Oct 232026
 


Paul Cézanne Curtains 1885


• US Evacuating Middle East Bases As Trump Weighs New Iran Strikes – NBC (RT)
• Ilhan Omar Can’t Quite Rule Out Marrying Her Brother In Wild Interview (ZH)
• The Cost of an Ordinary Life: (Chris Queen)
• The Polls Are Full of Crap — and Black Voters Just Might Save America (Pinsker)
• Trump Will Stop the Steal in Midterm Elections – Dr. Jerome Corsi (USAW)
• Secretary Rubio Delivers Remarks from Mumbai, India (CTH)
• Putin, Xi and Trump Could Hold ‘Historic Summit’ – Kremlin (RT)
• French Police Identify Antifa as the Group Behind the Riots (Turley)
• European Regimes Renew Their Attacks on Free Speech (Ryan McMaken)
• EU Won’t Try To Steal Russian Assets Again – Belgium (RT)
• Disaster Is a Possibility (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Trump Still Serves Israel at the Expense of Republicans (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Kamala Just Revealed That She’s Running for President in 2028 (Margolis)
• Would Dostoevsky Have Appeared on RT? (RT)

 

 

“That’s America. Denial is America’s way of handling complexity.” https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2113028404635119836?s=20

 

 


“The Pentagon and State Department reportedly made similar preparations before launching the war against Iran in February..”

• US Evacuating Middle East Bases As Trump Weighs New Iran Strikes – NBC (RT)


A Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft

The US military has quietly begun withdrawing troops from bases across the Middle East, while Washington is ordering diplomatic personnel to leave several missions in the region, NBC News has reported.


The moves come as President Donald Trump considers launching a new wave of attacks on Iran, and the withdrawals resemble preparations made by the Pentagon and State Department ahead of the initial US-Israeli strikes in February, NBC reported on Wednesday, citing two American officials and two people familiar with the matter.

American troops stationed in Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait are among those being relocated, according to the report. Washington reportedly intends to maintain a limited presence at its regional bases, including personnel responsible for air defenses and security.

Ahead of the February 28 attack, the Pentagon withdrew large numbers of troops from potentially vulnerable bases to shield them from expected Iranian retaliation. Tehran accused Washington of using Gulf residents as “human shields” after thousands of American service members took shelter in civilian hotels and office buildings.

US Central Command spokesman Timothy Hawkins declined to discuss the reported troop movements, saying American forces were regularly repositioned to “optimize mission readiness” and remained prepared to defend US personnel and interests.

The State Department has also ordered non-essential personnel and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, citing escalating attacks by Yemen’s Houthi movement against civilian airports and other critical infrastructure.

Reuters reported that Washington was preparing additional diplomatic withdrawals across the Gulf, citing US officials, but State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott described reports of further withdrawals as “inaccurate.”

The developments come amid reports that senior US military officials have presented Trump with options for renewed strikes against Iran. According to NBC, the proposals include attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, underground installations and strategic islands, including Kharg Island, a critical oil export hub, and Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz.

Some of Trump’s advisers, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, have reportedly advocated resuming military operations to increase pressure on Tehran. Others have warned against launching another major campaign without a clearly defined objective.

Hegseth made an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday, holding closed-door talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just days before Israel’s October 27 parliamentary elections. Netanyahu is seeking another term amid mounting criticism of his handling of the wars in Gaza and Iran, while Trump has publicly endorsed his reelection bid.

Trump pledged earlier this month that the US would not attack Iran before the November 3 midterm elections, while maintaining that military force remains an option if diplomatic efforts fail. Netanyahu has also ruled out launching new strikes before Israel’s election but declared on Sunday that Israel was prepared to attack Tehran even without American participation.

The US-Israeli war on Iran, launched on February 28, has entered its eighth month, disrupting global energy markets and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has offered to restore normal navigation through the vital waterway within seven days if Washington lifts its naval blockade, eases oil sanctions and agrees to a broader cessation of hostilities.

Trump has rejected the Iranian proposal as “unacceptable,” while his administration continues to consider whether additional military pressure could force Tehran to accept Washington’s terms.

Read more …

Still more of her..

• Ilhan Omar Can’t Quite Rule Out Marrying Her Brother In Wild Interview (ZH)

As the investigation into whether Ilhan Omar married her brother to scam US immigration, the Minnesota Democrat just stepped in it, big time.


In her first interview since Homeland Security Investigations agents searched her Washington home last week, the Minnesota Democrat sat down with MS NOW’s Chris Hayes, about as friendly a venue as exists on cable. She called the decade-old claim that her ex-husband Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is her brother “insane.” Then Hayes gave her the layup, asking whether there was some “weird kernel of truth” to it. Her answer was “Not to my knowledge.”

Regular readers will recall that earlier this week we flagged a report that federal investigators are using DNA to probe the “married her brother” claim. So the timing could have been better. The clip went everywhere within the hour:


In other words, the one question her own side’s friendliest interviewer was guaranteed to ask is the one she didn’t answer with a “no.” Below we walk through what she actually said, how fast the White House pounced, and why “not to my knowledge” is a strange hill to stand on with a federal grand jury in the background.

“Which Is Insane”
Omar claims the allegation started on a Somali blog and was picked up by “right-wing conspiracy theorists in Minneapolis”: “…they just kind of went and found random people who were like, ‘She introduced us. She introduced him to us and said he was her brother.’ Which is insane.”

HAYES: “He was not – you were not related to him at all? Not that there’s not some weird kernel of truth that through some-”

OMAR: “Not to my knowledge.”

The generous reading is that Hayes’s question was oddly phrased (a “kernel of truth” through “some” mechanism) and Omar was hedging against a hypothetical rather than admitting anything. The less generous reading is that when the stakes are denaturalization, people tend to choose their words very carefully. Make of that what you will. ”

That’s An Answer A Lot Of Us Assume”
It took the president about an hour and a half. After his South Carolina rally, Trump was asked about the clip, according to Townhall: https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2113099643651531165?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2113099643651531165%7Ctwgr%5E6049626984b3b8c15afd55a23413a57b3f9f805d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnot-my-knowledge-ilhan-omar-cant-quite-rule-out-marrying-her-brother-live-tv-and-trump


That’s an answer that a lot of us assume.” The rest of the online right was less restrained, and we will spare readers most of it.

Omar’s brother hasn’t made it easy on her. In a 2012 Instagram post after Ilhan’s daughter was born, her brother/husband posted “Nieces, fresh out of the vagina!”

About That Raid

The brother line overshadowed the rest of a fairly revealing interview. According to the New York Post, Omar said:
• Agents “went room by room” and “took 17 items,” including cellphones, her daughter’s old phone, her husband’s notebooks, a Somali phrase book and a camera.
• She disputed reports that investigators got her DNA in the search: “I would have seen if they did take anything that had contained DNA.”
• She called the search “intrusive but polite,” adding that agents “even folded some of my clothing that were not folded.” Service with a smile.
• Asked about the financial disclosure that once put her household’s net worth at about $30 million (later revised), she described herself as “working class” and living “paycheck to paycheck,” with a 2016 Toyota Camry and two rented homes.

She also said the people who searched her home “literally have” her late father’s naturalization papers, which is the crux of the case, since she says she became a citizen at 17 through him. That line got its own viral moment:


What The Feds Are Actually Probing
Per the Post, the immigration case is run out of the Minnesota US Attorney’s Office and may involve possible false statements about her birth date on immigration documents. A separate probe into her and her husband’s finances is being run out of the DC US Attorney’s Office. The Wall Street Journal reported more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to relatives. A source told the Post that if her citizenship was obtained through concealment or misrepresentation, by her or by her father, the administration will seek to denaturalize and deport her. Omar denies any wrongdoing: “I’m confident in my truth.”

Put differently, the “brother” question isn’t just tabloid fodder: if the 2009 marriage was a sham for immigration purposes, it goes to the heart of a fraud case, which is why “no” would have been the obvious answer to give.

Read more …

“Your Paycheck Should Buy More Than an Economic Lecture”

” If they had their way, the Democrats would hand the average family of four a $1,700 tax increase. That’s on top of the cost of everything that families need to live their lives.”

• The Cost of an Ordinary Life (Chris Queen)

I bought a truck in January. It’s a beautiful Ford Ranger XLT that’s fun and remarkably smooth to drive and has more bells and whistles than any vehicle I’ve ever had — honestly, it’s tech-heavy, almost to a fault.


But after a decade of driving a plug-in electric hybrid that averaged 51 miles per gallon, 22 miles per gallon was quite an adjustment. Then gas prices went up. Obviously, we can lay the blame for the current high gas prices on trouble with Iran, but we’re still reeling from four years of Biden-era policies that built their foundation on higher prices for not just gas but also for everything else.

“The 2021-2022 inflation spike, the worst in four decades, was the price level adjusting to a $5 trillion flood of deficit spending that investors did not believe future fiscal surpluses would cover,” columnist Veronique de Rugy reminds us. A 2022 report by Michael Faulkender that the America First Policy Institute published serves as a painful reminder today of the havoc Joe Biden and the Democrats wreaked upon this nation — and what awaits us if Democrats take the reins again:

As discussed in my recent testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, “When the economy reopened, prices started rising with inflation from June 2020 to February 2021, averaging 32 basis points per month. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act was signed into law in March of 2021. Since then (through February 2022), monthly inflation has doubled to 64 basis points per month.” Inflation doubled following the enactment of the president’s socialist spending plan a full 10 months after the economy started reopening; that was not from COVID.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine occurred at the end of February 2022, but prices had already risen 7.9 percent in the twelve months ending in February 2022. Democrats want to undo the 2017 tax cuts that President Donald Trump ushered in during his first term and solidified with the One Big Beautiful Bill last year. If they had their way, the Democrats would hand the average family of four a $1,700 tax increase. That’s on top of the cost of everything that families need to live their lives.

The American people know what’s up. Recent polling shows that 88% of Americans surveyed favor the federal government letting them keep more of their money through increased domestic energy production and increased competition. Eighty-four percent believe that the federal government should cut spending, while 78% favor cutting taxes.

