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Debt Rattle January 30 2025

Jan 302025
 
 January 30, 2025  Posted by at 10:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  137 Responses »


Edward Hopper The Sheridan Theatre 1937

 

• RFK Jr. Warns ‘Chronic Disease’ Leading To ‘Sea Of Desperation And Debt’ (JTN)
• Midair Collision Over Nation’s Capital Preceded By Months Of Near Misses (JTN)
• OpenAI Finds “Substantial Evidence” DeepSeek Ripped Off GPT (ZH)
• OpenAI Promises Close Cooperation With US Authorities (RT)
• Ray Dalio Warns Of Brutal AI War Between U.S. And China (ZH)
• Trump’s DOGE Says It’s Already Saving Billion Dollars A Day (RT)
• Pentagon To Investigate Milley And Possibly Demote Him (ZH)
• Trump To Finish What Reagan Started, A Missile Defense System For The US (JTN)
• Trump To Send Deported Migrants To Guantanamo (RT)
• Kash Patel To Face Senate Hearing In Bid To Reform Scandal-Plagued FBI (JTN)
• Gabbard’s DNI Nod Walks A Tightrope Over The Precipice Ahead Of Key Hearing (JTN)
• White House Comments On ‘Mystery’ Drones (RT)
• Trump’s Fight Against Online Censorship Quickly Goes Global (RCI)
• Zelensky Wanted Protocol Signed Before Meeting Took Place – Slovak PM (RT)
• Jordan, Egypt Reject US Plan To Resettle Gazans As Trump Doubles Down (ZH)
• Trump Asks Musk To ‘Go Get’ Astronauts Stranded In Orbit (RT)
• The Democrats Who Stole an Election Must Be Held Accountable (PCR)

 

 

 

 

Leavitt

Homan

Ted Cruz

AfD
https://twitter.com/i/status/1884658882456203448

 

 

 

 

“..90% of health care spending goes toward managing chronic disease..”

I watched part of this. In disbelief. That the US health care system is about to collapse didn’t appear to be the priority. Or people’s health, for that matter. Liz Warren spent all her time demanding that RFK wouldn’t sue any party in the industry, suggesting he’s in it for profit. What are her interests, really? Is she on some payroll? But no-one can dispute he seems to be the best person for the job, to MAHA. And that should be everyone’s priority.

• RFK Jr. Warns ‘Chronic Disease’ Leading To ‘Sea Of Desperation And Debt’ (JTN)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday warned that the nation faced a “sea of desperation and debt” if it did not significantly address “chronic disease.” Kennedy faced questioning before the Senate Finance Committee. He will appear in front of another panel on Thursday. Long an advocate for reform to American federal health programs and a critic of chemical additives in food, Kennedy’s nomination has roiled lawmakers, some of whom have called him anti-vaccine. “Our country will sink beneath the sea of desperation debt if they don’t change the course and ask, ‘Why Are health care costs so high in the first place?’ The obvious answer is chronic disease,” Kennedy said during his confirmation hearing.

“The CDC says 90% of health care spending goes toward managing chronic disease, which hits lower income Americans the hardest,” he added. “The president’s pledge is not to make some Americans happy again, healthy again, but to make all of our people healthy again.” “For a long time, the nation has been locked in a divisive health care debate about who pays when health care costs,” Kennedy lamented. “There are no good options, only bad ones, shifting the burden around between government and corporations and insurers and providers and families, is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

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Why are there Blackhawks on that airport?

• Midair Collision Over Nation’s Capital Preceded By Months Of Near Misses (JTN)

The midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter over the nation’s capital was preceded by months of harrowing near misses at airports across America, as well as increasingly shrill warnings that the nation’s air traffic control and safety system is stretched to the limit. Just 14 months before Wednesday night’s fatal mishap near Ronald Reagan National Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration received a safety expert report that warned America’s air traffic control system is suffering from quality control issues and staffing shortages that put safety at risk. That report warned that “challenges, in the areas of process integrity, staffing, and facilities, equipment, and technology, all have ties to inadequate, inconsistent funding. Together, these challenges contribute to increased safety risk and should be regarded as incident precursor.”

The November 2023 report also warned that personnel shortages among air traffic controllers were forcing people to work longer hours and make sudden last-minute changes to flight plans that increased risks. “Overtime is at a historically high level and increasing,” the report warned. “High rates of overtime for extended periods introduces risk into the NAS. Several associated issues include absenteeism, lower productivity and fatigue. “When air traffic is rerouted, put into holding, or space is increased between aircraft to accommodate understaffed adjacent areas, the opportunity for mistakes in instruction is multiplied due to the abrupt change in the operation and the increased communications required to facilitate the irregular operation,” it added. “While each element of risk may not be material, the combined effect of irregular operations necessitated by staff shortages erodes the margin of safety.”

Regulators acknowledged that in 2023 there were 19 serious near misses at U.S. airports that could’ve been catastrophic, one of the largest totals in many years. This past October, the FAA followed up with an audit looking at the increased risks of runway incursions at the nation’s 45 busiest airports. While that audit was still underway, several harrowing near misses were reported at airports, including at Reagan in Washington, D.C. and with a men’s college basketball team. Just two weeks ago, the FAA opened an investigation of a near miss in the skies above Phoenix, Arizona. The agency said there was a “loss of separation incident” involving a United B737-900 and a Delta A330-300 arriving at Phoenix Sky Harbor on Jan. 11.

Back in April, a dangerous collision nearly occurred at Reagan. The FAA said an air traffic controller instructed Southwest Flight 2937 to cross Runway 4, while JetBlue Flight 1554 was starting its takeoff roll down the same runway.The JetBlue flight had to abort. Likewise, FAA began investigating an incident at Los Angeles’ main airport in December when a private jet carrying the Gonzaga University men’s basketball team nearly crossed a runway as a Delta flight was taking off. Audio from the control tower showed an alarmed flight controller yelling “stop, stop, stop.“

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Guess that’s what I would say if I were outperformed like that.

• OpenAI Finds “Substantial Evidence” DeepSeek Ripped Off GPT (ZH)

David Sacks, the White House’s AI and crypto czar, told Fox News on Tuesday that there is “substantial evidence” Chinese AI startup DeepSeek “distilled” knowledge from OpenAI’s models—an act he likened to IP theft. This poses a massive national security risk and might be critical for US AI firms to tighten IP protections. “There is substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s model. I don’t think OpenAI is very happy about this. One thing you will see over the next few months is that our leading AI companies will take steps to prevent distillation,” Sacks said.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1884344113488879732

On Wednesday, OpenAI confirmed to the Financial Times that evidence of “distillation” was found in how the Chinese AI startup used the OpenAI application programming interface (API) to siphon large amounts of data for building its model. “The issue is when you [take it out of the platform and] are doing it to create your own model for your own purposes,” a source close to OpenAI told FT. They noted distillation is a breach of OpenAI’s terms of service. Bloomberg reported that OpenAI’s partner Microsoft was also investigating distillation concerns and found evidence that DeepSeek researchers violated OpenAI’s terms of service last year. Meanwhile, DeepSeek’s research even admits its R1 model is based on other open-source systems:

“We demonstrate that the reasoning patterns of larger models can be distilled into smaller models, resulting in better performance compared to the reasoning patterns discovered through RL on small models. The open source DeepSeek-R1, as well as its API, will benefit the research community to distill better smaller models in the future.” AI experts told FT that DeepSeek’s model generated responses that indicated it had been trained on OpenAI’s GPT-4. DeepSeek claimed its latest model was only trained on 2,048 Nvidia H800 GPUs over two months, costing about $5.5 million, with 2.8 million GPU hours, far less than rival models by MAG7 companies that spent years and tens of billions of dollars.

On Monday, Goldman’s Rich Privorotsky told clients that DeepSeek’s model is allegedly “40-50x more efficient than other large language models,” and this “naturally raises the question of whether so much data center capacity is necessary.” Ironically, DeepSeek’s IP theft of OpenAI’s model through distillation comes as the US startup faces lawsuits for scraping training data from media outlets and other sources.

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You give me $500 billion, I’ll cooperate with you…

• OpenAI Promises Close Cooperation With US Authorities (RT)

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has vowed to protect its intellectual property following the launch of its Chinese rival DeepSeek. The US government suspects that the new startup could have “distilled” data from the American company to build its product, according to White House AI advisor David Sacks.Earlier this month, DeepSeek unveiled an open-source AI model designated R1, which its creators said had outperformed leading products from US developers on some industry benchmarks. The launch has led to a decline in the stock prices of major US tech companies, erasing almost $1 trillion in market value. In a Tuesday interview with Fox News, Sacks claimed there was “substantial evidence” that DeepSeek had “distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models.” He assessed R1 capabilities as comparable to those of OpenAI’s 01 model, released about four months prior.

Knowledge distillation is a method involving an AI student model using feedback from a teacher model to improve itself. In some cases, it may violate terms of use. Developers have imposed limits on data traffic and other restrictions to counteract such practices. Sacks suggested that US companies will be introducing stronger barriers to eliminate “copycat models” in the near future. Responding to Sacks’ remarks, OpenAI said it was aware that some Chinese and non-Chinese companies are distilling American models. The company is actively pursuing “countermeasures to protect our [Intellectual Property].” “We are working closely with the US government to best protect the most capable models from efforts by adversaries and competitors to take US technology,” the statement added.

According to Bloomberg, OpenAI and its primary investor, Microsoft, are investigating DeepSeek for potential violations. Software developers are normally required to pay license fees to use OpenAI technology in their own applications, the news agency explained. The report cited sources “familiar with the matter” who spoke on condition of anonymity. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called DeepSeek’s launch a “wake-up call to the American AI industry” during a regular media briefing on Tuesday. The administration of Donald Trump has designated AI development as one of its priorities. Last week, the president announced Stargate, an initiative to build data centers across the US to serve as the backbone of future AI projects, with an investment target of up to $500 billion.

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‘No Country Can (Afford To) Lose’

• Ray Dalio Warns Of Brutal AI War Between U.S. And China (ZH)

Billionaire investor and Bridgewater hedge fund founder Ray Dalio warned in an interview with All-In podcast co-host David Friedberg that neither the United States nor China can afford to lose the race for AI supremacy, stressing that this technological “war” is far more critical than “profits.” DAVID FRIEDBERG: I’m a productive asset guy. I like owning businesses that make stuff. In this environment, where do I own a productive asset—a business that can still see its revenue and its income grow as this inflationary effect and this devaluation occurs as we get through a debt crisis like this? What would be the best kind of productive asset? Is it a mining business? Is it a commodity trading business?

RAY DALIO: I’m with you. So, you know, that chart that we showed in the beginning has this line where productivity is going up. And it tends to compound on itself. And I think that’s where AI, and that is fantastic, but it depends where you’re referring to AI. I think the super scalers in this world have risk issues. You know, you think about the super scalers like Nvidia or others. I think that the tech war, certainly productivity, I’m with you man, but you want to invest in productivity. But there’s great disruption that’s going to take place, and there are going to be the disruptors and the disrupted. It’s not necessarily those who are producing the vehicles, but those who are implementing and changing as a result of having their big impact.

I think that the tech war, the AI war is more important. It is actually more important. It’s a war that no country can lose because it’s more important than profits. If you lose, if China or the U.S. really lose this war, it’s more important than profits. You have to play that war that way. It could be something like electric vehicles, or more in terms of Chinese electric vehicles, where they can produce them. But I think there are such high expectations. I think we are going to see applications. I think the Chinese are a bit behind in the chips, but they’re ahead in the applications.

DAVID FRIEDBERG: Did you see the DeepSeek announcement this weekend? RAY DALIO: Yes, and that was known for a little while now. The Chinese play is going to be chips—very inexpensive chips embedded into manufactured goods. You’ll see robotics. The Chinese are unbelievably [good] at making things inexpensively. They own 33% of all world-manufactured goods, which is more than the combined US, German, and Japanese manufactured goods. The Chinese produce more. You’re going to see that type of competition, and it may be like solar panels or something. Profit doesn’t matter. I think that where there’s productivity and innovation and disruptors to be. Essentially, being long those who are benefiting themselves through usage or creating the applications that are having the big effect is certainly one thing.

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“..mostly from stopping the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI, and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations..”

• Trump’s DOGE Says It’s Already Saving Billion Dollars A Day (RT)

The US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), created by President Donald Trump and led by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, claims it has already cut federal spending by approximately $1 billion per day. The agency announced the figure on Wednesday via its official X account, stating that it aims to reduce costs by more than $3 billion daily. DOGE was first proposed during Trump’s presidential campaign last summer and later formalized as a presidential advisory commission. Despite its name, the agency is not a full-fledged federal executive department but a temporary organization focused on reducing government spending. It aims to cut up to $2 trillion in federal expenditure by July 2026. “DOGE is saving the Federal Government approx. $1 billion/day, mostly from stopping the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI, and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations, all consistent with the President’s Executive Orders,” the agency said, without providing further details.

The reference to “improper payments to foreign organizations” appears to relate to the Trump administration’s recent 90-day pause on virtually all foreign-aid programs, pending a review.Since taking office on January 20, the Trump administration has aggressively moved to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across the federal government. On Tuesday, the president signed an executive order barring “radical gender ideology” from the US military, stating that service members must meet physical and mental fitness standards for duty. “This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria,” the order states. “This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”

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“In addition to pulling Milley’s security clearance and yanking his personal security detail, Hegseth will also ask the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate his conduct..”

• Pentagon To Investigate Milley And Possibly Demote Him (ZH)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is about to drop the hammer on retired Gen. Mark Milley, Trump’s former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and one of the president’s favorite rhetorical punching bags. In addition to pulling Milley’s security clearance and yanking his personal security detail, Hegseth will also ask the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate his conduct, and the probe could end in Milley receiving a demotion, Fox News reported Tuesday. The IG investigation will center on allegations that Milley worked to “undermine the chain of command” during the first Trump administration. The probe is certain to scrutinize two calls Milley made to senior Chinese officials in the last days of Trump’s first term.

First reported by Bob Woodward in his book, “War,” the calls were apparently made with the goal of diffusing military tensions between the two powers, and were said to have had the blessing of other Trump officials. In 2023, Trump used a social media post to say that, by giving China “a heads up on the thinking of the president of the United States,” Milley had committed “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Woodward also reported that, at a March 2023 reception in Washington, Milley told him that Trump was “fascist to the core!” Milley was still on active duty at the time, and Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice makes it a crime for commissioned officers to use “contemptuous words against the president.” Milley doesn’t have to worry about criminal prosecution: President Biden gave him a pre-emptive pardon that covers “any offenses against the United States” that were committed between January 1, 2014 and January 20, 2025.

Fox’s sources suggest that Milley could lose one of his four stars. In addition to humiliation, that would also put a dent in Milley’s rich military pension. However, as The Intercept reported last year, he has plenty of opportunities to turn his past service into stacks of cash: Since retiring from the military last year, former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley has become a senior adviser to JPMorgan Chase bank, joined the faculties of Princeton and Georgetown, and embraced the lucrative paid speaking circuit. From military pay of $204,000 a year, Milley is sure to skyrocket to compensation in the millions, especially because he is represented by the same high-powered speakers’ agency as Hillary Clinton.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1882163144866578657

Milley oversaw the long-overdue but disastrously-executed withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan. The botched undertaking saw 13 US service-members killed, another 45 wounded, and the deaths of 170 Afghan civilians in a bombing at Kabul’s principal airport. It also resulted in the Taliban inheriting a huge arsenal of US weapons. In June 2021, Milley assured legislators that a withdrawal would look nothing like the US departure from Vietnam. “I don’t see Saigon 1975 in Afghanistan. The Taliban just aren’t the North Vietnamese Army,” he said. The first official manifestation of the new administration’s utter contempt for Milley came just hours after Trump was inaugurated. A brand-new painting of Milley that had just been unveiled on Jan. 10 was yanked from a Pentagon hallway. Fox reports that a second painting in a different hallway was to have been taken down as early as Tuesday night.

Until Trump took office, the Secret Service had continued to guard Milley, former national security advisor John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on the chance that Iran may seek to kill them to avenge Trump’s Israel-assisted, Neta assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani via a 2020 drone strike in Iraq. Trump removed Pompeo and Bolton’s security details last week. Senior US officials frequently retain their security clearances well after they’ve left government, a practice that is supposedly aimed at facilitating transitions, enabling ongoing advice and counsel, and anticipating officials’ potential return to government.

Milley
https://twitter.com/i/status/1884368178886893847

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“U.S. Iron Dome”

• Trump To Finish What Reagan Started, A Missile Defense System For The US (JTN)

Just hours after Pete Hegseth was sworn in as the country’s Defense secretary, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to begin the process of implementing a “next-generation missile defense” system for the U.S. aiming to complete the comprehensive project originally envisioned by President Reagan at the height of the Cold War. Trump dubbed the missile defense system – which the order says would be designed to protect the U.S. homeland from ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other new aerial threats – the “U.S. Iron Dome” after the highly successful Israeli conventional missile defense system. The executive order explicitly notes that the policy aims to achieve what was left unfinished by Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative – which critics dubbed “Star Wars” after the 1977 pop-culture film of that name – which endeavored to create a space-based defense shield against Soviet missiles.

Ultimately the intuitive fizzled out as scientists estimated the technology wouldn’t be ready for decades and the end of the Cold War reduced the urgency of the threat. But now, the old Soviet Union superpower has been replaced by China and Russia, which possess sizable nuclear arsenals and are currently in stiff competition with the United States. The Trump administration in the order specifically identified the threats from these “peer and near-peer adversaries” as the primary driver of a comprehensive missile defense system, which marks a major shift in policy documents from the first Trump, then Biden administration, which focused on using missile defense technologies to prevent attacks from smaller threats, namely North Korea and Iran. “The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States,” the executive order reads.

It continues, “Over the past 40 years, rather than lessening, the threat from next-generation strategic weapons has become more intense and complex with the development by peer and near-peer adversaries of next-generation delivery systems and their own homeland integrated air and missile defense capabilities.”The shift to focus on the nuclear threats posed by China and Russia comes as both countries have developed more advanced weapons and have expanded their arsenals while also becoming close partners. This presents a hard problem for the U.S. to solve with the traditional nuclear deterrence doctrine that endured until the previous Biden administration.

“During the Cold War the United States had one nuclear peer to deter, the United States now faces two – Russia and China. This is a much harder problem and the United States has to make big adaptations to the programs we have to deter both countries simultaneously,” Rebeccah Heinrichs, senior fellow and director of the Keystone Defense Initiative at the Hudson Institute, told Just the News. “We must outsmart and out-innovate China in particular and no area is more important than in the protection of the American homeland. Both of those actors, plus North Korea (and Iran is a threshold nuclear state with a space launch program that could be leveraged for a long-range missile program) could coerce the United States with ballistic or cruise missiles if they believe the United States is vulnerable to them,” Heinrichs also said.

She continued, “By building a layered homeland missile defense system, the United States complicates the adversaries’ calculations and makes it harder for them to plan an attack on the United States with even a handful of missiles.” President Trump, appearing to recognize the need for modernization and new ways of deterring attacks from adversaries, directs the Pentagon in the executive order to develop a plan within 60 days for implementing the “next-generation missile shield.” The requirements outlined by the executive order are sweeping. The plans are to include defense-against-missile systems, the deployment of tracking lasers, development of space-based interceptors, development of new methods to intercept threats pre-launch and securing the supply chains for these new defense systems.

This marks a major shift from the policy of the Biden administration, which in its 2022 National Defense Strategy unequivocally stated that the United States’ existing missile defense systems “neither intended for, nor capable of, defeating large and sophisticated ICBM, air-, or sea-launched ballistic missile threats from Russia and the PRC.” The 2017 National Security Strategy promulgated by the first Trump administration also made clear that missile defense was not geared toward China and Russia. While calling for an enhanced missile defense system, it noted that it is “not intended to undermine strategic stability or disrupt longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China.” Missile defense, which is not part of the traditional U.S. nuclear doctrine, has seen renewed interest as the nuclear arsenals and capabilities of China and Russia have grown in recent years.

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“..some individuals are “so bad, we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back.”

• Trump To Send Deported Migrants To Guantanamo (RT)

President Donald Trump has announced plans to expand detention facilities at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to accommodate thousands of deported immigrants as part of his intensified efforts to remove illegal aliens from US soil. The initiative was revealed on Wednesday during the signing of the bipartisan Laken Riley Act, which mandates the detention and potential deportation of undocumented individuals accused of theft and violent crimes, even before conviction. Justifying the use of Guantanamo Bay, Trump argued that some individuals are “so bad, we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back.” “So we’re going to send them out to Guantanamo,” Trump added, calling the facility “a tough place to get out of.”

Guantanamo Bay, best known for holding terrorism suspects, also hosts a separate migrant processing center. Trump said he would sign an executive order directing the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to expand and prepare the facilities for new arrivals. “Most people don’t even know that we have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people,” Trump stated. He added that the move would “bring us one step closer to eradicating the scourge of migrant crime in our communities once and for all.” Since his first day back in office, President Trump has enacted a series of executive orders aimed at overhauling the US immigration system.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been carrying out raids across the country, detaining hundreds of people daily. Targeted cities include Boston, New York, Newark, and San Francisco, with agents focusing on arresting immigrants who had committed crimes after entering the US illegally, according to the agency. The Trump administration has also escalated deportation efforts, using military planes for removal flights and threatening tariffs and other repercussions for countries that refuse to accept deportees.

Guantanamo Bay has been a US naval base since 1903 and was transformed into a detention center in 2002 under President George W. Bush to house suspected terrorists following the September 11 attacks. The facility has long been criticized for torture and indefinite detentions without charge or trial. As of January 2025, 15 detainees remain at the site, many of whom have been imprisoned for over two decades without formal charges. The Cuban government has consistently denounced the presence of the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, calling it a violation of Cuban sovereignty and raising concerns over human rights abuses at the detention facility. On his first day in office, Trump reinstated Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, reversing an executive order issued by former President Joe Biden just a week prior.

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They’re very scared of him.

• Kash Patel To Face Senate Hearing In Bid To Reform Scandal-Plagued FBI (JTN)

FBI Director-designate Kash Patel will field questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, capping off a charm offensive that has seen most of the Senate Republican Conference warm to the Trump-aligned critic of the intelligence committee. A Trump advisor from the first administration, Patel has been a stalwart backer of Trump for most of his political tenure and a vocal critic of what he calls institutional rot in key American agencies. His 2023 book “Government Gansters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy” provided what President Donald Trump himself called a “brilliant roadmap” for uprooting a politicized bureaucracy.Trump picked Patel for the role in late November as grassroots supporters led #kashonly to trend on X.

The then-president-elect called Patel “a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.” His nomination roiled FBI insiders, with reports emerging that the bureau could face mass resignations should he secure the post. But it landed better with the senators, who saw him as a far more conventional nominee than Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon. Patel has previously served as a prosecutor, public defender, senior advisor to the director of national intelligence, and as the Defense Department’s chief of staff.Even intelligence hawks and moderate lawmakers such as Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, have been optimistic Patel’s prospects in the narrowly divided Senate. Pressed in December on whether Patel would secure confirmation, Cornyn simply told radio host Hugh Hewitt that “yes, he will be.”

During the Trump administration and President Joe Biden’s subsequent four years, the FBI became mired in political controversy and scandal. It’s conduct was a leading factor in driving Trump’s claims of political weaponization. Among the earliest controversies were the anti-Trump messages of now-former FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, both of whom worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian interference investigation. Those messages referenced “an insurance policy” should Trump win. The bureau also came under fire over a memo from the Richmond Field Office suggesting that attendees of the traditional Catholic Latin Mass might harbor extremist sympathies. FBI Director Christopher Wray’s tenure, also saw allegations of retaliation against whistleblowers, the abuse of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants, and politicized security clearance reviews.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz in December published a report confirming that the FBI had secured Patel’s phone records, along with those of two members of Congress and dozens of other staffers. The move came as part of an investigation into leaks of classified materials to the media. Horowitz further found that the FBI failed to inform the court that the materials they sought “related to requests for records of Members of Congress or congressional staffers.” The report drew outrage from Trump supporters, as well as lawmakers, some of whom had warm words for Patel amid the revelations. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who leads the Judiciary Committee, said afterward that “Kash understands that cooperation with Congress is not optional and whistleblower protection is essential.”

“This report highlights exactly why Kash Patel is the perfect leader to reform and rebuild the FBI,” a spokeswoman for Patel said at the time. “Kash understands the critical balance between national security and protecting civil liberties. His commitment to accountability, transparency, and upholding constitutional principles makes him uniquely equipped to ensure the FBI serves the American people with integrity and fairness.”

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They have nothing on her. But Trump may still have to say “the only way you can get to her is to go through me first”

• Gabbard’s DNI Nod Walks A Tightrope Over The Precipice Ahead Of Key Hearing (JTN)

Tulsi Gabbard, the Hawaii Democrat-turned-Republican, faces a tense confirmation hearing this week as intelligence hawks raise concerns over her skepticism of surveillance practices and Democrats push narratives of pro-Kremlin sympathies. A stalwart privacy advocate and social moderate, Gabbard unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, earning attention for her exchanges with former Vice President Kamala Harris. She later left the party and helped President Donald Trump prepare for his own debate with Harris. Gabbard joined the Republicans during the 2024 campaign and received Trump’s nod to head the nation’s intelligence apparatus. Her nomination received cheers from privacy advocates and MAGA-aligned critics of the intelligence community, many of whom hope she will work alongside FBI Director-designate Kash Patel to substantially uproot the nation’s intelligence apparatus and end practices that raise serious questions about politicization in the agencies.

The Senate Intelligence Committee will question Gabbard on Thursday in what is sure to be a contentious row. The panel is stacked with intelligence hawks, including some Republicans who have expressed public concerns over her past opposition to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for the warrantless surveillance of foreigners abroad. With the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluded, Gabbard’s confirmation appears poised to mark the next battle between Trump’s MAGA disruptors and the old guard GOP of the Washington establishment. Gabbard has long been critical of Section 702, sharing the concerns of conservative Republicans on the Judiciary Committee that it allows for the collection of information on Americans in the process. An American speaking with a foreigner under surveillance, for instance, would see their half of the conversation swept up in intelligence gathering and ultimately entered into the Section 702 intelligence database.

The expiration of Section 702 led to a dispute between the House GOP Judiciary and Intelligence Committees last year, with the pro-surveillance Intelligence panel winning out and shutting the door on major reform. Gabbard’s opposition to Section 702 was such a point of concern for Republicans that she ultimately reversed her position amid the nomination process. “Section 702, unlike other FISA authorities, is crucial for gathering foreign intelligence on non-U.S. persons abroad. This unique capability cannot be replicated and must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans,” she told CNN earlier this month. “If confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people.”

That about-face could serve to assuage establishment concerns, but she will likely need to persuade Republican members of the panel that she will be able to balance privacy and national security concerns in the post. The 9-8 Republican-led panel includes two potential swing votes: Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Todd Young, Ind; according to The Hill. She is not expected to secure any Democratic support. Gabbard in 2017 visited Syria and met with now-ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime fell just weeks ago amid a surprise offensive from the Al-Qaeda derivative Tahrir al-Sham. She had previously insisted Assad was not an enemy of the United States and voiced opposition to American intervention in the Syrian Civil War. Gabbard herself is a veteran, having served in Iraq and was awarded the Combat Medical Badge.

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Still a weird story.

• White House Comments On ‘Mystery’ Drones (RT)

US authorities have dismissed speculation that mass sightings of drones in the past few months were linked to hostile activities. Last year, then-President Joe Biden’s administration faced widespread criticism for not identifying the origins of the objects. The UAVs were “not the enemy,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the first press briefing of President Donald Trump’s new administration on Tuesday. She conveyed a message “directly from the president,” giving an update on a news story that made headlines throughout November and December. Sightings of unidentified aircraft were reported in New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, while arrests were made in connection with drone operations near restricted areas in Massachusetts and California.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorized the unmanned aircraft operating over New Jersey “for research and various other reasons,” Leavitt told the media, adding that many of them belonged to “private individuals that enjoy flying drones.” The Morris County Prosecutor’s Office first reported the aerial activity, leading to temporary flight restrictions, including at Stewart International Airport in New York. At the time, the FBI reported receiving thousands of tip-offs from citizens about drones they witnessed, and the Biden administration reassured the public that the objects posed no threat. ”There are thousands of drones flown every day in the United States, recreational drones, commercial drones,” then-Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stated. According to FAA data, around a million civilian UAVs are registered nationwide.

In December, Trump accused the outgoing administration of withholding information about the unmanned planes, insisting: “Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!” Before his inauguration, Trump promised to provide information about drones “about one day” into his administration, during a conversation with Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago on January 9. He said it’s “ridiculous” that people are not being informed about what is happening with the aircraft. Amid public debate over the drones’ possible foreign origins, senior lawmakers have called for additional powers to be given to federal and state authorities, to tackle such situations.

Read more …

It’s ironic how hard it has become to fight censorship.

• Trump’s Fight Against Online Censorship Quickly Goes Global (RCI)

Flanked by some of the Big Tech executives whose companies had suppressed the views of his supporters throughout his predecessor’s term, President Trump on Jan. 20 declared the days of such speech policing over. Hours later, the president put action behind his words, signing an executive order prohibiting the federal government from engaging in, facilitating, or funding “any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.” The move was celebrated by those who see it as a blow against what they decry as the Censorship Industrial Complex. Others cast the executive order as giving dangerous license to “misinformation” and “disinformation.” What is clear is that this is just the latest salvo in an ongoing war over the digital public square, pitting the Trump administration and like-minded Republican congressional allies against not only domestic opponents but the global counter-disinformation eco-system.

The global speech-policing effort is looking like an early target. Trump himself seemed to convey that when he touted his order in a remote address last week to the World Economic Forum in Davos. The elite global conclave had recently declared “misinformation and disinformation” the leading short-term risk to the globe for the second-straight year, “underlining their persistent threat to societal cohesion and governance by eroding trust and exacerbating divisions within and between nations.” Two days after the inauguration, Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, released the “Priorities and Mission of the Second Trump Administration’s Department of State.” The short document included the charge that Foggy Bottom “must stop censorship and suppression of information.” Rubio continued: “The State Department’s efforts to combat malign propaganda have expanded and fundamentally changed since the Cold War era and we must reprioritize truth.

The State Department I lead will support and defend Americans’ rights to free speech, terminating any programs that in any way lead to censoring the American people. It is not yet known whether and to what extent Rubio’s approach will affect the reorganized successor to the State Department’s recently shuttered Global Engagement Center, whose efforts defenders had called essential to combating foreign propaganda. Critics have dismissed the reorganization – of an office that funded entities targeting disfavored domestic speech – as an effort to simply rebrand and persist. The global “counter-disinformation” ecosystem encompasses research centers at top academic institutions and think tanks, fact-checkers, news raters, and like-minded for-profits – often funded and/or promoted by government agencies and powerful foundations, and operating and seeking to influence governments both stateside and across the Atlantic.

RealClearInvestigations, which recently previewed the censorship fight, e-mailed questions to other United States agencies and departments believed to be involved, directly or indirectly, in speech suppression on social media or otherwise likely to have a role in implementing the order. These included the Department of Justice and the FBI; the Department of Homeland Security and its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security sub-agency; Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services; National Science Foundation; and Office of Management and Budget.

[..] Trump has previously called for enacting “new laws laying out clear criminal penalties for federal bureaucrats who partner with private entities to do an end-run around the Constitution and deprive Americans of their First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights.” To that end, the Judiciary Committee spokesperson told RCI that the panel would “move quickly to reintroduce legislation that will protect Americans’ First Amendment rights, such as the Censorship Accountability Act and the No Censors on our Shores Act.” The former would provide a right of action against federal employees for First Amendment violations. The latter would render any foreign official who engages in censorship of American speech inadmissible and deportable. In the Senate, two days after the release of President Trump’s order, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul re-introduced the “Free Speech Protection Act.”

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“That protocol outlined what we would do for Ukraine, including supporting its NATO membership. Gas wasn’t mentioned at all..”

• Zelensky Wanted Protocol Signed Before Meeting Took Place – Slovak PM (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky wanted Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico to sign a protocol promising to support Kiev’s bid for NATO membership before meeting to discuss crucial gas transit through Ukraine, the Slovak prime minister has claimed. Fico had sought to meet Zelensky on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos following weeks of barbed messages between Kiev and Bratislava, in the wake of Ukraine’s decision to block the flow of Russian gas to Slovakia. The invitation was openly mocked by Zelensky, and the proposed meeting did not take place. Fico revealed details of the failed attempt to meet Zelensky with members of his SMER-SD party on Tuesday. “I was ready to meet [with Zelensky] in Davos. And what did he do? Zelensky sent me a protocol for the meeting, and I was supposed to sign it. The meeting hadn’t even taken place yet, but there was already a prepared protocol.

“That protocol outlined what we would do for Ukraine, including supporting its NATO membership. Gas wasn’t mentioned at all,” the prime minister said in a video posted on social media. The Ukrainian leader responded to Fico’s post, claiming that the Slovak prime minister “chooses Moscow over America and other partners.” “You have to pay for Russian gas not only with money but also with independence and sovereignty,” Zelensky wrote on his Telegram channel on Wednesday. “Many in Europe have already gone through this and chose to preserve their independence and sovereignty.” The Slovak prime minister had initially proposed meeting for negotiations with Zelensky on the border between the two countries, but the Ukrainian leader used a social media post to suggest he comes to Kiev instead. Fico narrowly survived an assassination attempt by a pro-Ukraine activist last year.

He warned earlier this week that Bratislava would veto any EU aid to Ukraine if the transit of Russian natural gas was not resumed, calling Zelensky an “enemy” and accusing him of causing “problems” for Slovakia. Slovakia, which had received up to 60% of its gas through a Soviet-era pipeline, has been badly affected by Ukraine’s decision to cut off the transit of Russian gas to Central Europe. The Slovak prime minister added that he plans to raise the issue with the European Commission on Thursday. According to Fico, the best resolution to the dispute would involve purchasing gas at Russia’s border and having it transported through Ukraine as Slovak property.

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“The Gaza ceasefire would likely collapse if Palestinians were suddenly pushed out in large waves into Egypt and Jordan.”

• Jordan, Egypt Reject US Plan To Resettle Gazans As Trump Doubles Down (ZH)

After last Saturday President Trump floated a plan to ‘clean out’ Gaza by conducting a mass resettlement of Palestinians in neighboring countries, namely Egypt and Jordan, he’s now doubling down on the idea. Egypt and Jordan are not happy, but are also feeling the pressure as a result, and it must be remembered that both are recipients of huge amounts of foreign aid each year – with Egypt receiving billions. Israeli media underscores there’s been wall-to-wall firm opposition by Arab leaders: “US President Donald Trump dug in his heels Monday over a controversial suggestion that large numbers of Gazans take refuge in Egypt and Jordan, shrugging off wall-to-wall opposition to the proposal from Arab leaders.”

“Fresh off what he said were calls with Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah, Trump insisted both leaders would take in Palestinians from the war-ravaged territory and said the issue would be discussed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the two meet sometime soon, amid speculation in Israel that Trump’s gambit was being coordinated with Jerusalem,” the report details. “Egyptian media on Tuesday cited government sources as saying that Trump and Sissi had yet to speak. If they did, Sissi’s office would issue a readout, the Egyptian officials told local media,” it continues. This would involve these countries absorbing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees – something which Jordan has already done historically over the last some seventy years.

Here are the latest remarks from Trump which are driving the controversy: Asked about those comments, Trump told reporters on Air Force One Monday evening he would “like to get them living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much.”“When you look at the Gaza Strip, it’s been hell for so many years,” Trump said. “There have been various civilizations on that strip. It didn’t start here. It started thousands of years before, and there’s always been violence associated with it. You could get people living in areas that are a lot safer and maybe a lot better and maybe a lot more comfortable.”

Interestingly, the tiny Balkan country of Albania has entered the discussion after an Israeli Channel 12 media report said that Trump was in talks with Albania for it to take 100,000 Palestinians from Gaza. But Albania’s prime minister quickly batted this down, calling it false. “I haven’t heard something so fake in quite some time – and there’s been a lot of fake news lately! It is absolutely not true,” Prime Minister Edi Rama tweeted. If such talks actually did exist, the Muslim-majority population of this country would surely be outraged.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1883863689541132547

As for Egypt and Jordan, Trump may use the outsized US assistance provided to pressure their leaders to agree to his plan at least on some level. But the reality is that this is ultra politically sensitive. Past historic waves of Palestinian refugees and armed groups flooding nearby Arab countries have literally erupted in wars, which especially Lebanon can attest to. Jordan has also seen its country destabilized at times. There’s also the logistics – with Palestinians now rushing back to their largely destroyed communities in northern Gaza, they are defiantly telling the world they don’t plan to leave their homeland. The Gaza ceasefire would likely collapse if Palestinians were suddenly pushed out in large waves into Egypt and Jordan.

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“@POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so.”

• Trump Asks Musk To ‘Go Get’ Astronauts Stranded In Orbit (RT)

US President Donald Trump has asked SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to bring back two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stuck on the International Space Station for nearly 200 days, instead of the originally planned eight. Return flights to Earth have been repeatedly postponed due to a combination of technical issues. In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, the US president wrote: “I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to “go get” the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration.” The Republican added that “Elon will soon be on his way.” In a post on X that same day, the US-based tech tycoon confirmed that the “@POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so.” He also wrote, “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”

In another message, Musk published a screenshot of Trump’s original post, accompanying it with a saluting face emoji. On Tuesday a NASA spokesperson acknowledged an inquiry about Musk’s statement and said the agency “will follow up as soon as we can.” Wilmore (61) and Williams (58) launched for the ISS on board the Boeing Starliner’s June 5 maiden voyage. However, NASA engineers soon discovered four helium leaks and thruster pressurization issues. After days of tests and discussions, NASA decided on August 24 to leave the two astronauts aboard the space station and bring the Starliner back without the crew, by remote control. The agency later reassigned two astronauts originally slated for the Crew-9 mission with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, to free up seats for Wilmore and Williams, extending their intended eight-day stay to more than seven months.

