Menu Icon

Debt Rattle November 17 2024

Nov 172024
 
 November 17, 2024  Posted by at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  75 Responses »


Jerry Bywaters Oil Field Girls 1940

 

• The Revolution of 2024 (Jeffrey A. Tucker)
• Trump Will Bring Justice, Not Revenge (Jim Rickards)
• Tulsi Gabbard, The New US Intel Chief (SCF)
• RFK Jr. Is Poised To Save The Health And Lives Of Millions Of Americans (Hill)
• What Could Trump 2.0 Mean for US Healthcare? (Sp.)
• Why Voters Trusted The GOP More On Democracy (Turley)
• Rachel Maddow Claims Trump is Trying To “Destroy The US Government” (MN)
• Pentagon Spends $187 Mln on Audit, Fails Seventh Year in a Row (Sp.)
• Trump Team To Write Off ‘Project Ukraine’ as Sunk Cost (Sp.)
• Zelensky Wants To Intensify Military Draft (RT)
• Ex-FM Warns Of Potential ‘Internal Collapse’ In Ukraine (RT)
• Moscow Continues To Warn The West About The Risk Of Nuclear Escalation (SCF)
• War Games Show UK’s Flagship Aircraft Carriers ‘Get Sunk’ Every Time (Sp.)
• The Novichok Attack Was A British Operation, Not A Russian One (Helmer)
• Climate-Change Debate ‘Heats Up’ With Collum, Keen, Fleckenstein (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Bannon

Rogan


https://twitter.com/i/status/1857708065191338428

Leavitt

Mollie
https://twitter.com/i/status/1857599848062628084

FBI J6

Alina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1857500858746835041

Jail

Trover

 

 

 

 

“We are barely ten days into the realization of what just transpired and the entire lay of the land seems different, like a tectonic shift in politics, culture, mood, and possibilities..”

• The Revolution of 2024 (Jeffrey A. Tucker)

People are out and about, smiling at each other. It’s been true since the morning after the election, the results of which defied every prediction. Who doesn’t like to see the smug elites who have ruled the world for five awful years taken down a peg? More than that, there are hints of a return to sanity. Mainstream advertisers are suddenly returning to X, putting their economic interest above their tribalist loyalties. The editor of pro-lockdowns Scientific American, which had long blessed totalitarian measures as true science, has resigned. The attempt to pillage InfoWars and give it to The Onion has been reversed by a federal judge. That might be a fluke or might not be: maybe the lawfare is dialing back too. The cabinet of the incoming administration is being filled by voices that were fully censored for years. Employees are reportedly packing their bags at the FDA and other agencies.

Mainstream news commentators are sputtering around with less bravado than they have shown in years. CNN is firing major personalities. Trump is talking about abolishing the income tax and granting $10K in tax credits per homeschooled child, not to mention blowing up college accreditation systems, among other sweeping changes. The American Bastille day is coming, not only freeing the political prisoners of January 6 but also many of the unjustly persecuted including Ross Ulbricht, Roger Ver, and Ian Freeman, among so many others. That will be a day of rejoicing. Oh, and peace seems to have broken out in some contentious areas of the world, for now. What is happening? This is not the usual transfer of the resident of the White House. This is starting to look like an actual transfer of power, not just from Biden to Trump but from the permanent government – ensconced in many sectors – that has been long in hiding to an entirely new form of government responsive to actual voters.

As it turns out, there was no late surge for Kamala Harris. All the polls were wrong, and the rest was media blather. What was correct were the betting odds on Polymarket, and only days later, the FBI raided the 26-year-old founder’s home and confiscated his phone and laptop. There are still many millions of missing voters, people who supposedly showed up for Biden in 2020 but stayed home this time. Meanwhile, there has been a historic shift in all races, ethnicities, and regions, with even the possibility of flipping California from blue to red in the future. After decades of academic slicing and dicing of the population according to ever more eccentric identity buckets involving race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual interest, along with countless thousands of studies documenting deep complexity over intersectionality, the driving force of the election was simple: class, and the few intellectuals and some wealthy entrepreneurs who understand that.

The division was not really left vs right. It was workers vs laptoppers, wage earners vs six-figure stay-at-homers, bottom half vs top 5 percent, people with actual skills vs weaponized resume wielders, and those with affection for old-world values vs those whose educations have beaten it out of them for purposes of career advancement. The silent majority has never been so suddenly loud. It just so happened that the heavily privileged had come to inhabit easily identifiable sectors of American society and, in the end, had no choice but hitch the whole of the overclass wagon to the fortunes of a candidate like themselves (Kamala) but who was unable to pull off a compelling masquerade. Not even a parade of well-paid celebrity endorsements could save her from total rebuke at the polls. Sylvester Stallone called Trump a second George Washington but another reference point might be Andrew Jackson.

The overwhelming victory for Trump is on a scale not seen since 1828 when, four years after the presidency was stolen from Jackson, Old Hickory came back in a wild landslide and cleaned up Washington. Trump arrives in Washington with a mandate for the same, with 81% of the public demanding that the government shrink in size and power. It has all happened so quickly. We are barely ten days into the realization of what just transpired and the entire lay of the land seems different, like a tectonic shift in politics, culture, mood, and possibilities. We are even seeing blunt and open talk about the horrendous Covid response that so utterly demoralized the country and the world, after years of silence on the topic. We have promised hearings coming, and court cases galore now on fast track. The sudden coming together of three great sectors of anti-establishment fury – MAGA, MAHA, and DOGE – in the last two months of the election of 2024 is one for the ages.

It provides the beginnings of an answer to the great question on our minds for decades: how precisely does an authentic revolution take root in an industrialized Western democracy? Are elections capable of delivering real results? For now, the answer seems to be yes. That should thrill any responsible observer of social, cultural, economic, and political affairs. It means that the early architects of the American system were not wrong. The intolerable costs of political upheaval of ages past can be mitigated by planting power firmly in the hands of the people through the plebiscite. This was their view and their gamble. All the evidence of our time points to the wisdom of the idea. In the darkest days of the last year of the first Trump presidency, the bureaucracy was riding high, in full revenge mode against an elected government it hated and sought to overthrow. The agencies were passing strange edicts that felt like laws but no one knew for sure. You are essential, you are not. You must stay home, unless you have an emergency. Your elective surgery needs to wait. The kids cannot go to school. That European vacation cannot happen.

You can eat at a restaurant but only if you are six feet away from other patrons and you must put this China-made cloth on your mouth if you get up to go to the restroom. The flurry of edicts was mind-boggling. It felt like martial law, because it was some form of exactly that. The best research points to the astonishing reality that this was never really a public-health response but a scheme by security and intelligence sectors to enact some kind of global color revolution, which is why the policies were so similar the world over. It was indeed an awesome display of power, one that invaded all our communities, homes, and families. No one knows this better than Team Trump, even if there has been near silence on the topic for all these years. They have had time to put the pieces together and figure out what happened and why. And they carefully, and in seclusion worthy of a Cistercian monastery, plotted their return, leaving nothing to chance.

Read more …

“The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled.”

• Trump Will Bring Justice, Not Revenge (Jim Rickards)

The persecution and prosecution of President Donald Trump is finally winding down. Jack Smith, a primary player in the lawfare campaign against Trump, has filed to dismiss the case involving classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Rep. Jim Jordan has instructed Special Counsel Smith to preserve all records related to the cases. The Deep State tried everything to make Trump lose. In total, 91 frivolous felony charges were thrown at the former president. All so they could brand him a felon, tie up resources and prevent him from campaigning. Then there was the January 6th “insurrection”, multiple Russian collusion hoaxes and countless media lies. The Deep State even prosecuted his advisers, such as 75-year-old famed economist Peter Navarro, who was the first former White House official ever imprisoned on a contempt-of-court charge. This dignified gentleman was frog-marched into prison as part of a political persecution campaign.

The entire affair was a disgrace to the nation. On Election Day, Americans rejected this vile lawfare. And soon, it will be time for justice. With GOP control over both sides of the Congress and a near-landslide win, Trump has a mandate from the American people to pursue it aggressively. President Trump has not been shy about his intentions, stating, “The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled.” On day one, he promised to reissue his executive order allowing the President to remove “rogue bureaucrats” from their positions. Trump promised to “wield that power very aggressively” against the Deep State. Our once and future President even promised to establish a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”, opening the books on issues including the JFK assassination, illicit spying, and government corruption. I can’t wait to see what it uncovers. Trump’s recent speech was packed full of details on how he plans to drain the swamp. He starts strong and keeps going:

“This is how I will shatter the Deep State and restore government that is controlled by the people and for the people… Make every Inspector General’s office independent and physically separated from the departments they oversee so they do not become the protectors of the Deep State… Launch a major crackdown on government leakers who collude with the fake news to deliberately create false narratives and to subvert our government and our democracy… Clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus… Push a constitutional amendment to oppose term limits on members of Congress. “Shatter the Deep State”. No ambiguity there.

Some will call what is coming revenge. But this will not be revenge. It will be justice. The distinction is important. I would fully support justice here if the shoe was on the other foot, and the GOP were the offending party. This type of behavior simply cannot stand. It undermines and corrupts the entire system. Re-establishing a just and fair government is critical. It will be difficult, but I believe Trump will succeed this time. He has learned from the mistakes of his first term. Trump has the right people around today. He has already rejected the idea of inviting Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo to join the new administration.

This is an excellent sign of things to come. Given the mandate, the appointment of Attorney General will be particularly important. I have my eye on Mike Davis. He is the exact type of person this position calls for. Tough as nails, fair, and dedicated to cleaning up the system. I’ve met the man, and he’s just the type of person required for this job. The stage is set for a historic draining of the swamp. Of course, there is still the potential for last-minute desperation moves by the Democrats, including their plan to disqualify Trump using the “insurrection clause”. But given my prediction that Congress will be controlled by Republicans, I think we’ll be in the clear in that department.

Read more …

“..in The Atlantic, an establishment mouthpiece, Gabbard was denounced as a “threat to the security of the United States.” That’s a staggering charge to levy on the person who is going to be head of national security..”

• Tulsi Gabbard, The New US Intel Chief (SCF)

The nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as the United States intelligence supremo has sent shockwaves through the American and NATO establishments. The Western news media – always a dutiful echo chamber for deep-state policymakers – is reverberating with horror at her nomination by President-elect Donald Trump. That reaction is a good sign that something significant has happened. The potential appointment of Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) could be the most consequential decision yet by Trump in forming his cabinet. If one move could signal the foreign policy direction under the 47th president, Gabbard’s nomination is the most salient and potentially the most constructive on the key issue of world peace. Time magazine headlined with the U.S. intelligence community’s response to Gabbard’s selection. “We are reeling,” it was reported. Reuters reported that the Western “spy world is vexed.” Meanwhile, in The Atlantic, an establishment mouthpiece, Gabbard was denounced as a “threat to the security of the United States.”

That’s a staggering charge to levy on the person who is going to be head of national security. It is almost hilarious to see the apoplectic reaction in the U.S. establishment and its servile mainstream media. CNN’s news anchor Jim Sciutto was distraught in sharing his concerns with colleague Richard Quest, remarking that Gabbard’s views “contradict” almost everything about U.S. foreign policies. If we may paraphrase that exchange, the sentiments were: Oh my God, how terrible! Whatever shall we say now about all the lies we have been spinning for years and getting fat salaries for? After all, as far as the U.S. corporate media are concerned, especially those channels and newspapers associated with the Democrats, the establishment, and the deep state intelligence apparatus, Tulsi Gabbard has been smeared as a “Russian asset.” It is indeed profoundly challenging – one might even say, earth-shattering – to the deep state if Gabbard becomes Director of National Intelligence.

As with Trump’s other cabinet picks, the nominations will have to be approved by Senate panels. So there is a while to go before her post is confirmed. A lot can change or be derailed. Trump’s cabinet picks this week have been keenly watched by observers trying to discern the future foreign policies of the next presidency, which begins in January after his inauguration. Trump’s early call-ups this week of hawkish figures Pete Hegseth for defense and Marco Rubio for secretary of state caused dismay among some critics of U.S. foreign policy who wanted a fundamental break from warmongering and hostility toward Russia, China, and Iran, among others. Then came Trump’s selection of Tulsi Gabbard. The former Congresswoman has gained wide popular American and international respect for her outspoken and independent criticism of U.S. militarism in the Middle East and Ukraine.

However, the U.S. political establishment and media have slandered her as a “traitor” and a “Russian asset” for her views criticizing Washington’s regime change wars in Syria and the Middle East. In 2017, Gabbard traveled to Syria and met with President Bashar al-Assad. She spoke out against Washington’s covert policy of sponsoring terrorist militia for regime change in Damascus. For telling the truth, she was vilified as an “apologist” for Assad. More recently, the “apologist” slur was thrown at her again after Gabbard opposed the U.S. and NATO’s arming of the Kiev regime and the proxy war against Russia. She said that the conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided if Russia’s security concerns about NATO’s threatening expansion had been taken into consideration. How refreshing to hear that sanity and objectivity.

In a twisted way, the CNN clapping seals are correct. Her views on the conflict in Ukraine do indeed contradict the U.S. establishment and media’s propaganda about “Russian aggression.” Her views unequivocally debunk the wall-to-wall “news” propaganda as false and serve as a warning to the public that NATO’s lies are dragging the world into a nuclear war. The role of Tulsi Gabbard in the second Trump administration – if she makes it through Senate vetting – cannot be overstated. In her DNI capacity, she is the intel supremo who oversees the CIA and NSA. Through her daily briefings to the president, Gabbard will play a crucial role in President Trump’s foreign policymaking. Given Trump’s freewheeling style, it can be fairly assumed that Gabbard’s input into policymaking will have much greater influence than the secretaries of defense or state. She will call the shots, and Trump will designate Hegseth, Rubio, and others to follow suit on the policies.

Wasserman

Read more …

“..the secretary of State, Defense, Treasury or Interior is a very important position. But measurable progress can often be incremental. But imagine being the “Secretary of Saving Human Lives.”

• RFK Jr. Is Poised To Save The Health And Lives Of Millions Of Americans (Hill)

What is the value of someone who has the potential to literally save millions of lives and improve the health of tens of millions of children and adults? We may be on the verge of revolutionizing America’s failing health care system for the better, and two men will be responsible: President-elect Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump has long been a fan of Kennedy’s intellect, independence from special interests, passion, empathy and connection with the American people. Trump also no doubt realizes that Kennedy’s value to his incoming administration is immeasurable, as RFK Jr. can wear multiple hats of expertise. Trump has picked him to run the Department of Health and Human Services. And it is from under that HHS hat that Kennedy will transform our “sick-care” industry and literally save millions of lives in the process.

Anyone paying attention to the utter catastrophe that has become America’s “health care” industry knows that this is not political hyperbole or an exaggeration. It is an outright obscenity that we are losing so many Americans to entirely preventable causes. Three days before the election, I wrote about “The 2 decisions that crushed Harris’s momentum.” One was Harris’s selection of Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. The other, and more important of the two, was Kennedy suspending his campaign and endorsing Trump. “One of the main reasons is the ‘mom vote,’” I wrote. “Kennedy’s endorsement will potentially bring millions of previously ambivalent female voters to the table for Trump. Why? Because they are moms who are worried about the health and wellbeing of their children and have long believed that Kennedy was one of the few people in public life who would protect those children. This is a much bigger deal than the media realizes or will acknowledge. It is a real game changer. Toward that end, these moms want Trump to win so he will bring Kennedy into his cabinet.”

After the column ran, I heard from many mothers confirming that exact point. Said one: “Yep, as one of those ‘mom votes’ who was dying to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I will now vote for the unity party.” After Kennedy got out of the race and Trump welcomed him with open arms, the two created what future historians may record as the most important health care movement in the history of our nation. It is a grassroots phenomenon spreading like wildfire as more and more parents and adults wake up to the chemicals and poisons being introduced into their bodies against their will. On Nov. 6, Kennedy posted: “President Trump has asked me to do three things: 1. Clean up the corruption in our government health agencies. 2. Return those agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science. 3. Make America Healthy Again by ending the chronic disease epidemic.”

In the speech announcing the suspension of his campaign and his unequivocal endorsement of Trump, Kennedy ticked off some truly horrifying statistics. “We spend more on health care than any country on Earth,” he said. “Nobody has a chronic disease burden like we have … Two-thirds of American adults and children suffer from chronic health issues. Fifty years ago, that number was less than 1 percent. So, we’ve gone from 1 percent to 66 percent. In America, 74 percent of Americans are now overweight or obese, and 50 percent of our children… Half of Americans have pre-diabetes or type two diabetes…And this is a crisis that 77 percent of our kids are too disabled to serve in the United States military. What is happening to our country and why isn’t this in the headlines every single day?…

“Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the young and the old. Young adult cancers are up 79 percent … So, what’s causing this suffering? I’ll name two culprits. First and the worst is ultra-processed food. About 70 percent of American children’s diet is ultra-processed. That means industrial manufactured in a factory … The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food and our medicine, in our environment … The assault on our children’s cells and hormones is unrelenting.” Unfortunately, what is also “unrelenting” is the opposition to Kennedy from Big Pharma, Big Agriculture and special interests that realize hundreds of billions in profits at the direct expense of the health of every man, woman and child in America. In opposing that massive force, Kennedy is in the fight for our lives.

To be sure, being the secretary of State, Defense, Treasury or Interior is a very important position. But measurable progress can often be incremental. But imagine being the “Secretary of Saving Human Lives.” If Kennedy is even halfway successful in his quest to save the American people — and especially our children — from the life-robbing threats of ultra-processed foods and toxic chemicals, he can potentially save or improve tens of millions of lives over the next four years. That “cure” that will transcend every demographic and income level. Under the direction of Trump, Kennedy may turn ignorance to acceptance, acceptance to hope, hope to belief and belief to results. Again, what is the value of someone who literally has the potential to save millions of lives and improve the health of tens of millions of children and adults? I suspect we are about to find out.

RFK

Dr. Oz

Read more …

“If we can come up with a plan that’s going to cost our people, our population, less money, and provide better health care than Obamacare, then I would absolutely do it.”

• What Could Trump 2.0 Mean for US Healthcare? (Sp.)

US President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his Department of Health and Human Services Secretary tasked with fixing America’s raging health crisis. Donald Trump has promised to “bring down costs” and increase the quality of US healthcare. What changes can be expected?
• During his first term, Trump tried but failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare. Trump called Obamacare “lousy health care” and floated replacing it, saying, “If we can come up with a plan that’s going to cost our people, our population, less money, and provide better health care than Obamacare, then I would absolutely do it.”
• Trump has vowed to protect Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people aged 65 or older and younger people with disabilities.
• Cuts to Medicaid, the largest government health-insurance program that covers low-income Americans, may be expected under Trump.
• During his first term, Trump proposed cutting the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and eliminating the Medicaid expansion that was passed as part of the ACA.
• A work requirement might be added for some able-bodied adult beneficiaries, with federal spending on the program capped.
• Trump has promised to veto a federal abortion ban “under any circumstances”, saying, “It is up to the states to decide.”
• Trump didn’t rule out banning certain vaccines, promising to “make a decision” after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – now tapped to be his HHS chief – hinted at the possibility of ending vaccine mandates. With an estimated 108,000 people dying from drug overdoses in the US last year, Trump blamed it on the migrant crisis. Although he criminalized all fentanyl-related substances in 2018, overdose deaths continued to soar.

Read more …

“..there is work to be done as a nation committed to the rule of law. We cannot win at any cost when that cost is the very thing that defines us.”

• Why Voters Trusted The GOP More On Democracy (Turley)

“People violate laws any time they want.” Those words, shrugging off an alleged unlawful move last week, did not come from some Chicago gangbanger or Washington car thief. Those words of wisdom came from Democrat Commissioner Diane Marseglia in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They came in response to the fact that the Democratic majority on the election commission had decided to ignore a binding state Supreme Court ruling in an attempt to engineer the election of Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). Rather than prompting a degree of introspection, the loss of both houses of Congress and the White House has had a curious effect on many Democrats, dropping any pretense of protecting democracy over partisanship.

Despite polls showing that the public trusted former president Donald Trump more than Vice President Harris in combatting threats to democracy, Democrats made “saving democracy” the thrust of this election. The polls reflected a certain common sense of the public when harangued with predictions from President Biden, Harris and a host of politicians and pundits that this would likely be our last election. Few believed that after over two centuries as the most stable and successful democracy in history, all three branches would collapse in unison and embrace dictatorship. Even fewer believed the predictions of the rounding up of homosexuals, journalists and political critics for camps in what some described as an American Third Reich. American voters are not chumps and what they saw were strikingly anti-democratic positions from those claiming to be the defenders of democracy, including:

• Seeking to strip Trump from ballots under an unfounded theory rejected unanimously by the Supreme Court.
• Fighting to block opponents of Biden from ballots in the primary and general elections.
• Suing to keep Robert F. Kennedy on ballots after his withdrawal in swing states, in order to confuse voters and reduce the vote for Trump.
• Calling for blocking dozens of incumbent GOP officials and legislators from ballots as “insurrectionists.”
• “Protecting democracy” through the most extensive censorship in history and the blacklisting of opponents.
• Engaging in open and raw lawfare in the prosecutions of Trump in places like New York.

Each of these efforts ultimately failed to stop Trump and was opposed by a majority of voters even before the election. So now, Democrats are dropping the pretense of raw partisanship. That was evident in Bucks County, when a motion arose to reject a challenge to count provisional ballots, including undated or invalidly dated mail ballots. It should have been easy. To its credit, the majority-Democratic Pennsylvania Supreme Court had already refused a Democratic push to change the rules shortly before the election and to ignore the plain language of the election laws. In ordering the rejection of ballots without dates, Justice Kevin Doughtery (joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd) wrote a concurrence declaring “‘This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election.’ We said those carefully chosen words only weeks ago. Yet they apparently were not heard in the Commonwealth Court, the very court where the bulk of election litigation unfolds.”

It is apparently still not being heard. In the Bucks County hearing, Marseglia spoke as she and Democratic Board chairman Robert Harvie, Jr., dismissed the earlier rulings in order to accept ballots without required signatures or mandatory dates. She declared that she would not second the motion to enforce the rulings “mostly because I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country and people violate laws any time they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.” That was a lot of words to say that she does not really seem to care if this is lawful. For his part, Casey has shown the same abandon as he clings to his Senate seat at any cost.

That cost, in this case, was an alliance with Marc Elias, the controversial Democratic lawyer at the center of the infamous Steele Dossier scandal. Elias has been sanctioned in court and criticized for his work to flip elections. He is known for baselessly blaming voting machine errors for electing Republicans and pushing gerrymandering plans rejected by the courts as anti-democratic. Casey is unlikely to change the result without counting defective or challenged ballots. Fortunately, law and precedent “does matter in this country.” There are still officials who can transcend their political preferences to maintain the rule of law. After the last presidential election, many Trump appointees ruled against the former president, and many Democratic judges rejected the effort to strip Trump from ballots.

That does not mean that Democrats who value the weaponization of law will not continue to embrace lawfare warriors like New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). Others will use the rage of these times as a license to ignore legal and ethical obligations altogether. They are arguably the saddest manifestation of our political discord. They are people who have not just lost faith in our system but in themselves. They have become untethered from any defining principle for their own conduct. This election has left them adrift in a sea of moral and legal relativism, with only their rage as a following wind. They cling to that rage as reason vanishes like a distant shore. For the rest of us, there is work to be done as a nation committed to the rule of law. We cannot win at any cost when that cost is the very thing that defines us.

Read more …

She’s lost it all. But she can’t stop herself.

• Rachel Maddow Claims Trump is Trying To “Destroy The US Government” (MN)

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow took a break from claiming she’s about to be thrown into a concentration camp to charge that president Trump is attempting to “destroy” the government. Maddow said, “I think the idea of the authoritarian promise is that everything shrivels in government other than the will of the leader, right?” She further claimed “You don’t necessarily put a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge if you’re hoping for great things from HHS.” “Matt Gaetz, he has explicitly proposed abolishing the Justice Department, not specifically abolishing the FBI and the ATF but talking about abolishing the Justice Department,” she added. Maddow continued to blather, “Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence is, I mean, the idea that Tulsi Gabbard, in a normal circumstance, could get a security clearance to be like a Walmart-style greeter at any U.S. intelligence agency, let alone get past the security barriers, is insane.”

“So, you do that because you want the worst for these agencies, because you want the worst for the U.S. government because you think that the U.S. government is worthless,” she asserted. Why would Trump do all this? Well it’s all a big conspiracy to become a dictator… or something. “That’s part of consolidating power, to make the U.S. government nothing other than the leader and people who will do what he says,” Maddow claimed. She continued, “Steve Bannon used to say, it’s a sort of Leninist project, right? Destroy the state. This is the cabinet that you nominate to, not to run the U.S. government, to do anything, but to destroy the U.S. government.” “So that the U.S. government can be fundamentally reimagined as something much more like a unitary authoritarian or autocratic, for lack of a better term, system,” Maddow concluded, ending her paranoid rant. Or maybe, just maybe, people voted for reform and gave Trump a mandate to implement that, meaning putting people outside of the Washington establishment furniture into key positions.

Yeah, probably more likely that, right. As we highlighted earlier, all the right people are big mad at Trump’s appointments. Add to that list the disgraced former CIA Director John Brennan, who parroted absurd claims that Gabbard is some kind of Russian asset. “Clearly, Tulsi Gabbard has taken actions and made statements over the past several years that raise serious questions about her common sense, judgment, and political sympathies,” Brennan proclaimed. “Cozying up to Putin as well as to Bashar al-Assad shows she doesn’t have the type of perspective needed for someone who is going to head up these 18 intelligence agencies,” he further declared, labelling Gabbard “an unserious pick for a serious position.”

This coming from a guy who pushed the Russia hoax for years, and claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian psy op. He says everything is a Russian plot. His credibility is shot. Meanwhile, AOC ranted about Gabbard, ridiculously claiming she is “pro-war.” Anyone who has listened to Gabbard talk for more than five minutes knows this is the complete opposite of her actual position.

Read more …

“It has never passed, and is the only Cabinet-level department of the federal government never to do so.”

• Pentagon Spends $187 Mln on Audit, Fails Seventh Year in a Row (Sp.)

This year’s financial review, carried out by the DoD’s Office of the Inspector General and an independent accounting firm, employed 1,700 auditors and cost $187 million – slightly more than the entire defense budget of the West African nation of Mauritania. The US spent a record $824 billion on defense in 2024, $27 billion more than a year earlier. The US Department of Defense has failed its seventh consecutive audit, with more than half of its departments unable to provide auditors with sufficient data to accurately evaluate the status of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of assets under the Pentagon’s domain.

DoD comptroller and Chief Financial Officer Michael McCord – appointed by President Obama in 2014, and under whom the Pentagon failed every one of its independent audits since they began in 2017, assured in a statement that the Pentagon had “turned a corner in its understanding of the depth and breadth of its challenges” and promises to do better in the future. “Momentum is on our side, and throughout the Department there is strong commitment – and belief in our ability -to achieve an unmodified audit opinion,” McCord said. The Pentagon expects to receive a passing grade by 2028, as required in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (the annual must-pass Congressional legislation approving the defense budget).

The audit’s failing grade was based on financial inspections of 28 subordinated bodies, with 15 receiving disclaimers (which means auditors were unable to obtain sufficient evidence to form an opinion on the financial statements being audited), nine unmodified audit opinions (that is, a reasonable level of assurance that financial statements represented a true and fair reflection of audit results), one a qualified opinion (issued when auditors identify material misstatements in financial statements), and three opinions which remain pending. Agencies that passed included the DoD’s Defense Commissary Agency (responsible for food supplies to servicemen and their families), the Defense Financial and Accounting Service (which oversees payments to servicemembers, employees, vendors and contractors), and the Defense Health Agency (supplying an ensuring the readiness of military medical commands).

The Defense Information Systems Agency, which provides IT and communications support to the services, the Military Retirement Fund, the National Reconnaissance Office (responsible for the operation of space and ground-based intelligence collection systems worldwide), the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Civil Works agency and the Defense Contract Audit Agency (responsible for contract audits and related financial advisory services) also passed. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, mentioned in a series of damning intelligence briefings by Russia’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops on US illicit military biological activities in Ukraine and across the globe, also got a passing grade. McCord defended the results at a press conference on Friday.

“This was not a surprise and I know that on the surface it doesn’t sound like we are making progress,” he said. “I do not say we failed, as I said, we have about half clean opinions. We have half that our not clean opinions. So if someone had a report card that is half good and half not good, I don’t know that you call the student or the report card a failure,” he said. Passing an audit by the 2028 deadline is “achievable,” he said. Also this week, the DoD Inspector General’s Office calculated that Congress has now appropriated nearly $183 billion in assistance to Ukraine since February 2022, including $131.36 billion for security-related assistance and activities, and $43.84 billion for ‘governance and development’. The Department of Defense carried out its first independent audit in 2017, and has been legally mandated to do so since 2018. It has never passed, and is the only Cabinet-level department of the federal government never to do so.

Read more …

“They don’t feel “invested” in propping up Zelensky’s corrupt regime in the same way that the current Biden administration does..”

• Trump Team To Write Off ‘Project Ukraine’ as Sunk Cost (Sp.)

Donald Trump repeated his pledge to end the Ukraine conflagration as he addressed a gala organized by the America First Policy Institute at his Mar-a-Lago resort on November 15, saying that “the conflict has got to stop.” There is a general consensus within President-elect Donald Trump’s team that the failed “Project Ukraine” needs to be shut down, British political analyst Alexander Mercouris speculated on his YouTube channel. “Overall, despite different opinions and nuances among them, they have reached a general consensus that ‘Project Ukraine’ has absorbed a huge amount of energy and resources on the part of the United States, but it has not delivered what it promised. Ukraine has not been successful on the battlefield, there has been no economic collapse in Russia, and President Putin is still very firmly in control of things in Moscow,” the expert said.

In his opinion, these people, who come from the business world in many cases, have taken a simple “cost-benefit view”, and have agreed that “the time has come to close the whole thing down.” They don’t feel “invested” in propping up Zelensky’s corrupt regime in the same way that the current Biden administration does, according to the analyst. “They are resisting falling for the sunk costs fallacy, the one that says that you have already invested so much in terms of funding, weapons and resources that you can’t stop now,” Mercouris noted. Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he could end the fighting “in 24 hours” if reelected; he slammed US aid to Kiev, and vowed not to put US troops on the ground in Ukraine.

Read more …

“..numerous Ukrainian officials – as well as their backers in the West – have proposed that Kiev lower the draft age even further..”

• Zelensky Wants To Intensify Military Draft (RT)

The tightening of mobilization rules earlier this year has failed to solve Ukraine’s manpower shortage on the battlefield, Vladimir Zelensky has admitted, adding that the relevant legislation should be adjusted. In an interview with Ukrainskoye Radio on Saturday, Zelensky said that Ukraine “has not mobilized” enough troops under two new laws were passed this spring after significant back-and-forth in parliament. The first lowered the draft age from 27 to 25, while the second cracked down on draft dodgers, forcing all citizens eligible for conscription to report to military authorities for “data clarification.”

At the same time, Zelensky rejected speculation that Ukraine had drafted half a million men while pointing to problems with the available replenishments for frontline units. “The brigades in the East are exhausted, rotation is needed. The guys are getting tired and leaving. They must be replaced with fresh units,” Zelensky said. He also admitted that the frontline situation is “really difficult” and that Russia has indeed managed to accomplish “slow progress.” Before this year’s tightening of the rules, Kiev had announced a general mobilization, barring most men between 18 and 60 from leaving the country. Recruitment has been marred by widespread bribery and draft-dodging, with some Ukrainians trying to flee the country at all costs, even at a serious risk to their lives.

Meanwhile, social media is filled with videos of military patrols trying to catch eligible men in the streets, shopping malls, and gyms, often resulting in clashes. Despite the intensification of the draft, Ukrainian soldiers have consistently complained of the lack of reinforcements and inadequate training for new recruits, leading to long rotations and exhaustion. In light of this, numerous Ukrainian officials – as well as their backers in the West – have proposed that Kiev lower the draft age even further. Some Ukrainian politicians have also argued that all the country’s citizens should dedicate themselves to fighting Russia either directly on the front lines or indirectly by helping the army in the rear.

Read more …

“..Trump “cannot afford for Ukraine to become his Afghanistan.”

• Ex-FM Warns Of Potential ‘Internal Collapse’ In Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine could face civil unrest and even a full-blown “collapse” if US President-elect Donald Trump reverses the outgoing administration’s policy of unconditional support for Kiev, former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has warned. The election of Trump on November 5 prompted fears in Kiev that Washington would end financial and military aid and would strong-arm the country into an unfavorable settlement with Russia. “If the money were to dry up, a new dynamic would come into play, and not all of it on the battlefield. True, bereft of funding, Ukraine could lose ground completely,” Kuleba wrote in an op-ed published in The Economist on Wednesday. He argued that Ukraine could plunge into a civil conflict if the US forces it to sign a bad peace deal.

“If the Trump administration then imposed unpalatable peace terms on Ukraine, and if Mr. Zelensky agreed (an unlikely scenario), part of Ukrainian society would resist. Domestic unrest would risk the country’s internal collapse,” Kuleba wrote. This would give Russian President Vladimir Putin “the victory he has long desired, painting Ukraine as a failed state,” Kuleba suggested, warning that Trump “cannot afford for Ukraine to become his Afghanistan.” Throughout his election campaign, Trump claimed that he would quickly mediate a peace agreement between Kiev and Moscow, without specifying the terms. During a televised debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he refused to directly answer a question on whether he wants Ukraine to win. “I want the war to stop,” he said at the time.

In June, Reuters reported that two of Trump’s advisers had drawn up a plan to reach a ceasefire based on the current front lines. The Trump campaign distanced itself from any concrete proposals, however. Kiev has long insisted that a peace deal can only be based on Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s ‘peace formula’, which includes the restoration of the country’s 1991 borders. Russia has rejected these terms wholesale, insisting that Ukraine should drop its aspirations to join NATO in favor of becoming a neutral country and renounce its claims on Crimea and other regions which voted in referendums to join Russia. Speaking to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz over the phone on Friday, Putin reiterated that the conflict “was a direct result of NATO’s long-standing aggressive policy” of ignoring Russia’s security concerns.

Read more …

“..authorization of the use of long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia would place Moscow and NATO facing the near inevitability of a nuclear confrontation..”

• Moscow Continues To Warn The West About The Risk Of Nuclear Escalation (SCF)

Tensions over the issue of “deep” strikes continue to escalate. Kiev continues to demand permission to strike targets in the Russian Federation’s demilitarized zone, while Moscow continues to make it clear that it will interpret such maneuvers as a declaration of war by NATO. In a recent statement, Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, emphasized how Ukrainians and their partners are “playing with fire” with such threats, promising an “immediate and devastating” response in the event of a long-range strike.

The Russian government has repeatedly stated that the long-range weapons systems supplied by the West to Ukraine cannot be operated without the presence of NATO specialists, who would provide the necessary training and logistical support to the Ukrainians. This is because such weapons are not compatible with the Ukrainian military infrastructure, which depends on continuous intelligence support and strategic guidance provided by the Atlantic alliance. Moscow’s position is clear: authorizing the use of these missiles for strikes outside the official conflict zone, in addition to representing an expansion of Western involvement, would constitute direct NATO intervention in the conflict. Russia would regard any use of these weapons in such circumstances as a direct aggression against its sovereignty by the Western countries themselves, which would require an “immediate and devastating” retaliation.

The discussion about the deployment of Storm Shadow missiles and other advanced weapons systems in “deep” Russian territory is a clear demonstration of the dangerous game the West is playing, ignoring all the limits imposed by Russia. NATO’s role in the war in Ukraine has been a sensitive issue since the beginning of the conflict. Although Western powers insist on their position of supporting Ukraine as a legitimate right to defend it against what they call a Russian “invasion”, many analysts and officials point out that the interventions of the powers of the Atlantic alliance, both in terms of weapons and intelligence, have led to an unnecessary prolongation of the conflict, dragging Ukraine into a proxy war that puts the world on the brink of a nuclear confrontation.

By offering more powerful and sophisticated weapons, the West is not only strengthening Kiev’s military capabilities – which seem to have little strategic relevance at the moment – but also risks turning the local conflict into a war of global proportions. Moscow’s concern is legitimate, considering that the absence of limits on Western involvement in Ukraine could lead to a situation of unrestricted aggression against the Russian people, including even demilitarized cities far from the zone disputed by Kiev.

Indeed, the eventual authorization of the use of long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia would place Moscow and NATO facing the near inevitability of a nuclear confrontation. As spokeswoman Zakharova has made clear, Russia is on high alert for the use of advanced missiles against its territory. Moscow has repeatedly stated that if such attacks occur, Russia’s response will be strong and decisive. This would not only imply a military escalation, but also a redefinition of relations between Russia and the West, with the possibility of unpredictable consequences for international stability.

The recent changes in Russia’s nuclear doctrine, allowing a nuclear response to deep strikes by non-nuclear powers supported by nuclear states (just like in the Ukraine-NATO case), were a clear attempt by Moscow to de-escalate the current situation through rhetoric and indirect deterrence. At first, the measure seemed sufficient to calm public pressure from some NATO figures for the authorization of the strikes. However, it is difficult to predict what the Democratic “administration” plans to do in its final days in power, and it is possible that Biden and his team will go into “suicide mode” and put the entire global security architecture at risk, despite Russian warnings.

Read more …

“..large assets like the aircraft carriers are under heightened scrutiny to decide whether they are still a vital staple for modern warfare.”

• War Games Show UK’s Flagship Aircraft Carriers ‘Get Sunk’ Every Time (Sp.)

In a reflection of the UK’s host of internal political and economic problems, its Armed Forces have likewise been grappling with financial and operational woes. In most war games carried out by the UK military, its costly flagship aircraft carriers “get sunk”, The Times cited a source as saying. HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, commissioned into the Royal Navy in 2017 and 2019, respectively, together cost £6.2 billion. (approx. $7.8 billion) to build but are reportedly vulnerable to missiles. A “whole load of scenarios” was run during war games to test the Royal Navy’s “ability to survive” against an “overwhelming force”, a British military source was quoted as saying, adding: “We stretch everything to the limit. At some point you will get to a scenario where it [the carrier] is sunk.”

The report cited Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, as speculating that the great stride made in missile technology development was the ability to “locate and track” aircraft carriers. This comes amid an ongoing Strategic Defence Review commissioned by Britain’s Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and overseen by the Defence Secretary John Healey. The review is due in the first half of 2025. Both ministers and military chiefs have been pressured to implement cost-cutting measures due to financial constraints. Hence, large assets like the aircraft carriers are under heightened scrutiny to decide whether they are still a vital staple for modern warfare.

“There will be casualties,” a source hinted, indicating that the prospect of scrapping at least one of the carriers was raised. Former Minister for Defence Procurement Lord Lee of Trafford told the outlet that the military was struggling to afford the requisite numbers of F-35 aircraft for the carriers, along with escort ships and support vessels. Decades of defense cuts by successive British governments have left the country’s military understaffed and underequipped, resulting in delays in production and upgrades. The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales have both been plagued by technical malfunctions, with humiliating breakdowns affecting Britain’s ability to participate in large-scale joint NATO drills. Furthermore, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is facing a £16.9 billion ($22.17 billion) deficit, the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed in 2023.

Read more …

“Hughes has also banned Yulia and Sergei Skripal from testifying at the Inquiry.”

• The Novichok Attack Was A British Operation, Not A Russian One (Helmer)

Yulia Skripal communicated from her bedside at Salisbury District Hospital on March 8, 2018, four days after she and her father Sergei Skripal collapsed from a poison attack, that the attacker used a spray; and that the attack took place when she and her father were eating at a restaurant just minutes before their collapse on a bench outside. The implication of the Skripal evidence, revealed for the first time on Thursday, is that the attack on the Skripals was not perpetrated by Russian military agents who were photographed elsewhere in Salisbury town at the time; that the attacker or attackers were British agents; and that if their weapon was a nerve agent called Novichok, it came, not from Moscow, but from the UK Ministry of Defence chemical warfare laboratory at Porton Down. Porton Down’s subsequent evidence of Novichok contamination in blood samples, clothing, car, and home of the Skripals may therefore be interpreted as British in source, not Russian.

This evidence was revealed by a police witness testifying at the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry in London on November 14. The police officer, retired Detective Inspector Keith Asman was in 2018, and he remains today the chief of forensics for the Counter Terrorism Policing (CTPSE) group which combines the Metropolitan and regional police forces with the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Security Service (MI5). According to Asman’s new disclosure, Yulia Skripal had woken from a coma and confirmed to the doctor at her bedside that she remembered the circumstances of the attack on March 4. What she remembered, she signalled, was not (repeat not) the official British Government narrative that Russian agents had tried to kill them by poisoning the front door-handle of the family home. The new evidence was immediately dismissed by the Sturgess Inquiry lawyer assisting Anthony Hughes (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley), the judge directing the Inquiry. “We see there,” the lawyer put to Asman as a leading question, “the suggestion, which we now know not to be right, of course”. — page 72.

Hughes then interrupted to tell the witness to disregard what Skripal had communicated. “If the record that you were given there is right, someone suggested to her ‘Had you been sprayed’. She didn’t come up with it herself.” — page 73. Hughes continued to direct the forensics chief to disregard the hearsay of Skripal. “Anyway the suggestion that she had been sprayed in the restaurant didn’t fit with your investigations? A. [Asman] No, sir. LORD HUGHES: Thank you.” So far in in the Inquiry which began public sessions on October 14, this is the first direct sign of suppression of evidence by Hughes. Hearsay, he indicates, should be disregarded if it comes from the target of attack, Yulia Skripal. However, hearsay from British Government officials, policemen, and chemical warfare agents at Porton Down must be accepted instead. Hughes has also banned Yulia and Sergei Skripal from testifying at the Inquiry. The lawyer appointed and paid by the Government to represent the Skripals in the inquiry hearings said nothing to acknowledge the new disclosure nor to challenge Hughes’s efforts to suppress it.

Read more …

“Climate change could be roaring but the naked eye can’t see it.”

• Climate-Change Debate ‘Heats Up’ With Collum, Keen, Fleckenstein (ZH)

Steve Keen, while primarily an economist, is well-versed in the research and a firm believer in the danger climate change poses. Dave Collum, chemistry professor at Cornell, believes much of the science to be bogus. Legendary short-seller Bill Fleckenstein was kind enough to shepard them along. We hope you enjoy and that you give both Keen and Collum a fair shake: For those short on time, here were the highlights:

Poking holes in the ‘narrative’. Things heated up when Collum unleashed a flurry of charts documenting trends that run counter to what we hear from most climate alarmists: Today, we actually see fewer hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, and forest fires than decades past. Collum: “There’s no obvious change in the frequency of global hurricanes back to 1980… Back to 1990, it actually has a distinct downward trend… Here’s one that goes back to 1960. These are violent tornadoes. Again, downward trend.” “Climate change could be roaring but the naked eye can’t see it.”

“Potentially Suicidal”. Natural disasters aside, Keen brought his own charts showing the recent and rapid ascent of global temperature. If accurate, the rise in temperature in the last 150 years when viewed on an axis of millions of years is staggering. Keen: “That’s the real danger of climate change. We’ve built [civilization] in a stable period of the climate. We’re destroying that stability and thinking we can still have the social system we’ve designed… I just don’t think that’s true.”

