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Debt Rattle October 15 2024

Oct 152024
 
 October 15, 2024  Posted by at 8:29 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  60 Responses »


Andrea Pozzo Ceiling Fresco, Church of St. Ignazio, Rome (entire ceiling is flat) 1685-94

 

• Lawfare is Jihad Against Our Country (James Howard Kunstler)
• ‘Something Very Wrong’ With Kamala Harris – Trump (RT)
• Kamala Harris Has A Major Problem With Male Voters (ZH)
• Trump Plans To Expand Border Patrol By 10,000, Reward Existing Agents (JTN)
• Liberals Are Losing their Minds over Elon Musk (Turley)
• Whoever Wins This Pennsylvania County Is Expected To Win The White House (ET)
• Military Intervention in US Domestic Affairs? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Young Men in US Are Shifting Right, as Many Feel ‘Left Behind’ (Manley)
• Speaker Johnson Says FEMA Spent Just 2% Of $20 Billion In Disaster Aid (JTN)
• US Emergency Workers ‘Hunted By Militia’ – WaPo (RT)
• US Sets Stage for Direct Participation in Middle East War (Miles)
• Imperial Israel (Miles)
• Israel Does What It Does; It Was Always Planned This Way (Alastair Crooke)
• Germany Is Committing ‘Economic Suicide’ – Who’s To Blame? (Amar)
• UK Police Officers Resigning in Droves as Country Roiled by Protest (Miles)
• Ukraine’s Battlefield Situation ‘Critical’ – ex-NATO Official (RT)

 

 

 

 

SNL
https://twitter.com/i/status/1845321115780120975

 

 

Bill ad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1845880958769053735

Jennings

Kamala

O’Reilly

Cost cutting

Orban

Kash Patel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1845476000596971736

60m

Jan 6

3rd attempt

 

 

 

 

Jim in fine form. “It’s a tragic turn of fate for our country that the law, and language with it, have been turned into weapons for national suicide.”

• Lawfare is Jihad Against Our Country (James Howard Kunstler)

Marc Elias was the original expeditor of the RussiaGate hoax in 2016 from his perch at Perkins Coie, then Hillary Clinton’s campaign law firm, which laundered payments to Christopher Steele, front-man for Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS political PR shop, which concocted the fraudulent “dossier,” and set in motion a train of DC intel blob legal shenanigans aimed at defenestrating Donald Trump from the White House — the Mueller Investigation, impeachment, etc. While all that was going on through the Trump term, and with the Covid-19 Op providing cover, Mr. Elias engineered the 2020 changes in many states’ election laws and bylaws to permit large-scale mail-in voting, organized ballot-harvesting activities, and the use of drop-boxes for receiving bundled votes. He and his George Soros-financed staff lawyers sued states that attempted to require voter-identification, and provided legal protection for Mark Zuckerberg’s $419-million-dollar assault on election precinct staffing in swing states.

When the 2020 election concluded suspiciously, Mr. Elias and his gang joined lawsuits in every case where the balloting was contested and got more than sixty of them dismissed on the basis of “standing,” without the merits of the cases being heard. This is Lawfare. This time around, 2024, Mr. Elias has done everything possible to ensure that millions of illegal aliens stuffed into swing states will have their putative identities attached to harvested mail-in ballots from addresses such as Walmart parking lots and storage units, and has filed lawsuits wherever a state threatens to require proof of citizenship for voting. He has also filed sixty peremptory lawsuits to obstruct attempts to audit any election count after November 5 — as if it is an affront to democracy to even ask questions about official misconduct. A parallel Lawfare scam underway is the Democratic Party-sponsored 65 Project that seeks to disbar Trump-adjacent lawyers who attempt to challenge any voting irregularities in this year’s election. It’s mission statement reads:

“The 65 Project is a bipartisan effort to protect democracy from these once-and-future abuses by holding accountable Big Lie Lawyers who bring fraudulent and malicious lawsuits to overturn legitimate election results, and by working with bar associations to deter future abuses by establishing clear standards for conduct that punish lies about the conduct or results of elections.” Notice the term “Big Lie” to foreclose any inquiry at all into election fraud. That half the people in this country accept such an Orwellian con tells you the vital role played by the perversion of language in the Democratic Party’s war against the citizens of this land. Exactly who is to say, in advance of the event, that any objection to a vote count is fraudulent and malicious? Answer: the people who have maliciously committed fraud. The Democrats have been grooming the public for years with that phrase, the Big Lie, in exactly the same way that pedos groom innocent pubescents who accept the authority of any grown-up, no matter what debauchery they are subjected to.

It’s a tragic turn of fate for our country that the law, and language with it, have been turned into weapons for national suicide. The net result is a nation that can’t think straight anymore and cannot construct any coherent set of rules to live by. So we find ourselves in a society where stealing is no longer a crime, where border-jumping has been downgraded to a clerical error (“undocumented”), where little children are allowed to decide whether they are male or female, where speech that disagrees with the authorities agenda is “misinformation” subject to censorship and prosecution, where candidates for the highest office get selected “democratically” without any votes cast, and where you can be run-over and ruined financially in court by the bottomless legal resources of the Deep State for just speaking your mind.

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Am I allowed to find this funny?

”Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way..”

• ‘Something Very Wrong’ With Kamala Harris – Trump (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has called on Vice President Kamala Harris to take a cognitive test, calling her “slow and lethargic.” Harris urged Trump to release his medical records over the weekend, questioning “whether he is fit to be president of the United States.” In a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday, Trump declared that “it is very important that Kamala Harris pass a test on cognitive stamina and agility.” “Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her,” he continued. “Even 60 Minutes and CBS, in order to protect Lyin’ Kamala, illegally and unscrupulously replaced an answer she had given, which was totally ‘bonkers’, with another answer that had nothing to do with the question asked.” “Also, she is slow and lethargic in answering even the easiest of questions,” Trump continued. “We just went through almost four years of that, we shouldn’t have to do it again!”

Last week, CBS News broadcast an interview with Harris that had been heavily edited, with the vice president’s lengthy and rambling answers – seen in a preview released before the final broadcast – cut and replaced with completely different responses. Trump initially focused his anger on CBS, declaring that the network should be shut down and sold “to the highest bidder.” However, his latest attack on Harris came after the Democratic candidate questioned his physical and mental fitness. After releasing a statement from her doctor describing her health as “excellent,” Harris called on Trump to follow suit, claiming that his unwillingness to do so demonstrates that he does “not want the American people to see what he is doing and whether he is fit to be President of the United States.” At 78, Trump is 19 years Harris’ senior, and is currently the oldest nominee for president by a major party in US history. Trump released a letter from his doctor last November which stated that his “overall health is excellent” and that his “cognitive exams were exceptional.”

Dr. Bruce Aronwald, Trump’s personal physician since 2021, said his cancer screening tests were all negative, cardiovascular tests were normal, and he had reduced his weight through daily physical activity and an “improved diet.” Trump repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden over his mental and physical fortitude until July, when Biden suspended his reelection campaign after appearing confused during a debate with the former president. With Harris replacing Biden atop the Democratic ticket, Trump repurposed his repertoire of insults and jibes to fit his new opponent. ”Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way,” Trump said at a campaign rally last month. “She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country,” he continued, going after Harris for her lax border security performance.

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Less popular among men than Trump is among women. Wow.

• Kamala Harris Has A Major Problem With Male Voters (ZH)

It’s no secret that men aren’t fans of Kamala Harris – and the Democrat party is in full panic mode over it. Look no further than their recent cringe-fest commercials, Tim Walz awkwardly trying to load a shotgun with his balls, and Barack Obama lecturing black men for their lack of support. They’ve even resorted to oversampling women in polls to achieve the desired result. And who could forget Hillary Clinton suggesting that women who voted for Trump only did so because their husbands pressured them.

This weekend, New York Times opinion podcaster Lulu Garcia-Navarro’s reaction to JD Vance encapsulated the situation. When asked whether expelling illegal immigrants would exacerbate the housing crisis due to a lack of construction labor, Vance suggested that “You could re-engage men to enter the labor market.” Garcia-Navarro was taken aback – clearly unable to grasp the notion that modern men would want to fill those positions.

Breaking it down in a viral post on X is John Konrad, CEO of maritime news website gCaptain. “Listen to her shock—her disbelief. She doesn’t get it. She thinks men wouldn’t want to work in construction, that we’d rather sit in cushy office jobs, sipping $6 lattes in front of Zoom calls,” Konrad says of Garcia-Navarro. He then lays out one of the major problems with men building things in America – red tape, which Democrats apply liberally to anything they can’t directly control. Why not build ships here? Because our shipyards are buried in OSHA regulations, HR policies, union rules—everything moves at a snail’s pace. I don’t want to build slowly with tons of paperwork and red tape—I want to BUILD. They don’t get it. They don’t see how hard it is to build in this country while making progress, earning a decent living, and having freedom. In South Korea, I had all three, but it wasn’t home.

I could get a shipyard job here but I’d make half what I made in South Korea with four times the paperwork and it would take years to build one ship. No thanks. Lulu is shocked I’d give up my “thinking job.” For construction. Sure, I LOVE my job now—but I’d throw it all away to build again. To construct. It’s like the movie Office Space. My wife said it’s a “guy movie,” and she’s right. Most people think it’s just an office comedy – or think the stapler guy “won” because he’s now rich. But to guys – real men- it’s a hero’s story. The main character leaves it all behind… and ends up working construction! That’s the happy ending. Listen to her voice. Hear the contempt: “They’d work construction?” YES, I WOULD, LULU. And I wouldn’t just build condos. Turn us loose, and we’d build grand ships, towering bridges, and homes with character and strength.

American men are the best builders in the world. But we’re shackled by HR, red tape, DEI, lawyers and endless regulations. All the bullshit the NYTimes constantly advocates for. We are sick of it. We are sick of the Times. We are sick of you Lulu. Sick of you telling us what we want. We want to build… and not build for ourselves but build great things for YOU. Yes YOU Lulu. Great things for women and men and children of all colors and religions and backgrounds. Big great things that advance all of us together. That’s why we look up to @elonmusk —he’s out there building rockets and robots. – ROCKETSHIPS AND ROBOTS!

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“..a 10% raise for all agents, and a $10,000 dollar each retention and signing bonus..”

• Trump Plans To Expand Border Patrol By 10,000, Reward Existing Agents (JTN)

Visiting an Arizona border front exhausted by the Biden-Harris migrant crisis, former President Donald Trump on Sunday unveiled a plan to expand the U.S. Border Patrol by 10,000 employees and reward existing agents with raises and bonuses if he is elected. “I will always stand with the incredible men and women of Border Patrol,” Trump told a rally in Prescott, Ariz., where he was surrounded by frontline Customs and Border Patrol employees. The union representing the 16,000 border agents also endorsed Trump at the event before he laid out his plan.

The former president said Border Patrol agents were suffering from a morale crisis because of the policies of the Biden-Harris administration had let millions slide across the border, and because false accusations earlier in the administration that agents had mistreated migrants. “They have a tremendous shortage because they haven’t been treated right. They want to do their jobs. You know, they consider it bad treatment when you’re not allowed to do your jobs,” Trump said. “I will be asking Congress to approve immediately a 10% raise for all agents, and a $10,000 dollar each retention and signing bonus,” he added.

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“The intense hatred for Musk is due to the fact that he was the immovable object in the path of their formerly unstoppable force.”

• Liberals Are Losing their Minds over Elon Musk (Turley)

This week, Elton John publicly renounced the Rocket Man — no, not the 1972 song, but Elon Musk, whom he called an “a**hole” in an awards ceremony. Sir Elton, 77, is only the latest among celebrities and pundits to denounce Musk for his support of former president Donald Trump and his opposition to censorship. Musk-mania is so overwhelming that some are calling for his arrest, deportation and debarment from federal contracts. This week, the California Coastal Commission rejected a request from the Air Force for additional launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It is not because the military agency did not need the launches. It was not because the nation and the community would not benefit from them. Rather, it was reportedly because, according to one commissioner, Musk has “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race.” By a 6-4 vote, the California Coastal Commission rejected the military’s plan to let SpaceX launch up to 50 rockets per year from the base in Santa Barbara County.

Musk’s SpaceX is becoming a critical part of national security programs. It will even be launching a rescue mission for two astronauts stranded in space. The advances of SpaceX under Musk are legendary. The Air Force wanted to waive the requirement for separate permits for SpaceX in carrying out these critical missions. To the disappointment of many, SpaceX is now valued at over $200 billion and just signed a new $1 billion contract with NASA. Yet neither the national security value nor the demands for SpaceX services appear to hold much interest for officials like Commissioner Gretchen Newsom (no relation to California’s governor, Gavin Newsom): “Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet.”

Newsom is the former political director for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 569. It did not seem to matter to her that increased launches meant more work for electrical workers and others. Rather, it’s all about politics. Commission Chair Caryl Hart added “here we’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way that was just described by Commissioner Newsom that I find to be very disturbing.” In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how Musk became persona non grata when he bought Twitter and announced that he was dismantling the company’s massive censorship apparatus. He then outraged many on the left by releasing the Twitter Files, showing the extensive coordination of the company with the government in a censorship system described by a federal court as “Orwellian.”

After the purchase, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called upon Europeans to force Musk to censor her fellow Americans under the notorious Digital Services Act. Clinton has even suggested the arrest of those responsible for views that she considers disinformation. Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee called for Musk’s arrest and said that, as a condition of getting government contracts, officials should “require him to moderate his speech in the interest of national security.” Former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wants Musk arrested for simply refusing to censor other people. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann called for Musk to be deported and all federal contracts cancelled with this company. As with many in the “Save Democracy” movement, Olbermann was unconcerned with the denial of free speech or constitutional protections. “If we can’t do that by conventional means, President Biden, you have presidential immunity. Get Elon Musk the F out of our country and do it now.”

Of course, none of these figures are even slightly bothered about other business leaders with political opinions, so long as, like McNamee, they are supporting Harris or at least denouncing Trump. Musk has failed to yield to a movement infamous for cancel campaigns and coercion. The usual alliance of media, academia, government and corporate forces hit Musk, his companies and even advertisers on X. Other corporate officials collapsed like a house of cards to demands for censorship — see, for example, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Musk, in contrast, responded by courageously releasing the Twitter Files and exposing the largest censorship system in our history. That is why I describe Musk as arguably the single most important figure in this generation in defense of free speech. The intense hatred for Musk is due to the fact that he was the immovable object in the path of their formerly unstoppable force.

Turley

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Long article. These are just the juiciest bits.

• Whoever Wins This Pennsylvania County Is Expected To Win The White House (ET)

It’s not just the Erie County Republican Party that’s hard at work trying to flip the county back to Trump’s camp. Leo Williard, a small business owner, has set up what he calls “Trump factories” in two auto dealerships owned by his friend and located just outside downtown Erie. While still managing his own business, Williard told The Epoch Times that he spends hours every week talking to and converting Democratic voters to Trump’s side. Williard said he was inspired to do so by the city of Erie’s Democratic leanings: While the rural and suburban areas are more evenly divided, the city itself votes overwhelmingly for Democrats. Many of those who come into the dealership are from the city, he said. “And we started talking to those people, and I have a table set up in the corner of his office up there that I call the ‘Trump corner.’ I call this whole process the ‘Trump factory,’” Williard said, adding that he was bringing as many as five to 15 Democrats a day over to Trump’s side.

“You can’t believe the people we are turning from Democrat to Trump.” For many, financial concerns—particularly inflation—are the most pressing issue, Williard said, agreeing that inflation could be described as “the No. 1 issue” in the county right now. The modest income of many residents makes the hit harder than it might be in more affluent areas, Williard said. Williard said that Democrats’ decision to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris did energize the Democratic base in the city, but he is confident. “I still think that Erie County, based on the work I see being done and the enthusiasm I see, will go red. I think it will turn the state red,” Williard said. Republicans have seen strong signs for optimism—but recent Democratic victories in the county still undercut any sort of certainty.

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The Biden Regime Has Just Issued a Very Suspicious Directive Permitting Military Intervention in US Domestic Affairs

• Military Intervention in US Domestic Affairs? (Paul Craig Roberts)

The Department of Homeland Security has flagged individuals questioning COVID-19 origins, vaccine efficacy, and election integrity as potential domestic terrorism threats. Is a coup being set in place? A new Department of Defense directive 5240.01 issued September 27, 2024, just prior to the November presidential election allows the US military to use lethal force against American citizens in assisting police authorities in domestic disturbances. A report on this development lists these civil liberties concerns:

Right to protest: There are fears that expanded authority could suppress legitimate protests. Privacy rights: Increased military involvement in domestic intelligence gathering could infringe on privacy. Due process: The military’s role in law enforcement could bypass standard due process protections. Freedom of speech: The broad definition of “national security threats” could target individuals for their political beliefs. Civilian control: The expanded military role could erode civilian oversight of the military.

Unless Trump cuts a deal with Democrats not to hold them accountable and also a deal with the Ruling Elite not to interfere with their control, I can see no way that either will permit Trump to be President. The Biden regime and the Trump Justice (sic) Department and FBI are criminal operations. I can see indictments and arrests for those who have weaponized law enforcement. The Ruling Elite and leading Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and John Kerry can all be arrested, honestly unlike Trump and his supporters, for insurrection as they have openly called for the overthrow of the United States by demanding the overthrow of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. No fooling, this is treason. The US is the Constitution. Advocating the overthrow of the Constitution is advocating the overthrow of the United States. This is a major issue of our time, and it is not mentioned — which displays the control the elite have over what can be an issue subject to notice and discussion.

That one month prior to the presidential election the corrupt Biden regime issued a directive that permits the US military, purged of its patriotic officers, to use lethal force against American citizens is an indication that something is afoot. Why is such a directive suddenly needed, a directive that goes against all previous policy? Here is a possible scenario: If despite the whore media’s assault on Trump and the in-place legalized election theft procedures in the swing states, the Democrats and Ruling Elite conclude that the election can neither be won nor stolen, an orchestrated false flag insurrection is staged that activates Department of Defense directive 5240.01 issued September 27, 2024. Trump, his supporters, the Republican Party, probably sparing the RINOs as a fake opposition party will be needed to carry on the illusion of democracy under one-party rule, will be arrested as insurrectionists. The courts will be helpless as they have no enforcement powers, and any intervention against the coup will be misrepresented as “siding with insurrectionists.”

Absurd! Extreme! Nutcase! No, I am none of these. Just think of all the violations of US law and international law by Democrat officials. They are subject to arrest nationally and internationally. Trump, unless he cuts the deals I mentioned, is a threat to the Ruling Establishment as he can put most of them in prison. How can the Democrats and the Ruling Elite let a man and a movement this dangerous to them become President? They cannot. Unless Trump sells out, he is in a fight to the death. Elon Musk knows it. Musk wondered on Tucker Carlson how long his prison sentence would be if Trump loses the election. Most Americans, however, are too insouciant to realize that if Trump loses the election, or it is stolen from him, or prevented from happening, there will never again be an election in the United States of America. A Stalin type election, perhaps, where 99.9% of the votes are taken by the ruling personage.

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“..financially dependent on their parents with about 30% of those aged 18 to 25 continuing to live at home with a parent..”

• Young Men in US Are Shifting Right, as Many Feel ‘Left Behind’ (Manley)

According to data from the Pew Research Institute, young men in the US without college degrees are making less money than previous generations and are less likely to be working full time. Fearful of inflation, the housing crisis, and poor job prospects, more young men in the US are switching to the Republican party. Less than two decades ago, young men could be seen as solidly Democratic, a report from NBC News explained citing pollsters and social scientists. But due to fear of a poor economy and a lack of investment in social issues, more young men are turning to the right. “The economic and employment picture for younger men without college degrees is significantly worse than previous generations,” said Dan Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute.

“These sort of traditional norms around masculinity and what it means to be a man and a husband are wrapped up in economic success, and that makes it really, really challenging when their economic outlook is not as bright.”
Richard Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, adds that there is a “cultural dislocation among men”. And that they feel as though they don’t really know whether they are going to be “needed” or feel as if they are “failing against the standard that was set 50 years ago about the position of men and women in the labor market.” Overall, a majority of both young men and young women allegedly prefer Vice President Kamala Harris to former President Donald Trump as their next presidential pick. However, 33% of young men identify as being part of the Democratic Party, compared to a previous 42% in 2020, a poll of 18 to 29-year-old by the Harvard Institute of Politics found.

In 2008, for example, former President Barack Obama won the votes of 66% of young men. While Trump has been campaigning on the Biden administration’s “failed” economy, he has also pledged to bring back manufacturing jobs by placing 20% tariffs on imports which economists have warned will trigger widespread inflation and supply chain disruptions. But the economy looks different to young men compared to other Americans, the report adds. Young men are less likely to worry about the costs of prescription drugs, child care or mortgage interest rates. Instead, their income goes rent, dining out and entertainment along with student loan debt.

Rent cost is also the biggest point of economic pain for young people’s wallets. Rent in the US has increased around 20% since 2020, and about two-thirds of young adults said they spend more than 30% of their monthly income on housing while a quarter said more than half of their income goes to housing, the report said citing data from the Bank of America. “You look at what our parents were able to buy for $10,000 back in the day,” said Derek, a focus group participant from Wisconsin who is thinking of voting for Trump. “I just went through trying to buy a house two years ago, and the struggles that you come through. You’ve got to be making $150,000 just to get your standard three-bed, two-bath house nowadays.” As a result, young American men are now more likely to be financially dependent on their parents with about 30% of those aged 18 to 25 continuing to live at home with a parent. As a result, young men are also waiting longer to get married as well as to have children.

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And then they say they’re underfunded.

• Speaker Johnson Says FEMA Spent Just 2% Of $20 Billion In Disaster Aid (JTN)

House Speaker Mike Johnson said over the weekend that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has distributed only 2% of the billions of dollars to disaster relief provided by Congress. “FEMA has distributed 2% of the over $20 billion in disaster relief funding Congress provided,” Johnson said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “They need to do their job and get this assistance to the people in need. Once the total calculations are completed, Congress will address any additional needs,” he continued. Hurricane Helene hit Florida two weeks ago as a Category Four storm, and caused disastrous damage in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Hurricane Milton also hit Florida this week as a Category Three storm.

FEMA has gotten backlash for not spending money properly in the wake of these storms as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters earlier this month that the organization does not have adequate funds to manage disaster relief for the rest of hurricane season. FEMA has previously spent approximately $650 million on grants to nonprofits and local authorities that resettle and aid illegal immigrants, and has sent employees down to the border to help address the increase in unaccompanied minors that began in 2021, Fox News reported. This has been part of an ongoing controversy over whether FEMA being involved in issues related to aid to illegal immigrants at the southern border is affecting their ability, both financially and in terms of manpower, to carry out their emergency work on natural disasters and other emergencies.

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Appalachia.

• US Emergency Workers ‘Hunted By Militia’ – WaPo (RT)

Federal employees responding to Hurricane Helene in Rutherford County, North Carolina, were threatened last week by militias and had to temporarily pull out, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. An email sent on Saturday by an official with the US Forest Service, which assists the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), advised federal responders to “stand down and evacuate the county immediately,” the newspaper said. The warning came after members of the National Guard claimed to have come across what they called “trucks of armed militia saying there [sic] were out hunting FEMA.” The Post said two federal officials confirmed to it that the message was authentic. The newspaper stressed that it was not clear how serious the threat was assessed to be.

One of the sources said employees were moved to a “safe area,” which resulted in recovery work being put on hold in the area. Personnel were back in place by Sunday afternoon, the officials, who spoke to the newspaper on condition of anonymity, added. Journalist Brianna Sacks, who bylined the story, later published on her X account a message claiming that a firefighter crew had been instructed to avoid certain areas on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee “due to communities being governed by armed militias” there. The Post described the incident in Rutherford County as the latest example of security issues in western North Carolina. In the two weeks since Hurricane Helene ravaged parts of the state, “misinformation and rumors have made the recovery more difficult,” the reports stated, claiming that some locals were refusing to cooperate with federal officials.

“It’s terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about FEMA and the government,” Riva Duncan, a former Forest Service official, told the news outlet. “And it’s sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most.” The Appalachian region of the US, which includes western North Carolina, tends to be less affluent and has come to be seen by many as having been left behind by the coastal political elites. It also has a long history of anti-federal sentiment. On Friday, President Joe Biden denounced “reckless, irresponsible, and relentless disinformation and outright lies” for the death threats allegedly received by emergency response workers in remarks about the government’s hurricane response efforts.

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“The arch Zionist and likely intelligence asset’s approval rating as prime minister now stands at only 26%..”

• US Sets Stage for Direct Participation in Middle East War (Miles)

The US and its European client states are doubling down on their support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the waning days of the Biden administration, setting the stage for Western militaries to directly participate in Israeli atrocities or even a broader regional conflagration. A series of events in recent days has demonstrated NATO countries’ deepening commitment to Israel as new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer leads the way. “US special forces flights to Israel from a British airbase have doubled in frequency since Keir Starmer took over from Rishi Sunak as prime minister,” reported the website Declassified UK recently. “It has… previously been revealed that the US is using Akrotiri to deliver weapons to Israel,” the investigative reporting outlet continued, referring to the UK’s large airbase in Cyprus. “The UK government has long refused to give any details of US use of British territory to support the Israeli assault on Gaza.”

Starmer has been heavily criticized for alleged weaponization of claims of antisemitism during his tenure as leader of the UK Labour Party. After previously signaling cooperation with former leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, Starmer ultimately expelled Corbyn from Labour and purged pro-Corbyn candidates and party members. A damning report released in 2022 revealed that a manufactured antisemitism crisis within the party was used to undermine Corbyn, who is a prominent anti-imperialist and supporter of the Palestinian cause. The former Czechoslovak government concluded Starmer was a likely Western intelligence asset in an internal report written in the 1980s. Former Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo suggested in 2019 that the United States would work to prevent Corbyn’s election as British prime minister, paving the way for Starmer to fill the role instead. The arch Zionist and likely intelligence asset’s approval rating as prime minister now stands at only 26% according to recent polling.

“In November 2023, a US military official revealed that American special forces were stationed in Israel and actively helping the Israelis,’” noted journalist Matt Kennard. While US military personnel have assisted Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip over the last year, the Biden administration signaled an open commitment of US troops in the country today in a statement released by the Pentagon. “At the direction of the President, [US Defense] Secretary [Lloyd] Austin authorized the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and associated crew of U.S. military personnel to Israel to help bolster Israel’s air defenses,” said press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, claiming the move was intended to safeguard the country’s military installations after Iran’s retaliatory attack earlier this month. It is thought that some 100 US troops would be dispatched to Israel to operate the THAAD system.

