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Debt Rattle December 8 2023

Dec 082023
 
 December 8, 2023  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Self-Portrait with Straw Hat 1887

 

• Netanyahu’s Game Of Russian Roulette (Cradle)
• Behind Enemy Bars: Palestinian and Israeli Prisoners (Inlakesh)
• Gaza Divides the World, Again (Patrick Lawrence)
• ‘The Death Rattle of The Western Empire’: US Hegemony Crumbling (Sp.)
• The Military/Security Complex Proved to be Too Strong for Peace (PCR)
• The Military-Industrial Complex (RFK Jr)
• Russian Intel Chief Warns US Of ‘Second Vietnam’ (RT)
• Pentagon Threatens Americans Over Ukraine – Tucker Carlson (RT)
• Moscow Rejects US Narrative On Aid For Kiev (RT)
• The Diamond Crack-Up (John Helmer)
• Hunter Biden Indicted by Feds on 9 Counts Related to Tax Evasion (Sp.)
• “If People Think Things Are Bad Now…” Tucker And Alex Jones (ZH)
• Trump Witness Says He Valued Mar-a-Lago at More Than $1 Billion (ET)

 

 

 

Today, the world mourns the loss of Professor Refaat Al-Areer, one of Palestine’s most prolific poets and activists. There is reason to believe that the Zionist regime deliberately targeted his sister’s home, killing his brother, sister, and her 4 kids

 

 


Elon Musk: “Drops more bombs than a B-52“

 

 

 

 

Biden
https://twitter.com/i/status/1732462667107865071

 

 

Noted among Putin’s entourage in Saudi Arabia: Chechen leader Kadyrov and central bank head Elvira Nabiullina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1732474995366875435

 

 

Weaponizing AI
https://twitter.com/i/status/1732569528817607133

 

 

 

 

Vivek

 

 

Elon Musk in response via email to an Axios reporter asking about X: “I have never lost money for those who invest in me and I am not starting now.”

Since Elon Musk Bought X:

-SEC sues Musk over the purchase
-FTC demands internal X documents
-Biden DOJ sues SpaceX for not hiring refugees for secret rocket technology
-Biden DOJ and SEC open investigations against Tesla over a literal glass house
-Biden DOJ opens criminal investigation against Tesla over self-driving cars
-Federal investigation into Neuralink
-EOCC sues Tesla over harassment
-Massive media campaign against X
-Massive corporate boycott campaign

.

 

 

 

 

“Netanyahu, however, harbors a different agenda, seeking to prolong the conflict for personal gains rather than political success..”

• Netanyahu’s Game Of Russian Roulette (Cradle)

Forced into a Gaza truce by an angry public demanding prisoner exchanges, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now faces his toughest challenge since launching air and land assaults on the Gaza Strip in October. The frequency of his threats to both Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Israel’s northern front has spiked since Netanyahu’s reluctant acceptance of the Qatar-brokered truce. While the prime minister and Washington’s goals align on waging a war on the Palestinian resistance, and, by extension, on Gaza, their policies diverge on the strategy and duration of the conflict. Faced with threats of its own and attacks by resistance factions in West Asia, the US prefers employing a leveraged military approach without any extensive involvement on the ground.

Lately, the Biden administration has been taking a sterner approach towards Tel Aviv’s actions in the northern Gaza Strip, and has called for Israeli coordination with the US on the ground war. Hours ahead of the truce being implemented, Secretary of State Antony Blinken underscored that “the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in Northern Gaza [should] not be repeated in the South.” The spokesman for the White House National Security Council, John Kirby, has also recently told reporters that the Biden administration “does not support southern operations unless or until the Israelis can show that they have accounted for all the internally displaced people of Gaza.” Netanyahu, however, harbors a different agenda, seeking to prolong the conflict for personal gains rather than political success.

The continuation of the war means he will stay in office longer, and have the time to strike internal and external deals that ensure his post-conflict survival. For now, “King Bibi” faces mounting pressure from both allies and adversaries. International calls for tangible outcomes from the conflict are intensifying, with the mainstream media increasingly compelled – by social media – to highlight Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Domestically, Netanyahu is grappling with almost daily demands for his resignation or for the removal of extremist cabinet ministers from the Otzma Yehudit and religious Zionist parties. In the aftermath of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the Israeli opposition tempted Netanyahu’s Likud party with offers to dismiss Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – as well as the removal of the prime minister himself – as a condition for participating in an emergency government.

These proposals aimed to resolve Israel’s ongoing political and social unrest since 2019, which has led to five consecutive electoral cycles in four years and frequent mass anti-government protests. A national unity government would also be able to resume and possibly develop the Abraham Accords, strained by the presence of extremist parties in the government. Netanyahu’s radical ministers have often negatively affected both these nascent Israeli-Arab relations and Tel Aviv’s relationship with US Democrats.

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“We were sitting in the tunnels and we were terribly afraid not that Hamas but Israel would kill us, and then they would say – Hamas killed you.”

• Behind Enemy Bars: Palestinian and Israeli Prisoners (Inlakesh)

The issue of Prisoners of War (POWs) taken captive by Hamas-led Palestinian resistance forces has become one of the key justifications for Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip. While western audiences are often presented with the image of these groups as bloodthirsty terrorists, a closer look reveals that Hamas and other factions may have treated Israeli captives more humanely than how Israel treats Palestinian political prisoners. While the Israeli POW issue spans eight weeks, the plight of Palestinian captives has persisted since at least 1967. There are said to be some 137 Israelis that are currently being held captive in Gaza, whom Hamas claims all are males and/or soldiers.

In the seven-day truce struck in November between Hamas and Israel, the Palestinian resistance released 108 women and children held captive in Gaza. In return, Israel was to release 300 Palestinian women and children held in detention and permit much-needed aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Stanley Cohen, a US attorney who has represented both Hamas and Hezbollah members, tells The Cradle that “the laws of war do not limit Prisoners of War to State actors.” He says that “all the laws of war apply, whether it’s state actors or non-state actors.” This would mean that the same legal obligations on the treatment of POWs should apply to both Hamas and Israel, despite there being a greater moral expectation often placed on UN member states.

Access to interviews with detainees is limited due to Israeli government restrictions on media interaction with the recently freed captives, especially since the embarrassing PR blunder in late October when one of the four Israelis unconditionally released before the truce – 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz – said at a presser that “they treated us very well” in Gaza, but had endured “hell” while being taken captive. But despite the challenges in obtaining their full stories, certain facts stand out. Recent audio recordings quoted by Israeli media have revealed statements from freed prisoners who claim they were more fearful of Israeli actions than those by Hamas. One former detainee, criticizing the Israeli government, highlighted the lack of support and the challenges faced during their captivity:

“We were sitting in the tunnels and we were terribly afraid not that Hamas but Israel would kill us, and then they would say – Hamas killed you.” Another former Israeli captive went further in expressing disdain for the Israeli government’s responses on and after the events of 7 October: “The feeling we had there was that no one was doing anything for us. The fact is that I was in a hiding place that was shelled and we had to be smuggled out and were wounded. Not including the helicopter that shot at us on the way to Gaza. You claim that there is intelligence, but the fact is that we are being shelled. My husband was separated from us three days before we returned to Israel and taken to the tunnels. And you are talking about washing the tunnels with sea water? You are shelling the route of tunnels in the exact area where they are.”

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“It is repugnant to see how, despite the cruelty of the facts on view to the world, the government of the United States of America and its satellites aim to justify the unjustifiable..”

• Gaza Divides the World, Again (Patrick Lawrence)

My award for courageous elocution of the week goes hands-down to Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations, who addressed the General Assembly last Tuesday on the topic of Israel and its barbaric attacks on the Palestinians of Gaza. His remarks, which Consortium News reproduced, were appropriately lengthy. Here I draw from his introductory paragraphs: “The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela robustly condemns the Israeli aggression against the civilian population in the occupied Palestinian territories. This is an operation of mass expulsion of an entire people in order to annex their territory by the occupying power. It’s a new cycle of expansionist terror, of so much that has been suffered by the Palestinian people over 75 years of occupation…. It is repugnant to see how, despite the cruelty of the facts on view to the world, the government of the United States of America and its satellites aim to justify the unjustifiable:

That the occupying power is carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people as defined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court. We ask ourselves where are those who in other cases rush to apply the responsibility to protect but now are ignoring the human rights of Palestinians submitted to the Israeli occupation?” It is one thing, I have to say, for publications such as ScheerPost and Consortium News to publish commentary of this kind, or for many thousands of honorable people to march in the name of decency and justice. It is quite, quite another for a sovereign state to denounce Israel and the U.S. in a chamber such as the General Assembly. It all counts, everything we do. But Moncada and the government he represents just elevated the condemnation of apartheid Israel to the level of global diplomacy and state-to-state relations.

Jump-cut to the Land of Eire. Members of the Dáil, the lower house of Ireland’s national assembly, were the first in Europe—and remain alone in this—to speak for Palestinian rights and against the Israel Defense Forces’ savagery after Hamas’s October 7 incursion into southern Israel (which the Dáil also denounced). As noted previously in this space, the Dáil voted last month on expelling the Israeli ambassador and referring Israel to the ICC. These motions were defeated, narrowly. But the government’s countermotions nonetheless “deplore the escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory since [October 7].” As to the ICC referral, the government pointed out that an investigation into Israeli war crimes has been in train since 2021—so, no point.

These are specific cases suggesting a larger whole. After the U.S., in February 2022, finally succeeded in provoking Russia to intervene in Ukraine, we recall, 90 percent of humanity declined to line up behind Washington and its European client states. “The international community” whose support the Biden regime incessantly cited, turned out to be the 20–odd nations we refer to as the West. Hamas’s attacks on noncombatants on October 7 have been more or less universally condemned, as they should be. But Israel’s unrestrained response and the Biden regime’s unrestrained support of it have again divided the world. The trans–Atlantic alliance, with the U.S. per usual in the lead, is full-tilt behind Israel’s outright genocide. Support for it is scarce in the non–West, while expressions of support for the Palestinians of Gaza are many if in some cases muted.

Ireland is, of course, an exceptional and interesting case, I should pause to note. The government of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar won the day in the Dáil last month, yes, but Ireland’s identity is nonetheless as non–Western as it is Western. The Irish know Western colonialism firsthand and have not forgotten their time under it. During the Troubles, the Irish Republican Army insisted Ireland must be understood as a Third World country. If you want to go further back, Ireland lay beyond the Roman walls; Rome never attempted to conquer it. These historical realities are often detectable in Dublin’s foreign policies and certainly, I would argue, in its position on the Israel–Gaza crisis. How fine it is to know the Dublin City Council began Wednesday to fly the Palestinian flag atop it for a week.

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But as a country, we don’t really have the intellectual resources to dig our way out of the hole that we’re in…”

• ‘The Death Rattle of The Western Empire’: US Hegemony Crumbling (Sp.)

Speaking to Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Wednesday, Jon Jeter, an award-winning foreign correspondent, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a former Washington Post bureau chief, said the wider perception of the United States as a the world’s most prominent political and military locomotive has shifted dramatically. He put that sea-change down to the developments within the Ukrainian and Gaza crises. “The events since October 7th, I think that’s the death rattle of the Western empire of the United States as the single greatest political and economic and military power in the world,” said Jeter. That to me is the final nail in the coffin, because we can’t go back to the world the way it was before October 6th.” The fading of US international hegemony has its roots at home too.

Dimming global engagement among the general public and the ineptitude of current US political establishment have added to the overall weakening US foothold on the international arena. “But as a country, we don’t really have the intellectual resources to dig our way out of the hole that we’re in. <…> I’ve seen this transition from a country that was very much engaged with the world. As a teenager, you could see it in the 1970s, and the 1980s up until Reagan, and then it started to change. We started to dumb down the conversation”, Jeter believes. The speakers also discussed the effect developments on the African continent earlier this year on the status-quo the US desperately seeks to uphold.

“One of the things that happened was the African summit [in Russia]. A bunch of African leaders came and the next week they went back and started overthrowing countries and kicking the French out. <…> the world that was scared of the big bully. And after they saw somebody punch back, people aren’t as afraid anymore,” noted Garland Nixon, The Critical Hour’s co-host. Jeter stressed the irreversible changes over the past couple of years to the balance of power and their lasting effect on the global political makeup. “I don’t think the United States or the West can put that genie back in the bottle. You know, Germany is de-industrializing. There’s turn to the right by many countries in Europe, Italy and now the Netherlands. And I don’t think they’re going to find answers that can really help to restore the West to its past glory,” Jeter concluded.

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“Truth is not very powerful as it does not serve very many powerful interests..”

• The Military/Security Complex Proved to be Too Strong for Peace (PCR)

Henry Kissinger’s death resulted in an outpouring of hatred toward the former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, especially from CounterPunch. Even a few of my readers mistook my explanation of Kissinger as a justification of the war crimes so many accuse him of. I have noticed over recent decades the increasing tendency of Americans to respond emotionally, instead of rationally, to information. Since I explained Kissinger, instead of denouncing him, I was seen as apologizing for him or justifying him. I have no doubt that large numbers of civilians were killed and maimed in the bombings associated with the Vietnam war, some of which–Cambodia for example–Kissinger approved. But, of course, the Secretary of State is not the official who orders bombings.

Moreover, there is no indication that Kissinger engaged in bombing civilians simply because he enjoyed killing people and committing war crimes or because he believed in ethnic cleansing like the Zionist government in Israel. The Democrats and the left-wing have been very adroit at shifting the blame for the Vietnam War to Republican Nixon from Democrat Lyndon Johnson. Nixon and Kissinger wanted to end the war, but they had to do so in a way that did not discredit Nixon with his conservative base, a base that believed in the Domino Theory and that the Soviet Union’s mission was world conquest. The same base made it difficult for Nixon to defuse Cold War tensions with arms control agreements, such as SALT I. The North Vietnamese were not in much of a hurry to enable Nixon to exit the war on comfortable terms.

The only option remaining was to increase the violence in order to force an acceptable exit. That is what produced Cambodia, not blood-lust on the part of Kissinger and Nixon. Because Kissinger was a Jew, in denouncing him today some compare him to Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza. This is to misread both Kissinger and the events of his time. Nixon was distrusted by the ruling establishment because he worked to defuse both the tensions of the Cold War and the hostile relationship with China. This went against many vested interests and belief about communist motives. As I have explained, the CIA used Watergate and the Washington Post to assassinate Nixon. The liberal-left hated Nixon for his work as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee that led to the conviction of Alger Hiss and for his rhetoric, which was nothing but a sop to his base. The liberal-left was too busy enjoying Nixon’s discrediting to notice that he was another victim of the CIA like they believed Salvador Allende to be.

In my life I have seen close up so much that is then falsely explained and goes down in history books as wrongful accounts. Truth is not very powerful as it does not serve very many powerful interests. The fact remains that the Cambodia bombing was the desperate act of a government that wanted to end the Vietnam War. A legitimate question is: why didn’t Nixon simply walk away from the war? The answer is that he would have lost his conservative base, and, of course, the liberal-left would have piled on as well. Nixon and Kissinger hoped to create a more stable world by defusing the tensions between the West and the communist powers. This is also the reason left-leaning governments were overthrown elsewhere. The reasoning was that stability was impossible if Soviet leaning governments kept popping up in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The Nixon/Kissinger decision is not everyone’s. But, the Cuban Missile Crisis had made clear that one alternative to stability was conflict that could result in nuclear war. Reagan faced the same conundrum, but was able to reconcile with Gorbachev. It is a crime that subsequent administrations threw Reagan’s accomplishment away. The military/security complex proved to be too strong for peace.

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X thread.

• The Military-Industrial Complex (RFK Jr)

On my seventh birthday, January 17, 1961—three days before my uncle, John F. Kennedy, took his oath of office as United States President—his predecessor, President Dwight Eisenhower, appeared on national television to deliver his farewell address, which history increasingly regards as one of the most important and prophetic speeches in American history. “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.””

President Eisenhower took special care to include an expanded definition of his term “military-industrial complex” that would include the top bureaucrats at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Eisenhower warned that the federal government’s rising medical and scientific technocracy posed its own unique threats toward our democracy and freedom. “In this revolution, [scientific/medical] research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government . . . Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity . . . The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded . . .

[W]e must also be alert to the . . . danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” Eisenhower ended his speech with an admonition that echoes now in rebuke as we emerge from the COVID era that trampled the core principles that had, for 240 years, maintained America as the global exemplar for democracy, constitutional government, and personal freedom. “It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system—ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”

The Wuhan Cover Up
Robert F Kennedy, Jr

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Wasn’t that Afghanistan?

• Russian Intel Chief Warns US Of ‘Second Vietnam’ (RT)

By backing Kiev in its fight with Moscow, the US risks sleepwalking into another Vietnam War-style debacle, Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), has said. In an opinion piece for Razvedchik magazine issued by the SVR and published on Thursday, Naryshkin predicted tectonic geopolitical shifts in the coming year, which he said would be marked by an intensified confrontation between the West and those countries that oppose its hegemony. The intelligence chief suggested that the Western bloc would try to defend the dominance that is slipping from its grasp, with the ripples of the struggle likely to spread across the world.

The West will be particularly focused on the Ukraine conflict, Naryshkin said, predicting that it “would try to prolong the fighting as much as possible” in a bid to turn hostilities into “a second Afghanistan” and defeat Russia in a battle of attrition, using unprecedented sanctions and pumping Kiev with weapons. However, he warned that there is a high chance that continued support for the “Kiev junta” – given that the Ukraine conflict is becoming an increasingly “toxic” issue in the eyes of the global community – would lead to a rapid erosion of Western authority. The further we go, the more Ukraine will turn into a ‘black hole’, absorbing material and human resources. In the end, the US risks bringing upon itself a ‘second Vietnam’.”

According to Naryshkin, should this come to pass, every US administration will have to deal with this conundrum until “a more or less reasonable person comes to power in Washington” with enough courage and determination to extinguish the crisis. The 1955-1975 Vietnam War, in which the US actively supported anti-Communist forces, is widely regarded as one of the worst conflicts in America’s recent history. Apart from claiming the lives of about 58,000 US soldiers, it shattered public confidence in the government, in no small measure due to several controversies surrounding alleged war crimes committed by Washington. Under relentless public pressure, US forces completely withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, with the Washington-backed government being defeated a few years later. Russian officials have repeatedly warned the West against arming Ukraine, arguing that it will only prolong the conflict but not change its ultimate outcome. Moscow has also said that by supporting Kiev, NATO is essentially waging a war against Russia.

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“Pay the oligarchs or we’ll kill your kids.”

• Pentagon Threatens Americans Over Ukraine – Tucker Carlson (RT)

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reportedly told members of Congress that unless they approve more funding to Ukraine, Americans will be sent to fight Russia directly, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on Thursday. According to Carlson, Austin spoke at a classified briefing for members of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, and at one point told members that “we’ll send your uncles, cousins and sons to fight Russia” unless Kiev gets the $60 billion in aid requested by the White House. “The Biden administration is openly threatening Americans over Ukraine,” said Carlson said on X (formerly Twitter), summarizing Austin’s message as “Pay the oligarchs or we’ll kill your kids.” “He really said this?” asked X owner Elon Musk. “He really did. Confirmed,” Carlson replied.

Carlson was by far the most popular host of an evening talk show on cable TV when Fox News mysteriously chose to part ways with him in April. He has since speculated that its corporate owners “really didn’t like” some of his coverage that challenged official narratives. In May, he launched his own show on Musk’s platform in a format similar to his long-form interviews for Fox. On Tuesday, his guest was Congressman Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican opposed to sending any more money to Ukraine – on account of the US being too heavily in debt. “How could Washington possibly send tens of billions more to sleazy oligarchs in Ukraine now that the whole enterprise has been revealed as a fruitless, corrupt and incredibly destructive disaster?” Carlson wondered in the introduction to that interview.

The US Congress has approved over $120 billion worth of aid to Kiev since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022, in the form of weapons and ammunition coming from the Pentagon’s stockpiles as well as cash payments to the Ukrainian government. That money has mostly run out at this point, and the White House has asked for $60 billion more – choosing to bundle it with aid for Israel, weapons for Taiwan and “border security.” Some Republicans in both the House and the Senate have refused to go along, however. GOP senators stormed out of their briefing on Wednesday and later voted against advancing the aid package. Meanwhile, Republican chairs of the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence committees in the House of Representatives have embraced the White House talking points in a memo aiming to persuade their party members to back the Ukraine funding bill, according to Axios.

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“In an attempt to ‘add fuel’ to the fire of the Ukrainian proxy war, [US] authorities have finally lost touch with reality..”

• Moscow Rejects US Narrative On Aid For Kiev (RT)

Claims in Washington that Russian President Vladimir Putin may attack NATO, unless Congress allocates tens of billions of dollars in additional Ukraine funding are “bogeyman stories,” Moscow’s top diplomat in the US capital said on Wednesday. White House officials, including President Joe Biden, have claimed that by withholding aid from Kiev, American lawmakers were increasing the risk of a direct US-Russia war. “If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there,” Biden said in an address on Wednesday, in which he made a last-ditch appeal to lawmakers to appropriate over $110 billion in assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Touting the scenario of a Russian attack on NATO, Biden stressed that then American troops will have to get involved directly. The Russian leadership has not expressed an intention to “take Ukraine,” let alone invade any NATO member.

Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov called the narrative “myth-making and [the] propagation of dangerous lies” about his nation. “In an attempt to ‘add fuel’ to the fire of the Ukrainian proxy war, [US] authorities have finally lost touch with reality,” he claimed in remarks posted by the embassy. “Washington and [the] insatiable US military-industrial complex are direct beneficiaries of the bloodshed in Ukraine,” Antonov added. In his pitch to Congress, Biden claimed that the Russian leader’s ambition was to “dominate Ukraine” and warned that “the entire world is watching” Washington’s actions. America is “the reason Putin has not totally overrun Ukraine and moved beyond that,” he claimed. Moscow has cited NATO’s expansion in Europe and the pledge that Ukraine will eventually join the US-led military bloc among the causes of the crisis. It was willing to seal a truce with Kiev in the early phase of the conflict in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality.

However, Russia’s opponent ditched a proposed peace agreement and opted for continued hostilities, after then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the country to “just make war,” according to David Arakhamia, who headed the Ukrainian delegation at the Türkiye-mediated negotiations. Biden accused Republican opponents of his request of being willing to “literally kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield” and “give Putin the greatest gift he could hope for and abandon our global leadership not just to Ukraine.” Nevertheless, Republican senators voted unanimously against the aid, which was bundled in a spending package, later in the day. The GOP legislators insisted that the White House and Democratic lawmakers make concessions on immigration reform and border security before they were willing to approve additional tens of billions of aid to Kiev.

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“I hope and believe business rises above the political nonsense.”

• The Diamond Crack-Up (John Helmer)

It has never happened before among the world’s diamond-producing and diamond-processing countries. Meeting together last month in Zimbabwe in what is called the Kimberley Process (KP), the 57-member states refused to agree to the US and European Union (EU) attempt to exclude Russia, producer of half the diamonds in global trade. To camouflage the outcome of the fight, the KP delegates decided not to issue a communiqué. Without that, the rules of the meeting nullified all points of agreement which the Kimberley Process states had accepted during their two-day sessions. This dramatic collapse of the Kimberley Process happened in Harare on November 10. The disagreement and deadlock came over a letter from the Kiev regime, backed by the US, the EU, Japan, and Canada (the G7 member states) to impose a full ban on the trade in Russian diamonds.

The Ukrainian attempt was backed by intense pressure from the US State Department and by Jewish diamantaires in New York for the international diamond trade to accept the US Diamond Protocol, a scheme of registration, inspection, auditing, and certification enforced by US intelligence and Treasury agents, to prevent any Russian-mined diamond from entering the international diamond jewellery market. Instead, what has happened is that the global diamond industry has been cracked in half by the sanctions war. The defeat of the so-called “western bloc” in Zimbabwe is big news in Africa and India. It has not been reported in the New York and London financial press. Diamonds are now likely to follow oil, gas, coal, gold, and other commodities into parallel and competing global market operations.

In the diamond war, however, the outcome is also going to backfire on the Israeli diamond industry and the traditional Jewish centres in Antwerp, Belgium, and New York City, which have combined to take sides against Russia. In time, they will be replaced by the Arabs, Indians, and perhaps the Chinese. The Israelis don’t think so. They are calculating that in the short run they will gain from the recovery of diamond prices when the shortage of Russian supplies hits much harder than it has to date. A source in Antwerp reports “absolutely no backlash [against the Gaza war] here from any of the five main diamond communities including the Lebanese. The Israeli industry has been declining for many years anyway, especially manufacturing – it’s uncompetitive with the Indians — but also trading. There is no diamantaire sympathy with any Arab country (or Iran). I hope and believe business rises above the political nonsense.”

The Kimberley Process, first created in 2003 to stop “blood diamonds” from entering the market from the genocidal wars of western Africa, is about to be confronted by blood diamonds from Israel. The story of the US attempt to start sanctions against Russian diamonds from the US and its allies began here when the Belgian government was resisting to save the multi-billion dollar Antwerp diamond business.

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This does not yet include anything FARA related.

• Hunter Biden Indicted by Feds on 9 Counts Related to Tax Evasion (Sp.)

US federal prosecutors filed nine new counts against Hunter Biden and alleged he engaged in a scheme to evade over a million in taxes, a court filing revealed. “The Defendant engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020,” the document, filed in a federal court in California on Thursday, said. The indictment alleges that Hunter Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills.” He evaded taxes while getting paid millions, the document revealed.

Between 2016 and October 15, 2020, according to the document, Hunter Biden received more than $7 million in total gross income. The document also said Burisma agreed to pay the defendant $1 million annually, which they reduced to $500,000 a year in March 2017. The indictment also details Hunter Biden’s business dealings with other foreign contacts. Between 2015 and 2017, Hunter Biden and two business associates split a payment of $3.1 million tied to attempts to help a Romanian businessperson contest bribery charges he was facing in his home country. Hunter Biden and business associates in 2015 met with individuals tied to CEFC China Energy company for talks on infrastructure projects.

“On or about March 1, 2017, State Energy HK, a Hong Kong entity associated with CEFC, paid approximately $3 million to Business Associate 1’s entity for sourcing deals and for identifying other potential ventures. The Defendant [Hunter Biden] had an oral agreement with Business Associate 1 to receive one-third of those funds, or a million dollars. The Defendant, in turn, directed a portion of those million dollars to Business Associate 3,” the document said. Republican-led House panels are probing Hunter Biden for alleged criminal activity, including foreign bribery and influence peddling. Last month, the Oversight Committee subpoenaed Hunter Biden to appear for a deposition.

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Perhaps Elon Musk WILL reinstate him..

• “If People Think Things Are Bad Now…” Tucker And Alex Jones (ZH)

Dubbed “the most censored man in the world”, Jones began by discussing his (correct) prediction about 9/11. As Tucker points out, “the 9/11 thing, you called it in public.” But Jones says his most accurate prediction was around a decade ago when he read the “Rockefeller Foundation Operation Lockstep report,” which he says: “described using a virus to bring in world government, a world medical ID, which they would then build a social credit score off of……that they would make people wear masks for fear, shut down sporting events and things like that… and basically phase in this new tyranny.” These warnings, among other things, were the reason, Carlson argues, why Jones was so widely deplatformed. “Fundamentally, Alex Jones is right about a lot of things. And in fact, that’s why they don’t like him.”

“To this day, nobody has been more aggressively censored, I don’t think, than you… I read about it, and I felt that it was a major moment in the history of American media. I don’t think anybody defended you when that happened. Anybody, with any kind of audience,” To which Jones replied: “When Tim Cook admitted that he met on the weekend in August of 2017 with the other big tech heads, and they made the decision to “curate” like it’s a museum – and take me off, it was hundreds of platforms. It wasn’t just the big ones. Everything from LinkedIn, to our bank accounts being taken away, to everything ensuing over the next week and that month. And I knew I was a test case.” “It was the questioning the school shooting thing that came later. They kind of dredged that up from my past, blew that up after I’d been deplatformed, and said I’d been deplatformed for that.

“Once they deplatformed me, it made the show in ways only get bigger… So then they panicked and said ‘okay, let’s look at his record and create more of a reason,’ so they took things out of context from 5-6 years before, blew em up as a current thing out of context, and deceptively reported on what I said to create a strawman argument to then facilitate the reason.”

The discussion turns to the current state of America with Jones laying the blame for the growing division of the nation by race squarely at the feet of China. “The CCP, along with the SPLC and ADL, see America’s weakness and they are literally coming in and saying ‘white people are inherently bad because of the color of their skin……and then they organize all them into race-based groups under the Democratic party flag to attack who is left… which tends to be more conservative.” Jones warns however that “they are panicking” because “more and more blacks and hispanics are voting Republican,” which, he explains is why the open border policy is being allowed. “They are bringing in all these totally disenfranchised people from around the world… putting them in camps where they indoctrinated into a subdued political under-class… that’s then going to be turned loose on America.”

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“If they want the best house in the country, that would be one of the top two or three that would be available if they were for sale..”

• Trump Witness Says He Valued Mar-a-Lago at More Than $1 Billion (ET)

A Florida real estate agent this week testified in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York that his Mar-a-Lago property is worth at least $1 billion. Lawrence Moens, who was called as a witness by the defense, testified that the Florida property could be sold as a home, saying he would value it at over $1 billion as of 2021. “It’s something breathtaking. It’s something amazing to see,” he said of Mar-a-Lago, adding that he had valued it at over $1.2 billion in 2021. He also told the court that President Trump’s company had actually undervalued Mar-a-Lago by about half. Mr. Moens’s valuation assumes that Mar-a-Lago is a personal residence, a premise that a judge already has rejected in the ongoing civil fraud trial.

“I work very hard to sell rich people property in Palm Beach,” testified Mr. Moens. “I’m on the front lines every day of selling properties, and I have a pretty good handle on what’s happening in the market.” Spanning 17 acres with waterfront on two sides, the Trump estate and social club is his home, a place where the former president and current Republican 2024 front-runner has conducted high-profile meetings while in and out of office, and the spot where federal special counsel Jack Smith alleges he improperly stashed classified documents, which President Trump denies. Mar-a-Lago also is a key element of the current New York civil case. State Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit claims that the ex-president and his company deceived lenders and others by giving them financial statements that greatly overstated the values of some of his prime assets, including Mar-a-Lago.

Testifying for Trump’s defense, a Florida real estate attorney said the property could be sold as a home, notwithstanding decades-old legal documents in which Trump said he intended to forswear its use as anything but a club. Then a Palm Beach luxury real estate broker testified that he’d value the historic estate at over $1 billion as of 2021. Judge Arthur Engoron, in a pretrial ruling declaring that Trump and his company engaged in fraud, found that he exaggerated Mar-a-Lago’s worth by as much as 2,300 percent, compared to the Palm Beach County tax appraiser’s valuations. They ranged from $18 million to $28 million. However, some real estate professionals who aren’t involved in the case expressed concern about the judge’s ruling several months ago, suggesting that he made an error by relying solely on the tax appraiser’s valuations.

Some Palm Beach luxury real estate agents have told The Associated Press that the property would sell for $300 million to $600 million, and possibly $1 billion or more if it sparked a bidding war among uber-wealthy contenders.
During a short cross-examination Tuesday, state attorney Kevin Wallace asked whether he was a member of the Mar-a-Lago club. “I am,” Mr. Moens said, saying that he joined in 1995 or 1996. “I don’t go too often. I don’t like clubs,” he added. “You’re not running a process that is re-creatable … is that fair?” Mr. Wallace asked about his valuations of Mar-a-Lago. “That’s fair,” Mr. Moens said. In a pre-trial deposition over the summer, Mr. Moens had said that he “could dream up anyone from Elon Musk to Bill Gates and everyone in between” to purchase Mar-a-Lago. “Kings, emperors, heads of state.”

“If they want the best house in the country, that would be one of the top two or three that would be available if they were for sale,” he added. “I wish he’d let me sell it, but it’s not for sale,” he said. Another defense witness, Miami-based real estate attorney John Shubin, also testified that “there is absolutely no prohibition on the use of Mar-a-Lago as a single-family residence.” He noted that the property is simultaneously a club and President Trump’s residence. Mr. Shubin also pointed to a 1993 agreement between the former president and the city that said Mar-a-Lago would revert to private residential use if the club were “abandoned.”

Read more …

 

 


 

 

Kirsch Brand
https://twitter.com/i/status/1732804423783432628

 

 


Malabar giant squirrel found in India

 

 

Easy

 

 

Elephant shoe

 

 

Mommy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1732662224374915560

 

 


The water quality in Warsaw, the capital city of Poland, is monitored by clams. If the water gets too toxic, they close, and the triggers shut off the city’s water supply automatically

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 5 2023

Dec 052023
 
 December 5, 2023  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


Adolphe Yvon Genius of America c1870

 

• ‘The Butcher Of Gaza Should Be Tried Like Milosevic’ – Erdogan (Cradle)
• Corruption Trial Against Netanyahu Resumes After War Pause (Cradle)
• Debunking Israel’s “Mass Rape” Propaganda (EI)
• Houthi Attack on Commercial Ships in Red Sea a Warning to Israel and US (Sp.)
• Zelensky Trying To Directly Control Army (RT)
• Ukraine and US Trade Blame For ‘Failed Counteroffensive’ – WaPo (RT)
• White House Warns Ukraine Money May Dry Up by Year’s End (Sp.)
• Why EU Funding to Ukraine May Soon Fade (Sp.)
• Hunter Biden Sent ‘Direct Monthly Payments’ To Joe (ZH)
• CIA Outlet Approves Donald Trump Assassination (CTH)
• Liz Cheney Warns Trump May Seek to Stay in Power ‘Forever’ if Reelected (Sp.)
• Trump Can’t Go on Trial If He’s Elected in 2024 – Lawyer (ET)
• Judge Denies Jack Smith’s Request to Conceal Documents in Trump Case (ET)
• All 4 “Pillars Of Civilization” Under Attack By An “Anti-Human Death-Cult” (ZH)
• Black Pattern Forming? (Alastair Crooke)
• Bidenomics in Action (Jim Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Scott Ritter

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

Torah

 

 

 

 

The term Divide and Rule could have been invented for Erdogan. He desires to be seen as a Muslim leader, and he has a large army to support that claim. At the same time, “Ankara only supports “Palestine in words, but Israel in reality.”

• ‘The Butcher Of Gaza Should Be Tried Like Milosevic’ – Erdogan (Cradle)

Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” and said he should face trial for crimes against humanity. “Beyond being a war criminal, Netanyahu, who is the butcher of Gaza right now, will be tried as the butcher of Gaza, just as Milosevic was tried,” Erdogan said in a speech at a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul on 4 December. Slobodan Milosevic was tried for alleged war crimes committed during the Yugoslav war in the 1990s, which included multiple counts of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. “Israel is not only a murderer but also a thief […] we cannot let Israel occupy Gaza once again,” the Turkish president said. “Gaza is a Palestinian territory. Gaza belongs to Palestinians, and it will remain so forever.”

He added that “those who invade Gaza will seek other places tomorrow. Gaza butcher Netanyahu revealed he has expansionist ideals.” Erdogan has been vocal with his criticisms of Israel’s conduct during their brutal war with Palestinian resistance forces. He has also made mention of Israel’s secret nuclear program, saying, “We are not going to let the issue of Israel having nuclear weapons be forgotten.” On 15 November, the Turkish president called Israel a “terrorist state,” adding that the international community will also see it as such if it “continues its massacres.” “Israel is implementing a strategy of total destruction of a city with its people. I am open to my heart; I say openly that Israel is a state of terror,” Erdogan said.

“If Israel continues its massacres in this way, it will register everywhere that there is a terror state cursed all over the world.” Before the war, Turkiye and Israel were preparing to launch an energy drilling project, strengthening the cooperation between the two nations. “We will start energy drilling work with Israel. Not only will we begin operating energy transmission lines to Turkiye, but also from Turkiye to Europe,” Erdogan announced several months ago. Erdogan’s flip-flop attitude toward Israel has led to criticism, with Turkish journalist Metin Cihan saying Ankara only supports “Palestine in words, but Israel in reality.”

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“Netanyahu was accused of receiving cigars, champagne, bracelets, bags, and luxury clothes, disrupting investigative and judicial proceedings, and demanding favorable coverage from two major Israeli news outlets.”

