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Debt Rattle March 13 2024

Mar 132024
 
 March 13, 2024  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  52 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Le moulin de blute fin 1886

 

• Biden Impeachment Inquiry Reveals US Being Ruled by ‘Demented Gangsters’ (Sp.)
• Trump Tightens Control Over GOP – Politico (RT)
• Trump Did Propose 10,000 National Guard Troops on January 6th (Turley)
• Trump Vows to Free Jan. 6 ‘Hostages’ in First Act as President (ET)
• Biden, Along With NATO, Is Losing His Grip on Reality (Jay)
• Macron ‘Panicked’ Over Leaked Ukraine Reports – Marianne (RT)
• Polish Troops Would Never Leave Ukraine – Putin (RT)
• Why The Only Credible Peace Deal Between Russia And Ukraine Collapsed (Poletaev)
• Russia’s Response To Asset Seizure Could Trigger Global Financial Collapse (RT)
• US Builds Gaza Port To Facilitate Mass ‘Voluntary’ Migration: Anadolu (Cradle)
• What is it with Conservatives and Jews? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Boeing Failed 37% of Audits by US Regulators (Sp.)
• Only Revolutionary Love Can Save Us Now (Alexander)
• Confident Dragon Lays Out Modernization Roadmap (Pepe Escobar)
• Twilight of the Blobs (Jim Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Lots of Robert Hur snippet videos, topped off by Matt Gaetz’s description of Joe Biden:

“The elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


https://twitter.com/i/status/1767589194342506788

 

 

Hur Jordan

 

 

 

 

“..the old Delaware daughter sniffer” will be replaced by somebody “set up to lose to Donald Trump, or at least that’s the way it certainly looks right now.”

• Biden Impeachment Inquiry Reveals US Being Ruled by ‘Demented Gangsters’ (Sp.)

The weaponization of the US Department of Justice against US President Joe Biden’s accusers reveals that the United States is ruled by “complete and total demented gangsters,” Steve Poikonen, who serves as the host of the Slow News Day show, told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Monday. Poikonen was speaking with co-hosts Wilmer Leon and Garland Nixon about the impeachment inquiry into US President Joe Biden over claims the commander-in-chief was involved in alleged influence peddling scheme linked to his son, Hunter Biden. Poikonen said that Joe Biden is an “outright criminal,” adding that there is “more than enough evidence to impeach him and arrest him based on him bragging about stuff on camera.” “We really are being, allegedly, governed by complete and total demented gangsters,” he added later.

Asked about former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who was charged with lying to the FBI about Hunter Biden, despite being seen as a credible informant for years, Poikonen compared it to WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange’s extradition case, during which, a key witness, Sigurdur Ingiu Thordarson, admitted he fabricated his testimony to get immunity. “The convicted pedophile whose testimony was used in part to deny to make sure [Assange] was going to be extradited to the US, said ‘I made it up, I made it all up for the immunity agreement’… and [the DOJ is] going ‘this is still admissible and this is still something that helps solidify our case against a journalist’… on the other hand… the same DOJ is using the exact opposite [in the Biden case], ‘well, we believed him when we liked it, but now that we don’t like it, we’re going to tell you that he’s full of it.’” Poikonen further asserted the FBI does not want to look too deeply into the Hunter Biden case as it could potentially blow back on the agency. “The FBI is complicit in absolutely every facet of this,” he said.

Nixon noted former US President Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani were also charged or attacked after looking into the Biden family’s business dealings in Ukraine, in addition to Smirnov. Poikonen acknowledged that another name should be added to that list: former Hunter Biden business partner Jason Galanis. “[Galanis had to] testify from a prison cell because as soon as he had information that could lead to the arrest of Hunter or Joe Biden, he found himself going to court over a $60 million bond fraud … It’s selective prosecution based on perceived political opponents or real bumps in the road.” That situation has resulted in the US resembling something that looks “a whole lot less like any sort of democracy or a free and fair society and a whole lot more like an oligarchy that is ruled by violence and theft and extortion and threats.” Due to the corruption case and the American president’s apparent mental decline, Poikonen said he believes Biden, who he called “the old Delaware daughter sniffer” will be replaced by somebody “set up to lose to Donald Trump, or at least that’s the way it certainly looks right now.”

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Not half work. They learned their lesson.

“.. the firing of more than 60 McDaniel-era staffers, including the heads of the political, communications, and data departments.”

“..the RNC’s finance and digital teams will be moved to Palm Beach, Florida, to bring them closer to the Trump campaign’s base..”

• Trump Tightens Control Over GOP – Politico (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has taken charge of the Republican National Committee (RNC), installing his daughter-in-law and political allies in senior leadership roles and, according to Politico, firing dozens of staffers. The swift takeover ensures that the party’s manpower and funding will be entirely directed toward his election campaign. Michael Whatley, a senior party official in North Carolina, and Lara Trump were voted in as the RNC’s new chair and co-chair on Friday, following the resignation of Ronna McDaniel. Trump had accused McDaniel of bungling the 2022 midterm elections and failing to sufficiently back his claims of fraud after the 2020 presidential election, and endorsed Whatley to take her position in February. Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita was named as the RNC’s new chief of staff, and the committee also voted to recognize the former president as the party’s nominee to take on President Joe Biden this November.

In his acceptance speech, Whatley said that the RNC will work “hand in glove” with the Trump campaign over the next eight months to mobilize voters and prevent voter fraud. While the Republican and Democratic national committees typically back whichever candidate secures their party’s nomination, Trump has yet to secure the support of enough Republican delegates to formally clinch the title. However, Trump has won 1,078 out of the 1,215 delegates needed for nomination, and with no primary challengers remaining after Nikki Haley bowed out of the race last week, he is all but certain to be picked when the Republican National Convention is held in July. Trump’s reshaping of the RNC continued on Monday, with Politico reporting the firing of more than 60 McDaniel-era staffers, including the heads of the political, communications, and data departments.

According to a report by the New York Times, the RNC’s finance and digital teams will be moved to Palm Beach, Florida, to bring them closer to the Trump campaign’s base. Under McDaniel, the RNC consistently failed to match the fundraising power of the Democratic National Committee. As of the end of December, the RNC had around $8 million cash on hand, roughly a third as much as the DNC’s war chest, Politico noted. Before dropping out of the race last week, Haley warned that Trump would likely use the RNC’s funds to pay his mounting legal bills. “I don’t want the RNC to become his piggy bank for his personal court cases,” she told CNN last month. Lara Trump has refused to say whether she would allow RNC funds to be used for this purpose, but told reporters that the former president’s supporters had “a big interest” in the cases against him.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1767324470971113773

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“..I remember the number 10,000 coming up of, you know, the President wants to make sure that you have enough. You know, he is willing to ask for 10,000. I remember that number.”

• Trump Did Propose 10,000 National Guard Troops on January 6th (Turley)

One of the long-standing unanswered questions from the January 6th riot has been why the Capitol was so poorly prepared and defended on that day. A newly released transcript has caused a firestorm in Washington over allegations that the J6 Committee downplayed or even suppressed evidence that former President Donald Trump personally suggested the deployment of 10,000 national guard troops to prevent violence. The transcript also includes contradictions of major allegations that ran wild in the media. That includes the claim that Trump tried to physically grab the steering wheel of the presidential limo, “The Beast,” when Secret Service refused to take him to the Capitol. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson was the source of the claim, which appeared in most of the media and was highlighted in her testimony. However, it appears that the J6 Committee had testimony of secret service agents directly contradicting that account, including the driver. However, it is the National Guard question that is more weighty for historical purposes.

Trump has long claimed that he proposed the deployment of the National Guard troops (as was done previously at the White House during violent protests). The January 6th Committee said that was a lie. The release of the transcript by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R., Ga.) triggered attacks on the J6 Committee. The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway wrote a column titled “Former Rep. Liz Cheney’s January 6 Committee suppressed evidence.” That triggered an angry response from former co-chair Liz Cheney which led to an even angrier reply from commentator Mark Levin. The anger is nothing new in a J6 investigation that seemed to produce more heat than light. Cheney’s spokesperson called the Federalist report “flatly false” and added “no transcripts were destroyed” while acknowledging that some material was not published “to allow the Secret Service to protect sensitive security information for interviews of its agents before preserving that testimony in the archives.”

The issue of the suppression or destruction of the evidence has drawn a lot of attention, but the more troubling question is the fact that such an offer was made and declined. The Committee found “no evidence” that the Trump administration called for 10,000 National Guard members to Washington, D.C., to protect the Capitol. That now stands contradicted and the question is whether Cheney or other members knew the public was being misled on the question. For example, the Washington Post “debunked” Trump’s comments with an award of “Four Pinocchios.” The Post’s Glenn Kessler admitted that Trump raised the issue but noted that he might have been suggesting the troops “not because he wanted to protect the Capitol,” but to suggest that he and his supporters were being threatened. He added that “Trump brought up the issue on at least three occasions but in such vague and obtuse ways that no senior official regarded his words as an order.”

However, the issue is not whether Trump issued “an order” but made an offer that was declined. For those of us who were covering the event on that day, the question has always been prominent in our minds. I was critical of Trump’s speech while he was still giving it. However, before the Capitol was breached, I also noted that I had never seen the Capitol so thinly protected in a major protest. We had just seen violent protests outside of the White House with a large number of police officers injured and extensive property damage, including arson. President Trump and his family had to be moved to a secure location out of concern of an imminent breach of the White House. National Guard were deployed and fencing installed. Even without an offer, it remains unclear why the violence around the White House did not prompt Congress to install the same barriers and deploy the same troops. (They ultimately took both steps but only after the rioters gained entry into the Capitol).

Moreover, if an offer was clearly made, it undermines the allegations that Trump was actively seeking an insurrection. While he has never been charged with an insurrection or even incitement, that allegation was used more recently to support his disqualification from the ballots in Colorado, Maine, and Illinois. The transcript contains the testimony of former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony Ornato’s interview on January 2022 with Cheney present. Ornato states that he clearly recalled the offer of 10,000 troops being made by Trump in a conversation with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser: “I was there, and he was on the phone with her and wanted to make sure she had everything that she needed. Because I think it was the concern of anti and pro groups clashing is what I recall…I remember the number 10,000 coming up of, you know, the President wants to make sure that you have enough. You know, he is willing to ask for 10,000. I remember that number.”

Ornato said that Browser said that they would not need the troops. (She ultimately asked for only 300 troops). There are also reports that then Speaker Nancy Pelosi was worried about the “optics” of military reinforcements at the Capitol. Ornato also said that he recalled that, after Bowser refused additional National Guard members, the White House requested the Defense Department have a “quick reaction force” ready on that day. He gave details on meetings with the Defense Department and follow up from Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Hemingway noted in her report that Ornato’s testimony was supported by former Trump administration aide Kash Patel. Cheney has attacked Patel as unreliable. Ornato also testified that Meadows and others were frustrated by the delay in getting those troops to the Hill. The delay was blamed on the logistics, not some conspiracy to enable or facilitate an insurrection.

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“..he would not pardon all of those imprisoned, telling the audience that “a couple of them, probably they got out of control.”

• Trump Vows to Free Jan. 6 ‘Hostages’ in First Act as President (ET)

Former President Donald Trump has vowed to release individuals imprisoned over the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol if he wins the 2024 election in November. President Trump made the comments in a statement on Truth Social on March 11, noting that it would be among one of his first acts upon taking office in the White House. The Republican said shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border and increasing oil drilling as part of efforts to make America more energy independent would also be among his first actions as president. “My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!” President Trump said. President Trump said during a rally in Texas in 2022 that he would consider pardoning those convicted of their involvement in the Jan. 6 breach, noting that his administration would treat them “fairly.”

“If it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly,” he said at the time. Last year, President Trump told a town hall hosted by CNN at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire that he was inclined to pardon a “large portion” of those charged with crimes relating to the breach. However, the Republican stressed he would not pardon all of those imprisoned, telling the audience that “a couple of them, probably they got out of control.” At a rally in Iowa on the third anniversary of the breach at the start of this year, President Trump referred to the individuals arrested in the wake of the Jan. 6 breach as “hostages” who had suffered enough.” He then urged President Joe Biden to release them adding: “You can do it real easy, Joe.” President Trump’s latest comments mark the first time he has suggested that releasing those imprisoned over the Jan. 6 breach would be a top priority and that he will take immediate action to do so if he wins the November election.

According to the most recent statement from the Department of Justice (DOJ), more than 1,358 individuals from nearly all 50 states have been charged with crimes linked to the breach of the U.S. Capitol. This includes more than 486 individuals who were handed felony charges for assaulting or impeding law enforcement. Most recently, a 43-year-old Maryland man was arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges—including offenses of civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers—in relation to the events of Jan. 6. President Trump himself has been indicted over allegations related to his actions on Jan. 6 and alleged attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 election, including conspiring to defraud the country and obstructing an official proceeding. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

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“.. the American public who are more concerned about the price of groceries, gas pumps and their utility bills rather than what was going on in 1941..”

• Biden, Along With NATO, Is Losing His Grip on Reality (Jay)

The state of the union speech was an insight into how the senile U.S. president is stuck in the past, out of touch with the reality of a multipolar world. While many will wonder whether he wrote the speech himself or it was drafted for him, President Joe Biden made his case to the American public in simple terms. Vote for me, as I am living the dream of USA 80 years ago. The references to the second world war should have shocked the American public who are more concerned about the price of groceries, gas pumps and their utility bills rather than what was going on in 1941. And yet 1941 for any half-rate history teacher in Alabama would seem an odd choice of dates to pluck out of nowhere and use as a reference point to present America as an unchallenged superpower. As it was, after all, the date where German troops took on their greatest challenge – Russia – and were mercilessly defeated through, amongst other military considerations – being both deluded about their strengths and poor military planning.

Those two points might be on the minds of western elites while Biden used the podium to once again beg Congress to approve his aid package for Ukraine. As even the BBC correspondent in Ukraine admitted – that Russia was now advancing and its troops no longer taking villages but now towns – it would seem that NATO planners have indeed repeated the Barbarossa lesson. Is this the real reason why the bill cannot get passed? The Americans have realised they have simply bitten off more than they can chew in Ukraine and the humiliation already of three U.S.-made Abrams tanks – the most cumbersome, impractical and overrated piece of modern U.S. military hardware ever conceived – along with a general ground swell of opinion that the war can never be won is weighing down on them. Even the Guardian newspaper recently published an opinion piece by Simon Jenkins who argued the case the NATO had become “reckless” in Ukraine, citing the carelessness of the German phone tap which revealed the plan to hit the bridge in Crimea, seemed to draw a new water line of despondency.

Perhaps this explained why Biden didn’t take too much time on harping on about Ukraine in his speech, preferring more to use the opportunity to strike out at Trump – a tactic which surely confirms that he is as stupid as he looks as it will surely backfire on him and raise Trump’s prowess ever further. Instead, Biden attempted at great length to divert cash back into the pockets of humble Americans who don’t understand how the so-called trickle down affect is supposed to work – how big businesses making huge profits don’t always distribute their gains throughout the financial system – by admitting that it is not working. On paper, the figures show that the U.S. is doing well. Try explaining that to millions of Americans facing hardship on a scale never before seen. Biden is going to be remembered in history as the buffoon who left office while two wars raged in the world, while he raised taxes from corporations and can’t remember where he is, or what day of the week it is. He will be remembered for the fiasco of the pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and for his incoherent dithering. And for that bloody ice cream.

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“Make no mistake, up against the Russians we are an army of cheerleaders!”

• Macron ‘Panicked’ Over Leaked Ukraine Reports – Marianne (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron’s talk about maybe sending troops to aid Kiev may have been spurred by three assessments produced by the French military that painted a dire picture of the Ukraine conflict, according to the magazine Marianne. The reports, which have somehow found their way into the weekly’s possession, argued that Ukraine wrecked its Western-trained force in the failed 2023 offensive, has run out of men to mobilize, and that its recent loss in Avdeevka shows it can’t even hold the line against Russia. “Ukraine cannot win this war militarily,” concludes the first report, written in the fall of 2023, following Kiev’s disastrous ground offensive. It praises the Russian forces as the new “tactical and technical” standard of how to run defensive operations and debunks the media myth of “meat assaults.”

For the West to continue pursuing a military solution in Ukraine would be “the most serious error of analysis and judgment,” the classified document said, according to Marianne. Sending French troops to Ukraine would be “unreasonable,” one senior officer wrote. “Make no mistake, up against the Russians we are an army of cheerleaders!” he added. The second report, outlining the prospects for 2024, says that Kiev needs 35,000 men per month but is “recruiting less than half” of that number, while Russia enlists 30,000 volunteers monthly. Meanwhile, the 2023 offensive “tactically destroyed” half of Kiev’s 12 combat brigades. “The West can provide 3D printers to manufacture drones or loitering munitions, but will never be able to print men,” the report said. One solution it advised was sending Western troops to Ukraine to carry out support tasks in the rear, freeing the Ukrainians for frontline duty.

The second report also acknowledged the Western special forces and “soldiers in civilian clothes” had a far greater presence in Ukraine than officially acknowledged, including “quite a few British,” as well as French naval commandos training the Ukrainians. The third and latest report, which had the French observers “in cold sweat,” described the Battle of Avdeevka as a possible “rout” of Ukrainian forces. It described how Russia created “hell” for the Ukrainian troops by using massive glide bombs to inflict more than 1,000 casualties per day. The French document also described the Ukrainian retreat on February 17 as “sudden and unprepared.” At the end of February, Macron made an argument to NATO members that all options for helping Ukraine should be “on the table,” implying the possibility of sending ground troops. The idea was publicly repudiated by most members of the US-led bloc, however.

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”..Polish officials sleep and dream of returning “those lands that they consider historically their own, and which were taken from them by… Joseph Stalin..”

• Polish Troops Would Never Leave Ukraine – Putin (RT)

Any attempt to send Polish troops into Ukraine may end up with a long-term occupation, President Vladimir Putin has warned in an extensive interview with Russian journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, which is set to be aired by Rossiya 1 TV and RIA Novosti on Wednesday. “If Polish troops enter the territory of Ukraine in order to, as they say, secure the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, for example, or in some other places to free up Ukrainian rear military units to participate in hostilities on the frontline, then I think that Polish troops will never leave,” Puitin said, according to snippets of the interview.

The deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine amid the conflict with Russia is “not unthinkable,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski claimed last week. He was commenting on a statement by French President Emmanuel Macron, who said late last month that he “cannot exclude” the possibility of soldiers from the US-led military bloc being sent to aid Kiev. Putin believes that Polish officials sleep and dream of returning “those lands that they consider historically their own, and which were taken from them by… Joseph Stalin, and transferred to Ukraine.” “They certainly want them back. So if official Polish units enter there, they are unlikely to leave,” he reiterated.

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‘The decision is yours, Mr. Zelensky. If you choose war, we will support you with money and weapons; if you choose peace, you will be left on your own with Putin..’

• Why The Only Credible Peace Deal Between Russia And Ukraine Collapsed (Poletaev)

So, what really happened in April 2022? Apparently, upon arriving in Kiev, Johnson told Zelensky (speaking on behalf of the UK, US, and France) something along the lines of: ‘You can sign anything you want, but we will not sign anything and we are not ready to provide any guarantees, especially considering your requirements and wording. ‘The decision is yours, Mr. Zelensky. If you choose war, we will support you with money and weapons; if you choose peace, you will be left on your own with Putin.’ This matches the West’s subsequent actions and decisions, since so far, no one in the West has taken on any legal obligations in regard to Ukraine. Even the agreements on military assistance concluded this spring are nothing more than a set of declarations which are convenient for the West. Here’s the collective stance of Western leaders: NATO is not ready to provide any guarantees to Ukraine and will not sign any agreements.

If all this is indeed true (and the facts seem to leave no room for doubt), then it was Zelensky who made the fatal decision to stop negotiations. And while the West pushed him to this decision, its leaders also fell into the trap of believing that the conflict could be settled on the battlefield. At some point, instead of following a rational course, Western elites allowed their emotions to get the better of them. Zelensky convinced them that the Armed Forces of Ukraine could defeat Russia, and they believed this to such an extent that they were willing to risk their political standing and even the future of the entire current liberal world order. All this has led the West to a decisive fork in the road: What to do if Ukraine loses? Should Western leaders follow the example of Johnson and leave Ukraine alone with Moscow, or should they start a big war with Russia? Either way, the path that they chose will influence the entire course of world history.

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“.. The Euroclear Bank boasts of over €37 trillion of assets in custody globally, but if it runs out of liquidity amid a litany of lawsuits – the Belgian central bank may be forced to withdraw its license..”

• Russia’s Response To Asset Seizure Could Trigger Global Financial Collapse (RT)

While Brussels is searching for legal loopholes to send frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, it must keep some of the cash as a “safety buffer,” should its clearing house Euroclear get in trouble, potentially jeopardizing the entire global financial system, a senior EU official told Reuters. The West has frozen roughly $300 billion in holdings belonging to the Russian central bank since the start of the Ukraine conflict two years ago. Brussels-based Euroclear holds around €191 billion ($205 billion) of them, and the EU is reportedly fast-tracking the decision to send Kiev the first tranche of up to €3 billion ($3.2 billion) from profits generated by frozen Russian assets as early as July. However, Brussels will have to “ensure that there is no breach of financial stability,” an unnamed EU official told Reuters on Tuesday. “The moment the war ends and all settlements can be made, all the money that was provisionally retained will also be transferred to Ukraine. But we need a significant amount in Euroclear… because Euroclear will face a lot of claims,” the official added.

Should the West proceed with expropriating the funds, the Russian central bank is likely to seize some €33 billion of Euroclear money held in the national securities depository in Moscow, the official noted. Russia may also sue to seize Euroclear cash from depositories in Hong Kong and Dubai. Moscow has repeatedly warned that it will respond in kind if the West goes through with threats to confiscate Russian assets. The finance ministry said last month that Western states and companies themselves still have holdings in Russia that could be jeopardized if the frozen funds were tapped. If Western banks begin suing Euroclear for the loss of their money invested in Russia “that’s the mechanism how Euroclear could be totally emptied,” the EU official warned. The Euroclear Bank boasts of over €37 trillion of assets in custody globally, but if it runs out of liquidity amid a litany of lawsuits – the Belgian central bank may be forced to withdraw its license, causing a global financial crisis, the official warned.

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“..making conditions in Gaza so uninhabitable that its population would be forced to flee to other countries, including Egypt’s Sinai, Greece, Spain, and Canada..”s

• US Builds Gaza Port To Facilitate Mass ‘Voluntary’ Migration: Anadolu (Cradle)

A US military ship set sail on 11 March to travel to the coast of the besieged Gaza Strip to build a temporary port. However, doubts about US intentions for the port’s construction continue to emerge. Hisham Khreisat, a Jordanian military and strategic affairs expert, suggested the motivation for building the port was instead to facilitate the deportation of Gaza’s population by ship. Khreisat told Anadolu Agency that “the floating port off the shores of Gaza is a humanitarian facade hiding voluntary migration to Europe.” “This military tactical port will receive Israeli approval because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been seeking this idea since the beginning of the war, aiming for the voluntary displacement of Gazans and their [flight] to Europe,” he added. The White House claims it wishes to build the port to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk of starvation due to Israel’s blockade.

But the BBC noted that the port would take at least 60 days to build and that “charities have said those suffering in Gaza cannot wait that long.” If the US wished to stave off famine in Gaza, it could simply use its leverage as Israel’s leading supplier of weapons to force Tel Aviv to allow more aid to enter by truck convoys through existing land crossings. On 13 October, just days after the beginning of the war on Gaza, the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence issued a document calling for the forcible expulsion of the strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants under a humanitarian guise. The leaked document recommends making conditions in Gaza so uninhabitable that its population would be forced to flee to other countries, including Egypt’s Sinai, Greece, Spain, and Canada. Israel could justify the deportation to the international community, the plan stated, if it appears to lead to “fewer casualties among the civilian population compared to the expected number of casualties if they remain,” the document says.

Israel’s horrific bombardment of Gaza since 7 October has created just such conditions, killing at least 30,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children. The risk of famine, caused by Israel’s blockade, has also created conditions to make the deportation of 2.3 million Gazans appear as a humanitarian gesture. These conditions could further be created should Israel conduct a ground operation in Rafah, where over a million Gazans displaced from other areas of the strip are sheltering. Egypt has so far refused to allow Gazans into the Sinai, making deportation by sea to Europe more attractive for Israeli planners. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) also issued a warning about the US plan to build a temporary port off the shore of Gaza. The resistance movement emphasized that the US plan is “suspicious and dubious,” as it would open the door to the forced displacement of Gaza’s population under humanitarian and other pretexts.

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“..the rise of status based law that protects some chosen ethnicities and persecutes others..”

• What is it with Conservatives and Jews? (Paul Craig Roberts)

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is a conservative hero. Her CPAC speech was well received. Yet she doesn’t hesitate to pass legislation that turns the First Amendment into a hate crime. She has just had a law passed that turns “anti-semitism” into a hate crime. She says the law defines anti-semitism and will serve as the model for other states to follow. Governor Noem herself engages in hate speech. She says Joe Biden and Kamala Harris “suck” and she wants to humiliate them. If she said “Jews suck and I want to humiliate them,” under her own law she would probably be guilty of a hate crime. And if not, close to it. Governor Noem apparently doesn’t realize, along with many other people, that erasing the First Amendment means that any protected ethnicity can define hate speech as any words they claim to experience as “painful.” Ultimately, this will mean that they, as individuals, cannot be charged with a crime. South Africa’s experience with the International Court of Justice shows how difficult it is to charge the Israeli government with a crime even when Israel is committing genocide.

The Israel Lobby long ago defined anti-semitism. It is any criticism, true or false, of a Jew or of Israel. For example, to protest Israel’s slaughter or genocide of Palestinians is anti-semitic. To even report, quoting their own words, Israeli government officials and rabbis calling for the murder of Palestinian women and children and for the extinction of Palestinians is anti-semitism. If you can’t complain about mass murder, or even report the words of those calling for it, what can you complain about? Recently three presidents of Ivy League universities, all female and one black, were called before the US Congress and scolded for allowing their students to protest Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians. The three women were guilty of permitting students to have First Amendment rights and were treated as if they had organized the protests themselves. The black female president of Harvard had to resign. In the UK, University of London students were suspended for their pro-Palestine protests. I find it extraordinary that Jews alone among all ethnicities can control what can be said about them.

Curiously, it is progressive and woke students at progressive institutions, not conservatives, who are defending both their First Amendment right and expression of moral conscience. The Independent Institute, a conservative/libertarian institute that thoughtfully analyzes economic and social policies with which I have been associated in some way or the other for many years, inexplicably chose the moment of Israel’s announced policy of bombing the Palestinians out of existence and completing the theft of their country to publish a book, The New American Anti-Semitism by Benjamin Ginsberg. Ginsberg writes that anti-semitic progressives are a threat. He urges conservatives and Jews to stop their gifts to progressive universities and to “form new political alliances, particularly with evangelical Christians.” It is remarkable to see the Independent Institute in favor of an alliance between Jews, conservatives, and Christians against the First Amendment.

It is also an attack on the 14th Amendment’s requirement of equality under law. Currently, a hate crime, consisting only of words, can only be committed against a black, a Jew, and a sexual pervert. Anything can be said about white gentiles and Palestinians, who have no recourse. The real threat is not anti-semitism. The real threat is the destruction of free speech and the rise of status based law that protects some chosen ethnicities and persecutes others. What is really needed is an alliance against those who are destroying the foundations of truth, freedom, and accountable government. The growing limits on free speech are already damaging scholarship and science. Do we want to live in a world where “truth” consists of controlled narratives that serve the interests of the ruling elites?

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Feel lucky, punk?

• Boeing Failed 37% of Audits by US Regulators (Sp.)

Boeing has failed 33 of 89 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspections, following a January incident in which part of the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX was lost, the New York Times reports, citing FAA data. According to the New York Times, auditors examined “many parts of the 737 MAX” as well as employees’ understanding of product quality control principles. The inspections lasted six weeks and involved both Boeing and the supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage for the Boeing 737 MAX. The newspaper notes that Boeing passed 56 of the 89 audits. The auditors focused on “many parts of the 737 MAX, including the wings and a number of other systems,” as well as employees’ understanding of product quality control principles.

