Sep 152023
 


Pierre-Auguste Renoir The Return of the Boating Party 1862

 

Hunter Biden Indicted On Federal Firearms Charge (ZH)
Go F**ing Ahead: McCarthy Dares Republicans to Boot Him From Speakership (Sp.)
US Political System Frozen by Soviet-Style ‘Aging Crisis’ (Sp.)
The Insouciant Russians (Paul Craig Roberts)
US Imperial ‘Death Cult’ Admits it Provoked Proxy Conflict in Ukraine (Sp.)
Moscow Responds To Ukrainian Official’s ‘Terrorist’ Threat (RT)
Mr. Zelensky Goes To Washington, Again (ZH)
Sy Hersh: Overly Optimistic US Intel Reports on Ukraine to Lead to Disaster (Sp.)
ATACMS – The Latest American Poison Pill for Ukraine (Scott Ritter)
EU Gave ‘Bad Answer’ To Ukraine Crisis – Hungary (RT)
Global South Won’t Back Kiev As West Demands – WSJ (RT)
Germany Hugely Increases Imports Of Russian Oil – Der Spiegel (RT)
Polish Minister Warns Of Threat From Ukraine (RT)
In Vladivostok, The Russian Far East Rises (Pepe Escobar)
“Never Embrace Socialism… Or The Siren Song Of Social Justice” – Milei (ZH)

 

 

 

 

McCullough
https://twitter.com/i/status/1702277639191310734

 

 

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1702361950540226619

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

Fulton County

 

 


 

 

 

 

David Weiss headed the investigation into Hunter and is now the Special Counsel. Just reading this makes you realize why that is against the law. Weiss was in on the plea deal that the judge laughed out of court but Hunter’s lawyers keep insisting is valid regardless.

Stretching out the gun case can silence Hunter about all other cases. Oh, and the gun case keeps Joe out of sight, and all the information about him: he has no link to the gun. It’s the only thing he’s not linked to.

Hunter Biden Indicted On Federal Firearms Charge (ZH)

Hunter Biden has been indicted on three counts related to the possession of a gun while using narcotics, court documents show. The move, a “historic indictment against the son of a sitting president,” comes after an absurd plea deal fell apart, and days after House Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry which seeks bank records and other documents on the Biden family’s business dealings. “The case is being overseen by special counsel David Weiss, who also headed the investigation. Weiss is a Trump appointee who was kept on as U.S. attorney for Delaware because of the sensitive and unique nature of the investigation into a president’s son by the Justice Department, a part of the executive branch headed by the president. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland named Weiss special counsel in August, as negotiations over the tax and gun charges collapsed.”

Of course, none of this has to do with perhaps the biggest grift in the US history – as the Biden family raked in more than $20 million from foreign sources – including figures in China, Ukraine, Russia and Romania, all funneled through a complex arrangement of corporations, according to House GOP investigators and whistleblowers who are currently seeking Biden bank records. For example, in 2017, Hunter pulled in over $2.3 million – with $1 million of that coming from a company he formed with the CEO of a Chinese conglomerate. He also took in $664,000 from a Chinese infrastructure investment firm, $500,000 from a Ukrainian energy company (we assume to be Burisma), $70,000 from a Romanian business, $48,000 from an international law firm, and $666,000 from domestic business interests.

In 2018, Hunter made over $2.1 million according to the unraveled plea deal – which came as his drug addiction went critical. According to Biden’s memoir, cited by the document, that year saw “a spring and summer of nonstop debauchery.” “According to the agreement, Biden was well aware of his tax liabilities from an accountant he hired. The accountant prepared Biden’s returns and sent them to him for review and signature. Despite repeated encouragement by his accountant, Biden never signed or submitted his returns. According to the agreement, Biden failed to pay his taxes despite having the money to do so. By May 2019, he had spent money he could have used for that purpose “on personal expenses, including large cash withdrawals, payments to or on behalf of his children, credit card balances, and car payments for his Porsche.” -Bloomberg. By October 2021, Biden’s tax liabilities for 2017 and 2018 had grown to $955,800 and $956,632 respectively – and were paid for by an unidentified third party.

That person also covered $45,661 and $197,372 to resolve outstanding tax issues from 2016 and 2019. Earlier this year, the NYT reported that Hollywood entertainment lawyer Kevin ‘bong rip’ Morris lent over $2 million to Biden to help with his taxes. Of note, an IRS whistleblower from the agency’s criminal investigations unit told the House Ways and Means Committee in June that Hunter Biden illegally deducted tens of thousands of dollars spent on prostitutes and a sex club from his taxes, according to testimony from June 1 which was released by House Republicans. “So some of the items that he deducted were personal no-show employees. He deducted payments that were made to who he called his West Coast assistant, but she was essentially a prostitute,” said the whistleblower, who worked directly on the IRS’s investigation into Hunter’s tax issues, speaking of the younger Biden’s 2018 return.

Another whistleblower, IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapely , told the committee on May 26 that he found several instances of Hunter expensing flights for prostitutes. “There were multiple examples of prostitutes that were ordered basically, and we have all the communications between that where he would pay for these prostitutes, would book them a flight where even the flight ticket showed their name. And then he expensed those,” said Shapely , who noted that they were expensed to Biden’s consulting firm, Owasco, PC. What’s more, Hunter expensed a deposit for an elite Los Angeles sex club (which he was kicked out of for ‘grabbing women’s asses’ and ‘acting like a spoiled child’). But hey, he also owned a gun while being a junkie. Get ’em boys.


Rep Andy Biggs: This is just China. We also have evidence from Romania, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Russia.

 

 

s
Mace
https://twitter.com/i/status/1702477644858834964

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“..tensions have been rising in the Republican House Caucus over the looming government shutdown, which lawmakers have until September 30 to avoid..”

Go F**ing Ahead: McCarthy Dares Republicans to Boot Him From Speakership (Sp.)

A motion to vacate would remove Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from his position as House speaker, a leadership post he fought hard for in early January. In fact, it took 15 voting sessions before McCarthy was confirmed by the House to serve. US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reportedly dared the House Freedom Caucus and other hard-right members of the Republican House to try and oust him from his leadership position amid growing threats from the fractured lower chamber. “You guys think I’m scared of a motion to vacate. Go f***ing ahead and do it. I’m not scared,” McCarthy said during a closed caucus meeting early Thursday, according to a lawmaker who spoke to US media on the condition of anonymity.

The majority of Republicans still support McCarthy, but the GOP as a whole holds only a slim majority in the House. A vote to remove the Republican would require a majority from the House overall. If House Democrats joined with even a few hardliners in the Republican party, McCarthy could lose a potential vote to vacate. However, there have been no indications from Democrats they plan to join the Republican hardliners in removing McCarthy. It is unclear if doing so would even be advantageous to them outside of making Republicans look chaotic. A new speaker would also require a majority vote in the House. Democrats would either have to agree on a new speaker with the hardline Republicans – something that is unlikely given their political differences, or join with other elements of the GOP to choose a speaker after just voting to remove one they support.

Failing both options would leave it up to House Republicans to come to a deal; however, ultraconservative Republicans have made it clear they will not vote for a House speaker more palatable to Democrats than McCarthy. Despite how messy it could be for both parties to remove McCarthy, tensions have been rising in the Republican House Caucus over the looming government shutdown, which lawmakers have until September 30 to avoid. On Wednesday, House Republicans failed to pass a procedural vote on funding the Defense Department, normally one of the least controversial spending bills in Congress. Officials also failed to pass an agricultural bill in July, another provision that usually passes little resistance.

[..] US Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is a member of the Freedom Caucus and one of McCarthy’s most vocal critics. He previously said that if McCarthy tried to push forward spending bills without fulfilling the promises he made to hardline Republicans, he would file a motion to vacate. “The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you [McCarthy] forward to immediate and total compliance or remove you,” Gaetz said. “If we have to start the day with the prayer, pledge and the motion to vacate, so be it.” Gaetz dismissed McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry on Tuesday as “baby steps” and accused him of acting like a “valet” to Biden’s agenda.

McCarthy

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Apt comparison.

US Political System Frozen by Soviet-Style ‘Aging Crisis’ (Sp.)

