quagmire Archives - The Automatic Earth

Vladimir Putin doesn’t mince words.
No US president truly holds power. And now, even Donald Trump,once the loudmouth promising peace,shows his true colors by backing attacks on Iran. Just another puppet controlled by the Deep State, serving the machine while pretending to lead. pic.twitter.com/FDReh0Q05i

— Richard (@ricwe123) June 13, 2025

Lull
https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1933348545329049856

Greenwald

Israel, in 2021, built its new IDF supreme command post in the heart of Tel Aviv, buried beneath blocks of civilian buildings.

Called the "Fortress of Zion," it was deliberately placed so it couldn't be attacked without seeming to target civilian sites.https://t.co/S64h4t1YdC

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 13, 2025

You can spend literally 40 years falsely warning the world that Iran is months or weeks away from obtaining a nuclear weapon: as Israel has been doing.

But the minute it's used as pretext to start a war, many Americans will say: "good! Iran was weeks away from getting nukes." https://t.co/nrhiOi7ChE

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 13, 2025

Clark

Former US General and NATO Commander Wesley Clark revealed the US empire made plans to overthrow the governments of 7 countries in 5 years:
Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran.

Iran is the only one left. Now the US & Israel are attacking it.pic.twitter.com/bfbQWNrg1n

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) June 13, 2025

@DougAMacgregor
·13h
June turned out to be Iran’s Pearl Harbor. Iran will now react as we did in 1942 when we were caught napping.
What was limited to the region between Israel and Iran will now become regional.
Trump’s statements after the fact are an admission of his own level of complicity in the attacks.
The ”talks” with Iran were a ruse. Witkoff, like most of the Trump Administration was an agent of Israel and Netanyahu.
This is the beginning of a regional war that will involve The United States, Russia, as well as the whole Islamic World.
As Dan McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute pointed out this morning, the similarities between the Israeli use of drones inside Iran with the Ukrainian Spider Web Attack inside Russia are striking.
Finally, Americans should now expect terrorist attacks on soft targets inside the USA.
Soft targets include at a minimum nuclear reactors, military installations, power grids, and shopping malls.

Any situation that smolders for decades will lead to many different stories and points of view. Here they are. I get the impression that iran was surprised overnight, but can we be sure? Or did the story just get longer? I did notice the Saudis distance themselves from Iran. But that’s not new either. Persia is a quagmire of the ages.

• Unprecedented Escalation Between Israel and Iran (RT)

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out airstrikes on Iran on Friday, to which Tehran responded with a barrage of drones and missiles. West Jerusalem said the attacks aimed to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Tehran condemned the Israeli strikes as “blatant aggression” and vowed a “crushing” response. The attacks occurred just days before the sixth round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran, planned for Sunday in Oman. Early Friday morning, around 200 Israeli fighter jets struck targets across Iran, including a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. Strikes were also reported at nuclear sites in Fordo and Isfahan, as well as military airfields near the cities of Hamadan and Tabriz. Almost 80 people were killed and over 320 injured in the attacks, according to the Iranian ambassador to the UN.

Tehran confirmed the deaths of top military leaders, including Major General Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, and Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Division. Several veteran nuclear scientists were also killed. Iran said only “superficial damage” was done to the Natanz site. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strikes, dubbed Operation Rising Lion, aimed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. “We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear weaponization program,” he said in a statement following the air raids.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said the situation had “reached the point of no return” due to advancements in Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran has repeatedly stated its program pursues only peaceful goals and that it does not seek nuclear weapons. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei condemned the strikes as unjustified and accused Israel of killing civilians. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the attacks “amount to a declaration of war.” The Iranian army launched more than 100 drones at Israel hours after the strikes on its territory, followed by ballistic missile fire. Some missiles broke through Israeli defenses and landed in Tel Aviv. At least one person has been killed and more than 60 injured, according to Israeli media. Israel also carried out additional strikes in Iran throughout the day.

The US State Department denied American involvement in the Israeli strikes. However, President Donald Trump told Fox News he had been aware of the planned operation and praised its “excellent” outcome. He criticized Iran for failing to reach a deal on its nuclear program under his “60-day ultimatum.” Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone with Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday afternoon. He condemned Israel’s strikes as illegal under international law and expressed condolences for the deaths of civilians in Iran. Putin said Russia would seek to “advance the de-escalation of the conflict,” according to the Kremlin. The tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program must be resolved through diplomacy, he added.

Iran suspended its participation in the Omani-mediated negotiations with the US, the sixth round of which was due to take place on Sunday. Trump previously accused Tehran of “slow-walking” the talks and insisted on complete dismantlement of its nuclear program. Tehran rejected Trump’s demands as unacceptable, insisting it would continue nuclear research for civilian purposes.

“..We will see Iran retaliating in a way that is not sustainable for Israel. But this is part of the Israeli trap to create the perception of existential struggle so that the United States will be confronted with a choice..”

• Scott Ritter: US Lulled Iran to Sleep Using Nuclear Talks Deception (Sp.)

Israel has carried out an unprecedented attack on Iran, targeting its nuclear program, scientists, and senior military leaders. Sputnik asked veteran ex-Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter what just happened, and what comes next.The months of Iran-US nuclear talks essentially gave “Israel the opportunity for maximum surprise to achieve maximum damage,” with the strikes effectively amounting to “a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran,” Scott Ritter said. “This was very closely coordinated in order to give Israel the opportunity for maximum surprise to achieve maximum damage. While America may not have sent resources or assets to participate in this attack, this attack was closely coordinated with the United States, done with the knowledge of the United States, done with the support of the United States. This, by any definition of the word, was a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran,” Ritter said.

Emphasizing that the Iran-US nuclear negotiations were “dead in the water,” as Trump proved “unable to intimidate Iran into accepting the American demands of zero enrichment,” Ritter suggested that from the strategic standpoint, Trump could not actually “push forward such a deal because of Israel’s opposition to it, because of the opposition of some very senior Republicans in the Senate and the Congress, and just general hostility towards Iranian enrichment program here in the United States.” [..] The months of Iran-US nuclear talks essentially gave “Israel the opportunity for maximum surprise to achieve maximum damage,” with the strikes effectively amounting to “a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran,” Scott Ritter said.

“This was very closely coordinated in order to give Israel the opportunity for maximum surprise to achieve maximum damage. While America may not have sent resources or assets to participate in this attack, this attack was closely coordinated with the United States, done with the knowledge of the United States, done with the support of the United States. This, by any definition of the word, was a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran,” Ritter said. Emphasizing that the Iran-US nuclear negotiations were “dead in the water,” as Trump proved “unable to intimidate Iran into accepting the American demands of zero enrichment,” Ritter suggested that from the strategic standpoint, Trump could not actually “push forward such a deal because of Israel’s opposition to it, because of the opposition of some very senior Republicans in the Senate and the Congress, and just general hostility towards Iranian enrichment program here in the United States.”
“We are at war with Iran,” Ritter said.

“It’s not that we will find ourselves at war with Iran. We are at war with Iran. We may not know it yet. But as I said, the Iranians are fully cognizant of what happened. Now, the Iranians will find out how effective the Israeli decapitation was, how effective the Israeli preemption was. This was a strike that apparently incorporated significant drone capacity that was existing inside Iran.” “How much of this drone capacity continues to exist, we don’t know. But if the Iranians have the capabilities that they claim to have and the resilience they claim to have, we will see an escalation.

We will see Iran retaliating in a way that is not sustainable for Israel. But this is part of the Israeli trap to create the perception of existential struggle so that the United States will be confronted with a choice, let the Israeli ally suffer and perhaps be defeated, or to intervene and administer the coup de grâce against Iran. So, you know, we are looking at a long, drawn-out process that ultimately, I believe, will result in the United States entering this conflict on the side of Israel directly, even though indirectly, it is already a participant,” Ritter summed up.

“.. the last great Iranian innovation was what — Persian rugs?”