In December NASA announced that the Crew-10 launch was postponed to late March to allow SpaceX time to complete a new spacecraft. This delay was expected to push the Crew-9 return to early April. Industry rumors suggested further delays for Crew-10, which could lead to SpaceX using another Crew Dragon, possibly the one being prepared for the Ax-4 private astronaut mission, scheduled for launch as soon as April for Axiom Space. The astronauts themselves have maintained a professional stance on the situation. “Things that I can’t control I’m not going to fret over,” Wilmore said in a September briefing. Williams added, “You sort of turn to and just take on the next activity of the day. That’s what we do. We’re professionals.”

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“Is there to be no accountability for election theft and wielders of weaponized law and prosecutions?”

• The Democrats Who Stole an Election Must Be Held Accountable (PCR)

The release of the pardoned J6 political prisoners has, for the most part, gone well, but in a few instances vindictive Democrat officials still hold a few of the pardoned. It is a fluid situation, and my figures might be out of date by the time you read them. The worst offender is the black female mayor of D.C. who at last report has not released 12 of the pardoned. Kentucky is still holding 6, and there are a few others being held here and there. Democrats in Pennsylvania were looking for a way of duplicating the pardoned federal charges with state charges in order to continue the incarceration of the pardoned political prisoners. It is possible that some of the non released J6 political prisoners have outstanding state charges unrelated to the J6 fake charges. It seems that at the time of Trump’s pardon there were 242 J6 political prisoners still in prison and a number I don’t have in halfway houses.

The issue has been raised whether some of the J6 prisoners had chargeable offenses and should not have been pardoned. This is a red herring as rally attendees were arrested irrespective of whether they committed an offense. Before buying this argument, remember the facts. The only reason there was a rally on January 6 was that the Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election, refused the evidence to be investigated, instead bringing court cases against those who made evidence-backed charges of electoral fraud. The rally was held to support the Republican senators who intended to present evidence of theft at the January 6 meeting when Congress assembled to certify Biden’s election. To prevent the presentation of the evidence, the Democrats and RINO Republicans such as Mitch McConnell used the FBI and police to stage an “insurrection” in order to break up the meeting and prevent the presentation of the evidence.

Remember that President Trump wanted to send 10,000 National Guardsmen to keep matters under control, but this interfered with the insurrection plot and Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prevented the deployment of the National Guard. Remember also that the FBI as revealed by FBI whistleblowers had agents embedded in the rally who incited violence at the Capitol. Remember also that the police began the violence by firing rubber bullets and teargas into the crowd of peaceful protesters. These acts of violence committed by corrupt police incited the rally attendees to push back police barricades, which the whore US media played to the hilt as an “insurrection.” Remember also that an appearance of violence was created by having a corrupt police officer fatally shoot US Airforce veteran Ashley Babbitt. The shooting was never investigated, and the officer was promoted for murdering an Airforce veteran without cause.

Remember that Democrats refused to release the videos of the alleged “storming of the Capitol.” After Republicans regained control of the House, the videos were released. The videos showed that there was no storming. The police opened he doors and escorted the rally attendees around the Capitol. There was no “invasion” of the Capitol. Remember also that Derrick Garland lied through his teeth that the rally attendees killed a police officer. The police officer’s family denied this. The officer died the next day from a heart attack. Remember also that the police attacked rally attendees with batons and bats, and attendees who raised their arms in defense were charged with “assaulting a police officer.” Remember also that a totally corrupt Justice (sic) Department violated privacy rights in order to hunt down and charge anyone who was present at the Capitol part of the rally. Instead of calling “suspects” in for questioning, FBI SWAT teams, reincarnations of the Nazi Gestapo, broke into Americans’ homes in the middle of the night terrorizing children while dragging handcuffed parents out of the house.

Remember also the false and invented charges were enhanced with serious felony charges for those who refused to self-incriminate with a plea bargain. The Democrats just wanted “convictions” for the whore media to hype to protect their rigged scheme from collapse. Remember also the instances of the wrongly incarcerated being held in solitary confinement, beaten, and imprisoned far from home in order to deny them support from visitations. Many were constantly shifted from prison to prison so that families did not know where they were.

The false indictments and convictions cost many their careers, their wives, their businesses, their homes. A young millionaire businessman lost his business and his wife. A medical student was disowned by his cowardly and stupid parents who fell for the bullshit fed to them. The abuses suffered by the J6 did not stop with their pardon. Had Gary Heavin and others not organized to meet the pardoned upon their release, some might have frozen to death. Some of the pardoned were released from prisons in the middle of nowhere in short pants into freezing temperatures without a cent and no ability to get to a safe place.

The stinking dirty Biden Regime and the gang of despicable criminals that comprised its Justice (sic) Department gave America FOUR YEARS of a Stalinist Gulag Archipelago. Pardons for their innocent victims is just the first step of restoring justice to America. All of those responsible for the “insurrection” hoax and convictions of innocent Americans must be hunted down, arrested, indicted, and convicted. If the Democrats’ criminal act of stealing a presidential election and then, in order to cover up their theft, refocusing attention on a concocted “insurrection” and falsely convicting 1,500 innocent Americans for something that never happened can escape accountability, Trump has no chance of making America great again.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Cholesterol

 

 

BLDG 7

 

 

Horns

 

 

Owl
https://twitter.com/i/status/1884126327134974095

 

 

Eye color

 

 

Glass
https://twitter.com/i/status/1884497763217355211

 

 

Petrel

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 30 2023

Sep 302023
 
 September 30, 2023  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Rene Magritte Memory 1948

 

• We Don’t Serve a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Says Retiring US General Milley (Sp.)
• Biden Warns of Trump’s ‘Extremist Movement’ (ET)
• The New York Buildings That Donald Trump Could Lose (BBC)
• RFK Jr Plans To Announce Independent Run For President (PM)
• US House Republicans Plot to Oust McCarthy Amid Looming Shutdown (Sp.)
• Elon Musk Decries ‘Witch-Burning’ Of Russell Brand (RT)
• Nazi Hunter Steven Rambam: Trudeau Knew He Applauded a Monster (Sp.)
• The Striking Similarities in the Menendez and Biden Cases (Turley)
• Two-Punch (James Howard Kunstler)
• Ukraine Demands ‘Full’ EU Membership (RT)
• Germany-Ukraine Joint Arms Production Venture a Money Laundering Scheme (Sp.)
• Ukrainian Troops Reportedly Refuse Battle Orders Due to Heavy Losses (Sp.)
• Russia-China Partnership Defangs US Empire (Pepe Escobar)
• Can The US Defeat Russia In The Lithium Battery War? (Helmer)
• Biden Administration Reports Dangerous African Immigrant At Border (BBee)

 

 

“If you’re 35 or older, you’ve had LESS shots in your entire life than a 6 month old baby on today’s CDC schedule.”

 

 

Excellent Tucker Romanovs

 

 

coastguy – watch!

 

 

 

 

Zelenskler/Hitlensky
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707455933918675430

 

 

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707573905135669384

 

 

 

 

Munger

 

 

RoganBrand
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707461503865979346

 

 

 

 

He called a potential adversary behind the back of his commander-in-chief. Sure smells like treason. What if Milley’s subordinates had done the same with him?

• We Don’t Serve a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Says Retiring US General Milley (Sp.)

“We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.” Those were the defiant words of US General Mark Milley on Friday. They’ve been broadly interpreted by national media as a thinly-veiled rebuke of Donald Trump in a prolonged exchange that has seen the former president suggest the execution of the US military’s highest-ranking member. Milley delivered the remarks at a ceremony at Fort Myer, Virginia, marking his retirement from a position he first took in 2018 at the behest of Trump himself. The comments were prompted by a post Trump made on his Truth Social platform last week suggesting the general had committed a “treasonous act” amounting to a capital offense in the waning days of his administration.

Trump’s post read in part: “This guy [Milley] turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Trump was referring to a phone call Milley reportedly made to Chinese counterparts after events at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 reportedly surprised and alarmed the world power. Milley claims he took the unprecedented action with the approval and cooperation of other military officials, but that didn’t stop Republican Senator Rand Paul from criticizing the move.

The backchannel contact was first revealed in 2021 in an excerpt from Bob Woodward and Bob Costa’s book “Peril” documenting the final days of Trump’s presidency. According to the journalists, Milley had secretly called Chinese military officials once before in 2020 after receiving intelligence that China feared Trump would attack them in an “October surprise” before the election. Reportedly concerned about the former president’s mental state after January 6, Milley additionally forbade officers at the National Military Command Center from carrying out any instructions without going through the general first. Some Republicans have claimed such actions would represent a violation of the chain of command set forth in the US Constitution.

Milley also responded to Trump this week in an interview with US television where he claimed he would take “adequate safety precautions” to protect himself and his family after the remarks. “I wish those comments had not been made, but they were,” said Milley. “We will take appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family.” [..] “The [US military’s] Joint Force… is the most lethal and capable military in the world,” Milley said in his speech on Friday. “We are currently standing watch on freedom’s frontier with a quarter of a million troops deployed in 150 countries.”

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“I have come to honor the McCain Institute and Library because they are home to a proud Republican who put country first..”

• Biden Warns of Trump’s ‘Extremist Movement’ (ET)

President Joe Biden delivered a speech about democracy on Sept. 28 in Arizona, a key battleground state for the 2024 election. He took aim at his predecessor, President Donald Trump, and expressed concerns about a “dangerous” trend unfolding in the United States. “As I’ve always been clear, democracy is not a partisan issue. It’s an American issue,” President Biden said. “But there is something dangerous happening in America. There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. The MAGA Movement.” According to the White House, this is the fourth speech by the president focused on democracy. President Biden began his speech by honoring the legacy of his late friend and colleague Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and announcing the creation of the McCain Library.

Mr. McCain’s family and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, were among those in attendance during his speech in Tempe, Arizona. “I have come to honor the McCain Institute and Library because they are home to a proud Republican who put country first,” President Biden said. “Not every Republican—not even the majority of Republicans—adhere to the extremist MAGA ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with Republicans my whole career. “But there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA extremists.” The president delivered his speech a day after the second Republican debate in California, during which the candidates displayed no signs of narrowing the gap with former President Trump, the Republican frontrunner for 2024.

On Sept. 28, the House Oversight Committee held the first hearing of its impeachment inquiry into President Biden. It focused on President Biden’s potential involvement in his son’s business dealings during his tenure as vice president under President Barack Obama. The challenges don’t end there for the 46th president. President Biden faces continued low approval ratings as the majority of Americans are unhappy with his handling of the economy. In a mid-September NBC News poll, independent voters gave President Biden a dismal 36 percent approval rating. More than 3 in 5 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they would prefer a nominee other than President Biden, according to a recent Washington Post–ABC News poll.

President Biden spoke out against the former president’s recent social media post in which he accused the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, of committing treason. President Trump suggested that Gen. Milley had colluded with China, a conduct he said would have once resulted in death. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been death!” President Trump wrote on Sept. 22 on his Truth Social platform. “Although I don’t believe the majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening,” President Biden said during his speech in Arizona. “Hardly any Republican called out such hated statements.” He later urged Democrats, Republicans, and independents to stand up for democracy. “Put our country first. We can’t take democracy for granted,” President Biden said.

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707695467294077436

Read more …

The prosecutors refer to “lender-ordered appraisals”. But we haven’t seen any complaints from lenders. We’re talking properties and loans worth billions of dollars, and they WOULD complain if cheated.

• The New York Buildings That Donald Trump Could Lose (BBC)

Long before Donald Trump stepped into the White House, his glitzy and glamorous real estate empire helped make him a nationally recognised star. Now, a judge’s ruling that his business committed massive fraud has thrown the fate of some of the former president’s flagship properties into doubt. On Tuesday, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered that some of Mr Trump’s companies be removed from his control. Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and is expected to appeal. The ruling was part of a lawsuit filed against Mr Trump and his family by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who asked the judge for a summary decision that certain facts in the case were beyond dispute in the hope of speeding up the impending trial.

It severely limits Mr Trump’s ability to do business in New York, the place where he launched the real estate empire that thrust him into the national spotlight. What the ruling means for Mr Trump’s properties, however, remains uncertain. The Trump Organization could be forced to hand over control to a court-appointed receiver, or ultimately have to sell some of its most iconic landmarks. Mr Trump’s lawyers have asked for more clarity on which properties could be affected. The judge has yet to give a definitive answer. For Mr Trump, the stakes are potentially high. Earlier this year, Forbes estimated that his New York properties alone are worth $720m (£589m), a sizable chunk of his estimated $2.5bn fortune. Let’s take a look at some of the properties that Mr Trump might lose.

Trump Tower– Located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the 58-floor Trump Tower is among the most recognisable properties bearing Mr Trump’s name. The building is the headquarters of the embattled Trump Organization and has been home to Mr Trump and several of his family members. The building – which was developed by Mr Trump and inaugurated in 1983 – has also featured prominently in popular culture, including serving as the location for Batman’s Wayne Enterprises in Christopher Nolan’s 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises. Mr Trump’s penthouse condominium that spans the top three floors of the building is also among the properties highlighted in James’ lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that Mr Trump artificially inflated the triplex’s value, by repeatedly saying it was more than 30,000 sq ft (2,790 sq m) in size, significantly larger than the 11,000 sq ft listed in property records. The penthouse was valued at $327m in 2015, a price that the lawsuit called “absurd”. “Tripling the size of the apartment for purposes of the valuation was intentional and deliberate fraud,” the lawsuit reads. “Not an honest mistake”.

40 Wall Street – Originally completed in 1930, the 72-story neo-Gothic tower in the heart of New York’s financial district was purchased by a Trump-controlled company in 1995. The building’s website proudly boasts that the purchase was “one of the great real estate deals of all time”. Since the purchase, the building’s tenants have included global giants such as American Express, defunct investment bank Bear Stearns and Hilton Hotels & Resorts. In the New York lawsuit, prosecutors alleged that the values given by Mr Trump and the Trump Organization “far exceeded the values determined by professionals” in lender-ordered appraisals. In 2012, for example, the property was valued by the company at $572m in financial statements – more than twice the value reached by the outside appraisals. By early this year, the building had been added to a lender watchlist because of concerns over rising expenses and vacancies, according to Bloomberg.

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People disagree who he would take votes away from: Trump or Biden.

• RFK Jr Plans To Announce Independent Run For President (PM)

Robert F Kennedy Jr, who launched his campaign for the Democrat presidential nomination in April, reportedly has plans to announce a run as an independent candidate. According to Mediaite, Kennedy plans to make the announcement on October 9 in Philadelphia, with a text message viewed by the outlet stating that his campaign is planning “attack ads” against the Democrat National Committee to “pave the way” for his announcement. “Bobby feels that the DNC is changing the rules to exclude his candidacy so an independent run is the only way to go,” a Kennedy campaign insider told the outlet. On Saturday, the New York Times published a piece stating that Kennedy met with Libertarian Party chair Angela McArdle in July, at a Memphis conference.

“He emphasized that he was committed to running as a Democrat but said that he considered himself very libertarian,” McArdle said, adding that “We’re aligned on a lot of issues,” including the threat of the “deep state.” “My perspective is that we are going to stay in touch in case he does decide to run,” Ms. McArdle said. “And he can contact me at any time if that’s the case.” “It would be very bad” if Kennedy runs as a Libertarian, said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a Democrat group helping coordinate efforts to stop the No Labels group who is also trying to run a third-party ticket. “We’ve been very clear that third parties in close elections can be very dangerous and would almost certainly hurt the president. That would be true of a No Labels candidate and it would be true of RFK.” According to RealClearPolitics average of polls between September 7 and 19, Kennedy is around 50 points behind Biden, with BIden polling at 65 percent and Kennedy at 14.9.

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That could make the shutdown last much longer.

• US House Republicans Plot to Oust McCarthy Amid Looming Shutdown (Sp.)

A group of far-right members of the Republican Party in the US House of Representatives is seeking to replace House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in order to ensure more conservative legislative decisions amid the risk of a government shutdown in the United States, US news outlet reported, citing people familiar with the endeavor. It is still unknown whether the Republicans will set their plan in motion or if it is just an attempt to show McCarthy the depth of their dissatisfaction with his positions on certain legislative matters, the newspaper said, adding that despite this uncertainty, some far-right members of the Grand Old Party (GOP) believe that removing McCarthy is “inevitable” and “imminent” and that it is going to happen soon enough.

If the Republican group succeeds in ousting the House Speaker in the midst of the shutdown, a protracted battle will begin within the party to appoint someone new to the position. This struggle would block all the legislative actions of the US Congress, which would threaten to further halt the work of the country’s government, the newspaper added. Given the potential disagreements among the Republicans, should the vote happen, the fate of McCarthy as speaker would be decided by the House Democrats, since the proposal to remove the speaker must be backed by a majority of House members, the report said. Democrats have not yet decided whether to defend McCarthy or vote against him, it added, citing people familiar with the Democratic leadership’s thinking.

Far-right House Republicans believe a member of McCarthy’s leadership team, Tom Emmer, should become the new speaker, as he has a better chance of delivering more conservative decisions, the newspaper said, adding that Emmer himself is not really interested in the possibility. “I fully support Speaker McCarthy. He knows that and I know that,” Emmer told the newspaper, adding that he has “zero interest in palace intrigue.” The US Congress is attempting to coordinate the budget before the end of the month to avoid a government shutdown. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have proposed short-term measures, although there are differences between the two bills. The Senate proposal includes more than $6 billion in aid to Ukraine, which some Republican lawmakers have opposed. The House proposal includes border security measures, which the Democrat-majority Senate is unlikely to approve.

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“I think this witch-burning instinct might be deep-seated, frankly.”

• Elon Musk Decries ‘Witch-Burning’ Of Russell Brand (RT)

Efforts to condemn actor Russell Brand and silence him based on unproven rape allegations – made at a time when he’s challenging establishment orthodoxies on such issues as the Ukraine conflict and Covid-19 vaccines – mark a “witch-burning phase” in Western cancel culture, US tech billionaire Elon Musk has warned. “It can’t be guilty until proven innocent because obviously, we’re just sort of in the witch-burning phase here, where just being declared a witch is enough to make you a witch and be burnt,” Musk said on Thursday in an X Spaces interview. “I think this witch-burning instinct might be deep-seated, frankly.”

Brand has been at the center of a media firestorm since the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper and Channel 4 TV reported earlier this month that four women had accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape, between 2006 and 2013. He claimed last week that UK government officials had pressured social media companies to censor his commentaries. YouTube demonetized Brand’s videos in response to the allegations, cutting off a source of income that generated an estimated £1 million ($1.2 million) for the actor and comedian. Rumble and X (formerly known as Twitter) are among the platforms that haven’t taken action against Brand.

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski issued an open letter criticizing a “deeply inappropriate” push by UK MP Caroline Dinenage to demonetize Brand’s videos. Musk, who bought X last October for $44 billion, called it an “odd coincidence” that the campaign to silence Brand was happening “when Russell is really gaining traction, questioning a lot of the conventional wisdom.” Brand also has been pilloried for spreading “conspiracy theories,” he said, adding, “I think we’re running out of conspiracy theories that didn’t turn out to be true.”

Brand has denied having nonconsensual sexual relations with anyone. Musk cautioned against a rush to judgment, saying, “We can’t have that, you know, because obviously, anyone could be accused at any time of false charges, and we can’t be destroying their lives on the basis of potentially false accusations.” Musk made his comments on the same day that he traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas, for a firsthand look at the US border crisis. “Why do so many American politicians from both parties care 100 times more about the Ukraine border than the USA border?” asked Musk, who posted a livestream video from the scene.

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“And they are not extradited. They are not denaturalized. They are not deported like the US does. They are not prosecuted inside Canada, which they should be.”

• Nazi Hunter Steven Rambam: Trudeau Knew He Applauded a Monster (Sp.)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has officially apologized for a “deeply embarrassing” incident in the national Parliament, where a Waffen SS veteran was warmly greeted by Canadian politicians. “This was a mistake that has deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada. All of us who were in this House on Friday deeply regret having stood and clapped even though we did so unaware of the context,” the Canadian PM said in a brief statement to journalists. Trudeau stressed that Canada is especially sorry for “the situation that [they] put President Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation in” given that this “egregious error” is being used by Russia’s “propaganda.” Still, Trudeau’s hypocrisy has been called out by Steven Rambam, a private investigator and Nazi hunter based in New York, publicly known for his pro bono activities, which have included the location and investigation of nearly 200 Nazi collaborators and war criminals in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia.

“This narrative that’s springing up that everyone was surprised, that it was a big shock and they can’t believe there’s such a person in Canada,” Rambam told Sputnik. “It’s ridiculous. Look, this person made no secret of who he was. He even had a website until yesterday. He posted and disseminated photos of himself in his SS uniform. He wrote about his experiences in the SS 14th Grenadiers. There’s a scholarship in his name in a university in central Canada, in Alberta. I mean this is ludicrous that people could possibly have been surprised by who he was and what he did.” During the Second World War, Hunka served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as SS Galichina. The unit was created by Nazi Germany in 1943 and was composed of Ukrainian nationalist militants. The division was responsible for the ethnic cleansings of Jews and Poles, which was committed with exceptional brutality.

“So this is not a small criminal. He didn’t pick someone’s pocket or steal $100 from a store. This is an alleged mass murderer who killed old people, allegedly, who allegedly killed children with his comrades in the SS Galicia Division,” Rambam noted, reiterating that it’s virtually impossible that the Canadian authorities were totally unaware about who Hunka is. Poland’s Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek announced Tuesday that he had “taken steps” toward “the possible extradition” of Yaroslav Hunka to Poland. The unit Hunka served in was particularly responsible for burning alive up to 1,000 Polish villagers, including elderly, women and children, in Huta Pieniacka in 1944. “Does it help that they are finally threatening to bring him to justice? Yes,” said Rambam. “Is there any chance at all that this will happen? No, absolutely not.

Canada does not extradite Nazi war criminals. They have never extradited a Nazi war criminal. This is not the only Nazi war criminal who was requested from Canada. And they are not extradited. They are not denaturalized. They are not deported like the US does. They are not prosecuted inside Canada, which they should be. Nothing is done to these people. I can give you a list of many, many more people who, frankly, were as bad or worse than Hunka and who died peacefully in their beds in Canada.” In fact, it did not take a lot of skill to find former Nazis in Canada as they never hid their real names, Rambam pointed out. “They were absolutely unafraid, unashamed. No remorse, no apology, no nothing,” he said.

“To tell you what I did, we very, very easily, disturbingly easily, were able to compile a list of approximately 1,000 alleged war criminals, Nazi war criminals, members of the Ukrainian units, members of the Latvian Arajs Kommando, murderers that committed crimes in Belorussia, the police units in Lithuania, the special Einsatzkommandos of the Nazis that went all across Europe with the so-called holocaust of bullets and gas vans. All of these people had representatives in Canada. Of the thousand, because we knew that we couldn’t pursue a thousand people, it would be a project for the next 15 years of our lives, we selected the 200 worst on the list.” “I will tell you that one of them was a Ukrainian and the description of his crimes that we had from our sources, it was just one line ‘specialized in the murder of children.’ Specialized in the murder of children. So there are other Ukrainians like Mr. Hunka that came to Canada. Of these 200 people, as private persons, I mean, yes, we’re investigators, we have special skills, but we were operating not as law enforcement, but as private persons, we were able to find approximately 170 of them.”

Babi Yar

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Note the one difference.

• The Striking Similarities in the Menendez and Biden Cases (Turley)

In February 2019, Sen. Bob Menendez was having nightmares. The Democratic senator from New Jersey said he was haunted by a question that “keeps me up at night” — whether President Donald Trump was compromised by the Russian government because of past secret dealings. Menendez’s restless nights also may have had something to do with the fact that at the time, he was allegedly accepting lavish gifts from various sources in exchange for using his Senate seat to bestow favors. The indictment of Menendez and his wife last week included details ofalleged bribes that went to the senator in exchange for revealing sensitive, nonpublic information to Egyptian contacts less than a year before his sleep-deprived speech. Menendez denied the accusations on Friday. However, even if half of this indictment is true, Menendez is toast.

He was able to dodge a bullet in 2017 when a jury hung over a separate series of corruption charges involving lavish gifts. This time, the Justice Department says it has photos of thousands of dollars in cash stuffed in clothing, a luxury car, gold bars and other gifts. That would keep anyone up at night, but there may be one other insomniac this week: Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell. The Menendez indictment likely proved chilling reading for Lowell, who not only represents President Joe Biden’s son but also represented Menendez in his prior bribery trial. There are striking similarities between the Menendez and Biden cases. While Hunter Biden was allegedly selling access to and influence with his father, he also allegedly received massive payments. His associate Devon Archer told Congress that they were selling the Biden family “brand,” and that Joe Biden was “the brand.”

Like Menendez, Hunter Biden allegedly received a luxury car from his foreign clients. For the senator, the Justice Department says it was a $60,000 Mercedes-Benz. For the president’s son, investigators say it was a $142,000 Fisker sports car. Menendez allegedly received gold bars worth up to $120,000. Biden received a diamond allegedly worth $80,000. Indeed, the alleged object of these payments was influence with then-Vice President Biden, when he was the presiding officer of the Senate. Menendez was one of the nation’s most powerful senators at the time. There are also dealings that reference Hunter Biden and his associates in the Menendez matter. When the senator was trying to arrange for Joe Biden to host a foreign event, an aide to Menendez reportedly reached out to Hunter Biden’s associates.

While the president’s son is accused of peddling influence, in Menendez’s case, it is his wife who is accused of acting as a go-between with those trying to buy the senator’s attention. Nadine Menendez allegedly had lunches and countless communications with people, who, according to the indictment, sought favors from the senator. Nadine Menendez allegedly knew the co-defendants before she married the senator in 2020. The couple met at an IHOP, but he fittingly proposed to her in 2019 at the Taj Mahal on a trip to India. The setting for the proposal would foretell the lavish gifts to come. Like Hunter, Nadine started an international consulting company, Strategic International Business Consultants, after being unemployed before meeting the senator. She found ample business.

Like Hunter, she is accused of marketing her ability to deliver access to her husband. In March 2020, she allegedly texted an Egyptian official that “anytime you need anything you have my number and we will make everything happen.” There is of course a major difference between the Biden and Menendez cases: Menendez and his wife are being criminally charged for their alleged influence peddling. The Justice Department has not only let the statute of limitations run out on the most serious tax charges against Hunter Biden, but it also has not charged the president’s son under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Despite charging figures like Paul Manafort for similar accusations, prosecutors have avoided charges in the Biden case that would put Hunter at the center of a corruption prosecution. Instead, they sought an embarrassing “sweetheart deal” that collapsed in court.

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“Don’t let these white supremacist, “far-right” MAGA nut-jobs drag us out of the comfortable warm, moist darkness we thrive in — perfect conditions for continued blob growth..”

• Two-Punch (James Howard Kunstler)

So, here at week’s end we see these two rather momentous issues juxtaposed: the battle over how to finance that blob-infested monster in DC; and the battle to expose the crimes of a real-life Manchurian Candidate president. Neither battle is going all that well for the minority of citizens who want to live in a pro-reality society. If we follow the fiscal trend, all the tax revenue we can grudge up will barely cover the annual interest on our $30+trillion debt. If we can’t boot out the brain-dead cat’s paw in the White House, then say goodbye to the rule of law and liberty with it.

The people we elect to Congress don’t want to be accountable for specifically authorizing spending on the blob’s multitudinous pet projects. So, they depend on multi-thousand-page omnibus bills nobody can ever scrutinize, and continuing resolution dodges to postpone any necessarily painful action on a budget. Therefore, a dissenting coterie in the House proposes to play hard-ball over de-funding the blob, that is, a government shutdown of unknown duration, until gaslight is replaced by sunlight. The blob itself sends out a frantic S.O.S. Don’t let these white supremacist, “far-right” MAGA nut-jobs drag us out of the comfortable warm, moist darkness we thrive in — perfect conditions for continued blob growth!

After all, these Congresspersons have their lobbyist-donors to answer to, and they’d better come up with the right answer — or else their chance of eventually retiring as multi-millionaires, like Nancy Pelosi did, might slip away. Of course, the joke would be on them (and the rest of us) if it eventually costs a million dollars for a slice of pizza when they try to cash-out. Or is there some dirty secret involved here — for instance, that the blob has also taken over whatever remained of the US economy, too. So that defunding the blob also blows a hole in that putative economy? Or maybe not. Maybe the regular economy can breathe a little again with the blob’s boot off its neck. Let’s go ahead and shut off the flow for a week or two, see what happens.

[..] There’s reason to be discouraged that the people we elect can bring the two great issues of the moment — the blob’s budget and the impeachment of “Joe Biden” — to satisfactory conclusions. They are arguably pseudopods of that very blob, whose very existence is being threatened now, and they have to worry about their shots at becoming multi-millionaires, too. The weeks ahead will inform us if there’s anything that can be salvaged of our federal government or whether we must make other arrangements.

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That status would give them access to billions upon billions in give-aways and cheap loans.

• Ukraine Demands ‘Full’ EU Membership (RT)

Ukraine demands complete accession to the EU and will not accept any substitute proposed by incumbent member states who envision a tiered system of candidates, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal has told Politico. “We want to be a fully-fledged member because Ukraine today is the unique country across the world that has paid such a huge price for its will to become a European Union member,” the senior official insisted. Earlier this month, a report commissioned by France and Germany recommended breaking down the EU’s expansion process into more phases to “ensure a merit-based approach and to manage potential conflicts.” A four-tiered system ranking nations from “inner circle” down to a “European Political Community”was proposed.

Eight nations and the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo currently have active talks with the EU about possible accession. National leaders will discuss enlargement and reform plans during a summit in Granada, Spain next week. Shmygal emphasized that Ukraine is not aiming for a lower-tier status and anticipates full membership within two years. In explaining what sets Ukraine apart, he pointed to the significant and widespread public support for EU accession among its population. Previously, other senior Ukrainian officials asserted that their nation should be granted membership due to their perceived role in defending the EU from potential Russian invasion. It’s worth noting, however, that Moscow has not indicated any intention to engage in armed conflict with any EU member state.

In a recent Politico interview, Shmygal provided insights ahead of a formal assessment by Brussels regarding Ukraine’s progress in implementing the required reforms as a candidate state last year. The European Commission is anticipated to make a recommendation next month regarding the commencement of formal accession talks. The prime minister vowed that his country “would not be bringing problems” to the EU and, on the contrary, would help it tackle energy dependence, security, defense, and broader economic issues. Currently, Kiev relies on foreign aid to conduct its military campaign against Russia and pay government expenditures. Joseph Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, noted in an interview with The Guardian last week that Ukraine “would be the only country that would be a net beneficiary”should it be granted membership. He added, however, that Kiev’s inclusion in the bloc would also end a “sleeping siesta” period for enlargement.

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None of the money “invested” will ever be seen again.

• Germany-Ukraine Joint Arms Production Venture a Money Laundering Scheme (Sp.)

German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has received the go-ahead from the country’s Federal Antimonopoly Office to set up a joint venture with the Ukrainian Defense Industry, previously known as Ukroboronprom. According to Rheinmetall, “The JV [joint venture] is to be based in Kiev and engage in service and maintenance as well as the assembly, production and development of military vehicles.” The developments come as a US newspaper reported that Kiev is due to host Western officials and international arms manufacturers for a forum on Friday, touted as an opportunity to increase weapons production inside Ukraine. The newspaper cited Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba as saying that representatives of 165 military contractors from 26 nations are expected to take part in the forum.

Alexei Leonkov told Sputnik that Kiev and Berlin are currently writing up an agreement of intent, which is presented as if the decision on the JV has already been made. Actually, however, there are several factors that make these plans by Berlin and Kiev doubtful, the Russian analyst pointed out. First and foremost, Ukraine is involved in hostilities, which means that its industrial sector is often exposed to Russian missile attacks and those conducted by Russian long-range combat drones, according to Leonkov. Secondly, cash-strapped Ukraine’s national debt will soon approach 100%, namely, it will be a bankrupt state in the near future and it remains unclear how investments into the country can be made. The analyst warned that investors’ hopes for some kind of economic effect from the possible JV may never be met because it’s not clear who will make payments.

Last but not least, Rheinmetall – a high-tech company – will most likely have to spend its own money to train Ukrainian workers so that they can be on a first-name basis with German technology, as per Leonkov. “The only thing that can be done is, on the one hand, to do some PR, and on the other – to knock out money that will never be spent on creating the JV’s workshops and production sites. One can easily point the finger at Russian missiles that allegedly destroyed JV sites,” the analyst said, calling the Kiev-Berlin project “a money laundering scheme.” He stressed that even if there was no Russian special military operation in Ukraine, creating the JV could take plenty of time. “This project is at the level of crazy people. Making plans when your ship is already sinking is tantamount to the captain of the Titanic making plans that he will sail, for example, to Beijing next time. So no serious investor will invest in the project, which is a very attractive project in terms of money laundering,” the Arsenal Otechestva editor underscored.

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Wouldn’t be surprising. Certain death appeals to few people.

• Ukrainian Troops Reportedly Refuse Battle Orders Due to Heavy Losses (Sp.)

The Russian Defense Ministry has reported that the 47th Mechanized Brigade had to be withdrawn from the Rabotino area of the Zaporozhye region by the Ukrainian command due to the soldiers’ reluctance to carry out combat missions in the face of mounting casualties. According to information shared on the Telegram channel of the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian command is currently carrying out the withdrawal of the 47th Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) from the Rabotino area of the Zaporozhye region as soldiers are reluctant to take on combat orders after the losses they suffered.

The Russian Armed Forces are heavily engaged in the defense of the Zaporozhye direction. Last week, Russian military units successfully repelled eight attacks from enemy assault groups from the 65th Mechanized and 71st Jaeger Brigades in the Verbovoye and Rabotino areas. The Ministry of Defense also announced that the UAF suffered significant losses during the fighting, including over 330 soldiers, 32 armored combat vehicles, 38 vehicles and 25 field artillery pieces. Earlier in the day, the Defense Ministry announced that Russian paratroopers using anti-tank vehicles had neutralized a Ukrainian military observation post on the right bank of the Dnepr River.

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‘..If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together.’

• Russia-China Partnership Defangs US Empire (Pepe Escobar)

China’s State Council has released a crucial policy paper titled ‘A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions’ that should be read as a detailed, comprehensive road map for a peaceful, multipolar future. That is if the hegemon – of course faithful to its configuration as War Inc. – does not drag the world into the abyss of a hybrid-turned-hot war with incandescent consequences. In sync with the ever-evolving Russia-China strategic partnership, the white paper notes how “President Xi Jinping first raised the vision of a global community of shared future when addressing the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2013.”
That was ten years ago, when the New Silk Roads – or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – was launched: that became the overarching foreign policy concept of the Xi era.

The Belt and Road Forum next month in Beijing will celebrate the 10th anniversary of BRI, and relaunch a series of BRI projects. “Community of Shared Future” is a concept virtually ignored across the collective West – and in several cases lost in translation across the East. The white paper’s ambition is to introduce “the theoretical base, practice and development of a global community of shared future.” The five key points include building partnerships “in which countries treat each other as equals”; a fair and just security environment; “inclusive development”; inter-civilization exchanges; and “an ecosystem that puts Mother Nature and green development first,” as Xi detailed at the 2015 UN General Assembly. The white paper forcefully debunks the “Thucydides Trap” fallacy:

“There is no iron law that dictates that a rising power will inevitably seek hegemony. This assumption represents typical hegemonic thinking and is grounded in memories of catastrophic wars between hegemonic powers in the past.” While criticizing the “zero-sum game” to which “certain countries” still cling to, China completely aligns with the Global South/global majority, as in “the common interests of all peoples around the world. When the world thrives, China thrives, and vice versa.” Well, that’s not exactly the “rules-based international order” in play. When it comes to building a new system of international relations, China prioritizes “extensive consultation” among equals and “the principle of sovereign equality” that “runs through the UN Charter.” History and realpolitik, though, dictate that some countries are more equal than others.

This white paper comes from the political leadership of a civilization-state. Thus it naturally promotes the “increase of inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony” while elegantly remarking how a “fine traditional culture epitomizes the essence of the Chinese civilization.” Here we see a delicate blend of Taoism and Confucianism, where harmony – praised as “the core concept of Chinese culture” – is extrapolated to the concept of “harmony within diversity”: and that is exactly the basis for embracing cultural diversity. In terms of promoting a dialogue of civilizations, these paragraphs are particularly relevant:

“The concept of a global community of shared future reflects the common interests of all civilizations – peace, development, unity, coexistence, and win-win cooperation. A Russian proverb holds, ‘Together we can weather the storm.’ “The Swiss-German writer Hermann Hesse proposed, ‘Serve not war and destruction, but peace and reconciliation.’ A German proverb reads, ‘An individual’s effort is addition; a team’s effort is multiplication.’ An African proverb states, ‘One single pillar is not sufficient to build a house.’ An Arabian proverb asserts, ‘If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together.’ “Mexican poet Alfonso Reyes wrote, ‘The only way to be profitably national is to be generously universal.’

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You know the answer in advance. Thing is, Russia got a deal with Bolivia. Lithium OPEC.

