iran’s oil industrial facilities. Biden has the braindead temerity to call this intended U.S.-Israeli aggravation a “proportionate response..”

• US, UK Digging Their Grave In Catastrophic War In The Middle East (SCF)

The American and British leaders are fully backing Israel to escalate its criminal aggression in the Middle East. In so doing, Washington and London are being exposed for the arch-criminal regimes that they are. An all-out war against Iran is on the brink. The consequences will be abysmal, yet the U.S. and British rulers are shameless, reckless – and ultimately stupid – in their complicity. In a few days, on October 7, the Israeli regime will have conducted 12 months of non-stop genocidal destruction of Gaza. There is no sign of that monstrous war of extermination coming to an end. The Israeli regime is completely out of control, acting with impunity and shocking violation of all laws and moral norms. More than 41,000 Palestinian people have been killed. Some estimates put the real death toll at over 100,000 and even as high as 200,000.

This slaughter of women and children is supposed to be justified by the incursion of Palestinian militants on October 7 last year in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed – many of them by their own security forces using reckless firepower. The Hamas incursion was in response to years of inhumane, genocidal siege on the Gaza Strip by Israel. The actions of the Israeli regime are wholly indefensible. Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli leaders have gotten away with mass murder because of the diplomatic and – more importantly – military support from the United States, Britain and other Western states. The genocide in Gaza and the other Palestinian enclave of the West Bank has been infernally compounded by Israel’s expansion of aggression in the region. The past two weeks have seen Israeli forces indiscriminately bombing Beirut and other Lebanese civilian areas, causing 2,000 deaths and over one million people displaced from their homes.

The orgy of violence is engulfing the entire region. The Israeli regime is also bombing Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as Iran in assassination missions. Israel’s murderous conduct has been going on for decades – indeed for 76 years since its inception as an illegal colonial state in 1948, established by British and American machinations at the then newly formed United Nations. Invasions, annexations, air strikes, terrorism, assassinations, and much more are routine for the Western colonialist project known as Zionist Israel. But now the regime is spinning out of control in its bloodlust and psychopathic mania fostered by the impunity afforded by Western sponsors. This history of state terrorism has – and is – all fueled by Western imperialist powers who also believe in supremacy (euphemistically called exceptionalism) and privilege despite their disingenuous virtuous rhetoric to the contrary.

The Israeli regime and its fascist barbarism are a manifestation of the Western powers in their fundamental nature. The same nefarious violence and plunder was – and is – carried out in every corner of the planet that had the misfortune of Western encounter. Zionism is but a variant of Western imperialism. Iran hit back this week with a massive attack involving at least 200 missiles, including hypersonic missiles, raining down on Israeli targets. The response from Iran has been up to now incredibly restrained despite the relentless provocations and acts of war perpetrated by Israel. Even in the latest Iranian attacks, the targets were mainly military centers and aimed at avoiding civilian casualties. Yet immediately, the United States and Britain rushed to condemn Iran for “barbaric aggression” and perversely declared their support for Israel’s right to self-defense. Such a travesty of lies and distortion. The truth is, that Iran was finally acting in legitimate self-defense.

U.S. President Joe Biden is coordinating with Israel to conduct “severe repercussions” on Iran. An attack by Israel and the U.S. is reportedly imminent on Iran’s oil industrial facilities. Biden has the braindead temerity to call this intended U.S.-Israeli aggravation a “proportionate response”. Iran has warned the United States that its policy of unilateral restraint is now definitively over. Tehran has repeatedly said it does not want a regional war, but if Israel follows through on its latest threats of retaliation, then Iran will hit back with even greater force than already shown. Ominously, Iran said it will deploy “unconventional” tactics. This is taken to mean closing the vital oil trade route through the Strait of Hormuz. The Middle East is the source of a third of the world’s oil supply. If Iran shuts down the global oil supply then the world economy is heading for an unprecedented calamity. Already oil prices have begun to spike. If a war should engulf the region, the impact on the world economy will be catastrophic.

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“But, make no mistake, this genocide is absolutely only happening because the US is allowing it to happen.”

• US, Israel Reportedly Downplay Level of Destruction by Iran (Sp.)

At least two dozen long-range Iranian ballistic missiles were able to break through both Israeli and other Western air defenses on Tuesday night, the Washington Post reported. The missiles struck or landed near at least three military and intelligence installations, a review of videos and photos of the attack and its aftermath showed. “The findings raise questions about the full scope of the damage to Israeli military bases and suggest that Iran was more successful in evading Israel’s defenses than in April,” the report wrote. The Pentagon declined to comment on the report’s findings, the Post said. And the Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment, either. Phil Kelly, a political commentator and socialist activist based in Belfast joined Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Friday, and suggested that Western media is “struggling” to “give credence to Israeli propaganda”.

“…it’s interesting when the Washington Post […] newspaper, which is not a go-to read for me anymore, is starting to find itself struggling to give credence to Israeli propaganda and more and more things you’re starting to find that where the lurid kind of propaganda of the Israeli regime is just too much. It’s, the stenographers at the Washington Post and various Western media just struggle to bring themselves to go that far because of its ridiculousness,” Kelly explained. “It’s clear Israel was hit hard. The Iron Dome was not so secure that Iran made a point and will probably be forced to make further points, I would imagine, because Israel is hell-bent on escalation. It wants to drag other parties into this abyss with it,” he added.

Using commercial satellite imagery, researchers have identified more than 30 points where Iranian missiles may have impacted an air base in southern Israel, a report from NHPR (New Hampshire and NPR) revealed. The images showed damaged hangars, buildings, taxiways and a crater on one of the runways at Nevatim Airbase, the report writes. However, both Israel and the US have attempted to downplay the amount of damage that Israel has suffered: “This attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective,” said U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Sputnik’s Michelle Witte also noted that the US has a law that dates back to the 1990s which restricts the quality of commercial satellite imagery that US companies can sell if they depict Israel and Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. An unusually specific restriction, she added, that seems to give Israel a special level of protection other countries do not receive from the US.

“But, in terms of that special relationship, it shouldn’t shock anyone when you look at the Israeli lobby that basically owns [the US] political system. It would seem that it would go to these lengths to stop people looking under the rock that is Israel, stop people seeing the reality of the situation, whether it is how much damage they’ve sustained or the mass graves that they are filling with innocent civilians.” “…when Israel commits its crimes, when Israel commits its invasion, when Israel keeps bombing different sovereign countries, the response of the West is to help them cover it up, help them help their propaganda dominate, make sure it’s the Israeli narrative that we hear and do not allow people to see the truth of what is unfolding in this conflict. It should set alarm bells ringing,” the analyst added.

At least 215 people in the US are believed to be dead as a result of the recent storm, Hurricane Helene. In May, NOAA National Weather Service forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center predicted above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin this year. Despite their prediction, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced this week that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will not have enough funds to last the rest of the hurricane season. Yet, just a week ago, Israel announced that it had secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the US to support its military goals. “The reality is that most US politicians, when they talk about putting country before politics, they’re talking about Israel,” Kelly explained. “And that should really enrage ordinary US citizens who have struggled for a long time, seeing that their living standards drop and wondering why in hell your government is sending billions of dollars to a racist, colonial regime, a small regime in the Middle East, which is committing genocide…”

“…the myth of America, I think, is over. It was struggling long before it went all in on genocide Joe’s watch to push Europe into World War III and to facilitate [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. But the rest of the world sees the US for what it is, and that is why you’re seeing real concrete moves in the global side to disengage,” he added. “That the war in Ukraine was really a starting point for that, and it’s gained momentum because the US cannot be trusted.” “Europe’s starting to get a bit worried. Macron made a few noises about how Europe needs to keep an eye on the US – slow learner there, Mr. Macron. As Kissinger said, the US doesn’t have friends, it has interests. The world’s awakening to that,” the analyst said. “But, make no mistake, this genocide is absolutely only happening because the US is allowing it to happen.”

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Cute excuse for two murder attempts.

• US Secret Service Struggling To Keep Staff – NYT (RT)

The US Secret Service went into 2024 having lost almost a fifth of its veteran agents, with the rest overworked, underpaid, inadequately trained, and lacking the latest technology, the New York Times has reported. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in July after an assassin nearly killed former President and current Republican candidate Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “The service was not ready,” the Times noted on Thursday. The attempt on Trump’s life “revealed deep problems in the Secret Service,” from lack of technology to “failures in command” and communication. For instance, the Butler shooter scouted the venue with a drone, while the protective detail did not have one and their radios did not work properly.

The biggest problem, however, has been “an exodus of the best-trained people,” the Times reported, citing current and former agency employees. At least 1,400 of 7,800 Secret Service employees left in the fiscal years 2022 and 2023, the biggest loss in two decades. While the agency has expanded its workforce to 8,100 – the highest level ever – by this summer, this was still short of the numbers it said it needed. There were concerns about the fitness of new hires and the problems with how to train them and where. The main training facility is so “decrepit” that it often floods in heavy rains, according to the Times. The agency has resorted to using a scale model of the White House built in Atlanta by filmmaker Tyler Perry, because Congress would not authorize funds to build their own.

The chief reason most veterans quoted for leaving was “crushing amounts of overtime work,” sometimes for no pay, because of a federal salary cap. In a survey conducted by a federal police association 68 of the 153 agents who responded said they had “maxed out” on their overtime last year, missing as much as $30,000 in pay. “You ride your horse until it dies, and then you eat it,” Jonathan Wackrow, who left the Secret Service after 14 years, told the Times about management’s view of their workforce. Another former agent, Louis Fitzig, claimed that “nepotism, favoritism, [and] corruption” are part of the agency’s culture. Meanwhile, a scheme to make up the attrition by rehiring recently retired agents backfired spectacularly as agents rushed to retire early, so they could get both a pension and a salary, while not serving in the field where bodies were needed the most.

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“..they are all are NATO allies now after Finland and Sweden’s admission to the military bloc. “There are no neutral countries in the North any more..”

• New NATO Arctic Group is No Match for Russo-Chinese Cooperation (Sp.)

The Western Arctic states are planning to coordinate on defense, intelligence and cyber activities, as they are all are NATO allies now after Finland and Sweden’s admission to the military bloc. “There are no neutral countries in the North any more,” Mikael Valtersson, former Swedish Air Defense officer told Sputnik, commenting on Canada’s push to form a security group to counter Russia and China in the Arctic. Earlier this week, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told Bloomberg News that Canada and its allies need an “Arctic security dialogue” to discuss defense matters in light of Russia and China’s growing activities in the region. Russia, an Arctic state, maintains security cooperation with China in its territorial waters. It was reported on October 2 that patrol ships of the China Coast Guard entered the waters of the Arctic Ocean for joint patrols with coast guard vessels of the Russian FSB Border Service. Valtersson expects the new “security dialogue” to work closely with NATO.

“It might develop into an evolved Arctic military command within NATO and also a political body where politicians co-ordinate their actions before meetings in the Arctic Council,” Valtersson said. The pundit warned that NATO’s potential build-up in the region could “increase the risk for both an arms race in the Arctic and incidents in the region.” But Valtersson believes that the creation of the new Arctic body would neither upset the established balance of power in the Arctic nor endanger Russia’s positions in the region. “The Nordic countries and Canada are too small to challenge Russia, and even more a Russian-Chinese cooperation,” he said. “The US has a lot of other interests in the world and will not focus on the Arctic in the way Russia already does, and should increase doing.”

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EVs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1842044324260848040

 

 

Elon 21 years ago

 

 

IgG4

 

 

Potoo

 

 

P&K
https://twitter.com/i/status/1841945880129061270

 

 

Soul

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 30 2024

Sep 302024
 
 September 30, 2024  Posted by at 8:23 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Roofs of Paris 1886

 

• Musk Warns “If Trump Is Not Elected, This Will Be The Last Election” (ZH)
• Free Speech Makes US ‘Hard To Govern’ – John Kerry (RT)
• MTG Predicts Election Delay Or More Assassination Attempts Against Trump (JTN)
• Michigan Lawmaker Admits Dire Internal Polling For Kamala Harris (ZH)
• Trump Labels Harris ‘Mentally Impaired’ (RT)
• When Odious Foreign Policy Elites Rally Around Harris (Carden)
• Lebowitz Calls for Biden-Harris to “Dissolve the Supreme Court” (Turley)
• Biden Broke His Word To Congress – WSJ (RT)
• Pentagon Chief ‘Blew Up’ as Israel Notified US of Strike on Nasrallah (Sp.)
• Jewish Anti-Semitism Towards Arabs (Helmer)
• Famine In Europe: The Real Goal Of Anti-Russian Policies (SCF)
• Watching the China River Flow (Pepe Escobar)
• Beyond Hegemony (Jeffrey Sachs)
• Obama Was A ‘Simp’ For The Deep State – Brother (RT)
• Putin Proved Me Correct (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1840125327399629120

 

 

 

 

RFK

 

 

Football

 

 

Jimmy Dore

 

 

Lauria
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840221939480051885

 

 

Ritter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840235654908686363

 

 

Ballmer

 

 

BORDER CZAR
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840055614967345259

 

 

 

 

The numbers add up.

• Musk Warns “If Trump Is Not Elected, This Will Be The Last Election” (ZH)

Elon Musk has argued that the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States, “something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible,” will effectively establish a ‘one-party state and Democracy is over.’ Responding to a thread on X in which Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) pointed out that the DOJ is suing Alabama for trying to remove noncitizens from its voting lists, and blocked the SAVE Act – Musk noted that “Everywhere in America will be like the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco”:

“Very few Americans realize that, if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election. Far from being a threat to democracy, he is the only way to save it! Let me explain: if even 1 in 20 illegals become citizens per year, something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible, that would be about 2 million new legal voters in 4 years. The voting margin in the swing states is often less than 20 thousand votes. That means if the “Democratic” Party succeeds, there will be no more swing states!! Moreover, the Biden/Harris administration has been flying “asylum seekers”, who are fast-tracked to citizenship, directly into swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. It is a surefire way to win every election.

America then becomes a one-party state and Democracy is over. The only “elections” will be the Democratic Party primaries. This already happened in California many years ago, following the 1986 amnesty. The only thing holding California back from extreme socialism and suffocating government policies is that people can leave California and still remain in America. Once the whole country is controlled by one party, there will be no escape. Everywhere in America will be like the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco.”

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But that’s the whole idea.

• Free Speech Makes US ‘Hard To Govern’ – John Kerry (RT)

The freedom for individuals to choose their sources of information makes it difficult to reach consensus and, consequently, to govern effectively, former presidential climate envoy John Kerry stated. At a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel on Green Energy last week, the former Secretary of State under President Barack Obama criticized the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and the press, among other things. Kerry pointed out that social media poses challenges for building consensus in democracies. “It’s really hard to govern today,” he remarked. “The referees we used to have to determine what is fact and what isn’t have kind of been eviscerated,” he noted, adding that individuals now decide where to get their news.

“If people go to only one source… and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to simply hammering it out of existence,” he asserted. As long as Democrats can “win ground” and “win the right to govern,” they would be “free to implement change,” the former Democratic senator stated. “I think democracies are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to address the challenges we face. To me, that is part of what this race, this election, is all about,” he added.

At another WEF event earlier this year, Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker lamented the loss of corporate media’s monopoly on information. “We owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well,” she said, noting that customers now have access to a broader array of sources. Amid increasingly divisive election rhetoric, research suggests that Americans trust the media even less than they are willing to publicly admit. While 24 percent of Americans claim to trust the media to tell the truth, only 7 percent believe it privately, according to a study completed in June by the think tank Populace, in cooperation with Gradient and YouGov.

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“The momentum shift has happened and Trump is leading and his support is rapidly accelerating..”

• MTG Predicts Election Delay Or More Assassination Attempts Against Trump (JTN)

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Saturday predicted that more assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump could occur as the election gets closer. “We have entered the most dangerous phase of the election,” Greene said on the social media platform, X. “The momentum shift has happened and Trump is leading and his support is rapidly accelerating. I’m hearing it everywhere, even where I was not before. Democrats will do anything to stop him.” She said that there have already been two assassination attempts on Trump’s life.

“They’ve already been trying to put him in prison and literally assassinate him,” Greene wrote. “What comes next? More assassination attempts? Will they delay the election? Be prepared.” Trump has had two assassination attempts on his life. One was at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the other in Florida while he was golfing. As the election gets closer, both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris have been traveling around the U.S. doing rallies. (JTN)

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Money Talks, But Polls Walk

• Michigan Lawmaker Admits Dire Internal Polling For Kamala Harris (ZH)

In a Sunday bombshell, Axios reports that Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has privately warned donors that Vice President Kamala Harris is “underwater” in Michigan – a critical battleground state for Democrats – according to a video clip obtained by the outlet. Slotkin’s revelation comes at a time when the Dems are fighting tooth and nail to hold onto the Senate, and Michigan could be a deciding factor. During a virtual fundraiser last Wednesday with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Slotkin didn’t mince words. “I’m not feeling my best right now about where we are on Kamala Harris in a place like Michigan,” she admitted, further stating that their internal polling shows Harris sinking in the Wolverine State. The news comes as a blow Democrats as they eye a tough Senate race where Slotkin herself is vying for a seat against GOP contender, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI).

Michigan is a critical state for Democrats. If Trump sweeps the Sun Belt, taking Michigan – or any state in the so-called “Blue Wall” that includes Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, it could pave his way back to the White House. Recent polling averages from FiveThirtyEight have Harris ahead by just 2.4 points, while a New York Times/Siena College poll puts her lead at a razor-thin 1 point. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans smell blood in the water. Slotkin’s Senate race has seen millions of dollars pour in, with GOP operatives sensing a prime opportunity to flip the seat. Republican internal polling suggests the race may be neck-and-neck, despite some public polls showing Slotkin with a narrow lead.

While Slotkin’s public polling paints a more optimistic picture, with RealClearPolitics giving her a 48% to 43% edge, Republicans are raising alarms. GOP strategists believe the Michigan Senate race is tightening, especially as Slotkin’s campaign fights off the GOP war chest. With Slotkin admitting Harris is struggling in Michigan, it’s clear Democrats have a lot to worry about in 2024. The Senate map isn’t doing Democrats any favors either. While ruby-red Ohio and Montana have been getting attention, a surprise Republican win in Michigan could virtually guarantee a GOP majority come next November.

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“..Saturday, Harris vowed to step up deportations and deny asylum to migrants who cross the border outside legal entry points.”

• Trump Labels Harris ‘Mentally Impaired’ (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has labeled Vice President Kamala Harris “mentally impaired” for immigration policies that apparently allowed more than 400,000 convicted criminals to walk freely into the US. According to data released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this week, 425,431 convicted criminals and 222,141 people with pending criminal charges entered the US illegally and are living free inside the country while awaiting court hearings or deportation proceedings. These include 62,231 convicted of assault, 56,533 with drug convictions, and 13,099 convicted of homicide. An additional 15,811 have sexual assault convictions. At a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, Trump declared that Harris should be “impeached and removed from office” for allowing this many criminals into the country.

Harris let in “some of the worst murderers you’ve ever seen,” he claimed, “and that’s not even mentioning the rapists, the gang members, the drug dealers, the child predators, and the traffickers in women.” “[President] Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country,” he said. It is unclear whether all of the criminals mentioned by ICE entered the US while Biden and Harris were in office. However, one of Biden’s first acts as president was to reinstate the Obama-era policy of ‘catch and release’, under which illegal migrants entering the US are detained, and then immediately released with orders to show up at immigration hearings years in the future. Under Trump, migrants arrested by law enforcement agents were taken straight to detention centers from 2019 onwards.

There were around 10.2 million illegal immigrants living in the US in 2020. Under Biden, who tasked Harris in 2021 with overseeing border security, at least 10.6 million more have entered the country, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) figures. The 425,431 convicted criminals counted by ICE are drawn from a list of over 7 million migrants who are awaiting removal proceedings but are not in custody. As such, the true number of criminal aliens living in the US could be vastly higher. Voters concerned about immigration overwhelmingly trust Trump to tackle the issue. In a bid to close this gap, Harris has distanced herself from past comments on immigration – for example, comparing ICE to the Ku Klux Klan and chanting “down with deportation” at a protest. During a visit to the US-Mexico border on Saturday, Harris vowed to step up deportations and deny asylum to migrants who cross the border outside legal entry points.

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“..columnist Joan Walsh, who found Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Harris “strangely moving..”

• When Odious Foreign Policy Elites Rally Around Harris (Carden)

Efforts to bolster the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris by the D.C. foreign policy establishment kicked into overdrive over the course of the past week with the near simultaneous release of two open letters signed by hundreds of former U.S. national security officials. It is an accelerated version of previous campaigns in 2016 and 2020, where ex-officials and military officers on both sides of the aisle vocalizing major opposition to Trump offer to give national security cred to the Democratic candidate — in this case Harris. For their part, the candidate virtually ignores that many of these endorsements are in many cases coming from odious individuals, including architects of wars and interventions that Democrats have openly criticized as stains on recent American history.

The first was a letter signed by over 100 former Republican national security officials stating that while they, alumni of every Republican administration from Reagan to Trump, “expect to disagree with Kamala Harris on many domestic and foreign policy issues” they also “firmly oppose the election of Donald Trump.” According to the former GOP officials, Trump’s “susceptibility to flattery and manipulation by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, unusual affinity for other authoritarian leaders, contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior, and chaotic national security decision-making” render him a danger to U.S. national security interests. Critics of course point out that many of these people are the same Washington creatures who got our country into endless foreign wars and profited from them for 20 years straight — and until this day support cruel, authoritarian dictators when convenient to U.S. policy. They are not wrong.

As a group, the signatories of the first letter are a very mixed bag. The missive does feature a few sensible, responsible pillars of the Washington establishment, including those of former defense secretary (and U.S. senator) Chuck Hagel, and former FBI and CIA director William Webster. Yet for the most part, the letter carried with it the odor of the consensus minded War Party, if not 9/11-era neoconservatism. In the past this would have been a problem for traditionally liberal and progressive outlets, but Mother Jones and the New Republic were quick to applaud the letter as a “win” for the Harris campaign. Not surprisingly, only The Nation has called out their fellow liberals and progressives for making common cause with the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, both of whom have also endorsed Harris in recent days (except for columnist Joan Walsh, who found Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Harris “strangely moving,” writing, “Liz, I told you we could find common ground. Let’s have a cup of coffee. Or even a beer?”

This columnist at Al Jazeera, however, offers no stated desire for beers with the Cheneys, particularly father Dick. “What makes Cheney’s endorsement, and the Democratic Party’s embrace of it, particularly galling is the way in which they gloss over these past sins in order to paint him as a guardian of American values,” charged Howard University Law school professor Ziyad Motola.

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No Supreme Court and no Constitution. Pretty soon after that, you’ll have no country.

• Lebowitz Calls for Biden-Harris to “Dissolve the Supreme Court” (Turley)

Author and cultural critic Fran Lebowitz added voice to the unhinged calls on the left for trashing the Supreme Court. As I discussed recently in the Wall Street Journal (and in my book), there is a growing counter-constitutional movement in the United States led by law professors, pundits, and celebrities. Lebowitz amplified those calls in a radical demand to simply get rid of the Court. Lebowitz called for President Joe Biden to “dissolve the Supreme Court” despite the fact that it would violate the Constitution and remove one of the most critical protections against executive and legislative abuse. Lebowitz insisted that the Supreme Court is a “disgrace” because, in a reference to Donald Trump, it is “completely his.” To the wild applause of the New York audience, she added: “It’s so disgraceful, this court, that it shouldn’t even be allowed to be called the Supreme Court. It’s an insult to Motown. Basically, it’s a harem. It’s Trump’s harem.”

Her views aligned with others on the left who have attacked the Constitution, the Court, and even rights like free speech as now threats to our democracy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer previously declared in front of the Supreme Court, “I want to tell you, [Neil] Gorsuch, I want to tell you, [Brett] Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced that she wants the impeachment of all six of the conservative justices. She was immediately joined by other Democratic members. Previously, Ocasio-Cortez admitted that she does not understand why we even have a Supreme Court. She asked “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.” Other members, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have called for packing the Court with additional members to immediately secure a liberal majority to rule as she desires.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., RI), has assured voters that Vice President Kamala Harris will support the packing of the Court with a liberal majority. Despite supporting censorship to combat “disinformation,” many on the left now eagerly spread disinformation about the Court and its rulings. Lebowitz repeated false claims about the Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, stating that the decision makes the president a “king” who “can do whatever you want.” In reality, the Court followed the same approach that it has taken in prior conflicts between the branches. As it has in the past, the Court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills.

In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress. In this decision, the court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions. None of this matters. Facts do not matter. Many on the left are calling for the trashing of the Constitution based on wildly inaccurate claims.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, is author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” published last month. In a 2021 Los Angeles Times op-ed, he described conservative justices as “partisan hacks.” In the New York Times, book critic Jennifer Szalai scoffs at what she calls “Constitution worship.” She writes: “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.” She frets that by limiting the power of the majority, the Constitution “can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow.” In a 2022 New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for liberals to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”

Lebowitz is also wrong about the voting record of the justices. In reality, the Court continues to rule largely by unanimous, or nearly unanimous decisions. After April, unanimity stood at 46 percent of cases. Of the 22 6-3 decisions, only half broke along ideological lines. That is the same as the 11 such cases last term. The average for unanimous decisions has been roughly 43 percent. The rate is back up to 48 percent for the last term. When you add the nearly unanimous opinions, it is the vast majority of cases. Moreover, Sotomayor agreed with Roberts in 71% of cases Kavanaugh and Barrett agreed with Sotomayor roughly 70% of the time. In critical decisions, conservative justices like Gorsuch and Barrett have joined their liberal colleagues and the Court has repeatedly voted against positions supported by Donald Trump.

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“One of the conditions stipulated was that the Biden administration articulate a strategy regarding US support for Ukraine within 45 days of the budget’s enactment, and quarterly moving forward..”

• Biden Broke His Word To Congress – WSJ (RT)

US President Joe Biden has not been honest with the American public about his administration’s plan for Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote in an article on Friday. Despite Biden styling himself a supporter of Ukraine’s freedom in his speech to the UN General Assembly this week, he refuses to level with Congress and the American public about his strategy to achieve victory, the editorial stated. In April, lawmakers passed a nearly $61 billion supplemental budget for Ukraine, after months of wrangling between Democrats and Republicans. One of the conditions stipulated was that the Biden administration articulate a strategy regarding US support for Ukraine within 45 days of the budget’s enactment, and quarterly moving forward. “Biden knew this commitment was necessary to get aid through Congress, and he signed the bill,” WSJ observed.

Despite this, the strategy was submitted “months after the congressionally-mandated deadline,” the newspaper said, citing a press release from GOP lawmakers. “Also, and this is typical of the Biden stonewall: The document is entirely classified,” WSJ wrote, adding that congressmen want the strategy made available to the American public. ”Don’t count on the Administration following this order before Nov. 5, if it ever does,” the board said. “A public release might mean that Vice President Kamala Harris would have to explain her own thinking on the war before the election. As long as she doesn’t, and the Administration covers it up, Ms. Harris co-owns Mr. Biden’s record of muddled half measures.”

The Biden administration announced a further $8 billion in military aid for Kiev on Thursday, reserving the remainder of a large Congressionally-approved allocation set to expire by the end of September. This came right after Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky visited the US to pitch what he termed his “victory plan” to his biggest sponsor. According to several Western media sources, Kiev’s wishes are now increasingly clashing with those of its backers in the West. Its allies have also so far denied its ever-more urgent demands to allow the use of Western-supplied arms to strike deep into Russian territory.

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“..there are many US troops stationed in the Middle East, and they had a very short time to prepare for possible hostile military response..”

• Pentagon Chief ‘Blew Up’ as Israel Notified US of Strike on Nasrallah (Sp.)

Israel gave a “few minutes notice” to the United States about its intention to strike the secretary general of Lebanese movement Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, enraging Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, US media reported.
Defense Secretary Austin “blew up” when Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant informed him about the strikes on Nasrallah, as there are many US troops stationed in the Middle East, and they had a very short time to prepare for possible hostile military response to the assassination, the publication explained. Since last week, the Israeli Air Force has been carrying out massive strikes on Hezbollah targets in various parts of Lebanon. Several precision airstrikes were also recorded in Beirut, killing senior Hezbollah commanders, including Nasrallah.

To date, the Israeli army has reported strikes on several thousand Hezbollah targets. Observers note that Israel has not attacked Hezbollah with such intensity since the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Hezbollah has responded with rocket fire primarily at northern Israel, but the range of rocket attacks has increased significantly in recent days. The situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border has escalated since the start of Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip in October 2023. Tensions are growing amid statements by the Israeli military about preparations for a ground operation in Lebanon.

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“The Semites, the Semitic peoples, and speakers of the Semitic languages started as a figment of the German imagination in the late 18th century and early 19th century..”

• Jewish Anti-Semitism Towards Arabs (Helmer)

In the history of imperial conquest and rule of the Arabs – that’s Turkish, Italian, British, French, American, Israeli – decapitation of leaders has always been preferable to genocide of peoples because it’s much cheaper. Slavery, as the Portuguese empire first developed it, was the cost accountant’s solution to making genocide pay for itself – pay lucrative profits in fact. How profitable the bribery and killing methods of American decapitation of the secular Arab nationalists have been since 1943 is the story told in The Jackals’ Wedding. The combination of decapitation and genocide now being pursued by the Israelis lacks the usual cost-accounting restrictions. This is because the imperial ideologies have turned into God-dictated duty, Crusader zealotry revived, but this time Judaeo rather than Christian, rabbinical rather than papal. It is also because the US government is paying the bill. Faith in the transubstantiation of the Jewish state would wither away much quicker than the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem without US cash, capital, and underwriter guarantees.

That kingdom lasted 192 years; Israel is 76 years old; Zionism, 127 years. In self-defence, popular resistance and national liberation of the Arabs, religious conviction can only be as effective as there is military capacity for the fight. The will to fight without the weapons is doomed; just as the war-fighting capacities of the Arabs are doomed if they are inadequate – sabotaged and betrayed off the battlefield; out-gunned if used in combat; held back without a fight. For reminder of how long the present long war will be, let’s repeat this from the beginning last October. The Semites, the Semitic peoples, and speakers of the Semitic languages started as a figment of the German imagination in the late 18th century and early 19th century. It quickly became a German racial epithet, used in contrast to Aryan. By the time Adolf Hitler came along, this was the pseudo-scientific doctrine in which the Germans lumped both the Jews and the Arabs into a single category – the inferiors of the Aryans.

That is one of the reasons Hitler refused to listen to the advice of his general staff on aiding the Arab nationalist forces in Iraq, Syria and Palestine in the Wehrmacht’s war plans against the British and the Soviet Union. The pseudo-science of Semitism and Aryanism, and the idea of anti-Semitism which the Germans, together with the British and Americans, adopted in the run-up to World War II was spelled out at Harvard University by an anthropologist called Carleton Coon; he cribbed directly from German academics, turning out papers on the Berbers of Morocco and advancing his racial superiority-inferiority ideas between 1925 and 1939. When the war began, Coon joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) where he demonstrated his keenness for pistol shooting, hare-brained sabotage missions, and homicidal mania. Among his wartime schemes he proposed to remove the Arabs of the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) as unfit to rule; replace them with the restoration of the French empire; and kill those French officials whom Coon judged to get his way.

He was one of the planners of the assassination of Admiral Francois Darlan, the French military commander, in Algiers on December 24, 1942; Coon’s pistol was the murder weapon.** American murderers of the Arabs like Coon then — like Israeli murderers of Arabs now — have succeeded in establishing their doctrine of exceptionalism and racial superiority in state policy as the successor to the doctrines of Aryanism and Nazism which were interrupted by Hitler’s suicide in 1945, then the Nuremberg trials concluding in 1946. The crime of racial and cultural genocide became international law in 1948. It was then modified by the new Israeli state doctrine of anti-Semitism: this decriminalised the genocide of the Palestinian people; and outlawed instead media criticism, political opposition, even science for threatening the legitimacy of Israel’s Basic Law of Arab exclusion, and Israeli military operations to enforce it.

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“Thousands of Bulgarian farmers are going bankrupt, and the crisis is only expected to get worse in the near future.”

• Famine In Europe: The Real Goal Of Anti-Russian Policies (SCF)

The controversy over Ukrainian agricultural products continues. Ukrainian food products have simply invaded the European market and are driving thousands of farmers out of business. Despite the protests and political pressure, no EU decision-maker seems interested in changing this tragic scenario. However, the crisis seems to have even deeper dimensions and could be a real time bomb for the entire European society. The Bulgarian government recently asked the European Commission to pass a resolution banning the import of Ukrainian chicken eggs. According to the Bulgarian authorities, the large amount of cheap Ukrainian eggs on the European market is hurting Bulgarian producers, who rely on egg sales as a vital part of their business. Thousands of Bulgarian farmers are going bankrupt, and the crisis is only expected to get worse in the near future.