• Corruption Trial Against Netanyahu Resumes After War Pause (Cradle)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial on corruption charges, which was suspended along with all other non-urgent cases after 7 October, is set to resume on 4 December in the Jerusalem District Court. The trial had been scheduled to continue through October but was halted due to an emergency order that Justice Minister Yariv Levin put in place for the courts when the war with Hamas began. The order expired last week. Netanyahu is currently exempted from attending the hearings but may be called to testify in a few months. Monday’s court session will begin with testimony from Detective Eran Buchnik from Lahav 433, who investigated Netanyahu’ corruption case. The court will then hear testimony from Detective Dotan Malichi and Israel Securities Authority investigator Lior Shpitz.

Some 50 more witnesses are still waiting to testify in the trial. Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem criticized the timing of the court’s decision to resume the trial. “War? Hostages? Evacuees? Economy? Not at all,” he said. “What’s most important now is to renew Netanyahu’s trial and distract the prime minister with absurd testimonies and delusional trifles.” Israeli authorities began pursuing claims in 2016 that the prime minister had performed official favors for wealthy businessmen in exchange for gifts and return favors. Netanyahu was accused of receiving cigars, champagne, bracelets, bags, and luxury clothes, disrupting investigative and judicial proceedings, and demanding favorable coverage from two major Israeli news outlets.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, lost the position in June 2021 after elections brought Naftali Bennett to power. However, Netanyahu regained the post at the head of the new far-right political coalition in December 2022. Critics of the prime minister contend that his controversial effort to overhaul the Israeli judiciary was meant to shield him from the ongoing corruption charges. The overhaul seeks to limit the authority of the supreme court to overrule laws passed by the Israeli parliament, or Knesset. The effort led to months of large protests by more secular segments of Israeli society, who argued the overhaul would mean the end of Israeli democracy.

Netanyahu now faces additional public scrutiny due to the intelligence failures that allowed Hamas to attack Israel on 7 October. The fighting resulted in the killing of 1,200 Israelis, while Hamas successfully took some 240 Israeli and foreign workers captive. Large segments of Israeli society blame Netanyahu for the failure, including many families of the captives. According to a poll published in Maariv, 80 percent of Israelis believe that Netanyahu bears a share of the responsibility for the security gaps that “allowed” the deadly attacks of 7 October.

Read more …

This is one more case of the ‘Putin eats babies’ drivel. No 40 beheaded babies, no problem. There’s more where that came from.

• Debunking Israel’s “Mass Rape” Propaganda (EI)

Israel and its proxies have launched a new media blitz, reviving unverified claims that Hamas fighters perpetrated mass rapes of Israeli women during its 7 October military operation. Despite blanket coverage, Israel does not claim to have identified any specific victim of such crimes, nor produced any videos or forensic evidence corroborating that they took place. On The Electronic Intifada livestream we dissected this propaganda campaign and showed how it is being fronted by operatives close to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We explain how this is a deceptive campaign based not on evidence but emotional manipulation, outlandish claims, distortion and an appeal to racist notions that Palestinians are inherently violent and cruel.

It fits in with a long history of colonizers portraying colonized or enslaved people as savage brutes predisposed to sexual violence against white or settler women. As the Jim Crow Museum observes, the longstanding “brute caricature portrays Black men as innately savage, animalistic, destructive and criminal – deserving punishment, maybe death.” “The ‘terrible crime’ most often mentioned in connection with the Black brute was rape, specifically the rape of a white woman,” the museum adds. “At the beginning of the 20th century, much of the virulent, anti-Black propaganda that found its way into scientific journals, local newspapers and best-selling novels focused on the stereotype of the Black rapist.” These stereotypes justified state violence against, and control of, Black people and “soothed white consciences.”

There’s a similar and equally sinister dynamic to Israeli propaganda now targeting Palestinians. Its purpose is to demonize them and soften up public opinion to tolerate or support Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. On Monday, Hamas condemned Western media for going along with “misleading Zionist campaigns that promote lies and baseless allegations” including the claims of rape and sexual assault by its fighters.” The resistance group added that the latest campaign is “part of a series of lies propagated by the Zionist propaganda machine” which has consistently made false claims such as “the beheading of children, the targeting of revelers at the concert in the settlement of Re’im and not the least of which is the lie of using al-Shifa hospital for military purposes.”

Read more …

So far, the Arab world fights through proxies, it it fights at all.

• Houthi Attack on Commercial Ships in Red Sea a Warning to Israel and US (Sp.)

Three Bahama- and Panama-flagged commercial vessels, allegedly belonging to Jewish businessmen, were subjected to a Houthi missile attack in the Red Sea on Sunday. A US warship in the region reportedly shot down three drones in self-defense. A recent escalation of tensions in the Red Sea has come on the heels of the resumption of the military operation in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Red Sea is considered one of the most important trade routes in the region. It extends southeastward from Suez, Egypt, to the Indian Ocean through the Bab el Mandeb sound and the Gulf of Aden. Over 10% of global trade passes through the Red Sea annually. On Sunday, multiple commercial vessels were simultaneously attacked by Houthi militants for the first time in the Israel-Hamas war.

“The Red Sea could become a more dangerous route, but in proportion with the increasing tension between Israel and Hamas on one side at a local level and also at a regional level between Iranian allies from Lebanon and Syria, Iraq and Israel itself and the US military bases in Syria and Iraq. Everything is connected,” Dr. Lorenzo Trombetta, a Beirut-based scholar and analyst specializing on the Middle East, told Sputnik. “Both of the cargo ships targeted by the Houthi in November and a few days ago were not Israeli-flagged ships, but they were owned by Israeli businessmen. That was the aim of the direct target of the pro-Iranian government,” the scholar continued. Last month, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah linked Shiite attacks on US military bases and personnel in Syria and Iraq to the unfolding Gaza war.

“To the Americans, I say: If you want the secondary fronts to stop, you must cease the aggression on Gaza,” he said on November 11. On November 20, Houthi rebels seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship that passed the Red Sea and took its 25 crew members hostage. During the week-long truce between Israel and Islamist Palestinian group Hamas militants across the region appeared to hit the pause button. However, after the humanitarian pause ended, tensions have grown even higher. “I believe that these developments in the Red Sea region come within a broader context of threats from armed groups and forces sympathetic with the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank,” Ambassador Ezzat Saad, director of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, told Sputnik. “It is normal that these developments raise concern for the countries of the region as well as the international community at large, taking into account the geo-strategic importance of the sea.”

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Yeah, the army really wants orders from a piano playing dick.

• Zelensky Trying To Directly Control Army (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is bypassing General Valery Zaluzhny, the country’s top military leader, to give orders directly to commanders, the Ukrainskaya Pravda news outlet reported on Monday, citing sources close to the leadership in Kiev. Zaluzhny sometimes only learns of what the military is doing from his subordinates, the report claimed. Zelensky and the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces have been at loggerheads for months, and Kiev’s failed summer counteroffensive has worsened the tensions, according to insiders. The president has created “parallel tracks” of communication with senior military leaders, including Aleksandr Syrsky, commander of the ground forces, and Nikolay Oleshchuk, commander of the air force, the report added.

Zelensky’s office is said to find this convenient, but the practice has disrupted the normal chain of command, much to Zaluzhny’s chagrin. “It seems that Zelensky has two kinds of the ZSU (Ukrainian armed forces): the ‘good’ guys commanded by Syrsky and other favorites, and the ‘bad’ guys who answer to Zaluzhny,” a source close to the administration was quoted as saying. The result is reportedly a demotivated commander-in-chief who cannot fully control the military. Ukrainskaya Pravda said Zelensky’s men, including chief of staff Andrey Yermak, have been escalating the tensions due to Zaluzhny’s perceived political ambitions since at least April 2022. They pressured the general into dropping an idea for a charity, which they believed could grow into a future political party.

Ukrainians’ trust in Zaluzhny surpassed that of Zelensky even last year, the report said. A recent public opinion poll conducted for the president’s office indicated that in a hypothetical election, Zelensky would lose to Zaluzhny in a second-round vote, the news outlet added. Zaluzhny occasionally demonstrates his disdain with Zelensky’s leadership, according to insiders, including when he issued a veiled rebuke to the decision to axe all regional draft bosses in the summer following a major corruption scandal. Shortly after hearing about the sackings at a government meeting, Zaluzhny reported a sharp drop in conscription numbers all over Ukraine, a source told the outlet. The general reportedly complained about civilian interference in military affairs to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin when he visited Kiev last month. Zelensky subsequently learned of this, which “didn’t add trust” between the two Ukrainians, an insider said.

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“..A series of eight tabletop wargames at the US base in Wiesbaden, Germany reportedly developed a “viable, detailed campaign plan” for the attack..”

• Ukraine and US Trade Blame For ‘Failed Counteroffensive’ – WaPo (RT)

US and British officers helped plan the Ukrainian spring-summer campaign and provided all the asked-for vehicles, but Kiev decided to divide its forces in three directions, according to a Washington Post feature published on Monday. Over a dozen Post employees interviewed “more than 30 senior officials” from Ukraine, the US and the EU, only a handful identified by name. The outlet’s conclusion was that “a counteroffensive born in optimism has failed to deliver its expected punch, generating friction and second-guessing between Washington and Kiev.” A series of eight tabletop wargames at the US base in Wiesbaden, Germany reportedly developed a “viable, detailed campaign plan” for the attack. The Pentagon wanted the offensive to start mid-April and focus on cutting the “land bridge” to Crimea by driving to Melitopol.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, advised the Ukrainians to also send sabotage groups into the Russian rear, saying there “should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night,” according to one official. The NATO-armed 47th Brigade, so new that 70% of its members had no combat experience, was to lead the way. Washington and Kiev “sharply disagreed at times over strategy, tactics, and timing,” according to the Post. Instead of a focused assault towards Melitopol, the Ukrainian leadership insisted on attacking in the direction of Berdyansk and Bakhmut/Artyomovsk as well. Kiev initially demanded over 1,000 armored vehicles, which US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin deemed “near-impossible.” Eventually, they received 1,500. However, some vehicles were criticized as “unfit for combat,” with issues like missing tracks and inadequate maintenance blamed on Ukrainian troops.

The US secured a supply of 155mm artillery shells from South Korea, since it could not produce enough by itself. Requests for F-16 fighter jets were denied due to cost concerns and their vulnerability to Russian air defenses. The US also trained and equipped nine Ukrainian brigades in NATO methods of warfare. Simulations based on Ukrainian and Western intelligence projected Ukrainian brigades reaching the Sea of Azov in 60-90 days with up to 30-40% casualties. “The plan that they executed was entirely feasible with the force that they had, on the timeline that we planned out,” a senior US military official told the Post. “They got everything they were promised, on time,” a senior US official said. The attack scheduled for mid-April finally “lurched into motion” in early June. Ukrainian troops immediately got bogged down in minefields and mauled by Russian artillery.

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“..there is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment”

• White House Warns Ukraine Money May Dry Up by Year’s End (Sp.)

The White House is set to run out of money to provide more weapons to Ukraine “without congressional action” by the end of the year, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young has warned. In a letter to House and Senate leaders, she pointed out that “there is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment” and that the US is “out of money—and nearly out of time.” “Cutting off the flow of US weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories,” Young wrote. She recalled that US security assistance packages to Ukraine had already become smaller and the deliveries have been “more limited”. With US allies around the world stepping up to do more, “US support is critical and cannot be replicated by others,” according to the her.

Young added that almost all of the $111 billion allocated by Congress to assist Ukraine had already been used. Most money was used for military aid, while other sums were spent on economic and civil assistance, as well as humanitarian aid. The letter comes after a classified Capitol Hill briefing for the top House and Senate leaders, to who Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made clear that “Ukraine needs the aid soon.” The Biden administration earlier pushed Congress to approve a $106 billion package for Ukraine, Israel and other areas, with the Ukraine portion amounting to $61 billion. The proposal, however, faced flak from an array of Republicans in the House of Representatives who have questioned delivering more to Ukraine and tried to tie any additional funding to demands for security measures at the US-Mexico border.

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Political gridlock.

• Why EU Funding to Ukraine May Soon Fade (Sp.)

A recent €50 billion EU allocation for Ukraine is reportedly at risk as member states fail to reach an agreement on a common budget, according to the Financial Times. The newspaper particularly cites the victory of the right wing in the Dutch elections last month and a recent German court ruling limiting government borrowing. “I think they [the Financial Times] exaggerate the importance of the election results in the Netherlands,” Gilbert Doctorow, an international relations analyst, told Sputnik. “After all, Wilders only captured 23% of the vote, so it is not as if the whole Dutch population agrees to dump Ukraine. Moreover, there are other issues in the EU that are pulling things in the same direction of slowly letting go of [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky and his regime. The hole in the German state budget is a bigger factor working against Ukraine at the EU level right now.”

International observers have recently drawn attention to the rise of the right wing across Europe, suggesting that the Ukraine conflict and the Gaza war could have become a catalyst for the trend. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is currently polling 21%, second only to CDU/CSU (30%). The AfD is highly skeptical about the bloc’s funding and militarizing the Kiev regime. Similarly, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban shares a similar stance. Moreover, he has recently signaled that he is against discussing Ukraine’s accession to the EU during the union’s December summit. In November, he threatened to use Hungary’s veto power to block the provision of a planned €50 billion for Kiev.
“The right-wing parties are one factor that is important only because it means that the neoliberal gang that runs Brussels does not have absolute control, that there is some small area of free speech and free thought in the McCarthyite societies of the EU,” said Doctorow.

“The biggest factor is how Europeans are watching what the biggest donor to Ukraine, the US, is going to do given the gridlock on Capitol Hill and failure to include aid to Ukraine in the next fiscal year budget.” Meanwhile, European conservatives are closing ranks ahead of the EU parliamentary elections, scheduled to be held on June 6-9, 2024. Europe’s right-wing leaders gathered in the Italian city of Florence on Sunday with a bid to make the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, the third-largest after the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the center-left Socialists & Democrats in the EU Parliament. During the gathering, EU conservatives criticized Western sanctions against Russia and the futility of funding Ukraine that “cannot win.” Per them, Brussels’ Ukraine agenda comes in contrast to national interests of EU member states.

Read more …

Follow the money…

• Hunter Biden Sent ‘Direct Monthly Payments’ To Joe (ZH)

Hunter Biden sent monthly payments to his father out of a bank account he used to receive money from Chinese business associates, according to newly released bank records revealed by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who shared a Monday video on X detailing redacted bank transfers to Joe Biden from Hunter’s Owasco P.C. bank account. “Today, the House Oversight Committee is releasing subpoenaed bank records that show Hunter Biden’s business entity, Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden. This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” Comer says in the video, adding that the payments began in September 2018 – six months before Biden announced his candidacy in the 2020 election.

“Payments from Hunter’s business entity to Joe Biden are now part of a pattern revealing Joe Biden knew about, participated in and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes.” “Payments to Joe Biden from Hunter’s Owasco PC corporate account are part of a pattern revealing Joe Biden knew about, participated in, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes. As the Bidens received millions from foreign nationals and companies in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan, Joe Biden dined with his family’s foreign associates, spoke to them by speakerphone, had coffee, attended meetings, and ultimately received payments that were funded by his family’s business dealings,” reads an accompanying release from the Oversight Committee.

[..] Hunter and his uncle James’ personal business records were subpoenaed by Comer in September following the first impeachment hearing for President Biden. He released bank records Nov. 1 showing how funds originating in China resulted in a $40,000 check to Joe Biden in September 2017. A Chinese firm sent $5 million to Hunter Biden’s firm Hudson West III in August 2017, shortly after he established the business entity with a Chinese business associate. Hunter Biden proceeded to wire $400,000 to his Owasco P.C. account and over $130,000 to another one of his corporate accounts, according to the bank records. Next, Hunter Biden provided $150,000 to the Lion Hall Group, James Biden and his wife Sara Biden’s business account. James Biden and Sara Biden put $50,000 into their personal account and then sent a $40,000 check to Joe Biden, the bank records show. -Daily Caller And of course the big (rhetorical) question – what services were Hunter and pals providing for such exorbitant sums? Hunter and James will appear later this month for closed-door depositions.

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“..the non-subtle message is for the CIA to repeat their Kennedy performance..”

• CIA Outlet Approves Donald Trump Assassination (CTH)

I have stayed away from this subject for eight years; however, everyone in/around U.S. politics knows the Washington Post, owned by Big Tech Amazon, is effectively the PR firm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). No one inside the DC beltway does not understand this basic truth. Therefore, when the husband of State Dept official Victoria Nuland, a man named Robert Kagan, writes an op-ed in the CIA newsletter, effectively calling for President Trump to receive the Julius Caesar treatment, the non-subtle message is for the CIA to repeat their Kennedy performance and kill President Trump. As alarming as this acceptance might sound, there are no intellectually honest people who would deny it.

WaPo/CIA – “Let’s stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality: There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. In 13 weeks, Donald Trump will have locked up the Republican nomination. In the RealClearPolitics poll average (for the period from Nov. 9 to 20), Trump leads his nearest competitor by 47 points and leads the rest of the field combined by 27 points. The idea that he is unelectable in the general election is nonsense — he is tied or ahead of President Biden in all the latest polls — stripping other Republican challengers of their own stated reasons for existence.

[…] Are we going to do anything about it? To shift metaphors, if we thought there was a 50 percent chance of an asteroid crashing into North America a year from now, would we be content to hope that it wouldn’t? Or would we be taking every conceivable measure to try to stop it, including many things that might not work but that, given the magnitude of the crisis, must be tried anyway? Will those who balked at resisting Trump when the risk was merely political oblivion suddenly discover their courage when the cost might be the ruin of oneself and one’s family?”

Read more …

How does she stick around?

• Liz Cheney Warns Trump May Seek to Stay in Power ‘Forever’ if Reelected (Sp.)

Recent polls show former US President Donald Trump besting his White House successor in five out of six battleground states, making a second Trump presidency a legitimate possibility. Former US Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has claimed that former US President Donald Trump would attempt to remain in power forever if he is ever granted the opportunity to serve out a second presidential term. Cheney’s remarks came on Monday during a promotional interview for her new book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning.” Trump presently holds a commanding lead in the primary. “Absolutely,” the daughter of former US Vice President Dick Cheney told US media when asked if she believed Trump would try to permanently extend his stay in the Oval Office.

Referencing Trump’s role in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol and his efforts to overturn the election results, Cheney underscored that the former commander-in-chief had “already done it once.” “He is the only president in American history who attempted to overturn an election, who attempted to seize power and to stay in power after he had lost,” Cheney said, adding that Trump’s efforts were thwarted by state officials who refused to cave to pressure by Trump. “We won’t have that guardrail again.” Cheney had a mostly uneventful time in Congress, voting with the Republican bloc and Trump for the majority of her time in office. However, after January 6, she became the most outspoken critic of Trump in the Republican party. The former lawmaker served as the vice chair of the committee investigating the January 6 events, a position given to her by House Democrats. She was also one of 10 Republicans to vote for Trump’s second impeachment.

The political shift turned the party against her, having been stripped of her leadership positions in addition to being voted off the ballot in a primary challenge. Cheney has maintained that she has no regrets about her opposition to Trump: “I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president’s crusade to undermine our democracy,” she said on the House floor after being stripped of her leadership positions. Cheney also called Rep. Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) election as House speaker “dangerous for the country,” adding while she was in Congress, Johnson was suggesting things that “he knew had no basis in fact, no basis in law, no basis in the constitution,” by advocating that House Republicans help Trump overturn the 2020 election results.

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“This trial does not constitute election interference. This is moving forward with the business of Fulton County.” “I don’t think it in any way impedes defendant Trump’s ability to campaign..”

• Trump Can’t Go on Trial If He’s Elected in 2024 – Lawyer (ET)

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers argued in the Georgia election case that the charges should be thrown out because it’s a violation of his “free speech” and also noted that if he wins the 2024 presidential election, the Fulton County trial cannot go through. During a roughly six-hour hearing in Fulton County on Dec. 1, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee asked Mr. Sadow what would happen if President Trump wins the 2024 election and if the trial hasn’t occurred yet. “Under the Supremacy Clause and its duty to the president of the United States, this trial would not take place at all until after he left his term of office,” the former president’s attorney said in response, according to a live stream posted on the judge’s YouTube page.

It means that the former president wins the 2024 election and Judge McAfee agreed that he shouldn’t be tried until he leaves office, which would delay the trial date to at least January 20, 2029. Responding to the claims, Fulton County prosecutor Nathan Wade said Ms. Willis “has no interest in interfering or getting involved in this presidential election” and said she is trying “to move this case forward.” He added, “Our obvious goal is, and has been, to stick to our August trial date.” The judge did not issue any rulings from the bench during the Dec. 1 hearing. He also has not scheduled a new trial date for the case. In a recent court filing, Ms. Willis’ office said prosecutors expect the proceedings to run until early 2025, which would run in tandem with the ending months of the 2024 presidential campaign. National polls show that President Trump is overwhelmingly the Republican favorite for president, including in key primary states.

The former president’s lawyers said the former president would prefer not to be on trial in August 2024, noting his status as the leading Republican presidential candidate. State prosecutors previously have said they are seeking a trial date around that time, which would come about three months before the presidential election next November. “It’s very possible at that time, that my client will be running for election for president of the United States for the Republican Party,” Mr. Sadow told the judge, saying “the preference would be that he not be on trial during the time that he is campaigning,” according to reporters in the court. “Can you imagine the notion of the Republican nominee for president not being able to campaign for the presidency because he is, in some form or fashion, in a courtroom defending himself?” he asked. “That would be the most effective election interference in the history of the United States.”

But Mr. Wade disagreed with his assertion, telling the court: “This trial does not constitute election interference. This is moving forward with the business of Fulton County.” “I don’t think it in any way impedes defendant Trump’s ability to campaign,” Mr. Wade added. Also in the hearing, his attorneys argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ indictment also effectively criminalizes the right to engage in political activity under the the First Amendment. Mr. Sadow told a judge that “you take the facts as alleged in the indictment … as applied constitutionally with the First Amendment, you’ll find that it violates free speech, freedom of petitioning, all the expressions that the First Amendment is designed to protect, and therefore the indictment needs to be dismissed.”

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We have 11 more months of this circus to come. It’ll be entertaining..

• Judge Denies Jack Smith’s Request to Conceal Documents in Trump Case (ET)

Judge Aileen Cannon, who’s overseeing the trial in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case, has rejected a motion by special counsel Jack Smith to keep some documents hidden from President Trump’s defense. In an order signed on Dec. 4, Judge Cannon directed a court clerk to unseal multiple documents that Mr. Smith’s team sought to keep sealed in the case that accuses the former president of retaining sensitive government materials, including some that were marked top secret, at his Mar-a-Lago home. President Trump has said he used presidential powers to declassify the materials, insisting that he isn’t guilty and calling the case an attempt by his political foes to hamper his 2024 presidential run.

The former president’s longtime aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira have been named as co-defendants in the case; both also have pleaded not guilty. President Trump’s defense team and Mr. Smith’s prosecutors have been litigating over what portion of classified materials the defendants are allowed to view, with the judge’s latest decision delivering a win of sorts for the co-defendants. “In light of the Special Counsel’s Response to Defendants Motion to Unseal 230, and mindful of the strong presumption in favor of public access to judicial documents, the Clerk is directed to unseal docket entries 223, 224, and 230,” Judge Cannon’s Dec. 4 order reads.

The newly unsealed docket entry 230, a response by prosecutors to a Dec. 1 court order, shows that Mr. Smith’s team agreed to unseal the documents, as requested by the defense, although prosecutors insisted on some redactions. “The defendants did not oppose the Government’s request, but reserved the right to challenge the redactions later,” the document reads. Mr. Smith’s team also revealed in the newly unsealed court filing that prosecutors initially opposed unsealing 223 and 224 because it “would have revealed to defense counsel information, albeit unclassified, about the contours of the Government’s planned CIPA Section 4 motion,” meaning that it risked giving President Trump’s legal team an opportunity to more effectively counter Mr. Smith’s moves.

Garland
https://twitter.com/i/status/1729020647169552801

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“..cheap energy, meritocracy, Law and Order, and free speech..”

• All 4 “Pillars Of Civilization” Under Attack By An “Anti-Human Death-Cult” (ZH)

As world leaders gathered over the weekend for the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, they faced an uncomfortable reality check from the conference president Sultan Al Jaber, who stated, “there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C,” warning that their fossil-fuel policies would “take the world back into caves.” Nevertheless, no lesser mind than Vice President Kamala Harris pledged another $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund at the summit, seeking to help developing countries adapt to the “climate crisis” as well as decreasing fossil fuel production, according to CNN. The cult-like worship of (and escalation of) these policies is what led to tonight’s discussion between Tucker Carlson and Michael Shellenberger, author of the must-read “Apocalypse Never”, highlighting the increasingly obvious disconnect between global elites and the general public – most specifically in the context of environmental policies.

“We know that the pillars of civilization are cheap energy, meritocracy, Law and Order, and free speech and all four of those pillars are currently under attack,” warns Shellenberger in his typically erudite and fact-based manner. The hypocrisy is simply Orwellian. As Shellenberger recently wrote on his Public substack, flying on private jets to a climate conference to announce plans to make energy even more expensive for working people is bread-and-circuses, except there’s no bread, and the circus consists of rich people celebrating their wealth, morality, and superiority. Carlson begins by pointing out that the drastic climate change policies are “fundamentally nonsense,” asking Shellenberger just how long this “posturing” of environmentalism can go on:

“We’re watching people push an Orthodoxy at increasing volume with increasing hysteria and with increasingly severe penalties for disagreeing…what is that?” Shellenberger replies: “Global Elites used to pretend to care about people but they’re not even pretending anymore…” Adding that that cheap energy was “currently under attack,” explaining how it directly affects “modern civilization”: “you start with cheap energy, but you can’t maintain modern civilization without cheap energy.”

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“..it is not ‘correct-think’ any longer to laugh at the absurdities of the nomenklatura.”

• Black Pattern Forming? (Alastair Crooke)

A number of serious commentators – one being U.S. Professor Victor Hanson – are warning: “Brace yourself for what’s coming in 2024”. Hanson sees bad omens darkening the future. Is he exaggerating? Perhaps not. One cannot but notice how bad tempered Americans and Europeans generally have become. Calm, reasoned discussion of issues is gone; Yelling, emotivism and ‘othering’ is commonplace; something bad is coming. A gut feeling, Tucker Carlson says. “There are “angry people who feel like they have no recourse, who don’t think elections are real…”. What might these commentators be suggesting? Well, they are explicit on one point: the West has been sinking beneath the waves of its’ Cultural Revolution – the deliberate cancelling of virtues and legacies of traditional civilization, to be replaced by a cultural hierarchy that upends and inverts the societal paradigm that is close to conquering all.

The unanswered question: Why has western society been so supine, so unreflectively supportive to the sheering away of its civilisational ethos? This must be the first revolution in which half of society knows and sees well there is a revolution, and the other half seem too distracted, or simply have not noticed. There is no simple answer to this conundrum. But most just don’t see it; they cannot admit the Revolution’s objective (though it is not hidden) is that these well-to-do members of middle classes are precisely the ones (and not the elites) that the cultural revolution seeks to displace, and to sanction (as redress for historic discrimination and racism).

Not for who they are now, but for what their ancestors may have been. General Wrangel (a Tsarist officer and commander) wrote in his memoirs how, after serving during WW1, he came to St Petersburg just at the point that the Bolsheviks were wreaking havoc with the discipline of the Imperial Army’s (‘his army’). Chaos in the streets, but to the affluent of the City, life continued as if some ‘normal’ could be enjoyed, in comfortable co-existence to the revolution out on the streets. He describes attending a cinema, with the audience clearly oblivious to the anarchy beyond the theatre.

Flabbergasted, the general hastened from St Petersburg to warn the Tsar of approaching catastrophe. However, on arrival at the Court, Wrangel was shocked to see that 80% of the Romanov women, most of whom he knew, were wearing a red ribbon. Their ribbons testified to sympathy for the very forces who later would murder these Romanov women. Today, our élites too, sport a ribbon – not red, but a Rainbow one. None of these commentators forecast a Romanov outcome (yet). But they are warning that the civic landscape in America is shifting dramatically fast: One may wake up one morning to the gender horror being imposed on children; to their cultural class being eased out of their jobs; to the realisation that it is not ‘correct-think’ any longer to laugh at the absurdities of the nomenklatura.

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“Been to your local post office lately? Ours is looking like an old soviet DMV. . . a few part-timers on duty. . . mail delivered when they feel like it. . . an odor of rot in the building..”

• Bidenomics in Action (Jim Kunstler)

What trickles down from all this cosmic activity is the dwindling possibility of a fruitful life for most Americans. You cannot make a living. You can’t fix all the machines in your life or get new ones. You can’t get married because there’s no way you can fulfill your end of the contract. You search in vain for something purposeful to do. You are eventually faced with the choice: surrender to depression and hopelessness, or revolt against a ruling blob that is only good at one thing: depriving you of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What also trickles down from on-high is the increasing dysfunction of all the systems that evolved to serve American life on-the-ground. For instance, the supply chains that stuff the gigantic merchandise marts from sea to shining sea. The trucking industry is falling apart. The industry can’t find enough workers to load the trucks. They call them “lumpers” in the trucking biz. United Parcel Service (UPS) is hurting so badly for lumpers that they now make the drivers load and unload the brown trucks and have to pay them double overtime for it. The fruit and vegetables that have to make a truck journey thousands of miles from the sunshine lands to the icy north sit rotting in the warehouses because there aren’t enough lumpers on the loading docks — in case you’ve noticed that the produce in your supermarket is looking wilty and gross.

All the systems that move stuff around this big country are wobbling. Many trucking and logistics companies went out of business in 2023, led by Convoy’s bankruptcy in October due to a “an unprecedented freight market collapse” and inability to get financing. UPS has not recovered from the big drop in shipping that followed the end of Covid lockdowns — 1.2-million packages per day in lost volume — nor adjusted to its new contract with the Teamsters Union, a 46 percent cost increase for drivers in the first year. UPS CEO Carol Tomé even took a pay cut: $19 million this year, down from $26 million (including stock packages) in 2021. Federal Express also saw a sharp drop in package deliveries and in September yanked its full-year profit guidance. The FedEx share price dropped 20 percent in one day. Consider, too, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations aimed at a “zero carbon emissions” goal in 2035, legislation guaranteed to first paralyze and then kill trucking in that state, including trucks delivering into and out of California. Good luck with that.

Then there is the good US Postal Service, a crypto-public/private corporation cobbled together back in the 1970s supposedly because mail delivery was losing money. While our Constitution stipulates that the government “establish post offices and post roads” with the implied authority to carry and deliver the mail, the Constitution never said that the post office had to show a profit any more than the Army or the Navy does. These days it looks like our country is just about done with the mail business. Been to your local post office lately? Ours is looking like an old soviet DMV. . . a few part-timers on duty. . . mail delivered when they feel like it. . . an odor of rot in the building. . . . Consider that the post office is one of the few places where we citizens actually interface directly with the government’s workings. So, how does it look like it’s working to you?

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Fico
https://twitter.com/i/status/1731833565300523401

 

 

 

 

Wake skate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 29 2023

Nov 292023
 
 November 29, 2023  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  47 Responses »


Salvador Dali The Sick Child. Self-Portrait in Cadaqués 1921

 

• ‘The Horror! The Horror!’, Revisited in Palestine (Pepe Escobar)
• Israel’s Ground War Conundrum (Illaik)
• The Magician’s Hat (Alastair Crooke)
• Netanyahu’s End Game In Gaza Is His Own Political Survival (Cradle)
• Putin Notes Importance of Establishing Palestine Within 1967 Borders (Sp.)
• New Jerusalem: US and Israeli Solution To The Palestine Problem (RT)
• The Middle East At An Inflection Point (Bhadrakumar)
• Ukraine SitRep: High Losses, Political Infighting, Blocked Borders (MoA)
• NATO ‘Slaughtering’ Ukrainians To Fight Russia – Kremlin (RT)
• Strong, Stable World Order Impossible Without a Sovereign Russia: Putin (Sp.)
• Hunter Has a Hearing Date But He Has Demands (Turley)
• Don’t Do Unto Others What We Would Have Done to Them? (Victor David Hanson)
• Did Deutsche Bank Just Destroy New York AG’s Case Against Trump? (ZH)
• Judge Denies Trump’s Jan 6 Committee Request In Election Fraud Case (BBC)
• Soros Poured $15M in ‘Dark Money’ Into Biden-Linked Non-Profit (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Trump cheated

 

 

 

 

Pepe/Hudson

 

 

Nap Mcgregor

 

 

Ritter

 

 

gato malo

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..The Heart of Darkness is being constructed by “the only democracy” in West Asia in the name of “our values”..”

“..The haunting cries from the jungle don’t come anymore from an “exotic” hemisphere. The jungle is here – creeping inside all of us…”

• ‘The Horror! The Horror!’, Revisited in Palestine (Pepe Escobar)

Joseph Conrad once said that before he had been to the Congo he was a simple animal. It was in one of those lands partially mapped out by the cruelty and hypocrisy of the imperial ethos that Conrad discovered European colonialism in its undiluted, most terrible incarnation, duly depicted in Heart of Darkness – one of the great consciousness-raising epics in the history of literature. It was in the Congo that Conrad, an ethnic Pole born in what is still known today as “Ukraine”, then controlled by Poland, and who only started to write in English when he was 23, forever lost any illusion over the civilizing mission of his race. Other eminent Europeans of his time seamlessly experienced the same horror – participating in Conquest Atrocity Spectaculars; helping the Metropolis to hack and plunder Africa; using the continent as backdrop to their – murderous – juvenile adventures and rites of passage; or only testing their mettle while “saving” the souls of the natives.

They went through the savage heart of the world and made their fortune, their reputation or their penitence just to come back to the sweet comfort of unconsciousness – when they were not shipped back in a coffin, of course. To dominate assorted “primitive” peoples, Britannia replaced the iron and the sword with trade. Like any monotheistic faith, they believed there was only one way to be; one way to drink your tea; one way to play the game – any game. Everything else was non-civilized, savage, brute, at best providing raw materials and acute headaches. For the European sensibility, the sub-equatorial world, actually the whole Global South, was where the White Man went for personal triumph or for dissolution, becoming somewhat “equal” to the natives.

Literature, from the Victorian era onwards, is full of heroes traveling to “exotic” latitudes where passions – like tropical fruit – are bigger than in Europe, and perverted forms of self-knowledge can be experienced to oblivion. Conrad himself placed his tortured heroes on Earth’s “obscure” places to expiate their shadows alongside the shadows of the world, far away from “civilization” and its conventional punishments. And that brings to Kurtz in Heart of Darkness: he’s in a class by himself because he arrives at an extreme of self-knowledge virtually unheard of in European literature, facing the full revelation of the malignity of his mission and his species. In the Congo, Conrad lost his innocence. And his main character lost reason. When Kurtz migrated into the movies in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and Cambodia replaced the Congo as the Heart of Darkness, he was denigrating the image of the Empire.

So the Pentagon sent a warrior-intellectual to kill him, Captain Willard. Coppola depicted the passive spectator Willard as even more insane than Kurtz: and that’s how he pulled off the psychedelic unmasking of the whole farce of civilizing colonialism. Today, we don’t need to set sail or embark on a caravan looking for the source of misty rivers to live the neo-imperial adventure. We just need to turn on the smartphone to follow a genocide, live, 24/7, even in HD. Our meeting with the horror… the horror – as immortalized in Kurtz’s words in Heart of Darkness – can be experienced while shaving in the morning, doing Pilates or dining with friends. And just as Coppola in Apocalypse Now, we are free to express a humanist moral stupor when facing a “war”, actually a massacre, that is already lost – impossible to be ethically sustained.

Today we are all Conradian characters, just glimpsing fragments, shadows, mixed with the stupor of living in a gruesomely memorable time. There is no possibility of grasping the totality of facts – especially when “facts” are fabricated and artificially reproduced or bolstered. We are like ghosts, this time not facing the grandeur of nature, or traversing the thick, irreversible jungle; but plugged to a devastated urbanity as in a video game, co-authors of the non-stop suffering. The Heart of Darkness is being constructed by “the only democracy” in West Asia in the name of “our values”. There are so many invisible horrors enacted behind the fog, in the heart of a jungle now replicated as an urban cage. Helplessly watching the wanton killing of women and children, the carpet bombing of hospitals, schools and mosques, it’s as if we are all passengers in a drunken ship plunging into a whirlpool, admiring the powerful majesty of the whole scenery. And we are already dying even before we glimpse death. We are the epigones of T.S. Eliot’s Hollow Men. The haunting cries from the jungle don’t come anymore from an “exotic” hemisphere. The jungle is here – creeping inside all of us.

