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Debt Rattle August 3 2025

Aug 032025
 
 August 3, 2025  Posted by at 10:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


M.C. Escher Fluorescent sea 1933

 

• John Solomon Says, “We’re Working to Release More Information” (CTH)
• The Russia Hoax Is Simple. Dems Lied, Half The Country Believed Them (Marcus)
• US Congressman Demands Soros Testify Over Russiagate Plot Against Trump (RT)
• Gabbard: ‘This Is Why Trump’s Mandate Is Critical’ (Fleetwood)
• Declassified Docs Prove We All Were Censored to Protect Hillary (Taft)
• Jack Smith May Finally Learn What ‘No One Is Above the Law’ Means (Manney)
• Brennan and Clapper Just Hit the Panic Button (Margolis)
• Experts Were Wrong. The Economy’s Strong—But the Fed Won’t Budge (VDH)
• ‘No Defense Against’ Russia’s Oreshnik Missile – Ex-Pentagon Analyst (RT)
• 10 or 12 Days, Then What? (Larry Johnson)
• Are Senate Democrats Finally Going to Get the Payback They Deserve? (Margolis)
• Cleavage In a Bored Country (Ben Shapiro)
• Building Eurasia’s New Fortress (Ring)
• Everyone Should Leave EU – AfD Head Weidel On “Openly Corrupt” Brussels (RMX)

 

 

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https://twitter.com/AdamMoczar/status/1951353798342877518

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There are quite a few storylines that will have people thinking, for example; Russiagate -or Ukraine-, I’ve been reading about that for ages, boring! But we’re going to have some very long stories, with details slowly seeping through. The resistance, from media and politics, to revealing reality, is enormous. That’s why things leak out bit by bit only, it’s a tooth and nail fight. But it’s as Tulsi says once again that this is the only way, and it’s the only chance we get. Imagine what would be going on right now if Trump had not won, or survived for that matter: we would never know any of it. Better to find out day by day. Politiics. intelligence and media is a very strong force when put together.

 

 

“This is not ‘doomerism’, this is reality when you pull back from the ‘tick-tock’ grifting clickbait.”

• John Solomon Says, “We’re Working to Release More Information” (CTH)

First things first. It might not be the popular thing to accept, but it is increasingly clear there is no way to get to any form of accountability or legal exposure for Russiagate or the manufacturing of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, anywhere near former President Barack Obama. The concentric circles of plausible deniability are just too extensive. Essentially, despite the evidence of the FBI participating in a manufactured investigation predicted on false pretenses, all now supported with hindsight evidence, the fact that key IC officials, namely CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, presented the illusion of credible concern, inoculates President Obama from scrutiny. As the Supreme Court noted, the President is protected from liability for “official acts” of his office.

Yes, we all know these officials knew it was a ruse; however, in 2016 the CIA and FBI were presenting the information to Obama and saying the investigative value was potentially plausible. As such, Obama would have been within his official duty to tell the IC officials to chase down the information (continue investigating it). Then, the January 5th, 2017, meeting documented by the infamous “by the book” Susan Rice memo, further inoculates President Obama for telling the IC officials to follow careful procedures as they continued investigating whether or not the Trump-Russia collusion was a factual concern. All of these elements lead to various tentacles of plausible deniability. No court is going to find criminal action within the decision-making, regardless of how ridiculous it may look in granular hindsight.

Are all the characters guilty of perpetrating a fraud for the expressed intent of a political narrative, yes. Are they criminally liable for it, extremely unlikely. The only criminal liability that appears visible is in the Mueller probe that came along in May 2017 to coverup the prior conduct. The Mueller/Weissmann special counsel perpetrated fraud in legal filings, lied to the FISA court, and manipulated evidence. As a result, we must ask ourselves what is the value in this ongoing reveal of information? Because they were willing participants in the overall operation, the MSM media will never admit their role or culpability in the ruse. That leaves an echo-chamber of alternate media combing through the granular releases and discovering the trail of evidence represented within the declassification.

Put all that alternative media together and you impact 25 to 40% of the public. The rest don’t really care, and/or dislike President Trump too much to really care that he was targeted by the Intelligence Community. This is not ‘doomerism’, this is reality when you pull back from the ‘tick-tock’ grifting clickbait. Worse still, it is clear the ‘tick-tock’ controlled release of information is in full swing again. When you hear John Solomon saying, “we are working to release more information,” it’s worth asking yourself who exactly is this “we” that Solomon is speaking of.


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I’ve come to the conclusion the “we” consists of those within the clickbait industry who seek to make a living from the endless discussion. Solomon is not a reporter, he’s a participant. Here’s another example, courtesy of Sean Hannity and Senator Lindsey Graham.

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“To everyone involved in this hoax, the message must be clear: This is your legacy, your attempt to deceive the American people and destroy the man they elected to lead them. That is who you are..”

• The Russia Hoax Is Simple. Dems Lied, Half The Country Believed Them (Marcus)

The United States of America has now spent almost a decade embroiled in “Russiagate,” and its citizens have been bombarded from both sides with theories, names, and anonymous quotes. But it all really comes down to one thing: Democrats lied, and half the country believed them. In the 24 pages of never-before-seen declassified files released Thursday, we saw in cold, calculated black and white exactly how the Clinton campaign crafted the lie that Donald Trump was colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 election. One email allegedly shows Leonard Benardo, vice president of the George Soros backed Open Society Foundation, writing in July 2016 that, “Julie [sic] says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump,” adding “Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”

Julie is Julianne Smith, then a foreign policy adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign. You know who the FBI is. Just two days later, Bernado would allegedly send another email. “HRC approved Julia’s idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections,” it read. “That should distract people from her own missing email, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level.” Benardo would also allegedly write, and this is key, “The point is making the Russian play a U.S. domestic issue,” adding, “In absence of direct evidence, Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect will supply the media…”

This all leads to a gem in the annex to John Durham’s Russia hoax probe, released Thursday, which concluded, “During the first stage of the campaign, due to lack of direct evidence, it was decided to disseminate the necessary information through the FBI-affiliated ‘attic-based’ technical structures that are involved in cybersecurity…from where the information would then be disseminated through leading US publications.” The Clinton campaign knew all too well that their lackeys in the media would eat up this half-baked nonsense with a spoon, and probably win awards for it, which is exactly what happened. What the media wasn’t told at the time was that field officers in the CIA objected to the lies and were run over because, according to their then-Director John Brennan “it rings true.”

This ludicrous legal standard of “rings true,” was used to convince the FISA court to renew warrants on Trump officials, which was not only a free federal law enforcement fishing expedition, but created smoke and the appearance of fire.In December of 2016, in the dying days of the Barack Obama administration, intel reports were massaged to once again create the illusion that Trump was a traitor who became president only through Russian assistance.n Thus was launched Robert Mueller’s investigation, which would last for years at a cost of more than $30 million, but ultimately exonerate Trump. Perhaps worst of all, in the midst of this Kafkaesque trial by media and secret courts, people’s lives were destroyed, crushed by false allegations, legal bills and a process that was the punishment.

One of them is Michael Caputo, a long-time member of Trump’s orbit who I talked to on Friday. “It is precious little comfort knowing we were right, we need accountability, but even accountability doesn’t feed the bulldog,” he told me, which was to say the damage to him and his family cannot be undone. Accountability comes in many forms. Caputo may never get the perp walks by former Democrat officials that he understandably desires, but this dastardly lie concocted by Democrats to smear Trump and maintain power has at least been been exposed. According to a Suffolk poll in December of 2018, “Forty-six percent are convinced that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, while 29 percent said there was no such coordination, and 19 percent weren’t sure.”

Every serious person, whether Democrat or Republican, now admits that this simply was not true. What they must also then admit is that half of Americans believed the lie only because Democrats told it so deceitfully. It was Walter Scott who wrote in his 1808 poem ‘Marmion’, “What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” But in this case, Democrats wanted the web, a web so dense with so many loose ends and round corners that the truth would be forever hidden. It was Shakespeare who wrote “the truth will out,” and so it has come out, albeit not before shaking a country to its core and crushing innocent lives.

Whatever else comes from the current investigation of Russiagate, one thing is now clear, ready to be etched in the stone of history: The Democrats invented the Russian collusion lie, they did it intentionally, and they suckered their voters into buying it. To everyone involved in this hoax, the message must be clear: This is your legacy, your attempt to deceive the American people and destroy the man they elected to lead them. That is who you are.

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“Rep. Burchett (R-Tennessee) urged the panel to call Soros and Benardo to a public hearing and to subpoena them if they refuse to appear voluntarily.”

• US Congressman Demands Soros Testify Over Russiagate Plot Against Trump (RT)

US Representative Tim Burchett has formally requested that billionaire financier George Soros and his associate Leonard Benardo, senior vice president at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), testify before Congress regarding their alleged involvement in the 2016 “Russiagate” affair targeting Donald Trump. In a letter sent Friday to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky), Rep. Burchett (R-Tennessee) urged the panel to call Soros and Benardo to a public hearing and to subpoena them if they refuse to appear voluntarily. The request follows the declassification of documents by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the Senate Judiciary Committee, which reportedly link Soros’s OSF to a broader effort to discredit Trump’s presidential campaign and derail his first term in office.

“As you know, DNI Tulsi Gabbard recently declassified evidence of a conspiracy by former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the national security apparatus to manufacture and politicize intelligence to subvert President Trump and the will of the American people,” Burchett wrote. “Included in this evidence is a concerning email allegedly from Leonard Benardo… plotting to discredit the incoming Trump Administration.” Burchett emphasized the OSF’s ongoing influence in US elections and said the American public deserves answers. “Should they refuse the invitation, I encourage you to use subpoena powers. Americans deserve answers into the subversion of our institutions by malicious actors,” he added.

The newly declassified 29-page annex to Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report, released this week by the Senate Judiciary Committee, alleges that the Clinton campaign, with help from OSF-linked figures, concocted the narrative of Russian interference to damage Trump politically. Emails attributed to Benardo reportedly detail efforts to disseminate unverified claims through FBI-adjacent tech firms like CrowdStrike and various media outlets. The FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane, its Trump-Russia probe, despite allegedly having obtained credible intelligence about the plot.

Critics argue that the agency’s failure to properly scrutinize intelligence pointing to a politically motivated smear campaign fueled years of disinformation, political polarization, and unjustified sanctions against Moscow. President Trump responded Friday by calling the affair “the biggest scandal in American history,” accusing the Obama administration of treason and vowing accountability. Moscow, for its part, has long denied meddling in the 2016 election and insists the Russiagate narrative was a fabricated pretext for confrontation.

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“Mockingbird Reloaded”

“Government Propaganda Is Now a Domestic Industry”

“The American people are no longer just the audience of government propaganda. They’re the enemy.”

• Gabbard: ‘This Is Why Trump’s Mandate Is Critical’ (Fleetwood)

The CIA’s infamous Cold War propaganda and psychological operation (PSYOP) program never died—it just turned inward. The question isn’t whether the government is manipulating Americans, but how they’re doing it right now—through intelligence leaks, media collusion, psychological tactics, and taxpayer-funded propaganda. That was the warning from U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard during a searing July 31 interview, where she confirmed that intelligence insiders are actively using corporate media to manipulate the American people and sabotage President Donald Trump’s agenda—echoing the tactics of ‘Operation Mockingbird.’ Every major news organization or its parent companies, from FOX News to CNN, are owned by globalist-aligned asset managers like BlackRock, an offical partner of the anti-American-sovereignty World Economic Forum (WEF).

“There are people within the intelligence community who believe that their will is more important than the will of the American people,” Gabbard told conservative host Benny Johnson. “[They] will weaponize intelligence by leaking it to their friends within the mainstream media with the intent of undermining President Trump’s agenda.” Once a covert CIA program used to plant propaganda in foreign and domestic media, Operation Mockingbird infiltrated major U.S. newsrooms throughout the 1950s–1970s. It was exposed during the Church Committee hearings, where Congress revealed that the agency maintained relationships with hundreds of journalists to shape public perception. Today, Gabbard says, that same playbook is being deployed against Americans.

Only now, it’s fully digital, algorithmic, and taxpayer-funded. “They are subverting the will of the people and therefore undermining the Constitution,” Gabbard warned. Gabbard’s warning comes as Congress continues to uncover a parallel propaganda apparatus inside U.S. health agencies. A damning House Energy and Commerce Committee report released in October 2024 found that the Biden Administration spent $900 million in taxpayer funds on a COVID-19 propaganda campaign that intentionally misled the public. “The Biden-Harris administration caused Americans to lose trust in the public health system,” said Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), accusing the CDC and NIH of using ads containing “erroneous or unproven information.”

The report revealed that: • The CDC exaggerated the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines beyond FDA authorization. • Messaging about mask effectiveness and COVID risk to children was “deeply flawed.” • Federal funds went to Big Tech companies to “track and monitor Americans,” prompting calls for stronger data privacy protections. Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA) slammed the administration’s “Stop the Spread” campaign as scientifically baseless, saying it “misled the American public” and triggered a broader collapse in trust across all vaccine programs. “American trust in the CDC is at an all-time low,” said Subcommittee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY). Further validating Gabbard’s claims, behavioral scientists who advised governments during the COVID crisis have since admitted to weaponizing fear to coerce compliance—describing their actions as “unethical,” “dystopian,” and “totalitarian.”

Members of the UK’s ‘Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour’ (SPI-B), who advised the government’s COVID response, revealed that officials deliberately ramped up fear to push lockdowns the public might otherwise reject. “Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government,” said SPI-B psychologist Gavin Morgan. “[P]sychologists didn’t seem to notice when it stopped being altruistic and became manipulative. They have too much power and it intoxicates them,” another member confessed. One warned that “people use the pandemic to grab power and drive through things that wouldn’t happen otherwise… We have to be very careful about the authoritarianism that is creeping in.”

Gabbard said her fight is not just about cleaning up rogue intelligence operators—it’s about reversing the normalization of psychological warfare on the American public. “To be able to turn the light on in places that have been dark for far too long, expose the truth, and drive accountability—that’s the only way we can actually shift this,” she said. She affirmed that Trump is fully aware of the deep-state sabotage being conducted through the media. “President Trump is enacting the very thing he promised the American people he would do in this election.”

The Church Committee once warned that Mockingbird undermined the very idea of a free press.The playbook didn’t end, it just upgraded.Today’s propaganda apparatus now includes:
• Leaked narratives from intel to legacy media
• AI-powered censorship tools on social platforms
• CDC-funded influencer campaigns targeting youth
• Federal surveillance partnerships with tech giants
• Coerced public health compliance through fear psychology

The same government that once planted editorials in The Washington Post now quietly curates your news feed, flags dissent as misinformation, and suppresses debate under the guise of “public health.” Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation is historic: the top U.S. intelligence official has publicly stated that agencies under her own leadership are using media to manipulate Americans. Operation Mockingbird didn’t end. It simply changed targets. The American people are no longer just the audience of government propaganda. They’re the enemy.