The problem is not limited to eggs or Bulgaria. Selling grain, meat, dairy products and everything that is produced in the countryside seems to be no longer an attractive business in Europe. Since 2022, protests for change have been taking place in all parts of the European continent. From Poland to France, no European farmer is happy to see his products being replaced on the market by massive quantities of cheap Ukrainian agricultural items. This is due to the irrational decision of European decision-makers to ban all import tariffs on Ukrainian food products. The measure is allegedly intended to boost the Ukrainian economy during the crisis caused by the conflict with Russia – which ironically is sponsored by the West itself. In the current European market, it is cheaper to import Ukrainian food than to resell the native products, which is obviously causing thousands of farmers to abandon their businesses.

As well known, most of Europe does not have a very strong agricultural sector, with local farmers relying on government aid to stay active in the market. Without this aid and with the invasion of Ukrainian products, it is simply no longer profitable to be part of European agribusiness, which is why thousands of people are likely to stop working in the rural areas and join the growing class of the European “precariat”. At first, some analysts may see this scenario as a mere market shift, replacing European production with Ukrainian production. However, this analysis is limited. Despite having some of the most fertile soils in the world, Ukraine is currently a target of Western financial predators, who demand the handover of arable land as a means of payment for NATO’s billion-dollar aid packages. Organizations such as Blackrock and other funds will soon own almost all that is left of Ukraine’s “black soil.”

And then Ukrainian agricultural production will depend on the willingness of the “financial sharks” to feed the Europeans. It is true that the lack of food self-sufficiency in European countries is not a new problem. Imports are already a vital mechanism for all of Western Europe. But parallel to the dependence on imports, there is also the irrational policy of sanctions and coercive measures against several emerging food-producing countries. The Russian Federation, for example, is prohibited from selling anything to Europeans, but the problem is even greater. The EU has been considering for years imposing severe sanctions on Brazil, for example, alleging “environmental irregularities”. It will get to the point where the EU’s “humanitarian and environmental” requirements will prevent Europeans from buying anything from any country.

If we ask who is interested in this whole scenario, the answer will once again seem clear. There is only one country encouraging Europe to impose more and more sanctions, buy more and more Ukrainian grain and send more and more weapons to Kiev under payment terms regulated by Blackrock. Of course, this is the same country that boycotted Russian-European energy cooperation and committed the terrorist attack on Nord Stream. And certainly this is also the only state interested in maintaining the geopolitical status quo and preventing the creation of a multipolar world, where Europeans would have freedom of alignment and could pragmatically choose their partners.

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“..like a river undisturbed while traversing a rocky wilderness, China silently flows away on its path to peaceful primacy.”

• Watching the China River Flow (Pepe Escobar)

Leading website Guancha has published the transcript of a first-class lecture at Renmin University on China-U.S. relations by Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World. Jacques is one of the very few Westerner scholars with on the ground experience who actually understands the Chinese psyche and way of life in contrast to the West. A particularly intriguing section of the lecture concerns research by Danny Quah, the dean of the widely respected Lee Kuan Yew Institute in Singapore. This is the money quote: “Between 1980 and 2020, Europe’s share of global GDP fell from 26% to 15%. In other words, it fell by 11 percentage points, a very large drop. Although the decline in the United States was smaller, it fell from 21% in the 1980s to less than 16% in 2020. From another perspective, Asia and East Asia are constantly rising. The share in 1980 was 11.5%, and it has risen to 25% in 2020. Among this 25%, China has made the largest contribution, accounting for 18% of the world.”

What this graphically illustrates is the acute swing in the world’s center of economic gravity – no matter the rhetorical tsunamis emanating from the Hegemon. In 1980 the economic center was Atlanticist. Quah though believes that the economic center will reach the Sino-Indian border only by 2050. When we take China compounded with the 10 members of ASEAN, without even considering South Asia, it’s fair to argue that the economic center will already be in the East by 2030, and will be Sino-Indian before 2040. Jacques is correct that by then “the ‘Asian Age’ will replace the ‘Western Age’, and since 1750, the world has always been in the Western Age.” On a personal note, after living and working in Asia for most of the past three decades, I qualify our century as “The Eurasian Century”.

And that, in a nutshell, is the reason why the Hegemon/Atlanticist elites are in Deep Panic mode. The free lunch – of exploiting the wealth of the Global South – is coming to an end. China has already designed the masterplan of its development strategy all the way to 2035 and in many aspects all the way to 2049. The current juncture though is extremely tricky. The People’s Bank of China is taking the necessary master tweaks of the economy very seriously. Earlier this week the PBoC announced cuts to the outstanding mortgage rate and the reserve requirement ratio: that’s the amount of cash commercial banks need to hold as reserves. The PBoC also cut the benchmark policy rate and boosted capital markets. Then the Politburo, chaired by President Xi Jinping himself, intervened in full force, vowing to protect China’s private enterprises; finally stabilise the always wobbly property sector; and adopt the necessary fiscal expenditures.

That’s the domestic front. On the external front, China is on a roll. The top priority is the slowly but surely internationalization of the yuan. And that’s where the crucial role of Hong Kong comes in – as detailed in a report by Renmin University. China is already de-dollarizing at nearly breakneck speed. The U.S. dollar’s share of bilateral trade has already fallen from 80% to less than 50%. China is now trading with the world mostly in yuan – and the petroyuan is not even in full force. Since the start of the SMO by Russia in Ukraine in February 2022, the yuan is the de facto Asian reserve currency for Russia. In parallel, Beijing is accelerating currency swaps all across the spectrum and designating more clearing banks around the world.

From Beijing to Hong Kong, Chinese politico-economic elites are quite comfortable with the fact that for the first time in History, the rise of a great power is not being conditioned by imperialism, war, slavery, looting and all of the above, but under what has been codified since the Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping’s late 1970s reforms as “peaceful development.” That is mirrored in several concepts such as win-win; mutual prosperity; equality; “community of shared future for mankind”; and as a master geoeconomic project, the interlocking connectivity corridors across the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While China invests in infrastructure development around the world, the Hegemon imposes sanctions, engages in bombing, supports variations of the Forever Wars, finances and weaponizes color revolutions.

Hegemon “strategy” barely qualifying as utter mediocrity ranges from the U.S. government funding a $1.6 billion campaign to smear China to Republicans divided on whether regime change in Beijing is their ultimate goal and the Democrat ambassador in Beijing convinced that Washington’s China policy is not too hawkish. Then there’s puny functionary and Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell – the man who invented the “pivot to Asia” during the first Obama administration – ordering the Europeans to go hawkish on China and defining Beijing in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee as “the most significant challenge in our history”. Very few IQs above room temperature across Asia pay attention to such clowns. In contrast, what is now emerging in informed discussions from South to Southeast Asia is that BRICS progress will not be steady enough if the emphasis remains on consensual decisions.

A daring proposition is emerging that Russia and China – the actual BRICS leaders – should announce at the summit in Kazan next month that they are backing a yuan/ruble/gold alliance: as in if the world needs to choose between NATOstan hegemony or a BRICS alternative, better start with sound (real) money. Beyond the feasibility of such proposal, there’s a serious critique of Utopia; the Global Majority must be pushed to face the harsh reality it faces – nuclear destruction or an imperfect evolving new order – and make a stand, fast. Meanwhile, like a river undisturbed while traversing a rocky wilderness, China silently flows away on its path to peaceful primacy.

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“The late, great evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, often described our predicament as follows: “We have stumbled into the twenty-first century with stone-age emotions, medieval institutions, and near godlike technologies.”

“We have arrived, after centuries of Western dominance, to a world beyond hegemony.”

• Beyond Hegemony (Jeffrey Sachs)

We are at a new phase of human history because of the confluence of three interrelated trends. First, and most pivotal, the Western-led world system, in which countries of the North Atlantic region dominate the world militarily, economically, and financially, has ended. Second, the global ecological crisis marked by human-induced climate change, the destruction of biodiversity, and the massive pollution of the environment, will lead to fundamental changes of the world economy and governance. Third, the rapid advance of technologies across several domains—artificial intelligence, computing, biotechnology, geoengineering—will profoundly disrupt the world economy and politics. These interconnecting developments—geopolitical, environmental, and technological—are stoking huge uncertainties, societal dislocations, political crises, and open wars.

To address these pivotal developments, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for a Summit of the Future (SOTF) (September 22-23rd, 2024 at the UN headquarters in New York) to reform our international institutions so that they are fit for purpose in our fast-changing world. Since global peace depends more than ever on the efficacy of the UN and international law, the SOTF should be a watershed in global governance, even if it does no more than point the way to further negotiation and deliberation in the years immediately ahead. Our existing institutions, both national and international, are certainly not up to the task of governance in our fast-changing world. The late, great evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, often described our predicament as follows: “We have stumbled into the twenty-first century with stone-age emotions, medieval institutions, and near godlike technologies.”

By this he meant that we face our challenges today with the basic cognitive and emotional human nature that was formed by human evolution tens of thousands of years ago, with political institutions forged centuries ago (the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787), and with the lightning speed of technological advance (think of ChatGPT as just the latest wonder). Perhaps the most basic fact of deep societal change is uncertainty, and the most basic reaction to uncertainty is fear. In fact, the technological advances—if used correctly—could solve innumerable problems in economic development, social justice (e.g., improved access to healthcare and education through digital connectivity), and environmental sustainability (e.g., a rapid transition to zero-carbon energy sources). Yet the mood today is anything but optimistic, especially in the West. Open wars rage between the United States and Russia in Ukraine, and between U.S.-backed Israel and Palestine.

The possibility of war between the United States and China is widely, openly, and even casually discussed in Washington, though such a war could mean the end of civilization itself. At the root of these conflicts is fear, built on our stone-age emotions. The biggest fear of all is that of many American and European political leaders that the West is losing its hegemony after centuries, and that somehow the loss of hegemony will have catastrophic consequences. Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made this Western fear explicit in an April 2024 column for the UK’s Daily Mail, when he stated that if the West loses the war in Ukraine, “it will be the end of Western hegemony.”

Herein lies the essence of the Ukraine war, and many other global conflicts as well. The United States and its allies want to expand NATO to Ukraine. Russia has firmly said no. Both Washington and London were ready to fight a war with Russia over NATO enlargement to protect Western hegemony (specifically, the right to dictate security arrangements to Russia), while Russia was ready to fight a war in order to keep NATO away. In fact, Russia is prevailing on the battlefield over Ukraine’s army and NATO’s armaments. This is not surprising. What is perhaps surprising is how the West completely underestimated Russia’s capabilities.

In broad terms, with the changing global order, including the rise of China and the rest of East Asia, the military and technological strength of Russia, the rapid development of India, and the growing unity of Africa, the Western-dominated world has been brought to an end, not by a tumultuous collapse of the West, but by the growing economic, technological, and therefore military, power of the rest of the world. In principle, the West has no reason to fear the rise of the rest, as the United States and Europe still maintain an overwhelming deterrence, including nuclear deterrence, against any military threat from the outside. The West is bemoaning its loss of relative status—the ability to dictate to others—not any real military insecurity.

Nothing is going to restore Western hegemony in the coming years—no military victory, technological advance, or economic leverage. The rise of advanced military, technological, economic, and financial capacities to Asia and beyond, is unstoppable (and of course should not be stopped, since it signifies a world that is fairer and more prosperous than the preceding Western-dominated world). Yet, the end of Western hegemony does not mean a new Chinese, Indian, or Asian hegemony. There are simply too many power centers—the United States, the EU, China, Russia, India, the African Union, etc.—and too much capacity and diversity to enable any other hegemon to replace the Western-led world order. We have arrived, after centuries of Western dominance, to a world beyond hegemony.

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“to be the president of the USA, he had to have the backing of certain people like the Clintons” and “the [George] Soros people…the ones who are really controlling everything out there.”

• Obama Was A ‘Simp’ For The Deep State – Brother (RT)

Barack Obama courted the ‘deep state’ during his rise to power, and once in office was powerless to disobey their orders, the former US president’s half-brother has told Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi. In an interview set to air on Monday, Malik Obama told Rattansi that before he entered the corridors of power, Barack Obama “was a really humble, really nice person.” However, “to be the president of the USA, he had to have the backing of certain people like the Clintons” and “the [George] Soros people…the ones who are really controlling everything out there.” Keeping their backing, along with the support of the deep state, was crucial to Barack Obama, and Malik suggested that his half-brother wouldn’t have dared oppose the 2014 coup in Ukraine or the 2011 regime-change operation against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

“He would have lost his support,” Malik said. “He would not be what he is today, because those people are the ones that propped him up and he had to play to them.” “That’s why I like President Trump,” he continued, “because he does things his own way. He reached out to North Korea and met the leader there. [Obama] could have done that for Muammar Gaddafi. I think he’s just… he’s a simp.” The term ‘deep state’ refers to the unelected and often unknown government bureaucrats who steer government policy, particularly the leaders of intelligence agencies and the military. Malik Obama has the same father as the ex-president, and visited the White House several times during his brother’s first term in office. However, he later claimed that Barack was “cold and ruthless,” and blasted him for abandoning his Kenyan family.

He has since made a series of bizarre claims about the former president, apparently announcing last year that Barack Obama is “definitely gay,” and alleging in 2017 that he was born in Kenya. Malik Obama is a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, who before running for office in 2016 challenged Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate over doubts he was born in the US. Trump later abandoned the dispute and admitted that Obama was born in the US. During the full interview with Rattansi, Malik Obama discussed the current state of his relationship with his brother, and Barack’s alleged role in forcing President Joe Biden to end his reelection campaign.

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” If there is peace with Russia, the military/security complex loses its enemy, which means its power and its budget. Now watch dumbshit Americans vote Democrat and bring Armageddon upon the world.”

• Putin Proved Me Correct (Paul Craig Roberts)

For years I have warned that Putin’s refusal to quickly win the conflict with Ukraine would result in increasing Western intervention until the conflict spins out of control. That has now happened. NATO’s Secretary General and the British Prime Minister have given a green light to NATO firing missiles into Russia from Ukraine. The green light is subject to Washington’s veto. Zelensky, the Ukrainian dictator whose term as president has expired, was reportedly recently in Washington lobbying the Biden regime to give its approval. Be sure you understand what Zelensky is lobbying the Biden regime to do. If the Biden regime gives the go-ahead, Europe, the US, and Ukraine will be destroyed. Here is Putin’s statement. It is a back-to-the-wall statement, as I predicted it would be: “Aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, with the participation or support of a nuclear state, is to be considered as a joint attack on the Russian Federation.”

So, as I correctly predicted would be the case, a never-ending conflict that drew in the West to increasingly provocative participation has spun out of control. So far everything Washington said would not be done has been done. The final red line is NATO sending missiles into Russia. If this no-no also becomes a yes-yes “because Putin never responds,” war is upon us. It has played out precisely as I said. Yet, I was either ignored by “experts” who are nothing but mouthpieces for the military-security complex, or denounced by fools as “blood-thirsty.” The fact remains: one more wrong decision from the White House and we are history.

Remember, it was Trump who wanted to normalize relations with Russia. The crazed CIA director called the President of the United States a “traitor.” Trump’s own Justice (sic) Department and FBI and the American presstitute media along with Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party fabricated a Russiagate case against Trump, brought two false impeachments against him, cooked up stripper gate, documents gate, and an “insurrection.” One thousand Americans who exercised their First Amendment rights were sentenced by a totally corrupt DOJ to prison. Once Trump announced a second campaign for the presidency, the false accusations were turned into false indictments. All of this was done to prevent peace with Russia. If there is peace with Russia, the military/security complex loses its enemy, which means its power and its budget. Now watch dumbshit Americans vote Democrat and bring Armageddon upon the world.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Assange Nasrallah
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840179353738719388

 

 

Cancer

 

 

Geese
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840294827033772126

 

 

Gardiner

 

 

23

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 5 2024

Sep 052024
 
 September 5, 2024  Posted by at 8:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  75 Responses »


René Magritte Pandora’s box 1951

 

• Tyranny Is Closer Than You Realize (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Popular Conservatives Tricked Into $10M Russian Influence Campaign: DOJ (ZH)
• US Justice Department Reveals Legal Action Against RT (RT)
• Biden To Take ‘Law Enforcement Action’ Against RT – CNN (RT)
• Persecution of Sputnik, RT Contributors Highlights US Hypocrisy (Sp.)
• Harris Denounced Unfettered Free Speech in 2019 CNN Interview (Turley)
• Fake News Now At Peak As Kamala Faces CNN “interview” (Jay)
• Harris-Walz: The Ticket Of COVID Tyranny (Rich)
• Trump To Fight Revamped J6 Charges (RT)
• Zelensky Vows To ‘Hold’ Occupied Russian Territory (RT)
• Ukraine ‘Weaponizing’ Religion – Church of Jerusalem (RT)
• Rothschild Helped Ukraine Clinch Debt Restructuring – Reuters (RT)
• ‘Looming Threat’ From Russia Sparks ‘Major Rethink’ Of EU Defense Policy (RT)
• Starlink Agrees To Comply With Brazil’s Orders To Block X (ZH)
• Pavel Durov – Freedom To Play Fool, Stock Speculator, Fraudster (Helmer)
• Mongolia Showed Its Greatness To The World (SCF)
• Truth is being Removed from the Western World (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Emerald

 

 

Hawley
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831132426573054452

 

 

SAVE Act
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831010091849421005

 

 

Vivek
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831180765234655471

 

 

Trump Nordstream

 

 

Trump Fridman

 

 

 

 

Will they try to lock him up for a year, 6 weeks before the election?

• Tyranny Is Closer Than You Realize (Paul Craig Roberts)

It is strange that there is no discussion of it, but in two weeks and one day on September 18 Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president in the November election in two months, is scheduled by a corrupt Democrat “judge” to be sentenced for 34 felony counts pulled out of thin air by a corrupt Democrat prosecutor for how Trump’s accountants reported an expense. Trump’s accountants reported the expense as a legal expense, which was a reasonable classification of the expense, but the corrupt Democrat prosecutor said it was a campaign contribution by Trump to his own campaign and that by reporting it as a legal expense he is guilty of interfering in the election. It is this absurd personal opinion of the corrupt Democrat prosecutor–are there any Democrat prosecutors who are not corrupt?– that turned a non-issue of how an expense was reported into 34 felony charges.

In fact, there is only one charge. But the corrupt Democrat prosecutor wrote it up 34 different times in order to create an appearance of large scale crime. Few jurors have the intelligence to see the wool being pulled over their eyes, especially when all they hear from the whore media is that Trump is a criminal and a threat to democracy, a traitor to America, a Russian agent, an insurrectionist, and so on. No one in the whore American media tells them any different. What is the Democrat judge going to do on September 18? I can’t say that I know. If common sense were involved, the Democrat judge would have set the sentencing date after the election, or he would issue a suspended sentence. But common sense is not part of the script. According to the scuttlebutt, the Democrat Justice (sic) Department has decided on a one year prison sentence.

According to the scuttlebutt the Democrat Justice (sic) Department has been working it out with Rikers prison a way of accommodating Trump’s Secret Service protection that is required by federal law for former presidents 24/7. Whether the Secret Service will do any better job of protecting Trump in prison than they did at his Pennsylvania rally is the open question. The puzzling aspect of the September 18 sentencing is why bother? All of the theft mechanisms used in the swing states to deny Trump his 2020 victory have been legalized. In the swing states it is now legal to steal the election, so why bother sentencing Trump? Is it chaos that the elite want? Are the tyrannical elite hoping that Trump’s imprisonment will cause people to pour into the streets, thus permitting the Democrat regime to declare an insurrection and arrest all Republican members of Congress, all Republican governors, and all Republican state legislatures?

Will torture uncover a plot and lead to the arrest and detention of all white conservatives and registered Republican voters in detention camps that already exist, allegedly for hurricane victims? It would happen so fast that there would be no chance of organized resistance. I agree, this sounds far-fetched, so what is the point of the sentencing? Justice? From Democrats? What a joke!! Democrats care nothing for justice. They are after power. At all costs. One would think that the issue of one political party sentencing the presidential candidate of the other political party to prison six weeks prior to the election would be a major issue dominating the news and public discussion. But it is not. There is no information. Only scuttlebutt.

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They allegedly paid them well.

• Popular Conservatives Tricked Into $10M Russian Influence Campaign: DOJ (ZH)

The DOJ has accused several conservative influencers of unwittingly working for a Kremlin-funded media outlet. A federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday alleges that a Tennessee-based media company, later identified as Tenet Media, received nearly $10 million from employees of Russian state-backed media company, Russia Today (RT), as part of “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” The DOJ claims that RT and two of its employees – Kostiantyn “Kostya” Kalashnikov and Elena “Lena” Afanasyeva – worked to funnel money to Tenet Media as part of a series of “covert projects” aimed at shaping narratives within Western audiences. The indictment specifically notes that the influencers – including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin and Lauren Southern – had no idea they were taking Russian money, and were deceived.

They were told by Tenet founder Lauren Chen – who allegedly knew the true source of the funds – that the money was from a wealthy private investor named “Eduard Grigoriann.” At least one of the influencers asked for a profile on Grigoriann before signing a contract – and was given a fabricated one-page profile. This was apparently sufficient, as two of the commentators (believed to be Tim Pool and Benny Johnson) signed contracts which paid Pool $100,000 per podcast, while Johnson was paid $400,000 per month plus a $100,000 signing bonus for “four weekly videos.” While Pool and Johnson have issued statements (below), it’s been pointed out that Lauren Chen has recently been trying to divide Donald Trump’s base…

In a Wednesday statement on X, Pool says that should the allegations prove true, “I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” and ends by telling haters to “eat my irish ass.” Johnson says “Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated,” adding “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.” We’re sure the timing of this, two months before the election, was a total coincidence. How long has the DOJ been sitting on this? Why did it drop a day after we learned that a Chinese spy was working for NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, or that Poole was going to sue Kamala Harris for defamation?

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“..trick Americans into unwittingly consuming foreign propaganda.”

• US Justice Department Reveals Legal Action Against RT (RT)

The US Department of Justice has charged two Russians it identifies as RT employees with money laundering and working as foreign agents for their alleged role in pushing video content that sowed “discord and division” in the US. In a criminal indictment unsealed on Wednesday, US prosecutors claimed that Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva financed and directed a Tennessee-based production company that published English-language videos to various social media platforms aimed at amplifying “domestic divisions in the United States.” These videos were viewed more than 16 million times on YouTube alone, the indictment alleged, and, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, represented an attempt to “trick Americans into unwittingly consuming foreign propaganda.”

Producing videos that highlight social and political divisions in the US is not a crime. However, the Justice Department claimed that Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva broke the law by not registering as foreign agents. Back in 2017, the Department of Justice forced the now-defunct RT America to register as a foreign agent, after a host of US intelligence agencies claimed that RT had helped to elect Donald Trump by publishing “negative coverage” of Hillary Clinton and criticizing the US’ “corrupt political establishment.” Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva face a maximum sentence of five years in prison for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and 20 years for money laundering. However, the charges against them will likely never be proven in an American courtroom, as the US has no extradition treaty with Russia.

The two Russians were also sanctioned by the US Treasury Department on Wednesday, along with RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and three other senior RT employees. Simonyan dismissed the charges, responding “great job, team!” on Telegram. In a press conference on Wednesday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the allegations against Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, as well as a separate Russian scheme to allegedly spread anti-Ukraine content online, “make clear the ends to which the Russian government, including at its highest levels, is willing to go to undermine our democratic process.”

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RT’s answer is clear.

• Biden To Take ‘Law Enforcement Action’ Against RT – CNN (RT)

The administration of US President Joe Biden is planning to accuse Russia of meddling in this year’s presidential election, and will announce “law enforcement action” against those supposedly responsible, CNN reported on Wednesday. RT will be the prime target of this action, the network stated. The White House will accuse Russia on Wednesday of “a sustained effort to influence the 2024 US elections” by using “Kremlin-run media” to spread so-called “disinformation,” CNN reported, citing US government sources. Alongside a public condemnation from the White House, the US Department of Justice will announce “law enforcement action targeting the covert Russian campaign,” the network said. RT is “a major focus of the US announcement,” CNN added, noting that “US officials see the Russian outlet as a key piece of Kremlin propaganda efforts.”

“Dear CNN,” RT’s press office responded following Wednesday’s article. “We certainly have a response. Actually, we have several, but we couldn’t decide on one (we even thought of running an office poll), so here they are:

1. Ha!

2. Hahahaha!

3. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

4. 2016 called and it wants its clichés back

5. Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections

6. We gotta earn our Kremlin paycheck somehow

7. Somewhere, Secretary Clinton is sad that it’s not because of her

SINCERELY,

RT Press Office”

Democrats like Biden have accused Russia of interfering in the last two presidential elections. During the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, US intelligence agencies repeatedly claimed that Moscow was deploying hackers and using “information warfare” to swing the vote in favor of Donald Trump. These allegations, coupled with claims that Trump had colluded with Moscow to win the election, formed the basis for a two-year investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but were ultimately found to be baseless. In 2020, more than 50 “former intelligence officials” published a letter claiming that files on Hunter Biden’s laptop – which implicated the Biden family in multiple foreign corruption schemes – were fabricated by Russia. The laptop’s contents have since been proven genuine.

Throughout the past decade, American officials have repeatedly accused RT of spreading “disinformation” – a term that these officials rarely define. Back in 2017, the Department of Justice forced RT America to register as a foreign agent, after a host of US intelligence agencies claimed that RT had helped to elect Trump by publishing “negative coverage” of Clinton and criticizing the US’ “corrupt political establishment.” RT America ceased operations in 2022 after the network was dropped by its US distributors in response to the Ukraine conflict.

Despite their claims of “Russian interference” in US elections being repeatedly proven to be without foundation, American spies have stuck to them. Earlier this summer, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in Washington alleged that the Kremlin had mounted a “whole-of-government” effort to turn the American public against Biden and his fellow Democrats. This accusation paved the way for the FBI to raid the homes of Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector and RT contributor, and Dimitri K. Simes, a Soviet-born US political pundit who hosts a show on domestic Russian television. Ritter described the raid as an attempt to intimidate “anyone who goes against official [US] policies and particularly against the deep state.”

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“..it is not the Russians but the US government that is engaged in an attempt to influence and control the popular narrative for its own benefit.”

• Persecution of Sputnik, RT Contributors Highlights US Hypocrisy (Sp.)

The United States’ persecution campaign against journalists and political dissidents with ties to Russian media accelerated Wednesday when new repressive measures were announced against several entities. New sanctions were announced against 10 individuals and two organizations under the umbrella of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, including RIA Novosti, RT, Sputnik and Ruptly. The sanctions target these entities for alleged “hostile interference in the presidential elections,” the US Treasury Department claimed. The measures also target editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya and RT Margarita Simonyan and several top managers at RT. Ex-CIA analyst and former State Department counterterrorism expert Larry Johnson spoke with Sputnik Wednesday about the startling development, the latest attempt by the Biden administration to shape political discourse online and in the media.

“The latest stunt pulled by the Biden Department of Justice to declare all of these sanctions on Russia for alleged interference in the US political system is a level of hypocrisy that is staggering in its magnitude and in its foulness,” Johnson said.“Let’s be clear about one thing: the one country in the world that has been involved with more interference in the internal political affairs of every other country is the United States. During the reign of President Eisenhower in the 1950s, there were 170 different covert actions carried out against other countries.” “This year [the US has] allocated almost $4 billion to interfere or meddle in the political affairs of other countries,” he continued. “$315 million of that goes to the National Endowment for Democracy. $300 million is specifically what they call counter-Russian influence. And another $2.9 billion is for ‘democracy’ programs. And these have been used basically to run propaganda, to pay people, to organize ‘democracy’ programs in places like Georgia.”

The US frequently funds pro-Western media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in foreign countries it targets for regime change to pave the way for a pro-US government to come to power. Author and journalist William Blum documented over 50 examples of significant US interference in other countries since World War II in his classic book Killing Hope, largely based on the shocking revelations of ex-CIA agent Philip Agee. More recently the US has interfered in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Ukraine, paving the way for the latter country’s extremist anti-Russia government through its support for the Euromaidan coup in 2014. “I don’t know how many millions of dollars are allocated to the CIA for additional covert actions designed to plant stories in media, to create electronic media, to influence social networks across the board,” Johnson continued. “It’s the United States that’s meddling.

With respect to the entire bogus claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, we now know without a doubt that that was a Democrat operation led by Hillary Clinton and her team,” he added. “Everything we were told about Donald Trump and the Russians was a lie. I was one of the few writing about it at the time to call it out… The notion that RT is manipulating and influencing the presidential election is beyond laughable,” he claimed, noting that the Russian television channel’s app is banned from many app stores in the West while its content has been removed from YouTube and other websites. “How is a news network that’s not allowed to broadcast and that’s shut [out] of social media in the United States supposed to influence [the election]? … It just goes across the board that they’re going to try to attack any kind of alternative voice in the media.”

Johnson noted that he has been subjected to a “pre-interview” with most television news outlets he has appeared on, such as the BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS and the CBC, during which employees for each outlet attempted to ascertain what he would say when interviewed live on air. RT was one of only two outlets that never subjected him to the practice, he said. “It’s the so-called ‘free democracies’ that want to run that litmus test,” he said. Johnson said the recent persecution of figures connected to RT and Sputnik is merely another attempt to run the “Russiagate” playbook, attempting to discredit alternative media outlets that critique US foreign policy. “Electoral interference” continues to take place, Johnson claimed, but it is not the Russians but the US government that is engaged in an attempt to influence and control the popular narrative for its own benefit.

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“..Donald Trump, he has 65 million Twitter followers, he has proven himself to be willing to obstruct justice – just ask Bob Mueller..”

• Harris Denounced Unfettered Free Speech in 2019 CNN Interview (Turley)

I previously wrote how a Harris-Walz Administration would be a nightmare for free speech. Both candidates have shown pronounced anti-free speech values. Now, X owner Elon Musk and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have released the interview to show the depths of the hostility of Harris to unfettered free speech. I have long argued that Trump and the third-party candidates should make free speech a central issue in this campaign. That has not happened. Kennedy was the only candidate who was substantially and regularly talking about free speech in this election. Yet, Musk and Kennedy are still trying to raise the chilling potential of a Harris-Walz Administration. In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how the Biden-Harris Administration has proven to be the most anti-free speech administration since John Adams.

That includes a massive censorship system described by one federal judge as perfectly “Orwellian.” In the CNN interview, Harris displays many of the anti-free speech inclinations discussed earlier. She strongly suggests that X should be shut down if it does not yield to demands for speech regulation. What is most chilling is how censorship and closure are Harris’s default positions when faced with unfettered speech. She declares to CNN that such unregulated free speech “has to stop” and that there is a danger to the country when people are allowed to “directly speak[] to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight and regulation.” Harris discussed her view that then-President Trump’s Twitter account should be shut down because the public had to be protected from harmful viewpoints.

“And when you’re talking about Donald Trump, he has 65 million Twitter followers, he has proven himself to be willing to obstruct justice – just ask Bob Mueller. You can look at the manifesto from the shooter in El Paso to know that what Donald Trump says on Twitter impacts peoples’ perceptions about what they should and should not do.” Harris demanded that Trump’s account “should be taken down” and that there be uniformity in the censorship of American citizens: “And the bottom line is that you can’t say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power… They are speaking to millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. And that has to stop.”

In other words, free speech should be set to the lowest common denominator of speech regulation to protect citizens from dangerous viewpoints. Harris’s views have been echoed by many Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton who (after Musk purchased Twitter) called upon European censors to force him to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). Other Democratic leaders have praised Brazil for banning X after Musk balked at censoring conservatives at the demand of the socialist government. Brazil is where this anti-free speech movement is clearly heading and could prove a critical testing ground for national bans on sites which refuse to engage in comprehensive censorship. As Harris clearly states in the CNN interview, there cannot be “one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter.” Rather, everyone must censor or face imminent government shutdowns.

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“‘gold fishing’ – an on-screen facial contortion where the lips and cheeks move, but nothing comes out of the mouth..”

“Harris is seen as the most suitable candidate to further the causes of America’s military industrial complex ..”

• Fake News Now At Peak As Kamala Faces CNN “interview” (Jay)

Wherever you look, it feels like we are being bombarded now with an unprecedented level of fake news. One reason may well be how the installed governments by western elites – military industrial complex and banking – are getting very skittish indeed about a shake up of world order in November when the airhead Kamala Harris takes on Donald Trump in the presidential elections. This new trend of installing a useful idiot into power has been around for decades across Africa and Asia where the U.S. and before that the UK installed their own despots to serve their own needs, so we shouldn’t be so shocked by someone like Harris having the landscape prepared for her. To call Harris a ‘lightweight’ is understating her political verve. She has none of the conventional talents that politicians require like public speaking, or engaging with media, let alone having any ideas of her own which might make it one day to policy.

