Oct 182024
 


Pablo Picasso Bather on the beach 1920

 

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley: Results Will Be Known On Election Night (JTN)
The Election Will Decide President Trump’s Legal Fate (Davis)
Elect Kamala and Install a Sociopath Regime (PCR/Greenwald)
If Trump Wins, Guess Who Will Be In Charge Of Certifying The Election? (Snyder)
Harris Adopts a Purely Pedestrian View of the Presidency (Turley)
Democratic Election Lawyer Marc Elias’ History Of Legal Failures (JTN)
CNN Panel Goes Berserk When Guest Suggests ‘Field’ Blacks Voting For Trump (ZH)
Trump Blames Zelensky For Conflict With Russia (RT)
Ukraine May not Operate a Full F-16 Squadron for Months to Come (Sp.)
Ukraine Must Have Nukes or NATO – Zelensky (RT)
Ukraine Claims It Could Have Nuclear Weapons Within Weeks – Bild (RT)
10 Facts The West Must Understand Before Talking To Putin (Remchukov)
The Insanity Of Repetition: Israel’s Return To The Lebanese Quagmire (Raiss)
The Israeli Spies Writing America’s News (Macleod)
SpaceX Sues California over Political Targeting (AmG)
EU Commissioner Labels Musk ‘Promoter Of Evil’ (RT)
Nvidia CEO Blown Away After Musk Sets Up 100,000 GPUs In 19 Days (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Tucker

CNN
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Trump ad

Bret Baier


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OMG Meta

Scott Ritter Iran

Maguire

Angry guy

 

 

Sounds very optimistic.

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley: Results Will Be Known On Election Night (JTN)

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley predicted Wednesday that results for the 2024 election will be known on election night. “I think we’re going to know on election night,” Whatley said on the “Furthermore with Amanda Head” podcast. “I feel really good about where we’re going to be, and we like the map right now. We like the polls right now. I like the voter registration numbers.” As the 2024 presidential election gets closer, the GOP has been embracing early voting, unlike their strategy in 2020, and Whatley said it was paying off. “I like the early voting numbers that are coming in right now,” Whatley said. “We’re very upbeat. And I think we are going to know on election night.” He went on to predict that America would be “very excited” and ready to welcome former President Donald Trump back into the White House. He also encouraged Americans to have a plan to vote. “It’s great if you want to vote early,” he said. “It’s great if you want to vote by mail. It’s great if you want to vote on Election Day. You have to make a plan, execute the plan and deliver that vote. There’s absolutely no substitute for it.”

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“President Trump’s fate is now in the hands of one more jury: the American people.”

The Election Will Decide President Trump’s Legal Fate (Davis)

President Trump’s fate depends in large part on the election result. If Vice President Harris prevails, it is certain that Jack Smith will continue to prosecute Trump, unless the Supreme Court determines that his appointment is unconstitutional. At that point, however, the other political appointees in the Kamala-Walz Justice Department could resume control of the prosecution. Trump might prevail at trial before a reasonable jury in Florida, but his conviction before a highly biased D.C. jury would be a virtual certainty. There is also no reasonable doubt that Judge Chutkan would hammer him at sentencing. She has shown how ardently anti-Trump she is, and she also has been one of the most harsh sentencers of January 6 defendants. If she gets the chance, she will make sure that Trump rots in a cage for the rest of his life.

A Trump victory in November would ensure that he would not go to prison based on Bragg’s case at least until 2029 if at all, if the appellate courts fail to stop this clearly illegal political persecution. Even though Trump does not have a criminal record, it is likely that, if given the chance, Judge Merchan would send him to Rikers Island, the notorious jail where prisoners await trial and those convicted serve short sentences. Judge Merchan’s daughter Loren would certainly raise a lot of money off that republic-ending travesty. If Trump prevails, it is doubtful that Judge Merchan would try to throw Trump in prison in the month and a half between the potential sentencing and the inauguration. If he were to act rashly, however, either a higher court in New York or the United States Supreme Court would almost certainly put a stop to his shenanigans.

The Georgia appellate courts should end Fani Willis’ lawfare against Trump. If Trump wins the White House again, even if the case is not dismissed, Trump would not face trial until at least 2029. By that point, a new district attorney might decide to drop the case. The Georgia Court of Appeals hopefully will put an end to this and disqualify Willis, a decision that should be affirmed in short order by the Georgia Supreme Court. Given her disgraceful conduct, Willis has more than earned that remedy.

If Vice President Harris prevails, the Supreme Court almost certainly will no longer be a safeguard against the anti-Trump lawfare. The Vice President has indicated that she is open to packing the Court with hardcore leftists who undoubtedly will be clones of Judges Merchan, Engoron and Chutkan. They will serve as rubber stamps for Smith, Bragg, James and Willis. Trump thus will spend the rest of his life in prison based on charges that never should have been brought. He also might face the lesser consequence of bankruptcy if a Supreme Court packed with leftists gives its blessing to the nearly half a billion dollars in judgments against him from New York courts.

This election will decide whether the lawfare waged against President Trump for so many years and on so many fronts will be rewarded or punished. Several juries have rendered verdicts, and President Trump has appealed. In mere weeks, voters will deliver the most crucial verdict, and it is unappealable. President Trump’s fate is now in the hands of one more jury: the American people.

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“Kamala Harris’s campaign apparently unsatisfied with continuing to drag around Dick and Liz Cheney, released a new ad featuring the wise words of John Bolton..”

Elect Kamala and Install a Sociopath Regime (PCR/Greenwald)

Tonight: Donald Trump gave a speech last week in which he denounced the warmongering of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Barack Obama as achieving nothing other than what he said was, quote, “leaving a bunch of dead people.” Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’s campaign apparently unsatisfied with continuing to drag around Dick and Liz Cheney, released a new ad featuring the wise words of John Bolton, the person who is almost certainly the most psychotic and unhinged warmonger to reach national office in the last several decades. Perhaps only John McCain and Lindsey Graham compete with him for that title. The Harris campaign continues to be shaped and driven by reliance on the support of some of the worst sociopaths of the D.C. swamp and the military-industrial complex. When one views the ideology and policies of the Democratic Party that all makes sense and we’ll examine all of that.

Then: Both public polls and campaign internal polls continue to show the worst nightmare possible for the Democratic Party and the Harris campaign, namely the ongoing migration of both Latino voters and even Black voters, primarily Black men away from the Democratic Party and toward Donald Trump. We’ve actually seen this trend for several years now, even as the national media spends every day calling Donald Trump a white supremacist, but it has intensified over the last year with more and more nonwhite voters, signifying that they don’t want to vote for the Democratic Party.

While the Harris campaign reacts with desperate pandering or hectoring accusations of misogyny from Barack Obama, liberal media outlets like The New York Times do what they always do when they see nonwhite voters or other, quote-unquote, “marginalized groups” they believe they own failing to vote and think as they’re told to do, namely, they unleash deeply racist screeds, arguing that these nonwhite voters are not coming to their own conclusions because of their own faculties, but instead are being manipulated and hypnotized by much smarter and more conniving influencers. We’ll take a look at The New York Times latest attack, basically on the intelligence of nonwhite voters who refuse to do as they’re told.

And finally: Nick Cruse of the Revolutionary Black Out Network is one of the most vocal and incisive critics of the Democratic Party and its condescending tactics to deceive various groups of voters to believe that they’re on their side. He is a friend of the show, he’s been on before because of how great his commentary is, and he has a lot to say about Kamala’s latest, desperate last-minute pandering, including her brand new agenda for the Black man and the blatantly false gestures she and her campaign and followers are now making on Israel and Gaza. He’ll talk with us tonight about all of that and more.

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” I fear that there will be unprecedented chaos in our streets. Hopefully I am wrong about that. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. But in our current political environment, I am certainly not optimistic about what is ahead.”

If Trump Wins, Guess Who Will Be In Charge Of Certifying The Election? (Snyder)

Do you know who will be in charge of certifying this election? In January 2021, it was Vice-President Mike Pence, and we all remember how that turned out. Well, an even more interesting scenario is shaping up this time around. In January 2025, Vice-President Kamala Harris will be in charge of certifying the election. In other words, if Donald Trump wins the person that he was running against will be in charge of certifying his victory. This is a major defect in our system, and it could potentially set the stage for widespread chaos if things do not go smoothly. With each passing day, a Trump victory is looking even more likely. For example, a brand new Gallup survey has found that the percentage of Americans that identify as Republicans has jumped by four points since late September…

“With just 20 days left until Election Day, a new Gallup poll has revealed a concerning trend for Democrats. According to the poll, more Americans are identifying as Republicans or independents, with fewer calling themselves Democrats. Conducted from October 1-12, the poll shows a significant shift in political affiliations since mid-September, causing potential challenges for Democrats ahead of the crucial vote. The data shows that 31% of respondents now identify as Republicans, marking a 4-point increase from the previous poll conducted in late September. Meanwhile, only 28% of Americans consider themselves Democrats, a 3-point drop over the same period. The number of independents, while still holding a significant share at 41%, dropped by 1%.”

Another new survey shows that national support for Trump has risen dramatically since early August… “The presidential race is swinging in former President Donald Trump’s direction, according to a national poll released by Marquette. The latest survey shows both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris tied with 50 percent support each in a two-way race with leaners included. This reflects a four-point swing in Trump’s direction, as the last poll — released August 1 — showed Harris up by four points, garnering 52 percent support to Trump’s 48 percent support. The survey also took a look at the results with a “full field” and found Harris up by a single percentage point — 48 percent to Trump’s 47 percent support. Another four percent said “other.” For greater perspective, the last survey showed Harris up by eight points in the full field, with 50 percent to Trump’s 42 percent.”

[..] On Jan. 6, 2025, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to preside over Congress and count the electoral votes that will make either her — or Donald Trump — the 47th president of the United States. And like her predecessor Mike Pence, who resisted enormous pressure from Trump to upend the 2020 election results, Harris says she won’t interfere. Hopefully that is true. But would she really just stand aside and hand the presidency to a man that she has described as a “threat to democracy”? Just consider what Harris said about Trump earlier this week… “A second Trump term is a huge risk for America. He is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power and control over your lives”. If she truly believes that Trump is going to end democracy in the United States, wouldn’t she feel compelled to take action? That is a question that a lot of people will be asking. Already, many on the left are suggesting that the 14th Amendment could be used to block Trump from taking office. The following is what Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says…

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. “I really hope that Democrats do not consider such a course of action if Trump wins the election. And I really hope that we see a very peaceful transfer of power no matter who wins. Unfortunately, many of our leaders continue to make statements that are not helpful at all. For example, Joe Biden just said that he is very much looking forward to seeing Donald Trump get sentenced and put away…

Joe Biden said the quiet part out loud and admitted that his DOJ is working to jail Trump after the election. “The same guy who has three other major cases waiting for him when he loses,” Biden said referring to Jack Smith’s federal cases against Trump. “And by the way, 34 felonies,” Biden said after he sent his DOJ hatchetman Matthew Colangelo to New York to get Trump. “He got the sentence kicked back, but I want to watch that sentence,” Biden gleefully said hoping Trump is jailed. If Donald Trump loses this election, he is going to go to prison for the rest of his life. So the truth is that this election means everything to Trump. Of course this election also means everything to tens of millions of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum. No matter what the outcome is, I fear that there will be unprecedented chaos in our streets. Hopefully I am wrong about that. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. But in our current political environment, I am certainly not optimistic about what is ahead.

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“The interview had a seasonal feel with Halloween approaching like a political reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven where every question is answered by “Nevermore.”

Harris Adopts a Purely Pedestrian View of the Presidency (Turley)

Last night, millions tuned in to watch Fox’s Bret Baier interview Vice President Kamala Harris in a brief but substantive exchange. One of the most interesting aspects of the interview was the purely pedestrian view of the presidency that Harris presented in the interview. Harris repeatedly responded with “I will follow the law” while refusing to say where she personally stands on immigration, transgender athletes, and other issues. After confining interviews to largely softball forums like The View, Harris faced a serious journalist who pushed for actual answers on policies. While confined to a short time by the Harris campaign, Baier kept pulling Harris back to these questions to cut off the evasions that have characterized past interviews. Baier noted that she has previously campaigned on some of these issues and publicly declared that she worked for such things as gender transitioning operations for undocumented persons.

Harris now refuses to state her position on such issues and says “I will follow the law.” Yet, Harris is not adopting that pedestrian model in other areas like abortion rights where she is pledging to use executive powers to resist pro-life laws. The Biden-Harris Administration has used such orders to negate both constitutional and statutory authority. That includes orders that were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on issues like the national eviction moratorium. Notably, Harris did flip her position on decriminalizing unlawful entries. Despite running on that pledge in her earlier unsuccessful run for the White House, Harris now says that she is against such decriminalization. As with her past opposition to fracking and gun rights, the change is likely to draw criticism that Harris is adopting a new persona for a close race.

The refusal to give her position on these issues is reminiscent of Joe Biden’s last campaign where he simply refused to say if he opposed packing the Supreme Court with an instant liberal majority. What is different is that Harris previously stated strong and public positions on these questions but is now refusing to confirm that she continues to support those policies, including some that rank near the top of issues for voters. Baier did a heroic job in trying to prevent the filibustering of the interview and push for answers on these questions. It was the first such interview where Harris faced a dogged interviewer. Given the frantic effort of the staff to end the interview (after showing up late), it is likely to be the last. The mantra of “I will follow the law” ignores that a president plays a major role in the legislative process and has considerable executive powers in determining how such laws are enforced.