Keen’s sources provided below: Judd, E. J., J. E. Tierney, D. J. Lunt, I. P. Montañez, B. T. Huber, S. L. Wing and P. J. Valdes (2024). “A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature.” Science 385(6715): eadk3705. https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.adk3705. Scotese, C. R., H. Song, B. J. W. Mills and D. G. Van Der Meer (2021). “Phanerozoic paleotemperatures: The earth’s changing climate during the last 540 million years.” Earth-Science Reviews 215: 103503. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103503

Green New Deal? Assuming humanity put all its resources and minds together to avert the Earth’s heating… can it be done? Fleckenstein asked our distinguished guests whether they would support a “Green New Deal” (massive public spending effort to combat climate change): Collum: “My dad taught me this: Never ask the government to spend your money. They’ll do a terrible job.” “If we were serious about climate change… They should never put guys like John Kerry in charge as Climate Czar.” “Steve’s enthusiastic about intervening as scientists. But here’s the question I have is who is going to make these tough calls? Who has the right to sign off the informed consent to say we are going to cover the world with a blanket of particles to block the sun?” Keen argued that — while governments are inefficient — we do not have a choice. Keen: “I’ll go on record on saying that if we continue down the trends we’re doing right now… we’re going to destroy civilization before 2050.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

SpaceX

 

 

Baron

 

 

Camelemon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1857448564957327748

 

 

Phare du Four

 

 

Coconut oil

 

 

Wolf

 

 

Doggy

 

 

Black hole
https://twitter.com/i/status/1857668215725285772

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 30 2024

Sep 302024
 
 September 30, 2024  Posted by at 8:23 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Roofs of Paris 1886

 

• Musk Warns “If Trump Is Not Elected, This Will Be The Last Election” (ZH)
• Free Speech Makes US ‘Hard To Govern’ – John Kerry (RT)
• MTG Predicts Election Delay Or More Assassination Attempts Against Trump (JTN)
• Michigan Lawmaker Admits Dire Internal Polling For Kamala Harris (ZH)
• Trump Labels Harris ‘Mentally Impaired’ (RT)
• When Odious Foreign Policy Elites Rally Around Harris (Carden)
• Lebowitz Calls for Biden-Harris to “Dissolve the Supreme Court” (Turley)
• Biden Broke His Word To Congress – WSJ (RT)
• Pentagon Chief ‘Blew Up’ as Israel Notified US of Strike on Nasrallah (Sp.)
• Jewish Anti-Semitism Towards Arabs (Helmer)
• Famine In Europe: The Real Goal Of Anti-Russian Policies (SCF)
• Watching the China River Flow (Pepe Escobar)
• Beyond Hegemony (Jeffrey Sachs)
• Obama Was A ‘Simp’ For The Deep State – Brother (RT)
• Putin Proved Me Correct (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1840125327399629120

 

 

 

 

RFK

 

 

Football

 

 

Jimmy Dore

 

 

Lauria

 

 

Ritter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840235654908686363

 

 

Ballmer

 

 

BORDER CZAR
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840055614967345259

 

 

 

 

The numbers add up.

• Musk Warns “If Trump Is Not Elected, This Will Be The Last Election” (ZH)

Elon Musk has argued that the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States, “something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible,” will effectively establish a ‘one-party state and Democracy is over.’ Responding to a thread on X in which Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) pointed out that the DOJ is suing Alabama for trying to remove noncitizens from its voting lists, and blocked the SAVE Act – Musk noted that “Everywhere in America will be like the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco”:

“Very few Americans realize that, if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election. Far from being a threat to democracy, he is the only way to save it! Let me explain: if even 1 in 20 illegals become citizens per year, something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible, that would be about 2 million new legal voters in 4 years. The voting margin in the swing states is often less than 20 thousand votes. That means if the “Democratic” Party succeeds, there will be no more swing states!! Moreover, the Biden/Harris administration has been flying “asylum seekers”, who are fast-tracked to citizenship, directly into swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. It is a surefire way to win every election.

America then becomes a one-party state and Democracy is over. The only “elections” will be the Democratic Party primaries. This already happened in California many years ago, following the 1986 amnesty. The only thing holding California back from extreme socialism and suffocating government policies is that people can leave California and still remain in America. Once the whole country is controlled by one party, there will be no escape. Everywhere in America will be like the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco.”

Read more …

But that’s the whole idea.

• Free Speech Makes US ‘Hard To Govern’ – John Kerry (RT)

The freedom for individuals to choose their sources of information makes it difficult to reach consensus and, consequently, to govern effectively, former presidential climate envoy John Kerry stated. At a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel on Green Energy last week, the former Secretary of State under President Barack Obama criticized the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and the press, among other things. Kerry pointed out that social media poses challenges for building consensus in democracies. “It’s really hard to govern today,” he remarked. “The referees we used to have to determine what is fact and what isn’t have kind of been eviscerated,” he noted, adding that individuals now decide where to get their news.

“If people go to only one source… and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to simply hammering it out of existence,” he asserted. As long as Democrats can “win ground” and “win the right to govern,” they would be “free to implement change,” the former Democratic senator stated. “I think democracies are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to address the challenges we face. To me, that is part of what this race, this election, is all about,” he added.

At another WEF event earlier this year, Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker lamented the loss of corporate media’s monopoly on information. “We owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well,” she said, noting that customers now have access to a broader array of sources. Amid increasingly divisive election rhetoric, research suggests that Americans trust the media even less than they are willing to publicly admit. While 24 percent of Americans claim to trust the media to tell the truth, only 7 percent believe it privately, according to a study completed in June by the think tank Populace, in cooperation with Gradient and YouGov.

Read more …

“The momentum shift has happened and Trump is leading and his support is rapidly accelerating..”

• MTG Predicts Election Delay Or More Assassination Attempts Against Trump (JTN)

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Saturday predicted that more assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump could occur as the election gets closer. “We have entered the most dangerous phase of the election,” Greene said on the social media platform, X. “The momentum shift has happened and Trump is leading and his support is rapidly accelerating. I’m hearing it everywhere, even where I was not before. Democrats will do anything to stop him.” She said that there have already been two assassination attempts on Trump’s life.

“They’ve already been trying to put him in prison and literally assassinate him,” Greene wrote. “What comes next? More assassination attempts? Will they delay the election? Be prepared.” Trump has had two assassination attempts on his life. One was at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the other in Florida while he was golfing. As the election gets closer, both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris have been traveling around the U.S. doing rallies. (JTN)

Read more …

Money Talks, But Polls Walk

• Michigan Lawmaker Admits Dire Internal Polling For Kamala Harris (ZH)

In a Sunday bombshell, Axios reports that Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has privately warned donors that Vice President Kamala Harris is “underwater” in Michigan – a critical battleground state for Democrats – according to a video clip obtained by the outlet. Slotkin’s revelation comes at a time when the Dems are fighting tooth and nail to hold onto the Senate, and Michigan could be a deciding factor. During a virtual fundraiser last Wednesday with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Slotkin didn’t mince words. “I’m not feeling my best right now about where we are on Kamala Harris in a place like Michigan,” she admitted, further stating that their internal polling shows Harris sinking in the Wolverine State. The news comes as a blow Democrats as they eye a tough Senate race where Slotkin herself is vying for a seat against GOP contender, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI).

Michigan is a critical state for Democrats. If Trump sweeps the Sun Belt, taking Michigan – or any state in the so-called “Blue Wall” that includes Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, it could pave his way back to the White House. Recent polling averages from FiveThirtyEight have Harris ahead by just 2.4 points, while a New York Times/Siena College poll puts her lead at a razor-thin 1 point. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans smell blood in the water. Slotkin’s Senate race has seen millions of dollars pour in, with GOP operatives sensing a prime opportunity to flip the seat. Republican internal polling suggests the race may be neck-and-neck, despite some public polls showing Slotkin with a narrow lead.

While Slotkin’s public polling paints a more optimistic picture, with RealClearPolitics giving her a 48% to 43% edge, Republicans are raising alarms. GOP strategists believe the Michigan Senate race is tightening, especially as Slotkin’s campaign fights off the GOP war chest. With Slotkin admitting Harris is struggling in Michigan, it’s clear Democrats have a lot to worry about in 2024. The Senate map isn’t doing Democrats any favors either. While ruby-red Ohio and Montana have been getting attention, a surprise Republican win in Michigan could virtually guarantee a GOP majority come next November.

Read more …

“..Saturday, Harris vowed to step up deportations and deny asylum to migrants who cross the border outside legal entry points.”

• Trump Labels Harris ‘Mentally Impaired’ (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has labeled Vice President Kamala Harris “mentally impaired” for immigration policies that apparently allowed more than 400,000 convicted criminals to walk freely into the US. According to data released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this week, 425,431 convicted criminals and 222,141 people with pending criminal charges entered the US illegally and are living free inside the country while awaiting court hearings or deportation proceedings. These include 62,231 convicted of assault, 56,533 with drug convictions, and 13,099 convicted of homicide. An additional 15,811 have sexual assault convictions. At a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, Trump declared that Harris should be “impeached and removed from office” for allowing this many criminals into the country.

Harris let in “some of the worst murderers you’ve ever seen,” he claimed, “and that’s not even mentioning the rapists, the gang members, the drug dealers, the child predators, and the traffickers in women.” “[President] Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country,” he said. It is unclear whether all of the criminals mentioned by ICE entered the US while Biden and Harris were in office. However, one of Biden’s first acts as president was to reinstate the Obama-era policy of ‘catch and release’, under which illegal migrants entering the US are detained, and then immediately released with orders to show up at immigration hearings years in the future. Under Trump, migrants arrested by law enforcement agents were taken straight to detention centers from 2019 onwards.

There were around 10.2 million illegal immigrants living in the US in 2020. Under Biden, who tasked Harris in 2021 with overseeing border security, at least 10.6 million more have entered the country, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) figures. The 425,431 convicted criminals counted by ICE are drawn from a list of over 7 million migrants who are awaiting removal proceedings but are not in custody. As such, the true number of criminal aliens living in the US could be vastly higher. Voters concerned about immigration overwhelmingly trust Trump to tackle the issue. In a bid to close this gap, Harris has distanced herself from past comments on immigration – for example, comparing ICE to the Ku Klux Klan and chanting “down with deportation” at a protest. During a visit to the US-Mexico border on Saturday, Harris vowed to step up deportations and deny asylum to migrants who cross the border outside legal entry points.

Read more …

“..columnist Joan Walsh, who found Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Harris “strangely moving..”

• When Odious Foreign Policy Elites Rally Around Harris (Carden)

Efforts to bolster the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris by the D.C. foreign policy establishment kicked into overdrive over the course of the past week with the near simultaneous release of two open letters signed by hundreds of former U.S. national security officials. It is an accelerated version of previous campaigns in 2016 and 2020, where ex-officials and military officers on both sides of the aisle vocalizing major opposition to Trump offer to give national security cred to the Democratic candidate — in this case Harris. For their part, the candidate virtually ignores that many of these endorsements are in many cases coming from odious individuals, including architects of wars and interventions that Democrats have openly criticized as stains on recent American history.

The first was a letter signed by over 100 former Republican national security officials stating that while they, alumni of every Republican administration from Reagan to Trump, “expect to disagree with Kamala Harris on many domestic and foreign policy issues” they also “firmly oppose the election of Donald Trump.” According to the former GOP officials, Trump’s “susceptibility to flattery and manipulation by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, unusual affinity for other authoritarian leaders, contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior, and chaotic national security decision-making” render him a danger to U.S. national security interests. Critics of course point out that many of these people are the same Washington creatures who got our country into endless foreign wars and profited from them for 20 years straight — and until this day support cruel, authoritarian dictators when convenient to U.S. policy. They are not wrong.

As a group, the signatories of the first letter are a very mixed bag. The missive does feature a few sensible, responsible pillars of the Washington establishment, including those of former defense secretary (and U.S. senator) Chuck Hagel, and former FBI and CIA director William Webster. Yet for the most part, the letter carried with it the odor of the consensus minded War Party, if not 9/11-era neoconservatism. In the past this would have been a problem for traditionally liberal and progressive outlets, but Mother Jones and the New Republic were quick to applaud the letter as a “win” for the Harris campaign. Not surprisingly, only The Nation has called out their fellow liberals and progressives for making common cause with the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, both of whom have also endorsed Harris in recent days (except for columnist Joan Walsh, who found Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Harris “strangely moving,” writing, “Liz, I told you we could find common ground. Let’s have a cup of coffee. Or even a beer?”

This columnist at Al Jazeera, however, offers no stated desire for beers with the Cheneys, particularly father Dick. “What makes Cheney’s endorsement, and the Democratic Party’s embrace of it, particularly galling is the way in which they gloss over these past sins in order to paint him as a guardian of American values,” charged Howard University Law school professor Ziyad Motola.

Read more …

No Supreme Court and no Constitution. Pretty soon after that, you’ll have no country.

• Lebowitz Calls for Biden-Harris to “Dissolve the Supreme Court” (Turley)

Author and cultural critic Fran Lebowitz added voice to the unhinged calls on the left for trashing the Supreme Court. As I discussed recently in the Wall Street Journal (and in my book), there is a growing counter-constitutional movement in the United States led by law professors, pundits, and celebrities. Lebowitz amplified those calls in a radical demand to simply get rid of the Court. Lebowitz called for President Joe Biden to “dissolve the Supreme Court” despite the fact that it would violate the Constitution and remove one of the most critical protections against executive and legislative abuse. Lebowitz insisted that the Supreme Court is a “disgrace” because, in a reference to Donald Trump, it is “completely his.” To the wild applause of the New York audience, she added: “It’s so disgraceful, this court, that it shouldn’t even be allowed to be called the Supreme Court. It’s an insult to Motown. Basically, it’s a harem. It’s Trump’s harem.”

Her views aligned with others on the left who have attacked the Constitution, the Court, and even rights like free speech as now threats to our democracy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer previously declared in front of the Supreme Court, “I want to tell you, [Neil] Gorsuch, I want to tell you, [Brett] Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced that she wants the impeachment of all six of the conservative justices. She was immediately joined by other Democratic members. Previously, Ocasio-Cortez admitted that she does not understand why we even have a Supreme Court. She asked “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.” Other members, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have called for packing the Court with additional members to immediately secure a liberal majority to rule as she desires.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., RI), has assured voters that Vice President Kamala Harris will support the packing of the Court with a liberal majority. Despite supporting censorship to combat “disinformation,” many on the left now eagerly spread disinformation about the Court and its rulings. Lebowitz repeated false claims about the Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, stating that the decision makes the president a “king” who “can do whatever you want.” In reality, the Court followed the same approach that it has taken in prior conflicts between the branches. As it has in the past, the Court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills.

In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress. In this decision, the court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions. None of this matters. Facts do not matter. Many on the left are calling for the trashing of the Constitution based on wildly inaccurate claims.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, is author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” published last month. In a 2021 Los Angeles Times op-ed, he described conservative justices as “partisan hacks.” In the New York Times, book critic Jennifer Szalai scoffs at what she calls “Constitution worship.” She writes: “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.” She frets that by limiting the power of the majority, the Constitution “can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow.” In a 2022 New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for liberals to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”

Lebowitz is also wrong about the voting record of the justices. In reality, the Court continues to rule largely by unanimous, or nearly unanimous decisions. After April, unanimity stood at 46 percent of cases. Of the 22 6-3 decisions, only half broke along ideological lines. That is the same as the 11 such cases last term. The average for unanimous decisions has been roughly 43 percent. The rate is back up to 48 percent for the last term. When you add the nearly unanimous opinions, it is the vast majority of cases. Moreover, Sotomayor agreed with Roberts in 71% of cases Kavanaugh and Barrett agreed with Sotomayor roughly 70% of the time. In critical decisions, conservative justices like Gorsuch and Barrett have joined their liberal colleagues and the Court has repeatedly voted against positions supported by Donald Trump.

Read more …

“One of the conditions stipulated was that the Biden administration articulate a strategy regarding US support for Ukraine within 45 days of the budget’s enactment, and quarterly moving forward..”

• Biden Broke His Word To Congress – WSJ (RT)

US President Joe Biden has not been honest with the American public about his administration’s plan for Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote in an article on Friday. Despite Biden styling himself a supporter of Ukraine’s freedom in his speech to the UN General Assembly this week, he refuses to level with Congress and the American public about his strategy to achieve victory, the editorial stated. In April, lawmakers passed a nearly $61 billion supplemental budget for Ukraine, after months of wrangling between Democrats and Republicans. One of the conditions stipulated was that the Biden administration articulate a strategy regarding US support for Ukraine within 45 days of the budget’s enactment, and quarterly moving forward. “Biden knew this commitment was necessary to get aid through Congress, and he signed the bill,” WSJ observed.

Despite this, the strategy was submitted “months after the congressionally-mandated deadline,” the newspaper said, citing a press release from GOP lawmakers. “Also, and this is typical of the Biden stonewall: The document is entirely classified,” WSJ wrote, adding that congressmen want the strategy made available to the American public. ”Don’t count on the Administration following this order before Nov. 5, if it ever does,” the board said. “A public release might mean that Vice President Kamala Harris would have to explain her own thinking on the war before the election. As long as she doesn’t, and the Administration covers it up, Ms. Harris co-owns Mr. Biden’s record of muddled half measures.”

The Biden administration announced a further $8 billion in military aid for Kiev on Thursday, reserving the remainder of a large Congressionally-approved allocation set to expire by the end of September. This came right after Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky visited the US to pitch what he termed his “victory plan” to his biggest sponsor. According to several Western media sources, Kiev’s wishes are now increasingly clashing with those of its backers in the West. Its allies have also so far denied its ever-more urgent demands to allow the use of Western-supplied arms to strike deep into Russian territory.

Read more …

“..there are many US troops stationed in the Middle East, and they had a very short time to prepare for possible hostile military response..”

• Pentagon Chief ‘Blew Up’ as Israel Notified US of Strike on Nasrallah (Sp.)

Israel gave a “few minutes notice” to the United States about its intention to strike the secretary general of Lebanese movement Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, enraging Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, US media reported.
Defense Secretary Austin “blew up” when Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant informed him about the strikes on Nasrallah, as there are many US troops stationed in the Middle East, and they had a very short time to prepare for possible hostile military response to the assassination, the publication explained. Since last week, the Israeli Air Force has been carrying out massive strikes on Hezbollah targets in various parts of Lebanon. Several precision airstrikes were also recorded in Beirut, killing senior Hezbollah commanders, including Nasrallah.

To date, the Israeli army has reported strikes on several thousand Hezbollah targets. Observers note that Israel has not attacked Hezbollah with such intensity since the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Hezbollah has responded with rocket fire primarily at northern Israel, but the range of rocket attacks has increased significantly in recent days. The situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border has escalated since the start of Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip in October 2023. Tensions are growing amid statements by the Israeli military about preparations for a ground operation in Lebanon.

Read more …

“The Semites, the Semitic peoples, and speakers of the Semitic languages started as a figment of the German imagination in the late 18th century and early 19th century..”

• Jewish Anti-Semitism Towards Arabs (Helmer)

In the history of imperial conquest and rule of the Arabs – that’s Turkish, Italian, British, French, American, Israeli – decapitation of leaders has always been preferable to genocide of peoples because it’s much cheaper. Slavery, as the Portuguese empire first developed it, was the cost accountant’s solution to making genocide pay for itself – pay lucrative profits in fact. How profitable the bribery and killing methods of American decapitation of the secular Arab nationalists have been since 1943 is the story told in The Jackals’ Wedding. The combination of decapitation and genocide now being pursued by the Israelis lacks the usual cost-accounting restrictions. This is because the imperial ideologies have turned into God-dictated duty, Crusader zealotry revived, but this time Judaeo rather than Christian, rabbinical rather than papal. It is also because the US government is paying the bill. Faith in the transubstantiation of the Jewish state would wither away much quicker than the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem without US cash, capital, and underwriter guarantees.

That kingdom lasted 192 years; Israel is 76 years old; Zionism, 127 years. In self-defence, popular resistance and national liberation of the Arabs, religious conviction can only be as effective as there is military capacity for the fight. The will to fight without the weapons is doomed; just as the war-fighting capacities of the Arabs are doomed if they are inadequate – sabotaged and betrayed off the battlefield; out-gunned if used in combat; held back without a fight. For reminder of how long the present long war will be, let’s repeat this from the beginning last October. The Semites, the Semitic peoples, and speakers of the Semitic languages started as a figment of the German imagination in the late 18th century and early 19th century. It quickly became a German racial epithet, used in contrast to Aryan. By the time Adolf Hitler came along, this was the pseudo-scientific doctrine in which the Germans lumped both the Jews and the Arabs into a single category – the inferiors of the Aryans.

That is one of the reasons Hitler refused to listen to the advice of his general staff on aiding the Arab nationalist forces in Iraq, Syria and Palestine in the Wehrmacht’s war plans against the British and the Soviet Union. The pseudo-science of Semitism and Aryanism, and the idea of anti-Semitism which the Germans, together with the British and Americans, adopted in the run-up to World War II was spelled out at Harvard University by an anthropologist called Carleton Coon; he cribbed directly from German academics, turning out papers on the Berbers of Morocco and advancing his racial superiority-inferiority ideas between 1925 and 1939. When the war began, Coon joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) where he demonstrated his keenness for pistol shooting, hare-brained sabotage missions, and homicidal mania. Among his wartime schemes he proposed to remove the Arabs of the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) as unfit to rule; replace them with the restoration of the French empire; and kill those French officials whom Coon judged to get his way.

He was one of the planners of the assassination of Admiral Francois Darlan, the French military commander, in Algiers on December 24, 1942; Coon’s pistol was the murder weapon.** American murderers of the Arabs like Coon then — like Israeli murderers of Arabs now — have succeeded in establishing their doctrine of exceptionalism and racial superiority in state policy as the successor to the doctrines of Aryanism and Nazism which were interrupted by Hitler’s suicide in 1945, then the Nuremberg trials concluding in 1946. The crime of racial and cultural genocide became international law in 1948. It was then modified by the new Israeli state doctrine of anti-Semitism: this decriminalised the genocide of the Palestinian people; and outlawed instead media criticism, political opposition, even science for threatening the legitimacy of Israel’s Basic Law of Arab exclusion, and Israeli military operations to enforce it.

Read more …

“Thousands of Bulgarian farmers are going bankrupt, and the crisis is only expected to get worse in the near future.”

• Famine In Europe: The Real Goal Of Anti-Russian Policies (SCF)

The controversy over Ukrainian agricultural products continues. Ukrainian food products have simply invaded the European market and are driving thousands of farmers out of business. Despite the protests and political pressure, no EU decision-maker seems interested in changing this tragic scenario. However, the crisis seems to have even deeper dimensions and could be a real time bomb for the entire European society. The Bulgarian government recently asked the European Commission to pass a resolution banning the import of Ukrainian chicken eggs. According to the Bulgarian authorities, the large amount of cheap Ukrainian eggs on the European market is hurting Bulgarian producers, who rely on egg sales as a vital part of their business. Thousands of Bulgarian farmers are going bankrupt, and the crisis is only expected to get worse in the near future.

The problem is not limited to eggs or Bulgaria. Selling grain, meat, dairy products and everything that is produced in the countryside seems to be no longer an attractive business in Europe. Since 2022, protests for change have been taking place in all parts of the European continent. From Poland to France, no European farmer is happy to see his products being replaced on the market by massive quantities of cheap Ukrainian agricultural items. This is due to the irrational decision of European decision-makers to ban all import tariffs on Ukrainian food products. The measure is allegedly intended to boost the Ukrainian economy during the crisis caused by the conflict with Russia – which ironically is sponsored by the West itself. In the current European market, it is cheaper to import Ukrainian food than to resell the native products, which is obviously causing thousands of farmers to abandon their businesses.

As well known, most of Europe does not have a very strong agricultural sector, with local farmers relying on government aid to stay active in the market. Without this aid and with the invasion of Ukrainian products, it is simply no longer profitable to be part of European agribusiness, which is why thousands of people are likely to stop working in the rural areas and join the growing class of the European “precariat”. At first, some analysts may see this scenario as a mere market shift, replacing European production with Ukrainian production. However, this analysis is limited. Despite having some of the most fertile soils in the world, Ukraine is currently a target of Western financial predators, who demand the handover of arable land as a means of payment for NATO’s billion-dollar aid packages. Organizations such as Blackrock and other funds will soon own almost all that is left of Ukraine’s “black soil.”

And then Ukrainian agricultural production will depend on the willingness of the “financial sharks” to feed the Europeans. It is true that the lack of food self-sufficiency in European countries is not a new problem. Imports are already a vital mechanism for all of Western Europe. But parallel to the dependence on imports, there is also the irrational policy of sanctions and coercive measures against several emerging food-producing countries. The Russian Federation, for example, is prohibited from selling anything to Europeans, but the problem is even greater. The EU has been considering for years imposing severe sanctions on Brazil, for example, alleging “environmental irregularities”. It will get to the point where the EU’s “humanitarian and environmental” requirements will prevent Europeans from buying anything from any country.

If we ask who is interested in this whole scenario, the answer will once again seem clear. There is only one country encouraging Europe to impose more and more sanctions, buy more and more Ukrainian grain and send more and more weapons to Kiev under payment terms regulated by Blackrock. Of course, this is the same country that boycotted Russian-European energy cooperation and committed the terrorist attack on Nord Stream. And certainly this is also the only state interested in maintaining the geopolitical status quo and preventing the creation of a multipolar world, where Europeans would have freedom of alignment and could pragmatically choose their partners.

Read more …

“..like a river undisturbed while traversing a rocky wilderness, China silently flows away on its path to peaceful primacy.”

• Watching the China River Flow (Pepe Escobar)

Leading website Guancha has published the transcript of a first-class lecture at Renmin University on China-U.S. relations by Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World. Jacques is one of the very few Westerner scholars with on the ground experience who actually understands the Chinese psyche and way of life in contrast to the West. A particularly intriguing section of the lecture concerns research by Danny Quah, the dean of the widely respected Lee Kuan Yew Institute in Singapore. This is the money quote: “Between 1980 and 2020, Europe’s share of global GDP fell from 26% to 15%. In other words, it fell by 11 percentage points, a very large drop. Although the decline in the United States was smaller, it fell from 21% in the 1980s to less than 16% in 2020. From another perspective, Asia and East Asia are constantly rising. The share in 1980 was 11.5%, and it has risen to 25% in 2020. Among this 25%, China has made the largest contribution, accounting for 18% of the world.”

What this graphically illustrates is the acute swing in the world’s center of economic gravity – no matter the rhetorical tsunamis emanating from the Hegemon. In 1980 the economic center was Atlanticist. Quah though believes that the economic center will reach the Sino-Indian border only by 2050. When we take China compounded with the 10 members of ASEAN, without even considering South Asia, it’s fair to argue that the economic center will already be in the East by 2030, and will be Sino-Indian before 2040. Jacques is correct that by then “the ‘Asian Age’ will replace the ‘Western Age’, and since 1750, the world has always been in the Western Age.” On a personal note, after living and working in Asia for most of the past three decades, I qualify our century as “The Eurasian Century”.

And that, in a nutshell, is the reason why the Hegemon/Atlanticist elites are in Deep Panic mode. The free lunch – of exploiting the wealth of the Global South – is coming to an end. China has already designed the masterplan of its development strategy all the way to 2035 and in many aspects all the way to 2049. The current juncture though is extremely tricky. The People’s Bank of China is taking the necessary master tweaks of the economy very seriously. Earlier this week the PBoC announced cuts to the outstanding mortgage rate and the reserve requirement ratio: that’s the amount of cash commercial banks need to hold as reserves. The PBoC also cut the benchmark policy rate and boosted capital markets. Then the Politburo, chaired by President Xi Jinping himself, intervened in full force, vowing to protect China’s private enterprises; finally stabilise the always wobbly property sector; and adopt the necessary fiscal expenditures.

That’s the domestic front. On the external front, China is on a roll. The top priority is the slowly but surely internationalization of the yuan. And that’s where the crucial role of Hong Kong comes in – as detailed in a report by Renmin University. China is already de-dollarizing at nearly breakneck speed. The U.S. dollar’s share of bilateral trade has already fallen from 80% to less than 50%. China is now trading with the world mostly in yuan – and the petroyuan is not even in full force. Since the start of the SMO by Russia in Ukraine in February 2022, the yuan is the de facto Asian reserve currency for Russia. In parallel, Beijing is accelerating currency swaps all across the spectrum and designating more clearing banks around the world.

From Beijing to Hong Kong, Chinese politico-economic elites are quite comfortable with the fact that for the first time in History, the rise of a great power is not being conditioned by imperialism, war, slavery, looting and all of the above, but under what has been codified since the Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping’s late 1970s reforms as “peaceful development.” That is mirrored in several concepts such as win-win; mutual prosperity; equality; “community of shared future for mankind”; and as a master geoeconomic project, the interlocking connectivity corridors across the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While China invests in infrastructure development around the world, the Hegemon imposes sanctions, engages in bombing, supports variations of the Forever Wars, finances and weaponizes color revolutions.

Hegemon “strategy” barely qualifying as utter mediocrity ranges from the U.S. government funding a $1.6 billion campaign to smear China to Republicans divided on whether regime change in Beijing is their ultimate goal and the Democrat ambassador in Beijing convinced that Washington’s China policy is not too hawkish. Then there’s puny functionary and Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell – the man who invented the “pivot to Asia” during the first Obama administration – ordering the Europeans to go hawkish on China and defining Beijing in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee as “the most significant challenge in our history”. Very few IQs above room temperature across Asia pay attention to such clowns. In contrast, what is now emerging in informed discussions from South to Southeast Asia is that BRICS progress will not be steady enough if the emphasis remains on consensual decisions.

A daring proposition is emerging that Russia and China – the actual BRICS leaders – should announce at the summit in Kazan next month that they are backing a yuan/ruble/gold alliance: as in if the world needs to choose between NATOstan hegemony or a BRICS alternative, better start with sound (real) money. Beyond the feasibility of such proposal, there’s a serious critique of Utopia; the Global Majority must be pushed to face the harsh reality it faces – nuclear destruction or an imperfect evolving new order – and make a stand, fast. Meanwhile, like a river undisturbed while traversing a rocky wilderness, China silently flows away on its path to peaceful primacy.

Read more …

“The late, great evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, often described our predicament as follows: “We have stumbled into the twenty-first century with stone-age emotions, medieval institutions, and near godlike technologies.”

“We have arrived, after centuries of Western dominance, to a world beyond hegemony.”

• Beyond Hegemony (Jeffrey Sachs)

We are at a new phase of human history because of the confluence of three interrelated trends. First, and most pivotal, the Western-led world system, in which countries of the North Atlantic region dominate the world militarily, economically, and financially, has ended. Second, the global ecological crisis marked by human-induced climate change, the destruction of biodiversity, and the massive pollution of the environment, will lead to fundamental changes of the world economy and governance. Third, the rapid advance of technologies across several domains—artificial intelligence, computing, biotechnology, geoengineering—will profoundly disrupt the world economy and politics. These interconnecting developments—geopolitical, environmental, and technological—are stoking huge uncertainties, societal dislocations, political crises, and open wars.

To address these pivotal developments, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for a Summit of the Future (SOTF) (September 22-23rd, 2024 at the UN headquarters in New York) to reform our international institutions so that they are fit for purpose in our fast-changing world. Since global peace depends more than ever on the efficacy of the UN and international law, the SOTF should be a watershed in global governance, even if it does no more than point the way to further negotiation and deliberation in the years immediately ahead. Our existing institutions, both national and international, are certainly not up to the task of governance in our fast-changing world. The late, great evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, often described our predicament as follows: “We have stumbled into the twenty-first century with stone-age emotions, medieval institutions, and near godlike technologies.”

By this he meant that we face our challenges today with the basic cognitive and emotional human nature that was formed by human evolution tens of thousands of years ago, with political institutions forged centuries ago (the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787), and with the lightning speed of technological advance (think of ChatGPT as just the latest wonder). Perhaps the most basic fact of deep societal change is uncertainty, and the most basic reaction to uncertainty is fear. In fact, the technological advances—if used correctly—could solve innumerable problems in economic development, social justice (e.g., improved access to healthcare and education through digital connectivity), and environmental sustainability (e.g., a rapid transition to zero-carbon energy sources). Yet the mood today is anything but optimistic, especially in the West. Open wars rage between the United States and Russia in Ukraine, and between U.S.-backed Israel and Palestine.

The possibility of war between the United States and China is widely, openly, and even casually discussed in Washington, though such a war could mean the end of civilization itself. At the root of these conflicts is fear, built on our stone-age emotions. The biggest fear of all is that of many American and European political leaders that the West is losing its hegemony after centuries, and that somehow the loss of hegemony will have catastrophic consequences. Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made this Western fear explicit in an April 2024 column for the UK’s Daily Mail, when he stated that if the West loses the war in Ukraine, “it will be the end of Western hegemony.”

Herein lies the essence of the Ukraine war, and many other global conflicts as well. The United States and its allies want to expand NATO to Ukraine. Russia has firmly said no. Both Washington and London were ready to fight a war with Russia over NATO enlargement to protect Western hegemony (specifically, the right to dictate security arrangements to Russia), while Russia was ready to fight a war in order to keep NATO away. In fact, Russia is prevailing on the battlefield over Ukraine’s army and NATO’s armaments. This is not surprising. What is perhaps surprising is how the West completely underestimated Russia’s capabilities.

In broad terms, with the changing global order, including the rise of China and the rest of East Asia, the military and technological strength of Russia, the rapid development of India, and the growing unity of Africa, the Western-dominated world has been brought to an end, not by a tumultuous collapse of the West, but by the growing economic, technological, and therefore military, power of the rest of the world. In principle, the West has no reason to fear the rise of the rest, as the United States and Europe still maintain an overwhelming deterrence, including nuclear deterrence, against any military threat from the outside. The West is bemoaning its loss of relative status—the ability to dictate to others—not any real military insecurity.

Nothing is going to restore Western hegemony in the coming years—no military victory, technological advance, or economic leverage. The rise of advanced military, technological, economic, and financial capacities to Asia and beyond, is unstoppable (and of course should not be stopped, since it signifies a world that is fairer and more prosperous than the preceding Western-dominated world). Yet, the end of Western hegemony does not mean a new Chinese, Indian, or Asian hegemony. There are simply too many power centers—the United States, the EU, China, Russia, India, the African Union, etc.—and too much capacity and diversity to enable any other hegemon to replace the Western-led world order. We have arrived, after centuries of Western dominance, to a world beyond hegemony.

Read more …

“to be the president of the USA, he had to have the backing of certain people like the Clintons” and “the [George] Soros people…the ones who are really controlling everything out there.”

• Obama Was A ‘Simp’ For The Deep State – Brother (RT)

Barack Obama courted the ‘deep state’ during his rise to power, and once in office was powerless to disobey their orders, the former US president’s half-brother has told Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi. In an interview set to air on Monday, Malik Obama told Rattansi that before he entered the corridors of power, Barack Obama “was a really humble, really nice person.” However, “to be the president of the USA, he had to have the backing of certain people like the Clintons” and “the [George] Soros people…the ones who are really controlling everything out there.” Keeping their backing, along with the support of the deep state, was crucial to Barack Obama, and Malik suggested that his half-brother wouldn’t have dared oppose the 2014 coup in Ukraine or the 2011 regime-change operation against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

“He would have lost his support,” Malik said. “He would not be what he is today, because those people are the ones that propped him up and he had to play to them.” “That’s why I like President Trump,” he continued, “because he does things his own way. He reached out to North Korea and met the leader there. [Obama] could have done that for Muammar Gaddafi. I think he’s just… he’s a simp.” The term ‘deep state’ refers to the unelected and often unknown government bureaucrats who steer government policy, particularly the leaders of intelligence agencies and the military. Malik Obama has the same father as the ex-president, and visited the White House several times during his brother’s first term in office. However, he later claimed that Barack was “cold and ruthless,” and blasted him for abandoning his Kenyan family.

He has since made a series of bizarre claims about the former president, apparently announcing last year that Barack Obama is “definitely gay,” and alleging in 2017 that he was born in Kenya. Malik Obama is a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, who before running for office in 2016 challenged Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate over doubts he was born in the US. Trump later abandoned the dispute and admitted that Obama was born in the US. During the full interview with Rattansi, Malik Obama discussed the current state of his relationship with his brother, and Barack’s alleged role in forcing President Joe Biden to end his reelection campaign.

Read more …

” If there is peace with Russia, the military/security complex loses its enemy, which means its power and its budget. Now watch dumbshit Americans vote Democrat and bring Armageddon upon the world.”

• Putin Proved Me Correct (Paul Craig Roberts)

For years I have warned that Putin’s refusal to quickly win the conflict with Ukraine would result in increasing Western intervention until the conflict spins out of control. That has now happened. NATO’s Secretary General and the British Prime Minister have given a green light to NATO firing missiles into Russia from Ukraine. The green light is subject to Washington’s veto. Zelensky, the Ukrainian dictator whose term as president has expired, was reportedly recently in Washington lobbying the Biden regime to give its approval. Be sure you understand what Zelensky is lobbying the Biden regime to do. If the Biden regime gives the go-ahead, Europe, the US, and Ukraine will be destroyed. Here is Putin’s statement. It is a back-to-the-wall statement, as I predicted it would be: “Aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, with the participation or support of a nuclear state, is to be considered as a joint attack on the Russian Federation.”

So, as I correctly predicted would be the case, a never-ending conflict that drew in the West to increasingly provocative participation has spun out of control. So far everything Washington said would not be done has been done. The final red line is NATO sending missiles into Russia. If this no-no also becomes a yes-yes “because Putin never responds,” war is upon us. It has played out precisely as I said. Yet, I was either ignored by “experts” who are nothing but mouthpieces for the military-security complex, or denounced by fools as “blood-thirsty.” The fact remains: one more wrong decision from the White House and we are history.

Remember, it was Trump who wanted to normalize relations with Russia. The crazed CIA director called the President of the United States a “traitor.” Trump’s own Justice (sic) Department and FBI and the American presstitute media along with Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party fabricated a Russiagate case against Trump, brought two false impeachments against him, cooked up stripper gate, documents gate, and an “insurrection.” One thousand Americans who exercised their First Amendment rights were sentenced by a totally corrupt DOJ to prison. Once Trump announced a second campaign for the presidency, the false accusations were turned into false indictments. All of this was done to prevent peace with Russia. If there is peace with Russia, the military/security complex loses its enemy, which means its power and its budget. Now watch dumbshit Americans vote Democrat and bring Armageddon upon the world.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Assange Nasrallah

 

 

Cancer

 

 

Geese
https://twitter.com/i/status/1840294827033772126

 

 

Gardiner

 

 

23

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 26 2024

Sep 262024
 
 September 26, 2024  Posted by at 8:28 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  67 Responses »


Georgia O’Keeffe Autumn leaves, Lake George 1924

 

• Pentagon Trying to Take Control of Ukraine Policy From Blinken – McGovern (Sp.)
• This Week the Most Momentous Decision of Our Time Will Be Made (PCR)
• Putin Orders Changes To Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine (RT)
• Ukraine’s Backers Want Talks With Putin – Bloomberg (RT)
• US Republicans Accuse Zelensky Of Campaigning For Harris (RT)
• US House Speaker Demands Zelensky Fire Ukrainian Ambassador (RT)
• Trump Could Snub Zelensky – AP (RT)
• Ukraine Wants Europe’s Longest Bridge ‘Dismantled’ (RT)
• Zelensky Plans To Drag NATO Directly Into War With Russia – Rasmussen (Sp.)
• US War Profiteers Bring World to Brink of Armageddon (Miles)
• Cheap Ukrainian Grain Ruining German Farmers – Bild (RT)
• Netanyahu Must Be Stopped ‘Just Like Hitler’ – Erdogan (RT)
• Trump Vows To ‘Take Other Countries’ Jobs’ In Economic Speech (BBC)
• Another Man Is Charged for Threatening to Kill President Trump (PJM)
• Beware of the Government’s Push for a Digital Currency (Whitehead)
• Will The US Presidential Election Define The Future of Crypto? (BBC)
• Assange to Testify at Council of Europe (Lauria)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Poso Alex
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838978741172650414

 

 

US President

 

 

Leadership

 

 

Kamala claim

 

 

Education

 

 

RFK sick

 

 

Alex
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838655412478054834

 

 

FBI
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838976194433405052

 

 

 

 

 

 

“My interest had to do with indications that the military overruled Blinken and told…. [President Joe] Biden ‘No!’ about giving authorization to fire Storm Shadow missiles deeper into Russia..”

• Pentagon Trying to Take Control of Ukraine Policy From Blinken – McGovern (Sp.)

The US military could be attempting to seize control of policy on Ukraine from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other hawkish State Department officials including by blocking sending long range strike missiles to Kiev, former senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern told Sputnik. Ukraine has been lobbying the Biden administration for permission to employ long-range US missiles to carry out strikes deep into Russian territory. On September 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia would not tolerate any such action and would regard it as a last red line to be crossed. “My interest had to do with indications that the military overruled Blinken and told…. [President Joe] Biden ‘No!’ about giving authorization to fire Storm Shadow missiles deeper into Russia,” McGovern said.

McGovern said the Pentagon had about eight hours to digest Putin’s warning on September 12 before the Defense Department confirmed there was still no change in the restrictions on weapons to Ukraine. McGovern said this happened just a few hours before it fell to Biden to break the word to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Expectations had been high that Biden and Starmer would announce new rules on weapons use in the Ukraine conflict. However, no such announcement emanated after the talks at the White House. The White House said Ukraine’s request to use US-supplied long-range weapons deep in Russian territory will be discussed during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Biden later this week.

Read more …

“..it appears that the US is prepared to enter the war on Israel’s side. Putin has indicated that Iran is under Russia’s protection..”

• This Week the Most Momentous Decision of Our Time Will Be Made (PCR)

With the US government–State Department, Treasury, Homeland Security, and Justice (sic)–in the hands of Zionist Jews, only the Pentagon speaks for Americans. So far the Pentagon has refused to approve the firing of missiles into Russia. Zelensky whose “democratic” credentials are shattered by him continuing in office without reelection after his term has expired, is coming to Washington this week to plead with the White House for missile strikes into Russia. Will the Pentagon be present at the meeting? If so, has the officer ranks been so purged and depleted by wokeism that it cannot take a firm stand? Putin has stated that missiles fired into Russia means the US and Europe are at war with Russia. Are Americans aware that this momentous decision is being made this week, and if not, then the following week?

The British Prime Minister has already agreed. The sole holdout is the Pentagon. Likely, the impending Florida hurricane will divert the news from this momentous decision. We could simultaneously be presented with the outbreak of war in the Middle East. Israel, having eliminated many of the leaders of Hezbollah, is intensifying its strikes on Lebanon, which is more or less under Iran’s protection. According to reports, the US 101st Airborne Division has been deployed to Israel. If the reports are correct, it appears that the US is prepared to enter the war on Israel’s side. Putin has indicated that Iran is under Russia’s protection. We are very close to nuclear Armageddon. And insouciance rules while Zionists take us to war and destruction.

Read more …

Putin’s direct reaction to Storm Shadow missiles potentially being fired deeper into Russia.

• Putin Orders Changes To Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine (RT)

Russia should update its nuclear doctrine to clearly define circumstances that could prompt Moscow to launch a nuclear strike, President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of the national security council on Wednesday. He also suggested an expanded list of threats that would include “reliable information” of a major airstrike being launched against Russia. The list of criteria that would justify Russia’s use of its nuclear deterrent should be expanded in the updated version of the doctrine, Putin told the meeting. “Aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state… supported by a nuclear power should be treated as their joint attack,” the president said. Moscow would also “consider” resorting to a nuclear response if it gets “reliable information” about a “massive” missile or air strike launched by another state against Russia, or its closest ally, Belarus, according to Putin.

The weapons used in an enemy’s potential strike could include anything from ballistic or cruise missiles to strategic aircraft and drones, he stated. “We reserve a right to use nuclear weapons in case of aggression against Russia and Belarus,” the Russian president said, adding that the principle had already been coordinated with Minsk. Nuclear weapons can be used if an enemy poses a “critical threat to either state’s sovereignty through the use of conventional weapons,” he explained. Putin did not elaborate on when changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine will take effect. Senior Russian officials, including Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov have been discussing potential changes to the doctrine in recent months. In late August, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the document was “being reviewed.”

