Joan Miró Personnages Rythmiques 1934
Tucker Stella
Ep. 76 As they lecture us endlessly about human rights in other countries, the Biden administration is trying to kill journalist Julian Assange for the crime of embarrassing the CIA. His wife Stella joins us from his extradition hearing. pic.twitter.com/DetYUeaBFl
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 21, 2024
Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald on why the ongoing prosecution of Julian Assange is "without a doubt, the most extreme assault on press freedoms in the West" #FreeAssange @SystemUpdate_ pic.twitter.com/mpXGdSuolD
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 21, 2024
Ron Paul Assange
As Wikileaks founder and publisher Julian Assange makes one final appeal before UK judges to avoid being extradited to the US to face 175 years in prison, press freedom advocates worldwide call on the governments of the US and UK to cease the years-long persecution.
Journalism… pic.twitter.com/iKJEQQjKB9
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) February 20, 2024
“This is actually insane and it’s by design. Biden is importing so many illegals that it’s enough to replace conservative voters in many swing states.”
Charles Payne
https://twitter.com/i/status/1760329617280295205
Trump ad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1760075223964000700
https://twitter.com/i/status/1760492879405776916
CIA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1760176467726479757
“.. there is nowhere in the West a countervailing power to the Evil that is engulfing us.. Try organizing one, and the FBI will arrest you or the CIA will assassinate you..”
• Is Truth As Mighty As Evil? (Paul Craig Roberts)
“In a compelling piece of live television, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was recently confronted by a COVID-19 vaccine injury victim during an unscripted question and answer session. Describing the pain and trauma he suffered, audience member John Watt told the Prime Minister how he had been left with no help at all after the vaccine caused him to develop a heart condition. Already under pressure over his links to a hedge fund that has seen massive returns from an investment in COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna, Sunak was like a rabbit caught in the headlights.” [..] people have finally realized that it was the Covid mRNA “vaccine” that did the harm. It also offers a possible, perhaps even likely, explanation as to why political leaders in the West all served as advocates for the death jab.
Were they alerted to the money-making opportunity in advance in order to be properly invested for the orchestrated “pandemic”? There are suspicions that Britain’s First Indian Prime Minister was. Today we know the facts. The mRNA jabs did not protect, did not prevent transmission, did not reduce the severity of the disease, but actually made the “vaccinated” more likely to catch Covid and to die or be injured from it. We also know that few of the deaths were from the virus. The deaths were from non-treatment with known effective preventatives and cures– ivermectin and HCQ–which were banned in order to go forward with the deadly “vaccination” and from mistreatment with ventilators. We know that the mRNA jabs have killed and maimed more people than the labratory-created virus itself.
And we know that no one has been held accountable. We know that the massive deaths and injuries from the death jab continue to be denied by the presstitutes and Big Pharma shills, such as the FDA, CDC, NIH, medical associations, and medical schools. We know that the corrupt medical profession continues to promote the death jabs.In other words, there is no shame, no sense of responsibility in the medical, media and political establishments. How can people stand for this? How can people stand for being callously murdered for profit and control? The public’s sheep-like response to mass murder guarantees another round of mass murder, just as the world’s refusal to do anything about the US-Israeli genocide of the Palestinians guarantees more genocides. Indeed, genocide is the agenda of the World Economic Forum and Bill Gates. They say there are too many people, and to save the planet the people have to be culled along with the cattle and sheep.
How can it be that elites can be so open about their intentions and they are not arrested? If you or I announced a plan to get rid of a single person, SWAT teams would descend on us. But the elite can announce their intention to eliminate 7.5 billion people and nothing happens. Not even Trump objects, nor Putin, nor Xi. These three are the only leaders the political world has. Why are they silent? Are they part of the plot, as so many now claim? Why would Trump, a billionaire with a beautiful wife, spend 8 years in the stress of persecution and indictment if he were part of the plot? He has lost 8 years of his life trying to represent the American people. I am certain that the rot in the intellectual mind of the West is not part of the Russian and Chinese mental framework. Moreover, if everyone was in the plot, it would not be a plot. It would be a happening that already would have happened.
The world’s problem is located in the West. It is a problem of lost belief in liberty and Christian morality. Indeed, it is the organized destruction of belief that has freed Satan and released him upon the world. How did it happen that the United States was transformed into the most immoral, other than Israel, government on earth, a servant of Satan.It was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who identified the problem in his famous speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2006. As he stood at the podium, his opening words referring to President George W. Bush, were “yesterday at this very podium stood Satan himself, speaking as if he owned the world. You can still smell the sulfur.”
I have spent my life in defense of the Constitution, sound economic policy and in defense of truth. It has been my great distress to see the widening gap between agenda-controlled narratives and truth. Evil is a powerful force, and truth alone is not a match for it. The pen is mightier than the sword, but it doesn’t seem to be mightier than Evil. As I have previously noted, there is nowhere in the West a countervailing power to the Evil that is engulfing us.. Try organizing one, and the FBI will arrest you or the CIA will assassinate you. No one will come to your defense.
“Assange’s extradition would mean that the United Nations is totally irrelevant..”
• If Assange is Extradited No Journalist in World Is Safe (Ex-UN Expert (Sp.)