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“..civilian massacres and infrastructural destruction galore, but with little damage to the military structure of the Palestinian resistance..”

• Israel’s Ground War Conundrum (Illaik)

Before dusk on 26 November, fighters from Hamas’ military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, began the process of handing over to the International Red Cross a number of Israeli captives taken during the 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood operation. The transfer of these women and children took place in the Gaza Strip amid what appeared to be a security parade. Al-Qassam fighters arrived in four-wheel-drive vehicles and deployed themselves around the site, wearing full uniforms and bearing arms. Surrounded by civilians cheering on the resistance, the transfer of the Israeli captives was completed smoothly and quietly. This event took place in Palestine Square in Gaza City on the third day of the truce that followed a 49-day war. Throughout the war, Gaza City has been subjected to a suffocating siege and an unprecedented Israeli air and artillery assault, not seen since at least 1982.

The handover process in Palestine Square also took place more than a month after the Israeli army began its ground operation, in which it aims to occupy Gaza City and all areas north of the Strip, destroy them, and displace their population permanently. But the visual of Al-Qassam fighters confidently standing guard in Palestine Square on 26 November, suggested to all present that they remained unharmed by Israel’s war. The fighters transported the Israeli prisoners from their various hideouts and agreed-upon pickup sites to the square, while ensuring that these safe houses would not be discovered. Somebody issued the order, and others carried it out seamlessly, in a highly visible geographical area of less than 150 square kilometers. Keep in mind that Israel and the US have allocated enormous intelligence resources over the past six weeks to unearth the vast network of Hamas tunnels, and to discover the whereabouts of the prisoners.

This picture reveals, to a large extent, the results of Israel’s ground operation: civilian massacres and infrastructural destruction galore, but with little damage to the military structure of the Palestinian resistance. A number of its leaders have indeed been killed – most recently Al-Qassam’s northern commander and military council member Ahmed al-Ghandour – but its command and control system still ticks on effectively. Further evidence of this lies in the inability of the occupation army to penetrate, unimpeded, all of northern Gaza. Israel precedes its ground movements with intense air strikes, then artillery shelling. After destroying everything in its path, its tanks begin advancing. It is almost impossible to confront tanks as they enter, because air fire clears spaces 500 meters ahead, while artillery shells pave the path 150 meters in front of the ground units.

However, whenever possible, the resistance fighters launch anti-armor missiles – Cornet, Conkurs, or similar types – with ranges exceeding one thousand metres. After the tanks reach their designated target, the resistance fighters emerge like ghosts from under the ground or rubble and fire anti-armor shells at them, usually Al-Yassin homemade shells, with a range of fewer than 150 meters. Or, alternatively, a fighter physically approaches the Israeli tanks and plants a sticky bomb that explodes in much the same way as a hand grenade. The work of resistance does not end there. If the tanks do not retreat, and the occupation soldiers settle in, they will be attacked with machine gun fire or explosive devices. The Palestinian fighters film many of these operations, and the footage is delivered to the operations room, which decides what to publish. It is clear that the resistance’s command and control system is still operating effectively.

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“..Ursula von der Leyen, visited Egypt and Israel to present them with financial offers ($10bn for Egypt and $5bn for Jordan), in exchange for the dispersal of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip elsewhere..”

• The Magician’s Hat (Alastair Crooke)

The Magician steps onto the stage, his black cloak swirling about him. Centre stage, he flourishes his hat: It is empty. He punches it lightly to demonstrate its solidity. The Magician then picks up certain objects and places them into his hat. Into it goes AnsarAllah’s seizure of an Israeli-owned vessel (the situation is being ‘monitored’); into it goes the Iraqi strikes on U.S. bases (barely noticed by the main-stream media); into it too go the 1,000 missiles fired into northern Israel by Hizbullah; into it goes the hot war in the West Bank. The Magician turns to the audience – the hat is empty. But the audience knows those objects have a physical reality, but somehow they are magically obfuscated.

It is in this way that the western main-stream media maintains deterrence by playing down the state of war through what Malcom Kyeyune describes as “a simulacrum of peace” – of a gently subsiding conflict and the quieting deployment of (paraphrasing Kyeyune) a very “post-modern question”: What exactly is the meaning of civilian ‘non-combatant’ anyway? One aspect to the image of easing conflict is the hostage exchange that has been agreed. It is both real, and at the same time it underpins the simulacrum that once Hamas is annihilated, and the hostages released, then the problem of 2.3 million Palestinians can go into the magician’s hat, and be eased from sight. For some, the hope is sincere and well intentioned – that once the fighting ceases, it will stay ceased, and that an end to the bombardment in Gaza might open a window to some political ‘solution’ – if it can be extended sine dei.

‘Solution’ being here but a polite word for the EU’s attempted bribery of Egypt and Jordan. Reportedly, the EU President, Ursula von der Leyen, visited Egypt and Israel to present them with financial offers ($10bn for Egypt and $5bn for Jordan), in exchange for the dispersal of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip elsewhere – effectively to facilitate the evacuation of the Palestinian population from the Strip in line with Israel’s aims of ethnically-cleansing Gaza. However, former minister Ayalet Shaked’s tweet – “After we turn Khan Yunis into a soccer field, we need to tell the countries that each of them take a quota: We need all 2 million to leave. That’s the solution to Gaza” – is but one by senior Israeli political and security figures extoling what Israel increasingly sees as the “solution” for Gaza.

But by being so explicit, Shaked likely has torpedoed Von der Leyen’s initiative – for no Arab state wants to be complicit in a new Nakba. A Hudna or ‘time out’ inevitably is highly precarious. In the 2014 fighting, when IDF forces initiated military sweeps in Gaza after a ceasefire had begun, it led to a fire-fight and the collapse of the cease-fire. The fighting continued for another full month. Two key lessons that I learnt from trying to initiate truces on behalf of the EU during the Second Intifada were that a ‘truce is a truce’ and only that – both sides use it to reposition themselves for the next round of fighting. And secondly, that ‘quiet’ in one confined locality does not spread de-escalation to another geographically separate locality; but rather, that one outbreak of egregious violence is virally contagious, and spreads geographically instantly.

The present hostage exchange is centred on Gaza. However, Israel has three fronts of hot conflict open (Gaza, its northern border with Lebanon, and in the West Bank). An incident occurring in any one of the three fronts may be enough to collapse confidence in the Gaza understandings and re-launch Israel’s assault on Gaza. On the eve of the truce, by way of example, Israeli forces heavily bombed both Syria and Lebanon. Seven Hizbullah fighters were killed. The point here, plainly said, is that the historical precedents of Hudnas leading to political openings are not that great. A hostage release, per se, resolves nothing. The issue in the present crisis runs far deeper. When, ‘once upon a time’, Britain promised the Jews a homeland, western powers also (in 1947) promised Palestinians a state, but never took it to implementation. This lacuna ultimately is culminating in a head-on train crash.

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“..Netanyahu’s troubles have deep roots, entwined with his relentless efforts to avoid corruption charges and possible imprisonment..”

• Netanyahu’s End Game In Gaza Is His Own Political Survival (Cradle)

Regardless of how Israel’s brutal war on the Gaza Strip ends, one undeniable outcome seems to be emerging – the potential demise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career. Beyond the immediate repercussions of the Hamas-led Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, Netanyahu’s troubles have deep roots, entwined with his relentless efforts to avoid corruption charges and possible imprisonment. This led him to form the most extreme, far-right government in Israel’s history, indirectly setting the stage for the historic operation launched by the Palestinian resistance on 7 October. The occupation state’s military and security establishment, while thought to have been caught off guard by the scale of events on 7 October, had sensed the impending volatility in besieged Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and even the territories occupied in 1948.

The actions of extremist ministers like Finance Minister Bezalel Somotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whom Netanyahu shielded to maintain the unity of his fragile coalition government, have inarguably contributed to the brewing crisis. Amidst the carnage and devastation of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, Tel Aviv’s internal political crisis is seeping into the mini-war cabinet assembled to direct the war. The divergence between Netanyahu and military officials, coupled with his initial refusal to pursue a humanitarian truce and prisoner release initiatives, hints at a crisis rooted in the premier himself. The prime minister’s desperation to cling to his political immunity and avoid imprisonment has him eager to prolong the war on Gaza.

He believes it will give him time to strike an exit settlement—likely under US sponsorship—to avert a fate similar to former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s post-Lebanon aggression in 2006. This, despite the thousands of Israeli troop deaths and injuries the conflict has borne. Netanyahu, fully cognizant that eliminating Hamas is an impossible goal, is nonetheless publicly employing this war objective as cover for other strategically beneficial outcomes he is chasing: control over Gaza’s gas, Palestinian displacement projects to Sinai and Jordan, pushing for direct US-Iran confrontations, and the shedding of his extremist allies. Banking on Washington’s support amidst President Joe Biden’s preoccupation with the 2024 presidential elections, European sympathy intertwined with Israeli gas needs, and Arab expressions of concern without substantive action, Netanyahu is engaged in a high-stakes gamble.

The potential reoccupation of the Gaza coast, with its gas wealth and strategic location – increasingly perceived by some observers to be Israel’s end game in the war – stands as an additional prize for Netanyahu, whose political standing is increasingly fragile. Beyond the immediate gains, a resurrection of an old Israeli project – the Ben Gurion Canal from northern Gaza to Eilat – could reshape regional geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics by bypassing Egypt’s Suez Canal. However, Netanyahu’s paramount concern isn’t just the war’s outcome or a decline in international support. It is the impending split within his party. The Likud Party recognizes Netanyahu as the source of years-long political crises, marked by five unproductive elections since 2019 and deepening political divisions in Israel.

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“It is in this (the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders) that we see the key condition for achieving a comprehensive, long-term and just Palestinian-Israeli settlement..”

• Putin Notes Importance of Establishing Palestine Within 1967 Borders (Sp.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that the key to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. “It is in this (the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders) that we see the key condition for achieving a comprehensive, long-term and just Palestinian-Israeli settlement,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov read out the Russian president’s message to Abbas at an event marking the Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People at the Palestinian Embassy in Russia.

In the text of the telegram published on the Kremlin’s website, Putin stressed that “now, when the bloody conflict is bringing untold suffering to the peaceful population of Palestine, I consider it particularly important to reaffirm Russia’s consistent position in favor of the realization of the legitimate rights of your people to establish their own sovereign state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.” “This undoubtedly corresponds to our common interests and is in line with the consolidation of regional security and stability. I wish you, Mr. President, good health and success, and I wish all Palestinians peace, well-being and prosperity in their homeland,” the Russian leader concluded.

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The Palestinians won’t move voluntarilty.

• New Jerusalem: US and Israeli Solution To The Palestine Problem (RT)

Egypt’s reaction to the events in the Gaza Strip has drawn renewed attention to the US-Israeli plan of relocating the Palestinian population living in Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula, which is now a part of Egypt. In former times, this question was repeatedly raised during negotiations with Cairo. Now, it looks like Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will have to deal with the issue once again and find an optimal solution. The idea of pushing the Palestinians out of Gaza first appeared back in the 1960s. After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the mass exodus of Palestinian Arabs as a result of the Arab-Israeli War in 1948-1949 and the Six-Day War in 1967, various Israeli institutions proposed solutions to this issue.

In 1968, the Israeli Foreign Ministry presented a project that would encourage Palestinians living in Gaza to move to the West Bank and then to Jordan and other Arab countries. In the same year, a US Congressional committee discussed a plan for the voluntary relocation of 200,000 Palestinians from Gaza to other countries, such as West Germany, Argentina, Paraguay, New Zealand, Brazil, Australia, Canada, and the USA. This plan failed, however, since many nations refused to accept the Palestinians. In 2000, Reserve Major General Giora Eiland, who headed the Israeli National Security Council, presented a project known as ‘Regional Alternatives to the Two-State Solution.’

Published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, this document assumed that Egypt would cede a 720 square km rectangle on the territory of the Sinai Peninsula, including coastal areas and the city of el-Arish, in favor of a potential Palestinian state. In return, the Palestinians would give Gaza and a part of the West Bank over to Israel, while Egypt would receive equivalent territory in the southwestern part of the Negev Desert (the Wadi Feiran region), certain economic privileges, international support, and security concessions. However, the plan was proposed at an inopportune moment – shortly after the failed negotiations at Camp David between Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and at the time of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000.

As a result, the settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was frozen for several years, and the Giora Eiland project fell through. Similar initiatives were put forward in later years. Most of them were based on Eiland’s document. The so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ proposed by former US President Donald Trump in 2020 and officially titled Peace to Prosperity, was the most recent initiative to resolve the Gaza issue. Trump’s peace plan was not that different from the previous ones and included the same key points – Egypt would cede land in the Sinai Peninsula to build airports, factories, and business centers, and encourage agricultural and industrial projects that would help employ hundreds of thousands of people. According to the document, the new Palestinian State was supposed to grow and develop on this territory.

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“..how could you possibly be an Irish Catholic and a Zionist at the same time? Sinn Féin, which is on course to top Ireland’s next election, is embracing Palestinians and condemning Israel..”

• The Middle East At An Inflection Point (Bhadrakumar)

It has been a perennial hope and expectation that Israel would abandon the path of repression, colonisation and apartheid as state policies and instead accept a negotiated settlement of the Palestine problem under pressure from its patron, mentor, guide and guardian — the United States. But that proved delusional and the remains of the day is a chronicle of dashed hopes and hypocrisy. The big question today is whether a paradigm shift is possible. That is also the dilemma facing US President Joe Biden at 80. History shows that while catastrophic events have myriad negative effects, positive effects are also possible, especially in the long term. The French-German reconciliation after two world wars is, perhaps, the finest example in modern history, and it planted the germane seeds of European integration project. Certainly, the collapse of the Soviet Union gave impetus to the Sino-Russian rapprochement, which morphed into a “no limit” partnership.

However, for such miracles to happen, visionary leadership is needed. Jean Monnet and Konrad Adenauer were indeed political visionaries — and, in a different sort of way, the two consummate pragmatists Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin too were. Does it look as if Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu belong to that pantheon? When Biden met with Netanyahu and his war cabinet in Tel Aviv on October 18, he assured them: “I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist.” Therein lies the paradox. For, how could you possibly be an Irish Catholic and a Zionist at the same time? Sinn Féin, which is on course to top Ireland’s next election, is embracing Palestinians and condemning Israel. Of course, there are no surprises here.

Biden is torn between conflicting faiths. Suffice to say, when Biden speaks about a two-state solution, it becomes hard to believe him. On Netanyahu’s part, at least, he doesn’t even feel the need to pay lip service to a two-state solution, after having systematically buried the Oslo Accord and embarked on the journey towards a Jewish theocracy in what was once the state of Israel. Make no mistake, Greater Israel is here to stay and the world opinion regards it as an apartheid state. There is a great misconception that Biden is under pressure from the American opinion on the conflict in Gaza. But the fact of the matter is that support for Israel has all along been rather thin in America and had it not been for the Israel Lobby, it would have probably asserted a long time ago. Curiously, something like one third of American Jews, especially the youth, don’t even care for the Israel Lobby.

That said, it is also a fact that Americans have generally a favourable opinion about Israel. Their problem is really about Israel’s aggressive policies — this is despite the absence of any open media or academic discussion in the US regarding the state repression of Palestinians or the colonisation of West Bank. A defining moment came when Netanyahu taunted and humiliated President Barack Obama on the Iran nuclear deal by consorting with the Congress against the presidency in an audacious attempt to derail the negotiations with Tehran. In the recent years, Israel’s image has been tarnished in the liberal opinion following the ascendance of right-wing forces and the overtones of racist attitudes including among Israeli youth. Indeed, Israel has been an increasingly illiberal country even toward its own citizens. Due to such factors, Americans no longer take an idealised view of Israel as a morally upright country battling for existence.

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“Zaluzny has no plans for 2024 because there is nothing he can do about the upcoming defeat of the Ukrainian army.”

• Ukraine SitRep: High Losses, Political Infighting, Blocked Borders (MoA)

How many losses did the Ukrainian army have in its war against Russia. We, so far, did not have any answer to that. The Ukrainian military has given no realistic account of its own losses while its claims of Russian losses are obviously exaggerated. The Russia military is likewise giving no numbers for its own losses. But its daily reports give estimates of Ukrainian ones. These are currently around 650 per day plus/minus 200 depending on the intensity of the fighting. Some western observers, foremost retired Colonel Macgregor, say that Ukraine’s unrecoverable losses have exceeded 400,000 men. But he does not name his sources. Now a new chapter in the war between the Ukrainian president Zelenski and the Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian army, General Zaluzny, may have given us an answer. Yesterday this news item found its way to the Strana news site (machine translation):

Zaluzhny Didn’t Provide The Plan Of War-2024 And Has To Leave-the People’s Deputy From “Servants Of The People”. The commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, does not have a war plan for 2024, and therefore must resign. This was stated by Deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense, MP from Servant of the People Mariana Bezuglaya on her Facebook page, referring to a “non-public discussion” with the military. “Yes, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine could not provide a plan for 2024. Neither big nor small, neither asymmetrical nor symmetrical. The military simply said that they need to take at least 20 thousand citizens a month, ” she writes.

Zaluzny has no plans for 2024 because there is nothing he can do about the upcoming defeat of the Ukrainian army. Every time he urges to stop defending positions that can not be held, like Bakhmut and Avdeevka, the political leadership tells him use all reserves and to keep holding. Every time he urges to build strong defense lines and to retreat to them he gets overruled. There is thereby nothing, except one number, that he can plan for. That number is the one of the irretrievable losses of the Ukrainian army is experiencing. Zaluzny needs 20,000 new men per month to replace the losses and to keep his army going.

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“.. the alliance has not abandoned its plans to contain Russia and slaughter the Ukrainian people as ritual victims in the fight against Russia..”

• NATO ‘Slaughtering’ Ukrainians To Fight Russia – Kremlin (RT)

NATO is sticking to its plan to contain Russia by sacrificing countless Ukrainian lives, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. His comments came after the bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg argued that the alliance was trying to prevent further escalation of tensions with Russia. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Peskov pointed out that, no matter what statements come out of NATO, the bloc was originally conceived and structured in a way that “essentially make it an instrument of confrontation with Russia and a means of containing it.” “So far, the alliance has not abandoned its plans to contain Russia and slaughter the Ukrainian people as ritual victims in the fight against Russia,” Peskov said, noting that Moscow was planning its course of action taking these realities into account.

During a press conference ahead of the meetings of NATO foreign ministers on Monday, Stoltenberg said the two main goals of the organization were the continued support of Kiev and preventing an escalation of the conflict that could lead to “a full-fledged war between Russia and NATO.” One way the US-led bloc is preventing this from happening, according to Stoltenberg, is by sending a “clear signal” to Moscow that the alliance is ready to defend its territory by building up its armed forces on its eastern borders. “We are doing this not to provoke a conflict, but to prevent it,” the NATO secretary general claimed. Meanwhile, he also noted that the failure of Ukraine’s army to move the front line during its much-touted counteroffensive, despite “unprecedented” Western support, has shown that the bloc must “never underestimate Russia.”

So far, Kiev is believed to have lost as many as 103,000 troops since launching the ill-fated counteroffensive, according to the latest estimates by Russia’s Defense Ministry. With Ukraine’s forces seemingly unable to reclaim lost territories, a growing number of Western officials have suggested that Kiev may have to seek a peace deal with Russia and concede its former territories. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has also suggested in an interview with Fox News that the conflict with Russia could be stopped if Kiev conceded Donbass and Crimea, but claimed that the country was “not ready” for such a peace deal.

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“Our diversity and unity of cultures, traditions, languages and ethnic groups simply does not fit the logic of Western racists and colonialists,,”

• Strong, Stable World Order Impossible Without a Sovereign Russia: Putin (Sp.)

Russia is at the forefront of the effort to build a more fair, stable world order, and the latter’s creation will be impossible without sovereignty, President Vladimir Putin has said. “I would like to emphasize that without a sovereign, strong Russia, no lasting, stable world order is possible,” Putin said in a video address before the World Russian People’s Council on Tuesday. “It is our country specifically that is at the forefront of creating a more equitable world order,” Putin said. “As has happened more than once in history, it has fallen to our country today, to the Russian World, to block the path of those who claim world domination and ‘exceptionalism.’ We are fighting for the freedom of not only Russia, but the entire world.” “Today, Russophobia and other forms of racism and neo-Nazism have become practically the official ideology of Western ruling elites,” Putin said.

“They are directed not only against ethnic Russians, but also against all the peoples of Russia – Tatars, Chechens, Avars, Tuvinians, Bashkirs, Buryats, Yakuts, Ossetians, Jews, the Ingush, the Mari, and the Altai people. There are many of us, I won’t name everyone now, but I will repeat that this is directed against all the peoples of Russia.” “The West, in principle, does not need such a large and multinational country as Russia. Our diversity and unity of cultures, traditions, languages and ethnic groups simply does not fit the logic of Western racists and colonialists, their cruel system of total depersonalization, dissociation, suppression and exploitation. It is for this reason that they’ve started playing their old tune about Russia being a ‘prison of nations,’ about Russians themselves being a slavish nation. We have heard this many times over the centuries,” he said.

Pointing to the failure of the West’s sanctions “blitzkrieg,” Putin stressed that Russia’s adversaries have often sought to “dismember and plunder Russia, if not by force, then through chaos.” “We have become stronger. Our historic regions have returned to Russia. Society is abandoning the superficial and turning to its true, authentic values,” Putin suggested. Sovereignty is a precondition for true freedom, for Russia, its people and each individual, Putin said. “Because in our tradition, a person cannot feel free if his loved ones, children and homeland are not free. And it is precisely this true freedom that our boys, men, soldiers officers and daughters of the fatherland are now defending. A free people who understand their responsibility for today and for future generations.” Russia, without any exaggeration, is engaged in a struggle for “national liberation,” Putin said, suggesting that the country is “defending the safety and well-being of our people, the highest historical right to be Russia – a strong, independent power, a nation civilization.”

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“For years, he has been able to manipulate the media and create ever changing rationales for his role in the alleged corruption scheme from expert to addict to victim..”

• Hunter Has a Hearing Date But He Has Demands (Turley)

We previously discussed how Hunter Biden was gracious enough to say that he might appear before Congress after receiving a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee when “the time is right.” As I noted at the time, that is not quite how subpoenas work. It is really not an invitation. Now a date has been set for December 13th, but Hunter’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, is suggesting that he will not appear in private but only in a public hearing. Again, Hunter fundamentally misses the point of a congressional subpoena. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., quickly disabused Hunter of the point of the subpoena and said that he will indeed appear in a private session before a public hearing. That is precisely what the Democrats have done, including with dozens of witnesses in the January 6th committee.

This is a bad start for Hunter, who is a lawyer. For years, he has been able to manipulate the media and create ever changing rationales for his role in the alleged corruption scheme from expert to addict to victim. Those spins could now come at a cost. While the Justice Department slow walked his investigation and allowed the statute of limitations to run, any misrepresentation could be charged as a new felony with a new statute of limitations. Hunter will appear in the place set by the Committee. He can choose his answers, but not his forum. Putting the bravado of the letter aside, he now has a date with Congress and he will no longer be able to orchestrate how he will appear in public.

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X thread.

“..the reason the media and politicians are terrified is that they are convinced Trump would do exactly what they would do in his place—and what they would do utterly suddenly horrifies them..”

• Don’t Do Unto Others What We Would Have Done to Them? (Victor David Hanson)

Once more, it gets even creepier how the projectionist Left is daily still shrieking about impending Trump “revenge” and “rage”, or about Trump’s purported enemies lists to come, or about his planned weaponization of the bureaucracies. The fear is in direct proportion to Biden cognitive decline, sinking polls, and walls-are-closing-in family corruption. Should we laugh or cry about the transparent hypocrisy? After all, who tried to wreck an administration with a 22-month-long Russian “collusion” fraud, suppressed a laptop with the lie it was Russian “disinformation”, or impeached a president for a phone call correctly identifying the Biden family’s operation in Ukraine as utterly corrupt and at the expense of U.S. interests?

Do we recall that the Obama-Biden nexus—from 2009-17, and from 2021 until now—cemented the reputation of FBI as a partisan operation, rebooted the Pentagon as an agent of woke change ferreting out “white rage” and “white privilege”, reinvented the DOJ as a Biden family protection service, politicized the CIA so that it, along with the FBI, interfered in the 2016 and 2020 elections, and warped the IRS by suppressing evidence of Biden family tax fraud? What Lois Lerner, Eric Holder (self-identified as Obama’s “wingman”), and Loretta Lynch left undone was taken up by Merrick Garland.

Does the New York Times, or Joe Scarborough or any of these strange pundits raging about Trump rage to come remember how the “Logan Act” farce was used to destroy Michael Flynn? Or the Foreign Policy essay of Rosa Brooks, a former Obama-era Pentagon lawyer, about how to drive out Trump without waiting for the 2020 election, by either impeachment, the 25th Amendment—or a military coup? How about the “kill Trump” porn that saw celebrities, actors, and academics envisioning decapitating, stabbing, shooting, exploding, or incinerating the orange man? How about Anonymous’s confessions about how fellow bureaucrats were trying to undermine and sabotage the operations of the Trump administration from within? Or the Pentagon’s retired 4-stars calling for Trump to be removed the “sooner the better”, or labeling him a Mussolini or Nazi-like figure?

Who paid Twitter millions to censor the news of political opponents? Who paid foreign national Christopher Steele to peddle a fake dossier to destroy the 2016 Republican candidate? Do we remember Biden’s Phantom-of-the-Opera harangue about his “ultra-MAGA” and “semi-fascists” political enemies? Were not the twin pillars of Biden’s current foreign policy team, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, once respectively knee-deep in the anti-Trump Alfa Bank-ping hoax and the “51 Intelligence Authorities” laptop scam? Again, the reason the media and politicians are terrified is that they are convinced Trump would do exactly what they would do in his place—and what they would do utterly suddenly horrifies them.

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“..Trump also argued that his name, and the potential for future development, was a factor in the previous valuations..”

• Did Deutsche Bank Just Destroy New York AG’s Case Against Trump? (ZH)

A Deutsche Bank executive may have just tanked New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against former President Donal Drump – which revolved around portraying the German lender as Trump’s biggest victim in an alleged scheme to inflate his assets in order to obtain favorable terms from banks and insurers. David Williams, who directly worked on at least one of several loans obtained by Trump over several decades, testified on Tuesday in Manhattan that it’s “atypical, but not entirely unusual” for a bank to internally slash a client’s stated asset values by 50% and approve a loan anyway, as they did with Trump, Bloomberg reports. “It just depends on the circumstances,” said Williams, a managing director at the bank.

“Deutsche Bank, which loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump for properties in Miami, Chicago and Washington, cut his stated net worth in 2011 and 2012 from about $4.2 billion to $2.3 billion, according to internal bank credit memos. The same documents indicated the bank approved the loans anyway because it expected them to generate a profit based on Trump’s history of successful developments and other criteria. Trump, who denies wrongdoing and claims the case is politically motivated, is calling to the stand this week four current and former Deutsche Bank employees — including the family’s former private banker Rosemary Vrablic — as part of his defense case, seeking to flip the script on the state’s version of events”. -Bloomberg.

The testimony completely undermines AG James’ premise, that Trump defrauded the German bank. “As part of our due diligence, we subject a client’s asset value to adjustments,” said Williams. “It’s part of our underwriting process we apply it to every client regardless of what’s reported.” “Is a difference of opinion in asset values between the client and the bank a disqualifying factor to extend credit?” Trump attorney Jesus Suarez asked Williams. “No,” he replied. “Why not?” “It’s just a difference of opinion,” Williams continued. “I think we expect clients to provide information to be accurate.” Trump and two of his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, testified earlier in the trial that no banks had been victimized by the alleged inflated valuation, and that various lenders had made millions of dollars in interest on the loans. Trump also argued that his name, and the potential for future development, was a factor in the previous valuations.

James, an activist Democrat AG, says that Trump and his company falsified documents to banks and insurers. The judge in the case, Arthur Engoron, has similarly proven himself to be a partisan operative and not a neutral arbiter. “Justice Aurthur Engoron, who is overseeing the case, held Trump liable for fraud on the eve of trial, resolving the biggest claim in the case and putting Trump’s control of his assets at risk. The trial is focusing on six remaining claims, as well as penalties. The state is seeking the return of $250 million in “illegal profit” and a ban on Trump and his sons from serving as directors or officers of any New York-based company.” -Bloomberg

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“..On the same day that Judge Chutkan denied his subpoena request, Mr Trump filed a new, 34-page motion to compel the prosecution to give him information from the Justice Department and Homeland Security..”

• Judge Denies Trump’s Jan 6 Committee Request In Election Fraud Case (BBC)

A judge has blocked former President Donald Trump’s attempt to obtain records related to the congressional investigation into 6 January. Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a motion from his team to issue subpoenas to members of the committee that looked into the Capitol attack in 2021. In an opinion filed on Monday, she cast the motion as a “fishing expedition”. This is the latest courtroom defeat for Mr Trump in the case alleging he plotted to overturn the 2020 election. Judge Chutkan has already issued a gag order and denied Mr Trump’s request to remove language from the indictment that he said could prejudice a jury against him.

In the motion, filed in October, Mr Trump had sought to issue subpoenas to Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the 6 January committee, White House Counsel Richard Sauber, the Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel, the national archivist, the House clerk, the committee on House administration, and Representative Barry Loudermilk. The subpoenas were for what Mr Trump called “missing materials” and communications about how those materials were handled. Judge Chutkan said that Mr Trump had not specified what information he was seeking in the materials and only gave a “vague description of their potential relevance”. She focused on his requests for the committee’s video recordings and transcripts of witness interviews.

Noting that the transcripts had already been provided to Mr Trump, she said he had not articulated how the videos could help his case. Altogether, he had not “sufficiently justified” his request, she wrote. In a series of primetime televised hearings last year, the bipartisan committee presented its own case. The bipartisan committee argued that Mr Trump sought to stay in the White House by contesting the results of the 2020 election and that he rallied supporters to try to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden as the rightful winner. It often showed videos of depositions from Mr Trump’s closest aides and confidants, including his daughter Ivanka Trump and former Attorney General Bill Barr.

Mr Trump is the current front-runner for the Republican nomination in next year’s election, and juggling four criminal court cases with his busy campaign schedule. The former president, though, is not slowing down on either side. On the same day that Judge Chutkan denied his subpoena request, Mr Trump filed a new, 34-page motion to compel the prosecution to give him information from the Justice Department and Homeland Security, mostly on supposed threats to the integrity of the 2020 election.

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“..Future Forward USA Action siphoned $77 million worth of dark funds into the Future Forward PAC since the 2020 election. This represents over 40% of the total funds raised by the Biden super PAC..”

• Soros Poured $15M in ‘Dark Money’ Into Biden-Linked Non-Profit (Sp.)

A hefty chunk of ‘dark money’ from a group bankrolled by George Soros – the ‘face’ of Western soft power campaigns for decades – was shelled out last year as part of an effort to get Joe Biden reelected in 2024, Fox News reported. A nonprofit called the Open Society Policy Center lodged within the web of the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations network forked out $15.18 million to the 81-year-old Democrat’s nonprofit – Future Forward USA Action – to cover the costs of research and “content testing on critical policy issues,” according to tax documents seen by the outlet. For those wondering what Future Forward USA Action is, the organization is an affiliate of the Future Forward USA political action committee (PAC), also known as “FF PAC.”

The latter is a Democratic Party-aligned super PAC based in California. As for the Future Forward USA Action nonprofit, which shrouds its donors in secrecy, it is a crucial fundraising vehicle, tasked with raking in dark money to try to propel Biden, whose dismal approval rating has been hovering at around 40% in the latest polls, to another term in the White House. According to records from the Federal Election Commission, Future Forward USA Action siphoned $77 million worth of dark funds into the Future Forward PAC since the 2020 election. This represents over 40% of the total funds raised by the Biden super PAC, which reached approximately $181 million. The findings indicate that a significant portion of the funds supporting Biden originated from this affiliated ‘dark money’ nonprofit.

“For someone who claims to disdain dark money, President Biden seems quite comfortable with the kind of dark money propping up an outside group spending big to push his agenda,” Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, was cited by the outlet as saying, adding: “George Soros’ projects are notorious for pushing policies that undermine safety, democracy and the rule of law. By funneling money through this Biden-tied group, Soros is signaling that he and Biden are birds of a feather.” The fact that Soros’ money is being channeled towards giving the octogenarian currently in the White House a leg up in the 2024 elections is hardly newsworthy, though.

The Hungarian-born self-styled liberal philanthropist along with his Open Society Foundations (OSF) has played a significant role as a primary soft power tool used by US and European foreign policy from around the mid-1980s. Billions of dollars have been flooded into supporting Democratic political campaigns, with activities ranging from providing generous grants to political parties pushing liberal, pro-Western politics, to bankrolling media outlets, think tanks, academia, and publishing houses. More recently, in the run-up to the 2024 elections in the US, OSF and Soros have been pouring scathing criticism upon Donald Trump, and linked to financing of the election campaigns of judges, including some of those currently seeking to prosecute the 45th President.

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Beau

 

 

Hug

 

 

 

 

Wood pigeon

 

 

Washing machine

 

 

Leash
https://twitter.com/i/status/1729589251023524083

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 19 2023

Nov 192023
 
 November 19, 2023  Posted by at 9:51 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  26 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Women Picking Olives 1889

 

• Time’s Up for Netanyahu and Biden (Dan Siegel)
• Biden Is Fully Signed Up To Genocide In Gaza (Cook)
• Israel is Shutting Down its Human Laboratory in Gaza (Chris Hedges)
• US Strategy In Ukraine, Middle East Means Progress – Biden (TASS)
• Were the Biblical Prophets Anti-Semitic? (Michael Hudson)
• Time To Come Clean On Israel’s Nuclear Status – Türkiye (RT)
• Arab Nations Won’t ‘Clean Mess After Israel’ – Jordan (RT)
• Elon Musk Plans “Thermonuclear” Lawsuit Against Media Matters (ZH)
• Comer: White House ‘Obstructing’ Biden Inquiries (ZH)
• One Law for Trump, No Law for Biden (NCP)
• Colorado Judge Rejects Effort to Bar Trump from Ballot (Turley)
• ‘Clean Energy’ Fails A Basic Economics Test (RM)
• Global Warming Might Not Happen Quite As Fast As We Thought (Tel.)

 

 

 

 

Nap, Johnson & McGovern

 

 

All Lost, Total Failure Achieved | Scott Ritter

 

 

 

 

Mearsheimer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1726006149093212310

 

 

UN

 

 

Letters

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The issue is not that Biden is too old. His policies are too old. The American Empire is no more.”

• Time’s Up for Netanyahu and Biden (Dan Siegel)

We can tell the world is changing when tens of thousands of Texans rally in the capital of America’s most important red state to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and freedom for Palestine. No longer can the Israeli government enforce its deadly calculus of 10 (or 50? or 100?) Palestinian lives for each Israeli killed in its futile effort to suppress Palestine’s struggle for self-determination. No longer can an American President assume that the public will support propping up an Israeli government whose constant, murderous violations of international law bring us daily exposure to the violence and deprivation imposed on the Palestinian population.The issues are no longer whether Israel should survive and whether Hamas’ murders must be condemned. Those are the easy questions. Countless millions of us have moved on.

The question for today is what the world will do to enable the Palestinian people to live in peace and security in a nation where their children enjoy the opportunities most Americans and Europeans take for granted. No one suggests that this challenge can be easily resolved, but the first step is for the U.S. to stop supporting the most right-wing government in Israel’s history from imposing unlimited violence and deprivation on Gaza while accelerating violent settler expansion in the West Bank. Israel’s strategies to ensure its survival and the means it chooses to defend itself should no longer enjoy unquestioned American support. Netanyahu’s government has exhausted its legitimate right to defend itself against the Hamas attack. It has already killed 11,000 Palestinians and provided no evidence that any of them were responsible for Hamas’ violence.