• Can The US Defeat Russia In The Lithium Battery War? (Helmer)

In January of this year the United States Geological Service (USGS) reported the reserves of the nine leading countries in the world which mine lithium, the new fuel to power electric batteries. Chile led, followed by Australia, Argentina, China, and the US which claims to have one million tonnes. Russia was left out of the USGS chart. Russian sources report its lithium reserves are currently between 3.5 million and 5 million tonnes; that’s at least three times more than the US. The US is also much more limited in its capacity to develop new domestic lithium mines compared to Russia. Bolivia was also omitted from the US Government chart because its reserves were called unproven resources. In fact and in the ground, Bolivia leads the lithium world with 21 million tonnes.

The difference between what USGS reports and what happens next isn’t the distinction in geologists’ terminology between reserves and resources. It’s US Government policy to stop, sabotage and destroy Russia’s ability to meet its lithium requirement from its own, domestic sources, or by importing from friendly countries like Bolivia. In response, a new plan for combining lithium mining projects in Bolivia and Russia will produce a surplus of Russia’s foreseeable requirement for lithium battery production. But not only that. Allied in technology sharing, investment, trade, and political agreement, the two countries will protect each other in the conservation of the lithium market. If everything goes according to plan, Russia, Bolivia, and the three BRICS states – Argentina, Brazil and China – will dominate the trade in global lithium.

They are already discussing the formation of a collective marketing organisation – a lithium OPEC. Unless the US can stop them. In the latest official paper issued by the State Department on July 23, “the bilateral relationship between the United States and Bolivia” is “strained. Despite these challenges, the United States maintains a strong and respectful relationship with the Bolivian people, with whom we work to advance human rights, entrepreneurship, and cultural and educational initiatives…However, the United States remains concerned by anti-democratic actions and the politicization of the legal system.” This is how the lithium war is starting.

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“He’s here to…here to…he’s got all of the…he runs the…the…the thing. Rocketship.”

• Biden Administration Reports Dangerous African Immigrant At Border (BBee)

As the migrant crisis along the southern U.S. border continued to intensify, a new threat emerged, leading the Biden administration to warn the populace of the presence of a dangerous African immigrant sighted at the border. “This is serious, folks,” President Joe Biden said in brief remarks to reporters. “We’ve received reports of a very menacing African man roaming the region. Everyone knows I’m a long-time advocate for keeping an eye on these African fellas. This one is especially dangerous. He’s here to…here to…he’s got all of the…he runs the…the…the thing. Rocketship.” Despite thousands of unvetted and undocumented foreign nationals pouring across the border every day, the federal government and the mainstream media have continued to remain largely silent on the topic.

The sudden appearance of this African man, experts say, may finally force the Biden administration to address the issue of border security. “They can’t afford to ignore it now,” said Dr. Blake Rumsey of the Foundation for Discussion. “For whatever reason, this particular African man seems to really have them spooked.” The White House was uncharacteristically quick to comment on the news from the border. “Border safety is now a priority,” said gay and black Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “This African man poses a serious threat to America’s national security and democracy itself. When he gets up from his nap, the president will take this very seriously.” At publishing time, the federal government had announced the deployment of military resources to apprehend the African man.

“Elon Musk went to the southern border to investigate illegal crossings & his interview of local sheriffs & officials now has +81 million views. CNN gets ~474,000 viewers per day”

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Antibiotics

 

 

Rain frog

 

 

 

 

Moment

 

 

Gecko

 

 


UK lighthouses

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 18 2023

Sep 182023
 
 September 18, 2023  Posted by at 9:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Hugo Simberg The Wounded Angel 1903

 

• Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)
• Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)
• Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)
• The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)
• Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)
• Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)
• US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)
• ‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)
• Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)
• Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)
• US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)
• Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)
• ‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

What emergency?

 

 

 

 


The U.S. appeals court said that the FDA’s statements, including one telling people to ‘stop’ using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, went beyond the authority conferred on the agency by Congress.”

 

 

Kadyrov

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gagging a entire Presidential Election. The US is close to the edge.

“..Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.”

• Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)

Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” After Friday night, we can add nine more: “a narrowly tailored order that imposes modest, permissible restrictions.” Those words were used by Special Counsel Jack Smith to propose a gag order that would sharply curtail the ability of former President Donald Trump to criticize Smith and his prosecution. The Smith motion is anything but “narrowly tailored.” Indeed, short of a mobile “Get Smart” Cone of Silence, it is chilling to think of what Smith considered the broader option. Smith told District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., that Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.

Smith compared Trump’s comments on the trial to the “disinformation” spread by Trump after the 2020 election — the subject of the indictment. The motion states that Trump’s “recent extrajudicial statements are intended to undermine public confidence in an institution — the judicial system — and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals — the Court, the jury pool, witnesses, and prosecutors.” I have long criticized Trump’s inflammatory comments over these cases, but Smith’s solution veers dangerously into core political speech in the middle of a presidential election. Ironically, Smith’s move will likely be seen as reinforcing Trump’s claim of intentional election interference by the Biden Administration.

I do not view it that way, but I do believe Smith is showing his signature lack of restraint in high-profile cases, a tendency that led to the unanimous overturning of his conviction of former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell. Smith seeks to bar comments “regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating.” Gag orders have become commonplace in federal trials, particularly high-profile cases. I have criticized the increasing use of gag orders for years due to concerns over free speech. Typical orders often seek to shutdown public comments in the interests of protecting jury pools.

Even “narrower” orders are written with vague terminology like “disparaging” and “intimidating” that expose defendants to punitive action if they cross uncertain lines in public defending themselves. No one seriously questions the ability of courts to limit the release of sealed material or to bar threatening comments directed at jurors, witnesses, or court staff. However, there are laws on the books allowing for the prosecution of such cases. More importantly, this is no typical case. Smith has pushed for a trial before the election and the court inexplicably shoehorned the trial into a crowded calendar just before the Super Tuesday election. Judge Chutkan previously stated that “I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign.” This motion, however, would impose substantial limits on a national political debate and begs the question of whether the court is failing to balance the rivaling constitutional interests in this unprecedented situation. It could not only test Chutkan’s position but prompt an early appeal.

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“..some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”..

“Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”

• Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)

Donald Trump, indicted four times in the past few months, has turned his legal troubles to his advantage, as his poll ratings testify. The 45th POTUS has swept ahead in the GOP presidential primary race, with his fundraising campaign also making an impressive haul since the Trump “mug shot” taken at Georgia’s Fulton County Jail in August. The Republican nomination frontrunner for the 2024 US presidential elections, Donald Trump, might not be averse to choosing a woman as his running mate. That, at least, is what the former POTUS told the host of ‘Meet the Press’ in an interview. “I like the concept, but we’re going to pick the best person… But I do like the concept, yes,” the 45th US President told the moderator, while indicating that he was not yet focused too much on picking a potential Vice-President.

Trump also took a moment to single out Kristi Noem as “one of the people I’d consider”, adding that the South Dakota Governor had given him a “full-throated endorsement, a beautiful endorsement”. Earlier in the month, the 51-year-old when asked if she would consider an offer from Trump to be his running mate, responded: “I would in a heartbeat,” adding: “Trump needs a strong partner if he’s going to take back the White House and he’s going to need somebody who knows what it’s like to run a business, to be an employee, earn a paycheck. But also having [someone who has been] a wife, mom, and grandma isn’t bad either.” As for the other women that have been mooted as potential Trump running mates, the list includes Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

Elsewhere in the interview, airing on Sunday, the 77-year-old Trump, weighed in on the US presidency age limit debate. In his opinion, it’s not age that is the problem, quipping that, “some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”. “I’m all for the tests,” said Trump, recalling how he “aced” his own cognitive test in 2020 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. As for 80-year old Joe Biden, Trump suggested that the problem with him was not age. “I don’t think Biden is too old, but I think he is incompetent. And that’s a bigger problem.”

The Democratic incumbent himself has repeatedly dismissed concerns that he will be 82 should he have another stint in the Oval Office, and has made much of the “hell of a lot of wisdom” he has acquired throughout his political career but American voters are not entirely convinced. In fact, just recently a new poll by Quinnipiac University showed that approximately six in 10 US voters – 61 percent – are in favor of a maximum age being introduced for presidential candidates. Furthermore, 68 percent of voters think Biden, famously known for blunders and mispronouncements during public appearances, is too old to serve for a second term, according to the Quinnipiac poll. In one of a long line of gaffes, Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”. The clip went viral on social media, as Biden’s slip-ups tend to, with netizens puzzled since Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022.

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“They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

• Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)

Ukraine could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths and lost less land if it had reached a peace deal with Russia before the conflict began last February, former US President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview aired on Sunday. The loss of Ukrainian territory to Russia is “something that could have been negotiated,” Trump told NBC host Kristen Welker, adding that “a lot of people expected”Kiev to abandon its claims to “Crimea and other parts of the country” in exchange for peace. “So they could have made a deal where there’s less territory [lost] than Russia has already taken,”Trump continued. “They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

By “other parts of the country,”Trump was likely referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, whose sovereignty Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized three days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began. Following referendums last September, both regions have now joined the Russian Federation, along with the formerly Ukrainian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye. Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in 2014. Trump then repeated his claim that if elected next year, he would have a peace deal worked out within 24 hours. “I’d get [Russian President Vladimir Putin] into a room, I’d get [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky into a room, then I’d bring them together and I’d have a deal worked out,” he told Welker. “It would have been easier if the war didn’t start, and you’d have hundreds of thousands of people living, most importantly,” he noted. “But I can get it done and I can get it done quickly.”

Trump then claimed that he kept Ukraine and Russia “from doing anything” during his presidency, arguing that the low oil prices that characterized his term in the White House would have made it too costly for Russia, a leading oil exporter, to finance a military operation. Trump’s position on Ukraine is diametrically opposed to that of President Joe Biden, who has vowed to bankroll Kiev’s military “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia on the battlefield. With the exception of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, all of Trump’s opponents in the Republican primary field support some sort of continued military aid to Ukraine. Among them is Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence. Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Pence accused Trump of “embracing the politics of appeasement,” and “letting Vladimir Putin have what he wants.”

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“Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.”

• The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Biden Regime is a Fascist Censor controlling information in the interest of its criminal agendas. A Federal Appeals Court spelled out the censorship and banned it: “Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social-media companies’ decision-making processes.”

The Biden Regime hopes to convince the Supreme Court that “national security” requires abandoning the US Constitution and to coerce the court into reinstating the Biden regime’s cancellation of the US Constitution. It is impossible for a country to survive when the values on which the country is founded are abandoned by its leaders. America is so far gone that not even the media believes in free speech and has happily accepted the role as Ministry of Propaganda. Certainly corporations do not respect the First Amendment. Employees must take “harassment training” to remain employed. Failure to use “Woke pronouns” constitutes harassment and grounds for firing. In other words, employees do not have freedom of speech.

A coerced Woke policy has control of their tongues and forces the use of words they do not voluntarily use and to which they object. Employees are forced to lend their validation to the preferences of a tiny perverse collection of confused people. Why do the non-normal minority have this power over the normal majority? Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.

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Coup in progress in Congo.

• Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)

Africa has witnessed a wave of military takeovers in the past few years, with new governments, like in the more recent cases of Gabon and Niger, positioning themselves as forces eager to shed vestiges of European neo colonialism. The African continent currently presents a complex and contradictory scene, but one thing is undeniable: if Africa were to attain more unity, it would be able to achieve an economic breakthrough in 20 years just like China or India did, renowned economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Sputnik. “Africa was divided by the European imperial powers into 55 countries, many of which are quite small… But the continent as a whole is 1.4 billion people, and that is comparable to the single country of China and the single country of India.

So if Africa were to get its act together, to have more unity, and to have a unified continental scale economy, Africa will be able to follow along roughly 20 year cycles: China started first (around 1980), India started its rapid growth (around 2000),” the Columbia University Professor stated. He added: “Africa as a unified economic space could achieve consistent 7 to even 10% economic development over the coming decades from 2020 onward. This is quite interesting. So this is the positive side of the story for Africa.” The recent admission of Africa as a union – the African Union (AU) – as the 21st member of the G20 was a very significant event, the economist noted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the inclusion of the 55-member African Union, one of the largest regional blocs in the world, established in 2002 as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), as a permanent member during the first session of the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi. According to Jeffrey Sachs, the move is important for the G20 as it “brings in other 1.4 billion people to the table with one seat, the AU seat.” But it may also have the “powerful effect of reinforcing the unification of the continental-scale economy in Africa.” This, in turn, would boost Africa’s economic advance during the coming several decades, Sachs underscored.

As for the spate of recent military takeovers, diverse economic factors are driving this political wave, said the economist. “Africa remains the poorest part of the world… And the Sahel of Africa, which is the region of the semi to hyper arid region neighboring the Sahara Desert, places like Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan…this is the poorest single stretch on the planet because it’s mostly landlocked, it’s largely bereft of infrastructure… often sparsely populated and landlocked at the same time. It’s poor,” Jeffrey Sachs pointed out. The recent military takeovers have been taking place in these very poor countries, in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, with poverty “part of the underlying substrate of all of this,” said the economist.

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“Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?”

“California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us.”s

• Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)

California public schools supported by taxes on property owners teach California kids that it is possible to be born into the wrong body, and the schools implant the idea that many girls are really boys and many boys really girls that ended up in the wrong physical configuration. Consequently, an entire industry has grown up to change the sex of children. Boys are chemically castrated and given female hormones. Girls have their breast cut out and are given male hormones. Quack “transgender science” against nature proceeds apace. The public schools have created a fad among children that the thing to do is to change one’s sex. This brings the child attention the child might not get from a two-parent earner family created by taxes and feminism. By the time busy parents working to stay ahead of mortgage and car payments catch on to what is going on, it is too late.

To prevent any intervention by parents the California State Assembly has passed a bill that gives the state the right to seize kids from parents who don’t support the “transition” of their kids into the opposite sex. The bill says that if a parent objects to the sex change of a child, the child is endangered and can be seized into the state’s protection. There you have it–“freedom in America.” All authority of parents has been taken away in California by people who have ceased to be moral Americans. Whites are fleeing California, even the dumbshit liberal ones. Consequently, California which was a Reagan state only a short time ago is today only 33% white. Today Republicans hold only 18 seats in the 80 member assembly.

God speed the legal and illegal Hispanic and Asian immigration into California. Hopefully, the immigrants will use their immense majority to take the government away from the crazed governor Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Schiff, the worst kind of anti-Americans who are destroying our country. Listen to Democrat state representative Lori Wilson who declares that it is the duty of parents to affirm their brainwashed children by endorsing their sex change. Lori Wilson says since parents fail their duty “to affirm our children”–by which she means by “our” your children which become the state’s children–the state has to intervene, take your kids, and perform the role of affirmation that parents fail to do.

Clearly, California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us. Let’s pray that Mexico reclaims California and Arizona and cuts out the metastasizing cancer. After all, California and the southwest represent lands stolen from Mexico. If we have to make amends to blacks because they were enslaved by blacks, we should pay reparations for stealing the southwest from Mexico. In California a child can be secretly transitioned without the knowledge or consent of parents. The California public schools actually teach the children that they cannot trust their parents. Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?

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Why Imran Khan had to go.

“Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.”

“Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare..”

• US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)

Secret Pakistani arms sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the IMF earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on. The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.

The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed. Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.

The emergency loan allowed the new Pakistani government to put off a looming economic catastrophe and indefinitely postpone elections — time it used to launch a nationwide crackdown on civil society and jail Khan. “Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Arif Rafiq, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan, told The Intercept. Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare. As Ukraine grappled with chronic shortages of munitions and hardware, the presence of Pakistani-produced shells and other ordinances by the Ukrainian military has surfaced in open-source news reports about the conflict, though neither the U.S. nor the Pakistanis have acknowledged the arrangement.

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“Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia..”

• ‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)

The West must prepare for “a long war” in Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared on Sunday. Despite claiming to want a “quick peace” in Ukraine, Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia. “Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,”Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group. “Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.” According to media reports over the last two months, Western officials and military planners have conceded that Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces is unlikely to succeed, leaving the front lines mostly unchanged as winter sets in. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine has lost upwards of 71,000 men since the counteroffensive began in June.

Despite this stark attrition rate – with some units losing 90% of their manpower, according to Ukrainian sources, Stoltenberg insisted that NATO will continue to push for a military, not a diplomatic, solution. “We are all wishing for a quick peace,” Stoltenberg said. “But at the same time we must recognise: if President Zelensky and the Ukrainians stop fighting, their country will no longer exist. If President Putin and Russia lay down their weapons, we will have peace.” After walking away from a Turkish-brokered peace deal last April, Zelensky issued a decree forbidding all negotiations with Russia. Furthermore, he has repeatedly vowed to retake the former Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea, the latter of which voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation in 2014.

Zelensky’s stance is backed by Washington, where officials have repeatedly insisted that only the Ukrainian president can decide when to seek peace. At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has condemned Putin for supposedly rejecting “meaningful diplomacy.” Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but that any peace deal would have to take into account the “new territorial reality” – that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea will never be ceded back to Ukraine. Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said negotiations would be held “not with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.”

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Milley parrots Stoltenberg. Or is it the other way around?

• Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)

In an exclusive interview with an American broadcaster, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive “will take a considerable length of time,” refusing to speculate on how long it might take for Kiev to achieve its goals. “This offensive, although significant, has operational and tactical objectives that are limited in the sense that they do not, even if they are fully achieved, they do not completely kick out all the Russians, which is the broader strategic objective that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky have” Milley said in an interview with a American broadcaster.

The military official refused to speculate on how long it might take Ukraine to achieve its goals, noting that it “will take a considerable length of time.” In addition, Milley described Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive as “long, hard, bloody.” Russia began its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine launched its latest counteroffensive in early June. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful.

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“Zelensky’s formula” is insane..

• Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)

Kiev has failed to “pull” neutral countries and international organizations to implement its peace formula, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told Sputnik. “As for the meetings on Zelensky’s peace formula, as far as we know, Kiev is still unsuccessfully trying to pull neutral countries and international organizations to implement the points of its plan,” Nebenzia said in an interview. He called for an objective approach to anything the Ukrainians say about international support for Zelensky’s formula, including a recent G20 statement. “We see no signs of UN involvement in these discussions, especially since [UN Secretary-General] Antonio Guterres has repeatedly spoken in this context about his commitment to the principle of impartiality and centrality,” Nebenzia said.

Nebenzya urged that “everything the Ukrainians say about international support for the so-called ‘Zelensky Plan’ should be checked against the facts,” including “the recent section of the G20 statement on the Ukrainian crisis.” “Everything else is ‘from the evil one’,” he concluded. Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration of the G20 summit. It states in connection with the events in Ukraine that all countries should refrain from the threat or use of force to acquire territory. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the G7 countries were putting pressure on India to reflect their unilateral approaches to the situation around Ukraine in the final documents of the G20.

The ministry noted that against this background the Indian side tried to stick to a neutral course based on the strictly economic mandate of the G20. In late June, talks on Ukraine were held in Copenhagen with the participation of the G7 countries, some BRICS countries and Ukraine itself. The participants discussed the ways of implementing the peace formula of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After that, Saudi Arabia held its own meeting on the issue in Jeddah. Moscow considers the formula to be completely detached from reality.

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“..Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way..”

• US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)

The never-ending expansion of NATO has enabled the US to turn many nations into its puppets, helping Washington to cling to its hegemony, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, has said. In an op-ed for the Razvedchik magazine issued by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and published on Friday, Patrushev claimed that the West often resorts to military force, coercion, ‘privatization’ of elites, and color revolutions to achieve global domination. The constant expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance basically provides the US with the opportunity to absorb states and deprive them of their independence in terms of defending their national interests.

The official also blasted the US-led military bloc for what he called “duplicity,” arguing that while NATO has always claimed to stand for peace, it has waged war or threatened military action against countries that oppose Washington’s policies. “NATO’s military power is used to maintain Western hegemony, economic enslavement, and political pressure on states that pose no military threat to the alliance,” Patrushev stated, adding that members of the bloc have taken part in more than 200 conflicts across the world over the past seven decades. Meanwhile, Patrushev continued, Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way.

The West “perceives Russia as a constant threat” because it remembers that it was the Soviet Union that played a crucial role in dismantling the colonial system, according to Patrushev. As a result, he said, the West is using the full range of tools at its disposal against Russia, including sanctions and its massive system of media resources that help it concoct “information frenzy campaigns” across the globe. Moscow has repeatedly protested NATO expansion, seeing it as a major national security threat and arguing that the increased military build-up on its borders leads to heightened tensions in Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has named the risk of Kiev joining the military bloc as one of the key reasons behind the Ukraine conflict.

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“..across the street of the UN headquarters..” Like the photo.

• Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to pick Türkiye as a location for his electric vehicle company’s next factory, according to the Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu. During the meeting on Sunday, Erdogan described Ankara’s “technological breakthroughs as well as the ‘Digital Türkiye’ vision and the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” the country’s communications directorate said in a statement cited by Anadolu. Besides urging Musk to establish Tesla’s seventh factory in Türkiye, Erdogan also described other “opportunities for collaboration with SpaceX may arise through the steps taken and to be taken as part of Türkiye’s space program.”

The US entrepreneur has yet to comment on the results of the talks. He was seen entering the Turkish House skyscraper across the street of the UN headquarters on Sunday, carrying his young son on Sunday. Tesla currently has six so-called gigafactories in the US, Germany and China and is building a seventh in Mexico. The automaker could pick a location for its next major production facility by the end of 2023, Musk indicated earlier this year Last month the company “expressed interest” in building a factory in India to produce a low-cost EV model, after Musk pledged significant investment in India following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US in June.

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Oh sweet Jesus…

• ‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

The F-35 Lightning II is a family of fifth-generation, low-observable, multi-role fighter-bomber aircraft developed by US company Lockheed Martin. Social media users are wondering how the F-35 Lightning II jet could be missing after US military officials lost track of it somewhere over South Carolina after the pilot ejected. Earlier, the US authorities said that they were searching for an F-35B stealth fighter jet after a crash in South Carolina that forced the pilot to eject. “We are working with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to locate the F-35 aircraft involved in a mishap this afternoon. The pilot ejected safely. If you have any information that may help our recovery teams locate theF-35, please call the Base Defense Operations Center,” Joint Base Charleston said on X (formerly Twitter).

The US Marine Corps told local media that the accident involved an F-35B aircraft from the 501st Fighter Training Squadron, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. The pilot was taken to hospital in stable condition. The search is focused on the Moultrie and Marion Lakes area in the central part of the state. Recently, two aircraft collided during a race over the state of Nevada. As a result of the crash, two pilots were killed. Both planes were completely destroyed.

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Hugo Simberg The Wounded Angel 1903

 

• Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)
• Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)
• Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)
• The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)
• Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)
• Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)
• US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)
• ‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)
• Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)
• Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)
• US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)
• Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)
• ‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

What emergency?

 

 

 

 


The U.S. appeals court said that the FDA’s statements, including one telling people to ‘stop’ using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, went beyond the authority conferred on the agency by Congress.”

 

 

Kadyrov

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gagging a entire Presidential Election. The US is close to the edge.

“..Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.”

• Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)

Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” After Friday night, we can add nine more: “a narrowly tailored order that imposes modest, permissible restrictions.” Those words were used by Special Counsel Jack Smith to propose a gag order that would sharply curtail the ability of former President Donald Trump to criticize Smith and his prosecution. The Smith motion is anything but “narrowly tailored.” Indeed, short of a mobile “Get Smart” Cone of Silence, it is chilling to think of what Smith considered the broader option. Smith told District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., that Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.

Smith compared Trump’s comments on the trial to the “disinformation” spread by Trump after the 2020 election — the subject of the indictment. The motion states that Trump’s “recent extrajudicial statements are intended to undermine public confidence in an institution — the judicial system — and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals — the Court, the jury pool, witnesses, and prosecutors.” I have long criticized Trump’s inflammatory comments over these cases, but Smith’s solution veers dangerously into core political speech in the middle of a presidential election. Ironically, Smith’s move will likely be seen as reinforcing Trump’s claim of intentional election interference by the Biden Administration.

I do not view it that way, but I do believe Smith is showing his signature lack of restraint in high-profile cases, a tendency that led to the unanimous overturning of his conviction of former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell. Smith seeks to bar comments “regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating.” Gag orders have become commonplace in federal trials, particularly high-profile cases. I have criticized the increasing use of gag orders for years due to concerns over free speech. Typical orders often seek to shutdown public comments in the interests of protecting jury pools.

Even “narrower” orders are written with vague terminology like “disparaging” and “intimidating” that expose defendants to punitive action if they cross uncertain lines in public defending themselves. No one seriously questions the ability of courts to limit the release of sealed material or to bar threatening comments directed at jurors, witnesses, or court staff. However, there are laws on the books allowing for the prosecution of such cases. More importantly, this is no typical case. Smith has pushed for a trial before the election and the court inexplicably shoehorned the trial into a crowded calendar just before the Super Tuesday election. Judge Chutkan previously stated that “I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign.” This motion, however, would impose substantial limits on a national political debate and begs the question of whether the court is failing to balance the rivaling constitutional interests in this unprecedented situation. It could not only test Chutkan’s position but prompt an early appeal.

More importantly, this is no typical case. Smith has pushed for a trial before the election and the court inexplicably shoehorned the trial into a crowded calendar just before the Super Tuesday election. Judge Chutkan previously stated that “I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign.” This motion, however, would impose substantial limits on a national political debate and begs the question of whether the court is failing to balance the rivaling constitutional interests in this unprecedented situation. It could not only test Chutkan’s position but prompt an early appeal.

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“..some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”..

“Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”

• Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)

Donald Trump, indicted four times in the past few months, has turned his legal troubles to his advantage, as his poll ratings testify. The 45th POTUS has swept ahead in the GOP presidential primary race, with his fundraising campaign also making an impressive haul since the Trump “mug shot” taken at Georgia’s Fulton County Jail in August. The Republican nomination frontrunner for the 2024 US presidential elections, Donald Trump, might not be averse to choosing a woman as his running mate. That, at least, is what the former POTUS told the host of ‘Meet the Press’ in an interview. “I like the concept, but we’re going to pick the best person… But I do like the concept, yes,” the 45th US President told the moderator, while indicating that he was not yet focused too much on picking a potential Vice-President.

Trump also took a moment to single out Kristi Noem as “one of the people I’d consider”, adding that the South Dakota Governor had given him a “full-throated endorsement, a beautiful endorsement”. Earlier in the month, the 51-year-old when asked if she would consider an offer from Trump to be his running mate, responded: “I would in a heartbeat,” adding: “Trump needs a strong partner if he’s going to take back the White House and he’s going to need somebody who knows what it’s like to run a business, to be an employee, earn a paycheck. But also having [someone who has been] a wife, mom, and grandma isn’t bad either.” As for the other women that have been mooted as potential Trump running mates, the list includes Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

Elsewhere in the interview, airing on Sunday, the 77-year-old Trump, weighed in on the US presidency age limit debate. In his opinion, it’s not age that is the problem, quipping that, “some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”. “I’m all for the tests,” said Trump, recalling how he “aced” his own cognitive test in 2020 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. As for 80-year old Joe Biden, Trump suggested that the problem with him was not age. “I don’t think Biden is too old, but I think he is incompetent. And that’s a bigger problem.”

The Democratic incumbent himself has repeatedly dismissed concerns that he will be 82 should he have another stint in the Oval Office, and has made much of the “hell of a lot of wisdom” he has acquired throughout his political career but American voters are not entirely convinced. In fact, just recently a new poll by Quinnipiac University showed that approximately six in 10 US voters – 61 percent – are in favor of a maximum age being introduced for presidential candidates. Furthermore, 68 percent of voters think Biden, famously known for blunders and mispronouncements during public appearances, is too old to serve for a second term, according to the Quinnipiac poll. In one of a long line of gaffes, Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”. The clip went viral on social media, as Biden’s slip-ups tend to, with netizens puzzled since Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022.

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“They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

• Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)

Ukraine could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths and lost less land if it had reached a peace deal with Russia before the conflict began last February, former US President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview aired on Sunday. The loss of Ukrainian territory to Russia is “something that could have been negotiated,” Trump told NBC host Kristen Welker, adding that “a lot of people expected”Kiev to abandon its claims to “Crimea and other parts of the country” in exchange for peace. “So they could have made a deal where there’s less territory [lost] than Russia has already taken,”Trump continued. “They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

By “other parts of the country,”Trump was likely referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, whose sovereignty Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized three days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began. Following referendums last September, both regions have now joined the Russian Federation, along with the formerly Ukrainian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye. Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in 2014. Trump then repeated his claim that if elected next year, he would have a peace deal worked out within 24 hours. “I’d get [Russian President Vladimir Putin] into a room, I’d get [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky into a room, then I’d bring them together and I’d have a deal worked out,” he told Welker. “It would have been easier if the war didn’t start, and you’d have hundreds of thousands of people living, most importantly,” he noted. “But I can get it done and I can get it done quickly.”

Trump then claimed that he kept Ukraine and Russia “from doing anything” during his presidency, arguing that the low oil prices that characterized his term in the White House would have made it too costly for Russia, a leading oil exporter, to finance a military operation. Trump’s position on Ukraine is diametrically opposed to that of President Joe Biden, who has vowed to bankroll Kiev’s military “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia on the battlefield. With the exception of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, all of Trump’s opponents in the Republican primary field support some sort of continued military aid to Ukraine. Among them is Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence. Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Pence accused Trump of “embracing the politics of appeasement,” and “letting Vladimir Putin have what he wants.”

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“Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.”

• The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Biden Regime is a Fascist Censor controlling information in the interest of its criminal agendas. A Federal Appeals Court spelled out the censorship and banned it: “Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social-media companies’ decision-making processes.”

The Biden Regime hopes to convince the Supreme Court that “national security” requires abandoning the US Constitution and to coerce the court into reinstating the Biden regime’s cancellation of the US Constitution. It is impossible for a country to survive when the values on which the country is founded are abandoned by its leaders. America is so far gone that not even the media believes in free speech and has happily accepted the role as Ministry of Propaganda. Certainly corporations do not respect the First Amendment. Employees must take “harassment training” to remain employed. Failure to use “Woke pronouns” constitutes harassment and grounds for firing. In other words, employees do not have freedom of speech.

A coerced Woke policy has control of their tongues and forces the use of words they do not voluntarily use and to which they object. Employees are forced to lend their validation to the preferences of a tiny perverse collection of confused people. Why do the non-normal minority have this power over the normal majority? Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.

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Coup in progress in Congo.

• Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)

Africa has witnessed a wave of military takeovers in the past few years, with new governments, like in the more recent cases of Gabon and Niger, positioning themselves as forces eager to shed vestiges of European neo colonialism. The African continent currently presents a complex and contradictory scene, but one thing is undeniable: if Africa were to attain more unity, it would be able to achieve an economic breakthrough in 20 years just like China or India did, renowned economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Sputnik. “Africa was divided by the European imperial powers into 55 countries, many of which are quite small… But the continent as a whole is 1.4 billion people, and that is comparable to the single country of China and the single country of India.

So if Africa were to get its act together, to have more unity, and to have a unified continental scale economy, Africa will be able to follow along roughly 20 year cycles: China started first (around 1980), India started its rapid growth (around 2000),” the Columbia University Professor stated. He added: “Africa as a unified economic space could achieve consistent 7 to even 10% economic development over the coming decades from 2020 onward. This is quite interesting. So this is the positive side of the story for Africa.” The recent admission of Africa as a union – the African Union (AU) – as the 21st member of the G20 was a very significant event, the economist noted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the inclusion of the 55-member African Union, one of the largest regional blocs in the world, established in 2002 as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), as a permanent member during the first session of the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi. According to Jeffrey Sachs, the move is important for the G20 as it “brings in other 1.4 billion people to the table with one seat, the AU seat.” But it may also have the “powerful effect of reinforcing the unification of the continental-scale economy in Africa.” This, in turn, would boost Africa’s economic advance during the coming several decades, Sachs underscored.

As for the spate of recent military takeovers, diverse economic factors are driving this political wave, said the economist. “Africa remains the poorest part of the world… And the Sahel of Africa, which is the region of the semi to hyper arid region neighboring the Sahara Desert, places like Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan…this is the poorest single stretch on the planet because it’s mostly landlocked, it’s largely bereft of infrastructure… often sparsely populated and landlocked at the same time. It’s poor,” Jeffrey Sachs pointed out. The recent military takeovers have been taking place in these very poor countries, in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, with poverty “part of the underlying substrate of all of this,” said the economist.

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“Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?”

“California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us.”s

• Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)

California public schools supported by taxes on property owners teach California kids that it is possible to be born into the wrong body, and the schools implant the idea that many girls are really boys and many boys really girls that ended up in the wrong physical configuration. Consequently, an entire industry has grown up to change the sex of children. Boys are chemically castrated and given female hormones. Girls have their breast cut out and are given male hormones. Quack “transgender science” against nature proceeds apace. The public schools have created a fad among children that the thing to do is to change one’s sex. This brings the child attention the child might not get from a two-parent earner family created by taxes and feminism. By the time busy parents working to stay ahead of mortgage and car payments catch on to what is going on, it is too late.

To prevent any intervention by parents the California State Assembly has passed a bill that gives the state the right to seize kids from parents who don’t support the “transition” of their kids into the opposite sex. The bill says that if a parent objects to the sex change of a child, the child is endangered and can be seized into the state’s protection. There you have it–“freedom in America.” All authority of parents has been taken away in California by people who have ceased to be moral Americans. Whites are fleeing California, even the dumbshit liberal ones. Consequently, California which was a Reagan state only a short time ago is today only 33% white. Today Republicans hold only 18 seats in the 80 member assembly.

God speed the legal and illegal Hispanic and Asian immigration into California. Hopefully, the immigrants will use their immense majority to take the government away from the crazed governor Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Schiff, the worst kind of anti-Americans who are destroying our country. Listen to Democrat state representative Lori Wilson who declares that it is the duty of parents to affirm their brainwashed children by endorsing their sex change. Lori Wilson says since parents fail their duty “to affirm our children”–by which she means by “our” your children which become the state’s children–the state has to intervene, take your kids, and perform the role of affirmation that parents fail to do.

Clearly, California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us. Let’s pray that Mexico reclaims California and Arizona and cuts out the metastasizing cancer. After all, California and the southwest represent lands stolen from Mexico. If we have to make amends to blacks because they were enslaved by blacks, we should pay reparations for stealing the southwest from Mexico. In California a child can be secretly transitioned without the knowledge or consent of parents. The California public schools actually teach the children that they cannot trust their parents. Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?

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Why Imran Khan had to go.

“Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.”

“Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare..”

• US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)

Secret Pakistani arms sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the IMF earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on. The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.

The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed. Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.

The emergency loan allowed the new Pakistani government to put off a looming economic catastrophe and indefinitely postpone elections — time it used to launch a nationwide crackdown on civil society and jail Khan. “Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Arif Rafiq, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan, told The Intercept. Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare. As Ukraine grappled with chronic shortages of munitions and hardware, the presence of Pakistani-produced shells and other ordinances by the Ukrainian military has surfaced in open-source news reports about the conflict, though neither the U.S. nor the Pakistanis have acknowledged the arrangement.

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“Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia..”

• ‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)

The West must prepare for “a long war” in Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared on Sunday. Despite claiming to want a “quick peace” in Ukraine, Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia. “Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,”Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group. “Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.” According to media reports over the last two months, Western officials and military planners have conceded that Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces is unlikely to succeed, leaving the front lines mostly unchanged as winter sets in. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine has lost upwards of 71,000 men since the counteroffensive began in June.

Despite this stark attrition rate – with some units losing 90% of their manpower, according to Ukrainian sources, Stoltenberg insisted that NATO will continue to push for a military, not a diplomatic, solution. “We are all wishing for a quick peace,” Stoltenberg said. “But at the same time we must recognise: if President Zelensky and the Ukrainians stop fighting, their country will no longer exist. If President Putin and Russia lay down their weapons, we will have peace.” After walking away from a Turkish-brokered peace deal last April, Zelensky issued a decree forbidding all negotiations with Russia. Furthermore, he has repeatedly vowed to retake the former Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea, the latter of which voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation in 2014.

Zelensky’s stance is backed by Washington, where officials have repeatedly insisted that only the Ukrainian president can decide when to seek peace. At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has condemned Putin for supposedly rejecting “meaningful diplomacy.” Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but that any peace deal would have to take into account the “new territorial reality” – that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea will never be ceded back to Ukraine. Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said negotiations would be held “not with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.”

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Milley parrots Stoltenberg. Or is it the other way around?

• Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)

In an exclusive interview with an American broadcaster, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive “will take a considerable length of time,” refusing to speculate on how long it might take for Kiev to achieve its goals. “This offensive, although significant, has operational and tactical objectives that are limited in the sense that they do not, even if they are fully achieved, they do not completely kick out all the Russians, which is the broader strategic objective that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky have” Milley said in an interview with a American broadcaster.

The military official refused to speculate on how long it might take Ukraine to achieve its goals, noting that it “will take a considerable length of time.” In addition, Milley described Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive as “long, hard, bloody.” Russia began its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine launched its latest counteroffensive in early June. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful.

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“Zelensky’s formula” is insane..

• Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)

Kiev has failed to “pull” neutral countries and international organizations to implement its peace formula, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told Sputnik. “As for the meetings on Zelensky’s peace formula, as far as we know, Kiev is still unsuccessfully trying to pull neutral countries and international organizations to implement the points of its plan,” Nebenzia said in an interview. He called for an objective approach to anything the Ukrainians say about international support for Zelensky’s formula, including a recent G20 statement. “We see no signs of UN involvement in these discussions, especially since [UN Secretary-General] Antonio Guterres has repeatedly spoken in this context about his commitment to the principle of impartiality and centrality,” Nebenzia said.