For most Americans the choice in November is between Harris, who is essentially Biden 2.0 or Trump. Not exactly a tough call many might say since RFK endorsed Trump who traditionally he has not been a fan of; it’s as though he’s saying to Americans, “anything but Kamala. Do the maths”. Media is of course playing a huge and certainly tawdry role in pushing her which is not generally noted by most Americans. For weeks she has ignored or avoided all serendipitous contact with journalists which surely must be orders from the elite who are controlling her. And there is good reason for this as the internet is awash with her talking gibberish. Or dancing. Talking mumbo jumbo won’t help her at the polls against Trump who revels at the microphone and is not afraid to go head to head with journalists and unscripted interviews, despite him whining about how unfair the set-up is.

What he is alluding to is that left-wing media in America like CNN fake the news and as we saw recently almost certainly gave Kamala a print out of the questions she was going to face with her recent CNN interview where she was joined by her running mate just in case she did something which broadcast journalists call ‘gold fishing’ – an on-screen facial contortion where the lips and cheeks move, but nothing comes out of the mouth. In Kamala’s case, gold fishing might not be as bad as actually speaking, as she has shown us that there is not much between the ears. She is not overburdened with what many academics have of knowing too much and not being able to communicate in short sound bites. Harris doesn’t really know anything at all except a few talking points from Biden’s days. Her own people will be happy with the staged interview as they can at least counter oped writers who claim she is so lame that she avoids all press. Thanks CNN. Great jaaaabbbb.

Harris is seen as the most suitable candidate to further the causes of America’s military industrial complex whose six main companies cannot slow production down, unless they make job layoffs. The insatiable hunger of this machine is responsible for the lion’s share of U.S. foreign policy and Biden gave his cronies their one hundred Christmas’s when he created the Ukraine war and more recently Gaza. In Gaza the false reporting from western media is as repulsive as the images of children who have lost their entire brains and whose heads look like theatrical floppy props, which has become the day to day norm now when Israel bombs schools. Does anyone in the west in either camp still believe this is a “war” against Hamas fighters?

With the recent invasion of West Bank and the rise of settlers stealing land there, surely the real story of Netanyahu’s campaign is there for all to see in plain light: ethnic cleansing on a grand scale to wipe Palestinians off the face of Israel. And still we read western journalists and op-ed writers parroting the line about ‘two state solutions’ and what the EU says, etc etc. By the time the chairs are arranged and the mineral water is put on the tables, there will not be a Palestinian left to even represent his or her own state. Everyone knows the two-state solution is a massive parody of diplo gibberish a bit like Kamala’s few media stints which are still good for a laugh today. And it’s an identical story in Ukraine. No western journalists can report on the true story of Ukrainian losses in Kursk and how the operation has blown up in Zelensky’s face. The omission of reporting key facts and data is just as bad as making up your stories, if not worse.

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“..he also established a “Covid hotline” where people could call and report anyone who wasn’t following the governor’s edicts..”

• Harris-Walz: The Ticket Of COVID Tyranny (Rich)

Quarantine, lockdowns, social distancing – words I’m sure everyone reading never wants to hear again. Even several years removed, the pain inflicted by Covid-19 and subsequent policy reactions is still fresh in our collective consciousness. I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to forget the whole thing, and you wouldn’t be the only one. The authoritarians who violated your freedoms in the name of Covid safety would love for those years – and their mistakes – to be forgotten. As it happens, two of those authoritarians will be appearing together on ballots this November – Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Kamala Harris is a familiar name to many Americans. Picked out by Biden to serve as vice president on the 2020 Democrat ticket, she has served the past three-and-a-half years as Biden’s second-in-command. Depending on the outcome of the presidential elections in November, she might even be getting a promotion.

But in her capacity as VP, she has overseen the Biden administration’s increasingly tyrannical edicts in the name of stopping Covid. In 2021, the Biden administration attempted to wield OSHA against the American people by requiring that any companies with over 100 employees require weekly testing or vaccination. Not only was the legal reasoning behind this mandate spurious, the actions being mandated had, at best, questionable efficacy in combating the “Omicron” Covid strain. Thankfully, the mandate was struck down in a 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court in 2022, but neither Biden nor anyone in his administration ever rescinded their support for the measure. Additionally, the Biden administration took steps to censor anyone skeptical of their Covid policies by putting pressure on private companies. As revealed by the “Twitter Files,” the Biden administration would request that Twitter either ban or artificially reduce the reach of certain accounts.

These included high-profile individuals, such as Robert Kennedy Jr. It was only after Elon Musk purchased Twitter that such government “requests” were disclosed to the public. Vice President Harris has done more than look on with passive approval at the Biden administration’s actions. She has been actively involved in vaccination drives, encouraging masking, and imploring Americans to social distance. At a 2021 vaccine drive in South Carolina, Harris stated: “So, the vaccines—let me say it again—are safe. They are safe. And they are free. And they are effective. And it is that simple.” And, on the subject of “herd immunity”: “If you are vaccinated, you are protected. If your community is vaccinated, Covid rates in your community will go down.”

Just a few months after these remarks, the Delta variant would crash through the United States, despite millions of Americans being vaccinated. The same would happen again in 2022, when the Omicron variant caused record-high numbers of Covid infections. Harris also supported vaccines for children aged 5-11, despite the fact that young children are among the least likely to suffer serious complications from Covid. Even the World Health Organization would later reverse their position on child vaccination because of the marginal-to-nonexistent benefits.

In contrast to Harris, Tim Walz is an unfamiliar name to many. In 2018, Walz was elected governor of Minnesota, reelected in 2022, and is currently running with Harris for vice president. During Covid, he supported the same masking, lockdown, and social distancing policies that most governors across the country did, however, Walz’s administration was willing to go farther in these measures than many other governors. After Walz issued a stay-at-home order to prevent the spread of Covid, he also established a “Covid hotline” where people could call and report anyone who wasn’t following the governor’s edicts. This caused no small amount of controversy within the state, but when Walz was asked about removing the hotline, he said, “We’re not going to take down a phone number that people can call to keep their families safe.”

Walz was perfectly willing to enforce his lockdown orders as well. Whenever a Lakeville restaurant tried to reopen for dine-in service, state attorney general Keith Ellison sought a restraining order to keep it closed. Gloating on the situation, Ellison said. “I’m gratified the court recognizes the severity of the pandemic and the need to take urgent action to stop the spread of Covid-19.” In June 2020, Walz issued a mask mandate, requiring anyone in an indoor space with non-family members to wear a mask. In the official announcement of this mandate, Walz said, “But as Minnesotans always do during tough times, we come together and we take care of one another. And right now there’s no better way to demonstrate our Minnesotan values than by wearing a mask.”

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“..The hearing is scheduled for Thursday..”

• Trump To Fight Revamped J6 Charges (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump will enter a not guilty plea to criminal charges in a revised indictment accusing him of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. The case is related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC by Trump supporters in the aftermath of his defeat. The Republican candidate in this year’s race for the White House said in a court filing on Tuesday that he would not be present at a formal reading of the charges against him. He also authorized his attorneys “to enter a plea of not guilty” on his behalf “to each and every count of the superseding indictment.” The hearing is scheduled for Thursday. The revised indictment includes the same four charges prosecutors brought against Trump last year and that he pleaded not guilty to in August 2023.

Trump was accused of conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy against the voting rights of citizens, and obstruction of congressional certification of the election. The new document is a stripped-down version of last year’s criminal case against Trump. Certain allegations were dropped and reframed after the US Supreme Court ruled that Trump has broad immunity from criminal prosecution over official actions taken during his term as president. Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and denounced the case as an attempt to prevent him from returning to the White House. In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform late last month, he called it “a direct assault on democracy” and a “resurrection of a dead witch hunt.”

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“..it intends to “hold” the territory because it is crucial to Kiev’s “victory plan” to end the conflict.”

• Zelensky Vows To ‘Hold’ Occupied Russian Territory (RT)

Ukraine intends to occupy part of Russia’s Kursk Region indefinitely, Vladimir Zelensky has said. Officials in Kiev earlier signaled that they plan to use this as a bargaining chip in potential negotiations with Moscow.In an interview with NBC News released on Tuesday, the Ukrainian leader was asked what he plans to do with the internationally recognized Russian territory Kiev has captured as a result of a large-scale cross-border incursion that began last month.While Zelensky stressed that Ukraine “does not need [Russian] land” and “[does not] want to bring our Ukrainian way of life there,” it intends to “hold” the territory because it is crucial to Kiev’s “victory plan” to end the conflict. “For now, we need it,” he said.

He declined to say whether Ukraine plans to seize more Russian land. “With all respect, I can’t speak about it,” Zelensky said, citing the same considerations that forced Kiev to keep preparations for the Kursk offensive secret.Ukraine launched a large-scale attack on Kursk Region on August 6, reportedly committing some of its best brigades equipped with Western-supplied armor. While it made some initial gains, Moscow says the advance has been halted. The Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Kiev’s losses in the Kursk offensive at more than 9,300 troops and 700 armored vehicles.

Mikhail Podoliak, a senior aide to Zelensky, has said that the purpose of the attack was to secure a stronger position during potential peace talks with Moscow and to instill fear in the Russian population. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the incursion as a provocation, accusing Ukraine of indiscriminately targeting civilians and pledging that Moscow will eventually “deal with the Ukrainian bandits” who entered Kursk Region. He signaled that Russia has no plans to engage in talks until the incursion is completely defeated, adding, however, that Moscow does not reject negotiations in principle.

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“..such a blanket punishment of countless faithful men and women does not promote unity, nor does it promote peace.”

• Ukraine ‘Weaponizing’ Religion – Church of Jerusalem (RT)

The Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, has called on the Ukrainian government to repeal a law which exposes the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to a likely ban. Kiev has outlawed religious organizations that it suspects of having ties with Russia. The legislation, which Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky signed into law last month, is designed to shut down the UOC, the largest Christian denomination in the country. The UOC was previously targeted in a massive crackdown by the state, as officials told priests and the faithful that they should switch to the Kiev-supported rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). In a statement on Tuesday, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem denounced Kiev’s move, insisting that “such a blanket punishment of countless faithful men and women does not promote unity, nor does it promote peace.”

“There is no justification to weaponize religious belief practice and we all must allow those who wish to pray to do so in a manner that accords with their conscience,” the statement stressed.Jerusalem said it sympathized with victims of the Ukraine conflict, “but out of this pain must not emerge a new schism among the faithful or the criminalization of innocent people because of their religious practice.” “The Patriarchate of Jerusalem recognizes the challenges and deep divisions that this conflict represents, and is committed to the spiritual mission of dialogue and reconciliation through fraternal discussions,” it added. The UOC has historic and spiritual ties to the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), but is self-governed. The OCU was created in late 2018 as part of the failed reelection campaign by then-Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko.

The move caused a major schism in the Orthodox Christian world, as the new organization was recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Türkiye. It revoked a decision made in the 17th century to acknowledge the ROC’s spiritual leadership in the lands that are now independent Ukraine. The Moscow Patriarchate broke ties with Constantinople in retaliation. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem has been working to heal the rift. The Ukrainian law was previously criticized by the Catholic Church. Pope Francis said he was concerned for the state of religious freedoms in the country, and urged Kiev to “let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their Church.”

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BlackRock.

• Rothschild Helped Ukraine Clinch Debt Restructuring – Reuters (RT)

Ukraine reached its recent agreement with bondholders on a debt restructuring as a result of efforts by Rothschild & Co, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing sources involved in the talks. Kiev appointed Rothschild as an advisor to its Finance Ministry in 2017. Kiev announced last week that it had reached an agreement with a group of foreign investors to restructure its $20 billion debt. Bondholders – including US financial giants BlackRock and Pimco, as well as French asset manager Amundi – granted Ukraine a two-year debt freeze in February 2022 when the conflict with Russia broke out. The bondholders’ committee, which represents the holders of 25% of the bonds, has agreed to accept losses of 37%, or $8.7 billion, on the nominal value of their debt.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reportedly confirmed that the deal was compatible with the parameters of its $122 billion aid package to Kiev. Both the IMF and the country’s creditors, which include the US and the Paris Club, have signed off on it, according to a statement with the terms of the accord published on the London Stock Exchange. The restructuring of the massive debt will help Kiev save $11.4 billion over the next three years. This is crucial for both its war effort and its IMF program, Reuters wrote, describing the debt restructuring as one of the fastest and largest in history, eclipsed in scale only by those undertaken by Argentina and Greece.

The report, however, highlighted that initial negotiations between the Ukrainian government and its lenders that started in June 2022 did not go to plan. Talks failed after a couple of weeks as the core committee of bondholders complained that the write-down Ukraine was demanding was “significantly in excess” of the 20% expected and risked doing “substantial damage” to relations.With less than two months until the August 2022 payment moratorium expired, Rothschild reportedly arranged face-to-face meetings for the sides at the firm’s offices in Paris. These reportedly involved representatives of some of the world’s top asset management firms and their legal and financial advisers, Kiev’s debt chief Yury Butsa, Ukraine’s long-term legal advisers White & Case and the Rothschild team.

According to Reuters, bondholders demanded that Ukraine restart coupon payments immediately, offer a path to a higher principal recovery and, importantly, “keep it simple.” IMF staff reportedly worked “at breakneck speed” to crunch the numbers. Kiev offered an alternative in the form of a simpler GDP-linked bond, with creditors also being offered the instant coupon payments that they had wanted, starting at a rate of 1.75% and eventually rising to 7.75%. The final result from the bondholder vote was more than 97% support, Reuters said.

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“..the conflict in Ukraine had revealed “the sorry state of European militaries and defense industries.”

• ‘Looming Threat’ From Russia Sparks ‘Major Rethink’ Of EU Defense Policy (RT)

The European Parliament is set to hold closed-door, high-level discussions on Wednesday in relation to a new report on the competitiveness of the EU defense industry, Politico has reported. The document, prepared by former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, reportedly calls on the bloc to rethink its defense policy in light of the Ukraine conflict and the purported threat from Russia. Draghi prepared the 400-page report at the request of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said last week that the EU needs a “systemic overhaul” of its defense spending to increase production and reduce its dependence on the US. “The EU’s defense industrial base is facing structural challenges in terms of capacity, know-how and technological edge. As a result, the EU is not keeping pace with its global competitors,” a draft of the document reads, Politico reported on Monday.

The report also cites “the emergence of new types of hybrid threats” and “a possible shift of geographic focus” by the US as reasons for the EU to take “growing responsibility” for its own security. Draghi, who also previously served as the head of the European Central Bank, suggested earlier this year that his report will focus on the possible ways to fill the productivity gap, which has been mostly driven by a lack of investment in innovation. The EU spends roughly one-third of what the US does on defense in monetary terms, and the bloc’s arms companies depend 80% on international suppliers, largely from across the Atlantic, Draghi wrote. International think tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), noted last month that the conflict in Ukraine had revealed “the sorry state of European militaries and defense industries.”

Among the recommendations are the introduction of steps to incentivize domestic defense solutions over competitors, and a removal of red tape for weapons manufacturers to access EU funding. The United States, the founding member of NATO, has played a central role in the bloc’s defense, as most EU nations are NATO members. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in early 2022, the White House has been sending additional forces to the EU. Some nations, such as the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, have claimed that Russia would attack them if it won in Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed the claims. President Vladimir Putin said in June that there is no threat of Russia attacking NATO countries as it has no “imperial ambitions,” and described such allegations as “nonsense.”

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Wonder why.

• Starlink Agrees To Comply With Brazil’s Orders To Block X (ZH)

Elon Musk’s internet service, Starlink, has announced that it will comply with a Brazil Supreme Court order to shut down X while vowing to pursue “all legal avenues” to allow the recently banned Musk-owned social media platform to operate in Brazil. The move, announced by Starlink in a statement on Sept. 3, marks an apparent reversal after the country’s telecommunications regulator previously said that the satellite-based internet provider stated that it wouldn’t agree to block the social media platform. Starlink said it would abide by an order from Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes requiring internet service providers and app stores to block X from their platforms. “Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” Starlink’s statement said.

“We continue to pursue all legal avenues, as are others who agree that @alexandre’s recent orders violate the Brazilian constitution.” As Tom Ozimek reports at The Epoch Times, De Moraes froze Starlink’s accounts last week in order to pressure the company to cover fines imposed on X in Brazil, reasoning that both are part of the same Musk-controlled group. In response to the asset freeze, Starlink said on Aug. 29 that it believes de Moraes’s decision violated due process and was unconstitutional. “It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil,” Starlink said in the statement. “We intend to address the matter legally.” Starlink’s announcement that it will comply with the order to shut down X comes a day after a spokesperson from Brazil’s telecommunications regulator told The Epoch Times that the company had “informally” expressed to a top agency executive its intention to buck the X ban.

The spokesperson said that unless Starlink complies, it will face sanctions, including possibly having its operating license in Brazil revoked. Arthur Coimbra, an Anatel board member, told The Associated Press that if Starlink refuses to abide by the order to block X, authorities could also eventually seize equipment from Starlink’s 23 ground stations in Brazil, where Starlink serves over a quarter million customers. Starlink’s announcement that it intends to comply with the X ban marks the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between Brazilian officials and Musk, who has refused to comply with court orders to block accounts accused by investigators of spreading hate and misinformation. Both Musk and X’s global government affairs team have denounced these orders as unlawful attempts at censorship.

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Helmer has a whole different take on Durov.

“The man who was hiding too much..”

• Pavel Durov – Freedom To Play Fool, Stock Speculator, Fraudster (Helmer)

Pavel Durov aka Paul du Rove (“vagabond” in French) doesn’t put his money where his mouth is. This is because more than half the assets and almost half the revenues of Durov’s Telegram group of companies are digital units which Telegram itself programmes, stores, trades, values, and revalues, so the potential for concealment, deception and fraud is unaccountably large. This is the reason Durov has failed to secure the US regulator’s permission to sell shares in his $30 billion valuation of Telegram in a US initial public offering (IPO). In short, the freedom and privacy Durov claims his Telegram social media platform represents is not at all what the financial reports reveal of his money-making. The first fraud flag was waved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October 2019 after more than a year of Durov’s money-raising through digital tokens he called Grams which he offered to sell for $1.5 billion.

At the time, cornerstone investors in Durov included the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and other oligarchs. Durov — announced the SEC — “seeks to obtain the benefits of a public offering without complying with the long-established disclosure responsibilities designed to protect the investing public… the defendants have failed to provide investors with information regarding Grams and Telegram’s business operations, financial condition, risk factors, and management that the securities laws require.” In the five years since then, Durov claims to have sold another billion-dollar bond in 2021; $210 million in fresh securities in 2023; and $330 million in paper which Durov floated in March of this year. “The increased demand for our bonds shows that global financial institutions value Telegram’s growth in audience and monetization”, he said (telegrammed) at the time.

These investments weren’t exactly money for value, or vice versa. Durov has admitted he has been buying about a quarter of the debt issues himself. “Valuations are based on market inputs that are not observable,” reported a blockchain industry analyst. When the investors have turned out to be governments – like Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi emirate wealth fund — the real value Durov promised to exchange is likely to be as much political and military as financial. Similar terms of exchange are likely to have been agreed when, in addition to his Russian passport in the name of Durov, he took passports from the United Arab Emirates (name unknown), France (name Paul du Rove), and St Kitts and Nevis. Four months ago, Durov signed financial reports for his Telegram group prepared and audited by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). He thought the details would remain secret. Instead, following his arrest and indictment in France last week, they were leaked to the Financial Times in London.

The newspaper claims it “got its hands on the privately held company’s financials” but without explanation it is withholding them from full release. Durov’s signature is dated April 26, 2024. In public defence of his countryman, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that Durov had been naïve about the “old system of globalization…P.V. Durov turned out to be too, too free, too slow or did not listen to Western advice about the so-called moderation of his brainchild.” Naivety is not what Durov signed his name to in Telegram’s financial reports. They reveal he is running a debt pyramid, replenishing the annual deficit between his expenditures and his income with new borrowings whose cost of servicing amounted in 2023 to 46% of his revenues. The leaked papers also disclose that his losses last year came to $259.3 million, although Durov managed to reduce that to $173.2 million by claiming offsetting digital assets had jumped in value. To support such valuation manipulations and his public claims of Telegram’s $30 billion market value, the small print of the auditor’s notes reveal that Durov uses his own digital money to boost the appearance of rising Telegram subscription numbers and demand for the company’s bonds — 15,000 subs and $64 million in bonds, to be precise.

As for protecting Telegram user privacy, Durov acknowledges that after subtracting $130 million in self-accounting “integrated wallet” value from his bottom-line revenue of $342.5 million, over the past year he sold “collectibles” for $17.8 million – almost 9%. This item is defined in the report as “usernames, virtual phone numbers…The related revenue is recognised at a point in time when the collectible is assigned to the user. The Group also enables the sale of collectibles between users and receives the fee for facilitating the sale.” According to the public indictment of the French prosecutors, fraud is one of the charges against Durov, along with money laundering, concealment by cryptology, and “refusal to communicate, at the request of the authorized authorities, the information or documents necessary for the realization and exploitation of interceptions authorized by law.”

According to Russian and international sources, the recent history of each one of these charges involves Durov in dealings with the Azerbaijan government, with the Kanak rebellion in the French colony of New Caledonia, and in undertakings he gave to agents of the French foreign intelligence agency, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), when they visited him recently in Dubai. For a legal analysis of the Digital Services Act and regulations, the law applying to Telegram and to free speech in the social media in the European Union (EU), read this from Craig Murray. The analysis is made irrelevant by Murray’s acknowledgement that the indictment may be warranted if Durov “refused to remove or act over specific individual content specified by the French authorities, or unless he set up Telegram with the specific intent of facilitating organised crime”. Specific content was what the DGSE told Durov it wanted him to provide when they last met. That they met has been confirmed by the official leaks in Libération’s report of September 1. The newspaper headline was “The man who was hiding too much”. That Durov reneged on his promise to the DGSE is what the Paris prosecutor’s statement of August 28 indicates.

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“The people who once faced and conquered the great nations of Eurasia are now once again proving their greatness by boldly confronting Western arrogance.”

• Mongolia Showed Its Greatness To The World (SCF)

Russian President Vladimir Putin landed in Mongolia on September 2, making his first trip to a Rome Statute’s country since the International Criminal Court (ICC) illegally issued an arrest warrant against him last year. As expected, some Western member states of the ICC demanded Mongolia to arrest Putin. The same demand was made by the Kiev neo-Nazi regime itself, but was completely ignored by the Mongolian authorities, who welcomed Putin with a red carpet in a great official ceremony. For the West and Kiev, Mongolia’s move was a “violation of international law.” For any serious analyst, the act was a brilliant demonstration of strength, sovereignty and insubordination. From a purely realistic point of view, the Mongolian attitude was completely correct, since, being geographically close to Russia, Mongolia needs to maintain a foreign policy of friendship and cooperation with Moscow.

Both nations have common interests and share the same geographical space – in addition to having a rich common history –, being true natural partners. In fact, Mongolia has shown the world its greatness by welcoming Putin. The country simply said “no” to illegitimate international pressure by taking the sovereign step of welcoming the Russian leader to its territory. The courage of the Mongolian authorities must be praised, as several countries have recently declined to take similar decisions, trembling in the face of international pressure. Even within the BRICS, the illegal arrest warrant against Putin is becoming a relevant issue. Recently, there have been several discussions in Brazil and South Africa about the “possibility” of arresting Putin in the event of a visit by the Russian president. In both countries, government authorities made it clear that the Russian president would be received calmly and safely, but the Judiciary acted irresponsibly, stating that arrest would be mandatory.

To avoid diplomatic discomfort and institutional crises in partner states, Putin has never confirmed any visit to these countries. Of course, a member country of the ICC can decide to arrest someone convicted by the Court. However, an ICC decision can only be valid against a citizen of a member country, otherwise there is an insurmountable legal impasse. The Russian Federation does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, and there is no possibility that the country would accept that its citizens be arrested by order of this court. Therefore, if there were a coercive measure to arrest Putin or any other Russian citizen based on an ICC ruling, Moscow would certainly react by taking decisive measures – possibly even military ones. It is up to the ICC member country, upon receiving a foreign citizen “wanted” by the court, to decide whether the decision is valid or not.

If the wanted citizen is a native of a country that does not recognize the ICC, arresting him or her seems absolutely irrational and unnecessary. Furthermore, even in the event of recognition of the court, it must be emphasized that the final decision on whether or not to arrest someone on its territory will always be up to the state itself. There is no force or document in international law capable of obliging a state to act coercively against someone, since state sovereignty is the basic principle of all international relations. In other words, Mongolia, a small country between two giants (Russia and China) had more courage and wisdom than the great emerging powers like Brazil and South Africa. The decision to welcome Putin revealed that the ancient imperial and warrior spirit of the Mongolian people is still alive. The people who once faced and conquered the great nations of Eurasia are now once again proving their greatness by boldly confronting Western arrogance.

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” Leaving a Gestapo Police State in its Place..”

• Truth is being Removed from the Western World (Paul Craig Roberts)

Not even one value of Western civilization remains. All values that composed an era of freedom have been repudiated. The example of the hour is Telegram owner Durov’s indictment in France. The basis of the French indictment is that Telegram’s privacy, the basis for its existence, provides a mechanism that criminals can use to commit crimes, such as posts of children in sexual acts. Privacy also provides secret means of communication that criminals and drug dealers use for their illegal businesses. The French government’s claim is that Telegram, by providing privacy, enables these crimes and therefore Durov is complicit in the crimes. Notice that it is Durov, not the child pornographers and drug dealers, who is being prosecuted. In other words, the argument of the French indictment is that as an owner of a communication mechanism that criminals use to facilitate their commitment of crimes, Durov himself has committed a crime.

We have been hearing illogical arguments of this kind for some time. Those who want to take away the ability of people to protect themselves from criminals and rapists by using their Second Amendment right to own firearms try to hold firearm manufacturers responsible for injuries and deaths caused by people using firearms. In other words, it is the manufacturer’s fault, because his product enabled the criminal to commit the crime. Sooner or later this argument will be applied to a large number of goods and services. For example, vehicles are used in bank robberies, in murders, and in human trafficking, and it is the car and vehicle manufacturers who enabled the criminals by producing the vehicle. One can see it applied to search engines and to GPS, because they enable criminals to locate their target.

All of this might sound silly to a reader, but it is no more silly than the French government’s indictment of Durov. Indeed, it is not silly at all. It is weaponized law in operation. In a way Durov’s indictment is his own fault. Like many Russians who have been brainwashed by Western propaganda, Durov thought France had more freedom than Russia and took French citizenship. He made a mistake. The French case against Durov also reflects the Gestapo police state argument, which over the years has been finding a welcome home in the Western world, that it is the responsibility of private individuals to be accomplices of police and that the failure to perform this role indicates criminal behavior. For the past several decades people in the Western world have been so poorly educated–indoctrinated against themselves instead of educated–that they find it plausible that people who refuse to be agents of a police state are criminals.

The Washington Post sees it this way. The only valid reason for social media’s existence is to spy for the government. One of the Post’s mal-educated reporters wrote that “for years internet moguls have flown above the law.” How is protecting free speech “flying above the law?” What law is above the First Amendment? The indoctrinated reporter thinks that laws contrary to the First Amendment of the US Constitution are valid, and that Elon Musk and Pavel Durov are violating the law by their commitment to free speech. The Washington’s Post’s presstitute says “The world’s internet regulators are no longer playing around.” He writes that the crackdowns against Telegram and X “come months after the United States passed a law that could lead to the banning of TikTok” and herald the end of the era of free speech on the Internet, a good thing in the Post’s view.

The Washington Post is delighted that free speech is to be regulated. In my opinion the entire rationale for the existence of the Washington Post is to control narratives for the CIA. As even insouciant Americans should know after enduring eight years of the system violating all ethics and all laws in its effort to deep-six Donald Trump, throughout the Western world law is nothing but a weapon to protect the lies fed to insouciant people as official narratives, the doubting of which is rapidly becoming a criminal action. In the name of official narratives, truth is being removed from the Western world. In my lifetime I have watched the transformation of the free Western world, a product of centuries of struggle, into a Gestapo Police State.

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Capybara

 

 

Lion

 

 

Porcupine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831268038689132859

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 13 2024

Aug 132024
 
 August 13, 2024  Posted by at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  59 Responses »


Claude Monet The sheltered path 1888

 

• America Is Entering End Times (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Party Line Is a Mighty Squishy Line (Jim Kunstler)
• A Harris-Walz Administration Would Be A Nightmare for Free Speech (Turley)
• Trump’s ‘Interview Of The Century’ With Elon Musk: As It Happened (RT)
• Ex-Twitter Executive Calls For Musk To Be Arrested (RT)
• EU Threatens Elon Musk Before Trump Interview (RT)
• Trump To Sue DOJ For $100 Million Over Mar-a-Lago Raid (ZH)
• Biden: If Trump Wins, There’ll Be No Peaceful Transfer of Power (MN)
• American Stasi: Tulsi Gabbard Confirms “Quiet Skies” Nightmare (Matt Taibbi)
• Israel Runs the US. No, the US Runs Israel. No, Wait .. (Patrick Lawrence)
• Incursion Into Russia Could Spell Doom For Kiev – ex-Austrian Official (RT)
• No Talks With Kiev After Attack On Civilians – Putin (RT)
• Anyone Not Supporting Ukraine Gets Shot – Serbian Deputy PM (RT)
• Debt-Riddled Ukraine Blames ‘Slow’ US Aid, Scrambles to Pay Its Army (Sp.)
• Washington’s Web Of Lies Is Backfiring Over Venezuela (Blankenship)
• Iron Dome Failure? (ZH)
• NASA Inspector General Report Criticizes Boeing’s Quality Control (ET)

 

 

 

 

Vance Walz
https://twitter.com/i/status/1822636313754972262

 

 

Biden KKK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1822785991192494548

 

 

Crooks

 

 

Golden Voyager=Lucifer.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1822738399079674326

 

 

2026

 

 

 

 

 

 

PCR has his dark-tinted glasses on.

“With Republican fundraisers agreeing with the presstitutes that the election is a toss up, the election is perfectly set to be stolen. And it will be.”

• America Is Entering End Times (Paul Craig Roberts)

Does anyone remember the 2020 presidential campaign? Trump campaigned widely and had massive audiences. Enthusiasm was everywhere. Biden ventured out of the basement a few times and no one attended his campaign rallies. Trump got more votes in the 2020 election than he got in the 2016 election, but Biden got more votes than any president in history. Somehow the people elected an invisible candidate. In the swing states vote counting was stopped in the middle of the night while truck loads of boxes arrived, some from out of state, in Democrat controlled vote counting centers. The votes were almost entirely for Biden, and when counting resumed, Trump’s lead disappeared. The same thing is going to happen this November. Trump supporters, clearly a majority of legitimate voters, think Trump is going to win. Trump voters are energized and enthusiasm is high. Has anyone seen a Trump-sized turnout for Kamala? Trump will again win as he did in 2020, but Democrats count swing state votes, and Kamala will “win.”

As I have reported, the presstitutes are busy at work building Kamala into a formidable candidate who is in the lead, especially in the swing states. Fake polls are being reported that Kamala is the favorite. No one has explained why American voters want open borders, war with Russia and Iran, LGBT+ celebrated and normalized, white school children taught that they and their parents are racists, and that they could be born into the wrong body. As the Democrats have made completely clear, this is what Americans are voting for if they vote for Kamala. Unless the American people are further gone that I think, a majority are not voting for Kamala. She will win anyway. Biden had to go because the Democrats knew he could not run a close enough race for them to be able to again steal the election. The fact that not even the Democrats wanted Kamala last month has been consigned to the Memory Hole. Kamala is being media-created as one of the strongest presidential candidates in American history.

Republican fundraisers themselves are playing into the Democrats’ election steal. I get numerous fundraising appeals–even from the usually astute Marjorie Taylor Greene–that Trump might lose because Democrats are raising more money. The opportunistic Republican fundraisers by emphasizing Trump’s possible loss thus support the propaganda spun by the presstitutes that the race is so close that Trump can lose. Only Republicans can be this stupid. With Republican fundraisers agreeing with the presstitutes that the election is a toss up, the election is perfectly set to be stolen. And it will be. In the swing states the election theft methods have been legalized. Just as Republicans and the American people accepted the thefts of the 2020 and 2022 elections, they will accept the theft of the 2024 election. There will be no civil war or anything of the kind. The American people will have been taught that there is nothing they can do to regain their control over government. Neither will they resist when Kamala ignores the Supreme Court, which has no army, and takes away their guns.

