William Blake Europe Supported by Africa and America 1796
PCR
Trump
Trump tells Republican Jewish Coalition donors he'll "stand with Israel all the way, 100%, without qualification." Reminds wife of the late Sheldon Adelson that he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem just like he wanted. Says if he's not elected in 2024 Israel will be eliminated pic.twitter.com/cAD2bkKHE1
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 29, 2023
Bibi NL
This was planned before 7/10 .
It is just a plot. The intention was planned beforehand pic.twitter.com/MK8BSZ3dyI
— إيـمان | ﮼بكـــماء (@roo7yn) October 29, 2023
“..the ten-page document is authentic but “was not supposed to reach the media..”
• Leaked: Israeli Plan To Ethnically Cleanse Gaza (Cradle)
Israeli culture magazine Mekovit published on 28 October a leaked document issued by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence recommending the occupation of Gaza and total transfer of its 2.3 million inhabitants to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The document, issued on 13 October, identifies a plan to transfer all residents of the Gaza Strip to North Sinai as the preferred option among three alternatives regarding the future of the Palestinians in Gaza at the end of the current war between Israel and the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance. The document recommends that Israel evacuate the Gazan population to Sinai during the war, establish tent cities and new cities in northern Sinai to accommodate the deported population, and then create a closed security zone stretching several kilometers inside Egypt. The deported Palestinians would not be allowed to return to any areas near the Israeli border.
The existence of the document does not necessarily indicate that its recommendations are being implemented by Israel’s security establishment. The Ministry of Intelligence, headed by Gila Gamliel of the Likud party, does not control any of Israel’s intelligence agencies, but independently prepares studies and policy papers, which are distributed for consideration by the government and its security bodies. However, recent statements by Israeli government officials and actions by the Israeli army in Gaza suggest the plan is indeed being implemented. Since 7 October, Israeli officials have repeatedly issued warnings to Palestinians to move to southern Gaza in advance of a looming ground invasion. Israel has imposed a total siege on Gaza, cutting off food, water, fuel, and electricity. The siege, combined with intense Israeli bombing that has killed over 8,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, threatens to make Gaza uninhabitable.
An official at the Ministry of Intelligence confirmed that the ten-page document is authentic but “was not supposed to reach the media,” Mekovit noted. According to a right-wing activist, the document from the Ministry of Intelligence was leaked by a member of Likud. Leaking the document was an attempt to find out whether “the public in Israel is ready to accept ideas of a transfer from Gaza.” The document unequivocally and explicitly recommends carrying out a transfer of civilians from Gaza as the desired outcome of the war.
BREAKING: @mekomit expose shows that the directive to deport 2.4 million #Palestinians out of occupied #Gaza and onto #Egypt and beyond has been officially endorsed by #Israel's Ministry of Intelligence on 13 October. A war crime in the making! pic.twitter.com/5BFsOzSpj3
— Itay Epshtain (@EpshtainItay) October 29, 2023
“..it is highly likely that Hamas will be able to hold off a concerted Israeli assault..”
• Israel Faces ‘Near Impossible Task’ in Gaza (Scott Ritter)
If one combined the above ground rubble of Monte Casino with the below-ground tunnel network of Iwo Jima, you might approximate the hellish scenario awaiting Israel in Gaza. Over 500 kilometers of tunnels dug in under the 360 square kilometers that comprise the Gaza Strip, these tunnels are purpose built, designed to serve as transportation corridors, command centers, supply depots, dormitories and hospitals, defensive positions, and in support of offensive action. Simply put, there has never been a military operation against a target such as the one presented by Hamas in Gaza. Israel has trained a small number of its elite special forces to carry out limited-scope operations in an underground environment.
These operations, typically involving hostage rescue or direct action (i.e., eliminating a high value target), are conducted under very controlled circumstances, with the attacking forces proceeding only when the circumstances support a favorable outcome. As such, the experiences of these troops are counterproductive when it comes to transferring knowledge to the conventional forces that would bear the brunt of any Israeli assault on Gaza. Simply trying to navigate the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza will be a nearly impossible task for the Israeli troops. The going will be slow, and the Israeli infantry will have to operate dismounted, exposing themselves to sniper fire and ambushes. Israeli vehicles will find themselves hemmed in without the ability to maneuver, making themselves vulnerable to mines, improvised explosive devices, and anti-tank weaponry. Close air support under these circumstances will be very difficult, effectively neutralizing Israel’s greatest advantage.
