The Automatic Earth

René Magritte The son of man 1946

Short
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807931860128854162

Trump lawfare
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807907184631861446

Poso
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807878480476156148

Tucker Obama
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807538203458683010

RFK Dr. Phil

How do I know I can win? Because there’s never been an independent candidate in American history who’s been in as strong a position as I am right now.

Thanks for having me on, @DrPhil. pic.twitter.com/sVwoyCLRXN

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 2, 2024

Trump Taliban
https://twitter.com/i/status/1808179617397719127

All the charges and indictments appear to be -slowly- falling apart.

• Trump Sentencing Delayed Two Months, ‘If Such Is Still Necessary’ (ZH)

Update (1505ET): Donald Trump’s sentencing date has been kicked down the road more than two months – from July 11th to September 18th, ‘if such is still necessary.’

https://twitter.com/james_jinnette1/status/1808215098797838392

Interestingly, New York prosecutors agreed to a delay.

[..] Hours after the US Supreme Court granted Donald Trump immunity for official acts committed in office, the former president began an effort to toss his recent conviction in Manhattan and postpone his upcoming sentencing over 34 felony counts related to his cover-up of a sex scandal leading up to the 2016 US election. In a letter to judge Juan Merchan just hours after the Supreme Court ruling – and 10 days before he’s set for sentencing, Trump’s lawyers sought permission to file a motion to set aside the verdict while Merchan considers whether the Supreme Court ruling affects the conviction. That said, Trump’s attempt might be a long shot given the fact that the Manhattan case revolves around acts Trump took as a candidate, not as president.

As the NY Times notes, however, Trump’s lawyers are likely to argue that prosecutors partially built their case using evidence from his time in office. Under the Supreme Court’s new ruling, prosecutors may not charge a president for official acts, but also cannot cite evidence involving official acts that affect other accusations. It is unclear how the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the case, will respond, or whether the judge will delay the first sentencing of an American president. But Mr. Trump’s effort appeared to cause at least a brief interruption: The district attorney’s office did not on Monday make a sentencing recommendation to the judge about whether to imprison Mr. Trump, as was expected. Merchan may also punt on the request, as the deadline for filing post-trial motions ended last month. Instead, Merchan may instruct Trump’s attorneys to raise the issue when they appeal the conviction post-sentencing.

As the Times further notes, Merchan faces an ‘unprecedented conundrum’ with massive legal and political ramifications. Imprisoning Trump would drop-kick a hornet’s nest, while sparing Trump from prison would immediately draw the wrath of vengeful Democrats who say he gave Trump special treatment. While there’s no requirement that Trump be sentenced to time behind bars, Merchan could sentence him to months or several years in prison – or he could be sentenced to home confinement or probation. He could also postpone any sentence until after the election, or after Trump serves another term in office, should be he reelected. Meanwhile, Trump’s other criminal cases have been largely derailed or otherwise postponed – including his trial in Washington DC, where he stands accused of mishandling classified information while still in office.

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“..the legal machinery the corrupt Democrats have employed against Trump is too corrupt to be able to do its assigned political assassination.”

• SCOTUS Ruled For The Office of the President, Not Trump (Paul Craig Roberts)

The US Supreme Court has ruled that a president has immunity for official acts, but not for personal acts. Which is which will be a contentious issue. For example, if a president were to have the CIA, FBI, or Secret Service murder a political rival that would be a personal act. But when President Obama had the US military murder a US citizen suspected of being a terrorist, it was an official act. But was it? The justification for the murder was suspicion alone, a bare-faced accusation unconfirmed by a trial and therefore in violation of due process. Has it ever been established that it is an official act for a president to have a US citizen murdered without due process? Perhaps it has happened secretly by the CIA but my impression is that President Obama’s murder of the Muslim religious leader who was an American citizen was the first public murder without due process and conviction delivering a death penalty.

Nothing was made of the murder because Americans had been indoctrinated with fear of Muslim terrorists and regarded the murder as an act of war. When vice president Biden bragged on TV that he forced by withholding billions of dollars in US aid from the Ukraine government unless it fired the prosecutor investigating the Ukrainian company that paid his son $50,000 a month as a director, was it an official act or a personal act? Why has there been no investigation of this self-serving use of presidential authority? The Supreme Court majority emphasized that a president must have immunity for official acts or he can be stopped by law suits and politically motivated charges from performing his designated functions. In other words, the Court’s decision is based on elementary common sense.

If a president believes an election is fraudulent, it is his responsibility, and thereby an official act, for him to have the election verified. However, the Democrats and whore media defined the issue as “Trump overthrowing the election.” Even experts with the evidence in their hands were indicted for aiding and abetting Trump’s attempted overthrow of the election. In other words, the criminal indictment brought against Trump assumed without justification that there was no evidence of election fraud. As Trump had appointed a Justice Department and an entire government consisting of his enemies, his own government treated his official action as his private action. A rally in support of Trump was mischaracterized by Democrats, whore media, and Republicans such as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell as an “insurrection.”

