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Debt Rattle October 10 2024

Oct 102024
 
 October 10, 2024  Posted by at 8:38 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  72 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Peasant burning weeds 1883

 

• Chaos is Coming – John Rubino (USAW)
• 60 Minutes Under Fire For Deceptively Editing Kamala Harris Interview (ZH)
• Harris Attempts To Blame Trump For FEMA Hurricane Relief Failures (MN)
• US in Dangerous Hiatus Amid Biden’s Lame Duck Period – Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)
• Trump Is Making A Mistake That Could Cost Him The Presidency (Marsden)
• Russian Victory Will Liberate Europe – Emmanuel Todd (RT)
• EU Running Out Of Time On Ukraine – Orban (RT)
• Refusal to Buy Russian Energy Endangers EU’s Economic Growth – Orban (Sp.)
• What Is Russia Deciding For Terms To End The War In The Ukraine (Helmer)
• Zelensky Cancels November ‘Peace Summit’ (RT)
• Russia Could Seek War Reparations From Ukraine (RT)
• US Global Economic Share Dips Below 15% For First Time (Sp.)
• US Spending on Mideast Conflict Tops $22 Billion in One Year (Sp.)
• Israel Seeks To Fix 2006 Failures, While Hezbollah Lies In Wait (Mehdi)
• Israel’s Collective Punishment Turns the World Against It (DeMartino)
• Iran ‘Fully Prepared’ For War – FM (RT)
• US Navy Was At Scene Of Nord Stream Blasts – Media (RT)
• US Antitrust Officials Consider Google Breakup As ‘Trustbusting Era’ May Return (ZH)
• Crypto Exchange Sues US Market Regulator (RT)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1843706162509951236

JD RFK

DeSantis

Trump Elon MAGA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843999824359919850

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843991681072566642

Doocy

60m

Megyn Day 1

Doral
https://twitter.com/i/status/1844088909078352250

Tampon Tim

 

 

 

 

“There’s no reason to protect speech that everybody agrees on..”

John Rubino is a long time fan of TAE. The idea he uses here of the “shrinking trust horizon” was first defined by Nicole Foss right here at TAE at least ten years ago.

• Chaos is Coming – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino has long warned of a massive financial crisis. With unstoppable wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Rubino says one thing is for sure, “Chaos is coming.” Rubino explains, “This does not get fixed easily, and to the extent this gets fixed at all, this gets fixed via chaos. Prepare for a really interesting decade. This is going to be unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. Not since the Great Depression, nothing like this has happened.”

This all feeds into what Rubino calls the “shrinking trust horizon.” Rubino points out, “When everybody is lying to you, you reach a point where you only trust your city councilman, or your mayor and your local farmers. . . . So, you just don’t put any stock in what your doctor tells you. You stop taking the vaccinations they tell you to take. . . . You stop doing the . . . statins for high blood pressure and cholesterol. You stop doing that because you don’t trust those people anymore. . . . Starting with the “weapons of mass destruction,” which the government lied to us to get us into a multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq, it’s been one big lie after another.

In 2016, there was Trump/Russia collusion. . . . It turned out to be Hillary Clinton opposition research. With the CV19 pandemic, it was just lie, after lie, after lie. . . . Now, you have what is going on in North Carolina and Tennessee after Hurricane Helene. People are figuring out they are being lied to one issue at a time. . . . You’ve got a whole new set of people watching the government screw up and behave incompetently or corruptly, and they are learning they cannot trust the guys in charge anymore. So, the trust horizon is shrinking everywhere you look.”

There are so many parts of the economy that are quietly facing huge trouble and big losses. Nothing could start a total all-sector market crash faster than an attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear sites. Rubino says, “There you go. That could be the thing that sets everything off. Bombing nuclear weapons facilities or a nuclear power plants is one of those things that has so many unintended consequences. Iran would have to respond to that in a serious way. It’s possible that China and Russia would step in on the side of Iran. . . . Then you get something much bigger. . . . I think the financial markets would respond to that.

Oil would go to $150 a barrel. That would crash the stock market. Then you get all the other dominos falling: commercial real estate, residential real estate, government bonds, derivatives and everything starts blowing up. That could be the catalyst for a market crash much bigger than 2008 and 2009. This would be something we have not seen since the Great Depression. We are not far from that. I think Trump said he thinks Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear facility. . . . Biden is the demented figurehead for the neocons who want WWIII because they think they can win it. Chaos is definitely coming, but I am hoping it is survivable chaos, and I am not sure that it will be.”

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Did they think no-one would notice?

• 60 Minutes Under Fire For Deceptively Editing Kamala Harris Interview (ZH)

CBS has come under fire for deceptively editing Kamala Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview – replacing her word-salad answer from a pre-interview teaser with a completely different answer in the version that aired. When asked by host Bill Whitaker why it seemed like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the United States, Harris originally replied: “Well Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.” But in the version that aired, Harris’ answer was: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” Watch:

The Trump campaign has demanded that the network release the full interview. “On Sunday, 60 Minutes teased Kamala’s highly-anticipated sit-down interview with one of her worst word salads to date, which received significant criticism on social media,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary. “During the full interview on Monday evening, the word salad was deceptively edited to lessen Kamala’s idiotic response.” “Why did 60 Minutes choose not to air Kamala’s full word salad, and what else did they choose not to air?” she asked. “The American people deserve the full, unedited transcript from Kamala’s sit-down interview. We call upon 60 Minutes and CBS to release it.”

Trump also posted about it on Truth Social, writing “I’ve never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced (“cut and pasted”) Lyin’ Kamala’s answers to questions, which were virtually incoherent, over and over again, some by as many as four times in a single sentence or thought…” Trump suggested that the network helping Harris may have been a “major Campaign Finance Violation,” and is a “stain on the reputation of 60 minutes that is not recoverable.” Trump also called for an investigation.

Several have called out the network over the propaganda. Investor Bill Ackman took to X, where he said: “And how could @60Minutes’ manipulation occur without the consent of @KamalaHarris? Let’s not forget she is the Vice President of the United States and she is being asked about our foreign policy in the Middle East and our relationship with the leader of our principal ally in the region. Thinking about this more, the only plausible explanation is that the Vice President herself and/or her administration found that her original answer, which implied that Israel’s actions in the region were a direct result of the Biden/Harris policy, would harm her campaign and would therefore need to be expurgated from the public record.

In order to execute such a violation of journalistic ethics, I would expect that CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon and possibly Shari Redstone herself would have had to approve the manipulated video. This is a story worthy of investigative journalism from real journalists. Where are they? Where are the whistleblowers? Or are all of them so ideologically compromised that they are prepared to sacrifice the truth and their integrity in an effort to elect their favored candidate?”

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“Trump hasn’t been in office since 2020, yet somehow a woeful federal government response to a hurricane that occurred in 2024 is his fault because he said some mean words.”

• Harris Attempts To Blame Trump For FEMA Hurricane Relief Failures (MN)

Kamala Harris reverted to her default position when talking to the cackling hags on The View about FEMA’s disastrous hurricane relief efforts. She attempted to blame Donald Trump. “He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy,” Harris said of Trump, also describing his criticism of her as “callousness.” Trump hasn’t been in office since 2020, yet somehow a woeful federal government response to a hurricane that occurred in 2024 is his fault because he said some mean words.

It’s pathetic. She repeated the same script on Colbert’s propaganda parade.

While Harris is on The View, Stern and Colbert, Trump is giving out free accommodation to first responders prepping for the massive storm heading toward Florida, yet he’s the selfish one with no empathy according to her. Harris also claimed that Trump is using the hurricane to play political games, yet she outright lied Monday in claiming that Florida governor Ron DeSantis wouldn’t take her calls. Let’s also not forget that while Americans were begging for help, Kamala was appearing on a sex podcast, laughing about tampons. Her response is always either laugh inanely, talk about her mother, or blame Trump. As we earlier highlighted, in the same appearance Harris admitted that she wouldn’t do anything different to pudding brain Biden given the opportunity.

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“I hope for rationality by the next government, because we need a completely new foreign policy, based on negotiation, mutual respect with other great powers, and peace..”

• US in Dangerous Hiatus Amid Biden’s Lame Duck Period – Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)

The United States is in a dangerous hiatus during outgoing President Joe Biden’s lame duck period, which several US allies are trying to exploit, Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, told Sputnik. “President Biden is not really in full control anymore, both because of his waning mental status and his lame duck status,” Sachs said. “We are in a dangerous hiatus. [Israel’s Benjamin] Netanyahu is exploiting that hiatus, and [Volodymyr] Zelensky is trying to as well.” The United States backs Israel’s reckless behavior, talks openly about war with China, and continues a delusional policy in Ukraine that is bleeding that country while threatening to provoke more escalation, Sachs explained.

Zelensky has been pushing the Biden administration to allow Kiev to use US-supplied long-range missiles for deep strikes inside Russian territory, which Russia has warned could drag the United States directly into the conflict. To date, Biden has refrained from granting Ukraine its request. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Netanyahu continues to expand his military operation in the region, shifting its focus from Gaza to Lebanon, which provoked Tehran to conduct its second aerial assault against Israel on Tuesday and left open the possibility for more military action by Iran. Sachs added that there is little chance Biden will steer the United States toward a “good direction” throughout the remainder of his term, but there’s also no guarantee that things will improve after either Republican candidate Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Kamala Harris comes into power on January 20.

“I hope for rationality by the next government, because we need a completely new foreign policy, based on negotiation, mutual respect with other great powers, and peace,” Sachs said. “The US doesn’t seem to have much sound thinking at the top right now.” Many other countries are trying to exploit US military power, including the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Baltic states, which are all urging reckless policies by the United States that could land it quickly in World War III, Sachs noted.

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Netanyahu is not Israel.

• Trump Is Making A Mistake That Could Cost Him The Presidency (Marsden)

When Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky recently stood next to Trump in search of support against Russia, looking like a kid being chewed out by the school principal, Trump reminded him that “it takes two to tango.” But, when it comes to Israel, Trump only sees a soloist, minding its own business and inexplicably eliciting the wrath of its neighbors. And Trump just can’t seem to shut up about it. That isn’t what his base signed up for. On the anniversary of the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters from Gaza attacked Israeli civilians at an adjacent music festival following years of anti-Palestinian oppression, Trump had a variety of options. His base expects him mainly just to butt out and focus on problems that affect the daily lives of Americans – not all of whom live in Israel, contrary to perception.

Trump fancies himself such a peacemaker on Ukraine that he’s said he could resolve that conflict in a jiffy. He has no such ambition for the Middle East, apparently. Instead, he threw on a yarmulke and stood beside some giant tablets with Hebrew inscriptions, and riffed about how he would “remove the Jew haters” if elected in November, and how the “bond between the United States and Israel is strong and enduring” and that he would ensure that it was “closer than it ever was before.” Trump called on Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? I mean, it’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons,” Trump said at a recent rally, ignoring the fact that nuclear weapons have a magical way of inciting respectful behavior all-around, in the same way that Trump’s beloved second amendment does in the US.

That remark alone places Trump in a more pro-Israel and pro-war posture than the Biden administration, which has explicitly objected to Israel attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. He’s also more aggressively pro-Israel than his Democratic opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, who at least routinely pays lip service to the need to protect Palestinian civilians in light of Israeli bombardments and glaringly dodged the question when asked whether Israel is even an ally. Who is Trump even trying to appeal to? The establishment? Why even bother? He has long lost their support on everything else, and this certainly isn’t going to bring them back aboard. Republican neocons? Same thing. Certainly not his “MAGA” base, whose position is non-interventionist and in favor of butting out of tiffs between countries on the other side of the planet. There was no shortage of them who noticed Trump’s October 7 pandering and announced on social media something along the lines of, “that’s it, I’m out.”

Maybe he’s trying to charm American voters, more generally? A new Pew Research survey published this month found that just 31% of them have confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with 75% of them now concerned that US forces will somehow end up getting dragged into the melee. A YouGov poll has found that just 33% of Americans sympathize with Israel over Palestinians in the Gaza conflict. A Gallup poll from March also found that a majority of US voters oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza. And that was even before it kicked off similar action against Syria, Lebanon, and “Hezbollah pagers” exploding in the vicinity of civilians.

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“If, as I believe, the US is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free..”

• Russian Victory Will Liberate Europe – Emmanuel Todd (RT)

A Ukrainian defeat would represent a victory for Europe, French anthropologist Emmanuel Todd has claimed, in an interview with the Italian news outlet Corriere di Bologna published on Tuesday. According to Todd, who has stressed that he is not an explicit supporter of Moscow, if Russia were to lose in the Ukraine conflict, this would allow “European submission to the Americans to be prolonged for a century.” The leading intellectual has argued that Europe has effectively delegated the representation of the West to the US and has been paying the consequences ever since. He claims in the interview that nothing can be done to change this fact at the moment due to the ongoing Ukraine conflict, but suggests that its outcome will “decide the fate of Europe.” “If, as I believe, the US is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free,” Todd told the outlet, noting that it is unlikely that Russia would be compelled to militarily attack Western Europe after establishing itself on the Dnieper River.

“Russia will have neither the means nor the desire to expand once the borders of pre-communist Russia are reconstituted. The Russophobic hysteria of the West, which fantasizes about the desire for Russian expansion in Europe, is simply ridiculous for a serious historian,” he said. A number of Western leaders have in recent months raised concerns that if Russia were allowed to defeat Ukraine it would eventually set its sights on other European and NATO countries. Moscow, however, has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention of attacking any other countries once it accomplishes its goals in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed talk of a ‘Russian threat’ as “nonsense” being peddled by Western governments to scare the European population in order to “extract additional expenses” from them.

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“..he will not wait until the inauguration ceremony … in order to manage a peace” in Ukraine..”

• EU Running Out Of Time On Ukraine – Orban (RT)

The European Union must act now to settle the Ukraine conflict or be consigned to irrelevance by the US, the Hungarian prime minister has warned. Viktor Orban predicted that if Republican nominee Donald Trump wins the US presidential election on November 5, he will start to deal with the crisis even before he takes office. The former US president has repeatedly claimed that if elected, he will persuade Kiev and Moscow to reach a diplomatic solution “within 24 hours.” His running mate, J.D. Vance, has suggested that Trump would likely freeze the conflict along the current frontline and offer Russia a guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO. Speaking at a press conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Orban said that should Trump defeat his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, “he will not wait until the inauguration ceremony … in order to manage a peace” in Ukraine.

Trump “will act immediately, so we as European leaders don’t have any time to waste, because there would not be two or three months, as we usually have between the election and the inauguration of the new president,” Orban said. He urged European leaders to “react first intellectually, philosophically, then strategically, and then at the level of action as soon as possible.” The Hungarian prime minister also said he was glad that the EU leaders would convene for an informal summit in Budapest on November 7, describing the event as a good opportunity to discuss potential ways out of the Ukraine conflict. Orban also pointed to foreign policy differences between the current Democratic administration and the Trump team, and admitted that he is rooting for the GOP candidate. Unlike many EU member states, Hungary has long called for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, and firmly opposed the delivery of weapons to Ukraine.

Last month, the Hungarian prime minister claimed that a growing number of EU nations were leaning toward abandoning their “pro-war” stance and “would like to join the peace camp.” According to the official, it was Hungary that “started this idea, because we stirred up a huge debate in Europe.” “Without the peace mission, such a debate would not have started and everyone would still only talk war,” Orban stressed. After Budapest took over the rotating presidency of the EU in June, the Hungarian prime minister visited Kiev, Moscow, Beijing and Washington as part of his “peace mission.” The initiative drew the ire of EU officials in Brussels at the time. According to Orban, “this war clearly has no solution on the battlefield… An agreement must be sought.” Earlier in September, he argued that Ukraine and Russia should first agree to a ceasefire before drafting a detailed peace plan.

After meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky late last month, Trump told reporters that he had not “changed from the standpoint that we both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made.” He doubled down on his pledge to “get [the Ukraine conflict] resolved very quickly.” The last peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine broke down in the spring of 2022, despite the sides pre-approving a proposed peace treaty. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as both Ukrainian and US officials, the West “ordered” Kiev to withdraw from the talks. He has also claimed that Kiev had initially agreed to transform Ukraine into a neutral country and restrict the size of its military. Moscow has since expressed its readiness to settle the conflict diplomatically on numerous occasions, insisting, however, on Kiev accepting the “territorial reality” of Russia controlling the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and Crimea.

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Very much.

• Refusal to Buy Russian Energy Endangers EU’s Economic Growth – Orban (Sp.)

The fact that the European Union is refusing Russian natural gas has significantly endangered the bloc’s economic growth, forcing it to focus on its own energy infrastructure, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday. He added that this move spurred on an increase of energy prices. “The EU productivity is growing at slower pace of our competitors, and our share of global trade is going down. EU businesses are paying two to three times more in energy prices than in the United States, and this is four to five times when it comes to natural gas. Moving away from Russian energy has endangered EU GDP growth and we now need to focus on energy support and building infrastructure for liquefied natural gas [LNG],” Orban said at the plenary session of the European Parliament.

The West stepped up sanctions pressure on Russia after the start of the special military operation in Ukraine in 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the West’s long-term strategy of containing Russia was hurting the global economy instead. In June, the EU approved the 14th sanctions package against Russia. For the first time it is targeting gas, banning re-exports of Russian LNG in EU waters and prohibiting new investments and services in LNG production projects in Russia.

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“..the terms of Istanbul-II for the politicians to draft and sign must follow the terms of armistice, unconditional surrender and disarmament to be dictated by the generals.”

• What Is Russia Deciding For Terms To End The War In The Ukraine (Helmer)

The Russian history of end-of-war negotiations for the capitulation of Germany and for the World War II peace settlement requires it to be understood now: it was the Red Army’s defeat of the enemy on the battlefield all the way to Berlin which preceded and which was the precondition for the paper promises and pacts offered to Moscow by those allies whom Joseph Stalin understood to be permanent enemies of Russia — the United States, United Kingdom, and France. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has just spelled this out in an especially timed essay published on October 2. Those lessons are being repeated now because they apply with equal force to the end-of-war negotiations with the US in the process nicknamed Istanbul-II. For Russian decision-makers in Moscow, and for the Russian people across the country, there can be no long-term security for the country without the military defeat of the enemy on the Ukrainian battlefield, capitulation of the Kiev regime, and withdrawal from Ukrainian territory of its US and NATO allies. This is first of all.

The political “guarantees”, “permanent neutrality” of the Ukraine, and treaty promises for the removal of foreign bases, forces, and weapons to continue war against Russia – terms spelled out in the pact of March 2022 known as Istanbul-I — come second. This is because the terms are unreliable and unenforceable, no matter what president of the US is elected next month and promises the day after — unless and until the Russian military has won the unconditional surrender of its enemies, and secured the battlefield against revival of the war in future. This battlefield security extends from the new Russian western border to the old Ukrainian borders with Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. Which must come first now — war or politics?

The Russian answers to this question being debated in Moscow today are turning the old German theory of war and the state upside down, reversing the meaning of the well-known maxim of Carl von Clausewitz, “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” In Europe today — the Russian General Staff and Security Council insist — politics is the continuation of war by other means. Accordingly, the terms of Istanbul-II for the politicians to draft and sign must follow the terms of armistice, unconditional surrender and disarmament to be dictated by the generals.

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“Peace summit”, “victory plan”, f•ck off. Your people are dying.

• Zelensky Cancels November ‘Peace Summit’ (RT)

Ukraine is no longer planning to hold a second peace conference on ending hostilities with Russia, a senior aide to Vladimir Zelensky has said. The meeting had been scheduled for November. Zelensky held an ambitiously-named ‘peace summit’ in June at the Swiss resort of Luzerne, where he sought support for his ‘peace formula’ – a ten-point wishlist that Moscow had rejected as delusional. The event, to which Russia was not invited, was widely seen as a failure. ”The Second Peace Summit will not take place in November,” senior presidential aide Darya Zarivna told the media on Tuesday. According to Zarivna, work is continuing on preparations for such a meeting, with “thematic conferences” dedicated to each point so that everything will be ready for an eventual conference. The last of those thematic conferences, dealing with humanitarian concerns, should take place in Canada at the end of October, Zarivna said.

During his visit to the US last month, Zelensky said he presented a “victory plan” to President Joe Biden and both presidential candidates in the upcoming election, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. While the exact details have not been made public, the five points leaked to the media amount to the West ramping up financial and economic aid to Kiev, admitting Ukraine to NATO and the EU, and allowing long-range missile strikes into Russian territory. Moscow has described the last point as direct participation of the US and its allies in the conflict, which would require an adequate response. Russia has since updated its nuclear doctrine accordingly.

On Tuesday, the White House announced that Biden would not meet Zelensky in Germany as previously scheduled, since he has canceled all of his travel plans due to Hurricane Milton impacting Florida. According to Ukrainian media, Zelensky and Biden were supposed to discuss the ‘victory plan’ this coming Saturday. Moscow has ruled out participation in Zelensky’s conferences, dismissing any discussion of the purported formula as futile and pointless. Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out a set of terms for a ceasefire with Ukraine in June, which included “denazification” and a legally binding rejection of membership in NATO.

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”Everything… is accounted for in a database for damage incurred to the economy, businesses and individuals..”

• Russia Could Seek War Reparations From Ukraine (RT)

Russian officials are keeping track of damage caused by Ukrainian military actions, so that Moscow has accurate figures for potential reparation claims, a senior diplomat has said. Rodion Miroshnik, who is leading Moscow’s special mission to investigate alleged Ukrainian war crimes, discussed this aspect of the conflict with Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday. Much of this work is done on a regional level, but the data collection is coordinated by the central government, he explained. ”Everything… is accounted for in a database for damage incurred to the economy, businesses and individuals,” Miroshnik said. ”Much depends on the battlefield,” he added. “As we progress, an opportunity will arise to formulate our demands regarding those who committed crimes and to discuss realistic mechanisms for damage compensation.”

In February, Oleg Ustenko, who advises Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on economic issues, estimated the total damages that the country would seek from Russia at $1 trillion. Last year, Prime Minister Denis Shmigal put the figure of prospective reparations at $750 billion, saying that “confiscated accounts of Russia and Russian oligarchs should be the key source.” In May, the US created national financial mechanisms, which can be used to finance Kiev now and to fund its eventual recovery using confiscated Russian assets. Western nations seized some $300 billion of Russian sovereign assets after the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022. Brussels has applied a windfall tax on profits generated by those funds to be spent on Kiev’s needs. Work is underway to create a $50 billion loan against future profits, which would then be transferred to Ukraine.

Russia has denounced those actions as theft of its property. Kiev wants the entire amount transferred to the country. Izvestia cited several estimates by Russian regions in relation to damage that could be claimed from Ukraine, ranging in value from roughly $200 million in the border Belgorod Region to $145 billion in Crimea. This was the biggest figure, set out in June by Vladimir Konstantinov, the parliament speaker of the former Ukrainian region. It included damages relating to Kiev’s economic blockade of the Crimean peninsula. The Ukrainian government cut water and power supplies to Crimea following a decision by its people to join Russia and reject the government that was installed in Kiev after the US-backed armed coup in 2014.

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“..a cumulative decline of 0.58% under Biden to 14.76%..”

• US Global Economic Share Dips Below 15% For First Time (Sp.)

The US share of the global economy has tanked below 15% during Joe Biden’s presidency. By the end of his term, it is projected to hit a record low of 14.76%, according to Sputnik calculations based on data from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In 1990, the US accounted for 20.16% of the global economy, measured by purchasing power parity (PPP). That share peaked at 21.01% in 1999, with an economic output of $9.6 trillion, compared to a global output of $45.85 trillion. However, the US portion has steadily declined since, with the sharpest drop occurring between 2006 and 2008, when it fell by 0.6% annually. The US share temporarily increased during Barack Obama’s second term, reaching 16.26% in 2014 and 2015, but failed in sustaining the momentum.

By the end of Obama’s presidency, it fell to 16.04%. Subsequently, the US share declined by another 0.7% under Donald Trump. In Biden’s second year, the US share slipped below 15%, reaching 14.82% by the end of 2023. IMF estimates predict the trend will continue, with the US share falling by another 0.06% by the end of 2024, resulting in a cumulative decline of 0.58% under Biden to 14.76%. Meanwhile, China’s share of the global economy has surged to 18.76%, while Japan’s share has dropped by 4.33% over the past 33 years.

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“..it would take about $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States, or about $25 billion to end hunger in the country..”

• US Spending on Mideast Conflict Tops $22 Billion in One Year (Sp.)

The Biden administration began the emergency supply of weapons and ammunition to Tel Aviv immediately after the start of the Israel-Hamas War a year ago, further ramping up its involvement in the conflict by deploying carrier battlegroups, aircraft squadrons, air defenses and boots on the ground at bases across the Middle East. The United States has spent $22.76 billion on the conflict in the Middle East between last October and now, $17.9 billion of this for security assistance to Israel, and $4.86 billion on beefed up US deployments throughout the region, including for the flagging campaign against the Houthis, a new report by Brown University’s Cost of War project has revealed. The university says its estimates – accounting for the period from October 7, 2023 through September 30, 2024, are “conservative,” and do “not include any other economic costs” associated with the crisis, such as heightened costs to global shipping resulting from the Houthis’ partial blockade of the Red Sea to Israel-linked maritime traffic.

The report says US weapons deliveries to Israel have included some 57,000 artillery shells, 36,000 rounds of ammunition for cannons, 20,000 M4A1 rifles, nearly 14,000 anti-tank missiles (though Israel’s Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi adversaries possess no tanks), and 8,700 MK 82 500 pound bombs. Other assistance included $4 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling air and missile defense systems, $1.2 billion for the Iron Beam laser air defense system, still in development, and $4.4 billion to replenish US armories emptied by the emergency deliveries to Tel Aviv. US aid also included 4,127,000 kg of JP-8 jet fuel, 14,100 MK 84 unguided 2,000 bombs, 3,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition dumb-to-smart bomb conversion kits, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 2,600 250-pound GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, 1,800 M141 bunker buster bombs, 3,500 night vision devices, 200 Switchblade drones, 100+ Skydio X drones, and 75 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.

Brown’s report noted that the $17.9 billion in direct arms aid to Israel over the past year is “substantially more than in any other year since the US began granting military aid” to the country in 1959. Before 2023-2024, an average year’s-worth of US assistance amounted to approximately $3.3 billion, with total aid between 1946 and early 2024 topping $300 billion, adjusted for inflation. The study also broke down US expenditures related to the Pentagon’s beefed up footprint in the Middle East amid the Gaza conflict, including a $2.4 billion supplemental, another $2.4 billion for costs associated with operating carrier strike groups and other missions against the Houthis, and $50-$70 million for additional combat pay.

Washington’s largesse fueling the conflict in the Middle East contrasts sharply with its economic neoliberalism-driven penny-pinching on social programs at home, with aid organizations calculating, for example, that it would take about $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States, or about $25 billion to end hunger in the country. The crisis in the Middle East is just one of three major security emergencies the US has been actively engaged in over the past year, with others including the ongoing NATO-fueled proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and the spat with Beijing in Asia amid Washington’s efforts to hem China in along its coasts and prevent the peaceful, negotiated reunification of Taiwan with the People’s Republic.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that the United States has sent over $82 billion-worth of support to Ukraine over the past two-and-a-half years, including $56.6 billion in military assistance. Former President Donald Trump believes that figure is much higher, estimating that the actual number is closer to $300 billion. “So, we’re into almost $300 billion for Ukraine, and yet they’re offering people $750 for immediate aid for the worst hurricane than anybody has ever seen,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Monday, referring to federal assistance to the victims of Hurricane Helene, which laid a path of flooding and destruction across the US southeast in late September, killing at least 200 people and causing over $38 billion in damage.

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“Anyone dumb enough to push a tank column through Wadi Saluki should not be an armored brigade commander but a cook..”

• Israel Seeks To Fix 2006 Failures, While Hezbollah Lies In Wait (Mehdi)

[..] in the wake of the assassinations of Nasrallah and other top Hezbollah commanders and strategists, the occupation state has ramped up its offensive in Lebanon, with devastating consequences. Targeted airstrikes on Hezbollah’s communication infrastructure and leadership compounds have claimed the lives of over 37 Hezbollah fighters, but it is the civilian casualties that have been most staggering. More than 2,000 Lebanese civilians, including women and children, have been killed – almost double the death toll of 2006 – and over 10,000 injured in less than two weeks, leading international organizations to consider these actions potential war crimes. In 2006, during 34 days of Israel’s aggressions, the total death toll was 1,300. The Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut today mirrors the devastation 18 years ago when villages in the Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut were similarly struck.

Despite the enormous setbacks, Hezbollah has continued to launch rocket attacks deep into Israeli territory, demonstrating a resilience that reflects its strategic gains from the 2006 war. In the last few days, the Lebanese resistance appears to have turned the tide further, striking key Israeli port city Haifa with over 200 projectiles in a historically unprecedented attack on the city and its environs. One of the key lessons Tel Aviv appears to have absorbed from its 2006 military campaign is to apply an excessive use of force, regardless of any accompanying international backlash. CSIS report author Daniel Byman points out that Israel’s war on Gaza and its recent assaults on Lebanon “have clearly shown that Israel’s doctrine of using force has also become more destructive.”

In 2008, the head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command, Major General Gadi Eisenkot, warned after the 2006 war that next time, Israel would destroy “every village from which it fires” and make Hezbollah pay a heavy domestic price for its actions. The CSIS report notes that Israel is less concerned about damaging its international reputation than it was in 2006: “After the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, killing more in Lebanon is not likely to make it worse.” Despite its overwhelming firepower, Israel’s ground invasion during the 2006 war exposed significant tactical failures. After two weeks of heavy airstrikes, Israel launched “Operation Change of Direction,” deploying thousands of soldiers into southern Lebanon to eliminate Hezbollah fighters.

However, the ground incursion proved disastrous for the Israeli army. The Lebanese resistance, deeply entrenched in underground tunnels and well-versed in guerrilla warfare, inflicted heavy losses on Israeli forces, most notably in the Saluki Valley ambush, where Hezbollah blocked the southern end of a column of tanks, then fired anti-tank missiles to devastate Israeli units who were helpless without artillery and infantry support. “Anyone dumb enough to push a tank column through Wadi Saluki should not be an armored brigade commander but a cook,” reflected Timur Goksel, a Turkish diplomat, military officer, and former spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

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“..the enemy at this point, honestly, not just of Lebanon, or of Palestine, or Syria, or Iran. Israel is becoming an enemy of humanity.”

• Israel’s Collective Punishment Turns the World Against It (DeMartino)

In 2008, Israel Defense Forces colonel Gabriel Siboni described what would be named the Dahiyeh doctrine. ”In Lebanon, attacks should both aim at [Hezbollah’s] military capabilities and should target economic interests and the centers of civilian power that support the organization… [Israel] will have to respond disproportionately,” he wrote. The collective punishment carried out by the state of Israel on the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon has turned the world against it and could be its undoing. The repercussions of Israel’s indiscriminate and murderous campaign can be seen both locally and across the globe. “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed [in Gaza]. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said days after the October 7 attack. Inside Gaza, Hamas was facing a popularity crisis, with only 20% of the population supporting them before October 7 according to James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute.

By launching Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas hoped to change its image and increase its popularity. “Hamas sought to use October 7th as an attempt to reconfigure its image as an authoritarian militant group into a fighting force protecting Palestinians against Israeli aggression. Hamas believed that by framing October 7th as a revolutionary act of resistance against Israel, Palestinians would see them as protectors of their struggle and see Hamas in a favorable light,” wrote Abdelhalim Abdelrahman in an article for antiwar.com on the anniversary of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 56% of Palestinians in Gaza say that armed resistance is “the best means of achieving Palestinian goals in ending the occupation and building an independent state,” increasing from 50% in September 2023. The same trend is happening in Lebanon with Hezbollah, the editor of The Cradle told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Tuesday.

“What has been happening in Lebanon I think is actually creating more support for Hezbollah because even among the people who dislike the existence of the Lebanese resistance, they dislike Israel more,” he argued. “You’re not all of a sudden gonna start taking the side of the people who are bombing your city, your capital, your country. So indiscriminately cutting off the land route to Syria, threatening to start bombing from the sea, as well as from the air… this is the Dahiyeh doctrine.” “They were hoping that at some point Palestinians would be like enough is enough, we are going to turn against Hamas, and that never happened. And, it’s never gonna happen here in Lebanon as well,” Carrillo continued. “Even if they spark some sort of color revolution, it’s gonna fizzle out because Israel, at the end of the day, is the enemy at this point, honestly, not just of Lebanon, or of Palestine, or Syria, or Iran. Israel is becoming an enemy of humanity.” In the region, Israel’s actions have erased decades of work that its government and the US put into normalizing relations with its neighbors.

“[October 7] sidelined what appeared to be an upcoming, soon to be realized, entente between Saudi Arabia and Israel. That would have sidelined… the notion of Palestinian self-determination. But, with October 7, the opposite is in play with the Saudi leadership now contending that no normalization with Israel is possible unless the question of Palestinian self-determination and statehood is on the table,” Dr. Gerald Horne, a historian that holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour. “You can also say that October 7, 2023, weakened the Abraham Accords. Those are the accords initiated by US President, Mr. Trump, which called for normalizing of relations between Morocco and Bahrain and Sudan,” continued Horne. “We now know that with Sudan’s leadership inking those ill-fated accords, it was greeted with hostility on the streets of Khartoum, leading to what is now [a] de-facto civil war.” Across the globe, Israel is finding that countries that were previously satisfied with the status quo are no longer supportive of the zionist state.

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“We are ready for any scenario, the armed forces are fully prepared,” Araghchi stressed. He, however, noted that Iran’s policy is to stop the hostilities and reach an “acceptable ceasefire.”

• Iran ‘Fully Prepared’ For War – FM (RT)

Iran does not want an escalation of tensions in the Middle East and supports efforts for a ceasefire but is fully prepared for war, the country’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, has stated. The Islamic Republic launched a barrage of missiles at Israel last Tuesday, striking a number of military bases in what Tehran said was a response to recent Israeli killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. Israel vowed a “serious and significant” strike in reprisal. “We have stated many times that Iran does not want to increase tension, although we are not afraid of war, we are fully prepared…” Araghchi told reporters on Tuesday in Tehran on the sidelines of the ‘Al-Aqsa Storm; The Beginning of Nasrallah’ conference. “We are ready for any scenario, the armed forces are fully prepared,” Araghchi stressed. He, however, noted that Iran’s policy is to stop the hostilities and reach an “acceptable ceasefire.”

According to Mehr News, the top diplomat said at the conference on Tuesday that Israel should not test Tehran’s will. He warned that any attack on Iran would be met with a crushing response. The Iranian military has prepared “at least ten” scenarios for a possible Israeli strike, according to media reports on Monday. The Iranian parliament is reportedly drafting a so-called ‘resistance pact’ to bolster regional security and counter potential external threats, particularly from the US and Israel. According to the Tehran Times, citing the text of the proposal, all member countries will be required to provide comprehensive support – including military, economic, and political assistance – should any member come under attack from Israel or its allies.

Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the raid into southern Israel by Hamas, which claimed some 1,200 lives. The Jewish State responded by declaring war on the Gaza-based militant group and imposing a near-total siege on the enclave. Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Tensions have also risen between Israel and neighboring Muslim countries, which have sided with the Palestinians. Earlier this month, Israel launched a ground operation in Lebanon and has targeted the leadership of the Hezbollah organization.

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We know.

• US Navy Was At Scene Of Nord Stream Blasts – Media (RT)

US Navy vessels were operating at the scene shortly before the explosions that crippled the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, Danish newspaper Politiken has reported, citing a local harbormaster. The crucial energy infrastructure, built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe, was ruptured by underwater blasts in September 2022. The piece by Politiken was published on September 26 but largely went unnoticed. However, it resurfaced on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, with claims being reposted by Glenn Greenwald and other prominent independent journalists. According to the article, American warships had been operating in the area east of the Danish island of Bornholm with their transponders switched off. The paper spoke to John Anker Nielsen, the harbormaster at the Danish port of Christianso, located near Bornholm.

He said he had decided to share details of the events of September 2022, despite initially being “not allowed to say a thing” about them. According to Nielsen, he launched a rescue operation in the area four or five days before the Nord Stream blasts after spotting ships with their transponders switched off and assuming there was an emergency. However, when Danish rescuers approached the scene, they saw that the vessels in question were US Navy ships, Nielsen said. The Naval Command then told Nielsen and his colleagues to turn back, the harbormaster recalled. Politiken said Nielsen does not believe Western media claims that Nord Stream was sabotaged by Ukraine, supposedly using a yacht, named Andromeda, and a small crew to carry out the sophisticated attack. According to the paper, the harbormaster instead has “some faith” in the version of events provided by legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

In early February 2023, Hersh authored a report claiming that US President Joe Biden had given the order to destroy Nord Stream. According to an informed source who talked to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the explosives that were detonated on September 26, 2022 had been planted at the pipelines during the previous June by US Navy divers under the cover of a NATO exercise called ‘Baltops 22’. The White House denied the report, calling it “utterly false and complete fiction.” Senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have previously pointed the finger at the US as the possible culprit behind the Nord Stream explosions. They have argued that Washington had the technical means to carry out the operation and stood to gain the most, considering that the attack disrupted Russian energy supplies to the EU and forced a shift to more expensive US-supplied liquefied natural gas.

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“Google will battle this in the courts for years.”

• US Antitrust Officials Consider Google Breakup As ‘Trustbusting Era’ May Return (ZH)

The US Department of Justice and a group of states submitted a document detailing a proposed remedy framework in the ongoing antitrust case against big tech giant Google. The case centers around Google’s violations of Section 2 of the Sherman Act for illegally maintaining monopolies, including general search services and text advertising. On Aug. 5, US District Judge Amit Mehta, Washington, DC, ruled that Google violated antitrust law by spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly as the world’s default search engine on smartphones, computers, and tablets. The ruling paved the way for antitrust enforcers to submit a 32-page document on Tuesday that explained the potential remedies for the judge to consider as the case moves into the remedy phase.

On page 9 of the remedy framework document, the DoJ specifies the government has a “full range of tools previously identified such as structural and additional behavioral remedies as well as term extensions” to restore competition in the marketplace that would modify Google’s business from using products such as its Chrome browser or Android operating system to create advantages for the big tech firm’s search engine. “Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow,” DoJ said. Antitrust enforcers said Google colluded with other big tech companies to make its search engine the default option on devices.

Google quickly responded in a blog post titled “DOJ’s radical and sweeping proposals risk hurting consumers, businesses, and developers” to the remedy framework document on Tuesday evening. Google Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland wrote in the post that the DoJ’s remedy framework is “radical” and could have “negative unintended consequences for American innovation and America’s consumers.” Google’s market capitalization (as of Tuesday’s close) of just a little over $2 trillion makes it the world’s fourth-largest company. Mounting legal pressure sent shares down around 1% in premarket trading in New York. Antitrust pressure has been building, with multiple cases being pushed against Google. It also faces the threat of breakup in a separate government lawsuit centered around its online advertising business.

Across the Atlantic, European Union watchdogs have voiced similar concerns with antitrust enforcers in the US about the need to break up Google’s businesses. EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager recently said that “divestiture is the only way” to settle these worries with the big tech firm. Daniel Ives, managing director and senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, commented on Google’s potential breakup, indicating it’s “unlikely at this point despite the antitrust swirls,” adding, “Google will battle this in the courts for years.” There has been a four-decade lull in the government breaking up major companies. The last major one came with the 1984 breakup of AT&T. Before that, the 20th century was considered the ‘trustbusting era’, with Standard Oil, American Tobacco, and a railroad trust known as Northern Securities forced to spit up by the government.

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The SEC was never fit for the task.

• Crypto Exchange Sues US Market Regulator (RT)

The cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has filed a lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for what it believes to be an overstepping of legal boundaries in regulating the crypto industry. The decision by Crypto.com to sue the SEC came after it received a so-called Wells Notice from the regulator, according to a statement issued on the company’s website on Tuesday. The company claims to be seeking to protect the future of the industry. A Wells Notice is a formal declaration that the regulator intends to recommend an enforcement action against it. According to Reuters, retail trading platform Robinhood’s crypto business, major US crypto exchange Coinbase, and NFT marketplace OpenSea are among the companies in the digital assets industry that have received such notices.

The SEC’s “unauthorized and unjust” actions towards the crypto industry have left no other choice than to file a suit, Singapore-based Crypto.com stated. “Our lawsuit contends that the SEC has unilaterally expanded its jurisdiction beyond statutory limits and separately that the SEC has established an unlawful rule that trades in nearly all crypto assets are securities transactions no matter how they are sold…” “We seek to stop the SEC’s illegal actions in excess of their authority and in violation of federal law in their tracks,” the statement reads. Separately, the company filed a petition with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the SEC, seeking a joint interpretation to confirm that certain cryptocurrency derivative products are solely regulated by the CFTC.