A legal team of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is fighting to prevent his extradition to the US where he will face 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse. Assange, who made classified data provided to him by Chelsea (born Bradley) Manning in 2010 public, shedding light on the US’ alleged war crimes during its invasions and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, could receive a prison term of up to 175 years. “If Assange were to be extradited to the United States, no journalist in the world would be safe,” Alfred de Zayas, professor of international law in Geneva, former UN independent expert on international order (2012-18), and a retired senior lawyer with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Sputnik. “Essentially it would mean that any journalist who publishes information that the US government does not like would be subject to persecution and prosecution. His extradition would set a very toxic precedent that the core principle of refugee law and asylum law no longer protects persons who have a well-documented fear of persecution, as codified in article 1 of the Geneva Refugee Convention.”
De Zayas explained that this principle, known as “non-refoulement”, is customary international law and its violation would entail breaches not only of the Geneva Refugee Convention but also of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the UN Convention against Torture (Article 3) and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. “Non-refoulement is peremptory international law, what we lawyers call ‘ius cogens’. It is peremptory international law, and also a fundamental norm enshrined in the domestic law of all civilized states,” stressed the professor. Furthermore, Assange’s extradition “would be the culmination of 14 years of vicious lawfare, of the destruction of the rule of law in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Ecuador, all complicit in this scandal and all too public,” argued de Zayas.
The retired UN expert highlighted that his colleague, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture Professor Nils Melzer, visited Assange in the UK’s Belmarsh prison and called his detention “torture,” and urged the WikiLeaks founder’s immediate release. “Melzer also published a book ‘The Trial of Julian Assange’ which documents the corruption of the administration of justice in the US, UK, Sweden and torture. His revelations are far more serious than the famous Emile Zola essay “J’accuse” that revealed in 1898 the trumped-up case against Alfred Dreyfus, who had been wrongly convicted of treason and banished to Devil’s Island. Melzer documents how the courts in the above countries have all abandoned their independence and have acted in the service of politics.”
De Zayas pointed out that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention examined the case and determined that Assange’s detention “constituted a violation of article 9 of the ICCPR and demanded his release.” In his capacity as UN independent expert on international order, de Zayas personally met Assange in 2015 at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and similarly demanded his release. The then UN expert also called for the adoption of a Charter of the Rights of Whistleblowers that should protect them from prosecution and ensure that the public is not kept in the dark about crucial matters. “Assange’s extradition would mean that the United Nations is totally irrelevant and that the calls by UN official organs and rapporteurs can be ignored in total impunity,” De Zayas concluded.
“..all dusty Victorian props employed in a modern Anglo-American show trial.”
• Julian Assange’s Day in Court (Chris Hedges)
By the afternoon the video link, which would have allowed Julian Assange to follow his final U.K. appeal to prevent his extradition, had been turned off. Julian, his attorneys said, was too ill to attend, too ill even to follow the court proceedings on a link, although it was possible he was no longer interested in sitting through another judicial lynching. The rectangular screen, tucked under the black wrought iron bars that enclosed the upper left hand corner balcony of the courtroom where Julian would have been caged as a defendant, was perhaps a metaphor for the emptiness of this long and convoluted judicial pantomime. The arcane procedural rules — the lawyers in their curled blonde wigs and robes, the spectral figure of the two judges looking down on the court from their raised dais in their gray wigs and forked white collars, the burnished walnut paneled walls, the rows of lancet windows, the shelves on either side filled with law books in brown, green, red, crimson, blue and beige leather bindings, the defense lawyers, Edward Fitzgerald KC and Mark Summers KC, addressing the two judges, Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Johnson, as “your lady” and “my lord” — were all dusty Victorian props employed in a modern Anglo-American show trial.
It was a harbinger of a decrepit justice system that, subservient to state and corporate power, is designed to strip us of our rights by judicial fiat. The physical and psychological disintegration of Julian, seven years trapped in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and nearly five years held on remand in the high-security HM Prison Belmarsh, was always the point, what Nils Melzer the former U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture calls his “slow-motion execution.” Political leaders, and their echo chambers in the media, fall all over themselves to denounce the treatment of Alexei Navalny but say little when we do the same to Julian. The legal farce grinds forward like the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Charles Dickens’ novel Bleak House. It will probably grind on for a few more months — one can’t expect the Biden administration to add the extradition of Julian to all its other political woes. It may take months to issue a ruling, or grant one or two appeal requests, as Julian continues to waste away in HM Prison Belmarsh.
Julian’s nearly 15-year legal battle began in 2010 when WikiLeaks published classified military files from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — including footage showing a U.S. helicopter gunning down civilians, including two Reuters journalists in Baghdad. He took refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy, before being arrested by the Metropolitan Police in 2019 who were permitted by the Ecuadorian embassy to enter and seize him. He has been held for nearly five years in HM Prison Belmarsh. Julian did not commit a crime. He is not a spy. He did not purloin classified documents. He did what we all do, although he did it in a far more important way. He published voluminous material, leaked to him by Chelsea Manning, which exposed U.S. war crimes, lies, corruption, torture and assassinations. He ripped back the veil to expose the murderous machinery of the U.S. empire.