If Israel does not sync its above-ground actions with a simultaneous effort to defeat Hamas’ underground tunnel-based defenses, then the situation above ground will become even more precarious, with Hamas emerging from tunnels behind the Israeli forces, cutting them off and inflicting heavy casualties. But Israel is going to be operating largely blind underground, probing into a tunnel network designed by Hamas to protect against any such effort. Israel’s best bet would be to simply locate tunnel entrances and seal them off, leaving the Hamas forces underground to die of thirst, hunger, oxygen deprivation, or disease. But this will require the physical occupation of every square meter of the city, an immensely difficult problem from both a logistical and operational standpoint. It will also expose more Israeli forces to harm, resulting in a dramatic increase in casualties.
By reacting to the Hamas attack of October 7 in the way it has, Israel has literally walked into a trap designed by Hamas to defeat any Israeli incursion. Israeli forces are neither trained, equipped, organized, nor motivated to carry out the kind of brutal, bloody, and physically demanding combat that will be required to defeat Hamas above and below the ground in Gaza. Israeli political and military leaders have boxed themselves into a corner with their aggressive winner-take-all rhetoric. But now that the time has come to pay the price of their collective verbiage, the question becomes is this a price Israel is willing and able to pay?
The answer is probably no. Israel has defined victory as being predicated on the total defeat of Hamas as a military organization. This is most probably a mission impossible. Hamas, therefore, emerges victorious simply by surviving. Given the strong defensive position Hamas finds itself in, through a combination of its immense tunnel network and the destroyed urban environment brought on by Israeli bombardment, it is highly likely that Hamas will be able to hold off a concerted Israeli assault until which time the Israel Defense Forces, like the German Pioneer battalions in Stalingrad, exhaust themselves on the field of battle.
“Netanyahu and Hamas are political partners,” declared a recent article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “and both sides have fulfilled their side of the bargain.”
• Netanyahu Strengthened Hamas to Discredit Palestinian Cause (Sp.)
In contrast to the secular Fatah and PFLP, Hamas is an explicitly Islamist group. The political party began to gain support in Palestinian society for their provision of social services and leadership of armed resistance. However, international support for the Palestinian cause was damaged as the United States, the UK, and other Western powers designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, a label that increasingly stigmatized supporters of Palestinian liberation, especially after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The deeply polarizing nature of Hamas and their tactics began to be recognized as politically useful by certain enterprising figures in Israeli politics. “Netanyahu and Hamas are political partners,” declared a recent article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “and both sides have fulfilled their side of the bargain.”
The article goes on to document some of the ways Netanyahu has materially supported the armed group during his over 16 years as Israeli prime minister, including allowing untraceable cash contributions to Hamas from Iran and Qatar. In the latter country, Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh is allowed to operate freely. Israel tightly controls who and what is allowed to enter into Gaza, but the Qatari envoy is permitted to arrive with suitcases of cash to fund Hamas’ operations. The Israeli government often argues Hamas invests money in building military capability rather than providing social services in Gaza. The free flow of funds to the group, overseen and approved by Israel’s hands-off approach, ensures that this continues.
Netanyahu retains his useful talking point demonizing the terrorist threat while Hamas periodically rebuilds its capability to wage war, providing justification for Netanyahu’s hardline approach. “Netanyahu is the one who turned Hamas from a terror organization with few resources into a semi-state body,” noted Haaretz, emphasizing that the group’s rule in Gaza politically isolates Palestinians in the enclave from those in the West Bank. In case the politically symbiotic relationship weren’t clear, Netanyahu made it explicit during a meeting with members of his Likud party in 2019: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support the bolstering of Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy, to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
“.. I don’t know how many of them are in there already. They are catching Iranians on a terror list. How did Iranians get to Mexico?“
• 2 Billion Will Die in New War Cycle – Charles Nenner (USAW)
Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner has been warning a once every 120-year war cycle is coming, and with hostilities in the Middle East, it is clearly here. This cycle is for big wars such as WWI and WWII. These two wars were part of one big war cycle according to Nenner, and history is now repeating. Keep in mind, this war cycle comes with many countries in possession of nuclear arsenals. Nenner explains, “If you do cycles on war games and war cycles, you can calculate how many people are going to die in such a war. We discussed this in the past, and it now looks ugly. We are talking about a lot of people. There are so many things bad going on in the world, so I would like to not to tell you the number.”
