Ivan Aivazovsky Lake Maggiore 1892
BBee
Trump Indicted For Murdering Elderly Man On CNN https://t.co/zLAfOXbJ11 pic.twitter.com/mPcQ0EsCrC
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) June 28, 2024
There are many takes on the debate. Jon is one. But in June 2024 you still use “Trump’s Blatant Lies” in your headline? As Biden said the border is more secure under him than Trump?
Jon Stewart – Trump’s Blatant Lies and Biden’s Senior Moments
Debate
Tucker Julian
https://twitter.com/i/status/1806048853885325769
Macron Zelensky
https://twitter.com/i/status/1806316098058326163
Sausage
https://twitter.com/i/status/1806052953804960012
Zelensky
https://twitter.com/i/status/1806343426243236022
Eva
https://twitter.com/i/status/1806191478265233454
Gosar says what many/most are thinking. Biden’s problem is, the Dems think it too. He’s a very big risk.
• US Rep. Gosar: Biden Debate Performance Shows He’s Unfit to Be President (Sp.)
Numerous Democrats have expressed concerns about Biden’s poor performance and its implications for the future of his candidacy, according to CNN, which hosted the debate. Trump and Biden are set to debate again on September 10 in an ABC-moderated event. US Congressman Paul Gosar in a statement to Sputnik said US President Joe Biden’s debate performance demonstrated he was mentally unfit to be US president. “With tonight’s debate, Joe Biden stammered the quiet part out loud: he is mentally unfit to be President of the United States,” Gosar said. President Joe Biden’s claim that the US southern border is more secure under his administration compared to former President Donald Trump’s is nonsense, former acting US Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner Ronald Vitiello told Sputnik.
Biden during the first presidential debate in Atlanta falsely claimed that the National Border Patrol Council endorsed him and that his border policy currently has the southern border in better condition than when former President Donald Trump was in office. “Nonsense,” Vitiello said Thursday night. “Media reports have a 40% reduction in encounters since the executive order was signed. That still keeps us at over 1 million [illegal crossings on the southern border] per year.” Vitiello added that even at a lower flow rate thousands of illegal migrants are being released after being encountered on the US southern border and present a threat to US security. National Border Patrol Council Vice President Art Del Cueto told Sputnik that the group will never endorse Biden and that the US southern border has been in shambles since he took office in 2021. “Our borders have been in shambles since day one of the Biden administration,” Del Cueto said Thursday night. “The Border Patrol union never has nor never will endorse President Biden. We are fully behind Donald J. Trump.”
And how did that work out?
• Biden Campaign Refuses To Commit To Drug Test Before Debate (MN)
The Biden campaign has refused to agree to a drug test ahead of his debate with Donald Trump later today. While Trump has offered to submit to a drug test if his opponent also does so, the Biden campaign is having none of it. In an appearance on CNN Wednesday, Biden campaign spokesperson Adrienne Elrod stated “I mean, I don’t even really know what to say about that.” She then claimed that Biden twice beat Trump in previous debates (don’t remember that). “This is what [Trump] does because he doesn’t have anything else to run on,” Elrod further charged, adding “He doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t have a record for fighting for the American people. He doesn’t know why he’s running, except for to seek political retribution on his enemies.”
Really? Trump is the one who doesn’t have a plan? She continued, “So he has to resort to these types of tactics which are, frankly, just silly. Turns off a lot of voters, especially voters who want to see their president fight for them.” Have you asked the voters lately? Biden’s campaign also posted this pathetic attempt to project problems with their own candidate onto Trump:
They don’t know how to meme, and they can’t do this either.
Trump appears to glitch and freeze on live television when asked about taking a drug test pic.twitter.com/WpufNv4qE5
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) June 26, 2024
As we noted yesterday, the Trump campaign suggested that Biden will “probably be filled with Adderall” on Thursday, with senior adviser Jason Miller noting “We know that when it comes to the big events, when it comes to debates, when it comes to State of the Union, things of that nature, that they’re going to have Joe Biden completely super-soldiered up. He is going to be ready to go.” The Trump campaign also wants to know why Biden needs an entire week to prepare for a 90 minute debate, and exactly who is running the country in the meantime.
“..one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years.”
And yeah, they dropped that ball. Kudos Alito.