The two-day hearing is Julian’s last chance to appeal the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel. On Wednesday the prosecution will make its arguments. If he is denied an appeal he can request the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a stay of execution under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But the British court may order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction or may decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard by the court.
“If [Julian Assange] is sent to the US, they’re just going to delay the trial as long as they can so that they can guarantee that he’ll die in jail..” “That’s always been the plan.”
• US ‘Always Planned’ For Assange to Die in Prison (Sp.)
On Tuesday, the final appeal for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange to avoid extradition to the United States began. Days earlier, his wife and lawyer, Stellar Assange, warned that if the journalist is not released soon, the stress of the case and his confinement could kill him, adding that he “will die” if extradited to the US. “His health is in decline, mentally and physically. His life is at risk every single day he stays in prison, and if he’s extradited, he will die,” Stellar Assange said at a media briefing in London. Julian Assange, an Australian national, could face up to 175 years in prison if extradited to the United States on espionage charges. But the US has no plans for Assange to stand trial in the United States, Dan Kovalik, a professor, human rights lawyer and peace activist told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Tuesday. “If [Julian Assange] is sent to the US, they’re just going to delay the trial as long as they can so that they can guarantee that he’ll die in jail,” Kovalik explained. “That’s always been the plan.”
Kovalik noted that there is documented evidence that the CIA plotted to kill Julian Assange in 2017 which revealed their intentions. “Here’s a guy, even if you believe everything is true that they’re charging him with, he is not charged with any violent crime. There’s no reason for him to be in jail while he awaits extradition… They’re holding him so that he’ll die,” Kovalik said. The US government would like to avoid an actual trial with Assange, Kobalik contended, because their misdeeds would come to light. “[Defense lawyers] could call a former secretary of state [or] a former secretary of defense. It would be a circus and it would not go well for the United States.” “People would be called from the US government, present and past, to talk about their crimes, to talk about the war crimes, the things that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed. So they don’t want any part of that,” Kovalik predicted.
Co-host Wilmer Leon mentioned the seeming lack of support in US media for Assange, even as WikiLeaks’ revelations are reported on by those media outlets. Pointing to a Washington Post article that included the passage “US prosecutors want him to stand trial. They allege he violated the Espionage Act when he conspired to obtain thousands of classified documents related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” “Well, if he has conspired to obtain, then what does The Washington Post do? What does The New York Times do? What do most mainstream media outlets do as they gather information for their stories?” Leon asked. “They even gathered [information] from WikiLeaks,” Kovalik replied. “The New York Times, The Washington Post…. And those papers haven’t stood by Julian Assange when they’ve used his materials for their own stories. It’s just a disgrace. “I mean, the whole thing is just a travesty. It’s an absolute travesty of any idea of due process and justice,” he concluded.
“..while also noting that she has her eyes on the Trump Building in Lower Manhattan..”
• New York AG Says She May Seize Trump Buildings, Assets (ET)
New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Feb. 20 that she’s prepared to seize former President Donald Trump’s buildings and assets if he can’t pay the penalty imposed in the state’s civil fraud case. The former president was recently ordered to pay nearly $355 million and barred from doing business in New York state for three years by state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron. During an interview with ABC News, Ms. James said that it was “really not my business” if President Trump doesn’t have the money to pay the penalty, while also noting that she has her eyes on the Trump Building in Lower Manhattan. “If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek, you know, judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” she said.
WATCH: Case Summary
New York's Case Against Donald Trump Would Make Stalin Blush: @Judgenap https://t.co/0n8D1CEXIb pic.twitter.com/FiiVfi29oP
— Gerald Celente (@geraldcelente) February 22, 2024
“We are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers, and yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day,” she added, referring to the Trump Building. President Trump’s attorneys have vowed to appeal the case; he and his attorneys have described the case as a “political witch hunt” and the verdict as “manifest injustice.” Throughout the trial, the Trump team accused Justice Engoron of judicial malpractice, and the president has asserted that he should be the one being awarded damages. Responding to the Trump camp’s intention to appeal and their sentiment, Ms. James expressed confidence that her office would prevail. “I cannot be paralyzed by fear. And I cannot allow anyone to bully me into silence. And I cannot allow anyone to have a chilling effect on the work that I do and this office does each and every day,” Ms. James said. President Trump’s legal team has argued that no fraud occurred and that the state attorney general failed to prove intent to defraud.
He has said that there were “no victims because the banks made a lot of money.” In her comments on Feb. 20, Ms. James rejected such arguments, reportedly saying that financial fraud isn’t a victimless crime. The attorney general reportedly said that leveling the playing field is within her wheelhouse and that if the average person isn’t allowed to inflate the value of their assets to secure loans, then neither should President Trump. Ms. James brought the lawsuit against President Trump and his co-defendants in 2022. Justice Engoron found President Trump liable and ruled that he inflated his assets to get better loans weeks before the trial began. In addition to civil fraud cases, President Trump faces four criminal cases ahead of the 2024 elections. These include a case related to “hush money” payments before the 2016 elections, two cases related to his attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 elections, and a case related to the handling of classified documents.