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“..the intelligence community’s [fake] new report, which ODNI and CIA clearly held back until the very moment Trump was certified President so his very first hours begin with him immediately tarred as illegitimate and possibly criminal.”

• Declassified Docs Prove We All Were Censored to Protect Hillary (Taft)

It’s hard to fathom the evil that led to creating fake intelligence to frame then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as a Russian spy and traitor to his country. We’ve seen in recently declassified documents that Hillary Clinton didn’t do this alone. She commanded dozens, if not hundreds, of willing participants, including the George Soros foundation, President Barack Obama, the FBI, the weaponized intelligence agencies, and others, to bring Donald to his knees. Buried deep in the latest tranche of declassified documents called the Durham annex report, however, a deep state hawk has found something that is equally or more evil than changing intelligence to manipulate one election’s outcome. They created a way to take over elections in perpetuity. Mike Benz, a former State Department official in the Trump 45 administration who now runs the Foundation for Freedom Online, found what is tantamount to the Rosetta stone for the Censorship Industrial Complex.

And it’s right here: “The point is making the Russian play a U.S. domestic issue. Say something like a critical infrastructure threat for the election to feel menace [sic] since both POTUS and VPOTUS have acknowledged the fact [that] IC would speed up searching for evidence that is regrettably still unavailable.” In a series of posts on X, Benz laid out why this sentence from an email from a Soros Open Society Eurasian official told the story of how they planned to get Trump even after they’d lost the election. They magic’d up a system whereby elections would now become “critical infrastructure” run by the feds.

https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1951049741950718158?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1951049741950718158%7Ctwgr%5E5538e44395c7c09bc9d7884adfc02ddedf4f96f8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fvictoria-taft%2F2025%2F08%2F01%2Fand-there-it-was-one-sentence-in-declassified-docs-proves-we-all-were-censored-to-protect-hillary-n4942320

“It is no coincidence both the cooked crooked intelligence community report launching Russiagate and the DHS federal takeover of elections as “critical infrastructure” (citing the same-day Russiagate intelligence assessment) BOTH happened on January 6, 2017. That was the SAME day Democrats’ hail mary last-ditch plot to stop Trump’s election certification failed, and Trump’s win was certified. With no options left to stop Trump’s presidency, they didn’t even wait a day to launch what appeared to be their Plan B: if Trump can’t be stopped from becoming President, immediately hobble his presidency that same day the presidency was inevitable.”

When their efforts to halt the certification of the election on Jan. 6, 2017, didn’t work, they went to Plan B, “tak[ing] over state-level control of voting systems.” “And in fact,” he wrote, “that is exactly the time sequence of how it played out on January 6, 2017.” First, at 1:41pm, Congress certified Trump’s election win. Then, with Trump’s win now final and no hope left for the intelligence community to obstruct it, [T]hen suddenly, magically, the entire joint US intelligence community assessment drops just 4 hours later, with a report directly insinuating Trump’s win was illegitimate because Russia intervened to help Trump win.

Then, suddenly, magically, DHS just 30 minutes after that swoops in with a permanent unilateral federal designation that it has taken over state-level control of voting systems — which we’d had in this country for 230 years — citing the intelligence community’s [fake] new report, which ODNI and CIA clearly held back until the very moment Trump was certified President so his very first hours begin with him immediately tarred as illegitimate and possibly criminal.

Benz says that the second- and third-order effects of this decision to change the rules and declare elections to be a “critical infrastructure” gave the deep state the predicate to federalize our elections for the first time since 1789. But it also did something else. In the name of keeping this “critical infrastructure” sacrosanct, it gave the ones and zeros embedded in the deep state carte blanche to censor anyone who had an opinion that questioned elections “When DHS created their Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency—we have ‘security’ in our name twice because we care so much about security—OK now we can control elections and ‘cyber’ in their name gave them a predicate to go after tweets and Facebook posts, and YouTube videos and TikTok videos and Reddit posts. It gave them the legal predicate to completely burn the U.S. Constitution.”

We at PJ Media and other conservative outlets felt the effects of this censorship. Suddenly, it was as if Lois Lerner were in charge of speech. People, mostly conservatives, were booted from Twitter 1.0. YouTube became a minefield of speech dragnets and censorship police. One social media company was shut down because posts by users were deemed dangerous. Suddenly, the news was sanitized to avoid getting canceled. The FBI began weekly meetings with Twitter and kept close tabs on other social media such as Facebook. Misinformation and disinformation police, called “fact checkers,” were deployed to censor speech. Entire university programs were set up to offer disinformation degrees. Universities began getting fat grants to come up with ways to creatively censor words, phrases, and stories that the woke mob refused to abide by.

The deep state and intelligence communities used the media to “prebunk” stories they knew would reverberate through political circles before the election, such as the Hunter Biden laptop story. Hillary Clinton can complain all she wants about 2016 being a stolen election, and the next federal election for president occurred in 2020, the one that the new cyber “expert” CISA director claimed was the “safest” one in U.S. history… because the feds were in charge. He wrote that the real January 6 insurrection occurred in 2017 when the deep state rigged the rules to depict Trump, as Hillary called him, an “illegitimate president.” And did it ever. That insurance policy paid dividends. Democrats arranged a special counsel accusing Trump of being a spy, the Ukraine hoax, two impeachments, and a partridge in a pear tree. It’s a miracle Donald Trump got anything done. That was the plan.

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“..if Smith used his badge to tip the scales, it isn’t a partisan scandal, it’s a constitutional one.”

• Jack Smith May Finally Learn What ‘No One Is Above the Law’ Means (Manney)

The left found and crowned their legal avenger: Jack Smith, their remedy in very fine suits to four years of Trump. In secret clubhouse meetings above their parents’ garage, the left whispered reverently about Smith’s independence, hailed his stoicism, and grasped him as a firewall between democracy and destruction. The right, however, looked at things differently. They saw Smith as a dogged, smirking prosecutor with a habit of filing charges just before primaries and playing a game of chicken with due process. Both sides, however, agreed on one thing: he was relentless. Now, that same man finds himself under federal investigation for potentially violating the Hatch Act, a statute meant to prevent law enforcement from becoming political tools.

Sen. Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused Smith of seeking to impact the 2024 election in his capacity as special counsel under the Biden-led Justice Department in a letter to the acting head of the Office of Special Counsel, Jamieson Greer, first obtained by Fox News Digital. “As the Office of the Special Counsel is tasked with ensuring federal employees aren’t conducting partisan political activity under the guise of their federal employment, you’re well situated to determine whether Smith broke the law,” the Arkansas Republican wrote. “Many of Smith’s legal actions seem to have no rationale except for an attempt to affect the 2024 election results – actions that would violate federal law,” he continued. That cringeworthy sound we’re not hearing? It’s the awkward silence of a media class that suddenly found itself unsure how to eulogize its white knight without tarnishing the cause.

If you forgot, here’s a quick review of the Hatch Act. This act was created to prohibit executive branch officials, such as a special counsel, from using their authority to influence elections. In this case, Jack Smith didn’t simply toe the line; he ran past it with banners flying. According to Sen. Tom Cotton, Smith timed court filings, manipulated trial calendars, and played strategic legal chess just as the 2024 campaign heated up. Smith did his bloody best to jam President Trump into a courtroom the day before Super Tuesday. If that’s not election interference, what is? The Office of Special Counsel’s Hatch Act Unit has confirmed they’re investigating Smith! OMG! Let’s examine the sequence. Smith dropped the documents case right after Trump won; he asked for appeals to be paused just as political winds shifted, and his final report was buried like bad leftovers, with Volume Two indefinitely sealed.

People defending Smith are calling this a legal strategy. But to most Americans, it appears to be weaponized prosecution. You don’t have to be a lawyer, or even a devotee of “Law & Order,” to understand when a ref tosses flags only when one team is on offense. We only have to watch long enough to see the pattern. Each time Trump’s team looked into Smith’s motivations, the same robotic chorus emerged, “No one is above the law!” Except now, the left treats that mantra as if it were a rhetorical one-way street. If you want that phrase to mean anything, then apply it when the hammer swings in the other direction. When one of your own wears the badge: Apply it! If Jack Smith was truly one of the neutral professionals they claimed he was, not only should he welcome the investigations, but he should demand them.

I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but Jack Smith wasn’t defending democracy. He was playing defense for a political establishment that couldn’t stomach losing to Trump. Twice. Smith’s job wasn’t about preserving the rule of law; it was about wrapping it in legalese, delivering it on cue, and timing it for maximum political damage, which was the legal equivalent of leaking a scandal the night before the election.Smith helped turn the DOJ into nothing but a smirking caricature, one that flinched when Hillary bleached servers and looked the other way when Hunter forgot about his illegal purchase of a gun, and suddenly found courage when Trump appeared on the docket.And now, shockingly, Smith is the story. Not his targets, but him.

We need to make one thing perfectly clear: Smith and his team were already on life support when their case collapsed in early 2025. Remember what was happening: Trump had just won the presidency, the Department of Justice had forbidden prosecuting a sitting president, and the classified documents case had fallen completely apart. When Smith finally filed his final report, it vanished behind a redacted curtain. Unfortunately for Jack Smith, Senator Tom Cotton had not forgotten. And the OSC, if it had any spine remaining, shouldn’t either. Because, quite simply, if Smith used his badge to tip the scales, it isn’t a partisan scandal, it’s a constitutional one.

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“Americans have seen behind the curtain, and no amount of op-ed space in The New York Times is going to let Brennan and Clapper gaslight the public into believing their actions were anything but politically motivated.”

• Brennan and Clapper Just Hit the Panic Button (Margolis)

With the Deep State’s lies about the Russia collusion hoax finally unraveling, panic is setting in, and some of the highest-ranking figures from the Obama administration, including Barack Obama himself, are now squarely in the Justice Department’s crosshairs. Two of the operation’s chief architects, former CIA Director John Brennan and former DNI James Clapper, just tried a last-ditch reputational rehab via a New York Times op-ed. But instead of saving face, they only reminded Americans why trust in the so-called “intelligence community” has collapsed to historic lows. Incredibly, their main defense against charges of politicizing intelligence was to point to the very thing they politicized: the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment.

They cited it like gospel, as if repeating it enough times would erase the growing mountain of evidence that it was crafted under political pressure, built on cherry-picked intel, and propped up by the now-discredited Steele dossier. It’s the equivalent of using a forged check to prove you’re not guilty of fraud. According to Brennan and Clapper, the ICA was beyond reproach simply because it claimed that Vladimir Putin had a “clear preference” for Donald Trump and ran a multi-pronged operation to help him win via hacked emails, social media posts, and internet trolls. But what they left out, conveniently, is that they helped write the script and bullied analysts into signing off on it.

They also wave around the name of special counsel John Durham like a magic shield, claiming that he “found no evidence of an Obama administration conspiracy.” Translation: nothing to see here, move along; just ignore the political pressure, the manipulated assessments, the hidden sourcing, and the whistleblower now confirming everything conservatives have said for years. The special counsel John Durham, who was appointed during Mr. Trump’s first term to investigate how the Russia probe was conducted, similarly found no evidence of an Obama administration conspiracy against Mr. Trump. But he affirmed the findings of the special counsel Robert Mueller, who conducted a separate investigation into the allegations, which found ample evidence of Russian interference in the election.

More recently, the C.I.A.’s Mr. Ratcliffe ordered yet another review of the 2017 assessment, which determined that its “level of analytic rigor exceeded that of most [intelligence] assessments.” Their attempted defense, however, falls apart upon review of the evidence. The newly declassified Durham annex reveals that the Clinton campaign coordinated with George Soros’s Open Society Foundation to push the Trump-Russia collusion hoax during the 2016 election. Internal emails show Clinton approved a plan to link Trump to Russian hackers to distract from her own scandals, with help from Soros-connected operatives and DNC officials. They used cybersecurity firms like CrowdStrike to plant the narrative in the media, hoping the FBI would amplify it. Which, of course, they did.

Americans have seen behind the curtain, and no amount of op-ed space in The New York Times is going to let Brennan and Clapper gaslight the public into believing their actions were anything but politically motivated. The newly released documents confirm what many suspected all along: the Obama administration was unhappy that the original intel downplayed Russia’s impact in 2016, so it ordered up the infamous January 2017 ICA, laced it with Steele dossier garbage, and forced it through the system. Thanks to courageous whistleblowers, we now know that Brennan and his inner circle strong-armed analysts into backing conclusions that they didn’t actually support. There was pushback, and for good reason: Everyone knew the dossier was pure fiction, a political hit job dressed up as intelligence. Brennan and Clapper see what’s coming. With the walls closing in, they’re not offering clarity; they’re trying to cover their backsides.

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Victor Davis Hanson. Jay Powell is choking on his own ‘logic’.

• Experts Were Wrong. The Economy’s Strong—But the Fed Won’t Budge (VDH)

I’d like to talk about the economy here at the beginning of August. We’ve just finished July. We have some of the July reports, but mostly, they’re still from June. If you look at the three or four main categories that adjudicate the health or the malady of an economy, they’re pretty good. GDP came in at 3.0. That was not predicted to be that high. The inflation rate may have just come out for July. There are different reports, but it’s about 2.7%. It was 2.6% in May. January was 3.0%. For the year, it’s about 2.4%. So, inflation is still tolerable. It’s not growing—an annualized rate at 2.4%. So, you have a good GDP, you have a good inflation rate, you have a good jobs report. We’re at about 4.1% unemployment in the month of June. We picked up 150,000 new jobs—that wasn’t predicted.

As far as money coming into the Treasury and going out, we had a historical May. We’ll wait and see what June and July are like, but we actually had more money coming into the Treasury than the government spent. I want to gauge the reaction to this good news. Of course, we expect the Left to discount it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that these figures are all bogus, even though they’re from non-administration sources, government bureaucracies. We also had a member of Congress come on and say that Donald Trump fudged them. On the GDP, we had The Wall Street Journal say, that’s just because GDP is measured also by imports and exports, and we had fewer imports and more exports. But isn’t that good? But they said that was an aberration.

So, we’ve had people attack this. Most of the people said, as far as more money coming in than going out, that’s only because of May, and it will never be true again. Well, we’ve had Mays in 2024 or 2023, all the way back to 2017, the first year of the Trump administration. This was the only one in which we had more money coming in—a surplus. Then we get to the question of Jerome Powell. He’s the head of the Federal Reserve. Usually, the Fed cuts rates when they’re worried about political and economic instability, and that means, basically, a recession. Now, remember that The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and our main media organs all told us in May when Donald Trump was talking about “art of the deal” tariffs, “I’m gonna announce a high tariff, then negotiate down to 10 or 15%,” which is precisely what he did.