Last week, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, now 83, announced she would run for reelection again next year, while Senator Diane Feinstein, 90, continues to sit in the Senate with no thought of retirement even though her own daughter took power of attorney to pay her bills. Last week, 81-year-old Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, addressing concerns about his health following episodes of freezing in public, vowed to finish out his term. In addition, a recent CNN poll revealed 75% of Americans are concerned about US President Joe Biden’s age and mental competence, while 67% of Democrats do not want him to run again.

Constitutional historian Dan Lazare suggested these developments are part of a generational illness afflicting an out-of-touch US governing elite that stayed too long in power, not unlike what happened to the Soviet Union during the 1980s, when the Kremlin was plainly at a loss in responding to a declining economy and dysfunctional political system. “Basically, the United States is caught in a Soviet-style age crisis,” Lazare said. “Remember what [former US President] Ronald Reagan said? When asked why he didn’t talk with Soviet leaders, he replied: ‘Because they keep dying on me.’ He was right.” However, while Reagan’s line got a good laugh, Lazare added, the joke is on the United States with elderly lawmakers feebly holding on to Senate seats, not to mention Biden’s “growing senility.”

“After one superpower descended into gerontocracy, how is it that another one is doing the same thing 40 years later? The answer to this question is political gridlock,” Lazare said. “Everyone is terrified of what change might mean.” Deepening gridlock has led to 30 years of trench warfare on Capitol Hill, Lazare pointed out. And thanks to this deadlock, the lineup barely shifts from one year to the next, he added. However, Lazare warned, history has proven this cannot go on forever. In the Soviet Union, he explained, the “ice eventually broke” with the appointment of premier Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 – but the change came too late. “The ice will eventually break in the United States as well, but the results could be just as explosive,” Lazare said.

Watters

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“..The Russians are yet to learn that Putin’s idealism exists nowhere else and that they must out-bribe the Americans..”

The Insouciant Russians (Paul Craig Roberts)

Armenia, despite being a member of Russia’s Collective Security Treaty Organization, began last Monday joint military exercises with the United States that will conclude September 20. This would appear to be Armenia’s finger in Russia’s eye. Clearly, Big Bucks Washington bribed someone in Armenia. The Russians are yet to learn that Putin’s idealism exists nowhere else and that they must out-bribe the Americans. About a year ago Washington organized “Regional Cooperation 2022,” an exercise of the US armed forces with the former Soviet Central Asian Republics of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kryrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. As Washington’s cover for stirring up new troubles for Russia, Washington’s ambassador to Tajikistan, John Pommersheim, explained Washington’s presence in Central Asia as working on peaceful responses to global challenges.

Just as Putin, the Kremlin, the Russian media sat sitting on their butts for 8 years while Washington built and equipped an Ukrainian Army poised to destroy the Russian peoples in the Donbas breakaway republics, the Kremlin, and the Russians media sit on their butts doing nothing while Washington, motivated by Putin’s failure to bring the Ukrainian war to an end, prepares to present the butt-sitter with another Ukraine in Central Asia. It seems Russians, too, can be insouciant. I sometimes wonder if they realize that they are at war. Russian tourists flock to Europe to have their cars and personal possessions stollen as sanctioned goods. And instead of warning the weak, essentially militarily irrelevant EU countries, the Kremlin warns its own citizens. The persona of irresoluteness, indecision, inability to act that the Kremlin broadcasts to the world encourages Washington to ever more provocations that will eventually go too far.

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“We point our fingers at Congress like they’re not just rented mules for the same people who sit on the board for the Rand Corporation.”

US Imperial ‘Death Cult’ Admits it Provoked Proxy Conflict in Ukraine (Sp.)

US deep state and financial interests openly schemed for years to provoke the conflict in Ukraine, says a media commentator. Webcast host Steve Poikonen told Sputnik he was gratified that NATO leaders were “finally saying that it’s a proxy war now.” That was “delightfully refreshing” after more than a year of “being called a tinfoil hat or Putin apologist for merely suggesting that what we are engaged in is a proxy war,” he said. The media commentator characterized the “permanent unelected state, the neocons and the military industrial complex” in the US as a “death cult.” “It operates like one, against all reason and against their own best interests even,” Poikonen said. “They pursue endless war, and they don’t even bother to care about the people on the ground. It’s all about moving the self-perpetuating money laundering machine, and they do it with impunity… because they’re 100 percent amoral.”

US strategic think-tank the RAND Corporation published a paper in 2019 entitled Overextending and Unbalancing Russia — a blueprint for a campaign of hybrid warfare, including “providing lethal aid to Ukraine” in order to “exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability.” “For every international conflict in which the U.S. is now overextended, there is a supporting RAND document that outlines exactly how we’re going to get into this mess,” Poikonen said. “This is their sole purpose. The reason the Rand Corporation gets together to figure out how to destabilize nations and how a handful of people in the United States, in the international business community can profit from it.” The RAND report also recommended disrupting Russia’s overseas oil and gas markets.

“Of course, they’re going to go after the oil and gas,” the pundit argued. “And when they see that and the RAND argument, the first thing I think of is the Nord Stream pipeline.” “The RAND Corporation is nothing if not fantastic salesman,” Poikonen observed. “They’ve been able to exist for the last 60, 70 years based solely on their ability to convince at least a handful of Congresscritters that all of our money should go to the military budget.” He argued US politics was nothing but theatre that concealed those pulling the strings behind the scenes. “We’re consistently attacking the wrong people in this country. We’re consistently pointing the finger at the wrong people,” he said. “We point our fingers at Congress like they’re not just rented mules for the same people who sit on the board for the Rand Corporation.”

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A 50-year-old transgender American is Kiev’s military spokesperson and threatens to kill anyone who asks questions. What a world.

Moscow Responds To Ukrainian Official’s ‘Terrorist’ Threat (RT)

Threats aimed at Russian journalists by Ukrainian military spokesperson, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, will be referred to international organizations as an example of the terrorist nature of the Kiev regime, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. On Wednesday, Ashton-Cirillo issued a threat to kill Russian “propagandists” and claimed that “next week, the teeth of the Russian devils will gnash even harder, and their rabid mouths will foam in uncontrollable frenzy as the world will see a favorite Kremlin propagandist pay for their crimes.” “Russia’s war criminal propagandists will all be hunted down, and justice will be served as we in Ukraine are led on this mission by faith in God, liberty and complete liberation,” the transgender military spokesperson pledged.

“A zombie apocalypse,” Zakharova wrote in response to the threat. “We will be sending this further evidence of the terrorist nature of the Kiev regime and its sponsorship by Washington to all international organizations and NGOs,” she said. The first deputy of the Russian State Duma’s culture committee, Elena Drapenko, claimed Ashton-Cirillo’s words were within the logic of the “terrorists and fascists” in Kiev and supported Zakharova’s suggestion that the threat be referred to international institutions. “There are international conventions, there are obligations that Ukraine has assumed. We must demand that they be fulfilled,” Drapenko said.

The head of Russia’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, has also stated that he would contact the Investigative Committee and the Federal Security Service (FSB) to investigate the threats in light of the “sad experience” of previous assassination attempts on Russian journalists and public opinion leaders. Investigative Committee chairman Alexander Bastrykin has confirmed that he has already instructed his service to investigate and provide a legal assessment of Ashton-Cirillo’s statements. Meanwhile, Russia’s Journalist Union (SJR) has cautioned that Ashton-Cirillo’s threats may be quite real in light of previous terrorist attacks on Russian media representatives.

“It is probably pointless to talk about the moral qualities of representatives of the Kiev leadership. These threats should be taken seriously,” said SJR president Vladimir Solovyov, urging fellow journalists to be careful. He added that he hoped Ashton-Cirillo would be appropriately punished as soon as they fall into the hands of Russian law enforcement agencies. The first deputy chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, Alexei Zhuravlev, also noted that “Ukrainian terrorism is gradually degrading” and taking on an “increasingly uglier face” in the form of Ashton-Cirillo, whom he called a “pervert-satan.”

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Ideal moment to tell him it’s over.

Mr. Zelensky Goes To Washington, Again (ZH)

Ukraine’s Present Volodymyr Zelensky is again expected to pay homage to the hands that feed him, as Bloomberg is reporting that another trip to the White House is imminent. “President Joe Biden will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House next week, according to a person familiar with the plans,” the fresh Thursday report indicates. The Ukrainian leader’s first official visit to Washington had occurred in December 2022, and also had marked his first known trip outside his war-ravaged country since Russia invaded. But things have changed since he gave that “Christmas season” address in Congress, where then House speaker Pelosi treated him like a rockstar as she and VP Kamala Harris excitedly waived the Ukrainian flag around, hugging Zelensky in the process.