Observers warn the open commitment of personnel could serve as a casus belli to send troops to fight with Israel if a US service member is injured or killed in a strike on an Israeli military target. The official death toll in Gaza stands at almost 43,000, but a study in the respected British medical journal The Lancet claimed it will ultimately approach 200,000 as Palestinians cope with mass hunger, malnutrition and lack of medical care. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sought the arrest of Netanyahu and Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes, while the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is investigating Israel on claims of a “plausible” genocide in the Gaza Strip. The possibility of accountability for Israel’s conduct in the Palestinian territory raises the prospect of Western leaders like Starmer and US President Joe Biden being held criminally liable for their enthusiastic support for Israel, which has included the provision of arms, assistance in military planning and diplomatic cover in venues such as the United Nations.

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“UNIFIL has opposed the ultimatum, with Irish peacekeepers vocally rejecting Israeli demands to abandon their observation post..”

• Imperial Israel (Miles)

Relations between Israel and the United Nations have reached a nadir as Tel Aviv has urged UNIFIL to “relocate” some of its 10,000 peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. Emboldened by the uncritical backing of the United States, Israel is ramping up its military operation in southern Lebanon – bringing it into confrontation with United Nations peacekeeping forces. Tel Aviv once again came into confrontation with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, on Friday, striking the organization’s headquarters and injuring two peacekeepers during a morning attack. Israeli forces struck the same installation the day before, also injuring two. “You will have seen that the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) issued a statement this morning saying that two of its peacekeepers were injured after an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Merkava tank fired its weapon toward an observation tower at UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura, directly hitting it and causing them to fall,” stated the spokesperson for UN Secretary General António Guterres after the first attack Thursday.

“The injuries are fortunately – this time – not serious, but the peacekeepers remain in the hospital.” The comments came before a briefing by Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Nestor Owomuhangi on the impact of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza on women and girls. The attacks drew condemnation in the form of a statement released by France, Italy and Spain – which have become increasingly critical of Israeli actions in recent months – as well as unsympathetic coverage in conservative-leaning news outlets like the UK-based Daily Mail. The joint statement expressed “outrage” over Israel’s “unjustified attack,” accusing the country of failure to uphold its obligations under international law by striking UN peacekeeping forces. The three countries called for a ceasefire.

Relations between Israel and the United Nations have reached a nadir as Tel Aviv has urged UNFIL to “relocate” some of its 10,000 peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. UNFIL has opposed the ultimatum, with Irish peacekeepers vocally rejecting Israeli demands to abandon their observation post as Israel attempts to press forward with their invasion. The incident led to violent rhetoric from Israelis and their apologists on social media, with former White House advisor Matthew RJ Brodsky calling on Tel Aviv to “drop napalm” on the nonviolent Irish peacekeeping force. The comments led to a rare suspension of a pro-Israel account on the X social media platform and forced Brodsky to resign his current position advising a Republican congressional candidate. Ireland has long been one of the most stalwart defenders of the Palestinian cause in Europe, with activists and politicians in the country frequently comparing the plight of the displaced people to that of Irish resistance fighters during the country’s occupation by the UK.

Read more …

“..every two sentences, Uzi would interrupt: “No, no, we’ve got to kill them all”. And other people, members of the Institute, were also just talking continually about killing Arabs..”

• Israel Does What It Does; It Was Always Planned This Way (Alastair Crooke)

With the assassination of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah and a number of the Hizbullah senior leadership in Beirut – expressly without prior warning being given to the Pentagon – Netanyahu fired the start gun on an implicit Israeli widening of war to – using Israel’s term – the ‘octopus’ tentacles’: Hizbullah in Lebanon; Ansarullah in Yemen; the Syrian government and the Iraqi Hash’ad A-Shaabi forces. Well, after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh and part of Hizbullah’s leadership cadre (including a senior Iranian general), Iran – demonised as the ‘octopus head’ – entered the conflict with a volley of missiles that targeted airfields, military bases and the Mossad HQ – but intentionally caused no deaths. Israel thus made the U.S. (and most of Europe) partners or accomplices to a war now definitively cast as neo-imperialism versus the whole of the non-West. Palestinians – the global icons of the aspiration for national liberation – were to be annihilated from historic Palestine.

Further, the bombing in Beirut, and Iran’s riposte to it, now ranges Israel backed and materially supported by the U.S. vs Iran, backed and materially supported by Russia. Israel, the military correspondent of Yedioth Ahronoth warns, ‘must go crazy and strike Iran – because striking Iran “will end the current war”’. Plainly, it marks the end to ‘playing nice’ – of incrementally escalating, one calculated step after another – as if playing chess with an opponent who calculates similarly. Both now threaten to take a hammer to the chess board. ‘Chess is over’. It seems that Moscow too, understands that ‘chess’ simply cannot be played when the opponent is no ‘adult’, but a reckless sociopath ready to sweep away the board – to gamble all on an ephemeral ‘great victory’ move. Looked at dispassionately, either the Israelis are inviting their own demise by over-extending across seven fronts. Or their hope lies with invoking the threat of their demise as the means to bring in the United States.

As with Zelensky in Ukraine, there is ‘no hope’ unless the U.S. adds its fire-power decisively – both Netanyahu and Zelensky assume. So, in West Asia the U.S. is now supporting, no less, than a war against humanity per se, and against the world. This clearly cannot be in America’s self-interest. Do its power-broker Panjandrums realise the possible consequences for it to stand against the World in an act of gross immorality? Netanyahu is betting his house – and now the West’s – on the outcome of his roulette table ‘bet’. Is there a sense amongst the Panjandrums that the U.S. is betting on the wrong horse? Whilst it seems there are some contrarians placed at a high level in the U.S. military who do have reservations – as in every ‘war game’ the U.S. loses in the Near East – their voices are few. The wider political class clamours for revenge on Iran.

The dilemma of why there are so few opposing voices in Washington has been addressed and explained by Professor Michael Hudson. Hudson explains that matters are not so simple; that context is missing. “Everything that’s happened today was planned out just 50 years ago, back in 1974 and 1973. “I worked at the Hudson Institute for about five years, 1972 to ‘76. I sat in on meetings with Uzi Arad, who became Netanyahu’s chief military advisor after heading Mossad. I worked very closely with Uzi there … I want to describe how the whole strategy that led to the United States today, not wanting peace, but wanting Israel to take over the whole Near East, took shape gradually. “On one occasion, I brought my mentor, Terrence McCarthy, to the Hudson Institute, to talk about the Islamic worldview, and every two sentences, Uzi would interrupt: “No, no, we’ve got to kill them all”. And other people, members of the Institute, were also just talking continually about killing Arabs”.

The strategy of using Israel as the regional battering ram to achieve U.S. (imperial) objectives was worked out essentially in the 1960s by Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson. Jackson was nicknamed ‘the Senator from Boeing’ for his support for the military-industrial complex. And the military-industrial complex backed him to become chair of the Democratic National Committee. He was too twice an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 1972 and 1976 Presidential elections. Well, he was backed by Herman Kahn too, who became the key strategist for U.S. hegemony in the Hudson Institute.

Initially, Israel didn’t really play a role in the U.S. plan; Jackson (of Norwegian descent) simply hated communism, he hated the Russians, and had a lot of support within the Democratic Party. But when all of this strategy was being put together, Herman Khan’s great achievement was to convince the U.S. Empire builders that the key to achieving their control in the Middle East was to rely on Israel as its foreign legion. And that arms-length arrangement enabled the U.S. to play the role, Hudson says, of the ‘good cop’, whilst designating Israel to play its role as ruthless proxy. And that’s why the State Department turned over management of U.S. diplomacy to Zionists – to separate and distinguish Israeli behaviour from the claimed probity of U.S. imperialism.

Read more …

That can only be Russia..

• Germany Is Committing ‘Economic Suicide’ – Who’s To Blame? (Amar)

Robert Habeck, Germany’s Green minister of the economy, has just had to lower his growth prognosis for 2024 as a whole. So much, in fact, that, instead of the minuscule increase of 0.3% – yes, you read that right: that’s what’s considered good news now in Germany, if it happens, which it does not – the country is looking at a minus of 0.2%. Germany’s economy is not merely stagnant, it is shrinking. When Berlin was still dreaming about that lavish 0.3% growth that is not actually happening, government representatives were speaking of a turning point. Well, there has been a turn alright, another one for the worse. What makes this much worse is that it is not an outlier event or a temporary phenomenon but the new, miserable German normal. Or, as German economists put it, their country is stuck in a “deep structural crisis.” Even the staunchly NATO-philic and Russophobic Economist came to the same conclusions last summer already. Asking (rhetorically) if Germany was “the sick man of Europe,” the journal found that, since 2018, Berlin has been presiding over an economic “laggard.” Before that, Germany was doing quite well.

After the mid-2000s, its economy had grown – cumulatively – by 24%, while Britain added 22% and France only 18%. But, as of last year, the IMF predicted German cumulative growth of only 8% for the period of 2019 to 2029, while it forecast 15% for the Netherlands and 17% for the US. And the way things are going, the IMF may well have been too optimistic. Germany’s deep economic crisis has many causes. They include an aging population; weak digitalization; a surfeit of bureaucracy (but then that has always been the case); corporate taxes that some consider too high (but then someone will always complain about taxes); the country’s failure to overcome the Covid shock more quickly; the massively deteriorating relationship with China, a key market for Germany in general and an indispensable factor in the making of the “good times” before 2018; Germany’s dependency on global supply chains and markets beyond China, which means it is hard hit by the current fracturing of the globalized economy; the insane decision to abandon nuclear energy and, linked to that, the failure of a perfectly messed-up “green transition.”

Yet only the lazy assemble a grab-bag of causal factors and end their analysis with a simple “all of the above.” To do better requires, as a minimum, identifying the most crucial factors. There can be no doubt that two of them are geopolitical: the disruption of the relationship with China and the fact that energy is too expensive, that is more expensive than in many competitor economies. As German experts are acknowledging, this makes producing in Germany “persistently less attractive” than other locations. Put simply, it does not pay any longer to make stuff in Germany. And the reason for that economically lethal state of affairs is well known, even if German politicians and mainstream media won’t admit it: Berlin has cut its economy off from inexpensive Russian gas and oil. And we need to stress the word “inexpensive” because Germans do, of course, still use both. Only they buy them from intermediaries, so they are now expensive.

None of this had to happen. As late as at the beginning of 2022, Berlin could have chosen to promote a reasonable compromise between Russia and the West, which was what was really at stake in the crisis over Ukraine. Back then, especially together with France, Germany could still have charted a course sufficiently independent of the hardliners in the US, with their warmongering camp followers in Eastern Europe and Britain. Berlin could have stopped the insane drive to all-out proxy war in the delusional pursuit of a “strategic defeat” for Russia. If Germany had done so, Ukraine would be much better off, and so would the whole of the EU and Germany as well. All that, however, is water under the bridge. The question now is whether things can be repaired again. There is no reason, unfortunately, for optimism, at least not before fundamental changes in German politics. Under the current government, in any case, it is certain that things will only get worse, because its members display zero interest in even understanding, far less in correcting their mistakes.

Read more …

“The UK is suffering the worst decline in living standards of any G7 country..”

• UK Police Officers Resigning in Droves as Country Roiled by Protest (Miles)

Two months after massive anti-immigrant protests made global headlines, new data reveals UK police officers are leaving the profession in record numbers. The Police Federation of England and Wales, a labor organization representing British public security officers, sounded the alarm Sunday, airing its concerns in The Daily Telegraph. “Labour’s plans to put more bobbies on the beat are set to fail because record numbers of officers are quitting or planning to leave,” the newspaper reported, questioning whether new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer would be able to fulfill a key plank of his party’s most recent platform. “Home Office figures show that police officers voluntarily leaving the service has hit a record high of more than 5,000, or 3.4 per cent of the workforce,” the broadsheet continued. “This is more than double the rate four years ago. The federation’s survey of its 145,000 members found that one in five said they were planning to leave the service within the next two years or as soon as possible.”

Starmer’s promise to expand policing comes as rates of crime have risen in the country in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent data revealed shoplifting has increased by 30% over the last year, continuing a trend observed after stringent lockdowns in the country in 2020. High-profile incidents of “antisocial behavior” such as harassment and vandalism have also made headlines. In late July and early August, the UK was rocked by major anti-immigration demonstrations, culminating in one instance in rioters setting fire to a hotel believed to be housing migrants. The incident resulted in massive counter-demonstrations soon after, in which some confrontations between protesters on both sides of the issue were observed. UK officials baselessly accused Moscow of fomenting the demonstrations via the propagation of “fake news” online, a claim rejected by Russian officials.

Tiff Lynch, the Police Federation’s deputy national chair, blamed meager pay increases for officers’ decision to leave the profession. Police officers’ pay recently received an increase of only 4.75%, Lynch noted, while other public workers received an increase of 5 to 6 percent. Police have endured a pay cut of almost 20% in real terms since 2010, she claimed. The UK has enforced harsh austerity measures since then, which observers have claimed led to a significant decline in living standards. One study asserted that British citizens have lost a half year in life expectancy as a result of the decrease in social spending.

“The UK is suffering the worst decline in living standards of any G7 country,” the British Trades Union Congress claimed recently. “Contraction in UK household budgets is going to get worse – despite falling inflation. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts that real house disposable income per head in Britain will fall by an additional 3.4% by the end of the first quarter of 2024. The UK seems set for ongoing political turmoil as well, despite electing a new leader only three months ago. Recent polling reveals new Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating stands at only 26%. The new head of state has made military assistance to Israel and Ukraine a priority, despite opposition from growing segments of the British public.

Read more …

“If there is no political agreement… there Ukraine will suffer a military defeat..”

• Ukraine’s Battlefield Situation ‘Critical’ – ex-NATO Official (RT)

Ukraine will soon have to abandon the key Donbass city of Pokrovsk as its defenses slowly crumble under Russian attacks, General Harald Kujat, a former chief of staff of the German armed forces and chairman of the NATO Military Committee, believes. In an interview with journalist and podcaster Flavio von Witzleben on Sunday, Kujat, who chaired the NATO Military Committee between 2002 and 2005, suggested that Ukraine’s plan to divert Russian units away from Donbass via its Kursk incursion has failed because Russia has not had to curtail its offensive in the region. “Ukraine originally intended… that the Russians would pull combat troops back [to Kursk Region], but this has now turned out to be to its own detriment because the Russians are now tying up the urgently needed Ukrainian reserves that are now missing in Donbass,” he said, describing the Kursk offensive as an “all-in action.”

As a result, Russia is slowly advancing in Donbass at a pace consistent with the desire to minimize losses, Kujat believes. Russia has made gains near Pokrovsk, Kujat noted, describing the city, located some 50km northwest of Donetsk, as “of crucial importance” due to its logistical significance. “Ukraine is still holding its position but it is only a matter of time before this city falls… The situation of the Ukrainian armed forces is critical and it is becoming more and more critical day by day and this is despite the massive material and financial support from the West,” he said. In light of this, the conflict is on a “downward trend” for Ukraine, Kujat said, adding that this trajectory has clearly accelerated. “If there is no political agreement… there Ukraine will suffer a military defeat,” the general projected.

As fighting rages on the outskirts of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian officials have repeatedly described the situation there as “difficult.” Several Western media outlets have also warned that the loss of Pokrovsk will not only hamper the Ukrainian military’s logistics in Donbass, but will also deal a severe blow to the country’s economy, as the area serves as a key source of coal for its steel and iron industries. The Russian military has been making gains in Donbass in recent weeks, liberating dozens of settlements, including the key stronghold of Ugledar in the southern section of the front. Both Donetsk and Lugansk Regions in Donbass overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in referendums in the autumn of 2022, along with two other former Ukrainian territories.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

RFK USDA

 

 

Mercola

 

 

Alpaca

 

 

Sharks and rays
https://twitter.com/i/status/1845759967753621679

 

 

 

 

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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
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843859310679601401

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.”

Read more …

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?”

Read more …

“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.

Read more …

“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.

Read more …

“..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.

Read more …

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.

Read more …

“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.”

Read more …

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

 

 

 

 

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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“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….”

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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 4 2024

Sep 042024
 
 September 4, 2024  Posted by at 8:27 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


René Magritte Memory of a Journey 1955

 

• Musk ‘Can’t Wait’ To Be Part Of Trump’s Team (RT)
• Robert Reich Calls for Arrest of Elon Musk for Resisting Censorship (Turley)
• Musk Threatens To Go After Brazilian Government Assets (RT)
• Brazilians to be Fined $9000 a Day for Receiving News from X (Turley)
• Why Did Zuckerberg Choose Now to Confess? (Tucker)
• Can They Really Reinvent Kamala Harris in 70 Days? (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Harris’ So-Called ‘Surge’ Is Thanks To Oversampling: Pollsters (ZH)
• Kamala Harris Will Not Bring Prices Down. Her Plan Needs Inflation (Lacalle)
• Durov ‘Too Free’ For The West – Lavrov (RT)
• ‘Developing in All Directions’: Putin Praises Russia-Mongolia Relations (Sp.)
• Mongolia Told ICC To Get Lost With Putin Warrant – Medvedev (RT)
• Mongolia Explains Why It Didn’t Arrest Putin (RT)
• Serious International Crimes to Be Brought to Justice – Moscow (Sp.)
• Netanyahu Refuses Surrender to Israeli Protesters Demanding Hostage Deal (Sp.)
• Epstein Client List ‘Will Be’ Made Public – Trump (RT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reagan

 

 

51 days

 

 

Kash Patel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830814009420918825

 

 

Sen. Kennedy

 

 

Kamala ad

 

 

But nobody knows Kamala

 

 

O’Leary CNN
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830841829987860546

 

 

Tucker WWII

 

 

 

 

“There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go..”

• Musk ‘Can’t Wait’ To Be Part Of Trump’s Team (RT)

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said he is eager to join Donald Trump’s team if he wins the presidential election in November. According to the Washington Post, Trump is planning to establish a special commission to review the work of federal agencies and is considering Musk for a role on this team. The outlet reported on Monday that the former president and his team had been discussing the initiative behind closed doors in recent weeks. The commission would reportedly be led by prominent business executives, whose task would be to “comb through the government books to identify thousands of programs to cut,” according to the Washington Post.

While Trump has previously dismissed the idea of having Musk join his cabinet due to his sprawling business empire, he said the tech tycoon was a “very smart guy” and could be a helpful consultant to the federal government and provide “some very good ideas.” Trump has also praised Musk for the cost-cutting measures that he implemented after acquiring Twitter (now X) in 2022. Following the takeover, Musk infamously laid off some 6,000 workers, or nearly 80% of the platform’s workforce. Responding to the Washington Post’s claims that he is being considered for the auditing commission, Musk wrote on X on Tuesday that he “can’t wait.” “There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go,” the billionaire said.

Previously, Musk has written that he is “fully” endorsing Trump in the upcoming election and that he is “willing to serve” under the former president if he secures a second term in office. In a post on X last month, the billionaire also shared an AI-generated image of himself standing behind a lectern labeled ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ with the acronym DOGE, referring to the meme-based DOGE coin cryptocurrency, which Musk has personally backed in the past. Last week, Musk also warned that the US was on a “fast lane to bankruptcy” due to government overspending, saying that this is causing rampant inflation in the country. The billionaire also shared a forecast suggesting that the US budget deficit could increase from $1.8 trillion to almost $16.3 trillion over the next ten years at the current rate of spending.

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“..despite their critical role in various national security efforts, including the possible rescue of the stranded two astronauts currently in space. None of that matters to Reich..”

• Robert Reich Calls for Arrest of Elon Musk for Resisting Censorship (Turley)

We have previously discussed the anti-free speech views of Clinton’s former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, who has tried to sell citizens on the perfectly Orwellian view that more freedom means tyranny when it comes to the freedom of expression. He also demanded that former president Donald Trump be banned from ballots as a “traitor” — all in the name of protecting democracy from itself. Last week, Reich wrote a column declaring Elon Musk “out of control” in his refusal to censor citizens and appeared to call for his arrest. Reich has long been a prominent voice in the anti-free speech movement discussed in my recent book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage. Indeed, he has given a voice to the rage in calling for others to be silenced or arrested. Elon Musk has long been the primary target of Reich and his allies after dismantling the censorship system at Twitter, now X.

Reich called Musk’s purchase of Twitter with a pledge to reduce censorship to be “dangerous nonsense.” Notably, Reich’s friend, Hillary Clinton, was one of the first to call for a crackdown on Musk after his purchase of Twitter. Hillary Clinton and other Democratic figures turned to Europe and called upon them to use their Digital Services Act to force censorship against Americans. Reich has always shown a chilling fluidity in how free speech is protected and argued that public interest should be able to trump the right of any citizens in espousing views that he believes are dangerous. In denouncing Musk, Reich encouraged a campaign to counter his efforts to resist censorship. He wrote that Musk “may be the richest man in the world. He may own one of the world’s most influential social media platforms. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to stop him.”

Like Hillary Clinton, Reich is calling on foreign governments and censors to silence American citizens including Musk: “Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.” He even appears willing to undermine national security programs to stop unfettered free speech. He called for the U.S. government to cut off contracts with his companies despite their critical role in various national security efforts, including the possible rescue of the stranded two astronauts currently in space. None of that matters to Reich who appears to view free speech as a greater threat to our nation: “Why is the US government allowing Musk’s satellites and rocket launchers to become crucial to the nation’s security when he’s shown utter disregard for the public interest?

Why give Musk more economic power when he repeatedly abuses it and demonstrates contempt for the public good?” Reich’s call to regulate speech in the public interest is the Siren’s Call of every authoritarian regime in history. He will presumably tell us what speech is no longer tolerable for public policy reasons. Our “Indispensable Right” will, according to Reich, be safely in the hands of the European censors who can protect us from errant and dangerous thoughts. As he explained earlier, “the kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.” In this way, speech regulations can keep us “moving towards how we recommend content and … how we direct people’s attention is leading to a healthy public conversation that is most participatory.” The “healthy public conversation” with Robert Reich increasingly appears to be his talking and the rest of us listening.

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“Unless the Brazilian government returns the illegally seized property of X and SpaceX..”

• Musk Threatens To Go After Brazilian Government Assets (RT)

Tech mogul Elon Musk has vowed to seek the seizure Brazilian government assets in the US, if Brazil does not return property belonging to his companies X (formerly Twitter) and Space X. Last week, the Supreme Court of Brazil ordered the operations of X to be “immediately suspended” and threatened a fine of 50,000 Brazilian reals ($8,874) per day against anyone trying to sidestep the ban on accessing the platform using a VPN. The judge gave Google and Apple five days to remove X from their app stores. The ruling was upheld Monday by a panel of federal supreme court justices. The court also froze the accounts of satellite internet provider Starlink, a subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX, to ensure the payment of fines imposed for failing to appoint a new legal representative for X in Brazil.

“Unless the Brazilian government returns the illegally seized property of X and SpaceX, we will seek reciprocal seizure of government assets too,” Musk wrote on his social media platform. “Hope Lula enjoys flying commercial,” the billionaire added, referring to Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva. Musk was responding to a tweet of a news report about the US government’s confiscation of a jet allegedly used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, claiming it violated Washington’s sanctions against Caracas. The fierce dispute between the Brazilian authorities and the US entrepreneur began in April, when Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered X to delete the accounts belonging to several supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, calling them “digital militants” who spread “disinformation” about himself and the court.

The billionaire rejected the demand, highlighting that to comply with the order would violate Brazilian laws. Musk announced plans to suspend operations in the country, citing what he called censorship orders that his company refused to comply with. Commenting on the seizure of Starlink’s accounts, Musk objected to the “absolutely illegal action” taken without any due process, pointing out that X and SpaceX are “two completely different companies with different shareholders.” He also pledged to provide free internet access to the company’s Brazilian customers while the accounts remain blocked. On Monday, Reuters reported a senior state official as saying that Brazilian telecommunications regulator Anatel could introduce sanctions against Starlink, which is currently the only company that refused to comply with the ruling to shut down X. Anatel has warned that the company’s license for operating in the country could be revoked.

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Brazil’s no. 1 news source.

• Brazilians to be Fined $9000 a Day for Receiving News from X (Turley)

Brazil has not just banned X (formerly Twitter) from the entire country, but citizens will now be fined $9000 a day (more than the average salary in the country) for using VPNs to access the platform. X is the main source of news for Brazilians, who will now be left with government-approved sources or face financial ruin in seeking unfettered information. The Guardian is reporting that the confiscatory fines are part of a comprehensive crackdown on efforts to get news through X, including ordering all Apple stores to remove X from new phones. The move puts Brazil with China in the effort to create a wall of censorship between citizens and unregulated information. For the anti-free speech movement, Brazil is a key testing ground for where the movement is heading next. European censors are arresting CEOs like Pavel Durov while threatening Elon Musk.

However, it is Brazil that foreshadows the brave new world of censorship where entire nations will block access to sites committed to free speech values or unfettered news. If successful, the Brazilian model is likely to be replicated by other countries. The reason is that censorship is not working. As discussed in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” we have never seen the current alliance of government, corporate, academic, and media interest against free speech. Yet, citizens are not buying it. Despite unrelenting attacks and demonizing media coverage, citizens are still using X and resisting censorship. That was certainly the case in Brazil where citizens preferred X to regulated news sources. The solution is now to threaten citizens with utter ruin if they seek unfettered news.

The question is whether Brazil’s leftist government can get away with this. The conflict began with demands to censor supporters of the conservative former president Jair Bolsonaro. When X refused the sweeping demands for censorship, including the demand to name of a legal representative who could be arrested for refusing to censor users, the courts moved toward this national ban. The man behind the effort is Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has aggressively used censorship to combat anything that he or the government deems “fake news” or disinformation. With socialist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, they are the dream team of the anti-free speech movement. The question is whether Brazil will become a nightmare for free speech around the world as other nations seek to force citizens to read and hear news from approved, state-monitored sites.

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Because he thinks Trump will win.

• Why Did Zuckerberg Choose Now to Confess? (Tucker)

On many subjects important to public life today, vast numbers of people know the truth, and yet the official channels of information sharing are reluctant to admit it. The Fed admits no fault in inflation and neither do most members of Congress. The food companies don’t admit the harm of the mainstream American diet. The pharmaceutical companies are loath to admit any injury. Media companies deny any bias. So on it goes. And yet everyone else does know, already and more and more so. This is why the admission of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was so startling. It’s not what he admitted. We already knew what he revealed. What’s new is that he admitted it. We are simply used to living in a world swimming in lies. It rattles us when a major figure tells us what is true or even partially or slightly true. We almost cannot believe it, and we wonder what the motivation might be.