• Justice Alito Dissent Says Majority ‘Shirks’ Duty in Free Speech Case (ET)
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said the high court shirked its duty by rejecting a challenge brought over the White House’s communications with social media companies over political content, a case he described as “one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years.” Justices Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas dissented from the majority in the June 26 decision that the state and individual plaintiffs involved lacked standing to bring speech-related claims to the court. The plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri had claimed, among other things, that the Biden administration illegally coerced social media platforms to moderate certain election-related content and posts related to COVID-19. Justice Alito’s dissent disputed the majority’s arguments about standing while detailing communications between the Biden administration and Facebook. He said administration officials’ actions were “blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so.”
Justice Alito wrote that there was “more than sufficient” evidence that Jill Hines, one of the plaintiffs, had standing to sue, so the court is “obligated to tackle the free speech issue that the case presents.” “The Court, however, shirks that duty and thus permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think,” he wrote. The dissent warned that the majority, whose opinion was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, sent a message to government officials that if a “coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by.” He suggested the outcome should have been the same as in National Rifle Association v. Vullo, which was heard on the same day as Murthy and ultimately held that New York state’s government plausibly violated the First Amendment by pressuring companies to cut ties with the gun rights group.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court ruled last year that the administration’s communications constituted the type of coercion of social media companies that betrayed its duty not to violate the First Amendment.Three judges signed onto the September 2023 opinion that cited communications in detail. For example, it stated that a White House official “responded to a moderation report by flagging a user’s account and saying it is ‘[h]ard to take any of this seriously when you’re actively promoting anti-vaccine pages.’”It continued: “The platform subsequently ’removed‘ the account ’entirely‘ from its site, detailed new changes to the company’s moderation policies, and told the official that ’[w]e clearly still have work to do.’”“The official responded that ’removing bad information‘ is ’one of the easy, low-bar things you guys [can] do to make people like me think you’re taking action.‘ The official emphasized that other platforms had ’done pretty well‘ at demoting non-sanctioned information, and said ’I don’t know why you guys can’t figure this out.’”
In his June 26 opinion, Justice Alito described tech platforms as “critically dependent on the protection provided by [Section] 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 … which shields them from civil liability for content they spread.” He added that Facebook faced a regulatory environment that incentivized the company to “please important federal officials and the record in this case shows that high-ranking officials skillfully exploited Facebook’s vulnerability.” The administration, he said, “continuously and persistently hectored Facebook” while the platform’s “reactions to these efforts were not what one would expect from an independent news source or a journalistic entity dedicated to holding the Government accountable for its actions.”
“Instead,” he added, “Facebook’s responses resembled that of a subservient entity determined to stay in the good graces of a powerful taskmaster.”He later wrote, “Internal Facebook emails paint a clear picture of subservience.” The dissent also considered a variety of communications between White House officials Andy Slavitt and Rob Flaherty. For example, it noted that Mr. Flaherty, who served as White House director of digital strategy, accused Facebook of “hiding the ball” and suggested the company was “playing a shell game.”Justice Alito also pointed to Facebook’s changing policy amid White House criticism. Facebook representatives, he said, “pleaded to know how they could ‘get back to a good place’ with the White House.”
Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1806115658469704011
“We are now seeing what is arguably the most dangerous anti-free speech movement in our history.”
• Want to Defeat Joe Biden? Make Free Speech the Key Issue in 2024 (Turley)
Since his dystopian speech outside of Independence Hall in 2022, President Joe Biden has made “democracy is on the ballot” his campaign theme. Pundits have repeated the mantra, claiming that if Biden is not elected, American democracy will perish. While some of us have challenged these predictions, the other presidential candidates are missing a far more compelling argument going into this election. While democracy is not on the ballot this election, free speech is. The 2024 election is looking strikingly similar to the election of 1800 and, if so, it does not bode well for Biden. In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” released last week, I discuss our long struggle with free speech as a nation. It is an unvarnished history with powerful stories of our heroes and villains in the struggle to define what Justice Louis Brandeis called our “indispensable right.”
One of the greatest villains in that history was President John Adams, who used the Alien and Sedition Acts to arrest his political opponents – including journalists, members of Congress and others. Many of those prosecuted by the Adams administration were Jeffersonians. In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson ran on the issue and defeated Adams. We are now seeing what is arguably the most dangerous anti-free speech movement in our history. President Joe Biden is, in my view, the most anti-free speech president since Adams. Under his administration, we have seen a massive censorship system funded and directed by the government. A federal judge described the system as “Orwellian” in its scope and impact. Biden has repeatedly called for greater censorship and accused social media companies of “killing people” by not silencing more dissenting voices. Other Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have pushed for restrictions on “unacceptable” speech.