The Russian leader has long demonstrated a rather reserved position on the issue of nuclear weapons. Back in June, he expressed hope that “it will never come” to a nuclear exchange between Moscow and the West. Moscow “has no reasons to even think about” using nuclear weapons, he said at the time, speaking at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. Later that month, the president also stated that Russia did not need to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike, since “the enemy is guaranteed to be destroyed in a retaliatory strike.” He did not, however, rule out changes to the doctrine at the time.

Read more …

They want to talk territory. But Russia can’t give back Crimea or Donbass. They went through a full legal process to become part of Russia.

• Ukraine’s Backers Want Talks With Putin – Bloomberg (RT)

At least one Western nation backing Ukraine is calling for diplomatic engagement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing multiple sources. According to the outlet, some officials are skeptical of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ to end the conflict. The possible talks with Moscow could happen before the G20 leaders’ meeting in Brazil in mid-November, and would be conducted either by Zelensky or other parties, the report said. Zelensky is currently visiting the US, where he is pitching his purported roadmap to resolve the conflict, long-dismissed by Moscow as unrealistic, now re-branded as a ‘victory plan.’ He plans to reveal its contents to US President Joe Biden later this week, as Washington’s support is key for its success, according to the Ukrainian leader.

However, Bloomberg cited sources as saying that the proposal includes no real surprises and won’t be a game-changer in the conflict. One official described it as a “wish list” rather than an action plan. Kiev has ruled out negotiations with Russia and has rejected any possibility of compromise. Ukrainian officials have suggested that by escalating the conflict, they could force Moscow into agreeing peace on Kiev’s terms. Andrey Yermak, Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff, reiterated a call to Western backers on Monday not to be concerned about possible blowback from the strategy. Among other things, the Ukrainian government wants permission to use donated Western weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia. Putin has warned that Moscow will view any such step as a direct act of war by NATO and will respond accordingly.

Ukraine also wants NATO-type security guarantees and a shorter accession path into the US-led military bloc, as well as long-term financial support that future administrations in Washington would not be able to revoke, according to reports. Moscow considers the Ukraine conflict to be a US-led proxy war against Russia, which the West is willing to wage “to the last Ukrainian.” Russian officials have said Ukrainian accession to NATO would pose an existential threat to their country, and must be prevented by all means necessary.

Read more …

“There is concern that these resources were used for purposes unrelated to US national security or bilateral diplomacy but rather to support a politically significant visit ahead of a major US election..”

• US Republicans Accuse Zelensky Of Campaigning For Harris (RT)

Republican officials have accused Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky of interfering in US electoral politics and “campaigning” for presidential candidate Kamala Harris, after he visited an arms factory in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania. Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro gave Zelensky a tour of the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant over the weekend, where both signed 155mm artillery shells that will presumably be shipped to Ukrainian troops. Republican officials have taken issue with the photo op, as well as Zelensky’s recent interview with the New Yorker magazine, in which he criticized former President Donald Trump and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, the party’s nominees in the November presidential election. “Zelensky is openly campaigning for Democrats in battleground Pennsylvania today some 50 days out from our Presidential election. Unreal,” Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt wrote on X.

Pennsylvania Representative John Joyce told a local radio station on Tuesday that the visit was “a political stunt,” judging by its “suspect” timing. A group of nine House representatives led by Lance Gooden of Texas have called for an investigation into Zelenksy’s visit. The Ukrainian leader was flown into Pennsylvania in a US Air Force C-17 military aircraft and was provided with Secret Service protection, both of which were paid for with US taxpayer money, the GOP lawmakers said in a letter to Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch on Tuesday. “There is concern that these resources were used for purposes unrelated to US national security or bilateral diplomacy but rather to support a politically significant visit ahead of a major US election,” said the letter, which was shared with the Washington Examiner.

Gooden questioned Zelensky’s judgment in alienating Republican voters in an interview with Fox News. “Why is he [Zelensky] not on his knees thanking Americans, Republicans and Democrats, for the sacrifices they’ve made for his nation? And how dare he come into our nation and opine on any election, much less the presidential race?” the lawmaker asked on ‘The Ingraham Angle’ program. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, has been seen as attempting to rally the large Polish-American voter base in Pennsylvania by touting the support for Ukraine under the current administration as a way to protect Poland. Zelensky has said he headed to the US to attend the UN General Assembly in New York and to meet President Joe Biden, in order to present him with a ‘victory plan’ to defeat Russia.

Read more …

“The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.”

• US House Speaker Demands Zelensky Fire Ukrainian Ambassador (RT)

The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has called for Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to fire Kiev’s ambassador to Washington, Oksana Markarova, accusing her of interference in American elections. “I demand that you immediately fire Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova,” Johnson wrote in a letter to Zelensky on Wednesday. The senior Republican noted that Markarova had organized an event on Sunday in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Zelensky visited a site that manufactures artillery shells used by Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. “The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because – on purpose – no Republicans were invited,” Johnson wrote. “The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.”

The Louisiana Republican said that his party has lost trust in Markarova’s ability to serve in the US and that she “should be removed from her post immediately.” While both Republicans and Democrats support Ukraine against Russia, Johnson wrote, “our relationship is unnecessarily tested and needlessly tarnished” when Zelensky and others in Kiev speak ill of Republican candidates in the media. “These incidents cannot be repeated,” Johnson wrote, urging Zelensky to “take immediate action.” The speaker’s letter comes after several Republican lawmakers called for a congressional investigation into Zelensky’s visit, accusing the Democrats of using military assets – namely the plane used to fly the Ukrainian leader to Pennsylvania – to inappropriately support Harris in her presidential campaign.

In an interview with New Yorker magazine published on Sunday, Zelensky claimed Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war,” while he described Vance as “too radical” and his outline of a ceasefire proposal as “an awful idea.” Earlier this month, Vance sketched out a proposal under which the current frontline becomes a “heavily fortified” demilitarized zone, Ukraine gives up the idea of joining NATO, and Kiev gets reconstruction money from the EU. Zelensky has insisted that peace is only possible if Ukraine recovers all the territories it has claimed, including Crimea and four regions that have voted to join Russia. Moscow has said their status is non-negotiable while dismissing Zelensky’s proposal as ludicrous and divorced from reality.

Read more …

“Some of its Western backers have dismissed Kiev’s ‘victory plan’ as a “wish list”..

• Trump Could Snub Zelensky – AP (RT)

No meeting has reportedly been scheduled between Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and former US President Donald Trump, according to AP. US House Speaker Mike Johnson has also said he is uncertain about meeting Zelensky. Zelensky is visiting the US to attend the UN General Assembly in New York and pitch his so-called ‘victory plan’ to key figures in the country’s political establishment. His purported roadmap for defeating Moscow will first be presented to President Joe Biden, but Zelensky also intends to talk with the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates as well as senior officials. However, no meeting between Zelensky and Trump has been scheduled as of Tuesday, the Associated Press has reported, citing an official in the Republican nominee’s campaign, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity.

Johnson, who has also been invited to meet with Zelensky, indicated that he won’t be available to speak with the Ukrainian leader in remarks he gave to the press on Wednesday. “I don’t think we actually are going to be in town on Thursday. We have our schedule changed on the floor, so it’s very fluid,” the Republican legislator said, according to a clip shared by Voice of America correspondent Kateryna Lisunova. “I’m not sure yet.” Zelensky is facing a backlash from Republican politicians over his criticism of both Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. He has also been reproached for his visit to the hotly contested state of Pennsylvania at the invitation of its Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, who took the Ukrainian leader to a weapons factory.

Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt has accused Zelensky of “openly campaigning for Democrats,” while nine Republican members of Congress have requested that the Pentagon inspector general determine if the trip to Pennsylvania constituted a violation of US law. There is growing skepticism about Ukraine’s strategy in the ongoing conflict with Russia, according to media reports. Some of its Western backers have dismissed Kiev’s ‘victory plan’ as a “wish list” and are calling for renewed diplomatic engagement with Moscow, sources have told Bloomberg. Trump has claimed on the campaign trail that he would put an end to the conflict in 24 hours, if elected. Zelensky, however, has stated that the former president “doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.” He has also said that Vance was “too radical”; the VP candidate has dismissed the Ukraine conflict as largely irrelevant to American interests.

Read more …

“..the Ukrainian authorities had cut power and water supplies to the peninsula in retaliation for the referendum to join Russia. “Russia had to find a solution to save Crimea from hunger, degradation of agriculture and social infrastructure, to provide for the basic needs of the population. The construction of the Crimean Bridge was the solution..”

• Ukraine Wants Europe’s Longest Bridge ‘Dismantled’ (RT)

Kiev has demanded the demolition of the Crimean Bridge, which it claims Russia has built “illegally” over the Kerch Strait, during hearings at the international court in The Hague this week. The Kremlin declined to comment on the hearings on Tuesday, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that Moscow’s position was well-known and “absolutely predominant.” Moscow has argued that the Ukrainian case is groundless and that the court has no jurisdiction. On Monday, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) started proceedings over a complaint brought by the Ukrainian government in 2016, accusing Russia of violating international sea laws on freedom of navigation. Ukraine claims sovereignty over Crimea and argues that the Sea of Azov, which is separated from the Black Sea by the Kerch Strait, is an international body of water, to which the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea applies.

Anton Korinevich, representing Ukraine, declared in his opening statement that the bridge built by Russia to connect Crimea with Krasnodar Region had been designed to deny large vessels access to the Sea of Azov. “This bridge is illegal and must be dismantled,” he argued. Since the breakout of hostilities with Russia in February 2022, Ukraine has launched multiple military attacks on the infrastructure, including two major bombings masterminded by its special services. Civilians were killed in both incidents. Ukrainian officials have justified attempts to blow up the Crimean Bridge by claiming it has military value for Moscow, and have claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be personally humiliated were the structure to be destroyed by Ukrainian attacks.

Gennady Kuzmin, the Russian representative, told the PCA that Crimea is part of Russia, contrary to Ukrainian claims. He replied to Korinevich’s complaints by reminding the court that the Ukrainian authorities had cut power and water supplies to the peninsula in retaliation for the referendum to join Russia. “Russia had to find a solution to save Crimea from hunger, degradation of agriculture and social infrastructure, to provide for the basic needs of the population. The construction of the Crimean Bridge was the solution,” he stated. In 2020, the PCA sided with Russian objections about its jurisdiction in the case, forcing Kiev to rework its complaint. The current round of deliberations will last until October 5 and will be held mostly behind closed doors. Reviews of such cases normally take months or years.

Read more …

“It’s a non-nonstarter. It’s not real negotiations. It’s not a proposal for real peace. It just stretches the conflict on..”

• Zelensky Plans To Drag NATO Directly Into War With Russia – Rasmussen (Sp.)

Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the US on September 22 to present his “victory plan” to US President Joe Biden and make his case in separate meetings with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. “[Volodymyr Zelensky] wants to get people to support his ‘victory plan’, which really is not a victory plan,” Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and international consultant, tells Sputnik, commenting on Zelensky’s trip to the US. The Ukrainian politician is pushing ahead with the idea of striking deep inside Russia with NATO long-range missiles, something that Western leaders have so far had cold feet about. “Let’s face it, when he goes deep into Russia, those weapons systems basically need intelligence from the United States – NATO and specifically the US,” Rasmussen says.

“The intelligence information provided, the targeting, the programing, all is not done by Ukrainians. So basically the West becomes a full participant in the conflict then, which would basically then open up the avenue for escalation.” In fact, Zelensky’s plan is nothing but a US neocon grand design, according to the military veteran: it’s about NATO’s expansion, weakening Russia and containing China as well. Rasmussen notes that neocons have been rolling out their Ukraine strategy for quite a while, seeking to install a military base in Crimea, maintaining secret bio-labs in Ukraine, and undermining any peace effort Russia has pursued over the past decade.

What’s more, the proposal is absolutely unrealistic, being a one-sided attempt to coerce Russia into surrendering under Ukraine and the West’s conditions, the pundit continues. “They’re basically trying to dictate to Russia the terms of whatever agreement there is. And that’s unrealistic. It’s a non-nonstarter. It’s not real negotiations. It’s not a proposal for real peace. It just stretches the conflict on,” he concludes.

Read more …

“What could they be doing with that billion dollars to house people who are living in tents and cardboard boxes on the streets of our cities? What could they do with that billion dollars to improve health care in this country? What could they do with a billion dollars to help out kids in our schools so they get a better education?”

• US War Profiteers Bring World to Brink of Armageddon (Miles)

The military-industrial complex now threatens not only public investment but human civilization itself, according to author and professor Dr. Ken Hammond. “In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” Such were the words of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a moderate Republican who previously served in the US Army as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II. Like Major General Smedley Butler, who served in the armed forces one generation before him, Eisenhower saw the nexus of private profit and military might firsthand. His successive political experience led him to coin his now-famous term for the phenomenon, which in earlier drafts of his farewell address he called the military-industrial-Congressional complex.

The scourge of war profiteering was already well understood in Eisenhower’s day, with journalists having castigated the merchants of death who armed all sides in World War I and the War of the Pacific, but economic developments since the 1940s have accelerated the trend with military contractors and private mercenaries siphoning off billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. The military-industrial complex now threatens not only public investment but human civilization itself, according to author and professor Dr. Ken Hammond. The expert in East Asian and Global History joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Tuesday to discuss how the influence of weapons manufacturers has brought the world to the brink of war with Russia, China. “It’s a money laundering scheme in a number of ways,” said Hammond, responding to news that the Biden administration is preparing to ship $567 million in lethal aid to authorities in Taiwan.

“Stuff that’s laying around in military warehouses – obsolete equipment – they’re going to ship that off to Taiwan as part of the ongoing efforts to poke China in the eye, provoke situations there, create a lot of public consciousness of tension and conflict and fear about the situation between the United States and China.” “They’re basically giving away these weapons to Taiwan, and then they’re going to turn around and buy new ones to replace those,” he explained. “So that, too, is a giveaway to the defense industry, the so-called defense industry – the war industry, really. It’s part of an ongoing relationship between the military-industrial complex and their control of the American government. So there’s really no surprise here.”

The United States has committed to recognizing the territory of Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China in at least three formal declarations, including the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué negotiated under former President Richard Nixon and two subsequent agreements in 1979 and 1982. The issue represented an important part of the diplomatic efforts necessary to normalize relations with Beijing, opening the country up to global capital and manufacturing. But the US has increasingly sought to provoke China on the sensitive issue in recent years, shipping arms to Taiwanese authorities and dispatching ships to the Taiwan Strait. Beijing has called for the United States to respect Chinese sovereignty and refrain from interfering in the internal matter. China considers Taiwan an unalienable part of its sovereign territory and opposes any official contacts between the island and sovereign countries.

Beijing has repeatedly said that the One China principle is a political foundation of China-US relations and that violations by Washington of its own obligations have been jeopardizing cooperation between the two countries, threatening peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Moscow has backed China on the issue, reaffirming its commitment to the One-China principle and recognizing Taiwan as an inalienable part of China in a number of official statements. “Between these different [arms] shipments… this adds up to about a billion dollars,” said Hammond of recent US guarantees to Taiwanese authorities. “What could they be doing with that billion dollars to house people who are living in tents and cardboard boxes on the streets of our cities? What could they do with that billion dollars to improve health care in this country? What could they do with a billion dollars to help out kids in our schools so they get a better education?”

Read more …

“..producers of agricultural equipment are suffering as well, as grain growers cannot afford to bring their farming machinery up to date..”

• Cheap Ukrainian Grain Ruining German Farmers – Bild (RT)

Uncontrolled supplies of cheap grain from Ukraine are ruining German farmers, Bild has reported, citing industry sources. Prices for wheat in Germany, the EU’s biggest economy, are continuing to decline, the tabloid noted, adding that a ton of the commodity is currently hovering around €200 ($224). Wheat prices saw an unprecedented surge from €287 ($321) to €435 ($486) shortly after the Ukrainian conflict escalated in February 2022. Due to drastically limited loading options in the Black Sea, significantly more wheat, which should actually be exported further afield, is currently coming to Germany on trucks and freighters, according to Bauer Dismer, a grain farmer from Lower Saxony who was quoted by Bild. “But our mills and feed mills take advantage instead. Apparently at dumping prices of less than €160 ($179) per ton,” he told the newspaper.

The official agreement governing the freight route for Ukrainian agricultural exports lapsed in July 2023, when Moscow declined to renew the original Türkiye- and UN-mediated Black Sea Grain Initiative. Russia said the US and EU had not kept their part of the deal, blocking exports of Russian food and fertilizer. Shortly after the escalation of Ukrainian conflict, the EU suspended all tariffs and quotas on Ukrainian agricultural produce to enable grain from the country to be shipped onward to global markets. Earlier this year, the tariff-free trade model was extended for another year. “We are selling off our wheat that is produced under the highest German standards, while wheat from Ukraine is being pumped into the country,” Frank Wullekopf told the newspaper, adding that Ukrainian producers are not obliged to provide proof of pesticides or fertilizer quantities.

“Not to mention the dangers posed by war-related contamination of the wheat,” the farmer added. Meanwhile, prices for baked products in Germany are rising despite the notable decline in grain prices, according to Friedemann Berg, managing director of the German Bakers’ Confederation, as cited by the news outlet. Other costs covering personnel, energy, and bureaucracy have also increased, he said, adding that bakers in the EU have been obliged since January to certify that the production of the raw materials they use did not lead to the destruction of forests. Farmers are not the only industry players impacted by a massive influx of cheap agricultural products from the embattled country, Bild noted, noting that producers of agricultural equipment are suffering as well, as grain growers cannot afford to bring their farming machinery up to date.

Read more …

“We are against antisemitism in the same way that we are against the targeting of Muslims simply because of their beliefs..”

• Netanyahu Must Be Stopped ‘Just Like Hitler’ – Erdogan (RT)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged the international community to take action against Benjamin Netanyahu’s “murder network,” once again likening the Israeli prime minister to Adolf Hitler. In his address to the 79th UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Erdogan condemned the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, describing the Palestinian enclave as a “concentration camp.” “Just as Hitler was stopped by the alliance of humanity 70 years ago, Netanyahu and his murder network must be stopped by the alliance of humanity,” Erdogan said. He accused Netanyahu of trying to “drag the entire region into war for the sake of his political fortunes.”

Erdogan criticized the UN for its failure to “prevent the genocide in Gaza” and called for reforms to make the organization more representative and effective. He stated that the Security Council was too focused on the interests of its five permanent members and was failing to protect international peace and security. Erdogan accused countries that unconditionally support Israel, including the United States, of being complicit in the violence against Palestinians. He emphasized the need for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, as well as a hostage-prisoner exchange and uninterrupted humanitarian aid.

Erdogan reiterated his support for a lawsuit filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to hold Israel accountable for its alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza. He also emphasized that the people of Türkiye do not harbor any hostility towards the people of Israel. “We are against antisemitism in the same way that we are against the targeting of Muslims simply because of their beliefs,” he said. “Our problem is with the massacre policies of the Israeli government. Our problem is with oppression and tyranny, just as it was five centuries ago.”

Erdogan

Read more …

Trump is serious about bringing jobs back home.

“..appoint a “manufacturing ambassador” to convince international companies to move to the United States..”

• Trump Vows To ‘Take Other Countries’ Jobs’ In Economic Speech (BBC)

Donald Trump pledged the US would “take other countries’ jobs” if he returned to the White House, as he laid out his plans to slash taxes and lower energy costs and regulations for manufacturers that made goods on US soil. At a campaign rally in Savannah, Georgia, Trump promised a “manufacturing renaissance”, reiterating his pledge to punish American companies that manufactured outside the US, and slap large tariffs on foreign-made goods to protect US industries. Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris have stepped up efforts to outline their competing visions for the economy in the final stretch of the campaign, highlighting what voters say is a top concern in the 2024 election. Harris is expected to unveil a new set of economic proposals in a major speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday.

Speaking to a crowd in Savannah, Trump moved beyond his usual protectionist policies to raise the prospect of more trade battles. Trump said he would offer special federal zones with “ultra low taxes and regulations” to companies that relocate to the US, cut through regulation and appoint a “manufacturing ambassador” to convince international companies to move to the United States. “Under my plan, American workers will no longer be worried about losing your jobs to foreign nations. Instead, foreign nations will be worried about losing their jobs to America,” he said. Trump has also previously proposed a 60% tariff or higher on Chinese goods and a blanket 20% tariff on imports from other countries, an aggressive policy that could increase prices for Americans, according to some economists.

During his presidency, Trump imposed tariffs on some goods imported from China. The Biden administration has left some of these policies in place and announced new restrictions in some areas such as electric vehicles. The former president has sought to blame Democrats for the surge in inflation following the Covid pandemic, which has since cooled, as well as the high cost of groceries. The food Consumer Price Index rose by 25% from 2019 to 2023, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Read more …

A bit too crazy.

• Another Man Is Charged for Threatening to Kill President Trump (PJM)

A man was charged yesterday for threatening to assassinate former President Donald Trump, just a week after a second attempted assassin tried to shoot the Republican nominee for president in Florida. Warren Jones Crazybull of Idaho allegedly made at least nine threatening phone calls to Trump’s Palm Beach residence at Mar-A-Lago with a promise to kill him “personally.” Federal authorities arrested Crazybull on August 1, only weeks after Trump was shot in Butler, Pa., and before 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh attempted to carry out his failed attempt on Sept. 15, at Trump International Golf Club In West Palm Beach. Investigations are still ongoing into the two assassination attempts by federal agencies and Congress, with the Secret Service and the FBI earning heavy criticism for their failures to protect the former President. The 64-year-old Idaho resident is accused of making multiple threatening calls to the former President’s Florida home on July 31.

“Find Trump … I am coming down to Bedminster tomorrow. I am going to take him down personally and kill him,” said Crazybull in one call, in reference to Trump’s club in New Jersey. Mar-a-Lago security personnel informed the Secret Service that eight follow-up calls with similar threats against Trump came from the same phone number after the first call, according to court filings. Crazybull allegedly made similar “concerning” threats on Facebook using one of several fake aliases. “I start driving to the home of this multi person rapist PIG TRUMP to take him down single combat,” said Crazybull in a July 31 post, while another read, “I’m coming for you Trump.” His Facebook page has apparently been taken down or is no longer public. The alleged assassin plotter also referenced Jeffrey Epstein, JFK, and the “machinations of a shadow government” on his Facebook account.

The Secret Service was able to confirm his identity through phone records and by comparing the voice on the threatening calls recorded by Mar-a-Lago security staff to a video that he posted on his Facebook account. Federal authorities were then able to use location data from Crazybull’s T-Mobile device to determine his location and take him into custody in Montana, according to the court filing. According to court records, a Secret Service agent who interrogated Crazybull described him as having “racing” thought patterns and seemed “confused” and “paranoid.” Crazybull, who is presumably of Native American descent, told authorities that he had threatened to kill Trump because of “broken treaties that resulted in the loss of his land.”

According to the affidavit, he told federal law enforcement that “he would not attempt to kill former President Trump” but was determined not to allow him to return to the Oval Office. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung blamed the latest threat on the rhetoric of Democrat presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. “Kamala Harris and liberal Democrats are the ones who are deranged,” Cheung said in a Sept. 23 press statement. “There have been two heinous assassination attempts on President Trump, and their violent rhetoric are [sic] directly to blame,” he continued and called on the Harris-Walz campaign to “apologize for their hateful rhetoric” and to “tone down their attacks.”

Read more …

Trump: Not on my watch.

• Beware of the Government’s Push for a Digital Currency (Whitehead)

The government wants your money. It will beg, steal or borrow if necessary, but it wants your money any way it can get it. The government’s schemes to swindle, cheat, scam, and generally defraud taxpayers of their hard-earned dollars have run the gamut from wasteful pork barrel legislation, cronyism and graft to asset forfeiture, costly stimulus packages, and a national security complex that continues to undermine our freedoms while failing to making us any safer. Americans have also been made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, military empire, welfare state, roads to nowhere, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the taxpayers.

This is what comes of those $1.2 trillion spending bills: someone’s got to foot the bill. Because the government’s voracious appetite for money, power and control has grown out of control, its agents have devised other means of funding its excesses and adding to its largesse through taxes disguised as fines, taxes disguised as fees, and taxes disguised as tolls, tickets and penalties. No matter how much money the government pulls in, it’s never enough (case in point: the endless stopgap funding deals and constant ratcheting up of the debt ceiling), so the government has to keep introducing new plans to empower its agents to seize Americans’ bank accounts. Make way for the digital dollar. Whether it’s the central bank digital currency favored by President Biden, or the cryptocurrency being hawked by former President Trump, the end result will still be a form of digital money that makes it easier to track, control and punish the citizenry.

For instance, weeks before the Biden Administration made headlines with its support for a government-issued digital currency, the FBI and the Justice Department quietly moved ahead with plans for a cryptocurrency enforcement team (translation: digital money cops), a virtual asset exploitation unit tasked with investigating crypto crimes and seizing virtual assets, and a crypto czar to oversee it all. No surprises here, of course. This is how the government operates: by giving us tools to make our lives “easier” while, in the process, making it easier for the government to crack down. Indeed, this shift to a digital currency is a global trend. More than 100 other countries are considering introducing their own digital currencies.

China has already adopted a government-issued digital currency, which not only allows it to surveil and seize people’s financial transactions, but can also work in tandem with its social credit score system to punish individuals for moral lapses and social transgressions (and reward them for adhering to government-sanctioned behavior). As China expert Akram Keram wrote for The Washington Post, “With digital yuan, the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] will have direct control over and access to the financial lives of individuals, without the need to strong-arm intermediary financial entities. In a digital-yuan-consumed society, the government easily could suspend the digital wallets of dissidents and human rights activists.” Where China goes, the United States eventually follows. Inevitably, a digital currency will become part of our economy and a central part of the government’s surveillance efforts.

Read more …

Get rid of Gary Gensler already.

• Will The US Presidential Election Define The Future of Crypto? (BBC)

The cryptocurrency industry is “rife with fraud and hucksters and grifters”, one of the United States’ top financial regulators has told the BBC. The chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, says the “investing public around the globe has lost too much money” because of crypto companies not following the laws his agency tries to enforce. It comes as the industry is spending millions of dollars on political donations, trying to influence the outcome of November’s US elections in the hope of more favourable future laws. In addition to the presidential battle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, all 435 districts in the House of Representatives are up for re-election, as well as 33 of the 100 seats in the Senate.

The future of cryptocurrency, one of the world’s most hotly-debated technologies, is an issue where there appears to be a clear dividing line between Donald Trump and the outgoing Biden administration. Trump has been courting the votes of crypto enthusiasts by promising to make America “the crypto capital of the planet”, and creating a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile” similar to the US government’s gold reserves. Last week he launched a new crypto business called World Liberty Financial, and although he provided few details, he said “I think crypto is one of those things we have to do”. It’s a huge turnaround from three years ago, when he dismissed Bitcoin as something that “seems like a scam” and a threat to the US dollar. Trump’s new-found enthusiasm is a stark contrast to the Biden administration, of which Harris is the vice president.

The White House has led a sweeping crackdown on crypto firms in recent years. In March, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and boss of FTX was jailed for 25 years for fraud, after he stole billions of dollars from customers around the world, many of whom are still trying to recover their money. Then in April, the founder of the world’s biggest crypto exchange, Binance’s Changpeng Zhao, got four months in prison, and the company paid a $4.3bn (£3.2bn) fine. He admitted to allowing criminals, child abusers and terrorists to launder money on his platform, in a case brought by the US Justice Department. The SEC also has a case against Binance going through the courts. It is one of a record-high 46 enforcement actions the financial regulator took last year against firms trying to profit from what is still an emerging technology.

Read more …

Can’t you do it by video link? Just to calm our nerves?

• Assange to Testify at Council of Europe (Lauria)

WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who was released from prison in June, will address the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France on Oct. 1 after he was granted Status as a Political Prisoner by a rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), WikiLeaks said today. It will be the first time Assange will speak in public since his hearing in U.S. federal court on the North Mariana islands in June, at which he was granted his release after a plea deal. Assange will give evidence before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which will meet from 8.30am to 10am at the Palace of Europe, WikiLeaks said. It follows the PACE inquiry report into Assange’s case, written by Rapporteur Thórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir.

“The report focuses on the implications of his detention and its broader effects on human rights, in particular freedom of journalism,” WikiLeaks said in a press release published on X. “The report confirms that Assange qualifies as a political prisoner and calls on the UK [to] conduct an independent review into whether he was exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment.” Ævarsdóttir called Assange’s case a “high profile example of transnational repression.” Her report “discusses how governments employ both legal and extralegal measures to suppress dissent across borders, which poses significant threats to press freedom and human rights,” said WikiLeaks.

Assange is “still in recovery following his release from prison,” it said. He will travel to France because of “the exceptional nature of the invitation and to embrace the support received from PACE and its delegates over the past years”. While he was in prison PACE advocated “repeatedly” for his release, WikiLeaks said. The hearing at which he will speak will also consider the findings that Assange’s imprisonment was “politically motivated,” it said. The PACE committee said earlier this month in a statement that:

“… the failure of the competent US authorities to prosecute the alleged perpetrators of war crimes and human rights violations committed by US state agents, combined with the harsh treatment of Mr Assange and Ms [Chelsea] Manning, ‘creates a perception that the United States government’s purpose in prosecuting Mr Assange was to hide the wrongdoing of state agents rather than to protect national security.’ … Assange’s harsh treatment, particularly his unprecedented conviction under the Espionage Act, also ‘creates a dangerous chilling effect and a climate of self-censorship affecting all journalists, publishers and others’, according to the committee, severely undermining the protection of journalists and whistleblowers around the world. It urged the US, a Council of Europe observer state, to “urgently reform” the 1917 Espionage Act to exclude its application to publishers, journalists and whistleblowers who disclose classified information with the intent to raise public awareness about serious crimes.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Diet

 

 

Pagolin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838832347971469592

 

 

Anteater

 

 

Shark

 

 

Caracal

 

 

Magdalena
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838626959267631585

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 22 2024

Sep 222024
 
 September 22, 2024  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  62 Responses »


René Magritte Golconda 1953

 

• An American Coup? (Neuburger)
• 72 Minutes (Scott Ritter)
• ‘It’s Over For Russia’ – Boris Johnson (RT)
• Has The EU Suddenly Realized How Much It Has Screwed Itself Over? (Marsden)
• EU Leadership Urges Europe To Be Ready To Fight Russia In 6-8 Years (ZH)
• The DEI Trojan Horse Has Undermined US Military (Sp.)
• TikTok Wipes Out Sputnik Accounts (Sp.)
• No One Is Safe: The Global Threat of Israel’s Weaponized Pagers (Sweidan)
• When Vladimir Putin Was Pootie-Poot (Adam Dick)
• All of Europe Does Business With Russia – Hungary (RT)
• Indian State Oil Refiners Seeking Long-term Deals With Russia – Media (RT)
• Harris ‘Too Busy’ To Talk To Media – Adviser (RT)
• Secret Service Allowed ‘Multiple Failures’ Before Trump Shooting – Report (RT)
• America’s Healthcare Dead Last in Rich Nation Rankings (Sp.)
• Words You Can’t Ignore (Max Jones)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Carmela excellent
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837206654711980070

 

 

RFK sued Trump

 

 

Ireland

 

 

Thiel

 

 

Dimon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837245042056105994

 

 

Mars
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837626546074325240

 

 

India
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837643524600148279

 

 

Maher

 

 

 

 

Easily the prime article/video this weekend. Because it puts everything on its head.

Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell “and critic of America’s wars”, states that the Pentagon has taken over US foreign policy. And that is as stark as it sounds. Wilkerson says that Biden, Harris, Blinken and Jake Sullivan have all been sidelined because the Pentagon doesn’t want to go to war, not in Ukraine and not in Gaza. “No dice”. And they can’t do a thing without the Pentagon.

Judge Nap: “COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Can Ukraine Make It to Nov 5th?”

We have some transcript below, but do watch the whole interview.

• An American Coup? (Neuburger)

In a 30-minute interview with Judge Napolitano on September 18, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell and critic of America’s wars, described a recent event in which Pentagon chief Gen. Lloyd Austin told President Biden that, in Wilkerson’s words, “the Pentagon has taken over, essentially, diplomacy as well as any action, militarily speaking, with regard to both theaters of war,” meaning Ukraine and Israel. Wilkerson added, “And so they’re now in charge.” Austin, according to this telling, listened “to the people in the bowels of the Pentagon who know the truth” and forced the President to back down. Biden was furious, we’re told, but “took that advice.” Except, as Wilkerson tells it, it wasn’t advice, but instruction. “No dice,” as Wilkerson characterized the message, sounds pretty final. This is good news and bad news. The good, U.S. policy is now: To Netanyahu, if you invade Lebanon or attack Iran, you’re on your own. To Zelenskyy, no to long range missiles reaching deep into Russia.

So we and the world are safer, at least for a while. The bad: Is this a coup? Has the military stood up to the President, forced him to change policy? If the answers are yes, we’re on our way once more to revising the Constitution-as-practiced. Both political parties have already confirmed that the Fourth Amendment can be ignored. That’s now the “new normal.” So what’s this encroachment of the Pentagon into foreign policy, if not another “new normal”? Has MacArthur finally won?

Whatever the truth, you won’t see this reported in what people call the “news,” but I doubt Wilkerson’s sources are wrong. At any rate, we’ll know soon enough by the way Zelenskyy and Netanyahu act. Welcome to the future of U.S. foreign policy.

Wilkerson: I think what we’re seeing here is another attempt, because a 100-plane strike didn’t do it, by Netanyahu to provoke Hezbollah to some sort of action that he can then declare is warlike to the extent that he can do what he wants to do with them — even though I’m told with great confidence in the sources that the latest two visits by the Central Command Unified Commander were to tell him [Netanyahu] that we would not be with him in the event of his going to war with Hezbollah that he provoked. Nor will we be with him going to war with Iran that he provoked. And we made it quite clear that we would know if he provoked it.

Napolitano: You’re speaking of General Kurilla [CENTCOM commander since April 2022].

Wilkerson: Yes. Yes.

Napolitano: So Scott Ritter agrees with you, Doug Macgregor says he can’t imagine Austin and Blinkin letting General Kuralla do that. It’s very very interesting. … Is this speculation on your part or is it based on sources?

Wilkerson: It’s based on some pretty reliable sources. And here’s the bigger picture and I hope the others told you this too. Biden’s fury — and you could see it — he was seething when he met with the British Prime Minister.

Napolitano: Yes, yes, we have that clip. He was out of control with anger.

Wilkerson: And what he [had] just been told, apparently, was by the Pentagon, “No dice, Mr President. No dice on Ukraine and no dice on Gaza. We’re in charge now.”

Napolitano: No dice. You’re talking about no dice on the long range missiles reaching deep into Russia, even though Tony Blinkin had intimated all week in Kyiv with his British counterpart that this was happening. And Sir Keir Stormer, the British Prime Minister, had every reason to believe as he’s flying across the Atlantic that Joe Biden’s answer would be yes.

Wilkerson: He was embarrassed. He was embarrassed by the fact — he was pulling out his maps with target data and Biden told him, “Don’t even pull them out. We’re not going to talk about that.” I’ve been told, again by fairly reliable sources, that Blinkin and Sullivan — Blinkin primarily, but Sullivan too — have been sidetracked, and what’s happened is the Pentagon has taken over, essentially, diplomacy as well as any action, militarily speaking, with regard to both theaters of war. And so they’re now in charge. I have to change my evaluation of Secretary Austin if that’s the case, because it means he listened finally to the people in the bowels of the Pentagon who know the truth, and he’s reacting to that, and he’s told the President Biden that, and to Biden’s credit, even though he was furious, he finally took that advice.

Napolitano: Colonel, you once ran the State Department [as Secretary Colin Powell’s chief of staff under George Bush]. How does the Defense Department engage in diplomacy?

Wilkerson: They engage in diplomacy every day. Every day. There are four-stars in the various syncdoms, the regions that they control, the AORs [Areas of Responsibility] [who] are the true U.S. diplomats. And some of them are very good at it. I saw some of them. I worked with some of them who are very good at it, better than any Secretary of State. But it shouldn’t be that way. That’s a parenthetical remark. We shouldn’t have the military leading diplomacy. But we often do. And the Japanese prime minister once told me why to my face. He said, “Larry, when your East Asia and Pacific Assistant Secretary comes out here, he’s not got anything but his briefcase. When the man from Honolulu comes out here, from Camp Smith in Hawaii, he’s towing air wings, submarines, battle groups, Marine amphibious groups, Army divisions. I listened to him. This is the Prime Minister of Japan.

Napolitano: Who told General Kurilla to tell Prime Minister Netanyahu, “If you invade Lebanon, you’re on your own?”

Wilkerson: It was, I think, Austin. But that’s the chain of command. Austin conveyed that message to him [Kurilla]. But I think it was Austin that convinced Biden to give him that command so he could transmit it to Kurilla.

Read more …

“..everything you thought you lived your life for would be dead. And if you survived? To quote Nikita Khrushchev, “The survivors would envy the dead.”

• 72 Minutes (Scott Ritter)

Most Americans approached last weekend thinking about how they would spend the much-anticipated end of the work week with their friends and family. Few realize how close they came to actualizing the scenario so horrifyingly spelled out in Annie Jacobsen’s alarming must-read book, Nuclear War: A Scenario. 72 minutes. That is all it takes to end the world as we know it. That is less time than most movies playing at the local cinema. Most people could not drive to the local home improvement store to buy the materials needed to do the little repairs around the home that usually wait for the weekend. Walk the dogs? Play with the kids? Forget about it. 72 minutes. And everything you thought you lived your life for would be dead. And if you survived? To quote Nikita Khrushchev, “The survivors would envy the dead.”

Ukraine, together with many of its NATO allies, has been asking for permission from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to be able to employ precision-guided long-range weapons systems provided by these countries against targets deep inside Russia. On Sept. 6, at a meeting of the Ramstein Contact Group, a forum where U.S.-NATO military support to Ukraine is coordinated, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky personally appealed to the group for more weapons support from its Western allies and called on allies to allow Ukraine to use the weapons they provided to strike deeper inside Russia. “We need to have this long-range capability,” Zelensky said, addressing the attendees, who included U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, “not only on the divided territory of Ukraine but also on Russian territory so that Russia is motivated to seek peace. We need to make Russian cities, and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin.”

Secretary Austin, in comments made afterwards, said he didn’t think the use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia would help end the war, adding that he expected the conflict would be resolved through negotiations. Moreover, Austin noted, Ukraine had its own weapons capable of attacking targets well beyond the range of the British Storm Shadow cruise missile. Despite Austin’s pushback, President Joe Biden appeared to be on track to give Zelensky the green light he was looking for regarding the use of British-provided Storm Shadow cruise missiles and U.S.-provided long-range ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles for strikes on Russian soil. On Sept. 11, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, accompanied by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, visited Ukraine, where they held meetings with Zelensky and his newly appointed foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha.

Blinken and Lammy, however, failed to make the announcement the Ukrainians were waiting with bated breath to hear. Instead, Blinken and Lammy reiterated the full support of their respective nations to Ukraine’s victory, adding that they would adapt their support to meet Ukrainian needs. “The bottom line is this: We want Ukraine to win,” Blinken said after his meeting with Zelensky. The stage was now set for Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, to fly to Washington, D.C., last Friday, where he would meet with Biden and jointly agree to give Ukraine permission to use Storm Shadow and ATACMS against targets inside Russia. Russia has long made it clear that it would view any nation which authorized the use of its weapons to strike Russia as a direct party to the conflict. In comments to the media in Russia last Thursday — one day before the Biden-Starmer meeting at the White House — Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that any lifting of the restrictions on Ukrainian use of U.S.- and U.K.-provided long-range weapons would change “the very essence of the conflict.” He said:

“This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, European countries are fighting Russia. And if this is the case, then…we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, speaking after Putin’s announcement, noted that the Russian president’s words were “extremely clear” and that they had reached their intended audience — U.S. President Biden. Biden didn’t seem happy about the message. In responding to a question from reporters prior to his meeting with Prime Minister Starmer at the White House about what he thought about Putin’s warning, Biden snapped angrily, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.” The evidence suggests otherwise.

Read more …

Update from another planet.

• ‘It’s Over For Russia’ – Boris Johnson (RT)

Russia must understand that “it’s over,” and that Ukraine will not concede any territory for peace, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has argued. For this goal to be achieved, however, Kiev will need long-range weapons, NATO membership, and half a trillion dollars, Johnson added. In an op-ed published in The Spectator on Saturday, Johnson argued that Ukrainian forces still have the “ability to win,” if only the West would cave to every single one of Kiev’s demands. These include, he wrote, permission to strike deep inside Russian territory with Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles, and immediate invitation to NATO with Article 5 security guarantees, and “half a trillion dollars… or even a trillion.” Disregarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent warning that enabling long-range strikes would place NATO in a state of war with Russia as “bluster and saber-rattling,” Johnson argued that these steps are necessary to “send the crucial message to the Kremlin.”

“The message is: that’s it. It’s over. You don’t have an empire any more. You don’t have a ‘near abroad’ or a ‘sphere of influence’. You don’t have the right to tell the Ukrainians what to do, any more than we British have the right to tell our former colonies what to do,” he asserted. “It is time for Putin to understand that Russia can have a happy and glorious future, but that like Rome and like Britain, the Russians have decisively joined the ranks of the post-imperial powers, and a good thing, too,” he continued. The West, Johnson argued, “must abandon any idea that the Ukrainians will do a deal” or “trade land for peace.” “We in the West would be mad to try to impose that outcome,” he added. Ironically, Russia and Ukraine reportedly agreed to a peace deal during talks in Istanbul in 2022. The agreement would have involved Ukraine declaring military neutrality, limiting its armed forces, and vowing not to discriminate against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky withdrew from the talks at the last moment. According to Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and several Ukrainian media reports, Johnson was instrumental in convincing Zelensky to abandon negotiations. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the deputy leader of Türkiye’s ruling party, Numan Kurtulmus, have also claimed that several Western states conspired to scupper the deal. Five months after the Istanbul talks, Russia assumed control of four former regions of Ukraine. According to the most recent figures from the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian military has lost nearly half a million men since February 2022, and the Pentagon concluded last year that Ukraine stands little chance of regaining its former territories.

Read more …

“..unscrewing everything they screwed up over the past two and a half years through self-inflicted idiocy in the interests of impressing their girlfriend Vladimir Zelensky (aka president of Ukraine).”

• Has The EU Suddenly Realized How Much It Has Screwed Itself Over? (Marsden)

The EU is having a full-blown existential crisis. Someone has really screwed up its economy, and the culprit is conspicuously absent from a new report outlining the carnage. Are there no mirrors in Brussels? Former European Central Bank president and Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, has published a new “economic competitiveness” report after a year of work at the request of unelected ‘Queen’ Ursula von der Leyen’s ‘Royal’ European Commission. And it’s a real page-turner, one of the great mysteries of our times. One is left to breathlessly leaf through the 400-page document looking for a culprit responsible for the massive amount of economic carnage detailed by Draghi. “For the first time since the Cold War we must genuinely fear for our self-preservation,” he told reporters in Brussels. How about starting off by not actively self-sabotaging?

Draghi said that the bloc desperately needs to keep up with China and the US, but has been failing. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the EU readily jumped in to ride shotgun alongside Uncle Sam along regime change highway, but now finds itself kicking dirt on the roadside and wanting to make its own way. “Now conditions have changed,” Draghi said. “World trade is slowing. China is actually slowing very much, but it’s become much less open to us, and actually it’s competing with us in global markets on all accounts. We’ve lost our main supplier of cheap energy, Russia. And now we have to start for our defense again for the first time since the Second World War.” Apparently, the jokers ruling Europe from the big top tent in Brussels are shocked to discover that they’ve been victimized. Who could possibly have done such a thing?