What we should be disturbed about is the ability of the Democrats and the whore media to disrupt the 4-year term of a US president with a series of false charges that were never confirmed and then to use unconfirmed charges to indict a former president in an effort to prevent him from again running for president. Prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the indictments against Trump were falling apart. The biased “special counsel” prosecuting Trump was caught lying to the federal judge, who has put the case on hold. Fani Willis entrusted by the White House with Trump’s prosecution in Atlanta has been found to have given her lover $700,000 of taxpayers’ money with which he took Fani on vacations. Her case against Trump is also on hold. In other words, the legal machinery the corrupt Democrats have employed against Trump is too corrupt to be able to do its assigned political assassination.

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“The Supreme Court was designed to be unpopular; to take stands that are politically unpopular but constitutionally correct.”

• Age of Rage: Critics Unleash Threats and Abuse on the Supreme Court (Turley)

Within minutes of the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, liberal politicians and pundits seemed to move from hyperbole to hyperventilation. When not breathing into paper bags, critics predicted, again, the end of the republic. CNN’s Van Jones declared that it was “almost a license to thug, in a way.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) declared: “My stomach turns with fear and anger that our democracy can be so endangered by an out-of-control court” and denounced six justices as “extreme and nakedly partisan hacks — politicians in robes.” Blumenthal has previously shown greater intestinal fortitude, as when he threatened the justices that they would either rule as Democrats demanded or face “seismic” changes to their court. Jones warned the justices that “politically it’s bad” for them to rule this way. The comment captures the misguided analysis of many media outlets. The Supreme Court was designed to be unpopular; to take stands that are politically unpopular but constitutionally correct.

Indeed, the Democrats have become the very threat that the court was meant to resist. Recently, senators demanded that Chief Justice John Roberts appear to answer to them for his own decisions. (Roberts wisely declined.) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer previously declared in front of the Supreme Court, “I want to tell you, [Neil] Gorsuch, I want to tell you, [Brett] Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.” Now Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced that she will seek the impeachment of all six of the conservative justices. She was immediately joined by other Democratic members. Notably, scholars have long disagreed where to draw the line on presidential immunity. The court adopted a middle approach that rejected extreme arguments on both sides. Yet, because Ocasio-Cortez disagrees with their decision, she has declared that this “is an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture.”

Previously, Ocasio-Cortez admitted that she does not understand why we even have a Supreme Court. She asked “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.” Other members, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have called for packing the Court with additional members to immediately secure a liberal majority to rule as she desires. For these pundits and politicians, justice is merely an extension of politics and subject to the whims of the majority. These are same voices who chastised Judge Aileen Cannon for “slowwalking” her decisions by holding hearings on constitutional questions. They pointed to Judge Tanya Chutkan, who supported the efforts of special counsel Jack Smith to try Trump before the election, turning her court into a rocket docket. Chutkan quickly set aside this challenge, as well as other objections from Trump.

Indeed, at the oral argument, Chief Justice Roberts marveled at the conclusory analysis by Patricia Ann Millett in upholding Chutkan. He referred to the opinion celebrated by the left as little more than declaring “a former president can be prosecuted because he’s being prosecuted.” Chutkan and the DC Circuit were fast but ultimately wrong. Indeed, the Supreme Court noted that the judge created little record for the basis of her decisions. In a perverted sense, Democrats are giving the public a powerful lesson in constitutional law. As Alexander Hamilton stated in The Federalist No. 78, judicial independence “is the best expedient which can be devised in any government to secure a steady, upright and impartial administration of the laws.” This is the moment that the Framers envisioned in creating the Court under Article III of the Constitution. It would be our bulwark even when politicians lose faith in our Constitution and seek to dictate justice for those who they dislike.

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“President Biden’s hyper-ventilated response is crushingly ironic. He was vice president when President Barack Obama killed an American citizen without a trial or a charge. ”

• No, The Supreme Court Did Not Remove All Limits on the Presidency (Turley)

One of the most glaring moments in the address came when President Biden declared that “for all…for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.” That is not true. The Court found that there was absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial, or private, actions. The Court has often adopted tiered approaches in balancing the powers of the branches. For example, in his famous concurrence to Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), Justice Robert Jackson broke down the line of authority between Congress and the White House into three groups where the President is acting with express or implied authority from Congress; where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area); and where the President is acting in defiance of Congress.

Here the Court separated cases into actions taken in core areas of executive authority, official actions taken outside those core areas, and unofficial actions. Actions deemed personal or unofficial are not protected under this ruling. It is certainly true that the case affords considerable immunity, including for conversations with subordinates. However, this did not spring suddenly from the head Zeus. As Chief Justice John Roberts lays out in the majority opinion, there has long been robust protections afforded to presidents. There are also a host of checks and balances on executive authority in our constitutional system. This includes judicial intervention to prevent violations of the law as well as impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. President Biden’s hyper-ventilated response is crushingly ironic. He was vice president when President Barack Obama killed an American citizen without a trial or a charge.