• Trump and Israel Manipulated the Liberal Media and Decapitated Iran (Pinsker)

How bad are things in Iran right now? Even Hezbollah is looking at Iran’s [tush]-whipping and going, “No thanks, we’re sitting this one out.” A few hours ago, from The Times of Israel: “Hezbollah official says it will stay out of the Israel-Iran fight.” Yeah. When even your proxies, stooges, goons, and hired muscle have abandoned you, things ain’t good.The Iranian radio “morning zoo” certainly had its hands full today: “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It’s another beautiful day in downtown Tehran! Our government buildings can be identified, of course, by the big clouds of smoke where their roofs used to be. There are exciting new job openings in the Iranian Ministry of Nuclear Development — drop your resume off today. And tonight, get the kids ready for the annual ‘Running of the Tanks!’”

Wheeeee! Fun for the whole family. When news of Israel’s daring (and, apparently, remarkably successful) attack first broke, I strongly suspected that the U.S. and Israel were working together: There’s a chance, of course, that Israel is acting at Trump’s behest: If you’re trying to get one side to agree to a deal, it might be useful to “intensify” their pain-points. In fact, maybe Trump is on the phone with Supreme Leader of Iran and explaining how things work in the Big City: “Yeah, y’know that deal we offered yesterday? Subtract $20 billion from it, ‘cuz now you’ve got less stuff to trade.” So maybe Israel and America are (unofficially) working together: Call it the Crassus school of bartering.

Since Israel and America both want the same outcome, it would make sense to collaborate tactically — and sometimes in geopolitics, plausible deniability has its purposes. Especially when you’re in highwire negotiations. “Better agree today, cuz tomorrow you’ll have even less! Good talk.” It could explain Tulsi Gabbard’s spooky/weird nuclear warning. We’re still within the fog of war, and there’s certainly a chance we’re misreading the tea leaves. But in geopolitics, the past is prologue: Everything is interconnected. So, if you know where the domino is after it fell, you can usually surmise where it used to be. And already, a clearer picture of what the hell happened is emerging.

First of all, this seems to be yet another triumph of Israel’s intelligence agencies. After being caught flatfooted on Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli government has doubled down on innovation. Who could forget their ingenious decapitation of Hezbollah?

HEZBOLLAH: You sneaky Israelis! We know you’ve bugged our phones, so we’ve outsmarted you by using pagers!
ISRAEL: Yeah, you got us, haha.
HEZBOLLAH: Death to Israel!
ISRAEL: …say, can I sell you any pagers? Got the lowest prices in town.
HEZBOLLAH: Why, sure. I’ll take 500.
In a world where past is prologue, in hindsight, it was pretty stupid to assume that Iran would out-think, out-innovate, or out-plan the Israelis. Whereas the Jewish Nation advanced its reputation for outside-the-box thinking as recently as last night, the last great Iranian innovation was what — Persian rugs?

“Washington knew these attacks would happen. They aided Israel in carrying them out. Politicians purporting to be ‘America First’ can’t now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it..”

• Tucker Carlson Blasts Trump Over Iran Attack (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s support for Israel’s strikes in Iran could spark an “all-out war” in the Middle East, American journalist Tucker Carlson has warned. Early Friday morning, Israeli jets bombed nuclear and military sites across Iran, prompting Tehran to retaliate with a barrage of drones and missiles targeting Israeli cities. The escalation threatens ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, which Trump revived earlier this year. In what he described as possibly his “final newsletter before all-out war,” Carlson – a key Trump ally during the 2024 presidential election – argued that the US was “complicit in the act of war.”

“While the American military may not have physically perpetrated the assault, years of funding and sending weapons to Israel, which Donald Trump just bragged about on Truth Social, undeniably place the US at the center of last night’s events,” Carlson wrote. “Washington knew these attacks would happen. They aided Israel in carrying them out. Politicians purporting to be ‘America First’ can’t now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it,” he added. In a post on X, Carlson contended that “the real divide” is not between supporters of Israel or Iran, but “between warmongers and peacemakers.”

“Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran,” he said. Carlson stated that the “warmongers” include talk show hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and Republican donors Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson. While the US State Department has denied involvement in the strikes, Trump confirmed he had prior knowledge of the Israeli operation and praised the attacks as “excellent.” He blamed Iran for the hostilities and accused it of refusing to accept the terms of his proposed nuclear deal. Addressing the UN Security Council, Iranian envoy Amir Saeid Iravani said the US and other Israeli allies “share full responsibility for the consequences” of Israel’s actions.

“..the Israeli military action appeared intended to sabotage indirect US-Iran nuclear talks scheduled to resume Sunday..”

• Israeli Strikes On Iran ‘Completely Unprovoked’ – Moscow (RT)

Russia’s envoy to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, has condemned Israeli airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday, the diplomat said West Jerusalem was acting with impunity, backed by the West. Israel has launched strikes on uranium enrichment sites in Iran and killed several senior commanders and scientists in targeted assassination operations, claiming the moves were preemptive steps to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran, which denies pursuing a military nuclear program, responded with multiple volleys of ballistic missiles at Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv. Nebenzia said the Israeli military action appeared intended to sabotage indirect US-Iran nuclear talks scheduled to resume Sunday. Tehran has declared that the strikes have effectively ended any diplomatic pathway.

“This is a completely unprovoked attack – whatever Israel may claim to the contrary – and it constitutes a gross violation of the UN Charter and international law,” Nebenzia said. “Responsibility for all the consequences of these actions rests entirely with the Israeli leadership and those who condone them.” He noted that Iran has the right to defend itself and pointed to Tehran’s previous commitment to the 2015 UN-backed nuclear deal, which the US abandoned during President Donald Trump’s first term. Iran denied accusations of secretly violating the agreement at the time but has since ramped up uranium enrichment.

The US and its allies “have been doing everything possible to fuel the escalation, and, essentially, they incited it,” Nebenzia argued, adding that Western support had “spurred Israel to take radical steps.” He also raised alarms over the risk of radiation leaks from the targeted Iranian facilities and warned that “no military solution can be either legitimate or viable.” Iran’s UN envoy, Amir-Saeid Iravani, described Israel’s attacks as “a chilling display of calculated aggression” that “amounted to a declaration of war.” He called for international action to disarm Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal, which the Israeli government neither confirms nor denies. Israeli envoy Danny Danon defended the strikes, saying Israel was a “democracy under siege” and had acted to “prevent its destruction” by Iran. He urged the council to reflect on the potential consequences had the Iranian missiles been equipped with nuclear warheads.

“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire..”

• President Trump Speaks Out About Israeli Air Strikes on Iran (Queen)

On Thursday night, the world watched as Israel launched extensive air strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Operation Rising Lion reportedly took out key nuclear scientists and members of Iran’s military leadership.The operation, which is continuing into Friday, came after President Donald Trump asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give Iran 60 days for negotiation. Operation Rising Lion commenced on Day 61.Throughout Thursday night, we awaited a statement from Trump. In our internal chats on Slack, members of the PJ Media team anticipated that Trump’s statement, when it came, would be a big one. Finally, the president broke his silence in the early hours of Friday with two posts on Truth Social.In the first post at 5:56 a.m. ET, Trump lamented that the Iranian leadership wouldn’t make a deal:

“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to “just do it,” but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done. I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come – And they know how to use it. Certain Iranian hardliner’s [sic] spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse! There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire. No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. God Bless You All!”

In the second post at 7:36 a.m. ET, the president reiterated that there’s still time for Iran to negotiate: “Two months ago I gave Iran a 60 day ultimatum to “make a deal.” They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!” Axios claims that Israel and the U.S. coordinated on the strikes, even though Israel acted unilaterally: Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that Trump and his aides were only pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public — and didn’t express opposition in private. “We had a clear U.S. green light,” one claimed.
The goal, they say, was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel’s target list wouldn’t move to new locations.

Netanyahu’s aides even briefed Israeli reporters that Trump had tried to put the brakes on an Israeli strike in a call on Monday, when in reality the call dealt with coordination ahead of the attack, Israeli officials now say. However, Axios adds that “The U.S. side has not confirmed any of that.” It will be interesting to see if U.S. officials confirm any of those assertions.

“Perhaps it is still in Israel’s best interests to fight this war—although we’re doubtful—but it’s a big bite to chew. You’d try to get the U.S. involved, too.”

