Pablo Picasso Sleeping peasants 1919
RFK
NEW – RFK Jr. on electing President Trump; "Don't you think you deserve a president who is going to make peace with the world?——He's not a tryrant. He's not a monster. He just wants the best for the United States of America." pic.twitter.com/kJ5p2oFQYo
— Overton (@overton_news) September 30, 2024
Flynn
Please pay attention to @GenFlynn
“I want the American people to understand that we are in a War right now…this is an intellectual, physical, emotional and definitely a spiritual war…we are facing a dark group of people. They’re Marxists that have no soul…” pic.twitter.com/b4FK0ztlR7
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) September 29, 2024
Starlink
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 29, 2024
Devine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840390154931913081
Duda
BREAKING: Polish President Andrzej Duda has been going around Pennsylvania convincing Polish-Americans to vote for Trump
His endorsement is MASSIVE because millions of voters in the region have strong Polish roots
"We have about 10 million Poles living in the United States.… pic.twitter.com/pM1ShIS6HH
— George (@BehizyTweets) September 29, 2024
The mental state is Middle Ages, the weapons are not.
• Israel Launches Ground Invasion Of Lebanon: Operation Northern Arrows (ZH)
Update(1630ET): The Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon has begun, with various regional news correspondents saying IDF tanks have been spotted breaching areas earlier deemed ‘closed military zones’. “Israeli forces have launched limited incursions in Lebanon, the United States said, as Israel vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah and sealed part of the border after killing the Iran-backed militants’ leader,” AFP reports. “This is the moment,” Retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Aviv Amiri has told CNN. The southern areas were reportedly subject to carpet bombing raids within the hours prior to the border breach. “We cannot create terms for Israelis to return to their homes without pushing Hezbollah out of South Lebanon, certainly at minimum eight miles, which would be anti-tank missile range,” Amiri has said. Israel’s military has also issued new warnings telling Lebanese civilians in the southern suburbs of Beirut to evacuate, ahead of more imminent airstrikes on Hezbollah locations.
Thus a ground war has begun in Lebanon a mere month before the US presidential election. Meanwhile neither President Biden nor VP Kamala Harris have had much to say. Quite the opposite: they might prefer to hide from the media. There are meanwhile reports that it was a US-provided 2,000 pound bomb which killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last Friday. Israel’s use of the US-supplied “bunker busters” has been described Monday as follows: A video published by the Israeli military on Saturday showed jets it said were used to carry out the attack carrying at least 15 2,000-pound bombs, including the US-made BLU-109, according to Trevor Ball, a former senior explosive ordnance technician for the US Army who reviewed the footage for CNN. Biden has meekly called for ceasefire, while simultaneously backing the high level assassination.
Update(1908ET): Israel has named the new cross-border offensive “Operation Northern Arrows”. Below is an early description by the IDF as posted to Telegram and other government channels: “IDF troops have begun limited, localized and targeted raids against Hezbollah terror targets in the border area of southern Lebanon In accordance with the decision of the political echelon, a few hours ago, the IDF began limited, localized, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon. These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.
The IDF is operating according to a methodical plan set out by the General Staff and the Northern Command which IDF soldiers have trained and prepared for in recent months. The Israeli Air Force and IDF Artillery are supporting the ground forces with precise strikes on military targets in the area.” Some Lebanese accounts have claimed that Hezbollah has already killed and wounded some invading Israeli soldiers, but these reports will remain hard to verify within the opening hours of the campaign and amid the fog of war. Heavy strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs during the night hours (local).
“..instances of entities which cannot be really qualified as proper nation-states. They are more like severe bacteriological infections. The only thing they specialize in is kill, kill, kill..”
• The Lands of Islam Get Ready To Channel Their Rage (Pepe Escobar)
A symbol was shattered. A legend is born. The Resistance, more than ever, won’t back down. That was framed not by a Shi’ite, but by a Lebanese Christian leader, encapsulating how a true Political Islam icon is capable of transcending all – artificial – borders. This decade, that I defined as The Raging Twenties, started with a murder: the – all-American – targeted assassination of Quds-Force leader Gen Soleimani and Hashd al-Shaabi commander Abu Mohandes just outside Baghdad airport. Gen Soleimani, more than a symbol, was the conceptualizer of the Axis of Resistance. For all its setbacks, especially in the past few weeks, the Axis of Resistance is much stronger now than in January 2000. Soleimani – the martyr, the legend – left an unparalleled legacy that will never cease to inspire all the West Asian nodes of the Resistance.
The same will happen to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. More than a symbol, he was the Face of the Axis of Resistance, extraordinary popular and respected all across the Arab street and the lands of Islam. For all its setbacks, especially in the past few weeks, the Axis of Resistance will be much stronger in the next few years than in September 2024. Nasrallah – the martyr, the legend – leaves a legacy comparable to Soleimani’s, to whom, incidentally, he was always in awe in military matters, and always learning. As a politician though, as well as a fatherly, spiritual source of wisdom, Nasrallah was peerless. Now let’s descend from the stars to the gutter.
An unredeemable serial war criminal and psychopathic genocidal, violating scores of UN resolutions, popped up at the UN General Assembly in New York and then ordered, from inside the building, yet another war crime: wiping out an entire block in southern Beirut with dozens of American bunker buster bombs, including the BLU-109 with a JDAM precision guiding system – leaving countless civilians still unaccounted for under the rubble, including Sayyed Nasrallah. As the war criminal addressed the UN General Assembly, over half of the delegates staged a mass walkout: the hall was de facto nearly empty of real Global South diplomats. The remaining audience was presented with yet another trademark display of IQ-impaired “maps” featuring the “blessed” – Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, UAE – and the “cursed” – Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen.
