Mar 192025
 


Caravaggio The seven works of mercy (Sette opere di Misericordia) 1607

 

Trump, Putin Agree On ‘Energy and Infrastructure Ceasefire’ (RT)
Trump, Putin Reached ‘Consensus’ On Ukraine – Witkoff (RT)
Kiev Thinks Trump ‘Can’t Stand’ Ukraine – The Economist (RT)
Hungary Expects Peace In Ukraine In Just Two Weeks (TASS)
Russian Army ‘Has Gotten Infinitely Smarter’ – Erik Prince (RT)
Trump Administration Releases JFK Assassination Files (RT)
Hunter Biden Whistleblowers Promoted By Trump After Biden-era Retaliation (JTN)
Trump Cancels Hunter Biden’s Costly Secret Service Protection (ZH)
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Could End Up Costing Taxpayers $5 Trillion (JTN)
Biden’s Autopen Scandal Just Got a Whole Lot Worse (Margolis)
Is This the Aide Who Abused Joe Biden’s Autopen? (Margolis)
EU Could Take Over US State-funded Media Outlet – Kallas (RT)
SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts Says Impeaching Judge ‘Not Appropriate’ (ZH)
Obama Judge Rules Against DOGE Shutdown Of USAID (ZH)
Trump Admin Moves To Reinstate Over 24,000 Federal Workers (ZH)
Trump Adviser Alina Habba Sounds Alarm on ‘Human Extortion’ (ET)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1901832507080712314

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Looked like a useless phone call. Don’t think the US side seriously prepared. Subtle difference that came up: were they talking about “energy infrastructure” or about “energy and infrastructure”? Vast difference.

Trump, Putin Agree On ‘Energy and Infrastructure Ceasefire’ (RT)

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed that the first step towards ending the Ukraine conflict should be an “energy and infrastructure ceasefire,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has revealed. The leaders reached the agreement during a 2.5 hour phone conversation on Tuesday. According to the readout of the phone call published on X by Leavitt on Tuesday, both leaders concur that the conflict must conclude with a lasting peace. They also emphasized the importance of strengthening bilateral relations. “The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace,” the transcript reads.

The Kremlin has confirmed that Putin supported Trump’s proposal for Russia and Ukraine to halt strikes on energy infrastructure for 30 days, and instructed his military accordingly. According to the readout, Moscow and Washington have agreed to hold relevant negotiations “immediately in the Middle East.” Aside from Ukraine, the two heads of state are said to have discussed the situation in the Middle East as well as potential cooperation with a view to preventing future conflicts in the region. Another topic high on the two leaders’ agenda was the “need to stop proliferation of strategic weapons” globally, according to the White House press secretary. “The two leaders agreed that a future with an improved bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia has huge upside,” including but not limited to “enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability,” the readout concludes.

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Witkoff sounds empty. Opportunities missed. There won’t be that many. I don’t see anything that brings Kursk close to a solution.

Trump, Putin Reached ‘Consensus’ On Ukraine – Witkoff (RT)

The US and Russia have agreed that Moscow and Kiev should pause attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has said. Witkoff made his comments following a phone call between Trump and Putin on Tuesday. The diplomat previously had a lengthy conversation with Putin in Moscow on March 13. Witkoff highlighted that Putin had agreed to Trump’s proposal to halt strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days and backed a ceasefire in the sea. “Up until recently, we really didn’t have consensus around these two aspects – the energy and infrastructure ceasefire and the Black Sea moratorium on firing – and today we got to that place, and I think it’s a relatively short distance to a full ceasefire from there,” Witkoff told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday evening.

“I’m certainly hopeful that the Ukrainians will agree to it. We have some details to work out, of course,” he added. “I would commend President Putin for all he did today on that call to move his country close to a final peace deal,” the envoy said. “And I would give all the credit to President Trump, his election, peace through strength, the perception that there are no alternatives, and the fact that a good peace and lasting peace are important for both sides.” “It was these two great leaders coming together for the betterment of mankind,” Witkoff said. According to the Kremlin’s readout of the call, Putin has “immediately” ordered the Russian troops to halt attacks on Ukraine’s energy sites. The president responded “favorably” to the maritime truce proposal and instructed to begin the talks to “further work out specific details of such an agreement,” the Kremlin said.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky told reporters on Tuesday that he supports a maritime ceasefire and a moratorium on strikes on energy facilities in principle but will wait for the American side to provide details about the arrangement. Witkoff told Fox News that the talks will continue in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday. According to Reuters, it was unclear whether Ukraine would participate in the meeting.

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“In seven weeks, we have switched from being allies to customers, and with largely imagined debts..”

Kiev Thinks Trump ‘Can’t Stand’ Ukraine – The Economist (RT)

US President Donald Trump “can’t stand” Ukraine, an official in Kiev has reportedly told The Economist, claiming that since the Republican returned to office, Washington has shifted from supporting Ukraine to treating it as a “customer.” The report comes as Ukraine continues to suffer military setbacks, particularly in Russia’s Kursk Region, where Kiev launched an incursion last year. According to Moscow, most of the territory has already been liberated while the remainder of Ukraine’s forces have been encircled by the Russian military. According to The Economist, some Ukrainian officials believe Trump’s recent move to temporarily cut off military aid and intelligence assistance to Kiev may have played a role in the country’s frontline setbacks.

One source told the outlet that Trump may have been deliberately seeking to strip Kiev of bargaining power in future negotiations with Russia. A separate government official claimed it may have been a coincidence, but emphasized that Ukraine’s relationship with Washington has changed. “What is clear is that Trump can’t stand us,” the source said. “In seven weeks, we have switched from being allies to customers, and with largely imagined debts,” the source added, apparently referring to Trump’s demand that Ukraine return several hundred billion dollars that was reportedly provided under the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Since his inauguration in January, Trump has taken a starkly different approach to Ukraine than his predecessor. While the former administration pledged to support Ukraine financially and militarily for “as long as it takes,” Trump has instead been pressuring Kiev towards a ceasefire and peace negotiations with Moscow. In February, Trump had a public dispute with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky during his visit to the White House, where the latter was accused of “gambling with World War III” by refusing to seek peace. After the heated exchange, Trump temporarily halted military aid and intelligence sharing with Kiev.

However, the decision was reversed last week after the two sides held talks in Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine agreed to a US proposal of a 30-day ceasefire. Since then, Washington has been trying to negotiate the terms of a ceasefire with Moscow. Trump is expected to hold a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to discuss the initiative. Moscow has signaled openness to negotiations on a truce, although Putin has stressed that a number of issues must be addressed beforehand, including resolving the situation surrounding Ukrainian forces in Kursk as well as guarantees that Kiev would not use a ceasefire to arm and remobilize.

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Be positive!

Hungary Expects Peace In Ukraine In Just Two Weeks (TASS)

Hungary expects the Russia-US talks on Ukraine to succeed and peace to return to Europe as soon as in two weeks, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said, speaking at the Raisina Dialogue international conference in the Indian capital. “I hope <…> in a couple of weeks, we can celebrate peace returning to Central Europe,” the foreign minister said, speaking about Ukraine ceasefire talks. “We are very happy that these talks have started. We’re happy to see the talks in Saudi Arabia between the US and Russia, between the US and Ukraine. We do attach great hopes to these meetings, and we do hope that a ceasefire can be established as soon as possible, and peace negotiations could be started as soon as possible. Because we want peace to come back to Central Europe,” Szijjarto noted. He recalled that from the very beginning of the conflict, the Hungarian government called for its peaceful settlement and advocated for dialogue with Russia.

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“First of all, don’t listen to the idiot politicians that say, yeah, we’ve degraded the Russian army. No, we have chewed up a lot of material..”

Russian Army ‘Has Gotten Infinitely Smarter’ – Erik Prince (RT)

The Russian military has become “infinitely smarter” in countering the US-supplied weapons being used by Ukraine, according to Erik Prince, the founder and former CEO of the private military company Blackwater. Speaking at Hillsdale College on Saturday, Prince also expressed skepticism over claims that the Russian army has been significantly weakened in the conflict. “The thing that the Russians are very good at is electronic warfare,” Prince stated, emphasizing that advanced American weaponry, such as Javelin missiles, HIMARS, and Copperhead guided artillery shells, often become ineffective within weeks. “It works for a week or two, and the Russians figure how to jam the navigation or the command link, and the stuff goes blind.”

Prince also pushed back against assertions that the Russian forces have been significantly weakened. “First of all, don’t listen to the idiot politicians that say, yeah, we’ve degraded the Russian army. No, we have chewed up a lot of material. The Russian army has gotten infinitely smarter.” He pointed to the rapid improvements in Russian counter-artillery capabilities, contrasting the response time between early 2022 and now. “If you shot at a Russian, with artillery in March or April of 2022, it would take them an hour and a half to shoot back accurately. Now, about two minutes, which means if you shoot at them, you better be in your vehicle and hauling ass because they’re going to get you otherwise.” The Russian Defense Ministry provides regular updates on the destruction of Western-donated equipment such as HIMARS and ATACMS missile launchers in Ukraine.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the US has been Kiev’s largest weapons supplier. After US President Donald Trump took office in January, he has made peace in Ukraine one of his top priorities and criticized the administration of former President Joe Biden for spending billions of American taxpayer dollars supporting Kiev. Trump briefly suspended military aid and intelligence sharing following a public dispute with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky at the White House in February. However, the assistance was restored after Kiev agreed to support a 30-day ceasefire with Moscow. Moscow has repeatedly warned that Western military aid merely extends the hostilities but will not alter the conflict’s outcome and risks a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

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“Scholars, historians, and journalists are likely to spend months sifting through the records for new information about Kennedy’s killing, with the newly published files being identified only by record numbers..”

Trump Administration Releases JFK Assassination Files (RT)

The administration of US President Donald Trump has released thousands of pages of government files related to the assassination of former US President John F. Kennedy (JFK) in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The National Archives uploaded some 63,000 pages of documents on its website in two initial tranches on Tuesday, with more files expected to be publish once they are digitized. “All records previously withheld for classification that are part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection are released,” it said. Shortly after taking office on January 20, Trump signed an executive order to declassify government documents related to the assassinations during the 1960s of John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

The shooting of JFK has long been the subject of speculation in the US regarding the alleged role of rogue elements within the government. A poll by Gallup in 2023 suggested that 65% of Americans did not believe the findings of the official investigation, which concluded Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine, acted alone in killing the 35th US president. Among those surveyed, 20% said they believed that Oswald conspired with the US government, while another 16% suggested that the CIA had been involved. Trump told reporters on Monday that “people have been waiting decades” for the publication of the JFK assassination files. Approximately 80,000 pages of previously classified records would be made available to the public, he added.

“I said during the campaign that I would do it, and I am a man of my word,” the president insisted. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a statement on Tuesday that the records are being released in fulfillment of Trump’s promise of “maximum transparency and a commitment to rebuild the trust of the American people in the Intelligence Community (IC) and federal agencies.” Scholars, historians, and journalists are likely to spend months sifting through the records for new information about Kennedy’s killing, with the newly published files being identified only by record numbers and having no descriptions.

Lyndon

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“..their bravery, courage, expertise, and integrity are all leadership qualities that should be exemplified within the ranks of the IRS.”

Hunter Biden Whistleblowers Promoted By Trump After Biden-era Retaliation (JTN)

The two IRS whistleblowers who shed light on failures to properly investigate Hunter Biden — and who were allegedly retaliated against as a result — have now received promotions from the Trump administration. IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley and IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler will serve as senior advisers to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Just the News has learned. “Rewarding merit rather than retaliating against whistleblowers is exactly how government ought to work. At long last, I’m happy that’s finally what is happening for Gary and Joe. They earned these promotions through integrity and hard work for the American people,” Jason Foster, the founder of Empower Oversight, which is representing the IRS whistleblowers, told Just the News. The promotions of the Hunter Biden whistleblowers were first reported by the New York Post on Tuesday morning.

“We are enormously grateful to Secretary Bessent, Senator Grassley, and all of the members of Congress for their leadership and trust,” Shapley and Ziegler said in a statement released by Senator Chuck Grassley’s office. “We have been motivated by one singular mantra: do what’s right, and do it the right way. It has not been easy, but having a clear conscience is worth the effort. We appreciate the opportunity Secretary Bessent is giving us to put our experience and firsthand knowledge to good use for the American people to eliminate waste and reform the IRS.” Grassley had sent a private letter to Bessent in late February, telling the new Treasury Department chief that “their bravery, courage, expertise, and integrity are all leadership qualities that should be exemplified within the ranks of the IRS.”

“Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler put their entire careers on the line to stand up for the truth, and instead of being thanked, the Biden administration treated them like skunks at a picnic. Far too many whistleblowers share a similar experience of retaliation,” Grassley said. “I hope today is the first of many redemption stories for whistleblowers who’ve been mistreated. By taking a stand for whistleblowers, President Trump and his cabinet are ushering in a new era of transparency and accountability.” Lawyers for the whistleblowers have said that Shapley and Ziegler were removed from the Hunter Biden investigation in May 2023, and alleged that their clients have been repeatedly retaliated against since then. The IRS whistleblowers have consistently argued that they did nothing “unlawful” and followed all of the laws and procedures when they blew the whistle about DOJ and IRS stonewalling on the federal case against Hunter Biden.

Grassley had demanded in a 2024 letter that then-IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel end all retaliation against the whistleblowers. The Iowa senator also sent a letter to President Donald Trump in February telling him that Shapley and Ziegler “were illegally issued gag orders and retaliated against by the IRS under the Biden administration” and that “this is unacceptable, and you have the power to put a stop to it today.” Hunter Biden initially reached a plea agreement with then-special counsel David Weiss on federal charges related to tax crimes and the illegal purchase of a handgun in what congressional Republicans dubbed a “sweetheart deal” in June 2023. The deal collapsed under scrutiny by a federal judge the next month, thanks in part to the revelations made by the IRS whistleblowers. And now, Bessent said Tuesday morning that “I am pleased to welcome Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler to the Treasury Department, where they will help us drive much-needed cultural reform within the IRS.”

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1901964818216603652

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18 agents for a holiday trip in South Africa. For a guy who tells a judge he can’t pay his bills because his paintings no longer sell.

Trump Cancels Hunter Biden’s Costly Secret Service Protection (ZH)

After Hunter Biden made headlines by vacationing in South Africa with a Secret Service detail on a week he was scheduled to appear for a deposition in a civil trial he initiated, President Trump on Monday night announced that he was canceling Hunter’s federal protection, and his half-sister Ashley’s too. Trump’s announcement came just hours after a reporter asked him about Hunter’s travel and ongoing, taxpayer-funded security. “I just heard about it for the first time…I would say if there are 18 [Secret Service agents] with Hunter Biden… That will be something I look at this afternoon,” he replied amid a tour of the Kennedy Center, where he earlier this year installed himself as chairman of the board. True to his word, at 5pm Monday, Trump took to his Truth Social account to inform Hunter, Ashley and America that the government would no longer provide security protection for Joe Biden’s adult children:

“Hunter Biden has had Secret Service protection for an extended period of time, all paid for by the United States Taxpayer. There are as many as 18 people on this Detail, which is ridiculous! … Please be advised that, effective immediately, Hunter Biden will no longer receive Secret Service protection. Likewise, Ashley Biden who has 13 agents will be taken off the list.” To get some idea of how much the Bidens’ security details were costing Americans, a Daily Mail Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) inquiry determined that the Secret Service spent more than $4.5 million to protect Hunter over an 18-month period between the start of 2021 and June 2022, while Biden lived in Malibu. During that stretch, the service shelled out $30,000 a month just for a villa to house their agents.

Former presidents and their spouses are assured of life-long Secret Serve protection by federal statute. Protection for children over age 16, terminates along with the president’s term in office — officially, but not in practice. Outgoing presidents frequently extend adult children’s coverage for up to six months, as Biden, Trump, Obama and George W. Bush all did. Already during his second term, Trump has canceled elective federal protection for several other individuals, including former NIAID director Anthony Fauci, Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his former national security adviser John Bolton. It’s not clear exactly when Secret Service agents will step away from Biden’s children. “We are aware of the President’s decision to terminate protection for Hunter and Ashley Biden,” said Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi in a statement. “The Secret Service will comply and is actively working with the protective details and the White House to ensure compliance as soon as possible.”

At the same time he was in South Africa, Hunter was scheduled to give a deposition pursuant to a lawsuit he filed against former Trump staffer Garrett Ziegler, accusing him of illegally hacking and then circulating 10,000 photos from Hunter’s infamous “Laptop from Hell.” Earlier this month, Hunter told the judge he wanted to drop the case, on the basis that he had millions of dollars in debt and sales of his artwork and memoir were tanking. Hunter was already in Cape Town when the judge agreed to cancel the case on Thursday. “That means he [was] assuming his daddy’s appointee is gonna rubber stamp what he wants,” Ziegler told the New York Post. In an unusual twist, Ziegler had sought to contest Hunter’s dropping of the case. “Hunter wants to cry uncle,” he said. “We are OPPOSING that. We want our attorney’s fees to be paid, for Hunter to cease lying about us and me, and just generally to shut the f**k up.”

Trump’s Monday announcement took aim at Hunter’s current travel destination. “He is currently vacationing in, of all places, South Africa, where the Human Rights of people has [sic] been strenuously questioned,” wrote Trump, who earnestly supports the governments of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other countries where the human rights of people have been strenuously questioned. Hunter’s wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, is South African, and we’ll watch to see if Trump condemns South African Elon Musk should he decide to visit family in his crumbling native country where whites are in increasing peril.

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Green subsidies. A bottomless pit.

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Could End Up Costing Taxpayers $5 Trillion (JTN)

When former President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in 2022, it did so along party lines with not a single Republican voting for it. At the time, a Senate one-pager summarized the law as costing taxpayers $369 billion, based on Congressional Budget Review (CBO) estimates. A new study from the Cato Institute finds that the law could cost as much as $4.67 trillion by 2050. That’s roughly 12 times the stated cost. The study also concludes that the subsidies are undermining innovation and driving investments toward subsidy farming rather than satisfying consumer demand. “The government should not have a hold on the economy in such a way that it can truly distort entire markets, and that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is,” Joshua Loucks, research associate with Cato Institute and co-author of the analysis, said in a video explaining the study.

The Trump administration has been executing a series of reviews of regulations that federal agencies passed during the Biden years. Repealing some agency decisions may require congressional action. Due to the massive costs and market-impacting effects of the IRA, the study’s authors argue Congress should take a hard look at it. The law, they say, should be fully repealed, or Congress should place limitations on the subsidies, which the IRA mostly lacks. Loucks and his co-author Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, explained that the impetus for doing the study was the wildly varying estimates of the costs of the IRA that came out since its passage. While the CBO pegged the figure at $369 billion, Goldman Sachs estimated in May 2023 that it would be closer to $1.2 trillion. There were other estimates as well, all coming to different conclusions.

“We decided to go on our own fact-finding endeavor here, and that’s what resulted in this paper,” Loucks said. The subsidies for the IRA come in two forms — production tax credits (PTC), which provide tax credits per unit of energy produced, or investment tax credits, which provide tax credits for various investments in carbon-free energy. Which one developers take depends on the project and their business preferences. With the ITC, the subsidies provide an infusion of cash up front, whereas the PTCs provide payouts over time. Some of these are not capped, and others are only phased out when certain greenhouse gas emission reductions are met.

Using models from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the study shows there’s little likelihood that these reductions will be met in the next 25 years, meaning the subsidies have no meaningful end date. The authors estimated all the ITCs and PTCs that might come from the various carbon-free eligible projects — whether they be nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, energy storage, green manufacturing or hydrogen — and using complex models, the authors came to some overall estimates. Over the next 10 years, according to the study, the IRA could cost taxpayers anywhere from $936 billion to $1.97 trillion. By 2050, it will cost between $2.04 trillion and $4.67 trillion.

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Everyone was signing everything, with every kind of pen.

Biden’s Autopen Scandal Just Got a Whole Lot Worse (Margolis)

Earlier this month, we reported that virtually every document bearing Joe Biden’s signature during his presidency was signed by an autopen. The presidential autopen has been in use since the 1950s, with its legality debated for years. In 2013, Barack Obama became the first president to sign a bill into law using an autopen while vacationing in Hawaii, relying on a Bush-era legal memo stating a president’s presence wasn’t required if they had authorized the signature. The key issue with Biden, however, is whether he actually authorized the use of the autopen — or if someone else was running it without his knowledge. The New York Post then uncovered a pattern of potential power abuse within the Biden White House, with insiders suspecting a key aide may have made unilateral decisions on what to sign.

On Sunday night, Trump declared that Biden’s pardons are “VOID, VACANT, AND NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” On Monday, The Oversight Project released a memo exposing 32 instances where the Biden White House used an autopen to sign clemency warrants, granting pardons and commutations to thousands — including preemptive pardons for members of the J6 Committee. The report raises serious concerns about the implications of a presidency governed by autopen rather than by the president himself.

“We analyzed the 51 clemency warrants with President Biden’s signature on them. In those warrants, the Biden Administration granted clemency to 4,245 people—the most of any President,” the memo reads. “We found that the Biden White House used two variations of his signature loaded into an autopen to sign over half of the clemency warrants issued during his Presidency. We identified the two autopen signatures as Autopen A and Autopen B in this Memorandum.” The memo continued, “We calculated that the Biden Administration signed 16 warrants with Autopen A, 16 warrants with Autopen B, and 19 warrants appear to be signed with a wet signature.”

Interestingly enough, the pardon of Hunter Biden appears to have been legitimately signed by Joe Biden, which makes sense. But, here’s where things get really bad: “The warrants we determined to be wet signatures contain significant variations between the signatures. Some warrants spell out the President’s entire first name “Joseph.” Others have only a diagonal line to indicate the letter “J.” Other wet signed warrants have significant variations in the President’s middle initial “R” and “B” in the last name “Biden.” At the time of publication of this Memorandum, the variations of the wet signatures are so severe, that it is unclear whether the same person signed all of the warrants. We are continuing to investigate this issue.”

That’s right: While the Oversight Project hasn’t confirmed it yet, evidence suggests that beyond a rogue staffer using the autopen — possibly without Biden’s authorization — one or more aides may have outright signed his signature on certain pardons and commutations. Could the inconsistencies be a symptom of Biden’s cognitive decline? Perhaps. But the variations in his signature may point to something even more troubling: deliberate forgery. This could be huge because it tells us that staffers were confident Biden was out of it to the extent that they could get away with actual forgery, not just abuse of the autopen. That’s frightening.

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Neera Tanden fits the profile to a tee. Not everyone would be referred to as “the boss”.

Is This the Aide Who Abused Joe Biden’s Autopen? (Margolis)

The latest scandal for the former Biden administration has exploded into the spotlight thanks to Trump’s declaration Sunday night that Biden’s pardons are “VOID, VACANT, AND NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT” because they were signed via autopen, and Biden may not have authorized them. The lingering question, of course, is who may have been using the autopen on Biden’s behalf without his knowledge or consent. An explosive New York Post report revealed a disturbing pattern of potential power abuse within the Biden White House, centered around the controversial use of the presidential autopen. One Biden White House source told The Post they suspect that a key aide to the then-president may have made unilateral determinations on what to auto-sign. The Post is not publishing that staffer’s name due to the lack of concrete evidence and refutations by other colleagues.

The Biden aide, who did not respond to requests for comment, would frequently make mention of what “the boss” wanted, the source said, but compatriots would have “no idea” if it was true because the internal culture was to not ask questions. While the New York Post didn’t name the staffer, speculation is swirling around Neera Tanden. A longtime left-wing operative, Tanden was Biden’s controversial pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget — until her nomination collapsed over a slew of hyper-partisan attacks on Republican lawmakers. She later found a role as White House Staff Secretary. Now, she finds herself at the center of this constitutional crisis. The timeline is damning. On Dec. 30, 2022, while Biden was allegedly golfing in St. Croix, six pardons magically appeared with his signature. Tanden’s response? A desperate attempt at deflection, trying to turn the tables by questioning Trump’s own autopen usage.

https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1901593683729772628?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1901593683729772628%7Ctwgr%5E834a907535a976df566b7d17e79689c29ac6fe17%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fmatt-margolis%2F2025%2F03%2F18%2Fis-this-the-aide-who-abused-joe-bidens-autopen-n4938019

Nice try, Neera, but there’s a difference between delegated authority and potentially hijacking presidential powers. The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, which broke the scandal, called her out specifically.

This isn’t just about pardons or autopenned signatures. It’s about who was actually running our country. Was it Joe Biden? Or was it radical operatives like Tanden, who went from heading a far-left think tank to potentially wielding presidential power without proper authorization? The Biden administration’s deafening silence on social media speaks volumes. They can’t defend the indefensible, so they’re hoping this scandal will just disappear. But Trump’s declaration has ensured this constitutional crisis won’t be swept under the rug. The American people deserve to know who’s really in charge. Was Biden even aware of what was signed in his name? Or did progressive bureaucrats turn the White House into their personal playground, wielding presidential power while the actual president remained blissfully unaware on the golf course? These aren’t just partisan questions; they’re fundamental to our constitutional republic. And the American people deserve answers.

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Voice of America. Brought to you by Europe (or the other way around).

EU Could Take Over US State-funded Media Outlet – Kallas (RT)

The EU will discuss ways to maintain the operation of US state-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), now that President Donald Trump has slashed its budget, the bloc’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, has said. RFE/RL was founded during the Cold War to spread pro-Western propaganda in the Eastern Bloc. The organization was initially funded by the CIA and continues to receive US Congressional grants. A reporter asked Kallas following the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on Monday whether the EU would offer “temporary protection” to Russian journalists who’d had their contracts terminated. She argued that RFE/RL’s broadcasts during the Cold War were “very valuable.”

“It is sad to hear that the US is withdrawing the funding. Now the question for us is, can we come in with our funding to fill the void?” Kallas said. “The answer to that question is… not automatically because we have a lot of organizations that are coming with the same request.” “But there was really a push from the foreign ministers to discuss this and find a way. So this is the [task of] our side to see what we can do,” she added. The European Commission and officials from EU member states have condemned Trump’s decision to gut the news agency. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky wrote on X last week that he would discuss the possibility to “at least partially maintain its broadcasts.” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Monday that the EU was “brainstorming” how to help RFE/RL, according to The Kyiv Independent.

On March 14, Trump signed an executive order mandating funding and staff cuts at the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees RFE/RL and other state-funded news organizations, including the Voice of America. The White House said that the move is part of a wider campaign to rid the government of “unnecessary” bureaucracy. Trump has frequently accused media outlets of bias and spreading “fake news” about him and his policies. RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus has described the cuts as “a massive gift to America’s enemies.” In a call with journalists on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov labelled RFE/RL and the Voice of America “purely propagandistic media” and said that the cuts were the domestic affair of the US.

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Roberts takes the easy way out. But that invites a flood of lawfare. Which will hamper the administration.

SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts Says Impeaching Judge ‘Not Appropriate’ (ZH)

On Tuesday, President Trump said on Truth Social that US District Judge James Boasberg should be impeached for issuing a two-week halt to his efforts to deport criminal illegal aliens – calling Boasberg a “troublemaker and agitator.” Trump’s call to remove Boasberg – the chief judge of the federal district court in Washington DC, marks the first time that he’s asked Congress to seek a judge’s removal. Trump also suggested that “many” of the judges who have ruled against him in other cases should be impeached as well.

Then, hours later, Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back – saying in a rare statement that it would be inappropriate to impeach a judge. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” Roberts said Tuesday. Of course, that would be up to Congress – wouldn’t it? As TheLastRefuge notes on X, Roberts and Boasberg go way back… “Yes, Roberts will protect Boasberg, because Boasberg -who Roberts appointed to be presiding judge of the FISC- has major leverage over Roberts. Boasberg has assembled his shields over years, and CTH has outlined every step. The brutally obvious began surfacing when Boasberg appointed *Mary McCord as amicus to the FISC.”

Law professor Jonathan Turley agrees with Roberts, however, writing on Sunday; “I have criticized Judge Boasberg, who was involved in the controversial FISA surveillance during the first Trump term and made a poor choice of the attorney tasked with investigating that matter. I also criticized him in prior treatment of pro-life litigants in a case reversed by the D.C. Circuit. However, he has also ruled against Trump critics). The response for the Administration should be to seek an expedited appeal. The district court cannot drag out a TRO very long before issuing an order that can be appealed. This country is facing novel issues and the Administration is not surprisingly trying to use novel means to address them. I expect that it will prevail in many of these initial fights while losing others. That is part of the process in a nation committed to the rule of law. The Trump Administration can appeal and leave impeachment out of it.”

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“Musk has been ordered to reinstate access to email, payment and other electronic systems for all current USAID employees and personal services contractors [..] after roughly 83% of USAID programs have been officially canceled..”

Obama Judge Rules Against DOGE Shutdown of USAID (ZH)

In the latest legal turn of events – since the United States is now governed by activist judges, an Obama-appointed federal judge on Tuesday found that Elon Musk and DOGE likely violated the constitution when it shut down deep state slush fund USAID, and has ordered them to restore access for current (remaining) employees. US District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in favor of more than two dozen unnamed current and former USAID employees and contractors who challenged the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter the organization. In a 68-page decision, Chuang granted in part their request for a preliminary injunction, ruling that DOGE and Musk likely violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and separation of powers.

Musk has been ordered to reinstate access to email, payment and other electronic systems for all current USAID employees and personal services contractors, while the Trump administration is now prevented from taking any further actions related to the shutdown of USAID – including placing employees on administrative leave, firing USAID workers, closing buildings, bureaus or offices, and deleting the contents of its websites or collections. Of note – the order does not currently require the reinstatement of fired employees, after roughly 83% of USAID programs have been officially canceled according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “After a six-week review, 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, and even harmed the core national interests of the United States,” he said.

This latest judicial move to block the Trump administration comes days after DC District Court judge James Boasberg (who was in charge of the FISA court when the Obama administration was spying on Trump), issued a two-week halt on deporting illegal immigrant gang members. On Tuesday Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment, drawing a sharp rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who said it was “not an appropriate response.” The Trump administration is also in the process of reinstating over 24,000 federal workers after a different Obama judge, US District Judge James Bredar, ordered the mass reinstatement of employees at 18 federal agencies last week, determining that the administration’s justification for the firings—poor performance—was not supported by evidence. The ruling follows another decision by a federal judge in San Francisco, who also found terminations at six agencies to be illegal.

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This feels upside down. DOGE does not.

Trump Admin Moves To Reinstate Over 24,000 Federal Workers (ZH)

The Trump administration is taking steps to reinstate thousands of probationary federal workers who were fired in an effort to downsize the government, according to court filings in one of two cases where judges deemed the terminations unlawful. U.S. District Judge James Bredar, an Obama appointee, ordered the mass reinstatement of employees at 18 federal agencies last week, determining that the administration’s justification for the firings—poor performance—was not supported by evidence. The ruling follows another decision by a federal judge in San Francisco, who also found terminations at six agencies to be illegal. According to more than a dozen declarations filed by the government Monday night, the administration has moved to reinstate roughly 24,000 probationary workers.

According to the Monday night filings, many of the reinstated employees have been placed on paid administrative leave, while others have returned to full employment. However, officials warn that the reinstatement process could create confusion and operational challenges, particularly for employees who are reinstated only to potentially face termination again if an appellate court overturns the ruling. Reesha Trznadel, the acting chief human capital officer at the Department of Energy, cautioned in a declaration that reinstating employees “could impose burdens on DOE and cause significant confusion and turmoil for the terminated employees.”

Since taking office, the Trump administration has taken aggressive steps to reshape the federal bureaucracy, including dismissing employees during their probationary periods. The recent ruling represents a legal setback for these efforts, reinforcing protections for federal workers and challenging the administration’s justification for its sweeping dismissals. The legal battle is expected to continue, with the possibility that an appellate ruling could overturn Bredar’s decision. Until then, agencies must navigate the complexities of onboarding and retraining employees who may face further job uncertainty in the months ahead.

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Habba is just one among a group of shining young stars around Trump.

Trump Adviser Alina Habba Sounds Alarm on ‘Human Extortion’ (ET)

The Trump administration is committed to taking decisive action against one of the nation’s most pressing yet overlooked crises: human trafficking. In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, Alina Habba, senior advisor to President Donald Trump, shared the administration’s plan and her role in addressing this critical issue. But as Habba sees it, this isn’t just about human trafficking—it’s about “human extortion,” a more encompassing term that includes everything from sex trafficking to cyber activity and forced labor. “I’m focused on human extortion, which includes child trafficking,” she said in an interview with Jan Jekielek, senior editor at The Epoch Times and host of “American Thought Leaders.” Habba emphasized that her efforts focus not only on children who are victims of trafficking but also on any individual, regardless of age, who falls victim to sex trafficking, financial extortion through cyber means, or modern slavery.

Habba, 40, who served as Trump’s defense attorney in recent years, now works as a counselor to the president, collaborating closely with government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She is currently drafting a series of executive orders aimed at strengthening regulations and protecting the victims of human extortion. In her view, the crisis reflects the widespread abuse of vulnerable individuals who are coerced and exploited, often in ways that the public is barely aware of. Habba pointed to examples like cyber-interactive pornography that encourages people to hurt children, calling it a “sick” and disturbing reality of today’s world. She also noted that the issue worsened during the border crisis under the Biden administration.

Many children were, misleadingly, trafficked over the border, she said. “They were displaced from their families and then found themselves in vulnerable positions where they were sex trafficked and labor trafficked.” Since Trump took office, Habba said she has spent nearly two months fully understanding the scale of the problem. The administration is now focused on bringing these children home, providing them with necessary care, capturing their traffickers, and prosecuting those responsible—particularly pedophiles. A DHS report from August 2024 revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) transferred over 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children to the HHS between fiscal years 2019 and 2023. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division within HHS, is responsible for placing these unaccompanied children with sponsor homes in the United States.

However, the report indicated that ICE was unable to track the location and status of all the children who had been released from HHS custody. While Habba declined to provide exact numbers, she stated that the absence of familial DNA testing had led to a surge in child trafficking. In 2023, the Biden administration revoked a Trump-era program that required rapid DNA testing for illegal immigrants crossing the border. Without this measure, she said, individuals were entering the country with alleged relatives—such as parents, aunts, or uncles—without any verification. As a result, it was impossible to determine whether those accompanying the children were associated with cartels or engaged in human trafficking. The Biden administration reportedly did not provide specific reasons for ending the program, only stating that it was not renewing the contract with the private company doing the tests.

Since Trump’s return to office in January, the DNA testing program has been reinstated. However, Habba said there are still other critical issues to address. She mentioned that some migrant children were placed in “fake sponsor homes” by HHS. When officials visited these homes for safety checks, they found that the children were no longer there. “So, effectively, they were being re-trafficked,” Habba said. The administration is now working closely with public and private sector individuals to ensure these children are kept safe, provided with necessary rehabilitation, including therapy and medical care, and placed in secure homes.

Habba addressed the recent controversy surrounding the influencer Tate brothers, who are facing human trafficking and rape allegations. She faced criticism after expressing in a January interview that she was a big fan of Andrew Tate. Habba told Jekielek that her comments had been manipulated and taken out of context. She clarified that her support for Tate was based on his political views and should be viewed separately from the accusations being made against him. “The accusations against the Tate brothers are stomach-churning. They are disturbing,” she said. “There is no part of me that condones at all that behavior,” she said of the reports. The Tate brothers are contesting the allegations being made against them. Habba also provided an update on the long-awaited Epstein files.

She said that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are leading the investigation to review the files and thoroughly vet the accusations. “We are committed to transparency,” Habba said, urging Americans to be patient during the process. “We’re not going to be off the cuff. We’re not going to shoot from the hip. We’re going to look at things methodically and take them very seriously. And unfortunately, that takes time.” Habba also discussed her upbringing and family, identifying herself as a Middle Eastern Catholic woman. Her parents, both Chaldean Catholics, emigrated from Iraq to the United States in the early 1980s to escape persecution in their home country.

“My family is religious. They are very involved in the church, and I’m proud of that,” she said. Trump praised Habba when announcing her appointment as counselor to the president, highlighting her dedication and loyalty. “She has been unwavering in her loyalty, and unmatched in her resolve—standing with me through numerous ‘trials,’ battles, and countless days in Court,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Dec. 8, 2024. “As a first generation American of Middle Eastern Heritage, she has become a role model for women in Law and Politics, most recently being named Chaldean Woman of the Year.”

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Puppyducks
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1901877651179982943

 

 

Fin

 

 

Stopper
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1901993392696905813

 

 

Kids

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 092025
 
 February 9, 2025  Posted by at 10:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  70 Responses »


René Magritte Personal values 1952

 

Trump Reveals He’s Spoken With Putin By Phone (Miranda Devine)
DOGE To Audit Pentagon (RT)
Judge Puts Brakes On Trump’s USAID Purge (RT)
Judge Blocks DOGE’s Access to Sensitive Treasury Records (ET)
Trump Alone Can Fix It (RCP)
USAID Funded Massive ‘News’ Platform, ‘Censorship Industrial Complex’ (ZH)
Now We Know Who was Running the Country for Joe Biden (Margolis)
Trump Revokes Biden’s Security Clearances, Intel Briefings: “Poor Memory” (ZH)
USAID or SorosAid? How US Tax Dollars Fund Chaos Worldwide (Sp.)
How USAID and Its $50 Billion Budget Became a Target for Reform (ET)
The Rise and Rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (ET)
Trudeau Warns Trump’s Threat To Annex Canada Is ‘Real Thing’ (RT)
Apple Ordered to Provide UK Gov’t Access to ALL User Data on the Cloud (HUSA)
Russian News Finds Readers Despite Sanctions, USAID-Funded Competition – FT (RT)
In Valdai, Confronting The “American Problem” In West Asia (Pepe Escobar)
NATO Troops Unable To Move Quickly Across EU (RT)
“Recycling” Makes Plastic Pollution Worse (McGlinchey)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1887952783858393241
DOGE

Astroturf

Sen. John Kennedy

Maher
https://twitter.com/i/status/1888080063800705027

Bannon

SPower

McClain

 

 

 

 

“Every day people are dying. Young handsome soldiers are being killed. Young men, like my sons. On both sides. All over the battlefield.”

Trump Reveals He’s Spoken With Putin By Phone (Miranda Devine)

President Trump has spoken to Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the phone to try to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, he told The Post in an exclusive interview aboard Air Force One Friday. “I’d better not say,” said Trump when asked how many times the two leaders have spoken. But he believes Putin “does care” about the killing on the battlefield. In an exclusive interview with The Post aboard Air Force One Friday, President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone as he is trying to negotiate with him to end the Ukraine war. “He wants to see people stop dying,” said Trump. “All those dead people. Young, young, beautiful people. They’re like your kids, two million of them – and for no reason.”

The three-year-old war “never would have happened” if he had been president in 2022, Trump asserted. “I always had a good relationship with Putin,” he said, unlike his predecessor. “Biden was an embarrassment to our nation. A complete embarrassment.” Trump said he has a concrete plan to end the war. “I hope it’s fast. Every day people are dying. This war is so bad in Ukraine. I want to end this damn thing.” Addressing National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who joined him in his study aboard Air Force One Friday night, the president said: “Let’s get these meetings going. They want to meet. Every day people are dying. Young handsome soldiers are being killed. Young men, like my sons. On both sides. All over the battlefield.”

Vice President Vance will meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference next week. Trump has said he wants to strike a $500 million deal with Zelensky to access rare-earth minerals and gas in Ukraine in exchange for security guarantees in any potential peace settlement. On Iran, Trump told The Post: “I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear. I would prefer that to bombing the hell out of it. . . . They don’t want to die. Nobody wants to die.” “If we made the deal, Israel wouldn’t bomb them.” But he would not reveal details of any potential negotiations with Iran: “In a way, I don’t like telling you what I’m going to tell them. You know, it’s not nice.” “I could tell what I have to tell them, and I hope they decide that they’re not going to do what they’re currently thinking of doing. And I think they’ll really be happy.” “I’d tell them I’d make a deal.” As for what he would offer Iran in return, he said, “I can’t say that because it’s too nasty. I won’t bomb them.”

Read more …

Fire and brimstone. We’re getting serious. It should result in an audit, which is long overdue. But that won’t come easy.

DOGE To Audit Pentagon (RT)

Elon Musk, as head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been tasked with revising federal spending, and has set his sights on the Pentagon and the Department of Education, US President Donald Trump has confirmed. The newly authorized audits come in line with a broad push to slash public expenses. Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X (formerly Twitter), has been appointed as a “special government employee” to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Trump’s administration, and is currently among the president’s key advisers. Despite its name, the agency is not a permanent federal executive department, but a temporary body dedicated to reducing government spending. Its primary goal is to cut up to $2 trillion in federal expenditures by July 2026.

Speaking at the press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, Trump said that Musk will go through “just about everything” while reviewing the budgets of the departments. “I’ve instructed him to go check out education to check out the Pentagon, which is the military, and sadly you’ll find some things that are pretty bad, but I don’t think proportionately, you’re going to see anything like we just saw,” Trump said, highlighting that the DOGE would find “a lot,” taking into account how “bad” it was “with what we just went.” Earlier this week, Trump stated that billions of dollars have been stolen by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), highlighting that the lion’s share of the funds were used to pay for positive media coverage of Democrats.

Trump’s administration is currently focused on shutting down the agency, which operates as Washington’s primary means for funding political issues abroad. On the first day of his presidency, Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on almost all foreign aid. The president has also pushed against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs within the federal government since assuming office on January 20. After being sworn in, Trump signed a series of orders rolling back protections for transgender individuals and terminating DEI initiatives. Last week, DOGE claimed that it had managed to save over $1 billion thanks to the elimination of contracts related to DEI. Prior to that, the agency had stated that it had slashed federal spending by approximately $1 billion per day as of January 29, due to an effective halt to “the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, the deletion of DEI, and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1888008418914382254

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Two federal judges separately(?!) getting involved. The first one says USAID cannot mass-fire employees…

Judge Puts Brakes On Trump’s USAID Purge (RT)

A federal judge has temporarily barred the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington’s primary vehicle for funding political projects abroad, from putting thousands of employees on paid leave. The order was in response to a lawsuit filed by two labor unions representing federal workers. A “limited,” temporary restraining order issued by Judge Carl Nichols in the US District Court in Washington, DC, on Friday, banned the US government from placing around 2,200 USAID workers on administrative leave or evacuating them from their host countries before the end of the day on February 14. The ruling also reinstates some 500 employees who had already been furloughed.

“All USAID employees currently on administrative leave shall be reinstated until that date, and shall be given complete access to email, payment, and security notification systems until that date, and no additional employees shall be placed on administrative leave before that date,” the order reads. A request for a longer-term pause will be considered at a hearing on Wednesday, according to the ruling. Earlier on Friday, Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group filed suit on behalf of two labor unions representing federal workers. The two unions are the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association, which represents thousands of foreign service officers working for USAID.

US President Donald Trump suspended all US foreign aid, pending a three-month review, in one of his first executive orders after taking office on January 20. The decision is part of a broader plan to significantly reduce government spending. Subsequently, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio suspended a number of projects assigned to USAID. Earlier this week, Trump claimed that the agency had funneled billions of taxpayer money into media companies to foster positive media coverage of Democrats. Meanwhile, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, leading the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is evaluating federal agencies’ spending, has branded USAID a “criminal organization” and claimed it funded bioweapon research.

Read more …

…the second one says DOGE can’t access “personal financial data of millions of Americans”. Both cases run until Feb 14.

That DOGE would increase “Cybersecurity Risk” sounds fake. They’re too good for that. And as soon as something leaks, their project is over. But yeah, you can make the claim, no matter how empty…

Judge Blocks DOGE’s Access to Sensitive Treasury Records (ET)

A federal judge has temporarily barred the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk, from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans kept at the Treasury Department. The late-night order, issued Saturday by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan, blocks most Trump administration officials—including Musk and members of his cost-cutting initiative—from accessing sensitive Treasury records for at least a week while the case proceeds in the New York court. The injunction specifically prohibits President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from granting access to records containing personally identifiable or confidential financial information to political appointees, special government employees, or any other employees from outside of the department. The White House has designated Musk a special government employee.

Under the order, only those working at the Bureau of Fiscal Services and have passed background checks may access those records in order to do their job. The judge further ordered any person among those whom he restricted to “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems, if any.” A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Feb. 14. The decision was made after 19 state attorneys general sued the Trump and Bessent after DOGE was given access to the Treasury records. DOGE is an advisory body tasked to identify ways to reduce government spending.

The attorneys general argued that Musk and DOGE, which is not an official government department, should not have access to such highly sensitive financial data. They claimed that the move violates federal law and presents a massive cybersecurity and privacy risk. “Defendants’ new expanded access policy poses huge cybersecurity risks” that put “vast amounts of funding for the States and their residents in peril and endangers the [personally identifiable information] of States’ residents whose information is stored on the payment systems,” reads the complaint, which was filed late Feb. 7 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Engelmayer agreed with the state’s argument that they “will face irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief.”

“That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking,” Engelmayer wrote. There was no immediate comment from the White House or Musk. The decision is the latest in a series of judicial interventions blocking the Trump administration’s rapidly unfolding actions to overhaul the federal bureaucracy. Just hours before Engelmayer’s order, another federal judge in Washington halted a Musk-led initiative to dismantle USAID, the agency responsible for administering foreign aid programs. In recent weeks, judges have also intervened to block Trump’s early executive actions ending automatic citizenship for children born on U.S. soil, pausing federal grants and loans, offering buyout to federal workers, and sending male inmates who identify as transgender women back to men’s prisons.

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Eventually published as “Welcome to the Executive Presidency”. This was the working title.

Trump Alone Can Fix It (RCP)

“I would support you to be spokesperson for the Pentagon,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal acidly told Pete Hegseth during his hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The insult was a poke in Pete’s eye for his career at Fox News. Blumenthal, who once fibbed that he had served in Vietnam as a Marine (he never left the States), thought Hegseth lacked the record of “leadership” to head an organization as large and complex as the Department of Defense. Evidently, it never crossed Blumenthal’s mind that this appointment was a first step toward making the department less large and complex. On paper, former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had such “leadership” experience, as did Jim Mattis, Bob Gates, Leon Panetta, Donald Rumsfeld, and most other department secretaries over the last 25 years.

Pete, on the other hand, led a platoon in Iraq before smiling his way through Saturday morning news shows. Once, during a bit on “Fox and Friends,” Hegseth tossed an ax that sailed over its target and struck a man standing nearby. Pete grimaced, the man was unhurt, and the show went on. Despite Blumenthal’s putdown, Hegseth’s nomination passed out of committee and cleared a floor vote on his way to becoming the youngest secretary of defense since Donald Rumsfeld was first confirmed 50 years ago. Hegseth wasn’t the traditional nominee, and that’s the point. Blumenthal and others like him looked at Hegseth through distorted, outdated glasses. They fail to understand that Donald Trump is remaking the executive branch of the federal government, and it starts with choosing communicators.

Any effective network of strategic communication must be organized as a hierarchy – if there is no one “at the top” who determines the messaging, there will be as many messages as there are nodes in the network. The executive’s ability to achieve his goals is fundamentally dependent on high-fidelity, rapid information transferal, where the message is relayed broadly, quickly, and without significant distortion. That’s what effective communication is – and it explains why Trump’s first term was less effective than it could have been. When Trump took office eight years ago, the left resisted him through the mainstream media, Hollywood, and corporate America, but the spearhead of “The Resistance” was his own government. The bureaucrats of the vast “administrative state” did not see Trump as a legitimate occupant of his office. Thus, they didn’t merely distort the communication that came from the top.