The presidency is more than a promise of “joy” and compliance. It is about leadership on issues that matter to voters. The interview had a seasonal feel with Halloween approaching like a political reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven where every question is answered by “Nevermore.” That could well be the theme of the Harris campaign. When pressed on contradictions or controversies, Harris seemed to declare “Nevermore Trump” over and over again. We will see if that is enough in a matter of a few weeks. In the meantime, real journalists will be left seeking answers that never come, exclaiming like Poe’s protagonist “tell me—tell me, I implore!” However, “Quoth the [Harris] ‘Nevermore.’”

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“..we saw the rules changes that [Marc] Elias and his operation were able to impose on states through the litigation process of 2020. And they’re already starting that up again this year.”

Democratic Election Lawyer Marc Elias’ History Of Legal Failures (JTN)

Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias has had a history of legal misses as he has pushed for changing election laws on behalf of left-wing groups and candidates over the years and continues litigation during the 2024 presidential election cycle. While Elias has secured many legal victories for Democratic candidates and left-wing organizations through election lawsuits, he has also suffered legal setbacks that have significantly impacted elections. Elias started Elias Law Group in 2021 after leaving the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie amid the probe by special counsel John Durham into the Steele dossier. He continued representing the Democratic Party and many of its candidates and PACs at his new law firm. Last year, the Democratic National Committee ended its professional arrangement with Elias over various strategic disagreements. A few months later, President Joe Biden’s campaign split with Elias.

Elias is anything if not relentless. This year Elias will be aiding Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign with post-election lawsuits and recounts, and has provided services for other Democratic groups, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the 2024 Democratic National Convention Committee, the Senate Majority PAC, and House Majority PAC. On Saturday, Elias posted on X, “My firm is currently litigating 69 voting and election cases in 21 states. We are not done fighting and we are not done winning.” Election litigation played a significant role in the 2020 presidential election amid irregularities and recounts, and most famously, Democrats insisted that Al Gore was the “real” victor in 2000, taking the case to the Supreme Court. Failed candidate Hillary Clinton and other Democrats would later call Republicans “election deniers,” but she herself implied that the 2016 race was “stolen” from her.

In 2020, there were as many as 400 lawsuits brought by both Republicans and Democrats regarding election procedures and laws as election administration was quickly changed during the COVID-19 lockdowns leading up to the presidential election. Democratic and left-leaning plaintiffs filed election lawsuits, 180 in all. However, only 18% of the Democrats’ cases were won, with 40% lost on the merits and 42% lost on procedural grounds. Elias posted on X on Monday, “With only 22 days until Election Day, there are still 192 voting and election cases pending in 38 states.” He added that the top five states with election cases are Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Arizona. The Honest Elections Project (HEP), an election integrity group, released a report in January with 14 election reforms that it says states should implement.

One recommended reform of “Ensur[ing] that elected lawmakers write election laws” explains that “Lawmakers, not courts and bureaucrats, make the laws that govern elections. But partisan special interests, spearheaded by left-wing lawyer Marc Elias and allied left-wing groups, use frivolous lawsuits and collusive settlements to weaken and rewrite election laws for political gain.” HEP Executive Director Jason Snead previously told Just the News, “One of the biggest threats that we’re gonna face between now and November is gonna be just a torrent of left-wing litigation.” He explained, “We saw the chaos, we saw the confusion, we saw the rules changes that [Marc] Elias and his operation were able to impose on states through the litigation process of 2020. And they’re already starting that up again this year.”

Elias was successful in ensuring many election changes were made during the COVID-19 lockdowns, such as rules expanding mail-in voting and the use of ballot drop boxes. However, in recent years, he and his law firm have encountered significant setbacks or losses in court. In May, a Wisconsin federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Elias’ law firm that sought to toss out the witness requirement for absentee voting. U.S. District Judge James Peterson ruled against their attempt to cancel the witness requirement for voters who cast absentee ballots.

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“blacks who support Kamala Harris are ‘house African Americans,’ while working class ‘field’ African Americans support Donald Trump..”

CNN Panel Goes Berserk When Guest Suggests ‘Field’ Blacks Voting For Trump (ZH)

Two CNN hosts went absolutely berzerk after a guest quoted Malcom X to suggest that blacks who support Kamala Harris are ‘house African Americans,’ while working class ‘field’ African Americans support Donald Trump. During a Wednesday appearance on CNN News Central, co-anchor Sara Sidner hosted pro-Trump radio host Shelley Wynter vs. pro-Harris ex-DNC Vice-Chair Michael Blake to discuss the race, when Wynter articulated that working class ‘field’ black men, ‘who work with their hands’ and ‘who build’ things are Trump supporters, while paper-pushing ‘house’ African Americans are voting for Kamala Harris. Sidner and Blake went into hysterics and refused to let Wynter continue his point.

SARA SIDNER: Kamala Harris has been doing interviews on Black media. Trump, though, is overperforming in polling with both groups compared to past Republicans. Here is what he said when he was campaigning in Pennsylvania.
DONALD TRUMP: Any African-American or Hispanic– and you know how well I’m doing there — that votes for Kamala. You got to have your head examined because they they are really screwing you. They are really screwing you.
SARA SIDNER: And it is Kamala, for the record, But he is denigrating voters for making a choice that he does not like. Shelley, to you, what does he achieve with this.
SHELLEY WYNTER: Well how is it, wait? First of all, how is he denigrating voters?
SARA SIDNER: He’s saying that they are being, for lack of a better word, screwed.
SHELLEY WYNTER: Taken advantage of the they’re being taken advantage of. They’re paying higher pricing. They’re the working class, the ones that he’s talking about, working class, lower middle class. They’re paying more for food. They’re paying more for gas and they’re being taken advantage of.
SARA SIDNER: He also said that they you know, they had to have their head examined. That that’s that is not something that is a compliment.

SHELLEY WYNTER: Obama just told me the same thing. Obama just told me the same thing.
SARA SIDNER: He did not use those words.
SHELLEY WYNTER: … He inferred them. He implied them. He certainly did. He even threatened us with. We’re lucky Michelle’s not here. I mean, come on. Let’s not make things up. Let’s be honest here. And let’s really be clear what’s being said. If you’re an African-American man. Look, let me boil this election down in the African-American community to a very simple, I’ll reference the great Malcolm X. This race is between House African-Americans and field African-Americans and the field African-Americans are going for Donald Trump. I’m talking about your men. I’m talking about your men who build, your men, who put things together, your men who work with their hands, your men who do things, not the men who push paper on, the men who are connected to power and want to continue to be connected to power.

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And Biden.

Trump Blames Zelensky For Conflict With Russia (RT)

The Ukraine conflict is a lost cause and the country’s leader Vladimir Zelensky should have never allowed it to happen, former US President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said. During his appearance on PBD Podcast, hosted by Patrick Bet-David, on Thursday, Trump noted the lavish military aid provided to Kiev by Washington amid the fighting with Moscow as an example of the wastefulness of the administration of US President Joe Biden. Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, are “the worst president and vice president in history,” he said. “It is so bad what they are doing to our country on the borders; it is so bad what they are doing with the money.” Ukrainian leader Vladimir “Zelensky is one of the greatest salesmen I have ever seen. Every time he comes in [to the US] we give him a hundred billion dollars. Who else got that kind of money in history?” the former president stressed.

”That does not mean I do not want to help him because I feel very badly for those people [in Ukraine]. But he should never have let that war start. That war is a loser,” he said. However, later in the conversation, the Republican presidential candidate said: “I do largely blame Biden” for the outbreak of the fighting between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. ”If you watch his words [in the run up to the conflict], his words were the exact opposite of what he should have been saying. He instigated that war…. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is no angel, but everything Biden said was wrong,” Trump pointed out. “That should have never happened,” he said of the fighting between Russia and Ukraine.

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Nothing good will come of this.

Ukraine May not Operate a Full F-16 Squadron for Months to Come (Sp.)

The first batch of F-16s, which was delivered to the Ukrainian military in late July, failed to change the situation on the battlefield in favor of the Kiev regime, with the Ukrainian Air Force confirming that one such jet crashed just weeks after the first batch supply. The United States has changed its program to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, adding “younger cadets” with no prior flight experience, the Wall Street Journal has cited unnamed officials as saying. “It is a mix. Some have been experienced pilots, and we still are receiving more experienced pilots. But there’s also those that do not have that kind of pilot training and experience,” one of the officials said The decision to refocus the training on the cadets rather than experienced air force members may extend the timeline in when the Kiev regime could start to operate a full squadron of F-16s on the battlefield “by many months,” according to the sources.

They argued that even before the decision was taken, Ukraine would hardly have 20 F-16s and 40 pilots to operate them until spring or summer next year at the earliest. The insiders also said that the move to change the training program is the result of a lack of experienced Ukrainian pilots “with requisite English-language abilities who can be spared from the battlefield.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier warned the United States and its NATO allies that Moscow perceives the presence of nuclear-capable F-16s in Ukraine as a nuclear threat. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in turn emphasized that Ukraine’s Western-supplied F-16 jets would not have the power to alter the situation on the battlefield. He warned that if these fighter jets are deployed from the territory of third countries, they will be considered legitimate targets for Russian forces. The president further stated that the F-16s, just like other Western equipment delivered to Kiev, would be destroyed.

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“The secretary general of the US-led bloc, Mark Rutte, said on Thursday that Ukraine may not even be the next nation to become a member.”

Ukraine Must Have Nukes or NATO – Zelensky (RT)

Ukraine can protect itself either by becoming a nuclear state or a member of NATO, Vladimir Zelensky said on Thursday, claiming that he had offered the same line of reasoning to former US President Donald Trump. Speaking at a press conference after promoting his ‘victory plan’ for the conflict with Russia to European officials, Zelensky suggested that Ukraine would need nuclear weapons, should it not be granted NATO membership. “Which of the big nations, the nuclear nations, suffered? Everyone? No, just Ukraine,” he stated, referring to the signatories of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. The document involved the US, UK, and Russia extending security assurances to Kiev in return for the removal of Soviet nuclear weapons from Ukraine.

“Speaking to Donald Trump, I told him: ‘What is the way out for us?’ Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and they will serve as protection, or we need to be in some kind of an alliance. We don’t know any effective alliances except NATO,” Zelensky added. Ukraine’s choice is to become a NATO member, Zelensky said, claiming that Trump had found his reasoning justified. Ukraine has never controlled nuclear weapons, but claims it was formerly among the major atomic powers before agreeing to relinquish them. In February 2022, weeks before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, Zelensky expressed regret at the decision in a speech at the International Security Conference in Munich, suggesting that his country had “every right” to reverse it.

Zelensky last met Trump during his visit to the US in late September. The Ukrainian leader was touring the country to present his ‘victory plan’ to President Joe Biden and the two presidential candidates from the main parties, Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump. He also became embroiled in controversy over a visit to a munitions plant in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which Trump supporters claimed was evidence of Zelensky campaigning for Democratic candidate Harris. Zelensky confirmed this week that an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join NATO was on his list of requests to Western donors. The secretary general of the US-led bloc, Mark Rutte, said on Thursday that Ukraine may not even be the next nation to become a member.

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“We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, we will only need a few weeks to have the first bomb..”

Ukraine Claims It Could Have Nuclear Weapons Within Weeks – Bild (RT)

Kiev has the capability to build a nuclear weapon “in a few weeks,” German tabloid Bild reported on Thursday, citing a high-ranking Ukrainian official. The report comes after Vladimir Zelensky alluded to such a possibility during a visit to Brussels on the same day. The Ukrainian leader claimed his country needs either nuclear weapons or membership of NATO. Zelensky is currently promoting his ‘victory plan’ to Ukraine’s Western backers, which he argues can end the conflict with Russia. Bild has now revealed that a Ukrainian official involved in weapons procurement claimed “a few months ago” that Kiev was willing to go nuclear. “We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, we will only need a few weeks to have the first bomb,” the unnamed official said, according to the German tabloid. He added that the West should “think less about Russia’s red lines and more about ours.”

Zelensky’s adviser Dmitry Litvin denied Bild’s report, however, telling the Ukrainian outlet Strana on Thursday that it was “nonsense” and suggesting that the German tabloid “can be confused with Russian propaganda.” In his speech on Thursday, Zelensky claimed to have informed US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump about Kiev’s possible atomic aspirations. “Speaking to Donald Trump, I told him: What is the way out for us? Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and they will serve as protection, or we need to be in some kind of an alliance. We don’t know any effective alliances except NATO,” Zelensky said. He also claimed that Trump agreed with him. The former president has made no mention of Zelensky’s nuclear proposal, however.

In the time since their meeting, he also made the case in an interview that nuclear weapons were the greatest threat to humanity and that he had hoped to make a global deal on eventual denuclearization during his first term in the White House. The leadership in Kiev has long argued that the US and its allies had an obligation to protect Ukraine because of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the US, UK and Russia gave security assurances in exchange for the removal of Soviet nuclear warheads from Ukraine’s territory. Moscow has maintained that the 2014 violent coup in Kiev put the West in breach of the memorandum and that a hostile, nuclear-armed Ukraine on its doorstep is an intolerable threat to its security. Zelensky’s adviser Dmitry Litvin denied Bild’s report, however, telling the Ukrainian outlet Strana on Thursday that it was “nonsense” and suggesting that the German tabloid “can be confused with Russian propaganda.”

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“The fact is, the president is here to stay.”