A rabid, lowly interloper from Polish extraction – a complete fake – passing judgment on ancient civilizations does not even qualify as gutter-level trash. History is replete with instances of entities which cannot be really qualified as proper nation-states. They are more like severe bacteriological infections. The only thing they specialize in is kill, kill, kill. Preferably unarmed civilians – as a terrorist tactic. Terribly dangerous, of course. History also tells us the only way they must be dealt with.
There’s only one real president.
• Biden And Harris Called Out Over Botched Hurricane Response (ZH)
When natural disasters strike in the United States, the president and VP have historically responded immediately – offering support, condolences, and generally letting the public know that the situation is – or will soon be – under control. After making landfall Thursday night in Florida’s Big Bend region, Hurricane Helene proceeded to tear through several states – resulting in 116 deaths and causing devastating floods in Western North Carolina. Yet, it took three days for the White House to get their act together. On Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris posted a photo on Air Force Two – in which she appears with blank pieces of paper and unplugged headphones (maybe she was using her earrings?) to ‘respond’ to the disaster.
Omg her headphones aren’t even plugged in
She’s pretending to take disaster relief calls for a photo op
Such a fraud https://t.co/PRYTlAFOJN
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) September 30, 2024
And on Monday, President Biden read a teleprompter response to the disaster, claiming that he’ll visit the affected areas on Wednesday.
JUST IN: President Biden says he "was commanding" after a reporter asks what he is doing to help hurricane victims in the Southeast.
Reporter: "On the hurricane, why weren't you and VP Harris here in Washington commanding this this weekend?"
Biden: "I was commanding."
Locals… pic.twitter.com/OmHjqjqyLa
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 30, 2024
Trump, meanwhile, is in Georgia to help support victims and their families… “We are now heading to Valdosta, Georgia, in order to pay my respects and bring lots of relief material, including fuel, equipment, water, and other things, to the State,” Trump posted to X, adding “I was also going to stop into North Carolina, which has really been hit hard. I have a lot of supplies ready for them, but access and communication is now restricted, and we want to make sure that Local Emergency Management is able to focus on helping the people most affected, and not being concerned with me.”
Trump is helping in as many ways as possible.
Trump and Elon have teamed up to provide Starlink to the people affected by this disaster.
Trump is providing the victims with supplies like water, food, and other necessities.
Trump and Elon are both doing their part to make up… pic.twitter.com/ILTrp9KoH5
— The Heart Speaks (@SGabardi1111) September 30, 2024
No Supreme Court and no Constitution. That’s the idea.
• Democrats May ‘Destroy’ US Constitution If They Win Elections – Musk (Sp.)
US entrepreneur Elon Musk said that he considers Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s statement that the US Constitution prevents fighting “disinformation” to be a threat to the country’s main law, adding that the Democratic Party will “destroy” the constitution of the US if they win the November 5 elections. Kerry expressed his concern earlier that the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, poses an obstacle to fighting “disinformation” on social media. The envoy also stated that the Democrats need to win elections in order to have the opportunity to make changes without precising the particular changes.
One of X users posted a screenshot of the headline of an article about Kerry’s speech and said that if the Democrats won, it would be the last elections. “And they will destroy the Constitution,” Musk added on X, reposting the publication. The US presidential election will be held on November 5. The incumbent vice president, Kamala Harris, a Democrat, and former US President Donald Trump, a Republican, are both running for the country’s top job.
Is this an echo?: “..some Democrats face accusations of potentially refusing to certify the results should Trump win the presidency.”
• MTG Warns ‘Most Dangerous Phase’ in 2024 Election Has Begun (HUSA)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene issued a stark warning on Saturday about “the most dangerous phase” of the 2024 presidential election. With President Donald Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris in several polls, Greene suggested that Democrats “will do anything to stop him,” later emphasizing, “Anything.” In a grim post on X, Greene wrote, “The momentum shift has happened and Trump is leading and his support is rapidly accelerating.” She then added, “They’ve already been trying to put him in prison and literally assassinate him.” Greene then ominously questioned, “What comes next?” hinting at further “assassination attempts” or potential efforts to “delay the election.” She urged Americans to be “prepared” for the future. Greene’s comments come just two weeks after Trump survived a second assassination attempt by Ryan Routh, a Democratic voter and donor.
This follows an earlier shooting on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump narrowly escaped the bullets of gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, a Democrat donor. Beyond assassination attempts, Democrats had previously tried to bar Trump from appearing on primary ballots, claiming he was unqualified over his alleged role in what they claimed was an insurrection on Jan. 6. The Supreme Court had to intervene earlier this year, ruling that Trump remained eligible. Meanwhile, Trump faces criminal cases on several fronts. Special Counsel Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, indicted Trump over Jan. 6 and the dispute over classified documents with the National Archives. The Supreme Court intervened again in the Jan. 6 case, ruling that Trump enjoys presidential immunity for acts carried out while in office. In a separate ruling, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the documents case, declaring Smith’s appointment unconstitutional.
On the civil side, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization, accusing Trump of inflating property values to secure generous loans. A New York appeals court is currently reviewing the case. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has also indicted Trump on charges related to falsified business records tied to payments made to Michael Cohen. This case has drawn criticism, even from some Democratic legal scholars. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis—a Democrat who came under fire for holding an affair with the prosecutor she hired to go after Trump—accused Trump of illegally questioning the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. During his tenure as president, Trump was impeached twice by Democrats, an effort they planned since he was first inaugurated. Now, with the 2024 election approaching, some Democrats face accusations of potentially refusing to certify the results should Trump win the presidency.
“..the “danger” Mr. Trump poses is to them personally and directly, certainly not to “our democracy,” their phony war-cry..”