They tried to subordinate his agenda by refusing to transfer the information. More than that, they actively disseminated information that ran counter to the president’s stated aims. Accomplished people like Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson were seasoned executives with deep managerial experience, but their priorities were misplaced: Rather than advance the president’s initiatives, they focused on protecting themselves and their legacies.In his 1938 classic “The Functions of the Executive,” author Chester Barnard explains that an executive’s first task is to create a “definite system of communication.” Barnard wasn’t talking about the technical means of communication – whether that be telephone, memo, or computer – but the communicators themselves. These new modes of transferring information sometimes obscure the human interaction that remains the most effective form of information transfer.

“Communication,” Barnard writes, “will be accomplished only through the agency of persons,” meaning the appointment of the right people. Controlling an enterprise, he tells us, hinges on the executive’s choice of who will repeat and amplify the executive’s message. During the Biden interregnum, it seems that Trump absorbed these insights, almost as if by osmosis. Consider the inauguration. There were Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg front and center. Yes, they are among the world’s wealthiest men, but they also happen to be the owners of national and global media organizations. Trump spent the entire first day of his second term on camera, narrating his executive actions. “Here, David, that’s for you,” Trump said, passing his trademark, Trump-embossed marker to an aide, then holding up an executive order before the cameras like a newborn baby.

Never before had a president so merrily occupied the stage of the Oval Office, hosting audiences of millions online and on television, as he signed documents, bantered with reporters and staff, and generally went about his business. Trump knew his daylong, unscripted availability would contrast sharply with his predecessor’s behavior. Joe Biden’s increasing withdrawal from the public and his inability to deliver spontaneous remarks hid his declining mental health, and the fact that he really wasn’t in charge.

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They didn’t just influence the news, they made it too (4,291 media outlets).

USAID Funded Massive ‘News’ Platform, ‘Censorship Industrial Complex’ (ZH)

In addition to propping up far-left corporate media outlets like Politico and the BBC with taxpayer funds, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has funneled half a billion dollars to a secretive non-governmental organization operating a global news propaganda matrix. WikiLeaks published the bombshell report in the overnight hours that shows the massive taxpayer-funded state propaganda network – operating as a shady NGO – called “Internews Network”: “USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, “Internews Network” (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and “training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.

The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other revolts or conflicts at critical times, before formally rotating out of six years at USAID to IN. Bourgault’s IN bio and those of its other key people and board members have been recently scrubbed from its website but remain accessible at http://archive.org. Records show the board being co-chaired by Democrat securocrat Richard J. Kessler and Simone Otus Coxe, wife of NVIDIA billionaire Trench Coxe, both major Democratic donors. In 2023, supported by Hillary Clinton, Bourgault launched a $10m IN fund at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The IN page showing a picture of Bourgault at the CGI has also been deleted.

IN has at least six captive subsidiaries under unrelated names including one based out of the Cayman Islands. Since 2008, when electronic records begin, more than 95% of IN’s budget has been supplied by the US government.


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“We had a former cocaine addict sitting in on the most sensitive meetings of the most consequential and most important government in world history. Does that sit right with you?”

Now We Know Who was Running the Country for Joe Biden (Margolis)

Have you noticed how leftists are losing their minds over Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to expose rampant waste and corruption? As Musk uncovers shocking levels of mismanagement and even actions aiding America’s enemies, critics have launched coordinated attacks on him, implying that he’s the one who is actually running the White House. “No one voted for Elon Musk!” they say. Time Magazine’s latest issue has joined the fray, featuring Musk seated confidently at the Resolute Desk—a symbolic jab suggesting he’s really the one in charge. The outrage is ironic, considering the same voices now wailing about Musk’s alleged control were silent while Joe Biden spent four years clearly not running the White House. Why does this matter? Well, we now have fresh allegations from Lindy Li, a former Democratic National Committee (DNC) insider, about who was running the White House for Joe Biden.

And it’s quite terrifying. Once a proud fundraiser for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Li has turned into an insider spilling the Democratic Party’s most closely held secrets—and, boy, does she have stories. Her revelations pull back the curtain on what has been described as a chaotic and delusional 2024 campaign for the Democrats, which spectacularly collapsed under the weight of its own hubris. Li has revealed intriguing insider details about how Joe Biden was ultimately ousted, and what Pelosi and Obama really think of Kamala. Back in December, she revealed new dirt on Joe Biden’s mental decline. “The president has not been cognitively fit to assume the duties of the Oval Office for a number of years now,” she told Fox News. “And it breaks my heart because I know President Biden and I love the man, but he is in no shape or form able to carry out the duties that the Commander in Chief requires, and it’s just devastating.”

But it’s her revelations about what happened in the White House in the aftermath of Biden’s devastating performance in his June debate on CNN with Trump that are truly jaw-dropping. According to Li, Joe Biden, already staggering from public scrutiny, effectively lost control of the White House after that fateful debate. The event reportedly prompted an audacious power shuffle at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—one spearheaded by none other than Hunter Biden. Li alleges that, following Biden’s disastrous debate drubbing, Hunter essentially took over White House operations. Speaking with podcaster Shawn Ryan, she painted a picture of dysfunction at the highest levels of government: “After the [CNN] debate, Hunter basically commandeered the White House. He sat in on all of the White House top-level meetings. We had a former cocaine addict sitting in on the most sensitive meetings of the most consequential and most important government in world history. Does that sit right with you?”

Ryan’s immediate reaction—“No”—reflected what many are surely thinking. “Without security clearance mind you,” Li added. The idea that Hunter Biden, with no security clearance, was allegedly dictating the flow of information to his father is a much bigger deal than Elon Musk going after government waste, don’t you think? “That’s who was basically running the show. So Hunter basically battened down the hatches after the debate to make sure his father would only receive intel he pre-approved.” The media’s and the Democrats’ hypocrisy is glaring. They attack Elon Musk for exposing waste, accusing him of having too much power without having been elected, while their lack of scrutiny during the Biden presidency allowed for an unelected crack addict to run the country.

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“The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime,’ could not be trusted with sensitive information.”

Trump Revokes Biden’s Security Clearances, Intel Briefings: “Poor Memory” (ZH)

President Trump revoked former President Biden’s security clearance and terminated his daily intelligence briefings, stating that, given his “poor memory,” there was no reason for Biden to continue receiving classified government information. “There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Friday evening. Trump said the decision was based on the precedent of Biden’s 2021 decision to end his access to the secret information. He also pointed to the special counsel report last year: “The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime,’ could not be trusted with sensitive information.”

Biden in 2021…

Trump concluded the post with: “I will always protect our National Security — JOE, YOU’RE FIRED. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Steven Cheung, the president’s communications director, shared Trump’s Truth Social post on X and said: “Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more!” Trump’s team made a smart move given the investigations into various Biden family members—including Hunter Biden, who has been at the center of a probe into influence peddling schemes. Federal investigators have also recently become concerned about the Biden family’s close ties to China. Speaking with The Hill last month, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY.) said the pardons “validated” the investigations into Biden family members. Perhaps the actual reason the Trump team revoked Biden’s security clearance is over the family’s close ties with the Chinese.

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“USAID and Soros allegedly spent $27 million on anti-Trump prosecutions, claims journalist Mike Benz.”

USAID or SorosAid? How US Tax Dollars Fund Chaos Worldwide (Sp.)

Soros’ vast NGO network has spent over $20 billion since 2000 on radical liberal causes across the world. Tens of millions or even billions of US taxpayer dollars were funneled through USAID, observers suspect. The Soros-linked East-West Management Institute received over $260 million from USAID to influence foreign affairs in Georgia, Uganda, Albania, and Serbia. Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, backed by Soros, began receiving USAID grants in 2014 – the same year the US-backed Euromaidan coup ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych with neo-Nazi support. Over $1 million has been funneled by USAID to the center.

In August 2024, a coup against Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina was allegedly fomented by USAID, IRI, and Soros-linked groups. Her successor, Muhammad Yunus, is a known Clinton and Soros ally. According to The Grayzone, US taxpayer money funded rappers, transgender activists, and LGBT* initiatives to create a “power shift.” Soros and USAID have long sought to unseat Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, who has actively opposed the globalist billionaire since 2017. During the 2022 elections, the Soros-linked NGO Action for Democracy funneled $7.6 million to his opposition.

Soros-linked groups, backed by USAID, led resistance efforts against Donald Trump during his presidency, influenced the 2020 election through Black Lives Matter protests, and worked to flip battleground states in 2020–2021. Soros funded the Electoral Justice Project, Black Lives Matter’s voter mobilization effort, and gave $22 million to Tides Advocacy, which supported the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s pre-election nationwide protests aimed against Trump in 2020. USAID and Soros allegedly spent $27 million on anti-Trump prosecutions, claims journalist Mike Benz. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg was also accused of being “bought” by Soros.

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“..an agency gone rogue, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on inane programs, refusing to answer basic questions from congressional committees, and actively undermining the foreign policy goals of the United States.”

How USAID and Its $50 Billion Budget Became a Target for Reform (ET)

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was a little-noticed federal agency until it suddenly became the object of a fierce political battle over the limits of presidential power and the accountability of government bureaucracies. When the Trump administration closed the agency’s offices on Feb. 3 and later placed most employees on administrative leave, USAID took center stage in a drama unfolding at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. On one side is the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to make all parts of the executive branch comply with the president’s agenda. On the other side are congressional Democrats, who are warning that the action is a dangerous abuse of executive power and are vowing to fight it. Meanwhile, many observers fear that USAID’s true purpose—to advance U.S. interests through the use of soft power—may be overlooked.

On Feb. 3, President Donald Trump appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as acting director of USAID. The next day, the president indicated that the agency may be shuttered and its functions permanently transferred to the State Department. Here is why critics want to abolish or reform the agency, supporters want to save it, and what may happen next. USAID was established by an executive order of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to advance U.S. foreign policy by offering developing nations technical assistance, help with education and health care, and disaster relief. The idea was that turning poor countries into stable world citizens would benefit U.S. citizens, too. A stable, prosperous nation makes a good ally, the theory went. Champions of USAID continue to see it as both an essential tool for foreign policy and a tangible expression of the goodness and generosity of the U.S. people.

Most observers agree that the agency does some good. Relatively small by Washington’s standards, USAID employs about 10,000 people and controls an annual budget of about $50 billion. In 2023, USAID poured $10.5 billion into humanitarian aid and $10.5 billion into health programs in countries around the world, according to the Congressional Research Service. One program that is often touted as a shining success story is the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a USAID program that has provided more than $110 billion for controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS in more than 50 countries. “Most estimates are that somewhere in the vicinity of 27 million people are alive today because President Bush initiated and Congress supported that program,” Scott Pegg, acting director of the Global and International Studies program and chair of political science at Indiana University–Indianapolis, told The Epoch Times.

President Donald Trump said in remarks to reporters on Feb. 4 that “some of the money is well spent.” Yet the agency’s halo dims on closer inspection. Critics tell the story of an agency gone rogue, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on inane programs, refusing to answer basic questions from congressional committees, and actively undermining the foreign policy goals of the United States. The White House on Feb. 3. produced a list of projects funded by USAID that it characterized as examples of waste and abuse. The projects include $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities,” another $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia, and $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam.

Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) listed further examples on social media platform X on Feb. 3, including $56 million to boost tourism in Egypt and Tunisia and $27 million for “reintegration gift bags” for deported Central Americans. Hunt said the agency was behaving “like a child with YOUR credit card.” Some USAID grant recipients include terrorist-controlled organizations, according to a study by the Middle East Forum released on Feb. 1. The study found that $122 million has gone to groups aligned with designated terrorist organizations, including millions of dollars for organizations directly controlled by the Hamas terrorist group. A July 2024 report from the U.S. Office of Inspector General noted deficiencies and vulnerabilities in USAID’s vetting process, which is supposed to prevent the diversion of U.S. funds to terrorist organizations.

In one case of apparent abuse, USAID partnered with Chemonics, an international consulting firm, to spend $9.5 billion to improve health supply chains. Chemonics allegedly overbilled the agency by up to $270 million and failed to meet its objectives, and the project led to 31 indictments for the illegal resale of USAID-funded materials, according to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has called for an independent analysis of USAID grant recipients. Ernst said USAID also provided nearly $1 million in funding to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, which the CIA has said was the most likely source of the virus that causes COVID-19. USAID has resisted congressional oversight for decades, some lawmakers say, resulting in a culture of defiance. “The agency has engaged in a demonstrated pattern of obstructionism,” Ernst wrote in a letter to Rubio on Feb. 4.

False claims were made that certain documents were classified to delay review by congressional staffers and to mislead Congress on the indirect cost of programs, Ernst wrote, adding that in some cases, this amounted to more than 25 percent of the grant total. The agency refused to provide data on administrative costs, Ernst said. The agency later said that providing the data to Congress would violate federal law and that it had no obligation to respond because Ernst did not present a formal request from a “committee of jurisdiction.” “Washington insiders are more upset at DOGE for trying to stop wasteful spending than USAID for misusing tax dollars,” Ernst told The Epoch Times. “The agency has stonewalled me and used every trick in the book to hide what they are doing from the American people. It has lied, misled, and deceived taxpayers, but I will not be deterred in fighting for and uncovering the truth.” Rubio leveled his own criticism at the agency on Feb. 3, after being appointed its interim caretaker.

“They have basically evolved into an agency that believes that they’re not even a U.S. government agency, that … they’re a global charity,” Rubio said in an interview on Fox News. Worse, the agency frequently works at cross purposes with the interests of the United States, the secretary of state said. “One of the most common complaints you will get … from State Department officials and ambassadors and the like, is: ‘USAID is not only not cooperative, they undermine the work that we’re doing in that country,’” sometimes advancing programs that the host government finds objectionable, Rubio said. Speaking about USAID at the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador on Feb. 4, he said: “It’s been 20 or 30 years where people have tried to reform it, and it refuses to reform. When we were in Congress, we couldn’t even get answers to basic questions about programs. That will not continue.”

Chemonics – revealing

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“..the best symbolic indication that the old partisan and ideological divides in the country that date back three-quarters of a century find themselves fully scrambled into a wholly new alliance.”

The Rise and Rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (ET)

There is much to learn about the way the world works today by watching the confirmation vote on Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. In so many ways, this is a remarkable development with a dramatic story arc, one that speaks presciently to events over the past five years and where they stand in public consciousness. In November 2021, a major book blasted onto the scene that hardly anyone had expected. It was “The Real Anthony Fauci” by Kennedy. The author had already emerged as the world’s leading critic of the policy response to COVID-19, which included locking down societies across the globe to prepare the population for a vaccine that was already on record as failing to protect against both infection and transmission.

This book was not just a criticism of the way that the “nation’s leading infectious disease doctor” had been the dominant voice for shutdowns, closures, distancing, and masking. It dug through the deep history of the U.S. bioweapons program to highlight the role of dangerous research with a military angle. Fauci was not merely the guy telling you how to stay well; he had become a powerful figure in the bioweapons industry, which had a deep relationship with pharmaceutical companies. The book was beyond mind-blowing, and its many hundreds of footnotes provide an incredible documentary source for readers to check. I dug through them to discover features of the pandemic response I never knew existed. The depth of research here was simply astounding.

As the book became a bestseller, Amazon itself faced pressure to censor it. It acquiesced for a time simply because the powers that be were so awesome and aggressive. Still, the book made inroads in any case. At that time, the political constellation in the country was shifting wildly, and no one knew where it would wind up. The Biden administration had doubled down on coercive pandemic policies and added vaccine and mask mandates while issuing wild warnings of mass death for noncompliance. Resistance on the right and left were growing, but no one knew for sure where all of this would end up. As Trump clinched the Republican nomination, there was a brief moment when it seemed that the Democrats would be open to replacing Biden on the ticket.

A lifelong Democrat and the inheritor of the mantles of both his father and uncle, Kennedy seemed like an obvious choice to take the nomination in an open primary. He started an ad campaign that revived his uncle’s early efforts. But there would be no primary, thus forcing him into an independent bid for the presidency. Third-party attempts in the United States always run into the same problem: The whole system is geared toward two parties, and voting logic usually ends up reinforcing that as well. As that reality gradually dawned on Kennedy, there was a growing sense within the large movement that backed him that he needed another option. As events unfolded, Trump was subjected to a close assassination attempt on July 13, 2024. That was the moment when the two camps came together.

After several days of talking, there was a sudden realization on both sides that they were fighting the same corporatist enemies from two different fronts, one focused on immigration and trade and the other focused on food and pharma power. There was general agreement that many things in America needed to change. The sudden emergence of the unity effort of Trump and Kennedy together disoriented both sides, simply because the coalition brought together factions that had long seemed opposed. Kennedy was a long-time environmental lawyer, and Trump was generally an anti-environmentalist. They would agree to disagree on oil and energy but concentrate on the economic and physical health of America, which came to be embodied in the MAGA/MAHA coalition.

The shock in both camps was high, but the urgency of the moment—and the deep desire for change in Washington—impressed upon the grassroots the need to shake off their squeamishness and get to work together. How much did Kennedy’s involvement help the Trump campaign? Enormously. Was it decisive in the sweeping victory? Very likely. As a thank you for joining forces or perhaps a quid pro quo that was nonetheless highly merited, Kennedy gained nomination to the position of secretary of health and human services, which oversees many other agencies in the realm of food, health, pharmaceuticals, and much more.

The real challenge then began after Trump’s victory because of a peculiar feature of the American system: Cabinet picks have to be confirmed by the Senate. In normal years, and with most appointees of the past never really presenting that much of a challenge to the status quo, a president’s picks sail through with bipartisan support. Trump’s picks would be different, particularly the Kennedy choice since his stance on pharma and pandemic planning was well known. A choice for him would represent a repudiation of the past five years of policy, a prospect nearly all of Washington dreaded.

In the course of events, an incredible irony emerged. In committee—and likely too in the larger Senate—the vote fell along party lines, but not in the way one would expect. This lifelong Democrat and scion of the great Democrat family was opposed by every Democrat and supported (so far) by every Republican. Not only that, but the Republican-friendly press opposed him tooth and nail. The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and the New York Post all published bitter editorials that called the nominee a crank and conspiracy theorist.

Largely because of a huge push from the grassroots—and because of support from Trump—the Republicans voted for him in any case, while the Democrats simply could not and did not, despite the manner in which Kennedy, in many ways, represented causes long important to many people generally considered to be on the left. Thus does the expected confirmation of Kennedy—his rise and rise for fully five years—embody the best symbolic indication that the old partisan and ideological divides in the country that date back three-quarters of a century find themselves fully scrambled into a wholly new alliance. If you attend any events that bring together MAGA and MAHA, you know exactly what I mean. They are exciting scenes of people who have never been in the same room together, gradually discovering points of agreement and feeling very optimistic about the future.

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Trudy is nervous.

Trudeau Warns Trump’s Threat To Annex Canada Is ‘Real Thing’ (RT)

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been caught on a hot mike telling businessmen that US President Donald Trump is not joking when he talks about absorbing Canada, the Toronto Star newspaper has reported. Trump reiterated his desire to make Canada “our 51st state” when he spoke to journalists in the Oval Office earlier this week. “I would love to see that. Some people say that would be a long shot. If people wanted to play the game right, it would be 100% certain that they would become a state,” he claimed. The US president and the Canadian PM discussed the hiccups in their relations during two phone calls on Monday. On Thursday, Trudeau revealed some of the details of those conversations to businessmen and union leaders ahead of a closed-door meeting as part of the Canada-US Economic Summit in Toronto.

The prime minister thought he was speaking confidentially, but it turned out that his microphone had not been turned off promptly and he was overheard by journalists. “I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” Trudeau said as cited by the Toronto Star. The US wants to “benefit” from Canada’s natural resources and “Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country, and it is a real thing,” he warned. When Trump first raised the possibility of making Canada part of the US in December, Trudeau insisted that there was “not a snowball’s chance in hell” of it happening.

Last week, the US president argued that Canada would struggle to remain viable if it stopped getting “hundreds of billions of dollars” in subsidies from Washington. The solution would be joining the US, which would result in “much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada – and no tariffs!” In early February, Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% on imports from China – citing concerns over illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Ottawa vowed to retaliate by slapping equivalent duties on US goods. However, Trump decided to postpone the introduction of tariffs on the two neighboring countries for 30 days in return for promises by both governments to strengthen border security.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1887994885967380517

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“The Post noted that the access sought by the UK “has no known precedent in major democracies.”

Apple Ordered to Provide UK Gov’t Access to ALL User Data on the Cloud (HUSA)

The Washington Post reported Friday that the United Kingdom’s deep state has demanded that Apple create a back door for them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud—what would be an unprecedented erosion of online privacy and civil liberties. Citing anonymous sources, the Post reported that the British government’s undisclosed order was issued last month. It reportedly requires Apple to give officials blanket capability to view fully encrypted material. Typically, Apple has assisted authorities on a case-by-case basis—such as helping the FBI access a terrorist’s phone, for example. The Post noted that the access sought by the UK “has no known precedent in major democracies.” According to the Post, the UK’s order was made pursuant to the sweeping U.K. Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which authorizes law enforcement to compel assistance from companies to access user data.

“The law, known by critics as the Snoopers’ Charter, makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government has even made such a demand,” the Post reported. “Apple can appeal the U.K. capability notice to a secret technical panel, which would consider arguments about the expense of the requirement, and to a judge who would weigh whether the request was in proportion to the government’s needs. But the law does not permit Apple to delay complying during an appeal.” An Apple spokesman reportedly declined to comment. The Post reported that Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the UK. “Yet that concession would not fulfill the U.K. demand for backdoor access to the service in other countries, including the United States,” the newspaper added.

Western countries, including the U.S., have been pushing for total access to online user data for years. In March 2021, for example, former FBI Director Chris Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee that encryption was stifling his agents from investigating domestic extremism. According to Wray and other law enforcers, tech companies should be able to build “backdoors” into their encryption that preserves privacy, while allowing for access when necessary. That, they say, strikes the proper balance between data security and national security.

However, numerous tech experts, civil libertarians, and others say that it’s impossible to build a backdoor that can’t be exploited by hackers. They also say that by banning encryption, the United States would be following in the footsteps of authoritarian countries such as China, which blocked the encrypted messaging app Signal. “It is important to understand that any kind of back door (or front door) access for the ‘good guys’ can also be exploited by the ’bad guys,’” the pro-industry Information Technology & Innovation Foundation stated in a July 2020 report. “For example, key escrow systems would introduce new attack vectors that could allow attackers to gain access to encrypted information, such as by compromising the system that maintains copies of the keys.”

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“..this is not an agency for aid, assistance and development..” [..]“This is a machine for interference in internal affairs, a mechanism for changing regimes, political systems, and state structures..”

Russian News Finds Readers Despite Sanctions, USAID-Funded Competition – FT (RT)

RIA Novosti and Russia Today have been spreading their message despite competition from media outlets funded by USAID and Western sanctions pressure, the Financial Times has said. In an article published on Thursday, the British daily outlined the hit various media outlets would face from President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington’s primary means for funding political causes abroad. A number of USAID projects were focused on “countering” major Russia media outlets such as RIA Novosti and Russia Today, whose news coverage was “spreading on social media despite Western sanctions,” the newspaper said.

According to FT, the agency spent around $100 million on funding programs in Russia in 2023. Programs in Moldova received $309 million while around $1.7 billion was spent on Ukraine. The US president froze most US foreign aid for a 90-day review shortly after his inauguration. USAID has subsequently seen a number of its projects suspended, and Trump has said he wants the agency shut down. Without funding from the agency, many NGO media outlets around the world are struggling to stay afloat, FT wrote. According to French NGO Reporters Without Borders (RFS), 9 out of 10 media outlets in Ukraine relied on donations and USAID as their primary donor, with many already announcing that they’ll have to shut down.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that Trump’s crackdown on the agency vindicated Moscow’s 2012 ban on its activity in the country. “We said that this is not an agency for aid, assistance and development,” the spokeswoman stressed in a press briefing on Thursday. “This is a machine for interference in internal affairs, a mechanism for changing regimes, political systems, and state structures,” she said, adding that the agency had acted outside the realm of Russian and international law.

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“..it’s the embarrassingly passe “there are no Palestinians” trope on steroids.”

In Valdai, Confronting The “American Problem” In West Asia (Pepe Escobar)

The 14th Middle East Conference of the Valdai Club in Moscow was hit by a geopolitical bunker buster bomb right in the middle of the proceedings: the announcement, by US President Donald Trump himself, of some sort of future Trump Gaza Riviera Resort and Casino in Palestine. Even before international outrage started to overspill, from the BRICS front to ASEAN to the Arab world (which sees it as Nakba 2.0), reaching even Trump-friendly Saudi Arabia and major US allies in Europe, perplexity set in at Valdai among most scholars and academics. Two glaring exceptions were professor at the University of Tehran Mohammad Marandi and former British diplomat Alastair Crooke – always delicately nuanced analysts of West Asia.

Both have long argued that as the US empire is being forced to retreat, it will become much more ruthless and take greater risks. Marandi qualifies Trump as “a gift” to American global decline. Crooke, for his part, wonders whether Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really trapped Trump in a quagmire – when it may be the other way around. Trump now seems to have Netanyahu – which he basically despises – exactly where he wants him: owing favors. Trump made a lot of bombastic promises, which Netanyahu can sell as a major success to the Tel Aviv warmongers who compose his government. So his coalition will hold – for now. Yet, in return, Israel will still have to follow the next steps of the despised ceasefire project.

And that would lead, in theory, to the end of the war. Netanyahu wants an Infinite War, with unlimited Eretz Israel expansion and annexation. That is not a done deal – by far. As it stands, at face value, in one fell swoop, Trump normalized genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the reduction of the Gaza tragedy to a tawdry real estate deal in a “phenomenal location.” The accumulated effect of “the US will take over the Gaza strip,” “we will own it,” and “… level the site” not only opens the US to a shockingly illegal foreign annexation, but it’s the embarrassingly passe “there are no Palestinians” trope on steroids.

But this is far from “sheer lunacy,” as defined by US think tanks everywhere. It’s a natural extension of trying to buy Greenland, trying to annex Canada (in both cases, an increase to the US resource base), grabbing the Panama Canal, and rechristening the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. It’s about changing the subject and the predominant narrative instead of addressing the real threat to the Empire: the Russia–China strategic partnership. In this case, the new Gaza Riviera built on a pyramid of skulls is not only endorsed but already envisioned by the genocidals in Tel Aviv in tandem with Trump’s billionaire donors, a key part of Israel’s lobby in the US.

Trump’s vision, according to New York insiders, came from his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who less than a year ago was already talking about the real estate gold represented by the Gaza seashore. Kushner is even more dangerous now that he’s acting behind the curtains in Trump’s second term: he’s the main influencer on POTUS when it comes to a possible, future US-sanctioned occupation of Gaza. For the moment, we have a Deporting-Building-Selling reality show ethos applied to the most insoluble problem in West Asia. Marandi calls it the “US–Israel problem.” Taha Ozhan at the Ankara Institute qualifies it as “the Israeli-centered order” as well as “the American problem.”

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That’s just one little problem. Try this:

Name me one European country where people are fine with German troops on their land.

NATO Troops Unable To Move Quickly Across EU (RT)

The EU would be unable to move a major military force within the bloc’s territory in case of need, a recent report by its financial watchdog stated this week. Bureaucratic hurdles and chaotic logistical planning would prevent a swift deployment, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) concluded in the document. Brussels has already spent all of its budget allocated for improving military logistics between 2021 and 2027 without achieving the stated goal of “moving military staff, equipment, and supplies swiftly and seamlessly,” the ECA said in a statement accompanying the report. Funding worth €1.7 billion ($1.76 billion) was spent in just two years and no money was “left in the pot by the end of 2023,” the report said, adding that organizing military movements within the bloc could still face “significant delays.”

Member states still need to file a notification of cross-border movement 45 days in advance in order to get authorization, according to the paper. One nation’s tanks can also be outright banned from crossing into the territory of a neighboring EU member simply because they are heavier than allowed by the neighbor’s road traffic regulations, the report said. Military logistics directions can also include infrastructure like bridges that are not suitable for heavy equipment, requiring armor to take a major detour, it added. The ECA blamed the chaotic planning and management structure for the setbacks. “Governance arrangements for military mobility in the EU are complex and fragmented, without a single point of contact, which makes it difficult to know who does what,” it said.

With the allocated military mobility budget spent, there will be “a significant gap of over four years” before any more funds will be available, it warned. “Projects were funded mainly in the east of the EU, but the bloc hardly funded any projects at all on the southern route towards Ukraine” the watchdog said. The ECA – an independent auditing body with a college consisting of individual members assigned by each EU member state – has been critical of Brussels’ defense policy initiatives over the past several years.

In 2024, it warned that the European Defense Industry Program could fail to reach its goals despite a €1.5 billion budget due to a poor balance between policy objectives, funding, and the timeline for implementation. The program could result in resources “spread across a wide array of projects that may not have a measurable impact at EU level,” it said. In 2023, it stated that the EU was lacking a long-time strategy on defense spending, while also warning later the same year that financial assistance to Kiev could add tens of billions of euros to the bloc’s debt due to Ukraine potentially being unable to repay its loans.

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The function of plastics recycling is to make people feel less guilty, so they will use more plastics.

“Recycling” Makes Plastic Pollution Worse (McGlinchey)

If you’re like many people, you’ve always thought a numbered-triangle symbol on the bottom of a plastic container tells you it’s recyclable — giving you peace of mind that when you toss it into a blue bin, it will be turned into something else. That’s not true. Those symbols are Resin Identification Codes (RICs). Numbered 1 through 7, they only identify the kind of plastic an item is made of. Far from giving a sweeping assurance that RIC-stamped items are recyclable, the symbol frequently indicates a particular item absolutely cannot be recycled. Reluctant to burden citizens with figuring out which plastics are recyclable — a chore that could dampen participation and cause confusion as recyclability of various plastics changes over time — many municipal recycling programs simply encourage people to toss all their RIC-stamped plastics in the bin and let the recyclers sort it out.

Which ones do recyclers actually want? The most-recycled plastic in America is stamped with a “1,” identifying the item as polyethylene terephthalate (PET). You’ll find it on beverage bottles, cooking oil containers, and many other liquid-containing bottles. A “2” tells you it’s high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Another generally recycling-suitable plastic, it’s used for milk jugs and laundry detergent jugs, and spray-cleaner bottles. It’s all downhill from there. Chances are your bin has plenty of #5 — polypropylene (PP) — which is frequently used for single-serve coffee-maker pods; yogurt, butter, prescription pill and soft tofu containers; and the lids on paperboard raisin cartons. Unfortunately, while there’s been a modest recent uptick in recyclers’ interest, polypropylene generally isn’t being recycled in the United States.

As for the rest of the RIC spectrum, feel free to make pointed inquiries with your city government, but chances are extremely slim that any #3, #4, #6 or #7 items you throw in your curbside blue bin will be made into anything else. That heap includes lots of packaging, such as non-cardboard egg cartons, fast-food clamshells, styrofoam cups and to-go containers, flexible 6-pack rings and bread bags. Feeling a little demoralized? Brace yourself: This blue-bin buzzkill is just getting started.

Let’s circle back to recyclers’ favorite: #1 PET. Even for this most-favored plastic, much of what’s placed in blue bins isn’t recycled. It’s a question of configuration: Recyclers love clear PET bottles, but most of them don’t want PET when it’s in the form of clamshell containers, cups and tubs. In these formats, PET reacts differently to the heat of recycling. For example, if they’re combined with bottles, those PET tubs used to package your blueberries and strawberries create ash that contaminates the whole batch. “This is a perfect example of why we don’t go by plastic numbers,” explains Millenium Recycling. “A #1 clamshell container is NOT the same as a #1 bottle and they cannot be recycled the same way.”

Size matters too. No matter the type of plastic, if it’s smaller than three inches, most recycling processors don’t want it cluttering up their works. Given that, the Washington Post recently advised simply throwing away any plastic that doesn’t fit in the palm of your hand. Thinness is another liability — which means your plastic forks, spoons and straws are also a no-go. Then there’s color discrimination — any kind of black plastic is pretty much guaranteed not to be recycled, because infrared scanners in automated sorting machines aren’t able to “see” most black plastic. And while clear #1 PET bottles are at the top of the recyclability list, colored PET bottles are less favored.

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Cooked
https://twitter.com/i/status/1887888796261216690

 

 

Helmet

 

 

Mums baby

 

 

Tigerboar
https://twitter.com/i/status/1888172830749003908

 

 

Cat

 

 

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Dec 032024
 
 December 3, 2024  Posted by at 10:06 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Johannes Vermeer The astronomer c1668

 

Trump And Musk Are Ready To Shake Up America (Ryumshin)
Delaware Judge Rejects (Again) Musk’s $56 Billion Pay-Package (ZH)
Musk Again Asks To Block OpenAI’s “Illegal” Conversion To For-Profit Model (CT)
Special Counsel Rejects Hunter Biden’s Pardon (ZH)
The Pardon (Paul Craig Roberts)
The Blob Has a Migraine (Kunstler)
The Democratic Diaspora (Turley)
West Won’t Return Russia’s Currency Reserves – Top Banker (RT)
The Long War To Reaffirm Western And Israeli Primacy (Alastair Crooke)
Moscow and Tehran Discuss Syria – Kremlin (RT)
China Vows Support For Syria (RT)
EU Has Turned Into ‘War Union’ – Russian Senator (RT)
Putin’s Global Influence Increasing – Kallas (RT)
Zelensky Willing To Cede Territory in Exchange for NATO Protection (Antiwar)
Ukrainians Could Disappear (RT)
Shall We Celebrate, the World Being as It Is? (Patrick Lawrence)
Orwell’s Forecast of a Tyrannical Britain Proven Correct (Paul Craig Roberts)
Sturgess Inquiry Ends In Foreign Office Whimper, Bang Of Novichok Lies (Helmer)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1863370201581941005

 

 

Pardon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1863598068039655604

 

 

Mike Davis

 

 

Kindness

 

 

 

 

View from Russia.

“What can we expect from the ‘bromance’ of the two billionaires?”

Trump And Musk Are Ready To Shake Up America (Ryumshin)

It’s often said that a king is shaped by his entourage. This saying may be as old as time itself, but it applies perfectly to US President-elect Donald Trump. Right now, however, there’s only one person truly pulling the king’s strings – Elon Musk. Since the November 6 election, the Tesla tycoon has become the most influential figure in America – and perhaps even the world. Musk’s road to power took four long years. Before 2022, Trump and the South African billionaire were rivals (in 2020, the Space-X founder even supported Biden). But when Musk bought Twitter, rebranded it as X, and gradually leaned into the Republican fold, the winds shifted. By early 2024, Musk had met Trump, publicly endorsed him in July, and begun campaigning. By the end of the year, the two had become inseparable. Now, Musk is basically joined at the hip with Trump. They attend MMA fights together, watch space launches, and share McDonald’s burgers.

Musk is now a fixture at the Mar-a-Lago estate, advising the future president on appointments, and even apparently speaking to foreign leaders on his behalf – he was allegedly present when Trump spoke to Vladimir Zelensky and is reported to have secretly met the Iranian ambassador. Trump’s old advisers are getting nervous. On November 18, Axios reported that Musk had clashed with Boris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump ally, over Matt Gaetz’s nomination for US Attorney General. After the dispute, Gaetz’s nomination was pulled and CNN claimed that Trump’s team have asked that Epshteyn be investigated for alleged fraud – over alleged bribes to lobby for positions within the new administration. Musk’s influence is undeniable, and the media has already dubbed him the “co-president of the United States” or more cheekily, the “broligarch.” Musk himself embraces the title of “first buddy” (a nod to the first lady).

This isn’t without controversy. Musk’s ruthless business tactics are legendary, and he has Trump’s full trust. The billionaire has promised to audit the entire US government, aiming to cut up to $2 trillion in spending. God only knows what he’ll come up with next. It’s fascinating to watch the American political establishment panic. And let’s be honest – this drama could work to Russia’s advantage. The more chaos in Washington, the better for Moscow. But don’t get too excited just yet. There are differing views on Trump’s leadership. Some see him as a weak head man, easily swayed by flattery, while others view him as a potential autocrat, quick to toss aside anyone who crosses him. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between. Trump runs his inner circle like a boss, with some figures holding much more sway than others.

Musk certainly falls into this inner circle. But he’s not alone. Trump’s family – especially Donald Trump Jr. – is also a key influence. Trump Jr. has been instrumental in connecting his father with allies like JD Vance, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard, and he’s helping to handpick cabinet members. His influence is on par with Musk’s, even if it’s quieter. The Wall Street tycoons Trump has befriended also play a major role. In fact, for them, Trump has compromised on his conservative values, even proposing Scott Bessent, a former George Soros manager, for treasury secretary. Musk lobbied for Howard Lutnick to join the administration, but he eventually landed at the Commerce Department. These examples show that while Musk’s influence on Trump is substantial, it’s not all-encompassing –his power doesn’t extend beyond Trump’s inner circle.

There are also questions about how long the Trump-Musk partnership will last. Both are unpredictable, volatile personalities. Trump has a history of falling out with his favorites (just look at his rocky relationship with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis). Musk and Trump have plenty of potential points of conflict – from electric cars (Trump’s not a fan) to more serious matters like government spending cuts. But that’s a problem for the future. For now, let’s sit back, grab some popcorn, and watch this unfolding spectacle.

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In 2018, when it was first agreed, the pay package was worth $2.6 billion. In January 2024, when the judge first rejected it, it had risen to $56 billion. Today, it is $101 billion.

Why the increase? Well, Elon Musk.

Delaware Judge Rejects (Again) Musk’s $56 Billion Pay-Package (ZH)

Delaware Judge Kathaleen McCormick has once again sided against Elon Musk… After ruling against the billionaire in July 2022 when he tried to break his $44 billion contract to buy Twitter, and again in January 2024 when she initially rescinded Musk’s record (but “deeply flawed” according to her) $56 billion performance-based compensation package (determining that Tesla deceived shareholders when the all stock compensation was approved in 2018), she has once again ruled [against] that pay package. Musk’s legal team argued that McCormick should reverse her earlier decision because Tesla had conducted a shareholder vote to “ratify” the 2018 pay plan at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in June, per CNBC.

In fact, 72% of Tesla shareholders voted in June to approve the company’s CEO’s pay package. The judge said Musk’s attorneys made an argument with multiple “fatal flaws,” including their argument that the shareholder vote was enough to validate the pay package after the fact. “The large and talented group of defense firms got creative with the ratification argument, but their unprecedented theories go against multiple strains of settled law,” McCormick said in her ruling. McCormick ruled that the vote on the payment package did not have a “ratifying effect” on the current case, because shareholders had not ratified the payment plan prior to her ruling.

“Were the court to condone the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable,” she wrote. In addition to rejecting the revisions, Quartz reports that Monday’s decision granted $345 million in attorney fees to the lawyers who successfully challenged Musk’s pay plan on behalf of Tesla shareholders. The court deemed this amount an “appropriate sum to reward a total victory.” Tesla has the option to pay this fee in either cash or by issuing stock that can be sold on the open market. While Musk could appeal the decision to the Delaware Supreme Court, this ruling could have broader implications for how companies structure executive compensation and the role of shareholder votes in such decisions.

Finally, the judge has some interesting ‘friends’… “Before becoming the head of the Delaware Chancery Court, McCormick worked at a Delaware law firm called Young Conaway. This firm and its employees have been major donors to President Joe Biden for decades. In 2016, Hunter Biden hosted a gubernatorial campaign event for Congressman John Carney, with then-Vice President Joe Biden as the guest speaker. This event took place at the Law Offices of Young Conaway in Wilmington, Delaware. Carney, a close friend of Joe Biden for the last four decades, later became governor and nominated Kathaleen McCormick, a partner at Young Conaway, to her position on the Delaware Chancery Court.

In a March 2018 email, Hunter Biden claimed to personally know every judge on the Delaware Chancery Court while threatening legal action against his Chinese business partners. “I will bring the suit in the Chancery court in Delaware – which as you know is my home state and I am privileged to have worked with and know every judge on the chancery court…. another clear example of the Biden administration and its allies weaponizing the American legal system against their political opponents.”Tesla issued a statement on X shortly after the decision, confirming that it will appeal her decision…. There is also the fact that Musk’s move to relocate his business to Texas (after telling people on X after the original ruling that “companies should get the hell out of Delaware”) which could change things, but it is is unclear how this will proceed for now.

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“No objective observer can look at OpenAI today and say it bears any resemblance whatsoever to what it promised to be..”

Musk Again Asks To Block OpenAI’s “Illegal” Conversion To For-Profit Model (CT)

Elon Musk filed another motion to block ChatGPT-creator OpenAI from converting to a for-profit enterprise, while also alleging that it has been engaging in anti-competitive practices. Musk accused OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman, president Greg Brockman and stakeholder Microsoft of violating terms of Musk’s “foundational contributions to the charity,” according to his motion for a preliminary injunction filed on Nov. 30. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and was an early board member until he left the company in 2018. He has since launched xAI — the firm behind AI chatbot Grok — which he said is falling victim to OpenAI’s anti-competitive practices. “OpenAI’s path from a non-profit to for-profit behemoth is replete with per se anticompetitive practices, flagrant breaches of its charitable mission, and rampant self-dealing,” Musk’s lawyers wrote.

Through a “series of exclusive arrangements” with Microsoft, the two companies have engaged in “predatory practices,” enabling them to seize control of almost 70% of the generative AI market, lawyers for Musk said, adding: “Microsoft and OpenAI now seek to cement this dominance by cutting off competitors’ access to investment capital, while continuing to benefit from years’ worth of shared competitively sensitive information during generative AI’s formative years.” Allowing this to continue will hurt xAI and the public, which has become increasingly concerned about “rushed” and “unsafe” AI products, they added. California law allows a nonprofit to convert to a for-profit stock corporation, but not to a limited liability company.

OpenAI said it remains nonprofit at its core but has established a for-profit subsidiary capable of issuing equity to raise capital and hire world-class talent. Still, those tasks would be administered at the direction of the nonprofit. An injunction to preserve what is left of OpenAI’s nonprofit character is the only “appropriate remedy,” Musk’s lawyers said. “No objective observer can look at OpenAI today and say it bears any resemblance whatsoever to what it promised to be. Enough is enough.” An OpenAI spokesperson slammed Musk’s latest attempt in a note to Cointelegraph: “Elon’s fourth attempt, which again recycles the same baseless complaints, continues to be utterly without merit.”

In March, OpenAI leaked emails from Musk in 2015 showing support for the firm to find over $1 billion in funding to compete with the likes of Google and Facebook (now Meta). OpenAI claimed Musk was harassing the firm in a related October filing. “Since launching a competing artificial intelligence company, xAI, Musk has been trying to leverage the judicial system for an edge. The effort should fail; Musk’s complaint does not state a claim and should be dismissed,” OpenAI added. In June, Musk threatened to ban Apple devices at his companies when Apple touted integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its iPhone, iPad and Mac operating systems. Later, Apple launched Apple Intelligence on Oct. 28.

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“No court has agreed with the defendant on these baseless claims, and his request to dismiss the indictment finds no support in the law or the practice of this district.”

Special Counsel Rejects Hunter Biden’s Pardon (ZH)

Last night Hunter Biden’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss his California tax fraud case after Joe Biden issued a blanket pardon absolving him of all crimes committed over a 10 year period.”The President’s pardon moots Mr. Biden’s pending and yet to occur sentencing and entry of judgment in this case and requires an automatic dismissal of the Indictment with prejudice,” wrote Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell in the filing, adding that “this Court must dismiss the Indictment against Mr. Biden with prejudice and adjourn all future proceedings in this matter. “Special Counsel David Weiss isn’t having it. In a Monday response in opposition, Weiss argued that “The defendant’s motion should be denied since there is no binding authority on this Court which requires dismissal.”

“As a matter of past-practice in this district, courts do not dismiss indictments when pardons are granted,” Weiss wrote – citing cases involving Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Joe Arpaio and Ollie North, Above the Law reports. “Instead, it has been the practice of this court that once an Executive Grant of Clemency has been filed on the docket, the docket is marked closed, the disposition entry is updated to reflect the executive grant of clemency, and no further action is taken by the Court.” “Although Weiss purported not to have seen the pardon itself (which Lowell inexplicably failed to docket), he took particular umbrage at the suggestion that the prosecution was politically motivated, huffing that “The court similarly found [Biden’s] vindictive prosecution claims unmoored from any evidence or even a coherent theory as to vindictiveness.”

Judge Mark Scarsi of the Central District of California has taken no action, thus far. But in Delaware, Judge Maryellen Noreika said in a minute order that she intends to terminate the proceedings, and instructing the government to say by tomorrow if it objects to termination by dismissal. Presumably it does, although no objection has hit the docket as of this writing.” -Above the Law. Hunter pleaded guilty to the tax charges earlier this year, after a Delaware jury found him guilty of lying about his drug use on a background check form used to purchase a firearm.

In Weiss’ new filing, he writes: “The defendant did not docket the pardon nor has the government seen it. If media reports are accurate, the Government does not challenge that the defendant has been the recipient of an act of mercy. But that does not mean the grand jury’s decision to charge him, based on a finding of probable cause, should be wiped away as if it never occurred. It also does not mean that his charges should be wiped away because the defendant falsely claimed that the charges were the result of some improper motive. No court has agreed with the defendant on these baseless claims, and his request to dismiss the indictment finds no support in the law or the practice of this district.”

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“You can see the pardon as a conservative act as protection of the family is the basis of society. But in our society so is equal standing under the law..”

The Pardon (Paul Craig Roberts)

Joe Biden said he would not pardon his son, but he did. Pardons reside with presidents and governors and are supposed to be used to correct an injustice or when a service has been done by the pardoned person that offsets the harm of the offense that is pardoned. But pardons are often used for non-legitimate reasons, such as Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich and Clinton’s half brother, Roger Clinton. Bill did not pardon Roger until after Roger had served his sentence. Rich, however, an international fugitive on the FBI’s ten most wanted list, was apparently pardoned in exchange for political donations and donations to the Clinton library. Donations continued for 15 years after the pardon. In other words, the pardon was purchased. Biden’s pardon of his son occurred prior to Hunter’s sentence and before a day was served. No doubt that many a mother and father wish they had the power to grant their son or daughter a pardon.

It is disturbing that Biden pretends that the charges against Hunter were politically motivated and designed to hurt President Biden, as if the FBI and DOJ committed to Biden’s protection would act against him. The charges were protective of Biden and were brought in order to get the focus off the more dangerous information in the laptop. The politically motivated charges were the ones brought against Trump. But I don’t really blame Biden from using his power to save his son from prison. In a way it shows Joe Biden more committed to his son than to his reputation. You can see the pardon as a conservative act as protection of the family is the basis of society. But in our society so is equal standing under the law, which took a hit from the pardon. What we should find more upsetting than the pardon is the protection that the FBI and Department of Justice provided for President Biden and his son from the evidence in Hunter’s laptop.