The Biden administration seeks to censor even true statements as disinformation. For example, I testified before Congress last year on how 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.” The left has picked up the cudgels of censorship and blacklisting once used against them. During the McCarthy period, liberals were called “communist sympathizers.” Now, conservative justices are called “insurrectionist sympathizers.” In this election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein, Donald Trump and Cornel West should talk about the threats against free speech at every debate and stump speech. They will have to overcome a news media that has been complicit in the attacks on free speech, but these candidates can break through by raising it as a key issue dividing Biden from the rest of the field.
Democrats and the news media have hammered away at cracking down on those accused of “disinformation.” The public, however, has not been won over by those seeking to limit their right of free speech or the push to amend the First Amendment because it’s too “aggressively individualistic.” So far, the anti-free speech movement has flourished largely in the echo chambers of academia and the media. It is time for the public to render its judgment. As discussed in my book, we are hardwired for free speech. It is in our DNA. Despite these periods of crackdowns on free speech, we have always rejected those who wanted to regulate the views of others. Jefferson called the Federalists “the reign of the witches.” (Ironically, Jefferson would himself prosecute critics, though not to the same extent as Adams). Attacks on free speech have returned with a vengeance before another presidential election. After fighting in the courts and in the public to expand censorship, Biden should now have to defend it with the voters. Let’s have at it, as we did in 1800. Free speech is again on the ballot. It is time for the public to decide.
Sure, he should have volunteered for 175 years of prison time.
• Australian Politician Blames Assange For Years Of Captivity (RT)
The opposition leader in the Australian Senate, Simon Birmingham, has claimed Julian Assange’s years of confinement in the UK were the result of his own actions, as he evaded lawful extradition requests. On Wednesday, the Wikileaks founder walked free from a courtroom in a remote US Pacific territory, after pleading guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information – in exchange for a sentence that amounted to the time he spent in UK custody fighting a US extradition request. The Australian government, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, had sought his release. In an interview with Sky News Australia on Thursday, Simon Birmingham predicted that “the prime minister’s embrace of Mr. Assange might not age very well, once Mr Assange starts tweeting again.” He insisted that Assange should not be considered an innocent Australian citizen, persecuted by an authoritarian government.
“Mr. Assange evaded lawful extradition requests, first by hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy, then by using his legal rights in the United Kingdom to challenge them over many years,” Birmingham said. “The reason it has taken so long to resolve this is his decision to challenge it in that way.” Ecuador granted Assange political asylum in 2012 due concerns that a Swedish extradition request for the Wikileaks founder was a ruse to have him sent to the US. American espionage charges, which were made public years later, could have landed the Australian up to 175 years of prison time. The Australian Senate opposition leader claimed that the publishing of classified materials by WikiLeaks endangered the sources of US allies, including Australia, which is a member of the Five Eye intelligence-sharing group.
A similar argument was made by US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, who claimed during a daily briefing on Wednesday that Assange “put the lives of our partners, our allies and our diplomats at risk, especially those who work in dangerous places, like Afghanistan and Iraq.” Some journalists, including Associated Press reporter Matt Lee, challenged him – pointing out that the court verdict specifically said that there were no victims in the case and that the US government never identified to the public any individual put in harm’s way by WikiLeaks. “Just because people were able to mitigate the harm done by your actions, that doesn’t absolve you,” Miller responded, comparing publication of leaked documents to reckless driving.
“America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”
• What The Assange Saga Says About The State Of The American Empire (Hryce)
The Assange saga is a salutary tale about the exercise of US power as the American Empire declines, and the continuing willingness of US allies like the UK and Australia to comply with America’s demands – even when they involve persecution of citizens of those allied countries. Assange’s release is understandably being portrayed by some commentators as a victory of sorts – the international Federation of Journalists called it “a significant victory for media freedom” – and insofar as Assange has regained his personal freedom, it is. But it should not be forgotten that for the past 14 years the US has been able to successfully – with the abject complicity of governments and authorities in the UK and Australia – imprison a journalist of international stature for simply engaging in genuine investigative journalism.
Assange is a journalist – not a whistleblower or leaker of classified material. Nor did Assange’s publishing of the classified material in question cause any real harm to the US – other than to embarrass it by disclosing the truth about American conduct during its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. America’s fabled commitment to freedom of speech and the press – embodied in the first amendment to its constitution – has never been absolute, but, as the Assange saga clearly shows, it has probably never been weaker than over the past few decades. That is not surprising – given that pursuing the inherently corrupt aims of the Empire overseas must inevitably result in the curtailment of domestic freedoms. Barrington Moore Jr described this relationship as “aggression abroad and repression at home” during the height of the Vietnam war in the late 1960s, and America’s founding fathers were well aware of how the British had been corrupted by their Empire.