Energy prices, taxes, general inflation, overregulation, and government spending all show up in our household budgets. Our paychecks should buy more than an economic lecture, as high taxes, burdensome regulation, bloated government, and a lack of competition in the marketplace take more and more of our hard-earned money.

Affordability is a huge issue for millions of Americans, and in this midterm election, we need to choose legislators who will do what we need them to do to reverse this trend. We can’t afford to let Democrats put the cost of an ordinary life even further out of reach. That’s why this election matters, so don’t sit this one out.

Read more …

Is the Blue Wave a figment of your imagination?

• The Polls Are Full of Crap — and Black Voters Just Might Save America (Pinsker)

When you’re a two-ply man on a one-ply budget, life gets messy. You empathize with Lady Macbeth’s hands. Sure, you’re extra-careful. Maybe even methodical. (Everyone has their own technique.) But, alas, most of the time you still get [expletive] results.


Which is a perfect analogy for modern-day polling, because that entire industry is one-ply, too. Pollsters lack the budget to poll tens of thousands of people in million-plus communities, so they use guesswork, statistical projections, and sweeping assumptions about strangers.

Thirty years ago, when the internet was a novelty and everyone answered their landlines, cold calls had a very high success rate. Voters were willing (and often excited) to talk. A decade later, it took three calls to reach one respondent. And today? Check out this 2024 article from the Washington Post:

“[N]obody answers their phone anymore. Pew Research Center’s Courtney Kennedy is one of the nation’s most-cited polling methods experts. When she started in this business two decades ago, you had to call about three random numbers to get one to answer, a low response rate that already was sending tremors through the polling industry. By last year, Pew had to hit up about 140 random numbers to get that one response.”

Garbage in, garbage out. When only one out of 140 people is willing to participate, there’s just no way it’ll produce reliable results. Because you’ve filtered out the normies.

And instead, your data is top-heavy with lonely weirdos with nothing better to do than respond to political polls — often because they’re WAY more ideologically driven than the Average Joe. It’s probably why so many polls greatly exaggerated the strength of DSA candidates, projecting that Abdul El-Sayed would win the Democratic primary by 10 points (he won in a one-point squeaker) and Francesca Hong would win by 22 (she lost by half a point).

Assuming, of course, that the polls are real. Which isn’t always true. But the weirdest, strangest, most utterly inexplicable question of the 2026 midterm polling is this: Why are the Democrats overperforming in red states — and BADLY underperforming in blue states?

This is supposed to be a blue wave election. Donald Trump is supposed to be the most unpopular president since Harry Truman. There have been countless news stories about the Democrats pulling jaw-dropping upsets in ruby-red states like Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, South Carolina, Montana, Kansas, and more.

Yet in blue states like Michigan, Minnesota, Maine, and New Hampshire, the Republican Senate candidates are all within striking distance — which is more consistent with a RED WAVE election! Possible explanations: Candidate quality (or lack thereof) is the real story. Maybe the Democrats are overperforming in South Carolina because the Republican Senate candidate is unusually weak — and maybe the Republicans are overperforming in Michigan for a similar reason.

I’m sure it’s a factor. Quality matters. When voters can choose between sane and Cypress Hill, they usually side with sane. And it’s also true that each state is unique. Maine voters are more concerned about the Canadian border; Texans care more about Mexico’s. Somali fraud is a huge issue in Minnesota; less so in Kansas. What plays in Peoria might bomb in Biloxi.

Perhaps drawing national conclusions from state-specific elections is a fool’s errand. But I doubt it. Because millions of Americans will be voting in every state. (More than 14 million already have.) The two national political parties are battling for control of Capitol Hill — and the contrast between the two has never been more glaring.

To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, this isn’t an “echo” election. It’s a “choice” election. And it’s a helluva choice: MAGA versus the DSA. The battle lines are crystal clear. Furthermore, the biggest issues of the 2026 midterms are all national issues: affordability, inflation, gas prices, AI/data centers, immigration, the Iran War, Israel/Gaza, trans, and (of course) President Trump. Because the sitting president is ALWAYS on the ballot in midterm elections.

If this isn’t a national election, I don’t know what is! We all know about the historic headwinds: The party in power almost always takes it on the chin. That should be twice as true for a president with the lowest approval ratings since Harry Truman. So if these numbers are right, the Democrats ought to be dominating.

Yet that’s simply not happening in blue states. DSA-aligned candidates are struggling. There’s a very real risk the Dems will LOSE Senate seats in Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire! And even though Kamala Harris won Maine by seven points, Republican incumbent Susan Collins is still within the margin of error against her left-wing opponent. Something is undermining their coalition.

It’s a group that was once loyal, but is now wandering in the wilderness. A group that’s bleeding Democratic support — because the party is no longer their home. Which is making mincemeat of polling predictions and predictive models: These voters aren’t behaving like WE think they’re supposed to!

I’m talking about black voters. Sixteen years ago, black people voted 95% Democrat. By 2020, 77% of black adults identified as Democrats. And in 2023, the number fell to just 66%. From Axios: “A generational and structural shift is decoupling Black identity from Democratic Party loyalty, transforming a once-reliable voting bloc into a cohort of “political free agents” that the GOP is uniquely positioned to exploit.”

[…]

By the numbers: Republican identification among Black Americans climbed into the mid-to-high teens in recent Gallup data. Trump surged to an average near 20% approval among Black voters in the first quarter of 2025, nearly double his approval at the same point in his first term, according to Gallup. That was driven largely by Black men and those moving toward Republican affiliation.

Also relevant is religious affiliation: 73% of black people are Christian, compared to 62% of white people. Black people are also more likely than white people to attend church and engage in “religious practices.” Just 39% of white people called the Bible “very important” — compared to 70% of black people. Black Americans are (roughly) twice as likely to read the Bible daily and pray daily.

Which might be why black voters are rejecting the anti-Christian, pro-Islam positioning of the DSA. If Abdul El-Sayed had 2008-level black support, he’d win Michigan’s Senate seat in a cakewalk. The Republicans wouldn’t have a chance. This election would already be over. But in the Michigan primary, black voters rejected El-Sayed, voting en masse for his (white) opponent, Haley Stevens.

From The Hill:
[Haley Stevens] led El-Sayed by 8 percentage points in districts where more than 15 percent of the population is Black. Polling in July showed that just 21 percent of Black voters backed El-Sayed while 67 percent supported the House Democrat. A Michigan Education Survey also showed El-Sayed struggling with Black voters. Stevens notched 69 percent from the bloc; El-Sayed garnered 37 percent support. Stevens made no secret of her support for Israel. That’s probably one of the reasons why she did so well with black voters.

From Fox News:
[A]ccording to the Fox News poll, African Americans were the racial group most likely to say the U.S. isn’t supportive enough of Israel when asked the question along with White and Hispanic voters. That number was 25% compared with 19% for Hispanic voters and 15% for White voters. African American voters were also the least likely of the three groups to agree that America was too supportive of Israel, with 40% disagreeing as compared to White voters at 44% and Hispanic voters at 56%.

Read more …

Lrt’s see if he can.

• Trump Will Stop the Steal in Midterm Elections – Dr. Jerome Corsi (USAW)

With less than two weeks away from the midterm elections, President Trump is making plans to stop Democrat voter fraud. Dr. Jerome Corsi, who has a Harvard PhD in political science, has been on the cutting edge of enforcing election integrity for at least two years. It all comes down to presidential power to stop the cheating. Dr. Corsi says, “President Trump certainly has the power to do it, and he’s well aware of it. So, I think the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and President Trump are monitoring the situation very carefully.


They will have plans to handle various contingencies, I am sure. I cannot imagine President Trump is going to allow the election to be stolen. What is at stake is extremely important. It looks to me like the Democrats are not gaining favor with the American people. This is the whole purpose of my new book called ‘Dumb-O-Crats.’ It’s free this and free that and free everything else . . .. There is no way for a society to have everything to be free. The lies seduce people into thinking this is going to be a utopia, and it’s just the cloak behind the totalitarianism that comes.”

Dr. Corsi says to expect some violence coming from the left before and after the midterms. This recent headline says it all, and reads: “Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison Suggests Trump Will Try to Steal Midterms, Tells Leftists to be Ready to ‘Take the Streets.’” Dr. Corsi says, “In regards to what Ellison said, there is a lot of signaling coming out that the Democrat Socialists of America, the Marxist leftists and jihadists that have taken over the Democrat Party are planning a ‘colour revolution’ after the election. In other words, they want to get out in the streets, and they want to cause chaos. They think they can have the insurrection we are seeing in France. This is being signaled pretty strongly right now.”

Dr Corsi says, “We now have a data base that can track every registered voter in the United States and every mail-in ballot in the United States. . .. We can run this by 25 different indices such as tax records, post office moving records to really know who these people are. The data base even permits you to click through to Google maps to see property from which the person registered. We know the cheating has been going on. . .. There are. . . millions of illegal votes being cast.”

Another wild card is traditional Democrats who are not going along with the Marxists and Muslims who have taken over the Democrat Party. There are indications they may not show up on election day or vote Republican as one story recently reported in Michigan. No matter what, expect a wild ride unlike any other midterm election ever. Dr. Corsi warns, “This is not going to end on election day. The steal is going to be attempted. The consequences remain, and the data is available. So, we are just getting into this, and this is just the beginning to a great awakening to the threat to our election integrity. We do need to take exceptional measures to make sure the problem does not continue.”


Read more …

Did Musk and Trump discuss Kiev’s Starlink?

I’m sure they did.

It puts the US inside the war. It shouldn’t be.

How can you talk peace with Putin if you support Kiev?

• Secretary Rubio Delivers Remarks from Mumbai, India (CTH)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers remarks to the media from Mumbai, India. During the remarks Secretary Rubio answers questions about Starlink, Starshield, Elon Musk, Steve Witkoff, Ukraine negotiations, Russia, Iran, India and current geopolitical events. The video and transcript are below:



QUESTION: Sir, The Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk is the one who made the decision to throttle Starshield and catch Ukraine off-guard. Is this something you were aware of? Can you —

SECRETARY RUBIO: Starlink.