The crypto industry has faced a US regulatory crackdown since the 2022 collapse of FTX. The Bahamas-based exchange was exposed as a Ponzi scheme used to siphon investor funds into the pockets of executives and, via donations, to politicians. Crypto companies have since accused the SEC of overreach and of violating its jurisdiction, while the agency has claimed that it has the authority to regulate crypto under existing laws. The SEC’s cryptocurrency-related actions increased by more than 50% in 2023 over the previous year, according to the US law firm Troutman Pepper. The firms expects this trend to continue.

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Dr. Phil

 

 

Bigtree

 

 

Trump Scots

 

 

Eva

 

 

“Where were you”

 

 

Dog cam
https://twitter.com/i/status/1844067125335556209

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 5 2024

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


Francisco Goya Witches’ Sabbath 1797-98

 

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

 

 

 

 

Alina: It’s called desperation

 

 

 

 

 

 


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

 

 

OMG

Line in the Sand

 

 

Assange

 

 

Presler

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• The Regime Wants Appalachia To Suffer (Bishop)

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD

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

• October Surprise (Kunstler)

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

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

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

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

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

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

• The Reprehensible Audacity Of FEMA Being Broke (QTR)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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He’s real important.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cute excuse for two murder attempts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more …

 

 

 

 

EVs

 

 

Elon 21 years ago

 

 

IgG4

 

 

Potoo

 

 

P&K

 

 

Soul

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 2 2024

Oct 022024
 
 October 2, 2024  Posted by at 8:51 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  86 Responses »


Francis Tattegrain La ramasseuse d’épaves (The Beachcomber) 1880

 

• Israelis Leave Shelters After Iranian Attack (ZH)
• US Secretly Approved Lebanon Escalation – Politico (RT)
• Biden, Harris Strongly Back Israeli Killing of Nasrallah (Antiwar)
• Kamala’s Katrina Moment? (JTN)
• Biden Upset With Harris – NBC News (RT)
• ‘I’m Free Because I Pled Guilty To Journalism’ – Assange (RT)
• Assange: Plea Deal With US Precludes Appeals to Top European Rights Court (Sp.)
• Elon Musk Warns Of ‘Drone Swarm Battles’ (RT)
• Reporters Without Borders is ‘Media Wing of NATO’ (Sp.)
• Comer Subpoenas DHS For Memos With Info About Tim Walz’s China Connections (JTN)
• Federal Court Rules Against University of NM in Free Speech Case (Turley)
• Putin Is Preparing Russia’s Surrender (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Biden Could Speed Up Ukraine’s NATO Bid – FT (RT)
• Russia Accuses West, Ukraine of Preparing ‘False-Flag’ Chemical Attack (RT)
• Former Dutch PM Rutte Becomes NATO’s Secretary General (TASS)
• Polish President Sued For ‘Insulting’ His Own People (RT)
• Russia, China Settling 95% of Payments in Own Currencies (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Debate

 

 

Women’s rights

 

 

Watters

 

 

Fulton

 

 

Assange

 

 

Ray McGovern

 

 

 

 

We’ve been through this scenario before (“we’re done unless you retaliate..”). Lots of rockets, little damage. Iran can say they avenged the death of Nasrallah. Israel can say its Iron Dome is strong.

• Israelis Leave Shelters After Iranian Attack (ZH)

Iran says its action is concluded “unless the Israeli regime decides to invite further retaliation.” Prime Minister Netanyahu says Iran made a big mistake tonight and will pay for it. Common estimates show the attack on Israel involved at least 180 ballistic missiles. The Pentagon says about 200, or about twice the size of the prior April attack. The waves of launches constituted the largest missile strike on Israel by Iran in history. IRGC is claiming that 90% of missiles successfully hit their targets in Israel. There were confirmed strikes on the ground, but no official casualties reported. Israel’s emergency authorities have lifted all restrictions, and people in Tel Aviv have emerged from bomb shelters and returned to the streets. White House says Iranian attack on Israel apparently “defeated and ineffective”. Sullivan says there will be consequences for the attack, and US is consulting Israel on next steps or a potential response.

Axios’ Barak Ravid has told CNN that he expects major Israeli retaliation strikes on Iran to come within the next several hours. Iranian state TV says hypersonic Fatah missiles were used in the attack. Iran’s President on X stated he does not seek war but will face any threat from Israel firmly. Iran has said it gave no prior warning to US, but it did consult with Russia. The IDF is vowing to ‘strike powerfully’ at targets in the Middle East. IDF spox: “Iran carried out a serious act tonight and is pushing the Middle East to an escalation. We will act at the place and time of our choosing, in accordance with the guidance of the political echelon.” IDF spox: “Tonight’s event will have consequences.” Iran-backed Iraqi militias say if the US takes part in “any hostile action” then US bases will come under attack.

UN chief condemns ‘broadening Mideast conflict’ without mentioning Iran. Blinken: Iran’s missile attack on Israel ‘unacceptable,’ entire world should condemn. US says it is ready to defend Israel, with Biden ordering US military assets to confront any further inbound projectiles. At least two guided-missile destroyers in Eastern Mediterranean fired interceptors at inbound Iranian missiles. Pentagon says about a dozen interceptor missiles were fired. Pentagon refuses to say whether US will join in on future kinetic strikes against Iran.

Read more …

Q: where is the Pentagon?

• US Secretly Approved Lebanon Escalation – Politico (RT)

The US government quietly approved Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon, despite publicly urging the Jewish state and militant group Hezbollah to seek a ceasefire, Politico has reported, citing insider sources. Israel has waged a week-long bombing campaign in Lebanon, assassinating most of the Hezbollah leadership, and is in the process of what it describes as a “limited incursion” into its northern neighbor. Over 1,000 people, including many civilians, have been killed and over one million displaced. Prior to the bombing and invasion, thousands of people in Lebanon were targeted by simultaneously exploding devices, which Israeli intelligence allegedly planted in preparation for an attack on Hezbollah. US President Joe Biden on Monday reiterated his public calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, telling reporters at the White House: “I’m comfortable with them stopping.”

However, Israel outlined its military strategy to Washington in broad terms in mid-September and received approval via senior US presidential advisers, Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, Politico reported on Monday, citing two Israeli and four American officials. The decision faced opposition from within the Pentagon, State Department, and intelligence community, the sources claimed. There are reportedly concerns that the hostilities could escalate into a major war, which would directly draw in the US. Violence on Israel’s northern border surged last October, after the Jewish state besieged the Palestinian enclave of Gaza in retaliation for a deadly incursion by the militant group Hamas. Hezbollah supports the Palestinians and has vowed to stop cross-border rocket attacks only after a ceasefire is reached in Gaza. Israel’s goal is to “eliminate” Hamas completely, and it has repeatedly rejected public calls from Washington for a truce.

The belief in Washington, according to Politico, is that Israel’s conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah can be “decoupled” in some way. Hostility in Lebanon would help curb the regional influence of Iran, which supports both militant movements, US officials reportedly hope. They are said to be unwilling, however, to support the Israeli campaign publicly as the strategy may backfire, meaning Washington continues to call for caution and deescalation. “Both things can be true – the US can want diplomacy and support Israel’s larger goals against Hezbollah,” Politico quoted a senior US official as saying. “There’s clearly a line that the administration is toeing, it’s just not clear what that line is.” The sources claimed that Israel has opted for a “limited” incursion in Lebanon at the request of the US, as opposed to a major ground offensive.

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“..further enhance the defense posture of US military forces in the Middle East region to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war..”

• Biden, Harris Strongly Back Israeli Killing of Nasrallah (Antiwar)

On Saturday, both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris released statements strongly backing the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, which was carried out using US-provided 2,000-pound bombs. President Biden said in a statement that Nasrallah’s death was “a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.” The president said the US “fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups.” Biden said that he ordered Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to send additional military assets to the region. “I directed my Secretary of Defense to further enhance the defense posture of US military forces in the Middle East region to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war,” he said.

Biden claimed that he seeks de-escalation in the region, but his administration has continued to provide military aid and other types of support for Israel since it began its dramatic escalation in Lebanon. Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, released a similar statement, saying that “Hezbollah’s victims have a measure of justice.” The vice president said she has an “unwavering commitment to the security of Israel.” “I will always support Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis,” Harris added. Harris also claimed that the administration was working for a diplomatic solution.

But the day before Nasrallah was killed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a US-backed ceasefire proposal, and Israel said it secured $8.7 billion in new military aid from the US. An Israeli official told ABC News that Israel decided to kill Nasrallah because he wouldn’t separate the situation at the Israel-Lebanon border from Gaza. Hezbollah had been clear that it would stop its attacks on northern Israel if there was a ceasefire in Gaza. The Israeli airstrikes that killed Nasrallah leveled multiple residential buildings in Beirut. The attack also killed Abbas Nilforoushan, a senior commander from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Tehran is vowing his death will not go “unanswered.”

The killing of Nasrallah and other Israeli escalations in Lebanon could lead to direct US intervention since the US has vowed it would defend Israel if it faces a large-scale attack from Iran. US troops in Iraq and Syria could also come under attack from local Shia militias in response to US support for the killing of Nasrallah and the slaughtering of civilians in Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes have continued to pound Beirut and other areas of Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 33 people were killed and over 190 people were injured by Israeli airstrikes on Saturday. On Sunday, the ministry said at least 21 people were killed and 47 were wounded by Israeli attacks on eastern Lebanon’s Baalbek region.

Read more …

100 dead, 600 missing?! And Biden and Harris are no-shows. Strongly backing Israel, but not North Carolina.

• Kamala’s Katrina Moment? (JTN)

Heading into the vice presidential debate, the public absence of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris amid Hurricane Helene and a major labor struggle could undercut Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., and put him on defense while running alongside a key player in the current White House. Walz is set to face Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, in the vice presidential debate on CBS News on Tuesday evening. Over the weekend, Hurricane Helene battered western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, prompting large-scale flooding and killing more than 100 as of Monday. Much of western North Carolina has become inaccessible by road and authorities have begun airlifting supplies to affected areas. Speaking on the “Just the News, No Noise” television show, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., indicated that, while lawmakers may eventually review the pre-planning for disaster relief, the unexpected nature of the disaster and its scale might have made adequate preparation difficult.

“I think we’ll get to looking at what happened with the pre-planning after we get people stabilized and the amount of flooding is something that is unprecedented, and I don’t know how, how people would have prepared for that,” she said. “It is something that is indeed catastrophic, but every time someone is located, we celebrate that moment, and then we go back to trying to get supplies and get things to those that are in need and help to locate these individuals.” Independent of the weather, the nation faced the prospect of the first coast-wide port strike since 1977 as the International Longshoremen’s Association has announced plans to strike all along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, beginning on Tuesday. Such a move comes amid stalled negotiations with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). A strike could cost the U.S. economy up to $5 billion per day and affect the import and export of a wide range of goods.

President Joe Biden spent most of the weekend at his beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., amid both crises, returning to the White House late Sunday evening. Harris, for her part, continued along her campaign tour of the West Coast, but canceled Monday events in Nevada to be briefed on the impact of the hurricane, CNN reported. The relatively minimal public appearances of either figure amid both crises and the pace of their responses have drawn scrutiny from the political right, as well as comparisons to President George W. Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina. Such developments are sure to feature in the Vance-Walz debate on Tuesday and could serve to keep the Democratic participant on defense.

Where is that $42 billion?

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“There wasn’t a real interest in hearing about his [Biden’s] accomplishments when he was running. That’s still the case..”

• Biden Upset With Harris – NBC News (RT)

US President Joe Biden has privately complained that he is no longer being given credit for his service, NBC News claimed on Tuesday, citing insiders. Biden is reportedly upset that the national media’s attention has switched to the Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. Since Biden ended his campaign in the wake of a disastrous June debate with Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump, Harris has distanced herself from the US president, the report claimed. Biden “was particularly stung” by a moment during Harris’s debate with Trump last month, when she said: “Clearly, I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.” The remark was in response to Trump equating her with the president on policy. Harris has repeated the same message on other occasions, including a media interview.

“There wasn’t a real interest in hearing about his [Biden’s] accomplishments when he was running. That’s still the case,” a Harris campaign official told NBC News. Another source said the president “understands completely the general lack of mentioning ‘Bidenomics’ and ‘Joe Biden’” politically. But even though he wants Harris to win and offers whatever support he can to make that happen, he remains bitter about what he takes as being left behind, the report said. Prior to his decision to quit the race, the Biden campaign struggled to downplay his moments of frailty and confusion in public, which many voters perceived as signs of decline in the 81-year-old politician. Clips of such moments, used by the Republican party to attack the then-Democratic nominee, were dismissed by officials as “cheap fakes.”

Trump, 78, has had his share of mental slips on the campaign trail, but was universally described as more energetic and coherent than Biden during their June debate. Nevertheless, during an appearance on ‘The View’ program last week, Biden insisted that he could have won the race. He claimed that “the fact of the matter is my polling was about what – you know – always within the range of beating this guy” before musing about his advanced age.

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“It is hard not to draw a line from the US government’s prosecution of me – its crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism – to the chilled climate for freedom of expression that exists now.”

• ‘I’m Free Because I Pled Guilty To Journalism’ – Assange (RT)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange urged European lawmakers to act against rising “transnational repression” of journalism by great powers during an address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday. It was his first public appearance since being released from prison in late June. Assange spent years locked up at a high-security prison in the UK as he fought extradition to the US, which had accused him of unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified information relating to national defense. In June, he struck a plea bargain with the US Justice Department, formally acknowledging some guilt and waiving the right to legal recourse through, for example, the European Court of Human Rights, in exchange for freedom. ”I want to be totally clear. I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today, after years of incarceration, because I pled guilty to journalism,” he told members of the PACE Legal Affairs Committee in Strasbourg.

In his testimony, Assange recounted his legal predicament and what he called a “campaign of retribution” by the CIA under Director Mike Pompeo during the Donald Trump presidency. According to media reports and other materials, the agency conducted an extensive surveillance campaign against the publisher, his family, and associates. It allegedly contemplated kidnapping or killing Assange while he was being protected by political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Assange said that, while his personal story was harrowing, others in the same situation did not enjoy the same level of publicity and international support. Meanwhile, the world has dramatically changed for the worse since he founded WikiLeaks, he added. ”I see more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth, and more self-censorship,” he said.

“It is hard not to draw a line from the US government’s prosecution of me – its crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism – to the chilled climate for freedom of expression that exists now.” The US successfully abused European legal proceedings to retaliate against a publisher and has been emboldened to use the same playbook again, as are other countries, Assange claimed. ”When powerful nations feel entitled to target individuals beyond their borders, those individuals do not stand a chance unless there are strong safeguards in place and a state willing to enforce them. Without them, no individual has a hope of defending themselves against the vast resources that a state aggressor can deploy,” he warned. It’s up to European governments to make sure that “the freedom to speak and the freedom to publish the truth are not privileges enjoyed by a few but rights guaranteed to all,” he concluded.

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“The US government asserted a dangerous new global legal position: only US citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and others do not..”

• Assange: Plea Deal With US Precludes Appeals to Top European Rights Court (Sp.)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Tuesday that one of the conditions of his plea deal with the United States was that he would not file a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to challenge the verdict. “I eventually chose freedom over unrealizable justice, after being detained for years and facing a 175-year sentence with no effective remedy. Justice for me is now precluded, as the US government insisted in writing into its plea agreement that I cannot file a case at the European Court of Human Rights or even a Freedom of Information Act request over what it did to me as a result of its extradition request,” Assange told a hearing in Strasbourg.

“I pled guilty to journalism… to seeking information from a source… to obtaining information… to informing the public what that information was. I did not plead guilty to anything else,” said Assange while noting that “It is hard not to draw a line from the US government’s prosecution of me… to the chilled climate for freedom of expression that exists now.” The journalist gave testimony before the legal affairs committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). Assange argued that all legal defense mechanisms turned out to be ineffective and only existed on paper. “The experience of isolation for years in a small cell is difficult to convey. It strips away one’s sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence,” he stated, adding that “none of the statements, resolutions, reports, films, articles, events, fundraisers, protests, and letters over the last 14 years should have been necessary.”

“Transnational repression cannot become the norm here… The rights of journalists and publishers within the European space are seriously threatened… The US government asserted a dangerous new global legal position: only US citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and others do not,” he stated. Assange was transferred to London’s high-security Belmarsh prison in April 2019 on bail breach charges. In the US, he faced spying charges for shedding light on war crimes and human rights violations committed by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks was founded on October 4, 2006, but rose to prominence in 2010 when it began to publish large-scale leaks of classified government information, especially from the United States.

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“..future wars are drone wars.” “Drone swarm battles are coming that will boggle the mind..”

• Elon Musk Warns Of ‘Drone Swarm Battles’ (RT)

American tech mogul Elon Musk has warned that battles of the future will be fought between masses of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have already emerged as one of the most prominent weapons in the Ukraine conflict. Musk’s comment came in a discussion on X (formerly Twitter) begun by Bloomberg writer Ashlee Vance on Monday, who wrote that America’s drone manufacturing capacity is dwarfed by that of China. “Drone swarm battles are coming that will boggle the mind,” Musk wrote in a thread, without elaborating further. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX previously warned on numerous occasions that drones represent the future of warfare. Commenting on X in June on the use of drones by Ukraine, Musk stated that “future wars are drone wars.”

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London last year, Musk said that “any future wars between advanced countries, or at least countries with drone capability, will be very much the drone wars.” During the Ukraine conflict, the Russian military has actively used kamikaze drones on the battlefield to destroy enemy personnel and equipment. Kiev’s forces have also used UAVs to strike targets, including those of a civilian nature, within Russia. Kiev and its Western backers have long claimed that China has been supplying military drone technology to Russia, something that Beijing has denied. According to reports in US media earlier this year, Washington supplied Ukraine with drones during the early days of the conflict, but their high cost compelled Kiev to increasingly turn to Chinese-made UAVs.

Read more …

Censors.

• Reporters Without Borders is ‘Media Wing of NATO’ (Sp.)

Reporters Without Borders has published a sensationalist report on Russian media’s work in the Balkans as part of a new project known as ‘The Propaganda Monitor’, accusing Sputnik and RT of spreading “disinformation” and demanding a crackdown by the EU. Balkan affairs expert Stevan Gajic tells Sputnik why such fearmongering doesn’t work on Serbs. Reporters Without Borders’ (French acronym RSF) new ‘Propaganda Monitoring’ multimedia minisite promises to “promote reliable journalism” by exposing “the many faces and tactics behind propaganda worldwide, bolstering the public’s understanding of the information space and helping them navigate it more safely.”

Russian media, including Sputnik and RT, have become the self-anointed Paris-headquartered media watchdog’s first target, with RSF rolling out a series of articles on Russian media’s ability to find evade censorship, custom-tailor content, and in Serbia’s case, transmit so-called “Kremlin propaganda in the Balkans despite EU sanctions.” RSF wants the European Union and its members to “hold Serbia accountable for hosting Vladimir Putin’s factory of lies,” spending much of its investigation complaining about Russian media’s refusal to answer its loaded questions, whining about its successes captivating local audiences, and crying about Serbia’s receptiveness to hosting Russian outlets.

“Reporters Without Borders cannot be regarded as a reliable source because every line in this report is soaked with biased language,” Belgrade-based Balkan affairs expert and Institute of European Studies research associate Stevan Gajic told Sputnik, commenting on RSF’s report. “The motivation” behind RSF’s demands for a crackdown comes down to its status as “a media wing of NATO, a media wing of the collective West. This is a pure Freudian projection. They are accusing others of what they are doing themselves,” Gajic stressed.

“Where were Reporters Without Borders when Radio Television of Serbia was bombed in 1999 and when 16 TV staff were murdered in cold blood?” the observer asked, referencing the 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. There is no credibility from people like this who did not act when they should have,” the observer recalled. Narratives by RSF and others about Sputnik and RT being threats that need to be silenced have a clear end goal: “to nullify any kind of information coming from the other side to hush, to silence everybody who is not playing along NATO’s narrative. And this is especially a problem for NATO and for these puppet organizations, such as journalists with Reporters Without Borders, during times of war,” Gajic said.

Read more …

Walz is a doofus. Deer in the headlights.

• Comer Subpoenas DHS For Memos With Info About Tim Walz’s China Connections (JTN)

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Monday subpoenaed the Department of Homeland Security seeking records related to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s China connections after whistleblowers raised concerns. Comer says his committee learned from the whistleblowers there is “serious concern” among DHS personnel “regarding a longstanding connection between the CCP and Minnesota Governor Timothy James Walz,” according to the subpoena cover letter sent Monday. Walz is now the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Comer’s committee has led a probe into the China’s efforts to infiltrate the United States, finding one method favored by the Communist Party is influencing subnational leaders, which include officials like state governors and legislators.

“The Committee’s investigation of the CCP – begun long before Governor Walz was elevated to be the vice-presidential candidate for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris – seeks to understand the extent of the CCP’s infiltration and influence campaign and to identify legislative reforms to combat CCP political warfare targeting prominent Americans for elite capture,” Comer wrote. “In particular, if a state governor and major political party’s nominee for Vice President of the United States has been a witting or unwitting participant in the CCP’s efforts to weaken our nation, this would strongly suggest that there are alarming weaknesses in the federal government’s effort to defend the United States from the CCP’s political warfare that must be urgently addressed,” he continued. According to the letter, the Oversight Committee learned of two sources that contain information about Walz’s connections to China, which first garnered public scrutiny when he was picked as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate.

Walz has a history with China dating back to his stint as an English teacher in 1989 just months after the Chinese government cracked down on pro-democracy protestors in the Tiananmen Square massacre. By the 1990s, Walz began organizing regular trips to China for his high school students and even took his honeymoon in the communist country when he married his wife in 1994. According to the whistleblowers, DHS personnel memorialized concerns about Walz’s connections in a Microsoft Teams group chat and several intelligence reports. “Specifically, through whistleblower disclosures, the Committee has learned of a non-classified, Microsoft Teams group chat among DHS employees – titled ‘NST NFT Bi-Weekly Sync’ – that contains information about Governor Walz that is relevant to the Committee’s investigation,” Comer wrote. “The Committee has also learned that further relevant information regarding Governor Walz has been memorialized in both classified and unclassified documents in the control of DHS.”

Read more …

“Gaines has become a national figure in her campaign against biologically male students competing in women’s sports..”

• Federal Court Rules Against University of NM in Free Speech Case (Turley)

We have been discussing how colleges and universities have been using security concerns as a way to bar conservative and libertarian speakers. Another barrier has been the imposition of prohibitive security fees as a condition for such speakers to appear on campus, fees generally not required for liberal speakers. Now, in a significant free speech victory, U.S. District Judge David Urias has enjoined the University of New Mexico from imposing a $5,400 security fee for former collegiate swimmer and activist Riley Gaines after speaking on campus. UNM has a history of cancellation campaigns against conservative and libertarian speakers, as previously discussed on this blog. Gaines has become a national figure in her campaign against biologically male students competing in women’s sports. While it is a position that is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, faculty and students have repeatedly targeted Gaines with cancel campaigns and disruptive protests.

In this case, UNM originally demanded over $10,000. The lawsuit brought by the Leadership Institute named UNM President Garnett Stokes and other UNM officials as defendants. Judge Urias was legitimately suspicious of the demand and found that it violated the First Amendment. In his 16-page order in Leadership Institute v. Stokes (D.N.M.), Judge Urias noted that Gaines travels with her own security (itself a sad statement about this Age of Rage). The court noted the rather fluid standard applied to Gaines: [T]he quote of over $10,000 was for every officer UNM employed—thirty-three officers; nearly one for every three attendees the students expected. When TP-UNM asked why Defendant Stump intended to assign every officer to the Gaines event, and whether it was because of the speaker or the inviting organization, he responded that “it’s all based on individual assessments,” that they were looking at the “individual,” and that “there is not a criteria [sic].”

He also told the students that if an organization were to screen the Barbie movie in a venue on campus, he likely would not require even a single officer because the UNM police were “not worried about the Barbie movie.” He then said that security was “consistent” in how it assessed fees “to Turning Point” in the past. He described past TP-UNM events featuring other conservative speakers that generated protests at UNM. A few times during the meeting, he reiterated that UNM assesses security fees on a “case-by-case basis.” … Notably, the court detailed how fewer than 10 protesters actually showed up and demonstrated outside of the room. Nevertheless, UNM hit Turning Point with the fee for twenty-seven officers at the event who charged for a total of 95.25 hours.

The court applied the holding in Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement (1992) in which the Supreme Court held that the government can impose extra security fees due to the controversial status of speakers or groups. In writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Henry Blackmun held that “Nothing in the law or its application prevents the official from encouraging some views and discouraging others through the arbitrary application of fees. The First Amendment prohibits the vesting of such unbridled discretion in a government official.” Judge Urias found precisely such a barrier imposed by the UNM:

“When a policy allows “appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion by the licensing authority, the danger of censorship and of abridgment of our precious First Amendment freedoms is too great to be permitted[.]” Forsyth County.… Although the question in this case is closer than that in Forsyth, the Court nonetheless finds that Plaintiffs have demonstrated the security fee policy in this case is similar enough to render it overly broad. Although the policy lists criteria for officials to consider when assessing event security, such as venue size and location, the list ultimately leaves the decision of how much to charge for security up to the whim of university officials. For example, the policy does not explain a method for determining how much more security is required for a small venue as compared to a large one, or for a daytime event as compared to a nighttime event.

Significantly, the policy states that the “basic cost of security … will be charged to all groups” based on a schedule of charges that the UNM Police Department has on its website, but despite this, the department does not actually delineate the amount of this “basic cost of security.” Though the security fee policy also states that the police department “regularly” updates the “schedule of charges based on the factors” and that “[t]he basic cost of security according to this schedule will be charged to all groups,” there is no schedule of charges. Additionally, the preamble to the policy indicates that university officials “may” assess security fees but does not provide guidance for when they may or may not assess these fees, which contributes to the problem of allowing university officials overly broad discretion. In sum, Plaintiffs have shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their overbreadth claim because the security fee policy does not contain limiting language that includes “narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards[,]” and it does not include anything to prevent UNM administrators from exercising their discretion in a content-based manner….”

Read more …

I like PCR. And I like John Helmer. But in this case, I don’t know how PCR draws the conclusion that Putin wants to surrender, from Helmer’s Jan. 28 piece, “Sending A Boy To Do A Man’s Job – Vladimir Medinsky To Negotiate Istanbul-II”. I just don’t see it. Maybe you can help. I know that PDR has called Putin “weak” for a while, but not sure that’s the whole story.

• Putin Is Preparing Russia’s Surrender (Paul Craig Roberts)

From the beginning of the Ukraine conflict I have said that Putin would have to conquer Ukraine or surrender. The latest information from Moscow suggests that Putin has chosen to surrender, with surrender defined by Putin giving up enough of his goals for the Special Military Operation to get a peace agreement. How many and what they would be is not known. At first glance, if Putin has made such a choice, it is an honorable, humane decision that places the life of the planet above Russian national sovereignty. Putin, of course, will not get any credit for it. The official narrative will be a defeated Russia got the best deal it could.` But at second glance, Putin’s surrender to the West merely kicks the can down the road. Putin’s surrender could undermine his support and Russian unity and encourage Washington’s effort to breakup the Russian Federation into several small countries that lack the ability to serve as a constraint on American hegemony.

The Russian military is opposed to trading concessions for peace, and Putin has removed one of his critics. Helmer reports that one month after the Russia-Ukraine conflict began, Putin, who has no taste for war, sent a peacemaker, Vladimir Medinsky, to Instanbul to negotiate peace with Ukraine. Medinsky appears to be an Atlanticist Integrationist, who thinks Russia can build bridges to the West with cultural exhibitions, orchestral and ballet performances, and museum exhibits. Apparently, he believes this despite the Wests’s ban on any semblance of Russian culture, including Olympic athletes. The Russian military rejected the peace terms Medinsky negotiated in Turkey. Fortunately for Putin, Washington made Ukraine reject them, saving Putin from a confrontation with the Russian military.

Now approaching three years of a conflict that a real national leader would have ended in 3 weeks, Putin has his back to the wall. There is no space left to which to retreat. Faced with US/NATO missiles fired into Russia, Putin says it means World War. If Putin backs down again, Russia is finished. As Putin doesn’t want war, he is willing to make concessions for peace and has instructed Medinsky to negotiate a peace agreement. The world should thank Putin, because Russia will pay a price. The Russian military, or at least significant parts of it, are concerned that concessions will play as a defeat and have adverse effects on Russia. Fleet commander, Admiral Sergei Avakyant, removed from command by Putin, and Deputy Chairman Medvedev of the Russian National Security Council view concessions as unacceptable. Helmer speculates whether the military will remove Putin. If so, I would imagine his replacement would be a more hardlined person.

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He’s crazy enough.

• Biden Could Speed Up Ukraine’s NATO Bid – FT (RT)

US President Joe Biden could expedite the status of Ukraine’s bid to join NATO before his term expires in January, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Moscow has insisted that Kiev must abandon its plans to join the US-led military bloc before any peace negotiations can start. There are “tentative signs” that Biden “might agree to advance the status of Ukraine’s NATO membership bid” before he leaves office, the FT wrote, citing a Western official briefed on Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s talks in Washington last week. Zelensky traveled to the US to present his so-called “victory plan” for the conflict with Russia, which reportedly includes requests for deliveries of advanced weapons and financial aid. American officials were unimpressed with the plan, the FT claimed.

Western security guarantees for Ukraine are said to have been another key clause of the plan that was left unanswered, along with the issue of US permission to use Western-supplied weapons for long-range strikes on Russia. Kiev has long aspired to join NATO, and reiterated its request for membership in September 2022, after four former Ukrainian regions voted to join Russia. Since the escalation of the conflict with Moscow two years ago, NATO leaders have repeatedly claimed that Kiev is on track to becoming a member, but have not announced a specific timeline for accession. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month reiterated NATO’s position that Ukraine’s path to membership is “irreversible.”

Some members of the bloc such as Hungary and Slovakia have insisted they would not agree under any circumstances to bringing Ukraine into NATO as it would mean war with Russia. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said earlier this year that promising membership to Ukraine was a “mistake” and “really why this war started.” The Russian leadership has stated that Kiev must drop its aspirations of joining NATO before any peace talks can start. Moscow has long argued that the bloc’s eastward enlargement threatens Russia’s security. When announcing the start of the military operation in February 2022, President Vladimir Putin said Russia deems the expansion of NATO into Ukraine as “unacceptable.”

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In Syria.

• Russia Accuses West, Ukraine of Preparing ‘False-flag’ Chemical Attack (RT)

The secret services of several NATO member states, together with their Ukrainian counterparts, are planning to stage a false-flag chemical weapons attack in Syria, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has reported. The spy agency said that the purpose of the alleged provocation is to frame Moscow and the government in Damascus, which Russia has been supporting for years. In a press release on Tuesday, the Foreign Intelligence Service said “precisely such a provocation is currently being prepared by the special services of a number of NATO member states and Ukraine, together with terrorist groups operating in the north of Syria, in Idlib province.” The supposed Western false-flag operation could also involve the ‘White Helmets’ NGO, “which has become famous for doing dirty jobs for the British special services,” the Russian spy agency claimed.

According to the document, “the idea is to stage the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army and the Russian contingent in Syria, and then launch a campaign to discredit Damascus and Moscow at the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.” The press release alleges that the presumed operation will likely involve Syrian militants dropping an explosive chlorine-laden canister at a time when the Syrian and Russian militaries are conducting airstrikes against terrorist groups in Idlib province. White Helmets activists on the ground will then allegedly doctor video evidence and eyewitness accounts to frame Damascus and Moscow, the press release suggests. According to the Russian spy agency, these false reports will then be sent to various international organizations.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, the US, UK and several other Western powers have repeatedly accused President Bashar Assad’s government of using chemical weapons against the armed opposition and militant groups. Under this pretext, the US military has been occupying oil-rich areas of northeast Syria since 2014. In 2018, the US, UK and France launched missile strikes against Syrian government targets following allegations peddled by the White Helmets, accusing Assad’s forces of using chemical weapons in Douma, near the Syrian capital.

The Syrian government has vehemently denied any role in the incident. Both Damascus and Moscow, whose military assisted the Assad government in regaining control over much of the territory previously lost to the militants, pointed to evidence that the attack was staged. When the OPCW accused the Syrian government of the attack, last January, Moscow’s permanent representative to the international body, Alexander Shulgin, dismissed the Investigation and Identification Team report as a political hit job riddled with inconsistencies and factual gaps.

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Why would anyone want this job? You’re basically the head of a criminal gang, but you don’t even have anything to say. You just take orders from Washington.

• Former Dutch PM Rutte Becomes NATO’s Secretary General (TASS)

Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte became NATO’s 14th secretary general, taking over from Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg who has spent a record 10 years at the helm of the North Atlantic Alliance. The ceremony to mark the transition was held at NATO’s headquarters as the alliance convened a meeting with bloc ambassadors, a TASS reporter said. Stoltenberg said since he took the helm at NATO in 2014 the alliance had gone “from only providing marginal support to Ukraine <…> to now providing massive support” to it. Bidding farewell to Stoltenberg as the bloc’s chief, NATO diplomats praised his dry sense of humor and said the Norwegian was “top for his job.” Rutte pledged to prioritize moves to strengthen the alliance and provide more support to Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, outgoing President of the European Council Charles Michel and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola have already sent their greetings to the new NATO chief on X.

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‘Only pigs sit in the cinema’ “..not his words but a quote, originally associated with opposition to Nazi propaganda films shown in Poland during World War II..”

Duda doesn’t see eye to eye with the Tusk government, which is all about the EU and anti-Russia.

• Polish President Sued For ‘Insulting’ His Own People (RT)

A Polish-based NGO has filed a lawsuit against President Andrzej Duda, accusing him of insulting his own people in a comment he made about a 2023 film on migration. In a post on Sunday on X, the Center for Monitoring Racist and Xenophobic Behavior (OMZRIK) said they plan to make Duda “the first president to be brought to court by Poles.” The ‘insult’ in question was made by Duda in 2023 in a comment about the feature film ‘Green Border’ by award-winning director Agnieszka Holland, which depicts the migrant crisis on the Polish border. The film tells the story of refugees from the Middle East and Africa attempting to enter the EU through the Belarus-Poland border. The film was highly criticized in Poland, with the country’s ruling party at the time, the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS), accusing Holland of slandering Polish border guards. In an interview with public broadcaster TVP, Duda apparently called the film’s viewers “pigs.”

“The fact that Ms. Holland portrays Polish officials who are performing their duties for Polish society, for the safety of all of us and the security of Poland, I am not surprised that the Border Guard officers who watched this film used the slogan ‘Only pigs sit in the cinema,’” Duda said at the time. He later clarified that these were not his words but a quote, originally associated with opposition to Nazi propaganda films shown in Poland during World War II. OMZRiK, however, saw Duda’s words as an “insult.” “Andrzej Duda… insulted millions of Poles by calling them pigs. The Polish president called people who are citizens of his own country this… Let’s take Duda to court now,” the NGO said in their post. The NGO announced on Sunday that the District Court in Warsaw has set October 24, 2025 as the date for the first hearing of Duda’s trial. By that time, Duda’s second five-year term as president will have expired – he will hold office until August 2025, and cannot run again.

Experts say the case could result in Duda having to make an official apology or pay compensation for damages. ‘Green Border’ was an international co-production between companies in Poland, the Czech Republic, France, and Belgium. It competed for the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize. The migrant crisis on the Poland-Belarus border has been brewing since 2021. Warsaw has accused Minsk of deliberately organizing migrants from Africa and the Middle East and sending them towards the border with the goal of “destabilizing Poland and other EU member states.” Minsk has denied the claims, while accusing the Polish authorities of violent treatment of asylum seekers.

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How’s that reserve currency doing?

• Russia, China Settling 95% of Payments in Own Currencies (Sp.)

Today, 95% of settlements between Russia and China are carried out without the participation of third-country currencies, Russian Ambassador to China Igor Morgulov said in an interview with Sputnik. In March-April of this year, a slight decline was observed in bilateral Russian-Chinese trade. In particular, in March, for the first time since 2022, the total export of goods from China to Russia decreased year-on-year. Many attributed this to the difficulty of mutual settlements. “As for the problem of settlements, let’s not forget that today they are already 95% carried out in rubles and yuan, that is, without the participation of third-country currencies,” Morgulov said.

Trade between China and Russia increased by 26.3% to a record $240.11 billion in 2023. Russian and Chinese leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, previously set the goal of doubling trade from $100 billion a year in 2018 to $200 billion by 2024, a figure that was reached in November 2023. Russia and China celebrate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations on October 2. The Soviet Union became the first country to recognize the People’s Republic of China the day after its proclamation.

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Longshoremen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840937618575671661

 

 

Largest

 

 

Corn dog

 

 

Guides
https://twitter.com/i/status/1841056479475908631

 

 

Kris

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 27 2024

Sep 272024
 
 September 27, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  59 Responses »


Pablo Picasso The bathers 1918

 

• Ukraine ‘Is Gone’ – Trump (RT)
• Trump Agrees To Meet Zelensky (RT)
• Trump Pushes Narrative That Iran Is Trying to Kill Him (Antiwar)
• US Doesn’t Want Ukraine In NATO – Erdogan (RT)
• Biden Behind Nord Stream Sabotage – Russia’s Top MP (RT)
• NATO Outlines Plans In Event Of War With Russia (RT)
• Biden Drains Remaining Ukraine Aid Funds (RT)
• US Congress ‘Happy to Be Lied to’ in Service of American Imperialism (Sp.)
• Moderator for VP Debate Tied to Donations for ‘Lincoln Project’ (HUSA)
• Former CDC Director Robert Redfield Praises “Make America Healthy Again” (ZH)
• The Assault on America’s Defining Principles (Turley)
• What Happens if We Hold College and Nobody Comes? (Turley)
• Taxes and Tariffs and Trade: Trump’s Plan To Bolster The Economy (JTN)
• FBI Claims it Doesn’t Have DNC’s Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Footage (HUSA)
• Appeals Court Seems Skeptical of New York Civil Fraud Suit Against Trump (ET)
• FBI Specialist Urges Americans to Prepare For Hardship (MN)
• Boeing Machinists on Strike Have a Historic Opportunity (Sawant)

 

 

 

 

Trump ad

 

 

Melania

 

 

Holistically


https://twitter.com/i/status/1839095068537532889

Bidenomics

 

 

Rogan Chamath

 

 

Eric Adams
https://twitter.com/i/status/1839436032888221900

 

 

Bug
https://twitter.com/i/status/1839019582985744422

 

 

RFK food

 

 

Loverboy

 

 

Ballots
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838887620253728832

 

 

USB stick

 

 

 

 

“Millions and millions of people, including all of these great soldiers, they’re dead. Those gorgeous buildings with golden towers are demolished and lying broken on their side. Ukraine is gone. It’s not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns.”

• Ukraine ‘Is Gone’ – Trump (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has hammered Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky for refusing to negotiate with Russia, arguing that the country is now “obliterated” while Kiev is reduced to sending “young children and old men” to the front lines amid its conflict with Moscow. Zelensky is currently visiting the US to attend the UN General Assembly in New York and pitch his so-called ‘victory plan’ to key figures in President Joe Biden’s administration. Republican lawmakers, however, have condemned Zelensky for publicly criticizing Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance. He incited further ire among Republicans when he appeared at an event at a munitions plant organized by Pennsylvania Governor Joshua Shapiro, a key ally of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

At a rally in North Carolina on Thursday, Trump accused Zelensky of “making little nasty aspersions” toward him, before turning to the Ukrainian leader’s handling of the conflict with Russia. “The country is absolutely obliterated,” he declared. “Millions and millions of people, including all of these great soldiers, they’re dead. Those gorgeous buildings with golden towers are demolished and lying broken on their side. Ukraine is gone. It’s not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns.” “And Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” he continued. “But now Ukraine is running out of soldiers. They’re using young children and old men because their soldiers are dying.”

While the Ukrainian military does not publish casualty figures, the Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Kiev’s losses at around half a million men. Ukraine’s manpower shortage has been well documented by Western media outlets, and the country’s top general acknowledged earlier this month that recruits are often sent to fight after as little as six weeks’ training. Trump argued that Biden and Harris could have “easily” struck a deal with Russia to prevent the conflict from ever starting. Instead, through “a lot of bad statements and stupid statements,” Biden “egged it on.” “And we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal,” Trump said, referring to Zelensky. “Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”

Russia and Ukraine reportedly agreed to a peace deal during talks in Istanbul in 2022. The agreement would have involved Ukraine declaring military neutrality, limiting its armed forces, and vowing not to discriminate against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees. However, Zelensky withdrew from the talks at the last moment. According to Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and several Ukrainian media reports, the US and UK were instrumental in convincing Zelensky to abandon negotiations. Trump maintains that he would settle the conflict “in 24 hours” if elected president this November. Zelensky, however, has stated that the former president “doesn’t really know how to stop the war,” while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that he doesn’t “think there is a magic wand” that can stop the fighting overnight.