In his letter to Congressional investigators, he flat-out said what everyone else has been saying for years now. “In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree….I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today. Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction – and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”

A few clarifications. The censorship began much earlier than that, from March 2020 at the very least if not earlier. We all experienced it, almost immediately following lockdowns. After a few weeks, using that platform to get the word out proved impossible. Facebook once made a mistake and let my piece on Woodstock and the 1969 flu go through but they would never make that mistake again. For the most part, every single opponent of the terrible policies was deplatformed at all levels. The implications are far more significant than the bloodless letter of Zuckerberg suggests. People consistently underestimate the power that Facebook has over the public mind. This was especially true in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. The difference in having an article unthrottled much less amplified by Facebook in these years was in the millionfold. When my article went through, I experienced a level of traffic that I had never seen in my career. It was mind-boggling.

When the article was shut down some two weeks later – after focused troll accounts alerted Facebook that the algorithms had made a mistake – traffic fell to the usual trickle. Again, in my entire career of closely following internet traffic patterns, I had never seen anything like this. Facebook as an information source offers power like we’ve never seen before, especially because so many people, especially among the voting public, believe that the information they are seeing is from their friends and family and sources they trust. The experience of Facebook and other platforms framed the reality that people believed existed outside of themselves. Every dissident, and every normal person who had some sense that something odd was going on, was made to feel like some sort of crazy cretin who held nutty and probably dangerous views that were completely out of touch with the mainstream.

What does it mean that Zuckerberg now openly admits that he excluded from view anything that contradicted government wishes? It means that any opinions on lockdowns, masks, or vaccine mandates – and all that is associated with that including church and school closures plus vaccine harms – were not part of the public debate. We had lived through and were living through the most significant far-reaching attacks on our rights and liberties in our lifetimes, or, arguably, on the history record in terms of scale and reach, and it was not part of any serious public debate. Zuckerberg played an enormous role in this. People like me had come to believe that average people were simply cowards or stupid not to object. Now we know that this might not have been true at all! The people who objected were simply silenced!

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“Harris is not so much a flip-flopper as a padder, who supports anything, without any worry about framing each new position by renouncing her original and opposite one.”

• Can They Really Reinvent Kamala Harris in 70 Days? (Victor Davis Hanson)

Harris’s well-funded 2019 campaign quickly blew up early. Indeed, she never entered much less won a single primary–and captured no delegates through voting. In the frenzy following George Floyd’s death, and the mayhem and nationwide rioting and violence of late spring and summer, panicked 2020 nominee Joe Biden announced in advance he would select a diversity candidate as a running mate. And in no time, and under increasing pressure to trump his braggadocious promise, he boxed himself in by assuring his handlers that his running mate would be preselected as a black woman. Given there were then no black female governors and only two black women in the Senate, Kamala Harris was a choice of last resort—even though, as a candidate and competitor of Joe Biden, she had condemned him before a nationwide audience as a veritable racist who had habitually cozied up to segregationists.

When she labels her own running mate a racist it becomes hard to take her charges of racism against Trump seriously. As vice president, Harris predictably proved inept. In a variety of tasks as “border czar” and point woman on space exploration, she proved not merely clueless but embarrassingly so—sappy, cackling, and variously labeled by ex-staff and Democratic insiders as “out of her league” and “way over her head.” Her chief role was to break a sometimes 50/50 deadlocked Senate and therefore, in every one of those votes, owns the passage of hard-left legislation that often turned disastrous. As Biden’s cognitive decline accelerated at a geometric rate, a widely derided Harris was seen by the Bidens as Joe’s Spiro Agnew insurance policy: a vice president so bumbling and unimaginable as a future president that if Biden only breathed, he would be still judged preferable to the travesty of a Harris succession.

Biden utterly imploded on June 13 during a stress-test national debate. His collapse ended the 42-month-long charade that he was “fit as a fiddle.” In 24 hours, Biden was transmogrified by his handlers from an Arnold Schwarzenegger-like health nut to physically and mentally unable to continue as the Democratic nominee. Left unsaid was that his diving polls, not his debility, doomed Biden. Otherwise, he would have survived his latest public humiliation had his approval ratings been respectable. Harris’s race, gender, and status as vice president made it impossible not to anoint her as the new Democratic candidate.

Her machinations to preempt any challengers were achieved almost instantaneously in the same anti-democratic fashion as the removal of Biden himself from the ticket. In the way of the current Democrats, whatever the billionaire donor class and the DEI apparat decide is reified almost instantly by fiat. We now suffer a zombie presidency for the next five months. Biden’s own party insists that he is too enfeebled to campaign as a nominee but not too demented to serve as president. Weirder still, a presidential candidate, who has never in her life won a primary and just days ago was written off by her own party as linguistically challenged, is being reinvented in 70 days as the second coming of Barack Obama.

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Is this how Hillary got that 97% likelihood to win in 2016?

• Harris’ So-Called ‘Surge’ Is Thanks To Oversampling: Pollsters (ZH)

As we’ve been highlighting since 2016, polls are not to be trusted thanks to various ‘tricks of the trade’ – most commonly, oversampling. Last month we noted how the founder of the main outside spending group backing Kamala Harris for president says their own internal opinion polling is “much less rosy” than public polls. “Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in the public,” said Future Forward super PAC president Chauncey McLean said during a Monday event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Now, the Washington Times reports that some pollsters are even sounding the alarm over Vice President Kamala Harris’ so-called ‘surge’ in the polls – which Harris pulled ahead in after replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee on July 21.

Since the switch, Harris is leading Trump nationally by nearly 2 percentage points and is either leading or tied with him in all seven battleground states. However, Republican analysts argue that these polling numbers may not accurately reflect voter sentiment due to biased polling methodology. Critics point out that many polls have been sampling a disproportionately smaller share of Republican voters compared to exit poll data from the 2020 presidential election. The result, they say, is a misleading “phantom advantage” for Ms. Harris. According to them, this skewed sampling could be a strategic move to boost enthusiasm and fundraising for Ms. Harris’ campaign. Trump campaign strategist Jim McLaughlin echoed this sentiment, stating, “They undersample Republicans” intentionally “to tamp down support and donations for Trump.” He added that the polls are part of a larger effort to create a narrative that favors Harris.

Trump has openly criticized the poll results. “It’s fake news,” Trump declared during a rally in Michigan. “They can make those polls sing.” Harris’ recent poll numbers have indeed helped fuel excitement among her supporters, as evidenced by her campaign’s announcement of a $540 million fundraising haul in July, more than four times what Mr. Trump raised in the same period. Still, the growing skepticism over the legitimacy of the polls has prompted some to question whether the surge in support is as real as it appears.

Recent polls that show a Harris lead, such as the Suffolk University/USA Today poll, included more respondents identifying as Democrats (37.1%) than Republicans (33.8%). The poll found Ms. Harris leading Trump by 5 percentage points, a significant turnaround from earlier in the year when Trump was ahead by 4 points vs. Biden. Similarly, a Yahoo News/YouGov poll released on August 27 found Ms. Harris ahead of Mr. Trump by 1 percentage point, with Democrats making up 33% of respondents compared to only 29% for Republicans. The discrepancy in party sampling is causing concern among poll watchers. Data from the 2020 exit polls showed a nearly equal split, with 36% identifying as Republican and 37% as Democrat. Yet, recent polls seem to favor Democrats disproportionately, leading to claims of deliberate skewing.

Mr. Trump’s pollster, Tony Fabrizio, has argued that these polls are designed to suppress support for Mr. Trump. In a memo, he stated, “Once again, we see a series of public surveys released with the clear intent and purpose of depressing support for President Trump.” Pollsters like Don Levy of the New York Times/Siena Poll counter that these claims lack substance. They argue that any gaps between recalled 2020 vote and actual 2020 results are not evidence of intentional bias but may reflect the complexity of polling dynamics, including response bias where Democrats are more likely to participate in polls. Despite these excuses, the controversy surrounding these polls has left many wondering about the true state of the race. Polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight shows Ms. Harris’ approval rating ticking up to 42.3%, up from 37.1% in early July. Yet, doubts persist over how she has managed to rise in the polls without significantly improving her historically low job approval ratings.

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“Inflation is the way in which the government tricks citizens into believing that administrations can provide for anything..”

• Kamala Harris Will Not Bring Prices Down. Her Plan Needs Inflation (Lacalle)

In a recent interview with CNN, Kamala Harris said that Bidenomics is working and that she is “proud of bringing inflation down.” However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published the latest CPI at 2.9%, despite annual inflation being 1.4% when she took office. Inflation is a disguised tax and accumulated inflation since January 2021, when the Biden-Harris administration started, has increased more than 20%. Of course, Democrats blame inflation on the war, the pandemic, and the science-fantasy concept of “supply chain disruptions.” No one believed it, because most commodities have declined and supply tensions disappeared back to normality, but prices continued to rise. As a result, Harris invented the concept of greedy grocery stores and evil corporations to blame for inflation and justify price controls.

Is it not ironic? She blames grocery stores and corporations for inflation, but when price inflation drops, she proudly takes credit. The reality is that the Kamala Harris plan, like all interventionist governments, creates and strives for inflation. Inflation is a hidden tax. Governments love it and perpetuate it by printing money through deficit spending and imposing regulations that harm trade, competition, and technological creative destruction. Big government is big inflation. Inflation is the way in which the government tricks citizens into believing that administrations can provide for anything. It disguises the accumulated debt, quietly transfers wealth from the private sector to the government and condemns citizens to being dependent hostages of government subsidies. It is the only way in which they can continue to spend a constantly depreciated currency and present themselves as the solution.

Furthermore, it is the perfect excuse to blame businesses and anyone else who sells in the currency that the government creates. Kamala Harris will do nothing to cut inflation because she wants inflation to disguise the monster deficit and debt accumulation. In the latest figures, the deficit has soared to $1.5 trillion in the first ten months of the fiscal year. Public debt has soared to $35 trillion, and in the administration’s own forecasts, they will add a $16.3 trillion deficit from 2025 to 2034. It is worse. The previously mentioned figure does not include the $2 trillion in additional debt coming from Kamala’s economic plan.

Harris is aware that her proposals to impose an unrealized capital gains tax, an economic aberration, and other tax hikes will not generate the $2 trillion in additional taxes she seeks. So, she needs the Fed to monetize as much as possible, eroding the US dollar’s purchasing power and making all Americans poorer in the process, only to blame corporations and grocery stores later. Furthermore, it is a way to present the government as the solution to the problem they create, promising the lunacy of price controls and enormous subsidies in a constantly depreciated currency.

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“..too slow [to react to] or did not listen at all to Western advice about the so-called moderation of his brainchild..”

• Durov ‘Too Free’ For The West – Lavrov (RT)

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is facing charges in France because he refused to moderate his platform in accordance with Western demands, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has claimed. Durov was arrested after landing in Paris in late August and charged with multiple offenses, including complicity in “administering an online platform” used by criminal groups to conduct illicit activities, and refusing to cooperate with investigators. The Russian tech entrepreneur, who also has citizenship of France, the UAE, and Saint Kitts and Nevis, was released on €5 million ($5.55 million) bail last week. He is banned from leaving the country while the case against him is ongoing. During a meeting with students and educators at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations on Monday, Lavrov suggested that Durov is being persecuted because he “turned out to be too free.”

The Telegram CEO was “too slow [to react to] or did not listen at all to Western advice about the so-called moderation of his brainchild,” he said. Durov is not the only tech entrepreneur to face such pressure from Washington and its allies, the minister stressed, noting how the head of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg “had been summoned to the US Senate and agreed to cooperate, as he himself admitted.” “The West does not pull any punches when dealing with other large platforms either,” he added. What the US and the EU are now doing to Durov is “analogous to their actions related to the abuse of globalization,” Lavrov noted. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said over the weekend that Moscow also had issues with the Telegram CEO in the past, but – unlike Paris – never tried to arrest him.

Holding Durov accountable for crimes committed by other people using his app is the same as arresting the heads of French automobile makers Renault or Citroen because “terrorists also use cars,” Peskov argued. Durov, who was born in St. Petersburg, formally left Russia in 2014 after law enforcement agencies accused him of refusing to grant investigators access to the communications of terrorism suspects. The dispute was settled in 2020 when the Russian telecoms regulator announced that it had no further issues with Telegram. In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson in April, Durov insisted that he has repeatedly refused to provide user data to any authorities, including US intelligence services, or to install a surveillance “backdoor” in the app, which has almost a billion monthly users.

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“..last year, 90% of gasoline and diesel fuel entered the Mongolian market from Russia..”

• ‘Developing in All Directions’: Putin Praises Russia-Mongolia Relations (Sp.)

On Monday, Putin arrived in Mongolia for an official visit, during which he is anticipated to participate in celebrations marking the 85th anniversary of the joint victory of Soviet and Mongolian armed forces at the Khalkh River. “Indeed, relations between Russia and Mongolia are developing in all directions,” Putin said at a meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Putin underscored the effective work in humanitarian areas, in particular in the field of education. “Today, during the course of our work, we will certainly return to the main areas of our cooperation in the economy,” Putin noted. Russia and Mongolia contribute to Asia’s security by cooperating along military-technical lines, as well as countering terrorism, Putin said. “When considering issues of military-technical and anti-terrorist cooperation, it was noted that Russian-Mongolian cooperation in these areas contributes to ensuring security in Asia,” Putin said after talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh.

Moscow is open to implementing peaceful nuclear energy projects with the East Asian country, Putin said. “We are also open to implementing joint peaceful nuclear energy projects based on the most modern Russian technologies, including the use of small-module reactors,” Putin told reporters following the talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Russia sees prospects for cooperation with Mongolia in the gas sector, President Putin said. “We see good prospects for cooperation in the gas sector,” Putin said after talks with his Mongolian counterpart, adding that the possibility of Russian gas supplies to Mongolian consumers is under consideration. Russia has consistently responded to Mongolia’s requests to meet its growing demand for fuel and lubricants, including on preferential terms, the president said, adding that Russia will also continue to supply Mongolia with electricity.

“Our country has long and reliably provided the Mongolian economy with the energy resources it needs. Thus, last year, 90% of gasoline and diesel fuel entered the Mongolian market from Russia,” he added. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that he had exchanged views on current international and regional issues at talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Moscow and Ulaanbaatar have paid special attention to advancing trade and investment ties during the talks in the Mongolian capital, Putin added.

“Special attention was paid to building up mutually beneficial trade and investment ties. Russia is one of Mongolia’s main foreign economic partners,” Putin said after talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Commercial settlements between Russia and Mongolia are almost entirely carried out in currencies other than the dollar and euro, the president added. In turn, the President of Mongolia thanked Putin for the visit, which coincides with a year of significant celebrations for both nations. This year marks the 85th anniversary of their joint victory at the Khalkhin Gol River and the 50th anniversary of the founding of Erdenet.

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“..go do to themselves something that Russians and Mongols found a word for together, back in the 13th century” and get lost..”

• Mongolia Told ICC To Get Lost With Putin Warrant – Medvedev (RT)

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin turned out to be a meaningless scrap of paper, his predecessor Dmitry Medvedev has said. His comments came after Putin arrived in Mongolia, an ICC member state, without facing any obstacles. Writing on Telegram on Tuesday, Medvedev, who now serves as Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, mocked the Western reaction to Putin’s visit to Ulaanbaatar. “The servile European Union has reportedly expressed ‘concern’ to Mongolia over the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” he said. However, the Asian country “has just told the ICC and Eurodegenerates to go do to themselves something that Russians and Mongols found a word for together, back in the 13th century” and get lost, Medvedev suggested.

The ex-president went on to argue that the ICC – which he labeled a “half-baked ‘court’” – should be afraid of “a scenario where some madman tries to carry out their illegal arrest warrant. […] In that case, their lives would be worth no more than the piece of paper on which this shitty statute is written,” he warned. In March 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for allegedly participating in unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Moscow does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction and declared the order null and void. Russia says that Ukrainian children were evacuated for safety reasons, and that they can be returned to their parents or guardians upon request.

Putin’s visit to Mongolia was his first foreign trip to a country that recognizes the ICC statute. Ahead of the trip, the court’s spokesman, Fadi el-Abdallah, said that the country had to cooperate with the ICC on the detention, adding that failure to do so could trigger an “appropriate” response from the body. However, the Rome Statute, under which the ICC operates, provides for exemptions if an arrest would “breach a treaty obligation” with another country or violate the “diplomatic immunity of a person or property of a third state.” Before Putin landed in Ulaanbaatar, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov allayed fears of a potential attempt to arrest the Russian leader. “We have excellent relations with our friends from Mongolia,” he said, noting that Moscow “has no concerns” about the ICC warrant.

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“Mongolia has always maintained a policy of neutrality in all its diplomatic relations..”

• Mongolia Explains Why It Didn’t Arrest Putin (RT)

Mongolia is dependent on its neighbors for energy and maintains a policy of neutrality, a government spokesperson has said, responding to demands to detain Russian President Vladimir Putin on a “war crimes warrant.” The International Criminal Court (ICC), Ukraine and the EU have all called on Ulaanbaatar to arrest the Russian leader, citing a 2023 warrant for “forcible deportations” of Ukrainian children. Although Mongolia is a signatory party to the ICC, it did not do so. “Mongolia imports 95% of its petroleum products and over 20% of electricity from our immediate neighborhood, which have previously suffered interruption for technical reasons. This supply is critical to ensure our existence and that of our people,” a government spokesperson told Politico EU via email on Tuesday. “Mongolia has always maintained a policy of neutrality in all its diplomatic relations, as demonstrated in our statements of record to date,” the spokesperson added.

Putin traveled to Mongolia at the invitation of his counterpart, Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh, and met with top officials in Ulaanbaatar to discuss the two countries’ strategic partnership. The Russian president also attended the ceremony marking the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, a decisive victory of Soviet and Mongolian forces over the Imperial Japanese Army that secured the USSR’s eastern flank for most of WWII. During their meeting Putin invited his Mongolian counterpart, Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh, to the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan next month. Khurelsukh has accepted the invitation. By refusing to arrest Putin, Mongolia has chosen to share “responsibility for his war crimes,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tykhy said on social media, adding that Kiev “will work with partners to ensure that this has consequences for Ulaanbaatar.”

Mongolia is landlocked between Russia to the north and China to the south, and has maintained good relations with both Moscow and Beijing. Ulaanbaatar also signed the Rome Statute and joined the ICC in 2002, and one of its judges was appointed to the court earlier this year. While the court could formally condemn Mongolia for failing to enforce its writ, it lacks authority to impose penalties such as fines or sanctions. Russia has said it considers the ICC’s warrant null and void, since it is not a party to the Rome Statute. Moscow has also rejected the accusations as absurd, pointing out that evacuating civilians from a combat zone, where they faced imminent danger from Ukrainian artillery and drone strikes, was not a crime.

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“The reputation of both the Kiev regime and the ICC is well known. Neither of them are independent and have anything to do with law or justice..”

• Serious International Crimes to Be Brought to Justice – Moscow (Sp.)

“Ukrainian criminals guilty of serious international crimes against their own and Russian citizens, as well as their henchmen, will be brought to justice and will be punished as they deserve to be,” Zakharova said.
Kiev wants to withdraw its citizens from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), but keep criminal prosecution of foreign citizens, Maria Zakharova said. “In fact, they want to withdraw their citizens from the jurisdiction of even this court, which is as loyal to them as possible, but at the same time reserve the right to criminal prosecution in The Hague of citizens of other countries on charges made up by Kiev itself,” Zakharova said.
Kiev’s words on the ratification of the Rome Statute with conditions shows its true attitude to international humanitarian law, the diplomat added.

“Such a step cannot be regarded otherwise than as an undisguised intention to give their military carte blanche to commit serious war crimes,” Zakharova added. Neither Ukraine nor the International Criminal Court have anything to do with law and justice, Zakharova said. “The reputation of both the Kiev regime and the ICC is well known. Neither of them are independent and have anything to do with law or justice,” Zakharova said. On August 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law to ratify the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC. Ukraine will not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction over its citizens for seven years after the adoption of the draft law.

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Netanyahu is not Israel. Trump should learn that too.

• Netanyahu Refuses Surrender to Israeli Protesters Demanding Hostage Deal (Sp.)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a defiant late-night speech amid mass protests in Tel Aviv Monday, rejecting pressure from the Israeli public to secure a deal to return hostages and bring about a ceasefire in Gaza. “I will not surrender to the pressure,” said Netanyahu during the unusual press conference one day after a general strike shut down much of the country. “No one is more committed to freeing the hostages than me. But no one will preach to me,” he added, insisting there were “certain things we won’t compromise on” in negotiations with Hamas. Key to the controversy is the question of who will maintain control over the so-called Philadelphi corridor, a narrow strip of land separating the Gaza Strip’s southern portion from Egypt. The corridor has been jointly controlled by Egypt and Palestinian authorities since Israel’s military disengagement from Gaza in 2005, with the terms of 1978’s Camp David Accords granting Egypt control of the Rafah border crossing that falls within the route.

But the IDF has seized control of both the Philadelphi corridor and the Rafah border crossing in recent months, insisting that Israeli authority over both is necessary for security reasons. That stance has proven to be a poison pill in ongoing negotiations with Hamas as Netanyahu refuses to compromise on his establishment of a “buffer zone” along the Gazan side of the route. “This corridor is essential for our existence,” Netanyahu said Monday. “For this reason Hamas is insisting on it. And for the same reason I’m insisting on it.” The Israeli leader claimed weapons are smuggled into Gaza over the 8.7 mile border, allowing Hamas to maintain its armed resistance. Netanyahu has controversially allowed money and resources from Iran and Qatar to reach Hamas in an effort to strengthen the group and maintain Gaza’s political separation from the West Bank, which is overseen by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support the bolstering of Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” said Netanyahu during a meeting with members of his Likud party in 2019, making explicit the symbiotic relationship between the armed group and the hardline Israeli prime minister. “This is part of our strategy to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” US President Joe Biden has at times appeared flustered by Netanyahu’s intransigence amid months of unfruitful peace talks between Israel and Hamas, while Israeli military officials have publicly rebuked the prime minister for his effective sabotage of a hostage deal. Critics have claimed Netanyahu is merely stalling for time, working to prolong hostilities in Gaza in an effort to maintain his grip on power. The Israeli leader faces prosecution on corruption charges if he is forced to step down from his position.

Observers have speculated Netanyahu is attempting to “run out the clock” until November elections in the United States, after which Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House would provide him with more latitude in solving the Palestinian question. Provocative attacks on leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah on foreign soil have led to speculation the prime minister is seeking to provoke a regional conflict during which the US would presumably come to Israel’s support. Netanyahu has long attempted to goad the United States into a war against Iran, traditionally Israel’s most powerful and influential critic in the region. About 101 Israeli captives are thought to remain in Gaza after Hamas’ surprise operation on October 7, during which several dozen hostages were taken back to the Palestinian territory. Meanwhile Israel continues to hold more than 3,600 Palestinians, many of them children, in so-called administrative detention without charge. Recent polling reveals Netanyahu enjoys the approval of about 29% of the Israeli public.

Israel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830799717300871552

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He can give this to Bobby Kennedy, along with the JFK files.

• Epstein Client List ‘Will Be’ Made Public – Trump (RT)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has suggested that the “black book” with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s client list would be made public should he be elected president. Epstein worked as a financier and socialized with the rich and famous for years, introducing them to dozens of young women – some of whom were underage at the time – and flying them to his private island in the Caribbean on the jet dubbed the ‘Lolita Express’. “I never went to his island, fortunately. But a lot of people did,” Trump said in an interview with the Lex Fridman podcast, published on Tuesday. “It’s very interesting, isn’t it? Probably will be, by the way,” Trump told Fridman, after the host said it was “very strange” that the list of people who traveled to Little St. James has never been made public.

Trump compared the Epstein disclosures to declassifying the last remaining documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and said he would “certainly take a look at it” and would “be inclined to” release the client list. Trump has previously said that as president (2017-2021) he tried to release the Kennedy files, only for the US intelligence community to persuade him at the last moment that this would somehow be damaging. He has since made a promise to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to declassify the documents about his uncle’s assassination, after the former Democrat endorsed him last month. Revelations that Epstein lured young women – many below the legal age of consent – and pimped them out to powerful and prominent acquaintances were instrumental in the financier’s arrest in 2019.

FBI searches of his New York residence and Caribbean island reportedly came up with videos potentially containing compromising material on his “guests.” That evidence remained under lock and key even after Epstein died in his Manhattan cell in August 2019, officially due to suicide. Epstein’s sometime girlfriend and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, was arrested in 2020. She wound up convicted of child sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years behind bars. While the public found out some of the names of the trafficked teens, the names of people they were trafficked to have remained a secret.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

RFK kid

 

 

Tiger mom

 

 

Baby elephant sleep

 

 

Ball
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831004843927867832

 

 

Grandma
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830927268547276820

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 2 2024

Sep 022024
 
 September 2, 2024  Posted by at 7:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


René Magritte Memory of a voyage 1952

 

• French Party Leader Warns Pavel Durov’s Life May Be in Danger (Sp.)
• Kremlin Blasts Arrest In France Of Telegram Founder Pavel Durov (RT)
• How Telegram Is Geopolitics (Pepe Escobar)
• Durov Arrest First Salvo of Final Battle in the 30-Year War on Privacy (Sp.)
• West Brands All Inconvenient Facts As ‘Kremlin Propaganda’ – Putin (RT)
• Putin’s Remarks About Biden True for VP Harris – Kremlin (Sp.)
• Kamunism Is the Perfect Recipe For Economic Collapse (RCM)
• “Not The Type Of Character You Want” In High Office – Tim Walz’s Brother (ZH)
• Walzin Out a Fake War Hero (Spears)
• ‘Heinous, Vile, Disgusting’: Gold Star Families Slam Kamala Harris (ZH)
• Debate Desperation Time For Democrats (QTR)
• Elon Musk Warns Censorship Of X “Is A Certainty” If Kamala Harris Wins (MN)
• Harris Admits The Economy-Crushing ‘Green New Deal’ Is Her Real Agenda (ZH)
• US In ‘Fast Lane’ To Bankruptcy – Musk (RT)
• Protests Sweep Israel After Hostage Deaths (RT)

 

 


© Flickr / siniku

 

 

Tucker

 

 

BlackRock

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1829945511543017954

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1829833967370899477

 

 

 

 

View from the other side…

 

 

Gold star

 

 

AJ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Let’s not forget that Macron has been using Telegram extensively with his teams for a long time, and that he feared ‘leaks’… Pavel Durov should really be careful, his life may be in danger!”

• French Party Leader Warns Pavel Durov’s Life May Be in Danger (Sp.)

The life of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, who was released on bail this week as he faces a potential trial in France, might be in danger, Florian Philippot, the leader of The Patriots party, said on Saturday. The politician referred to reports by French media, which claimed that the billionaire tech entrepreneur had been approached by French intelligence agents while in Dubai and that he had refused to share classified information.”Day after day, the puzzle of [French President Emmanuel] Macron’s delirious persistence against Pavel Durov, after having coaxed him, takes shape … Let’s not forget that Macron has been using Telegram extensively with his teams for a long time, and that he feared ‘leaks’… Pavel Durov should really be careful, his life may be in danger!” Philippot said on X.