DEVELOPING: @NewYorkStateAG Letitia James (@TishJames) tells @abcnews she's prepared to seize Trump's buildings if he can't pay his $354M fine.
NOTE – BANKRUPTING TRUMP: If you haven't been paying attention, Donald Trump currently owes $87,500 in daily interest on a… pic.twitter.com/BeaIbAId9g
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) February 21, 2024
“..you have nothing to fear from confiscatory actions unless you are Trump in New York. Which is precisely why this decision should be overturned..”
• New York’s Perverse Incentive in Pricing Trump Out of an Appeal (Turley)
Oscar Wilde wrote that “moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” Justice Arthur Engoron took that line to heart with his absurd imposition of $455 million in fines and interest against Donald Trump and his corporation. It succeeded wonderfully with New Yorkers, who celebrated the verdict like a popular public execution. It also worked wonderfully to make it difficult to appeal. Much of the criticism of the decision focused on the unprecedented use of the law and the excessive size of the fine. The New York statute has been on the books for decades and has always been something of an anomaly in not requiring an actual victim or loss to justify disgorgement or fines. Even the New York Times agreed that it could not find a single case in history where this statute was used against an individual or a company that did not commit a criminal offense, go bankrupt, or leave financial victims.
Engoron then combined that unprecedented application with an equally extraordinary penalty, which is greater than the gross national product of some countries. He disgorged hundreds of millions in a case where not one dollar was lost by anyone. Indeed, the “victims” wanted to get more business from Trump and are now being prevented from doing so by Engoron. There is also an added inequity to Engoron’s decision. Under New York law, Trump cannot appeal this ruling without depositing the full amount, including interest, in a court account. Even for Trump, $455 million is hard to come by. Likewise, a bond would require a company to guarantee payment for a defendant who has been barred from doing business in New York and is facing the need to liquidate much of his portfolio.
Nothing succeeds like excess for judges like Engoron. By imposing this astronomical figure, he can make it difficult or impossible for a defendant to appeal, absent declaring bankruptcy or selling off assets at distress prices. The excessive fine and its basis raise serious statutory and constitutional questions. Many of us believe it should be substantially reduced or tossed out entirely. First, however, Trump must come up with almost half a billion dollars to park with the court. Even with a bond, the high costs of securing a guarantor could come at a premium. It would cost a fortune to the bond holder just to carry the risk even if Trump prevails on appeal. The combination of the draconian fine and the threshold deposit for appeal has produced a shudder throughout the New York business community. The city is already experiencing an exodus of businesses and individuals from the top tax brackets. Rising crime, taxes, and eat-the-rich politics have made New York a hostile environment for businesses. At a time with rising costs from undocumented migrants, even Mayor Eric Adams is alarmed about the loss of his high earners.
The case brought by Attorney General Letitia James was unnerving for many. James previously sought to dissolve the National Rifle Association and campaigned on bagging Trump on some unnamed offense. The ecstasy expressed by many in the city reinforced the image of a thrill-kill chase around the island of Manhattan, like a corporate version of “Lord of the Flies.” Watching the celebrations probably caused many executives to check time shares in Florida. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has rushed to assure businesses that there is “nothing to worry about” after the corporate public execution of Trump and his company. But the best that politicians like Hochul and Adams can offer is that you have nothing to fear from confiscatory actions unless you are Trump in New York. Which is precisely why this decision should be overturned.
“..in an effort to portray Trump as unstable and not fit for the presidency..”
• Biden Told His Campaign Staffers To Focus On ‘Crazy’ Trump Statements (RT)
US President Joe Biden has personally instructed his reelection campaign aides to intensify their focus on rival Donald Trump’s “inflammatory” statements, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing two insider sources. The Democrat reportedly told his most senior staff to concentrate on the “crazy sh*t” the Republican frontrunner says in public in an effort to portray Trump as unstable and not fit for the presidency. “Donald Trump is the polar opposite of everything President Biden stands for and has accomplished since he took office, and the campaign’s top priority over the next nine months will be laying out that stark choice for voters,” Ammar Moussa, director of rapid response for the Biden campaign, told CNN in a statement.
The campaign is said to be concerned that voters have forgotten the “outrageous and unacceptable” aspects of Trump’s presidency and are looking at Biden’s predecessor’s tenure through “rose-colored glasses.” Last week, Biden repeatedly took aim at his rival over Trump’s suggestion that he would not defend America’s NATO allies who are falling behind in their defense spending targets. The president described Trump’s attitude as “appalling” and “un-American.”
The instruction to harp on Trump’s divisive statement was reportedly handed down to staffers before special counsel Robert Hur described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” in his report about the president’s mishandling of classified documents. The White House pushed back against Hur’s unflattering characterization of the president, and Biden has himself insisted that he has no problems with memory. “I know what the hell I’m doing,” he told reporters at a press conference this month. He, nevertheless, raised some eyebrows at the same event when he mixed up the names of the leaders of Egypt and Mexico while discussing the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. An ABC-Ipsos poll published earlier this month found that 86% of voters believe Biden should not run for reelection due to his age. He is the oldest president in US history and would be 86 by the end of a second term if reelected.