But nevertheless, they said at the beginning of August, midsummer, we were going to have high inflation or stagflation, bad job growth, static GDP, and a trade war along with a Wall Street collapse. Basically, a recession. Well, Wall Street stock prices are at historical highs. Every one of those predictions was wrong. So, if they were wrong and the economy is not booming but strong, why would Powell keep interest rates at that 4.5% fed rate that translates into almost over 6% and near 7% 30-year mortgages? After all, the Fed is supposed to lower rates when we have recession. With all this recessionary talk, you thought that he would lower rates. Now, he says he’s looking at the economy and he’s not lowering rates because he doesn’t yet see a recession?

But he’s been told that he was worried about the economy. If he’s worried about a trade war and tariffs and soft job growth—which was predicted but didn’t happen—why doesn’t he lower interest rates? And the fact is, that if you look at the interest rates that he did cut right before the 2024 election and his all-over-the-map attitude toward interest rates today, there is no logic. So, now he’s rejected the earlier prognosis that we were in a recession. It makes no sense. Why is this important? Why is this important when the Washington Post says that the numbers are rigged or we’re really not as strong as we think we are with GDP, or Powell can’t be consistent and adjudicate rates going up or down based on recession or boom?

We’re paying $3 billion a day in interest. A day. Our defense budget costs less—that trillion-dollar defense budget—than the interest payments, per year. Donald Trump is trying to cut taxes and deregulate and grow the economy without increasing the deficit he inherited at about $2 trillion. He thinks that eventually, an expanded economy will bring in new revenue—sort of supply-side economics—but in the short-term, he does not want to grow that deficit by giving tax cuts. So, what is he doing? He thinks the tariffs will bring in—without hurting GDP here or abroad—about a third of a trillion dollars. He thinks if he can decrease the interest rate by a point or a point and a half, he might get another third of a trillion—maybe cut the interest cost by $1 billion a day down to $2 billion from $3 billion. So, you’re about one-third of the way to cut the deficit. That’s pretty good when you had tax cuts.

That won’t happen if the interest rates stay high and the economy stays solid and doesn’t give you any reason or worry over an inflationary spiral, which it hasn’t so far. Bottom line, things are going very well. All of the experts were wrong, and yet the experts do not admit they were wrong. They say, “We were wrong,” privately, “but we’re going to be proved right because either we hope or we expect the economy to do poorly.” My guess is, even if the economy cools down and does poorly, Powell will not cut interest rates. He has a personal stake in this. He feels aggrieved. He feels he has to be vindicated and he’s stubborn and he will not show the same flexibility he did during the campaign year 2024.

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US has no hypersonics, and no defense against the ones Russia has. Where they just started mass producing Oreshniks.

• ‘No Defense Against’ Russia’s Oreshnik Missile – Ex-Pentagon Analyst (RT)

Neither Ukraine nor its Western backers have any means to counter Russia’s newly deployed intermediate-range Oreshnik missile, Michael Maloof, a former senior Pentagon security analyst, told RT in an interview on Friday. Maloof noted that the Oreshnik could “easily shift the balance of power overwhelmingly in favor” of Russia in any conflict, including the ongoing hostilities with Ukraine. “Having a hypersonic [missile] for which there’s no defense currently… is astonishing. It absolutely alters that balance of power dramatically, for which the Ukrainians have no defense,” he said. He noted that while the US is working to adapt missile defense systems such as THAAD to counter hypersonic threats, these programs remain under development.

“There’s no operational ability at this point to deal with a hypersonic missile,” Maloof said, adding that the Oreshnik could reach its targets within mere minutes. The former analyst added that the missile also travels at a speed of over 7,000 miles (11,000km) an hour. “There’s no defense against that,” he said. The missile system, Maloof stated, has already been tested successfully in Ukraine in battlefield conditions. He was referring to a strike on Ukraine’s Yuzhmash military industrial facility in the city of Dnepr in November 2024. Russian President Vladimir Putin said afterward that the missile’s warheads flew at speeds exceeding Mach 10 and could not be intercepted by existing air defenses.

The missile could also carry conventional and nuclear payloads and travel up to several thousand kilometers. According to Putin, the Oreshnik strike on Ukraine was a response to the country’s decision to use Western-supplied long-range missiles for attacks deep into Russia. On Friday, the Russian president said that the first serially produced Oreshnik missile system had entered service with the armed forces. He also noted that the question of supplying the weapons to Belarus, Russia’s key ally, will likely be resolved by the end of the year.

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“Russian troops are pushing north in Zaporhyzhia, moving south through Sumy and Kharkiv, and advancing to the west, having already taken territory in Dniepropetrovsk. No pressure from Washington or Europe will alter this reality.”

• 10 or 12 Days, Then What? (Larry Johnson)

Donald Trump made another move in his feckless game of global checkers today in Scotland, with the announcement that he is giving Russia a new, much shorter deadline of ten days to end the war in Ukraine. Trump warned that if President Vladimir Putin does not reach a deal by around August 7–9, the US will impose new sanctions and “severe tariffs” on Russia and countries supporting its war effort. Trump’s new deadline elicited a collective yawn in Moscow. Since the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO), trade between the US and Russia has shrunk dramatically. In 2021, US exports to Russia totaled approximately $6.4 billion and US imports from Russia totaled about $29.7 billion. This resulted in a US trade deficit with Russia of about $23.3 billion for that year. In 2024, total trade in goods between the United States and Russia declined sharply due to ongoing sanctions, war-related restrictions, and other political measures.

US exports to Russia in 2024: bApproximately $526 million, marking a decrease of over 12% compared to 2023. Major U.S. exports included medical/technical equipment, pharmaceuticals, machinery, and some food and chemical products. U.S. imports from Russia in 2024: About $3.0–$3.27 billion, down more than 34% compared to 2023 and down over 75% from pre-war levels in 2021–2022. Key Russian exports to the U.S. were fertilizers (about $1.3 billion), precious metals (about $878 million), and inorganic chemicals (about $683 million). Energy imports have almost entirely ceased. Trump’s threat of new sanctions is just a blowhard bloviating… Ending shipments of fertilizers and precious metals is not going to hurt the Russian economy one bit. Thanks to the sanctions Biden levied in 2022, Russia’s economy grew to be the fourth largest in the world as measured by purchasing power parity.

Western propaganda that the Russian economy is failing–citing current growth of 1.4%–ignores the fiscal policies that the Russian central bank put in place in 2024 to cool inflation. But those measures were only temporary, with the central bank announcing a two percent cut in interest rates late last week. That means that Trump, if he is serious, will impose bone-crunching tariffs on China and India. Both countries appear unfazed by Trump’s bullying bluster. China in particular holds some very strong cards… Rare-earth minerals desperately needed by the US military industrial complex. I think this will be another Trump nothing-burger.

So why did Trump whittle down the deadline? One possible explanation concerns the rapid deterioration of the military situation for Ukraine. Russia is making rapid advances all along the line of contact and even Ukrainian media and social media outlets are expressing alarm. Is that what sparked Trump’s decision to shorten the time for Russia to agree to a ceasefire? Fifty day or 12 days, it does not matter. Trump has no leverage to compel Russia to agree to the ceasefire that the US and Europe want to be imposed. Russia is going to continue with its offensive and will take more territory in the coming weeks. Russian troops are pushing north in Zaporhyzhia, moving south through Sumy and Kharkiv, and advancing to the west, having already taken territory in Dniepropetrovsk. No pressure from Washington or Europe will alter this reality.

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“Democrats aren’t just dragging their feet—they’re torching decades of Senate norms in a blatant attempt to kneecap Trump’s presidency. They don’t care about tradition. They care about power.”

• Are Senate Democrats Finally Going to Get the Payback They Deserve? (Margolis)

After weeks of stonewalling from Democrats, the GOP is demanding action on dozens of President Trump’s pending nominees—and they’re signaling they’re ready to play hardball if they don’t get it. With the Senate set to leave town for a long recess, Republicans say enough is enough. Emerging from a closed-door lunch on Saturday, Republican senators made it clear they want the nomination backlog resolved by the end of the day. If Democrats won’t cooperate, they’re prepared to force the issue. “The immediate concern right now is can we figure something out,” Majority Leader John Thune told reporters. “If we can’t, then we will have to resort to other options, and we’ve got a lot of support for doing that.”

Translation? Republicans are done playing games. They’re ready to blow up Senate procedure if that’s what it takes to break the Democrat blockade on Trump’s nominees. Since January, not a single nominee has been confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent—a complete break from tradition. As Sen. Tom Cotton highlighted, 57% of Biden’s nominees got in without opposition. Even Trump’s first term saw 65% sail through. This time? Zero. Democrats are obstructing for the sake of “resisting” Trump—and the GOP’s finally had enough. This isn’t just gridlock—it’s deliberate sabotage. What we’re witnessing now is an unprecedented campaign of partisan obstruction. Democrats aren’t just dragging their feet—they’re torching decades of Senate norms in a blatant attempt to kneecap Trump’s presidency. They don’t care about tradition. They care about power.

Republicans are running out of patience—and fast. According to Politico, GOP senators are once again eyeing the so-called “nuclear option,” as Democrats continue to grind Trump’s nominees to a halt. While leadership originally expected any rules fight to come later in the fall, frustrations have boiled over as Republicans remain stuck in Washington with no resolution in sight. “We prefer to strike a deal,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin said, but he added that if Democrats won’t budge, Republicans are prepared to change the rules. Naturally, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer defended the Democrats’ obstruction, accusing Trump’s nominees of being uniquely “flawed” and “unqualified”—a laughable claim from the same party that gave us people such as Xavier Becerra, Pete Buttigieg, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and a bunch of judicial nominees who didn’t seem to know anything about the law.

But at this point, Republicans know the game, and they may finally be ready to stop playing by the Democrats’ rules. As much as I believe in the idea of preserving tradition, Democrats have shown a willingness to rewrite the rules to suit their needs, and Republicans need to show they’re willing to fight fire with fire. Staff for Thune and Schumer are now quietly negotiating. Schumer made a counteroffer Friday night. But if you think that’s a sign Democrats are taking the threat seriously, think again. The deal they offered was a joke.

They offered to confirm a small batch of nominees now in exchange for unfreezing some funding, with another batch later—unless the administration submits another spending clawback. The whole thing would require unanimous consent on the Senate floor. Republicans shouldn’t bite. Democrats are offering crumbs while demanding the GOP surrender leverage on spending. It’s absurd. Republicans already have the power to jam these nominees through—no need to trade it away. Yes, preserving Senate norms is ideal. But Democrats burned that bridge long ago—nuking filibusters, gutting procedures, and tossing precedent out the window. They won’t honor any deal once they’re back in power.

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“..praising the genes of a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman with an hourglass figure is somehow an ode to the Third Reich.”

• Cleavage In a Bored Country (Ben Shapiro)

Some countries have true, serious problems. Then there are countries that have national discussions over a buxom young white woman in a jeans commercial. This week, the internet—and the media more generally—exploded over a commercial starring actress Sydney Sweeney for American Eagle. The spot features Sweeney, lying seductively on the ground as she buttons her jeans, stating, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” The ad concludes with the tagline: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” According to those who apparently have far too much time on their hands, this ad is reminiscent of Nazism. Washington Post fashion critic Rachel Tashjian lamented that the ad felt “regressive.”

A wide variety of colorfully haired and bewilderingly pierced TikTok users labeled the ad a “Nazi dog whistle,” presumably based on the idea that praising the genes of a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman with an hourglass figure is somehow an ode to the Third Reich. Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic wrote, “(Sweeney’s) image has been co-opted by the Right, accurately or not, in part because of where she’s from (the Mountain West) and some of her hobbies (fixing cars). Even her figure has become a cultural stand-in for the idea, pushed by conservative commentators, that Americans should be free to love boobs.” Yes, we have now reached the point in American life that it is controversial to suggest that men like breasts; it is now apparently “right-coded.” This is patently insane.

But perhaps the insanity isn’t just a sign of a culture infected with terrible ideas, ranging from the mutability of gender to the evisceration of beauty standards to the willfully ridiculous attempt to treat the male sex drive as uniquely evil. Perhaps it’s a sign of a culture that has lost touch with actual, real problems in the world. A culture that is out of touch not just with reality, but with threat. For a while, such cultures can survive. After all, America is uniquely placed in the world: thousands of miles from any direct foreign policy threat, blessed by natural resources beyond those of any other country, heir to a robust tradition of Anglo-American law and custom that have generated an unprecedented level of economic prosperity.

But reality has a funny way of clocking such cultures back into reality. It turns out that history never stops moving, that threats never stop militating. And what’s more, a self-obsessed and shallow culture that worries about whether boobs in jeans ads are a return to Hitler makes itself uniquely vulnerable to such threats. A people who imbibe the stupidity that trauma amounts to taking mild offense at a dumb pun in an advertisement is a people utterly unprepared for the return of reality. The great German leader Otto von Bismarck once remarked, “There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America.” We can only pray that Providence continues to protect us from our own idiocy as we sink ever deeper into social media reveries of borderline psychopathy.

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Water or land? I think you’ll need both in today’s world. Hoe about skies?

• Building Eurasia’s New Fortress (Ring)

For over a century, two dead advisors have shaped the way great powers view the world. On one side, we have Alfred Thayer Mahan—the American naval officer who believed sea power determined global supremacy. According to Mahan, controlling the oceans means controlling trade. If you control trade, you control wealth. If you control wealth… well, you get the picture. On the other side is Halford Mackinder, the British geographer who argued the exact opposite. Forget the seas, he said. Whoever controls the “World Island”—Eurasia—controls the world. Railways, rivers, pipelines, and land empires are what count. Not frigates and aircraft carriers. Mahan and Mackinder are no longer with us, but their ideas continue to influence the world today. And we’re watching it unfold.

It’s Mahan’s World… For Now. The United States and the United Kingdom—Mahan’s spiritual children—have long benefited from an ocean-based order. Ruling the waves built their prosperity and power. The British Empire’s reach was maritime. The U.S. Navy now patrols every major sea lane. The dollar reigns supreme because oil, commodities, and trade settle in greenbacks. That world—the Mahan world—is why Americans live like kings while land powers like Russia and China have spent decades playing catch-up. But Mahan’s world has limits. Especially when you try to keep your rivals bottled up in theirs. That’s precisely what the U.S. has tried to do with China. The First and Second Island Chains—stretching from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines to Guam and Indonesia—are like maritime prison bars hemming China in.