The Russian-born was detained at a Paris airport on August 24 on charges related to criminal uses of his messaging app, including terrorism, child pornography, drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud. He was released on Wednesday on a 5-million-euro ($5.5 million) bail and is barred from leaving France. French media reported that Durov had agreed to cooperate with the French investigators and provided access to his phone. Macron is also said to have discussed the detention of Durov, who holds a UAE passport in addition to French citizenship, with UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan a day after he was nabbed at the airport.

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“..Paris could use the same grounds to arrest the CEOs of Renault or Citroën, as terrorists use cars.”

• Kremlin Blasts Arrest In France Of Telegram Founder Pavel Durov (RT)

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has questioned the French authorities’ rationale for arresting Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, pointing to the absurdity of holding him accountable for crimes committed using his network. The Russian tech entrepreneur was detained at Paris-Le Bourget Airport last week and has since been charged with with multiple offenses, including complicity in “administering an online platform” used by criminal gangs to conduct illicit activities, and refusing to cooperate with investigators. Speaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Saturday, Peskov acknowledged that Russian authorities previously had “questions” for the tech billionaire, but stressed that Moscow never tried to arrest him.

“Terrorists do indeed use the Telegram network. But terrorists also use cars. Why don’t they arrest the CEOs of Renault or Citroën?” the Kremlin spokesman said when asked to comment on Durov’s arrest and whether he had a message for his “European colleagues.” Pavel Durov, a St. Petersburg native who holds the citizenships of Russia, France, the United Arab Emirates, and Saint Kitts and Nevis, formally left his homeland in 2014 after law enforcement accused him of refusing to grant investigators access to terrorism suspects’ communications. The dispute was settled in 2020 when the Russian telecoms regulator announced that it had no further issues with Telegram.

In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson in April, Durov claimed that he had consistently refused to provide user data to any authorities, including US intelligence services, or to install a surveillance “backdoor” in the app, which has almost a billion monthly users. The Russian billionaire’s arrest has sparked outrage worldwide, with public leaders such as X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk and Silicon Valley investor David Sacks accusing French authorities of attacking free speech. Durov was released on bail on Wednesday and ordered to remain in France until the case against him concludes. If convicted, he could face up to ten years in prison. Telegram maintains that the company complies with EU laws and that its content moderation policies are “within industry standards.”

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“It’s a near certainty that Pavel does not have Telegram’s fabled encryption keys; yet his math genius brother Nikolai does.”

• How Telegram Is Geopolitics (Pepe Escobar)

Pavel Durov is now essentially a high-level hostage in one of NATOstan’s key nodes, France.NATO’s military intel/surveillance/economic matrix finally got the leverage they actively sought for so long. For the moment there’s no answer to the key question: what did Durov offer his captors to be “rewarded” with a temporary semi-freedom regime after posting bail that for his standards amounts to pocket money? Durov is essentially accused of not “collaborating” or “cooperating” with Western intel. Their single-minded obsession is to control Telegram’s content moderation set up; have total back door access; and eventually ban all Russian channels – which have been instrumental to carry the real stories on the ground developing from Ukraine to sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.

Telegram is the social network of choice of the Global Majority. Telegram is at the heart of geopolitics. So this is yet another chapter of the no holds barred Hybrid War by the Collective West against the Global Majority. Telegram also happens to be extensively used in Russia by public and military bodies. It’s a near certainty that Pavel does not have Telegram’s fabled encryption keys; yet his math genius brother Nikolai does. As it stands, no one knows the terms of the deal leading to Pavel’s semi-freedom. What is clear is that some sort of concessions were made – Durov has not been turned into Assange 2.0. These concessions might include handing over selected information in a classic “judiciary” mode that would not compromise Russian state secrets.

The Durov brothers are certainly aware that any information leading Western intel to harass bloggers and channels for their political stance would fatally compromise the credibility of Telegram.Depending on how the French mega-bureaucracy “investigation” proceeds, and whether the system decides to take Durov to trial or even to block Telegram in the EU, that will only benefit Telegram globally.The saga is just beginning. As it stands, the world is waiting for a word by Pavel Durov himself. On Telegram.

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A history of (the war on) “privacy”.

• Durov Arrest First Salvo of Final Battle in the 30-Year War on Privacy (Sp.)

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, massive spying operations were launched, both in public and in secret. Slowly, either due to fear of terrorism or apathy, the American people started to lose their appreciation for privacy, which started to be portrayed as the exclusive domain of criminals and the paranoid. In 2014, in the wake of the Snowden leaks, former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin, who also served as acting director for just over two months in 2004, wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post to assure the American public that the US National Security Agency (NSA) wasn’t really spying on Americans (they were) and even if they were, it wasn’t a big deal.

“Although our society lauds, in almost ‘Stepford Wives’-like fashion, the merits of ‘transparency,’ it lacks a collective, mature understanding of how intelligence works, how it integrates with foreign policy and how it contributes to the national welfare. Meanwhile, prurient interest in the details of leaked intelligence skyrockets, and people devour material that is not evidence of abuse but merely fascinating — and even more fascinating to US adversaries.” According to McLaughlin’s upside-down perspective, those who want to know what our government is doing are “Stepford Wives” blindly following “society” and giving aid to our enemies. Those who remain willfully ignorant, according to McLaughlin, are the realists who know the NSA is “not perfect,” but the real problem is “the broad distrust of government that has taken root in the United States in recent decades.”

The Snowden leaks did not lead to any real reforms. The government claimed they took measures to protect the privacy of citizens, but those were internal changes around the margins and the new rules are routinely ignored anyway. No one was fired. No one was arrested. No mass protests hit the streets. The public had been conditioned to expect the government was watching them. This year, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was renewed for another two years, a massive blow for privacy and civil rights advocates. “The natural flow of technology tends to move in the direction of making surveillance easier,” Zimmermann prophetically said nearly 30 years ago. The only vestige of privacy left online is through encryption. For years that was a fairly complicated process, public key cryptography made it far easier than it was before, but few in the mainstream were using tools like PGP.

Yes, email had become secure from spoofing, but most of the encryption was handled by email providers. Google may use encryption to keep users safe from man-in-the-middle attacks, but if they have access to your decrypted emails (and they do if you use Gmail), then there is nothing preventing them from handing that information over. That changed with apps like Telegram and Signal, which have true end-to-end encryption that not even the owners can crack. Now, more than ever, normal people are using apps that enable their privacy by default. It’s not perfect, devices themselves are still vulnerable to government intrusion, but it is far more difficult to gain access to than simply sending a subpoena to a service provider. The government could tolerate encryption when it was limited to a few hundred thousand geeks posting on message boards, 950 million Telegram users is a much bigger issue.

On Wednesday, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was charged with a litany of crimes accusing him of not doing enough to prevent abuse of his platform. The critical charge however, the one that all the others rest on because without it he couldn’t be blamed for their actions is once again – as it was with Zimmermann in the US decades ago – with providing tools that enable encryption, which is the only vestige of privacy left on the internet in a post-Snowden world. Durov is out on €5 million bond and is barred from leaving France because, according to the indictment, he was “providing cryptology services aiming to ensure confidentiality without certified declaration,” as well as “providing a cryptology tool not solely ensuring authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration.” And, thirdly, because he was “importing a cryptology tool ensuring authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration.”

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“Moscow has managed to strike a balance between the freedom of the press and national security, the Russian leader has argued..”

• West Brands All Inconvenient Facts As ‘Kremlin Propaganda’ – Putin (RT)

Russian media are trying to convey Moscow’s point of view on global issues and processes, but Western states are hiding from the “truth” by dismissing every inconvenient fact as “propaganda,” President Vladimir Putin has said. President Putin gave a written interview to the Mongolian Onoodor newspaper ahead of his visit to the country on Monday. Among other things, he was asked about the freedom of the press and how the West can champion it while banning and suppressing Russian media. “Almost all Western countries where our journalists try to work are creating obstacles for them, banning Russian television channels and directly censoring our media and online resources,” Putin said, noting that this obviously “runs counter to the democratic principles of freedom of speech and the free flow of information.”

So the West, which claims to be a model of freedom, has opted to hide from inconvenient facts and the truth by launching a blatant bullying campaign against Russian journalists and indiscriminately labeling them as ‘Kremlin propagandists.’ The Russian leader went on to say that pluralism and openness in the information space are vital for society and that in Russia, the mass media are free, as guaranteed by the constitution.“Our authorities cooperate constructively with television channels, news agencies, newspapers, online media, and other media outlets, regardless of their editorial policy,” he said. The only thing they are required to do is comply with Russian laws. This should be understood by foreign journalists accredited in Russia.

That way, Moscow has managed to strike a balance between the freedom of the press and national security, the Russian leader has argued. Putin is scheduled to visit Mongolia on Monday for a World War II commemoration. He is expected to attend a ceremony commemorating the 1939 Battle of Khalkhin Gol. The decisive victory of the Red Army and its Mongolian allies over the Imperial Japanese Army secured the Soviet Union’s eastern flank until 1945.The visit would theoretically put the Russian leader at risk of arrest on the ICC’s “war crimes” warrant, as Ulaanbaatar recognizes the court’s jurisdiction, and the court insisted that Mongolia has an “obligation to cooperate.” However, Moscow “has no concerns” about the ICC warrant, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, noting that all possible issues concerning Putin’s visit have been “worked out separately” in advance.

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Russia likes them predictable.

• Putin’s Remarks About Biden True for VP Harris – Kremlin (Sp.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent remark about the predictability of US President Joe Biden also applies to his vice president turned presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday. Asked whether Russia would prefer to see Joe Biden or Donald Trump as the next US president, Putin described Biden as more preferable because he was more experienced and predictable. “We do not have a favorite candidate, but the Democrats are certainly more predictable. What Putin said about Biden’s predictability applies to almost all Democrats, including Mrs. Harris,” Peskov said in a recorded interview published on social media. Peskov lamented the state of US-Russian relations, saying tensions between the two were at their highest, having reached a breaking point under the Biden administration. “They have reached the breaking point… The last drop fell,” he said.

When asked about the future of Democrats’ policy on Russia and the European Union, Peskov said it was also easy to predict. “It is all predictable. They will stick to the same policy toward us, they will predictably continue to put pressure on EU member states, and they will continue to enslave those countries politically and economically,” he said. The United States is directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict, despite numerous statements to the contrary, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added. “The United States, despite many statements to the contrary, is directly involved in the conflict around Ukraine. It is demonstrating a tendency toward increasing the level of involvement in this conflict,” Peskov said in a recorded interview published on Telegram on Sunday. The spokesman accused Washington of “an undisguised hostile attitude” toward Russia. He said the US had spent decades piling pressure on Russia and trampling on its interests. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will not be able to resolve all problems overnight if elected, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.

Trump has repeatedly promised during the presidential campaign to settle the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in 24 hours after coming into the White House. “I do not think he has a magic wand or that anything can be done overnight,” Peskov said in a recorded interview published on social media, commenting on Trump’s campaign promises. The Kremlin spokesman rejected as impossible speculations that a new US president could announce an end to US military support for Ukraine and call on the parties to sit down at the negotiating table in their inaugural speech in January 2025. Peskov said relations between Russia and the United States had hit rock bottom under Biden and looked unsalvageable for the time being. “Mr Biden’s presidency has become the culmination of all processes in our bilateral relations. They are probably at their historic low at the moment,” Peskov said, adding that so far, he had seen no prospects for them “entering a growth trajectory.”

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2 weeks old, but you can see why ZeroHedge brought it back.

• Kamunism Is the Perfect Recipe For Economic Collapse (RCM)

Last Friday, Kamala Harris opened her mouth and almost magically raised the price of housing and food at grocery stores. She’s on record stating that high gas prices are the result of retail price gouging, and that patents should be yanked from medical industry providers. What many don’t comprehend is that businesses react immediately when politicians suggest interfering with the normal operations of the free market. Look around you. Every building, every business, every house, every car and so on is a result of private enterprise. More specifically, all these things are the result of capital organically flowing to where it can be most productive. The supply of capital fuels all growth. Policies that favor capital formation create lower prices and more innovation. There would be no government without its access to the wealth generated from private enterprise, as there would be nothing to tax and no purchasers to buy federal bonds.

I’m no Warren Buffett. I’m just a lowly history major. I don’t have an economics PhD, but unlike those breathing the Ivory Tower air, I’ve had real world experiences in all the industries Kamala wants to tinker with. I’ve built subdivisions and houses. I’ve been a specialty food supplier to grocery stores. I’ve owned a chain of restaurants. I’ve owned gas stations, and I’ve been involved in securing intellectual property rights within the medical industry. I can tell you firsthand that as soon as a business owner hears “commie nonsense,” he pulls “the throttle back.” Capital formation slows. Often his business is devalued as soon as there is a political threat that will rob it of profitability. With such uncertainty and less capital at his disposal, the economy is deprived of productive investment.

Giving $25,000 to first time homeowners is just going to cause higher home prices. Assuredly, it will come with so many rules and regulations as to tie the housing industry in knots. Price controls on food create scarcity and ultimately bread riots and civil unrest, perhaps starvation and another Holodomor. There could not be a dumber or more dangerous policy proposal in our Republic’s history. Gas stations. When I dropped my prices to out compete my competition, every other operator withing 30 miles matched my price. When an operator loses $.25/gallon due to competition, state and federal governments still make $.50/gallon in taxes. It is an incredibly competitive business. Patents are property, yanking them away from businesses is Leninist confiscation of property, and of course a sure-fire way to destroy all innovation.

Those of us who have created and produced in the private sector absolutely loathe with red hot fury government apparatchiks and their simple minded, demagogic economic proposals. I’m sympathetic to the business owner. All those 100-hour work weeks, sweat and investment destroyed over night by “know nothing nutjobs.” “Kamunism” is akin to a North Korean style command and control economy. It is the perfect recipe for utter misery and societal collapse. Just ask any history major!

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“The stories I could tell. Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future.”

• “Not The Type Of Character You Want” In High Office – Tim Walz’s Brother (ZH)

The eldest brother of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz threw his sibling under the bus in a series of Friday night Facebook posts, saying he isn’t “the type of character” Americans would want in high office, and cryptically referring to “stories [he] could tell” that would hammer home the point. Sixty-seven-year-old Jeff Walz also declared he has major political differences with his brother, who’s been the governor of Minnesota since 2019 following a dozen years in the US House of Representatives. “I’m 100% opposed to all his ideology,” wrote Jeff Walz, the New York Post was first to report on Saturday.Before the Post exclusive, conservative podcaster Laura Loomer publicized a March 2023 Facebook post in which Jeff Walz expressed his disgust over Donald Trump being indicted in Manhattan over his handling of hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. “We’ve just become a third world banana republic,” he wrote.

Unless and until Jeff Walz gets specific about where he differs with Kamala Harris’ running mate, we can only speculate. There’s lots of hard-left nuttiness and tyranny on Tim’s record, including:
• Putting tampons in boys’ school bathrooms
• Keeping the National Guard in the sidelines while Minneapolis burned during the 2020 George Floyd riots
• Seizing emergency powers during the Covid-19 pandemic and going all-out with business closures, mask mandates and declaring church worship “non-essential”
• Funding free college for illegal immigrants
• Declaring Minnesota a “trans refuge”

Policy differences with relatives are one thing, but the Harris-Walz campaign is probably particularly anxious about Jeff Walz’s strong suggestion that his brother is morally flawed, and that he has an inventory of anecdotes that underscore that accusation: “The stories I could tell. Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future.” From the sound of it, Jeff Walz might just tell some of those stories under a big spotlight: When another Facebook user encouraged Walz to “get on stage with President Trump and endorse him,” Jeff Walz replied, “I’ve thought long and hard about doing something like that! I’m torn between that and just keeping my family out of it.” Even before Jeff Walz’s mini-rant, there were already character clouds swirling over the would-be vice president’s head. For example, while making a case for gutting the Second Amendment’s safeguarding of the individual human right of armed self-defense, Tim Walz falsely told an audience that he’d carried a weapon in war:

Jeff Walz said he hasn’t talked to his famous brother in eight years. So far, the reason for their apparent estrangement isn’t in the public domain, and the elder Walz declined to be interviewed by the Post. He lives in the Florida panhandle town of Freeport with this wife. The two previously owned a musical instrument and gear story in Inverness, in the west-central part of the state. While they’re split now, the Post notes that the brothers are united in having criminal rap sheets. Tim Walz was famously arrested for drunk driving, while Jeff Walz engaged in petty thievery while he was himself in a position of public trust: While he was an assistant principal at Crystal River Middle School, Jeff Walz allegedly stole a bicycle tube, handlebar grips and a three-way outlet adapter totaling $13 from an Inverness Walmart, according to the Tampa Bay Times and a letter of reprimand from Florida’s Education Practices Commission. — New York Post Sounds like there’s some great genes in that Walz family tree. Should we expect CNN and the New York Times to roll with the familial anti-endorsement story?

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“..one rule remains intact for generations of veterans: lie about your military service record at your own risk.”

• Walzin Out a Fake War Hero (Spears)

There is a saying among veterans that we’re hard on one another, but that we’ll circle the wagons when civilian outsiders attack. Perhaps in another time that was truly the rule. If so, such a tradition expired long before my enlistment in the fall of 2003. Regardless, one rule remains intact for generations of veterans: lie about your military service record at your own risk. Governor of Minnesota and vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz is learning that lesson. It’s one he should have known long ago as a retired senior noncommissioned officer. In the Army, the noncommissioned officer (NCO) leads troops directly. Officers command, plan, and make policy. NCOs make it happen. Good NCOs are the repository of common sense in the ranks, the ones who know their troops well. Having worn the rank of Sergeant, and then becoming an officer myself, I often spoke of the importance of officers having NCO supervision.

There’s a reason most U.S. Army officers have an enlisted counterpart, wisdom that was baked into the system long ago. They are integral to a healthy balance of leadership in the military setting. It is against this backdrop that Tim Walz’s behavior stands out in such stark relief to the Creed of the Noncommissioned Officer, which states, “I will not use my grade or position to attain pleasure, profit, or personal safety.” The problem is not Master Sergeant Walz moving on to a political career as a civilian. He is following in the wake of many who have come before him—all the way back to the nation’s early years. In the U.S., doing time in the military is frequently a catalyst for one’s political ambitions given the favorable view the public has toward the troops. Consider John Glenn: he was recruited to run for senate specifically for being a Marine and an astronaut. The same can be said of Senator Mark Kelly. Though Americans do not often elect veterans as presidents, they routinely elect them to Congress.

Had Walz retired, gone back to civilian life, and been honest about his military record, this discussion would not be happening. Had he spoken of himself as a “retired Master Sergeant, and former Command Sergeant Major of the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery,” that would have been fine. I retired last year having been selected for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. But I chose to depart as a Major rather than waiting months for the date of promotion and completing an additional three years to maintain the higher rank in retirement. Walz himself made a deliberate choice not to complete the requirements to remain a Command Sergeant Major and was returned to the rank of Master Sergeant in retirement.

Everyone in the military leaves eventually, one way or another. Originally planning for a 30-year career, I chose to leave at 20 years for reasons of conscience and a desire to be more present with my family, after having served tours in combat zones. It seems Walz timed his retirement out of a desire to avoid combat deployment altogether, despite claims of reenlisting specifically to fight in the Global War on Terrorism. There were plenty of reasons why one would dislike the idea of deploying to Iraq, a war the Bush Administration never should have started. Having completed the initial requirements that he signed up for, Walz had every legal right to drop out of the Sergeant Majors academy and retire, instead of continuing to lead his battalion. It is fair to debate the associated honor or dishonor of Walz stepping away as a senior leader when his unit needed him and going behind the back of his immediate supervisors to do so. But the fact remains, it was his choice to make as a free citizen. Many others have made the same choice.

But choosing to step down and then create a false war hero identity for political benefit is deserving of the loudest contempt. Walz attempted to cast himself in the likeness of Rambo, but proves to be more of an emasculated, dancing retired Master Sergeant on the political stage. Once freed of the shackles associated with his military status, Walz falsely branded himself a combat veteran, a claim debunked by the same left-leaning press that’s doing all it can to ensure he and Harris win in November. Every bit as lacking in ethical prowess, the acolytes running Walz’s public relations effort claim that he merely “misspoke.” That is a lie. Veterans know if they served in a designated combat theater and if they carried a weapon in a war zone. These are not distinctions taken lightly. Suggestions otherwise spit in the faces of those who have been on the ground in dangerous places, putting their lives on the line in America’s defense.

One can criticize Walz for his myriad of insane policy choices, a short list of which includes: tampons in boys’ bathrooms, setting up COVID snitch hotlines, letting Minneapolis burn in 2020, joining Minnesota to a list of states that aim to disregard the electoral college, enthusiastic homosexual grooming of children in public schools, and signing legislation that stripped the rights of children who survive an abortion attempt. He deserves condemnation for playing the “military defender of the nation” card while also saying that there is no right to free speech in that pesky Constitution he pledged allegiance to as a soldier. Walz’s record as an elected official is reprehensible. Even without bringing his time in the National Guard into the conversation, he is unqualified for leadership at any level. But since he lied about his military service for personal gain repeatedly over the years, it is right to add that to Walz’s long list of actions that render him unfit for political office.

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“Why did we want Trump there? It wasn’t to help his political campaign,” said Mark Schmitz. “We wanted a leader. That explains why you and Joe didn’t get a call.”

• ‘Heinous, Vile, Disgusting’: Gold Star Families Slam Kamala Harris (ZH)

Gold Star families whose loved ones died in the Biden-Harris administration’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal have slammed Vice President Kamala Harris over her attack on former President Trump for paying his respects at Arlington National Cemetary last week. Harris slammed Trump’s visit as ‘playing politics,’ however in a series of short videos, eight Gold Star families said they had invited Trump – each of them recording videos which were released in the wake of a statement published by Harris on Saturday, in which she criticized Trump for taking photographs at a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday.

“As Vice President, I have had the privilege of visiting Arlington National Cemetery several times,” said Harris. “It is not a place for politics. And yet, as was reported this week, Donald Trump’s team chose to film a video there, resulting in an altercation with cemetery staff.” Not so fast, Kamala… In one video response, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz called Harris’ post “heinous, vile and disgusting.” “Why did we want Trump there? It wasn’t to help his political campaign,” said Mark Schmitz. “We wanted a leader. That explains why you and Joe didn’t get a call.”

Darren Hoover, father of Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, said Harris lacks “empathy and understanding” about Monday’s ceremony. “In keeping with the reverence and respect that is given to all members of our military that are buried there, we invited President Trump,” he said. “We are the ones that asked for the video and the pictures to be taken at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.” Hoover added that Trump has “been there for us from the very beginning,” and slammed Harris for “playing politics.” “You should be ashamed and embarrassed [about] your lack of empathy and decency as a human being,” said Hoover. “You are only in this for the power and prestige. You don’t care for our military or the citizens of this country.”

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“..her training wheels, bumper bowling, CNN-sponsored softball-lobbing Fischer-Price™ My First Political Interview lovefest..”

• Debate Desperation Time For Democrats (QTR)

You’ll have to believe me that I’m not trying to make a partisan statement when I say that everything the Democrats have done leading up to this election has been inauthentic, phony, and panic-stricken—from swapping out their candidate at the very last minute to flip-flopping on major issues like banning fracking, taxing tips, and EV mandates. In some ways, I think the party would be doing better if they just took a breath and let Kamala Harris’s campaign unwind like any other normal campaign. But if Democrats are experts at one thing, it’s micromanaging things to death out of narcissistic adoration for their own faux intellect—hence we get genius ideas like price-fixing the economy, defunding the police, minting a trillion dollar coin, segregating college campuses to fight racism or trying to tell you what type of stove you can use at home.

Unfortunately for Democrats, the lack of finesse that comes with managing anything like an overly obsessive girlfriend sometimes starts to work against you. For example, Harris’s campaign strategy to keep her out of the media for the first 40 days of being a candidate put abnormal scrutiny on her first television appearance, which turned out to have the intellectual horsepower of a Whoopie Cushion. The whole world watched Harris take pre-scripted and probably pre-approved questions from a Democrat-friendly anchor, on a Democrat-friendly network, and put on a masterclass of how not to effectively articulate herself, her policies, her position changes, or generally anything of substance. For Donald Trump’s first debate with Joe Biden, the Democratic Party went full “control freak” and made innumerable requests for rule changes like the debate was being hosted at some Eastern European Ritz-Carlton and they were Hunter Biden on a coke bender ordering room service.

They requested chairs, notepads, water, excessive TV breaks, and muted microphones, ostensibly fearing Donald Trump’s razor-sharp tongue and uncanny ability to talk shit on the fly. When they got their request, and Trump and Biden faced off with muted mics, Biden was left to his own devices and promptly self-immolated on national television, while Donald Trump stood by, watched, and shrugged his shoulders as if to say in a Sopranos-style New Jersey Italian accent, “Can you believe this fucking guy?” Now, after watching their precious Kamala Harris nearly implode during her training wheels, bumper bowling, CNN-sponsored softball-lobbing Fischer-Price™ My First Political Interview lovefest last week (which was rumored to have been edited down to 18 minutes from 41), Democrats are once again nervous that their candidate is unable to articulate themselves and their policies well enough to win a cordial debate on the merits.

So, the Democratic Party is now requesting another flip-flop (surprise!) and asking that microphones for the debate between Trump and Harris on September 10th remain live for the entire event. And in hilarious fashion, they’re accusing Trump of being scared to change the rules. The mic mute was a Democrat request a month ago and, as a reminder, Trump has been deftly maneuvering near-daily press conferences where he is assaulted by hostile reporters whose sole intention is to humiliate him, while at the same time Kamala Harris has still avoided any solo unscripted, consequential press conferences or interviews. The notion that Trump is rattled by the request, like the media has been parroting, is insulting to the intelligence of anyone with an IQ higher than AstroTurf™.

The Democratic strategy seems to be clear: they want Harris to have a hot mic so she can go “brat” on Trump and run her mouth in the absence of having any policy prescriptions that can drive the interest of voters. It’s the epitome of inauthenticity and phoniness. Much like when Hillary Clinton revealed the term “Trumped-up trickle-down economics” during a 2016 debate, the Democrats are going full cringe and trying to script an “unscripted” moment for her to be remembered by. They want her talking to Trump in the same condescending way she speaks to everyone, despite being devoid of substance in her words.

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“Freedom of speech is under massive attack around the world..”

• Elon Musk Warns Censorship Of X “Is A Certainty” If Kamala Harris Wins (MN)

X owner Elon Musk has warned Americans that if the Democrats win the election in November, censorship of the platform is a “certainty.” Musk was responding to a post that posited X could be suspended in America as it has just been in Brazil by a leftist judge acting to censor his political opponents. “When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts,” the post from X Global Government Affairs notes.