The FBI put out the story, quickly accepted by the presstitutes, that the laptop was a Russian attempt to discredit the US president. The prosecutions that Hunter has faced are limited to his false statement on his gun purchase application and to failure to pay income taxes on the profits from his and President Biden’s influence peddling ventures to which the FBI and Department of Justice (sic) have turned a blind eye–the same FBI and DOJ that gave Biden clearance on the documents charge for which Trump was indicted and prosecuted. In other words, under the Democrats justice in America was totally corrupted and still 45% of American voters voted for Democrats in the last election.

This tells us that close to half of the voting population either is too insouciant or ignorant to know what is going on, or is indifferent or unconcerned whether law serves justice or political, ideological, and personal agendas. The damning conclusion is that close to half of the American population accepts law as a political weapon. That the personnel in the FBI and DOJ do not resign in protest at the perversion of law and prosecution indicates that they, too, accept the abuse of law by their superiors. Can the transformation of law from a shield of the people into a weapon in the hands of the state be reversed when the entire federal law enforcement system is corrupt to the core? Can such a giant task be accomplished when Trump is simultaneously attempting to restore integrity to all other aspects of government? Is this a bridge too far?

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“It’s a beautiful thing to watch the Biden family destroy the Democrat Party.” — @Mazemoore on “X”

The Blob Has a Migraine (Kunstler)

You can be sure the blobists have seen this coming from years away. The boys and girls in the agencies have behaved more than just a little badly, and they know it. They committed serious crimes against our country and its citizens under color-of-law since 2015, ranging from seditious conspiracy clear up to treason (say, just for instance, the case of Col. Alexander Vindman using his Ukraine connections to lever Mr. Trump out of the Oval Office in the 2019 impeachment scam.)

You have whole C-suites of agencies teed-up on RussiaGate for felonies, misprision of felonies, abuse of power, deprivation of rights, lying under oath, conspiracy to commit fraud, and much more. You have Judge James Boasberg playing games in the FISA Court he presided over; Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann running a two-and-a-half-year Chinese fire drill to cover-up years preceding of FBI / DOJ misconduct; John Brennan, James Clapper, and Gina Haspel abusing the “Five Eyes” intel arrangements to turn the CIA on innocent citizens at home; the fifty-one current and former intel agents colluding to bury Hunter’s Laptop to sway the 2020 election; the antics of Judge Emmet Sullivan in the Flynn case. . . .

And then on to a whole new round of frolics under “Joe Biden” including the malicious prosecutions of J-6 protesters; the pipe-bomb caper at the DNC; the use of several agencies to censor speech and manage the news media; the treasonous negligence of Alejandro Mayorkas on the nation’s borders; the DOJ-coordinated lawfare hounding of Mr. Trump and his adjacent lawyers; the Ukraine War project ginned up by the State Department’s Victoria Nuland and cohorts; and the sinkhole of greed, malice, and medical homicide that was the Covid-19 operation, millions killed and disabled, and likely more of that yet to come from the vaccines, trillions in wealth purloined or just plain lost, and businesses destroyed in lockdowns. It’s not a mere “swamp,” it’s a whole forbidden planet of turpitude.

Then there are the floaters and freelancers who move from one blob venue to the next, like lawfare artists Mary McCord, Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, David J. Kramer, or the girl-band of Lisa Monaco, Fiona Hill, Kathryn Ruemmler, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Nellie Ohr. And finally, there are the real big fishes: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, Chris Wray, Merrick Garland, General Milley, and “Joe Biden.”

Add William Barr to that list for failing to reveal that he was in possession of Hunter’s laptop as early as the fall of 2019. Of course, it was crammed with exculpatory evidence that could have ended impeachment No. 1 on day one of the initial hearings, yet he never alerted President’s lawyers to its existence. Weird, a little bit. And also, for the effrontery of allowing Jeffrey Epstein to be killed in his Manhattan jail, and never offering the public a coherent account of how the cameras on the cellblock failed, or why the guards who fell asleep on-duty were disciplined with only 100 hours of “community service.”

My Gawd, they must be eating Xanax like tic-tacs in their drawing rooms and boudoirs as the name Kash Patel floats across their social media screens. Kash Patel, a real-live exterminating angel, will finally step in to the FBI Director’s office and turn the investigative powers of the FBI on. . . the FBI! And its parent, the DOJ. The poetic justice is sublime. You must wonder: how does Mr. Patel get through the RINO-infested Senate confirmation process? Start with: what have they got on him? Answer: probably not a goshdarn thing, not a hair out of place. More to the point: what has Mr. Patel got on them? (Especially Messers Thune, Barrasso, Cornyn, and let’s just throw in the Democrat Mark Warner, VA, who was up to his eyeballs in RussiaGate as chair of the Senate Intel Committee.)

And were Mr. Patel to land in the FBI Director’s office 49 days from now, what additional info might he uncover about years of weaponized government with assistance from John Ratcliffe at the CIA and Tulsi Gabbard as DNI — who will access a pipeline to the vast national security server farm out in Bluffdale, Utah. So, in case you think that the document-shredding party currently underway in DC will conceal all that criminality, consider what lives forever in the alternate universe of cyberspace.

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“They are unlikely to improve themselves by receding further into that safe space to rave about the “f—ing morons” who make up the majority of America..”

The Democratic Diaspora (Turley)

Democrats who campaigned on the need for “joy” and “saving democracy” are strikingly unjoyful about the results of the democratic process in 2024. Before the election, slips like the one of President Joe Biden calling Trump supporters “garbage” were immediately denied or deflected. But once voters had given the Republicans control of both houses of Congress, the popular vote and the White House, leading Democratic figures and celebrities dropped all pretense of civility. They are now being open about their contempt for voters, calling them “f—-ing morons” and “arrogant, ignorant” adolescents. After calling for Americans to come together for Kamala Harris, MSNBC’s Joy Reid sent out a heart-warming holiday message to those who voted for the GOP to “make your own dinner, MAGA. Make your own sandwiches, wipe your own tears.”

Those not wallowing in Reid’s anger are increasingly voicing themes of isolation, insurrection and secession. For years, the contempt for Trump voters has been open and obvious in much of the media. The “Let’s Go Brandon” movement captured the lunacy of the press and politicians simply denying what citizens could see, hear and experience for themselves. When asked for answers on issues like the economy and immigration, Harris paraded an army of celebrities to tell the public how to vote — shiny objects that they thought would be enough for shallow American voters. They were wrong. Now that the public has made its choice, leading figures are condemning the majority of voters as a mix of misogynists, self-haters and fascists. Whoopi Goldberg, 69, even joined the “4B” sex strike against men. Others seem to be morphing into exactly what they said Trump would become as president: isolationist and insurrectionist.

Some have responded to the losses by retreating further into echo chambers protected from opposing views. Many dumped X in favor of BlueSky, a new social media safe space for liberals who fear being triggered by opposing views. Notably, censorship advocates such as Nina Jankowisz have fled to BlueSky. The site is portrayed as a return to the good old days when liberals controlled all of the social media and maintained a massive censorship and blacklisting system over political discourse. New York Times tech reporter Kevin Roose wrote a column last week that offered the familiar “I can breathe again” account: “After an hour or so of scrolling through Bluesky the other night, I felt something I haven’t felt on social media in a long time: free.” It is the ultimate irony. This election shocked many on the left precisely because they were writing and commenting on each other within their hardened media and political silos.

They are unlikely to improve themselves by receding further into that safe space to rave about the “f—ing morons” who make up the majority of America. Other Democratic politicians have moved beyond the chest-pounding of leaders like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) to pledges of more direct obstruction or inflammatory rhetoric. Denver mayor Mike Johnson (D) declared that he was preparing the Mile-High City for its “Tiananmen Square moment” to fight the federal government in any attempt to deport unlawful migrants. Johnson warned that he would have not only Denver police “stationed at the county line to keep [ICE] out” but also “50,000 Denverites.” Not long ago, Democrats were calling similar protests an “insurrection.” Johnson later walked back his remarks but insisted that his city would fight federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws. Rather than such trench warfare, most Democratic governors and mayors are simply pledging not to cooperate with federal authorities, which is a lawful choice. The concern, however, is how others will react to the overheated rhetoric for months that this will be “our last election” and that Trump is the new Hitler.
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Both sides hold frozen assets. Equal amount. An exercise in futility.

West Won’t Return Russia’s Currency Reserves – Top Banker (RT)

The West will not return any of the Russian sovereign assets frozen as part of sanctions over the Ukraine conflict, the CEO of major Russian lender VTB, Andrey Kostin, has predicted, as cited by Reuters. The US and its allies have immobilized around $300 billion of assets belonging to the Russian central bank since 2022 as part of Ukraine-related sanctions. The funds deposited in Brussels-based clearing house Euroclear have generated billions in interest, which the EU has decided to use to finance Kiev. “In the West, they say, let’s pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine from the reserves. And they will draw up such a bill that even the reserves will not be enough,” Kostin, the CEO of Russia’s second-largest lender, told Reuters in an interview published on Monday.

The new president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, said on Sunday that the EU will continue to provide economic and military aid to Ukraine in the coming year, using the interest accrued on frozen Russian money. “Starting next month, we plan to provide, for a full year, every month, €1.5 billion [$1.58 billion] of assistance. This money comes from the proceeds of Russia’s frozen assets and can also be used for military purposes,” Costa said during a visit to Kiev on day one of his mandate. Earlier this year, the EU decided to give Ukraine a chunk of the interest generated by Russian assets. In July, the European Commission announced it would allocate €1.5 billion to Kiev, mainly for weapons, as the first tranche of aid. The second tranche, expected to amount to €1.9 billion, could reportedly be disbursed next spring. In October, the European Parliament also approved a loan of up to €35 billion to Ukraine to be repaid with future revenues from frozen Russian assets.

The loan is the EU’s part of a package the Group of Seven (G7) agreed in June to provide Kiev with up to $50 billion in financial support. Approximately €210 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank is being held in the EU. The US has not yet made public the amount of funds it holds. According to Reuters’s calculations, at the start of 2022, Russia had $67 billion in US dollar assets. Russia has repeatedly accused the West of “stealing” its money. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov warned in October that Moscow would respond in kind to the West’s use of the income generated by its frozen central bank reserves. Last month, he said Russia would use income from the frozen assets of Western investors. While the finance minister did not elaborate on the amount of Western assets currently held in Russia, previous calculations by RIA Novosti put the figure at roughly equal to the size of the Russian funds frozen abroad.

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“Kennan’s thesis from 1946 was that the United States needed to work patiently and resolutely to thwart the Soviet threat, and to enhance and aggravate the internal fissures in the Soviet system..”

The Long War To Reaffirm Western And Israeli Primacy (Alastair Crooke)

The long war to reaffirm western and Israeli primacy is undergoing a shape-shift. On one front, the calculus in respect to Russia and the Ukraine war has shifted. And in the Middle East, the locus and shape of the war is shifting in a distinct way. Georges Kennan’s famed Soviet doctrine has long formed the baseline to U.S. policy, firstly directed toward the Soviet Union, and latterly, towards Russia. Kennan’s thesis from 1946 was that the United States needed to work patiently and resolutely to thwart the Soviet threat, and to enhance and aggravate the internal fissures in the Soviet system, until its contradictions triggered the collapse from within. More recently, the Atlantic Council has drawn on the Kennan doctrine to suggest that his broad outline should serve as the basis of U.S. policy towards Iran.

“The threat that Iran poses to the U.S. resembles the one faced from the Soviet Union after World War II. In this regard, the policy that George Kennan outlined for dealing with the Soviet Union has some applications for Iran”, the Atlantic report states. Over the years, that doctrine has ossified into an entire network of security understandings, based on the archetypal conviction that America is strong, and that Russia was weak. Russia must ‘know that’, and thus, it was argued, there could be no logic for Russian strategists to imagine they had any other option but to submit to the overmatch represented by the combined military strength of NATO versus a ‘weak’ Russia. And should Russian strategists unwisely persevere with challenging the West, it was said, the inherent contrariety simply would cause Russia to fracture. American neocons and western intelligence have not listened to any other view, because they were (and largely still are) convinced by Kennan’s formulation.

The American foreign policy class simply could not accept the possibility that such a core thesis was wrong. The entire approach reflected more a deep-seated culture, rather than any rational analysis – even when visible facts on the ground pointed them to a different reality. So, America has piled the pressure on Russia through the incremental delivery of additional weapons systems to Ukraine; through stationing intermediate range nuclear-capable missiles ever-closer to Russia’s borders; and most recently, by shooting ATACMS into ‘old Russia’. The aim has been to pressure Russia into a situation where it would feel obliged to make concessions to Ukraine, such as a to accept a freezing of the conflict, and to be obliged to negotiate against Ukrainian bargaining ‘cards’ devised to yield a solution acceptable to the U.S. Or, alternatively, for Russia to be cornered into the ‘nuclear corner’.

American strategy ultimately rests on the conviction that the U.S. could engage in a nuclear war with Russia – and prevail; that Russia understands that were it to go nuclear, it would ‘lose the world’. Or, pressured by NATO, the anger amongst Russians likely would sweep Putin from office were he to make significant concessions to Ukraine. It was a ‘win-win’ outcome – from the U.S. perspective. Unexpectedly however, a new weapon appeared on the scene which precisely unshackles President Putin from the ‘all-or-nothing’ choice of having to concede a bargaining ‘hand’ to Ukraine, or resort to nuclear deterrence. Instead, the war can be settled by facts on the ground. Effectively, the George Kennan ‘trap’ imploded.

The Oreshnik missile (that was used to attack the Yuzhmash complex at Dnietropetrovsk) provides Russia with a weapon, such as never before witnessed: An intermediate range missile system that effectively checkmates the western nuclear threat. Russia can now manage western escalation with a credible threat of retaliation that is both hugely destructive – yet conventional. It inverts the paradigm. It is now the West’s escalation that either has to go nuclear, or be limited to providing Ukraine with weapons such as ATACMS or Storm Shadow that will not alter the course of the war. Were NATO to escalate further, it risks an Oreshnik strike in retaliation, either in Ukraine or on some target in Europe, leaving the West with the dilemma of what to do next.

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“They expressed “unconditional support” for steps taken by Damascus “to restore constitutional order and territorial integrity of the country.”

Russia has started bombing the “Islamist militants”, whoever they are or who supports them. If Iran follows suit, who knows what happens?

Moscow and Tehran Discuss Syria – Kremlin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday, according to a statement issued by the Kremlin. The main focus of the conversation was on the “escalating situation” in the Syria, the statement outlined. The ongoing large-scale attack by Islamist militants around Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, is aimed at undermining the sovereignty, political and socio-economic stability of the Middle Eastern nation, the two leaders concluded. They expressed “unconditional support” for steps taken by Damascus “to restore constitutional order and territorial integrity of the country.” Putin and Pezeshkian also stressed the importance of coordinating efforts within the framework of the ‘Astana format’ with the participation of Türkiye.

Assorted Syrian ‘rebels’ and terrorists, including Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS), staged a large-scale attack on government forces in northwest Syria last week. Formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, HTS is considered a terrorist organization by Syria, Russia, Iran, the US, and several other countries. The militants claim to have captured considerable chunks of the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, with some units reaching as far as the center of the city of Aleppo. Damascus has reportedly succeeded in halting the insurgents near the city of Hama in central Syria after receiving reinforcements. Syrian President Bashar Assad has pledged to “eliminate terrorists” and to punish their “sponsors and supporters.” The Syrian military acknowledged that dozens of its troops had been killed during the offensive while estimating terrorist losses at around 1,000.

Government forces were also backed by waves of Russian airstrikes which also targeted terrorist headquarters, weapons, and ammunition depots. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Monday that Russian warplanes stationed in Syria had conducted strikes on militant forces in recent days. Peskov reiterated Russia’s support for the Syrian government, stating that Moscow and Damascus had been in contact and were analyzing ongoing developments. Russia intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2015, helping to inflict heavy defeats on numerous terrorist groups, most notably al-Nusra and the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Russia maintains a significant military presence in the country and has bases in Hmeimim and Tartus. Last week’s Islamist attack was the first major clash between Syrian rebels and government forces since March 2020, when Russia and Türkiye brokered a ceasefire in the country.

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Russia, Iran and China.

“As Syria’s friend, China is willing to make an active effort to avoid further deterioration of the situation in Syria..”

China Vows Support For Syria (RT)

China is “deeply concerned” about developments in Syria, where jihadist militants launched a surprise offensive last week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Monday. As Damascus’ “friend,” Beijing is prepared to take steps to prevent a further deterioration of the situation, he said. The Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, and allied militias launched a large-scale attack on government-controlled territory in northern Syria last Wednesday. The militants took over a number of towns and villages in the Aleppo, Idlib and Hama provinces. Syrian government forces, backed by Russian fighter jets, launched a counteroffensive on Thursday and successfully liberated several settlements over the weekend, reportedly eliminating hundreds of militants and thwarting their advance into central Syria.

However, dozens of Syrian army service members were lost amid the heavy fighting, the Syrian General Command said in an earlier statement. “China is deeply concerned over the situation in northwestern Syria, and supports its effort to uphold national security and stability,” Lin told a press briefing on Monday. “As Syria’s friend, China is willing to make an active effort to avoid further deterioration of the situation in Syria,” the official said. The Chinese embassy in Syria “is closely following the local situation” and has issued a security alert for Chinese citizens residing in the country, advising them to take extra security precautions and, if possible, move to safer areas, Lin said. China’s ties with Syria have been growing closer in recent years.

Last September, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad inked a “strategic partnership” deal, pledging to work together in order to “jointly safeguard international fairness and justice” in the face of the “unstable and uncertain international situation.” Xi told Assad at the time that Beijing supported Syria in “opposing foreign interference and unilateral bullying, safeguarding national independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” A number of other nations, including Russia, Iran, Iraq and Egypt, have expressed support for Damascus over the past few days, commending it for fighting against terrorism. Moscow has slammed the militants’ offensive as a “direct violation of Syria’s sovereignty,” and mobilized air force units stationed in the country to aid the Syrian army. Tehran has urged Islamic countries to unite in helping Syria defeat the militants, placing the blame for the escalation on Israel and the US.

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“The contemporary European Union is the main factor in dividing Europe and provoking conflicts. [It’s] a union of war..”

EU Has Turned Into ‘War Union’ – Russian Senator (RT)

The European Union has morphed into an “aggressive political bloc” and a “war union,” the Vice Speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper chamber, Konstantin Kosachev, has said. The senator criticized the EU in a Telegram post on Tuesday, pointing to the bloc’s support for the ongoing turmoil in Georgia, which has been hit by mass anti-government, pro-EU protests. The unrest has been going on since Thursday, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that he would freeze accession talks with the bloc until 2028. He accused Brussels of persistent “blackmail and manipulation” of Georgia’s internal affairs in justifying the decision.

“The first Molotov cocktails were thrown by protesters at Georgian police immediately after the new EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, publicly called the crowd’s protests legitimate and the response of the authorities – illegal,” Kosachev wrote. The vice speaker was apparently referring to remarks made by Kallas during her visit to Kiev, where she threatened Georgia with “consequences” and openly took the protesters’ side. “It is clear that using violence against peaceful protesters is not acceptable, and the Georgian government should respect the will of the Georgian people,” she stated.

Members of the bloc’s foreign service are acting as “instigators” of the unrest, according to the Russian lawmaker. Kosachev recalled the 2020 Capitol Hill rioting in the US, stating that the EU kept silent on it at the time and did not mention any “citizens’ right to protest.” The bloc has grown out of its original economic cooperation framework into an “aggressive political bloc with military inclinations,” acting as the main divisive force in Europe, Kosachev said. “The contemporary European Union is the main factor in dividing Europe and provoking conflicts. [It’s] a union of war,” he stressed.

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Kallas is as bad as Ursula. They’re like evil twins. Where do they find these specimens?

Putin’s Global Influence Increasing – Kallas (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s influence in global affairs is growing, new EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said. Speaking to reporters in Kiev during her first official visit on Sunday, Kallas, who stepped down as Estonia’s prime minister to take the EU post, reiterated that the European Union “wants Ukraine to win this war.” She doubled down on support for military aid to Ukraine, insisting that providing the country more weapons is not “charitable aid,” but an investment in the security of the EU, since Russian President Vladimir Putin “shows no signs of abandoning his goals.” Kallas has advocated tougher sanctions on Russia and is known for her strident stance against Moscow. She also stated Sunday that supporting Ukraine is in the interests of the US.

“If America is worried about China, it should be worried about Russia first,” Kallas claimed, according to the outlet Suspilne, adding that Russia, Iran, North Korea and China are working together. She also admitted that despite Western efforts to isolate Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin’s political influence has been amplified. “And we also see what Putin is doing in other countries, really increasing his influence. So, if the United States wants to be the strongest state in the world, they will eventually have to deal with the Russian Federation. And the easiest way to deal with this is to support Ukraine so that it wins the war,” the diplomat concluded. Kallas also did not rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine.

“So far, the discussion has centered on which countries are ready to send soldiers to Ukraine and which are not,” she told reporters. “I believe that nothing can be ruled out.” The remarks come as the UK and France have revived debates about sending forces to Ukraine, according to a recent report in Le Monde. In February, French President Emmanuel Macron caused controversy by refusing to rule out sending ground troops “to prevent Russia from winning this war.” The statement was quickly disavowed by NATO officials, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters that Ukraine’s Western backers were “unanimous” in their opposition to the idea. Russia has long claimed that Western special forces personnel are already active in Ukraine as military advisors and mercenaries. Putin maintains that NATO troop deployments in Ukraine cannot not change the situation on the battlefield.

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Ukraine can’t become a NATO member. So they want NATO to occupy the country.

Zelensky Willing To Cede Territory in Exchange for NATO Protection (Antiwar)

On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was willing to temporarily cede territory to Russia to bring an end to the war in exchange for NATO protection over Ukraine. “If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under [the] NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” Zelensky told Sky News. “That’s what we need to do fast, and then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically.” Zelensky’s suggestion is almost certainly a non-starter for Russia since the invasion was launched to keep Ukraine out of NATO, but it does reflect a shift in his position. Zelensky previously maintained that his war goals included driving Russia out of all of the territory it has captured since February 2022, as well as Crimea.

In a recent conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed to a speech he made earlier this year that outlines his conditions for peace, which include a Ukrainian withdrawal from all territory Russia has annexed, Ukrainian neutrality, and the lifting of all Western sanctions on Russia. Ukrainian neutrality was Russia’s main demand during short-lived negotiations that took place in the early days of the invasion. Ukrainian and Russian officials held talks in March and April of 2022, but the negotiations were discouraged by the US and its allies.

In the interview with Sky News, Zelensky said Ukraine wouldn’t agree to a ceasefire without guarantees of NATO protection. “We need [NATO protection] very much, otherwise [Putin] will come back. Otherwise, how are we going to go to a ceasefire? So for us, it’s very dangerous,” he said. While Zelensky and Putin’s terms are extremely far apart, the Ukrainian side could be forced to make more concessions if President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his campaign promise to end the war and pressures Zelensky to negotiate.

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“With just such a birth rate and mortality, the Ukrainian nation will be reduced to nothing in 180 years..”

Ukrainians Could Disappear (RT)

The Ukrainian ethnos could be extinct in less than two centuries, Olga Bogomolets, a renowned Ukrainian medical expert, warned this week. Extremely low birth rates and high mortality could lead to the nationality’s demise in about 180 years, she said. Bogomolets holds a post-doctoral degree in medicine, as well as the title ‘distinguished physician of Ukraine’. According to the expert, the nation is facing an “insane, catastrophic” rise in mortality rates combined with a continued decline in the number of newborns. “If this model persists, without even taking into account the war-associated losses and emigration… With just such a birth rate and mortality, the Ukrainian nation will be reduced to nothing in 180 years,” Bogomolets told the Vechir.Live show, which aired on YouTube.

The country has only six generations’ time to reverse the trend, the health professional warned. Otherwise, “zero [Ukrainians] will remain,” she said, adding that the territory of Ukraine would be inhabited by some other people “who will no longer be Ukrainians.” The conflict with Moscow has taken a heavy toll. Ukrainian military losses alone have amounted to more than half a million since February 2022, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Around 6.6 million people had fled the country as of July 2024, according to German data aggregator Statista. The Ukrainian media has reported that the country’s population could have fallen by a whopping 10 million over almost three years of fighting, considering both conflict-linked losses and emigration. A quarter of Ukrainians who fled abroad also have no interest in going back, the news outlets said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) currently estimates Ukraine’s population at just over 37.7 million people as of 2023, down from 44.3 million in 2021 and almost 50 million in 2000. The international body says that number was in steady decline even before the conflict with Russia, and is projected to fall further to less than 32 million by 2050. In October, Florence Bauer, the Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), described the situation in Ukraine as a “demographic crisis,” explaining that “the birth rate plummeted to one child per woman – the lowest fertility rate in Europe and one of the lowest in the world.” She added that the nation’s population had declined by over 10 million since the start of the 2014 crisis following the Maidan coup in Kiev.

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“There are moments when you understand your thoughts only when you speak them to others.”

Shall We Celebrate, the World Being as It Is? (Patrick Lawrence)

Is it all right to be happy over a holiday that has “Happy” in its name? The genocide of a long-suffering people to which our purported leaders have made us accomplices, a senile president who leaves us living with the danger of a nuclear conflict, fear and want and disorder everywhere you look: Can we allow ourselves happiness? Can we permit ourselves merriment in a few short weeks? And the most pressing query of all: What are we supposed to do? We must act, but how? As another holiday season begins, I merely repeat questions many millions among us have asked for more than a year now. I know this because I recently conducted an extensive survey indicating that the world as we have made it leaves us, we Americans and other dwellers in the Western post-democracies, a chronically troubled people.

I made sure the poll covered a wide geographic spread: I surveyed my household; the respondents were two, including myself. So let us not argue: The results are unambiguously representative. I found frustration at a record level, and there must be a record somewhere. I found suggestions of anger and despair. I found that the questions just noted were posed not quite incessantly, but nearly. The survey’s margin of error is zero. We are a perplexed people apart from everything else we are. And our questions are the very most right questions a troubled and perplexed people ought to ask as 2024 draws to a close and year-end holidays are upon us. In mid–December a year ago, we were guests in the home of one of my kindly editors.

This was in the village of South Egremont, at the southern end of the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts. There was a tree at the foot of the stairs, the fire was lit, there were drinks on the coffee table. The kindly editor, the KE, stood before the tree with a glass ornament in her hand. We were about to begin the decorate-the-tree ritual. Then the KE paused and turned. “Should we be doing this?” she asked. I vividly recall the unsettled look on her face. “Should we be celebrating?” Israel was then several months into its sadistic barbarism in Gaza, and the government that is supposed to represent us but no longer does was profligately sustaining the Zionist regime’s terrorizing troops. There was no misunderstanding the KE’s question. “Yes!” I replied with alacrity and not much reflection. There are moments when you understand your thoughts only when you speak them to others.

And so I continued, “We must insist on honoring the feasts that matter to us. Celebration: We can’t surrender it. We owe it to ourselves to refuse the temptation of learned helplessness and despair.” I paused. Then: “But that’s not the most important thing. We owe it most of all to the people of Palestine. It is for them we must demonstrate that the human spirit lives despite all, and that humanity’s shared capacity for joy is not extinguished.” The KE nodded. I seem to have brought her around. The KE’s son, a 30–something with a lightning wit and a quick, acute intelligence, considered the point carefully. His name is Stephen. After a moment Stephen said, “Yes, but a conscious ‘Happy’ and ‘Merry.’ A knowing ‘Happy’ and ‘Merry,’ a ‘Happy’ and ‘Merry’ that are fully aware—that refuse to avert their eyes, refuse to lose sight of anything.”

It was the best thing anyone said that evening. We decorated the tree just as these things always and wonderfully go: Put that silver bulb here. No, up a little. Now to the left. The pine cones should be in the front. The big red one goes on that side…. Stephen’s thought has stayed with me ever since. In a certain way I have lived by it.

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“Once a civilization becomes amoral, it succumbs to evil. When a civilization succumbs to evil it becomes impossible to defend.”

Orwell’s Forecast of a Tyrannical Britain Proven Correct (Paul Craig Roberts)

When George Orwell’s 1984 was published in 1949 everyone believed the dystopia he described was Soviet communism. Orwell said it was a description of Britain in the future. It took 75 years instead of the 35 years that Orwell estimated judging by his book’s title, but tyranny as great as he imagined now has Britain in is grip. If you doubt this, read this very short report–https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/great-reset/silent-prayer-prohibited-in-the-uk/— and watch the short video in which two policemen confront an Englishman who is silently praying in public. The police, both white and British, tell him that he is in violation of an ordinance that protects abortion clinics from anyone praying within 150 feet of the premises. The man says he is praying for his deceased son. It is not revealed whether his son was aborted by the mother or whether the death and prayer are unrelated to abortion.

What strikes me is that two white British policemen think they need to confront a person over a tyrannical ordinance that in the US is unconstitutional as it violates the 14th Amendment by creating special legal privileges for abortion clinics that are denied other service providers. The ordinance violates the requirement of equal protection of law. If Christianity or the right to protest still existed in Britain, the tyrannical ordinance would simply be ignored by police. Indeed, if Christianity existed in Britain the ordinance could not have been introduced, much less passed. Christianity is one of the foundations of Western civilization. Its demise indicates the demise of Western civilization.

In Britain where laws and police take it very easy on criminals as long as they are dark-skinned immigrant-invaders, a white British citizen can get in more trouble for praying silently within a proscribed distance of where abortions, that is, murders, are performed than an immigrant-invader faces for rape, robbery, and assault. Notice that a majority of British Members of Parliament thought that abortion clinics needed protection from prayer. By passing the ordinance the MPs shielded abortionists from ethical and moral protest. What crime will the MPs next shield? It is extraordinary, isn’t it, that the British are willing to take the entire world to nuclear war by firing missiles into Russia and find the danger instead in a person praying outside an abortion clinic. This tells us that the Western world no longer exists in a moral context. Once a civilization becomes amoral, it succumbs to evil. When a civilization succumbs to evil it becomes impossible to defend.

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“All we are left with is an assumption covered up and concealed in secret. The scientific name for that is a lie.”

Sturgess Inquiry Ends In Foreign Office Whimper, Bang Of Novichok Lies (Helmer)

The Novichok show trial ended its public hearings last week in London with the revelation that it will not name the chemical constituents of the poison used in the attempted killing of Sergei and Yulia Skripal on March 4, 2018, and in the cause of death of Dawn Sturgess on June 30, 2018. By doing this, by keeping the chemical formula combination of the poison a state secret, independent British toxicologists say there is no evidence that a Russian-made Novichok was used; and that, instead, a British or US-made Novichok was readily available in 2018, and this was as likely to have been the killer weapon. Revealed earlier in the hearings by a doctor at Yulia Skripal’s bedside four days after the attack, Skripal believed she and her father had been hit by a poison spray as they ate lunch at a restaurant just before they collapsed outside.

Skripal’s evidence pointed to a British operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal before he escaped back to Moscow, and then cover up by planting fabricated Russian clues at the crime scenes, and in the blood test reports of the victims. Weapon, crime scene, victim pathology, killer identification, motive – all faked. The toxicology experts point out that in 2018 scientists working on this type of organophosphate poison had revealed synthesis, production, testing and stocking of A232 and A234 Novichok in the US Army’s chemical warfare centre, known by its location as the Edgewood Arsenal; and at its British counterpart and partner, the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), known as Porton Down. The Iranian military establishment had also done the same by 2016. After the Skripal case in 2018, military chemists in South Korea and the Czech Republic revealed how they had produced and tested their own formulas for Novichok.

By openly publishing their Novichok chemistry, the Americans, Iranians, South Koreans, and Czechs have proved that making, detecting and naming Novichok is a transparent process, not difficult to verify forensically in a criminal investigation or court. This, British scientists now say, means that the refusal of government officials and the Sturgess Inquiry judge, Anthony Hughes, to name the Novichok alleged to have been the Russian murder weapon, is evidence of a scheme of British fabrication and coverup. Mark Allen of the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was the last witness to testify before Hughes at the Inquiry’s public hearings. As head of defence and intelligence, he was also the official in charge of coordinating the intelligence and military units involved in the attack on the Skripals; and then in the police and media coverup employed to pin the crime on the Russian military intelligence agency GRU, and on President Vladimir Putin.

Allen’s testimony on November 28 identified as his direct superior Sir Mark Sedwill, the national security advisor reporting to then-Prime Minister Theresa May and then-Foreign Minister Boris Johnson. “As SRO [Senior Responsible Owner] for Russia,” Allen said, “when we’re dealing with Russia strategy, the Government strategy towards Russia, I bring together all government departments, including representatives of the agencies as well, to ensure that we’re all essentially using all of our levers, all of our information, all of our understanding is pointing in the same direction and we’re being coherent. Then where there are situations where something unexpected arises, what you might call a crisis of some sort, then I will also chair that sort of grouping to work out what our collective response should be.”

“I act, not as the Foreign Office’s DG [director-general], but as the government’s senior official. Page 17 Asked to substantiate public statements at the time by May, Johnson and Sedwill that only Russia could have made and used the Novichok weapon, Allen was unable. “… it is safe to say that any modern chemical laboratory is capable of synthesising Novichok. In contrast to what you have said about it being a state — really only something that can be done at the state level. Is there anything that you can add to this debate, Mr Allen? A. I don’t think that is a view that is shared in the scientific community, or in the OPCW.” Page 41. This was a lie; Hughes let it go unchallenged. “LORD HUGHES: As far as you know, is it something which has been asserted either by Mr Mirzayanov or by the other publications of American, Czech, Italian, et cetera, researchers?

“A [Allen]: I haven’t read those in detail, sir, so I couldn’t say.“LORD HUGHES: All right, thank you.” Page 41. “What’s in a name like Novichok? Why the coverup?” responds an independent British chemist and expert on organophosphates. “If the full molecular readout was exposed publicly from the blood sampling of the Skripals and Sturgess — also later of [Alexei] Navalny — then it would be obvious that some constituents are missing. And because they are missing from the name or the reported chemical formula, then identification of Novichok cannot be made. All we are left with is an assumption covered up and concealed in secret. The scientific name for that is a lie.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Masterpiece

 

 

Dog ball
https://twitter.com/i/status/1863627051221000445

 

 

Happy husband
https://twitter.com/i/status/1863284451158999371

 

 

Elephants
https://twitter.com/i/status/1863382783952883864

 

 

Motorcycle
https://twitter.com/i/status/1863242158439878695

 

 

Trap
https://twitter.com/i/status/1863387612053897620

 

 

Crab-rice

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 022024
 


Rembrandt van Rijn Man with a falcon on his wrist (possibly St. Bavo) 1661

 

Joe Biden Pardons His Son Hunter (RT)
Trump Slams ‘Shocking’ Pardon of Hunter Biden (RT)
US Reps Urge Biden For Full Pardon Of Julian Assange (Antiwar)
Who is Kash Patel, Trump’s Pick to Head the FBI? (Sp.)
Kash Patel’s Prescription For Ailing FBI: Accountability, House Cleaning (JTN)
Ukraine’s Military Dead ‘Have Already Won’ – Zelensky (RT)
Ukrainian Military Desertions Skyrocket – FT (RT)
Norway To Open New Arctic Warfare Base (RT)
‘Netanyahu Needs War’, Can’t Be Trusted to Stick to Lebanon Ceasefire (Sp.)
The Return of Status-based Law (Paul Craig Roberts)
Trudeau Bends The Knee To Trump At Mar-a-Lago (MN)
Sebastian Gorka: British Intelligence Asset? (Grayzone)
Incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Prepares For Censorship Battle (ZH)
Why Does The West Believe It Occupies The High Moral Ground? (Diesen)
The Failure of COP29: Does the “Green Agenda” Have A Future? (Machado)

 

 

 

 

Gingrich

Lawler

Kash J6
https://twitter.com/i/status/1863208821637722339

Pipe bomber

Galloway

Gideon Levy

 

 

 

 

“Hunter Biden’s lawyer has moved to dismiss his indictment based on his pardon…”

Without a indictment, there’s no need for a pardon.

The pardon covers all crimes, including possible murder.

Joe Biden Pardons His Son Hunter (RT)

Outgoing US President Joe Biden has gone back on his word and pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was convicted earlier this year of breaking federal gun and tax laws. In June, the younger Biden was convicted of three felony charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018. According to the prosecutors, he lied on his gun-purchase paperwork that he was not addicted to or using illegal drugs. In a separate case, Hunter pleaded guilty to three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses in September. The sentencing for both convictions was supposed to happen this month. In a statement issued on Sunday evening, the president said the “full and unconditional pardon” covers offenses which his son “has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted.”

The president argued that his son was prosecuted “selectively and unfairly” because of his familial ties. He claimed that “people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form.” “It is clear that Hunter was treated differently,” he said. The president went on to state that the charges against his son were brought “only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.” He accused Republicans of sabotaging “a carefully negotiated plea deal” that would have been a “reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.” “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” the president said. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

The decision is a reversal of Biden’s previous position, as he and his team repeatedly said in the past that he would accept the jury verdict and would not pardon his son. Asked by ABC News in June if he would accept the outcome of the trial and if he would rule out pardoning his son, the president replied “yes” to both questions. In his statement on Sunday, Biden confirmed that his opinion on the matter has changed. “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” he claimed. Hunter Biden released his own statement shortly after the pardon was announced. “I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,” he said.

“I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.” Hunter Biden has been the subject of much scrutiny during his father’s term in office, as Republicans have claimed that he acted as the president’s ‘bagman’ in allegedly corrupt dealings with countries such as Ukraine and China. The president has denied the corruption allegations and publicly backed his son, describing him as “the smartest guy I know.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1863407436306014431

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“Does the pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?”

“This pardon is Joe Biden’s admission that Hunter is a criminal..”

Trump Slams ‘Shocking’ Pardon of Hunter Biden (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have blasted outgoing President Joe Biden for pardoning his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted of illegally purchasing a gun and tax evasion. The sentencing in both cases was scheduled for this month. Despite saying publicly that he would not interfere in his son’s cases, the president went back on his word and announced the pardon on Sunday evening. He labelled the convictions “a miscarriage of justice,” arguing that Hunter Biden has been “singled out” because of his ties to the president. According to the statement from the White House, the pardon applies to all offenses that were or may have been committed between January 1, 2014 and December 1, 2024.

This period covers accusations by Republicans that Hunter Biden acted as “a bagman” on behalf of his father during allegedly illicit business dealings in China and Ukraine. The president and his son have denied these allegations. The Republicans, who have long accused the Biden administration of politically motivated prosecutions, condemned the pardon. “The failed witch hunts against President Trump have proven that the Democrat-controlled DOJ and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system,” Trump’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in a statement. “That system of justice must be fixed and due process must be restored for all Americans, which is exactly what President Trump will do as he returns to the White House with an overwhelming mandate from the American people,” he added.

Trump compared the treatment of the president’s son to the prosecution of his own supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, hoping to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. “Does the pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of justice!” he wrote on Truth Social. Many top Republicans in Congress were appalled, with Senator Chuck Grassley saying that he was “shocked” by Biden’s decision. “This pardon is Joe Biden’s admission that Hunter is a criminal,” Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X. Congressman Andy Biggs wrote that “Joe Biden will go down as one of the most corrupt presidents in American history.”

“This is an outrageous abuse of the rule of law – all to protect the Biden family business of selling access and influence,” Senator Josh Hawley wrote on X. The Republican-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Accountability released a statement, saying “Joe Biden’s unprecedented abuse of power has been a stain on the honor of the US presidency.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1863407192063283560

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Letter sent a day or two before the Hunter pardon.

US Reps Urge Biden For Full Pardon Of Julian Assange (Antiwar)

House Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and James McGovern (D-MA) have sent a letter to President Biden urging him to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to send a message that Biden will “not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs.” “We write, first, to express our appreciation for your administration’s decision last spring to facilitate a resolution of the criminal case against publisher Julian Assange and to withdraw the related extradition request that had been pending in the United Kingdom,” Massie and McGovern wrote in the letter dated November 1, which was first made public earlier this past week. Assange was freed in a plea deal earlier this year after spending more than five years in London’s Belmarsh Prison while battling a US extradition request.

He was indicted by the Trump administration in 2019 for exposing US war crimes by publishing classified documents leaked to WikiLeaks by former Army Private Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning in 2010. Under the indictment, Assange could have faced up to 175 years in prison in the US for publishing the documents, a standard journalistic practice. While the plea deal set him free, it required him to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act. “The terms of Mr. Assange’s plea agreement have now set a precedent that greatly deepens our concern,” Massie and McGovern said. “A review of prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes clear that Mr. Assange’s case is the first time the Act has been deployed against a publisher.”

The lawmakers pointed to comments from Jodie Ginsberg, the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, who said, “While we welcome the end of his detention, the US’s pursuit of Assange has set a harmful legal precedent by opening the way for journalists to be tried under the Espionage Act if they receive classified material from whistleblowers.” Massie and McGovern concluded the letter by saying, “We therefore urge you to consider issuing a pardon for Mr. Assange. A pardon would remove the precedent set by the plea and send a clear message that the US government under your leadership will not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs.” According to Fox News, Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, is heading to Washington in January to push for a pardon before Biden leaves office.

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“..accused “the deep state” of being “the most dangerous threat to our democracy.” He applied the term to political leaders, Big Tech tycoons, media, and “members of the unelected bureaucracy.”

Who is Kash Patel, Trump’s Pick to Head the FBI? (Sp.)

Donald Trump has repeatedly derided the FBI as a “badly broken” agency over the years, saying it had “lost the confidence of America.” Current FBI chief Christopher A. Wray was also the target of Trump’s criticism. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Kash Patel for the position of director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). As the current chief of the FBI, Christopher A. Wray, still has three years of his 10-year term left, he will either have to resign or Trump will have to fire him for the nomination to happen. Kashyap Patel, a former public defender and federal prosecutor, was a national security aide during Trump’s first term. Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote on Saturday in a social media post.

Since 2016, Democratic Party officials have accused Donald Trump of illegally colluding with the Russian government as part of the discredited “Russiagate” narrative. The Trump-Russia probe turned out as a complete fiasco with no evidence being found to back the allegations. He is an ardent advocate of “housecleaning” in the Justice Department and FBI. The Bureau’s headquarters in Washington, DC, should be dismantled and turned into a “museum of the deep state,” he said in a podcast interview in September. Patel denounced the FBI for its 2022 search warrant of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, which resulted in charges being brought against the former president for retaining classified documents. Kash Patel has accused “the deep state” of being “the most dangerous threat to our democracy.” He applied the term to political leaders, Big Tech tycoons, media, and “members of the unelected bureaucracy.”

Appearing on the “War Room” podcast hosted by Steve Bannon last year, Patel vowed to “go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media” who “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections” in 2020. Kash Patel’s appointment would be subject to Senate confirmation. The announced pick has already sparked mixed reactions from lawmakers. Patel “needs to prove to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he has the right qualifications and […] will put our nation’s public safety over a political agenda focused on retribution,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons wrote on X. “He’s been on side against some of the worst abuses of the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] system. Kash Patel can help clean up all the things that we’ve seen that are wrong,” ex-Congressman Matt Gaetz said in a video message on X, adding that “Kash has guts!”

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“..the people at the very top are usually the most immoral, unethical people in the entire agency.”

Kash Patel’s Prescription For Ailing FBI: Accountability, House Cleaning (JTN)

President-elect Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, subscribes to a similar prescription for the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, which has lost significant trust from the American people over a decade of scandal and failure. From his time as chief investigative counsel at the House Intelligence Committee, where he unraveled the FBI’s bogus Russia collusion narrative, to his best-selling book “Government Gangsters” where he chronicled the weaponization of law enforcement against Trump and conservatives, Patel has laid out clear plans on how to re-focus the bureau on its core missions of law enforcement and intelligence gathering and away from politics. That job, he insists, begins by cleaning house throughout the FBI’s several layers of leadership that became infected with ideologies like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and created a culture where parents and traditional Catholics were viewed as extremist threats and support for Trump and the Second Amendment were deemed reasons to review an employee’s security clearance.

In his book “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel argues that a thorough “house cleaning” of FBI leadership is the key to resetting the agency and unleashing the skills of its rank-and-file agents. “I regularly used to tell people that the fastest way to move up in the government is to just screw up, and the bigger the screwup, the bigger the promotion,” he wrote. “Every person implicated in your mistakes has an interest in covering up what they did, so they will promote you. That means the people at the very top are usually the most immoral, unethical people in the entire agency.” But he also has made clear that his disdain for the bureau’s current leadership is matched by a similar respect for the capabilities and patriotism of rank-and-file agents, recently shouting them out recently for uncovering an Afghan national’s plot to commit a terror attack on Election Day.

“That’s to the credit of the everyday men and women of the FBI, DOD and DOJ, not the leadership that has corrupted those institutions,” he said in October. Over the last two years in interviews with Just the News, Patel has laid out several ideas for fixing the FBI, including:
• Canceling plans for an expensive new FBI headquarters and turning the current headquarters into a “museum for the Deep State.”
• Moving leaders out of Washington and into the field closer to the people they serve
• Shrinking components of the FBI that have little public benefit; and
• Holding accountable those officials responsible for the politicization of prior investigations, including termination and prosecutions.

“The folks in power at the FBI and the IC (intelligence community) making these leadership decisions are terrified that their corruption. not the Bidens, and certainly not Donald Trump, but their corruption in government in senior positions will be exposed and subject to law enforcement,” he told Just the News earlier this year. Patel’s book and his ideas for ending politicized law enforcement were a major factor in Trump’s decision to name him his the next FBI director. Currently, the job is held by Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed in 2017, and it includes a 10-year-old term. But it is widely expected Trump will either fire Wray or he will resign. “Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and America First fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” the president-elect said in a statement on TruthSocial announcing Patel as the next FBI director. “He played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.”

Conservatives hailed Patel’s pick. “Kash was INSTRUMENTAL in President Trump’s first term and will be EVEN GREATER in his second!” Rep. Ronnie Jackson, R-Texas, a former White House physician, wrote on X. “Time to clean this place up, and Kash is the man to do it!!! MAGA!” Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who presided over the now-discredited Russia collusion probe and later was fired, expressed doom for his former agency and said Patel’s selection was “a plan to disrupt, to dismantle, to distract the FBI.” Many legacy media suggested Patel got the nomination because he was a “loyalist” to Trump. But the 44-year-old son of Indian immigrants has an extensive government resume, including working on both sides of the judicial system as a federal public defender and a national security prosecutor before he joined the House Intelligence Committee.

In the first Trump administration, Patel served as a counterterrorism official on the National Security Council where he helped oversee the drone strike against an Iranian general accused of decades of terrorism and then as chief of staff to the Acting Secretary of the Pentagon.

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How cynical does it get?

“[Our] most important weapon is our people,” Zelensky said..”

Ukraine’s Military Dead ‘Have Already Won’ – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainians who have died in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev “have already won,” Vladimir Zelensky claimed in an interview with Sky News released this week. Those sacrifices enabled Kiev to secure aid from its Western backers and eventually prevent Moscow from achieving its goals, according to the Ukrainian leader. When asked by Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay if he believed that those Ukrainians who had died throughout the conflict had given their lives for nothing, Zelensky said “it was wrong” to think so. “They are already winners,” he added. “Our people did not give their lives for nothing,” the Ukrainian leader said, adding that they “performed not only their personal but also constitutional duty to defend their country.”