When former Attorney General Eric Holder announced the “kill list” policy (that included the right to kill any American citizen), he was met with applause, not condemnation. The Obama-Biden administration then fought every effort by the family to sue the government. President Biden would have been outraged by any attempt of a Republican district attorney to charge him or President Obama with murder. He would also be outraged by prosecutors pursuing criminal charges for the deaths associated with the deluge of undocumented persons over the Southern border. In his address, President Biden also claimed that “the law would no longer” define “the limits of the presidency.” That is also untrue. This case was remanded for the purpose of defining what of these functions would be deemed private as opposed to official. Even on official actions, former president Donald Trump could be prosecuted if the presumptive immunity is rebutted by prosecutors.

What was most glaring for many civil libertarians was President Biden’s portrayal of himself as a paragon of constitutional fealty. He declared that “I know I will respect the limits of the presidential powers as I have for the last three-and-a-half years.” That was also untrue. President Biden has racked up an impressive array of losses in federal courts where he was found to have violated the constitution. This includes rulings that his administration has exceeded his authority and engaged in racial discrimination in federal programs. Indeed, Biden has often displayed a cavalier attitude toward such violations. For example, the Biden administration was found to have violated the Constitution in its imposition of a nationwide eviction moratorium through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Biden admitted that his White House counsel and most legal experts told him the move was unconstitutional.

But he ignored their advice and went with that of Harvard University Professor Laurence Tribe, the one person who would tell him what he wanted to hear. It was, of course, then quickly found to be unconstitutional. Biden showed the same disregard over the unconstitutionality of his effort to unilaterally forgive roughly half a trillion dollars in student debt. Courts have already enjoined that effort as presumptively unconstitutional (though an appellate court in one of those cases relaxed aspects of the injunction). The address was used to reinforce his “democracy is on the ballot” campaign theme. Pundits have repeated the mantra, claiming that if Biden is not elected, American democracy will perish. While some of us have challenged these predictions, the other presidential candidates are missing a far more compelling argument going into this election. While democracy is not on the ballot this election, free speech is.

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“They wanted to test him against Trump early while there was still time to replace him if he failed to rise to the occasion. Which, of course, he did spectacularly..”

• Ex-Hillary Aide: Debate Setup “Soft Coup” By Democrats To Replace Biden (MN)

Sources close to the Democratic Party have claimed that the debate last week was purposefully setup for Biden to fail as part of a “soft coup,” by insiders who know he is incapable of winning or serving a second term. A former Hillary Clinton aide told The Daily Mail that they wanted Biden to be exposed so he can be replaced by a more capable candidate. “There has never been a debate this early before,” the source stated, adding Traditionally, the debates are held after the Republican and Democratic conventions, which are in July and August.” “There is a growing belief this was a ‘soft coup’ because they know he isn’t fit to govern and have known for some time,” the aide further asserted. “They wanted to test him against Trump early while there was still time to replace him if he failed to rise to the occasion. Which, of course, he did spectacularly,” the source added.

Another insider told the Mail that “Publicly, the Democratic leadership has been backing Biden because they can’t appear to be disloyal to the President. But privately, there have been discussions going on for a long time that he’s too old to beat Trump.” “There were whispers for weeks that ‘Joe’s going down at the debate,’” the source further stated. The Mail also claims that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer “secretly” sent out an advance team to Washington DC weeks ago to prepare a snap presidential campaign.

The report claims “The team has been ‘on manoeuvres’ and meeting with Democratic officials,” with one source saying “Gretchen was the first to act. Now the floodgates have been opened.” Despite these claims, prominent Democrats including the Clintons, Obama and Nancy Pelosi are still defending Biden and publicly stating he remain the nominee. Pelosi told CNN Sunday that Biden “has the stamina (to continue)” and that “there are uh, uh, health care professionals, who think that uh, Trump has dementia. That his connection, his thoughts do not go together.” Meanwhile, despite his public support for Biden, Obama is privately lobbying to get rid of him, telling insiders he cannot defeat Trump, according to another insider.

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“..72% of Americans say Biden does not have the mental and cognitive health capabilities to serve as president.”

• Major US Democrat Donors Threatening Party Over Biden (RT)

A growing number of top Democratic donors are fuming over US President Joe Biden’s performance in his debate with GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday. Biden’s performance during Thursday’s face-off with Trump, widely seen as incoherent and fumbling, has also highlighted concerns about the US president’s ability to govern. Several US media outlets reported that the showdown had left many Democrats and their donors scrambling to find a replacement for Biden as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. The British daily claimed that the discontent “appears to be turning into a full-blown party revolt” in the wake of the event, adding that key Democratic donors are threatening to “pull the plug” unless Biden drops out of the race.

Former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, who has donated several hundred thousand dollars to the Democratic Party, lashed out at the US president, telling the Daily Mail: “For Biden’s own good and the good of the country, he should step aside immediately.” He added that the incumbent had so far failed to reassure any party donors, which he claimed “confirms my worst fears.” Meanwhile, several Democrats interviewed by the tabloid vented their frustration at what they called attempts by Biden’s team to “gaslight” them into believing there was nothing to worry about. Tilson echoed this sentiment, saying: “They’re p**sing on our legs and telling us it’s raining… How stupid do they think we are?” An Axios report also provided insight into the campaign’s push to reassure donors during a Zoom call on Monday. The outlet claimed, citing sources, that while “there wasn’t much panic” during the call, there was a lot of skepticism. “It was a damage-control call,” one source said.