It adds that “Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.” Musk urged that this situation could easily unfold in the U.S. should Trump not be elected. Musk followed up with a post highlighting previous footage of Kamala Harris demanding that Trump be suspended from the old Twitter. “Freedom of speech is under massive attack around the world,” Musk declared. Harris has a track record of censoring social media for political clout.

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“..that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”

• Harris Admits The Economy-Crushing ‘Green New Deal’ Is Her Real Agenda (ZH)

Democrats (and Neo-Cons) never actually abandon an agenda, even if the majority of the population is against it. Instead, they look for the backdoor and pass legislation subversively by hiding it within other measures. The Green New Deal was a wildly unpopular concept rooted in UN-related climate directives on carbon emissions that would, if fully enforced, destroy the US economy in a decade or less. The EU in particular has been aggressive in expediting similar programs which now threaten the agricultural base of half the Europe. This has led to rising farmer protests and given momentum to “far-right” movements, a prospect that the social engineers at the EU Commission seem to fear more than anything else. Their solution? They are attempting to bribe farmers with subsidies and have offered to lessen the number of visits farms would receive from bureaucratic agents armed with fines and red tape. How nice of them…

As Jeremy Clarkson has cleverly proven in his show ‘Clarkson’s Farm’, trying to operate an agricultural business almost anywhere in Europe or the UK is a regulatory nightmare that would put most farmers in the US out of business immediately (America is headed in this direction). And that’s without the benefit of carbon emissions rules. Subsidies are the only thing keeping them alive, but the real trick is that the strict regulations force farmers into a position where they need subsidies. It’s a government enforced racket. Europeans suffered supply chain collapse and true famine during and after WWII and the experience is still burned into their collective cultural memory. It’s hard to say if the bribery scheme will work out the way the EU elites hope. Once carbon rules are passed and accepted as the norm, though, there’s no chance that they will be rescinded. They will continue to be enforced even when food inflation skyrockets again and mass starvation becomes a reality.

In the US, staunch opposition from conservatives prevented the direct passage of the Green New Deal. Biden denied his administration had any intention of pursuing GND policies in 2020 during a debate with Donald Trump. Biden was asked by moderator Chris Wallace if he supported the Green New Deal: “No, I don’t support the Green New Deal,” Biden said. “Oh you don’t? Oh, well, that’s a big statement,” Trump interrupted. “I support the Biden plan that I put forward,” Biden said, “which is different than what (Trump) calls the ‘radical’ Green New Deal.”

Of course, Biden would later covertly embed carbon policies into his “Inflation Reduction Act” – A piece of legislation that utterly failed to accomplish its name (CPI measurements have gone down, but inflation has not), but succeeded in launching the first stage of climate controls outlined in the GND. Biden has continued to deny that the GND is a goal of his administration, but Kamala Harris seems to have spilled the beans in her first major media interview since she became the Democratic candidate. “I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed…You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed – and I have worked on it – that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”

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“..national debt surpassed $35 trillion for the first time in history, increasing by a trillion since January..”

• US In ‘Fast Lane’ To Bankruptcy – Musk (RT)

The US is rapidly moving towards bankruptcy because the government in Washington is spending too much money, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has warned. On Thursday, Musk shared a post on his X (formerly Twitter) platform by another user, who cited a forecast from the US government budget for fiscal year 2025 that said that the budget deficit could increase from the current $1.8 billion to almost $16.3 billion by 2035. “At current rates of government spending, America is in the fast lane to bankruptcy,” Musk wrote. The tech billionaire also suggested that “government overspending is what causes inflation” in the country.

The US annual inflation rate dipped below 3% in July for the first time since 2021, according to a Labor Department report, issued two weeks ago. The prices for goods and services went up by 2.9%, while core inflation, which excludes food and energy industries, rose by 3.2% over the previous 12 months. In late July, the US Treasury Department announced that the country’s national debt surpassed $35 trillion for the first time in history, increasing by a trillion since January. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted that by 2034 the debt will exceed $50 trillion, amounting to more than 122% of America’s GDP.

The CBO also said that it expects the country’s average annual GDP growth rate to be at around 1.8% from 2029 to 2034. In June, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) think tank claimed that the national debt grew by $4.3 billion under incumbent US President Joe Biden, compared to $8.4 billion during Donald Trump’s term in office. In August, Trump gave a lengthy interview to Musk on X. Shortly after that, the Republican presidential candidate said that he would consider the tech billionaire, whom he described as a “brilliant guy,” for a role in his administration if he wins the election in November. Musk replied to the offer in a post, stressing that he is “willing to serve.”

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“..Hamas claimed that the hostages were “deliberately” killed by the IDF. In a video addressed to the Israeli army following the recovery of the bodies, the Qassam Brigade reiterated that “they were alive and were supposed to be released in the first phase of the deal.”

• Protests Sweep Israel After Hostage Deaths (RT)

Tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Israel on Sunday, demanding an immediate ceasefire deal from the government after the bodies of six hostages were discovered in Gaza tunnels the day before. Israel’s largest trade union has called for a nationwide strike on Monday to shut down the “entire Israeli economy,” with rights organizations urging a halt to pressure the government into signing a hostage-ceasefire deal. The Sunday demonstrations are said to be the largest since Israel launched its war on Hamas in response to the October 7 attack, which left around 1,200 Israelis dead and 200 taken hostage. Organizers described the rally as an “endless sea of protesters,” estimating a crowd of 300,000 people in Tel Aviv and an additional 200,000 in other cities across the country.

In Tel Aviv, protesters marched to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) headquarters, carrying six “symbolic coffins” and chanting, “We won’t abandon them” and “Now! Now!” Many blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to secure a deal to bring the hostages home safely. Frustration intensified when it was alleged that three of the six hostages killed were slated for release during the first phase of a ceasefire proposal discussed in July. A group of protesters erected a mock cemetery and held signs “named after Benjamin Netanyahu.” “Nothing is worse than knowing they could have been saved,” one demonstrator told reporters, adding, “Sometimes it takes something so awful to shake people up and get them out into the streets.” Later that night, the protests turned violent as demonstrators blocked roads and burned tires. Police deployed water cannons and stun grenades to disperse the crowds. One policewoman was reportedly injured in the confrontation, and dozens were arrested.

“During the illegal demonstration, police forces in Tel Aviv arrested 29 suspects who violated orders, attacked officers, and engaged in brutal vandalism,” law enforcement stated on X (formerly Twitter). Israeli political commentator Sri Goldberg asserted that Netanyahu should be “worried” about the widespread protests, explaining that the deaths of the hostages made it clear to many that “the policy of Israel’s government is profoundly detrimental to Israelis—and perhaps, in the case of the hostages, even lethal.” Meanwhile, Hamas claimed that the hostages were “deliberately” killed by the IDF. In a video addressed to the Israeli army following the recovery of the bodies, the Qassam Brigade reiterated that “they were alive and were supposed to be released in the first phase of the deal.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

RFKIVM

 

 

Wood

 

 

Groomer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830169064158712146

 

 

Count dogs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830209655823388980

 

 

Ducklings
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830208695986200702

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 14 2024

Aug 142024
 
 August 14, 2024  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  71 Responses »


Hasui Kawase Moon at Megome (woodblock print) 1930

 

• X Conversation Between Musk And Trump Generates Over A Billion Views (ZH)
• Musk Offers Interview To Kamala Harris (RT)
• Kamala Harris Running Ads With Fake News Headlines (RT)
• EU Backtracks On Threats To Musk – Media (RT)
• An Intricate Fabric of Bad Actors Working Hand-in-Hand (Alastair Crooke)
• US Lining Up Candidate To Replace Zelensky – Russian Intel (RT)
• NATO and its Kiev Proxy In Last Roll Of The Dice (SCF)
• Kursk Was Low Hanging Fruit. What Now For Zelensky And His Allusions? (Jay)
• Ex-US Ambassador ‘Pessimistic’ About Ukraine’s Future (RT)
• NATO Allies Skeptical About Ukraine’s Advance Into Russia – Bloomberg (RT)
• ‘The CIA Writes Her Paycheck’ (Sp.)
• ‘Israel Itself is a War Crime’ (Sp.)
• Every 70 KG Bag of Human Remains Is Considered a Martyr (Hajjaj)

 

 

 

 

O’Leary
https://twitter.com/i/status/1823534804903821403

 

 

CNN

 

 

Fantasy Kamala

 

 

US assets

 

 

Radical

 

 

CNN nuke

 

 

Colbert

 

 

Dave Smith

 

 

 

 

Imagine when these conversations get really good. Add video, improve audio..

• X Conversation Between Musk And Trump Generates Over A Billion Views (ZH)

A conversation between Donald Trump and X owner Elon Musk has generated over a billion views, as Trump officially returned to the platform Monday. Elon made the observation following the 2 hour conversation between the two. Here’s the whole thing:

Trump also returned to posting on X, with this ad now at 42 million views at time of writing: The conversation was streamed live on X spaces, but had to overcome huge technical issues dues to a sustained DDOS attack on the platform shortly before the stream began. The attack followed sustained moaning by the dinosaur media, complaining that Trump would be allowed to say “whatever he wants to” by Musk.

Oh my God, the horror of letting a presidential candidate say what he wants and people being able to hear him without being able to cut away and shut it off. Why do you think Trump is on there in the first instance?! Earlier, a Washington Post ‘journalist’ called for the White House to step in and stop the conversation from happening.

They operate in a tiny bubble and fundamentally cannot fathom that they are not the purveyors of all information on the planet. The Harris campaign got their best 20 something year old PR intern to type up an anxiety laced post that didn’t address any of the content of the conversation between Musk and Trump, and instead focused on the technical issues as some kind of criticism.

Of course, they’re not used to an organic and substantial longform conversation between people happening, they only understand heavily staged, scripted and produced soundbites that belong in bad reality TV shows that no one watches. Musk made it clear that Harris is welcome to join him for a conversation. She likely won’t accept the invitation on to the biggest platform on Earth though because she cannot manage to go more than two minutes off script without looking like a complete clown. The media also ran with the ‘they couldn’t even run a livestream’ talking point.

Lets see CNN or MSNBC trying to run a livestream with millions of listeners while fending off a cyber attack. Outside of the US, Elon received more threats from the European Union in the form of a letter from Thierry Breton, the current Commissioner for Internal Market of the EU, Referring directly to the conversation with Trump, Breton stated in no uncertain terms that X has to crack down on “content that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation.” Musk responded with a meme telling Breton to “Fuck your own face.” Amazing.

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Spurning a billion viewers/listeners right before an election. Who can afford it?

• Musk Offers Interview To Kamala Harris (RT)

Elon Musk has proposed to interview US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on his X Spaces platform. The invitation comes after the billionaire spoke at length with former US President Donald Trump on Monday. The interview with Trump, which was hailed by his campaign as the “interview of the century,” lasted around two hours and, according to Musk, has since garnered 1 billion views. The conversation included discussions on a number of issues, including the upcoming election in November, the recent assassination attempt on Trump, the Ukraine conflict, and US relations with Russia and China. After the interview, Musk wrote in a post on X that he would be “happy to host Kamala on an X Spaces too.”

Harris has yet to officially respond to the invitation; however, during the Trump interview, her campaign sent out a fundraising email asking supporters to “chip in $25” in order to help “respond to their lies.” In the letter, the vice president accused Musk of using his “purchased platform” to “spread Trump’s unhinged and hateful agenda to millions of users,” and said “the richest person in the world is a lackey for Team MAGA.” “Musk is using his vast fortune and broad reach to try to control our democracy,” the email read.

After the interview ended, the Harris-Walz team released a statement describing the discussion as “unhinged” and claiming that Trump’s entire campaign is about “self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.” The live broadcast of the interview was delayed by about half an hour due to what Musk described as a “massive” cyberattack ahead of the event. At the end of the interview, Musk reiterated his endorsement of Donald Trump, and described him as “the path to prosperity.” Previously, it was reported in the US media that the billionaire plans to donate $45 million to form a pro-Trump political action committee, but he has neither confirmed nor denied this.

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They’re all fully in her camp and it’s still not enough.

• Kamala Harris Running Ads With Fake News Headlines (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris has been using Google search advertisements that link to real news articles from legitimate sources, but with the headlines and descriptions altered to paint the Democratic presidential candidate in a more favorable way, according to an Axios report. The Harris campaign has been running such ads linking to stories by “nearly a dozen” news outlets, including CNN, AP, CBS, NPR, The Guardian, USA Today and others since at least August 3, Axios reported on Tuesday. The ads apparently mimic real news results “closely enough” that they can potentially mislead users. Axios wrote that such ads are a “common practice,” but acknowledged that according to Google’s ad transparency center, Harris’ rival Donald Trump is not running these types of misleading ads.

Some of the outlets claimed they were blindsided and “unaware” that their brands were being featured this way, according to Axios. A spokesperson for The Guardian said the company will be “reaching out to Google for more information about this practice.” Meanwhile, Google has insisted that the practice does not violate its rules, claiming that since the ads are labeled as “sponsored,” they are “easily distinguishable” from legitimate search results. However, the tech giant admitted that due to an alleged “technical glitch” in Google’s Ad Library, some of the ads “appeared” to lack the necessary disclosures, Axios wrote. A Google spokesperson promised to investigate the glitch, insisting that the company has for years “provided additional levels of transparency for election ads specifically.”

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“Breton has not sought approval from President Ursula..”

• EU Backtracks On Threats To Musk – Media (RT)

The European Commission has said that Thierry Breton did not consult them before sending a threatening letter to Elon Musk, ahead of his two-hour conversation with US presidential candidate Donald Trump. Breton is the Internal Market commissioner, in charge of enforcing the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA). His letter insinuated that Musk had an obligation to censor potentially “harmful content” on X, the platform he owns that was formerly known as Twitter. “The timing and the wording of the letter were neither co-ordinated or agreed with the president nor with the [commissioners],” an European Commission spokesman said on Tuesday. Breton has not sought approval from President Ursula von der Leyen, another official told Financial Times on condition of anonymity. “Thierry has his own mind and way of working and thinking,” the official said.

Sources close to Breton told the outlet that the letter had been in the works for some time, but the Trump event seemed like an appropriate “trigger point” for publishing it. The move backfired, however. Musk responded to Breton’s letter with a meme from the 2008 comedy ‘Tropic Thunder’, in which Tom Cruise’s character shouts, “Take a big step back and literally f**k your own face!” Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign accused the EU of “trying to meddle in the US presidential election” and advised the bloc to mind its own business. Four EU officials, speaking to Politico on condition of anonymity, said the bloc really wanted to avoid the appearance of election meddling. “The EU is not in the business of electoral interference,” said one of them. “DSA implementation is too important to be misused by an attention-seeking politician in search of his next big job.”

Last month, Breton announced that the European Commission considered X in violation of the DSA and intended to levy massive fines against Musk’s company unless it agreed to its restrictions on “hate speech” and “misinformation.” “The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us,” Musk wrote in response. “The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.” Breton vocally denied the existence of such an offer, but Musk replied he was looking forward to “a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth.” Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, after voicing displeasure over widespread censorship on the US-based social media platform.

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“It’s almost as if these are goals in themselves – and the cascade of emergencies mere excuses for them. Hate is always the way..”

• An Intricate Fabric of Bad Actors Working Hand-in-Hand (Alastair Crooke)

Walter Kirn, an American novelist and cultural critic, in his 2009 memoir, Lost in the Meritocracy, described how, after a sojourn at Oxford, he came to be a member of ‘the class that runs things’ – the one that “writes the headlines, and the stories under them”. It was the account of a middle-class kid from Minnesota trying desperately to fit into the élite world, and then to his surprise, realising that he didn’t want to fit in at all. Now 61, Kirn has a newsletter on Substack and co-hosts a lively podcast devoted in large part to critiquing ‘establishment liberalism’. His contrarian drift has made him more vocal about his distrust of élite institutions – as he wrote in 2022: “For years now, the answer, in every situation—‘Russiagate,’ COVID, Ukraine—has been more censorship, more silencing, more division, more scapegoating. It’s almost as if these are goals in themselves – and the cascade of emergencies mere excuses for them. Hate is always the way,”

Kirn’s politics, a friend of his suggested, was “old-school liberal,” underscoring that it was the other ‘so-called liberals’ who had changed: “I’ve been told repeatedly in the last year that free speech is a right-wing issue; I wouldn’t call [Kirn] Conservative. I would just say he’s a free-thinker, nonconformist, iconoclastic”, the friend said. To understand Kirn’s contrarian turn – and to make sense of today’s form of American politics – it is necessary to understand one key term. It is not found in standard textbooks, but is central to the new playbook of power: the “whole of society”. “The term was popularised roughly a decade ago by the Obama administration, which liked that its bland, technocratic appearance could be used as cover to erect a mechanism for a governance ‘whole-of-society’ approach” – one that asserts that as actors – media, NGOs,corporations and philanthropist institutions – interact with public officials to play a critical role not just in setting the public agenda, but in enforcing public decisions.

Jacob Siegel has explained the historical development of the ‘whole of society’ approach during the Obama administration’s attempt to pivot in the ‘war on terror’ to what it called ‘CVE’ – countering violent extremism. The idea was to surveil the American people’s online behaviour in order to identify those who may, at some unspecified time in the future, ‘commit a crime’. Inherent to the concept of the potential ‘violent extremist’ who has, as yet, committed no crime, is a weaponised vagueness: “A cloud of suspicion that hangs over anyone who challenges the prevailing ideological narratives”. “What the various iterations of this whole-of-society approach have in common is their disregard for democratic process and the right to free association – their embrace of social media surveillance, and their repeated failure to deliver results …”. Aaron Kheriaty writes:

“More recently, the whole of society political machinery facilitated the overnight flip from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, with news media and party supporters turning on a dime when instructed to do so—democratic primary voters ‘be damned’. This happened not because of the personalities of the candidates involved, but on the orders of party leadership. The actual nominees are fungible, and entirely replaceable, functionaries, serving the interests of the ruling party … The party was delivered to her because she was selected by its leaders to act as its figurehead. That real achievement belongs not to Harris, but to the party-state”. What has this to do with Geo-politics – and whether there will be war between Iran and Israel? Well, quite a lot. It is not just western domestic politics that has been shaped by the Obama CVE totalising mechanics.

The “party-state” machinery (Kheriaty’s term) for geo-politics has also been co-opted: “To avoid the appearance of totalitarian overreach in such efforts”, Kheriaty argues,“the party requires an endless supply of causes … that party officers use as pretexts to demand ideological alignment across public and private sector institutions. These causes come in roughly two forms: the urgent existential crisis (examples include COVID and the much-hyped threat of Russian disinformation) – and victim groups supposedly in need of the party’s protection”. “It’s almost as if these are goals in themselves – and the cascade of emergencies mere excuses for them. Hate is always the way”, Kirn underlines. Just to be clear, the implication is that all geo-strategic critics of the party-state’s ideological alignment must be jointly and collectively treated as potentially dangerous extremists.

Russia, China, Iran and North Korea therefore are bound together as presenting a single obnoxious extremism that stands in opposition to ‘Our Democracy’; versus ‘Our Free Speech’ and versus ‘Our Expert Consensus’. So, if the move to war against one extremist (i.e. versus Iran) is ‘acclaimed’ by 58 standing ovations in the joint session of Congress last month, then further debate is unnecessary – any more than Kamala Harris’ nomination as Presidential candidate needs to be endorsed through primary voting: Candidate Harris told hecklers on Wednesday, chanting about genocide in Gaza, ‘to pipe down’ – unless they “want Trump to win”. Tribal norms must not be challenged (even for genocide).

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“..Avakov spearheaded a crackdown on forces protesting the Western-backed coup in Kiev..”

• US Lining Up Candidate To Replace Zelensky – Russian Intel (RT)

The US is planning to unleash a campaign to discredit Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to pave the way for replacing him with a more pliable figure, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has claimed. The agency believes former Interior Minister Arsen Avakov is being considered to take the helm of Ukraine. In a statement on Tuesday, the SVR claimed that “the American elite” is growing increasingly frustrated with Zelensky as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle start to “doubt the targeted spending of billions of dollars in military aid to Kiev.” “Zelensky is taking crazy steps that threaten to trigger escalation far beyond Ukraine,” officials said, adding that Kiev “has moved to feverish action” as the Ukrainian leader struggles to maintain his grip on power after his presidential term officially ended in May.

The US is therefore looking at options for replacing him with a more manageable and less corrupt figure that will be amenable to most of the West, the agency said. According to the SVR, Avakov, who took over as interior minister after the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 and held the post until 2021, is one of the most “suitable” candidates being considered. The SVR claimed that the US believes that Avakov has several advantages over other candidates, including his close ties with Ukrainian far-right groups and his relationship with EU leaders. The agency added that the White House believes that such a change in leadership “will allow the West to better prepare for the possible start of negotiations with Russia to resolve the conflict.”

Officials also noted that the question of Avakov taking the reins is being discussed with Ukrainian opposition figures, including former President Pyotr Poroshenko, ex-Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, as well as influential MPs from Zelensky’s own party. After taking over as interior minister, Avakov spearheaded a crackdown on forces protesting the Western-backed coup in Kiev. He also held this post during the 2014 fire at the Trade Union House in Odessa, where 42 people died after being chased inside by a far-right mob. No comprehensive trial has been held in the ten years since the tragedy. Kiev’s inaction in this regard has been criticized by the UN. The former interior minister has also been a vocal supporter of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. Allegations have emerged that Avakov provided political support to the unit and helped secure the release from prison of its leader, Andrey Biletsky, who is widely regarded as a white supremacist.

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“The Kiev regime has said candidly that the objective is to “instill fear” among civilians. That’s a brazen admission of terrorism..”

• NATO and its Kiev Proxy In Last Roll Of The Dice (SCF)

The NATO NeoNazi regime in Kiev is going for broke, as its Third Reich forbears did during World War Two. This time around, though, the fascists have a nuclear terrorist card to play. As in the endgame of World War Two, the Nazi Wehrmacht tried to break out in Kursk as a way to divert from battlefield losses elsewhere on the crumbling Eastern Front. The gamble proved futile then and looks like repeating disastrously today. Vladimir Zelensky, the illegitimate puppet president of Ukraine, is out of troops and money. His insufferable begging routine for more weapons and money has become played out. His country is set to default on eye-watering debts to international creditors. Russia’s military advances in the Donbass – formerly eastern Ukraine now part of the Russian Federation – have succeeded in pushing the Kiev regime to the brink of collapse despite the latter receiving hundreds of billions of dollars worth of NATO weaponry.

Zelensky, who is still clinging on to power nearly six months after he cancelled elections, senses the end is nigh for his corrupt regime and its war racket. With over 600,000 dead soldiers and remaining civilians hiding or fleeing in fear of conscription, the ex-comedian throws the dice with a few brigades despatched on a suicide cross-border raid on Russia’s Kursk region. “The Kursk maneuver could herald the end of Ukraine militarily,” remarked Gustav Gressel, a former Austrian defense ministry official, in an interview with Der Spiegel. Gressel suggested that the Ukrainian brigades represent the final reserves for the NATO-backed Kiev regime. Once they are wiped out by the superior Russian forces then there will be nothing left for the Kiev side. The BBC reported – with an air of glee – that convoys of troops are heading from Ukraine’s Sumy region across the border into Russia’s Kursk. The offensive has been going on for a week now, which Moscow says involves indiscriminate attacks on civilians and residential homes.

The Kiev regime has said candidly that the objective is to “instill fear” among civilians. That’s a brazen admission of terrorism. If Kiev’s other objective is to divert Russian forces from Donbass, that doesn’t seem to be working. Russian forces continue to make gains in the direction 0f Donbass – the main battlefield of this conflict. So, what is the Zelensky junta playing at? It’s a terror tantrum to try to show his NATO sponsors that their proxy regime is still worth backing. The wasting of Ukrainian military lives is a desperate “working off loans for his masters”, as Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova put it. Sending his people to die is Zelensky’s attempt to show his regime is still “liquid”. But it’s a final act of desperation. When this futile foray into Kursk is spent then it’s over. As part of the final desperate act, the nuclear terrorism card is also being played – again. While the incursion in Kursk is going on, the Ukrainian side has tried to attack the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.

The ZNPP has come under constant shelling from the Armed Forces of Ukraine enabled with U.S.-made HIMARS missiles and other NATO weapons since Russia took over the civilian power plant – the largest in Europe – soon after the conflict erupted in February 2022. Russia took control at an earlier stage precisely because it anticipated that if it didn’t, the Kiev regime would use it as a false flag provocation regardless of the radiological contamination of Europe.In the latest strike, one of the cooling towers at the ZNPP was set on fire. Russia says the tower was hit by a drone. Moscow denounced what it called “nuclear terrorism” and it called on the international community to sanction Ukraine. Moscow is wasting its breath. Numerous calls for condemnation over previous air strikes on the ZNPP by the Ukrainian side have been ignored or willfully covered up by the West.

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He’s trapped.

• Kursk Was Low Hanging Fruit. What Now For Zelensky And His Allusions? (Jay)

The recent move by Ukraine to take Kursk was bold. It’s hardly surprising that media in the west have blown it up to be bigger than it really is though, given that they have been starved of positive chaff to spin for months for their NATO clients and so it comes as little surprise that it will run for days. But of course, the real test of the move comes in the days ahead. Taking a small enclave of Kursk with little or no resistance from Russian forces there – who are not battled hardened top notch – was hardly the Hollywood epic that the West is presenting it as. Taking it is one thing. Keeping it is a whole new matter.

Zelensky may well have taken the Kursk option to try and draw Russian troops out of the Donbas or from a small enclave on the Ukrainian side nearby that was taken recently. Militarily of course this makes sense and most analysts present this as the main point of the exercise. Whatever Putin does, it will be a draw from other resources in other places and so he strikes the Russian leader hard with one blow. Politically also, Zelensky knows that the pressure will be on Putin to do something to settle the Kursk issue. Russians did not think, when they were given the picture of Ukraine and Moscow’s objectives, that it would involve a spill over war into their own country. And so that merely piles on the pressure for Putin to deal with the Kursk “provocation”.

But there are other factors which Zelensky has on his mind, behind the Kursk ruse. The Ukrainian president, for the first time, has reached out to Putin and his officials recently when he invited Russia to a peace conference in November. This is a first of its kind, in that the initiative is actually Ukraine’s and that Putin is invited. Clearly, Zelensky believes that he needs to make a move before the U.S. elections are over, given that a Trump victory might push him to give up much more than his political expediency will allow. Having Kursk in his war chest will be very useful, not because of the tiny amount of land that Ukraine army actually has, but for the symbolism, as a card to play when negotiations actually start.