The audits found 97 instances of alleged noncompliance with manufacturing standards. Spirit AeroSystems failed seven out of the 13 inspections according to FAA documents. Representatives observed mechanics at Spirit AeroSystems using a hotel key card to check the door seal, as well as using liquid soap as a lubricant during the assembly process on the seal. The Boeing 737 is a group of narrow-body, short- to medium-range passenger and transport airliners produced by the Boeing Corporation since 1967. It holds the title of being the most mass-produced passenger aircraft in the history of commercial aviation, with the delivery of the 10,000th airplane taking place on March 13, 2018.

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“I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.”

• Only Revolutionary Love Can Save Us Now (Alexander)

Of all the incredible speeches that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave in his life, I think the one that speaks most directly to the times that we are living in now, and that models what is required of us as we face multiple existential threats to our democracy and our world, is the speech that King gave when he publicly condemned the Vietnam War—and was immediately cancelled. That speech has become a touchpoint for me in recent years. Whenever I need a moral compass or my courage begins to falter, I return to the words King spoke on April 4, 1967, one year before his assassination, at the Riverside Church in Manhattan. King said, “I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.” He explained that “a time comes when silence is betrayal” and that time had come in relation to Vietnam.

It is difficult to overstate the political risk that King was taking when he stepped to the podium at Riverside Church. Our nation had been at war with Vietnam for two years, more than 400,000 American service members were deployed, and roughly 10,000 American troops had been killed. The war had enthusiastic bipartisan support within the political establishment, and those who dared to criticize the war were often labeled Communists and subjected to vicious forms of retaliation and backlash. Many of King’s friends and allies warned him that speaking the whole truth about the war would jeopardize the fragile gains of the civil rights movement. Little could be gained, they said, by speaking up for people halfway around the world and much could be lost. “Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?” they asked.

King acknowledged the source of their concerns but said that their questions revealed that they did not really know him, his commitment, or his calling. Indeed, as far he was concerned, “they do not know the world in which they live.” King acknowledged that it is not easy for people to speak out against their own government, especially during wartime, and that the situation in Vietnam was complex. But he felt morally obligated to speak for the suffering and helpless children of Vietnam. He said: “This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.”

Far from soft-pedaling his criticism, King described the American government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” and urged our nation to get on the right side of the liberation struggles occurring around the world. He wondered aloud what the Vietnamese people must think of us, a nation that promises democracy, dignity, and equality but delivers bombs instead. “We herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met,” he said. “They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.” In unflinching terms, King condemned the moral bankruptcy of a nation that does not hesitate to invest in bombs and warfare around the world but can never seem to find the dollars to eradicate poverty at home. He called for a revolution of values. He said:

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered”. The moment King ended his speech, he was cancelled. More than 60 newspapers railed against him, including the Washington Post and The New York Times. The Post claimed that King’s speech had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his people.” Many civil rights leaders and organizations criticized him too, including the NAACP. But despite the withering public condemnation, King continued to speak out against the Vietnam War on both moral and economic grounds until his death.

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“..it is definitely unacceptable that certain countries must be at the table while others can only be on the menu.”

• Confident Dragon Lays Out Modernization Roadmap (Pepe Escobar)

This is the Year of the Wooden Dragon, according to China’s classic wuxing (“five elements”) culture. The dragon, one of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac, is a symbol of power, nobility and intelligence. Wood adds growth, development and prosperity. Call it a summary of where China is heading in 2024. The second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was finalized on Sunday in Beijing. The wider world should know that within the framework of grassroots democracy with Chinese characteristics, an extremely complex – and fascinating – phenomenon, the importance of the CPPCC is paramount. The CPPCC channels wide-ranging expectations of the average Chinese to the decision level, and actually advises the central government on a vast range of issues – from everyday living to high-quality development strategies.This year, most of the discussion focused on how to drive China’s modernization even faster.

This being China, concepts – like flowers – were blooming all around the spectrum, such as “new quality productive forces, “deepening reform,” “high-standard opening-up,” and a fabulous new one, “major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.” As the Global Times emphasized, “2024 is not only a critical year for achieving the goals of the ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ but also a key year for achieving the transition to high-quality development of the economy.” So let’s start with Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s first “work report” delivered a week ago, which opened the annual session of the National People’s Congress. The key takeaway: Beijing will be pursuing the same economic targets as in 2023. That translates as 5% annual growth. Of course deflationary risks, a downturn in the real estate market and somewhat shaky business confidence simply won’t vanish. Li was quite realistic, emphasizing Beijing is “keenly aware” of the challenges ahead: “Achieving this year’s targets will not be easy.” And he added: “Global economic growth lacks steam and the regional hotspot issues keep erupting. This has made China’s external environment more complex, severe and uncertain.”

Beijing’s strategy remains focused on a “proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy”. In a nutshell: the song remains the same. There won’t be a “stimulus” of any kind. Deeper answers should be found in the work report/budget released by the National Development and Reform Commission: the focus will be on structural change, via extra funds to science, technology, education, national defense, agriculture. Translation: China bets on strategic investment, the key for a high-quality economic transition. In practice, Beijing will be heavily invested in modernizing industry and developing “new quality productive forces” such as new-energy vehicles, biomanufacturing and commercial space flight. Science Minister Yin Hejun made it clear: there was an 8.1% increase in national investment in research and development in 2023. He wants more – and he will get it: R&D spending will grow by 10% to a total of 370.8 billion yuan. The mantra is “self-reliance”. On all fronts – from chipmaking to AI. A no holds barred tech war is on – and China is totally focused to counter “tech containment” from the Hegemon as much as its ultimate goal is to wrest tech supremacy from its prime competitor.

Beijing simply cannot allow itself to be vulnerable to U.S.-imposed tech choke points and supply chain disruptions. So short-term economic problems will not be causing sleepless nights. The Beijing leadership is always looking ahead – focusing on long-term challenges. Beijing will continue to steer the economic development of Hong Kong and Macau, and invest even more in the crucial Greater Bay Area, which is the premier southern China high tech, services and finance hub. Taiwan of course was central to the work report; Beijing fiercely opposes “external interference” – code for Hegemon tactics. That will become even trickier in May, when William Lai Ching-te, who flirts with independence, becomes president. On defense, there will be only a 7.2% increase in 2024, which is peanuts compared to the Hegemon’s defense budget now approaching $900 billion: China’s stands as $238 billion, even as China’s nominal GDP is approaching the U.S.

A great deal of China’s defense budget will go for emerging tech – considering the immensely valuables lessons the PLA is learning out of the Donbass battlefield, as well as the deep interactions part of the Russia-China strategic partnership. And that brings us to diplomacy. China will continue to be firmly positioned as a champion of the Global South. That was made explicit by Foreign Minister Wang Yi in a press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress. Wang Yi’s priorities: to “maintain stable relations with major powers; join hands with its neighbouring countries for progress; and strive for revitalisation with the Global South”. Wang Yi once again stressed that Beijing favors an “equal and orderly” multipolar world and “inclusive economic globalization”. And of course he could not allow U.S. Secretary of State Little Blinken – always out of his depth – to get away with his latest “recipe”: “It is impermissible that those with the bigger fist have the final say, and it is definitely unacceptable that certain countries must be at the table while others can only be on the menu.

Read more …

“..what “capital” is? (Real wealth, not figments, wishes, bets, and hallucinations. . . hard things like good land, ore pockets, installed machinery, railroad tracks, and so on. . . .)”

• Twilight of the Blobs (Jim Kunstler)

[..] in all the ongoing debates about the wonders and dangers of A-I, and Bitcoin, and suffocating surveillance, nobody ever talks about the sketchy condition of the electric grid that all these worrisome phenomena utterly rely on. In our chatter over Peak Oil, there’s little awareness of oil production’s utter dependence on steady capital flows. In all the guff about centralized control emitted by Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum, there’s no mention of the centrifugal forces driving human affairs to re-localization, dis-aggregation of large states, and down-scaling of many activities. In our zeal to become Gods, we miss a lot. Imagine: Bitcoin shoots up to a million dollars. You’re a zillionaire! Uh Oh. . . somewhere outside Zaneseville, Ohio, a squirrel takes a final chaw through some old insulation on a wire coming out of a transformer. His head blows up in a blue arc flash, and in a few seconds all the electricity goes out from Chicago to Boston.

It turns out that seventeen substations in ten states have blown relays, transformers, and switchgear. Some of those components were forty years old and are now manufactured twelve thousand miles away in a country that doesn’t like us anymore. The replacement parts get held up in a Chinese port. The power doesn’t come back on for weeks. Nobody who lives in the eastern USA can get to his Bitcoin wallet, which is just a virtual entity made of computer code residing in a digital “cloud,” i.e., nowhere real. Of course, in an event that bad, a lot of other things would fail — really just about everything that comprises modern life — but for sure you could kiss your Bitcoin goodbye, perhaps forever, because by the time the juice comes back on (if it even does), nobody will ever again want to invest their wealth in digital “money” they can’t access, and Bitcoin will go back to whence it came: zero.

Likewise, the financial system we depend on is a gigantic apparatus grown extremely janky from over-elaboration and hyper-complexity — to the degree that all kinds of things denoted as having “moneyness” are simply hallucinations of the markets that trade them. How many quadrillions of dollars do “derivative” financial instruments represent on the landscape of “money” these days? Most of these things amount to little more than bets that some number — an interest rate, a currency, a revenue flow — will change either up or down. That is, they are figments.

Under Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), the evolution of figments can theoretically go on forever. Derivatives can be ever more abstracted from what they purport to represent, until they fly up the system’s cloacal vent. MMT has become popular economic dogma, but its theory remains to be substantiated. Since the formula relies on the unlimited “printing” of money by central bank proxies for governments, you might bet that something will go wrong with such a system — and it kind of looks like something is about to go wrong in the system we’ve built for regulating and distributing capital. And do we need to state what “capital” is? (Real wealth, not figments, wishes, bets, and hallucinations. . . hard things like good land, ore pockets, installed machinery, railroad tracks, and so on. . . .)

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Rogan Musk

 

 

Haiti

 

 

Mom
https://twitter.com/i/status/1767536784575959419

 

 

Bearded vulture

 

 

Orca

 

 

Plenty fish

 

 

Cubs

 

 

Pharaoh

 

 

Italian society
https://twitter.com/i/status/1767360701226435007

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 8 2024

Mar 082024
 
 March 8, 2024  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  36 Responses »


Pablo Picasso The Rooster 1938

 

• Biden Delivers The “Darkest, Most Un-American Speech Given By A President” (ZH)
• Was Neocon Anti-Russia Hawk Queen Victoria Nuland Forced Out? (Miles)
• Nuland’s Successor Should Scare Zelensky (Dmitry Bavyrin)
• Nuland’s Resignation Means Hard Times Ahead for Ukraine (Sp.)
• Nothing In Nuland’s Life Became Her Like The Leaving Of It (Helmer)
• The West’s Reckoning? (Michael Brenner)
• US Couldn’t Handle Being The Sole Superpower – Putin (RT)
• Ukraine Sends Fired Top General Zaluzhny To London (RT)
• Cameron Wants to Steal Russian Assets as ‘Surety’ to Bail Out Ukraine (Sp.)
• What Repercussions Could Reintroduction of Conscription in Germany Bring? (Sp.)
• Global South Youth Flocks to ‘Isolated’ Russia (Pepe Escobar)
• NYT Faces Claims of Hypocrisy Over Coverage of the Deployment of Troops (Turley)
• Rep. Gaetz Accuses Jack Smith of Election Interference (ET)
• Bill Would Strip COVID-19 Vaccine Manufacturers of Liability Protection (ET)

 

 

 

 

Trump SOTU
https://twitter.com/i/status/1765810329265602675

 

 

 

 

HUMAN TRAFFICKING
https://twitter.com/i/status/1765709918403793160

 

 

 

 

2029

 

 

Voter ID

 

 

 

 

Why Dennis Kucinich LEFT RFK Jr.’s Campaign (and much more)

 

 

 

 

Dark Brandon. Best part of Tucker Carlson is the 2nd half with Alex Jones.

• Biden Delivers The “Darkest, Most Un-American Speech Given By A President” (ZH)

Having successfully raged, ranted, lied, and yelled through the State of The Union, President Biden can go back to his crypt now. Whatever ‘they’ gave Biden, every American man, woman, and the other should be allowed to take it – though it seems the cocktail brings out ‘dark Brandon’?

Biden’s Speech tonight …
• Fund Ukraine.
• Trump is threat to democracy and America itself.
• Abortion is good.
• American Economy is stronger than ever.
• Inflation wasn’t Biden’s fault.
• Illegals are Americans too.
• Republicans are responsible for the border crisis.
• Trump is bad.
• Biden stands with trans-children.
• J6 was the worst insurrection since the Civil War.
(h/t @TCDMS99)

Tucker Carlson’s response sums it all up perfectly: “that was possibly the darkest, most un-American speech given by an American president. It wasn’t a speech, it was a rant…” Carlson continued: “The true measure of a nation’s greatness lies within its capacity to control borders, yet Bid refuses to do it.” “In a fair election, Joe Biden cannot win”. And concluded: “There was not a meaningful word for the entire duration about the things that actually matter to people who live here.” Victor Davis Hanson added some excellent color, but this was probably the best line on Biden: “he doesn’t care… he lives in an alternative reality.”

Read more …

Victoria Nuland was involved in US politics in Eastern Europe and Russia for well over 30 years. Ukraine was her baby. Now it’s clear it’s not a big success. How desperate was she? Ray McGovern thinks perhaps the White House was afraid she would be “..attempting to contrive a highly escalatory attack on a nuclear power without approval from her superiors in the State Department..”

She goes, so does US Ukraine policy. Not a trifle matter.

• Was Neocon Anti-Russia Hawk Queen Victoria Nuland Forced Out? (Miles)

Mass speculation has emerged after the sudden announcement this week that influential US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland would be resigning from her position in the Biden White House. The surprising development came Tuesday amidst a difficult moment for US President Joe Biden. Former President Donald Trump has maintained a steady lead over Biden in opinion polling as questions remain about the octogenarian head of state’s ability to serve a second term. Cracks have also begun to show in Biden’s political coalition as pro-Palestine activists urge a show of defiance against the president’s foreign policy in state primary contests. The problems extend to the personnel of Biden’s Cabinet as a scandal has arisen over Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s lack of transparency over health issues.

With the president facing challenges on multiple fronts, why would the White House choose this moment for a staff shakeup? Former US Central Intelligence Agency analyst Ray McGovern speculated the answer may lie in disagreements between Biden administration officials and the notoriously strong-willed Nuland during a discussion on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday. “The CIA would have, the NSA would have those conversations as well,” said McGovern, referring to leaked recordings of discussions between Nuland and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that appeared to reveal plans for an imminent attack on Russian soil. The leaks generated significant embarrassment for German officials as attention was drawn to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s support for the Ukraine proxy conflict.

Nuland’s bellicose rhetoric may suggest she was going rogue, according to McGovern, attempting to contrive a highly escalatory attack on a nuclear power without approval from her superiors in the State Department. “My best guess here is that the CIA and the Defense Department and the NSA got this message around saying, ‘look, Victoria’s got her own agenda here,’” said the analyst. “‘The president doesn’t really want to strike these ammo depots in Russia or knock down the [Crimean] Bridge. So we got to rein her in, I guess it’s time for her to go to early retirement.’”

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“..promising her a place in the history books because of the role she has played in the events around Ukraine..”

• Nuland’s Successor Should Scare Zelensky (Dmitry Bavyrin)

US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is retiring from the civil service. She was responsible for relations with Russia back in the days of the first Yeltsin government, but all-Russia fame came to her after the distribution of “cookies” on the Maidan. There are serious reasons why Nuland chose retirement, even though she was destined for the Secretary of State’s chair. And the President of Ukraine has reason to be apprehensive of the candidacy of her replacement. Formally, Victoria Nuland was only the fourth [in fact third] in the US diplomatic hierarchy, but in terms of her real influence she is comparable to the Number-1 — Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose place, according to rumours, she was aiming for. They are close in views, but belonged to different clans, and Nuland loomed over Blinken like a Nemesis: if it was decided to write off all the foreign policy failures of the Biden period and remove Blinken from office, the State Department would certainly go to her.

She is only a year older than Blinken, but as a diplomat she is old enough to be his mother. He is more of an armchair theorist than a practitioner, more of a “hand-me–down” to politicians than a politician, whereas Nuland usually worked “on the front line” – in secure situation rooms around the world, being a career ambassador in both the Russian and American sense of the term. In Russia, this means that the individual entered the diplomatic service not from the outside (for example, as a political appointee), but through specialized education and climbed the ladder of the ranks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And in the United States, this is something like the principal title of honour for diplomats – a sign not only of merit, but also of the highest professional qualifications. Since 1956, only six dozen people have received this honorific, and Nuland is one of the most famous on the list.

She was good at her job; had been responsible for important areas for Washington for decades – NATO, Russia, Ukraine; it was as if she was born someday to become head the State Department, and best of all now, when it is especially fashionable to appoint women. However, President Joe Biden is stubbornly sticking to Blinken, whom he has known for a long time and intimately. He trusts him and he does not want to replace him with stronger and more independent characters like Nuland. Nevertheless, the Secretary of State must have breathed a sigh of relief when he received Nuland’s resignation letter. The fact that Blinken himself announced the departure of his likely rival for the succession seems to indicate his desire to cut off her escape route and the opportunity to change her mind.

Whether this is true or not, he did not skimp on compliments, calling Nuland “exceptional” and promising her a place in the history books because of the role she has played in the events around Ukraine. There may also be a place for that in Russian textbooks, only with different emphasis. Nuland became famous on our side of the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic when she distributed cookies to Euromaidan protesters on the eve of the [February 21, 2014 Kiev] coup. And this fame was supported by the fact that she continued to oversee the Ukrainian direction and was Washington’s main negotiator with Moscow on all issues arising from this. The beginning of the Special Military Operation is her personal failure. Nuland tried to prevent such a turn of events, but could not maintain the necessary degree of control over the self–willed Ukrainian government. She also allegedly wanted to prevent the resignation of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, and also failed.

Shortly after that, Nuland ceased to act as Blinken’s Deputy Secretary of State and the Number-2 person in the State Department; she had been formally considered the replacement [for Wendy Sherman] in this position and lasted six months before Kurt Campbell was appointed; now, a month later, she resigns from her “post number four” [three], that is, definitively. It is unlikely that this fall is due to failures. There are many failures in Nuland’s career, primarily because she worked in the most difficult areas. It’s much more like escaping from a sinking ship, when the ship is the Joe Biden administration. It seems unlikely that he will be able to win the presidential election in eight months’ time. In Nuland’s eyes, he may be altogether non-credible now, since she interacts with “old Joe” personally and is more privy to his medical diagnosis than many others. And with the return of Donald Trump to the White House, continuation of her work in the State Department is incompatible, despite her experience and seniority.

Read more …

“..Nuland’s resignation means the Kiev regime has definitely lost a very influential supporter..”

• Nuland’s Resignation Means Hard Times Ahead for Ukraine (Sp.)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on March 5 that Victoria Nuland, a US official known for her ardent support to the Kiev regime, decided to step down in coming weeks. US career diplomat John R. Bass was picked as her temporary replacement, while the American media believes that Team Biden is likely to tap current US ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith to fill Nuland’s shoes in the near future. “Given what a staunch anti-Putinist Nuland was and how fervently she wanted to continue to utilize Ukraine as a platform in which to continue to weaken and/or slight Russia on the global stage — and perhaps even up the ante in that conflict with her support of sending ballistic missiles into Ukraine,” Dr. Matthew Crosston, professor of national security and director of academic transformation at Bowie State University, told Sputnik.

The academic said it was likely Nuland had become frustrated with the loss of support for her pet project in the US Congress, which has blocked the White House’s request for more than $60 billion in additional military aid to the Kiev regime. “She undoubtedly understood that if American support lessens or wanes, Ukraine loses, period,” Crosston pointed out. “Perhaps she did not want to be in the Administration that would be responsible for that outcome.” Nuland’s decision to step down was a surprise, as CIA veteran Larry Johnson told Sputnik this week. Her temporary replacement, John R. Bass, is little-known internationally. The US career diplomat served as an American ambassador in post-war Georgia and during a botched coup in Turkiye. In both countries he came under heavy criticism for meddling in those nations’ domestic affairs. Bass was also a hot-swap replacement for then acting Ambassador in Afghanistan during Team Biden’s botched withdrawal from the region in August 2021. Now he is expected to oversee the Ukraine crisis.

“Everyone seems to be emphasizing his ‘acting’ role, which in America always implies a temporary status where he will eventually be replaced by someone else more permanently,” stressed Crosston. “So I am not entirely sure that Bass is going to be the holder of any great responsibility in terms of formulating new policy in the role.” In light his role in the chaotic and bloody evacuation of Kabul, Bass’ new assignment is a hint that the US was about to abandon Ukraine as well. “It creates some new speculation beyond the standard ‘send more weapons to Ukraine. mantra that has existed so intensely for the last year,” the professor argued. While Crosston did not think Bass’ appointment automatically means that US is going to throw Ukraine down the drain, but Nuland’s resignation means the Kiev regime has definitely lost a very influential supporter. “One thing is certain: as long as Nuland remained in that chair, there was literally no chance such talk could even be theorized. Now it can,” the professor said.

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“..the reason for Nuland’s exit is either that she was forced out, principally by the Joint Chiefs of Staff before she could do more damage to US military assets in Europe; or that she decided not to be in office when the Articles of Capitulation are signed between Kiev, Lvov, and Moscow.”

• Nothing In Nuland’s Life Became Her Like The Leaving Of It (Helmer)

As enemies go, Victoria Nuland (lead image), the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, was as threatening for Russia as the Thane of Cawdor was for Scotland and Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play about multiple homicide to capture state power. Cawdor repented for his treason in the moment before he died on the scaffold. His execution then allowed Macbeth to take Cawdor’s title and assets for himself, then move on to murder the Scottish king, and replace him until Macbeth was killed himself. The murdering Nuland has committed was foretold by many more sources than the three witches in Shakespeare’s plot. But if Nuland has witchly premonitions, she lacks Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking guilt. In Nuland’s case, it is plain that as her murdering has accelerated, she has been gorging herself with food. In the play Lady Macbeth succumbed and then killed herself offstage. Nuland has just left the stage one hundred pounds heavier than when she entered it.

Not auspicious, according to the Heart Foundation. The script of Nuland’s exit is also not Shakespearian in quality. There is not a single Washington journalist or analyst whose job it has been for years to follow the scheming inside the State Department to report what those in a position to know believe is the reason for Nuland’s hasty “resignation”, as it is being called by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. His public obituary started with the idea that he had been taken by surprise when Nuland “has let me know that she intends to step down in the coming weeks”; it ended with the immediate naming of Nuland’s replacement, and her tombstone inscribed with “the lasting mark she’s made on this institution and the world.”

For the haste of her exit; for its timing late in the US presidential election campaign and as the Ukrainian military collapses, no one in a position to know believes Nuland’s reasons as they have been leaked by reporters close to her – that her ambition had been offended by her failure to be promoted from Number-3 to Number-2 at State; that her feminism was violated by the non-promotion; and that her Russia warmaking had been subordinated by the higher priority of the White House to fight China. Nor is her departure a case of avoiding blame for the failure of US policy in the Ukraine and in Europe, as the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Maria Zakharova, declared yesterday. Nuland is responsible for “the fiasco of American foreign policy”, Zakharova said. “The bet was a huge one. Everything was staked by the liberal Democrats starting with Barack Obama. That bet has now been lost. An absolute fiasco — the rush by V.A. Zelensky begging for at least something more — the White House rejecting his requests — discord everywhere in NATO… No one has a clear idea what to do…A complete fiasco.”

Zakharova didn’t claim that the US and NATO leaders, their military staffs, and political advisors lack clarity on what they don’t want to risk – that’s to continue the war which Nuland has been promoting, and to escalate it with new weapons on the Ukrainian battlefield, and by attacks deep into Russia itself with nuclear-capable missiles like the German Taurus and US F-16s. If that is what the Russians think is happening and if they are correct – re-read the double negative — then the reason for Nuland’s exit is either that she was forced out, principally by the Joint Chiefs of Staff before she could do more damage to US military assets in Europe; or that she decided not to be in office when the Articles of Capitulation are signed between Kiev, Lvov, and Moscow.

Read more …

“..defeat in Ukraine, genocide in Palestine. The first is humiliating, the other shameful..”

• The West’s Reckoning? (Michael Brenner)

Western leaders are experiencing two stunning events: defeat in Ukraine, genocide in Palestine. The first is humiliating, the other shameful. Yet, they feel no humiliation or shame. Their actions show vividly that those sentiments are alien to them – unable to penetrate the entrenched barriers of dogma, arrogance and deep-seated insecurities. The last are personal as well as political. Therein lies a puzzle. For, as a consequence, the West has set itself on a path of collective suicide. Moral suicide in Gaza; diplomatic suicide – the foundations laid in Europe, the Middle East and across Eurasia; economic suicide – the dollar-based global financial system jeopardized, Europe deindustrializing. It is not a pretty picture. Astoundingly, this self-destruction is occurring in the absence of any major trauma – external or internal. Therein lies another, related puzzle.

Some clues for these abnormalities are provided by their most recent responses as deteriorating conditions tighten the vise – on emotions, on prevailing policies, on domestic political worries, on ginger egos. Those responses fall under the category of panic behavior. Deep down, they are scared, fearful and agitated. Biden et al in Washington, Macron, Schulz, Sunak, Stoltenberg, von der Leyen. They lack the courage of their stated convictions or the courage to face reality squarely. The blunt truth is that they have contrived to get themselves, and their countries, in a quandary from which there is no escape conforming to their current self-defined interests and emotional engagement. Hence, we observe an array of reactions that are feckless, grotesque and dangerous.

Exhibit 1 is French President Emmanuel Macon’s proposed plan to station military personnel from NATO members within Ukraine to serve as a tripwire. Arrayed as a cordon around Kharkov, Odessa and Kiev they are meant to deter advancing Russian forces from moving on those cities for fear of killing Western soldiers – thereby risking a direct confrontation with the Alliance. It is a highly dubious idea that defies logic and experience while tempting fate. France long has deployed members of its armed forces in Ukraine where they programed and operated sophisticated equipment – in particular, the SCALP cruise missiles. Scores were killed by a Russian retaliatory strike a few months ago that destroyed their residence. Paris cried ‘holy murder’ for Moscow’s unsporting conduct in shooting back at those attacking them. It was retaliation for the French participation in the deadly bombing of the Russian city of Belgorod. Why then should we expect that the Kremlin would abandon a costly campaign involving what they see as vital national interests if uniformed Western troops were deployed in a picket line around cities? Would they be intimated into passivity by spiffy uniforms assembled under outsized banners inscribed with the slogan: “DON’T MESS WITH NATO”?

Moreover, there already are thousands of Westerners bolstering the Ukrainian armed forces. Roughly 4 – 5,000 Americans have been performing critical operational functions from the outset. The presence of a majority predates by several years the onset of hostilities 2 years ago. That contingent was augmented by a supplementary group of 1,700 last summer which was as a corps of logistic experts advertised as mandated to seek out and eradicate corruption in the black-marketing of pilfered supplies. The Pentagon people are sown thought the Ukrainian military from headquarters planning units, to advisers in the field, to technicians and Special Forces. It is widely understood that Americans have operated the sophisticated HIMARS long-range artillery and the Patriot air defense batteries. This last means that members of the U.S. military have been aiming – perhaps pulling the trigger on – weapons that kill Russians. In addition, the CIA has established a massive, multipurpose system able to conduct a wide range of Intelligence and operational activities- independently as well as in conjunction with the Ukrainian FSB. That includes tactical Intelligence on a day-by-day basis. We don’t know whether they had a role in the campaign of targeted assassinations inside Russia.

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“..the “desire for independence and protection of one’s sovereignty still breaks through to the surface. This is inevitable for the whole of Europe..”

• US Couldn’t Handle Being The Sole Superpower – Putin (RT)

The United States was unable to manage the responsibility of being the world’s only superpower after the Cold War ended, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the World Youth Festival (WYF) on Wednesday. The WYF runs in Sochi from March 1-7, hosting some 20,000 young people from Russia and abroad for sporting and cultural events, competitions and panel discussions. Addressing participants at the festival, Putin noted that after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US elite had an opportunity to take advantage of their new “monopoly on world leadership.” “I believe that the United States has failed to handle the burden of responsibility that fell on its shoulders. The president predicted that as the multipolar world develops, “fundamental changes will also occur in Europe.” Despite the current hierarchy in the Western world, the “desire for independence and protection of one’s sovereignty still breaks through to the surface. This is inevitable for the whole of Europe,” the president noted.