• This Is Not Our War (Russo)

As of this writing, Israel is conducting the first wave of significant military action against Iran—“going kinetic,” in the latest phrase everyone in the news business has suddenly discovered. (Why “kinetic,” denoting mere movement? Why not “go dynamic,” denoting the transfer of energy or application of force? Why not “go commotive,” denoting the involvement of very loud noises? Impossible to say.) Directives went out Wednesday for Americans to evacuate the region; it is expected that Iran will include American assets on its list of retaliation targets on the assumption that any Israeli attack, even one that occurs without direct U.S. military support, occurs with the consent of Israel’s biggest sponsor. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement during the Thursday night attacks disclaiming American involvement. It remains to be seen whether anyone will believe him.

It’s difficult to escape the sense that it didn’t have to be this way. The U.S.–Iran dealmaking process had shown promise at various points, and it remains obscure what changed between then and now. I don’t know enough about Israeli domestic politics to feel confident in explaining things in terms of Benjamin Netanyahu’s varied fortunes; nor was I in the room when the decision was made to regard limited Iranian uranium enrichment as impermissible. At this point, it begins to seem academic. What will happen next? I doubt that anyone at this point will openly say that the U.S. should commit to an increased troop presence in the Middle East to support Israeli operations against the Islamic Republic; Donald Trump in particular knows that a fresh ground war is political poison.

No, we’ll start with air support, and maybe some bunker-busters, because, for all its vaunted military-industrial base, somehow Israel just can’t make a bunker-buster big enough to get to those reactors. The Islamic Republic will, of course, try to rebuild; Israel and its supporters will be committed at first to a policy of “mowing the grass,” of conducting strikes along an indefinite timescale to prevent an Iranian nuclear program. Iran will retaliate in an asymmetrical and ugly fashion, inviting further sessions with John Deere and the Weedwacker and justifying further American commitments of support to Israel. At the same time, Iran will harden its resolve to acquire a nuclear deterrent, leading to more of the same.

The ongoing expense and festering chaos from “mowing the grass”—especially if any of Iran’s asymmetric retaliations involve, for example, terrorism in the American homeland—will always tend to encourage policymakers to find a more permanent solution: regime-change. At that point, we will have come a long way from air support and a few loaner bombs. And if we were to pursue regime-change, who would replace the ayatollahs? The shah, whose family’s police state was so hated that Khomeini seemed preferable? The MEK’s bizarre mix of Islamism and Marxism? A miraculous, autochthonous secular liberal democracy with Western-style human rights norms? None of these options seems both likely and desirable. Each would demand American support up to and including direct military intervention.

The notional principal on this course of action also has significant incentives to draw the U.S. into direct involvement. Israel is increasingly diplomatically isolated; this may be just or unjust, but that is beside the point that it is simply true. It is implicated in wars on multiple fronts, none of which seem to have clear ends in sight; these may be just or unjust, but that is beside the point that they are happening. Garrison states rarely do well in the long run. (Has anyone checked in on Biafra lately? Rhodesia? Pakistan?) Add to the difficulties of a permanent war economy the issue of raw scale. Israel is a nation of 9.7 million. Iran is a nation of 90.6 million. Perhaps it is still in Israel’s best interests to fight this war—although we’re doubtful—but it’s a big bite to chew. You’d try to get the U.S. involved, too.

“The psycho-pathological genocidal masterplan is to force Tehran to capitulate – without even putting up a fight.”

• The Whole Planet Is Being Kept Hostage By A Death Cult (Pepe Escobar)

Let’s cut to the chase. The devastating attack on Iran by the psychopathological genocidal “chosen” ethno-supremacist set up in Tel Aviv – a de facto declaration of war – was coordinated in detail with the President of the United States, Circus Ringmaster Donald Trump. This infantilism-afflicted Narcissus Drowned in the Pool of his Own Image gave away the game, himself, in a rambling post. Selected highlights: “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal”. No “deal”; actually his unilateral demands. After all, he torpedoed the original deal, the JCPOA, because it was not his “deal”. “I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told.” The decision to strike had already been made. “Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but (…) they are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” Gloating comes with the territory.

“The next already planned attacks being even more brutal.” Total alignment with the trademark Israeli “decapitation” strategy. “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire”. It was Persian (italics mine) Empire – but after all this is a man who doesn’t read, or study. Notice the Art of Diplomacy: Take my deal, or drop dead.

This – incandescent – decade was launched by an assassination, of Gen. Soleimani in Baghdad, as I emphasized in my 2021 book Raging Twenties. He was on a diplomatic mission. The green light personally came from then President of the United States, Donald Trump. The mid-Raging Twenties is now hurled to the brink of a devastating war in West Asia, with global repercussions, by the serial assassination of the IRGC leadership, in Tehran, by the psycho-genocidal Zionist entity. After an elaborate kabuki of deception, the green light to Tel Aviv – go ahead and do it – also came from the President of the United States, Trump 2.0 (who claimed he was “aware’’ of the attacks).

The psycho-pathological genocidal masterplan is to force Tehran to capitulate – without even putting up a fight. The preamble kabuki was masterfully executed. The indirect nuclear negotiations in Oman were taken seriously in Tehran, lulling the Iranian leadership, civilian and military, to sleep. They fell into the trap and were caught, literally, in their sleep.Ayatollah Khamenei – who himself is in physical danger, as Israel is applying the same decapitation model it unleashed on Hezbollah – has a very tough decision to make: capitulation or total war. It will be total war – and with the U.S. as a direct participant.

“Leftism is the tyranny of structurlessness. Lawlessness. The abhorrence of order. That is why Leftist individuals are characterized by emotional dysregulation. . . . ” JT Haltigan

• Game On (James Howard Kunstler)

If you seek a general theme in this moment’s tempestuous events, try No submission. It’s behind events in the Middle East and in the USA — and across Western Civ ultimately. No submission to what, you ask? To willful evil. Of course, the willfully evil will not see it that way, and great quarrels will arise over who-and-what represents the evil abroad in the world. Iran advertised countless times its resolve to wipe Israel off the map, in so many words. Israel was not inclined to submit to that outcome and it closely monitored Iran’s practical steps to acquire deliverable nuclear bombs. Israel, in turn, advertised that Iran’s nuclear program would not be allowed to succeed. The world stood by waiting to see who’s advertising jibed with reality.

Now you know. Never Again is not an empty slogan. The Shiite jihad has been put down, and the effort will continue until the answer is beyond dispute, days, maybe a week or more. Iran’s civil leadership was willing to talk, or at least pretend to talk down to the last hour, but the mullahs above them obdurately pushed ahead toward nuclear jihad. Not going happen, Israel assured them. And so, here we are.The world situation amounts to a set of jihads of different varieties. In our country, the Democratic Party has been waging jihad against order, liberty, truth, and decency. You can tell it’s jihad because it’s irrational, frankly, insane. Americans are asked to submit to propositions that will destroy the country and its traditions, and they have had enough of the hustles aimed at that outcome.

Too many of us do not believe that uncontrolled illegal immigration is okay, that government should replace the family, that all journeys in life can be equally favorable, that men can become women by wishing it, that our history must be erased, that censorship is required to keep the jihad going, and that the punishment against citizens will continue until morale improves. That is the program of the American left and lately of the Democratic Party it has taken over. They demonstrate it by their deeds. The Party represents a dwindling cohort of the populace, but its forces have already marched through and captured many institutions crucial to our national life. The opposing force, loosely called Populism, will not submit to that program, is now actively putting a stop to as much of it as possible, shaking out those institutions.

The Left and the Democrats have lost a lot of ground in recent months, especially their control on the levers of power. And since power is really all they care about — the power to make everybody else submit — they are growing desperate, seeking to induce as much chaos across the land as they can possibly generate. Hence, the outbreaks of civil disorder in the cities, using illegal immigrants as one set of shock troops and mentally-ill youth as another phalanx. The object of the chaos is to provoke the Populist opposition to exert its authority to control that chaos, and therefore — in the insane reasoning of the leftists — to prove that authority itself is an intolerable wickedness. This is only possible, of course, in minds that do not comprehend boundaries, differences between right and wrong, up and down, inside and outside, reality and fantasy. That is the mentality that drives itself toward chaos. So, it remains for the Populists to demonstrate that authority is not innately wicked, that it can have a beneficent purpose in the scheme of civilized humanity. Order is not necessarily tyranny.