Not only is the much-anticipated counteroffensive not going well, or even failing, but his personal ‘star status’ is waning too. Bloomberg notes the new context, namely that Republicans are less likely to sign off on massive new aid packages in the federal budget: For the US president, it also coincides with an upcoming showdown over federal funding. Biden has asked Congress to provide $24 billion for the Ukraine war and related costs, but conservatives in the House are threatening to shut down the US government if they consider any funding bill a “blank check” for Ukraine. Current funding for government operations runs through Sept. 20.

Next week’s meeting was first reported by Reuters. And a fresh photo op with Zelensky is perhaps what Biden thinks he needs for a boost in domestic approval ratings, given not only is the mainstream media turning on him……but he’s also newly focused his campaign going into 2024 on being the “tough” commander-in-chief who “protects” democracy around the world: “He entered Ukraine under the cover of night. And in the morning, Joe Biden walked shoulder to shoulder with our allies in the war-torn streets,” the narrator of a new one-minute Biden campaign ad begins. “Standing up for democracy in a place where a tyrant is waging war to take it away.”

On the Ukrainian side, Zelensky could be coming also to bolster support and enthusiasm among GOP hawks and conservative supporters in order to get their fellow Republicans in line. Kiev has also expressed increased impatience and frustration of late when it comes to F-16 delivery timeline, and related to getting more advanced US weapons like long-range missiles. There’s currently talk within the administration of Ukraine getting approval for the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which has a max range of 190 miles. Certainly Zelensky is going to press for this and more. Will Biden make this the focus of a “big” announcement when he greets Zelensky in the White House next week?

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“DIA’s intelligence on Russia does not get to relevant hands in the White House because it is being ignored for political expediency..”

Sy Hersh: Overly Optimistic US Intel Reports on Ukraine to Lead to Disaster (Sp.)

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) withheld documents from the White House on anti-government extremist groups in Syria producing sarin gas and has been providing “insanely” optimistic assessments on the conflict in Ukraine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh stated on his Substack blog on Wednesday. DIA’s intelligence on Russia does not get to relevant hands in the White House because it is being ignored for political expediency, just like CIA reports on the current failed Ukrainian counteroffensive are being ignored by Blinken, Hersh said. The journalist pointed out that he chose to publish a series of documents on his Substack because what the US Intelligence community did regarding Syria, it is doing once again regarding the Ukraine crisis.

If the same situation is allowed to persist regarding Ukraine, the conflict with Russia can scale up and that is an outcome that nobody wants, Hersh added. “[Secretary of State Anthony] Blinken’s wrong-headed confidence… could be based on insanely optimistic assessments supplied by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The DIA’s assessments, as I have reported, are now the intelligence of choice inside the White House,” the journalist said. Hersh noted that amid calls for the United States to intervene in the Syrian conflict ten years ago, the White House was not provided with crucial intelligence because of its alleged “politically inconvenient” nature. Such was the case of a detailed yet DIA-redacted five-page report from intercepts by the National Security Agency (NSA) that anti-government Islamist groups possessed the nerve agent sarin gas, the journalist stressed.

“It revealed the kind of truth that presidents then and now viewed as political poison,” Hersh emphasized. The much-touted counteroffensive attempt by the Kiev regime in early June has evidently been a failure, with massive losses and non-existent gains. A number of NATO generals, as well as Western military analysts, have already admitted the catastrophic situation of the Ukrainian forces. Nevertheless, Ukrainian officials – following their Western masters – refuse to acknowledge the reality: Ukraine has lost virtually all of its strategic reserves together with an enormous amount of NATO-supplied military equipment in a futile effort to breach the Russian defenses.

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“..the ATACMS has been the beneficiary of a Service Life Extension Program designed to keep the missile from failing once launched due to old age..”s

ATACMS – The Latest American Poison Pill for Ukraine (Scott Ritter)

Back in July 2022, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, pushing back against increasing demands from Ukraine and its American backers in Congress, the State Department, and the Pentagon that the Biden administration provide Ukraine with the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, declared that providing Ukraine with this weapon would risk putting the US and Russia on “the road towards a third world war.” Ukraine had been demanding that the ATACMS, a 300-kilometer range solid-fuel guided missile, be included in the list of weapons Ukraine claimed it needed to successfully execute its much-touted “counteroffensive.”

Now, with the “counteroffensive”, which has been underway for more than three months, floundering in the face of a Russian defense that had proven more capable than originally thought by the NATO military planners who helped the Ukrainians craft it, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, suddenly announced that the Biden administration was considering reversing course on the issue of providing Ukraine with ATACMS. Left unsaid was to what extent, if any, the Biden administration had addressed the issue of a third world war with Russia, and whether the ATACMS was still considered to be a likely trigger for its initiation.

One theory that is making its way around Washington, DC, is that the Biden administration, after successive arms procurement decisions (HIMARS, the M-1 Abrams, and the F-16) appeared to cross so-called Russian “red lines” without generating any appreciable Russian reaction, believed that the Russians would likewise allow the introduction of the ATACMS to take place without provoking a crisis akin to a third world war. The underlying analysis for this assessment is that Russian President Vladimir Putin is bluffing when it comes to the so-called “red lines”, and that the US can provide Ukraine the weapons it needs to successfully prosecute its stalled counteroffensive.

There are two major problems with this assessment. First, it makes certain assumptions about Russia’s so-called “red lines”, and the consequences which would accrue to Ukraine and its Western partners if these lines were crossed. Russia has, to date, only articulated two definitive “red lines” when it comes to the ongoing Special Military Operation against Ukraine. The first is the direct involvement of US and/or NATO forces in the conflict, whether by putting boots on the ground in Ukraine, or intervening in Belarus. The second was any military situation which threatened the existential survival of the Russian nation. In both circumstances, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has decreed that Russia would use all the means at its disposal to respond to the threat, up to and including nuclear weapons. All other so-called “red lines” are speculative in nature, made by persons other than the President. Second, it assumes that the ATACMS is a game-changing technology whose presence on the battlefield will have a meaningful and telling impact on the ability of the Ukrainian armed forces to prevail in combat against their Russia foes.

The ATACMS is a 50-year-old system which the US Army stopped buying in 2007. While the ATACMS has been the beneficiary of a Service Life Extension Program designed to keep the missile from failing once launched due to old age, it remains an aging system with limited capabilities. If employed by Ukraine, the ATACMS will find itself targeted by Russian anti-missile weapons that will intercept the rocket prior to reaching its target and jam the guidance systems using electronic-warfare capabilities considered to be among the most effective in the world. There is no doubt that an ATACMS missile is capable of inflicting considerable harm and damage on any target it can strike. But the reality is that most of the ATACMS missiles will be shot down before they reach their target, a fact the military planners in the Pentagon are only too aware of. In short, ATACMS is the antithesis of a “magic” weapon designed to strengthen Ukrainian military capacity.

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“Brussels “should have isolated this war, but instead of that the EU has globalized” it..”

EU Gave ‘Bad Answer’ To Ukraine Crisis – Hungary (RT)

The European response to the Ukraine crisis is causing the world to fragment, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has claimed, adding that Budapest wants to see unifying action, like China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). “Europe has given a very bad answer to the war in Ukraine that unfortunately seems to be ending up in a world being divided into blocs again,” the Hungarian diplomat told CNBC on the sidelines of the Belt and Road summit in Hong Kong. Brussels “should have isolated this war, but instead of that the EU has globalized” it, he said in the interview broadcast on Wednesday.

Szijjarto argued that a lack of communication between opposing countries has led to them giving up on achieving peace, while states that benefit from good East-West relations – such as Hungary – have been hurt economically. The minister contrasted this to how the BRI aims to bring the world together for mutual prosperity and security, which is why Hungary welcomes China’s presence. He criticized rich Western European nations who are now talking about decoupling from the Chinese economy or “derisking” due to political concerns. Quietly, they seek Chinese investment just like small nations, Szijjarto said.

“They can be hypocritical, they can afford [it],” he argued. Unlike those countries, Budapest states its foreign policy openly, the diplomat said, warning that if ‘decoupling’ with China were to succeed, it would “kill the European economy.” The Hungarian government has been a vocal critic of the Western response to the Ukrainian conflict since its outset. It has called for peace talks, while speaking out against sanctioning Russia and arming Ukraine. Most EU nations, following in the US lead, have pledged to support Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Moscow.