The expansion of the BRICS alliance has been viewed by many economists as marking the end of undisputed US hegemony in the international arena. “The growing appetite for an alternative to the prevailing international order is important in itself — and marks a failure of US leadership,” business and finance news outlet Bloomberg wrote last year. The combined GDP of the BRICS countries has already overtaken that of the G7, and will grow further, Putin predicted. BRICS, which previously comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, grew in size this January with the inclusion of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. In the past year, the members of the grouping have moved away from using the dollar and euro in internal settlements, instead shifting towards the use of national currencies. Western sanctions related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict have forced Moscow to move away from Western currencies and the SWIFT system and to further develop its own MIR system of payments.

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As telegraphed weeks ago…

• Ukraine Sends Fired Top General Zaluzhny To London (RT)

Former Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny has been appointed the country’s new ambassador to the UK, the Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday. The ministry said it has already informed London about the development, formally requesting approval from it. “The President of Ukraine approved the candidacy of Valery Zaluzhny for the post of Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United Kingdom,” the ministry said in a short statement. Zelensky himself further elaborated on the matter in a video address, insisting the appointment would only benefit relations between Kiev and London and that their ties “should only get stronger.” “Zaluzhny told me that this is the direction he would like to take – diplomacy,” the president claimed. Zaluzhny ended up being fired by Zelensky from his post as the country’s top general last month, with the Ukrainian president citing the need to bring “new approaches” and “new strategies” to the conflict with Russia.

The commander was replaced by General Aleksandr Syrsky, the head of the Ukrainian Ground Forces at the time. The pick has been widely seen as an unpopular one amongst the military, largely thanks to the questionable reputation of Syrsky, said to be nicknamed “The Butcher” over the commanding style he showed while leading the troops during both the defense of Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut) and the subsequent attempt to retake the city as part of the 2023 summer offensive. Both battles have resulted in decisive defeats for Kiev, coupled with massive casualties among the troops. The firing of Zaluzhny came after a conflict between the commander-in-chief and Zelensky that had been rumored for months. The two had been reportedly disagreeing over military priorities, while Zelensky had also allegedly grown wary of the popular general, regarding him as a potential political opponent.

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The logic: Ukraine will pay it all back. “Cameron excuses his proposal on the basis that Ukraine will win the war against Russia, and that Moscow will have to pay reparations to Kiev..”

• Cameron Wants to Steal Russian Assets as ‘Surety’ to Bail Out Ukraine (Sp.)

Some $300 billion in Russian assets were trapped abroad in 2022 following the escalation of the US proxy war in Ukraine. Under pressure from Kiev, there have been continued attempts by the West to seize those assets and give them to Ukraine. Britain is prepared to loan Ukraine all frozen Russian central bank assets in the United Kingdom on the belief that it will pay those loans back with Russian “reparations” following the end of the war, says UK foreign secretary David Cameron. Western countries have previously pledged a total of several billion dollars toward rebuilding Ukraine, including investment pledges from dozens of major multinational corporations. And in late January, Belgium announced it would allocate €611 million ($663 million) to help Kiev in 2024 using the profits they received from the frozen Russian assets.

But Cameron’s announcement this week is the most extreme proposal thus far, as the previous proposals only discussed giving Ukraine the “windfall profits” from the frozen assets which are estimated to be about $4 billion. “There is an opportunity to use something like a syndicated loan or a bond that effectively uses the frozen Russian assets as a surety to give that money to the Ukrainians knowing that we will recoup it when reparations are paid by Russia. That may be a better way of doing it. We are aiming for the maximum amount of G7 and EU unity on this but if we cannot get it I think we will have to move ahead with allies that want to take this action,” said Cameron on Tuesday, most likely referring to the United States. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has also proposed finding a “way to unlock” the assets to support Ukraine. “I believe there is a strong international law, economic and moral case for moving forward. This would be a decisive response to Russia’s unprecedented threat to global stability,” Yellen said at a meeting of G20 finance ministers last month.

The G7 itself has questioned whether seizing the assets could undermine faith in the international financial system. And Belgium, which is believed to control as much as €190 billion ($208 billion) of the assets, is the most resistant to follow Cameron’s plan. It is reportedly facing a series of court cases in Russia, and its stance on the issue has the backing of both France and Germany. Cameron excuses his proposal on the basis that Ukraine will win the war against Russia, and that Moscow will have to pay reparations to Kiev. But the idea that Ukraine could win a military victory against Russia is unimaginable. More and more Western media outlets have been acknowledging Russia’s success on the battlefield. Moscow has maintained that any attempt to confiscate its frozen assets would violate international law, with the Russian Foreign Ministry labeling such an action as theft.

“Those who are trying to initiate this, and those who will implement it, must understand that Russia will never leave those who did this alone. And it will constantly exercise its right to a legal battle, internationally, nationally or otherwise. And this, of course, will have — both Europeans and Americans understand this very well — it will have legal consequences for those who initiated and implemented it,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in December. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has also said that Moscow is willing to issue a “symmetrical” response to this form of Western financial aggression. “We have no fewer frozen [assets than Western countries],” Siluanov said in an interview with Sputnik last month. “Any actions taken against our assets would receive a symmetrical response.

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Did they bother to ask the people?

• What Repercussions Could Reintroduction of Conscription in Germany Bring? (Sp.)

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius plans to speed up the process of reintroducing compulsory military service in his country, the Spiegel magazine has reported. He gave the Defense Ministry until April 1 to present options for a German military service model that makes a major contribution to “national resilience.” The move is “a clear sign of the rearmament taking place in Europe,” Mikael Valtersson, a former officer of Swedish Armed Forces/Air Defense, former defense politician and chief of staff with the Sweden Democrats, said in an interview with Sputnik. Such a process “might result in a new arms race and increased confrontations in Europe,” Valtersson warned. In an apparent nod to Germany, he said that “With conscription, the entire society becomes much more militarized, since a large part of the population have military experience.”

The ex-defense politician recalled that, “The resistance against conscription [in Germany] has decreased during the last years, partly as a result of the conflict in Ukraine and the following heightened tension between the West and Russia.” “But also to a large degree due to an intense campaign from Western media and politicians trying to scare the population with the threat from Russia. A large part of the population still remains skeptical of conscription,” Valtersson added. At the same time, he argued that, “With a bigger military, Germany will of course get a larger influence in European security and politics.” According to the former Swedish officer, “German capacity to replace the US as the main conventional defender in Europe will also increase with a military partially based on conscription.”

Touching upon Russian-German ties, he said that “conscription in itself” would not affect them, “but in combination with general rearmament and a very militaristic language from German media and politicians it will worsen relations.” He was echoed by Stefan Keuter, a German politician for the Alternative for Germany party and a member of the Bundestag since 2017, who told Sputnik that the country “has already a regular army, the Bundeswehr”, which is “integrated into the Western defense alliance.” If strengthened, the European “axis of the alliance” could reduce dependence on the Americans, Keuter noted. It remains unclear “how things will develop in Washington and a high level of defense preparedness cannot be a disadvantage,” he added, apparently referring to former US President Donald Trump’s previous remarks about his unwillingness to defend NATO countries that don’t meet spending guidelines.

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“..in sharp contrast to the artificial, cancel culture-obsessed “open society” P.R. incessantly sold by the usual hegemonic foundations..”

• Global South Youth Flocks to ‘Isolated’ Russia (Pepe Escobar)

By any metric, the World Youth Festival running in the Sirius federal territory (Sochi, southern Russia) on March 1-7 is a stunning achievement: a sort of Special Cultural Operation (SCO) encompassing the young Global South. It starts with the incomparable setting – the 2014 Olympics park of science and art, nested between snowy mountains and the Black Sea – all the way to the stars of the show: over 20,000 young leaders from over 180 nations, Russians and mostly Asians, Africans and Latin Americans, as well as assorted dissidents from the sanctions-obsessed Western “garden”. Among them are scores of educators, PhDs, public sector or culture activists, charity volunteers, athletes, young entrepreneurs, scientists, citizen journalists, as well as teenagers from 14 to 17, for the first time the focus of a special program, “Together into the Future”. These are the generations that will be building our common future.

President Putin is once again quite sharp: he emphasized how a clear distinction applies between citizens of the world – including the Global North – and the intolerant, extremely aggressive Western plutocracy. Russia, a multinational, multicultural civilization-state, by principle welcomes all citizens of the world. The World Youth Festival 2024, taking place seven years after the last one, renews a tradition that harks back to the 1957 World Festival of Youth and Students when the USSR welcomed everyone on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. The idea of an open platform for young, committed, very organized people attracted by Russian conservative/family values permeates the whole festival – in sharp contrast to the artificial, cancel culture-obsessed “open society” P.R. incessantly sold by the usual hegemonic foundations.

Each day at the festival is dedicated to a main theme. For instance, March 2 was on “responsibility for the fate of the world”; March 3 was for “unity and cooperation among nations”; March 4 was for “a world of opportunities for everyone”. No less than 300,000 youngsters from around the world applied to come to the festival. So obviously to select a little over 20,000 was quite a feat. After the festival, 2,000 foreign participants will travel to 30 Russian cities for cultural exchange. Exactly what comrade Xi Jinping defines as “people to people’s exchanges” It’s no wonder the festival organizers, Rosmolodezh, the Russian federal agency for youth affairs, call it “the largest youth event in the world”. Director Ksenia Razuvaeva noted, “we are destroying the myth that Russia is isolated.”

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“The threat was so great that Trump had to be moved into the bunker because the Secret Service feared a breach of security around the White House..”

• NYT Faces Claims of Hypocrisy Over Coverage of the Deployment of Troops (Turley)

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has a right to be a tad confused. The senator noted the matter-of-fact coverage by The New York Times that Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plans to send troops to New York City to crack down on crime. Cotton posted a “hmmm” note that simply read: “Sending in the troops to help restore law and order…” His point was that it was roughly four year ago, that the newspaper publicly denounced him after running his opinion piece calling for the use of national guard troops to quell violent riots in Washington. The Cotton column led to editors being forced out after public confessions and recriminations. Now, after Democratic politicians actually ordered such a deployment, the Times has offered little more than a journalistic shrug. Hochul announced she will be deploying 750 members of the National Guard to New York City’s subway system to assist the New York Police Department (NYPD) in the crackdown on crime, including bag searches at the entrances of busy train stations.

I have previously written on the hypocrisy of the Times in how it has handled the Cotton affair. The column itself was historically accurate. Indeed, critics never explained what was historically false (or outside the range of permissible interpretation) in the column. Moreover, writers Taylor Lorenz, Caity Weaver, Sheera Frankel, Jacey Fortin, and others said that such columns put black reporters in danger and condemned publishing Cotton’s viewpoint. In a breathtaking surrender, the newspaper apologized and not only promised an investigation in how such an opposing view could find itself on its pages but promised to reduce the number of editorials in the future: “We’ve examined the piece and the process leading up to its publication. This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards. As a result, we’re planning to examine both short term and long term changes, to include expanding our fact-checking operation and reduction the number of op-eds we publish.”

The sacking of Bennet had its intended effect. Writers and columnists with opposing or critical views were soon forced off newspapers around the country, including at the New York Times. Editor Adam Rubenstein was also forced out at the paper and recently wrote a scathing account of the bizarre environment within the paper. The writers have condemned the “both sideism” of allowing conservative viewpoints in the newspaper and insisted that Cotton and others must be banned as favoring potential violent actions against protesters. Yet, the newspaper has published people with anti-free speech and violent viewpoints in the last year. While the New York Times stands by its declaration that Cotton should never have been published, it had no problem in publishing “Beijing’s enforcer” in Hong Kong as Regina Ip mocked freedom protesters who were being beaten and arrested by the government.

Indeed, just before the anniversary of the Cotton controversy, the New York Times published a column by University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. Loomis’ article on “Why The Amazon Workers Never Stood A Chance” did not include his earlier violent rationalization. It was in my view a worthy and interesting column for publication. So was Cotton’s column. While many today still claim that the protests around the White House were “entirely peaceful” and there was no “attack on the White House,” that claim is demonstrably false. As I discussed in my testimony to Congress, there was in fact an exceptionally high number of officers were injured over the course of days of protests around the White House. In addition to a reported 150 officers were injured (including at least 49 Park Police officers around the White House), protesters caused extensive property damage including the torching of a historic structure and the attempted arson of St. John’s.

The threat was so great that Trump had to be moved into the bunker because the Secret Service feared a breach of security around the White House. Notably, later during the January 6th riot, there were no recriminations for the use of the same fencing and national guard troops to protect the Capitol, albeit too late to have prevented the initial riot. So now it is a Democratic leader who is not just calling for the use of troops but deploying them in New York City. It is part of an effort by many Democrats to change course on crime and immigration before the 2024 election after years of criminal law reforms and sanctuary city policies.

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“According to a 2022 memo issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland, law enforcement officers and prosecutors are prohibited from taking actions that could impact elections.”

• Rep. Gaetz Accuses Jack Smith of Election Interference (ET)

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) accused Special Counsel Jack Smith of election interference in a complaint filed with the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) inspector general on Wednesday. In a letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Mr. Gaetz asserted that Mr. Smith’s resistance to delaying a trial stems from an unspoken drive to hold it before the upcoming November presidential election. Last week, former President Donald Trump’s lawyers and Mr. Smith’s office filed motions requesting different trial dates in the classified documents criminal case in Florida. President Trump’s lawyers have argued that a fair trial cannot be held in an election year when he is the leading Republican candidate. “The witch hunt against President Trump by Attorney General Garland and Special Counsel Smith is a partisan exercise, and the American people know it!” Mr. Gaetz wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

“Jack Smith’s attempt to speed up the trial against President Trump violates the DOJ’s rules and the law,” he continued. “His public comments and his office’s briefs before the Supreme Court demonstrate that he has no reason for his actions other than to unlawfully interfere in the 2024 presidential election.” In his letter, Mr. Gaetz pointed to statements by Mr. Smith in court filings where he has urged a “rapid” review of the case and stressed its “public importance.” This, according to the Florida congressman, shows that the case is an attempt at election interference. “Were there a legitimate, non-election related purpose for this request, these attorneys, who have filed in appeals courts many times, would have listed such,” Mr. Gaetz wrote. “Since charges have been filed and the defendant himself is taking a legal position on timing and lodging various appeals, that justification cannot, for example, be the rights of the defendant under the Constitution or Speedy Trial Act,” he continued.

President Trump’s legal team made a similar argument last month, writing in a court filing that Mr. Smith was twisting “into logical knots” in his argument against delaying the trial. “The Special Counsel’s latest filing raises a compelling inference of a political motive—the motivation to influence the 2024 Presidential election by bringing the leading Republican candidate to trial before November 5, 2024,” President Trump’s lawyers wrote. Mr. Gaetz argued in Wednesday’s letter that Mr. Smith’s apparent rush to trial raises questions about compliance with DOJ policy. According to a 2022 memo issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland, law enforcement officers and prosecutors are prohibited from taking actions that could impact elections.

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“The American people deserve justice for the infringement on their personal medical freedom and those medically harmed deserve restitution..”

• Bill Would Strip COVID-19 Vaccine Manufacturers of Liability Protection (ET)

Proposed legislation introduced on March 5 would strip COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers of liability protections, enabling U.S. residents injured by the vaccines to sue the companies. The bill, proposed by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), would retroactively remove protections from the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) for COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers. “No federal law … may make the manufacturer of a COVID-19 vaccine immune from suit or liability, or limit the liability of such a manufacturer, with respect to claims for loss caused by, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from the administration to or the use by an individual of a COVID-19 vaccine,” the bill reads. The PREP Act currently protects manufacturers and people who administer the vaccines from liability, under a 2020 declaration entered by then-Health Secretary Alex Azar during former President Donald Trump’s administration. President Joe Biden’s administration has since extended the declaration.

The only exception to the PREP Act protection is in cases of death or serious injury caused by “willful misconduct.” The protection even covers people who “reasonably could have believed” they were protected even if, in actuality, they were not, according to an opinion from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “Millions of Americans were forced to take a COVID-19 shot out of fear of losing their livelihoods and under false pretenses. Many have faced injury from the vaccine, but few have been afforded little recourse,” Mr. Roy said in a statement. He said he was introducing the new bill “to empower Americans to remove crony federal liability protections for COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers and empower injured Americans.” “The American people deserve justice for the infringement on their personal medical freedom and those medically harmed deserve restitution,” Mr. Roy said.

As part of the federal vaccine system, people who have suspected or confirmed injuries from COVID-19 vaccines can apply for compensation from the government under a program called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program. But as of January, just 11 people have been compensated, with the highest payout being just $8,961. The overwhelming majority of claims that have been processed have been rejected, according to HHS, which both runs and administers the program. Some of the denials involved people whose doctors diagnosed them with vaccine injuries. A lawsuit has challenged the constitutionality of the program, describing it as a “kangaroo court.” The proposed legislation makes clear that it does not affect the ability of people to apply for recompense through the compensation program.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Catfish

 

 

 

 

Kugel

 

 

First house

 

 

 

 

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Bibi

Oct 142023
 
 October 14, 2023  Posted by at 5:15 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  8 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Old Man Sitting 1631

 

 

Benjamin -Bibi- Netanyahu has always been a warmonger. He thinks he, and his people, are superior to the Palestinians, and come to think of it, to Muslims in general. And when he first appeared on the scene some 30 years ago, he might have had a point, at least from a military point of view.

But he does not today, and that is very dangerous for his people. Bibi lives in the past, because he liked that past – he could feel superior. He does not recognize to what extent the world, including his, has changed. But change it did, while he was dreaming of winning warfare.

He is not unique in this. The entire US political system suffers from the same “affliction”. There has never been a better reason to introduce term limits in Congress and the Senate. Politicians like Pelosi and Feinstein are just about crying out for help: please get me out of here! Enter Joe Biden stage left. At least Joe has the excuse that he can’t find the exit.

Bibi is not 85 or 90 yet. He’s “only” 73. But he’s been around long enough to get stuck (rusted) in his own preferred ideas and view of the world. Bibi thinks he can do with the Palestinians whatever he sees fit. But, again, the world has changed. And Israel’s alleged military superiority has changed with it.

It didn’t have to be this way. Bibi is more or less the successor to Yithzak Rabin, who was elected PM in 1992 (he had earlier been PM from 1974-77) , and murdered in 1995. Rabin had entirely different ideas about his country. He rejected the use of force in favor of peace negotiations with the Palestinians (1993 Oslo Accords, 1994 Nobel Peace Prize).

That’s why he was murdered. Bibi first became PM in 1996. He had several stints in the job and kept floating to the top. And now Bibi threatens to raze the Gaza strip, and potentially kill 100s of 1000s of civilians. But there is no place in the world for people like him.

The Arab world around Israel has become much stronger and richer and more united. If Israel attempts to kill that many Muslims, it’s not just the Gaza strip that is under threat, but Israel itself is.

The Saudi’s have started talking to Iran, and there are many more such initiatives underway. Dividing the Arab world is no longer a feasible plan of action. Watch Turkey! But exactly like Bibi, the US political system doesn’t understand that either.

They could have though; the Ukraine war could have told them that. But Washington does not want to face its own diminishing role in the world any more the Bibi wants to in his part of it. Russia and China have advertized it loud enough through the BRICS, but the old US system wants nothing to do with multipolarity. They want things back to what they were 30 years ago, when those in charge today could still understand what was happening, and were the “masters”.

It’s not just Pelosi and Biden, Donald Trump doesn’t get it either. If he gets re-elected, he’ll move another embassy to Jerusalem. Bobby Kennedy also has a blind spot on Israel. They are all blind. They should go talk -a lot- to Putin and Xi. If there is to be peace in the Middle East, it will come from them.

Xi Jinping is 70, Putin is 71. Not the youngest either. But there is one main difference. They did not grow up in positions where they were kings. China and Russia 30 years ago were poor countries, perhaps desperately so. Therefore, the architects of the multipolar world have seen the changes they implemented, come to fruition.

That makes for a completely different world view from the Bibi’s and Pelosi’s etc etc who’ve only seen their positions shrink, and are trying to deny and counter that development. Growing at 70 is not the same as shrinking at 70. Or 80.

Yes, Bibi might well be crazy enough to drop a nuclear bomb. It’s up to Israel to get rid of him, and that threat. And it’s up to Xi and Putin to help them do that.

 

 

 

 

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The New Narrative

Sep 212023
 
 September 21, 2023  Posted by at 1:54 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  10 Responses »


Théodore Géricault The Raft of the Medusa 1819

 

 

A short comment on an all too familiar sort of MSM article about US politics these days. This article, a few days old, comes from Gary O’Donoghue, Washington correspondent, BBC News.

The MSM must concede that Hunter Biden is under investigation. Now that it’s official, they can no longer hide it. Time for plan B. This is the BBC, more MSM than anyone. The new narrative is that both political sides are being probed now, supposed to make us think there’s a sort of balance, a neutrality.

And the DOJ is some kind of impartial office (just like the FBI and CIA). Even though the entire alphabet soup has been directed squarely against Trump for 8 years now. The result is that they list the charges against the two sides as follows: 91 against Trump, one -small one- against Hunter, and zero against Joe Biden (he’s not even mentioned here).

Not one word about Joe Biden’s own involvement in what Hunter is accused of. Not one word about the laptop. Or about the tens of millions of dollars the House Commitee says the Biden family received from foreign sources. Ergo: Trump is much worse than Hunter. And Joe never put a single finger wrong.

What Hunter Biden Charges Mean For The President

Politically speaking, there are currently two Americas. One is outraged and horrified that the former president, Donald Trump, is facing 91 federal and state criminal charges in what they see as a deep state conspiracy orchestrated in part by Joe Biden’s Department of Justice. The other believes that very same justice department has spent five years unfairly pursuing Mr Biden’s son, Hunter, over his tax affairs and behaviour while a self-declared and repentant drug addict. In other words, both Americas believe the department responsible for enforcing the laws of the land has been taken captive by the other side and is hopelessly politicised.

“..improper and partisan interference..” but not from the Democrats…

Hunter Biden’s lawyer responded to the news that his client had been indicted on three federal gun charges by accusing the prosecutor of bending to “improper and partisan interference” from Trump-supporting Republicans. Meanwhile, Andy Biggs, one of those conservatives in Congress, suggested the charges were simply a manoeuvre to make it look like the justice department was fair. “Don’t fall for it. They’re trying to protect him from way more serious charges coming his way!”, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Republicans only focus on Hunter because of Trump’s “legal jeopardies”. Not because of the laptop contents. Which the FBI sat on for 5 years, and we would never have known about if the repair shop owner had not given a copy to Rudy Giuliani. The FBI were busy targeting Trump, after all. Hunter’s “legal woes” are only “a blow in a personal sense to his father”. Surely not because his father pops up a thousand times in the laptop in comprimising ways,

Hunter Biden’s legal woes will of course be a blow in a personal sense to his father and his family. But the ramifications go much further than that. Republicans have for some time known that the president’s son is a vulnerability. Exploiting that has the power not just to significantly rile up Joe Biden, but also to help distract from their own problems with Mr Trump’s legal jeopardies. Add to that the fact that most Democrats, when asked, are far from happy that Mr Biden is running for the White House again in 2024. Hunter seems like just another reason for some continuing to press for the 80-year-old president to step aside for the next generation.

But wait, this is not about Hunter, it’s about Trump. And it’s certainly not about Joe. Nothing Hunter did could possible be as grave as Trump’s actions. Why else would there be 91 charges against him?

All this means that the outcome of Hunter Biden’s case will play a significant part in what promises to be a turbulent election year. But Republicans face something of a dilemma. It’s true that the three gun-related charges are felonies rather than misdemeanours; and it’s true that further charges could come relating to Hunter Biden’s tax affairs and foreign dealings. But none of it currently quite rises to the scale and quantity of Donald Trump’s alleged crimes. So any attempt to weaponise Hunter Biden’s problems could simply invite the American people to compare and contrast. Also, as Democrats will no doubt continue to point out, Hunter Biden is not running for dog catcher, let alone to be President of the United States.

“After all, there is nothing in the Constitution about drug addicts being unable to bear arms.” Gotta love that line.

One intriguing aspect of Hunter Biden’s case is that his lawyers clearly believe the plea deal that broke down in July could still be resurrected – and that the recent expansion of Second Amendment rights by various courts could be an element in his defence. After all, there is nothing in the Constitution about drug addicts being unable to bear arms. That would be an extraordinary irony given where most Democrats stand on gun control.

“..seven months of existing investigations into Hunter Biden..” Again, the FBI has had the laptop for 5 years. What more can you say? Jim Jordan just yesterday in the House: “We have an investigation run by Mr. Weiss that not only had a sweetheart deal rejected, but according to The New York Times, there was an even sweeter earlier deal with Mr. Biden where he would not have to plead guilty to anything. Four and a half years and all that..”

Thursday’s indictment came just days after Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden – a move dismissed as a political stunt by the White House. Mr McCarthy said there were “serious and credible allegations” into the family’s business dealings and President Biden’s conduct. And Republicans will hope this new inquiry implicates the president in the peddling of power and corruption. So far, however, seven months of existing investigations into Hunter Biden have produced snippets from former business partners, an FBI informant and a couple of IRS agents, but nothing that comes close to a real smoking gun.

The reason for the impeachment inquiry vs Joe Biden is not to get rid of him, or even “win a vote”, it’s to establish a record. The Senate would never agree to impeach him, just like it didn’t Donald Trump when the GOP had a majority. But the record is crucial. Pelosi and Schiff knew it, and now so does the GOP.

That may change when the subpoenas begin to fly, but the Republican majority in the House is so slim, that it is far from certain that Republicans would win an impeachment vote on the House floor, if it got that far. What is certain, is that the once-clear distinction between the political and legal systems has become increasingly blurred. And that’s a major problem, according to Randy Zelin, adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School. “Somebody woke up one day and said, boy I have a new toy and that is called the federal criminal justice system, where I’m going to use the criminal system to punish people who don’t agree with my politics,” Prof Zelin told the BBC. “I think the sole influence here is that this country is being torn apart by this never-ending battle.”

This is how the media today wants you to see it. But where were they during the Steele dossier days? Or any of the other anti-Trump shenanigans? Remember, they never proved a single thing against him. They just “won” some votes in theaters where they had a majority. And now they’ve come up with 91 new charges in the theaters that the DOJ and FBI have been turned into. Vs zero for Joe Biden. And one puny one for Hunter. Hey, we have an election coming up.

I suggested recently that there wouldn’t be a US election in 2024. But trying to imagine what would happen if they attempted to have one, replete with Dominion machines and mail-in ballots, I’m starting to wonder if there will be a country left next year to hold an election in.

The two sides are so far apart (not really of course, they’re still neighbors, it’s all in the head), that they may as well live in different countries. And then one day they actually might. 1861 is not that long ago.

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 11 2023

Sep 112023
 
 September 11, 2023  Posted by at 9:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  37 Responses »


Edvard Munch Love and Pain (Vampire) 1893

 

• Ukraine, West’s Objectives No Longer Aligned, Russia No Longer A Threat (Exp.)
• 30 Fighting Days Left For Ukraine’s Offensive – US Army Chief (BBC)
• Ukraine’s Defeat Could Mean The End Of NATO In Its Current Form (Bowes)
• Lavrov at G20: Americans Want to ‘Strategically Defeat Russia’ (Sp.)
• West ‘Deadlocked’ Over Russia – Ukraine (RT)
• Ukraine To Change Conscription Rules (RT)
• Second UK Challenger 2 Tank Reportedly Destroyed In Ukraine (ZH)
• NATO To Launch Biggest Military Exercise Since Cold War (Az.)
• France Accused Of Planning ‘Aggression’ Against Niger (RT)
• Lead Author Of Cochrane Mask Review Says Fauci Makes No Sense (Demasi)
• Twilight Of The Democrats (Public)
• Biden Aide Intervenes To End Rambling Press Conference (RT)
• New Filings in the Hunter Biden Laptop Litigation (Turley)

 

 

 

 

RFK


https://twitter.com/i/status/1700145666641535208

 

 

Woody


https://twitter.com/i/status/1700525214512140299

 

 

 

 

Tapper goes for Musk

 

 

Alex Jones Musk

 

 

 

 

2 years ago it started
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700928136567742503

 

 

 

 

Is this where we’re going, the new narrative?: “..the war has weakened Russia to such an extent that it “no longer poses a credible threat to Europe..” (see Macgregor’s video). “..the Western objective of this conflict has been achieved”. And thus NATO can leave Ukraine to itself?!