10 Facts The West Must Understand Before Talking To Putin (Remchukov)

1. Putin makes all fundamental decisions personally, on the basis of his own ability, expertise, and sense of historical responsibility. A vivid example of this was the president’s speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14, in which he outlined the key provisions of Russia’s foreign policy priorities and his vision for the formation of a new international order. Most participants in the meeting expected the head of state to speak for no more than half an hour. In practice, Putin spoke for almost 80 minutes on theses he had written out himself, which he later explained to journalists.

2. The task of ensuring the security of the country and protecting Russians and Russian speakers in Ukraine, which Putin has been facing since 2014, has become the main existential factor of his rule. He will not hand over power to anyone before the final, internationally guaranteed settlement of this issue. He cannot give up control until there is a final, globally recognized solution. Anything short of this would mean handing his successor a messy bunch of unresolved problems. Today, no one in Putin’s entourage is better at solving problems than the president. He knows this and is firmly convinced of it.

3. Putin will not resign. At the beginning of September, a schoolgirl in Tuva asked the president: “How would you spend your days if you were an ordinary man, i.e. not the president?” Putin replied succinctly and clearly: “It’s hard for me to imagine that now.” This is his most important message of recent times – both for Russians and outsiders. Putin is saying that in your own future planning, proceed from the basis that I will be in the Kremlin. In this way, the president has delivered a reality check to the many Western politicians and indeed Russian opposition activists who have been dreaming and deluding themselves, claiming that “if there is Putin, there is a problem; if there is no Putin, there is no problem.” The fact is, the president is here to stay.

4. It is now clear that after more than two years of a nuclear threat hanging over us all, the world is ready for real negotiations on this issue. However, there are doubts about whether talks will be successful. The most serious Western politician – and someone who actually understands the consequences of nuclear war – is US President Joe Biden. Sadly, he will be gone in a few months. Neither Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump has the foreign policy credentials to even grasp the importance of this issue and the dangers involved.

5. The past years and months of the Ukraine conflict, the brutal sanctions, and the radical transformation of the driving forces of the Russian economy have clearly demonstrated that it is time for our own domestic public and political consciousness to decisively abandon the notion, once sown by the Polish/American thinker Zbigniew Brzezinski, that Russia’s greatness rests on its unity with Ukraine. If the country is torn out of Moscow’s sphere of influence, Russia’s status as a great power will come to an end, he warned.

But that was then, and this is now. Today it is obvious that Russia’s place in the world is guaranteed regardless of the degree of proximity to any country or group of countries. Liberation from speculative constructs in the minds of influential ideologues is a powerful factor in normalizing the development process and assessing fundamental risks and opportunities. Russia can be a great and important power regardless of the degree of integration with other states. The greatness of a country is measured by the level of well-being and opportunities of its citizens, by achievements in health care, education, science, and technology.

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Kornet.

The Insanity Of Repetition: Israel’s Return To The Lebanese Quagmire (Raiss)

In the days following 8 October, Hezbollah’s battlefield updates have consistently emphasized one key phrase: direct hits – Israeli radar stations obliterated, military convoys shattered by precise strikes, and armored vehicles reduced to smoldering wreckage. These operations, carried out in support of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, have been so devastatingly effective that Tel Aviv invoked military censorship, desperate to conceal the full extent of its losses, as it has been doing throughout the conflict on the northern front over the past year. But behind the phrase “direct hits” lies a weapon few might recognize – the Kornet missile. Although not always visible to the viewer, the Kornet’s role is unmistakable. First deployed by Hezbollah in 2006, the Kornet transformed into a battlefield game-changer, proving its worth in ambushes against Israeli Merkava tanks.

On 11 August 2006, 24 Merkava tanks rolled into a deadly trap, as if swallowed by the Bermuda Triangle, vanishing under a barrage of Kornet missile fire. By the end of it, 11 tanks lay in ruin – charred remains of Israel’s once-feared armored division. This decisive moment showcased Hezbollah’s mastery of asymmetric warfare, where small, mobile units equipped with precision-guided Kornets could dismantle Israel’s armored might. The Merkava, long regarded as the symbol of Israeli dominance in ground warfare, was designed to excel in direct combat. However, in the unforgiving Lebanese terrain, the Kornet missile revealed a critical vulnerability: the Merkava’s reliance on heavy armor, which, despite its thickness, was helpless against the Kornet’s ability to pierce reactive plating.

The missile’s precision focused on the tank’s soft spots – its engine and lower hull – areas that conventional defenses struggled to protect against long-range, guided strikes. The once-formidable Merkava, crippled in its ability to maneuver through Lebanon’s rugged landscape, became an easy target for well-planned ambushes. Now, with Israeli convoys once again making daily incursions into Lebanon – repeating the very missteps of 2006 – it’s as if history is whispering its warnings, only to be ignored. Israel’s persistence in retracing these familiar steps shows a refusal to reckon with past lessons, locked in a cycle that leads to the same inevitable failures. The Kornet missile, first deployed by Hezbollah during the 2006 war, has become a defining force in its tactical operations.

This Russian-made, laser-guided anti-tank missile, capable of penetrating up to 1,200 millimeters of reactive armor from distances of up to 5.5 kilometers, turns Israel’s Merkava tanks into unsuspecting prey caught in carefully planned ambushes. Hezbollah’s elite Radwan special forces, particularly within the Aziz and Nasr units, utilize this weapon with precision, turning each ambush into a coordinated strike that devastates Israel’s most advanced armored forces. The Kornet’s range allows Hezbollah fighters to strike from concealed positions and swiftly reposition, ensuring they remain elusive in the heat of battle. These units, operating across the varied terrain of southern Lebanon, have made the Kornet indispensable in their strategy of attrition warfare.

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“Ravid is far from the only Israeli ex-spook working at top U.S. media outlets, working hard to manufacture Western support for his country’s actions..”

The Israeli Spies Writing America’s News (Macleod)

One year after Oct. 7 attacks, Netanyahu is on a winning streak.” So reads the title of a recent Axios article describing the Israeli prime minister riding on an unbeatable wave of triumphs. These stunning military “successes,” its author Barak Ravid notes, include the bombing of Yemen, the assassinations of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and the pager attack against Lebanon. The same author recently went viral for an article that claimed that Israeli attacks against Hezbollah are “not intended to lead to war but are an attempt to reach ‘de-escalation through escalation.’” Users on social media mocked Ravid for this bizarre, Orwellian reasoning. But what almost everybody missed is that Barak Ravid is an Israeli spy – or at least he was until recently. Ravid is a former analyst with Israeli spying agency Unit 8200, and as recently as last year, was still a reservist with the Israeli Defense Forces group.

Unit 8200 is Israel’s largest and perhaps most controversial spying organization. It has been responsible for many high-profile espionage and terror operations, including the recent pager attack that injured thousands of Lebanese civilians. As this investigation will reveal, Ravid is far from the only Israeli ex-spook working at top U.S. media outlets, working hard to manufacture Western support for his country’s actions. Ravid has quickly become one of the most influential individuals in the Capitol Hill press corps. In April, he won the prestigious White House Press Correspondents’ Award “for overall excellence in White House coverage”—one of the highest awards in American journalism. Judges were impressed by what they described as his “deep, almost intimate levels of sourcing in the U.S. and abroad” and picked out six articles as exemplary pieces of journalism.

Most of these stories consisted of simply printing anonymous White House or Israeli government sources, making them look good, and distancing President Biden from the horrors of the Israeli attack on Palestine. As such, there was functionally no difference between these and White House press releases. For example, one story the judges picked out was titled “Scoop: Biden tells Bibi 3-day fighting pause could help secure release of some hostages,” and presented the 46th President of the United States as a dedicated humanitarian hellbent on reducing suffering. Another described how “frustrated” Biden was becoming with Netanyahu and the Israeli government.

Protestors had called on reporters to snub the event in solidarity with their fallen counterparts in Gaza (which, at the time of writing, comes to at least 128 journalists). Not only was there no boycott of the event, but organizers gave their highest award to an Israeli intelligence official-turned-reporter who has earned a reputation as perhaps the most dutiful stenographer of power in Washington. Ravid was personally presented with the award by President Biden, who embraced him like a brother. That a known (former) Israeli spy could hug Biden in such a manner speaks volumes about not only the intimate relationship between the United States and Israel but about the extent to which establishment media holds power to account.

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“..engaged in naked political discrimination..”

SpaceX Sues California over Political Targeting (AmG)

On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has filed a lawsuit against a California state agency over alleged political discrimination against the company. As reported by Politico, the lawsuit stems from the California Coastal Commission’s (CCC) decision to reject SpaceX’s plans to increase the number of experimental rocket launches from the Space Force base in Santa Barbara County. Lawyers from the Los Angeles-based firm Venable LLP, which represents SpaceX, claimed that the CCC made its decision purely due to political differences with Musk, an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump and a vocal critic of Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.).

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Los Angeles, asserts that the CCC and its 12 members “engaged in naked political discrimination” in last week’s debate over a proposal by the Department of Defense (DOD) to expand the number of SpaceX launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The proposal would have seen the number of launches increase from 36 to 50. “Rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit named all 12 members of the commission, as well as executive director Kate Huckelbridge and alternate commissioner Gretchen Newsom, as defendants. The commissioners are appointed by the governor and the legislature. On Thursday, they voted 6-4 in favor of rejecting the DOD plan. However, the debate over the motion prior to the vote quickly veered away from the specifics of the plan itself, and instead focused on Musk’s support for Trump. “Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet,” said Commissioner Newsom, who bears no relation to Governor Newsom. Newsom and Chairwoman Caryl Hart both criticized Musk’s political stances before voting against the deal.

“Many things are said in the course of meetings, whether it’s a Coastal Commission meeting, whether it’s a legislative meeting, whether it’s a planning department,” said Chairwoman Hart on Tuesday, in an attempt to justify her vote. “The basis for this decision is the commission’s conclusion that SpaceX, as a private company engaged in private activities, needs to apply for a coastal development permit.” Although Musk has generally remained a political moderate, he began expressing support for President Trump following the first assassination attempt against him on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania. Since then, Musk has launched the pro-Trump America Pac, which has donated $45 million to supporting Trump’s campaign every month since July. Musk himself appeared onstage with President Trump at his return rally in Butler, just over two months after the assassination attempt; during his speech, he reaffirmed his support for freedom of speech, and urged the audience to get as many people as possible out to vote in the coming election.

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“..X has become “the main hub for spreading antisemitism.”

EU Commissioner Labels Musk ‘Promoter Of Evil’ (RT)

X CEO Elon Musk is unable to “recognize good and evil,” said outgoing EU commissioner for values and transparency, Vera Jourova, accusing the tech billionaire of failing to curb antisemitism on his platform. “We started to relativize evil, and he’s helping it proactively. He’s the promoter of evil,” Jourova told Politico magazine in an interview published on Wednesday, arguing that X has become “the main hub for spreading antisemitism.” Jourova has never met Musk in person. She argued, nevertheless, that “even without this personal meeting, I would say that out of all the bosses I met, he is the only one who is not able to recognize good and evil.” The official added that she was “really scared by digital platforms in bad hands,” and that “we have to be sure that the innovations are developed to do good to people.” She further argued that Musk’s platform failed to take “sufficient action” to tackle antisemitism.

Musk hit back at Jourova on X, saying “if she wants to know what evil looks like, she just needs a mirror.” In 2022, the EU adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA), which allows officials to fine online platforms as much as 6% of their yearly global revenue for failing to remove illegal content and disinformation or respect transparency regulations. In its preliminary findings released in July, the EU accused X of violating the DSA in “areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.” After finalizing the purchase of Twitter in the fall of 2022, Musk promised to rebrand the platform as a more transparent space that is devoted to free speech and is free of censorship. He pledged to combat hate speech and paid a trip to Auschwitz, the site of a former Nazi death camp in Poland, in January.

X has “the least amount of antisemitism” compared to other platforms, Musk argued, adding that “it’s never going to be zero if you’ve got 600 million people on the platform.” Musk also has accused the European Commission of wanting to make him sign “an illegal secret deal” while seeking to quietly censor speech on X.

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“Never been done before – xAI did in 19 days what everyone else needs one year to accomplish. That is superhuman – There’s only one person in the world who could do that – Elon Musk is singular in his understanding of engineering.”

Nvidia CEO Blown Away After Musk Sets Up 100,000 GPUs In 19 Days (ZH)

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says Elon Musk pulled off a “superhuman” feat by setting up a supercluster of 100,000 H200 Blackwell GPUs in just 19 days – a process he says takes everyone else “one year to accomplish.” According to Tom’s Hardware, the xAI team reportedly went from “concept” to full-ready compatibility with Nvidia’s “gear” in less than three weeks – including running xAI’s first AI training run. From start to finish, the process involved building the massive X factory where the GPUs would reside and equipping the entire factory with liquid cooling and power to make all 200,000 GPUs operational. That’s not to mention all of the coordination between Nvidia’s and Elon Musk’s engineering teams to get all of the hardware and infrastructure shipped and installed precisely and in a coordinated manner. What’s more, Huang says that networking Nvidia’s gear isn’t as simple as networking traditional data center servers. “The number of wires that goes in one node…the back of a computer is all wires,” he said, adding that Musk’s integration of 100,000 H200 GPUs has “never been done before,” and probably won’t be repeated by anyone else anytime soon.