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“It’s clear that the West overall has been surprised by the pretty widespread reluctance by many of the countries in the so-called Global South… to come on board..”

Global South Won’t Back Kiev As West Demands – WSJ (RT)

Western officials have overestimated the willingness of neutral nations to join anti-Russia policies in support of Ukraine, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It’s clear that the West overall has been surprised by the pretty widespread reluctance by many of the countries in the so-called Global South… to come on board,” Jan Techau of the consulting firm Eurasia Group told the newspaper, as quoted on Thursday. He cited “animosity toward the US and Europe” in some parts of the world and the desire of rising powers, such as Brazil and South Africa, to “assert their independence”, the article said. The WSJ detailed purported successes and failures of Western diplomacy to rally the support of neutral nations for what it called “a fair peace settlement for Ukraine” ahead of next week’s gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been internationally promoting his “peace formula” with Western backing. It includes Ukraine regaining control over all former territories, war reparations from Russia, and a tribunal for the Russian leadership. Moscow has dismissed the Zelensky plan as being detached from reality. The newspaper noted that many “emerging countries” have resisted demands for reparations and a tribunal, while “the international willingness to call out Russia publicly has diminished.” In particular, the final statement of the G20 leaders after the summit in India last week did not condemn Russia or even call the conflict a war “against Ukraine.”

The newspaper asserted that the G20 meeting was a “success for the West too,” because Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping did not attend the event in person. “Factually, Russia is much more isolated than before,” a senior European official told The WSJ. At the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting, non-Western participants are likely “to shift the global focus onto their priorities: global inequality and debt relief,” the report predicted. Moscow has described the Ukraine crisis as part of a Western proxy war against Russia. It has also accused the US of mismanaging the global economy for selfish goals, while trying to preserve its dominance and resisting the emergence of a multipolar world.

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Twelvefold. And much more expensive. Very smart.

Germany Hugely Increases Imports Of Russian Oil – Der Spiegel (RT)

Germany has continued importing large volumes of Russian oil, turning to India as a substitute supplier after the EU banned almost all crude imports from Moscow in early December. According to a Der Spiegel report on Tuesday, Berlin’s imports of petroleum products from India jumped more than twelvefold in January-July 2023 year-on-year. The value of those imports soared from €37 million ($39 million) in the first seven months of 2022 to $484 million during the same period of 2023, the outlet’s analysis of official data reportedly showed. The imports from India “were mainly gas oils that are used to produce diesel or heating oil,” the report said, noting that New Delhi has recently been producing a significant proportion of those gas oils from Russian crude oil.

Germany, which has historically been the largest EU buyer of Russian oil, stopped imports via pipelines on January 1, despite the fact that the latest EU embargo exempts piped deliveries to the bloc from the sanctioned country. Official data by German statistical office Destatis shows that Berlin’s imports of Russian crude oil have ceased almost entirely amid the sanctions. Statistics, however, do not count crude of Russian origin purchased indirectly from global traders through ship-to-ship transfers. According to Der Spiegel, citing data, some volumes of Russian oil bought by India later end up in Germany in some form.

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Poland won’t break the union. But Hungary may.

Polish Minister Warns Of Threat From Ukraine (RT)

If Ukraine were to become a member of the EU it would have to be under certain conditions, particularly in light of the threat posed by its agriculture, Poland’s Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Robert Telus has said, in an interview with polish news station PAP on Thursday. Telus was asked if Warsaw would take any steps to oppose Kiev’s accession to the EU, given that Poland has placed an embargo on Ukrainian grain. The minister replied that although the Polish government was generally in favor of Ukraine’s admission to the bloc, certain issues would first have to be addressed before that can become a reality. “Ukraine cannot join the EU without conditions. We had conditions and the same must apply to Ukraine,” Telus said.

He noted that agriculture is a particularly important point in relations with Kiev as Ukraine’s agriculture sector is structured completely differently than Poland’s and the EU’s. “We need to take a closer look at this, because Ukrainian agriculture is a threat to the agriculture of the frontline countries, but also to the whole of Europe,” he told PAP. Earlier this week, Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki stressed that Warsaw will not allow cheap Ukrainian grain to “flood” the Polish market and disrupt the country’s agricultural industry. He added that regardless of what the EU says, Poland will keep its border closed to Ukrainian grain in order to protect the interests of Polish farmers.

Back in May, five Eastern European members of the EU, namely Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia, placed a sweeping ban on the import of Ukrainian grain. That was after Brussels lifted quotas and tariffs from Ukrainian grain exports in a bid to support Zelensky’s government in the early months of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, the policy ultimately backfired on Eastern European nations, which have faced mass protests from local farmers. The EU then closed off the markets of the five nations to Ukrainian wheat, corn, sunflower seeds and rapeseed, but still allowed the transit of the goods to continue. On Friday, the European Parliament is set to debate on the extension of the embargo.

Commenting on Brussels’ possible decision to lift the ban, Telus suggested that such a move would bear political undertones and that “there are forces in Europe that want to further destabilize” Poland’s market. Kiev, meanwhile, has opposed the grain ban, with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky calling the embargo a betrayal of “European values.” The president has since threatened to go to an international arbitration court if Brussels decides to prolong the ban beyond September 15.

Read more …

“Although western economies are well-developed, they are already “too heavily invested and sluggish,” says Titov: “In the East, on the other hand, everything is booming, moving forward rapidly, developing rapidly…”

In Vladivostok, The Russian Far East Rises (Pepe Escobar)

Russian President Vladimir Putin opened and closed his quite detailed address to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok with a resounding message: “The Far East is Russia’s strategic priority for the entire 21st century.” And that’s exactly the feeling one would have prior to the address, interacting with business executives mingling across the stunning forum grounds at the Far Eastern Federal University (opened only 11 years ago), with the backdrop of the more than four kilometer-long suspension bridge to Russky Island across the Eastern Bosphorus strait. The development possibilities of what is in effect Russian Asia, and one of the key nodes of Asia-Pacific, are literally mind-boggling.

Data from the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and the Arctic – confirmed by several of the most eye-catching panels during the Forum – list a whopping 2,800 investment projects underway, 646 of which are already up and running, complete with the creation of several international Advanced Special Economic Zones (ASEZ) and the expansion of the Free Port of Vladivostok, home to several hundred small and midsize enterprises (SMEs). All that goes way beyond Russia’s “pivot to the East” which was announced by Putin in 2012, two years before the Maidan events in Kiev. For the rest of the planet, not to mention the collective west, it is impossible to understand the Russian Far East magic without being on the spot – starting with Vladivostok, the charming, unofficial capital of the Far East, with its gorgeous hills, striking architecture, verdant islands, sandy bays and of course the terminal of the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway.

What Global South visitors did experience – the collective west was virtually absent from the Forum – was a work in progress in sustainable development: a sovereign state setting the tone in terms of integrating large swathes of its territory to the new, emerging, polycentric geoeconomic era. Delegations from ASEAN (Laos, Myanmar, Philippines) and the Arab world, not to mention India and China, totally understood the picture. In his speech, Putin stressed how the rate of investment in the Far East is three times the Russian region average; how the Far East is only 35 percent explored, with unlimited potential for natural resource industries; how the Power of Siberia and Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas pipelines will be connected; and how by 2030, liquified natural gas (LNG) production in the Russian Arctic will triple.

In a broader context, Putin made clear that “the global economy has changed and continues to change; the west, with its own hands, is destroying the system of trade and finance that it itself created.” It is no wonder then that Russia’s trade turnover with Asia-Pacific grew by 13.7 percent in 2022, and by another 18.3 percent in just the first half of 2023. Cue to Presidential Business Rights Commissioner Boris Titov showing how this reorientation away from the “static” west is inevitable. Although western economies are well-developed, they are already “too heavily invested and sluggish,” says Titov: “In the East, on the other hand, everything is booming, moving forward rapidly, developing rapidly. And this applies not only to China, India, and Indonesia, but also to many other countries. They are the center of development today, not Europe, our main consumers of energy are there, finally.”

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“The State does not create wealth, the State destroys it. The State can give you nothing, because it produces nothing.”