The arms industry is in a bind: they want to keep selling, but they don’t want their products to be seen as inferior. They may contemplate cutting their losses.

• Ukraine, West’s Objectives No Longer Aligned, Russia No Longer A Threat (Exp.)

Back in January, a poll of Daily Express readers found that most wanted the UK to give more support to Ukraine to ‘end the war quicker’. However, that was eight months ago and – with Russia digging in – the war shows no sign of ending anytime soon. Some analysts now believe that – as the war grinds on – continuing to write cheques for Urkaine may longer be in the West’s best interests. And a recent CNN poll shows that most Americans oppose Congress authorising additional funding to support Ukraine. Sean Bell, a former RAF Air Vice-Marshal and Ministry of Defence (MoD) staffer, suggests that the war has weakened Russia to such an extent that it “no longer poses a credible threat to Europe”. Given this, Bell argues that “the Western objective of this conflict has been achieved”.

Writing for Sky, Bell said: “Having achieved their strategic objective, Western democratic governments must also address the cost of living crisis, domestic priorities, and re-building national weapons inventories. “Ukraine, however, has not yet met its objective, which is to liberate its territory. Bell writes: “The harsh reality is that Ukraine’s objectives are no longer aligned with their backers.”Many Ukrainians will remain determined to expel all Russians from their territory. That is Ukraine’s right, their fight, their future, and their sacrifice. “The ensuing sacrifices, devastation and suffering will leave a dreadful legacy, but what is the price for peace?”

Macgregor

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Try on some logic on for size:

“Ukraine is winning and Russia is losing”. “That is because the aim of Russia was to subjugate Ukraine and to put it under Russia’s control..” “That has not happened and it never will happen, and that’s why Ukraine is winning.”

• 30 Fighting Days Left For Ukraine’s Offensive – US Army Chief (BBC)

Ukraine has little more than 30 days left of fighting before the weather hinders its counter-offensive, the top-ranking US military officer says. Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Gen Mark Milley said colder conditions would make it much harder for Ukraine to manoeuvre. He admitted the offensive had gone more slowly than expected. But he said: “There’s still heavy fighting going on. “The Ukrainians are still plugging away with steady progress.” Gen Milley said it was too early to say whether the counter-offensive had failed, but said Ukraine was “progressing at a very steady pace through the Russian front lines”. “There’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren’t done.

“There’s battles not done… they haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish.” Kyiv’s counter-offensive, which was launched in the summer and aims to liberate Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine, has so far seen only small gains. But Ukrainian generals claim they have breached Russia’s formidable first line of defences in the south. “I said at the very beginning of this [war] that this was going to be long, slow, hard, and high-casualty-producing, and that’s exactly what it is,” Gen Milley said. In the same interview, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, the UK chief of defence staff, said “Ukraine is winning and Russia is losing”. “That is because the aim of Russia was to subjugate Ukraine and to put it under Russia’s control”, he said.

“That has not happened and it never will happen, and that’s why Ukraine is winning.” He added that Ukraine was making progress in its battle to regain its territory, having recovered 50% of the ground Russia seized. Ukraine’s progress was also down to the international community “applying economic pressure and diplomatic pressure, and Russia is suffering because of that”, he said. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin’s alliance with North Korea shows the Russian president is in a “state of desperation”, said Adm Radakin. He said the ties between the two countries showed how few partners Russia had left. North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un reportedly plans to visit Russia this month to meet Mr Putin for weapons talks.s

Blinken
https://twitter.com/i/status/1700821080364216791

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..‘we tried to help them, but they simply couldn’t be saved from themselves..’

• Ukraine’s Defeat Could Mean The End Of NATO In Its Current Form (Bowes)

As the West’s proxy war in Ukraine slips inexorably towards utter failure, the neocons behind the debacle are faced with dwindling avenues of retreat. Early confidence that Russia, in its current form, would collapse under the pressure of the harshest sanctions regime in history failed to materialize. Early Russian miscalculations on the battlefield were not followed by a military meltdown, but by a pragmatic display of strategic adaptability, which is begrudgingly admired in the military war rooms of the West. The Russian army, far from falling apart, has steeled itself into making bold decisions to retreat when prudent and advance when required, both of which have proven devastating for their Ukrainian opponents. It follows that, as the Western political elites that cultivated this conflict peer into another winter of political, military, and potentially economic discontent, it is now that we potentially face the most dangerous period in Europe since the outbreak of WWII.

The catalyst for a wider war in Europe isn’t, in fact, a limited conflict in Ukraine in itself, one that started in 2014 and, notably, had been largely ignored by Western powers for almost a decade. The real issue is that NATO, which is currently engaged in a proxy War with Russia, is facing a ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ scenario regarding its growing military involvement in Ukraine. If the US-led bloc escalates further as defeat looms, it could likely lead to direct confrontation with Russia. If it doesn’t, its proxy will collapse and leave Russia victorious, a fate once utterly unthinkable in Brussels, Washington, and London, but now becoming a nightmarish reality. Such a defeat would be devastating and potentially terminal for the prestige and reputation of the whole NATO brand.

After all, despite the Soviet Union having long ceased to exist, the bloc still markets itself as an indispensable bulwark against imagined Russian expansionism. In the event of an increasingly likely Ukrainian defeat, that ‘essential partner’ in ‘countering Russia’ will have been proven utterly impotent and largely irrelevant. More cynically, the vast US arms industry would also be denied a huge and lucrative market. So, how does a multi billion-dollar machine that has prophesied absolute victory against Russia even begin to contemplate defeat? And how do senior EU bureaucrats like Ursula Von der Leyen climb down from their quasi-religious devotion to the ‘cause’ of utterly defeating Russia, which she has shamelessly evangelized for over a year and a half? Lastly, how does the American administration, which has gone politically, morally, and economically ‘all in’ against Russia in Ukraine, contemplate what amounts to an increasingly inevitable European version of Afghanistan 2.0?

They will need to do two things: Firstly, find someone to blame for their defeat and secondly, find a new enemy to deflect public opinion onto. The ‘someone to blame’ will be quite easy to identify – the narrative will be flush with attacks on states like Hungary, China, and to some extent India, who will be accused of “undermining the unified effort needed to isolate and defeat Russia.” Blaming Ukraine itself will also be central to this narrative. Western media will insure it’s singled out as incapable of ‘taking the medicine’ proffered by NATO and therefore suffering the consequences, not listening to Western military advice, failing to utilize Western aid correctly and, of course – given that little has been done by Zelensky to tackle the endemic corruption in Ukraine – this fact will be easily weaponized against him and used to lubricate a slick narrative of ‘we tried to help them, but they simply couldn’t be saved from themselves’.

Read more …

“The Americans want to strategically defeat us, as they put it. If they had anything new in mind they would like to tell us, they would have..”

• Lavrov at G20: Americans Want to ‘Strategically Defeat Russia’ (Sp.)

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was representing Russia at the 18th G20 Summit in New Delhi, gave a press conference on Sunday where he weighed in, among other things, on the issue of the push towards dedollarization and trade in local currencies that is gaining momentum on a global scale. “Everyone understands what the Americans want from Russia… They want to get rid of a competitor,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik at the G20 Summit in New Delhi. “The Americans want to strategically defeat us, as they put it. If they had anything new in mind they would like to tell us, they would have,” Lavrov, representing Russia at the two-day international gathering, succinctly stated when asked if he had engaged in any bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit with US representatives.

As for one of the central trends in the current increasingly multipolar world – ditching the dollar in mutual trade and payments – Lavrov acknowledged that there is “some progress with respect to dedollarization, including in our bilateral relations with India.” “Like I said before, our exporters have a lot of, massive amounts of rupees in their accounts in Indian banks, and now we are looking into the possible ways of investing them in a mutually beneficial way. Now, as for actual transactions, we are working as part of the BRICS group and, back in Johannesburg, a decision was made to look into the ways of expanding the use of national currencies in operations,” Sergey Lavrov said. The historic three-day BRICS Summit 2023 wrapped up on August 24 in the South African city of Johannesburg.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which together constitute the group of major emerging economies named BRICS, stressed the importance of encouraging the use of local currencies in international trade and financial transactions between members of the group as well as their trading partners. Recalling the decisions hashed out at the recent BRICS Summit, Lavrov continued: “We looked into the ways of the possibility of creating additional payment platforms, because right now we only have platforms controlled by the West. And now, in fact with China, for example, we have financial operations, 70% or 80% of them are in rubles and in renminbi. And the same goes for India. Now, when the global community sees what’s happening with SWIFT, with how the West, with how the United States is using, are using it as their own instrument, they understand that there has to be an alternative.”

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Losing and at the same time bickering over putting Putin and Lavrov before a tribunal?! Gotcha.

• West ‘Deadlocked’ Over Russia – Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine has made no progress in making the US and its allies agree to its idea of a tribunal for top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said in a speech on Friday. The nation’s top diplomat blasted the West’s “divisions” and “lack of will” on the issue at the Yalta European Strategy forum in Kiev. Western nations are just as reluctant to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, Kuleba said, adding that there has been little progress on this matter as well. “Unfortunately, we are in a kind of deadlock on both,” he said. The G7 group, which includes the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan, “stands firmly” in favor of what the diplomat described as a “hybrid tribunal,” in which Putin, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, would maintain immunity from prosecution, Kuleba said, stressing that this is absolutely unacceptable for Kiev.

“The special tribunal is needed to create a precedent for punishing the Russian leaders,” he said. “The hybrid tribunal does not answer the question as to how to prosecute those three,” the top diplomat said, noting that he “simply cannot remember” the name of the Russian prime minister. Those who are against the “special tribunal” make a “clear statement that they consider Russia’s crimes in Ukraine less important than the crimes committed during the Yugoslavia war,” Kuleba said. Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andrey Kostin, also said it would be “impossible to explain to Ukrainians that we could have a tribunal without Putin on the defendant’s bench.” The Ukrainian foreign minister also said he sees no way to resolve these differences between Kiev and its Western backers.

“President [Vladimir Zelensky] has recently asked me what has been done [to push through the idea of a tribunal] and I have admitted for the first time in my ministerial capacity that I cannot suggest a solution,” he said. Kuleba claims that any legal constraints preventing Kiev from achieving its desired results can be altered. “If a law does not fit an idea of attaining justice, the legislation should be changed,” he said. Kiev continues to push for Zelensky’s ‘peace formula’, which includes Russia withdrawing from Donbass, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea, as well as paying reparations to Ukraine and submitting to war crimes tribunals. Moscow has dismissed these demands as “nonsense” and has said it is ready for peace talks that reflect “the reality on the ground.”

Read more …

Once you start drafting the sick and handicapped, you’re probably close to losing the support of your people. There are reports about drafting all women. Must be popular too.

• Ukraine To Change Conscription Rules (RT)

Ukraine plans to change conscription laws to enable the drafting of citizens whose health problems previously rendered them fit only for limited military duty, according to Dmitry Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman. However, the official offered assurances that people unable to fight on the front line will serve in the rear. The move comes as the country’s faltering counteroffensive has endured what Moscow says are “catastrophic” losses. Speaking on national TV on Saturday, Lubinets said that he had proposed to the country’s National Security Council to abolish the category ‘fit for limited military service’, adding that top officials had agreed with him.

“A Ukrainian citizen must either be fit for military service, or not,” he explained, adding that a potential conscript with health conditions that preclude participating in active combat can still contribute to defense efforts by serving at headquarters, or in missile and cyber forces. Lubinets also noted that the Ukrainian authorities had seen many cases when potential draftees bribed conscription officials to be registered as unfit for military service despite being completely healthy, while people with serious and long-standing medical conditions were told that they were fit for limited duty. “This issue should be addressed,” he stressed. During the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, Ukraine’s conscription system has been repeatedly criticized for rampant corruption. The Financial Times reported last month that some male Ukrainians were paying up to $10,000 in bribes to avoid being sent to the front.

Around the same time, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky sacked all of the regional military conscription officials after a string of corruption scandals. In the wake of the purge, Kiev also said that it would review all draft exemptions issued after the start of the conflict with Russia. However, Zelensky has said that his top military commanders had been asking him to draft more people. Earlier this month, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry issued a decree allowing the conscription of people with such severe conditions as hepatitis, HIV without symptoms, and clinically-treated tuberculosis. The push to expand the draft comes amid Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which has been underway for more than three months but has failed to make any significant progress. According to Moscow, Kiev has lost some 66,000 troops since the start of the offensive.

GZ

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Of course many tanks have been destroyed, but this -very expensive- one was presented as nigh indestructable. Blown up not even by a jet or a tank, but by a “man-portable anti-tank guided missile”.

• Second UK Challenger 2 Tank Reportedly Destroyed In Ukraine (ZH)

“No Challenger 2 has been lost in combat since it was first deployed in 1994, although one was destroyed in a friendly-fire incident in Iraq in 2003,” The Guardian reported Wednesday after the UK Ministry of Defence confirmed the first Challenger 2 was destroyed on the Ukrainian battlefield. Russian media now says it has happened again: “Russian forces have reportedly destroyed a second Challenger 2 main battle tank out of the 14 that London has supplied to Kiev, RIA Novosti reported on Saturday, citing a local civic leader from Zaporozhye Region.” If confirmed, this would mark another devastating development for Kiev and its backers.

The sources cited in this latest report say the UK-supplied tank took a direct hit from a Russian Kornet missile, which is a man-portable anti-tank guided missile capable of being mounted on a vehicle. One pro-Kremlin activist was cited in Russian media as saying it’s “open season” on British tanks in Ukraine and that they will “burn just as well as any other Western equipment.” While the UK has yet to confirm or deny these latest claims that a second Challenger 2 tank has been destroyed, the defense ministry did confirm destruction of the first one, based in part on ample video evidence: The UK has confirmed the first loss of a Challenger 2 tank by Ukraine, saying it was “hit by Russian artillery.”

Speaking to Sky News on Wednesday morning, the UK’s defence secretary Grant Shapps also confirmed the vehicle’s crew had survived. Video surfaced on social media early on Tuesday morning of a Ukrainian Challenger 2 burning at the side of the road believed to be south of the recently-liberated town of Robotyne. In the aftermath, British military sources further indicated there are as yet no plans for the UK to replace those tanks lost on the battlefield. Kiev is still awaiting the M1 Abrams tanks promised by Washington, but these are sophisticated enough to require many months of additional training for Ukrainian operators. So far, the main battle tanks supplied by the West have not been the “gamechanger” that Ukraine hoped.

Read more …

The arms industry loves it.

• NATO To Launch Biggest Military Exercise Since Cold War (Az.)

NATO is preparing its biggest live joint command exercise since the cold war next year, assembling more than 40,000 troops to practice how the alliance would attempt to repel Russian aggression against one of its members, The Financial Times said, Report informs. The Steadfast Defender exercise comes as part of NATO’s rapid push to transform from crisis response to a war-fighting alliance, prompted by the invasion of Ukraine. It will start in spring next year and is expected to involve between 500 and 700 air combat missions, more than 50 ships, and about 41,000 troops, NATO officials said. It is designed to model potential maneuvers against an enemy modeled on a coalition led by Russia, named Occasus for the purposes of the drill. The exercise is also a first in terms of technical capability, using real world geographical data to create more realistic scenarios for troops.

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France tries to draw African nations into this, play them against each other.

• France Accused Of Planning ‘Aggression’ Against Niger (RT)

Paris is planning to intervene in Niger, as it continues to deploy troops to several countries in the region, the West African state’s military government has claimed. Relations between Niger and former colonial power France deteriorated following a coup in July. “France continues to deploy its forces in several ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) countries as part of preparations for an aggression against Niger, which it is planning in collaboration with this community organization,” Colonel Amadou Abdramane, spokesman for the government in Niamey, said in a statement broadcast on national television on Saturday, as quoted by AFP. ECOWAS has threatened to intervene in the country to restore its ousted president Mohamed Bazoum to office. Top French officials have also stated several times that Paris would support military action by the bloc.

However, according to Niger’s military-appointed prime minister, Ali Lamine Zeine, military action by ECOWAS is not supported by all member states. He also told the media on Monday that the new government in Niamey was hoping to reach an agreement with the bloc in the “coming days.” Nigerien military leaders have previously denounced the presence of French troops in the country as “illegal” and demanded their prompt withdrawal. While speaking during the G20 summit in New Delhi, French President Emmanuel Macron said that since his country doesn’t recognize the Nigerien military government, any redeployment of its forces might be done only “at the request of President Bazoum.” Paris already had to withdraw troops from Burkina Faso earlier this year. France also pulled its forces out of Mali following tensions with the military government after a coup in 2020.

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“Once we excluded such low-quality studies from the review, we concluded there was no evidence that masks reduced transmission..”

• Lead Author Of Cochrane Mask Review Says Fauci Makes No Sense (Demasi)

Former chief medical advisor to the US President Anthony Fauci was questioned over the weekend by CNN reporter Michael Smerconish, about face masks being able to curb the spread of covid-19. “There’s no doubt that masks work,” said Fauci. “Different studies give different percentages of advantage of wearing it, but there’s no doubt that the weight of the studies … indicate the benefit of wearing masks,” he added. Smerconish brought up the 2023 Cochrane review which found no evidence that physical interventions like face masks could stop viral transmission in the community and cited my interview with lead author of the study Tom Jefferson who confirmed, “There is just no evidence that they [masks] make any difference. Full stop.” Fauci replied, “Yeah but there are other studies,” stressing that masks work on an individual basis.

“When you’re talking about the effect on the epidemic or the pandemic as a whole, the data are less strong…but when you talk about an individual basis of someone protecting themselves or protecting themselves from spreading it to others, there’s no doubt that there are many studies that show there is an advantage,” said Fauci. Professor Tom Jefferson, who says he is committed to updating the Cochrane review as new evidence emerges, has responded to Fauci’s comments. “So, Fauci is saying that masks work for individuals but not at a population level? That simply doesn’t make sense,” said Jefferson. “And he says there are ‘other studies’…but what studies? He doesn’t name them so I cannot interpret his remarks without knowing what he is referring to,” he added.

Jefferson explains that the entire point of the Cochrane review was to systematically sift through all the available randomised data on physical interventions such as masks and determine what was useful and what was not. Since 2011, the Cochrane review only included randomised trials to minimise bias from confounders. “It might be that Fauci is relying on trash studies,” said Jefferson. “Many of them are observational, some are cross-sectional, and some actually use modelling. That is not strong evidence.” “Once we excluded such low-quality studies from the review, we concluded there was no evidence that masks reduced transmission,” he added. The problem with Fauci is that his story has changed. Initially, Fauci said that masks were ineffective and unnecessary. In March 2020, Fauci told 60 Minutes, “Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.”

But only a few weeks later, he did a U-turn and began recommending widespread use of face masks. Fauci defended his U-turn saying, “When the facts change, I change my mind.” Jefferson retorted, “What facts changed? There were no randomised studies, no new evidence to justify his flip-flop. That’s simply not true.” Since then, Fauci has remained adamant that face masks not only stop people from infecting others, but they also protect the wearer. Fauci advocated for the use of cloth masks, and even encouraged double-masking in the absence of evidence. “You put another layer on, it just makes common sense that it would be more effective,” Fauci told NBC News. “What Fauci doesn’t understand is that cloth and surgical masks cannot stop viruses because viruses are too small and they still get through,” said Jefferson.

Read more …

“The old vibrancy and inspiring messages of “hope” and “change” are gone, and all that remains is a cynical and desperate thirst for power..”

• Twilight Of The Democrats (Public)

For many years, Democrats insisted that they were the party of diplomatic solutions; today, they are eagerly sending depleted uranium rounds and internationally banned cluster munitions to Ukraine. Biden’s poor approval ratings are likely also influenced by the brewing scandal around his son. Over half of voters believe that the president’s actions related to the Hunter Biden probe are inappropriate, and 61% say they think the president was involved in his son’s business dealings. Indeed, there is mounting evidence that Biden’s Department of Justice is criminalizing the political activity of his enemies while shielding his son from real prosecution. When Biden took office, he vowed that his administration would put an end to the division of the Trump years and would restore unity. Yet, on several occasions, Biden has made highly charged and antagonistic remarks about ordinary American citizens. Despite the media’s efforts to portray him as a wise and grandfatherly figure, Biden often appears to be angry and confused, lashing out at us unpredictably.

Due to the president’s age and obvious cognitive decline, it is unclear who is actually running the country and calling the shots. Biden, a corrupt and disoriented old man controlled by shadowy figures behind the scenes, is emblematic of what the Democratic Party has become. The old vibrancy and inspiring messages of “hope” and “change” are gone, and all that remains is a cynical and desperate thirst for power. Like its figurehead, the Democratic Party operates through secrecy and can barely conceal its contempt for large swathes of the country. It has become a party of censorship, war, elitism, and dishonesty. There is only so long that Democrats can keep pretending Biden is a competent leader, and the latest CNN poll has provided a chance for many to finally state the obvious.

Said Van Jones on CNN, “A lot of Democrats look at these numbers and say, ‘The whispers are finally showing up in this data’… People are scared to come out and say anything about it, but I think it’s important for us to have this conversation now.” And yet Biden has shown no sign of throwing in the towel. Rumors periodically fly that he is about to announce he won’t run for a second term. Many thought it would happen in August. The problem for Democrats is that they might have no one who can replace him. Kamala Harris is even less popular than Biden, and San Francisco is Gavin Newsom’s albatross. This is perhaps what is most damning about the current state of the Democrats: Biden may really be the best they have to offer.

Read more …

We’ve seen quite a few of such videos, but cutting off your president mid-sentence at an international forum is quite the feat.

And he should never again complain about being babied.

• Biden Aide Intervenes To End Rambling Press Conference (RT)

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre abruptly ended a news conference by US President Joe Biden on Sunday, cutting the president off mid-sentence as he rambled about “the third world” and his conversation with Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Biden took a number of scheduled questions from the press while on a visit to the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, before telling reporters that he was “going to bed.” However, Biden kept answering additional questions, including on his talk with Li at the G20 summit in India on Saturday. “It wasn’t confrontational at all,”Biden said. “We talked about making sure that the third world…the, uh, the, uh, the southern hemisphere has access to changing…” As Biden continued to mumble, Jean-Pierre announced that “this ends the current press conference.”

After attempting to answer another question, Biden turned around and walked off stage. Biden’s press conferences are typically tightly managed by his aides, with the president handed cue cards and told which journalists to turn to for questions. Nevertheless, Biden still occasionally leaves the stage mid-sentence, often visibly confusedand guided by his staff. According to a recent Wall Street Journal poll, 73% of all voters think that the 80-year-old Biden is too old to serve as president, while 60% believe he lacks the mental capacity for the position. While Republicans have repeatedly hammered Biden over his apparent cognitive decline, Democrats are increasingly concerned about the president’s health too.

According to an NBC News survey in June, 43% of Democrats said that they had moderate to major concerns about Biden’s health, up from 21% in 2020. Biden’s trip to Vietnam came as the US attempts to strengthen its ties with more Asian nations in a bid to counter Chinese influence in the region. On Sunday, Biden and Vietnamese General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong announced a bilateral trade and investment deal, which included measures to boost semiconductor manufacturing and research in Vietnam.

Read more …

“..the absurd court arguments are largely being ignored by the media while an acknowledgment would force major media to fully cover the story.”

“..it seemed off that Hunter was deeply offended by the disclosure of pictures that were “voluntarily shared by [Hunter] Biden with others through the website, ‘Pornhub’ …

“It is the ultimate “to be or not to be” pitch when everyone knows exactly what the true question is. . . and it is not the authenticity of this laptop.”

• New Filings in the Hunter Biden Laptop Litigation (Turley)

An FBI computer expert reportedly assessed the laptop and found that it “was not manipulated in any way.” The authenticity of the information was further confirmed “by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID.” Emails and messages have been confirmed by third parties who were the recipients. Yet, as Polonius said in Hamlet, “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” The Biden team wants, in my opinion, to grind Isaac and delay the litigation as much as possible. It is using the Delaware courts to exact that sweet revenge against a now defunct computer shop owner. Moreover, the absurd court arguments are largely being ignored by the media while an acknowledgment would force major media to fully cover the story.

So, Hunter simply continued to disclaim knowledge of voicemail messages and emails from Isaac about an external hard drive, paying his repair bill and picking up the computer. However, he is crystal clear that he did not give consent to Isaac about gaining access to the laptop that may not be his. This is why Shakespeare wrote: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” Hunter has to challenge the terms of an agreement that he refuses to admit that he signed. Instead, he criticized the “boilerplate terms of the Repair Authorization” on the work order as being “well below the signature line” and referred to the Repair Authorization as a “typical small-print adhesion clause for which there was no proper notice or opportunity to bargain or negotiate.”

Biden is equally clear that he is terribly “embarrassed” by publication of private material that would be “highly offensive to a reasonable person,” in exposing pictures and communications that may not be him or his. That view was slammed by the Isaac team that noted that it seemed off that Hunter was deeply offended by the disclosure of pictures that were “voluntarily shared by [Hunter] Biden with others through the website, ‘Pornhub’ … the use of the ‘reasonable person’ standard should clearly not apply to Biden … It seems what would embarrass a reasonable person does not embarrass Biden.” What is most striking is how this story continues to be effectively buried by the media. It is not hard to imagine the coverage if one of the Trump kids tried to maintain this combined claim of ignorance and outrage in a court — or tried to continue to question the authenticity of files established by the FBI and other witnesses.

Devine and her colleagues at the New York Post (as well as Fox News and the Wall Street Journal) have pursued this story since the beginning when it was suppressed by social media companies before the election. They have pursued the story for years as the media went through a series of false denials and narratives. Instead, the media endlessly pursued every allegation in the now-infamous Steele dossier and the New York Times and Washington Post received Pulitzer Prizes for a story that not only has been debunked but shown to be the product of Hillary’s Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Yet, in pursuing a true story with sweeping implications of corruption and deceit, the New York Post remains the media’s persona non grata. It embarrassed not only the establishment but other media. That is not how you get a Pulitzer. Indeed, as I discussed in an earlier column, the denial of true stories can be “the stuff that Pulitzer Prizes are made of.” Instead, Hunter will continue his performance of Hamlet on the Delaware in continuing to question reality. It is the ultimate “to be or not to be” pitch when everyone knows exactly what the true question is. . . and it is not the authenticity of this laptop.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

US car market

 

 

 

 

Sync lions

 

 

Mother

 

 

Allende

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 26 2023

Jul 262023
 
 July 26, 2023  Posted by at 8:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  92 Responses »


Andy Warhol Mick Jagger 1975

 

• Glimpses Of An Endgame In Ukraine (Bhadrakumar)
• Major Advancements For Russia, Ukraine On Its Last Legs – Macgregor (WF)
• Even Strong Western Economies Turn Into Colonies – Zakharova (TASS)
• Who Can Give Security Guarantees To Ukraine? (MoA)
• IAEA Discovers Anti-Personnel Mines Near Zaporozhye Nuke Plant (TASS)
• NATO Countries Using Ukraine to Get Rid of Outdated Weapons (Sp.)
• The Polish Response To Putin’s Challenge (Helmer)
• Zelensky Associate Was Present at Biden Bribery Meetings (GP)
• Biden Claims To Have ‘Ended Cancer’ (RT)
• Biden’s Dog Attacks 8 White House Staffers in Cover-Up (Sp.)
• Biden Changes Long-Standing Position on Hunter’s Foreign Deals (Turley)
• Hunter Biden’s Memoir Became Source of Tax Evasion Evidence (Sp.)
• Members and the Media Panic as the Biden Scandal Mounts (Turley)
• Twitter Rebrand to ‘X’ Fraught With Permit, Trademark Issues (DeMartino)
• Musk: ‘X Will Become Most Valuable Brand on Earth’ (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

RFK Hannity
https://twitter.com/i/status/1684030867264643072
https://twitter.com/i/status/1684017271012995075

 

 

Azov

 

 

 

 

Tucker Ice Cube


https://twitter.com/i/status/1684017033174827008

 

 

 

 

“..Polish leadership’s concern, paradoxically, will be that Donald Trump may not return as president in 2024..”