Israel’s air campaign against Gaza relies on the “emergency” American appropriation of $14 billion in military aid. American weapons have been designated for Israeli settlers stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank. U.S. officials know that Israel’s actions will not lead to peace. So do Israeli leaders, including many in the military. Netanyahu and his government survive because they have American support, including Jews who continue to maintain that criticism of the Israeli government is the equivalent of antisemitism. Many of us disagree. Recent polling demonstrates that the American public is evenly divided on support for the Israeli bombing of Gaza. Organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street represent ever growing numbers of American Jews. We are no longer cowed from describing Israel’s actions against the people of Gaza as genocide or its policies in the West Bank as apartheid. We are no longer intimidated by an American Jewish establishment that wields specious and exaggerated accusations of antisemitism and harassment to silence critics of the Netanyahu government.

[..] This is Joe Biden’s Lyndon Johnson moment, the time for him to follow LBJ’s 1968 decision to withdraw from the campaign for reelection. The issue is not that Biden is too old. His policies are too old. The American Empire is no more. We need leaders ready to engage the emerging multipolar world, who do not imagine that the U.S. is going to war over Taiwan, who welcome sharing power with the nations of Europe and the BRICS countries. The end of America’s uncritical support of the Israeli government can be the first step in creating leadership for a world at peace.


The Dance of the True Landowners

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“Those who survive face a genocidal policy, starving them of food, water and power.”

• Biden Is Fully Signed Up To Genocide In Gaza (Cook)

The White House faces a dilemma. It has the power to stop the death and destruction in Gaza in its tracks, at any time of its choosing. But it chooses not to. The US is determined to back its client state to the hilt, giving Israel licence to wreck the tiny coastal enclave, seemingly whatever the cost in Palestinian lives. But the optics – and that is all that concerns Washington – are disastrous. TV images have shown hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing their destroyed homes, on a scale unseen since Israel’s earlier mass ethnic cleansing operations of 1948 and 1967. Even the western media is struggling to obscure the veritable mountain of crushed and bleeding bodies in Gaza. The known death toll has now surpassed 11,000, with thousands more buried under rubble. Those who survive face a genocidal policy, starving them of food, water and power.

By the weekend, Israel’s declared war on Hamas had shifted into an open war on Gaza’s hospitals. Medicins San Frontieres reported that al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City had been bombed repeatedly and its power cut off, with horrific scenes of premature babies dying after their incubators had stopped functioning. Staff who tried to evacuate, as Israel had ordered them to, were shot at. Similar scenes unfolded at al-Rantisi hospital. Western publics are growing increasingly incensed. Protest marches have attracted numbers not seen since the mass demonstrations against the Iraq war 20 years ago. Western allies are finding it harder to obscure and justify their complicity in what are indisputable Israeli crimes against humanity. French President Emmanuel Macron broke ranks at the weekend. His message was summed up bluntly by the BBC: “Macron calls on Israel to stop killing Gaza’s women and babies.”

In private, US allies in the Middle East are pleading with the US to use its leverage to restrain Israel. Meanwhile, Washington is only too aware of how quickly Israel’s regional opponents could get dragged in, dangerously expanding and escalating the conflict. Its immediate response has been desperate, and preposterous, stop-gaps to ease the criticism, including from 500 administration staff who submitted a letter to Biden on Tuesday protesting the White House’s blanket support for Israel. Those measures have included the president calling for “less intrusive action” from Israel towards the hospitals, shortly before Israeli forces were reported storming al-Shifa, and rumours that Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who joined the US attack on Iraq in 2003 in violation of international law, might serve as the West’s “humanitarian coordinator” in Gaza.

But what the Biden administration really needs is a cover story to justify the fact that it is continuing to supply the weapons and funding needed by Israel to carry out its crimes in broad daylight. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken set out his stall last week at the G7 summit. The goal is to shift the focus away from Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza, and Washington’s backing for them, to a purely theoretical discussion about what might happen after the fighting ends. Outlining his post-war “vision” for Gaza, Blinken said: “It’s also clear that Israel cannot occupy Gaza. Now, the reality is that there may be a need for some transition period at the end of the conflict… We don’t see a reoccupation and what I’ve heard from Israeli leaders is that they have no intent to reoccupy Gaza.”

Toddler

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“There remain plenty of Palestinian test subjects in the West Bank. Gaza will be closed for business.”

• Israel is Shutting Down its Human Laboratory in Gaza (Chris Hedges)

The Palestinians are human laboratory rats to the Israeli military, intelligence services and arms and technology industries. Israel’s drones, surveillance technology — including spyware, facial recognition software and biometric gathering infrastructure — along with smart fences, experimental bombs and AI-controlled machine guns, are tried out on the captive population in Gaza, often with lethal results. These weapons and technologies are then certified as “battle tested” and sold around the world. Israel is the 10th biggest arms dealer on the planet and sells its technology and weapons to an estimated 130 nations, including military dictatorships in Asia and Latin America. Israeli weapons sales totalled $12.5 billion last year. Its close relationship with these military, internal security, surveillance, intelligence-gathering and law enforcement agencies, explains the fulsome support Israel’s allies give to its genocidal campaign in Gaza.

When Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to condemn the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian resistance groups as a “terrorist attack” and said “terrorism is killing innocent children in Palestine,” Israel immediately halted all sales of defense and security equipment to Colombia. This global cabal, dedicated to permanent war and keeping its populations monitored and controlled, has hundreds of billions of dollars a year in sales. These technologies are cementing into place a supranational corporate totalitarianism, a world where populations are enslaved in ways that past totalitarian regimes could only imagine. The genocidal assault on Gaza is another chapter in the century-long ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by the Israeli settler colonial project. It is accompanied, as is true for all settler colonial projects, by the theft of natural resources, land, water and the natural gas in the Gaza Marine fields, 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, which could contain up to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

In a world of diminishing resources, especially water in the Middle East, and the dislocations caused by the climate crisis, Gaza is the prelude to a frightening new world order. As democracies wither and die, as economic inequality expands, as poverty and desperation mounts, the global ruling class will increasingly do to us – once we become restive and attempt to rebel – what they are doing to the Palestinians. It is not a far cry from Gaza to the camps and detention centers set up for migrants fleeing to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. It is not a far cry from the carpet bombing in Gaza to the endless wars in the Middle East and the global south. It is not a far cry from the anti-terrorism laws used to criminalize dissent in Israel to the anti-terrorism laws introduced in Europe and the U.S.

On Oct. 7, Palestinians in Gaza escaped from their laboratory cage. They went on a killing spree against their sadistic masters. Almost 12,000 Palestinians have been killed and some 30,000 wounded, including 4,700 children, since Oct. 7 in the hurricane of shells, bullets, bombs and missiles that are turning Gaza into a wasteland. Nearly 3,000 Palestinians are missing or buried under the rubble. Soon Palestinians will be convulsed by infectious diseases and starvation. Those who survive, if Israel succeeds in its ethnic cleansing, will become refugees, yet again, over the border in Egypt. There remain plenty of Palestinian test subjects in the West Bank. Gaza will be closed for business.

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“Biden expects the US policy to bring “more hope, more freedom, less rage, less grievance, less war.”

• US Strategy In Ukraine, Middle East Means Progress – Biden (TASS)

The policy being pursued by Washington in Ukraine and the Middle East would bring progress and make the United States more secure, US President Joe Biden said in his article for The Washington Post. According to Biden, against the backdrop of “so much violence and suffering – in Ukraine, Israel, [the] Gaza [Strip] and so many other places – it can be difficult to imagine that something different is possible.” “We must never forget the lesson learned time and again throughout our history: Out of great tragedy and upheaval, enormous progress can come,” he maintained. Biden expects the US policy to bring “more hope, more freedom, less rage, less grievance, less war.” “That is the strategy that my administration will continue to lead — in the Middle East, Europe and around the globe. Every step we take toward that future is progress that makes the world safer and the United States of America more secure,” he emphasized.

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Ecoomist Michael Hudson knows his Bible.

• Were the Biblical Prophets Anti-Semitic? (Michael Hudson)

Were the prophets self-loathing Jews? Are those who criticize today’s right-wing politicians abolishing the land’s courts of justice, urging the mass murder of civilians and destroying an entire society’s infrastructure anti-Semites? Does commenting that October 7th did not occur “in a vacuum,” as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres did – even indeed after characterizing it as an atrocity – make one an anti-Semite? What I find most amazing is that no religious scholars are pointing out that Netanyahu’s claim to be following a Biblical covenant as his excuse for committing genocide to seize Palestinian land and destroy its existing population is a travesty of what actually is written in the Bible. By a sleight-of-hand like that of a stage magician trying to distract the audience’s attention from what really is happening, Netanyahu has evoked what he claims to be a Biblical excuse for Israeli genocide.

But what he pretends to be a covenant in the tradition of Moses is a vicious demand by the judge and grey eminence Samuel telling Saul, the general whom he hopes to make king: “Now go and smite Amalek [an enemy of Israel], and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” (1 Samuel 15:3). These were not the Lord’s own words, and Samuel was no Moses. And there was no blanket promise to back the Jews regardless of their behavior. And indeed, in following Samuel’s demand for conquest – as a means of making Saul popular enough to be made king – Saul broke the Lord’s commandments about proper religious ceremonial and dietary behavior.

One would have no idea from Netanyahu’s celebration of the compact between Samuel and Saul to become popular by military conquest that Saul’s misbehavior led Samuel himself to rebuke Saul and tell him that the Lord had decided that another man must be found to be king of Israel. It was not the Lord offering that command to destroy Amalek, but a prophet anxious to place a king on the throne. Invocation of such a command is prima facie evidence of an intention to commit genocide. But that seemed less important to Netanyahu than pandering to the desire for revenge amongst Israelis. Netanyahu makes no mention of the fact that Saul disobeyed the Lord’s commandments and the Lord rejected him as king. Nor does Likud acknowledge the context, a few chapters earlier in I Samuel 12:15, describing the corrupt rule of judges and Samuel’s warning that “if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you,” and the Lord’s warning that “if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away.”

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“Israel’s nuclear weapons must be inspected beyond any doubt before it is too late. We will follow this through…”

• Time To Come Clean On Israel’s Nuclear Status – Türkiye (RT)

Türkiye will ask international inspectors to determine whether Israel has nuclear weapons in its possession, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Saturday. Speaking to reporters on his flight home from Germany, the Turkish leader noted that Israel is among the very few countries that are not parties to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Erdogan said that Ankara would ask the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate whether the Jewish state has a nuclear arsenal. “Moving forward with this is very important in terms of balancing strategic interests in the region. We will continue to put pressure [on Israel],” Erdogan said.

“Israel’s nuclear weapons must be inspected beyond any doubt before it is too late. We will follow this through. I also call on the international community not to let this go.” Although experts widely believe that Israel maintains a secret nuclear weapons program, the country does not confirm or explicitly deny its existence. Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu caused outrage across the Muslim world this month when he floated the idea of dropping a “nuclear bomb” on the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netahyau suspended the minister from cabinet meetings following his incendiary comments. Erdogan has strongly criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza, labeling it a “terror state” and accusing the Israel Defense Forces of committing war crimes against the Palestinians.

Netanyahu responded by accusing the Turkish president of supporting “the terrorist state of Hamas.” The current round of violence between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7 when Palestinian militants attacked Israeli communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking over 200 hostages. Israel responded with airstrikes and a ground invasion of Gaza. More than 12,000 Gazans have been killed by the bombardment, according to local officials.

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“How could anybody talk about the future of Gaza when we do not know what kind of Gaza will be left once this aggression ends?”

• Arab Nations Won’t ‘Clean Mess After Israel’ – Jordan (RT)

Arab nations have no plans to put boots on the ground in Gaza as part of post-conflict peacebuilding after the fighting between Israel and Hamas ends, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in Bahrain on Saturday. The Arab world would not “clean the mess” supposedly created by Israel, he added. The post-conflict fate of the Palestinian enclave has emerged as a pressing topic amid the continued fighting between Israel and the Gaza-based Hamas militant group. In early November, roughly a month into the escalation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country would manage “overall security” in Gaza for an “indefinite” period of time after hostilities end.

At the same time, even Israel’s closest allies opposed the idea of what they called “occupation” and a “blockade” of the enclave. Last week, US State Secretary Antony Blinken said that there should be “no reoccupation of Gaza” and “no attempts to blockade or besiege” it. The enclave should not be “a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks” either, he added. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that the US and the EU were pushing for UN peacekeeping forces in the enclave after the end of the Israeli operation. On Monday, the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said that a post-conflict peacebuilding framework should be developed “in collaboration with the United States and Arab states.”

Minister Safadi insisted on Saturday that a two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians would be the only way forward. “Let me be very clear. I know speaking on behalf of Jordan but having discussed this issue with many, with almost all our brethren, there’ll be no Arab troops going to Gaza. None. We’re not going to be seen as the enemy,” the foreign minister said. He also accused the current Israeli government, led by Netanyahu, of aiming to dislodge Palestinians from Gaza. The foreign minister also called such plans a “direct threat” to Jordan’s national security.

The Arab nation’s top diplomat then said that any real plans for post-conflict peacebuilding could only be drawn after the end of the Israeli operation. “How could anybody talk about the future of Gaza when we do not know what kind of Gaza will be left once this aggression ends?” Safadi asked. West Jerusalem’s military operation in Gaza has been ongoing since October 7, when Hamas launched its own surprise attack against Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. More than 200 people, including both military and civilians, as well as foreign nationals, were taken hostage in the Hamas attack. Israel responded by massive bombardments of the enclave, followed by a ground operation, which have claimed more than 11,000 Palestinian lives, according to Gaza officials.

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“They created three new accounts, each following only a small number of accounts posting objectionable material. By relentlessly refreshing their timeline—13 times more frequently than an average user—they were able to capture screenshots of major corporate advertisements alongside the targeted content. This revelation exposes Media Matters’ calculated strategy: generating these screenshots as leverage to compel major advertisers to withdraw their ads from X.”

• Elon Musk Plans “Thermonuclear” Lawsuit Against Media Matters (ZH)

Early Saturday morning, Elon Musk said his social media platform X will be “filing a thermonuclear lawsuit” against left-leaning non-profit Media Matters and “all those who colluded” for “completely misrepresenting” the real user experience on X. “This week, Media Matters for America posted a story that completely misrepresented the real user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers,” Musk said. Media Matters shared a report Thursday that showed “white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories” content next to “ads for major brands like Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity (Comcast).” Musk outlined, “X has seen a number of attacks from activist groups like Media Matters and legacy media outlets who seek to undermine freedom of expression on our platform because they perceive it as a threat to their ideological narrative and those of their financial supporters.” He said these rogue groups are “trying to use their influence to attack our revenue streams by deceiving advertisers on X.” Musk detailed how the Media Matters’ report was nothing but garbage:

[..] Earlier this week, Musk responded to an X post that criticized “Western Jewish populations” and said Jewish people were pushing “hatred against whites.” He added, “You have said the actual truth.” As a result of the report, Apple, Disney, and IBM pulled ad spending this week. On Thursday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino tried to calm concerns about the platform: “When it comes to this platform — X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world — it’s ugly and wrong. Full stop.” [..] Musk added the lawsuit will be filed “when the split second court opens on Monday,” adding in a separate tweet that “many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech.”

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“Remember when Democrats just up and impeached Trump twice with way less evidence?”

• Comer: White House ‘Obstructing’ Biden Inquiries (ZH)

Tensions are simmering in Washington as House Republicans intensify their probes into President Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and the family’s business dealings, sparking a fiery standoff with the White House. The White House, meanwhile, has made clear to House Republicans that they won’t play ball – leading to accusations that the Biden White House is “obstructing” their investigative efforts. Spearheaded by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the Republicans are aggressively pursuing over 20 subpoenas issued to Biden staffers and family members. “We just received a letter from the Special Counsel to the president making it clear the White House intends to continue obstructing our investigation,” reads a post on X from House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY)

“We also need to know if these classified materials aided the Bidens’ global influence-peddling enterprise that brought in tens of millions for the Bidens and their associates,” Comer said on Friday. “This obstruction does not deter us, and we will continue to follow the facts and hold President Biden accountable to the American people.” In a scathing four-page letter pushing back against the inquiry, a senior White House attorney, Richard Sauber, hit back, accusing the GOP of twisting facts and pushing a narrative loaded with “distortions and falsehoods.” Sauber’s letter lambasts the Republicans’ efforts as “congressional harassment” and a mere play to “score political points.” Adding to the complexity, the White House accuses the Republicans of withholding critical information and shifting goalposts when their allegations are countered or debunked.

This claim points to a deeper narrative battle, where each side accuses the other of misinformation and evasion. Meanwhile, Hunter Biden’s representatives have dismissed the subpoenas as a political charade but have signaled a willingness for a public address at an appropriate time. Similarly, James Biden’s attorney has highlighted the committee’s review of private bank records, suggesting that the necessary transparency is already in play. Remember when Democrats just up and impeached Trump twice with way less evidence?

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“..Biden’s Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of charging his chief opponent for re-election with a federal crime that the current president was under investigation for..”

• One Law for Trump, No Law for Biden (NCP)

If you ever needed to see the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican in the eyes of the current Department of Justice, Special Counsel Robert Hur just provided it. For years, like former President Donald Trump, Joe Biden has held classified documents all over the place, for example, in his unsecured garage, in his “think tank” at the University of Pennsylvania, and at his lawyer’s office. Unlike the 45th president, however, the current occupant is just going to get a stern talking to. Like Hillary Clinton in 2016, the likely Democratic nominee will not be charged with a crime even though anyone else under the same circumstances likely would. Who’s excited to live under a two-tiered system of justice?

The prosecutor investigating why classified documents ended up at President Biden’s home and former office is preparing a report that is expected to be sharply critical of how he and his longtime aides handled the material, but the probe isn’t likely to result in a criminal case, according to people familiar with the matter, reports The Wall Street Journal. Since his appointment in January, Special Counsel Robert Hur has interviewed roughly 100 of Biden’s aides, colleagues and family members, including his son, Hunter, culminating in a two-day interview with the president last month. The documents in question date to Biden’s time as vice president during the Obama administration as well as his days in the U.S. Senate. The number of interviews Hur’s team has conducted indicates it cast a wide net in trying to answer questions about how the material was packed and handled and wound up at an office Biden used at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a Washington-based think tank, and in the garage of his home in Wilmington, Del., alongside his vintage Corvette.

Among those Hur spoke to were Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was an aide to Biden in the Senate and his national security adviser when he was vice president; current White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan; top White House political aide Steve Ricchetti and Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain. Democratic allies in the media have already begun to spin the fact that these exact same crimes are being treated wildly differently. CNN writes, “A decision to not pursue charges is likely to draw criticism from Donald Trump and his allies. They have long drawn parallels between Hur’s investigation with that of special counsel Jack Smith, who earlier this year brought charges against the former president related to his own handling of classified documents after he left the White House.

But key differences between the two probes abound, including the fact that the National Archives repeatedly tried and failed to get back documents in Trump’s possession. At one point, the FBI secured a search warrant to search his Florida estate. Biden’s attorneys, on the other hand, quickly notified the National Archives of the materials found in his possession.” Unlike Trump, the Biden family has been alleged to have profited from keeping classified documents. Evidence showed that Hunter Biden had demanded a key to the office where some of the documents were held at the University of Pennsylvania. The request raised some eyebrows, and later House Oversight Chairman James Comer said in April that it appears that Hunter Biden “sent one of the classified documents to a “partner” at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy.” It has previously been reported that many of the boxes holding classified documents were connected to Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom.

The current controversy surrounding both Biden and Trump has reminded many political commentators of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and the special treatment she received from the Obama Justice Department. The initial FBI investigation into her obvious breaking of the law concluded in July 2016, with then FBI Director James Comey announcing that although Clinton and her staff had been “extremely careless” in handling classified information, there would be no criminal charges filed. Biden has been accused of using the government to punish his adversaries for decades, including using his power as a senator to attack his wife’s ex-husband. Over the summer, Biden’s Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of charging his chief opponent for re-election with a federal crime that the current president was under investigation for. Trump received seven counts against him, including conspiracy to obstruct, willful retention of documents, and false statements. The trial is scheduled to start on May 20, 2024.

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“[t]o lump the Presidency in with any other civil or military office is odd indeed and very troubling to the Court,,”

• Colorado Judge Rejects Effort to Bar Trump from Ballot (Turley)

Colorado Judge Sarah Wallace has become the latest jurist to reject the effort to bar former president Donald Trump from the ballot under the novel 14th Amendment theory. I have long been a vocal critic of the theory, which I view as historically and legally unfounded. I also view it as arguably the most dangerous theory to arise in decades. While Wallace reached the right conclusion, she committed, in my view, fundamental errors in her analysis on the free speech elements of the case. The case involves a chilling effort of Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold to use her office to prevent voters from being able to cast their ballots for Trump, one of the leading candidates for the presidency. Like other challengers, she claimed to be protecting democracy by denying voters the ability to vote for their preferred candidate on the basis of this dubious theory.

Polls show Trump and Biden in a statistical dead heat at 42% (Biden) to 38% (Trump) which is within the margin of error. Judge Wallace rejected the use of the amendment to prevent voters from voting for Trump in the 2024 election, declaring that “[t]he Court holds there is scant direct evidence regarding whether the presidency is one of the positions subject to disqualification.” In her 102-page ruling, Wallace declared that “[a]fter considering the arguments on both sides, the Court is persuaded that ‘officers of the United States’ did not include the President of the United States. It appears to the Court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section 3 did not intend to include a person who had only taken the Presidential Oath.”

Accordingly, “[t]he Court orders the Secretary of State to place Donald J. Trump on the presidential primary ballot when it certifies the ballot on January 5, 2024,”The scope of the provision is one of the inherent questions presented by this theory. The disqualified offices are enumerated in the section and start with “Senator or Representatives in Congress.” It then lists “electors of President and Vice President,” and then ends with the catchall phrase of “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State.” U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 3. 302. As the court notes, “[t]o lump the Presidency in with any other civil or military office is odd indeed and very troubling to the Court because as Intervenors point out, Section Three explicitly lists all federal elected positions except the President and Vice President. Under traditional rules of statutory construction, when a list includes specific positions but then fails to include others, courts assume the exclusion was intentional.

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“It turns out, going green is not just about saving the planet; it’s an expensive affair..”

• ‘Clean Energy’ Fails A Basic Economics Test (RM)

The once-glorified clean-energy stocks are now facing their darkest days, plunging the industry into a financial abyss that threatens America’s ambitious environmental aspirations. The much-touted green revolution is looking more like a red alert as the sector hemorrhages tens of billions in market value.Sure, we’re told that hundreds of billions is still pouring into renewable energy projects, despite the fact that the stock market seems to have declared a resounding “no thanks” to these ventures. The iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund), the poster child for the industry, has nosedived by over 30% this year and a whopping 50% since the dawn of 2021. Not to be outdone, specific sectors are getting their fair share of punishment. The Invesco Solar ETF is down over 40% in 2023, while the First Trust Global Wind Energy ETF is witnessing losses of about 20% this year and a grim 40% since January 2021. It seems the wind has been knocked out of their sails.

Blame it on rising interest rates, the industry’s newfound nemesis. These higher rates have not only increased costs but also put a damper on consumer enthusiasm, leading to a nosedive in stock valuations for companies that once promised a green utopia but are now struggling to turn a profit. Solar companies such as SolarEdge and Enphase Energy are feeling the burn as demand for their products dwindles. Meanwhile, wind energy giant Orsted is singing the blues, with shares plummeting after revealing potential multibillion-dollar write-downs on its offshore wind projects in the US. In Germany, after the Nord Stream sabotage, because, you know, energy geopolitics and straightforward plans always go hand in hand, a whopping 77% of skeptics are shaking their heads, expressing disbelief that the nation will magically conjure up 80% of electricity from renewables by 2030. I guess turning skepticism into solar power hasn’t quite hit the mainstream yet.

Switzerland, the poster child for phasing out nuclear power, is now flexing its green muscles by entertaining the idea of keeping nuclear plants running longer, because who needs a clear exit strategy when you can just extend the atomic party until 2040? In the US, the demise of two New Jersey wind projects is just the tip of the iceberg, with inflation, sky-high interest rates, and a supply chain in shambles throwing a wrench into the gears of Joe’s climate ambitions. Despite a whopping $369 billion in federal aid from his climate law, clean energy projects are dropping like flies. Even the postponement of a Kentucky EV battery plant by Ford and General Motors trimming their EV plans couldn’t escape the economic tempest. It seems the only thing rising faster than hopes for a clean energy revolution is the cost. But hey, who needs affordable, reliable energy when we’ve got grand climate goals, right? Biden’s green plans are becoming a chilling reality check, and it’s not just the polar ice caps feeling the heat.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? Not too long ago, clean energy was hailed as the savior of our planet, but now it seems the green agenda is drowning in a sea of red ink. The S&P Global Energy index, once a shining star, has seen its value halved since 2020 – a spectacular fall from grace. Fast forward to the present, and we witness the mighty green stocks taking a severe beating. Despite the EU and US governments offering billions in tax credits and subsidies to support the so-called green transition from Russian oil and gas, investors are losing confidence faster than you can say “renewable.” The S&P Global Clean Energy Index has experienced a gut-wrenching 30% freefall in 2023, with the biggest quarterly outflow of $1.4 billion. The once-booming sector now holds a 23% decline in total assets under management, a far cry from its heyday just a few months ago.

Blame it on the current economic climate, they say – high interest rates, soaring costs, and supply chain woes are the villains of this melodrama. And let’s not forget China, the puppet master of the solar supply chain, flooding the market with cheap alternatives, undermining the EU’s dreams of a local green market. As utility stocks struggle to convert to green energy, the sector’s operating margins are squeezed. The final nail in the coffin? NextEra Energy Partners cutting its growth target by half, sending shockwaves through the renewable industry. I dismiss the sell-off as overblown, but the damage is done, and confidence in renewables has hit rock bottom. So, what’s the moral of this green tale? It turns out, going green is not just about saving the planet; it’s an expensive affair. As the renewable energy stocks hit rock bottom, analysts are left wondering: is it time to buy, or is the green dream truly over?

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You been sold down the river.

• Global Warming Might Not Happen Quite As Fast As We Thought (Tel.)

Plants will absorb 20 per cent more carbon dioxide than predicted by the end of the century, a new study has found, suggesting climate models are overestimating how fast the planet will warm. Trinity College Dublin said its research painted an “uncharacteristically upbeat picture for the planet” after finding models had failed to take into account all the elements of photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, green plants use light energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide, water and minerals into the sugars they need for growth. Scientists thought climate change could weaken the process, but the new research suggests plants can adjust to the temperatures, efficiently absorbing carbon dioxide, producing extra nutrients, and continuing to thrive.

They found that on a global scale, the amount of carbon converted during photosynthesis could be up to 68 per cent greater by the end of the century compared to the start of the century, and 20 per cent more than some current models suggest. Silvia Caldararu, assistant professor at Trinity’s School of Natural Sciences, said: “What our study shows is that ecosystems could take up more CO2 out of the atmosphere than previously thought, which would mean lower CO2 concentrations, so a less steep rise in temperature. “So yes, that would give us a bit more time to reach net zero. But it is important to note that we predict a lot of this drawdown will happen towards the end of the century, while we need to cut emissions now, or possibly yesterday.”

Plants take up a huge amount of carbon dioxide every year, slowing down the effects of climate change, but experts have been uncertain whether that would continue as the climate changes. In recent years, observations have shown that the carbon dioxide uptake by plants is increasing, which is likely driven in part by increased vegetation growth caused by carbon rises. An increase in the ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide not only removes it from the atmosphere, but more growth brings down land temperature and mitigating effects on climate change globally indirectly. Although climate modellers have attempted to include estimates for this carbon sink, the researchers found that most models were not complex enough to understand the true resilience of plants to climate change.

Researchers found that under the extreme RCP 8.5 warming scenario, a pathway where greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow unmitigated, plants would take a fifth more carbon dioxide from the air than currently expected.The RCP 8.5 scenario predicts a temperature increase of about 4.3C by 2100, relative to pre-industrial temperatures. However, the authors cautioned that land ecosystems only absorb about a quarter of human emissions, so the extra benefit would take that up to around 30 per cent.

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Weirdest ever video?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1725817257417457838

 

 

Stick insect

 

 

Snoopy

 

 

 

 

Orang

 

 

Danny Boy – Sinéad O’Connor

 

 


Whenever they tell you it can’t be done in the modern age, show them Dresden. What’s been achieved in Dresden is the most inspiring architectural feat for decades. Everything you see in the bottom image was built, from scratch, in the last 20 years. The city was a gem of German Baroque architecture, completely levelled by Allied bombings during WW2 – more than 80% of the buildings in the historic city center were either damaged or totally destroyed. Heartbreakingly, the wonderful Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) lay in rubble for decades, under the East German communist regime which refused to rebuild it. It was left in a pile as a “memorial against war” for 50 years. When the Berlin Wall finally fell, the people endeavored to bring it back.

Work began in 1993 to piece the church back together, brick by brick; every stone in the pile was sorted and carried off to be analyzed. Except for the brand new dome, it was reconstructed using as much original stone as possible, to the exact specifications of the original (as much as could be pieced together from old photographs). The work took 11 years, and in 2005, the Frauenkirche was reconsecrated – rising like a phoenix from the ashes. It was finished one year ahead of schedule and just in time for the city’s 800-year anniversary celebrations. In a remarkable gesture, the gilded orb and cross atop the new dome were crafted by an English goldsmith – whose father partook in the bombing of the city in 1945.

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle November 17 2023

Nov 172023
 
 November 17, 2023  Posted by at 9:22 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  34 Responses »


Jackson Pollock The Deep 1943

 

• Former Israeli PM Calls To Oust Netanyahu, ‘Extremist’ Allies (Cradle)
• Iran Will ‘Do Whatever It Takes’ To Help Hamas – Top Commander (RT)
• Western Elite Ignoring Pro-Palestine Protests May Be Fatal Mistake (Blankenship)
• Just How Many Faked Videos by the IDF Can Western Media Handle? (Jay)
• CIA Chief’s Ukraine Visit Linked to Looming Palace Coup Against Zelensky (Sp.)
• CIA’s Desperate Gambit in Kiev (The Islander News)
• End ‘Magical Thinking’ About Russia’s Defeat – WSJ essay (RT)
• US Abrams Tanks Made No Difference – Zelensky (RT)
• Xi Outmanuevers Biden in San Francisco (Pepe Escobar)
• China Seeks Neither Hegemony Nor To Wage War With Anyone — Xi Jinping (TASS)
• Rand Paul Wants Federal Prosecution of Fauci for COVID Coverup (ET)
• No Charges Likely In Biden Classified Document Scandal (ZH)
• Should Joe Biden Be Banned? (Turley)
• Appeals Court Lifts Trump Gag Order In NY Fraud Case (ZH)

 

 

 

 

UN Palestine

 

 

Jimmy Dore

 

 

 

 

Tucker Iran

 

 

McGovern

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Netanyahu has lost the trust of his citizens, the trust of the international community, and most seriously – the trust of the Israeli security system..”

• Former Israeli PM Calls To Oust Netanyahu, ‘Extremist’ Allies (Cradle)

Yair Lapid, former Israeli prime minister of the Yesh Atid opposition party, called on 15 November for Benjamin Netanyahu to be replaced as premier. In an interview with Hebrew news outlet Channel 12, Lapid said: “The public has lost faith in Netanyahu … we can’t run an extended [military] operation with a prime minister we do not have faith in.” Lapid called for the prime minister to be replaced by another member of his Likud party without carrying out an election. “What we need is a national rehabilitation government. We need to begin the repairing and healing process,” the former prime minister said. Lapid said his party would be fully willing to join a new government still led by the Likud, but it is not the right time for elections in Israel. The opposition leader did not name any Likud figure he sees fit for the premiership.

“I think at the end of the day, I’m worried about the real issue, and the real issue now is for us to have a functioning government.” “Yesterday on Channel 12, I explained that the time has come – we need to establish a national reconstruction government. Likud will lead it, Netanyahu and the extremists will be replaced, and over 90 MKs will be partners in a coalition of healing and reconnection.” In a long thread on the X platform, Lapid praised the army and its operation in Gaza and reiterated that the war would be a “long and complex” one. “The Israeli public is showing resilience, and civil society has mobilized in the thousands … The weak link is the government, and especially the prime minister … Netanyahu has lost the trust of his citizens, the trust of the international community, and most seriously – the trust of the Israeli security system,” he said.

Lapid’s words come as recent polling has indicated a significant increase in mistrust and bitterness toward Netanyahu. According to a Maariv poll from last week, only 26 percent of Israelis believe Netanyahu is suitable to be prime minister. Another recent poll shows that 76 percent of Israelis want him out of office and that 44 percent hold Netanyahu responsible for what happened on 7 October. Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert said last week that Netanyahu is “a danger to Israel.”

Netanyahu is Finished | Jeffrey Sachs

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Soleimani’s successor.

• Iran Will ‘Do Whatever It Takes’ To Help Hamas – Top Commander (RT)

The head of Iran’s elite Quds Force has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to back Hamas in its war with Israel, claiming that the Palestinian militant group is headed for an “impressive victory” in Gaza. In a letter addressed to the commander of Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Quds Force leader Esmail Qaani declared that Tehran and its allies “will not allow this brutal enemy and those standing behind him to conquer Gaza and its heroic people.” “We will do whatever it takes in this historic battle,” Qaani said, adding that Hamas had “proved to everyone that the resistance in Gaza is capable of initiative and innovation, while maintaining its organization and field capabilities.”

Published on Thursday by the state-backed Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the letter comes just one day after Reuters reported that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had informed Hamas that his country would not get directly involved in the Gaza war. Instead, Khamenei reportedly restated Iran’s long standing “political and moral support” for Hamas, but ruled out military intervention. Earlier on Thursday, however, top Hamas official Osama Hamdan dismissed the Reuters story, telling IRNA: “Instead of providing information, this news agency has published worthless lies.” He added that such reports are intended to harm the image of Hamas and its allies in the “axis of resistance” – a network of Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.

Iranian officials have yet to comment on the Reuters report. Qaani went on to congratulate the Palestinian armed faction for an “impressive victory and qualitative achievement that is unprecedented in the history of the conflict,” assuring that “Your brothers in the resistance axis stand united with you.” The Quds Force is the foreign operations arm of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), responsible for military and intelligence missions beyond Iran’s borders. Qaani took over the force in 2020 after his predecessor, Qasem Soleimani, was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad.

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“The fact that he is staying firm on his position with Israel, despite protests from his own party and reportedly his own staff, is a grave mistake.”

• Western Elite Ignoring Pro-Palestine Protests May Be Fatal Mistake (Blankenship)

In recent days, there has been a wave of pro-Palestine protests across the world as violence in Gaza escalates in the wake of an Israeli invasion and bombing campaign that has killed thousands, including many women and children, in response to the deadly terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7. One of the key questions is, will this actually amount to any change in so-called Western democracies that are standing behind Israel’s onslaught? It depends on the country; however, largely, the answer is no – at least for the countries that have the most pull over Israel’s position. In the United States, lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party are reportedly ducking calls from concerned constituents who are calling for a ceasefire. President Joe Biden, when asked by reporters if there was any possibility for a halt to the violence, said, “None. No possibility.”

This is worrying because, in principle, in a democracy, politicians are supposed to respond to the will of constituents. They are also supposed to bend to popular will, given that their electoral odds hinge on the opinions of voters. Arab Americans, including in key swing states, are fed up with the Biden administration’s policies in general – but also particularly with its dealings with Israel. Support for Biden among them now stands at a mere 17%, and 40% are inclined to vote for Republican former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, according to a poll conducted by the Arab American Institute. Massive protests, calls for voters, and the very real possibility that Biden’s position on Israel could forfeit the upcoming 2024 presidential election to Trump, the likely Republican Party nominee, show that Western democracy – especially in the US – is in shambles.

When politicians ignore popular will, it shows that there is a serious crisis with the ordinary function of supposedly democratic institutions. At the same time, it must be noted that Biden has not shied away from his pro-Israel leanings. To quote then-Senator Joe Biden, a self-described Zionist, from 1986, “There’s no apology to be made [for supporting Israel]. None. It is the best three-billion-dollar investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” Still, as a unity president (at least in theory), Biden has a responsibility to shirk ideology in order to preserve democracy – especially when it is under full-scale assault by an opposition party that casts doubt on the legitimacy of elections and does not believe Biden was rightfully elected. The fact that he is staying firm on his position with Israel, despite protests from his own party and reportedly his own staff, is a grave mistake.