• Heroes and Villains (Kunstler)
Just yesterday, former Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking of Mr. Trump returning to office, told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki: “They will use the mechanisms of the DOJ to go after people who are their political foes. This is something that has never really happened in the history of this republic.” Mr. Holder may have been born at night, but probably not the night before last. Apparently, he has not noticed the uses to which current AG Merrick Garland has put “Joe Biden’s” DOJ, bending heaven, earth, and the law to put Mr. Trump behind bars and bankrupt him — not to mention the scores of Trump-adjacent lawyers prosecuted in cockamamie cases based on their efforts to pursue ballot fraud in the 2020 elections.
Hillary Clinton was similarly on-point last week with Margaret Hoover on PBS’s Firing Line, declaring: “The press needs a consistent narrative about the danger that Trump poses.” Of course, she asserts this incessantly — and the media parrots her — without ever specifying what that danger is. So, I will tell you: Hillary Clinton and hundreds of Democratic Party affiliated officials past and present fear that they will be subjected to legal process in crimes ranging all the way up to treason for their conduct the past decade, including the mass murder and injury of millions with their Covid policy, their deliberate abetting of millions crossing the border illegally, their use of several government agencies to abridge the First Amendment, their abuse of DOJ and FBI power in malicious prosecutions, their shell games funneling taxpayers’ money to hundreds of crony NGOs, and their use of Ukraine as a money laundry for the entire Beltway criminal cartel. Surely even more than that.
It was the last item on that list that prompted impeachment No. 1 of Mr. Trump, who came uncomfortably close to inquiring about it in that fateful 2019 phone call to President Zelensky. And, of course, it was exactly in that maw of corruption that the Biden family helped itself to millions of grifted dollars while Joe was out-of-office, and his bagman-crackhead son gamboled about the globe shaking loose more millions from exotic money-trees wherever he landed. All of which is to say that the “danger” Mr. Trump poses is to them personally and directly, certainly not to “our democracy,” their phony war-cry. So, now you know.
Many of these players have gone to ground the past year or more. You don’t hear much these days from the likes of Jim Comey, John Brennan, Jim Clapper, Andy McCabe, Tony Fauci, Peter Hotez, and many more who were so active shooting their mouths off on cable news after the blob managed to install “Joe Biden” as its “beard” in the Oval Office. Now, they all lie low in terror as the immense battery of lawfare against Mr. Trump failed spectacularly to stop him from running again, and the first two attempts on his life went awry. Meanwhile, Garland, Mayorkas, Christopher Wray, remain in the trenches, reduced to stonewalling every and all efforts to get straight answers out of them as to how badly they are running things. And out in front of all of them you have their supposed protector, Kamala Harris, the most feckless candidate imaginable. No wonder they’re so desperate.
“How do you tether the amount that was assessed by [Engoron] to the harm that was caused here where the parties left these transactions happy?”
• Letitia James May be Winning the Lawfare but Losing the War (Turley)
In an age of lawfare, New York Attorney General Letitia James has always embraced the total war option. Her very appeal has been her willingness to use any means against political opponents. James first ran for her office by pledging to bag Donald Trump on something, anything. She did not specify the violation, only that she would deliver the ultimate trophy kill for Democratic voters. James follows the view of what Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz said about war, law is merely politics “by other means.” Yet, the political success of James in weaponizing her office has been in stark contrast with her legal setbacks in courts. James earlier sought to use her office to disband the National Rifle Association, the most powerful gun rights organization in the country, due to self-dealing and corruption of executives. James notably did not target liberal groups accused of similar violations. The ridiculous effort to disband the NRA collapsed in court.
It did not matter. James knew that such efforts were performative and that New York voters did not care if such attacks failed. She will continue to win the lawfare battles, even if she loses the war. This week, two of James’s best-known campaigns were struggling in court. James is best known for her fraud case against Trump, in which she secured a $464 million fine and a ban on Trump from the New York real estate business for three years. That penalty, which has now risen to $489 million with interest, was in a case where no one had lost a dime due to the alleged inaccurate property valuations in bank loans secured by the Trump organization. Not only where the banks fully paid on the loans and made considerable profits, but they wanted to make additional loans to the Trump organization. In appellate arguments this week, James’s office faced openly skeptical justices who raised the very arguments that some of us have made for years about the ludicrous fine imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron.
Justice David Friedman noted that this law “is supposed to protect the market and the consumers — I don’t see it here.” His colleague Justice Peter Moulton told her office “The immense penalty in this case is troubling” and added, “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by [Engoron] to the harm that was caused here where the parties left these transactions happy?” The answer, of course, is the case was never about markets. It was about politics. The fact that the banks were “happy” is immaterial. Happiness in New York is a political, not legal calculus. The justices did not rule this week, but an opinion could be issued within a month. In the same week, James faced a stinging defeat in another popular cause. James had targeted pro-life organizations for spreading supposed “disinformation” in not just opposing the use of mifepristone (the abortion pill used in the majority of abortions in the United States), but in advocating the use of reversal procedures if mothers change their minds before taking the second drug in the treatment regimen.
Critics charge that, while there are some studies showing successful reversal cases, the treatment remains unproven and unapproved. It remains an intense debate. James, however, wanted to end the debate. She targeted pregnancy centers and was then sued by two pro-life ministries, Summit Life Outreach Center and the Evergreen Association. Judge John Sinatra Jr. blocked James‘s crackdown as a denial of free speech. Notably, these centers were not profiting by sharing this information or advocating such reversal treatment. James merely declared that people advocating such reversal treatments are engaged in “spreading dangerous misinformation by advertising…without any medical and scientific proof.” It is a familiar rationale on the left and discussed in my latest book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
It is the same rationale that led to the banning and blacklisting of experts during the pandemic for views that have now been vindicated on the efficacy of masks and other issues. They were silenced by those who declared their viewpoints as dangerously unproven or unapproved, but who were themselves wrong.