Nenner has said this war cycle will top all other war cycles in body counts. Nenner predicts, “This war cycle is going to be worse than World War II. So, the question is what do we do and where do we go? A lot of my clients are not interested in ‘how do I make money,’ but where should we go. So, I am studying where are the best places to go. This is what I am trying to find out, and I have been very busy with this.” Back to the death toll that Nenner knows is coming. So, I ask again, how many people will die in the current war cycle? Nenner blurts out, “It could be a quarter of the population of the world.” That’s roughly 2 billion people that could be killed in the current war cycle. Nenner goes on to say, “This may not be in the next war because this is going to continue for many years. It could be in the war after this.
What I see now is the Chinese going to the Middle East and the United States helping Israel because if they don’t do that, nobody would trust the United States anymore. I guess the Chinese are going to watch how tough the United States is going to be because, otherwise, they take over Tiawan just like that. They may still do it because everybody is busy with Ukraine and Israel. . . . The U.S. is going to have to prove themselves, otherwise, they will be laughed off the world.” Nenner also sees a war cycle coming to America through the Southern U.S. border. America will be attacked like never before in this war cycle. Nenner says, “There will be terror attacks in the U.S. and maybe much more because I don’t know how many of them are in there already. They are catching Iranians on a terror list. How did Iranians get to Mexico?”
Nenner thinks the dollar is stable–for now. Interest rates are going to continue to climb but will take a short downward path in the near term. Inflation is going to be going back up soon. Nenner is not a long-term buyer of stocks, and he still thinks the Dow’s downside is 5,000 and global war could take it there in a hurry. The greatest depression in history is still a few years away, but Nenner is 100% sure it is coming. Nenner’s cycles say it will most likely happen in the 2027-2028 time period. Nenner does like gold and silver and thinks gold will be well over $2,500 per ounce within a year and a half. Nenner’s best financial advice is “buy the 2-year Treasury,” and lock in a 5% return with zero risk.
“..Qatar and Israel had once collaborated since the mid-nineties to prop up Hamas as an Islamist antidote to the secular-minded PLO..”
• India’s Solidarity With Israel Is Untenable (Bhadrakumar)
The Indo-Israeli fusion through the past decade hasn’t gone unnoticed in the Muslim countries. They resent it, perhaps, but it may not surge into view because Arabs are a hospitable people. That said, their resentment may surface if push comes to shove and their core interests are involved. The US-Israeli attempt to put the lid on the region’s growing strategic autonomy is one such core issue. It is far from the case that the regional states — be it Qatar, Iran, Egypt, Syria or even Turkey — do not understand that the Biden administration’s grandiloquent idea of a India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor is in reality a wedge to disrupt the nascent trends of unity among regional states so as to insert Israel into the regional processes and rekindle the flame of sectarian schism and geopolitical rifts, which the US invariably exploited to impose its hegemony in West Asia historically.
That is why, the three-way Qatar-India-Israel tangled mess of espionage, which should never have been allowed to happen, becomes a litmus test of mutual intentions in the geopolitics of the region. Lest it is forgotten, Qatar and Israel had once collaborated since the mid-nineties to prop up Hamas as an Islamist antidote to the secular-minded PLO under Yasser Arafat. In a recent interview with the Deutsche Welle, former Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert disclosed, inter alia, “We know that the Hamas was financed with the assistance of Israel— for years — by hundreds of millions of dollars that came from Qatar with the assistance of the state of Israel, with the full knowledge and support of the Israeli government led by Netanyahu.” That convergence — rather, Fustian deal — ended in 2009 following the three-week Gaza Massacre by Israel, whereupon, Doha drew closer to Tehran.