And yet this move comes with a high price which indicates also the level of desperation that Zelensky is in and we can, arguably, attest that Russia didn’t see it coming. If Zelensky loses the Kursk patch, then the humiliation and the loss of support from the military and its families will be unprecedented. If Kursk backfires, it might well cost him everything. The risks of course are not only with Zelensky alone but weigh heavily on the West also. For Western elites to goad him on and then congratulate him is both foolish and reckless. For Putin to refuse to be baited into a full-out war with NATO one can only comment that his patience is not unlimited – especially when now his political élan has taken a knock. There have been many moments in the past couple of years when this has happened before and he always survives the rough and tumble of Russian politics. But this time Zelensky will have to be seen to be paying the price for poking the Russian bear in the cage once too hard.

There is also another important development which is running concurrent to these events which is the role that Belarus could play in the coming months. Ukraine has repeatedly operated drones in the country’s airspace and been warned of the consequences. Recently tanks from Belarus were sent to the border, cranking up tensions even more if Ukraine angers Minsk once more. Zelensky certainly likes to skate on thin ice but presumably the two F16s which he has taken delivery of will amuse him no end. His own propaganda team are filming the two jets flying in tandem all over the country, presumably with two retired U.S. pilots in the cockpit, and dumping it all on social media to give the impression there is an air force made up of these American fighters. Hilarious. Expect more smoke and mirrors as we get closer to November.

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“..all of that depends on a counterpart in the Kremlin that was willing to negotiate,” and “Putin is not going to.”

• Ex-US Ambassador ‘Pessimistic’ About Ukraine’s Future (RT)

Relations between the West and Russia are unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future and Washington has no effective means to “bend” the country to its will, in particular on the Ukraine issue, Washington’s former ambassador to Moscow, John Sullivan, has claimed. In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine, published on Tuesday, Sullivan claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government is an “extremely difficult government to deal with” due to its negotiating style, which he claimed was based on “maximalist” demands. “If there were something we could do to pressure Russia to bend to our will, we would’ve already done that on Ukraine. What are we going to threaten them with now? We’ve hit [Putin] with a lot of sticks over Ukraine. If I could come up with better sticks, we’d already be using them on Ukraine now,” Sullivan stated, apparently referring to sanctions the US and its allies have heaped on Russia since the outbreak of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev.

He said he expects that “Putin will not compromise over Ukraine” no matter what NATO countries do in their attempts to persuade him, because “it’s not of his nature to compromise on issues that are so fundamental to him as a person and his conception of Russia.” The former diplomat offered several potential scenarios for conflict resolution, such as “a cease-fire without conceding or recognizing any territory as Russia” or a “massive support program for Ukraine through a new lend-lease type program.” He noted, however, that “all of that depends on a counterpart in the Kremlin that was willing to negotiate,” and “Putin is not going to.” “I am pessimistic about the future in Ukraine because neither party at this point is looking to negotiate. The Ukrainians so far can’t push the Russians out of the Ukrainian territory they control. But on the flip side, the Russians haven’t been able to mount any major offensive to take more parts of Ukraine. So a stalemate is the best we can hope for in the foreseeable future,” he concluded.

Sullivan served as ambassador to Russia from 2019 until his departure from Moscow in September 2022. Prior to his return to the US, which came a mere six months into the Ukraine conflict, Sullivan admitted that relations between Moscow and Washington had hit an all-time low. Moscow has repeatedly said that one of the major goals of its military operation against Kiev was to ensure Russia’s security in light of the threat posed by NATO’s expansion toward its borders. Another, it said, was to protect the Russian population living in the former Ukrainian territories from persecution by Kiev’s forces, which began following the Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014. Moscow has also stressed that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, albeit on its terms. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in late July that despite the West’s stance on the Ukraine conflict and sanctions it heaped on Moscow over the past two years, Russia remains open to dialogue and cooperation with Western countries, including on issues of security.

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Another 2,000 troops lost. For a show.

• NATO Allies Skeptical About Ukraine’s Advance Into Russia – Bloomberg (RT)

NATO allies consider it unlikely that Ukrainian forces will be able to hold Russian territory, even if it takes weeks for Moscow to force them out of Kursk Region, a Western official familiar with Kiev’s planning of last week’s incursion has told Bloomberg. Elements of six Ukrainian brigades invaded Kursk Region in the morning of August 6, taking over several border villages. Moscow has introduced a state of emergency and launched a counter-terrorist operation in the region, which borders Ukraine’s Sumy. The Russian Defense Ministry later said that the Ukrainian advance had been halted, estimating enemy losses at up to 2,000 service members and more than 200 armored vehicles. According to the unnamed NATO official, cited by Bloomberg on Tuesday, the incursion was “at least crucial to show that Kiev can challenge the Kremlin.”

With Ukraine’s military on the defensive, a cross-border attack had been “weighed for some time” before the incursion, the Western official said. Ukraine had reportedly been weighing several possibilities for an attack aimed at putting Russia on the backfoot. “While President Joe Biden’s administration and the European Union have given their blessing as the first military presence on Russian soil since World War II unfolds, NATO allies have so far withheld judgment,” Bloomberg wrote. Kiev officials did not share specific information on the cross-border attack until it was well underway, according to an unnamed Western intelligence official.

Meanwhile, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh described the attack as “consistent” with Washington’s policy on Ukraine’s use of American-supplied weapons to defend itself. The EU has also called the operation legitimate defense. Ukrainian troops interviewed by Western outlets have admitted that the goal of the incursion was to capture some territory that could be traded with Russia in possible peace talks and to relieve pressure on the Donbass front. Moscow has since ruled out any negotiations with Kiev, while Russian troops have accelerated their advance. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Tuesday the Ukrainian government will face “ramifications” for attacking the country.

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“She’s been operating as a foreign agent on behalf of the United States. The CIA literally writes her a paycheck..”

• ‘The CIA Writes Her Paycheck’ (Sp.)

The United States has taken a keen interest in the results of another foreign election, with observers noting Venezuela possesses the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves. Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), the highest court in the country, is examining the results of the country’s most recent presidential election as opposition leaders and their foreign backers allege fraud. The country’s National Electoral Council (CNE), the government body responsible for managing elections in Venezuela, has submitted records to the court in an attempt to resolve the ongoing dispute. The TSJ has noted its legal authority on the matter, noting that its decision will be final and binding. But the opposition has refused to take part in the process, drawing criticism over its failure to present requested evidence to the court.

“No Venezuelan party that alleges to have 40 percent more votes than President Maduro (as the opposition claims) would hesitate to present the evidence to the National Electoral Council (CNE),” said Venezuelan constitutional expert Dr. Olga Alvarez in response to the development. “Whoever cries election fraud must irrefutably prove it, the onus is on them not on the CNE to prove there wasn’t.” Political activist and independent journalist Niko House joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Monday to discuss the issue with host Wilmer Leon. “She’s been operating as a foreign agent on behalf of the United States. The CIA literally writes her a paycheck,” alleged House, speaking of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. “You would never see Joe Biden put in a request to audit and verify the results of the election,” he noted. “I think that speaks to the accountability and the integrity of Nicolas Maduro, which I feel like is a very important component here.”

House also noted Venezuela’s robust electoral system, which includes multiple “checks and balances” and allows the opposition to monitor the counting of votes at electoral precincts. “The most simplistic explanation is the oil, right?” House said of the United States’ interest in the election. The US and several of its allies have expressed concern over Maduro’s victory, echoing opposition claims of a fraudulent election. The opposition has produced records it claims point to a victory for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, although the records have not been independently verified as accurate or authentic. Western media outlets have uncritically repeated the opposition’s claims, with outlets like The New York Times playing their typical role in attempting to legitimate official US foreign policy.

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“..all but a small minority of Israelis approve of the savagery that has killed many tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children.”

• ‘Israel Itself is a War Crime’ (Sp.)

On Sunday, Hamas released a statement calling for the hostage exchange and ceasefire deal with Israel that was initially announced by US President Joe Biden in late May and backed by the UN Security Council in a resolution that passed on June 10. While Hamas had agreed to the ceasefire deal, Israel complicated negotiations by creating new demands as a way to sabotage the deal. However, talks between the two groups have been suspended since the assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. “It’s clear that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu doesn’t want to negotiate, and we can have Yair Lapid and the war council out here saying, ‘we’re looking for some deal and we’re willing to hop on Biden’s deal from May’. But if Netanyahu refuses to do that, obviously it’s clear where the holdup is,” Carey explained, suggesting that Hamas has already won the “PR war”.

“It’s clear that Netanyahu has no plans to negotiate in good faith with Hamas as far as releasing hostages goes. And that’s been apparent for months now, but now that [we’re] talking about preemptive strikes against Iran for aggression done by Israel already, it’s very apparent that Israel, or at least Likud led by Netanyahu, is in no position where they want to negotiate. They could negotiate, but they refuse to.”“This is a genocide, whether it’s a slow one or an active one, as it’s been over the last few years, or since it’s been more active since October 7th. It’s obviously a genocide. And I think it’s ridiculous for people, especially liberals in the US or in the West to try and pretend that Israel has this sort of liberal, or even a streak that wants to negotiate with the Palestinians, or acknowledge the Palestinians’ existence.”

“It’s clearly out the window at this point, and obviously this is where Israel had to go as a colonial power. There’s nowhere to go. I mean, the Nakba started in 1948. That’s how Israel has always been. It’s where Israel always had to go to the point of an active genocide.” Israel was built on the displacement of Palestinians, claims a recent article published by a US-based news service. In 1948, Israelis took part in the ethnic cleansing of “some 750,000 Palestinians from their homes” in what Palestinians now refer to as their Nakba (Catastrophe). The journalist of the article, Jonathan Cook, claims that “every Israeli knows exactly what is going on in Gaza.”“…their children-soldiers keep posting videos online showing the latest crimes they have committed, from blowing up mosques and hospitals to shooting randomly into homes,” writes Cook. “Polls show all but a small minority of Israelis approve of the savagery that has killed many tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children.”

“It’s a sort of historical whitewashing,” Carey said. “Obviously, you know, Israel doesn’t want to acknowledge its roles in this and then, people say, ‘oh, well, Israel didn’t take part in these war crimes’. But, Israel itself – that was point number two here – Israel itself is a war crime. It’s a colonial state.” “The Nakba, again, in 1948, saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians evicted. We’ve seen thousands of Palestinians evicted from East Jerusalem. We’ve seen the settlements expand in the West Bank. We’ve seen Gaza be carpet-bombed from north to south, clean out. There’s no passive agreement to these things anymore.” “This is a very genocidal state and it was always going to be. I think it’s important to remember that this is what Israel was founded on and the Israeli project was always meant to be larger than it is now and it’s going to continue expanding and they want to do that regardless of the cost.”

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“..the doctors at the Baptist Hospital gave him a plastic bag containing 18 kilograms of human remains and told him, “This is your son; go and bury him.”

• Every 70 KG Bag of Human Remains Is Considered a Martyr (Hajjaj)

Zainab al-Jaabari, 79, sits a few dozen meters in front of the scene of the massacre. She is waiting for her family members to return from checking for her seven sons and grandchildren, who were in the prayer hall praying Fajr at the time it took place. Her family members arrived to see the reality of the massacre with their own eyes: more than a hundred people were killed, and their bodies were now scattered and mixed in the prayer hall in the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City. It is possible their delay in returning now is due to their horror at what they found, or perhaps because they can’t imagine how to tell Zainab that her seven sons and grandchildren have been killed. At dawn on Saturday, August 10, the Israeli army bombed a mosque while dozens of displaced people were praying the Fajr prayer, the daily Islamic prayer offered in the early morning. The bombing killed more than a hundred people, most of whom were dismembered or destroyed beyond recognition.

For this reason the identification of the bodies has so far been incomplete. The majority of the martyrs in this latest massacre are first- or second-degree relatives because the prayer hall that the Israeli army bombed belongs to a school housing displaced families from Gaza City. The decimated prayer hall belongs to the Tabi’in School, and is only used by the displaced people sheltering in the school. At the time of the bombing the prayer hall was filled with men. Now, many women who may have become widows and many children who may have become orphans, are sitting in front of the classrooms that were not reached by the bombing waiting to be told the fate of their families. The Israeli army said that it bombed the prayer hall because there were armed elements from the Islamic Jihad movement and Hamas there, but the displaced people in the school confirmed that there were no armed men among them. Hamas also denied the Israeli allegations and issued a statement saying that there were no armed men in the school.

“We live in the school, more than a hundred families, there are no fighters among us, there are no armed men among us, they are all children,” Zainab al-Jaabari told Mondoweiss. “The Israeli army left us nothing; they burned the trees, destroyed the houses, killed the people, and destroyed the land; what can we do? There is nothing we can do; we are children and women here; we cannot fight. Have you ever seen a country do all these criminal acts? Have you ever seen people who have all these crimes happen to them?” she says. “All we have is prayers; we pray against America that helps Israel to slaughter us, and we pray against everyone who watches us being slaughtered and does nothing to help us.” “We no longer have anything, and there is nowhere to go; the only thing we have is the sea, and even there, we will find death.” Al-Jaabari’s daughters went to the Baptist Hospital near the bombed school so they could identify their siblings.

“I can’t move much. I sent my daughters to the hospital to check on the rest of my children, but none of them have returned yet; all my sons and grandchildren were praying at the time of the bombing.” Hours after the massacre, the names of the martyrs who were identified were announced, and among the names were seven martyrs from the Al-Jaabari family. They are Zainab’s sons and grandchildren. In the mosque, people stand in a row close to each other as they pray, and after the bombing, the worshipers remained intermingled as well, as remains and corpses. Large numbers of martyrs were not able to be identified, and entire families were wiped out. Survivors of this massacre are describing a new and horrifying experience they are being forced to endure in aftermath of Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip: they cannot even identify the remains of their loved ones.

Because the rescue teams couldn’t identify many of the human remains collected due to the intensity of the bombing, the doctors at Baptist Hospital were not able to identify each martyr individually. Instead, the doctors have started collecting body parts in plastic bags and giving 70 kilos of remains to the family of a martyr who has gone missing. Hassan Ahmad told Mondoweiss that he searched extensively for the body of his 6-year-old son Ali, and after hours of searching, he did not find a trace of him. He then went to the Baptist Hospital to ask about his son, or to find any part of his body so I could identify him and bury him. After a long search that did not yield any results, the doctors at the Baptist Hospital gave him a plastic bag containing 18 kilograms of human remains and told him, “This is your son; go and bury him.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Bucha

 

 

3 years
https://twitter.com/i/status/1823082039236513798

 

 

Duckpuppies

 

 

Lion

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 9 2024

Aug 092024
 
 August 9, 2024  Posted by at 9:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Henry Bacon Fisherfolk returning with their nets, Étretat 1890

 

• Harris Snubbed VP Contender Shapiro Because He’s Jewish – Trump (RT)
• Why Did Kamala Snub The Obvious VP Choice In Josh Shapiro (QTR)
• Harris Chose Walz Over Shapiro to Ward Off Critics of Israel War on Gaza (Sp.)
• National Guard Disputes Walz’s Military Bio (ZH)
• Harris/Walz Rally Was Really Just Another Free Concert (MN)
• ‘They Took It Away’: Trump Admits Democrats Snatched Presidency From Biden (Sp.)
• Vance Explains Trump’s Plans For Europe (RT)
• This Means War! (Jim Rickards)
• German Heavy Armor Back To Fields Of Kursk Region After 80 Years (RT)
• Russia Should No Longer Hold Back In Ukraine – Medvedev (RT)
• US Must Rein In ‘Terrorist Client’ Ukraine – Moscow (RT)
• Police Release Bodycam Video of Officer Trying to Confront Trump Shooter (Sp.)
• Scott Ritter Blasts Raid on His Home as US Gov ‘Fishing Expedition’ (Sp.)
• Allowing Two Million Gazans To Starve ‘May Be Moral’ – Israeli Minister (RT)

 

 

 

 

O’Leary

 

 

I’m speaking

 

 

Rogan Kamala
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821630125420495151

 

 

Blagojevich

 

 

Trump Willie

 

 

Trump Hillary

 

 

Trump Elon

 

 

Trump Bannon

 

 

 

 

“This is the worst team ever assembled for a Jewish person or for Israel.”

• Harris Snubbed VP Contender Shapiro Because He’s Jewish – Trump (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris did not pick Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate because he’s Jewish, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has claimed. Although Shapiro was considered the favorite, Harris ended up picking Minnesota Governor Tim Walz instead. “Everyone thought it was going to be Shapiro, it turned out not to be Shapiro,” Trump said on Fox News on Wednesday. “I have very little doubt that it was not for the reason we’re talking about. It was because of the fact that he’s Jewish and they think they’re going to offend somebody else.” “I think there were other people better than him, I know them all. But I was shocked when it came to the final two and she didn’t pick Shapiro,” he added.

The ‘progressive’ faction of the Democrats had pushed back against Shapiro, citing his advocacy of Israel and criticism of pro-Palestinian student protests across the US. Some critics dubbed him “Genocide Josh” – echoing the “Genocide Joe” moniker given to President Biden – while others pointed to potential problems a Harris-Shapiro ticket would have garnering Muslim, Arab and Palestinian-American voters in key swing states. “You wouldn’t feel very comfortable if you’re Israel right now with this team,” Trump told Fox News. “This is the worst team ever assembled for a Jewish person or for Israel.” “They are so bad to Jewish people – what they’ve done and the way they talk and their policy and everything else,” he added.

During his 2017-2021 presidency, Trump openly supported Israel, recognizing its annexation of the occupied Golan Heights and relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem, among other things. He has repeatedly said that any Jews who vote for Democrats “should have their head examined.” In the 2020 election, however, an estimated 70% of American Jews voted for Biden. The Biden-Harris White House has supplied weapons and ammunition to Israel, while demanding a ceasefire and negotiations with Hamas, something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected.

Trump

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“..the Democrats do not think they, in any way, need to be aggressive in order to earn your vote…as if Kamala Harris not holding a press conference since becoming the presidential nominee hasn’t told you that already.”

• Why Did Kamala Snub The Obvious VP Choice In Josh Shapiro (QTR)

As somebody who thinks the country would implode into itself like a dying star if Harris won the election, I was extraordinarily relieved to see her pick. I was all but certain that Harris was going to pick Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate. Everything about the pick made sense: he was racially her foil, he was younger, a well-spoken candidate, he was viewed as more of a moderate, he has great support in the extraordinarily crucial swinging state of Pennsylvania, and he could help the Democratic Party claw back some of the Jewish vote that they’ve (deservedly) lost over the last year while their far left fringe, including ‘the squad’, has all but openly supported Hamas. The Shapiro pick made so much sense and, in my opinion, guaranteed the election for Harris so much, that I thought it would even break through the dumb-ass-politician-blood-brain barrier and be the inevitable selection.

But instead, nope! We get Tim Walz. The party who claims to hate old milquetoast white men, instead selected an even further left old milquetoast white man. What a time to be alive! Without going into the worst points about Walz, not the least of which is he oversaw the destruction of his own state during the George Floyd riots of 2020, the pick is so conservative strategically, it just might fail. It reminds me of when Hillary Clinton picked Tim Kaine as her running mate. [..] Tim Walz is a pick that you make when you are far ahead in the polls and literally have nothing to worry about. He’s an NFL prevent defense that should only be run when you are multiple touchdowns ahead and the clock has less than 20 seconds on it. Walz is a declaration that the Democrats do not think they, in any way, need to be aggressive in order to earn your vote…as if Kamala Harris not holding a press conference since becoming the presidential nominee hasn’t told you that already.

I also have an unfounded and unproven theory on how Walz became Harris’s running mate. If you remember, on Friday, Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker, or a staffer of hers, accidentally tweeted out a pre-made and clearly pre-planned congratulatory message on Josh Shapiro being picked as Kamala’s vice president. The pre-planned nature of it made it clear that the leak was a legitimate accident and the pick was likely legitimate. [..] Now we know, at some point, assuming the Shapiro pick was legitimate, Harris changed her mind. Could it have possibly been that after the leak on Friday, members of the progressive base and Democratic voters lashed out at Harris for picking a Jewish running mate? After all, there were widespread reports last week of whitewashing Josh Shapiro’s Wikipedia page and attempts to try and cover up his past support for Israel.

In Walz, did the Democratic Party choose to abandon its Jewish base and side with activists and supporters of Palestine? One way to make that statement would be to pick the man who oversaw the looting and riots of 2020, that’s for sure. Either way, the sugar high of Harris becoming the nominee is going to soon start to run out, and it’s difficult for me to see how the Democratic base is going to get any sort of additional dopamine hit from her vice-presidential selection. In fact, I think this pick will force the onus to be aggressive to shift back to Harris and the momentum back to the Trump campaign. Everybody knows there was a fair amount of second-guessing regarding Trump’s vice-presidential pick. Shapiro likely could have given Vance a run for his money in attracting moderates and debating. But Walz is just the opposite: my guess is that to people in the center, Vance now looks more like the moderate and, in general, the candidate who has their sh*t together the most.

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“It means the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party is very much in control.”

• Harris Chose Walz Over Shapiro to Ward Off Critics of Israel War on Gaza (Sp.)

US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ pick of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate was dictated by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s open support for the Israeli war on Gaza, experts told Sputnik. On Tuesday, Harris announced Walz as her vice presidential candidate in the 2024 election, saying he was a “battle-tested leader.” President Joe Biden hailed Harris’ choice and called it a great decision. The announcement put an end to weeks of speculation that Harris would go for Shapiro, who was reportedly one of the top finalists for the role. “As far as I and everybody else can figure, they passed over Shapiro because he is Jewish and has been supportive of Israel in the past. It means the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party is very much in control.

In my view, Shapiro would have been a much better pick in terms of winning the election,” Roderick Kiewiet, professor of Political Science at the California Institute of Technology, said. The choice of a presidential contender’s running mate rarely has any impact on the vote, Kiewiet argued. The only time it actually mattered was in 1972, when Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern’s pick Tom Eagleton was discovered to have undergone electro-shock therapy at a mental institution. Eagleton quit the race but McGovern was humiliated and lost to Richard Nixon by a landslide. Shapiro’s 2022 victory in the race for governor of Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, proved that he had a good chance of helping the Democratic ticket take it in November, Alan Cafruny, Henry Bristol Professor of International Affairs with the Department of Government at Hamilton College, told Sputnik.

“However, Shapiro has taken a strong stand in favor of Israel’s actions in Gaza, notably condemning pro-Palestinian activists, especially students and many young people, as anti-Semitic. Young people are a core Democratic constituency. Israel’s horrific actions in Gaza have profoundly altered public opinion among many Americans,” Cafruny said. While the matter was probably not critical for Harris, it played a role in the choice of the vice presidential candidate, as Democrats believe that Walz, too, can deliver Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes, he added.”If I had been Kamala Harris, I would have chosen Shapiro as my running mate because he would have brought more strength to the ticket in Pennsylvania, a ‘must-win’ state for the Democrats.

But this was Harris’ choice, and, apparently, she did not want to further alienate the left wing of the party as, I expect, she attempts to move toward the center for the general election campaign,” Richard Bensel, Professor of Government at Cornell University, said. With Tim Walz tapped as the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance may appear “weird” and even “extremist,” significantly damaging the Republicans’ chances of winning in November, the experts predicted. Following the announcement by Harris, Trump sarcastically thanked her for her choice, while Vance said that he had called Walz and left him a voice message congratulating him and wishing for “robust conversations” in the future.

The Trump campaign called Walz a “dangerously liberal extremist.” “One of Tim Walz’s strengths is that he will be a very good foil for JD Vance in the coming vice presidential debate (if there is one). Walz’s appealing personality and moderate demeanor will only strengthen public impressions of Vance as an unstable extremist,” Richard Bensel said, adding that this comparison was likely to be only a “minor” issue come the election. While the Minnesota governor is unlikely to bring significant changes to the Harris campaign, choosing him will probably boost the Democratic duo’s standing “since one of the major points the Democrats will try to make is that the Republican ticket is ‘weird'” and Walz is definitely “not weird” himself, Bensel explained.

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“When questioned about all of it, Walz decided to duck, cover, and run from a journalist before an explanation could be ‘deployed.'”

• National Guard Disputes Walz’s Military Bio (ZH)

The Minnesota National Guard has disputed Governor Tim Walz’s military biography, saying that his claims of retiring at the rank of command sergeant major is untrue. Minnesota National Guard spox Army Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Augé told Just the News that Walz, Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate, was demoted and did not retire as a command sergeant major as he has claimed for years – including on his official gubernatorial biography – as he failed to complete a 750-hour course in the Army’s Sergeants Major Academy, a mandatory course for E-9s, the Army’s highest enlisted rank. While Walz temporarily held the title of command sergeant major he “retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News.

The statement reignited a controversy that began during his 2018 election for governor in which National Guardsman claimed on social media and in a paid ad that Walz declined to deploy to Iraq for combat duty in 2005 and forfeited his title of command sergeant major. Walz chose to run for Congress that year. -Just the News. The governor’s biography, however, says that “Command Sergeant Major Walz” retired from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005. At the time he was serving as one of the highest ranking members of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion. “He retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” said Augé. That said, an unnamed Guard spokesperson told Task & Purpose, in direct contradiction to Augé, that Walz’s demotion was a technicality. “Soldiers who do not finish the course revert back to their prior rank,” they told the outlet. “This is what we refer to as an administrative reduction and not punitive in nature.”

The outlet also claims that the Guard ‘confirmed’ that Walz was properly promoted and served in the E-9 role, and “retired as” an E-9, despite the later reduction. That said, Task & Purpose also framed the entire stolen valor controversy as “The ‘Swift Boating’ of Tim Walz” – as if his on-record lies about ‘weapon of war, that I carried in war’ (he never saw war), are the same as disputed allegations over John Kerry’s (D) Vietnam war record. On Wednesday we noted that Walz straight up lied about having been deployed in a combat zone. The lies were so egregious that even CNN acknowledged they were less than ideal. “Walz did make a comment speaking to a group, he’s done it a couple of times, where he has used language that has suggested that he carried weapons in a fighting situation,” said CNN correspondent Tom Foreman in a fact check. “As you know, with your contact with the military, I know from coming from a military family, there is a difference between being in a combat area, being involved at a time of war and actually being in a position where people are shooting at you. There is no evidence that at any time Governor Walz was in a position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest that he was.”

“So that is absolutely false when he said that about gun rights out there. The campaign has essentially come forward to say, ‘Look, he had a long career, he would never want to purposely mislead people about this.’ It’s what campaigns tend to say,” Foreman continued. Meanwhile, in a 2006 press release issued by his campaign, Walz is described as a “veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” the US military operation in Afghanistan. As modernity.news notes, some have charged that this is misleading given that Walz was stationed in Italy at the time, with his battalion providing base security in Europe. Walz has also come under fire from the men he served with, who they described in a 2019 letter as ‘Traitorous, fraudulent and shameful.’ Meanwhile, the Free Beacon reports that Walz knew his National Guard battalion was being eyed for a likely redeployment to Iraq when he decided to retire.