Washington in his farewell speech warned against America becoming involved in “foreign entanglements” – and John Quincy Adams famously said “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.” And Edmund Burke, the conservative 18th-century British statesman, and stern critic of British policy in America and India, pointed out that “the breakers of the law in India are also the makers of the law in England.” It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the US persecution of Assange should have occurred during a period in which America has engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and promoted and funded proxy wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
And there can be no doubt whatsoever that if Assange had been extradited to the US and had been tried in an American court, that he would have received a very lengthy jail sentence. One prosecutor suggested that a term of 175 years would have been an appropriate punishment for him. Nor should it be forgotten that America’s persecution of Assange was carried out on a bi-partisan basis. Mainstream Democrats and Republicans were equally keen to put Assange in prison. Hillary Clinton was a particularly rabid critic of Assange, as was Biden until very recently. In fact, Donald Trump had a measure of sympathy for Assange because WikiLeaks had published the emails that had damaged Clinton’s reputation in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
America’s internal decline over the past 50 years can be gauged by comparing Assange’s likely fate with what happened to Daniel Ellsberg – who famously leaked the Pentagon Papers to the Washington Post in the early 1970s. When Ellsberg was prosecuted, the US courts threw the case out on the basis the Nixon administration had subjected Ellsberg to unlawful persecution. Equally troubling – especially for the citizens of the UK and Australia – is the fact that, until very recently, governments in both of these countries cravenly capitulated to US demands in relation to Assange.
“..this was the only way to end a case that undeniably did not play in favor of the image of the US in the world..”
• US Uses National Security ‘As A Veil To Hide War Crimes’ – Assange Lawyer (RT)
The Julian Assange saga has clearly shown that the US has been using its “national security” as a “veil” to hide war crimes, one of the WikiLeaks founder’s attorneys, Aitor Martinez, has said. The years-long persecution of the publisher and the extradition case have also set a very dangerous precedent, which threatens the whole concept of press freedom, the lawyer added. At the same time, the Assange case had become growingly toxic for the US administration, sprouting numerous groups advocating his release and effectively turning into a global movement, Martinez suggested. “The truth is that the US administration had been pushing for the extradition process until recently, and indeed, just a few weeks ago, they had even provided diplomatic assurances seeking the effective handover of Julian Assange.
However, in recent times, a citizen movement has emerged against this extradition, and I believe there is no corner of the world where a ‘Free Assange’ movement has not sprung up,” the lawyer stated. The timing of the abrupt resolution of the years-long affair is likely linked to the looming US presidential elections and the ongoing campaign, where it was bound to emerge one way or another. The case “in some way tarnished the image of the United States before the world” given it “meant the political persecution of a journalist who simply published truthful information that evidenced the commission of serious war crimes,” Martinez noted.
“Therefore, unquestionably, the Assange case would have arisen in the framework of the presidential debates, and this was the only way to end a case that undeniably did not play in favor of the image of the US in the world,” he said. While politicians in Washington have ultimately opted to wrap up the affair, the US intelligence community has regarded it as a personal vendetta of sorts against the journalist, Martinez claimed. “This case was being radically pushed by the US intelligence establishment and mainly by the CIA as a form of revenge against Julian Assange for the material he had published, which in some way had revealed the shame of the US military in operations abroad,” he said.
Sad.
• Russia Considers Downgrading Diplomatic Relations With The West (RT)
Moscow could be forced to downgrade diplomatic ties with Western countries, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has warned, citing hostile policies of the US and its allies. “We have not initiated such a step yet, despite all of the things related to the most tumultuous phase in our relations with the West,” the diplomat said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper, published on Thursday. “Is a decision to downgrade the level of diplomatic ties possible? I can say that we are examining this issue. Such decisions are made on the highest level,” Ryabkov said, adding that it is too early to “speculate.” The West’s “sense of impunity” on the world stage will eventually force Russia to retaliate more decisively, if the situation does not change, the deputy minister warned. Our adversaries must know that, with every step, they are moving closer to the point of no return.