That other war.

• Russia’s Summer Blitz Redraws The War (RT)

As the spring sun gave way to the heat of early summer, a new phase of the military campaign began to unfold across the front lines – and this time, the initiative clearly belongs to Russia.After months of grinding attritional warfare, Russian forces have launched a sweeping spring-summer offensive that is already delivering tangible results. From the borderlands of Sumy to the contested hills near Chasov Yar and the approaches to Dnepropetrovsk, the tempo has shifted decisively. Ukraine, battered and overextended, is now struggling to contain simultaneous breakthroughs across multiple sectors. The silence of Western media around these developments only underscores the magnitude of what is unfolding on the ground. A coordinated advance is in motion – methodical, strategic, and, by all appearances, effective.

Following the liberation of Sudzha in early March 2025, the fighting quickly spilled across the border into Ukraine’s Sumy Region. Moscow officially described its objective as the creation of a buffer zone – meant to safeguard the resumption of peaceful civilian life in Russia’s neighboring Kursk Region. Motivated by political considerations, the Ukrainian Army has been trying to cling to a narrow foothold just across the border, in the village of Tyotkino in Kursk Region. In fact, Kiev has deployed some of its most experienced and ideologically committed units to this stretch of the front. But rather than showcasing Ukrainian resolve, the situation in Tyotkino has underscored the growing imbalance in offensive capabilities between Ukrainian and Russian forces in 2025.

From the Russian side, Tyotkino is essentially a logistical cul-de-sac. But for Ukraine, the village connects to a critical rear supply hub in Belopolye. Even so, Ukrainian efforts to expand their presence in the area have ended in near catastrophe. In mid-May, the commander of Ukraine’s 47th Brigade came close to staging a mutiny, accusing his superiors of issuing reckless orders that led to needless casualties. Elsewhere along the Sumy front, Ukrainian forces – many of them retreating from Sumy and the surrounding areas – have taken heavy losses. This remains a strategically vital axis for Ukraine. The authorities have announced mandatory evacuations in another 11 settlements, bringing the total number of evacuated towns and villages in the region to 213.

Notably, this marks the first time Russian forces have entered Sumy Region since spring 2022. As of now, Russian advances appear to be accelerating. The front line has moved to within roughly 20km of the city of Sumy itself.Liman (also known as Krasny Liman) is a strategic city in the Donetsk People’s Republic, with a pre-war population of around 20,000. Situated along the Kharkov-Donetsk railway, it serves as a key transportation hub in eastern Ukraine. After brief fighting, the city fell under Russian control in late May 2022 – but was later lost during Ukraine’s Kharkov offensive in October of the same year.Today, Russian forces appear intent on retaking Liman by cutting off a single critical road that leads northwest toward Izium.

Calling SCOTUS.

• Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s EO Requiring Proof Of Citizenship For Elections (JTN)

A federal judge on Friday blocked President Trump’s executive order requiring proof of citizenship for elections. Judge Denise J. Casper, of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, an Obama appointee, said U.S. states have a likelihood of success in their legal challenges to the order, The Associated Press reported. “The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Casper wrote in her ruling. She also said that regarding citizenship, “There is no dispute (nor could there be) that U.S. citizenship is required to vote in federal elections and the federal voter registration forms require attestation of citizenship.”Casper cited the states’ arguments that the requirements would burden them with “significant efforts and substantial costs” to update procedures.

In April, the GOP-led House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act again, which would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote for federal elections. Trump issued the executive order in March that includes the requirement that only U.S. citizens vote in federal elections, offers assistance to states with maintaining voter rolls, and makes improvements in the Election Assistance Commission. The president also ordered the attorney general to prosecute election crimes, take action against states that accept absentee ballots for federal elections after Election Day, and ensure that foreign nationals do not donate to federal elections or that organizations that receive federal funds do not engage in lobbying.

The order additionally mentions the rescinding of “Bidenbucks” – the former Biden administration’s apparent effort to have federal agencies partner with private groups in get-out-the-vote efforts. In April, Democratic attorneys general in 19 states filed a lawsuit over the order, arguing against some of its aspects, including enforcing documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and ensuring that states accept absentee ballots for federal elections after Election Day.

Names of things you probably didn't know pic.twitter.com/rFqHW9h8W0

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 13, 2025

RFK
https://twitter.com/MJTruthUltra/status/1933290755109601447

pic.twitter.com/ah44viXThA

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2025

pic.twitter.com/lDr3BgySvD

— Nury Vittachi (@NuryVittachi) June 13, 2025

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Debt Rattle July 18 2023

Jul 182023

July 18, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: grain deal, Jan 6, net zero, proxy war, quagmire, RFK jr, Trump, Yellen 63 Responses »

Andy Warhol Sigmund Freud 1980

• US Not Ready For War With Russia – White House (RT)

• US Soldiers Don’t Belong in Ukraine (Ottenberg)

• No Military Solution To Ukraine Crisis – China (RT)

• No More Security Guarantees For Black Sea Navigation – Russian FM (RT)

• Erdogan To Talk Black Sea Grain Deal Resumption With Putin (RT)

• EU Snubs Zelensky Over Summit – Spanish Daily (RT)

• US Bid to Prolong Ukraine Proxy War Risks Another Quagmire (Sp.)

• Yellen Says Ukraine Aid Is the Best Boost for Global Economy (NM)

• Jan. 6 Defendant Appeals To Supreme Court (JTN)

• Trump Opens Up About Mistakes Made During First Term (ET)

• Situational Awareness (Jim Kunstler)

• Abominable RFK Jr. Anti-Semitism Accusation a Harbinger of Things to Come (ET)

• The Human Cost of Net Zero (Spiked)

Putin

Vladimir #Putin about #Russia:

"You can be friends with Russia – it's kind. You can cooperate with Russia – it's honest. You can ask Russia – it's generous. Russia can be deceived – it's trusting. But you can't fight Russia – it's invincible!" pic.twitter.com/qtkplD3TNy

— StellaMoscow (@SgforgoodStella) July 16, 2023

Fascinating interview given the gaps in our knowledge currently. Starts with the Grain Deal & ends with Wagner.

Subtitles roughly accurate. As some may recall, I have long argued that the grain deal was very much against Russia's interest, more so if the few commitments to pic.twitter.com/Nn8iMQuHbp

— Erik Zimerman (@ZimermanErik) July 14, 2023

Macgregor

“They know they lost. Their troops are falling apart. Today, Defense Minister Shoigu announced an offensive in the Liman direction. And this is clearly aimed, as far as I can tell, at Kharkov. So the Russians are now on the offensive in the northeast of the defensive lines.… pic.twitter.com/7BhLOANVWZ

— Mats Nilsson (@mazzenilsson) July 17, 2023

https://twitter.com/i/status/1680884654172258305

Ukr pre2014

This was how the media covered Ukraine before rehabilitating it as a thriving liberal democracy. pic.twitter.com/4J3ieybfHv

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 17, 2023

RFK Event 201

Bitches don't know about Event 201 pic.twitter.com/KHGXCFgDOf

— illuminatibot (@iluminatibot) July 18, 2023

“Sullivan said that accepting Ukraine into the alliance now would mean a direct confrontation between the bloc and Russia.”

• US Not Ready For War With Russia – White House (RT)

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has stated that Ukraine’s future lies in NATO, but said certain conditions must be met before it can join the alliance, which includes ending its conflict with Russia. In an interview with CBS on Sunday, Sullivan insisted that NATO is committed to accepting Kiev into its ranks despite the lack of a formal invitation or timeline for membership during last week’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. “Ukraine’s future is in NATO. We meant it. That’s not up for negotiation,” Sullivan said. “That’s something that now all 31 allies have committed to,” he added, referring to the final statement released at the end of the summit, in which all members of the alliance pledged to eventually accept Ukraine into the bloc, once a number of conditions are met. Speaking to ABC, Sullivan said that accepting Ukraine into the alliance now would mean a direct confrontation between the bloc and Russia.