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“Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”

• Trump Agrees To Meet Zelensky (RT)

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has announced he will meet with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on Friday in New York. Zelensky has met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the Democrats’ candidate for the presidency in the November election. He has also sought a meeting with Trump. “I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 at Trump Tower,” the former and possibly future US president announced at a press conference in New York City on Thursday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Trump had posted a message from Ukraine’s deputy ambassador to the US, relaying Zelensky’s request for a meeting, to his TruthSocial platform. “Dear Donald, I hope you’re doing well. I recall our recent phone call – it was really good,” Zelensky wrote. “All of us in Ukraine want to end this war with a just peace. And we know that without America this is impossible to achieve.

That’s why we have to strive to understand each other and remain in close contact.” “You know I always speak with great respect about everything connected to you, and that’s how it should be,” the Ukrainian actor-turned-politician wrote, adding that he would “really like for our meeting to take place.” The request came after Trump criticized the “little nasty aspersions” Zelensky had made about him and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, in an interview published last Sunday. At a campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump described Ukraine as “absolutely obliterated” and accused Biden and Harris of “feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before.” “We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal,” Trump said, referring to Zelensky. “Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”

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Not a very high level of credibility. Who feeds him this? Warmongers?!

• Trump Pushes Narrative That Iran Is Trying to Kill Him (Antiwar)

On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump pushed a narrative being spread by US intelligence officials that Iran is trying to kill him even though there’s no evidence of Iranian involvement in either attempt on his life. Trump’s campaign said they were briefed on the alleged Iranian threat by officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is led by Avril Haines. “Big threats on my life by Iran. The entire US Military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again,” Trump wrote on X after the briefing. “Not a good situation for anyone. I am surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before.” The claim that Iran is plotting to kill Trump was first made by a CNN report back in July, following the assassination attempt by Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot and killed by the Secret Service.

The report acknowledged there was no evidence Crooks was linked to Iran, which was reaffirmed on Tuesday by intelligence officials speaking to The New York Times, who stressed there was no Iran connection to the July shooting. The Times report also said there was no evidence that Iran was connected in any way to Ryan Routh, who was arrested on September 15 and recently charged with attempting to assassinate Trump. Routh is a staunch supporter of the Ukraine proxy war and traveled to the country to help recruit fighters for the Ukrainian foreign legion. Despite the lack of evidence, Trump suggested at a campaign event on Wednesday that Iran might have been involved in the two assassination attempts. “As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve – but possibly do – Iran,” he said at an event in North Carolina.

“If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens,” Trump added. The claims about Iran come amid soaring tensions in the Middle East as Israel has dramatically escalated its bombing campaign in Lebanon, a situation that could potentially turn into a full-blown war between the US and Iran. But Iran’s actions over the past year have shown they’re not interested in war with the US. For example, when Iran launched a reprisal attack on Israel in response to the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria, Iranian officials said they warned the US 72 hours in advance. The US denied the claim, but Turkey and Jordan confirmed they were given notice, which would have gotten back to the US. Iran and the US also engaged in indirect negotiations in Oman to avoid escalation.

Iran’s new president, Masoud Peseshkian, has also taken an extremely diplomatic tone toward the US since coming into office and wants direct negotiations with Washington. “We are not hostile towards the US. They should end their hostility towards us by showing their goodwill in practice,” Pezeshkian said last week. “We are brothers with the Americans as well.” Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) occasionally vow they will take revenge for Trump’s assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who headed the IRGC’s Quds Force. But in response to recent allegations, Iran has said Trump should be punished for the killing in a court of law. “These accusations are unsubstantiated and malicious,” Iran’s mission to the UN said in response to the CNN report in July. “From the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Soleimani. Iran has chosen the legal path to bring him to justice.”

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“..the US, first and foremost, does not want to see Ukraine as a NATO member. And many NATO countries do not want Ukraine to be a member-state.”

• US Doesn’t Want Ukraine In NATO – Erdogan (RT)

The US is the main opponent of Ukraine joining NATO, although many other countries in the bloc are also against Kiev’s potential membership, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. While Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘victory plan’ stresses NATO accession, Erdogan told NBC News on Wednesday that “the US, first and foremost, does not want to see Ukraine as a NATO member. And many NATO countries do not want Ukraine to be a member-state.” Zelensky is currently in the US, where is he promoting the plan and is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington on Thursday. “These are not questions to be rushed,” he added. “And when making our minds, when we are taking our decisions, we always take into consideration the stance of other NATO member states, we discuss those possible questions around the table and make the final decision accordingly,” Erdogan stated.

When asked directly if Ankara would accept Ukraine in NATO, Erdogan replied that “we are going to follow the developments, the deliberations, and reach a final decision accordingly. These are not decisions to be rushed in an excited way.” He also spoke about Türkiye’s ties with Russia, describing them as “multidimensional, political, economic, cultural, defense industry related. There are many dimensions, dimensions there and our solidarity, our interaction, has been going on and economically every day, these relations are expanding.” A unanimous decision by all members is required to expand NATO. Finland and Sweden, who became the latest nations to join the bloc in 2023 and 2024 respectively, had to overcome strong initial opposition from Türkiye, which accused them of harboring members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group by Ankara.

A senior US State Department official told AP on Tuesday that the political element of Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ focuses on how to assure the Ukrainian population that they will be welcomed into Western institutions such as the EU and NATO, assuming they continue to fight Russia or if a negotiated settlement with Moscow is achieved. NATO declared at a 2008 summit in Bucharest that Ukraine, along with another former Soviet Republic, Georgia, would join the US-led bloc at some stage. After the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other officials repeatedly claimed that Kiev was on track to becoming a member, but never announced a specific timeline for accession. Moscow, which views NATO as hostile and vigorously opposes its eastward expansion, highlighted Kiev’s aspirations of joining the bloc as among the main reasons for launching its military operation against Ukraine in February 2022.

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Yet another narrative (retelling) pops up: “..a privately-funded operation masterminded by a now-disgraced Ukrainian intelligence officer..”

• Biden Behind Nord Stream Sabotage – Russia’s Top MP (RT)

US President Joe Biden “was behind” the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz helped him tank his country’s economy in the aftermath, Vyacheslav Volodin, the head of the Russian State Duma, has claimed. The senior legislator commented on Thursday on the second anniversary of the explosions, which disabled the undersea connectors built to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany, noting the failure of European investigators to name the culprit. There have been accounts in the media suggesting possible scenarios, “which were occasionally laughable,” he said. “Washington and Biden personally were behind the Nord Stream bombing. His interest was to cut Western Europe off from cheap Russian gas and force it to buy it from America at a price three times higher,” he said.

The German economy took a hit and is now in recession due to a loss of competitiveness, Volodin added, “which means that the people of Germany were punished instead of Washington, as Biden and Scholz took money out of their pockets.” “You cannot pin this one on some ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ and civilian divers,” Volodin stressed. On Tuesday, the German news outlet Der Spiegel published its latest retelling of the events of September 2022. It mostly repeats the story that a privately-funded operation masterminded by a now-disgraced Ukrainian intelligence officer conducted the sabotage with the blessing of former General Valery Zaluzhny. The Western press has been repeating similar versions of this story for months. Spiegel claimed to have identified the divers, saying that most were civilians, but the group was led by a commando.

The operation was first contemplated years before the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, it stated. Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that Biden had ordered the sabotage of Nord Stream in a February 2023 article. He said US military divers had secretly planted explosives to destroy the pipelines at a significant depth, using a NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea as a cover. The White House has denied the accusations, but Russian officials have called the story plausible. Prior to the destruction of Nord Stream 1 and 2, senior US officials, including Biden, had issued threats to destroy the Russian-German pipelines.

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They’re trying to sell a story: “..a large number of frontline casualties without the capability to airlift them for treatment..”

• NATO Outlines Plans In Event Of War With Russia (RT)

NATO would have to deal with a large number of frontline casualties without the capability to airlift them for treatment in the event of a major war with Russia, its logistics chief has said. Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, the head of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC), outlined the difficulties that troops would face in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. “The challenge will be to swiftly ensure high-quality care for, in the worst case, a great number of wounded,” Sollfrank said. The environment of a hypothetical conflict with Russia would be completely different from what the US and its allies faced in Afghanistan and Iraq, he added. Unlike insurgents in the Middle East, Russia has the military capability to threaten NATO aircraft, Sollfrank noted, predicting that medical evacuations would have to be conducted on the ground.

“For planning reasons, all options to take a great number of wounded to medical installations need to be considered, which includes trains but potentially also buses,” the NATO official said. Ukraine is currently using hospital trains to evacuate injured troops from the front line, as reported by CNN earlier this month. The NATO logistics command, which is based in the southern German town of Ulm, recently staged an exercise based on coordinating medical evacuations, Reuters said. JSEC contingency plans would require a legal foundation for issues such as the expedited transportation of narcotics across national borders, Sollfrank said. He also called for a ‘military medical Schengen’ – similarly to how the bloc needs a ‘military Schengen’ to rapidly deploy troops and weapons to the eastern flank, according to the official.

The US and its allies have claimed that Russia may be planning to attack NATO, and that the West can delay or prevent that outcome by arming Ukraine. The bloc has been expanding in Europe for decades, in violation of assurances given before Moscow agreed to German reunification in 1990. The Russian government has cited NATO’s approach to its borders and the bloc’s intention to add Kiev to its ranks as key causes of the Ukraine conflict. Officials in Moscow have denied having any aggressive intentions toward NATO, which they consider a hostile force that must be deterred.

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“The mechanisms allow payments to arms manufacturers and permit weapons to be drawn directly from American military stockpiles..”

• Biden Drains Remaining Ukraine Aid Funds (RT)

US President Joe Biden announced nearly $8 billion in military aid to Ukraine on Thursday, releasing the remaining funding authorized by Congress. Lawmakers recently declined to extend the availability of certain funds beyond next week’s deadline. The funding includes $2.4 billion under the Pentagon’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and $5.5 billion under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). The mechanisms allow payments to arms manufacturers and permit weapons to be drawn directly from American military stockpiles. The latter sum was set to expire at the end of this month, which marks the end of the fiscal year in the US. The White House had hoped that the US Congress would allow the PDA money to be spent at a later point. However, legislation passed on Wednesday did not include any such clause, reportedly following resistance from Republicans skeptical of the continued bankrolling of Kiev.

Biden announced the decision on military aid during a meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who is in the US to promote his ‘victory plan’ in the conflict with Russia. Zelensky has said he wanted the US president to be the first to see the proposal as it heavily relies on American aid. According to the Wall Street Journal, US officials have previewed the plan but found it “unimpressive.” The US president said Kiev will receive an additional Patriot surface-to-air system, more munitions and drones, as well as a new capability, the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW). The glide bomb has a range of up to 130km when dropped from a high-flying aircraft. Some supporters of Kiev’s cause have criticized the 11th-hour drawdown of funds by Biden. Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican from Missouri, claimed it was “typical of this administration to wait until the last possible moment to announce full use of the PDA.”

Zelensky’s visit also triggered complaints from members of the GOP, after he criticized the Republican presidential ticket and visited an ammunition factory in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, without a single Republican official present. Senior party members have accused the Ukrainian leader of campaigning for the Democrats. They also alleged that the Biden administration facilitated potential meddling in the 2024 presidential election by organizing Zelensky’s Pennsylvania visit and spending taxpayer money on it.

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“..most of Congress was very happy to be lied to and would have denounced Blinken for the truth.”

• US Congress ‘Happy to Be Lied to’ in Service of American Imperialism (Sp.)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is facing calls to resign after a damning report suggested he willfully misled Congress to keep US military aid flowing to Israel. Analysis by the investigative reporting nonprofit ProPublica revealed that Blinken defied the findings of multiple government bodies that concluded Israel was deliberately blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Blinken ignored the advice of multiple officials with the State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID), testifying before lawmakers that Tel Aviv was not interfering with the flow of aid. US law forbids the provision of military equipment to any country obstructing American humanitarian assistance. Journalists Dan Lazare and Robert Fantina joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday to discuss the scandal, which has led the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to call on Blinken to resign.

“This is business as usual,” said Fantina. “The United States doesn’t respect international law and doesn’t respect its own laws if those laws somehow get in the way of its quest for power and profits. So the fact that Blinken lied to Congress, blatantly lied – and this wasn’t something that was inconsequential, this caused the starvation, the continued starvation and the slaughter of innocent people.” “We’ve said before that the United States is enabling this genocide by continuing to arm Israel and by increasing its arms shipments to Israel,” he continued. “So the fact that Blinken is lying should really surprise no one. Other international organizations that aren’t affiliated with any nation have said repeatedly for months that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid. And yet the United States denies this, or at least Blinken did.”

The human rights organization Amnesty International affirmed Israel was stemming the flow of humanitarian assistance earlier this year, characterizing Tel Aviv’s actions as a “tightening” of its “16-year-long suffocating blockade” of Gaza. Israel has tightly controlled the amount of food and other basic necessities allowed to enter the Palestinian territory since June 2007, when it decided to dismantle its settlements in the Gaza Strip. However, Israel has exerted control over the strip of land, which is considered sovereign Palestinian territory under international law, since 1967, when it seized land intended to form the basis of a Palestinian state in the region. The US has served as the country’s strongest backer in the decades since, with Israel becoming the United States’ largest cumulative recipient of foreign aid. Observers claim the US backs the country as a crucial beachhead in a geopolitically vital region where Israel serves as a proxy for US interests against Iran and other adversaries.

“Israel is engaged in a brutal war, which is now spreading dramatically and it will continue doing so,” said Lazare, claiming Israel is inarguably using the flow of humanitarian aid as an instrument of war. “It’s all irrelevant. I mean, war is the cessation of law, and, therefore, calling on warmakers to obey the law strikes me as kind of contradictory.” “If you’re acting on behalf of the [US] government or any kind of imperialism, you are free to lie to Congress at will, the laws against lying to Congress only apply to those which the empire sees as a threat,” posited host Garland Nixon. “Congress does not mind being lied to if it thinks it benefits the empire,” Lazare agreed. “In general there are lies Congress likes and lies Congress doesn’t like. And, therefore, it’s Congress’ power of decision, power to decide which lies are okay and which lies are not. And generally the okay ones are those that further America’s imperial ambitions.” Sam Perlo-Freeman, a researcher with the group Campaign Against Arms Trade, agreed, claiming simply, “most of Congress was very happy to be lied to and would have denounced Blinken for the truth.”

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“..it quickly became clear that some of its members were growing increasingly unhinged with Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

• Moderator for VP Debate Tied to Donations for ‘Lincoln Project’ (HUSA)

The husband of one of the two moderators in next week’s CBS News debate featuring vice presidential candidates J.D. Vance and Tim Walz appears to have made two donations of $250 apiece to the controversial Lincoln Project during the 2020 election. Records from the Federal Election Commission show that Ali “Yado” Yakub, the husband of Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, contributed on July 2 and Sept. 26 of that year to the anti-Trump super-PAC. Voting records confirmed that the address listed was the residence of Yakub, who was registered as a Republican, and Brennan, who was registered as an independent.Many have observed that registration offers no indication about political preference, with Democrats during the recent primary—in which President Joe Biden ran largely uncontested—frequently changing their party identification to vote against Trump.

Yakub also made contributions to ActBlue in 2019, including two that were earmarked for the primary campaign of future Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Headline USA reached out to both Brennan and Yakub by phone and email but received no response. The Lincoln Project—founded by high-profile NeverTrump ex-Republicans Rick Wilson, George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen, John Weaver and Jennifer Horn—initially appeared to be a sort of principled response by members of the GOP establishment to Trump’s takeover of the party. However, it quickly became clear that some of its members were growing increasingly unhinged with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The group lost all credibility when, in January 2021, allegations emerged that co-founder John Weaver had engaged in sexual impropriety with young, male staffers and had allegedly solicited boys as young as 14. The bombshell led to an exodus of the group’s more influential figures, such as former John McCain campaign chief Steve Schmidt, who had become a registered Democrat the month prior. Only two of its charter members—Rick Wilson and Reed Galen—are currently associated with the group, which has grown more radical and outlandish, notoriously engaging in a stunt in which it staged a fake neo-Nazi rally and attempted to blame Trump supporters.

It also has run ads pushing blatant disinformation, such as attempting to suggest that Trump would monitor and arrest people for attempting to obtain an abortion. Trump has repeatedly emphasized that the issue is now at the state level and will remain so if he is re-elected, while noting that he personally favors exceptions for abortions in a set of specific, narrowly tailored circumstances. Moreover, the Lincoln Project has sought to falsely tie Trump to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which he has repeatedly disavowed and denied any association with. The project launched in April 2023, well before Trump was the presumptive nominee, and was designed as a series of policy proposals for use by whichever candidate prevailed.

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“Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis..”

• Former CDC Director Robert Redfield Praises “Make America Healthy Again” (ZH)

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield, who served during the Trump administration, wrote an editorial in Newsweek praising President Trump’s decision to join forces with Robert Kennedy Jr. to “make America healthy again.” “We know chronic disease is more than 75 percent of the country’s $4 trillion annual health care expenditure. Unfortunately, we have become a sick nation. We’re paying too much for chronic disease, and this must change. It’s time to make America healthy again,” Redfield wrote in the op-ed published on Tuesday. After more than four decades in public health, Redfield believes the former president “chose the right man [RFK Jr.] for the job” to combat the processed foods industrial complex, which has ignited an obesity crisis across the Heartland.

“For instance, obesity in American children has increased dramatically since John F. Kennedy’s presidency, from around 4 percent in the 1960s to almost 20 percent in 2024,” he said, adding, “The causes of childhood obesity are complex, but a primary origin is clearly the modern American diet of highly processed foods.” He explained the causes for this obesity crisis are primarily due to “special interest and corporate influences on our federal agencies.” Redfield pointed out that “Kennedy is right” about the corporate capture problem of federal agencies.

Kennedy is right: All three of the principal health agencies suffer from agency capture. A large portion of the FDA’s budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies. NIH is cozy with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and its scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs NIH licenses to pharma. And as the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I know the agency can be influenced by special interest groups. Redfield acknowledges that agency capture is a serious issue, highlighting that federal agencies responsible for regulating food and medicine are possibly compromised by the food industrial complex and big pharma. Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis instead of promoting exercise and safe, clean food.

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Enemies of the Constitution. They will end the country.

“..an explosion of books and articles laying out a new vision of “democracy” unconstrained by constitutional limits on majority power..”

• The Assault on America’s Defining Principles (Turley)

Kamala Harris declared in Tuesday’s debate that a vote for her is a vote “to end the approach that is about attacking the foundations of our democracy ’cause you don’t like the outcome.” She was alluding to the 2021 Capitol riot, but she and her party are also attacking the foundations of our democracy: the Supreme Court and the freedom of speech. Several candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination, including Ms. Harris, said they were open to the idea of packing the court by expanding the number of seats. Mr. Biden opposed the idea, but a week after he exited the 2024 presidential race, he announced a “bold plan” to “reform” the high court. It would pack the court via term limits and also impose a “binding code of conduct,” aimed at conservative justices. Ms. Harris quickly endorsed the proposal in a statement, citing a “clear crisis of confidence” in the court owing to “decision after decision overturning long-standing precedent.”

She might as well have added “because you don’t like the outcome.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) has already introduced ethics and term-limits legislation and said Ms. Harris’s campaign has told him “that your bills are precisely aligned with what we are talking about.” The attacks on the court are part of a growing counterconstitutional movement that began in higher education and seems recently to have reached a critical mass in the media and politics. The past few months have seen an explosion of books and articles laying out a new vision of “democracy” unconstrained by constitutional limits on majority power. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, is author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” published last month. In a 2021 Los Angeles Times op-ed, he described conservative justices as “partisan hacks.”

In the New York Times, book critic Jennifer Szalai scoffs at what she calls “Constitution worship.” She writes: “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.” She frets that by limiting the power of the majority, the Constitution “can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow.” In a 2022 New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for liberals to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.” Others have railed against individual rights. In my new book on free speech, I discuss this movement against what many professors deride as “rights talk.” Barbara McQuade of the University of Michigan Law School has called free speech America’s “Achilles’ heel.”

In another Times op-ed, “The First Amendment Is Out of Control,” Columbia law professor Tim Wu, a former Biden White House aide, asserts that free speech “now mostly protects corporate interests” and threatens “essential jobs of the state, such as protecting national security and the safety and privacy of its citizens.” George Washington University Law’s Mary Ann Franks complains that the First Amendment (and also the Second) is too “aggressively individualistic” and endangers “domestic tranquility” and “general welfare.” Mainstream Democrats are listening to radical voices. “How much does the current structure benefit us?” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said in 2021, explaining her support for a court-packing bill.

“I don’t think it does.” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said at the Democratic National Committee’s “LGBTQ+ Kickoff” that “we’ve got to reimagine” democracy “in a way that is more revolutionary than . . . that little piece of paper.” Both AOC and Ms. Robinson later spoke to the convention itself. The Nation’s Elie Mystal calls the Constitution “trash” and urges the abolition of the U.S. Senate. Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law School complains that Americans are “slaves” to the Constitution.

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“..many departments have purged their ranks of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians.”

• What Happens if We Hold College and Nobody Comes? (Turley)

In the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht asked “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” As someone who has been a teacher for over 30 years, I find myself increasingly asking the same question as trust and enrollments fall in higher education. Trust in higher education is plummeting to record lows. According to recent polling, there has been a record drop in trust in higher education since just 2015. Not surprisingly, given the growing viewpoint intolerance on our campuses, the largest drops are among Republicans and Independents. There has been a precipitous decline in enrollments across the country as universities worry about covering their costs without raising already high tuition rates. From 2010 to 2021, enrollments fell from roughly 18.1 million students to about 15.4 million. There are various contributors to the drop from falling birthrates to poor economic times.

However, there is also an increasing view of higher education as an academic echo chamber for far left agendas. For many, there is little appeal in going to campuses where you are expected to self-censor and professors reject your values as part of their lesson plans. That fear is magnified by surveys showing that many departments have purged their ranks of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians. In my new book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculties replicate their own views and values. One survey (based on self-reporting) found that only nine percent of law professors identified as conservative. Some anti-free speech advocates are actually citing higher education as a model for social media in showing how “unlikeable voices” have been eliminated.

Many of those “unlikeable” people are now going elsewhere as schools focus on degrees in activism and denouncing math, statistics, the classics, and even meritocracy as examples of white privilege. Schools offering classic education are experiencing rising enrollments, but the growing crisis has not changed the bias in hiring and teaching. Despite repeated losses in courts, universities and colleges continue to deny free speech and diversity of thought. The fact is that this academic echo chamber may be killing educational institutions, but the intolerance still works to the advantage of faculty who can control publications, speaking opportunities, and advancement with like-minded ideologues. We have seen the same perverse incentive in the media where media outlets are seeing plummeting readers and revenue.

Journalism schools and editors now maintain that reporters should reject objectivity and neutrality as touchstones of journalism. It does not matter that this advocacy journalism is killing the profession. Reporters and editors continue to saw at the limb upon which they sit due to the same advantage for academics. For reporters, converting newsrooms into echo chambers gives them more security, advancement, and opportunities. Recently, the new Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis was brought into the paper to right the ship. He told the staff “let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.” The response from reporters was to call for owner Jeff Bezos to fire Lewis and others seeking to change the culture.

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“I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America.”

• Taxes and Tariffs and Trade: Trump’s Plan To Bolster The Economy (JTN)

In a bid to build a broader coalition, former President Donald Trump has outlined a vision of tax cuts, import tariffs, and “reciprocal trade” to preserve and restore American industries. Since coming down the escalator of Trump Tower in 2015, the Republican standard bearer has espoused unconventional trade policies and dragged much of the GOP kicking and screaming toward protectionism. His tenure saw the U.S. renegotiate trade agreements with its neighbors, resulting in the United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement (USMCA), while also waging a trade war with China seeking to curb some of Beijing’s abuses. His signature tax plan, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, saw the doubling of the standard deduction and the reduction of the corporate tax rate to 21%. As he has sought to contrast himself with Harris, Trump has highlighted both elements of his economic plan and doubled down on the tax cuts and tariffs approach.

“So, as your president, here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth,” he said at a Tuesday event in Savannah, Ga. “I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America.” “It all goes away if you don’t make your product here and hire American workers for the job,” he warned. His message, so far, appears to have resonated with working class voters, notably the traditionally Democratic-leaning union workers. After internal polling showed that its members decidedly favored Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined to endorse a candidate, marking the first time in decades that the union had not backed a Democrat for president.

In recent weeks, Trump has unveiled a litany of tax relief proposals, most of which involve either simplifying the system or eliminating taxation on certain sources of income entirely. Speaking at a New York rally last week, Trump vowed to restore state-and-local-tax (SALT) deductions for federal tax returns in an about-face after signing the TCJA, which imposed a $10,000 cap on SALT deductions. “I will cut taxes for families, small businesses and workers, including restoring the SALT deduction, saving thousands of dollars for residents of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other high cost states,” he said. Earlier this month, he pledged to eliminate all taxes on overtime work as well, saying “[t]he people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country … It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break.”

Trump has also promised to end taxation on Social Security benefits, a proposal that has drawn broad support from the public across most age brackets, according to recent polling. Among the most notable of his campaign pitches, however, has been a pledge to eliminate taxes on tips, which he announced at a June rally in Nevada in a bid to win over service workers in the critical battleground. Separate from pledging further tax cuts, he has also made the TCJA a central fixture of his campaign. Many of the act’s cuts are set to expire next year and he has begun to focus on the adverse impacts for taxpayers of permitting those cuts to sunset.

Using information from the Tax Foundation, the Trump campaign this month launched a website, dubbed kamalataxincrease.com, breaking down the average cost to tax-paying families by state. The site estimates that a Harris-proposed tax plan would cost families an average of $2,580.57 in additional taxes per year. The TCJA lowered the corporate tax rate to 21%, but Trump vowed to go further in his Tuesday speech, promising a “manufacturing Renaissance” through a “15% Made in America tax rate.” “We’re cutting the business tax from 21% to 15% which makes us the most competitive tax anywhere on the planet, but only for those who make their product in the USA. See, that’s an incentive,” he said. “[P]eople are going to be pouring in. Companies are going to be pouring in.”

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They’re trying to run out the clock. “Massie then called for answers on the matter before Election Day.”

• FBI Claims it Doesn’t Have DNC’s Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Footage (HUSA)

The FBI has claimed that it doesn’t have the Democratic National Committee headquarters’ security footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising—footage that would presumably show the discovery of a pipe bomb that was allegedly planted outside the DNC the night before. The FBI’s admission was revealed in a Friday letter from Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. In that letter, Cuffari said he asked the FBI to review the DNC security videos from Jan. 6—but was told that the bureau doesn’t have that footage. “On March 18, 2022, the FBI informed DHS OIG that it did not have any video footage from January 6, 2021,” Cuffari told Massie.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1838980352901079550

The letter to Massie was revealed Tuesday, the same day Revolver News published a report suggesting that the DNC pipe bomb footage was tampered with. Revolver reported that an unnamed DHS-OIG official viewed the DNC footage, and said that the footage clearly shows the pipe bomber planting a device on the evening of Jan. 5—something that the footage released by the FBI to the public doesn’t show. Revolver also reported that the DHS-OIG official had to go to the DNC to view the footage—raising questions about why the FBI doesn’t have video of one of the most significant crimes from the whole Jan. 6 fiasco. “We can only conclude that either the FBI is lying and did have footage, or they’re telling the truth and for some reason deleted the footage,” Revolver wrote on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris continues to be tight-lipped on the subject, despite the fact that her motorcade drove past the DNC pipe bomb on Jan. 6.

Harris left the Capitol at 11:21 a.m. arrived to the DNC at 11:25 a.m., but the nearby pipe bomb wasn’t discovered until 1:07 p.m. by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer. Some J6 researchers argue that Harris’s silence on the issue suggests that the U.S. government is engaging in a coverup with the pipe bomb case—perhaps because a government asset planted the bombs, or for some other unknown reason. On Tuesday, Massie raised that possibility again. “It’s almost as if they don’t want to know. Can you rule out that there were any confidential human sources involved in the whole pipe bomb thing?” Massie asked DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Horowitz said he didn’t “recall” whether any government assets were involved, but he’d have to go back and refresh his memory. Massie then called for answers on the matter before Election Day.

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“Mar-a-Lago is worth $18-26 million”. That alone closes the case.

• Appeals Court Seems Skeptical of New York Civil Fraud Suit Against Trump (ET)

Appeals judges in New York fielded multiple questions to the New York Attorney General’s Office on Sept. 26 indicating that they were skeptical of its application of an anti-fraud law to former President Donald Trump’s business practices. The questions came during oral arguments over Trump’s claims that the state Supreme Court erred in handling the civil fraud case, which resulted in a $489 million penalty for the former president. Trump’s attorney in the case, D. John Sauer, told a five-judge panel in the court’s appellate division that the judge and prosecutors flouted time limits on the claims involved. He noted that Attorney General Letitia James’s office pressed an overly broad interpretation of legally punishable fraud and that, regardless, the former president hadn’t committed fraud in his dealings with banks and others. Some of the judges questioned whether the state was acting within the bounds of its authority or had a legitimate interest in bringing the suit.

Justice David Friedman pressed New York Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale on whether there was any precedent for the attorney general suing over transactions involving sophisticated parties where neither “lost any money. “Every case that you cite involves damage to consumers, damage to the marketplace. … We don’t have anything like that here,” Friedman said. Vale argued that “there was absolutely a public impact and a public interest here.” “There are at least four different public harms from the kind of misconduct here,” she said. Vale also said that “when risk is injected into the market, that does hurt the counterparties and it does hurt the market as a whole.” Justice Peter Moulton asked, “How do we draw a line, or at least [put up] some guardrails to know when the AG is operating well within her broad, admittedly broad sphere of 63(12)?”

Moulton was referring to New York Executive Law 63(12), which is the statute James used in suing Trump. The statute allows the attorney general to apply for court intervention when “any person shall engage in repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business.” Part of Sauer’s argument was that the attorney general’s conception of fraud was too loose and noted that no one was victimized by Trump’s conduct. At one point, he told the court that under existing precedent, “there has to be a capacity or tendency to deceive, or atmosphere conducive to fraud.” “And what we’ve pointed out is that you have a situation where there were no victims, no complaints,” he said, also saying that Trump’s business partners did their due diligence.

Presiding Justice Dianne Renwick was skeptical that the statute required some kind of harm in order to prove fraudulent activity. She read the relevant portion of the statute and told Vale: “I don’t read harm or threat of harm in that, but the other side is saying that that is to be read into this statute. “Are there any cases where the language harm or threat to harm limits the scope of the attorney general?” Vale said that there weren’t “as to liability and not in cases like this where what the attorney general is seeking injunctive relief and disgorgement.”

Trump is currently facing a disgorgement of $489 million with interest accruing by the day. During oral arguments, Vale encountered multiple questions about the appropriateness of the disgorgement. Moulton told Vale that the disgorgement amount was “troubling.” “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by [the] Supreme Court to the harm that was caused here, where the parties left these transactions happy about how things went down?” he asked. Vale responded that “disgorgement looks at taking the gain away from the wrongdoer.” Although the amount was high, she said that “there was a lot of fraud … and illegality.”

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Posted the video yesterday. Here’s some backgroud added in.

• FBI Specialist Urges Americans to Prepare For Hardship (MN)

A former FBI specialist who was persecuted for questioning January 6 said during a hearing with lawmakers on Capitol Hill that Americans should stock up on food and prepare for hardship. Marcus Allen, a former FBI staff operations specialist, told the Judiciary Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government that he was deliberately targeted by higher ups for asking why there were so many federal informants in the crowd at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “The FBI questioned my allegiance to the United States, suspended my security clearance, suspended my pay and refused to allow me to obtain outside employment or even accept charity,” Allen testified The feds came down hard on Allen after he sent an email on September 21st, 2021 which his supervisors claimed contained hyperlinks to “extremist propaganda” from “questionable sources”.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who testified alongside Allen, is investigating the FBI’s security clearance and adjudication process, including the targeting of “political conservatives who were seen as loyal to Trump or resistant to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.” “There are no words strong enough to describe the impact the FBI’s lies about me have had on me and my family,” said Allen during an emotional statement. “The stress has taken a toll on our health and our children have suffered, traumatized by the thought of our door getting kicked in or Dad not coming home.” Allen added even more ominously: “This is a warning, to the American people I say.. I personally have no confidence the FBI will reign in its own conduct.” However, it was Allen’s final comments that raised many eyebrows.

The former FBI staffer urged Americans to use their right to vote despite any doubts they may have about election integrity. “My other recommendations are in the natural order,” Allen continued, “Arm yourself and know how to defend yourself, make three to four friends in your neighborhood and promise to come to each other’s mutual aid in times of hardship.” “And during the great depression, people stocked up their pantry, so I think that’s a good practice especially in our economic times, and make sure you have three to four months of food,” he added. Allen also urged Americans to pray and read the bible regularly.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1838976194433405052

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Boeing can’t afford any of this.

• Boeing Machinists on Strike Have a Historic Opportunity (Sawant)

In a potentially game-changing move, 33,000 Boeing machinists in the Pacific Northwest, unionized with IAM District 751, are on strike after rejecting the company’s initial insulting contract offer. A stunning 96 percent of the rank and file voted to go on strike, marking a sea change for the fight of working people at Boeing. For decades, Boeing’s executives and wealthy shareholders have, with the active help from Democrats and Republicans in Washington state and Washington D.C., enforced a decades-long brutal regime that has thrown both workers and safety standards under the bus in favor of short-term profit maximization for themselves. The strike offers an opening for the company’s workers to win historic gains and begin rebuilding a fighting union with a militant, active rank-and-file membership.

Like workers everywhere, Boeing machinists are fighting for decent wages and benefits in the face of the sky-high cost of living. The workers are demanding a 40 percent wage increase, which is the bare minimum they need given the ground they have lost in past sell-out contracts from the bosses, combined with historic inflation levels and high living costs in the region. They are angry at Boeing’s shell games, including the attempt to take away their annual employee bonuses (called “AMPP”), which they were promised in return for being forced to accept higher healthcare costs in a past contract. They are also demanding an end to the intolerable regime of mandatory overtime, which is running rampant at Boeing, denying workers the right to a life outside of work. The machinists are also fighting for a restoration of defined benefit pension, and full and retroactive reinstatement of pension for all workers.

The initial contract offer from the Boeing bosses came nowhere close to meeting these demands. What Boeing touted as a 25 percent raise over four years in the contract offer is, in reality, much less. When coupled with the cost of living and the removal of the annual AMPP bonus, the proposed raises don’t even make up for recent and future inflation, much less the severe blows from past contracts. The offer also fails to restore workers’ pensions.Since the strike began, Boeing has been forced to release a second contract offer, which includes a 30 percent pay increase over the next 4 years, up from 25 percent in the last offer. The strike has also forced Boeing to back down from their attempt to take away workers’ annual bonuses. But this new offer is still far less than what workers have been demanding and what they need, and workers immediately responded both on the picket line and in social media with their strong opposition to this totally inadequate offer, saying they must continue the strike.

The union leadership has now come out with a statement that says as much also, and which condemns the disgraceful way in which Boeing has attempted to undemocratically circumvent the union with this offer. Because of this, they are rejecting this new offer outright.In the Seattle area, a job at Boeing used to be highly sought after — it was a path to decent wages and benefits and relative stability. A common phrase among workers was “If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going.” With the attacks over the last 15 years, many new Boeing workers are instead being paid less than the Seattle minimum wage, and the company has had higher and higher turnover. These attacks on the workforce have gone hand-in-hand with the corporation’s major struggles in recent years with safety and quality control.

The strike comes in the wake of the machinists being sold out in a spectacularly shameful deal made over a decade ago in November 2013 by Boeing executives and shareholders with the Democratic Party-dominated Washington State Legislature, and Democratic Governor, Jay Inslee. The defined benefit pension plan, won by the unionized machinists in previous decades, was eliminated in one fell swoop. A defined benefit plan, which is currently accessible only to a small proportion of the workforce in the private sector and which was won through labor struggle, is a plan that guarantees retired workers a decent income for life. This was replaced by Boeing with a far weaker 401(K) retirement system that leaves workers at the mercy of the ups and downs of the stock market. This dramatically undermines annual retirement income, as well as shifting the risk away from the executives and major shareholders of big corporations like Boeing onto the backs of working people.

The Democratic Party justified this historic attack on both the Boeing machinists and working people statewide by claiming that it was necessary to save jobs. Boeing executives had carried out public extortion, threatening to take away the final assembly of the 777X aircraft out of Washington state, which would eliminate an estimated 10,000 union jobs. State and local Democrats from across the region insisted that the machinists accept the contract, and scandalously told them that if they didn’t, they would be responsible for not only the loss of their own jobs, but also the broader economic repercussions if Boeing were to move future production out of state.

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Shots

 

 

Hurricane


https://twitter.com/i/status/1839079306586386738

 

 

Not impresssed
https://twitter.com/i/status/1839397581476257900

 

 

Jaguar

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 1 2024

Aug 012024
 
 August 1, 2024  Posted by at 9:22 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Portrait of Doctor Félix Rey, Arles. Rey disliked his portrait and gave it away 1889

 

• Kamala Harris: The Soros candidate? (Suchkov)
• Harris Campaign Honeymoon Will Last to Chicago Convention But No Further (Sp.)
• New Secret Service Director Announces Changes in Wake of Trump Shooting (ET)
• FBI: Trump Shooter May Have Posted Far-Right Comments on Social Media (ZH)
• Iran Accuses US Of Complicity In Hamas Chief’s Assassination (RT)
• Israel’s Existence In Danger – Trump (RT)
• Full-Scale Mideast War Only Way to Shaky Peace – Medvedev (Sp.)
• NATO Working On New Russia Strategy – Washington (RT)
• Musk Accepts Venezuelan President’s Offer To Fight (RT)
• Maduro Asks Supreme Tribunal to Probe Alleged Election Meddling (Sp.)
• Russia Legalizes Bitcoin And Crypto For International Trade (BCM)
• US Policy Threatening Dollar – Senator (RT)
• The Economic Situation of the West (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Trump ad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1818422195464405089

 

 

Kamala staff

 

 

Vivek Kamala

 

 

ABC

 

 

McConnell

 

 

Boom

 

 

Maldonado

 

 

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Rogan Biden
https://twitter.com/i/status/1818383962659750383

 

 

 

 

“..Soros funding her campaign? Well, all his entities are non-profit, so there’s no shame in taking money from Soros..”

• Kamala Harris: The Soros candidate? (Suchkov)

The old joke that a ‘color revolution’ is impossible in the United States because there is no American embassy there no longer seems quite as funny. Especially from anyone who has followed American affairs closely in recent weeks. We’ve had the sudden withdrawal of the incumbent president from the electoral race, hastily organized support for a replacement – who only a few weeks ago was considered an unlikely heir – and the murky story of an assassination attempt on the opposition candidate. Furthermore, as the icing on the cake, the name Soros, a constant presence in all ‘color revolutions,’ has been gaining column inches again. George Soros has long been a household name. But he is now 93 years old and, unlike Biden, he has arranged for the transition of his family business in good time, handing over the major assets to his 38-year-old son Alexander.

The younger man has certainly not been idle. But if his activities abroad are not particularly noteworthy (he continues his father’s work of ‘spreading democracy’ of the Soros kind), Alexander’s vigorous activity inside America has become the object of increased attention against the background of the current election campaign. To show how deeply immersed he is, it suffices to say that the Soros’s, together with the Clintons, were the first to support the replacement of Biden with Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s candidate. Soros Jr. is a frequent presence at the White House – between January 2021 and May 2023 the visitors’ log recorded 20 of his visits. The twenty-first appearance took place on the 31 May. He arrived at the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris in the company of seven major donors to the Democratic Party and a young model named Savannah Huitema. They stayed at Harris’ home from 4pm until midnight.

The details of the conversation have not been revealed. All we know is that they discussed the presidential election. But eight hours in the company of the second most powerful person in the country in the middle of the working week is a lot of time, even for a valued donor. But old friends always have something to talk about. The Soros’s have long been close friends with Harris – George supported Kamala when she was a prosecutor in California. Over the years, from Latin America and the former Soviet Union to the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the Hungarian billionaire has meddled in domestic politics and sponsored changes of government. The US is no exception. But the Americans use a different system, which means that change is better instigated at the county and state level. That’s why Soros’ organisations have invested in local politicians and legislators who are overwhelmingly ‘progressive,’ i.e. on the left of the ideological spectrum.