He then went on to claim that “had Ukrainians not … sacrificed their lives and their comfort” back in February 2022, when Russia launched its military campaign against Ukraine, the country would have quickly yielded to Russia. “No one would have helped us then,” he said, apparently referring to Kiev’s Western backers. The Ukrainian leader also admitted that if Kiev loses the support of the US and its allies, it “will lose everything.” “[Our] most important weapon is our people,” Zelensky said. The Ukrainian leader also slammed those world leaders who are willing to talk to Moscow. He claimed they were only doing it for international fame as they “want to get on the front pages in the media.” Zelensky compared talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin to “opening Pandora’s box,” which could undermine the Western unity behind Kiev’s cause.

According to Zelensky, some world leaders are “afraid” of Putin. “When they are afraid, they start to communicate with their societies and divide their societies,” he said. The Ukrainian leader referred to Russia’s president as “an animal without any human values that we share.” He also claimed that Ukraine should be “at the same level” with Russia in terms of power or even “stronger” for peace talks to start in earnest. Zelensky then also demanded that Kiev’s backers adopt a “one voice policy” spearheaded by Ukraine when it comes to the conflict.

Zelensky also said that Kiev could agree to “end the hot phase of the war” without trying to take back former territories that officially joined Russia following a series of referendums in the fall of 2022. He still maintained that this would only be possible if the territories still under Kiev’s control are “invited” to join NATO and the US-led bloc recognizes Kiev’s territorial claims. Moscow has repeatedly stated throughout the conflict that it is ready for peace talks and would like to resolve all differences diplomatically. It has also consistently warned that it would never agree to Ukraine joining NATO and named the US-led bloc’s expansion eastward as among the root causes of the conflict.

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“..these draftees include the blind, the deaf, and the mentally handicapped..”

Ukrainian Military Desertions Skyrocket – FT (RT)

More than twice as many Ukrainian soldiers have been charged with desertion this year than in 2022 and 2023 combined, the Financial Times has reported. The spike in desertions has hampered Kiev’s ability to replenish its thinned-out ranks. Ukrainian prosecutors opened 60,000 cases against deserters between January and October of this year, the British newspaper reported on Saturday, noting that those convicted face prison terms of up to 12 years. For some of these men, desertion is seen as the only way of getting off the front lines to rest. Ukrainian lawmakers dropped a provision from a bill earlier this year that would have allowed the country’s longest-serving conscripts to be demobilized in the coming months, and service members told the Financial Times that the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) lacks the manpower to give troops shorter four-week rotations off the front lines for rest and retraining.

”They’re just killing them, instead of letting them rehabilitate and rest,” one officer told the newspaper. Those killed are replaced by ill-trained and unfit draftees. In an earlier article, Ukrainian commanders told the Financial Times that on some busy sectors of the front, 50 to 70% of these new conscripts are killed or wounded within days of starting their first rotation. Those who survive often go AWOL as soon as they can, the newspaper reported. Some choose to desert while at training camps in NATO countries. An anonymous Polish security source told the Financial Times that around 12 Ukrainian men abscond from training centers in Poland every month. Earlier this week, a Ukrainian MP told the Associated Press that as many as 200,000 soldiers may have deserted since the conflict with Russia escalated in 2022.

There are around 350,000 active-duty soldiers in the UAF, although heavy losses – more than half a million since February 2022, according to the Russian Defense Ministry – have seen the country’s longest-serving soldiers replaced first by almost a dozen NATO-trained divisions, and then, after these divisions were chewed up during last year’s disastrous counteroffensive, by unwilling conscripts. Press-ganged off the streets and dragged out of nightclubs to serve, these draftees include the blind, the deaf, and the mentally handicapped, according to recent media reports and testimony from Ukrainian lawmakers.

”Men who are the right age for the military draft are scared to walk freely in the street,” one draft-dodger told The Telegraph earlier this week. A recruiter concurred, telling the newspaper that approaching a potential conscript is often “like dealing with a cornered rat.” The UAF is seeking to recruit around 160,000 new soldiers in the coming months. To reach this target, the US has begun pushing the Ukrainian government to lower the minimum draft age to 18, down from 25, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

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On Russia’s doorstep.

Norway To Open New Arctic Warfare Base (RT)

Norway plans to establish a new NATO Arctic and amphibious warfare center where US, British, and Dutch marines will be trained amid heightened tensions with Russia, the Defense Ministry in Oslo announced on Friday. The new hub will be created in the municipality of Sorreisa north of Lofoten in Norway’s Arctic, some several hundred kilometers, as the crow flies, from Russia’s strategic port of Murmansk, which is a key military and naval base. The NATO member’s facility will house several hundred soldiers and is expected to become fully operational in 2026. “We must train together to be able to defend Norway, the Nordic countries and NATO in crisis and war,” Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram said, adding that his country is now “in a more serious security policy situation.”

“We want an increased allied presence in Norway. More training and practice is good for Norwegian security. We need allies to be familiar with the Norwegian climate and weather conditions. We also need to practice together in case the need arises. So this is a desirable development,” he stated. The new center will have close links with several nearby military facilities, which the minister claimed will be extremely useful for NATO. The announcement comes after the Norwegian government presented a plan this spring for a historic increase in defense spending, with the aim of spending $54 billion on the military from 2024 to 2036.

As part of the package, Oslo also wants to acquire its first long-range air defense system and expand the army from one to three brigades, while boosting the size of the Home Guard to 45,000 troops. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signaled this September that Moscow will check NATO’s expansionist ambitions in the region. “We see how NATO is stepping up exercises related to possible crises in the Arctic. Our country is fully prepared to defend its interests in military, political and military-technical terms,” he said at the time.

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“..then again, there are people in the Biden regime who dislike Netanyahu personally and may want to see him weakened..”

‘Netanyahu Needs War’, Can’t Be Trusted to Stick to Lebanon Ceasefire (Sp.)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced this week that he’s ordered the military to prepare for the resumption of an “intensive war” in Lebanon if Hezbollah violated the freshly-reached ceasefire deal. Sputnik asked one of the Middle East’s most prolific international affairs observers what this could mean for the region. “Netanyahu needs war, and he only accepted a ceasefire under a great deal of pressure. So no one has faith in the Israelis. The Israelis have always violated commitments,” political analyst and Tehran University Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi told Sputnik, commenting on the Israeli PM’s threats to resume the Lebanon conflict. “After all, [Israel] is carrying out a holocaust in Gaza, a regime that carries out the holocaust and continues to do so in front of the eyes of the world after 14 months is not a regime that can be trusted for anything,” Marandi said.

Linking the Lebanon ceasefire to the crisis in neighboring Syria, where jihadist militants attacked the strategic city of Aleppo this week, Marandi characterized Netanyahu’s threats, combined with the terrorist advance, as attempts to pressure the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance anti-US, anti-Israel alliance, but assured that in the end the terrorists will be pushed back in the north and Israel kept at bay in the south. It’s highly likely that the regional forces looking to destabilize Syria “would like to see a breakdown of the ceasefire so that [their] al-Qaeda*-affiliated terrorists in the north could have a better chance of making progress,” Marandi suggested.

“It is a complicated situation and we’ll have to see how things play out. The United States is in a transition period. The Biden regime is escalating in Ukraine obviously, there are definitely elements within the Biden regime that would like to see escalation on the Lebanese border. But then again, there are people in the Biden regime who dislike Netanyahu personally and may want to see him weakened. And Trump himself also wants to see the fighting stopped before he comes to power. So we’ll have to see how things play out,” the veteran observer summed up.

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“We are ruled by the interest groups that purchase the government. Until the money is taken out of politics, American democracy will remain a sham, and the Constitution will die the death of a thousand cuts.”

The Return of Status-based Law (Paul Craig Roberts)

In this episode of On Target, Larry Sparano and I discuss the assault on the Constitution by the Speaker of the House, Majority Leader of the Senate, and president-elect Donald Trump. The assault weapon is the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which has already passed the Republican House. Senator Schumer is attempting to avoid a stand alone vote on the Act by attaching it to the defense appropriations bill. That way the senators can say they voted for the defense bill and not against the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Antisemitism Awareness Act is the Israel Lobby’s response to the university protests against Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians. The bill conflates Israel with Jews, defines Jews as “protected persons,” and removes accreditation and federal financial support from universities that fail to prevent student protests against Israel and Jews in general.

In effect it prohibits criticism of Jews. Criticism is undefined. In practice it will include anything to which Jews object. The Act is a violation of the 14th Amendment which requires equal protection of the law. The Antisemitism Awareness Act creates status-based privileges for a specific group that are denied to others. The Act also violates the 1st Amendment’s protection of free speech. So, why did the Republican Speaker of the House have the House of Representatives vote against the US Constitution? Why is the Democrat Senate Majority Leader trying to have the Act passed by attaching it to a defense bill? Why did Trump say that universities that permit protests of Israel’s murderous behavior should lose their accreditation and federal aid? Why is preventing criticism of Jews more important than the US Constitution?

The supporters of the Act have not said why only Jews among the many diverse peoples of the world are to be given the special privilege of immunity from criticism. It will be OK to criticize, Americans, Europeans, Asians, Arabs, Africans, Hispanics, but not Jews. In addition to the obvious unconstitutional content of the Act, there is an unacknowledged problem. What about Jews who criticize Israel? There are many of them. There are Israelis who protest the murderous policies of Netanyahu. Also, many US university presidents are Jews. How can they be punished by an Act that prohibits criticism of Jews? Punishment itself is an act of criticism. What happens when it is Jewish students and faculty who protest against Israel?

The House of Representatives’ vote against the US Constitution demonstrates the power of campaign donations. A member of Congress has to give the Israel Lobby what it wants or the money goes to one’s opponent. The same is true in the case of many other interest groups. Go against the military/security complex, Big Pharma, the financial lobby, and so forth, and the campaign money goes to your opponent. The realities of political campaign finance is the reason the people’s elected representatives cannot represent the people. They have to represent the interest groups that provide the funds that get them elected. American democracy is a sham. We are ruled by the interest groups that purchase the government. Until the money is taken out of politics, American democracy will remain a sham, and the Constitution will die the death of a thousand cuts.

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Trump owns Trudy.

Trudeau Bends The Knee To Trump At Mar-a-Lago (MN)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Was pictured meeting with president-elect Trump and his team at Mar-a-Lago over Thanksgiving, as it emerged that he has made an agreement to crack down on drug trafficking. The meeting came following Trump’s announcement of a 25% tariff on all products coming from Mexico and Canada until they agree to secure their borders. In a Truth Social post earlier this week, Trump wrote “On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders.” “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” Trump added.

He continued, “Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem. We hereby demand that they use this power, and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!” Fast forward four days and Trudeau was seen sitting with Trump, Elon Musk, and the rest of his team. In a further post after the meeting, Trump explained, “I just had a very productive meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, where we discussed many important topics that will require both Countries to work together to address, like the Fentanyl and Drug Crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of Illegal Immigration, Fair Trade Deals that do not jeopardize American Workers, and the massive Trade Deficit the U.S. has with Canada.”

“I made it very clear that the United States will no longer sit idly by as our Citizens become victims to the scourge of this Drug Epidemic, caused mainly by the Drug Cartels, and Fentanyl pouring in from China. Too much death and hardship!” Trump continued. “Prime Minister Trudeau has made a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devastation of U.S. Families,” Trump further added, noting “We also spoke about many other important topics like Energy, Trade, and the Arctic. All are vital issues that I will be addressing on my first days back in Office, and before.”

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Certainly looks that way.

Sebastian Gorka: British Intelligence Asset? (Grayzone)

Sebastian Gorka’s involvement with British intelligence cost him a security clearance in Hungary. His longtime mentor is a UK spook currently engaged in covert operations against Russia. Is the Ukraine hawk and Trump counter-terror appointee operating on London time. After years in the wilderness of right-wing radio, where he flamboyantly proclaimed his loyalty to president-elect Donald Trump for years, Sebastian Gorka has finally found his way back into Trump’s inner circle, earning an appointment as incoming White House counter-terror advisor. Gorka served as Trump’s deputy assistant advisor on national security issues for eight months in 2017, storming out of his job with a petulant resignation letter that blamed “forces” within the administration that did not support Trump’s “MAGA promise.”

During his brief tenure in the White House, Gorka, a London-born immigrant, was credited with masterminding the President’s so-called “Muslim ban,” which refused admission to the US for citizens of countries identified as national security threats. While Democrats have hammered Gorka as “a far-right extremist” and MAGA sycophant, he has stood out as a voice of Biden foreign policy continuity within Trumpworld, pledging further aggression against Russia and even greater military aid to Kiev. During a November 23 interview, for example, Gorka promised that “the aid that we have given to Ukraine thus far will look like peanuts” if “the murderous KGB colonel” Vladimir Putin does not obey Trump’s dictates. Gorka’s full origin story explains why his views on the Ukraine proxy war track more closely with those of the anti-Trump turncoat John Bolton than incoming Vice President J.D. Vance, who has vowed to negotiate an end to the conflict.

As this investigation will demonstrate, the mindset of the Transatlantic policy operative was molded primarily through his intimate involvement in British intelligence circles—not his role within the America First movement. The son of an anti-communist Hungarian exile, Gorka joined a British Army intelligence unit while still in university. When he entered the world of national security studies, he learned at the knee of a notoriously conniving British military intelligence officer named Chris Donnelly, who has dedicated his career to instigating conflict with Russia, and was exposed by The Grayzone as an architect of the notorious Kerch Bridge bombing. Donnelly personally endorsed Gorka’s PhD thesis, granting him the imprimatur of a top intelligence officer in the British Ministry of Defence. The relationship fueled Gorka’s career within the burgeoning Atlanticist military infrastructure, yet ultimately cost him security clearance in his family’s native Hungary, where the country’s National Security Office suspected him of being a UK spy.

Soon after Gorka resigned from the first Trump administration, leaked documents exposed Donnelly as the founder of a secret, UK state-funded influence operation called the Integrity Initiative, which was aimed at drumming up war with Russia through a covert international propaganda network. A 2017 funding proposal submitted by the Integrity Initiative to the British Ministry of Defence promised to deliver a “tougher stance on Russia” by arranging for “more information published in the media on the threat of Russian active measures.” When Donnelly visited Washington in 2018 to expand his secret initiative, the first item on his agenda was breakfast with Gorka. To this day, Gorka refuses to discuss the meeting, or any aspect of his relationship with Donnelly, erupting with rage at reporters who have dared to inquire about the long friendship.

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“..Section 230 only confers benefits on Big Tech companies when they operate, in the words of the statute, “in good faith.” “The censorship cartel must be dismantled..”

Incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Prepares For Censorship Battle (ZH)

Until the internet came along, pumping government propaganda into American homes was like shooting fish in a barrel. As a constellation of alternative media websites such as ZeroHedge emerged, however, the ability to shape narratives and steer the national dialogue quickly eroded. In order to regain control – particularly in the Trump-era, the government has been colluding with Big Tech, partisan ‘fact checkers,’ and an aptly named ‘advertising cartel’ to censor, de-monetize, and otherwise silence divergent opinions – particularly those which shed light on things like government malfeasance, bullshit wars, and cronyism. Incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is getting ready to level the playing field.

Carr, a veteran Republican regulator who has echoed President-elect Trump’s promises to punish political bias within the national media complex, has argued that the agency should also regulate Big Tech – including Apple, Meta, Google and Microsoft. And in a Sunday interview with Fox News, Carr outlined the road ahead… “Combatting tech censorship is going to be one of the top priorities for me,” said Carr, adding “We need to restore Americans’ right to free speech… you mentioned Facebook and other companies. They’ve been part of a censorship cartel that has worked with advertisers, they’ve worked with government officials, to censor the free speech rights of everyday Americans. That’s gotta end.” “America is a country of founders, people who have pushed frontiers. When you silence speech, you silence ideas. Instead, we need to unleash prosperity, again.”

In a November letter, Carr accused several Big Tech companies of having “participated in a censorship cartel that included not only technology and social media companies but advertising, marketing, and so-called “fact-checking” organizations as well as the Biden-Harris Administration itself.” “The relevant conduct extended from removing or blocking social media posts to suppress their information and viewpoints, including through efforts to delist them, lower their rankings, or harm their profitability.” Carr then suggested that their protection from liability under Section 230 may be on the line. “As you know, Big Tech’s prized liability shield, Section 230, is codified in the Communications Act, which the FCC administers. As relevant here, Section 230 only confers benefits on Big Tech companies when they operate, in the words of the statute, “in good faith.” “The censorship cartel must be dismantled,” Carr said in a November post on X.

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“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

Why Does The West Believe It Occupies The High Moral Ground? (Diesen)

For almost three years, NATO countries have boycotted diplomatic contact with Russia, even as hundreds of thousands of men die on the Ukraine conflict’s battlefield. The decision to reject diplomacy is morally repugnant. Diplomacy could have reduced violence, prevented escalation, and even opened a path to peace. Instead, political and media elites skillfully presented this rejection as a sign of moral righteousness, labeling dialogue as treason and war as virtuous. To exhaust Russia in a long war, the goal was to ensure that the Russians and Ukrainians kill each other for as long as possible. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin outlined the US objective in the Ukraine War as weakening its strategic adversary: “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

In late March 2022, Vladimir Zelensky revealed in an interview with The Economist: “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives.” The aim has been to exhaust Russia in a protracted conflict, ensuring that Russians and Ukrainians continue killing each other for as long as possible. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin outlined the objective: “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

Israeli and Turkish mediators confirmed that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a peace deal in Istanbul, where Russia would withdraw and Ukraine would restore its neutrality. Yet the West rejected this. The goal wasn’t peace — it was to bleed Russia through its proxy army in Ukraine. Both Germany and France have admitted that the Minsk Peace Agreement was never meant to be implemented, but used as a vehicle to build up Ukraine’s military. The Turkish Foreign Minister and former Israeli Prime Minister have both acknowledged that NATO states actively wanted the war to continue. Former NATO figures, such as retired General Harald Kujat, have said the war was deliberately provoked by NATO, with the US and UK blocking peace efforts to weaken Russia politically, economically, and militarily.

US lawmakers, such as Lindsey Graham, have been openly supportive of fighting Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” They argue that assisting Ukraine without risking American lives is a smart investment in weakening Russia. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell called it an investment in America’s national security, and Mitt Romney called financing the war “the best defense spending ever.” These statements underscore the growing sentiment in the West that the war is a proxy battle where Ukraine is expendable, serving merely as a tool to diminish Russia. NATO’s leadership, including Jens Stoltenberg, has stated that a “victory” for Ukraine would result in a battle-hardened Ukrainian army on the West’s side, with a weakened Russia.

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No.

The Failure of COP29: Does the “Green Agenda” Have A Future? (Machado)

Following the conclusion of the multilateral climate conference COP29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, the atmosphere is one of defeat. Nearly an entire week of speeches and endless meetings did not suffice to reach a reasonable consensus on a series of practical measures that had been anticipated. Specifically, the debate on funding climate policies sank. The so-called “developing countries” had expected an annual grant policy exceeding $1 trillion for energy transition and climate change mitigation policies, but only $300 billion per year will be allocated—optimistically. Moreover, this sum will not necessarily be in the form of grants but may include loans and other financing mechanisms that bring interest and debt. India denounced the final result of COP29, supported by Bolivia, Cuba, and Nigeria, as a farce and an insult from developed countries to developing nations.

This financing debate will now be deferred to COP30, scheduled to take place in Brazil in 2025. However, the chances of COP30 succeeding where COP29 failed seem very slim. While climate alarmism and eco-globalism are now part of Brazil’s official ideology, in the rest of the world, these postmodern beliefs are losing momentum. Take, for example, the reasons why expanding funding for the “Green Agenda” has been impossible in “developed countries.” Observing European governments’ behavior since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, one can see increasing difficulty in advancing energy transition and net-zero carbon policies. Germany, for instance, was once one of the main drivers of climate alarmism worldwide, even closing its nuclear power plants “for the environment” (despite nuclear plants being far less polluting than most other energy sources).

Yet today, facing an energy crisis caused by the NordStream’s destruction, Germany is reopening its coal-fired power plants. Sweden, long a leader in international climate activism, has reversed many of its previous environmental measures. The Ministry of the Environment has been dismantled, and the government now prioritizes ensuring cheap fuel. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the previous administration of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suspended the ban on diesel car sales and decided to stop promoting the replacement of gas heaters. Similar examples can be found in several other countries. Clearly, sanctions and the NordStream’s destruction have made Europe’s energy situation difficult enough to raise living costs, convincing European governments to roll back at least some environmental measures and dampen their enthusiasm for promoting global climate alarmism.

This retreat by European nations will be compounded by the fact that, starting in 2025, the United States will likely be governed by Donald Trump, who holds a critical stance toward climate alarmism and promises to intensify fracking for hydrocarbon extraction in the country. This is corroborated by the nominations of Chris Wright as Secretary of Energy and Lee Zeldin to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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Plimer

 

 

1 million

 

 

Frens
https://twitter.com/i/status/1862869429555769795

 

 

 

 

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Oct 262024
 


Joseph Mallord William Turner The Sun Rising over Water 1825-30

 

WaPo Bails On Kamala – Won’t Make Presidential Endorsement (ZH)
Preparing for the Steal (TON)
Hillary Clinton: Trump Is Reenacting 1939 Madison Square Garden Nazi Rally (MN)
Elon Musk Makes Major Donations To Help Republicans Take Back The Senate (JTN)
‘Secret Putin-Musk Calls” Claim By WSJ Dismissed By Kremlin (RT)
Trump Requests Dismissal Of January 6 Case Over Jack Smith’s Appointment (JTN)
Trump Open To Pardoning Hunter Biden (RT)
Projected Trump Victory Driving Demand For Dollars – Standard Chartered (RT)
Arizona Officials: Nearly 2 Weeks to Tabulate 2024 Election in Maricopa (ET)
Judge Rules Bill Gates Must Face Vaccine-Injured in Dutch Court (Nevradakis)
West Has Self-Isolated and Condemned Itself to Irrelevance – Doctorow (Sp.)
BRICS+, What’s Next? (Pacini)
UK Military ‘Not Ready To Fight’ – Defense Secretary (RT)
British Government’s Investigation Of Novichok Is Poisoning Itself (Helmer)
UK Snubs Council of Europe Over Assange Inquiry (DC.UK)
This Is an Extermination’ (Muaddi)
Kill Them All: Israel’s Extermination Of Palestinians In Gaza (Cradle)

 

 


Kirzhach Typography BRICS banknote design

 

 

Beck Rogan

 

 

Full 3 hour interview.

 

 

O’Leary

Vivek

Tulsi

Mika

Atlantic

Hillary
https://twitter.com/i/status/1849679481620865142

Elon nazism

Nordstream
https://twitter.com/i/status/1849701546683990305

 

 

 

 

It’s Bezos of course. Doesn’t want to be on the losing side. “..for the first time in 36 years. “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates..”

WaPo Bails On Kamala – Won’t Make Presidential Endorsement (ZH)

Three weeks ago, the Teamsters Union became the second major union to announce that they would not endorse a presidential candidate after internal polling revealed 58% of its members back Trump vs. 31% for Harris. That was understandable – their own members overwhelmingly rejected Harris. This is different. On Friday, the Washington Post announced that it would not endorse a candidate for president either, for the first time in 36 years. “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” the outlet said in a statement. Colleagues are said to be ‘shocked’ at the decision, according to NPR.

The editorial page editor, David Shipley, told colleagues that the Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, would publish a note to readers online early Friday afternoon. Shipley told colleagues the editorial board was told yesterday by management that there would not be an endorsement. He added that he “owns” this decision. The reason he cited was to create “independent space” where the newspaper does not tell people for whom to vote. Colleagues were said to be “shocked” and uniformly negative. Post corporate spokespeople have not responded to multiple messages left by NPR on the subject. As NPR’s David Folkenflik notes on X, “It is not clear whether Post owner Jeff Bezos or Publisher/CEO Will Lewis made the call.” The move comes after the Los Angeles Times similarly declined to endorse Harris – leading to the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor, Marzel Garza.

Read more …

“..a hand count of all ballots [..] could create chaos and confusion on Election Day..”

Preparing for the Steal (TON)

Georgia, the site of massive election misinformation, questionable results, incomplete audits and a mysterious come-from-behind razor-thin win by Joe Biden in 2020, appears to be at it again. Or perhaps we should say Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is at it again. Kylie Jane Kremer brought the matter to our attention through a series of posts on X. As Kremer notes, “Raffensperger sent an email, in a private capacity, that went to a list of trial lawyers across Georgia soliciting $5 million by November 1st to help in his effort for a 501(c)4 called “Election Defense Fund”, asking lawyers to donate or contact him via his private gmail account & personal cell phone number.” In the email, Raffensperger claimed that “Election deniers and conspiracy theorists have taken their anger to new levels, employing a variety of tactics including intimidation, legal challenges, and rule changes.

“In Georgia they have threatened, harassed, and sued election officials. And as you know, most recently the Georgia State Election Board was taken over by three individuals who have pledged to put partisanship over sworn duty.” Raffensperger appears to be referring to (and trying to intimidate) the three Republican members of Georgia’s five -person State Election Board, Dr. Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King. Raffensperger also appears to be attempting to intimidate and silence anyone who might challenge the outcome of Georgia’s 2024 presidential election. On September 20th, Johnston, Jeffares and King voted in favor of requiring a hand count of all ballots to ensure that the number of physical ballots equaled the machine count total at the precinct level. This new rule was opposed by Georgia state elections officials, including Raffensperger, who said it could create chaos and confusion on Election Day.

In advance of the vote by the State Election Board, Raffensperger issued a formal statement, claiming that “Activists seeking to impose last-minute changes in election procedures outside of the legislative process undermine voter confidence and burden election workers… misguided attempts by the State Election Board will delay election results and undermine chain of custody safeguards. Georgia voters reject this 11th hour chaos, and so should the unelected members of the State Election Board.” If you find it odd that Raffensperger would refer to his three fellow Republicans as “activists” while he worked to thwart common-sense changes that would dramatically increase the security of Georgia’s 2024 election, you’re not alone.

Raffensperger was apparently so concerned that he rushed to CNN-affiliate WSB, breathlessly claiming that “the State Election Board wants to take us back in time. I guess what they want is to see elections take until 3 a.m. like in Detroit, Michigan. We don’t want to do that in Georgia. Not on my watch.” Although the move by the three Georgia Republicans had the support of President Trump, lawsuits were immediately filed – and on October 16th a Georgia court blocked the rule changes, inexplicably declaring that they were “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”

Read more …

Are they sychronizing these claims?

Hillary Clinton: Trump Is Reenacting 1939 Madison Square Garden Nazi Rally (MN)

Bitter presidential loser Hillary Clinton has claimed that Donald Trump is purposefully reenacting a 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. Appearing on CNN, Hillary stated “One other thing that you‘ll see next week is Trump actually re-enacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939.” “I write about this in my book,” she added, hawking her turgid scribe. “President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazi fascists in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany,” Hillary declared. So basically she’s saying that everyone who goes to Trump rallies is a nazi because she disagrees with their politics.

This stuff doesn’t work on anyone anymore. It actually just helps Trump now. Every time they say this, it exposes them. As we previously highlighted, a New York State Senator attempted to get the event at Madison Square Garden shut down, also equating it to the infamous Nazi rally. Democrats bravely defending democracy again by attempting to shut down the free speech of a major political party’s presidential nominee. The Senator claimed that the Trump event will “incite violence” and demanded (his actual words) that the venue cancel it to “keep our city safe.”

Read more …

At Polymarket, the Senate looks in the bag. The House, not so much.

Elon Musk Makes Major Donations To Help Republicans Take Back The Senate (JTN)

Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk has made multi-million dollar donations to help Republicans win back the Senate in November, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday. Musk has emerged as a major voice for conservatives this election cycle, having aligned himself closely with former President Donald Trump. Musk, who purchased X (formerly Twitter) in 2022, gave Trump his social media account back shortly after buying it, and endorsed the former president in August. The multi-billionaire donated $10 million to the Senate Leadership Fund on Oct 1, according to Politico, and $2.4 million to The Sentinel Action Fund, which is a super Political Action Committee (PAC) that has been promoting several GOP Senate candidates. The Senate Leadership Fund is connected to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Republicans are hoping to keep control of the House and win back the Senate next month. They only need to flip two Senate seats in order to win the upper chamber. Musk also gave $300,000 to a group connected to the National Republican Congressional Committee in August. The money comes as the tech CEO builds his own super PAC called “America PAC,” which has devoted its resources on canvassing operations for Trump. Musk has poured $75 million into the PAC. Musk is worth an estimated $269 billion as of Thursday, according to Forbes. The bulk of his finances comes from Tesla, where he owns 13% of the shares. But he also owns a good share of SpaceX, which is worth over $200 billion.

Read more …

Another weird story.

‘Secret Putin-Musk Calls” Claim By WSJ Dismissed By Kremlin (RT)

A article in the Wall Street Journal alleging that Elon Musk has secretly made contact with Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials is untrue and is most likely linked to the entrepreneur’s involvement in the US presidential election, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. The American billionaire and the Russian president had a single phone call before the Ukraine conflict escalated into full-blown hostilities in February 2022, Peskov told journalists, repeating what he had told the WSJ. ”Most likely, it’s just disinformation in the extremely confrontational electoral political fight [in the US]. The race is in its final phase, and the opponents do not shy away from anything,” the official suggested. The WSJ piece published on Thursday, mostly detailed Musk’s role as a private contractor for the US military and national security state, his stance on the Ukraine conflict and support for the Trump reelection campaign.

The newspaper claimed that the billionaire’s public statements about resolving the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, which he has been making since late 2022, “mirrored some aspects of the Kremlin’s” position. The article cites “current and former US, European and Russian officials” who allegedly claim the calls, “a closely held secret in government,” have taken place. Several White House officials also reportedly told the outlet they weren’t aware of such contacts. The only Russian source cited in the text is a “former intelligence officer briefed on the situation,” who claimed that late last year Putin asked Musk not to activate the Starlink satellite system in Taiwan as a favor to Beijing. Musk’s SpaceX has no license to provide internet services in Taiwan, the newspaper noted.

In addition to Putin, the report claims that Musk has also been in contact with former Russian Prime Minister Sergey Kirienko, who currently serves as deputy head of the presidential administration. The billionaire declined to comment on the allegations, the WSJ said. Just weeks ago, there were allegations that Trump had been secretly in touch with Putin, and now it is Musk, Peskov told reporters, referring to a book by US journalist Bob Woodward, in which he claims a source told him that since leaving office, the Republican politician has spoken to the Russian leader on multiple occasions. Trump and Putin have both denied the claim.

Read more …

“Trump’s lawyers claimed that Smith was appointed by Garland as a “private citizen.”

Trump Requests Dismissal Of January 6 Case Over Jack Smith’s Appointment (JTN)

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Thursday asked a judge to dismiss the January 6 case against him, arguing that special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed, according to The Hill. Smith was not confirmed by the Senate but was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. Smith has been leading two investigations into the former president, including a classified documents case that was dismissed earlier this year. However Smith is appealing the dismissal. The request was made to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., and centers around the same argument made in the classified documents case. Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that no legal statute gave Garland the authority to give Smith the amount of power he has as special counsel, and that the appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.

Trump’s lawyers claimed that Smith was appointed by Garland as a “private citizen.” “The proposed motion establishes that this unjust case was dead on arrival — unconstitutional even before its inception,” Trump’s attorneys wrote on Thursday. “Everything that Smith did since Attorney General Garland’s appointment, as President Trump continued his leading campaign against President Biden and then Vice President Harris, was unlawful and unconstitutional.” Trump is currently facing four charges in D.C., related to his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Smith has until Oct. 31 to file a response.

Read more …

Hunter must hope Trump wins: “[Joe Biden] is “not going to do anything” to help his son and has ruled out exonerating him”.

Trump Open To Pardoning Hunter Biden (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has stated that he might consider pardoning Hunter Biden if he is reelected in November. Hunter Biden was found guilty in June of three felonies in a federal gun trial, including lying about his use of illicit drugs when applying to purchase a firearm. Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, with his sentencing to be determined in a hearing scheduled for November. Last month, the 53-year-old also pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges, and potentially faces an additional 17 years in prison. Following the verdict, US President Joe Biden has said that he respected the judicial process and was “satisfied” that his son had received a fair trial. He also noted that he is “not going to do anything” to help his son and has ruled out exonerating him.

Speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, Trump was asked if he would pardon Hunter Biden. The former president replied by stating that he “wouldn’t take it off the books,” despite the US Justice Department initiating multiple legal challenges against him, which Trump has described as a form of retribution by his political opponents. Earlier this year, a Manhattan jury found the Republican candidate guilty on 34 felony counts related to alleged hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels and his role in the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riots. The former president recalled that unlike his opponents, he had refrained from prosecuting his rival Hillary Clinton following the 2016 election despite his supporters asking him to. “I could have gone after Hillary,” Trump said, noting that he ultimately decided against doing so because he thought it “would look terrible.”

Trump noted, however, that Hunter Biden has been “a bad boy” and that “all you had to do is see the laptop from hell.” At the same time, he pointed out that the whole story revolving around the US President’s son is “very bad for our country.” In 2020, the contents of Hunter Biden’s personal laptop, which he supposedly misplaced in a Delaware repair shop while high on crack, were leaked online, implicating the Biden family in multiple foreign corruption schemes. US intelligence officials have since tried to denounce the scandal as “Russian disinformation” despite the contents of the laptop having been verified as authentic.

Read more …

“The dollar has strengthened along with the rising probability of a Trump win in betting markets..”

Projected Trump Victory Driving Demand For Dollars – Standard Chartered (RT)

Increasing belief on the financial markets that Donald Trump will win the US presidential election next month has been strengthening the dollar, Bloomberg has reported, citing British multinational bank Standard Chartered. Recent polls suggest that the Republican and his Democratic rival, Vice-President Kamala Harris, are tied with less than two weeks to go before the election. According to the bank’s calculations however, 60% of the greenback’s gains in October are linked to growing wagers that the former president will win the November 5 vote, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. “The dollar has strengthened along with the rising probability of a Trump win in betting markets,” the outlet reported, citing a note by Steven Englander, head of global G-10 FX research at British multinational bank Standard Chartered.

Markets are pricing a 70% chance of a Trump win, added Englander. The world’s largest prediction platform, Polymarket, is attributing a near 64% probability that Trump will become the next US president. According to market research project PredictIt, Trump has a 58% chance of winning the election. The US national currency has risen by nearly 3% against the Euro in the past month, with Bloomberg reporting earlier that the greenback was on pace for its best month since 2022. While the election race has reportedly been the main driver for the dollar, other factors include the resilience of the US economy and a strong US jobs report from earlier this month, noted Bloomberg. Before the previous presidential election in 2020, markets expected that Joe Biden, rather than Trump, would win and offer fiscal stimulus. The expectations weakened the dollar in October of that year.

Read more …

Before you know it, people think this is normal.

Arizona Officials: Nearly 2 Weeks to Tabulate 2024 Election in Maricopa (ET)

Officials in Arizona’s most populous county warned on Oct. 22 that it may take between 10 and 13 days to tabulate the results of the Nov. 5 election. County officials are asking “for the community’s patience,” Maricopa County Deputy Elections Director Jennifer Liewer said in a press conference on Oct. 22. “This year, we do expect that it will take between 10 and 13 days to complete tabulation of all of the ballots that come in,” she said. “We want to make sure that this is a secure process, but we also want to make sure that it is an accurate process.” Assistant Maricopa County Manager Zach Schira said at the press conference, “If I have one message for voters here today, it is this: that the longer ballots and higher interest in this 2024 general election will create longer lines on Election Day, and that’s okay.” Schira said that if people want to avoid the long lines, they are advised to vote by mail or early in person.

Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates said the tabulation may take so long because the ballot is two pages, there are dozens of contests per ballot, and there is heightened interest in the presidential election. He said more than 2.1 million Maricopa voters are expected to cast their ballot for the Nov. 5 contest, noting that 400,000 people so far have voted. The “top message for voters” on Oct. 22 is “if you want to save time and avoid lines, vote early,” the county wrote on social media platform X. Voters have until Oct. 25 to request an early ballot, it noted. Early voting data compiled by the University of Florida show that Republicans have a 38,000-vote advantage in terms of early voting in Arizona. Only mail-in ballots have been returned so far, but the data show that 41.9 percent of early ballots have been submitted by Republicans, compared with 36.3 by Democrats. Independent or third-party voters make up about 21.8 percent of the total.

Arizona, considered a battleground state, is again expected to be a close race during the 2024 election. State election officials in 2020 certified the race in Arizona for Joe Biden over President Donald Trump by a margin of about 11,000 votes. In the aftermath of the 2020 contest, Trump and other Republicans alleged that Arizona’s election was marred by voter fraud, sparking a number of lawsuits against Arizona and Maricopa County officials that were all ultimately dismissed. For that election, county officials certified the results 17 days after Election Day, according to a statement issued on Nov. 20, 2020. A significant number of voters cast ballots early in person or by mail in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated stay-at-home and lockdown orders and rules.

Read more …

The case includes Bourla, but not Von der Leyen?!

Judge Rules Bill Gates Must Face Vaccine-Injured in Dutch Court (Nevradakis)

A Netherlands judge last week ruled that Bill Gates must face seven people injured by COVID-19 vaccines in court in the Netherlands. According to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the seven “corona skeptics” sued Gates last year, along with former Dutch prime minister and newly appointed NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and “several members” of the Dutch government’s COVID-19 “Outbreak Management Team.” Other defendants include Albert Bourla, Ph.D., CEO of Pfizer, and the Dutch state. “Because Bill Gates’ foundation was involved in combating the corona pandemic, he has also been summoned,” De Telegraaf reported. According to Dutch independent news outlet Zebra Inspiratie, the plaintiffs allege that Gates, through his representatives, deliberately misled them about the safety of the COVID-19 shots, despite knowing “that these injections were not safe and effective.”

Dutch independent journalist Erica Krikke told The Defender that the seven plaintiffs — whose names are redacted in the lawsuit’s publicly available documents — “are ordinary Dutch people, and they have been jabbed and after the jabs they got sick.” Krikke said that of the seven original plaintiffs, one has since died, leaving the other six plaintiffs to continue the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in the District Court of Leeuwarden. According to De Telegraaf, “Gates had objected because, according to him, the judges did not have jurisdiction.” Accordingly, the court first “had to rule in the so-called incident procedure,” De Andere Krant reported. Zebra Inspiratie reported that the hearing in this “incident procedure” took place on Sept. 18 and that Gates’ representatives disputed jurisdiction, but not the claim. According to De Andere Krant, Gates was represented by the Pels Rijcken law firm, based in The Hague, described as “the largest and the premier litigation law firm in the Netherlands.”

Gates did not appear at the Sept. 18 hearing, but attorneys for Gates argued that the court “had no jurisdiction over him because he lives in the United States.” However, in its Oct. 16 ruling, the Leeuwarden court ruled it does have jurisdiction over Gates. De Andere Krant reported that the court found “sufficient evidence” that the claims against Gates and the other defendants are “connected” and based on the same “complex of facts.” Other defendants who reside outside of the Netherlands, including Bourla, did not challenge the court’s jurisdiction. The court ruled Gates must pay attorneys’ fees and additional legal costs totaling 1,406 euros (approximately $1,520). A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 27. ‘Even if … your name is Bill Gates, you still have to go to court’ In remarks shared with De Andere Krant, Arno van Kessel, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, welcomed the ruling. “In its verdict, the court has clearly recorded the basis of our conclusions of claim,” van Kessel said.

Dutch attorney Meike Terhorst told The Defender it is “quite interesting” that the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in Leeuwarden instead of The Hague, where normally, all cases against the government related to COVID-19 are filed. “In general, COVID-19 court cases have been very unsuccessful in the Netherlands,” Terhorst said. “There is a slim chance it will be successful.” She added: “I think most judges support the COVID-19 vaccination agenda and will find it hard to believe the vaccinations have caused injuries. So, we have a long way to go, regardless of the case.” Krikke shared a more optimistic outlook, saying that the court sent a message that “even if you are rich and your name is Bill Gates, you still have to go to court.” New Zealand-based independent journalist Penny Marie, who has closely followed the proceedings in this case, told The Defender she hopes the Oct. 16 ruling “will hopefully set a precedent and help plaintiffs in similar cases around the world regarding jurisdiction,” in cases “where the defendant does not reside in the country of the plaintiff.”

“For parties who make claims against those involved in the implementation of the Great Reset and other international actions, such as the COVID-19 emergency response initiated by the WEF [World Economic Forum] and imposed on all U.N. member nations, I hope that this ruling provides an opportunity for others to follow suit,” Marie added. At the Sept. 18 hearing, plaintiffs also delivered statements. According to Zebra Inspiratie, “One of the victims, who is very ill, was also given the opportunity to make a plea. She was no longer able to speak and was represented by her father. It was an emotional plea.” Krikke said the plaintiff’s father told the court that his daughter, who was previously healthy, fell ill after getting the COVID-19 vaccine and could no longer speak, telling the judge that he “would really like to speak to Bill Gates directly” to ask him what happened to his daughter. “After that, the judge was really quiet,” Krikke said. The Oct. 18 ruling also addressed the plaintiffs’ claims about Gates’ role in the WEF’s “Great Reset” project.

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is also affiliated with the World Economic Forum … an international organization whose statutory objective is to unite ‘leaders from business, governments, academia and society at large into a global community committed to improving the state of the world,’” the ruling states, adding: “This is a project aimed at the total reorganization of societies in all countries that are members of the United Nations … as described by [WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab] in his book Covid-19: The Great Reset. … “Characteristic of this political ideology is that this forced and planned change is presented as justified by pretending that the world is suffering from major crises that can only be solved by centralized, hard global intervention. One of these pretended major crises concerns the Covid-19 pandemic.” The ruling also states, “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is affiliated with ‘Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance‘ … an international partnership in the field of vaccinations between various public and private entities.”

Read more …

“That day will come very early in 2025 if Trump wins on 5 November; it will come with a slight delay in 2025 if Harris wins..”

West Has Self-Isolated and Condemned Itself to Irrelevance – Doctorow (Sp.)

International relations analyst Gilbert Doctorow, in an interview with Sputnik, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s firm stance at the recent BRICS summit, highlighting Russia’s growing influence on the global stage despite Western efforts to isolate the country. Doctorow pointed out that the success of the summit, which brought together nations representing nearly half of the world’s population, demonstrates Russia’s strong global posture and the failure of anti-Russian sanctions. “Because of the important guests, numbering more than 25 heads of government, it has been impossible for major media in the West to ignore BRICS and Russia,” Doctorow said, noting how this undermines the narrative of Russia’s supposed isolation. The analyst further speculated how Russia leveraged its BRICS presidency to advance innovative goals, such as establishing commodity exchanges and a reinsurance pool, positioning the country as a constructive leader.

Doctorow emphasized that these achievements send a clear message: “Russia is not isolated; on the contrary, the Collective West has self-isolated and condemned itself to irrelevance.” “The BRICS message of a multipolar world, of respect for the sovereignty and unique cultures of each nation will surely have an impact on Europeans’ perception of Russia and of themselves,” Doctorow added, stressing the long-term significance of BRICS in shaping global politics. The analyst also predicted the Ukraine crisis will conclude in 2025, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election. “This will be all the more the case when the United States puts an end to the Ukraine war by withdrawing its financial and military assistance to Kiev. That day will come very early in 2025 if Trump wins on 5 November; it will come with a slight delay in 2025 if Harris wins because Congress will resist any further appropriations to Kiev,” Doctorow speculated.

Isolated

Read more …

“This is waging information warfare.”

BRICS+, What’s Next? (Pacini)

The hype created for BRICS during this year has surpassed that for the U.S. elections, the outcome of which now will not be as binding as before. This is a fact. When 2024 opened, many were concerned about the great risks involved, having as many as 76 countries in the world in election session, with the U.S. dominating. The rhetoric of the hegemon, however, no longer works as it used to. Until a few years ago, everything that happened in the U.S. was of global interest, the press was ready to devote front pages and social media was filled with dedicated content, while financial markets went crazy at the slightest sign of instability or danger. Everyone was hanging on Lady USA’s every word. That is no longer the case today. One of the great successes in the infowarfare undertaken by the BRICS countries under Russia’s presidency is to have ousted America from its media centrality. Or, rather, at the center it has remained only in vassal countries, such as Europe or the Commonwealth.

But the rest of the world is no longer so interested, and the rest of the world is the majority of the world. This is a detail that needs more attention. True, the U.S. alone has a great deal of power, certainly greater than a great many other states; but the geometries of power vary cyclically, as History teaches us, and all empires sooner or later must come to terms with their denouement. The strategy undertaken, hand in hand with the geo-economic strategy, meant that the media attention of the “rest of the world” was tuned to facts and events that concerned the rest of the world, no longer the Hegemon. There’s a rest of the world, indeed, there is the world and the United States, and the West. The world is no longer “the West” to which “the rest” is added. The perspective has changed. In the media language it was a small semantic revolution whose echo will be ever greater.

The primary effect was a kind of disorientation, because people were not used to emphasizing news from certain areas of the planet. Nor was there sufficient training to do so. So it was that the BRICS countries first launched a series of national platforms for analysis and dissemination of information, and then started a BRICS-branded information apparatus, which was already very detailed, widespread and accurate, providing for the technical training of professionals. It was a matter of having to teach how to tell the world without being seduced by the mythological sirens of the Atlantic. The side effect is that a new generation of experts is on the horizon of a world to be described with different eyes, and as is well known, the main power of the mass media is to tell the world, that is, to give an image of it, describe it, create thought forms of what the world is and how to imagine it for the future.

The result we can say has been positive: in the countries of the multipolar world there is no longer the “America first” rule, and come the end of October there is no need to talk about the U.S. elections as the event of the year. On the other hand, one is aware that Harris or Trump, the problem of the U.S. remains the same, and in any case, neither competitor has any intention to dethrone Zionism, nor to participate at the Pax Multipolaris table. Still on infowarfare, Russia has played a master game. We had already talked about this months ago: the repeated announcement of the new BRICS currency with partial gold base, then of BRICS Pay, then of UNIT replacing SWIFT, then of the financial operations of the New Development Bank, repeatedly occurred always and only in conjunction with particular moments when the dollar market was to be destabilized, creating difficulties for the U.S.-U.K. and favoring BRICS investment and the process of de-dollarization.

It was very obvious and almost trivial that these new systems would not be activated as early as this year, because they require millimeter planning and transition times that are not immediate, especially since we are dealing with a large number of states with different currencies, different laws, different trade. The important thing to do was to promote the new system, scare the opponent, destabilize the market, persuading more and more countries to leave the orbit of a Western-centric system that is collapsing. This is waging information warfare.

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“..very skilled and ready to conduct military operations. What we have not been ready to do is to fight..”

UK Military ‘Not Ready To Fight’ – Defense Secretary (RT)

The UK military is unprepared to fight in a major conflict and would not be able to deter the enemy if a war breaks out now, British Defense Secretary John Healey has acknowledged. The British army, navy and air force have been “hollowed out” and “underfunded” during the 14 years of the Conservative Party’s rule, Healey said in his appearance on Politico’s Power Play podcast on Thursday. When the UK Labour Party came to power in July, “we expected things to be in a poor state – but the state of the finances, the state of the forces, was far worse than we thought,” he added. “The UK, in keeping with many other nations, has essentially become very skilled and ready to conduct military operations. What we have not been ready to do is to fight. Unless we are ready to fight, we are not in shape to deter,” the defense secretary stressed.