“Having Ukraine come into NATO while the war is going on would mean that NATO was at war with Russia, it would mean the United States was at war with Russia. And neither NATO nor the United States were prepared to do that,”he said. Kiev insists that it has already met all of the requirements to join the US-led bloc and has expressed confusion over what more it has to do to qualify for membership. “When will those conditions be met? What are those conditions? Who should formulate them? What are they?” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said in an interview with Radio Free Europe last week. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky lashed out at NATO for failing to meet Kiev’s membership demands and called the lack of a roadmap towards accession “unprecedented and absurd,”saying NATO’s indecisiveness is a sign of weakness.

Ru soldier

The Russian soldier that went viral with his epic rant, is continuing on Russian TV. pic.twitter.com/b5S7AToSyb

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) July 17, 2023

“The worst day in Afghanistan or Iraq is a great day in Ukraine.”

• US Soldiers Don’t Belong in Ukraine (Ottenberg)

So how many American soldiers fight in Ukraine? The Biden bunch is careful not to reveal or refer to their presence, mercenary or otherwise, but the question keeps coming to mind. It popped up again June 27, when Russia bombed what the Ukraine press called simply a restaurant in Kramatorsk. However, this supposedly innocuous restaurant was part of a hotel complex that apparently attracted lots of western men of fighting age, specifically American soldiers and others from NATO countries. We know this because eyewitnesses heard them speaking American English and saw their U.S. military tattoos (3rd Ranger Battalion) and the American flags on their helmets. Also, American mercenaries were reported dead in twitter accounts. We also know that this missile attack killed 50 Ukrainian officers and two generals and at least 20 of the westerners, including Americans, proving yet again that one American soldier in Ukraine is one too many.

The problem is that we don’t know how many U.S. soldiers – to say nothing of American mercenaries – are in Ukraine. The Russian ministry of defense estimates that there have been over 900 American mercenaries in Ukraine. Meanwhile Washington remains mum, closely guarding its knowledge of this secret for the obvious reason that not doing so might provoke an open confrontation with Moscow. And since they don’t want a nuclear World War III, the white house and pentagon nurture an intense interest in concealing facts about the U.S. military footprint in Ukraine and their possible encouragement of it. Even if large numbers of American NATO officers were killed there, we, back in the so-called homeland, would doubtless be kept in the dark.

The scraps of news we do get indicate that the fighting goes poorly for U.S. troops. “This is my third war I’ve fought in, and this is by far the worst one,” Troy Offenbecker told the Daily Beast July 1. “You’re getting fucking smashed with artillery, tanks. Last week I had a plane drop a bomb next to us, like 300 meters away. It’s horrifying shit.” The Daily Beast quotes another U.S. soldier, David Bramlette: “The worst day in Afghanistan or Iraq is a great day in Ukraine.” Regarding reconnaissance missions, he said, “if two of them get injured…there’s no helicopter coming to get you…shit can go south really, really frickin’ quickly.” In other words, this is a different enemy, a very competent one, and U.S. soldiers in Ukraine sub rosa could die in large numbers that people back home never hear about.

“..the official said the Ukraine crisis erupted last year thanks to “expanding military blocs..”

• No Military Solution To Ukraine Crisis – China (RT)

Only a political settlement can resolve the conflict in Ukraine, China’s deputy UN envoy has said, urging the international community to seek a peaceful end to the crisis after Beijing advanced its own plan to halt the fighting. Speaking at an open meeting on Ukraine at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Monday, Beijing’s deputy permanent UN representative, Geng Shuang, proposed a four-point framework for future peace efforts, saying the global body should “work together to prevent the situation from getting out of control.” “The evolution of the battlefield situation shows that military means cannot resolve the Ukrainian crisis, and the continuation of the conflict will only bring more suffering to civilians, and may even lead to unpredictable and irreparable situations,” he said.

“No matter how long the crisis lasts, it will eventually be resolved through political means.” The Chinese framework calls for talks between Moscow and Kiev, limiting the potential “spillover effects of the crisis,” addressing humanitarian issues, and guaranteeing “nuclear safety and security” – in particular at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. The deputy UN envoy went on to argue that any solution to the conflict must “uphold a common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security concept.” Though he did not cite the NATO alliance by name, the official said the Ukraine crisis erupted last year thanks to “expanding military blocs,” which “can only bring turmoil and unrest to Europe and the entire world.”

Early this year, China unveiled a 12-point roadmap designed to end the fighting, calling for the resumption of talks and arguing that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations should be upheld. The Chinese government has previously slammed the unilateral sanctions on Moscow, and argued that NATO expansion in Europe is the root of the conflict in Ukraine. The initiative received a positive reception in Moscow, with senior officials in the Kremlin signaling willingness to discuss it further. However, the proposal was soon rejected by Kiev and some of its Western backers, who accused Beijing of supporting Russia’s interests.

The grain deal met the same fate as Minsk, April 2022: the west doesn’t make good on its part of the deal.

• No More Security Guarantees For Black Sea Navigation – Russian FM (RT)

Russia will no longer provide security guarantees for civilian vessels traversing the formerly exempted corridor in the Black Sea, the country’s foreign ministry has announced. Earlier on Monday, the Kremlin stated that it would not extend the Black Sea grain agreement since its own food and fertilizer exports are still being blocked. In a statement released on Monday, the Foreign Ministry said that this latest decision “means the recall of maritime navigation security guarantees, the discontinuation of the maritime humanitarian corridor [and] the reinstatement of the ‘temporarily dangerous area’ regime in the north-western Black Sea.” Russian diplomats went on to accuse Ukraine of using the humanitarian corridor to carry out attacks on Russian targets.

As for the Ukrainian grain shipments that were facilitated by the deal, the ministry claimed that the vast majority of those ended up in Europe, with several countries there allegedly lining their pockets. The statement pointed out that the whole mechanism, which was launched last summer, had ostensibly been designed to help avert famine in poorer nations. According to Moscow, key points in the Russia-UN memorandum, which was signed in lockstep with the Black Sea Initiative, have remained unfulfilled to date. As a result, the ministry explained, Russian bank transactions, insurance and logistics were effectively paralyzed, meaning that Moscow could not sell its own produce and fertilizers on the international market. In one case cited in the statement, a shipment of Russian fertilizers donated free of charge to several African countries was blocked in the EU.

The foreign ministry concluded that in light of all these issues, the agreement no longer makes sense. Moscow has suggested European nations should allow Ukraine to transfer its grain via their territory and potentially face the wrath of local farmers, or take action and address Russia’s grievances. Should this happen, Moscow would be ready to return to the implementation of the agreement, the statement noted. Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced the termination of the deal. He also reiterated Russia’s readiness to return to the mechanism; however, he added that this would only happen if its interests were respected. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow would “suspend participation in this deal,” describing the arrangement as a “one-sided game all along.”

Grain deal
https://twitter.com/i/status/1680936741430018049

Erdogan didn’t keep his word to Putin about the Azov commanders.

• Erdogan To Talk Black Sea Grain Deal Resumption With Putin (RT)

Türkiye believes that Russia is interested in continuing the Black Sea grain deal despite Moscow announcing on Monday that it was ending its involvement in the agreement, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed. The arrangement “went down in history as a diplomatic success,” the Turkish leader said during a press conference on Monday. Erdogan insisted that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, wanted the deal to survive, and that the two would soon talk on the phone about a possible way forward. Earlier in the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the scheme “effectively ceased to be in effect today.” Russia has accused the UN of failing to deliver on its part of the bargain, which included lifting Western economic sanctions hampering Russian exports of foodstuffs and fertilizers.

Unless that changes, Moscow will no longer keep up its end of the deal either, Peskov said. The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the UN and Türkiye had been formally notified that Moscow had opted against renewing the grain deal again, resulting in its expiration on Monday. Formally known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the agreement between Moscow and Kiev was mediated by the UN and Türkiye last summer. It allowed Ukrainian grain to be shipped by sea, with merchant ships being inspected to prevent misuse of the arrangement. The deal was touted as a way to alleviate a food price hike in the world’s poorest nations. However, Moscow said that contrary to the deal’s stated goal, European nations were the primary recipients of the shipments.

Latin American heads of state are not wild about Zelensky.