“As Command Sergeant Major, I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on,” Walz said in a campaign statement on March 20, 2005. Just three days prior, the National Guard Public Affairs Office announced that at least part of his battalion could be shipped overseas to the Middle East in the next two years. Walz left the National Guard that May. Two months later, his battalion was put on notice that they would be deploying to Iraq. When questioned about all of it, Walz decided to duck, cover, and run from a journalist before an explanation could be ‘deployed.’

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They can’t meme and they can’t stream.

• Harris/Walz Rally Was Really Just Another Free Concert (MN)

Kamala Harris’ campaign has once again used a free concert as a way of drawing people to their rally for the photo op. A large number of people turned up at an outdoor stadium Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Wednesday, yet most appeared to be there to watch Grammy award-winning indie folk band Bon Iver. The lead singer of the band, Justin Vernon, is from Eau Claire. NPR reported that “Vice President Harris will draw from some hometown talent on Wednesday when Bon Iver performs at a rally in Eau Claire, Wis. — part of a barnstorm tour of swing states she is doing with her running mate this week.” Observers note that there was a distinct lack of Harris/Walz signs, and a lot of middle aged beardy folk men in the crowd. As we highlighted last week, this happened in Atlanta, where the large crowd turned up to watch rapper Megan Thee Stallion and some dancers shake their asses around, then started walking out when Harris took the stage.

The campaign is desperately attempting to use popular culture and influencers to gain traction. For example, wildly popular Twitch streamer Kai Cenat, who has over 12 million followers told his viewers that he had been approached by Harris’ people about doing a livestream with her, but noted only Cenat has no interest in doing it. Cenat declared “Kamala is getting rejected by everyone,” noting that the campaign reached out five times to try to get him on board but he doesn’t “give a fuck” about her. In addition, State Senator Jake Hoffman of Arizona received information from an influencer showing that the Harris campaign has been paying social media influencers in an effort to boost popularity. Hoffman charged that the campaign is engaged in astroturfing, and has “zero grassroots, so they’re trying to manufacture fake support using cash as the incentive.”

The letter from Alicia Howard of the Harris-Walz campaign reads “if you’re interested in creating content on Instagram, please let me know as soon as possible. We can discuss the details and compensation for your involvement.” The campaign then sent a follow-up note promising “paid partnership.” It appears the campaign is also employing marketing groups to reach out to influencers with promises of cash for content. Meanwhile, Donald Trump took part in a huge live stream with influencer Adin Ross Monday, attracting over 580,000 live viewers and reportedly over 100 million subsequent views. Next week Trump is scheduled to take part in a conversation with Elon Musk.

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“I would say that Hillary was smart. She was her own worst enemy in many ways, but she was smart, very smart.”

• ‘They Took It Away’: Trump Admits Democrats Snatched Presidency From Biden (Sp.)

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Thursday that the Democratic party took away the presidency from President Joe Biden and emphasized that the sitting US president had the right to run for reelection regardless of whether he had a chance to win or not. “The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I’m no Biden fan…they took the presidency away,” Trump said during a press conference. “People were saying he lost after the debate, he couldn’t win. Well, I don’t know that that’s true, necessarily, but whether he could win or he couldn’t win, he had the right to run. And they took it away.” Trump claimed that Biden is very angry at former US President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi right now after they reportedly forced him to step down from the presidential race. Touching on recent remarks Biden made on the transfer of presidential powers, Trump told reporters that despite what his successor said there would in fact be a peaceful handover following the November results.

“Of course there will be a peaceful transfer, and there was last time, and there will be a peaceful transfer. I just hope we’re going to have honest elections,” Trump said. The event also saw the former president detail that he had agreed to a participate in three debates in September against political rival Kamala Harris, who he quipped was not as “smart” as 2016 presidential contender Hillary Clinton. “So I’ve run against Hillary and I’ve run against various other people. I would say that in terms of intelligence, Hillary was far superior,” Trump said during a press conference. “I would say that Hillary was smart. She was her own worst enemy in many ways, but she was smart, very smart.” The dates Trump outlined for the debates are September 4, 10, and 25. However, he noted that he’s still waiting for confirmation that Harris will participate in these debates as well. Media reported that Harris is locked in for the September 10 debate.

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“..he rejected the notion that sustained aid to Ukraine is necessary to prevent a future attack on NATO..”

• Vance Explains Trump’s Plans For Europe (RT)

European NATO members need to do a better job of deterring a hypothetical Russian attack and dealing with the loss of Russian oil and gas, vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance has said. The Republican senator from Ohio, who was picked by former US President Donald Trump as his running mate for the November election, said a potential Trump administration would demand “self-sufficiency” from the EU while maintaining friendly relations. Speaking to the Semafor news website on Wednesday, he rejected the notion that sustained aid to Ukraine is necessary to prevent a future attack on NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin has “shown in Ukraine that he can’t go that far,” he argued, contrary to what Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, tells American voters.

”When the Harris administration says if we don’t stop Putin in Ukraine, he’s gonna march all the way to Germany, one, it’s not true, and two, what does that say about Germany’s defense capabilities?” Vance said. ”If [the Germans] can’t repel a Russian invasion that does not suggest America should effectively serve as a security protector for Germany, that suggests the Germans ought to get off their ass and invest in their own defense,” he added, pointing to the example of Israel. ”The Israelis are smart about their interests. They recognize that there are limitations,” he said. “What they need from an ally, I think, is support, not for us to step in and do for them what we do for Europe.”

Russian officials have ridiculed the claim by Western politicians that Moscow wants to attack NATO. The Ukraine conflict, according to them, was triggered by the expansion of the US-led military bloc and its intention to bring Ukraine into its ranks. After Western nations backed an armed coup in Kiev in 2014, the new authorities declared joining NATO a key policy goal. EU nations joined the US in imposing sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the hostilities. Among the key measures, most EU states have stopped buying low-cost pipeline natural gas that Russia had been supplying to Europe since the Soviet era. The loss of Russian gas has allowed the US to dramatically increase liquefied gas exports to Europe. The Trump administration had unsuccessfully pushed the EU to make the same switch, famously touting American fuel as “molecules of freedom” to European customers in 2019.

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“Israel’s assassinations and Iran’s pending retaliation illustrate the dangers of having a weak, unfit, lame-duck American president like Joe Biden..”

• This Means War! (Jim Rickards)

Let’s revisit April’s Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel which, again, were launched in retaliation for Israel’s strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria. Iran’s attack was almost staged. It was telegraphed in advance, giving Israel (as well as U.S. forces in the region) time to prepare for it. The great majority of Iranian drones and missiles were shot down, and Israel suffered very little damage. It was as if Iran was saying, “We have to retaliate for your attack on our consulate, but we don’t want further escalation. So we’re going to let you know what we’re going to do and give you time to prepare for it. Our attack won’t really hurt you, but we have to do it in order to save face.” Israel conducted its own retaliatory strike on Iran, but it was limited, and that was the end of it. Both sides could wipe their hands clean and move on. But Israel’s latest assassinations changed all that. They represented significant escalations against Iran, especially the assassination in Iran’s own territory.

Imagine the U.S. response if Russia, for example, assassinated a key U.S. ally attending the inauguration of an American president. So why would Iran listen to pleas for a limited, measured response this time? It took that approach in April, and Israel escalated anyway. So in this instance, Iran has no incentive to limit its retaliation. In its view, deterrence has failed. The only logical response is to punish Israel as hard as it can. That of course raises the question: How might Iran retaliate? It could take the form of drone and missile attacks, similar to the ones in April, only more intense. Iran could also enlist its proxies like Hezbollah to attack Israel from southern Lebanon, forcing Israel to fight a two-front war (Gaza being the first, which is still ongoing). Or it could be a combination of both. Hezbollah is a much more formidable fighting force than Hamas, so Israel will have its hands full if it has to confront Hezbollah. Meanwhile, The U.S. is sending warships and aircraft to the region to support Israel. What can go wrong? It’s not hard to envision a scenario in which the U.S. is dragged into the fighting.

Yesterday, a rocket attack on a U.S. base in Iraq injured five personnel. It’s not known who’s responsible at this point, but it could very likely be an Iranian proxy. It’s hard to imagine the timing was just coincidental. Here’s the larger point: Israel’s assassinations and Iran’s pending retaliation illustrate the dangers of having a weak, unfit, lame-duck American president like Joe Biden. Here’s why… The U.S. has previously restrained Israel from taking stronger action against Iran. The U.S. has been pursuing a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage deal. Sources claim the Biden administration felt it was close to a breakthrough before the assassinations. The two assassinations torpedoed whatever chances there were of a hostage deal. Would Israel have acted against strong U.S. interests if a firm president was in office? It’s highly unlikely. It’s apparent that Benjamin Netanyahu has little respect for a greatly diminished, lame-duck Biden who’s on the way out.

That’s why Biden’s diminished condition isn’t just a domestic concern. It has potentially serious geopolitical consequences, which are presently unfolding. And does anyone believe Kamala Harris is a viable alternative? Netanyahu almost certainly doesn’t. If we’re not in a recession already (I believe we entered one in May or June), we’re clearly heading for one. A new Middle East war will drive up the price of oil, maybe dramatically depending on how the conflict unfolds. That means higher prices at the pump, which are already too high for many Americans. What if Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz, ending all oil exports from the Persian Gulf (or the Arabian Gulf, depending on who you’re talking to)? That could be the final nail in the coffin of the Biden economy. We’d be staring in the face of a major recession that would crush average Americans.

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This is what Russians see: nazis have returned 80 years after beig defeated..

• German Heavy Armor Back To Fields Of Kursk Region After 80 Years (RT)

German-made heavy armor pieces are rolling through the fields of Russia’s Kursk Region again, some 80 years since one of the biggest battles of WWII in the same area, Bild wrote on Thursday, reporting on Kiev’s cross-border incursion. The German tabloid, citing videos posted online, said that several Marder infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) have been spotted among the equipment used by the Ukrainian military in its offensive, launched early on Tuesday. The media outlet pointed to footage published by the Russian Defense Ministry, which shows IFVs being hit with Russian kamikaze drones. Thursday morning, the ministry published a clip showing the destruction of at least three Marder vehicles by Russian Lancet drones, among other strikes on Ukrainian military equipment. The armor pieces were hit while moving along dirt roads and through a wooded area.

Posting on X (formerly, Twitter), Bild journalist Julian Ropcke said all three Marders “fell victim” to Russian strikes just a few kilometers from the border – as the Ukrainian forces had sent them into battle “without adequate air defense.” The news of German-made weapons being used in an attack on Russia’s internationally recognized Russian territory has prompted a mixed reaction in Germany. The head of the German parliament’s Defense Committee, Markus Faber, stated he had no issues with the development. Any weapons handed over to Kiev cease to be German and become Ukrainian ones, he told the Funke Media Group. He also described the territory of both Ukraine and Russia as a “war zone.” “This is a highly dangerous development,” said Sahra Wagenknecht, the head of the newly formed BSW Party and a former Left Party leader.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz should call the Ukrainian leadership and “demand that no German weapons be used in [attacks] on the Russian territory,” she added. Back in 1943, Soviet troops clashed with the Nazi forces on the fields of the Kursk Region in what has since become known as the Battle of Kursk. It was one of the deadliest episodes of World War II and one of the largest tank battles in history. Nazi Germany sought to achieve victory at the time by fielding its then brand-new armor pieces, including Panther and Tiger tanks as well as Ferdinand tank destroyers. The battle involved thousands of tanks on both sides, ended with the Soviet forces inflicting a defeat on the Nazi troops.

Up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been involved in the incursion into Kursk Region this week, supported by armor that included several US-made Stryker armored fighting vehicles, as well as artillery and drones, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. Kiev’s forces have lost some 660 soldiers and 82 armor pieces, including eight tanks, 12 armored personnel carriers and six infantry fighting vehicles since the start of their operation, according to estimates provided by the ministry on Thursday. Moscow’s forces have stalled the Ukrainian troops’ offensive and prevented them from getting deeper into the region, the Russian authorities said.

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“From this moment, the special military operation should become openly exterritorial in nature..”

• Russia Should No Longer Hold Back In Ukraine – Medvedev (RT)

Russia should respond to Kiev’s attempted incursion in Kursk Region by taking over land that Moscow currently recognizes as Ukraine, former President Dmitry Medvedev has suggested. The Ukrainian military initiated a cross-border raid involving some 1,000 troops this week, which has so far claimed five civilian lives and left over 30 others wounded in Russia. The operation has largely been thwarted by the Russian army and border guards, Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov reported on Wednesday. He estimated Ukrainian casualties at 315, including 100 killed in action. “From this moment, the special military operation should become openly exterritorial in nature,” Medvedev, who serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, argued in a post on Thursday.

“We can and should go further into what still exists as Ukraine. To Odessa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolaev. To Kiev and further. There should be no restrictions in terms of recognized borders,” he explained. Kiev and its Western backers claim that Russia started the hostilities in February 2022 out of a desire for imperial conquest. Moscow has denied that, saying it sought to stop continued Ukrainian attacks on the ethnic Russian breakaway republics in the east and preempt a Ukrainian military offensive in Donbass. Four Ukrainian regions have since voted in referendums to join Russia, though some parts of them remain under Kiev’s control. Moscow says it will only agree to peace talks if Ukraine pulls its troops out of these new federal subjects.

Medvedev, a Ukraine conflict hardliner, said the “terrorist operation” in Kursk Region should “remove any taboo” on declaring publicly that the Russian forces “will only stop when we consider it acceptable and beneficial for us.” The EU has endorsed the Ukrainian operation in Kursk Region. European Commission spokesman Peter Stano has said that the country has the right to defend itself, “including by striking the aggressor on its territory.” The US has implied that it had not been made aware of Kiev’s plans, with White House national security spokesman John Kirby telling the press: “We intend to reach out to our Ukrainian partners to get a fuller picture of what happened.”

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“We intend to reach out to our Ukrainian partners to get a fuller picture of what happened..”

• US Must Rein In ‘Terrorist Client’ Ukraine – Moscow (RT)

The US must stop the flow of weapons to Ukraine after American-supplied arms were used to strike schools, hospitals, and homes in Russia, Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has said. The senior diplomat was referring to strikes on civilians during Kiev’s attempted incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region this week. According to the regional governor, Ukrainians deliberately attacked non-military targets, even hitting an ambulance with a kamikaze drone and killing the driver and a paramedic. The Russian Defense Ministry listed Western-donated weapons among those destroyed in repelling the Ukrainian forces. Antonov joined other Russian officials in describing the Ukrainian operation as “terrorist,” stressing in a statement on Wednesday that contrary to Western claims, Kiev’s actions cannot be justified by the right to self-defense.

“Washington should stop supplying arms to Kiev and yank the chain of the neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian army,” he said. So far, remarks by American officials on the issue have been “outrageous,” since they failed to sympathize with the civilian victims of “their clients,” he added. The Russian military estimates that Kiev deployed some 1,000 troops in the attempted incursion on Tuesday morning and has lost roughly a third of them since, including 100 killed in action. The US government has distanced itself from the operation. “We intend to reach out to our Ukrainian partners to get a fuller picture of what happened,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told journalists on Wednesday. He stressed that Washington’s policy on how Kiev can use US-donated weapons “has not changed in any way.”

Officials have said that the arms are being supplied on the condition that they would not be used outside of what the US recognizes as Ukrainian territory. An exemption was announced earlier this year for locations along the border, in case of the imminent threat of Russian attacks. The claimed limitation was never fully observed, as evidenced by the Ukrainian use of Western hardware during an incursion into Belgorod Region in May 2023. Photo evidence confirmed the loss of two M1151A1 Humvee vehicles as well as two M1224 MaxxPro vehicles on Russian soil in that raid. The operation was conducted by a Kiev-backed militia force, which was armed with Czech and Belgian small arms.

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Feed us little bits at a time..

• Police Release Bodycam Video of Officer Trying to Confront Trump Shooter (Sp.)

Police in Pennsylvania released body camera footage of an officer who attempted to confront the Trump shooter in the moments before he attempted to assassinate the former US president. The footage released Thursday shows an officer trying to get on a rooftop before the shooter, Thomas Crooks, opened fire on Trump. However, the officer is seen quickly getting down from the rooftop without reaching Crooks. Within seconds, the officer hits the ground and sprints to the other side of the building toward a squad car, where he retrieves his department-provided rifle. The Butler Township Police Department earlier explained there is no audio in the initial frames of the video as the officer did not activate his bodycam. It’s not until he begins loading his firearm that the audio is turned on. “He’s straight up! Right where you picked me up,” the officer is heard telling another cop, later describing the gunman as having long hair and a book bag.

As officers descend on the scene, the same officer who spotted Crooks makes his way back onto the rooftop. Brief images on the released footage appear to show a few officers standing near Crooks’ body. Additional footage has offered more insight into the general confusion on the ground in the aftermath of the shooting. Officials previously said a local law enforcement officer had attempted to climb on to the rooftop but retreated after Crooks pointed a rifle at the officer. Crooks attempted to assassinate Trump at a campaign rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. He shot Trump in the ear, killed one audience member and wounded two others. The incident prompted scrutiny of the US Secret Service’s failure to prevent the assassination attempt, ultimately leading the agency’s director to resign.

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They confiscated hia archive: “..documents that substantiated his findings that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction..”

• Scott Ritter Blasts Raid on His Home as US Gov ‘Fishing Expedition’ (Sp.)

The former USMC intelligence officer’s home was raided Wednesday over allegations he had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires anyone who acts on behalf of a foreign nation to register as such to the US government. However, individuals accused of such a violation are typically notified by letter, not a raid. The recent raid carried out on the New York home of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was another chapter in the US government’s harassment campaign against him and his family, he told Sputnik. “It’s a fishing expedition. It’s harassment,” Ritter told Radio Sputnik’s Critical Hour on Thursday, noting that the US government’s end goal is to discredit him in the eyes of the public as he continually works to shed light on US policy. Within the more than two dozen boxes that were carried out of Ritter’s home were documents that substantiated his findings that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction, a key claim that encouraged the US to undertake its invasion of the Middle Eastern nation in 2003.

“This is the archive that backs up my allegations, my assertions that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, that the US policies … that accused Iraq of such were premised on a lie. It’s an archive that I was relying upon to write a book that’s in draft form right now, and they seized that archive,” Ritter told show hosts Dr. Wilmer Leon and Garland Nixon, adding that the confiscation of those documents were out of the scope of the search warrant. “This is not about FARA. It literally isn’t. This is targeted harassment. This is a frontal assault on free speech and free press.” Touching on how the legal system has outlined that sharing a viewpoint with a foreign government does not equate the status of foreign agent, Ritter recalled he had told one of the agents on the scene that his “main premise is stopping a nuclear war” and less about throwing his support behind another government.

“My main premise is to, you know, support diplomacy over militarism, to promote dialogue instead of confrontation, you know, and to promote arms control instead of an arms race,” he said. “If this is a crime in America, then convict me and throw the key away. But it’s not. Having acted as a journalist for some 20 years now, Ritter has published works in numerous publications that include the Washington Post and the New York Times. Ritter told Nixon that he’s no different than any other journalist being paid for their work. “But they’re trying to twist this into somehow saying that I am in the employ of the Russian government, and that I am acting on instructions from the Russian government. The good news is that nothing they seized will back up these assertions. The bad news is I don’t think it matters,” he said.

“They kept saying you’re trying to shape the opinion of the American people. You’re damn right I’m trying to shape the opinion of the American people. Everybody engaged in journalism is doing this. This is what you’re supposed to do to empower people with knowledge and information, fact-based knowledge and information so they can make their own decisions. The most dangerous thing in a democracy like America is a knowledgeable citizen, a citizen empowered with information to make an informed, you know, choice on election day, not dumb sheep being herded down the path.” “This is harassment designed to silence me. It’s designed to intimidate me. And for everybody listening, understand this is a frontal assault on the Constitution of the United States,” Ritter stressed. “A frontal assault on free speech. A frontal assault on the free press.”

“Free speech isn’t free if when you execute your right to speak freely, you get raided by the FBI. And a free press cannot exist if, carrying out your journalistic duties, you are accused because of the position you take of, you know, working for an entity because these positions have to clash with the official policy objectives of the United States.” Asked if the raid was tied to the June seizure of his passport or a recent event he attended in New York to discuss his latest work and efforts to encourage an ease of tension between the US and Russia, the former intelligence officer admitted “they’re all connected.” Ritter detailed he had planned additional trips to Russia later this year that would help to gain information that would help “empower the American audience about, you know, the reality of Russia and the danger of American policy.” “The United States government did not want any of these trips to happen. They seized my passport and now they’re just extending the harassment,” he said.

“They fear what I’m doing, and they fear what we are doing and this is what happens when governments get afraid of their own citizens. Citizens who, again, I remind everybody, are simply executing their rights of free speech and, as a journalist, my participation in the free press.” “I never want to be a foreign agent. I’m not acting as one and I don’t want to act as one. I will never represent another country. I represent America, only America,” he continued. “I believe in the potential of my country to be that which we, you know, purport to be, what we want to be, and I recognize that we’re not there and one of the reasons we’re not there is because of the policies of my government.” “And, therefore, as an American citizen, it is my duty to speak out and shine a light on where I think my government is going wrong so that we, the people, can take corrective action and get the government back on track because the government serves us, we don’t serve the government.”

Ritter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821512772771106981

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Jesus Christ.

• Allowing Two Million Gazans To Starve ‘May Be Moral’ – Israeli Minister (RT)

Starving the citizens of Gaza could be a “just” way of forcing Hamas to release hostages, but this would spark outrage from the global community, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has complained. Israel controls the flow of humanitarian aid entering the besieged Palestinian enclave but its distribution is managed by aid groups within Gaza. Speaking at a right-wing conference earlier this week, Smotrich said Israel was being forced to allow aid into the enclave “because there is no choice,” and because West Jerusalem needs “international legitimacy” to wage its war against Hamas. He argued that Israel is unable to use humanitarian aid to pressure the Palestinian militant group because today’s global reality makes this “impossible.” “No one in the world would let us starve and thirst two million citizens, even though it may be just and moral until [Hamas] return our hostages,” he said.

Smotrich suggested that, if the distribution of aid within Gaza was controlled by Israel, then the current war would have already ended and the hostages captured by the Palestinian fighters on October 7 would have been returned. “You cannot fight Hamas with one hand and give them aid with the other,” Smotrich added, claiming that humanitarian aid is the Palestinian militia’s “money,” “fuel,” and its method of “civilian control” in Gaza. The minister’s comments have been met with widespread outrage, including in the West. The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell has called on West Jerusalem to distance itself from the remarks, arguing that starving civilians constituted a “war crime,” and that advocating for this was “beyond ignominious.” UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has also called on the “wider Israeli government to retract and condemn” Smotrich’s comments, insisting that “there can be no justification” for his remarks.

Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Siebert, also called the finance minister’s statements “unacceptable and appalling,” and said it was a “principle of international law and of humanity to protect civilians in a war.” Meanwhile, the issue of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza has continued to raise concerns from the international community, with human rights organizations warning that the enclave remains at high risk of famine. The International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan has blamed Israel for the crisis and has sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for using “starvation as a method of war,” among other crimes. Israel, however, has denied accusations of restricting aid deliveries to the Palestinians, instead suggesting that Hamas was stealing the resources.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Rogan RFK

 

 

RoganUK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821661925383819366

 

 

Greet

 

 

Dog dive
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821466295939772680

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

O’Leary

 

 

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.

Read more …

“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.

Read more …

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.

Read more …

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.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 29 2024

Jul 292024
 
 July 29, 2024  Posted by at 9:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  71 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Courtyard of the hospital in Arles 1889

 

• Kamala Harris Is A “Low IQ Individual.” – Trump (RT)
• It All Tracks – Hersch Reports Obama Threatened Biden with 25th Amendment (CTH)
• For 25 Minutes, Secret Service Command Center Didn’t Notify Trump Detail (ZH)
• Will RFK Jr be Trump’s Vaccine Czar? (AT)
• Bitcoin Breaks Through (Quoth The Raven)
• Olympics Opening Ceremony Shows ‘Absence of Public Morality’ – Orban (Sp.)
• French Bishops Condemn Olympic ‘Mockery of Christianity’ (RT)
• German Publisher Stops All Printing of JD Vance’s Book Hillbilly Elegy (Turley)
• Erdogan Says Turkiye Could ‘Enter’ Israel To Help Gazans (Sp.)
• Erdogan ‘Going Down The Path of Saddam Hussein’ – Israeli FM (RT)
• Netanyahu Granted Powers To Devise Retaliation Against Hezbollah (RT)
• Houthis Announce ‘New Stage’ of Conflict With Israel, Urge Arabs to Unite (Sp.)
• T-Rex May Have Been 70% Bigger Than Previously Believed (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

K..a..m..a..l..a

 

 

Grassroots
https://twitter.com/i/status/1817429727100952993

 

 

Kamala 68
https://twitter.com/i/status/1817375226570633526

 

 

Eva
https://twitter.com/i/status/1817208920579916261

 

 

 

 

“..dumb as a rock.”

• Kamala Harris Is A “Low IQ Individual.” – Trump (RT)

Former US president and current Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has claimed that his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, is a “low-IQ individual.” Speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday, Trump called the cryptocurrency a “marvel of technology” and a “miracle of cooperation and human achievements.” The former president went on to praise the Bitcoin community as “very smart people,” and used the opportunity to disparage his election rival. “This room is amazing. The people in this room are high-IQ individuals. I’m running against a low IQ individual,” Trump told the audience. He had insulted Harris in the past, having described her as “dumb as a rock.” Harris became the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee last week after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

High-ranking Democrats and major party donors urged Biden to withdraw in the wake of his disastrous June debate with Trump, when more concerns were raised over his declining health and the ability to win the election in November. Harris has since secured enough commitments to be officially nominated as her party’s candidate at a convention next month, according to an Associate Press survey. During a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Tuesday, she launched a scathing attack against her rival, claiming that she knows “Donald Trump’s type” and listed “all kinds of predators” she dealt with when serving as a prosecutor. She repeatedly called Trump a “convicted felon” and accused him of “restoring to some wild lies.” The campaign was shaken up by an attempt to assassinate Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. Trump narrowly escaped death as the gunman’s bullet grazed his ear. The incident prompted the resignation of Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle, who admitted that the agency had failed to properly protect the former president.

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“2007 through 2017, that decade is filled with unlawful action by Barack Obama and the people behind him. This is the core of their ongoing need for control, likely for a generation or more..”