• Glimpses Of An Endgame In Ukraine (Bhadrakumar)

It is one thing that the Russian people are well aware that their country is de facto fighting the NATO in Ukraine. But it is an entirely different matter that the war may dramatically escalate to a war with Poland, a NATO army that the US regards as its most important partner in continental Europe. By dwelling at some length on Polish revanchism, which has a controversial record in modern European history, Putin probably calculated that in Europe, including in Poland, there could be resistance to the machinations that might drag NATO into a continental war with Russia. Equally, Poland must be dithering too. According to Politico, Poland’s military is about 150,000 strong, out of which 30,000 belong to a new territorial defence force who are “weekend soldiers who undergo 16 days of training followed up by refresher courses.”

Again, Poland’s military might doesn’t translate into political influence in Europe because the centrist forces that dominate the EU distrust Warsaw, which is controlled by the nationalist Law and Justice Party whose disregard for democratic norms and the rule of law has damaged Poland’s reputation across the bloc. Above all, Poland has reason to be worried about the reliability of Washington. Going forward, Polish leadership’s concern, paradoxically, will be that Donald Trump may not return as president in 2024. Despite the cooperation with the Pentagon over the Ukraine war, Poland’s current leadership remains distrustful of President Joe Biden — much like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

On balance, therefore, it stands to reason that the sabre-rattling by Lukashenko and Putin’s lesson on European history can be taken as more of a forewarning to the West with a view to modulate an endgame in Ukraine that is optimal for Russian interests. A dismemberment of Ukraine or an uncontrollable expansion of the war beyond its borders will not be in the Russian interests. But the Kremlin leadership will factor in the contingency that Washington’s follies stemming out of its desperate need to save face from a humiliating defeat in the proxy war, may leave no choice to the Russian forces but to cross the Dnieper and advance all the way to Poland’s border to prevent an occupation of Western Ukraine by the so-called Lublin Triangle, a regional alliance with virulent anti-Russian orientation comprising Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, formed in July 2020 and promoted by Washington.

Read more …

Article is bits and pieces thrown together, but still interesting.

• Major Advancements For Russia, Ukraine On Its Last Legs – Macgregor (WF)

The same people driving this war in Eastern Europe and Ukraine are the people dominating the financial markets, dominating media and ultimately shaping policy for our government.. Government by donors. This is entirely a function of people with a lot of money. – Douglas MacGregor Ret. Col. Douglas Macgregor: “[Putin] represents, in the minds of many people around the world, someone who has decided to challenge not just American military and political hegemony, but American and Western financial hegemony.

Macgregor

The World Bank and associated institutions have effectively been puppets for the US… We talk all the time about the Chinese supposedly blackmailing people by lending them lots of money and then holding them accountable. Well, we do the same thing, only we do it in more subtle ways that are actually more damaging to the society, because we’re very intrusive… The bottom line is this is a new era that is coming, and they’ve already got 40 plus nations willing to join this new currency. India, China and Russia, of course, are at the center of this, at the core of it. And this is seen as a rebellion against our financial dominance. That has been so, from their standpoint, certainly destructive in so many ways for so long.”

WAKE UP: If Russia was the aggressor against Ukraine, the situation would be different now, and we would see Russians on the borders of Poland after they destroyed Ukraine, but this did not happen, because the Russians do not want this. – Col. Douglas Macgregor “It’s stupid to threaten Russia with nuclear weapons,” – said Douglas Macgregor, ex-adviser to the head of the Pentagon. “The Russians can flood the Atlantic with their submarines, as well as the Pacific Ocean, where they will be supported by the Chinese Navy..”

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They’re no longer strong.

• Even Strong Western Economies Turn Into Colonies – Zakharova (TASS)

Even economically strong and developed Western countries have turned into colonies, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday. “Western countries, even strong and developed economies, have become colonies,” the diplomat noted, addressing a Russian-African women’s forum. “The most interesting thing is that European Union nations and NATO countries have already become neo-colonies. They are economically strong; they have a long history of democratic development, and many have given birth to democratic freedoms in the past. However, today, they are not just dependent, but they are completely subordinate to the will of their metropolis – that is, the Anglo-Saxon world – in terms of the economy, politics and morality.


However, the world is unwilling to follow the old path, get back on the same old track and repeat the same mistakes,” she added. “We are not only fighting for ourselves; we are fighting for the future of the world, deciding whether it will be a free world or we will return to the colonial past,” Zakharova noted. Still, the diplomat pointed out that Russia and Africa weren’t ready to sacrifice freedom for material benefits the way some Western countries did. “Although we appreciate material welfare, there are more important things. Welfare turns against humans when there is no internal freedom, free will, and an understanding of what’s good and bad,” Zakharova emphasized.

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How about Russia?

• Who Can Give Security Guarantees To Ukraine? (MoA)

In 2013 the European Union pressed the Ukraine to sign a free trade agreement with it. Russia, which was the biggest trading partner of Ukraine, made a counter offer that was financially better and had less political restrictions attached to it. Then President Victor Yanukovych of Ukraine had to reject the EU agreement. The U.S., together with the German secret service BND, had long standing ties with the right-wing groups in west-Ukraine which had previously cooperated with Nazi Germany and had been attached to the German Nazi-Wehrmacht. The CIA reactivated these groups and instigated a violent color-revolution in Kiev. That revolution led to a civil war as large parts of the ethic Russians in east Ukraine rejected the new regime that had been installed by a west Ukrainian minority.

While the ethnic Russians in Ukraine lost control over most of their original areas they also soon defeated what was left of the Ukraine army. They did so twice. Since 2015 the conflict was stalled. The Minsk agreements, under which Ukraine was supposed to became federalized, were signed, but Ukraine stalled their implementation. Meanwhile the U.S. and Britain used the time to reinstate and rearm the Ukrainian army. By 2021 the Ukraine was ready to attack the People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia activated its army and warned that it would have to interfere with such plans. The imminent launch of an Ukrainian attack was called off. In early 2022 the U.S. gave the Ukrainians a green light to launch their long planned attack. Russia intervened and the current war started.

The U.S. plans behind the war expected that the pre-coordinated western sanctions that immediately followed would ruin Russia, that Russia would be shunned by the rest of the world and that a military defeat of the Russian army would lead to regime change in Moscow. The Ukraine expected that, after winning a war against its separatists, it would immediately become a member of NATO. Neither of the (totally unrealistic) expectations was met. The Ukraine is now obviously losing the war. It will soon need to sign a capitulation like ceasefire agreement with Russia. But who or what can guarantee that any such agreement will be held up? NATO membership is no longer an option.

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Whose are they?

• IAEA Discovers Anti-Personnel Mines Near Zaporozhye Nuke Plant (TASS)

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have observed directional anti-personnel mines on the periphery of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), the agency’s Director General Rafael Grossi said. According to him, while inspecting the site on July 23, the IAEA experts saw some mines located in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers. The experts reported that the mines were in a restricted area that plant personnel cannot access. No mines were discovered within the site. “As I have reported earlier, the IAEA has been aware of the previous placement of mines outside the site perimeter and also at particular places inside. Our team has raised this specific finding with the plant and they have been told that it is a military decision, and in an area controlled by military,” Grossi said.

According to him, “having such explosives on the site is inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards and nuclear security guidance.” That said, the IAEA experts concluded that “any detonation of these mines should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems.” On June 22, ahead of Grossi’s visit to Russia, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky accused Russia of plotting a terror attack on the Zaporozhye NPP. He said as much to the United States, Brazil, India, China, European, Middle East and African countries but provided no evidence to back up his allegation.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov refuted these allegations as yet another lie. According to Renat Karchaa, adviser to the CEO of Russian state nuclear power corporation Rosenergoatom, Zelensky’s statements may indicate that Kiev is plotting a terror attack or a strike on the ZNPP in a bid to drag NATO into the conflict. Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said on June 23 that Russia was alarmed over Kiev’s repeated allegations that Russian forces were mining the nuclear facility.

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And they don’t produce enough to replace them.

• NATO Countries Using Ukraine to Get Rid of Outdated Weapons (Sp.)

NATO countries have been pumping weapons into Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict with Russia, but most of them are outdated and have been mothballed for decades, military expert and former high-ranking NATO artillery officer Pierre Henrot told Sputnik. “NATO countries in fact only send their oldest equipment to Ukraine and take the opportunity to replenish their armament for their armies with new generations of equipment. Examples abound: the Poles, who are the most committed alongside Ukraine, to the point that they are talking about entering western Ukraine themselves, provided very early [on] all their Soviet-era tanks to the Ukrainians and have just received for the Polish army a first contingent of American Abrams tanks, brand new and manufactured for them,” Henrot said.

Other countries have also provided decommissioned equipment, including 88 German Leopard 1 tanks that were withdrawn from arsenals in 2003, and French AMX 10-RC light tanks that were developed in the 1970s and have been decommissioned by the French army as well, the former officer added. “The worst is probably the delivery by France of VAB armoured infantry vehicles (Vehicules de l’Avant Blindes), in a four-wheeled version, which invariably gets bogged down in the autumn mud. Entering service in 1979, it has proven to be a rolling coffin for Ukrainian infantry over the past year,” the expert further explained. Some countries, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania, also sent Ukraine all their Soviet MiG or Sukhoi fighters, he said.

Another problem with such ragtag deliveries is that the spare parts and ammunition for such weapons are often different and incompatible with one another, Henrot pointed out. “It is as if the NATO partners were getting rid of their outdated weapons, already mothballed,” the former officer said. However, some of Western military aid is useful for the Ukrainian military, and of good quality, the expert noted, adding that it is usually equipment for small arms, bulletproof vests and night sight systems, as well as US-made Stingers and Javelins. “Where the Americans provided suitable and effective weapons, it was with the 2,000 portable anti-aircraft Stingers delivered or with the 10,000 Javelin anti-armor weapons provided; formidable weapons in the hands of infantrymen. It is the same for the NLAW [Next Generation Light AntiTank Weapons], a useful weapon on the battlefield,” he stated.

At the same time, the Western countries often lack sufficient capacities to produce weapons required by the Ukrainian military, Henrot mentioned. “NATO countries fail to keep up with the production of ammunition for artillery and even for small arms. Again, the variety of calibres is very large; it’s a headache, but above all, there are not enough production chains, and industrialists are reluctant to launch production units for an effort that could stop quite quickly, and they have not received a firm long-term contract from Western governments,” the expert explained. Henrot believes that the recent widely criticized decision of the United States to send cluster bombs to Ukraine is the demonstration of the same problem. “The Americans for their part have almost openly admitted that it was their last ammo in stock and that they have nothing left to deliver,” Henrot concluded.

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“The Polish authorities, who are nurturing their revanchist ambitions, hide the truth from their people. The truth is that the Ukrainian cannon fodder is no longer enough for the West.”

• The Polish Response To Putin’s Challenge (Helmer)

[Putin] warned that President Vladimir Zelensky’s regime in Kiev may be contemplating a trade with Poland of the territory around Lvov in exchange for Polish military intervention to support Kiev against Russia: “Today we see that the regime in Kiev is ready to go to any length to save its treacherous hide and to prolong its existence. They do not care for the people of Ukraine or Ukrainian sovereignty or national interests. They are ready to sell anything, including people and land, just like their ideological forefathers led by Petlyura, who signed the so-called secret conventions with Poland in 1920 under which they ceded Galicia and Western Volhynia to Poland in return for military support. Traitors like them are ready now to open the gate to their foreign handlers and to sell Ukraine again.”

“As for the Polish leaders, they probably hope to form a coalition under the NATO umbrella in order to directly intervene in the conflict in Ukraine and to bite off as much as possible, to ‘regain’, as they see it, their historical territories, that is, modern-day Western Ukraine. It is also common knowledge that they dream about Belarusian land.” If that were to happen, Putin said Russia would support a Ukrainian regime replacing Zelensky and opposing the Poles. “The Polish authorities, who are nurturing their revanchist ambitions, hide the truth from their people. The truth is that the Ukrainian cannon fodder is no longer enough for the West. That is why it is planning to use other expendables – Poles, Lithuanians and everyone else they do not care about. I can tell you that this is an extremely dangerous game, and the authors of such plans should think about the consequences.”

The Polish state media have ignored Putin’s historical precedents and the deal-making underway between the Ukrainian military command and its Polish counterpart. The Polish commercial network TVN24, which is owned by the US media corporation Warner Bros. Discovery, broadcast a discussion with a think-tank academic and a retired military intelligence colonel. “‘The Russians are trying to drive a wedge between Poland and Ukraine,’ Agnieszka Legucka, an analyst for Russia at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said in the Fakty po Faktach [Facts after Facts] programme. ‘Putin has recently been portraying himself as such an expert in history. Anyway, in 2019 he launched attacks on Poland, in particular when it comes to this historical dimension. He accused us of starting World War II,’ she said.

‘And Poland now, especially when it supports Ukraine so much both militarily and humanely, has become one of the countries that is attacked by the Russian authorities directly, including Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev.’ According to the expert, the Russians ‘are trying to drive a wedge between Poland and Ukraine. And the issue of the alleged separation of Ukraine and even Belarus is very eagerly raised by both Russian and Belarusian propaganda,’ she added.”

Read more …

“..if that document is true, who wants to believe that President Zelensky and his administration have not used that as leverage over Joe Biden..”

• Zelensky Associate Was Present at Biden Bribery Meetings (GP)

Author Peter Schweizer went on with Jesse Watters on Monday night where he proceeded to drop another bomb on the Biden Crime Family. According to Schweizer, who wrote a best-seller “Secret Empires” on the Biden Family crimes, told Jesse that one of Vlodomyr Zelensky’s top officials was sitting in the room when they were discussing bribing the Bidens, Joe and Hunter. Ukrainian President Zelensky has a top official who was sitting in on meetings where they talked about bribing the Bidens. Schweizer suggests Zelensky is using this as leverage over the Biden regime for weapons and billions in US dollars. Peter Schweizer: We’ve been at this since 2018. ** They initially said there were no foreign deals. ** Then they shifted and said there were. There might have been foreign deals, but the Bidens made no money. ** Then it became Joe Biden didn’t know about any of the deals. ** Then it became Joe Biden didn’t participate in any of the deals. ** And now it’s that he was not in business with his son.


Look, the implications for this are huge, Jesse. If you look at that 1023 form that the FBI released, if that document is true, that document reveals that one of the people that was at those meetings that heard the conversations about bribing the Bidens worked for – President Zelensky. Who really wants to believe, if that meeting took place and that document is accurate, that that individual did not go and report to President Zelensky what he heard? And again, if that document is true, who wants to believe that President Zelensky and his administration have not used that as leverage over Joe Biden when it comes to negotiations on Ukraine policy? We may all have to start learning the Ukrainian word for compromise because this is a very clear indication of how this has shaped this administration’s policy towards Ukraine and also towards China. It is also convenient for Zelensky that there is not a team of US auditors in his country tracking where all of this money went.

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“Biden cured cancer in the same way that he marched for civil rights, was arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela, grew up in the black church, was raised in the Puerto Rican community, was a professor at UPenn, built the greatest economy in the world, and never spoke to his son about business..”

• Biden Claims To Have ‘Ended Cancer’ (RT)

During a speech on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden seemed to claim that his administration had cured cancer. “I said I’d cure cancer. They looked at me like, ‘Why cancer’? Because no one thinks we can. That’s why. And we can. We ended cancer as we know it,” Biden said during a speech in the East Room of the White House. Biden was scheduled to speak about expanding Americans’ access to mental health care. After the cancer remark, he continued to talk about healthcare for military veterans, which is run by the federal government. The strange claim was quickly noticed by Republicans, who have often accused the 80-year-old Democrat of behaving as if afflicted by dementia. “Biden just told everyone that he cured cancer. I feel like that would have at least gotten a press release,” quipped Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

“Biden cured cancer in the same way that he marched for civil rights, was arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela, grew up in the black church, was raised in the Puerto Rican community, was a professor at UPenn, built the greatest economy in the world, and never spoke to his son about business,” tweeted Texas activist Christian Collins. Those were just some of the claims Biden had made over his 50-year political career that turned out to be tall tales. The longtime Democrat also has a history of misspeaking in public. Just last week, he introduced himself as an artificial intelligence. The week before, in Europe, he urged Russia to “stop attacking Russia.” Earlier this month, he also claimed that Moscow was “losing the war in Iraq.”


Biden’s elder son Beau passed away in 2015 from an aggressive brain cancer, which his father has publicly attributed to “burn pits,” a method used by the US military to dispose of garbage. Beau Biden was reportedly exposed to the toxic pits during his 2008 deployment in Iraq as a military lawyer, and earlier as a contractor in Kosovo. In February 2022, Biden announced a government program to find a cure for cancer, dubbing it a re-launch of the Obama administration’s 2016 ‘Cancer Moonshot’. The new program’s goal was to “reduce the cancer death rate by half within 25 years and improve the lives of people with cancer and cancer survivors,” according to the National Cancer Institute. In March this year, Biden had surgery to remove from his chest a “small skin lesion” that had “basal cell carcinoma,” according to the White House physician.

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I think I count 8 reported cases. In 4 months. Madness.

• Biden’s Dog Attacks 8 White House Staffers in Cover-Up (Sp.)

Commander, President Joe Biden’s soon-to-be two-year canine, has been implicated in seven biting assaults within four months, attacking Secret Service and White House personnel, reports have claimed. A series of alarming occurrences featuring Commander have emerged, all of which were kept undisclosed until now. These incidents are reminiscent of attacks associated with Major, whom the White House claimed was handed over to the president’s close acquaintances in 2021 due to his biting spree. On November 3, Commander was at the center of a serious biting incident when he attacked a Secret Service uniformed officer, inflicting injuries on the arm and thigh before the victim was hospitalized.

The details of this incident were brought to public attention when relevant emails were disclosed to the conservative legal organization Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. In another occurrence, Commander, broke the skin of another Secret Service member’s hand and arm. Additionally, Commander bit a security technician at President Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, the following month. “This is a special sort of craziness and corruption where a president would allow his dog to repeatedly attack and bite Secret Service and White House personnel. And rather than protect its agents, the Secret Service tried to illegally hide documents about the abuse of its agents and officers by the Biden family,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton noted. Reports suggest that Biden doubted the claims about Major attacking a Secret Service agent. Moreover, the White House has not revealed any biting events implicating Commander.

According to the reported emails, agents disclosed a series of incidents that occurred discreetly. On October 3, 2022, near the East Wing garden, Commander “inflicted a ‘friendly soft bite’ on [a Secret Service agent’s] forearm as [he] held the door open,” regardless “no skin was broken from the bite.” On the morning of October 5, 2022, the first recorded incident involved Commander hopping on an emergency response technician on the grounds of the presidential villa and biting their “arm/wrist area.” On November 10, a Secret Service Uniformed Division officer was bitten on the left thigh as First Lady Jill Biden walked Commander in the Kennedy Garden near the East Wing. Media sources reveal that the officer reported experiencing “bruising, tenderness, and pain” in the bite area. On November 14, one other Secret Service officer recounted an incident via email where they had to defend themselves as Commander charged toward them.

The officer described grabbing a black chair they were sitting on, making eye contact with the dog, and backing away to avoid being attacked. On December 11, Commander bit a Secret Service special agent in the Presidential Protective Division. This event transpired after the president yanked Commander’s leash following a movie. The agent reported being double-bitten, first on the arm with a 1.5cm cut and lesions, and a 1cm cut on their hand and thumb sustained from a second bite. On December 16, another Secret Service member was attacked and inflicted with canine bites, as indicated in a workplace injury form available to media sources. “I was walking across the complex, and a dog bit my left arm,” the officer wrote, expressing the wound as “Dog bite, superficial laceration, contusion, soreness, and bruising.”

On 2022’s Christmas Eve, a Secret Service inspector notified colleagues that another officer had been wounded at [undisclosed location] the day before. The inspector’s email cited that nearly every official in the room discussed specific incidents involving the First Family’s dog. On January 2 this year, an agency technical security investigator was the victim of an attack while responding to an alarm at the president’s Wilmington residence, frequently visited during weekends. “Commander squeezed his way through the door and immediately bit/latched onto the lower right side of my back,” the attack victim emailed. “These shocking records raise fundamental questions about President Biden and the Secret Service,” Fitton remarked.

Read more …

“The answer remains the same. The president was never in business with his son.”

That’s not “the same”. It is a big change from “I never talked to him about his business”.

• Biden Changes Long-Standing Position on Hunter’s Foreign Deals (Turley)

Starting with his campaign for the presidency and continuing until this week, President Joe Biden has maintained one clear and consistent position on his son’s influence peddling schemes. As a virtual mantra, Biden — and the White House staff — have categorically maintained that he had no knowledge of any foreign dealings of his son. That has been proven to be a lie, but Biden continued to maintain the position. Yet, on the eve of the testimony of a key Biden associate, the White House has changed its position. Now the President is only claiming that he was “not in business” with his son.Some of us have written multiple columns over the last four years arguing that the President was clearly and knowingly lying in his denials of knowledge and discussions of these deals. Even when he made the statement, it was clearly untrue but most of the media shrugged and happily walked away.

Then the evidence began to mount. The laptop includes pictures and appointments of Hunter’s foreign business associates with Joe Biden. There is also a recording of Joe Biden discussing a Times report on Dec. 12, 2018, detailing Hunter’s dealings with Ye Jianming, the head of CEFC China Energy Company. He assures his son that “I think you’re clear” after lawyers worked on the New York Times before the story ran. There is also a recording of his uncle James assuring Hunter that he and his father were going to arrange for “safe harbor” for him as his world began to collapse. Then there is the July 30, 2017 Whatsapp message from Hunter Biden to one of his Chinese associates, Henry Zhao, the director of Harvest Fund Management and Communist Party official. Zhao was funneling money to Hunter’s firm BHR Partners. Hunter is quoted as writing:

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.” Nevertheless, the White House has maintained the total denial . . . until this week before the testimony of Devon Archer. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked by Fox News journalist Gillian Turner:

“Chairman James Comer today says that the Oversight Committee has evidence that the president in the past communicated directly with foreign business associates of his son Hunter Biden many times. Curious if the White House and the president still stand behind his comment that he’s never been involved and has never even spoken to his son about his business?” The response from Jean-Pierre was surprising: “So, I’ve been I’ve been asked this question a million times. The answer is not going to change. The answer remains the same. The president was never in business with his son. I just don’t have anything else to add.” It takes an utter contempt for the intelligence of the public to insist that “the answer remains the same” and then give an entirely new answer. However, that is only if most of the public is informed of the contradiction. None of the media in the White House press corp followed up on Turner’s questions when Jean-Pierre immediately moved on.

Read more …

“[Hunter Biden] was money laundering. He was racketeering. He committed wire fraud. He violated the Mann Act. The list goes on and on and on..”

Hunter’s plea deal covers two years of tax evasion. But “IRS agents saw evidence that the first son was engaged in tax evasion that “stretched back two decades.”

• Hunter Biden’s Memoir Became Source of Tax Evasion Evidence (Sp.)

US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent Joseph Ziegler, who was known only as “Whistleblower X” in the Hunter Biden tax case prior to his testimony at the House Oversight Committee last Wednesday, said that some of the alleged tax evasion schemes in which Hunter Biden reportedly engaged in were detailed in his 2021 work, “Beautiful Things: A Memoir.” As per Ziegler, the opus showed that some of the expenses described by Hunter were for personal choices and not corporate benefit. “That’s almost the biggest component of this that I don’t think that the general public understands: You have statements being made in a book that are talking about going out to California, leaving your life and then going to start this new life. Yet, on your tax return you’re essentially stating things that are completely different,” Ziegler told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

The whistleblower said he and IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley, also known as the first IRS whistleblower in Hunter Biden’s case, are gathering more documents to provide to Congress. The trove reportedly includes WhatsApp messages in addition to the one made public from 2017 in which Hunter invoked his father’s name to force his Chinese associate into forking out large sums of money. The whistleblower said there is evidence of US President Joe Biden’s association in the Hunter tax case. Earlier, the president repeatedly denied being related to his son’s business dealing or knowing anything about them. Ziegler told the media outlet that a family friend named Rob Walker told the FBI that then-Vice President Joe Biden attended a meeting with the Chinese executives, and that his son deducted as a business expense a hotel room in father’s name.

Ziegler highlighted his team was prevented from finding out whether Joe Biden actually used the room or was present at the hotel. “But what I think it’s important to know is that that was a deduction that was taken on Hunter’s tax return,” he said. Moreover, per the whistleblower, IRS agents saw evidence that the first son was engaged in tax evasion that “stretched back two decades.” “In my transcript, I talked about certain issues that Hunter had, I think, going back to the early 2000s,” he said.

In June, the younger Biden struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors on two minor tax crimes and a gun case. However, Republican congressmen said they are determined to get to the bottom of Hunter’s alleged crimes. Last week, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer said he expects to file “between six and 10 criminal referrals” with the Justice Department related to Hunter after the congressional probe is completed.
“[Hunter Biden] was money laundering. He was racketeering. He committed wire fraud. He violated the Mann Act. The list goes on and on and on,” Comer alleged.

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Devon Archer is scheduled to testify on Friday. Will that happen? Will he be alive?

• Members and the Media Panic as the Biden Scandal Mounts (Turley)

Now, Archer is expected to testify that Joe Biden participated in actual telephone calls with them. That will allow investigators to build further on the foundation Goldman laid. Archer will join other witnesses like Hunter’s business associate Tony Bobulinski, who said that he sat down with Joe Biden to discuss the deals. Bobulinski was instructed by Biden associate James Gilliar not to speak of the former veep’s connection to any transactions. No matter the severity of the revelations, the liberal media calls the investigations a “clown show.” Others have continued to tell the public that there remain no alleged ties from Hunter to President Biden despite emails, pictures and witness testimony. Yet it is becoming harder and harder to avoid these details.

With the possible testimony of Hunter’s business associates, the only hope is that Republicans might be convinced to “move on.” What was most notable about the question to Christie was the reference to the plea bargain. A year ago, I wrote a column on how the political and media establishment would likely use a “scandal implosion” approach as the evidence mounted over the corruption allegations. After the Democrats lost the House, there was a need to cap off the scandal and I suggested that the Justice Department would secure a light plea on a couple tax counts with little or no jail time. Members and the media would then declare the scandal closed and demand that we all “move on.” It is unnerving to see how the response unfolded so precisely as predicted. Members made repeated reference to the plea bargain to avoid further discussion.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D.-Md.) was positively irate that “We are doing this all over again for the Hunter Biden show to someone who has pleaded guilty and has taken responsibility for not filing taxes for two years. This is ludicrous. Beam me up, Scotty. There’s no intelligent life down here. None.” He then tore up papers in disgust. Members and the media were literally citing a plea bargain as dispositive, even as two lead investigators were saying it was fixed and politically influenced. Some in the media attacked these two IRS veterans as “so-called whistleblowers” (just as members previously attacked “so called journalists” for discussing censorship records). Others insisted that the allegations were still “unproven” or “unverified” while showing the same lack of interest in establishing the truth. Notably, these same media outlets did wall-to-wall coverage of the false Russian collusion claims in the Steele dossier.

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There’s a lot of X’s out there.

• Twitter Rebrand to ‘X’ Fraught With Permit, Trademark Issues (DeMartino)

Later Sunday night, the logo began appearing in place of the social media site’s iconic bird logo for some users on some platforms. While the old Twitter branding remains for some users on some platforms, Musk promised in a Tweet (or an “X”) that the old branding would soon be gone completely. “And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk wrote. Musk also changed his profile picture and the profile picture of the official “Twitter” account to the site’s new logo. X.com also now redirects to Twitter.com. X users responded to the delayed signage removal and the rebrand in general with a mix of mocking and indifference, while others took the opportunity to dunk on the city of San Francisco.

At present, there is also a question of whether the “X” branding is even available for Musk to use for social media sites. Both Microsoft and Meta* hold trademarks of “X.” The Meta patent lists the service as potentially “providing interactive websites featuring technology that enable online users to create personal profiles” that users can use “for broadcasting, transmitting, receiving, accessing, viewing, uploading, downloading, sharing, integrating, encoding, decoding, displaying, formatting, organizing, storing, caching, transferring and streaming of data, text, games, game content, digital media, images, music, audio, video and animations.” Another listed use for the Meta trademark of X includes “online social networking services.”

Microsoft’s patent, first filed in 2002, lists “on-line chatrooms” and “electronic bulletin boards” for users to share messages about video games and an online video game storefront. Both patents, particularly the Meta one, which seems related to a social media site, could cause legal problems for Musk, who has been in an online feud with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Musk has threatened to sue Meta for launching an X competitor called “Threads” and the two floated a potential cage fight being aired on Pay-Per-View.