The situation in Europe is also more nuanced. Here we are seeing countries, like the Czech Republic and Hungary, remain steadfast in their unwavering support for Israel despite some opposition, and the former has even outlawed pro-Palestine demonstrations. French President Emmanuel Macron recently urged Israel to stop bombing Gaza – but he is also facing open criticism from his own ambassadors for his support for Israel. France has also outlawed pro-Palestine protests. But some countries, like Ireland and Spain, are openly critical of Israel and are considering cutting diplomatic ties. If nothing else, this disunity demonstrates the fragility of a common EU foreign policy framework. This is especially the case given the fact that Ursula von der Leyen, the unelected president of the European Commission, has proven to be a US-infiltrated, hypocritical pro-war demagogue.

What’s clear as day in the current situation in the Middle East is that each and every day that the attack on Gaza continues, it becomes more difficult to morally and logically justify the common Western position of supporting Israel no matter what. The rest of the world sees this and is taking note, understanding the days of Western hegemony are numbered. Moreover, the leaders who are holding firm on the pro-Israel line despite immense and unprecedented public pressure are inadvertently eroding the very fabric of the fundamental institutions of Western society. As a growing number of people in the West become jaded with democracy, or, in the case of the EU, become skeptical of Brussels, the leaders who ignore their constituents only have themselves to blame.

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“..you won’t have to wait too long before another seamless transition takes place between what US media is ‘reporting’ and what Hollywood will soon produce.”

• Just How Many Faked Videos by the IDF Can Western Media Handle? (Jay)

The war in Gaza is going into the history books for setting precedents for many things. But perhaps it might not be such a watermark which too many journalists will remind you about, but fake news on a whole new scale which we haven’t seen before, will be one of them. How do westerners who watch their evening news take our mainstream media journalist in Israel seriously? Firstly, most of them aren’t even inside Gaza but comfortably ‘embedded’ with Israel’s IDF usually in lux accommodation which has been arranged for them, while IDF propagandists feed them nuggets of prepared fake news during the day while they dine as guests of the army. Our western journalists are so embedded that what they are presenting is not even news each night but a narrative which they have been hearing all day. And in some cases, seeing.

Part of the IDF’s mantra when handling the press is to show them video clips they have in their possession. But so far there is no scepticism as to the validity of this material shown by the journalists. Remarkably, British journalists like Douglas Murray – who seems to be one of the very few inside Gaza – tell Piers Morgan during a live interview, while coming under fire, that the Palestinians deserve the absolute ‘collective’ obliteration as the raw video clips he saw of Hamas fighters on October 7th murdering Israeli civilians were doing so while showing ‘glee’. This is a good example of what happens to western journalist who gets too close to those doing the ‘media handling’. It’s subtle and you have to look closely, but there is a seamless transition from where the journalist crosses a line and becomes the propagandist for this hosts. Remarkably a couple of Palestinian Hamas fighters phoned their parents in a state of glee after they murdered Israelis and this is enough to dehumanize them and deem them worthy of mass annihilation.

And how can we even trust anything the IDF press team are feeding western journalists? Their track record is appalling when it comes to faking video and audio clips. The most recent IDF soldier showing us some hospitals where he shows what looks like a lift shaft but is presented as a Gaza tunnel might be regarded as par for the course. But wait. Soon our man is standing in the hospital where in one room some arms and ammunition is laid out on the floor. And we are expected to believe that this shows that Hamas was using the hospital as a base. Even the events of October the 7th are still to be regarded with heavy scepticism when it is revealed that the so-called massacre at a music festival was actually done when the IDF arrived with tanks and shot at anyone driving in a panicky way in their cars to flee. Western journalists seldom report the policy that Israel has towards its own people who are taken captive: when possible kill them ourselves.

But any two-bit journalists could have seen by looking at the twisted metal of the cars at the pop concert that this damage was not done by light arms fire, say, from AKs but from much heavy calibre equipment. It’s a similar pantheon of lies when we watch a video of a doctor talking softly about how much the IDF have tried to help the hospitals by trying to donate diesel. You know the sort of thing. Didn’t take too much time for online sleuths to expose the doctor as a second-rate Israeli actress. Israel calls Hamas animals and as we have seen intends to wipe as many off the face of the earth so that Gaza can be retaken and new settlements can be built. But is the barrage of fake videos intended to fool the West? So far, mostly they are ridiculed within minutes of being posted and so can only be assumed that they are created for the Zionists supporters around the world who need something to grasp, to justify the holocaust which we are witnessing each day.

But the role played by western media in not using them as subjects in reports is disgraceful. Some might even argue that the journalists themselves are complicit in the genocide as the mass slaughter of civilians can only be carried out when Israel has the guarantee from the west of no war crimes being charged and that media don’t (or can’t) report on just how far faking the news has got in Israel. It has reached a whole new level and only made possible by the big media outlets not calling them out. Why should we be shocked or even surprised to learn that all of CNN’s footage and reports are checked before they are aired by the IDF themselves. We are literally watching an illusion each night by CNN journalists ducking and diving while they do their pieces to camera. And you won’t have to wait too long before another seamless transition takes place between what US media is ‘reporting’ and what Hollywood will soon produce.

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“Anyone who doesn’t bow down to the dictator that Zelensky has become, is found guilty of being treasonous to the emperor.”

• CIA Chief’s Ukraine Visit Linked to Looming Palace Coup Against Zelensky (Sp.)

Washington’s spymaster has flown to Ukraine in secret to stamp US authority on the power struggle within the Kiev regime, says a security expert. CIA Director William Burns reportedly flew to Kiev on Wednesday for “urgent and secret” meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Security analyst Mark Sleboda told Sputnik that Burns’ visit “dovetails” with this week’s visit to Washington by Andriy Yermak, “Zelensky’s powerful, grey, cardinal, chief of staff” to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken — who duly uttered pledges of continued military support for Kiev in the US proxy conflict with Russia. “The general assumption is that this has to do with the growing rift between Zelensky, the president of the Kiev regime, and [Valery] Zaluzhny, the regime’s top general,” Sleboda explained, noting that Western mainstream media were “openly now reporting about the rift and speculating that they are on the verge of some type of open conflict.”

He pointed out that the US was already pressuring its client state in Ukraine to hold a presidential election on schedule by March 31 2024 — “with the intention of replacing Zelensky, who may appear to have lost confidence, with Zaluzhny.” Zelensky called off that election last week, claiming the ongoing fighting and the secession of four regions to Russia in 2022 made it impossible. “First he said: ‘OK, if you pay for it’. And then last week it became: ‘no, no elections’,” Sleboda said. “And now Zaluzhny’s top deputies, those close to him, we’ve had one fired. We’ve had another one blown up at his birthday party by either a moronic accident or a targeted political assassination by those close to Zelensky.” The analyst speculated that Burns’ intervention could have one of two aims: either “tamping it down or settling it or whatever, but saying that this is not acceptable, this is the road to disaster and your patron does not allow this, stop fighting — or they’re telling Zelensky to go away.”

Along with the attacks on Zaluzhny’s faction, officials are also going after anyone deemed sympathetic to former US president Donald Trump — who asked Zelensky to investigate his rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter for possible corruption over their deep involvement in Ukraine. Two politicians and a former prosecutor have recently been charged with treason for assisting Trump’s personal lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, in his own probes in the Biden family’s dealings. “This is what the Kiev regime charges everyone with. They charged the leaders of the three largest opposition parties in the country — before two of them were banned,” Sleboda stressed. “Anyone who doesn’t bow down to the dictator that Zelensky has become, is found guilty of being treasonous to the emperor.”

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“Is the pursuit of a NATO foothold in Ukraine worth the cost? The very existence of NATO itself may well be the cost. ”

• CIA’s Desperate Gambit in Kiev (The Islander News)

The arrival of CIA Director William Burns in Kiev signals a critical juncture in the Ukraine conflict. As the situation intensifies, Burns’ urgent mission is a stark indicator of Ukraine’s dire state. The Zelensky regime, once propagated as an emblem of resilience, now teeters on the brink of collapse, overwhelmed by insurmountable casualties and internal strife. This visit raises a crucial question: Is Ukraine on the cusp of a necessary capitulation, or is a coup on the horizon? Amidst these high-level meetings, the on-ground reality in Ukraine is catastrophic. The country has cycled through 3 armies, now relying on an untrained and under-equipped force consisting largely of older men, women, and youths.

This strategic dilution is no accident but a calculated Russian tactic: a meat-grinding strategy designed to deplete Ukraine’s military strength and incite political chaos in Kiev. As tensions escalate, an internal power struggle unfolds. Zelensky, in a bid to consolidate power, appears poised to purge key military figures, including Zaluzhny. This move would destabilize the already fragile military structure, further diminishing its capacity to withstand Russian advances. Meanwhile, Zelensky’s admin grapples with allegations of corruption, with reports of rampant graft and theft, potentially affecting the flow of vital aid. In this high-stakes environment, Burns’ role is beyond mere diplomatic support.

His presence underscores a broader strategic dilemma: whether to continue propping up a faltering regime or recalibrate US policy in the region. With Washington’s ambitions to embed NATO in Ukraine, the implications of Burns’ visit are profound. How will the US navigate this precarious situation, and at what cost? As the war reaches an inevitable tipping point, one must ask: Is the pursuit of a NATO foothold in Ukraine worth the cost? The very existence of NATO itself may well be the cost.

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“The technocrats responsible for running the Russian economy have proven themselves to be resilient, adaptable, and resourceful..”

• End ‘Magical Thinking’ About Russia’s Defeat – WSJ essay (RT)

Western leaders must give up their “magical thinking” about defeating Russia in Ukraine and shift to a strategy of long-term containment against Moscow, an analysis published by the Wall Street Journal has concluded. “What Western leaders conspicuously haven’t done is level with their publics about the enduring nature of the threat from an emboldened, revisionist Russia,” Eugene Rumer and Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in an essay published on Thursday. “They have indulged all too often in magical thinking – betting on sanctions, a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive or the transfer of new types of weapons to force the Kremlin to come to the negotiating table.”

The Washington think tank’s authors noted that contrary to the hopes of Western officials who speculated that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be ousted in a “palace coup,” Moscow has maintained popular support for its Ukraine strategy while overcoming efforts to cripple its economy. “More than six months before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin signed off on a new national security strategy for Russia,” the op-ed said. “The main thrust of that document was to prepare the country for a long-term confrontation with the West. Today, Putin can tell the nation that his strategy is working.” Although Rumer and Weiss claimed that “none of this should come as a surprise,” the WSJ is among the Western media outlets that have built up hopes for a Ukrainian victory since the conflict began. However, the tone of media coverage has shifted amid Kiev’s battlefield struggles in recent weeks, acknowledging that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky faces wavering allies, enormous casualties, and growing fissures within his leadership team.

One of the most somber articles was posted late last month by Time magazine, which had named Zelensky its “person of the year” just last December. “Exhaustion with the war rolls along like a wave,” Zelensky told the publication, referring to the sharp decrease in Western enthusiasm for the Ukrainian cause. Speaking to The Economist earlier this month, Valery Zaluzhny, Kiev’s top general, admitted that the situation on the battlefront had reached “a stalemate.” The WSJ essay said there are no indications that Russia is losing the conflict, which has become a “war of attrition.” Putin’s hold on power has only strengthened, and Russian defense contractors are outperforming their Western counterparts in producing weaponry. The Russian economy has withstood US-led sanctions, the authors noted. “The technocrats responsible for running the Russian economy have proven themselves to be resilient, adaptable, and resourceful,” the two analysts said. “Elevated oil prices, driven in part by close cooperation with Saudi Arabia, are refilling state coffers. Ukraine, by contrast, depends heavily on infusions of Western cash.”

Weiss and Rumer called for a shift to a long-term containment strategy because “there should be no illusions that any possible combination of short-term steps will be sufficient to force Putin to abandon his war.” The new strategy would involve continuing Western sanctions, isolating Russia diplomatically, and strengthening NATO defense capabilities, as well as “mitigating all of the damage – diplomatic, informational, military and economic” caused by the war. The op-ed stressed that Western leaders used a similarly long-term approach during the Cold War, rather than unrealistically betting on an “overnight collapse of the Soviet system.” However, the analysts advised against fighting another Cold War. “Embarking on a global competition with the Kremlin would not be a wise investment of US prestige or resources. It would consign us to a pointless game of whack-a-mole against any and all manifestations of Russian influence,” wrote Rumer and Weiss.

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Hoocoodanode?

• US Abrams Tanks Made No Difference – Zelensky (RT)

The M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks provided to Ukraine by the US have hardly made a difference on the battlefield, President Vladimir Zelensky said in a discussion with journalists from several African nations published by his office on Wednesday. Zelensky explained that the batch of 31 vehicles, which were fully delivered by mid-October, is too small. While praising the American weapon’s quality, he said, “So far, I can hardly say that they play a particularly important role on the battlefield. There are too few of them.” “For better or for worse, we have many different kinds of tanks,” the Ukrainian president said, describing the US-provided variant as but one part of the fleet.

These remarks align with what Col. Martin O’Donnell, a US Army Europe and Africa spokesman, told the media as he confirmed the completion of Washington’s handover of the units to Kiev. He said, “The Abrams tank is one hell of an armored vehicle, but it’s not a silver bullet.” In January, the US agreed to supply Ukraine with enough Abrams tanks to arm a single battalion as part of its military assistance against Russia. The delivery started in September and was completed a month later. Previously, the Pentagon argued against sending the tanks, saying that Abrams was too difficult and expensive to operate to be of much use to Kiev.

The range of weapons sent to Kiev by its Western donors has been described as a “zoo” by Ukrainian troops. According to Western media reports, this variability causes issues with the compatibility of munitions, adds to the challenge of repairing damaged hardware, and makes training soldiers on how to operate weapon platforms more cumbersome. The Ukrainian military has incorporated a diverse range of armored vehicles into its arsenal, including French AMX-10RC fighting vehicles, German Leopard tanks, British Challenger 2 tanks, and American Abrams tanks. These supplies were anticipated to enhance Kiev’s capabilities for breaking through Russian defensive lines during the summer. However, the anticipated counteroffensive did not yield the desired success. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted to the news of the Abrams tank’s arrival in Ukraine at the time by stating, “These will burn too.”

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“All of the above of course assumed The Mummy knew where he was and what he was talking about, “off the cuff”, and not dictated by his ubiquitous earpiece.”

• Xi Outmanuevers Biden in San Francisco (Pepe Escobar)

All those previous elaborate plans unraveled, in a flash. A tentatively rosy scenario turned into a film noir. The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s response was as sharp as a Dashiell Hammett one-liner – and contextualized: this was not only “extremely wrong” but “an irresponsible political manipulation”. All of the above of course assumed The Mummy knew where he was and what he was talking about, “off the cuff”, and not dictated by his ubiquitous earpiece. The Xi-Biden drama, lasting a little over two hours, was not exactly a remake of “Vertigo”. Washington and Beijing seemed quite cozy jointly promising the proverbial promotion and strengthening of “dialogue and cooperation in various fields”; an intergovernmental dialogue on AI; drug control cooperation; back to high-level military-to-military talking; a “maritime security consultation mechanism”; significantly increasing flights by early 2024; and “expanding exchanges” in education, international students, culture, sports, and business circles.

The Hegemon was far from having a priceless Maltese Falcon (“the stuff dreams are made of”) to offer Beijing. China is already solidified as the world’s top trading economy by PPP. China is advancing at breakneck speed on the tech race even under nasty US sanctions. China’s soft power across the Global South/Global Majority increases by the day. China is co-organizing with Russia the concerted drive towards multipolarity. The White House readout , as bland as it might seem, actually gives away the key part of the plot. Biden – actually his earpiece – underscored “support for a free and open Indo-Pacific”; the defense of “our Indo-Pacific allies”; the “commitment to freedom of navigation and overflight”; “adherence to international law”; “maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea and East China Sea”; “support to “Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression”; and “support for Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism”.

Beijing understands in detail the context and the geopolitical overtones of each of these pledges. What the readout does not say is that Biden’s handlers also tried to convince the Chinese to stop buying oil from their strategic partner Iran. That’s not gonna happen. China imported an average of 1.05 million barrels of oil a day from Iran over the first 10 months of 2023 – and rising. US Think Tankland, always excelling in misinformation and disinformation, believed in their own childish projection of Xi playing tough guy against the US in Asia, knowing that Washington can’t afford a third love affair, sorry, war front on top of Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. The fact is Xi knows all there is to know about imperial, rotating Hybrid War fronts, plus others that can be powered on at the flick of a switch. The Hegemon continues to provoke disturbance not only in Taiwan but in the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, India, and continues to flirt with possible color revolutions in Central Asia.

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“China does not seek spheres of influence, and will not fight a cold war or a hot war with anyone..”

• China Seeks Neither Hegemony Nor To Wage War With Anyone — Xi Jinping (TASS)

China has no desire for hegemony and will not wage either a cold or hot war against anyone, Chinese President Xi Jinping said after talks with US President Joe Biden in San Francisco, Xinhua news agency reported. “Whatever stage of development it may reach, China will never pursue hegemony or expansion, and will never impose its will on others,” Xi Jinping said at a meeting arranged by a number of US organizations. “China does not seek spheres of influence, and will not fight a cold war or a hot war with anyone,” Xinhua quoted the Chinese leader as saying.

The talks between the Chinese and US presidents are their seventh official interaction since January 2021, when Biden became president. The two countries’ heads met in person for the second time (the first meeting was last November on the Indonesian island of Bali). Xi Jinping is visiting the US for the first time in six years. During the visit, he is scheduled to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

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“Why is [Dr. Fauci] so wedded to trying to make you believe it came from the animal kingdom and not the lab? Because he funded the lab.”

• Rand Paul Wants Federal Prosecution of Fauci for COVID Coverup (ET)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has said he’s pursuing federal criminal action against Dr. Anthony Fauci for perjury before Congress. In an interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” with Jan Jekielek, Dr. Paul said he has asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to prosecute Dr. Fauci for giving false testimony during multiple congressional hearings. “We haven’t had a lot of luck,” Dr. Paul said. “Garland is not paying attention to the referral, but [Dr. Fauci] did lie to Congress.” The Epoch Times reached out to Georgetown University, where Dr. Fauci is employed, for comment but didn’t receive a reply by the time of publishing. In July, Dr. Fauci joined the university as a distinguished university professor in its school of medicine’s department of medicine.

Dr. Paul alleges that Dr. Fauci—and multiple other parts of the federal government—engaged in an “extensive” coverup of the origin, threat, and potential treatments for COVID-19. The senator said he detailed the two-year misdirection in his book “Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up,” which was published in October. “Virtually everything they said in private, they said the opposite in the public at the same time,” Dr. Paul said. As early as February 2020, Dr. Fauci and other scientists convened and discussed their conclusion that the genetic sequence of the virus that causes COVID-19 appeared to have been manipulated in a lab to make it more infectious to humans. They were doubly concerned because they knew that the Wuhan, China, lab performed gain-of-function research.

Dr. Paul also alleges that many of the scientists involved in the U.S. public health response to COVID-19 were “funding the lab in Wuhan.” “They actually have a direct conflict of interest because they are the ones that will be culpable,” Dr. Paul said. “Why is [Dr. Fauci] so wedded to trying to make you believe it came from the animal kingdom and not the lab? Because he funded the lab.”

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“..while Hur’s investigation may not lead to criminal charges, the political and public scrutiny over the matter is far from over..”

• No Charges Likely In Biden Classified Document Scandal (ZH)

Following a ‘thorough investigation,’ special counsel Robert Hur is unlikely to charge anyone in connection to President Joe Biden’s classified document scandal, according to multiple reports citing sources familiar with the matter. Hur’s report is expected to sharply criticize Biden and his aides for their handling of classified documents – the standard treatment for the protected establishment class whose name doesn’t end in Trump. This outcome raises obvious questions DOJ sham investigations – for if a Special Counsel’s probe into potential mishandling of sensitive national documents results only in criticism and no legal repercussions, what message does it send about accountability at the highest levels of government?

Hur’s investigation, which began in January following his appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland, has spanned nearly a year. It has involved interviews with around 100 Biden aides, including the President’s embattled son, Hunter Biden, who himself faces unrelated legal troubles following an indictment on federal gun charges. Biden himself was interviewed last month. “The president has been interviewed as part of the investigation being led by Special Counsel Robert Hur,” reads the statement from the White House Counsel’s Office spokesperson Ian Sams (the guy who lied and had a meltdown over Hunter Biden’s $260K in Chinese wires). Of note, Hunter Biden listed Joe’s Wilmington, Delaware home – where a bunch of classified documents were found, as his address when he received above mentioned Chinese wires, due to the Biden family’s dealings with CCP-linked businessmen.

[..] Notably, the investigation has also involved discussions with Secretary of State Tony Blinken, former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, as reported by WSJ. These high-level interviews underscore the gravity of the investigation and the potential ramifications it could have had. The House Oversight Committee wrote a letter to Hur in October requesting information on whether President Biden possessed classified documents related to his son’s foreign business dealings. The classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center and Joe Biden’s Delaware residence date back to his vice presidency and decades-long senate tenure.

Kathy Chung, a Defense Department aide and former Vice President Biden aide recommended by Hunter Biden, was one of the individuals who handled classified documents, according to the Oversight Committee. -Daily Caller As the DOJ investigation winds down, the House Oversight Committee has vowed to continue its quest for clarity and accountability. Former White House Counsel Dana Remus was subpoenaed to appear for a deposition to answer questions about the handling of the classified documents. This move indicates that, while Hur’s investigation may not lead to criminal charges, the political and public scrutiny over the matter is far from over. So yes, corrupt administration investigates itself – finds no wrongdoing worth pursuing. End of story.

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“No level of censorship seemed to be sufficient for President Biden, who once claimed that social media companies were “killing people” by not silencing more dissenting voices..”

• Should Joe Biden Be Banned? (Turley)

An internal State Department dissent memo was leaked this past week, opposing the Biden administration’s position on the war between Israel and Hamas. What was most notable about the memo is that some administration staffers accused President Joe Biden of “spreading misinformation.” It was a moment of crushing irony for some of us who have written and testified against the Biden administration’s censorship efforts. The question is whether, under the administration’s own standards, President Biden should now be banned or blacklisted to protect what his administration has called our “cognitive infrastructure.” For years, the administration and many Democrats in Congress have resisted every effort to expose the sprawling government censorship program that one federal judge described as an “Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”

As I have written previously, it included grants to academic and third-party organizations to create a global system of blacklists and to pressure advertisers to withdraw support from conservative sites. Most recently, a House Judiciary Committee report revealed another layer of this system, described as a “switchboarding” role for the censorship system by channeling demands for removal or bans from state and local officials. This switchboarding process was confirmed by Brian Scully of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), during prior court testimony. CISA’s director, Jen Easterly, previously declared the administration’s intent to extend its role over maintaining critical infrastructure to include “our cognitive infrastructure” and combating not just mis- and disinformation but also “malinformation,” which CISA describes as “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”

As a result, over the last four years, researchers, politicians, and even satirical sites have been banned or blacklisted for offering dissenting views of COVID measures, climate change, gender identity or social justice, according to the House Judiciary report. No level of censorship seemed to be sufficient for President Biden, who once claimed that social media companies were “killing people” by not silencing more dissenting voices. Now, though, President Biden himself is accused — by some in his own administration — of spreading misinformation and supporting war criminals. The five-page State Department memo was signed by 100 State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees and was accompanied by a social media post by a junior foreign affairs staffer, accusing Biden of being “complicit in genocide” in Gaza. The memo accuses Biden of “spreading misinformation,” citing his Oct. 10 speech supporting Israel, and accuses Israel of committing “war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under international law.” It also accuses Biden of ignoring facts — a classic justification for past administration demands to censor figures — on the number of Palestinian casualties.

Democrats face a nightmare of allegations of disinformation on both sides of the war and other issues. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and numerous media outlets have been accused of spreading disinformation about Israel killing hundreds with an airstrike on a Gaza hospital. Former CIA director Leon Panetta, in an interview on Fox News, stood by disproven claims about Russia faking Hunter Biden’s laptop. There is, of course, not even a whisper (let alone a loud demand) for censorship or suspension of any of these figures or outlets, because that is not how the administration’s policies over “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation” — what it terms “MDM” — work. The administration at one point insisted that it would police this “MDM space” to target views on a sweeping range of subjects, including racial justice and the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. So what will the Biden MDM space-rangers do with President Biden? The obvious answer is, “Nothing.”

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“In short, the entertainment factor with Trump’s NY trial just went up immeasurably.”

• Appeals Court Lifts Trump Gag Order In NY Fraud Case (ZH)

A New York appeals court judge on Thursday temporarily lifted a gag order preventing former President Donald Trump from commenting on court staffers in his civil fraud trial. Trump was gagged last month by judge Arthur Engoron, and later fined $15,000 for violations after he talked trash on social media about the Judge’s top law clerk. On Wednesday, Trump’s attorneys filed a lawsuit against the trial judge – arguing that the Engoron had abused his power. In response to the request, Judge David Friedman of the state’s intermediate appeals court scheduled an emergency hearing Thursday afternoon around a conference table in a state appellate courthouse just a few miles from Engoron’s courtroom, where he granted their request.

“Ruling at an emergency hearing Thursday, Friedman questioned Engoron’s authority to police Trump’s speech outside the courtroom — such as his frequent gripes about the case on social media and in comments to TV cameras in the courthouse hallway. Friedman said that while it’s true that judges often issue gag orders, they’re mostly used in criminal cases where there’s a fear that comments about the case could influence the jury. Trump’s civil trial doesn’t have a jury. Trump lawyer Christopher Kise said after Friedman ruled that the appellate judge “made the right decision and allowed President Trump to take full advantage of his constitutional First Amendment rights to talk about bias in his own trial, what he’s seeing and witnessing in his own trial — which, frankly, everyone needs to see.” -AP

Vivek
https://twitter.com/i/status/1725009663924604970

“I don’t see a reason for restrictions because Ms. James is continuing to disparage my client,” said Trump attorney Alina Habba, referring to NY Attorney General Letitia James, who is prosecuting the case. In staying the order, Trump can now freely comment about the court and its staff while the appeals process plays out. Separately on Wednesday, Trump’s legal team urged Engoron to stop the case immediately, arguing that his appearance of bias “threatens both Defendants’ rights and the integrity of the judiciary as an institution.” “This constitutional protection is at its apogee where the speech in question is core political speech, made by the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, regarding perceived partisanship and bias at a trial where he is subject to hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and the threatened prohibition of his lawful business activities in the state,” the filing continues. In short, the entertainment factor with Trump’s NY trial just went up immeasurably.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Kirsch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1725058928415764975

 

 

 

 


Jacana father shields his offspring

 

 

 

 

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Set The World On Fire

Nov 152023
 
 November 15, 2023  Posted by at 6:39 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  15 Responses »


Ford Madox Brown King Lear and Cordelia c1851

 

 

An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes. – Sun Tzu

Après moi, le déluge – Louis XV

What I think we see happening in the past few years, and you can go back as far back as you like and look for the signs, is that the American elites, plus their UK brethren (the EU are just followers), have shifted towards an attitude of “if we can’t control the world, we will set it on fire”. That’s the light in which I think you need to see Ukraine and Gaza, as well as their upcoming move vs China. Ukraine is vs Russia, Gaza is vs Iran, the fight vs China might be Taiwan. That’s their three main goals, and they may well be intent on tackling them all at once. After all, what do you have to lose if you want to set the world on fire?

There are no American losses in all this, just some old equipment “sold” to countries, paid for by American and European taxpayers. No American soldiers or civilians are lost, well, at least officially, only Ukrainians and Palestinians (and soon, Taiwanese?). Even if there are 500,000 of them, the US doesn’t care. The term “collateral damage“ was invented for just this occasion. And they intend to cause much more of it. Already, we see Boeing expanding its arms production facilities. Raytheon and General Dynamics et al are sure to follow suit, soon. That is money. That is our future. We’re gearing up for war. They’re going to burn it all down for profit.

Ukraine, since 2014 (or before, if you will) has been the first test case. Gaza is the second. They lost Ukraine in humiliating fashion. So bad, in fact, that they still won’t admit defeat. Instead, they have people in Kiev saying the conflict will take another 5 years. As there are hardly 5 weeks of cannon-fodder soldiers left there, and their average age is 45. Did the US miscalculate the strength of the Russian army or did they just not care?

I’d go for both. The situation there, they can blame Zelensky and other Ukrainians for the losses. Anyone but DC. “They don’t understand the “sophisticated” US armory, they don’t understand the “sophisticated” US/NATO battle plans, they just die. We had no idea. We thought they were as smart as us, or something.” They will get rid of Zelensky, send him either to Monaco or Elysium, and bring in probably Zaluzhny. Though why would he want the job? To be painted a loser?

 

In the middle East, they have Netanyahu doing their bidding. And while they’re prodding him for more corpses, they tell you they’re trying to stop, or pause, Bibi, but “he’s gone berserk”. Well, the US cares as much about Palestinians as they do about Ukrainians. And they’d care exactly as much about Americans if there were no homefront or no elections. Which they’re pretty close to cancelling as well.

Bibi’s been dreaming about the position he’s in today for 50 years. He doesn’t care about people, or bloodshed, or dead children, he’s seeing his life long dream come true: get rid of all Palestinians. Create the promised land. This is not the world of the 1970’s, however. But Bibi doesn’t see that. He only sees his old dream. And the US elites are more than happy to help him try to achieve it. Because it means profits. And sure, also because there’s a large, and very powerful Jewish lobby in US politics. Who are as blind to today’s world as he is.

It suits the guys behind the curtain very well, thank you, that everyone blames Bibi for the atrocities in Gaza, and they never get mentioned. But he’s a puppet the same way Zelensky is, Want to kill -young- people? Here’s your tools. Our taxpayers already paid the bill.

In the US, UK, EU, the idea is that if you have enough firepower, you can do anything. What they missed, is that they no longer have that kind of firepower. Or, rather, they do, but the other side, Russia,Iran etc., has five times as much by now.

Meanwhile, the US elites have set Europe on a road to perdition. Helped along by agents such as von der Leyen, Michel and Borrell, they managed to completely destroy the continent’s future. In just 2-3 years. Remarkable. Europe could still be part of a multipolar world, but they don’t make their own decisions. Europe buys American LNG at 3-4 times what it would cost on the world market, and they refuse to say a single word about the US blowing up the vital Nordstream pipelines. No future.

So what future does the rest of the world have? Well, with the US dead-set on setting it on fire if they can’t control it, that is not an easy question. In any “conversation” where one of the parties is suicidal, odds are off. Should we move to Russia?

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle November 7 2023

Nov 072023
 
 November 7, 2023  Posted by at 9:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  70 Responses »


Hieronymus Bosch St. John on Patmos 1489

 

• Hamas Political Wing Offered ‘Clemency’ for Hostage Release – Sy Hersh (Sp.)
• US to Transfer $320 Million in Precision Bomb Kits to Israel (Antiwar)
• US Diplomats Condemn Israel Policy – Politico (RT)
• Israel To Take Over ‘Security’ In Gaza – Netanyahu (RT)
• The ICC Must Investigate The Crime Of Genocide In Gaza (Jeremy Corbyn)
• Arab States Condemn Israeli Minister’s ‘Nuke Gaza’ Threat (RT)
• The Four Wars (Jim Kunstler)
• Trump: “I’m The Only One That Will Prevent World War Three” (SN)
• Judge Tells Trump’s Lawyers To ‘Control Him’ (RT)
• Jack Smith Could Be on Shaky Ground in Trump Charge (ET)
• Legacy Media Readies American Public for Ukraine’s Defeat (Sp.)
• ‘Rational Actors’ Ready To Take Power In Ukraine – Moscow (RT)
• Ukrainian Army Has ‘Run Out of Cannon Fodder’ – Former US Envoy (Sp.)
• Demographics Is Destiny (Denninger)

 

 

 

 

Habba

Alina Habba response to the Judge saying I’m not here to hear what he has to say: “Then why exactly am I being paid as an attorney and why exactly are taxpayers dollars being used in this court room. The answer is very clear. Because Ms. James… ‘wants to’ make a name for herself. She said this morning that the numbers don’t lie and it won’t lie in this case. Ms. James I have a message for you. The number didn’t lie when you ran for Governor and that’s why you dropped out. And the numbers don’t lie when President Trump runs for office in 2024 and those numbers are loud and clear. This country is falling apart and if we don’t stop corruption in court rooms, where attorneys are gagged. Where attorneys are not allowed to say what they need to say to protect their clients interest. It doesn’t matter what your politics are. Everyone has a right in this country to get up and put a defense. “

 

 

 

 

Right to defend
https://twitter.com/i/status/1721516768659714477

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We’re holding out clemency for the Hamas political leadership – giving them a chance to surrender the hostages and cling to life by moving them to the hospital..”

• Hamas Political Wing Offered ‘Clemency’ for Hostage Release – Sy Hersh (Sp.)

Israel, whose military claimed it has encircled Gaza City, and was poised to press on with its attack on Hamas despite widespread calls for a ceasefire or temporary pauses, has estimated that over 240 hostages are being held by the militant group. In secret talks with Israel, the political leadership of Hamas has been offered “clemency” in return for a release of the Gaza-held hostages, US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in an article on Substack. The offer was extended to the group’s political wing, who claim to have not been directly involved in the planning for the October 7 Hamas attack, sources told the journalist. “The thought was that if they agree to try their own people and order them executed, they will be given their lives while also exonerating Israel for the war,” an American official was quoted as saying.

As the Israeli military and political leadership hunt down members of the Hamas military “in the tunnels and rubble of Gaza City,” they have “orders are to shoot to kill on sight,” wrote the journalist. At the same time, the fate of the remaining hostages in Gaza has prompted Israel to come up with incentive for the Hamas political leaders to “save their own lives by arranging for Israeli hostages to be transferred to a basement in the besieged al-Shifa hospital.” Israeli military has insisted that the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip is a stronghold of Hamas. It earlier released 3D-rendered footage showing the alleged extent of a Hamas headquarters it says is burrowed deep underneath the Al-Shifa Hospital. Some Israeli officials “fear that time is running out” amid lack of understanding as to “how long the air in the tunnels will be breathable,” wrote the journalist, adding that there were hopes Israeli hostages could be moved to “safer, drier, and healthier quarters below ground in Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital.” “I was told that water and food would be available,” added Hersh.

“We’re holding out clemency for the Hamas political leadership – giving them a chance to surrender the hostages and cling to life by moving them to the hospital,” a source told the Pulitzer Prize-winner. In a “significant stage” in Israel’s war against Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have claimed it has encircled Gaza City, and divided the besieged enclave into two. It touted its looming operation to destroy the tunnels and Hamas’ military and civilian institutions. At the same time, it is estimated that militants are holding hostage over 248 soldiers and civilians, including foreign nationals. “Thirty-one of the hostages are seventy years and older—one is said to be a Holocaust survivor, and two are infants, aged four months and eight months, with no mother or father, and twenty-three under eighteen years of age,” an Israeli was cited as telling Hersh. The source added that the International Committee of the Red Cross “has not been pressuring Hamas to grant them access to the hostages, although it did seek almost immediate access to the two hundred Hamas prisoners in Israeli custody.”

Sy Hersh recalled that “a possible breakthrough” concerning the hostages “emerged in secret talks between Israel and Yahya Sinwar, a onetime prisoner of Israel who now directs the political wing of Hamas.” Sinwar issued a statement on October 28, that said: “We are ready to conduct an immediate prisoner exchange deal that includes the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for all prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance.” Since then, the Hamas leader and his colleagues have been informed by Israel that if they want to survive, they must “release the Israeli hostages and agree to begin holding immediate war-crime tribunals.” Sy Hersh underscored that the Israelis were seeking the death penalty “for those Hamas combat leaders who encouraged and then did nothing to stop the war crimes of their fighters.”