Watch:

Nvidia

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Trump SNL

 

 

Survival
https://twitter.com/i/status/1846808880296136837

 

 

Ducks

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 132024
 
 October 13, 2024  Posted by at 8:31 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Max Ernst Ubu Imperator 1923

 

Kamala Unwinding (Kunstler)
US Election ‘Too Close To Call’ In Swing States – WSJ Poll (RT)
The Scent of a Harris Panic in the Air (Victor Davis Hanson)
Shills For Harris (Michael Tracey)
Dems Won’t Certify Election if Trump Wins (HUSA)
Trump’s Toughest Foe Could Be Harris Lawyer Marc Elias (Sperry)
Alien Enemies Act is Not a Viable Legal Basis for “Operation Aurora” (Turley)
Jon Stewart: Americans Don’t Need Guns To Protect Constitutional Rights (ZH)
Biden, Netanyahu Closer to Consensus on Attacking Iran (Antiwar)
Biden Warns Iran Against Going After Trump – WaPo (RT)
CBS News Faces Integrity Crisis Amid Bias Concerns, Missteps (JTN)
3 Million Non-Citizens Have Texas Driver’s Licenses Allowed As Voter ID (JTN)
DOJ Sues Virginia Over Removing Non-Citizens From Voter Rolls (JTN)
NATO Could Have Prevented Ukraine Conflict – Hungary FM (RT)
NATO Planning New Russia Strategy – Politico (RT)
Boeing To Fire 17,000 Employees (RT)

 

 

 

 

Trump ad

Vance

Jan 6

Kirk

Tucker Dhillon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1844809672911679769

Hawley Wray

Judge Thomas

Appellate

 

 

 

 

 

 

“She ends as an historical prank on her own country. It must be deeply demoralizing to be used like that in front of the whole world.”

Kamala Unwinding (Kunstler)

The outstanding question: will the Democratic Party actually go ahead and attempt to execute an election steal despite growing evidence of a developing Trump landslide that might obviate it? The works are already in motion. The mail-in ballots went out long ago and early votes are getting cast by the day. The overseas ballots that require no US address or voter verification are flooding in by the millions and four years of open borders has 10-million illegal aliens (at a minimum) dispersed around the nation, great gobs of them planted in swing states, processed through the DMVs and social services — with the requisite automatic voter registration — their ballots already pre-bundled for harvest.

It could go a few ways. One is, just let’er rip, harvest all those fake votes, stuff the drop-boxes, flood the zone, and do it all right in America’s face as if to say: we can do whatever we want. . . to get whatever we want. . . and you can’t stop us. That is probably the point where blue America finds out exactly what the Second Amendment was designed for. You might also expect a whole lot of state-organized resistance, especially in the populous red ones, Texas, Florida, real court cases over fraud this time, contested certification.

Or, the election could come out a hopeless unresolvable muddle. There’s no precedent for this and no provision in the Constitution, but you can imagine the Supreme Court having to decide a necessary do-over minus all recent gimmicks, paper ballots only, voters with proof of citizenship only, all voting on one re-scheduled election day before January 1. This novelty would be something apart from the clunky Congressional machinery established for settling electoral college disputes, since it is predicated on various states’ inability to determine their electoral college vote in the first place, based on patent irregularity and fraud. You could also imagine a period of disorder so deep and grave that the regime behind “Joe Biden” declares martial law. . . or, alternately the military — the martial institution — has to take matters into its own hands, shoving aside even “Joe Biden” and his filthy retinue. Appalling to consider, I’m sure, but these things happen in history, and the Party of Chaos has set enough mischief in motion to wreck the election and wreck the country. Call it catastrophizing, if you will. There it is.

But to step back from that abyss, it appears that Mr. Trump’s momentum accelerates by the day, that he is becoming, at last, an implacable, irresistible juggernaut who will, perforce, overcome all the gimmicks, traps, and frauds arrayed against him. Kamala seems to think so. Have you ever seen such resignation, such loserdom-in-action as her recent performance on CBS’s 60-Minutes, or her pitiful admission on ABC’s The View that she couldn’t think of anything she would do differently beyond the excellent management of national affairs under “Joe Biden” (and herself as veep). Surely that said it all. She has nothing, brings nothing. Long ago, she was a pretty girl with a law degree and an infectious laugh on the fringes of local politics in San Francisco. The winds of fortune blew her this way and that way until she ended up way over her head, used by the reprobates around her as a mere device to stay out of jail. She ends as an historical prank on her own country. It must be deeply demoralizing to be used like that in front of the whole world.

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With all the shenanigans going on, Trump needs to win by a huge margin. Another reason not to believe these polls.

US Election ‘Too Close To Call’ In Swing States – WSJ Poll (RT)

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are locked into a dead heat in all seven of the battleground states that will decide the outcome of next month’s US presidential election, according to a poll published on Friday by the Wall Street Journal. Sampling 4,200 voters, the poll found Harris with a razor-thin lead over Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and Trump holding a slim advantage in Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. However, the newspaper noted that no lead is wider than two percentage points, except for in Nevada, where Trump leads by five points. All of these results are within the newspaper’s margin of error. Across all seven swing states, Trump leads Harris by 46% to 45%, the poll found. Some 93% of Republicans are backing Trump, while 93% of Democrats are supporting Harris, the WSJ noted, adding that independents prefer Harris by a slim 40% to 39%.

“This thing is a dead heat and is going to come down to the wire. These last three weeks matter,” Republican pollster David Lee, who worked on the survey, told the newspaper. “It really could not be closer,” Democrat pollster Michael Bocian said. “It’s an even-steven, tight, tight race.” A slew of recent polls have shown Trump and Harris within the low single digits of each other in these key states, with Trump gaining the upper hand in every state but Wisconsin in an average compiled by RealClearPolitics. Voters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal ranked the economy and immigration as their top two issues of concern, respectively.

They favored Trump over Harris on economic issues by ten points, and on immigration and border security by 16 points. Harris beat Trump on the issue of abortion by 16 points. By this time in the 2020 campaign, President Joe Biden was leading Trump by five points in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump won all three of these post-industrial northern battlegrounds in 2016, and lost them to Biden in 2020. Winning all three would likely guarantee the presidency to either Trump or Harris this year.

Baris

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“..so far, the cures for the Harris slide are far worse than the malady itself..”

The Scent of a Harris Panic in the Air (Victor Davis Hanson)

The 2024 race is still close. But then so was the 1980 Carter-Reagan race at this same juncture. Indeed, incumbent president Carter was then comfortably up in the last two October Gallup polls—before utterly and suddenly evaporating on Election Day. But in the last seven days, there seems a sense of panic in the Harris campaign. How do we know that? Why are Democratic pundits—from Axelrod to Carville—blasting the Harris campaign and otherwise warning of bad things to come? Why are some of the once Democrat sure-thing senate races—e.g., in Ohio, Wisconsin, and even Michigan—tightening up? Pundit poll-watchers are suggesting that Trump is close, even, or slightly ahead in the swing-state polls, suggesting that he is nearing a margin that could cancel out anticipated “ballot irregularities”.

The expected October Harris-Biden surprises—the opportune Fed interest rate cut, the transparently desperate Jack Smith beefed-up re-indictment, the current new Hollywood Trump-hit movie, the desperate Zelensky fly-in to Pennsylvania, the election-cycle customary Bob Woodward unsourced gossip book—seemed so far to have had no effect. Why would any campaign send out the bumbling Tim Walz to a Fox Sunday interview after his disastrous debate? Why is a suddenly smiling Biden so eager to claim candidate and VP Harris as a co-conspirator to his disastrous four years? Why would Harris pivot and now agree to (admittedly mostly softball) interviews, thus confirming to the voting public why she wisely had previously avoided all press conferences, interviews, and town halls? Why—after the last two moderator-rigged ABC and CBS debates—would Harris desperately want another and possibly believe that Trump would ever agree to any such warped forum?

The last 4-5 Harris scripted interviews, but especially on CBS’s 60 Minutes, have been train wrecks. Everyone expected (and was not disappointed) the on-spec word salads, predictable sappy retreats to her misleading bio, the now accustomed deer-in-the-headlights confusion about her prior three years with Biden, and the general mush in lieu of any policy prescriptions. Why would CBS think it worth ruining its already debased reputation by doctoring the transcript of the Harris disastrous interview in a vain attempt at Orwellian repair? Why is a rusty but still narcissistic Barack Obama at last hitting the campaign trail? And is he still effective—or reduced to becoming an Oprah-like caricature? After all, is it wise for the elite Obama (in his now accustomed snarky “clingers” style) to venture out of his mansions (Kalorama? the Hawaii beachfront? or the Martha Vineyard estate?) to talk down to black males struggling under years of a hyperinflationary economy, a flood of illegal immigrants from an open border, and a four-year-spiking crime rate?

Does the Netflix grandee berating black men as victims of false consciousness, misled, and brainwashed into voting for the Trump agenda really win them over to Harris? Does the hundred-million-dollar-plus man Obama persuade anyone by reverting for a few moments to his old community-organizing, fake black patois and his pseudo-racial intimacy of “brothers”? And does it work for Obama (remember “when they go low, we go high”) to blast Trump as racist and crude, when Obama jokes that Trump wears diapers— this after previously suggesting at the Democratic convention that Trump suffered from small genitalia? If this should continue, soon the July 21st coup that removed Biden, along with the Harris pick of Tim Walz, will go down as days of Democrat infamy. Anything can happen in the next three weeks. But so far, the cures for the Harris slide are far worse than the malady itself.

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“These aforementioned attendees were essentially just “seat fillers” — they were not the audience members who were called on to ask pre-selected questions..”

Shills For Harris (Michael Tracey)

Last night’s Univision “town hall” with Kamala Harris was billed as an exciting opportunity for “undecided Latino voters” to question and evaluate the potential next President of the United States. The corporate press release from Univision advertises it explicitly as such. But viewers at home would have been wholly unaware that this billing was false. As I discovered, having been granted the sacred opportunity to view the event from an adjacent room on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus, the carefully curated “town hall” audience was actually comprised of avowed Harris supporters. “I already knew I was going to go for Kamala,” one town hall participant told me. “Part of the reason why I wanted to go was just, like, to also fully support her.” “So you were already decided, before you came?” I asked another. “Yes,” she replied, declaring her support for Kamala.

The audience members I spoke to were selected with the help of a company called FansOnQ, according to the company’s founder, Conny Quintanilla, whose title for yesterday’s event was “Audience Manager.” The company puts out “casting calls” for events like the Latin Grammy Awards, which have been previously held in Las Vegas. It’s a type of company that you might not be consciously aware exists, but once you’re told of its existence, it makes perfect intuitive sense: people who want to dance at award shows are “vetted” by this particular company, perhaps for good looks and rhythmic skills. That’s the same company which filled the seats at Kamala’s town hall. Another person told me he was able to attend because he “knows people” at an unnamed “progressive organization,” which somehow granted him the ability to get in the town hall audience. The person said he works as an intern for Rep. Steven Horsford, Democrat of Nevada. I’m not naming the person because he was wary of attribution. Others quoted here also didn’t want to be identified.

These aforementioned attendees were essentially just “seat fillers” — they were not the audience members who were called on to ask pre-selected questions. Those audience members were flown in from around the country at Univision’s expense. Which is a bit odd, because there would certainly have been plenty of genuine “undecided Latino voters” in Clark County, Nevada who I’m sure would’ve been more than happy to ask Kamala Harris a question. NOTE: The non-question-asking attendees were still integral to the televisual production of the event, hence their recruitment. Uninformed viewers at home were under the false impression that the people they were watching react to Kamala’s answers were “undecided voters,” when numerous of them were in fact pre-committed Harris voters who sought to attend for the specific purpose of demonstrating their support for Kamala.

Naturally, I wanted to interview the actual question-asking attendees. However, a corporate dictate apparently came down prohibiting this. “We won’t be making them available,” Anna Negron, Director of Corporate Communications at TelevisaUnivision, told me when I asked if there would be an opportunity to interview said audience members. She would not elaborate on the reason for this strange secrecy. Reporter Mark Kellner of the New York Post asked Negron the same question, and was similarly dismissed. So the sum total of the authorized journalistic acts that we were permitted to carry out at this event was to sit in a side room and politely view a generously provided video feed of the “town hall,” which was taped several hours before it aired yesterday. For the record, I don’t think she actually used a teleprompter, despite social media allegations to that effect. I can verify that the event was already contrived enough as it is — no need to embellish any phony stories.

Of course, most journalists covering the event simply repeated the conceit that Kamala was empathetically taking questions from “undecided Latino voters.” In other words, they simply regurgitated the corporate press release. Her actual remarks were bereft of any real substance. The only amusing part was when she name-dropped Alberto Gonzales, the former Attorney General under George W. Bush, as one of her cherished Republican endorsements — adding him to the esteemed roster of Dick and Liz Cheney and myriad “national security officials” affiliated with Mitt Romney and John McCain. Perhaps Kamala calculated that the surname “Gonzales” would be extraordinarily appealing to these allegedly “undecided Latino voters.”

It’s worth briefly reminiscing about what the purpose of a “town hall” has traditionally been: for ‘townspeople’ to gather and air their concerns about issues that most affect them. (“Town halls” are actually how some small New England towns are governed — the town halls effectively become temporary citizen-led legislatures to decide questions around zoning and so forth.) Now, though, they’re just glitzy TV productions that accomplish the polar opposite of the free-flowing dialogue and debate with which the term was once associated. Indeed, these events now more resemble the production values of the Latin Grammy Awards — literally — than a forum to scrutinize candidates for public office.