They prevent Beijing from turning its navy into a global force and restrict its access to the open Pacific. And that’s no accident. It’s U.S. policy. So what did China do? Simple: they pivoted landward. Hence, the Belt and Road Initiative. If the Americans and their allies can dominate the seas, the Chinese reasoned, then the answer lies in dominating the land. Ports, railways, roads, pipelines, dry docks, fiber optic cables, and power grids. Not just in Asia, but across Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa, and even into Europe. What Mackinder once called the “Heartland” is now becoming a Chinese-funded construction site. And then there’s Russia. After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the West slapped Moscow with every sanction it could think of. No dollars. No euros. No Swift. No tank parts. No semiconductor chips. No comfy Davos forums.

In effect, the West attempted to sever Russia’s ties to the global economy. Cut it off from the ocean-based system. And how did Russia respond? They doubled down on Mackinder. On land power. On rivers, specifically. If you watch the YouTube video How Russia Plans to Rule Eurasia by River—and I strongly suggest you do—it outlines Moscow’s plan to build out an internal network of rivers, ports, and rail links that integrate the entire Eurasian landmass. The Volga. The Don. The Ob. The Lena. Not names we normally associate with global trade, but maybe we should.

What’s emerging is a strategic marriage between Chinese capital and Russian geography.One has money and ambition. The other has territory, rivers, and a pressing need to stay relevant. Together, they’re laying the foundation for a new continental infrastructure—one that’s largely immune to the U.S. Navy, the EU’s bureaucracy, or whatever sanctions the White House dreams up next. Think about what that means. New trade corridors will be built from China to Europe, bypassing the Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal. Russian river ports will feed Chinese rail lines into Kazakhstan, Iran, and Turkey. They’ll have pipelines that carrier groups can’t blockade. Their digital infrastructure routed through friendly capitals, not Silicon Valley or Brussels. A Mackinder world. Built in plain sight.

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Penalties will be prohibitive if you try it alone.

• Everyone Should Leave EU – AfD Head Weidel On “Openly Corrupt” Brussels (RMX)

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, says Germany is digging its own grave. Her words came during an interview Weidel gave to Hungary’s Patriot Extra program, covered by Mandiner. According to the nationalist politician, the European Union has “completely degenerated,” does not represent nation states or sovereign peoples, and has now become a machine run by overpaid bureaucrats that only causes harm. Weidel says Germany’s economic decline is rooted in domestic decisions. High energy prices, the green transition, and the phase-out of nuclear power have made German industry uncompetitive, especially the automotive industry, which she says is being deliberately destroyed by Brussels regulations.

“All the bad rules were made in Brussels,” she said, emphasizing that the ban on internal combustion engines and environmental sanctions benefit China and American companies, not European workers. According to Weidel, Germany and Europe need a free market where everyone can produce and buy what they want. Weidel also said the German government was playing politics against the population, lying to people, and doing the opposite of what it promised. On Angela Merkel, the AfD leader said that she was “the first Green Chancellor, not the conservative leader of the CDU.” She also called current Chancellor Friedrich Merz a representative of the “losing side.” Weidel contrasted Germany with Hungary, praising Viktor Orbán for his “common sense” and as a role model for national sovereignists. “I can only congratulate Viktor Orbán, Hungary is doing much better,” she said.

“Hungary is the only one that clearly stands out and says: this cannot be done with us,” she said. According to Weidel, in Germany, on the other hand, there is an unstable government that is deliberately worsening the financial situation of the population in order to make people vulnerable. Weidel further stated that she believes Hungarians live relatively better than Germans, compared to the country’s economic performance. According to Weidel, “Everyone should leave the EU.” Weidel claimed Brussels is trying to build an “artificially created political product” against Viktor Orbán in the person of opposition leader Péter Magyar to interfere in Hungary’s internal affairs. However, Péter Magyar, supported by green and woke politicians and whom Ursula von der Leyen is feeding from the palm of his hand, is doomed to failure, she said, stating that Orbán will emerge from this fight stronger.

She sees similar interventions from Brussels in Romania and Germany, where the AfD is openly persecuted and even faces a potential ban. Weidel was particularly critical of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, whom she called “openly corrupt,” specifically commenting on the SMS agreements made for Pfizer vaccine purchases during Covid. “I wonder where the commissions went?” she asked, adding that Von der Leyen and the Brussels elite were “only working to line their own pockets” and that the EU’s institutional system could not be reformed but must be completely rebuilt. In the interview, Weidel outlined what reforms an AfD government would introduce: immediate border closure and mass deportations; social benefits reform, i.e., only those who have paid into the system would receive support; tax cuts for workers; the return of nuclear energy and cheap energy sources; lifting the ban on internal combustion engines; radical reduction of bureaucracy.

“The whole Brussels superstructure is impoverishing us all,” she stressed, adding that the German people are increasingly angry because instead of a “brave new world,” they have been given a more expensive, poorer, and more vulnerable life. Weidel said Germany should return to the ideal of a strong, independent middle class, which Hungary represents in Europe today. According to Weidel, the European elections and the processes in Germany also show that people are fed up with globalist, centralized power. He believes that the restoration of national sovereignty, a strong middle class, and the free market are inevitable, even in the face of Brussels. “The question is whether Germany can still change or will it be completely absorbed by the Brussels deep state,” she told viewers.

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RFK

Yeadon

Gates

Engineer

Calf

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 13 2023

Sep 132023
 
 September 13, 2023  Posted by at 9:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Michelangelo Pietà 1498 (he was 23 years old)

 

• McCarthy Launches Biden Impeachment Inquiry (ZH)
• Republicans Fear Giving Biden Popularity Boost With Impeachment Probe (Sp.)
• Trump Charges Are Political Persecution – Putin (RT)
• Trump Demands Judge in Jan. 6 Case Stand Down (Sp.)
• Fani Willis Bankrolls Private Attorneys For Trump Prosecution (WE)
• Tucker Tears Into Politicians’ “Betrayal Of American Democracy” (ZH)
• Ever More Deadly Arms to Ukraine Reeks of Desperation – Scott Ritter (Sp.)
• Africa Will Never Forget That The West Caged Its Children – Putin (RT)
• Kiev Reiterates Grain Threat To Poland (RT)
• Pocahontas Threatens Musk With Investigation For Blocking Ukrainian Attack (RT)
• Nuland: US ‘Supports’ Ukraine Targeting ‘Russia’s Most Precious Assets’ (Sp.)
• Ukraine Missile Attack in Sevastopol Leaves 24 People Injured (Sp.)
• CIA Bribed Analysts To Change Wuhan Lab-Leak Conclusions (ZH)
• France Bans iPhone Over Radiation Concerns (RT)
• The Mackinder Strategic ‘Bible’ Reconsidered (Crooke)

 

 


Today Health Canada approved a Moderna fall booster for COVID-19 for all Canadians over the age of 6 months.

 

 


The new FDA approved covid shots were tested. On four rats. Yes, four rats. Four. Rats.

 

 

 

 

Tulsi Watters
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701522107002397183
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701362658329645541

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paxton Trial

 

 

Schumer

 

 

 

 

McCarthy sounds like a girl here. Maybe better not ask Trump what he thinks.

And Dave Collum: “Could you take a brief moment to release the 41,000 hours of J6 tapes? The longer you wait the worse you look…”

• McCarthy Launches Biden Impeachment Inquiry (ZH)

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday announced that the House will open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over a variety of alleged crimes, skipping a formal House vote he had previously teased. According to McCarthy, Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan will spearhead it. “Biden used his official office to coordinate with Hunter Biden’s business partners, about Hunter’s role in Burisma – the Ukrainian energy company,” said McCarthy, adding “it appears that the president’s family has been offered special treatment by Biden’s own administration.”

Senate RINOs are downplaying an impeachment inquiry against perhaps the most corrupt president in US history, citing a ‘distraction’ from 2024 election issues such as the economy and border security. In truth, they’re nothing more than uniparty shills protecting their preferred candidate at any cost against the return of the highly disruptive Orange Man Bad. “It really comes to how do you prioritize your time? I don’t know of anybody who believes Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will take it up and actually have a trial and convict a sitting president,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, in a comment to The Hill, adding that House Republicans can already investigate Biden without launching a formal impeachment inquiry.

“Since they got the majority, they got the chairmen of the various committees, they could do all of that now without going to a formal inquiry,” he continued. “Members of the House don’t really care what I think. All I can tell you, it’s unlikely to be successful in the Senate. “Rather than doing something they know is unlikely to end the way they would like, maybe they want to emphasize other things.” Cornyn was joined by GOP Whip John Thune (SD) and Marco Rubio (FL), the latter of whom suggested that attempting to impeach Biden would be frivolous, and “should generally be avoided for the interest of the country.”

“It can’t become routine,” Rubio continued, adding “There are countries like Peru that routinely now impeach whoever the president is, and it’s become almost a national sport.” Yes Marco, the sitting US President is suspected of taking bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch in exchange for abusing his position as then-VP, and his son – with no practicable skills in any art – appears to have been his family’s international bag man for more of the same, but let’s not make this into a ‘national sport.’

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“Biden’s either going to have to cut a deal and promise not to run again, or perhaps resign, but we are at the beginning of this process..”

• Republicans Fear Giving Biden Popularity Boost With Impeachment Probe (Sp.)

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced on Tuesday the launching of an impeachment inquiry into US President Joe Biden. The leading Republican said there were “serious and credible allegations” about Biden’s conduct and the alleged “culture of corruption” surrounding the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. At the center of the issue is the president’s son, Hunter Biden, long the subject of journalist investigations and Republican denunciations, and questions about Joe Biden’s relationship to Hunter’s business dealings, especially during Joe’s time as US vice president and since he became president in 2021. Republicans have for years promised to launch such an inquiry once they won a majority in the US House of Representatives again, but that majority was reached in early January following the November 2022 midterm elections.

McCarthy became House speaker at that time after hammering out a nebulous set of promises with a pro-Trump faction of the House GOP Caucus – a faction that is increasingly upset with his performance. Democrats have accused Republicans of giving in to the agenda of former US President Donald Trump, who was impeached in 2019 on accusations he abused his power by pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to reopen a probe into the Bidens, including claims that in 2016, then-VPOTUS Biden forced Kiev’s prosecutor-general into closing a previous investigation of Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine. Ted Rall, a syndicated editorial cartoonist, opinion columnist, graphic novelist, author, and co-host of The Final Countdown, told Radio Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Tuesday that while some elder GOP lawmakers are hesitant for the moment over fears they might accidentally help Biden’s reputation ahead of the 2024 election, “Republicans will soon see that this is going to be to their advantage.”

“I think a lot of Republicans are suffering from Clinton Hangover Impeachment Syndrome. This didn’t go well for the Republicans in 1998, [former US President] Bill Clinton left office wildly popular, and they’re worried that something similar could happen. The only thing is: it’s not 1998, it’s a different world now,” he said, noting that when it came to Clinton’s impeachment, the facts were clear. “Here, most liberal Democrats and many moderates – or, for that matter, everyone who’s not a news junkie – doesn’t really know or has been following the story of this Hunter Biden laptop, which has been carefully siloed as a new ‘Benghazi malarkey’ as Biden would say. But that’s not true,” Rall said. “Beyond what McCarthy may or may not want, as the inquiry proceeds, it’s going to be impossible not to move forward with hearings simply because there are too many actionable facts.”

“The call for impeachment, under the most basic definition of the term in the Constitution, which specifically references bribery – I think they’re going to have to impeach him,” Rall asserted. “I think even the Republican senators are going to warm up to it and I think if all the facts are ultimately heard, President Biden’s either going to have to cut a deal and promise not to run again, or perhaps resign, but we are at the beginning of this process,” which he said “has no place to go but ‘down’ for President Biden.” Rall noted there was “a lot to get to the bottom” of in the case.“If my son sells me as a brand, then collects money by doing that, are you effectively bribing me? Especially if I’m 80 years old and I care deeply about my son’s finances and his ability to carry on after I’m gone? That’s a question I think hasn’t been answered and I think we need to answer,” he explained.

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“As for the persecution of Trump, well, in today’s conditions, in my view, that’s a good thing. Because it reveals the rotten American political system, which should not be able to claim it can teach others about democracy. “Everything that is happening to Trump is the political persecution of a political rival. That is what it is. And it is happening in the eyes of the US public and the whole world. They have exposed their domestic problems. In this sense, if they are trying to fight us, it is good because it shows, as they used to say in Soviet times, the beastly appearance of American imperialism, its beastly snarling grimace.”

• Trump Charges Are Political Persecution – Putin (RT)

The numerous criminal charges against former US President Donald Trump amount to persecution and showcase the “rot” in the American political system, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated. The US in its current state “cannot claim the right to teach others democracy,” the Russian leader said on Tuesday during a panel discussion at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. “The things that are happening to Trump are persecution of a political competitor… That is what it is. And it is done in the full view of the US public and the entire world,” he added. The controversy is beneficial to Russia in the sense that it “exposes” Washington “for what it is,” according to Putin.

The US government chose to be hostile to Moscow and has propagandized its population into perceiving it as such, he argued. “[The US] demonstrates what they called in Soviet times ‘the bestial scowl of imperialism’,” he joked. Moscow does not expect any substantial change in US foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia, regardless of who takes the White House after next year’s election, the president said. “[Trump] was accused of having a special relation with Russia, which is total nonsense and bulls**t. But he was the president who introduced the most sanctions against Russia,” Putin noted.

The American elites predominantly perceive Russia as an existential enemy, Putin believes. The country also has friends in the US, who want good relations and share Russia’s views on traditional values, the president added, but those voices are being suppressed. Since leaving office, Trump has been charged with numerous crimes at both the federal and state level, ranging from election tampering to inciting the January 6 Capitol riot to financial improprieties. The businessman-turned-politician, who is considered the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for presidency, has said that his legal woes amount to a “witch hunt” by his opponents.

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She’s hated him for years, laments the fact that he’s walking around free.

• Trump Demands Judge in Jan. 6 Case Stand Down (Sp.)

Former President Donald Trump has filed a motion in a Washington, DC, court demanding Judge Tanya Chutkan recuse and disqualify herself from his January 6 criminal case, court documents showed. “President Donald J. Trump, through undersigned counsel, respectfully moves to recuse and disqualify the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan,” Trump’s attorneys said in the court document on Monday. The motion cites what Trump alleges is Chutkan’s compromised impartiality as cause for recusal. “Although Judge Chutkan may genuinely intend to give President Trump a fair trial — and may believe that she can do so — her public statements unavoidably taint these proceedings,” Trump attorney John F. Lauro wrote in the motion.

“The public will reasonably and understandably question whether Judge Chutkan arrived at all of her decisions in this matter impartially,” the motion said, adding that “the law and the overwhelming public interest in the integrity of this historic proceeding require recusal.” US law dictates that judges recuse themselves from any legal case in which they have a personal bias, potential prejudice, or their impartiality could be “reasonably” questioned. A 1994 Supreme Court ruling determined that only in rare cases are judges ever forced out of a legal case; in fact, it must be proved the official demonstrates “deep seated favoritism or antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible.”