QUESTION: Starlink and Starshield.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay, again, there’s this – all this confusion. These are two separate programs, okay? Starlink is a commercial – Starlink is the receivers you put on the roof of your house and you use for – it’s used for commercial purposes. It’s not a military system, although it could be used in order to guide drones and things of this nature and so forth. And then Starshield is different. It’s a unique defense product that is sold and operated through the Department of War, as an example. It’s two different items and it’s important to distinguish one from the other.

I have not seen The Wall Street Journal reporting because I have not read it. I know that what – so I’m not familiar with the story that you’re referring to. But Starlink is a private company. They have a contract. They have contractual terms upon how that technology can be used. The important point is we cannot direct a private company as to the decisions they make or not make. What I can tell you with certainty is the President of the United States nor anyone in our system ever requested that any changes to that system be made, and that’s what we said repeatedly. I don’t know what the story reflects, but that is the case.

QUESTION: Isn’t – even if it’s a private company, I mean, this obviously is vital national security infrastructure for Ukraine. Isn’t this something that the U.S. – you as National Security Advisor – should have been given a heads-up on before?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, again, I’m not going to comment on what we knew that they might or might not do. Suffice it to say that the reporting out there was that somehow the United States Government was denying them something they needed in order to defend their country. That’s not true. That’s not accurate. And for leaders in Ukraine to continue to represent that is also not accurate.

I would also say – and again, I hark back on this statement that was made a few days ago. I don’t know who this official was in the Ukrainian Government that went around saying that a bunch of people had died as a result of what America was denying them. Not only are we not denying them and it’s not true, how many millions of people have been saved because of what America has already provided? No country in the world has done more to help Ukraine over the last four and a half years than the United States, including under the Trump Administration, and that continues to be the case. But ultimately, what the President wants here is an end to this war. That’s what he’s focused on.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, regarding the system in question, you said it’s inaccurate to say that the administration told SpaceX to throttle this service, but you’re not ruling out that the U.S. Government, if I understand correctly, knew about this decision.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we’ve seen the public reporting on it. We’ve seen the Ukrainians reporting that they were no longer able to use basically the internet.

QUESTION: Knew about this decision beforehand.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I’m not aware that we knew about this decision beforehand. I certainly – but it’s irrelevant. The bottom line is that that is – that is governed by a private commercial contract as to the – how their stuff can be used and what speeds they allow it to be used at. And so we’ll continue to engage on the matter, but the reporting initially was that somehow this was part of a directive from the United States Government, and I’m just here to tell you, as I’ve said repeatedly from the very beginning and the President has made clear, at no point did he say deny them the use of this system because I’m trying to punish them or teach them a lesson. That’s just not accurate, and that’s what I’ve been addressing repeatedly.

QUESTION: But it doesn’t mean there was no foreknowledge.

SECRETARY RUBIO: What do you mean, it doesn’t mean there’s no foreknowledge? I don’t understand your question.

QUESTION: Well, just because – just because the President – you’re not – just because the President doesn’t tell Musk do this doesn’t mean it wasn’t discussed.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I – again, I don’t – the President has nothing to do with the decisions that are made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr. Musk. That’s a private company. The President doesn’t run that company and can’t direct that company to do anything. I’m not aware of any foreknowledge, nor anyone – but again, the reporting was not about foreknowledge. I’m telling you there was no foreknowledge, but beyond it, even if there was, we don’t control what a private company – how they decide their product can be used.

Now, if they’re in a contract with the United States military, like Starshield, that’s a different matter, because that’s something we are purchasing and using for our use. But in the case of Starlink – we’re arguing something that’s just – it just makes no sense, the argument that people continue to make that somehow we had foreknowledge or directed it. It’s not accurate that we somehow knew about this ahead of time or directed it in any way. [..]

Read more …

“The three leaders could meet next month at APEC summit in China, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said..”

• Putin, Xi and Trump Could Hold ‘Historic Summit’ – Kremlin (RT)


Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump could hold a “historic” three-way meeting at the APEC summit in China, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov has said. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is scheduled to take place in Shenzhen, China, on November 18-19.


Speaking to the Russian outlet Vesti on Wednesday, Ushakov said Beijing had already begun preparations for the potential talks. “Everyone is ready for this, but much, if not everything, depends on the Chinese hosts of the summit,” he said. The possibility of three-way talks was also discussed during Putin’s meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, according to the Kremlin.

Ushakov described the proposed gathering as potentially “historic,” noting that it would be the first meeting of the three leaders in this format. Putin and Trump last met in person at a summit in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025, and have remained in contact by phone, most recently on October 9.

Putin and Xi have also held regular talks, including on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek in August. The two previously met in Beijing in May during Putin’s state visit. Trump and Xi have met twice so far this year, first in Beijing in May and then at the White House last month.Trump has previously expressed openness to three-way talks, suggesting that nuclear disarmament could be among the issues discussed.

Asked whether the talks could also contribute to peace efforts in the Ukraine conflict, Ushakov said a single meeting would not be enough. “Even if the meeting lasts one, two or five hours, it still won’t be possible to resolve all the problems,” he said.

Commenting on whether the summit could amount to a “new Yalta,” Ushakov said: “I think that if the meeting takes place, there will be a storm of comments and assessments.” The 1945 Yalta Conference brought together Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to discuss the final stages of World War II and the postwar international order.

Read more …

“Despite Democratic Denials..”

The Dems still deny Antifa exists. It’s easier that way.

• French Police Identify Antifa as the Group Behind the Riots (Turley)

Years ago, I called Antifa the Keyser Söze of the left, after the character in “The Usual Suspects.” In the film, the character Virgil explains how Söze stayed in the shadows: he became “a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night.” The strategy was too simple: “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”


Democratic leaders have long fostered the myth around Antifa, the largest and most violent group on the political left. For years, they have denied the existence of the group even as members were charged with crimes (including terrorism). Now, the French authorities have found that the nonexistent group is the largest of three “ideologically distinct groups” responsible for the violence in France. It appears that either the entire French security system is delusional or the trick is up for the American left.

I have testified before Congress about Antifa, run columns on the organization for over a decade, and written a book discussing Antifa. Yet, Democratic members continued to insist that there is no such group, while other leading Democrats have praised Antifa for instilling fear in MAGA. It was a curious claim even then, when other Democratic leaders were actively pandering to the violent group.

Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison — now the Minnesota attorney general — proclaimed that Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer. However, Democratic leaders and pundits have repeated the mantra that there is no such group despite political violence on the left spreading across the country.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D., N.Y.) dared anyone to name a single member of Antifa despite the charging of Antifa members with various serious crimes. Former House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) was widely ridiculed for denying the existence of Antifa. Others on the left have joined Goldman in this absurd claim. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel devoted part of his monologue to assuring viewers that Antifa is no more than a mythical “chupacabra.” “You understand there is no Antifa,” he said. “This is an entirely made-up organization.”

The denials continued even as FBI Director Christopher Wray debunked deniers like Goldman. “Antifa is a real thing.” European countries have banned Antifa Internet sites due to their criminal conduct while Antifa candidates have been elected to office as members of the group.

Now, French authorities identified Antifa as the largest of three “ideologically distinct groups” responsible for the violence in France. The French Justice Minister also banned far-left politicians for fueling the rage. A previously banned Antifa group has been linked to one murder in France. Antifa and communist flags have been prominent in the protests. A Belgian minister also blamed Antifa for the spread of the violence.

It appears that Keyser Söze is in the open, but Democrats maintain the FBI, Justice Department, and various countries are simply delusional. The problem is when the myth becomes reality. Left-wing pundits and politicians are caught in this denial web where they have to maintain the absurd idea that Antifa is just an idea.

Some of us have been writing about Antifa for years after watching them intimidate and threaten faculty and students on campuses. One such student came from my campus and proclaimed that Antifa was winning after his arrest for property destruction. When another radical was arrested after taking an axe to a congressional office, he self-identified as a member of Antifa.

Before Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert, 26, implanted an IED device outside of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office in downtown Montgomery, he put up stickers reading “support your local Antifa.” Numerous Antifa members have been arrested, including some who claimed to be journalists. Many protesters belong to Antifa groups that have names like “Rose City Antifa” and offshoots like Love and Rage and Mexico’s Amor Y Rabia. Antifa members have been elected to the French and European parliaments.

Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” called by some the “Antifa bible,” explains that the group is united in its opposition to free speech. “Most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists,” he writes. “From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.” Yet, Democratic leaders seemed to be adopting the 1967 ‘Guide for the Married Man’ when caught with Antifa allies or associations:

Read more …

”Don’t anyone come to me with free speech!“

“Both see a grave danger to the ruling class posed by the ability of unvetted or anonymous users to post opinions freely.”

• European Regimes Renew Their Attacks on Free Speech (Ryan McMaken)

In recent weeks, German and French politicians have denounced free speech, and especially the concept of “freedom of speech” as long envisioned in the libertarian tradition of natural rights. French President Emmanuel Macron on September 29 stated that ”The so-called American ‘free speech’ today, which some people have promoted, is the opposite of free speech.” Macron compared speaking freely as comparable to walking down the street assaulting other people.


A week earlier, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared, ”Don’t anyone come to me with free speech!“ He asserted we must “still be able to protect citizens from false information.” Both were speaking on issues related to online speech through social media and similar platforms. Both see a grave danger to the ruling class posed by the ability of unvetted or anonymous users to post opinions freely. In both cases, these attacks on freedom have been in the context of European regimes’ repeated efforts to impose new regulations on social media platforms to limit speech.

This has been going on for several years. For example, back in February, Macron stated that “free speech is pure bullshit.” In Europe, the anonymity issue is no minor affair. In Germany, there are literal speech police who will arrest ordinary citizens merely for saying things online or reposting memes. It’s easy to see why anonymity could be an essential tool in posting ideas and facts the regime doesn’t like.