If Americans won’t resist stolen elections, they will no more resist the cancellation of the Second Amendment than they resisted the destruction of the First Amendment. By the second year of the Kamala regime the United States will no longer exist as even a remnant of what the Founding Fathers created. The United States will be the worst tyranny ever created. My advice to young white heterosexual males is to get out of America while you still can. A holocaust is coming your way. You are demonized and reduced to second class citizenship. You can be discriminated against in university admissions, employment and promotion. You are not allowed to defend your self from racist charges, because white self-defense is considered racist, as proof of racism. The position of a white gentile heterosexual male American today is the same as that of a Jew in Nazi Germany and a Palestinian in Gaza. There is always hope, but hope requires warriors. Does America have warriors, or only submissive wimps?

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“I am in no position to predict any actual outcome, but it’s hard to imagine any winning moves by the Harris & Walz team in actual play-by-play.”

• The Party Line Is a Mighty Squishy Line (Jim Kunstler)

Does anybody know what this shape-shifting chimera passed off as “our democracy” actually is? I will tell you. Like everything else in the Democratic Party’s tool-bag these days, it’s the opposite of what it appears to mean, namely: You, the demos, give us, officialdom, the power to take whatever we like from you: your savings, your liberty, your stuff, your identity, and your posterity — because we are the boss-of-you, and don’t you forget it. . . and, by the way, the beatings will continue until morale improves. It’s really that simple, though the deceptions cooked up to hide it are convoluted to the max. Like: engineering the illegal entrance to the US of millions from other lands and then using procedural hocus-pocus such as motor-voter registration and public assistance applications (free money + automatic voter registration) to stuff the election drop-boxes with the ballots of non-citizens — who, get this, don’t even have to be the ones casting those ballots, which can just be harvested, like so many oven-ready pullets, by lowly hired shills.

If you catch onto the ruse, you’ll be instructed that borders are arbitrary roadblocks to social justice thrown up by the old white male patriarchy, and that these are “free and fair elections.” And if you object loudly enough, you lose your job, your livelihood, your Facebook account, and maybe get thrown into solitary confinement for a year. Our democracy. Meanwhile, we’re enjoying the spectacle of this evil party’s candidate selection tour with their joyful warriors/avatars, Harris and Walz — joyful because they laugh and laugh in the absence of articulating any actual views on the particulars of governance, and it’s infectious to witness all that mirth. There is, of course, an artificially strenuous air about all this hoopla. It rolls out in an alternative reality like one of those summer techno-pop raves where everyone is stoned on MDMA. The dream girl gets launched into center-stage by invisible forces and is joined by her prom king, and it’s just so heartwarming to get waved at by the grinning, hand-holding couple nobody voted for. This is your demos-free ticket!

Will anybody at the imminent Democratic National Convention notice how this all mysteriously came to be? And might there be any active consternation over it? Perhaps even a welling movement to pull the plug on this rave? You may be apt to wonder what is going on in the Chappaqua redoubt of She-Whose-Turn-Has-Been-(so far)-Thwarted, HRC, boss-of-all-girl-bosses, putatively retired from public life. She’s been awfully quiet since that night over a week ago when she was obliged on-stage somewhere to hug and air-kiss Ms. Harris, and made a face seconds after as if she had thrown up in her mouth. Is she stewing in the broth of grievance but still and nonetheless tirelessly working her phone to canvas the delegates of that looming party meet-up? She might remind them that the DNC (that is, the Democratic National Committee, Inc), went broke in 2016 and got bailed out by the Clinton Foundation checkbook, and, Jeez, we can’t seem to find any repayment check from all’y’all. It seems maybe you owe us. . . something.

And, by the way, HRC could remind said delegates: you have allowed a laughing hyena who drinks her lunch to land at the head of the ticket for the worst reasons (viz., DEI) minus any votes from the party membership, and then managed to duct-tape a China-owned, Cluster-B head-case to her as the veep sidekick. . . and maybe when all the hee-hawing and hooting dies down, you’ll discover what a pair of losers you’ve allowed to be undemocratically implanted to (ha!) represent you. And also, by the way, I happen to be available as her capable-and-experienced replacement. . . whom you can actually vote for on the convention floor, if you manage to get your shit together. . . you know. . . our democracy, and all. Just sayin’. That is, I’m just sayin’ what She might be thinkin’ (and sayin’). I am in no position to predict any actual outcome, but it’s hard to imagine any winning moves by the Harris & Walz team in actual play-by-play.

In case you have forgotten amid all the week-long laughter and euphoria, there are important national issues to discuss about how to manage the malevolent leviathan the federal government has become, and many dilemmas and threats the people face. And there are very different records of each team’s views on these things, party by party. Some of that discussion could happen in the (so far) one scheduled September 10 debate. If Mr. Trump can manage to be polite, he can press Kamala Harris to explain herself on things like the wide-open border, failure to negotiate with the Russians to end the Ukraine War, her party’s antipathy to public safety, her party’s promotion of gender identity insanity, its Gestapo-style lawfare operations, its endless hoaxes, and its disgraceful documented efforts to censor free speech. The record is pretty clear on all of that, and there’s a fair chance that Ms. Harris can’t possibly explain it away. Or laugh it off.

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“..the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’”

• A Harris-Walz Administration Would Be A Nightmare for Free Speech (Turley)

The selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as the running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris has led to intense debates over crime policy, war claims, gender identity policies and other issues. Some attacks have, in my view, been inaccurate or overwrought. However, the greatest danger from this ticket is neither speculative nor sensational. A Harris-Walz administration would be a nightmare for free speech. For over three years, the Biden-Harris administration has sustained an unrelenting attack on the freedom of speech, from supporting a massive censorship system (described by a federal court as an “Orwellian Ministry of Truth“) to funding blacklisting operations targeting groups and individuals with opposing views. President Biden made censorship a central part of his legacy, even accusing social media companies of “killing people” for failing to increase levels of censorship.

Democrats in Congress pushed that agenda by demanding censorship on subjects ranging from climate change to gender identity — even to banking policy — in the name of combatting “disinformation.” The administration also created offices like the Disinformation Governance Board before it was shut down after public outcry. But it quickly shifted this censorship work to other offices and groups. As vice president, Harris has long supported these anti-free speech policies. The addition of Walz completes a perfect nightmare for free speech advocates. Walz has shown not only a shocking disregard for free speech values but an equally shocking lack of understanding of the First Amendment. Walz went on MSNBC to support censoring disinformation and declared, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.”

Ironically, this false claim, repeated by many Democrats, constitutes one of the most dangerous forms of disinformation. It is being used to convince a free people to give up some of their freedom with a “nothing to see here” pitch. In prior testimony before Congress on the censorship system under the Biden administration, I was taken aback when the committee’s ranking Democrat, Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), declared, “I hope that [all members] recognize that there is speech that is not constitutionally protected,” and then referenced hate speech as an example. That false claim has been echoed by others such as Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who is a lawyer. “If you espouse hate,” he said, “…you’re not protected under the First Amendment.” Former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean declared the identical position: “Hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.”

Even some dictionaries now espouse this false premise, defining “hate speech” as “Speech not protected by the First Amendment, because it is intended to foster hatred against individuals or groups based on race, religion, gender, sexual preference, place of national origin, or other improper classification.” The Supreme Court has consistently rejected the claim of Gov. Walz. For example, in the 2016 Matal v. Tam decision, the court stressed that this precise position “strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’” As the new Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Walz is running alongside one of the most enthusiastic supporters of censorship and blacklisting systems.

In her failed 2020 presidential bid, Harris ran on censorship and pledged that her administration “will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms, because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy.” In October 2019, Harris dramatically spoke directly to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, insisting “This is not a matter of free speech….This is a matter of holding corporate America and these Big Tech companies responsible and accountable for what they are facilitating.” She asked voters to join her in the effort. They didn’t, but Harris ultimately succeeded in the Biden-Harris administration to an unprecedented degree with a comprehensive federal effort to target and silence individuals and groups on social media.

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The most shocking thing about the Musk-Trump conversation is that it took place, not so much what was said. And after a lot of DDOS and other tech issues.

• Trump’s ‘Interview Of The Century’ With Elon Musk: As It Happened (RT)

13 August 2024

02:40 GMT With the interview seemingly concluding, Musk explained to independent and undecided voters why he decided to endorse Trump. ”I’ve not been really political before…and it’s not like I;m some dyed in the wool long-term Republican,” he said, adding that he feels the upcoming election marks a “critical juncture for the country.” “A lot of people thought the Biden administration would be a moderate administration but it’s not, and I think we’re going to see an even further left administration with Kamala,” he continued. “We want to have a future that is prosperous. You are the path to prosperity, and Kamala is the opposite.” “That endorsement meant a lot to me,” Trump replied.

02:23 GMT “Biden actually did something that was impossible. Both sides hate him,” Trump said, referring to the president’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. “She’s going to be worse than him,” he continued, referring to Harris. “If you’re a person who is very pro-Israel and you vote for her, you ought to have your head examined.” Harris has attempted to court the Democratic Party’s pro-Israel establishment wing and its pro-Palestine progressive wing, with mixed results. When one of her rallies was interrupted by pro-Palestine protesters last week, Harris shushed the demonstrators, telling them “I am speaking now.”

02:18 GMT “Biden is close to vegetable stage, in my opinion,” Trump jeered, referring to photographs of the president taken in Delaware at the weekend. “He couldn’t even lift the chair. The chair is meant for children and old people. He couldn’t lift it.” Trump has repeatedly mocked Biden’s mental acuity, saying earlier in the interview that he had a “very low IQ 30 years ago,” but now he “might not have IQ at all.”

02:04 GMT Musk’s first major difference with Trump is on the subject of climate change, with the Tesla CEO arguing that the US needs to “lean toward” sustainable energy without impeding on Americans’ living standards, and Trump arguing that fossil fuels are essential in manufacturing and charging electric cars. ”Even to create your electric car and create the electricity needed for the electric car, you know, fossil fuel is what really creates that at the generating plants … so you sort of can’t get away from it at this moment,” Trump declared. However, Trump and Musk both agreed that nuclear power is an “underrated” form of green energy.

01:48 GMT Trump has vowed to close the Department of Education if elected, and pass responsibility for education back to the states. The former president complained that despite spending more money per pupil than any other developed country, the US regularly appears at the bottom of most league tables for academic performance.

01:42 GMT Musk has called on Trump to set up a “government efficiency commission” to ensure that taxpayer money is better spent, offering to help out with such a commission. Trump replied that Musk would be ideal for such a role.

01:33 GMT Trump issued a grim pronouncement on Ukraine’s prospects of success against Russia, reminding listeners that Russia managed to defeat the might of Nazi Germany, while Ukraine has been reduced to “using young men and very old men to fight.” “You don’t read about how bloody Ukraine is. Just between the two armies you’ve lost half a million people… Ukraine now doesn’t have enough men,” he said. “I could have stopped that… but we had a president saying stupid stuff, and this could end up in WWIII.”

01:31 GMT Trump said that he watched Russia’s troop buildup on the Ukrainian border in 2022 and thought Putin was attempting to gain leverage with the US. “Then Biden started saying such stupid things,” like publicly declaring that Ukraine “can be a NATO country,” Trump continued. “He said things that were so stupid…that war had zero chance of happening if I were there.”

01:27 GMT Musk and Trump have turned to foreign relations, with Musk insisting that the US must have an “intimidating” president in order to deter “evil dictators” around the world. Trump took the opportunity to talk up his relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Trump recalled his “little rocket man” dispute with Kim in 2017, laughing as he recalled how after lobbing insults at the North Korean leader, “all of a sudden I got a call from him… and we got along great.”

01:15 GMT “She’s incompetent, and he’s incompetent, and frankly I think that she’s more incompetent than he is,” Trump told Musk, referring to Harris and Biden. Trump slammed Harris for promising to secure the US’ border if elected president, despite having been in power for three years already. Musk concurred that the US should have a “smooth and efficient” legal immigration system, and that border security is “a fundamental existential issue for the United States.”

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“Before Musk’s takeover, Daisley claimed, Twitter was “joyously good fun to use,” thanks to restrictive policies that stifled “antisocial behavior.”

We only like people who agree with us. The rest we ban, boycott and arrest.

• Ex-Twitter Executive Calls For Musk To Be Arrested (RT)

Tech mogul Elon Musk should be threatened with arrest and detention if he refuses to censor right-wing content on X, the platform’s former vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa has suggested. In an op-ed published by The Guardian on Monday, Bruce Daisley lamented the free-speech idealism that Musk brought to Twitter when he bought the platform (and renamed it X) in 2022. Before Musk’s takeover, Daisley claimed, Twitter was “joyously good fun to use,” thanks to restrictive policies that stifled “antisocial behavior.” Musk must now be punished for lifting these policies and allowing right-wing thought to spread, Daisley declared. By allowing users to share content related to the recent riots in the UK, and by posting about the riots himself, Musk has “sowed discord.” “In my experience, that threat of personal sanction is much more effective on executives than the risk of corporate fines. Were Musk to continue stirring up unrest, an arrest warrant for him might produce fireworks from his fingertips, but as an international jet-setter it would have the effect of focusing his mind,” Daisley wrote.

Furthermore, British regulators should demand that right-wing influencers like Tommy Robinson be “deplatformed,” while “Britain’s Online Safety Act 2023 should be beefed up with immediate effect.” According to The Telegraph, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is considering amending the act – to punish social media companies that allow the spread of “legal but harmful” content. The act, which comes into force next year, holds social media companies liable for illegal content posted on their platforms. Drafted by the UK’s previous Conservative government, it was originally set to include a “legal but harmful” clause, but the passage was ultimately pulled after Business and Trade Minister Kemi Badenoch complained that it amounted to “legislating for hurt feelings.” London’s Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir. Mark Rowley, announced last week that his officers may charge foreigners for social media posts about the unrest.

“Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law,” he said, naming “the likes of Elon Musk” as potential targets for investigation. As of Friday, more than 700 people had been arrested and more than 300 charged over their alleged participation in the riots, which kicked off after a teenager of Rwandan descent killed three children and injured ten others in a stabbing spree in the town of Southport late last month. Of those arrested, more than 30 have been charged with online offenses, such as sharing footage of the riots or posting content that – according to the Crown Prosecutorial Service – “incites violence or hatred.” Musk has heavily criticized the response to the riots, accusing the British government of operating a “two-tier” justice system where dissent is punished more harshly than violent crime. In a post to X on Monday, he shared an excerpt from a 1946 UN resolution, stating that “freedom of information is a fundamental human right, and the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.”

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The original headline said “EU Threatens Elon Musk Over Trump Interview”, but Breton really threatened him BEFORE a single word was spoken.

• EU Threatens Elon Musk Before Trump Interview (RT)

European Commissioner Thierry Breton has ordered X owner Elon Musk to step up censorship of “harmful content” related to his upcoming interview with former US President Donald Trump, or face a “full toolbox” of legal repercussions. Musk is set to interview Trump on Monday night, with the conversation airing live on the tech mogul’s X platform. Trump made his long-anticipated return to X earlier on Monday, posting a slew of campaign videos after an almost uninterrupted three-and-a-half year hiatus from the platform. In a letter to Musk, European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton warned that Brussels will be monitoring the interview closely. Musk must ensure that “effective mitigation measures are put in place regarding the amplification of harmful content” in connection with the live interview, Breton wrote, before claiming that Musk had failed to stop the spread of such content during a recent spate of right-wing riots in the UK.

“We are monitoring the potential risks in the EU associated with the dissemination of content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political – or societal – events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections,” he continued. Breton did not explain whether EU regulators would blame X for allegedly inciteful comments uttered by Trump, or by X users watching the interview. Under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), X is considered a ‘Very Large Online Platform’ and is legally required to restrict the “dissemination of illegal content” and “address the spread of disinformation. The entire text of the DSA mentions the word “disinformation” 13 times without defining it.

X is already under investigation by Breton’s office for alleged breaches of the DSA, with EU regulators accusing the platform of misleading users by allowing anyone to pay for a verification checkmark, and refusing to allow its data to be scraped by “researchers.” If found liable, X could be ordered to pay a fine equal to 6% of its annual turnover. In his letter on Monday, Breton said that any “negative effect” stemming from the Trump interview could influence the investigation and the EU’s “overall assessment of X’s compliance with EU law.” Musk claimed last month that the investigation was opened because he refused to accept a “secret” censorship deal with the EU. “If we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us,” Musk said. “The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.” Responding to Breton’s letter on Monday, Musk shared a meme containing the text: “Take a big step back and literally, f**k your own face!”

Read more …

Interesting for sure. Do read it all at ZH (click the headline).
Note: there is no way to bring this case before the election, so they can all keep -falsely- labeling Trump a “convicted felon” (he’s not).
Note 2: Trump is persecuted by Garland, Wray and Smith using taxpayers’ money, but has to defend himself with his own.
Note 3: Trump attorney Daniel Epstein sounds sharp.

• Trump To Sue DOJ For $100 Million Over Mar-a-Lago Raid (ZH)

Former President Donald Trump is set to sue the DOJ for $100 million in damages over the 2022 raid on his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida – arguing that it was done “clear intent to engage in political persecution.” According to a memo obtained by Fox News, the lawsuit will claim “tortious conduct by the United States against President Trump.” Trump and his legal team intend to sue the Justice Department for its conduct during the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, 2022, amid the federal investigation into his alleged improper retention of classified records. After the raid, Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed to investigate. Smith ultimately brought 37 felony counts against Trump, including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements. Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts. Last month, US District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the DOJ’s case against Trump – ruling that Smith was unlawfully appointed and funded, citing the Appointments Clause in the constitution.

The notice to sue was filed by Trump attorney Daniel Epstein, and gives the DOJ 180 days from the date of receipt to respond and come to a resolution. If no agreement is made, Trump’s case will move to federal court in the Southern District of Florida. “What President Trump is doing here is not just standing up for himself – he is standing up for all Americans who believe in the rule of law and believe that you should hold the government accountable when it wrongs you,” Epstein told Fox Business’ Lydia Hu. According to the filing, the “tortious acts against the president are rooted in intrusion upon seclusion, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process resulting from the August 8, 2022 raid of his and his family’s home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach Florida,” adding that decisions made by the DOJ and FBI in conducting the raid were “inconsistent with protocols requiring the consent of an investigative target, disclosure to that individual’s attorneys, and the use of the local U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

Epstein further argues that decisions made by Attorney General Merrick Garland as well as FBI Director Christopher Wray were not based on “social, economic, and political policy,” but instead were in “clear dereliction of constitutional principles, inconsistent standards as applied to” Trump and a “clear intent to engage in political persecution – not to advance good law enforcement practices.” “Garland and Wray should have never approved a raid and subsequent indictment of President Trump because the well-established protocol with former U.S. presidents is to use non-enforcement means to obtain records of the United States,” wrote Epstein. “But notwithstanding the fact that the raid should have never occurred, Garland and Wray should have ensured their agents sought consent from President Trump, notified his lawyers, and sought cooperation.” “Garland and Wray decided to stray from established protocol to injure President Trump,” the filing continues.

Epstein argued that the DOJ violated Florida law, intrusion upon seclusion, which is recognized as a form of invasion of privacy. Intrusion upon seclusion includes “an intentional intrusion, physically or otherwise, into the private quarters of another person” and the intrusion “must occur in a manner that a reasonable person would find highly offensive.” -Fox News “The FBI’s demonstrated activity was inconsistent with protocols used in routine searches of an investigative target’s premises,” the filing continues, adding that Trump “had a clear expectation of privacy at Mar-a-Lago. Worse, the FBI’s conduct in the raid – where established protocol was violated – constitutes a severe and unacceptable intrusion that is highly offensive to a reasonable person.”

The filing also argues that the DOJ and special counsel’s office “brought a lawless criminal indictment,” which constitutes “malicious prosecution.” “As such, given the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and Judge Cannon’s dismissal of the prosecution on grounds that the Special Counsel’s appointment violated the appointments clause and his office was funded through an improper appropriation, there was no constitutional basis for the search or the subsequent indictment.” Trump is also planning to sue for punitive damages. “For these harms to President Trump, the respondents must pay punitive damages of $100 million,” Epstein wrote, adding that there was an “abuse of process,” and that the methods used against Trump were “unconstitutional and aimed at politically persecuting the former President, which led to extensive legal costs and negative consequences for him.”

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Joseph Robinette Biden and Sigismund Schlomo Freud.

• Biden: If Trump Wins, There’ll Be No Peaceful Transfer of Power (MN)

President Joe Biden uttered an interesting Freudian slip when he said that “if Trump wins” the election he’s not confident there’ll be a peaceful transfer of power. Biden made the remarks during an interview with CBS News. “Are you confident that there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January 2025,” Biden was asked. “If Trump wins, no, I’m not confident at all,” he responded. There then appeared to be a cut in the interview before Biden corrected himself, “I mean, if Trump loses, I’m not confident at all.”

While Biden is infamous for his verbal gaffes, many respondents on X actually believed this to be a revealing Freudian slip. As we highlighted earlier, during the same interview, Biden confirmed that high ranking Democrats pushed him out of the race, essentially corroborating the accusations of a coup. “A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,” Biden said. The president was reportedly told by Nancy Pelosi that he would be removed either by means of “the easy way” or “the hard way,” after he desperately tried to cling onto the nomination despite being humiliated during a presidential debate with Donald Trump.

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Lawfare. Against an Iraq war veteran and current Army reservist. “..it’s bringing to the forefront… how brazen the political retaliation and abuse of power continues to be under the Biden-Harris administration.”

• American Stasi: Tulsi Gabbard Confirms “Quiet Skies” Nightmare (Matt Taibbi)

Tuesday night, while self-styled Democratic nominee Kamala Harris pledged to defend “freedom, compassion, and the rule of law” to cheers in Philadelphia, Hawaii’s Tulsi Gabbard described being tracked by teams of government agents in a surveillance regime more reminiscent of East Germany than a free country. Whistleblowing Air Marshals told Uncover DC Gabbard was singled out as a terror threat under the so-called “Quiet Skies” program, and the former presidential candidate says she noticed. “The whistleblowers’ account matches my experience,” says Gabbard. “Everything lines up to the day.” This story began two weeks ago, when the former Hawaii congresswoman returned home after a short trip abroad. In airport after airport, she and her husband Abraham Williams encountered obstacles.

First on a flight from Rome to Dallas, then a connecting flight to Austin, and later on different flights for both to cities like Nashville, Orlando, and Atlanta, their boarding passes were marked with the “SSSS” designation, which stands for “Secondary Security Screening Selection.” The “Quad-S” marker is often a sign the traveler has been put on a threat list, and Gabbard and Williams were forced into extensive “random” searches lasting as long as 45 minutes. “It happened every time I boarded,” says Gabbard. The Iraq war veteran and current Army reservist tends to pack light, but no matter. “I’ve got a couple of blazers in there, and they’re squeezing every inch of the entire collar, every inch of the sleeves, every inch of the edging of the blazers,” she says. “They’re squeezing or padding down underwear, bras, workout clothes, every inch of every piece of clothing.”

Agents unzipped the lining inside the roller board of her suitcase, patting down every inch inside the liner. Gabbard was asked to take every piece of electronics out and turn each on, including her military phone and computer. That was the other strange thing. “I use my military ID to get through security sometimes,” says Gabbard, who among other things traveled to her reservist base in Oklahoma during this period. Once, she was unable to get through security with military ID. A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent saw the “SSSS” marker. “The TSA agent said, ‘Why are you Quad-S? You’re in the military,’” explains Gabbard. “And I said, ‘That’s exactly what I’m wondering.’ Gabbard goes on: “Then I said, ‘The only thing I can think of is, I work in politics.’ And he said, oh.”

The agent told her he’d encountered supporters of a certain former president who’d had no issues traveling before, but were now “marked quad-S every time they traveled.” Gabbard shrugged and slogged through, still encountering extra security. At one flight, she says, there were “at least six TSA agents doing additional screening,” along with canine support. “There were dogs in Dallas when we got there, dogs at a couple of the gates.” She called a colleague, who told her: these things happen, don’t worry. “So I thought, ‘Maybe I’m just being paranoid,’” Gabbard says. Then she saw this past Sunday’s report in Uncover DC, a site edited by the well-known Twitter writer Tracy Beanz. Uncover interviewed Sonya LaBosco, the Executive Director of the Air Marshal National Council (AMNC), an advocacy association for Federal Air Marshals. Disclosing Gabbard had been placed on a domestic terror watch list, the former Marshal LaBosco told a disturbing story:

According to LaBosco… Gabbard is unaware she has two Explosive Detection Canine Teams, one Transportation Security Specialist (explosives), one plainclothes TSA Supervisor, and three Federal Air Marshals on every flight she boards. Uncover DC said Gabbard was initially placed on the list on July 23rd, and that trios of Air Marshals first began following her on flights on July 25th. As Racket would learn, surveillance was conducted on at least eight flights, with different three-Marshal teams for each flight, part of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) “Quiet Skies” regimen that can literally surround people with human watchers. There are “potentially 15 or more TSA uniformed and plain clothes” at a gate for such assignments, LaBosco told Racket. The story about Gabbard was surfaced by two TSA whistleblowers, including one detailed to follow her. When Gabbard read this, she felt a shock of recognition.

“When I saw that, I thought, ‘Wow, okay. So everything I was experiencing was exactly what I feared was going on,’” she says. Though clearly outraged, Gabbard stresses the important part of her story isn’t any inconvenience or insult she’s gone through. “This is not a woe-is-me situation,” she explains. Instead, “it’s bringing to the forefront… how brazen the political retaliation and abuse of power continues to be under the Biden-Harris administration.”

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“Who controlled whom that day? The immediate answer, perhaps obvious, is the terrorist at the podium..”

• Israel Runs the US. No, the US Runs Israel. No, Wait .. (Patrick Lawrence)

That deranged speech Bibi Netanyahu delivered to a joint session of Congress last month: I cannot get it entirely out of my mind. It did not change anything — neither the Israeli prime minister nor his hosts seem to desire or intend to change anything in U.S.–Israeli relations. And in this way, there is not much to say about that weird hour the world’s No. 1 terrorist — yes, think about it and tell me I’m wrong — spent at the podium under the Capitol’s rotunda. But the speech did clarify certain things, and then it raised an important question. Let us see about these matters. There is, to begin with, the question of Netanyahu’s mental stability. If we consider his many outlandish assertions — Israel has minimized civilian casualties in Gaza, Israeli soldiers are to be commended for their moral conduct, those protesting in behalf of Palestinians are probably in Iran’s pay, and so on — we must conclude that the man given to such preposterous misrepresentations is, let’s say, perpendicular to reality.

I am sure Netanyahu spoke in large measure for effect. This must be so. But I am equally sure — note the demeanor in the videos, for instance — he was certain of the truth of what he had to say. Dr. Lawrence’s diagnosis: A man consumed with resentment and hatred, who has led Israel to the brink of a cataclysmic war at the irretrievable cost of its international standing, while dragging the U.S. into it (at similar cost), suffers from severe psychosis with symptoms of paranoia and obsessive-compulsive megalomania. I do not say this to indulge some cheap denigration of one of the many contemptible political figures now walking around the Western world and its appendages. After Netanyahu’s notably strange performance in Congress July 24 — at times he seemed pure id — I say this diagnosis would hold in a clinical setting. We should all take note of this and brace ourselves accordingly. Never mind who’s driving the bus: It would be better in this case if no one were driving it.

There is also the reception Netanyahu enjoyed on Capitol Hill. Seventy-two ovations by my count, 60–odd of them standing, for a war criminal, a flouter of international law, a man who commits to waging “a seven-front war” across the Middle East? Bibi’s big theme, running all through his remarks, was congruence, the perfect alignment of Israeli and American interests. Remember? “Our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight, and”—here the left fist pounded—“our victory is your victory.” The response among those in attendance tells you all you need to know about what America’s lawmakers think of this idea. Netanyahu was looking merely for reaffirmation of standing arrangements at a moment when when terrorist Israel’s conduct had begun to turn more stomachs than he had bargained for. And he got what he wanted, needless to say.

This brings us to the question Netanyahu’s speech forces upon us. Does the U.S. control Israel or does Israel control the U.S.? Is the apartheid state another of Washington’s client regimes, albeit — let’s borrow a little from the Chinese — a client with Zionist characteristics? Or is Israel a case — rare, if not unique — of a distant outpost that dictates to the imperial center? The periphery exercises power over the metropole, this to say: This would have to be something new under the sun, surely. This is not a new question. A lot of people have pondered it for months, if not longer — over dining tables or on barstools or in published material on the internet. Who’s in charge, anyway? It has sometimes struck me as an absolutely classic Gordian Knot: Untie this and you will understand all. And at other times it reminds me of a Zen koan, insoluble short of a sudden satori. I haven’t, accordingly, spent much time thinking this through. To date I have concluded it is an angels-on-a-pin question and the answer does not much matter. When others bring it up, my mind drifts.

But after that shocking spectacle in Congress a few weeks ago, I don’t think I can get away with this dodge any longer. The occasion of Netanyahu’s address, his fourth before a joint session, puts all the complexities before us. Who was, in that hour, in charge — the insane man from the periphery, driven by rage, or his audience of adoring lawmakers at the imperial center, driven by… driven by what? I would say driven by greed, ideology and the work of running an imperium that is failing but has not failed yet. Who controlled whom that day? The immediate answer, perhaps obvious, is the terrorist at the podium. It cannot be lost on anyone paying attention that more or less every member of Congress in attendance — and good on the 100 or so members who boycotted — has in the past taken and continues to take money from the Israel lobby, notably but not only the profoundly antidemocratic American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the infamous AIPAC.

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They set their own trap. And walked right into it.

• Incursion Into Russia Could Spell Doom For Kiev – ex-Austrian Official (RT)

Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Region across the border in Russia is a risky gamble that could backfire and lead to a major defeat and a loss of Western support, Gustav Gressel, a former Austrian Defense Ministry official, has told Der Spiegel. Kiev’s forces launched a major cross-border operation in Kursk Region earlier this week. Clashes in the border areas have been ongoing since last Tuesday. The Kremlin called Kiev’s move a large-scale provocation and accused Ukrainian troops of indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. The Russian Defense Ministry has stated on multiple occasions that Ukrainian attempts to penetrate deeper into the region have been thwarted. Nevertheless, Kiev’s troops are still present in some border settlements in Kursk Region where heavy fighting continues, according to the ministry. Gressel, who is currently a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, described Kiev’s actions as a “risky strategy.”

“If Ukraine wants to hold the area for several months, this will result in military costs that are hardly sustainable,” the expert, who previously served in the Austrian military, explained. Extending the front line “benefits Russia first and foremost,” he said an interview published on Saturday. The incursion failed to force Russia to divert forces away from its ongoing major offensive in Donbass, where Moscow’s troops continue to gain ground. Ukraine’s units in the area are “pretty worn out” and are in dire need of reinforcements, according to the expert. Moscow “has more weapons, ammunition and personnel that it can deploy to a longer frontline. Ukraine’s advantage of surprise could quickly turn into a disadvantage,” said Gressel, who also held a post in the Bureau for Security Policy of the Austrian Defense Ministry.

The worst-case scenario for Kiev would be a defeat both in Kursk Region and Donbass, the expert warned. According to Gressel, Ukraine is hoping its operation on Russian soil will lift the morale both of its soldiers and the Ukrainian population, and, he believes, it will not give up on it even in the face of Russia’s military superiority. Russia would then “first hold Ukraine back and then wear it down” as Kiev would pour its limited resources into the operation. “Ukraine could be seen as an unreliable daredevil,” Gressel said, adding that Kiev’s forces in Donbass “would run out of strength” as well. “There would be major territorial losses there.” Kiev’s Western backers such as Germany and the US would also likely reduce their support under these circumstances or even withdraw it completely, the expert warned. “The Kursk maneuver could herald the end of Ukraine militarily,” Gressel stated.

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“The enemy will receive a worthy response. All of our goals will undoubtedly be achieved.”

• No Talks With Kiev After Attack On Civilians – Putin (RT)

Any peace talks with Ukraine are impossible as long as it conducts strikes on civilian populations and threatens nuclear power plants, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Speaking at a meeting with senior officials on Monday, Putin addressed Ukraine’s recent incursion into the border region of Kursk, as well as a drone strike that damaged Russia’s Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. He suggested that Ukraine’s most recent actions show why it has refused to revisit plans to settle the conflict based on either on a Russian proposal, or roadmaps presented by neutral parties. Apparently, the enemy, relying on the help of its Western masters… is striving to improve its negotiating positions in the future. But how can we talk about negotiations with those who conduct indiscriminate strikes on civilians, civilian infrastructure, or try to threaten nuclear energy facilities?