However, the report said Biden’s team had not tried to put a positive spin on the debate debacle, instead echoing the president’s own assessment, in which he acknowledged that “I don’t debate as well as I used to.” At the same time, Biden officials reportedly gave donors data and made arguments designed to prove that the president still has a chance of beating Trump. A CNN flash poll conducted after the debate found that 67% of the viewers thought Trump had performed better. Meanwhile, according to a CBS News poll, 72% of Americans say Biden does not have the mental and cognitive health capabilities to serve as president.

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“If you have a piece of crack cocaine no bigger than this quarter that I’m holding in my hand, one quarter of one dollar, we passed a law — with leadership of Sen. Thurmond and myself and others — a law that says: you’re caught with that, you go to jail for five years..”

• The Long Sordid Career of Creepy Joe Biden (Jeffries)

[..] people might not remember quite everything about Joe Biden’s lengthy career as a beloved resident of the Washington, D.C. swamp that Trump promised to drain. Biden was first elected as a U.S. Senator from Delaware in 1973. Even I was very young then. In 1981, the great “liberal” senator strongly supported the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, passed in the wake of CIA whistleblower Philip Agee’s disclosures about the Agency is his best-selling book Inside the Company. Biden declared that “I do not think anybody has any doubt about Mr. Agee. We should lock him away in my opinion.” The good senator really liked locking people up, it seems. As a strong supporter of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, he took credit for a draconian provision that mandated a five year sentence for possessing small amounts of crack cocaine.

Little did Biden know that, decades later his own troubled son Hunter would be caught with enough crack cocaine to garner a long prison sentence under the original 1986 Act, which was softened a bit in 2010. With every ounce of “liberal” ardor that he could muster, Biden bragged at the time, “If you have a piece of crack cocaine no bigger than this quarter that I’m holding in my hand, one quarter of one dollar, we passed a law — with leadership of Sen. Thurmond and myself and others — a law that says: you’re caught with that, you go to jail for five years. You get no probation, you get nothing, other than five years in jail. Judge doesn’t have a choice.” Senator Biden also authored the horrendous 1994 crime bill which featured “three strike you’re out” and mandatory sentencing, significantly increasing the prison population.

A JFK assassination researcher attended a Joe Biden seminar in 2005. He was able to briefly question Biden about the assassination. As recounted on a discussion forum, this was the short conversation: “Senator Biden, do you believe JFK was killed as a result of a conspiracy?” Answer: “No.” “So do you believe that Lee Harvey Oswald, alone and unaided, killed President Kennedy?” Answer: “Yes.” This is hardly surprising, of course, but reflects Biden’s ironclad establishment mindset. In 2019, the American Prospect published a piece headlined, “Joe Biden’s Love Affair With the CIA.” Biden was very helpful to Reagan’s CIA Director William Casey, who praised him in a classified early 1980s memo to his intelligence staff. Biden would state, in a speech at Stanford, that the intelligence community had been compromised by leaks.

Nasty piece of work

A Memo for anyone "Feeling Sorry" for poor old Sleepy Joe

He's always been a nasty piece of work, crooked, aggressive and controlling.

Watch. pic.twitter.com/b1F86eoycv

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) July 1, 2024

So Joe Biden was never one of the Democratic Party politicians I admired back in my misguided youth. He wasn’t going to expose the abuses of the intelligence agencies, like a Frank Church. He wasn’t interested in any “sunshine” laws that would make it easier for the People to be informed about their government. His concern then about “leaks” would evolve into concern over whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. In a January, 2023 tweet, Snowden would comment on Biden’s classified documents scandal, accusing the Department of Justice of suppressing the story until after the election, and declared, “Worth noting that the President seems to have absconded with more classified documents than many whistleblowers.” Biden is on the record as saying that Snowden should “face the consequences of his actions.”

Following Julian Assange’s release from exile last week, some assumed that the Biden administration had been responsible for it, given Biden’s recent statements that he was “considering” dropping the charges against the Wikileaks founder. However, the White House would issue a statement maintaining that they had not played a role in Assange’s plea deal. A deal which, incidentally, made the disappearance of all those troubling DNC emails a prerequisite for his release. So if you’re tempted to think that perhaps, after over fifty years of serving the interests of the corrupt Deep State, Joe Biden finally did something good, you’d be wrong. Why spoil a perfect record? Even Barack Obama commuted Bradley/Chelsea Manning’s sentence.

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“..Democratic Party apparatchiks are engaging in Orwellian falsifications to cover Biden’s catastrophic cognitive failure..”

• What US Allies Should Learn From The Biden-Trump Debate (Amar)

There is very little to say about the content of the recent televised debate between the current American president, Joe Biden, and the former and likely next president, Donald Trump. That’s because the one feature that mattered was so obvious: Biden is, as those with eyes to see have known for a long time, deeply senile. That is a personal if not uncommon tragedy. Given Biden’s many sins – a lifelong record of systematic, almost compulsive lying, of policies that have, for decades, abused the weak and the poor and pandered to the rich, and, last but not least, the Gaza genocide co-perpetrated with his Zionist friends – it is impossible to feel pity for him. But given the unfortunate power of America, his mental decline is also a global scourge. Yet another one the ‘indispensable’ nation is inflicting on the rest of us on this planet.