Chutkan has given both sides in the case until Thursday to respond to the motion, with the Trump camp given until Sunday to issue its subsequent reply. Trump is presently facing multiple indictments ranging from alleged fraudulent business practices, mishandling classified documents and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The former president has repeatedly voiced his innocence in each case, underscoring that legal filings are part of a larger political attack intended to shutter his chances at serving a second term in office.

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Taxpayer money.

“..paid massive sums to private sector attorneys for their services..”

“..it avoids the statutory requirements for the appointment of assistant district attorneys, who are paid a fixed salary, and also avoids the administration of an oath of office..”

• Fani Willis Bankrolls Private Attorneys For Trump Prosecution (WE)

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has paid massive sums to private sector attorneys for their services, and a portion of those relate to investigating and prosecuting former President Donald Trump, according to county records. Nathan Wade, Willis’s lead prosecutor in the case, has raked in more than half a million dollars from the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office from January 2022 to August 2023, according to a payment history. Christopher Campbell, Wade’s colleague at Wade & Campbell Firm, has been paid $116,670 from April 2021 to August 2023, the same records show. Terrence Bradley, a former colleague of Wade’s, was paid $74,480 from May 2021 to June 2022, according to the records.

Wade, a defense attorney who can bill by the hour, was hand-picked by Willis roughly two years ago to serve as special prosecutor in the Trump case. Wade is a former Cobb County fill-in municipal court judge who ran for Cobb County Superior Court and was defeated in 2012, 2014, and 2016. Willis chose Wade over career prosecutors who work on salaries, and while the legalities of that have not been questioned at this stage, some, like Phil Holloway, an Atlanta-based attorney for more than two decades, have found the use of Wade to be “unorthodox.” “It’s certainly unorthodox and appears to be a cash cow for any lawyer paid by the hour,” Holloway said. “I’ve been practicing criminal law in Georgia for 24 years, and I’ve never seen such an arrangement.”

One of the co-defendants, former Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer, highlighted in a court filing on Thursday the hefty payments to private prosecutors, asking for Judge Scott McAfee to schedule a hearing “regarding improper contact by special prosecutor’s law firm.” [..] Shafer’s attorney in the court filing said it also violated an “anti-contact” rule, noting that “the harassing, or mocking and intimidating nature of the firm’s communication with Mr. Shafer causes grave injury to the appearance of fairness and propriety of this proceeding.” [..] Holloway observed that Wade could skirt the typical obligations of public servants while working as outsourced counsel. “For starters, it avoids the statutory requirements for the appointment of assistant district attorneys, who are paid a fixed salary, and also avoids the administration of an oath of office,” Holloway said. “The oath of office is intended to protect the public from malfeasance by public officials and carries a criminal penalty if violated.”

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Sounds like 2028.

• Tucker Tears Into Politicians’ “Betrayal Of American Democracy” (ZH)

In a brief clip dropped last night, Tucker Carlson rages (in his inimitable manner) that the current system of governance in the US does not genuinely reflect the majority’s will but benefits a small group of people with power. “Most governments are run by a small group of people for their own benefit without reference to what the majority wants,” he says. Carlson highlights, based on public opinion polls as evidence, that there is often a disconnect between what the people want and what their leaders prioritize: “Take a look at the latest Gallup poll, pick a poll. What are the top 10 issues for people in the United States and then compare those to the priorities of your leaders.”

The former Fox News host takes aim at Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Greg Abbott of Texas as case examples of this disconnect. Regarding Whitmer, who he calls a “low IQ lunatic”, Carlson says her priorities are not in line with the majority of her constituents, specifically regarding social issues like “misgendering”: “The things that people care about, Gretchen Whitmer couldn’t care less about.” Abbott, who Carlson calls a “liar, and betrayer of your own people”, is accused of not taking significant action on illegal immigration, despite having the resources to do so:

“Don’t you have a National Guard? Why don’t you seal the Border? Oh, it’s very complicated. No, it’s not.” Carlson concludes that this deviation from public will is a betrayal of American democracy. “It’s not just frustrating; it’s a betrayal of the core promise of the country, which is the people rule,” he proclaims; suggesting that the current situation represents a “criminal act,” and, in what some have suggested sounded the most like a campaign/stump speech, urges the audience to reconsider their belief that a majority vote will automatically translate into action or law.

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“..anybody who looks at the situation on the ground in Ukraine knows that Ukraine is losing, Russia is winning. And literally there’s nothing that can be done to prevent a Russian victory..”

• Ever More Deadly Arms to Ukraine Reeks of Desperation – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

Over the past year-and-a-half, the US and its NATO allies have adopted a cautious, “two steps forward, one step back” approach to arming Kiev, first assuring that various weapons (be it cluster munitions and long-range cruise missiles or tanks and F-16 fighter jets) would not be sent, citing the danger of escalation tensions with Russia, and then announcing their delivery weeks or months later. “The Biden administration seems to be going through a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-type phase when it comes to the nature of the weapons that it’s willing to provide to Ukraine,” Scott Ritter, a veteran former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, UN weapons inspector, and military analyst, told Sputnik. “A year ago, the Biden administration was very reticent about providing certain categories of weapons out of fear to create the potential of an escalation between the United States, between NATO and Russia over Ukraine.

“The last thing the United States wanted, or so the Biden administration said, was a direct war with Russia.” “Today, all of those inhibitions seem to have been swept away. We see the United States providing M1 Abrams tanks. We see the United States authorizing the delivery of F-16 fighters. And now the United States is considering to provide Ukraine with the ATACMS long-range missile system or the guided multiple launch rocket system, a 45-mile range rocket system delivered by the HIMARS system that has extreme accuracy and could deliver cluster munitions. This, of course, follows on the heels of the decision by the Biden administration made earlier this year to provide Ukraine with the cluster variant of the 155-millimeter artillery shell,” Ritter said.

Desperation over sobering battlefield realities and a desire to “harm Russia,” rather than hopes that the new long-range weapons could turn the tide in the conflict, are the main motivators behind the Biden administration’s escalation strategy, the observer believes. “The Ukrainians, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, have suffered 71,000 casualties over the course of the last four months in a failed counteroffensive effort. And there’s nothing about the nature of these weapons that would improve Ukraine’s chances on the battlefield. These weapons that are being provided are being provided to provide Ukraine with the potential of doing harm to Russia. The ATACMS missiles being provided, simply put, to strike the Crimea Bridge, to destroy that bridge, to enable Ukraine to strike targets deep in the Russian rear area – airfields, command posts, logistics. This is a dramatic escalation of the conflict,” Ritter stressed.

“Why is the Biden administration doing this? Frankly speaking, it’s out of an act of desperation. Look, anybody who looks at the situation on the ground in Ukraine knows that Ukraine is losing, Russia is winning. And literally there’s nothing that can be done to prevent a Russian victory. The provision of ATACMS rockets, the GMLRS rocket system isn’t going to change the outcome on the battlefield. What it will do is provide Ukraine the opportunity to inflict more harm on Russia,” and that, Washington may be hoping, will put political pressure on Moscow domestically, the observer explained.

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“As late as 1957, “people from Africa were taken to Europe in cages… You can’t watch that without tears. Children sitting in cages, displayed for everyone to see..”

• Africa Will Never Forget That The West Caged Its Children – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked on Tuesday that African nations will always remember the dark chapter of Western colonial oppression when European powers trafficked children from the continent, putting them on display in cages. He also noted that these same countries are trying to push their former dominions into indentured servitude. Speaking at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said he was sure it would not be too difficult for Russia to restore close relations with Africa to the level of the Soviet era when Moscow provided the continent with ample economic aid. The Russian leader argued that African countries remember Moscow’s help in the struggle for independence and that Moscow had never acted as a colonizer.

“Our cooperation has always been based on either mutual grounds or the desire to help,” he said. However, Putin noted that these countries remember not only Soviet aid but also Western ruthlessness. As late as 1957, “people from Africa were taken to Europe in cages… You can’t watch that without tears. Children sitting in cages, displayed for everyone to see,” Putin recalled. “No one in Africa will ever forget it.” The Russian president said the West has not abandoned its subjugation attempts. “Even now, they are trying to boss around and pursue their generally neo-colonial policies,” Putin said, explaining that Western countries have imposed trillions of dollars worth of loans on the region. The West has concocted a credit system with African countries which “by definition… does not allow them to pay back their loans. These are not credit relations; this is some kind of [punitive] indemnity,” he added.

However, Russia adheres to a different approach, which gives it an advantage in fostering ties with its partners worldwide, Putin argued. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that African countries are ready to talk with their Western counterparts. However, the latter should not expect spectacular results if they reduce dialogue to “patting on the back” while failing to address the continent’s “pressing needs.” To foster closer ties with the region, Russia hosted a landmark Russia-Africa forum in St. Petersburg this summer that produced many bilateral agreements in various fields. Dozens of African delegations also attended it despite what Moscow described as “unprecedented pressure from the West” to skip the summit.

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Poland is one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters. But it won’t kill its own farmers.

• Kiev Reiterates Grain Threat To Poland (RT)

Kiev does not want to harm Polish farmers, but it will lobby for its right to export grain into the EU nation under World Trade Organization rules, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal has declared. On Tuesday, the chair of the Ukrainian government reiterated Kiev’s warning that it would seek arbitration if Poland maintained a ban on imports. The current temporary restriction, which was imposed by the EU in May, is set to expire on Friday. “We have no intention of harming Polish farmers,” he stated on X (formerly Twitter). Warsaw’s stated policy of keeping the ban in place would be a “violation of trade law in the interest of political populism before the elections,” he added. Poland is set to hold a general election in October, with the ruling Law and Justice party seeking a third term at the helm.

Earlier in the day, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pledged to make sure that Ukrainian grain would not “flood” his nation, causing distress to local producers. That will be the case regardless of what the EU decides, he assured. When asked about Shmygal’s remark by local media outlets, government spokesman Piotr Muller said Warsaw would maintain the embargo at the national level if its appeal to the EU to renew the ban failed. The Polish government adopted a formal message to the European Commission arguing its case on Tuesday. Brussels’ ban had de facto legitimized prohibitions imposed nationally by Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania have said they intend to reimpose national bans if the EU prohibition expires.

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Do your homework first?!

• Pocahontas Threatens Musk With Investigation For Blocking Ukrainian Attack (RT)

US Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on Congress to investigate Elon Musk over his refusal to enable a Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian naval fleet in Crimea. Despite condemnation in Washington, Musk has defended his decision to cut satellite service to the Ukrainian military. “The Congress needs to investigate what’s happened here and whether we have adequate tools to make sure foreign policy is conducted by the government and not by one billionaire,” Warren told reporters at the US Capitol on Monday. Musk and other Big Tech CEOs are due to meet with US lawmakers to discuss artificial intelligence on Wednesday. However, the subject of the hearing has been overshadowed by news that Musk intervened last year to prevent six Ukrainian naval drones from hitting Russian ships at the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

The Ukrainian military had been using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service for communications and guidance since the beginning of the conflict with Russia. When Musk learned that the drones were en route to Sevastopol, he ordered SpaceX engineers to shut down the service within 100km of the Russian peninsula, CNN reported on Thursday, quoting an upcoming biography of the billionaire. As a result, the drones “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” the report claimed. Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mikhail Fedorov then begged Musk to turn the signal back on via text messages, but Musk refused.

“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” the billionaire explained last week, adding that he never allowed the service to be activated near Crimea in the first place. Musk’s explanation caused outrage in Kiev, with President Vladimir Zelensky’s top aide accusing the SpaceX CEO of “committing evil.” In the US, CNN anchor Jake Tapper argued on Sunday that Musk had “effectively sabotaged” an American ally, and asked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken if he should face “repercussions” for thwarting the attack.

Blinken refused to condemn Musk, but several members of Congress have spoken out against the billionaire. Musk “cannot have the last word when it comes to national security,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed told reporters on Monday. At the time of the thwarted attack, Musk was bankrolling Ukraine’s access to the Starlink network. The Pentagon has since stepped in to partly fund the program, and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said on Monday that future contracts between the military and private firms like SpaceX will likely include “assurances” that these technologies can be used for offensive purposes.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1701424181580124577

Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701648627297362426

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”..Nuland’s words showed that this was “no longer about Ukraine,” but about “an undeclared hot war with Russia.”

• Nuland: US ‘Supports’ Ukraine Targeting ‘Russia’s Most Precious Assets’ (Sp.)

US Acting Deputy Secretary of State and Russophobic hawk Victoria Nuland appears to have let slip that the Biden administration supports Ukraine’s strikes targeting Russian territory. In a video clip circulating on social media, Nuland, who just recently visited Ukraine’s capital, can be heard saying that one “axis” of Washington’s strategy in it proxy war with Moscow in Ukraine is to “put some of Russia’s most precious assets at risk.” This comes amid reports that Washington will be sending long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to the Kiev regime. However, earlier in September, a Pentagon official told Sputnik no decision had been made to supply Ukraine with ATACMS.

According to US media, the Defense Department has warned that its own ATACMS arsenal is relatively small, and the missiles are already deployed to other areas, such as the Korean Peninsula, and therefore their transfer to Ukraine would jeopardize US combat readiness in other regions. In response to the clip on social media, users commented that Victoria Nuland appeared intent on unleashing a “nuclear war” – something that the career civil servant along with US President Joe Biden and senior White House and State Department officials have been repeatedly accused of. Netizens remarked that Washington has “never shown willingness to talk meaningfully with Moscow,” and warned that Nuland’s words showed that this was “no longer about Ukraine,” but about “an undeclared hot war with Russia.”

Others on social media recalled Nuland’s role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, when the country’s democratically elected government collapsed, and a pro-Western regime was installed. Then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is remembered for strolling the streets of Kiev with Geoffrey Pyatt, the then-US ambassador, handing out free cookies. Later, in February 2014, on the eve of the Euromaidan coup, in a telephone conversation she famously quipped, as per a leaked call, “Yats is the guy!” referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a politician who got less than seven percent of the vote in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election, but would be selected as the first prime minister of the post-coup government.

Nuland has been one of the most avid proponents of Kiev massively hitting Russian military installations in Crimea, considering them to be legitimate targets, as per her remarks on February 16, 2023. Crimea became a Russian region after a referendum was held there in March 2014 following a coup in Ukraine. The Russian leadership has repeatedly stated that Crimean residents democratically, in full compliance with international law and the UN Charter, voted for reunification with Russia. Furthermore, the United States considers it important to provide Kiev with the military “of the future,” Nuland had said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.

In response, Igor Girenko, press secretary of the Russian embassy in the US, said Nuland’s comment that the United States supports Ukraine targeting Russian military installations in Crimea shows Washington’s direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict. After both Washington and London agreed to supply the Zelensky regime with longer-range missiles, they claimed that Kiev had promised not to attack Russian soil with them. However, as Kiev’s counteroffensive falters, the risk of a “desperation” attack outside the Donbass is growing, pundits told Sputnik.