Gotta love the use of the passive there. “Lost” their cheap energy from Russia. Like it just fell out of their pocket like a set of house keys on the way back from the store. Listening to Draghi, you’d also think that the EU hasn’t actually adopted “de-coupling” from China as a strategy, egged on by Washington, which wanted Europe all to itself, before EU officials rebranded it a “de-risking” when they realized how stupid a move it would be to fully alienate China as the bloc’s top trading partner and customer. And now, oh gee, the EU has to start thinking about its own defense again, Draghi said, rather than just using it to shake free some natural resources from all the places with fortuitously-located terrorist problems. The Ukraine conflict has been an equally convenient excuse to make more weapons at taxpayer expense for the EU’s own defense after emptying out the old junk from its closets.

Good thing, too, because making more weapons is about the only real easy answer for improving the economy right now, judging by the dire state of things outlined in this new report. Still, the EU can’t even do the military-industrial racket right. Draghi has pointed out that EU members are basically idiots for buying most of their weapons abroad, with nearly two-thirds coming from the US. Big mystery as to why Washington wants to keep the party going in Ukraine when it’s making bank by drumming up the need to ramp up weapons purchases for EU members under the guise that their former top economic lifeline and energy supplier (Russia) was suddenly a big threat to them. The bonus: making Europe more dependent on the US for pricier gas, too.

The whole report is just loaded with gems, like this one: “If Europe cannot become more productive, we will be forced to choose. We will not be able to become, at once, a leader in new technologies, a beacon of climate responsibility and an independent player on the world stage. We will not be able to finance our social model. We will have to scale back some, if not all, of our ambitions. This is an existential challenge…” Draghi’s going on about all these grand ambitions like leading new tech and being a climate and social icon, while European elites have been yelling at the plebs to turn down the heating and air conditioning to stick it to Putin and cheering mild winters like we’re living in the dark ages. Draghi also said that the EU needs another €800 billion ($890 billion), which is about 4.5% of the entire bloc’s GDP, just to be able to stay globally competitive. And that competitiveness can only be achieved by thoroughly unscrewing everything they screwed up over the past two and a half years through self-inflicted idiocy in the interests of impressing their girlfriend Vladimir Zelensky (aka president of Ukraine).

Read more …

They made some Baltic Lunatic the EU’s new defense commissioner.

• EU Leadership Urges Europe To Be Ready To Fight Russia In 6-8 Years (ZH)

NATO’s tiny Baltic states have continued to be among the most hawkish within the alliance when it comes to ‘confronting Russia’ and making war plans. One Lithuanian official is making headlines for saying that eventual NATO war with Russia is inevitable, and that Europe must begin preparing now. Andrius Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister and the EU’s new defense commissioner, has told Reuters that Europe must prepare to go to war with Russia withing the next six to eight years. “Defense ministers and NATO generals agree that Vladimir Putin could be ready for confrontation with NATO and the EU in 6-8 years,” Kubilius said in his capacity as the European Union’s first-ever Defense Commissioner. “If we take these assessments seriously, then that is the time for us to properly prepare, and it is a short one. This means we have to take quick decisions, and ambitious decisions,” he added.

Kubilius’ appointment is seen as an indicator that the EU is getting more serious about war-spending as a bloc, though EU leadership has no decision-making capacity when it comes to NATO. Apparently he’s unconcerned with the dangers of nuclear-armed confrontation. Russia has said it would deploy nuclear weapons if its territory and population faces existential threat of annihilation. Kubilius described further in his statement, “The European Union won’t have defense plans or military leadership, like NATO does — but the European Union has instruments to get larger financing, which NATO doesn’t.” He has called for a total investment of a gargantuan sum: 500 billion euros in the coming years in order to ramp-up the readiness of European militaries.

European Parliament has recently passed a largely symbolic resolution approving the Zelensky government’s use of long-range weapons to attack inside Russia. The head of Russia’s State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, has responded by saying “What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons.” Thinks looking bleak: A newly-created EU leadership position and the very first directive issued relates to future war with Russia… Clearly peace is on the minds of few. The only way to avoid escalation leading to nuclear-armed showdown in the heart of Europe is the negotiating table, but both Moscow and Kiev have of late issued statements denying that they are even close to sitting down together to seek settlement or ceasefire.

Read more …

Better not get into a fight. Unwinnable.

• The DEI Trojan Horse Has Undermined US Military (Sp.)

The US military is facing what has been characterized as its worst recruitment, morale, and public trust crisis in modern history. Here’s what the Biden administration’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has to do with it. An analysis of a trove of internal documents by The Daily Caller has revealed that the US Air Force has been excluding white male applicants from its popular Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program in favor of minorities. Highlighting the Biden administration’s obsession with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), the prejudice reflects a broader push by Washington’s liberal establishment to turn Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote about not judging people “by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” on its head. Team Biden went to work on DEI and “equity” (not to be confused with “equality”) guidelines for the military immediately after stepping into office, firing off three key executive orders in January 2021, including:

EO 13985: “Advancing Racial Equality and Support for Undeserving Communities Through the Federal Government” (including the military). EO 13988: “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender-Identity or Sexual Orientation.” EO 14004: “Enabling All Qualified Americans to Serve Their Country in Uniform” – aimed at easing transgender individuals’ ability to serve. Together with the June 2021 EO 14035 on “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce,” the trio of directives kicked off a fundamental transformation of the military, sparking a series of bizarre scandals and leading to an unprecedented drop in readiness and morale:

In 2021, the Air Force and Navy faced widespread derision after rolling out maternity flight suits, with Tucker Carlson calling the move a “mockery of the US military,” and highlighting the absurdity of having “pregnant women…fight[ing] our wars.” In June 2023, facing an outcry from conservative lawmakers, the military banned drag shows on base, deeming them “inconsistent with regulations regarding the use of resources,” with DoD spokespeople scrambling to assure that “the Department does not fund drag shows or drag activities.” In October 2023, the advocacy group which won a historic Supreme Court case against race-conscious admissions to US universities brought cases against West Point and the US Naval Academy on grounds of DEI-based bias. The Supreme Court binned the West Point case in February 2024, with the Naval Academy’s affirmative action trial kicking off this past week.

The staggering costs of Pentagon DEI initiatives has also garnered considerable attention and criticism, with spending jumping from $68 million in 2022, to $86.5 million in 2023, and $114.7 million in 2024. The funds provide for things like mandatory diversity training and the hiring of onsite “diversity officers” to ensure compliance with DEI regulations. The Biden Pentagon has been hailed as the most diverse in history, with racial and sexual minorities receiving a host of top jobs, from a proud lesbian tapped to serve as Air Force under secretary, to a transgender assistant secretary of defense, to Lloyd Austin – the Pentagon’s first black chief. But these DEI “milestones” have not exactly helped the military achieve its goals over the past four tumultuous years, with the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Navy’s impotence against the Houthis from January 2024 on showing that more diversity does not mean more won battles.

In fact, the DEI seems to have made things worse, with the military facing an unprecedented “crisis of recruitment, trust, and spending,” as a Newsweek piece recently put it, forcing some observers and lawmakers on Capitol Hill to consider returning the draft, or offering immigrants citizenship in exchange for service amid recruitment numbers dropping between 20-40%, public trust in the military plummeting from 73% in 2019 to 60% today, and morale and readiness described as being among the lowest since World War II. DEI, combined with other Biden policies aimed at the military, including mandatory COVID shots, have been blamed for the crisis.

Read more …

Only one opinion allowed.

• TikTok Wipes Out Sputnik Accounts (Sp.)

The US Department of the Treasury issued a statement on September 4 announcing sanctions against Sputnik’s parent media group Rossiya Segodnya, RIA Novosti, RT, Sputnik, and Ruptly. The sanctions also targeted Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya, and a number of other senior executives. On the morning of September 21, the video-sharing platform TikTok removed the Sputnik International account of the Sputnik news network, just days after the US announced new sanctions targeting Russian media. TikTok has not yet commented on the development.

TikTok, which is part of the Chinese company ByteDance, has been under intense pressure from US authorities in recent months. In April, US President Joe Biden signed into law a bill passed by Congress that would ban TikTok in the United States if it refuses to divest from its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance. TikTok and ByteDance have since challenged the measure in court. Earlier this month, the US State Department tightened the operating conditions of Rossiya Segodnya and its subsidiaries, designating them as “foreign missions.”

Read more …

“Israel’s actions signal a new level of risk to global trade, where civilian products may be tampered with for political or military advantage. What was once a matter of state-to-state conflict is now a threat to individual households.”

• No One Is Safe: The Global Threat of Israel’s Weaponized Pagers (Sweidan)

Israel’s coordinated attacks on Lebanon, marked by the near-simultaneous explosion of thousands of pager and walkie-talkie devices over two days, resulted in the deaths of at least 37 people, including children, and left thousands severely wounded. This brutal terrorist attack should serve as a dire warning to the world: a stark reminder that the occupation state’s criminal actions know no limits, indiscriminately targeting those who challenge its interests, or those of its western allies. In the wake of this aggression, who can guarantee that Israeli exports to other countries won’t be weaponized in future conflicts? The “pager attack” serves as yet more evidence that Israel poses a global threat, ushering in a dangerous, dystopian new era in which civilians are no longer safe, even in their own homes. When analyzing the pager detonations from a legal standpoint, it becomes clear that Israel’s killing spree in Lebanon this week lies somewhere between a war crime and an act of terrorism.

The legal classification depends on the current state of affairs between Lebanon and Israel. If Lebanon is considered to be at war with Israel, the targeting of civilians — non-combatants — through the bombing of pagers blatantly violates international laws of warfare, including the Geneva Conventions. Article 51 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1949) strictly prohibits indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and Article 85 lists attacks on civilians as grave breaches that amount to war crimes. In this case, we must identify who qualifies as a “combatant” under international humanitarian law. A combatant is defined as someone under military command, wearing a distinguishable uniform and openly carrying weapons. Without these markers, those targeted in the pager attack are considered civilians under international law. Additionally, the attack violates the principles of distinction and proportionality, fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law.

The principle of distinction mandates that combatants must be differentiated from civilians — a rule clearly ignored in Israel’s attacks, evidenced by the deaths of children. The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks where the harm to civilians is excessive compared to the military advantage gained. In this instance, the minimal military impact pales in comparison to the devastating toll on civilians, including the psychological and moral damage inflicted. Therefore, Israel’s adoption of a strategy of indiscriminate violence during its recent aggression against Lebanon is a war crime. The Guardian notes that half a century after the Second World War, a global treaty — to which Israel is a signatory — came into force, which “prohibited in all circumstances to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.”

However, if we consider that Lebanon is not in a formal state of war with Israel, the aggression falls under a different legal classification: terrorism. According to the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (1997), Israel’s actions can be categorized as a “terrorist bombing.” The use of civilian devices, like pagers, in non-military zones with the intent to spread fear aligns with the convention’s definition of terrorism, which criminalizes the unlawful use of explosives to target civilians or infrastructure with the intent to intimidate populations or coerce governments.

The UN General Assembly Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism (1994) defines terrorism as any act aimed at causing death or serious bodily harm to civilians for the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or international organization to act. Accordingly, the pager bombings were intended to intimidate the Lebanese and the resistance or force them to make concessions, which is consistent with the definition of terrorism under customary international law. Yesterday, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter condemned the “massive terrorist attack” in Lebanon and Syria, while Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote in a statement that the attack “violates international human rights law, and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law.”

Israel’s pager bombing has also sparked global concerns about the security of international supply chains. If Israel has indeed begun weaponizing civilian devices through third parties in other countries, this raises the terrifying prospect that supply chains once thought to be safe could be compromised at any time. In an interview with India Today TV, a technologist expressed concern that Israel’s actions could lead to similar risks in other countries, creating the possibility of booby-trapped electronics infiltrating homes worldwide. The implications are profound: Israel’s actions signal a new level of risk to global trade, where civilian products may be tampered with for political or military advantage. What was once a matter of state-to-state conflict is now a threat to individual households.

Read more …

In 1990, the CIA were sure Putin was -literally- their man.

• When Vladimir Putin Was Pootie-Poot (Adam Dick)

United Sates President Joe Biden has spent most of his presidency refusing to talk with Russia President Vladimir Putin. This is despite — or maybe because of — the fact that such discourse could have led to an agreement ending the US government’s proxy war against Russia. Instead of talking out a resolution to the fighting, Biden has kept pumping dollars, weapons, and intelligence to the Ukraine government, resulting in a rising death toll and expanding war. Also advanced has been the risk of drawing the US and Russia directly into a war against each other that could go nuclear. Still, Biden will not pick up the phone or fly on a plane to talk things over with the president of Russia. “I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now,” said Biden on July 11, 2024 in response to a reporter’s question at one of Biden’s rare press conferences.

We know Biden loves his vacation time, but, really, isn’t ending the Ukraine War and preventing its further escalation a good enough reason to start chatting with Putin? How about putting in a little effort to give peace a chance? Long, long ago, during the presidency of George W. Bush, a US president not only regularly talked with Putin, including in in-person meetings, he even had an affectionate nickname for the Russia president. For Bush, Putin was Pootie-Poot. How things have changed. Not every American president before Biden had a cute nickname for counterparts among the long line of Russia leaders, and Soviet leaders during the decades when Russia was subsumed in the Soviet Union.

Yet, they all were willing to talk. This includes Ronald Reagan who called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and pushed for increased US military spending to counter what he presented as a Soviet threat. Reagan met with and kept in regular contact with Soviet leader Michail Gorbachev, succeeding in putting in place arms control deals between the nations. Other US presidents, while directly and by proxy militarily countering the “red spread” and “Soviet expansion,” kept in communication with Soviet leaders. They wanted to be dedicated cold warriors while minimizing the risk of outright war between the US and Soviet Union. Biden should give Putin a call. And when Biden makes that call, why not give Putin a nice nickname too? Doing this may run counter to Biden’s nature, but it could be the first step down the path to peace. Unfortunately, there is little indication that seeking peace is even a small component of the Biden administration’s agenda.

Read more …

“The difference between us and the others in general is that we speak honestly and openly about this issue..”

• All of Europe Does Business With Russia – Hungary (RT)

A significant number of companies in the EU continue to discreetly do business with Russia despite the bloc’s sanctions, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. “Here I would like to disappoint the idealists, as the situation is that everyone in Europe is doing this,” Szijjarto said in Budapest on Friday.“ The difference between us and the others in general is that we speak honestly and openly about this issue. All of Europe does business with the Russians, but some deny this; we don’t need that.” Szijjarto added that Hungary does not agree with the sanctions, but since this is EU policy, Budapest respects them. Hungary typically vetoes specific EU proposals if they seriously harm national interests, he said, adding that developing economic cooperation with Russia is one of those interests.

The EU imposed sanctions on Moscow in 2014, and expanded them after the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. The main targets are high-value sectors of the Russian economy, including energy, finance, and trade. Hungary has long been at odds with the EU over its approach to the Ukraine conflict and its sanctions policy towards Moscow. This makes it difficult for the EU to agree on new restrictions, Euractiv reported in August, citing diplomatic sources. Many experts in both Russia and the West have warned that unilateral sanctions bring more harm to the countries that impose them than to Russia itself. EU officials have also acknowledged that Moscow has been successful in sidestepping the restrictions. In June, Finance Ministry data showed that Russian budget revenues from oil and gas soared by 73.5% in January-May this year, compared to the first five months of 2023.

Read more …

“Long-term deals are expected to help avoid price swings and provide India with steady access to Russian oil at a lower price..”

• Indian State Oil Refiners Seeking Long-term Deals With Russia – Media (RT)

India’s state-owned oil refiners are in talks with Russia about clinching long-term supply deals, the news outlet Business Standard reported this week, citing sources at the country’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Agreements could reportedly be sealed as soon as next April when the new fiscal year starts. India, the world’s third-largest consumer of crude oil, depends on imports for up to 85% of its needs. Russia is India’s top oil supplier, and New Delhi has often noted that Moscow has been instrumental in ensuring the nation’s energy security. Nevertheless, while India’s private refiners already have annual deals for Russian oil supplies, the state companies have tended to buy it in the spot markets, reserving long-term contracts for sources from the Middle East. According to the ministry’s sources, however, the high volatility in spot prices has rendered this arrangement no longer attractive for the state refiners.

Long-term deals are expected to help avoid price swings and provide India with steady access to Russian oil at a lower price. India stepped up purchases of Russian crude in 2022 shortly after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict and the first rounds of Western sanctions on Moscow. New Delhi has taken advantage of the discounts Moscow offered on its oil after the latter effectively lost its traditional buyers in the West. Last month, India even overtook China as the largest buyer of Russian crude. Ramping-up purchases of Russian oil not only helped India bolster its domestic energy security, but made it one of the leading exporters of petrochemicals to Europe. India’s exports of refined oil products to European countries jumped by 2,539 times since 2018, The Print reported earlier this month, citing data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Western states have been pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil, but New Delhi has remained adamant that it would continue to do so. Indian officials have also argued on more than one occasion that the decision to buy Russian oil has helped prevent a global energy crisis. In an interview with RT in July, India’s minister of petroleum and natural gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, stated that without Russian oil on the market, global prices would have hit $250-300 per barrel.

Read more …

Nobody seems to know what she is busy with.

• Harris ‘Too Busy’ To Talk To Media – Adviser (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t given many media interviews because “she’s a very busy person,” one of her campaign advisers, Keisha Lance-Bottoms, has told CNN. Even liberal pundits have criticized Harris for dodging the spotlight. In the two months since she announced her presidential campaign, Harris and running mate Tim Walz have given a total of seven sit-down interviews, while former President Donald Trump and running mate J.D. Vance have given 70 interviews and press conferences, according to a tally compiled by Axios this week. When conversations with partisan allies – for instance Trump’s live chat with X owner Elon Musk – are counted, the former president pulls even further ahead of Harris, who has largely stuck to scripted rallies to reach voters. Asked why Harris is not doing more interviews, Lance-Bottoms told CNN on Friday that “we would love to see her sit down every single day with CNN and do interviews, but it’s that she’s a very busy person.”

“She’s the vice president as well as a candidate,” Lance-Bottoms continued, reiterating that Harris is simply “too busy” to match Trump’s media schedule. Harris has come under fire from the New York Times for avoiding unscripted appearances, while CNN commentator Scott Jennings hammered the vice president on Friday for deliberately avoiding “hostile media.” The night before, Harris spoke at length to TV host Oprah Winfrey, although the interview was friendly and featured a host of Harrris’ celebrity supporters, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Chris Rock, and Ben Stiller. Harris’ campaign believes that “limiting interactions with the press is the right strategy – even if it frustrates reporters,” Axios reported, citing sources close to the campaign. According to a recent New York Times/Siena poll, 31% of voters feel that they don’t know enough about Harris, while only 12% are unsure who Trump is or where he stands on key issues.

Read more …

Too many failures to be failures.

• Secret Service Allowed ‘Multiple Failures’ Before Trump Shooting – Report (RT)

Multiple “operational and communications failures” by the US Secret Service allowed a gunman to open fire on former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in July, an internal review has found. Trump narrowly avoided death while speaking to a crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July, when a bullet fired from around 150m away grazed his ear. The gunman, a 21-year-old named Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired from a rooftop that had apparently been left unprotected by the Secret Service, killing one rally goer and injuring two others before he was shot dead by a sniper. In the aftermath of the incident, it emerged that local police had spotted Crooks using a range-finder an hour before he opened fire and passed a photo on to Secret Service agents. The agents noticed the gunman on the roof 20 minutes before the incident, but took no action until the first shots rang out.

In a preliminary report released on Friday, the Secret Service stressed that local police were responsible for securing the roof in question. However, the report stated, the officers covering this building had no contact with the Secret Service. Some information about the shooter relayed by local law enforcement never made it to the Secret Service, the report stated, blaming a lack of radio communication between the various agencies working at the rally site. As a result, information about Crooks’ appearance and movements had to be relayed by chains of phone calls and text messages, it claimed. Shortly before the rally began, Crooks was able to fly a camera-equipped drone over the site without being stopped or questioned. The Secret Service report stated that while the agency deployed a counter-drone team to the site, “there were some technical difficulties” with their equipment.

Regarding the choice of venue, the report stated that a Secret Service team had visited the site beforehand and noted that the line of sight between the rooftop and the stage where Trump spoke could pose a “challenge.” However, “the security measures to alleviate these concerns were not carried out.” The internal investigation is still ongoing, and a final report is expected in the coming weeks. While much of Friday’s summary appeared to pass blame on to local law enforcement, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe told reporters that the agency nevertheless needs “a shift in paradigm in how we conduct our protective operations.” Rowe’s predecessor, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned ten days after the shooting. Several other high-ranking agents were placed on leave during the investigation.

Trump survived another attempt on his life earlier this month, when a pro-Ukraine activist aimed a rifle at the former president at one of his golf courses in Florida. Secret Service agents fired several shots at the man and arrested him after he fled the scene. Republican Representative Matt Gaetz claimed earlier this week that some GOP lawmakers believe there is a “mole inside the Secret Service providing information about points of vulnerability” to would-be assassins.

Read more …

“Recent surveys indicate that healthcare is among the top priorities for voters in the November presidential election..”

• America’s Healthcare Dead Last in Rich Nation Rankings (Sp.)

The percentage of Americans able to access quality healthcare hit a new low of 55% in 2024, according to the West Health-Gallup Healthcare Affordability Index. Affordability of healthcare has become one of the top issues ahead of the 2024 US presidential election. The US healthcare system continues to lag far behind other high-income countries, an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund shows. It has retained its dismal ranking since 2004, when the nonprofit launched its surveys. Ten nations, including Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US, were compared on healthcare system aspects such as access, care process, administrative efficiency, equity, and health outcomes. The US showed the worst overall performance despite spending more per capita on healthcare than any other nation (16% of its GDP in 2022).

It ranked lowest in both accessibility and healthcare outcomes, with 26 million Americans having no insurance, and a quarter of the working age population underinsured. As inflation fuels costs, over 40% of Americans spent at least $1,000 on healthcare out-of-pocket last year, per the survey. At 77.5 years, US life expectancy is over four years below the 10-country average (the same as sanction-riddled Iran). The US has the highest rates of preventable and treatable deaths for all ages. Over 107,000 people died from overdoses in 2023 amid a raging substance abuse crisis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 43,000 gun-related deaths in 2023, according to a report by the National Institute of Health Care Management. Recent surveys indicate that healthcare is among the top priorities for voters in the November presidential election.

Read more …

“..children are meant to play, to be loved, to be accepted and protected..”

• Words You Can’t Ignore (Max Jones)

A frightened little girl trembles and screams “in terror after mistaking thunder for an Israeli airstrike.” – Times of Gaza. Most of the people — and especially the children — who survive this genocidal slaughter will forever be traumatized. Children are meant to play, to be loved, to be accepted and protected. The children of Gaza will never get to be children. Most will never get to be adults either. Like this little girl, they will be stuck in the past, unable to experience something as simple as rainfall and thunder. When the rain falls and the thunder booms, their scars will take them back to their terror — the only thing that once separated them from the explosions destroying their homes, the blood and gore of their friends and relatives, and the reality that at any moment they might be killed. I urge you to not look away from this poor girl — look openly enough and you will see yourself. The times you were afraid and no one was there. The times you needed someone to assure you that things would be ok, and no one did. The times you needed to be accepted.

A four-year old girl, Rahaf Ziad Abu Suweirih, died the other day in Gaza when Israeli bombs shelled her home — but the bombs did not kill her. Her little heart stopped, incapable of handling the horrors imposed upon her by Israel’s genocide. As I said above, children are meant to play, to be loved, to be accepted and protected. The children of Gaza will never get to be children. Rahaf Ziad Abu Suweirih’s body knew this so well — and thus, knew that Rahaf should never have experienced the terror, violence, and abandonment that Israel’s genocide forced her to endure — that her tiny heart spared her. Her loved ones will mourn her death. They will try to make sense of the pain they feel, and how anyone could weaponize such hatred against something so innocent. The scars her death left them will remain tender for the rest of their lives. A story true for all the survivors of Gaza. But death is not merely an inducer of pain. It is also a protectorate; a unifier. It reaches up from the deepest depths of the soul to hug the broken human when no one else can.

It takes all the fragments that the tribulations of life shatter and pieces them back together. It is death that can lift a blanket over the abandoned child, or the terrorized adult, and give them permission to rest when the world cannot. This is especially evident in Gaza, where children cannot be children. They have to be survivors. Fighters. Being a child in Gaza only makes easy prey for the hunters playing blood sport. For a child, who again, is only meant to play, to be loved, accepted and protected, this creates a living hell that they have to believe is traversable, either by themselves or the adults they look to for guidance. Of course, no one can navigate the constant and unpredictable patterns of bombs, death and terror. But for the child, what choice do they have between believing the lie that they can control something, or succumbing to death itself? The reality is that Israel creates an uninhabitable space for Gazans, a “labyrinth of death,” that no one could ever survive without the chance of luck.

[..] But protecting one’s self, and one’s children, from the bombs of genocide means denying reality and believing, in one way or another, that you still possess some control of your own fate. To survive, the victims cannot accept that they are effectively “mice in a trap.” They must create different versions of reality in which they can prevail. In other words, they must become multiple people living different fantasies — all to protect their physical self. While these different realities may protect the survivors from death, they will not cease to exist once the war is over. This will send them scrambling in search of the unity that they were forced to abandon. In fleeting moments, they will find places of refuge that unite their broken spirits. These places will tend to the wounds that their traumas left them with “treatments” of comfort and solace.

Yet in time, these places will obscure the unity they at first grant. Whether the survivor finds shelter in the fuzzy feeling of a white opiate, in a bottle of liquor, in a toxic relationship, or any other pathology that detaches them from the pain of reality, the survivor will end up mistakenly believing that they are only complete with the help of the “treatment” that temporarily soothes their pain. This lie will lead them into a new trap: one much harder to see but just as real as the “mice trap” of Gaza. Without realizing it, they will never stop searching for the person that they were never allowed to be, and they will cling to the places that offer the illusion of fulfillment.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

No. 1

 

 

GROK

 

 

Cats

 

 

Blondie
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837430585117045144

 

 

Jenga

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 12 2024

Mar 122024
 
 March 12, 2024  Posted by at 8:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  44 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Le moulin de la galette 1886

 

• Elite Units of Ukrainian Armed Forces Discuss Overthrowing Zelensky (Sp.)
• Pentagon’s ‘Ukrainian Fantasy’ Is Falling Apart – Scott Ritter (Sp.)
• Ukraine Already Bankrupt Long Ago – Former Prime Minister (TASS)
• Houthis ‘Schooling’ West in Asymmetric Warfare (Sp.)
• God Is Underwriting Israel’s Genocide Bond (Helmer)
• Chasing ‘Tactical’ Wins, Israel Now Faces ‘Strategic’ Defeat (Sweidan)
• White House Fails to Navigate the Israeli Re-calibration (Alastair Crooke)
• Biden a ‘Rare Kind of Idiot’ – Medvedev (RT)
• Macron is a ‘Coward’ – Medvedev (RT)
• ‘Warmonger’ EU’s Defense Strategy a Wishful Dream (Sp.)
• EU Nuclear Umbrella to Embolden Member States to Use French Nukes (Sp.)
• Poland: the Biggest Army in the EU And the Biggest Risks in the Making (Babich)
• Eventual Financial Death Spiral Now Imminent – John Rubino (USAW)
• Global Hunger Isn’t The Worst Food-Related Threat To Humanity (Bridge)
• Nanoplastics Linked to an Increase in Heart Attacks And Strokes (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Kimmel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1767014173391585295

 

 

Mace

 

 

Schiff Trump

 

 

 

 

Melania

 

 

Rogan X
https://twitter.com/i/status/1767284402143334811

 

 

 

 

Bannon Rickards

 

 

Tucker Cuomo

 

 

 

 

“Let’s demolish this green rat and install Zaluzhny!”

• Elite Units of Ukrainian Armed Forces Discuss Overthrowing Zelensky (Sp.)

Following the recent reshuffle in Ukraine’s military leadership, discontent is brewing among elite units, with discussions of ousting President Volodymyr Zelensky and reinstating Valery Zaluzhny, the former commander-in-chief, a source has revealed to Sputnik. Commanders and soldiers in elite units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are dissatisfied with the reshuffle in the country’s military leadership and are seriously discussing the ousting of Volodymyr Zelensky, a representative of the Russian security services has told Sputnik. He explained that specialists had gained access to a closed Telegram channel called “ParaBelum,” which consists of radically-minded fighters from the elite units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“Our specialists have gained access to a resource in which members of various elite units, such as the Marines, special forces, intelligence, special forces of the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine], as well as various nationalist battalions, communicate. They are highly qualified specialists who are clearly dissatisfied with the change of command. They are seriously discussing options for overthrowing the current government and the command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the interlocutor said. Based on the materials at the disposal of Sputnik, the soldiers express dissatisfaction with the actions of Zelensky and the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, who was appointed a month ago to replace Valery Zaluzhny. Thus, the commander of the reconnaissance group of Ukraine’s 80th Separate Air Assault Nrigade, Maxim Shevtsov, with the call sign “Winter,” calls on members of “ParaBelum” to overthrow Zelensky.

“If people don’t come to the defense of Zaluzhny, if the military doesn’t come to the defense of Zaluzhny, then this rat [Zelensky] will torpedo everyone… Let’s demolish this green rat and install Zaluzhny! In fact, it’s Zelensky who needs to be changed, not Zaluzhny. This rat feels that he has a zero rating, and Zaluzhny has a higher rating, and [this is why Zelensky] is trying to torpedo him,” a voice message from Shevtsov says. A recent poll by the Ukrainian Center for Social and Marketing Research SOCIS suggests that if the presidential election were held in Ukraine in 2024, former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny would secure a significant lead, with 41.4% of the first-round vote, surpassing Volodymyr Zelensky’s 23.7%. In the parliamentary scenario, Zaluzhny’s hypothetical bloc would lead with 46.4% of the vote, according to the same poll.

Read more …

“This is to buy time for a miracle to happen and the Ukrainians are hoping the miracle will be the arrival of a French battlegroup.”

• Pentagon’s ‘Ukrainian Fantasy’ Is Falling Apart – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

The US Pentagon’s fantasy in Ukraine is falling apart, former UN weapons inspector and commentator Scott Ritter told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Monday. Speaking on reports in US media that said there are growing tensions between Kiev and Washington because Ukraine reportedly did not listen to tactical advice offered by the Pentagon, Ritter said he believes the assertions are not based in reality but instead are designed to shift the blame away from the United States. “The Pentagon is definitely trying to create political cover for itself because their huge Ukrainian fantasy is falling apart,” Ritter asserted, explaining earlier that Ukraine had little choice but to hold Avdeyevka for as long as possible so that defensive lines could be built behind it, noting however, that Russian airpower prevented even that goal from being achieved.

“It’s easy to play armchair quarterback and just sit back there and pick apart. But the reality is what other choices [did] Ukrainians have but to try and hold onto the last defensible position they [had]?” The Kiev regime is “waking up to the reality that their so-called friends and allies are abandoning them and leaving Ukraine to its own fate” Ritter explained earlier while discussing Macron’s comments that French troops may be deployed in Ukraine, a hypothetical that Ritter says is only being discussed because of the position Ukraine is in. “To understand why Macron would be even talking about this, you have to understand how dire the situation is for Ukraine right now. They are facing military collapse, right now as we speak the last reserves of Ukraine are being thrown into the battle outside the village of Orlovka,” Ritter explained. “This is to buy time for a miracle to happen and the Ukrainians are hoping the miracle will be the arrival of a French battlegroup.”

That possible “miracle” would not change the outlook on the battlefield, Ritter argued, saying that their ability “to deploy a military meaningful force to Ukraine is very slim,” with or without the Baltic State allies Macron is reportedly seeking. Meanwhile, Ritter argues, the election season is forcing the United States to step back from the conflict. “Biden is in a presidential election cycle, we’re coming up on the final sprint to November. … Biden will do whatever is necessary to minimize his political exposure.” “We fired [Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs] Victoria Nuland, the architect of [the Ukraine] policy, and we [took] a step back.” That has left Europe “sitting there, realizing that, frankly speaking, they are nothing without American money. This is a hard pill to swallow and meanwhile, on the battlefield, the Ukrainian army is in absolutely desperate straits.”

Read more …

“..a highly telling stigma – ‘negative outlook,’ ‘a virtual certainty of default,’ ‘debt susceptible to non-payment..’”

• Ukraine Already Bankrupt Long Ago – Former Prime Minister (TASS)

Ukraine has long been completely insolvent, former Ukrainian Prime Minister (2010-2014) Nikolay Azarov said in commenting on the Standard & Poor’s rating agency’s downgrade of its credit rating on Ukraine’s sovereign debt to “junk” status. “Ukraine is fully insolvent. However, international agencies do not risk assigning it a default rating. Although Ukraine went bankrupt long ago,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. Earlier, S&P downgraded Ukraine from a “CCC” rating to “CC.” “Now the country’s long-term sovereign [debt] rating has received a highly telling stigma – ‘negative outlook,’ ‘a virtual certainty of default,’ ‘debt susceptible to non-payment,’” the former head of the Ukrainian government added.

Read more …

“..the Houthis “demonstrating in real time just how target-rich developed nations are..”

• Houthis ‘Schooling’ West in Asymmetric Warfare (Sp.)

The Yemeni militia has led a sustained campaign of ship seizures, drone and missile attacks against suspected Israeli-tied commercial vessels and Western warships operating in the Red Sea for nearly four months straight, with commercial freight volume through the strategic maritime chokepoint down as much as 80 percent. Ansar Allah, the Yemeni militia group also known as the Houthis, has “more surprises” in store for the US and Israel, and will continue its campaign of maritime attacks so long as Tel Aviv continues its brutal assault in Gaza and blocks humanitarian aid from getting through, leading Houthi figure Abdul Sattar Al-Nehmi has said. “We have a firm belief in our leadership and its decisions, which motivates us to continue these operations in support of our brothers in Gaza,” al-Nehmi said in an interview with local media. The official did not elaborate on the “surprises” Washington and Tel Aviv should expect, but stressed the maritime campaign will continue until the Houthis manage to “force” global powers to bring Israel to heel.

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi offered a tally of militia missile and drone attacks and ship seizures to date last week, saying 96 missile and drone attacks have been launched and 61 ships targeted so far amid the ongoing campaign. Separately on Monday, Bloomberg Middle East contributor Marc Champion warned that the Houthis have succeeded in “schooling” the West “in asymmetric warfare,” with neither the “extraordinary power of US carrier fleets,” nor attempts to “get tougher” by bombing the militia group succeeding in reining in Ansar Allah’s activities. “The first challenge is that advances in the production of missiles and drones have democratized extremely powerful weapons that until recently were available only to the richest states,” Champion wrote. “The second is a growing asymmetry of vulnerabilities,” with the Houthis “demonstrating in real time just how target-rich developed nations are,” and the US and its allies showing that they have much more to lose than humble Yemenis.

“When the Houthis disrupt the roughly 12% of global shipping that passes through the Bab al-Mandab Strait between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, it impacts consumers in Europe and manufacturers in Asia, but not Yemen. If oil tankers have to shift to longer, more expensive routes than the Suez Canal, nudging up the price of gasoline at US pumps, the Houthis will be much less affected,” the commentator emphasized. And that’s not to mention the “trillions of dollars” worth of information passing through the communications cables which lie at the bottom of the Red Sea, which Western media fear the Houthis might sabotage, or the “communications and the data that sophisticated militaries rely on to operate.” Champion urged Washington to “resist the temptation to escalate its fight with the Houthis,” and to prevent the situation from spinning even further out of control, as any “reliable success” against the militia would require a full-scale invasion or heavy bombardment – neither of which “would be remotely worth the cost.”

Read more …

“Israel’s public genocide is a private secret among Americans who are paying for it..”

• God Is Underwriting Israel’s Genocide Bond (Helmer)

Last week it happened that God and the United States Treasury managed to underwrite a record issue of Israel Government bonds to continue the war against the Arabs in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq – and Iran if necessary. The war financing comprised $2 billion of five-year bonds, and $3 billion each of 10 and 30-year bonds. The US Treasury guarantees bond holders that if Israel defaults on repayment of its obligations, the US will pay instead. Notwithstanding this, the Israelis were obliged to offer an extra 1.35%, 1.45%, and 1.75% more in interest over the going rate for US Treasury bonds for the same length of term. The Reuters news agency headline on March 6 celebrated “Israel sells record $8 billion in bonds despite Oct 7 attacks, downgrade”. The propaganda agency based in New York quoted Israel’s Accountant-General as claiming the bond placement “results showed an “unprecedented expression of confidence in Israel’s economy by the world’s largest international investors”.*

In fact, according to well-informed bond trade sources in Europe, with the higher interest rates the market has just demanded from the Israelis, the spread between the Israel bonds and US Treasuries has never been wider, and the worse this spread will become for Israel. This is a vote of no-confidence from the market which the Israelis, the Americans, and their media are trying to keep secret. The longer the war is protracted, the more obvious the costs of Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) failure will become – and the deeper the negative bond sentiment will grow. By converting secrecy into money, the market is signalling that it has begun to turn against Israel – and profit at Israel’s expense. Also unprecedented is the secrecy in which the “expression of confidence” has been managed by the US, French, and German banks acting as managers of the Israeli bond issue; and of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has had regulatory oversight of the process.

The debt financing has been reported as a “private placement”; this has removed the requirement that the Israelis produce a public prospectus explaining how they think their war – plausibly genocide, according to the International Court of Justice in its ruling of January 26, 2024 – is going, and how long the IDF claim it will last. This does not remove the legal requirement on the two US banks engaged in marketing the bonds to US investors, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, to submit a formal application for SEC approval of what is called a letter of consent. However, asked to confirm the contents of the letter of consent application for the sale of the Israeli bonds, and its official approval, the SEC has refused to give any answer. Goldman Sachs was asked the same questions. The bank also refuses to say.

Last October the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon,* issued a personal letter to the bank’s employees claiming the Hamas operation was a “violation of fundamental human values”: Solomon then proposed a $2 million gift of bank funds “to organizations providing critical support and humanitarian relief in Israel”; plus additional bank money, three bank dollars for every one contributed by bank staff making donations under $25, and one for one if the staff contribution was over $25. Asked how much money has been raised for Solomon’s gift to the Israelis, the bank is refusing to reply. In other words, Israel’s public genocide is a private secret among Americans who are paying for it, and among US government officials responsible for regulating the scheme according to US law. According to well-informed bond traders, this deal-making is worth in fees to the dealmakers, led by Goldman Sachs, about $100 million.

Read more …

“Everyone can see the tactics that are used to defeat the enemy in war, but what no one can see is the strategy from which great victory arises.”

• Chasing ‘Tactical’ Wins, Israel Now Faces ‘Strategic’ Defeat (Sweidan)

In a fight like this, the center of gravity is the civilian population. And if you make them fall into the hands of the enemy, you turn tactical victory into strategic defeat. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued this warning to Israel back in December during his address at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California. Drawing on hard-earned lessons from US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Austin stressed that winning battles on the ground does not guarantee a strategic victory and may even lead to a strategic defeat – if Israel refuses to look at the bigger picture. This is one of the main sources of Washington’s pressure on Tel Aviv, especially in light of the allies’ differing political visions for Gaza in the post-war period and the man-made humanitarian crisis Israel has imposed on the Strip. It’s a philosophy rooted in foresight, echoing Robert Greene’s wisdom from his 33 War Strategies: “Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet has outlined two primary objectives for the Gaza war: dismantling Hamas’ military infrastructure and securing the release of prisoners detained since 7 October. Netanyahu later expanded on these objectives, adding a crucial third goal: ensuring Gaza’s inability to threaten the occupation state’s security in the future. Consequently, the success of Israel’s brutal military assault on Gaza hinges on achieving these pivotal objectives. Despite their shared goals, disparities have emerged between the American and Israeli approaches. While both advocate for neutralizing Hamas, the Biden administration advocates for a more politically driven strategy, while Netanyahu seeks an almost entirely military-centric approach.

Hamas, on the other hand, announced three main objectives of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood immediately following the events of 7 October. First, success in conducting a prisoner exchange with the enemy entity. Second, retaliation against Israeli aggression in the occupied West Bank and safeguarding Al-Aqsa Mosque from settler extremists. Third, placing the Palestinian issue back on the global stage. Chinese General Sun Tzu’s timeless wisdom in his Art of War distinguishes between tactical maneuvers and strategic foresight: “Everyone can see the tactics that are used to defeat the enemy in war, but what no one can see is the strategy from which great victory arises.” In warfare, tactical objectives focus on short-term gains – specific engagements or territorial advances. In contrast, strategic goals require long-term vision, aligning military actions with political priorities. In essence, tactics look to answer the “how,” while strategy answers the “why” in military engagement, ultimately with a political endgame.

Any state or party to a conflict can achieve tactical objectives by excelling in battlefield maneuvers, using superior technology, or having better trained and equipped forces. But winning battles – that is, achieving tactical goals – does not necessarily mean winning the war. This discrepancy occurs because the cumulative effect of tactical victories may not align with or contribute adequately to broader strategic objectives. While tactics are essential to winning battles, they must be used as part of a strategy aimed at achieving the ultimate goals of war. History offers several sobering reminders of the perils of prioritizing tactics over strategy. For example, in the Vietnam War, the US achieved numerous tactical victories yet failed strategically. Despite inflicting heavy losses, the broader goal of fostering a non-communist South Vietnam remained elusive. The US’s longest war, in Afghanistan against the Taliban, ended in another humiliating withdrawal, only for the Taliban to return to unprecedented political power across the country.

Esteemed Israeli historian and critic of Zionism, Ilan Pappe, believes that the failures of the genocidal war on Gaza will ultimately lead to the downfall of the Zionist entity, with the war being the most perilous chapter in the “history of a project fighting for its existence.”

Yanis

Read more …

“Like Florida, [a] key state, where the votes of the Jews can decide who will move into the White House, so too can the votes of the Muslims in Michigan decide … ”

• White House Fails to Navigate the Israeli Re-calibration (Alastair Crooke)

Alon Pinkas, a former senior Israeli diplomat, well-plugged into Washington, tells us that a frustrated White House finally has “had enough”. The rupture with Netanyahu is complete: The Prime Minister does not comport himself as ‘an U.S. ally’ should; he severely criticises Biden’s Middle East policies, and now the United States has come to understand this fact. Biden cannot afford any further Israel-affects to jeopardise his electoral campaign, and so – as his State of the Union Speech makes clear – he will double-down on misconstrued policy frameworks for both Israel and Ukraine. So what does Biden intend to do about Netanyahu’s act of defiance against the ‘holy grail’ of U.S. policy recommendations? Well, he invited Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s War Cabinet to Washington, and wrapped him around an agenda “reserved for a prime minister, or someone they think will, or should be, premier”. Officials apparently thought that by initiating a visit outside of usual diplomatic protocols, they may “have unleashed a dynamic that could lead to an election in Israel”, Pinkas notes, resulting in a leadership more amenable to U.S. ideas.

It was clearly intended as a first step to ‘soft power’ régime change. And the prime reason for the declaration of war on Netanyahu? Gaza. Biden apparently didn’t appreciate the snub received in the Michigan primary when the Gaza protest vote surpassed 100,000 ‘uncommitted votes’. Polls – especially amongst the young – are flashing red warning signals for November (in no small part because of Gaza). Democratic national leaders are beginning to worry. Leading Israeli commentator, Nahum Barnea, warns that Israel is “loosing America”: “We are accustomed to thinking of America in familial terms … We receive weapons and international backing and the Jews give their votes in the key states and money to the campaigns. This time, the situation is different … Since the votes in [presidential] elections are counted regionally, only a few states … actually decide … Like Florida, [a] key state, where the votes of the Jews can decide who will move into the White House, so too can the votes of the Muslims in Michigan decide …

“[Activists] called on the primary voters to vote “uncommitted” to protest Biden’s support for Israel … Their campaign succeeded beyond expectations: 130,000 Democratic voters supported it. The slap in the face to Biden reverberated across the entire length and breadth of the political establishment. It not only attested to the rise of a new, efficient and toxic political lobby, [but] also to the revulsion that many Americans feel when they see the pictures from Gaza”. “Biden loves Israel and is truly afraid for it”, concludes Barnea “but he has no intention of losing the elections because of it. That is an existential threat”. The problem however, is the converse: It is that U.S. policy is deeply flawed, and wholly incongruent with majority public sentiment in Israel. Many Israelis feel they are fighting an existential struggle, and must not become ‘just fodder’ (as they see it) to a U.S. Democratic electoral strategy. The reality is that Israel is rupturing with Team Biden – not the converse.