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“Musk foresees these payment capabilities potentially becoming half of the global financial system.”

• Musk: ‘X Will Become Most Valuable Brand on Earth’ (Sp.)

The rebranding of Twitter to “X” was announced over the weekend and near instantly began to face varying hurdles, from potential legal challenges to a barrage of criticism from users thrown off by the platform’s redesign. Some forecasts indicated the change could result in billions’ worth in losses for the firm’s value. Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of companies Tesla and SpaceX, announced his confidence in the success of X social media on Tuesday, vowing that the Twitter rebrand would make the platform the “most valuable brand on Earth.” Musk’s statement came in response to a US media article that estimated the rebranding could potentially decrease Twitter’s value by $4 billion to $20 billion.

Nevertheless, Musk remains undeterred, envisioning “X” as a comprehensive communication platform that also offers robust financial transactions. The potential integration of payment systems into Twitter/X has sparked speculation that users may soon be able to send and receive money directly through the platform. Musk foresees these payment capabilities potentially becoming half of the global financial system. While specific details about the payment systems have not been revealed, Musk emphasized the importance of executing them correctly for the magnum opus of Twitter/X to become a reality, noting his intentions to revolutionize the financial world. Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s new CEO, has expressed enthusiasm about the transformation and hinted at more changes to come, signaling the company is just getting started.

Under Yaccarino’s leadership, the platform aims to fulfill its immense potential and meet the expectations of fans and critics alike. Since acquiring Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, Musk has embarked on a series of changes to enhance the user experience and drive innovation on the platform. The rebranding to “X” was the latest in a series of moves aimed at revitalizing Twitter and positioning it as a leader in the ever-evolving social media landscape. With popular platforms such as TikTok vying for users’ attention, critics have underscored that the success of Musk’s rebranding strategy will undoubtedly face challenges as the viability of company’s future remains uncertain.

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Plimer

 

 

Viper
https://twitter.com/i/status/1683884068000215044

 

 

Peacock

 

 

Idolomantis diabolica
https://twitter.com/i/status/1683874828694982657

 

 


The exact moment the sunlight penetrates the wings of a Black and white Jacobin hummingbird revealing a secret of nature that cannot be seen with our eyes. No digital manipulation. IG: christianspencerphoto

 

 

Metallica
https://twitter.com/i/status/1683773227389140992

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 14 2023

Jan 142023
 
 January 14, 2023  Posted by at 9:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  97 Responses »


John Waterhouse Diogenes 1882

 

• Ukraine Is A ‘De Facto’ NATO Member – Kiev (RT)
• Russia Speaks On Endgame For Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• Internal Documents Show Prominent Democrats Knowingly Pushed Russiagate Lie (ET)
• There’s More: Elon Musk Exposes Schiff For Mass Scale Collusion (TPN)
• Where’s The Impeachment AND Indictment (Denninger)
• House GOP Launches Investigation Into Biden Classified Documents (JTN)
• Biden Visitor Logs Under Scrutiny After Classified Files Uncovered (RT)
• Former Acting AG Derides Garland’s ‘Unforced Error’ On Document Probes (JTN)
• House Republicans Consider Wiping Trump’s Impeachments Off the Books (WJ)
• House GOP Begins Probe Into Afghanistan Withdrawal (JTN)
• The Aristocracy Is Eating the Peasants (Rubino)
• BBC Criticised For Letting Cardiologist ‘Hijack’ Interview (G.)
• Covid Vaccines Are “Obviously Dangerous” – Senior Swedish Doctors (DS)
• WHO Proposals Could Strip Nations of Their Sovereignty (CHD)

 

 

 

 

Tucker: Well, he’s dead!

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1614027701731446784

 

 

 

 

I’ve seen zero pushback from NATO or its members. Can anyone just make this claim?

• Ukraine Is A ‘De Facto’ NATO Member – Kiev (RT)

Ukraine is already a “de facto” member of NATO, Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov told the BBC in an interview published on Friday. The minister added that he was “sure” Kiev’s formal accession to the alliance was not far off. “Ukraine as a country, and the armed forces of Ukraine, became [a] member of NATO. De facto, not de jure. Because we have weaponry, and the understanding of how to use it,” Reznikov said. He told the outlet he was certain Kiev would soon receive more powerful equipment from the West, including western-made battle tanks and fighter jets. The US and its allies have been reluctant to send heavier armament to Ukraine, with some arguing such a move could risk escalation and drag them directly into the ongoing conflict. Reznikov brushed off such concerns, branding them a mere formality.

“This concern about the next level of escalation, for me, is some kind of protocol,” the minister said. He also denied that his comments could be seen as controversial amid the West’s attempt to avoid being viewed as a party to the fighting. “Why [would it be] controversial? It’s true. It’s a fact,” he said, commenting on Kiev’s relations with NATO and the West’s military support of Ukraine. “I’m sure that in the near future, we’ll become a member of NATO, de jure,” the minister added. Moscow regards Ukraine’s potential NATO accession as a threat to its national security and has named establishing a neutral status for the country as one of the goals of the military offensive launched in February last year.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed that Ukraine had become a de facto NATO member as early as in June 2022. He also filed a NATO membership application in September of the same year and called for a fast-track accession process. The military bloc itself, however, has been less eager to consider such a prospect. In November, NATO reiterated its pledge to accept Ukraine at some point, but said the issue was not on the agenda for the time being. In spring 2022, French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune said the process could take decades, while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said too many NATO members were against the idea altogether.

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“..if this result can be achieved through negotiations, we stand ready for this scenario. If not – then our tasks will be achieved by military means.”

• Russia Speaks On Endgame For Ukraine Conflict (RT)

The Ukraine conflict may be concluded either through diplomatic, or military means, but only after Moscow has achieved its goals, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, said on Friday. Speaking at a briefing at the UN Security Council, the envoy commented on a possible path for ending the hostilities between the two sides. The opportunity to settle the conflict “will only present itself once Ukraine stops posing a threat to Russia and discriminating against Russian-speaking Ukrainians,” he said. Nebenzia noted that “if this result can be achieved through negotiations, we stand ready for this scenario. If not – then our tasks will be achieved by military means.” The diplomat reiterated that Russia is fighting not against the Ukrainian people, but rather against “the criminal nationalist regime which came to power in 2014” after a coup in Kiev.

The new Ukrainian leadership has been trying to purge the country of “everything that is related to Russia, and to glorify Nazi accomplices,” he said. Nebenzia stated that “everything could have ended differently for Ukraine,” if Kiev had enforced the now-defunct Minsk Agreements, which were signed in 2014 and 2015 in a bid to pave the way for peace by granting the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics special status within the Ukrainian state. However, neither Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky or his predecessors, nor France and Germany, which took part in negotiating the Minsk Agreements, ever intended to fulfill the plan, according to Nebenzia. This diplomatic process “only served as a smokescreen behind which they secretly armed Ukraine in order to set it against Russia,” he stated.

Last month, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that the Minsk Agreements were “an attempt to give Ukraine time” so that its army could get stronger. Later, this revelation was confirmed by former French President Francois Hollande, who noted that the Minsk Agreements had helped Ukraine to achieve that goal. Merkel’s and Hollande’s confessions caused an uproar in Moscow, with Russian officials describing them as “formalization of betrayal.” In December, Ukraine floated the idea of a “Global Peace Summit,” building on Zelensky’s “peace formula,” which in particular demanded Russia withdraw its troops from all territories claimed by Kiev. Moscow dismissed the plan as ignoring the new status of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, and Crimea, as parts of Russia. Kiev wants to hold the summit at the UN headquarters in New York on February 24, with no indication that Moscow would be invited.

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What are the consequences for them?

• Internal Documents Show Prominent Democrats Knowingly Pushed Russiagate Lie (ET)

The latest Twitter Files release shows how prominent Democrats knowingly pushed a false Russiagate-related narrative about “Russian bots” promoting a key House Intelligence Committee memo that detailed efforts to spy on the Trump campaign, despite the lawmakers being told by Twitter executives that it wasn’t true. The 14th instalment of the Twitter Files was released on Jan. 12 by journalist Matt Taibbi, who explained in a series of posts that, at a key moment in the Trump-Russia investigation, Democrats alleged that “Russian bots” were spreading an explosive report from then-Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). “At a crucial moment in a years-long furor,” Taibbi explained in one of the posts, “Democrats denounced a report about flaws in the Trump-Russia investigation, saying it was boosted by Russian ‘bots’ and ‘trolls.’”

“Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence,” Taibbi continued. In support of this take, Taibbi shared screenshots of correspondence from Twitter executives to several Congressional Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), confirming that they had “not identified any significant activity connected to Russia with respect to Tweets posting original content to this [#ReleaseTheMemo] hashtag.” The #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag spread like wildfire on Twitter, topping its trending list starting on Jan. 18, 2018 and reflecting the widespread call to publicly release a then-classified memo submitted by Nunes, who at the time was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Widely referred to as the Nunes memo, it was later declassified under then-President Donald Trump’s order on Feb. 2, 2018. The memo showed how the FBI under the Obama administration used unverified opposition research—the infamous “Steele Dossier” funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee—to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page as part of an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The claims made in the Nunes memo were confirmed by Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Horowitz in his report, released on Dec. 9, 2019.

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But he still has his job.

• There’s More: Elon Musk Exposes Schiff For Mass Scale Collusion (TPN)

On Friday, journalist Matt Taibbi dropped a Twitter Files supplemental to expose Democrat representative Adam Schiff once again for colluding with Twitter. Since former President Donald Trump took office, Schiff has spent every day accusing the former president of colluding with Russia, however it now appears that the only person colluding all this time was Schiff himself. In a previous Twitter Files drop, Schiff put pressure on Twitter to ban investigative journalist Paul Sperry. Twitter initially denied the request however later banned Sperry from the site.


Taibbi just followed up with a supplemental exposing Schiff of more wrongdoing. “Staff of House Democrat Adam Schiff wrote to Twitter quite often, asking that tweets be taken down. This important use of taxpayer resources involved an ask about a “Peter Douche” parody photo of Joe Biden. The DNC made the same request,” Taibbi tweeted. “The real issue was Donald Trump retweeted the Biden pic,” the journalist explained To its credit Twitter refused to remove it, with Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth saying it had obvious “humorous intent” and “any reasonable observer” – apparently, not a Schiff staffer – could see it was doctored.”

Taibbi continued: “Schiff staffer Jeff Lowenstein didn’t give up, claiming there was a “slippery slope concern here.”” “Twitter also refused requests for bans of content about Schiff and his staff, e.g. “complete suppress[ion of] any and all search results about Mr. Misko and other Committee staffers.” Twitter said this would not be “conceivable.”” Taibbi explained.

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“..enough to get any other person indicted and convicted..”

• Where’s The Impeachment AND Indictment (Denninger)

Biden has now been “caught” with classified documents in two unsecured places (late update: It appears its three locations, but the third I do not have confirmation on as to what and where.) The documents were acquired and retained while and after he was Vice-President and thus had no more right to transport and possess them outside of a secure facility than any other person with a security clearance — that is, no right to do so whatsoever. One of the places is allegedly Biden’s house and not just anywhere in the house: In the garage. Further, the Penn Biden Center, the first (different) place said documents were found, is an unsecured facility that is frequently open to foreign persons and in fact its sponsor, the University of Pennsylvania, has received material donations from Chinese organizations linked to the Chinese government.

Hunter Biden also allegedly was involved in negotiating various business elements with the center including office space for himself and his staff, along with, it appears, Blinken who currently is Secretary of State! Folks, this is not trivial stuff. With regards to Penn we’re talking about something on order of $77 million from China in the form of donations and contracts, which of course leads to the obvious question as to what were they buying? I don’t care what the classified documents involve the fact that Biden removed them from their secure locations and they were not only in the Penn Center but others were in his garage where they were most-certainly not under any sort of “appropriate” security, never mind Biden have no lawful right to possess them in the first place beyond wherever he was using them while Vice-President in an official capacity, in a secure location, is enough to get any other person indicted and convicted.

Oh, and by the way, Hunter who never had a right of access to them and was in fact an agent of a foreign corporation, Burisma, has listed Biden’s address where the documents were as his residence so it must be presumed he had access to same. The President is not above the law. Never mind that it appears the Government knew this prior to the election and deliberately sat on the information. Indictment and impeachment now folks. This is actual impeachment-worthy conduct, never mind felony prosecution worthy conduct.

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Still puzzled about the garage. How do secret docs end up there?

• House GOP Launches Investigation Into Biden Classified Documents (JTN)

House Republicans are seeking information on the appointment of special counsel Robert Hur to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents and hand over records of communications between the DOJ, FBI, and the White House. In a Friday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., said the committee was “conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s actions with respect to former Vice President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington, D.C. private office and in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware residence.”

They further observed that Garland’s appointment of Hur had raised questions. Former President Donald Trump appointed Hur in 2018 to a legal posting in Maryland, wherein he established a record for taking on corrupt Democratic officials. Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh even found herself behind bars as a result of Hur’s efforts. He previously worked with former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and was an aide to now-FBI Director Christopher Wray. His association with the pair has raised some concerns among conservative circles. President Joe Biden, who vehemently condemned former President Donald Trump’s storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, appeared to have ink on his face this week following revelations that his aides had discovered classified documents in both his former office at the Penn Biden Center and his Delaware home.

The first discovery occurred in early November and the documents were handed over to the government at that time. Speculation has arisen that the government may have deliberately withheld the details of that incident until after the elections, which Jordan and Johnson addressed in their letter. “It is unclear when the Department first came to learn about the existence of these documents, and whether it actively concealed this information from the public on the eve of the 2022 elections,” they wrote. “It is also unclear what interactions, if any, the Department had with President Biden or his representatives about his mishandling of classified material.” The pair stopped short of making accusations, but noted that “[t]he Department’s actions here appear to depart from how it acted in similar circumstances.”

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“We need to know who all has had access to the president.”

• Biden Visitor Logs Under Scrutiny After Classified Files Uncovered (RT)

Congressional Republicans are demanding to see visitor logs for US President Joe Biden’s homes, arguing that the discovery of classified files at one of his residences is a national security risk. Mr Biden acknowledged on Thursday that sensitive material was found in the garage of his house in Delaware. The White House deflected when asked if the visitor logs would be provided. The justice department has appointed an investigator to look into the files. News that sensitive documents dating from Mr Biden’s time as vice-president had been found in a private office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington, emerged earlier this week. That was followed by a disclosure that a second cache was discovered at Mr Biden’s home.

The first batch was found on 2 November, just before the US midterm elections, but only became public on Monday. Mr Biden kept an office at the think tank after he left the White House in 2017 until he launched his presidential campaign in 2019. On Thursday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed in a news conference that the second cache had been found on 20 December at Mr Biden’s private home in Wilmington, Delaware. He added that Mr Biden’s lawyers had called investigators on Thursday morning to notify them of an additional document, also found at the same residence. Citing the “extraordinary circumstances”, the attorney general appointed Robert Hur, a former senior justice department official during the Trump presidency, to lead an investigation in the Biden files.

Kevin McCarthy, the newly elected Republican Speaker of the House, questioned the timing of the first disclosure and accused Mr Biden of knowingly mishandling the sensitive papers. “He knowingly knew [sic] this happened going into [the] election, going into interviews. This is what makes America not trust their government,” Mr McCarthy said on Thursday. Other Republicans on Thursday demanded the president release a log of all the people who had visited Mr Biden’s Delaware home. James Comer, a Kentucky congressman and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News: “We need to know who all has had access to the president.” Colorado Republican Ken Buck wrote a letter to the White House calling on Mr Biden to “release all visitor logs”. Elise Stefanik, the number three House Republican and a New York congresswoman, said that the visitor logs were “a clear matter of national security”.

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“And so what he did though, is he forced his own hand, and in a really unskillful, you know, judge-like manner where he wasn’t thinking through the steps that would happen.”

• Former Acting AG Derides Garland’s ‘Unforced Error’ On Document Probes (JTN)

Former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker on Friday contended that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s handling of the Department of Justice investigations into former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents had forced him to appoint a special counsel to handle an inquiry into President Joe Biden over the same issue. Garland, this week, appointed special counsel Robert Hur to probe the president’s handling of classified documents after previously appoint Jack Smith as special counsel to investigate Trump’s own alleged mishandling of sensitive materials. “I think this is a huge unforced error by Merrick Garland. He didn’t need to appoint a special counsel against Donald Trump,” Whitaker said on the “Just the News, No Noise” television show.

“And so what he did though, is he forced his own hand, and in a really unskillful, you know, judge-like manner where he wasn’t thinking through the steps that would happen.” “[A]nd what makes it even more quizzical to me, is that he knew when he appointed the special counsel, Jack Smith, against Donald Trump, that Joe Biden had similar problems with classified document mishandling,” he went on. “So that tells me that they never planned on this Biden mishandling to ever see the light of day. They were planning on everybody to play nice, that the mainstream media wouldn’t cover it, wouldn’t hear about it, that it would just kind of never be announced.” “And then it came out. And he has been scrambling ever since… he created his own mess, and now he’s gonna have to live with it,” Whitaker concluded.

He then addressed the concurrent special counsel investigations, suggesting that the pair needed to come to agreement on the standards to which they would hold both of their investigative targets. “I think it’s gonna be very interesting if the special counsels coordinate their legal analysis,” he said. “[I]n each case, you’re fundamentally looking at this, you know, gross negligence or recklessness standard, that they need to kind of agree what the facts and circumstances that would trigger that.” Whitaker served as an acting Attorney General under former President Donald Trump, temporarily filling the vacancy between former AGs Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr.

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The ultimate step?

• House Republicans Consider Wiping Trump’s Impeachments Off the Books (WJ)

From the moment former President Donald Trump took his oath of office six years ago, Democrats had one goal in mind: impeachment. First, with a big assist from the Department of Justice, the FBI and the legacy media, they alleged he had colluded with the Kremlin to win the presidency. Their hopes were dashed when Robert Mueller’s 22-month witch hunt ended in failure in the spring of 2019. Next, they seized on a phone call during which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate the Biden family’s business dealings in the country. Following a sham inquiry, Trump was impeached by the House. Finally, one week after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion, the House voted to impeach Trump a second time over his alleged role in what Democrats insist to this day was an “insurrection.”


As we know, both impeachment trials ended in Trump’s acquittal by the Senate. Now, according to The Washington Times, House Republicans are considering expunging Trump’s impeachments from the record. Asked if he would be willing to bring such legislation to the floor, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said, “We’d look at it. … When you find that the final information of the Russia document is all a lie, and we watch what he went through, I would understand why members would want to bring that forward.” The Times noted that 42 Republicans, including House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York, got behind a resolution to exonerate Trump, but the Democrat-controlled Congress refused to vote on it. Now that Republicans control the House, it’s a real possibility.

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“It is absurd and disgraceful that the Biden administration has repeatedly denied our longstanding oversight requests and continues to withhold information related to the withdrawal..”

• House GOP Begins Probe Into Afghanistan Withdrawal (JTN)

House Republicans have begun their probe into the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, asking that Secretary of State Antony Blinken provide them with a bevy of information on the matter. “We owe this to the American people, especially our service members and veterans,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas said, according to The Hill. The Texas lawmaker has set a deadline of Jan. 26 for the administration to hand over intelligence reports and communications with both the Taliban and Islamic Republic.

While he previously requested such information while serving as the committee’s ranking member, he now has formally asked as the committee chairman. Republicans have vowed to issue subpoenas should the administration continue to withhold the information. “It is absurd and disgraceful that the Biden administration has repeatedly denied our longstanding oversight requests and continues to withhold information related to the withdrawal,” he said, per the outlet. “In the event of continued noncompliance, the Committee will use the authorities available to it to enforce these requests as necessary, including through a compulsory process.”

Roughly 20 years following the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power and to eliminate the Al-Qaeda insurgents operating in the country, U.S. forces withdrew, leaving behind an ill-prepared regime that was unable to combat the rising tide of Islamic militants seeking to overtake the country. In the Summer of 2021, the Taliban launched an offensive amid the withdrawal of U.S. troops that culminated in the capture of Kabul and a hasty airlift operation on the part of the western allies to evacuate their personnel and supportive Afghans. The fiasco preceded a marked drop in President Joe Biden’s approval rating, which has been under water ever since.

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“Return to the gold standard and avoid monetary collapse — but at the cost of giving up the ability to create money at will..”

• The Aristocracy Is Eating the Peasants (Rubino)

Most people (especially most Americans) still seem to view the events of the past half-century as more or less random. Booms and busts erupting out of nowhere, impoverishing all but a handful of lucky elites. Political crises that end up dividing rather than uniting. Wars that cost fortunes and resolve nothing. Everything is bad, and nothing is related to anything else. But of course that’s not true. Each of the above events serves the same purpose: to enrich a modern aristocracy at the expense of everyone else. And the endgame is looking even worse. To see the scam play out, let’s go back to 1995. Two decades previously, in 1971, the US and by extension the world had ditched sound, gold-backed money in favor of “fiat” currencies that their governments, via their central banks, could create in infinite quantities out of thin air.


The result was spiking inflation and exchange rate chaos in the 1970s and soaring government deficits in the 1980s. By the 1990s it had become clear to the people running major governments and big corporations that unsound money would lead to unsustainable debt, which in turn would destabilize the financial world and bring about a hyperinflationary depression followed by a French Revolution-style reckoning for those responsible. That generation’s elites were thus left with two choices: Return to the gold standard and avoid monetary collapse — but at the cost of giving up the ability to create money at will. Or use their fictitious currencies to steal as much real wealth as possible from the peasants and let future elites deal with the eventual collapse. They, as the sociopaths we now know them to be, chose the second strategy.

Read more …

Panic.

• BBC Criticised For Letting Cardiologist ‘Hijack’ Interview (G.)

The BBC has come under fire from scientists for interviewing a cardiologist who claimed certain Covid vaccines could be behind excess deaths from coronary artery disease. Experts have criticised Dr Aseem Malhotra’s appearance on the corporation’s news channel on Friday, accusing him of pushing “extreme fringe” views, which are “misguided”, “dangerous” and could mislead the public. Scientists have described the doctor as “hijacking” an interview on statins to air his views, causing BBC staff to be “alarmed and embarrassed” by their booking. Malhotra recently retweeted a video by the MP Andrew Bridgen, who had the Tory whip removed on Wednesday after comparing the use of Covid vaccines to the Holocaust. After criticising new guidance on statins, he cited British Heart Foundation (BHF) figures that suggested there had been more than 30,000 excess deaths linked to heart disease since Covid first arrived.

Malhotra, a cardiologist at ROC Private Clinic, claimed mRNA Covid vaccines play a role, saying his “own research” showed “Covid mRNA vaccines do carry a cardiovascular risk”. He added that he has called for the vaccine rollout to be suspended pending an inquiry because of the “uncertainty” behind excess deaths. The BHF has said that, while Covid infections probably contributed significantly during the first year of the pandemic, ambulance delays, inaccessible care and lengthy waiting lists are now the key factors. Malhotra has become a vocal figure for hesitancy about Covid vaccines, claiming they pose a greater threat than the virus itself – a view repeatedly debunked by factcheckers. On Friday, he reiterated his claim the jabs were a likely cause of his father’s death. Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, was also interviewed by the BBC on Friday.

“I did a rapid response interview on the BBC news channel this morning to say that vaccine side-effects very, very rare in comparison with the preventable risks of Covid-19. The staff seemed alarmed and embarrassed that they had given him [Malhotra] a platform,” he tweeted. Dr Stephen Griffin, a virologist at the University of Leeds, said: “I am genuinely astonished by the BBC allowing someone with a known extreme fringe view on mRNA vaccines and the extent to which they are associated with cardiovascular problems to either hijack an interview on a tenuously related topic to express these views, or indeed to appear at all following even a cursory background check.”

Malhotra
https://twitter.com/i/status/1613837487796850688

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And should be halted immediately.

• Covid Vaccines Are “Obviously Dangerous” – Senior Swedish Doctors (DS)

[..] a public statement by a group of five senior Swedish doctors who, in collaboration with Dr. Johan Eddebo, a researcher in digitalisation and human rights, are raising the alert about the Covid vaccines, which they describe as “obviously dangerous”. They say there should be an “immediate halt” to the mass vaccination pending “thorough investigations” of the true incidence and severity of adverse effects.

[..] If, as has been argued, the vaccinations, and especially the boosters, alter the immune profile of recipients such that Covid infections get ‘tolerated’ by the immune system, it’s possible that vaccinated individuals will tend towards a situation of long-term, repeat infections that do not get cleared, and do not present with obvious symptoms, while still promoting systemic damage. The literature now indicates an extensive substitution in the vaccinated of virus-neutralising antibodies for non-inflammatory ones, a ‘class switch’ from antibodies that work towards clearing the virus from our system, to a category of antibodies whose purpose is to desensitise us to irritants and allergens.

The net effect is that the inflammatory response to Covid infection gets down-regulated (reduced). This means that full-blown infections will present with milder symptoms, and that they won’t get cleared as effectively (partly since fever and inflammation are essential to your body getting rid of a pathogen). That these developments alone aren’t cause for an immediate halt to the mass vaccinations, as well as thorough investigations, is astonishing. There is of course another, and more well-known, potential partial explanation of the surprising excess mortality. We have indications of clotting disorders connected to the Covid vaccines, evident in a new major Nordic study, while repeated studies evidence a clear correlation between heart disease and Covid vaccination (see Le Vu et al., Karlstad et al. and Patone et al.).

A newly published Thai study moreover indicated that almost a third of the vaccinated youth enrolled exhibited cardiovascular manifestations, and a yet unpublished Swiss study suggests that as many as 3% of everyone vaccinated manifest heart muscle damage. And as stated above, we also see signals pertaining to fertility disturbances connected to the Covid vaccines. An Israeli study shows impaired motility and sperm concentrations after both Pfizer and Moderna vaccination. The safety committee of the European Medicines Agency has also affirmed that the vaccines may cause menstrual disturbances, and Pfizer’s own studies indicate that the lipid nanoparticles of the mRNA-vaccines cluster in the reproductive organs.

The hypothesis that COVID-19 vaccinations influence fertility is supported by a significant and unprecedented decline in the Swedish birth rate during the first months of 2022. According to Swedish demographers, the decline is ”surprising”. There are similar data from many other Western countries, and to continue the mass vaccinations for low-risk groups such as children or pregnant women is utterly irresponsible – especially since the vaccinations do little or nothing to stop the spread as was initially promised, and is often still falsely maintained.

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World government.

• WHO Proposals Could Strip Nations of Their Sovereignty (CHD)

Secretive negotiations took place this week in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss proposed amendments to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Health Regulations (IHR), considered a binding instrument of international law. Similar negotiations took place last month for drafting a new WHO pandemic treaty. While the two are often conflated, the proposed IHR amendments and the proposed pandemic treaty represent two separate but related sets of proposals that would fundamentally alter the WHO’s ability to respond to “public health emergencies” throughout the world — and, critics warn, significantly strip nations of their sovereignty. According to author and researcher James Roguski, these two proposals would transform the WHO from an advisory organization to a global governing body whose policies would be legally binding.


They also would greatly expand the scope and reach of the IHR, institute a system of global health certificates and “passports” and allow the WHO to mandate medical examinations, quarantine and treatment. Roguski said the proposed documents would give the WHO power over the means of production during a declared pandemic, call for the development of IHR infrastructure at “points of entry” (such as national borders), redirect billions of dollars to the “Pharmaceutical Hospital Emergency Industrial Complex” and remove mention of “respect for dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of people.” Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, said the proposed documents may also contravene international law.