One of the first to call attention to this practice was the ubiquitous Elon Musk. Discussing Soros’ election funding policy, Musk remarked: “The lowest value for money is a presidential race, then the next lowest value for money is a Senate race, then a Congress. But once you get to sort of city and state district attorneys, the value [is] extremely good.” He pointed to the Hungarian’s tactical insight: “Soros realized that you don’t actually need to change the laws. You just need to change how they’re enforced.” Early in her career, Harris was one of those who Soros thought could apply the law in the right way. It’s not known exactly which of her legal initiatives Soros funded, nor when he began to do so. What is known, however, is that Kamala attended Soros’ flagship conference, Vision 2020, and Soros Sr does not invite unverified people to speak publicly at such an event. In 2020, however, even Soros’ patronage did not help Harris win the Democratic Party’s nomination.

She was left off the presidential shortlist in part because most of her law enforcement initiatives turned out to be highly controversial. In particular, many voters were alarmed by her support for bias training for police officers, initiatives to cut police funding and the Safe Neighborhoods & Schools Act, which would have reduced sentences for a number of previously serious crimes (forgery, counterfeiting) and thefts under $950. The latter caused particular irritation among small shopkeepers, who realized that the thieves they had to deal with would no longer be afraid of the consequences. Many black people were also unhappy. Despite her Jamaican roots, Harris has defended the conviction of African-Americans when there was evidence of their innocence and proof of police misconduct. Perhaps for this reason, one of the most prominent liberal human rights groups, Black Lives Matter, is wary of Harris and has not yet endorsed her nomination.

Kamala’s political biography is full of examples of inconsistent behavior. For example, as district attorney of San Francisco, she opposed the death penalty, but after becoming California’s attorney general, Harris fought to end the moratorium on capital punishment. As a result, Kamala has developed a reputation as someone who possesses two important skills for a modern politician: behind the scenes, she is flexible enough to do what her sponsors want, and in public, she is persuasive enough to justify that decision, even if it means flip-flopping. Indeed, what was a liability for the Democrats in 2020 is being presented as an asset four years later. Now, Harris is a seasoned prosecutor, Trump is a criminal, and the campaign is a public trial. This is the model now being promoted by Democratic political technologists. And the shift from Vice President Kamala to Prosecutor Kamala is a clever move to gloss over Harris’s failures as Biden’s deputy and focus voters’ attention on her merits as a guardian of the law.

“She has prosecuted six ‘sexual predators’. He [Trump] is one. She shut down for-profit colleges that were defrauding Americans. He supported them. He is a puppet of the big banks. As attorney general, she fought America’s biggest banks and forced them to pay homeowners $18 billion,” a campaign video claims. As they say, it’s all about the narrative. Harris’ love affair with the former mayor of San Francisco that launched her career? That’s a young girl thing! Soros funding her campaign? Well, all his entities are non-profit, so there’s no shame in taking money from Soros, unlike another billionaire Peter Thiel, who backs Trump and J.D. Vance!

In July, Alexander Soros announced his engagement to Huma Abedin, 47, a long-time aide to Hillary Clinton, whom she calls her “second daughter”. A practising Muslim with extensive government experience and influential friends in Washington, Abedin has become the ‘bridge’ in the relationship between the Clintons and the Soros’s. “Soros is doing things that erode the fabric of civilization,” warns Elon Musk. Whether Harris is part of this sinister plan or this is just another conspiracy theory by right-wing conservatives, Americans will have to find out, perhaps very soon.

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“Honeymoons are notoriously short. It’s what the word means..”

• Harris Campaign Honeymoon Will Last to Chicago Convention But No Further (Sp.)

The current wave of support and mainstream media coverage will carry Vice President Kamala Harris through to the Democratic Party national convention in Chicago next month but it is unlikely to last beyond that, US analysts told Sputnik. President Joe Biden chose Harris as his successor right after announcing that he was withdrawing from the Democratic party nomination for a second four-year term in the White House. Since then, mainstream Democratic leaders, including former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have rallied to Harris’ support. Nevertheless, Harris’ current wave of popularity, which has given her a small thought from the overwhelming boost in national opinion polls, will not last beyond the convention in Chicago, financial columnist and former merchant banker Martin Hutchinson said. “This honeymoon can carry her to the convention – not beyond,” Hutchinson said. “Her honeymoon will last till after the Democratic convention.”

Hutchinson pointed out that while Harris has national experience as vice president, her real policies and priorities had yet to be exposed to public scrutiny and success in the race would also depend on whom she chose as her vice-presidential running mate. “Thing to watch is whether she picks a sensible vice president. [Pennsylvania Governor Josh] Shapiro, [Kansas Governor Laura] Kelly, or [North Carolina Governor Roy] Cooper are her best choices, but the Financial Times wants her to pick [Secretary of Transportation Pete] Buttigieg, which would reinforce everyone’s negative view of her,” Hutchinson said. While Harris’ skill as a direct debater might make her a formidable opponent for Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump, her appeal would likely diminish during the prime campaigning season of September and October, Hutchinson said. “I think Trump’s chances remain good though not overwhelming, as air in Harris will slowly deflate in September/October,” Hutchinson added.

California State University Emeritus Professor of Political Affairs Beau Grosscup agreed that Harris was currently benefiting from a wave of adulation that would not last. “Honeymoons are notoriously short. It’s what the word means,” Grosscup said. Nevertheless, Harris brought significant strengths to the Democratic ticket that the aging and obviously infirm Biden had clearly lacked, Grosscup said. “Her prospects against Trump are good. She has solved the age/dementia issue – pointing now to Trump. She should re-rally women/independents on the Dobbs decision [regarding abortion] as Biden left that issue to her,” Grosscup said. The US political landscape unpredictability notwithstanding, Harris’s past record made the flubs and embarrassments inevitable throughout her presidential campaign, Political analyst Charles Ortel said. “Harris is a remarkably undistinguished ‘public servant’ whose track record and policy inclinations are both rash and juvenile,” Ortel said.

Harris’s many allies in the established media would do their best to promote her through the Democratic convention, Ortel added. US constitutional historian and political commentator Dan Lazare recommended election watchers not be misled by the relatively restrained and polite tone of the Harris and Trump campaigns so far. “With something like a hundred days to the election, the process is just getting underway,” Lazare said. “The Harris campaign is indeed in the honeymoon stage, and how much longer it lasts – a few days, a few weeks – is impossible to say. But we can be sure that it will end by some point, and that’s when the real mud wrestling will begin.” Both candidates had yet to reveal their strategies and opening moves but none of the general adulatory coverage of Harris so far had dared to point out the very real drawbacks she suffered from in her professional record, he said.

“Kamala has got a lot of baggage – her law-and-order prosecutor years that are a guaranteed turn-off for liberals, her political shallowness, her demeanor, and that god-awful laugh,” Lazare said. Lazare noted that a major issue for Harris and for most Americans is the US economy. “This a real problem for Harris since if she runs on Bidenomics, she will incur the wrath of all who have been hurt by inflation, that is the entire working-class population, while if she runs away from Bidenomics, she’ll come off as a disloyal opportunist. She’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t,” Lazare added.

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Next time they won’t miss.

• New Secret Service Director Announces Changes in Wake of Trump Shooting (ET)

The Secret Service is making changes in the wake of the failed assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, the agency’s new acting director announced on July 30. Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said he had traveled to the site of the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the former president was shot, allegedly by a man who fired from the roof of a nearby building.Mr. Rowe said what he saw while lying in a prone position on the roof of that building made him feel “ashamed.” “As a career law enforcement officer, and a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured,” he told two U.S. Senate committees on Capitol Hill. “To prevent similar lapses from occurring in the future, I directed our personnel to ensure every event site security plan is thoroughly vetted by multiple experienced supervisors before it is implemented.”

Mr. Rowe said he believed that agents had plenty of time to plan for the rally and called what happened a “failure on multiple levels.” In addition to former President Trump, whose ear was clipped by one of the bullets fired at him, three others were also struck. Former fire chief Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed while trying to protect his wife and daughter, and the other two shooting victims were hospitalized but have since been discharged.

Mr. Rowe assumed the acting director position after Kimberly Cheatle, the presidential appointee who was serving as director, stepped down on July 23 amid calls for her to resign. Ms. Cheatle, in remarks before Congress before she resigned, said the assassination attempt represented the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure in decades.” Echoing that acknowledgment on July 30, Mr. Rowe said he had launched an internal investigation and would hold Secret Service employees accountable if they were found to have violated agency protocols. “They will be held to our table of penalties, which will include up to termination,” he said. As of yet, however, no Secret Service employees have been relieved of duty, which Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) questioned.

“Isn’t the fact that a former president was shot, that a good American is dead, that other Americans were critically wounded—isn’t that enough mission failure for you to say that the person who decided that that building should not be in the security perimeter probably ought to be stepped down?” Mr. Hawley asked during one particularly heated exchange. Mr. Rowe replied that he would prefer to allow the investigation to play out before taking that kind of action. “I will not rush to judgment,” the acting director said, vowing to hold employees accountable “with integrity.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) agreed with Mr. Hawley that accountability would likely require more than just an investigation. “I think we need individual accountability here and people need to be held responsible—in fact, lose their jobs, if necessary—to send a message,” Mr. Graham said.

Sen. John Kennedy

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They couldn’t find any internet presence. Now an account with 700 comments. Get serious.

• FBI: Trump Shooter May Have Posted Far-Right Comments on Social Media (ZH)

A top FBI official made a point of testifying that President Trump’s would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks may have espoused far-right extremist viewpoints on an unnamed social media account five years ago, but forgot to mention that Crooks may have shared pro-Biden viewpoints on Gab more recently. Both accounts have not yet been fully verified as belonging to Crooks. FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate told senators on Capitol Hill Tuesday that a social media account believed to be Crooks’ appears to have shared antisemitic, anti-immigrant, and “extreme in nature” posts in 2019 and 2020. Crooks would have been 14 to 15-years-old in that time frame. “There were over 700 comments posted from this account,” Abbate testified before a joint Senate Judiciary Committee and Homeland Security Committee hearing entitled “Examination of the Security Failures Leading to the Assassination Attempt on Former President Trump.”

“Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature,” Abbate added. The deputy director said while the FBI was still verifying that the account belonged to Crooks, the Bureau felt it was important to detail the social account’s nature because of the “general absence of other information” establishing Crooks’ “motive and mindset.” GAB CEO Andrew Torba, however, shared plenty of information on X last week about a GAB account the FBI appeared to believe was Crook’s, saying the content of the posts “UNEQUIVOCALLY” reflected a “pro-Biden and in particular pro-Biden immigration policy.” The Gab founder said on July 24, he received an Emergency Disclosure Request (EDR) from the FBI for the Gab account “EpicMicrowave,” and said based on the request, the FBI appeared to believe the account was associated with Crooks.

Torba said “as a courtesy to enforcement,” he would not post the contents of the entire request on social media, but did post the first page on X. Torba said he was unable to confirm that the account in question, which posted a total of nine times on the site, actually belonged to Crooks. The account appeared to only be active for a short period of time in January and February of 2021. “As far as we are aware, the account did not use the site to send any direct messages,” Torba wrote on X. The majority of EpicMicrowave’s posts supported Joe Biden’s policies, particularly, his COVID lockdowns, border policies and executive orders. “To the best of Gab’s knowledge, as of 2021, Crooks was a pro-lockdown, pro-immigration, left-wing Joe Biden supporter,” Torba said.

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Killing a guest on your territory. Unacceptable.

• Iran Accuses US Of Complicity In Hamas Chief’s Assassination (RT)

The US bears partial responsibility for the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The Palestinian movement’s chief was assassinated in a missile strike on his residence Tehran earlier in the day. The ministry accused Israel of carrying out the strike, calling it part of the Jewish State’s hunt for Palestinian leaders, and a “terrorist act” targeting Iran’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Haniyeh was in Iran for the inauguration of the country’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. The ministry statement said Tehran reserves the right to “respond appropriately to this aggressive action.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes the responsibility of the US government as a supporter and accomplice” of Israel, including in “committing this heinous act of terrorism,” the statement read. According to Tehran, Israel seeks to destabilize the Middle East, and Wednesday’s attack poses a “serious threat” to regional and international peace and stability. Washington has denied any role in the incident. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Singapore-based news network CNA that the US was “not aware of or involved in” the assassination. Israel has not commented on the strike, but national media have claimed, citing unnamed Iranian officials, that the missile that struck Haniyeh’s residence may have been fired from within Iran’s borders. Israel has previously vowed to eliminate the leaders of Hamas.

The development comes as the conflict between Israel and the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group approaches nine months. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged to destroy Hamas in response to its deadly October 7 raid that claimed the lives of some 1,100 people. More than 200 were taken hostage and held in Gaza. Israel responded to the attack by launching a major military campaign in Gaza that involved heavy bombardments following by a ground operation. Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the enclave since the start of the fighting, according to local authorities.

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Voting for Trump won’t change that.

• Israel’s Existence In Danger – Trump (RT)

Donald Trump has urged American Jews to vote for him in the November election, warning that if they fail to do so, Israel could be destroyed by its enemies. The former US president and Republican nominee for the 2024 election was speaking at a fundraiser on Sunday in a New Jersey municipality with a sizable Jewish population. He claimed that the Democrats hate Israel and “largely hate” the Jewish people. “We have to win this election. We need the Jewish people to vote for Trump. If you don’t have Jewish people voting for Republicans… you’re not going to have Israel for very long,” stated Trump. The presidential hopeful also pledged to help Israel win its war against Hamas if elected. Trump reiterated his claim that the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza, would not have happened had he still been in office.

According to surveys by the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based think tank, a majority of US Jews have consistently voted for the Democratic Party. However, state-funded Voice of America noted in May that an increasing number have backed the Republicans in recent elections. The Pittsburg Jewish Chronicle cited a survey of New York voters in February showing that 53% of Jewish voters intended to vote for Donald Trump in November. The relationship between the Biden administration and the Israeli government has soured in recent months amid the Jewish state’s offensive in Gaza. US President Joe Biden has warned the Israeli leadership against an all-out assault in the densely populated city of Rafah and said it would be a ‘red line.’ “If they [Israel] go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons,” he stated.

In late April, the Biden administration paused a shipment of munitions that officials expected Israel to use in Rafah. In April, Trump took a dig at Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. “Biden has totally lost control of the Israel situation… Any Jewish person who votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined,” he said. The Jewish State launched its offensive in the Gazan city in early May amid widespread international condemnation. Israel has been the largest recipient of US economic and military aid since its founding in 1948, having received about $310 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance, according to American foreign policy think tank the Council on Foreign Relations. In April, Biden signed into law a $95 billion foreign funding bill that included military aid to Israel.

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We fear.

• Full-Scale Mideast War Only Way to Shaky Peace – Medvedev (Sp.)

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev suggested that a full-scale war in the Middle East is the only way to a shaky peace in the region. “The knot in the Middle East is tightening. I regret the loss of innocent lives. They are just hostages of a disgusting state – the United States. Meanwhile, it is clear to everyone that a full-scale war is the only way to a shaky peace in the region,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram. On Wednesday, Palestinian movement Hamas reported the death of its political leader Ismail Haniyeh as a result of an Israeli strike on his residence in Tehran, where he had arrived to participate in the inauguration of Iran’s new president.

The movement blamed Haniyeh’s death on Israel and the United States and said the attack would not be left without a response. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said he had nothing to comment on the death of the Hamas political chief and Israel’s involvement. Israeli army officials said they do not respond to media reports about Haniyeh’s murder. The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli authorities had instructed ministers not to speak out about Haniyeh’s death. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov called Haniyeh’s death an absolutely unacceptable political assassination that threatens further escalation in the region.

“There is no doubt that Ismail Haniyeh’s killing will have an extremely negative impact on the indirect contacts between Hamas and Israel, which offered a framework for achieving a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on mutually acceptable terms,” the Foreign Ministry Information and Press Department’s Deputy Director Andrey Nastasyin “Russia reiterates its insistent calls on all the parties involved to exercise restraint and avoid any steps that could dramatically worsen the security situation in the region, leading to a large-scale military confrontation,” he added.

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Why? It didn’t work?

• NATO Working On New Russia Strategy – Washington (RT)

NATO is developing a new strategy to deal with Russia, US Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien announced on Tuesday during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. O’Brien told the meeting that the US “wants Ukraine to win” and is providing all the materials necessary. He also claimed the “platform” of support for Kiev has strengthened, because the EU has already begun membership negotiations with Ukraine, which O’Brien said will encourage reform within the country. He recalled that the G7 members have agreed to give Kiev the earnings from Russia’s frozen sovereign assets, delivering an anticipated $50 billion this year to spend on defense. The third aspect, O’Brien claimed, is that NATO has said that it would welcome Ukraine into its ranks once Kiev takes the necessary steps towards membership.

Making sure Kiev can “win the war” is “the fastest way to peace” O’Brien suggested, adding that Ukraine has already been seen “making some progress on the battlefield.” “We have, at the same time, strengthened our platform, in particular NATO,” the US official said, adding that the Washington-led bloc is “going to be developing a new strategy toward Russia over the next months” that will aim to “hold our allies together” in future dealings with Moscow. O’Brien also noted that “all the NATO allies agreeing that [China] is the decisive enabler of Russia’s war” would be a “significant step towards improving the platform that we have.”

Russia has repeatedly criticized the West for its ongoing military support for Kiev, arguing that “flooding” Ukraine with weapons only serves to prolong the conflict and leads to more bloodshed without affecting the inevitable outcome of the conflict. Additionally, Moscow has on multiple occasions cited NATO’s continued expansion towards its borders and attempts to bring Ukraine into its ranks as one of the primary reasons for launching its military operation against Kiev in 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that Ukraine must become a neutral country and drop its plans to join the US-led military bloc in order for any potential peace negotiations to succeed.

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Maduro’s a boxer.

• Musk Accepts Venezuelan President’s Offer To Fight (RT)

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has responded to Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro’s challenge to a fight over fraud accusations from Musk, saying he was ready to accept it. The South American nation’s leader, who just won his third term in presidential elections, accused Musk on Monday of trying to disrupt peace and stability in the country, calling the businessman his “new archenemy.” Maduro was responding to Musk’s claims of “major election fraud” by challenging the billionaire to a fight, during an address he made on national television. On Wednesday, when entrepreneur Mario Nawfal asked in a post on X (formerly Twitter): “Who had a Maduro vs Elon Fight on their 2024 Bingo Card?” Musk replied simply writing “I accept.”

In a second reply, the X owner claimed that Maduro “will chicken out.” Nawfal further released a new post, stating that “Elon’s accepted Maduro’s challenge to fight… WHO WOULD WIN?” Musk responded once again, writing: “If I win, he resigns as dictator of Venezuela. If he wins, I give him a free ride to Mars.” The SpaceX chief executive has a history of provoking public figures into fighting. The tech billionaire has long claimed he could win in a fight against the founder of Facebook, fellow tycoon Mark Zuckerberg.

The spat between Musk and Venezuelan leader followed the businessman’s posts on the results of the South American country’s presidential elections. The National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela on Sunday declared Maduro the winner of the election, announcing that with 80% of ballots counted, he had secured more than 51% of the vote, compared to 44% for his main rival, Edmundo Gonzales. Maduro will be serving a third consecutive six-year term, having first taken office in 2013 following the death of President Hugo Chavez. In his victory speech, he mocked the opposition, which, he said, “cries fraud” at every election. The Venezuelan president said his reelection would bring peace and stability.

Roger Waters
https://twitter.com/i/status/1818287624626536640

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“Russian Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Andrey Nastasyin [..] urged foreign countries to stop using “baseless accusations” to attempt to influence the political situation in Venezuela.”

• Maduro Asks Supreme Tribunal to Probe Alleged Election Meddling (Sp.)

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro filed a constitutional protection claim on Wednesday with the country’s Supreme Justice Tribunal to investigate an alleged election interference he described as an attempted coup. The presidential election of July 28 saw Maduro win a third term in office. The announcement of the results sparked protests in the capital of Caracas and beyond, with clashes reported between the police and opposition supporters. The Venezuelan government has accused several countries of election meddling. “For the sake of peace in Venezuela, I … filed a claim for constitutional protection … to have the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Justice Tribunal investigate this attack on the electoral process, this attempt at a coup made using the electoral process,” Maduro told reporters.

The president added that he decided to appeal to the court after having faced “psychological warfare in social and mass media.” “Let them interrogate all registered presidential candidates and 38 parties, and find out in detail the nature of those attacks on polling stations, arson and damage to the branches of the electoral council, and cyber attacks,” Maduro said. “I am ready to be summoned and questioned as a presidential candidate and the winner of Sunday’s presidential vote. I throw myself before justice and will obey it.” Russian Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Andrey Nastasyin said on Wednesday that Maduro’s victory had been confirmed and urged foreign countries to stop using “baseless accusations” to attempt to influence the political situation in Venezuela.

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“The new law doesn’t lift the existing ban on crypto payments inside the country.”

• Russia Legalizes Bitcoin And Crypto For International Trade (BCM)

In a significant legislative move, Russian lawmakers have passed a bill permitting businesses to use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in international trade, according to a report by Reuters. This development is part of Russia’s strategy to circumvent Western sanctions imposed following the invasion of Ukraine. The new law, expected to take effect in September, aims to address delays in international payments, particularly with key trading partners like China, India, and the UAE. Central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina, a proponent of the law, announced that the first cryptocurrency transactions will occur before the year’s end. The central bank will establish an “experimental” infrastructure for these payments, with further details pending. “The risks of secondary sanctions have grown,” Nabiullina stated. “They make payments for imports difficult, and that concerns a wide range of goods.”

The legislation also includes regulations on cryptocurrency mining and the circulation of other digital assets but maintains the ban on cryptocurrency payments within Russia. The central bank highlighted that payment delays have caused an 8% drop in Russian imports in the second quarter of 2024. Despite efforts to shift to trading partners’ currencies and develop an alternative BRICS payment system, many transactions still rely on dollars and euros via the SWIFT system, risking secondary sanctions. Nabiullina emphasized that these sanctions have complicated import payments, extending supply chains and increasing costs. This decision by Russian lawmakers aims to mitigate the economic challenges posed by sanctions and ensure smoother international trade operations. Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the Duma lower house of parliament, reportedly told lawmakers, “We are taking a historic decision in the financial sphere” by passing this legislation.

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“..in the name of maintaining economic and military security for the US, we have made ourselves vulnerable..”

• US Policy Threatening Dollar – Senator (RT)

The White House has created the first real threat to the dollar and its status as the global reserve currency, US Republican Senator Mike Lee has said, in an interview with journalist and political commenter Tucker Carlson. In a two-hour interview published by the former Fox News anchor on his YouTube channel on Tuesday, Lee said that US policies of unilateral sanctions are delegitimizing the so-called rules-based international order that Washington claims to protect. According to the senator, the US authorities have succeeded in uniting Russia, China and Iran, which are significant global economic players, and have to deal with a powerful incentive to get rid of dollars, primarily in energy transactions.

“And, in the meantime, we have really presented the first major threat that you and I have seen in our lifetimes to the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency,” Lee said, stressing that “twenty years ago all oil transactions, no matter where you are in the world,” were conducted in dollars. “It’s starting to not be the case anymore,” he said, warning that this was “very chilling,” because strength of the greenback and its widespread use was what the entire US benefited from to a very significant extent.

The global trend toward countries using their respective national currencies in trade instead of the US dollar gained significant momentum after Russia, one of the world’s top oil producers and exporters, was cut off from the Western financial system and had its foreign reserves frozen in 2022. “So, in the name of protecting the rules based on international order, we’ve weakened it, in the name of maintaining economic and military security for the US, we have made ourselves vulnerable,” Lee concluded. The freezing of Russian sovereign assets in February 2022 was an unprecedented move. A number of experts in the West, including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have cautioned against attempting to confiscate these funds, highlighting that this could undermine the dollar, the euro, and the entire global financial system.

Sen. Mike Lee

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“..As other countries cease using the US dollar as their reserves, the large supply of dollars in the world–I recently read that the US national debt is now $35 trillion–is likely to be a supply that exceeds demand..”

• The Economic Situation of the West (Paul Craig Roberts)

Once upon a time America had a capitalist economy. Bank deposits were used for loans that expanded productive ability. America produced its own goods and grew its own food. America’s currency was backed by gold and inflation was nonexistent. New technology brought into play by new investment improved the productivity of labor, and living standards rose. Profits were plowed back into improved methods and expanded production. Governments subsidized social infrastructure and education. This lowered the cost of transportation and, thereby, the cost of production and prices, and it provided industry and manufacturing with an educated work force. As an instate resident, my annual tuition at Georgia Tech came to about $450. This highly successful way of running an economy was replaced by an entirely different economy, the one we have today. Who is responsible and how it came about is a story that can be told later but not in this column.

In the current economy bank loans are not made to finance new investment in new plant and equipment. They are made in order to finance the purchase of existing assets. Loans are made to purchase existing companies, load them up with debt, and sell off their assets. Loans are made to finance a buyback of a company’s own stock, thus raising the stock price and resulting in executive and board “performance” bonuses. Loans are made to finance real estate purchases and thereby drive up the values of real estate, thus raising the cost of housing. The new economy is financialized. It lives off of interest on debt and fees, the plunder of public assets via privatization, and exploitation of third world economies via dollar-based bank loans that can only be repaid by the indebted country selling its public assets to its American creditors, usually at rock bottom prices. The new American economy rests on the indebtedness, not the prosperity, of the American population and on the financial coercion of dollar-indebted foreign governments who pay their debts with their country’s assets.

The Federal Reserve destroyed family farms and monopolized food production in agri-business, monopolized the financial system in the hands of the five largest banks, and destroyed the value of the US dollar. This is not a portrait of a successful economy with a future.The Western World, especially the US, has offshored its industrial and manufacturing economy to Asia and Mexico. Offshoring has deprived the American workforce of the incomes associated with the production of the goods that Americans consume. When the goods and services come into the US to be marketed, they come in as imports, thus enlarging the US trade deficit. The reason this exploitative system has been able to continue is that Washington used World War II to make the US dollar the means of international payment, that is, the reserve currency of the central banks of the world. Dollar-denominated debt instruments became the reserves of the world’s central banks.

To be the reserve currency means that the country’s debt is the reserves of all other countries’ central banks. Therefore, an increase in US government debt was not a problem, because it meant an increase in reserves of the world’s central banks. This is why financing the US debt was never a problem. In the 21st century the US government itself has been busy at work destroying this privileged way of financing its ever-growing debt by weaponizing the use of the dollar as reserve currency. The sanctions imposed on Russia and other countries have created a general move away from the use of US Treasury debt as central bank reserves. Washington’s seizure of Russia’s central bank reserves held in dollars told the world that the same could happen to them. Consequently, the use of the US dollar in international payments has fallen from about 90% to a bit less than 50%. With the formation and expansion of BRICS it will fall further.

As other countries cease using the US dollar as their reserves, the large supply of dollars in the world–I recently read that the US national debt is now $35 trillion–is likely to be a supply that exceeds demand. The implication is a fall in the exchange value of the dollar, already confirmed by the rise in gold and silver prices. In the short run, Washington can prevail on the Japanese, UK, and EU central banks to support the dollar by using their currencies to buy dollars. But this rescue operation of the dollar cannot be forever extended. When the time comes that Western central banks are no longer willing to risk the values of their own currencies in support to the US dollar and the gold and silver prices cannot longer be suppressed by the practice of selling naked shorts, America will become a third world country.

This is not a subject that interests many economists. The American economic profession is, in my opinion, a collection of people who, in exchange for grants and consultantships, have embraced the lie that offshoring of “dirty fingernail jobs” will result in higher paid new economy jobs for the work force. After all these years there is still no sign of these promised higher-paying replacement jobs. The same economists have told us that globalism, which makes us dependent on imports, is the wave of the future. The future of an import-dependent economy with a weakening currency is permanent inflation. With robotics and artificial intelligence replacing the human work force while millions of immigrant-invaders enter the country annually, the future is also one of permanent unemployment. The US economy is run by short-run profit maximization. The absence of vision means a bleak future even in the absence of the Great Reset.

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Be kind

 

 

3 friends
https://twitter.com/i/status/1817936163526893863

 

 

Stella

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 20 2024

May 202024
 
 May 20, 2024  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  28 Responses »


Wassily Kandinsky Moscow II 1916

 

• Iranian President Confirmed Dead In Helicopter Crash (RT)
• The Trump Trial Could Be Over Sooner Than You Think – Unless He Testifies (Taft)
• House GOP Want to Replace Speaker Despite Trump’s Support (Sp.)
• Putin and Xi Are World Statesmen, Western Elites Threat To Global Peace (SCF)
• Putin and Xi in Beijing: Steps into the 21st Century (Patrick Lawrence)
• Russian Economic Growth Hits 5.4% (RT)
• Closer to Nuclear War (Jacob G. Hornberger)
• Old Genocide Joe Has Got To Go! (Philip Giraldi)
• Profit-Generating and Woke Brainwashing: What Happened to US Military? (Sp.)
• UN: Gaza Facing ‘Apocalyptic’ Famine (Sp.)
• Professor Denounces Romance as a Creation of White Supremacy (Turley)

 

 

Much is said about the Putin-Xi hug. Both sitting here without a tie seems just as important.

 

 

I accept
https://twitter.com/i/status/1791971045114511463

 

 

6’9’”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1791728529782034886

 

 

Loomer

 

 

Mike Rowe

 

 

Khodorkovsky

 

 

 

 

The president is not the Supreme Leader, but still.. Between Damascus and this, they lost many leaders…

• Iranian President Confirmed Dead In Helicopter Crash (RT)

Iranian state media have confirmed that President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday in the northwestern province of East Azerbaijan. His entire entourage, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Governor of East Azerbaijan Malek Rahmati, also perished. The head of state had traveled to the border region after joining Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on Saturday to inaugurate a dam. Raisi had pledged to visit each of Iran’s 30 provinces at least once a year, and regularly traveled around the country. Reports of a “crash landing” began circulating on Sunday afternoon, with Iranian state media citing Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi. IRNA news agency reported dense fog in the mountainous area where the aircraft went down.

Raisi was traveling in a US-made Bell 212. Low visibility and the impassibility of the area made search operations difficult, IRNA wrote. Rescue teams finally managed to locate the crash site on Monday morning with the help of Turkish surveillance drones. The wreckage was discovered in a wooded area on a mountain slope. The aircraft was severely damaged and charred, and there were no signs of survivors, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said. With Raisi’s passing, First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber is expected to take office as interim leader. A representative of the republic’s conservative wing, Raisi, was elected in 2021. Before assuming the presidency, he had worked his way up from Prosecutor and Deputy Prosecutor in Tehran in the 1980s and 1990s all the way to attorney general, and later chief justice.

Raisi

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“The Democrats’ latest Get Trump campaign [..] is circling a crusty drain into a gutter of ignominy..”

• The Trump Trial Could Be Over Sooner Than You Think – Unless He Testifies (Taft)

The Democrats’ latest Get Trump campaign to smear the former president and keep him off the campaign trail is circling a crusty drain into a gutter of ignominy. When the prosecution rests in this Manhattan bookkeeping trial, which may be late Monday or Tuesday, this Russia! Russia! Russia! redux could be mere hours—or days— away from jurors. The timing depends on at least three considerations: • Will the defense mount a defense? • If so, will the defense be able to get two key witnesses to testify? • Would Donald Trump testify? Whether it’s hours or days will depend upon how much rehabilitation the prosecution will need to do in its re-direct questioning of Michael Cohen. Cohen, who was annihilated by Trump attorney Todd Blanche on Thursday, will return to the stand on Monday for more questioning. Court was dark on Friday so that Trump could attend his son Barron’s high school graduation. The former president also shoe-horned in a fundraiser in Minnesota on Friday night. What, no family rager at Mar-a-Lago for Barron?

Regardless, don’t expect miracles in the final few days of the Trump trial. There’s only so much that judges are willing to do to stay in the good graces of a daughter fundraising off daddy’s job or to keep those squash game invitations coming. Granting a directed verdict isn’t likely on the “to-do” list. When star witness Cohen, a “serial perjurer,” is done punching the time clock for the prosecution, the defense will ask for a directed verdict of not guilty or make another motion for a mistrial for putting on a witness prosecutors knew would lie on the stand. Trump’s team members have spent hours cogitating over whether they should mount a defense. On one side there are those lawyers who say Trump needs to do his best to direct a JDAM into the heart of the prosecution for the benefit of the court of public opinion. The other side says Team Trump should do a mic drop, declare that the prosecution didn’t prove its still-unstated case, and ask for an acquittal.

As usual in criminal legal cases, fates favor the prosecution. Their case resembles a teetering Jenga game. The case’s uncharged crime resurrects zombie misdemeanor charges, the statute of limitations of which has run out, and transmogrifies them into 34 felonies based upon an action—paying an adult movie contortionist extortionist $130,000 to take her and her stories of having sex with Trump in 2006 and go away. The payments were paid by Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Regardless of the suspicious nature and derivation of the case, a New York jury could will likely find him guilty. The uncharged portion of the case is campaign finance violations. So far the people who have testified to the existence of campaign violations are Cohen and the adult mattress actress Stormy Daniels.

The judge has already shrink-wrapped the kind of testimony the actual campaign finance expert, former Federal Elections Commission chairman Brad Smith, can attest to when or if he testifies. Cohen has been the only person called to assess Trump’s state of mind on whether he believed payments to Cohen were written to skirt election law or simply as a retainer for legal services. The person who arranged the payments is sitting at Rikers Island prison. Former CFO Allen Weisselberg was jailed for perjury in Trump’s other New York case about the value of his real estate holdings. He was at a meeting with Cohen and Trump on the 34 payments to Cohen. Weisselberg hasn’t been called to testify because it won’t help DA Alvin Bragg’s case. In what former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy called “one of the sleaziest moves I’ve seen in a long time,” instead of calling Weisselberg to testify, Bragg introduced the former CFO’s separation agreement with the Trump organization into evidence to signal to the jury that the agreement wouldn’t let him testify, which is untrue.

“Bragg, who won’t prosecute anyone, prosecutes [Weisselberg] twice in two years…” McCarthy said incredulously. So it’s Cohen or nothing. Unless… Another possible witness is Cohen’s former attorney, Robert Costello, whose devastating evidence to the feds and the FEC about his former client’s lying is what convinced them to decline to bring campaign violations against Trump. Costello’s testimony before the Congressional Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government was the first look many had at Costello’s story and why he could provide evidence that Cohen lied throughout the trial. At the behest of the feds, Cohen waived his attorney-client privilege, freeing Costello to tell his story. Go back and read that last sentence.

Alina
https://x.com/i/status/1791933868263518594

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MTG: “Everyone that’s gonna be voting for President Trump hates Mike Johnson..”

• House GOP Want to Replace Speaker Despite Trump’s Support (Sp.)

The US Congress’ Republican Party members intend to replace incumbent House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson after the November elections to the lower chamber, despite the fact he has support from former President Donald Trump, the Axios news outlet reported on Saturday, citing sources. “Everyone that’s gonna be voting for President Trump hates Mike Johnson,” Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was quoted as saying. Furthermore, Congressman Jim Jordan has been preparing the groundwork to promote his candidacy to replace the incumbent House speaker, the news outlet wrote, citing multiple sources.

At the same time, Trump and Johnson have talked over budget priorities, energy and tax policy among other things, the news outlet wrote, citing sources. The two have deepened their relationship since 2019 when Johnson defended Trump while on his impeachment defense team, the news outlet wrote. Overall, the former president sees the House speaker as a “good enough ally,” a top Trump ally told the news outlet, and Johnson “respects him [Trump] as the party leader,” the outlet added, citing a senior GOP source. “Loyalty is always going to be chief among the things that [Trump] cares about, and Johnson has never wavered on that,” a former White House official was quoted as saying.

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“There is no partnership or mutualism in such an “order” because the entire system is predicated on privilege and exploitation, underpinned by fascist notions of superiority and exceptionalism.”

• Putin and Xi Are World Statesmen, Western Elites Threat To Global Peace (SCF)

This week, for those willing to perceive reality objectively, displayed two kinds of world order. The heartening news is that one will prevail over the other and thereby produce a better world for humanity, one of dignity and development for the common good. It was a momentous occasion this week when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited China where he was warmly greeted by Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Both leaders affirmed their friendship and their vision of a multipolar world based on partnership and mutual benefit. Putin and Xi signed numerous agreements on a wide range of trade and development projects covering energy, technology, engineering, construction, agriculture, infrastructure and military defense. The visit was Putin’s second to China since October last year. It was his first foreign trip since he was inaugurated earlier this month as president for a fifth term.

Both leaders have established a tradition of visiting each other’s countries as a first international stop upon their respective inaugurations. On beginning his third time as China’s president in 2023, Xi made Russia his first international destination. Over the past two decades, both men have met as leaders on at least 40 occasions. The personal warmth attests to genuine friendship and also a closely shared political vision of the world. Putin and Xi have ardently advocated for a multipolar world based on respect, equality and cooperation. During his reception in Beijing this week on a two-day visit, Putin and Xi hailed their nations’ growing alliance as a fundamental factor in maintaining world stability and peace. Putin stated: “We work in solidarity on forming a more just and democratic multipolar world order which should rely on the central role of the United Nations and its Security Council, international law and the cultural and civilizational diversity, a verified balance of interests of all participants of the world community.”

For his part, Xi remarked that Russia-China ties have “set a model of mutual respect, frankness, harmony and mutual benefit,” and he emphasized their commitment to “fairness and justice”. Both men underscored that their alliance and vision did not seek to threaten anyone. They appealed for diplomacy and reasonable dialogue in settling international conflicts, including in Ukraine and the Middle East. President Xi did not mention specific nations but it was patent that he was referring to the United States when he denounced “Cold War mentality…unilateralism, hegemonism, bloc confrontation and power politics” as threats to peace and international security. By contrast, from two world statesmen representing progressive humanism, we may turn to the other kind of world on display this week, the one that Xi alluded to with his denunciation of Cold War mentality.

The second vision is anachronistic, abject, and failing. It is the world order that dominated since the Second World War based on Western hegemony, or more euphemistically, called the “rules-based order”. The lead hegemon is the United States whose Western allies are vassals to service its order of privilege and exploitation of others in a neocolonial paradigm. Today, this Western-dictated order is a hyper-militarized disorder where illegal wars and clandestine conflicts are fomented to shore up hegemonic suzerainty and parasitism. As in antiquated times, the majority are treated like slaves who must pay tribute to their overlords or be put to the sword. Today, the tribute system is manifested by trade exploitation, unfair terms of exchange, and financial predation from the abuse of fiat currency, the U.S. dollar. There is no partnership or mutualism in such an “order” because the entire system is predicated on privilege and exploitation, underpinned by fascist notions of superiority and exceptionalism.

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“..consider the May 16 joint statement from a few steps back. Apart from what is in it, what is conspicuously absent? There is no mention of the West, is there? The tone is strikingly self-confident and entirely self-referential..”

• Putin and Xi in Beijing: Steps into the 21st Century (Patrick Lawrence)

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping added another to their count of 40–odd summit meetings when the Russian and Chinese presidents convened in Beijing, later proceeding to Harbin in Northeast China, for two days of talks that ended Friday. At 9:55 Thursday evening Beijing time, a day’s work done, the two sat behind a long table draped in green to address “members of the media,” as Xi put it. Western officials and the media that clerk for them have done their best, per usual, to dismiss this latest encounter of the Russian and Chinese leaders as of no account, just two authoritarians bound together by nothing more than their shared enmity toward the West. Pay no attention. We ought not miss the significance of what Putin and Xi had to say this week to one another and to the rest of humanity. The world just turned once again.

The Kremlin was first to publish a transcript of their “Media Statement Following Russia–China Talks.” The two presidents spoke in turn—Xi, the host, going first and Putin to follow. Here is a snippet drawn from Xi’s remarks: “We signed joint statements on enhancing the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation for a new era…. China and Russia have served as a role model by showing others ways of building state-to-state ties of a new kind and working together as two major neighboring powers … based on the principles of respect and equality.” Xi spoke in this vein for several minutes. Here is a little of what Putin then contributed: “Our talks have reaffirmed that Russia and China have similar or identical views on many international and regional issues. Both countries have an independent and sovereign foreign policy. We are working together to create a fairer and more democratic multipolar world order based on the central role of the U.N. and its Security Council, international law, cultural and civilizational diversity, as well as a calibrated balance of interests of all members of the international community.”