Has anyone blamed Trump yet?
• US Port Strike Could Begin Tuesday (ZH)
Time is running out for the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the US Maritime Alliance (USMX)—a coalition of port operators and carriers—to form a new labor contract as the existing one expires at midnight. A no-deal scenario would mean thousands of longshoremen at three dozen facilities across 14 Gulf and East Coast ports would begin striking at 12:01 am EST. Tuesday would mark the beginning of a major supply chain storm (inflation surge) in a no-deal scenario. Goldman analyst explained last week that a walkout by ILA members would jeopardize $5 billion in daily international trade coming into the Gulf and East Coast ports.
Goldman’s Jordan Alliger told clients, “Upwards of $4.9bn per day is at risk in international trade along the East and Gulf coasts, along with the potential for supply chains to likely become less fluid due to emergent congestion, which in turn could result in a re-emergence of transport price inflation.” “The biggest wild card in the presidential election that nobody’s talking about? The looming port strike that could shut down all East and Gulf Coast ports just 36 days before the election,” Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen wrote on X earlier this month. On Monday morning, with just a little over half the day left, a team of Goldman analysts led by Brooke Roach provided clients with the “current state of the supply chain and freight environment for the retail industry.”
What is happening: The International Longshoreman Association and US Maritime Alliance contract is set to expire on September 30th. Our US transports analyst, Jordan Alliger, detailed the potential ramifications should labor disruption arise at East / Gulf Coast Ports in this note published on 9/26. While we take no view on the likelihood of any outcome, our team has fielded an increased number of investor queries focused on potential disruption to US retail as a result of potential congestion, which could come at a critical shipping period for US retailers ahead of the holidays.
Comments from retail associations: The American Apparel and Footwear Association estimates that 53% of all US apparel, footwear, and accessories imports are routed through the East and Gulf Coast ports. The AAFA also noted risk from East Coast / Gulf port disruption to impact West Coast port operations, creating strains/delays across the supply chain. Separately, the Retail Industry Leaders Association has also stated that while retailers have activated contingency plans to mitigate potential effects of work disruption, it becomes harder to mitigate the longer a work stoppage goes on.
Our view on potential impact: We surveyed our hardlines and softlines coverage universe to assess exposure, and we found the majority of companies who responded pointed to the following: (1) A higher rate of reliance on West Coast ports for their primarily Asia-sourced product; (2) Proactive rerouting and other plans ahead of potential disruption to ensure critical product arrives on-time for holiday; (3) Other contingency plans in place, including airfreight for select items. Many companies indicated they were already planning for higher freight expense in 2H due to a variety of risk factors, with port contract negotiations one factor alongside ongoing Red Sea disruption and higher rates on spot product. That said, we note that the magnitude of potential disruption is likely a function of the length of any work disruption and subsequent port congestion (which could likely impact both West and East Coast ports). Historically, a longer period of congestion for retailers has typically been associated with a higher risk of delayed product arrival, which can be a headwind to full-price sales for holiday or seasonal items.
“Last week we came closer to a nuclear conflict between the US and Russia than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Today we are even closer.”
• Life, Pre-empted (Scott Ritter)
What would you do to save Democracy? To save America? To save the world? How will you vote in November? If you’re not thinking about the end of the world by now, you’re either braindead or stuck in some remote corner of the world, totally removed from access to news. Last week we came closer to a nuclear conflict between the US and Russia than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Today we are even closer. Most scenarios being bandied about in the western mainstream media that involve a nuclear conflict between Russia and the United States have Russia initiating the exchange by using nuclear weapons against Ukraine in response to deteriorating military, economic, and/or political conditions brought on by the US and NATO successfully leveraging Ukraine as a proxy to achieve the strategic defeat of Russia. Understand, this is what both Ukraine and the Biden administration mean when they speak of Ukraine “winning the war.”
This is a continuation of the policy objective set forth by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in April 2022, “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” meaning that Russia should “not have the capability to very quickly reproduce” the forces and equipment that it loses in Ukraine. This policy has failed; Russia has absorbed four new territories—Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Lugansk—into the Russian Federation, and the Russian defense industry has not only replaced losses sustained in the Ukrainian conflict, but is currently arming and equipping an additional 600,000 troops that have been added to the Russian military since February 2022. It is the United States and its NATO allies that find themselves on their back feet, with Europe facing economic hardship as a result of the extreme blowback that has transpired because of its sanctioning of Russian energy, and the United States watching helplessly as Russia, together with China, turns the once passive BRICS economic forum into a geopolitical juggernaut capable of challenging and surpassing the US-led G7 as the world’s most influential non-governmental organization.
As a result of this abysmal failure, policymakers in both the US and Europe are undertaking increasingly brazen acts of escalation designed to bring Russia to the breaking point, all premised on the assumption that all so-called “red lines” established by Russia regarding escalation are illusionary—Russia, they believe, is bluffing. And if Russia is not bluffing? Then, the western-generated scenario paints an apocalyptic picture which has a weak, defeated Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine in a last, desperate act of vengeance. According to this scenario, which the US and NATO not only war-gamed out but made ready to implement when these entities imagined that Russia was preparing to employ nuclear weapons back in late 2022-early 2023, the US and NATO would launch a devastating response against Russian targets deep inside Russia designed to punitively degrade Russian command and control, logistics, and warfighting capacity.