• EU Snubs Zelensky Over Summit – Spanish Daily (RT)

The European Union ignored Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s requests to be invited to the bloc’s summit with Latin American heads of state and government, Barcelona’s La Vanguardia has reported. Last week, NATO refused to accommodate Kiev’s demands for a clear NATO membership timeline, let alone immediate accession to the US-led military alliance. In its article on Monday, the paper cited anonymous European diplomats as claiming that the European Council’s President, Charles Michel, had decided it would be “better not to invite” the Ukrainian head of state to the meeting of European Union and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) leaders in Brussels.

However, “Ukraine will occupy a prominent place during the leaders’ discussions,” unnamed sources told the Spanish daily ahead of the event, which kicked off on Monday. The unnamed diplomats listed food security as one item that would likely be high on the agenda. According to the outlet, the EU has been pressing for the inclusion of condemnation of Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine in the summit’s final document. However, it is not clear whether this will be the case as there is reportedly no consensus on the issue among Latin American nations. La Vanguardia pointed out that the previous EU-CELAC summit took place back in 2015, with Brussels now busy doubling down on its efforts to woo the Global South.

Last week, NATO fell short of Ukraine’s expectations after the US-led military bloc decided that Kiev would be granted membership at some unspecified point in the future, “when allies agree and conditions are met.” President Zelensky took to social media last Tuesday, slamming the alliance’s “indecisiveness” and “weakness.” “It’s unprecedented and absurd when [a] time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership,” the Ukrainian head of state insisted. Later on, however, Zelensky softened his stance somewhat after the US delegation reportedly became “furious” at his criticisms.

“Outside this event, war in Ukraine has also taken the glitter off of western weapons and the military industrial complex. For a very high price, it produces inadequate quantities of shoddy goods..”

• US Bid to Prolong Ukraine Proxy War Risks Another Quagmire (Sp.)

The Biden administration appears content to prolong the proxy conflict in Ukraine in an effort to weaken Russia, while serving the interests of certain stakeholders in the American establishment, despite the risk of the confrontation turning into another Vietnam or Afghan-style quagmire, experts told Sputnik. At the NATO summit in Vilnius earlier this week, the US and its allies made long-term security commitments to Ukraine while easing alliance admission requirements. However, Kiev was disappointed in not getting an invitation to join NATO as soon as possible, with US President Joe Biden even saying membership is off the table for Ukraine while the conflict with Russia lasts.

“NATO summit proved what was known anyway. The collective West under US leadership wants to destroy Russia without going to war directly but by using Ukrainians as cannon fodder,” American University in Moscow President Edward Lozansky told Sputnik. “Thus we are witnessing a crime that supersedes the atrocities in Vietnam and the Middle East.” However, in previous proxy fights, he added, the US could at least use countering communism or terror as a pretext. “Here we see a policy of provoking, funding, and prolonging the war between the two Christian nations that lived together for over three centuries and who were bounded by close historical, religious, economic, cultural, and family ties under the false flag of preserving a non-existing democracy in the most corrupted state to preserve the geopolitical advantage of the hegemon and its willing vassals,” Lozansky said.

University of Louvain Professor of Political Philosophy Jean Bricmont believes by only pledging more security assistance, NATO allies have made it obvious they do not want to spark a direct war with Russia, which is not good news for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “The mere sending of weapons does not seem to tilt the balance in his favor,” Bricmont suggested. Meanwhile, Bricmont added, developments on the ground in Ukraine and inside Russia have not gone according to plan for the United States, especially as the hoped-for collapse of the Russian economy has not happened and Ukraine’s counteroffensive is failing. “The whole thing has become a very cynical game: using Ukrainians as much and as long as possible in that war, but without any real plan of success,” Bricmont told Sputnik.

“This is likely to end like Vietnam or Afghanistan, but the Americans cannot admit it and cut their losses. So, Ukrainians and Russians will continue to die needlessly.” Lozansky suggested there were other motives driving the White House’s Ukraine policy besides simply trying to counter Russia. “Of course, there was an additional incentive to make money for the military-industrial complex, and, as it turns out, to enrich the Biden family,” Lozansky said. Krainer Analytics Founder Alex Krainer, a Europe-based financial analyst, said while the war may have filled the US defense industry’s pockets, it also undermined many perceptions of its strengths and American’s military prowess. “Outside this event, war in Ukraine has also taken the glitter off of western weapons and the military industrial complex. For a very high price, it produces inadequate quantities of shoddy goods,” Krainer said. “The whole thing has been outed as a con and a paper tiger.”

Shrooms.

• Yellen Says Ukraine Aid Is the Best Boost for Global Economy (NM)

Redoubling support for war-stricken Ukraine is the “single best” way to aid the global economy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday, along with boosting emerging economies and tackling debt distress. Yellen also said on the sidelines of a G20 finance ministers’ summit in India she would “push back” on criticism there was a tradeoff between aid to Ukraine and developing nations. “Ending this war is first and foremost a moral imperative,” she told reporters in Gandhinagar. “But it’s also the single best thing we can do for the global economy.” Yellen also pointed to efforts to tackle debt distress faced by struggling economies, bank reform and a global tax deal, and warned it was “premature” to talk of lifting tariffs on China.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both global breadbaskets that together exported almost a quarter of the world’s wheat supply, triggered shockwaves in economies worldwide by sending prices for food and fuel shooting up. Japan’s Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki, speaking after a G7 meeting of ministers, “reconfirmed the G7’s unshakeable support” to Ukraine. “We confirmed that Russia-owned assets that are under the G7’s supervision would not be transferred until Russia pays damages to Ukraine,” Suzuki said, adding that Moscow should also “pay long-term reconstruction costs”. Any discussion on Ukraine is awkward for G20 host India, which has not condemned Russia’s invasion but is also part of the Quad grouping alongside Australia, the United States and Japan.

High time SCOTUS gets involved.

• Jan. 6 Defendant Appeals To Supreme Court (JTN)

Jan. 6 defendant Edward Jacob Lang is asking the Supreme Court to hear his challenge against one of the 11 charges he was indicted on – obstruction of an official proceeding – in a case that could upend legal proceedings against hundreds of other defendants indicted on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. The obstruction charge could be levied against “anyone who attends at a public demonstration gone awry,” attorneys for Lang wrote in an appeal to the Supreme Court last week. The proceeding for which the charge was brought refers to the event where Congress certifies the Electoral College votes to confirm the president.

The charge “is nothing less than the weaponization of the penal code to stifle dissent; it sets a terrifying precedent unworthy of this nation’s history,” Lang’s attorneys also wrote. Lang had filed a motion to dismiss the obstruction charge, which carries a 20-year sentence, before his trial, and the D.C. District court granted this motion. However, an appeals court reversed the lower court’s decision and a motion for a rehearing was denied. Lang’s attorney Norman Pattis told Newsweek that he thinks the Supreme Court could upend the cases of “hundreds of defendants.” “The government misuse and abuse of the federal penal code in the [January 6] cases is shocking,” Pattis also said. His client expects to hear this fall whether the Supreme Court will take up the case.

Lang has been incarcerated for more than 900 days without a trial. He told The Epoch Times that he thinks his appeal could impact the Justice Department’s separate effort to potentially charge former President Donald Trump with obstruction. “I think the timing of this filing is astronomical,” Lang said. “Donald Trump is the political frontrunner for the Republican Party, and while the other bogus charges might easily go away through a plea deal, the obstruction of Congress charge carries prison time. This one would land him in serious hot water with a conviction.”

How about Bolton, Pompeo?

• Trump Opens Up About Mistakes Made During First Term (ET)

President Donald Trump acknowledged that he made mistakes during his first term in office, saying that most issues arose from the people he chose to fill various roles in office. In an interview that aired July 16, Mr. Trump sat down with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo to discuss an array of issues, including whether he thought he made any mistakes during his term. Ms. Bartiromo asked, “If there’s anything that you could look back on in [2016] that you think maybe you want to do differently this time around?” Mr. Trump replied, “The mistake would be people. I mean, I wouldn’t have put a guy like Bill Barr in—he was weak and pathetic,” a reference to his former attorney general, who has spoken out against Mr. Trump since leaving office and has expressed opposition to a second term for the former president.