There are two things to note about these remarks straight off the top. One, Western media have reported for months that there is a rift between Beijing and Moscow just below the surface. The Chinese do not approve of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, we have read. The bilateral relationship is radically unbalanced in Russia’s favor and of little use to China. Etc. This is nonsense, we can now see. In their brief presentation to the media and in other statements since, Xi and Putin have made it plain that there is virtually no air between the non–West’s two leading powers. As to the Ukraine question, to be noted right away, China has been studiously neutral while cognisant of the West’s provocations. Russia has never asked for more than this.

If Xi and Putin have made it a point to display their two nations’ closeness over the years—and their own as friends as well as statesmen, indeed—the two days they spent together this week mark an important public reaffirmation of their shared commitment to that “fairer and more democratic multipolar world” Putin mentioned Thursday. We have told you we have begun to build a new world order, they may as well have said. We’re on for this project. Together with others we will get this done. Two, and related to the above, consider the May 16 joint statement from a few steps back. Apart from what is in it, what is conspicuously absent? There is no mention of the West, is there? The tone is strikingly self-confident and entirely self-referential. In my read, the two leaders could not have more clearly if subtly demonstrated that the new world order of which they speak is to be an initiative the non–West will advance whether or not the Atlantic world approves or wishes to participate in its construction.

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“..exceeding the expected growth rates for the US (2.7%), the UK (0.5%), Germany (0.2%) and France (0.7%..”

• Russian Economic Growth Hits 5.4% (RT)

Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 5.4% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024, the state statistics agency Rosstat said in a preliminary report published on Friday. According to the estimates, Russia saw robust growth in retail turnover (up 10.5%), manufacturing (up 8.8%) and construction (3.5%) in January-March. The Rosstat data aligns with an earlier estimate from the Economics Ministry, but exceeds that of the Bank of Russia (4.6% growth) and analysts’ expectations (5.3%). The agency is due to publish more detailed data on GDP in mid-June. According to an earlier forecast from the Bank of Russia, GDP growth is expected to slow in the second quarter due to tightening fiscal conditions. The regulator, however, expects consumer and investment demand to remain high and continue to drive economic growth.

The positive data comes despite multiple rounds of Western sanctions introduced since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The measures have ranged from blacklisting most Russian banks and cutting them from the SWIFT interbank messaging system, to freezing some $300 billion in Russian foreign exchange reserves. As a result, GDP suffered a downturn in 2022, contracting 1.2%. However, data for 2023 showed that the economy has recovered, posting growth of 3.6%. Many analysts have attributed this performance to Russia’s trade pivot to the East, and economic policies implemented to offset the effect of restrictions.

In April, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it expects the Russian economy to grow faster than all advanced economies in 2024. GDP is forecast to expand by 3.2%, exceeding the expected growth rates for the US (2.7%), the UK (0.5%), Germany (0.2%) and France (0.7%). Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov earlier said he expects GDP growth in 2024 to equal that of last year, while the Bank of Russia has been more cautious in its predictions, expecting growth of 2.5-3.5%.

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“If the day ever comes when mushroom clouds are suddenly and unexpectedly enveloping cities in Russia and the United States, those who are still alive can mull over whether Ukraine’s membership in NATO was worth it..”

• Closer to Nuclear War (Jacob G. Hornberger)

I can’t help but wonder what proponents of America’s participation in the old Cold War dinosaur known as NATO are thinking about NATO officials who are contemplating sending NATO military personnel into Ukraine to train Ukrainian troops in their war against Russia. Those who relish the idea of nuclear war between the United States and Russia undoubtedly must be ecstatic over the possibility of such a move. It has been clear for some time that Ukraine is losing its war with Russia. Ukraine has lost countless young soldiers and their front-line troops are now largely composed of middle-aged men. Its production has plummeted. Its supply of weapons is low, which is why it continues to desperately seek replacement weapons from the United States. Ukrainian forces continue to retreat. And there is the increasing possibility that Russian forces will achieve a breakthrough in Ukrainian defense lines.

Obviously feeling desperate over the battlefield situation, European officials within NATO are contemplating sending military personnel into Ukraine to help train Ukrainian soldiers. But wouldn’t that put NATO and Russia into direct military conflict? After all, what happens if a Russian missile kills a bunch of NATO soldiers inside Ukraine? According to the New York Times, “So far the United States has said no, but Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Thursday that a NATO deployment of trainers appeared inevitable. ‘We’ll get there eventually, over time,’ he said.” Brown’s objection, for now, seems to be based more on military practicality rather than the possibility than the increased likelihood of nuclear war. “For now, he said, an effort inside Ukraine would put ‘a bunch of NATO trainers at risk’ and would most likely mean deciding whether to use precious air defenses to protect the trainers instead of critical Ukrainian infrastructure near the battlefield.”

The Times adds the important kicker in all this: “As a part of NATO, the United States would be obligated under the alliance’s treaty to aid in the defense of any attack on the trainers, potentially dragging America into the war.” It’s important that we keep in mind why the United States continues to move ever closer to the possibility of all-out nuclear war with Russia. The reason is so that Ukraine can be a member of NATO, something that Russia has long opposed. If the day ever comes when mushroom clouds are suddenly and unexpectedly enveloping cities in Russia and the United States, those who are still alive can mull over whether Ukraine’s membership in NATO was worth it. Indeed, they can also contemplate whether U.S. membership in that old Cold War dinosaur was worth it too.

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“..a group of top federal judges have signed a letter stating that they will strike back against the demonstrating students by refusing to hire any graduates of Columbia University Law School as law clerks.”

• Old Genocide Joe Has Got To Go! (Philip Giraldi)

It is extremely difficult to discern what might be the thinking behind the clueless President Joe Biden and his Blinken-Austin-Mayorkas foreign-policy-plus national security team. Or rather, the problem is that there does not appear to be any thinking about it at all if one measures it by what benefits it brings to the American people. It all actually seems to derive from a desire to construct a narrative that will win the presidential election coming up in November, which will fortunately be run against a deeply flawed GOP candidate named Donald J. Trump. But look at what is on the Biden record: the country’s southern border with Mexico is a porous as a Swiss cheese, allowing literally millions of illegal immigrants into the USA since Biden took office; Washington is both de facto and de jure simultaneously fighting and losing two unnecessary wars involving nuclear powers which has cost a nearly bankrupt Treasury well into the hundreds of billions of dollars; and the White House is needlessly sanctioning non-hostile competitors like China while also making illegal popular social media sites like TikTok which have committed the sin of reporting and disseminating accurate narratives about good old “best friend and closest ally” Israel. Predictably, neither of the assertions about the value of the Jewish state is true, nor is it a democracy, but who cares when you’re having fun shooting people and spending someone else’s money?

Oh, and just try to exercise your first amendment free speech rights by demonstrating against Israel’s slaughter of upwards of 40,000 Palestinian civilians using US provided weapons and you will be hit on the head by a cop, possibly arrested, and even expelled from college! If you want to see where this is all going, check out reports of the recent FBI detention and interrogation of distinguished Israeli historian Ilan Pappe seeking to enter the US through the Detroit International Airport. Pappe is a critic of the Netanyahu government and of US policy so he was held, questioned in detailed about his contacts, and had his phone copied before being allowed to proceed. Meanwhile, a group of top federal judges have signed a letter stating that they will strike back against the demonstrating students by refusing to hire any graduates of Columbia University Law School as law clerks.

And there even is a bill currently before Congress that would empower the government to label the foreign protesters “antisemites and terrorism supporters” and deport them, with some going to Gaza with the expectation that they would be killed, possibly by the mighty Israel Defense Forces (IDF)! It would be a startling new development to punish those whose crime consists mostly of trespass even given the rather loose ethical boundaries established by the war on terror and the Antisemitism Awareness Act! Or indeed one might follow the Senatorial route led by a chirping Lindsey Graham who recommends dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza to kill everyone who has survived the Israeli onslaught. The area then might be developed after the radiation dies down for those splendid seaside villas for Jews only suggested by the esteemed Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Biden black vote
https://twitter.com/i/status/1792358959979901427

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No such thing as a woke army.

“Just goofy sh*t all across, up and down the chain of command.”

• Profit-Generating and Woke Brainwashing: What Happened to US Military? (Sp.)

The third saturday of May is celebrated in the United States as Armed Forces Day, an observance honoring all members of the country’s military. But many experts are not joining the celebrations, raising concerns about the state of the US troops. This year’s Armed Forces Day in the United States takes place as Washington’s war machine appears to be but a shadow of its former self, its reputation tarnished by the de facto humiliating defeat in Afghanistan in 2021 and the inability to stop Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes. The decline of the once-powerful US Armed Forces could be traced to the 1990s, the time right after the end of the Cold War, argued former US State Department counterterrorism analyst Scott Bennett. What started with reforms to those who could serve eventually “cascaded into an avalanche of social justice, acquainted theorems and attitudes towards the military,” he said. “Suddenly you saw a weakening of the military and that was the beginning of the end of the US military,” Bennett said.

Following that, the 9/11 terrorist attacks triggered a wave of US military interventionism across the world, ostensibly aimed at fighting terrorism but in reality serving as an “enrichment exercise for the military-industrial complex.” “So you’ve seen the military transform from a nationally-owned organization to an organization that was really being used to feed corporate entities like Raytheon, McDonnell Douglas, Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, a myriad of defense contractors, missile manufacturers, arms dealers, and that was another death blow to the military because suddenly it became a profit-generating organization,” Bennett remarked. According to him, the US military during the Obama administration suddenly lost interest in winning wars and resolving conflicts – instead, it became interested in perpetuating conflicts and “in using the military as a social re-engineering organization”.

“They [US authorities] completely corroded and decayed the military from within, causing a lot of the best soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors to depart, to not re-enlist,” he continued. “And as a result of all of the social pathologies and perversions that have been used and put into the military (…) You’re witnessing the United States military completely coming apart at the seams from a moral point of view, from a esprit de corps point of view.” He also noted that most Americans are reluctant to enlist because they do not want to join “a military that is at odds with their moral, traditional religious values.” “For the first time in the history of the United States, the American people, I believe, are looking at the military with a sense of disgust and a sense of fear and loathing because it has been used to ignite wars around the world and destroy the American reputation in Syria and Afghanistan, in Iraq and Libya and in Ukraine,” Bennett added.

“And now Europeans are also waking up and seeing the US military is one of the biggest threats to world peace.” Comparing the US military to the Russian military today, Bennett argued that the latter is clearly superior. “The Russian military is superior in technology and its manpower. Its technology is superior because the Russian people and the Russian government use their military development of weapons solely for the purpose of defending the country and the people, not to enrich companies that manufacture these weapons,” he elaborated. “Russia’s military manufacturing of weapons is solely and completely dedicated to the preservation of the nation, and to do it at a cost-effective rate.” Bennett also pointed out that the Russian military does not allow “homosexuality and transgenderism and all of these perversions that the West has allowed.”

Meanwhile, US Navy veteran Mike James – who served in Iraq in 2008 – observed that the United States’ military is surprisingly amateurish. “We’re surprisingly caught up in such an enormous sense of false superiority and security that there’s just really bad decisions made all up and down the chain of command, even at the highest levels. Yeah, just generally quite unprofessional and immature and goofy,” he told Sputnik. “Just goofy sh*t all across, up and down the chain of command.”

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Note: we have seen it coming. That carries guilt.

• UN: Gaza Facing ‘Apocalyptic’ Famine (Sp.)

The UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, told the AFP that “apocalyptic” famine is coming to Gaza “If fuel runs out, aid doesn’t get to the people where they need it. That famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming anymore. It will be present,” Griffiths said. “And I think our worry, as citizens of the international community, is that the consequence is going to be really, really hard. Hard, difficult and apocalyptic.” Griffiths claimed that 50 aid trucks can reach the people of North Gaza through the recently reopened Erez crossing, but that fighting in the south and central parts of Gaza, combined with other border closings, means very little aid can reach the Palestinians in the southern city of Rafah where Israel has been bombarding with tanks and warplanes and seized the border crossing with Egypt earlier this month.

“So aid getting through land routes to the south and for Rafah and the people dislodged by Rafah, is almost nil. And we all said that very clearly, that a Rafah operation is a disaster in humanitarian terms, a disaster for the people already displaced to Rafah. This is now their fourth or fifth displacement,” Griffiths said.= The floating pier off the Gazan coast constructed by the US opened days ago and some aid can travel through there, but Griffiths said that it cannot make up for land routes. Israel has repeatedly claimed to be doing all it can to facilitate humanitarian aid to Gaza but aid organizations have repeatedly said they have been hampered by Israeli authorities. For months, Israeli settlers have blocked aid going into Gaza, oftentimes as Israeli police and military forces stand by. Those incidents reached a fevered pitch last week with several violent incidents.

On Friday, Israelis reportedly attacked a commercial truck drive in Kochav Hashahar, an Israeli West Bank settlement that is considered illegal under international law. The Israelis attacked the driver, injuring him, according to the reports. Three IDF officers who arrived to treat the driver were also attacked and reportedly suffered minor injuries. Last week, a truck was set on fire after Israeli settlers stopped an aid convoy and destroyed the loads of several trucks. Videos on social media depicted Israelis ripping up bags of flour and dancing on the now-empty truck beds. Meanwhile, on Friday, the US State Department released a report on whether Israel was breaking humanitarian law by blocking aid or using US weapons in a way that is against humanitarian law. While the report noted “deep concerns” about Israel’s “actions and inactions” preventing humanitarian aid, it said that there was insufficient evidence to justify cutting off aid to Israel.

As of April, more than 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza, including seven World Central Kitchen workers who were killed in what appeared to be a coordinated attack by Israel, hitting three identified aid vehicles while the organization was coordinating with Israel, providing their locations to the government, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). “This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped the bomb in the wrong place,” the organization’s founder, Chef José Andrés said after the attack. “Even if we were not in coordination with the [IDF], no democratic country and no military can be targeting civilians and humanitarians.”

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“..Strings “challeng[es]readers to accept the end of love as they know it and to embrace more queer and feminist ideas of love, equity and partnership.”

• Professor Denounces Romance as a Creation of White Supremacy (Turley)

In higher education, there is a virtual cottage industry of academics declaring everything from math to meritocracy to be forms of white supremacy and racism. Now, it appears romance will be added to the list. University of California Santa Barbara Black Studies Professor Sabrina Strings has written how romance promotes white supremacy and “global pigmentocracy.” In The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance, Strings recounts having “endured” her own bad relationships and maintains that “Romance is an old white cultural institution that began in the Middle Ages.” In an interview with The Current, Strings explains that “I am only one of the millions of Gen X-to-Gen Z women who have endured a seemingly endless array of miserable relationships with men. ”In viewing romance through her own lens, Strings comes up with distinctly different views of literature and famous relationships.

For example, many people have read the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, a story of forbidden love that introduced disharmony and disaster to King Arthur’s Round Table. It is a story of love and eventual betrayal. It is both irresistible and irrational. Many accounts show Lancelot rescuing Guinevere and, torn by their mutual loyalty to King Arthur, the couple finally succumbs to the inexorable pull of love to each other. It is a tragedy of love and loyalty that leaves everyone in ruin. Arthur would die of wounds in the later battles, Guinevere would die in a convent, and Lancelot would, according to some accounts, die as a hermit. It is a powerful tale of how love can overwhelm all other considerations and shatter every other bond. That is not exactly how Professor Strings sees it. She says that the tale is really about how a man of lower status is trying to secure greater power and prestige by seducing a higher class European Christian woman: “Love is very much about generosity but romance is very much about what you can get from somebody, especially if you’re a man who is social climbing.”

Professor Strings zeros in on the beauty and whiteness of Guinevere. She notes that the queen was viewed as irresistibly attractive and pale in complexion: “We can easily recognize these features today as those representing the apex of whiteness, even though race did not exist at the time of Troyes’s writing. Nevertheless, to the extent that some of these representations occurred before the seventeenth century dawn of race science, they have what historians have called a ‘proto-racist’ bent. Indeed, scholars have shown that the preference for light skin, hair, and eyes existed prior to the advent of racism, and that these characteristics were co-opted by it and enlisted for the purpose of installing a global pigmentocracy.” The “whitenesss” could also simply reflect the racial makeup of the historical characters as opposed to any “global pigmentocracy.” Yet, according to Professor Strings, romance is about “women who are not peak white or are ‘insufficiently white’ are subject deservedly to deceit, manipulation, assault and rape.”

Professor Strings previously wrote a 2019 book about how “fatphobia” is rooted in racism. In today’s academic environment, there often seems a rush to racialize common practices, customs, or terminology. Publications clamor for such articles and discovering another hidden racist element in society can bring academic accolades. However, others have already staked out many areas such as mathematics, astrophysics, statistics, meritocracy, climate change, dieting, tipping, skiing, chess, and organized pantries. Most recently, the American Psychological Association declared that merit-based hiring may be racist. Even robots are now declared to be part of the supremacist menace because they are often made of white plastic.

Indeed, it now appears that both romance and marriage are vehicles for white supremacy. We previously discussed the writings of George Mason Professor Bethany Letiecq on how marriage advances “White, heteropatriarchal supremacy in America.”Nevertheless, the Strings book has met with acclaim and praise from many. Ms. Magazine praised the book as espousing the foundations of romance in “the white supremacist cishetallopatriarchy. Personal, historical, rigorous and readable, this is a fresh and essential feminist analysis on sexism, whiteness and toxic masculinity.” Other reviews note that Strings “challeng[es]readers to accept the end of love as they know it and to embrace more queer and feminist ideas of love, equity and partnership.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Cybertruck
https://twitter.com/i/status/1791676003015672305

 

 

Cheetah

 

 

Blood vessels

 

 

Dozen

 

 

Tiger fish

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 25 2024

Apr 252024
 
 April 25, 2024  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


Amedeo Modigliani Nu allongé 1917

 

• US Sided With Evil And Fascism – Russian Envoy (RT)
• Alvin Bragg Has His Trump Trial, All He Needs Now Is A Crime (Turley)
• Romney and the Wrong Question (Turley)
• Musk Concurs That Civil War Looming In West (TASS)
• Musk Warns Australia Against ‘Controlling Entire Internet’ (Sp.)
• Mitch McConnell Blames Tucker Carlson For Delaying Ukraine Cash (RT)
• Future Of The World Will Be Decided In Ukraine – Lukashenko (RT)
• All Ukrainian Presidents Are Thieves – Lukashenko (RT)
• Poland Ready To Help Ukraine Hunt Down Military-Aged Men (RT)
• Ukraine Conflict ‘A Bonanza’ For US Military – NYT (RT)
• G7 Could Take 10 Years to Catch Up With Russian Nuclear Fuel Output (Sp.)
• European Bureaucrats Serve America’s Economic Interests (Dionísio)
• Iran’s Nuclear Plans Are Clear. Just Read Its Own Islamic Law (Juma)
• Why Iran Decided Not To Attack Israel Again (Gurevich)
• Netanyahu Should Resign – Nancy Pelosi (RT)
• Unconventional Russian Warfare Threatening British Grannies – Wallace (RT)

 

 

 

 

Trump immunity
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782847341952729139

 

 

Watters trial

 

 

Alina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782784975521120376

 

 

Tucker Weak men

 

 

 

 

Julie Kelly


https://twitter.com/i/status/1783175943831367849

 

 

Arizona

 

 

mask
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783164740459762075

 

 

 

 

“..the US government has effectively been funneling billions of dollars into its own defense industry through the aid scheme..”

• US Sided With Evil And Fascism – Russian Envoy (RT)

The US government has made its choice in favor of war, siding with evil and supporting fascism, the Russian ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov has said, in comments on the latest massive American military aid package for Ukraine. On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden signed a long-stalled $95-billion foreign-aid package, including $61 billion for Ukraine. Biden said the US would start sending weapons and military equipment to Ukraine “in the next few hours.” Washington is balancing on the brink of a direct clash between nuclear powers, Ambassador Antonov told reporters following the news. The development strikes a severe blow to prospects for a hypothetical revival of Russian-American relations in the future, Antonov believes.

“For the sake of its greedy and insatiable defense industry, the [Biden] administration sacrifices the lives of ordinary people. With their decision, local politicians actually put an end to the fate of the entire state [of Ukraine], which is used as a ‘battering ram’ against Russia,” he stated. The high-ranking Russian diplomat accused the US administration of violating the UN Charter’s obligation to maintain ‘primary responsibility for international peace and security.’

“American aid will not save [Ukrainian President] Zelensky” he stressed, adding that any new weapons being sent by Washington to Kiev would be destroyed, and that the tasks and goals of Moscow’s military operation will be realized. The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that Washington’s lethal aid will not change the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine’s favor. According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, the US government has effectively been funneling billions of dollars into its own defense industry through the aid scheme.

Cheers

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“We’ve never seen a case like this one where a dead misdemeanor from 2016 could be revived as a felony just before the 2024 election..”

“Cohen will soon go on the stand and tell the jury it should send his former client to jail for following his legal advice.”

• Alvin Bragg Has His Trump Trial, All He Needs Now Is A Crime (Turley)

For many of us in the legal community, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump borders on the legally obscene: an openly political prosecution based on a theory even legal pundits dismiss. Yet Monday the prosecution seemed to actually make a case for obscenity. It wasn’t the gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst with a former Playboy Bunny or expected details on the relationship with an ex-porn star. It was the criminal theory itself that seemed crafted around the obscenity stan- dard Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described in 1984’s Jacobellis v. Ohio: “I shall not today attempt further to define [it]. . . . But I know it when I see it. The prosecution must show Trump falsified business records in “furtherance of another crime.” After months of confusion on just what crime underpinned the indictment, the prosecution offered a new theory so ambiguous and undefined, it would have made Justice Stewart blush.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that in listing Stormy Daniels payments as a “legal expense,” Trump violated this New York law: “Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” So Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy, by paying to quash a potentially embarrassing story and then reimbursing his lawyer Michael Cohen with other legal expenses. Confused? You are not alone. It’s not a crime to pay for the nondisclosure of an alleged affair. It’s also not a federal election offense (the other underlying crime Bragg alleges) to pay such money as a personal or legal expense. Federal law doesn’t treat it as a political contribution to yourself. Yet somehow the characterization of this payment as a legal expense is an illegal conspiracy to promote one’s own candidacy in New York.

In New York, prosecutors are expected to have extreme legal myopia: They can see no farther than Trump to the exclusion of any implication for the legal system or legal ethics. Of course, neither Bragg nor his office has ever seen this type of criminal case in any other defendant. Ever. We’ve never seen a case like this one where a dead misdemeanor from 2016 could be revived as a felony just before the 2024 election, The statute of limitations for this case’s misdemeanors, including falsifying payments, has expired. But Bragg (with the help of counsel and former top Biden Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo) zapped it back into life by alleging a federal election crime the Justice Department itself rejected as a basis for any criminal charge. It’s not clear Trump even knew how this money was characterized in records. He paid it to his lawyer, who had put together the settlement over the nondisclosure agreement.

Cohen will soon go on the stand and tell the jury it should send his former client to jail for following his legal advice. Besides running for president, Trump was married and had hosted a hit television show. There were ample reasons to secure an NDA to bury the story. Even if it was done with the election in mind, it is not unusual or illegal. There is generally no need to list such payments as a campaign contribution because the federal government doesn’t see them as a campaign contribution. It’s not even clear how this matter was supposed to be noted in records. What if the Trump employee put “legal settlement in personal matter” or “nuisance payment”? The crime itself may not be clear or even comprehensible. But the defendant’s identity could not be clearer, and the prosecutors are hoping the jury, like themselves, will look no further

Read more …

A case about nothing.

• Romney and the Wrong Question (Turley)

Yesterday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) had a much covered interaction with CNN’s Manu Raju who asked him about Trump’s criminal trial and whether he was guilty of the underlying criminal conduct. Romney responded “I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump’s character, and so far as I know you don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.” I have previously defended Romney in his votes on impeachment despite our disagreement on the constitutional standard. I also understand that he was making a more general comment on character. However, his response is precisely what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is seeking from the jury: a verdict on Trump as a person rather than the underlying criminal allegations. Trump is currently facing 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree regarding payments made to Daniels during the 2016 presidential election.

As I discuss today in the New York Post, many of us (including liberal legal experts) still question whether there is any crime alleged by Bragg. Raju reasonably asked Romney for his own view. Romney is an interesting person to ask. He is not only a critic of the President from within his own party but he is a former businessman who has had to deal with complex reporting and business obligations. Romney’s response must be encouraging for Bragg. Rather than address the ambiguous criminal allegation, Romney suggested that Trump was guilty as charged in having a tryst with a former porn star. The defense is not contesting the payment and the fact of the affair is not central to the allegations. The question is whether the payments were unlawfully denoted as legal expenses with the intent to somehow steal the 2016 election.

It is not a crime to use a NDA or other means to quash an embarrassing story. Bill Clinton had a host of lawyers quashing allegations of affairs and sexual assaults throughout his presidency. He ran into trouble when he committed perjury in the effort to hide what Hillary Clinton called one of his “bimbo eruptions.” Moreover, denoting this as a legal expense, on the advice of counsel, is not necessarily wrong. It is not clear how it should have been to be denoted as, according to Bragg. A “nuisance payment”? The campaign of Hillary Clinton and its general counsel Marc Elias hid the funding of the Steele dossier as a legal expense and was fined by the government for doing so. They litigated the question and insisted that that is precisely what it was. Romney is precisely what Bragg is looking for in these jurors. Smart and savvy, he still viewed the question of the trial as whether Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels.

If so, it was not a legal expense. Yet, quashing the story and avoiding any litigation was a legal matter with the eventual crafting of the NDA. There are a lot of motivations for NDAs of this kind. Trump was married. He was the host of a hit television show (with a clause on termination for scandalous conduct). And, yes, he was also seeking to be president. He wanted these stories killed and friends like David Pecker were helping in that effort. What those facts say about the former president’s “character” will remain a matter of public debate and, as Romney said, most long ago reached their own conclusions. Yet, it is the crime not the character of Trump that is at issue in Manhattan.

Alvin Bragg would like the trial to remain a verdict on character, which is why he started the trial discussing not the Daniels matter but an uncharged affair and settlement with a former Playboy bunny. It is why he fought hard (and succeeded) in being able to question Trump about past cases involving an alleged assault and fraudulent conduct. As legal experts continue this week to debate if there is even a crime alleged in the indictment, Bragg is making a case that Trump’s lack of character is beyond a reasonable doubt. To be fair, Romney was not giving a full interview on the case in his statement to CNN and may well have some reservations about the Bragg indictment. However, Bragg is likely hoping that “everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump,” including twelve jurors currently sitting in the Manhattan courtroom.

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“Musk said that migration issues in the US are threatening the very existence of the American state..”

• Musk Concurs That Civil War Looming In West (TASS)

US entrepreneur and one of the world’s wealthiest people Elon Musk has asserted that a civil war will break out in the West over the situation around migrants. “War will come whether we want it or not,” he wrote on the X social network commenting on remarks by Gad Saad, a Canadian professor of Lebanese origin, who insisted that “the path that the West is taking will result in civil war.” Saad said that Western countries are committing “civilizational suicide.” “Many Western men who are currently asleep at the wheel will wake up, and realize that they don’t like being pushed around in their homelands; they don’t like their women attacked; they don’t like their freedoms curtailed; they don’t like their faiths disrespected,” he noted. Earlier, Musk said that migration issues in the US are threatening the very existence of the American state. He also branded the US migration policy as insane because over the past three years it allowed more than 7 mln illegal migrants enter the country.

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Australia is just a little country. With little brains.

• Musk Warns Australia Against ‘Controlling Entire Internet’ (Sp.)

The X chief executive earlier denounced that a video of a stabbing attack on an orthodox bishop had been censored in Australia, with Canberra threatening X with a daily fine of $510,000 over the company’s reluctance to completely remove the footage. Elon Musk has made it clear he will not comply with Australia’s order to remove a video of a terror attack against a Sydney cleric from X (formerly Twitter). “Our concern is that if any country is allowed to censor content for all countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?” the tech billionaire tweeted. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO added that X has “already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers” in the US.

Per X, Canberra threatened it with a daily fine of $510,000 over the company’s unwillingness to remove the video across the globe. Musk’s remarks came after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese slammed the X owner as an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also above common decency.” Speaking to broadcaster ABC, Albanese added that “the idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out-of-touch Mr. Musk is.” This followed Australia’s eSafety Commission calling for X to completely remove the video from its platform for all users rather than just block the footage in the world’s sixth-largest country.

According to Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, “Every minute counts, and the more this content is up there, the more it is reshared, the more the velocity and the virality continues and we need to stem that.”
In the video, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Orthodox Church is seen being stabbed during a church service in the suburbs of Sydney that was being livestreamed on April 15. The non-fatal attack, which the authorities said was a terrorist act motivated by suspected religious extremism, quickly garnered multiple views online and reportedly led to protests near the crime scene.

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“I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson..”

• Mitch McConnell Blames Tucker Carlson For Delaying Ukraine Cash (RT)

The top-ranking Republican in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, has claimed Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin convinced too many “rank-and-file Republicans” that spending billions of taxpayer dollars on arming Kiev against Moscow was harming Americans and wrecking the economy. As a new multibillion-dollar US aid package to Ukraine was clearing the last procedural hurdles on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader McConnell attempted to pin the blame for months of delays on former Fox News anchor Carlson and former President Donald Trump. “I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson, who in my opinion ended up where he should have been all along, which was interviewing Vladimir Putin,” McConnell told a press briefing.

“He convinced a lot of rank-and-file Republicans that maybe this was a mistake,” he added, arguing that Trump’s “mixed views” on Ukraine aid further fueled confusion over the official narrative in Washington. “And then our nominee for president didn’t seem to want us to do anything at all,” McConnell claimed. “That took months to work our way through it.” Carlson recorded a lengthy interview with Putin in February, a first by a Western reporter since the conflict with Ukraine began. The pair discussed the ongoing hostilities and Moscow’s standoff with NATO. The exchange went viral globally, garnering over 200 million views on X (formerly Twitter) alone, yet critics accused Carlson of not being confrontational enough with the Russian leader. The American journalist argued that most Western media outlets lie to their audiences, mainly by omission, and that the point of his interview was “to have more information brought to the West so people could make their own decisions.”

“I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective,” Carlson said in February, looking back at his conversation with Putin. “There’s a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale that people do not understand.” US President Joe Biden requested additional cash for Ukraine last October after burning through $113 billion in previously approved spending bills. However, the request had been stalled until this week due to opposition from Republican lawmakers, who argued that Biden was merely prolonging Kiev’s conflict with Russia while offering no clear strategy for victory or a peace agreement. Most Republicans voted against the aid bill on Saturday, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) overrode his own party by enabling a vote and pushing it through with unanimous Democrat support.

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“Everyone understands that today’s Ukraine is a military range, where the future of the world order is partially decided..”

• Future Of The World Will Be Decided In Ukraine – Lukashenko (RT)

The Ukraine conflict is among the major events that will determine the future of the world, and the West is emerging weaker from it, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed on Wednesday. The leader of Belarus, a close Russian ally, addressed the situation in Ukraine during a keynote speech to the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a gathering of officials and public figures. He contrasted Kiev’s policies with those of Minsk, arguing that unlike its southern neighbor, his nation has preserved its independence under Western pressure. “Everyone understands that today’s Ukraine is a military range, where the future of the world order is partially decided. The largest nuclear powers indirectly, and now even directly, are waging a war on its territory,” Lukashenko stated.

“Meanwhile its authorities have sunk to the level of striking a bargain with the West to exchange weapons for the lives of Ukrainians. Watching this is painful,” he added. Kiev has miscalculated, Lukashenko argued, because “whoever is willing to serve a master for scraps will sooner or later lose.” Ukraine is risking its statehood after betraying its past and traditions, he also warned. The Belarusian leader described the entire conflict as the latest clash “between the West and the East,” and suggested that neither side has become stronger. The outcome of the confrontation “will not save the existing order,” Lukashenko further predicted. He urged the US and its allies to accept that their future role will be restricted as one of several centers of power that determine world affairs.

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“And they grew rich, but only very few, in the very ‘best’ traditions of Western European democracies..”

• All Ukrainian Presidents Are Thieves – Lukashenko (RT)

Ukraine has devolved into a Western-style oligarchy where all of its leaders are only interested in “plundering” the country and getting rich, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed. The president made the remarks on Wednesday during an address to the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a gathering of high-profile officials and public figures. Lukashenko fired a broadside at the neighboring country, accusing its presidents and “oligarchs” of stealing Ukraine’s riches. The process began immediately after Ukraine became an independent state following the collapse of the Soviet Union and has worsened over time, Lukashenko argued. “Just think – a prosperous country. The land is fertile, half of the periodic table in its soil, two seas, mines, industrial giants. The people are creative, hard-working. Live, be happy and grow rich. And they grew rich, but only very few, in the very ‘best’ traditions of Western European democracies,” the Belarusian leader said.

Every Ukrainian president, from “the first to the last one,” has been “plundering and stealing,” Lukashenko asserted, claiming that this inevitably led to political infighting and enduring unrest. “The oligarchs and those in power have gathered all the resources under their control. The oligarchs, having received the wealth created by the people, wanted power. They went into politics and began to drag bandits and people into their squabbles. The Maidans have begun,” Lukashenko stated. Ukrainian leaders, however, have consistently blamed the internal turmoil they created on foreign powers, primarily Russia and to a lesser extent Belarus, Lukashenko alleged. “They created the necessary image of the enemy, ‘the culprit behind the hardships and poverty of the people’ – Russia, as well as us, Belarusians. We, you see, are now somehow to blame,” the leader said.

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Hunt Them Down

• Poland Ready To Help Ukraine Hunt Down Military-Aged Men (RT)

Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has said Warsaw is willing to “help” Kiev repatriate men of fighting age, an unspecified portion of some 950,000 Ukrainians granted temporary sanctuary in Poland. Earlier this week, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry banned all men between the ages of 18 and 60 from receiving or renewing their documents, including passports, at consular offices outside the country. The Polish defense chief told the Polsat broadcaster on Wednesday that he was “not surprised” and supports Kiev’s move. “The Ukrainian authorities are doing everything to provide new soldiers to the front, because the needs are huge,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said. The Polish official said that Warsaw had previously offered to help Kiev track down those who dodge their “civic duty,” but noted that “the form of assistance depends on the Ukrainian side.”

“I think that many of our compatriots were and are outraged when they see young Ukrainian men in cafes and hear about how much effort it takes us to help Ukraine,” he added. Kosiniak-Kamysz also echoed Kiev’s official narrative that Ukrainians who could not avoid the draft have “justified grievances against their peers who have scattered around the world.” Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba claimed on Tuesday that the decision to strip Ukrainian men of their rights was “fair” and in line with controversial military mobilization reforms, which President Vladimir Zelensky signed into law this month. Zelensky’s reforms, set to take effect next month, will lower the draft age from 27 to 25, tighten exemptions, and oblige all men, regardless of eligibility, to report to a conscription office to “update” their personal data. According to EU officials, an estimated 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are living in the bloc. Kiev has identified that pool as a significant untapped source of manpower for the armed forces. However, asked in early April how many troops Kiev intended to mobilize, Zelensky dodged the question.

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“When new technology meets the brutality of old-fashioned trench warfare, the results are rarely what Pentagon planners expected..”

• Ukraine Conflict ‘A Bonanza’ For US Military – NYT (RT)

The US military is reportedly using the Ukraine conflict to test a new artificial intelligence technology that helps detect targets on the battlefield using drone footage, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Dubbed Project Maven, research into the technology was initially picked up as a government contract by Google six years ago, according to the outlet. However, after pushback from engineers and employees, who did not want to take part in building an AI tool for military use, the tech giant stepped away from the project, which was picked up by other contractors. Now, the technology is being tested on the front line in Ukraine, the NYT claims, as Western and Ukrainian officers, along with some of Silicon Valley’s top military contractors, are “exploring new ways of finding and exploiting Russian vulnerabilities.”

So far, the results of the testing have reportedly been “mixed.” While Project Maven allows commanders to identify the movements of Russian forces and use AI algorithms to predict their next steps, it has apparently been “difficult” to bring “21st-century data into 19th-century trenches.” One of the main barriers, the Times said, is that due to restrictions imposed by US President Joe Biden, the US military can only provide Ukrainians with a “picture of the battlefield” without giving precise targeting details. It is also unclear if the new technology would even be able to change the course of the conflict, given Russia’s ability to quickly adapt to technologies being used by the Ukrainian side.

“When new technology meets the brutality of old-fashioned trench warfare, the results are rarely what Pentagon planners expected,” the outlet said. Nevertheless, the Ukraine conflict remains “a bonanza for the US military” in the minds of American officials, and a testing ground for rapidly evolving technologies. “At the end of the day this became our laboratory,” Lt. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, who commands the US Army’s 18th Airborne Division, told the NYT. Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly decried increasing US involvement in the conflict. Moscow describes it as a proxy war being waged by Washington and its partners, using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” to further Western interests.

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“..it’s almost impossible to immediately make them as economically efficient as those in Russia. It had taken decades for Russia to set up its [nuclear fuel] production.”

• G7 Could Take 10 Years to Catch Up With Russian Nuclear Fuel Output (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden and his G7 have vowed to end imports of Russian nuclear fuel, but leading Western economies still lag behind Moscow in innovative atomic technologies, nuclear expert Valery Menshikov told Sputnik. The US Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) asserted in a recent press release that the Biden-Harris administration is doing whatever it takes to ensure the nation’s independence in terms of secure nuclear fuel supplies as well as to “re-establish US leadership in nuclear energy more broadly.” The agency stressed that President Joe Biden’s government is leading the “Sapporo 5” group, consisting of the US, the UK, France, Japan and Canada to support the growth of nuclear energy deployment around the world “free of Russian influence.” But the NE was forced to admit that Russia presently supplies around 44 percent of global uranium enrichment services and 20 to 30 percent of enriched uranium products used in the US and Europe.

To complicate matters further for the Sapporo 5, Russia is the only country selling high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which is indispensable for advanced nuclear reactors, on a commercial scale. President Joe Biden stated on April 19 that a US plant had managed to produce the first 200 lbs (90 kg) of HALEU and would make nearly a ton of the “powerful” nuclear fuel by the end of 2024. Given that in 2020 the US Department of Energy (DoE) projected that more than 40 metric tons of HALEU will be needed before the end of the decade to meet Washington’s pressing climate goals, those amounts are a drop in the ocean. “Undoubtedly, the speeches that Biden is now delivering are just another contribution to his collection of campaign promises. And since, the United States still depends on the supply of fresh enriched fuel for nuclear power plants, this task is one of the most important, including in political terms,” Valery Menshikov, member of the Public Council of Rosatom Corporation and member of the Council of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, told Sputnik.

Russia maintains leadership in global uranium enrichment services, Sputnik’s commentator stressed, adding that neither US nor European scientists have been able to achieve enrichment capacities matching those of their Russian peers. Russian nuclear fuel is also comparatively cheaper, Menshikov pointed out. The expert recalled that the Russo-US nuclear fuel trade started immediately after the collapse of the USSR: the 1992 Megatons to Megawatts Program envisaged the recycling of weapons-grade uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium used to produce fuel for American nuclear power plants. Over the decades, Russia routinely delivered large volumes of enriched uranium to the US.

The expert expressed doubts that the US will be able to completely stop purchases of Russian nuclear fuel by 2028, as Biden has pledged. “The problem is that the process [of making nuclear fuel] is very complex,” Menshikov said. “The most important thing is that while it is possible to launch such productions, it’s almost impossible to immediately make them as economically efficient as those in Russia. It had taken decades for Russia to set up its [nuclear fuel] production.” When it comes to the European Union (EU), the situation is complicated by the fact that there are 19 Russia-designed reactors within the bloc. The list of countries which have Russian-made nuclear equipment includes Slovakia, Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. Although some European countries, such as Finland, have recently halted cooperation with Russia, others — like Hungary — are proceeding with new projects.

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“What appears on the horizon, without any in-depth national discussion, after being approved by the Council and the European Parliament, is a global austerity package, on a European scale..”

• European Bureaucrats Serve America’s Economic Interests (Dionísio)

Once again, the European bureaucracy is living up to the saying that “what has born crooked, late or never is straightened out”. This is the case with the European Union, which was built as a political response to a reality that is no longer there — the socialist bloc — and which, when faced with the absence of its vital force, embarked on an erratic process of enlargement, aimed above all at provoking Russia, creating the conditions for NATO expansion and responding to the monopolies’ growing need for new markets and new sources of skilled and cheap labor, as is the case in Eastern Europe.

Within this framework and in response to the same needs, the EU is once again reissuing a recipe already widely known to the peoples of the South. While there is widespread recognition that the budgetary criteria contained in the Stability and Growth Pact constitute a stranglehold on public investment and is responsible for the short-term vision that has left the member states hostage to the financial authoritarianism of Brussels, at a time when the European bloc is losing more and more ground to the economies with which it has to compete, the unelected supranational power of the EU is once again proposing, this time to all Europeans, something that none of these peoples would ever vote for: austerity for the next four years (at least).