“This is at the heart of the NATO thinking. We have got to not just be capable of defending our NATO nations, but more importantly we have got to be more effective in the deterrence we provide against any future aggression,” he added. Britain and other members of the US-led military bloc need to “innovate” and “take the new technologies and some of the lessons from Ukraine and make what we do more lethal and therefore a stronger deterrence,” Healey said. When asked to comment on the defense secretary’s statement, a spokesman for the Labour government insisted that “this Government will always do what is required to defend the country. The UK’s Armed Forces are amongst the best in the world and offer a 24/7 defense of the UK, operating alongside our allies and partners to prepare for any event.”

“The Strategic Defense Review [which was launched in July] will look at the threats we face and the capabilities we need so that our Armed Forces are better ready to fight, more integrated and more innovative,” he said. On Thursday, The Telegraph reported, citing a senior defense source, that the new UK budget, which will be announced next week, will “almost certainly” not provide more money to the Defense Ministry. According to the government’s figures, Britain’s army, navy, and air force have entered 2024 with just over 138,000 active-duty personnel, the lowest number since the end of the Napoleonic wars. The army alone had seen its headcount shrink from more than 100,000 in 2010 to 75,110 by the start of this year.

Read more …

“The quality of the evidence of Russian Novichok runs from weak to preposterous; the legal presentation from tendentious to inadmissible.”

British Government’s Investigation Of Novichok Is Poisoning Itself (Helmer)

The British Government’s investigation of the alleged Novichok attacks against Sergei and Yulia Skripal, which they survived, and Dawn Sturgess, who died, has now run for six and half years. The public presentation of evidence and witnesses has completed its first week; the second week of hearings will begin next Monday, October 28. The hearings will end in the first week of December. A report of the conclusions will follow months later. The judge presiding is a retired Court of Appeal judge named Anthony Hughes – titled Lord Hughes of Omberseley – is also a consultant lawyer. Hughes advertises that he is available for engagement on private cases at his London office, telephone +44 (0)20 7242 3555. His terms of engagement from the Home Office, his job now, is to manage the Government’s two imperatives. The first is to protect the British government narrative to ensure no one disbelieves the Russians did it, as then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson announced on the BBC on March 17, 2018.

Judge Hughes’s website claims he is presiding in “an independent Inquiry into the circumstances of Dawn Sturgess’ death in Salisbury on 8 July 2018.” Independent of Russia is certain. Hughes opened the proceeding on March 25, 2022 by saying: “The issues raised by the terms of reference include those of the utmost gravity, including the allegation which has been publicly made of Russian state responsibility for the killing of Ms Sturgess indirectly.” In fact, the terms of reference make no such allegation. Hughes then announced he had appointed Emilie Pottle, a London lawyer, to represent three Russian military officers whom the British prosecutor has charged with attempted murder. Married to a “freelance writer” who has worked in the Iraqi and Libyan warzones with UK and US forces, Pottle is being paid by the Home Office to appear. Last week as a Crown prosecutor, she fed leading questions to medical and police witnesses.

The judge’s assisting lawyer, Mark O’Connor QC revealed last week that he has concluded what has to be proved, and expects witnesses to do the same. “I want”, O’Connor asked Wayne Darch, deputy director of the regional ambulance service and supervisor of the medics who attended the Skripals and Sturgess, “to start, if I may, with the question of what understanding or training ambulance staff had of or for nerve agent, organophosphate poisoning before the Skripal poisoning in March 2018, and we will work then forward in the chronology, okay?” Working forward in the chronology means, for the British government, that the Hughes proceeding will work backward to prove retrospectively that the Russian government ordered and carried out the Novichok assassination plot of 2018. So far, not a single British newspaper, television or social medium has reported differently.

The second imperative for Hughes is to protect the British Government from the case for negligence which the Sturgess family lawyer, Michael Mansfield KC, is making to support his claim for a multi-million pound payout for compensation of their loss to the Sturgess family, her boyfriend Charles Rowley, and to Mansfield himself and his associated lawyers. The first attempt at Mansfield’s legal strategy of “dosh for Dawn’s death” did not succeed in the High Court in mid-2020. The Hughes proceeding is Mansfield’s last, big chance.to accuse the British secret services of culpable negligence in failing to anticipate the Russian strike against Sergei Skripal on March 4, 2018, and to protect the British public from the Novichok fallout the alleged Russian assassins left behind.

The contradiction between the first and second imperatives grows obvious with every session. The quality of the evidence of Russian Novichok runs from weak to preposterous; the legal presentation from tendentious to inadmissible. But to earn his ransom Mansfield must accept as true what he cannot prove to be lies. He and his money-shot are motivated by the legal principle known as claim of right – you can’t steal from a thief.

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“The UK government is effectively partaking in the cover-up, in a way that only a guilty party would.”

UK Snubs Council of Europe Over Assange Inquiry (DC.UK)

Britain’s Home Office is making a “grave mistake” by ignoring a call from the Council of Europe to review its treatment of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder’s wife has warned. The Council’s parliamentary assembly, of which the UK is a member, passed a resolution earlier this month designating Assange as a “political prisoner”. Assange endured five years in Belmarsh maximum security prison in London before being released in June, and flying to his native Australia. The UK government had incarcerated him while the US pursued extradition proceedings in the British courts. His treatment has outraged the Council of Europe, which was created in the aftermath of World War Two with strong backing from Winston Churchill. Its resolution urged the UK authorities to conduct a review “with a view to establishing whether he [Assange] has been exposed to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, pursuant to their international obligations”.

It found the UK authorities “failed to effectively protect Mr Assange’s freedom of expression and right to liberty, exposing him to lengthy detention in a high-security prison despite the political nature of the most severe charges against him.” Declassified asked Britain’s Home Office what its response was to the Council of Europe’s call. The government department deflected the question, replying: “The longstanding extradition request for Julian Assange has been resolved. As is standard practice, all extradition requests are considered on an individual basis by our independent courts and in accordance with UK law.” The demands of the parliamentary assembly are not binding on European governments but they are “obliged to respond”. Stella Assange, Julian’s husband, told Declassified the Home Office is making a “grave mistake” in refusing to heed the Council of Europe’s call.

She said: “We know that the Crown Prosecution Service has disappeared key documents relating to Julian’s imprisonment and refused to provide information, first to a journalist, and now to the court, that might shed a light on the political side of Julian’s persecution in the UK. “It is one thing for rogue elements in the CPS to collude with foreign governments to persecute a publisher and attempt to cover their tracks. It is quite another for the UK government to stonewall in this manner in the wake of an independent report by the Council of Europe and a vote by the overwhelming majority of the chamber calling on the UK to carry out an investigation.” She added: “The UK government is effectively partaking in the cover-up, in a way that only a guilty party would.”

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“..with the aim of forcibly expelling the population in service of the Israeli plan to empty the north. This has now come to be called “the Generals’ Plan.”

This Is an Extermination’ (Muaddi)

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians across northern Gaza have been forced on a death march by the Israeli army since Monday, October 21. Northern Gaza is being emptied of its inhabitants, and one of Israel’s strategies in achieving this goal is to take out the area’s few remaining social institutions: hospitals. As part of its ongoing offensive on northern Gaza, the Israeli army has been trying to clear out the entire area north of Gaza City for the past 18 days. At least 200,000 people continue to stay there, many of them fearing, according to local testimonies, that they will be targeted on the way south or in Israeli-designated “safe zones,” which have been consistently bombarded over recent months. The ongoing siege includes a second siege-within-the-siege on the Jabalia refugee camp, accompanied by a massive bombing and shelling campaign that is forcing tens of thousands of people to leave their homes.

Many of them have headed to Beit Lahia, and particularly to Kamal Adwan Hospital. Over the past 18 days, the hospital has been issuing daily calls for help, warning of an imminent humanitarian catastrophe. The Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia is one of three functioning hospitals in the northern Gaza governorate. The hospital is the only fully functional medical center in the north, with a specialized neonatal section for newborns. The two other hospitals in Gaza are barely functional. The Indonesian Hospital in the town of Sheikh Zayed went out of services last week after Israeli troops besieged it and invaded its surroundings. Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, smaller in size, has suspended most of its services and only functions at a limited capacity. On Tuesday, October 22, the al-Awda Hospital’s director, Bakr Abu Safiyeh, told al-Ghad TV that Israeli quadcopter drones were opening fire directly on the hospital.

Dr. Baker said that Israeli quadcopters were also opening fire on anybody moving in the streets, including ambulances. According to the hospital director, an Israeli strike targeted an ambulance carrying a mother who had just given birth. The mother was killed, Dr. Baker said, and the baby was later found alive by rescue teams and was taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital’s neonatal section. Named after Kamal Adwan, a Palestinian resistance leader assassinated by Israel in Beirut in 1973, the hospital has become a central destination for the wounded and the displaced. Like most other hospitals in Gaza over the past year of genocidal war, Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only remaining public space in northern Gaza that offers services and provides shelter, representing the backbone of Gazan civil society and social cohesion. That is why Israel is targeting it, with the aim of forcibly expelling the population in service of the Israeli plan to empty the north. This has now come to be called “the Generals’ Plan.”

Two weeks before Israel began the current siege, Netanyahu told Israeli lawmakers that he was considering the “Generals’ plan,” so named for the proposal put forward by senior Israeli army officials in early September based on the vision of retired Israeli general Giora Eiland, who wrote an Op-Ed a year ago explaining how northern Gaza should be emptied of the entire population through mass starvation and extermination.

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“No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by ‘the world’s best snipers.’ And they’re dead-center shots..”

Kill Them All: Israel’s Extermination Of Palestinians In Gaza (Cradle)

The holocaust engulfing Palestinians in Gaza has reached unimaginable levels of horror, epitomized by a harrowing video that swept across social media of 19-year-old Shaaban al-Dalou, burning to death while still connected to an IV drip. This was no isolated tragedy – it was emblematic of the escalating genocide. On 13 October, an Israeli airstrike ignited the makeshift tents sheltering dozens of displaced Palestinian families in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Amidst the inferno, Dalou’s 17-year-old brother Mohammed described his agony: “I can’t describe the feeling. I saw my brother burning in front of me, and my mother was burning.” Mohammed had managed to escape when he heard the strike, but his brother Shaban and their mother did not. His father saved his 10-year-old brother from the flames, only for the child to succumb to his burns days later, according to the New York Times.

The horrifying video was followed a week later by photos showing soldiers expelling Palestinians from half-destroyed residential blocks at gunpoint. Israeli drone footage published by Israel’s public broadcaster Kan captured images of Palestinians rounded up and forced to walk south through Gaza’s post-apocalyptic landscape without any possessions. Many Palestinians who refused to obey evacuation orders, often delivered by announcements made by hovering quadcopter drones, were massacred by Israeli artillery and airstrikes. Rescue workers and civilians attempting to save others have been shot at by Israeli forces or simply rounded up and ‘disappeared.’ There have been reports describing numerous instances where Palestinians were targeted while trying to help injured individuals. This has left the people of Gaza without any medical or emergency services, forcing a complete halt on health and civil defense services.

Even hospitals were not spared. Critically injured patients and the doctors treating them faced the same impossible ultimatum – evacuate or die. After returning home, western doctors who had volunteered in Gaza expressed their shock at how many children arrived at the hospitals, shot not only once but twice, directly in the heart and head. “No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by ‘the world’s best snipers.’ And they’re dead-center shots,” surgeon Mark Perlmutter told CBS News.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

BART

 

 

Cameras

 

 

Umbrella

 

 

Scooby
https://twitter.com/i/status/1849867938360345077

 

 

Sagan

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 072024
 


Paul Gauguin Christ in the garden of olives 1889

 

Judge Delays Trump’s Hush Money Sentencing Until After Election (ZH)
Ghosts in the Machine (Kunstler)
Hunter Biden Loses Game of Chicken With Himself (Turley)
Hunter Biden: Plot to Clear Harris of Blot of Biden Family Corruption? (Sp.)
Russia, Russia, Russia Rerun (Sp.)
Biden Steals Trump’s Idea To Launch Sovereign Wealth Fund (ZH)
The Media Lies Add Up (Victor Davis Hanson)
Kremlin Refuses To Be Drawn On Putin’s ‘Endorsement’ Of Harris (RT)
YouTube Bans Alleged Russia-linked Right-wing Channels (RT)
Archaic Crypto Law Charges Reveal French Access to Private Communications (Sp.)
The Edifying Misadventure of The Chevalier du Rove (Despot)
Chip Roy Report On Impact Of Biden-Harris Border Policies (ZH)
FBI Raids Homes of New York Mayor’s Allies, Police Chief (Sp.)
War In Ukraine Must End ‘This Fall’ – Zelensky (RT)

 

 

 

 

Will Scharf is good
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832093648613454095

 

 

Alina is a treasure
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832091397328875733

 

 

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831881225679859954

 

 

JFK peace
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831883090710659336

 

 

Vivek
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831881487412547907

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many had their hopes up that Merchan would put him away. But he caved.

“..it would be inappropriate to sentence the former president this month since early voting in the presidential election has already begun..”

Judge Delays Trump’s Hush Money Sentencing Until After Election (ZH)

The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal case has postponed his sentencing for the second time. According to Reuters, the new sentencing date has been pushed to November 26, after the presidential election on November 5. Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Juan M. Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s seven-week trial earlier this year, to postpone the September 18 sentencing. They argued there wouldn’t be enough time for the defense to appeal Merchan’s upcoming ruling on Trump’s request to overturn the conviction, citing the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision on presidential immunity. Judge Juan Merchan wrote in the court filing: “This matter is one that stands alone, in a unique place in this Nation’s history, and this Court has presided over it since its inception – from arraignment to jury verdict and a plenitude of motions and other matters in-between.

Were this Court to decide, after careful consideration of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump, that this case should proceed, it will be faced with one of the most critical and difficult decisions a trial court judge faces – the sentencing of a defendant found guilty of crimes by a unanimous jury of his peers. “The adjournment request has now been decided in the same way this Court has decided every other issue that has arisen since the origination of this case, applying the facts and the law after carefully considering the issues and respective arguments of the parties to ensure that the integrity of the proceeding, is protected, justice is served, and the independence of this judiciary kept firmly intact.” In May, Trump was convicted by a unanimous jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said Trump signed off on the scheme to conceal reimbursements to a lawyer who wired $130,000 “hush money” payment to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump pleaded not guilty and denied the encounter.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of four years in jail. Most legal observers expect Trump to avoid jail time, given the alternatives to incarceration, including probation. Trump’s original sentencing was set for July 11, but it was delayed after he filed a motion to overturn his conviction, citing a landmark Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove’s request for a postponement argued it would be inappropriate to sentence the former president this month since early voting in the presidential election has already begun. “By adjourning the sentencing until after that election … the Court would reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings,” they wrote.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told The Hill that there should be no sentencing at all in the case and that, “as mandated by the United States Supreme Court,” Trump’s hush money case and other legal matters should be dismissed. Prosecutors did not oppose the delay, leaving the decision to the judge. They noted, “The People respectfully defer to the Court on the appropriate post-trial schedule.” A Trump win in November indicates he could order the Department of Justice to drop federal election interference charges against him. However, he would not have the authority to end the case in Manhattan or an election interference case in Georgia.

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“Are you comforted to know that the US government is on auto-pilot, a colossal, menacing machine run by ghosts?”

Ghosts in the Machine (Kunstler)

Russia is about to roll up on what’s left of Ukraine. Our State Department neocon division thought it was wicked-smart to start a little action there in 2014, to provoke Russia into a ruinous war against NATO (the game: “Let’s You and Him Fight”) in order, theoretically, to wreck Russia and depose Mr. Putin. Didn’t work. Do you know why? I will tell you (it’s really simple): Russia’s leadership is more intelligent than ours, and far less psychopathic. They perceived correctly that we were only wrecking ourselves. Ten years later, the Ukraine caper draws to a humiliating end for our neocons, and a ruinous end for NATO and the EU. So far this year, it appears that “Joe Biden’s” party has ceased paying attention to Ukraine. The pretty yellow and blue flags have all but disappeared — except in Massachusetts, we noticed, the most highly “educated” and most deeply insane state in the union. I’ll be interested in how Kamala Harris explains our Ukraine war policy in Tuesday’s presidential debate. Defending democracy, I suppose.

The governments of the major EU nations stupidly followed the bidding of America’s psychopathic neocons and now they ‘ll have to answer for it as their people awake to the destruction of the EU nations’ economies. Early elections will be called and globalist stooges will be swept away. The turmoil will rhyme with the chaos of 1848, a year of revolution. NATO, finding itself not just purposeless but toxic to Europe’s well-being, must dissolve as members on the periphery withdraw, some seeking to join the BRICs economic bloc. Germany, France, and the UK get sucked helplessly into a new great depression and social turmoil as they contend with many millions of hostile migrants.

Here in America, you can already hear the fake anguished cry of “Russia, Russia, Russia” echoing out of Merrick Garland’s fake Justice Department. We’re to understand that the Russians are coming for our election — more gaslight — when it’s actually the Democratic party, led surreptitiously by its lawfare cadres, Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, Andrew Weissmann, Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco, et al. Their many courtroom pranks have failed against Mr. Trump. Judge Chutkan was bloviating in the DC federal court this week to generate a little heat on MSNBC, but her case has a wooden stake through its heart and Xs where its eyes used to be.

Up in New York, Judge Juan Merchan pretends to wrassle with whether or not to start Civil War Two by remanding Mr. Trump to Rikers Island on September 18 (I doubt that happens). In the event, though, I believe Mr. Trump might simply say, “No thank you,” and go about his business running for president. That would be a counter-prank I’d be eager to see. Who gets in the act then? Federal marshals? The FBI (ha!)? The Supreme Court term begins the first Monday in October. They could have something to say about the steaming pile of horseshit that was Alvin Bragg’s and Mathew Colangelo’s case. (Also, Weissmann’s, Eisen’s, Monaco’s, and McCord’s.)

Gawd knows where things might stand after next Tuesday’s great debate. The rules are pretty stringent. No candidates questioning each other. No audience. No confab with staff during commercial breaks. The mute buttons will be on. Without her “I’m speaking” routine, Ms. Harris has. . . zotz. All Mr. Trump really has to do is be polite for 90-minutes. More than a few people, meanwhile, are beginning to ask who is running the country, since “Joe Biden” is mostly off-duty, beaching it, not attending cabinet meetings, and probably not being consulted on any number of matters being carried out in his name. Are you comforted to know that the US government is on auto-pilot, a colossal, menacing machine run by ghosts?

Read more …

“If Hunter still hopes for a presidential commutation or pardon, the chances of such executive action is dramatically improved after a sentencing.”

Hunter Biden Loses Game of Chicken With Himself (Turley)

Hunter Biden just showed the perils of playing the game of chicken with yourself. For months, many of us have marveled at the sight of Hunter careening toward a cliff while declaring publicly that he was prepared to go all the way. The Justice Department was never going over the cliff because they had nothing to gain or lose in open-and-shut cases in Delaware and California. There was never a serious question of convicting Hunter of these crimes, just a will of the Justice Department to secure them. Special Counsel David Weiss inexplicably allowed serious felonies to expire, refused to bring obvious crimes as an unregistered foreign agent, and sought to cut an embarrassing sweetheart deal with Hunter to avoid any jail time on a couple of minor crimes. The deal then collapsed in open court when a judge balked at a provision that would give Hunter sweeping immunity for any crime.

When she asked the federal prosecutor if he had ever seen such a plea bargain offered a defendant other than the President’s son, he admitted that he had not. That is when the chest pounding began. Unwilling to accept anything but the sweetheart deal, Hunter’s defense counsel told the prosecutors in court to “just rip it up.” They did and Weiss was forced to actually prosecute Hunter.According to the Justice Department, Weiss continued to try to cut a plea bargain with Hunter but was rebuffed by the defense. They then went to Delaware, the home of the Bidens, and tried to convince a sympathetic jury that Hunter was a drug addict who was not responsible for his action as well as other unsupported claims. It failed in spectacular fashion with a conviction on all counts. Hunter then floored it for the California cliff on the tax charges as the Justice Department and most of us watched confused about how he was trying to intimidate. He hit the brakes as the trial was beginning.

Hunter has succeeded in putting himself in the worst possible position for a plea. He waited until he had little to trade and reportedly did not even inform the prosecutors of his decision. But it gets worse. If he had agreed to a less generous plea deal last year, he could have secured a recommended sentence on both the gun and tax charges. Instead, he will go into this sentencing with a past criminal record, an aggravating factor that could reduce the benefit of the belated plea. In the end, Hunter had nothing to offer, nothing to bargain. He plead guilty to all nine counts. This decision may still be based more on political than legal calculations. Hunter was almost certain to be convicted. But it would have taken time as his father’s administration (and pardon authority) wanes. If Hunter still hopes for a presidential commutation or pardon, the chances of such executive action is dramatically improved after a sentencing.

The White House rarely considers pardons before a trial and sentencing. Indeed, they often wait for appeals to run their course. Moreover, a demand for jail time seems likely from the Justice Department given this history and it is equally likely to be granted. If that sentence is lengthy, it will add pressure on President Biden to take action with a commutation or pardon. If President Biden does violate his promise to not pardon Hunter, it would not be a surprise for many. In 2022, I wrote that the President could resign or withdraw as a candidate and pardon Hunter. I referred to this as “break-the-glass option”: “He would end his political career with an act as a father, which some would condemn but most would understand.”

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He counts on his dad if Kamala loses.

Hunter Biden: Plot to Clear Harris of Blot of Biden Family Corruption? (Sp.)

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has pleaded guilty to all nine counts against him in a sprawling, $1.4 million tax evasion case highlighting his history of indulgence in drugs and hookers. The surprise resolution of the case came just days before opening statements in his trial were set to begin. If it had proceeded, the trial would have likely run through the remainder of Joe Biden’s presidency, and proven politically damaging for the Biden’s successor – Vice President Kamala Harris, just two months out from the November 5 election. Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in jail and fines of up to $1.2 million in the tax case, although observers expect leniency for the 54-year-old businessman – whose business allegedly included an elaborate influence-peddling scheme involving the selling of access to his powerful father for cash. Sentencing in the tax case is set for December 16.

The guilty plea adds to Biden’s conviction in a Delaware court in June on three felony counts related to a 2018 handgun purchase, for which he could get up to 25 years in jail. The judge in the case did not set a sentencing date. Hunter Biden has followed his father like a corruption ball and chain since 2020 when, just weeks from the November election, the New York Post began the publication of a series of stories based on information from his recovered lost laptop about his alleged pay-to-play dealings. The stories threatened to derail the Biden campaign, were it not for social media companies’ move to censor them as ‘Russian disinformation’ – claims which tech execs including Mark Zuckerberg later confirmed were bogus. The Harris campaign has already made a push to carefully distance itself from Biden on some issues, from capital gains taxes to the Border wall, and may now hope that Biden’s tax charges guilty plea will conclude the Hunter Biden saga, or at least leave him out of the spotlight until safely after the election.

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Hmmm. Still think they accepted a lot of money. Without too many questions.

Russia, Russia, Russia Rerun (Sp.)

Western media outlets are fervently perpetuating the narrative of “Russian meddling in the US election.” As this fabricated story intensifies, marked by sanctions, indictments, and the seizure of web domains labeled as “influenced by the Kremlin” according to US officials, an increasing number of media sources are jumping on the bandwagon. The New York Times noted that American spy agencies have assessed that the Kremlin “favors” Donald Trump, and warned how the US was “caught flat-footed in 2016” over Russia’s alleged (and unproven) endeavors to ‘influence’ American elections. ABC News said that the US was rushing to “take aim at Russian disinformation” just weeks ahead of the November elections.

The Washington Post dove in for a closer look at what it described as a pro-Trump “supergroup” allegedly bankrolled by Russia. The six right-wing influencers involved are currently engaged in damage control, asserting on social media that if the allegations prove to be true, they should be regarded as “victims” of this supposed “plot.” Forbes also threw its focus on Tenet’s talent roster of six influencers: Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern, Taylor Hansen and Matt Christiansen. Together, the content-creators boasted a cumulative YouTube subscriber count of 7.16 million, noted the outlet. Also, Germany’s Die Welt ran with a headline that warned of “deep fakes being spread by Moscow.”

On Wednesday, the United States imposed sanctions against the Rossiya Segodnya media group, RIA Novosti, RT, Sputnik and Ruptly. The new measures also affected Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Sputnik’s parent media group Rossiya Segodnya. “Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated ten individuals and two entities as part of a coordinated US government response to Moscow’s malign influence efforts targeting the 2024 US presidential election,” a statement released on Wednesday said.

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“..Bloomberg had to make it seem that Biden had been working on their version of Trump’s idea “for months” and that’s precisely what it said..”

Biden Steals Trump’s Idea To Launch Sovereign Wealth Fund (ZH)

Two days ago when president Trump first floated the idea of a sovereign wealth fund… hard-core Democrats and/or socialist billionaires balked at the idea, mocking it as wannabe Saudi Arabia. Trump, speaking to economic leaders on Thursday, said he envisioned the fund as a way to address persistent debt issues and said it would be funded through his plan to impose tariffs on all imports. “We’ll be able to invest in state-of-the-art manufacturing hubs, advanced defense capabilities, cutting-edge medical research and help save billions of dollars in preventing disease in the first place,” Trump said. “And it is many of the people in this room who will be helping to advise and recommend investments for this fund.”

But expect all the leftist critics to positively love the idea now, just a few hours later, because late on Friday Bloomberg reported that the Kamala/Biden admin has stolen yet another idea from Trump (after eliminating tax on tips, and stimulating new business creation): aides to Joe Biden “have been crafting a proposal to create a sovereign wealth fund” that would allow the US to invest in national security interests including technology, energy, and critical links in the supply chain, a person familiar with the effort, told Bloomberg. As Bloomberg admits, the “behind-the-scenes work” by NSA Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Daleep Singh, mirrors – at least in spirit – a proposal floated Thursday by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who called for a government-owned investment fund to finance “great national endeavors” during a speech to the Economic Club of New York.

Of course, it would look just a little suspicious if the admin of the president in absentia were to float a wealth fund idea just one day after Trump did the same, so Bloomberg had to make it seem that Biden had been working on their version of Trump’s idea “for months” and that’s precisely what it said: “Sullivan and Singh have been working on the project for months across a series of weekly brainstorming efforts, and have met with economic experts on the National Security Council to debate the size, structure, funding, leadership, and potential guardrails for a proposed fund.” It “wasn’t clear if it was the “sources” that clarified on the ongoing duration of the project, or just Bloomberg’s attempt to make the latest policy theft appear a bit more organic. It gets funnier: “The work has progressed to the point where planning documents have been circulated among White House staffers and key agencies, according to the person familiar, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.”

Sure it has: and Biden waited until 2 months before the end of his presidency to make the push… or rather waht push: “But even as the work has progressed, key details — including, critically, the fund’s structure, funding model, and investment strategy — remain unclear.” And so, just like every aspect in Kamala’s policy agenda, we’ll have to wait for Trump to reveal the details of his own plan before “sources” leak what Biden was working on before he decided to hit Rehoboth beach permanently after Nancy Pelosi’s July putsch. One thing is certain though: whether it its Trump or the puppetmasters who control Kamala, a SWF – especially one of material size in the $1+ trillion range – will lead to another sharp spike in US debt, pushing US debt sharply higher from its latest record daily print just over $35.3 trillion, and making holders of non fiat assets richer as the US careens toward a monetary and fiscal solvency crisis.

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“..they have all but destroyed democracy, ruined the reputation of the media, alienated the public—and embarrassed their country before the world.”

The Media Lies Add Up (Victor Davis Hanson)

On the eve of the first 2020 debate, Biden aide and now Secretary of State Antony Blinken helped to round up “51 former intelligence authorities” to claim falsely that Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop—full of incriminating evidence of felonious Biden family behavior—was fabricated by the Russians. Yet the FBI already had the laptop and had authenticated it as genuine. The FBI was also actively enlisting Silicon Valley social media companies to suppress accurate news accounts of the laptop’s embarrassing contents—ostensibly to aid the Biden campaign. The signees of the false letter included former intelligence kingpins such as Leon Panetta, James Clapper, and John Brennan. None has ever apologized for deliberating lying to the country in a (successful) attempt to help alter an election. During the summer of 2021, top military officials, at least publicly, parroted the Biden administration’s lie that it was safe to abruptly withdraw all troops from Afghanistan.

The Biden plan was to take political credit for ending the two-decade-long war on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and the American invasion of Afghanistan.Yet many intelligence officials in and outside the Pentagon had warned both Biden and the Pentagon top brass that any such reckless and total withdrawal would collapse Afghanistan.They rightly also advised that sudden flight would give terrorists a windfall of equipment and infrastructure. But they were ignored and during the subsequent Biden misadventure, thirteen American Marines were needlessly killed. After the greatest military humiliation in a half-century, Biden and many in the media lied that the mission was nevertheless a successful withdrawal. But that was not all. For the first time in history, a presidential candidate, Donald Trump, was subjected to numerous criminal and civil suits in an election year.

Yet the federal prosecutor, Jack Smith, met with Biden officials. A high-ranking Biden Justice federal attorney joined the New York municipal prosecution. The Georgia prosecutor met stealthily with Biden’s legal counsel. And a major Biden donor funded the civil suit. The once collusion-hungry media ignored all such lawfare and rank collusion. During the 2020 Democratic primaries, the general election, and throughout the first three years of the Biden administration, it was evident that Joe Biden was physically and mentally incapable of serving as president. Yet his aides and the media all misled the American people. They insisted that Biden was vigorous and sharp. Then suddenly in June 2024, within a 24-hour period, Biden was declared by these same insiders as unfit to continue as the Democratic nominee. Their new problem with Biden was not just his long-standing embarrassing dementia.

Rather bad polls increasingly warned that voters no longer believed their lies and thus would likely not reelect Biden but would instead punish most Democrats in the upcoming 2024 election. So, a new media narrative arose: the once-hale Biden was forced to resign as the Democrat nominee. His once widely caricatured vice president, Kamala Harris, just as abruptly was coronated as his replacement candidate by an equally suddenly gushing and colluding media. In sum, for some nine years, the media and the left have successfully fed the country a succession of rank deceptions and conspiracies. They did so because they proclaimed Donald Trump too dangerous to be president and therefore any means they employed to stop him were to be justified. And they are doing so yet a third time in 2024. As they continue, they have all but destroyed democracy, ruined the reputation of the media, alienated the public—and embarrassed their country before the world.

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”As for his tone, people abroad who are interested in it should reflect on it. Let’s not steal the opportunity to do so..”

Kremlin Refuses To Be Drawn On Putin’s ‘Endorsement’ Of Harris (RT)

People are free to interpret the tone of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s remarks about his preferred candidate in the upcoming US presidential election any way they like, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. He was commenting on the reaction to statements made by the Russian leader the previous day during a panel discussion. Putin said he favored Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, since she has the backing of President Joe Biden. She also “laughs infectiously,” Putin added, suggesting that Harris would not be as likely to impose new sanctions on Russia. Peskov said American domestic politics is not at the top of the Russian president’s agenda, but that he does comment on international affairs when asked.

”As for his tone, people abroad who are interested in it should reflect on it. Let’s not steal the opportunity to do so,” the official added. Moscow would rather not be dragged into American affairs, but does not expect Russia to stop being used as a foil for US domestic politics anytime soon, Peskov said. Washington routinely accuses the Russian government of “meddling” and “interfering” in American elections, which Moscow denies. The White House on Thursday rebuked Putin’s remark, with John Kirby, its national security spokesman, stating that he “ought to stop talking about our elections, period.” Meanwhile former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, reacted by saying that he was not sure whether to be insulted by Putin’s words or take them as a favor to him.

Officials in Moscow have repeatedly denied having a preference for either candidate, since they believe neither would improve US relations with Russia. Some US media interpreted Putin’s “endorsement” of Harris as a form of trolling, similarly to his previously expressed support for Biden. In February, he described the US leader a predictable old-school politician, unlike Trump. Biden has since dropped out of the race amid unfavorable opinion polls and pressure from donors and party heavyweights.

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“..testifies to the irreversible degradation of the democratic state in the United States and its transformation into a totalitarian neoliberal dictatorship.”

YouTube Bans Alleged Russia-linked Right-wing Channels (RT)

YouTube has removed five right-wing political channels linked to what the US Department of Justice (DOJ) claims is a Russian effort to sow division in America and influence its domestic landscape. In a statement cited by the Washington Post on Thursday, the Google-owned video hosting service said it had “terminated” the accounts of the Tenet Media company and four other entities linked to conservative commentator Lauren Chen in a bid “to combat coordinated influence operations.” The move comes after the DOJ on Wednesday charged two Russians, identified as RT employees, with violating the Foreign Agents Act, money laundering, and illegally funneling millions of dollars to US-based entities to promote Moscow’s narrative on various politically charged issues.

While the DOJ did not directly name the company which was allegedly involved in those activities, saying only that it was based in Tennessee and had posted around 2,000 videos since its launch in November 2023, some observers and social media users suggested that the indictment referred to Tenet Media.The company was founded by Chen and her husband Liam Donovan in early 2022 and often features right-wing influencers that provide commentary on such topics as immigration, inflation, and foreign policy.

Following the indictment, conservative outlet Blaze Media said, as quoted by Semafor, that it had terminated a contact with Chen, whom it described as “an independent contractor,” without providing an explanation for the move. In a separate development, the US Treasury Department on Wednesday sanctioned several Russian nationals, including RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and three other senior RT employees, over alleged efforts to influence the US election. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has denounced the new restrictions, arguing that the move “testifies to the irreversible degradation of the democratic state in the United States and its transformation into a totalitarian neoliberal dictatorship.”

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“..an obscure, never-used twenty-year-old law obliging companies providing cryptography tools to inform the French Cybersecurity Agency..”

Archaic Crypto Law Charges Reveal French Access to Private Communications (Sp.)

The Durov saga in France and the continued efforts by countries around the world to crack down on his popular cloud-based, end-to-end encrypted private messenger and social media software has divulged a string of embarrassing details about the sorry state of internet privacy and freedom of information. Two of the six charges facing Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France are grounded in an obscure, never-used twenty-year-old law obliging companies providing cryptography tools to inform the French Cybersecurity Agency (French acronym ANSSI) and grant it access to the software’s source code and “a description of [its] technical characteristics.” The 2004 law – uniquely blunt in its demand that companies divulge info about the tech tools used for private communications, is being used against Durov by accusing him of providing encrypted communications services “without certified declaration.”

The legal requirement also means, if it is applied evenly across the board, that the array of instant messengers available to French users, from WhatsApp and Signal to iMessage and the French-made Olvid ‘secure’ messenger used by the French government, do comply with ANSSI regulations, meaning French intelligence can potentially spy on any or all French users at any time. Adding credence to this idea is the fact that Pavel Durov is reportedly the first-ever tech mogul to be charged under the 2004 law, and the fact that many big-name tech companies have been silent on the Durov case, with the exception of Proton CEO Andy Yen, who characterized the charges against the Russian-born tech mogul as “economic suicide” that’s “rapidly and permanently changing the perception of founders and investors” toward France.

“If sustained, I don’t see how tech founders could possibly travel to France, much less hire in France,” Yen wrote last week. The law is also reminiscent of the case against WikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange, who was threatened with decades of jail time by the US under the obscure Espionage Act of 1917, even though that he was not an American citizen, and a publisher, not a spy. Former president Donald Trump was charged under the same act in his classified documents case, which got thrown out by a judge in July.

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“America is a stage where standing ovations are paid at the price of blood..”

The Edifying Misadventure of The Chevalier du Rove (Despot)

The owner of Telegram, as far as we know, is still in France. The bird without a nest now lives with a police ankle tag on its foot. It is still unclear why he himself landed in the trap set. But we are beginning to understand how he thinks. The intelligence services too, no doubt. More than thirty years ago, when he was living in Paris, Edward Limonov gave me a very valuable piece of advice: ‘Do whatever you want, but avoid making out with the French police. They are the toughest bastards.’ Limonov had been expelled from the USSR before landing in the New York underground, so he knew a bit about police in many places. Limonov was not only a political punk, but also a very good writer. In his collection of short stories about Russia in decay which we had published in French (La sentinelle assassinée, ed. L’Age d’Homme), he dissected the anatomy of certain Russian illusions about the West.

In a piece named ‘A Tragedy of Ignorance’ he delivered the burlesque and heartbreaking story of the exodus of a family of Soviet musicians who had enjoyed great success playing jazz. Drunk with glory, they had convinced themselves that it was nothing to succeed in Russia if one did not succeed in America. In the homeland of jazz! The unfortunate people did not know where they were setting foot. America is a stage where standing ovations are paid at the price of blood. Fooled by promises without cover, rushed into tours as exhausting as they were low-paying, they had ended up crashing in a poorly maintained plane. Limonov would have done better to address his warning to the founder of Telegram, but would the Chevalier du Rove have listened to it? Anyway, the bird without a nest now lives with a police ankle tag on its foot. Unless otherwise indicated, he has not tried to flee his new homeland where he faces twenty years in prison. Around the world, there is speculation about the reasons and the behind-the-scenes story of his arrest.

His personality interests us in two ways. Both as a product and illustration of a certain mentality specific to the westernized Russian intelligentsia, and as a geopolitical factor because Pavel Durov is the sole owner-at least that’s what he claims-of the most coveted internet messaging service in the world. Last May, Tucker Carlson travelled to Dubai to record a very captivating interview with Durov. That was mainly about the fight against censorship, the independence of ideas and freedom of movement, and the best way to resist the global Leviathan. Perhaps Carlson had oriented the interview according to his own domestic political imperatives, where the fight against Democratic media censorship plays a central role. In any case, this interview undoubtedly contributed to imposing a certain ‘reading’ of the Parisian incident.

After the captive, let’s take a look at the jailer. Since the Gilets Jaunes revolt, the French state has established for itself a solid reputation as an enemy of freedoms. It is from France, in particular, that the largest number of blocking requests to Twitter came before it was taken over by Elon Musk. The Macronian apparatchik Thierry Breton, France’s nominee as European Commissioner, exported this Orwellian craze to the European Union with extravagant high-handedness until he was disavowed by the Eurocrats themselves. Macron and his henchmen had set a trap for the new Julian Assange to gag him and his network. The accusation of complicity in paedophilia or terrorism was just their alibi. It was that simple. Maybe. But there are also less romantic ways of looking at events.

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“..the “ultimate goal” of the Democratic party is to grant citizenship to “all 11 million or however many” illegals in the country..”

Chip Roy Report On Impact Of Biden-Harris Border Policies (ZH)

Democrats have made no secret that they plan to grant blanket amnesty to tens of millions of illegal immigrants who flooded into the country after President Joe Biden shredded President Trump’s sweeping efforts to secure the border – and whose worst elements are committing heinous crimes and taking over apartment complexes in several major Democrat-run cities. The plan appears to be to provide Democrats with a reliable stream of votes, no matter the cost to the country (which, according to the NY Post, was $150 billion last year). That’s not hyperbole – last week Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) openly stated that the Democrat party’s plan is to turn all “undocumented” migrants into “documented” ones, and supported the idea of providing subsidized housing to illegal aliens.

And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made it clear in a resurfaced 2022 speech that the “ultimate goal” of the Democratic party is to grant citizenship to “all 11 million or however many” illegals in the country. According to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the plan is “ALL about getting Democrat votes.” Meanwhile, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has released a lengthy report detailing how the Biden-Harris immigration allowed a flood of noncitizens to “fundamentally transform” the United States. Roy notably sticks to government statistics (second only to lies and damn lies) for his report, citing just 8.5 million illegal migrants – though the number is far higher according to some estimates. Key points:

• Over 8.5 million illegal aliens have crossed the U.S. southern border since the Biden-Harris administration took office, exceeding the population of 37 states.
• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released 5.6 million illegal aliens into the U.S., and 1.9 million “got-aways” have evaded capture.
• Border Patrol is overwhelmed, suffering from low morale and recruitment levels, leading to a significant increase in agent suicides.
• Fentanyl, primarily produced by Mexican drug cartels using Chinese chemicals, has led to nearly 75,000 American deaths in 2023.
• Criminal activities committed by illegal aliens, including murders and assaults, have spiked under the Biden-Harris administration.
• At least 169 known or suspected terrorists were arrested at the southern border in FY 2023.
• Mexican cartels have increased their profits to over $13 billion a year through human smuggling and drug trafficking operations.
• States like Texas have spent billions on border security, citing a lack of federal support.
• Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are facilitating illegal immigration, funded by U.S. taxpayers.
• The Biden-Harris administration’s catch-and-release policies have contributed to a surge in crime and human trafficking.
• There has been a significant rise in illegal aliens from non-Western countries, especially China, with record numbers crossing the border in FY 2024.
• The number of illegal aliens involved in crimes has increased, with many committing serious offenses after being released into the U.S.
• Thousands of migrant children have been lost by U.S. authorities, with over 320,000 minors unaccounted for as of 2024.
• Venezuelan gangs, like Tren de Aragua, are committing crimes in major U.S. cities.

Pelosi+

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Squeaky clean, I’m sure.

FBI Raids Homes of New York Mayor’s Allies, Police Chief (Sp.)

Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) officers have raided the homes of New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Edward Caban and other senior city officials in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, according to media reports. The reason for the action against the top New York City officials was not immediately known and the FBI did not comment. Shockwaves rippled across the political and economic elite of the US metropolis as news broke of the raids that occurred early Wednesday at the residences of Caban and New York deputy mayors Phil Banks and Sheena Wright. Cellphones of the implicated officials were seized as well to aid in investigations, reports claim. “I’ve been around a long time and that’s never happened before,” said CNN analyst and former NYPD deputy commissioner for counterterrorism John Miller.

“I would say that this is the first time in history that a sitting New York City Police Commissioner has been visited by his colleagues from federal law enforcement who have said, ‘hand over your electronic devices pursuant to a grand jury subpoena.’”Mayor Adams’ office has distanced itself from the investigations, The New York Times reported.”Investigators have not indicated to us the mayor or his staff are targets of any investigation,” Adams’ Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg said in a statement made available to the Times. “As a former member of law enforcement, the mayor has repeatedly made clear that all members of the team need to follow the law.” At least two more figures in Adams’ inner circle were also subjected to FBI scrutiny according to reports, with senior Adams aide Timothy Pearson and former Metropolitan Transport Authority official Terence Banks, the brother of the deputy mayor, also being searched.

Reports claimed deputy mayor Banks abruptly resigned as department chief of the NYPD in 2014 amid a federal bribery investigation in which agents allegedly uncovered evidence that he had accepted thousands of dollars in free meals and sports tickets.Additionally, prior to this week the home of Brianna Suggs, the top fundraiser for Adams’s mayoral campaign, was raided in November 2023. The FBI was reportedly investigating whether the campaign “conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers”. The reports added that since Adams took office in January 2022 his campaign had ignored multiple requests from city regulators to disclose the identities of more than 500 supporters who provided $300,000 in contributions to his campaign.

The controversial mayor has raised eyebrows for appointing many of his close friends to top positions in the city. In addition to Banks and Wright, Adams — himself a former New York police captain — hired longtime friend Lisa White as deputy commissioner for employee relations at the NYPD, with an annual salary of more than $241,000.

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Easy. Step 1: you step down.

War In Ukraine Must End ‘This Fall’ – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has urged NATO countries to pressure Russia to agree to Kiev’s peace terms this fall. He made his statement during a meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Regular gatherings at Ramstein are designed to coordinate military aid to Kiev. Zelensky urged Western countries to help arrange joint production of weapons on Ukrainian soil, including drones and missiles. “To achieve this, we need funding – we are ready to quickly produce everything that will help us bring this war to an end, namely, by putting decisive pressure on Russia for real peace,” Zelensky said, according to his website. “Let’s make this fall a time for Russian aggression to fall – in a way that will end the war and restore a reliable international security order.”

Austin also stressed the importance of weapons manufacturing, saying that the US was “working with Ukraine to design and build a substitute for the S-300 surface-to-air missile system and the R-27 air-to-air missile.” Washington has set aside more than $200 million to purchase “critical components” to allow Ukraine to make drones and electronic-warfare systems, he said. Kiev has faced several setbacks on the battlefield in recent months, with the Russian troops steadily making gains in the Donbass and advancing towards the city of Pokrovsk. In the hope of forcing Moscow to recall most of its soldiers from the Donbass, Ukraine launched an invasion in Russia’s Kursk Region on August 6, capturing several villages and the border city of Sudzha. The Russian advances have not stopped, however.

By sending its most well-equipped and experienced units in Kursk, the Ukrainian army has “weakened” its positions on other fronts, Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week. He added that the Russian forces have only increased their push in the Donbass. Peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev broke down in the spring of 2022. Moscow has since stated that Zelensky’s demand to restore Ukraine to its 1991 borders was completely unacceptable. Speaking on Monday, Putin said that Russia was ready to reopen peace negotiations, but only on its own terms. But Moscow needs to neutralize Ukrainian attempts to “destabilize the situation” in Kursk and other border regions first, he stressed.

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Questions

 

 

Toll road

 

 

Lion

 

 

The future of energy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1832068739203821610

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 082024
 


Henry Bacon General View of the Acropolis at Sunset 1900(?)

 

Stolen Valor: Walz Bailed On Iraq Tour, Then Lied About Combat Deployment (ZH)
The GOP Plan To Handle Tim Walz, ‘Ideological Soul Mate’ of Harris (RCW)
Minnesota National Guard Confirms VP Nominee Tim Walz Demoted (JTN)
Kamala Donated To ‘Defund Police’ Group Pushing For DC Sanctuary City (ZH)
US Arms Makers Refusing To Invest In Ukraine (RT)
EU Hails Incursion Into Russia As Ukraine’s Right To ‘Self-defense’ (RT)
Ukraine Spreading ‘Terrorism’ Around The World – Zakharova (RT)
Fourth African State Sanctions Ukraine For ‘Supporting Terrorism’ (RT)
Why Did America Give Away Its Manufacturing Jobs? (Paul Craig Roberts)
FBI Raids Scott Ritter’s House (RT)
Vienna Cancels Taylor Swift Concerts Over ISIS Attack Fears (RT)
Hunter Biden Got ‘Millions’ of Dollars From Romania to Influence US Gov’t (Sp.)
The “No Kings Act” is a Decapitation of the Constitution (Turley)
Crazed Authoritarians Demand X Be Shut Down in UK (MN)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shellenberger

 

 

Pelosi

 

 

Somalia

 

 

Sinwar
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821017557538590978

 

 

Victor Davis Hanson: “Anything That Didn’t Kill [Trump] Made Him Stronger”

 

 

 

 

Did they vet this guy at all? He bailed on his National Guard battalion when he heard he would be deployed to Iraq, and you want to put him second in line for Commander-in-Chief?

Stolen Valor: Walz Bailed On Iraq Tour, Then Lied About Combat Deployment (ZH)

Kamala Harris’ VP pick Tim Walz has come under fire over his extreme left-wing policies, from joking about helping illegal immigrants into the country by investing in a ‘ladder company,’ to signing a law that gives them driver’s licenses, to delaying the deployment of the National Guard during the Georger Floyd riots. And while there’s much more to discuss, Walz has come under the most intense scrutiny for embellishing his military record, when in reality he bailed on his National Guard battalion – instead running off to Congress after learning that he would be deployed to Iraq.”On May 16th, 2005, [Walz] quit, betraying his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” wrote retired Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr in a 2018 letter posted to Facebook.