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..an ant rolling a water droplet on a rough surface, an example of ideal nonwetting conditions

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 13 2023

Jan 132023
 
 January 13, 2023  Posted by at 9:42 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  108 Responses »


Steve Schapiro Muhammad Ali, Monopoly, Louisville, KY 1963

 

• Report Links Hunter Biden To Classified Files Found in Joe Biden’s Garage (KB)
• ‘This Is Election Interference’: House Oversight Veteran on Biden Files (ET)
• Key ‘Russian Bots’ Claim Was False – Twitter Documents (RT)
• Ukraine Suffered A Humiliating Defeat In Soledar (Ugolny)
• Where Might Russia Commit Forces On An Offensive? (Big Serge)
• Russia Reacts To Turkish Support Of Zelensky’s ‘Peace Plan’ (RT)
• Nord Stream Attack: The Case Nobody Wants Solved (Celente)
• 7 Facts Fauci Knew But Hid From the Public (CHD)
• Senator Questions CDC on Why It Expected 100s of Vaccine Adverse Events (ET)
• Former Employees Sue ESPN After Being Fired for COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal (ET)
• A Tale of Two Cultures -America and Russia (Moglia)
• Everything Upside Down (Dionísio)
• Britain and EU Enter Talks To Settle Brexit Disputes (RT)
• Nixon Threatened to Reveal CIA Involvement in Kennedy Assassination (Stone)

 

 

 

 

Russiagate
https://twitter.com/i/status/1613730901946425346

 

 

Clown KJP
https://twitter.com/i/status/1613389755374501889

 

 

Carpe
https://twitter.com/i/status/1613700648218005506

 

 

 

 

Hunter’s garage?! What are the odds Joe is being set up?

• Report Links Hunter Biden To Classified Files Found in Joe Biden’s Garage (KB)

President Joe Biden has finally found himself on the wrong side of a special counsel investigation. On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that is appointing a special counsel to investigate the classified documents found in President Joe Biden’s private office and home. “Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to take over the investigation into President Joe Biden’s potential mishandling of classified documents,” CNN reported. “The special counsel is Robert Hur.” “Two special prosecutors have been appointed,” CNN also reported. In contrast to Donald Trump storing the documents he declassified as president and storing them at a safe storage facility at Mar-a-Lago, Joe Biden took the documents while vice president and they remain classified to this day.

And to make matters worse, it came out that a second batch of classified documents were found at his Wilmington home garage. These are in addition to those found in a think tank closet at the Penn Biden Center office in Washington, D.C. There are even reports of a third batch of classified documents that have been discovered. Biden went off-script talking to Fox News’ Peter Doocy about the security of his garage by claiming that is where he keeps his “Corvette.” “Classified material next to your Corvette! What were you thinking?” Doocy said to the President in response. Biden defended himself by saying, “My Corvette is in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street.” Biden was so brazen about his illegal activity that he actually filmed a campaign video with his corvette in 2021. One can see stacks of boxes in the back of the garage where the classified documents were reportedly found.

Legal analyst Jonathan Turley reacted to the development on the documents being found in Biden’s garage. “The President just said that the documents found in his garage are in a ‘locked garage’ like his corvette,” Turley said. “The corvette standard is actually not in classified protocols…” “The corvette statement was remarkably ill-considered,” he added. “It was a cringe-worthy moment. After being given a carefully worded statement by his lawyers and staff, the President ad-libbed and suggested that his locked garage was a secure space for classified material.” Miranda Devine, author of the “Laptop from Hell,” has added a new twist to the story: Hunter Biden claimed he owned the house where Biden kept the classified documents. Devine provides the document showing Hunter Biden claiming to own the house. The address also appears on a copy of Hunter Biden’s driver’s license.

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People suggesting a third batch was found.

• ‘This Is Election Interference’: House Oversight Veteran on Biden Files (ET)

A House Oversight Committee veteran said the delay in publicizing President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents from his time as vice president amounts to election interference. “The documents were allegedly discovered on Nov. 2. The midterms are on Nov. 8. To me, this is election interference by omission,” Mike Howell said in a Jan. 11 interview with The Epoch Times.“Does anyone think if this had been President Trump or any other Republican, the news wouldn’t have been leaked immediately for political gain? We needn’t wonder—just look at all the affirmative updates, releases, and leaks in the Trump case,” he said in a Jan. 10 statement.

Howell was an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security under President Donald Trump. He previously worked as a lawyer on the House Oversight Committee as well as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He now leads the Oversight Project at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Heritage Oversight is, in Howell’s words, “suing the Biden administration aggressively” over Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. “We’re gathering as much as we can and hoping that Congress makes use of it,” he said, noting that FOIA lawsuits are just one of the organization’s tactics. Notably, Heritage Oversight obtained an email to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas that shows that he knew Haitian migrants weren’t whipped by Border Patrol agents at Del Rio, Texas, by Sept. 24, 2021.

Yet during a press conference that same day, Mayorkas offered no clarification on the whipping allegations, instead saying that the images “painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism.” “He [Mayorkas] chose to ignore the information to preserve the far-left narrative on this whole incident,” Howell said in a 2022 Heritage Foundation interview. Heritage Oversight filed FOIA requests with the Department of Justice and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) regarding the classified materials found at the Penn Biden Center. “Why was this information not made public prior [to] the election? It likely would have had substantial electoral salience,” Howell wrote in his FOIA request to the Department of Justice.

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“..one of the greatest outbreaks of mass delusion in US history..”

• Key ‘Russian Bots’ Claim Was False – Twitter Documents (RT)

Twitter executives knew that several hashtags denounced by leading congressional Democrats and corporate media as “Russian disinformation” were a product of authentic Americans, but chose not to say so in public, journalist Matt Taibbi revealed on Thursday. Taibbi has been publishing the “Twitter Files,” internal company documents provided by the company’s new owner, Elon Musk, since early December. Evidence published so far shed light on the censorship of key stories ahead of the 2020 presidential election, FBI pressure, direct White House interference on Covid-19 matters, and the banning of Donald Trump – the sitting US president at the time.

Thursday’s revelations concern the events of January and February 2018 and the memo by Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of California detailing how the FBI used the “Steele Dossier” to spy on Trump’s campaign and presidency. Democrats and major media outlets denounced Nunes in what Taibbi described as “oddly identical language,” while attributing the calls to #ReleaseTheMemo to “Russian bots” and “trolls.” Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Adam Schiff – ranking Democrats in the Senate and House intelligence committees – wrote to Twitter on January 23, 2018, claiming that #ReleaseTheMemo “gained the immediate attention and assistance of social media accounts linked to Russian influence operations.”

Another Democrat, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, followed up with a letter denouncing as “reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans.” Twitter, however, “found no evidence, as in zero, that Russians were anywhere near this story,” Taibbi wrote on Substack. Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth personally reviewed the accounts that started the hashtag and found “none of them show any signs of affiliation to Russia.” The engagement was “overwhelmingly organic” and driven by prominent real people, Roth found. He also noted that Schiff, Feinstein and Blumenthal all pointed to the same source – the “Hamilton68 dashboard,” run by an outfit calling itself the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD). “All the swirl is based on Hamilton,” he wrote.

Documents show that Twitter executives eventually realized that Democrats weren’t looking for solutions, but were just using the Russia accusation to push them further. One executive even compared it to the children’s book ‘If You Give a Mouse a Cookie’. Yet for some reason, the company chose not to say so publicly, allowing Democrats and the media to continue blaming “Russian bots” for any problems in US society – government shutdowns, school shootings, gun control, etc. “By spreading the Russia collusion hoax, they instigated one of the greatest outbreaks of mass delusion in US history,” Nunes told Taibbi when reached for comment, referring to the Democrats. The memo itself was published on February 2, 2018. Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Horowitz confirmed its findings in his report, published in December 2019.

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Detailed history.

• Ukraine Suffered A Humiliating Defeat In Soledar (Ugolny)

Soledar is a conglomeration of several settlements established around salt mines and railway stations. In 2001, when Ukraine last conducted a census, around 13,000 people lived here. The town stretches along the right bank of the Bakhmutka River from southeast to northwest. In late 2022, it became an infamous urban warzone. In peaceful times, however, it was known as the largest source of mineral salt in Central and Eastern Europe, covering around 80% of Ukraine’s needs. Deep salt mines have also made Soledar a tourist and leisure destination with tours around the caves. There was, however, a second, military purpose to the city and its industries, as was typical for the Soviet Union. In the case of Soledar, several of its depleted mines were used as spacious and secure military warehouses.

Last year, this previously disregarded aspect of Soledar’s identity became its most prominent feature. Salt production stopped, and the gypsum plant ceased operating; the only visitors around were now Ukrainian soldiers – and developing asthma was the least of their problems. Soledar became the focus of Russian offensive operations last May, after troops seized Popasnaya and breached the first line of Ukrainian defenses. The Ukrainian command turned the town into a major piece of its second defensive line, a stretch of fortifications along the Dzerzhinsk – Bakhmut (Artyomovsk) – Soledar – Seversk line. Up until early August, fighting continued around Soledar: Russian forces were busy cutting off the pocket of Ukrainian forces near Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, and gradually advancing toward Soledar and Artyomovsk, seizing fortifications at Pilipchatino and Pokrovskoye along the way.

Wagner units and the 6th Cossack Regiment of Lugansk gradually moved into the combat area. Russian troops enjoyed uncontested superiority in terms of artillery, but there were some early signs of ‘ammunition hunger’ looming on the horizon. The Russians were unable to penetrate Ukrainian defenses in one burst. The troops, exhausted after a major operation to liberate the entirety of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), simply could not break through the numerically superior Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian defenses in the area consisted of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, supported by numerous units of the Territorial Defense Forces. The second line was formed by the 24th Mechanized Brigade, which had suffered losses during the earlier fighting in Popasnaya.

Combined, these forces were sufficient to hold off the attacks along most of the Artyomovsk-Soledar-Lisichansk line, a stretch of fortifications that would not be breached until December – a development that would ultimately spell defeat for the Ukrainians.

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Twitter thread – with maps.

• Where Might Russia Commit Forces On An Offensive? (Big Serge)

Let’s do a quick parsing of the situation and examine the possibilities. Where might Russia commit forces on an offensive? Let’s do a quick parsing of the situation and examine the possibilities. Right now, the contact line is some 700 kilometers stretching from the Dnieper estuary in the south to northern Lugansk oblast. Troop concentrations and active combat are broadly present on four major axes. (Maps by me). The Svatove axis is where Ukraine’s Kharkov counteroffensive was stonewalled after crossing the Oskil river and struggling to break Lyman in a timely manner. Ukrainian efforts to continue the advance have been repeatedly defeated. The Bakhmut axis has been the subject of most attention lately, but there is a paucity of Russian regular forces in this direction.


Most of the work here is being achieved by the Wagner PMC and LNR forces, assisted by VDV. Most of the Russian army forces currently committed in Ukraine are currently on the Svatove and Zaporozhia axes in a defensive stance. Contrary to the impression given by western sources, the regular Russian Army has not been engaged in widespread attacking activity lately. Much of Russia’s combat power is currently uncommitted, and will be used to renew offensive operations in the coming weeks and months. The question is when and where. There remains a distinct possibility that there will be no “Big Arrow” offensive, and instead we will see lots of “small arrow” attacks with Russia going over to the offensive on all the existing Axes. This would mean forward progress, but no major new fronts being opened. )

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Erdogan playing both sides.

• Russia Reacts To Turkish Support Of Zelensky’s ‘Peace Plan’ (RT)

Türkiye’s stated support of the “so-called peace plan” formulated by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky does not change the fact that Russia considers it unacceptable, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday. Zakharova was asked about remarks made by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who stated that his country backed the ten-point proposal for peace in Ukraine promoted by Kiev. “It is unlikely that Ankara’s support of this project would promote the search for an optimal way towards peace in Ukraine,” she said, citing Russia’s previous rejection of the Ukrainian formula. “I don’t see any sense in any additional comments on it.”

The ‘peace plan’ was presented by Zelensky at the summit of G20 leaders in Bali, Indonesia, in November. It involves a full Russian withdrawal from territories that Kiev considers to be its own and long-term support of Ukraine by international donors. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who represented Russia at the gathering, called Zelensky’s virtual address “militant, Russophobic and aggressive” and dismissed his ten-point agenda as “unrealistic and inadequate.” The Kremlin called such proposals a non-starter, insisting that if Ukraine wants peace it should take into account “the new realities,” referring to the four former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia last fall, after Crimea did the same in 2014 following a coup in Kiev.

Cavusoglu expressed Türkiye’s positive stance towards Zelensky’s proposition on Tuesday during a press conference in South Africa. He touted Ankara’s role as a mediator between Moscow and Kiev and said his government wanted to see a resolution to the conflict “the sooner the better.” Zelensky floated the idea of a UN-sponsored ‘Global Peace Summit’ to discuss his ideas, suggesting that it could take place in February 2023. His foreign minister, Dmitry Kuleba, stated that Russia would have to be tried by an “international court” before being allowed at the table.

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“I, for the life of me, don’t understand why the EU doesn’t want to know who did it..” [..] “Is it because we know the answer? Or is it because it’s the wrong answer?”

• Nord Stream Attack: The Case Nobody Wants Solved (Celente)

The attack on the Nord Stream pipelines that run deep under the Baltic Sea in late September has all but disappeared from the Western media’s radar, but now Russia is demanding answers and formally accused Sweden of withholding damning evidence on the identity of the perpetrators. Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said Thursday that Stockholm’s decision not to release the investigation’s findings a a puzzling move and is evidence that they are hiding something from the public. “Russian experts in the course of an objective investigation may come to uncomfortable conclusions and, finally, reveal to the public the ugly truth about who committed these acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks,” she said, according to Russian outlet TASS.

“Sweden’s refusal to set up a joint group to investigate the sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines is perplexing. There are no doubts regarding the nature of the incident – this was an act of sabotage. Thus Swedish authorities clearly have something to hide,” she said. Russia has blamed UK special forces of carrying out the attack. Polish war hawk Radek Sikorski actually thanked the U.S. for the attack in a Twitter post. Mick Wallace, member of the European Parliament, posted a video on his Twitter account where he expressed dismay over the investigation. He said the attack resulted in one of the world’s worst releases of methane gas ever and called the incident “environmental terrorism.”

“I, for the life of me, don’t understand why the EU doesn’t want to know who did it,” he said in the video posted on 5 January. He continued, “Is it because we know the answer? Or is it because it’s the wrong answer?” Wallace also expressed confusion as to how quickly the news story disappeared from the news cycle. “Initially, of course, the Russians were blamed,” he said. “But common sense kind of prevailed and we kind of thought, ‘If the Russians don’t want any gas, they can kind of turn the tap off at their end.” DW, the German news outlet, also raised questions about the blast. The outlet tweeted on Tuesday, “Russia has made an initial estimate of the cost needed to repair the #NordStream pipeline. That raises the question: Why would Russia undergo the expensive process of repairing their own pipeline if they bombed it themselves?”

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“This does not bode well for Fauci and those involved in the cover-up.”

• 7 Facts Fauci Knew But Hid From the Public (CHD)

House Republicans on Monday commissioned a special investigative panel focused on the coronavirus pandemic during which they hope to press scientists and federal officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, about the origin of the public health crisis and the government’s response to it. The following is a paraphrase of the opening round — the warning shot — by U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Tuesday in which he used his time to outline seven facts that Dr. Anthony Fauci knew, and, more importantly, what Fauci did, and did not do, when he was made aware of these facts. This does not bode well for Fauci and those involved in the cover-up.


1/ Fauci understood that American tax dollars went to EcoHealth Alliance and that money was then funneled to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) lab in China.
2/ Fauci knew EcoHealth Alliance was given an exemption from the pause on gain-of-function research.
3/ Fauci knew that the security standards at the WIV lab in China were deficient.
4/ Fauci knew that EcoHealth Alliance was not in compliance with its grant reporting requirements and wasn’t adhering to the contract.
5/ Fauci knew that gain-of-function research was in fact being conducted in the WIV lab in China.
6/ Fauci knew that the standard P3CO interagency review process wasn’t followed in approving the grant to EcoHealth Alliance.
7/ Fauci knew that the virus likely came from the lab where U.S. taxpayer dollars were sent … the very city where that lab is at, a deadly virus breaks out that would ultimately kill six million people around the world.

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”Without immediately providing complete and reliable information about COVID-19 vaccine adverse events, you are obstructing Congressional oversight..”

• Senator Questions CDC on Why It Expected 100s of Vaccine Adverse Events (ET)

A U.S. senator is questioning why a top agency was expecting hundreds of safety signals for the COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), claimed in 2022 that safety monitoring revealed no “unexpected safety signals” for the vaccines. But the results to which she was referring showed hundreds of safety signals, or adverse events potentially linked to the shots. The Epoch Times obtained the results through a Freedom of Information Act after the CDC refused to release them. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is now wondering why the CDC expected so many signals after vaccination. In a Jan. 10 letter citing The Epoch Times article on the results, Johnson demanded the CDC explain how it determined what is and is not an “unexpected safety signal.”

“The American people have a right to know the extent to which your agency was aware of and tracked COVID-19 vaccine adverse events. Your lack of transparency is unacceptable. Without immediately providing complete and reliable information about COVID-19 vaccine adverse events, you are obstructing Congressional oversight and leaving the public in the dark,” added Johnson, who was stonewalled when he requested the monitoring results. A CDC spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email that it received the senator’s letter. “A reply is forthcoming,” the spokesperson said, declining to comment further. The CDC has made multiple false statements on the outcomes found from a type of analysis called Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR).

The analysis involves comparing the number of adverse events reported to a system co-managed by the CDC after COVID-19 vaccination to the number of adverse events reported after vaccination with other vaccines. The CDC initially said that performing PRRs was outside of its purview, contradicting a government document that stated the agency “will perform” the technique. Dr. John Su, a top CDC official, then claimed it started performing the analysis in February 2021 and continued to do so as of July 18, 2022. Both statements turned out to be wrong. After being pressed by Johnson, the CDC later said that it did not start the PRRs until March 25, 2022, and stopped performing them on July 31, 2022.

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How many of these lawsuits will we see? Probably depends on the success of the first few.

• Former Employees Sue ESPN After Being Fired for COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal (ET)

Two former employees are suing ESPN for being fired over COVID-19 vaccine refusal, alleging the company violated their rights and state and federal law in the process. Beth Faber, a former producer with the network, and Allison Williams, a college football reporter, brought the suit on Jan. 11 in federal court in Connecticut, where Disney-owned ESPN is based. Faber was fired on Sept. 9, 2021, after ESPN denied her request for a religious accommodation to the company’s mandate. Williams was fired on Oct. 19, 2021, after ESPN rejected requests for exemptions based on disability and religious beliefs. ESPN officials claimed that no accommodation was possible because venues at which the employees would work would not accept unvaccinated people, according to the suit.


But plaintiffs allege the defendants made no effort to confirm that and pointed to how most NFL and college football teams had unvaccinated personnel, as ESPN itself reported. “Defendants impermissibly took adverse employment against Plaintiffs, including wrongfully terminating them, denying them of financial compensation, and in the case of Williams, pursuant to a contract, and intentionally harming their relationship in their industry, because they complained about the discrimination they suffered based on their religious beliefs, a protective activity,” the suit states. ESPN declined to comment or say how many workers were fired over vaccine refusal. The lawsuit came after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission issued “right to sue” letters to Faber and Williams.

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“..what with Clinton was a matter of lying to save his bottom, with Biden lying seems actually a matter of pride.“

• A Tale of Two Cultures -America and Russia (Moglia)

As for the USA, the inaudible and noiseless foot of time, along with forgetfulness and dark oblivion, have erased from the collective memory the purportedly original reason that triggered the Vietnam war – and the consequent millions killed, the many maimed and the countless wounded on both sides. Namely the ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ incident. When, allegedly, North Vietnamese torpedo boats fired on a US destroyer that was in international water according to the US, and in domestic waters according to the Vietnamese. Nevertheless those involved on the US side still found it then necessary to invent a plausible cause. But not now. What changed or what happened then between 1965 and the present? And what identifiable original or ideological cause can be found for the Western so-called ‘rulers’ to disregard the Minks agreements and the agreement about the non-expansion of NATO?

Even the often quoted notion of so-called ‘plausible deniability’ has seemingly gone the way of all flesh. One socio-political interpretation may be perhaps found well over 20 years ago. That is, a related pattern-setting event can be traced back to the Clinton-Lewinsky business. When the president of the Unites States had the gall to tell the nation, in prime time, that ‘I did not have sex with that woman’ notwithstanding ample, legal and irrefutable evidence. That the president of the ‘exceptional nation’ would allow himself to be entrapped into an obvious and decidedly bawdy situation, while simultaneously showing himself as the lyingest knave in Christendom, should at least have raised some doubts about his qualifications for the position.

But it didn’t, and at the time various qualified voices expressed concern about the implications of the resolution. For when a preposterous lie to the public and parliament (by the highest representative of the state) is essentially endorsed by allowing the perjurer (for he was under oath) to remain in office, a pattern and precedent is established for others to follow suit in times to come. One obvious, recent and worthy fellow and follower is Giuseppe Biden along with his remarkable family. And we can see clearly an evolution. For what with Clinton was a matter of lying to save his bottom, with Biden lying seems actually a matter of pride. (E.G. “18 FBI agents have verified that Hunter Biden’s laptop is Russian disinformation!”)

Yet already after the Lewinsky business, the list of patent, unrestrained and preposterous lies excreted by subsequent US state department administrations would fill a long row of portable toilets and stink to high heaven. Beginning with Yugoslavia, followed by the very murky 9/11 affair, Saddam’s weapons of mass distraction, Gadhafi’s breach of human rights, Hassad’s ‘chemical poisons’ in Syria, bringing democracy to Afghanistan, Georgia, Ukraine, and the Middle Eastern terrorist groups that are enemies one day and freedom fighters the next, financed and supplied in either case by the exceptional nation.

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“..how is it that a country that spends $800 billion of its military budget [..] has practically the same firepower as a country that spends $65 billion?..

• Everything Upside Down (Dionísio)

8 years of fortified constructions, tunnels, bunkers and endless armament depots, two months of repositioning of reserves and military human losses, the structure finally begins to collapse. The human losses are in the tens of thousands of young people, not so young, national and foreign, and after all the inevitable happens. The comedian who is president, in his daily videos from some bunker or mansion, has always resisted in doing what the opponent does when he considers that the effort is too much for the gain: retreat to a more solid line of defense, saving men and equipment. The official narrative, shared endlessly over and over again, about “the most important victories since the second great war” for the domestic side, will not be despising, for the decision to fight to the last man.

After all, any decision, to call this major defensive fortification line as lost, implies a total reversal in the narrative propagated by the North Atlantic corporate press. It´s a must to first prepare the public who are the relentless followers of such narratives. Telling them the truth is not an option, as this would mean effectively saying the opposite of what has been said, namely regarding the inevitable outcome of the conflict. In yet another war used as a cycle of capitalist accumulation, a fact that can be clearly stated in the reversal of the trend in the world arms market until 2014, which placed the two indirect contenders (US and Russian Federation) in direct competition and with very close numbers, this situation has, as it were, reversed, with the USA today being the undisputed leader in world arms sales, with around 2/3 more in sales value than its largest direct competitor (Russian Federation).

It doesn’t mean that they sell more quantity…. They mainly sell more expensive. The data at hand brings light about the use of war and the military industrial complex as an instrument of the capitalist accumulation cycle, or, on the contrary, as an instrument whose fundamental objective is national defense. The “Global Fire Power 2023” which establishes the “Fire Power Index”, places the US in first with 0.0712, Russian Federation with 0.0714 and the RPC with 0.0722. In other words, the top two appear tied and the third is very close. The 4th place, India, is much further away, with 0.1025. What does this tell us about the role of each army?

The first question that comes to mind is, how is it that a country that spends $800 billion of its military budget (and we do not include here the “dark money” of the secret services, nor all the research paid for through federal programs that also goes to military ends), has practically the same firepower as a country that spends $65 billion, and little more than another that spends $290 billion? The answer lies in several aspects: 1) the North American military-industrial complex is private, therefore, it aims to pursue profit, the enrichment of an elite and the concentration of wealth, with the state being an instrument of this accumulation; 2) the other two have a military-industrial complex that is essentially public – not exclusively – mainly in the most sensitive areas, and is not intended to do more than fulfill its public role, i.e., to guarantee an effective national defense capable of defending the country’s sovereignty.

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Tempted to check what decade it is.

• Britain and EU Enter Talks To Settle Brexit Disputes (RT)

The EU and UK are gradually moving towards settling a longstanding post-Brexit trade dispute and are preparing to launch intense negotiations next week, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. On Monday, London struck an agreement with Brussels to share live data on trade with Northern Ireland, which was described as “a critical prerequisite to building trust and providing assurance” and laid “a new basis for EU-UK discussions.” British Foreign Minister James Cleverly and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said the deal was an important step towards further talks on the trading rules known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.


The dispute stems from the Brexit deal in which Britain agreed to leave Northern Ireland within the EU’s single market for goods in order to preserve a 1998 peace deal between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and EU member Ireland, thus avoiding instituting a land border between the two. However, the UK has so far failed to implement parts of those agreements and in response the EU has opened several infringement procedures. The aim of next week’s talks between Cleverly and Sefcovic is to prepare the ground for a negotiating “tunnel,” the outlet said, citing people who spoke on condition of anonymity. The CEO of Northern Ireland’s Manufacturing NI, Stephen Kelly, who has been outspoken on a number of Brexit-related issues, expressed hope that the UK and EU would announce “a deep scoping exercise, deep conversation – what’s traditionally known as a tunnel” after the meeting of the UK foreign minister and chief EU negotiator on January 16.

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Roger Stone.

• Nixon Threatened to Reveal CIA Involvement in Kennedy Assassination (Stone)

A stunning, long-overlooked Nixon Watergate-era tape shows Richard Nixon warning CIA Director Richard Helms that he knows of CIA involvement in the murder of John F. Kennedy- “I know who shot John.” This shocking new tape depicts Nixon increasingly besieged by Watergate but unaware that at least four of the Watergate burglars were still on the CIA payroll at the time of the break-in, and that the CIA had thus infiltrated the burglary team. Recently declassified documents reveal that Watergate Special Prosecutor Nick Akerman was aware of both the CIA’s advance knowledge and involvement in the break-in — but said and did nothing.

Senator Howard Baker, the Republican Leader on the Senate Watergate Committee and his counsel Fred Thompson himself, a future U.S. Senator from Tennessee, like Baker, stumbled on the CIA’s deep advanced knowledge and direct involvement in the Watergate break-in. Baker and Thompson both knew that at least four of the Watergate burglars were on the CIA payroll at the time of the break-in and that through CREEP Security Director James McCord, had infiltrated the burglary team. Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Sam Ervin stoutly refused to allow Baker and the Committee Republicans including Edward J. Gurney of Florida the right to publish a Minority Report which noted this stunning information regarding the CIA.

Nixon deeply distrusted the CIA because he knew that President Eisenhower had ordered the agency to give top secret briefings to both Nixon and Kennedy after both were the certain nominees of their parties. Nixon was sore that Kennedy utilized the information in their debates, attacking Nixon for being “soft” on communist Cuba, knowing full well that Nixon had chaired a working group as Vice President overseeing preparations for the “Bay of Pigs” invasion. Nixon, of course, could not reveal this upcoming attempt to topple Castro in the details. White House Domestic Policy Chief John Ehrlichman wrote that when he served as the White House Legal Counsel, Nixon ordered him to request that the CIA hand over all documents pertaining to John Kennedy’s murder. Nixon was furious when Richard Helms, the CIA Director, refused his presidential order to hand them over.

This stunning new Watergate-era tape captures an increasingly besieged Nixon desperately seeking to mobilize the CIA in his defense by threatening to expose their greatest secrets. Nixon also knew that Congressman Gerald Ford, as a member of the Warren Commission, had, at the explicit direction of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director, altered the official autopsy diagram for President John F. Kennedy; moving the marking from a bullet in his upper back to his neck in order to accommodate the single-bullet theory and to conceal the fact that Kennedy had been hit with more than the reported three shots.

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Bridgen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1613555822705143814

 

 

Alice Cooper Jeff Beck

 

 


The last picture taken of David Bowie. By his wife, Iman, on his birthday, 8th January 2016 – 2 days before his death.

 

 

Employee

 

 


The rainbow lorikeet has a very bright plumage: the head is deep blue with a greenish-yellow nuchal collar, and the rest of the upper parts are deep green. The chest is red with blue-black barring. The belly is deep green & the thighs and rump are yellow

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 29 2022

Jul 292022
 
 July 29, 2022  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Odilon Redon Sunset n.d.