Biden’s key plan which rests on a revitalised Palestinian security apparatus is described – even in the Washington Post – as ‘improbable’. The U.S. tried a PA security ‘revitalising’ initiative under U.S. General Zinni in 2002 and Dayton in 2010. It did not work – and for good reason: Palestinian Authority security forces are simply viewed by most Palestinians as the hated stooges enforcing continued Israeli occupation. They work to Israeli security interests, not Palestinian security interests. The other main components to U.S. policy is an even more improbable ‘de-radicalised’ and anaemic ‘two-state solution’, buried within a regional concert of conservative Arab States acting as its security overseer. This policy approach reflects a White House out of kilter with today’s more eschatological Israel, and one failing to move on from perspectives and policies hailing from decades past which, even then, were failures. The White House therefore has resorted to an old trick: To project all of its own policy failings onto a foreign leader for not making the ‘unworkable’ work, and to try to replace that leader with someone more compliant. Pinkas writes:

“Once the United States became convinced that Netanyahu was not being cooperative, not being a considerate ally, behaving like a crude ingrate … focused only on his political survival after the October 7 debacle, the time was ripe to try a new political course”. However, Netanyahu’s policy – for better or worse – reflects what a majority of Israelis think. Netanyahu has his well-known personality defects and is seriously unpopular in Israel, yet that does not mean that a plurality disagrees with his, and his government’s programme. So “enter Gantz”, unleashed by Team Biden as prospective PM-in-waiting into the Washington and London diplomatic pool.

Kash Patel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1766847857460437487

Read more …

“..Biden’s recent blunder in which he mixed up Ukraine and the Middle East sums up his poor mental state..”

• Biden a ‘Rare Kind of Idiot’ – Medvedev (RT)

US President Joe Biden’s recent blunder in which he mixed up Ukraine and the Middle East sums up his poor mental state, former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. Biden’s gaffe came in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, as he discussed the Israeli military campaign in Gaza with host Jonathan Capehart. The US leader said West Jerusalem should not repeat the mistakes that Washington made following the September 2001 terrorist attacks. “America made a mistake. We went after Osama bin Laden until we got him, but we shouldn’t have gone into Ukraine,” Biden stated. He then corrected himself, saying he meant “the whole thing in Iraq and Afghanistan,” referring to the US invasions and occupation of the two Middle Eastern nations. Confusing places and people has been a recurring issue for the 81-year-old president. Medvedev, who serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, posted a short clip of the gaffe on Sunday on social media, adding: “A rare kind of idiot.”

Some Russian officials have suggested that Biden’s slip of the tongue was Freudian. “He didn’t mix it up. He can no longer keep to himself what everyone understands – the US has disgraced itself in the bloodiest manner with the whole Ukrainian project,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. Moscow perceives the Ukraine conflict as a US-led proxy war against Russia, in which Ukrainian soldiers serve as ‘cannon fodder’. The Russian military estimated that by the end of February, Kiev’s military losses had reached 444,000. In the nine-minute interview with MSNBC, Biden mentioned Ukraine once, calling out former President Donald Trump for his skeptical attitude towards NATO. The incumbent leader described the organization as “critical to our national defense.” Moscow has cited the expansion of the military bloc in Europe as a key cause of the hostilities with Ukraine.

Read more …

“Macron preparing to visit Kiev? But he’s a zoological coward!”

• Macron is a ‘Coward’ – Medvedev (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron has postponed his visit to Ukraine because he is a pathological coward, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. The Elysee Palace announced on Monday that Macron’s long-awaited visit to Ukraine will take place sometime “in the coming weeks.” The announcement marks the third delay of the French leader’s visit to Ukraine. Macron had initially planned to visit Kiev to sign a bilateral security agreement last month, but the document ended up being signed during Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s trip to Paris. “Macron preparing to visit Kiev? But he’s a zoological coward!” Medvedev posted in French on X (formerly Twitter), recommending that Macron’s office pack “several changes of underwear” and prepare for a “strong stink.”

Medvedev claimed that he originally wrote the message in the morning, but by the time he decided to post it – the French president had already “s**t himself” and pulled out of the planned visit. “Poor France!” he added. Instead of hurrying to Kiev, Macron wants to “take the necessary time” for talks with allies to be able to visit Ukraine “with tangible results,” Politico wrote on Monday, citing an anonymous French diplomat. In recent weeks, the French president has escalated his hawkish rhetoric towards Russia, suggesting in late February that sending Western troops to Ukraine cannot be ruled out. Last Tuesday in Prague, he called on European nations to step up support for Kiev amid the Ukraine-Russia conflict, saying Europe is facing times “where it will be appropriate not to be a coward.”

NATO members are seeking to boost military aid to Kiev amid worries that funding from Ukraine’s biggest war sponsor – the US – will dry up. Earlier this year, the White House said that Washington had used up all the money allocated to Ukraine thus far – more than $113 billion. An additional $60 billion in US funding is still being held up in Congress, although recently it was suggested that the money should be loaned to Kiev, rather than given away. Moscow maintains that Western military aid to Ukraine does little to alter the course of the conflict, while extending the hostilities and causing needless deaths. Commenting on Macron’s words regarding the possibility of deploying Western troops to Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that doing so would make a direct clash between NATO and Russia “inevitable.”

Read more …

“The EU, whose initial vocation as a peacemaker in Europe has completely slipped and transformed into a warmonger..”

• ‘Warmonger’ EU’s Defense Strategy a Wishful Dream (Sp.)

The European Commission’s newly proposed strategy to coordinate its military industries to tackle the “existential threat” posed by Russia is, above all, a pipe dream, Colonel Jacques Hogard, who served 26 years in the French Army as an airborne officer in the Foreign Legion and the special forces, told Sputnik. “The EU, whose initial vocation as a peacemaker in Europe has completely slipped and transformed into a warmonger, is seeking to exist, in the face of the visible disengagement of the United States in Ukraine. It clumsily tries to find a way out of the trap into which the Americans have made it fall. But in reality, ‘defense Europe’ is a dream. Born from a desire to bring the Franco-German couple together, this dream has never had the slightest beginning of concrete realization,” Hogard stated.

The pundit elaborated by pointing to the TIGER III, MAWS, and CIFS programs that were all successively “abandoned by Berlin, either to adopt purely German solutions or to turn to American equipment.” The remaining two programs – SCAF (Future Combat Air System) and MGCS (Main Ground Combat System) – were plagued by “disagreements over the distribution of roles between German and French industries.” “These programs were pushed through under pressure from politicians, without their future being assured,” Jacques Hogard said. Continuing to support Ukraine militarily has left European countries’ existing stocks depleted, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell admitted in his latest blog post. He urged moving “from an emergency mode to a longer-term vision, in a new strategy would allow the EU to be able to “replenish our stocks and develop the defense capabilities,” while continuing to provide “adequate military support to Ukraine.”

“To strengthen our defense in a tense geopolitical context, we urgently need to overcome the fragmentation of our defense industry through more joint procurement and more common projects,” he wrote. The blog post further elaborated on the new European Defense Industrial Strategy recently unveiled by Brussels. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, touted its plan worth around €1.5 billion (US $1.6 billion) as a way to turbocharge the bloc’s military-industrial sector. The strategy is geared to reduce the EU member states’ dependence on the US for defense needs. Procurement outside the bloc was declared “no longer sustainable.” The plans will need to be approved by the European Parliament and by member countries, who are already squabbling over military and weapons spending on Ukraine aid.

Read more …

“..Macron effectively offered to share French nuclear weapons. “These statements by Macron are extremely serious..”

• EU Nuclear Umbrella to Embolden Member States to Use French Nukes (Sp.)

The idea of the EU’s nuclear umbrella could lead to other countries using France’s nuclear potential, even though France might not be under any threat, the leader of France’s Patriots party and candidate for the European Parliament elections, Florian Philippot, told RIA Novosti. Earlier in the year, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Paris had a responsibility to defend the European Union. He added that France’s interests had a European dimension, which gave Paris a special responsibility that, in particular, affects French deterrence capabilities. The assertion, Filippot said, means that Macron effectively offered to share French nuclear weapons. “These statements by Macron are extremely serious. This is what should be the first guarantee of national sovereignty, nuclear weapons, which you need in case your vital interests are in danger, this is what nuclear doctrine is all about, the same for all nuclear powers. And what he is saying means that if tomorrow Poland is at war with Russia, it can use nuclear weapons while we are not in danger, we are not at war. And if tomorrow Ukraine becomes part of the EU, we could potentially let Ukraine use it, that’s completely insane,” the politician said.

Such statements indicate that the French president is not guided by the country’s national interest, he added. “Behind this is also pressure from Germany to get our nuclear weapons. They have long been willing to invest financially in our nuclear weapons in exchange for jointly controlling them. This is where the demand that France makes for Germany or the EU to take a place among the permanent members of the UN Security Council comes from. This goes hand in hand,” Philippot said. In February, European Parliament Vice-President Katarina Barley said in an interview with the Tagesspiegel newspaper that the creation of the EU’s own nuclear umbrella to replace the US umbrella could become a topic of discussion at the European level. At the same time, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner spoke in favor of greater cooperation with France and the United Kingdom on nuclear deterrence.

Read more …

““NATO is acting like a fireman, who sets on fire more and more buildings in order to show the community how much it needs him..”

• Poland: the Biggest Army in the EU And the Biggest Risks in the Making (Babich)

The Polish ministers love surprises. This week, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stunned the public when he said “several NATO countries already have their troops in Ukraine.” Sikorski represents the pro-EU “liberal” party Civic Platform, which recently replaced the “anti-European” nationalists from the Law and Justice (PiS) party. By voicing the shocking remark, Sikorski was effectively attempting to outdo the media star of the previous cabinet formed by the PiS. That media star was Mariusz Blaszczak, the former minister of defense who promised Poland would have “the strongest army in Europe” in two years In fact, Sikorski’s statement about NATO troops in Ukraine was not much of a secret for Russia. Even Sikorski’s attempt to create intrigue by saying he would not reveal the troops’ countries of origin was a failure. Maria Zakharova, the official representative of Russia’s Foreign Ministry, acknowledged that Russia knew about the presence of Western servicemen and which countries they came from.

She said: “It does not make sense for NATO to deny it’s sending soldiers to Ukraine any more.” However, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius again denied the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine recently, in this way one more time exposing himself or Sikorski as a liar. Sikorski made his revelation about NATO troops at a celebration devoted to the 25th anniversary of Poland joining the NATO alliance alongside Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999. In his speech, Sikorski also said that sending Western troops to Ukraine was a “creative” move, and that “the West should pursue the policy of asymmetrical escalation” in Ukraine. Through the official’s commentary and by ignoring Russia’s warnings of the inevitable retaliation for the escalation, Sikorski is – again – following in Blaszczak’s footsteps. It was under him that Poland, indeed, became Europe’s fastest growing military power, and the Civic Platform does not show any willingness to stop the project.

According to official data from Blaszczak’s defense ministry, in 2023 alone, Poland bought 1,000 K2 tanks from South Korea and 673 K9 howitzers from the same supplier. From the United States, Poland purchased 366 Abrams tanks and 32 F-35A fighter jets. “If Blaszczak’s plans are fulfilled, by 2030 Poland will have more tanks than the combined forces of the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and Belgium,” the Wall Street Journal reported in an article headlined, “Poland Hardens Its Defenses Against Russia.” In 2023, Poland spent $ 23 billion on defense purposes, a sum that makes up 4% of the country’s GDP against the NATO-required 2%. But is spending tens of billions of dollars from a poor country’s budget for preparations of war against the historically and ethnically close eastern neighbor a wise policy? Not so, say cooler heads. “NATO is acting like a fireman, who sets on fire more and more buildings in order to show the community how much it needs him,” Mateusz Piskorski, a well known journalist and former leader of Zmiana party, told Sputnik.

In Piskorski’s opinion, NATO and Polish aggressive elite bear at least a part of the responsibility for the fire which is now devouring Ukraine. Ironically, these same elites point to Ukraine as the proof of Russia’s belligerence. These same Polish elites try to talk Poles into spending more money on arms for Ukraine and on increasing the power of the native Polish army. Blaszczak’s plan was to increase the staff of the Polish army from the current 172,000 men to 300,000. The timeframe for the reform is intended to proceed between two and three years, and this is one of the few initiatives of the outgoing PiS party, which the new “liberal” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk promises to continue.

Read more …

“You will get these massive bank runs that the government will have to step in and bail out. This is one of many things that will happen in the not-so-distant future..”

• Eventual Financial Death Spiral Now Imminent – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino warned nearly four months ago of a “U.S. Financial Death Spiral.” This past week, Bank of America caught up to Rubino and issued a warning about a “US dollar death spiral” because the federal government was going deeper in the red by creating “$1 trillion in new debt every 100 days.” Maybe this is why gold and Bitcoin have been hitting new all-time highs day after day. Rubino says, “When a building was worth $200 million and someone sells it for $48 million, that means there is a loss that someone has to take. Those losses are mostly on the books of regional and local banks. So, they are in big trouble financially. . . . You will get these massive bank runs that the government will have to step in and bail out. This is one of many things that will happen in the not-so-distant future. This will impact government finances in a scary way that will send people’s attention to the currency. In other words, if we have another $3 trillion bailout on top of everything else that’s going on . . .what is that going to do to the dollar? . . . .

Currencies are being inflated away with all these bailouts, deficits, wars and all these things that are going on that are bad for the currency. So, people start selling government bonds, which push up interest rates and blows up even more bad real estate and paper . . . until you get a debt spiral, a real live financial death spiral than cannot be fixed. . . . I was talking to a real estate guy the other day, and he said this is not just inevitable, it is imminent. It is happening now. It is happening quickly, and it is going to hit the headlines. . . . In this case, what is inevitable in commercial real estate is also looking imminent.” Rubino goes on to say, “The numbers are not lost on the guys running the big investment banks and the big media outlets. They are sitting around, and they are thinking we have to say something about this because this is obviously a very big financial story. So, we have to report on it. Finally, the numbers have gotten big enough with the deficits and government interest costs . . . that this is a story that cannot be ignored anymore.

“It’s got to be pretty far along before they reach that point because they really don’t want to report on this. To report on this is seen as a betrayal of the establishment, and they are part of the establishment. They are playing on that team. The debt numbers are finally big enough that they can’t be ignored anymore, and that implies that we are getting near the end of the road.” Gold and Bitcoin both hit all-time new highs this past week. What does it mean? Rubino explains, “This means the market is speaking, and it’s concluding these currencies have a problem. Capital is flowing into the alternatives. It’s flowing into the old kind of money that has held up for thousands of years like gold or the possible new kind of money like Bitcoin that has come on relatively recently (when compared to gold). . . . In either case, it is a vote against the dollar. When gold and Bitcoin are both spiking, it is a big vote of no confidence in the dollar.”

In closing, Rubino says, “There is no way to know how this plays out in the next six months, but this should terrify the central banks. By the way, the big central banks are behaving as if they are terrified because they are aggressively buying gold. They have bought about 1,000 tons of gold in each of the last two years. 1,000 tons is a fourth of the gold that comes out of all the gold mines in a given year. So, that is a major purchase, and they take the gold off the market. They don’t turn around and sell it. They put it away as a reserve asset. The gold is effectively disappearing. This makes the market even tighter, and this is also part of the reason why gold is going up.”

Read more …

Obesity. “It probably comes as no surprise that the same people who demand their food fast and fried, will also expect an easy cure as well..”

• Global Hunger Isn’t The Worst Food-Related Threat To Humanity (Bridge)

World Obesity Day was marked this week and, with over a billion people afflicted worldwide, obesity is now considered more dangerous to global health than hunger. The numbers are staggering. Sometime in the mid-20th century a cameraman captured an unforgettable black-and-white photo depicting thousands of American sunworshippers crowded onto Coney Island, New York City. What is most conspicuous about the iconic photograph, aside from the sheer number of beachgoers, is the lack of excessive cellulite packed into the assorted bathing suits and bikinis. Sadly and not a little tragically, those halcyon days are over. While hunger overwhelmingly afflicts the poverty-stricken nations of the world, obesity represents a unique type of affliction in that it targets both rich and poor alike. Between 1990 and 2022, global obesity rates quadrupled for children and doubled for adults, according to a new study by the Lancet (The World Health Organization classifies obesity as having a body-mass index equal to or greater than 30 kilograms per square meter).

In the WHO’s top-ten ‘hefty’ list, it may come as some surprise that the tiny Polynesian nations of Tonga and American Samoa had the highest prevalence of obesity in 2022 for women, while American Samoa and [nearby] Nauru had the highest rates among men. In those picturesque island paradises, more than 60% of the adult population were clinically obese. Other surprises included Egypt, weighing in at number ten in the female category, while Qatar took tenth place in boys’ obesity levels. Among the wealthy countries, the United States was the heavyweight representative and is tenth in the world for obesity among men. Shockingly, the US adult obesity rate increased from 21.2% in 1990 to 43.8% in 2022 for women, and from 16.9% to 41.6% in 2022 for men, placing the nation of 330 million fast-food consumers 36th in the world for highest obesity rates among women and, for men, tenth in the world.

By contrast, the adult obesity rate in the United Kingdom increased from 13.8% in 1990 to 28.3% in 2022 among females, ranking it 87th highest in the world, while the obesity rate for males surged from 10.7% to 26.9%, placing Britain at 55th. Among children, the study found the US obesity rates increased from 11.6% in 1990 to 19.4% in 2022 for girls, 11.5% to 21.7% for boys. In 2022, the US ranked 22nd in the world for obesity among girls, 26th for boys. Considering the rapid rates of change among Americans, the US will be predictably dominating the charts in just a few years, creating what could be considered a national emergency. None of this should have been unpredictable. After all, what does a society expect that can’t even park the car and walk several steps into the restaurant? And it’s not like consumers are ordering homemade soup and salads at the drive-thru window.

The junk food served at fast food enterprises is loaded with sodium content in order to prolong its shelf life, as well as saturated fatty acids that increase cholesterol levels in the body, clog the blood vessels and restrict normal blood flow, leading to heart disease. And that’s not even mentioning the high-fructose corn syrup found in the cola drinks. The real challenge, however, is how to combat obesity at a time when so many people have become addicted to a sedentary, order-online lifestyle. It probably comes as no surprise that the same people who demand their food fast and fried, will also expect an easy cure as well.

Read more …

“Researchers are curious as to how 40% of the participants showed no evidence of microplastics in their plaques, given that microplastics are ubiquitous..”

• Nanoplastics Linked to an Increase in Heart Attacks And Strokes (Sp.)

Roughly a week ago it was reported that boiling one’s water could help reduce the amount of microplastics in it by nearly 90%, as long as that water is hard water. At the time, scientists were still studying the extent to which nanoplastics could cause harm to one’s body. A new study says that people with nanoplastics inside their bodies are 4.5 times more likely to suffer from a heart attack, stroke or die of other health related concerns over the next three years than people without them, scientists say. The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, and explained how micro- and nanoplastics (NMPs) are “emerging” as a potential risk factor when assessing cardiovascular disease. It is the first time that such a connection has been made.

Nanoplastics are tiny bits of plastic that can be as small as one-thousandth of a millimeter in diameter, though the definition applies to any small plastic piece that is less than five millimeters long in length. They are ubiquitous, long-lasting, and often require centuries to break down. But cells responsible for removing waste products can’t readily degrade them, so microplastics accumulate in organisms. These NMPs, about the size of a virus, are the perfect size to adversely affect how human cells function, and are capable of passing through key protective filters in one’s body including the intestinal lining and blood brain barrier. They have also been found in our food, breast milk and even the clouds in our skies. The researchers studied a group of patients who were already scheduled to undergo surgery for a condition known as carotid artery stenosis, which occurs when the carotid arteries—the main blood vessels that carry blood and oxygen to the brain—become narrowed after plaque, or fatty deposits, block normal blood flow. These arteries typically help supply blood to the brain, face and neck.

The researchers looked at plaque that was removed from 256 patients and tracked their health for an average of 34 months following the surgery. They found plastic particles, many of which were NMPs in the plaque of 150 patients—about 60%. At the follow-up, nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause occurred in 20% of those patients and in 7.5% of the patients without detectable plastic particles. Chemical analyses showed that a majority of the particles were composed of either polyethylene, which is commonly used and is often found in food packaging, shopping bags and medical tubing. [..] Researchers are curious as to how 40% of the participants showed no evidence of microplastics in their plaques, given that microplastics are ubiquitous. One of the study’s co-authors says it could be that the participants behave differently or have different biological pathways for processing plastics, however, more research is needed.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Antikythera

 

 

Tigers

 

 

Leopard
https://twitter.com/i/status/1767174087397253234

 

 

Adopted

 

 

 

 

Best life
https://twitter.com/i/status/1766933626250555510

 

 

Best lives

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 13 2023

Dec 132023
 
 December 13, 2023  Posted by at 9:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  50 Responses »


Edward Hopper Chop Suey 1929

 

• Netanyahu: Israel Received Full US Support for Gaza Ground Operation (Sp.)
• Israel Losing Support Over ‘Indiscriminate Bombing’ – Biden (RT)
• BRICS and the Resistance Axis (Pepe Escobar)
• Germany’s Blind Support For Israel In Gaza (Cradle)
• US Rapidly Coming To End Of Its Ability To Help Ukraine – Biden (TASS)
• Ukraine, US ‘Digging’ for New Strategy as Time and Money Run Out (Sp.)
• Ukraine on Brink of Coup as Zelensky Begs US for More Money (Sp.)
• Biden Pledges $200 Million For Ukraine After Zelensky Meeting (RT)
• Zelensky’s Visit ‘Disgraceful’ – Senator JD Vance (RT)
• Ukrainian General Reveals Discord Among Frontline Troops (RT)
• The Pentagon Is A Multitrillion-Dollar Fraud (Scott Ritter)
• BRICS Candidate Ethiopia Likely To Default – Reuters (RT)
• Tucker Carlson: 2024 Presidential Election Is Being Rigged (Kanekoa)
• Tucker Carlson Says Does Not Think He Would Be Good Pick for Trump’s VP (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Optimus

 

 

 

 

80 years ago was WW2

80 years before that was the Civil War

80 years before that was the Revolution.

 

 

 

 

“..and containment of international pressure aimed at ending the war..”

• Netanyahu: Israel Received Full US Support for Gaza Ground Operation (Sp.)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the country received full US support for a ground operation in the Gaza Strip. “I really appreciate the US support for the destruction of Hamas and the return of our hostages. After intensive discussions with President [of the United States Joe] Biden and his people, we received full support for a ground entry [into the Gaza Strip] and containment of international pressure aimed at ending the war. Yes, there are disputes about the ‘day after Hamas,’ and I hope that we will come to an agreement here,” Netanyahu said in a video address posted on X (formerly known as Twitter). “I want to make my position clear — I will not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo. I will not allow that, after the enormous sacrifices among our citizens and soldiers, we allow those in the Gaza Strip who support terrorism, finance terrorism. Gaza will be neither Hamastan nor Fatahastan,” the PM added.

Read more …

Hmmm. Where do they get the bombs?

• Israel Losing Support Over ‘Indiscriminate Bombing’ – Biden (RT)

US President Joe Biden warned that Israel risks losing international support if it continues its “indiscriminate” bombing campaign in Gaza at a campaign fundraiser in Washington, DC on Tuesday, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “change his government.” Biden offered some of his harshest criticisms of Israel to date, suggesting that its war against Hamas risked a loss of support among Washington’s allies. All of the other UN Security Council members except the UK (which abstained) had attempted to issue a resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza last week, which was vetoed by Washington. “Israel’s security can rest on the United States, but right now it has more than the United States. It has the European Union, it has Europe, it has most of the world… But they’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place,” Biden said.

He went on to cite a private discussion with Netanyahu in which Israel’s prime minister likened the Gaza conflict to the Second World War and observed that “a lot of civilians died” in Allied bombing raids. However, Biden said he rejected that comparison and told Netanyahu that “all these institutions were set up after World War II to see to it that it didn’t happen again.” Calling Netanyahu’s administration “the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” Biden said the prime minister must “change his government,” without elaborating, only adding that it had made long-term solutions “very difficult.” “We have an opportunity to begin to unite the region… and they still want to do it. But we have to make sure that [Netanyahu] understands that he’s got to make some moves… You cannot say no Palestinian state,” the president continued.

Although Israel has accepted the creation of a Palestinian state in principle in past negotiations, Netanyahu has long opposed the move. In a statement earlier on Tuesday, he insisted that he would never “repeat the mistake of Oslo,” referring to a 1993 peace deal which created a roadmap for a Palestinian state. Despite Biden’s more critical comments to donors, elsewhere he has continued to voice staunch support for Israel’s military operation. During a White House event to mark the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah on Monday, he told attendees “I am a Zionist” while reiterating Washington’s “unshakable” commitment to Israel’s security.

The president continues to urge lawmakers to approve a spending package which includes $14.3 billion in military aid for Israel, and recently bypassed a congressional review to fast-track the sale of $106.5 million in tank shells to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Israel began its assault on Gaza following a surprise attack by Hamas on October 7, which claimed the lives of some 1,200 Israelis and saw more than 240 people taken hostage. In retaliation, the IDF has pounded the Palestinian enclave with heavy airstrikes and launched a major ground invasion, killing more than 18,400 people so far, according to local officials.

Read more …

“..rumors that it needs Israel to finish Plan Gaza between Christmas and the start of January..”

• BRICS and the Resistance Axis (Pepe Escobar)

At first, there were reasons to suspect that the bland condemnation of the genocide in Gaza by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was a sign of cowardice. Yet a renewed appraisal may reveal everything is evolving organically when it comes to the intersection of the Big Picture designed by the late Iranian Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani with the meticulous micro-planning by Gaza’s Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who knows the Israeli mentality inside out and considered in detail its devastating military response. Arguably, the most incandescent focus of detailed discussions in Moscow these past few days is that we may be approaching the point where “a signal” will unleash a concerted Axis of Resistance response.

For the moment, what we have are sporadic attacks: Hezbollah destroying Israel’s communication towers facing the southern Lebanon border, Iraq’s resistance forces attacking US bases in Iraq and Syria, and Yemen’s Ansarallah concretely blocking the Red Sea for Israeli ships. All that does not form a concerted, coordinated offensive – yet. And that would explain the desperation within the Biden administration in Washington, complete with rumors that it needs Israel to finish Plan Gaza between Christmas and the start of January. Not only have the global optics of the Gaza assault become horrifyingly unsustainable, but most of all, a lengthier military campaign dramatically raises the likelihood of a “signal” to the Axis of Resistance.

And that will result in the end of all the Hegemon’s elaborate plans for West Asia. The geopolitical goals of Zionism are quite clear: re-establish its self-constructed aura of dominance in West Asia and maintain steady control over US foreign policy and the military alliance. Depravity is a key component for accomplishing these goals. It’s so easy to bomb, shell, and burn ultra-soft civilian targets, including thousands of women and children, turning Gaza into a vast cemetery, while the White Man’s Burden Club urges Israeli occupation forces to kill them, of course, but more silently.

Cue to toxic Atlanticist and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offering bribes, in person, to Egypt’s and Jordan’s leaders – $10 billion to Cairo and $5 billion to Amman – as confirmed with Brussels diplomats. That’s the mind-numbing EU solution to stopping the Gaza genocide. All Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah bin al-Hussein would need to do is to “facilitate” the forced exodus and Final Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza to their respective territories. Because the eschatological goal of Zionism remains an undiluted Final Solution, whatever happens in the battleground. And, of course, as the 7 October Hamas-led Al-Aqsa Flood operation suggests, to destroy Jerusalem’s Islamic Al-Aqsa Mosque and build a Jewish Third Temple on top of its ashes.

Read more …

“Nazi Germany [..] is documented to have killed 10,547,000 ethnic Slavics compared to 5,291,000 Jews..”

• Germany’s Blind Support For Israel In Gaza (Cradle)

Since the 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood operation tore to shreds Israel’s security delusion, the west has rallied staunchly behind Tel Aviv, offering unwavering support across political, military, media, intelligence, and other domains. Amid this display of western unity, Germany has distinguished itself, standing prominently at the forefront of the EU as a fervent advocate for Israel and a solid opponent of any form of assistance to Palestinians, even the children among them. This, despite that the Israeli army has killed over 10,000 infants and children in Gaza since the start of its air and ground assault two months ago. Less than a week after Al-Aqsa Flood, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz offered up military aid toward Israel’s Gaza campaign, saying: “At this moment, there is only one place for Germany — the place at Israel’s side … Our own history, our responsibility arising from the Holocaust, makes it a perpetual task for us to stand up for the security of the State of Israel.”

According to Scholz and his ilk, Germany must constantly redeem itself by shielding the Jewish generations that followed World War II. But then why does Berlin not feel a similar obligation to protect the non-Jewish Slavic civilians, whose numbers killed by Nazi Germany equal those of the Jewish victims? The German “guilt complex” has manifested itself through annual payments exceeding $1 billion since the end of WWII in 1945. These reparations, totaling approximately $86.8 billion to Israel between 1945 and 2018, were recently extended until 2027. While these funds are ostensibly meant to compensate Jews for the horrors inflicted by Nazi Germany, a closer examination of the historical figures raises doubts about the coherence of the German narrative.

The enormous death toll of 17 million people at the hands of Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945 includes 6 million Jews and 5.7 million Soviet civilians. Yet other sources claim that the number of ethnic Slavic deaths far surpasses that of Jews. Shockingly, Nazi Germany, driven by radical ideological policies, is documented to have killed 10,547,000 ethnic Slavics compared to 5,291,000 Jews. If we look closer, we find that the majority of the Slav civilians killed were from Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, predominantly from Orthodox Christian backgrounds. Why, then, are they not receiving reparation payments out of a similar sense of German guilt, which weighs on the conscience of Germany’s leaders? This, in turn, raises questions about the true motivations behind supporting and financially aiding Israel – whether it is a principled stance as Berlin outwardly promotes, or merely a political maneuver.

Read more …

“Putin is banking on the United States failing to deliver for Ukraine,” he said. “We must prove him wrong.”

• US Rapidly Coming To End Of Its Ability To Help Ukraine – Biden (TASS)

The US administration is about to exhaust its ability to help Ukraine unless the US Congress approves additional funding, US President Joe Biden said.”But without supplemental funding we are rapidly coming to an end of our ability to help Ukraine respond urgent operational demands that it has,” he said at a joint news conference after talks with his visiting Ukrainian counterpart, Vladimir Zelensky. The United States “will continue to supply Ukraine with critical weapons and equipment as long as we can,” he pledged, adding that earlier on Tuesday he approved $200 million-worth military assistance to Kiev, which included “critically needed equipment” such as air defense interceptors, artillery, and ammunition.

“Putin is banking on the United States failing to deliver for Ukraine,” he said. “We must prove him wrong.” The White House submitted to Congress in October a supplemental finding request for the 2024 fiscal year, which began in the US on October 1, primarily to help Israel and Ukraine, but also to contain China and Russia in the Asia Pacific regiion. In total, the executive branch, led by Democrat Biden, would like to have about $106 billion for these purposes.

The future of the request and alternative bills remains unclear. Several Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate have recently spoken out against continued financial aid to Kiev. House Speaker Mike Johnson repeatedly said that he intends to condition the provision of further aid to Ukraine to the tightening of the control over the US’ southern border. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell spoke in a similar way. On December 6, the bill on another large batch of aid to Ukraine and Israel, as well as on countering Russia and China in the Asia Pacific, failed a procedural vote in the Senate, despite Biden’s special address to the Congress, in which he called on the lawmakers to approve the spending before they break for the holiday recess.

Read more …

“..military officials are devising a new strategy to “create enough of a credible threat” forcing Moscow into “meaningful negotiations” at the end of 2024 or in 2025..”

• Ukraine, US ‘Digging’ for New Strategy as Time and Money Run Out (Sp.)

With Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s arrival in Washington to plead for more aid, the US media is seemingly trying to assure their readers that not all is lost for the Kiev regime on the battlefield. The New York Times has hinted that American and Ukrainian military officials are devising a new strategy to “create enough of a credible threat” forcing Moscow into “meaningful negotiations” at the end of 2024 or in 2025. However, the two parties have yet to agree on the specific details that this strategy would entail. When evaluating the outcome of the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, the newspaper pinned the blame on Kiev. It pointed out that the Ukrainians had divided up their forces between the eastern and southern fronts, rather than concentrating on retaking the southeastern coastline.

However, the media stated that the failure cannot solely be attributed to Ukraine not adhering to NATO’s strategic plan. The newspaper also recognized that American and Ukrainian strategists “did not initially realize” to what extent the Russians were strengthening their defenses. “Ukrainian troops training in Germany practiced breaking through defenses far less strong than what they would eventually face,” the report noted. Furthermore, Russia has demonstrated its expertise in employing diverse drone technologies and has effectively monitored the contact line, preventing Ukrainian forces from breaching its defenses. By the conclusion of 2023, Russia has bolstered its military presence, beefed up its arsenal, and obtained a significant advantage in terms of firepower, according to the report.

The only silver lining, in the eyes of the West, were Kiev’s missile attacks on Crimean infrastructure. However, even these actions failed to alter the overall power dynamics on the battlefield. Currently, the US military is urging their Ukrainian counterparts to embrace a strategy known as “hold and build.” This tactic entails reinforcing Ukraine’s military industrial capacity by digging in and making substantial improvements throughout 2024. Washington believes that this would “improve Ukraine self-sufficiency” and help it “repel any new drive” from Russia. The goal described by the media appears to be far more modest than what was declared by the West and Kiev before the Ukrainian counteroffensive disaster. Likewise, Washington’s funding for the effort would be more modest, too, the newspaper noted. Having forked out over $111 billion to Ukraine over the 21 months of the conflict, US lawmakers want to see “a new strategy” before they vote for any additional funds.

Furthermore, Ukrainian generals and senior civilian officials have “unrealistic expectations” about Washington’s capabilities, since the US simply does not have that amount of weapons that Kiev wants to be supplied with, according to the media. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has decided to dispatch Lt. Gen. Antonio A. Aguto Jr. on the ground “to work more directly” with the Ukrainian military leadership and bolster coordination with Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the top American commander in Europe. International observers are taking the rhetoric coming from Ukrainian and American officials about a new “long-term” strategy of digging in or boosting Ukraine’s industrial capacity, with a grain of salt. Speaking to Sputnik on December 1, Russian military expert Ivan Konovalov wondered as to who would pay for Kiev’s plan to build new defenses along the contact line.

According to some estimates, Ukraine would have to strengthen at least 2,800 km (1,700 miles) to create a defense line. It would take at least eight to nine months to accomplish this feat, while its cost would be around $10 billion, per Russian military observers’ estimates. Given that Kiev is almost out of money and Republican lawmakers are hesitant to greenlight a new multi-billion package for Ukraine, the situation is hanging in the balance.

Read more …

“Ukraine (like the West, having broken all agreements with Russia) has nothing with which to negotiate.”

• Ukraine on Brink of Coup as Zelensky Begs US for More Money (Sp.)

Nearly two years since the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022, the regime in Kiev finds itself dependent on financial and military assistance from its Western sponsors. With Ukraine’s economy in tatters, the country’s leadership now struggles to find the money it desperately needs amid the ongoing conflict with Russia, as political powers in the United States and the EU become increasingly reluctant to waste their money on Kiev’s military escapades. Earlier, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington DC to plead before the US Congress for more military and financial help, essentially trying to convince the US legislators that spending another few tens of billions of dollars on satisfying Kiev’s war effort is a good idea.

While the fate of the next US package to Ukraine currently hangs in the balance amid the congressional debates between Democrats and Republicans, renowned political commentator and binary economist Prof. Rodney Shakespeare has suggested that “elements in the USA’s political structure” apparently hope to convince Ukraine to sue for peace by delaying this funding. Shakespeare, however, did not seem to think highly of this tactic, arguing that “Ukraine (like the West, having broken all agreements with Russia) has nothing with which to negotiate.” “Ukraine does not understand this and neither does the West. At present, both Ukraine and the West think that there is some sort of military stalemate. But there is NO stalemate – only the continuing and disastrous loss of Ukraine’s manhood (and now, apparently, even its pregnant womanhood),” he said, apparently referring to Kiev’s recent efforts to press-gang women into military service.

As the reality of the “disastrous situation” Ukraine currently finds itself in becomes apparent, “a coup in Kiev is becoming likely,” Shakespeare remarked. He added that the recent death of a top Ukrainian military officer who was killed by a grenade explosion while celebrating his birthday, as well as the poisoning of Ukraine’s spy chief’s wife, “all point in the same direction.” “Ukraine will stagger on for a little while but a coup and recognition of the disastrous military situation are likely to make irrelevant the terms for allocating (or not) new funds and make much more relevant the overall outcome of the war,” he said. Shakespeare also pointed out that in its current state, Ukraine “will soon collapse” if the flow of money from Kiev’s foreign sponsors were to cease.

Read more …

$200 million instead of $60 billion. “The latest $200 million in aid announced by Biden will come from the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA)..”

• Biden Pledges $200 Million For Ukraine After Zelensky Meeting (RT)

US President Joe Biden has promised another $200 million in emergency military aid for Ukraine. He made the pledge during an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on Tuesday. The meeting comes after a bill intended to provide $60 billion in aid for Kiev was blocked in the US Senate last week, as Republicans demanded tougher immigration control on the southern US border in exchange for approving Ukraine assistance. Speaking to reporters after the Tuesday meeting, Biden insisted that Congress “pass the supplemental funding for Ukraine” before breaking for recess, adding that failure to do so would be “the greatest Christmas gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The decisions we make now are going to determine the future for decades to come, particularly in Europe,” Biden said. The latest $200 million in aid announced by Biden will come from the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the Biden administration to transfer weapons from US stocks without congressional approval in the event of an emergency. The package will include ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), high-speed anti-radiation missiles, anti-armor systems, artillery rounds, missiles, demolition munitions, 4 million rounds of small arms ammunition, generators and other equipment and spare parts, the Associated Press reported, citing US officials.

Earlier in the day, Zelensky met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to plead for more aid amid Kiev’s ongoing conflict with Russia. The Ukrainian leader met with House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as a number of other senators. Posting on X (formerly Twitter), Zelensky said he’d had a “friendly and candid conversation” with senate leaders. Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Tuesday, however, that it would be “practically impossible” for Congress to pass the supplemental funding package, which includes the stalled $60 billion for Kiev, before Christmas, saying it needed to be done as part of a broader package that includes changes to border security policy.

Read more …

“..if you want to secure your border first, you are actually a Putin puppet: He said this publicly today..”

• Zelensky’s Visit ‘Disgraceful’ – Senator JD Vance (RT)

The visit by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to the US is an attempt to pressure Americans to give up their fight for border security and allow more funding for Kiev instead, Republican Senator James David Vance said on Tuesday. On Monday, Zelensky arrived in Washington, where he was scheduled to meet with US President Joe Biden, who is struggling to secure congressional approval for the new multibillion-dollar aid pledged to Kiev. Speaking to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, the Ohio senator called Zelensky’s move to seek more funding “utterly disgraceful.” Vance added that the Ukrainian president is coming to the US “lecturing” Americans and “demanding” more of their taxpayer dollars.

He said Zelensky’s visit will end with an “undignified process” in which the Ukrainian leader will demand that US lawmakers sign off on further funding or be labeled “puppets” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. After arriving in Washington, the Ukrainian leader gave an address at the National Defense University of the US, claiming that the delays and scandals related to “unresolved issues on Capitol Hill” are inspiring the Kremlin. Commenting on this, Vance said that “if you want to secure your border first, you are actually a Putin puppet: He said this publicly today,” and added that he found it “disgraceful” and “grotesque.” Last week, a bill that was supposed to provide more than $110 billion for overseas security, including more than $60 billion for Kiev, was blocked in the Senate.

It came as Republicans demanded tougher immigration controls on the southern US border. On Tuesday, Zelensky was scheduled to meet with US President Joe Biden to discuss “the continuation of defense cooperation” between the states and their coordination of efforts in the coming year, according to his office. This all comes amid Ukraine’s six-month counteroffensive against Russia, which has failed to yield any significant results. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, since the beginning of June, Kiev’s troops have lost more than 125,000 military personnel and 6,000 pieces of heavy equipment.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that as Ukrainian leaders plead for more military aid from Western allies, draft-eligible men are trying to flee the country at a time when they are needed “more than bullets.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday reiterated that Moscow would prefer to achieve its goals in the Ukrainian conflict politically and diplomatically, noting that Russia is “still ready for negotiations.” He added that the possibility of reaching agreements has been disrupted by Kiev. Last October, Zelensky signed an official decree banning any negotiations with Russia under President Vladimir Putin.

Read more …

“There are not cemeteries, but entire burial fields. People on the frontline take such things to heart and they do not accept shades of gray..”

• Ukrainian General Reveals Discord Among Frontline Troops (RT)

Ukrainian frontline troops are disgruntled with the way Kiev is handling the ongoing conflict with Russia, including the gaslighting it engages in via the national media, retired Gen. Sergey Krivonos warned on Monday. Soldiers wonder why they must shed blood on behalf of an uncaring government, he claimed. Krivonos is a critic of President Vladimir Zelensky, who sacked him from the National Security and Defense Council in late 2020 for allegedly not being a team player. The commander, who has since left the military, allegedly under pressure, blasted what he perceives to be a disconnect between the government and the military. He was interviewed by Priamyi, a TV channel that currently broadcasts only online that is historically associated with the country’s former president Pyotr Poroshenko.

The general said Kiev was “teasing the tiger” with its treatment of troops, who, he warned “may act quite harshly” in response. “There are not cemeteries, but entire burial fields. People on the frontline take such things to heart and they do not accept shades of gray. For them, there is either black or white,” he said. The Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Ukrainian losses between June and November at over 125,000 troops. Kiev does not report its casualties, but Western media say that they must be steep, judging by the rapidly expanding graveyards and other circumstantial evidence. Kiev is running out of career military and is struggling to conscript soldiers, since civilians “are less than eager to fight for a military and national government that is viewed as rife with corruption and incompetence,” the Washington Post reported last week.

Krivonos cited a recent announcement by the Ukrainian state-owned railway operator that seasonal trains would be on offer for people visiting ski resorts as an example of what irritates troops. He believes the country needs to go into total war mode and accused Zelensky of failing to do so due for fear of losing popularity. The Zelensky government has contributed to the problem by using the state-controlled “television marathon” – the only programming on the air – to gaslight the public, the general said. He called the content “one of the worst manipulations” of the Ukrainian people. Another problem is tolerance of graft, he alleged. People who empty their pockets buying overpriced eggs should not get farewell applause from MPs and disappear into the night, he said in a clear nod to Aleksey Reznikov. The former defense minister was sacked in September, months after a scandal erupted over the procurement of overpriced food for troops by his department. ‘Reznikov’s eggs’ reports became the subject of gallows humor in Ukrainian trenches.

Read more …

“..the US defense establishment increasingly physically resembles the numbers on the ledgers the accountants have been trying to balance – it just doesn’t add up.”

• The Pentagon Is A Multitrillion-Dollar Fraud (Scott Ritter)

Recently, the Pentagon admitted it couldn’t account for trillions of dollars of US taxpayer money, having failed a massive yearly audit for the sixth year running. The process consisted of the 29 sub-audits of the DoD’s various services, and only seven passed this year – no improvement over the last. These audits only began taking place in 2017, meaning that the Pentagon has never successfully passed one. This year’s failure made some headlines, was commented upon briefly by the mainstream media, and then just as quickly forgotten by an American society accustomed to pouring money down the black hole of defense spending. The defense budget of the United States is grotesquely large, its $877 billion dwarfing the $849 billion spent by the next ten nations with the largest defense expenditures.