The pair further criticized Walz for abandoning the National Guard for Congress despite being fully aware that he could have requested permission from the Pentagon to seek office while on active duty. And instead of filing the proper paperwork to ensure a smooth transition out of the military, Walz “instead … slithered out the door,” the letter reads, adding that Walz “embellished and selectively omitted facts of his military career for years.” Trump VP pick JD Vance ripped Walz in a press conference, saying “What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something you’re not. And if he wants to criticize me for getting an Ivy League education, I’m proud […] I was able to make something of myself and I would be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.” (X via @townhallcom). What’s more, Walz lied – telling a crowd that he was in fact deployed. “I carried weapons of war in war,” he said. Walz insists he has an “honorable record.”

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“..Democrats have “shifted so far to the left as a whole that candidates as extreme as Kamala Harris, as extreme as Tim Walz, are now considered mainstream.”

The GOP Plan To Handle Tim Walz, ‘Ideological Soul Mate’ of Harris (RCW)

Democrats are eager to introduce Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to the country. He is a veteran who used the GI Bill to get to college, a former public-school teacher who coached high school football, and a two-term governor of a midwestern state with a record of accomplishments on behalf of working-class families. Republicans are just as excited. Despite his Rust Belt resume, they say Vice President Harris has selected a radical as her running mate. In an interview with RealClearPolitics, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said, “Tim Walz is really, truly her ideological soulmate.” The emerging Republican plan to beat the Harris-Walz ticket? Just roll the tape, replied Whatley: “Our opposition research is going to be video clips of Tim Walz.” More specifically, Whatley said the GOP would point to Walz’s previous comments about wanting to invest in a “30-foot-ladder factory” to help migrants scale former President Trump’s border wall, his support for giving undocumented individuals healthcare and driver’s licenses in Minnesota, and his handling of the 2020 riots in Minneapolis that followed the death of George Floyd.

Republicans have already been hitting Harris over illegal immigration and the border, inflation and the economy, and crime. Walz just presents a new wrinkle and new video clips. One immediately began circulating online. Conservatives were quick to criticize Walz for not deploying the Minnesota National Guard sooner in the summer of 2020 as rioters looted and burned through Minneapolis. “I could smell the burning tires, and that was a very real thing,” Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz told a local news reporter in an interview making the rounds online Tuesday. “I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.” According to the GOP, this is more evidence of the weak-on-crime radicalism of Democrats. The race is now on for Democrats to introduce their new folksy anti-Trump champion while Republicans rush to define him as more of the same.

For his part, Walz has a history of spoiling GOP plans. He punched his ticket to Congress in 2006 by flipping a Republican House seat. After more than a decade, Walz ran and won the governor’s mansion by more than 10 points in 2018, a post he easily held a second time four years later. Michael Tyler, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, said that by picking Walz, Harris has “cemented the fundamental contrast in this race between the Harris-Walz ticket which is fighting for working families and the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda that would unleash harm on Americans across the country.” The pair will spend the coming months, he added, traveling the country talking about “building up the middle class instead of cutting taxes for the rich, and fighting for our fundamental freedoms, including reproductive freedom.” Walz may be an asset particularly in the Midwest. He talks plainly, and his small-town biography explains his appeal.

When President Biden announced his retirement, Walz was quick to throw his support behind Harris as many others did. He emerged as a sort of pathfinder for Democrats with his broadsides against Sen. J.D. Vance as soon as Trump named the Ohio Republican his running mate. “The golden rule” in rural, small-town America, Walz said during a “Morning Joe” interview last month, was to “mind your own damn business.” And then the governor forged the talking point that the left has used with some immediate success to define the GOP ticket. “We do not like what has happened where we can’t even go to Thanksgiving dinner because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary,” he continued. “Well, it’s true. These guys are just weird.” And in this way, the word “weird” became the Democratic byword for the Republican ticket. Trump, Vance, and all their ideas, Democrats have said on repeat for weeks, aren’t just a threat to democracy, they are unusual and out of touch with America itself.

The left now enjoys rare alignment. Everyone from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to West Virginia independent Sen. Joe Manchin praised the Walz pick. All of it, replied Whatley, is more evidence that Democrats have “shifted so far to the left as a whole that candidates as extreme as Kamala Harris, as extreme as Tim Walz, are now considered mainstream.”

While the party boss said that the GOP playbook remains the same now that Walz has joined the ticket, behind the scenes Republicans expressed giddiness that Walz, instead of a more moderate candidate like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, was selected. One prominent Republican operative accused Walz of “plagiarizing California’s failed far-left liberal agenda for Minnesota.” Republicans hope to compete in that state, despite Donald Trump’s two narrow losses there. The selection of Walz won’t do anything to change that strategy, Whatley told RCP. He said Republicans are looking forward to “a conversation in Minnesota about how, as the governor, Walz allowed riots to basically burn down Minneapolis, and then Kamala Harris came in and bailed out all those people out.” That will continue to be, he said, “a conversation we’re happy to have in Minnesota.”

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“He ran away. It’s sad.” “He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States..”

Minnesota National Guard Confirms VP Nominee Tim Walz Demoted (JTN)

The Minnesota National Guard confirmed Wednesday that Gov. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate, was demoted and did not retire as a command sergeant major like he has claimed for years, including on his official gubernatorial biography. While Walz temporarily held the title of command sergeant major he “retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News. The statement reignited a controversy that began during his 2018 election for governor in which National Guardsman claimed on social media and in a paid ad that Walz declined to deploy to Iraq for combat duty in 2005 and forfeited his title of command sergeant major. Walz chose to run for Congress that year.

The governor’s biography, published on the state’s official website, says that “Command Sergeant Major Walz” retired from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005. At the time he was serving as one of the highest ranking members of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion. The Minnesota National Guard disputed his description of his final rank,. “Governor Tim Walz served from April 8, 1981, to May 16, 2005. Governor Walz served in the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery after transferring from the Nebraska National Guard in 1996. While serving in Minnesota, his military occupational specialties were 13B – a cannon crewmember who operates and maintains cannons and 13Z -field artillery senior sergeant. In Nebraska, he served as a 11Z – infantry senior sergeant, and a 71L – administrative specialist. He held multiple positions within field artillery such as firing battery chief, operations sergeant, first sergeant, and culminated his career serving as the command sergeant major for the battalion,” Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News in a statement Wednesday.

“He retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” she added. According to Army Regulation 600-8-19, a solider who does not complete the requisite coursework results is automatically demoted. “The Soldier must complete the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Course as a condition of this promotion. Failure to meet the condition will cause demotion per AR 600 – 8 – 19,” the regulation reads. This is not the first time that Walz’s military records have come under scrutiny. During his campaign for governor in 2018, two retired senior officials in the Minnesota National Guard criticized Walz for retiring shortly before his battalion was set for a deployment to Iraq. The two retired Command Sergeants Major in the guard wrote in an open letter posted to Facebook that they felt it was their “duty and responsibility to bring forth the truth as we know it concerning his service record.”

Thomas Behrends, one signer of the letter, was chosen to replace Walz. According to the letter, Minnesota Governor Walz was selected in 2004 to serve as the Command Sergeant Major of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and by September of that year Walz was conditionally promoted to the rank. But, by early 2005, Walz’s battalion was ordered to mobilize for an active duty deployment to Iraq. Shortly after, in May 2005, Walz “quit, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” according to the two Command Sergeants Major. “When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way,” Behrends told the New York Post Tuesday. He ran away. It’s sad.” “He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States. That’s not who I would pick to run for vice president,” he added.

The office of Governor Walz did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News. Retired U.S. Army Reserve Major General Tim Haake told Just the News that, based on his experience, a Command Sergeant Major resigning shortly before a deployment would likely have a “deleterious” effect on the unit. “The Command Sergeant Major is the highest enlisted rank in a unit and is the key person ensuring the troops are prepared, logistically, emotionally, and any other way, for the mission.” As a result of his abrupt retirement, and breach of his conditional agreement, the authors claimed Walz was demoted to Master Sergeant for his retirement.

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#BlackLivesMatter still exists?

Kamala Donated To ‘Defund Police’ Group Pushing For DC Sanctuary City (ZH)

Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff donated to a progressive legal group last year that pushed to defund the police, and wants to make Washington DC a permanent “sanctuary city” for illegals, the Washington Examiner reports, citing a copy of their joint tax return. Harris and Emhoff donated $1,000 to Legal Aid DC, a nonprofit that works on housing law and represents low-income clients in multiple areas. The pair also donated $1,000 to the nonprofit in 2021, according to the report. “News of the donations, which have not been reported on until now, comes as Harris faces scrutiny on the 2024 campaign trail over her support in 2020 for defunding the police and her handling of the border crisis. Harris has reversed course on a variety of her left-wing policy positions after becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

“But the vice president’s willingness to fund Legal Aid DC as recently as 2023 could raise questions about her ties to controversial progressive activists — including after Harris selected Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who has been widely criticized over his response to the 2020 riots in Minnesota, as her running mate.” -Washington Examiner. Legal Aid DC was founded in 1932, and brands itself as “the district’s oldest and largest civil legal services organization” helping to “make justice real in individual and systemic ways.” In 2020, Legal Aid DC published a statement in the wake of George Floyd’s death noting that it “stands in solidarity with those speaking out, demonstrating, and demanding a country and society that will treat every one of its residents with dignity and respect.” Days later, the group’s housing law attorney Amanda Korber was quoted in an article pushing for fewer police officers in DC.

Legal Aid DC shared the article on social media, writing “As Legal Aid’s Amanda Korber noted in the article, we are concerned, especially given the ongoing protest movement, about any solution that involves more police and policing in DC public housing. #BlackLivesMatterDC.” As the Examiner notes further, Legal Aid DC shared an article in 2021 glorifying BLM, and amplifying a quote by Minneapolis City Councilman Jeremiah Ellison declaring “I think the police will view a leftist protester with a gas mask as more dangerous than a right-wing protester with a semiautomatic rifle.” Of note, Ellison – the son of Minnesota AG Keith Ellison, helped lead the charge in 2020 to “dismantle” the Minneapolis Police Department. Legal Aid DC also supported a since-approved law in DC that to make it a “permanent” sanctuary city – legislation which restricts cooperation between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local agencies.

Legal Aid’s Adam Jacobs said at the time that the law “could lift some of the terror our immigrant neighbors and their families have faced for many years.” “It also restricts the city’s prisons from functioning as immigration detention centers and amends a loophole used by ICE and the U.S. Marshals to detain immigrants outside of D.C. Superior Court,” reported NBC4 Washington in 2020 upon the City Council’s approval of a permanent version of the then-temporary law. Meanwhile, Harris running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), has supported similar “sanctuary state” policies in the past, as well as a law allowing illegal immigrants to obtain a driver’s license.

Meanwhile, Legal Aid DC also submitted testimony in 2023 in support of a bill to “create a reparations task force and fund to address the impacts of slavery and institutional racism in Washington, D.C.,” according to documents. The organization’s policy counsel, Jen Jenkins, told the DC City Counsel that it’s essential for the district “to acknowledge that slavery, colonialism, and systemic racism have left deep scars in D.C. and to begin rectifying those impacts for black D.C. residents through enacting this bill.” Also, Walz’s wife is ‘weird’…

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“Making investments into a manufacturing facility that could be obliterated by Russia and may not have sustained demand in the future “has to make sense from a business case..”

US Arms Makers Refusing To Invest In Ukraine (RT)

American arms manufacturers are reluctant to open workshops in Ukraine despite the Pentagon coaxing them to do so, the military news outlet Defense One reported on Tuesday, citing a US State Department official. The Ukrainian government has touted the build-up of domestic arms manufacturing by foreign firms as an alternative to the long-term supply of military aid by Western sponsors. Germany’s Rheinmetall has so far voiced the most ambitious plans to operate on Ukrainian soil, promising to make not just munitions, but also armored vehicles and tanks in the country. However, other large players, particularly those from the US, have been cautious about making such pledges. Northrop Grumman is an exception, having announced last month that it had finalized an agreement to produce medium-caliber ammunition in Ukraine. The company will provide equipment and training, but has refused to put its own employees on the ground.

Making investments into a manufacturing facility that could be obliterated by Russia and may not have sustained demand in the future “has to make sense from a business case,” a US State Department official told Defense One on the sidelines of the Farnborough air show in the UK. The US industry “is really eager” to profit, but needs the government to hedge their investments for risks, according to the source. ”It has to be a business case for what they’re trying to do, and so looking at maybe starting off with a maintenance, repair, and overhaul type stuff, spare parts production, so kind of starting a crawl-walk-run-type philosophy, before you actually get to the more advanced stuff,” the official said. In addition to the war-related risks, Western firms are also concerned about corruption, the source acknowledged. The US diplomat claimed that Ukraine was making progress in that regard, but was far from where it needed to be to allay the concerns.

Graft has been an endemic problem in the country since it gained independence in the early 1990s. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has reportedly complained about the attention paid to the problem by his Western backers, claiming that it is largely irrelevant at a time when his nation is fighting Russia. Russia has described the Ukraine conflict as a US-triggered proxy war against it, waged for the sake of Washington’s geopolitical interests. The American economy has benefited from it by boosting demand for weapons and tanking the competitiveness of Western European manufacturers, Russian officials have said. European firms have lost access to cheap Russian energy and raw materials due to the breakdown of trade with the country, with some relocating plants to the US as a result.

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Where did they find 1,000 extra troops?

EU Hails Incursion Into Russia As Ukraine’s Right To ‘Self-defense’ (RT)

The European Union fully supports the actions of Ukraine’s forces, including striking Russian territory, European Commission spokesman Peter Stano has said. The statement came a day after Ukraine launched a major cross-border sortie into Russia’s Kursk Region early on Tuesday. At least five civilians were killed in assault as of Wednesday evening, according to the Interim Governor of Kursk, Aleksey Smirnov. Another 31 people – including six children – were injured in the Ukrainian shelling of the town of Sudzha, Russia’s Health Ministry said late on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the Kursk attack yet another “large-scale provocation” by Kiev, accusing Ukrainian troops of deliberately targeting civilians. Commenting on the raid, Stano said Ukraine has the right to defend itself, “including by striking the aggressor on its territory.”

“The EU continues to fully support Ukraine’s legitimate right to defend itself” and win back its lost territories, the spokesperson told the Ukrainian news network Suspilne on Wednesday. Kiev considers the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as the Crimean peninsula to be parts of Ukraine. All five territories formerly joined the Russian Federation after a series of democratic referendums. Ukrainian forces numbering up to a thousand, supported by tanks and artillery, moved across the border in an attempt to take hold of the Sudzhinsky district of Russia’s Kursk Region, the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday, reporting that the Ukrainian advance had been stopped. In the attack, Kiev’s forces suffered at least 315 casualties, with more than 100 killed and the rest wounded as of Wednesday, the chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, reported.

Ukraine also lost at least 54 armored vehicles, including seven tanks during the push, he stated. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the incursion as a “massed terrorist attack.” The “barbaric attack” aimed to “sow panic among the residents of the region and demonstrate at least some semblance of activity, amid the constant failures of the Ukrainian armed forces in the conflict,” she stated. Commenting on Kiev’s incursion, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington’s stance on Ukraine’s use of US-supplied weapons in cross-border attacks has not changed, and that “with the actions that they are taking today, they’re not in violation of our policy.” Moscow has repeatedly warned that Western arms supplies to Ukraine will not break the course of the conflict, but only prolong it.

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“Things will get worse in terms of Ukrainian terrorism spreading across the planet. It’s not a joke..”

Ukraine Spreading ‘Terrorism’ Around The World – Zakharova (RT)

The Ukrainian government has become a terrorist organization acting on behalf of Western nations and their “deep state structures,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. The official condemned Kiev in an interview on Wednesday, after Ukrainian troops launched an incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region one day previously and several civilians were killed by Ukrainian strikes. “This is an act of terrorism. It was obviously directed against peaceful people. There is no doubt about that,” the spokeswoman told Sputnik Radio. Zakharova brought up Mali’s decision earlier this month to cut diplomatic relations with Kiev, after Ukrainian officials claimed credit for an ambush on Russian military contractors by Tuareg militants. A spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence called it a “successful military operation” by his agency, but Bamako described it as support for terrorism in the Sahel region of Africa.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has since denied Kiev’s involvement in the incident, while neighboring Niger joined Mali in condemning Ukraine and breaking ties with it. “Things will get worse in terms of Ukrainian terrorism spreading across the planet. It’s not a joke,” Zakharova warned. People in power in Kiev have turned their country into a “terrorist gang” doing the dirty work for Western nations and their “deep state structures,” the diplomat claimed. She also asked what it would take to convince the American people that by bankrolling Ukraine, their government was sponsoring terrorism. Ukrainian troops have been launching attacks against settlements in the border areas of Kursk Region as they try to push their way inside Russian territory.

On Tuesday evening, acting Governor Aleksey Smirnov reported that the civilian death toll from the hostilities had increased, after a Ukrainian kamikaze drone hit an ambulance near the town of Sudzha, one of the primary targets of the attacks. The strike killed the driver and an elderly paramedic, and left a doctor injured, he said. Previous updates confirmed three civilian fatalities. Meanwhile, local health officials reported on Wednesday that at least 28 people had been injured by Ukrainian strikes. Zakharova cited a deep fake video of Smirnov, in which the governor urged all men in Kursk Region to go to conscription centers and take arms, as evidence that Ukraine’s military activities were primarily meant to disturb Russian civilians. The clip was apparently based on an actual video statement made by the governor on Tuesday, which urged citizens to keep calm and prioritize their safety.

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Mali, Niger, Senegal and Burkina Faso. What business does Kiev have there?

Fourth African State Sanctions Ukraine For ‘Supporting Terrorism’ (RT)

Niger has severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine in response to Kiev’s alleged support for militants who killed dozens of Malian soldiers and Russian Wagner Group contractors in an attack last month. The West African state’s decision on Tuesday came just two days after Mali took the same step, accusing Kiev of supporting international terrorism. Ukrainian officials had earlier indicated that Kiev had assisted Tuareg rebels who staged an attack in the village of Tinzaouaten. In an interview following the incident, Ukraine’s spy agency spokesman, Andrey Yusov, indicated on national TV that the insurgents had received intelligence to conduct a “successful military operation against Russian war criminals.” He warned that “there will be more to come.” Ukraine’s embassy in Senegal posted the video – now deleted – on its Facebook page along with a comment from Ambassador Yury Pivovarov, who said “there will certainly be other results.”

Niamey’s military government spokesman, Amadou Abdramane, called the remarks “indecent” and “unacceptable” in an address on state TV late on Tuesday, claiming that they characterize “acts of aggression.” “Niger, in total solidarity with the government and people of Mali, has decided in all sovereignty […] to sever diplomatic relations between the Republic of Niger and Ukraine with immediate effect,” Abdramane said. Kiev has yet to respond to the African state’s move. On Monday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denied any involvement in the terrorist attack and described Mali’s decision to break off diplomatic ties as “shortsighted and hasty.” “Ukraine is known in Africa as an important contributor to ensuring regional security,” the ministry stated, arguing that Bamako had acted without providing any evidence of Kiev’s complicity in the ambush near the Algerian border.

On Tuesday, the West African regional bloc ECOWAS condemned the killings in Mali and expressed “strong” opposition to “any foreign interference” that threatens the region’s peace and security. Bamako’s neighbors, including Senegal and Burkina Faso, have all criticized Ukraine over the statements by its officials. Since 2012, Mali has been embroiled in a jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. A decade-long French military mission failed to quell the violence, which has spilled over to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. All three former French colonies, led by their militaries, have severed defense ties with Paris and formed the Alliance of Sahel States to combat terrorism. Russia, which Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou regard as a strategic security ally, has agreed to assist the troubled Sahel states in combating long-standing terrorist threats.

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“Journalism as an occupation no longer exists. Today the struggle is not to get at the heart of an issue, but to have one’s agenda prevail.”

Why Did America Give Away Its Manufacturing Jobs? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Not long ago a couple of publishers asked about my memoirs. I told them I had no interest. Memoirs are an enormous undertaking, especially when your files haven’t been organized for the purpose. Moreover, many of mine have been discarded in moves. When you have lived as long as I have and been involved in so many major issues, files are a voluminous collection. Moreover, I have always had a jaundiced eye toward memoirs, being unsure whether they are an exercise in egotism. In past times I think memoirs, even if they were attempts to control the narrative, something done for us today by the CIA and woke media and universities, still made information available that otherwise would have died with the person. I find this a bit sobering as there is a great deal of information that is going to die with me. Despite all the winnowing of my files, I still have 25 crates that if I did nothing else for one year I might get through. To organize the information, I would need at least two assistants.

I have barely touched the crates, and already I have found important matters long forgotten. In 2004 NY Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer and I opened a New Year with a jointly authored column in the New York Times. We raised the offshoring issue. American manufacturing jobs and the tech jobs of American professionals were being sent to Asia. We posed the question that if jobs offshoring was free trade, as economists claimed, was free trade any longer in America’s interest? My position was that jobs offshoring is a contradiction of free trade–more later–and Schumer was still in his idealistic period when he was concerned about the displacement of American labor by foreign labor in the production of goods and services that Americans consumed. Our article caused a firestorm. The Brookings Institution in Washington called a conference and asked us to come and defend our position. C-Span broadcast the conference live and rebroadcast it a number of times. Schumer and I carried the day.

Delighted with the publicity, Schumer suggested a follow-up article. The NY Times was eager. We began a draft, and then it went cold. My explanation is that Wall Street, which was committed to jobs offshoring, got to Schumer and explained campaign contributions to him. I continued on. Conservatives, free market economists, and libertarians, who are indoctrinated with free trade, but who do not comprehend the theory, called me a heretic. Nevertheless, both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post were intrigued that the “most ardent” of the “Reagan policymakers” had taken a position against the policy that Wall Street was imposing on the country. The Wall Street Journal assigned Timothy Aeppel to arrange a series of debates to be published in the Wall Street Journal between me and Columbia University Professor Jagdish Bhagwati. The question was: Is jobs offshoring really free trade?

Adam Smith and David Ricardo’s theory of free trade rests on the principle of comparative advantage. What this means is that a country’s capital remains employed at home and is employed in areas in which the capital is best used. If all countries do this, there are gains from trade, and all countries will be better off than if they are self-sufficient. I have wondered if the free trade theory was used as a stratagem to repeal the British Corn Laws and reduce the income and power of the landed aristocracy. Both Smith and Ricardo made it completely clear that if a country’s capital left the country, it was pursuing absolute advantage, not comparative advantage, and free trade theory is vitiated. This is the point I made. Without comparative advantage, there is no case for free trade. The Wall Street Journal wasn’t the only media institution interested in the facts. So was the Washington Post.

The Washington Post assigned their economics editor Paul Blustein to interview me and my critics and to do a news report. Blustein interviewed me at least three times prior to writing his story. Keep in mind that Blustein had been a critic during my Treasury days with the Reagan administration. Nevertheless, after giving my critics their say, Blustein wrote:“Still, mainstream economists can’t answer a key question that Roberts raises, which is how the U.S. economy can generate better employment opportunities to replace the white-collar jobs that are suddenly vanishing. “Roberts recently got some support for his argument from a heavyweight academic economist, William J. Baumol . . . a past president of the American Economic Association and a book he published with Ralph E. Gomery, [a distinguished mathematician] that pokes some holes in economic orthodoxy by showing that free trade will not necessarily provide mutual gains to countries.”

Today this exchange of ideas in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and the honest appraisal of one’s opponents is not possible. I am banned from the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper I used to edit. I am banned from the Washington Post for which I was a contributor. I am banned from the NY Times which used to call me and ask me to write on current issues. I am banned from the newspapers of the Scripps Howard News Service. I am banned from the San Diego Union, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Los Angeles Times for which I was a regular contributor. There is no debate. There are narratives, and the narratives are imposed. Journalism as an occupation no longer exists. Today the struggle is not to get at the heart of an issue, but to have one’s agenda prevail.

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“..violations of the Foreign Agent Restriction Act (FARA)”

FBI Raids Scott Ritter’s House (RT)

Federal agents and state police have searched the house of former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter in New York state on Wednesday. State Police and FBI agents descended on the street of Bethlehem township, south of Albany, around noon, according to the local outlet Times-Union. They carried “more than two dozen boxes” out of the house just before 5pm local time. The law enforcement executed a search warrant “related to concerns apparently the US government has about violations of the Foreign Agent Restriction Act (FARA)” Ritter told reporters gathered outside the house after the agents left. He denied any allegations of wrongdoing and said the federal government was trying to intimidate him. An FBI spokesperson confirmed “law enforcement activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation,” but would say nothing further.

Ritter is a former US Marine Corps major who served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s. He opposed the 2003 US invasion, insisting that Saddam Hussein’s government did not have weapons of mass destruction, as Washington claimed at the time. He has also been an RT contributor and saw his passport seized by the US government when he tried to attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June. Jim Hoffman, Ritter’s neighbor across the street for two decades, told the Times-Union that the former inspector has kept a low profile. “When he came out against the Iraq War back in early 2000s, he was vilified everywhere,” Hoffman said. “Honestly, he was right. He said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Ritter himself has not posted anything about the raid on social media. His most recent post on X was from Tuesday’s meeting with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The administrators of his Telegram channel posted photos of the raid and said they have not heard from him either.

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Hmmm…

Vienna Cancels Taylor Swift Concerts Over ISIS Attack Fears (RT)

US pop mega-star Taylor Swift has canceled three upcoming concerts in Vienna, Austria after two suspects were arrested for allegedly planning terrorist attacks on the shows. Swift was supposed to perform at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium on August 8, 9, and 10 as part of her European leg of the Eras Tour. Venues across the continent have been sold out for weeks. “With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” concert promoter Barracuda Music said in an Instagram post. “All tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days.” Austrian police arrested a 19-year-old who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS) in Ternitz, a town south of Vienna. Another suspect was later detained in the capital

Franz Ruf, director-general for public safety in the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, told reporters that the suspects were allegedly self-radicalized online, planned to attack Vienna, and expressed particular interest in Swift’s concerts. The organizers expected 65,000 concertgoers at each show and an additional 10,000 to 15,000 fans outside the arena, police said. The risk justified raising security precautions, said Vienna police chief Gerhard Purst. The 19-year-old suspect may have been building an explosive device, police said, and the chemical substances found at his home are currently being investigated. The names of the suspects have not been made public. Swift embarked on the Eras Tour in March 2023, aiming to do 152 concerts across five continents, performing hits from her 17-year career. The 34-year-old songstress is expected to make $2 billion from the tour by the time it wraps up in December.

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Pardon him while you still can..

Hunter Biden Got ‘Millions’ of Dollars From Romania to Influence US Gov’t (Sp.)

Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, has received millions of dollars from a Romanian entrepreneur in order to influence the US government during his father’s vice presidency, court filings have revealed. US Department of Justice Special Counsel David Weiss’s office found that Biden received “substantial” sums of money from foreign firms and individuals in exchange for acting as a lobbyist, consultant, or legal adviser. “With respect to his first topic, ‘allegations that Mr. Biden (1) acted on behalf of a foreign principal to influence U.S. policy and public opinion,’ the defendant did receive compensation from a foreign principal to attempt to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, as alleged in the indictment, and this evidence is relevant and not unfairly prejudicial,” the Wednesday filing read. Hunter Biden worked for Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu (referred to as G.P. in the document) to help him escape bribery charges in Romania, Weiss’s office also revealed.

“The evidence of what the defendant agreed to do and did do for G.P. demonstrates the defendant’s state of mind and intent during the relevant tax years charged in the indictment. It is also evidence that the defendants actions do not reflect someone with a diminished capacity, given that he agreed to attempt to influence U.S. public policy and receive millions of dollars,” the document said. In November 2023, House Republicans subpoenaed the president’s brother James Biden and Hunter Biden to appear for a deposition before lawmakers. In May, Smith said that Hunter Biden had repeatedly lied to Congress in his February deposition to distance his involvement in what should be considered a “clear scheme to enrich the Biden family.” The House of Representatives is investigating the Biden family for alleged criminal activity, including foreign influence peddling and bribery.

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The Supreme Court is the only things they don’t control..

The “No Kings Act” is a Decapitation of the Constitution (Turley)

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has introduced the “No Kings Act” with great fanfare and the support of most of his Democratic colleagues. Liberal groups have heralded the measure to legislatively reverse the ruling in Trump v. United States. It is obviously popular with the press and pundits. It is also entirely unconstitutional in my view. The “No Kings Act” is not just a cynical abdication of responsibility by Democrats, but would constitute the virtual decapitation of the Constitution. I have previously written about the false claims made about the Supreme Court’s decision by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other leading democrats. The press and pundits have reached a new level of sensationalism and hysteria in the coverage with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow even claiming that it was a “death squad ruling.” The Court actually rejected the most extreme positions of both the Trump team and the lower courts.

As it has in the past, the Court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills. In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress. In this decision, the court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions.

Where the coverage has been wildly inaccurate, the No Kings Act is cynically dishonest. To his credit, President Joe Biden was at least honest in proposing a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision in Trump. However, that was dead on arrival in Congress since under Article V it would require a two-thirds majority vote in both houses and then ratification by three-fourths of the states. The Democrats are seeking to circumvent that process with simple majority votes with the No Kings Act. The bill is being presented as a jurisdiction-stripping measure, not an effort to dictate outcomes. Congress does have authority to change the jurisdiction of the federal courts. That authority was recognized by the Court itself in Ex parte McCardle (1869). Chief Justice Salmon Chase ruled that it did have the authority “to make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of this court.”

However, Chase also emphasized that the law did “not affect the jurisdiction which was previously exercised” so that prior decisions would remain fully enforceable. Moreover, shortly after McCardle, the Court ruled in United States v. Klein (1871), that Congress may not use its authority of court jurisdiction to lay out a “rule of decision” for the Supreme Court, or effectively dictate results in court cases. The No Kings Act does more than just strip jurisdiction and makes no secret of its purpose in dictating the outcome of future cases. It purports in Section 2 to “clarify that a President or Vice President is not entitled to any form of immunity from criminal prosecution for violations of the criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.” That is a rather Orwellian view of “clarification” since it directly contradicts the opinion in declaring in the very next section that “[a] President, former President, Vice President, or former Vice President shall not be entitled to any form of immunity (whether absolute, presumptive, or otherwise) from criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.”

Schumer and most of the Democratic senators actually believe that they can simply instruct lower courts to ignore a Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of the Constitution. It would undermine the basis of Marbury v. Madison after 221 years. To be sure, it is stated in strictly jurisdictional terms. Yet, it crafts the jurisdictional changes to mirror the decision and future immunity claims. The bill declares that federal courts “may not consider whether an alleged violation of any criminal laws of the United States committed by a President or Vice President was within the conclusive or preclusive constitutional authority of a President or Vice President or was related to the official duties of a President or Vice President unless directed by Congress.” But the Democrats are not done yet. Section 4 actually removes the Supreme Court from such questions and makes appellate courts the effective highest courts of the land when it comes to presidential immunity:

“The Supreme Court of the United States shall have no appellate jurisdiction, on the basis that an alleged criminal act was within the conclusive or preclusive constitutional authority of a President or Vice President or on the basis that an alleged criminal act was related to the official duties of a President or Vice President.” Notably, this is one of the wacky ideas put forward by the President’s Supreme Court Commission. After all, why pack the Court if you can just gut it? Of course, some sponsors like Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) want to both pack the Court and strip it of authority. Presumably, once packed, the authority to act as a court would be at least restored with the liberal majority.

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Sorry, Two Tier Kier. NASA need Musk to save their ISS astronauts.

Crazed Authoritarians Demand X Be Shut Down in UK (MN)

Mimicking a policy that the west once condemned Communist China for pursuing, authoritarians are now calling for X to be shut down completely in the UK to stop civil unrest. After the country was rocked by a series of riots over the past week in response to a 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants killing three little girls in Southport, the media and the political class blamed the anger on “misinformation” shared on X. In reality, the UK has been a boiling pot of resentment and rage over mass migration for years, with huge numbers continuing to arrive, putting massive strain on the country and making some parts of major towns and cities unrecognizable, despite nobody having ever voted for it. However, the disorder is being exploited to grease the skids for mass censorship. Cambridge professor Sander van der Linden said the government could “geo-restrict access to a platform if the situation got so bad” and Twitter could also be “banned from the app store for violating policies.”

Jessica Simor QC also called for the UK government to “pass a short bill closing down Twitter in the UK.” Entrepreneur Ana Vilhete also called for Twitter to be temporarily banned in the UK to “limit the spread of inflammatory information.” Journalist Paul Mason, a Marxist who once worked for the BBC, demanded the government use the Online Safety Bill (which passed under the excuse of protecting children from harmful content) to “pull the plug” on X. Apparently, it’s horrendous for Middle Eastern dictators to shut down and block social media networks during times of civil unrest, as occurred during the Arab Spring, but when the UK does it, it’s fine. Whenever there are anti-government protests in China, the Communist regime there also blocks and suspends social media networks, something that was once slammed by western governments as a vicious attack on basic freedom, but a tactic which they now emulate.

Although the riots are cited as the primary reason for mass censorship, the calls are also being driven by the fact that Elon Musk has challenged the mainstream narrative on the riots and embarrassed Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Musk branded Starmer ‘Two Tier Kier’ for pursuing a vigorous crackdown on anti-mass migration demonstrators while turning a blind eye to Muslim mobs who have also rioted and physically attacked innocent people. The British political establishment engaged in a collective hissy fit over Musk’s simple question for Starmer and the government when he asked, “Why aren’t all communities protected in Britain?”. The X owner also drew attention to a viral video clip of a man being arrested in his own home by police over a Facebook post, asking if it was “Britain or the Soviet Union”. The regime is deeply fearful that Musk’s intervention is causing them to lose control of the narrative that the unrest is being fueled by mindless, racist thuggery and not legitimate concerns about the impact of mass migration on working class people in the UK.

Hitchens/Starmer

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All roads…

 

 

Mar a lago
https://twitter.com/i/status/1820943581823299921

 

 

Starlink

 

 

Sting
https://twitter.com/i/status/1820913480192725080

 

 

Rescue
https://twitter.com/i/status/1820900188627857766

 

 

Oh no!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821068771252916646

 

 

More friends
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821162344866632041

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jun 122024
 


Vincent van Gogh Bridge in the rain (after Hiroshige) 1887

 

Pelosi Admits Fault for the Lack of Jan 6 Security Precautions (Turley)
Biden Campaign Claims Trump “Has Praised The Third Reich” (MN)
NIH Scrambled After ZeroHedge Report On Fauci Beagle Experiments (ZH)
New Jersey Announces Investigation into Trump Liquor Licenses (Turley)
‘We Are So Proud’: Bidens React To Hunter Verdict (RT)
Israel and the Misjudgement of Reality (Alastair Crooke)
How Russia Can Prevent WW3 (Dmitry Trenin)
BRICS Must Prevent New ‘Cold War’ – China (RT)
West ‘Losing Trust’ In Ukraine – FT (RT)
Eastern NATO Club May Kick Hungary Out For Dissent – FT (RT)
US ‘Flirting With Neo-Nazis’ – Kremlin (RT)
Ukraine ‘Peace Conference’ Will Not Urge Withdrawal Of Russian Troops (RT)

 

 

I absolutely urge you to watch Steve Bannon talking to Tucker.

Tucker Bannon

 

 

 

 

Vucic

 

 

 

 

RFK Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1800576436731781143

 

 

Telegram

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..a previously-unreleased video..”

The Jan 6 committee decided to hold it back so they could promote false allegations against Trump. They must be investigated.

Pelosi Admits Fault for the Lack of Jan 6 Security Precautions (Turley)

For years, some of us have asked why the Capitol was so poorly prepared for the January 6th riot. As part of the coverage on that day, I remarked at the start of the protests that I had never seen the Capitol so thinly protected for a major demonstration. Some paths to the Capitol were protected by a handful of bicycle officers and thin barriers. Now, a previously-unreleased video taken on Jan. 6, 2021 shows then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., admitting that she was responsible for the lack of preparedness. The video was disclosed in a posting on X by a House Republican panel. The video shows Pelosi in an exchange with Chief of Staff Terri McCullough on the evacuation.

Pelosi states: “We have responsibility, Terri. We did not have any accountability for what was going on there. And we should have. This is ridiculous. You’re going to ask me in the middle of the thing when they’ve already breached…that, should we call the Capitol Police? I mean the National Guard? Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?…They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepared for more.” The video was never released by the J6 Committee, which was criticized for its highly choreographed and scripted hearings with little balance in the presentation of evidence. The lack of emphasis on the security issues was glaring and raised by critics throughout the hearings. While Democrats and the media dismissed the issue and claims that Trump offered to supply the national guard, it was later confirmed that those offers were made to Congress and rejected.

A report from Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton also found that Capitol police were told that they could not use critical riot materials and tactics in preparation for the Jan. 6th protests. What was so curious about the lack of precautions that morning is that the Capitol had just experienced the violence outside of the White House in the Lafayette Park protests. To this day, the media and many members continue to repeat false accounts of the Lafayette Park. Many still have stories posted that claim that Lafayette Park was cleared for Trump to hold a photo op in front of a church. I discussed those accounts in testimony before Congress and in columns on the clearing of the Lafayette Park area. NPR still has a story on its website entitled “Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op.” More officers were injured in the Lafayette Park protests than on January 6th.

As previously discussed in repeated columns, the House Democratic leadership refused to hold a single hearing with key witnesses on what occurred before the riot. After using a “snap impeachment,” weeks went by without calling such witnesses before the Trump impeachment trial. Such evidence would have challenged the narrative and raised questions over decisions made by Congress that left the Capitol vulnerable to such an attack.In the Lafayette Park protests, White House officials feared that the compound could be breached by violent protesters who had injured dozens of officers and engaged in arson and attacks around the White House during that weekend. They decided to clear the area to install fencing (which Congress only ordered after the Jan. 6th riot). They also deployed the National Guard and the “heavier, less lethal weapons” that the Inspector General found were denied to the Capitol Police.

Had Pelosi and others accepted National Guard support and installed fencing as was done at the White House, it is doubtful that the riot on January 6th would have occurred or any disruption would have been far more limited in scope. The fact that the J6 Committee downplayed this major factor in the riot further undermines how the investigation was framed by the Democratic leadership. Pelosi barred the GOP members selected for the committee, hand picking two anti-Trump Republican members.

The absence of any balance on the committee was evident from the start. There was little effort to present alternative explanations or defenses to critical issues raised in hearings. No opposing witnesses were called who might contradict the narrative put forward by the Committee, including witnesses who would debunk the much-repeated, false claim that Trump wrestled with his driver to gain control of the presidential limo to drive to the Capitol. With the Speaker admitting on tape that she bore responsibility for the lack of precautions, one would think that the J6 Committee, including then Vice Chair Liz Cheney, would consider that relevant for the public to understand the underlying facts. Instead, it was buried with much other countervailing evidence.

Tucker Jan 6
https://twitter.com/i/status/1800541468051804485

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“..the downward trend for Biden means that dropping out of the race is worth discussing, even though it “would be a big risk” for the Democrats..”

Biden Campaign Claims Trump “Has Praised The Third Reich” (MN)

Biden campaign senior adviser Adrienne Elrod claimed Monday that Donald Trump has “praised the Third Reich” and intends to rule as a racist dictator. During an interview with CNN, Elrod was asked to comment on Republicans who “worship” Trump, and responded “I think that rhetoric speaks for itself.” “Donald Trump and his MAGA allies are focused on seeking revenge and retribution,” Elrod asserted, adding “They are running a negative campaign that is not focused on the American people, but is focused on themselves.” She continued, “Trump has made it very clear that if he steps back into that White House, he will rule as a dictator on day one. He will seek — he will use the White House to seek political revenge and retribution on his political enemies.” Trump actually said he won’t do that, but it doesn’t fit the Biden campaign’s narrative.

While she was at it, Elrod painted up Trump as an admirer of Hitler. “You know, he has said things that — you know, he’s praised the Third Reich. He has used, you know, racist rhetoric at every chance that he has,” she claimed. Praised the Third Reich? Presumably she is referring to this…

The desperation among the Biden campaign is palpable. His approval rating just hit a new all-time low of 37.4 percent. FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver noted that the downward trend for Biden means that dropping out of the race is worth discussing, even though it “would be a big risk” for the Democrats. “But there’s some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk,” Silver commented, adding “Are we there yet? I don’t know. But it’s more than fair to ask.” “If I’d told you 10 years ago a president would seek re-election at 81 despite a supermajority of Americans having concerns about his age, and then we’d hit 8% inflation for 2 years, you wouldn’t be surprised he was an underdog for reelection. You’d be surprised it was even close!” Silver further wrote.

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Lock him up. Throw away the key.

NIH Scrambled After ZeroHedge Report On Fauci Beagle Experiments (ZH)

Last week, Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene took a detour from grilling Anthony Fauci over COVID-19, to confront him with photos of beagles who had been subjected to animal testing experiments widely reported to be funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the National Institutes of Health (NIH), following a 2021 investigation series by the group White Coat Waste Project. “We should be recommending you to be prosecuted,” Greene told Fauci. “We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison,” she continued, adding “That man does not deserve to have a license. As a matter of fact, it should be revoked and he belongs in prison.” This opened up a can of worms which includes a response from White Coat Waste, and triggered the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler to do a deep dive into ‘Beaglegage’ in an effort to debunk Greene.

“When we first saw Greene hold up the photo, we figured this would be easy to debunk — another in a string of misleading attacks against Fauci, who became the public face of the government’s response to the pandemic.” -Washington Post. Only to discover that the NIH appears to have lied about funding the experiment, which involved beagles between 6 and 8 months old obtained from the kennels of the Pasteur Institute of Tunis. In the study, the beagles were sedated and then exposed to hundreds of sand flies that had been deprived of food for 24 hours. This exposure took place as part of research into zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (ZVL), a disease carried by sand flies that can affect dogs and humans. After ZeroHedge amplified the White Coat Waste report (archived), there was a full blown panic.

In late October 2021, CNN asked Fauci to appear for an interview, and one of his staff members suggested late on Oct. 24 that Fauci pause any TV interviews “until we get a handle on this.” Early the next morning, Fauci emailed 12 officials and asked them to “tell me what grant or contract they are referring to.” Within two hours, one replied that they might have identified the grant. (Most staff members’ names are redacted.) “Let us find out for sure if it is that grant, and then let us take a look at what the experimental design is, and importantly whether it has received the appropriate ethical and animal care consideration,” Fauci replied in an email. “I want this done right away since we are getting bombarded by protests.”

Within two hours, one of the researchers involved, Abhay Satoskar, a professor of pathology and microbiology at Ohio State University, emailed to say that NIAID had been mistakenly cited as a funder of the study and that he would seek a correction from the journal. One NIAID official wrote in an email that Satoskar “stated that it was mistakenly cited because he was not clear of the true purpose of US funding acknowledgment” and that the program in question had been funded only by the Pasteur Institute. Satoskar, meanwhile asked Shaden Kamhawi, the editor of the journal, to correct the article. Kamhawi initially agreed, but noted internally that she may have a conflict of interest as a NIAID employee. She then sent an email in a panic over the ZeroHedge article potentially inviting “a lot of noise & unwanted attention for [Fauci]. They also called us an “illegitimate blog of no credibility,” which is high praise considering the source.

When the story broke in 2021, the NIH scrubbed it from its database and then fed WaPo disinformation: When The Post reported on the controversy in November 2021, the article noted: “The trapped-beagles study does not appear in a database of NIH-funded projects.” The emails show that, while it was removed before the publication of The Post article, the study had been listed in the database for months and was still listed as of the previous month, when Fauci first asked about the controversy. “We need that to be corrected too, ASAP please,” one NIH staffer wrote on Oct. 27. The anxiety level rose as officials realized it would take several days, until Nov. 1, before the project would be removed from the database — where reporters could not then find it. -WaPo.

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“..Platkin’s office has announced that it is “reviewing” whether to pull the liquor licenses for Trump golf clubs since he is now convicted of felonies in New York..”:

New Jersey Announces Investigation into Trump Liquor Licenses (Turley)

Many of us have expressed alarm at the politicization of the criminal justice system in New York by figures such as Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. It now appears that New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin is angling to get into the lawfare frenzy. The conviction of Trump on 34 felonies has either thrilled or repelled citizens. For many of us, it is a sign of the degradation of our legal system. Even the chief CNN legal analyst has acknowledged that Bragg contorted the law to bring the recent case against former President Donald Trump in an unprecedented prosecution. Yet, the use of the legal system for political purposes is clearly popular in New York where people were literally dancing in the street outside of the courthouse after the recent verdict against Trump.

Now Platkin’s office has announced that it is “reviewing” whether to pull the liquor licenses for Trump golf clubs since he is now convicted of felonies in New York. It appears that lawfare is nothing if not intoxicating for Democratic politicians. According to an article in the Hill, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control is “reviewing the impact of President Trump’s conviction” on his liquor licenses for the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck, Lamington Farm Club, and Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia in Pine Hill. The latest effort is based on a vague standard governing crimes of “moral turpitude” under New Jersey law: “No license of any class shall be issued to any person under the age of 18 years or to any person who has been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. A beneficiary of a trust who is not otherwise disqualified to hold an interest in a license may qualify regardless of age so long as the trustee of the trust qualifies and the trustee shall hold the beneficiary’s interest in trust until the beneficiary is at least the age of majority.”

A “crime of moral turpitude” is a familiar, though dated, standard in American law. I teach the standard in torts as one of the traditional “per se” categories for slander under the common law. It was generally used to denote conduct of immorality or serious offenses to norms of society. New Jersey defines it as including “any offense that carries the possibility of one year in jail and involves acts of baseness, vileness, or depravity in the private and social duties which a man owes to his fellowmen, or to society in general. Even the New Jersey Alcoholic Beverage Control handbook notes that in “some instances, it may be unclear whether a conviction involves an element of moral turpitude.” Yet, Trump has a way to bringing clarity for his critics whenever they must chose between politics and principle.

For most of us, it is hard to see how falsifying business records would constitute “acts of baseness, vileness, or depravity in the private and social duties which a man owes to his fellowmen, or to society in general.” However, for Democrats, it seems that any act by Trump is by definition base, vile, and depraved. The piling on of investigations and charges by Democratic officials has reinforced Trump’s long narrative of a weaponization of the legal system against him and his supporters. Polling shows that most citizens view some of these cases as political prosecutions and that they are having diminishing impact on voter preferences. Yet, they remain thrilling for Democratic voters who lionize prosecutors who come up with novel or unprecedented avenues to hammer Trump or hit his businesses. It does not seem to matter that removing the liquor licenses of these clubs can endanger thousands of jobs of citizens or chill other businesses in considering investments in New York or New Jersey. In the end, the effort is hardly surprising. Lawfare is like binge drinking: the excess is the very measure of its success.

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“Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit..”