Nebenzya urged that “everything the Ukrainians say about international support for the so-called ‘Zelensky Plan’ should be checked against the facts,” including “the recent section of the G20 statement on the Ukrainian crisis.” “Everything else is ‘from the evil one’,” he concluded. Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration of the G20 summit. It states in connection with the events in Ukraine that all countries should refrain from the threat or use of force to acquire territory. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the G7 countries were putting pressure on India to reflect their unilateral approaches to the situation around Ukraine in the final documents of the G20.

The ministry noted that against this background the Indian side tried to stick to a neutral course based on the strictly economic mandate of the G20. In late June, talks on Ukraine were held in Copenhagen with the participation of the G7 countries, some BRICS countries and Ukraine itself. The participants discussed the ways of implementing the peace formula of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After that, Saudi Arabia held its own meeting on the issue in Jeddah. Moscow considers the formula to be completely detached from reality.

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“..Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way..”

• US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)

The never-ending expansion of NATO has enabled the US to turn many nations into its puppets, helping Washington to cling to its hegemony, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, has said. In an op-ed for the Razvedchik magazine issued by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and published on Friday, Patrushev claimed that the West often resorts to military force, coercion, ‘privatization’ of elites, and color revolutions to achieve global domination. The constant expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance basically provides the US with the opportunity to absorb states and deprive them of their independence in terms of defending their national interests.

The official also blasted the US-led military bloc for what he called “duplicity,” arguing that while NATO has always claimed to stand for peace, it has waged war or threatened military action against countries that oppose Washington’s policies. “NATO’s military power is used to maintain Western hegemony, economic enslavement, and political pressure on states that pose no military threat to the alliance,” Patrushev stated, adding that members of the bloc have taken part in more than 200 conflicts across the world over the past seven decades. Meanwhile, Patrushev continued, Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way.

The West “perceives Russia as a constant threat” because it remembers that it was the Soviet Union that played a crucial role in dismantling the colonial system, according to Patrushev. As a result, he said, the West is using the full range of tools at its disposal against Russia, including sanctions and its massive system of media resources that help it concoct “information frenzy campaigns” across the globe. Moscow has repeatedly protested NATO expansion, seeing it as a major national security threat and arguing that the increased military build-up on its borders leads to heightened tensions in Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has named the risk of Kiev joining the military bloc as one of the key reasons behind the Ukraine conflict.

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“..across the street of the UN headquarters..” Like the photo.

• Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to pick Türkiye as a location for his electric vehicle company’s next factory, according to the Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu. During the meeting on Sunday, Erdogan described Ankara’s “technological breakthroughs as well as the ‘Digital Türkiye’ vision and the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” the country’s communications directorate said in a statement cited by Anadolu. Besides urging Musk to establish Tesla’s seventh factory in Türkiye, Erdogan also described other “opportunities for collaboration with SpaceX may arise through the steps taken and to be taken as part of Türkiye’s space program.”

The US entrepreneur has yet to comment on the results of the talks. He was seen entering the Turkish House skyscraper across the street of the UN headquarters on Sunday, carrying his young son on Sunday. Tesla currently has six so-called gigafactories in the US, Germany and China and is building a seventh in Mexico. The automaker could pick a location for its next major production facility by the end of 2023, Musk indicated earlier this year Last month the company “expressed interest” in building a factory in India to produce a low-cost EV model, after Musk pledged significant investment in India following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US in June.

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Oh sweet Jesus…

• ‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

The F-35 Lightning II is a family of fifth-generation, low-observable, multi-role fighter-bomber aircraft developed by US company Lockheed Martin. Social media users are wondering how the F-35 Lightning II jet could be missing after US military officials lost track of it somewhere over South Carolina after the pilot ejected. Earlier, the US authorities said that they were searching for an F-35B stealth fighter jet after a crash in South Carolina that forced the pilot to eject. “We are working with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to locate the F-35 aircraft involved in a mishap this afternoon. The pilot ejected safely. If you have any information that may help our recovery teams locate theF-35, please call the Base Defense Operations Center,” Joint Base Charleston said on X (formerly Twitter).

The US Marine Corps told local media that the accident involved an F-35B aircraft from the 501st Fighter Training Squadron, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. The pilot was taken to hospital in stable condition. The search is focused on the Moultrie and Marion Lakes area in the central part of the state. Recently, two aircraft collided during a race over the state of Nevada. As a result of the crash, two pilots were killed. Both planes were completely destroyed.

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Debt Rattle July 19 2023

Jul 192023
 
 July 19, 2023  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Mick Jagger letter to Andy Warhol 1969

 

• Gen. Milley: Counteroffensive ‘Far From A Failure’ (RT)
• Gen. Milley Explains F-16 Delay For Ukraine (RT)
• Failure Of Counteroffensive May Lead To West’s ‘Devastating Defeat’ (TASS)
• US Pressuring Ukraine For ‘Decisive Breakthrough’ – WaPo (RT)
• A Bonfire of the Vanities (Alastair Crooke)
• Zelensky Becoming ‘Toxic’ To The West – Zakharova (RT)
• London’s New Sanctions Seen as Display Of Blatant Hypocrisy – Zakharova (TASS)
• NATO To Quadruple Presence In Bulgaria (RT)
• Kissinger Warns US And China Against Conflict (RT)
• Arresting Putin Would Be ‘Declaration Of War’ – South African President (RT)
• End Of Grain Deal Won’t Cause Food Crisis Thanks To Russia’s Supplies (TASS)
• European Parliament Wants ICC Arrest Warrant For Lukashenko (TASS)
• Trump Says He Is About To Be Arrested Again (Az.)
• Feds Seize Trump Advisors’ Phones In Jan 6 Investigation (PM)
• Pentagon Wanted To Test Unregistered Medicines On Africans – Russia (TASS)

 

 

 

 

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“..the element that does the best in terms of sustainment will probably have the advantage at the end of the day.”

What does that even mean?

• Gen. Milley: Counteroffensive ‘Far From A Failure’ (RT)

America’s top-ranking general isn’t ready to concede failure by Ukrainian forces in their counteroffensive against stiff Russian defenses, saying he has expected all along for the operation to be bloody and drag on for a long time. “They’re in the early stages, and it’s far too early to make any definitive assessments,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told reporters on Tuesday after meeting with European allies in Brussels. “I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go, and I’ll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be bloody,” he added. Kiev launched its long-delayed counteroffensive in the Donbass region last month. Ukrainian forces have failed to breach Russia’s defensive lines.

As of last week, they had lost over 26,000 troops and hundreds of armored vehicles, including Western-supplied tanks, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The New York Times reported on Saturday that after losing up to 20% of the weaponry deployed in the counteroffensive in just two weeks, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had paused the operation to shore up ammunition. Asked whether the counteroffensive had been a defeat so far, Milley said, “It is far from a failure. I think that it’s way too early to make that kind of call.” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin agreed, saying, “This will continue to be a tough fight, as we anticipated, and I believe that the element that does the best in terms of sustainment will probably have the advantage at the end of the day.”

Milley claimed that Ukraine’s military is making “steady progress,” but with hundreds of thousands of Russian troops deployed in defensive positions, “this is a very difficult fight. It is a very violent fight, and it will likely take a considerable amount of time at a high cost.” US President Joe Biden’s administration has vowed to continue providing billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry as long as it takes for Ukraine to defeat Russia. Critics of that policy, including Republican lawmakers, have argued that Washington is waging a proxy war with Russia and prolonging the bloodshed for the Ukrainian people.

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No troops, no weapons, no ammo … and no planes.

• Gen. Milley Explains F-16 Delay For Ukraine (RT)

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley has said Washington is simply unable to provide enough F-16 fighter jets to assist Ukraine’s counteroffensive, citing the time and money needed to supply the weapons. Asked why Ukraine has not received the American fighters during a Tuesday press briefing, Milley said the focus should instead be on artillery and air defenses, as F-16s will not be feasible in the near-term. “Just do a quick math drill here. Ten F-16s are $2 billion,” he said. “The Russians have hundreds of fourth- and fifth-generation airframes, so if they’re going to try to match the Russians one for one – or even, you know, two-to-one – you’re talking about a large number of aircraft.”

The general said it would take “years” to train Ukrainian pilots, “do the maintenance and sustainment” operations required, and “generate that degree of financial support,” adding “You’re talking way more billions of dollars than has already been generated.” While US officials previously said Ukrainian airmen would be instructed to operate the F-16 through an international coalition seeking to help Kiev obtain the jet, Washington has yet to grant formal approval to European countries slated to carry out the training, Politico reported last week. The State Department is supposed to authorize the transfer of instruction manuals, flight simulators and other materials required for the training, but has yet to do so, with Pentagon spokesman Garron Garn noting that the requests are “still being reviewed.”

Kiev has repeatedly urged its Western backers to provide it with additional airpower, demanding the F-16 specifically on several occasions. Though Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said Ukraine could deploy its first F-16s by late March 2024, it is unclear what Milley’s comments could mean for that timetable. Ukraine’s much-awaited counter-offensive kicked off in June, but has slowed in the face of powerful Russian fortifications. According to Politico, some senior US officials believe that future support for Ukraine will depend on the success of the operation, though Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has blamed delays in Western military aid for the lagging campaign.

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“The Kiev government, backed by the West, may be forced to agree to make territorial concessions to Russia, which would mean their “devastating defeat..”

• Failure Of Counteroffensive May Lead To West’s ‘Devastating Defeat’ (TASS)

The Kiev government, backed by the West, may be forced to agree to make territorial concessions to Russia, which would mean their “devastating defeat,” an expert of the London-based Civitas think tank, Robert Clark, wrote in an opinion piece for The Daily Telegraph. “If Kiev fails in its battlefield endeavors to split that land bridge, and retake much of its own territory by winter, then vocal calls of territorial concessions for marginal political outcomes will likely become far more prevalent – not just in Ukraine but likely from western capitals, as so-called “war-fatigue” begins to bite, international stockpiles of equipment and ammunition wither and politicians begin to worry about domestic budgets ahead of national elections,” Clark said, adding that “governments across the west must be prepared for the grim prospect of territorial concessions.”

In his opinion, the “long-planned counter-offensive, now in its second month, has run into several problems – not least that Kiev is still waiting for approximately half of the western military equipment promised earlier in the year.” “It is incredibly tough going for the Ukrainians,” the expert continued. “This grueling endeavor was always going to take longer than the occasionally impatient international audience was prepared to wait for.” The analyst added that “the variable that isn’t on their [Ukrainian] side is time.”

“The fighting will begin to grind to a cold halt as the freezing winter saps troops’ ability to conduct high-intensity warfare. This will only give Russia more time to further build up its defences, as it did last winter,” Clark wrote. “By this point in the West, meanwhile, all eyes will be on the upcoming US election, with more political attention diverted by the UK’s general election. Kiev knows it has a shortened window of opportunity to capitalize on its battlefield initiative and take back as much ground as it can.”

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Not going to happen.

• US Pressuring Ukraine For ‘Decisive Breakthrough’ – WaPo (RT)

US officials are reportedly concerned that Ukraine is not making enough progress in its much-lauded counteroffensive, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday citing anonymous sources. According to the outlet, Washington is urging Kiev to commit to a decisive breakthrough as Ukrainian commanders have yet to employ the large-scale offensive tactics they were taught by Western instructors. An unnamed US official explained to the Washington Post that the West had trained Ukrainian forces in integrated offensive maneuvers, as well as provided mine-clearing equipment, and stressed that it was “paramount” that Kiev’s troops quickly apply those capabilities to breach Russia’s defenses.

Western officials have reportedly criticized Ukraine’s military for embracing an attrition-based approach aimed at firing artillery and missiles at command, transport and logistics sites at the rear of Russian positions instead of using Western-style “combined arms” operations that involve large-scale maneuvers featuring tanks, armored vehicles, infantry, artillery, and air power, the outlet said. Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War have pointed out that Ukrainian commanders have chosen to embrace more low-profile advances involving groups of 15 to 50 soldiers in order to preserve manpower. The Washington Post also noted that Kiev has so far only fielded “four of a dozen trained brigades in the current campaign.”

Kiev’s attempts to breach Russian defenses have so far been met with “overwhelming artillery, anti tank missiles, loitering munitions and helicopter fire” which have caused significant losses. Russia’s extensive use of drones has also presented a challenge that “not even American forces – for all their combat experience in recent decades – have faced on this scale,” the Post said. Experts have said that while advances on foot would likely reduce the attrition sustained by the Ukrainian army, such tactics would be much slower and be much less likely to provide an opportunity for a rapid breakthrough.

Ukrainian officials, in turn, have rebuked demands from their Western counterparts to speed up the operation and have instead stressed the need to avoid unnecessary losses and complained about the lack of air support. Kiev has repeatedly pleaded with its Western backers provide its forces with US-designed F-16 fighter jets, arguing that they would play a key role in countering Russian air power. Western officials, however, have reportedly insisted that the jets would not be a “game changer,” while Russia has responded by saying the aircraft would be destroyed like any other foreign military equipment in Ukraine.

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“..Moscow wants the present Kiev collective gone, and NATO’s weapons off the battle field..”

• A Bonfire of the Vanities (Alastair Crooke)

Ukraine: How do you win an unwinnable war? Well, the élite answer has been through narrative. By insisting against reality that Ukraine is winning, and Russia is ‘cracking’. But such hubris eventually is busted by facts on the ground. Even the western ruling classes can see their demand for a successful Ukrainian offensive has flopped. At the end, military facts are more powerful than political waffle: One side is destroyed, its many dead become the tragic ‘agency’ to upending dogma. “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met … [however] unless Ukraine wins this war, there’s no membership issue to be discussed at all” – Jens Stoltenberg’s statement at Vilnius.

Thus, after urging Kiev to throw more (hundreds of thousands) of its men into the jaws of death to justify NATO membership, the latter turns its back on its protégé. It was, after all, an unwinnable war from the beginning. The hubris, at one level, lay in NATO’s pitting of its alleged ‘superior’ military doctrine and weapons versus that of a deprecated, Soviet-style, hide-bound, Russian military rigidity – and ‘incompetence’. But military facts on the ground have exposed the western doctrine as hubris – with Ukrainian forces decimated, and its NATO weaponry lying in smoking ruins. It was NATO that insisted on re-enacting the Battle of 73 Easting (from the Iraqi desert, but now translated into Ukraine).

In Iraq, the ‘armoured fist’ punched easily into Iraqi tank formations: It was indeed a thrusting ‘fist’ that knocked the Iraqi opposition ‘for six’. But, as the U.S. commander at that tank battle (Colonel Macgregor), frankly admits, its outcome against a de-motivated opposition largely was fortuitous. Nonetheless ‘73 Easting’ is a NATO myth, turned into the general doctrine for the Ukrainian forces – a doctrine structured around Iraq’s unique circumstance. The hubris – in line with the Daily Telegraph video – however, ascends vertically to impose the unitary narrative of a coming western ‘win’ onto the Russian political sphere too. It is an old, old story that Russia is military weak, politically fragile, and prone to fissure. Conor Gallagher has shown with ample quotes that it was exactly the same story in World War 2, reflecting a similar western underestimation of Russia – combined with a gross overestimation of their own capabilities.

The fundamental problem with ‘delusion’ is that the exit from it (if it occurs at all) moves at a much slower pace than events. The mismatch can define future outcomes. It may be in the Team Biden interest now to oversee an orderly NATO withdrawal from Ukraine – such that it avoids becoming another Kabul debacle. For that to happen, Team Biden needs Russia to accept a ceasefire. And here lies the (the largely overlooked) flaw to that strategy: It simply is not in the Russian interest to ‘freeze’ the situation. Again, the assumption that Putin would ‘jump’ at the western offer of a ceasefire is hubristic thinking: The two adversaries are not frozen in the basic meaning of the term – as in a conflict in which neither side has been able to prevail over the other, and are stuck.

Put simply, whereas Ukraine structurally hovers at the brink of implosion, Russia, by contrast, is fully plenipotent: It has large, fresh forces; it dominates the airspace; and has near domination of the electromagnetic airspace. But the more fundamental objection to a ceasefire is that Moscow wants the present Kiev collective gone, and NATO’s weapons off the battle field.

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“The White House has publicly disavowed attacks carried out by the Kiev regime, drawing a dividing line between arms sales and terrorist attacks..”

• Zelensky Becoming ‘Toxic’ To The West – Zakharova (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has become “toxic” to the collective West, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. The White House has “publicly disavowed” the new Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Crimean Bridge, she pointed out on Tuesday. “The White House has publicly disavowed attacks carried out by the Kiev regime, drawing a dividing line between arms sales and terrorist attacks. This is, of course, just another manipulation. But something else is important – Zelensky has become toxic to the West,” Zakharova wrote in a Telegram post. The remarks apparently came in response to statements made by US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby on Monday.

The official insisted the White House was “not in a position to attribute the attack to any particular party at this point,” refusing to confirm the attack on the strategic bridge was launched by Kiev. Moreover, Kirby noted the attack on the structure had hardly impacted Russia’s military capabilities and was not expected to have a “dramatic effect” on them in the long run. “I think it’s just too soon to know whether that attack on that bridge is going to have any significant military impact on their ability to continue to fight this war,” he said, adding that “the Russians have many, many, many other ways of providing logistics and sustainment to their troops in Ukraine.” The Crimean Bridge, linking the peninsula – which broke away from Ukraine back in 2014 and joined Russia after a referendum – to the country’s mainland was attacked early on Monday.

An early assessment of the incident indicated that it was targeted by two sea drones launched by Kiev, Russian investigators have said. The attack left the road section of the bridge heavily damaged, while a Russian couple was killed in their vehicle. Their now-orphaned 14-year-old daughter was seriously injured in the blast. Russian leadership, including President Vladimir Putin, has squarely described the incident as a “terrorist attack” launched by the “Kiev regime” on a civilian installation. The bridge was first targeted by Ukraine last October, when a truck packed with explosives was detonated on it. The blast heavily damaged both road and railway sections of the bridge, prompting a large-scale repair effort, which has been completed since then.

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“..which has become a hallmark of the British foreign policy..”

• London’s New Sanctions Seen as Display Of Blatant Hypocrisy – Zakharova (TASS)

London’s new sanctions against Russian nationals and organizations are nothing but a show of blatant hypocrisy, something that has become a hallmark of London’s foreign policy, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday. “We consider London’s openly hostile actions as new manifestations of unabashed hypocrisy, which has become a hallmark of the British foreign policy,” she noted. According to Zakharova, no “sanctions convulsions” can help London force Russia to change its sovereign course. “The task and goals of the special military operation will be fully attained,” she stressed.

“Demonstrating fake ‘concern for children,’ it [London] continues to demonstrate unparalleled cynicism and supply deadly weapons to the Kiev regime, which uses them against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Donbass, the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, in the Republic of Crimea and other Russian regions. British shells and missiles kill, cripple and orphan children it allegedly ‘defends.’ It makes London a co-perpetrator of this and other crimes of the Kiev regime and it will not escape responsibility,” she stressed. The UK Foreign Office on Monday announced sanctions on 13 Russian nationals and the Artek international children’s center in Crimea. The restrictions that include an entry ban and asset freeze cover Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov, Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova, Kamchatka Region Governor Vladimir Solodov, Adygeya Republic Governor Murat Kumpilov, and the head of the Kharkov Region’s military-civilian administration, Vitaly Ganchev.

According to the Foreign Office, the sanctioned individuals, including the Moscow Region children’s ombudsperson Ksenia Mishonova; the Donetsk People’s Republic human rights ombudsperson Darya Morozova; adviser on children’s rights to the DPR’s head Eleonora Fedorenko; and the head of staff of the Sevastopol office of the Young Army Cadets National Movement, Vladimir Kovalenko, contributed to the alleged deportation of Ukrainian children. Russian President Vladimir Putin said at talks with African leaders on June 17 that the Russian government had acted absolutely legally when it evacuated children from the conflict zone in Ukraine and had never objected to their reunification with their families.

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“The US-led bloc plans to dramatically expand its 40,000-strong Response Force (NRF) to over 300,000 troops..”

But they don’t have the troops… It’ll take years…

• NATO To Quadruple Presence In Bulgaria (RT)

The US-led military bloc plans to send thousands of troops to Bulgaria, Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov said on Tuesday. The move would expand the battalion-size task force currently stationed in the Balkans country to a reinforced brigade. NATO will increase the bloc’s troop presence in Bulgaria four-fold, with a “powerful brigade” made up of well-trained units from multiple NATO countries, Denkov was quoted as saying by the Serbian newspaper Politika. “The plan is for the multinational battle group on our territory to be reinforced up to brigade level,” said Defense Minister Todor Tagarev. He added that Bulgaria will endeavor to have the brigade at full strength, meaning at around 5,000 troops, and that the government in Sofia needs to build the logistics and infrastructure to make that possible.

The battalion-sized task force currently in Bulgaria is made up of troops from several NATO member states. Around 700 are from Italy, which has operational command of the unit. The UK sent a company from the Royal Irish Regiment, while Greece has deployed an anti-tank platoon. Soldiers from Türkiye, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania are also part of the force, outfitted with US-made Stryker armored vehicles. Upgrading this force is part of NATO’s plan for a massive military build-up in eastern Europe, announced last week at the summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. The US-led bloc plans to dramatically expand its 40,000-strong Response Force (NRF) to over 300,000 troops, citing the supposed danger from Russia and the Ukraine conflict. The battalion in Bulgaria was actually announced in late 2021, prior to the escalation of hostilities in Ukraine, as part of the NATO build-up in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia to match the increased presence in Poland and the Baltic states.

The parliament in Sofia approved its creation in late January 2022, though it was initially supposed to be a Bulgarian formation – but NATO made it an Italian-led project the following month. France was given the lead in the neighboring Romania. All battle groups are ultimately under the authority of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), currently US Army General Christopher Cavoli. Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004, as part of the bloc’s march eastward that Moscow has repeatedly condemned as a security threat and a breach of promises made at the end of the Cold War. Last week, Sofia announced it would send 100 armored vehicles to Ukraine, while hoping to get replacements from the US. Denkov’s cabinet made the decision against the recommendations of President Rumen Radev, who has favored negotiations over supplying Kiev with weapons.

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Kissinger as the peace apostle. What’s next?

• Kissinger Warns US And China Against Conflict (RT)

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has called for Washington and Beijing to find a way to coexist peacefully. The 100-year-old diplomat traveled to China to meet with Defense Minister Li Shangfu on Tuesday. “The United States and China should eliminate misunderstandings, coexist peacefully and avoid confrontation. History and practice have continually proved that neither the United States nor China can afford to treat the other as an adversary,” the Xinhua news agency quoted Kissinger as saying after the meeting. Kissinger urged both sides to “be wise” and work together, making every effort to improve relations and “and maintain peace and stability throughout the world.”

Li described the relations between China and the US as “hovering at a low point since the establishment of diplomatic relations” because “some people on the US side have failed to move in the same direction as the Chinese side.” China remains committed to “building stable, predictable and constructive” relations with the US along the lines of President Xi Jinping’s “three principles” formula of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation, Li said. Kissinger, who recently turned 100, served as secretary of state (1973-1977) and national security advisor (1969-1975) to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He played a major role in the talks to end the Vietnam War, as well as the normalization of relations with Beijing in the 1970s, with an eye to pitting China against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

His trip to Beijing follows visits by several senior US officials, from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. President Joe Biden’s administration has repeatedly said it does not seek “confrontation” with China, while sending weapons to the disputed island of Taiwan and strengthening military alliances in the Asia-Pacific with Australia, Japan, and South Korea. Last week at the summit in Vilnius, NATO accused China of pursuing “coercive policies” that somehow threatened the US-led bloc’s interests all the way in Europe. Beijing has denounced the NATO statement as “slander” and a “smear,” accusing the bloc of remaining trapped in a Cold War mentality.

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Is Putin playing around with this?

• Arresting Putin Would Be ‘Declaration Of War’ – South African President (RT)

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that executing an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin when the Russian leader attends the BRICS summit next month in Johannesburg would amount to a “declaration of war” against Moscow. “Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war,” Ramaphosa said in a court filing released on Tuesday. “It would be inconsistent with our constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia.” He added that such a move would also fail his duty to protect South Africa. As an ICC member, South Africa is required to abide by the court’s orders, including the March ruling to arrest Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

However, the country also is the hosting member of this year’s BRICS summit, and it has sought to maintain good relations with Russia. Ramaphosa has resisted US pressure to condemn Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, maintaining neutrality on the issue, and has suggested that NATO’s eastward expansion helped trigger the crisis. South Africa’s leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), demanded that the government arrest Putin and turn him over to the ICC if he sets foot in the country. Ramaphosa’s affidavit came in response to a legal challenge by the DA, which sought to force the president’s hand. Pretoria is seeking an exemption from its obligation under the ICC warrant because arresting Putin could jeopardize the “security, peace and order of the state,” Ramaphosa said.

His deputy, Paul Mashatile, has reportedly asked the Russian president not to attend the summit. The Kremlin said on Friday that Putin hadn’t decided whether he would attend the meeting in person or participate remotely. Heads of state for other BRICS members, including China, Brazil and India, are expected to attend. The ICC accused Putin and the Russian commissioner for children’s rights of “forcible transfer of the population” over the evacuation of minors from the combat zone in Ukraine. Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the court, and the Kremlin has said that the ICC has no authority.

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Russia gives away the grain to the poorest countries, and Kiev misses the revenues.

• End Of Grain Deal Won’t Cause Food Crisis Thanks To Russia’s Supplies (TASS)

The suspension of the grain deal will not lead to a food crisis and an increase in grain prices thanks to sufficient supplies from Russia, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera notes on Tuesday adding that grain exports from Russia are close to all time high. According to the newspaper, Russia supplies a large amount of grain to the market at reduced prices, which contributes to a decrease in global prices, so the rise in food prices that was observed a year ago has ended. For this reason, the forecast of “food apocalypse” is wrong, the newspaper notes. The publication also reminds that African countries are not the main recipients of Ukrainian grain.


The grain deal came to an end on July 17. Russia refused to extend it again because the part of the deal envisaging the removal of obstacles for Russian agricultural exports had not been implemented. Apart from that, Moscow has repeatedly stressed that the bulk of grain that was meant to be supplied to the poorest counties was shipped to Western countries. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow was ready to resurrect the deal but only after its part related to obligations to Moscow was fulfilled.

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“A large portion of the report is titled “Fears over Russia’s subordination of Belarus.”

“The entire history of European integration and the European Union [..] is a history of gradual submission of authority of EU states to the EU’s supranational institutions.”

• European Parliament Wants ICC Arrest Warrant For Lukashenko (TASS)

The European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) approved a report on the situation in Belarus Tuesday, calling on EU countries and institutions to seek an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for his involvement in the evacuation of children from the combat area in Ukraine. The Committee refers to accusations made earlier against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova. “Belarus is responsible for damage caused to and crimes committed in Ukraine, MEPs point out, including through the regime’s role in the illegal transfer of children [from the combat area – TASS].

The report therefore calls on the EU institutions and member states to take all necessary steps at the international level to enable the criminal prosecution of those Belarusian political and military leaders responsible for crimes against humanity and genocide. With the International Criminal Court (ICC) already having issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, MEPs call on the ICC to consider a similar arrest warrant for [Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko],” the press release reads. A large portion of the report is titled “Fears over Russia’s subordination of Belarus.”

The report noted that “MEPs note with great concern the rampant political, economic, military and cultural subordination of Belarus to Moscow, rendering the country a de-facto satellite state that also hosts tactical nuclear weapons under Russian command.” In this regard, the European Parliament calls on EU states and institutions “not to recognize any agreements made by the Lukashenko regime and Russia that cede the country’s sovereignty against the will of the Belarusian people.” The entire history of European integration and the European Union, starting with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952, is a history of gradual submission of authority of EU states to the EU’s supranational institutions. US B-61 tactical nuclear aviation bombs have been permanently deployed in four non-nuclear EU states – Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands – since the Cold War.

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Out of hand.

• Trump Says He Is About To Be Arrested Again (Az.)

Former US President Donald Trump revealed Tuesday that his attorneys had informed him he is a target of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot — and that he is prepared for “an Arrest and Indictment” in the case, Report informs via the New York Post. Trump, 77, is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and decried what he called a “WITCH HUNT” and “ELECTION INTERFERENCE” on his Truth Social platform.


“WOW! On Sunday night, while I was with my family, having just arrived from the Turning Point event in Florida, where I won the Straw Poll against all other Republican candidates with 85.7%, with all polls showing me leading in the Republican Primary by very substantial numbers, almost everyone predicting that I will be the Republican Nominee for President, and as I am leading Democrat Joe Biden in the polls by a lot, HORRIFYING NEWS for our Country was given to me by my attorneys,” Trump wrote. “Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.”

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Creepy and scary.

• Feds Seize Trump Advisors’ Phones In Jan 6 Investigation (PM)

Federal investigators have reportedly seized the phones of advisors to 2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump as part of an investigation into the events of January 6, 2021. According to the New York Times, the phones of Boris Epshteyn, described as “an in-house counsel who helps coordinate Mr. Trump’s legal efforts,” and campaign strategist Mike Roman, who was director of Election Day operations for Trump’s campaign in 2020. The phones of John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark were also seized. Clark’s phone was seized as part of an investigation into alternate electors. The action comes as Trump revealed on Tuesday morning that he had received a letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith on Sunday night stating that he is “a target of the January 6th grand jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.”

“So now, Joe Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, who I turned down for the United States Supreme Court (in retrospect, based on his corrupt and unethical actions, a very wise decision!), together with Joe Biden’s Department of Injustice, have effectively issued a third indictment and arrest of Joe Biden’s number one political opponent, who is largely dominating him in the race for the presidency.” The potential for another indictment comes as Trump faced arraignment in Miami last month after the Biden DOJ claimed that he improperly retained documents after the end of his presidency despite being covered under the Presidential Records Act. Trump has also been arraigned in Manhattan by DA Alvin Bragg, who charged the Republican with felony counts of falsifying business records.

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Metabiota. Hunter Biden. Say no more. + Ukraine biolabs.

• Pentagon Wanted To Test Unregistered Medicines On Africans – Russia (TASS)

The Pentagon planned to use its biolaboratories in Africa to test unregistered medicines on the local population, Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said on Tuesday. According to Kirillov, documents that were found in Ukraine indicate that the Pentagon planned to use the US army to test unregistered medical drugs on the local population and then submit them for approval by supervisory authorities “in the interests of the so-called big pharma.” For these ends, it was planned to use its biolaboratories and facilitating agencies, such as Metabiota. “Take note of Metabiota’s commercial offer marked ‘confidential,’ which was found among documents at one of the biolaboratories in Ukraine.

The offer is addressed to the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and concerns training of specialists in infectious diseases in Kenya and Uganda. The document demonstrates that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) and the Department of Homeland Security were involved in the study of pathogens in African countries, while the US Agency for International Development and a number of European Union structures were engaged to make these activities look like ‘humanitarian cooperation,’” he said at a briefing on the analysis of documents concerning the United States’ military biological activities.

Apart from that, in his words, evidence was found showing that Metabiota had been involved in the study of the H7N9 bird flu virus and that it had played a leading role in the implementation of the Predict project for the study of new coronavirus types, under which their carriers – bats – had been caught. “We have repeatedly pointed to the company’s ties with the son of the US incumbent president, Hunter Biden, and government organizations. Notably, Metabiota’s representatives admit that as a matter of fact they are establishing ties to ensure the Pentagon and other American agencies’ work abroad,” Kirillov added. He also said that Ukraine’s Science and Technology Center and other Pentagon contractors were taking an active part in these activities.

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Assisted Suicide

Jul 022023
 
 July 2, 2023  Posted by at 12:22 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  22 Responses »


Caravaggio The raising of Lazarus 1609

 

 

A Dutch paper tells me that PM Mark Rutte is “very disappointed” that Switzerland has decided not to deliver 96 more tanks, that belong to Swiss “defense company” Ruag, and which Germany, Holland and Denmark wanted to purchase, to send to Ukraine. The 96 would have come on top of another 100 they also apparently bought for the same purpose. Neither would make any difference for the outcome of the battle. 100 tanks is nothing. The only thing we know for sure is that 96 more tanks will kill 96xY more people. But of course Rutte is not the only EU and NATO “leader” who thinks the way he does. They all do, except Orban and perhaps Serbia’s Vucic. But Biden, Blinken, Macron, Scholz, you name them, they all say the same thing: we must deliver more guns, tanks, jet fighters. US “top general” Mark Milley chimes in:

Ukrainian Counteroffensive Will Be Long And ‘Very Bloody’

Ukraine’s counteroffensive will be “very difficult” and achieving significant gains could take a long time, a top US military officer has warned, Report informs, citing Yahoo. Army general Mark Milley told the National Press Club in Washington that the counteroffensive was “advancing steadily, deliberately working its way through very difficult minefields … 500 meters a day, 1,000 meters a day, 2,000 meters a day, that kind of thing”. Mr Milley said he was unsurprised progress was slower than some people predicted.


He said: “War on paper and real war are different. In real war, real people die. Real people are on those front lines and real people are in those vehicles. Real bodies are being shredded by high explosives.” Mr Milley added: “What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, 10 weeks, it’s going to be very difficult. It’s going to be very long, and it’s going to be very, very bloody. And no one should have any illusions about any of that.”

My problem with this is they all know very well that some 400,000 young Ukrainians have already died in the conflict, with many more severely injured, and many many more will be killed and maimed if these tanks are delivered to Kiev and the “counteroffensive” continues. Not Rutte’s Dutch young people, or Biden and Milley’s Americans or Macron’s French, no, just young Ukrainians. And some Russians, at about a 1 to 10 count. But if they don’t care about young Ukrainians, they sure care less about young Russians.

Where does this attitude come from? What makes it acceptable to help kill more young people, anywhere in the world? Young men who have mothers, fathers, girlfriends, wives, who should have children or already have them? Who are “leaders” like Rutte to knowingly send them to their deaths? For what reason? So they can beat Russia and save Ukraine’s “democracy”? Ukraine has no elections, no political parties, no free press, and Zelensky is selling its land to BlackRock et al as we speak. And that’s what these promising young lives have to be cut short for? For Zelensky’s and BlackRock’s profits?

Majority Of Americans Back Weapons Deliveries To Ukraine

Some 65% of Americans support continued military aid to Ukraine, up from 46% in May, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Wednesday. Other surveys, however, show a fall in support for President Joe Biden’s promise of unlimited weapons for Kiev. Conducted earlier this week, the poll found bipartisan support for arming Ukraine, with 81% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans in favor. This result mirrors the situation in Congress, where Biden’s Democrats are almost unanimous in backing arms deliveries, while the GOP is split between an establishment that backs the weapons shipments and a pro-Trump, isolationist wing in opposition.

First, send young Dutch, American, French, boys -and girls -to die on the Ukraine battlefields. Then see how the homefront reacts. And tell them that Ukraine and NATO have no chance in hell of beating Russia. But yes, I know, the propaganda never stops. And then you get surveys like this. Putin is the antichrist and Zelensky is Churchill. If you dumb people down enough, anything goes. But still, Rutte, Milley, Biden, Blinken et al are murdering young Ukrainians. You can’t blame Putin, or Russia for this. Your voters may believe it, but the world at large, outside of your propaganda field, will not.

These people want you to believe, and maybe they still believe it themselves, that Ukraine can beat Russia. Over the past 16 months, there has been nothing that points to that, Ukraine has lost anything and everything, but EU and NATO still want to send more weapons into the meat grinder. Weapons, but not their children. Why do 65% of Americans, and “leaders” like Rutte, Blinken, Macron, want the killing to continue? Because their voters have no problem with 400,000 dead young Ukrainians. And their media will blame everything on Putin. The same media tells them they will win. But there is no indication that this is even remotely realistic. Unfortunately, NATO doesn’t care about realistic: losing to Russia is not in their dictionary. Having a million Ukrainians killed, is.

 

NATO is the past. Its power has waned. The US alone spends more than 10 times more on its defense budget than Russia, but is lagging way behind in weapons development. And it’s not going to make up for that disadvantage anytime soon. Certainly not in time to turn the Ukraine conflict around. And still guys like Rutte and Milley want to send more tanks into the battlefield. These people need psychiatric assistance. As do the next tranches of Ukraine cannon fodder. What we, the collective west, are providing Ukraine with, is not a chance at winning a war, but a mind boggingly huge assisted suicide program. And we, NATO citizens, should ask ourselves if we want to be part of that. If you live in NATO/EU territory, this is now on your conscience. No escaping anymore. They speak and act in your name. You can no longer claim innocence.

How many more young Ukrainians are left for you to kill? The “400,000 dead young Ukrainians” number comes from US military veterans like Scott Ritter and Douglas Macgregor. Maybe it’s “only” 350,000. But that included all their most experienced and trained soldiers. Their replacements are nowhere near as good. How many of those? I’d guess 100,000, 200,000 at best. While Russia just finished properly training 300,000 over an 8-month period, Kiev picked up kids and 65-year olds from the street, gave them a 2-week crash course, and dumped them at a frontline.

But you know what’s the worst thing here, and that I haven’t even mentioned? Nobody on the US/NATO/Kiev side, when confronted with those numbers among Ukrainians, ever mentions peace talks. No-one. The reason is that they would have to admit Russia’s won and NATO lost. Not just Ukraine lost, but NATO. And that is unthinkable. Consider what that would mean for the close to $1 trillion a year US arms industry, Raytheon, Boeing etc. They would never -voluntarily- admit it. Hey, they make more profit than they have in decades… What’s another 100,000 Ukrainian assisted suicides? I grew up thinking that every human life matters.