What appears on the horizon, without any in-depth national discussion, after being approved by the Council and the European Parliament, is a global austerity package, on a European scale, applicable to almost all the countries of the Union, which has been given the pompous name of “New Economic Governance Framework” and which is based on instruments such as the “Debt Sustainability Analysis” and “Specific Fiscal Plans” per member state, which will be developed within the framework of a 4-year adjustment period, which can be extended to 7. If the Stability Pact was not enough to bring most of the countries to austerity, this time EU autocracy is working to leave no one behind. Every country must bring to an end every evidence or memory that a social state has once worked with huge success.

That’s why we have to say that “it’s coming in handy”! At a time when countries should be investing absolutely decisively in industrialization, innovation and conquering a place at the top of the future technological chain, as China and Russia are doing and the US is going into brutal debt to do, what do the accountants in Brussels decide to do? Postpone the race, calling into question the targets they themselves have set for 2030 and 2050. Once again, the story of the well-behaved and thrifty countries versus those that don’t know how to govern themselves is being repeated. But this time, with the exception of five countries (Cyprus, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark and Ireland), all the others will have to tighten their belts and cut 100 billion from their public budgets right in the first year of adjustment. Incidentally, 100 billion is more or less what the EU has offered the Kiev regime to date (in January 2024 it was 85 billion euros according to the Kiel Institute). And any of those lucky countries is important for the financing of the pluriannual European budget.

Assuming that this mass economic destruction is the continuation of a process that began with subprime, from which European economies had to pay for the losses of American banks, and continued with the NATO/Russia conflict in Ukraine, which has not only deprived European countries of important production factors, at a low price and with guaranteed quality and quantity… How should the European Union act, especially knowing that in Biden’s USA, the implementation of Inflation Reduction Act is well underway, with a vast investment program in key technological areas such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries, photovoltaic panels and semiconductors?

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“..Iran’s nuclear doctrine is based on a fatwa (a ruling based on Islamic law) issued by the country’s Supreme Leader..”

• Iran’s Nuclear Plans Are Clear. Just Read Its Own Islamic Law (Juma)

In light of the direct conflict that broke out between Israel and Iran, rumors that the Islamic Republic could produce nuclear weapons began circulating again. In addition, just a few days ago Reuters and other media outlets quoted a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying that Iran may review its nuclear doctrine following Israeli threats. The US, EU, and Israel have long feared that Iran may produce nuclear weapons, and have used this threat to justify their actions against the Islamic Republic. However, it is important to understand that Iran’s nuclear doctrine is based on a fatwa (a ruling based on Islamic law) issued by the country’s Supreme Leader. According to this fatwa, the production of nuclear weapons is a sin. However, Iran’s opponents do not believe in the sincerity of this ruling and, they suggest, it can be renounced at any time.

On April 17 and 18, the first Tehran International Conference on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation took place. The motto of this conference was “Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear weapons for no one.” There, Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser to the Supreme Leader of Iran, read Ayatollah Khamenei’s message in front of officials and members of various international delegations and organizations. “All of you know that, in the absence of the Imam Mahdi, whose coming is expected by the Shiites, the Shiite legal system is based on the opinion of authoritative and highly competent experts in the field of Islamic law (which Iran’s decisions are based on). These religious scholars issue fatwas which clearly indicate whether any action is permissible or not. One [important] issue is the permissibility of the production and use of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons) …”.

Ayatollah Khamenei had carefully analyzed the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by the Americans in Japan as well as the use of chemical weapons against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, and stated his position on this issue: “We believe that, besides nuclear weapons, other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological weapons, also pose a serious threat to humanity. The Iranian nation, which is itself a victim of chemical weapons, feels more than any other nation the danger that is caused by the production and stockpiling of such weapons, and is prepared to make use of all its facilities to counter such threats. We consider the use of such weapons as haraam [forbidden] and believe that it is everyone’s duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster.” In the period from 2010 to 2015, other religious authorities, such as ayatollahs Makarem Shirazi, Jafar Subhani, Noori-Hamedani, and Javadi Amoli, also issued fatwas that prohibited the production and use of weapons of mass destruction.

But can the issued fatwas be changed or canceled? Can Iran’s position in this regard change? From a theological point of view, certainly not. Islamic law states clear reasons for this. Nuclear weapons and the radiation which results from their use threaten the environment, causing the destruction of crops and the death of offspring. Verse 205 of Surah al-Baqarah says: “And when he goes away, he strives throughout the land to cause corruption therein and destroy crops and animals. And Allah does not like corruption.” The protection of the environment, the preservation of the life of living beings and plants is every Muslim’s obligation under Sharia, Islamic law. The production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, even if they are never used, may endanger the lives of people on the planet as a result of human error. According to Islamic law, this is unacceptable. Islam believes that a victory must be achieved by reasonable, lawful, and humane means. As for the rules of warfare, Islam strictly prohibits the killing of civilians, women, children and the elderly, as well as attacks on civilian infrastructure.

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“..they prefer to pretend that they are fighting for peace. The very peace for which no stone should be left unturned on this planet. But that will come later..”

• Why Iran Decided Not To Attack Israel Again (Gurevich)

Iran has again threatened Israel with a harsh response to aggression. The army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will make those who cross red lines regret it, said the Deputy Chief of the Army for Coordination, Habibollah Sayyari.Meanwhile, Israel has refrained from speaking out against Tehran. Politicians have focused their rhetoric on Hamas. In particular, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to increase military and political pressure on the Palestinian group in the near future in order to motivate it to release hostages, writes the Times of Israel. The good news is that there will be no Iran-Israel war. At least not at this stage. Tehran has chosen not to react vociferously to the Israeli air force’s retaliatory strike, dismissing all reports of the destruction of the radar protecting the Natanz nuclear centre as Zionist intrigues.

Well, the bottom line is that we have two air raids attributed to Israel and one very large Iranian strike. In the latter case, everything was official and the Islamic Republic can therefore claim an entry in the Guinness Book of Records with an article on the largest number of UAVs and ballistic missiles involved in a single offensive operation. Incidentally, we do not know what the real effect of the large-scale attack was. Iran, like Israel, is carefully hiding data on the damage. However, the political consequences of such events are far more important. And, as usual in the Middle East, a dozen seemingly unrelated problems have become intertwined. After the Iranian strike, for example, Western countries began to advise Israel not to react, and rumour has it that the Jewish State was negotiating for the right to launch a military operation in Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza.

Then in the end, it could no longer remain patient and responded. The Iranians had options. The Ayatollahs could have said that Israel had again crossed all the red lines. This would have led to further escalation, but might have protected Hamas. But Iran, for its own reasons, ignored the Palestinians and reported through the press that nothing serious had happened. The reason for this peacefulness is probably that they saw a working alliance between Israel, Jordan and the Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf. This is precisely the nightmare that the Iranians have done their utmost to prevent. They even restored diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in 2023. But apparently confrontation with the Shiites is more important to moderate Sunnis than dislike of the Jews.

According to military analysts, if the Israeli Air Force did attack Iranian air defences, it means that the Israelis probably flew over Jordan or the Arabian Peninsula to carry out the task, and it is unlikely that this was done without the consent of the Hashemite Kingdom or the Saudis. As a result, the military alliance is not only defensive, which means that virtually all of Iran’s proxies in the region, including Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, are at risk. For now, however, this is all a hypothetical picture. Its implementation requires the normalisation of Israel’s relations with Riyadh and, as part of the deal, the signing of a defence agreement with the US, as well as American-Israeli goodwill for the establishment of a nuclear capability in Saudi Arabia. And all this has to happen before the end of June. Otherwise, Washington will not be able to get the relevant decisions through Congress because of the upcoming election. Obviously, the Iranians believe that further escalation will only accelerate the process described above. That is why they prefer to pretend that they are fighting for peace. The very peace for which no stone should be left unturned on this planet. But that will come later.

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“..she doesn’t know whether the Israeli leader is “afraid of peace, incapable of peace, or just doesn’t want peace.”

• Netanyahu Should Resign – Nancy Pelosi (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace in Gaza and “should resign” from his position, former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said. She made the remarks on Monday in an interview with Irish public broadcaster Raidio Teilifis Eireann (RTE) during her visit to the country. Pelosi criticized the Israeli leader’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack which saw Palestinian militants kill over 1,100 people on Israeli territory and take around 250 hostages. The former House speaker cited the recent resignation of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence chief Major General Aharon Haliva over the failure to prevent the attack, before pointing the finger at Netanyahu.

“We recognize Israel’s right to protect itself. We reject the policy and the practice of Netanyahu – terrible. What could be worse than what he has done in response?” Pelosi told the outlet. “He should resign. He’s ultimately responsible,” she added. When asked if Netanyahu is a “block” to peace, Pelosi replied that “he has been for years,” adding that she doesn’t know whether the Israeli leader is “afraid of peace, incapable of peace, or just doesn’t want peace.” She went on to argue that Netanyahu been an “obstacle to the two-state solution, I emphasize the word, ‘solution.’”

Health authorities in Gaza have estimated that more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed amid Israel’s siege of the enclave, which has included extensive bombardment as well as a ground incursion. Earlier this month, Pelosi joined more than 30 US Congress members who signed a letter urging President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to halt weapons transfers to Israel. The change of tune in Washington, Israel’s key ally, followed the killing of six aid workers from the World Central Kitchen humanitarian organization. The IDF targeted the group’s convoy in what it claimed to be a tragic mistake, despite the food supply mission being closely coordinated with the military.

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Cyber crime is part of Russian warfare, apparently. Impoverishing grannies…

• Unconventional Russian Warfare Threatening British Grannies – Wallace (RT)

The UK is facing certain forms of “unconventional warfare” waged by its enemies, potentially including Moscow-backed online scams that target the elderly, former British Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace has claimed. The Conservative MP, who resigned from the cabinet last August, told Sky News on Wednesday that the world today reminded him of the interwar periods during the last century. The situation, Wallace explained, is similar to “the 1930s, but with an added challenge of terrorism and a challenge of unconventional warfare.” As examples of the latter, he cited “disinformation campaigns, the enemies in this country using cyber to divide us, to rob from us, to spy on us, and to create frictions in our society.”

When asked by host Kay Burley which nation posed the biggest threat to the UK, Wallace said it was Russia. ”Many of the big cyber-crime syndicates are based in Russia, curiously protected by the Russian state,” he claimed. “They are the ones robbing your granny and my parents with phishing emails. So, Russia is directly challenging us at all levels.” Earlier this month, British police reported busting a UK-founded international ring of scammers, which since 2021 alone has stolen from some 70,000 victims in the country. Thirty-seven people were arrested around the world in the LabHost case, the force reported. The statement didn’t mention Russia.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Climate Emergency

 

 

Wealth
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783136306400497981

 

 

Your value
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783165842433474992

 

 

 

 

Cub


https://twitter.com/i/status/1782896073578582350

 

 

Baby Hippo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782886328171905240

 

 

Scratch

 

 

Healed

 

 

Adrenochrome

 

 

Robotina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783391212558262482

 

 

Cabal full movie

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 24 2024

Apr 242024
 
 April 24, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  59 Responses »


René Magritte La trahison des images 1929

 

• Unsealed Court Filings Show Emails Between NARA, DOJ, Biden White House (ET)
• Biden’s America: 40% Of Renters Think They’ll Never Own A Home (ZH)
• Biden Terrifyingly Grows Ranks Of Government Spies (Gosztola)
• The Real Debt Problem (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Ukraine Has Lost Almost a Half Million Soldiers – Shoigu (Sp.)
• No Hiding From Draft Abroad – Kiev (RT)
• West Is Doing To Ukrainians What It Did To Indigenous Americans – Zakharova (RT)
• Germany Holds Massive Military Drills Near Russian Border (RT)
• A Nasty Little Book About The Allied Invasion Of Russia In 1918 (Helmer)
• Gaza Settlement Crucial For Islamic World – Erdogan (TASS)
• Iran Threatens To Wipe Out Israel (RT)
• Western Regime-Change Operations Enable Criminal Activities (SCF)
• US Would Beat China In A War – Intel Official (RT)
• Britain To Put Industry On ‘War Footing’ – PM (RT)
• German Leader Tells Putin He Can’t Quote Philosopher Kant (RT)

 

 

 

 

25 bullseyes
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782233148668985826

 

 

Watters Kise

 

 

 

 

Tucker Yon

 

 

 

 

Ron Paul
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782792998016761927

 

 


if we had never named covid 19 and swerved around it like it was a dinosaur in the road instead of a squirrel, we’d probably have barely noticed it. “huh, baddish flu this year” would have been about the end it of. no lockdown. no mask up. no EUA jab. just life.

 

 

 

 

Conspiracy, no theory. And scary. How do you get rid of something like this? It’s a huge cancer growth.

• Unsealed Court Filings Show Emails Between NARA, DOJ, Biden White House (ET)

Court filings newly unsealed on Monday in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case include emails between National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) officials, the Biden White House, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding former President Donald Trump’s presidential records. The trove of unsealed filings also revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) code name for its investigation into President Trump’s presidential records was “[Redacted] Plasmic Echo.” A key exhibit included with a motion to compel filed in January was an FBI case file labeled “[Redacted] PLASMIC ECHO; Mishandling of Classified or National Defense Information.” This file, now made public, summarizes an initial review of documents forwarded by NARA to the FBI on Feb. 24, 2022. The review uncovered 106 classified documents across 12 out of 15 boxes, totaling 767 pages.

Last year, President Trump pleaded not guilty to 40 counts related to allegedly mishandling classified documents. In January, the defense filed a motion to compel discovery along with several exhibits under seal, which included emails containing names and identifying information about government officials. The defense has argued that the emails unsealed on Monday indicate communication between NARA officials, the Biden administration, and the DOJ regarding President Trump’s records, alleging coordination in targeting the former president since 2021. One email from NARA’s general counsel to the national archivist discussed drafting a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland concerning “missing Trump records.” Subsequent emails revealed coordination between NARA and the Biden White House counsel’s office regarding the handling of these records.

The Sept. 1, 2021, email revealed that NARA’s general counsel, Gary Stern, had been in touch with both the DOJ and the Biden White House “about this issue.” A subsequent email on Sept. 30, 2021, reveals that the White House counsel’s office “is now ready to set up a call to discuss the Trump boxes.” This email came after Mr. Stern emailed Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su two days earlier to “check back in to see when and how you want to proceed re [sic] meeting with [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], and NARA to discuss the Trump boxes?” Furthermore, the defense highlighted instances where NARA officials didn’t disclose certain actions to Trump representatives, suggesting bias in the investigation process. The defense alleged that Mr. Su didn’t disclose to a Trump representative that NARA had already drafted a DOJ referral letter when contacting them to discuss access to notes “from the Trump administration relating to records handling.”

The unsealed emails show that NARA took into consideration the Democrat-led January 6 Committee’s investigation when considering the timing of reporting to Congress on their issues of getting access to President Trump’s posts on Twitter (now X). On Oct. 5, 2023, Mr. Stern wrote in an internal NARA email that the release of a letter to Congress “can be timed with our public release of the Trump social media records … as well as our release to the 1/6 Committee of responsive tweets on the day of January 6.” Mr. Stern noted that NARA had “issues” getting President Trump’s “social media records” because the Trump White House didn’t “capture them through the use of third-party archiving tools.” “I do not think that these problems are something that the AG/DOJ can deal with, but it could be appropriate to report them to Congress, especially since the January 6 Committee has specifically requested Trump’s Tweets from the day of January 6,” Mr. Stern wrote in the email.

Mr. Stern adds that the Biden White House counsel “is now also aware of this issue, and has asked that I keep them in the loop to the extent that we make any reference to the White House Office of Records Management.” Another email shows Mr. Ferriero saying that he had run “out of patience” amid back-and-forth communications with Trump representatives regarding “missing boxes” that, according to a draft email to the attorney general, were reported as having been “possibly destroyed.” The defense, along with a coalition of news media, asked the court to unseal these exhibits, arguing that the court filings are “matters of public record.” The defense has accused the prosecution of withholding potentially exculpatory evidence and alleged bias in the investigation. The filings made public on Monday revealed previously sealed information while limiting the redactions to keeping secret the names of government witnesses.

They were included as exhibits in a motion to compel the prosecution to produce discovery material. In the Jan. 16 motion, they argued that the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith has engaged in discovery violations and has disregarded fundamental fairness in its pursuit of prosecuting President Trump. The disclosures come amid a protracted battle over court documents, with Judge Aileen Cannon having reminded both parties in various court filings of the “strong presumption of public access” in the criminal proceedings, showing a preference for making public as much as possible. In January, she ordered that no unclassified material be sealed unless there were clear risks to personal safety or national security. The back-and-forth over documents has extended the pre-trial motions stage and delayed the original May 20 trial date.

Rising
https://twitter.com/i/status/1781030864681374166

Watters CIA

Mollie

Read more …

“Gen Z renters are by far the most likely to believe they will become homeowners (maybe it’s because they are also the dumbest)..”

• Biden’s America: 40% Of Renters Think They’ll Never Own A Home (ZH)

Bidenomics 101: the American dream of owning a home has become the American nightmare for almost half the US population. As housing specialist Redfin reports, rising home prices and mortgage rates “are making it harder to believe in the American dream of homeownership. Lack of affordability is the most commonly cited reason renters don’t believe they’ll ever own a home.” The details are dire: Nearly two in five (38%) U.S. renters don’t believe they’ll ever own a home, up from roughly one-quarter (27%) less than a year ago. This is according to a Redfin-commissioned survey of roughly 3,000 U.S. residents conducted by Qualtrics in February 2024. This report focuses on the 1,000 respondents who indicated they are renters. The relevant questions were: “Do you believe that you will ever own your own home in the future?” and “Which of the following are reasons you aren’t likely to purchase a home in the near future?” The 27% comparison is from a Redfin survey conducted in May and June 2023.

Lack of affordability is the prevailing reason renters believe they’re unlikely to become homeowners. Nearly half (44%) of renters who don’t believe they’ll buy a home in the near future said it’s because available homes are too expensive. The next most common obstacles: Ability to save for a down payment (35%), ability to afford mortgage payments (33%) and high mortgage rates (32%). Roughly one in eight (14%) simply aren’t interested in owning a home. Buying a home has become increasingly out of reach for many Americans due to the one-two punch of high home prices and high mortgage rates. First-time homebuyers must earn roughly $76,000 to afford the typical U.S. starter home, up 8% from a year ago and up nearly 100% from before the pandemic, according to a recent Redfin analysis. Home prices have skyrocketed more than 40% since 2019, due to the pandemic homebuying frenzy and a shortage of homes for sale. And the current average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is 6.82%. While that’s below the 23-year-high of nearly 8% hit in October, it’s still more than double the record low rates dropped to in 2020.

Home prices have risen 7% in the last year alone, and monthly mortgage payments have risen more than 10%, which helps explain why renters today are more likely than they were last year to say they don’t see themselves owning a home anytime soon. Many renters can’t fathom homeownership because they’re already struggling to afford their monthly housing costs. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of renters say they regularly struggle to afford their housing payments, and an additional 45% say they sometimes struggle to do so. Rents have soared over the last few years because so many people moved during the pandemic, upping demand for rentals. The median U.S. asking rent is roughly $2,000, near the record high hit in 2022–but the good news for renters is that prices aren’t growing nearly as fast as they were during the pandemic, partly because an influx of apartment supply is taking some of the heat off prices.

“Housing costs are high across the board, but renting is a more affordable and realistic option for many Americans right now–especially those who have never owned a home and aren’t able to tap into equity from a previous sale,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “While owning a home is usually a sound longterm investment, the barriers to entry and upfront costs of buying are higher than renting. Buying typically requires a sizable down payment and approval for a mortgage–things that are difficult for many people today, when the typical down payment is near $60,000 and mortgage payments are sky-high. The sheer expense of purchasing a home is causing the American Dream of homeownership to lose some of its shine.” Broken down by generation, Gen Z renters are by far the most likely to believe they will become homeowners (maybe it’s because they are also the dumbest). Just 8% of Gen Z renters believe they’ll never own a home, compared to 22% of millennials, 40% of Gen Xers and 81% of baby boomers.

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“Section 702 may be used to force business landlords, cleaning contractors, delivery personnel, utility providers, etc, to help U.S. security agencies spy without probable cause..”

• Biden Terrifyingly Grows Ranks Of Government Spies (Gosztola)

On April 20, Edward Snowden declared, “America lost something important today, and hardly anyone heard. The headlines of state-aligned media screech and crow about the nefarious designs of your fellow citizens and the necessity of foreign wars without end, but find few words for a crime against the Constitution.” The NSA whistleblower was referring to the United States Senate reauthorizing and expanding surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. President Joe Biden circulated a memo that cast the Fourth Amendment right to privacy as a “threat to national security.” Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Attorney General Merrick Garland called members of Congress to ensure that they voted to give spy agencies renewed power. Specifically, “Patriot Act 2.0,” as Representative Zoe Lofgren called it, broadened the definition of service providers and exponentially increased the power that the government has to force numerous business and industries to aid warrantless surveillance.

Senator Ron Wyden strongly opposed the legislation and even introduced an amendment that would have prevented this assault on civil liberties. But the Senate rejected his effort to protect privacy. “The Senate waited until the 11th hour to ram through renewal of warrantless surveillance in the dead of night,” Wyden stated. He also added, “It is clear from the votes on very popular amendments that senators were unwilling to send this bill back to the House, no matter how common-sense the amendment before them.” Although the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) renewed Section 702 until April 2025, allowing lawmakers plenty of time to appropriately draft and amend legislation, panic was stirred by Biden and the national security state.

Wyden, who has a track record of challenging surveillance, did not mince words. He described the provision that he fought, which was dubbed the “Make Everyone A Spy” provision, as “one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history.” “It allows the government to force any American who installs, maintains, or repairs anything that transmits or stores communications to spy on the government’s behalf. That means anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a wifi router, or a phone. It would be secret: the Americans receiving the government directives would be bound to silence, and there would be no court oversight.”

The Biden administration applauded the passage of legislation that expanded warrantless surveillance. “The President will swiftly sign the bill into law, ensuring that our security professionals can continue to rely on Section 702 to detect grave national security threats and use that understanding to protect the United States,” Sullivan stated. Section 702 used to primarily apply to telecommunications or technology companies. Now, as detailed by Demand Progress, Section 702 may be used to force business landlords, cleaning contractors, delivery personnel, utility providers, etc, to help U.S. security agencies spy without probable cause. Entities and individuals required to help with surveillance cannot speak about it. Their First Amendment speech rights are curtailed as they violate their customers’ Fourth Amendment privacy rights.

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“The minute the dollar goes, American power goes with it. Most of the world can hardly wait for it to happen.“

• The Real Debt Problem (Paul Craig Roberts)

The US dollar is in trouble, but it is trouble of Washington’s making. Republicans and the financial press, to the extent that one still exists, blame the dollar’s trouble on rising public and private debt. The US runs massive trade and budget deficits. These deficits for decades have been alleged to mean the death of the dollar. The narrative was that the dollar would be weakened by having to finance rising trade and domestic debt. When I was in the Congressional staff and later as Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy, I had to deal with this ignorance, and it was frustrating. No one in Congress, on Wall Street, in the banks, or in the economics departments of universities understood the meaning of the US dollar as reserve currency.

When a country’s currency is the reserve currency, a role the US seized from Great Britain as its World War II victory prize, it means that there is unlimited demand for your debt. The reason is that your debt is the reserves of the world’s central banks. An increase in US debt is an increase in the reserves of the world banking system. As central banks desire more reserves, there was always a demand for US Treasury debt. There was zero financing problem. All of the nonsense we heard for decades about the impossibility of paying off the US debt was unbridled ignorance. The debt did not need to be payed off. If it had been, the reserves of the world banking system would have collapsed, and the Great Depression that the Americans experienced in the 1930s, due entirely to the Fed’s failure to expand bank reserves, would be worldwide.

Being the world currency, a role Roosevelt stole from England, means the US can pay its international bills by printing money or issuing debt. What has put this American privilege in danger is Washington’s stupid, indeed mindless, imposition of economic sanctions that then are evaded by ceasing to use the US dollar as world money. When countries cease settling their international balance of payments accounts in dollars, as Russia, China, Iran and other countries are doing, demand for Treasury debt drops. This means as the sanctioned central banks move to gold and non-Western currencies as reserves, that the demand for US Treasury debt drops, and for the first time in recent history, financing America’s tremendous public debt becomes a problem.

To be completely clear, the ONLY reason the US dollar is in danger of a large reduction in its value, is that Biden’s sanctions are driving countries away from the dollar. US debt can become a problem only from the abandonment of the dollar as world money. As US debt is denominated in US dollars, the Federal Reserve can always pay off the US debt no matter how large it is by printing money and buying the bonds. The problem is not that the debt can’t be paid. The problem is whereas the Fed can print dollars to meet any debt payments, it cannot print foreign currencies with which to buy dollars in foreign exchange markets. When US Treasury debt is redeemed, the debt holders (largely foreign central banks) receive dollars. If they have lost confidence in the dollar, they sell the dollars in the currency markets, and the enormous supply of dollars drive down its value.

When the dollar’s value is driven down, the offshored production of American firms, who produce in Asia and Mexico the products they sell to Americans and which comes in as imports, rise in price, thus causing domestic inflation, reducing the dollar’s purchasing power and causing more exit from the dollar. In other words, it is a death scenario–one produced by the Federal Reserve, the incompetent or bought-and-paid-for American economists, a mindless American government, and the mindless financial press. The minute the dollar goes, American power goes with it. Most of the world can hardly wait for it to happen.

JFK

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To achieve what?

• Ukraine Has Lost Almost a Half Million Soldiers – Shoigu (Sp.)

The Russian armed forces have the initiative along the entire contact line and are pushing the enemy away from the occupied borders, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting of the Defense Ministry’s board. Ukraine has lost almost half a million soldiers since the beginning of the special military operation in 2022, Russian Defense Ministry Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday. “In total, the losses of the Ukrainian armed forces amounted to almost half a million military personnel since the beginning of the special military operation,” Shoigu told a Defense Ministry meeting. According to him, the Kiev regime failed to achieve its goals in the counteroffensive prepared by NATO instructors. “Our servicemen have dispelled the myth about the superiority of Western weapons,” the minister noted. The Russian military will more intensively target Ukrainian logistic centers and storage facilities storing Western weapons, the minister said.

“We will increase the intensity of strikes against logistics centers and storage bases for Western weapons,” Shoigu said. Most of the $61 billion assistance package that the United States allocated to Ukraine will finance the US military industry, Sergei Shoigu said. “Washington intends to allocate almost $61 billion to the Kiev regime to prevent the collapse of the Ukrainian armed forces. Most of the allocations will finance the military industry of the United States. The US authorities cynically declare that Ukrainians will die for their interests in the fight against Russia,” Shoigu said. The Russian military industry will continue to increase the production of weapons and military equipment in proportion to the threats posed by the United States and its allies, the minister added. The Russian Army will receive the first units of new-generation anti-aircraft systems, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. “This year the troops will receive: the first units of the new-generation S-500 anti-aircraft missile system in two modifications – long-range anti-aircraft missile systems and missile defense systems; S-400, S-300V4, Buk-M3, Tor-M2U anti-aircraft missile systems; and new-generation radar stations,” Shoigu said.

NATO has deployed up to 33,000 servicepeople, about 300 tanks and more than 800 other types of armored vehicles near borders of Russia, the Russian defense minister said. “Today, the grouping of NATO reinforcement troops near our borders numbers up to 33,000 people, about 300 tanks and more than 800 other armored combat vehicles,” Shoigu said. Shoigu also said that NATO drills involving up to 90,000 servicepeople are taking place right now, and the exercises are mimicking supposed impending Russian aggression. The Russian minister also said that the alliance is trying to strengthen its activity in the Arctic, while Sweden’s accession to NATO has increased tensions. “Sweden’s entry into the North Atlantic Alliance in early March has increased military and political tensions in the Western and Northwestern strategic directions,” Shoigu said.

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“According to EU officials, an estimated 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are living in the bloc..”

• No Hiding From Draft Abroad – Kiev (RT)

Ukrainian consular offices will not serve fighting-age men living abroad who are unwilling to risk their lives for their country’s survival, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said on Tuesday. Kiev’s diplomatic missions in several Western nations stopped processing such service requests on Tuesday, according to multiple Ukrainian media reports. Documents that have been finalized for fighting-age Ukrainian men are being withheld, reports claim. Kuleba confirmed in a social media post on Tuesday that he had ordered the policy change and that it is meant to encourage men to come back to Ukraine for possible call up for military service. ”How it looks like now: a man of conscription age went abroad, showed his state that he does not care about its survival, and then comes and wants to receive services from this state. It does not work this way. Our country is at war,” he wrote.

The order to deny consular services to all men aged 18 to 60 was first revealed by Ukrainian media on Monday. Kuleba has since described his decision as “fair” and in line with the controversial military mobilization reforms, which President Vladimir Zelensky signed into law this month. The changes include various punishments for avoiding the draft. According to EU officials, an estimated 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are living in the bloc. Kiev has identified that pool as a significant untapped source of manpower for the armed forces. When they come into force next month Zelensky’s reforms will lower the draft age from 27 to 25, tighten exemptions and oblige potential conscripts to update their personal data with the Defense Ministry.

All men aged 18 to 60, regardless of eligibility, will be required to carry papers confirming their registration with a conscription office. Asked in early April how many troops Kiev intended to mobilize, Zelensky dodged the question and claimed that Moscow had plans to enroll 300,000 additional servicemen. Russian officials denied his claim, pointing out that its military attracts enough volunteers to meet personnel goals.

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“They bought Manhattan Island for beads, and Ukrainians don’t even get those, only an American noose around the neck,..

• West Is Doing To Ukrainians What It Did To Indigenous Americans – Zakharova (RT)

Kiev’s policies will result in the extermination of Ukrainians on behalf of its Western puppet masters, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry intends to deny all consular services abroad to male citizens aged 18 to 60, except for preparing documents to return to Ukraine, local media reported on Monday, citing the ministry’s internal correspondence. The policy is presumably meant to force men of fighting age to leave foreign nations and be conscripted into military service under a new mobilization law signed by President Vladimir Zelensky this month. The people are being “erased by Western elites and their executors in Ukraine – Zelensky and his pseudo-Ukrainian gang,” Zakharova said on Tuesday, reacting to the news.

She claimed that while Ukrainian governments that have been in power since the 2014 US-backed armed coup in Kiev posed as nationalist, their policies came “from people who historically had nothing to do with the country.” “After most of Ukraine was pillaged and looted, its history rewritten, and monuments destroyed, they moved on to the physical elimination of its indigenous population,” she said. ”Everything just like with the aboriginal population of North America, who were killed in the tens of thousands by the ‘civilized’ folk. They bought Manhattan Island for beads, and Ukrainians don’t even get those, only an American noose around the neck,” Zakharova added. Moscow perceives its conflict with Kiev as a proxy war which Washington initiated and is willing to conduct “to the last Ukrainian.”

Senior Western officials, including US Senator Lindsey Graham and former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have praised the Ukrainians’ willingness to fight and die for Western interests. ”There could be no more effective way of investing in Western security than investing in Ukraine, because those guys without a single pair of American boots on the ground are fighting for the West,” Johnson said earlier this month, as he bragged to students at Georgetown University in the US about his record of arming Kiev.

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Drills are all German troops are capable of.

• Germany Holds Massive Military Drills Near Russian Border (RT)

More than 3,000 German military personnel are taking part in the Grand Quadriga 2024 drills that kicked off in Lithuania on Tuesday. The maneuvers are part of the larger, months-long Steadfast Defender 24 series of NATO exercises that began in late January. Lithuania shares a border with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, as well as Moscow’s closest ally, Belarus. In a separate development earlier this month, Berlin deployed an advanced military team to the Baltic country as part of plans for a full-strength armor brigade permanently stationed there. Moscow has described the plans as a threat requiring “special measures” in response. The Grand Quadriga 2024 exercise is scheduled to wrap up in late May, and will involve 200 pieces of German military hardware, including Leopard tanks as well as Puma and Boxer infantry fighting vehicles.

In a statement last Thursday, the Lithuanian military wrote that the “exercise is centered around moving two divisions from the Central European region to the Eastern.” “Lithuanian units training side by side with the German participants will plan and execute operations,” the document read. The Bundeswehr revealed that its armored division would be transported by boat, rail and road to Lithuania, where it would “practice defense and counter-offensive [exercises] on the allied territory.” Several more military drills will also be taking place in Lithuania concurrently, including Saber Strike, Brave Griffin 2024/II and Thunder Strike – all of which are part of NATO’s Steadfast Defender 24. Hailed as the largest exercises that NATO has held in decades, the maneuvers will feature some 90,000 troops from all 32 member states, according to Supreme Allied Commander for Europe Christopher Cavoli.

Some 1,100 combat vehicles, including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles, will be involved, as well as more than 50 naval vessels and 80 helicopters, drones and fighter jets. In January, General Cavoli said the drills would simulate an “emerging conflict scenario against a near-peer adversary,” covering thousands of kilometers all across Europe. Commenting on NATO’s war games in early March, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, said they were “undoubtedly increasing tensions and destabilizing the situation in the world.” He claimed that a “scenario of an armed confrontation with Russia is being rehearsed.”

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“..the “independent charity that champions Ukrainian culture” which, the institute financial reports reveal, is paid for by George Soros.”

• A Nasty Little Book About The Allied Invasion Of Russia In 1918 (Helmer)

In the last war which the Americans, British, and French fought against the Russians, they were all defeated and forced to run away. Now it’s happening again. But if Anna Reid, author of a new history of the Allied powers’ invasion of Russia and war against the Bolsheviks, titles her book “A Nasty Little War” (lead image, left), what title does Reid give to the present war which the Doughboy alliance is losing for the second time? A Nasty Big War doesn’t quite do their plan for destroying Russia enough justice, does it? A Nasty Little Defeat followed by a Nasty Big Defeat comes closer to the truth, but Reid has written her book in the conviction that it will not and must not come to that again. One hundred and six years since the Russia Intervention of 1918-20 is long enough for Reid to conclude with one of her contemporary British officer sources: “‘Of course it could not possibly be otherwise. But it is unfortunate that events worked out as they did.’ It could have been the epitaph for the whole Intervention,” Reid adds from the British point of view, then but not now.

“So ends a not very creditable enterprise”, she quotes from a report on the desk of British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon in April 1920. Curzon then crossed out “not very” and wrote in “highly dis”. Reid is so certain this is not the lesson of today’s allied war against Russia she declares her conclusion at the very beginning of her book. “There is no simple read-across from the Intervention. Today’s war is not a civil one, and the impressive and staunchly democratic Ukrainians are not the inept, revanchist Whites. The lazy lesson from 1918-20 – that Western meddling in the region failed then, and will again now – is completely mistaken. If the Intervention does have something to teach, it is that Putin will fail for the same reason the Whites did: because he underestimates the desire for freedom of the non-Russian nations…” This declaration is at page 10. Reid’s history runs on for another 350 pages of the same.

Reid cannot bring herself to introduce or mention the Russian president by his full name. He first appears, first name-less, on page 9 “as Putin’s Russia attempts to reconquer its thirty-years independent Ukraine.” Felix Dzerzhinsky, Bolshevik head of intelligence, is more fortunate with Reid. He gets his full name, but Reid adds: “the weasel-faced psychopath in charge of the Cheka”. Dangerous adjectives, weasel-faced psychopaths in glass houses with hands full of them. Reid has similar tongue trouble with how to identify the Russians in the war by name. She repeatedly refers to them as “the enemy”, because the war diaries and operation reports of the British commanders she was reporting described them so at the time. Their soldiers called them “Bolos” or “Russkis” if they were men; if they were women, they used fonder terms. These men did not want to fight – there were mutinies by the Quebec infantry in the Canadian force, as well as in US, French, and British units. More committed to killing Russians were the Japanese and Greek forces. At every turn of events, Reid continues to wage her war against the Russian history of what happened:

“The Americans arrived [in Vladivostok] just in time for a coup. Soviet historians accused the Interventionists of waging a colonial war. This was anachronistic – the hey-day of imperialism was over and untrue insofar as the Allies had no ambition permanently to annex Russian territory.” “Vilified by Cold War-era historians on the left as absurd and hysterical, most of the material [in the British Foreign Office’s Blue Book of Bolshevik war crimes] is in fact perfectly credible”. “Foreshadowing, ironically, a late-Soviet propaganda trope, he [Winston Churchill, then British war minister] blamed what pogroms there were on Ukrainian ‘hordes’.”“There is some truth…in that the Intervention played into a long-standing Russian narrative of encirclement by hostile powers. But it is hard to see, had the Allies stood back, that relations would have been much better. A one-party state explicitly dedicated to worldwide revolution, the Soviet Union was never going to be a normal diplomatic partner”.

This is history topsy-turvied to fit a political message. “Excellent background to today’s events” – this is the endorsement of Reid’s book by Anne Applebaum, wife of the Polish foreign minister, Radoslav Sikorski, whose Siklebaum profiteering from Russia war-making can be followed here. In London, Reid shares direction of the Ukrainian Institute with Applebaum — Applebaum is a patron, Reid a trustee of the “independent charity that champions Ukrainian culture” which, the institute financial reports reveal, is paid for by George Soros.

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“..The Islamic world needs to come together..”

• Gaza Settlement Crucial For Islamic World – Erdogan (TASS)

The Islamic world needs to come together and find a solution to the Gaza crisis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his pool reporters on his return from Iraq, where he was on a visit on April 22; the Anadolu news agency quoted his remarks. “Gaza is where the Islamic world needs to focus, engage in reasoning for a solution, and formulate realistic and effective policies,” the president said. Erdogan added that Turkey will continue to discuss these issues with both representatives of the radical Palestinian Hamas movement and the leaders of countries. This is Turkey’s top priority and it will do everything it can toward this end, Erdogan went on to say.

In his opinion, it would be a mistake to view the Gaza issue solely from the perspective of October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian-Israeli conflict sharply escalated. “The massacres and Israeli mobilization for the destruction of Gaza should change the approach to the issue. Israel’s occupation of Gaza opens the door for other occupations. We will try to involve the UN secretariat and take joint action. If the Islamic world does not come to its senses from the massacres reaching genocidal proportions, it may lose its reflexes completely. Therefore, we cannot remain silent, we must mobilize,” the Turkish president stressed.

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“..if it attempts to attack Iran again..”

• Iran Threatens To Wipe Out Israel (RT)

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has threatened Israel with annihilation if it attempts to attack Iran again. Raisi arrived in Pakistan on Monday for a three-day visit. He addressed the recent tensions between Tehran and West Jerusalem at an event in Punjab on Tuesday. “If the Zionist regime once again makes a mistake and attacks the sacred land of Iran, the situation will be different, and it is not clear whether anything will remain of this regime,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Raisi as saying. Israel never officially acknowledged an April 1 airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria that killed seven senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. Tehran nevertheless retaliated on April 13, firing scores of drones and missiles at several targets in Israel.

Iran has shrugged off a series of reported explosions near the city of Isfahan last Friday, which were rumored to be a response from Israel. West Jerusalem did not acknowledge the reported attack, while criticizing a cabinet minister who spoke about it out of turn. Tehran chose to ignore it rather than deliver the promised swift and severe reprisal. The Islamic Republic has vowed on multiple occasions to wipe out, destroy or annihilate the “Zionist regime,” as it calls Israel. Speaking in Lahore on Tuesday, Raisi vowed to continue “honorably supporting the Palestinian resistance.” He also denounced the US and the collective West as “the greatest violators of human rights,” pointing to their support for the Israeli “genocide” in Gaza.

So far, more than 34,000 Palestinians in the enclave have been killed in Israeli military operations. Israel declared war on Hamas after the October 7 raids by the Gaza-based Palestinian group that claimed the lives of an estimated 1,200 Israelis. Raisi has promised to boost Iranian trade with Pakistan to $10 billion annually. Relations between the two neighbors have been rocky since January, when Iran and Pakistan traded air and drone strikes aimed at “terrorist camps” in their respective territory.

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“The slave trade in Ukraine has become one of the most serious problems of our time..”

• Western Regime-Change Operations Enable Criminal Activities (SCF)

The slave trade in Ukraine has become one of the most serious problems of our time. Since the 2014 coup d’état, Kiev has been a key player in modern slavery, particularly for human trafficking and sexual exploitation networks. The political and social instability that has affected the country since the Western-led regime change operation is one of the main factors for the growth of such human rights violations. A recent investigative report published by the Foundation to Battle Injustice showed in details the seriousness of the slave trade in Ukraine. According to the organization, Kiev has become one of the main global hubs in the human trafficking market, with free exploitation and circulation of irregular workers – in addition to the well-known trafficking of women and children in the predatory sex market.