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“..intended to serve as psychological crutch and do not pose a meaningful military intiative.”

• Ukraine Missile Attack in Sevastopol Leaves 24 People Injured (Sp.)

Russian air defenses repelled an overnight attack by the Ukrainian armed forces on the city of Sevastopol in Crimea, Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said early Wednesday. Razvozhayev indicated that he is on scene near the area where a fire broke out in the city’s industrial district, detailing that operational services were on site at the Sevastopol shipyard. The governor added that 24 people sustained injuries as a result of the missile strike, four of whom were identified as being in “moderate condition.” The Sevastopol official further said there is no threat to civilian facilities as a result of the fire. The situation in the air continues to be monitored as all operational services remain on standby, he went on to underscore.

A subsequent release issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense stated the overnight strike by the Kiev regime included the use of 10 cruise missile and three drone boats. “Tonight, the Ukrainian armed forces conducted a strike against the shipyard named after Ordzhonikidze in the city of Sevastopol using 10 cruise missiles and attacked a group of ships of the Black Sea Fleet during the movement in the sea using drone boats,” the ministry said. “Air defenses destroyed seven cruise missiles, and the Vasily Bykov patrol ship destroyed all drone boats. As a result of cruise missiles hitting the shipyard, two ships, which were in repair, were damaged.”

Over the last several months, Ukraine has repeatedly carried out drones strikes against Russian territory, more recently in the face of its failed counteroffensive. The Russian government has referred to the repeat drone attacks as a “nuisance” as experts have stressed that such efforts are intended to serve as psychological crutch and do not pose a meaningful military intiative.

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“The CIA bribing CIA officers to hide the CIA’s work on COVID is simply the most CIA thing you’ll ever hear!”

• CIA Bribed Analysts To Change Wuhan Lab-Leak Conclusions (ZH)

A ‘senior-level’ CIA whistleblower has come forward to allege that the agency bribed analysts to change their opinion that Covid-19 most likely originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, according to the NY Post. The whistleblower told House committee leaders that his agency ‘ tried to pay off six analysts who found SARS-CoV-2 likely originated in a Wuhan lab if they changed their position and said the virus jumped from animals to humans,’ according to a Tuesday letter from the chairmen of two House subcommittees investigating the pandemic response and US intelligence, Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) and Mike Turner (R-OH). The pair have requested all documents, communications and pay info from the CIA’s Covid-19 Discovery Team by Sept. 26.

“According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” reads the letter from the House panel chairmen. “The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis. “The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position,” the letters continue, adding that the analysts were “experienced officers with significant scientific expertise.”

Wenstrup and Turner also asked for documents and communications between the CIA and other federal agencies, including the State Department, FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Energy Department. In a separate letter, the House committee leaders identified former CIA Chief Operating Officer Andrew Makridis as having “played a central role” in the COVID investigation and asked him to sit for a transcribed interview. -NY Post In June, the US Intelligence Community declassified a 10-page report on COVID origins, in which it found “biosafety concerns” and “genetic engineering” taking place in Wuhan, but that most of its “agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered.”

As the Post points out, however, several scientists at the WIV fell ill in late 2019 with symptoms “consistent with but not diagnostic of COVID-19,” according to the intelligence report, which concluded that the CIA and another intelligence agency “remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.” ot all former US intelligence officials agree with the declassified report – such as former DNI John Ratcliffe, who told Congress that the “lab leak theory” was the “only” credible explanation for the pandemic. “My informed assessment as a person with as much access as anyone to our government’s intelligence … has been and continues to be that a lab leak is the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science and by common sense,” he told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in a hearing.

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Why only France? Why only Apple?

• France Bans iPhone Over Radiation Concerns (RT)

Apple must withdraw all iPhone 12 models from the French market immediately, the National Frequency Agency (ANFR) announced on Tuesday, accusing the popular smartphone of emitting far more electromagnetic radiation than European Union regulations allow. “The ANFR expects Apple to deploy all available means to put an end to the non-compliance. Failure to act will result in the recall of equipment that has already been made available to consumers,” the agency said. According to the regulator, tests at an accredited laboratory revealed that the phone exceeded the specific absorption rate (SAR) value mandated by the EU, which is four watts-per-kilogram (W/kg), when held in hand or in a trouser pocket. The “body” SAR, when the phone is in a jacket pocket or a bag at least 5mm away, was within the 2 W/kg limit, however.

Apple must immediately stop the sale of iPhone 12 models and get ANFR approval if it makes updates to them to ensure compliance, the regulator added. ANFR inspectors have been authorized to check “all distribution channels in France” for the banned device, starting Tuesday. The iPhone 12 was introduced in October 2020 and has continued to be popular due to a lower price point than the subsequent models. Apple says the model has a SAR of 0.99 W/kg when measured by the EU standard. Earlier on Tuesday, the California-based Apple announced the iPhone 15 line of devices, featuring the USB-C connector in order to comply with an EU mandate adopted in 2022.

The US Federal Communications Commission has yet to comment on the French announcement. The FCC has a SAR limit of 1.6 W/kg. sFrance’s radiation crackdown comes after several months of bad news for Apple. Last week it was reported that China has banned government employees from bringing iPhones or any other foreign devices into the office or using them for work purposes. Russian officials were advised to stop using iPhones in July, while the state military industry banned them outright, citing security concerns. Later that month, a class action suit in the UK accused the US-based company of monopolistic behavior regarding fees charged by the app store.

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“..absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with Ukraine, Russia can and would..”

• The Mackinder Strategic ‘Bible’ Reconsidered (Crooke)

In 1997, Zbig Brzezinski, the original ‘driver’ behind the making of Afghanistan as a quagmire of ‘mud’ into which Russia was to be dragged, wrote his celebrated book, The Grand Chessboard. It was a work that ‘forever’ embedded the Mackinder doctrine of ‘he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world’ into the U.S. zeitgeist. Tellingly, its subtitle was American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. Brzezinski had already written in his book that absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with Ukraine, Russia can and would. Thus, Mackinder’s doctrine, ‘He who controls the heartland’ dictum, was codified into U.S. ‘cannon law’ – never to permit a united heartland. And Ukraine became seen as the hinge around which heartland power revolved.

Brzezinski further ordained that this ‘Grand Game of Chess’ was to be one of pure U.S. primacy: “No, no one else plays”, he insisted; it is a game purely for one. Once a chess piece is moved; ‘we’ (the U.S.) simply turn the board the other way around – and move the other side’s chess pieces (for ‘them’). There is ‘no other’ in this game”, Brzezinski warned. This is today’s dilemma – It is so long since Brzezinski originally formulated the Mackinder notion, that classical diplomacy has become etiolated. It was Henry Kissinger however, that gave Mackinder its celebrated twist: ‘He who controls money controls the world’ was to become the dollar and banking financialised hegemony. But, Kissinger, in this, was wrong from the ‘get go’. It always has been: ‘He who has manufacturing capacity, raw materials, food, energy (human as well as fossil) and sound money can change the world’.

But Kissinger simply ignored those adjunct conditions, and based the U.S. instead in the creation of a global ‘spider’s web of weaponised dollars (touch it, and the sanctions gossamer poisons you). Additionally, this system was multiplied through Wall Street parsing out access to trillions in newly created money only to the compliant. Kissinger did, however, evolve the doctrine of ‘triangulation’ in a nod to Mackinder: The U.S. should seek to ally with either Russia versus China, or be with China, in opposition to Russia. But never to let China and Russia conjoin against the West. The heartland must always be fractured. These ‘rules’ are imprinted on Washington’s mental circuits. Yet the notions that underpin them have little validity today. Land mass, militarised states (heartland Asia) versus the naval powers (the Atlanticists) hardly reflects today’s more abstract instruments of power.

[..] The present conflict in Ukraine has underlined the deficiencies in hegemonic power that specifically arise from a neglected manufacturing base. Mackinder, were he here today, might thus need to adjust his model, distinguishing between the land that is ‘outside’ the one set of economic policies (the BRICS-led Asian, African and global Southern bloc), and that which is ‘inside’: i.e. within a ‘coastal’ debt-led, consumerist paradigm.

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Fluoride

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 28 2023

May 282023
 
 May 28, 2023  Posted by at 8:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  32 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh The garden of the asylum at Saint-Rémy 1889

 

• No Truce With the Heartland (Luongo)
• Eurasian Heartland Rises to Challenge the West (Pepe Escobar)
• After Bakhmut (Douglas Macgregor)
• Counteroffensive Can Start At Any Moment – Ukrainian Official (RT)
• Ukraine Demands German Missiles Capable Of Striking Moscow (RT)
• Africa Foresees End Of Unipolar World – Russian Envoy (RT)
• Credit Rating Agency Downgrades US (RT)
• Debt Ceiling Deal Between White House And GOP Reached In Principle (ZH)
• EU Sanctions Talks Hit Roadblock – Politico (RT)
• China Rebuffing All Contact With US Military: Pentagon (ZH)
• John Durham and the Burying of American History (Patrick Lawrence)
• Roger Waters Under Criminal Probe Over Anti-Nazi Satire (RT)
• Fisher-Price Introduces ‘My First Gender Transition’ Playset (BBee)

 

 


The winner from the Texas Sand Sculpture Festival.

 

 

Eli Crane

 

 

Anthony Bourdain

 

 

Rogan Smith

 

 

 

 

Veritas

 

 

Carrey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps it’s time to see Mackinder from a Chinese perspective. In 1904 that may not have seemed important, but today?!

• No Truce With the Heartland (Luongo)

Ukraine has always represented the apotheosis of the Neocon/Neoliberal world order. As Crooke points out, they are facing a very unpleasant choice: “The war is now, in this way, being projected as a binary choice: ‘End the war’ versus ‘Win the war’. Europe is tergiversating –standing at the cross-roads; hesitantly starting down one road, only to reverse, and indecisively take a few cautious steps down the other. The EU will both train Ukrainians to fly F-16s; and yet is coy about providing the planes. It smacks of tokenism; but tokenism is often the father to mission-creep.” Indeed it is. Because of the closed-mindedness of those in power in the West — their biases, racism, and arrogance — they will not stop in Ukraine until they are forced to by circumstances.


Those circumstances will likely be dictated by the revamped Russian military now configured to fight a longer and different kind of war than the one that began in February 2022. Every day we see signs that Russia’s military-industrial capacity is increasing rapidly while the EU languishes. The US is rapidly trying to bring back onshore manufacturing lost to the ZIRP and Greenspan Eras, but this is a slow and painful process especially since it has run out of room on the balance sheet to deficit spend to accelerate things. “Biden” and his merry band of vandals in D.C. are more than happy to burn the place to the ground more thoroughly than the British did in the War of 1812 if they can’t get their way on unlimited taxing and spending.

So, here we are. Bakhmut has fallen. The Ukrainian counter-offensive is non-existent. If anything it was already absorbed by Putin and Prigozhin. Zelenskyy will now get F-16s to attack Crimea and use that as some moral high ground for justifying NATO’s official involvement after Russia’s inevitable counter-attack. Then the air will be thick with the smell of thermobarics in the morning. But, regardless of any of that, there will be no truce in the Heartland. Russia will not back down. China will back them to the end, as will OPEC+ and the rest of Central Asia. But they will not escalate one inch further than they need to. Allowing the West to keep thinking they can win is the ultimate form of grinding out a superior opponent.


[..] While the West fights desperately to stave off defeat of the Heartland, it’s clear the rest of the World Island is making plans to leave them behind. At some point there are simply too many people and too much pressure to keep pushing the world towards a conclusion it doesn’t want to go. And that’s when everything changes, literally overnight. Until then, it will be another day, another escalation, another pointless political knife fight and thousands of people dying needlessly. When he published that paper in 1904 all Mackinder did was formalize British imperial thinking into an easily-digested thesis for morons. Today we are being gaslit by these morons into believing our lives depend on fighting for ‘freedom’ in central Ukraine. It was written as the British empire’s grip on power was beginning to wane. World War I would put the capper on that.

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More heartland. BRICS + Central Asia.

• Eurasian Heartland Rises to Challenge the West (Pepe Escobar)

President Xi Jinping telling President Putin at the end of their summit last March in Moscow that we’re now facing “great changes not seen in a century” directly applies to the new spirit reigning across the Heartland. Cue to the China-Central Asia summit last week in Xian, the former imperial capital, where Xi solidified the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from Western China in Xinjiang to its western neighbors and then all the way to Iran, Turkey and Eastern Europe. Xi in Xian particularly stressed the complementing aspects between BRI and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), once again showing that all five Central Asian “stans”, acting together, should counter-act the proverbial external interference via “terrorism, separatism and extremism”.

The message was stark: these hybrid war strategies are all integrated with the attempt by the Hegemon to continue fostering serial color revolutions. The purveyors of the “rules-based international order”, Xi implied, will go no holds barred to prevent ongoing Heartland integration. The usual suspects in fact are already spinning that Central Asia is falling into a potential trap, fully captured by Beijing. Yet this is something Kazakhstan’s “multi-vector diplomacy”, coined way back in the Nazarbayev years, would never allow. What Beijing is developing, instead, is an integrated approach via a C+C5 secretariat with no less than 19 separate channels of communication. The heart of the matter is to turbo-charge Heartland connectivity via the BRI’s Middle Corridor.

And that, crucially, includes technology transfer. As it stands, there are dozens of industrial transfer programs with Kazakhstan, a dozen in Uzbekistan, and several in discussion with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. These are extolled by Beijing as part of “harmonious Silk Roads”. Xi himself, as a post-modern pilgrim, detailed the connectivity in his keynote speech in Xian: “The China-Kyrgystan-Uzbekistan highway that runs across the Tian shan Mountains, the China-Tajikistan expressway that defies the Pamir Plateau, and the China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline and the China-Central Asia Gas Pipeline that traverse the vast desert – they are the present-day Silk Road.”

[..] Moscow is very much aware of the high stakes. For instance, for a year and a half virtually every month a Russian delegation arrives in Tajikistan to implement, in practice, the “pivot to the East”, developing projects in agriculture, health care, education, science and tourism. Central Asia should have a leading role in BRICS+ expansion – something supported by both BRICS leaders Russia and China. The idea of a BRICS + Central Asia is being seriously floated from Tashkent to Almaty. That would imply establishing a strategic continuum from Russia and China to Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Africa and Latin America – spanning the logistics of connectivity trade, energy, manufacture production, investment, technological breakthroughs and cultural interaction.

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“Zelensky’s supporters no longer believe in the myth of Ukrainian victory..”