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 6 2023

Jun 062023
 
 June 6, 2023  Posted by at 9:18 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Jules Adolphe Breton The Song of the Lark 1884

 

• Hydroelectric Dam In Kherson Partially Destroyed – Mayor (RT)
• Ukraine Launches Its Counterattack (MoA)
• Ukraine ‘Well Prepared’ For Counteroffensive – Top US General Milley (RT)
• NATO Unprepared To Fight Russia – Former US General (RT)
• Kiev Renews Offensive In Donbass For 2nd Day – Russian Official (RT)
• Ukraine To Forgo F-16s In Summer Counteroffensive: Defense Minister (Az.)
• Wagner Captures Russian Commander As Prigozhin Feud With Army Escalates (G.)
• Kiev Denies Death Of Intel Chief (RT)
• Russian Governor Reacts To Kiev-Backed Militants’ Demand For Meeting (RT)
• Polish Militants Claim Involvement In Attack On Russia (RT)
• Ukraine Operates Network Of Saboteurs Inside Russia – CNN (RT)
• Russia Sees No Prospects For Further Extension Of Grain Deal (TASS)
• Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NYT)
• Should Beijing Shoulder Some Of The Local Governments’ Debts? (SCMP)
• Ice Shelves Surrounding Antarctica Grew In Overall Size From 2009-2019 (DS)

 

 

 

 

Comey

 

 

McCain
https://twitter.com/i/status/1665614106634645504

 

 

 

 

Comer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1665769178442383360

 

 

Musk RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1665891058218049539

 

 

 

 

Zlatti71: Overnight (Sun-Mon), losses of the enemy in the Zaporozhye Direction and Southern Donetsk Region amounted to nearly 17APCS, 11IFVS, 9 Tanks, and beyond 900+ personnel. The advance of the enemy was only 700 metres near Velkya Novoselika; the enemy attempted to go on the offensive in Avdeevka however suffered significant losses and retreated.

In the Ugledarisky and Pobjeda (Marinskoye Tactical Region); the AFU attempted to probe the villages around Pobjeda; suffered losses amounting to nearly 250 personnel and 8 vehicles and retreated. On the Ugledarisky Tactical Region, the AFU attempted to probe the villages of Myliske and Pavlovka, however, suffered losses amounting to 13 vehicles (5 SMVs and 8 IFVs and APCs) and around 5 tanks.

In total, losses are nearing 2,000 personnel and almost 45 destroyed vehicles from one night of attack. Battles continue today, as the AFU is attempting another large-scale probing attack. Western vehicles are involved.

 

 

 

 

Michael Tracey: “Another round of “Russia keeps blowing up its own critical infrastructure for reasons no one can explain.” According to the allegations, Russia’s novel strategy for prosecuting the war is to bomb itself constantly..”

• Hydroelectric Dam In Kherson Partially Destroyed – Mayor (RT)

The Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam in Russia’s Kherson Region, located on the Dnepr River upstream from the city of Kherson, suffered significant damage on Tuesday morning, according to a local official and several videos shared on social media. The upper part of the key infrastructure was “destroyed as a result of a strike,” the mayor of Novaya Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, confirmed to RIA Novosti. While several of the dam’s floodgates were damaged and unleashed an uncontrolled stream of water, the underwater structure itself withstood the attack, the official claimed. Leontyev described the incident as a major “terrorist act” and said the water level downstream had risen by up to 2.5 meters, but added there was no need for evacuations thus far.


He noted that the area has seen higher water levels during previous floods caused by heavy rainfall, but emphasized that local officials were focused on helping citizens as they prepare for a worst-case scenario. “All services work in the city, all administration employees are in place. Electricity, gas, internet, communications are available,” the mayor continued. The dam was reportedly struck around 2am local time. A video captured from a drone has circulated on Telegram, purporting to show the aftermath of the attack, with streams of water seen flowing through the breach. Moscow has repeatedly blamed Kiev for numerous attacks on the Kakhovskaya dam, warning that a breach could result in the deaths of thousands of civilians. In turn, Ukraine has claimed that Russia was planning to blow up the dam in a false-flag operation aimed at framing Kiev for the flooding.

The persistent threat was cited as one of the main reasons for evacuating civilians from certain communities in the area, and an eventual pullout of Russian forces from the city of Kherson to the left bank of the Dnepr River. Russian military and civilian officials, including acting Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo, warned at the time that many areas in the region, including the city of Kherson, could be flooded if the Kakhovskaya dam were destroyed. Kherson Region was officially declared part of Russia in early October, together with Zaporozhye Region and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, after people in those territories overwhelmingly supported the move in referendums. Kiev and its Western backers have labeled the votes a “sham” and vowed to recapture the territories using any means necessary.


Ukraine considered blowing up the dam to paralyze Russian forces who were defending the city of Kherson – and even “conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates” – a former head of Ukraine’s Operational Command South, Major General Andrey Kovalchuk, admitted in an interview with the Washington Post in December.

Dam

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“..three lines of well prepared positions ten kilometer apart from each other. Each line consists of tank obstacles, mine belts, prepared anti-tank positions to monitor and counter potential breach attempts..”

“..Two days fighting with such losses would destroy a brigade’s battle capability. 24 days with such losses would in effect destroy the entire fist of 12 brigades UkrAF has gathered for the counteroffensive..”

• Ukraine Launches Its Counterattack (MoA)

The long announced Ukrainian counter offensive has started. New Ukrainian units, never seen before, have come to the front. The attack was launched by Ukraine for political reasons under pressure from its ‘western’ sponsors. Militarily it is unlikely to become successful but it will eat away at whatever is left of Ukraine’s military capabilities. Attacks happened all around the front. In the north towards Belgograd, to the east and, with the most forces, towards the south. There was so far little to no success in any of the attacks. The daily report by the Russian Ministry of Defense list as Ukrainian losses over the last 24 hours 910 soldiers, 16 tanks, 33 armored combat vehicles/infantry fighting vehicle and some 30 trucks. So far only the most forward positions of Russian troops have been attacked. There are two to three well organized defense lines behind those. The Russians can fall back whenever needed and let the artillery and air force destroy their oncoming enemies.


As I wrote previously about any attacks in the direction of Tokmak and Melitopol: “From the point of strategic value the chosen target is the right one. However, it is also the one where the Russian military has prepared its strongest defense lines. In military books this is known as ‘echeloned defense’ with three lines of well prepared positions ten kilometer apart from each other. Each line consists of tank obstacles, mine belts, prepared anti-tank positions to monitor and counter potential breach attempts and well prepared artillery support from behind the next defense line. To crack such a nut without air support and without significant artillery advantage is nearly impossible.


Source: @Inkvisiit, Scribblemaps

There may still come larger attacks in other directions. But how many could there be? As a former Swedish officer notes:

“June 4th UkrAF scaled up offensive operations on the Southern Front, but the losses are too high for long time success. Earlier operations were mainly reconnaissance in force with platoon and company sized combat groups. Yesterday the Ukrainian forces seemed to be battalion sized combat groups. According to Russian MoD 8 UkrAF battalions was involved in offensive operations SE of Mala Tokmachka (1), at the Vremivka salient (2) and East of Vuhledar towards Velikonovoselovka (3). The fighting was intense, but on most places Ukrainian forces was turned back, mainly by intense Russian artillery and air attacks. On some places UkrAF succeeded in capturing a couple of hundred meters. [If the Russian numbers are true], the prospects for a Ukrainian counteroffensive looks very dim.

This is even if we don’t take into account the ongoing intense Russian air and artillery offensive against UkrAF troop concentrations, ammunition and fuel depots. With losses of over 1000 KIA and WIA that means that a Ukrainian brigade of 4000 man loose at least 25 percent of its manpower. That’s on the brink of making a brigade unusable. Two days fighting with such losses would destroy a brigade’s battle capability. 24 days with such losses would in effect destroy the entire fist of 12 brigades UkrAF has gathered for the counteroffensive. With losses of around 12 brigades, 25 000 KIA/WIA, 250 tanks and 1000 IFVs/APCs all the strategic reserves UkrAF has built during the last 6 months would be gone. In exchange the Ukrainian side could have advanced maybe 10 km on some places or more generally 2-3 km along maybe half the southern front. Once again, IF the Russian claims are true, RuAF must feel relieved and UkrAF very worried by the results of the fighting on the Southern front June 4th.”

I strongly suspect that the Russian military will let the Ukrainian attacks run their course to then launch its own larger scale attacks against weakened Ukrainian defenses.

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“Milley has repeatedly stated that Ukraine is unlikely to achieve its goals – which include seizing Crimea – by military force..”

• Ukraine ‘Well Prepared’ For Counteroffensive – Top US General Milley (RT)

Ukraine is “very well prepared” for its long-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told CNN on Monday. However, Ukrainian forces suffered heavy losses in a multi-pronged attack earlier in the day, and Milley cautioned that it’s “too early to tell”if the offensive will achieve its goals. Citing the “training, ammunition, advice, intelligence, etc” provided to Kiev by its Western backers, Milley claimed that Ukraine is “very well prepared” to retake territory from Russian forces. Ukrainian officials have promised for months to launch a counteroffensive, which was initially set to take place in spring. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed on multiple occasions that his military was “ready” for the anticipated push, but walked back these statements by saying that he needed more time, and Western weapons, to prepare for the operation.

Throughout this preparatory period, Ukraine reportedly lost around 50,000 servicemen in the battle for the Donbass city of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, as Russian missiles and drones continuously pounded ammunition dumps, fuel depots, and command centers, often deep into Western Ukraine. Amid mixed messages from Kiev and with its combat potential seemingly degraded by the fighting in Artyomovsk, the Ukrainian military launched what appeared to be the beginning of a counteroffensive on Sunday. Throughout Sunday and into Monday morning, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that Kiev’s forces attacked with six mechanized and two tank battalions along five sections of the frontline near Donetsk, and in other regions to the north and south.


The Russian military repelled the attacks with airstrikes and artillery fire, inflicting “significant losses”on the Ukrainians, the ministry said. According to Moscow, Ukraine has lost around 900 soldiers, 16 tanks, and 33 armored vehicles across the entire frontline since Sunday. Milley has repeatedly stated that Ukraine is unlikely to achieve its goals – which include seizing Crimea – by military force. Speaking to CNN on Monday, he continued to hedge his bets, saying that it is “too early to tell what outcomes are going to happen.”

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Whatever:

“Morawiecki claimed earlier this year that Moscow would follow its campaign in Ukraine with “the next offensive, potentially on the Baltic states, or Finland, or Poland, or Romania or Moldova, any other country bordering.”

• NATO Unprepared To Fight Russia – Former US General (RT)

NATO would not be able to move troops and equipment eastwards fast enough to stop a hypothetical Russian invasion of Europe, a retired US general has warned. “Being faster than the Russians to get to a critical place is the only metric that matters for effective deterrence, and we still can’t do that,” Ben Hodges, a former commander of US Army Europe, told the Washington Post on Monday. “Military mobility is still a problem. It is better than it was five years ago, but that’s not the metric that matters.” Almost one year earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the bloc would increase its number of high-readiness troops from 40,000 to 300,000, without explaining which countries would provide these soldiers or pay for their deployment.

All NATO has said is that 100,000 will be deployable within ten days and the rest within a month. Estonian officials are unhappy with the arrangement, the newspaper reported, and are seeking guarantees that reinforcements would arrive “not when Russian aggression starts, but from the moment we see the first indicators and warnings,” Estonian military chief Gen. Martin Herem told the Post. “If you look at a map, then how much of Estonia and for how long will we have to cede territory?” before NATO troops would arrive, Herem asked. No matter how prepared the troops are, Hodges noted that NATO would struggle to get heavy equipment to the battlefield to back them up, as there are not enough bridges and tunnels wide enough to transport armored vehicles throughout Europe, nor enough train cars to carry them.

Some countries also doubt the commitment of their allies. Until NATO leaders work out a plan to field Stoltenberg’s promised 300,000 troops, soldiers are stationed along Russia’s borders under bilateral agreements. Germany leads a NATO battle group in Lithuania, but has opposed the creation of a permanent brigade there. This has led the Lithuanians to worry that if war were to break out, political disagreement in Berlin could delay the arrival of reinforcements, former NATO assistant secretary general Camille Grand told the Post.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly claimed that Russian forces will continue to press into Europe unless Kiev is given enough Western weapons to fend them off, while Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki claimed earlier this year that Moscow would follow its campaign in Ukraine with “the next offensive, potentially on the Baltic states, or Finland, or Poland, or Romania or Moldova, any other country bordering.” The Kremlin has never expressed any intention of striking NATO territory, a move that would instantly bring Russia into war with the entire alliance. Moscow has repeatedly warned the West against deepening its involvement in the conflict by supplying arms to Kiev, arguing that doing so will prolong the fighting while making NATO members de-facto participants.

Ukr Bollywood

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Sounds costly.

• Kiev Renews Offensive In Donbass For 2nd Day – Russian Official (RT)

Ukrainian forces are attempting a major push against Russian troops for a second day, Vladimir Rogov, a Zaporozhye Region administration official, reported on Monday. The first effort on Sunday was repelled, with Kiev losing some 250 people and over a dozen tanks, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The offensive began near the village of Vremevka in Donetsk Region early on Monday morning, Rogov said on social media. He assessed the maneuver as being better organized and involving more Ukrainian troops than the assault on Sunday. Kiev has long promised to launch a major counteroffensive against Russia. However, in recent weeks Ukrainian officials have explained delays by claiming that the country needs more Western weapons first. The operation on Sunday was described as “large-scale” yet “unsuccessful” by the Russian military.


The attack, which was carried out by Ukraine’s 23rd and 31st Mechanized Brigades, was repelled, the Defense Ministry reported, adding that Kiev lost more than 250 service members, 16 tanks, three infantry vehicles, and 21 armored vehicles in the clashes. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky confirmed to the Wall Street Journal last week that his army was ready to commence the much-touted counteroffensive, claiming he expected it to be a success. His government considers the full takeover of all lands lost to Russia as the only acceptable result of the conflict. The US and its allies have pledged to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. Moscow has described the hostilities as part of Washington’s proxy war against Russia. Russian officials have also said that by pumping weapons into Ukraine Western nations are simply prolonging the conflict but will not be able to change the outcome.

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Somehow we seamlessly moved into Summer Counteroffensive.

• Ukraine To Forgo F-16s In Summer Counteroffensive: Defense Minister (Az.)

Ukraine’s defense minister says his country will forgo F-16 fighter jets but use all ground-based equipment in its widely anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces this summer, Report informs. Oleksii Reznikov spoke in an exclusive interview with NHK on Sunday in Singapore, where he had joined senior defense officials from Asian and Western nations at a major security forum. When asked about the F-16 jets long coveted by Ukraine, Reznikov said they “will not be game changing this summer.” Some Western countries are training or have offered to train Ukrainian pilots to fly the aircraft.


Reznikov said it will take time to train Ukrainian pilots and that Ukraine will also have to arrange with its partners to secure engineers and technicians who can maintain and repair the sophisticated jets. He said Ukraine would be ready to deploy F-16s in the autumn or winter. Reznikov refused to answer a question about the view that Ukraine had launched “shaping operations,” which involve attacks on weapons storage facilities and other logistics bases to prepare for the counteroffensive.

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It’s just one drunk commander. Nothing escalated. Or do you think the army likes drunk commanders?

• Wagner Captures Russian Commander As Prigozhin Feud With Army Escalates (G.)

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group of mercenaries has captured a Russian commander, as the notorious leader further escalates his feud with the regular army. In a video posted on Prigozhin’s social media channels, Lt Col Roman Venevitin, the commander of Russia’s 72nd Brigade, tells an interrogator that, while drunk, he had ordered his troops to fire on a Wagner convoy. In the footage, which resembled clips of prisoner of war soldiers, Venevitin said he acted because of his “personal dislike” for Wagner and then apologised. Last week, Prigozhin accused the Russian army of trying to blow up his men as they were pulling back from the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut.

The businessman, who is best known as “Putin’s chef” because of his catering contracts with the Kremlin, also claimed his men had discovered explosives, which he said were planted on purpose by defence ministry officials. The Russian ministry of defence has yet to comment on the footage. Two close family members of Venevitin confirmed to the Guardian that the man filmed in the video was their relative. Prigozhin, who has been arguing with top military officials for months, announced last week that his troops had largely pulled back from Bakhmut, most of which they captured last month after taking heavy casualties. The city is now believed to be controlled by the regular Russian forces.


The latest incident again exposes the rifts in Moscow’s war machine. It also comes amid an increase in fighting along the frontlines in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, leading to speculation that Kyiv has launched its much-anticipated counteroffensive. Some nationalist pro-war commentators said Wagner’s arrest of a senior Russian soldier attested to Prigozhin’s growing influence within the Kremlin. “Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose subordinates posted a video in which they mock a senior officer and an entire brigade commander … is allowed to do whatever he wants. He is considered as the highest caste!” Igor Strelkov, a retired Russian special operations officer and popular military blogger, wrote on his Telegram channel.

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Now both Zaluzhny and Budanov have disappeared from the radar. Why would they? And what’s the link to the new high precision satellite system Scott Ritter was talking about?

• Kiev Denies Death Of Intel Chief (RT)

Officials in Kiev have dismissed recent media reports about the alleged death of Kirill Budanov, the head of the Ukrainian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), as a Russian “disinformation” attempt. The Ukrainian spymaster has not made any public appearances for around a week. The last time Budanov appeared in public was in video published by the GUR on May 29, a day before a Russian missile strike on Ukrainian “decision-making centers.” Since then, the GUR has only published a written statement by Budanov on June 4 but has not posted any official videos of him. Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed in late May that the GUR headquarters was one of the targets of the Russian strike. The Russian Defense Ministry said that all of the “designated targets” had been successfully hit.

The strikes came in response to a Ukrainian drone attack targeting Moscow earlier the same day. Several residential buildings were damaged in the attack, with two people suffering minor injuries. The Defense Ministry described the drone raid as a terrorist attack staged by the “Kiev regime.” The ‘Center for Countering Disinformation’ run by the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said that all the reports about Budanov’s alleged death are “fakes” aimed at “sowing panic” among Ukrainians. It did not provide any evidence to disprove the reports or make any statements about Budanov’s whereabouts. In May, Budanov vowed to “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of the earth until the complete victory of Ukraine.” He also claimed responsibility for supposedly assassinating “many” Russian public figures, without giving any names though.


The Kremlin subsequently said that Budanov’s words only prove that Russian President Vladimir Putin was right when he launched the Russian military operation in Ukraine. “We are essentially talking about a nation that is a de-facto sponsor of terrorism,” the presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Russian media in mid-May in response to Budanov’s words. RIA Novosti reported earlier that Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, had sustained a severe injury to his head in another Russian strike. The general has not made any public appearances since mid-May. Kiev also branded those reports as fake. Zaluzhny’s Telegram channel has since said he held two phone conversations with top US officials but has posted no new videos of him.

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“He branded the RDK and the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ militants as “scoundrels, bastards, murderers and fascists..”

• Russian Governor Reacts To Kiev-Backed Militants’ Demand For Meeting (RT)

Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Sunday that he was ready to meet the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a neo-Nazi group of Russian nationals fighting for Kiev, if the militants return two of Moscow’s soldiers that were shown as captives in a recent video. “If [the Russian soldiers] are alive, [I’ll be at] the automobile border-crossing point Shebekino between 17:00 and 18:00,” Gladkov said in a video address published on his Telegram channel. He was referring to a border crossing separating Russia’s Belgorod Region from Ukraine’s territory. The governor was responding to a video published by the RDK and the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ – two neo-Nazi groups that previously claimed responsibility for several incursions into Russia this spring. Footage published by the militants shows them standing next to two Russian POWs, with one of them apparently injured.

Denis Nikitin, the RDK leader, claimed on the video that his fighters had entered the town of Novaya Tavolzhanka in Belgorod Region and offered to meet Gladkov in a local church “for a talk” in exchange for the POWs’ release. Gladkov said the fate of “our boys that are at the hands” of the militants was the only thing that prevented him from outright dismissing the militants’ offer. He branded the RDK and the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ militants as “scoundrels, bastards, murderers and fascists,” blaming them for civilian deaths. Later on Sunday, the defense ministry in Moscow said its troops and border guards had successfully repelled an attack by a sabotage group that had sought to enter Russian territory from Ukraine. The militants attempted to cross a river near Novaya Tavolzhanka but were struck with artillery and dispersed. The militants then had to fall back to Ukrainian territory, the ministry’s statement added.


A previous incursion by the RDK took place in late May. The attack left one civilian dead and 12 people injured, the Russian authorities said at that time. The Russian Defense Ministry announced in the wake of the raid that “over 70 Ukrainian terrorists, four armored combat vehicles, and five pickup trucks” had been destroyed in the militants’ clash with the Russian forces. Photos and videos released by the Russian ministry showed Western armored vehicles and equipment used by the Kiev-backed militants before being destroyed by the Russian troops. The Pentagon and the US State Department expressed doubts regarding the authenticity of the images. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the sabotage group had used equipment and small arms provided by several NATO nations, including the US.

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“..the group collaborated with the Russian Volunteer Corps, a neo-Nazi unit of Russian nationals fighting on behalf of Ukraine under the authority of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry..”

• Polish Militants Claim Involvement In Attack On Russia (RT)

Polish militants fighting for Ukraine released a statement on Sunday claiming their involvement in an attack on Russia’s Belgorod Region. The announcement, accompanied by alleged photo and video evidence, was shared on social media accounts of the so-called “Polish Volunteer Corps.” The statement appears to refer to an incursion by saboteurs into the Grayvoron District of Belgorod Region, which took place on May 22. The “Polish Volunteer Corps” said it unequivocally confirmed its role in the operation, stating that the group collaborated with the Russian Volunteer Corps, a neo-Nazi unit of Russian nationals fighting on behalf of Ukraine under the authority of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. In a bid to prove its role in the May 22 raid, fighters from the Polish Volunteer Corps shared videos, in which they can be seen with Ukrainian T-72B tanks, American HMMWV armored vehicles, and Mi-8 helicopters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The governor of Belgorod Region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, also mentioned the presence of Polish citizens among the saboteurs. On his Telegram channel, he recounted the story of a woman, whose husband – a member of the local self-defense forces – was killed in front of her. According to Gladkov, the woman was held captive by two Ukrainians, and she stated that the other group members were Poles and Americans. Previously, the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry discussed the involvement of the “Russian Volunteer Corps” and members of the “Freedom of Russia” legion in the Belgorod Region operation.


However, the “Russian Volunteer Corps” issued a statement on Sunday denying that members of the “Polish Volunteer Corps” had crossed the Russian border. The group claimed on social media that their Polish fellow combatants were involved in tasks such as prisoner escort, along with military and medical logistics, but strictly within the borders of Ukraine. Warsaw has insisted it has nothing to do with the Polish militants fighting for Kiev. “The activities of Polish volunteers supporting Ukraine in the fight against Russia should not be identified with the authorities of the Republic of Poland”, said Stanislaw Zaryn, spokesman for the coordinating minister of the country’s special services.

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That’s obvious.

• Ukraine Operates Network Of Saboteurs Inside Russia – CNN (RT)

Ukraine has cultivated a network of well-trained agents and Ukrainian sympathizers inside Russia to perform acts of sabotage across the country, CNN has reported, citing officials familiar with US intelligence. Kiev is believed to have provided those people with Ukrainian-made drones in order to stage attacks on Russian territory, the outlet claimed in an article published on Monday. The unnamed US officials also told CNN that those pro-Ukrainian agents were responsible for an attempted drone attack on the Kremlin in early May and that the UAVs used in it were launched from inside Russia.

At the time, two drones were disabled by air defenses while trying to strike the historic fortified complex in central Moscow. Ukrainian officials denied being involved, but Moscow labeled the incident “a pre-planned terrorist act” and an attempt on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s life by Kiev. CNN’s sources couldn’t say if those saboteur cells had anything to do with another drone attack on Moscow that took place last Tuesday. Several residential buildings in the capital were damaged in the raid, with two people suffering minor injuries. Three of the incoming drones were suppressed by electronic warfare measures, while five others were shot down by air defenses, according to the Russian military.


Two officials told CNN that Ukraine had been delivering whole UAVs and spare parts to build them to its agents via smuggling routes that had been allegedly established in Russia by Kiev. The issue of who is controlling those saboteurs is a “murky” one, according to CNN. However, it pointed out that US officials believed some agents within Ukraine’s intelligence community were involved in these attacks. Following the drone strike in Moscow a week ago, Putin accused Ukraine of “terrorist activity,” as well as trying to provoke Russia to come up with a tit-for-tat response.

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Russia can ship it all to Africa by itself. But Ukraine cannot.

• Russia Sees No Prospects For Further Extension Of Grain Deal (TASS)

Russia sees no prospects for extending the grain deal again, but consultations with UN representatives on existing agreements continue, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin told reporters on Monday. When asked by TASS about the chances of extending the grain deal he replied: “We do not see them, but we continue, of course, consultations with UN representatives on both parts of those package agreements that, as you know, were signed in July last year.” The diplomat stressed that Ukraine has been putting forward various conditions for the implementation of the grain deal, which has already brought the situation to a standstill. “We have said several times that ammonia is included in the agreements that were signed in Istanbul. This implies that it should be exported and sold as a mutually beneficial commercial transaction.


Unfortunately, putting forward various kinds of requirements, as Kiev does, is very bad, and has already brought the situation to a standstill,” the deputy foreign minister said. Vershinin also recalled that the Russian side proceeds from the fact that “the concluded and existing agreements must be implemented in full.” “This means – without distortions in one direction or the other,” he stressed. The senior diplomat also announced that the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) in Istanbul has resumed ship inspections under the grain deal. “As far as we know, the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul is working to overcome all the problems that arise, based on the procedural rules that were unanimously approved last year. It is assumed that there will be a consensus solution to emerging problems. Now these inspections are being resumed,” he said.

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Note: I don’t subscribe to the NYT or any other outlet. That would go against the idea of being open to and for everyone: accept no paywalls anywhere. Through a mirror site, though, is OK. That’s also how I can do RT etc. Either post the entire article or make sure it’s available via a mirror site.

As for this NYT piece: Yeah, why not compare the Confederate flag with the swastika? No shame.

“Wearing Nazi symbols helps our enemies spread lies about our friends being Nazis — NY Times”

• Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History (NYT)

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian government and NATO allies have posted, then quietly deleted, three seemingly innocuous photographs from their social media feeds: a soldier standing in a group, another resting in a trench and an emergency worker posing in front of a truck. In each photograph, Ukrainians in uniform wore patches featuring symbols that were made notorious by Nazi Germany and have since become part of the iconography of far-right hate groups. The photographs, and their deletions, highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II. That relationship has become especially delicate because Russian President Vladimir Putin has falsely declared Ukraine to be a Nazi state, a claim he has used to justify his illegal invasion.

Ukraine has worked for years through legislation and military restructuring to contain a fringe far-right movement whose members proudly wear symbols steeped in Nazi history and espouse views hostile to leftists, LGBTQ movements and ethnic minorities. But some members of these groups have been fighting Russia since the Kremlin illegally annexed part of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014 and are now part of the broader military structure. Some are regarded as national heroes, even as the far-right remains marginalized politically. The iconography of these groups, including a skull-and-crossbones patch worn by concentration camp guards and a symbol known as the Black Sun, now appears with some regularity on the uniforms of soldiers fighting on the front line, including soldiers who say the imagery symbolizes Ukrainian sovereignty and pride, not Nazism.

In the short term, that threatens to reinforce Putin’s propaganda and giving fuel to his false claims that Ukraine must be “de-Nazified” — a position that ignores the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish. More broadly, Ukraine’s ambivalence about these symbols, and sometimes even its acceptance of them, risks giving new, mainstream life to icons that the West has spent more than a half-century trying to eliminate. “What worries me, in the Ukrainian context, is that people in Ukraine who are in leadership positions, either they don’t or they’re not willing to acknowledge and understand how these symbols are viewed outside of Ukraine,” said Michael Colborne, a researcher at the investigative group Bellingcat who studies the international far right. “I think Ukrainians need to increasingly realize that these images undermine support for the country.” In a statement, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that, as a country that suffered greatly under German occupation, “We emphasize that Ukraine categorically condemns any manifestations of Nazism.”

So far, the imagery has not eroded international support for the war. It has, however, left diplomats, Western journalists and advocacy groups in a difficult position: Calling attention to the iconography risks playing into Russian propaganda. Saying nothing allows it to spread. Even Jewish groups and anti-hate organizations that have traditionally called out hateful symbols have stayed largely silent. Privately, some leaders have worried about being seen as embracing Russian propaganda talking points. Questions over how to interpret such symbols are as divisive as they are persistent, and not just in Ukraine. In the American South, some have insisted that today, the Confederate flag symbolizes pride, not its history of racism and secession. The swastika was an important Hindu symbol before it was co-opted by the Nazis.

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Major “growth” engine. But always problematic.

• Should Beijing Shoulder Some Of The Local Governments’ Debts? (SCMP)

China’s local government debt crisis is approaching a tipping point as concerns over city and county government default risks mount and Beijing’s willingness to offer enough support to avert a meltdown is questioned. Late last month, Kunming, capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, denied online reports that its local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) were having difficulty repaying debt after one of them was involved in a last-minute scramble to repay 2 billion yuan (US$282.3 million) on May 21. LGFVs were created to aid off-budget financing, especially for infrastructure spending, but weak disclosure requirements have led to concerns about hidden debt risks.

In April, a government think tank in Guizhou warned that the province, which neighbours Yunnan, could not manage its debt on its own and needed help from the central government. The report was subsequently removed by censors. Over the past few years, Beijing has stepped up its supervision of local government debt in a bid to curb risks and has said that local governments should not count on a state bailout. But Yu Yongding, a prominent economist and former central bank adviser, said the central government’s approach of relying on local governments to sort out their debt problems was wrong. “Local governments are the offspring of the central government, and the central government must also assume certain responsibilities,” Yu wrote in a blog post published on May 4 by the Economists 50 Forum, a Chinese think tank.

“Importantly, resolving local government debt should not lead to a further decline in economic growth. Of course, moral hazard cannot be encouraged. Those who are directly responsible for causing the deterioration of local debts should also bear corresponding responsibilities.” Yu estimated that the central government only contributed around 0.1 per cent of infrastructure spending, compared to nearly 60 per cent by LGFVs, which incurred higher borrowing costs. Hu Jie, a former senior economist at the US Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and now a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said the ratio of local debt to gross domestic product (GDP) in many provinces was already “too high”.

And deleveraging “too quickly” might trigger a series of defaults, Hu told the Shanghai-based news website guancha.cn in an interview published at the end of last month. “But when a local government has problems and cannot clean up the mess, the central government cannot stay out of it,” Hu said. There are no official figures for local governments’ off-balance sheet borrowing but most estimates indicate it has been growing.

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After the Covid “The Science” debacle, we must be sceptical here too.

• Ice Shelves Surrounding Antarctica Grew In Overall Size From 2009-2019 (DS)

The ice shelves surrounding Antarctica grew in overall size during the 11 years to 2019, according to dramatic new evidence published by three climate scientists from the University of Leeds. The growth was significant with overall shelf area increasing by 5,305 km2, adding 0.4% to the total shelf area in the 11 years under review. The paper has just been published by the influential European Geosciences Union, but it raises questions within the ‘settled’ climate science narrative, so it is highly unlikely to be covered by mainstream media.

The Leeds researchers looked at satellite data to measure the annual calving position and area of 34 ice sheets accounting for 80% of the Antarctica coastline. They found reductions in the area on the Antarctica Peninsula and West Antarctica of 6,693 km2 and 5,563 km2 respectively were outweighed by growth in East Antarctica of 3,532 km2 and 14,028 km2 in the large Ross and Ronne-Filchner ice shelves. The largest retreat occurred on the Larsen C shelf when 5,917 km2 was lost in a single calving event that made alarmist headlines around the world. The largest increase, noted in slightly less media detail, was the 5,889 km2 advance on the Ronne platform.


Ice shelves around the coast of Antarctica play an important role in the cycle of ice production since they often buttress the glaciers behind them. Remove the plug and glaciers can move at a faster rate towards the coast. The shelves show considerable natural variation allowing alarmists to cherry-pick significant collapses into the sea to promote a hypothesis that the overall climate is breaking down. Typical of this coverage was an article by BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos in 2021 under a ‘climate change’ heading, noting, “The Antarctic ice shelf in the line of fire.” In 2017, i News reported comments broadcast by Sir David Attenborough said to warn that “Antarctica’s melting ice sheets could flood London by end of century”.

The above map displays the ice shelf areas in blue that have increased in size and colours in red those that have decreased. The two large blue areas are the Ross and Ronne-Filchner areas. Little loss is shown over the east of the continent with deficits concentrated in the West. In total, 18 ice shelves are said to have retreated and 16 larger platforms have grown in area. Overall, the shelves gained 661 giga tonnes of mass over the decade. The scientists note that using a ‘steady’ state process, by which they mean no change in any variable, would produce an estimate of substantial loss over the period. They argue their work demonstrates the importance of using “time-variable calving flux observations to measure change”.


In short, and in less scientific terms, check actual observations, and ignore make-believe computer models, and the resulting stories published by climate alarmists promoting the collectivist Net Zero project. It is not a surprise that ice shelves are currently thinning in parts of West Antarctica. The area is riddled with buried volcanos, with the recent discovery of another 91 bringing the known total to 138. Across the West Antarctica Rift System, their heights range from 300-12,600 ft. In addition, areas around the Thwaites-Pine Island-Pope glacier have a thin Earth crust causing one group of scientists to note that the “elevated geothermal heat flow band” is exerting a “profound influence on the flow dynamics of the Western Antarctica Ice Sheet”.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Alex Jones
https://twitter.com/i/status/1665566489527693313

 

 

Argentina TV
https://twitter.com/i/status/1665377678197768193

 

 


“The magnificent facade of Strasbourg Cathedral – what did they know in 1439 that we have forgotten?”

 

 

Twigs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1665568374146084864

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle May 26 2023

May 262023
 
 May 26, 2023  Posted by at 9:06 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  32 Responses »


Damien Hirst Renewal Blossom 2018

 

• Ukraine Sent Poor, Untrained Men Into Bakhmut Meat Grinder (Antiwar)
• US Has Been Preparing Ukrainian Counteroffensive ‘For Months’ – Nuland (RT)
• Shoigu Sees West Waging Undeclared War On Russia, Belarus (TASS)
• More Than 2,500 Foreign Mercenaries Fighting For Ukraine – Shoigu (RT)
• Kiev Regime Must Cease To Exist – Medvedev (RT)
• China Tells EU To Look At ‘Root Cause’ Of Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• What Matters Is A Guy With Dementia Not Elected US President – Medvedev (TASS)
• Top US General Milley Delivers Sober Take On Ukrainian Ambitions (RT)
• Minsk, Moscow Sign Documents On Storage Of Russian Nukes In Belarus (TASS)
• Kremlin Responds To Ukrainian Threat To Kill Putin (RT)
• Hungary: European Parliament Trying To Block Budapest’s EU Presidency (TASS)
• The G7 Must Accept That It Cannot Run The World (Martin Wolf)
• Catastrophic “Loss of Control” Data Breach in NY Elections (UncoverDC)

 

 

Hodkinson
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661722712677535744

 

 

 

 

Putin Valdai

 

 


 

 

Hillary
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661749513600798720

 

 

Rasmussen.

 

 

Bowie Tina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661460057710632961

 

 

Pepe Escobar:
European Central Bank (ECB) at 25:

Industrial production: – 16%
Real wages: – 11.2%
GDP per (occupied) person: -5%
Absolute poverty: +234%
Precarious: +81%
Expats: +140,2%
Savings rate: -82,5%

With friends like this, Europeans definitely don’t need enemies.

 

 

 

 

“.. to Save Better Forces for Counteroffensive..”

“..he was being sent fresh recruits who didn’t want to fire their guns because they were afraid of the sound..”

• Ukraine Sent Poor, Untrained Men Into Bakhmut Meat Grinder (Antiwar)

Ukraine sent untrained recruits into the battle of Bakhmut to save its professional soldiers for an expected counteroffensive, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The Journal spoke with men who were part of a small group that was sent into Bakhmut, which became known as the meat grinder, just a few days after being mobilized. Out of 16 men in the group of draftees, 11 were either killed or captured. The Journal described them as “mostly poor men from villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region, many of them unemployed, doing odd jobs as handymen or shift work at factories in the regional capital.” Some of the men had military training years or decades ago, but none had combat experience. A few of them threatened to refuse orders when they were told they were being sent to the frontlines on February 21, citing a lack of training, but they ultimately went.

One man, Vladyslav Yudin, told the Journal that he told a sergeant major that he had never fired or even held a gun before. “Bakhmut will teach you,” Yudin was told. The men participated in brutal house-to-house combat in Bakhmut. Many of them are presumed dead, but their families are still holding out hope that they were captured by the Russians and are still alive. The men’s accounts match what Ukrainians fighting on the frontlines had been telling the media while the battle was still raging. They told stories of troops being sent in with little support, training, or ammunition. The Washington Post spoke to a Ukrainian battalion commander in March who said he was being sent fresh recruits who didn’t want to fire their guns because they were afraid of the sound.

Despite Kyiv’s Western backers advising against expending resources on Bakhmut, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to hold onto the city for as long as he could, but it was fully captured by the Wagner Group and Russian forces this past weekend. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin estimated that 50,000 Ukrainians lost their lives fighting for the city, but the number is not confirmed. Prigozhin also said that he recruited 50,000 people from prison to fight in Bakhmut and about 20% of them were killed.

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The wicked witch is back..