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‘I’ve been told this type of rhetoric is “dangerous to our democracy” or something…’

Dems Won’t Certify Election if Trump Wins (HUSA)

Despite their constant whining about the Jan. 6, 2021, “insurrection,” the Democrats recently admitted that they won’t certify the 2024 election results if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is elected. Axios reported that the Democrats would certify the election results only if Trump used “free, fair and honest means to secure a victory,” which, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., is not what Trump would do. This statement implies that he would be declared a winner only if he cheats. “[Trump] is doing whatever he can to try to interfere with the process, whether we’re talking about manipulating electoral college counts in Nebraska or manipulating the vote count in Georgia or imposing other kinds of impediments,” the politician told the news source. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., also questioned whether Trump would win the election fair and square, telling Axios that she doesn’t know “what kind of shenanigans he is planning.”

Conservatives on Twitter pointed out the hypocrisy after the article was published. “I’ve been told this type of rhetoric is “dangerous to our democracy” or something,” @Patriot_Vibes wrote. Co-owner of Trending Politics, Colin Rugg, also mocked the Democrats who have been talking non-stop about Republicans and Trump’s alleged attempt to overthrow the government at the beginning of 2021. “The ‘democracy defenders’ won’t commit to certifying an election?” he wrote. Others wrote that the recent news is a warning from Democrats about their own insurrection, this time it being real and violent. Some conservatives noted that hearing about the recent news was not surprising after the Democrats replaced Joe Biden, who was elected by leftists during the primaries, with the current Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, who nobody cared about before the disastrous debate between Trump and Biden.

“No surprise there. They threw democracy out the window when they put Kamala in w/o a single vote. Why wouldn’t they pull some more shenanigans? We’ll get SCOTUS involved if we have to, but they need to do their job or GTFO,” an anonymous person wrote. The Democrats’ recent comments are also unsurprising because Raskin said he would never allow Trump to be in the White House again. “I’ve been warning of this for months. Here is Rep Jamie Raskin confirming what I’ve been predicting. Even if President Trump wins the 2024 election, Democrats will not accept the results and refuse to leave the White House, creating a civil war scenario,” investigative reporter and commentator Drew Hernandez said.

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Elias makes a lot of money. But I think the Steele dossier has tainted him too much to be effective.

“According to court records, Elias acted as a cutout for more than $1 million in campaign payments for the dossier..”

Trump’s Toughest Foe Could Be Harris Lawyer Marc Elias (Sperry)

Elias later testified that he was worried – then as now – that Trump was a threat to democracy: “I received information that was troubling as someone who cares about democracy.” That “information” turned out to be a fictitious “dossier” linking Trump to the Kremlin crafted by former British spook and FBI informant Christopher Steele, who huddled with Elias in his Washington office. “Some of the information that was in it I think has actually proved true. It was accurate and important,” Elias testified in a closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill in December 2017, according to a declassified transcript. Actually, Steele’s allegations proved to be a collection of improbable rumors and fabricated allegations invented by Steele’s top researcher and a Clinton campaign adviser. Nonetheless, the disinformation was fed to the FBI and media, igniting criminal investigations (including illegal electronic surveillance), congressional probes, and a media frenzy that crippled Trump’s presidency with bad press for years.

In a parallel operation against Trump, Elias worked with his then-law partner Michael Sussmann and Clinton campaign officials – including Jake Sullivan, who is now President Biden’s national security adviser – to develop misleading evidence of a “secret hotline” between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that allegedly used a “back channel” connection between email servers at Trump Tower and Russian-owned Alfa Bank. These false allegations were posted on social media and brought to the attention of the FBI, triggering a separate criminal investigation targeting Trump and his campaign. Like other Russiagate probes, it was eventually discredited. But the damage was done. By spreading fake Russian dirt on Trump, Elias was able to create scandals that dogged Trump for years, tarnishing his electability. The Democratic lawyer’s machinations, however, drew scrutiny from other investigators and hurt his own reputation – albeit temporarily.

During his probe of Russiagate, Special Counsel John Durham found Elias intentionally sought to conceal Clinton’s role in the dossier. According to court records, Elias acted as a cutout for more than $1 million in campaign payments for the dossier. By laundering its payments through a law firm, the Clinton campaign and Elias were able to claim attorney-client confidentiality when Durham sought their internal emails (the assertion of that privilege also blocked investigators from accessing communications between Elias and Steele’s immediate employer, the Washington-based opposition research firm, FusionGPS). But their shell game got the Clinton campaign in trouble with the Federal Election Commission, which later fined it and the Democratic National Committee $113,000 for misreporting the purpose of the payments as “legal expenses,” rather than opposition research, in violation of FEC laws.

The Durham probe, which Elias insists was “politically motivated,” nonetheless raised ethical issues with the D.C. Bar and Elias’ former law firm, Perkins Coie, reportedly leading to their breakup in August 2021, when Elias suddenly left the powerhouse after almost 30 years. The firm, which Elias had joined fresh out of law school in 1993, grew “increasingly uncomfortable” with the unwanted scrutiny the Durham probe invited on it, according to published reports. The veteran prosecutor exposed questionable billing practices by the firm. Durham also revealed the Democratic firm had set up an FBI workspace within its Washington offices, further calling into question the FBI’s impartiality in investigating Trump. In late 2021, Elias opened his own firm, the Elias Law Group, but soon lost major clients who reportedly grew weary of his aggressive tactics and go-it-alone style.

Last year, the DNC severed its 15-year relationship with Elias; then more recently, the Biden campaign parted company with him. In 2020, Elias had quarterbacked Biden’s legal team that fought Trump’s claims in court that the election had been stolen. He also beat back GOP measures to ensure election integrity after Democrats took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to dramatically loosen rules for voting – including allowing ballot harvesting, drop boxes, and ballots arriving up to four days after Election Day to still be counted. Top Democratic Party officials were said to sour on Elias after he filed election-related lawsuits without consulting with them, some of which backfired with unfavorable – and lasting – rulings. Biden’s team reportedly also became frustrated with his fees. Elias billed the DNC and Biden campaign more than $20 million during the 2020 election cycle.

But Elias has since taken on other clients – including Kamala Harris – who have more than made up for the loss in revenue. So far in this election cycle, the latest FEC filings show the Elias Law Group has received a total of more than $22 million in disbursements from a host of major Democratic and anti-Trump clients.

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It’s a war act. But there’s no war.

Alien Enemies Act is Not a Viable Legal Basis for “Operation Aurora” (Turley)

In announcing his “Operation Aurora,” former President Donald Trump has suggested that he may use the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798 to crackdown on “every illegal migrant criminal network operating on American soil.” The plan to begin mass deportations is certainly popular with the public, according to polling. However, without a declaration of war, he will likely have to look to alternative statutory vehicles for a peacetime operation. This is not the first time that the Trump campaign has invoked the AEA. Last year, the campaign cited the law as giving it the power to “remove all known or suspected gang Members, drug dealers, or Cartel Members from the U.S.” The AEA has only been used three times and each time we were in a declared war: the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II. It is a law that became infamous in its use to put Japanese, German, and Italian civilians in internment camps during World War II. In DeLacey v. United States in 1918, the Ninth Circuit wrote that:

“The first reported case arising under the [AEA] is [by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in] Lockington’s Case [in 1814] … Lockington … had refused to comply with the executive order of February 23, 1813, requiring alien enemies who were within 40 miles of tidewater to retire to such places beyond that distance from tidewater as should be designated by the marshals. He was arrested, and on petition for habeas corpus attempted to test the legality of his imprisonment. Chief Justice Tilghman said of the [AEA]: “It is a provision for the public safety, which may require that the alien should not be removed, but kept in the country under proper restraints. … It is never to be forgotten that the main object of the law is to provide for the safety of the country from enemies who are suffered to remain within it. In order to effect this safety, it might be necessary to act on sudden emergencies. … The President, being best acquainted with the danger to be apprehended, is best able to judge of the emergency which might render such measures necessary. Accordingly, we find that the powers vested in him are expressed in the most comprehensive terms.”

The laws sweeping language makes it ripe for abuse. Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Brackenridge in Lockington’s Case (1814) observed that under the AEA “the President would seem to be constituted, as to this description of persons, with the power of a Roman dictator or consul, in extraordinary cases, when the Republic was in danger, that it sustain no damage: ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat.” However, the AEA’s only limiting language is found in the triggering language for those powers: “Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event…” In Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160 (1948), the Supreme Court held Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote a supportive decision of the presidential authority under the AEA on when the powers expired, but not when the powers begin:

“And so we reach the claim that, while the President had summary power under the Act, it did not survive cessation of actual hostilities. This claim in effect nullifies the power to deport alien enemies, for such deportations are hardly practicable during the pendency of what is colloquially known as the shooting war. Nor does law lag behind common sense. War does not cease with a cease-fire order, and power to be exercised by the President such as that conferred by the Act of 1798 is a process which begins when war is declared but is not exhausted when the shooting stops.” This broad granting of authority under the AEA is obviously a great attraction for presidents who have rarely hesitated to use the maximal levels of their powers. However, the threshold requirement of a declared war has proven the limiting element and it is telling that the law been used only three times by presidents.

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“Once a government has a monopoly on violence, the concept of public consent is meaningless..”

Jon Stewart: Americans Don’t Need Guns To Protect Constitutional Rights (ZH)

Donald Trump’s recent return to Butler, PA where he was nearly assassinated due to Secret Service incompetence (or deliberate failure) has got the political left all worked up. Perhaps in part because Thomas Crooks failed to complete his task despite being given every conceivable opportunity to succeed, but also because Elon Musk was there to support the rally. Nothing Musk said was particularly shocking to normal Americans, but his comments on the necessity of the 2nd Amendment as a means to keep the 1st Amendment have outraged Democrats. Coastal progressives in particular have sought to disarm the rest of the nation for decades. Gun control and ultimately gun confiscation are foundational policies that their movement revolves around. The question is, why? Why are they so desperate to violate the Bill of Rights and take firearms away?

They certainly don’t care about people’s safety. If they did, they wouldn’t have cheered on the baseless and violent BLM and Antifa riots. Social media is replete with woke activists calling for the deaths of conservatives. These are not peaceful people seeking nirvana, they are happy to use violence if they think it will get them more power. This is a problem that old-school Democrats like Jon Stewart continue to enable while pretending it doesn’t exist. Stewart, clinging to cultural relevancy on his newly rebooted Daily Show, attempted to lampoon Elon Musk over his assertions on the 2A in Butler, but his strange diatribe about representative democracy is a retro callback to the 1990s and comes off as rather naive. Does Stewart really believe this nonsense? It’s hard to say, but the past few years have made his arguments obsolete.

The 1st Amendment is not protected by the “consent of the governed.” Americans just experienced a three year period of active censorship under the Biden Administration working closely with Big Tech and social media companies. Stewart shrugs off such censorship as if it’s overblown and doesn’t matter, but even Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook was under pressure from the establishment to silence dissent on a number of issues from covid mandates to Hunter Biden’s laptop. Contrary to Stewart’s delusions about democracy, the reality is that the Constitution does not defend itself. According to polls a large number of Democrats desired the erasure of numerous rights during the covid scare. They don’t represent the majority, but there is more than enough of them to add weight to any authoritarian effort. And, the only thing stopping them from getting everything they want is the existence of millions of American gun owners.

It’s not as if the progressive/globalist establishment intends to give up, either. As John Kerry noted during a climate conference held by the WEF in September, their open intent is to shut down free speech rights regardless of the democratic process. If they could get rid of the 1st Amendment, they would. The only reason they haven’t is because the US government doesn’t have a monopoly on force. In Stewart’s fantasy land, a free Republic is a self perpetuating entity that continues on for eternity once it is set in motion, driven only by the goodness and purity of ideology and the voting process. But elections can be subverted by top-down corruption and the system has clearly been broken for some time. One only need to look at the malicious government crackdown on speech happening in the UK to see what happens when a population is disarmed.

There are examples of this across the globe, yet in the world of The Daily Show there is some kind of magical force embedded in “democracy” that protects the populace from abuse. To be sure, the act of violent rebellion is generally a last resort after all other measures have been exhausted. It’s just important to recognize that there’s always a breaking point and America is very close now. Stewart ironically contradicts his own premise when he claims guns “only protect the speech of the people holding the guns.” Yes Jon, that’s why the 2A exists, so that everyone’s speech is protected. Because a representative government can become a tyrannical government as easily as any other government. All it takes is time. The 2A ensures that the “consent of the governed” is never manufactured or forced without the threat of rebellion. Once a government has a monopoly on violence, the concept of public consent is meaningless and the elites will do as they please.

As Thomas Jefferson once wisely stated in reference to the potential for future citizen rebellion: “…What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

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WWIII as their legacy for Trump.

Biden, Netanyahu Closer to Consensus on Attacking Iran (Antiwar)

President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved closer to an understanding on Israel’s plans to attack Iran during their phone call on Wednesday, Axios reported on Thursday. The report, which cited US and Israeli officials, said that the US had accepted Israel is going to launch a major attack on Iran soon and is only concerned that striking certain types of targets could dramatically escalate things. However, Iran has vowed it will respond to any type of Israeli attack, and the situation could easily turn into a full-blown war that would involve the US. An Israeli official told Axios that the Israeli plans are still a bit more aggressive than the US would like. The US has been warning against striking nuclear facilities or oil infrastructure, and recent media reports have said Israel will likely target military infrastructure.

Netanyahu convened his security cabinet on Thursday to brief them on the situation with the US and is expected to get approval for him and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to set a timeline for the Israeli attack. The Times of Israel reported that the US and Israel will continue conversations on the plans in the coming days, signaling the attack is not imminent. NBC News reported on Tuesday that the US was considering supporting Israel’s attack with direct airstrikes of its own, although US officials said intelligence support was more likely. The Jerusalem Post reported that the US was offering Israel a “compensation package” of military aid and full diplomatic support if it only hits US-approved targets in Iran. The US has also committed to defending Israel from any Iranian response.

Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last week in response to a string of Israeli escalations, including the assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. Immediately after the attack, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US would work with Israel to ensure Iran suffers “severe consequences.”

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So noble.

Biden Warns Iran Against Going After Trump – WaPo (RT)

US president Joe Biden has told the White House National Security Council to warn Iran against trying to assassinate Donald Trump, the Washington Post has reported. The message that the US president wanted to be relayed to Tehran was that Washington would treat any attempt on the life of his predecessor, or on that of any other former American official, as an act of war, the paper wrote on Friday. WaPo cited National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett, who insisted that Biden has directed “every resource” to make sure that the Republican Party nominee is well protected and that his security detail receives intelligence data in a timely manner about any dangers he might face. “We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority, and we strongly condemn Iran for these brazen threats,” Savett stated.

Tehran will face “severe consequences” if it attacks any American citizen, including people who “continue to serve the US or those who formerly served,” he stressed. Late last month, Trump claimed that there were “big threats” on his life, coming from Iran. He said that the two assassination attempts against him in recent months, at a rally in Pennsylvania in July then, in September, at his golf club in Florida, “may or may not involve” Tehran. WaPo, citing sources familiar with the matter, wrote that currently there is no evidence tying Tehran to either of the incidents. The former president’s statement came a day after his team announced that they had a meeting with representatives of US intelligence, who warned them about Tehran’s alleged plans to kill Trump and to “sow chaos” in the country.

Politico said on Friday that it had talked to dozens of officials, who claimed that Iran’s efforts to kill Trump, as well as persons involved in the assassination of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, were “even more extensive and aggressive than previously reported.” Soleimani died in a US drone strike outside an airport in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in January 2020, during Trump’s period in office, and Iran has promised that he would be avenged. However, after Trump was wounded in the ear in an assassination attempt on July 13, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani stressed that Tehran “strongly rejects” any suggestion that it was involved. “Iran is determined to pursue legal action against Trump for his direct role in the crime of assassinating Martyr General Qassem Soleimani,” Kanaani said.

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“About the notion that broadcast licenses should be up for bidding anew, Collins said: “If it causes a conversation in the halls of New York, and panic, maybe I’m all for it.”

CBS News Faces Integrity Crisis Amid Bias Concerns, Missteps (JTN)

CBS News was once home to giants in the journalism industry. Walter Cronkite – known as “the most trusted man in America” – broadcast from a bomber in WWII on a mission over Germany. Edward R. Murrow changed investigative reporting forever with a 1960 documentary that is still taught in journalism schools today. And Mike Wallace could stir fear in the hearts of interview subjects with a simple phone call from his “60 Minutes” office. But today the news giant once heralded as the “Tiffany network” is blinking with crisis as the neutrality of its anchors is challenged and the integrity of editing at its most famous news magazine has been questioned. Many believe the storm of credibility was born two decades ago when then-Anchor Dan Rather’s supposed scoop on George W. Bush’s Vietnam war service factually crumbled, a miscue so embarrassing it sunk the 60 Minutes II franchise for good.

But a steady run of miscues and clashes in the era of Donald Trump and Middle East war has only inflamed the distrust – at least among conservatives – to scandalous levels and left a cloud lingering over the entire CBS News franchise. The most recent accusations of liberal bias exploded when CBS announced ahead of the vice presidential debate between Republican Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee, that its moderators would not “fact-check” the candidates’ answers. Instead, CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan pulled a fast one, and several times argued with him about assertions. At one point when Vance answered their questions pushing back, they interrupted him and cut his mic off. In another event, The Free Press reported that a memo from Mark Memmott, the network’s director of standards and practices, told CBS reporters not to refer to Jerusalem as being in Israel, though it is the nation’s capital city and home to the U.S. embassy.

But perhaps the most politically incendiary incident, and the one that has Trump calling for CBS to lose its broadcast license, involved “60 Minutes” on Monday, when the network’s flagship news show was caught subbing one rambling answer from Vice President Kamala Harris for a more coherent one. “60 Minutes is a major part of the News Organization of CBS, which has just created the Greatest Fraud in Broadcast History,” Trump posted on social media after the Monday night show aired. “CBS should lose its license, and it should be bid out to the Highest Bidder, as should all other Broadcast Licenses, because they are just as corrupt as CBS — and maybe even WORSE!” The Harris interview was conducted by Bill Whitaker at the Naval Observatory over the weekend and an edited portion aired on “Face the Nation,” also a CBS show.

When Whittaker asked about U.S. diplomacy in Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction to the Biden administration’s desire to scale down the war against Hamas, Harris responded with: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.” But when the question aired later on “60 Minutes,” the response by Harris was different. “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end,” the presidential nominee said. In an additional social-media post by Trump, he said: “With me, 60 Minutes does the exact opposite! They take everything I say, realize how totally BRILLIANT it is, and take it out. So, with Kamala they add, with ‘TRUMP’ they delete. Like the Democrat Party, THEY ARE A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”

While progressive pundits quickly came to the defense of CBS, saying that edits for the sake of time and “concision” are common in news media, Trump’s assertion that broadcast licenses ought to be in play due to media bias is gaining traction among conservatives. “I want to hold these people responsible. We’re giving them FCC licenses. They don’t deserve them,” Arizona senatorial candidate Kari Lake said Thursday on the “Just the News, No Noise,” TV show with host John Solomon. Broadcast licenses are considered a shared “public common” after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, an obscenity case, that the federal government had jurisdiction to manage the airwaves.

Similarly, former Congressman Doug Collins, who has served as legal counsel for Trump, told co-host Amanda Head that some of Trump’s lawyers will be filing an FEC complaint claiming that CBS has been making in-kind political contributions to the Harris-Walz campaign. About the notion that broadcast licenses should be up for bidding anew, Collins said: “If it causes a conversation in the halls of New York, and panic, maybe I’m all for it.” Michael Whatley, the chair of the Republican National Committee, called the behavior of CBS “appalling” during the “John Solomon Reports” podcast Thursday. “CBS and 60 Minutes are lying to the American people about what was said and what was done in that interview,” Whatley said. “This is just the latest example that the media is absolutely not going to play it straight.” Noting the rise of alternative media and falling ratings for broadcast news shows, he added: “There is a reckoning that is taking place with the mainstream, traditional media outlets that’s long overdue.”

Falling ratings are a long-term problem and has caused layoffs – and O’Donnell took a pay cut in 2022 to $3.8 million annually, down from $8 million previously – but as recently as four years ago the vice presidential debate between Harris and then-Vice President Mike Pence, scored 25 percent more viewers than did last month’s Vance-Walz debate. Another problem faced by CBS is its decision in February to lay off senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge after she reported stories that irritated progressive activists, including some involving the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has launched an investigation into Herridge’s termination.

Herridge went on to say that when she interviewed then-President Trump in 2020, CBS News posted the entire interview transcript. And on Wednesday, Herridge weighed in on the “60 Minutes” fiasco, posting on the X social-media platform: “As Trump campaign calls on @60Minutes to release ‘full, unedited transcript’ of Kamala Harris interview … there is precedent.” The New York Post quoted unnamed sources as saying that “Herridge had pushed for the publication of her full transcript at the time and that it was a “special case.” “It’s about transparency and standing behind the integrity of the final edit,” Herridge posted Wednesday.

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How on earth can you hold a free and fair election under such rules?

3 Million Non-Citizens Have Texas Driver’s Licenses Allowed As Voter ID (JTN)

Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy and state Rep. Brian Harrison, R, said that the Texas Department of Public Safety has confirmed there are nearly 3 million non-citizens with driver’s licenses in the state that secretary of state has allowed for use as voter ID. The announcement on Thursday came after an Tuesday advisory by the Texas secretary of state’s elections director, Christina Worrell Adkins, which states that while non-citizen driver’s licenses are not acceptable as voter ID, they can be used if the person is already a registered voter. “BREAKING: according to [Texas Department of Public Safety] – 2,824,613 non-citizens have DL’s, CDL’s, or ID – after working with my friend [Brian Harrison] to run this to ground. That’s why this matters – a lot,” Roy posted on X on Thursday as he shared his earlier post with a Texas Scorecard article about non-citizens using driver’s licenses as voter ID.

“Almost 3 million non-citizens have been issued driver licenses, CDLs, or IDs in Texas,” Harrison wrote Thursday as he shared Roy’s post on X. “The Secretary of State’s office is instructing poll workers to give ballots to people with non-citizen driver licenses. [Chip Roy] is right: ‘this matters a lot.’ Developing..” The secretary of state’s advisory explains that only U.S. citizens are permitted to register to vote and cast ballots in Texas. However, the guidance also states that a person with a non-citizen driver’s license or identification card can vote if they are listed on the voter rolls. If the person is not on the voter rolls and has a non-citizen driver’s license or ID, then they may still vote by provisional ballot.

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Fill up the voter rolls with illegals well in advance and no-one can take them off less than 90 days before the election.

DOJ Sues Virginia Over Removing Non-Citizens From Voter Rolls (JTN)

The Department of Justice has sued Virginia over removing non-citizens from its voter rolls ahead of the November election. The DOJ announced the suit Friday against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Virginia State Board of Elections, and the Virginia Commissioner of Elections for allegedly violating the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The NVRA prevents states from using systematic programs to remove ineligible voters from voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election, according to the DOJ. “As the National Voter Registration Act mandates, officials across the country should take heed of the law’s crystal clear and unequivocal restrictions on systematic list maintenance efforts that fall within 90 days of an election,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement. “By cancelling voter registrations within 90 days of Election Day, Virginia places qualified voters in jeopardy of being removed from the rolls and creates the risk of confusion for the electorate.

Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act’s quiet period restriction to prevent error-prone, eleventh hour efforts that all too often disenfranchise qualified voters,” she added. “The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy and the Justice Department will continue to ensure that the rights of qualified voters are protected.” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) slammed the DOJ over the litigation. “With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls – a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a non-citizen and then registering to vote,” Youngkin said in a statement Friday.

“Virginians – and Americans – will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy. With the support of our Attorney General, we will defend these commonsense steps, that we are legally required to take, with every resource available to us. Virginia’s election will be secure and fair, and I will not stand idly by as this politically motivated action tries to interfere in our elections, period.” The DOJ lawsuit come two weeks after the department sued Alabama for removing ineligible voters from its voter rolls.

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“..the main goal of Russian diplomacy is now “crisis management and the prevention of… a truly large-scale conflict.”

NATO Could Have Prevented Ukraine Conflict – Hungary FM (RT)

The current standoff between Russia and the West could have been avoided if NATO and the US had engaged in serious talks on Moscow’s demand for security guarantees, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has argued. In December 2021, two months before Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine, it submitted a list of security proposals to NATO and the US, insisting that the bloc withdraw its military infrastructure to the 1997 borders. The key point of the document was to halt NATO’s expansion, particularly regarding Ukraine, which has long sought to join the military bloc. However, the bloc rejected the proposal, citing its “open-door policy” on new members. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that one of the key reasons for the conflict was the threat of Kiev’s potential NATO membership.

In an interview with RIA Novosti on Saturday, Szijjarto suggested that the Russian terms could have served as a basis for avoiding the Ukraine conflict. “I remember those times. I think that what was missing there was a serious discussion… I do believe that if someone has an issue… then it should be discussed. And these discussions have not taken place, unfortunately,” the diplomat said. Szijjarto acknowledged that any debate on what might have happened is now moot, but stressed that he wishes “those dialogues had taken place. Because if they had taken place, we might not be in the situation we are right now.” In May, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Moscow’s proposal on security guarantees was no longer on the table, and that the main goal of Russian diplomacy is now “crisis management and the prevention of… a truly large-scale conflict.”

Szijjarto, along with other top Hungarian officials, have repeatedly criticized the West’s approach to the Ukraine crisis, calling on both sides to reach a ceasefire and start peace talks. He has also blasted Western sanctions against Moscow as ineffective and crippling the EU economy. Russia has never ruled out talks on Ukraine, and Putin said in June that Moscow would immediately agree to a ceasefire and start peace talks if Kiev were to withdraw troops from the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions and commit to neutrality. Later, he said that any engagement was out of the question as long as Ukrainian troops occupy part of Russia’s Kursk Region.

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“..options for fighting Russia are being continuously worked out within the bloc, military budgets of member states are being boosted, and Western economies are being militarized..”

NATO Planning New Russia Strategy – Politico (RT)

NATO’s defense ministers will meet in Brussels next week to start rethinking the bloc’s decades-old strategy on relations with Russia, Politico has reported Despite ties between NATO and Russia hitting “rock bottom” after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the ‘Founding Act’ with Moscow remains in force within the US-led alliance, the outlet noted in an article on Friday. The 1997 document, which states that NATO and Russia share a common goal to “build a stable, peaceful and undivided Europe,” does not reflect the current situation, Politico wrote. During its summit in Washington in July, NATO labeled Moscow the “most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security,” while Russia continues to insist that the bloc’s eastward expansion is an “existential danger” for the country.