Ryabkov accused Washington of helping Ukrainian forces pick targets when using US-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory. Last week, four people were killed when cluster munitions from a missile hit a packed beach in Crimea. The incident prompted Moscow to summon the American ambassador. “It was a flagrant case of a direct [US] involvement in the conflict,” Ryabkov said. “The complicity in a terrorist act committed by the Kiev regime will not go unanswered.” The diplomat said that deliveries of weapons to Ukraine and attempts to confiscate Russian assets abroad undermine potential dialogue in other fields, such as arms control. “They must understand that it would be simply impossible,” he stressed. Earlier in June, Ukraine’s Western backers renewed their pledges to continue support for Kiev in its fight with Moscow. Russia has repeatedly stated that no amount of foreign aid will stop its operation in Ukraine, and that weapons deliveries only lead to further escalation.
PCR thinks Putin should kill more Ukrainians. Putin does not.
• Putin: The Protector of Ukraine (Paul Craig Roberts)
Has anyone noticed that Putin is conducting his “limited military operation,” by which he means limited to Donbas and the former Russian territories that are again part of Russia, as a response to US/NATO/Ukrainian initiatives? When the Russian military strikes outside the limited combat zone, it is usually a response to a Ukrainian strike into Russia out of the combat zone. After 2.5 years of conflict, Putin has made no effort to win the war. He doesn’t even seem to understand that Russia is at war, not engaged in a limited police action. Putin has left the Ukrainian government in functioning order and has not interfered with Zelensky’s ability to continue the conflict. Kiev is intact. The government in Kiev is intact. Nothing has been done to close Ukraine’s borders from Western armament supplies. The entire initiative of the conflict is with the West. The West acts, and Putin responds. There are no Russian initiatives. Indeed, Russia was forced into the conflict by the West’s initiatives.
This is not the way to fight a war. It is Putin’s refusal to fight and win a war that is causing the enormous expansion–the ever widening–of the war. Notice that the Kremlin’s response to the US missile attack on Crimean civilians and a public beach is to call in the American ambassador and complain, to investigate, to send condolences, not to destroy and occupy Kiev. After all this time haven’t the Russians learned that no one pays any attention to their complaints? Why does Putin think he can shame the shameless West? Why does the Kremlin worry about over-responding to attacks? Washington doesn’t worry about over-provoking Russia. Let me be clear, I am on humanity’s side. I don’t want nuclear war. Putin should never have entered a conflict when he did not intend a quick victory before Washington/NATO could get involved and widen the war.
Now that French troops are in Ukraine, now that US/NATO personnel are conducting the targeting of the US long-range missiles on Russian civilians, and now that Russia is faced with the likelihood of NATO troops entering Ukraine, Putin’s response is to play into Washington’s hands by speaking of bringing North Korean troops into the conflict. Imagine the propaganda damage. North Korea is even more demonized than Russia and Putin. Why does Putin want to widen the conflict instead of quickly winning it? Is the reason that his central bank director convinced him Russia lacked the resources to conduct a real war? Is this why Putin endlessly emphasizes Russian nuclear capability? Does Putin lack the resources to conduct conventional war? With his central bank director’s 16% interest rates hindering the Russian economy, perhaps it is so. Putin’s central bank director left Russian central bank reserves in Western depositories where Washington could seize them.
Was this incompetence or an act of treason? Washington has decided that the interest income earned by the seized Russian central bank reserves will be given to Ukraine to continue the war. So Russia’s own central bank reserves are financing Ukraine’s ability to conduct war against Russia. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia, especially the youth, were corrupted for years by Washington’s propaganda. They lost their national consciousness and became “citizens of the West.” Has Russian youth escaped from this delusion, or does it still rule? The question before us is: Does Russia have leadership capable of comprehending that Russia has an enemy intent on her destruction and dismemberment, or will the Kremlin finally realize this at the last minute, too late to avoid nuclear war?
It is extraordinary that the fate of the world rests on Russian misperception and inadequate response to the West’s intent. As a result of Putin’s inability to act decisively, he was drawn into a conflict that has become open-ended, involving, at least in plans, troops from foreign countries. To pretend that such a conflict is a “limited military operation” is an act of irresponsibility, even evidence of reality denial. Russia is at war with the West. She got there because she refused to acknowledge the fact. Grasping reality remains a challenge for the Kremlin which continues to enable the Ukraine conflict to spin out of control rather than use the force to decisively terminate the conflict before it ends in World War III.
PCR
The loudest anti-Russia voice as your top diplomat?