Putin went on to say that one of Kiev’s main goals in Kursk is to divert attention from Donbass, where Russian forces have been steadily gaining ground in recent months. “But what are the results? The pace of offensive operations… not only have not slowed down, but on the contrary increased by one and a half times.” By striking into Kursk Region, Ukraine also sought to undermine the morale of the Russian population, but also achieved contrary results, Putin said, noting an increased stream of volunteers to join the military and defend the border.

Moscow’s main goal at this stage is to drive back the Ukrainian forces from Russian territory. “The enemy will receive a worthy response. All of our goals will undoubtedly be achieved.” Ukraine launched an attack on Kursk Region last week, the largest cross-border assault since the outbreak of the conflict, with media reports suggesting that the offensive involved some of Kiev’s best-equipped brigades. While Ukrainian forces made some gains, the Russian Defense Ministry said the advance had been halted. The Russian military has estimated Kiev’s losses at around 1,600 troops and 200 armored vehicles. On Sunday, Moscow accused Kiev of launching a drone attack on Russia’s Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which damaged one of its cooling towers.

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“..something happens to everyone calling for a peaceful resolution on Ukraine, they get shot at.”

• Anyone Not Supporting Ukraine Gets Shot – Serbian Deputy PM (RT)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is risking his life by refusing to back Western nations on the Ukraine conflict, a senior member of his government has claimed. Serbia, a traditional Russian ally, has declined to impose sanctions on Russia or support the policies of the US and Kiev’s other backers. Brussels in-turn has insisted that Belgrade’s aspiration to join the EU will not be realized unless it changes course. In an interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti published on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin said that Serbian authorities are concerned about the president’s safety, following attempts on the lives of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and former US President Donald Trump. “After the attempt on Mr. Fico, and later Trump, I told Vucic to be on guard,” Vulin said, “that’s because something happens to everyone calling for a peaceful resolution on Ukraine, they get shot at.”

In May, Fico, a vocal critic of the Western Ukraine policy, survived a shooting by a 71-year-old man. His government blamed incendiary rhetoric by opposition politicians for motivating the shooter. Trump, who claims he could end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours if reelected, was grazed by a bullet during a presidential campaign rally in July. The shooter was killed by a counter-sniper. US investigators have not disclosed any suspected motive for the attempted assassination. Vulin also criticized organizers of a mass protest which took place in Belgrade last Saturday, claiming that its ultimate goal may be to topple the Serbian government. “As we know, [sometimes] ouster [of the national leader] means not only the change of power, but also physical elimination of the person imbued with the power,” the minister said.

The demonstration, which attracted some 27,000 protesters, according to government estimates, was staged in opposition to a project to develop lithium mining, which critics claim will cause massive environmental damage. Belgrade granted a license to extract the valuable metal to the British-Australian company Rio Tinto in 2022, but later revoked it following public pressure. The project resumed last month, however, after a Serbian court overruled the government’s decision. President Vucic intends to put the issue to a referendum. Vucic also said last week that the Russian government had warned Serbian authorities that the rally may be a cover for a ‘color revolution’ – a hostile foreign operation that uses anti-government demonstrations and spiraling public disorder to force regime change.

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“To fill the gaping hole of military expenses, the official claimed, Ukraine will have to fall back on unpopular measures such as cutting spending, selling state assets, and hiking up taxes..”

• Debt-Riddled Ukraine Blames ‘Slow’ US Aid, Scrambles to Pay Its Army (Sp.)

An increasingly debt-riddled and ingrate Ukraine is starting to turn on its Western sponsors, blaming them for lagging weapons deliveries to bolster the ongoing proxy war. Kiev is particularly faulting the US for its huge budget deficit, which has brought Ukraine to the brink of default. A US loan payout worth $50 billion needs to be accelerated, the Zelensky regime’s Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko told the Financial Times. According to him, it’s the slow delivery of NATO weapons, especially from Washington, that is to blame for the $12 billion rise in military spending. While the US Congress approved $27 billion in direct US military aid in April this year, Marchenko bemoaned the fact that its disbursement was too “slow.” With the Western cash infusion delayed, the regime was forced to dip into its own coffers to buy weapons and ammunition, he was quoted as saying, using up money set aside “to cover salaries for our troops.”

To fill the gaping hole of military expenses, the official claimed, Ukraine will have to fall back on unpopular measures such as cutting spending, selling state assets, and hiking up taxes. The Ukrainian government has proposed a rise in its tax charged on people’s salaries from 1.5% to 5%. Ukraine’s national debt has almost doubled under Zelensky. According to the country’s Finance Ministry, its state debt amounted to $152.2 billion by July, a record 88.4% of GDP. The main growth is due to Ukraine’s external debt, which increased by $59.5 billion to reach $103.7. The domestic debt increased by $14.4 billion to $40.5 billion. The $50 billion that Ukraine is clamoring for is to be finalized by the Group of Seven this year.

In June, the G7 countries agreed during their summit in Italy to provide the funds by utilizing revenues generated from the interest on Russia’s $325 billion in assets illegally frozen in countries of the collective West. Most of these assets are held at Belgium’s Euroclear. However, talks between the US and EU on finalizing the $50 billion loan have stalled. Furthermore, there has been a lack of unanimity within the European bloc, as Hungary has repeatedly objected to the use of Russian frozen assets for funding NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine. Time is of the essence for the neo-Nazis lodged in Kiev as they suffer combat failures on the front line and manpower shortages. They are also hounded by fears that a potential triumph by Republican candidate Donald Trump in the US presidential election in November could throw a wrench in the works. Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut off US aid to Ukraine.

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“The days preceding the election showed a monumental advantage that Nicolas Maduro and the PSUV had over the opposition in terms of manpower and the sheer strength of its electoral mobilization.”

• Washington’s Web Of Lies Is Backfiring Over Venezuela (Blankenship)

The 2024 presidential election in Venezuela, held on July 28, has stirred international concern – much like the preceding elections in the Caribbean state. A clear divide has emerged, with the United States and its allies supporting the opposition, while countries in the emerging multipolar world order are backing President Nicolas Maduro. In much the same way that the US and its allies have disputed the legitimacy of Maduro’s presidency since the 2018 election, spurring an artificial “presidential crisis” with former opposition leader Juan Guaido recognized by Washington as the “legitimate” president, the West is doing this again with former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez.The opposition has released copies of official tally sheets collected by poll watchers from most of the nation’s polling centers. The sheets show an apparent landslide victory of 80% for Gonzalez, a claim that is now being widely circulated and amplified by the Western press.

Meanwhile, the results released by the National Electoral Council showed a narrow victory for Maduro with 52%, resulting in opposition protests. The Venezuelan government has criminalized such demonstrations and moved to stamp down opposition leaders. Given the state of the Venezuelan economy and widespread poverty, it is not outside the realm of basic reason that Maduro could have actually lost. Researchers, including Steve Levitsky, an expert on democracy at Harvard University, have also noted how improbable the official results are. He told the New York Times that this recent vote is “one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history.” But others disagree. Denis Rogatyuk, a reporter with El Ciudadano who covered the election for the independent media platform, told RT: “The days preceding the election showed a monumental advantage that Nicolas Maduro and the PSUV had over the opposition in terms of manpower and the sheer strength of its electoral mobilization.”

“The closing rallies for President Maduro drew in crowds six to seven times larger than those of Gonzalez and Machado. And the second bulletin released by the CNE on August 2nd, showing 6,408,844 votes for Maduro, aligns perfectly with this notion, and the fact that the combined membership of the PSUV and its allied parties is just over 6 million as well,” he concluded. However, the more interesting dynamic with regard to the situation in Venezuela is the fact that the US is failing to garner the requisite support needed to apply the pressure it wants on Caracas. It shows a dwindling of American soft power in what was once considered the empire’s backyard. For example, the situation in Bolivia in 2019, in which former President Evo Morales was forced to resign in the wake of widespread pressure from the police and military after international interference, has clearly left a sour taste in Latin Americans’ collective mouths.

The three most prominent countries in the region – Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia – have not condemned Maduro. In fact, the Organization of American States (OAS), which had previously passed a resolution against Morales in 2019, failed to pass a resolution over the situation in Venezuela. While 17 members voted to condemn Maduro, 11 abstained – including Brazil and Colombia – and five delegations, including Mexico, skipped the session altogether. The OAS needed 18 votes to pass it. Even the European Union has failed to muster support after Hungary blocked a joint statement by the bloc that would have cited “flaws and irregularities” in the election, forcing EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to publish it in a personal capacity.

What we see here is a classic case of the boy who cried wolf. The US has continually cried wolf over alleged breakdowns of democracy in Latin America, using its soft power to thwart independent governments through international forums and mafia diplomacy. It has spawned coup after coup, leaving nothing but destruction and destitution in its wake. People in the hemisphere – and indeed the world – are sick of injustice and maltreatment. This time, Washington may have actually been right. It could be the case that Maduro lost in this election. It could also not be the case, and that is well-established by the fact that the US and its henchmen are pathological liars. In any case, wherever objective truth may lie, no one believes Uncle Sam’s claims anymore, evidently because he has abused his power for too long in his cynical pursuit of domination.

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“..it is clear from widely circulating videos (though unverified) that many of them got through Israel’s sophisticated anti-air systems.”

• Iron Dome Failure? (ZH)

Hezbollah has fired dozens of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel, calling it retaliation for Israeli attacks last week. Israel’s military says its Iron Dome defence system intercepted some, but not all, of the projectiles. In the overnight and early morning hours Hezbollah pounded northern Israel and the Western Galilee with at least 30 rockets. While Israel’s military says intercepted some of the rockets, it is clear from widely circulating videos (though unverified) that many of them got through Israel’s sophisticated anti-air systems.

A number of regional analysts are remarking on the utter failure of Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system during the salvo; however, Ynet says many rockets struck open fields and uninhabited areas, causing fires. Lebanese Hezbollah said the target was an IDF military installation near Kibbutz Ga’aton. The Israeli side reported no casualties in the wake of the overnight assault. A regional source indicates that “One of Israel’s interceptors hit the Hydro Therapy Centre located in the Mount Hermon region, damaging a building.” The Iran-backed Lebanese paramilitary group has been vowing revenge for the assassination strike by Israel of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30.

The next day, an Israeli operation in Tehran killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Israel says it is busy strengthening defenses ahead of the still anticipated Iranian response, which is expected to include stepped-up Hezbollah action. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told a meeting of defense leader, “We are in the days of vigilance and readiness, the threats from Tehran and Beirut may materialize and it is important to explain to everyone that readiness, preparedness, and vigilance are not synonyms for fear and panic.” As for the claims of the Iron Dome utterly failing in the latest attack, others pointed to the following video, which like the above remains unverified…

Israeli officials are meanwhile monitoring Lebanese media reports which say Hezbollah has entirely evacuated its Beirut headquarters in anticipation of a significant flareup. Some Hezbollah-aligned Lebanese politicians have also issued new threats: Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon and a staunch Hezbollah ally, says of a tensely anticipated joint Iranian and Hezbollah attack on Israel that “revenge is a dish best served cold.” He warns that the “response is inevitable” after the recent killings of top Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

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It’s not just the civil aviation sector, the rot is everywhere at Boeing.

• NASA Inspector General Report Criticizes Boeing’s Quality Control (ET)

NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has raised concerns over quality control and standards at plane maker Boeing and its efforts to help the space agency return astronauts to the Moon. A report from NASA’s OIG released on Aug. 8 focuses on the Space Launch System (SLS) version 1B—the powerful heavy-lift rocket system that NASA plans to use to send the crewed Orion spacecraft and large cargo to the Moon in 2028 as part of the Artemis IV mission. According to NASA’s report, a “critical component” of this upgrade is Boeing’s development of the SLS’s new upper stage, the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS), which will aid in sending the Orion on its mission. Once it is complete, EUS will give the SLS a 40 percent upgrade in carrying capability, going from 27 metric tons under Block 1—the SLS rocket’s first iteration—to 38 metric tons with Block 1B, according to the report.

However, progress on the SLS, which has been under development since 2014, has been plagued with issues, including Boeing’s “ineffective quality management and inexperienced workforce,” along with continued cost increases and schedule delays, the report said. As part of its report, NASA’s OIG interviewed officials at NASA Headquarters, Marshall Space Flight Center, Boeing, and DCMA between August 2023 through May 2024. It also visited the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, to observe the SLS core stage and EUS production. The OIG found that Boeing’s quality management system at Michoud “does not adhere” to international standards established under the global association SAE International. The report pointed to 71 “Corrective Action Requests”(CARs) issued by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) at Michoud between 2021 and 2023 to address “deficiencies in quality.”

NASA’s OIG said this is a “high number of CARs for a space flight system at this stage in development and reflects a recurring and degraded state of product quality control.” “Boeing’s process to address deficiencies to date has been ineffective, and the company has generally been nonresponsive in taking corrective actions when the same quality control issues reoccur,” the report said. The report highlights other issues, including “foreign object debris ” identified inside the SLS Core Stage 2 liquid hydrogen fuel tank.The debris included “metal shavings, Teflon, and other debris on and underneath the entry platform and ladder assembly on the forward dome panels inside of the tank.” “Foreign object debris can damage hardware and potentially injure flight crew when entrapped within crewed flight articles,” the report stated. The liquid hydrogen fuel tank was subsequently cleaned, reinspected, and found to meet standards, according to the report.

In another incident during its visit to Michoud in April 2023, the OIG said it observed substandard welding on a liquid oxygen fuel tank dome, a critical component of the SLS Core Stage 3. The report said that on another occasion, Boeing officials “incorrectly approved hardware processing under unacceptable environmental conditions.” Boeing’s EUS contract has soared from the initially agreed-upon cost of $962 million in 2017 to over $2 billion through 2025, and the company’s delivery of the EUS to NASA has been postponed six years from an initial February 2021 date established in 2016 to April 2027, the report stated. “Given Boeing’s quality management and its related workforce challenges, we are concerned these factors could potentially impact the safety of the SLS and Orion spacecraft including its crew and cargo,” it concluded.

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Right after 9/11, there was a clip in which Larry Silverstein said: “We decided to pull the building” (WTC7). To do that, you need to first have it fitted out with explosives. Takes days. But why were there explosives there? And if WTC7, what about the others? I stopped following 9/11 “news” right there and then.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1822601565577883747

 

 

Dog kisses

 

 

Elephant

 

 

Lots a frens
https://twitter.com/i/status/1822668304856785284

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 10 2024

Aug 102024
 
 August 10, 2024  Posted by at 9:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Café, le soir, Arles 1888

 

• The American Police State Has Murdered the Constitution (Paul Craig Roberts)
• ‘Free Speech Is An Illusion In The US’ – Tara Reade (RT)
• Special Counsel Jack Smith is No Longer in a Hurry (Turley)
• Harris’s Big Gift To Trump… If He Uses It (Victor Davis Hanson)
• US Hypocrisy on Full Display In Dubious FARA Claims Against Scott Ritter (Sp.)
• Maduro Bans X (RT)
• Serbian President Says He Received Coup Warning From Russia (RT)
• Pentagon Refuses To Rule Out Strikes On Moscow (ZH)
• Kiev Regime’s Terrorism Shows Russia Must Go All The Way (SCF)
• Putin Relies on Reason which the West Has Abandoned (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Mexico Responds To Ukraine’s Request To Arrest Putin (RT)
• Australia Being Turned Into ‘51st US state’ – ex-PM Keating (RT)
• Third Year of Record Coral Increase on the Great Barrier Reef (DS)

 

 

 

 

Walz Pelosi

 

 

New president
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821962041646596216

 

 

Trump=energy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821717762890186925

 

 

Macgregor
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821987048129229051

 

 

 

 

“I have already noticed that alternative news websites are pulling in their horns. Soon we will know nothing.”

• The American Police State Has Murdered the Constitution (Paul Craig Roberts)

An American, even a former US Marine and UN weapons inspector, who takes issue with official explanations dear to Washington’s heart, will be accused, as Scott Ritter is, of manipulating the American public “on behalf of the Russian government.” In other words free speech, especially if it is true, is now effectively criminalized despite its Constitutional protection. For many years it has been impossible for many truths to be stated in the print and TV media. The official stories of 9/11, “Covid pandemic,” “Covid vaccine,” Washington’s invasions of Afghanistan and the Middle East, immigration, Israel’s takeover of Palestine, the conflict in Ukraine and others are off limits to skepticism. The alternative Internet media is the only source of information, and now it is being closed down by police state intimidation of Tulsi Gabbard and Scott Ritter and by the destruction of the website Vdare.

The assaults on Donald Trump shows us that not even a President in office is secure from fantastic police state charges. Try to imagine what it means that a New York state judge has set a September date for sentencing the Republican nominee for President seven weeks before the election. Here is real election interference, whereas Trump is being sentenced for interfering in an election by allegedly misreporting a business expense. That such total nonsense can occur in an American court with complicity of an American jury proves that the rule of law is dead and buried in America. Now it has gone beyond the law. It is the Constitution itself that is brushed aside in Washington’s fanatical determination to protect its lies. I have already noticed that alternative news websites are pulling in their horns. Soon we will know nothing.

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“We have the illusion of free speech. We have that illusion of a right to travel. But in reality, it is only allowed if we say what the US wants people to say, otherwise you are at risk..”

• ‘Free Speech Is An Illusion In The US’ – Tara Reade (RT)

You’re only free to speak your mind in the US if you are saying what the authorities want you to say, RT contributor and former aide to Joe Biden, Tara Reade, has claimed. Reade appeared live on RT on Thursday to comment on the search carried out by federal agents and state police at the home of former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter in New York state on Wednesday. She and Ritter, who is now a journalist, had both been invited to speak at the 27th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June, but “unfortunately the federal agents took him off the plane and confiscated his passport,” Reade recalled. She said Ritter’s passport was never returned to him by the US authorities. “Usually, that indicates that someone is under investigation because they take away your passport,” she said.

The government in Washington has been “going after Scott Ritter for years” since “he spoke out against the war in Iraq and revealed that… the US government lied about the weapons of mass destruction,” the former Biden aide claimed. The persecution of the journalist and commentator – whose views on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Israel’s war in Gaza, contrast sharply with those of the White House – is “just a pattern of what you are seeing in the US, which is the surveillance state and authoritative government,” she argued. “We have the illusion of free speech. We have that illusion of a right to travel. But in reality, it is only allowed if we say what the US wants people to say, otherwise you are at risk,” Reade said. She also suggested that, since Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate last month, the party is “going back to the old Russiagate hysteria.”

Ritter, who is also an RT contributor, described the search of his property as an “act of intimidation” against him. The authorities appear to be “primarily concerned” about his “relationship” with RT and the news agency Sputnik, the journalist said in a video message on Telegram on Thursday. The 61-year-old revealed that FBI agents blamed him for working “on behalf of the Russian government” to manipulate the opinions of the American public. Ritter rejected those accusations as “absurd in the extreme.” He insisted that he was “doing nothing wrong,” and was just “an American citizen, holding my government accountable and exercising the rights given to me by the Constitution.”

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“..a neck-breaking change of direction..”

• Special Counsel Jack Smith is No Longer in a Hurry (Turley)

For over a year, Special Counsel Jack Smith has made one element the overriding priority in his prosecution of former president Donald Trump: speed. Smith repeatedly moved to curtail Trump’s appellate rights and demand expedited appeals to try to secure a conviction before the election. In that effort, he found an equally motivated judge in U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who virtually turned her court into a rocket docket to try Trump. Now, in a neck-breaking change of direction, Smith is trying to slow down Chutkan who appears again ready to pull out the stops in this case. After the mandate in the case was returned to her, Judge Chutkan immediately resumed her high-speed scheduling to look at the pre-trial issues after the Court reversed her earlier rulings on the basis of presidential immunity. The past problem with a court making speed the priority is that it does not allow much time to create a record.

The remand will now require Judge Chutkan to do so on the question of what charges and evidence may be barred under the ruling in Trump v. United States. As it has in the past, the Court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills. In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress.

In this decision, the Court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions. Only hours after receiving the mandate, Judge Chutkin scheduled an Aug. 16 conference to lay out the schedule and issues going forward. The former version of Jack Smith would have been delighted. He did not even see the need for the right for an en banc appeal in previously pushing for a pre-election trial. Now, however, Smith is telling Judge Chutkin to slow down already. Smith told the court that “The Government continues to assess the new precedent set forth last month in the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. Although those consultations are well underway, the Government has not finalized its position on the most appropriate schedule for the parties to brief issues related to the decision.”

He has asked for a three-week delay to further consider what he wants to do. It is not clear if the press and pundits will now charge Smith with “slow walking” the case. The question is whether Smith is considering a drastic move in light of the calendar and the ruling. There is, of course, always the possibility that he either throws in the towel or opts for a post-election trial. That would certainly go against the grain of Smith, who has always pushed both the law and the calendar to the breaking point. However, as some of us have been arguing for months, he may no longer view a trial as a plausible objective. There is also the possibility that Smith will do something that some of us have discussed over the last year: pare down his case. Smith has always been undone by his appetite. As shown in his 8-0 reversal in his conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Smith has rarely shown moderation as a prosecutor.

His overloaded criminal complaints created this disaster for his team. In Florida, Smith unwisely loaded up the prosecution with controversial charges on the retention of classified material. It not only triggered difficult challenges but slowed the case to a crawl as the parties dealt with classification laws. Had he proceeded solely on obstruction charges, he might have secured his trial before the election (and before the recent ruling on immunity). Even if the reduced case was heard by the Court on immunity, an obstruction case would have been far stronger for Smith.

The same is true with the D.C. case. Smith loaded up the case to raise the January 6th speech and other issues. Most were unnecessary, but Smith used his press conference to denounce the January 6th riot. A three-week delay will give Smith ample time (in addition to the weeks following the Supreme Court decision) to deliberate. However, it will take roughly a month off the calendar for just internal debate with the election only three months away. So, even with a judge who appears chomping at the bit to resume the fast track to trial, Smith now wants more time. Even before this request, it was hard to see how a trial could be held before the election. Now it seems a virtual certainty that any trial will have to await the results of the election. As I wrote in 2023, the odds were against a federal trial before the election, which would convert the voters into the largest jury in history.

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“..was Harris terrified of leftwing threats from her base that a Shapiro pick would guarantee her 1968-like riots at her Chicago convention?”

• Harris’s Big Gift To Trump… If He Uses It (Victor Davis Hanson)

Harris’s selection of Walz at least reveals the left’s full-bore agenda, something that previously her handlers seemed at pains to hide: an overt doubling down on the Biden neo-socialist record that will require a far more vigorous stealth 90-day campaign to camouflage the hard-left record of both Harris and Walz. Minnesota under Walz became merely a smaller version of Gavin Newsom’s California – shameless woke pandering, wars against fossil fuels, fiscal nihilism, thousands fleeing the state, high crime, high taxes, poor services, sanctuary city/pro-illegal alien activism, eroding downtowns of once majestic cities, loud-in-your-face, attack-dog denials of reality, a two-tier state legal system, tolerance of BLM/Antifa/Hamas street violence, and on and on. So Walz is a force multiplier of Harris’s vulnerabilities.

His selection (was Harris terrified of leftwing threats from her base that a Shapiro pick would guarantee her 1968-like riots at her Chicago convention?) did not just reveal the now overt anti-Semitic, anti-Israel nature of the Democratic Party (Shapiro would have likely ensured Pennsylvania’s electoral votes). Her pick also reveals the confidence that the Left has in winning what will be the most flagrant, bait-and-switch 90-day campaign in presidential history. So, the real Harris-Walz campaign messaging will be: ‘In 2024 we have to lie and mislead you about who we are and what we did, so that in 2025 we can govern you in ways you will not like.’ What are the challenges for this weirdest of tickets? Harris, in Biden-fashion, cannot finish a coherent thought. So again, like Biden in 2020, she will retreat and outsource her campaign to the media, while counting on outspending Trump 3-1, and radiating feigned moderation.

She is taking heat for neither yet meeting with a real journalist nor speaking impromptu. But in her defense, to do either might at any opportune moment collapse her stealth campaign, given that to listen to her for 60 seconds off script is to prefer her to remain silent and hidden. And she has confidence in absentia that a bankrupt media will praise her nonexistent elegance, fluency, and articulateness. Walz will customarily serve as a designated hit man for Harris. But he is just as much a liability— a shoot-from-the-hip blowhard, while owning an even more embarrassing leftwing record than Harris. And he is even less discreet. This week Walz introduced himself to the nation as a VP candidate by smearing J.D. Vance with the brazen “couch” lie. And then while foolishly beaming, he doubled-down on his crude slur (“See what I did there?”).

So, he even outdid Harris who had recently called Trump a “predator”—just days before it was disclosed that her married husband earlier had once impregnated his own children’s young nanny and tutor and had never disclosed what followed from his predation. Both will either ignore or lie about their joint opposition to fracking and pipelines; their disgraceful pro-BLM/Antifa advocacy during the lethal and destructive 2020 looting and rioting; their support for open borders and illegal immigration; their woke pandering; and their generic leftwing promotion of the usual high taxes, big government, poor services, and ‘who cares if they flee my state’ arrogance.

The Harris-Walz ticket will also collapse if, horribile dictu, the prior Biden-Harris appeasement of Iran, distancing from Israel, weakening of the military, and loss of deterrence in the next 90 days leads to theater-wide wars on the Ukrainian borderlands or in the Middle East and/or to a recession due to cumulative inflation, high interest, stagnant wages and anemic citizen employment, and unsustainable national debt service.In sum, Trump is very much even in the race. He was given a rare gift by the shunning of Josh Shapiro as Harris’s running mate. That leftwing blunder could energize the Trump campaign—if again he sticks to warning the country of who these two are, what they have done, how they are hiding their real agendas, what they will do if elected, and how they differ from his own presidential record and future agenda. Nothing else matters.

And that means Trump should ignore the now inert and evaporating Biden, refrain from attacking any Republican, stop all recriminations about 2020, avoid race and DEI ambushes, and prep hard and in detail for as many debates as he can obtain. Trump should appear magnanimous and above the fray by compromising with Harris on the debates: one debate now by her rules on ABC, and one by his rules on Fox before early voting begins. Rarely have the Democrats so foolishly gone hard left. And when they did in 1972, 1980, and 1988, Republicans used to know how to use those gifts, expose them, and win landslides despite media and institutional bias. They can do it again, but only if they are as adroit, united, and disciplined as their predecessors once were.

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“..The Wednesday raid also came the same week court documents revealed Hunter Biden took in million from Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu..”

• US Hypocrisy on Full Display In Dubious FARA Claims Against Scott Ritter (Sp.)

Under the orders of the US Justice Department, the home of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was raided this week under allegations of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. More than two dozen boxes were pulled from his home, including an archive that backed Ritter’s allegations that there were never any WMDs in Iraq in 2003. The US’ latest effort to target Scott Ritter have fully put on display the government’s hypocrisy as it picks and chooses when to stay its hand and when to weaponize the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) against Americans, US attorney John Jackman told Sputnik. The Wednesday raid took place at Ritter’s home in New York as investigators have sought to argue that the former weapons inspector’s journalistic work is being framed at the direction of the Russian government. However, the claims could not be further from the truth.

“FARA, kind of by its very nature, is enforced ambiguously, which leads to very unequal levels of enforcement and basically, you know, there’s potential for it to be weaponized against political speech that the United States, especially our foreign policy establishment, finds problematic,” Jackman told Radio Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Friday. Potential FARA offenders are flagged by the US government if they fall under certain specifications, such as an individual who is documented as having been directed at the sole discretion of a foreign principal. That said, there are exemptions that protect “bonafide” media services, which Jackman noted its exact definition is “somewhat ambiguous.” “I’m looking at the totality of those factors together and these accusations of him acting as a foreign agent and, just on its face, the claims are extremely dubious and uncredible in my view,” Jackman told hosts Jamarl Thomas and Melik Abdul.

“I think this comes down to where they can kind of find these ambiguities in foreign agent laws since it’s been enacted and then also sort of play upon some of the jingoism and fear that the government is really trying to stoke, especially toward Russia but also toward countries in the Middle East as well, which Scott Ritter has been sympathetic to.” Jackman, who also serves as the regular co-host of DD Geopolitics, contrasted the government’s accusations against Ritter to that of the relationship between the Israeli lobby in the US and Congress. “The hypocrisy is so profound,” he said. “The Israeli lobby being able to literally buy [congressional] seats, yet the United States treats all the deference that our media, that our politicians give to Israel, literally the exact propaganda lines that the Israeli government will say to justify, you know, the war and occupation going in Gaza, in the West Bank,” Jackman told Thomas.

“Yet, when it comes to talking about the interests of, you know, other countries or even the sovereign interests of the people in the United States, right, to make sure that our tax dollars are being used in an accountable way that’s going to the infrastructure of this country, rather than going to continue to fuel war and foreign aid in, you know, the tens and hundreds of billions of dollar to countries, like, Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan, for example. So, the hypocrisy to me is just very evident,” the attorney emphasized. The Wednesday raid also came the same week court documents revealed Hunter Biden took in million from Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu in exchange for attempting to exert his influence on the US government during his father’s vice presidency. Additionally, former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway registered as a foreign agent who would be lobbying on behalf of pro-Ukrainian interests.

Unlike in the Biden findings, where evidence shows an agent-principal relationship had been established between the two parties, that isn’t the case for Ritter. “This is one of the meaningful differences with Scott,” Jackman said “At every turn you know Scott is, what he’s talking about when it comes to his commentary on foreign policy and the work that he’s doing, for example, to organize this anti-war rally and draw attention to the specter of nuclear war has been done under his own volition,” he noted. “Due to his own, you know, freedom of thought and freedom of speech which actually, you know, is very tough to do in this country because it cuts against a lot of financial interests that he could potentially be taking advantage of, right?” “It would be a lot easier in this country, for example, to take advantage of a Ukrainian interest who’s willing to pay you to go on the airwaves and spout Ukrainian propaganda. It would be a lot easier to get that into the mainstream than it would to, you know, take the other side of it in this country, which requires just kind of by its very nature – and you all know – a lot of independence.”

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“Maduro accused the tech mogul of “inciting hatred, fascism, civil war, death, [and] confrontation of Venezuelans..”

• Maduro Bans X (RT)

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced a temporary ban on X (formerly Twitter) in the country. The decision followed his war of words with the platform’s CEO, Elon Musk, who has accused Maduro of election fraud. In a televised speech on Thursday, Maduro accused the tech mogul of “inciting hatred, fascism, civil war, death, [and] confrontation of Venezuelans,” as well as violating national laws. The leader added that he has signed a resolution presented by the National Commission of Telecommunications to ban the social media platform for ten days.“Let the plans on social networks to spread violence, hatred… [in] Venezuela from abroad end,” Maduro wrote in a separate post on X. In response, Musk took to the platform to mockingly promise to “singe his [Maduro’s] mustache from space.”

The spat between the Venezuelan leader and the billionaire started in the wake of the country’s presidential election last month, in which Maduro was declared the winner. According to the country’s electoral council, Maduro won about 52% of the vote, while opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez received 43%. The opposition disputed the results, arguing that they didn’t match their own tallies, while their backers, including the US, refused to recognize Maduro’s victory. However, other countries such as China and Russia have congratulated the Venezuelan leader on his reelection. Musk has supported the criticism of Maduro, calling him a “dictator” and accusing him of “major election fraud.” “The people of Venezuela have had enough of this clown,” he added, voicing support for the opposition.

The jab drew a sharp response from the Venezuelan president, who blasted the tycoon for allegedly trying to stage a coup and challenged him to a fistfight – a suggestion Musk accepted. The temporary ban on X comes after Maduro claimed to have deleted his WhatsApp messenger from his phone, saying it was being used to threaten Venezuela and spy on its people. He also claimed that TikTok and Instagram were being used to promote “hate” and promised to regulate their use. Maduro will be serving a third consecutive six-year term, after first taking office in 2013 following the death of President Hugo Chavez. Maduro’s previous reelection, in 2018, was also rejected by the US, along with the EU and several Latin American states.

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They want the lithium.

• Serbian President Says He Received Coup Warning From Russia (RT)

Russia warned Serbia about a potential coup attempt, President Aleksandar Vucic told journalists on Friday. His statement came a day before an expected protest in the nation’s capital. According to Vucic, Serbia’s Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) is already acting on the leads provided by Moscow. “We received official information from the Russian Federation, information transmitted and brought through official channels,” the president said, adding that the authorities “are dealing with it” and there is no reason to worry. Vucic did not elaborate on where the threat could come from or who might be behind the alleged coup plot. He still maintained that those who “dream” of achieving anything in such a way should know that “they won’t.” “Serbia is moving forward and they cannot and will not stop it,” he added.