The difference between before and after the debate is simply that now even the most mendacious Democratic Party hacks and behind-the-scenes manipulators cannot deny this fact any longer. Don’t get me wrong: Many of them are at least pretending to try, including former president Barack Obama, despite ongoing, widespread, and irrepressible speculation that Michelle Obama, his wife, might enter the fray at the last minute in the melodramatic role of – nobly reluctant – savior. And, of course, Democrats are also blaming anyone but themselves and their atrocious president. Yet their efforts are largely in vain. Even in America, with its post-truth media, the “secret” that never really was, is out, and the taboo is broken.

Panicked by the return of Donald Trump, key outlets of extreme Centrism, such as, to name only three, the very popular TV ‘news’ (really, agitation and propaganda) show Morning Joe, the de facto Democratic Party newspaper the New York Times, and The Economist, the British Pravda of the American empire, are openly and insistently calling for Biden to quit. Polls in the US indicate that the public has had enough, too: According to a CBS News poll, only 28% of registered voters think Biden should stay in the race, while 72% acknowledge the obvious: Biden is mentally unfit for the presidency.

Yet none of this is a surprise. What is more interesting now is what the political fallout of Biden’s debate fiasco reveals about the nature of two things that, unfortunately, still shape much of our world: American ‘democracy’ and American empire. Regarding ‘democracy’, even in the US, some observers – such former President Jimmy Carter and researchers at Princeton University, have long understood that it’s silly to describe their country as a democracy. Instead, any halfway objective assessment of its real political system has to start from the fact that it is an oligarchy. But Carter and the Princeton researchers acknowledged that fact a decade ago. The question is where are we now?

Spoiler alert: Things have only gotten worse. Exhibit A – the manner in which the Biden dementia debate debacle is being handled. It is not only the fact that Democratic Party apparatchiks are engaging in Orwellian falsifications to cover Biden’s catastrophic cognitive failure that enables us to see with our own eyes. It is also the way in which Biden’s family (or would clan be a more exact term?) is still widely treated as having the apparently divine privilege to help him decide whether finally to drop out or not. A family matter? A political system in which issues of obvious and extremely urgent public interest are up to a totally unaccountable ‘family council’ – such as whether a dementia case should have final say over almost 5,000 nuclear weapons – does not qualify as a democracy. Indeed, it does not even qualify as a republic anymore. It may, with a ginormous dose of generosity, pass as a rather rotten monarchy. Less charitable observers would class it as a form of mafia or mobster rule.

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“..these “theories” on how Biden could respond to the Supreme Court are not simple hypotheticals for the sake of argument, there is an element of desperation and bloodlust.”

• Democrats Hint At Assassination In Response To SCOTUS Immunity Decision (ZH)

Nobody likes to lose but leftists take indignant defeat to a whole new level. Though they claim to “defend democracy” in their spare time, Democrats also have a tendency to abandon the democratic process when that process interferes with their intentions to remain in power. Case in point: The Supreme Court’s recent decision to give immunity from prosecution to Donald Trump in the case of “some official acts” taken during his tenure in office. Leftists have responded with outrage at the 6-3 decision with much of their political hopes resting on the strategy of burying Trump in as many legal battles as possible to keep him from running for president again. Democrats are now flooding social media and the news feeds with suggestions that the SC decision makes it possible for Joe Biden as president to eliminate the conservative competition “as a part of his official duties.”

The tools for legally punishing presidents already exist, including impeachment and charges of treason. And, keep in mind, if Trump does not have immunity for previous actions as president, then neither does any other president. How many skeletons are in the closets of men like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Barack Obama? Beyond this, assassination of a political opponent or the conservative members of the Supreme Court is not recognized as an official duty of the presidency. Democrats, as usual, take their conclusions to the dramatic extreme in order to provoke public fear through emotionally energized disinformation. Leftists have been fantasizing publicly about murdering Trump for some time now. However, these “theories” on how Biden could respond to the Supreme Court are not simple hypotheticals for the sake of argument, there is an element of desperation and bloodlust.

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Satire? Switch around the names Trump and Biden, and see how that feels.

• BBC Presenter Calls For Trump To Be Assassinated (RT)

BBC presenter David Aaronovitch has called for the “murder” of former US President Donald Trump in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Aaronovitch later deleted his message following a backlash, claiming it had been “satire.” Aaronovitch, the voice behind the British state broadcaster’s Radio 4 program ‘The Briefing Room’, tweeted on Monday: “If I was Biden I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security.” The post was accompanied by the hashtag #SCOTUS, indicating that the comment had been triggered by Monday’s confirmation from the US Supreme Court that former presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for their official actions. Aaronovitch was forced to delete the post after an online backlash, and claimed in a follow-up message that he had been accused of inciting violence by “a far right pile.” The presenter insisted his tweet was “plainly a satire.”