• EU Nominates Hawk For Next Top Diplomat (RT)
EU leaders have officially nominated Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas to replace Josep Borrell as the bloc’s top diplomat. Kallas is known for her hawkish position on Russia and has been one of the most outpoken proponents of tougher sanctions on Moscow. The leaders also backed Ursula von der Leyen to serve a third five-year term as the president of the European Commission, and named the former foreign minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, as the new president of the European Council. The nominations for Kallas and Von der Leyen are not final, and require approval by the European Parliament. However, Costa is automatically elected by the national leaders of the 27 nations.
Euronews cited two sources as saying that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni voted against Kallas’ candidacy, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban abstained. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kallas wrote that the potential new post would be “an enormous responsibility at this moment of geopolitical tensions.” “The war in Europe, increasing instability in our neighborhood and globally are the main challenges for European foreign policy,” she wrote, promising to “work on achieving EU unity” and “protect the EU’s interests and values in the changed geopolitical context.”
Kallas has repeatedly called for stronger sanctions on Moscow and backed the idea of using frozen Russian assets to fund aid for Kiev. In May, Estonia’s parliament passed a law that allows using seized Russian assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine. She urged the EU to boost the deliveries of weapons to Ukraine and increase the bloc’s own defense capabilities. “Our aim must be to manufacture more munitions than Russia,” Kallas said in March. Russia blacklisted Kallas earlier this year and issued a warrant for her arrest, citing “hostile policies towards Russia.
This feels very stupid.
• EU To Put Brakes On Kiev’s Exports – FT (RT)
The EU is set to reimpose tariffs on sugar and egg imports from Ukraine on Friday to protect the bloc’s farmers from a flood of cheap goods, the Financial Times (FT) has reported. EU member states decided earlier this year that they would apply an “emergency brake” if Ukrainian imports reached a certain volume. Eggs and sugar imports have now hit that level, the FT said, citing people familiar with the situation. Tariffs amounting to €419 ($448) per ton of white sugar and €339 ($362) per ton of raw sugar will be announced on Friday, the publication reported. Eggs will cost an additional 32 cent per kilogram, it added. Ukraine has become the EU’s leading supplier of eggs after the bloc’s poultry industry suffered from bird flu outbreaks in recent years. Imports from Ukraine jumped by three-quarters in 2023, and continued to rise at the start of this year, according to EU data.
Last week, tariffs were reintroduced on Ukrainian oats as imports also reached the relevant ceiling. The decision to limit Ukrainian imports follows months of protests by farmers. Agricultural workers argue that the EU’s policies are threatening their livelihoods. After the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Brussels dropped all tariffs and quotas on Kiev’s farming goods for a period of one year to allow its agricultural products to be shipped to global markets. Farmers in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and other neighboring countries staged protests, complaining that they simply could not compete with cheap Ukrainian imports that were not subject to the same tariffs and regulations as EU-produced goods.
In April, EU lawmakers extended Kiev’s duty-free access to member states’ markets but also decided to introduce caps on Ukrainian farm imports such as oats, corn, maize, honey, eggs, poultry, and sugar. Duties would be applied to the listed produce if imports exceed average levels of past years. The expected reintroduction of tariffs comes just days after the EU opened membership talks with Kiev, “an agricultural powerhouse,” the FT said. The move underlines how difficult Ukraine’s accession negotiations will be, it added.
“..they know or have identified certain individuals in the Kiev regime and the US’ decision-making process, whom they can hold personally responsible..”
• Zelensky Regime Willing to Sacrifice Own People for Anti-Russia Crusade (Sp.)
The number of Ukrainian casualties in the country’s ongoing war against Russia has remained a highly contentious matter throughout the duration of the conflict. Kiev and its Western allies often downplay the number, claiming the death toll is only in the thousands, but Moscow’s defense ministry has estimated the actual figure is close to 500,000. Purportedly leaked US intelligence documents admit Ukraine’s death toll is much higher than publicly acknowledged. Whatever the number, the war is likely the bloodiest the world has seen in decades. But security analyst Mark Sleboda claims the “ideological” Kiev regime is unfazed by the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands, or even a million, of its own citizens in its crusade against the Russian nation. The international relations expert joined Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Wednesday to discuss the latest developments in the conflict as the killing of several Russian civilians, including two children, at a beach in Sevastopol elevates tensions to new heights.