And yet, the Pentagon cannot fully account for the $3.8 trillion in assets and $4 trillion in liabilities it has accrued at US taxpayer expense, ostensibly in defense of the United States and its allies. As the Biden administration seeks $886 billion for next year’s defense budget (and Congress seems prepared to add an additional $80 billion to that amount), the apparent indifference of the American collective – government, media, and public – to how nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars will be spent speaks volumes about the overall bankrupt nature of the American establishment. Audits, however, are an accountant’s trick, a series of numbers on a ledger which, for the average person, do not equate to reality. Americans have grown accustomed to seeing big numbers when it comes to defense spending, and as a result, we likewise expect big things from our military.

But the fact is, the US defense establishment increasingly physically resembles the numbers on the ledgers the accountants have been trying to balance – it just doesn’t add up. Despite spending some $2.3 trillion on a two-decade military misadventure in Afghanistan, the American people witnessed the ignominious retreat from that nation live on TV in August 2021. Likewise, a $758 billion investment in the 2003 invasion and subsequent decade-long occupation of Iraq went south when the US was compelled to withdraw in 2011– only to return in 2014 for another decade of chasing down ISIS, itself a manifestation of the failures of the original Iraqi venture. Overall, the US has spent more than $1.8 trillion on its 20-year nightmare in Iraq and Syria. These numbers are mind-numbingly large – so large that they become meaningless to the average person. The US defense enterprise is so massive that it is literally a mission impossible to speak of balancing the books.

Read more …

“Ethiopia will become a member of BRICS on Jan 1..”

• BRICS Candidate Ethiopia Likely To Default – Reuters (RT)

Ethiopia will hold a call with its international bondholders later this week after the African nation failed to pay a $33 million bond coupon that was due on Monday, according to a senior finance ministry official, as quoted by Reuters. Last week, the finance ministry said the country’s efforts to renegotiate the bond terms before the deadline for the coupon payment had fallen through. The sides had reportedly disagreed over how long to extend the maturity and spread out repayments of its single $1 billion international bond maturing in December 2024 . After the grace period of 14 days expires, the East African nation is expected to become the latest emerging-market sovereign to default on its debt, unless Addis Ababa successfully restructures it in time.

Zambia, Ghana and Sri Lanka have defaulted on Eurobonds in recent years. Tunisia, Pakistan and Bolivia are also currently at risk, Bloomberg reported, citing bond market pricing. Ethiopia, which requested a debt overhaul under the G20 Common Framework in early 2021, had managed to service interest payments on its international bond until now. According to the statement issued by the Ethiopian finance ministry, the nation will seek a “broadly similar treatment” from bondholders. “It would be important to treat all our creditors equitably,” the ministry said. Meanwhile, State Minister of Fiscal Policy and Public Finance Eyob Tekalign Tolina told Reuters that the “authorities’ intention is to remain current on our obligations.”

According to Tolina, there will be a call with investors holding the international bond on Thursday. Ethiopia, which was severely hit by the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and a military conflict in its northern Tigray region, is currently struggling to pay its debts. The nation is also seeking a four-year loan from the International Monetary Fund. Ethiopia will become a member of BRICS on Jan 1. The invitation to join was approved in August and extended to Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The group currently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Read more …

X thread.

“..I’ve got a bunch of kids, and they have to live here…” “And I want them to live in a country with a functioning justice system and elections that are semi-real.”

• Tucker Carlson: 2024 Presidential Election Is Being Rigged (Kanekoa)

.@TuckerCarlson talks about how the 2024 presidential election is being rigged by Biden’s bogus prosecution of Trump. “You are trying to take the front runner out of the race on bogus legal charges.” “You’re violating the rule of law. You’re mocking our sacred norms, and you’re doing it with the presidency at stake.” “To indict him on that at the same time that the sitting President did the same thing. And you’re expecting me to go along with it?” “The idea that you’re prosecuting a man with a felony charge for bringing home documents and not returning them to the national f**kin archives.”

“Are you serious? Is there a single high-level bureaucrat in Washington who doesn’t do that every single day?” “The second they indicted him on ridiculous charges and raided Mar-a-Lago and went through his wife’s underwear drawer and all of that s**t…” “That can’t stand because I have to live here and I’ve got a bunch of kids, and they have to live here…” “And I want them to live in a country with a functioning justice system and elections that are semi-real.” “And if we allow this to happen, none of that will come to pass.”

Read more …

“I know I can give good speeches. But there is much more to that. Would I be good at that? Probably not..”

• Tucker Carlson Says Does Not Think He Would Be Good Pick for Trump’s VP (Sp.)

US media personality Tucker Carlson said Tuesday that he does not think he would be a good pick as the next US vice president if former US President Donald Trump wins the 2024 election. “I know I can give good speeches. But there is much more to that. Would I be good at that? Probably not,” Carlson said in a live broadcast on X Spaces, adding that he has never “done anything like that before.” As a main guest of the X Spaces conversation, Carlson also said he was concerned about the US judicial system, as it is trying to convict Trump to get rid of him from the presidential race. In mid-November, Trump said in an interview that he would consider picking Carlson as his running mate in the 2024 US presidential election because “he’s got great common sense.”

The US presidential election is scheduled for November 5, 2024. In a number of polls, Trump, who dominates the Republican primary race, maintains a narrow lead over incumbent US President Joe Biden. Trump was indicted by a grand jury in August on four charges connected to the January riot at the US Capitol. The former US president has pleaded not guilty. Trump’s trial is set to begin on March 4, 2024.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

First steps
https://twitter.com/i/status/1734644284526121079

 

 

Sand Tiger Shark
https://twitter.com/i/status/1734487380298715579

 

 

Gaboon Viper
https://twitter.com/i/status/1734502324536590734

 

 

Dogs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1734674483632542081

 

 

Xmas lights

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 10 2023

Oct 102023
 
 October 10, 2023  Posted by at 8:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1896

 

• Hamas’ Attack on Israel Is Puzzling (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Will The Battle Of Gaza Strip Be Israel’s Iwo Jima? (Larry Johnson)
• Race War Against The Palestinians Turns Into War Of The Worlds (Helmer)
• Now We Have Your Attention (Craig Murray)
• White House Hopes To Include Ukraine In Israel Aid (RT)
• Military Operation ‘Will Take A Long Time’ – Israel (RT)
• Moscow Blasts US Approach To Israel-Palestine Violence (RT)
• US Has Enough Weapons For Israel, Ukraine And More – Pentagon (RT)
• Hamas Using Weapons Given To Ukraine – Medvedev (RT)
• Russia Throws Down the Nuclear Gauntlet (Scott Ritter)
• RFK Jr Announces Independent Run for President (Sp.)
• BIden Questioned In Classified Documents Probe (RT)
• Investigations are Exposing the Bidens’ Influence-Peddling Dynasty (Turley)
• Here We Go Loop-de-Loop (Jim Kunstler)

 

 

Editorial board of Haaretz, Israel’s leading newspaper

 

 

Tucker

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other Palestinians

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In the US no one was held accountable for the security failures on September 11, which should have told us a lot. Not knowing, we can but speculate. We have a motive. Israel can now steal the rest of Palestine.”

• Hamas’ Attack on Israel Is Puzzling (Paul Craig Roberts)

I am being asked about the Israeli-Palestine conflict, which seems to be taking attention away from the Ukraine-Russia conflict. People, by which I mean people who pay attention, are wondering why the Palestinians would attack Israel like this as it provides Netanyahu with an excuse to grab the remaining bits of Palestine and destroy the Gaza strip, thus disposing of the two-state solution by conquest. Who can blame Israel after Palestinians killed Israelis and took hostages? I have heard the official explanation of Palestinian perfidy, but I don’t have an explanation for the attack. It seems it would have to be more than perfidy. I do agree with readers that it seems a curious thing for Hamas to do as it plays into Israel’s hands. I also agree that there is something else strange about the attack. How did drones and so many rockets, allegedly from Iran, and some say Ukraine, get into the Gaza strip, and how did the Hamas attackers get into Israel?

The Hamas attack has something of 9/11’s flavor. Just as every aspect of the US National Security State failed simultaneously on September 11, 2001, Israel’s security system, including the Iron Dome the US constructed for Israel, simultaneously failed. Mysteriously, the Hamas fighters entered Israel on the ground and through the air and on the sea without being detected. Mysteriously, large quantities of weapons entered Palestine through Israel without being detected. This is too much convenient failure to be believable. It will be interesting to see if anyone in Israel is held accountable for the total security failure. In the US no one was held accountable for the security failures on September 11, which should have told us a lot. Not knowing, we can but speculate. We have a motive. Israel can now steal the rest of Palestine.

Another motive might be that Israel can expand the conflict into a wider war and succeed this time in grabbing the water resources of southern Lebanon. It could even get nastier with Israeli moves against Syria and Iran. Oil prices could go sky high causing world disruption. A victorious war and the end of the Palestinian problem would free Netanyahu from his legal and political problems. There is a lot to think about. But let’s move on to the security failure that made the attack possible. Why would Netanyahu enable Hamas to attack Israel by standing down Israel security? It seems a nonsensical suggestion, but isn’t as it creates the conditions in which Israel can absorb all that remains of Palestine, just as 9/11 created the conditions for the neoconservatives to launch the wars they had planned in the Middle East.

The difficult question is why would the Palestinians bring on their own destruction by attacking Israel when Hamas has no prospect of defeating Israel? Again, we can only speculate. It could be an Israeli operation from start to finish. Israel infiltrates Hamas, just as the FBI infiltrates Trump supporters and patriotic groups now called domestic terrorists. The Israeli agents play up Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians. Netanyahu helps them along by blowing up the sacred Mosque. The agents come up with an attack plan made possible with weapons from Iran and devices from Iran to jam Israeli security. They go about this carefully, relying on the decades of anger and hurt and the prospect of release from impotence to crowd out Hamas’ reason. I don’t say these speculations suffice as the explanation. But I would not be surprised if these speculations, if investigated, would prove to be closer to the truth than whatever official narrative emerges.

Read more …

“..this battle would likely endure for at least four months — perhaps longer. And Israel will suffer massive casualties..”

• Will The Battle Of Gaza Strip Be Israel’s Iwo Jima? (Larry Johnson)

The Gaza Strip is the home base of Hamas, but there is not a single specific location in Gaza that can be targeted and destroyed in order to bring an end to Hamas. I believe that Israel is dangerously over confident in its bellicose declarations that it will wipe Hamas off the face of the earth. Short of using nukes, Israel will have to send its ground forces into the strip and fight house to house battles. I think many of Israel’s supporters labor under the delusions that Gaza is a small area that can be easily dealt with. It is not. Let me put this into perspective. The Gaza Strip is 141 square miles in size. Let’s compare it to Iwo Jima — that tiny island is almost 9 square miles. Unlike Iwo Jima — a small island — the Gaza Strip borders Egypt, which means it has a supply route that Israel cannot close unless Israel decides to go to war with Egypt as well.

Why do I bring up Iwo Jima? Because the Gaza Strip is ripe with tunnels and bunkers designed to protect Hamas fighters from aerial bombardment. Just as the United States Navy decimated the surface of Iwo Jima, Israel can flatten the dwellings and office buildings crowded into Gaza. But the U.S. Navy failed to destroy the Japanese force hiding below the surface with the naval fusillade. The U.S. Marine Corps had to land on the beaches and fight a bloody month long battle to clear the island. I think Israel is looking at the equivalent of fighting the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Gaza Strip. Only instead of a month long effort, this battle would likely endure for at least four months — perhaps longer. And Israel will suffer massive casualties. I believe the length of the battle hinges on two critical factors: 1) The ability of Hamas to get resupplied from Egypt with food, weapons and ammunition and 2) The skill and tenacity of Hamas in using anti-tank guided missiles and light artillery effective at short range.

If Hamas replicates the tactics Hezbollah employed against Israel in its 2006 incursion into Southern Lebanon then Israel’s chances of prevailing quickly are slim. Israel’s strategic position will be further complicated if Hezbollah decides to enter the fray in a significant way. Fighting a two front war over an extended period of time will sap Israeli resources. The problem this presents is that Israel’s traditional supplier of weapons and ammunition — the United States — is running on fumes having depleted its stores in order to support Ukraine. Let me give you some other urban combat battles that might provide some historical lessons for the campaign Israel is about to undertake — the Battle of Fallujah, the Battle of Hue City, the Nazi attack on the Jewish uprising in Warsaw. That should get the discussion going.

Read more …

“..the final Jewish solution to remove the Arabs from the territory according to the Basic Law, ratified by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2021, which legalizes the takeover of Palestinian territory as a “natural” Jewish right.”

• Race War Against The Palestinians Turns Into War Of The Worlds (Helmer)

Between August 18 and September 1, the Soviet aircraft carrier Moskva passed through the Turkish Straits and into the Mediterranean, accompanied by two guided-missile destroyers. Over the next seven days the Soviet Navy gathered almost seventy surface ships – with uncounted submarines – and deployed between the Greek island of Crete and the point on the Libyan coastline where the Libyan and Egyptian border ran into the sea. That was fifty-four years ago in 1969. Ostensibly, the Soviet operation was to screen an amphibious troop landing exercise of Soviet, Egyptian and Syrian troops. In fact, the naval screen protected Libyan Army Captain Muammar Qaddafi and a dozen junior officer associates when, on September 1, 1969, they successfully toppled the regime of Libyan King Idris and ended US occupation and control of Libya through the Wheelus Air Force Base.

Can the Palestinian operation, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which Hamas forces commenced on Saturday morning, continue for long enough to engage the Arab state militaries, the Iranian, US and Russian forces, to turn into a new war of the worlds, as the US and NATO war against Russia is on the Ukrainian battlefield? Will the US force, including the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford and its five cruiser and destroyer escorts, screen Israel as it orders emergency resupply of US arms and ammunition? Will it attempt to blockade the Arab coast – Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Egypt – to prevent resupply convoys from Turkey or Iran aiding the Palestinians? “This is the day of the greatest battle to end the last occupation and the last apartheid regime of earth,” the Hamas military commander, Mohammed Deif, has declared.

Is this the final Israeli war of “mighty vengeance”, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared, forcing all Palestinians in Gaza “to leave now”, and in the phrase of the spokesman of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), “end the Gaza enclave”? Is this the final Jewish solution to remove the Arabs from the territory according to the Basic Law, ratified by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2021, which legalizes the takeover of Palestinian territory as a “natural” Jewish right. “The State of Israel is the nation state of the Jewish People,” the constitution enacted in 2018 by the Knesset declares, “in which it realizes its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination. The exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People”; and “the State views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and shall act to encourage and promote its establishment and strengthening.” Is this race war — is it now the war of the worlds?

Read more …

“I am sorry even for the deaths of individual Israeli soldiers, and more so for all the innocents who died and are now dying. But I will not condemn Hamas.”

• Now We Have Your Attention (Craig Murray)

There have been decades of photos of dead Palestinian women and children, and kids being beaten, humilated and imprisoned by Israeli soldiers. The historic killing rate in this “conflict” has been fairly consistent at about 40:1. None of this ever caused more than a raised eyebrow and a mild tut-tut from the western “liberal” Establishment. I can’t recall camera crews ever pursuing any zionist politicians down the street demanding that they use the word “condemn” of the latest Israeli atrocity. The paroxysm of hatred in the political and media class, unleashed by a single day of the boot being on the other foot is instructive. It is particularly instructive in their near complete unanimity – what percentage of the discussion on broadcast TV or radio have you heard this last 48 hours given over to Palestinian or pro-Palestinian voices?

Yet it is very plain from social media that the public is by no means as unanimous in their support of Israel as are the political and media class. But then the public are not bought and paid for. Asymmetric warfare tends to be vile. Oppressed and colonised peoples don’t have the luxury of lining up soldiers in neatly pressed uniforms and polished boots, to face off against the opposing army in an equality of arms. A colonised and oppressed people tends, given the chance, to mirror the atrocities perpetrated on them by their oppressor. This of course feeds in, always, to the propaganda of the Imperialist. A paroxysm of resistance by the oppressed always ends up portrayed by the Imperialist as evidence of the bestiality of the colonised people and in itself justifying the “civilising mission” of the coloniser.

Thus the “Indian Mutiny” became a Victorian tale of rape and murder of British women and of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Thus the Mau Mau were evil butchers, and the IRA were terrorists, which is the modern term of art for those resisting evil and foreign rule. The Israeli Ambassador to the UN yesterday described the Hamas fighters as “animal like”. This of course is not true. They are people, but people who have been crazed by unbearable levels of injustice and oppression. I am extremely sorry for all those who die, as in all wars. I am sorry even for the deaths of individual Israeli soldiers, and more so for all the innocents who died and are now dying. But I will not condemn Hamas.

For this I do not even need to delve into the backstory of Hamas’ initial sponsoring by Israel to split Fatah. They have grown well past that. I do not condemn Hamas because the resistance of the Palestinian people is a reflex response to their slow genocide. Yes it is an inchoate and violent response. Of course I wish it did not have innocent victims. The people I do condemn are the political class internationally who, with one voice, put out statements supporting “Israel’s right to self-defence”. A right they grant to the oppressor but deny to the oppressed. Those are the people who need to be condemned.

Read more …

“..one anonymous official told the Post that the move would be wise because it “jams the far right”..

• White House Hopes To Include Ukraine In Israel Aid (RT)

Top White House officials are considering whether to include more Ukraine funding in an emergency aid package for Israel, multiple news outlets reported. One staffer suggested the move would force “far right” lawmakers to authorize additional aid for Kiev. Though President Joe Biden already announced that military assistance was “on its way” to Israel following a surprise attack by Palestinian militants over the weekend, the White House has signaled that it would soon ask Congress to approve additional aid for the Jewish state. Lawmakers in both parties and senior administration officials have hinted that the aid package could also include provisions for Ukraine, unnamed sources told the Washington Post, NBC News and other outlets on Monday.

Though no final decision has been made, one anonymous official told the Post that the move would be wise because it “jams the far right”– referring to Republicans who vocally support Israel but are skeptical of continued aid to Ukraine. White House spokesman John Kirby, meanwhile, declined to say whether the two aid packages would be linked, only stating “We believe both are important.” While debate over the aid is likely to be contentious, the Pentagon has assured that it has plenty of weapons for all US partners. During a background briefing on Monday, a senior defense official told reporters that Washington could “continue our support both to Ukraine, Israel, and maintain our own global readiness,” noting that the US has been able to meet “every request that our Israeli counterparts have made.”

Israel is among the largest recipients of US foreign aid, taking in some $3.3 billion in American tax dollars in 2022 alone – a comparable amount to previous years – according to US government statistics. Since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022, Ukraine has also become a major beneficiary, with the White House approving at least $45 billion in direct military aid through 47 separate transfers. Both Republicans and Democrats have largely voiced support for Israel after the deadly Hamas attack early on Saturday morning, which has prompted harsh retaliation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and an intense bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip. More than 1,500 people have been killed on both sides of the conflict so far, while Palestinian fighters claim to have captured over 100 Israeli and foreign hostages during their raids.

Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have evacuated their homes due to the violent flare-up, while the IDF has called on 300,000 reservists as it mobilizes for a larger conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country was in a state of “war” as the attack unfolded, and said on Monday that the military response was “just getting started.”

Read more …

“What was in the past will not be in the future.”

• Military Operation ‘Will Take A Long Time’ – Israel (RT)

Israel will “never forgive” this weekend’s attack by Hamas and will take “a long time” to deal with the terrorist threat, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said on Monday. “It will take time. It will not take a few days. It will take a long time,” Cohen said during a video-link press conference from his office in Jerusalem, adding that such “inhuman terrorists” and “monsters” cannot be allowed to threaten Israel, the region and the world. Cohen called Hamas “the proxy of Iran” and accused the militant Palestinian group of carrying out “a historical massacre that the world will not forget.” According to Israeli authorities, more than 700 of their citizens have been killed since Saturday, when Hamas launched a rocket barrage against Israel and its militants crossed from Gaza into the surrounding Jewish settlements. “Israel will never forgive,” Cohen insisted. “What was in the past will not be in the future.”

Cohen also echoed the words of PM Benjamin Netanyahu that “Israel is at war” against Hamas, which he called a “vicious terror organization,” and vowed that Israel will “regain control, and win back security and stability.” The foreign minister claimed that Hamas only wants to “murder as much as they can” and that there was no land dispute between Israel and Gaza, because “we gave the Palestinians Gaza to the last millimeter.” As part of the 2005 “disengagement,” Israel paid some 8,000 Jewish settlers to dismantle 21 of their settlements in the Gaza Strip, which was then handed over to the Palestinian Authority. Israel remained in control of the sea, airspace, and all the utilities. In 2007, Hamas ousted the Fatah faction of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and became the de facto government in the territory. The UN still considers Gaza to be under Israeli military occupation.

Read more …

“Russia considers a two-state solution, as outlined in resolutions by the UN Security Council, to be the only viable way towards stability, but neither Israel nor Washington appear committed to it, Lavrov noted.”

• Moscow Blasts US Approach To Israel-Palestine Violence (RT)

Moscow is deeply concerned at last weekend’s surge in violence between Israel and the Palestinian militant movement Hamas, but finds the US approach to the crisis problematic, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Washington’s position is questionable “because they say: stop it all immediately, Israel must win, destroy the terrorists, and that’s it,” the top diplomat said on Monday. There were many escalations in this long-running conflict, “and never after the situation calmed down were the necessary efforts to remove the main cause undermining stability in the Middle East undertaken,” he added, referring to the fact that Palestinians don’t have a nation state. Russia considers a two-state solution, as outlined in resolutions by the UN Security Council, to be the only viable way towards stability, but neither Israel nor Washington appear committed to it, Lavrov noted.

Quashing extremism without creating a viable Palestinian state cannot bring peace, he said. Instead “the Americans are trying to monopolize mediation efforts” and focus attention on security problems, which are genuine, and discussions of how daily conditions may be improved for Palestinians, according to the Russian minister. Lavrov reiterated that Russia considered violence directed at civilians unacceptable, regardless of which side perpetrated it. He condemned the practice of taking hostages, as Hamas fighters had during their incursion from Gaza into southern Israel on Saturday. Of particular concern for Moscow is the threat that Russian citizens living in Israel face amid the escalation, the diplomat added, offering assistance to those who may seek evacuation from the country.

The minister made the remarks during a joint press conference in Moscow with Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit. He said the organization has recently achieved progress in reducing tensions between various players in the Middle East and was in a position to play a “definitive role in the complex improvement of the regional situation,” including in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moscow will back the League’s effort, Lavrov pledged. Washington has declared its full support for Israel in the hostilities with Hamas and sought to make members of the UN Security Council condemn the group during an emergency session on Sunday. Many Arab nations stated that Israel was at least partially responsible for the violence, due to its treatment of Palestinians. Consecutive Israeli governments have been expanding Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law. The Gaza enclave, the domain of Hamas, has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007.

Read more …

Yeah yeah.

• US Has Enough Weapons For Israel, Ukraine And More – Pentagon (RT)

Washington can meet all of West Jerusalem’s requests for weapons, equipment and ammunition while continuing to support Kiev, a Pentagon spokeswoman told reporters on Monday. “We are able to continue our support both to Ukraine, Israel, and maintain our own global readiness,” a senior Defense Department official said in a background briefing. “While we are providing and will continue to provide a significant amount of support to Ukraine, we are careful about ensuring we can also respond to other crises and contingencies, support other partners and maintain our own military readiness and our ability to support others,” the official later added.

The US has been able to meet “every every request that our Israeli counterparts have made” and anticipate to see “continual delivery” on some of those requests, the official also said. While declining into specifics, the spokesperson said this does apply to ‘Iron Dome’ systems and other air defenses. The Pentagon is “working as fast as possible” to expedite the delivery of “critically needed” ammunition and equipment, as well as contacting military contractors to expedite pending Israeli orders. When reporters voiced concerns about how the US weapons might be used, the Pentagon official said there were “robust end-use monitoring practices and procedures” in place, and that the US was “in constant dialogue with the Israelis about their operational plans.”

US cargo planes have already begun landing in Israel, even as the government in West Jerusalem announced a “total siege” of Gaza in reprisal for Hamas incursions that began on Saturday. The conflict, which began on Saturday, is the bloodiest that Israel has seen since 1973. The Pentagon has described the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean as “an unequivocal demonstration in deed and not only in words of US support for Israel’s defense.” The carrier is supposed to “serve as a deterrent signal to Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and any other proxy across the region who might be considering exploiting the current situation to escalate conflict,” the official said.

Read more …

Too late to start tracking them now. That was the plan?!

• Hamas Using Weapons Given To Ukraine – Medvedev (RT)

The weapons Kiev’s Western backers have actively supplied to Ukraine have found their way to Hamas militants and are now “being actively used in Israel,”former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said in a Telegram post on Monday, adding that any future military hardware supplied to Kiev could end up on the black market as well. “It will only get worse from here,”Medvedev warned, predicting that the world should “expect missiles, tanks, and even planes from Kiev on the black market soon.” His words came amid rumors that Hamas militants that control the Gaza Strip had gotten their hands on some US-made weaponry before their attack on Israel over the weekend. No solid evidence confirming these claims has emerged so far.

However, an unverified video circulating online showed a Palestinian militant displaying assorted US-made pieces, including a standard-issue M136 anti-tank grenade launcher, while thanking Ukrainians for the weapons. According to Medvedev, “corrupt authorities” in Ukraine would not hesitate to trade everything they had received from their backers. “They would steal everything in sight,” the former president claimed, adding that the Western weapons sent to Ukraine would soon fuel conflicts in other parts of the world, just like the trove of weapons the Americans left in Afghanistan during their hasty withdrawal from the country in 2021. The aforementioned video has already sparked concerns in the US, with Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene saying on Sunday that its origins must be investigated.

The congresswoman also claimed on X, formerly known as Twitter, that some of the arms used by the militants might have come from Ukraine or Afghanistan. Washington has been Kiev’s biggest supplier of military aid since the onset of its conflict with Moscow. The US has poured a total of $46.6 billion into military assistance to Ukraine, including direct weapons and ammunition shipments, as well as grants and loans for weapons and equipment. Kiev has repeatedly faced accusations of misusing or selling off the weaponry, which it has vehemently denied. On Monday, the Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) blamed the rumors about weapons supposedly coming from Ukraine to Hamas on Russia.

Moscow was allegedly waging a “discreditation” campaign against Ukraine in the Middle East, GUR claimed in a Facebook post, adding that the weapons that ended up in the hands of Hamas were “trophy weapons” captured by Russian forces from Ukrainian troops. Russia has not commented on these claims so far. The news came amid the latest escalation between Hamas and Israel, which began last Saturday when the Palestinian militant group launched a surprise attack on multiple locations along the Gaza border. Israeli officials have estimated that more than 700 people have been killed in the Hamas assault and over 2,200 have been injured.

Read more …

“..no matter where it comes from—from any point of the world ocean or from any territory—such a number, so many hundreds of our missiles appear in the air in a retaliatory strike that there is no chance of survival..”

“Russia won’t be the first to resume testing of nuclear weapons. But if the United States were to go down that path, then Russia would respond immediately..”

“If the United States were to resume a nuclear arms race by returning to nuclear testing, Russia would begin such a race with an insurmountable lead in nuclear delivery systems. Game, set, match—Russia.”

• Russia Throws Down the Nuclear Gauntlet (Scott Ritter)

In the audience at the Valdai Discussion Club was Sergei Karaganov, a well-known Russian political scientist who, in an article titled “A Difficult but Necessary Decision,” published on June 13, 2023, in the journal Russia in Global Affairs, articulated in favor of Russia moving away from a nuclear posture based upon assured nuclear retaliation to one that favored pre-emption. “We will have to make nuclear deterrence a convincing argument again,” Karaganov wrote, “by lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons set unacceptably high, and by rapidly but prudently moving up the deterrence-escalation ladder.” According to Karaganov, “If we correctly build a strategy of intimidation and deterrence and even use of nuclear weapons, the risk of a ‘retaliatory’ nuclear or any other strike on our territory can be reduced to an absolute minimum.

Only a madman,” Karaganov argued, “who, above all, hates America, will have the guts to strike back in ‘defense’ of Europeans, thus putting his own country at risk and sacrificing conditional Boston for conditional Poznan.” If such a madman did, in fact exist, then, Karaganov noted, “we will have to hit a bunch of targets in a number of countries in order to bring those who have lost their mind to reason. Morally, this is a terrible choice as we will use God’s weapon, thus dooming ourselves to grave spiritual losses. But if we do not do this, not only Russia can die, but most likely the entire human civilization will cease to exist.” President Putin, using the prerogative that is accrued through his position, called on Karaganov to ask a question. This was no accident, given the outcry that had followed the publication of Karaganov’s article, which led to much speculation that Putin was considering adopting a nuclear posture along the lines proposed by Karaganov.

The Russan academic did not disappoint, asking the Russian President whether it was not time for Russia to change its approach to nuclear arms and restore its deterrent strength in the eyes of Western elites who repeat endlessly that Russia is weak. It was a trap. “I have read your article,” Putin responded, before laying out a detailed answer that made it clear to all who listened that the Russian president did not agree with Karaganov’s thesis. “From the moment the launch of missiles is detected,” Putin said, “no matter where it comes from—from any point of the world ocean or from any territory—such a number, so many hundreds of our missiles appear in the air in a retaliatory strike that there is no chance of survival there will be no single enemy left, and in several directions at once.” Putin urged America to understand that any threats against Russia are “absolutely unacceptable for any potential aggressor.”In short, President Putin was reinvigorating the Cold War-era nuclear posture of mutually assured destruction as Russia’s go-to nuclear doctrine.

Moreover, Putin noted, Russia would launch a nuclear attack against any country or countries that threaten its continued existence as a sovereign state, regardless of whether the threat posed is by nuclear arms or conventional arms. Since there is no such existential threat to Russia today, the Russian President concluded, there is no reason to threaten the use of nuclear arms. However, Putin said, there was one aspect of Russian nuclear policy that could, and indeed should, be changed—Russia’s ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The United States, Putin noted, had signed the treaty, but had never ratified it. Given Russia’s modernization of its nuclear arsenal, which included, in addition to the Burevestnik cruise missile, the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, the Poseidon nuclear torpedo, and hypersonic delivery vehicles, many in the Russian military were demanding that Russia resume nuclear testing to be sure that the new cutting-edge strategic weapons systems that constitute the heart of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces perform as intended.

Putin observed that this very same question had been discussed in the United States by its military officials, who were, de jure, unrestrained by a treaty that had not been ratified, and as such never entered into force. Thus, the big news out of the Valdai Discussion Club isn’t a new Russian missile or nuclear posture. The big news is that the Russian president will be sending a bill to the Russian Duma that would revoke Russia’s ratification of the test ban treaty. Russia won’t be the first to resume testing of nuclear weapons. But if the United States were to go down that path, then Russia would respond immediately. The important point here is that any US testing would be done in support of either legacy nuclear weapons that are in dire need of being replaced, or future nuclear weapons which have yet to be developed and fielded.

Russia, as Putin underscored, has already modernized its nuclear force. If the United States were to resume a nuclear arms race by returning to nuclear testing, Russia would begin such a race with an insurmountable lead in nuclear delivery systems. Game, set, match—Russia.

Read more …

“..in an era where figures on all sides of the ideological spectrum have found success running against establishment politics..”

• RFK Jr Announces Independent Run for President (Sp.)

The unorthodox political figure declared he is running as an independent candidate Monday morning in a speech that called for national renewal via a rejection of America’s political order. “We declare independence from the two political parties and the corrupt interests that dominate them and the entire rigged system… that have turned government officials into indentured servants for their corporate bosses.” It’s a statement that could have come from Bernie Sanders or, if not for the vaguely anti-capitalist rhetoric, perhaps Donald Trump. But in an era where figures on all sides of the ideological spectrum have found success running against establishment politics, it instead came from activist and environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy has made his name in public life as a highly idiosyncratic figure. After a brief stint as an assistant district attorney in New York City, he drifted towards environmental activism. Followers of online anti-vaccine discourse may know him for his prominent activism around that issue, which critics say trends towards conspiracy theory. On Monday, the heir to the influential Kennedy political brand cast himself as a champion of those estranged from US politics over a wide array of issues. “Most of us agree that we should take care of our veterans,” said Kennedy. “Most of us agree that we should seek peace abroad instead of war. We all agree that teachers should receive decent salaries and respect. We all agree that housing should be affordable and corporations should pay their fair share.”

“And yet these universal yearnings stand alongside a broad agreement that our country has lost its way.” Kennedy seems to believe the political party of his father and uncle has lost its way as well. Since first announcing his presidential bid under the Democratic banner half a year ago, Kennedy registered as high as 20% in voter intention surveys for the party’s primary. But party figures, fearing his candidacy would weaken presumptive nominee President Joe Biden, strongly rejected him. Spurned by liberal media, Kennedy instead turned to independent online outlets, as well as Fox News. In the process Kennedy gained a following among political conservatives, to the extent that Republicans now seem most fearful of the candidate’s spoiler potential.

Read more …

That concludes the investigation?!

Unlike in Trump’s case, there are zero legal reasons why Biden would have classified docs at home. Pretty simple.

It takes impressive legal gymnastics to accuse a president and leave a vice-president alone for the same thing.

• Biden Questioned In Classified Documents Probe (RT)

sUS President Joe Biden met with federal investigators multiple times in recent days, as the Justice Department seeks to determine how classified documents wound up in Biden’s home and personal office without proper approval. The president sat down with special counsel Robert Hur to discuss the documents case on Sunday and Monday, the White House confirmed, noting that the interviews had “concluded” and were strictly “voluntary.” “As we have said from the beginning, the president and the White House are cooperating with this investigation, and as it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement, vowing to be “as transparent as we can” while preserving “the integrity of the investigation.”

The Justice Department launched the documents probe last November, after the president’s lawyers reported that a trove of secret files had been found in one of Biden’s private offices. Additional material was later turned up at Biden’s Delaware home, and in January Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to lead an investigation into “the possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents.” Hur has reportedly questioned Biden’s “closest aides and advisers” as part of a “quiet inquiry” over the last nine months, including top officials such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, according to the New York Times.

Investigators have worked to determine the chain of custody for the sensitive documents, and whether Biden’s team “adhered to security protocols in handling and packing up official documents and private notes from his vice presidency,” the outlet added. Until Monday, it was unclear whether the president would submit for an in-person interview, with the White House declining to comment on the matter previously. Hur’s team has similarly offered few details about the investigation to the public. The Biden probe coincided with another major classified documents case involving former President Donald Trump, who was indicted on 37 felony counts linked to the alleged mishandling of secret files in June. Federal agents previously raided the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and turned up a large number of classified papers, though Trump maintains he was authorized to possess the documents and denies any wrongdoing.

Read more …

“The Bidens had only one family business. They did not make furniture or sell groceries. They sold influence and, as Biden associate Devon Archer explained, Joe was their “brand.”

• Investigations are Exposing the Bidens’ Influence-Peddling Dynasty (Turley)

There is a sharp disconnect between the public persona long maintained by the press and what is becoming more apparent to the public now. Although the image of a “unifier-in-chief” quickly collapsed, the most lasting portrayal is that Joe Biden cares. Unlike Trump, he is portrayed as acting not out of greed, but an overwhelming desire to do good. In a typical article, a contributor to Forbes gushed about “How Empathy Defines Joe Biden.” The article explained that “Biden feels empathetic because that is who he is.” That is not the image that emerges from the growing evidence about Biden and his family. The Bidens are suffering from legal exposure in actions concerning everything from withholding child support to peddling influence to federal felonies.

The investigations and inquiries often turn on questions of intent for actions taken by Biden family members, including the president himself. The motive is often all too apparent. Hunter Biden left a long trail of emails and texts seeking millions in exchange for access to his father. He is shown in messages invoking his father’s power, threatening foreign figures to send him money. In one message, he allegedly makes a demand for an immediate transfer of cash from a Chinese businessman by saying that his father is sitting next to him to make sure the payment comes through. Hunter Biden was burning through a fortune on drugs, prostitutes and high living. There were many eager to have the son of the vice president dependent on their largesse. While Hunter is often portrayed as a human wreck, salvaged by influence-seekers, his uncles generated their own controversies.

James has been a well-known figure among alleged influence peddlers for years in cashing in on access to his brother, Joe. Joe’s younger brother, Frank, has also been long identified as involved in the family influence peddling. Like Hunter, Frank appears to have been in dire financial straits due to his careening lifestyle and lack of any appreciable skills. Frank’s need for money was not only great but known to his brother. In 1999, at age 43, Frank was involved in a car crash in Cardiff-by-the-Sea near Encinitas, California. He was accused of responsibility for the death of single father Michael Albano and then of evading service and responsibility in lawsuits by Albano’s surviving children. He only recently began paying what he owes. [..] The Bidens had only one family business. They did not make furniture or sell groceries. They sold influence and, as Biden associate Devon Archer explained, Joe was their “brand.” As these investigations and prosecutions continue, the public may conclude that it is not empathy but avarice that defines the Bidens.

Read more …

“Reality is finally asserting its rugged old self to say that our country is as broke as broke can be..”

• Here We Go Loop-de-Loop (Jim Kunstler)

I’m confident that Congress will sort out this new Speaker business in short order, now that the world appears to light up. But what of its current projects? For instance, the inquiry into the darkish business ventures of the Biden Family, Inc., and what to do about it? That look-see is tending toward a picture that shows an appalling connection between the Bidens’ lustful chasing of global main chances and the horrifying demolition of Ukraine currently ongoing. If it’s not already obvious to a majority of USA adults that “Joe Biden,” the cats-paw in the White House, must go, it will be in a matter of weeks as the bank records step into the spotlight and speak for themselves.

Are you ready for President Kamala and government-by-word-salad? E.g.: “It’s very important, as you’ve heard from so many incredible leaders, for us at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to seize the moment of time in which we exist, in our present, and be able to contextualize it, understand where we exist in history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future,” she said. Doctoral dissertations will be penned explicating that mouthful for years to come (where and whenever those years might be located on time’s mystifying spectrum).

As for Congress and its grim duties, there is also the matter of the current laughable budget resolution running out again just before Thanksgiving. Work to do! The USA is in such a desperate debt and bond issuance dilemma that it’s like a trapped wild animal faced with having to chew off its own leg to escape death. And the cause of that dilemma is our legislature’s failure to control the nation’s spending. As America’s Venerable Bede, Sen. Everett Dirksen (d. 1969) used to say: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Well, that game is drawing to a close. Reality is finally asserting its rugged old self to say that our country is as broke as broke can be and there has to be a painful adjustment. It will be presented as a Hobson’s choice: you can have no money… or you can have plenty of money that’s worthless. What’s it gonna be?

I’d guess that the new Speaker will have to be Mr. Jordan of Ohio, because at this time Congress badly needs to be led by someone who at least appears to be muscular and confident. One has to wonder, though, that even muscles and confidence might not be enough in the current situation — that moment of time in which we exist, as the Veep put it so well. And yet, so many things are happening at once that it feels like someone up there is monkeying with time itself. Or perhaps a giant blob has gummed up its wheels. But, really, I must ask: are you not a little tired of being a country that doesn’t know what it’s doing?

Read more …

 

 

 

 


“Most of us have small, sad places in our hearts. My father felt deeply but kept his feelings to himself. Or rather, being a writer, he let them escape in his writing. And so such sadnesses as there were put on cap and bells and emerged as Eeyore.”~C.R.Milne

 

 

Goat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1711101692710633853

 

 

1 in every family
https://twitter.com/i/status/1711382255380074992

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle May 24 2023

May 242023
 
 May 24, 2023  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  36 Responses »


Leonardo da Vinci Ginevra de’ Benci c. 1474-78

 

• ‘Counteroffensive’ Will Begin ‘Very Soon’ – Ukrainian Intelligence (RT)
• Ukraine Can’t Win Against Russia – Orban (RT)
• “Obvious” There Will Be “No Victory For The Poor Ukrainians”: Orban (ZH)
• US Must Make Security Deal With Russia – Hungary (RT)
• Orban Thinks NATO Reluctant To Deploy Own Troops To Ukraine (TASS)
• Kremlin Spokesman Sees No Prerequisites For Ukrainian Peace Process (TASS)
• Serb Leader Explains Why West Doesn’t Like Russia (RT)
• Russia Continues To Supply Gas To EU Via Ukraine – Gazprom (RT)
• Beijing Decries ‘Biggest Threat’ Label (RT)
• China Hopes World Adequately Immune From Debt-Driven US Finance Risks (TASS)
• Pentagon Loses A Million F-35 parts (RT)
• Pentagon Can’t Account For 1000s Of Ultra-Expensive F-35 Parts Globally (ZH)
• Why the Conspiracy Theory About Trump and Russia Won’t Go Away (Chris Hedges)
• Whistleblower Says DOJ Interference In Hunter Biden Probe Dates Back Years (JTN)
• First COVID Vaccine Injury Lawsuit in US Targets Gov’t, Social Media Giants (CHD)

 

 

 

 

FISA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661035995553210370

 

 

 

 

No Ukraine

 

 

 

 

Minsk 2019

 

 


M2 data was released today — it is down -4.63% since last year, the fastest pace of money supply destruction since January 1933. The Fed eased at 100 mph, now it is slamming on the brakes and credit markets are about to fly through the windshield.

 

 

Vladimir Putin : For 9 years, the enemy has been waging war against our people. We are told that Russia started the war. No, Russia, with the help of the SMO, is trying to stop this war against our people, who, due to historical injustice, found themselves outside the borders of our Motherland

 

 

 

 

Zero chance of winning, 100% chance of killing more young Ukrainians. No able bodies will be left to rebuild what’s left of the nation after Russia and Poland take their parts. Halliburton will have to come in to do the rebuilding. If Russia lets them.

They’re going to fire missiles into Crimea. The US just gave them the go-ahead..

• ‘Counteroffensive’ Will Begin ‘Very Soon’ – Ukrainian Intelligence (RT)

Ukraine has the weapons it needs to start its much-anticipated “counteroffensive,” but actually defeating Russia will require more, the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), Kirill Budanov, said in an interview on Tuesday. “We already have the necessary minimum of weapons” for the attack, Budanov told the Japanese state broadcaster NHK. “I can only say that it will begin soon.” To successfully pursue a long campaign against Russia, however, Ukraine needs even more, according to Budanov. “We need a large stockpile of weapons and ammunition to successfully continue the operation,” he said. “We need more weapons. We need fighter jets. I hope the international community is ready to really help Ukraine.”

Kiev’s top spy added that he would pay close attention to the progress of military aid from the West after the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, where President Vladimir Zelensky made an appearance as a surprise guest. Over the weekend, Zelensky acknowledged the loss of the Donbass fortress of Bakhmut, known by Russians as Artyomovsk. Kiev responded by launching a raid into Russia’s Belgorod Region, which garnered a lot of social media attention but achieved nothing of military importance. Zelensky has assured his Western backers that the long-anticipated “counteroffensive” would be launched as soon as Kiev had accumulated the minimum of weapons and ammunition necessary for the effort, and that Ukraine needed just a bit more time.

Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has sought to manage expectations as well. Last week, Financial Times reported that Kiev has about “five months” to impress Washington, at which point President Joe Biden’s government will be under too much pressure to negotiate. Multiple Western outlets and experts have warned that Russia’s air campaign targeting Ukrainian supply depots and troop concentrations has already affected the planned offensive, going so far as to describe it as a “game changer.” Budanov waved off the campaign by telling NHK that Kiev had shot down 90% of the incoming missiles. He did not comment on last week’s destruction of the US-supplied Patriot air defense system in Kiev.

Sullivan

Read more …

Some partially overlapping articles today. First, on Orban’s speech in Qatar. Later, on Lockheed and the Pentagon working together to fleece the taxpayer.