“Never Embrace Socialism… Or The Siren Song Of Social Justice” – Milei (ZH)

Argentina’s leading presidential candidate Javier Milei – a self-described anarcho-capitalist who won the primaries with 30% of the vote – sat down with Tucker Carlson this week in Buenos Aires for a wide-ranging discussion. Carlson and Milei talked about why the citizens of Argentina are fed up with the relentless lack of change and the relentless economic decline, echoing many similar patterns taking place in America, with the one-time congressman explaining his platform of radical change which would include the dissolution of numerous socialist institutions and the very central bank which has led Argentina into multiple fiscal crisis events. Milei’s advice to Americans is simple: “Never embrace the ideas of socialism.”

Tucker Milei

“Never allow yourselves to be seduced by the siren song of social justice. Don’t get caught up in that terrible concept that where there is a need, there is a right. But that can’t happen on its own. We have to be prepared for this, and wage a cultural war every single day and we have to be careful because they have no problem with getting inside the State and employing Gramsci’s techniques: seducing the artists, seducing the culture, seducing the media or meddling in educational content.” Reflecting in the slippery slope of American leftist politics, Carlson noted that Argentina has adopted many left-wing social issues. “I didn’t fully appreciate the degree to which the Argentinian government had embraced fringe academic, American-style social justice,” Carlson told Milei, adding that “a businessman told me at lunch today that people who identify as transgender pay lower taxes, and that in 2019 you had a Ministry of Women and Diversity created in this country for the first time. What does that ministry do?”

“In theory, it is supposed to deal with women’s issues,” Milei said. “But when you look at the results, you find there aren’t any. Just writing songs…” “Are women happier here?” Carlson asked. “No,” Milei said. “Because there are no real results.” And added, “why isn’t there a Ministry of Men?” Then, Milei really touched the third rail… by supporting President Trump, and offering him some advice: “[Trump] should continue his fight against socialism. Because he is one of the few who truly understood that we are fighting socialism, that we are fighting the statists. He understood perfectly that the generation of wealth comes from the private sector.

The State does not create wealth, the State destroys it. The State can give you nothing, because it produces nothing. And when it attempts it, it does so poorly.” “So I’d say, if I could humbly offer advice, all I could say would be to double down on his efforts in the same direction: defending the ideals of freedom and refusing to give an inch to the socialists,” he continued. The discussion included Milei’s controversial denouncement of the Pope, his views on abortion, and his belief that climate change is a “socialist lie.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hermit Crab
https://twitter.com/i/status/1702225669961195845

 

 

 

 

Ribbon eel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1702369755338768762

 

 

Colosseum

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 122023
 
 September 12, 2023  Posted by at 8:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  47 Responses »


Claude Monet O Rio (The River) 1881

 

Zelensky ‘Senses’ Weakening Western Support (RT)
Zelensky Threatens To Terrorize Europe (MoA)
Ukrainians Blame Zelensky For Corruption – Poll (RT)
EU Believes Ukraine Is ‘A Very Corrupt Country’ – Politico (RT)
Blinken Contradicts Ukraine On Peace Negotiations (RT)
Elon Musk Responds To Ukraine ‘Treason’ Claims (RT)
Medvedev Advocates Suspending Diplomatic Relations With EU (TASS)
Russian Customs Chief Accuses EU Of ‘Total Lawlessness’ (RT)
Brazilian Court To Decide About Putin If He Attends G20 Summit – Lula (TASS)
Lies And Pretence In New London Novichok Hearing (Helmer)
The Gun Charge Against Hunter Is the Way of Covering Up the Real Issues (PCR)
The “Why Not” Culture: The Georgia Final Report Should Worry Us All (Turley)
The Mills of the Gods (Jim Kunstler)
9/11 After 22 Years (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

RFK

 

 

 

 

Trump 9/11
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701280839533838398
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701253565702938885

 

 

 

 

Isaacson

 

 

“A judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that former President Trump has ‘presidential immunity’ and cannot be sued over statements he made about 2020 election fraud.”

 

 

 

 

He’s directly threatening Europe now:

“..the millions of Ukrainian refugees now residing in foreign nations. They have generally “behaved well,” but if the hosts “drive these people into a corner,” the end result will not be “a good story” for Europe..”

Zelensky ‘Senses’ Weakening Western Support (RT)

If Western nations do not maintain their assistance to Kiev, they could face defeats at the ballot box and trouble from the millions of Ukrainian refugees they host, President Vladimir Zelensky has warned. In an interview with The Economist, Zelensky complained about weakening support from senior Western officials, which he claimed to have seen in their eyes during meetings. “I see that he or she is not here, not with us” contrary to spoken assurances, he said, according to the interview published on Sunday. According to Zelensky, failure to support Ukraine amounts to siding with Russia in the conflict, which escalated into open hostilities in February 2022. “If partners do not help us, it means they will help Russia to win,” he stated.

Zelensky believes that Western voters will not forgive their leaders if they “lose Ukraine.” Further trouble may also come from the millions of Ukrainian refugees now residing in foreign nations. They have generally “behaved well,” but if the hosts “drive these people into a corner,” the end result will not be “a good story” for Europe, the president added. The Ukrainian leader said he is “morally” ready for a long war with Russia, but this will require the country to switch to a “totally militarized economy.” He added that now is “a bad moment” for peace talks with Russia, due to the lackluster battlefield progress over the three months of Kiev’s summer ‘counteroffensive’. Moscow has estimated Ukrainian losses during the push at over 66,000 troops and 7,600 heavy weapons.

The Economist noted that the Zelensky government had built up expectations for the offensive, but now he is “carefully adjusting his message to reality.” The Ukrainian president also appeared to take credit for the drone attacks deep inside Russian territory, which Kiev formally refuses to claim as its own. Explaining his strategy, he said public support for the Russian government will fall “because our drones will land.”In a “long war,” Moscow will lose regardless of how the Russians feel because the Russian economy will fail, he added. The Russian government expects the economy to grow by 2.5% or more in 2023. Recent forecasts by the World Bank and the IMF have upgraded their predictions for Russia due to strong industrial production and higher-than-expected energy revenues.

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Moon of Alabama noticed it too.

“I have seen such threats from low ranking individuals of the fascist Bandera fringe. They spoke of terrorism they would unleash in the West should it end its support for Ukraine. That the Ukrainian president now reinforces such threats shows how deeply he immersed himself in that mindset..”

Zelensky Threatens To Terrorize Europe (MoA)

The Economist published another interview with the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski. It includes his usual unrealistic platitudes about not ending the war until Russia has completely pulled back. Speaking with an English language media he didn’t miss to mention the ever misunderstood story about Chamberlain’s move in Munich: “Tapping loudly on the table, Mr Zelensky rejects outright the idea of compromise with Vladimir Putin. War will continue for “as long as Russia remains on Ukrainian territory”, he says. A negotiated deal would not be permanent. The Russian president has a habit of creating “frozen conflicts” on Russia’s borders (in Georgia, for example), not as ends in themselves but because his goal is to “restore the Soviet Union”. Those who choose to talk to the man in the Kremlin are “tricking themselves”, much like the Western leaders who signed an agreement with Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938 only to watch him invade Czechoslovakia. “The mistake is not diplomacy. The mistake is diplomacy with Putin. He negotiates only with himself.”

In 1938 Chamberlain had no other choice but to give in on Czechoslovakia. Britain was not ready for war and the parts Hitler wanted to annex from Czechoslovakia had undeniably a largely German population: “He contended that Sudeten German grievances were justified and believed that Hitler’s intentions were limited”. Zelenski goes on to threaten, in rather unthankful fashion, those countries which have delivered aid to Ukraine but may want to cut their losses: “Curtailing aid to Ukraine will only prolong the war, Mr Zelensky argues. And it would create risks for the West in its own backyard. There is no way of predicting how the millions of Ukrainian refugees in European countries would react to their country being abandoned. Ukrainians have generally “behaved well” and are “very grateful” to those who sheltered them. They will not forget that generosity. But it would not be a “good story” for Europe if it were to “drive these people into a corner”.

I have seen such threats from low ranking individuals of the fascist Bandera fringe. They spoke of terrorism they would unleash in the West should it end its support for Ukraine. That the Ukrainian president now reinforces such threats shows how deeply he immersed himself in that mindset. A previous Economist story shows that Ukraine has already set up the necessary infrastructure to wage a terrorist campaign: “In modern Ukraine, assassinations date back to at least 2015, when its domestic security service (SBU) created a new body after Russia had seized Crimea and the eastern Donbas region. The elite fifth counter-intelligence directorate started life as a saboteur force in response to the invasion. It later came to focus on what is euphemistically called “wet work”.