‘We Are So Proud’: Bidens React To Hunter Verdict (RT)

US President Joe Biden and his wife Jill love their son and intend to respect the judicial process, according to a statement released on Tuesday in response to a Delaware jury finding Hunter Biden guilty of federal gun crimes. Biden’s younger son was charged with three felonies based on a 2018 firearm purchase while being a crack cocaine addict and lying about it on a gun control form. Tuesday’s verdict made him the first son of a sitting president to be convicted in federal court. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today,” Biden said in the statement. “I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal. Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that.”

Joe Biden married Jill Jacobs in 1977, five years after losing his first wife Neilia and their daughter Naomi in a car crash. Hunter and his older brother Beau were seriously injured in the accident. Biden was sworn in as US senator in their hospital room. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter later ended up romantically involved with Beau’s widow Hallie. It was Hallie who found the illegally purchased Colt Cobra revolver in Hunter’s truck and threw it in the trash. Believing the gun had been stolen, Hunter set the Secret Service scrambling to recover it. The entire episode was revealed thanks to Hunter Biden’s laptop, which he left in a Delaware repair shop while high on crack and subsequently forgot about it. The laptop’s contents emerged during the 2020 presidential election, but social media companies censored the New York Post for publishing the story while Biden had current and former US intelligence officials denounce it as “Russian disinformation.” The trial confirmed that the laptop and its contents were authentic.

Hunter’s verdict came as his father was scheduled to appear at a gun control event in Washington, DC. At the end of May, a New York jury convicted Biden’s main rival for the presidency, Donald Trump, on 34 counts of “falsifying business records.” The Biden campaign rushed to declare Trump a “convicted felon” and argued no one should vote for him. While some Republicans gloated at the Delaware verdict, many pointed out that Hunter was not brought up on far more serious charges involving foreign bribery or tax evasion. Trump’s campaign called the trial “nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine.” “Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit,” Trump campaign spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said.

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“..a ‘New War of Independence’ can be held aloft before the Israeli public as the metaphysical ‘vision’ of the way ahead..”

Israel and the Misjudgement of Reality (Alastair Crooke)

On all fronts, the Israeli internal paradigm is fracturing; and externally, the West is itself fissuring, and becoming a pariah on the global stage. The western leaderships’ explicit facilitation of a bloody cleansing of Palestinians has incised the old spectre of ‘Orientalism’ and colonialism onto the skyline. And is gyring the West towards being ‘the world’s untouchable’ (along with Israel). Overall, Israel’s government objective looks to be to converge and then channel – multiple tensions into a wide military escalation disgorgement (a big war) – that somehow would bring a restoration of deterrence. Such a course concomitantly implies that Israel would thus turn its back to western pleas that it somehow act ‘reasonably’. The West mostly defines this ‘reasonableness’ as Israel accepting the chimaera of a passage to ‘normality’ arriving through the Saudi Crown Prince bestowing it, in return for a contrite Israel undoing seven decades of Jewish supremacism (i.e. accepting a Palestinian State).

The core tension within the Western-Israeli calculus is that the U.S. and the EU are moving in one direction – back to the failed Oslo approach – whilst polling underscores Jewish electors firmly marching in the other direction. A recent survey conducted by the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs shows that since 7 October, 79% of all Jewish respondents oppose the establishment of a Palestinian State on 1967 lines (68% were opposed prior to 7 Oct); 74% are opposed even in exchange for normalisation with Saudi Arabia. And reflective of the internal Israeli divide, “only 24% of left-wing voters support a [Palestinian] State without conditions”. In short, as the western institutional leadership clings to the shrinking Israeli secular liberal Left, Israelis as whole (including the young) are moving hard Right. A recent Pew poll shows that 73% of the Israeli public support the military response in Gaza – albeit a third of Israelis complained it had not gone far enough. A plurality of Israelis think Israel should govern the Gaza Strip. And Netanyahu, in the aftermath of the ICC arrest threat, is overtaking Gantz (leader of the National Union) in approval ratings.

It seems that the ‘western consensus’ prefers not to notice these uncomfortable dynamics. Additionally, a separate Israeli divide concerns the purpose of the war: Is it about restoring to Jewish citizens the sense of personal, physical security, which was lost in the wake of 7 Oct? That is to say: Is it the sense of Israel as a redoubt, safe space in a hostile world that is being restored? Or alternatively, is the present struggle one of establishing a fully Judaicised Israel on the ‘Land of Israel’ (i.e. all the land between the river and the sea) the prime objective? This constitutes a key divide. Those who see Israel primarily as the safe redoubt to which Jews could flee in the wake of European holocaust, naturally are more circumspect at the risking of a wider war (i.e. with Hizbullah) – a war that could see the civilian ‘rear’ directly attacked by Hizbullah’s vast missile arsenal. For this constituency, safety is a premium.

On the other hand, a majority of Israelis sees the risk of wider war as inevitable – indeed to be welcomed by many, if the Zionist project is to be fully established on the Land of Israel. This reality may be difficult for secular westerners to grasp, but the 7 October has re-energised the Biblical vision in Israel, rather than excite a surfeit of caution about war, or a desire for rapprochement with Arab States. The point here is that a ‘New War of Independence’ can be held aloft before the Israeli public as the metaphysical ‘vision’ of the way ahead, whilst the Israeli government attempts to pursue the more mundane path of playing the long game, leading to the full military matrix control over the land between the river and the sea, and the removal of populations that will not submit to the Smotrich dispensation of ‘acquiesce or leave’.

Sachs hostages
https://twitter.com/i/status/1800314333576196369

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“..a long period of confrontation with the West, led by the US, lies ahead of us for about a generation..”

How Russia Can Prevent WW3 (Dmitry Trenin)

We can say that a new phase in relations between the world’s nuclear powers has begun. Many of us are still psychologically somewhere in the 1970s and 1980s. That is a kind of comfort zone. Back then, relations between the USSR and the US were based on the two superpowers’ strategic and political parity. In the military-strategic sphere, Washington was forced to deal with Moscow on an equal footing. After 1991, this parity disappeared. For the US, since the 1990s, Russia has been a declining power; throwing its weight around, always reminding itself of its former greatness, snapping back, even dangerous at times – but on a downward spiral. The difficult opening phase of the Ukraine conflict gave the Americans hope that the fields of that country would be the grave of the Russian superpower. They have since sobered up a bit, but equal status between Moscow and Washington is out of the question for them.

This is the main difference between the current state of relations and the ‘golden’ period of the Cold War – the 1960s and early 1980s. And Russia has yet to prove the Americans wrong. As they say, it is always difficult to predict anything, especially the future. But today we have to assume that a long period of confrontation with the West, led by the US, lies ahead of us for about a generation. The future of our country, its position and role in the world, and to a large extent the state of the global system as a whole, will depend on the outcome of this confrontation, the main front of which is not in Ukraine, but within Russia: in the economy, in the social sphere, in science and technology, in culture and art. Internally, because the enemy realises the impossibility of defeating Moscow on the battlefield, but remembers that the Russian state has collapsed more than once as a result of internal turmoil.

This may, as in 1917, be the result of an unsuccessful war. Hence the bet on a protracted conflict in which they know they have more resources. During the Cold War there were five nuclear powers, but then the only real poles were the US and the USSR, plus China with its then small nuclear arsenal. Now Beijing is moving towards (at least) parity with America and Russia, while India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel remain independent players (unlike NATO members Britain and France). The classic Cold War notion of strategic stability – i.e. the absence of incentives for the parties to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike – is not only inadequate but sometimes inapplicable when characterising relations between the great powers today.

Look at Ukraine: Washington is increasing arms supplies to Kiev, encouraging and providing for its provocative attacks on Russia’s strategic infrastructure (early warning stations, strategic airfields), while at the same time proposing Moscow resumes dialogue on strategic stability! In the emerging world order, strategic stability will have to mean the absence of reasons for military conflict (even indirect) between the nuclear powers. This, in turn, will be possible if the powers respect each other’s interests and are ready to solve problems on the basis of equality and the indivisibility of security. Ensuring strategic stability between all nine powers will require enormous efforts and the formation of a fundamentally new world order model, but it (strategic stability in the broad, i.e. real sense of the word) is quite realistic between pairs of states (Russia-China, the US-India, etc.). For Russia, only three of the other eight nuclear powers – the US, Britain and France – remain problematic.

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“.. the “collective West” is a minority whose worldview is not shared by the global majority..”

BRICS Must Prevent New ‘Cold War’ – China (RT)

The BRICS countries should work together to promote peace and prevent the onset of a new Cold War, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said. Speaking at the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod on Monday, Wang stated that some major powers still harbor a “Cold War mentality.” According to the diplomat, this attitude directly contradicts UN Security Council resolutions and undermines the authority of multilateral mechanisms. China is willing to work with Russia to maintain strategic cooperation, respond to external pressures, and promote the sustained progress of bilateral relations, he said. Describing BRICS as an important platform for unity and cooperation among emerging markets and developing countries, Wang said the expanded BRICS mechanism will play a crucial role in creating a more just and reasonable global governance system.

He accused the West of the “politicization and excessive securitization” of economic issues, which has resulted in “rampant” unilateral sanctions and technological barriers for countries such as Russia and China. Wang urged the “big BRICS to “leverage” its political significance and transform the group into a new type of multilateral cooperation mechanism. The BRICS grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa was joined by Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates in early 2024. “By expanding our membership, we have ushered in a new era of joint self-reliance for the Global South, with the influence and appeal of BRICS continually rising,” Wang stated.

He added that in a “contest” where some forces promote global multipolarity while others maintain a “unipolar hegemony,” the BRICS countries should “stand on the side of fairness and justice, and make the right choices.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed last week at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that Western governments are “obsessed” with the idea of global dominance. She argued that Western leaders continue to adopt “exceptionalism” at the expense of other ethnic and cultural identities. However, the “collective West” is a minority whose worldview is not shared by the global majority, which has already embraced the concept of multipolarity, Zakharova insisted.

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“..that Kubrakov’s ouster had been orchestrated by Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, described as the “de facto head of state.”

West ‘Losing Trust’ In Ukraine – FT (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky’s recent purges of government officials have damaged the confidence of Ukraine’s foreign supporters, the Financial Times has reported, citing multiple sources in Kiev.The head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development, Mustafa Nayyem, tendered his resignation on Monday. He was followed by officials responsible for procurement and anti-corruption policy.Their departure is the latest in a series of personnel changes “that have shaken the confidence of western partners” in Vladimir Zelensky’s government, according to the FT. “The US and other western partners want a normal, predictable relationship with their Ukrainian counterparts,” one concerned Ukrainian official told the outlet on condition of anonymity. “Right now they are losing trust in Ukraine’s government because of personnel decisions that they do not understand.”

A spree of firings, resignations, and reassignments overseen by Zelensky in recent months has “caused tension” between Kiev and the countries financing Ukraine, six Ukrainian and Western officials told the outlet on condition of anonymity. They also said they had warned the Ukrainian leader about the “disruptive and inexplicable” moves. Nayyem’s resignation letter, seen by FT, said he was leaving due to “constant opposition, resistance and the creation of artificial obstacles” by Prime Minister Denis Shmygal. According to the outlet, Nayyem spoke to two dozen USAID and other Western officials two weeks ago, telling them he expected to be fired.

He urged Kiev’s foreign backers to continue working with his replacement, but one USAID representative was perturbed by changes to “ our most important partnership,” according to an audio recording of the meeting. Last month, Zelensky dismissed Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Alexander Kubrakov. He and Nayyem were in charge of both reconstruction and the building of defensive fortifications. Two Ukrainian officials told FT that Zelensky viewed Kubrakov as “too cozy” with the Americans. Nayyem had warned USAID to expect a government probe into Kubrakov. FT reported last week that Kubrakov’s ouster had been orchestrated by Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, described as the “de facto head of state.”

“This situation is really bad for [the] perception of the Ukrainian government and Ukraine generally,” Gleb Vishlinsky, the executive director at the Center for Economic Strategy in Kiev, told FT. He added that the firing of Kubrakov and Nayyem’s resignation, “build an image of weak and unpredictable governance.” Kubrakov’s sacking in particular attracted “backlash” from the US and its allies. The US, German, French, and EU ambassadors in Kiev posted messages of support for the minister on May 9 and complained about his departure to Shmygal four days later. A meeting that was supposed to be about the dire condition of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure reportedly turned into an argument about the absence of Kubrakov and Nayyem.

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” Hungary is scheduled to take over the presidency in July.”

Eastern NATO Club May Kick Hungary Out For Dissent – FT (RT)

A club of Eastern European and Baltic NATO nations is considering forcing out Hungary, a member state, for refusing to take the same stance on Ukraine, the Financial Times has reported, citing sources. The Bucharest Nine was founded in 2015 and includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Senior officials from the regional group regularly meet to coordinate their foreign and security policy; a gathering of its leaders is scheduled to take place in Riga on Tuesday. Hungary, however, may be expelled from the club over its refusal to endorse joint statements of support for sending military aid to Ukraine and otherwise support Kiev in its confrontation with Moscow, insider sources told The Financial Times.

”We are likely meeting in this format for the last time,” one of the people familiar with the situation told the newspaper, calling the discussions “very serious.” All members of the Bucharest Nine were either Warsaw Pact nations or Soviet republics during the Cold War, and joined NATO during its expansion after the USSR collapsed. Hungary, however, is at odds with the other countries over the Ukraine conflict. Budapest opposes the continued arming of Kiev, saying this only prolongs the hostilities, and advocates for immediate peace talks instead. It is also highly skeptical of Western promises to eventually bring Ukraine into NATO and the EU. Supporters of Kiev have branded the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban “pro-Russian” over the position, which he says is guided by his nation’s interests.

A similar push to ostracize Hungary is reportedly underway within the EU, where some members have called for suspending its voting rights. Belgium, which holds the rotating presidency in the European Council, believes that the future of the bloc may depend on it, Politico reported last week. ”This is a moment of truth,” Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib told the news outlet, referring to the so-called Article 7 proceedings against Hungary. “If we go all the way with this mechanism, it must work. If it doesn’t work, we have to reform it. That’s the future of the European Union.” Hungary is scheduled to take over the presidency in July.

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Because they know what Russia thinks about that.

US ‘Flirting With Neo-Nazis’ – Kremlin (RT)

Washington will stop at nothing, including the use of neo-Nazis, to damage Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, following a US decision to lift a ban on supplying weapons to Ukraine’s Azov Brigade. The unit has notoriously welcomed into its ranks people who espouse ultranationalist and neo-Nazi ideologies, and has been described by the Western press as a magnet for such individuals from across the world. On Monday, the US Department of State cleared the brigade to receive American military assistance, stating that it found no evidence of human rights violations by the group. “This sudden change of stance by Washington proves that [US officials] would stoop to anything in their attempts to suppress Russia, using the Ukrainian people as a tool. They are even fine with flirting with neo-Nazis,” Peskov told journalists during a media briefing. Azov was founded as a volunteer battalion of Ukrainian nationalists in 2014 by white supremacist Andrey Biletsky.

People who came to power in Kiev following the Western-backed armed coup that year used Azov fighters in an attempt to violently quash a rebellion against the new government in the east. The battalion was incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard the following year. In 2018, the US Congress banned the delivery of arms to the Azov Brigade, citing its ties to neo-Nazi ideology. Since the outbreak of conflict with Russia, Ukrainian officials and Azov members worked to rebrand the unit. Its insignia, which originally paid homage to Nazi symbology, was replaced with less offensive imagery, and its messaging changed to claim that the unit had distanced itself from its roots. Some former and serving US officials, such as ex-ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, helped Azov’s efforts by organizing events for them on American soil. However, Moscow insists that the nature of the unit has not significantly changed. It remains an “ultranationalist armed group,” Peskov stated.

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Not much left of Zelensky’s plan. Wonder why.

Ukraine ‘Peace Conference’ Will Not Urge Withdrawal Of Russian Troops (RT)

A draft joint statement prepared for an upcoming ‘peace conference’ on Ukraine in Switzerland will likely fall short of demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces from all territories claimed by Kiev, NHK has reported. The document also omits any mention of restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the Japanese news organization said on Tuesday after reviewing the draft statement. The agenda will reportedly address only three out of the ten points promoted by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, such as the safety of nuclear power plants, food security, the release of prisoners and the return of children evacuated by Russia from the conflict zone, NHK’s English-language news site said.

Zelensky’s topline demands when they were first floated in late 2022 included a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from all territories that Ukraine considers its own, that Russia pays reparations and submits its officials to war tribunals, all dismissed out of hand by Moscow. The points have been dropped from the draft joint statement because it took into account the stance of some Asian and Middle Eastern states that maintain ties with Russia, diplomatic sources told NHK. The draft also states that all parties should take part in the search for peace, and stresses the importance of Russia’s participation in future discussions, according to article. Russia has not been invited to the international gathering, due to take place on Saturday and Sunday at the Burgenstock Resort near Lucerne. Zelensky opposed the presence of a Russian delegation at the Swiss-hosted conference, saying it would enable Moscow to derail Ukraine’s diplomatic efforts.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RT earlier that it was “absurd” to hold a meeting on settling the conflict between Russia and Ukraine without Moscow attending. “This conference is completely without prospects,” he stressed.The Russian authorities instantly rejected Zelensky’s ten-point plan as “unacceptable” when it was first presented. According to Moscow, the proposal disregards the actual situation on the ground, and is a sign of Kiev’s unwillingness to engage in negotiations.Last week, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin reiterated that Moscow is ready to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but stressed that “fantasies” cannot be a basis for peace talks. “All negotiations are based on either military defeat, or military victory. Of course, we will win,” Putin said.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Biden still
https://twitter.com/i/status/1800361106520604994

 

 

Elon Xmas

 

 

Elon AI1

 

 

Eat

 

 

Jaguar

 

 

Kind

 

 

Friendship
https://twitter.com/i/status/1800223297256489410

 

 

Cheetah
https://twitter.com/i/status/1800570165580669162

 

 

Blue whale

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 142024
 


Edgar Degas At the Milliner’s 1905-10

 

Biden Tells Bibi: US Will Not Support A Counterattack Against Iran (ZH)
Washington Worried About Potential Israeli Attack – NBC (RT)
Iran Seizes Israeli-Linked Container Ship (RT)
Persian Gulf Powers Reportedly Refuse to Give US Access to Bases (Sp.)
Biden Prolongs Ukraine Crisis To Avoid Admitting Failure – Ron Johnson (RT)
Mobilization Law Is ‘Point Of No Return’ For Zelensky – Ukrainian MP (RT)
New Order Reveals Scale of Sabotage and Desertion in Ukrainian Army (Sp.)
Mobilizing for Defeat (Amar)
Ukrainian Troops Accuse Command of Treating Them ‘Like Livestock’ (Sp.)
Ukraine Asks France to Help Hold Positions in 2024 (Sp.)
Trump Thought Ukraine ‘Must Be Part Of Russia’ – Fiona Hill (RT)
‘Do The Right Thing’: Assange Supporters Urge As Biden Mulls Dropping Case (CD)
The Speech That Got Me Banned From Germany (Varoufakis)
DC National Guard Say They WERE Ready To Be Deployed On Jan 6 (DM)
Another Federal Judge Rejects All Hunter Biden Claims for Dismissal (Turley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

RFK Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1778986189678055429

 

 

FISA

 

 

 

 

DOJ Biden

 

 

Assange

 

 

Maher Canada

 

 

 

 

Carano
https://twitter.com/i/status/1778941618491437198

 

 

Crenshaw

 

 

 

 

Things are not what they seem. Iran launched 100s of drones and missiles, almost no damage, and said: that’s one and done. Saved face. Everyone knows they had to respond to the Israeli attack in Damascus. And they wouldn’t even have done this if the UN had condemned that attack. And you bet they gave advance notice. An Israeli response now would threaten regionwide escalation. With surging oil prices in a US election year. No, the US does’t want a wider war. Neither does Iran.

Biden Tells Bibi: US Will Not Support A Counterattack Against Iran (ZH)

It is just after 7am Israel local time and Israel’s military is reporting the Iranian attack has stopped, several hours after Iran said its ‘limited’ operation has “concluded” – which involved an unprecedented hundreds of suicide drones as as well as ballistic missiles sent against Israel in retaliation for the April 1st Israeli attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus. Below is the top story from English-language Times of Israel: Hebrew media reports claim that not a single drone or cruise missile managed to infiltrate Israeli airspace. According to the unsourced reports, most ballistic missiles were also knocked down outside of Israeli airspace. A report in Ynet says some 20 cruise missiles were downed short of Israel’s borders. The US, UK and Jordan helped take down many of the drones. Israel is reporting very little damage inside the country (though previously admitting “minor damage” against at least one key airbase in the south).

After the enormous Iranian drone and missile swarm a senior Israeli official has been quoted by Israel’s Channel 12 as saying “Iran’s attack was a strategic failure.” The official added in a threatening manner, “Now they can get ready and not sleep in peace.” Israel’s war cabinet appears to be readying a military response… Crucially, the Biden White House appears to be strongly signaling to the Netanyahu government that the attack is ‘done’ and that the United States will not back any follow-up counterattack operations against Iran: US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US will not aid any Israeli counterattack on Iran, US media report, citing senior administration officials. Axios and CNN report that message was passed during a phone call between the pair. Axios reports that Biden told Netyanyahu the US will oppose any Israeli counterattack. CNN reports that Biden said the US will not take part in any such counteraction.

Israel has called on a United Nations Security Council meeting to condemn the Iranian aggression, which is expected to take place late Sunday. The US administration appears to be lobbying for a status quo and for Israel to not mount a strong response. Below is a portion of the Axios report on the Bibi-Biden late night phone call: Behind the scenes: Biden told Netanyahu the joint defensive efforts by Israel, the U.S. and other countries in the region led to the failure of the Iranian attack, according to the White House official. “You got a win. Take the win,” Biden told Netanyahu, according to the official. The official said that when Biden told Netanyahu that the U.S. will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran and will not support such operations, Netanyahu said he understood. U.S. Secretary of State Lloyd Austin spoke on Saturday with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant and asked that Israel notify the U.S. ahead of any response against Iran, a senior Israeli official said.

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“I don’t think they had a strategy… the Israelis don’t always make the best strategic decisions..”

Washington Worried About Potential Israeli Attack – NBC (RT)

Some officials in Washington are worried that West Jerusalem’s response to Iran’s recent airstrikes could be reckless and escalatory, NBC news wrote on Sunday, citing anonymous White House sources. Iran launched several waves of drone and missile attacks against Israel on Saturday and Sunday. This was in response to an airstrike that damaged Iran’s embassy in Damascus, Syria and killed seven military personnel – including two generals – earlier this month. While Israel has refrained from commenting on the bombing, Tehran has accused West Jerusalem of conducting an extraterritorial assassination and attacking their embassy. Some US officials privately indicated exasperation with Israel’s decision to strike the Iranian consular building in Syria, NBC claimed, citing senior Pentagon officials as calling the strike potentially “catastrophically escalatory.”

Others in the White House have expressed concerns about Israel’s future response to the Iranian attack, given both West Jerusalem’s hardline approach in its conflict with Hamas and the airstrike on the embassy in Damascus, NBC News reports. President Joe Biden has privately expressed concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to pull the US into a broader conflict in the Middle East, three people familiar with the comments told the news channel. Another senior administration official said that while the White House does not believe Israel is looking for a direct war with Iran, they cannot be certain of West Jerusalem’s motives. “I don’t think they had a strategy… the Israelis don’t always make the best strategic decisions,” an anonymous senior official told NBC.

Some media reports that followed the bombing of Tehran’s diplomatic compound in Damascus claimed that West Jerusalem was preparing to strike Iranian nuclear facilities in the event of a direct Iranian attack on Israel. According to a Western security official, the Israeli Air Force has been training for long range strikes into sensitive areas of Iran which may be linked to the country’s nuclear program, London-based Arabic outlet Elaph wrote on Tuesday. Israel is prepared for any scenario, “both in defense and offense,” Netanyahu stated on Saturday. “Whoever hurts us, we will hurt them,” he said.

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Asymmetric warfare.

Iran Seizes Israeli-Linked Container Ship (RT)

Iranian commandos have stormed an Israeli-operated container ship in the Persian Gulf and taken control of the vessel. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz condemned the “pirate operation” and called on the West to impose sanctions on Tehran. The MSC Aries was boarded by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy troops as it transited the Strait of Hormuz around noon on Saturday. Once under the IRGC’s control, it was taken to Iranian territorial waters, Iranian state media reported. Video footage shared online showed IRGC commandos rappelling onto the deck of the ship from a helicopter.

The Portuguese-flagged MSC Aries is operated by Zodiac Maritime, a shipping firm owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer. At the time of the seizure, it was sailing past the Emirati port of Fujairah with its transponder switched off, the Associated Press reported. With Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz and Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacking Israeli shipping interests in the Red Sea, it is standard practice for Israeli-linked vessels to disable their tracking data when sailing in the region. Since 2019, Iran has periodically seized Israeli and Western vessels in the Strait of Hormuz during times of increased tension. Tehran typically offers legal justification for these seizures, but gave no such explanation on Saturday. However, Saturday’s seizure came two weeks after an alleged Israeli airstrike on an Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus. The strike killed seven officers of the IRGC’s Quds Force, including two generals.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to deal Israel a “slap in the face” in response, and American officials warned on Friday that Tehran could be gearing up for a massive drone and missile strike on Israeli soil over the weekend. It is unclear whether Iran plans further attacks after seizing the MSC Aries. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz condemned the seizure, accusing Khamenei’s “criminal regime” of “conducting a pirate operation in violation of international law.” “I call on the European Union and the free world to immediately declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guards corps as a terrorist organization and to sanction Iran now,” he wrote on X.

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BRICS+.

Persian Gulf Powers Reportedly Refuse to Give US Access to Bases (Sp.)

Persian Gulf countries have reportedly told the United States not to launch any attacks against Iran from their territory or airspace amid seething regional tensions. Sources, including a senior US official told the Middle East Eye that Gulf monarchies have been “working overtime” on the diplomatic track “to shut down avenues that could link them to a US reprisal against Tehran or its proxies from bases inside their kingdoms.” The countries include regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Kuwait, with their leaderships reportedly “raising questions” on the details of US basing agreements, and taking steps to prevent the use of their Iran-adjacent bases against the Islamic Republic. NATO member Turkiye has also reportedly barred the US from using its airspace for strikes against Iran, but Sputnik has not been able to independently verify this information.

“It’s a mess,” a senior US official said, referring to the headache the Biden administration faces as it prepares for a potential Iranian retaliatory strike against its top regional ally Israel following Tel Aviv’s April 1 attack on the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus, Syria. The Middle East Eye report follows a report by Axios on Friday citing US officials who said that Iran has privately warned the US that it will target American forces in the Middle East if Washington gets involved in a military confrontation between Iran and Israel. The US has an estimated 40,000+ military personnel at bases dotting the Middle East, including the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which hosts at least 10,000 troops, and serves as the forward headquarters of United States Central Command – the combatant command responsible for military operations across the Middle East. Nearby Bahrain hosts up to 7,000 troops and the US Fifth Fleet – which operates in the Persian Gulf, the Red and Arabian Seas, and part of the Indian Ocean.

The US also has a 15,000-troop garrison in Kuwait, at least 5,000 troops in the UAE, and about 2,700 troops and fighter jets at the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Oman hosts a few hundred US troops, and allows the US Air Force to conduct overflights and landings, and warships to make 80 port calls annually. The Gulf powers’ increasingly independent foreign policy is potentially a major setback for Washington, which for many decades after World War II (and especially after the Cold War) was able to rely on the Persian Gulf monarchies for its military operations in the oil-rich region. Regional countries led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE have taken a series of steps recently to wean themselves off of dependence on the US economically, politically and militarily, with Riyadh moving to break the petrodollar monopoly in the oil trade with China, pausing its military campaign against Yemen’s Houthi militia, restoring diplomatic ties with Iran and, together with Abu Dhabi, joining the BRICS Plus bloc.

The Palestinian-Israeli crisis has driven Gulf state leaders and their populations further from the idea of the establishing relations with Israel, and chilled ties with the US thanks to the Biden administration’s full-fledged support for Tel Aviv in the course of the Gaza War.

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“It’s just a fantasy, it’s just denying reality, to think that pumping more money, fueling the fire of that bloody stalemate, is going to break this thing open and show that Ukraine can be victorious..”

Biden Prolongs Ukraine Crisis To Avoid Admitting Failure – Ron Johnson (RT)

US President Joe Biden is dragging out an “obviously” lost cause in Ukraine because his administration will not admit to its policy failures in trying to weaken Russia, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) has claimed. “At some point in time, you have to recognize reality and you have to base your decisions on reality,” Johnson said on Thursday in an interview with podcast host Glenn Greenwald. “But the Biden administration is not willing to do that, the generals aren’t willing to do that, because they’d have to admit they’ve been wrong all along.” Johnson was the only US lawmaker to attend the inauguration of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in May 2019. He said Zelensky wanted to make peace with Russia then, realizing that Kiev had no chance of retaking Crimea, and sought to resolve the conflict shortly after Moscow launched its military offensive in February 2022.

“I would like to have been a fly on the wall in Istanbul, when they apparently were negotiating a peace agreement and the Biden administration air-dropped [then-UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson in there to blow that thing up,” Johnson said. “This was a few weeks after the war started. It’s a tragic, tragic turn of history there.” The third-term lawmaker, who formerly chaired the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the US government has failed to reflect on its foreign policy failures. For example, he argued, fomenting the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government in 2014 helped lead to the country’s destruction. He said Americans have been “grossly misserved” by their government’s long history of foreign entanglements and regime-change operations. “The military-industrial complex drives so much of what we’re experiencing here today, the endless wars,” Johnson said. “I can’t tell you how many governments we have, through covert action, we’ve overturned. What’s been the net result of that?”

It’s nonsensical for the US government to stand by its stated goal of helping Ukraine to defeat Russian forces, Johnson said. He added, “Part of the problem is that one of the war aims now has shifted. It’s not necessarily to liberate Ukraine but to utilize the Ukrainian people to fight a proxy war with Russia and degrade their military capability.” Johnson said the proxy-war strategy had failed: “With oil prices higher, with the sanctions not working to cripple the Russian economy, I think they’re just probably building up their military-industrial base, and if anything, they’re getting stronger and smarter militarily.”

Republican lawmakers have held up approval of Biden’s request for over $60 billion in additional Ukraine funding since last fall, but party leaders are reportedly preparing to pass an aid bill in the coming days. Biden is seeking reelection later this year. “It’s just a fantasy, it’s just denying reality, to think that pumping more money, fueling the fire of that bloody stalemate, is going to break this thing open and show that Ukraine can be victorious,” Johnson said
“That’s just not going to happen, so it’s better to recognize reality and realize the only way the bloodshed ends is if we sit down and negotiate with [Russian President] Vladimir Putin.”

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“..help Zelensky hold on to power by “forcing everyone into the army.” “That is a very bad basis for a social consensus..”

Mobilization Law Is ‘Point Of No Return’ For Zelensky – Ukrainian MP (RT)

A new conscription law will drive a wedge between officials in Kiev and ordinary Ukrainians, lawmaker Aleksandr Dubinsky has said. He described the legislation as a point of no return for President Vladimir Zelensky and his government. On Thursday, the Ukrainian parliament passed a long-debated law which simplifies procedures for the draft and forces all men aged 18 to 60 – including those residing abroad – to register with the military authorities. Earlier this month, after several weeks of deliberation, Zelensky signed a law lowering the age of conscription for men from 27 to 25. The new draft rules were approved without a demobilization clause that would have allowed troops to return home after three years on the front lines. As things currently stand, everyone who is drafted will have to serve until the end of the conflict with Russia.

Ukrainian troops feel betrayed by the new rules, Western media outlets reported earlier this week, citing soldiers who say they feel “fooled and used” and are being used as “slaves.” The mobilization law “will be the watershed, after which there will be no turning back,” Dubinsky wrote on Telegram on Thursday. He compared Kiev’s policies to ‘Oprichnina’ – a massive repression campaign launched by Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century and implemented by special troops called ‘Oprichniki’ who enjoyed the monarch’s trust and were spared his wrath. “The presidential administration and its Oprichniki, including MPs, state officials, the police and [security services] are on one side,” while “everyone else is on the other,” Dubinsky said.

According to the MP, the goal of this policy is to help Zelensky hold on to power by “forcing everyone into the army.” “That is a very bad basis for a social consensus,” the lawmaker added. In another post, he noted that MPs, police officers, some state officials, and local authorities are exempted from mobilization under the new draft rules, and “are by no means preparing to go to war.” Dubinsky is currently in custody in Ukraine. He was expelled from Zelensky’s ‘Servant of the People’ party in 2021. He faced treason charges in November 2023 after the Ukrainian domestic security service (SBU) accused him of working for Russia. Dubinsky dismissed the accusations as politically motivated and claimed that he was persecuted for criticizing Zelensky.

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“..footage appearing to show Ukrainian troops being shot at and having grenades thrown at them by their own comrades..”

New Order Reveals Scale of Sabotage and Desertion in Ukrainian Army (Sp.)

The Kiev regime’s soldiers sabotage army orders, threaten their commanders, refuse to fire their weapons, leave the battlefield, and desert. This was revealed in a new order on strengthening discipline signed by Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrsky and seen by Sputnik.The document notes that army commanders, law enforcement, and other government agencies have faced new challenges that require an immediate response. Among the military criminal offenses, the commander-in-chief listed “insubordination,” “failure to comply with an order,” “threat or violence against a superior,” “unauthorized abandonment of a military unit or place of service,” “desertion,” “evasion of military service by inflicting self-harm or in any other way,” and “unauthorized abandonment of the battlefield or refusal to use weapons.”

Syrsky’s order outlines the urgent need for the Armed Forces and representatives of law enforcement agencies to identify and put a stop to these offenses. The document presupposes that Ukrainian soldiers could be offered a chance to return to combat duty even after the abovementioned offenses. The new order comes as the Ukrainian Armed Forces are struggling to replenish their ranks, with men increasingly unwilling to die for the Kiev regime and actively avoiding mobilization or deserting. Following last year’s botched summer counteroffensive, which resulted in huge manpower losses, cases of desertion have soared. The Kiev regime’s army units are rife with cases of insubordination and desertion. Sputnik earlier obtained footage appearing to show Ukrainian troops being shot at and having grenades thrown at them by their own comrades during a Russian advance.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky recently deplored that such a case of desertion by a whole unit had resulted in Ukrainian forces being surrounded, and many soldiers being killed. He also spoke out against declaring a general amnesty for deserters in a video posted on his office’s YouTube channel. On Wednesday, Verkhovna Rada lawmaker Irina Gerashchenko reported that the Ukrainian parliament had backed in the first reading a bill to tighten liability for military offenses, including desertion. The following day, the country’s parliament adopted a bill on mobilization aimed at replenishing Ukrainian forces depleted by two years of NATO’s proxy war against Russia. Zelensky also signed new mobilization measures into law on April 2, lowering the conscription age and authorizing the creation of an electronic database of military-age men as the issue of draft dodgers continues to persist.

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“All Ukrainian men between age 18 and 60 will have to register, including those abroad. Failure to do so will count as evading military service..”

Mobilizing for Defeat (Amar)

Ukraine’s situation is extremely precarious, if you want to put it optimistically. A more realistic term is “catastrophic.” The country faces steady, accelerating advances of Russian forces that are well-motivated and trained and superior in quantity and equipment. Even Ukraine’s commander-in-chief has admitted that “the situation on the eastern front has significantly worsened in recent days.” A massive understatement but still proof that things are even worse. We also know – from Ukrainian polls – that ever more Ukrainians are open to ending the war by making concessions. Yet the Zelensky regime is doubling down. Instead of entering serious negotiations – the kind where you adjust your aims to your losses so as to avoid even greater ones – it is seeking to throw more lives into a war that has become a meatgrinder for Ukrainian troops.

That is the main purpose of a new mobilization law that has just passed the Ukrainian parliament. (In addition, President Zelensky has already signed off on additional measures that will be integrated into the new law once he signs that as well. In essence, though, this is one integrated bundle, which many Ukrainians and outside observers refer to as one and the same law, as will be done here.) The new mobilization law is complex, consisting of a long list of measures, including, for instance, new rules on confiscating private cars for defense purposes. Its core, however, is simple: The minimum age for mobilization is lowered from 27 to 25 years of age. All Ukrainian men between age 18 and 60 will have to register, including those abroad. Failure to do so will count as evading military service. To make sure that compliance can be policed easily, all registered men must have their registration papers on them at all times.

The law, which has been under contentious consideration for months, is not being well-received in Ukrainian society. On a TV show run by Ukrainska Pravda, a very anti-Russian outlet, Maria Berlinska, a Ukrainian activist of equally sterling credentials, called it a fiasco. And she is by no means alone. It is true that some Ukrainian commentators have – once again – tried to dismiss all and any popular discontent as nothing but Russian interference. But this time, that tired old trick from the NATO-Zelensky playbook is not working well. Even Western mainstream media acknowledge the law is “unpopular.”

It is not hard to understand why many Ukrainians are angry. Perhaps the single worst disappointment is that the law does not include a hard rule for demobilization, which is what everyone expected. Think of it as a tacit deal: The government gets to hoover up more young men for cannon fodder, but, at least, it also promises to let go those exhausted soldiers who have already served (and survived) for years (36 months was under discussion). Even the New York Times has noticed that Ukraine’s current soldiers are “battered and exhausted.” Yet opening a way out for at least some of them is what did not happen. Instead, the Zelensky regime has dared come out with a law that only takes but gives nothing back.

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“..accused of sabotaging orders, threatening commanders, refusing to fire their weapons, leaving the battlefield and deserting en masse..”

Ukrainian Troops Accuse Command of Treating Them ‘Like Livestock’ (Sp.)

A leaked order regarding plans to strengthen discipline signed by Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Syrsky has detailed the increasingly difficult situation for Kiev at the front, with troops accused of sabotaging orders, threatening commanders, refusing to fire their weapons, leaving the battlefield and deserting en masse. Russia’s Defense Ministry has published footage of nine servicemen from Ukraine’s elite 25th Separate Airborne Brigade collectively surrendering to Russian forces near the village of Vodyanoye in the Donetsk People’s Republic. In interviews taken after their capture, the troopers pointed to the difficult situation at the front, complained about poor operational planning, poorly trained commanders, large losses in manpower and equipment and panic among the units, and accused command of using them as cannon fodder.

“The commanders leave us to die like waste material, while they are somewhere on the sidelines,” serviceman Valery told his Russian interviewers. “When we were being taken into captivity, our own forces started shelling us, showing that we aren’t needed anymore. I’ve been captured and thanks to that I’m alive and won’t be executed. It’s worse in the Ukrainian military than in the Russian captivity,” he said. “The 25th Brigade’s command is treating us like livestock,” another captured serviceman said. “It’s better to surrender than die in such a ***** manner for who knows for what and why,” a third added. “Our commanders don’t care about us. They didn’t want to come to the positions and evaluate the situation…So ‘thank you’ to our commanders. In your words, we should have gone to our deaths,” another soldier said. Footage shot by Russian forces showed the surrendering servicemen approaching Russian positions, stripping off their gear and being led out of the combat zone by Russian forces after being searched.

Ukraine Armed Forces C-in-C Syrsky confirmed the desperate situation at the front in an order that was issued on April 4 and leaked to Russian media on Saturday, listing issues he said require immediate attention from law enforcement including insubordination, failure to comply with orders, threats or violence against superiors, unauthorized abandonment of positions, desertion, evasion of military service by inflicting self-harm, and refusal to use weapons. In a Telegram post Saturday, Syrsky offered an unusually frank public assessment of the battlefield situation, which he said had “significantly worsened in recent days, primarily due to the significant intensification of the enemy’s offensive actions,” which he said was “facilitated by warm, dry weather, which has made most open areas accessible to tanks.” Syrsky assured that his “personal communication” with servicemen has made him well “aware of the real scale and degree of threat from the enemy.”

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“..and we will be able to resume the counteroffensive in 2025..”

Ukraine Asks France to Help Hold Positions in 2024 (Sp.)

Kiev has asked Paris to help the Ukrainian military hold the positions on the battlefield this year so that it can launch a new counteroffensive in 2025, a French official who took part in the talks with the Ukrainian authorities has told Le Figaro newspaper. “The Ukrainians are telling us: help us make it through 2024, and we will be able to resume the counteroffensive in 2025,” the official said. Ukraine is in need of the SAMP/T air defense system, the official added. However, MBDA, which manufactures the Aster 30 missiles for the platform, will not be able to provide Kiev with more missiles in the near future, as the French military also needs them, Le Figaro reported. On June 4, 2023, Ukraine attempted a counteroffensive against Russia. Kiev deployed brigades trained by NATO instructors and armed with Western equipment, including Leopard and Challenger tanks.

Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Kiev’s push had failed, with Ukraine suffering heavy casualties. Several Western officials also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful. Western countries have provided hundreds of billions of dollars worth of aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s special military operation in February 2022. Aid shipments began in 2022 with artillery munitions and training and have escalated to include tanks, advanced air-defense systems, missiles and cluster munitions. The Kremlin has consistently warned against the West’s continued arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying that they only prolong the conflict, adding that Western military equipment will be eventually destroyed. Moscow also cautioned that NATO countries “are playing with fire” by providing Kiev with arms.

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NYT and Fiona Hill team up to make Trump look ignorant. And yes, “Hill served on Trump’s National Security Council between 2017 and 2019”. How did that ever happen?

Trump Thought Ukraine ‘Must Be Part Of Russia’ – Fiona Hill (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump could not understand “the idea that Ukraine was an independent state” and assumed that it “must be part of Russia,” his former adviser, Fiona Hill, has claimed. “Trump made it very clear that he thought, you know, that Ukraine, and certainly Crimea, must be part of Russia,” Hill told New York Times writer David Sanger in an upcoming book previewed by The Guardian on Friday. “He really could not get his head around the idea that Ukraine was an independent state.” Crimea voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation in 2014, six decades after the historically Russian peninsula was transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in an administrative decision by Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev. In September 2022, four former Ukrainian regions – the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Kherson, and Zaporozhye – were also admitted to the Russian Federation after similar referendums.

It is unclear from the excerpt printed by The Guardian whether Trump was referring to Russia’s centuries of sovereignty over Crimea and interests in Ukraine, or whether he simply assumed that post-Soviet Ukraine was a part of Russia. Trump has never publicly suggested that Ukraine is not an independent state. Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge President Joe Biden in this November’s election. If elected, he has promised to end the conflict in Ukraine “within 24 hours.” “I would get [Russian President Vladimir Putin] into a room. I’d get [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky into a room. Then I’d bring them together. And I’d have a deal worked out,” he told NBC News in September. Trump did not elaborate on how he would achieve this, explaining that “if I tell you exactly, I lose all my bargaining chips.”

Despite accusing Biden of dragging the US toward “World War III” with his policy of open-ended military aid to Ukraine, Trump has said that he could keep money flowing to Kiev under some circumstances, albeit as a loan rather than a gift. An intelligence analyst and specialist on Russian and Eurasian affairs, Hill served on Trump’s National Security Council between 2017 and 2019. She emerged as a key witness during the 2019 impeachment inquiry against her former boss, during which she accused Trump of using American aid to pressure Zelensky into investigating the Biden family’s business dealings in Ukraine.

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“..this would be the best decision Biden ever made..”

‘Do The Right Thing’: Assange Supporters Urge As Biden Mulls Dropping Case (CD)

President Joe Biden this week for the first time said his administration is weighing the Australian government’s requests to drop charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been deprived of his freedom since 2010 and is currently jailed in London’s notorious Belmarsh Prison while fighting extradition to the United States. Asked by reporters at the White House about requests from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members of the country’s Parliament for the U.S. and United Kingdom to drop the extradition effort and charges against Assange – an Australian citizen – Biden said that “we’re considering it.” Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, responded to Biden’s remarks on social media. “Do the right thing,” she wrote. “Drop the charges. #FreeAssangeNOW.”

Srecko Horvat, a Croatian philosopher and co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 pan-European progressive political party, said that “this would be the best decision Biden ever made.” British journalist Afshin Rattansi asked, “Why has Julian Assange been put through this ordeal in the first place?” Assange – who is 52 years old and suffers from various health problems – faces multiple U.S. charges under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for his role in publishing classified government documents, some of them revealing war crimes and other misdeeds. Among the files published by WikiLeaks are the “Collateral Murder” video – which shows a U.S. Army helicopter crew killing a group of Iraqi civilians – the Afghan and Iraq war logs.

Three U.S. administrations have pursued charges against Assange. During the administration of former President Donald Trump – who is the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee – officials including then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo allegedly plotted to assassinate Assange to avenge WikiLeaks’ publication of the “Vault 7” documents exposing CIA electronic warfare and surveillance activities. In 2010, Trump called for Assange’s execution. The U.K. High Court ruled last month that Assange could not be immediately extradited to the U.S., where he faces up to 175 years behind bars if convicted on all counts. The tribunal gave the Biden administration until April 16 to guarantee that Assange won’t face the death penalty. Absent such assurance, Assange will be allowed to continue appealing his extradition. Last month, Assange’s legal team denied reports that a plea deal with the U.S. government may have been in the works. Assange has been imprisoned in Belmarsh since 2019. Before that, he spent nearly seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been granted political asylum under the government of leftist former President Rafael Correa.

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“..not just a ban from visiting Germany but also from participation in Zoom events hosted in the country..”

The Speech That Got Me Banned From Germany (Varoufakis)

Today, Yanis Varoufakis was banned not just from visiting Germany but from participating in video conferences about politics hosted in Germany. Here’s the plea for humanity and justice in Palestine that got him banned. Today, Germany’s interior ministry issued a “betätigungsverbot” against me, a ban on any political activity — not just a ban from visiting Germany but also from participation in Zoom events hosted in the country. I can’t even have a recorded video of me played at German events.The trouble started in earnest yesterday, when German police burst into a Berlin venue to disband our Palestine congress, which was hosted by the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25). Judge for yourselves what kind of society Germany is becoming if its police ban the sentiments below.

“Congratulations and heartfelt thanks for being here — despite the threats, despite the ironclad police outside this venue, despite the panoply of the German press, despite the German state, despite the German political system that demonizes you for being here. “Why a Palestinian congress, Mr Varoufakis?” a German journalist asked me recently. Because, as Hanan Ashrawi once said, “we cannot rely on the silenced to tell us about their suffering.”Today, Ashrawi’s reason has grown depressingly stronger, because we cannot rely on the silenced who are also massacred and starved to tell us about the massacres and the starvation. But there is another reason, too: because a proud, decent people, the people of Germany, are led down a perilous road to a heartless society by being made to associate themselves with another genocide carried out in their name, with their complicity.

I am neither Jewish nor Palestinian. But I am incredibly proud to be here among Jews and Palestinians — to blend my voice for peace and universal human rights with Jewish voices for peace and universal human rights, with Palestinian voices for peace and universal human rights. Being together here today is proof that coexistence is not only possible — but that it is here already. “Why not a Jewish congress, Mr Varoufakis?” the same German journalist asked me, imagining that he was being smart. I welcomed his question. For if a single Jew is threatened, anywhere, just because she or he is Jewish, I shall wear the Star of David on my lapel and offer my solidarity — whatever the cost, whatever it takes.

So let’s be clear: if Jews were under attack, anywhere in the world, I would be the first to canvass for a Jewish congress in which to register our solidarity. Similarly, when Palestinians are massacred because they are Palestinians — under a dogma that to be dead and Palestinian, they must have been Hamas — I shall wear my keffiyeh and offer my solidarity whatever the cost, whatever it takes. Universal human rights are either universal or they mean nothing.