A European regime insisting on abolishing online anonymity is essentially tantamount to announcing that these regimes want the ability to make more arrests for wrongspeech.This is a growing problem across Europe, and a 2025 study concluded that British police were making 30 arrests per day for non-violent “offensive online messages.” Under British law, one can be prosecuted for hurting someone else’s feelings. That’s not how British apologists describe it, of course, but that is the essential reality.

Euphemisms for Censorship
Whether we’re talking about France, the UK, or Germany—all places where the despotic enemies of free expression have seemingly free rein—the regimes’ forces do not, of course, come right out and say that they support censorship. They couch their censorship in the soft language of Leftwing ideology. The claim is that speech must be regulated in order to combat “hate speech” or to reflect the “common good” or to combat “disinformation.”

To wit, in recent years, European politicians have insisted that speech be made to fit into “a common framework”—to use Macron’s phrasing—and to be subject to some standard determining what is “false information.” But here is the rub: Who is to determine what falls within this common framework? Who is to determine what constitutes “false information”? It is the ruling oligarchy and its political allies, of course, that will determine if some proposed fact or idea is to be allowed to be spoken freely.

The ruling elites will decide if some sentiment or phrase is to be defined as “hate speech” and thus will be punished by state police and regime jailers. The ruling elites will determine what is “science,” and therefore what constitutes “disinformation.” This was on full display in the United States during the Covid Panic, when the government bureaucrat Anthony Fauci effectively declared “I am the science.” It is through these state-created and reasonable-sounding “exceptions” to free speech that the regime smuggles in its despotism.

For example, this has been the case for many years with defamation laws. Those who defend legal sanctions for “defamation” essentially advocate for government censorship to combat hurt feelings. Moreover, for centuries, governments have used defamation laws as a means of punishing criticism of the regime. Laws against “seditious libel”—employed by absolutist kings of old—have always essentially been laws against free speech.

An Assault on Truth Itself
The individuals who are directly punished will not be the only victims of this censorship. Truth and critical thinking themselves will be the victims as the regime’s subjects will no longer be allowed to fully and publicly examine the veracity of claims made by the ruling elites. It means that “truth” will be whatever the regime says it is.

This problem of using free speech to hide and distort reality itself was well described more than 100 years ago by the radical free-market libertarian Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto was no naive democrat who thought that freedom could necessarily be protected by elections or written constitutions. But he did understand that freedom of speech is at the very foundation of a free society, regardless of the type of regime or whatever other freedoms might be protected in writing.

Even as Pareto was facing the rise of violent radical socialists in Italy—and thoroughly doubted the ability of the liberal state to deal with it—he never wavered on the key importance of free speech. That is, Pareto remained a dogmatic hardliner on free speech, and in this was like nearly all libertarians before him, from the anarcho-capitalist Molinari to the American Revolutionaries.

Not surprisingly, then, Pareto concludes there were no “mitigating factors” that could legitimately limit speech in the name of some common good. Writing in 1916 he stated:

“[B]efore a theory can be considered true, it is virtually indispensable that there be perfect freedom to impugn it. Any limitation, even indirect and however remote, imposed on anyone choosing to contradict it is enough to cast suspicion upon it.” Hence freedom to express one’s thought, even counter to the opinion of the majority or of all, even when it offends the sentiments of the few or of the many, even when it is generally reputed absurd or criminal, always proves favourable to the discovery of objective truth (accord of theory with fact). …

Pareto goes on to insist that there can be no exceptions, even for the sake of protecting “truths” long held to be precious. Not even those assertions said to be essential to humanitarianism can be considered protected from the scrutiny of free speech. He continues:

“Nor can an exception be made for humanitarian dogmas, nor for the dogmas of the sex religion so dear to Senator Berenger and other geniuses of the same magnitude.1 Let us keep the point strictly before us: There is no scientific liberty unless everything is open to doubt — even Euclid’s geometry and three-dimensional space. It is ridiculous to say that one is disposed to grant liberty for “truth” but not liberty for “error”; for the point at issue is none other than to discover where the “truth” lies and where the “error”; and it cannot be settled if “error” cannot be defended by every possible reason that can be advanced in its favour.2 Only after such reasons have been validly refuted is judgment of error affirmed — pending further investigation. Many people fail to understand that, because in judging of truth or error they substitute a criterion of sentiment for the logico-experimental criterion.”

Clearly, the fact that free speech is now so under siege in Europe is simply the latest evidence of how far out of favor old historical liberalism has become in Europe. Every year, Europe more enthusiastically embraces its worst tendencies in which human rights are repeatedly jettisoned to protect the “rights” of those who rule over the continent. Yet, the antipathy toward free speech also demonstrates the weakness of the European regimes and their political programs. Were the German, French, and British states not so hampered by political division, economic decline, and public dissatisfaction, they would not be so fearful.

Americans have no yet traveled so far down this road. But the foundation is already being built. Republicans support laws deeming all criticism of a certain foreign government to be “anti-semitism” and therefore “hate speech.” Covid laid bare the American Left’s enthusiasm for anti-speech tyranny. All that is necessary for the First Amendment to be wiped away is for a handful of federal judges to agree with the enemies of freedom. There is no guarantee.

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“Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has blocked an EU proposal to confiscate Russian sovereign assets to fund Ukraine.”

They finally listen to the lawyers.

• EU Won’t Try To Steal Russian Assets Again – Belgium (RT)

The European Commission will not revive a proposal to seize Russian sovereign assets immobilized at the Belgium-based clearing house Euroclear to finance Ukraine, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has said.


Approximately €210 billion ($236 billion) in Russian central bank assets have been frozen in the EU, most of them held at Euroclear. Brussels has been using profits generated by the funds to support Ukraine through a so-called “windfall tax,” but has stopped short of confiscating the principal over concerns about the legal consequences. De Wever has repeatedly raised those risks at meetings of EU leaders.

“One colleague came to tell me in the hallway that it was as if I had run a flamethrower over that debate,” the prime minister told Belgian lawmakers on Wednesday, according to local media, referring to discussions last year. De Wever was briefing the Belgian parliament on the meeting. De Wever said he was certain the European Commission would not reopen the debate, although he could not guarantee that individual member states would refrain from doing so.

“Not everyone experienced the discussion,” he said. “New leaders have emerged who are developing a discourse that I was able to nip in the bud last year.” The proposal that De Wever considers a nonstarter nevertheless received support in various forms from Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, among others, during last week’s European Council summit.

EU leaders previously considered using approximately €185 billion ($208 billion) in Russian sovereign assets held in Belgium to finance Kiev. After De Wever demanded collective guarantees against potential financial and legal consequences, they instead agreed last December to raise €90 billion ($101 billion) through EU borrowing. European officials claim that the Russian assets could be used to repay the loan. Moscow has denounced both the windfall tax and the proposed confiscation of Russian money as theft.

Kiev has deemed the foreign financing available for 2026-2027 insufficient, with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky requesting an additional €70 billion ($79 billion) last week. The EU has made no new funding commitment and reportedly plans to seek further contributions from other potential donors, particularly the UK and Canada.

Read more …

PCR won’t budge.

• Disaster Is a Possibility (Paul Craig Roberts)

In 13 days Americans will vote on the midterm Congressional elections. The outcome will determine whether the Democrats control Congress, or enough of it, that Trump’s presidency is at an end.


Even some MAGA Americans are indifferent, because Trump, rather than end money-draining wars, expanded them by attacking “at Israel’s request,” Iran, which has proven to be a strategic disaster for the United States, with its bases in the Persian Gulf destroyed and oil flows restricted by victorious Iran.

As I previously reported, Trump, misguided by his ego and Zionist neoconservative advisers, refused Iran’s offer on a silver platter to reelect a Republican Congress by opening the Strait in exchange for Trump disassociating from Israel’s war against Iran and accepting Iran’s right to control its own waterways.

Trump’s strategic error is perhaps unique in human history, but he has surrounded himself with Zionists, so little else could be expected than Trump’s erroneous decision.

Trump and his incompetent regime have tried to control the narrative with false claims that the United States Navy controls the Strait of Hormuz and 20,000,000 barrels of oil are moving through the Strait each day. Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury actually told this lie with a straight face to the prostitute media. And so did the US Central Commend.

The effect of this narrative, as Wall Street always responds to the optimistic note, has been to hold down the future price of oil based on expectations that the situation is being resolved. But it is not. It seems that there is also false optimism on the Russian/Ukrainian front. John Helmer reports a poll of Russian voters taken at the end of September and made available on October 6. The poll found that 81% of Russians would support a Putin decision to stop the war with Ukraine.

If stopping the war required returning Donbas and Crimea to Ukraine, 35% would support that. The poll found that this percentage has increased by 7 percentage points over the past 18 months whereas the 51% who would oppose ending the war if it meant returning the Russian territories to Ukraine has fallen by 13 percentage points since he beginning of last year.

It appears that the drone and missile attacks on Russia have divided Russians and goes against the military and Russian nationalists, thereby offering a wedge for Zelensky and the Europeans to exploit. My conclusion: Putin has created a problem for himself by refusing to win an easy war.

Difficulties arise when false narratives are created in order to avoid dealing with real problems. Disaster is a likely consequence.

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“.. Trump Continues to Serve Israel at the Expense of Republicans in the Midterm Elections..”

At least ever since the Holocaust, there is a strong connection between US and Israel. Whoever is president.

Claiming that Trump is now Bibi’s running boy must be seen in the light of that.

• Trump Still Serves Israel at the Expense of Republicans (Paul Craig Roberts)

“We must complete the elimination of the Iranian regime – that is the main thing. I have discussed this with President Trump more than once, including the day before yesterday.” — Netanyahu


The Zionist agenda of Greater Israel marches on. Netanyahu says Hezbollah’s fall will follow Iran’s as the Middle East is cleared of Muslims. The Lebanese government is negotiating with Israel the sellout of the Hezbollah militia while Muslims continue to war against one another with Egypt offering to help Saudi Arabia with the fight against the Houthis in Yemen.

Iran calls for Muslim unity, something last seen under Saladin in the 12th century. Until the world understands and deals with the Zionist neoconservative US doctrine of hegemony and the Zionist Israeli hegemonic doctrine of Greater Israel, there can be no peace.