Earlier, some Serbian news media outlets reported that the Russian security services allegedly warned Vucic about massive riots that are being prepared in Serbia with an ultimate goal of overthrowing the nation’s leadership. A Serbian ‘Vecernje Novosti’ daily stated earlier on Friday that it obtained a “color revolution handbook” supposedly published for the participants of ecological protests that are expected to be held on Saturday. The content of the “handbook” describes methods reminiscent of “color revolutions” in other nations, the media outlet claimed, adding that the protests in the country are likely to be coordinated from some “centers of power” abroad but did not accuse anyone in particular. The news came as the nation braces for possible ecological protests this weekend. In July, Serbia has become an arena for a standoff between groups of eco-activists and the government over a major lithium mine project. Last month, Belgrade granted the Anglo-Australian mining major Rio Tinto a license to develop a lithium mine in the Jadar region in the western part of the country, which is poised to become the biggest one in Europe, according to Reuters.

The project did not sit well with some local farmers and villagers, who argued that the mine would severely pollute the surrounding area. The mine would “free the European Union from reliance on China” in terms of lithium at the expense of Serbians’ health, farmer Zlatko Kokanovic, one of the activists, told Reuters. The government treats the $2.4 billion Jadar lithium project as a major boost for the national economy. The mine could cover 90% of the EU’s needs for lithium, according to Reuters. The protesters demanded the government ban lithium mining in Jadar before August 10 and vowed to announce their next steps at a rally on Saturday. The news came as the nation braces for possible ecological protests this weekend. In July, Serbia has become an arena for a standoff between groups of eco-activists and the government over a major lithium mine project.

Last month, Belgrade granted the Anglo-Australian mining major Rio Tinto a license to develop a lithium mine in the Jadar region in the western part of the country, which is poised to become the biggest one in Europe, according to Reuters. The project did not sit well with some local farmers and villagers, who argued that the mine would severely pollute the surrounding area. The mine would ”free the European Union from reliance on China” in terms of lithium at the expense of Serbians’ health, farmer Zlatko Kokanovic, one of the activists, told Reuters. The government treats the $2.4 billion Jadar lithium project as a major boost for the national economy. The mine could cover 90% of the EU’s needs for lithium, according to Reuters. The protesters demanded the government ban lithium mining in Jadar before August 10 and vowed to announce their next steps at a rally on Saturday.

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“I’m not gonna draw a circular map for you here of where they can and cannot strike.”

• Pentagon Refuses To Rule Out Strikes On Moscow (ZH)

The Pentagon on Thursday was asked by a reporter during the daily briefing whether Ukraine forces’ use of American weapons in its ongoing Kursk incursion is “consistent” with US policy of what Ukraine can and cannot do with US weapons. It has become clear that Ukrainian troops are currently using American weapons to attack Russian territory, troops, civilians, and infrastructure. Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh answered without hesitation that “yes it is consistent with our policy” and explained that Washington has supported the need for “crossfire” from Ukraine back across the border onto Russian positions from which it is being attacked, even if that is on Russian territory. She framed what is happening in Russia’s Kursk oblast—an offensive which has entered day four—as ‘defensive’ in nature.

Singh still tried to point out that it remains US policy for Ukraine to avoid striking deep into Russian territory using American arms; however, when pressed about the scenario of a direct attack on Moscow, she simply said: “I’m not going to put a specific range on it” and thus refused to rule it out. But she did caveat that “we still don’t support long-range attacks into Russia.” Singh additionally explained, “I’m not gonna draw a circular map for you here of where they can and cannot strike.” The Kremlin is likely to remain unconvinced when hearing this clear escalation in rhetoric from the Pentagon where attacking the Russian capital is discussed, even if theoretically. Needless to say we have entered incredibly dangerous times in this major proxy war when the Pentagon’s daily press briefing is openly talking about strikes on Moscow.

The Ukrainian cross-border offensive, which may have involved up to 1,000 men, began early Tuesday morning and was led by fast moving armored vehicles, which were able to penetrate up to 10km into Ukraine. Moscow says that it has observed US-supplied equipment being utilized in the attack on Russian soil. A prior Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) statement said, “Video monitoring data shows that Lancet loitering munitions destroyed a US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, a Kazak armored vehicle, a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier and an infantry fighting vehicle in their firing positions.” Newsweek also confirmed based on video evidence. The MoD further said that dozens of armored vehicles breached the border and were operating inside Russia amid a major response to push out the invaders which has included airpower.

As of Friday, the fighting in Kursk is in its fourth day, which is unprecedented for a Ukrainian military incursion inside Russia. Ukraine has simultaneously stepped up its cross-border drone attacks, reportedly hitting an important military airfield in the Lepetsk region, impacting a facility where glide-bombs are stored. According to the latest: Ukrainian drones struck a key military airfield in Russia’s Lipetsk region, as Kyiv continues its largest offensive on Russian soil since the start of the war. Ukrainian forces targeted the airfield in Lipetsk — roughly 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the border with Ukraine — on Thursday night, hitting warehouses and a number of unspecified objects in the vicinity of the airport, Ukraine’s General Staff of Command said in a Google-translated Telegram post. Earlier in the week, the Ukrainian offensive led to the evacuation of thousands of people and a state of emergency being announced in Kursk.

The timing of this high-risk assault is interesting, happening at a time where Ukraine has been on a slow and steady retreat in the Donbass. Ukraine needed something ‘big’ to both distract Russia’s military command from front line operations and as a blow to Moscow’s morale. And now Kiev is pressing the Biden White House to let it use ATACMS long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russia. “This will give them the leverage they need for negotiations with Russia — this is what it’s all about,” Mikhail Podoliak, a senior advisor to President Zelensky, told The Washington Post. On Thursday, Zelensky himself had said Russia needs to “feel” the consequences of its invasion and war. “Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done,” he said.

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“The Western powers incubated the Nazi virus and unleashed its mutated strain in Ukraine..”

• Kiev Regime’s Terrorism Shows Russia Must Go All The Way (SCF)

Following the atrocities in Kursk and Belgorod this week, Dmitry Medvedev, a senior member of Russia’s national security council, commented on Moscow’s long-term military objectives, saying: “This is no longer an operation to regain our lands and punish Nazis… We should only stop when we consider it appropriate.” That means, presumably, going all the way to demolish NATO’s Reich regime, a regime that seized power illegally in 2014 through a CIA-orchestrated coup d’état against an elected president. Despite Western media distortions, Ukraine is merely an artificial statelet whose so-called independence in 1991 was a legacy of gerrymandering and territorial horse-trading from the Soviet times. Russia has righteous historical claims to Odessa, the city founded by Catherine the Great, Kharkov, Nikolayev, and indeed Kiev in the same way it has to Crimea, the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozyhe regions.

The congenital treachery of the Kiev regime and its imperialist patrons make them “agreement incapable”. The betrayal and deception over the Minsk Peace Accords (2015) and the trashing of post-Cold War NATO promises of non-expansion show that any treaties that might be derived are worthless. The terrorist nature of the Kiev regime and its ideological roots in collaboration with the Nazi Third Reich in exterminating Slavic people and the systematic warmongering of the U.S.-led NATO bloc from the early days of the post-1945 Cold War, all show that a modus vivendi is impossible. The idea of Russian territories living peacefully alongside a Ukrainian rump Reich is infeasible. As long as a toxic entity of Ukrainian fascism resides and is sustained by NATO patronage there will always be a national security threat to Russia. The history of defeating Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union only for that enemy to be subsequently resurrected by Western imperialism with the remnants of Ukrainian fascists demonstrates that the disease must be eradicated.

Ukraine has the misfortune of being designated as the spearhead for a U.S.-led imperialist confrontation against Russia. The terrorism that was unleashed after the 2014 coup against ethnic Russian people has only metastasized. Attacking Russian civilians in pre-war Russian territory, targeting civilians on beaches with missiles, targeting nuclear power stations, and spreading the tentacles of terrorism to African nations friendly with Russia as recent attacks in Mali have evinced – all attest to the only way to deal with the Kiev regime. It must be vanquished entirely. Its leaders are bandits with Russian blood on their hands. Russia must crush this criminal entity once and for all – and do an immense favor to the Ukrainian people by liquidating this parasitic tyranny imposed on them by Western imperial masters. Ukrainian men are hiding or fleeing en masse from the regime to escape forced conscription – and certain death on the front lines.

Ultimately, the war in Ukraine is not just against a psychopathic NATO proxy. It is against the Western system of global domination and its NATO war machine. History shows that a negotiated detente is only a stepping stone for more aggression further up the road. The Western powers incubated the Nazi virus and unleashed its mutated strain in Ukraine. Not only does the Kiev Nazi virus have to be eradicated. So too ultimately must the Western imperialist disease that is the progenitor. Russia’s territory is the site of a historic, world-changing confrontation. That confrontation goes all the way back to the heroic battles of the Donbass, Crimea and Kursk against the Wehrmacht in 1943-44 culminating in the present against NATO. After this climactic battle is finally won by Russia, there should be never any repetition. That entails a definitive defeat of the Western imperialism that earlier spawned Nazi Germany and today’s U.S.-led NATO.

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“The liberalism in which Putin believes no longer exists in the West. So why is Putin relying on it?”

• Putin Relies on Reason which the West Has Abandoned (Paul Craig Roberts)

Vladimir Putin is an old-fashioned American liberal. He believes in reason, good will, working things out, and agreements despite having zero evidence that any such reciprocating belief exists in the West. Putin’s illusions have caused him and Russia extraordinary difficulties. Russia is currently at war in Ukraine, although Putin still doesn’t seem to realize it, referring to it as a “limited military operation” despite the obvious fact that Russia is at war with NATO which includes the US. It is sad that Putin, a person with good intentions, doesn’t have his counterparts in the Western world. Now it comes to light that the British and Ukrainian governments planned to assassinate both Russia’s President Putin and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov at the Navy Day parade in St Petersburg.

In my columns I have several times mentioned that Putin and Trump are candidates for assassination. The recent attempt on Trump, which has been removed from the “news,” has now been matched by the statement of Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, on Russian national television that Belousov called US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and squashed the assassination plan, explaining, apparently, that World War III would be the result. Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry said: “There is no doubt that the assassination attempt was planned with the participation of the Anglo-Saxon masters of Kiev.” Still, Putin wants to negotiate the end of the Ukrainian conflict. How precisely do you negotiate with people who are trying to assassinate you?

Dmitry Medvedev, President of Russia during the Putin Interregnum, currently deputy chairman of the Russian National Security Council, seems to have come to a clear vision. Here are his latest words, and one wonders if Putin hears them: “From this moment, the special military operation should become openly exterritorial in nature. We can and should go further into what still exists as Ukraine. To Odessa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolaev. To Kiev and further. There should be no restrictions in terms of recognized borders.” In other words, the nonsensical “limited military operation” should be over and done with. It is time to get serious. The liberalism in which Putin believes no longer exists in the West. So why is Putin relying on it? I raise these questions because it appears that the combination of Washington’s provocations and Russian restraint is leading to a terrible war that is in no one’s interest.

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“We cannot do that..”

• Mexico Responds To Ukraine’s Request To Arrest Putin (RT)

The President of Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has rejected a request by Ukraine to arrest Vladimir Putin, if the Russian leader were to land in the Latin American country this fall for the inauguration of its new head of state. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin last year in connection with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Mexico is one 124 nations recognizing the jurisdiction of The Hague-based body. “We cannot do that,” Lopez Obrador replied when asked by journalists during a press conference on Thursday if the Mexican authorities are really going to detain the Russian president. “It is not up to us,” he added, as cited by Reuters.

Izvestia newspaper had reported on the previous day that Mexico had invited Putin to the inauguration this October of its new president, Claudia Sheinbaum. According to the Mexican Embassy in Moscow, the Russian leader will decide whether to attend the ceremony himself or send some other high-ranking official to represent the country. The Ukrainian embassy in Mexico reacted to the news by reminding the country’s government that Putin is wanted by the ICC and by asking it to arrest the Russian leader if he comes. “We are confident that the Mexican government would comply with the international arrest warrant by handing the aforementioned person over to the judicial body of the UN in The Hague,” Kiev’s diplomatic mission said in a statement on Wednesday. It also thanked Mexico City for inviting Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to the inauguration.

Mexico has taken a neutral stance toward the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with Lopez Obrador a critic of US military aid to Kiev and of the sanctions imposed on Moscow by the West. The outgoing president’s successor, Sheinbaum, is a close ally and is expected to continue his policies. In March 2023, the ICC formally accused Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights of “forcible transfer of the population,” referring to evacuations of minors from combat zones amid fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces. Moscow has dismissed the allegations as false, while also accusing the court of being politically compromised. Russia, which never ratified the 1998 Rome Statute that established the ICC, also pointed out that the UN body had no authority over it.

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“..If we did not have an aggressive ally, like the United States, aggressive to others in the region, there would be nobody attacking Australia. We are better left alone..”

• Australia Being Turned Into ‘51st US state’ – ex-PM Keating (RT)

The US is surrounding Australia with military bases under the AUKUS pact, which undermines the country’s sovereignty and makes it a legitimate target for China, former Prime Minister Paul Keating has said. In an interview with ABC on Thursday, Keating, who served as prime minister between 1991 and 1996, voiced strong skepticism about whether his country benefits from being a member of AUKUS – a landmark security partnership between Australia, UK, and the US, which was announced in 2021. The pact, which has been condemned by China, focuses on helping Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines. Keating argued that by allowing the US to “displace our military” and surround the country with bases, Canberra is essentially giving up its right to determine its foreign and defense policy. Australia will “completely lose” its strategic autonomy as a result, he claimed.

“So AUKUS is really about, in American terms, the military control of Australia,” Keating said, adding that the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is “likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States”. The former prime minister added that the expanded military presence makes the country a target from China’s point of view. “We’re now defending the fact that we’re in AUKUS… If we did not have an aggressive ally, like the United States, aggressive to others in the region, there would be nobody attacking Australia. We are better left alone,” Keating said. The US, he argued, is trying to “superintend” China, with tensions between the two being fueled by a power struggle over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing views as part of its sovereign territory. However, Keating argued that the Taiwan situation “is not a vital Australian interest” while China “has no strategic design” on Australia.

The US attitude to Taiwan is comparable to China deciding that Tasmania needed help breaking away from Australia, he said.The former prime minister’s remarks come after Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong traveled to Washington for talks about the AUKUS pact, and to discuss a new agreement on the transfer of nuclear material to Canberra as part of its push to acquire domestic-built atomic submarines from the 2030s. China has warned that the AUKUS agreement raises nuclear proliferation risks, adding that it was conceived in the “Cold War mentality which will only motivate an arms race.” Russia has also sounded the alarm about the security situation in the Asia-Pacific, insisting that it “has no place for closed military and political alliances.”

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“..evidence from many years of scientific observation suggests the corals often and quickly recover..”

• Third Year of Record Coral Increase on the Great Barrier Reef (DS)

Massive increases in coral across the Australian Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have been reported for 2023-24 making it the third record year in a row of heavy growth. Across almost all parts of the 1,500 mile long reef, from the warmer northern waters to the cooler conditions in the south, coral is now at its highest level since detailed observations began. The inconvenient news has been ignored in mainstream media which, curiously, have focused on a non-story in Nature that claimed “climate change” poses an “existential threat” to the GBR. “The science tells us that the GBR is in danger – and we should be guided by the science,” Professor Helen McGregor from the University of Wollongong told Victoria Gill of BBC News. The existential threat is “now realised” reported the Guardian.

Travelling back from the reality inhabited by the Guardian, it can be reported that last year’s gains were eye-catchingly large. On the Northern GBR, hard coral cover leapt from 35.8% to 39.5%, in the central area it rose from 30.7% to 34%, while in the south it went from 34% to 39.1%. The report is the result of monitoring of hard coral cover reefs from August 2023 to June 2024 by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The percentage of hard coral cover is a standard measurement of reef conditions used by scientists and is said to provide a simple and robust measure of reef health. Similar reports have been published by the AIMS over the last 38 years.

For the first two years of record coral growth, the narrative-driven mainstream media ignored the recovery story. But this year, the suspicious might contend, something had to be done to blunt the sensational news of the stonking rises. Help has come in the form of a paper just published in Nature which uses proxy temperature measurements and climate models to suggest temperatures around the vast reef area are the highest recorded in 400 years. This time period is the blink of an ecological eye-lid given that coral has been around for hundreds of millions of years during periods when temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide have been markedly different. Nevertheless, this is said to pose an existential threat despite it being known that sub-tropical corals thrive between 24°C-32°C, and in fact seem to grow faster in warmer waters.

Natural bleaching, when the coral expels algae and turns white, can occur with temporary local temperature changes, but evidence from many years of scientific observation suggests the corals often and quickly recover. Long term changes in water temperature – tiny compared to coral’s optimum conditions – pose no threat, but alarmists concentrate on the bleaching events to warn of possible ecological collapse. The Guardian noted a recent fifth mass bleaching in eight years across the reef, driven, it claimed, by “global heating”. So far, its readers are in the dark as to how this squares with the recent record growth. A decade of mass bleaching, relentlessly catastrophised in the interests of Net Zero by activists in the media, academia and politics, does not appear to have done much harm to the recent growth in the Northern GBR.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Babies
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821950104229556548

 

 

Brutal

 

 

Kingfu

 

 

Snow leopard
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821889171444883650

 

 

F(r)ens

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 26 2024

Jul 262024
 
 July 26, 2024  Posted by at 8:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  73 Responses »


Vasily Polenov Moscow courtyard 1878

 

• Biden’s Bitter Legacy Signals ‘Culmination of Betrayal’ (Sp.)
• Coup Upon Coup Upon Coup (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Trump Calls Kamala ‘Radical Left Lunatic’ Responsible for Biden Failures (Sp.)
• Trump Comments On Biden’s Drop-out Speech (RT)
• Is US Democratic System Crumbling? (Sp.)
• US’s Harris Vetting Dozen Potential Vice Presidential Candidates (Sp.)
• Harris to Uphold Russophobic US Dogma as World Seeks Multipolar Order (Sp.)
• US Police No Longer Trust FBI – Report (RT)
• The Assassination Attempt & the US Election-PCR interviewed (PCR)
• A Congressional investigation of the Assassination Attempt on Trump (PCR)
• Zelensky Gets The Ukrainian Trains To Run On Time (Helmer)
• As The State “Withers Away”, Multinationals Go On A Rampage (Karganovic)
• Israel Must End War In Gaza – Trump (RT)
• US Democrats Snub Netanyahu – Axios (RT)
• EU Won’t Support Hungary, Slovakia in Oil Transit Dispute With Ukraine (Sp.)
• Judge Refuses to Dismiss Trump Defamation Lawsuit vs ABC, Stephanopoulos (AmG)
• Federal Judge Rules Against Free Speech in Elementary Schools (Turley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Word soup
https://twitter.com/i/status/1815143381829390693

 

 

Bella Hadid
https://twitter.com/i/status/1815887379938542018

 

 

 

 

Chris M

 

 

 

 

“So Khrushchev called for eliminating all conflicts between us that would cause another crisis. Well, that’s what we need today. That’s the spirit we need..”

• Biden’s Bitter Legacy Signals ‘Culmination of Betrayal’ (Sp.)

Beltway media, including the traditionally Biden-loyal Washington Post, dubbed the lame duck president an “anti-icon,” saying his “brief, targeted” address was “pragmatic, muted and self-effacing,” and “a little bit hard to watch.” Biden’s top 2024 challenger, former president Trump, took to Truth Social to lambast “Crooked Joe Biden’s Oval Office speech” as “barely understandable, and sooo bad.” “Crooked Joe Biden and lying Kamala Harris are a great embarrassment to America – there has never been a time like this,” Trump wrote in his traditional bombastic fashion. “I look at what’s happening today through the scope of what’s been happening since…the end of the Cold War, since 1991,” former NYT and Bloomberg contributor-turned independent foreign affairs observer John Varoli told Sputnik, commenting on the meaning of Joe Biden’s address beyond their immediate implications.

“It’s just been a horrifying time in American history,” Varoli said of this period of roughly 35 years. “It is the most disgraceful, wicked period in American history. And it’s just the feeling of betrayal…The Biden years are the culmination of this betrayal. You have to understand, we Americans, young Americans like myself…met [the end of the Cold War] with enthusiasm, with optimism. We were like ‘this is all great. It’s going to be peace in the world. No nuclear war. We’re going to get along with Russia.’ We were so full of optimism that we were going to build a better world.” Instead, the journalist recalled, the decades since 1991 have been filled with US wars, regime change operations and other aggression, from the Gulf War and the bombing of Yugoslavia, to NATO’s expansion, culminating with the Euromaidan coup in Ukraine, all in the interest of building and propping up the American unipolar moment.

“What the hell’s wrong with these people?” was the natural reaction to these processes, Varoli said. “Then you realize, it was a plan. Professor Jeffrey Sachs said it. He saw it. He was there…This is nothing accidental…Biden is the culmination of this absolute insanity and madness. Imperial madness, imperial insanity, this bid for global domination.” mWhat’s taking place today in US politics is “basically the final chapter in [the] collapse” of “this whole imperial project,” according to the observer, with even mainstream outlets basically admitting, by reporting on Biden’s big donors pulling the plug on his reelection bid, that the US has turned into “an oligarchy.” “We are really now in uncharted territory, people just have no illusions. I did some research…[and] found a poll from 2022 that said 85% of Americans think there are serious problems with our political system. 85%! That was two years ago. Now it’s probably obviously like 100%. People say there could be a civil war. People just zone out. They become apathetic,” Varoli said.

“This is a crucial moment in American history,” Peter Kuznick, professor of history at the American University in Washington, DC and co-author of the book ‘Untold History of the United States’ together with film director Oliver Stone, told Sputnik. The historian pointed out that like Trump before him, Biden surrounded himself with neoconservative hawks, from Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan to Victoria Nuland, bringing the world closer to a world-ending conflict between the superpowers. “I’m very concerned about what’s going on in the world now. The situation in Ukraine is very troubling. As I wrote in a recent article coauthored with Ivana Hughes, the Columbia professor who heads the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are very concerned that the continued and increasing NATO militaristic policies in Ukraine, on top of the Russian invasion, putting the world on a glide path to World War Three and nuclear war. The fact that the Biden administration has effectively banned any discussion of diplomacy and simply doubles down on more advanced weaponry, and then gives Zelensky permission to use that weaponry to attack inside of Russia, has really made a bad situation even worse,” Kuznick said.

[..] “Whether it’s over Taiwan or it’s over the South China Sea, we’re heading for World War Three in the Pacific also. US Army General Minihan said he expects the US and China to be at war by 2025, and top Republicans in Congress said they agreed. Well, that’s horrifying also,” Kuznick stressed. Looking back to history, Kuznick recalled that “as Kennedy and Khrushchev learned” during the Cuban Missile Crisis, once an international crisis emerges, “there’s no way to control them.” “So Khrushchev called for eliminating all conflicts between us that would cause another crisis. Well, that’s what we need today. That’s the spirit we need,” Kuznick said.

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“..the bosses’ replacement choice, Vice President Kamala Harris, had entered no primary. She never won a single delegate. Harris also never captured a single delegate in her first and only presidential run back in 2020.”

• Coup Upon Coup Upon Coup (Victor Davis Hanson)

In March 2020, all the major Democratic primary candidates abruptly, mysteriously, and in near unison withdrew from the presidential race, ceding the nomination to Joe Biden. Yet Biden had lost the first three races in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada—and only won his first victory in South Carolina. Suddenly, on the eve of the Super Tuesday mega-primaries, the candidacies of front-runner Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and others simply evaporated. The fear of a front-runner Sanders’ socialist victory and nomination—and thus an enviable landslide loss to incumbent Donald Trump in the general election—had prompted the donor class and shadowy political insiders to act. And they did so by choosing a perceived moderate, old Joe Biden from Scranton. That required the coerced departures of all his far-left rivals, who had hitherto performed much better than Biden in the primaries.

Now front-runner Biden still displayed obvious symptoms of serious cognitive decline that had only seemed to mount through the 2020 campaign. And his dementia continued to accelerate during his first three years as president. Biden had deceitfully promised to conduct a healing campaign and a unifying presidency. But once in the White House, his extreme agendas proved the most divisive and far-left in nearly a century. Rumors of that prior March 2020 Faustian bargain emerged. The Bidens got to serve as useful moderate veneers. So, they enjoyed the ceremonial functions of the presidency while outsourcing the real operations to former Obama officials, consultants, and advisors. Indeed, Obama did not, as most ex-presidents do, exit Washington upon leaving the White House. Instead, he bought a mansion and stayed close by.

Democrats demonized anyone critical of Biden’s obvious mental decline. Their smearing crested during Biden’s now-aborted 2024 reelection bid, even as Biden could no longer display even a veneer of mental and physical engagement. Polls revealed an impending Trump landslide victory in November—and a massive Democratic loss of Congress. So suddenly on a Sunday, July 21—just days left before state ballots were formalized with the names of the parties’ official nominees, and on the eve of the Democratic convention—party bosses, mega-donors, and Obama puppeteers went into action for yet a third time. They reportedly threatened candidate Biden with a complete loss of any further campaign funding and raised the specter of invoking the 25th Amendment to end his presidency—should he not suddenly withdraw from the race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as his surrogate on the ticket.

In one moment, the choices of nearly 15 million Biden primary voters were vitiated. No delegates were consulted. No other alternative Democrat candidates were even considered. Biden was dethroned; Harris was coronated—without much public input or even knowledge of how or why. Democrat grandees stopped smearing Biden’s conservative critics, who had worried over his dementia. Instead, they now trumped opposition criticism of Biden’s decline. Yet Biden most certainly did not resign his presidency. Instead, he promised to serve out his remaining six months in office. So Democrat insiders not only removed their leading candidate, who for the prior six months had won all the 2024 primaries and almost all the delegates, but insisted that Biden keep Democrats and himself in power—but only if he agreed to quit the race. In sum, at the 11th hour of a two-year reelection effort, a cabal arbitrarily decided that Joe Biden might well lose the Democrats the White House and the Congress.

So, they reversed course, now claiming his dementia was so acute as to destroy their November prospects. But mysteriously, his decline was not severe enough to imperil the American people, whom Biden must continue to lead until January 20, 2025. Furthermore, the bosses’ replacement choice, Vice President Kamala Harris, had entered no primary. She never won a single delegate. Harris also never captured a single delegate in her first and only presidential run back in 2020. She then dropped out of the race even before the first Iowa and New Hampshire balloting. We have now witnessed three left-wing veritable coups. In 2020, covert actors decided to ossify the Democratic primary races. Next, they conferred the nomination on a clearly cognitively challenged Joe Biden. He was now tasked with serving as a useful moderate vessel for a virtual, even more radical, Obama third term.

The same operators next assumed virtual control of Biden’s presidential agenda, given his accelerating cognitive decline. When that charade could no longer be sustained, for a third time, they circumvented the normal transparent democratic process. So, they removed the once useful but now a liability Biden—while insisting that he was still fit enough to keep the left in power—until the anticipated Harris victory in November. And all of this was the shadow work of those who sanctimoniously lectured America that “democracy dies in darkness.”

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“She is a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country if she ever gets the chance to get into office. We’re not going to let that happen.”

• Trump Calls Kamala ‘Radical Left Lunatic’ Responsible for Biden Failures (Sp.)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is a “radical left lunatic” who is the driving force behind failed policies of the Biden administration. “Lying Kamala Harris has been the ultra-liberal driving force behind every single Biden catastrophe,” Trump said during a rally in North Carolina Wednesday evening. “She is a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country if she ever gets the chance to get into office. We’re not going to let that happen.” Trump claimed Harris is unfit to lead and would be worse than President Joe Biden. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) intends to nominate a presidential candidate by August 7. The election will take place November 5. An aggregation of national polls by RealClearPolitics shows Trump leads Harris 47.6% to 45.9% as of Wednesday afternoon.

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“Crooked Joe Biden and Lyin’ Kamala Harris are a great embarrassment to America – there has never been a time like this!”

• Trump Comments On Biden’s Drop-out Speech (RT)

US President Joe Biden’s speech announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race was embarrassing for the country, according to his predecessor and current Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump. Biden gave a ten-minute speech from the White House on Wednesday evening in which he formally announced he was no longer seeking reelection this fall and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to replace him on the Democratic ticket. “Crooked Joe Biden’s Oval Office speech was barely understandable, and sooo bad!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Crooked Joe Biden and Lyin’ Kamala Harris are a great embarrassment to America – there has never been a time like this!” His campaign later released a photo of Trump on board his private jet posing next to the TV screen showing a tired Biden struggling with his lines.

“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merit a second term. But nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition,” Biden said at one point. The video announcement came three days after a post on X (formerly Twitter), in which Biden announced his exit from the race – but not from the presidency – in favor of Harris. The 81-year-old had been under growing pressure from his party leaders, donors and the media to step down ever since the disastrous June 27 debate against Trump, but kept insisting he was still in the race. On July 13, just before the Republican convention, Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Three days later, Biden’s staff announced that the president had caught Covid-19 and had to be flown to his Delaware home for recovery.

“It is not about his health. I can say no, that’s not the reason,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Wednesday, but would not say what the actual reason for Biden dropping out may have been. “If everyone acknowledges that he’s incapable of running a campaign, he’s clearly not capable of running the country,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters over the weekend. Harris has since taken over Biden’s war chest, printed signs and filmed a campaign video. She is yet to be officially nominated by the Democrats, but the party has said it would do so in a “virtual roll call” prior to the national convention, scheduled for August 19 in Chicago.

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You can’t just “install” someone in a democratic system.

• Is US Democratic System Crumbling? (Sp.)

A new survey by Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute has found that a staggering 62% of likely American voters fear this year’s election could be impacted by cheating, including 37% who are “very concerned.” 35% say they aren’t concerned about election cheating, including just 15% “not at all concerned.” “The fact that more than 60% of likely voters are concerned about election integrity should be a massive wake-up call to all those who refuse to admit that potential cheating in elections is a major problem,” Chris Talgo, editorial director of the Heartland Institute, said in an official statement. According to the survey, 18% of respondents said that in the 2020 election, they personally received more than one official ballot in the mail or received a ballot for someone who does not live at their address.

The pollsters pointed out that the number of those who received multiple mail-in ballots in 2020 is higher – reaching 20% – among voters of six battleground states, namely Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. President Joe Biden won in 2020 by outpacing his rival, then-POTUS Donald Trump, in a number of swing states by a razor-thin margin, which prompted speculation that the election was rigged. Around two thirds of Republican voters still believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and that Biden did not win fair and square.The 2020 election fueled a crisis of democracy in the US, The Wall Street Journal reported last August, adding that many Republican voters had lost faith in the nation’s electoral system, while others were afraid that the 2024 election would exacerbate existing controversies.

Joe Biden’s mental health issues, his abrupt decision to quit the race, and the Democratic Party’s latest push for Kamala Harris’ nomination have added to debate about the fairness of the process. Republicans argue that Harris should not be given automatic access to Biden’s “war chest.” Team Trump has already filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over Harris taking Biden’s campaign funds. Some activists argue that the abrupt replacement of Biden with Harris is “not democratic”. The left-wing Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization, in particular, lambasted the Democratic Party over “hypocrisy” for “installing” Harris as Joe’s successor.

“We do not live in a dictatorship. Delegates are not oligarchs. Installing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee and an unknown vice president without any public voting process would make the modern Democratic Party a party of hypocrites,” the group, which rose to prominence during the 2020 protests in the wake of African American George Floyd’s death, officially declared. Technically, Kamala is not yet the “nominee.” She could become the nominee after Democratic Party delegates vote for her. It is expected that the Democratic Party will have a virtual roll call vote to confirm their nominee between August 1 and 7, prior to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) scheduled to take place in Chicago on August 19-22.

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She will not win.

• US’s Harris Vetting Dozen Potential Vice Presidential Candidates (Sp.)

US Vice President Kamala Harris’ camp is vetting around a dozen of potential running mates, CBS News reported on Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter. The list reportedly features Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senator Mark Kelly, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Illinois Governor Jay Pritzker, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Some of the potential picks for vice president do not even hold elective office at the moment, a CBS correspondent said. On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Harris to be the Democratic Party’s nominee. Harris said on Tuesday that she had secured enough Democratic votes to become the party’s presidential nominee. If picked, Harris will take on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on November 5.

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“..when [Anatoly] Antonov, the current Russian ambassador, leaves, that he will not be replaced. I think [Russia will] downgrade relations..”

• Harris to Uphold Russophobic US Dogma as World Seeks Multipolar Order (Sp.)

Much speculation has emerged over Vice President Kamala Harris’ approach to US foreign policy in the days since the former California Attorney General was announced as Joe Biden’s chosen successor Sunday. Harris, who served in the US Senate from 2017 until 2021, has taken on a relatively low profile. Observers have speculated she has been deliberately tasked with selling controversial policies to the public during her time as Biden’s second in command, as when she was dispatched to Guatemala in 2021 to warn prospective migrants against coming to the United States. “Frankly, we don’t know what she’s going to do on the international scene. There’s nothing that she has said or done that gives us any indication of what her stance is on anything,” claimed commentator Michael Maloof.