The study points out that more than 300,000 Ukrainians were victims of the slave market between 1991 and 2021. This situation, however, has deteriorated even further since Vladimir Zelensky came to power. It is estimated that since the beginning of Zelensky’s government, more than 550,000 Ukrainians have been enslaved. These numbers are alarming and place Ukraine as one of the main agents of human trafficking in the entire world. In its report, citing sources familiar with the topic and several insiders, the Foundation exposed how the slave trade in Ukraine is not limited to the exploitation of Ukrainian citizens. Since 2021, two reception centers for refugees from Africa have been operating in Ternopil. These facilities were used not only for receiving migrants but also for selling them on the European black market.

An alleged member of the Ukrainian Presidential Cabinet, on condition of anonymity, reported to investigators that the organizer of the Ukrainian human trafficking network is Ruslan Stefanchuk, current chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. It is said that Stefanchuk is the main beneficiary and coordinator of human trafficking networks in Ukraine, working both in the sale of Ukrainian citizens on the international black market and in the exploitation of foreigners who arrive through migratory flows and are handed over to criminal networks in Europe. Relatives of the Ukrainian parliamentarian also appear to be involved in such activities, as a large network of private companies is legally registered in the name of people close to him, such as his brother, Mykola Stefanchuck, and his wife, Marina Stefanchuk.

Stefanchuk and his relatives’ companies have the function of disguising the slave trade, making it appear to be a legal business. Advertisements are made to “help” people in various ways, such as offering employment or financial assistance. Thus, migrants, refugees and vulnerable Ukrainians are lured into meetings and interviews by supposedly legal and responsible companies, but soon after the meetings their documents are confiscated, and these people are captured and handed over to criminal networks. “Everything is built to look as legal as possible. Ukrainian women, children and men are invited for interviews at respectable companies in Kiev, Ternopil, Lviv or Ivano-Frankivsk. They are made tempting financial offers and paradisiacal working conditions. Then, under a plausible pretext, their identity cards are confiscated. After that, they can do absolutely anything they want with them,” source told investigators.

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Oh sure. “..we’re not going to know they’re not good until they’re shooting at us, and I don’t want to be in a position where I find out, ‘Oh, they actually are that good’. That’s a problem.”

• US Would Beat China In A War – Intel Official (RT)

If a conflict between Washington and Beijing broke out today, the more experienced American force would prevail but with significant casualties, a US military intelligence official has told reporters. The unnamed official gave a background briefing on Monday about threats facing the US military. He downplayed the Chinese H-20 stealth bomber, currently in development, as “probably nowhere near as good” as the American B-2 or the upcoming B-21 – while praising the Chinese J-20 fighter as “highly capable.” “The biggest… challenge for the Chinese side is actually not so much capability of actual systems, it’s more capability of personnel to effectively employ those systems at speed and at scale,” the official was quoted as saying by Defense One and Breaking Defense.

While the US military has “a lot of experience fighting wars,” the Chinese “don’t really have anybody right now at all, in the [People’s Liberation Army] PLA, who’s actually been in a war.” This relative inexperience would translate into the US winning a hypothetical war with China – although with large-scale losses – should one break out today, said the Defense One source. The Pentagon is proceeding with plans to modernize the US military because Chinese President Xi Jinping “almost certainly” believes a war with Washington is inevitable, noted the official. “I don’t want to rely on the Chinese not being good. Because we’re not going to know they’re not good until they’re shooting at us, and I don’t want to be in a position where I find out, ‘Oh, they actually are that good’. That’s a problem.” the official concluded.

Discussions about Chinese capabilities in Washington have been taking place against the backdrop of a debate about the B-21 bomber program. In February, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall urged the government to commit to the program, arguing that for at least 20 years, China has been building a military “purpose-built to deter and defeat” the US. Earlier this month, however, Air Force chief of staff General David Allvin told the Senate that new developing technologies might complement the B-21, so the service might not end up getting 100 of the bombers as originally planned. The plane, intended to become operational by 2030, is still under development at Northrop Grumman.

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“We must not overstate the danger. We’re not on the brink of war, and nor do we seek it..”

• Britain To Put Industry On ‘War Footing’ – PM (RT)

The UK is set to embark on the “biggest strengthening” of its national defense “in a generation” and plans to gradually increase defense spending to £87 billion (around $108 billion) annually by 2030, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced. Sunak made the remarks on Tuesday at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg while on a visit to Poland. Sunak pledged to gradually increase Britain’s defense spending, promising to even surpass the NATO-targeted 2% of GDP by the end of the decade. Annual spending is expected to reach the £87 billion ($108 billion) mark in 2023, he said, constituting some 2.5% of Britain’s GDP.

London is set to allocate additional long-term funding for ammunition production, Sunak stated, arguing that the Ukraine conflict has clearly shown the country needs deeper stockpiles should it find itself in a large-scale high-intensity war or even a global conflict. “We will put the UK’s own defense industry on a war footing. One of the central lessons of the war in Ukraine is that we need deeper stockpiles of munitions and for industry to be able to replenish them more quickly,” Sunak said. “Today is a turning point for European security and a landmark moment in the defense of the United Kingdom. It is a generational investment in British security and British prosperity, which makes us safer at home and stronger abroad,” he stated, hailing the spending plan as the “biggest strengthening of our national defense in a generation.”

The defense spending announcement comes as the UK, one of the top backers of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, unveiled its biggest-ever military aid package for Kiev, valued at £500 million ($617 million). The “vital munitions” package will include more than 400 combat vehicles, 60 boats, and an undisclosed number of long-range Storm Shadow missiles. “Defending Ukraine against Russia’s brutal ambitions is vital for our security and for all of Europe,” Sunak alleged. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is allowed to succeed in this war of aggression, he will not stop at the Polish border.” Speaking earlier in the day in Warsaw, however, the prime minister admitted that a large-scale conflict was not actually imminent and its danger should not be blown out of proportion. “We must not overstate the danger. We’re not on the brink of war, and nor do we seek it,” he acknowledged.

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“..the philosopher’s call “to live by one’s own wits” is as relevant today as ever..”

• German Leader Tells Putin He Can’t Quote Philosopher Kant (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin for quoting iconic German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Speaking on Tuesday at an event marking the 300th anniversary of Kant’s birth, Scholz accused Putin of trying to “poach” the great thinker as well as misrepresenting his ideas. Kant was born in 1724 in Koenigsberg (present-day Kaliningrad), which belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia before later becoming part of the Russian Empire. The philosopher is famous for his work on ethics, aesthetics and philosophical ontology, and is considered one of the pillars of German classical philosophy. “Putin doesn’t have the slightest right to quote Kant, yet Putin’s regime remains committed to poaching Kant and his work at almost any cost,” Scholz said at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, as quoted by Die Zeit.

Scholz said Russia’s role in the Ukraine conflict contradicts Kant’s fundamental teachings. He referred to Kant’s words on the interference of states in the affairs of other nations, and defended Kiev’s decision not to engage in peace talks with Moscow. He said Kant believed that forced treaties were not the way to reach ‘perpetual peace’ – a reference to one of Kant’s major works. Putin has been known to praise and quote Kant, even suggesting in 2013 that the philosopher should be made an official symbol of Kaliningrad Region. During a meeting with university students in Kaliningrad in January, Putin called Kant “one of the greatest thinkers of both his time and ours,” and said the philosopher’s call “to live by one’s own wits” is as relevant today as ever.

“A country must live by its own wits… This does not mean that we do not care about the interests of others… but we will never allow Russia’s interests to be neglected. In some countries, among our neighbors, this thesis has been forgotten. Many live by someone else’s wits. This will not bring them any good,” Putin stated. The administration of Kaliningrad Region responded to Scholz’s statement on Tuesday, saying no one has done more than Russia to “perpetuate the memory of the great philosopher and his teachings.” “Immanuel Kant died as a subject of the Russian crown. It seems to me that this, more than any words of all possible German politicians, shows the position of the great philosopher regarding Russia,” the governor’s press secretary, Dmitry Lyskov, said in a statement.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Morgan Musk

 

 

Musk Oz

 

 

Great white
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782690700087169273

 

 

Catnip

 

 

Carrot
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782584172659519490

 

 

Battle cats
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782829098131173629

 

 

Fox cat

 

 

Moose

 

 

Babies
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782742456582160451

 

 

Poetry
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782482151096590529

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 17 2024

Apr 172024
 
 April 17, 2024  Posted by at 8:31 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


Daniel Garber Lambertville holiday 1941

 

• Iran’s Strike On Israel Was Much More Successful Than It Seems (Juma)
• Iran’s Retaliatory Attack Revealed Israel’s Military Weaknesses (Manley)
• Loose Lips Don’t Sink Ships, Or Israel (Helmer)
• The Gaza Genocide As Explicit Policy – Michael Hudson (Pepe Escobar)
• Zelensky Green With Envy as West Comes to Aid of Israel (Miles)
• Ukrainians ‘Beginning To Dislike’ US – Odessa University Boss (RT)
• Ukraine Suddenly Walked Away From Black Sea Deal – Reuters (RT)
• Xi Jinping Proposes Four Principles For Resolving Ukrainian Crisis (TASS)
• Biden Refuses to Testify in GOP Impeachment Inquiry (ET)
• RFK Jr Won’t Seek Libertarian Nomination, Says Team Trump Asked Him As VP (ZH)
• Coalition of AG’s File Amicus Brief Defending Ken Paxton and His Top Deputy (ET)
• Supreme Court Takes Up Obstruction Case Affecting J6 Defendants (Turley)
• Dutch Gov’t Data Hack Reveals Startling Amount Of Covid Adverse Reactions (X)
• A Generation Lost to Climate Anxiety (Zaruk)

 

 

 

 

Watch this: Chasing Trump

 

 

Kim Gaza

 

 

 

 

Florida 1982
https://twitter.com/i/status/1780229477265485883

 

 

 

 

Those hundreds of drones and missiles have fully exposed Israel’s defenses, including those provided by third countries.. At a low cost, and without starting a war. Pretty smart. Plus, Biden has refused US involvement in potential counter attacks.

• Iran’s Strike On Israel Was Much More Successful Than It Seems (Juma)

On the night of April 14, Iran and its proxy forces launched a series of cruise missile and kamikaze drone strikes on Israeli territory. The attacks did not come as a surprise. Tehran had warned that it would respond to the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, which killed several high-ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including two generals. The retaliatory strike was called Operation True Promise. There is still much debate on whether Iran’s retaliatory strike was successful. Most military experts agree that there was nothing unusual about Tehran’s actions, except that this was Iran’s first direct attack on Israel. From a technical point of view, the strategy was simple and correct: Iran first suppressed the enemy’s air defense systems with drones and then launched hypersonic missiles which the Israelis and Americans were not able to intercept. Incidentally, in light of this, Ukraine’s statements about shooting down Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles sound ridiculous.

Many experts were skeptical about Iran’s strike and hastened to say that the retaliation did not live up to expectations. Given the clip thinking of most commentators, this reaction is hardly surprising. Their reasoning resembles a Hollywood blockbuster stuffed with special effects, where the end of the world and its miraculous salvation fit into 90-120 minutes, with a love scene in the middle. In real life, things are different. As Sun Tzu wrote in ancient times, to fight 100 battles and win 100 battles is not the height of skill. The best way to win is not to fight at all. This is Iran’s strategy. Its strike against Israel was not so much a military response as a grandmaster’s move in a big chess game. And the game is not over yet. After the attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria’s capital, Tehran found itself in a tough situation. It had to respond in a way that would look convincing and would achieve specific military goals, but would not start World War III.

To achieve the first point, Iran had to carry out a direct strike without resorting exclusively to proxy forces – and that is indeed how it acted. Regarding the second point, even though most of the missiles and drones were indeed shot down, some managed to penetrate Israeli air space and hit military targets. The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Mohammad Bagheri, said that the information center on the Israeli-Syrian border and Israel’s Nevatim air base were hit. And finally, as to the third point – war didn’t happen. This resembled the situation in 2020, when the Iranians hit US bases in Iraq in response to the assassination of General Soleimani. However, it is still too early to speculate as to whether Iran’s attack was a success or not. The big question now is how Israel will respond. It’s important to emphasize that Iran’s operation carried more political than military weight. In this sense, it was carried out subtly and was a success. Obviously, the Iranians did not want to start a war which would involve the US, even though that is what Netanyahu wanted. In other words, Israel didn’t manage to provoke Iran.

It is also obvious that the Islamic Republic possesses more powerful drones and missiles than those used in the attack on April 14. However, even the less advanced drones and missiles were able to penetrate Israeli air space and inflict economic damage, since Israel spent much more money on shooting down the missiles and drones than Iran spent on launching them. Tehran has once again demonstrated that Israel is not invulnerable, and it is possible to attack it. As for the degree of inflicted damage, which some commentators were unsatisfied with, it largely depends on the type of missiles and drones used in the attack – and Iran has a lot of military equipment.

Ritter Galloway: Stand Down
https://twitter.com/i/status/1780203527265976596

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“This was not a failure on Iran’s part. This was an action that has changed the game entirely..”

• Iran’s Retaliatory Attack Revealed Israel’s Military Weaknesses (Manley)

An article published in Mondoweiss on Sunday suggested that Iran’s retaliatory attack against Israel was not a failure, after Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that 99% of the launched missiles and drones were intercepted by Israeli air defense systems. The article notes that Iran declared its intentions to attack a week in advance and promised the US that its attack would be “under control” and conducted in a way that “avoids escalation”. On Tuesday, Sputnik’s The Critical Hour was joined by Dr. Jim Kavanagh, an independent journalist, to discuss Iran’s recent response to Israel’s attack over the weekend. “This was not a failure on Iran’s part. This was an action that has changed the game entirely,” said Kavanagh. “This is a new game now because what Iran demonstrated was that the Israelis were defended by the US. The US, Great Britain, France and Jordan – all of them acted in their defense and shot down [Iran’s] missiles.

They had a 72-hour notice. The Iranians did constrain themselves in the sense that they were targeting specific military installations. They didn’t pick a broad target against any civilian targets or urban targets,” he continued. “What Iran demonstrated was that it would act against Israel, it could do so effectively and intelligently,” he continued. “That was the best defended territory in the world, the best radar, the best air defense systems. Iran used seven missiles to target that and hit with five. So five or seven missiles struck the best defended and the best air defense territory in the world.” “What Iran demonstrated was that Israel is not safe,” said Kavanagh. Sputnik’s Garland Nixon suggested that Iran’s recent attack showed how Israel’s military is extremely dependent on its Western allies.

“Isn’t it strange that the US, Great Britain and France joined in a military attack? A military action with Israel. Where’s the justification for that?” Kavanagh responded. “But they’re not going to get 72 hours notice [again]. They’re not going to get time for the Americans and British and France if there’s a real attack. If it’s all-out warfare, Israel is not going to have time. They’re going to be hurt very badly. And, this is something they cannot stand.” “Israel knows all this. They know how weak they are,” he added. “Israel has an ace in the hole that they will use if there’s a general war with Iran, and that is nuclear weapons. And that’s what they have them for, and that’s what they will use to restore the intimidation over the world, over their regional adversaries at least.”

Israel 1948

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“..the best surveillance radar in the world, working in concert with the most sophisticated anti-missile defences in the world, were impotent in the face of the Iranian attack..”

• Loose Lips Don’t Sink Ships, Or Israel (Helmer)

No Russian military source will publicly express the line that Iran’s attack on Israel of April 14 was a strategic success, despite the tactical shortcomings. This is first of all because Iran is a strategic ally of Russia in its war against the US and NATO in the Ukraine, in Syria, and in Yemen. It is also because of what may happen next. If Israel escalates by attacking Iran and striking at the country’s infrastructure, then Iran’s counter will be to take a page out of Russia’s book and commence the one line of attack which Israel, the US and their allies cannot withstand any better than Ukraine – that’s Electric War.

For the seven months which have elapsed since Hamas began its operation against Israel on October 7, and Israel commenced its genocide against the Palestinians, there has been no targeting by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or the Syrian and Iraqi groups of Israel’s highly vulnerable maritime gas platforms, gas pipelines, coal and oil-fired electricity generating plants, the coal and oil storages nearby, solar and wind power units, or the electricity grids keeping the country alight. The Arab inhibitions and calculations are understandable. Iran’s will disappear if Israel triggers a new round of attacks. If and when that happens, the Palestinian failure in the US and in Europe to counterattack and stop Israel financing its war through the $60 billion genocide bond issue won’t matter. Bond holders don’t invest in blackouts. On the published Israeli counts to date, Iran launched between 180 and 185 drones, 30 to 36 cruise missiles, and 110 to 120 ballistic missiles[..]

The outcome counted by Israel’s enemies is that Israel, the US, British, French and Jordanian forces intercepted almost all of the drones and other decoys fired from Iran. Nine missiles beat the Iron Dome, Arrow, and other ground–to-air defences, five of them hit Nevatim air base and four of them hit the Ramon base. Iranian officials confirm those target strikes. In a briefing on April 16, the Iranian ground force commander, Brigadier General Kioumars Haydari, added that “the attack targeted the most strategic base and surveillance site of the Israeli military at the Jabal al-Sheikh Heights on the border between the occupied Palestinian territories and Syria.” Haydari did not mention Ramon or a Mossad facility as targeted or hit.

The case is being made by a group of retired colonels, majors, and lieutenants publishing in the US alt-media that the 6% rate of penetration – that’s 9 divided by 140 or by 156 – make a tactical victory over the US radar and missile combinations protecting Nevatim and Ramon, and therefore a strategic success for Iran. The US protection is Site 512 in the Negev region of southern Israel. According to one American interpretation, “the best surveillance radar in the world, working in concert with the most sophisticated anti-missile defences in the world, were impotent in the face of the Iranian attack…Who has deterrence supremacy? It ain’t Israel.”

Another American assessment goes further strategically without going as far tactically. The point of the penetrations at Nevatim and Ramon, this argument runs, was not to destroy the bases but to prove that, having beaten the US-Israeli defences this time round, the next time will be much more destructive; also, that the Israeli-American combination cannot afford the cost attrition of $1 billion spent per night to defend against larger and cheaper Iranian swarms. A third American interpretation is that even as slight as the 6% penetration rate appears to be, the Iranians have demonstrated the military and technological expertise to defeat the US technology on which Israeli defences are based.

A Russian military source acknowledges that “yes, several people have made this point that at least some projectiles got through at the airstrips; that the Iranians have learned from the defences and might have spotted weaknesses to exploit.” He dismisses this strategic victory as wishful thinking. “In a class room, these calculations of the pundits make sense. But up to the 10th Grade.” A NATO veteran and expert in applying electrical engineering to war comments: “Honestly, I don’t believe the Iranian strikes were all that effective in terms of damage done. This being said, again, they weren’t meant to be. They mostly used drones and older missiles with a few of the newer models thrown in to test, and send a message.”

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“..the ideal is to kill the population passively, to minimize visible bombing. And the line of least resistance is to starve the population. That has been Israeli policy since 2008.”

• The Gaza Genocide As Explicit Policy – Michael Hudson (Pepe Escobar)

In what can be considered the most crucial podcast of 2024 so far, Professor Michael Hudson – the author of seminal works such as Super-Imperialism and the recent The Collapse of Antiquity , among others – clinically lays down the essential background to understand the unthinkable: a 21st century genocide broadcast live 24/7 to the whole planet. [..] In an email exchange, Prof. Hudson detailed he’s now essentially “spilling the beans” about how, “50 years ago when I worked at the Hudson Institute with Herman Kahn [the model for Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove], Israeli Mossad members were being trained, including Uzi Arad. In our email exchange, Prof. Hudson remarked “this is basically what I said” in reference to the podcast with Ania K, drawing on his notes. Fasten your seat belts: unvarnished truth is more lethal than a hypersonic missile hit.

[..] On the Zionist military strategy in Gaza: “My background in the 1970s at Hudson Institute with Uzi Arad and other Mossad trainees. My field was BoP, but I sat in on many meetings discussing military strategy, and I flew to Asia twice with Uzi and got to know him. The U.S./Israeli strategy in Gaza is based in many ways on Herman Kahn’s plan that was carried out in Vietnam in the 1960s. Herman’s focus was systems analysis. Start by defining the overall aim and then, how do we achieve it? First, isolate them in Strategic Hamlets. Gaza has been carved up into districts, requiring electronic passes for entry from one sector to another, or into Jewish Israel to work. First thing: kill them. Ideally by bombing, because that minimizes domestic casualties for your army. The genocide that we are seeing today is the explicit policy of Israel’s founders: the idea of “a land without a people” means a land without non-Jewish people.

They were to be driven out – starting even before the official founding of Israel, in the first Nakba, the Arab holocaust. Two Israeli Prime Ministers were members of the Stern Gang of terrorists. They escaped from their British jail and joined to found Israel. What we are seeing today is the Final Solution to this plan. It also dovetails into U.S. desires to control the Middle East and its oil reserves. For U.S. diplomacy, the Middle East IS (in caps) oil. And ISIS is part of America’s foreign legion since it was first organized in Afghanistan to fight the Russians. That is why Israeli policy has been coordinated with the U.S.. Israel is the main U.S. client oligarchy in the Middle East. Mossad does most handling of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and wherever else the U.S. may send ISIS terrorists.

Terrorism and even the present genocide is central to U.S. geopolitics. But as the U.S. learned in the Vietnam War, populations protest and vote against the President who supervises this war. Lyndon Johnson couldn’t make a public appearance without crowds chanting. He had to sneak out the side entrance of hotels where he was speaking. To prevent an embarrassment such as Seymour Hersh describing the My Lai massacre, you block journalists from the battlefield. If they are there, you kill them. The Biden-Netanyahu team has targeted journalists in particular. So the ideal is to kill the population passively, to minimize visible bombing. And the line of least resistance is to starve the population. That has been Israeli policy since 2008.”

Prof. Hudson makes a direct reference to a Sara Roy piece in The New York Review of Books, citing a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to the Secretary of State on November 3rd, 2008. The cable reads, “As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to [embassy officials] on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge.” That has led, according to Prof. Hudson, to Israel “destroying fishing boats and greenhouses of Gaza to deprive it from feeding itself. Next, it has joined with the United States to block United Nations food aid and that of other countries. The U.S. quickly withdrew from the UN relief agency as soon as hostilities began, doing so immediately after the ICJ finding of plausible genocide. It was the major funder of this agency. The hope was that this would set back its activities.

Israel simply stopped letting food aid in. It set up long, long lines of inspections, that is, an excuse to slow the trucks to just 20% of their pre-Oct. 7 rate – from a normal rate of 500 a day to just 112. In addition to blocking trucks, Israel has targeted aid workers – about one a day.

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“..the Kiev regime started out this conflict with a very formidable integrated Soviet legacy air defense network that took Russia about a year and a half to take apart..”

• Zelensky Green With Envy as West Comes to Aid of Israel (Miles)

The United States rushed to the defense of Israel this weekend to help shoot down a volley of drones and missiles launched by Iran in a retaliatory strike for an attack on Tehran’s Syrian consulate earlier this month. The US was joined in their effort by the UK, flying out of their airbase in nearby Cyprus, and the Western-aligned regime in Jordan. Israeli media alleged that Saudi Arabia came to the aid of the country as well, although observers have questioned the veracity of those reports. The Gulf monarchy has walked a fine line in recent months, attempting to keep hopes of rapprochement with Tel Aviv alive while also acknowledging the pro-Palestinian sentiment of the country’s population. The dramatic (and reportedly highly expensive) show of force apparently led to some envy from another US ally, according to security analyst Mark Sleboda.

The international relations expert joined Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Tuesday to break down the Israel-Gaza conflict’s ramifications for the US’ relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “I think that Zelensky has finally come to the realization as the new mistress that the United States is never going to leave its wife, despite all the promises that Joe Biden has given, all of the late-night dinners and the hotel rooms,” Sleboda mused. “It’s all gone wrong… there’s a bit of envy.” “There was even an… interview with a Ukrainian academic, quote-unquote, saying how Ukraine is being two-timed by the United States with Israel and the rock on Israel’s finger is much bigger or something like that, that they are souring on the United States. I mean if you didn’t realize you were a proxy for US geopolitical motives, that’s entirely your problem,” the analyst stressed.

Sleboda broke down some of the reasons he believes the United States was able to come to the aid of its Middle Eastern ally in a way it hasn’t for Ukraine, noting that Israel is a much smaller country with an extensive air defense system in the Iron Dome. The analyst called the network “probably the second best air defense system in the world after Russia’s, and very tailored to task.” “Ukraine is an enormous country with very far-flung assets and Russia is a nuclear power with very large conventional and air forces, and it makes a world of difference,” Sleboda added. “It has to be said that the Kiev regime started out this conflict with a very formidable integrated Soviet legacy air defense network that took Russia about a year and a half to take apart, which is why only now are you starting to see the fruits of real Russian air superiority.”

“Russian forces are apparently able to use SU-25 aircraft in an essentially close air support role because the Kiev regime has no air defense, certainly not on the front line, left,” he concluded. “Ultimately the envy is at the moment primarily over air defense… [Zelensky] realizes he’s going to get no more air defense, which is simply going to make the end of this conflict come faster than it would have otherwise.”

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“..the US “is not going to be involved in [the Ukraine conflict] in a combat role.”

• Ukrainians ‘Beginning To Dislike’ US – Odessa University Boss (RT)

There is growing disenchantment with the US among Ukrainians over its perceived lack of commitment to their defense, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing the director of the Center for International Studies at the Odessa National University. Vladimir Dubovyk told the newspaper in an article on Monday that the swift action from the US and its NATO allies to fend off a massive Iranian missile and drone strike on Israel at the weekend stands in stark contrast to their apparent reluctance to beef up Ukraine’s air defenses amid its conflict with Russia. Ukrainians are “beginning to sour on the US,” Dubovyk was quoted as saying. The scholar noted that Washington played a key role “in the first two years of the war [with Russia], but now of course there’s a huge slowdown,” apparently referring to President Joe Biden’s latest aid package, which has been deadlocked by Republicans in Congress for several months.

“Rather than helping Ukraine create the kind of air-defense network Israel has, the West has provided [Kiev] with a patchwork of equipment,” the WSJ noted, adding that these stockpiles have become significantly depleted as Moscow escalates its campaign of air bombardments. The situation in Ukraine was contrasted with that of Israel, after Iran launched several hundred missiles and kamikaze drones at the Jewish state late on Saturday. US, British, French and Jordanian fighter jets scrambled to intercept the projectiles, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later reported that the vast majority of Iranian rockets and UAVs had been shot down before they reached Israeli airspace. Tehran said the attack came in response to an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Syria on April 1, and claimed that it had struck several Israeli military installations.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky noted that Israel is not a NATO member, meaning Western powers were not legally obliged to come to its defense. The Ukrainian leader added that the involvement of the US, the UK, and France did not result in a war breaking out in the region. “European skies could have received the same level of protection long ago if Ukraine had received similar full support from its partners,” Zelensky concluded. During a press conference on Monday, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby made it clear that the situations in Israel and Ukraine cannot be compared, describing them as “different conflicts, different airspace, [and] different threat picture.” He also emphasized that the US “is not going to be involved in [the Ukraine conflict] in a combat role.”

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Ukraine cannot be trusted.

• Ukraine Suddenly Walked Away From Black Sea Deal – Reuters (RT)

Russia and Ukraine had almost reached a new Black Sea shipping deal in March after two months of negotiations, only for Kiev to abruptly walk away, Reuters reported on Monday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. The official agreement governing the freight route lapsed in July 2023, when Moscow declined to renew the original Türkiye- and UN-mediated Black Sea Grain Initiative. Russia said that the US and EU had not kept their part of the deal, blocking exports of Russian food and fertilizer. The most recent talks were brokered by Türkiye at the prompting of the United Nations, and a tentative agreement “to ensure the safety of merchant shipping in the Black Sea” was reached last month, according to Reuters’ sources.

They added that while Kiev did not formally sign, it agreed that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could announce the deal a day before Turkiye’s March 31 local elections, with the pact to take effect immediately upon being made public. “At the very last minute, Ukraine suddenly pulled out and the deal was scuttled.” According to the draft seen by Reuters, Ankara had mediated agreements between Moscow and Kiev “on ensuring free and safe navigation of merchant vessels in the Black Sea,” in compliance with maritime conventions. The guarantees would not apply to “warships, civilian vessels carrying military goods,” except when agreed upon by all parties, the copy of the document stated. Both Russia and Ukraine were to offer security guarantees to commercial vessels in the Black Sea, undertaking not to strike, seize or search them, provided they were unladen or had declared a non-military cargo, according to the draft agreement.

The reasons for Kiev pulling out are unclear, but President Vladimir Zelensky accused Russia of targeting grain export infrastructure during the original deal, thereby putting vulnerable countries at risk. Speaking to reporters earlier this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied that Moscow ever attacked Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea during the grain deal. One of the reasons Moscow did not return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative was Kiev’s misuse of the shipping passage during the agreement, he said. “The Ukrainians used these free secure passages to launch their weapons in the form of naval drones,” damaging Russian ships and ports, Lavrov stated. He added under the old agreement, only 3% of the shipped Ukrainian grain went to countries on the UN World Food Programme’s list of states in greatest need. Since then, Moscow has donated 200,000 tons of grain to six African nations, with the last shipments arriving in January of this year.

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At least Xi didn’t refuse to talk to him.

• Xi Jinping Proposes Four Principles For Resolving Ukrainian Crisis (TASS)

Chinese President Xi Jinping has proposed four principles to restore peace in Ukraine as soon as possible and prevent the crisis from spiraling out of control. According to the Xinhua news agency, the Chinese leader had an in-depth exchange of views on the Ukrainian crisis with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is on an official visit to Beijing. “First, we should give priority to maintaining peace and stability and refrain from seeking selfish gains. Second, we should cool down the situation instead of adding fuel to the fire. Third, we should create conditions for restoring peace and refrain from further escalating tensions. Fourth, we should reduce the negative impact on the global economy and refrain from undermining the stability of global industrial and supply chains,” the agency quoted the Chinese leader as saying.

Scholz is on an official visit to Beijing since April 12. This is his second trip to China as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. Scholz is accompanied by three ministers of environment, agriculture and transport. The delegation includes representatives of leading German companies, in particular Siemens, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. The visit focuses on bilateral trade and economic relations.

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Why not subpoena him?

• Biden Refuses to Testify in GOP Impeachment Inquiry (ET)

President Joe Biden will not be testifying to U.S. House of Representatives members who are engaged in an impeachment inquiry against him, the White House said on April 15. Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, told House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) that the president would not testify in the “partisan charade.” “Your committee’s purported ‘impeachment inquiry’ has succeeded only in turning up abundant evidence that, in fact, the president has done nothing wrong,” Mr. Sauber said in a letter to Mr. Comer. “Your insistence on peddling these false and unsupported allegations despite ample evidence to the contrary makes one thing about your investigation abundantly clear: The facts do not matter to you,” he added. Republicans in their investigation have found that millions of dollars flowed from businesses and individuals, including foreigners, to members of the Biden family while President Biden was vice president.

They’ve also identified payments from Hunter Biden’s business to the president, and from the president’s brother to him, as well as emails between President Biden and an associate of Hunter Biden. Several witnesses, meanwhile, testified that President Biden would get on the phone with Hunter Biden’s associates and that he attended multiple meals with them. President Biden and the White House have maintained that he was not involved with the business undertaken by his son and brother. Mr. Comer wrote to the president in March, saying the evidence “wholly contradicts your position.” “In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the committee, as well as the White House’s obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so,” Mr. Comer wrote at the time.

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in the Biden family. Like his son, Hunter Biden, President Biden is refusing to testify in public about the Bidens’ corrupt influence peddling,” Mr. Comer said Monday. “This comes as no surprise since President Biden continues to lie about his relationships with his son’s business partners, even denying they exist when his son said under oath during a deposition that they did,” he said. “It is unfortunate President Biden is unwilling to answer questions before the American people and refuses to answer the very simple, straightforward questions we included in the invitation. Why is it so difficult for the White House to answer those questions? The American people deserve transparency from President Biden, not more lies.” It’s not clear whether lawmakers are considering subpoenaing the president, and the White House did not respond when asked whether the president would comply with a subpoena.

Mr. Comer and other members have said they want answers to questions, including those about the source of the money for the payment from his brother. They’re also wondering whether President Biden ever interacted with Hunter Biden’s associates, such as Chinese businessmen Jonathan Li, Ye Jianming, and Henry Zhao. Lawmakers also want more details about the work done by Eric Schwerin, one of the associates, for President Biden. Mr. Schwerin told lawmakers that he often met with President Biden and provided him with free services, including tax preparation. Lawmakers have yet to outline the next steps in the inquiry. The November election is looming and, if President Biden loses his re-election bid, he would exit the presidency regardless in January 2025. Mr. Sauber, the special adviser to the president, is leaving the White House early next month. He was brought on in 2022 to oversee the White House’s response to congressional investigations as Democrats braced to lose their majorities on Capitol Hill that year.

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“..Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita quickly fired back, denying Kennedy’s claim and calling him a “leftie loonie” to boot…”

• RFK Jr Won’t Seek Libertarian Nomination, Says Team Trump Asked Him As VP (ZH)

After seriously considering the possibility, 2024 presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, Jr has declared he will not seek the Libertarian Party nomination, saying he’s confident he’ll achieve ballot access across the country on his own. Meanwhile, in a social media skirmish with Team Trump, Kennedy said Trump associates asked him to consider becoming the former president’s running mate. In a political system with formidable ballot-access barriers that protect the Democrat-Republican duopoly, outsider presidential candidates are frequently attracted to the idea of running as a Libertarian — if only to access the party’s hard-earned, 50-state ballot qualification. “We’re not gonna have any problems getting on the ballot ourselves so we won’t be running Libertarian,” Kennedy tells ABC News. That declaration came as his team was celebrating their exploitation of a quirk in Iowa ballot-access law:

Rather than gathering 3,500 signatures, the Kennedy team held a convention in West Des Moines. Consistent with state requirements, it included at least 500 voters who represented at least 25 of the Hawkeye State’s 99 counties. Kennedy assured ABC that he’s “100% confident” he’ll manage the arduous process — which includes fending off Democrats’ lawfare — in all 50 states, saying “we’re going to add probably two to three states a week.” While Kennedy framed his decision solely in ballot-access terms, it was far from certain that he could have actually won the Libertarian nod. The nominee isn’t selected by party leadership, but by delegates at the group’s convention — all of whom show up fully free to vote for the candidate of their choice. [..] Kennedy has plenty of overlaps with libertarians, some of his stances could be seen as disqualifying:

His staunchly pro-Israel statements before and during the Gaza war devastated his standing with non-interventionist libertarians (and progressive leftists to boot). The damage hasn’t caused him to temper his remarks: On Saturday, he oddly referred to Israel as “our oldest ally” and said “the U.S. ought to be bending over backwards to protect Israel.” While he’s expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of gun control, he said he would sign an “assault weapon ban” if Congress sent him one. He’s also called for a $15 national minimum wage, more free childcare, and abolishing interest on all federal student loans. Meanwhile, responding to a series of Truth Social posts by Trump, in which the former president called Kennedy “the most radical liberal” in the race, Kennedy said Trump’s “emissaries” asked him to become his running mate. Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita quickly fired back, denying Kennedy’s claim and calling him a “leftie loonie” to boot…

Politico reports that Trump had casually floated the idea in conversations, adding that “Trump is known to workshop ideas to a variety of aides and allies, even if they never come to fruition. As he does with many political rivals, Trump has directed a mixture of flattery and abuse at Kennedy — as he did last week: “He’s got some nice things about him. I happen to like him. Unfortunately he is about the ‘Green New Scam’ because he believes in that and a lot of people don’t. I guess that would mean that RFK Jr.’s going to be taking away votes from Crooked Joe Biden, and he should because he’s actually better than Biden. He’s much better than Biden. If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden.”

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“..a number of attorneys general, including me, are facing similar attacks from their political adversaries. just for doing their jobs.”

• Coalition of AG’s File Amicus Brief Defending Ken Paxton and His Top Deputy (ET)

A national coalition of 18 state attorneys general filed an amicus brief to defend Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster in a lawsuit initiated by the State Bar of Texas. “The State Bar of Texas’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline attempted to censure Attorney General Paxton and First Assistant Attorney General Webster for taking action over genuine concerns of unconstitutional conduct by states during the 2020 election,” Mr. Paxton’s office wrote in a press release on Monday. The brief was filed on Friday in response to complaints against the state’s top attorney and his top deputy for their decision to file the “landmark” case known as Texas v. Pennsylvania. Mr. Webster authored the petition contesting the 2020 presidential election results to the U.S. Supreme Court. “Neither the State Bar nor this Court is an appropriate forum for what is ultimately a political fight,” the group of attorneys general wrote in the brief.

“And while it is, of course, true that the Attorney General is subject to general rules of professional conduct, those rules cannot be used to limit discretionary authority conferred by a State Constitution. Nor can they be weaponized to undermine the will of the voters who elected the Attorney General in the first place.” Montana AG Austin Knudsen, who led the coalition, said the commission’s complaint threatens the constitutional authority of elected officials. “The weaponization of the bar complaint process undermines the constitutional authority of elected officials and the will of the voters,” Mr. Knudsen told the Daily Caller. “I’m glad I could support Attorney General Ken Paxton in this instance as a number of attorneys general, including me, are facing similar attacks from their political adversaries. just for doing their jobs.” The coalition argues that the issue is not about the alleged misconduct but whether the court will allow state bars to take action against those with whom they disagree politically.

“The real question in this case is not whether the alleged misrepresentations amount to violation of the rules of professional conduct,” the court document reads. “Instead, it is whether courts will permit the politicization of the State Bars and weaponization of disciplinary rules against elected executive officers discharging their constitutional duties. “The Supreme Court of Texas will likely be the first to consider that question. It should be a resounding ‘No.’” The attorneys general argue that allowing the case to move forward will encourage further bar complaints made for the purpose of “obstructing the ability of attorneys general and their staff to carry out their constitutional responsibilities.” They are asking the Texas Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the appeals court. “The Court should grant the petition, reverse the court of appeals’ decision, and render judgment on behalf of the First Assistant,” the document states.

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1512(c)(2)

• Supreme Court Takes Up Obstruction Case Affecting J6 Defendants (Turley)

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up Fischer v. United States, a case that could fundamentally change many cases of January 6th defendants, including the prosecution of former president Donald Trump. The case involves the interpretation of a federal statute prohibiting obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations. The case concerns 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), which provides: “Whoever corruptly—(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.” Joseph Fischer was charged with various offenses, but U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols of the District of Columbia dismissed the 1512(c)2 charges. Judge Nichols found that the statute is exclusively directed to crimes related to documents, records, or other objects.

The D.C. Circuit reversed and held that Section 1512(c)(2) is a “catch all” provision that encompasses all forms of obstructive conduct. Circuit Judge Florence Pan ruled that the “natural, broad reading of the statute is consistent with prior interpretations of the words it uses and the structure it employs.” However, Judge Gregory Katsas dissented and rejected “the government’s all-encompassing reading.” The Court will now consider the question of whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit erred in construing 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), which prohibits obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations, to include acts unrelated to investigations and evidence. The law itself was not designed for this purpose. It was part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and has been described as “prompted by the exposure of Enron’s massive accounting fraud and revelations that the company’s outside auditor, Arthur Andersen LLP, had systematically destroyed potentially incriminating documents.”

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“..Members of parliament are being forced into court but would rather pay the fines imposed by the courts than release the information..”

• Dutch Gov’t Data Hack Reveals Startling Amount Of Covid Adverse Reactions (X)

Exclusive Breaking: Dutch Government Data hacked and startling amount of Covid adverse reactions obtained. Astounding amount of data obtained. Millions of records now seen. There is a massive attempted coverup not only by the Government in Holland but in every nation that has been infiltrated by Globalists. Excess Deaths are exploding but there is a wall of silence from our respective Governments. I’m joined from Holland by Dutch Freedom Fighters and Truth Seekers, former Dutch Parliamentarian and business entrepreneur Wybren van Haga, Businessman and Data expert Wouter Aukema and Anne Merel Kloosterman who is representing many vaccine injured. The Dutch Minister of health has lied and needs to be brought to task. Members of parliament are being forced into court but would rather pay the fines imposed by the courts than release the information!!! Just what are they hiding?

A Great Awakening is taking place all around the world as people wake up and realise what has been done to them. Justice must be done and if any Government refuses to obey their own laws and constitution then they become illegitimate and those who form it and those who support them essentially become the enemy of the people they are supposed to be governing. The first order of any Government is to protect its own people. Not only have they failed to do this but they are attempting to hide their failings and perhaps more disturbingly hide a dark de-population agenda that they are involved in. They have essentially broken their contract with the people. Its time to get on board and join the quest for freedom and justice. Join us http://freedomtraininternational.org.