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They have no-one. And they face a man with a very loyal following.

• Kamala Just Revealed That She’s Running for President in 2028 (Margolis)

Kamala Harris insists she hasn’t decided whether she’s running for president in 2028, but she accidentally gave the game away.


Obviously, nobody in the Democrat Party is exactly begging her to jump in. The establishment has been pushing back hard on the idea of a third Kamala campaign. Former allies and donors grumble that she squandered her first year out of office, and they can’t come up with a single reason voters should take another look at her. Even her husband, Doug Emhoff, reportedly isn’t thrilled about her running again.

You’d think all that would give her pause. Instead, Kamala keeps dropping hints, and her latest one came at an event in Las Vegas, where she debuted a slower, lower-pitched speaking style. It’s the newest entry in her long record of changing her voice and speech cadence depending on who’s sitting in the audience.

“That era of feeling powerless — like what can we do, this just keeps happening — that era is over because we are now 13 days away from doing something about it to stop the pain,” Kamala said, speaking slowly and in a lower register, as if to a room of sleepy kindergarteners. She kept up the same condescending tone while urging Nevada voters to back Democrats in the state’s governor’s race and for Congress.

“So that’s where we are right now, and that’s kind of exciting,” she continued. “Right? This is some good stuff. Like, we’re taking our power, we’re using it, to determine who will hold offices like being the governor of Nevada. Which is so important for the people everyday on the most basic issues that affect our lives. Who will continue to walk those halls of Congress, being an extraordinary fighter.”


This new tone she’s adopting fits how Democrats see voters: as children they need to control. You don’t talk to grown adults that way unless you think they need a nap and a juice box before they can handle a ballot.

Let’s be fair: Kamala didn’t invent the fake accent. Hillary Clinton infamously slipped into a Southern drawl while campaigning in the South during the 2008 presidential primaries. Barack Obama was known for adjusting his dialect for different crowds during that same campaign. And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has been pulling the same trick for years. It’s phony and desperate, every single time.

The motive here isn’t complicated. Politicians who put on fake accents want voters to feel they share something with them. When a Democrat suddenly picks up a Southern drawl, leans into black vernacular, or shifts her cadence to match the crowd, it’s not random or subconscious; it’s a calculated move. The candidate is trying to manufacture cultural familiarity, hoping voters will see her as one of their own. It’s just shameless pandering from a candidate who wants to convey “I’m just like you” without saying the words.

And Kamala wouldn’t bother with any of this if she weren’t planning to run for president. Nobody road-tests a new voice for a midterm rally out of civic duty. You do it because you’re auditioning for something bigger. So she can keep saying she hasn’t made up her mind. Kamala just told us she’s running for president.

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Dostoevsky is the level of Shakespeare.

“A British literary editor has suggested that the Russian novelist would appear on RT today. We imagined what he might have to say about the modern West ..”

• Would Dostoevsky Have Appeared on RT? (RT)

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great 19th century Russian author of ‘Crime and Punishment’, the ‘Idiot’, and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’, was a counterintuitive thinker who could have appeared on RT. That’s the opinion of Times literary supplement editor Martin Ivens who, in a piece for Bloomberg arguing against censorship of Irish author Sally Rooney in the UK, mentioned the Russian great.


The suggestion is not without merit. Dostoevsky knew persecution, famously spending ten years in Siberia, four of which were in captivity and another five in military exile having completed his initial present sentence in February 1854.

Rooney is a best-selling author who has publicly taken a stand to back Palestine Action, a group whom it is illegal to support, and about whom it is illegal to make public gestures of support in the UK. British police have made hundreds of bizarre arrests of elderly protesters holding signs supporting the group. Her books have been banned in Britain.

Ivens has used his platform in the Times Literary Supplement to highlight how Russian writers often assume the status of prophets. In his Bloomberg piece he reaffirmed that censoring literature is counter-productive and only serves to feed resentment against the mainstream already in the body politic.


Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

However, his suggestion that Dostoevsky could appear on RT inspired us to inquire as to what topics the great man might hold forth on in 2026.

On Europe
Like many since, Dostoevsky viewed Western Europe with a complex mix of cultural admiration and affinity, moral revulsion, and spiritual anxiety. His experience in captivity – where he was subject to a mock execution – is said to have destroyed his faith in secular humanism. He argued that discarding God led to a moral chaos where “everything is permitted.”

“Conscience without God is a terrible thing; it can stray into the depths of immorality” He also predicted that attempts to build a so-called paradise on earth through rationalism and secularism alone would inevitably lead to political tyranny.

On the EU’s crisis
Dostoevsky would likely and emphatically make the case that Western European leaders have by now displayed a total political bankruptcy and that Western Europeans should renounce materialism and seek meaningful social relations. The riots engulfing major European capitals, and the unfettered profiteering and immigration that have given rise to such tensions, are a symptom of the malaise of the Western European mind. Forcing humanity into rationalist conformity will only lead to extreme bloodshed, he claimed.

“Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism”

On liberalism
Dostoevsky, would have undoubtedly lamented the emergence of the European Union as a bureaucratic bearer of so-called liberal values. He would have highlighted how his book ‘Demons’ predicted the so-called democratic deficit that characterizes the EU – a tiny, largely unelected bureaucratic elite unreachable to the regular population who are stripped of freedoms. He would have called the Covid-19 pandemic a brutal event in the restriction of human experience.

Abandoning God and zealously attempting to replace spiritual authority with a moral relativism where everything is permitted will only lead to social and spiritual collapse, Dostoevsky believed. He would have stoutly defended the emphasis and respect for traditional values in popular Russian culture. “The Westernizers have placed themselves above the people as a paternalistic intelligentsia, rejecting the people”

He also enjoyed the mess, and this is where he probably would’ve got into trouble with Brussels. The EU notoriously wishes to regulate everything, where Dostoevsky emphasized the irrational and fundamentally spiritual nature of human beings.

On techno-fetishism
He foresaw the loss of grace in the world and its replacement by either authoritarian Catholicism, rational individualistic Protestantism, or indeed technological fetishism. Artificial intelligence in this respect may have represented the apotheosis of his foreboding.

Similarly, Dostoevsky rejected the idea that humans could be rendered calculable and rational beings in their entirety and in that sense would undoubtedly have been horrified at the creeping legislation and legalization of everyday life.

“Human nature acts as a whole, with everything it possesses, consciously and unconsciously”

The European Union’s Digital Services Act, which allows the behemoth to interfere in the local elections of member countries, would represent such a bureaucratic and legalistic invasion. He would’ve taken a strong stand against the nullification of anti-systemic narratives but would also have emphasized that such political and authority and overreach was inevitable given the collapse of religion and morality.

Dostoevsky would have been as much energized as he would have been horrified by developments in 2026. Were he to be with us today it’s highly likely his voice would contribute to the choir of outspoken and brave commentators who make the channel what it is.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/2112949129416753617?s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 282024
 
 January 28, 2024  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Balthus Therèse dreaming 1938

 

• RFK Jr. Praises Texas In Battle With Biden Over Border (Hill)
• Biden Vows To Shut Border If Lawmakers Pass Budget Deal (RT)
• How Trump and US Conservatives Deal a Blow to Ukraine Aid Package (Sp.)
• US Promised To Seize Russian Assets – Kiev (RT)
• Seizing Russia’s Money Would Endanger Euro – Italian Central Bank (RT)
• EU and NATO Heading for the Abyss Over Foreign Policy Foibles (Jay)
• ‘No Threat’ Of Russia Attacking NATO – Germany (RT)
• Davos, Dictators, and the Real ‘Threats to Our Democracy’ (Hollis)
• WH’s New Strategy on Ukraine ‘Will De-Emphasize’ Retaking ‘Lost Territory’ (Sp.)
• Putin Vows To Eradicate Nazism For Good (RT)
• ICJ Ruling May Entail Dire Consequences for Israel (Sp.)
• Who is Kevin Morris? Even Hunter’s Lawyer Seems Unsure (Turley)
• Hunter Biden Partner Rob Walker Confirms Payments To Biden Family (JTN)
• Boeing’s Nosedive: How Greed Ruined A Great American Company (Johnston)
• 83 million? (Victor Davis Hanson)

 

 

The alleged rape supposedly took place in 1996. With a script straight out of Law and Order. 16 years later, she’s a big fan of her “rapist”.

Note: the 83 million is not for the “rape”, but for defamation. Which she says cost her her job at ELLE magazine. ELLE has denied this.

 

 

Tucker Texas cartels

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..Biden’s failure to secure the border leaves states no choice but to take matters into their own hands..”

• RFK Jr. Praises Texas In Battle With Biden Over Border (Hill)

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday backed Texas in its ongoing battle with the federal government over border authority, criticizing the Biden administration for its handling of the U.S. southern border. “Texas is right. Biden’s failure to secure the border leaves states no choice but to take matters into their own hands,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “As President, I will end this humanitarian crisis once and for all. I will secure the border and destroy the business model of the drug cartels. A country without borders is not a country at all.” Kennedy joins a growing list of politicians, most of them Republican, who have thrown their support behind Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) fight against the federal government over the fencing and razor wire installed by Texas at the U.S.-Mexico border. In a major blow to Abbott, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that border agents can remove the razor wire erected on the border, siding with the Biden administration.

Abbott has defended the fencing as necessary for his state’s security, claiming he was forced to take matters into his own hands due to what he characterizes as a lack of action on the Biden administration’s part. The federal government, meanwhile, contends the state does not have the power to build the fencing, which it says prevents it from managing the border. Abbott railed against the high court ruling and contended his authority is the “supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes.” Texas appeared to continue installing razor wire after the ruling came down. Kennedy has previously spoken out against what he sees as a “border crisis” that is leading to the smuggling of drugs and humans. He called Biden’s border policies a “disaster” in a Newsweek op-ed last year. Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley also spoke out in support of Abbott on Thursday and called Biden’s position “absolutely ridiculous.”