There has been growing global condemnation of Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza, with the Palestinian Health Ministry saying 10,022 people have been killed since October 7, including 4,104 children and 2,641 women. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Washington, London, Berlin, Rome, Santiago, other cities, demanding an immediate ceasefire, with many perceiving Israel’s actions as a “war crime.” While the “concept of an Israeli-instigated war-crimes tribunal amid a bombing campaign that has flattened much of Gaza may seem out of a bad novel,” wrote Seymour Hersh, he cited an Israeli expert with insider knowledge of the hostage talks as insisting that Yahya Sinwar “could be open to a deal.” “He is a fanatic and an ascetic… Dedicated to the cause. No family, very religious but got very friendly with Shin Bet [Israeli internal security] guys while in prison and was seen as not irrational. He will want a chance to give service to the cause. He will be open to a door,” the expert said. It was added that Sinwar and some Hamas officials “now in Qatar,” would hold out for a deal “to include a commitment that Israel would not come after them if a deal is made.”

Read more …

“..the Pentagon has refused to say how much weaponry, equipment, and other types of aid it has provided Israel since October 7..”

• US to Transfer $320 Million in Precision Bomb Kits to Israel (Antiwar)

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the Biden administration is planning a $320 million transfer of precision-guided bomb kits to Israel, a show of support for the Israeli onslaught despite the growing civilian death toll. The report said the administration notified congressional leaders on October 31 that it intended to transfer Spice Family Gliding Bomb Assemblies, which turn unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions that can be fired by Israeli warplanes. The bombs will be transferred from weapons manufacturer Rafael USA to its Israeli parent company, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It’s unclear what funds will be used for the transfer or if Israel is purchasing the equipment.

Israel receives $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the US, and the Biden administration is looking to provide another $14 billion to support the Gaza campaign. In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, the US began immediately shipping new military equipment to Israel. According to the Journal, the Pentagon has refused to say how much weaponry, equipment, and other types of aid it has provided Israel since October 7. Besides the material support, the US is flying drones over Gaza, has special operations forces in Israel, and has deployed an enormous amount of firepower to the region. The news of the $320 million bomb transfer came as the death toll in Gaza surpassed 10,000, including over 4,000 children. US officials claim they are pressing Israel about the civilian casualties, but the administration refuses to condition military aid or use other leverage it has.

Read more …

“When Israel supports settler violence and illegal land seizures or employs excessive use of force against Palestinians, we must communicate publicly that this goes against our American values..”

• US Diplomats Condemn Israel Policy – Politico (RT)

Lower- and mid-level diplomats at the US State Department have called on the administration of President Joe Biden to condemn Israel’s bombing of civilians and demand a ceasefire in Gaza, according to a leaked memo seen by Politico. The memo is the latest sign of division within the department over Israel. The memo calls on Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior diplomats to publicly demand that Israel agree to a ceasefire, and to align their public and private statements on the conflict, Politico reported on Monday. Criticizing Israel in private but not in public “contributes to regional public perceptions that the United States is a biased and dishonest actor, which at best does not advance, and at worst harms, US interests worldwide,” the memo reportedly states.

“We must publicly criticize Israel’s violations of international norms such as failure to limit offensive operations to legitimate military targets,” the message continues. “When Israel supports settler violence and illegal land seizures or employs excessive use of force against Palestinians, we must communicate publicly that this goes against our American values so that Israel does not act with impunity.” The memo was marked “sensitive but unclassified,” Politico noted, adding that it is unclear how many people signed it, and whether it was submitted to the department’s ‘Dissent Channel,’ which functions as a soapbox for employees to question policy decisions.

Several similar memos have been circulated since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, and Blinken met with a group of dissenting staffers late last month, the Huffington Post reported. A week before the alleged meeting, the State Department’s arms-transfer chief quit his job in protest, writing in his resignation letter that Washington’s rush to arm Israel was “shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse.” While Blinken has criticized incidents of violence against Palestinians by Jewish settlers, he has spoken more vaguely about the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza. “We’ve engaged the Israelis on steps that they can take to minimize civilian casualties,” he said on Monday, after the Gaza Health Ministry reported that more than 10,000 people had died in the enclave since Israel’s bombing campaign began a month ago.

Despite an overwhelming vote in favor of a ceasefire at the UN General Assembly late last month, Blinken has repeatedly rejected calls for a halt to the Israeli operation. Any pause in the fighting, he argued last week, would give Hamas time to “regroup and repeat what it did on October 7,” referring to the group’s assault on Israel that left around 1,400 people dead. Blinken’s aversion to a ceasefire was echoed in a memo sent to US diplomats at the outset of the conflict. The State Department email urged diplomats and communications staffers to steer clear of phrases such as “restoring calm,” “end to violence/bloodshed,” or “de-escalation/ceasefire,” and instead to emphasize the Jewish state’s right to “self-defense.”

Read more …

“President Joe Biden said the move would be a “big mistake.” “It would be a mistake… for Israel to occupy… Gaza again..”

• Israel To Take Over ‘Security’ In Gaza – Netanyahu (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country will have to manage “overall security” in Gaza for an “indefinite” period of time after the current war with Hamas ends. Speaking to ABC News for an interview published on Monday, Netanyahu was asked about Israel’s long-term plans for the territory should it succeed in dismantling Hamas, suggesting the need for a lengthy deployment. “I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, have the overall security responsibility [in Gaza] because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it,” he said. “When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine.” The comments appear to contradict past statements from senior Israeli officials.

In announcing a major ground assault on the Palestinian enclave last month, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant emphasized that Israeli troops must not be responsible for “day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip.” While the official said Israel would establish a new “security reality” in the area after the current war, he suggested it would seek to hand off post-conflict governance to a third party. Even while vocally supporting Israel’s military operation against Hamas, Washington has warned of the perils of another Gaza occupation. During a recent interview with CBS, President Joe Biden said the move would be a “big mistake.” “It would be a mistake… for Israel to occupy… Gaza again,” he said. “But going in… but taking out the extremists, the Hezbollah is up north but Hamas down south, is a necessary requirement.”

Israel first occupied Gaza during the 1967 Six-Day War with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, and only withdrew its troops and settlers nearly 40 years later. It has maintained a tight blockade over the enclave in the years since, and has launched periodic bombing campaigns against Hamas since the group took control of Gaza in 2006. The latest round of fighting erupted last month on the heels of a Hamas terrorist attack which killed around 1,400 Israelis. The IDF has launched weeks of retaliatory airstrikes and gradually escalated a ground attack on Gaza, leaving more than 10,000 Palestinians dead, according to local officials.

Read more …

No Jeremy. The ICC lost all credit when it charged Putin for kidnapping children.

• The ICC Must Investigate The Crime Of Genocide In Gaza (Jeremy Corbyn)

My last visit to Al-Shati refugee camp was early 2013. Located on the Mediterranean coast in the north of Gaza, Al-Shati was otherwise known as “Beach Camp”. Vendors sold fruit under multi-coloured parasols. Cats slept in the middle of narrow alleys. Children jostled over skipping rope in the shade. Beach Camp was established in 1948 after 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced in the Nakba. Initially, the camp accommodated around 23,000 refugees. In the following seven decades, that number grew to 90,000, cramped inside 0.5 square kilometres (0.2 square miles) of land – 70 times more populated than London’s city centre. People in Gaza have been living under a blockade for the past 16 years and the Israeli occupation controls most of what goes in and out of Gaza.

Beach Camp was no different – and people there largely relied on aid and services from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to survive, including a health centre, a food distribution centre and several school buildings. Beach Camp Primary School was beautifully maintained. I was allowed up onto the roof, where I could see the fence with Israel on one side. Out to sea were several Israeli patrol boats keeping Palestinian fishermen from sailing more than six nautical miles out. The school was run by inspiring and hard-working teachers, whose philosophy was to create a calm atmosphere for discovery, music, theatre and art. Some of the students showed me their work. Many were drawings of planes, fences and bombs. But there were other drawings too: of their parents, their brothers, their sisters and their friends.

All of the children, obviously, had underlying trauma, but they also had a desire to learn, share and play. On October 9, two days after the deplorable attack by Hamas in southern Israel, there were reports of an Israeli air strike on Beach Camp. This wasn’t the first strike on the camp. In May 2021, at least 10 Palestinians, eight of whom were children, were killed in an air strike. Nor was it the last. Beach Camp has been repeatedly targeted in the past three weeks. When I hear news of bombardment in Gaza, I think about that school at Beach Camp. I don’t know if it is still there. I don’t know if those children and teachers are still alive. I don’t know.

The Israeli army has dropped 25,000 tonnes of bombs onto a tiny strip of land, populated by 2.3 million people. There is no meaningful sense whatsoever that they are trying to avoid civilian deaths. More than 9,900 people in Gaza have been killed, including more than 4,800 children. Survivors still under siege are running out of the basic means of survival: water, fuel, food and medical supplies. Doctors are performing surgery without anaesthesia. Mothers are watching their babies fight for survival in incubators running out of electricity. People are being forced to drink seawater. More than 1 million people have been displaced from their homes.

Read more …

“The Israeli military has dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza since October 7, equivalent in power to two of the nuclear bombs used on Hiroshima..“

• Arab States Condemn Israeli Minister’s ‘Nuke Gaza’ Threat (RT)

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other Arab states have all denounced Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu for suggesting that his country drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza. Eliyahu was suspended, but not fired, for his remarks. Speaking to Radio Kol Berama on Sunday, Eliyahu said that using nuclear weapons against the Palestinian enclave “is one of the possibilities,” after his interviewer said that this would “flatten” the area and “eliminate everybody there.” Eliyahu, a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, was indefinitely suspended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later on Sunday. The minister’s comments “show to what extent extremism and brutality have penetrated the Israeli government,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The fact that Eliyahu was not outright fired, the ministry continued, “reflects the Israeli government’s disregard for all values of humanity, morality, religion and law.” “These statements constitute a violation of international law, as well as incitement to commit grave violations of International Humanitarian Law, such as war crimes, and raise grave concerns of an intent to commit genocide,” the UAE said. Jordan released a similar statement describing Eliyahu’s comments as a “call for genocide and a hate crime that cannot be ignored,” while the Qatari Foreign Ministry said that it “strongly condemns the threat made by an Israeli minister to strike Gaza with a nuclear bomb and considers it a serious incitement to a war crime.” Eliyahu’s remarks revealed that “Israel possesses nuclear weapons, which is an open secret,” Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit declared.

The comments also “confirm the truth of the racist view Israelis hold against Palestinians,” he added. “This is the true face of the occupation government.” Despite Eliyahu defending his comments as “metaphorical,” he faced heavy criticism within Israel. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant condemned his “baseless and irresponsible words,” while opposition leader Yair Lapid called on Netanyahu to fire the minister for causing “harm to the families of the hostages, Israeli society, and our international standing.” The Israeli military has dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza since October 7, equivalent in power to two of the nuclear bombs used on Hiroshima, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor NGO said in a press release on Thursday. More than 10,000 people have been killed and 25,000 injured in the strip as a result of the Israeli bombardment and ground offensive, according to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.

Read more …

“..We emerge from this catastrophe a nearly medievalized society with a steeply-reduced population, unable to resist China’s attempt to colonize us. Pretty scary, huh? Just let’s keep doing what we’re doing.”

• The Four Wars (Jim Kunstler)

Bringing us to War No. 3: The US Government’s war against its own citizens. This has been going on since Mr. Trump stepped onto the scene, and has included a semi-successful war against Mr. Trump personally — except that not only has it failed to put him out of business as a politician, it has substantiated many of the claims he made about corrupt and perfidious government that resulted in his election in 2016. All of that has only enhanced his polling numbers. And the lawless, bad faith court cases lodged against him have demonstrated the US government’s grievous fall into willful malfeasance that has the DOJ arresting and unfairly persecuting hundreds of innocent Americans that support Mr. Trump.

A big part of the government’s war against US citizens has been the bizarre Covid-19 episode and the long-running effort by public officials to deceive the population about it, including lockdowns and destruction of small businesses, the dishonest suppression of viable treatments, gross censorship about the harms of the mRNA vaccines, and trickery around the origins of the vaccines in the back rooms of our Department of Defense. Another front of this war is the wide-open Mexican border, a lawless state of affairs created as deliberate policy by our cabinet secretaries, and done at a time when there is tremendous animus against the US from many other nations who send thousands of sketchy young men into our country with no attempt by our border officials to determine who they are.

It looks like “Joe Biden’s” hash will be settled shortly when the House, reorganized under a young and vital new speaker, reveals the Biden family’s bank records and begins the process of impeaching the president for bribery. “Joe Biden’s” party pretends that this is not happening and appears to have no plan to deal with consequences. For the moment, they still stupidly tout him as their candidate for the 2024 election, another arrant falsehood you can add to the thousand-and one affronts against the public that this party has tried to put over. Many Americans suspect there will not be a 2024 election, specifically that whoever is president in the coming year will invoke yet another national emergency order to postpone it on spurious grounds. Many are also far from persuaded that the 2020 election that installed “Joe Biden” was honest and legitimate.

Which brings us to War No. 4: The American peoples’ war against a government gone rogue. Obviously, it is not underway yet, but it’s easy to see how it might develop. I think it could commence in the aftermath of a financial calamity that is visibly brewing in the debt markets. The net result will be a collapsed standard-of-living for everyone in the USA, the breakdown of supply lines and daily business, and a very sharp loss of legitimacy for the people who have been in charge of anything in this country. We emerge from this catastrophe a nearly medievalized society with a steeply-reduced population, unable to resist China’s attempt to colonize us. Pretty scary, huh? Just let’s keep doing what we’re doing.

Read more …

“..we have unbelievable technology. It can shoot a needle out of the air, it is incredible.”

• Trump: “I’m The Only One That Will Prevent World War Three” (SN)

During a speech at the Florida Republican Party’s “Freedom Summit” in Kissimmee Saturday, Donald Trump declared that he is the only candidate who can prevent World War Three, warning that “we are closer than anyone understands” to “obliteration.” Trump also told the crowd that “When you think of it, how important elections are, you’d have millions of people alive right now if the 2020 election was not rigged. They would be alive. Ukraine, Israel. The attack would have never been made. All of these people would be alive, the cities would be thriving.” Trump pointed to the global chaos that is now further unfolding, noting “For four straight years, under the Trump administration, I kept America safe, I kept Israel safe, and I kept the entire world safe.”

“I kept my promise and recognized Israel’s eternal capital and opened the American embassy in Jerusalem,” Trump continued, adding “I also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and really, probably most importantly, but they did nothing with it, I withdrew from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, but they were supposed to do something with it. And you could have because Iran did not have any money.” “What is going on. What is going on now is shocking,” Trump urged, adding “All over the planet our enemies knew that if you tried to kill our citizens we will kill you. If you spill a drop of American blood, we will spill a gallon of your blood. That is what it was, and it was not a threat, that was just the way it was going to have to be. And we do it because we want to make sure we are not starting wars. We did not have to start wars.” Trump further noted, “In the debate with beautiful Hillary Clinton, she said, ‘Look at him. Look at the way he talks. He is going to get us into wars. He is going to start World War III.’

And I said, ‘No, no, it is the way I talked that will keep you out of World War III.’” He continued, “To every American is petrified that Joe Biden’s catastrophic weakness will bring our country to ruin, which he has a great chance of doing, he is close to that anyway. He’s close to economic ruin, I make you this promise, as your president, and nobody else can say it, I will restore peace through strength, and, yes, I am the only one that will prevent World War III, because we are very close to World War III.” Trump further warned, “this will not be a First World War or a Second World War. This will be obliteration, because the level of power, of weaponry of power you have never seen anything — you do not want to see it. When they talk about global warming, because in 250 years our ocean will be one inch higher, and they never mention the power of nuclear weapons, where one madman can do damage the likes of which nobody has ever seen before. It is just crazy. It is crazy to see it, it is crazy to talk about it.”

“But I will stop it, and it will happen very quickly. There will not be a World War III, and we are closer than anyone understands. To protect our citizens from foreign threats, I will build a state-of-the-art missile defense shield. We will build that. We will build that,” Trump vowed. He continued, “And it will be jobs for America. It will be built in America. We developed the technology, nobody else, by the way. A lot of people said we developed the technology. The technology was developed by us, and it works. You see it. Ronald Reagan wanted to do it, but at that time they did not have the technology. The concept was good, but we have unbelievable technology. It can shoot a needle out of the air, it is incredible. Would you feel a little safer, a little more comfortable if we can do that? And it is jobs, jobs in America.”

Read more …

“When another Trump lawyer stood up to argue that Trump should be allowed to answer the questions in his own way, the judge shouted, “Sit down already. Sit down.”

• Judge Tells Trump’s Lawyers To ‘Control Him’ (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has taken the stand in the New York civil fraud case against him, angering the judge by criticizing the court and arguing that he is being attacked by politically motivated prosecutors around the country. The trial resumed on Monday with Trump testifying for the first time to rebut allegations by New York Attorney General Letitia James that he and other executives in his real estate organization fraudulently inflated the value of key properties to get favorable loan terms. James is seeking $250 million in damages in her lawsuit, which comes at a time when the ex-president also faces felony charges in four separate criminal cases against him. While being questioned by state attorney Kevin Wallace, Trump said, “You and every other Democratic district attorney, AG, US attorney were coming after me from 15 different sides – all Democrats, all Trump haters.”

He accused James of perpetrating a “political witch hunt” and claimed that Judge Arthur Engoron was biased against him. The judge repeatedly interrupted Trump’s testimony to complain that his answers were not directly responsive to the questions and veered off into political speeches. “This is not a political rally,” Engoron told Trump’s lawyers, suggesting that they “need to have a talk with him right now.” As the ex-president continued to offer his opinions on the case, the judge said, “I beseech you to control him if you can. If you can’t, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can.” At stake is the future of Trump’s real estate empire. The judge, who has already found Trump and his co-defendants liable for “persistent and repeated” fraud, will decide on penalties at the end of the trial.

He has said that he will dissolve some of Trump’s companies, which could result in the ex-president losing some of his most prominent New York properties. Trump, who is polling as the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential race, has called Engoron a “deranged, Trump-hating judge.” The loans related to the disputed property valuations have already been repaid. Trump testified on Monday that although he lowered the valuations on two of his properties, his holdings were actually worth more overall than claimed on the financial statements given to lenders. “The most valuable asset was the brand value,” he said. “I became president because of my brand.”

Christopher Kise, one of Trump’s lawyers, told Engoron that it was only fair for the American people to hear the ex-president’s views on the case. “This is a situation where you have on the stand a candidate for president of the United States,”Kise said. “The court needs to hear what he has to say about these statements.” Engoron shot back, “No, I am not here to hear what he has to say.”When another Trump lawyer stood up to argue that Trump should be allowed to answer the questions in his own way, the judge shouted, “Sit down already. Sit down.” Undeterred by the judge’s interjections, Trump said, “This is a very, very unfair trial – very — and I hope the public is watching it.”

Read more …

“..everyone in this election is going to be talking about these cases,” the law professor said, “except one person under this gag order and that is Donald Trump.”

• Jack Smith Could Be on Shaky Ground in Trump Charge (ET)

Two analysts have noted that special counsel Jack Smith might be on shaky legal ground in his federal election-related case against former President Donald Trump. Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, said that the Trump charge of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding hasn’t been “extensively litigated” over the past several decades, adding that a ruling could come on whether it is appropriate in the former president’s case. Multiple defendants who were charged in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach have “argued that Congress certifying the electoral votes was not an ‘official proceeding’ and courts have universally rejected that argument,” she told Newsweek last week.

“This bigger question is, what satisfies the ‘corruptly’ requirement? Is it any criminal conduct, such as trespassing in the Capitol building or submitting fake electors? Or does the corrupt conduct have to relate to the other subsections of 1512, which prohibit destroying or concealing evidence?” she asked. She continued: “If the corruption requires consciousness of guilt, then Trump can argue that he genuinely believed the election was stolen. Either way, this issue will likely end up before the United States Supreme Court because it is a novel issue that affects hundreds of criminal defendants, including the former president.” Lawfare’s Roger Parloff wrote in a recent article that the Department of Justice (DOJ) recently won two “fragile” victories in two cases involving Jan. 6 defendants, and Mr. Smith has “relied on [a] statute” that was used by other prosecutors to charge at least 317 individuals in the Jan. 6 case.

“Smith has relied on that statute and its conspiracy equivalent, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k), for two of the four counts in his indictment against former President Donald Trump for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the 2020 election,” Mr. Parloff wrote. “Those counts, whose legal sufficiency Trump challenged in a motion to dismiss this week, are the most serious leveled against Trump in that case, carrying a maximum 20-year term of imprisonment.” Three appellants in a Jan. 6 case are now petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review a recent appeals court ruling that favored the DOJ, he noted, but he said that the D.C. appeals court judges “can’t agree about its holdings, and its holdings determine the viability of a 20-year felony that an ex-president and major presidential candidate now stands charged with violating.”

“Moreover, at the appeals court level, judges’ acceptance of the Justice Department’s interpretations of that law have been 100 percent correlated with the political party of the judge’s appointer,” he wrote. “If that trend continues, and if either case climbs one more rung up the appellate ladder, the department (and Mr. Smith) faces bleak prospects indeed.” The comments come as constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley warned that the gag order targeting President Donald Trump is “unconstitutional” and said that an appeals court ruling to rescind the order last week was a “quite significant” development. Several weeks ago, District of Columbia Judge Tanya Chutkan placed a gag order on the former president in the Jan. 6-related case, saying President Trump cannot speak about potential witnesses, court staff, or prosecutors. An appeals court in the district froze Judge Chutkan’s order late last week, with oral arguments being set for Nov. 20.

“They could have left it to continue, to continue while they reviewed it, but they decided perhaps in an abundance of caution to order this stoppage until they can give it a full review,” Mr. Turley, a professor for George Washington University, said on Fox News on Nov. 3. “The reason I think this could be quite significant is because I think the order is unconstitutional.” He added that it is “very odd” to issue the order because the same court “insisted on having this trial before the election, sort of shoehorned it in before Super Tuesday,” referring to the key GOP presidential nominating date. “And everyone in this election is going to be talking about these cases,” the law professor said, “except one person under this gag order and that is Donald Trump.”

Read more …

“Russian victory in Ukraine would be a terrible blow to US interests, but not terrible enough to risk nuclear war.. ”

• Legacy Media Readies American Public for Ukraine’s Defeat (Sp.)

A visibly agitated President Volodymyr Zelensky defiantly denied on Sunday that the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine had entered a “stalemate,” assuring in an extensive interview with US media that Moscow has not “checkmated” Kiev, and that Ukraine still has many “different plans” to maintain the initiative. “Our military are coming up with different plans, with different operations in order to move forward faster and to strike the Russian Federation unexpectedly,” Zelensky said, in stark contradiction to Zaluzhnyi’s comments about the counteroffensive’s utter failure to penetrate Russian defenses. “As far as the situation on the front is concerned, of course I cannot provide all the details to you but nevertheless we are holding the initiative in our hands. You can imagine what over two years of a full-scale war is like.

Everybody gets tired. Even the iron gets tired,” Zelensky said. “I don’t think that this is a stalemate…We have done a lot,” he assured. Zelensky stressed that Ukraine could not proceed with its operations “barehanded,” “without relevant, proper weapons,” calling for more aid and assuring that money sent to Ukraine is “not aid to Ukraine,” but support for the US and the EU themselves, because Kiev is “defending our joint values.” The Ukrainian president rejected any possibility of negotiations with Russia, saying he didn’t “want to make any dialogue with terrorists,” and dismissing former President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to end the conflict in “24 hours.” Instead, the Ukrainian leader suggested, it would take him “24 minutes to explain [to] President Trump that he can’t manage this war.”

Western media have taken note of Zelensky’s shift in rhetoric, with one outlet pointing out that while the Ukrainian leader once assured the West of a speedy victory, now the message seems to be geared toward asking for more support to prevent the conflict from dragging on indefinitely, playing on the West’s fears of a protracted conflict with Moscow that cannot be won. But some observers have come out ahead of Zelensky, kicking off what seems like a carefully crafted campaign to prepare Western publics for defeat, or a least a “rethink” of what “victory” in Ukraine looks like. “Ukraine today finds itself worse off than it was last November. Its troops are exhausted and depleted, its weapons stocks are running low, and Western publics are more polarized over further support,” one pundit writing in a major US newspaper wrote.

“Ukraine’s counteroffensive was supposed to sustain political support for Kiev by proving that it could reconquer lost territory. Now, supporters of Ukraine might need to make the inverse argument: Ukraine is not reconquering substantial territory, and aid is needed indefinitely to forestall a devastating defeat.” Washington “might need to pivot from dreaming of victory to preparing to live with a stalemate,” since “there is virtually no appetite in the United States for direct war with Russia. Russian victory in Ukraine would be a terrible blow to US interests, but not terrible enough to risk nuclear war,” the observer stressed.

Read more …

“The government in Kiev treats its own people as something “alien”..

• ‘Rational Actors’ Ready To Take Power In Ukraine – Moscow (RT)

Not all Ukrainian elites and politicians agree with Kiev’s current belligerent stance against Moscow, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said on Sunday while speaking at the ‘Russia’ exhibition in Moscow. “Rational actors” do exist in Ukraine but are currently “suppressed” by the Kiev government, he added. These forces are already “standing in the wings” and are ready to take power when the time is right, the former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) chief said, without elaborating who exactly he may be referring to. Patrushev also said that the Ukrainian governments after the Maidan coup, including the current one led by President Vladimir Zelensky, are “bound to answer” for all the atrocities committed in Ukraine since 2014, including the years-long persecution of the Russian-speaking minority and the people of Donbass, as well as the attacks on Russian civilians, public figures, journalists, and infrastructure.

“They will not be able to hide from a just people’s court like the former SS member Yaroslav Hunka,” Patrushev said, referring to a Ukrainian SS veteran hailed by Canada’s parliament during a visit by Zelensky in September. The incident sparked an angry reaction from Poland, Russia, and several Jewish organizations, and led to the resignation of Canadian House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota, who claimed that he was unaware of Hunka’s past. Russia has made it clear that it is not waging war against the Ukrainian people. President Vladimir Putin has said that Ukrainians have become the victims of Western political games and their own government’s policies. The government in Kiev treats its own people as something “alien,” Putin said during his annual address to the Russian parliament in February.

Ukrainians have been turned into “cannon fodder,” he argued, adding that the country had been pushed towards war with Russia since 2014, when Kiev sent military forces to confront the Donbass militias in the wake of the Maidan coup. “Responsibility for the incitement of the Ukrainian conflict, for its escalation and an increasing number of its victims rests fully with the Western elites and with the current Kiev regime,” he stated at the time. Earlier this week, Zelensky once again declared that Kiev will not talk to Moscow or make any concessions to Russia. He also denied reports that Western nations are pushing Ukraine towards peace talks with Russia. He did admit, though, that the country’s media and Ukrainians themselves were speculating about the idea of talks with Russia, adding that he was “surprised” by such sentiments.

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“..Putin said that the West no longer has enough Ukrainian cannon fodder and they are thinking about Lithuanians and Poles.”

• Ukrainian Army Has ‘Run Out of Cannon Fodder’ – Former US Envoy (Sp.)

The Ukrainian Army has run out of cannon fodder for an offensive, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman said in an interview with the YouTube channel Dialogue works. “Ukraine is out of cannon fodder, and so NATO is out of cannon fodder too. If the whole program was to fight to the last Ukrainian, and you are running out of Ukrainians, you don’t have a policy,” he said. In his view, Ukraine “could lose” even more territory. As Freeman noted, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ failures on the battlefield have exposed “serious disagreements” within NATO. Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the West no longer has enough Ukrainian cannon fodder and they are thinking about Lithuanians and Poles. In early October, Putin said that Kiev’s offensive had failed, that the enemy’s attempts to advance had failed, and that the Ukrainian military had been halted and pushed back to its original positions, with Ukraine suffering an estimated 90,000-plus casualties.

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“Run those fiscal deficits and you’ve told all the thinking adults that child’s standard of living, when they reach adulthood, will be one quarter of yours today assuming your children are as competent and intelligent as you are.”

• Demographics Is Destiny (Denninger)

Let’s face facts folks: Nobody who you want to have children will bring said children into a world where they believe said kids will get screwed. That doesn’t mean kids won’t come anyway; they will, for some. Some adults don’t care what happens to their offspring, some actually use them as meal tickets and more. Some people are also always going to be eternally optimistic and therefore none of this will factor into their decisions. And some will have “accidents” and for personal or religious reasons decide to bear and attempt to raise said kids. But none of that changes the basic facts: People who are of decently-competent intellect and of good character, in a world of technology where one can choose when and whether to reproduce, will only do so voluntarily if they believe it makes sense AND their offspring will get a fair shake.

Destroying the fiscal health of the nation by emitting 8% of GDP in unbacked credit via deficit spending is the exact opposite of such. Simple mathematics tells us that this results in you losing half your standard of living in less than ten years and it takes about 20 years to decide to have a kid, have said kid and raise him or her to adulthood. Run those fiscal deficits and you’ve told all the thinking adults that child’s standard of living, when they reach adulthood, will be one quarter of yours today assuming your children are as competent and intelligent as you are. Would anyone who has two IQ points to rub together have children in that situation, when the options facing said kid 20 years hence are privation to this degree or civil war (and the attendant risk of being dead!) to overthrow said government? NO.

Importing millions of unskilled workers who then drop kids who have parents with no skills, and thus no realistic means of learning much from said parents yet are citizens in the gambit to cheapen labor screws the next two generations sequentially. Oh sure, in two generations or so those kids having their own kids will “outgrow” that but then they are able to compute the same odds and they won’t have children either! Think I’m wrong? The data says I’m not; within two generations those who were the children of illegals stop having lots of babies too and its for the same reason, I’ll wager: They’re convinced their children will get screwed and have one quarter of THEIR standard of living — and they remember living eight to a one bedroom apartment!

You think all those glorious “vacation venues” bringing in H2 workers, and all those “tech” places with H1bs, mean parents have a great experience for their kids at lower cost? Maybe, but in addition they have seen the destruction it wreaks on said kids. Please explain how many of Americans you saw of college age working scooping ice cream or similar this summer to make enough money to go to college in the fall. Zero — or nearly so — right? That’s what I saw all over the country. Now if I’m 20, and thinking about making some kids, where are my kids going to be in 20 years? Unable to get a summer job and unable to afford college too. Many see this, keep their pants on and both Trojan and the birth control pill companies keep having decent quarterly reports.

Good jobs with nice pay tend to be concentrated around cities. How’s Chicago doing these days? Yeah, getting mugged while walking around North Michigan Avenue (assuming you don’t get shot, which is of course even worse) is great. Do you want to expose children you might have to that risk? Hmmmm….. probably not. Oh, and speaking of which how are you going to afford a place to live with said kids when the cost of housing and property taxes have skyrocketed by more than double over the last decade or so — and there’s a new round of screwing headed for you in this upcoming year’s bill, all so you can be a “sanctuary” for a bunch of Venezuelan fighting-age men who illegally came to the US! All of this is very conducive to choosing to bear children, right? I mean its not like you’re going to have to pay those property taxes at an ever-escalating rate for the next 20 years if you choose to have kids, right? Oh, wait…. you are!

Read more …

 

 

 

 


“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo

 

 

Cashew

 

 


The Olive tree of Vouveson on the island of Crete, Greece, is one of the oldest olive trees in the world. Scientists from the University of Crete have estimated it to be 4,000 years old, which means that, when it sprouted, the last mammoths were still walking on Earth, someone in China was discovering bronze casting and the seventh Egyptian dinasty was declining.

The Minoan civilization was thriving and its monumental architecture was adorning the island of Crete. The first stones of the Palace of Minos at Knossos which inspired the myth of the Minotaur were laid. This tree saw the humans deeds for thousands of years, from the Bronze Age to the artificial intelligence and, possibly the most amazing thing, it continues to produce olives at every season.

 

 


Rangers discovered a one-year-old hippo, whom they have named Owen, alone and dehydrated near Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast after he became separated from his herd in 2004. They took him to a wildlife sanctuary in Mombasa, where he soon found a male tortoise with the same dark grey coloring as adult hippos. The tortoise initially hissed at Owen, warning him to stay away, but according to park officials the pair have since become inseparable.

The Aldabran tortoise, called Mzee, or “Old Man” in Swahili, now eats and sleeps beside Owen. Rangers say they could not have placed Owen with another herd of hippos as he would have been killed by an adult male. The park’s tourism manager, Pauline Kimoto, told reporters: “Since Owen arrived on 27 December, the tortoise behaves like a mother to him. The hippo follows the tortoise around and licks his face.”

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle November 5 2023

Nov 052023
 
 November 5, 2023  Posted by at 10:31 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  31 Responses »


Hieronymus Bosch St. Jerome in Prayer 1482

 

• The US and Hezbollah Want The Same Thing From Israel-Hamas War (Scott Ritter)
• Iraqis Warn Of Western Plan To Move Gazans To Anbar Desert (Cradle)
• Ireland’s Most Popular Party Wants Israeli Ambassador Expelled (RT)
• Gaza Conflict ‘Taking Away Focus’ From Ukraine – Zelensky (AFP)
• US Plans Reshuffle of Ukrainian Elites Due to Corruption – Putin (Sp.)
• West Nudges Ukraine Towards Peace Deal With Russia (Sp.)
• We Won’t Talk To Russia – Zelensky (RT)
• NATO’s Backfired Ukraine Strategy Built on Ideology, Bribery & Blackmail (Sp.)
• Ukraine Aid Drying Up – White House (RT)
• Long Read (Kim Dotcom)
• There Is Only One Putin – Kremlin (RT)
• Tony Bobulinski Issues A Challenge To The Biden Family (DM)
• Can Jack Smith Convict Trump For Being Lured By Bad Lawyers’ Advice? (Turley)
• Tucker Carlson Visits Assange In Prison (RT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

WCNSF

 

 

Gideon Levy

 

 

 

 

Obama

 

 

Russell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Long excerpt for a complex issue.

• The US and Hezbollah Want The Same Thing From Israel-Hamas War (Scott Ritter)

[..] both the US and Hezbollah were, and are, implementing a model of conflict management known as the ‘escalation ladder’. And while this reality might prove frustrating for those on either side of this conflict who seek a decisive, one-sided victory, it is the only responsible path that can be taken to avoid turning a local conflict into a regional war that could have global ramifications. The escalation ladder process focuses on how the parties involved escalate and de-escalate against competitors, measuring these actions against the different levels of escalation, which equate to the ‘steps’ on the ‘ladder’ used to visualize the model. By assessing the possible upward or downward trajectory of escalation at each level, based upon the actions of each party and their outcomes, the model helps participants to predict plausible outcomes and, as such, plot future scenarios.

The most popular expression of the escalation ladder is what is known as ‘linear escalation’, where a sequential line of actions is plotted from lowest to highest, and the relationship between two competing powers assessed accordingly. Linear escalation as a model works if there are only two participants to the crisis in question. The problem with the ongoing Gaza conflict is that there are many parties to the conflict, all of which have differing goals and objectives. As such, the escalation model that is most applicable to this scenario is what is known as horizontal escalation, where within a given escalation vector, differing participants can be segregated based upon their respective goals and objectives, allowing a sub-set of comparative escalatory calculations to take place, which in turn can be subjected to factors that influence their specific escalation, de-escalation, and maintenance issues separate from other parallel escalation management trajectories.

By way of example, one can speak of a ‘horizontal escalation’ model, where a US/Israeli track is paired off against a Hamas/Hezbollah track. However, the US/Israeli track is also paired off against itself, since the US and Israel are at odds over ceasefire options, the provision of humanitarian air, and specific military tactics. The same applies to Hamas/Hezbollah, where the Palestinian-specific goals of Hamas may clash with the regional aspirations of Hezbollah. Moreover, the specific actions of the US and Israel, when competing, can impact the Hamas and Hezbollah escalation calculations differently, causing these two tracks to lose their equilibrium by having one party escalate when the other may be seeking either maintenance and/or de-escalation. The horizontal escalation model becomes even more complex when other tracks, such as the United Nations, the international community, Iran, Yemen, and the Iraqi and Syrian Shia militias become involved.

When seen in this light, the horizontal escalation model becomes horribly complicated, requiring all parties to be cognizant about the competing interests of everyone involved, and develop a sound understanding of the intricacies associated with every facet of the cause-effect relationships involved. When deciphering the presentations given by both Blinken and Nasrallah, the casual observer might be compelled to be highly critical of the less-than decisive content provided. But a careful parsing of the language used by both men shows that each, in his own way, is cognizant of the complexity of the issues at play, and the absolute need to manage the pressures generated by the emotions of all parties involved so that a crisis that could easily expand into a regional war remains localized.