“Valentin Nalivaychenko, who headed the SBU at the time, says the switch came about when Ukraine’s then leaders decided that a policy of imprisoning collaborators was not enough. Prisons were overflowing, but few were deterred. “We reluctantly came to the conclusion that we needed to eliminate terrorists,” he says. A former officer of the directorate describes it in similar terms. “We needed to bring war to them.” In 2015 and 2016 the directorate was linked to the assassinations of key Russian-backed commanders in the Donbas; Mikhail Tolstykh, aka “Givi”, killed in a rocket attack; Arsen Pavlov, aka “Motorola”, blown up in a lift; Alexander Zakharchenko, blown up in a restaurant.

Intelligence insiders say the SBU’s fifth directorate is playing a central role in counter-Russia operations. From there it is just a short step towards total war: “Meanwhile, a long war of attrition would mean a fork in the road for Ukraine. The country would lose even more people, both on the front lines and to emigration. It would require a “totally militarised economy”. The government would have to put that prospect to its citizens, Mr Zelensky says, without specifying how; a new social contract could not be the decision of one person. Almost 19 months into the war, the president says he is “morally” ready for the switch. But he will only broach the idea with his people if the weakness in the eyes of his Western backers becomes a “trend”. Has that moment come? No, not yet, he says. “Thank God.” Does Zelenski know of any country with a totally militarized economy that survived? I have yet to hear of one.

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“..78% of Ukrainian adults see Zelensky as “directly responsible” for Kiev’s corruption problem..”

“..only 18% of Ukrainian adults disagreed with the statement that Zelensky bears responsibility…”

And we hand him tens of billions.

Ukrainians Blame Zelensky For Corruption – Poll (RT)

The vast majority of Ukrainians believe that President Vladimir Zelensky is at fault for widespread corruption in the country’s government and military, a new study has revealed. The poll, released on Monday, found that 78% of Ukrainian adults see Zelensky as “directly responsible” for Kiev’s corruption problem. It was conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Charitable Foundation and the Kiev International Institute of Sociology. Prior to the launch of Russia’s military offensive in February 2022, Ukraine consistently ranked among the world’s most corrupt nations, but it was touted as a bastion of freedom and democracy as the US and its NATO allies rallied public support for massive aid to Kiev. However, Ukrainian corruption remains a concern and could hinder the country’s bid to join the European Union, an unidentified Western diplomat told Politico on Monday.

Ukraine is a “very corrupt country,” the diplomat said, adding that Zelensky’s plan to use the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to prosecute graft cases could “send the wrong message.” Upon landing in Kiev for a surprise visit on Monday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock reportedly said Ukraine needed to step up its efforts to fight corruption. The Ukrainian poll was conducted from July 3 to July 17 in face-to-face interviews with thousands of citizens across the country. There were no major differences in findings based on region or socioeconomic factors. Respondents aged 60 and older took a harsher view, with 81% saying Zelensky was responsible for government corruption. The rate was 70% in the youngest segment, ages 17 to 29. Overall, only 18% of Ukrainian adults disagreed with the statement that Zelensky bears responsibility.

Documents obtained by the International Association of Investigative Journalists in 2021 showed that Zelensky and his business partners set up offshore companies to purchase lavish properties in central London. Zelensky transferred his stake in one of the companies to an aide just before he was elected president in 2019. Supporters of former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko accused Zelensky and his associates of using their offshore accounts to evade taxes. Zelensky has purged officials in his government for alleged corruption, including an embezzlement scheme involving humanitarian aid. Just this month, he sacked Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov, who came under fire earlier this year over purchases of military rations at inflated prices. However, the new defense chief, Rustem Umerov, is reportedly under investigation for alleged crimes in his previous job.

Read more …

If everyone’s corrupt, who investigates?

EU Believes Ukraine Is ‘A Very Corrupt Country’ – Politico (RT)

Widespread corruption in Ukraine could hamper Kiev’s bid for EU membership, a western European diplomat told Politico on Monday. He said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s efforts to tackle the problem have also alarmed Brussels. Ukraine applied for membership in the European Union last February, and was formally granted candidate status four months later. Although European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to address the issue of enlargement during her state of the union speech on Wednesday, and EU Council President Charles Michel has vowed to admit all candidate nations by 2030, Ukraine’s bid could be hamstrung by rampant corruption. Ukraine is a “very corrupt country,”an anonymous western European diplomat told Politico.

“We want to give a positive signal to Ukraine but things such as this proposal to give more power to [Ukraine’s] intelligence [services] over corruption can send the wrong message.” The proposal in question was raised by Zelensky last month. Following a purge of allegedly corrupt officials at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Zelensky announced that he would task the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) with probing and prosecuting corruption cases, taking investigative power away from the country’s multiple anti-graft agencies. The SBU reports solely to Zelensky. Representatives of Ukraine’s existing anti-corruption agencies told Politico last month that by making the SBU the only body allowed to investigate these cases, Zelensky is essentially giving himself the power to decide which corrupt officials to prosecute and which ones to shield.

There is precedent for these fears, the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (ACAC), Vitaly Shabunin, said. Oleg Tatarov, the deputy head of Zelensky’s office, was under investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) last year, when the case was unexpectedly transferred to the SBU. “It was buried there,”Shabunin said. “Now [Zelensky’s] office wants to make that into practice.” Ukraine has for years been ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, as of 2022, the country ranked 116th out of 180. Aside from corruption concerns, disputes between Ukraine and European nations over agriculture could also hold up Kiev’s membership bid. Ukrainian farmers could undercut their European counterparts with cheap grain exports, meaning that the EU will likely have to reform its Common Agricultural Policy if Ukraine is to be admitted, Politico noted.

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“..Russia controlled more land last month than it did at the beginning of the counteroffensive..” But Blinken said Ukraine reclaimed 50%.

Blinken Contradicts Ukraine On Peace Negotiations (RT)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed that the Ukrainian government will agree to peace talks with Russia if Moscow offers to negotiate first. Ukrainian leaders have argued otherwise, however, and insist that peace “needs to be won on the battlefield.” “Thus far, we see no indication that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin has any interest in meaningful diplomacy,” Blinken told ABC News on Sunday. “If he does, I think the Ukrainians will be the first to engage, and we’ll be right behind them,” he added. Blinken and other top American officials have long insisted that the Ukrainian government will decide when to seek peace with Russia, and that the US will continue to supply Kiev with weapons until that time comes.

Ukraine agreed in principle to a Turkish-mediated peace deal in April 2022, but walked away from the agreement after a visit to Kiev by then-British prime minister Boris Johnson. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has since issued a decree forbidding any negotiations with Putin’s government, as well as repeatedly vowing to take back the territories of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea – the latter of which voted to join Russia in 2014 – by force. Retaking this land, however, has proven costly for Kiev. More than three months into its long-awaited summer counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military has lost more than 66,000 troops and 7,600 pieces of heavy weaponry, according to the latest figures from the Russian Defense Ministry.

In exchange, Kiev’s forces have only managed to reclaim a handful of villages near Zaporozhye, while Russia controlled more land last month than it did at the beginning of the counteroffensive, according to the Washington Post. Nevertheless, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba declared last week that the conflict “cannot be ended by simply bringing belligerent parties to the table for negotiations.” “It needs to be won on the battlefield for Russia to become serious about negotiating peace,”Kuleba added. Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but that any peace deal would have to take into account the “new territorial reality” – that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea will never be ceded back to Ukraine. Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said negotiations would be held “not with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.”

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“..if anyone is treasonous, it is those who call me such. Please tell them that very clearly.”

Elon Musk Responds To Ukraine ‘Treason’ Claims (RT)

American tech billionaire Elon Musk has responded to criticism over his refusal to help enable a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian naval forces in Crimea by pointing out that he’s a citizen of only the US and isn’t obliged to fight for Kiev. “I am a citizen of the United States and have only that passport,” Musk said on Monday in a post on his X (formerly Twitter) social media platform. “No matter what happens, I will fight for and die in America.” He added that in light of the fact that the US Congress hasn’t declared war on Russia, “if anyone is treasonous, it is those who call me such. Please tell them that very clearly.”