Host Jamarl Thomas began by asking Sleboda what the consequences might be for the United States, which provided Ukraine with the US-made ATACMS missiles used in the attack. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently warned the country would be forced to respond to repeated acts of terrorism against Russian civilians. “That’s a good question and I don’t know that anyone rightfully knows the answer to that,” Sleboda responded. “There are some who suggested that the statements by Lavrov and by other officials seem to indicate that they know or have identified certain individuals in the Kiev regime and the US’ decision-making process, whom they can hold personally responsible, and what measures they might take against them either over sanctions, criminal cases or shall we say more direct justice.” “The other possibility is an asymmetric response, as Putin has promised, of providing long-range strike weapons to US adversaries in the world,” he suggested.
Thomas speculated Moscow could implement a no-fly zone over the Black Sea, where drones have gathered targeting information for Ukrainian strikes. Russian officials have also pointed out that advanced Western weaponry, such as the ATACMS missile system, typically require the assistance of highly-trained US military personnel to operate. The high level of coordination in the strikes on Russia represents a level of US involvement in the conflict that goes beyond what the country publicly acknowledges, Russian officials have noted, requiring a response from Moscow in order to protect its people and territory.
“This is not passive intelligence,” Sleboda said of Kiev’s reliance on Western reconnaissance aircraft to help coordinate attacks. “This is active intelligence gathering.” The security analyst also noted the assistance of the United States in programing targeting information into Ukraine’s weapons systems, according to comments by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and generals in the German Bundeswehr. “Not doing something almost guarantees escalation by the West,” said Thomas. “Meaning, they’re acting with impunity. They don’t believe in Russia’s red lines.” The host claimed the United States has not yet faced a great enough cost during the conflict to reconsider its position, with American officials frequently boasting of the potential to undermine one of their perceived global adversaries without sacrificing American lives.
All other plans involve 2 states.
• Israeli Plan To Prevent A Palestinian State (Sahiounie)
While the world watches the genocide in Gaza, there is another war on the Palestinian people in the Occupied West Bank. On June 9, the New York Times (NYT) reported that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich outlined, in a speech to Jewish extremists, a plan by the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to annex the Occupied Territories of the West Bank. His speech was recorded secretly and leaked to the NYT. Smotrich is part of the more than 600,000 Jewish settlers illegally occupying Palestinian lands. He advocates Israel taking all the Palestinian territories, and preventing the Palestinians from ever having an independent state. The UN, the U.S. and the international community all agree that Gaza and the West Bank should be eventually an independent Palestinian state, which would be the end of a brutal Israeli military occupation and apartheid.
This is not the first secret leaked speech of Smotrich. In October 2022, Smotrich was caught calling Netanyahu “the liar of all liars”, as reported by The Jerusalem Post. According to Smotrich, the plan to steal the West Bank is fully supported by Netanyahu, and forms a basis for the current right-wing Jewish extremist coalition keeping Netanyahu in power, and out of jail. The plan involves supporting the Jewish settler’s expansion in the West Bank, which is illegal under international law, and has been under occupation since 1967. Officially, the Israeli government maintains that the West Bank’s status will be negotiated in the future. The Smotrich-Netanyahu plan would forever deny the almost 3 million Palestinians of the Occupied West Bank their freedom. For Palestinians, the plan would mark the end of any hope to live in freedom and democracy, but for the Jewish Zionists, the plan would be a culmination of their goal to have one land ‘from the river to the sea’ which is occupied only by Jews.
Not every Jew is a Zionist, and not every Zionist is a Jew. For example, after October 7, U.S. President Joe Biden said he was a Zionist, while being a Christian. Zionism is a political movement, hiding behind a religion. Similarly, Al Qaeda and ISIS are political movements, hiding behind a religion. Using the word Zionist as a label of identification is not antisemitic, because Zionism is not limited only to Jews. The modern movement of Zionism began in the late 1800s, and refers to Zion as an acronym for Jerusalem. Jewish settlers in the West Bank see their illegal occupation there as a demonstration of Zionism. Those who oppose Zionism are not being anti-Semitic. They simply oppose a political position of the Israeli government, just as they may oppose a political position of the Japanese government on an issue.
The official name of Israel is “The Jewish State of Israel”. Some have offered that there is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and also similarly of Iran. So why do people complain about the religious nature of Israel? Israel denies the human rights and civil rights of non-Jewish people in Israel and Palestine, and has been classified as an Apartheid state by the UN and human rights groups. Tallie Ben Daniel, the managing director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which sees Zionism as a movement whose aim “is to deny the rights of Palestinians and the humanity of Palestinians.” “For us, we want to be clear: the form of Zionism that has survived and has power now is an expansionist, right-wing, genocidal form,” Ben Daniel said. “The people in power in Israel right now … want to annihilate the Palestinians and get all the land for Jews, and there is no thought there could be coexistence,” said Ben Daniel.