Nonetheless, a pragmatic relationship continued, and in 2015, the Qatari government facilitated discussions between Israel and Hamas in Doha in search of a possible five-year ceasefire between the two parties. Suffice to say, the Indian diplomacy is swimming in shark-infested waters. The news from Doha this week is a wake-up call. Equally, our public discourse on Hamas as a terrorist organisation and our branding of that national liberation movement is surreal, to say the least. Although it may be difficult today for the government to openly deal with Hamas, it shouldn’t be that we lack a proper understanding of Islamism. If ever a Palestine settlement comes to fruition, Hamas will have a lead role in it as the fountainhead of resistance. India’s political elite must bear in mind this reality. Eliminating the Hamas from the political landscape is no longer possible, given the massive grassroots support it enjoys among the Palestinian people, which is of course a proven fact in the successive elections held in Gaza and West Bank.
The US makes the decisions.
• Israel Scaled Back Gaza Ground Campaign After US Intervention – NYT (RT)
The Israeli military has limited the scope of its “expanded” ground operation against the Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza following consultations with senior White House officials, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing sources. According to the paper, the initial plans “alarmed” officials in Washington, who voiced concern that they “lacked achievable military objectives,” with fears that the IDF was not yet prepared for a full-scale ground assault. However, an unnamed US government source told NYT that after discussions with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other officials “the Israelis improved and refined their plan” for the offensive. As a result, the report said, the IDF’s actions in Gaza have so far been “smaller and more narrowly focused” than Israeli officials initially proposed to their US counterparts.
Numerous US officials and former commanders told the outlet that “Israel appeared to be conducting a phased operation” with reconnaissance units probing Hamas positions in Gaza for potential weaknesses. According to the article, however, Israel’s decision-making process was also influenced by deliberations concerning hostages held by Hamas, as well as by a rift in the country’s leadership over how, when, and even whether to kick off the operation. Commenting on the progress of the battle, IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Sunday that the country’s military had “expanded the entry” into the Palestinian enclave overnight. “We are progressing through the stages of the war according to plan,” he said, adding that the IDF is “gradually expanding the ground activity and the scope of our forces” in the area.
Earlier this month, several media outlets reported the US was exerting strong influence on Israel’s plans, with Bloomberg describing it as “deeper and more intense than any exerted by Washington in the past.” Several outlets said the US also wanted the IDF to delay its incursion to gain more time to secure the release of more than 200 hostages held by Hamas. US President Joe Biden, however, rejected the notion that Washington was pressuring Israel to postpone the ground campaign, saying that “the Israelis can make their own decisions.” So far, the hostilities have claimed the lives of more than 8,000 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis. After West Jerusalem announced the “complete siege” of Gaza, the UN warned on Wednesday that the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave had reached an “unprecedented point.”
“Israel believes that its international alliances guarantee its impunity.”
• EU May Become Complicit In ‘Genocide’ – Spanish Official (RT)
Spanish Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra has urged European leaders to take immediate action against Israel, including severing diplomatic ties and imposing economic sanctions, amid the intensified bombing and expanded ground operations against Hamas militants in the besieged Palestinian enclave. She also called for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be prosecuted for the alleged war crimes committed against civilians in Gaza. “After this hellish night in Gaza, I have a very simple but very important message for European leaders. Do not make us complicit in genocide. Act. Not in our name,” Belarra said in a passionate video message on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.
More than 8,000 Palestinians, including 3,342 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s air campaign began, according to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry. The unprecedented Hamas raid into Israel, as well as hundreds of rocket strikes on Israeli territory earlier this month, left around 1,400 people dead, while some 230 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage, according to the Israel Defence Forces. Addressing the severity of the current situation in Gaza and Israel’s disproportionate retaliation, the minister highlighted the termination of internet and telephone services in the strip, claiming that the move “has a very clear objective” of guaranteeing that “Israel commits crimes against humanity without consequences.” “Our inaction is turning us into accomplices,” the minister stressed, arguing that “Israel believes that its international alliances guarantee its impunity.”