And that’s on the small stairs at the back of the plane.
“..Americans 65 and older who are on Medicare are required to take a “cognitive assessment” as part of their annual “wellness visit.”
• Biden Struggles To Board Air Force One (RT)
US President Joe Biden tripped twice on Tuesday as he boarded Air Force One for a flight to California. Although the White House has insisted he is in excellent health, the 81-year-old Democrat has persistently refused to take a cognitive test during his annual health exams. Cameras at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland captured Biden stumbling while going up the steps to the presidential jet, barely avoiding a fall. The latest incident comes as the president faces public demands to have his mental acuity checked. Biden “should come out and debate and to show the American public that he has the cognitive capacity to do this very, very difficult job,” his former challenger for the Democratic nomination Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now an independent candidate, said last week.
Meanwhile, 84 House Republicans wrote an open letter demanding that the commander-in-chief submit to a cognitive test, or face being replaced under the 25th Amendment. “If you are too mentally impaired to stand trial, as your own Department of Justice claims, then we are concerned that your mental state is not at a competent level to serve as the leader of the free world,” said the letter, written by former White House physician Ronny Jackson, who treated presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump before becoming a congressman from Texas. The letter came after special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s improper handling of classified documents, concluded that the president should not be charged because it would be difficult to persuade a jury that an “elderly man with a poor memory” could have committed a serious felony.
Biden is due for his annual physical, though the White House has not revealed the date of the examination. Following his last physical, in mid-February 2023, Dr. Kevin O’Connor declared Biden “healthy, vigorous” and “fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Biden had two brain surgeries in 1988, to deal with life-threatening aneurysms. Dr. O’Connor’s report said that “an extremely detailed neurologic exam” found no indication of stroke, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease, but noted that the president did not take a cognitive test. Under the 2011 Affordable Care Act – passed when Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president – Americans 65 and older who are on Medicare are required to take a “cognitive assessment” as part of their annual “wellness visit.”
“The only thing that remains is for Hunter to declare that he is only trying to Make America Great Again..”
• Hunter Biden Goes Full Trump in a Flurry of Court Filings (Turley)
Last week, some of us were struck by how Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis seemed to morph into the man she is prosecuting in Georgia. In her mocking, combative testimony February 15, Willis lashed out against the media, the lawyers and many in the public for questioning her ethics in hiring her former lover as lead prosecutor. Where former President Donald Trump was roundly condemned for such testimony in court, Willis was celebrated by many as showing that she is a “great lawyer” and righteous champion. Now, Hunter Biden also seems to have gone full Trump in court and no one appears to have noticed. In a flurry of motions, Hunter is seeking to dismiss indictments in two states. However, his arguments are strikingly familiar. He is challenging the appointment of the special counsel, alleging selective prosecution and raising strategic leaks as reasons to strike all of his pending charges.
The motions are ripped from the pages of Trump challenges, which were widely panned by the media. No longer. Hunter has filed a flurry of nine separate motions seeking to dismiss charges against him. His arguments included challenging the authority of special counsel David Weiss as improperly appointed. Hunter maintains that “this prosecution is not legally authorized because David Weiss was unlawfully appointed as Special Counsel and Congress has not appropriated funds for the Special Counsel’s investigation or this prosecution.” He argues that DOJ regulations instruct the attorney general to appoint a special counsel from outside the government, but Weiss was working as U.S. attorney for Delaware. During the recent Trump appeal in Washington, there was also a claim that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s work was unconstitutional, though the challenge was based on the absence of an authorizing statute.
Hunter is also arguing selective prosecution and that the Justice Department caved into political pressure to target him despite a lack of criminal evidence. Much like Trump, Hunter is also arguing that leaks showed the bias and hostility of the Justice Department against him. At the same time, Hunter is pursuing a challenge to the underlying gun law that his father has championed as strengthening gun control laws. Worst yet for many on the left, Hunter is adopting an argument from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun rights groups in calling such laws unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. Hunter is pursuing the arguments from Bruen v. New York Rifle & Pistol Association, which his father has condemned. He insists that requirements that you not be an actual drug addict run against the history and tradition of the Second Amendment.
If he pushed forward on these claims, Hunter Biden could face opposition from the Biden administration in seeking to expand Second Amendment protections in court. Yet, if successful, he would be the first Biden to be honored by the NRA. Hunter is also adopting one of the most criticized practices of Trump in attacking the whistleblowers who came forward with allegations against him. Where Trump attacked the whistleblowers in the Ukraine controversy, Hunter has attacked IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler. Hunter is also arguing selective prosecution and that the Justice Department caved into political pressure to target him despite a lack of criminal evidence. Much like Trump, Hunter is also arguing that leaks showed the bias and hostility of the Justice Department against him.
Of course, adopting the same arguments and rhetoric of Trump does not make you Trump. That appears the critical distinction for many in the media, as it was for Willis. These arguments are being soberly analyzed on media platforms where Trump’s prior arguments were categorically rejected. The only thing that remains is for Hunter to declare that he is only trying to Make America Great Again by nullifying independent counsels and expanding the Second Amendment. Indeed, it could be the start of a Biden MAGA movement.