This would be done using conventional weapons. If Russia opted to retaliate against NATO targets, then the US would have to make a decision—continue to climb the escalation ladder, matching Russia punch for punch until one side became exhausted, or preemptively using nuclear weapons as a means of escalating to de-escalate—launch a limited nuclear strike using low-yield nuclear weapons in hopes that Russia would back down out of fear of what would come next—a general nuclear war. The Pentagon has integrated such a scenario into the range of nuclear pre-emption options available to the President of the United States. Indeed, in early 2020 US Strategic Command conducted an exercise where the Secretary of Defense gave the launch instructions for a US Ohio class submarine to launch a Trident missile carrying W-76-2 low yield nuclear warheads against a Russian target in a scenario involving Russian aggression against the Baltics in which Russia used a tactical nuclear weapon to strike a NATO target.
The insanity of this scenario is that it ignores published Russian nuclear doctrine, which holds that Russia will respond with the full power of its strategic nuclear arsenal in the case of a nuclear attack against Russian soil. Once again, US nuclear war planners believe that Russia is bluffing.
“..as if trying to outdo his infamous German colleague Annalena ‘360 Degrees of Anti-Diplomacy’ Baerbock..”
• Britain Goes Full Orwell Accusing Putin of Imperialism (Amar)
There are intriguing and disappointing – though not surprising – continuities between Great Britain under the conservative Tories and the current iteration under a hardly less rightwing version of the Labour party. Crony corruption scandals that reveal the British political elite as comically greedy and petty are already erupting again. Ordinary people still face an unforgiving search for “austerity”; indeed, given recent Labour moves on the budget, for instance on the winter fuel allowance, affecting over ten million frequently vulnerable pensioners, the so-called “Left” is now outdoing the Right in cruelty toward the common man and woman. And the fairly new prime minister, Keir Starmer, is already as deeply unpopular as his predecessor Rishi Sunak was when he called the elections that predictably finished him off.
And then there is foreign policy. There as well, it is hard to spot a difference. It is true, we have just learned that, once, former Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson was seriously considering an “aquatic raid” (say that with a Churchill growl, please) on the Netherlands, a NATO ally, to seize Covid vaccines. We have not yet heard of similarly exotic plots laid by Starmer. But otherwise, same old, same old. The UK elite remains fatally addicted to a blind loyalty toward its special relationship with the US that sometimes could make even the Germans blanch with envy. And they know a thing or two about absolute submission.
London also won’t let go of its position as Europe’s hottest cheerleader for the proxy war against Russia via Ukraine, at least outside the Baltics. Officially, the British government is still promoting the idea of co-launching Western-supplied missiles from Ukraine deep into Russia. Never mind that Moscow has made it clear that it will consider such a policy as bringing all of NATO and Russia into direct military conflict – not (barely) indirect as up until now. Moreover, the Russian leadership has also put the West on notice that cut-out games won’t work. The core point about its recent revision of Russia’s nuclear doctrine is that not only the ostentatious direct attacker state but its supporters as well are fair game – as they should be – for retaliation.
There may well be an element of fairly cheap theater in London’s posturing as a missile street tough. Think of a dog madly barking behind a closed gate, precisely because it knows the gate is closed and it won’t have to act on its ferocious threats. The role of the gate is played by Washington, which fails to allow the brilliant British-Ukrainian Armageddon-Come-and-Get-Us plan to go ahead, as the Telegraph has just bemoaned. How convenient: We’d be (insanely) brave, really, if only we didn’t have to be so obedient, too. Yet, at least as far as stentorian rhetoric is concerned, the UK’s government will certainly not be outdone. The problem with all the big talk, though, is that it can easily veer off into declarations so unusually hyperbolic and absurd that they backfire. Think of this current British mood as the very opposite of that fine understatement for which the island’s culture used to be famous.
An example of this kind of self-defeating bombast was recently delivered by Foreign Secretary David Lammy. Trying to reach an international audience, especially in a Global South that has long given up on the West, Lammy launched into a rant – there really is no other word – about Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. The whole thing was rather cringe, as if trying to outdo his infamous German colleague Annalena ‘360 Degrees of Anti-Diplomacy’ Baerbock in demeaning his own office. Lammy, for instance, apparently felt no shame denouncing Moscow’s “disinformation” – that, from one of the West’s worst deniers and enablers of Israel’s many crimes, including its Gaza genocide and devastation of Lebanon. Frankly Russia, at this point: just wear it with pride.
But the perhaps most stunningly grotesque moment occurred when Lammy sought to make opportunistic use of the horrific history of modern slavery. “As a black man,” he stated, “whose ancestors were taken in chains from Africa, at the barrel of a gun to be enslaved, whose ancestors rose up and fought in a great rebellion of the enslaved” he had a special knack for recognizing “imperialism.” By that he meant, of course, Russian imperialism. Since then, be assured, there has been much head scratching, perhaps especially in that Global South that Lammy tried so desperately to impress with his rhetorical kamikaze attack. Was not the British – cough, cough – Empire (as in imperialism) one of the worst participants in the Atlantic slave trade that produced 10 to 12 million Black victims?
“In 2022, the most recent year for which full data is available, 14 universities received at least — and brace yourself for this — $100 million in Pentagon funding..”
• The Pentagon Goes to School (Hartung)
The divestment campaigns launched last spring by students protesting Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza brought the issue of the militarization of American higher education back into the spotlight. Of course, financial ties between the Pentagon and American universities are nothing new. As Stuart Leslie has pointed out in his seminal book on the topic, The Cold War and American Science, “In the decade following World War II, the Department of Defense (DOD) became the biggest patron of American science.” Admittedly, as civilian institutions like the National Institutes of Health grew larger, the Pentagon’s share of federal research and development did decline, but it still remained a source of billions of dollars in funding for university research. And now, Pentagon-funded research is once again on the rise, driven by the DOD’s recent focus on developing new technologies like weapons driven by artificial intelligence (AI).