• It All Tracks – Hersch Reports Obama Threatened Biden with 25th Amendment (CTH)

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersch writes on his substack, an article outlying how his sources in Washington DC and the White House have confirmed to him that former President Barack Obama was the impetus to push Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race. Seymour Hersh says President Obama was “deeply involved” with the alleged coup and called Joe Biden after his “incident” in Las Vegas, which, from all outward appearances, looks like a major slip and fall – with a significant hit to the head. “I went over [reports] this week with a senior official in Washington who helped me fashion an account of a White House in complete disarray,” Hersh said. “Obama called Biden after breakfast [on July 20] and said, ‘Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment,’” a senior Washington official told Hersh. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries were reportedly directly involved.

Obama’s plan was to not to immediately endorse Kamala, but it was clear that she would “get the nod.” “[Obama] had an agenda and he wanted to seek it through to the end, and he wanted to have control over who would be elected.” (Hersch article encapsulated) Not only does this outline track with every datapoint known about events leading up to the Biden announcement, it also aligns with the entire background of the Obama team operating inside the Biden administration. Team Obama have always been in control. Heck, the Obamas never even left Washington DC after their term in office. The bigger understanding is in the final quote cited. “[Team Obama] had an agenda and he wanted to seek it through to the end, and he wanted to have control over who would be elected.” This is the part where people forget the risk to Team Obama that has never gone away.

The Obama “fundamental change” was a construct of malicious intent. Much of it fraught with unlawful activity only possible by weaponizing the various agencies and bureaus of the U.S. government. Going all the way back to 2007 through 2017, that decade is filled with unlawful action by Barack Obama and the people behind him. This is the core of their ongoing need for control, likely for a generation or more. President Obama and his likeminded ideological foot-soldiers weaponized the federal system of government. In every action from the moment he left office, Obama’s team have been working one long continuum of control in order to keep all of their prior activity hidden. The need for Kamala ‘brat’ Harris is simply another step in this long process to hide the activity.

• The NSA Database was weaponized to conduct political surveillance.
• The Dept of Justice was weaponized to target their political opposition.
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation was weaponized to act as the police investigative units for those targets.
• The Dept of Homeland Security was weaponized to control the evidence and information about their political targeting and surveillance.
• The IRS was weaponized against Obama’s political opposition.
• The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was weaponized to allow the targeting radar to sweep internally against American citizens under the guise of national security and domestic terror threats.
• The Central Intelligence Agency was weaponized allowing and permitting their “foreign surveillance” mandate to merge with the DHS internal surveillance mandate, while simultaneously the CIA conducted overseas political operations against the interests of sovereign countries. All of their activity in ideological alignment.
• The Defense Department was purged of patriotism, intentionally weakened through diversity equity and inclusion, and then boiled down to a flag corps of general willing to go along with the policy of Obama.
• Main Justice through the National Security Division used FARA violations to target anyone who was determined a threat to the fundamental change, and Main Justice began wholesale Lawfare operations against Donald Trump and any entity who would dare align with him.
• Hundreds of millions, likely billions, were funneled through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, The Green New Deal, The Inflation Reduction Act, and various legislative expenditures to foreign governments; those funds went directly into the bank accounts of Democrat donors and political activist groups.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, the part the awakened American public can look into and see for themselves. Underneath the waterline, there’s tens of thousands of vested interests, inside and outside of Washington DC, operating to maintain the fundamental change that Obama created. However, their defenses are weak and shallow, fraught with vulnerability and the endless need to avoid sunlight. All of that scheming, rot, corruption and unlawful activity makes them vulnerable. The need for control is a reaction to fear. The ‘fundamental change’ group are fraught with fear. That is why they consider the current political landscape as a zero-sum contest.

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You missed.

• For 25 Minutes, Secret Service Command Center Didn’t Notify Trump Detail (ZH)

While members of the Secret Service in a Butler, Pennsylvania command center were notified that an individual later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks was acting suspiciously before he tried to assassinate Donald Trump, members of the former president’s secret service detail were not informed of the threat, according to the Washington Post. Members of former president Donald Trump’s Secret Service detail and his top advisers have privately questioned why they were not informed that local police were tracking a suspicious person before that person opened fire on Trump at his July 13 rally in western Pennsylvania, according to people with direct knowledge of the concerns. Approximately 20 to 25 minutes before Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at the former president, local countersnipers noticed him behaving strangely and sent his photograph to a command center staffed by state troopers and Secret Service agents, the head of Pennsylvania State Police told a congressional committee Tuesday.

According to three sources, members of Trump’s Secret Service detail have complained to confidants and others inside the agency that they were never made aware of the warning, and they had no idea that local countersnipers eventually lost track of Crooks – or that a local police officer who was hoisted onto the roof of the building saw Crooks perched there with a gun. Trump was on stage a full eight minutes – roughly 20 minutes after Crooks was spotted and reported – before shots rang out, wounding Trump, critically wounding two others, and killing one rallygoer. “Nobody mentioned it. Nobody said there was a problem,” Trump told Fox News in an interview last Monday. “They could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes, something. Nobody said — I think that was a mistake.” Meanwhile, the Secret Service, which initially lied about denying Trump additional security requests, is not talking.

“As it relates to communications at the rally, the Secret Service is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again,” said spox Anthony Guglielmi, the guy who lied about the denied security. Trump’s team has been at odds with Secret Service headquarters over various requests that the agency denied, including more magnetometers at events, more countersnipers at some events and other specialty teams at other events, The Post has reported. The Secret Service and Trump’s team also repeatedly clashed over security and logistics at the Republican National Convention earlier this month. The Butler, Pa., shooting is also emblematic of what some Secret Service critics say are chronic communication problems that have dogged the agency and contributed to serious security lapses. -WaPo.

Yes, just a breakdown in communication. Nothing nefarious. Also on Monday, then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle deflected when asked by House lawmakers why the Secret Service didn’t immediately delay Trump’s speech when local police reported a suspicious person – telling the committee that such reports are commonplace. “At a number of our protected sites, there are suspicious individuals that are identified all the time,” she said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that they constitute a threat.” Cheatle – who resigned last week, admitted that the Secret Service was notified of a suspicious person at the Butler, PA rally “somewhere between two and five times,” and she didn’t know when Trump’s security detail was notified. Turns out, they weren’t.

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“The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, with his decades-long record investigating vaccines and with his bestselling exposé of Fauci and the corruption of the public-health establishment, would loom large in Trump’s legacy as well as RFK Jr’s.”

• Will RFK Jr be Trump’s Vaccine Czar? (AT)

In 2017, shortly before assuming the presidency, president-Elect Donald Trump asked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if he would be willing to investigate one of Trump’s top-of-mind concerns — the safety of vaccines. Trump’s goal, to have Kennedy chair a “Vaccine Safety and Scientific Integrity Commission,” was soon sidetracked by the Russiagate accusation and then Covid. But it was not forgotten. In a recent leaked videotaped discussion between Trump and Kennedy, Trump reminded Kennedy about their 2017 discussion and urged him to take on the vaccine issue again. “I would love you to do so,” Trump urged. Trump’s preoccupation with vaccines — coming the very day after the assasination attempt on his life and shortly before his formal acceptance as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee — demonstrates that the government bureaucracies overseeing the vaccine industry remain top-of-mind to him.

“Something is wrong with that whole system,” he stated. “When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a 10-pound or a 20-pound baby… do you ever see the size of it, its massive, then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times.” In an attempt to clinch the deal, Trump pointedly referred to Kennedy’s long commitment to reforming the CDC and the vaccine industry, highlighting the personal satisfaction such an accomplishment would bring, and its importance to Kennedy’s legacy. “And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you.” In their recent discussion, Trump and Kennedy didn’t discuss the specifics of what a renewed investigation of the vaccine industry would look like, but their 2017 discussion – an hour-long meeting held at Trump’s initiation that also included Kellyanne Conway and Mike Pence — raised the same issues that continue to preoccupy him today.

“He is troubled by questions of the links between certain vaccines and the epidemic of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism,” Kennedy told Science in a telephone interview at the time. “And he has a number — he told me five — friends, he talked about each one of them, who has the same story of a child, a perfectly healthy child who went into a wellness visit around age 2, got a battery of vaccines, spiked a fever, and then developed a suite of deficits in the 3 months following the vaccine. “He said that he understood that anecdote was not science, but said that if there’s enough anecdotal evidence… that we’d be arrogant to dismiss it. Those were his words.” In their recent discussion, Kennedy didn’t agree to take Trump up on his offer. No formal, detailed offer was even made, the call was merely the beginning of a process that Trump hoped would lead Kennedy to join the future Trump administration in a vaccine-related capacity.

The call wasn’t even supposed to be made public – Kennedy’s son, Bobby Kennedy III, leaked it on his own. “When President Trump called me, I was taping with an in-house videographer. I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately. I am mortified that this was posted. I apologize to the president,” Kennedy explained. Following the leak, Kennedy told the press that he was continuing with his candidacy for president. Should his candidacy fail and Trump’s succeeds, as appears likely, look to negotiations between them to proceed for a vaccine-related role in Trump’s administration. If Trump has a regret about his first term, it’s likely over his promotion of Covid vaccines — a policy that his base overwhelming opposes, so much so that it drew boos at his rallies. The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, with his decades-long record investigating vaccines and with his bestselling exposé of Fauci and the corruption of the public-health establishment, would loom large in Trump’s legacy as well as RFK Jr’s.

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“..two major presidential candidates in the United States, both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, have now publicly come out and supported Bitcoin. That, in and of itself, is enormous.”

• Bitcoin Breaks Through (Quoth The Raven)

Almost everybody in the Bitcoin world is already going to be aware of the headlines former President Donald Trump made last night at the Bitcoin 2024 conference. At Bitcoin 2024, Trump pledged that if re-elected, his administration would retain all federal Bitcoin holdings, establishing a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile.” He highlighted that the federal government currently possesses nearly 210,000 bitcoins, about 1% of the total supply, mostly seized from cybercriminals. Trump promised that his administration would never sell this Bitcoin, adhering to the fundamental Bitcoin principle of holding. Additionally, he vowed to fire SEC Chair Gary Gensler on his first day in office, criticizing Gensler’s stringent regulations that many believe have hindered innovation in the crypto industry. Anyway you slice it, last night was a flurry of positive Bitcoin-related headlines hitting the wire as soon as Trump took the stage and began speaking to the crowd of crypto enthusiasts.

The idea of bitcoin as a reserve asset has always been the holy grail for maximalists and Trump’s speech sent the idea of a bitcoin “standard” to supersonic speeds. And while there’s been plenty of speculation online about Trump’s motives, with some saying he’s simply fishing for votes from wherever he can get them, it doesn’t matter at this point: the game theory snowball of a Bitcoin “standard” has officially started rolling down the hill. This pro-Bitcoin psychology and reserve asset game theory, and what it could do for the world of Bitcoin regardless of whether or not Trump is elected, cannot be understated. The Bitcoin community has now, for the first time, seen a former and potential US president endorse the cryptocurrency as a strategic reserve asset for the country. This is multiple times more consequential than Wall Street listing Bitcoin ETFs, in my opinion, because it accelerates Bitcoin’s adoption regardless of whether or not Trump is elected our next president.

The idea that the United States could potentially make Bitcoin part of a monetary standard has officially been launched into the orbit of the country’s economic zeitgeist. For comparison, when I started to warm up to the idea of Bitcoin about 6 months ago, I speculated that Middle Eastern money would be the next, after El Salvador, to put Bitcoin on a sovereign balance sheet. From there, I speculated such a move could unleash a tsunami of game theory, with multiple other countries scrambling to catch up across the world, not unlike the way Democrats — the party of Elizabeth “Ban Crypto” Warren — are now scrambling to play catch-up and modify their position stance on crypto. Too late, losers. If you would have told me months ago that one of the two major United States presidential candidates and a former president would be the first to assure the world they would place Bitcoin on the sovereign balance sheet of the most powerful nation in the world, I would have been assured the rest of the world would follow.

That is exactly the case that is unfolding. And, by removing the red tape in the world of Bitcoin, not only would the Trump administration send adoption of the asset to stratospheric levels, it would also be the first tacit public acknowledgment that the fiscal crisis unfolding in the United States is not sustainable and must be dealt with via means other than printing dollars. In other words, holding a bitcoin reserve would represent an attempt at a strategic move to sound money, regardless of whether or not Bitcoin itself stands the test of time.

Yesterday not only marked a momentous occasion for Bitcoin, it marked a momentous occasion for everybody on the Austrian side of the economic aisle who has been waiting for a politician to begin to make serious concessions that the fiscal trajectory the country and the dollar are on is not sustainable. It was a limited hangout of sorts – a passive admission that eventually, the country is going to need a solution to its monetary problem that is outside the Keynesian pattern of simply printing more fiat. And so even if you are first and foremost an advocate for gold or silver, like I am, it’s easy to see last night’s comments by President Trump as not just a victory for Bitcoin but a victory for economic common sense. Just think about this: two major presidential candidates in the United States, both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, have now publicly come out and supported Bitcoin. That, in and of itself, is enormous.

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“They have gradually shed metaphysical ties, with God, country and family..”

• Olympics Opening Ceremony Shows ‘Absence of Public Morality’ – Orban (Sp.)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban described the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris as “the weakness and disintegration of the West”, La Depeche reported. The politician believes that the event that sparked a fierce public backlash was the embodiment of the Western void. “They have gradually shed metaphysical ties, with God, country and family,” Orban said, adding that it has led to “the absence of public morality, as you could see if you watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics yesterday.” Orban also pointed out that the collective West denies the existence of nation states, resulting in the absence of a common culture and a common morality based on it. “Western values, long considered universal, are increasingly considered unacceptable and rejected by many countries in the world,” he concluded.

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Never again.

• French Bishops Condemn Olympic ‘Mockery of Christianity’ (RT)

The Bishops’ Conference of France has denounced the organizers of the Olympic Games over an LGBTQ-themed parody of the Last Supper during the event’s opening ceremony. The organizers have claimed that the performance reflected their “values and principles.” The ceremony, which took place in central Paris on Friday night, concluded with a troupe of drag queens, homosexuals, and transsexuals posing at a table, as Jesus Christ and his apostles appeared in Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’. A giant serving dish was then wheeled out in front of the table, from which emerged a mostly naked man made up to resemble Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and festivity. Throughout the performance, a male dancer’s exposed testicles could be seen behind the table. “This ceremony unfortunately included scenes in which Christianity was mocked and ridiculed, which we deeply regret,” the Bishops’ Conference said in a statement on Saturday.

“We thank the members of other religious denominations who have expressed their solidarity with us,” the statement continued. “This morning we think of all Christians on all continents who have been hurt by the exaggeration and provocation of some scenes.” The ceremony was condemned by Christians and conservatives around the world. Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota called the performance a “gross mockery of the Last Supper,” while Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini declared that “opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians across the world was a really bad start” for France. SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk described the spectacle as “extremely disrespectful to Christians,” while tech entrepreneur Dr. Eli David wrote that “even as a Jew,” he was “infuriated by this outrageous insult to Jesus and Christianity.”

Olympic organizers have defended the opening show. “We imagined a ceremony to show our values and our principles so we gave a very committed message,” Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet told reporters on Saturday. “The idea was to really trigger a reflection. We wanted to have a message as strong as possible.” “Our idea was inclusion,” added Thomas Jolly, the ceremony’s artistic director. “We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everybody.”

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“German readers want to read the book, which Ullstein acknowledged is one of the most influential works of this generation..”

• German Publisher Stops All Printing of JD Vance’s Book Hillbilly Elegy (Turley)

JD Vance is a marked man. After accepting the nomination for vice president, Vance has been the subject of endless media attacks. Recently, Vice President Kamala Harris even questioned his “loyalty” to the country despite his serving as a Marine in the Iraq War. Yet, one of the most chilling attacks came from Germany where the publishing house Ullstein Buchverlage has stopped printing the sold-out German translation of Hillbilly Elegy, his 2016 autobiography. As we have discussed previously in this country, it is the modern left’s equivalent of book burning. After all, why burn books when you can simply prevent their being printed under blacklisting campaigns? In this country, we have seen the left successfully force book bans for writers and even justices who espouse opposing viewpoints. We have seen actual calls for book burning recently (here and here).

Ullstein is facing a high demand for Vance’s best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy, but has refused to print more copies due to his political viewpoints (unrelated to the book). First published in 2016 and made into a movie in 2020, the book returned to the top position on The New York Times‘ bestseller list after Trump chose Vance as his running mate. HarperCollins is rushing to print more books to meet the demand. Some in the United States are already balking at the selling of any book by Vance. Seven Stories Press wrote, “Seven Stories Press is extremely thrilled to have never published JD Vance.” Ullstein published the German translation of Hillbilly Elegy in 2017 and held the rights to reprints. The company cited Vance’s allegiance with Trump and his politics as the reason in a statement to German media:

“At the time of its publication, the book made a valuable contribution to understanding the drifting apart of US society…In the meantime, he is officially acting alongside him and advocating an aggressively demagogic, exclusionary policy.” German author Gerd Buurmann posted a mocking response that we should be happy that Ullstein had just thrown Vance’s book out of its catalogue and not into the fire – a reference to the notorious Nazi book burnings of the 1930s. Other Germans have raised the same objections and referenced the painful history of book bans and burnings in Germany under the Nazis. German readers want to read the book, which Ullstein acknowledged is one of the most influential works of this generation. However, because the company disagrees with his political viewpoints, it moved to block others from reading the book.

We have seen similar campaigns leading to the banning or burning of books by figures like JK Rowling because of her opposition to some transgender policies. The left now protests any programs on Rowling’s work and opposes the selling of her enormously popular Harry Potter series or even video games based on the series. When authors have defended her right to be published, they have also been subjected to cancel campaigns. Yet, Ullstein’s decision is particularly chilling as a publishing house. Again, we have seen editors at publishing houses sign petitions to bar books by conservative figures like Justice Amy Coney Barrett from being published.

In 1933, thousands of books by Jewish and leftist writers were burned throughout Germany. Publishing houses further banned the printing of these books. The books were announced as corrupting the minds of German citizens. Many books were banned or burned on the basis of the authors being Jewish or known socialists or anarchists. Now the left has developed a taste for censorship and blacklisting. Editors and publishing houses are blacklisting those with conservative or libertarian views as forms of dangerous viewpoints or disinformation. Ullstein will, of course, not stop people from reading the work of JD Vance. While it may make it more difficult for Germans to find copies, ideas like water have a way of finding their way out. Blacklisting and censorship have not succeeded in killing a single idea. What it does is reveal the true character and values of those who want to prevent others from hearing opposing viewpoints.

Read more …

He looks alone for now.

• Erdogan Says Turkiye Could ‘Enter’ Israel To Help Gazans (Sp.)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkiye could “enter” Israel just as it once did in Libya and Karabakh. Speaking at a meeting of the ruling party branch in the president’s native province of Rize, Erdogan noted the success of the country’s defense industry, but urged not to be deceived by them. According to the president, if the successes had been even greater, Israel “would not have done to Palestine what it did.” “We must be strong. As we entered Karabakh, as we entered Libya, so we will do to them [Israel]. There is nothing we cannot do. We must be strong to take such steps,” Erdogan said in a speech broadcast by the national television. Erdogan also once again recalled the refusal of the leader of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to speak in the Turkish parliament. Earlier, the Turkish president urged Abbas to apologize.

The Turkish parliament approved the extension of the mandate for the deployment of the Turkish military contingent in Libya for two years from January 2024. Turkiye supported Azerbaijan during the Second Karabakh War in the fall of 2020, and Turkish drones actively participated in the operations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in the US Congress on Wednesday, sparking protests by anti-war activists at the Capitol. Turkish politicians, including Erdogan, harshly criticized the speech of “war criminal” Netanyahu in the Congress and those senators who gave him a standing ovation. On October 7, 2023, Israel was subjected to an unprecedented rocket attack from the Gaza Strip. After that, fighters of Palestinian movement Hamas penetrated the border areas, opened fire on the military and civilians, and took more than 200 hostages.

According to the authorities, about 1,200 people were killed. The Israel Defense Forces launched Operation Iron Swords in the Gaza Strip, which included strikes on civilian targets. Israel announced a complete blockade of the enclave: supplies of water, electricity, fuel, food and medicine were stopped. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the death toll from Israeli strikes on the enclave since October 7 has exceeded 39,000, with more than 89,800 people injured. The Russian Foreign Ministry called on the parties to cease hostilities. According to Moscow’s position, a settlement is only possible on the basis of the UN Security Council-approved formula with the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem.

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Sounds like a personal threat.

• Erdogan ‘Going Down The Path of Saddam Hussein’ – Israeli FM (RT)

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has warned that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could end up like the toppled and executed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein if he attempts to intervene in the Gaza war. Erdogan traded threats with Israeli officials on Sunday amid the IDF’s operation against Hamas in Gaza, as well as the rapidly escalating tensions between Israel and the Lebanese-based armed group Hezbollah. Speaking at a rally in his hometown of Rize, Erdogan suggested that Türkiye could “enter” Israel in order to help the Palestinians. “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine,” Erdogan said. In the past he has condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza to those of Nazi Germany – and likened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

Katz responded with a warning of his own on X (formerly Twitter). “Erdogan is going down the path of Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel,” he wrote, adding that the Turkish leader “should just remember what happened there and how that ended.” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid also blasted Erdogan, calling him a “danger to the Middle East” and a “wannabe dictator.” “The world, and especially NATO members, must strongly condemn his outrageous threats against Israel and force him to end his support for Hamas,” Lapid wrote on X. Saddam Hussein was overthrown during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. He went into hiding, but was eventually caught by US troops, convicted by an Iraqi court of crimes against humanity, and executed by hanging in 2006.

The US under President George W. Bush claimed at the time that the Iraqi leader had connections to Al-Qaeda – a group behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks – and had weapons of mass destruction. Both claims later turned out to be false, but Washington used them as rationale for attacking Iraq, despite having failed to secure the approval of the UN Security Council.

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“Iran has warned that Israel would face an “obliterating war” in case of a “full-scale military aggression” against Lebanon..”

• Netanyahu Granted Powers To Devise Retaliation Against Hezbollah (RT)

Israel’s security cabinet has authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to determine the scope of a potential military operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon. During the meeting on Sunday evening, the cabinet agreed to let Netanyahu and Gallant “decide on the manner and timing of the response” to Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks. Tensions flared up on Saturday after a rocket hit a football pitch in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing 12 children. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) blamed Hezbollah for the strike and later showed photos of shrapnel that it said matched an Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket, which is used by the pro-Palestinian militant group. According to the IDF, the rocket was launched from the Chebaa area in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah, however, denied any involvement in the strike on Majdal Shams. The group has been firing rockets and mortar shells at Israeli positions after the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7. The IDF carried out further airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Sunday. However, there is an expectation of a stronger response from Israel, including a potential ground invasion, given the warnings made by leading politicians over the weekend, with Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying that Hezbollah has “crossed all red lines.” Iran has warned that Israel would face an “obliterating war” in case of a “full-scale military aggression” against Lebanon. The US, meanwhile, has backed Israel and condemned Hezbollah. Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said through her national security adviser that her “support for Israel is ironclad.”

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“..Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi vowed that Yemen’s response was “inevitable.”

• Houthis Announce ‘New Stage’ of Conflict With Israel, Urge Arabs to Unite (Sp.)

Yemen is entering a “new stage” of its war with Israel, and is asking Arab and Muslim countries to unite to help wage it, Houthi political bureau member Ali al-Qahoum has told Sputnik. “Yemen and its leader are entering a new stage of conflict, new alliances are being created that do not have red lines,” Al-Qahoum said. “As long as Israel exists, there will be no peace – this is an existential battle. It is time to unite Arabs and Muslims, use their opportunities and stand together in this battle to preserve the identity of Islam and Arabism in the face of the challenges, dangers and projects of the Great Satan represented by America and Israel,” the official said, using the derogatory epithet originating from the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and typically referring to the United States. Al-Qahoum’s language signals a marked escalation in the militia’s position, which at the beginning of its Red Sea semi-blockade and missile attacks on Israel last October and November was aimed at “standing in solidarity” with Palestinians with a view to stopping the now more than nine-month old war in Gaza.

The Houthi political bureau member has not shied away from using increasingly sharp rhetoric in interviews in recent months, warning Washington in January that Yemen would become America’s “graveyard” and that the US would be forced to “leave the region in humiliation” after the US and British navies launched a campaign of air and missile strikes inside Yemen. In March, al-Qahoum said the Houthis were “cooperating” with the rising powers in the world to “drown America and the West in the mire around the Red Sea, to get them bogged down, weaken[ed] and unable to maintain unipolarity.” Tensions between the Houthis and Israel escalated dramatically over the past week after the militia flew a long-range airplane-style combat drone into Tel Aviv on July 19, evading Israel’s powerful air defenses in an incident the IDF attributed to “human error.” One person was killed in the attack, and seven were injured.

Israel reacted by launching F-35I jets to target the western Yemeni Red Sea port city of al-Hudaydah on July 20, targeting the port’s oil facilities and a power plant. The attacks were meant to make “it clear to our enemies that there is no place that the long arm of Israel will not reach,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. At least nine people were killed and 87 others injured in the Israeli attack, according to local authorities. The Houthis have vowed to respond to the tit-for-tat escalation, with Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam, saying last week that Israel’s “brutal aggression will only increase the determination and steadfastness of the Yemeni people and their brave armed forces, continuing and escalating their support for Gaza.” In a televised speech on Thursday, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi vowed that Yemen’s response was “inevitable.”

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“..2.5 billion T-Rex once lived on Earth. But just 32 adult fossils have ever been found..”

• T-Rex May Have Been 70% Bigger Than Previously Believed (Sp.)

According to a new study, the king of dinosaurs may have been 70% heavier and 25% longer than previously thought. Paleontologists from the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario, said the carnivorous T-Rex could have weighed up to 33,000 pounds (15,000 kilograms), which would make it 35% heavier than an average school bus. In an effort to determine how big the dinosaur could get, scientists first examined the fossil record, which shows that a total of about 2.5 billion T-Rex once lived on Earth. But just 32 adult fossils have ever been found. The largest T-Rex on record is a specimen named “Scotty”, which weighed an estimated 19,555 lbs (8,870 kg) when it was alive.

But the largest T-Rex “would have been about 70% bigger” than Scotty, said study co-author Jordan Mallon, a research scientist and head of palaeobiology at the Canadian Museum of Nature. “Our study suggests that, for big fossil animals like T-Rex, we really have no idea from the fossil record about the absolute sizes they might have reached,” said Mallon, whose team also took into consideration other factors including population size, growth rate, lifespan, and the incomplete nature of the fossil record. “It’s fun to think about a 15 tonne T-Rex, but the implications are also interesting from a bio-mechanical or ecological perspective,” he said.

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Dog n puppy

 

 

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