“Emotionally, it’s tragic, all of our hearts are with the Ukrainians. But I’m speaking as a politician who should save lives..”

• Ukraine Can’t Win Against Russia – Orban (RT)

It’s “obvious” that Kiev can’t win the war against Moscow, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, urging for a diplomatic solution to the crisis instead of the West continuing to pour military aid into Ukraine. The PM made the remarks in a Bloomberg interview during the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday. “Emotionally, it’s tragic, all of our hearts are with the Ukrainians. But I’m speaking as a politician who should save lives,” Orban stated, noting that Hungary views the ongoing hostilities from a “special angle” that differs from the “mainstream” European position. Hungary itself is “losing lives” daily as well due to the conflict, Orban explained, referring to members of Ukraine’s Hungarian ethnic minority that have been “conscripted” to fight Russia.

He abstained from condemning Moscow for the “invasion” of Ukraine, stating only that the hostilities were due to a major failure in diplomacy. “[The] position of Hungary was, from the very first moment, that this war is the failure of diplomacy, it should have never happened,” Orban stated. “For us it’s obvious that the battlefield solution does not work.” Pressed further on whether, in his opinion, Kiev was able to win the conflict, Orban replied that the course of the hostilities had clearly shown it “obviously” was not possible. The PM also implied neither side could actually win the conflict, adding that it can only end in a “ceasefire” followed by peace talks. “My position is that, looking at the reality, looking at the figures, looking at the surroundings, looking at the fact that NATO is not ready to send troops, it’s obvious that there’s no victory for the poor Ukrainians on the battlefield.”

Orban’s remarks come as Hungary has opted to block a new €500 million ($544 million) military aid package from the EU’s so-called European Peace Facility (EPF). The fund – which is designed to reimburse the bloc’s own members to send arms and equipment overseas, as well as to finance foreign militaries directly – has been used almost exclusively to pour weaponry into Ukraine. Hungary has taken a neutral stance on the ongoing hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, consistently refusing to provide military aid to Kiev or even allow the transport of military shipments through its territory. Budapest has also opposed the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions, particularly those that would have damaged the country’s own economy, including its nuclear and conventional energy sectors.

Ritter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661168351635226624

Read more …

“The war can be stopped only if the Russians can make an agreement with the US. In Europe, we are not happy with that, but it’s the only way out.”

• “Obvious” There Will Be “No Victory For The Poor Ukrainians”: Orban (ZH)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has once again spoken the quiet part out loud, as he continues to be a thorn in the side of NATO and the EU regarding continually escalating arms deliveries to Ukraine, with F-16 fighter jets poised to be delivered to Kiev in the near future. The first day of the annual Qatar Economic Forum (QEF) included a speech and on-stage interview by Orban wherein he bluntly stated that Ukraine can’t win the war against Russia, short of NATO directly sending troops – which it isn’t willing to do, and which Hungary stands against. He also reminded the West that the Hungarian government isn’t part of the “mainstream” European Union approach to the war, but has pursued attempts at peaceful negotiations.

“The only solution is ceasefire, and then after the ceasefire, peace talks should start,” he said. He explained this is the only path forward given Kiev can’t win. As Bloomberg reports, “Hungary was in talks with Qatar to buy gas in an effort to reduce its reliance on Russia for energy and for help to buy Budapest airport,” according to Orban’s words. He had been pressed over the question of Hungary blocking more defense aid to Ukraine, and in that context asserted that ultimately Russia and the US must make a deal to end the war, which is “the only way out”: “Looking at the reality, the figures, the surroundings, the fact that NATO is not ready to send troops, it is obvious that there is no victory for the poor Ukrainians on the battlefield. That’s my position,” he said, offering an outlook few European leaders would publicly agree with, given their solidarity with Kyiv.

“The war can be stopped only if the Russians can make an agreement with the US. In Europe, we are not happy with that, but it’s the only way out.” His assessment, which is likely going to be deeply unpopular and somewhat divisive in terms of public reception, comes just on the heels of the weekend Russian capture of Bakhmut, which was announced by Wagner Group raising the Russian flag over the strategic city. Despite initial Ukrainian officials rejecting that Bakhmut had fallen, at this point there’s widespread acknowledgement both in international press reports and among Western officials that Russia exercises effective control of the city. Wagner is due to hand captured territory over to regular Russian military forces by June 1.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1660962012141174784

Read more …

“Orban has repeatedly accused EU leaders of serving American, rather than European, interests by continuing to bankroll Kiev..”

• US Must Make Security Deal With Russia – Hungary (RT)

An agreement between the US and Russia is the only thing that can end the conflict in Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated on Monday. Orban has repeatedly accused EU leaders of serving American, rather than European, interests by continuing to bankroll Kiev. Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday, Orban reiterated his position that Ukraine cannot win on the battlefield, and that Kiev and its Western backers must pursue peace talks with Russia. “First we should have a ceasefire,” he said. “Then let’s talk about the new security architecture of the European continent.” “The only peace agreement that could close this whole conflict is if it is between Russia and the United States,” he elaborated.

“What is at stake is the future security of Europe. It’s obvious that without the US there is no security architecture for Europe, and now the war can only be stopped if the Russians can make an agreement with the United States.” “As a European I am not happy with that,” he added. “But this is the only way out.” Throughout the conflict, Orban has repeatedly spoken out against the West’s twin policies of military aid to Kiev and sanctions on Moscow, arguing that the former risks escalating the conflict to a global war and the latter harms Europe’s economy more than Russia’s. The Hungarian prime minister has also argued that only Washington has the power to pressure Kiev into peace talks, and that decisions made in Brussels “reflect American interests more often than European ones.”

With the US dragging Europe into a conflict it cannot win, Orban has suggested that “the solution would be a European NATO” without the US as a member. Hungary is currently blocking a €500 million ($540 million) EU military aid package for Ukraine. Apart from his long-standing opposition to escalating the conflict, Orban cited Ukraine’s sanctioning of a Hungarian bank as a reason for the hold up. “If a country like Ukraine would like to get our financial support, they can’t put our companies on a blacklist,” he said on Tuesday. “If you need our money, please respect us.”

Read more …

“We must think of how to save people’s lives. This is my position,” Orban asserted.”

• Orban Thinks NATO Reluctant To Deploy Own Troops To Ukraine (TASS)

Ukraine will not be able to prevail in the conflict with Russia, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday, noting an unwillingness by NATO to deploy alliance troops to Ukraine and urging that a peaceful settlement be reached as soon as possible. Addressing a public debate at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday, the head of Hungary’s government said, “If you look at how things stand in reality, at the figures, the situation in general, and the fact that NATO is reluctant to send its troops [to Ukraine], you will clearly see that the Ukrainians will be unable to win a victory on the battlefield.” His comment came in response to a question about whether he actually thinks that Ukraine stands no chance of success.


Orban’s speech in Doha, in essence, morphed into an interview with the forum’s moderator and was streamed live on the Hungarian government’s page on Facebook (prohibited in Russia due to its ownership by Meta, which has been designated as an extremist organization). When asked about the conflict in Ukraine, the Hungarian prime minister reiterated that Budapest has favored a peaceful solution from the very start of the conflict while consistently calling for an immediate ceasefire. “We must think of how to save people’s lives. This is my position,” Orban asserted.

Read more …

Talking to Zelensky is no use to begin with.

• Kremlin Spokesman Sees No Prerequisites For Ukrainian Peace Process (TASS)

It would be too early to speak about a peaceful solution of the Ukrainian conflict because no prerequisites for this scenario are currently in place, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told TASS in an interview. When asked which one of various reconciliation plans, put forward by other countries, would be preferable for Russia and whether Moscow has its own variant, the Kremlin press secretary replied: “It is too early to speak about it. No prerequisites for a peace process are yet in place, evidently.” “The special military operation continues,” he added. Answering to a question of whether the Kremlin was ready to negotiate with anyone from the incumbent Kiev government, Peskov replied: “This is hardly possible, because any negotiations with Russia are prohibited [in Ukraine].” Last October, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky issued a decree banning any talks with Moscow stating that he was not interested in interacting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Read more …

Not “the”, but “a” Serb leader, the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik. He met with Putin yesterday.

• Serb Leader Explains Why West Doesn’t Like Russia (RT)

Russia has fallen out of grace with the West because it wouldn’t play ball with Europe any longer when it comes to supplying the continent with cheap gas, the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, said in an interview released on Monday ahead of a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. Speaking to Russia’s NTV channel, Dodik, who heads one of the regions within Bosnia and Herzegovina that is predominantly populated by Serbs, offered his take on the ongoing Ukraine conflict. He said that “the Russians have been giving cheap gas to Europe and Germany for an unreasonably long time, for years, strengthening their economy.”

“Of course, the West doesn’t like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. How could they like him when he doesn’t give them resources?” he said, adding that the international community should “respect” Russia and understand the role it plays globally. Against this backdrop, Dodik noted that when the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev started over a year ago, Berlin was willing to deliver “only helmets” to Ukraine, but ended up sending Kiev Leopard main battle tanks. “Why should we believe in their good intentions now?” he asked. Dodik went on to point out that while the West is trying to portray itself as a “defender of ordinary people in Ukraine,” it never really cared to protect the population in countries such as Syria, Libya or Yugoslavia. The latter came under “baseless” air strikes conducted by Western countries themselves, he claimed.


Dodik’s remarks come after he held a meeting with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev in Moscow, during which the two discussed regional security. According to the Serb leader, he also informed Patrushev of the challenging conditions Republika Srpska has found itself in due to Western pressure over its refusal to join the sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, the Republika Srpska leader, who has long promoted his region’s independence, was himself hit by US sanctions in 2017 after Washington accused him of obstructing the 1995 Dayton Accords, which put an end to the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On Tuesday, Dodik is set to sit down with Putin in Moscow, with the agenda expected to revolve around economic cooperation, according to Republika Srpska officials. Dodik said he planned to discuss with the Russian leader “how the world would look in the future.”

Read more …

And Ukraine continues to be paid.

• Russia Continues To Supply Gas To EU Via Ukraine – Gazprom (RT)

Russian energy giant Gazprom continues to supply gas for transit to Western and Central Europe through Ukrainian territory via the Sudzha gas pumping station in amounts approved by Ukraine, the company said on Tuesday. Supplies rose to 41.2 million cubic meters (mcm) on May 23, compared to 40.9 mcm pumped the previous day through the Sudzha entry point, which remains the only operating interconnector in Ukraine. “Gazprom supplies Russian gas for transit through the territory of Ukraine in the amount confirmed by the Ukrainian side through the Sudzha… Application for ‘Sokhranovka’ was rejected,” Gazprom spokesperson Sergey Kupriyanov told reporters.


Ukraine shut down transit through the Sokhranovka station, a key gas transit route which handled around a third of the Russian gas flowing through the country to the EU, in early May, citing “interference by the occupying forces.” Russian gas deliveries to the EU via Ukraine were slashed last May in the aftermath of the bloc’s sweeping sanctions, with shipments plunging to 24 mcm in January this year. Since February, however, daily transit volumes have been gradually increasing. Gas transit through Ukraine remains the only route for Russian supplies to the countries of Western and Central Europe after sabotage attacks in September rendered the Nord Stream pipeline inoperable. Gazprom also exports gas via the TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines to Southern and Southeastern Europe.

Read more …

“If China is a threat, then what are some G7 members that go for wars on sovereign states, overthrow legitimate foreign governments, exit multilateral treaties and coerce other countries to sever supply chains?”

• Beijing Decries ‘Biggest Threat’ Label (RT)

The G7 countries will not be able to trick the world into believing that Beijing is undermining global stability, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday. In a series of posts on Twitter, Hua blasted such a stance, writing: “Some G7 members called China ‘the biggest threat to global security and prosperity’. Seriously?” She was apparently referring to remarks by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who said during the group’s summit in Hiroshima, Japan, that “China poses the greatest challenge to global security and prosperity in our time,” as he called for decreasing dependence on Chinese supply chains. He added that the UK and G7 were taking steps to prevent Beijing from using “economic coercion to interfere in the sovereign affairs of others.”

“If China is a threat, then what are some G7 members that go for wars on sovereign states, overthrow legitimate foreign governments, exit multilateral treaties and coerce other countries to sever supply chains?” Hua asked. The spokeswoman went on to emphasize China’s place as “the No.1 engine of global economy,” and that Beijing was contributing to global growth more than all G7 members combined while being the second largest donor to UN peacekeeping funding. “The real world will not be brainwashed and fooled,” she said. Sunak’s rebuke of China appeared to be much tougher than G7 joint communique outlining challenges posed by Beijing.

The group’s members, in particular, insisted that they are “prepared to build constructive and stable relations with China,” adding that “we are not decoupling or turning inwards” when it comes to economic ties with the Asian giant. However, the G7 stressed the need for what it called “de-risking and diversifying” and reducing “excessive dependencies in our critical supply chains.” The group also scolded Beijing for “non-market policies and practices, which distort the global economy,” vowing to build resistance to what it termed economic coercion. China’s foreign ministry was not convinced, however, stating that “massive unilateral sanctions and acts of ‘decoupling’… make the US the real coercer” while urging the G7 not to become Washington’s “accomplice” in this regard.

Read more …

“Beijing also hopes that “the United States will refrain from harvesting yields around the globe in order to protect its own interests..”

• China Hopes World Adequately Immune From Debt-Driven US Finance Risks (TASS)

China has expressed the hope that the United States, as the world’s largest economy, will not attempt to shift its financial risks onto the international community, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said at a news briefing on Tuesday. “The debt issue is an internal affair of the United States, but given that [the US is] the world’s largest economy, their own situation and political decisions may have critical knock-on effects for the global economy,” Mao said, when asked by a TASS reporter to comment on the ongoing political debate in Washington over raising the US debt ceiling. “Hopefully, the United States will maintain a responsible fiscal and monetary policy and will not shift US risks onto the entire world,” she added. Beijing also hopes that “the United States will refrain from harvesting yields around the globe in order to protect its own interests,” the Chinese diplomat said.


The Global Times reported in March that, as of late January, China was the second largest foreign holder of US debt ($843.7 billion), trailing only Japan, which holds $1.104 trillion in US government securities. The publication mentioned that China has been reducing its holdings of US government debt in recent years. The US government may find itself unable to meet all of its obligations unless Congress agrees to raise the debt ceiling later this month, with technical default otherwise occurring “potentially as early as June 1,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned on Monday. Unless a bipartisan compromise on the debt ceiling is hammered out on Capitol Hill in time, she has repeatedly warned, the country may default, which would lead to an “economic and financial catastrophe” for the US that would reverberate across the global economy.

Read more …

Two articles on the same topic that -only- partically overlap.

“Only about 30% of America’s F-35 fleet is “fully mission capable” on any given day.”

• Pentagon Loses A Million F-35 parts (RT)

The US Department of Defense (DOD) has been unable to account for about 1 million missing spare parts for its F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, the costliest weapon system in the nation’s history, a government review has found. The lost parts, which include such items as bolts, tires, and landing gear, are valued at about $85 million, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported on Tuesday. Since 2018, the Pentagon has reviewed the circumstances surrounding only 2% of identified parts losses. “Without DOD taking steps to ensure that these spare parts are accountable under a contract, the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) will be unable to either gain or maintain accountability over these spare parts and will not have data, such as locations, costs, and quantities, needed for financial reporting or to ensure that government interests are protected,” the GAO said.

The spare parts are stored around the world for use on the F-35 by the US military and allied nations that have purchased the aircraft, which is made by defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Because the Pentagon’s F-35 JPO lacks a process for tracking losses, Lockheed Martin hasn’t reported on over 900,000 additional spare parts valued at more than $66 million for review, the GAO said. The GAO’s report marks just the latest black eye for the $1.7 trillion F-35 program, which has been plagued by reliability struggles, including an issue with engine vibration that led to a global recall order in March. Only about 30% of America’s F-35 fleet is “fully mission capable” on any given day. US Air Force Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt warned last month that a thin supply of spare parts could jeopardize the ability of American forces to keep the aircraft in service during the country’s next major war.

The GAO report blamed the parts losses partly on the Pentagon’s failure to oversee components that are owned by the DOD and managed by contractors. DOD officials and the contractors haven’t reached an agreement on whether the parts should be categorized as government-furnished property, which hinders the processing of lost inventories. As of last October, the Pentagon had over 19,000 spare parts globally that had been awaiting disposition instructions from the F-35 JPO – for as long as five years in some cases. The GAO said the DOD agreed with its four recommendations on beefing up accounting for the parts pool.

Read more …

This is Lockheed’s business model. Nothing is audited, nobody knows where all the parts are, so they have to order again.

• Pentagon Can’t Account For 1000s Of Ultra-Expensive F-35 Parts Globally (ZH)

Just three weeks ago Defense News published an extensive investigative report which posed the question in its headline, Lockheed eyes new F-35 parts deal, but can it handle wartime demands? The report introduced: By the end of the year, a new and unusual deal for the F-35 fighter’s spare parts could be in place — one that would flip the current supply model on its head. If the proposed performance-based logistics contract works the way F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin has promised, it will save the government money, improve the availability of spare parts and give the company greater flexibility on how it assists repairs, such as making it easier to fix a broken part without fabricating a new one. Fast-forward to Tuesday, and the congressional watchdog Government Accountability Office (GOA) released a devastating report which reveals the entire question of “saving the government money” to be laughable and way off.

Bloomberg writes based on the new GOA findings that “The Pentagon can’t account for hundreds of thousands of spare parts worth millions of dollars that are stored worldwide for the US and allies for its costliest weapon, the F-35 jet, according to congressional auditors.” So perhaps the Pentagon should think about simply locating the missing ones first before a giant Lockheed parts overhaul is put into place. Even long before this, going years back, the controversial program to develop the ultra-costly stealth multirole combat aircraft produced periodic headlines like the following in 2020: The Pentagon’s $35 Trillion Accounting Black Hole. The fact that the Department of Defense has failed to pass a DOD-wide audit for the fifth consecutive year has compounded the problem which has been months or years in the making, to the tune of billions lost – which could eventually add up to a one-and-a-half trillion dollars black hole.

This as the GOA report has confirmed the Pentagon’s F-35 program office doesn’t provide oversight for the parts: “Unlike scores of GAO reports and other assessments that analyze the fighter jet’s cost, schedule and flying performance, the new audit delved into the more mundane and largely invisible work of supporting the aircraft once it’s delivered to international customers. The operation and support bill for the F-35 may reach an estimated $1.4 trillion through 2088. Allies don’t own parts and tap into the Defense Department’s worldwide shared pool of spares, including engines, tires, landing gear and items such as bolts, screws and fasteners. The Pentagon’s F-35 program office doesn’t maintain accountability over the parts, “the total value of which is unknown,” the GAO said.” It is manufacturer Lockheed Martin which solely “tracks” the records (supposedly), given the Pentagon has been “unable to provide the cost, total quantity, and locations of spare parts in the global spares pool.”

According to the GOA report: The lack of visibility into the inventory “increases the risk of misstatement on DOD’s financial statements and the risk of mismanagement of the F-35 global spares pool,” it said. All of this comes the same week that multiple media reports and former top US officials have highlighted that contractor price-gouging is common and routine when it comes to the gargantuan defense budget, at taxpayer’s expense of course. For example, former Pentagon insiders told Newsweek that the Biden administration’s ‘blank check’ approach to Ukraine has resulted in a massive arms flow to Kiev “no matter the expense.” Naturally this has resulted in diminished incentive to engage in serious and timely audits for things like expensive jet parts, and to determine where they are globally. Lockheed continues to be front and center in these whistleblower and former DoD official tell-alls…

Read more …

“Salacious allegations such as this one would be passed by the Clinton campaign to the FBI and then leaked to the press which would report on the FBI investigations, giving the fabrications credibility.”

• Why the Conspiracy Theory About Trump and Russia Won’t Go Away (Chris Hedges)

All the investigations into Trump’s ties with Russia are unequivocal. There was no collusion. The Steele dossier, financed at first by Republican opponents of Trump and later by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and compiled by former MI6 British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, was a fake. The charges in the dossier — which included reports of Trump receiving a “golden shower” from prostituted women in a Moscow hotel room and claims that Trump and the Kremlin had ties going back five years — were discredited by the FBI. Sources, including the one that claimed Trump had long-held ties to the Kremlin, turned out to be fabricated. Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller concluded that his investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Mueller did not indict or accuse anyone of criminally conspiring with Russia.

Durham’s 306-page report, sent to Congress by Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this week, is even more excoriating. It concludes that the FBI engaged in a witch hunt — code named Crossfire Hurricane — orchestrated by Hillary Clinton’s campaign that was aided and abetted by senior FBI officials who loathed Trump. The Clinton campaign provided bogus information to the FBI about ties between Trump and Russia, including a charge made by Michael Sussmann and Marc Elias, the General Counsel to the Clinton campaign, that there was a secret channel between the Trump Organization and the Russian Alfa Bank. Salacious allegations such as this one would be passed by the Clinton campaign to the FBI and then leaked to the press which would report on the FBI investigations, giving the fabrications credibility.

For example, the Clinton campaign posted a tweet through Clinton’s Twitter account on Oct. 31, 2016 that read: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based Bank.” The tweet, Durham’s report notes, “included a statement from Clinton campaign advisor Jake Sullivan that made reference to the media coverage of the article and stated, in relevant part, that the allegations in the articles ‘could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow[,]’ that ‘[t]his secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia[,]’ and that ‘[w]e can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia as part of their existing probe into Russia’s meddling in our elections.’” The FBI later determined there were no ties between the Trump organization and Alfa Bank.

Tammy Bruce
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661036063496740865

Read more …

The FBI whistleblowers are angry.

“They r being treated like skunks at a picnic under ur watch UNACCEPTABLE u must protect them from retaliation it’s the law.”

• Whistleblower Says DOJ Interference In Hunter Biden Probe Dates Back Years (JTN)

An IRS agent working with federal prosecutors and investigators on the Hunter Biden tax probe is alleging the agency ignored his team’s warnings about years of improprieties by Justice Department officials supervising the case. The allegation appeared in a May 18 letter the agent sent to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, and it was made public Monday evening as part of a whistleblower package his supervisor sent Congress and the Office of Special Counsel, the government’s official whistleblower protection agency. Last week, attorneys for an IRS supervisory special agent (SSA) informed Congress that the DOJ had removed their client and his entire team from the investigation in what they deemed an act of retaliation.

The SSA came forward in late April, alleging that federal prosecutors had engaged in “preferential treatment and politics” to prevent charges from being filed against Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden. The whistleblower further alleged that his entire team had been sidelined after he made protected disclosures. He also asserted that Biden appointees had limited the ability of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to pursue charges against his son by refusing to grant Weiss permission do so within their jurisdictions. That claim appeared to undercut testimony from Attorney General Merrick Garland, who had contended that Weiss enjoyed full freedom to pursue the investigation and to bring charges in another jurisdiction should the need arise.

The whistleblower approached IRS internal watchdog late last year with the help of attorney Mark Zaid, who previously represented whistleblowers whose disclosures led to the first impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. A May 20 letter from the whistleblower’s current counsel to Werfel, however, references the May 18 letter sent by one of the supervisory agent’s subordinates. That communication suggests IRS agents have been concerned for years about the DOJ’s conduct in the Hunter Biden probe and felt left “out on an island” because the agency brass would not intervene. Former DOJ lawyer Mark Lytle and former congressional investigator Tristan Leavitt, who now serves as president of Empower Oversight, currently represent the unidentified whistleblower. In the letter, the pair pointed to a protected disclosure from one of the IRS supervisory special agent’s subordinates made directly to Werfel following the team’s removal from the case.

In the disclosure, the case agent, a subordinate of Lytle and Leavitt’s client, recounts his extensive, but unsuccessful efforts to highlight the issues, before contending the agency’s decision to remove him and the team meant the IRS had sided with the officials facing allegations of impropriety. “For the last couple years, my SSA and I have tried to gain the attention of our senior leadership about certain issues prevalent regarding the investigation,” he told Werfel. “I have asked for countless meetings with our chief and deputy chief, often to be left out on an island and not heard from. The lack of IRS-CI senior leadership involvement is deeply troubling and unacceptable.” [..] The latest revelations generated an immediate rebuke of the IRS from Republican Sen, Charles Grassley of Iowa, a longtime champion of whistleblowers. “IRS commissioner Werfel: what r u doing to protect IRS whistleblowers??” Grassley tweeted Monday evening. “They r being treated like skunks at a picnic under ur watch UNACCEPTABLE u must protect them from retaliation it’s the law.”

Hunter

Read more …

Many more will follow. And Big Pharma has immunity.

• First COVID Vaccine Injury Lawsuit in US Targets Gov’t, Social Media Giants (CHD)

Five people injured by COVID-19 vaccines, along with a father whose 16-year-old son died from vaccine-induced cardiac arrest, are suing the Biden administration and top U.S. public health officials. In a lawsuit filed Monday, the plaintiffs — including Brianne Dressen who suffered severe nerve damage after taking the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine — allege the U.S. government colluded with social media companies to censor them when they posted stories about their personal vaccine injury experiences. Defendants include President Biden and top-ranking White House officials, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This is the first lawsuit brought by U.S. citizens injured by the COVID-19 vaccines [..]

Dressen — a preschool teacher from Saratoga Springs, Utah — volunteered to participate in AstraZeneca’s clinical trial for its COVID-19 shot. Now, she says, she is “collateral damage of the pandemic.” Dressen co-chairs React19, a “science-based non-profit offering financial, physical, and emotional support for those suffering from longterm COVID-19 vaccine adverse events globally.” After receiving the AstraZeneca shot, Dressen experienced extensive adverse effects — including doubled and blurry vision, severe sensitivity to sound and light, heart and blood pressure fluctuations and intense brain fog — that worsened over time. She said Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, GoFundMe, Reddit and Instagram removed content she posted about her injuries.

According to Dressen, the plaintiffs’ experiences of censorship “pale in comparison to the thousands of Americans we know who all have experienced the same thing.” “There is nothing scarier than reaching out for help only to be silenced,” Dressen told The Defender. “It was as scary as the vaccine reaction itself. “Our constitutional freedoms must be protected, regardless of whether or not we are in a national emergency,” Dressen added. Dressen — who now experiences “permanent disability” with “ups and downs” — said she and the other plaintiffs are “not fighting this fight for a select few” but are fighting on behalf of the “tens of thousands who are experiencing the same kind of censorship.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties, that no matter how much we learn, whatever is left, however small it may seem, is just as infinitely complex as the whole was to start with.
— Isaac Asimov (I Asimov, 1995)

 

 

Antonova

 

 

UN

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fairywren

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle May 13 2023

May 132023
 
 May 13, 2023  Posted by at 8:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  33 Responses »


William Adolphe Bouguereau Girl with a pomegranate 1875

 

• Zelensky ‘Will End Up Like Hitler’ – Medvedev (RT)
• Ukraine Wants To End War By Winter, Says Oleksii Danilov (RT)
• False Claims About Russia Continue To Cloud The ‘West’s’ Vision (MoA)
• Beltway Mediocrities Bumble Toward Armageddon (Eve Ottenberg)
• People In West Are Paying For Their Leaders’ Mistakes – Peskov (TASS)
• ‘Migrant Village’ For Conservative Americans To Be Built In Russia (RT)
• Pentagon Acknowledges Uncertainty in Defending Against Hypersonic Missiles (ET)
• EU Warns China To Use Influence With Russia To End War In Ukraine (SCMP)
• Grain Deal Extension Possible Only If Russian Part Implemented – Peskov (TASS)
• The Smell of Goose Cooking (Jim Kunstler)
• James Woods Rips McCarthy Over Biden Border BS (AW)
• Open Border Catastrophe is the Cloward-Piven Plan to Destroy America (Wayne Root)
• Comer’s Presser And Biden’s Family (Denninger)
• Who Is Linda Yaccarino, Elon Musk’s Pick For New Twitter CEO? (Ghaffary)
• “Veganism is Bad for You – Now I Only Eat Red Meat” – Bear Grylls (DS)

 

 

 

 

RFK Russell

 

 

Fenton excess deaths
https://twitter.com/i/status/1657019932956143616

 

 

 

 

Very fine people
https://twitter.com/i/status/1656521967602741248

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The creature in green wished death on everyone in the Kremlin. And not by hand. Who will die how, we do not know, because the ways of the Lord are inscrutable. But the drug addict in Kyiv just has a chance to disappear from his own hands. Go nuts by committing cowardly suicide. Like Hitler swallowing dog poison.”

• Zelensky ‘Will End Up Like Hitler’ – Medvedev (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky could suffer the same fate as Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. The comments came in response to Zelensky’s suggestion that Kremlin officials would meet a “sad end.” “We do not know who will meet which end,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram, before comparing the Ukrainian president to Hitler, who committed suicide during the final stages of World War II as Soviet troops stormed Berlin. The former Russian leader also accused Zelensky of “wishing death to everyone in the Kremlin.” His remarks came in response to an interview published by the BBC on Friday, in which Zelensky stated: “Believe me, those in the Kremlin… it will end badly for them.” The Ukrainian president expressed his desire for the rapid demise of the current Russian leadership, claiming that they “will certainly not die a natural death.”


The interview with Zelensky comes less than two weeks after a drone attack on the Kremlin, which Moscow described as an assassination attempt against President Vladimir Putin and an act of terrorism. The Russian leader was not at the Kremlin at the time of the incident. Russia accused Kiev of orchestrating the attack and said it reserves the right to respond as it sees fit. Ukraine denied any involvement in the incident, although the attack prompted Medvedev to call for the “physical removal” of Zelensky. Kiev’s intelligence chief, Kirill Budanov, later vowed to “keep killing Russians anywhere” until Ukraine’s “complete victory.” The Kremlin branded the statement “truly heinous,” and said it was confirmation that Kiev was involved in orchestrating terrorist attacks.

Read more …

Talk is cheap.

• Ukraine Wants To End War By Winter, Says Oleksii Danilov (RT)

By winter, we want to end the war completely, Oleksii Danilov, secretary of the Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, told Report. According to him, the Ukrainian military knows exactly what they have to do: “They are experts and have proven to the whole world that our army is ready for battle, moreover, it is fully creative, and we strike at the enemy from where they least expect it. I think it will be the same this time.” Danilov noted that the main thing is the result: “We must liberate our territories. Taking into account all the factors, the measures will start at the necessary time. We must start on time, not early or late. We have a common plan – to liberate all our territories from the terrorists who attacked us. The only thing left is time. Whether it will be one or more operations depends on many circumstances. We will not be limited by time. We will fight as long as it takes.”

Read more …

“Only a realistic assessment and more respect for Russia’s capabilities can correct the mistake of waging and losing a proxy war against it.”

• False Claims About Russia Continue To Cloud The ‘West’s’ Vision (MoA)

The pro-Ukrainian Spectator states correctly that the sanctions on Russia have failed. But its reasoning is dubious: “The West embarked on its sanctions war with an exaggerated sense of its own influence around the world. As we have discovered, non-western countries lack the will to impose sanctions on either Russia or on Russian oligarchs. The results of the miscalculation are there for all to see. In April last year, the IMF forecast that the Russian economy would contract by 8.5 per cent in 2022 and by a further 2.3 per cent this year. As it turned out, GDP fell by just 2.1 per cent last year, and this year the IMF is forecasting a small rise of 0.7 per cent. And that is all in spite of the war in Ukraine going much more badly than many imagined it would in February of last year. The Russian economy has not been destroyed; it has merely been reconfigured, reorientated to look eastwards and southwards rather than westwards.”

Yes, the ‘West’ had an “exaggerated sense of its own influence around the world”. But that is only a part of the problem. The ‘West’ still thinks it is superior to other countries even as at least some other countries have caught up with it and are, in parts, superior in the use of science and technology. Moreover the ‘West’ thought that Russia was inferior to it. In 2015 the late Senator John McCain called it a “gas station masquerading as a country”: “Look, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country,” McCain said. “It’s kleptocracy. It’s corruption. It’s a nation that’s really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy, and so economic sanctions are important.” In the early 1990s Russia surely was down. But it wasn’t out. It had a heavy industry and everything it needed to feed it. It had well educated people and large scientific community.

When McCain spoke, 25 years after Russia’s downfall, the country was largely back in the upper league. Its per head production of steel, cement, energy and food was and is higher than in most ‘western’ countries. Those are the basics numbers one needs to judge an industrial country and its capabilities, not some dubious number like the Gross Domestic Product which includes ‘services’ of dubious value. (For example the share of health expenditure in the quite high U.S. GDP is 16.8% with a worse outcome for the general population than in less spending European countries.) As it has now become clear even to the Spectator that the sanctions on Russia have failed one would hope that the ‘West’ would come to a more realistic view of itself and of Russia economic capabilities. Unfortunately that is not yet the case.

Witness Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis who in March 2023 basically repeated McCain’s false claim: “… DeSantis said of Putin. “And so, he’s basically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons and one of the things we could be doing better is utilizing our own energy resources in the US.” The ‘West’ will continue to underestimate Russia’s capability as long as such false claims are still believed. Only a realistic assessment and more respect for Russia’s capabilities can correct the mistake of waging and losing a proxy war against it.

Sachs

Read more …

“This very unfortunate and wildly provocative legislation mandates “the restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 borders and to bring Ukraine into NATO after the war is over..”

• Beltway Mediocrities Bumble Toward Armageddon (Eve Ottenberg)

Our government is run by second-raters. Mediocrities in the state department and national security apparatus have seized the political steering wheel, because president Joe Biden, like senator Dianne “No Show” Feinstein and many others in our extensive gerontocracy do not inspire confidence. And the results are disastrous for Americans. De-dollarization across much of the planet and the possibility of a two-front, conceivably radioactive war against China and/or Russia. You think these two developments sound far-fetched? Well, the former is already underway, and as for the latter, rabid neo-cons and jingoistic four-star generals have stepped into the vacuum at the top and on your TV screen, and these dimwits can’t imagine losing, so now we move closer than ever before, even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, to igniting nuclear Armageddon.

Just picture the Ukrainian drone that struck the Kremlin May 3 and ask yourself what would have happened had a Russian drone collided with the roof of the white house? The U.S. might well have launched nuclear missiles – amirite? We denizens of planet earth are all very lucky, and especially those of us who reside in American cities, that Russian leaders were rational enough not to target western metropolises with nuclear warheads. They have made clear that they won’t be further provoked, even by preposterous U.S. media claims that the Kremlin droned itself, claims that reveal yet again two sorry facts: first, our press outlets think we are morons and second, they parrot CIA talking points.

That’s the hot war. Then there’s the economic one. Dollar boosters like Treasury secretary Janet Yellen like to note that it would be very difficult for any other country’s money to replace the greenback as the world’s reserve currency. True enough. But who says the world has to HAVE a reserve currency? What China, Russia and the Global South show, as they stop trading in dollars and dump U.S. Treasuries, is that they can conduct business in their own currencies and will do so, having witnessed Washington’s idiotic sanctions on numerous nations and thus having been terrorized by the imbecilic weaponization of the dollar. So most of the world, aside from the west, now takes steps to abandon the U.S. financially. The dollar’s reign is ending, and soon we Americans will face a radically altered and indisputably grimmer future. All thanks to the stupidity of the very pedestrian people at the top in Washington, starting back in the Clinton administration.

As for the China-Russia alliance, anyone with a brain could see that coming. But not our congressmembers. And those forewarned had not a care in the world. As long ago as 1997, senator Joe Biden proclaimed: “And then the Russians say to me ‘You keep expanding NATO, we’re going to make friends with China.’ I almost burst out laughing. I could barely contain myself, I said ‘Good luck to you guys. If China doesn’t work out, try Iran.’” Well, who’s laughing now? Not the U.S. president, who can’t even get China’s leader to answer his phone calls. Not the American people, who, according to some polls (58 percent, said a Reuters-Ipsos poll in October), worry that this administration of very unexceptional people will enrage the Russia-China colossus and thus stumble into a nuclear holocaust.

Meanwhile congress throws gasoline on this political dumpster fire with its Ukrainian Victory Resolution. In the House, Tennessee Dem Steve Cohen and South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson sponsored this bill. A companion resolution, introduced by senators – Connecticut Dem Richard Blumenthal, liberal darling and Rhode Island Dem Sheldon Whitehouse, and South Carolina Republican Lindsay “Bombs Away” Graham – now percolates through that chamber of the capitol. This very unfortunate and wildly provocative legislation mandates “the restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 borders and to bring Ukraine into NATO after the war is over,” according to Daniel Larison in Responsible Statecraft April 28.

Read more …

But their media won’t tell them..

• People In West Are Paying For Their Leaders’ Mistakes – Peskov (TASS)

People in the West should understand that they are paying the erroneous and ineffective policy of their leaders, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. “More and more analysts [in the West] begin to elaborate on the topic of the efficiency of the collective West’s policy, on the topic of the efficiency of the [anti-Russian] sanctions,” he said. “It is rather good than bad.” “We would like people in the collective West to know that they have to reap the consequences of the erroneous, wrong and ineffective policy of their leaders,” the Kremlin spokesman stressed.

Read more …

“Today they have 70 genders, tomorrow who knows what,” Beslangurov told the conference. “Many normal people do not understand this, and they want to emigrate..”

• ‘Migrant Village’ For Conservative Americans To Be Built In Russia (RT)

Construction of an “American village” for 200 families of conservative immigrants will start in Moscow Region in 2024, immigration attorney Timur Beslangurov has revealed. Beslangurov, a partner in the Vista law firm, brought up the new settlement at a session of the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum on Thursday. “Basically, they are Orthodox Christians, Americans and Canadians who, for ideological reasons, want to move to Russia,” he said. The regional government approved the construction, but the prospective immigrants are funding the settlement themselves, according to Beslangurov. It will be built in the Serpukhov district, due south of the Russian capital. Tens of thousands of Westerners would like to move to Russia, the attorney claimed, including people with no Russian roots.


“The reasons are known, it’s the imposition of radical left-liberal values in the West, which basically have no limits. Today they have 70 genders, tomorrow who knows what,” Beslangurov told the conference. “Many normal people do not understand this, and they want to emigrate. Many choose Russia, but face a huge number of bureaucratic problems related to the imperfection of Russian immigration laws.” One potential group of immigrants are traditionalist Catholics who are “white Americans with many children,” said Beslangurov, adding that the US government considers them “domestic terrorists.” A FBI memo made public in February referred to “radical-traditionalist Catholic” believers as potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.” After 19 Republican state attorneys-general demanded of the federal government to stop its “anti-Catholic bigotry,” the FBI disavowed the document.

Read more …

In short: they have no idea. For one thing, they can’t test it.

• Pentagon Acknowledges Uncertainty in Defending Against Hypersonic Missiles (ET)

The United States Department of Defense (DOD) is seeking nearly $30 billion in its $842 billion Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) budget request for missile defeat and defense programs across all branches of the military. Right now, the DOD is in a race to develop its own hypersonic missiles and engineer effective defenses against the high-velocity, maneuverable missiles being developed by Russia and, particularly, by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). During questioning by Senate Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chair Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) in a May 9 budget hearing, four flag officers said some existing systems have “capabilities” against hypersonic weapons but did not know for sure until they are tested against the evolving missile systems.

King was not happy. “It seems to me that we are spending a lot more money to developing hypersonic missiles than we are developing capabilities to defend against them,” he said. King asked Missile Defense Agency Director Vice Adm. Jon A. Hill if an aircraft carrier could be defended against a hypersonic missile attack. “We have the capability to stop it in two places, in the boost-glide phase” and when the missile re-enters the atmosphere, Hill said, noting the Navy’s SM-6 missiles are “cruise missile killers” designed to track and kill fast-moving, maneuverable targets that can fly high and skim the surface. “It would be defeated by a destroyer defending a carrier.”

Noting Ukrainians claim they shot down a Russian hypersonic weapon last week with a Patriot anti-air missile provided by the U.S., Hill said the Patriot systems, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles (THAAD), and Aegis ballistic defense system all have “capability” demonstrated in tests against hypersonics. “THAAD operates on the edge of the atmosphere,” he said. “We haven’t tested it against hypersonic, but I’m willing to bet there are capacities that we can leverage there.” [..] King said these ant-missile systems are based on technologies from the 1980-90s and asked why DOD is not experimenting with using direct energy weapons to knock down missiles. At $4 to $10 million each, using missiles in a “bullet on bullet approach is an expensive proposition” in defending against other missiles.

Developing a “directed energy” weapon for missile defense has been “a target for a period of time,” Hill said with prototypes being tested in the fleet. “It is scaling its way there. That work is being done today.” King said he’s been lobbying to aggressively ramp up direct energy weapons development for five years without “any sense of urgency” from the DOD. Direct energy is “clearly preferable to a $4 million bullet,” he said. “More investment is required,” Hill said. “It is all science and engineering right now.”

Read more …

“EU Warns China” equals: they have no idea what their place in the world is. What are they going to do? Stop imports from China?

First time I’ve seen Borrell claim that “what is happening in Ukraine is an existential threat for us..” He stole that line from Putin. But it obviously doesn’t work. The existence of Russia is not the same as the “existence” of a fleeting political and economic bloc.

• EU Warns China To Use Influence With Russia To End War In Ukraine (SCMP)

The European Union has warned China again to use its influence to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, or their already strained relations will worsen. “Life is complicated,” said top diplomat Josep Borrell at a press conference in Sweden on Friday evening. “If I don’t like your behaviour, you cannot expect to be good friends. It is as simple as that.” He welcomed the news that China’s special envoy for Eurasia would embark on a trip to Ukraine, Russia and other European capitals next Monday in a bid to help resolve the 15-month armed conflict. “It is so important that China understands that what is happening in Ukraine is an existential threat for us, and we expect that China will use its role and its responsibilities. If this is not the case, our relationship will not be so good.”

“We had been asking China to get involved with Ukraine, and this phone call with President Xi [Jinping] was the first small step. And this special envoy is another step towards China using its influence to stop this war,” Borrell told the Post, in a separate conversation. But he added that “we know China is practising pro-Russian neutrality”. “So this [peace] initiative is important for us, because we cannot have a good relationship with China if China is clearly supporting Russia.” Borrell spoke to the Post on the eve of a debate focused on China involving the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers. Wary of leaks and security breaches after a morning discussing Ukraine, ministers were bused off to a 17th century castle on the outskirts of Stockholm. There they were locked in a room with no phones or other electronic devices for four hours to discuss how to recalibrate ties with China.

The conversation was guided by a position paper on China policy written by the bloc’s foreign service, which was sent to member states on Thursday after intense internal haggling about its content. The Spaniard claimed members stood united behind the nine-page document, which calls for continued engagement with Beijing, even as it warned of the growing threat from an increasingly “nationalist and ideological” rival. “The 27 are united behind the music of this text,” Borrell said. “I haven’t seen any concrete disagreement.” [..] However, behind the scenes some diplomats were already pushing back against the assertion that the 27 were on the same page. “It seems that somebody is tone-deaf,” said one, adding that the document conveyed an “apologetic tone” suggesting Brussels was not seriously committed to revamping ties with Beijing.

A second described it as “meandering”, but believed such as the price the EU would pay for trying to accommodate members with such competing interests. “It is a big tent. It has to suit everyone from Lithuania to Hungary,” the official said, referring to the most hawkish and dovish of the bloc’s members regarding China. Arriving at the Stockholm summit on Friday morning, ministers offered mixed reviews on the report. “I underline that unfortunately systemic rivalry has risen significantly in recent years. We have to make that clear together here, we as Europeans can only speak with one voice, which is then heard in foreign policy,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, ostensibly approving of the text. “We as Europeans do not want decoupling. We do not want distraction. But we want to minimise our own risks that endanger our security,” she said, highlighting one of the document’s leading themes.