“We have to act now, tomorrow will be too late,” she continued, voicing her message to the EU leaders: “Cut diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. Carry out exemplary economic sanctions against those responsible for this genocide. And without a doubt, let’s take Netanyahu before the International Criminal Court, so that he can be tried for what he is, a war criminal.” She also appealed to EU citizens to take to the streets and raise their voice so that “this genocide” comes to an end. The IDF escalated air and ground attack on Gaza on Friday, causing a near-total communication blackout. Connectivity was partially restored over the weekend, but the Israeli blockade of Gaza continues; Netanyahu announced the “second stage” of the war against Hamas on Saturday.
“..Let them console themselves with the thought that they are no longer dependent on energy from hated Russia..s”
• EU No Longer Independent In Politics Even In Europe – Medvedev (TASS)
The European Union has lost its geopolitical autonomy not only in the international arena but even in Europe, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said. “Whatever European leaders might be saying, de facto the European Union cannot act independently not only in the international arena but even on the European soil. Practically all EU countries are standing upright before the United States and Great Britain and have begun to obediently fulfil their orders to support the Nazi regime in Kiev. And now they are fulfilling any orders whatsoever,” he wrote on his VKontakte account. According to Medvedev, dreams about the European Union as a pillar of the world order have vanished as the European Union “has lost its international authority of a mediator in any conflict.”.
Europe’s energy cooperation with Russia has been frozen for a long time and now the European Union is living through difficult time, Medvedev said. “Europe has gelded itself, bloodily and unanesthetized, having refused from energy cooperation with our country. It has been spoiled or frozen for a very long time. And America is rubbing its hands as it sells its LNG to Europe three times over the price,” he wrote. He noted that Europe’s largest economies, which used to be the European Union’s growth drivers for years, have demonstrated a dramatic slump and would recover very slowly, if ever. “And this is a bad outlook for weaker countries of Western Europe. Difficult times have come for a long time,” he wrote.
He drew attention to the fact that the European Commission has downgraded the economic growth forecasts for the euro zone in 2023 from 1.1% to 0.8%. “Inflation in many EU countries is off the charts. Food prices are going up and will continue to do so,” he noted. Touching on other aspects of everyday life in Europe, he noted that no one can guarantee that the coming winter will be warm and mild. “And this means that tariffs for heat and all other things will go up. And American LNG, which is sold to Europe thrice the price, will be of little help. Europe has finally dropped the price policy which ensured Europe’s prosperity a couple of year ago. This time has gone. Let them console themselves with the thought that they are no longer dependent on energy from hated Russia,” he added.
“..and then just like that there is a void in any attention to what had been previously billed as an existential crisis for Europe and Western democratic civilization…
• Western Media ‘Cancel’ the Ukraine Conflict (SCF)
Every media outlet around the world has been transfixed by the barbarity, albeit differing in their perspective on how much blame to apportion to the Israeli regime or to the Hamas Palestinian militant group that triggered the escalation in violence with its mass killings of 1,400 Israelis on October 7. (It is now becoming clear that many of those deaths were actually caused by the Israeli military using indiscriminate excessive lethal force.) In any case, the point here is how remarkable is the sudden cessation in Western media coverage of the war in Ukraine. For the past three weeks, there has hardly been any mention of that conflict. This peremptory absence is phenomenal. For months on end, the war in Ukraine was given non-stop, saturation coverage – albeit with an anti-Russian propaganda spin – and then just like that there is a void in any attention to what had been previously billed as an existential crisis for Europe and Western democratic civilization.
It’s not as if the hostilities in Ukraine have really diminished. Far from it, the battling between the NATO-backed Kiev regime forces and the Russian military has been as fierce as in previous months. Over the past week alone, it is estimated that more than 2,000 Ukrainian troops were killed by Russian forces on the frontlines in the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. How is that absence in Western media explained? Part of the “cancelling” of the Ukraine conflict in Western media coverage is due to the failure of the NATO-backed counteroffensive that was launched in early June. That military venture was hyped as the expected breakthrough against Russian forces after months of heavy weapons supply from NATO leading up to the counteroffensive. The gambit has been a disastrous anti-climax in NATO terms.
Up to 90,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been lost in four months adding to a total of 400,000 Ukrainian military deaths over the entire conflict so far. The great NATO surge has been an abject calamity. Russian defense lines all along a swathe of former Eastern Ukrainian territory (now part of the Russian Federation) reaching down to Crimea and the Black Sea remain formidably intact and invulnerable. The expenditure of $200 billion in military and other aid by the United States and the European Union for propping up a corrupt Nazi regime in Kiev can now be seen as the biggest farce and scandal of modern times. The Western governments and their servile media must therefore not let the Western public see this grotesque waste of money and human life. Public attention must somehow be diverted to avoid the resounding political repercussions.