“I wouldn’t have put Jeff Sessions in,” Mr. Trump said, a reference to another former attorney general with whom Mr. Trump clashed. “There are some people that I wouldn’t have put in. You know, most people were good. But I had some people—we had [former Secretary of Defense Mark] Esper. I didn’t like him. He was incompetent. I thought we had other people I didn’t like.” Ms. Bartiromo replied, “Why did you put them in the job then?” “Because every—look, every president, you put somebody in, you think they’re good,” Mr. Trump said. “But one thing that has happened and I find it very interesting, and this is the way life goes, I put people in—I was there 17 times in Washington, D.C. my whole life. I never stayed overnight. The press actually reported 70 I don’t know if it’s right, but it’s probably pretty right.

“I never stayed overnight. Ever. And then all of a sudden, I’m the President of the United States and it’s like a different society. I was New York and you know, it was a different thing. So I didn’t know people, I became President,” Mr. Trump said, adding later, “I never was involved in that.” “So you didn’t know what to expect?” Ms. Bartiromo asked. “No, no,” Mr. Trump cut in. “I didn’t know the people. I know the people now better than anybody has ever known the people. I know the good ones, the bad ones, the dumb ones, the smart ones.” Mr. Trump was also pressed on whether he had “drained the swamp,” a reference to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign pledge to root out D.C. bureaucrats and other entrenched establishment figures in the capital city. “You didn’t drain the swamp like you said you would, you didn’t drain the swamp,” Ms. Bartiromo said, a common criticism of the former president by conservative elements in the party who feel he failed to live up to his 2016 campaign promises.

It’s not the FBI, but people working there. Who?

• FBI Tipped Off Biden Team, Secret Service About Plan To Interview Hunter (JTN)

A recently retired FBI supervisory agent told Congress behind closed doors Monday that the bureau tipped off Joe Biden’s team and the Secret Service in late 2020 about a plan to interview Hunter Biden in his criminal tax probe, corroborating allegations from two IRS whistleblowers. The FBI agent, who worked alongside the IRS whistleblowers on the Hunter Biden case when he was assigned to the Wilmington field office, gave his account in a transcribed interview before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, providing fresh evidence of alleged political interference in the treatment of Joe Biden’s son. He corroborated several aspects of the account IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley and a second agent gave Congress last month, including that law enforcement’s plan to conduct a surprise interview in early December 2020 with Hunter Biden about alleged tax crimes was foiled by the tipoff.

The agent, whose name wasn’t immediately made public, said the bureau told both Joe Biden’s transition office and the Secret Service, creating a tipoff that thwarted the planned interview. “The night before the interview of Hunter Biden, both Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team were tipped off about the planned interview,” Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. said. “On the day of the Hunter Biden interview, federal agents were told to stand by and could not approach Hunter Biden—they had to wait for his call. As a result of the change in plans, IRS and FBI criminal investigators never got to interview Hunter Biden as part of the investigation. “The Justice Department’s efforts to cover up for the Bidens reveals a two-tiered system of justice that sickens the American people,” he added.

In his testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee back in May, Shapley described how the tipoff around Dec. 7-8, 2020, was a major set back for the investigation, and one of several instances in which political favoritism and interference occurred. “I was informed that FBI headquarters had notified Secret Service headquarters and the transition team about the planned actions the following day,” Shapley testified. He said the alert afforded Hunter Biden and his team “an opportunity to obstruct” the investigation. Shapley and his IRS colleague are slated to testify in public for the first time as early as Wednesday before Comer’s panel, and officials told Just the News they hope to release a transcript of the FBI agent’s corroborating testimony in the next few days.

IRS
https://twitter.com/i/status/1681036655178686469

“..a pharmaceutical industry metastasizing on money the way an aggressive cancer feeds on sugar..”

• Situational Awareness (Jim Kunstler)

What if Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche is correct? The [Belgian] virologist said at the outset of the Covid-19 episode in 2020 that vaccinating the world in the midst of an epidemic was insane because it would train the virus to evolve more dangerously while disabling human immune systems. Last week he issued a warning that the world was within weeks of just such a new and deadly immune escape variant outbreak that would bring on a shocking wave of sickness and death among people who received multiple Covid-19 vaccinations. This would happen on top of an already accelerating rise in latent vaccine adverse reactions manifesting as aggressive cancers, blood disorders, cardiac injury, neurological disease, and much, much more.

To this point in the Covid-19 story, Western Civ in general, and the USA in particular, have descended into an epic group psychosis as a result of the managed mind-fuckery induced by their own governments in collusion with a pharmaceutical industry metastasizing on money the way an aggressive cancer feeds on sugar in a human body. Fearful citizens swallowed all manner of unreality foisted on them by means of propaganda and censorship.We still don’t know for sure how, who, and why, exactly, Covid-19 was set loose on the world, and the public health agencies don’t want you to know. Perhaps the worst and most baldly dishonest act was the official suppression of effective treatments with common, safe, anti-virals that could have saved millions of lives. And all just to preserve the vaccine companies’ liability shield from the Emergency Use Authorization. In fact, governments are still militating against the sale and use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which could be taken prophylactically in anticipation of a new outbreak.

So, if these populations were driven crazy by authorities ginning up their fear and preying on it, what will happen if that fear turns to anger instead? Because that’s exactly what will happen when Americans, and perhaps even Europeans, realize they’ve been subject to history’s biggest homicidal fraud. That anger is going to seek targets, and they are going to find them very easily in their own government officials and also — get this — in the medical establishment that has betrayed its patients so unconscionably. It’s just impossible to say exactly how that will play out on-the-ground. Governments are already falling — Spain, the Netherlands — but these were parliamentary downfalls according to regular political procedure. Our country has no such procedures for changing authority in a time of crisis. Instead, we have a president up to his neck in bribery scandal and executive agency thuggery, and political parties sunk in corruption, and no way to get rid of them except elections many months away — elections which at least half the people don’t believe are honest.

This crisis of bad faith and sickness is happening at the same time that Western Civ enters an equally vicious crisis of economy and finance. America and Europe are broke. All are playing games with their conjoined banking systems and their currencies. All are de-industrializing economies strictly based on industrial production of goods no longer being produced, and pretending to replace them with economies of computer vapor-ware. That can’t work and can only end badly in collapsing standards of living. The past few years, an apparent coalition of global elites, functioning in orgs such as the WEF, the WHO, the EU, the IMF, the central banks, and countless NGOs, along with shadowy intel units and what remains of the old news media, have promoted ever more desperate top-down control programs to prevent a breakdown into wholesale economic and political disorder. Their efforts increasingly tilt into pretense.

“..this fake news accusation went around the world faster than Churchill’s famous line about the truth and the time it takes to put on your pants.”

• Abominable RFK Jr. Anti-Semitism Accusation a Harbinger of Things to Come (ET)

To claim that COVID-19 is the product of a cabal of Chinese and Jews is so ridiculous that it only speaks to what the author wants to believe or, more accurately, wants us to believe Kennedy meant. Which Chinese and which Jews? It’s hard to imagine since Israel was locked down to such a degree it made California look like Florida. Also, Israeli scientists were working around the clock to invent a successful vaccine but got nowhere. If they had been in on the original design, you would think they would have been able to do something, or at least have a leg up. The internet being what it is, this fake news accusation went around the world faster than Churchill’s famous line about the truth and the time it takes to put on your pants.

The lie appeared almost immediately in numerous publications from the Daily Mail to the Daily Beast as if it had to be true that RFK Jr. was anti-Semitic. But Kennedy doesn’t need me to defend him. He’s doing a fine job himself, including demanding a retraction from the Post and an apology from Levine, in his Twitter feed. So what’s actually going on here? This isn’t, in the end, really about anti-Semitism, real or imagined. It was just low-hanging fruit, as the “canary in the coal mine” often is, the first of many—a harbinger of many dastardly smears of the candidate to come.

If there’s one thing the military-industrial complex (endless wars from Iraq to Ukraine) and the health care-industrial complex (Big Pharma, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, et al.) do not want, it’s a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidency. Big Tech probably isn’t very keen on it, either. It would cost them all incalculable amounts of money, much of it courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer and a complaisant government. Most of all, the current leadership of the Democratic Party—bent on exploiting every so-called progressive policy, no matter how looney, for maximum gain and power—don’t want anyone bringing their party back to sanity, under the leadership of Mr. Kennedy or anyone else. Notable is that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is backing Joe Biden for reelection, not RFK Jr.