At issue is Musk’s decision last year to prevent his Starlink satellite network from being used to guide Ukrainian naval drones for an attack against the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean coast. When news of Musk’s refusal came to light last week, US media outlets suggested that he had been traitorous, and Ukrainian presidential aide Mikhail Podoliak accused him of “committing evil and encouraging evil.” The Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder gave Ukraine free use of more than 20,000 Starlink terminals after Russia launched its military offensive against Kiev in February 2022. His aim was to keep Ukrainians from losing internet access and communications capabilities amid the conflict.

However, Musk expressed concern about his network being used for offensive purposes and potentially playing part in triggering a wider conflict. He therefore refused Kiev’s pleas to extend the country’s Starlink coverage all the way to Sevastopol. “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.” CNN host Jake Tapper argued on Sunday that Musk had “effectively sabotaged” an American ally, and he asked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken whether the “capricious billionaire” should therefore face “repercussions.” Blinken declined to condemn Musk and pointed out that Starlink had been a vital tool for Ukraine’s defense.

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..”straightforward and honest Brussels bosses” who “told all Russians directly and without beating around the bush: you are second-class people for us.”

Medvedev Advocates Suspending Diplomatic Relations With EU (TASS)

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has called for suspending diplomatic relations with the EU in response to the EU decision to bar Russian citizens from entering the EU with everyday personal items, calling it a spit in the face of every Russian. “What should we do about it? Certainly not impose tit-for-tat retaliatory restrictions on EU citizens. We are not racists, in contrast to many leaders of those countries whose relatives served in the SS (Schutzstaffel, the notorious paramilitary organization under Germany’s Nazi regime – TASS). Moreover, those [Europeans] who travel here usually have a love and appreciation for Russia. It would be better just to suspend diplomatic relations with the EU for a while.

And to call our diplomatic personnel home,” Medvedev suggested, commenting on the European Commission’s clarification on the EU’s ban on importing automobiles, smartphones, suitcases and shampoo, among an entire range of items, into the EU from Russia, even for strictly personal use. Medvedev mockingly “praised” the EU leaders, calling them “straightforward and honest Brussels bosses” who “told all Russians directly and without beating around the bush: you are second-class people for us.” And the EU’s decision is clearly not meant as just punishment for what Brussels sees as the “criminal and aggressive regime in the Kremlin.” Rather, “this is a spit in the face of every citizen of Russia,” Medvedev emphasized. In suggesting measures to suspend Moscow’s diplomatic relations with the EU, Medvedev noted that only such a move could make Brussels officials truly afraid, “because embassies are [traditionally] evacuated before certain very specific events.”

“Who knows what else these ‘orcs’ from that immense ‘Mordor’ are capable of?” Medvedev asked sarcastically, using a common derogatory slur used in the West to refer to Russia and Russians, equating them to the goblin-like humanoid creatures in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel “The Lord of the Rings.” The European Commission’s clarification dated September 8 bans the import from Russia to the EU of goods listed in Annex 21 to EU Regulation No. 833/2014, regardless of the purpose of their use and the duration of stay in the EU, including cars with less than 10 seats. The EC emphasized that it does not matter whether the vehicles are being used for private or commercial purposes. The list contains a wide range of all sorts of items from cellular telephones and audio and video recording devices, to suitcases, hold-alls, articles of clothing, toothpaste, shampoo and other hygiene products.

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“Goods that are classified as prohibited – even shampoo and toilet paper – should be confiscated..”

“..at least “they have not banned [Russian nationals] from wearing pants when crossing the border.”

Russian Customs Chief Accuses EU Of ‘Total Lawlessness’ (RT)

Russia’s interim customs chief has blasted the European Commission’s instruction to EU member states to confiscate personal possessions of arriving Russian tourists. “How do we take the European Commission’s ban on traveling by personal car or with smart phones? Well, it’s utter nonsense,”Ruslan Davydov told journalists on Monday on the sidelines of an economic forum in the city of Vladivostok. The EU slapped wide-ranging sanctions on trade with Russia over the Ukraine conflict. Last Friday, however, Brussels explained that the restrictions should also apply to items for personal use brought by tourists crossing the bloc’s border. Goods that are classified as prohibited – even shampoo and toilet paper – should be confiscated, according to the clarification. The European Commission urged “EU operators [to] identify, assess, and understand the possible risks of sanctions circumvention” when conducting customs checks.

Davydov branded the decision as “total lawlessness” that defies the normal logic of customs controls. Moscow has little influence on the policies, since the EU broke all cooperation with Russia, he noted. “The way they regulate customs procedures on their soil can only invoke regret and incomprehension,” he added. But at least “they have not banned [Russian nationals] from wearing pants when crossing the border.”=The official assured that the Federal Customs Service, which he heads, shall not adopt a similar policy regarding tourists arriving from the EU. The Russian embassy in Helsinki urged citizens on Sunday not to travel to Finland in cars with Russian license plates, citing the risk of seizure stemming from the new guidelines.

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Lula opens the door and closes it at the same time. Putin as Schrödinger’s president: “..the decision [on a possible arrest] is within the power of the judiciary, not my government..”

Brazilian Court To Decide About Putin If He Attends G20 Summit – Lula (TASS)

The issue of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrest during his visit to the G20 summit in Brazil in 2024 will be considered by the country’s court taking into account the arrest warrant issued for the Russian leader by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the country’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said. “If Putin decides to attend [next year’s summit], the decision [on a possible arrest] is within the power of the judiciary, not my government,” Reuters quoted the politician as saying. On September 9, in an interview with the Indian TV channel Firstpost, Lula da Silva said that as long as he was president of Brazil, “he [Putin] will not be arrested without the authorization of the authorities.” At the same time, Reuters pointed out the president questioned Brazil’s membership in the ICC. He recalled that neither Russia, China nor the US are members of the organization.

According to the leader, such agreements harm developing countries. On March 17, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, alleging that they were responsible for the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. It could theoretically be executed if the Russian leader arrives in one of the countries that recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. Moscow has rejected such accusations, calling “the very phrasing of the question” outrageous and pointing out that Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, so its decisions are null and void for Russia.

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“Sergei Skripal, the original target and survivor of the Novichok attack allegations in the official narrative, must never be allowed to testify publicly..”

Lies And Pretence In New London Novichok Hearing (Helmer)

In a London courtroom last week, lawyers for the British government and the presiding judge, Lord Anthony Hughes (lead image, centre), revealed they will resist the efforts of the Dawn Sturgess family to obtain a multi-million pound settlement in compensation for what they claim, and the government says, was her death five years ago from Novichok poisoning by Russian state agents. Secrecy is the key, not only to the big money claim, but to the government’s aim to defeat it and at the same time preserve the official story that the Kremlin ordered and carried out the chemical warfare attack in England in 2018.

Lord Hughes is defending the government’s effort to keep secret enough of the evidence in the case to block Adam Straw KC and Michael Mansfield KC, the Sturgess family lawyers, from demonstrating that the British security services should have known in advance – and did know enough — to have protected Sturgess from the Russian cause of her death. Their argument has been that for this negligence a very large sum of money should be paid to Sturgess’s heirs, to Rowley, and to the lawyers. The judge, the government, and the lawyers have agreed, however, there is one secret they must all keep. Sergei Skripal, the original target and survivor of the Novichok attack allegations in the official narrative, must never be allowed to testify publicly to what he knows.

To cover this up, Straw, Mansfield, and a lawyer representing the British press lied in court last week, claiming they want “open justice” from the secret services and the police. According to Jude Bunting KC representing the media, “open justice is about avoiding ill-informed speculation about proceedings and, insofar as material is in the public domain because of assertion, or even because of state-sponsored [Russian] misinformation, that is all the more reason for disclosing that material in open rather than in closed.” Hughes claimed to be seeking the same openness. “One of the difficulties of this inquiry and this case…is that everybody popularly supposes that they know the answer. They may or may not be right, but the purpose of the inquiry is to find out.” Hughes was pretending.

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Paul Craig Roberts. “The gun charge is just a way of getting rid of the real charges..”

The Gun Charge Against Hunter Is the Way of Covering Up the Real Issues (PCR)

Conservatives and Republicans are gleeful that the DOJ has been forced off its sweetheart gun charge deal for Hunter and might now have to bring a felony gun charge. The conservatives and Republicans do not realize that the gun charge is the least serious or important of the charges and that by making the gun charge the issue the real issues, which are threats to Joe Biden, don’t get a day in court. The gun charge is just a way of getting rid of the real charges. Moreover, if Hunter is convicted, something a Democrat jury is unlikely to do, and doesn’t get a suspended sentence, Joe will pardon him.