The slaughter of Palestinians going on in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank territory is a global shame that certainly deserves priority attention. A ceasefire must be called immediately and the mass murder and siege must end. Palestinian rights must be defended and a proper peace settlement to the conflict must be pursued urgently in a genuinely brokered legal and diplomatic framework – not the disingenuous process that Washington and the European Union have been peddling for decades. However, even the extensive Western media focus on the violence in Gaza is not out of a genuine concern for facts, let alone truth or justice. It is, as usual, a cover-up for the Israeli regime’s crimes and the complicity of Western states in the decades-long genocide against the Palestinians. A genocide that has going on for 75 years since the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 by British and American subterfuge as our columnist Finian Cunningham contended this week. No, the Western media saturation coverage of terrible events in Gaza over the past three weeks is driven in large part by the onerous need to divert attention from the scandal and debacle of NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine.
The quickness and expedience of canceling Ukraine as a story by Western media and their governments is a powerful demonstration. The purported concerns about Ukraine were never about principle or the alleged narrative of defending democracy. If there was any credible substance to that narrative then how is it dispensed with so readily? It is something to behold how Western media have simply dumped Ukraine as if it were damaged goods of no longer any use, or, worse, a soiled rag. It is a further diabolical tragedy in the long-suffering of the Palestinian people. Not only are they being annihilated, starved and denied their basic human rights by the Western-backed Israeli regime. Their suffering is also poignant proof of the callous deception and criminality of the United States and its Western partners in Ukraine.
mamamamamamama My Fiona
• Trump’s ex-Russia Expert Predicts Big Changes In ‘International Order’ (RT)
Fiona Hill, the one-time Russia guru in US President Donald Trump’s administration, has posited that the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Israel portend seismic geopolitical shifts that Moscow sees working in its favor. “These could be global-system-shifting wars, something like World War I and World War II, which reflected and produced major changes in the international order,” Hill said in a Los Angeles Times interview published on Sunday. “In a sense, the Hamas attack on Israel was a kind of Pearl Harbor moment. It opened a second front.” The first front in today’s geopolitical conflagration was the Russia-Ukraine conflict. With the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel triggering a new war in the Middle East, the situation became more complicated. Hill did not spell out how she sees the two conflicts changing the international order, but she said Russian President Vladimir Putin sees “everything trending in his favor.”
“This helps Putin,” Hill said of the Israel-Hamas war. “It’s going to distract the United States and European supporters of Ukraine.” Hill argued that the US and other Ukraine backers “put too much weight” on the foundering Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in June. “This is going to be a long war,” she said. “Putin thinks we will give up if he holds on long enough.” The Russian leader also is waiting for the 2024 US election, which could result in Washington cutting off aid for Ukraine if Trump wins back the presidency, Hill suggested. She added that the US presidential race is worrying for US allies: “If the rest of the world thinks every time a new government comes along, we are going to tear up agreements we just made, we won’t be looked at as a very reliable partner.”
Russia, China and Iran are aligned against Ukraine and against Israel, Hill said, and the conflicts have brought Beijing and Moscow closer together. US President Joe Biden’s administration should counter that troubling trend by mending ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government, she suggested. “We’re not going to have any hope of curtailing Russia’s options and getting the Middle East to calm down if we have a super-antagonistic relationship with China,” she said. Hill, who testified against Trump during the then president’s 2019 impeachment inquiry, previously advised former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Washington and its Western allies have been fighting World War III against Russia “for a long time,” without being aware of it, she said last month in a New Yorker magazine interview.
“I’ll be implementing strong ideological screenings for all immigrants coming in..”