And then there’s the CIA, whose antipathy for RFK Jr. should be obvious to all those with even a passing knowledge of the lives and deaths of his father and uncle who wanted that organization splintered in a thousand pieces and cast to the winds. In all, it’s no surprise then that the corporate media, in which we now must include the N.Y. Post of the increasingly untrustworthy Murdoch empire, is now the mouthpiece of anti-RFK Jr. propaganda. More and most probably worse will come. What we are looking at is what we might call the coming ‘The Plot Against Kennedy” after Lee Smith’s best-selling “The Plot Against the President,” which detailed the subversion of Donald J. Trump before and after his presidency by many of the same parties. The similarity between the treatment of Trump by corporate media that was always dishonest and is now, if anything, worse, and the beginnings of the treatment of RFK Jr. is all too obvious.

RFK Townhall

.@RobertKennedyJr: "We need to stop listening to these comic book depictions.
We need to realize there's nuance, there's complexity in our relationships, and we need to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of our adversaries – if we want to have true peace in the world. Which… pic.twitter.com/hUgtm8UCLn

— The People’s Party (@PeoplesParty_US) July 17, 2023

Zero society.

• The Human Cost of Net Zero (Spiked)

Canadian political scientist Vaclav Smil lists cement, steel, plastics and ammonia as the four ingredients that make the modern world possible. For example, modern healthcare systems need enormous amounts of plastic (for everything from flexible tubes to sterile packing), making it yet another crucial ingredient in the wellbeing of humanity. And without steel and cement, nothing could be built – no roads, no houses, no harbours, no airports. Plastics, steel and cement also require fossil fuels for their production. The same goes for modern agriculture. It depends on synthetic fertilisers, which massively increase yields and allow farmers to use smaller areas of arable land. Without these fertilisers, half the current global population would go unfed.

The production of these fertilisers depends on something called the Haber-Bosch process, a method of producing ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, which was invented in the early 20th century. Given its contribution to feeding the world, Smil has justifiably called it the ‘most momentous technical advance in history’. The problem for those demanding the phasing out of fossil fuels is that the hydrogen required for the production of ammonia, and therefore synthetic fertilisers, is almost entirely derived from fossil fuels. So all of Smil’s building blocks for the modern world are dependent on the very materials that Western elites say they want to keep in the ground. It’s not just fertilisers that require fossil fuels, either. 75% of all farm equipment in the US runs on diesel. It dominates the entire farming supply chain, from planting to harvesting to bringing food to market.

A green optimist might suggest simply replacing all these diesel-powered machines with industrial EVs. Yet to build the batteries for all these EVs would require a massive expansion of energy-intensive mining for metallic minerals, such as cobalt, lithium, manganese and nickel. EVs would also require clean electricity sources to charge them. In fact, every step of the proposed energy transition is itself dependent on fossil fuels. You cannot build a wind turbine without lubricants from oil, a concrete foundation and copious amounts of steel. Just as you cannot make solar panels without polysilicon, a component that is immensely energy intensive to produce because it requires temperatures beyond 1,150 degrees Celsius.

The expansion of mining activities needed to build EVs and wind turbines is particularly problematic for the clean-tech crusaders. According to the International Energy Agency: ‘A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant. Since 2010, the average amount of minerals needed for a new unit of power generation capacity has increased by 50 per cent as the share of renewables in new investment has risen.’ The mineral-mining sector is also energy intensive, producing a huge amount of carbon emissions. It is already responsible for 38 per cent of total global industrial energy use. This means that even if the electrification of all vehicles were possible, it wouldn’t eliminate carbon emissions. It would just raise them at other points in the supply chain.

Orson

So here’s ORSON WELLES in 1970 talking with Dick Cavett about making ‘Citizen KANE’ and the sorts of filthy shenanigans old Kane himself – W.R. Hearst – got up to trying destroy Welles & the movie.
Entirely fascinating stuff.

pic.twitter.com/2KAgccN81p

— Michael Warburton (@MichaelWarbur17) July 17, 2023

Chinsa high speed rail

Magnet

They failed to get the #mRNA shot into enough people. Now they are putting it into the food supply. Beware of what you are eating. Get a magnet!!!#WEF2030Agenda #GlobalResistance #Outlaws pic.twitter.com/4usXP6ldZd

— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) July 17, 2023

Birdies
https://twitter.com/i/status/1680905456389361671

Bobi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1680910054910730240

Jonathan was born in 1832 in the Seychelles. He has been living in Saint Helena since 1882 and just celebrated his 190th birthday.

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What Comes After McCabe?

Feb 182019

February 18, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:20 pm Primers Tagged with: 60 minutes, cesspool, DOJ, FBI, McCabe, quagmire, Rosenstein, special counsel, Trump 6 Responses »

Johannes Vermeer The art of painting 1666-8

Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Director from February 2016 to January 2018 and former Acting Director of the FBI from May 9, 2017, to August 2, 2017, was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions Sessions on March 16, 2018, 26 hours before his scheduled retirement. On April 18 2018 it was reported that the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, sent a referral to the US attorney’s office in Washington for possible criminal charges against McCabe for lying to internal investigators.

When Sessions announced McCabe’s firing a month before the report came out, he said he based his decision on reports from the DOJ Inspector General and the FBI’s disciplinary office saying that McCabe had made unauthorized releases of information to the media (concerning disclosure of information to a Wall Street Journal reporter about an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation), and had “lacked candor” in talking about it (“had “lacked candor” in talking” means “lied”)

For a reason I don’t really understand -is it really just because he has a book coming out?- McCabe did an interview with 60 minutes that aired Sunday, but from which details leaked earlier in the week. In it McCabe suggests he was fired because he opened two investigations into US President Donald Trump 10 months before Sessions ousted him.

That seems peculiar for two reasons: one, why would he have been permitted to investigate Trump for 10 months, if the investigations were the reason to fire him? And two, is McCabe suggesting that at least some colleagues inside the FBI itself did not accuse him of lying? I haven’t seen that denied before. It would mean both the DOJ Inspector General and the FBI’s disciplinary office were dead wrong.

In the 60 Minutes piece, McCabe appears to throw Rod Rosenstein, US Deputy Attorney General since April 26, 2017, under the bus by claiming that -among other things- Rosenstein offered to wear a wire when meeting with Trump, something Rosenstein has always claimed he had said in jest. McCabe now insists he was serious.

Best friends? Maybe not anymore. Then again, the ‘official’ picture is still that of two of a group of ‘real patriots’ out to save the country. Somehow that makes me think of the Three Musketeers, a dashing and swashbuckling anything goes for the fatherland. McCabe actually appears to think he had to protect America from its newly elected president, and so, ostensibly, does Rosenstein. D’Artagnan had a whole different class of foes, I recall.

Also ostensibly, two Trump cabinet members were “ready to support” a Rosenstein/DOJ scheme to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump, according to testimony last fall to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees by James Baker, former FBI top lawyer. Who also mentioned for example Lisa Page was involved, love interest of Peter Strzok, both fired FBI officials well-known for their hate of Trump.

There’s a zillion more things to say about this, but it shouldn’t be me saying it, or any other writer or journalist. The reason I write this is to ask a very simple and obvious question: where is the Special Counsel who’s going to investigate this putrid quagmire? And when will (s)he finally be appointed? We know, we know, it’d be investigating the investigators, and who’s left for that job? Or are the investigators by now so corrupted that we might as well surrender?

Sure, Lindsey Graham wants the Senate Intelligence Committee to do an investigation, but is that the appropriate venue? Why a Special Counsel filled to the brim with FBI connected folk for Russiagate and ‘only’ a House Committee for FBI-gate? Or is that perhaps the wrong term? Does it matter?

And yes, a million voices will claim that a call for a Special Counsel investigation into the FBI and DOJ can only come from Trump supporters, but they really haven’t been paying attention.

William Barr is the new Attorney General, right, and Christopher Wray heads the FBI. Both organizations have to be very concerned about their credibility, because from the outside they look like cesspools. Rosenstein and McCabe’s swashbuckling should be enough reason, but we know much more went on and many more people were involved.

So let’s have it.