However, one cannot escape the reality that, at the end of the day, there cannot be a solution that is satisfactory to all parties. Israel seeks the destruction of Hamas as a military and political entity. Hamas seeks a Palestinian homeland built in its image. These two visions of victory are mutually incompatible. Both parties will seek to manipulate the escalation ladder in a way that best promotes their respective desired outcome. The key to the other parties is how to prevent this inherent incompatibility from spinning out of control, and to manage defeat as well as victory. It is this aspect of the escalation management process where Hamas has the advantage. As Nasrallah repeatedly noted in his presentation, the most important aspect of the anti-Israeli resistance is its ability to persevere.

Israel finds itself in an increasingly untenable situation, where the political and military methodologies undertaken are increasingly rejected by its supporters. The friction between the US and Israeli positions was evident in Blinken’s address. This friction will only increase if the conflict between Israel and Hamas is maintained on its current trajectory. The only chance Israel has to break this paradigm is if the conflict escalates, forcing the US to reevaluate its conflict resolution model with larger geopolitical concerns, such as a war with Iran. Blinken has made it clear that the Biden administration is not seeking such an outcome. Neither is Hassan Nasrallah. It is in this light that one must examine the totality of Nasrallah’s speech, and the complexity of his argument. There is not a single facet of the Israeli-Hamas conflict he left unexamined. Moreover, he not only discussed each of these matters in isolation, but also in respect to how they relate overall. Nasrallah’s speech was the embodiment of how to manage a complex horizontal escalation model and achieve a desired outcome.

Let there be no doubt – Hamas is on the trajectory toward victory, though not the kind of victory a casual observer might imagine as its end goal. When the definitive history of the Hamas-Israeli conflict is finally written, rest assured that the speech given by Hassan Nasrallah will be recorded as one of the critical moments in shaping the conflict so that it avoided exploding into a wider war, and instead allowing the various parties to focus on the more limited, although admittedly complex, issues relating to the core matters as defined by Hamas – a prisoner exchange, freedom of religion at the Al Aqsa Mosque, and Palestinian statehood. These limited objectives, and not the destruction of Israel, are the likely outcomes of this conflict. And for that we can all thank Hassan Nasrallah, a man who knows how to effectively manage the complexities of the horizontal escalation model.

Read more …

A new dimension.

• Iraqis Warn Of Western Plan To Move Gazans To Anbar Desert (Cradle)

The settlement of Palestinians in the Anbar desert, western Iraq, has become a topic of renewed discussion among Iraqis, thanks to the US-championed “Deal of the Century.” As far back as February 2020, Iraqi MP al-Baldawi, the representative of the al-Fatah coalition in Iraq’s parliament, was alleging: “The US is plotting to keep out Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units, or PMU) from the western provinces of Iraq, specially al-Anbar province, in a move to provide a proper ground for sheltering the Palestinians inside Iraq.” But now, the renewed interest in the topic coincides with the recent, unpublicized visit of the British ambassador to Iraq to Anbar Governorate. Since the unveiling of the Trump era peace plan in 2019, reports have surfaced suggesting that the continued US presence in western Iraq has broader intentions beyond establishing military bases.

It is speculated that the goal is to create an “alternative homeland” for Palestinian refugees in the Anbar desert. This notion might have remained confined to the realm of “conspiracy theories” if it weren’t for suggestions made by Israeli leaders following the 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood resistance operation, and their unprecedented genocidal aggression against the Gaza Strip. Israeli media leaked a document issued by the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, proposing the displacement of 2.4 million Palestinians from Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and other regions, a proposal strongly rejected by both Cairo and Amman. The leaked plan has renewed serious Iraqi interest in the potential project to displace Palestinians to Anbar. Concerns of another Nakba have been echoed in statements from Iraqi political and religious leaders, including leading figures like Muqtada al-Sadr and Qais al-Khazali, as well as representatives of the Iraqi parliament – particularly those hailing from Anbar Governorate.

The leader of the National Resolution Alliance, Jamal al-Karbouli, condemned “the suspicious projects that attempt to displace the Palestinians out of Palestine,” and warned “everyone who dares to go too far with the people of Anbar and donate its land to please his masters.. Karbouli’s statements prompted Parliament Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi, the representative of Anbar in the council, to emphatically reject any attempt to implement the Deal of the Century in Iraq. But observers like political analyst Mohsen al-Amiri believe that Karbouli’s claims forced Halbousi into issuing a denial: “It seems as if Anbar’s representative in parliament Al-Halbousi, who has close relations with foreign countries, especially the United Arab Emirates (the UAE has led the Arab normalization process with Israel), was trying to distance himself from these accusations.”

Read more …

Ireland’s next PM?!

• Ireland’s Most Popular Party Wants Israeli Ambassador Expelled (RT)

Israeli ambassador Dana Erlich “should no longer enjoy diplomatic status in Ireland,” Sinn Fein party leader Mary Lou McDonald said on Friday. McDonald’s party, which has deep historical ties to the Palestinian cause, has repeatedly condemned Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. “[The Israel Defence Forces] are engaged in a ferocious military offensive against a civilian population; breaking international law by targeting civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, forcing mass population displacement and cutting off vital supplies of water, food, medicines and fuel,” McDonald told reporters. Erlich’s presence in Ireland has become “untenable,” McDonald continued, adding that the ambassador should “no longer enjoy diplomatic status in Ireland while Israel refuses the imperative for ceasefires and as the suffering and death toll grow.”

Earlier on Friday, McDonald discussed the conflict with diplomats from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Israel’s embassy in Dublin criticized the Sinn Fein leader for not inviting Erlich to the meeting, accusing her of “only [seeking] to isolate Israel, rather than offer a forum for constructive engagement.” “To exclude Israel from such a forum is quite telling of Sinn Fein’s position on the conflict,” the embassy said in a statement. Sinn Fein is Ireland’s most popular political party, with a 13-point lead on its closest rival, the centrist Fine Gael. Sinn Fein is excluded from power, however, by a coalition agreement between Fine Gael and historical rivals Fianna Fail, as well as the Green Party.

As the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Sinn Fein’s support for the Palestinian cause is long-standing. The party’s supporters, particularly in Northern Ireland, view their own struggle against British colonialism as analogous to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation. While the IRA has laid down its arms, Sinn Fein has remained in contact with Hamas; former party leader Gerry Adams met with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza in 2009, while McDonald hosted an online conference with the militant group’s foreign relations head, Dr Basem Naim, in 2020. Sinn Fein “will never rule out meeting or talking to anybody, because that doesn’t serve any purpose” in securing peace in the Middle East, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, Matt Carthy, said last month.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has adopted a more neutral stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, declaring on Friday that Israel “has a right to defend itself [and] has the right to go after Hamas, so they can not do this again.” Varadkar also condemned Israel’s response to Hamas’ October 7 attack, stating that it “isn’t just self-defense, it resembles something more approaching revenge.” Ireland voted last month for a UN resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and opposed a now-scrapped EU plan to suspend aid payments to the enclave. However, Varadkar told reporters on Friday that he is “not sure [the Israelis] listen very closely to what we have to say, quite frankly.”

Sinn Fein

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“Zelensky said the war between Israel and Hamas had also drawn attention away from Ukraine, and said that this was “Russia’s goal”.

Excuse me, how does this work?

• Gaza Conflict ‘Taking Away Focus’ From Ukraine – Zelensky (AFP)

The sprawling frontline between the two warring sides has barely moved in almost a year, with one senior Ukrainian official warning this week that the conflict was deadlocked. “Time has passed, people are tired… But this is not a stalemate,” Zelensky told a press conference in Kyiv with EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. The Ukrainian leader also rejected the idea Western countries were putting pressure on Kyiv to enter negotiations with Russia, amid reports US and EU officials had discussed what such talks would entail. “No one among our partners is pressuring us to sit down with Russia, talk to it, and give it something,” he said. With the war now in its 20th month and Ukraine struggling to gain ground in its counteroffensive, Zelensky has routinely met Western leaders in a bid to stave off fatigue with the conflict.

Zelensky said the war between Israel and Hamas had also drawn attention away from Ukraine, and said that this was “Russia’s goal”. “Of course, it’s clear that the war in the Middle East, this conflict, is taking away the focus,” Zelensky said. “We have already been in very difficult situations when there was almost no focus on Ukraine,” he said, but added: “I am absolutely sure we will overcome this challenge.” Ukraine’s backers, including the United States, have maintained they are ready to support Kyiv with military and financial support for as long as it takes to defeat Russia. Zelensky’s comments came as EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen visited Kyiv to discuss Ukraine’s progress toward joining the 27-member bloc.

Kyiv received EU candidacy status several months after Russia invaded last year, but analysts have warned it faces a long and difficult path to membership. “You have reached many milestones,” von der Leyen told Zelensky. “Reforming your justice system. Curbing the oligarchs grip. Tackling money laundering and much more,” she said. “We should never forget you are fighting an existential war, and at the same time you’re deeply reforming your country,” she added. She said she was “confident” Ukraine would progress with the accession process when these reforms were implemented. The EU Commission has proposed an additional 50 billion euros ($54 billion) in funding for Ukraine until 2027, von der Leyen said.

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“..every political move in Ukraine has a kind of fixed price..”

• US Plans Reshuffle of Ukrainian Elites Due to Corruption – Putin (Sp.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that corruption in Ukraine is almost legalized and the West will not be able to fight it. He added that this is why he was not surprised by reports about Ukrainian weapons in the Middle East. “There [in Ukraine] this corruption, it is actually legalized. Why are Americans trying to fight this corruption and nothing is working? I think it will not work,” Putin said at a meeting with the new members of the Civic Chamber of Russia. Putin recalled that Ukrainian politicians and high-ranking government officials told him that every issue can be solved for a price, and that his “jaw dropped” when he heard this, meaning that he was shocked by the blatant corruption.

He stressed that every political move in Ukraine has a kind of fixed price. Putin added that the US is plotting a change of political and economic elites in Ukraine, but he believes that this will not solve the problem and that “everything will remain the same.” He emphasized that this should not be the case for Russia and instead, Russia must implement its own legal standards in the new regions. He referenced the progress made in ushering in the legal framework in Crimea and stated, “It is not an easy task, but we are going to do it, and we are already doing it.” Putin concluded.

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“..There’s a growing sense that it’s too late, and it’s time to do a deal..”

• West Nudges Ukraine Towards Peace Deal With Russia (Sp.)

As Kiev flounders with its counteroffensive, political support for propping up the Volodymyr Zelensky regime gradually wanes in some US political circles; meanwhile, Israel’s war on Hamas takes center stage, prompting speculation as to how swiftly Ukraine fatigue will gather momentum, and what it may spill out into. Quiet conversations are already reportedly taking place between US and European officials on the one hand, and the Ukrainian government on the other, about possible peace negotiations with Russia. The discussions have touched upon concessions Ukraine might need to agree to if any deal is to be possible, according to current and former senior Washington officials cited in a US report.

A meeting of representatives from more than 50 nations, including NATO members supporting the Kiev regime, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, held in October, purportedly served as a venue for some of these “delicate” talks, as per the report. “…There’s a growing sense that it’s too late, and it’s time to do a deal,” one former senior Washington official was quoted as saying. As to why these talks have been gathering momentum, the outlet’s sources acknowledged that they have been triggered by both, military dynamics on the battlefield, where Ukraine faces a botched counteroffensive, and the political situation in the US and Europe. First of all, there is growing acknowledgement that no amount of military assistance to Ukraine has helped its efforts to break through Russia’s defense lines.

Even a top Ukrainian general, Valery Zaluzhny, admitted that despite “NATO’s textbooks” and “calculations,” Kiev needed to take a massive technological leap to break the current “stalemate” in its counteroffensive against Russian troops. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” he underscored in an interview with the UK’s Economist magazine. Moscow, however, understandably took issue with the word “stalemate,” denying there was a battlefield impasse, and vouching for the fact that Russia consistently continues to conduct the special military ops to achieve its set objectives.

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Well, someone will..

• We Won’t Talk To Russia – Zelensky (RT)

Ukraine is not willing to hold any talks with Russia, President Vladimir Zelensky said on Saturday during a joint press conference with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. He also denied recent media reports that Kiev’s Western backers are pushing it to engage in negotiations. “Now, none of the EU, US leaders, our partners are putting pressure on us in terms of sitting down [at the negotiating table] with Russia, talking to it or surrendering something to it,” he told journalists. “This is not going to happen,” he added. Zelensky then said he “does not know” who even publishes such reports. He did admit, however, that he had “got an impression”that the Ukrainian media and Ukrainians themselves are speculating about the idea of potential talks with Russia and about Western nations allegedly pushing Kiev towards such a decision.

The president went on to say that he was “surprised” by such sentiments. Earlier on Saturday, NBC reported that Western officials were holding behind-the-scenes talks with Kiev about the possibility of negotiating with Russia and were even exploring potential concessions Ukraine might agree to in order to end the conflict. The report also said that the Western nations were concerned about a potential “stalemate” in the conflict and Ukraine “running out of forces” in the future. Russia has repeatedly signaled its readiness to engage in negotiations with Kiev but has insisted that such talks should take Moscow’s security interests and the “reality on the ground” into account. In autumn 2022, four former Ukrainian territories, including the two Donbass republics, officially joined Russia following a series of referendums.

Kiev never accepted their results, branding the votes a “sham” and seeking to restore its control over the four territories, as well as Crimea, which joined Russia in 2014 following another referendum. In October 2022, Zelensky also signed a decree banning Ukraine from holding any talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This past September, Putin said that if Kiev is willing to end the conflict it should demonstrate its intentions publicly, including by revoking the 2022 decree. “If their wish to achieve something through negotiations is genuine, let them do that,” he said at that time. “Let the Ukrainians themselves say it… announce it publicly,” the Russian president added.

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“Everyone is ready for that except for Zelenksy, Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland, Senator Graham, and Congressman Schiff..”

• NATO’s Backfired Ukraine Strategy Built on Ideology, Bribery & Blackmail (Sp.)

Moscow was swift to shoot down Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny’s claims earlier in the week of a battlefield impasse as being far from the truth, emphasizing that Russia fully intends to reach all the objectives of its special military operation. The US-led Western master plan implemented in Ukraine backfired because it was “not fact-based”, with Washington dipping into its playbook of utilizing both “bribery” and “blackmail”, Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik. NATO’s “strategy” was “ideology and domestic interest-based – in some cases based on financial bribery and energy blackmail by the US. It was a strategy of finance and military aid/contracts rather than an actual strategy”, pointed out Kwiatkowski.

Earlier, the Ukrainian army’s Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhny admitted that Kiev needed to take a massive technological leap to break the current “stalemate” in its counteroffensive against Russian troops. “There will, most likely, be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” he highlighted in an interview with the UK’s magazine ‘The Economist’. “In a world with well-informed, logical and humanitarian leadership in Kiev and Washington, we would indeed consider Valery Zaluzhny’s evaluation as a precursor to immediate negotiations with Russia. Everyone is ready for that except for Zelenksy, Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland, Senator Graham, and Congressman Schiff,” said the pundit. Espressing himself in both an article and then an interview, Zaluzhny conceded that “NATO’s textbooks” and “the math” that Kiev used in planning its much-heralded counteroffensive had failed to stop Russian forces from tackling Ukrainian troops.

Zaluzhny speculated that the aforementioned NATO textbooks and the calculations had suggested that “four months should have been enough time for us [the Ukrainian army] to have reached Crimea, to have fought in Crimea, to return from Crimea and to have gone back in and out again.” He was referring to the peninsula which chose to split off from Ukraine after the February 2014 Euromaidan coup, voting overwhelmingly in a referendum in March 2014 to rejoin Russia. Ukraine boasted of plans to use its summer counteroffensive to seize Crimea. Zaluzhny also added that he was concerned about the fact that “sooner or later [Kiev] will realize that we simply don’t have enough people to fight”. Accordingly, he struck up the familiar tune of demanding more weapons from the West – one that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to have perfected. Thus, warning that there were “heavier battles to come,” the Ukrainian top general solicited assistance for Ukraine’s missile and air defense, and offered “calculations” as to “how many tanks, artillery we need and so on and so on”.

In effect, however, no amount of sophisticated weaponry worth however many billions of dollars would be sufficient to help Kiev in its counteroffensive. The US-spearheaded Western strategy had been to use Ukraine as a pawn in its proxy war to attempt to “isolate Russia economically, to weaken Russia’s military capability, and to strengthen Ukraine as a potential EU and even NATO member,” Kwiatkowski emphasized. However, “in each of these publicly stated objectives, if there was a strategy to do these things, it backfired and failed in all cases,” added the retired Lieutenant Colonel. Such “across the board failures” can only mean that “either the strategy was so bad it should have never made it off the table, or the aim had been to fail be destroyed, just not publicly stated,” Kwiatkowski stressed.

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The White House can sneak out, and blame Mike Johnson. Perfect for them.

• Ukraine Aid Drying Up – White House (RT)

The White House is running out of funds to finance arms deliveries to Ukraine, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said, urging Congress to approve US President Joe Biden’s request for more aid that has been stonewalled by Republicans. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, the spokeswoman said that the Pentagon had announced new arms deliveries for Ukraine. The latest package, which is worth $425 million, includes HIMARS and NASAMS missiles, artillery rounds, and other military equipment. Of this sum, $300 million was from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which the Pentagon uses to contract new equipment for Kiev. The remaining $125 million came from the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the Biden administration to transfer weapons from US stocks without congressional approval in case of an emergency.

Jean-Pierre noted that this package “exhaust[s] the remaining USAI funds currently available to support Ukraine.” She added that while the White House still has PDA authorities to “fulfill Ukraine’s immediate battlefield needs,” the US is starting to provide Kiev with “smaller PDA packages in order to stretch out our ability to support Ukraine for as long as possible.” With this in mind, she urged Congress to approve Biden’s supplemental aid request and send “an important message” to the world that the US continues to stand with Ukraine. Last month, the Biden administration asked US lawmakers to greenlight a security package to the tune of more than $100 billion, including $61.4 billion for Ukraine, and $14.3 billion for Israel. But some Republicans have opposed aid to Ukraine, accusing Biden of lacking a strategic vision for the conflict and insisting on more accountability.

They have also insisted that the issues of aid to Israel and Ukraine be treated separately. On Thursday, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill on aiding Israel in its conflict with Hamas, to which Democrats voiced strong opposition, with some accusing their colleagues across the isle of politicizing the issue. Another provision listed in the legislation included defunding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), also a non-starter for Democrats. Meanwhile, Mike Johnson, the newly installed House speaker, has yet to reveal his plans for Ukraine funding, vowing that the relevant discussions “will come in short order.” Russia has repeatedly warned the West against sending weapons to Ukraine, arguing that doing so only prolongs the conflict while making it a direct participant in the hostilities.

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X thread.

• Long Read (Kim Dotcom)

The West is probing Zelenskyy on concessions to Russia. Russia and Ukraine were ready to sign a peace deal in 2022. It was blocked by Joe Biden. Since then 600k+ people died, the EU economy lost $1.5 trillion, Ukraine lost 20% of its territory and the US added 3 trillion in debt Russia is now in a much stronger position. It won’t trust any deal with Ukraine due to past treaty breaches instigated by the West. Ukraine is running out of money and forces. The US, EU and NATO have lost their proxy war and Russia can keep this conflict going for a long time thanks to failing sanctions. Low cost Russian arms production and artillery shells from partners cause the West to deplete their reserves and bleed billions more into the black hole that is Ukraine.

Russia will likely take more territory in Ukraine and turn it into a rump state without access to the Black Sea. Ukraine will not be allowed to become a NATO or EU member. Russia will ensure that the US coup in Ukraine will be reversed and that a pro-Russian Govt will be installed. Only then will the conditions improve for Ukraine. The NATO big-mouth alliance will crumble after this embarrassing defeat. The US and EU will fall into a deep recession and the BRICS alliance will grow in power and influence. The US dollar will lose reserve currency status and excessive US money printing will cause hyperinflation and devalue most US assets to junk status. The failure in Ukraine will be Biden’s and Zelenskyy’s legacy. They will be remembered as the most inept leaders of our time. Most of the EU leaders will be seen as failed US puppets who followed a dementia patient and a comedian into the sewer of history.

China is the big winner in all of this. They get the discounted Russian energy that made Europe a manufacturing powerhouse and the multipolar alliance of BRICS countries can turn decades of global wars and chaos into the most peaceful era of growth and prosperity for humanity. That’s how it should be. But the most likely outcome is that the evil empire of lies will not leave the stage quietly. The US Govt will smash the geopolitical chess board against the wall and go out in a tantrum of nuclear war that will end civilization as we know it. Only the American people could prevent this from happening but I wouldn’t bet my money on that. Most US brains have been fried by endless propaganda or dumbed down by a Neanderthal education system and TikTok 😉 The best insurance for your family is to have a Plan B in the far south of the southern hemisphere. That area will have the most survivors. May the force be with you.

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“..the Russian leader has “fantastic fitness for working” and can work nonstop for several days in a row..”

• There Is Only One Putin – Kremlin (RT)

The Kremlin has dismissed speculation that it could be using body doubles of President Vladimir Putin for some events. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov ridiculed such claims as “amusing.” “We have only one Putin!” Peskov said at the ‘Russia’ exhibition that opened in Moscow on Saturday. He said that many ridiculous, absurd, and amusing things appear in various news outlets and on social media, naming the rumors about the Russian president’s alleged body doubles as examples. The Kremlin spokesman joked that “experts” on the internet are now wondering how many doppelgangers Putin has and which ones they are seeing each day. “Today [the Russian officials and public figures led by Putin] laid flowers to the Minin and Pozharsky Monument… Was it [Putin’s] third or fourth body double? I have no idea,” the spokesman jokingly added.

On November 4, Russia celebrates Unity Day, a holiday that commemorates the end of the ‘Times of Troubles’ in the 17th century and the expulsion of the Polish-Lithuanian occupation forces from Moscow by a volunteer militia army led by Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and a merchant, Kuzma Minin. The Kremlin already laid to rest the rumors about Putin’s doppelgangers last week after the UK’s Mirror newspaper reported on the issue, citing an anonymous Russian Telegram channel called General SVR. The paper claimed that the president’s body doubles were even used for some public appearances, including foreign visits. It also cited a recent Japanese TV report claiming that Putin had doppelgangers.

Similar statements have also been made by the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kirill Budanov. Peskov had previously already dismissed reports about Putin’s doppelgangers, calling them “lies” back in April. He also said that the Russian leader has “fantastic fitness for working” and can work nonstop for several days in a row. The Kremlin spokesman added that he has experienced this firsthand while working directly under Putin’s leadership.

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“..Tony Bobulinski has challenged the Biden family to testify under oath beside him before Congress..”

• Tony Bobulinski Issues A Challenge To The Biden Family (DM)

Hunter Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski has challenged the Biden family to testify under oath beside him before Congress, after Hunter’s lawyer accused Bobulinski of lying. Bobulinski, a Navy veteran, worked with Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim – Joe’s brother – in 2017 to invest in China. Bobulinski in 2020 produced a May 2017 email detailing a proposed equity split for a Chinese investment, with the suggestion of ’20’ for ‘H’ and ’10 held by H for the big guy?’ Bobulinski has claimed that ‘the big guy’ was Joe Biden, who was vice president until January 2017. Joe Biden has always said he was not involved in Hunter’s business dealings. Hunter’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has written a letter to prosecutors claiming that Bobulinski has lied to the FBI. Bobulinski, in response, on Friday challenged the Bidens to provide public sworn testimony.

Tony Bobulinski was in business with Hunter Biden, and has claimed that Joe Biden was also involved in a May 2017 deal with China ‘If Hunter Biden and the Biden family are so determined to ensure that the full truth is put before the American people, Hunter, Jim, Joe and I should all appear together before Congress, publicly and under oath,’ said Bobulinski, in a statement sent to Fox News. ‘They can name the date, time and place, and I would certainly be willing to do that for the American people.’ Bobulinski said that Lowell’s letter, sent to Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, was untrue. ‘All of the allegations contained in Mr. Lowell’s 10-page letter to U.S. Attorney Graves are patently false, and I look forward to exposing these lies and laying out the facts in a public forum in short order,’ said Bobulinski. ‘The sad thing for our country is that Hunter, Jim and Joe Biden along with Abbe Lowell know they are all false and are trying to weaponize the DOJ against me.’

Lowell, in his letter, claimed Bobulinski ‘lied about the business discussions among the partners involved’ in the joint venture. He said Bobulinski was guilty of ‘making things up’, and urged Graves to investigate him. Lowell accused Bobulinski, who insists he is not political, of being intent on attacking the Bidens. ‘The materials reveal the extraordinary lengths Mr Bobulinski and other individuals were willing to go to implicate Mr Biden or members of his family in some false and meritless allegations of wrongdoing,’ Lowell wrote. ‘Even in an era in which people peddle knowing lies with the goal of their falsehoods being repeated and disseminated for their political advantage, these statements by Mr Bobulinski cannot and must not go unchecked.’ Hunter Biden’s business deals are being investigated by several committees in Congress: the House Oversight Committee; House Judiciary; and House Ways & Means Committees.

The Oversight Committee on X accused Lowell of attempting to intimidate Bobulinski, who might be called to testify. ‘Hunter Biden and his legal team are once again attacking anyone who speaks out against the Bidens,’ the Oversight Committee wrote. ‘This time, their target is Tony Bobulinski, a potential witness in our investigation. ‘We will not tolerate witness intimidation. The truth will come out soon enough despite the Biden team’s threatening tactics. ‘We will give Hunter the opportunity to clear the air and speak with us soon.’

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Turley makes the exact same point I did a few days ago. Can you indict Trump for having bad lawyers? Sidney Powell and Lin Wood went way overboard after the election. But how was he supposed to know at the time? They were his lawyers… They presented it to him, and to the media, as an open and shut case.

• Can Jack Smith Convict Trump For Being Lured By Bad Lawyers’ Advice? (Turley)

In Homer’s “Odyssey,” Odysseus faces one of his most fearsome threats — the three Sirens, beautiful sea creatures who lure sailors to their ruin with their seductive songs. Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis have offered a modern version of the Sirens in the lure of bad lawyering. Three lawyers have recently pleaded guilty in Georgia, and they may join other former counsel in testifying against their former client. What is novel is the criminal “Siren’s call” theory of these cases. Former President Donald Trump is being prosecuted for following the advice of his counsel, who are now effectively saying that he should not have believed what they were telling him. Indeed, some sound like they were lured by the Siren call of Trump, led astray from their better legal judgment.

Kenneth Chesebro’s attorney, Scott Grubman, says that “Mr. Chesebro never believed in ‘the Big Lie’” and believes that Biden won the election. Likewise, Sidney Powell has argued that “no reasonable person would conclude that my statements were truly statements of fact” as opposed to opinions. Jenna Ellis recently stated “Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.” Yet these lawyers were not just confident but enthusiastic after the election in pursuing the claims they now repudiate. Moreover, their plea agreements had a number of notable omissions. First, none pleaded guilty to a conspiracy with Trump or to racketeering. Second, none will face jail time, and the prosecution has agreed that they did not commit crimes of moral turpitude. All three could keep their licenses.

It is also not clear that these attorneys would implicate Trump if called. They could prove more damaging to other defendants such as Rudy Giuliani, or they could still prove harmful to the prosecution’s overall theory. They secured no jail deals, but only agreed to testify truthfully. Some, like Ellis, may now have animus but lack evidence against Trump in establishing a conspiracy or racketeering claim. Both the federal and state prosecutions are premised on the claim that Trump never believed what he was saying about a stolen election. If Trump actually did believe he had viable claims in the courts or Congress, the prosecutions would collapse. Even Smith admits that Trump’s early election claims were protected political speech, but at some point became a criminal conspiracy when Trump had to know that his claims were baseless.

he most dangerous aspect to the federal indictment is that Smith leaves the line entirely undefined for future cases. If Trump crossed the Rubicon into criminal conduct in his election claims, Smith should be able to point to the river on the map. Instead, Smith offers no limiting principle on when election claims move from the sensational to the criminal. That is particularly concerning, since many election claims in the courts or Congress have been unfounded. For example, Marc Elias, who served as general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and played a key role in its secret funding of the infamous Steele dossier, challenged past elections on such grounds. After the 2020 election, he challenged a New York election by claiming that voting machines had flipped the results in favor of the Republicans through mistabulations.

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Wonder what format he will give it. No cameras..

• Tucker Carlson Visits Assange In Prison (RT)

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson visited Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at London’s Belmarsh Prison on Thursday, Carlson revealed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) later that day. The American journalist included a photo of himself walking with Assange’s wife, Stella Moris. The post garnered positive reactions from activists who have collaborated with Wikileaks in the past, including Mega founder Kim Dotcom and former British MP George Galloway. While Carlson did not elaborate on the nature of his visit, media commentary suggested it was an interview for Carlson’s popular self-titled show on X. He previously interviewed Assange’s father and brother for a Fox News segment in 2021, and again earlier this year.

 Carlson has condemned Assange’s continued incarceration as a violation of the Wikileaks founder’s First Amendment rights, and said it sets a disastrous precedent for other journalists and publishers who work with classified material. Assange has appealed his pending extradition to the US, where he faces up to 175 years in prison on charges of violating the Espionage Act. The charges stem from Wikileaks’ publication of a trove of secret documents leaked by US Army intelligence analyst and whistleblower Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning in 2010, which dealt with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Wikileaks publisher has been imprisoned in Belmarsh since 2019, when he was expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had lived for seven years. Assange was granted political asylum and later Ecuadorian citizenship, both of which were revoked ahead of his arrest.

While Caroline Kennedy, the US ambassador to Australia, hinted in August that Washington might consider a plea deal allowing Assange to return to his home country if he pleaded guilty to lesser charges, legal experts have pointed out that any such deal would almost certainly require him to travel to the US for a formal admission of guilt – a condition he is unlikely to accept. Additionally, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has shown no signs of relenting in pursuit of the publisher, recently rejecting overtures from Canberra with the explanation that Assange’s actions had “risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries, and put named human sources at grave risk of physical harm, grave risk of detention.” Members of Congress hailing from both parties have petitioned the presidential administration of Joe Biden to drop the extradition request and abandon the prosecution of Assange.

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Siegfried Sassoon

 

 

Ackman

 

 


On Waihee Beach Park, Maui, Hawaii, this tree grew by the sea and coastal eroison exposed its roots, making it look like it’s running.

 

 

Shavo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1720796546810138711

 

 


Photographer Wu Yung-sen on a blackwater dive—unable to see the bottom and surrounded by impenetrable space—chanced upon a rare larval Wunderpus octopus, totally transparent.

 

 

Butterfly puppy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1720795302167216287

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 4 2023

Nov 042023
 
 November 4, 2023  Posted by at 9:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


Edward Lear Zagori, Greece 1860

 

• Hezbollah ‘Entered Battle’ On October 8 – Nasrallah (RT)
• Russia, Israel, and the Law of War Regarding Civilians (Scott Ritter)
• Netanyahu’s ‘Political Days Are Numbered’: White House (Cradle)
• Biden Needs Israel and Ukraine Conflicts to Avoid Jail Time – McGovern (Sp.)
• Biden’s Disregard for Arab Suffering May Cost Him Presidency – Ex-Senator (Sp.)
• Hamas Ready For ‘Complete Compromise’ To Swap Prisoners With Israel (TASS)
• Israeli Army Forms ‘Settler Militias’ (Cradle)
• The Jewish American Dilemma (Kunstler)
• Vote to Prioritize Israel Aid Likely to Doom Ukraine War Strategy (Sp.)
• Zelensky Will Be Ukraine’s Last President – Exiled Opposition Leader (RT)
• Russia Must Protect Zelensky (Poletaev)
• Western Nations ‘Changing Tune’ On Defeating Russia – Putin (RT)
• US, EU Officials Broach Topic Of Peace Negotiations With Ukraine (NBC)
• Trump Lawyers File Emergency Motion With Appeals Court to Block Gag Order (ET)
• Group Sued Over 2020 Fraud Claims Says It Can Prove Trump Won in Georgia (ET)

 

 

 

 

Youssef

 

 

MSNBC

 

 

 

 

Dem violence

 

 

 

 

Trump

 

 

 

 

“..IDF troops were placed on high alert ahead of Nasrallah’s speech, for fear that the militant leader would announce a major operation against the Jewish State. No such announcement came.”

• Hezbollah ‘Entered Battle’ On October 8 – Nasrallah (RT)

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday that his forces would continue their skirmishes with the Israeli military until Hamas achieves victory in Gaza. Nasrallah warned that an attack on Lebanon would be the “most foolish mistake” in Israeli history. “What is happening in Gaza today is not just another war; it is a decisive historical battle with consequences that will reshape the future,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech. Hezbollah’s objectives in this battle, he stated, are to “stop the aggression” on Gaza and ensure that Hamas “achieves victory” against Israel. Nasrallah’s speech was his first since Hamas militants launched their surprise attack on Israel on October 7. The Hezbollah leader said that his group was not involved in planning the attack, but took the opportunity to “enter the battle” the following day.

In the initial days of the war, Hezbollah limited its activity to sporadic rocket and small arms fire into Israel from Lebanese territory, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responding with artillery and drone strikes. These skirmishes have increased in frequency and intensity over the last two weeks, and IDF troops were placed on high alert ahead of Nasrallah’s speech, for fear that the militant leader would announce a major operation against the Jewish State. No such announcement came. Nasrallah said that his forces have contributed to the fight so far by tying up a third of Israel’s combat troops and almost half of its naval assets near the Lebanese border. This has reduced the number of troops available for the ground operation in Gaza and caused “a state of anxiety, anticipation, panic, and fear among the enemy’s political and military leadership,” Nasrallah claimed.

Hezbollah is ready for any escalation by the Israeli side, he said, warning West Jerusalem that “if you contemplate an attack or launch a military operation against Lebanon, you will commit the most foolish mistake in your existence.” Should a wider war break out, he warned the US that “you Americans will pay with your ships, your aircraft, and your soldiers.” Nasrallah added that “there will be more actions” against Israel on multiple fronts in the coming days. Israeli officials have issued similarly stark threats to Hezbollah too, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising to strike Lebanon with “unimaginable strength” if Nasrallah’s group makes the “mistake of its life” by entering the war. Speaking in Tel Aviv immediately after Nasrallah’s speech, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “with regard to Lebanon, with regard to Hezbollah, with regard to Iran – we have been very clear from the outset that we are determined that there not be a second or third front opened in this conflict.”

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Self defense and genocide.

• Russia, Israel, and the Law of War Regarding Civilians (Scott Ritter)

There has been much discussion in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israeli military bases and settlements in the vicinity of Gaza related to issues of legitimate self-defense and the legality surrounding Israel’s use of force in response to that attack. Inevitably, this discussion leads to an effort to compare Russia’s conduct in the Special Military Operation with Israel’s behavior to date regarding Gaza. The particular example of Mariupol is often raised as a point of comparison with the ongoing Israeli operation in Gaza. While it is far too soon to be able to make such a direct comparison of those two battles, one can examine the foundation of international law relied upon by both Russia and Israel in justifying their respective military operations. Sadly, Israel is found wanting. Russia has cited the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense, as enshrined in Article 51 of the Charter, as justification for the initiation of its military operation.

Article 51 reads as follows:
“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.” In his address announcing the initiation of the special operation, Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out a case for pre-emption, detailing the threat that NATO’s eastward expansion posed to Russia, as well as Ukraine’s ongoing military operations against the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass.

NATO and Ukraine, Putin declared, “did not leave us [Russia] any other option for defending Russia and our people, other than the one we are forced to use today. In these circumstances, we have to take bold and immediate action. The people’s republics of Donbass have asked Russia for help. In this context, in accordance with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, I made a decision to carry out a special military operation.”

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”..Netanyahu’s tenuous hold on power is always “in the background” during internal Biden administration talks about West Asia..”

• Netanyahu’s ‘Political Days Are Numbered’: White House (Cradle)

Joe Biden and top White House aides have discussed the likelihood that Benjamin Netanyahu’s “political days are numbered,” and are gauging potential successors as the popularity of the Israeli prime minister continues to plummet following last month’s successful Hamas attack on Israel, Politico reported on 2 November. The topic of Netanyahu’s anticipated fall from power has come up in recent White House meetings including following Biden’s most recent trip to Israel in which he met with Netanyahu following the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October, according to two senior administration officials. Biden has even suggested to Netanyahu that he should think about lessons he would share with his eventual successor, the two administration officials added. Separately, a current US official and a former US official both confirmed that the Biden administration believes Netanyahu will not remain in office for long.