RFK border

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“Biden already has authority to shut down illegal immigration. And now he’s telling us he’s willing to do that, but only if we pass a new law — one whose authors refuse to share with the public or even their own colleagues. Something’s not right here.”

Scott Adams: “The plan is to close the barn door after too many horses get out.”

• Biden Vows To Shut Border If Lawmakers Pass Budget Deal (RT)

US President Joe Biden has again urged Republican lawmakers to approve a long-stalled budget deal, vowing to shut down his country’s southern border as soon as he’s given the authority to do so. Republicans have been blocking the White House’s attempts to push through a $106 billion ‘national security package’ for Ukraine and Israel since October. They have demanded tougher security measures on the southern frontier be included in the agreement. ”For too long, we all know the border’s been broken. It’s long past time to fix it,” Biden outlined in a written statement on Friday. He described the border deal, now being negotiated in the Senate, as “the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.”

“It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law,” Biden vowed. Under the bipartisan agreement, the administration would, among other things, be required to shut the border down if the number of migrants trying to get into the US illegally on any given day reaches 5,000, the New York Times reported. This threshold had been surpassed “routinely” in recent months, the paper stressed. Finding common ground on the immigration deal would be “a win for America,” the president insisted. “If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill, and I will sign it,” Biden said, addressing the Republican lawmakers.

The Washington Post described the comments as “a remarkable shift” in the Democratic president’s rhetoric on the immigration issue. The media outlet underscored “the urgency” of the situation on the border for his re-election bid. Biden’s statement came as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Friday that if the leaks about the deal’s content were accurate, it would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber. The likely Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, slammed the border deal earlier this week, warning that it “would be another gift to the radical left Democrats.” The agreement “will be meaningless in terms of border security,” Trump argued, reiterating that the only way to solve the immigration issue would be voting for him in November.

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“..the draft bipartisan agreement could allow up to 5,000 migrants to enter the US daily at the border..”

• How Trump and US Conservatives Deal a Blow to Ukraine Aid Package (Sp.)

Former US President Donald Trump and Republican policymakers have subjected a draft bipartisan US border security deal to harsh criticism, casting doubt on the future of military aid packages for Ukraine and Israel. The border security deal is seen by Democratic lawmakers as a necessary evil to ram a new multi-billion Ukraine aid bill through the US Congress. Last December neither chamber managed to reach a compromise on the provision of further funds to Kiev despite pleas and even threats from the White House. Eventually, Republican and Democratic senators come up with a draft border agreement. Even though the formal text of the deal has not been officially released yet, leaks keep coming irritating US conservatives, as per Just the News, an independent US media outlet.

Media reported that the draft bipartisan agreement could allow up to 5,000 migrants to enter the US daily at the border. To that end, the White House is reportedly requesting at least $14 billion to help cities to absorb the flow of migrants released by US border authorities into the country. Former President Donald Trump denounced that as a bad deal in every way: “I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get everything needed to shut down the invasion of millions and millions of people, many from parts unknown, into our once great, but soon to be great again, country!” he wrote on his Truth Social media site on January 25. The US mainstream media warns that the former president’s comment was a “serious blow to the talks”. Trump has emerged as the leading Republican presidential candidate following the party’s first two primaries this month, with the power to influence the outcome of the negotiations.

Punchbowl News reported that Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell told his colleagues on Wednesday that the situation had “changed,” and that Trump was going to build his re-election campaign around the border crisis. “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him,” McConnell allegedly said. However, on Thursday the GOP leader appeared to backpedal on his remarks, asserting to the press that he still backed the bipartisan migration deal. Deputy White House Press Secretary Olivia Dalton also signaled that the Biden administration as supporting the bipartisan immigration agreement. “The president has been clear, we need action on the border,” Dalton told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve been engaging in good faith, bipartisan negotiations with both Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans to that end. And we believe that there’s no reason that shouldn’t continue.”

Still, some US senators warn that the effort is doomed. US Senator Ted Cruz said on Wednesday that the Ukraine aid-border security supplemental bill is a train wreck and has no chance of passing the US House of Representatives. Senator Rick Scott echoed Cruz, saying that the bill will be dead on arrival in the House. Earlier this week the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft suggested that House Republicans may kill the foreign aid bill even if a bipartisan border security and immigration deal is passed. The lower chamber’s Republican majority has no appetite for throwing good money after bad to Ukraine, according to the institute. The DC-based think-tank also noted House Speaker Mike Johnson’s ardent support for a sweeping migration reform and his record of opposing Ukraine funding packages. Some House Republicans, such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, even threatened to introduce a “motion to vacate” and oust the speaker if Johnson passes funding to Ukraine.

Read more …

“..a US Senate committee approved the “Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (REPO) for Ukrainians Act..”

• US Promised To Seize Russian Assets – Kiev (RT)

The US assured Kiev that the Russian assets that remain frozen in the West are going to be seized and used to rebuild Ukraine after the conflict, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal has said. The US, EU, and their allies blocked some $300 billion of Russian central bank assets as part of sanctions in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Around $200 billion of that money is held in the EU. Politico reported on Thursday that it asked Shmygal if he was concerned that US funding for the Kiev government would come to a complete stop if Donald Trump won the presidential election in November and returned to the White House for his second term. ”We have all the assurances from the US about long-term support for Ukraine – for example, the seizure of Russian assets to fund the Ukrainian recovery,” he claimed.

On Wednesday, a US Senate committee approved the “Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (REPO) for Ukrainians Act,” which should help pave the way for such a move by Washington. If it passes both houses and is signed into law by President Joe Biden, Washington could seize the Russian central bank assets, using such a measure against a country that it’s not directly at war with for the first time in history. Reuters reported this week, citing a senior official in Brussels, that the EU will be unlikely to join the US in confiscating the Russian funds as there’s no agreement on such a step between the bloc’s member-states. Earlier in January, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that Moscow would respond to a possible seizure of its assets by the West, inducing tit-for-tat measures.

Previously, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the confiscation of Russian funds would amount to “outright theft” by the West. He told reporters that it would undermine the trust in the US and EU financial systems around the globe. Shmygal also stated that Kiev is “working hard with the administration of President Biden and with Congress to have support for 2024.” As for the continuation of the aid in 2025, “we’ll see how conditions develop,” he stressed. ”I believe that any president of the US will support our fight for civilized values, our mutual values,” the Ukrainian PM said. The US has provided Ukraine with around $111 billion in economic and military support amid the conflict with Russia. But the flow of funds subsided dramatically in recent months as Republican lawmakers continue to resist attempts by the White House to push through another $60 billion in assistance for Kiev.

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“..weaponizing a currency inevitably reduces its attractiveness and encourages the emergence of alternatives..”

• Seizing Russia’s Money Would Endanger Euro – Italian Central Bank (RT)

The EU should not use the euro as a tool in sanctions wars and political disputes, as it would harm the currency’s image and standing, Bank of Italy Governor Fabio Panetta warned on Friday. He as commenting on discussions in Brussels regarding frozen Russian assets. The EU, US, Japan and Canada froze some $300 billion of Russian central bank assets in 2022 as part of Ukraine-related sanctions against Moscow. Some $200 billion of that is held in the EU, largely in the Belgian clearing house Euroclear. Brussels is currently working on plans to apply a windfall tax to the profits Euroclear is making on the frozen funds, while opting not to seize the immobilized money outright.

However, Italy is one of several EU member states, including Germany and France, that have been skeptical of moves involving the assets, arguing that using them could prompt investors from other countries to doubt the safety of their own holdings in the EU and quit the bloc’s market, ultimately weakening the euro. “This power must be used wisely,” Panetta said, referring to euro’s standing as a global reserve currency. “International relations are part of a ‘repeated game’: weaponizing a currency inevitably reduces its attractiveness and encourages the emergence of alternatives,” he warned at an event in Riga, marking the 10th anniversary of Latvia adopting the euro. According to the official, the recent surge in the use of the yuan in trade between China and Russia is “instructive in this respect,” because it was Western sanctions that prompted the trend, as they made it difficult for Russia to use US dollars and euros in cross-border trade.

“The Chinese authorities are explicitly promoting [the yuan’s] role on the global stage and encouraging its use in other countries, including those sanctioned by the international community following the invasion of Ukraine,” Panetta said, adding that the share of Chinese trade financed in the domestic currency has doubled in the past three years, allowing the yuan to overtake the euro as the world’s second most-used trade currency. The official warned if the need to “be alert to the possibility that politics will have a greater impact on international currencies in the coming years.” Western currencies have been largely phased out in Russia-China trade, as nearly 95% of all transactions between the countries are now carried out either in rubles or yuan. Russia is not the only major economy to use the Chinese currency for trade settlements, as more and more nations seek alternatives to the dollar and euro. These include Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Iran.

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“..this BS is being fed into the echo chamber because a panic is setting in both on a EU level and national one as elections are looming and the smell of defeat is beginning to fill the lungs of the corrupt..”

• EU and NATO Heading for the Abyss Over Foreign Policy Foibles (Jay)

A number of odd statements have been coming from the EU in recent days, coupled with some even odder skulduggery giving rise to thought that the entire project is having its ‘last days of the Roman Empire moment’. Is it possible that the EU that we know is on its last legs and what we are witnessing is the final demise? Ursula von der Leyen, whose grandparents were probably Wafen SS officers has said that if she doesn’t get her way in finding new money for Ukraine she will have to resort to dirty tricks. Well, she didn’t actually say “dirty tricks” but this is what is implied. And what might those underhand moves might be? In fact, there is already a motion in the EU corridors to make Hungary effectively a non-EU member state, a sort of rogue member which is still in the EU but has no voting rights.

Given that the EU is anything but a democracy and that the institutions in Brussels are monolithic and consensus-driven (there is no ‘opposition’ in Brussels like in most democratic countries) it is hardly surprising to see nefarious activities which would make an African dictator proud of his handy work. The EU, or rather the super federalist elite which run it in Brussels like von der Leyen and her mates as Pfizer – yes, multinational corporations really wield the most power in Brussels and more or less own the European Parliament – are getting worried. The project is starting to indulge in in-fighting and creating a lot of mixed message in the media. Gardner-in-chief Josep Borrell wants a new shiny state for the Palestinians but Ursula is perfectly happy with the present genocide program. Perhaps she sees in investment opportunities in offshore gas off the coast of Gaza?