 

• Ukraine Shells Prison Holding POWs – Donbass Official (RT)
• US Should Not Fund Ukrainian ‘Blacklist’ (Scott Ritter)
• Provoking Beijing (MoA)
• UK Official Says Nuclear War Threat Higher Than During the Cold War (Antiwar)
• US GDP Drops 0.9 Percent In Second Quarter (PM)
• ‘Horror Chart’ Suggests Germany On Brink Of Huge Energy Crisis (RT)
• Hanover Becomes First German City To Ban Hot Water In Public Buildings (DM)
• EU Ban On Russian Gas ‘Impossible’ – Austria (RT)
• EU Gas Solidarity Complicated By Lack Of Fuel Sharing Deals (R.)
• Worst Is Yet To Come From Trudeau Liberals (Jordan Peterson)
• Bill Barr To Merrick Garland: Appoint A Special Counsel Already (Fed.)
• Joe Biden Met With 14 Of His Son’s Business Associates (RT)
• They Can’t Let Him Back In (Michael Anton)

 

 

 

 

Never forget

 

 

 

 

Don’t miss O’Looney


https://twitter.com/i/status/1552438998009790465

 

 

Hesitancy

 

 

 

 

Breaking, not confirmed.

• Ukraine Shells Prison Holding POWs – Donbass Official (RT)

Dozens were killed after Ukrainian forces struck a jail with POWs in Donbass, local official says Ukrainian troops shelled a prison housing POWs in Yelenovka early Friday morning, Donetsk People’s Republic Deputy Information Minister Daniil Bezsonov wrote on his Telegram channel. “There was a direct hit at a building with prisoners,” Bezsonov wrote. “The results as of now: 40 killed, 130 wounded.” The minister added that he believes Kiev used US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers for the attack. The facility reportedly housed Ukrainian fighters captured by Russian and allied forces during the siege of the Azovstal steel mill in the city of Mariupol.

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“Many on this list are citizens of the United States, some of whom, like me, have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

• US Should Not Fund Ukrainian ‘Blacklist’ (Scott Ritter)

Dear Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, and Congressman Tonko, My name is Scott Ritter. I am a New York State resident, currently residing in the Town of Bethlehem, in Albany County. My family and I have lived at our current address since July 2000. I am writing to you in your collective role as my elected representatives in the United States Congress, specifically regarding H.R. 7691, the Additional Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022, which became Public Law 117-128 on May 21, 2022, which each of you voted in favor of. I draw your attention to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, specifically the following language: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

By enacting Public Law 117-128, you appear to have abrogated your Constitutional responsibilities in so far as you may have, in fact, made a law which both abridges the freedom of speech and a free press by enabling the Government of Ukraine, through the use of US taxpayer dollars appropriated under Public Law 117-128, to publish a “blacklist” singling out US citizens as “Russian propagandists” for exercising their Constitutional rights pertaining to free speech and a free press. The “blacklist” in question was published on July 14, 2022, by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, and consists of a list of politicians, academics, and activists who the Center claims promote “Russian propaganda.” Many on this list are citizens of the United States, some of whom, like me, have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.

While the specific criterion used by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation for selecting persons for inclusion on this “blacklist” is not known, in my case the Ukrainian government appears to have taken umbrage against my articulation of Ukraine as a NATO base of operations, my analysis of the Bucha Massacre in early March which assigns responsibility to Ukrainian security services, and my description of the current Ukraine-Russian conflict as a “proxy conflict” being waged on behalf of the United States. Whether one agrees with my positions on these and other matters pertaining to Ukraine is not the point; by articulating my views, I am exercising my rights under the Constitution of the United States. While the Government of Ukraine is free to express its opinions regarding my viewpoints as it sees fit, the Government of the United States, by using funds appropriated by the United States Congress, should not facilitate the actions of the Government of Ukraine in this regard.

[..] As a constituent whose name has appeared on a so-called “blacklist” published by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, my personal and professional life has been, and continues to be, detrimentally impacted by the chilling effect of being labeled a “Russian propagandist” for simply exercising the right to free speech guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Moreover, Ukraine has a history of converting “blacklists” of this nature into “kill lists”, where those who speak out against the policies of the Ukrainian government are being murdered or threatened with violence.

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Nancy missed the past 30 years.

• Provoking Beijing (MoA)

Yves Smith is aghast about the U.S. eyepoking of China: “The neocons above all seem unable to process that the days of US hegemony are over. It boggles the mind that they are not just eyepoking but escalating greatly with China via the still-planned Pelosi visit to Taiwan in August. As we’ll explain, China is fully cognizant of the fact that Pelosi is number two in line after Harris should something happen to the increasingly addle-brained Biden. And they don’t buy for a second that Pelosi is operating without the explicit approval of the Administration. Note that it’s entirely possible that Pelosi revived her Taiwan trip plan (recall she put it off after coming down with Covid) all on her own. The Pentagon gave her a face-saving out by saying they didn’t recommend it. China, which is routinely screechy when it is upset about what it perceives to be foreign transgressions, has managed to find new registers in its objections the proposed Pelosi visit.”

Pelosi is not only number two in line but has been hostile to the Chinese government for more than 30 years. In 1991 she and two other members of Congress made a stunt on the Tiananmen square where two years before protests had taken place. The multiday protest in the square had ended peacefully. But outside of the square bloody riots took place over several days and nights during which hundreds of soldiers and rioters got killed. The protest and riots had been a U.S. instigated color revolution attempt with the father of the color revolution concept, Gene Sharp, being personally in the Beijing and consulting the protest leaders. After the attempt had failed the CIA organized the exit of hundreds of protest leaders and agents to Hong Kong where they formed the base for the 2020 color revolution attempt there. Lots of those ‘activists’ have now moved to Taiwan.

In 1991 Pelosi and two congressmen unfolded a banner on Tianamen in front of the international media that said: “To those who died for democracy in China.” Police immediately intervened and ended the stunt. The stunt had a positive echo in U.S. media (Note: The video title says it is 1989 but the announcer says it is two years later). Pelosi may think she can recreate another positive media echo by traveling to Taiwan. But the China of 2022 is no longer the China of 1991. It is now the world’s biggest economy and its military force rivals the one the U.S. has. It no longer condones eyepoking and ‘human rights’ stunts. It knows a U.S. provocation when it sees one. In the 1950s and 60s the U.S. financed terrorism in Tibet. In 1989 it coached and financed a bloody color revolution attempt in Beijing. In the 1990s it brought Islamist terrorism to Xinjiang. In this century the U.S. instigated several periods of riots in Hong Kong.

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“..during the Cold War, there was an “understanding of the Soviet doctrine and capabilities — and vice versa” because they kept more negotiation channels open.”

• UK Official Says Nuclear War Threat Higher Than During the Cold War (Antiwar)

British National Security Advisor Stephen Lovegrove warned on Thursday that there is a greater risk of nuclear war today than there was during the Cold War due to a lack of communication channels. “The Cold War’s two monolithic blocks of the USSR (Soviet Union) and NATO — though not without alarming bumps — were able to reach a shared understanding of doctrine that is today absent,” Lovegrove said. He said during the Cold War, there was an “understanding of the Soviet doctrine and capabilities — and vice versa” because they kept more negotiation channels open. “This gave us both a higher level of confidence that we would not miscalculate our way into nuclear war,” Lovegrove said.

“Today we do not have the same foundations with others who may threaten us in future — particularly with China,” he said. Today, there is only one remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia, the New START, which limits the deployment of nuclear warheads, bombers, submarines, and missiles. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the US has abandoned diplomacy with Moscow, and US officials have said they can’t imagine negotiating a replacement of New START before it expires in 2026. The US has no nuclear arms control treaties with China, which has a vastly smaller arsenal than the US or Russia. Current estimates put Beijing’s arsenal at around 350 warheads, while the US has 5,550 and Russia has about 6,200.

During the Trump administration, the US tried to get Beijing to take part in trilateral arms control talks with Moscow and Washington. But China has little interest in such talks while its arsenal is so much smaller. If the US were serious about getting China involved, it would need to work with Russia to significantly reduce its stockpiles. Besides the lack of communication, the risk of nuclear war is significantly higher today because the US is funding a war on Russia’s border and helping Ukraine with intelligence to carry out attacks on Russian forces. The US is also stoking tensions with China by deploying more military forces in the South China Sea and increasing support for Taiwan.

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What Is A Woman? – Part 2

• US GDP Drops 0.9 Percent In Second Quarter (PM)

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released their report on the second quarter GDP. “Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the second quarter of 2022, according to the ‘advance’ estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP decreased 1.6 percent.” By standard definitions, two consecutive quarters of declining GDP growth indicates that a nation is in an economic recession. President Joe Biden said on Monday that the US is not facing a recession. “We’re not going to be in a recession, in my view,” Biden said. “The unemployment rate is still one of the lowest we’ve had in history. It’s in the 3.6 percent area. We still find ourselves with people investing.”

“The decrease in real GDP reflected decreases in private inventory investment, residential fixed investment, federal government spending, state and local government spending, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by increases in exports and personal consumption expenditures (PCE). Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased,” the BEA reports. The White House last week adjusted the definition of recession to distinctly not mean that two consecutive quarters of declining GDP growth is a recession. “While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle,” the White House wrote.


“Instead, both official determinations of recessions and economists’ assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data—including the labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production, and incomes. Based on these data, it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession,” the White House said.

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Zschaepitz : “This horror chart suggests that #Germany is heading for a huge energy crisis. Not only are gas prices near record highs, but electricity prices in particular are signaling stress.”

• ‘Horror Chart’ Suggests Germany On Brink Of Huge Energy Crisis (RT)

Germany is heading for a “huge energy crisis,” a senior editor at one of the country’s most influential newspapers, Die Welt, warned on Wednesday. “Not only [are] gas prices near record highs, but electricity prices in particular are signaling stress,” Holger Zschaepitz, a senior editor on the daily’s economic and financial desk, wrote on Twitter. In what he called a “horror chart” that he posted with his tweet, Zschaepitz showed that the price of electricity had reached almost €400 per megawatt hour on the energy exchange, or €0.40 per kilowatt-hour. If consumer prices reflected such market rates, Germans would be paying around €0.80 per kilowatt-hour rather than the current €0.30, including taxes and fees. However, such a sharp increase would be socially explosive, Zschaepitz suggests.

Meanwhile, in such a case energy companies would no longer be able to produce competitively, he adds. Electricity prices in Germany are influenced by the price of natural gas, which is the source of 15% of the country’s electricity, according to official statistics. Gas prices have nearly quadrupled this year, primarily due to shrinking flow from Russia, the continent’s major supplier. The price crunch has already led to a partial nationalization of one of Germany’s largest energy supply companies. The German government announced last week it would acquire a 30% stake in Uniper after the company asked for a bailout, citing “extreme financial pressure” caused by the reduced Russian natural gas deliveries.

The curtailment of gas flows meant that rather than being able to fully rely on its long-term contracts at a fixed price, Uniper has recently been forced to buy gas on the spot market at a much higher price to make up for shortages. According to a recent report by Bloomberg, European energy firms are racking up debt to cover the soaring costs, with their liabilities having reportedly reached over $1.7 trillion.

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Shoot. Foot.

• Hanover Becomes First German City To Ban Hot Water In Public Buildings (DM)

The Germany city of Hanover has become the first big city in Europe to ban hot water and central heating in public buildings in response to Vladimir Putin’s weaponizing of gas supplies. The drastic step comes as Germans have been told to expect sky high electricity bills and sweeping gas rationing measures that will affect their day-to-day lives. In a sign of things to come, Hanover, the capital of Lower Saxony in the north west of the country, will cut off the hot water in public buildings, swimming pools, sports halls and gyms. Other desperate gas-saving measures include switching off public fountains and blacking out night-time lights on major buildings such as the town hall and museums. The city’s mayor, Belit Onay, spoke of an ‘imminent gas shortage’ that meant they had to reduce the city’s energy consumption by 15 per cent.


The plans call for shutting off heating within public buildings between April and September each year, and thermostats set at just 20C (68F) for the rest of the year, although there will be some exemptions. There will also be a ban on portable air conditioners, heaters and radiators among the general populace as the average German begins to pay a price for standing up to the Russian dictator. The panic among European states – especially Germany – will likely come as music to Putin’s ears, as he is seen to be cutting energy supplies in retaliation for countries that have supported Ukraine after he invaded the country. Germany, like most of Europe, has been enjoying a hot summer which should soften the blow of the cold showers, but public officials are introducing the measures now in fear of what awaits them when the season turns.

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“..the German industry also depends on it, and if it collapses, the Austrian industry will also collapse, and we will face mass unemployment..”

• EU Ban On Russian Gas ‘Impossible’ – Austria (RT)

The European Union cannot ban Russian natural gas, as the step would harm EU members more than Russia, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer warned on Thursday, as cited by Austrian media outlets. Chancellor Nehammer made the comments during a visit to Vienna by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “Sanctions must hit those against whom they are directed more, but not harm those who decide them,” Nehammer told the Austria Press Agency. A ban on gas supplies from Russia – an idea that has been circulating within the EU since Moscow started its military operation in Ukraine – would lead to a domino effect in Europe, the Austrian chancellor suggested.

“Austria’s position is that an embargo on gas is impossible. Not only because Austria depends on Russian gas, the German industry also depends on it, and if it collapses, the Austrian industry will also collapse, and we will face mass unemployment,” Nehammer said, as cited by Lenta.ru. Viktor Orban criticized the gas rationing plan approved by the EU – which aims to reduce gas consumption within the bloc by 15% from August to March next year – earlier this week. According to the Hungarian PM, the mandatory rationing of natural gas is “the first sign of a war economy,” and warned of a possible recession and unemployment in Europe.

Europe has seen reduced gas flow from Russia – a major supplier – due to technical issues at a major pipeline. Nord Stream 1 is currently operating at 20% capacity. The reduction comes as the continent is trying to top up its gas reserves ahead of the heating season. The EU pledged earlier this year to end the bloc’s reliance on Russian energy. A partial embargo on oil was agreed upon, but several rounds of sanctions have not included similar restrictions on Russian natural gas.

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The EU is made up of bureaucrats, so of course pratical things do not get done.

• EU Gas Solidarity Complicated By Lack Of Fuel Sharing Deals (R.)

The European Union clinched a deal this week to cope with a gas supply crisis, but to make it work member states need to establish bilateral pacts to share gas and, right now, most have no such agreement in place. Only six such deals have been secured, leaving most of the EU’s 27 countries without firm terms on how and when they would share gas in a supply crunch, or the financial compensation they would give or get for doing so. “[Bilateral deals] are really … the only thing that will hold at the end of the day if there is a real supply crisis,” Christian Egenhofer, associate senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, said. “They organise the legal stuff, the compensation, the financial but also the infrastructure constraints,” he said.

Fearing Russia may completely halt gas flows, EU countries agreed on Tuesday to curb their gas use by 15% over winter, to fill storage and free up fuel to share around in a supply crisis. But it is up to individual countries to sort out how that sharing of fuel will happen in practice. EU laws oblige member states to send gas to a neighboring state whose households or essential services like hospitals face a severe shortage. To make that happen, governments arrange bilateral deals. However, just eight countries are covered by the six agreements so far – including between Germany and Austria, Estonia and Latvia, and Italy and Slovenia. “This is not sufficient,” EU energy policy chief Kadri Simson said last month, urging countries to arrange more.

A handful of countries are negotiating new two-way agreements, government officials said. A German-Czech deal is due to be signed by winter, and Germany is working on further agreements with Poland and Italy, its economy ministry said. But some countries heavily reliant on Russian gas – such as landlocked Hungary, which opposed this week’s deal – have none. Italy and France are the EU’s biggest gas users after economic powerhouse Germany. Italy has just one bilateral deal on emergency gas sharing and France has none. A senior Italian official said the country was negotiating a deal with Greece on gas storage.

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“I simply cannot believe that this absolute failure of economic policy is now being trumpeted as a positive accomplishment.

• Worst Is Yet To Come From Trudeau Liberals (Jordan Peterson)

I have had the great privilege of travelling to 40 American cities in just about as many states and to 15 European countries in the last four months, in the waning days of the great COVID panic, and I have learned many things about our great and self-conscious nation. First: I have not travelled anywhere else where the citizens and the government are more neurotically “concerned” about the pandemic. It may have escaped Canadians’ notice, but virtually nowhere else in the developed world is it now required to wear a mask, as is still mandatory in many of Canada’s airports and on flights out of our benighted country. There is absolutely no excuse for this, except the punitive self-righteousness of the Trudeau Liberals.

What else might you expect, however, from a government that also includes Chrystia Freeland, a deputy prime minister who has bragged about her colleagues’ appalling economic performance, claiming that it is actually good for Canadians to empty their wallets at the gas pumps, because of its implications in fighting the “climate emergency.” I simply cannot believe that this absolute failure of economic policy is now being trumpeted as a positive accomplishment. Here’s a hint for you saintly progressives: if you cared about the poor (the real poor, not the hypothetical poor you are hypothetically saving in the future), you would seek to drive down the cost of energy — energy that is precisely equivalent to work and, therefore, to the wealth that ameliorates poverty.

Second: it is almost impossible to overstate the degree to which Canada’s international reputation has been damaged by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Americans I have talked to (including people very well-placed politically on the Democratic and Republican fronts alike) listen in disbelief when I recount the claim brought forth by the Trudeau Liberals: that the trucker Freedom Convoy was financed by Americans hell-bent on bringing about a Jan. 6-style insurrection in Ottawa. Who would benefit from that, even in principle? Even if the Americans (Republican MAGA-types, say) cared about us — which they don’t — why in the world would they want to destabilize Canadian democracy? What’s the motive, to justify the crime? There is none. Even the American Democrats think that idea is insane.

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Barr 180º.

• Bill Barr To Merrick Garland: Appoint A Special Counsel Already (Fed.)

Recent developments warrant the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, former Attorney General William Barr says. “[I]ntervening events, especially recent reports about FBI whistleblowers and the possible reach of the investigation, warrant adding the protections of special counsel status to assure that key decisions are made independently without political ‘favor,’” Barr told The Federalist. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been under federal investigation since 2018 for issues related to his foreign business practices, including obtaining investments and board positions from politically compromised figures in communist China and other trouble spots. Multiple U.S. attorney’s offices were tasked with components of the investigation, with the Delaware office being the lead.

Hunter Biden’s problems became much more public with the news that he had left a laptop full of incriminating information at a computer repair store in Delaware. That news was then suppressed by Democrat-allied intelligence officials falsely claiming it was Russian disinformation. This week, multiple FBI whistleblowers, including those in senior positions, accused FBI headquarters of “improperly discredit[ing] and falsely claim[ing] that derogatory information about Biden’s activities was disinformation, causing investigative activity and sourcing to be shut down,” according to a Monday letter from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. That fact, as well as concern over the investigation’s complexity and scope, convinced the former attorney general of the need for a special counsel.

By highlighting the apparent breadth of the still-pending investigation into Hunter Biden’s affairs, Barr’s comments confirm concerns of three insiders, reported by The Federalist on Wednesday, that “the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office investigating Hunter Biden lacks the wherewithal and resources to adequately probe the dubious financial dealings of the Biden family and their business partners.” Barr’s view that a special counsel is now warranted to continue the investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings represents a change from the position he took in December 2020.

During a December 21, 2020 press conference, when asked whether he agreed with Republicans that a special counsel was needed to handle the Biden investigation, Barr negated the idea. “I think it’s being handled responsibly and professionally currently within the department, and to this point I have seen no reason to appoint a special counsel, and I have no plan to do so before I leave,” the outgoing attorney general told reporters.

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Get that counsel.

• Joe Biden Met With 14 Of His Son’s Business Associates (RT)

Despite repeated denials that he ever spoke to his son Hunter about the latter’s overseas business dealings, Fox News reported on Thursday that President Joe Biden met with at least 14 of Hunter’s business associates from the US, Mexico, Ukraine, China and Kazakhstan. Abandoned in a Delaware computer repair shop some time before the 2020 election and unearthed by the New York Post, Hunter’s laptop contained presumed evidence of numerous foreign deals in which businessmen offered tens of millions of dollars for introductions to Joe Biden, as well as graphic proof of Hunter’s drug use and dalliances with prostitutes.

“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden insisted in 2019. When last month Britain’s Daily Mail published a 2018 voicemail featuring Biden speaking to Hunter about a deal with Chinese oil firm CEFC, the official line remained the same, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying that “what the president said still stands.” Fox News’ latest report casts serious doubt on Biden’s denial. According to the news site, Joe Biden met with Mexican businessmen Miguel Aleman Velasco and Miguel Aleman Magnani in 2014, giving the pair a tour of the White House. A year later, Biden reportedly spoke by video with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and all three Mexicans – whom Hunter was doing business with or in negotiations with at the time – visited them at the vice presidential residence in Washington DC.

In a text message found on the laptop, Hunter told his business partner, Jeff Cooper, that he had spoken to his father about the deal involving Slim. Joe Biden also reportedly met with former Colombian President Andres Pastrana Arango and Eric Schwerin, another of Hunter’s business partners, in 2012, before dining with Arango and Juan Esteban Orduz, a Colombian businessman, later that same day. Files from the laptop show that during a single dinner in 2015, Joe Biden met with Hunter’s business associates from Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia, including an executive from Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company that paid Hunter a reported $50,000 per month from 2014 to 2018 to sit on its board. The following day, the Burisma executive emailed Hunter, thanking him for “giving an opportunity to meet your father.”

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Anton is a former Trump WH adviser.

• They Can’t Let Him Back In (Michael Anton)

Why? They say Jan. 6. But their determination began much earlier. And just what is so terrible about Trump anyway? I get many of his critics’ points, I really do. I hear them all the time from my mother. But even if we were to stipulate them all, do Trump’s faults really warrant tearing the country apart by shutting out half of it from the political process? Love him or hate him, during Trump’s presidency, the economy was strong, markets were up, inflation was under control, gas prices were low, illegal border crossings were down, crime was lower, trade deals were renegotiated, ISIS was defeated, NATO allies were stepping up, and China was stepping back (a little). Deny all that if you want to. The point here is that something like 100 million Americans believe it, strongly, and are bewildered and angered by elite hatred for the man they think delivered it.

Nor was Trump’s record all that radical—much less so than that of Joe Biden, who is using school-lunch funding to push gender ideology on poor kids, to cite but one example. Trump’s core agenda—border protection, trade balance, foreign restraint—was quite moderate, both intrinsically and in comparison to past Republican and Democratic precedent. And that’s before we even get to the fact that Trump neglected much of his own agenda in favor of the old Chamber of Commerce, fusionist, Reaganite, Conservatism, Inc., agenda. Corporate tax cuts, deregulation, and bombing Syria: These are all things Trump’s base doesn’t want, but the oligarchs desperately do, which Trump gave them. And still they try to destroy him.

Again, why? I think it’s because, while Trump’s core MAGA agenda is decidedly not outside the historic bipartisan mainstream, it is well outside the present regime’s core interests. Our rulers’ wealth and power rise with open borders, trade giveaways, and endless war. Trump, at least in principle, and often in practice, threatens all three. The old America—the one in which Republicans cared about the heartland and weren’t solely valets to corporate power, Democrats were pro-worker and anti-war, and Bill Clinton and The New York Times could advocate border security—is in the process of being replaced, if it hasn’t already been, by one in which there is only one acceptable opinion on not just these, but all other issues.

Anti-Trump hysteria is in the final analysis not about Trump. The regime can’t allow Trump to be president not because of who he is (although that grates), but because of who his followers are. That class—Angelo Codevilla’s “country class”—must not be allowed representation by candidates who might implement their preferences, which also, and above all, must not be allowed. The rubes have no legitimate standing to affect the outcome of any political process, because of who they are, but mostly because of what they want. Complaints about the nature of Trump are just proxies for objections to the nature of his base. It doesn’t help stabilize our already twitchy situation that those who bleat the loudest about democracy are also audibly and visibly determined to deny a real choice to half the country. “No matter how you vote, you will not get X”—whether X is a candidate or a policy—is guaranteed to increase discontent with the present regime.

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Gerry Ritz

 

 

 

 

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The Swamp Swallowed Trump

Jan 092021
 
 January 9, 2021  Posted by at 4:32 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  30 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Blue Trees (Your Turn Will Come, My Beauty!) 1888

 

 

You would think that if there’s one group of people who’d recognize a coup if they saw one, it would be the American people. Because their intelligence services have been involved in almost all coups in the world for many decades; let’s say since WWII, to keep it simple.

Just in the most recent past, they staged and conducted coups in Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela and many other places (think Bolivia). Libya was the only real “successful” one, thanks to Gaddafi being sodomized with a bayonet, leading to Hillary’s giddy We Came, We Saw, He Died, the by far ugliest face of the US by a mile. That and the open-air slave markets that resulted from sodomizing to death the man who led Africa’s wealthiest country and gave his people benefits that Americans can only dream of.

And now Hillary’s crew are about to be handed the reins again. Or as Michael Tracey put it”: The new corporate authoritarian liberal-left monoculture is going to be absolutely ruthless – and in 12 days it is merging with the state. This [is] only the beginning. Duck for cover.

The screwed-up coups in Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela etc. would appear to signal that the CIA is not very adept (anymore?!) at organizing coups, or maybe they just chronically overestimate their skills at it. Whichever way it may be, they have done more damage to America and its standing in the world than Donald Trump could ever have dreamt of doing.

So you would think Americans would recognize a coup, but instead they’re the last group of people on the planet who would. Because their media doesn’t present them as coups. They’re labeled as spreading democracy, freedom etc., as standing up against the bad guys, and liberating innocent people -even if many of them die in the process. People dying is a feature of these coups, not a bug. People get shot, bombed, disappeared, in a word: killed.

 

Anyway, it’s way more and better than ironic that all these very deadly CIA-led operations are not labeled coups, but then the clowns and actors spectacle that took place in Washington DC this week, is. Which is possible only because they never told people what a coup actually is. Only then can you make them believe that some wanker in a furry viking helmet outfit is trying to overthrow the government. At the initiative of the democratically elected president, no less.

Are these people extremists and terrorists or are they clowns and actors? I would lean towards the latter option. A coup requires a plan, a playbook, most often elites who think they have a shot at taking over a country, which in turn requires support from at least part of an army. The best these folks could think of was sitting in Pelosi’s office and take selfies.

 

 

That doesn’t make the march on the Capitol a good thing, far from it, but there are a lot of people out there who don’t like the way the president they elected in 2016 has been treated by the MSM, his political opponents, and US intelligence. And after the theater that has been Russiagate, the Mueller debacle and the Zelensky call-based impeachment, maybe that shouldn’t be too surprising.

The main problem for Trump lately would appear to have been his legal representation. I’ve said all along: let the dice roll where they may, there are many questions surrounding the election and they have the right to go looking for answers to these questions.

But if you look at what the status is today of what the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Lin Wood have come up with, you think they might as well have been working for the other side. Still, we’ve at least seen the dice roll, and they came up they way they did. The process was allowed to proceed, and this is the outcome. This has misled Trump as well as his followers. They thought there was something substantial -and tanglible- there, because that’s what they were told all along.

This doesn’t mean the US should continue using voting machines, however. There are many countries that hold elections, and there are very few that either use those machines and/or see their elections contested. There’s a reason for that combination. These things can be manipulated, and they will be if they’re used. Get rid of them or this chapter will be repeated endlessly.

 

Then again, it all plays out well for anyone but Trump. And perhaps a few GOP’ers who stood by him. You could say, Trump entered the swamp and drowned in it, it swallowed him whole. Which is not to say that he’s such a perfect character, hell no, but he was the one and only chance to get rid of the power cabal that is DC. Which is a much bigger danger than he could ever be.

Where career politicians like Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell and Joe Biden can reside for decades, and be handed ever more handsome amounts of money by the lobbyists who write their laws, which benefit the corporations they work for. Trump was the chance to do at least something about this. They ate him alive.

Now the story is that Trump is/was the main danger, and that he was attempting a coup against his own government. To finish off the job, after being hunted down by the MSM for 4+ years, social media, for whom unceremoniously dumping Trump, after he was their main attraction for years -at least for clickbait-, was just a business decision dressed in some vague set of moral principles, are now simply deleting him.

And people cheer that. They don’t understand that from now on, as US president you serve at the behest, grace and kindness of the CIA, New York Times and WaPo, but even more that of @jack and Zuckerberg, and not that of the American people. As the noise about an attempted coup allows Team Biden to slip in Sally Yates, Susan Rice and Victoria Nuland and their whole gang of neocon warmongers.

The entire media focus on Trump served to hide what those people were doing behind the scenes all along. And now it’s time to duck for cover. They’re going to try and impeach him again, and then prosecute him, and erase everything he’s done, cheered on by the same media who never told you what a coup actually is. Because they are a big club, and he’s not in it, and neither are you.

And if you think you can vent an opinion on social media in the future that doesn’t coincide with that of the big club, perhaps you haven’t been paying attention.

 

 

 

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