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Time to hear Pelosi and Liz Cheney under oath?

DC National Guard Say They WERE Ready To Be Deployed On Jan 6 (DM)

Whistleblowers from the Washington D.C. National Guard will tell Congress that Donald Trump did want them deployed during the Capitol riot and the Army delayed telling them to mobilize in a bombshell hearing next week. DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal that at least three officers will appear Wednesday before a House subcommittee to claim their stories were also ignored by the Democrat-led January 6 committee, because it didn’t fit their narrative. The hearing will aim to further prove that Acting Defense Secretary at the time Christopher Miller did give advance approval of D.C. National Guard deployment at the direction of then-President Donald Trump. A person familiar with the review by the House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee said the whistleblowers will provide testimony that then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy delayed by at least two hours providing official notice to D.C. National Guard Commander William Walker to deploy troops to the Capitol.

Instead of getting to the bottom of the breakdown in communication and focusing on improving Military preparedness for future incidents, the witnesses feel the January 6 panel was solely focused on pinning blame for the events that day on Trump. The officers, who were with Walker the day of the Capitol riot, will detail how they were on buses in full tactical gear for hours waiting for the go-ahead from the Army. McCarthy has stated under oath that he did give a timely order for deployment of the D.C. National Guard – but Walker’s troops said they found out about mobilization during a press conference, which led to a three-hour-and-19-minute delay of forces arriving at the Capitol. Some suggest that McCarthy was vying for a spot in President Joe Biden’s incoming administration and didn’t like the optics of it looking like the Army, under his command, was trying to interfere or inhibit certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

The hearing on Wednesday is titled ‘Three Years Later: D.C. National Guard Whistleblowers Speak Out on January 6 Delay’ and aims to examine whether Trump was at fault for the delay in National Guard deployment. Additionally, the whistleblowers will reveal how the January 6 Committee did not want to hear their testimony because it corroborated Trump and his allies’ claims that the former president did authorize the National Guard days in advance to respond to any violence or unrest on January 6, 2021. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) is chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee, which is tasked with reviewing the January 6 Committee’s investigation into the Capitol riot.

Last month, Loudermilk released a transcript of a never-before-seen interview with Tony Ornato, the man in charge of Trump’s security detail on January 6, 2021. In the interview with the panel, Ornato confirmed that Trump did authorize the National Guard for mobilization and deployment to D.C. that day. The bombshell release of that interview reveals flaws in the January 6 committee’s argument that Trump wanted to stoke chaos that day by not allowing National Guard troops to respond to the scene at the Capitol. Loudermilk’s panel is concerned with making sure that security of the U.S. Capitol complex is nonpartisan and that readiness is not affected by partisan politics.

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“..other defendants did not write “a memoir in which they made countless statements proving their crimes and drawing further attention to their criminal conduct.”

Another Federal Judge Rejects All Hunter Biden Claims for Dismissal (Turley)

While some legal analysts continue to boost Hunter Biden’s legal claims, the reviews in actual courts are far less glowing. Recently, we discussed a federal judge rejecting all eight motions of Hunter Biden to dismiss his tax charges in a stinging opinion citing a conspicuous lack of actual evidence to support their claims. Now, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika has also rejected those claims in the gun case in Delaware, calling Hunter’s arguments “nonsensical.” Legal experts like MSNBC’s Andew Weissmann have slammed the gun charges as “an abuse.” Hunter Biden’s counsel has argued selective prosecution and a bar on charges (based on the defunct notorious plea deal) in both cases. While these arguments were given great credence on some networks, they were stomped on by actual judges applying the law to the case. Abby Lowell and Hunter’s defense team have insisted that he is the victim of selective prosecution, but Special Counsel David Weiss has eviscerated those claims.

In a recent filing, Weiss dismissed many of Hunter’s claims as “patently false” and noted that he virtually flaunted his violations and engaged in obvious efforts to evade taxes and hide his crimes. Weiss further noted that other defendants did not write “a memoir in which they made countless statements proving their crimes and drawing further attention to their criminal conduct.” It was a devastating take-down of Hunter’s claims, but it did not address the conspicuous omission of charges brought against Menendez, including FARA charges. It also does not address the fact that the Justice Department not only allowed the statute of limitations to run on major crimes, but sought to finalize an obscene plea agreement with no jail time for Hunter. It only fell apart when a judge decided to ask a couple of cursory questions of the prosecutor, who admitted that he had never seen an agreement this generous for a defendant. Weiss noted in his filing that they filed new charges only after Hunter’s legal counsel refused to change the agreement and insisted that it remained fully enforceable.

Judge Noreika is equally unimpressed by the arguments of the Biden team. She almost mockingly noted that “Defendant’s articulated protected class is apparently family members of politically-important persons.” She later added: “Defendant’s claim is effectively that his own father targeted him for being his son, a claim that is nonsensical under the facts here. Regardless of whether Congressional Republicans attempted to influence the Executive Branch, there is no evidence that they were successful in doing so and, in any event, the Executive Branch prosecuting Defendant was at all relevant times (and still is) headed by Defendant’s father.” The court also rejected Hunter Biden’s effort to subpoena Trump, former attorney general Bill Barr, and two other senior officials who served in the Trump Justice Department. Again, she noted that it was the Biden administration that decided to prosecute Hunter Biden on the firearms offenses.

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Aristotle time

 

 

Moom!

 

 

Wolf size

 

 

Lynx

 

 


Just 10 streams carry 95% of all river-borne plastic into the ocean

 

 

Reindeer

 

 

Octopus

 

 

Skink
https://twitter.com/i/status/1779155873861927286

 

 

Baby swans
https://twitter.com/i/status/1779221790038098045

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 232024
 
 March 23, 2024  Posted by at 9:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  37 Responses »


Edvard Munch Spring in Johan Karl Street 1891

 

Trump: “I Almost Have Five Hundred Million Dollars In Cash” (ZH)
Trump’s Third Act Has Begun. It’s a Beauty. (Scott Adams)
Wake-up Call (James Howard Kunstler)
No Ukraine Talks Because US Threatens Zelensky – Seymour Hersh (Sp.)
Let NATO Troops Enter Ukraine. The War Will End Much Faster Then – Orban (VV)
Russia is at War – Kremlin (RT)
Macron Believes Ukraine Could Fall Soon – Politico (RT)
La Macronnerie of a Failed French President: Ukraine (Jay)
France’s Megalomaniac Macron is Gambling With World Peace (SCF)
EU Eyes ‘Groundbreaking’ Change On Ukraine Arms Funding (RT)
Ukraine Makes Fresh Move To Draft More Soldiers (RT)
Washington In Denial Over Putin’s Victory While Gaming Its Own Elections (Cox)
World Sees Gaza as ‘US Genocide’ Not Just Israel’s (Sp.)
CIA Told DOJ to Stay Away from Kevin Morris in Hunter Biden Probe (Turley)
CIA Protecting Biden by Blocking IRS Interviews – Whistleblower (DeMartino)
Global Population Set To Fall For First Time In 700 Years (MN)

 

 


BREAKING: Shareholders have just voted to let Trump’s company, Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, become a public company, which could earn Trump $4 billion. NOTE: However, if Trump wants to use this money to help with his legal issues in a fraud case by Letitia James, he has to get special permission to sell his shares early. NOTE: Trump’s company will start being traded on the stock market under the symbol “DJT” as soon as next week.

 

 

Letitia

 

 

Vivek

 

 

Lawfare
https://twitter.com/i/status/1770861500103557197

 

 

Cannon

 

 

There’s plenty of money for enhanced border security in the $1.2 Trillion funding package. Just not the US border.

 

 

Stephen Miller

 

 

Watters

 

 

Watters Fani

 

 

Immigration

 

 

Will The Supreme Court Recognize Voter Fraud And Ensure It Doesn’t Happen in 2024?

 

 

 

 

“Letitia James is about to hand Trump a huge victory…… when she seizes Trump Tower, the case is now federal bc Trumps Atty’s are ready to go into Federal Court, claiming his 8th Amendment rights have been violated. Thus putting an immediate freeze on her. Many are wondering why a federal judge hasn’t stepped in…. well the reason is…. she hasn’t acted on her threats yet…. so Trump’s Constitutional rights have yet to be violated.”

Trump: “I Almost Have Five Hundred Million Dollars In Cash” (ZH)

Former President Trump on Friday said on Truth Social that “through hard work, talent, and luck, I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash.” The announcement comes as a Monday deadline fast approaches for him to come up with roughly $454 million to stay judgement in his civil fraud case while he appeals. According to Trump, he had intended to use a “substantial amount” of his money in his presidential campaign. “THE OFTEN OVERTURNED POLITICAL HACK JUDGE ON THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT A.G. CASE, WHERE I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG, KNEW THIS, WANTED TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME,” President Trump wrote. “THAT’S WHERE AND WHY HE CAME UP WITH THE SHOCKING NUMBER WHICH, COUPLED WITH HIS CRAZY INTEREST DEMAND, IS APPROXIMATELY $454,000,000,” he continued.

As the Epoch Times notes further: “The judgment total was $363 million, but breaks down with about $355 million of that specifically applying to President Trump, $4 million to be recovered from Eric Trump, $4 million to be recovered from Donald Trump Jr., and $1 million to be recovered from former Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg. With the applied 9 percent interest, court filings say the bond comes out to more than $464 million, with a little more than $10 million of that attributed to judgment on Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Mr. Weisselberg. Judgment was entered on Feb. 23, kicking off a 30-day clock to post the massive sum, set to expire on March 25. President Trump, in the post, decried the ruling as an example of “communism in America.” Meanwhile, even the AP found that in 70 years of similar cases involving civil fraud, Trump’s stood out as unique.

President Trump is billions of dollars richer after shareholders in Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC) on Friday approved a merger with Trump’s media startup, Truth Social. The long-delayed merger adds roughly $3.5 billion to Trump’s net worth – however the former president won’t be able to sell any shares for at least six months unless the board waives it (or they can back a loan), raising questions over whether he’ll be able to leverage it to secure a $464 million bond in his New York civil fraud case – which his lawyers say is “impossible” to secure due to a lack of cash on hand. If Trump can’t secure the giant sum by Monday, he risks the seizure of assets – which New York has already begun positioning itself to do. Earlier this week, DWAC sued to force its former CEO, Patrick Orlando, to vote his 14.77% shareholding in favor of the merger, despite an ongoing dispute over compensation, Axios and FT report. Orlando was on the shareholder vote call.

“The professional relationship between Mr Orlando and Digital World became strained and has continued to deteriorate such that there is no assurance that Mr Orlando as a current member of our board or as a controlling affiliate of the sponsor will be co-operative,” DWAC warned in a filing last month. Following the merger, DWAC will effectively cease to exist, and will be replaced by TMTG – which will be listed on the Nasdaq. Its board of directors will include Donald Trump Jr. as well as several former members of the Trump White House, the report continues. Former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) will serve as TMTG’s CEO. Meanwhile, and perhaps in anticipation of Trump selling to satisfy the bond, DWAC shares have plummeted on the news to the tune of 8% in early trading.

Beyond Trump’s massive payout from the deal, three hedge funds also stand to make huge profits – Anson Funds, Mangrove Capital Partners and All Blue Capital, which participated in a $50mm convertible debt offering earlier this year after other funds had walked away. They’re sitting on over $400 million in gains as of Thursday’s closing price. “The return will be amazing,” said one person involved in the financing, per FT. “Trump’s advisers have been keeping him on the sidelines . . . they want to get this vote clear with no issues with the government. Then, on Tuesday when it starts trading, it is game on for Trump.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1770991128948420912

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X thread. “Trump turned Leticia James into his best fundraiser..”

Trump’s Third Act Has Begun. It’s a Beauty. (Scott Adams)

Next week, Trump could make over $4 billion when his media company goes public, removing all doubt about his billionaire status. And you can stop asking if he would have been better off putting his inheritance in a savings account in the 70s. I expect Trump to leave a 15% tip for Leticia James and the Democrats because they made his windfall possible by hunting him and censoring him for years. You can call it a bond, not a tip, if you prefer. When the Supreme Court tosses out the unconstitutional fine, Trump gets most of his “tip” back. The Democrats planned to cripple Trump financially so he couldn’t spend as much on the campaign. Trump turned Leticia James into his best fundraiser. Lots of interesting developments lately on the topic of the 2020 election. The Simulation wants at least one of those fresh allegations to be a Kraken.

Trump’s legal maneuvering is likely to keep him eligible for the election. You can fantasize about a heroic Democrat such as Newsom swooping in and replacing Biden, but it’s looking less likely every day. If it had always been the plan, it would have happened by now. Looks like Biden has to stay on the job to keep the Biden Crime Family out of jail. The predictable Democrat Summer Hoax will add some excitement, but it will be forgotten and debunked by November. Trump’s upcoming victory is looking like it will be, as Trump says, “too big to rig.” And by that I mean Democrats will try to rig it anyway and get caught. That will be fun.

The gears of the machine have become visible. We can all see the FBI is rotten and the DOJ is weaponized. We know the border is open intentionally. We know the cartels are working with our government. We know our elections are DESIGNED to not be auditable and there’s only one reason for it. We can see Biden is not in charge. We know the Ukraine war was always about its energy resources and who gets to own them. We know our rising debt is ruinous. We know our experts are liars. We know our pharma and food industries are poisoning us. We know our government is racist. We know the corporate media is essentially owned by Democrats who are controlled by intelligence entities and they are actively brainwashing the population. We know the 1st and 2nd amendments, and X, are under sustained government attack because they are the public’s last defense against the government. But we are not quitters. And the odds do not apply to us.

Trump Ad

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“But fiends got to fiend, and if you try to deprive them of being fiends then you are guilty of “hate.“

Wake-up Call (James Howard Kunstler)

Can you feel it? The tension rising to the red-line? It runs clear through all of Western Civ. We are ruled by governments of fiends. But now, the sun rides higher in the sky. The sap is rising in the northern forests. The earth heaves. The buds swell and blush. Something is in the air. The animals are waking from their long winter sleep. The natives are restless. The two traditional political divisions, liberal and conservative died with Covid. Now there are simply the sane versus the insane. The sane have had enough of being pushed around by the insane. The insane don’t register much of what reality tries to tell them. They have a body of insane ideas to comfort and protect them from the reality’s rigors. To call that body of ideas an “ideology” is way too polite. That the insane call themselves “progressive,” is a signature of their insanity. Progress toward what better state of things? Toward a supremacy of fiends, sadists, degenerates, and morons seizing riches and power by every dishonest means possible outside the rule of law and common decency?

It’s not even suitable to call them “communists.” They lack the necessary idealism for that. They don’t expect to put their shoulders to the wheel with their fellow man. They just want to grab your stuff and then kill you so they don’t have to hear any complaints. The insane do not believe any of the theoretical bullshit they want to force you to swallow. They don’t care about climate change. It’s just a cudgel they use to beat everyone over the head so they can steal your stuff. They don’t care about “democracy.” It’s just a line of bullshit to cover up their election-stealing. Do you suppose that sane people would keep using electronic vote-tabulating machines that were demonstrably connected to the Internet, and thus hackable, if they cared about election integrity? Of course not. They would arrange p.d.q. to junk them and use paper ballots, and only in person at polling places, with “absentee” exceptions only for people out of the country.

The insane do not care about public health. Everything that is known about the Covid-19 vaccinations tells you that they are unsafe and don’t prevent infection or transmission of a flu-like illness that might not even be what it was officially labeled as. Our public health officials in the FDA, the CDC, and in other corners of the Department of health and Human Services, lie about everything they’re responsible for. This week, the CDC (under Director Mandy Cohen) released a 148-page study on myocarditis reactions to mRNA shots. Every word on every page of the document was redacted. The CDC printed countless copies of the report with 148 utterly blank pages, and then proffered them to the news media. How is that not insane? The insane do not care about the rule of law. The conduct of “Lawfare” is the subversion of the law by dishonest means. It is a species of racketeering. And that is why Lawfare rogues such Marc Elias, Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco, Matthew Graves, and Merrick Garland, should be charged under the federal RICO statutes for conspiring to deprive sane citizens of their rights and property in the many cases related to the 1/6/21 riot at the US Capitol.

It is, so far, an abiding mystery of contemporary history as to how New York Attorney General Letitia James managed to get away with prosecuting a real estate case against Donald Trump that was no more than victimless business-as-usual between a borrower and his lenders. Ms. James ran for that elected office promising to “get” Mr. Trump on something, anything. That is not how the rule of law works. Under the rule of law, first you determine that there is a crime and then look for who did the crime. Letitia James must be insane and/or pretty stupid. The short-term gain of stealing Mr. Trump’s property under a false color-of-law and creating impediments to his election campaign, will, sooner or later, blow back at her as a matter of malicious prosecution and, plausibly, racketeering as well. (With whom did she conspire to bring this case? We shall find out.) She will eventually be disgraced publicly as her teammate Fani Willis has already been disgraced in Fulton County, Georgia.

I’ll tell you something that all sane people now know but won’t talk about for fear of being crushed by the levers of Lawfare: this looks like a concerted effort by people-of-color to railroad people of non-color. If you think that is a good thing for race relations in our country, then you are insane. Here are a bunch of other things that are insane: Re-litigating the first amendment is insane. It means what it says, and states it plainly. The open border is insane. No credible sovereign polity would allow it. It would be opposed with force, if necessary. Turning children into transsexuals on a wholesale basis is insane, and fiendishly so. Everybody knows that it is not good for the children or for our society as a whole. But fiends got to fiend, and if you try to deprive them of being fiends then you are guilty of “hate.”

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‘No negotiations or settlement or we won’t support your government with the $45 billion in non-military funds [that Ukraine is now receiving annually..'”

No Ukraine Talks Because US Threatens Zelensky – Seymour Hersh (Sp.)

Negotiations on resolving the conflict in Ukraine could have started months ago, but US authorities threatened Vladimir Zelensky with withdrawal of non-military funding, US journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh said in an article on Substack. “We were on the verge of a reasonable negotiation several months ago before Putin’s re-election and Zelensky’s military degradation. The US leaders got wind of the possibility and gave Zelensky the ultimatum-‘No negotiations or settlement or we won’t support your government with the $45 billion in non-military funds [that Ukraine is now receiving annually,'” the source told the journalist. According to Hersh’s information, US intelligence community recognises that “Ukraine has little chance of winning…”

Hersh’s interlocutor also added that US President Joe Biden has staked on confronting the “Russian threat to NATO” and will not change his course under any circumstances, while the end is inevitable. “There is no road to victory for Ukraine, and it will end with Putin as an historical icon in Russia…,” the source concluded. In autumn 2022, Zelensky signed a decree according to which his country will not negotiate with Russia as long as it is led by Vladimir Putin. Russia, for its part, has repeatedly noted its readiness to discuss the settlement of the conflict through diplomatic means. As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasised, the Russia does not see any prerequisites for a peaceful transition of the situation, and sovereignty over the new Russian regions and Crimea is not up for discussion.

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X thread. “And the West will get a lesson for memory that it is bad to fight with Russia..”

Let NATO Troops Enter Ukraine. The War Will End Much Faster Then – Orban (VV)

Viktor Orban: “It’s a strange feeling when you come from Hungary to Brussels. Hungary looks like a completely normal country. We have a calm and rational mindset, and if you come to Brussels and talk to politicians, you will be surprised. There is a military mood, military language, military logic. The leaders talk as if they are waging their own war against Russia. And now they are saying that soldiers should be stationed in Ukraine. It is not clear exactly what they mean, where they should be stationed, with what weapons and for what purposes. But they have already begun to prepare for the fact that in this situation it will be quite natural if Western European countries deploy military posts on the territory of Ukraine, which shocks Hungarians.

Therefore, I felt as if I had entered another galaxy, and we must be careful not to fall into the psychosis of these twenty or so state leaders. [How far are Western leaders willing to go in terms of supporting Ukraine? The most disturbing thing about this whole story is that two or three months ago it was unthinkable, now, two or three months later, it becomes an ordinary event.” That’s what I said – the worse, the better. Ukraine attacked the Belgorod region. Where is Ukraine’s energy sector now? Russia has always needed a good kick in the ass for it to act. So, let NATO troops enter Ukraine. The war will end much faster then. And the West will get a lesson for memory that it is bad to fight with Russia.

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“..Peskov explained that despite the conflict “de facto turning into a war,” legally it remains classified in Russia as a special military operation..”

Russia is at War – Kremlin (RT)

Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has turned into full-fledged war after the West became a participant in the conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with national media published on Friday. Moscow will continue to pursue its goal of ensuring that the Ukrainian military cannot pose a threat to Russian citizens or territory, the spokesman told the Argumenti i Fakty newspaper, noting that the country now has four new federal subjects which must be protected and fully liberated from Kiev’s forces. Peskov stressed that Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that publicly claims it will seize the Crimean Peninsula as well as Russia’s new territories, referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.

“We are at war,” Peskov stated, explaining that while the conflict began as a special military operation, as soon as “the collective West became a participant in this on the side of Ukraine, for us it became a war.” In a phone conversation with journalists later in the day, Peskov explained that despite the conflict “de facto turning into a war,” legally it remains classified in Russia as a special military operation and that nothing has changed in that regard. The Russian Defense Ministry recently reported that since the start of the military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, over 13,000 foreign nationals have taken part in the fighting on the side of Kiev’s forces.

Of these fighters, which Moscow describes as mercenaries, some 5,962 have been “eliminated,” according to the ministry. Most of them came from Poland, Georgia, the US, Canada, the UK, Romania, Germany, and France, it reported. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, claimed earlier this week that France is preparing its forces for deployment to Ukraine and is allegedly looking to send as many as 2,000 troops to fight for Kiev. French President Emmanuel Macron has hinted in recent weeks at the possible deployment of NATO forces to Ukraine, stating he could not “exclude” this possibility while branding Russia an “adversary.” Moscow has warned that such a step would likely lead to a direct clash between Russian and NATO forces, which, according to President Vladimir Putin, would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”

Katyusha

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“..Marine Le Pen [..] accused the president last week of “hijacking” the Ukraine issue for the sake of domestic electoral politics..”

Macron Believes Ukraine Could Fall Soon – Politico (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron believes Ukraine might be defeated on the battlefield in short order, the French edition of Politico reported on Wednesday. The outlet’s Playbook section spoke with several members of the president’s party who had attended a working dinner at the Elysee Palace the evening before. While most of the discussion centered on the upcoming European Parliament elections, the Ukraine conflict also came up. “Ukraine could fall very quickly,” one of the outlet’s sources quoted Macron as saying. Macron ramped up his rhetoric about Ukraine a few weeks after a number of French nationals fighting on behalf of Kiev were killed in a Russian missile strike. At a meeting of EU leaders in Paris in late February, he refused to rule out the possibility of a NATO intervention in Ukraine.

Though the idea was quickly rejected by almost all members of the US-led bloc and its secretary-general, Macron doubled down, declaring there would be “no limits” to French support for Kiev and calling Russia an “adversary.” Meanwhile, the French Army’s Chief of Staff Pierre Schill announced that the country’s military was “ready,” presumably for a war. Moscow has strongly condemned Macron’s remarks and cautioned NATO against taking further hostile moves. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the deployment of Western soldiers to Ukraine would make direct conflict with Russia “inevitable.” Marine Le Pen, a prominent member of the opposition National Rally party and Macron’s rival in the 2022 election, accused the president last week of “hijacking” the Ukraine issue for the sake of domestic electoral politics. Polls have shown that the French support helping Kiev with weapons and money, but draw the line at getting involved directly with boots on the ground.

Concerns that Kiev might be losing the war appear to be based on several French military assessments leaked earlier this month to the outlet Marianne. One report, following Kiev’s summer offensive, concluded that Ukraine could not win the conflict by military means. Another described the Battle of Avdeevka as a Ukrainian rout and had the French military “in cold sweat,” according to Marianne. A few days later, the daily Le Monde claimed that Macron’s talk of possibly sending troops dated all the way back to June 2023, when the Ukrainian counteroffensive was just starting. General Schill also told the outlet that Macron’s public statements have been “foremost a political and strategic message” to Russia about France’s “will and commitment,” rather than an actual escalation.

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“Western elites have the technology and well-trained soldiers. What they lack is the stamina and political courage to face the baptism of outrage once body bags start arriving back on home soil..”

La Macronnerie of a Failed French President: Ukraine (Jay)

Just what is Emmanuel Macron thinking with his recent media trysts which have gained the attention of the world? Initially, we thought his statements about sending French troops to Ukraine to fight Russian forces was merely chaf to throw up in the air to distract journalists and a gullible French public. It’s true, it has rattled Germany which promptly replied to Macron, reminding him that EU countries are not “at war with Russia” – a curious statement given that just a week earlier, a leaked audio conversation with German air force chiefs revealed that they wanted to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine so as to hit the Crimean bridge. Of course, now that we all know what the intentions of the Germans were, Scholz has been forced to backpedal and downplay the scandal, sticking to its position of neutrality. But if you think that’s funny, wait until you see what Macron has in store for Old Europe.

Could it be really true that he believes French troops could end up in Ukraine? A quick glance at the actual quote from Le Parisienne interview would suggest the opposite and that he’s hedging his bets, or, as some suspect trying to bait the Americans into wanting to get there first. Is this what the British expression “jumping the gun” really means? “Maybe at some point – I don’t want it, I won’t take the initiative – we will have to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces,” he is quoted as saying. In reality, it seems as though he has been misquoted as there is no story here. Even he is saying on the record that he won’t authorise it. So is he hinting at other western countries taking the lead, perhaps the Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians? Possibly. But in reality, the most likely scenario would be the U.S. biting the bullet and financing a private army made up of various nationalities.

Yet even this initiative would need to be prepared for media and even Russia itself so that the underlying point is clear: this is not a NATO war. Of course, this thinking is fatally flawed as it is based on a premise that Putin wouldn’t dare retaliate against those units of troops who he knows are located in a particular spot, as this could invoke Article V of the NATO treaty itself. Yet any two-bit geopolitical hack who knows Putin, knows this would not stop him as killing western troops – or even better capturing a small number – would mean the end of the West’s intervention. Western elites have the technology and well-trained soldiers. What they lack is the stamina and political courage to face the baptism of outrage once body bags start arriving back on home soil. It may well mean, for Macron, if he were ever to entertain the idea of French troops, that it would or could be African troops from former French colonies enrolled under private contracts as mercenaries.

But as I saw in Somalia in 1993, Western leaders like Clinton had no stomach whatsoever for even a small number of their own being killed or captured. Osama bin Laden watched how Clinton soiled his own pants when just 18 soldiers died in the spectacular U.S. Rangers failure in Mogadishu with an operation which was supposed to take an hour. Black Hawk Down and its implications inspired Bin Laden to bomb both the Dar Es Salam and Nairobi U.S. embassies after seeing how vulnerable the West is fighting terrorism, or merely sticking its nose into other countries problems. All it actually took was Newsweek to run a cover of a U.S. soldier’s body being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu to make Clinton not only pull out of Somalia altogether, but convince the UN itself to leave later in 1995. It also meant that the West would not help hundreds of thousands of victims of the civil war in Rwanda which led to the genocide in 1994. One U.S. soldier. One Newsweek cover.

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“..the French military contingency does not make sense from a military point of view, unless that is, the ulterior objective is to incite escalation..”

France’s Megalomaniac Macron is Gambling With World Peace (SCF)

It is unequivocally clear that if France or any other NATO member deploys combat troops to Ukraine, those troops will be targeted and killed by Russian firepower. In that case, the proxy war in Ukraine becomes an all-out war between the U.S.-led NATO alliance and Russia. That is, World War Three will have started, which in all probability leads inexorably to a nuclear conflagration. Anyone pushing that trajectory is contemptible and criminal. Step up, Monsieur Macron. This narcissistic wannabe Napoleon figure has been pushing the envelope for several weeks now since he hosted a conference on Ukraine in Paris on February 26 when he began publicly toying with the notion of sending NATO troops to Ukraine to combat Russia. This week, Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin claimed that a contingent of 2,000 French military personnel were preparing to enter the Ukraine conflict. France’s military commanders vehemently dismissed the Russian intelligence claim, decrying it as an “irresponsible provocation”.

Just who is being provocative here? The alleged French deployment is consistent with the unhinged and belligerent rhetoric of French President Emmanuel Macron over the past three weeks during which he has been hinting at sending troops and of having “no red lines” to make sure that Russia does not win the war in Ukraine. Macron – like a puerile character – has also taken to goading other European leaders, notably his German counterpart, about not being “cowards” when it comes to supporting Ukraine. Let’s be clear. NATO soldiers and weapons have been in Ukraine since the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 that installed a Russian-hating NeoNazi regime. The NATO proxy war has been targeting Russia for over a decade and killed more than 10,000 ethnic Russian civilians during a low-intensity war of aggression in formerly Eastern Ukraine. That aggression was finally countered when Russian forces intervened in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. However, the deployment of NATO combat battalions on the ground takes the conflict to the threshold of all-out war.

And Monsieur Macron appears to be willing to go there (while directing from his plush leather armchair in Elysée Palace and swirling a tumbler of vintage whiskey, bien sûr.) Russian President Vladimir Putin has said on several occasions – and most recently as of last week – that if Russia is threatened existentially, even with conventional weapons, then it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons for its defense. Putin warned that nuclear weapons exist to be used. The Russian doctrine for possible nuclear war is well-defined and long-established. Putin is not saber-rattling as the Western media stupidly make out. He is merely reminding potential enemies of the ultimate reality. Given the appalling stakes involved, it may seem bewildering that France’s Macron keeps talking about the possibility of deploying French and other NATO troops to fight in Ukraine. What is driving the French head of state to make such crass allusions?

First of all, it should be noted that such military contingents are crass from an objective military point of view. The deployment of 2,000 French troops would change nothing on the battlefield. They would be destroyed in two days, as American military analyst Scott Ritter points out. The risk is that the casualties inflicted on France would trigger other NATO members to intervene with greater numbers and firepower. That would lead to a spiraling escalation towards all-out nuclear war. As well as France, the Poles and Baltic states appear to be gung-ho about sending combat units. So, the French military contingency does not make sense from a military point of view, unless that is, the ulterior objective is to incite escalation. In other words, the French battle group is deliberately put forward as a sacrificial lamb to act as a tripwire for full NATO mobilization to war.

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“..by circumventing a clause in the bloc’s founding treaty..”

EU Eyes ‘Groundbreaking’ Change On Ukraine Arms Funding (RT)

EU officials are seeking legal advice on how to unlock more military spending for Ukraine by circumventing a clause in the bloc’s founding treaty, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. The move would involve bypassing a section of the Treaty on European Union which forbids charging expenditure that has “military or defense implications” to the bloc’s joint budget. Such funding can be directly provided by member states, but individual governments can opt out of paying, even if they don’t vote against the spending itself. The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, has proposed a legal task force to evaluate whether the section in question, Article 41(2), can be circumvented so that it doesn’t prevent Brussels from buying weapons for Ukraine to support it in the conflict with Russia, four people familiar with the matter told the British newspaper. Kiev’s military effort against Russia is currently being funded through the European Peace Facility (EPF), which exists outside of the bloc’s joint budget.

The legal theory is that Article 41(2) should apply only to the EU’s own military programs and not foreign states, the FT reported. If the interpretation is applied, “it would be absolutely groundbreaking,” one source said. Talks, however, are at an early stage and may not end in Kiev’s favor, the newspaper reported. Even if changes are made, member states may challenge them in court. While many EU countries support military assistance for Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia are in opposition. They argue that continued weapons deliveries merely result in more bloodshed, as opposed to a Russian defeat, and stand in the way of possible peace talks. There are also neutral members, such as Austria, which favor non-lethal assistance only. Last year the EU vowed to supply 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine by March 2024, but has failed to deliver on the pledge. Ukrainian officials have complained that assistance from Western donors has been lackluster in both amount and capability.

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“..medical commissions would no longer classify Ukrainian recruits as ‘fit for limited military service’. She argued that “this will make life easier for tens of thousands of people.”

Ukraine Makes Fresh Move To Draft More Soldiers (RT)

Ukrainian recruits deemed ‘fit for limited military service’ could soon be thrown into the thick of the fighting after the nation’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, moved to abolish the term altogether. A bill to that effect was supported by the Rada on Thursday. According to the text, those who have been classified as fit for military service with restrictions would have to undergo a medical examination within the next nine months to determine their new health status, and whether they could be deployed to the front line. Those deemed fit for limited service could only be called up during time of war, and are not supposed to fill frontline positions, being allowed to serve only in support and rear units. The push to change conscription legislation comes amid calls from numerous officials in Kiev that every Ukrainian citizen should serve his country during the conflict with Russia. Commenting on the bill on national TV, Deputy Defense Minister Natalya Kalmykova said that medical commissions would no longer classify Ukrainian recruits as ‘fit for limited military service’. She argued that “this will make life easier for tens of thousands of people.”

“Both the service members and their relatives asked the Defense Ministry and other authorities to resolve this issue. We are very glad that the Verkhovna Rada has supported these changes,” she added. Meanwhile, since late December, Ukrainian lawmakers have been mulling a controversial bill that would lower the minimum conscription age from 27 to 25 to compensate for battlefield losses, with reported plans to call up around 500,000 troops. In early February, the legislation was passed in its first reading after numerous amendments. Later in the month, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated Ukraine’s losses at more than 444,000 troops since the start of the conflict in February 2022. On Wednesday, the minister claimed that Kiev’s casualties had reached 71,000 troops this year alone, a figure he said was three times the losses during the same period last year. However, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed in February that Kiev had sustained only 31,000 soldiers killed since the start of the conflict. He did not disclose how many were injured or missing in action.

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“Unlike most Western leaders, Putin is on the side of his own citizens..”

Washington In Denial Over Putin’s Victory While Gaming Its Own Elections (Cox)

America’s legacy media and political ruling class have thrown a predictably massive hissy fit over last weekend’s Russian election, insisting that President Vladimir Putin’s landslide victory was “preordained” and “stage-managed.” Every protest and anti-Putin statement before, during, and after the election was amplified. Every allegation of misconduct was reported with zero scrutiny or skepticism. Washington and its allies decried the results, arguing that the vote wasn’t free or fair. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron went so far as to call it “illegal.” The pearl-clutching over Russia’s vote was the most intense I’ve ever seen over a foreign election. It was so inordinate, in fact, that it reminded me of the nonstop media coverage last month after Russian political activist Alexey Navalny died in a Siberian penal colony.

The same media that showed no concern over the death of US journalist Gonzalo Lira in a Ukrainian jail – after he had been tortured, at American taxpayer expense, for daring to criticize the Kiev regime – huffed and puffed for weeks about the death of a Russian citizen in a Russian prison. Lost in all the hysteria over Putin’s victory is the fact that most of the Russian people like their president. The incumbent won over 87% of the votes, and as even CNN begrudgingly acknowledged before the election, a poll last month showed that Putin had an 86% approval rating. That compares with a 9% approval rating for Navalny, the great Western hope for destabilizing Russia, in a January 2023 poll. And by the way, it also compares with US President Joe Biden’s approval rating of around 38%. As US policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs explained in an interview this week with Russia-hating podcaster Piers Morgan, Putin’s popularity and reelection reflect the will of the Russian people. “It’s part of Russian culture,” said Sachs, who advised the Moscow and Kiev governments after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

“He’s a strong leader. The Russian people expect a strong leader, and we have to deal with a strong leader in Russia.” Therein lies the problem. Team America is unwilling to accept strong leadership of Russia with broad public support. Having failed to cripple Russia or its leadership through the proxy war in Ukraine, the US and its allies are in no mood to accept the political reality in Moscow. The political pouting was so bad in Berlin that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government refused to refer to Putin as Russia’s president. This is the same government that is mulling plans to ban one of Germany’s most popular opposition parties. However, for all the Western criticism of Putin and his policies, it’s not easy to argue that he doesn’t try to represent the interests of the Russian people. Unlike most Western leaders, Putin is on the side of his own citizens. He hit the nail on the head when he said Western attacks were directed not at him, but at “the forces that stand behind me, which seek to strengthen Russia – to improve its sovereignty, defense, and economic independence.”

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“..he does not think China will ever invest in Israel again. “They see on their own social media networks what you and I are seeing..”

World Sees Gaza as ‘US Genocide’ Not Just Israel’s (Sp.)

On Tuesday, four critical care doctors who recently returned from Gaza spoke to the UN. “I saw the most appalling atrocities, and I saw things I never would have expected to have seen in any healthcare setting,” Dr. Nick Maynard said, adding that he saw “mass indiscriminate bombing” and targeting of healthcare workers. Americans do not understand how badly the United States’ reputation has been damaged across the world, which sees Gaza as “a US genocide” and “not just an Israeli genocide,” Mohammad Marandi, a professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Thursday. “It’s revealing the reality of [the US] empire in a way that not even [author of ‘A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn] could do because it’s being done in front of our eyes, it’s being done in front of a global audience. We’ve never seen such a thing before,” Marandi said, adding that he suspects that is why the US is attempting to ban TikTok.

“The United States has lost credibility across the world. I don’t think many Americans understand how bad this has become for the United States. People across the world see this as a US genocide, it’s not just an Israeli genocide.” Co-host Wilmer Leon asked about a recent freeze on Canadian arms shipments to Israel, which Marandi said showed that “public opinion is shifting” but that ultimately “stopping Canadian exports of weapons is nothing.” Marandi said Canada needs to take a much tougher approach. “They sanctioned Syria… they’ve imposed sanctions on Cuba, on Venezuela, on Iran, on Yemen. Why don’t they impose sanctions on Israel? They’re carrying out a holocaust. Why don’t they hit the economy?” Marandi asked, noting that Israel will, unlike Russia, be allowed to participate in the Olympics. “No one takes this seriously. And, of course, the bulk of the weapons come from the United States anyway.”

“In any case, there is no reason to believe that the Canadian government cares about Palestinians, that they oppose the genocide because they’ve done absolutely nothing to stop it,” Marandi added. Ultimately, Marandi believes that Israel has laid the path for its destruction through its actions in Gaza. “I believe that the Israelis have made a fatal mistake and that what they’ve done in Gaza will be the beginning of the end of the Zionist project,” he asserted. “The real catastrophe for the Israeli regime is the fact that it’s been carrying out the genocide for almost six months in front of the world and it has demolished the facade that the regime had created for itself… about it being a democracy… All that is gone now and across the board the regime is despised and the image of the United States has been destroyed.” Marandi noted that he has been to China twice and public opinion there has shifted as well. He noted that he does not think China will ever invest in Israel again. “They see on their own social media networks what you and I are seeing,” he noted.

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“He’s Hunter’s confidant, art patron, business partner, and his lawyer. Now there is a suggestion that we might have to add CIA asset or protected person..”

CIA Told DOJ to Stay Away from Kevin Morris in Hunter Biden Probe (Turley)

The New York Post has created a stir in Washington with its report that a whistleblower claims that the CIA reportedly blocked federal investigators from interviewing Kevin Morris, the entertainment lawyer who has subsidized the expenses and bought the art of Hunter Biden. (For full disclosure, Morris previously threatened me with a defamation lawsuit over my writing about his representation of Hunter. Fortunately, I have not received any summons from either the courts or the CIA). We will have to wait for more details on the allegations, but the response of the CIA struck me as rather curious. As discussed earlier, the Hollywood lawyer, producer and Democratic donor has emerged as a major figure in the corruption scandal surrounding Hunter Biden. For years, some of us have complained that we are not sure what Morris was at any given moment.

What became clear in the deposition is that Morris does not appear certain himself. He’s Hunter’s confidant, art patron, business partner, and his lawyer. Now there is a suggestion that we might have to add CIA asset or protected person. The unnamed whistleblower told the House Oversight and Judiciary that the “intelligence agency stopped IRS and Justice Department investigators from interviewing Morris in August 2021.” That has led Oversight chairman James Comer (R-KY) and Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) to demand answers from the CIA on whether two DOJ officials were summoned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. to discourage their interviewing Morris.

Given the allegations of special treatment by the Justice Department (including blocking efforts to interview Hunter or search Biden properties), the allegation is obviously quite serious. One would expect that the CIA would simply say that no such meeting related to the Hunter Biden investigation occurred. Instead, the agency responded that it “does not obstruct investigations.” The spokesman added “CIA does not comment on specific investigations. We can say that CIA cooperates with law enforcement partners and does not obstruct investigations. CIA also fully and routinely cooperates with our oversight committees and will continue to do so.”

Hunter met Morris when he attended a political fundraiser as a major donor. Soon thereafter, he warned Biden associates that Hunter’s unpaid taxes raised political problems during Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential run. He later proceeded to pay off Hunter’s taxes and to subsidize his lavish lifestyle. He also took an apparent lead in planning public campaigns against the critics of the Bidens, reportedly pushing a scorched-earth approach to attack potential witnesses and accusers. Then Morris seemed to take on the role of Hunter’s bank and art patron. He reportedly gave millions to Hunter while insisting that they are loans, not gifts. Most recently, it was revealed that, despite accounts of buyers flocking to buy Hunter’s overpriced art, it was Morris all along who bought most of the pieces. How the CIA would fit into any of this is anyone’s guess.

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“..why would you have 12 people armed with shotguns and machine guns, raid a doctor’s home in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and four years later never indict him?”

CIA Protecting Biden by Blocking IRS Interviews – Whistleblower (DeMartino)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jordan and Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman Comer revealed that a whistleblower told them the CIA intervened to prevent the IRS from interviewing Kevin Morris, an associate of Hunter Biden who loaned him millions of dollars, as part of the IRS investigation into the first son’s alleged tax crimes. The CIA said it would not comment on specific cases but added that while it cooperates with other law agencies, it does not interfere with investigations and claims to be fully cooperative with its oversight committees. Jordan and Comer have sent a letter to the CIA requesting more information, but have not yet received a response. They set a deadline for April 4, 2024. If the whistleblower’s testimony is true, it would represent an unprecedented move by the CIA that is tasked with countering foreign threats.

Brad Birkenfeld, a whistleblower who exposed tax fraud and money laundering schemes in the Swiss banking system, told Sputnik’s Political Misfits that the problem is that “so many people are trying to help the Bidens get out of the illegal conduct that they’re doing,” noting that he has himself attempted to provide investigators with information on the Hunter Biden case, but was met hostile response. “I was introduced to Dr. Keith Ablow, [who] was Hunter Biden’s psychiatrist,” Birkenfeld began. “He wanted me to help him with his whistleblowing case.” Birkenfeld says that Ablow told him things about Hunter Biden but that Ablow didn’t show for meetings that Birkenfeld set up for him in Washington. “Then I went to Senator [Charles] Grassley’s (R-IA) office and Senator [Ron] Johnson’s (R-WI) office, and I felt obligated as an American citizen to tell them about the information that [Ablow] had relayed to us,” including Hunter Biden’s involvement with Monkey Island, a Liquified Natural Gas company in Louisiana.

“Two days later, lo and behold, the Drug Enforcement Agency in Boston raided Dr. Keith Ablow’s home,” Birkenfeld continued. “[The DEA] took everything. Now, why would you have 12 people armed with shotguns and machine guns, raid a doctor’s home in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and four years later never indict him?” “Whatever the CIA does,” Birkenfeld added while discussing the CIA’s past, including their support of dictators Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Ferdinand Marcos, as well as their alleged efforts to undermine Donald Trump while he served as President. “Whatever the CIA does, this is like Cartoon Network over there in Langley. Yes, they do a job and some people work well. But there’s a lot of idiots over there that should be fired and prosecuted. And that’s the facts.”

Birkenfeld added earlier that Joe Biden -while serving as Vice President- was briefed in defense meetings “about his son interfering in US policies.” That, as of yet, has not been alleged by the committees investigating Hunter Biden but Birkenfeld insisted that it is “not conjecture.” “A lot of people don’t know this yet, but this is exactly what’s going to be coming out,” he asserted. While Democrats have consistently declared that the committees have yet to find any concrete evidence that President Biden committed any crimes, Birkenfeld argues that is because the power centers in Washington continue to obfuscate the case by blocking investigative efforts. “Give us the bank records, give us the credit cards offshore, and we can piece it together. But, once again, the Biden White House is obstructing, the DOJ is obstructing, the FBI is obstructing, the CIA [is] obstructing. So nobody can get the facts.”

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“..the potential causes of fertility decline, such as plastics and chemical shrinking penises and sperm counts, are relatively ignored..”

“In countries like South Korea and Japan, there are twice as many people dying as there are being born..”

Global Population Set To Fall For First Time In 700 Years (MN)

A major study published in scientific journal The Lancet has found that the global population will start to fall within decades due to vastly reduced fertility rates and may never recover. The study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, found that by the year 2050, 155 of 204 countries are on course to have birth rates lower than required to sustain the population level. It notes that as of 2021, the “total fertility rate” worldwide was 2.23, hovering only just above the 2.1 children per woman needed to maintain population growth. That figure has fallen from 4.84 in 1950, with researchers predicting it will decrease to 1.83 in 2050 and go as low as 1.59 by 2100. The study notes that by that time only 26 countries will have birth rates that outpace the number of people dying, with “most of the world transitioning into natural population decline”. A fall in population would mark the first time in seven centuries such an occurrence has taken place. The last time it happened was after the Black Death bubonic plague pandemic killed as many as 50 million people in the mid-1300s, reducing the global population from 400 million to 350 million.


Dramatic declines in global fertility rates set to transform global population patterns by 2100

Commenting on the study, it’s co-author Dr Natalia Bhattacharjee said declining fertility rates “will completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power and will necessitate reorganising societies”. Bhattacharjee, lead research scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, also noted that a major consequence will be increased immigration from countries where there is still a “baby boom,” such as sub-Saharan Africa, in order to make up workforce shortages in nations with aging populations. Professor Stein Emil Vollset, senior author from IHME, also noted that the world is “facing staggering social change through the 21st century” due to population decline. The findings are exactly what the likes of Elon Musk have been warning of for years, describing population decline as a ‘civilisational threat’ and urging that humanity is literally going to disappear if something is not done to reverse the trend.

While Eco loons rage about ‘moral issues’ with having children, the potential causes of fertility decline, such as plastics and chemical shrinking penises and sperm counts, are relatively ignored. The stark reality is that birth rates globally are collapsing and almost every country is on course to have shrinking populations by the end of the century. In countries like South Korea and Japan, there are twice as many people dying as there are being born. You don’t have to be a mathematic genius to do the calculations on what’s going to happen very soon. These countries are already considering embracing mass migration, with South Korea’s Justice Minister recently declaring the country faces a “demographic catastrophe” and potential extinction otherwise. Despite this horrifying reality, it is now commonplace in modern culture for young people to genuinely believe they need to abandon their human instincts to reproduce, all for the greater good.

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McCullough: Spike proteins from Saliva
https://twitter.com/i/status/1770987637257413092

 

 

FDA loses its war on ivermectin and agrees to remove all social media posts and consumer directives regarding ivermectin and COVID, including its most popular tweet in FDA history.

 

 

Shark
https://twitter.com/i/status/1770998255851036861

 

 

Fish

 

 

Elephant
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771065184980742232
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771160969823027645

 

 

How?

 

 


Find “A”

 

 

Queen of the night

 

 

 

 

Deep-Sea Ghost Shark

 

 

Lion up close

 

 

 

 

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