Nice county. Fani says hi.
• Fulton County Georgia Seeks to Destroy 2020 Ballots To Halt Lawsuits (GP)
In an ongoing lawsuit concerning the 2020 election, attorneys for Fulton County, Georgia, made a controversial argument yesterday. They suggested that a temporary injunction preserving the 2020 Fulton election ballots should be lifted, which would allow the ballots to be destroyed before they are unsealed, copied, and revealed to the public. The attorneys also contended that Fulton County should receive attorney fees for the case, despite a Georgia Supreme Court ruling that overturned lower court decisions and confirmed standing for the plaintiffs who seek to copy and inspect the ballots, according to the VoterGA. Representing Fulton Superior Court Clerk Che Alexander, Attorney Laura Moore made the case that there is no longer room in a secure warehouse cage for the ballots, so they may now be destroyed.
Moore conveniently omitted from her argument that Fulton County recently opened a new 60,000 sq. ft. Election Operations warehouse at an initial cost of nearly 30 million and an additional 4 million annual lease for Fulton taxpayers, per VoterGA. More from the VoterGA press release: Attorney Kaye Burwell argued that the county should receive attorney fees for costs incurred so far because Plaintiffs’ claims, which are still yet to be adjudicated, are“meritless”. Burwell ignored all rulings showing Plaintiffs in the case, currently known as Favorito v. Wan, were granted relief eight times thus proving their claims are legitimate. The rulings include:
• A temporary injunction to preserve all ballots on Jan. 7, 2021;
• An order to produce scanned absentee ballot images on April 16, 2021;
• An order upholding two Open Records Request claims on April 20, 2021;
• A motion granted to add the county and clerk as Defendants on April 21, 2021;
• An order to unseal the ballots for inspection and copying on May 21, 2021;
• An order granting Petitioners’ motion to add parties on June 24, 2021;
• A Georgia Supreme Court order confirming Plaintiffs’ standing claim on Dec. 12, 2022;
• An appeals court adoption of the higher order for Fulton plaintiffs on May 11, 2023.Lead Plaintiff Garland Favorito added, “Watching the attorneys make such ludicrous, dishonest arguments with a straight face while seeking to destroy the ballots and charge us fees for winning arguments in court against them only serves to remind me of the massive Fulton County corruption that threatens the voting rights of every Georgian.” Judge Robert McBurney is expected to rule soon on the motion for fees, the temporary injunction for the ballots and a Plaintiff motion to substitute Defendants with new members of the Fulton County Election Board who the court can compel to act if it grants further relief.
“..the markets’ strength won’t last long, as they have been strong for a long time, so regardless of who wins, problems will begin after the elections..”
• Jim Rogers Warns of Economic Decline Post-Election (Sp.)
The global economy will face difficult times by the US presidential elections or shortly thereafter, renowned US investor Jim Rogers told Sputnik. Rogers observed that most markets are currently performing well and reaching new highs due to the massive amounts of money printed by nearly every central bank worldwide in recent months and years. “There’s a lot of free money around. It has to go somewhere and it’s been going into the investment world so everybody’s having a good time…,” Rogers said. ” When everybody is making a new high, that’s a risk. Whenever that happened in the past, it usually led to a decline, a bad market, and a bad economy… Soon that will be a problem.” Rogers explained that because the US is the largest economy in the world, whatever happens there affects the rest of the world. According to Rogers, the downturn will begin around the time of the US elections or shortly after.
The US presidential election will be held on November 5. The main rivals in the race are Biden, a Democrat, and his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump. Regardless of the winner in the upcoming US presidential elections, the markets will react positively, but this period of “happiness” will be brief, legendary American investor Jim Rogers told Sputnik “People expect Trump to win. They think that Trump will be good for the market. So if he wins, the markets will stay strong, not too much longer, because the markets have been strong for a long time now,” Rogers said. “Likewise, if Biden wins many people will think ‘we will have the same old good things’. So whichever one wins, the market is going to be happy for a short period of time.” Rogers added that the markets’ strength won’t last long, as they have been strong for a long time, so regardless of who wins, problems will begin after the elections.
Thank you
This is why CNN won't allow an audience for tonight's debate pic.twitter.com/Klkgv4NhEC
— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) June 27, 2024
Free energy
Free energy pic.twitter.com/4BmeIpfbEX
— nikola 3 (@ronin19217435) June 27, 2024
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