And so with the economy in the doldrums and the EUs most powerful member state Germany looking more and more like the Czech Republic in the late 90s, the uber elites like Ursula and the most vile MEP the European Parliament ever had – Guy Verhofstadt – are worried that the project can be hijacked by far-right MEPs come the next euro election in the summer. Ironically, in such a scenario where the European parliament’s main majority bloc would be a far-right group, the support for Netanyahu would peak and even save him from falling into his own quagmire of corruption charges, as the far-right in Europe support the Zionists, shifting from the once popular idea of wiping them out under Hitler’s ‘final solution’ plan.

But the EU would never be the same again. These MEPs support reversing the centralisation of power back to member states. And so it is hardly any surprise at all that Verhofstadt, a man so bereft of charm that he makes a pile of damp towels look exciting, gives another one of his fiery speeches in the European parliament with always the same theme: all our problems can be resolved if we has more money, more power and an EU army. The fault is with member states, the European parliament’s top wanker-in-chief argues as he throws his head around and animates very much like a power hungry leader in the 1930s who got us in this mess in the first place. Have you noticed lots of media reports pointing to war with Russia? Wonder what this is based on? Of course there is no imminent war with Russia but the pundits can’t help presenting one to us, proclaiming that Putin wants to take the odd European country, like a rich man who collects them like pets.

The reality is that this BS is being fed into the echo chamber because a panic is setting in both on a EU level and national one as elections are looming and the smell of defeat is beginning to fill the lungs of the corrupt who have been feeding from the same trough for too long. Create a panic about a war looming and enough stupid Europeans and Americans will accept spiralling consumer prices, high pump prices, insane utility bills (like in the UK), poor growth and no jobs. Few westerners see through the lies and see the ruse in the making. Even the Germans.

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“..this is just a “snapshot” of the current situation and there’s no way of knowing how things would turn out in the future..”

• ‘No Threat’ Of Russia Attacking NATO – Germany (RT)

There’s currently no threat of Russia attacking NATO or any of the partners of the US-led military bloc, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has suggested. Moscow’s military is now fully occupied with the Ukraine conflict, Pistorius explained, in an interview with the tabloid Bild on Friday. ”At the moment, I don’t see any danger of a Russian attack on NATO territory or on any NATO partner-country,” he added. However, the minister stressed that this is just a “snapshot” of the current situation and there’s no way of knowing how things would turn out in the future. Pistorius warned against underestimating the alleged risks related to Russia, saying that NATO needs to rely on “the principle of deterrence, as we know it from the times of the Cold War.” During that time, things between the West and Moscow were “much more predictable than the situation we have today,” he argued.

”We are coming out of 30 years of peace… from which we have all benefited. And now the journey is going the other way,” the minister said. NATO and Germany must “really pick up the pace” in order to be able to face the emerging challenges, he stressed. Germany has given to Ukraine “a lot of systems” that Berlin needed for itself since the outbreak in February 2022 of fighting between Moscow and Kiev, but “we will get them again,” Pistorius vowed. Earlier this week, commenting on the possibility of a direct conflict between NATO and Russia, the bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that “we don’t see any direct or imminent threat against any NATO ally.” He stressed, however, that NATO “closely monitors what Russia does” and has increased its “vigilance and presence in the eastern part of the alliance” in order to be able to counter any moves by Moscow.

Pistorius told ZDF on Monday that Germany should be ready to respond to a possible Russian attack. In order to be able to resist an aggression “that you don’t know if and when it will occur, then that means you have to arm yourself – and that’s what we’re currently doing together with allies in NATO,” he explained. On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed Pistorius’ speculation about a possible conflict between Russia and NATO, saying that, due to internal problems the EU faces, its politicians “now need to somehow pump up public opinion, artificially agitate it, by inventing an external enemy.” Speaking at UN headquarters in New York the following day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that “no one wants a big war,” especially Moscow. “We have lived through ‘big wars’ many times in our history,” he added. President Vladimir Putin last month rejected as “complete nonsense” claims that Russia could attack NATO. Moscow has “no geopolitical, economic… or military interest” in doing so, he pointed out. Russia is, on the contrary, interested in developing ties with the bloc, he said.

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“..American voters see where the threats of authoritarianism truly lie, and it isn’t with Donald Trump…”

• Davos, Dictators, and the Real ‘Threats to Our Democracy’ (Hollis)

The former Soviet Union collapsed politically because its centrally planned economy suffered disaster after disaster. Government takeover of the Venezuelan economy destroyed that once-prosperous country, plunging its residents into abject poverty. When the president of Sri Lanka banned nitrogen-based fertilizer, the country’s agricultural sector collapsed, as did its exports, leaving Sri Lankans without adequate food, fuel, or oil to heat their homes. Here in the United States, we have witnessed the nasty consequences of plenty of government policy failures: the health risks of COVID-19 shots; the spectacular failure of wind power in Texas during the 2021 winter storm; the inability of electric vehicles to start in the bitter temperatures across the northern U.S. two weeks ago; California’s water shortages and the struggling capacity of its electrical grid.

Egotists like WEF founder Klaus Schwab and his God-complex, like-minded cronies across the globe never consider that they could be wrong about anything. But they are always wrong about something. Trump voters do not want a dictator; they do not want an imperial presidency at all. They want a president who understands that free and independent businesses operating in a minimally regulated environment are the lifeblood of American prosperity. They recognize that an executive branch that refuses to enforce federal laws is failing in its primary constitutional obligations to the American public. They understand that a justice system that picks and chooses whom to prosecute based upon their race, ethnicity, or political belief is no justice at all. They are tired of inflation caused by misguided energy, trade, and environmental policies.

They are tired of our veterans suffering and dying with their physical and mental health needs unmet; tired of homeless people living in the streets; tired of open borders, of tens of thousands of Americans dying of fentanyl overdoses, and tired of unpunished crime, all while hundreds of billions of our hard-earned tax dollars get laundered through foreign wars into the pockets of multinational defense contractors, corruptocrat politicians, and warmongering toadies who never saw a foreign conflict they didn’t want to exploit. These Americans reject the globalist overlords pushing their anti-human philosophies down everyone’s throats, and they fear being enslaved by governments infiltrated by mindless drones in thrall to the latest apocalyptic power grab. The press and the Left can hand-wave and hyperventilate all they want about “threats to our democracy.” But American voters see where the threats of authoritarianism truly lie, and it isn’t with Donald Trump.

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Just give up.

• WH’s New Strategy on Ukraine ‘Will De-Emphasize’ Retaking ‘Lost Territory’ (Sp.)

The Biden administration’s new strategy will “de-emphasize” Kiev’s recovery of the so-called “lost territories” this year and instead focus on Washington helping the Zelensky regime survive amid Russia’s ongoing special military operation, the Washington Post quoted unnamed sources as saying. The sources were apparently referring to the territories previously reunited with Russia as a result of popular referendums. They claimed that the Biden administration, “still smarting” from Kiev’s bungled counteroffensive in 2023, is “putting together the new strategy,” which includes helping the Zelensky regime strengthen its armed forces and economy in the face of the Ukraine funding impasse in the U.S. Congress.

The strategy’s other purpose is to help Kiev strengthen its fighting force and economy in the face of Ukraine funding-real impasse in the US Congress, according to the sources. “The emerging plan is a sharp change from last year, when the US and allied militaries rushed training and sophisticated equipment to Kiev in hopes that it could quickly push back Russian forces,” insiders pointed out. One source added that “it’s pretty clear” that it will be difficult for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to try to achieve “the same kind of major push on all fronts that they tried to do last year.” The idea is help Ukraine “hold its position on the battlefield for now, […] and “get them on a more sustainable path,” per the source. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu declared in late December that the Russian armed forces had achieved last year’s main goal by thwarting Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive.

“The main efforts of the past year were focused on achieving the goals of the special military operation. The main one was to stop the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which was loudly proclaimed by Ukraine and its NATO allies. This task was successfully accomplished,” Shoigu emphasized at the time. The statement came after Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov told reporters that Ukraine had lost some 160,000 troops and over 3,000 armored vehicles, including 766 tanks, as well as 121 aircraft and 23 helicopters in all areas during the six-month counteroffensive.

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“..in a number of European countries, Russophobia is being promoted as the state policy.”

• Putin Vows To Eradicate Nazism For Good (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to crush modern-day forces that promote Nazism, singling out Ukraine and the Baltic states as countries where the authorities have embraced such ideologies. Speaking on Saturday at the opening of a memorial to Soviet civilians killed by Nazi German forces in Leningrad Region, the Russian head of state said: “these days the outcomes of the Nuremberg trials are effectively being revised.” He claimed that some countries have gone from rewriting history and whitewashing the Nazis to “arming themselves with Hitlerites’ ideology and methods.”

President Putin cited the Baltic states, in an apparent reference to their treatment of Russian-speaking minorities, which Moscow deems discriminatory. “The regime in Kiev lionizes Hitlers’ accomplices, SS members, and uses terror against” those who resist it, the Russian leader alleged, accusing the Ukrainian authorities of subjecting the elderly, women and children to “barbaric shelling.” According to President Putin, “in a number of European countries, Russophobia is being promoted as the state policy.” “We will do everything – everything to undercut and eradicate Nazism for good,” the Russian head of state pledged.

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“..South Africa was after the provisional ruling to force Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza.”

• ICJ Ruling May Entail Dire Consequences for Israel (Sp.)

“Provisional measures is what South Africa wanted,” noted Carrillo, “that there is enough evidence to show that Israel has violated the 1948 Genocide Convention. “This is what South Africa wanted when they filed this suit because a final ruling by the courts can take months, it can take years. South Africa was after the provisional ruling to force Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza.” Still, Carrillo noted that Israel often ignores world opinion and discounts measures taken against it in the international arena, such as when the Soviet Union led a 1975 effort in the United Nations to declare that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. “Israel has a long history of disregarding the rulings or the opinions of international organizations,” said Carillo. “They do as they will, and they have the complete protection of the United States who at best is going to issue a lukewarm statement about protecting civilians. That’s what I think we should expect.”