Combine that with an intensifying drive to recruit engineering graduates and the forging of partnerships between professors and weapons firms and you have a situation in which many talented technical types could spend their entire careers serving the needs of the warfare state. The only way to head off such a Brave New World would be greater public pushback against the military conquest (so to speak) of America’s research and security agendas, in part through resistance by scientists and engineers whose skills are so essential to building the next generation of high-tech weaponry. Yes, the Pentagon’s funding of universities is indeed rising once again and it goes well beyond the usual suspects like MIT or Johns Hopkins University. In 2022, the most recent year for which full data is available, 14 universities received at least — and brace yourself for this — $100 million in Pentagon funding, from Johns Hopkins’s astonishing $1.4 billion (no, that is not a typo!) to Colorado State’s impressive $100 million.
And here’s a surprise: two of the universities with the most extensive connections to our weaponry of the future are in Texas: the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) and Texas A&M. In 2020, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy appeared onstage at a UT-Austin ceremony to commemorate the creation of a robotics lab there, part of a new partnership between the Army Futures Command and the school. “This is ground zero for us in our research for the weapons systems we’re going to develop for decades to come,” said McCarthy. Not to be outdone, Texas A&M is quietly becoming the Pentagon’s base for research on hypersonics — weapons expected to travel five times the speed of sound. Equipped with a kilometer-long tunnel for testing hypersonic missiles, that school’s University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics is explicitly dedicated to outpacing America’s global rivals in the development of that next generation military technology.
Texas A&M is also part of the team that runs the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the (in)famous New Mexico facility where the first nuclear weapons were developed and tested as part of the Manhattan Project under the direction of Robert Oppenheimer. Other major players include Carnegie Mellon University, a center for Army research on the applications of AI, and Stanford University, which serves as a feeder to California’s Silicon Valley firms of all types. That school also runs the Technology Transfer for Defense (TT4D) Program aimed at transitioning academic technologies from the lab to the marketplace and exploring the potential military applications of emerging technology products. In addition, the Pentagon is working aggressively to bring new universities into the fold. In January 2023, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the creation of a defense-funded research center at Howard University, the first of its kind at a historically black college.
Power struggle.
• Zelensky Ready To Fire Spy Chief – Media (RT)
Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov could soon be forced to resign, and his successor is likely to have already been chosen, the New Voice (NV) news site reported on Sunday, citing a law enforcement agency source. Rumors of Budanov’s possible dismissal began to circulate shortly after Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky sacked half of the cabinet in early September. The purge included then Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and the Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Olga Stefanishina. It has also been also reported that there have been “serious tensions” between Budanov, the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR), and Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak – described by The Times as the de facto ruler of Ukraine – which could be a factor in his potential removal.
Commenting on the rumors that Budanov will be fired, the NV’s source said that this “option exists.” However, the source denied reports that the intelligence chief would follow Ukraine’s former top general, Valery Zaluzhny, by being appointed as an ambassador abroad. According to the source, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Oleg Ivashchenko, is likely to succeed Budanov. There have been no official statements from the HUR so far. Budanov was appointed as military intelligence chief in 2020, and previously served as deputy director of the Department of Foreign Intelligence. While it is typical of Zelensky to conduct purges after battlefield setbacks, some view the recent mass firing of ministers as an attempt by Yermak to concentrate power.
A member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Sergey Rakhmanin, told the NV last week that the talks about Budanov’s possible dismissal were “precisely a sign” that his relationship with Yermak had deteriorated. “As a rule, as soon as rumors start to appear that someone might leave their position, confirmation soon follows that, for one reason or another, either the person has quarreled with the head of the office or their relationship has worsened,” he added.
“..unlike in the Classical World, Trump seems to have no aristocracy behind him, following in his train. Will this work? How will it turn out?”
• Will The Suffocating Cage of Leviathan Be Avoided? (Alastair Crooke)
As the ousted ‘Emperor’, Biden made his ‘final walk’ from the dias at the UN; he was not the Emperor of yore, brimming with the bravura that the U.S. is back, and ‘I’m running the world’. For as the Middle East explodes, and the Ukrainian bubble deflates, the White House continues to urge restraint on all parties to dial back the violence. But no one is listening. With his era stumbling to an inglorious close, Biden may have loved the idea of pulling the levers of coercive soft-power influence, only subsequently to discover that the wires connecting those levers to the real-world railway ‘points’ were gone. Influence had flown; imperial coercion increasingly was met with disdain. Diplomacy had failed across the board. So what does today’s surge in turmoil, war in the Middle East, and Ukraine collapsing, signal for the future – as seen from the long arc of history (and following the lead of Mike Vlahos and John Batchelor’s Ancient world analogy)?
A stumbling ‘Emperor’ has been overthrown. There is no real crown prince; only an ‘adopted daughter’. It is deliberate. The Power-oligarchy (the ‘Senate’, if we follow the Ancient analogy), seems indifferent to the lacuna. It is intent to rule, as the Washington Post reports – outing the Oligarchic thinking: rule via a consensus of ‘democracy-supporting’ institutions as a kind of ‘permanent secretariat’ (a notion that has been kicking around since the 2016 election ‘loss’.) Yet nonetheless, there is an imperial succession issue. Every Empire needs an Emperor, beyond an Aristocracy/Senate, because the factious powerful in society need to have some pillar to which they can resort for settling their internecine feuds. Every ‘Empire’ needs too, a common substantive culture to make strong decisions of general interest.
In the European past there were two: Catholicism and the Enlightenment. They clashed. And both now have been marginalized for the benefit of libertarian arbitrariness, intended to free the individual from all constraints of communal norms. Post-modern culture makes people “mad because individual freedom no longer accepts objective truth”. The virtual world kills the sense of the real – to replace it with imagined reality. The art of governing becomes that of administering an imposed pretence; one which people can clearly observe about them is not real, yet they are obliged to pretend that ‘narrative’ is the objective real. This tension leads to existential insecurity and exploding reports of people in poor mental health.