“Russian strength grows every day. Not only are they not suffering horrific losses on the battlefield, but they’re getting stronger..”
• Ukrainian Forces Failed to ‘Hold Their Own in Avdeyevka’ -Scott Ritter (Sp.)
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin earlier this week that an operation to take control of Avdeyevka was carried out with minimal losses. According to Shoigu, an area of 31.75 square kilometers has been freed as a result of the capture of the town from Ukrainian nationalists. Speaking to Sputnik, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter said that Ukraine lost the battle of Avdeyevka for several reasons, the most dominant of which is that they simply don’t have the firepower necessary to stabilize the battlefield. “They [Ukrainian forces] have no more artillery rounds that enable them to flood the battlefield, break up Russian attacks, and support counterattacks. They don’t have air defenses to stop Russian air power from coming in and dominating the battlefield. They have insufficient drones to replace artillery fire support. Simply put, the Ukrainians are unable to hold their own on the battlefield,” Ritter pointed out, describing the situation as “the Avdeyevka end game.”
When it comes to the unmanned aerial vehicles, “even when Ukrainian soldiers use the drones because they can’t stop the Russian air power, the drone operators are targeted and eliminated,” according to Ritter. He recalled that Ukrainian troops had been “pushed out of Avdeyevka, heavily fortified, if not the most heavily fortified, position in the entire Ukrainian defensive lines.” The former US Marine Corps intelligence officer underlined that when freeing the town, “the Russians didn’t suffer the heavy casualties that the Ukrainians claimed. “But the notion that the Russians lost everybody, there’s nothing left, is absurd. Russian strength grows every day. Not only are they not suffering horrific losses on the battlefield, but they’re getting stronger,” Ritter emphasized.
He suggested that the liberation of Avdeyevka could be “the beginning of the end of the Ukrainian combat cohesion along their entire front line.” “Avdeyevka is not a one-off situation, it is the situation that will be replicated again and again, until which time Ukrainian military is no longer able to mount a cohesive defense. At that point of time, the special military operation will come to an end, because the goal of demilitarization would have been achieved,” Ritter underscored. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) earlier said in a statement that the liberation of Avdeyevka “made it possible to push the front line away from Donetsk, significantly securing the city from terrorist strikes by the criminal Kiev regime.” The MoD added that the Russian military’s Tsentr (Center) Battlegroup continues offensive operations to further liberate the Donetsk People’s Republic from Ukrainian nationalists.
“..[It’s] what they do. They’ve defeated Hitler, they’ve defeated Napoleon..”
• Russia Is ‘A War Machine’ – Trump (RT)
Russia is a “war machine” that has defeated powerful invaders in the past, former US President Donald Trump said during a town hall meeting on Tuesday, as he explained his opposition to sending billions of dollars in additional aid to Ukraine. Trump, who is seeking a new presidential term in this year’s election, highlighted Russian military prowess after the town-hall host, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, cited Kiev’s desperation to get the American money. “They say without that money, Ukraine will definitely lose the war, which would then empower Vladimir Putin and endanger our allies,” Ingraham said, referring to an argument made by US President Joe Biden.
Trump reiterated his earlier claims that, were he in the White House, the hostilities would not have erupted and that he could end them “in 24 hours” should voters put him back in the Oval Office. He also argued that EU nations, for whom the stakes in the conflict are higher than for the US, should pay more to support Kiev. “They have to start paying up,” he stated. “We have an ocean in between us. They don’t have that ocean,” he said. “You know why they have not paid? Cause nobody asked them.” “I feel very bad… Remember this: you are really up against a war machine in Russia. [It’s] what they do. They’ve defeated Hitler, they’ve defeated Napoleon,” Trump added Republican opposition in the US House to more aid for Ukraine stands in the way of an appropriation of over $60 billion for Kiev under a bill that was passed by the Senate this month.
The Biden administration claims that by keeping the flow of weapons into Ukraine the US would prevent a direct confrontation with Russia in the future. After defeating Kiev, this argument assumes, Moscow will certainly attack a NATO member, forcing Washington to send its troops to the rescue. Russia’s leadership has denied having such an intention and sees the Ukraine conflict as one triggered by NATO encroachment. The only scenario in which Russian troops could be sent into a NATO member state such as Poland is if it were attacked by the US-led military bloc first, President Vladimir Putin told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a recent interview. “You don’t need to be an analyst to understand that getting involved in a global war goes against common sense. A global war would bring all of humanity to the brink of destruction,” the president explained.
“..Russia – that famous gas station sending out its shovel-wielding soldiers to capture German washing machines..”
• Monkey With A Grenade: Nukes In EU Hands Would Be A Nightmare (Amar)
With its farmers rebelling, its economy declining, and its traditional parties decaying, you’d think the European Union has enough to worry about at home. Yet its thoroughly detached elites love to think big. And what’s bigger than nuclear weapons? That’s how they have ended up falling for one of Donald Trump’s typically blunt provocations. The former – and likely future – American president has warned that NATO members not spending enough on defense won’t be able to count on US protection on his watch. Eminently sensible – why do declining but still comparatively wealthy EU states keep behaving like defense beggars? – Trump’s threat has triggered various predictable meltdowns. The White House archly tut-tutted about the “appalling and unhinged” rhetoric of a man who is not, unlike the current president Joe Biden, overseeing a genocide together with Israel.