• After Bakhmut (Douglas Macgregor)

Until the fighting begins, national military strategy developed in peacetime shapes thinking about warfare and its objectives. Then the fighting creates a new logic of its own. Strategy is adjusted. Objectives change. The battle for Bakhmut illustrates this point very well. When General Sergey Vladimirovich Surovikin, commander of Russian aerospace forces, assumed command of the Russian military in the Ukrainian theater last year, President Vladimir Putin and his senior military advisors concluded that their original assumptions about the war were wrong. Washington had proved incurably hostile to Moscow’s offers to negotiate, and the ground force Moscow had committed to compel Kiev to negotiate had proved too small. Surovikin was given wide latitude to streamline command relationships and reorganize the theater.

Most importantly, Surovikin was also given the freedom of action to implement a defensive strategy that maximized the use of stand-off attack or strike systems while Russian ground forces expanded in size and striking power. The Bakhmut “Meatgrinder” was the result. When it became clear that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government regarded Bakhmut as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to Russian military power, Surovikin turned Bakhmut into the graveyard of Ukrainian military power. From the fall of 2022 onward, Surovikin exploited Zalenskiy’s obsession with Bakhmut to engage in a bloody tug-of-war for control of the city. As a result, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers died in Bakhmut and many more were wounded. Surovkin’s performance is reminiscent of another Russian military officer: General Aleksei Antonov.

As the first deputy chief of the Soviet general staff, Surovikin was, in Western parlance, the director of strategic planning. When Stalin demanded a new summer offensive in a May 1943 meeting, Antonov, the son and grandson of imperial Russian army officers, argued for a defensive strategy. Antonov insisted that Hitler, if allowed, would inevitably attack the Soviet defenses in the Kursk salient and waste German resources doing so. Stalin, like Hitler, believed that wars were won with offensive action, not defensive operations. Stalin was unmoved by Soviet losses. Antonov presented his arguments for the defensive strategy in a climate of fear, knowing that contradicting Stalin could cost him his life. To the surprise of Marshals Aleksandr Vasilevsky and Georgy Zhukov, who were present at the meeting, Stalin relented and approved Antonov’s operational concept. The rest, as historians say, is history.

Macgregor

If President Putin and his senior military leaders wanted outside evidence for Surovikin’s strategic success in Bakhmut, a Western admission appears to provide it: Washington and her European allies seem to think that a frozen conflict—in which fighting pauses but neither side is victorious, nor does either side agree that the war is officially over—could be the most politically palatable long-term outcome for NATO. In other words, Zelensky’s supporters no longer believe in the myth of Ukrainian victory. The question on everyone’s mind is, what’s next? In Washington, conventional wisdom dictates that Ukrainian forces launch a counteroffensive to retake Southern Ukraine. Of course, conventional wisdom is frequently high on convention and low on wisdom.

On the assumption that Ukraine’s black earth will dry sufficiently to support ground maneuver forces before mid-June, Ukrainian forces will strike Russian defenses on multiple axes and win back control of Southern Ukraine in late May or June. Roughly 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers training in Great Britain, Germany, and other NATO member states are expected to return to Ukraine and provide the foundation for the Ukrainian counterattack force. General Valery Gerasimov, who now commands the Russian forces in the Ukrainian theater, knows what to expect, and he is undoubtedly preparing for the Ukrainian offensive. The partial mobilization of Russian forces means that Russian ground forces are now much larger than they have been since the mid-1980s.

Given the paucity of ammunition available to adequately supply one operational axis, it seems unlikely that a Ukrainian offensive involving two or more axes could succeed in penetrating Russian defenses. Persistent overhead surveillance makes it nearly impossible for Ukrainian forces to move through the twenty- to twenty-five-kilometer security zone and close with Russian forces before Ukrainian formations take significant losses. Once Ukraine’s offensive resources are exhausted Russia will likely take the offense. There is no incentive to delay Russian offensive operations. As Ukrainian forces repeatedly demonstrate, paralysis is always temporary. Infrastructure and equipment are repaired. Manpower is conscripted to rebuild destroyed formations. If Russia is to achieve its aim of demilitarizing Ukraine, Gerasimov surely knows he must still close with and complete the destruction of the Ukrainian ground forces that remain.

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Repeat every day.

• Counteroffensive Can Start At Any Moment – Ukrainian Official (RT)

Ukrainian forces are “ready” to launch their much-touted counteroffensive, the head of the National Security and Defense Council told the BBC in an interview on Saturday. Aleksey Danilov said the military top brass are now waiting for the right moment to launch the attack. “It could happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week,” Danilov answered when pressed about a potential start of the counteroffensive, which Kiev has been talking about for months. A major assault was initially expected to start in spring or even late winter, but Kiev repeatedly postponed it, citing adverse weather conditions and the need to obtain all necessary weapons and equipment from western backers. Danilov said it would have been “weird” for him to reveal the exact date, as “that cannot be done.”

He described the planned attack as a “historic opportunity” that his nation “cannot lose” if it wants to become a “big European country.” “We understand that we have no right to make a mistake,” he added. In April, The New York Times reported that Ukraine’s Western supporters might start to pressure Kiev into launching talks with Moscow should the much-anticipated offensive fail to yield any major gains. Kiev has been sending mixed signals on the counteroffensive. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s aide, Mikhail Podoliak, told Italy’s Rai TV channel that it “has been going on for several days”. However, on Thursday, another presidential advisor, Igor Zhovkva, contradicted that statement, saying Ukrainian forces were still preparing for the operation.

Danilov denied the offensive had already begun, claiming that Ukrainian strikes against Russian “control centers” and “military equipment” were just routine operations. Danilov’s remarks came as Russia outlined its conditions for ending the conflict with Ukraine. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told TASS on Saturday that Kiev should abandon the idea of joining NATO and the EU, guarantee the rights of minorities, and declare Russian a state language. Ukraine must also recognize the “new territorial realities,” the high-ranking diplomat said, referring to four former Ukrainian territories that joined Russia following referendums in autumn 2022, as well as Crimea, which reunited with Russia in 2014 following another referendum. However, Danilov stated earlier in May that there could be no peace talks “on Russia’s terms.”

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Does Germany wish to be a target?

• Ukraine Demands German Missiles Capable Of Striking Moscow (RT)

Ukraine has asked Berlin to provide it with long-range air-launched missiles that could potentially reach Moscow, a spokesperson for Germany’s Defense Ministry confirmed on Saturday. On Friday, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported, citing two unnamed “insiders” within the German military, that Ukraine “urgently wants” Swedish-German Taurus missiles. These munitions could be allegedly placed on US-made F-16 fighters, which are now being considered for delivery to Kiev by several Western countries. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is said to have asked for the missiles during his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin earlier this month.

For now, it is unclear whether Berlin, which earlier said it did not have any F-16s to send to Kiev, will grant this request. The report said the demand presents Berlin with a dilemma, as some in the German government doubt whether Ukraine would sensibly use such a weapon – which can travel 500km (310 miles) and is armed with a 500kg warhead. As Kiev may use the Taurus to strike Moscow from the border, “some fear that in a situation of dire need, Kiev could allow the war to escalate uncontrollably,” the paper added. According to the outlet, another problem is that the Taurus needs extremely precise and up-to-date information to stage attacks, raising questions as to whether Berlin would be willing to share such data with Kiev.

Earlier this month, the UK decided to supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow missiles with a range of over 250km (155 miles), with Moscow’s Foreign Ministry condemning the move as another step towards a “serious escalation.” Later, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Kiev used the weapon to conduct a strike on civilians in the Donbass city of Lugansk, resulting in six children injured, according to local authorities. Even without long-range missiles, earlier this month Kiev unsuccessfully attempted to conduct a strike on the Kremlin using two drones, which according to Moscow was an attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kiev has denied any involvement, with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claiming that “we fight on our territory” and “we don’t have… enough weapons for this.”

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“..the aggressive imposition of Western ‘new values’ causes growing rejection there and only brings Russia and African countries closer together.”

• Africa Foresees End Of Unipolar World – Russian Envoy (RT)

The West’s attempts to pressure Africa to turn on Russia have failed as people on the continent realize the true nature of the conflict in Ukraine and see that the unipolar world order is coming to an end, according to the head of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum. Oleg Ozerov, who is also Russia’s ambassador-at-large, told Newsweek on Friday that the attendance of 40 out of 54 nations of the continent at the Russia-Africa Interparliamentary Conference had “shattered the myth of Russia’s alleged isolation due to the events in Ukraine, persistently promoted in the West.” “People in Africa understand very well that the former Soviet republic has turned into an arena of confrontation between the new and the old world paradigms, between different visions of the future, not just a trivial feud between neighbors,” he said.

According to the diplomat, the well-balanced and neutral approach towards “Russia’s confrontation with the West” by Africa, China, India and Latin American nations “confirms once again that the transition to… multipolar architecture is irreversible.” Those countries clearly understand that the time for “unipolar world-order is running out,” he added. What Africa needs now is promotion of local solutions and national interests, as well as deliverance “from the rigid constraints of globalism promoted by neo-liberalist ideologists,” Ozerov said. “African countries count on Russia’s support” in achieving those goals, he stated. Moscow is backing efforts to complete the decolonization process in a number of African countries, while also working to put together a broad anti-terrorist front on the continent “free from any hidden agenda or double standards,” the diplomat continued.

“The US and EU want Africa to play the role of a mere supplier of raw materials to the ‘civilized world,’” Ozerov said. But Russia has a different approach as its “primary interest is to assist the development of Africa’s domestic energy and electricity markets, where we have considerable expertise, especially as regards nuclear energy,” he explained. Moscow has “no vested interests, such as to preserve its zone of influence or aggressively guard markets from any ‘outsiders,’” and Africans see that, the envoy said. And that’s the reason why “the unprecedented pressure by the West on Russia’s partners in Africa is not that effective in practice.” Ozerov said that, during his trips to the continent, it became obvious to him that “the aggressive imposition of Western ‘new values’ causes growing rejection there and only brings Russia and African countries closer together.” Russia is due to host a high-level Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg in July, with the envoy saying that recent developments indicate that the event is going to be “a success.”

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What’s the influence on Treasury purchases?

• Credit Rating Agency Downgrades US (RT)

China Chengxin International Credit Rating (CCXI) slashed its sovereign credit score for the US by one notch earlier this week, becoming the first among top rating firms to make the move. The leading Chinese agency, a joint venture between Beijing Zhixiang Information Management Consulting and US ratings giant Moody’s, lowered the US to AAg+ from AAAg, having placed it on review for a further downgrade, according to a statement released on Thursday. “The intensification of political divisions between the two parties in the United States has increased the difficulty of resolving the debt-ceiling issue,” the statement reads.

“Even if a consensus is reached, the brinkmanship would pose uncertainty to the US government’s policy path and dampen economic confidence, which could trigger further volatility in the US politics and economy,” the agency added. According to CCXI, US debt sustainability is currently being seriously challenged, with the highest level of borrowing among the previously AAAg-rated nations, while the issue is being complicated by hawkish policies of the US Federal Reserve. The regulator has hiked the key interest rate several times over the past few months, raising the risk of asset depreciation on the balance sheets of many financial institutions. The credit rating agency Fitch previously put the US on watch for a potential downgrade, having warned that the nation could soon lose its AAA score due to an inability to pay its bills, within a matter of days.

Meanwhile, Moody’s said a mid-June interest payment on Treasuries will be critical for maintaining its top AAA grade. Republicans and Democrats have struggled to reach an agreement to increase the debt ceiling for weeks, prompting warnings from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that the US is “highly likely” to default if Congress does not act soon. The move would be a first in American history, as the government has never defaulted on its debt, which has swelled to more than $31 trillion. Late on Friday, Yellen extended the deadline for a potentially devastating default, saying the government has just a few more days to argue over the debt ceiling before it runs out of cash.

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“The debt ceiling deal “cuts” spending by 0.2% of GDP or about $50 billion. Is that good enough?”

“Of the $80 billion Democrats appropriated to the IRS over ten years, the “deal” rescinds $1.9 billion. You read that right. That’s the kind of “get” that’s so good McCarthy agreed to increase the debt ceiling $4 trillion.”

• Debt Ceiling Deal Between White House And GOP Reached In Principle (ZH)

The White House and GOP negotiators have reached an agreement in principle to raise the US debt ceiling, averting a default. The deal raises the debt limit and keeps non-defense spending ‘near flat’ for two years, while cutting and capping various federal programs, the NY Times reports. After 2025, however, there will be no budget caps. It was structured with the aim of enticing votes from both parties, though it would most likely draw the ire not only of conservative Republicans but also Democrats furious at being asked to vote for cuts they oppose with the threat of default looming. If the progressives or the Freedom Caucus don’t blow it up, the plan has a chance of Congressional passage before June 5, the date Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned any deal must be finalized by in order to avoid hitting the “X-date”, when the Treasury can no longer meet its obligations.


“After weeks of negotiations, we have come to an agreement in principle,” said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, adding that there are “historic reductions in spending” and “consequential reforms.” “There are no new taxes, no new government programs,” McCarthy continued, adding that they would be spending tonight writing the agreement. McCarthy expects a vote on Wednesday. In the House, Republicans hold a narrow majority – meaning unhappy right-wing lawmakers who have demanded significantly larger budget cuts in exchange for raising the ceiling may hold it hostage (lookin’ at you Gaetz). That said, McCarthy can at least say he tried – inking in principle a compromise that would effectively freeze federal spending that had been slated to expand.

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“European diplomats are hesitant to openly name and shame those who stall the negotiations, allegedly out of fear that more EU countries suspected of facilitating sanctions-evasion could also rebel.”

• EU Sanctions Talks Hit Roadblock – Politico (RT)

The negotiations over the European Union’s 11th package of sanctions against Russia have been stalled amid opposition from Athens and Budapest, who demand their companies be removed from the Kiev-compiled list of “war sponsors,” according to Politico. Two rounds of talks in Brussels this week ended with no deal in sight, as there was “no pressure” to discuss smaller issues until crucial objections by the member states are addressed, the publication reported on Saturday citing multiple anonymous diplomatic sources. The main roadblock is said to be Kiev’s notorious list of “sanctions-evaders” and “international sponsors of war,” which features multiple European companies because they maintained business ties with Russia.

Compiled by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), the list includes such giants as German wholesaler Metro, French retailer Auchan, Italian cement company Buzzi Unicem and Austrian banking group Raiffeisen, among others. Hungary was the only EU state to voice objections during a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, insisting that Kiev’s baseless accusations against its leading financial institution OTP Bank could be formalized with the bloc’s next round of sanctions. On Wednesday, however, Greece stepped into the forefront of the discussion, saying that allegations of sanction circumvention could be “very damaging” to its economy as well.