• US Has Been Preparing Ukrainian Counteroffensive ‘For Months’ – Nuland (RT)

The US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told an audience in Kiev on Thursday that Washington has been helping plan the Ukrainian ‘counteroffensive’ against Russia for almost half a year. “Even as you plan for the counteroffensive, which we have been working on with you for some 4-5 months, we are already beginning our discussions with [the] Ukrainian government and with friends in Kiev – both on the civilian side and on the military side – about Ukraine’s long-term future,” Nuland told the Kiev Security Forum via video-link from the State Department. She added that the attack will be “likely starting and moving concurrently” with events such as the NATO summit in Lithuania, scheduled for July 11.

According to Nuland, the US is also planning for Ukraine’s future military to deter Russia, so “wherever and however this ends – one year, six years, 16 years – we are not doing this again.” She also painted a rosy picture of a future in which Ukraine would be the “engine of Europe’s revitalization” and “setting the democratic example… for the whole world.” The forum was organized by the Open Ukraine Foundation, established by former Ukrainian PM Arseny Yatseniuk, who moderated the panel at which Nuland spoke. Another panel was co-sponsored by the Atlantic Council, whose officials argued that “transatlantic unity and robust support can help Ukraine defeat Russia and renew European security.”

The government in Kiev had been heralding a major “counteroffensive” for months. President Vladimir Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have argued that they didn’t have quite enough weapons, ammunition and equipment and needed the West to send more. As of Thursday, two of Zelensky’s advisers gave public statements implying the offensive hasn’t started yet, while a third insisted it was already underway along the 1,500-kilometer long frontline. Nuland famously traveled to Kiev to support the Maidan protests in December 2013, handing out pastries to the crowds demanding a pact with the EU. In a February 2014 phone call, she discussed the composition of the future Ukrainian government with US ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt. Three weeks later, the nationalists would violently seize power from President Viktor Yanukovich, triggering events that would lead to Crimea rejoining Russia and clashes in the Donbass.

Returning to the State Department in 2021 as part of Joe Biden’s administration, Nuland was once again put in charge of Ukraine policy. Speaking at a Carnegie Foundation event in February, she said the conquest of Crimea and regime change in Moscow would be the ideal outcome of the current conflict. Her sister-in-law Kimberly Kagan runs the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington advocacy group frequently quoted by Western media about the situation on the Ukraine frontline.

Greenwald Sachs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661768345211764738

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“Today, we are being confronted by the collective West, which, in effect, is waging an undeclared war on our countries..”

• Shoigu Sees West Waging Undeclared War On Russia, Belarus (TASS)

A Western-led undeclared war is being waged against Moscow and Minsk, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Viktor Khrenin, on Thursday. “Today, we are being confronted by the collective West, which, in effect, is waging an undeclared war on our countries,” Shoigu said. According to him, NATO’s military activities “have been most aggressive of late.” “A number of measures to enhance the combat readiness of the [North Atlantic] Alliance’s Joint Armed Forces in Eastern Europe is currently being implemented. Extra troops and military infrastructure are being deployed there, and combat training and reconnaissance activities have intensified near the border of the [Russia-Belarus] Union State,” Shoigu said.

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“The West is forcing the Kiev regime, regardless of losses, to show tactical successes and willingness to fight ‘to the last Ukrainian’ and pumping it with weapons..”

• More Than 2,500 Foreign Mercenaries Fighting For Ukraine – Shoigu (RT)

Western countries are forcing Kiev to show tactical successes on the battlefield regardless of the cost to human lives and “pumping” the country full of weapons and fighters, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said. Speaking at a meeting of the council of defense ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Minsk on Thursday, the Russian minister said the value of the West’s military-technical assistance to Kiev has already exceeded $65 billion and more than 2,500 foreign mercenaries are currently taking part in military operations in the country. He also claimed that Kiev’s tactics have evolved to include terrorist methods of confrontation, including sabotage and high-profile killings.

“The most tense situation today has developed in the Eastern European region. The West is forcing the Kiev regime, regardless of losses, to show tactical successes and willingness to fight ‘to the last Ukrainian’ and pumping it with weapons,” Shoigu said. He claimed that this would only lead to further escalation and prolong the conflict. Shoigu suggested that this was being done intentionally and that NATO had been using the Ukraine crisis as an excuse to build up its military capabilities and modernize its infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe. Shoigu claimed the US and its allies are intentionally creating hotbeds of tension and provoking crises near the borders of CSTO members, leading to an “extremely unstable” military-political situation in these areas. The minister accused the West of providing support for terrorist and extremist structures, and also using sanctions, threats and blackmail to achieve their goals of destabilizing the region.

On Thursday, Shoigu also spoke with his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin. During their meeting, he explained that the West was waging an “undeclared war” against Russia and Belarus and that NATO’s military activity had taken a “most aggressive direction.” In response to the West’s “increasingly aggressive rhetoric” and joint “nuclear missions,” which involve drills on deploying weapons of mass destruction, Moscow and Minsk officially signed a nuclear weapons deal on Thursday, allowing the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus. Shoigu explained that control over the weapons remains in Moscow’s hands, but noted that “additional measures” could be taken going forward in order to ensure the security of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

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“..the root cause of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine stems from decades of Western disregard of Russian national security..”

• Kiev Regime Must Cease To Exist – Medvedev (RT)

There is no doubt that Ukraine has no future in its current form, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, outlining three possible scenarios for the collapse of its statehood and assessing the risks of renewed conflict in Europe and a global war. “This conflict will last for long. For decades, probably. This is a new reality,” the former Russian leader, now the vice-chair of the national security council, told journalists upon wrapping his visit to Vietnam earlier this week. “It is necessary to destroy the very nature of the Nazi government in Kiev,” Medvedev added, claiming that otherwise the conflict could drag on perpetually, with “three years of truce, two years of conflict, rinse and repeat.”

In a Telegram post on Thursday evening, Medvedev elaborated that Ukraine’s statehood could either collapse quickly, or through a “relatively slow erosion, with the gradual loss of remaining elements of sovereignty.” He went even further to outline exactly how he believes the “Kiev regime” would cease to exist. In the first scenario, parts of Western Ukraine will come under control and eventually be annexed by the neighboring European Union states, Medvedev claimed. The remaining “no man’s land” wedged between Russia and the EU protectorate will become the “new Ukraine,” still striving to join NATO and posing a threat to Russia. In that case, he believes, the armed conflict will shortly reignite, likely becoming permanent with a risk of quickly escalating into a full-blown world war.

In the second scenario, Ukraine would get a government-in-exile but de-facto cease to exist, with control over its entire territory split between the EU and Russia. In that case, according to Medvedev, the risk of world war is “moderate,” but the “terrorist activity by Ukrainian neo-Nazis” on the territories annexed by the EU neighbors would drag on. Medvedev said he would prefer the third scenario, in which Ukraine’s Western territories voluntarily join their EU neighbors, while the Eastern and some central regions exercise their “right for self-determination sealed in Article 1 of the UN Charter.” Officials in Moscow have said repeatedly that the root cause of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine stems from decades of Western disregard of Russian national security.

Back in 2021, the Kremlin made an attempt to push NATO to negotiate on long-standing political and defense grievances, but was ignored. In late February 2022, Russia launched its military operation to curb the threat, and now calls for a neutral, non-aligned status for a demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, insists Kiev drops its plans to join NATO and the EU and demands Kiev confirms its non-nuclear status. Medvedev was president of Russia between 2008 and 2012, and then prime minister until 2020. Currently, he serves as the deputy head of the national security council, which is formally chaired by President Vladimir Putin. Despite his prior reputation as a moderate liberal, he has been far more hawkish on Ukraine than the official Kremlin.

Ritter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661399405029736453

Read more …

The west still doesn’t take China seriously. Big mistake.

• China Tells EU To Look At ‘Root Cause’ Of Ukraine Conflict (RT)

European countries should focus on finding and fixing the “root causes” that led to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Chinese Special Representative on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui told German Federal Foreign Office State Secretary Andreas Michaelis during a meeting in Berlin on Wednesday. Li said Beijing’s position on the Ukrainian issue remains unchanged and is focused on promoting peace talks and a political settlement to the conflict, according to a statement released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Recalling Chinese President Xi Jinping’s words, Li said that “there is no panacea to resolve the crisis” and that all parties needed to create favorable conditions for the resumption of peace talks through the accumulation of mutual trust.

“China supports European countries to start from the root causes of the crisis and find solutions to both symptoms and the root causes, and make efforts for the long-term stability of the European continent,” Li said, adding that Beijing is willing to maintain close communication with Germany on this issue. According to the statement, Michaelis said the German side highly valued China’s positive efforts to de-escalate the Ukrainian crisis and noted that it was “useful and necessary” for the two countries to strengthen dialogue on a number of major international and regional issues, including the situation in Ukraine. Li and Michalis’s meeting comes as the Chinese special representative is on a week-long tour of Europe intended to encourage a political settlement for Ukraine and promote China’s 12-point road map to achieving peace in the region.

The envoy has already met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Poland’s deputy foreign minister and French foreign ministry officials. He is set to conclude the tour with a visit to Moscow on Friday. China’s peace efforts have been welcomed by Russia and several other nations, with Russian President Vladimir Putin saying many points on Beijing’s plan are “in tune” with Moscow’s position. However, most Western powers have dismissed China’s roadmap, stating that it lacked “credibility” amid Beijing’s refusal to join the West’s anti-Russian sanction campaign. The EU’s Foreign Policy chief has also called China’s plan “wishful thinking” and insisted that the only solution worth considering is one proposed by Kiev, which includes a complete withdrawal of Russian forces and an international tribunal.

Xi/EEF

Read more …

“Donald Trump: the Russian politician described him as “a nice guy, but a bit of a coward.”

• What Matters Is A Guy With Dementia Not Elected US President – Medvedev (TASS)

The only thing that matters for Moscow is that US voters do not choose a president suffering from dementia during the 2024 election, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters during a visit to Vietnam. When asked which candidate would be preferable for Moscow, Medvedev replied: “The only thing that matters is that a guy with dementia is not elected.” “But this is possible,” he added. Speaking about electoral chances of former US President Donald Trump, the Russian politician described him as “a nice guy, but a bit of a coward.” “Historically, it was always easier for us to work with the Republicans,” he added. Donald Trump announced his presidential bid in November 2022. Incumbent US President Joe Biden said he would seek re-election on April 25. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis joined the race on May 24.

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We’re being prepared for years of warfare.

• Top US General Milley Delivers Sober Take On Ukrainian Ambitions (RT)

The fighting in Ukraine is going to continue with no military solution in the near future, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday. Milley spoke alongside Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin after the virtual meeting of the ‘Ukrainian Defense Contact Group’, a collection of Western countries pledging to supply Kiev with weapons, equipment and ammunition to use against Russia – while insisting they are not a party to the conflict. Ukraine’s strategic objectives are to take all the territory “occupied”by Russia, where “a couple hundred thousand” Russian troops are currently positioned, Milley told reporters. “That might be achievable militarily, but probably not in the near term.”

“That means fighting is going to continue. It’s gonna be bloody. It’s gonna be hard. And at some point both sides will either negotiate a settlement or they will come to a military conclusion,” he said. Meanwhile, the US will continue supporting Ukraine. Austin and Milley insisted throughout that Kiev was not losing. They painted the months-long battle for Bakhmut, which Ukraine lost, as a triumph of defense. They also claimed that the Ukrainians were using the US-supplied Patriot air defense systems “very effectively.” The Russian Defense Ministry said it had used Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to destroy a Patriot battery in the Ukrainian capital earlier this month. Milley also defended the decision not to send F-16 fighters to Ukraine sooner, arguing that the US was not ramping up weapons deliveries as a result of public pressure, but always sending Kiev precisely what it needed at any given moment, using “hardcore military analysis” of cost, benefit and risk.

Deploying just ten F-16 fighters would cost $2 billion, including operations and maintenance, Milley explained, while Russia has over 1,000 modern jets. So the decision was made to supply Kiev with air defenses first, and send the F-16s as a more long-term solution. “It’s going to take a considerable length of time to build up an air force that’s the size and scope and scale that’ll be necessary,” Milley said. He also cautioned reporters to curb their enthusiasm, as “there are no magic weapons. An F-16 is not, and neither is anything else.” It has been known since February that Milley would retire at some point this year. On Thursday, US President Joe Biden nominated as his replacement the current Air Force chief of staff, General Charles Q. Brown Jr.

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“..The measures taken by Russia and Belarus “comply with all existing international legal obligations..”

• Minsk, Moscow Sign Documents On Storage Of Russian Nukes In Belarus (TASS)

The defense ministers of Russia and Belarus, Sergey Shoigu and Viktor Khrenin, respectively, signed documents in Minsk on Thursday defining the procedures for storing Russian nuclear weapons at a special storage facility on Belarusian territory, the Belarusian Defense Ministry reported. “During the meeting, documents determining the procedure for keeping Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in a special storage facility on the territory of the Republic of Belarus were signed,” the ministry’s press service said. The measures taken by Russia and Belarus “comply with all existing international legal obligations,” Shoigu stressed.


The defense ministers discussed the current military and political situation and issues of military and technical cooperation between the two countries’ defense ministries. On March 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that, at Minsk’s request, Moscow would deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, similar to what the United States has long been doing on the territory of its allies. As the Russian leader indicated, the construction of storage facilities for tactical nuclear weapons will be completed in Belarus by July 1. Moscow has already provided Minsk with Iskander tactical missile systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons and has helped Minsk to re-equip its military aircraft to carry specialized weapons. As well, Belarusian missile crews and pilots have undergone training in Russia.

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The death of Putin would mean the death of Ukraine.

• Kremlin Responds To Ukrainian Threat To Kill Putin (RT)

Ukraine’s leadership has again proven its “terrorist” nature by threatening to assassinate President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said, while giving assurances that the Russian leader is well protected. “A terrorist regime talks about its terrorist aspirations,” Peskov told the Rossiya 24 broadcaster on Thursday. The spokesman was commenting on an acknowledgement by Vadim Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), who told the German outlet Die Welt on Wednesday that Putin was on his agency’s kill list. Peskov said such statements show that the military operation, launched by Russia in Ukraine in February 2022, was “more than justified, more than necessary and that it must be completed.”

When asked if the Russian president’s security detail had been boosted after the threat from Kiev, Peskov replied: “Trust me, our security services know their job and know what they’re doing.” In his interview, Skibitsky claimed that Putin “notices that we’re getting ever closer to him.” Ukrainian operatives have so far been unable to get to him because the Russian leader “stays holed up,” he added. The intelligence official said the GUR was also “trying to kill” the head of the Wagner private military company, Evgeny Prighozhin, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. In early May, two small drones were disabled by air defenses, while trying to strike Putin’s Kremlin residence in Moscow. The Russian leader was not there at the time of the failed attack, and no one was hurt.

Despite the Ukrainian authorities denying any involvement, Moscow called the incident a “a pre-planned terrorist act” and an attempt on Putin’s life perpetrated by Kiev. The Kremlin vowed that Russia would retaliate to the raid “anywhere and anytime it deems necessary,” while senior lawmaker Vyacheslav Volodin called for the use of “weapons capable of stopping and destroying the Kiev terrorist regime.” Russia has accused Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s government of engaging in “terrorist tactics” since last fall, when it said Ukraine was targeting Russian infrastructure, including nuclear facilities and the strategic Crimean Bridge. The accusations were followed by the launch of a large-scale missile campaign across Ukraine, which delivered serious damage to the country’s energy system and depleted the capabilities of Ukrainian air defenses.

Podolyak

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No qualms about breaking their own rules..

• Hungary: European Parliament Trying To Block Budapest’s EU Presidency (TASS)

The European Parliament has prepared a draft resolution depriving Hungary of the right to preside over the European Union in the second half of 2024, Hungarian Justice Ministry Judit Varga said. “Next week, the European Parliament will once again vote on a resolution against Hungary in a bid to block its EU presidency in the second half of 2024. We will not let them take this opportunity away from Hungary,” she wrote on Facebook (banned in Russia due to its ownership by Meta, which has been designated as extremist).


The European Parliament has passed resolutions criticizing Hungary before, which are recommendatory and not legally binding. The Hungarian authorities argue that European Parliament members from leftist parties dislike the country’s independent position on a number of international issues, including the conflict in Ukraine. Varga pointed out that it was up to the Council of the European Union and not the European Parliament to make decisions on the EU presidency rotation. According to her, the Hungarian government is “in daily contact with the Council’s general secretariat and continues to make preparations to perform the mission.”

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“..between 2000 and 2023, its share in global output (at purchasing power) will have fallen from 44 to 30 per cent, while that of all high-income countries will have fallen from 57 to 41 per cent..”

• The G7 Must Accept That It Cannot Run The World (Martin Wolf)

“Goodbye G7, hello G20.” That was the headline on an article in The Economist on the first summit of the Group of 20 in Washington in 2008 which argued that this represented “a decisive shift in the old order”. Today, hopes of a co-operative global economic order, which reached their zenith at the G20’s London summit of April 2009(opens a new window), have evaporated. Yet it is hardly a case of “Goodbye G20, hello G7”. The earlier world of G7 domination is even more remote than that of G20 co-operation. Neither global co-operation nor western domination look feasible. What might follow? Alas, “division” might be one answer and “anarchy” another. That is not what the communiqué from the meeting of G7 heads of government in Hiroshima suggests.

It is breathtakingly comprehensive. It covers: Ukraine; disarmament and non-proliferation; the Indo-Pacific region; the global economy; climate change; the environment; energy, including clean energy; economic resilience and economic security; trade; food security; health; labour; education; digital; science and technology; gender; human rights, refugees, migration and democracy; terrorism, violent extremism and transnational organised crime; and relations with China, Afghanistan and Iran (among other countries). At 19,000 words, this reads like a manifesto for a world government. In contrast, the communiqué of the London G20 summit in April 2009 was just over 3,000 words. This comparison is unfair, given the focus at that time on the economic crisis. But an unfocused wish list cannot be useful: when everything is a priority, nothing is.

Moreover, both the “unipolar” moment of the US and the economic dominance of the G7 are history. True, the latter is still the most powerful and cohesive economic bloc in the world. It continues, for example, to produce all the world’s leading reserve currencies. Yet, between 2000 and 2023, its share in global output (at purchasing power) will have fallen from 44 to 30 per cent, while that of all high-income countries will have fallen from 57 to 41 per cent. Meanwhile, China’s share will have risen from 7 to 19 per cent. China is now an economic superpower. Via its Belt and Road Initiative it has become a huge investor in (and creditor of) developing countries, though, predictably, it is having to deal with the consequent bad debts so familiar to G7 countries. For some emerging and developing countries, China is a more important economic partner than the G7: Brazil is one example. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may have attended the G7, but he cannot sensibly ignore China’s heft.

The G7 are also reaching out to others: their meeting in Japan included India, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia and South Korea. But 19 countries (opens a new window)have apparently applied to join the Brics(opens a new window), which already include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. When Jim O’Neill invented the idea of the Brics back in 2001(opens a new window), he thought this would be an economically relevant category. I thought the Brics would be about just China and India. Economically, that was right. But the Brics now seem to be on the way to being a relevant worldwide grouping. Clearly, what brings its members together is the desire not to be dependent on the whims of the US and its close allies, who have dominated the world for the past two centuries. How long, after all, can (or, for that matter, should) the G7, with 10 per cent of the world’s population, continue to do so?

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“..recovery from such an incident is not possible..”

• Catastrophic “Loss of Control” Data Breach in NY Elections (UncoverDC)

A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Information Warfare (JIW) confirms a “Loss of Control” breach has occurred in the NYSVoter Database. A peer-reviewed paper of their results in a respected journal is a hard-won and “significant milestone,” according to Marly Hornik, Executive Director of the NY Citizens Audit. The audit of the voter rolls was led by Marly Hornik and Andrew Paquette, Ph.D., Director of Research, who submitted the paper to JIW. Paquette “co-founded the International Game Architecture and Design Academy (now BUAS) in the Netherlands after a career in the feature film and video game industries. He received his Ph.D. from King’s College, London, in 2018 for a thesis on the development of expertise.”

In July 2021, Hornik and Paquette assembled a group of volunteers in New York that has grown to around 2000 individuals statewide to investigate the state’s voter registration rolls. Hornik presented the group’s preliminary findings to attendees at The Pit, sponsored by True the Vote, in August 2022. In her recent letter to New York citizens, Hornik explains the seriousness of the group’s findings:

“Through auditing the voter roll databases, obtained directly from state and local boards of elections, we have uncovered millions of invalid registrations, hundreds of thousands of votes cast by legally invalid registrations, hundreds of thousands of votes cast by legally invalid registrants, massive vote discrepancies, and the clear presence of algorithmic patterns we reverse engineered from within the state’s own official records. To be absolutely clear, there is no known innocent purpose or explanation for why these algorithms exist. I am told by cyber-intelligence experts they indicate a ‘Total Loss of Control’ data breach, the most severe kind of data breach recognized by our federal government. The law says it renders the affected NYSVoter database completely untrustworthy.”

[..] A “Loss of Control Breach” is a catastrophic level of “impact,” both functionally and in terms of information lost. It is important to note that the designation indicates “recovery from such an incident is not possible.”

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EV

 

 

Coleman

 

 

 

 

Language
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661404186989264899

 

 

Coconut Octopus
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661731592254160898

 

 

Fish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661872894207574016

 

 

Humpback
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661682803648479237

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 3 2023

May 032023
 
 May 3, 2023  Posted by at 8:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  37 Responses »


Frida Kahlo Self portrait in a Velvet Dress 1926

 

• The US Grip On The Middle East Slips, And Peace Breaks Out (Inlakesh)
• What China Is Really Playing at in Ukraine (Pepe Escobar)
• ‘Bad Weather’ Delaying Counteroffensive – Ukraine (RT)
• Why Ukraine’s Much-Anticipated ‘Counteroffensive’ Could End In Failure (RT)
• ‘Ukraine Will Not Stop Until It Liberates All Occupied Territories’ (Az.)
• Russian Army Has Enough Ammo And Kiev’s Losses Mounting – Shoigu (TASS)
• Kremlin Mocks & Dismisses White House’s High Russian Casualty Count (ZH)
• Top US General Milley Predicts Ukraine Conflict Duration (RT)
• German Media Shares Details Of NATO-Ukraine Talks (RT)
• Half Of Europe’ Wants Better Ties With Russia – Polish Deputy PM (RT)
• US Decided ‘Not To Notice’ That Kiev Hid Truth About Odessa Massacre (TASS)
• Defeat of the Enemy Lies in His Own Hands (Crooke)
• Poland Explains Plan For WWII Reparations From Russia (RT)
• US Biden-Trump Generation Clings To An Outdated Political Reality (Lukyanov)
• Judge Orders Hunter Biden to Provide Details on Income (ET)

 

 

 

 

Class action
https://twitter.com/i/status/1653301938346160129

 

 

 

 

America’s grandpa

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In March, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said that he didn’t care if the US President had misunderstood things about him, and later in April it was reported he also told advisors that pleasing the Americans is no longer a priority.”

• The US Grip On The Middle East Slips, And Peace Breaks Out (Inlakesh)

As Washington’s influence in the Middle East declines, countries throughout the region are taking to compromise, rapprochement, and peace talks, inflicting a blow to the US narrative that seeks to depict its role as a stabilizer and democracy advocate. Under the leadership of US President Joe Biden, there has been a notable downgrade in the status of the West amongst various long-time Middle East allies. As the US-led West exerts the majority of its efforts on the war in Ukraine, its poor decision making in the Middle East has finally begun to catch up to it. The first major blow to Washington’s influence came in the form of a Chinese-mediated agreement to end a decades-long feud between major regional actors Iran and Saudi Arabia, one which led to the severing of ties in 2016. This has a number of implications for US power in the region.

The first being that this collapsed a strategy that the US was developing, to unite Saudi Arabia with the likes of Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, and Israel, against Iran and its allies in the region; the alliance was speculated to serve as a “Middle East NATO.” The second is that the Iran-Saudi rapprochement appears to have caused Riyadh to scrap its plans for normalizing ties with Israel at this time, something that the Biden administration clearly values as a foreign policy achievement. There is also the additional aspect of this being negotiated by Beijing without any regard for how it would reflect on the White House. Despite attempts in Washington to make the deal seem like something it approves of, and repeated remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about how close normalization with Saudi Arabia is, it was clearly a blow and has major consequences to the US approach to the region. In March, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said that he didn’t care if the US President had misunderstood things about him, and later in April it was reported he also told advisors that pleasing the Americans is no longer a priority.

Immediately after the Saudi-Iran normalization, Riyadh entered into serious negotiations with Yemen’s Ansarallah (the Houthis), in order to end the war that has been raging between the two sides since 2015 and has claimed around 400,000 lives in the country. To make things worse for the US, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister recently made a trip to Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In addition to Riyadh’s moves and Tunisia re-establishing ties with Syria, it also appears as if Ankara may be on the cusp of rapprochement with Damascus and there is a push for Syria to be re-integrated into the Arab League, which clearly runs contrary to the US agenda. Then we have the fact that Qatar has announced it is restoring ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which is not as significant as the above mentioned moves, yet adds to a list of peacemaking decisions taken without America.

On the level of optics, this makes it seem as if the common denominator is the absence of the US. On the other hand, Washington’s development of ties with the Kingdom of Morocco is egging on tensions with neighboring Algeria. Not only is the Biden administration adding fuel to the fire in the diplomatic feud between both sides, but is helping exacerbate military tensions in a Rabat-Algiers arms race. Earlier this April, the US approved a potential $524.2 million sale of HIMARS artillery rocket systems to Morocco. Furthermore, the top Middle East partner of the United States, Israel, has been severely weakened by an ongoing domestic political crisis over a proposed judicial overhaul by the Israeli government. Problems have also arisen with Israel’s approach to issues like maintaining the status quo at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a holy site where neighboring Jordan maintains custodianship, and it has caused major rows between Amman and Tel Aviv in recent months. This presents another obstacle to the US, which is being forced to mediate between both sides to maintain calm.

Assad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1653310462002450433

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“..the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is the un-dissociable double of an American direct war against the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)..”

• What China Is Really Playing at in Ukraine (Pepe Escobar)

Imagine President Xi Jinping mustering undiluted Taoist patience to suffer through a phone call with that warmongering actor in a sweaty T-shirt in Kiev while attempting to teach him a few facts of life – complete with the promise of sending a high-level Chinese delegation to Ukraine to discuss “peace”. There’s way more than meets the discerning eye obscured by this spun-to-death diplomatic “victory” – at least from the point of view of NATOstan. The question is inevitable: what’s the point of this phone call? Very simple: just business. The Beijing leadership is fully aware the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is the un-dissociable double of an American direct war against the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Until recently, and since 2019, Beijing was the top trade partner for Kiev (14.4% of imports, 15.3% of exports).

China essentially exported machinery, equipment, cars and chemical products, importing food products, metals and also some machinery. Very few in the West know that Ukraine joined BRI way back in 2014, and a BRI trade and investment center was operating in Kiev since 2018. BRI projects include a 2017 drive to build the fourth line of the Kiev metro system as well as 4G installed by Huawei. Everything is stalled since 2022. Noble Agri, a subsidiary of COFCO (China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation), invested in a sunflower seed processing complex in Mariupol and the recently built Mykolaiv grain port terminal. The next step will necessarily feature cooperation between Donbass authorities and the Chinese when it comes to rebuilding their assets that may have been damaged during the war.

Beijing also tried to become heavily involved in the Ukraine defense sector and even buy Motor Sich; that was blocked by Kiev. So what we have in Ukraine, from the Chinese point of view, is a trade/investment cocktail of BRI, railways, military supplies, 4G and construction jobs. And then, the key vector: neon. Roughly half of neon used in the production of semiconductors was supplied, until recently, by two Ukrainian companies; Ingas in Mariupol, and Cryoin, in Odessa. There’s no business going on since the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO). That directly affects the Chinese production of semiconductors. Bets can be made that the Hegemon is not exactly losing sleep over this predicament.

Ukraine does represent value for China as a BRI crossroads. The war is interrupting not only business but, in the bigger picture, one of the trade and connectivity corridors linking Western China to Eastern Europe. BRI conditions all key decisions in Beijing – as it is the overarching concept of Chinese foreign policy way into mid-century. And that explains Xi’s phone call, debunking any NATOstan nonsense on China finally paying attention to the warmongering actor.

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“God’s will, the weather, and a decision of commanders.”

• ‘Bad Weather’ Delaying Counteroffensive – Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine is holding off on its long-touted counteroffensive against Russia because it currently cannot use Western-provided armor due to bad weather, Kiev’s ambassador to the UK has claimed. “Obviously, the weather is not allowing so far the heavy tanks to move in the Ukrainian usual spring mud,” Vadim Pristayko told Sky News on Tuesday. The comments mirrored those made last week by Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov, who stated that Ukrainian forces were broadly ready for a push against Russia but needed “God’s will, the weather, and a decision of commanders.” The US and its allies have sent dozens of main battle tanks and hundreds of armored vehicles to Ukraine to bolster the expected counteroffensive.

While Western officials have argued that Kiev has all it needs for a successful operation, behind closed doors the American military has reportedly expressed doubts about Ukraine’s ability to break through Russian defensive lines. Multiple Western media reports have suggested that the counteroffensive could be a make-or-break moment for the conflict, and that Kiev may find it difficult to secure further packages of military assistance unless it gains significant ground. Senior Ukrainian officials have criticized that notion, urging continued support regardless of the outcome. Pristayko told Sky that Ukraine is targeting “a breakthrough offensive,” but at the same time cautioned that “too much hope is put on this one.”

The envoy accused Moscow of exaggerating its own military capabilities, citing the latest missile strikes against Ukrainian targets as an example. Russians “are blowing it out of proportion reporting hundreds of rockets. In reality there were just dozens of them sent our way,” he insisted. The claim that up to 100 missiles were launched in a recent attack by Russia appears to have originated from Ukrainian official Sergey Shakhet, police chief in Nikolaev Region. He shared the figure on social media on Monday, with Ukrainian media later disseminating it. The Russian Defense Ministry did not mention the number of weapons used in its own report on the strikes.

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“..As soon as Ukraine’s previously hidden equipment was moved closer to the front line, it became easier to destroy..”

• Why Ukraine’s Much-Anticipated ‘Counteroffensive’ Could End In Failure (RT)

Talk about a counteroffensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has been doing the rounds for months, but it is still not clear when it might begin or whether it will happen at all. Previously, RT analyzed the readiness of the AFU for such an operation, but this time we will discuss the main challenges that may prevent Kiev’s troops from implementing or developing its political leaderships aims. And, perhaps most importantly, those of its Western sponsors. What is the AFU’s main challenge in mounting this sort of endeavor? We currently do not have any idea of where the AFU’s counteroffensive could take place, although Russian military bosses will be well aware of troop movements. If it involves an attempt to breakthrough the front line, then in addition to preparing reserves for battle, the AFU will need high-precision weapons.

Ukrainian troops will have to use long-range artillery rocket systems, including the US-supplied M142 HIMARS MLRS. Since the start of Moscow’s offensive, Kiev has used these systems only from deep within its own territory. However, to achieve momentum and penetrate the defense line, the systems will have to be moved closer to the front. The current number of HIMARS rocket launchers (about 35 units) may not be enough for a counteroffensive along the entire front line, which stretches for 1,000km. The systems will probably be concentrated in just one or two directions, but this makes them easier to detect and destroy. Moreover, Ukraine only has a finite supply of missiles for most of its Western weapons systems, like the HIMARS, which means the manner in which they can be used is limited. These systems have never been tested in high-intensity conflicts.

There is currently no doctrine or tested recommendations on using HIMARS/M270 MLRS in combined arms warfare or in such a large-scale war against a technologically advanced enemy. Considering the risk of detection in areas with concentrated equipment, and Ukraine’s fear of losing reserves, as we see happening in Artemovsk (Bakhmut), the AFU will likely prepare its most important military formations from 12 to 36 hours before the main strike. In the present conditions, it is nearly impossible to amass enough fuel and ammunition. Not to mention the difficulties in trying to position people secretly. Russia has already used Lancet drones to hit German Gepard anti-aircraft guns and Soviet S-300 missile systems close to the front line. As soon as Ukraine’s previously hidden equipment was moved closer to the front line, it became easier to destroy.

This demonstrates that the routes used for transporting Ukrainian military equipment and the places where it is positioned are under Russian surveillance. If the AFU loses significant amounts of fuel – or transport equipment or engineering units – in the first two or three days, it will have to adjust the counteroffensive’s strategy on the go or implement a backup plan (if it has one). Moreover, Ukraine has no means of transferring reserves by air or conducting amphibious warfare. Its supply and logistics fully depend on roads and railways. In such conditions, the destruction of a bridge or a train line on an important supply route may lead to a disaster at the front.

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“I am confident that our partners will make the necessary decisions and we will receive the F16.”

• ‘Ukraine Will Not Stop Until It Liberates All Occupied Territories’ (Az.)

Ukraine will not stop until it liberates all the temporarily occupied territories, and is currently preparing for counteroffensive operations, Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, said during a conversation with journalists of the Dutch national TV channel NOS and the NRC newspaper, Report informs. He said that partner countries should continue and strengthen their support to Ukraine. Andriy Yermak said that the troops of the Russian Federation continue to launch missile attacks on civilian infrastructure and civilians in Ukrainian cities, and this has been going on for more than 14 months. “They want to destroy Ukrainians, the Ukrainian nation. But our people, our military are heroic and brave, and we continue not only to defend our land, but also to liberate the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories,” he said.


The Head of the President’s Office noted that Ukraine is currently preparing for counteroffensive operations and therefore needs more and more weapons. He noted that Ukraine needs long-range missiles and modern aircraft to liberate the temporarily occupied territories: “Everything changes, and Ukraine has changed many things. I am confident that our partners will make the necessary decisions and we will receive the F16.” “The people of Ukraine have made a decision – we want to be in NATO. Now about 80% of our population supports this move,” he added. According to Andriy Yermak, the decision on Ukraine’s accession to NATO is the best way to speed up the end of the war and guarantee peace in Europe.

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“Russia’s Tactical Missiles Corporation that rolls out missile systems, anti-ship, anti-radar and other missiles, has launched the mass production of new weapons..”

• Russian Army Has Enough Ammo And Kiev’s Losses Mounting – Shoigu (TASS)

Russian forces have already received sufficient ammunition for effectively inflicting damage on the enemy by firepower and the domestic defense industry generally meets the requirements of the Army and the Navy, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told a conference call with military commanders on Tuesday. In April, Kiev lost over 15,000 troops and 430 armored vehicles in battles. Therefore, the Kiev regime’s manpower losses increased by a third compared to February (the Russian Defense Ministry did not report about the Kiev regime’s military personnel losses in March). TASS has put together the highlights of the Russian defense minister’s speech.

“The Russian Armed Forces are conducting active operations along the entire engagement line. Despite the unprecedented military assistance from Western countries, the enemy is sustaining heavy losses.” According to the data of the Russian Defense Ministry, in the past month alone, the Kiev regime lost over 15,000 troops, eight combat aircraft and 277 unmanned aerial vehicles, 430 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 18 multiple rocket launchers and 225 artillery guns and mortars. As the data indicate, Ukraine’s manpower losses proved to be higher in April than in February while equipment losses exceeded the January figures (the latest information publicly reported by the Russian Defense Ministry), although Ukraine lost more aircraft at that time.

“As a whole, the defense industry meets the requirements of the Army and the Navy.” Compared to early 2022, the amount of purchased basic armaments grew by 170% and “especially needed weapons” by seven times, the defense chief said. “This year, a sufficient amount of ammunition has been delivered to the Armed Forces for inflicting effective damage on the enemy by firepower.” In addition, Russian military specialists have achieved successes in recovering damaged or broken military hardware and preventing equipment breakdowns, the defense minister said. “Presently, the daily amount of repaired armaments exceeds the amount of broken equipment in the proportion of three to two. Thanks to organizational measures taken, the amount of unfit equipment subject to repairs has dwindled by 1.5 times,” he said.

Russia’s Tactical Missiles Corporation that rolls out missile systems, anti-ship, anti-radar and other missiles, has launched the mass production of new weapons. “With regard to some latest weapon systems, the corporation has switched over to serial production, having finished all the R&D stages within the shortest time possible,” Shoigu said. As a whole, “the enterprise fulfils the defense procurement plan within the established timeframe” but today it is necessary to “double the production of precision weapons within the shortest time possible.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1653349439082209280

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Remember: Ukraine losses are 7-8x higher than Russia’s.

• Kremlin Mocks & Dismisses White House’s High Russian Casualty Count (ZH)

The Kremlin has reacted to a Monday briefing by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby wherein he issued a surprisingly high estimate of Russian casualties which he said took place since December in the contested Donetsk city of Bakhmut. He said Russian forces have suffered over 100,000 total casualties – including about 20,000 soldiers killed in combat and another 80,000 wounded. In response, Dmitry Peskov mocked and dismissed these figures on Tuesday, saying the White House is pulling the numbers out of a hat, and further stressed the US cannot possibly know any of this. “Pulling out figures out of a hat, Washington does not have the opportunity to give any correct figures, they do not have such data, this is how it should be treated” Peskov said, as cited in national media. “It is necessary to focus only on those figures that are published in a timely manner by the Russian Defense Ministry,” he added.