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“..people with “woke” beliefs have higher rates of depression..”

• A Generation Lost to Climate Anxiety (Zaruk)

In a far-reaching new essay in The New Atlantis, the environmental researcher Ted Nordhaus makes a damning and authoritative case that while the basic science of CO2 and climate is solid, it has been abused by the activist class in service of a wildly irresponsible and unscientific climate catastrophism. This reckless alarmism, saturated across the mainstream media and endlessly amplified by it, has had profound societal consequences. It has both distorted public understanding of the massive benefits the carbon economy makes possible and grossly exaggerated the risks of extreme events it allegedly makes more likely. As a result it has rendered reasonable debate on climate policy impossible, even as it has given cynical politicians an easy scapegoat for every social ill, drawing attention away from regulatory and institutional failures and laying blame instead at the feet of fossil fuel companies and other evil “emitters.”

Perhaps most perniciously, as Nordhaus details, the doomsday prophesying of climate extremists has created hardened skeptics on one side who are increasingly suspicious of all public “expertise”, while at the same time infecting true believers on the other side with a crippling, pathological fatalism that has come to be referred to as “climate anxiety.” If there’s any flaw in Nordhaus’ damning and comprehensive analysis it’s that he undersells just how much damage the advent of “climate anxiety” has done already—and how much more it’s likely to do in years to come. Yes, there’s the obvious cases of obnoxious and lawbreaking behavior, from climate iconoclasts defacing priceless works of art, to interrupting Broadway shows and sporting events, to gluing themselves to buses and holding up traffic on major thoroughfares. But it runs much deeper than that.

Consider recent headlines: From Vox: “What to do when you’re completely overwhelmed by climate anxiety.” From The Guardian: “Climate anxiety adds to teenagers’ fears.” And the New York Times: “How Climate Change is Changing Therapy.” And perhaps most depressing of all, from the BBC: “Climate anxiety: ‘I don’t want to burden the world with my child.” The trend is so wide now that they have given it a name: birth strike. And the data backs up the headlines—like the recent Finnish study of 6,000 subjects that showed people with “woke” beliefs have higher rates of depression. Developed countries are already facing real increases in mental health issues, many of them human-made and bound up in everything from the opioid crisis to the COVID pandemic. The manufacture of climate anxiety as an issue allegedly on par with those others is a dangerous distraction that draws resources away from solving these other mental health challenges.

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Dore Kory

 

 

Pfizer batch

 

 

Elephants

 

 

Gibbon

 

 

Family
https://twitter.com/i/status/1780266693895266366

 

 

Slaps

 

 

Clipnosis

 

 

Sunscreen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1779962954617688422

 

 

Toll road

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 16 2024

Apr 162024
 
 April 16, 2024  Posted by at 8:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  69 Responses »


Charles Sprague Pearce The Arab jeweler c1882

 

• “I Can’t Go To My Son’s Graduation”: NY Judge Threatens Trump With Arrest (ZH)
• Trump Trial in Manhattan is an Indictment of the New York Legal System (Turley)
• Jury Selection Begins In Trump Hush-money Trial (RT)
• Johnson, Trump Announce Election Integrity Bill (ET)
• US House Speaker To Put Ukraine Aid Bill To A Vote (RT)
• How Iran’s ‘Strategic Patience’ Switched To Serious Deterrence (Pepe Escobar)
• Iranian Strikes On Israel Represent ‘Spillover’ Of Gaza Conflict – China (RT)
• Biden Tells Netanyahu US Won’t Support Attack on Iran (Antiwar)
• US Mulling New Sanctions Against Iran Over Attack on Israel – Scalise (Sp.)
• Netanyahu a Threat for Israel, Opposition Leader Says (TASS)
• Ukraine ‘Owned’ by US, US ‘Owned’ by Israel – Scott Ritter (Sp.)
• De-electrification And Unconditional Surrender Of The Kiev Regime (Helmer)
• Germans Can Now Change Gender Every Year (RT)
• The Palestine Congress (CJ Hopkins)
• Two Senior Tesla Executives Leave Amid 14,000 Global Layoffs (ZH)
• Airbus Beats Boeing For Deliveries In 2024 (ZH)
• Trump Biopic To Compete At Cannes Film Festival (RT)

 

 

 

 

Habba
https://twitter.com/i/status/1779925234868470134

 

 

 

 

Look up Mary McCord
https://twitter.com/i/status/1779853383525933207

 

 

Jury
https://twitter.com/i/status/1779876987697295817

 

 

Pastor

Dalton

 

 

 

 

“..that I can’t go to my son’s graduation, or that I can’t go to the United States Supreme Court, that I’m not in Georgia or Florida or North Carolina campaigning like I should be..”

Engoron tried to take away his money. So Merchan takes his freedom instead. Count on this judge to lock him up at some point. He’ll find a reason.

• “I Can’t Go To My Son’s Graduation”: NY Judge Threatens Trump With Arrest (ZH)

Update (1750ET): The first day of Donald Trump’s ‘hush money’ trial was fairly uneventful – aside from the judge, a complete dick, barring the former President from attending his son’s graduation and threatening arrest if he does. Speaking after a long day of jury selection and ground rules (with more than 50 jurors dismissed), Trump walked out of the courtroom and expressed his obvious displeasure. “As you know my son is graduating from High School, and looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation for a son who’s worked very, very hard,” Trump said, adding that he was “looking forward for years to having graduation with his mother and father there,” adding that the trial is a “scam” and a “political witch hunt.”

Judge Juan Merchan also won’t allow Trump to attend a Supreme Court hearing in DC regarding immunity. “We got a real problem with this Judge,” Trump continued, adding “that I can’t go to my son’s graduation, or that I can’t go to the United States Supreme Court, that I’m not in Georgia or Florida or North Carolina campaigning like I should be… it’s perfect for the radical left Democrats – that’s exactly what they want,” he continued, adding that it’s “election interference.”

Vivek

[..] The case stems from a $130,000 payment made by Trump’s former lawyer, convicted felon and admitted liar Michael Cohen, to adult film actress Stormy Daniels at the end of the 2016 election in an alleged scheme to buy her silence. Trump is required to be present for the trial, which will take place four days a week and could last up to two months. Judge Juan Merchan kicked off the day by refusing a request by Trump’s legal team to recuse himself from the case over an interview he gave to the press in which he mentioned the case, which Merchan said was within the law – while Merchan’s wife and daughter have worked for prominent Democrats and/or made anti-Trump statements.

Prosecutors sought to include evidence from the Access Hollywood ‘grab ’em by the pussy’ tape, as well as various sexual assault allegations from Trump accusers. Merchan allowed a transcript of the tape, and denied a request to present the other allegations in court. Next, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Trump’s attorneys to explain how the former president shouldn’t be held in contempt for allegedly violating Merchan’s gag order – arguing that Trump’s efforts have continued to this day, and that witnesses in the case “have incurred the wrath of Trump supporters.” And now, jury selection begins… with Merchan telling the court that 500 prospective jurors are waiting.

Merchan

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Good write-up from Turley. But it’s an indictment of the entire US legal system, not just New York.. Bragg and Merchan keep Trump from campaigning in 49 other states as well.

• Trump Trial in Manhattan is an Indictment of the New York Legal System (Turley)

After an absurd $450 million decision courtesy of Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will bring his equally controversial criminal prosecution over hush money paid to former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Lawyers have been scouring the civil and criminal codes for any basis to sue or prosecute Trump before the upcoming 2024 election. This week will highlight the damage done to New York’s legal system because of this unhinged crusade. They’ve charged him with everything short of ripping a label off a mattress. Just a few weeks ago, another judge imposed a roughly half billion dollar penalty in a case without a single victim who lost a single cent on loans with Trump. (Indeed, bank officials testified they wanted more business with the Trump organization). Now Bragg is bringing a case that has taken years to develop and millions of dollars in litigation costs for all parties. That is all over a crime from before the 2016 election that is a misdemeanor under state law that had already expired under the statute of limitations.

Like his predecessor, Bragg previously scoffed at the case. However, two prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, then resigned and started a public pressure campaign to get New Yorkers to demand prosecution. Pomerantz shocked many of us by publishing a book on the case against Trump — who was still under investigation and not charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. He did so despite objections from his former colleague that such a book was grossly improper. Nevertheless, it worked. Bragg brought a Rube Goldberg case that is so convoluted and counterintuitive that even liberal legal analysts criticized it. Trump paid Daniels to avoid any publicity over their brief alleged affair. As a celebrity, there was ample reason to want to keep the affair quiet, and that does not even include the fact that he is a married man. It also occurred before the 2016 election and there was clearly a benefit to quash the scandal as a candidate. That political motivation is at the heart of this long-delayed case.

It is a repeat of the case involving former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. In 2012, the Justice Department used the same theory to charge the former Democratic presidential candidate after a disclosure that he not only had an affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter but also hid the fact that he had a child by her. Edwards denied the affair, and money from donors was passed to Hunter to keep the matter quiet. The Justice Department spent a huge amount on the case to show that the third-party payments were a circumvention of campaign finance laws. However, Edwards was ultimately found not guilty on one count while the jury deadlocked on the other five. With Trump, the Justice Department declined a repeat of the Edwards debacle and did not bring any federal charge.

But Bragg then used the alleged federal crime to bootstrap a defunct misdemeanor charge into a felony in the current case. He is arguing that Trump intentionally lied when his former lawyer Michael Cohen listed the payments as retainer costs rather than a payment — to avoid reporting it as a campaign contribution to himself. Thus, if he had simply had Cohen report the payment as “hush money,” there would be no crime. Once again, the contrast to other controversies is telling. Before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign denied that it had funded the infamous Steele dossier behind the debunked Russian collusion claims. The funding was hidden as legal expenses by then-Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias. (The FEC later sanctioned the campaign over its hiding of the funding.). When a reporter tried to report the story, he said Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

Likewise, John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was called before congressional investigators and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress. Yet, there were no charges stemming from the hiding of the funding, though it was all part of the campaign budget. Making this assorted business even more repellent will be the appearance of Cohen himself on the stand. Cohen recently was denounced by a judge as a serial perjurer who is continuing to game the system. Cohen has a long record as a legal thug who has repeatedly lied when it served his interests. He has a knack for selling his curious skill set to powerful figures like Trump and now Bragg.

For those of us who have been critics of Cohen from when he was still working for Trump, it is mystifying that anyone would call him to the stand to attest to anything short of the time of day . . . and even then most of us would check our watches. Fortunately witnesses are no longer required to put their hand on the bible in swearing to testify truthfully in court. Otherwise, the court would need the New York Fire Department standing by in case the book burst into flames. So this is the case: A serial perjurer used to convert a dead state misdemeanor into a felony based on an alleged federal election crime that was rejected by the Justice Department. They could well succeed in a city where nine out of ten potential jurors despise Trump. Trying Trump in Manhattan is about as difficult as the New York Yankees going to bat using beach balls rather than baseballs. It is hard to miss.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1779874197918863646

Turley

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“The trial will keep Trump at the Manhattan courtroom every day of the proceedings for the next six weeks or more, effectively taking him off the campaign..”

• Jury Selection Begins In Trump Hush-money Trial (RT)

Jury selection has begun for a trial at which former US President Donald Trump stands accused of falsifying records related to hush-money payments to a porn star during the 2016 election. Trump becomes the first former president to stand trial on criminal charges. Twelve jurors, along with six alternates, will be chosen from among hundreds of New Yorkers. The judge in the case has released the extensive questionnaire that potential jurors will have to fill out. “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Trump told reporters outside the courtroom, calling the trial “political persecution” and “an assault on America.” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, charged Trump last year with 34 counts of “falsifying business records,” alleging that the Republican politician sought “to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.”

The case is based on claims by Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, that he paid $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, so she would keep quiet about an alleged affair with him. Trump has denied any relationship with Daniels. In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of campaign-finance violations, tax and bank fraud, and spent two and a half years in a federal prison. He also lost his New York bar license. Judge Juan Merchan has granted Bragg’s request for a gag order, meaning that Trump can’t criticize the prosecutor or his staff. The trial will keep Trump at the Manhattan courtroom every day of the proceedings for the next six weeks or more, effectively taking him off the campaign. Trump was the 45th president of the US (2017-2021) and is currently the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge President Joe Biden in November.

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Trump gives Johnson some loving.

• Johnson, Trump Announce Election Integrity Bill (ET)

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and former President Donald Trump are urging support for a bill aimed at preventing non-citizens from voting in federal elections. At a Friday, April 12, press conference at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence, the Republican leaders announced the bill as part of larger efforts to bolster election integrity. “What we’re going to do is introduce legislation to require that every single person who registers to vote in a federal election must prove that they are an American citizen first,” Mr. Johnson said. Though some jurisdictions allow noncitizens to participate in local elections, it is illegal for them to vote in all state and federal elections. However, the United States’ federal voter registration form does not require documentary proof of citizenship, and states’ efforts to impose such a requirement have been challenged by the Biden administration.

The new legislation, the speaker said, would establish new safeguards to ensure only citizens can vote. The provisions would require states to remove noncitizens from their voter rolls and would provide them with access to Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration databases to help them do so. “Congress has this responsibility. We cannot wait for widespread fraud to occur … especially when the threat of fraud is growing with every single illegal immigrant that crosses that border,” the speaker said. He added that he expected the bill to receive widespread Republican support while also forcing Democrats to go on record with where they stand. The push to secure elections from illegal votes comes amid the flood of illegal immigrants pouring across the southern border.

Illegal immigration, though a persistent problem for decades, has exploded to unprecedented levels under the Biden administration. The deluge has included individuals on the United States’ terror watch list and others with prior convictions for violent crimes. Republicans have repeatedly said that President Joe Biden has the power to end the crisis but simply chooses not to. President Trump repeated that claim Friday, asserting that the president could and should “close the border immediately.”

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Will the loving remain?

• US House Speaker To Put Ukraine Aid Bill To A Vote (RT)

US House Speaker Mike Johnson has promised to finally advance the long-stalled Ukraine aid bill sought by President Joe Biden, multiple news outlets reported on Monday. The proposed legislation has been stuck in Congress for months due to the bitter in-fighting between Democrats and Republicans. According to reports, Johnson told Republican colleagues at a closed-door meeting that he intends to allow the House to vote on a standalone bill this week that would ensure additional military aid to Kiev. The House will also be expected to vote on separate bills providing more aid to Israel and Taiwan. “We know that the world is watching us to see how we react,” Johnson told reporters after a meeting with GOP legislators, as quoted by the New York Times. He added that the leaders of Russia, China and Iran are “watching to see if America will stand up for its allies and our interests around the globe – and we will.”

House Republicans have previously refused to back the omnibus foreign aid bill unveiled by Biden in October, which includes $61 billion worth of assistance to Ukraine. The legislation stalled for months because the GOP was trying to force the White House to crack down on the influx of illegal migrants across the border with Mexico. The Republicans were encouraged by Biden’s reelection rival, former president Donald Trump, who argued against unchecked aid to Ukraine. The delay in approving more weapons for Ukraine rattled President Vladimir Zelensky and other officials in Kiev, who are blaming mounting battlefield losses on the increasing shortages of foreign-supplied ammunition and air defenses. “If Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war,” Zelensky warned last week. Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly stated that no amount of foreign help will change the course of the conflict, and accused the West of escalation.

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“This was a highly choreographed show. Multiple early warning signs gifted Tel Aviv with plenty of time to profit from US intel and evacuate fighter jets and personnel..”

• How Iran’s ‘Strategic Patience’ Switched To Serious Deterrence (Pepe Escobar)

A little over 48 hours before Iran’s aerial message to Israel across the skies of West Asia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov confirmed, on the record, what so far had been, at best, hush-hush diplomatic talk: The Russian side keeps in contact with Iranian partners on the situation in the Middle East after the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria. Ryabkov added, “We stay in constant touch [with Iran]. New in-depth discussions on the whole range of issues related to the Middle East are also expected in the near future in BRICS.” He then sketched The Big Picture: “Connivance with Israeli actions in the Middle East, which are at the core of Washington’s policy, is in many ways becoming the root cause of new tragedies.” Here, concisely, we had Russia’s top diplomatic coordinator with BRICS – in the year of the multipolar organization’s Russian presidency – indirectly messaging that Russia has Iran’s back.

Iran, it should be noted, just became a full-fledged BRICS+ member in January. Iran’s aerial message this weekend confirmed this in practice: their missile guidance systems used the Chinese Beidou satellite navigation system as well as the Russian GLONASS system. This is Russia–China intel leading from behind and a graphic example of BRICS+ on the move. Ryabkov’s “we stay in constant touch” plus the satellite navigation intel confirms the deeply interlocked cooperation between the Russia–China strategic partnership and their mutual strategic partner Iran. Based on vast experience in Ukraine, Moscow knew that the biblical psychopathic genocidal entity would keep escalating if Iran only continued to exercise “strategic patience.”

The morphing of “strategic patience” into a new strategic balance had to take some time – including high-level exchanges with the Russian side. After all, the risk remained that the Israeli attack against the Iranian consulate/ambassador’s residence in Damascus could well prove to be the 2024 remix of the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Tehran did manage to upend the massive Western psychological operations aimed at pushing it into a strategic misstep. Iran started with a misdirecting masterstroke. As US–Israeli fear porn went off the charts, fueled by dodgy western “intel,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) made a quick sideways move, seizing an Israeli-owned container ship near the Strait of Hormuz.

That was an eminently elegant manoeuvre – reminding the collective west of Tehran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, a fact immeasurably more dangerous to the whole western economic house of cards than any limited strike on their “aircraft carrier” in West Asia. That did happen anyway. And once again, with a degree of elegance. Unlike that ‘moral’ army specialized in killing women, children, and the elderly and bombing hospitals, mosques, schools, universities, and humanitarian convoys, the Iranian attack targeted key Israeli military sites such as the Nevatim and Ramon airbases in the Negev and an intel center in the occupied Golan Heights – the three centers used by Tel Aviv in its strike on Iran’s Damascus consulate. This was a highly choreographed show. Multiple early warning signs gifted Tel Aviv with plenty of time to profit from US intel and evacuate fighter jets and personnel, which was duly followed by a plethora of US military radars coordinating the defense strategy.

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“Ultimately, there is no alternative to the full implementation of the two-state solution, the only way to end the vicious circle of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict once and for all..”

• Iranian Strikes On Israel Represent ‘Spillover’ Of Gaza Conflict – China (RT)

Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel constitute an “adverse spillover” of the Gaza conflict, China’s ambassador to the United Nations has said, warning that it could spread further and make the entire Middle East even more unstable. Dai Bing made the remarks after Tehran launched a series of airstrikes on Israel over the weekend in retaliation for the bombing of an Iranian consular compound in Syria, which killed seven military personnel, including two generals. Israel has not commented on the incident since Iran accused it of conducting an extraterritorial assassination. Speaking at a UN Security Council emergency meeting on Sunday, Dai condemned Israel’s “vicious attack,” which he described as a “grave violation of the UN Charter and international law, and a breach of the sovereignty of both Syria and Iran.”

The war in Gaza “bears on the peace, stability and long-term security in the [Middle East] region,” he added, and called for an immediate end to the hostilities. Dai warned that if “the flames of the Gaza conflict are allowed to continue raging, the adverse spillover is set to spread still further” across the entire region. The Chinese envoy also called for “maximum calm and restraint” from Israel and Iran to prevent further escalations. “Ultimately, there is no alternative to the full implementation of the two-state solution, the only way to end the vicious circle of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict once and for all,” Dai said.

China has called on the international community, particularly countries with influence, to play a “constructive role for the peace and stability of the region,” the ambassador added. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also warned at Sunday’s emergency meeting that the entire Middle East is on the brink of a full-scale war in the wake of Iran’s strike on Israel. Meanwhile, Russia’s ambassador to the global body, Vassily Nebenzia, told members of the UN Security Council that the retaliatory strike “did not happen in a vacuum.” He claimed that the West had helped give rise to Iran’s attack by failing to take action over the illegal bombing of Tehran’s consulate in Damascus that provoked the latest violence in the region.

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On Saturday, I said: “And you bet they gave advance notice”. Here is more: “..announcing it fired the drones hours before they reached Israeli territory, and Tehran said it gave other regional countries a 72-hour notice..”

• Biden Tells Netanyahu US Won’t Support Attack on Iran (Antiwar)

President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US wouldn’t join Israel in any offensive action against Iran, multiple media outlets have reported. US officials are touting Israel’s defense of Iran’s attack as a victory, and that’s the message Biden conveyed to Netanyahu, a sign the US doesn’t want the situation to escalate. Iran fired over 300 missiles and drones at Israel, which was a response to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus on April 1. “Israel really came out far ahead in this exchange. It took out the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp] leadership in the Levant, Iran tried to respond, and Israel clearly demonstrated its military superiority, defeating this attack, particularly in coordination with its partners,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters, according to The Times of Israel.

In a statement on the attack released by the White House, Biden said he would convene with other G7 leaders to “coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack.” Israeli officials claimed 99% of the Iranian missiles and drones were intercepted by Israeli air defense systems and with assistance from the US, Britain, and Jordan. Some missiles got through and damaged the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel. Only one person was injured in the attack, a seven-year-old Bedouin girl in the Negev, and nobody was killed. Iran gave Israel plenty of time to respond to the attack by announcing it fired the drones hours before they reached Israeli territory, and Tehran said it gave other regional countries a 72-hour notice. Iranian officials said the attack was “limited” and made clear they do not seek an escalation with Israel.

But Tehran is also warning it will launch an even bigger attack if Israel responds. “If the Zionist regime or its supporters demonstrate reckless behavior, they will receive a decisive and much stronger response,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a statement on Sunday. While the US is signaling it seeks de-escalation and won’t support a potential Israeli attack on Iran, it’s unclear what Israel will do next. The Israeli war cabinet convened to discuss the situation on Sunday, and Israeli media reports said they agreed a response would come but didn’t decide on where or when. Israeli War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz vowed Israel would respond but signaled it wouldn’t be imminent. Gantz said the “event is not over” and that Israel should “build a regional coalition and exact a price from Iran, in a way and at a time that suits us.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Biden also told Netanyahu “that the United States is going to continue to help Israel defend itself,” signaling the US would intervene again to help Israel if it does choose to escalate the situation and comes under another attack. Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria killed 13 people, including seven members of the IRGC. Israel has a history of conducting covert attacks inside Iran and killing Iranians in Syria, but the bombing of the diplomatic facility marked a huge escalation.

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Toothless.

• US Mulling New Sanctions Against Iran Over Attack on Israel – Scalise (Sp.)

Members of the US Congress plan to consider a number of draft laws on new sanctions against Iran after the latter’s attack on Israel, US House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said, adding that the first bill could be submitted to the House of Representatives as early as Monday night. “It’s a growing sentiment in the Congress that we need to increase sanctions. So we’re going to be bringing a number of bills to ratchet those up and raise the stakes against Iran for their actions,” Scalise told The Jerusalem Post newspaper on Sunday. The US Congress will also consider a number of bills that are related to the country’s alleged use of oil sales income to fund Palestinian movement Hamas, the lawmaker was cited as saying by the newspaper. The first bill could be submitted to the House on Monday evening, Scalise said.

On Saturday night, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched over 300 drones and missiles at Israel in its first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. The attack came in response to Israel’s airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1. Iranian state media reported that Iran had fired at least seven hypersonic missiles at Israel, with none of them intercepted. Meanwhile, CNN reported, citing US officials, that the US military had intercepted more than 79 drones and at least three hypersonic missiles during the attack. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel had intercepted 99% of the aerial targets fired by Iran, including all drones.

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“I was in Washington last week in a meeting with top administration officials. They are appalled by this government: The irresponsibility, the lack of professionalism, the failed management, the ingratitude..”

• Netanyahu a Threat for Israel, Opposition Leader Says (TASS)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet pose a threat to their own country, Yair Lapid, leader of the Israeli opposition, said, calling to hold new elections. Speaking before reporters after his trip to Washington, the politician said that the US Administration is “appalled” by the behavior of the Israeli government, led by Netanyahu, according to The Jerusalem Post. “This government, this prime minister, has become an existential threat against Israel,” Lapid said. “They destroyed Israeli deterrence. Our enemies look at this government, smell weakness, and raise their heads.” According to Lapid, Israeli allies “smell this weakness,” too.

“I was in Washington last week in a meeting with top administration officials. They are appalled by this government: The irresponsibility, the lack of professionalism, the failed management, the ingratitude,” he claimed. He pointed out that Netanyahu previously called himself “Mr. Security,” promising to guarantee order in Israel. Instead, the current authorities have brought the country to the opposite: a “wasteland from Kiryat Shmona [a city on the Lebanese border – TASS] to Beeri [a settlement on the Gaza Strip border], violence by Jewish settlers [in the West Bank – TASS] that is out of hand, and a complete loss of Israeli deterrence.” “Our problem is Iran, but our problem is also here. […] It is time for an election now,” Lapid believes.

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“You don’t matter to us. You’re not Israel. You don’t own us. We’re not going to fight and die for you. I hope I made that clear..”

• Ukraine ‘Owned’ by US, US ‘Owned’ by Israel – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

President Zelensky took to X on Sunday to plead with US lawmakers not to forget about Ukraine, saying “it is critical that the United States Congress make the necessary decisions to strengthen America’s allies in this critical time” by delivering on the aid package promised by President Biden six months ago. Zelensky’s comments were echoed by Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who told reporters on Monday that Ukraine also needs help from its Western partners, even if it’s not in the form of direct military help – like Israel got. “All we ask our partners is, even if you cannot act the way you act in Israel, give us what is needed, and we will do the rest ourselves,” Kuleba urged. “Let me make this very clear to the Ukrainian crowd. You see, the difference between Israel and Ukraine is that, whether you like it or not, Israel has bought and paid for the United States’ support,” while Ukraine hasn’t, Scott Ritter told Sputnik.

“Israel, through its political action committee, AIPAC, in the United States, has pretty much bought the United States Congress. They’ve bought the United States presidency. They control American media. And as a result, America comes to the defense of Israel because we’ve been paid to do so,” Ritter said. With Ukraine, it’s the other way around, the observer said. “America, on the other hand, has bought and paid for Ukraine.You’re not a friend. You’re not an ally. You’re a tool being used by the United States for its larger foreign policy and national security objectives vis-à-vis Russia. We provide you weapons only so far as it facilitates our objective of creating a problem for Russia. We don’t want you to win. We don’t care about you. We give you just enough to keep you going. And then we stand by and watch you bury your dead. Because we don’t care,” Ritter said, channeling the sentiments of the American establishment.

“You’ve done your ‘duty’. You created a problem for the Russians. But now you’ve become inconvenient. And we’re going to stand by and let the Russians finish the job without spending any more money or providing you with much more assistance. You don’t matter to us. You’re not Israel. You don’t own us. We’re not going to fight and die for you. I hope I made that clear,” Ritter summed up.

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“This is an ultimatum without alternatives for either Moscow or Kiev. In electric war, are there any alternatives?”

• De-electrification And Unconditional Surrender Of The Kiev Regime (Helmer)

It was a relatively bright day, November 21, 1920, when Vladimir Lenin, having won the civil war and driven off the American, British, French, Canadian, and Australian invasion forces, announced: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country, since industry cannot be developed without electrification.” Come November 2024 it will be a century and four years to count what Lenin meant, and how Russia is proving itself against everything which the military industries, special forces, weapons, intelligence so-called, operations, and plans of the old invasion coalition, plus Germany, can throw at it. So on November 21, 2024, it will be time to revise Lenin’s maxim to read: Russia is military power plus the de-electrification of the countries which attack it. This is electric war.

To make the war aim unambiguously clear, President Vladimir Putin ordered his ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Vasily Nebenzya, to read out a paper at his desk in the UN Security Council chamber on April 11: “very soon, the only topic for international meetings in Ukraine will be the unconditional surrender of the Kiev regime.” Note what the terms “unconditional surrender of the Kiev regime” mean: total military defeat of the Ukrainian, American, British, French, Polish, and other forces on the Ukrainian territory and in the air surrounding; surrender of the municipal administrations of the east-bank cities, including Kharkov, Dniepropetrovsk, and Odessa; disarmament and demilitarization of the territory between Kiev and the Polish border; exit of every member of the regime, starting with Vladimir Zelensky. This is an ultimatum without alternatives for either Moscow or Kiev. In electric war, are there any alternatives?

Nebenzya was making his announcement on the evening of Thursday, April 11, Kiev time. In the time it took for his text to be drafted, edited by the Foreign Ministry, authorized at the Kremlin, and Nebenzya given the go-ahead, it had been only a few hours after the lights of Kiev went out when the Tripolskaya power station was destroyed by a new Russian missile, the X-69.

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“..parents will be allowed to make a request to change the gender of a child as young as five, with the consent of the child present..”

• Germans Can Now Change Gender Every Year (RT)

German citizens will be able to change their sex on legal documents without undergoing surgery or hormone therapy, under a new bill passed by the Bundestag last Friday. It stipulates that an oral request is sufficient, eliminating the need for expert assessment, which was previously mandatory. The law comes into effect in November. The legislation on ‘self-determination’ in gender was backed by 374 MPs, mostly from the ruling ‘traffic-light’ coalition, with another 251 lawmakers against and the remaining 11 abstaining. The current regulations date back to 1981, and state that individuals wishing to change their gender must first undergo two psychological evaluations. The final decision under that law rests with a district court. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition argued that the existing procedures were degrading toward transgender individuals, as they had to share intimate details with officials.

Under the new law, parents will be allowed to make a request to change the gender of a child as young as five, with the consent of the child present. Minors over 14 will be able to change their first name and gender alone, as long as they have the consent of their parents or legal representatives. Individuals will be allowed to make a change once per year. Germans will also have the right to replace the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ in the family register with the neutral term ‘parent.’ Non-binary individuals can register as ‘diverse’ instead of having to choose between ‘male’ and ‘female.’ Under the recently passed legislation, anyone who attempts to expose an individual’s past gender identity can be fined up to €10,000 ($10,630). The law leaves it up to saunas, swimming pools, gyms, and other sports facilities to decide whether to allow biological males into women’s changing rooms and toilets.

When it comes to competitive sports, individual associations may decide if biological males identifying as women can compete against females. The bill faced heated debate in the Bundestag on Friday, with the government’s commissioner for LGBTQ+ issues, Sven Lehmann, hailing it as historic and ending “human rights abuse.” However, opposition parties were largely unconvinced, with a lawmaker from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Mareike Wulf, describing the legislation as “irresponsible” and “socially explosive.” Wulf also argued that criminals could use the new regulations to obscure their identity. Sahra Wagenknecht, a former leader of the Left Party who now leads her own party, warned that with males now allowed to proclaim themselves female, “women’s protection rights and women’s protection shelters [are] a thing of the past.” A representative of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party said the bill poses a threat to young people, denouncing it as “trans-hype.”

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“..and call for solidarity with the Palestinians, and so on, right here in the middle of Berlin, the epicenter of European democracy, as if they thought they had a right to do that..”

• The Palestine Congress (CJ Hopkins)

Thank God for the German Hate Police! Or heil … or whatever the appropriate salutation is for these unsung heroes. They just saved us all from “hate” again! Yes, that’s right, once again, democracy-loving people here in New Normal Berlin and all across the New Normal world were right on the brink of being exposed to “hate,” and would have been exposed to “hate,” had the Hate Police not sprang into action. You probably have no idea what I’m talking about. OK, what happened was, some pro-Palestinian activists organized a “Palestine Congress,” and attempted to discuss the situation in Gaza, and call for solidarity with the Palestinians, and so on, right here in the middle of Berlin, the epicenter of European democracy, as if they thought they had a right to do that. The German authorities were clearly intent on disabusing them of that notion.

Early Friday morning, hundreds of black-clad Hate Police descended on the congress location. Reinforcements were called in from throughout the nation. Metal barricades were erected on the sidewalks. Hate Police stood guard at the entrance. The German media warned the public that a potential “Hate-Speech” attack was now imminent. Berliners were advised to shelter in place, switch off their phones and any other audio-receptive communication devices, and wad up little pieces of toilet paper and ram them deep into their ear canals to prevent any possible exposure to the “hate.” Sure enough, minutes into the congress, the anticipated “Hate-Speech” attack was launched! A Palestinian activist — Salman Abu Sitta — who had written an article that allegedly “expressed understanding of Hamas,” and thus had already been placed on the official German “No-Speak” list, started speaking to the congress on Zoom or whatever.

Or … it isn’t quite clear whether he actually started speaking. According to a Hate Police spokesperson, they raided the congress because “there [was] a risk of a speaker being put on the screen who in the past made anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks.” Anyway, the Hate Police stormed the venue, pulled the plug, dispersed the crowd, and banned the rest of the “Palestine Congress,” which was scheduled to continue on Saturday and Sunday. Then they arrested a Jewish guy who was wearing a Palestinian-flag-kippah, presumably out of an abundance of caution. But the “Hate-Speech” attack wasn’t over yet. It was one of those multi-pronged “Hate-Speech” attacks, or at least it involved one other prong. Earlier that morning, or perhaps while the Hate Police were still neutralizing the threat at the venue, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a prominent British surgeon, who had volunteered in Gaza and was due to speak at the congress, was intercepted by the Berlin Airport Hate Police, refused entry into Germany, and forced to return to the UK.

The Airport Hate Police informed the doctor that he was being denied entry in order to ensure “the safety of the people at the conference and public order,” Abu Sitta told the Associated Press. Kai Wegner, Berlin’s mayor, presumably feeling a bit nostalgic for the fanatical days of 2020 to 2023 when one could persecute “the Unvaccinated” with total impunity, took to X to celebrate the Hate Police’s thwarting of this “Hate event.” The pro-Palestinian activist community also took to X and expressed their displeasure. Yanis “Vaccinate Humanity” Varoufakis, who was one of the organizers and was scheduled to speak, was particularly incensed over the new German “fascism,” which apparently he has just now noticed, despite the fact that it has been goose-stepping around in a medical-looking mask for the last four years.

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Not as bad as it looks.

• They grew (too?) fast: “Tesla has around 140,000 employees, nearly double the 2020 level.”

• China’s BYD Co. delivered just 300,114 battery-electric vehicles in the first quarter, down 43% from the final three months of last year.

• Volkswagen AG, General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. have delayed, dialed back or altogether scrapped EV projects.

• Two Senior Tesla Executives Leave Amid 14,000 Global Layoffs (ZH)

The Wall Street Journal reports Tesla plans to reduce 10% of its global workforce, approximately 14,000 employees, confirming an earlier report by the EV blog Electrek. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk sent a letter to employees detailing how the company needed to reduce costs and increase productivity. WSJ obtained a copy of the email. “As part of the effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally,” Musk wrote in the letter, adding, “There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative, and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.” Separately, Bloomberg journalists on X reported that Tesla Senior Vice President Drew Baglino and Tesla Vice President of Public Policy and Business Development Rohan Patel are leaving the company. And… Bloomberg noted, “The departure of Baglino is likely to reinforce concerns among some investors about succession planning at Tesla, where Musk has been CEO since 2008.” We suspect Musk will be commenting on these reports sometime today.

* * *

Shares of Tesla Motors are muted in the early premarket trading hours in New York after a report from the EV blog Electrek cited an “internal company-wide email” detailing layoffs at the EV company amounting to more than 10% of its global workforce. Electrek alleges that Elon Musk sent an email to staff explaining a “duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas” as the main reason for the layoffs, which could affect as many as 14,000 employees. Here’s the full text of the email (courtesy of Electrek):

“Over the years, we have grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe. With this rapid growth there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas. As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity. As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally. There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle. I would like to thank everyone who is departing Tesla for their hard work over the years. I’m deeply grateful for your many contributions to our mission and we wish you well in your future opportunities. It is very difficult to say goodbye. For those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead. We are developing some of the most revolutionary technologies in auto, energy and artificial intelligence. As we prepare the company for the next phase of growth, your resolve will make a huge difference in getting us there. Thanks, Elon”

The latest data from Bloomberg shows that Tesla has around 140,000 employees, nearly double the 2020 level. Electrek noted, “We don’t know which specific teams will be most or least affected by Tesla’s layoffs.” The alleged layoffs come after the company recorded its first quarterly decline in four years and delivered 386,810 vehicles in the first quarter, far below the Bloomberg consensus of 449,000. Slowing EV demand has weighed on Tesla shares this year, down 31%, and one of the worst performers in the S&P 500 Index. As Bloomberg notes, the EV slowdown has hit other automakers: The EV slowdown Tesla has felt of late has been widespread. China’s BYD Co. delivered just 300,114 battery-electric vehicles in the first quarter, down 43% from the final three months of last year, when it briefly pulled ahead as the world’s top EV seller. Manufacturers including Volkswagen AG, General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. have delayed, dialed back or altogether scrapped EV projects as consumers balk at still-high prices and a dearth of charging stations.

On Tesla’s most recent earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said, “We just have to chase down every penny possible.” Tesla will report next Tuesday, April 23. Wall Street analysts expect the company to turn a profit of about 50 cents a share, down from around 85 cents a share in the first quarter of 2023. If Electrek’s report is correct, Elon appears to be tightening Tesla’s belt, suggesting broader troubles are ahead for the US economy.

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“Airbus and Boeing continue to have a long backlog of orders (8,598 at the end of 2023 for Airbus; 5,591 at the end of March for Boeing)..”

• Airbus Beats Boeing For Deliveries In 2024 (ZH)

Boeing’s deliveries of commercial aircraft have faltered in the first three months of the year, according to the company’s reports, published this week. The U.S. aircraft manufacturer delivered just 83 planes in Q3, down from 130 in the same three-month period of last year. In the meantime, its sole major competitor, Europe’s Airbus, saw an uptick in Q1, having delivered 142 of their planes, marking an increase from their Q1 2023 figure of 127. Boeing has been mired in a series of safety issues since the start of the year, following a mid-air panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 jet in January. This has led to a slowdown in production for the U.S. company, which is now limited to producing 38 of the 737 planes per month until it is clear that quality and safety procedures are being properly adhered to, as per the advisory of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Boeing has slowed production even below this limit, with the company’s Chief Financial Officer Brian West stating that once the company has it “right” it will ramp up production, expecting to see figures improve in the latter half of the year. Prior to 2019, Boeing had been in the lead for deliveries out of the two companies, but this changed following the two deadly 737 MAX 8 crashes of 2018 and 2019, and the ensuing temporary production halt of the model. While the same family, these were different planes than those involved in the more recent incidents and they were caused by different issues. As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, both companies saw dips in deliveries in 2020 with the Covid pandemic.

Boeing and Airbus are the world’s two major competitors when it comes to commercial plane manufacturing. While other manufacturers exist, they produce far lower numbers of aircraft than either of these two giants. In a report by CNN, writer Allison Morrow explains that since pilots are trained in either Boeing or Airbus operating systems, it is difficult for airlines to switch planes. With few companies having the capacity to produce large jets, both Airbus and Boeing continue to have a long backlog of orders (8,598 at the end of 2023 for Airbus; 5,591 at the end of March for Boeing).

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Wonder what Trump thinks of this.

• Trump Biopic To Compete At Cannes Film Festival (RT)

A biopic about the formative years of former US President Donald Trump will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month. Directed by acclaimed Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, ‘The Apprentice’ tells the story of how young Trump got started in the real estate business in New York in the 1970s and 1980s and met his mentor Roy Cohn. The film is among the 18 entries competing for Palme d’Or, the festival’s main award. “The Apprentice is a dive into the underbelly of the American empire. It charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn,” according to the film’s official description.

Sebastian Stan – the star of Marvel superhero movies and the 2022 mini-series ‘Pam & Tommy’ – plays Trump, while Emmy-winning ‘Succession’ actor Jeremy Strong portrays Roy Cohn, a high-profile lawyer. “His playbook has a tentacular reach that is staggering – the most fascinating person I’ve ever tried to inhabit,” Strong told the New York Times. “So while I personally might have a lot of judgment about Roy Cohn, that is not the part of me that engages in creative work.” Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova plays Ivana Zelnickova, Trump’s first wife and the mother of his daughter Ivanka and sons Donald Jr. and Eric.

The film is set to depict Trump’s early business ventures and rise after he joined and subsequently took over his father’s real-estate empire. Under his leadership, the company branched out from residential housing to casinos and hotels, including the famous Trump Tower in Manhattan and other Trump-branded properties. Trump shocked the world by beating Hillary Clinton in 2016 and becoming the 45th president of the United States. He left office after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden. He is currently the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for the 2024 election.

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Kid judge

 

 


From Elon

 

 

Russell

 

 

UFO

 

 

Shop dog

 

 

Koala
https://twitter.com/i/status/1779619528743211352

 

 

Sun fish

 

 

Wooden post

 

 

 

 

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