Yet by contrast, in most places, David Brooks writes, “people are formed within morally cohesive communities. They derive a sense of belonging and solidarity from shared moral values. Their lives have meaning and purpose because they see themselves living in a universal moral order with permanent standards of right and wrong, within family structures that have stood the test of time, with shared understandings of, say, male and female”. Fiona Hill, formerly of a member of the U.S. National Security Council, propounds the counter-view: that since U.S. interests, described mostly as ‘threats’ which are long term, “the structures to address those threats must also be long-term, too”. (She illustrates the point by quoting ‘the long-term threat from Russia’). Hill is saying ‘the Aristocracy’ will rule long-term, via institutionalised, ‘inter-agency’ world order prescription.
This then, is the Aristocracy’s solution to the Imperial succession lacuna: Leviathan. “Leviathan – whose promise and project is straight forward – cancel all powers except one, which will be universal and absolute”. The implicit aim is to ‘Trump-proof’ policy prescriptions. This implicit objective however, underlines its flaw. There will be no participation. People will not participate; nor do they feel that they participate – because they don’t. The mood amongst the World Order back-room strategists is that selecting political candidates by voting has become ‘a bug’ and is no longer a feature. Voters do not know, let alone grasp, the import of the deep-seated policy structures on which U.S. hegemony is built. Participation is a glitch. It is at such a point in history that a ‘Big Man’ often emerges into the arena; one who challenges the emperor. The ‘Big Man’ is perceived to speak for the people, whose participation in political life has been dulled out, and who are angry. The Big Man always tells this betrayal story well.
The ‘Big Man’ is happening today, mainly because the traditional practice of swapping out of one ruling entity (party) for the other, to produce a look-alike (Uniparty) leader, has ruptured. It was engineered as if a card trick, with the spectator (the voter) always ‘happening’ to choose the ‘right card’ – the very card that the magician always intended would be chosen. Magic! And all the cards selected inevitably turn-out to be from the same suite! This card trick became obvious in recent months. Everyone could see its mechanics. Trump is not the ‘right card’, in the view of the U.S. power-élites; the Joker should have been pulled from the pack. What is unusual about today’s emergence of the ‘Big Man’, however, is that unlike in the Classical World, Trump seems to have no aristocracy behind him, following in his train. Will this work? How will it turn out?
Not heard from for 6 years.
• The End of the Skripals (Helmer)
And so it has also come to pass — more uniquely than ever before in English legal history, more than even Dickens can have imagined — that a retired English judge named Anthony Hughes – titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley — has put on public display his personal combination of all three — Bumble, Bumbledom, and the law as an ass. Hughes did this in a five-page ruling he issued on September 23. Hughes is directing the secret inquiry into two events on the British Government’s road to war against Russia in the Ukraine — the alleged Russian Novichok poisoning of Dawn Sturgess of June 2018, following the alleged Russian Novichok attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal of March 2018. Sturgess died; the Skripals survived. The book tells the full story.
Hughes has ruled the Skripals will not and must not be called to give evidence, neither in open court, nor by remote videolink, nor in tape-recorded voice, nor even in the written transcript of what English police claim the Skripals said under questioning in 2018. The two survivors of the only Russian Novichok poisoning ever alleged to have occurred outside Russia will not now be subjected to cross-examination or to any form of forensic questioning that is the requirement of the English criminal law, nor to their physical appearance in court that is their fundamental right under the English legal doctrine of habeas corpus. “I have concluded that neither Sergei nor Yulia Skripal will be called to give oral evidence,” Hughes has announced. “I have no doubt that the public exposure which would follow these witnesses being called would be intrusive and uncomfortable and would risk disrupting both their daily personal and family lives and those of people connected to them in many different ways…
“The overwhelming risk, which quite alters the position in the present case, is of physical attack on one or both of the Skripals. There is every reason to be satisfied that an attack similar to that which appears to have taken place in 2018 remains a real risk, either at the hands of persons with the same interest as the 2018 attackers, or via others interested in supporting the same supposed aim, if either Sergei or Yulia can be identified and their current whereabouts discovered.” Hughes has come to judgement here — days before he commences what he calls open proceedings — on what the entire process of his inquiry has yet to substantiate in evidence and to decide. Hughes has ruled that the Russian state, through its agents, attacked and attempted to kill the Skripals, and aim to do so again if Hughes lets the Skripals appear before him in any form at all.
Verifiable evidence of what the Skripals themselves believe – if they are alive — is to be substantiated only by their police guards. It is this police and MI6 record – compiled in the absence of lawyers representing the Skripals — which Hughes has now ruled to accept in violation of all the British rules of the admissibility of evidence.
“Having considered the representations of those responsible for their present security,” Hughes has judged, “I am more than satisfied that it would simply not be possible to maintain proper security if either of them were to be called to give evidence. That would be so whether they gave evidence from an open witness box, or by means of some electronic link from a remote room. In either case their present integrated security arrangements could not be maintained consistently with the necessity of being brought to a suitable location which is itself secure and which has an electronic link which is immune to interception. Moreover, if they were to be seen, or their voices heard, there could be no proper control of the likelihood that people who may have dealings with them (however casual or innocent) would recognise them and that that recognition would become more widely known, whether through social or other media or otherwise.”
As Bumble said, “if the law says that, the law is a ass.”
“..the Superfluous man is characterised also by a distinguishing spiritual condition: lack of a purpose in life in the form of a higher ideal.”