On Monday, the highest US court ruled that under “our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.”In an interview with Fox News Digital, Trump touted the verdict on presidential immunity as a “big win for our Constitution and for democracy.” President Biden attacked the Supreme Court ruling, urging citizens to “di ssent” against the verdict. US federal prosecutors have charged Trump with four criminal counts related to the 2020 presidential election, alleging that he “conspired” to overturn the results. The Supreme Court verdict still grants lower courts the right to hold evidentiary hearings to determine whether the actions are official or unofficial. Unofficial acts by the president are not covered by immunity from prosecution. Trump has repeatedly called his prosecution politically motivated, describing it as a “witch hunt” launched by Biden and his administration.

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“..EU countries are “plainly not prepared to fill a dramatically expanded military role anytime soon..”

• Trump Could End NATO Expansion – Politico (RT)

The former and possibly future US President Donald Trump is reportedly considering a deal with Russia not to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia, according to a Politico article citing anonymous sources. Trump is the presumptive Republican challenger to the incumbent President Joe Biden in the November election. His campaign has not yet named a national security team, or published a new agenda for NATO, but Politico Magazine pieced together a possible one in a story published on Tuesday. “As part of a plan for Ukraine that has not been previously reported, the presumptive GOP nominee is mulling a deal whereby NATO commits to no further eastward expansion — specifically into Ukraine and Georgia — and negotiates with Russian President Vladimir Putin over how much Ukrainian territory Moscow can keep,” the story said, citing two “Trump-aligned national security experts.”

One anonymous source supposedly familiar with Trump’s thinking said he was “open to something foreclosing NATO expansion and not going back to the 1991 borders for Ukraine,” but did not exclude any other options, “including supplying large amounts of weapons” to Kiev. While Trump is “unlikely” to quit NATO outright, he is likely to overhaul the US-led bloc to make its European members take on more responsibilities – something Politico’s sources worry they are not actually capable of. European members of the bloc that don’t spend at least 2% of their GDP on the military “wouldn’t enjoy the defense largess and security guarantee” of the US, according to one anonymous Trump-aligned source. The US “does not have enough military forces to go around,” Elbridge Colby, Trump’s deputy assistant defense secretary for strategy, told Politico. “We can’t break our spear in Europe against the Russians when we know the Chinese and Russians are collaborating, and the Chinese are a more dangerous and significant threat.”

European members of the bloc “need to be producing combat credible forces to deal with a Russian attack, like now,” Colby added. As part of a “radical reorientation” of NATO under Trump, the US would maintain its air and naval bases in Europe, but leave the “bulk of infantry, armor, logistics and artillery” to be handled by the continental allies. According to Politico, EU countries are “plainly not prepared to fill a dramatically expanded military role anytime soon,” while the continent is “weaker economically and more dependent on US energy supplies than ever before.” “It’s important to note that all these opinions are not from Donald Trump,” Richard Grenell, his former acting director of national intelligence, said on X (formerly Twitter) in response to the Politico article. The Trump campaign did not respond to the outlet’s requests for comment.

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True for all of NATO. Yes, including the US.

• UK Military Unprepared For Conflict Of Any Kind – Ex-Defense Official (RT)

Britain’s military is in such a bad state that it may not be able to defend the country, let alone mount an expeditionary force of any significant strength, a former official tasked with assessing the armed forces has told the Financial Times. Rob Johnson, director of the Oxford Changing Character of War Centre, was appointed in May 2022 for a two-year term as head of the Defense Ministry’s Office for Net Assessment and Challenge (SONAC). The researcher told the FT he wanted to share his grim conclusions with the public because he is “deeply worried” about what he discovered. He insisted his assessment is realistic, rather than alarmist. The armed forces “cannot defend the British homelands properly” and have a “bare minimum” to conduct small-scale peacekeeping missions, disaster relief operations, evacuations of civilians from war zones and anti-sabotage activities, according to the article published on Monday.

“In any larger-scale operation, we would run out of ammunition rapidly” Johnson warned. “Our defenses are too thin, and we are not prepared to fight and win an armed conflict of any scale.” If the UK were to deploy an expeditionary force comparable to those dispatched during the Falklands (Malvinas) War of 1982 or the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it “would be under-equipped, leaving troops at risk.” The deficiencies are spread across the military branches, according to Johnson. British air defenses could be unable to stop large-scale long-range missile strikes, the Royal Navy does not have enough ships to patrol the North Atlantic, while the Royal Air Force needs to double its fleet of fighter jets.

“The government is not taking the public into its confidence about the scale of the threat because it knows it’s not ready,” Johnson said. The revelations do not damage national security because “the Russians already know this anyway,” he claimed, referring to the fact that London considers Russia an imminent military threat to Britain. The British government last year set out to restore the UK’s global prominence as part of its foreign policy. The state of the military does not support that, Johnson indicated, saying: “We have to cut our coat to fit our cloth.” The warning adds to a plethora of similar British media reports and remarks by officials, who advocate ramping up defense spending.

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“..still based in the fantasy land that he can dictate terms to Russia while losing the war..”