The former senior security analyst at the US Department of Defense joined Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Wednesday to contemplate the possible foreign policy of a Harris administration as much of the world seeks development independent of the United States and the Western liberal world order. Host Jamarl Thomas suggested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address before a joint session of Congress Wednesday could be an early indicator of Harris’ approach to the politics of international affairs, if not the substance. Harris has made headlines by refusing to attend Netanyahu’s speech as polling shows Democratic Party voters increasingly sympathize with Palestinians in the long running conflict between Israelis and the indigenous inhabitants of the Levant. But Harris has agreed to meet with the controversial Israeli leader during his time in Washington, leading Thomas to suggest her apparent dispute with Netanyahu is “an optics issue” rather than a difference of policy.

“I agree,” responded Maloof. “She doesn’t want to be associated with him publicly… That’s why she’s not showing up at the joint session.” The analyst claimed Harris, who is some 22 years younger than President Biden, may be naturally inclined toward younger Americans’ sympathy for the Palestinian cause but would be constrained by the actions of her predecessor. Maloof suggested it would be especially difficult for the politician to chart a new course on relations with Russia, which remains locked in a US-backed proxy war with Ukraine. “I’m afraid that if they continue the policy toward Russia, as they are right now, that when [Anatoly] Antonov, the current Russian ambassador, leaves, that he will not be replaced. I think [Russia will] downgrade relations,” said Maloof. “We’re making it much more difficult to renew any relations.”

“We’re almost on the verge of a war because of a hoax,” he added, referring to the conspiracy theory that Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 US presidential election. “That’s basically what this amounts to and our relationships in the world are now complicated as a consequence.” “I’ve never seen within three and a half years how we have bungled things so poorly on the international scene when we have all these very smart, educated people at the helm, supposedly, and we’re going in the direction we’re going. It’s unbelievable.”

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“..have decided to no longer share actionable, substantive information on criminal and other intelligence-related activity” with the Bureau..”

• US Police No Longer Trust FBI – Report (RT)

Many US state and local law enforcement agencies are refusing to share vital information with the Federal Bureau of Investigation due to concerns that it has become partisan and politicized, according to a whistleblower report submitted to Congress. The 230-page report was compiled by an alliance of retired and active-duty agents and analysts, who spoke to more than 30 “independent, highly credible” sources across the US. “They are not only reluctant to work with the FBI but reportedly have decided to no longer share actionable, substantive information on criminal and other intelligence-related activity” with the Bureau, because they believe it “has been operating as a partisan federal agency motivated by a political agenda” in recent years, the report’s authors said. The report’s existence was first reported on Wednesday in the New York Post. The document itself was sent to the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees and posted online.

The group described a “crisis of confidence” in FBI-led task forces and a “disturbing loss of trust” in the Bureau as a whole, even as Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress about a “complex threat environment” that is unprecedented in his career. Most sources pointed to the FBI’s response to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol and the August 2022 raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago. One of the sources described the FBI’s behavior as “that of a Third World country” and argued it “should be dismantled and its personnel prosecuted and given long prison sentences.” Pressure to assist with “J6” cases has led to a belief that the Bureau is driven by a “partisan, political agenda.” One source said they could not understand why the FBI was not going after any other groups with the same fervor. Another said that local officers feared they could be targeted “because of their love for the US” and perceived as “domestic terrorists” based on how they vote.

Newer FBI agents “do not bother to conceal their distaste” for traditional political or religious views and openly identify themselves as “woke or liberal,” the head of a multi-agency task force said. Hired on the basis of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) guidelines, they are “completely worthless” and “the worst batch of people,” the whistleblowers said. The FBI academy at Quantico, Virginia at which new agents are trained “promotes a cult of narcissism” and arrogant superiority, while being intolerably politicized, the report claimed. Meanwhile, the Bureau’s Security Division has been abusing the security clearance process to purge conservative-leaning agents from its ranks. The whistleblowers urged Congress to force the resignation of Wray as “an extreme measure of last resort” and the only way to restore the Bureau’s reputation.

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“Trump has money, a beautiful and intelligent wife, and he is giving the remainder of his life to fighting a corrupt establishment that hates him.”

• The Assassination Attempt & the US Election-PCR interviewed (PCR)

Since 2016 Trump has been regarded by the ruling establishment as a threat to the power and control exercised by the Republican establishment, Democrat establishment, the material interests that control both parties, the media, and especially the military/security complex whose enemy Trump threatened to take away by “normalizing relations with Russia. ” Trump took away from the Republican establishment the power to choose the Republican presidential nominee. Indeed, he took control of the Republican Party away from the establishment. Trump defeated the Democrat establishment and the media by defeating the preferred establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, for president. Trump defeated the media by surviving their propaganda and by ridiculing the presstitutes.

His announcement that he was going to take the power away from the ruling establishment and give it back to the people enraged Washington and the material interests that control the government. His announced intent to normalize relations with Russia alarmed the armaments industry and security agencies, such as the CIA, FBI, NSA, that he was taking away the enemy that justified their power and their budgets. The establishment clearly perceives Trump as a threat.The establishment tried to deal with Trump with a plethora of concocted scandals: Russia-gate, two impeachments, porn star payoff which was turned into an indictment for “interfering with an election,” documents-gate, insurrection-gate, and criminal and civil indictments that have no basis in law and are falling apart, one being dismissed, two being put on hold while in one case the judges investigate the prosecutor for lying to the court and in another for allocating $700,000 in public funds to a lover.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that a charge on which 300 trump supporters were railroaded to prison is not a permissible charge. Given the failure of the establishment’s attempt to be rid of Trump, many expected an assassination attempt. The Secret Service’s total failure to protect Trump shows a lack of competence that is impossible to believe. The voids in the protection and the Secret Service director’s excuse for the shooter’s access are unbelievable. There might or might not be an investigation, but government investigations always clear the government. Remember the self-serving investigations of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, and the absurd official explanation of 9/11. There are likely to be more attempts on Trump’s life. If so, they will be explained as “copycat” attempts spurred by the “lone deranged shooter in Pennsylvania.”

In Europe, almost nobody had heard of J.D. Vance before Trump made him his running mate. How do you categorize Vance politically? Initially, J.D. Vance, influenced by the media’s demonization of Trump, was a Trump critic, but he came to the realization that the attack on Trump was an attack on America, particularly the Democrats and media’s open borders policy and normalization and legitimization of sexual perversity. Vance symbolizes a young generation which has zero confidence in the media and is beginning to think for itself. Vance opposes the transformation of the US into a Sodom & Gomorrah Tower of Babel.

Is Vance, who is half of Trump’s age, an indication of a generational change both in the Republican party and in US politics? That is Trump’s opinion, but only time will tell. It is difficult even for the sincere to resist the power and riches that the American establishment can bestow. Biden’s obvious mental decline has been progressing for some time. But why has his mental health and fitness for office only become an issue now and not much earlier? Biden’s performance in the first presidential debate and in the press conference were too shocking for the media to hide. Liberal media themselves confessed that they had “gaslighted” (deceived) the American public about Biden’s capability.

[..] In Europe, both Biden’s and Trump’s age is an issue: You were member of the Reagan administration, and Reagan became president at the age of 70. Why did Reagan become one of the most successful US presidents? Reagan achieved his two goals. One was to cure “stagflation,” which his supply-side economic policy did. The other was to end the Cold War, which he achieved with his rapprochement with Soviet leader Gorbachev. No presidents in modern times have such achievements. Additionally, Reagan radiated strength, humor, and a love for America. This made him likable and difficult for the liberal-left to successfully demonize.

Age is not a deterrent of effective leadership. Age brings wisdom. Not all people deteriorate with age at the same pace. I find it remarkable that the eight years of stress that Trump has been put through has not brought him a stroke or heart attack. I find it more remarkable that he is eager to undertake four more years of fighting for his country’s moral and economic renewal. Trump has money, a beautiful and intelligent wife, and he is giving the remainder of his life to fighting a corrupt establishment that hates him.

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It’s there, bipartisan and all. Does anyone have faith in it?

• A Congressional investigation of the Assassination Attempt on Trump (PCR)

There is competent analysis on the Internet of acoustic evidence indicating more than one shooter involved in the attempt on Trump’s life. Obviously, what is needed is a credible, brave, credentialed acoustic expert to analyze the acoustic evidence. This should be arranged by committees of the US Congress, such as the committees headed by Jim Jordan and James Comer. It is completely clear that neither the FBI, which has been trying to destroy Trump and his supporters for eight years, nor the Secret Service or Homeland Security can be trusted with the investigation. These agencies have zero credibility.

The challenge for the committees of Rep Jordan and Rep Comer is to find an expert who does not hate Trump, who does not earn his living doing police work, and who is brave and solid enough to withstand the denunciation that will be his if he finds more shooters than Crooks. Are the Republicans up to their responsibility, or are the Republicans content with Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation and the exposure of the Biden regime’s DEI personnel policy? Are Republicans afraid of hurting America’s reputation by possibly revealing a state plot against a presidential candidate?

America cannot survive another assassination or another 9/11 swept under the rug. This time there must be a real investigation, not another coverup left in the hands of the executive branch. Any investigation by the FBI, Homeland Security, the Secret Service is worthless. These are not agencies capable of speaking truth. A real investigation is urgent. The official narrative is being formed. The attempt on Trump’s life is going to be blamed on “operational failure” resulting from DEI and an inadequately budgeted Secret Service, and the assassination attempt will disappear into performance and budgetary issues. If there was a deep state assassination attempt and all evidence is not professionally examined, the deep state will have again succeeded and will continue on its path of frustrating the will of the American people.

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“..a year ago, the average daily number of Ukrainians killed in action (KIA) was 716. In the corresponding period of this month, the KIA level has jumped to an average of 1,948..”

• Zelensky Gets The Ukrainian Trains To Run On Time (Helmer)

Combat losses of the Ukrainian armed forces along the front have accelerated to a current average of almost two thousand men a day, according to the Russian Defense Ministry’s daily briefing and bulletin. The damage or loss of weapons is also growing fast. In the first week of July a year ago, the average daily number of Ukrainians killed in action (KIA) was 716. In the corresponding period of this month, the KIA level has jumped to an average of 1,948 — an increase of almost threefold. In the same week of 2023, the destruction or damage of US-made M777 artillery pieces was 8; in the first week of this month, the M77 loss number was 17. These loss rates for men and weapons have remained steady through this week.

The Ukrainians must assemble and deliver more fresh men and materiel to stave off defeat. The troops, artillery, tanks and other vehicles, plus ammunition, are delivered by train to railway stations along the front line. The Russian General Staff, headed by General Valery Gerasimov, knows the precise schedule of these trains, monitoring their departures and their speed in transit. They then prepare for their arrival at the front-line train stations where they are hit by a combination of missiles and glide bombs (FAB, Fugasnaya AviaBomba). This is the reality of the Russian summer offensive and Ukrainian counter-offensive without the political hype and propaganda.

In the Ukrainian version of the train war, the regime of Vladimir Zelensky is resisting effectively and increasing the cargo tonnage which Ukrainian Railways or Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) is managing to pull to or from the country’s western and southern borders. This, UZ calls winning by not losing. For the ports of Poland and Romania the war windfall is profitable; for their road operators and cargo truckers, not so. The Ukrainian consultancy GMK Center and its director, Stanislas Zimchenko, reported earlier this month that the principal gateway for railway movement of cargo into and out of the Ukraine is Romania, followed by Poland. In the first five months of this year, rail movement through Romania accounted for 9.3 million tonnes; Poland 6 mt; Slovakia, 4.2 mt; Hungary, 1.1 mt; and Moldova, 0.5 mt. It is unclear from the GMK report whether these tonnages include military cargoes and whether military cargoes are being disguised as civilian cargoes.

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“..Serbia, whose government is dead set on signing a Faustian bargain with Mephisto, in this case represented by Rio Tinto..”

• As The State “Withers Away”, Multinationals Go On A Rampage (Karganovic)

Rio Tinto is now adding lithium to its portfolio. In the Balkans it is positioning itself to become a major player in the global lithium trade. Some context might be illuminating. Less than a century ago, Anton Zischka lucidly suggested that a drop of oil is worth more than a drop of human blood.” That notion could be expanded nowadays to refer to a gram of copper, gold, cobalt, titanium, uranium, or lithium, among other commodities. “Ignoring lithium is a dangerous idea for a shrewd investor,” industry analysts advise. Goldman Sachs, which undoubtedly is well-qualified to judge in these matters, “has called lithium ‘the new gasoline’ which is surely a term not thrown about loosely by one of the world’s largest investment banks. After all, oil has been the most important commodity in the world for over a century. Could lithium be next,” market analysts are asking rhetorically.

As far as lithium specifically is concerned, the financial magazine Fortune, also reasonably well informed on the subject, recently asserted that “there is no dearth of companies that will claim a share of the expected lithium profits.” Why all the frenzy? What are the industrial uses of lithium that are generating such extraordinary excitement? Lithium and its compounds have several industrial applications, including heat-resistant glass and ceramics, lithium grease lubricants, flux additives for iron, steel and aluminium production, lithium metal batteries, and lithium-ion batteries. To this should be added rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and electric vehicles. These uses consume more than three-quarters of lithium production. In other words, lithium is not an ordinary commodity but a strategic asset since it is an indispensable component in products of enormous economic significance.

A major problem are the unavoidably catastrophic environmental and human health repercussions of lithium mining using currently available extraction technologies. That is not a problem that affects the life or health of Rio Tinto executives or stockholders, but it does impinge, and severely, on those directly involved in the mining process and the sustainability of the environment in which they live. That is because the lithium extraction process is dirty, literally and in the highest degree. We are told that “the extraction process, mainly through brine mining, poses significant risks, including water pollution and depletion, biodiversity loss, and carbon emissions. Every tonne of mined lithium results in 15 tonnes of CO2 emissions in the environment. In addition, it is estimated that about 500,000 litres of water are needed to mine approximately 2.2 million litres per tonne of lithium. This substantially impacts the environment, leading to water scarcity in already arid regions … soil degradation, and air contamination, raising concerns about the sustainability of this critical resource.”

The preceding comments are but a general and rather understated overview of the environmental consequences of lithium mining. For the grievous human health impact of the release into the ground, the water table, and the air of immense amounts of poisonous substances, which necessarily accompanies lithium mining, it might be helpful to consult some of Rio Tinto’s victims in the far corners of the world, such as villagers in Papua New Guinea and Madagascar, and the aborigines of Western Australia. These victims will soon be joined by more unfortunates in Serbia, whose government is dead set on signing a Faustian bargain with Mephisto, in this case represented by Rio Tinto. The classical definition of Faustian bargain is “a pact whereby a person trades something of supreme moral or spiritual importance, such as personal values or the soul, for some worldly or material benefit, such as knowledge, power, or riches”. That fits events unfolding in Serbia to perfection.

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You can’t continue to defend and support killing 40,000 people because a few hundred on the other side got killed. Big blind spot for Trump.

• Israel Must End War In Gaza – Trump (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has urged Israel to bring about a “fast” end to its war with Hamas, arguing that a drawn-out conflict is a “public relations” nightmare for the Jewish state. Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Trump said the war should end quickly “because they are getting decimated with this publicity, and you know Israel is not very good at public relations.” Trump was a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his term in the White House, and described himself as “history’s most pro-Israel US president.” He imposed sanctions on Iran at Netanyahu’s request, moved the US Embassy in Israel to West Jerusalem, and brokered the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize relations with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan. In the months since Israel declared war on Hamas in October, however, Trump has repeatedly called on Netanyahu to bring the conflict with the Palestinian militant group to a rapid conclusion.

“You have to finish up your war,” he told the Israel Hayom news outlet back in March. “You gotta get it done. And, I am sure you will do that. And we gotta get to peace, we can’t have this going on.” The destruction of civilian homes in Gaza, he said at the time, is “a very bad picture for the world. The world is seeing this… every night, I would watch buildings pour down on people. Go and do what you have to do. But you don’t do that.” In his interview with Fox, Trump also condemned the Democrats who protested Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday, and called for jail sentences for the protesters who burned American flags outside the US Capitol. Netanyahu is set to meet with US President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday afternoon, before traveling to Florida to meet with Trump at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Harris did not attend Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday, but will meet with him on Thursday, after his one-on-one talk with Biden.

In a post to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, Trump said he is “looking forward to welcoming Bibi Netanyahu” to Florida, referring to the Israeli leader by his commonly-used nickname. Trump promised a return to “peace and stability” in the Middle East, and in a later post, shared a letter he received from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who wished Trump “strength and safety” after the attempt on his life earlier this month. “Thank you,” Trump replied to Abbas. “Everything will be good.”

Elon Bibi

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“That’s what total victory means. And we will settle for nothing less.”

• US Democrats Snub Netanyahu – Axios (RT)

Around half of House and Senate Democrats opted to stay away from a speech Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered before a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday, Axios has reported. The invitation to Netanyahu divided lawmakers, particularly Democrats. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said in June the prime minister’s address would symbolize “the US and Israel’s enduring relationship” and “offer the opportunity to share the Israeli government’s vision for defending their democracy.” A number of prominent progressives, most notably Sen. Bernie Sanders, said at the time they would not attend the speech over Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza following the October 7 attacks by Hamas, calling him a “war criminal.”

According to a headcount conducted by the news outlet, some 100 House Democrats and 28 Senate Democrats were in attendance, meaning that around half of both caucuses skipped the session. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Dick Durbin, Tim Kaine, Jeff Merkley and Brian Schatz were among the boycotters. Republican Thomas Massie also skipped the session. He said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that he did not want to be a “prop” for Netanyahu, arguing the speech was an attempt to bolster the PM’s “domestic political standing in Israel and to quell int’l [international] opposition to his war.” Netanyahu said he sought to “present the truth about our just war” to Congress, during his first visit to Washington since the escalation of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel launched an invasion of Gaza following an October 7 surprise attack by the militant group Hamas, in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken hostage. However, Israel has drawn widespread international criticism due to the mounting death toll and deepening humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave. In early May, Washington put the delivery of weapons to Israel on hold amid calls for it to scale back its assault on Rafah, the city sheltering most of Gaza’s more than two million people. Netanyahu told US lawmakers that Israel will not stop until it has destroyed the military capabilities of Hamas, put an end to its rule in Gaza, and released all the hostages taken in the October attack, adding: “That’s what total victory means. And we will settle for nothing less.” More than 39,100 Palestinians have been killed and over 90,000 have been injured since the beginning of the Israeli campaign, according to Gaza health authorities.

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You don’t support your members, you support a none-member. But of course.

• EU Won’t Support Hungary, Slovakia in Oil Transit Dispute With Ukraine (Sp.)

The European Union has denied its support to Hungary and Slovakia after they sought to force Ukraine to restore Russian oil transit to the bloc, the Financial Times reported citing sources familiar with the matter. EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the FT that Brussels would need more time to gather evidence and assess the legal situation. Eleven of the EU nations attending a meeting of trade officials on Wednesday backed his stance and none took the side of Budapest and Bratislava, diplomats told the FT. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday that Hungary and Slovakia had asked the European Commission to launch consultations with Ukraine after it stopped the transit of oil through the Druzhba pipeline. Szijjarto also said that Hungary would not approve the allocation of 6.5 billion euros ($7 billion) for arms sent to Ukraine through the European Peace Facility until the issue was resolved.

Ukraine’s trade agreement reportedly contains a clause that provides for the possibility of suspending oil transit. An EU diplomat was quoted as saying by FT that disruption in Russian oil supplies would have a “huge impact” on the central European nation. Last week, Szijjarto said that Ukraine stopped the transit of Lukoil’s oil. The Slovak Economy Ministry confirmed that the country was not longer receiving oil from the Russian oil giant, which was sanctioned by Ukraine. Slovakia’s Slovnaft refinery imports Russian crude from another supplier, but the country is discussing the current situation with Ukraine.

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“Stephanopoulos referred to Trump as “liable for rape” 10 different times in the interview with Mace..”

• Judge Refuses to Dismiss Trump Defamation Lawsuit vs ABC, Stephanopoulos (AmG)

On Wednesday, a federal judge rejected a motion by ABC News and George Stephanopoulos to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed against them by former President Donald Trump. As reported by The Hill, the lawsuit stems from an interview in March where Stephanopoulos, while talking to Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), repeatedly described President Trump as being “liable for rape” following the judgement in a civil lawsuit filed by disgraced former author E. Jean Carroll. The jury in that case technically found Trump liable for sexual assault, but not for rape. In her 21-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga rejected ABC’s multiple claims to protection, including their assertion that they were not liable for defamation under the “fair reporting privilege.” The network pointed to a prior ruling by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, who previously ruled that it did not constitute defamation when Carroll herself described Trump as guilty of rape, claiming that the legal distinction “is minimal.”

“Here, of course, New York has opted to separate out a crime of rape; and Stephanopoulos’s statements dealt not with the public’s usage of that term, but the jury’s consideration of it during a formal legal proceeding,” Judge Altonaga, an appointee of George W. Bush, said in her ruling, determining that the issue at hand was whether or not Stephanopoulos’ statements were substantially true. “Once again, the Court does not find that a reasonable jury must — or even is likely to — conclude Stephanopoulos’s statements were defamatory,” Altonaga continued. “A jury may, upon viewing the segment, find there was sufficient context. A jury may also conclude Plaintiff fails to establish other elements of his claim … But a reasonable jury could conclude Plaintiff was defamed and, as a result, dismissal is inappropriate.”

Stephanopoulos referred to Trump as “liable for rape” 10 different times in the interview with Mace, even as the congresswoman pushed back on his assertions. The lawsuit against ABC and Stephanopoulos, which was filed in Miami, is seeking an unspecified amount of money in compensation for damages. President Trump declared the ruling to be a “big win” for his case. In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump said that “before you know it, the fake news media will be forced by the courts to start telling the truth.”

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“Principal Jesus Becerra at Viejo Elementary punished a seven-year-old girl named B.B. in the lawsuit for writing “any life” under a “Black Lives Matter” picture..”

• Federal Judge Rules Against Free Speech in Elementary Schools (Turley)

District Court Judge David Carter delivered a crushing blow against free speech rights in elementary schools in an outrageous case out of Orange County. Principal Jesus Becerra at Viejo Elementary punished a seven-year-old girl named B.B. in the lawsuit for writing “any life” under a “Black Lives Matter” picture. Judge Carter issued a sweeping decision that said that she has no free speech rights in the matter due to her age and that the school is allowed to engage in raw censorship. He is now being appealed. The message from the school seems to be that black lives matter but free speech does not. The school found a kindred spirit in Judge David Carter. After a lesson on Martin Luther King, B.B. gave her picture to a friend, believing the inclusive image of four shapes of different races and the words would be comforting to a friend. However, when that child showed the picture to a parent, a complaint was filed that B.B.’s pictures was insensitive and offensive. Becerra responded by disciplining the child for her inclusive picture.

Becerra should be fired, but his extreme views and lack of judgment is hardly unique in education. The far greater damage was created by Carter’s opinion. Judge Carter ruled that B.B. has no free speech to protect due to her age, but that “students have the right to be free from speech that denigrates their race while at school.” Judge Carter added that “an elementary school … is not a marketplace of ideas… Thus, the downsides of regulating speech there is not as significant as it is in high schools, where students are approaching voting age and controversial speech could spark conducive conversation.” The court leaves a vacuum of protected rights that he fills with what seems unchecked authority for the school: “a parent might second-guess (the principal’s) conclusion, but his decision to discipline B.B. belongs to him, not the federal courts.”

The Pacific Legal Foundation, has now filed a petition with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Chelsea Boyle and her child, B.B. In my view, Judge Carter is dead wrong, though I expect he will find support among some of the judges on the Ninth Circuit. The Court applies the famous ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), as a license for sweeping censorship and discipline. Yet, the Court in Tinker that students have free speech rights and that any restrictions require evidence of “interference, actual or nascent, with the schools’ work or collision with the rights of other students to be secure and to be let alone.” It then imposes a high standard that it must “materially disrupt[] classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.” This disruption must be “caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.”

However, what is more disturbing is the disconnection of the right from anything but a narrow functionalist view of free speech. In my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I criticize the functionalist approaches that tie the protection of free speech to its function in advancing a democracy. I argue for a return to the view of free speech as a natural or human right — a view that was popular at the beginning of our Republic but soon lost to functionalist rationales. Those rationales allow for the type of endless trade offs evident in the Carter decision. Carter’s functionalist or instrumentalist approach makes it easier to simply discard any free speech rights in elementary students. In my view, they have free speech rights as human beings as do their parents. Under Carter’s approach, schools can engage in a wide array of indoctrination by declaring opposing political and social views to be “disruptive.”

Ironically, my book criticizes Judge Carter in another case over his failure to consider free speech concerns. In his decision in the January 6th case involving John Eastman, Carter dismisses his arguments that he had a right to present his novel theory against certification of the election. While many of us disagreed with Eastman, there was a concern over efforts to strip lawyers of their bar licenses and even use criminal charges against such figures. However, what concerned me the most was sweeping language used by Carter in his decision. Carter’s narrow view of free speech and his expansive view of state authority is hardly unique. B.B. is devoid of free speech protections even in his outrageously abusive case. The reason is that she is not of an age where her speech is viewed as worthy of protection. It is an example of the distortive and corrosive effect of functionalism in free speech jurisprudence in my view.

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Dog park

 

 

Tetris
https://twitter.com/i/status/1816250484535030224

 

 

Santorini

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle July 13 2024

Jul 132024
 
 July 13, 2024  Posted by at 8:48 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  76 Responses »


Henri Matisse Luxury, calm and pleasure 1904

 

• Trump, Orban, Putin: Why Are All The ‘Dictators’ Hellbent On Peace? (Bridge)
• Orban Meets Trump To Talk ‘Peace Mission’ (RT)
• Biden Sees ‘No Reason’ To Talk To Putin (RT)
• Zelensky Slams ‘Crazy’ Limits On Russia Strikes (RT)
• UK Disputes Zelensky’s Long-range Strikes Claim – Telegraph (RT)
• Ukrainian Strikes On Kremlin Would ‘Make No Sense’ – Biden (RT)
• Scott Ritter: Ukraine an ‘Open Target for Russia to Take Apart’ (Sp.)
• NATO’s Obsession Boosts Russia’s Role as Global Leader – Rasmussen (Sp.)
• Why Is the West Preparing for War? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• NATO Summit: Collectively Losing Their Mind (Lauria)
• The Warhead Evidence, Medical And Autopsy Reports Are Missing (Helmer)
• The Cover Your Ass Olympics (Kunstler)
• “The First Amendment is Out of Control” (Turley)
• EU Offered X Secret Censorship Deal – Musk (RT)

 

 

 

 

Roger Stone

 

 

Biden press

 

 

Fallon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1811809637836161076

 

 

Tucker Biden

 

 

Straight-faced no less.

 

 

PA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1811619390418485260

 

 

Jon Stewart fails painfully – for same reason they can’t meme

 

 

 

 

“The question remains, however, who will speak out on behalf of peace if not Trump, Putin, and Orban?”

Note: The others owe their careers to donations from the MIC.

• Trump, Orban, Putin: Why Are All The ‘Dictators’ Hellbent On Peace? (Bridge)

One of the greatest farces of these modern times is that those who scream the loudest about democracy and human rights are the very same people who violate international norms at every opportunity. In the June issue of The New Republic, a left-leaning US political journal, a scowling Donald Trump was featured on the cover sporting a Hitler moustache above a caption that read: “American fascism, what it would look like.” [..]

There’s just one problem with the journal’s nervous handwringing: Trump has already served a four-year term as US leader and there was no visible sign of fascist goosestepping down Main Street during that period. In fact, just the opposite is true. While Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, thus triggering World War II, Trump went down in the history books as the first American commander-in-chief in modern times to avoid a military conflict. Now on the campaign trail for the second time, with the insatiable defense industry licking its chops for more profits, the Republican frontrunner has declared he would end the Ukraine-Russia conflict in 24 hours if reelected. When it is considered that ‘democracy’ today primarily works on behalf of the military industrial complex and other associated business interests, it is easier to understand how Trump is described in the corporate-owned media as an existential threat to the American republic. Peace is the last thing on Washington’s mind, and Russia understands that better than any country.

Back in 2008, the “dictator” Vladimir Putin delivered his now-famous speech at the Munich Security Conference where he warned his Western colleagues on the dangers of military expansion. “NATO expansion… represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.” Despite Putin’s explicit warning, NATO went on to add an additional six members to the alliance, bringing the total number to 32, with Ukraine, ignoring Moscow’s major red line, scheming to be number 33. For anybody who asserts this is only a “defense alliance” would do well to consider what America’s response would be if all of Latin America and the border state of Mexico were joining a military alliance led by Moscow. Needless to say, we would be knee-deep in bloodshed by now. Yet Russia is supposed to accept an endless military incursion smack up against its border.

This was certainly not the last time Russia attempted to broker a peace deal with Washington. Almost eight years after the 2014 Maidan Revolution, and months before Moscow kicked off its special military operation in Ukraine, the Kremlin released its plan for peace on the continent. Among other things, the draft treaty called for the US and Russia to refrain from deploying troops in regions where they could be perceived as a threat to each other’s national security, as well as a ban on sending their troops and military hardware into areas where they could strike each other’s territory. The treaty was also designed to ban the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Had the Western powers consented to the plan – it barely made headlines in the NATO countries – it’s not difficult to imagine decades of peace between east and west, the very last thing that Washington wants.Instead, the US and its European puppets placed Russia in an impossible position with regards to the ongoing militarization and Nazification of Ukraine, forcing it to respond as any other country concerned about its national security would.

This leads us to the West’s third favorite bogeyman, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has dared to declare that his country is predominantly Christian and conservative and has every right to stay that way. Orban, whose country now holds the rotating EU Council presidency, went on a peace-making tour with stops in Moscow, Kiev, Beijing, and Washington (where he ruffled more than one hawk’s feathers by visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago instead of Biden in DC). The frustration on the part of Brussels as it watched the Hungarian “tyrant” speak out in favor of reducing weapons sales was laughable if not downright pathetic. “Hungary has presented the trips as a ‘peace mission’ to help negotiate a ceasefire for the war in Ukraine. Orban may consider himself as one of the few who can speak to both sides – but in reality he has no mandate to do so,” wrote Armida van Rij, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, a European think tank. The question remains, however, who will speak out on behalf of peace if not Trump, Putin, and Orban? The answer thus far is nobody.While there are certainly other statesmen besides Trump, Putin, and Orban on the international stage who can make the case for peace, time is running out to hear those critical voices.

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“We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!”

“Thank you Viktor. There must be PEACE, and quickly. Too many people have died in a war that should never have started!”

• Orban Meets Trump To Talk ‘Peace Mission’ (RT)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has met with GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump as part of the former’s effort to settle the Ukraine conflict. The Hungarian leader, who has repeatedly criticized the West’s approach to the hostilities and called for an immediate ceasefire, traveled to Russia, Ukraine, and China last week to discuss prospects for a peaceful settlement. He later attended NATO’s annual summit in Washington, but did not hold high-level talks with US President Joe Biden. Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, Orban said he visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida as part of what he called “peace mission 5.0.” “We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!” the Hungarian Prime Minister noted, posting a photo of him standing next to Trump, with both smiling.

The GOP presidential frontrunner responded to Orban, writing on the Truth Social network: “Thank you Viktor. There must be PEACE, and quickly. Too many people have died in a war that should never have started!” Orban previously hailed Trump as “a man of peace,” under whose watch the US “did not initiate a single war.” The Republican has repeatedly vowed to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours if elected. While the details of this plan remain sketchy, last week Politico reported, citing sources, that Trump could strike a deal under which “NATO commits to no further eastward expansion,” specifically into Ukraine and Georgia while holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin “over how much Ukrainian territory Moscow can keep.”

During his visit to Kiev, the Hungarian leader called on Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to agree to a ceasefire with Russia, a proposal the latter rejected. Zelensky also suggested that Orban does not have the clout required to negotiate an end to the conflict, noting that only the US, EU, or China could fill that role. Orban also traveled to Russia and met with Putin in an attempt to find, as he put it, “the shortest way out” of the Ukraine conflict. Numerous media reports suggested that this trip outraged many Western officials. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that Ukraine was right to be concerned by attempts to negotiate peace without its participation. “Whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukraine’s consent or support is not something that’s consistent with our policy, the foreign policy of the United States,” he stressed.

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“..The last phone call between Biden and Putin took place in late December 2021..”