Read more …

“..the grain deal will cease to be effective if Moscow does not receive guarantees that its demands will be met by May 18..“

• Grain Deal Extension Possible Only If Russian Part Implemented – Peskov (TASS)

The only chance of the grain deal being extended is if the Russian part of the agreement is implemented, regardless of any phone conversations that take place between the Russian and Turkish presidents, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday. “For a [grain] deal to take place, a conversation between the two presidents will not help. In order to seal the deal, the second part of the agreement, which concerns promises to us (the Russian Federation – TASS), must be implemented,” the Kremlin spokesman stressed. Speaking in general about the possibility of a conversation between Putin and Erdogan, Peskov said that it is not on the schedule now, “but it may be penciled in within a few hours if necessary.”

Agreements to enable the export of food and fertilizers to world markets were signed on July 22, 2022 in Istanbul. They were originally meant to last 120 days and were extended for another 120 days in November. Russia announced on March 18 that the deal had been extended for another 60 days, saying this would be enough time to assess the effectiveness of the memorandum signed with the UN. Moscow has said repeatedly that any further extension of the deal hinges on whether the Russian part of the deal is implemented. The lack of progress on this issue jeopardizes the future of the entire initiative.

On May 10-11 representatives of Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the UN met in Istanbul to discuss a potential extension of the grain deal and the implementation of the Russian part of the agreement for supplies of grain and fertilizers. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin told journalists after the negotiations that the grain deal will cease to be effective if Moscow does not receive guarantees that its demands will be met by May 18. They concern the export of agricultural products and fertilizers, the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank to the SWIFT system and some other issues.

Read more …

“Here’s an interesting take from a reader of this blog for your consideration: “I have had a theory that the FBI made Hunter Biden a Confidential Human Source..”

“Rep James Comer (R-KY) formally requested it from FBI Director Chris Wray, who has declined to furnish it on the grounds that the doc contains info from a “confidential human source”..”

• The Smell of Goose Cooking (Jim Kunstler)

“Joe Biden could go to jail and The New York Times wouldn’t tell anybody he was no longer president.” — Peter A. Golden

Reality has become so elastic in America now that it stretches to a cosmic event horizon deep in the Twilight Zone where everything is magically transformed into its opposite. Note The New York Times report on Thursday saying that the House Oversight Committee showed “no proof” in its disclosures of the Biden Family’s international money laundering and racketeering operations. In fact, the committee outlined a shit-ton of documentation in the form of bank records detailing exactly how gobs of money from foreign lands were washed and rinsed through a dozen shell companies and disbursed to everyone in the immediate Biden family down to the president’s grandchildren. The committee’s preliminary report was precise as to the money’s exact origins, its journey through the laundering apparatus, and the owners of the bank accounts it landed in. Thus: “No evidence of wrongdoing.”

Meanwhile, another whistleblower from the FBI emerged claiming that an unclassified FBI document called an FD-1023 report exists detailing the Biden Family moneygrubbing scheme. Rep James Comer (R-KY) formally requested it from FBI Director Chris Wray, who has declined to furnish it on the grounds that the doc contains info from a “confidential human source” (CHS), and the bureau can’t compromise an investigation, blah blah…. Here’s an interesting take from a reader of this blog for your consideration: “I have had a theory that the FBI made Hunter Biden a Confidential Human Source. They can pretend that they were monitoring CCP figures in the US and that Hunter was in a position to provide them with counter intelligence. As with Whitey Bulger, the whole business was just a scam to keep him out of jail on legitimate charges.

This would explain why the FBI’s Wray is claiming national secrets now that Comer is closing in on Biden family corruption and influence peddling.” It would also help to explain why Hunter Biden has been untouchable despite clear evidence of firearms felonies, money laundering and influence peddling crimes. All in plain sight for years. This CHS bullshit has been used repeatedly by the FBI and DOJ to shield Democrats and their henchmen from legal jeopardy. Stephan ‘Hamburger’ Halper, Christopher Steele and various other foreign election meddlers have been shielded by the FBI under the pretense of protecting sensitive intelligence, methods and foreign sources. Would they dare pull this one with Hunter? Why not? The DOJ and the FBI spent years sitting on his laptop stuffed with incriminating docs and videos, obviously shielding him.

The people running these agencies must be liable now for a range of crimes running from obstruction of justice to interfering in a presidential election, to acting as accomplices in the Biden Family bribery crimes. Mr. Comer’s Oversight Committee has only just started. Soon, they will be hauling in witnesses, and even if the cable news networks and the big newspapers don’t report about them, there are too many alt-news outlets that can only be stifled by a Carrington Event.

Read more …

“Just stop talking, for the love of God, and DO SOMETHING.”

• James Woods Rips McCarthy Over Biden Border BS (AW)

Now that Title 42 has officially ended, the humanitarian catastrophe at the nation’s southern border is set to dramatically intensify as hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are expected to swarm into the country, overwhelming already stressed to the extreme Customs and Border Protection agents with the responsibility for the unprecedented mass invasion solely belonging to President Joe Biden, at least according to the union that represents the CBP. Harrowing videos of the sea of humanity descending upon and pouring over the border into El Paso, Texas have been posted to social media, images reminiscent of a third-world country which the nation is now becoming under the stewardship of the nation’s 46th president and CBP professionals are bracing for the situation to become far worse now that the Trump era policy put into place to mitigate the spread of COVID is no more.

On Thursday, the union that represents Border Patrol agents didn’t hold anything back as it laid the blame for the crisis solely at the feet of the Democrat career politician who has repeatedly lied about the consequences of his open borders policies. “This is by far the worst sustained disaster that any BP agent, active or retired, has ever seen at our border,” the NBPC tweeted along with a picture of smiling Joe on Thursday. “And one man is responsible for every single bit of it, with the worst still to come.” “The Biden Administration is absolutely corrupt to its core,” the NBPC stated in another Thursday tweet.

Also singling out Biden was conservative actor James Woods, a legendary Twitter warrior who turned up the heat on feckless Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) whose tough talk has yet to amount to the decisive action that many feel is necessary to right the ship. “Either impeach him or shut up,” the exasperated Woods said in response to a McCarthy tweet. “Just stop talking, for the love of God, and DO SOMETHING.”

Read more …

“..My classmate Barack Obama and I graduated on the same day in Spring of 1983..”

• Open Border Catastrophe is the Cloward-Piven Plan to Destroy America (Wayne Root)

This open border disaster is not a “Johnny-come-lately” story. It is a plan that was created many decades ago by leftist radicals intent on destroying America. I should know. I was there. I am a witness. I am a blue collar S.O.B. (son of a butcher) from the wrong side of the tracks- a poor majority-black town on the Bronx borderline. I attended almost all black middle school and high school in Mt Vernon, New York. After I graduated Valedictorian, I was accepted at prestigious Ivy League Columbia University. What I found there shocked me to the core. Columbia University was filled with spoiled-brat, “Lucky Sperm Club,” privileged white kids who were obsessed with hatred for America. These radical nutjobs bragged about being communists and Marxists. They bragged about their hatred of white people (even though they were white themselves).

They bragged about hating rich people (even though they were from rich families themselves). This was one gigantic guilt trip. My classmates hated themselves, their country, their parents, their wealth, and most of all- their whiteness. They talked all day long about their plans to bring America down; destroy the economy; bankrupt white businessmen; and create “equality and fairness” by turning America into a socialist/Marxist/communist country. It’s important to note that one of my classmates at Columbia was Barack Obama. My classmate Barack Obama and I graduated on the same day in Spring of 1983. This very month is the 40th anniversary of our Columbia graduation. These Columbia University radicals (and traitors) had a plan named Cloward-Piven. It was named after two Columbia University professors- the husband-and-wife team of Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

The plan was actually simple- get everyone possible in America on welfare, food stamps and a hundred other government welfare programs. Get so many on the government dole that the economy is overwhelmed, destroyed and collapses under the weight of the exploding national debt. Basically, America goes bankrupt. At this point, Americans would be in so much pain and so frightened, they would beg government to save them. And that is how they would “fundamentally change America forever.” Remember those words? They came out of the mouth of Barack Obama. He learned those words and this plan at Columbia. Because of the collapse of the economy and society, Cloward and Piven believed America would be ready for socialism- bailouts, a permanent welfare state, and a monthly universal income check. The goal? Equality, equity, social justice. Recognize those words? Everyone would be in the same boat- dependent on Big Brother for survival.

Read more …

“..every member of the Biden family that received any of the funds is implicated AND MUST BE INDICTED..”

• Comer’s Presser And Biden’s Family (Denninger)

Cormer claims that the House Oversight Committee has uncovered a network of of roughly a dozen shell companies that moved money around in various transactions and had no business purpose at all. In other words, other than taking in cash from someone — foreign entities — and distributing those funds through a series of smaller transactions the firms had no offices, no people, conducted no business and produced nothing, whether at a profit or loss. The beneficiaries, that is the final persons, all in Biden’s family, who received the funds did not produce anything in return for same and couldn’t have given the convoluted path the funds took.

The structuring of transactions for the purpose of concealing the source or destination of funds is money laundering — also known as “structuring.” It is a serious felony even if no other criminal charge is proved; the intent is to evade reporting requirements. In these cases the attempt to evade the reporting failed as SARs were filed anyway, but that doesn’t matter. The attempt is illegal. FCPA prohibits taking funds from a foreign entity for corrupt purpose; that is, an effective bribe in exchange for anything of value where the other end of the transaction is outside the United States is illegal. That is also a serious criminal felony and has applied to all US persons since 1977 and, since 1998, to foreign entities as well if the funds or acts touch the United States.

“Specifically, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA prohibit the willful use of the mails or any means of instrumentality of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of any offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of the payment of money or anything of value to any person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given or promised, directly or indirectly, to a foreign official to influence the foreign official in his or her official capacity, induce the foreign official to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty, or to secure any improper advantage in order to assist in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person.”

This is black-letter law folks. Being VP at the time is no defense. There is zero exemption available to anyone irrespective of their position when it comes to this law; indeed, the entire point of it is to prevent US businesses from bribing foreign government entities and to prevent foreign entities from bribing US Government officials and instrumentalities. The structuring of transactions so as to “break them up” and conceal is otherwise a straight-forward payment from one person to another is evidence of knowledge that the act is in fact corrupt and illegal; nobody bothers to conceal a lawful transaction as there is simply no purpose to it. These findings demand a hearing in open court with all the evidence. The FBI apparently has hard evidence backing this they refuse to turn over, although House Oversight has obtained many SARs and bank records and those, standing alone, appear to make a prima-facia case that Biden family members received funds in size in exchange for……. nothing.

What sort of legitimate claim could someone make here that isn’t a criminal enterprise? Are you really going to tell me that unrelated foreign entities gave gifts to a whole list of Biden family members with no expectation of anything in return? Really? C’mon folks. This looks like wild-eyed bribery by foreign entities buying influence from the Vice President of the United States. Calling that “Treason” is factually wrong; Treason is defined in the Constitution and in fact is the only crime that is. However, it is evidence of a series of serious felonies and every member of the Biden family that received any of the funds is implicated AND MUST BE INDICTED. In addition the foreign entities forced to divulge what they were attempting to obtain from the United States Government in exchange for those funds.

Read more …

“He’s running product and technology for a 100% software company. What is the CEO in charge of: not paying the vendors?”

• Who Is Linda Yaccarino, Elon Musk’s Pick For New Twitter CEO? (Ghaffary)

Elon Musk said he has picked NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino to be the new CEO of Twitter. Musk announced on Thursday that he had chosen his replacement as the chief executive of Twitter and its parent company, X, and that “she” (without naming who) will be starting in about six weeks. Musk confirmed his selection on Friday morning. Yaccarino is a seasoned media executive who could help repair Twitter’s relationship with its advertisers, many of whom have quit or cut back from the platform recently because of Musk’s perceived volatility. She has a reputation for being a tough negotiator and was key in the launch of NBCUniversal’s digital Peacock streaming service, according to the Wall Street Journal. She’s also a known Trump supporter, according to sources. In the past few months, Yaccarino has publicly praised Musk, and she interviewed him at a major advertising conference in April — paving her way, in the eyes of media insiders, to take on the role.

[..] But if you think that means the Elon-Twitter story is over, don’t hold your breath. Musk is still very much in control. He will still be the owner of Twitter. Unless he sells the company — or a controlling share of it — he’s the one calling the shots. How much power he gives Yaccarino is entirely at Musk’s discretion. “I can think of no finer way to restore trust in the advertising community than by recruiting Linda Yaccarino for the CEO role,” said Lou Paskalis, longtime ad executive and CEO and founder of AJL Advisory. “But the only way that would work is if she has autonomy from the erratic behaviors of Elon that have undermined his efforts thus far.” Although Yaccarino is not vocal about her political beliefs, it’s well known in the advertising community that she’s conservative, according to several sources. She served on former President Donald Trump’s Council on Sports and Nutrition, and many have noted that she likes and follows conservative accounts on Twitter.

But she’s also drawn flak from the right. Some of the more extreme right-wing Twitter influencer accounts have criticized her for praising diversity in the workforce and for being chair of the Taskforce on the Future of Work at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF), which they view as an elitist organization. Even if Musk follows through with this plan and actually gives up his job as CEO — and this is not at all guaranteed to happen until it happens — the billionaires’s ownership of Twitter means he can essentially hire or fire a new CEO as he pleases. Twitter is now a private company, so Musk has virtually no outside accountability from an independent board of directors to question his decisions.

In a tweet announcing the leadership change, Musk said he “will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.” These roles still represent a major part of the business’s operations. So while Musk could decide to give a new CEO control over some parts of Twitter’s day-to-day business, just how much control he gives up is entirely his choice. In other words, Musk’s critics may be celebrating at the prospect of a new person in charge at Twitter, but it’s not guaranteed how much — especially on the product side — will change, even with someone new at the top. “He’s running product and technology for a 100% software company. What is the CEO in charge of: not paying the vendors?” Jason Goldman, Twitter’s former board member and first head of product, told Vox in a text.

Twittter CEO

Read more …

“Veganism is Bad for You and I’m Embarrassed I Promoted it – Now I Only Eat Red Meat,” Says Bear Grylls..”

• “Veganism is Bad for You – Now I Only Eat Red Meat” – Bear Grylls (DS)

Bear Grylls has said he is “embarrassed” by his past support of veganism, which he now says is bad for you and that his health has been transformed by only eating red meat, in the latest blow for the woke fad. The Telegraph has more. The adventurer, whose diet is now mostly composed of red meat and organs, has claimed he was wrong to think that eating a plant-based diet was good for the environment and his health. “I was vegan quite a few years ago – in fact, I wrote a vegan cookbook – and I feel a bit embarrassed because I really promoted that,” the 48-year-old said in an interview with PA. “I thought that was good for the environment and I thought it was good for my health. And through time and experience and knowledge and study, I realised I was wrong on both counts.”

The television star published a cookbook in 2015 called Fuel for Life, which promoted achieving “maximum health with amazing dairy, wheat and sugar-free recipes”. He wrote in the book: “To satisfy our insatiable appetite for meat we have developed very unnatural ways of breeding, keeping and killing animals. This far exceeds our nutritional needs for the health of myself and my family.” But the father-of-three has made quite the U-turn since then, and now completely avoids vegetables as part of his “ancestral way of living”. “For a long time, I’d been eating so many vegetables thinking it was doing me good, but just never felt like it had given me any good nutrients compared to the nutrient density I get from basically blood or bone marrow – red meat,” he said. “I’ve tried to listen to my body more, tried to listen to nature, and I don’t miss vegetables at all. I don’t go near them and I’ve never felt stronger, my skin’s never been better, and my gut’s never been better.”

And despite his once proud advocacy of veganism – he reportedly used to turn his nose up when his filming crew were eating sausages for lunch – Grylls says that embracing red meat and organs has been the “biggest game-changer” for his health. “I’ve found a counterculture way of living, of embracing red meat and organs – natural food just like our millennia of ancestors would have eaten for hundreds of thousands of years. “And out of all the different things I do for my health, I think that’s probably been the biggest game-changer, in the sense of improving my vitality, wellbeing, strength, skin and gut. “It’s just been getting away from the processed stuff and making the predominant thing in my diet red meat and liver and the natural stuff – fruit, honey, that sort of thing. It’s just about finding a more ancestral way of living,” he said.

Kolakusic

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tucker Max Keiser

 

 

 

 


The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, St Petersburg

 

 

 

 

Rabbit cat

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 25 2022

Nov 252022
 
 November 25, 2022  Posted by at 9:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  126 Responses »


Salvador Dali Figure at a window 1925

 

• Media Serve the Governors, Not the Governed (Lauria)
• Musk Announces Twitter Amnesty (RT)
• Musk Says Granting ‘Amnesty’ To Suspended Twitter Accounts (AP)
• NATO Doesn’t Supersede the U.S. Constitution (McKnight)
• Electric War (Escobar)
• Belarus Paints Grim Picture For Ukraine If It Won’t Negotiate (RT)
• Pentagon Dodges Ukraine Aid Question (RT)
• French Interior Minister Labels Italy Enemy Of France After Migration Row (RMX)
• EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Cap – Hungary (RT)
• Estonia Warns It Will Veto EU Price Cap On Russian Oil (RT)
• Hungary Faces Pressure To Ratify NATO Expansion (RT)
• Oddsmakers Favor DeSantis For 2024 (JTN)
• Climate Policy Makes Europe Too Expensive for Low-Cost EV Manufacturing (CTH)
• Meta Uncovers US Military-Linked Propaganda Campaign (RT)
• You’re Going To Get Robbed (Denninger)

 

 

 

 

Gonzalo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s talk a bit about Twitter and its amnesty policy Elon Musk announced yesterday. Which is basically free speech. Which in turn is something many people feel threatened by. The Constitution itself is a threat to them.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in 1971:“In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy..”

• Media Serve the Governors, Not the Governed (Lauria)

In his 1971 opinion in the Pentagon Papers case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote: “In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government.” That’s what WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have been doing since 2006: censuring governments with governments’ own words pried from secrecy by WikiLeaks’ sources—whistleblowers. In other words, WikiLeaks has been doing the job the U.S. constitution intended the press to do.

One can hardly imagine anyone sitting on today’s U.S. Supreme Court writing such an opinion. Even more troubling is the news media having turned its back on its mission. Today they almost always serve the governors—not the governed. The question is why. Consolidation of media ownership has increased obedience of desperate journalists; entertainment divisions have taken over news departments; and careerist reporters and editors live vicariously through the power of those they cover, rejecting the press’ unique power to hold those officials to account. It comes down ultimately to lifestyles. Men go to war to protect and further their lifestyles. The press cheers them on for residual material betterment and increase in status. Millions of lives erased for lifestyles.

It used to be accepted in television that news departments would lose money and would be supported by the entertainment division. That’s because news was considered a public service. TV newsmen — they were almost all men in those days— were former wire service and newspaper reporters. But greed has put the presenters’ personalities before public service, as entertainment masquerades as news. Newspapers have sacrificed investigative units to maximize profit. Government is the winner. The abdication of the mainstream media of their constitutional responsibility to serve the governed and not the governors has left a void filled for more than a decade by WikiLeaks.

No longer do today’s Daniel Ellsbergs need to take their chances with editors at The New York Times or The Washington Post, or with their reporters spinning the damning information they risk their freedom to get to the public — no matter how disinterested and distracted the public may be. Now the traditional media can be bypassed. WikiLeaks deals in the raw material, that governments hang themselves with. That’s why they want Assange’s head. They lust for revenge and to stop further leaks that threaten their grip on power. That the corporate media has turned on Assange and WikiLeaks reveals their service to the state and how much they prioritize their style of life — disregarding the carnage they help bring about.

Read more …

Twitter “amnesty”. RT provides a factual story…

• Musk Announces Twitter Amnesty (RT)

Twitter boss Elon Musk has vowed to extend a “general amnesty” to an unspecified number of suspended users, a week after reversing former US President Donald Trump’s lifetime ban from the platform. “The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week,” Musk tweeted on Thanksgiving Day. He added “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” a Latin phrase that means “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” The SpaceX and Tesla CEO launched a Twitter poll on Wednesday, asking if Twitter should “offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?” Out of more than 3.1 million users who took part, 72.4% voted ‘yes’ and 27.6% voted ‘no’.

In a separate message Musk also promised to start freeing and offering up for grabs “vast numbers of handles” that had previously been “consumed” by bots and trolls. Since acquiring Twitter for $44 billion last month, Musk has faced growing criticism for laying off hundreds of employees and reversing the permanent suspensions of multiple notable accounts, including former US President Donald Trump following a similar public vote. While critics claimed that Musk’s actions fuel hate speech, harassment and misinformation, he has rejected accusations he was some kind of “right-wing bogeyman” and insisted that Twitter under his ownership has not banned any leftists, not even for “utter lies.”

It remains to be seen how many users would be eligible for amnesty. This week the platform already reinstated Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose personal Twitter account had been permanently banned since early January 2022 for posting “misinformation” about the Covid-19 pandemic. Musk, however, drew the line at Alex Jones, saying he had “no mercy” for someone who used children’s deaths for clout. Musk had vowed to transform the platform and turn it into a bastion of free speech, saying it was “important to the future of civilization” to have a digital town square where a wide range of beliefs could be discussed.

Read more …

…but the MSM, in this case AP, sees enormous threats in free speech. And if free speech equals freedom, we know what they’re afraid of. It reminds me of Sartre’s “L’enfer c’est les autres”, (Hell is -the- other people). In other words, if you honor the priciple of free speech, you welcome hell into your world. That sounds like the opposite of what the founding fathers thought. Hell is other people’s freedom.

• Musk Says Granting ‘Amnesty’ To Suspended Twitter Accounts (AP)

New Twitter owner Elon Musk said Thursday that he is granting “amnesty” for suspended accounts, which online safety experts predict will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation. The billionaire’s announcement came after he asked in a poll posted to his timeline to vote on reinstatements for accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.” The yes vote was 72%. “The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.” Musk used the same Latin phrase after posting a similar poll last last weekend before reinstating the account of former President Donald Trump, which Twitter had banned for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Trump has said he won’t return to Twitter but has not deleted his account. Such online polls are anything but scientific and can easily be influenced by bots. In the month since Musk took over Twitter, groups that monitor the platform for racist, anti-Semitic and other toxic speech say it’s been on the rise on the world’s de facto public square. That has included a surge in racist abuse of World Cup soccer players that Twitter is allegedly failing to act on. The uptick in harmful content is in large part due to the disorder following Musk’s decision to lay off half the company’s 7,500-person workforce, fire top executives, and then institute a series of ultimatums that prompted hundreds more to quit. Also let go were an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation.

Among those resigning over a lack of faith in Musk’s willingness to keep Twitter from devolving into a chaos of uncontrolled speech were Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth. Major advertisers have also abandoned the platform. On Oct. 28, the day after he took control, Musk tweeted that no suspended accounts would be reinstated until Twitter formed a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints that would consider the cases. On Tuesday, he said he was reneging on that promise because he’d agreed to at the insistence of “a large coalition of political-social activists groups” who later ”broke the deal” by urging that advertisers at least temporarily stop giving Twitter their business.

Read more …

More violations of what the founding fathers bestowed upon us. How did all these things become so normal?

• NATO Doesn’t Supersede the U.S. Constitution (McKnight)

As our government continues to bumble and stumble at full speed towards World War III, the concept of tripwires and the legal authority of Article 5 become required understanding for the vigilant citizen. Last week the American people received the then-breaking news that a missile had landed in Poland and killed two people.Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said that this was a purposeful act of war by Russia, and that the West must respond with full kinetic retaliation. He was joined by his amen corner here in the United States, that group of politicians, regime journalists, and paid lobbyists who have sold out their country for the requisite thirty pieces of silver. The War Party immediately jumped into action: this was what they’ve been waiting, praying for. A catalyst to launch the missiles, and sacrifice the world.

Poland, like the United States and nearly all of Europe, is a member of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (Maybe we should wonder why countries like Poland, Estonia, and Romania are in an “Atlantic” alliance.) A provision of NATO is Article 5, which popular conception treats as a mandatory obligation to go to war when a member of the alliance is attacked. It’s a one way pass into World War III. There were just two things wrong with this narrative. First, as was revealed within forty-eight hours and confirmed by both the Polish government and Biden White House, the missile was Ukrainian, not Russian. Vladimir Putin had not attacked NATO—purposefully or accidentally. Instead, a Ukrainian air defense missile attempting to intercept a Russian strike went off trajectory killed two Poles across the border.

All of a sudden “collective security” was no longer threatened, and no one on cable news was talking about how this required NATO retaliation on Kiev. (Surprised?) Secondly, even if it had been a Russian missile, and even if Vladimir Putin himself had aimed directly at that Polish farm, Article 5 obligates the United States to nothing. The NATO Treaty also has an Article 11, which specifies that the provisions of the alliance will be carried out in accordance with the domestic constitutions and processes of the respective members. That means a majority vote of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on a formal declaration of war. Any member of Congress or news talking head saying Article 5 requires an immediate military response without a debate or vote is either lying or woefully uninformed.

And even if the NATO Treaty didn’t have that provision, we’d still rest our argument of Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, the supreme authority of our laws. We are a sovereign nation, and the American people always have a choice on whether or not to go to war. Any international piece of paper trying to say otherwise be damned. Unfortunately, the War Party doesn’t always make that choice easy. They bribe politicians with weapon contract profits, flood the corporate press with propaganda, and instruct the American people that they must either commit to endless war or lose their liberty. They manufacture themselves consent.

Read more …

“..a Polish farmer, his footfalls echoing in our collective memory, may have saved the world from WWIII..”

• Electric War (Escobar)

Spare a thought to the Polish farmer snapping pics of a missile wreckage – later indicated to belong to a Ukrainian S-300. So a Polish farmer, his footfalls echoing in our collective memory, may have saved the world from WWIII – unleashed via a tawdry plot concocted by Anglo-American “intelligence”.Such tawdriness was compounded by a ridiculous cover-up: the Ukrainians were firing on Russian missiles from a direction that they could not possibly be coming from. That is: Poland. And then the U.S. Secretary of Defense, weapons peddler Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin, sentenced Russia was to blame anyway, because his Kiev vassals were shooting at Russian missiles that should not have been in the air (and they were not). Call it the Pentagon elevating bald lying into a rather shabby art.

The Anglo-American purpose of this racket was to generate a “world crisis” against Russia. It’s been exposed – this time. That does not mean the usual suspects won’t try it again. Soon. The main reason is panic. Collective West intel sees how Moscow is finally mobilizing their army – ready to hit the ground next month – while knocking out Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure as a form of Chinese torture. Those February days of sending only 100,000 troops – and having the DPR and LPR militias plus Wagner commandos and Kadyrov’s Chechens do most of the heavy lifting – are long gone. Overall, Russians and Russophones were facing hordes of Ukrainian military – perhaps as many as 1 million. The “miracle” of it all is that Russians did quite well.

Every military analyst knows the basic rule: an invasion force should number three times the defending force. The Russian Army at the start of the SMO was at a small fraction of that rule. The Russian Armed Forces arguably have a standing army of 1.3 million troops. Surely they could have spared a few tens of thousands more than the initial 100,000. But they did not. It was a political decision. But now SMO is over: this is CTO (Counter-Terrorist Operation) territory. A sequence of terrorist attacks – targeting the Nord Streams, the Crimea Bridge, the Black Sea Fleet – finally demonstrated the inevitability of going beyond a mere “military operation”. And that brings us to Electric War.

Read more …

“If they [Kiev] don’t want people to die, and to die in huge numbers … It’s hard, but [the conflict] must be stopped, because the complete destruction of Ukraine will follow..”

• Belarus Paints Grim Picture For Ukraine If It Won’t Negotiate (RT)

Ukraine should do its best to end the conflict with Russia, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday, adding that failure to do so would bring about the total collapse of the nation. Commenting on the hostilities in the neighboring country, the Belarusian leader noted that “everything is in Ukraine’s hands now.” “If they [Kiev] don’t want people to die, and to die in huge numbers … It’s hard, but [the conflict] must be stopped, because the complete destruction of Ukraine will follow,” he said, speaking on the sidelines of the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Armenia. Lukashenko added that it is not just “the loss of statehood” that is at stake for Ukraine, but its very existence.

He claimed that the Ukrainian people, who are bearing the brunt of the conflict, would eventually force President Vladimir Zelensky into a diplomatic engagement. “In one or two years, the people will be accusing him: ‘What did you do to start this war?’ According to Lukashenko, the situation will “press the Ukrainian leadership – if it is reasonable – into sitting at the negotiating table.” After Russia launched its military campaign against Ukraine in late February, Belarus hosted several rounds of talks between Moscow and Kiev. At the time, however, these diplomatic efforts failed to garner any results. In October, the Belarusian president claimed that while Minsk takes part in Russia’s military operation, its role is limited.

He said that his country is preventing the conflict from spreading into its territory while making sure that “nobody would shoot Russians in the back from the territory of Belarus.” In late September, he also claimed that the conflict could end “in just a few days” if Western powers were to back a peaceful settlement. This statement was to some extent echoed by Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said last week that the participation of Western nations in dialogue could be a “guiding and reinforcing element.” While Moscow has repeatedly signaled that it is open to negotiations, President Zelensky has set some conditions. They include the “restoration of [Ukraine’s] territorial integrity,” “compensation for all war damage,” and the “punishment of every war criminal.”

Read more …

“I am not going to take the question because I’m answering your question.”

• Pentagon Dodges Ukraine Aid Question (RT)

The US military has declined to give an exact breakdown for billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine requested by the White House last week, saying it would not discuss funding to replenish domestic arms stocks amid reports of growing shortages. Asked about President Joe Biden’s letter to Congress requesting an additional $37.7 billion in assistance to Kiev, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh refused to offer details. “I would not be able to tell you how much of that… is going back to replenishment,” she told reporters during a Tuesday press conference. “With every security assistance package that we announce, we assess our own readiness and capabilities and also what needs to be replenished.”

Pressed on whether she could take the question back to the Pentagon and provide an answer later, Singh doubled down, insisting: “I am not going to take the question because I’m answering your question.”“I just don’t have a number or a dollar figure for you right now on what that looks like, and I don’t think that’s something that we would broadcast from here,” she reiterated. Though the White House previously said that $21.7 billion of the requested aid would be devoted to both “equipment for Ukraine” and the “replenishment of Department of Defense stocks,” it did not specify how much would go to each. Repeated weapon shipments to Kiev have taken a toll on the domestic stockpile.

Earlier this week, the US Army’s chief of arms acquisition, Doug Bush, said the military was accelerating its process to procure weapons in order to make up for shortages, though Pentagon documents recently seen by the New York Post suggested it will take “multiple years” to resupply the Army. Even as early as March, just weeks after the conflict in Ukraine kicked off, the Defense Department was already scrambling to replenish thousands of shoulder-fired missiles supplied to Kiev. US arms transfers have only increased in the time since, with the Pentagon’s latest fact sheet reporting more than $19 billion in direct military aid approved since February, including over 46,000 anti-armor systems, nearly 200 Howitzers, 38 long-range High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and a litany of other heavy weapons, vehicles and ammunition.

Read more …

“She argues that France continues to act like a colonial power, which drives Africans to migrate in the first place.”

• French Interior Minister Labels Italy Enemy Of France After Migration Row (RMX)

Following growing tensions between Italy and France over the issue of boat migrants in the Mediterranean, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has resorted to extremely harsh rhetoric, referring to the Italian government as “enemies of France.” Darmanin made the comment in response to a question from a National Rally MP Mathilde Paris during a Q&A session in the French parliament, saying Italy is “attacking France.” Paris was inquiring why the majority of the migrants aboard the Ocean Viking ship, which France allowed to dock, have been released from the administrative center housing them, despite the minister’s previous assurances that “(they) will not be able to leave the administrative center.” Instead of addressing the question, Darmanin claimed she was an “ally” of the “enemies” of France.

“In fact, madam, you are not patriotic if you ally yourself with the enemies who are attacking France at the moment,” Darmanin said in response to a question by Paris. “You are siding with Madam (Giorgia) Meloni and her government who did not respect international law, instead you are attacking French policemen,” he added. The French government is being criticized for taking in the migrants, and a report shows that 26 of the 44 minors taken in have already escaped the migrant center. The language being deployed by Darmanin is sure to add further tension between the two countries, which has been growing ever since Italy rejected taking 234 migrants from the NGO ship Ocean Viking, which had mostly North Africans on board.

Italy argues that it has already accepted 90,000 migrants in 2022 alone, and even after rejecting Ocean Viking, it still allowed three NGO ships to dock and 600 migrants to disembark. Although French President Emmanuel Macron has labeled Meloni “inhumane” for not taking in the Ocean Viking migrants, at the same time, France has now said it is retaliating by not accepting 3,000 migrants from Italy it had promised to take in. Meloni has responded, pointing to France’s CFA franc program, in which France agrees to print money for 14 African countries in exchange for mint fees, which can go as high as 50 percent. She argues that France continues to act like a colonial power, which drives Africans to migrate in the first place.

Read more …

Hopeless. They all want different price caps for different reasons.

• EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Cap – Hungary (RT)

EU nations have failed to reach an agreement on imposing a price ceiling on natural gas following a Council of Energy Ministers’ meeting, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Thursday. Ministers from the bloc will discuss the proposed measure further during an extraordinary meeting scheduled on December 13, two days before the Summit of European leaders. “Today we started negotiations on the introduction of a ceiling on gas prices. I can say that these are bad proposals, which also threaten Europe’s energy security,” Szijjarto said. “At the meeting, no decision was made that could meet the objectives of the European Commission,” the minister stated, adding that most member states, including Hungary, see such a step as a misguided intervention with work of the natural gas market.


Szijjarto stressed that Hungary, which is heavily reliant on Russian energy imports, is planning to seek exemptions from any EU price caps on oil and gas supplied under long-term contracts. The EU has proposed introducing a cap when prices on the TTF exchange, Europe’s gas benchmark, reach €275 per megawatt hour and when prices are €58 ($59.53) higher than the LNG reference price for ten consecutive trading days within the two weeks. Both conditions need to be met for the cap to be triggered.

Read more …

“It is hoped that the price limit would allow Russian production to remain at pre-sanctions levels, but reduce the country’s oil revenue.”

• Estonia Warns It Will Veto EU Price Cap On Russian Oil (RT)

A price cap on Russian oil proposed by the European Commission is too high and may be blocked by Estonia, Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Reinsalu said on Thursday, as quoted by Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR). The proposal by Brussels to set a limit of between $65 and $70 per barrel on Russian sea-borne oil is insufficient, he stated, arguing that Moscow would make too much revenue at that price. “Estonia finds that the price horizon’s ambition is too low, considering that the EU has also failed to agree on a ninth sanctions package. The cap seems too high,” Reinsalu said at a government press conference, adding that discussions were ongoing.

Earlier, EU energy chief Kadri Simson confirmed that bloc members had failed to reach an agreement on a Russian oil price cap, but said negotiations would continue. Estonia’s warning came after EU leaders had already watered down the proposed cap by weakening some shipping provisions and delaying the implementation of the measure. Under the updated plan seen by Bloomberg, a grace period would apply to crude loaded before December 5, when oil-related sanctions come into effect, and unloaded by January 19. If approved, the measure would ban Western companies from providing insurance, brokerage or financial assistance to vessels loaded with Russian crude, unless the cargo is purchased below an agreed price.

It is hoped that the price limit would allow Russian production to remain at pre-sanctions levels, but reduce the country’s oil revenue. The proposal was reportedly rejected by Poland along with all three Baltic States, which called the cap “too generous” for Russia and pushed for the price ceiling to be imposed at $30 per barrel. Meanwhile, nations with major shipping industries like Greece and Malta insisted the cap should not be below $70. On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would embargo nations that support the proposed price limit on its oil.

Read more …

“I would like to underline that the Swedes and the Finns have not lost a single minute of membership because of Hungary,” Orban said..”

• Hungary Faces Pressure To Ratify NATO Expansion (RT)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has promised that Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership bids will definitely be among the first items on the agenda when the country’s parliament reconvenes next year, likely around mid-February.“I would like to underline that the Swedes and the Finns have not lost a single minute of membership because of Hungary,” Orban said, as cited by Euronews, adding that the prime ministers of Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia had nudged him to move forward with the process during their meeting on Thursday.

“We have already confirmed to both Finland and Sweden that Hungary supports the membership of these two countries in NATO, and at the first session of next year, Parliament will put this on the agenda,” the Hungarian PM stated, apparently after facing pressure during a Visegrad Group meeting in Slovakia. Last month, Orban’s chief of staff Gergely Gulyas said there was a “good chance” the Hungarian parliament would vote before its autumn session ends mid-December. The parliament usually reconvenes in early February. In May, amid Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, Sweden and neighboring Finland broke with their decades-long neutrality stance and formally applied for NATO membership. While the bloc accepted the requests, the Nordic nations’ bids have to be ratified by all 30 member states, and Türkiye and Hungary’s approval is still pending.

Earlier this month, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock rebuked Budapest and Ankara for delaying the ratification process, insisting that there is a “crystal clear basis” for allowing the two Nordic nations to join the military bloc. Hungarian officials have repeatedly stated their support for NATO expansion, and the measure is expected to be easily passed once it comes to the floor. Meanwhile, Ankara is demanding that Stockholm and Helsinki do more to fight “terrorism,” particularly Kurdish groups which are outlawed in Türkiye. Negotiations on the matter are still underway.

Read more …

Pence and Buttigieg. What a waste of time.

• Oddsmakers Favor DeSantis For 2024 (JTN)

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is the odds-on favorite to win the 2024 presidential election. Betting website Covers.com currently assigns DeSantis a 30.77% chance of winning the 2024 electoral contest, with former President Donald Trump coming in second with 22.22%. President Joe Biden rounds out the top three with 20% while Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom tie for fourth with 6.67% each. Former Vice President Mike Pence and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg each have a 4.35% shot at the nation’s top job. Thus far, only Trump has officially launched his 2024 campaign, though Biden is expected to eventually do so. DeSantis, meanwhile, has declined to fuel speculation about his own potential bid, instead asserting that the GOP should focus on the upcoming Georgia runoff election.

Read more …

Want to use less oil? Stop making stuff.

• Climate Policy Makes Europe Too Expensive for Low-Cost EV Manufacturing (CTH)

We have been closely monitoring the signs of a global cleaving around the energy sector taking place. Essentially, western governments’ following the “Build Back Better” climate change agenda which stops using coal, oil and gas to power their economic engine, while the rest of the growing economic world continues using the more efficient and traditional forms of energy to power their economies. Within the BBB western group (identified on map in yellow), the logical consequences are increased living costs for those who live in the BBB zone, and increased prices for goods manufactured in the BBB zone. In the zone where traditional low-cost energy resources continue to be developed (grey on map), we would expect to see a lower cost of living and lower costs to create goods. Two divergent economic zones based on two different energy systems.

This potential outcome just seemed to track with the logical conclusion. The yellow zone also represented by the World Economic Forum, and the gray zone also represented by an expanding BRICS alliance. Against this predictable backdrop we have been watching various events unfold, some obvious and some less so. Today, we get an obvious example: NEW DELHI, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Fiat parent Stellantis (STLA.MI) has concluded it can’t currently make affordable electric vehicles (EVs) in Europe and is looking at lower-cost manufacturing in markets such as India, its chief executive told reporters. If India, with its low-cost supplier base, is able to meet the company’s quality and cost targets by the end of 2023, it could open the door to exporting EVs to other markets, said Carlos Tavares, CEO of the group whose brands also include Peugeot and Chrysler.

“So far, Europe is unable to make affordable EVs. So the big opportunity for India would be to be able to sell EV compact cars at an affordable price, protecting profitability,” Tavares told reporters at a media roundtable in India late on Wednesday. Stellantis is investing heavily in EVs and plans to produce dozens in the coming decade, but Tavares warned last month that affordable battery EVs were between five and six years away. On his first visit to India since taking over as Stellantis CEO, he said the company was still working out a plan regarding EV exports from the country and had not yet taken any decisions.”

Normally we would expect to see market forces determining the ultimate economic outcome. Historically, we would not expect government policy that puts their nation at an economic disadvantage. However, in this WEF controlled new western economic normal we see multinational corporations’ making decisions and government leaders creating policy to support the corporations. There is money to be made by corporations within the climate change agenda, and there is money to be made by producing goods with low-cost wages and cheap materials. Eventually, if you keep following this to its natural conclusion, the entire yellow zone becomes a service driven economy.

Read more …

What on earth made them go public with this?

“..the Pentagon was forced to launch a “sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare,” after a variety of social media accounts, which its operatives used to target foreign audiences in elaborate psychological warfare efforts, were exposed.”

• Meta Uncovers US Military-Linked Propaganda Campaign (RT)

Facebook’s parent company Meta has acknowledged the discovery of several clusters of fake accounts and pages believed to be linked to individuals “associated with the US military,” according to the company’s latest adversarial threat report published this week. “Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the US military,” the company said in a blog post on Tuesday. The influence campaign was discovered earlier this year and in total Meta removed 39 Facebook and 26 Instagram accounts, as well as 16 Pages and two groups, all for violating the policy against “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

The social media giant admitted that the large-scale operation ran beyond those several dozen accounts and across many other internet platforms, including Twitter, YouTube and Telegram, as well as major Russian social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. It apparently attempted to downplay the discovery by insisting that the “majority of this operation’s posts had little to no engagement from authentic communities” and highlighting similar “deceptive campaigns” by China and Russia. Meta’s acknowledgement substantiates a bombshell investigation by Washington Post that revealed that the Pentagon was forced to launch a “sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare,” after a variety of social media accounts, which its operatives used to target foreign audiences in elaborate psychological warfare efforts, were exposed.

The takedown of the influence network was initially highlighted by researchers at Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory, which back in August published a report about online networks allegedly pushing “pro-Western,” anti-Russia and other politicized narratives. While the original study did not pin blame for the fake accounts on any particular actors, two officials later told the Post that US CENTCOM – the combatant command which oversees forces in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia – “is among those whose activities are facing scrutiny” for its influence operations. At the time, CENTCOM refused to comment on whether any of the suspicious accounts were created by its personnel or contractors, but one official claimed such behavior would “absolutely be a violation of doctrine and training practices.”

Read more …

Death, taxes and getting robbed.

• You’re Going To Get Robbed (Denninger)

Read this Twitter thread in full.: Today, we issued a final rule that allows retirement plan investors to take climate change and other environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into consideration when making investment decisions: Oh really? Did you not just see a prime example of what happens when “ESG” takes over a corporation? Why, you did. It’s called Twitter. Three quarters of the people, all hired with “ESG” in mind, were just fired by Musk who as a private owner has zero obligation to any such so-called “principle.” The various screaming parties in the ESG cult all predicted immediate doom and disaster. No such disaster has occurred; the firm’s only service it provides to the public is running just fine with one quarter of the staffing load — and thus cost — it used to have. If you think Twitter is unique in this regard you’re too stupid to have a retirement and deserve to lose every cent of whatever you claim to be “investing.”

Let’s put this in simple terms: If “ESG” is a net positive for a company then nobody has to exempt anything or make it a separate subject of consideration and in fact doing so is stupid because if it in fact makes the firm more competitive and operating at a lower cost per unit of output it wins all on its own. What the Department of Labor has said by issuing this advisory is that your “retirement plan” can now be disadvantaged to any degree whatsoever, including losing all of it, when (not if) these “ESG” initiatives cause the firms invested in to underperform or fail outright and when that occurs you can’t sue the plan provider for violating their fiduciary responsibility to you as the true owner of the asset.

In other words the Department of Labor is formally admitting that these “ESG” initiatives are not to the benefit of the firm’s operating results and thus are also not to your benefit as an investor. This fact has now become a formal admission by our Federal Government. What’s worse? This “rule” amounts to an admission of collusive price-fixing — albeit indirect — between what are supposed to be competing firms. Under 100+ year old law that is a serious criminal felony. You will get screwed out of trillions of dollars over the coming years as a result of this and you are responsible for that screwing because you have and continue to permit this sort of rank corruption to take place without demanding it stop and backing up that demand with whatever is necessary to eliminate it.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Kirsch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1595893348035751936

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 Older Entries