The conservatives and Republicans don’t understand that they and President Trump, not the Bidens, are the prosecutors’ target. We now have a black quota-hire Fulton County prosecutor adding US Senators and Trump lawyers to her racketeering indictment. The ridiculous indictment is so broadly framed that anyone who expressed doubt about the election is covered by the indictment. When you give power over law to people who see law only as a weapon with which to get enemies, you destroy the rule of law. That’s what the dumbshit white liberals have done.

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“..But the question is whether such requests are evidence of a crime…”

The “Why Not” Culture: The Georgia Final Report Should Worry Us All (Turley)

With the release of the special grand jury final report in Georgia, the nation finally was able to see what foreperson Emily Kohrs last February was giggling about in interviews. Call it the “Why not?” report. Back then, when Kohrs was asked if there were recommended charges, she chuckled and said, “Can you imagine doing this for eight months and not coming out with a whole list of recommended indictments? It’s not a short list. It’s not.’” In addition to nodding at an expected Trump indictment, she added, “There may be some names on that list that you wouldn’t expect.” After all, why not? The final product did not disappoint. The members recommended 39 people for prosecution, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and former Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.).

They also included lawyers who argued for recounts or investigations into alleged election fraud. While the report expressly claims that the Fulton County District Attorney’s office did not create the list, it was the office of Fani Willis that presented the law, the evidence and potential targets to the special grand jury. During that process, these members concluded that politicians voicing support for the former president and his allegations could be criminally charged for doing so. The news that Willis did not indict Graham and others infuriated many on the left. Liberal websites were inundated with comments like “I want all the enablers charged, tried, and given long sentences as traitors to our country” and asking why the list did not include Senators Grassley, Cruz, Lee and “147 current and former members of the House, just to name a few.”

[..] The question is when advocacy or inquiries or negotiations become criminal acts. Willis’s first grand jury clearly believed that senators who called for recounts or Raffensperger’s resignation should go to prison. The comparison between their recommendations and the eventual indictment does not clearly answer how such acts are distinguishable as crimes. The same lack of limiting principle is evident in the new theory being pushed by various experts under the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from ballots on the grounds that he “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” Beyond the tendentious claim that the Jan. 6 riot was an actual insurrection, they also maintain that the provision is self-executing, requiring no vote of Congress for secretaries of state to bar Trump from next year’s ballots.

Even though Trump has not been charged, let alone convicted, of insurrection (or even incitement), these advocates believe that he can be removed from the ballot because of his election claims, his inflammatory rhetoric and his delay in calling for supporters to leave the Capitol. This is one of the most dangerous legal theories to arise in decades. This week, Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes aptly described the claimed right to disqualify as a “radical” measure that would “encompass every elected office in our government — state, local, federal, and so forth.” Indeed, Democrats have called for barring not just Trump but 120 Republicans in Congress from running for office.

As with the Georgia special grand jury, the question is “Why not?” If the standard is “giving aid or comfort” to insurrectionists, then why not throw hundreds of other Republicans who supported the challenge to certification on Jan. 6 off the ballot? And while we’re at it, why not bar every lawyer who helped file claims of voting fraud from ever running for office? They all gave aid or comfort with their actions. By this reasoning, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and other Democrats could have been barred from ballots for opposing Trump’s certification in 2016 without any basis, along with leaders such as Hillary Clinton, who continued to call the election “stolen” for years. In 2016, there were also violent riots in Washington opposing Trump’s inauguration, thanks in no small part to such rhetoric. We can then have different candidates of both parties removed from ballots in every state.

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“Mr. Gaetz pushed through an agreement that the process to remove and replace the Speaker of the House could be activated by one vote. Mr. Gaetz reiterated last week that he means business. He’s the one vote.”

The Mills of the Gods (Jim Kunstler)

Do you think that more than half of the US public may be getting a little irked with “Joe Biden’s” lawfare elf, AG Merrick Garland, as he rolls one innocent J-6 protester after another into decades of hard-time for strolling through the US Capitol building — while the special counsels assigned to only a few of the Biden family crimes play hide-the-salami with due process? For all their cheap talk about “our democracy,” it’s a little scary to see what Democratic Party lawyers actually think of the legal system that is supposed to allow a society based on liberty to function fairly. Court filings last week indicate that Special Counsel David Weiss is about to indict Hunter Biden on that gun charge they have used as the joker in a three-card Monte game for going on five years.

Last time, they ran the game before Delaware federal judge Maryellen Noreika, she detected a teeny-weeny, sneaky clause in the plea agreement to a watered-down gun charge that would have granted immunity to Hunter B from any other past wrongdoing, including, of course, the entire alleged Biden family racketeering operation that had the First Son acting as prime broker and bag-man for tens of millions of dollars in bribes from foreign actors in countries less than friendly to US interests, funneled into any number of Biden family shell corporations. Judge Noreika nixed the plea agreement. Now, Mr. Weiss’s crew seems to be saying that the immunity clause is still tied to any plea deal answering a forthcoming September 29 indictment.

The move would appear to be timed to exactly the moment that a House impeachment committee would begin its inquiry into the Biden family’s moneygrubbing activities. In ordinary House committee hearings, DOJ officials like to use the excuse of “an ongoing investigation” to demur from answering questions. Merrick Garland has done this dozens of times. Will they now try to upgrade that to “an ongoing prosecution?” Could that move lead to a constitutional impasse, requiring the Supreme Court to rule? Or does a House impeachment panel enjoy special privileges of inquiry? It also appears that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FLA) intends to force the issue of opening an impeachment ASAP against “Joe Biden.” In last January’s maneuvering to seat a new Republican House majority, Mr. Gaetz pushed through an agreement that the process to remove and replace the Speaker of the House could be activated by one vote. Mr. Gaetz reiterated last week that he means business. He’s the one vote.

The argument that Republicans should leave hands-off “Joe Biden” so they can run against the feeble old grifter in 2024 is preposterous because there is no way that the “JB” can possibly run for reelection under any circumstances. It’s just another trip being laid on the American public — and one that illustrates how tragic and dangerous is the absence of an honest news media for challenging such insolent gambits. The President can barely totter into a room now without making some embarrassing pratfall or gaffe. He couldn’t possibly survive a debate, especially with all the new records of his crimes unearthed since the last time around in 2020 when he pretended to know nothing about his son’s business dealings.

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“..it is pretty clear who is responsible for 9/11 and why. Many Americans today understand what really happened..”

“It is paradoxical that President Trump is in the dock for questioning an election, while Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives, and the whore media that covered up for them, never faced a single charge.”

9/11 After 22 Years (Paul Craig Roberts)

Today is the 22nd Anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon known as 9/11. A generation of 22-year olds has grown up after 9/11, and the event probably means nothing to them. They learn that it was an attack on America like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 disappears into history. It is unlikely that anyone under 40 is much concerned with 9/11. A 40-year old today would have been 18 in 2001 and would likely dismiss 9/11 concerns as conspiracy theory. Today’s youth are more likely to be marching in support of sexual perversion than wondering about the source and purpose of the 9/11 attack.

Over the years I have reported the mounting evidence provided by scientists and by architect Richard Gage’s Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth until the organization he created removed him at the request of the government, effectively destroying the organization. But for me the proof that 9/11 was an inside job has always been that no one in government and security agencies was ever held accountable for the worst humiliation ever inflicted on an alleged “superpower.” Instead, it took a year before the White House even agreed to an official coverup with the 9/11 Commission, another in the long line of commissions like the Warren Commission that validates the official story. If a few young Saudi Arabians had actually defeated the entire national security apparatus of the United States, the White House would have been screaming, and heads would have rolled.

The neoconservatives had just called for a “new Pearl Harbor” so they could launch their wars of destruction of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East. They immediately blamed 9/11 on “Muslim terrorists” and began their invasions that halted only when Russia blocked the neoconservatives’ overthrow of Syria. So it is pretty clear who is responsible for 9/11 and why. Many Americans today understand what really happened, but the government will never admit it. It takes decades for the truth to come out, and by then everyone affected by the event is dead, and the event becomes ancient history. It is paradoxical that President Trump is in the dock for questioning an election, while Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives, and the whore media that covered up for them, never faced a single charge.

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Great Depression
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701337655886102874

 

 

Smile
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701205047835521236

 

 

Left my heart

 

 

 

 

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