NATO countries are now trying to “map out different elements of [the Russia] strategy and advance the debates inside the alliance that takes us to subjects like the future of the NATO-Russia Founding Act,” a senior US official was quoted by Politico as saying. “It is time to now craft a new strategy in terms of specific positions” of the member states, the official added. Lower-level discussions on the new Russia policy have been underway for months within the bloc, and next week the issue will be addressed at the ministerial level, the report said. NATO previously announced that it planned to formulate a new strategy before its summit in The Hague, to be held next summer. “Right now we have to have an understanding across the alliance… that the [Founding Act] and the NATO-Russia Council were built for a different era, and I think the allies are prepared to say that was a different era in our relationship with Russia, and therefore something new is merited,” the US official explained.

The official described the strategy as a “political exercise,” adding that its military implications are expected to be “limited.” According to Politico, there are differences among members when it comes to the new policy towards Moscow, as some are concerned that an overly aggressive “signal” could “destabilize” Russia. There are also questions over Hungary and Slovakia, which see “strategic value” in engaging with Moscow, despite being NATO members, it added. Earlier this week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko said NATO is no longer hiding the fact that it is bracing for a potential military conflict with Moscow. Possible options for fighting Russia are being continuously worked out within the bloc, military budgets of member states are being boosted, and Western economies are being militarized, he said. It was not Russia but NATO that took “the path of confrontation” by refusing to engage in dialogue, Grushko insisted. Because of this, the US-led bloc bears full responsibility for a “major European security crisis” caused by the Ukraine conflict, he added.

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“We reset our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and to a more focused set of priorities..”

Boeing To Fire 17,000 Employees (RT)

The US manufacturer Boeing has announced plans to eliminate around 10% of its workforce over the coming months, as the aerospace giant’s losses continue to mount and a strike undercuts the production of its best-selling planes. The job cuts will include executives and managers in addition to ordinary employees, according to a memo shared by the company’s new president and CEO Kelly Ortberg on Friday. The corporation employs nearly 170,000 people worldwide. “Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together,” said Ortberg, who became CEO of the troubled aircraft maker two months ago. A month after he took the helm, 33,000 hourly workers went on strike. “We reset our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and to a more focused set of priorities,” he added.

The “tough” decision is aimed at completing structural changes that will ensure the company’s ability to stay competitive and execute the customers’ orders over the long term, the CEO emphasized. Ortberg added that Boeing is also delaying its program to develop the 777X airplane until 2026 and halting production of its commercial 767 freighters in 2027 after fulfilling remaining orders. Earlier this week, Boeing said it had filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against the union that represents its striking West Coast factory workers. The company emphasized that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers had failed to bargain in good faith during the four-week work stoppage, adding that it was “issuing misinformation to its members about the status of negotiations.”

The company earlier withdrew a contract offer it had made to the striking machinists, saying that further negotiations “do not make sense at this point.” The union had previously stated that Boeing had refused to improve wages, retirement plans and vacation or sick leave. In a preliminary report on the financial results issued on Friday, the corporation said it expects to have an operating cash outflow of $1.3 billion in the third quarter, and that it will report a loss of $9.97 per share.

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Maher

 

 

Phone frogs

 

 

Material girl

 

 

Voila
https://twitter.com/i/status/1844929481615790263

 

 

 

 

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May 122024
 


Pablo Picasso Le repos 1932
This painting has a story. It’s very funny.

 

2024 Election Likely The Last To Be Decided By US Citizens – Musk (RT)
James Carville Rages at Trump’s Success (MN)
Bill Maher Upends Stormy Daniels’ Testimony With 2018 Footage (ZH)
Nuland Explains Why US Never Pushed Ukraine Into Talks With Russia (RT)
Ukrainian Government Warns Citizens Of Possible Full Mobilization (RT)
Trump Sees Biden Willing To Stop All Aid To Israel Soon (TASS)
Revisionism Erasing Russia’s Lead Role in WWII Akin to Holocaust Denial (Sp.)
Judge Trashes Election Lawsuit by the Elias Law Firm (Turley)
Macron ‘Hopes’ France Won’t Go To War With Russia (RT)
Xi’s Grand Chess Game: How China Outplays US in Europe (Sp.)
Will Xi Pry Europe From US? (Sp.)

 

 

Maher
https://twitter.com/i/status/1789128345478717768

 

 

Benz DARPA

 

 

Falcon booster

 

 

Ritter Egypt

 

 

Eurovision

 

 

 

 

“..disenfranchise US citizens by importing as many illegal immigrants as possible.”

2024 Election Likely The Last To Be Decided By US Citizens – Musk (RT)

The continuing influx of illegal immigrants into the US could mean that American citizens could cease to decide the outcome of elections in the country in the not-too-distant future, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has predicted. The South African-born billionaire claimed that the Democrats are wittingly refusing to address the issue in the hope of skewing the balance in their favor going forward. Musk’s recent comment came in response to Republican lawmakers passing the Equal Representation Act in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, which would require the Census Bureau to ask respondents about their citizenship in its 10-year surveys. GOP representatives want only US citizens to be counted when determining the number of congressional seats in each state. Speaker Mike Johnson argued that “we should not reward states and cities that violate federal immigration laws and maintain sanctuary policies with increased Congressional representation.”

“Common sense dictates that only American citizens should be counted for electoral apportionment,” he insisted. Democratic Representative Grace Meng described the initiative as “reckless, cynical, and frankly, illegal.” President Joe Biden’s office was quick to state that it “strongly opposes” the measure, “which would preclude the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau from performing its constitutionally mandated responsibility.” In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, Musk wrote that “Unanimous Democrat opposition to requiring citizenship for apportionment of House seats and Presidential electoral college votes says it all.” According to the entrepreneur, “the Democratic Party goal is to disenfranchise US citizens by importing as many illegal immigrants as possible.” “Given the massive influx of illegals from every country on Earth, 2024 will probably be the last election actually decided by US citizens,” Musk concluded.

Last month, he warned that a terrorist attack on the scale of September 11, 2001 on US soil was “only a matter of time,” considering the number of people who have entered the country illegally. In February, the billionaire alleged that the Biden administration is seeking to import as many illegal immigrants as possible, legalize them, and “create a permanent majority – a one-party state.” According to some estimates, there could be as many as 16 million illegal migrants in the US at this point, including over 7.2 million who entered during Biden’s tenure. The issue of lax security at the US-Mexican border has dominated domestic politics in America for months, with Republicans advocating tougher controls and Democrats arguing in favor of a more liberal approach to the issue.

Read more …

“You know this guy’s gonna win by the way, this guy’s gonna win,” said Cuomo.”

James Carville Rages at Trump’s Success (MN)

Veteran political strategist James Carville says “Trump’s more ahead than he’s ever been” as he urged Democrats to try something different because everything they do is “not working.” Trump’s more ahead than he’s ever been,” said Carville, lamenting how fewer Americans than ever are concerned about what happened on January 6. “It’s going the wrong way. It’s not working. Everything we’re that throwing is spaghetti at a wall, and none of it is sticking, me included,” said Carville. “We gotta try to think of something different. Because what we’re doing is really, really not working,” he emphasized.

The former lead strategist in Bill Clinton’s winning 1992 Presidential campaign expressed frustration at his own inability to effect the outcome, lamenting, “The opinion I’ve come to is that I don’t matter.” “It doesn’t matter. You can prepare and you can be on TV, you can write pieces, you can have a YouTube channel, you can have a podcast and nothing, nothing!” Carville complained. “We’ve got to try to think of something different because what we’re doing in really really not working,” he asserted. MSNBC talking heads expressed similar frustration that Americans are no longer buying their hysterical narratives when they were dumbfounded by a new PBS Newshour/NPR/Marist poll that found more Americans believe Joe Biden is a threat to Democracy than Donald Trump.

The sentiment that Trump is on course to win and there’s little Democrats can do about it now they’ve chosen to run a borderline dementia patient in Joe Biden is widely shared. Back in January, top pollster Frank Lunzt said he thought Trump was “done” after January 6 and impeachment but can now barely bring himself to admit that Trump is likely to win the presidency. Former CNN host Chris Cuomo also recently said Trump will win the election and that he’s never seen as much energy behind a candidate, even more so than Obama in 2008. “You know this guy’s gonna win by the way, this guy’s gonna win,” said Cuomo.

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“..So I just think she’s not a good witness.”

Bill Maher Upends Stormy Daniels’ Testimony With 2018 Footage (ZH)

Comedian Bill Maher just used footage from a 2018 interview with Stormy Daniels to reveal that she completely contradicted her own testimony in the Trump ‘hush-money’ trial last week. After laying out how the Democrats have fumbled the ball on virtually every case against Trump, Maher turned his attention to Daniels, who he called a “bad witness.” “Because, let me show you a little video. This is when I had Stormy on in 2018, and first I asked her why she had sex with Trump… listen to that, and then listen to what she says after that.”

Maher, in 2018, asked her: “Why did you fuck Donald Trump?” saying moments later “but you say it’s not a ‘me-too’ case,” referring to the flood of rape accusations against various men in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. To which Daniels replies: “It is not a ‘me-too’ case. I mean I wasn’t assaulted, I wasn’t attacked or raped or coerced or blackmailed. They tried to shove me in the ‘me-too’ box as part of their own agenda, and first of all I didn’t want to be part of that because it’s not the truth and I’m not a victim in that regard.” Maher then contrasts that statement with Daniels’ testimony last week, saying “she’s talking about he was ‘bigger and blocking the way,’ – it’s all the me-too buzzwords.

During her testimony last week, Daniels claimed “There was an imbalance of power, for sure. He was bigger and blocking the way, but I was not threatened either verbally or physically,” she said, also claiming that she ‘blacked out.’ “She said there was an imbalance of power, for sure. My hands were shaking so hard. She said she blacked out. Blacked out? She’s a porn star. You really think she blacked out? A porn star is used to having sex with people she does not know. That’s the job. It’s kinda like ‘stormy, Bob, Bob, stormy, fuck!’ So I just think she’s not a good witness.”

Maher

Read more …

They weren’t strong enough to talk. So we made them fight instead.

Nuland Explains Why US Never Pushed Ukraine Into Talks With Russia (RT)

Ukraine has never been in a position to get a favorable settlement to end the enduring conflict with Russia and so Washington has never actually encouraged Kiev to negotiate with Moscow, former US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and former acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has claimed. The ex-official and one of the key proponents of supporting Ukraine through military means made the remark in an interview with Politico published on Saturday. A vast part of the interview revolved around the Ukrainian conflict, with Nuland producing a typical mainstream American assessment of it. “Let’s start with the fact that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has already failed in his objective. He wanted to flatten Ukraine. He wanted to ensure that they had no sovereignty, independence, agency, no democratic future – because a democratic Ukraine, a European Ukraine, is a threat to his model for Russia, among other things, and because it’s the first building block for his larger territorial ambitions,” Nuland asserted, without providing any supporting evidence.

The official insisted that Kiev can still “succeed” in the conflict, though she dodged the question of whether she believes Ukraine could seize its former territories from Russia, including the Crimean Peninsula, which broke away from Kiev in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup and joined Moscow after a referendum. “It can definitely get to a place where it’s strong enough, I believe, and where Putin is stymied enough to go to the negotiating table from a position of strength. It’ll be up to the Ukrainian people what their territorial ambitions should be,” she said, adding that “whatever is decided on Crimea, it can’t be remilitarized such that it’s a dagger at the heart of the center of Ukraine.”The former official revealed Washington has never actually pressed Kiev into negotiations with Moscow, claiming its “negotiating position” was never actually strong enough, including in late 2022.

“They were not in a strong enough position then. They’re not in a strong enough position now. The only deal Putin would have cut then, the only deal that he would cut today, at least before he sees what happens in our election, is a deal in which he says, ‘What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is negotiable.’ And that’s not sustainable,” she claimed. Victoria Nuland has been widely perceived as one of the key figures behind the whole Ukrainian crisis that started with the Maidan events, which ultimately brought down Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2014. The diplomat, who at the time was Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, infamously showed up among Maidan activists, handing out pastries. The affair became widely known as “Nuland’s cookies,” serving as a textbook example of direct US involvement in the coup.

Read more …

The end of Zelensky.

Ukrainian Government Warns Citizens Of Possible Full Mobilization (RT)

The entire Ukrainian society would need to make sacrifices and forget about their peaceful lives to defeat such an enemy as Russia, Defense Ministry spokesman Dmitry Lazutkin has argued. Kiev is overhauling its military service system to boost conscription numbers following a series of setbacks in its conflict with Moscow, with harsh reforms set to come into force next week. “Globally speaking, starting on May 18, when the mobilization law comes into force, first of all, the approach to this war will change,” Lazutkin told Espresso TV on Saturday. “Because this situation, when some people are fighting at the front lines, while others are living their quiet lives, is obviously coming to an end.” Life in Kiev is “strikingly different” from the situation in the east of the country, which is “abnormal,” according to the official.

“It would be normal if our enemy was weak. But with such an enemy, the whole country and the whole society need to mobilize,” Lazutkin added. Ukraine has been desperate to replace nearly half a million casualties – by Moscow’s estimates – since the outbreak of hostilities with Russia in February 2022. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said last week that Ukraine has lost more than 111,000 soldiers in 2024 alone. Last month, President Vladimir Zelensky enacted amendments to the conscription rules, lowering the draft age to 25, automating summons and greatly expanding the powers of enlistment officers while introducing assorted restrictions for draft dodgers.

The country’s foreign ministry has suspended consular services for military-eligible Ukrainians abroad. Under the legislation, the fines for violations of the military registration rules will also increase up to $520, with Ukrainian authorities threatening to block bank accounts and impose penalties on the property of those trying to avoid military service. In response to the changes, there has been a surge in Ukrainians men seeking to flee the country. Border Service spokesman Andrey Demchenko recently said that around 120-150 people are caught trying to flee Ukraine every day, while some end up dying while trying to cross the border.