• Israel-Hamas War A Conflict Between ‘Civilization And Savagery’ – Trump (RT)
Former US President Donald Trump has condemned Hamas as “monsters,” framing the Palestinian militant group’s war with Israel as a conflict between “good and evil” and vowing to rid America of immigrants and foreign students who sympathize with jihadists. Speaking on Saturday at the Republican Jewish Coalition summit in Las Vegas, Trump vowed to stop the “mass importation of anti-Semitism” into the US if he’s re-elected as president in 2024. He blamed Hamas for all of the deaths that have occurred on both sides – numbering over 1,400 in Israel and 8,000 in Gaza – since the group’s October 7 attacks on Israeli villages triggered the region’s latest war. “Every single life that is lost in this conflict is on the shoulders of Hamas, Hamas alone, and I think you have to really add in the word Iran…,” Trump said.
“There can be no sympathy, no excuses, and no escape for these monsters. We will do what has to be done.” The Hamas attacks, in which hundreds of Israeli civilians were killed or kidnapped, proved that the group’s conflict with West Jerusalem isn’t a battle between “equal sides,” Trump said. He added, “This is a fight between civilization and savagery, between decency and depravity, and between good and evil. There is no comparison between a group that worships death and a group that cherishes life and cherishes our nation.” Trump is polling as the leading Republican candidate to face his successor, President Joe Biden, in the 2024 election. He argued that in the wake of the Hamas attacks, Biden has “turned a blind eye to the greatest outbreak of anti-Semitism in American history.”
The ex-president lamented the “pro-jihadist” protests occurring in major US cities and on college campuses amid the Israel-Hamas war. He blamed Biden’s administration for letting in “colossal amounts of jihadists” as refugees or foreign students. “They’re letting them in at levels that nobody’s ever seen before,” he said. “We cannot allow that to happen, and we don’t want to be like Europe, with jihadists on every corner.” Trump promised to reimpose the travel ban that he instituted shortly after taking office as president in 2017, which restricted entry to the US by travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries. He also claimed that he would deport foreign nationals who protested in support of Hamas and would ensure that jihadist sympathizers won’t be allowed to enter the US. “I’ll be implementing strong ideological screenings for all immigrants coming in,” Trump told the audience. “If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country, and you’re not going to be getting into our country.”
Pro-Hamas foreign students who joined the protests also will be targeted with cancellation of their study visas, Trump said. “Come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you.” He also vowed to threaten colleges and universities with the loss of federal funding and academic accreditation if they don’t “purge” their campuses of “anti-Semitism and pro-terrorism.” Trump argued that the attacks on Israel wouldn’t have happened if he had been president, just as he previously claimed that he would have prevented the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “For four years, you didn’t have any of these problems,” he said. “Think of it, you wouldn’t have Ukraine, you wouldn’t have Israel being attacked, you wouldn’t have inflation, you wouldn’t have anything.”
A travesty indeed.
• US Judge Reinstates Gag Order on Trump in Federal Election Case (Sp.)
A federal judge overseeing former US President Donald Trump’s federal election subversion case has reinstated a gag order that had earlier been issued against the one-time commander-in-chief. The late Sunday ruling also saw US District Judge Tanya Chutkan deny a request by Trump lawyers to prolong the earlier gag order freeze, explaining it would instead remain active while it’s reviewed by a federal appeals court. Chutkan issued the gag order at the behest of the US Department of Justice before temporarily halting it on October 20 as Trump’s lawyers filed an appeal and argued it was vaguely worded. The matter has remained a heated topic of debate among lawyers, with representatives for the former president arguing it bars Trump from his First Amendment rights and acts as a hitch as he undertakes his 2024 reelection effort.
Prosecutors have underscored that regardless of Trump’s 2024 bid, he does not have clearance to issue public remarks that appear to threaten any individuals tied to the election interference case. Trump appears to have publicly responded to the development on social media, writing in a Truth Social post: “The Corrupt Biden Administration just took away my First Amendment Right To Free Speech. NOT CONSTITUTIONAL! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.” The weekend decision now puts the former president under two gag orders that prevent him from discussing any aspects of his legal cases with the wider public. The second gag was implemented as part of Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York, which has so far prompted two fines to be issued over violations.
“..and 6 other process crimes stemming from his conversations with his lawyer..” (?!)