The current official believes Netanyahu’s term as prime minister may last a just matter of months due to the Israeli public’s anger resulting from the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October and the intelligence failures that appeared to have occurred to allow it. Some 1,400 Israelis died during the Hamas attack, including soldiers and civilians. Some were killed by Hamas fighters, while others were killed in the crossfire as Israel used overwhelming force to eliminate Hamas fighters who had taken many Israelis captive. Hamas managed to take over 200 Israelis captive back to Gaza, and the Israeli public and even the captives themselves have been harshly critical of Netanyahu and his right-wing settler government, which have prioritized targeting Hamas and killing Palestinian civilians in Gaza over the captives’ safe return.

Further, many Israelis believe the government deliberately allowed the Hamas attack to happen, citing the slow response of the army and police as Hamas fighters penetrated deep into Israeli territory and targeted both military bases and settlements in the Gaza envelope. Netanyahu has promised to investigate the intelligence failings, but refuses to do so until the war is over, which may take months or even years. “There’s going to have to be a reckoning within Israeli society about what happened,” said the official who, like others, was granted anonymity to detail private conversations. “Ultimately, the buck stops on the prime minister’s desk.” Biden’s trip to Tel Aviv last month was one largely of support, but the current US official said that Netanyahu’s tenuous hold on power is always “in the background” during internal Biden administration talks about West Asia. And Biden aides already are engaging an array of other Israeli politicians, both in the government and the opposition, in the war effort. According to the two senior administration officials as well as the current and former US official, “those talks have also provided a way to gauge the thinking of various Israelis who might take the helm of the country,” Politico wrote.

This suggests the US may be looking to choose Netanyahu’s successor, as they did in Ukraine following the 2014 coup against then President Viktor Yanukovych. US officials have taken note of Netanyahu’s falling approval ratings and predict that any forthcoming Israeli or US assessments about the intelligence failure will likely be even more damning for the prime minister. Biden administration officials have offered public declarations of solidarity with the Israeli government, despite condemnations from human rights groups that Israel has targeted Palestinian civilians “on a mass scale.” But they are nevertheless concerned with who Netanyahu’s successor may be, and what the “day after” will look like in Gaza if Hamas is defeated. The Israeli government has prepared plans to ethnically cleanse and annex Gaza, forcing the strip’s 2.3 million residents to flee to Egypt as refugees, never to return. The White House included funding for relocating Gazans to Egypt’s Sinai in its recent supplemental funding request to Congress, suggesting approval of such an effort.

At the same time, White House officials have also floated the possibility of installing the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, in power in Gaza, or possibility of sending a multinational force, though not necessarily one with US troops, to control the territory. Netanyahu and Biden were at odds even before the war. Netanyahu was a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump, and did not appear pleased that Biden defeated him in the 2020 election. Biden has also distanced himself from Netanyahu following the prime minister’s effort to overhaul Israel’s judiciary upon regaining power in elections last December. Netanyahu has also been critical of US efforts to negotiate with Iran and the Biden White House’s lax efforts to enforce sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. This is presumably due to the influence of China, Iran’s biggest purchaser of oil, on Biden through business dealings with his son Hunter.

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” If Biden loses in Ukraine, which is bound to happen in the next couple of months, it will be evident to everyone. It will be impossible to cover it up.”

• Biden Needs Israel and Ukraine Conflicts to Avoid Jail Time – McGovern (Sp.)

Joe Biden is trying to twist the arms of House lawmakers to pass a hefty Ukraine aid package, while at the same time the White House is resisting efforts to impose a cease-fire in Gaza amid horrific civilian casualties.
While his team member, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are known for their neoconservative stance, Biden has long been considered a moderate and entered the White House with the goal of ending the “forever wars”. Now the US president has no scruples about pouring more gasoline on the flames of conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. What’s behind Joe’s “radicalization”? “Biden has a personal stake in this,” CIA veteran Ray McGovern told Sputnik. “What do I mean? If Biden loses in Ukraine, which is bound to happen in the next couple of months, it will be evident to everyone. It will be impossible to cover it up. If he loses in Ukraine, he’ll be afraid to lose the election and his fears will be well-founded. And if this is the election, what do you think he also fears? He also fears that he’ll end up in prison.”

“That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But let’s say that fellow Trump becomes president again. I hold no brief for Trump, but he is a forwarder, let’s face it. Or somebody else with a feeling of vengeance to what the Republicans have suffered for the Democrats ever since the election in 2016. Let’s say they come into power. Well, court testimony shows that the evidence that not only Hunter, but daddy took money, took bribes, took all kinds of things. It’s pretty telling. It’s there. It’s enough, if someone is very vengeful, to move against not only Hunter, but Daddy,” the former CIA analyst continued. House Republicans have been after the Bidens for quite some time, and now they claim to have evidence of Hunter and his father’s involvement in alleged influence-peddling schemes.

According to them, the Biden family has been selling Joe Biden’s “brand” for a long time, considering that he once held top positions in both Congress and the White House. Back in October 2020, the New York Post published an expose based on the so-called “laptop from hell,” which presumably contained damning evidence about then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son. However, Team Biden did everything it could to sweep the matter under the rug. “Famously, Blinken played a key role in making sure that Biden won the election in 2020. What did he do? Well, most people don’t remember this, but when Hunter Biden’s laptop was found and, by the way, given to the FBI, this was a big kerfuffle. This was a big deal. So what were they going to do before the election? It showed not only Hunter involved in scurrilous activity, but taking bribes and mentioning his dad and influence peddling. And there was some of that dad involvement. So what were the Democrats going to do? Blinken: ‘I got an idea. We’ll make this work. I’ll call my friend Mikey Morrell.’ He used to head the CIA. ‘Hey, Mike, can you gather maybe 50 or so former CIA directors and other high muckety bucks? How high intelligence and policy officials? All you need to say is that the Hunter’s laptop bears all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence disinformation operation.'”

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“In 2020, Jews voted 75% Democrat, and 65% of Muslim-Americans did likewise. On October 31st, Reuters reported that Arab American support for Biden and the Democrats had plunged to 17% in recent polls..”

• Biden’s Disregard for Arab Suffering May Cost Him Presidency – Ex-Senator (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden’s ignoring of the suffering of the Arabs in the Middle East may cost him the presidency, former Virginia State Senator Richard Black told Sputnik. Over 9,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in response to the October 7 Hamas terror attack, according to the most recent UN update. On Friday, media reported that the Biden administration asked Israel to explain a strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza that left 400 hundred dead or injured. “President Biden’s disregard for Arab suffering may cost him the presidency,” Black said. “The Associated Press reports that Michigan’s large Muslim community has turned against him; if Biden loses Michigan, he may lose the election.”

Black believes that the violence in Gaza has split the Democrat Party, causing a vexing dilemma for Biden. “Democrats cannot function without Jewish political contributions,” he said. “According to the Jerusalem Post, their contributions constitute over half of all donations to the Democrat Party. Wealthy Jewish donors insist that Biden allow Israel to continue its unconstrained bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip. If he does not support the bombing, they may not contribute to his 2024 campaign.” The former lawmaker went on to say that, meanwhile, two of the Democrats’ most crucial voting blocks are “bitterly at odds over the war.”

“In 2020, Jews voted 75% Democrat, and 65% of Muslim-Americans did likewise. On October 31st, Reuters reported that Arab American support for Biden and the Democrats had plunged to 17% in recent polls,” he noted. Black thinks that even before the latest events in the Gaza Strip, Democrats had already suffered an erosion of Muslim support. The ensuing disorder in public schools, Black continued to say, has caused a dramatic decline in student test scores, including the steep fall in math and reading scores.

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“..it has the “legal right to fight against the occupation” “according to international law.”

• Hamas Ready For ‘Complete Compromise’ To Swap Prisoners With Israel (TASS)

The radical Palestinian group Hamas is ready for a “complete compromise” deal on the issue of swapping hostages with Israel, Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas’ political bureau, said in an interview with NBC News. “We want these people to go home,” Hamad said. “And, also, we want our prisoners now to go home. So I think we are ready now to have complete compromise, complete a deal, in order to receive all the hostages, either military or civilians,” he explained, adding that Israel must “release all the prisoners from the Israeli detention centers.” The TV channel noted that “the Israelis are sure to reject” this demand. Talking about the conflict in general, the Hamas representative said that the group wants to continue fighting “against the occupation,” because it has the “legal right to fight against the occupation” “according to international law.”

As for the group’s October 7 attack on Israel, Hamad said that the Hamas militants never intended to kill civilians. “Within our religion in Islam, it is prohibited to harm or to kill any civilians,” the official said. “But what happened maybe in the first day that, that when people (the militants – TASS) went inside, and there is a wide area, there’s people, there’s some complication there.”

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, and has begun delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well. On October 27, IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said that Israel was expanding the scale of its ground military operation in the Gaza Strip.

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West Bank.

• Israeli Army Forms ‘Settler Militias’ (Cradle)

The Israeli army is recruiting settlers who have not undergone military service in order to post them as “defense militiamen” in the settlements they reside in, Hebrew newspaper Haaretz reported on 2 November. “The recruits are expected to undergo accelerated basic training for three weeks, after which they will be armed and stationed in the settlements,” the report says. Settlers between the ages of 27 and 50 who have not completed their military service will be eligible to apply for the program. “Candidates were asked to fill out a form to indicate, among other things, their religious affiliation such as ultra-Orthodox, national-religious, national ultra-Orthodox, religious or other.” The settlements in question are the ultra-Orthodox West Bk settlements of Ibei Hanachal, Ma’ale Amos, Emmanuel, Beitar Ilit, Modi’in Ilit, and Tel Zion.

Settlers applying for the program will be examined according to “various criteria.” The training is set to begin in two weeks. According to what an army representative told various individuals inquiring about the program, settlers with criminal records could join the service depending on the “nature” of their crime. Another settler was told that the army would “overlook” criminal records depending on whether or not the applying settler was serious about the job. Haaretz states that since the start of the Gaza-Israel war on 7 October, the Israeli army has distributed around 8,000 weapons to “settlement defense squads.” “We will turn the world upside down so that towns are protected. I have given instructions for massively arming the civilian security teams to provide solutions for towns and cities,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on 10 October.

The Hebrew daily also states that around 1,500 ultra-Orthodox settlers have submitted requests to join the army’s reserve ranks. Israel’s plan to militarize the settlements comes as West Bank settlers have stepped up violent attacks and threats against Palestinians. A UN report released on 1 November says that hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in the occupied West Bank. Just days ago, 141 Palestinians from the southern West Bank town of Khirbat Zanuta fled their homes after armed settlers threatened to kill them if they refused to leave.

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“..it’s time for Jewish Americans to get out of the Democratic Party and re-assimilate into an American common culture..”

• The Jewish American Dilemma (Kunstler)

Tikkun Olam means repair the world. This has been driving American Judaism since the early 20th century. Meanwhile, the genocide of the 1940s gave new impetus to next year in Jerusalem for what remained of the European Jews, and thus you get the establishment of Israel in 1948 — notwithstanding the geopolitical legerdemain that actually brought it about. American Jews, while sympathetic to a fault with the founding of Israel, and deeply vested emotionally in its success, had a different agenda in the USA after World War Two. They endeavored to repair America. Tikkun Olam! Mostly this expressed itself in Jewish support and involvement in the Civil Rights movement, since the end of discrimination against anybody was considered a good thing for the Jews as well as humanity in general. The country needed a moral repair job, especially after defeating manifest evil in the big war. That effort climaxed in the mid 1960s with the federal legislation that ended Jim Crow policy in voting and public accommodations.

Much of the actual on-the-ground work to make this happen was accomplished by Jewish lawyers. This is a fact, not an accusation. But then something happened. Several things. One was that not all of black America necessarily regarded the Civil Rights movement as the great moral victory it was touted to be. A lot of black youth in the 1960s opted out early on and went their own way in black separatist movements of various kinds. As a practical matter, it also slowly became obvious that the new Civil Rights laws did not raise up the black underclass out of poverty and misery. Jewish liberal apostates would even argue that the vast federal social safety-net program largess that accompanied Civil Rights Inc. only made the condition of poor blacks worse.

This became a growing fiasco for American Jewish liberals, who, by the 1980s, then strove to impose another set of repairs (more tikkun olam) on American society: multiculturalism, meaning it was no longer necessary to promote a common culture that people would be encouraged to assimilate into, to join a consensus of values and behaviors. Instead, all cultures could behave according to their own rules. That hasn’t worked out so well either, and the world repairers have lately had to resort to coercion such as tyrannical diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and the shoving aside of equal opportunity for enforced equal outcomes (“equity”). That business has only produced additional unintended consequences, such as the new epidemic of institutional incompetence and the resentment of at least half the population against new forms of counter-discrimination (cultural Marxism, in short).

Another poorly understood byproduct of this failure to repair the world is the guilt and shame secretly experienced by the American liberal Left over the apparent failure of the Civil Rights movement they fought so hard for, and the subsequent failed efforts to tweak it and save it (still more tikkun olam). Thus, we see the absurd racist “anti-racism” of the universities, and so many other affronts to common sense and reality itself. But the worst byproduct of all this tragically misguided tikkun olam is that the main political vehicle for it, the Democratic Party, has gone so insane that it now devotes itself fanatically to the utter destruction of what remains of our country. This is most particularly true in the law, which might be considered the backbone of America. Lawfare attorneys such as Marc Elias, work tirelessly to turn American election law upside down and inside out so it becomes increasing impossible to know who is voting and if the ballots are legitimate.

The Democratic Party has decided it’s okay to use the law in bad faith to persecute and jail its political opponents. The Democratic Party has destroyed American’s faith in the federal courts, the Department of Justice, and the FBI. The Democratic Party allows an invasion of millions of unvetted aliens across the border, quite a few of them possibly bent on making mayhem here as global tensions careen into hot war. The Democratic Party is still pushing Covid vaccinations that are well-understood at this point to be ineffective and unsafe. And the Democratic Party is doing everything possible (with help from RINO Republicans) to destroy our financial system. You could easily make the case that the Democratic Party is the anti-American Party. If they really want to repair the world, it’s time for Jewish Americans to get out of the Democratic Party and re-assimilate into an American common culture — a consensus about reality — that is consistent with running a successful, orderly, and just society.

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Zelensky is so yesterday..

• Vote to Prioritize Israel Aid Likely to Doom Ukraine War Strategy (Sp.)

President Joe Biden sought to exploit the major escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on October 7 to leverage an extra $60 billion-worth of weaponry for his proxy conflict with Russia in Ukraine. His administration has packaged both into an omnibus emergency spending bill including $14 billion for Israel, which his aides are lobbying for on Capitol Hill. But recently-elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), voted in after hardline Republicans opposed to more Ukraine spending ousted Kevin McCarthy from the post in a historic vote, has insisted the two funding requests must be voted on separately. “So, yes, it will affect Zelensky’s conduct of the war – bigly,” US constitutional historian and political commentator Dan Lazare said on Thursday. “If Biden can’t peel away a few Republicans so that Ukrainian aid slips through, the spigot will run dry and the Ukrainian war effort will stop.”

Such a move would trigger immediate catastrophe for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and Zelensky’s ragged, corrupt and increasingly widely criticized regime in Kiev, Lazare said. “The result will be a military debacle on the scale of Afghanistan, if not bigger,” he said. “Republicans are playing a high-stakes game in which the aim is to cause the administration to collapse under the impact. They may well succeed.” International consultant and retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Earl Rasmussen said splitting the funding would be a body blow to Ukraine though he expected the Biden administration to continue getting significant financing to Kiev. In order to pass legislation, which is Johnson’s primary responsibility, there will need to be some compromise, Rasmussen said.

“Hence, I think we will see reduced funding for Ukraine but perhaps increased for Israel depending how the conflict evolves. That is why I think we will see an increase in funding for Israel,” he said. Politically, low or non-funding for Israel would mean a quick end to Johnson’s speakership, Rasmussen observed. “The Israeli lobby owns the Congress – both sides. Moreover, Israel is very important from a strategic geopolitical perspective to ensure or support their existence and independence,” he said. Media critic and political analyst Bryce Greene pointed out that even before Johnson split the aid packages for Israel and Ukraine, there had been clear signs that support for Kiev and Zelensky was waning on Capitol Hill. “However even before this speaker nonsense, there were indications that the establishment support for Ukraine was waning. The Palestine situation has, of course, directed attention away from Eastern Europe,” he said.

Trends Journal Publisher and former hedge fund manager Gerald Celente said Johnson would bow to changing political realities and cut back on funding for the Zelensky regime and its armed forces. “Unless there is a major event that brings Kiev back into the headline news which they have not been in since the Israel War began, there will be a lot less money flowing into Ukraine,” he said. The far more powerful pro-Israel lobby would override supporters for Ukraine in its drive for priority funding, Celente stressed. “AIPAC, the powerful Jewish congressional leaders and the Jewish Washington power brokers will make a major push for more money to Israel, and there will be a downplay in support for Ukraine as it fades from the headline news,” he said.

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“Zelensky has built “a criminal dictatorship of Nazism and militarism, and that is why he will be the last president of the nation, which he had betrayed with such cynicism.”

• Zelensky Will Be Ukraine’s Last President – Exiled Opposition Leader (RT)

Ex-Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk, now in exile in Russia, denounced Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in a column on Friday. The former politician said that the current Ukrainian head of state may well be the last, and Zelensky only has himself to blame. In his piece, Medvedchuk called Zelensky a merciless “professional traitor” whose pattern of stabbing everyone in the back for his own gain has ruined the country. After being elected president on a platform of peace with Russia and reconciliation with Donbass, Zelensky “ceded power to radical nationalists, adopting their rhetoric and behavior,” Medvedchuk wrote. In doing that, he betrayed the people who voted for him. “Zelensky simply got scared of becoming a peacemaker since it would require him to oppose aggressive forces inside and outside of the country,” he argued.

Instead of delivering on the promise of fighting corruption, he and his team “saddled the financial flows.” And after hostilities with Russia broke out last year, the president “realized that the war can be profitable” too. According to Medvedchuk, Zelensky acted as a US tool to pressure European nations to sacrifice their economic well-being for Ukraine. “In fact, Zelensky betrayed the interests of not only Ukraine but also the EU,” he claimed. The column mentioned the recent arrest of Yury Kolomoysky, a once-powerful oligarch whose media empire allowed Zelensky to become a popular comedian before running for office. Medvedchuk claimed that it was another example of the president’s backstabbing. “Having betrayed everyone, [Zelensky] is now alone. He has no allies, only a flock of flatterers, who will sell him out if given a reasonable price,” he wrote.

Zelensky has built “a criminal dictatorship of Nazism and militarism, and that is why he will be the last president of the nation, which he had betrayed with such cynicism.” Medvedchuk led a political party, which had the largest opposition faction in the Ukrainian parliament, before 2022. Amid the conflict with Russia, Kiev branded him a traitor, cracked down on his political activities, and seized all his assets. The politician was arrested and handed over to Moscow in a prisoner swap in September last year. The column was the man’s comment on a TIME profile of Zelensky, in which insiders described the president as delusional and calcified in his determination to pursue a military victory. Aleksey Danilov, a senior Ukrainian security official, said the anonymous sources who spoke to the magazine should be identified and punished for disloyalty.

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“..But Zelensky is against it, as he has repeatedly said with varying degrees of hysteria: who needs elections, he suggests, when I am saving humanity?”

• Russia Must Protect Zelensky (Poletaev)

The November issue of Time magazine features a cover with a small portrait of Vladimir Zelensky and the word “Nobody” above it. The word in larger type is part of the longer headline “Nobody Believes in Our Victory Like I Do” but, whatever the designers had in mind, it was unmistakable: Zelensky equals a nobody. The similarly illustrated article was no less scandalous. It made everything clear: we Russians must keep Zelensky as the apple of our eye, because no one brings more chaos to the conduct of hostilities on the Ukrainian side and more discord to Kiev’s relations with the West than he does. The article describes how Zelensky, who sees himself as the savior of humanity, loses touch with reality the further he goes: it was he who demanded that Bakhmut be held at all costs, burning reserves there which were intended for the summer counteroffensive.

It is he who is still calling for an offensive in the south, once again destroying his people and valuable Western equipment in pointless attacks, and thus intensifying his conflict with the army’s leadership. It is he who is demanding an offensive on Gorlovka and, as long as he is president, no one in Ukraine dares to make a peep about negotiations with Russia, the necessity of which is becoming more and more obvious. And all this against a backdrop of gargantuan levels of theft. The Time article is a black mark. American elites have realized that as long as Zelensky is in power in Ukraine, Western support will either be burned for one man’s ambitions or simply plundered – both to Russia’s advantage.

Obviously, Washington needs to replace the disgraced Napoleon-wannabe with someone more manageable – the question is how. Preferably in a good way, by organizing presidential elections in due course next spring, and some movement in this direction has already begun: the political scene has been revived, yesterday’s heroes like Pyotr Poroshenko and Yulia Timoshenko have re-emerged, even Zelensky’s former adviser Alexey Arestovich, who a year ago spoke enthusiastically of Ukraine’s imminent victory, has cleverly changed his shoes and started to reveal the truth about the disastrous leadership of his old boss. But Zelensky is against it, as he has repeatedly said with varying degrees of hysteria: who needs elections, he suggests, when I am saving humanity? If you want elections, hold them yourself at your own expense, and so on. Society is also against it (according to various polls, 60%-80% of Ukrainians believe that the next vote should be held after the end of hostilities).

Public opinion could have been ignored (this corresponds to the standards of Western democracy), but if Zelensky goes to the polls, he will win them: he is still the most popular politician among Ukrainians (76% approval, with only the army having a higher rating). Zelensky is more popular than all other possible candidates combined. This is down to two years of rolling military propaganda and the information bubble that has trapped Ukrainian society, which has been brainwashed into believing that the country is winning.

In addition, Zelensky and his entourage, led by the Grey Cardinal Andrey Yermak, wiped out the opposition inside the country, destroying the traditional intra-elite system in which oligarchs organized party projects and elected presidents to suit themselves. Zelensky and Yermak created a power vertical unprecedented by Ukrainian standards, restricted to a narrow circle of friends. In general, the process of dismantling traditional regional privileges that began under Poroshenko has been completed: now the direction must be obtained in Kiev, and all financial flows (which have been reduced almost entirely to Western money) pass through the capital. The information field has been cleaned up – there is almost no media independent of the presidential administration left in the country.

All this means that the US will not be able to quickly create a political project to replace Zelensky: paradoxically, since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, its control over internal Ukrainian processes has diminished and is now reduced to control over Zelensky, who, it seems, cannot be controlled. In fact, he is uncontrollable. There are two options left: either to persuade Zelensky to leave amicably by pointing to Washington’s chosen successor, or simply to kill him: a dead hero is better than a living psycho. Of course, all this is to our advantage: the longer Zelensky remains in power, the longer Ukraine will continue to fight, bringing its collapse closer. Therefore, we should take care of Zelensky, and protect him as best we can.

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Will they cut the sanctions too?

• Western Nations ‘Changing Tune’ On Defeating Russia – Putin (RT)

Western nations, who previously insisted that Ukraine should defeat Russia on the battlefield, are gradually changing their position, President Vladimir Putin noted on Friday. “They are changing their tune now, saying different things,” the Russian leader told members of the Civic Chamber, a civil society body tasked with consulting the government on policy making. Putin was arguing that the nation should become stronger in all aspects, such as the economy, military, and political stability. Such strength deters hostile actors from trying to to isolate Russia, he said. “They (EU nations) excluded our energy. So what? What is the result? Our GDP will grow [up to] 3% this year, and the leading European economies are shrinking,” he noted. “They suffer, they have real problems,” Putin added, noting that he was saying this with joy. “This doesn’t mean that we should behave aggressively. It means we must be sovereign in every sense of the word,” he concluded.

The US and its allies have accused Russia of launching an “unprovoked” attack on Ukraine last year and have pledged to support Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Moscow. Washington has stated that its goal in Ukraine is to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. Moscow said the hostilities were caused by Western refusal to address Russia’s concerns about NATO expansion and Kiev’s discriminatory policies against Russian speakers after the 2014 armed coup. The US allegedly stopped the Ukrainian government from striking a truce in the first weeks of the ongoing conflict, which would have made it a neutral nation. Kiev has declared that the only outcome it would accept is to push Russia out of all territories that it claims as its own, including Crimea. It has failed to secure any significant gains on the frontline during the so-called summer counteroffensive this year. “Despite the supply of new kinds of NATO weapons, the Kiev regime is losing,” Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said earlier this week, assessing the battlefield situation.

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“Manpower is at the top of the administration’s concerns right now,” one said. The U.S. and its allies can provide Ukraine with weaponry, this person said, “but if they don’t have competent forces to use them it doesn’t do a lot of good..”

• US, EU Officials Broach Topic Of Peace Negotiations With Ukraine (NBC)

U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, according to one current senior U.S. official and one former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions. The conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal, the officials said. Some of the talks, which officials described as delicate, took place last month during a meeting of representatives from more than 50 nations supporting Ukraine, including NATO members, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the officials said. The discussions are an acknowledgment of the dynamics militarily on the ground in Ukraine and politically in the U.S. and Europe, officials said.

They began amid concerns among U.S. and European officials that the war has reached a stalemate and about the ability to continue providing aid to Ukraine, officials said. Biden administration officials also are worried that Ukraine is running out of forces, while Russia has a seemingly endless supply, officials said. Ukraine is also struggling with recruiting and has recently seen public protests about some of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s open-ended conscription requirements. And there is unease in the U.S. government with how much less public attention the war in Ukraine has garnered since the Israel-Hamas war began nearly a month ago, the officials said. Officials fear that shift could make securing additional aid for Kyiv more difficult.

Some U.S. military officials have privately begun using the term “stalemate” to describe the current battle in Ukraine, with some saying it may come down to which side can maintain a military force the longest. Neither side is making large strides on the battlefield, which some U.S. officials now describe as a war of inches. Officials also have privately said Ukraine likely only has until the end of the year or shortly thereafter before more urgent discussions about peace negotiations should begin. U.S. officials have shared their views on such a timeline with European allies, officials said. “Any decisions about negotiations are up to Ukraine,” Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement. “We are focused on continuing to stand strongly in support of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and independence against Russian aggression.”

An administration official also noted that the U.S. has participated with Ukraine in discussions of its peace summit framework but said the White House “is not aware of any other conversations with Ukraine about negotiations at the moment.” President Joe Biden has been intensely focused on Ukraine’s depleting military forces, according to two people familiar with the matter. “Manpower is at the top of the administration’s concerns right now,” one said. The U.S. and its allies can provide Ukraine with weaponry, this person said, “but if they don’t have competent forces to use them it doesn’t do a lot of good”

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“..the DOJ has so far “submitted no evidence of any actual or imminent threat to the administration of justice.”

• Trump Lawyers File Emergency Motion With Appeals Court to Block Gag Order (ET)

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Nov. 2 filed an appeal with a federal court in an effort to lift a gag order restricting his speech in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) federal election case, accusing him of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Lawyers for President Trump, in an emergency request with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, urged the court to temporarily block a gag order ruling from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan while their client pursues an appeal. The gag order, as requested by government prosecutor special counsel Jack Smith, bans President Trump from making any public statements or directing others to make any public statements that “target” the prosecution and defense legal teams, court staff, and supporting personnel, and any “reasonably foreseeable” potential witnesses or their testimony in the case.

President Trump—who has pleaded not guilty to the charges in the DOJ’s case against him regarding alleged election interference—had sought the same kind of relief from the gag order from Judge Chutkan herself but she declined to grant it earlier this week. Instead, she reinstated the gag order after previously approving his request for an administrative stay or pause after the government filed its opposition to the temporary lifting of the order. In their court filing Thursday, lawyers for President Trump argued the gag order violates his First Amendment rights and those of “over 100 million Americans who listen to him,” adding that his “uniquely powerful voice has been a fixture of American political discourse for eight years, and central to the American fabric for decades.”

“The prosecution’s request for a Gag Order bristles with hostility to President Trump’s viewpoint and his relentless criticism of the government—including of the prosecution itself,” his attorneys wrote in the filing. “The Gag Order embodies this unconstitutional hostility to President Trump’s viewpoint. It should be immediately stayed,” they said. “No court in American history has imposed a gag order on a criminal defendant who is actively campaigning for public office—let alone the leading candidate for President of the United States,” his attorneys continued. “Given the Gag Order’s extraordinary nature, one would expect an extraordinary justification for it. Yet none exists.” Lawyers for President Trump noted that their client had made public statements about the election case “for months” but that the DOJ has so far “submitted no evidence of any actual or imminent threat to the administration of justice.”

Letitia

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“The state chose to open this door,” Mr. Kachouroff said. “It is a broad and sweeping complaint. They opened the door wide open for us to walk in and ask for these things.”

• Group Sued Over 2020 Fraud Claims Says It Can Prove Trump Won in Georgia (ET)

Former Black Voices for Trump leader Harrison Floyd’s legal team intends to prove his innocence of claims he unlawfully participated in an election subversion plot in Fulton County, Georgia, by showing that former President Donald Trump won the state’s 2020 presidential election. Mr. Floyd was charged on Aug. 14 alongside the 45th president and 17 other co-defendants with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings, and influencing witnesses. He was the only defendant to spend time in jail due to the indictment before he was released on bond on Aug. 30. “Your Honor, this case isn’t about whether you or I think that Donald Trump lost the election. It’s about what Mr. Floyd believed at the time,” noted Chris Kachouroff, one of Mr. Floyd’s defense attorneys, at a Nov. 3 hearing before Judge Scott McAfee.

“It’s also [about] what the false statements are alleged to have been, and indeed, are they really false,” he said. The judge ordered the hearing in response to motions to quash three sweeping subpoenas Mr. Floyd’s legal team served to the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the Fulton County Clerk of Courts, and the Fulton County Board of Elections. Materials the attorneys requested included the ballot images and envelopes for all absentee ballots cast in the 2020 general election, all absentee ballot application forms, reports from the Dominion voting machines used, and all laptops and poll pads used by election workers, along with other documents, files, and drives.

Attorneys also requested all documents and recordings concerning the secretary of state’s post-election investigation into allegations of election fraud. “The state chose to open this door,” Mr. Kachouroff said. “It is a broad and sweeping complaint. They opened the door wide open for us to walk in and ask for these things.” The attorney noted that the 98-page indictment repeatedly asserts as fact that President Trump lost the 2020 election in Georgia, and the charges against Mr. Floyd are predicated on that claim. But if Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is wrong and President Trump actually won the election, then Mr. Floyd cannot be guilty of soliciting “false statements and writings” that conveyed as much.

The indictment also maintains that Mr. Floyd and the other co-defendants were aware that President Trump lost the election and that their actions constituted an unlawful conspiracy to change the results in his favor. That assertion, Mr. Kachouroff said, would also be undermined by proof that the former president won or even just proof that the election’s outcome is uncertain. And the subpoenaed materials, he argued, are likely to contain that proof. “We could make that argument that he’s innocent no matter what happened,” he noted. “And, of course, we would. We’re defense attorneys; that’s what we do. “But at the end of the day, those are the possible options down the road that could arise. Right now, we believe we’re at Option 1, that President Trump indeed won the election, and we can prove it—with respect to Fulton County.”

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The US is Losing

Nov 032023
 
 November 3, 2023  Posted by at 6:01 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  11 Responses »


JMW Turner Lake Llanberis and Snowdon Color Study c.1800

 

 

There was the speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah today, who said “What is happening in Gaza today is not just another war; it is a decisive historical battle with consequences that will reshape the future..” That made me think of Joe Biden’s recent comments on a new world order, which were ridiculed away by Russia: “Yes, we’ll have a new world order, but you’re not going to be a -significant- part of it”.

Hamas is a formidable regional force in Gaza, but Hezbollah is of another order altogether. It controls the south of Lebanon, aka Israel’s northern border, it’s strongly related to Iran, and it’s armed to the teeth. But we’ll hear enough of Hezbollah soon enough. i wanted to talk about something else today.

Going through the news, as we do every day in our Debt Rattle aggregators, there’s a new pattern we see developing. That is, the end of the careers of both Volodymyr Zelensky as President of Ukraine, and of Benjamin Netanyahu as PM of Israel. They both appear to have a -very- limited time left in their jobs. Thanks – largely- to the US. Who propped them up in the first place.

Zelensky Will Be Ukraine’s Last President – Exiled Opposition Leader

Ex-Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk, now in exile in Russia, denounced Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in a column on Friday. The former politician said that the current Ukrainian head of state may well be the last, and Zelensky only has himself to blame. In his piece, Medvedchuk called Zelensky a merciless “professional traitor” whose pattern of stabbing everyone in the back for his own gain has ruined the country. After being elected president on a platform of peace with Russia and reconciliation with Donbass, Zelensky “ceded power to radical nationalists, adopting their rhetoric and behavior,” Medvedchuk wrote. In doing that, he betrayed the people who voted for him. “Zelensky simply got scared of becoming a peacemaker since it would require him to oppose aggressive forces inside and outside of the country,” he argued.

Funny thing is, that “ceded power to radical nationalists, adopting their rhetoric and behavior..” might just as well describe Bibi.

Netanyahu’s ‘Political Days Are Numbered’: White House

Joe Biden and top White House aides have discussed the likelihood that Benjamin Netanyahu’s “political days are numbered,” and are gauging potential successors as the popularity of the Israeli prime minister continues to plummet following last month’s successful Hamas attack on Israel, Politico reported on 2 November. The topic of Netanyahu’s anticipated fall from power has come up in recent White House meetings including following Biden’s most recent trip to Israel in which he met with Netanyahu following the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October, according to two senior administration officials. Biden has even suggested to Netanyahu that he should think about lessons he would share with his eventual successor, the two administration officials added. Separately, a current US official and a former US official both confirmed that the Biden administration believes Netanyahu will not remain in office for long.

So you might think this is just the US cutting its losses. But maybe there’s more to it. Maybe the US set up both for their fall. Just in case their “adventures” wouldn’t work out. This way, Washington can draw its hands off of it, blame its “partners”, and move on. We didn’t lose, our allies lost.

“Joe Biden”, just last week, demanded another $106 billion package for Israel and Ukraine, even as they know full well how limited the job prospects for both are. So why do it? ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern has an idea:

Biden Needs Israel and Ukraine Conflicts to Avoid Jail Time

Joe Biden is trying to twist the arms of House lawmakers to pass a hefty Ukraine aid package, while at the same time the White House is resisting efforts to impose a cease-fire in Gaza amid horrific civilian casualties. While his team member, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are known for their neoconservative stance, Biden has long been considered a moderate and entered the White House with the goal of ending the “forever wars”. Now the US president has no scruples about pouring more gasoline on the flames of conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. What’s behind Joe’s “radicalization”? “Biden has a personal stake in this,” CIA veteran Ray McGovern told Sputnik. “What do I mean? If Biden loses in Ukraine, which is bound to happen in the next couple of months, it will be evident to everyone. It will be impossible to cover it up. If he loses in Ukraine, he’ll be afraid to lose the election and his fears will be well-founded. And if this is the election, what do you think he also fears? He also fears that he’ll end up in prison.”

They know what happens, but they can’t admit it. It would threaten their grip on power. They got themselves stuck with the dastardly duo of Joe and Kamala, and they have to ride this out unless one of the two dies. Do they have replacements lined up? We haven’t seen any.

In Ukraine and Israel, things might be a little different. Everyone will simply move on to the respective neo-nazi parties that support both Zelensky and Netanyahu to date. But whoever they pick, Ukraine will have to confront Russia, and we know how that went, whereas Israel faces the entire Arab world (+Russia?). Counting on US support that just ain’t there.

It’s hard to imagine that Blinken and Jake Sullivan and Nuland and Bolton had no idea this would happen. But that means the US is on a suicide mission. I’d rather not think of that. They have, what, 47 battle ships in the eastern Med, largest concentration since 1945?! As Russia, and who else(?!), have hypersonic Kinzhals to shoot them like fish in a barrel? Make peace, you fools. I’m going to have a beer outside on a terrace while I still can.

 

 

 

 

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