Read more …

Costs too many votes.

Trump Sees Biden Willing To Stop All Aid To Israel Soon (TASS)

Former US President Donald Trump believes that the incumbent US leader, Joe Biden, will soon stop providing Israel with any aid. “Biden wants to immediately stop all aid to Israel,” Trump wrote on his page on Truth Social on Friday. Earlier, he said that the Democratic Party, of which Biden is a member, actually hates Israel. US President Joe Biden said in an interview with CNN on May 8 that Washington will stop providing some weapons to Israel if its forces enter Rafah. Later on Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained that the US was reviewing some short-term military aid to Israel over the situation around the Gaza city. On May 5, Axios reported, citing two Israeli officials, that the US administration had put a hold on an ammunition shipment to Israel for the first time since October 7, 2023. On May 7, Politico quoted people familiar with the deliberations as saying that the United States was holding shipments of precision bombs to send a political message to Israel.

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Yes.

Revisionism Erasing Russia’s Lead Role in WWII Akin to Holocaust Denial (Sp.)

The push by the West to minimize and erase the contributions of Soviet Russia in defeating Nazism and fascism in WWII is a deplorable act of historical revisionism that should be condemned, just as Holocaust denial is condemned by most of society In recent years, there has been an attempt to minimize Russia’s contributions to the war effort against the Nazis, despite the long historical consensus that they did more to defeat the German army than any other country and sacrificed more to accomplish that, some 25 to 27 million Russians, than any other country. Worse yet, some have even gone as far as to equate the Soviets with the Nazis or even paint Nazism as an unfortunate response to the true danger: communism.

“There has also been a decades-long push to equate communism in the USSR with Nazism in Germany,” writes Conor Gallagher in Naked Capitalism. “While originally more of a fringe view, it started to go mainstream back in 2008 when the European Parliament adopted a resolution establishing August 23 as the ‘European Day of Remembrance for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism.’ Also called Black Ribbon Day, the US in 2019 also adopted a resolution to observe the date.”

Also in 2019, Gallagher points out, the European Parliament adopted a resolution blaming the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact for the Second World War, implying that the Soviets were as responsible as the Nazis for the war. “What the Soviet Union did was astronomical, and they paid a very tremendous cost. 27 million lives lost. And, the fact that there is an attempt to tamper with that narrative by Western leaders is really outrageous,” analyst and journalist Caleb Maupin told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour.“ All around the world, people understand that what they call Holocaust revisionism is unacceptable… There are European countries that have laws against that, will put people in jail for doing that. Well, if you try to denigrate the heroic efforts of the Soviet people or the great sacrifices they made with 27 million of their people dying in that war, how is that any different?”

In February, former US President Donald Trump reminded Americans that it was the Russians who were primarily responsible for Adolf Hitler’s defeat. “You’re really up against a war machine in Russia. Russia, what [did] they do? They defeated Hitler, they defeated Napoleon. They are a war machine,” Trump said, leading CNN commentator Jim Sciutto to call those historically factual remarks “a favorite Putin talking point.” Considering that Russian President Vladimir Putin is famously known for his ability to quickly recall historical facts, Sciutto might be right, but not in the way he is portraying. Those with the truth on their side often use historical facts as talking points. “World War II was one of the most devastating wars in history, and the fact that America stood with Britain and France and the Soviet people and the Chinese people to defeat the menace of fascism, that is a very, very important moment in world history, and, seeing that narrative denigrated is outrageous,” Maupin argued.

Read more …

Confusing article.

Judge Trashes Election Lawsuit by the Elias Law Firm (Turley)

The firm of former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias has lost another election case in a spectacular fashion. The Chief Judge of the Western District of Wisconsin, James Peterson (an Obama appointee), did not just reject but ridiculed the Elias Law Group challenge to a witness requirement for absentee voting. Elias has been previously sanctioned in court and accused of lying in the Steele dossier scandal by journalists and others. U.S. District Judge James Peterson ruled against the lawsuit brought by the Elias Law Group, arguing that the witness requirement violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Civil Rights Act of 1964. The state statute under § 6.87(2) describes what the witness must certify. The statute first sets forth in two sentences what the voter must certify on the ballot envelope. The first requirement concerns the voter certifying that he or she meets the requirements for voting generally and for voting absentee in Wisconsin.

The second requirement is certification that the voter followed the process for preparing the absentee ballot. These are the called the “first voter certification” and the “witness certification.” The witness certification refers to a witness certifying “all of the above,” which is obviously referring to the language on preparing the absentee ballot. Elias argued that it requires certification of everything that preceded it on the details of the voter’s record etc. In the court’s opinion, Judge Peterson expresses disbelief at the lunacy of the Elias argument, writing: “Normally, the court would begin by searching for other textual clues in the statute. But in this case, the most obvious problem with plaintiffs’ interpretation is that it simply does not make any sense.”

The court then notes that: “Under plaintiffs’ interpretation, every witness would have to determine the voter’s age, residence, citizenship, criminal history, whether the voter is unable or unwilling to vote in person, whether the voter has voted at another location or is planning to do so, whether the voter is capable of understanding the objective of the voting process, whether the voter is under a guardianship, and, if so, whether a court has determined that the voter is competent. See Wis. Stat. §§ 6.02 and 6.03. Many witnesses would be unable to independently verify much of the required information. The statute allows any adult U.S. citizen to serve as a witness, suggesting that a wide variety of people should be able to do the job…It makes no sense to interpret § 6.87 in a way that would make compliance virtually impossible.

If plaintiffs’ interpretation were correct, it would mean that countless absentee ballots over decades were invalid because the witness certified that the voter was qualified to vote and met the other requirements in the first voter certification, even though the witness had no basis for such a certification.” However, it gets even wackier. They argued that a simple witness requirement constituted a type of illegal vouching under the Voting Rights Act. This is a reference to the Jim Crow era when a registered voter had to vouch for a new voter, a system meant to prevent African Americans from voting.

The case adds to a long litany of losses and controversies for Elias. That record includes allegations of lying to reporters and subverting voters. Elias featured prominently in the filings of Special Counsel John Durham. It was Elias who made the key funding available to Fusion GPS, which in turn enlisted Steele to produce his now discredited dossier on Trump and his campaign. During the campaign, reporters did ask about the possible connection to the campaign, but Clinton campaign officials denied any involvement. Weeks after the election, journalists discovered that the Clinton campaign hid payments for the Steele dossier as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie.

Read more …

“..the French president may be using Russophobia and scaremongering tactics to satisfy his ambition of leading the European Union.”

Macron ‘Hopes’ France Won’t Go To War With Russia (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron has said Paris seeks to avoid direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict, but that an intervention may be necessary to deter Russia from advancing too far. The European Union “would lose all credibility and security” if Russia were to prevail, Macron said in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday, responding to a question on whether France is “going to go to war.” “Our own future and our security is at stake in Ukraine,” the French leader argued, stressing that in addition to delivering more military equipment to Kiev, EU nations must be “ready to act” if “the Russians are going too far.”

“So no, I hope with all my might that we won’t have to go to war,” he said, insisting that France is a “peace power.” However, Paris needs to continue to arm itself in order to “protect peace,” Macron continued, stressing that intervention must remain an option if the country’s interests are threatened. “We have to be dissuasive and credible towards our adversaries sometimes by telling them: ‘If you go too far and if you threaten our interests, my own security, then I do not rule out intervening’,” he said. Macron’s comments echoed his previous non-committal statements on a potential deployment of troops in Ukraine. In February, the French President refused to rule out the prospect of NATO boots on the ground, claiming that the EU’s credibility “will be reduced to zero” if Ukraine is defeated.

A few months later he urged EU nations to boost their military spending and arms production to reduce dependence on Washington. The French president doubled down in an interview with the Economist earlier this month, calling the Kremlin the main threat to EU security and saying that keeping the option of deploying troops in Ukraine is necessary as a “wake-up call,” while defending his “strategic ambiguity” approach. Moscow has criticized Macron’s “dangerous talk,” with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claiming that the French president may be using Russophobia and scaremongering tactics to satisfy his ambition of leading the European Union.

Read more …

“.. Ursula von der Leyen was also present at the meeting “to wag her finger in Xi’s face..”

Xi’s Grand Chess Game: How China Outplays US in Europe (Sp.)

Xi Jinping’s recent European tour was largely perceived as a PR success by China, highlighting the EU’s interest in Chinese investments and market access despite its tough rhetoric, according to Jeff J. Brown. Brown is the author of The China Trilogy, presents blogs and podcasts at China Rising Radio Sinoland, is the producer of China Tech News Flash!, is co-founder and curator of the Bioweapon Truth Commission Global Online Library, and is the founder of Seek Truth From Facts Foundation. “[French President Emmanuel] Macron and Xi signed 18 agreements on technology, agriculture, aviation, green development, SME [small and medium enterprise] cooperation, and people-to-people exchanges, which is good PR for both countries,” Brown told Sputnik, commenting on the first leg of Xi’s trip.

“Xi and Macron will play to their citizens’ hope for deeper Sino-European cooperation and the Old Continent’s industrial sector will continue to quietly invest billions in China, behind the back of Uncle Sam.” France has a much better reputation among the Chinese than the Five Eyes, continued Brown, referring to the Anglophone intelligence alliance encompassing the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. However, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was also present at the meeting “to wag her finger in Xi’s face to remind him of how awful China is towards Europe and if it wasn’t for Beijing’s endless support for Russia, NATO would not be losing the war in Ukraine,” remarked the expert.

The EU’s relationship with China is going downhill, mostly due to US pressure, even though the trend contradicts the bloc’s economic interests, according to Brown. His views were shared by veteran Asia-Pacific affairs expert Thomas Pauken II. “We’re going to see probably improved relations between China and France,” Pauken told Sputnik, explaining that the talks likely included some “key factors in how France and China, their trade and investment ties, [evolve]. But, this will not lead to an improvement between China and the EU Commission.”

Read more …

There is no grand scheme. There are small steps.

Will Xi Pry Europe From US? (Sp.)

Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded his five-day tour of Europe on Friday, having visited three countries: France, Hungary and Serbia. During the visit, Xi promoted China’s vision of a multipolar world and discussed economics and its relationship with Russia. The visit to Europe by Xi, his first in five years, was designed to increase its global reach and give Europe an alternative to a US-led foreign policy that has dominated the continent for decades. One could even say he is trying to pry Europe away from the United States, as the rising power of China and the waning power of the United States seem destined to remain on a collision course. “[Xi] doesn’t really want to face a united front of the Us and the EU in the way Russia has faced on Ukraine. So he’s trying his best to [pry] the Europeans away,” Dr. George Szamuely, a senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.

The selection of the three countries Xi picked was intentional, partially because each of them has significant historic anniversaries with China, but more importantly, Xi likely sees a chance to make more inroads in each of them. Serbia was the easiest case for Xi to make inroads, Serbia and China have been growing their economic ties recently and when Xi arrived at the Presidential palace, he was greeted by crowds waving Chinese flags and chanting “China, China, China.” Xi’s trip coincided with the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Serbia, and the Chinese president visited the site of the bombing, which killed three Chinese journalists. “Serbia is still very resentful about NATO’s bombing in 1999, and that’s formed the bond with China because, of course, the Chinese embassy was destroyed during the NATO bombing,” Szamuely explained. “So that kind of creates this bond between China and Serbia as victims of NATO.”

Hungary, likewise, has a strong relationship with China and is quickly becoming China’s entry point for the EU market. It was the 75th anniversary of Hungary and China opening relations, and both countries seemed eager to continue developing their economic ties. “[Xi] went to Serbia and Hungary, two fairly small countries that don’t really carry that much weight, but will nonetheless represent a certain independent way of thinking in Europe. The kind of thinking that Xi Jinping would like to encourage,” Szamuely said. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has distanced his country from other EU members on several issues in recent years, including Ukraine. Last year, Orban held up an EU aid package to Ukraine for months, angering others in the bloc. Hungary’s relationship with China may also allow Xi to circumvent EU tariffs on Chinese EVs, another issue sure to anger Brussels.

During his visits, Xi and his counterparts pledged to continue growing their economic ties and said that a $2.1 billion high-speed rail project that will connect the capitals of Hungary and Serbia will move forward, largely financed with Chinese loans. Both Hungary and Serbia are participants in China’s Belt and Road initiative. But it was Xi’s trip to France that could really change the geopolitical landscape if the two countries start to move closer. The two countries also shared an anniversary during Xi’s visit, it being 60 years since the two countries opened diplomatic relations. More importantly, France is still one of the most powerful countries in the EU and, along with Germany, tends to direct the union’s policies. While in practice, France has been virtually tied to the United States’ foreign policy, French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed a desire to step out from Washington’s shadow.

“Last year, when Macron visited China, on his way back, he talked a lot about Europe needing to carve out strategic autonomy, Europe needing to pursue an independent foreign policy, and, above all, he said we should not blindly follow the United States. Now, Macron didn’t really pursue that,” Szamuely stated. “But probably, Xi Jinping thought, well, that’s a good sign, you know, maybe there’s still some hope in Europe.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Saudi parasols

 

 

Slam dunk

 

 

Shepherd
https://twitter.com/i/status/1789291891558916343

 

 

Baby cheetah

 

 

Belgian
https://twitter.com/i/status/1789382149663027519

 

 

Bat

 

 

Sheer power
https://twitter.com/i/status/1789319688100454745

 

 

 

 

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