• Zelensky’s New ‘Plan’ Possible ‘First Step’ To Negotiations (DeMartino)

Ukraine’s illegitimate President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent promise to put forth a new “comprehensive plan” to end the conflict in Ukraine may be the first tentative steps by the regime to sit down at the negotiating table with Russia. Zelensky announced on Friday during a press conference in Kiev that he was creating a new plan that should be “supported by the majority of the world.” He also used the opportunity to, for the first time, admit high casualties on the battlefield. International relations and security expert Mark Sleboda told Sputnik’s Final Countdown that while Zelensky’s comments are still based in the fantasy land that he can dictate terms to Russia while losing the war, the change in tone could represent the regime’s first tentative steps towards admitting reality. “The fact that he said he’s willing to speak to Russia through an intermediary at some undisclosed point months in the future, I guess that is progress, but not much,” Sleboda explained.

“There is a possibility that this is a first tentative, one step forward, two steps back in the direction of eventual negotiations to end the conflict.” Zelensky made the comments not long after his so-called “peace summit” fell flat on its face, with China declining to attend and several influential countries outside of the West refusing to sign the final document, including Brazil, South Africa, India and Saudi Arabia. Iraq and Jordan asked for their signatures to be removed the day after they signed. “Certainly, I think [Zelensky’s] statement is representative of coming out of the failed Kiev regime war rally. Sentiment within the rest of the world outside of the West, i.e. the real international community – the global majority, that [said] they want real peace negotiations, and, perhaps, at least this is a nod in that direction,” Sleboda speculated.

The change in Zelensky’s tone is not just a reflection of the failed so-called “peace summit” but also the reality on the battlefield, where Ukraine is losing significant ground regularly. On Monday, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that they had liberated Stepovaya Novoselovka in the Kharkov region and Novopokrovskoye in the Donbass People’s Republic. “Even if [Zelensky’s comments] are a symbolic step in that direction [of negotiations], it is driven by the desperate state on the battlefield that the Kiev regime is facing,” Sleboda argued. “Once again, [Ukraine] stripped veteran troops from Toretsk in Nyu-York, they moved them to Kharkov. Russia knew about it immediately, of course, and launched a significant offensive in the area and has made significant progress. Now, the Kiev regime is scrambling and shuffling troops around again and again.”

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“Le Pen said that if her party came to power, it would reverse these appointments so it “could govern.”

• Le Pen Accuses Macron Of Preparing ‘Coup d’État’ (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron is undertaking a last-minute reshuffling in government agencies in order to prevent National Rally leader Jordan Bardella from governing as he wishes, former party leader Marine Le Pen believes. The RN is widely expected to gain a plurality in this Sunday’s runoff. RN and its allies secured the lead in the first round of the snap parliamentary election last week, while projections in the French media anticipate the party ultimately winning between 230 and 280 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly. “It’s a kind of administrative coup d’état,” Le Pen told France Inter radio on Tuesday, commenting on press reports that claimed Macron was rushing to appoint senior civil servants, including to top EU jobs.

Over the past days, Macron reportedly appointed several top officials, including the military governor of Paris, the new chief of the General Staff of the French Air Force, the new director of the EU at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and three ambassadors. He also proposed in Brussels last week reappointing Thierry Breton as France’s European commissioner. According to Le Pen, “the aim” of such appointments is “to prevent Jordan Bardella from governing the country as he wishes,” should the RN win a majority in Sunday’s runoff. Le Pen said that if her party came to power, it would reverse these appointments so it “could govern.”

“When you want to counter the electorate’s vote, the results of elections, by appointing people of your own, so that they prevent you within the state from being able to carry out the policy that the French want … I call that an administrative coup d’état,” Le Pen concluded. Macron called early parliamentary elections after the RN’s strong performance in last month’s European Parliament elections. The party formerly led by Le Pen and now by Bardella won 30 of the 81 French seats in the EU legislature. The first round of early parliamentary elections was held on June 30. The RN and its allies came in first with 33.15% of the vote. The left-wing alliance New Popular Front took second place with 27.99%, while Macron’s Ensemble coalition garnered just 20.04%.

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“I remind you that France has an official public debt of 3,000 billion euros, and that this sum is absolutely non-repayable..”

• France Rapidly Being ‘Brought to its Knees’ Regardless of Vote Outcome (Sp.)

President Emmanuel Macron’s center-right alliance Ensemble was practically wiped out by Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN) in the first round of France’s snap legislative elections. Projections regarding the outcome of the second round on July 7 suggest that Macron’s coalition is set to hemorrhage seats in the National Assembly. Whatever the outcome of the parliamentary elections, France today “no longer has the means for its policy,” Emmanuel Leroy, president of the Institut 1717, for a new Franco-Russian alliance, told Sputnik. He underscored that quite possibly next Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN) will not obtain an absolute majority required to govern in the country, creating “an objectively uncontrollable situation.” “Without an absolute majority, the country will be in a state of incapacity to be governed in a valid manner and we will probably observe a crisis situation which will bring France completely to its knees on the international political level,” speculated the French political scientist.