Interestingly, when in the Monday press briefing Kirby was asked the NSC spokesman refused to give casualty numbers for the Ukrainian side. “I’m not ever going to put anything out in the public domain that’s going to make their job harder,” Kirby said. “They are the victims here. Russia is the aggressor.” As we explained previously, while very clearly Bakhmut has for months been in truth a “meat-grinder” for both sides, the US is likely offering this staggering and large Russian casualty count of 100,000 in order to establish a ‘pyrrhic victory’ narrative. Kirby admitted the Russians are winning in Bakhmut, but wants to paint a picture of it losing the overall conflict given the massive cost and sacrifice for Bakhmut. The independent geopolitical analysis site Moon of Alabama wrote days ago:

“Bakhmut/Aryomovsk is to 90% under Russian control and the rest will be captured during the next few days. Ukrainian losses in the city must have been huge. The Ukrainian troops who try to escape from the city immediately come under artillery fire. The latest daily Russian clobber report counts 575 ‘enemy losses’ in Bakhmut over the last 24 hours for a total of 815 along the whole frontline. This is the largest number reported over the last two months.” Meanwhile, a Tuesday briefing by Russia’s defense chief has painted a grim picture for the Ukrainian side. According to his words: “Russian forces have already received sufficient ammunition for effectively inflicting damage on the enemy by firepower and the domestic defense industry generally meets the requirements of the Army and the Navy, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told a conference call with military commanders on Tuesday.”

“In April, Kiev lost over 15,000 troops and 430 armored vehicles in battles,” he said as cited in TASS. “Therefore, the Kiev regime’s manpower losses increased by a third compared to February (the Russian Defense Ministry did not report about the Kiev regime’s military personnel losses in March),” the state publication said.

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“..he argued that “rational folks” in Moscow would be convinced “over either months or a year or two” to negotiate, “because they’re not going to win.”

• Top US General Milley Predicts Ukraine Conflict Duration (RT)

The US has helped train and equip the Ukrainian military for the upcoming operations, whether offensive or defensive, but the fighting is unlikely to produce a clear winner in 2023, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told the outlet Foreign Affairs on a podcast that aired on Tuesday. Asked what he expected of the much-heralded Ukrainian counteroffensive, Milley told Foreign Affairs that the US and its European NATO partners have helped Ukraine train and equip “about nine brigades worth of combined arms, armor, and mech[anized] infantry type forces” over the past several months, as well as some light infantry. Kiev’s forces “right now have the capability to attack, they can conduct offensive operations, and they also have the capability to defend, significantly enhanced from what they were just a year ago for conventional operations,” he said.

“They’ve got a significant amount of planning and coordination and all of that to do, if they were to do an offensive operation.” According to Milley, if the Ukrainians do launch an offensive, anything is possible, from collapsing the Russian front entirely to no success at all. “I do think, though, that the probability of either side achieving their political objectives – war is about politics through the sole use of military means – I think that’s going to be very difficult, very challenging. And frankly, I don’t think the probability of that is likely in this year.” Milley claimed the Russian military had suffered 250,000 casualties and that the army, society and economy have all been severely impacted by the conflict. He would not speculate about Ukrainian casualties. The Kremlin has laughed off US estimates of Russian deaths as fabricated “out of nowhere.”

The US general stuck by those claims, however, and also asserted that Russia had “failed” to achieve any of its objectives in Ukraine. Based on that, he argued that “rational folks” in Moscow would be convinced “over either months or a year or two” to negotiate, “because they’re not going to win.” Congressman Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Monday that the offensive needed to present a success so the West could keep funding Kiev, “after which we can then maybe have negotiations, to finally resolve this.” The bulk of the podcast was devoted to China, with Milley arguing that the US “should do what it can to make sure” that Russia and China don’t set up a strategic military alliance. He dismissed the present level of military ties between Moscow and Beijing as “very, very modest.” Milley also maintained that both Russia and China were aware of the US military might and did not wish a direct confrontation with Washington.

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“..it’s known that France, Germany, and countries in Western Europe, in general, have always been against Ukraine joining either the EU or NATO.”

• German Media Shares Details Of NATO-Ukraine Talks (RT)

Washington and Berlin aren’t ready to make any promises to Kiev regarding Ukraine’s future NATO membership, German news agency dpa has reported. Ukraine’s hopes of joining the US-led military bloc anytime soon are likely to be shattered, the agency claimed on Tuesday. According to dpa’s information, the bloc’s key players such as the US and Germany recently made it clear to Kiev behind closed doors that they currently don’t want to make any further commitments on the issue, beyond the vague NATO declaration of 2008. Back then, the leaders of the NATO member-states said that Ukraine and another former Soviet republic, Georgia, should join the bloc, but didn’t provide any timetable for the accession of either.

During his visit to Kiev last month, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.” He also projected that “over time, our support will help to make this possible,” but refrained from saying when exactly Ukraine’s NATO membership is going to happen. However, a few days later, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius suggested that “this is not the time to decide” about Ukraine’s place in NATO. The bloc’s members should consider this issue “with a cool head and a hot heart. Not the other way around,” Pistorius said. The German minister’s comments have angered Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Piotr Wawrzyk, who claimed that “it’s known that France, Germany, and countries in Western Europe, in general, have always been against Ukraine joining either the EU or NATO.”

Earlier this week Gitanas Nauseda, the president of another NATO member-state, Lithuania, said that it “would be too difficult” to make Ukraine a member of the bloc as long as the conflict with Russia continues. The Kiev government is also well aware of this, he added. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s top adviser, Mikhail Podoliak, has recently reiterated Kiev’s desire to join the alliance, claiming that it would be impossible to restore security in Europe without “the country’s full membership in NATO.” Moscow, which sees NATO’s eastward expansion as a major security threat, had singled out Ukraine’s push to join the bloc among the main reasons for launching its military operation against Kiev more than a year ago.

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“..lamented the fact that there is still a “threat” that relations between Russia and EU countries could return to the way they were before the current rift..”

• Half Of Europe’ Wants Better Ties With Russia – Polish Deputy PM (RT)

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Glinski has lamented the fact that there is still a “threat” that relations between Russia and EU countries could return to the way they were before the current rift. He blasted opposition parties in Poland, as well as “half of Europe,” for harboring hopes of improving ties with Moscow.= Speaking to the Kurier Lubelski news outlet, Glinski was asked if he believed that Warsaw was “in danger” of returning to “naive” politics when, for example, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was invited to meet with Polish ambassadors in Warsaw in 2010 in an effort to improve bilateral relations. “Unfortunately, the threat of a return to these relationships still exists,” he replied.

Glinski claimed that the government’s “political rivals” as well as their voters are “hostage to interest groups that only think about ending the war in Ukraine as soon as possible and continue to be a client of Russia and do business with it,” adding that “half of Europe is like that, waiting for it.” The deputy prime minister’s comments come as Polish Secretary of State Marcin Przydacz also told the Financial Times on Tuesday that Warsaw plans to demand World War II reparations from Russia, just as it has done from Germany, from which it is requesting some €1.3 trillion ($1.43 trillion). “We treat Berlin and Moscow in a different-civilization way,” Przydacz told the outlet, noting that once there is “success” in squeezing cash out of Germany, the next step would be to “launch such a discussion with the other oppressor.”

Brussels, meanwhile, has accused Poland of sliding towards authoritarianism under its current leadership, while Jana Puglierin, the head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, suggested that the right-wing PiS party is prioritizing electoral success rather than focusing on establishing constructive relationships. Moscow has responded to the recent comments from Warsaw by stating that “nothing good” can be expected in Russian-Polish relations in the near future. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov noted on Tuesday that “Russophobia,” which has “gripped” the minds of Polish authorities “absolutely deprives them of sobriety in their approach to everything related to Russia” and prevents them from taking “intelligible or thoughtful steps.”

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“Illusions disappeared, the country by leaps and bounds began to turn into a copy of the Nazi Reich..”

• US Decided ‘Not To Notice’ That Kiev Hid Truth About Odessa Massacre (TASS)

The US preferred to “not notice” that Kiev destroyed evidence and hid the truth about the tragedy in the Odessa House of Trade Unions that took place on May 2, 2014, the Russian embassy in Washington said in a statement on Tuesday. The embassy stated that “May 2 marks the nine-year anniversary since the date of the tragic events in Odessa.” “On this day in 2014, a brutal crowd of Ukrainian fanatics committed a merciless murder of several dozen civilians. Like Nazi castigators, these extremists drove defenseless people, among them – women and elderly, into the House of Trade Unions with sticks and steel bars, and then set it on fire with Molotov cocktails. At least 48 people were burned to death, poisoned by carbon monoxide or died after jumping out of windows. Hundreds were seriously injured. Their only ‘fault’ was their disagreement with the aggressive policies of the neo-Nazis who came to power and their desire to remain Russian,” the statement said.


“Contrary to the promises by the Kiev regime to investigate this barbaric crime and punish those responsible, the authorities did everything to hide the truth and destroy the evidence, to allow organizers and effecters to avoid justice. In the United States, they decided not to notice this. And the local so-called human rights activists, in fact, covered up the Odessa executioners and tormentors all these years,” the statement said. “The Odessa tragedy will forever remain one of the most shameful pages in the history of Ukraine. Supporters of the Kiev junta applauded the brutal massacre, glorifying the unbridled radicals as ‘patriots.’ Under the influence of a nationalist frenzy, human life in the country has completely lost its value.”

“It is clear now that the bloody massacre in Odessa is a point of no return. Illusions disappeared, the country by leaps and bounds began to turn into a copy of the Nazi Reich. Bandera’s heirs launched a punitive military operation against the inhabitants of Donbass, with crimes against the civilian population committed en masse. Terror against dissidents, censorship and discrimination has become the basis of state policy on the territory controlled by Kiev,” the Russian diplomats said. “The progressive disease of the Ukrainian state demanded a tough rebuff. A special military operation is aimed at its denazification and demilitarization. It is a guarantee that tragedies like the one in Odessa will never happen again,” the statement said.


Radicals from the Right Sector (banned in Russia) and the Maidan uprising’s so-called self-defense force attacked a tent camp on the Kulikovo Field in Odessa on May 2, 2014, where residents were collecting signatures for a referendum on the federalization of Ukraine and giving the Russian language status as an official language. Supporters of federalization took refuge in the House of Trade Unions, but the radicals surrounded the building and set it on fire. According to official data from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, 48 people were killed, and more than 240 were injured in those events. The government pinned the blame for the riots solely on the opponents of the uprising. However, the investigation, which lasted several years, could not prove their guilt in court. As a result, all those who were initially detained in the case were later acquitted.

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‘Securing Ourselves Is in Our Hands; and Defeat of the Enemy Lies in His Own Hands’

(Sun Tzu, d. 496 BCE)

• Defeat of the Enemy Lies in His Own Hands (Crooke)

Whilst the structural shift to a multipolar world is now well understood in geo-political terms, its other dimensions are little noticed. The media focus is so much centred on the military situation in Ukraine that it is easily overlooked that President Putin has also been fighting a financial war – a war on liberal economic theory; and a diplomatic war for the support of the non-West and from key strategic allies, China and India. On top of that, Putin has to manage the psyche inside Russia. His objective is to restore patriotism and a Russian national culture reconnected to its roots in Orthodox Christianity. To achieve this, he needs to let it evolve in a civil context – To allow the military aspect to become all-encompassing would be to skew the Russian consciousness in a very particular way.

President Putin has spoken on several occasions of the need for ‘civil Russia’ to have the oxygen to evolve in its own way – by re-appropriating its past cultural legacy in new form – and for that process not to be wholly subsumed into military needs and ethos. So, the project is, in fact, wholly multi-faceted – although undoubtedly, the struggle to restore respect for sovereignty and for autonomy in internal affairs represents the project ‘key stone’. Yet, a significant part to re-appropriating sovereignty requires the shift of Russia’s economic structure out from the grip of the ‘Anglo’ neo-liberal model, to one that provides for greater national self-sufficiency. Hence, the simple questioning of the philosophical underpinnings to the ‘Anglo’ system of politics and economics – which underlie the Rules Order – is as important, in its own way, as the Ukrainian battlefield.

Like any system, the World Order rests on philosophical principles believed to be universal, but which, in truth, are specific to a particular moment in European history. Today, the West is not ‘what it was’. It is a fractured ideological battlespace. The Rest of World is not ‘what it was’. And today’s ideological western writhings are no longer viewed as being of primary concern to the World. The point here, however, is about a project designed to bring change to that which has not changed. It is as much a war for global psyche as of attrition on the battlefront (though that, too, is a vital component in shifting the global zeitgeist). If a multi-polar order is to be built based on self-sufficient sovereignty, others should exit the neo-liberal economic system too (if they can). Hence the need for a major diplomatic initiative by Russia and China to build a strategic depth for a new economics.

Where Putin and Xi Jinping come together … is their shared appreciation of China’s astonishing sprint to the ranks of an economic superpower. In Putin’s words, China “managed in the best possible way, in my opinion, to use the levers of central administration (for) the development of a market economy … The Soviet Union did nothing like this, and the results of an ineffective economic policy impacted the political sphere”. Washington and Brussels clearly doesn’t ‘get it’. And Yellen’s speech is the prime ‘exhibit’ of this analytic failure: The West had understood the Soviet implosion and to the financial mayhem of the Yeltsin years in precisely the opposite way to Xi’s analysis, and to Putin’s concurrence with Xi’s harsh verdict. Plainly put, Xi and Putin’s assessment is that the Russian disaster was the result of the turn to western liberalism, whereas Yellen clearly sees China’s ‘error’ – for which she chides it – is in the move away from the ‘liberal’ world system.

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Hard to believe. 26 million dead AND pay war reparations?

• Poland Explains Plan For WWII Reparations From Russia (RT)

Poland could demand World War II reparations from Russia but only if it persuades Germany to pay a similar bill first, a senior official in Warsaw has said. Berlin has thus far rejected a €1.3 trillion ($1.43 trillion) claim from Poland over the Nazi occupation, arguing that the issue has long been settled. “We treat Berlin and Moscow in a different-civilization way,” Polish Secretary of State Marcin Przydacz told the Financial Times in an article published on Tuesday. “Once there will be a success with Germany, the next step could be to launch such a discussion with the other oppressor.” Demanding reparations has become a key aspect of Polish foreign policy under the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS). Berlin has said it accepts moral responsibility for Nazi crimes and continues to make direct payments to Holocaust survivors in Poland, but argues that other financial claims were settled in the 1950s.

Warsaw has insisted that it was short-changed due to the USSR’s desire to move on from the conflict. Warsaw sent a formal note to Berlin with reparation demands last October. Polish President Andrzej Duda said at the time that he did not see any reason why his country should not do the same with Russia. Warsaw is locked in a broader dispute with Berlin over what it perceives to be outsized German influence on EU affairs. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of PiS, claimed in 2021 that Berlin was morphing the EU into a “Fourth Reich.” Brussels, meanwhile, has accused Poland of a slide towards authoritarianism under its current leadership, and further angered Warsaw by initially declining to approve Covid-19 funding from the bloc.

Jana Puglierin, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the FT that PiS appeared to prioritize electoral success rather than “having a constructive relationship [with Germany].” “Overall in terms of trust I feel the German-Polish relationship is at its lowest level since 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Michal Baranowski, director of the German Marshall Fund’s office in Warsaw, said of the situation. The FT noted that despite any political tensions, Germany has opted to deploy long-range anti-aircraft systems in Poland amid the conflict in Ukraine. Warsaw has accused Berlin of not doing enough to support Kiev and previously criticized Germany for buying cheap Russian gas. Experts told the newspaper that economic interconnection could alleviate the political standoff between Warsaw and Berlin.

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“Trump may seem to be outside the club, with his “America First” discourse challenging the globalist aspirations of the American ruling class. But his place in history is not in doubt, for he too has not challenged US hegemony..”

• US Biden-Trump Generation Clings To An Outdated Political Reality (Lukyanov)

Joe Biden has decided to continue fighting the battle for America’s soul and has announced his intention to run for a second term as President. If he is successful, he will be 82 years old on Inauguration Day, overtaking himself in the rankings of the oldest US leaders to take office. By the end of his presidency, if all goes well, Biden would be 86. Age is no longer a burden in the modern world, and practices and techniques encouraging active longevity are widespread and effective. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad will be 98 in two months, and like a lion he continues to fight for the rights of the opposition against his former associates. Henry Kissinger will celebrate his centenary in a month’s time, but his judgments are often retold and treated as important observations.

By comparison to these figures, Biden is still in his prime. Angry tongues, however, say that the problem is not his age, but the cognitive state of the president, who often greets the void, hears voices and forgets where he is. But let’s face it, Biden’s political line is pretty consistent and logical. And it is not a consequence of dementia, but of a certain ideological and strategic approach. How right it is and what it will lead to is another question, but it is being pursued consciously and not under the influence of apparitions. In any case, there is a good chance of a rematch in 2024. Donald Trump, who is currently in the lead for the Republican nomination, would face an opponent he lost to in 2020. Even if he has never fully acknowledged the defeat. Trump will be 77 on Election Day. The former president is noticeably more active and mentally sharper than his potential rival and appears to still be in possession of all his powers. However, Biden also looked very different, just a few years ago, but eventually broke down.

The elections are still a year and a half away, which in the current circumstances is a very long time, not just for the patriarchs themselves, but for everyone else too. A lot can change suddenly. But if these two candidates make it to the final stage, what form will the eventual long generational transition take? We would venture to guess that behind the political longevity of this age cohort which, excluding Obama, under whom Biden played the role of ‘uncle’, has been running the United States since the early 1990s is a fixed agenda. And this, strangely enough, is international, despite the fact that foreign policy issues play little role in real American politics. The first member of the Trump-Biden generation to hold high office was Bill Clinton, and he was given the opportunity to implement a unipolar, US-centric world order. This framework has remained in place ever since.

Although the structure and state of the international system have changed qualitatively, the consciousness of the American establishment – which aims to preserve and strengthen the old system – has not budged. Trump may seem to be outside the club, with his “America First” discourse challenging the globalist aspirations of the American ruling class. But his place in history is not in doubt, for he too has not challenged US hegemony. The Republican differs from his predecessors or from Biden in that he openly wants to make his country’s central role a profitable affair, discarding conventionality. Nevertheless, by no means would he give it up. American world dominance is now under intense pressure. It is not only the emergence of rivals challenging the hegemon. These shifts are very different, but they have in common a rejection of claims to leadership, especially American dominance. In other words, a global “material resistance” effect has emerged.

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“..If the press comes up with those things, I can’t control that. I can’t gag the world..”

• Judge Orders Hunter Biden to Provide Details on Income (ET)

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden may have paid the mother of his 4-year-old daughter up to $750,000 in child support since March 2020, said one of his attorneys at a hearing. Hunter Biden appeared in Independence County Circuit Court in Batesville, Arkansas, on May 1 as ordered by the judge overseeing the child support dispute between the president’s 53-year-old son and Lunden Roberts. Roberts is the Arkansas woman who, according to court filings, had a relationship with Hunter and gave birth to a baby girl in August 2018. She sued for support in 2019. At first Hunter Biden denied that the child was his, but a DNA test confirmed he is the father. On March 12, 2020, he and Roberts agreed to an undisclosed amount in monthly child support to begin on April 1, 2020.

Terms of the agreement are sealed because they contain sensitive personal information, including the amount of monthly support and each party’s source of income. Hunter Biden asked the court to review the child support arrangement the following September because his financial status had changed. During a discussion of the discovery process, Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe David Lowell, said his client has been paying $20,000 monthly, more than $700,000 since the support order was signed. Judge Holly Meyer clarified during the May 1 hearing that any information discussed in open court was a matter of public record. Lowell’s remarks came after he and attorney Brent Langdon of Dallas, Texas, complained that news outlets had published information from sealed court files.

He said news reports referenced tax files, information on Hunter Biden’s cars, and other things that had been redacted. “How is it that things that are redacted in the file are released to the Daily Mail? There are matters that are being redacted that are getting out to the daily news,” Langdon said. Meyer said that, without proof someone was illegally releasing information, there was little she could do. Journalists and the public often speculate on matters and may come close to guessing what is in a sealed file, she added. “If the press comes up with those things, I can’t control that. I can’t gag the world,” Meyer said. The judge ordered Hunter Biden to provide information on his income from his artwork, investments, employment, gifts from friends, and other sources. She also ordered Roberts to provide information on the value of her property and income while working with her father’s business.

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Origami
https://twitter.com/i/status/1653388335807594497

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle February 17 2023

Feb 172023
 
 February 17, 2023  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Tomb of the diver, Paestum c480 BCE

 

• Seymour Hersh Calls Pipeline Sabotage ‘Dumbest’ US Act In Years (RT)
• The US Destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline. Interview with Seymour Hersh (GR)
• US Presidents Renege on Agreements with Russia (Parsons)
• Ukraine Conflict Will Likely Have No Military Winner – Milley (RT)
• Russia Has Lost ‘Strategically, Operationally And Tactically’ – Milley (G.)
• The Horrifying Endgame in Ukraine (Rickards)
• Nuland Outlines US Goals In Ukraine (RT)
• Beijing Challenges Western Press On Nord Stream Blasts (RT)
• The West Has Long Planned A Proxy War With Russia In Ukraine (Sukharevskaya)
• Russia Acted Out Of Necessity To Implement Minsk Accords – Kremlin (TASS)
• Implications of US Destruction of Nordstream 2 Pipeline (Fuller)
• Russian Diplomats Issue Dire Warnings that War with US Is Close (LI)
• Bombshell New Emails Unsealed Between Epstein and JP Morgan Executive (TP)
• NFL Players Association Urged to Screen for Vaccine Side Effects (ET)

 

 

 

 

Ukraine’s new troops
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626469724807696384

 

 

 

 

Douglas Macgregor – The Russian Onslaught

 

 

 

 

East Palestine water

 

 

 

 

Bulgaria

 

 

 

 

Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1620598762216517632

 

 

2019 Zel

 

 

 

 

“What [Biden] did is he said, ‘I’m in a big war with Ukraine. It’s not looking good. I want to be sure I get German and West European support,’”

• Seymour Hersh Calls Pipeline Sabotage ‘Dumbest’ US Act In Years (RT)

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has slammed Washington’s alleged involvement in bombing the Nord Stream gas lines as one of the “dumbest” decisions taken in years, warning that the move will have “horrific” consequences for Europeans and further undercut the already “supremely useless” NATO alliance. Speaking to Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman for an interview on Wednesday, Hersh outlined his recent report on the destruction of the pipelines last year, which found that the US played a key role in planting and detonating explosives on sections of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea. “I think the consequences politically for us are enormous,” he said, adding that the long-term effects for Europe would be “horrific” and “cut into the notion that they can depend totally on America, even in a crisis.”

“I think that this has probably been, in the view of some of the people who did it, one of the dumbest things the American government has done in years – and we’ve had four years of Trump.” Hersh argued that US officials have long seen cheap energy alternatives for Europe as a “threat,” noting that Washington has “always wanted to isolate Russia” to prevent oil and gas sales to the EU. He said the Joe Biden administration feared Europe would “walk away” from the conflict in Ukraine and felt the need to pressure allies to stay the course. “What [Biden] did is he said, ‘I’m in a big war with Ukraine. It’s not looking good. I want to be sure I get German and West European support,’” Hersh continued. He added that the president did not want Berlin to reverse course and reopen the Nord Stream lines, which had been under sanctions, “so he took away that option,” effectively telling his European partners “You’re second rate.”

“I know people that are paying five times as much now for electricity. People are paying three or four times more for gas. There’s not enough of it. It’s very expensive,” he said, arguing that Europe is now forced to obtain energy from other sources than Russia, including the United States itself. “And I think it’s going to undercut NATO, which I always found to be supremely useless,” he added. While the Biden administration has vocally denied Hersh’s report, with State Department spokesperson Ned Price calling it “utter and complete nonsense,” the journalist has stuck by his unnamed source, insisting the information relayed to him was accurate. He told Democracy Now! that he would continue to report on the issue in the future, saying there are “still things I need to write about.”

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“I can tell you that the people involved in the operation saw the president as choosing to keep Germany cold for his short-range political goals, and that horrified them.”

• The US Destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline. Interview with Seymour Hersh (GR)

Joe Biden decided not to blow them up. It was in early June, five months into the war, but then, in September, he decided to do it. I’ll tell you something. The operational people, the people who do kinetic things for the United States, they do what the president says, and they initially thought this was a useful weapon that he could use in negotiations. But at some point, once the Russians went in, and then when the operation was done, this became increasingly odious to the people who did it. These are well-trained people; they are in the highest level of secret intelligence agencies. They turned on the project. They thought this was an insane thing to do. And within a week, or three or four days after the bombing, after they did what they were ordered to, there was a lot of anger and hostility. This is obviously reflected in the fact that I’m learning so much about it.And I’ll tell you something else. The people in America and Europe who build pipelines know what happened. I’m telling you something important. The people who own companies that build pipelines know the story. I didn’t get the story from them but I learned quickly they know.
.
[..] The secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, said a few days after the pipeline was blown up, at a news conference, that a major economic and almost military force was taken away from Vladimir Putin. He said this was a tremendous opportunity, as Russia could no longer weaponize the pipelines — meaning that it was not able to force Western Europe not to support the United States in the war. The fear was that Western Europe would not go along any longer in the war. I think that the reason they decided to do it then was that the war wasn’t going well for the West, and they were afraid with winter coming. The Nord Stream 2 has been sanctioned by Germany, and the United States was afraid that Germany would lift the sanctions because of a bad winter.
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FABIAN SCHEIDLER: According to you, what were the motives when you look behind the scenes? The US government was opposed to the pipeline for many reasons. Some say they were opposed to it because they wanted to weaken Russia, to weaken the ties between Russia and Western Europe, Germany especially. But maybe also to weaken the German economy, which, after all, is a competitor to the US economy. With the high gas prices, enterprises have started to move to the United States. So what’s your sense of the motives of the US government, if they blew up the pipeline?
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SEYMOUR HERSH: I don’t think they thought it through. I know this sounds strange. I don’t think that Blinken and some others in the administration are deep thinkers. There certainly are people in the American economy who like the idea of us being more competitive. We’re selling LNG, liquefied gas, at extremely big profits; we’re making a lot of money on it. I’m sure there were some people thinking, boy, this is going to be a long-time boost for the American economy. But in that White House, I think the obsession was always reelection, and they wanted to win the war, they wanted to get a victory, they want Ukraine to somehow magically win. There could be some people who think maybe it’ll be better for our economy if the German economy is weak, but that’s crazy thinking. I think, basically, that we’ve bitten deep into something that’s not going to work. The war is not going to turn out well for this government.

[..] What I know is there’s no way this war is going to turn out the way we want, and I don’t know what we’re going to do as we go further down the line. It scares me if the president was willing to do this.And the people who did this mission believed that the president did realize what he was doing to the people of Germany, that he was punishing them for a war that wasn’t going well. And in the long run, this is going to be very detrimental not only to his reputation as the president but politically too. It’s going to be a stigma for America.So what you have is a White House that thought it may have a losing card: Germany and Western Europe may stop giving the arms we want and the German chancellor could turn the pipeline on — that was always a fear. I would be asking a lot of questions to Chancellor Scholz. I would ask him what he learned in February when he was with the president. The operation was a big secret, and the president wasn’t supposed to tell anybody about this capability. But he does talk. He says things that he doesn’t want to.

[..] The point is that Biden chose to keep Germany cold this winter. The president of the United States would rather see Germany cold [because of energy shortages] than Germany possibly not supportive in the Ukraine war, and that, to me, is going to be a devastating thing for this White House. For me, and I think also for the people on the mission, it was appalling. [..] I can tell you that the people involved in the operation saw the president as choosing to keep Germany cold for his short-range political goals, and that horrified them. I’m talking about American people that are intensely loyal to the United States. In the CIA, it’s understood that, as I put it in my article, they work for the Crown, they don’t work for the Constitution.

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“..what possible explanation could be offered when the Biden co-conspirators, millions of Americans and Putin’s Security Council all know the truth..”

• US Presidents Renege on Agreements with Russia (Parsons)

A week after Sy Hersh’s expose on the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, there is still no word that pretend President Biden who denies any knowledge or involvement in causing an Act of War in the Baltic Sea has yet to offer an explanation to the American public or reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin – but what possible explanation could be offered when the Biden co-conspirators, millions of Americans and Putin’s Security Council all know the truth. Even though the balloon distraction consumes the American mainstream media with the anonymous buoyant inflatable nonsense of a psyop as if to avoid the inescapable moment of truth – which will come inevitably. In any case, a good guess is that the Russians are not amused by whatever game the Biden Administration has conjured up to deflect attention from the reality of a world level Act of War crisis.


While the media remains aflutter with the guessing-game possibilities, TPTB appear confident that because Russia has been restrained and prudent in its reactions during its special military operation; including the unrelenting NATO lies but especially to the inhumanity of the Ukraine Nazi’s. There is a general refusal on the part of the Americans to believe that The Bear would ever retaliate, that they could never be pushed so far until there was nowhere else to go. Perhaps as the European mainland flounders in an energy and economic crisis of its own making, they are experiencing a resurgence of lost sovereignty and awareness of their loss of independence at the hands of the US. As the US and rest of the world await Russia’s response to the Biden Administration’s denial, legendary professor, historian, philosopher and political analyst emeritus Noam Chomsky has reminded us of the reckless and provocative impact of the US withdrawal of arms control agreements on Russia’s well-defined borders and legitimate security interests.

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Translation: we are losing.

• Ukraine Conflict Will Likely Have No Military Winner – Milley (RT)

The Ukraine conflict can only end through a negotiated peace deal because neither side is likely to achieve its goals on the battlefield, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday. “It will be almost impossible for the Russians to achieve their political objectives by military means,” Milley claimed without providing specific reasons for his stance. “It is unlikely that Russia is going to overrun Ukraine. It’s just not going to happen.” He added that it also would be “very, very difficult for Ukraine this year to kick the Russians out of every inch” of the territory that Moscow’s forces have already captured.

America’s top-ranking military officer made his comments after traveling to Brussels earlier this week to coordinate efforts with NATO allies on shoring up Ukraine’s firepower for a planned spring counter-offensive. Kiev is burning through weaponry at a rate “many times higher” than its Western allies can produce it, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Monday. Milley said the ammunition strain has forced the Pentagon to review its weapons inventories and contemplate increases in spending. US officials are re-examining their assumptions about supply needs after decades of focusing on counterterrorism missions and unconventional warfare.

“One of the lessons of this war is the very high consumption rates of conventional munitions, and we are re-examining our own stockages and our own plans to make sure that we got it right,” Milley told FT. “We’re trying to do the analysis so that we can then estimate what we think the true requirement would be, and then we have to put that in the budget. Ammunition is very expensive.” The Pentagon’s current annual budget stands at $817 billion, exceeding the combined total for the rest of the world’s ten largest military spenders combined. Washington has already allocated more than $110 billion in aid for Ukraine since Russia’s military operation began last February.

Republican lawmakers, such as Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Andy Biggs of Arizona, have criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for severely depleting US weapons stockpiles to arm Ukraine. Earlier this week, Milley told reporters in Brussels that Russia has already lost. “They’ve lost strategically, operationally and tactically, and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield.” Retired US Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor, a former Pentagon adviser, said such claims have eroded the Biden administration’s credibility. “General Milley has made it very clear that he’s aligned with the left, he is part of this administration, he’s going to say whatever they want him to say.”

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Translation: there will be no winner, but Russia lost.

• Russia Has Lost ‘Strategically, Operationally And Tactically’ – Milley (G.)

General Mark Milley, chairman of America’s joint chiefs of staff, has said Russia has lost “strategically, operationally and tactically” and that they are “paying an enormous price on the battlefield” in Ukraine. Milley, speaking at a joint news conference with US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, said President Vladimir Putin believed he could defeat Ukraine quickly when he ordered his troops to invade almost a year ago. [Putin] was wrong. Ukraine remains free. They remain independent. Nato and its coalition has never been stronger. Now, Russia is a global pariah and the world remains inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience. In short, Russia has lost – they’ve lost strategically, operationally and tactically and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield.

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“It doesn’t really make sense to send tanks to Ukraine unless you send combat aircraft to give them cover.”

• The Horrifying Endgame in Ukraine (Rickards)

I’ve written extensively about two facets of the war in Ukraine that you don’t hear from legacy media in the United States or U.K. The first is that Russia is actually winning the war. U.S. outlets such as The New York Times (a channel for the State Department) and The Washington Post (a channel for the CIA) report endlessly about how Russian plans have failed, about how incompetent they are about how the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have pushed back Russians in the Donbass, and how NATO weapons such as U.S. Abrams tanks, U.K. Challenger tanks and German Leopard tanks will turn the tide against Russia soon. This is all nonsense. None of it is true.

First off, the Ukrainian advances that took place in late summer were against lightly defended positions that the Russians quickly conceded to conserve forces. The Russians were willing to give up the land so that they wouldn’t lose valuable men and materiel. The Russians withdrew to more defensible positions and have been badly mauling Ukrainian attacking forces ever since. Ukraine has wasted incredibly large amounts of men and equipment in these futile and ill-advised attacks. In all, credible reports indicate that AFU casualties are nearing 500,000 and are increasing at an unsustainable rate. On the other hand, reports of 100,000 Russian dead are almost certainly wild exaggerations put out by Ukraine. The BBC attempted to verify these numbers and could only find about 20,000 confirmed Russian dead based on extensive searches on funeral notices, public records, etc.

What about the tanks NATO is supposedly sending? Well, the tanks have not been delivered yet and most won’t be for months or longer. Our own M1 Abrams tanks might not even arrive for a year or more. We actually have to custom build these tanks so that they don’t have the special armor and other advanced systems that our own M1s have. The Pentagon doesn’t want them falling into Russian hands if they’re destroyed or captured. Besides, we’re only sending 31 tanks anyway. When the NATO tanks do arrive, they’ll likely quickly be destroyed by Russian artillery, anti-tank weapons and precision missiles. They’re good tanks, but far from invincible. For decades, the Russians have been developing powerful weapons specifically designed to destroy these NATO tank models. The Russians aren’t particularly worried about them.

Aside from that, tanks rely on effective air cover for protection, which Ukraine lacks. They’ll be sitting ducks on the battlefield. It doesn’t really make sense to send tanks to Ukraine unless you send combat aircraft to give them cover. Meanwhile, Russian forces have nearly encircled the city of Bakhmut, which is a major transportation and logistics hub, with several key roads and rail lines passing through it. It’ll probably fall to the Russians within weeks. Losing Bakhmut will be a major blow to Ukraine, despite claims in the western media that it really isn’t very important. Ukraine’s entire 800-mile defensive line would probably begin to crumble, and they don’t have heavily fortified positions to fall back on. Ukrainian troops, while brave and competent soldiers, are exhausted and running out of supplies as it is.

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“..She also expressed a preference for Russians overthrowing their government for a “better future” offered by the West..”

• Nuland Outlines US Goals In Ukraine (RT)

Unless the Crimean peninsula is at the very least “demilitarized” Ukraine won’t feel safe, while the ideal end to the current conflict is with a revolution in Moscow, the US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Thursday. Ukrainians “have to get to a map that is more sustainable for them,” Nuland said in a video interview with the Washington think tank Carnegie Endowment. They have “significant chunks of territory they need to be a viable state, before you even get to the question of Crimea, and that’s what they’re focused on now.” The US position is that Ukraine is “owed and due all of their territory within their international borders,” which means Crimea as well, Nuland added.

Assigned to Ukraine by the Soviet Union in 1954, Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in March 2014, after the violent coup in Kiev that Nuland helped “midwife,” according to the infamous phone call intercept. “Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is – at a minimum, at a minimum – demilitarized,” Nuland insisted on Thursday, claiming that Moscow had turned the peninsula into a military base, with command posts, logistics depots and airfields for “Iranian drones.” “Those are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them, and we are supporting that,” she said. Earlier this week, Politico quoted two anonymous officials to imply that Nuland’s boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, had admitted the US was not “actively encouraging” Ukraine to seize Crimea and that any moves on the peninsula would be “Kiev’s decision alone.”

Nuland, however, told Carnegie that the battlefield objectives of Washington and Kiev overlap “in terms of what the Ukrainians want to do on the battlefield, and what we’re enabling them to plan to do.” Asked how she saw the conflict ending, Nuland said the West “must never trust, as long as Vladimir Putin is in power, or somebody like him, that this is truly over.” Even if the fighting ends on Ukraine’s terms, there “has to be a long-term plan” to build up Ukraine’s military as a deterrent. She also expressed a preference for Russians overthrowing their government for a “better future” offered by the West.

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“What exactly do they know? Is there anything they are trying to hide? I suppose any truly objective, impartial and professional media will want to seek out the truth..”

• Beijing Challenges Western Press On Nord Stream Blasts (RT)

Beijing has mocked mainstream Western media for its apparent reluctance to look into recent allegations by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, that the US was responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream undersea pipelines last year. The sabotage of the natural gas routes last September had a major economic and environmental impact and caused global concern over the safety of cross-border infrastructure, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said during a press briefing on Thursday. “Immediately after the explosions, we saw extensive coverage in US and other Western media with one-sided speculations on who was ‘responsible’ for the sabotage,” he said. “What we see now, however, is that these media, hailed as free, professional and impartial, have fallen silent over Seymour Hersh’s detailed report.”

The veteran investigative journalist reported last week that US President Joe Biden had ordered a secret operation to sabotage the crucial energy link. According to his source, which Hersh did not reveal, the US colluded with Norway to plant explosives under the guise of a NATO naval exercise and detonate it remotely months later. Both nations have denied the allegations. Wang wondered if Western outlets really wanted to know the truth about what happened, suggesting that some may be covering up for the Biden administration. “What exactly do they know? Is there anything they are trying to hide? I suppose any truly objective, impartial and professional media will want to seek out the truth,” the Chinese diplomat said.