• Pavel Durov, The Superfluous Man (Karganovic)
Telegram owner Pavel Durov’s detention in Paris over a month ago provoked a flurry of attention and animated comments. But soon thereafter the case strangely vanished from the radar screen. The high profile affair, which initially stirred enormous public interest on account of its privacy and freedom of expression ramifications, suddenly went cold after the French authorities published a lengthy list of grave criminal charges against Durov and released him provisionally on a 5-million- euro bail. In Paris, where Durov presumably was staying whilst waiting for the resolution of his case, not even the paparazzi exhibited much interest in catching up with him.
The unusual silence was finally broken the other day with an announcement confirming what the savvier observers had suspected all along. Behind the scene intense negotiations between the Telegram owner and the prosecutors were taking place and a deal had finally been reached. It has now been disclosed that contrary to Durov’s initial assurances that he would never betray the trust of his platform users or renege on his commitment to freedom of expression, he has in fact conceded to the authorities key demand and will share data about his users with one or more of the interested governments.
This is an extraordinary but not wholly unexpected reversal. Since Telegram has nearly a billion users world-wide, it will have a significant impact on privacy in communications. But it is not strange at all if it is understood not as an individual aberration but as the modernised expression of the Russian literary archetype, the Superfluous man. What are the main characteristics of this archetype and how do they line up with what Pavel Durov has revealed about himself? How does it interface with the segment of Russian society that Durov epitomises, which consists predominantly of ambitious young people who look to an imaginary concept of “the West” as the model to emulate, and which emerged after the demise of the Soviet Union?
Literary critics define the Superfluous man as a talented and capable individual who does not care much for social norms and marches to the beat of his own drum. That is Pavel Durov to a T. Besides a disregard for the values of his society, the Superfluous man may also be afflicted with such traits as cynicism and existential boredom. Perhaps, but we do not know Durov personally well enough to say whether that is the case. The Superfluous man is typically indifferent or unsympathetic to the concerns of the society that surrounds him, he may even scoff at them, and he will often use the resources at his disposal to act in furtherance of his own comfort and security. He can be highly intelligent and capable, even engaging, but at bottom he is self-absorbed and narcissistic and shows little interest in being charitable or using his position for the sake of some greater good. Here we see glimpses of Durov once again. The most altruistic act he is known to have done was to anonymously share his semen with about a hundred women in the expectation that this will result in the conception of genetically superior little geniuses like himself.
Beyond the particular traits that may define him, the Superfluous man is characterised also by a distinguishing spiritual condition: lack of a purpose in life in the form of a higher ideal.
“Let’s bet that at the next dinner in town, Mr Macron won’t snub him again…”
• The Case Of Pavel Durov Ends On A French Letter With A Loophole (Helmer)
A plea bargain for the Russian Telegram owner Pavel Durov has been arranged in Paris with President Emmanuel Macron by their common friend, Xavier Niel, a French internet billionaire with a history of his own internet sex business, including paedophilia, which also ended in a plea bargain with all charges dropped. Durov issued his announcement of changes in Telegram’s terms of internet service and user privacy on September 23. “We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests. These measures should discourage criminals. Telegram Search is meant for finding friends and discovering news, not for promoting illegal goods.” Durov claimed that Telegram’s search feature “has been abused by people who violated our terms of service to sell illegal goods.
Over the past few weeks [his staff had used artificial intelligence to ensure that] all the problematic content we identified in Search is no longer accessible. We won’t let bad actors jeopardise the integrity of our platform for almost a billion users.” Four days later on September 27 in an interview on a television channel owned by one of Niel’s business partners, he claimed the credit for supporting Durov after Durov had telephoned him for help. Niel had come to the rescue, he explained, because Durov was his “copain”. “First of all, for me he didn’t cross the line because he wasn’t convicted. What I know is that, once you have been in prison for having had legal problems, everyone disappears. Everyone disappears in this setting. Me, when I have a buddy [copain — chum, mate, pal, friend] who is in difficulty and who makes a phone call to me and well, here I am, here I am.”
Niel has not disclosed the extent of the behind-the-scenes discussions held with Macron, who has revealed his own special interest in the case after it was initiated, not by the French internet regulators or prosecutors, but by the foreign intelligence agency, Direction générale de la Sécurité extérieure (DGSE). [..] In his regular Antipresse publication, Slobodan Despot writes: Between buddies. A slimy epilogue to the Parisian adventures of the Chevalier du Rove (see Antipresse 457 and Antipresse 458). The founder of Telegram has finally given in after being held in police custody. His platform will now provide information such as the IP address and telephone number of users suspected of criminal activity, if required by the courts. As we recall, he had refused the same service to his home country, but it is true that Russia did not have the idea of grilling him in prison.
On the evening of his arrest, Pavel Durov had given priority to one person: Xavier Niel. The French oligarch has confessed to having come to the aid of his ‘buddy in trouble’. He may well have taught him how to climb above all those pesky prosecutors. Look at his own platform, Free, which may have hosted half the paedophile files on the net for years, with impunity. To do this, of course, it helps to become buddies with the President of the Republic. That’s what the Chevalier du Rove tried to do the other Saturday [August 24], before being arrested. Let’s bet that at the next dinner in town, Mr Macron won’t snub him again…
Climate scam
Regular dude exposes the entire Climate Scam in a minute flat pic.twitter.com/9GV4chmsNP
— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) September 29, 2024
Seal
One of the funny moments during a SpaceX rocket launch was when Elon Musk and the SpaceX team were launching at Vandenberg in California.
An organization concerned about Seal procreation forced SpaceX to "kidnap" a Seal, strap it to a board, and put headphones on and play sonic… pic.twitter.com/wA5RcqNwLq
— SMX 🇺🇸 (@iam_smx) September 29, 2024
Ball
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840700694115803260
Statue
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840563055094104181
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