Go figure, as they say in the US. On the other hand, many Republicans have displayed demonstrative insouciance, if not outright agreement. And that is certain to reflect what many ordinary Americans think as well; that is, if they think about Europe at all. And as if the Big Scary Orange Man hadn’t done enough damage yet, next came the Pentagon, which (sort of) revealed that Russia – that famous gas station sending out its shovel-wielding soldiers to capture German washing machines – is building, if not a Death Star, then at least something equally sinister out there in space: Sputnik déjà vu all over again, as America’s greatest philosopher might have said. All of that, of course, against a background of incessant NATO scaremongering, which, it seems, has succeeded in spooking NATO most of all.
No wonder then that inside EU-Europe, reactions to Trump’s taunting sally have been marked by serious abandonment anxiety. One of its symptoms has been a call for the bloc – or Europe’s NATO members; the issue is fuzzy – to acquire its own nuclear force. One way or the other, Christian Lindner, Germany’s minister of finance, made time from razing the state budget in an economy that his cabinet colleague, the children’s book author and minister of the economy, Robert Habeck, has just labeled “dramatically bad,” in order to pen an article calling for France (not subordinating its nukes to NATO) and Britain (not even in the EU anymore) – two small nuclear powers – to step in as the new security sugar daddies by expanding their nuclear umbrellas over everyone else.
Katarina Barley, eternally fresh-eyed vice president of the European Parliament and the top EU election candidate of the German Social-Democrats – a party leading a deeply unpopular government while approaching extinction in the polls – and Manfred Weber, head of the conservative faction in the European Parliament, have kept things more general: They simply suggest that the EU should get its own doomsday weapons, somehow. Donald Tusk, freshly re-established as Poland’s EU-subservient viceroy, has made similar noises. Well, who cares about details, right? That attitude of “on s’engage et puis on voit” has, after all, proven a smashing success in Ukraine. In reality, this is not a problem caused by Trump: That, in a world of more than one nuclear power, the US nuclear umbrella over any place other than the US itself is – and can only be – fundamentally unreliable is, of course, a perennial, structural problem. Those who prefer realism to wishful thinking have always understood this.
[..] The EU is a large bloc of countries in an increasingly unstable and lawless world where the ever-wider proliferation of nuclear weapons will be inevitable. Hypothetically, such an entity would be a candidate for owning such weapons. Yet, in reality, the EU lacks three essential qualities to even consider acquiring them: It is far too fractious, it has no serious concept of its own interests as apart from and, indeed, opposed to the US, and it lacks an elite that could remotely be trusted with weapons capable of ending the world. There, it is of course, not alone. But isn’t one US on planet Earth bad enough already?[..]
“..Ukraine has still retained the scientific and industrial potential for the production of nuclear weapons..”
• Munich Conference Shows Evaporating Western Optimism On Ukraine (TASS)
The gloomy atmosphere at the annual Munich Security Conference showed that the West’s once-swaggering optimism on Ukraine has all but evaporated, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a comment on the Ukrainian crisis. “On February 16-18, the 60th Munich Security Conference was held, which was reduced to discussing the situation in Ukraine with a focus on how to forestall the complete collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We noted the dispirited atmosphere that permeated the meeting. There is no trace of the former optimism among the Western [cheerleaders for Ukraine],” the diplomat noted. “If just a year ago they were brimming with confidence in the imminent victory of their Kiev puppets, this time around they could barely conceal their skepticism and pessimism. Apparently, Europe and the United States are beginning to understand the impossibility of defeating Russia,” Zakharova stated.
At the same time, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that the international community should take very seriously the threats of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to reconsider the country’s renunciation of nuclear weapons. “In February 2022, Zelensky, in his speech at the very same Munich [Security] Conference, threatened to reconsider Kiev’s renunciation of nuclear weapons [under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum],” the diplomat said. “We are convinced that the international community should take such reckless statements very seriously. Moreover, Ukraine has still retained the scientific and industrial potential for the production of nuclear weapons that was created in the Soviet era.”.
“His prospects for electoral success going forward are slim and none.”
• Narrative on Ukraine, Palestine Has Accelerated Western Media’s Decline (Sp.)
Over the past few months, multiple major legacy media outlets announced significant layoffs of their news departments, including CNN, LA Times and Vox, among others. The latest series of layoffs is part of a larger pattern going back years of former media institutions being gutted, closed or sold off. Historian and author Dr. Gerald Horne told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Tuesday that the decline of mainstream Western media was accelerated by the press’ narratives on the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine. “I think that an astute historian would point out that the Ukraine crisis helped to trigger or helped to accelerate the continuing decline of the news media,” Horne said, adding that the media crisis was “accelerated on October 7, 2023, because it’s no secret that the Zionist lobby has a stranglehold over a good deal of the US media.”