• Biden Sees ‘No Reason’ To Talk To Putin (RT)

US President Joe Biden has said he has no reason to talk with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, including about the Ukraine conflict. However, he also said he would not refuse to engage with any world leader. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Biden was asked whether he would still be able to “deal” with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in a few years. “I’m ready to deal with them now,” he replied, noting that he maintains contact with Xi. However, when it comes to the Russian leader, Biden said he had “no good reason to talk to Putin” at the moment. “There’s not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior,” he added, referring to the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev. “I’m not ready to talk to Putin unless Putin is ready to change his behavior.”

However, Biden then said he was open to engagement with “any leader who wants to talk,” including Putin. He recalled that the last time the pair had a direct conversation, they were discussing an arms control agreement relating to nuclear weapons in space. “That didn’t go very far,” he added. The last phone call between Biden and Putin took place in late December 2021, several weeks before the start of Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, which resulted in bilateral relations plummeting to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month that Russia was ready to hold talks with the US but only if such dialogue is “comprehensive” and includes not only arms control issues but also the Ukraine conflict. “It is impossible to take out any individual segments from the general complex of accumulated problems,” he said, acknowledging that both sides need to engage to address mounting problems in the global security architecture. On Thursday, Putin’s name was again mentioned by Biden during a joint event in Washington when he confused Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky for the Russian leader, exacerbating concerns about his mental state, which have been mounting since his disastrous debate performance against GOP rival Donald Trump last month.

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“..unlimited long-range strikes inside Russia is crucial for “having Ukraine on the map” and not allowing Moscow to “attack half of the planet.”

• Zelensky Slams ‘Crazy’ Limits On Russia Strikes (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on Thursday lashed out at Kiev’s foreign backers for their reluctance to lift the remaining limitations on the use of Western-supplied weapons for long-range strikes inside Russia. Kiev already has the greenlight from several Western states to hit “legitimate” targets inside Russia with their weapons, as well as a concession from Washington to strike beyond Russia’s border near the city of Kharkov. However, Zelensky has been pushing for the strike range to be extended – a prospect Moscow has warned would constitute an escalation of the conflict. Speaking at a press conference at the NATO summit in Washington, Zelensky claimed that allowing Kiev to launch unlimited long-range strikes inside Russia is crucial for “having Ukraine on the map” and not allowing Moscow to “attack half of the planet.”

“If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations,” Zelensky stated. He cited week’s tragedy at the Okhmatdet children’s hospital in Kiev, which Ukraine has claimed was hit by a Russian missile. Moscow has insisted that the facility was hit by a Ukrainian air-defense missile. “That is a crazy question why we can’t answer and attack these… military bases from where these guided bombs from jets or missiles came, targeted us and killed our children,” Zelensky argued. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Kiev is deliberately using tragedies in its PR campaigns ahead of important international events to demand more support from the West. Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, claimed that Kiev’s Western supporters saw the hospital tragedy as a “perfect gift” to justify escalation of the conflict.

US President Joe Biden on Thursday reaffirmed the limits on how Ukraine can use American-supplied weapons, arguing that it “wouldn’t make sense” to allow Zelensky to strike deep inside Russia.“We have allowed Zelensky to use American weapons in the near border regions of Russia. If he had the opportunity to strike Moscow, strike the Kremlin, would that make sense? No, it wouldn’t,” Biden said at a press briefing in Washington. The UK, which has a ban on using its long-range Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia, has also apparently distanced itself from earlier statements by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The premier on Wednesday signaled he was loosening restrictions on how the missiles are used, saying “it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy [them].” However, according to a report by The Telegraph citing Downing Street, UK government policy “had not changed” regarding the deployment of the long-range missiles, and the limitations remain in place.

Lavrov

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“..the Ukrainian leader announced that he had “learned about the permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets in Russian territory.”

• UK Disputes Zelensky’s Long-range Strikes Claim – Telegraph (RT)

Claims by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky that the UK has cleared him to order attacks deep inside Russia with British-supplied weapons are not true, according to The Telegraph. After a meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader announced that he had “learned about the permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets in Russian territory.” The two officials “had the opportunity to discuss the practical implementation of this decision” he added. The Telegraph reported on Thursday that the situation was “more nuanced,” according to a senior defense source. In fact, there has been no policy change regarding the weapons after the new Labour government came to power, the British newspaper explained.

The Ukrainian use of air-launched long-range cruise missiles produced jointly by the UK and France was the source of a diplomatic spat in May, when then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron expressed sympathy for Kiev’s desire to use them outside of what London recognizes as Ukrainian territory. Ukraine “has the right to defend itself,” he said at the time, which many observers as well as the Russian government interpreted as a permission to deliver such strikes. British officials later indicated that certain limitations remained in place for Storm Shadow systems. Starmer this week said it was “up for Ukraine to decide how to deploy” the missiles, prompting the Kremlin to call his remarks “irresponsible and escalatory.”

Sources told The Telegraph that Zelensky would have to “seek assurances elsewhere” before he could fire British weapons deep inside Russia. Three nations – presumably Ukraine, the UK, and France – would have to sign off on such attacks, and it was not a done deal that Kiev would get its way, the report suggested. A senior defense official told the newspaper: “It’s not going to happen.” Zelensky urged Western backers, particularly the US, to lift all limitations on how Kiev can use their arms, during this week’s NATO summit in Washington DC. US President Joe Biden indicated that there will be no policy change. “If he had the capacity to strike Moscow, strike the Kremlin, would that make sense?” Biden said of Zelensky at a joint press conference on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that should Western arms be used to strike targets deep inside Russia, Moscow could provide similar military capabilities to parties hostile to the US and its allies elsewhere in the world.

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About as much sense as strikes on the White House.

• Ukrainian Strikes On Kremlin Would ‘Make No Sense’ – Biden (RT)

The US sees no reason to allow Ukrainian strikes deeper inside Russian territory despite pleas from Kiev for permission to launch such attacks, President Joe Biden has said. Washington approved Ukrainian cross-border attacks using US-supplied weapons against Russian targets in late May, arguing that the shift in policy would help repel Moscow’s offensive in the border Kharkov Region. Biden said at the time that the US was permitting strikes “only in proximity to the border [with Russia] when [Russian weapons] are being used on the other side of the border to attack specific targets in Ukraine.” Russia launched its offensive in Kharkov Region in a bid to establish a so-called “cordon sanitaire” to shield its border areas from recurring Ukrainian attacks targeting civilians.

According to the Washington Post, Ukraine is allowed to strike some 100km inside Russian territory as recognized by the West, with officials in Kiev complaining that they were not authorized to attack some key airfields. Pentagon officials later also confirmed that Ukraine was allowed to strike targets beyond Kharkov Region. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, however, has insisted that all restrictions be lifted, calling it “crazy” that Kiev was being prevented from retaliating in response to some Russian strikes. Speaking at a press conference in Washington, DC on Thursday, Biden signaled that the US had no plans to loosen restrictions further.

“We’ve allowed Zelensky to use American weapons in the near term and the near abroad into Russia… If he had the capacity to strike Moscow, strike the Kremlin, would that make sense? It wouldn’t.” He added that Kiev and the West should ask itself “What’s the best use of the weaponry [Zelensky] has and the weaponry we’re getting to him?” President Vladimir Putin has said Ukrainian attacks inside Russian territory using Western-supplied weapons are “close to aggression,” while warning of an asymmetrical response.

Meanwhile, the US has essentially given Kiev carte blanche to use American-made weapons in attacks on Russian territories claimed by Ukraine. In late June, Moscow accused Kiev of launching a strike using long-range ATACMS missiles on Crimea, which killed four civilians and injured more than 150 on a beach in Sevastopol. Russia claimed that Washington was complicit in the attack, saying it had enabled a “premeditated terrorist missile attack.” Commenting on the tragedy, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller dismissed the accusations as “ridiculous.” He said that, while the US “regret[s] any civilian loss of life in this war,” it supplies Kiev with weapons “so it can defend its sovereign territory against armed aggression.”

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“Indeed, no issue has been resolved in favor of Ukraine. That’s the reality of NATO today..”

• Scott Ritter: Ukraine an ‘Open Target for Russia to Take Apart’ (Sp.)

No matter how many and what kind of air defense systems NATO plans to donate to the Kiev regime, Russia will continue to pursue its military objectives while grinding through those weapons, underscored Scott Ritter. Fueling the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine will leave the West facing depleted stocks of its own air defense systems. Russia is able to wipe out the military equipment provided to the Kiev regime, especially air defense, at a rate “far greater than the West can even replenish its own stocks,” former US marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik. “This is a losing equation. And without air defense, Ukraine is literally an open target for Russia to take apart as it best sees fit,” said Ritter. On the opening day of the recent NATO summit in Washington, US President Joe Biden pledged to provide Ukraine with five new strategic air defense systems and dozens of smaller, strategic anti-air batteries over the coming year.

In remarks delivered at the opening of the summit, Biden said that to donate the Patriot systems, the US would join forces with Germany, Romania, Italy, and the Netherlands. The announcement came two days after a missile strike hit a children’s hospital in Kiev, with the Zelensky-led neo-Nazi regime and its Western allies groundlessly accusing Russia of targeting the building. Indeed, the well-timed announcement from Washington comes as Ukraine seems to have “a particular desire” for the Patriot air defense system, noted Ritter, but “it’ll take whatever it can get.” According to the ex-marine intel officer, even after Ukraine gets the promised air defenses, it will face a big problem reconstructing an integrated air defense umbrella.

Back when Ukraine was initially provided with the NATO air defense systems such as the Patriots, NASAMs, IRIS-T, French (SAMP/T) Mamba – they had a Soviet era air defense umbrella that consisted primarily of the S-300 air defense system, the Buk, others, he explained. However, in the months of the proxy conflict this air defense umbrella became nonexistent, underscored Ritter, adding: “And when Ukraine brings in their air defense systems, they have to do so in a very makeshift, haphazard manner. They aren’t able to use them the way they were designed. This requires trickery, you know, turning on and off radars, firing missiles before radar lock is taking place. It’s a very inefficient way to use air defense systems. And because Russia is able to put an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance umbrella over Ukraine, anytime Ukraine uses air defense, it’s detected.”

Since Russia’s Armed Forces are able to in very short order locate and destroy the systems, Kiev is in “one of these vicious cycles where there simply isn’t enough weapon systems available to allow Ukraine to build the air defense umbrella it needs,” remarked the expert. “This is one of the detrimental consequences of the attritional warfare that’s being waged today in Ukraine… And it’s one of the issues that this NATO summit has not been able to resolve in favor of Ukraine. Indeed, no issue has been resolved in favor of Ukraine. That’s the reality of NATO today,” concluded Scott Ritter.

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“If anything Russia is acting more of a leader here and thus it may strengthen Russia’s hand..”

• NATO’s Obsession Boosts Russia’s Role as Global Leader – Rasmussen (Sp.)

The latest NATO joint declaration condemning Russia appears to be backfiring and instead establishing Moscow more than ever as the leader of the global resistance against US hegemony, retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and political consultant Earl Rasmussen, told Sputnik. “If anything Russia is acting more of a leader here and thus it may strengthen Russia’s hand,” former vice president of the Eurasia Foundation Rasmussen said. Russia was the central focus of the 32-nation Alliance declaration that was issued on Wednesday. The declaration stated that Russia remains the most significant and direct threat to the Allies’ security, and expressed profound concern over the deepening strategic partnership between Russia and China, which aims to undermine and reshape the rules-based international order. However, despite its hostile tone towards Russia and China, Rasmussen said he doubted the NATO summit had achieved any concrete results.

“I think in general the summit will accomplish very little. It will act as a cheerleader/pep-talk. Very little seems to have been accomplished thus far, with few exceptions.” he said. The declaration document itself showed a provocative mood towards Russia and China, Rasmussen observed.”It discusses expansion in Europe as well as stronger coordination in Asia and the Middle East in addition to funding contributions and weapon system modernization,” he added. NATO leaders in their declaration also displayed a clearly stated objective to increase the number of joint military exercises and to establish a security presence along their eastern borders with Russia, Rasmussen noted. The growing tensions expressed at the summit looked likely to endure, Rasmussen said, adding that China and Russia should react with patience but determination against the growing hostility they faced from the West.

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“European male ethnicities are so oppressed by their own governments and by immigrant-invaders favored by European governments, that the defense ministers of Europe are women. What does a white ethnic European male have to fight for?”

• Why Is the West Preparing for War? (Paul Craig Roberts)

One result of the just concluded NATO Summit is Germany’s decision to host US intermediate-range missiles. Prior to 2019 when Washington cancelled the INF Treaty, the treaty prevented such deployment. The INF Treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8,1987, and the treaty was ratified on June 1, 1988. The treaty was part and parcel of ending the cold war. Reagan called the treaty a “step toward a safer world.” “The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty required the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The treaty marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and employ extensive on-site inspections for verification. As a result of the INF Treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union destroyed a total of 2,692 short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles by the treaty’s implementation deadline of June 1, 1991.”

Blaming Russia the Trump administration pulled out of the treaty. The consequence was to kill the nuclear disarmament that the INF Treaty began and to renew the arms race. If I had to bet I would say Washington’s withdrawal was a consequence of the US nuclear industry needing the source of profits that the arms race provided and the neoconservatives’ determination to revive US hegemony through the buildup of force. If Russia was truly out of compliance, Trump’s focus should have been to work to bring Russia into compliance, not terminate the treaty. The efforts of several American presidents and Soviet leaders in the 20th century to defuse tensions and to build trust were squandered by Washington in the 21st century. Regardless, what is clear is that Washington is pushing both Europe and Russia into preparing for war, and is itself preparing.

The US Senate has joined the House of Representatives in creating a draft registration system from which to field a conscripted army. The Senate’s version includes women in the draft, as equal treatment requires. Clearly, Washington sees the need for a larger army than a volunteer army can provide. Now that the Biden regime is supplying F-16s and long-range missiles to Ukraine, weapon systems that Biden said would never be given to the Ukrainians, along with targeting information, clearly Washington’s intent is to further widen the war by carrying it deep into civilian areas of Russia. Simultaneously, Washington is using its NGOs in Georgia to orchestrate a color revolution there in order to open a second front against Russia. Putin’s slow forever war in Ukraine has played directly into Washington’s hands.

China is the main focus of Washington’s strategy of isolating Russia. At the recent NATO Summit China was accused of being a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. By allegedly supplying armaments to Russia, China is accused of challenging “our interests, security and values.” I would have expected a different Chinese reply than was made. China should have said to Washington/NATO: “You started the conflict and your weapons systems and French troops are supporting and widening the conflict. You have blocked all efforts to end the conflict; yet you dare accuse us of responsibility for it.” Instead, the Chinese disavowed supplying Russia with any military support. This is an extremely weak response. It suggests that all the Russian-Chinese assurance of a “no-limits partnership” is just words. An appropriate response from China would have been: “We are considering sending 500,000 of our best soldiers to serve under Russian command in Ukraine and have called up another million men for military training.

A response such as this is what would end the conflict before the dumbshit hegemonic West puts us all in a war of annihilation. In recorded history one can find very few competent civilian and military leaders. Alexander the Great, Constantine, Charles Martel, Charlemagne, the Duke of Marlborough, Robert E. Lee. No such men exist today, but the weapons are far more terrible. Moreover, modern war targets civilians and civilian infrastructure, as the Israelis are doing in Gaza. The goal is less to defeat an opposing army than it is to foreclose an opponent’s ability to conduct war. In Europe a warrior class no longer exists. European male ethnicities are so oppressed by their own governments and by immigrant-invaders favored by European governments, that the defense ministers of Europe are women. What does a white ethnic European male have to fight for?

In the US the fighting force has always come from the southern states. But what have these traditional Americans, these military families, witnessed? They have seen all southern names struck from military bases. They have experienced their promotions on hold while homosexuals, black females, and transgendered people confused about their own gender are promoted. Taking orders from such people is not a southern man’s idea of the military. So recruitment has collapsed. There are so few people willing to fight for America that Congress entertains proposals to enroll immigrant-invaders, paid with citizenship for fighting for American hegemony. America has reached the point that Rome reached. Once the Roman military was German, the Germans became the emperors. The Germans did a fairly decent job compared to the decadent Romans, but the Empire was exhausted by its internal conflicts and collapsed. Perhaps it is the collapse of the West that Putin and XI are banking on. Why bother to fight people busy destroying themselves.

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“NATO’s aim is to regain control of Russian resources and finances as the West enjoyed in the 1990s, when it asset-stripped formerly state-owned industries, enriching themselves and a new class of oligarchs while impoverishing the Russian people. Putin is now standing in their way.”

• NATO Summit: Collectively Losing Their Mind (Lauria)

On March 7, 2022, two weeks after Moscow entered the civil war in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS News from Moldova that the U.S. would give Poland a “green light” to send Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. Within days the Pentagon shot down the idea. Then U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also supported the Polish planes scheme, but the Pentagon rejected it because it “could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” according to then Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. But yesterday Blinken told a public policy forum at the NATO summit in Washington: “As we speak the transfer of F-16 jets is underway coming from Denmark, coming from the Netherlands and those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression.”

It is not quite NATO declaring a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which was dismissed by President Joe Biden in March 2022 because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.” “President Biden’s been clear that … if you establish a no-fly zone, certainly in order to enforce that no-fly zone, you’ll have to engage Russian aircraft. And again, that would put us at war with Russia,” added Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the time. Though not declaring a no-fly zone, these are still NATO fighter jets leaving from NATO countries to operate with Ukrainian pilots against Russian aircraft in Ukrainian airspace. More dangerously, NATO is permitting Ukraine to fly the F-16s to attack inside Russian territory. So what changed since March 2022 to allow the U.S. and NATO to risk, in the previous words of Biden, “World War III?”

What’s changed is that back then the White House and the Pentagon still thought the strategy of economic and information warfare plus a proxy ground war would defeat Russia in Ukraine, and ultimately bring down Vladimir Putin in Moscow. But for more than a year now it’s been evident that the U.S. — and NATO — have lost the economic and information war, as well as the proxy fighting on the ground in Ukraine. One year into the war, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a dinner in February 2023 that he had to face facts: Ukraine would lose the war and should negotiate a settlement with Moscow. The Wall Street Journal quoted Macron as telling Zelensky that “even mortal enemies like France and Germany had to make peace after World War II.” Macron told Zelensky “he had been a great war leader, but that he would eventually have to shift into political statesmanship and make difficult decisions,” the newspaper reported.

U.S.-led NATO could not launch its economic, information and proxy war against Russia without cause. That cause would be Russia invading Ukraine to defend ethnic Russians in a civil war that had raged since 2014, sparked when the U.S. helped to overthrow the democratically-elected government that year. The economic war, intended to spur Russians to overthrow their government, has failed spectacularly. The ruble did not collapse despite sanctions on the Russian central bank. Nor has the economy. Instead an alternative economic, commercial and financial system that excludes the West has arisen with China, India and Russia in the lead, and most of Asia, Africa and Latin America taking part in what appears to be the final chapter of Western colonialism. The sanctions instead backfired on the West, especially in Europe. The information war has failed across the world. Only the United States and Europe, which consider itself “the world,” believe their own “information.”

The proxy war is being lost on the ground, though more than $100 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine has created a bloodbath. There will either be a negotiated settlement in which Ukraine loses territory; a total Russian victory; or potentially the final war. The U.S. pushed Russia to the brink to provoke its intervention. It began with a 30-year NATO expansion eastward with NATO exercises on Russia’s borders while calling for Ukraine to become a member, a call reiterated at the summit yesterday. In December 2021 the West rejected Russian treaty proposals to roll back NATO troop deployments and missile installations in Eastern Europe, creating a new security architecture in Europe. NATO’s aim is to regain control of Russian resources and finances as the West enjoyed in the 1990s, when it asset-stripped formerly state-owned industries, enriching themselves and a new class of oligarchs while impoverishing the Russian people. Putin is now standing in their way.

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“In her presentation for the UN, Bell omitted the medical evidence. Her military expert went unnamed, his evidence unexamined. This is called hearsay in a British or American court..”

• The Warhead Evidence, Medical And Autopsy Reports Are Missing (Helmer)

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Maria Zakharova, the Okhmatdet hospital had been struck by a US-made, Norway-supplied NASAMS air defence missile, fired by a Ukrainian battery attempting to protect the Artyom (Artem) plant. “Many eyewitnesses and other sources have already confirmed that a Western-made NASAMS surface-to-air missile hit a building of the Okhmatdet Hospital for Children in Kiev. Officials on Bankovaya Street [Zelensky regime headquarters] immediately started blaming Russia for deliberately killing children. However, no one said that the Artyom Plant is located next to the affected clinic, and that Defense Ministry buildings and military warehouses are also located next door. Certainly, no one said that pro-Bandera supporters are deliberately deploying air defence systems in residential areas, using civilians as a human shield.

The Kiev junta has been using purely civilian enterprises for military purposes for a long time, either using them to assemble and repair military equipment or to store Western-made weapons and military equipment.” The Russian representative at the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, currently rotational president of the UN Security Council, told a special council session that the strike on the hospital had been a Ukrainian one, not a Russian one. He added: “The X-101 missile would have done a lot more damage to the building it hit [Min 6:52]…if it had been a Russian missile, there would have been nothing left of the building and the children and most of the adults would have been killed rather than wounded [Min 8:20]” Like Zakharova, Nebenzya identified military industrial targets. The two Russian officials have not identified the electric war targets.

They are not lying; they are telling less than the full truth. When that is understood from all the available evidence, there is no mens rea. No conviction in a western court of law. The prosecution’s case is dismissed. In war, especially in propaganda war, there is no such thing as independence. United Nations (UN) organizations from the UN Secretary-General and his office down the UN line, are not independent. In the current war they have taken the US-NATO side. In a briefing by Danielle Bell, a UN official in Kiev on Tuesday, the day after the air raid, she claimed “Analysis of the video footage and assessment made at the incident site indicates a high likelihood that the children’s hospital suffered a direct hit rather than receiving damages due to an intercepted weapons system. Of course, as was said earlier, this must be investigated. At the time of the attack, 670 child patients, mainly inpatients, were there together with more than a thousand medical staff.”

Bell, a Canadian national who has served beside US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, did not say what she meant by “direct hit” and did not distinguish between warhead detonation, shrapnel wounds, and blast impacts. When prompted for more evidence, Bell said: “We haven’t determined.” In a British or American courtroom, that is the end of proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The defence lawyer would then announce to judge and jury the prosecution has failed and move for summary dismissal. But the UN official announced differently, conclusively: “We’ve assessed the factors that suggest the likelihood that it was a direct hit of a KH-101 [X-101 is the Cyrillic acronym translated into English] missile launched by the Russian Federation. The factors suggesting that it was a direct hit are based on video footage, which shows the technical specification of the type of weapon that was used. It shows the weapon directly impacting the hospital rather than being intercepted in the air. And thirdly, my military, our military expert, visited the site yesterday and observed damages at the site that were consistent with a direct hit.”

To measure “consistent with a direct hit” in a homicide prosecution requires clinical and autopsy evidence of the cause of death or injury to individuals. In the Kiev hospital case, to date there is no evidence of fragmentation metal or cluster elements from the X-101 warhead causing either death or injury in the hospital. No comparison has been published openly by the Ukrainians of X-101 warhead fragmentation and NASAMS warhead fragmentation. The warhead payload of the X-101 has been reported at 400 kg of high explosive fragmentation of metal elements. The warhead of the NASAMS missile is 20 kg of explosive.

Physical wounding by flying glass or collapsing structures is consistent with blast from outside the hospital. Wounds by warhead shrapnel identified in the bodies of the casualties by X-ray or CT and MRI scans can be compared for the source of the metal to distinguish between the X-101 and the NASAMS. This has not been done by the Ukrainian side. Without such evidence – protected by chain of custody to prevent tampering, substitutions of metal, and fakery – the prosecution fails. In her presentation for the UN, Bell omitted the medical evidence. Her military expert went unnamed, his evidence unexamined. This is called hearsay in a British or American court. For proof of actus reus, the judge will direct the jury that without circumstantial corroboration and cross-examination, the expert’s testimony has next to no evidential value in a homicide prosecution.

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“..and direct a corporate looting operation of Russia’s oil and mineral riches. Ukraine was the doorway they had to go through to get that done.”

• The Cover Your Ass Olympics (Kunstler)

You can’t deny that “Joe Biden” did his goodest last night facing down a half-dozen pre-selected reporters representing blob-adjacent news orgs such as Reuters and NPR at the post-NATO meetup damage-control event billed as a “news conference.” Only a week after he declared himself to be the “first black woman vice-president,” he pivoted to correct the record, telling the DC press corps that he’d “picked Vice-president Trump to be vice-president. . .” and everyone in the room saw that they were back in that mortifying scene in The Caine Mutiny when the confused and incompetent Captain Queeg reaches for the ball bearings in his pocket. At the end of the harrowing hour, he minced his way offstage, leaving his Party of Chaos evermore sore perplexed as to how they might lever this burnt-out old hack out of the nomination they foolishly secured for him months ago.

It ain’t gonna be easy, as “JB” repeatedly insisted he had no intention of stepping aside, despite the forces mustering against him in Congress, the media, and Hollywood. Even CNN is turning on him. Meanwhile, the #VeepTrump clip went viral on social media. So much for damage control. You understand, don’t you, what a fiasco the 75th Anniversary DC NATO meetup itself was? Everyone in the room, including the key prime ministers and presidents, could sense how flimsy the alliance now appears, as led by our maundering near-zombie president. Like “Joe Biden,” NATO’s raison d’être has been exposed as badly out-of-date and dangerously unhinged. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg kicked things off declaring that “Ukraine is on an ‘irreversible’ path to NATO.” This controverts what everybody in NATO knows is Mr. Putin’s clearest red line, and is therefore either a jape or a bit of recklessly provocative idiocy.

The truth of the matter is this: following its transition out of the failed Soviet experiment thirty years ago, Russia was never a threat to its European neighbors. All the talk of Vladimir Putin seeking to reassemble the old USSR empire was knowingly false, as is the chatter now about Russia looking to invade Europe. What Russia actually sought was to be regarded, once again, as a normal European nation able to conduct normal business with the rest of Europe. The USA wouldn’t allow it. Exactly why remains partially mysterious. Surely, post-1991, it was in the interest of US military contractors to maintain their Cold War revenue streams. To do that, a foreign hobgoblin had to be invoked — and perhaps China was not the best candidate, since it had begun manufacturing everything on sale in the Walmart — so Russia, with practically no export economy, was cast in that role.

And the politicians, too, surely liked creaming off their share of that military-industrial revenue stream, so they went along policy-wise, with figures like John McCain and Lindsay Graham leading the charge. But the US intel blob and State Department had darker motives, driven by an animus that has slowly revealed itself to be insane — just as the Democratic Party has turned obviously insane, adopting a playbook that could have been written by Franz Kafka. Being likewise insane, the intel blob and the neocons at State harbored an unappeasable hatred toward Russia that, since the Soviet collapse, allowed no accommodation and gelled into a naked avarice for seizing the resources of Russia with a long-term plan to subvert the Russian state, break it up the way they broke up Serbia in the 1990s, and direct a corporate looting operation of Russia’s oil and mineral riches. Ukraine was the doorway they had to go through to get that done.

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Too much free speech? What does the 1st Amendment say about that?

• “The First Amendment is Out of Control” (Turley)

As I have laid out in testimony before Congress, Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, extended her agency’s mandate over “critical infrastructure” to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” The resulting censorship efforts included combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” So, you can cite true facts but still be censored for misleading others. The media has been running an unrelenting line of anti-free speech columns. Recently, the New York Times ran a column by former Biden official and Columbia University law professor Tim Wu describing how the First Amendment was “out of control” in protecting too much speech. Wu insists that the First Amendment is now “beginning to threaten many of the essential jobs of the state, such as protecting national security and the safety and privacy of its citizens.” He bizarrely claims that the First Amendment “now mostly protects corporate interests.”

So free speech not only threatens your life, your job, and your privacy, but serves corporate masters. Ready to sign your rights away? Wait, there is more. There is a movement afoot to rewrite the First Amendment through an amendment. George Washington University Law School Professor Mary Anne Franks believes that the First Amendment is “aggressively individualistic” and needs to be rewritten to “redo” the work of the Framers. Her new amendment suggestion replaces the clear statement in favor of a convoluted, ambiguous statement of free speech that will be “subject to responsibility for abuses.” It then adds that “all conflicts of such rights shall be resolved in accordance with the principle of equality and dignity of all persons.” Franks has also dismissed objections to the censorship on social media and insisted that “the Internet model of free speech is little more than cacophony, where the loudest, most provocative, or most unlikeable voice dominates . . . If we want to protect free speech, we should not only resist the attempt to remake college campuses in the image of the Internet but consider the benefits of remaking the Internet in the image of the university.”

Franks is certainly correct that those “unlikeable voices” are rarely heard in academia today. As discussed in my book, faculties have largely purged conservative, Republican, libertarian, and dissenting professors. The discussion on most campuses now runs from the left to far left without that pesky “cacophony” of opposing viewpoints. Experts at leading universities were fired or stripped of positions for questioning COVID claims. Conservative faculty have been hounded from schools and conservative sites have been targeted by government-funded programs. Thousands have been banned from social media. What is particularly maddening for many in the free speech community is how the left has responded to opposition to censorship and blacklisting. Some are claiming to be victims by those who criticize their work to target individuals and groups as disinformation.

Others, like comedian Jon Stewart mock those who object to the erosion of free speech by noting that conservatives are making these objections on television or online. So, according to Stewart, how can there be a problem if you are able to still object? The suggestion is that there can be no threat to free speech unless people are completely silenced. Stewart insists that “we are surrounded by and inundated with more speech than has ever existed in the history of communication.” In other words, because people can still speak, the well-documented systems of censorship and blacklisting must not be so bad. It is not clear what Stewart would accept as sufficient censorship. In universities, polls show both faculty and students afraid to speak openly. The government has funded a host of programs to pressure the source of revenue of conservative sites and to target dissenting voices.

Yet, because we are raising objections to these trends, Stewart laughs at the very notion that free speech is under fire. After all, he is doing just fine. What appears to be a punchline to Stewart is a bit more serious for others who have their livelihoods threatened by the anti-free speech movement. Stewart has the benefit of being a liberal comedian on a liberal network. Try being a conservative comedian today getting air time on most cable outlets or college campuses. Like so many academics, everything seems just fine to them. With the purging of opposition viewpoints, those who remain have little to complain about. The effort to assure citizens that “there is nothing to see here” is belied by a massive censorship system described by one federal court as “Orwellian.” Conservatives face cancel campaigns and blacklisting in academic and media forums.

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“Mike Benz, a former Trump administration official, highlighted this to suggest the EU’s real motivation is to “use the DSA to force X to restaff the censorship squad fired when Elon took over.”

• EU Offered X Secret Censorship Deal – Musk (RT)

X (formerly Twitter) is facing persecution by the European Union because it rejected Brussels’ demand to secretly censor opinions on the platform, its owner Elon Musk has revealed. The EU announced on Friday that it considered X in violation of its Digital Services Act (DSA) and intended to levy massive fines against the company unless it changed its practices. “The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us,” Musk wrote in response. “The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.” “We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth,” he added. Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, after voicing displeasure over widespread censorship on the social media platform. He has since unbanned most blocked accounts, including that of former President Donald Trump.

When Musk announced “the bird is freed,” one of the responses came from Thierry Breton, the EU Commissioner for Internal Market. “In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules,” Breton said, with a reference to the DSA. On Friday, Breton explained the European Commission’s move against Musk by arguing that X violates the EU’s “transparency requirements” by denying access to “researchers,” among other things. “Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information. Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA,” Breton said. According to the Commission, allowing anyone to obtain verification in exchange for a subscription fee “negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with.”

The Commission also objected that X does not maintain “a searchable and reliable advertisement repository” that would “allow for the required supervision and research into emerging risks.” What most bothered the EU body was that X does not allow scraping its public data by “researchers” or grant access to its application programming interface (API), as DSA mandates. Mike Benz, a former Trump administration official, highlighted this to suggest the EU’s real motivation is to “use the DSA to force X to restaff the censorship squad fired when Elon took over.” He further alleged that people who present themselves as researchers are actually “censorship activities & political operatives.” Musk reposted Benz’s analysis with just one word of comment: “Exactly.” X is now expected to respond to the Commission in writing. If the EU upholds Breton’s preliminary findings, X could be fined “up to 6% of the total worldwide annual turnover” and ordered to address its “breach” under “enhanced supervision,” the body said.

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Magnetics

 

 

France fags

 

 

Doggo dive
https://twitter.com/i/status/1811515980280926540

 

 

Honey
https://twitter.com/i/status/1811733375356424527

 

 

 

 

Handstand
https://twitter.com/i/status/1811744486516461940

 

 

Kitty

 

 

 

 

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