“Greece reiterated that, should there be concrete evidence of violation of sanctions, these should be brought to the attention of the member states concerned, at the technical level, so that this be adequately investigated and then due action will be taken,” an unnamed EU diplomat told the publication. Politico claimed that the Ukrainian list and the next sanctions package are “not linked” and the duo was simply holding the talks hostage as “political leverage.” However, European diplomats are hesitant to openly name and shame those who stall the negotiations, allegedly out of fear that more EU countries suspected of facilitating sanctions-evasion could also rebel. In the meantime, two sources said that the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, acknowledged the problem and “it is now up to him to work with the Ukrainians on a solution.”

Budapest has taken a neutral stance in the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev, as it refused to provide military aid to Ukraine or allow Western aid to pass through its territory. Although Hungary had largely taken part in the existing EU sanctions against Russia, it has repeatedly criticized the restrictions and opposed those that might affect its own economy, including its conventional and nuclear energy sectors. Athens also defied the bloc’s efforts to cut all economic ties with Moscow, with imports of Russian goods by Greece more than doubling to a record €9.33 billion ($10 billion) last year. The trade balance between the two countries in 2022 was negative, however, with the value of Greek exports to Russia last year decreasing to €156.4 million from €206.6 million in 2021.

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They’re arming Taiwan. So what is there to talk about?

• China Rebuffing All Contact With US Military: Pentagon (ZH)

Top Pentagon officials have once again said that China is ignoring and rebuffing the US military’s attempts to establish and open line of communication, which is crucial to avoiding inadvertent conflict in regions such as in the South China Sea where both naval powers operate. “Open communication channels between the US and China are important in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs Ely Ratner said on Thursday,” regional media reports. “The Pentagon’s attempts to reach out to China’s military in recent months have been ignored or rebuffed,” Ratner told an audience at the DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He sought to stress that the Pentagon “believes in the importance of open lines of communication with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and we have sought to build out those open lines of communication. Unfortunately… we’ve had a lot of difficulty when we have proposed phone calls, meetings, dialogues.” “The US and Department of Defense have had an outstretched hand on this question of military to military engagement, but we have yet to have consistently willing partners,” Ratner emphasized further. Earlier this month there was hope that US-China dialogue would be back on track following the meeting between National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member and China’s Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi in Vienna on May 10-11.

That meeting was generally reported and regarded as positive, given that before that all such high level diplomatic contacts had been off ever since the ‘spy balloon’ shootdown incident over the American east coast in early February. But even if the rival militaries are struggling to keep open communications, Washington and Beijing are pushing forward with trade talks: “U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo sat down with her Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao in Washington D.C. on Thursday to discuss “concerns” surrounding bilateral trade. Marking the first cabinet-level exchange between the two countries in months, the U.S. talked about American companies operating in China. According to a readout by the Commerce Department, “The two had candid and substantive discussions on issues relating to the U.S.-China commercial relationship, including the overall environment in both countries for trade and investment and areas for potential cooperation.”

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“..part of the effort to bury the Russiagate hoax the way the Warren Commission buried the facts of the Kennedy assassination for many years.”

• John Durham and the Burying of American History (Patrick Lawrence)

I appreciate the Durham Report for the chronology of events it indicates. This is now easier to follow than it has been previously. In simple terms, Clinton authorized an operation to frame Trump within days of the leak of emails from Democratic Party servers in July 2016. The FBI’s leadership acted quickly to set this operation in motion. It first considered using the offhand remarks of George Papadopoulos, a minor Trump campaign volunteer, to obtain surveillance warrants against various of Trump’s advisers. When that proved too flimsy, the agency’s top officials turned to the Steele Dossier. The agency knew it was junk, but they punched it up sufficiently to get the warrants needed to proceed against Trump and his people. This was Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s anti–Trump op at the heart of the Russiagate hoax.

“The truth is, we had almost all of the information a long time ago. What we didn’t have was the certification of the information by a government authority, by a legal authority,” Walter Kirn remarks in America This Week. “I think Durham did a job of showing reach to the highest levels of the government. Apparently everyone was briefed on the reality of this thing early on, very early on. All the highest authorities knew it was bullshit.” Perfectly fair comment, an astute summation. Then Kirn continues in a very curious way: “In a way, I guess it became necessary that the system vindicates itself by finding that which could not be found and asserting that which could not be proved, to the point that the moment where it mattered passed away. President Trump’s no longer president. All of the harms that were done by this thing have been done. They changed our history, they changed our media. They changed our sense of information and why it’s important.”

Kirn is right to suggest that “the system” appears to figure that a report such as Durham’s can now be released because it is all water under the bridge—a little in the way the U.S. will acknowledge one or another of its coup operations long after the facts have ceased to matter. Similarly, it looks as if Garland found this an opportune moment to send the Durham Report to Capitol Hill, effectively to remove the entire Russiagate affair from the common American consciousness. With a presidential election 18 months away, Biden’s attorney-general must dispose of Russiagate and Durham’s probe as hastily and as best he can.

But I am not with Kirn when he asserts all the harm has been done. No, it has not. Russiagate changed history all right. And the destruction of this history is to my mind the greatest harm of all. This is the very oddest thing about the Durham Report: It purports to rip off the veil shielding the plot against Donald Trump from view, but it shapes up after a few days’ consideration as part of the effort to bury the Russiagate hoax the way the Warren Commission buried the facts of the Kennedy assassination for many years.

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He’s been doing it for 50 years.

• Roger Waters Under Criminal Probe Over Anti-Nazi Satire (RT)

German police have launched a criminal investigation into English rock legend and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters on suspicion of glorifying Nazism during two concerts in Berlin. The musician has insisted the performance was in opposition to fascism. On Friday, in a statement quoted by several media outlets, the Berlin police said that Waters was suspected of inciting hatred, and that the probe was centered on his performances on May 17 and 18 in the German capital. In footage posted on social media, the musician can be seen wearing a leather trench coat resembling a Nazi uniform with two crossed hammers and a red armband. He then proceeds to take a mock gun and shoot into the crowd.

“The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace,” the police said. Nazi-related symbols are outlawed in Germany, with an exception being made for educational or artistic purposes. Waters’ performance was apparently in reference to the film “the Wall,” an adaptation of the eponymous 1979 Pink Floyd album. The rock star appears as the album’s protagonist who hallucinates being a fascist dictator addressing a Nazi rally. Waters’ concerts also featured a pig-shaped balloon floating in the air, with a logo of the Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems and the Star of David.

The show also involved showing the names of people fading in on the screen, including Anne Frank, a Jewish diarist who died in a Nazi concentration camp, and Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed while covering an Israeli military operation in May 2022. The Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon suggested that Waters wanted to compare Israel to the Nazis, describing the musician as “one of the biggest Jew haters of our time.” On Friday, the musician addressed the controversy, writing on Twitter that he had become a target of “bad faith attacks” from those who disagreed with his political views. “The elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice and bigotry in all its forms”, he said, adding that he had spent his entire life speaking out “against authoritarianism and oppression.”

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“Therapist doll that, when squeezed, whispers, “Don’t tell your parents.”

• Fisher-Price Introduces ‘My First Gender Transition’ Playset (BBee)

In a show of solidarity with a vocal minority of gender activists who don’t purchase their products, Fisher-Price introduced the “My First Gender Transition” playset for kids ages 2 to 9. “The My First Gender Transition playset helps your child have a fun time playing pretend while in no way being inculcated with an emotionally destructive ideology,” said Product Manager Murthina Spillwig who may soon be updating her resumé. “Parents in our focus groups were excited to force their kids to pretend to enjoy the playset for Instagram.” The playset is bursting with a plethora of features to confuse your toddler, including:

-My First Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Analogue puberty-blocking toy syringe
-Top Surgery For Tykes toy surgical table
-Barnyard and jungle-themed breast binders and packing underwear
-Therapist doll that, when squeezed, whispers, “Don’t tell your parents.”
-A lifesize poster of inspiring role model Dr. Rachel Levine
In anticipation of the success of the gender-affirming playset, Fisher-Price has announced they will soon be releasing the “My First Detransition” playset.

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Perfect job

 

 

Bukele

 

 

Aweeeee

 

 

Iguana
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662395821977894916

 

 

 

 

Deactivate a cat

 

 

 

 

Sea slug
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662378744160440321

 

 

 

 

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Ours but to Die and Die

Apr 142018
 
 April 14, 2018  Posted by at 1:17 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  4 Responses »


Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Fall of the Rebel Angels 1562

 

 

Lots of rants today, obviously, lots of -slightly- different angles.. Here’s Dr. D’s. He beat me to it…

 

 

Dr. D: Too annoyed to comment on the attack. But hey, really NOT attacking would be the change here.

There was a recent article, falsely saying:

“[H]is successful repression of the Chechen revolt…hardly endeared Putin to the Chechens.”

Oddly, this was from Russia Today. No, the Chechen war was a gruesome and unpopular war, however it was just part of the MacKinderesque plan of first lying, killing, then robbing Russia up front by lowering the price of Russia’s exports gold and oil (using Saudi oil and Canadian gold), starting an arms race, then collapsing the ruble and empowering every corrupt, criminal oligarch we could find using pallets of $100 bills. No joke, official record. Russia’s collapse and the Chechen war was no “accident”, no natural consequence of the socialism system or collapse, but a soup-to-nuts military operation. We had the nuts, and they were in the soup. The “accident” here was trusting anything the West says, ever. Haven’t they ever heard about the Indians?

Anyway, the 100-year-old plan of MacKinder, father of geopolitics, was believed by other tottering dinosaurs like Brzezinski in an age no longer run by the horse and cannon and that plan was to cut open the “long, soft underbelly” of Russia, which started with funding Islamic fighters (terrorists) out of Afghanistan (admitted and applauded), then move on through Islamic Chechens, Uzbeks, Kazaks, etc. Although completely crippled, Putin – who was put in power BY the west, BY Clinton – nevertheless stopped them in Chechnya, and was naturally savaged by the West for defending his nation in a proxy Civil War. For beyond hating men and families, they hate nations, for all these things restrain murderous self-serving psychopathy.

 

It’s a little more complicated than that as the USSR was broken up, there were cross-protectorate treaties, but that’s very typically 1,000-year Russian way. They don’t have ethnic and religious problems, or not in the western sense, because they do what America claims to do (with the States for example) and leave people alone, to be individual states, customs, religions, and people. They also don’t have a problem with Putin, as the Russian Way is really a sort of monarchism in the old sense, with a king and court and advisors, and always has been back through him, the Soviets, Stalin, Romanov, Peter, and back since they were Russian.

What’s my point? They don’t think about things the way we do. Not entirely. Chechnya was not “breaking away” and “fighting Russia” as reported, it was subverted by the West TO attack Russia. Chechens know this, but like all CIA ops, half of the target country were for and half were against. So when Putin wouldn’t stop sending the army in and leveled the country (like we’ve done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and everywhere else we’ve ever been) half the Chechen people were in support of Putin – or anyone! – to restore law, order, Chechen customs, and peace against the ISIS-like radical Wahhabists who were funded by Saudi Arabia as indeed he did, in the brutal respect-only-strength way they do things in that part of the world.

What? That’s crazy. Yes? So how do you explain that the present Chechen leader — a nation as sovereign as Canada — told Putin at the start of the Syrian war he would send any number of Chechen fighters to any place on the planet, and kill anybody Putin wanted, and consider it an personal honor. And these are deeply Islamic, hard-core militants. You see, despite also being hard-core Islamists and all around hard-bodies, they too hate Saudi Arabia, Wahhabists, and the intervention of the West that devastated their country. Killing millions of southern Russians for the goal of killing more northern Russians, as it were, every child growing up in rubble-filled war zone. What’s not to hate?

…But why would we report that? That we made a treaty with Russia, invaded on all sides anyway, then killed +2 million with Disaster Capitalism and +2 million more in the ‘Stans with the intent of wiping Russia off the map?

 

You see Reagan didn’t want to WIN the Cold War. He wanted to END it. The Cheney-Rumsfeld-Dr. Strangelove wing could never forgive that. His body wasn’t cold before they were back, this time behind Clinton, to finish the occupation of Russia as the last step to world domination. This is why the crazies back in the PNAC days were desperate to nuke the helpless Russia even then. They were right. If you didn’t nuke them, openly attack them, they would survive and escape, which would ultimamtely thwart the Neocon/Deep State plans to take over the world. And so they have.

But as we see today, they never give up. They’re still aching to start a world-wide nuclear exchange and openly agitating 24/7 on CNN to do so. No amount of bombing is enough, no number of bankrupted, shattered cities are too many just to get Russia out of the way, whose historic job, sadly but heroically, is to crush and utterly destroy the idiotic plans of meglomaniac warmongers from the West like Hitler and Napoleon, and dash them to pieces on the rocks of reality. Because the West never restrains its maniacs, it empowers them.

Being a country the size of Canada, Russia doesn’t escape this, but in the irrefutable monkey-hammering Russia gives, like say destroying 30 German divisions and 5 Million men with little more than hunting rifles and force of will – most of all the fighting in WWII – or killing 500,000 of Napoleon’s 650,000 and sending him back barefoot, well, even the western propaganda and passion for self-delusion can’t hide that…but it doesn’t help Russia any to get shot when finally facing down their violent, meth-addled neighbors. Russia knows this, and they will in fact bomb the West with iron resolve if we don’t cut it out, yet we show no signs of coming to our senses. We never have before. Russia is what stops them, going way back.

 

You’d think we’d learn something. Brzezinski did. Just before he died he said his life-long plan to destroy Russia, culminating in WWIII by cutting off the Ukraine with the New Charge of the Light Brigade was a complete failure. This is the 100 year plan of MacKinder, and these dinosaurs just won’t die. They won’t learn. They have no imagination, doing the same failed thing over and over, generation after generation. Maybe we’ll have to as well.

Maybe we — or rather the Deep State — won’t stop until Russia drops a Satan-II missile, a single one of which would destroy New England. Or a nuclear sub drone hits NY. Or their pop-up stealth pods level Charleston. Or they sink every U.S. surface ship on the planet in 5 minutes using the Sunburn missile. Easy as pushing a button. U.S. military power is leveled, the people set back 75 years, 120 Million dead. Is that what you want America? On behalf of whom? Dick Cheney, HSBC, the City of London?

But there is reason to hope, as core right figurehead Tucker Carlson recently gave a steely antiwar commentary to reach the dinosaur viewers of Fox News, Republicans-by-name. Although driven back to the darkest corners, what remains of the real Left is historically anti-war, although you’d never know it by the way 90% of the party acts. That’s seen in this far-left (or rather the People’s Left) far-left (or rather the People’s Left) Jimmy Dore video.

But if the Right and Left come together against collective bankruptcy and suicide, then they can only unite against the Deep State of Dr. Strangelove, and turn back to human priorities, against the God-knows-what priority of killing everyone on earth they can find, one by one, for any reason they can come up with. Doesn’t it sound like we should be against this? I am. Are you?

“Never fight a land war in Asia” — Princess Bride