Horne also noted the US media coverage of the death of Alexey Navalny, particularly its lack of coverage of his documented Islamophobia. “We want to get an account of what happened when we pick up a newspaper or tune into CNN, but instead we oftentimes just get the current line of the neocons, or the neoliberals,” he explained, adding that there is “no guarantee” that CNN will be around by the end of the decade. The crisis goes beyond just the media, Horne argued, saying it is a crisis of “the entire capital system” and is part of “the inevitable demise of capitalism.”
“You see a similar crisis unfolding in Europe,” Horne said. “The party of [German] Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz is on the ropes because he has led his country into an abyss [by going] along with the Ukrainian caper and misadventures. His prospects for electoral success going forward are slim and none.” But it’s not only Scholz who’s headed down a troubled political future, Horne said, pointing out that French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are in similar positions. “All in all, it’s not a good look or good prognosis for the North Atlantic countries,” he concluded.
“Sue-and-settle is part of an even broader effort known as “lawfare..”
• ‘Sue and Settle’ Looks to Some Like Crony Democracy (RCW)
When the Biden administration announced in 2022 that it would remove some 4 million acres of federal land in Western states from oil and gas exploration, environmental groups hailed the decision as a milestone in their fight against global warming. “With the oil and gas industry bent on despoiling American’s public lands and fueling the climate crisis, this is a critical opportunity for the Biden administration to chart a new path toward clean energy and independence from fossil fuels,” said Jeremy Nichols, a director with WildEarth Guardians. But Nichols could just as easily have slapped himself on the back: The administration’s move was part of a private settlement of a lawsuit filed by WildEarth and others over the objections of energy consortiums, whose efforts to intervene in the matter were dismissed.
A similar thing happened last August, when the Biden administration announced it had agreed to exclude 6 million acres of the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico seabed from exploration to settle a lawsuit brought by environmental groups, including the Sierra Club – an announcement that triggered operational delays for the industry and expensive litigation to overturn. Administration critics say these moves reflect the resurgence of a practice embraced by the Obama administration and rejected during Donald Trump’s presidency: “sue and settle.” The tactic is simple: An advocacy group sues a federal agency for failing to enforce laws or regulations. Agency officials and the plaintiffs then come to a private agreement and that deal is ratified by the courts via a binding consent decree.
The practice is common at every level of government. New York City, for example, is obligated to house and feed tens of thousands of migrants because of a consent decree it entered into to settle a 1979 lawsuit brought by advocates for the homeless. But it is most prevalent in the environmental field, where well-funded groups commonly sue the Environmental Protection Agency or the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior alleging failure to enforce provisions of the Clean Air Act or regulations regarding federal leases for energy production. Although such consent decrees do not have the force of laws passed by Congress or regulations issued by the government that have gone through formal review and allow for public comment, they set the rules of the road. Critics say it has allowed government to advance policy goals that cannot be achieved through normal democratic channels.
“It’s not really an adversarial lawsuit, and with a settlement agreement and consent decree the case is never really over,” said Dave Tryon, director of litigation at the free-market Buckeye Institute. “The EPA is anxious to increase its power and control; it’s always happy to expand that.” The legal maneuver represents, according to this view, a return to the proverbial smoked-filled backrooms of politics. Huddled privately, without input from citizens or businesses that may be adversely affected by the decisions – let alone the public at large – lawsuits that often involve parties more simpatico than adversarial are settled. The plaintiffs and defendants are familiar to one another from years in the environmental lobbying and litigation world – and because of the “revolving door” between environmental groups and Democratic administrations. These like-minded players approach the issue seeking similar goals, a process that has only intensified with the Biden administration and leftist environmental groups sharing the belief that global warming is an existential threat.
“Overall, it’s harkening back to the bad old days – they do this in order to avoid scrutiny and bypass the regulatory process,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, an advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research. “It’s a way to advance an agenda that may be rejected by voters. It’s a nefarious practice in which the agency and the environmental groups get what they want.” Sue-and-settle is part of an even broader effort known as “lawfare,” in which political parties and advocacy groups seek to achieve their goals not through elections or legislation but in the courts. This encompasses everything from President Trump’s “stop the steal” efforts to overturn the 2020 election through the courts to myriad efforts by Democrats, whose lawfare campaigns have ranged from getting courts to confiscate Trump’s businesses and charge him criminally to removing him from the 2024 ballot.
Vivek Elon
VIVEK ON ELON MUSK: "He's the closest thing I've met to a Founding Father in today's environment." pic.twitter.com/JazY2eNMZs
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 22, 2024
Tiny house
Amazon sells these tiny house kits for around $20,000 pic.twitter.com/J0tAOxdGW5
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) February 21, 2024
Chain reaction
Chain reactionpic.twitter.com/sISC0pKOLw
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 21, 2024
Cow steals shoes
Chances that a cow steals your shoes are slim, but never zero pic.twitter.com/usKtag95C6
— All things interesting (@interesting_aIl) February 21, 2024
Drinking water
This lady leaves drinking water for animals
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pic.twitter.com/CfN1Xxaz9U— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) February 21, 2024
Anaconda
A team of scientists has discovered a new species of green anaconda in the Amazon rain forest.
Prof. Freek Vonk has recorded a video of a 26-feet-long green anaconda, believed to be the biggest snake in the world.pic.twitter.com/OpYebSUGAT
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 21, 2024
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