• Jack Smith Quietly Withdraws Second Subpoena in Trump Probe (GP)
Special Counsel Jack Smith quietly withdrew two subpoenas to Donald J. Trump for President Inc. and Save America within the last week. Jack Smith recently expanded his investigation into Trump’s effort to challenge the 2020 election and is focusing on Trump’s fundraising efforts. President Trump raised more than $250 million after the 2020 election to investigate rampant Democrat vote fraud. Jack Smith was investigating whether Trump defrauded investors when he raised money to investigate 2020 election fraud. The New York Times reported:
“Federal prosecutors have quietly withdrawn a subpoena seeking records from former President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 campaign as part of their investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s political and fund-raising operations committed any crimes as he sought to stay in power after he lost the election, according to two people familiar with the matter. The decision this week by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, to effectively kill the subpoena to the Trump campaign came on the heels of the withdrawal of a similar subpoena to Save America, the political action committee that was formed by Mr. Trump’s aides shortly after he lost the race in 2020. The rescission of the subpoenas to Donald J. Trump for President Inc. and Save America was an indication that Mr. Smith’s office was slowing down or even closing its monthslong inquiry into whether Mr. Trump’s political operation broke any laws by citing baseless claims of election fraud to raise money. The withdrawal of the subpoena to Save America was first reported last week by The Washington Post.”
Jack Smith indicted Trump on 37 federal counts in Miami in June. Trump was charged with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information and 6 other process crimes stemming from his conversations with his lawyer. In August Jack Smith hit Trump with 3 additional charges in the investigation into classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago. The superseding indictment, filed in the Southern District of Florida, claims Trump was part of a scheme to delete security footage from Mar-a-Lago. Last month Trump was hit with 4 counts in Jack Smith’s January 6 case up in DC: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
“..the core is the fact that local governments are out of money. And the core reason for that is the downturn in the real estate market.”
• China’s Local Governments Are Out Of Money (SCMP)
China’s top leaders are expected to gather in Beijing for a key financial conference this week, with debt risks and strengthening the supervision of the Communist Party set to be top of the agenda, sources familiar with the details said. The closed-door, two-day national financial work conference is scheduled to start on Monday, one source said. China’s top leaders, state executives, regulators and senior bankers have gathered every five years since 1997 for the conference focusing on financial policies and development. The last national financial work conference was held in 2017. “[The conference] will primarily focus on resolving debt. At the moment, the most important thing is to resolve the debt problems,” one of the sources said.
“Of which the core is the fact that local governments are out of money. And the core reason for that is the downturn in the real estate market.” Another source added that strengthening the leadership of the party, as well as financial discipline in the areas of local government debt, would be given emphasis at the conference. The prolonged downturn in the property market has triggered rising concerns over its impact on local government revenues and outlook for the world’s second-largest economy. In 2018, the central government demanded local authorities stop accumulating so-called hidden debts – informal channels of borrowing often through local government financing vehicles (LGFVs). LGFVs are hybrid entities that are both public and corporate and were created to skirt restrictions on local government borrowing and have proliferated since the global financial crisis in 2008.
However, LGFV debt level remains elevated, and the IMF estimated that their total debt had swollen to a record 66 trillion yuan (US$9 trillion) this year, more than double the 30.7 trillion yuan in 2017. “In the end, the central government may have to bail them out,” a second source said. “This is why relevant personnel in the financial sector have to be dealt with, to prevent new aid from being abused.” On Tuesday, Beijing approved the issuance of 1 trillion yuan (US$137 billion) of sovereign bonds, with the funds from the sale to be transferred to local governments to support reconstruction and improve disaster prevention and relief capabilities.
The new issuance, approved by the National People’s Congress, will raise the budget deficit ratio to about 3.8 per cent of GDP – well above the 3 per cent target set in March. “I think one key objective of the conference is to manage systemic risk. That is, to contain the risk from the property sector and the LGFVs, preventing such problems from causing systemic risks,” said Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.
Mad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1718528593972838851
Raup snails
These two snails live in different oceans, but their shell coils are identically inverted
Thatcheria mirabilis and Architectonica perspectiva fit together because their coils follow math rule known as Raup’s model
[read more: https://t.co/Dt1V6qh5Pc]pic.twitter.com/Lu71ipYOvv
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 28, 2023
SphereVegas
Inside the @SphereVegas pic.twitter.com/O1R4BSt4aE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2023
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