Russia, which argued from the outset that the US had most to gain from knocking out the Nord Stream pipelines, expressed similar sentiments. “We consider this incident an act of international terrorism that warrants a comprehensive and independent investigation,” Igor Girenko, the spokesman for the Russian embassy in Washington said. He urged Washington to “at least try to prove that they were not involved in the destruction of the gas pipelines.”

Clare Daly

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Olga Sukharevskaya is a former Ukrainian diplomat.

• The West Has Long Planned A Proxy War With Russia In Ukraine (Sukharevskaya)

Western ‘aid’ is killing Ukrainians by the thousands. In November 2022, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, estimated that Kiev had lost at least 100,000 servicemen, before deleting her comments after uproar from supporters of Ukraine. Three more months have passed since then. Big expansions to cemeteries have sprouted up all over Ukraine. Trying to make up for losses, the authorities have ordered more mobilization. This process has turned into a hunt, with men being dragged to war by force, as dozens of videos freely available online show. Given equipment losses, it’s likely that attacks on the civilian population of Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson, as well as Russia’s border regions, are carried out almost exclusively using Western weapons.

Evidence of this is seen from video footage of destroyed civilian infrastructure in Donbass. American “gifts” in the form of HIMARS strike residential areas in Donetsk and in the deep rear of the Lugansk city of Schastye. The Kalinin hospital in Donetsk and a hospital in Novoaidar, Lugansk, were both destroyed by NATO weapons. And this is only a small portion of the slaughter being committed by Kiev, using Western supplies. According to UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, at least 7,100 civilians have been killed in the course of combat operations since February 2022. “The real numbers are probably much bigger,” Nakamitsu said. Norwegian Chief of Defense Eirik Kristoffersen estimates civilian casualties at 30,000 people.

There is also evidence that some long-range missiles currently publicly only under discussion have already been provided to Kiev. The head of the administration of the Russian part of Zaporozhye Region, Vladimir Rogov, has reported that Ukrainian missiles hit the hotel complex ‘Hunter’s Camp’ in Melitopol, resulting in civilian deaths. However, the city is located more than 100 km from the frontline. The lives of the Ukrainian people have been sacrificed in the interests of a geopolitical confrontation planned by the West. At a meeting of the Council of Europe on January 24, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, “We (the EU) are waging a war against Russia, not against each other.” She was subsequently forced to take her words back, but other Western officials have said the same thing, even if in less straightforward ways.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stressed, “If Putin prevails, it will mean a defeat not only for Ukraine but for all of us.” As for Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, he went so far as to call the defeat of Russia “the Polish and European meaning of life.” Politicians generally tell the truth only after resigning. Statements from former German chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Francois Hollande have revealed that the 2014 and 2015 Minsk (peace) Agreements were signed only in order to arm Ukraine and buy it time before a full on military confrontation with Russia. In other words, waging war with Russia by proxy through Ukraine has been a meticulously planned strategy, long in the making.

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“The deal outlined moves to declare a ceasefire, withdraw weapons, declare amnesty, restore economic ties and conduct constitutional reform in Ukraine..”

• Russia Acted Out Of Necessity To Implement Minsk Accords – Kremlin (TASS)

Russia took into account the need to implement the Minsk Accords and exerted numerous efforts to make sure that the commitments under the deal were implemented by Ukraine, France, and Germany, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. The Russian presidential spokesman responded with a negative reply to a question as to whether Moscow assumed that the deal would not be carried out once the accords were signed. “You know how much effort the Russian side invested into the negotiating track in order to force both the Ukrainian side and Berlin and Paris to go down the path of fulfilling the commitments that the parties had undertaken under the Minsk agreements,” he continued.

According to Peskov, Moscow “exerted a great deal of effort” into the Minsk Accords. He recalled that the talks on the issue involved the personal participation of President Vladimir Putin, ex-Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov and Head of the Russian Presidential Administration Dmitry Kozak. “Undoubtedly, the main objective was to force Kiev to fulfill its obligations,” Peskov told the news briefing. The Minsk Accords were the cornerstone of the Donbass peace process. The deal outlined moves to declare a ceasefire, withdraw weapons, declare amnesty, restore economic ties and conduct constitutional reform in Ukraine through dialogue with the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR, LPR), aimed at decentralizing power and providing a special status to certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

However, the negotiation process had actually stalled because of Kiev’s refusal to fulfill the political provisions of the Minsk accords. In particular, Kiev rejected holding any direct dialogue with the DPR and the LPR, opposed the consolidation of the regions’ special status in the constitution, and also demanded that a section of the border with Russia in Donbass be placed under Ukrainian control until the political part of the deal was implemented.

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“These states of the Global South are also developing plans for new international reserve currency designed to undercut the ability of Washington to dictate international policy..”

• Implications of US Destruction of Nordstream 2 Pipeline (Fuller)

The stunning recent and detailed reportage of direct American sabotage of the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline represents a major geostrategic watershed in two senses: First, the implications of Washington’s act of war with disastrous economic impact upon Europe will not subside easily. But more importantly this event has demonstrated America’s successful cowing of any public commentary on the event — across U.S. media but more so across all European media itself, including in the most economically victimized state —Germany. We observe stunning, nearly inexplicable silence over this major international event. And Russia has gotten the message — American policies and statements have deeply reinforced Russia’s long-standing belief that the West is implacably hostile to any Russian role in the West — going back to the bitter and irrevocable split of Christendom between Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1054. That was later followed up by two devastating European invasions of Russia (Napoleon and Hitler).

Growing European trade ties — especially Germany — with Russia since the end of the Cold War have been thrown on the trash heap by NATO expansion east. The hostility of East-West relations has been reinforced and deepened. Washington has no desire to work out a new common-European security policy that includes Russian interests as well. And these U.S. policies have helped ensure that Russia’s future now firmly lies in the East–Vladivostok and with China in a shared rejection of U.S. global hegemony. The rise of a new Great Wall that blocks off Russia from Western Europe is one of the most striking outcomes of this war: European officialdom seems to have cast in its lot, perhaps reluctantly but irrevocably, with the American strategic goals in the world.

Those goals now even speak of creating a new “NATO Pacific” designed to challenge Chinese power economically and strategically in China’s own backyard — at great potential economic cost to Europe. But for all this demonstration of Washington’s hold over Europe, it is also striking to note how the great majority of the world has indeed not gone along with U.S. strategic ambitions to weaken and humble Russia or to impose Washington’s own geopolitical architecture on most of the rest of the world. Broadly speaking Latin America, the Middle East and Africa do not perceive their strategic interests as aligning with Washington’s. Apart from some lip service criticism of Russia, few states including large segments of Asia and India itself have imposed any meaningful sanctions against Russia.

More vividly, we see the emergence of new non-Western alliances such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) with many other major states lining up to include Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. These states of the Global South are also developing plans for new international reserve currency designed to undercut the ability of Washington to dictate international policy through U.S. dollar-based sanctions.

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“If you are dealing with a nuclear power and if you are citing the goal of inflicting defeat to this nuclear power, you should have all the options in mind of our possible response.”

• Russian Diplomats Issue Dire Warnings that War with US Is Close (LI)

Starting in 2008, NATO has repeatedly declared its intention to someday allow Ukraine to become a member, again reiterating that pledge at a recent alliance summit. The move would cross the “brightest of all red lines” for Moscow, as was previously noted by then-State Department official and current CIA Director William Burns, who penned a 2008 memo warning of the geopolitical perils of extending membership to Kiev. Still, President Joe Biden has refused to change course, insisting it is up to Ukraine whether it would like to join the US-led military bloc while effectively making Kiev a de facto member in the meantime. In an interview with Newsweek on Tuesday, Russia’s UN envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy argued that the West has not respected Moscow’s core security concerns, and has become directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.

“All the red lines have already been crossed by Western countries. There is already semi-direct involvement of NATO in the conflict because it’s not only weaponry but it’s intelligence,” he said. “It’s the situation when the targets of certain artillery systems, in particular HIMARS, these targets can be hit only with the coordination with Washington.” Last week, the Washington Post reported that Ukraine relies on American intelligence for selecting targets. Since the start of the year, the White House has authorized the shipment of main battle tanks and long-range rockets to Kiev. Additionally, NATO appears to be preparing to send Western-made warplanes to Ukraine. ”It means that NATO is not only providing weapons but also are choosing the targets for Ukrainian strikes,” Polyanskiy continued.

He went on to allege that citizens from NATO countries are already fighting – as well as getting captured and killed – in Ukraine. ”We know this from the people that we capture and from the bodies that we see on the battlefield.” The ambassador said Western weapons would only escalate the conflict, even warning that foreign intervention could eventually trigger a nuclear war. “It’s absolutely clear that any deliveries of weapons to the zone of conflict, of course, is like pouring oil into the fire,” he said, adding “If you are dealing with a nuclear power and if you are citing the goal of inflicting defeat to this nuclear power, you should have all the options in mind of our possible response.”

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Staley’s done. Now for the rest.

• Bombshell New Emails Unsealed Between Epstein and JP Morgan Executive (TP)

Newly unsealed documents relating to the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit against JPMorgan begin to paint a larger picture of how the Epstein sex trafficking operation was conducted. Newly unsealed passages of a federal lawsuit have revealed that as far back as 2006, former top executives at JPMorgan privately discussed abuse allegations surrounding the late predator Jeffrey Epstein, and more than 20 of his sex trafficking victims were paid through accounts at the mega bank. “These women were trafficked and abused during different intervals between at least 2003 and July 2019, when Epstein was arrested and jailed, and these women received payments, typically multiple payments, between 2003 and 2013 in excess of $1 million collectively,” a passage states.

“Epstein also withdrew more than $775,000 in cash over that time frame from JP Morgan accounts, especially significant as Epstein was known to pay for “massages,” or sexual encounters, in cash.” Earlier, the allegations, along with some others, were concealed with redactions by the government of the Virgin Islands while submitting its legal action against JP Morgan Chase, citing its involvement in Epstein’s offenses. Late Wednesday, the Virgin Islands unsealed more documents relating to their investigation. The bombshell documents reveal just how involved JP Morgan was with Epstein. Not only did they know what Epstein was up to, but they were complicit. JPMorgan’s then-senior executive Jes Staley had a very close relationship with Epstein, sending him 1,200 emails that suggest he was involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.

“Between 2008 and 2012, Staley exchanged approximately 1,200 emails with Epstein from his JP Morgan email account,” the lawsuit says. “These communications show a close personal relationship and ‘profound’ friendship between the two men and even suggest that Staley may have been involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.” One Staley email was even sent from Epstein’s Little St. James in 2009 when Epstein was in jail in Florida. “So when all hell breaks lo[o]se, and the world is crumbling, I will come here, and be at peace,” the email read. “Presently, I’m in the hot tub with a glass of white wine. This is an amazing place. Truly amazing. Next time, we’re here together. I owe you much. And I deeply appreciate our friendship. I have few so profound.”

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“..a testing and screening program to determine whether players have been adversely affected by the injections and to develop a set of functional medical protocols and treatments in order to address and heal any deleterious effects of the vaccines..”

The players don’t want to be tested, afraid they can’t play.

• NFL Players Association Urged to Screen for Vaccine Side Effects (ET)

The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) is being urged to offer players cardiac screening in light of the growing concern over COVID-19 vaccines causing heart inflammation. The Health Freedom Defense Fund urged the association in a recent letter to implement screening because the vaccines can cause myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation. Young males are the most at risk. Most NFL players received a COVID-19 vaccine under pressure from teams and the league. “Safety signals illustrate that the near and long-term health outcomes of the COVID-19 vaccines remain uncertain,” Leslie Manookian, president and founder of the fund, told DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the players association, in the letter.

RFK jr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626318214325055490

“A multitude of adverse reactions to these injections, including myocarditis, are wide-ranging and confirmed, and as such, prudence dictates that the NFLPA investigate the extent to which the COVID-19 shots may have resulted in injury, compromised health or death of players,” Manookian said. She pointed out that Damar Hamlin, a safety for the Buffalo Bills, suffered a cardiac arrest on the field during a Monday Night Football game in January. The reason for the incident remains unknown; Hamlin declined to convey during a recent televised interview what his doctors told him about the incident. Former NFL players also have suffered heart attacks and strokes following vaccination. The NFLPA should introduce “a testing and screening program to determine whether players have been adversely affected by the injections and to develop a set of functional medical protocols and treatments in order to address and heal any deleterious effects of the vaccines,” Manookian said.

[..] Manookian informed the NFLPA that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration placed a warning regarding myocarditis and a related condition, pericarditis, on the labels for the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. She also pointed to research papers on post-vaccination myocarditis. Among them were a study by Florida authorities that found a jump in cardiac-related deaths among the vaccinated; a study that found an increased risk of myocarditis and myopericarditis after a second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine and the first and second doses of Moderna’s vaccine, with the highest risk in young males; a reanalysis of the original clinical trials that found a higher number of serious adverse events of special interest among the vaccinated; and experts in Germany reporting, after analyzing autopsies, that some of the deceased likely died from vaccine-induced myocarditis.

“We have a growing body of scientific evidence showing that there is a risk to young males in particular, and many of them have some critical cardiac problems,” Manookian said. The NFLPA did the right thing when it comes to concussions, supporting stronger protections for players, she said. “I think that we should be doing the same thing with respect to these COVID injections and the potential for subclinical cardiac issues,” Manookian said.

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Biden walk

 

 

Salamander
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626276298694828032

 

 


In 1970, students in a fifth-grade class at Hawthorne School in Beverly Hills were assigned to write a letter to someone they admired, asking them “What makes a good citizen?”10yr old Joel Lipton wrote to Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz. Joel got a reply…

 

 

Abandoned ant hill
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626164699191451651

 

 

Cuttlefish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626293722752188419

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 22 2023

Jan 222023
 
 January 22, 2023  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Joseph Mallord William Turner The Fifth Plague of Egypt 1800

 

• Six More Classified Documents Discovered At Biden House (ZH)
• DOJ Seizes More Classified Docs From Biden’s Wilmington Home (Fox)
• Joe Biden Took Classified Documents Home When He Was a Senator (CTH)
• World Moving Closer To ‘Irreversible’ Disaster – Chomsky (RT)
• Ukraine – Russian Army Activates Southern Front (MoA)
• Fighting Russia ‘Very, Very Difficult’ For Ukraine – Gen. Milley (RT)
• Russian Casualties In Ukraine Have Hit 188,000 – US Intel (Az.)
• US Attempts To Seek Latin America’s Russian Arms Supplies To Kiev (TASS)
• Duma Speaker Warns Of Powerful Retaliation For Weapons Supplies To Kiev (TASS)
• Russians’ Level Of Trust In Putin Exceeds 78% (TASS)
• Twitter Lost 80% Of Its Workforce Under Elon Musk (Az.)
• Twitter Files Prove America Headed for ‘Totalitarian State Territory’ (ET)
• EU Car Sales Collapse – Industry Body (RT)
• GMC Blinks First: Regulator Declines to Investigate Dr Aseem Malhotra (DS)
• Japan Declares It Will Handle COVID-19 Like a Seasonal Flu (GP)

 

 

 

 

The Year of the Tiger has given way to the Year of the Rabbit.

 

 

German MP

 

 

Dowd

 

 

 

 

Scott Adams
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616949618725781506

 

 

 

 

Well, more docs. And more obfuscation. Whereas Trump’s home was raided, Biden is said to have ”offered access to his home” (after more than 2 months. Lots of write-ups, here are two. I went to the CNN homepage, crickets.

BTW, it’s not “Six More Classified Documents”, but “six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials”. Yes, that could mean 1000 documents.

• Six More Classified Documents Discovered At Biden House (ZH)

The Department of Justice found “six items consisting of documents with classification markings” during a Friday search of President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, according to a Saturday statement by the president’s personal lawyers. Also found were notes from Biden’s time as a Senator, as well as his tenure as Vice President, according to a statement from Biden attorney Bob Bauer, which strategically leads with ‘we’ve fully cooperated!’ The search lasted from 9:45 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Friday, during which members of Biden’s personal legal tam were present along with members from the Office of the White House counsel, according to the statement. The DOJ also took materials “for further review.” The new documents mark the latest development in the scandal involving classified documents found at non-authorized locations used by Biden. The first batch of papers was discovered in early November, the day before midterm elections, at the Penn Biden Center. More documents marked classified were found at his Wilmington, Delaware home in December – and then earlier this month, an additional batch of papers was found at the home. “

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Department officials earlier considered having FBI agents monitor a search by Mr. Biden’s lawyers for classified documents at his homes but decided against it, both to avoid complicating later stages of the investigation and because Mr. Biden’s attorneys had quickly turned over a first batch and were cooperating, the Journal reported this week. Some law enforcement officials had discussed the possibility of asking Mr. Biden’s team for consent to have the FBI search the property themselves. Officials didn’t immediately take that step in part to preserve their freedom to take a tougher line later, including by executing a search warrant, the Journal reported. Instead, the two sides agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them. -Wall Street Journal”

So, Biden’s personal attorneys searched the house themselves, said they turned everything over to the DOJ, and yet more were found? When Trump’s lawyers did that he was raided by the FBI.

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13 hour search covered “all working, living and storage spaces in the home.” What are the odds more will be “discovered” next week?

• DOJ Seizes More Classified Docs From Biden’s Wilmington Home (Fox)

The Justice Department seized additional classified records from President Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home after an FBI search on Friday, Fox News has learned. “On Jan. 20, 2023, the FBI executed a planned, consensual search of the President’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware,” Joseph D. Fitzpatrick, an assistant U.S. attorney to U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch, told Fox News Saturday. Lausch was the DOJ official running the investigation into Biden’s improper retention of classified records ahead of the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Hur. Fox News has learned Lausch is still playing an integral role in the probe as Hur gets up to speed. The FBI search began Friday morning at 9:45 a.m. and concluded Friday night around 10:30 p.m.


Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer said Saturday evening the search covered “all working, living and storage spaces in the home.” “At the outset of this matter, the President directed his personal attorneys to fully cooperate with the Department of Justice,” Bauer said. “Accordingly, having previously identified and reported to DOJ a small number of documents with classification markings at the President’s Wilmington home, and in the interest of moving the process forward as expeditiously as possible, we offered to provide prompt access to his home to allow DOJ to conduct a search of the entire premises for potential vice-presidential records and potential classified material.” Bauer said that by agreement with the Justice Department, representatives of both Biden’s personal legal team and the White House Counsel’s Office were present for the search. Neither the president nor the first lady were present during the search.

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Don’t be fooled by comparisons between Trump and Biden classified docs. Trump was president when he took them home, and the criminal probe will address the legality of that. Biden took them as Senator and VP. 100% illegal.

Ted Cruz: on Twitter “This says some of the docs are from his Senate service. Serious Q: how on earth did he do that? I’ve served in the Senate for 10 years. EVERY single classified doc I’ve read—100%—have been in a secure SCIF in the basement of the Capitol. What the hell??”

Note: chief of staff Ron Klain is leaving, and more Obama insiders are lined up for the job.

• Joe Biden Took Classified Documents Home When He Was a Senator (CTH)

According to multiple media report [See Here and See Here] Joe Biden’s attorneys coordinated a friendly FBI search their client’s Delaware residence. Lawyers for Biden were present and overseeing the FBI review of the home, when additional classified documents were discovered. Interestingly, the Biden lawyers seemingly admit their client had been taking classified documents home for quite some time. According to their statement: “DOJ took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President. DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years.”

That statement was written by Joe Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer. That’s interesting on many levels, including the fact that Bob Bauer is married to Anita Dunn. Mrs. Anita Dunn is one of the original people who helped put Barack Obama in the White House; and Dunn worked with President Obama throughout his terms. Additionally, Anita Dunn is on the short list to replace Biden’s outgoing Chief of Staff, Ron Klain. Many people have wondered if Joe Biden was being set up for failure over this classified document scandal. In my opinion, the entire operation is being managed – but not to remove Biden, simply to control him and ensure he doesn’t run again.

When it comes to the insurance of their ideological long-term goals, democrats play cutthroat politics much better than most imagine. Ask Bernie Sanders what it’s like to be viewed as an impediment to the ideological quest, and what lengths his party will take to cut you down. Now overlay Joe Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer. Think about who exactly it was discovering these documents and why. If Obama is the silent partner in the background of the Biden administration, then Dunn is the operational manager. If Dunn is the operational manager, then her husband is very useful as the principle’s attorney. From the big picture, it sure looks like Bauer is playing the role of Brutus.

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“the deterioration of an arena of rational serious debate and deliberation”

• World Moving Closer To ‘Irreversible’ Disaster – Chomsky (RT)

The world is teetering on the brink of the abyss due to an increased risk of nuclear war, failure to address environmental challenges, and diminished ability to tackle problems rationally, world-renowned philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky told RT on Saturday. During the interview, Chomsky, who is Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, was asked to expand on his remark that humanity could be pathologically dedicated to self-destruction. The philosopher recalled that in recent years the Doomsday Clock, which reflects how close humanity is to Armageddon, has moved closer to midnight, which symbolizes the extinction of humanity. He suggested that in several days it could be set even closer to this mark.

According to the philosopher, humanity’s main concerns are “an increasing threat of nuclear war” and “a very severe and growing threat of destruction of climate.” The latter problem persists because “states are not doing what they know they must do to solve this crisis,” he said. The third issue, Chomsky continued, is “the deterioration of an arena of rational serious debate and deliberation” combined with “the collapse of democratic forces” around the world. The professor admitted that while it might seem that this point has nothing to do with the threat of nuclear war and climate change, rational debate is “the only hope for dealing with the first two.”

“All three have gotten considerably worse during the past year, and unless there’s a sharp reversal, we’ll simply be heading for a precipice, falling over, irreversible, and not in the long distant future,” he warned. His comments come after earlier this week, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that those who want to see Moscow defeated in Ukraine, ignore the fact that “a loss by a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger the start of a nuclear war.” Moscow believes the Ukraine conflict to be a proxy war waged against it by the US and its allies. However, Russia has repeatedly said that a nuclear war should never be fought, with its military doctrine allowing the use of atomic weapons only if the very existence of the state is threatened.

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“Russia’s Wagner forces have surrounded Bakhmut, lynchpin of ‘Zelensky Line’ [Ukr deployments in Donbass.] US media has begun backtracking on Bakhmut’s importance, anticipating its imminent fall into Russian hands & preparing opinion. A crushing defeat for US-UK axis in Ukraine.”

“The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine’s battle ready forces..”

• Ukraine – Russian Army Activates Southern Front (MoA)

The long expected Russian offensive in Ukraine has begun. The Ukrainian army, egged on by its U.S. controllers, had put most of its resource into the static defense of the Bakhmut (Artyomovsk) – Soledar sector of the eastern front. An insane number of Ukrainian brigades, though many partially depleted, were concentrated on that 50 kilometer long front. This left other sectors nearly empty of Ukrainian troops. I count the equivalent of some 27 brigade size formations in that area. The usual size of a brigade is some 3,000 to 4,000 men with hundreds of all kinds of vehicles. If all brigades had their full strength that force would count as 97,500 men. In a recent interview the Ukrainian military commander Zaluzhny said that his army has 200,000 men trained to fight with 500,000 more having other functions or currently being trained.

The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine’s battle ready forces. On the southern and northern sectors of the battle-line the Ukrainian forces have been thinned out and are only able to defend against minor forces. The Ukrainian forces in the north and south are in the same position Russian troops had been in when the Ukrainian army last year launched a blitz attack in the Kharkiv region. The Russian screening force of some 2,000 boarder guards and federal police retreated and used its artillery to destroy the oncoming Ukrainian forces. The attack ran out of power and came to a halt after progressing some 70 kilometers on a rather large front. But Ukraine no longer has, unlike the Russians at that time, the artillery that is need to stop a larger thrust.


The big Ukrainian concentration in Bakhmut is now in an operational encirclement. The Russian forces have progressed north and south of the city and their artillery can easily control the western exit roads of Bakhmut. This a Verdun like situation. Russian artillery is by far numerical superior and can slaughter the Ukrainian troops at will. Even the U.S. military is now suggesting that Ukraine should give up on that city. Should the government in Kiev agree to that it will be a retreat under fire with likely high casualties. Not retreating though will make things even worse.

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A good cop, bad cop routine.

“Asked in November whether Ukraine stood a chance of retaking its pre-February territory, he said that the probability of this outcome “is not high, militarily.”

• Fighting Russia ‘Very, Very Difficult’ For Ukraine – Gen. Milley (RT)

Ukraine will struggle to make good on its promise to drive Russian forces out of its former territory, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley stated on Friday. While civilian officials in Washington insist that Kiev must keep fighting, Milley has repeatedly questioned the chances of success. “President Biden, President Zelensky, and most of the leaders of Europe have said this war is likely to end in a negotiation,” Milley said during a meeting of the US-led Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday. “From a military standpoint, this is a very, very difficult fight,” he added. The US alone has allocated more than $110 billion in military and economic aid to Kiev since last February – supplying Ukraine with progressively heavier armaments, including infantry fighting vehicles, anti-air systems, and more than a million artillery shells.

Although Ukraine’s NATO-trained troops appear on the cusp of receiving Western-designed main battle tanks, Russian forces have inflicted a series of crushing defeats on Kiev’s military in recent weeks. The strategically important Donbass settlements of Soledar and Klescheevka have both fallen to Moscow’s troops, and the key city of Artyomovsk is now facing Russian encirclement. “I still maintain that for this year, it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from every inch of Russian-occupied Ukraine,” Milley said on Friday, referring to the four former regions of Ukraine that voted to join Russia in September, and Crimea, an historic Russian territory that voted to rejoin the Russian Federation in 2014.

“That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. But it’d be very, very difficult.” Retaking all of this land – including Crimea – is a stated objective of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. To that end, Zelensky has the support of the US, with President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowing to bankroll his military for “as long as it takes,” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken declaring in December that “fundamentally, Ukrainians are making the decisions” about whether they want to attempt to capture Crimea or not. However, Milley’s public statements have been more tempered than those of Biden and his cabinet. Asked in November whether Ukraine stood a chance of retaking its pre-February territory, he said that the probability of this outcome “is not high, militarily.”

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These are obviously nonsense numbers.

Gonzalo Lira: “Actual Russian casualties? No one knows for sure. But credible estimates put them at no more than 20,000 KIA, 60,000 WIA.”

Macgregor in the video: 157,000 Ukraine deaths. And we know there are 5-10 times more Ukraine victims than Russian.

• Russian Casualties In Ukraine Have Hit 188,000 – US Intel (Az.)

Russian casualties in Ukraine have hit an eye-watering 188,000 according to United States intelligence, Report informs via The Sun. Report informs via The Sun that the massive new figure of those killed or injured in battle was shared with allies at yesterday’s Western summit to drum up support for Ukraine held at Ramstein Air Base in Southern Germany. It is a significant increase on the publicly estimated 100,000 Russian soldiers killed, wounded, or deserted since last February’s invasion that the UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace outlined at the end of last year. Top US General Mark Milley said Russia has suffered a “tremendous amount of casualties” – but stopped short of revealing the exact figure publicly. He said: “They have really suffered a lot.. I would say significantly well over 100,000.” Yesterday ministers and military chiefs from around 50 nations took part in the talks convened by US defence secretary Lloyd Austin at Ramstein – the main US airbase in Europe.

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Old, rusty, in need of repair, but at least Ukrainians know how to use them.

• US Attempts To Seek Latin America’s Russian Arms Supplies To Kiev (TASS)

Russia will keep a close eye on the US attempts to urge Latin American countries to hand over weapons to Ukraine, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. The Russian presidential spokesman thus commented on a statement by a Pentagon representative that Washington was working with nine Latin American countries to urge them to hand over available Russian weapons to Ukraine in exchange for the delivery of US equipment. Responding to a question about whether this news came as a surprise for Moscow, the Kremlin spokesman said: “In general, it is hard today to imagine anything that can be a surprise.”


“Here it is very important [to bear in mind] the legal restrictions of any deliveries to third countries. This is because any deliveries are, of course, conditioned by certain commitments of those countries that receive military equipment,” Peskov pointed out. “Of course, we will keep a close eye on this situation,” the Kremlin press secretary said. Commander of the US Southern Command General Laura Richardson announced on Thursday that Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and six other Latin American countries had Russian military equipment and Washington was working “to replace that with US equipment if those countries want to donate it to Ukraine.”

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“Given the technological superiority of Russian weapons, Western politicians who have been making such decisions should realize that this may lead to a global disaster that would wipe out their countries..”

• Duma Speaker Warns Of Powerful Retaliation For Weapons Supplies To Kiev (TASS)

Weapons supplies to Ukraine by the United States and NATO for attacks on Russia would lead to retaliatory use of more powerful armaments, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin warned on Sunday. “Supplies of offensive weapons to the Kiev regime would lead to a global disaster. If Washington and NATO countries send arms that will be used for attacks on peaceful cities or attempts at occupying our lands, a threat they have been making, this would provoke retaliatory measures with the use of more powerful weapons,” Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel. The senior Russian lawmaker slammed as untenable other countries’ arguments that “nuclear powers never used weapons of mass destruction in local conflicts.” “Those powers never faced a situation where the security of their citizens or their territorial integrity was at stake,” he argued.


The State Duma speaker called on members of the US Congress, Germany’s Bundestag, France’s National Assembly and other European parliamentarians to realize their responsibility for humankind. “By their decisions, Washington and Brussels are pushing the world to a disastrous war – to military operations that will be quite different from what they have seen so far, when only military and critical infrastructure being used by the Kiev regime has been attacked. Given the technological superiority of Russian weapons, Western politicians who have been making such decisions should realize that this may lead to a global disaster that would wipe out their countries,” Volodin concluded.

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Try that with your leaders wherever you live.

• Russians’ Level Of Trust In Putin Exceeds 78% (TASS)

The Russian public’s level of confidence in President Vladimir Putin fell by 0.3 percentage points to 78.1% on January 9-15, according to a poll released by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center on Friday. “When asked if they trusted Putin, 78.1% of the poll’s participants said ‘yes’ (a 0.3 percentage point drop from a rating referring to December 26-30, 2022). The share of people who approve of the way the president is handling his job rose by 0.3 percentage points to 75.2%,” the pollster said. A total of 50.5% of those polled said they approved of the Russian government’s work (a 0.6 percentage point increase) and 53.2% approved of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s work (a 0.4 percentage point rise). As many as 62.6% of respondents said they trusted Mishustin (a 0.8 percentage point increase).


As for the leaders of the parliamentary parties, 32.5% of those surveyed trust leader of the Russian Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov (a 0.9 percentage point rise), 28.9% trust leader of the A Just Russia – For Truth party Sergey Mironov (a 3.5 percentage point drop), 8.2% said they trusted Chairman of the New People party Alexey Nechayev (1.7 percentage point fall) and 17.2% of the poll’s participants trust leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) Leonid Slutsky (a 2.4 percentage point rise). The level of popular support for the United Russia party stood at 38.8% (a 0.4 percentage point rise). The level increased by 0.2 percentage points to 10.6% for the Russian Communist Party and fell by 0.2 percentage points to 3.9% for the New People party.

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“..the trust and safety team includes fewer than 20 full-time employees..”

• Twitter Lost 80% Of Its Workforce Under Elon Musk (Az.)

The number of employees at Twitter has decreased by about 80% since US entrepreneur Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar acquisition. Report informs via foreign media that before Musk finalized the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in late October, 2022, the San Francisco-based company had about 7,500 employees, but that number has gone down to approximately 1,300 active employees, CNBC said on Friday. Twitter now has fewer than 550 full-time engineers and the trust and safety team includes fewer than 20 full-time employees.

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Yep.

• Twitter Files Prove America Headed for ‘Totalitarian State Territory’ (ET)

Thanks to the revelations in the Twitter Files, there’s evidence that the FBI and other agencies worked to suppress “lawful speech,” and if this type of action is allowed to continue, the United States is headed for “totalitarian state territory,” Matthew Peterson, the cofounder of New Founding, said in an interview with Epoch Times–NTD collaborative program “Newsmakers.” New Founding helps people and organizations position themselves to avoid threats from Big Tech and “woke capital,” and Peterson has two decades of experience in digital media and political consulting. When asked what will happen if the country’s current trajectory continues for three to five years, Peterson said, “We’ll be in totalitarian state territory, there’s no question about it.”


“I mean, remember, this went so far as the government saying, ‘You need to find evidence that there are Russians influencing the election on Twitter.’ And Twitter saying, ‘No, that’s not happening.’ “And then [Twitter had] to be quiet about it and not even defend themselves when they knew that there wasn’t Russian interference that they could find,” he added. Peterson further explained that the U.S. government drove a narrative that it knew wasn’t true and was the “antithesis” of America’s founding principles. “[The government’s actions are] the antithesis of America. The American founding is basically contradicted by what’s happening here, over and over again. And if we don’t do something about that, we will not have free speech in this country,” Peterson warned.

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Mostly EU cars.

• EU Car Sales Collapse – Industry Body (RT)

The European Union passenger car market contracted by 4.6% last year to just 9.3 million units, which is the region’s lowest level since 1993, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) reported this week. According to the report, the slump was mainly due to the impact of component shortages in the first half of the year. The market, however, improved from August to December, with new car registrations expanding by 12.8% in the last month of the year. Overall, in 2022 only Germany managed to post growth (+1.1%) among the EU’s four largest markets. It was helped by the strong result in December, the ACEA said. The other three markets all performed worse than in 2021, with Italy posting the steepest decline (-9.7%), followed by France (-7.8%) and Spain (-5.4%).


Data showed that the number of vehicles registered in EU countries (excluding Malta, for which statistics are not available) rose to more than 896,000 units last month from over 795,000 a year earlier. Car sales by the Volkswagen Group (including Skoda, Audi, Seat, Porsche, and others) in the European Union decreased by 5.2% last year, the ACEA said. Automaker Stellantis saw its sales nosedive by 14.1%, while Renault Group sales fell by 4.3%, and BMW sales by 5.1%. Mercedes-Benz sales stood practically at the same level as in 2021, at 549,023 units. Meanwhile, South Korean Hyundai (including Kia) increased its vehicle sales in the EU by 2.6%, Japanese Toyota and Honda sales grew by 7.7% and 4.4%, respectively. Sales by American carmaker Ford decreased by 2.3%.


Most popular cars Europe vs US

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More than blinking.

• GMC Blinks First: Regulator Declines to Investigate Dr Aseem Malhotra (DS)

To paraphrase the Sound of Music song, “How do we solve a problem like Malhotra?” After receiving several complaints, the General Medical Council has decided not to investigate cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who has become a thorn in the side of the medical profession. Professional regulators have been at the forefront of pandemic discipline, contributing to a culture of fear among practitioners. Severe action has been taken against registrants who criticise or do not comply with the official narrative. I know this from my experience as an officer of the Workers of England Union, representing members brought before the Nursing and Midwifery Council on charges of bringing the profession into disrepute. Apparently the public must be protected against nurses who don’t believe that masks stop airborne respiratory viruses, or who believe in informed consent for novel mRNA vaccines.

A significant strike against this censorial tyranny was by general practitioner Sam White last year. Dr. White was ordered, as a condition of maintaining his clinical licence, to delete his social media posts about COVID-19 and to refrain from making similar comments. Dr. White took the GMC to the High Court and won. The condition was overturned as a breach of his rights to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act 1998. Whereas White was an early critic of COVID-19 policy, Malhotra is a relatively recent convert. Initially he promoted the vaccine, but when his fit and healthy father died shortly after receiving the injections, Malhotra changed his mind and began speaking out against the mass vaccination programme.

His personal loss came alongside his observation in clinical practice of a marked increase in myocarditis cases (as well as blood clots and other cardiac complications). Malhotra had a review paper published on this phenomenon, and his findings of iatrogenic harm are corroborated by other medical scientists. sMalhotra has repeatedly urged suspension of the vaccination programme until the risks are better understood. He became a darling of vaccine sceptics, with his charismatic and compassionate voice doing the rounds of alt media channels and independent-minded broadcasters working for more mainstream channels (such as Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, and Neil Oliver on GB News). However, he was ignored by the legacy media, and it was not until two weeks ago, when he took the opportunity of a BBC interview on statins, that his call was more widely heard.

Malhotra

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Lots of doctors speaking out in Japan.

• Japan Declares It Will Handle COVID-19 Like a Seasonal Flu (GP)

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan announced on Friday that he had instructed his cabinet to reclassify COVID-19, placing it in the same category as seasonal flu, rubella, and chickenpox in spring. “Today, we held a press conference on the discussion on revising the new coronavirus infectious disease into category 5,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday. “In order to further advance the efforts of ‘living with Corona’ and restore Japan to a state of normalcy, we will transition the various policies and measures to date in phases,” Kishida said. In Japan, Covid-19 is currently listed as “Category 2: Very Dangerous” together with tuberculosis, avian flu, and diphtheria.


“COVID-19 is currently classified as “equivalent to category 2,” requiring that hospitals and clinics report the names of infected patients and the details of their diagnosis before making recommendations regarding hospitalization. The soaring numbers of people infected in Japan’s seventh coronavirus wave have increased the administrative burden on the medical front line, leading to regional medical associations and the National Governors’ Association to repeatedly call for a review of the system,” Nippon.com reported. The outlet added that experts have proposed that COVID-19 be reclassified as a “Category 5: Diseases for which outbreaks and spread should be prevented,” similar to seasonal flu, which would restrict reporting to only those at high risk of developing severe symptoms or restrict data collection to only patients diagnosed at designated medical facilities.

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Martha Stewart
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616606806574235650

 

 

Kory treatment
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616978685969547266

 

 

 

 

WTF

 

 

Great hornbill
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616774751128625153

 

 

Flycatcher

 

 

 

 

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