“Emmanuel Macron’s bet today is to play on the victory of this party [RN] in such a way as to create a situation of political chaos in France,” Leroy suggested. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has already stated that Macron’s centrist coalition will pull out around 60 of its candidates to allow other contenders to have a chance at defeating the RN. But this could be nothing more than a “window dressing,” said Leroy. The analyst noted that whether France switches to a right-wing or left-wing policy, this wouldn’t change the fundamentals. And these fundamentals are that the France of Emmanuel Macron, which has been “at the forefront in the desire to completely engage in this war in Ukraine to help the regime [led] by Zelensky,” is in phenomenal debt. “I remind you that France has an official public debt of 3,000 billion euros, and that this sum is absolutely non-repayable,” the former Russia adviser to Marine Le Pen stressed.

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Too expensive.

• UniCredit Challenges Order To Leave Russia (RT)

UniCredit has appealed to the EU’s top court to clarify an order issued by the European Central Bank (ECB) for the Italian institution to reduce its presence in Russia. The lender has applied to the General Court of the European Union for “definitive legal clarification” of obligations set by the ECB for winding down its Russian business, UniCredit said in a statement on Monday. UniCredit said that while it is complying with the regulator’s request to slash its activities in Russia, it is concerned “about the terms upon which this reduction has to take place as provided for in the decision issued by ECB, that goes beyond the current legal framework.” The ECB has pressured EU banks with operations in Russia to speed up their exit from the country amid the threat of harsher US sanctions on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine.

In May, the Frankfurt-based regulator sent letters to lenders with a request for an “action plan” to end their business in Russia as early as June. UniCredit currently has the second largest exposure to the Russian market among EU-based banks, and is included in the Russian central bank’s list of 13 systemically important credit institutions. Other EU banks – including Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), Dutch lender ING, Germany’s Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank, Hungary’s OTP Bank, Italy’s Intesa SanPaolo, and Sweden’s SEB – also maintain a presence in the Russian market despite Western sanctions. Announcing its legal challenge, the bank noted that it had reduced its cross-border exposure to Russia by 91% and its domestic exposure by 65% since February 2022. The Italian lender said the application could take several months and asked for an interim suspension of the regulator’s decision.

“Unprecedented circumstances, the complexities inherent in the geo-political and economic scenario and the lack of a harmonized regulatory framework applicable to it and the potential for serious unintended consequences of implementing the decision that would impact not only the Russian subsidiaries” compelled UniCredit to seek clarity. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani welcomed the bank’s challenge, saying the ECB “must take into account the situation in which Italian companies operate in Russia, in compliance with EU sanctions.” “Hasty decisions merely risk damaging Italian and EU companies,” Reuters quoted him as saying. UniCredit operates in Russia through a subsidiary, with some 3,100 employees and more than 50 branches.

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X thread. “It will be used, for years to come, to roll back federal agencies, and we’ll all be better of for it. And that’s why politicians and corporate media are freaking out about it.”

• Chevron Deference (Spike Cohen)

For those who don’t understand what is, and why SCOTUS ended it, here’s the long and short of it: A family fishing company, Loper Bright Enterprises, was being driven out of business, because they couldn’t afford the $700 per day they were being charged by the National Marine Fisheries Service to monitor their company. The thing is, federal law doesn’t authorize NMFS to charge businesses for this. They just decided to start doing it in 2013. Why did they think they could away with just charging people without any legal authorization? Because in 1984, in the Chevron decision, the Supreme Court decided that regulatory agencies were the “experts” in their field, and the courts should just defer to their “interpretation” of the law. So for the past 40 years, federal agencies have been able to “interpret” laws to mean whatever they want, and the courts had to just go with it.

It was called Chevron Deference, and it put bureaucrats in charge of the country. It’s how the OHSA was able to decide that everyone who worked for a large company had to get the jab, or be fired. No law gave them that authority, they just made it up. It’s how the ATF was able to decide a piece of plastic was a “machine gun”. It’s how the NCRS was able to decide that a small puddle was a “protected wetlands”.

It’s how out-of-control agencies have been able to create rules out of thin air, and force you to comply, and the courts had to simply defer to them, because they were the “experts”. Imagine if your local police could just arrest you, for any reason, and no judge or jury was allowed to determine if you’d actually committed a crime or not. Just off to jail you go. That’s what Chevron Deference was. It was not only blatantly unconstitutional, it caused immeasurable harm to everyone. Thankfully, it’s now gone. We haven’t even begun to feel the effects of this decision in the courts. It will be used, for years to come, to roll back federal agencies, and we’ll all be better of for it. And that’s why politicians and corporate media are freaking out about it.

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SNL

HYSTERICAL SNL: If B*den Is NOT Going To Run, Who Will? pic.twitter.com/smOoWOX5da

— Dustie (@DustieDahl) July 1, 2024

Spaghetti dance

pic.twitter.com/Rrl9wDuZe4

— Photographer (@photo5065) July 1, 2024

Dogslide

absolutely the best thing you'll see all day.. pic.twitter.com/Gpb8iEhpGz

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) July 2, 2024

McDo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807747770314588287

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