However, host Jamarl Thomas noted the significant “moral weight” the decision carries as Carillo insisted Israel “did not refute any of the evidence, they did not disprove any of the South African evidence.” Amidst a rapidly emerging multipolar world order, Carillo suggested Global South countries and their allies may enforce material consequences against Israel for their actions in Gaza, where 70% of the more than 26,000 deaths are said to be of women and children. “We will have to see, because we are seeing a polar shift in the geopolitical sphere,” said the analyst. “Maybe we will see countries like Russia, maybe like China, or maybe like South Africa or other BRICS members, find a way to stop or to punish Israel in a way.”“Economically, Israel is already facing dire consequences,” Carillo claimed. “Its ports are empty, its workforce is completely depleted, and, among other things, their currency is on the downward trend.

So if you add on top of these, as you said, the moral weight of committing genocide and then more than likely not stopping, how are nations not aligned with the US, why would they continue dealing with Israel? Where is the benefit?”Israel also continues to face economic repercussions as a result of the effective blockade in the Red Sea enforced by the Houthi movement in Yemen. Despite Yemen’s status as one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, Yeminis have demonstrated strong support for the Palestinian cause, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets to protest US and UK-led retaliatory strikes in the country. “There will always be resistance to oppression,” Carillo insisted. “Always. We know this through human history.”

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“The problem is that when you are “everything” to a client, you may end up with nothing when it comes to confidentiality.”

• Who is Kevin Morris? Even Hunter’s Lawyer Seems Unsure (Turley)

Kevin Morris testified last week in the House. The question that lingered then, and now, is who is Kevin Morris. The Hollywood lawyer, producer and Democratic donor has emerged as a major figure in the corruption scandal surrounding Hunter Biden.For years, some of us have complained that we are not sure what Morris was at any given moment.What became clear in the deposition is that Morris does not appear certain himself. He’s Hunter’s confidant, art patron, business partner, and his lawyer. That could prove his undoing … both for himself and his client. Morris seems to move effortlessly between roles in his relationship with Hunter Biden.Hunter met Morris when he attended a political fundraiser as a major donor. Soon thereafter, he warned Biden associates that Hunter’s unpaid taxes raised political problems during Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential run.

He later proceeded to pay off Hunter’s taxes and to subsidize his lavish lifestyle. He also took an apparent lead in planning public campaigns against the critics of the Bidens, reportedly pushing a scorched-earth approach to attack potential witnesses and accusers. Then Morris seemed to take on the role of Hunter’s bank and art patron. He reportedly gave millions to Hunter while insisting that they are loans, not gifts. Most recently, it was revealed that, despite accounts of buyers flocking to buy Hunter’s overpriced art, it was Morris all along who bought most of the pieces. The overpriced art could be used to excuse some of these “debts” — a type of special crafts project for the president’s son to write off millions. The most striking thing about the deposition from his House interview was the speed at which Morris seemed to put on and remove his various hats.

He invoked attorney-client privilege at least 17 times over questions related to his payments and work for Hunter Biden. Yet, while refusing to answer those questions, he admitted to an array of other financial ties and transactions with his “client.” To the extent that Morris was not acting as a lawyer but as a businessman or a friend, these conversations (and related records) may not be protected. In his deposition, Morris also discusses his ownership of 10% of Bohai Harvest RST LLC (BHR), through his acquisition of interest in Skaneateles LLC. Those are business interests associated with Hunter Biden Morris seemed to be working through his own identity crisis with the help of House investigators. While insisting that his legal representation of Hunter Biden was “global and complete,” Morris detailed how his relationship floated from loan giver to friend to patron to film producer.

His counsel insists that all loans and roles were clearly laid out for Hunter in writing and reviewed by outside counsel. House investigator: “How did it come up that you were going to purchase Skaneateles? Or why did you buy Skaneateles of all the companies that Hunter Biden was involved with? Why that one?” Morris: “That’s privileged. I am not going to answer that because of attorney-client privilege.” That prompted a quick intervention by his lawyer. Morris reversed and agreed it was not protected and said that he “evaluated it as a businessman, and I thought it was something that could be a very successful investment.” Morris’ confusion often left his answers in an unintelligible morass. When asked about his decision to do a movie on his client, Morris again seemed to merge his roles, saying these are “just materials being collected for representation that may be used in the future after the representation.”

Later, Morris seemed to invoke an open-ended, running privilege. At one point, Morris claimed he was “like a general counsel” in Hunter Biden’s “virtual corporation.” He explained, “Counsel, in my job, I represent high-profile individuals. … [H]igh-profile individuals have basically virtual corporations. And in those virtual corporations, they have all kinds of staff and assistants. You know, agents and managers … publicists. You know, whatever. And what I do is I oversee … sort of the squad. Sort of like a general counsel.” With that, Morris was viewed as asserting a type of floating privilege because “I am involved in everything. And the same is with Hunter. If you check my retainer agreements, you’ll see that it’s not — it says all matters.” The statement is both factually accurate and ethically dubious. It seeks sweeping privilege claims despite the layers of different relationships, from loaner to donor to lawyer to producer. If Morris is called to testify in court, this may not fly. The problem is that when you are “everything” to a client, you may end up with nothing when it comes to confidentiality.

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“..The relationship between James Biden, Hunter Biden, Ye, and other partners resulted in at least $9 million in payments to Biden-connected companies in 2017 alone after Joe Biden returned to private life..”

• Hunter Biden Partner Rob Walker Confirms Payments To Biden Family (JTN)

Hunter Biden associate Rob Walker appeared for a transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee Friday as the latest witness in the impeachment inquiry and weeks before Hunter Biden is set to testify. According to a source familiar with Walker’s testimony, he confirmed reports that Hunter Biden’s work for the Chinese energy company CEFC began while Joe Biden was still Vice President, in 2015. In December, Just the News reported that the impeachment inquiry had assembled a growing body of evidence that Hunter’s work with the Chinese energy company started years before its million dollar payments began to flow into the Biden family coffers in 2017, following Joe Biden’s departure from office. “Today we learned that Joe Biden met with the now-missing Chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, as Hunter Biden and his associates received $3 million from a Chinese entity CEFC controlled. Evidence continues to reveal the Bidens sold the ‘Biden Brand’ to enrich the Biden family,” Oversight Chairman James Comer said in a statement released by the Oversight Committee.

“Today’s interview confirmed Hunter Biden and his associates’ work with the Chinese government-linked energy company began over a year before Joe Biden left the vice presidency, but the Bidens and their associates held off being paid by the Chinese while Joe Biden was in office,” he continued. “The Chinese company paid Hunter Biden and his associates $3 million shortly after Joe Biden left office as a ‘thank you’ for the work they did while Joe Biden was in office. Members of the Biden family received payments from the Chinese deal even though they did not work on it. This is the type of swampy influence peddling the American people want us to end,” Comer said. The relationship between James Biden, Hunter Biden, Ye, and other partners resulted in at least $9 million in payments to Biden-connected companies in 2017 alone after Joe Biden returned to private life.

The payments included a $3 million “thank you” in March 2017, a $5 million loan in August 2017, and a $1 million legal retainer fee to Hunter Biden from CEFC official Patrick Ho after he was indicted on bribery charges, according to documents gathered by Congress and federal prosecutors. Yet, evidence from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop and FBI interviews with Biden business partners provided to Congress show that the relationship dates back to at least 2015 and 2016. One email from Rob Walker to another of Hunter Biden’s business partners referenced an apparent letter from Hunter to Zang Jianjun, the executive director of CEFC China Energy, who worked directly for its founder and Chairman Ye Jianming.

In an interview with the FBI, Walker told investigators that he recalls two meetings that Vice President Biden had with CEFC officials, one after leaving office in 2017 and another while he was still in office. The interview was provided by IRS Whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler to the House Ways and Means Committee in their probe of the IRS and DOJ investigation into Hunter Biden. “Any times when he was in office or did you hear Hunter say that he was setting up a meeting with his dad with them (CEFC) while dad was still in office?” an FBI agent asked Walker. “Yeah,” Walker responded. After this admission, the investigators inexplicably changed course and did not follow up on what Walker had just told them.

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“..hunter killer assassins meeting boy scouts.”

• Boeing’s Nosedive: How Greed Ruined A Great American Company (Johnston)

The singular event cited as marking the beginning of Boeing’s downfall was its 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, which put it on a collision course with a culture steeped in cost-cutting and financial performance. Somewhat perversely, although Boeing had acquired McDonnell, it was the latter that took over. McDonnell’s executives ended up running the company and its culture became ascendant. Scores of cut-throat managers battle-hardened in the company’s perform-or-die culture were brought in. A federal mediator once likened the partnership to “hunter killer assassins meeting boy scouts.” The self-effacing and introspective Bill Allen, Boeing’s genteel CEO through the post-war era and the man behind the 707 gamble, described his company’s ethos as “to eat, breathe, and sleep the world of aeronautics.”

But a new generation of leaders was emerging who brought new priorities and a new vocabulary. It was no longer about making great airplanes; it was about “moving up the value chain.” What it was really about was maximizing shareholder value. Now looming like a colossus over Boeing was the figure of Harry Stonecipher, McDonnell’s CEO. The blunt, hard-nosed son of a coal miner, Stonecipher was known for vicious cost-cutting, emails written in all caps – and for jettisoning executives who didn’t hit financial targets. But Stonecipher was a ‘winner’: McDonnell’s stock price had risen fourfold under his tenure. What predictably ensued was nothing short of a complete transformation of Boeing from being a company run by engineers to one that prized financial profit over all, and was willing to cut all manner of corners to reduce costs and boost returns.

The quality of the product was, to put it mildly, severely compromised. Downstream from these changes are the spectacular failures we all know about: the outrageous cost overruns, delays and production issues in making the Boeing 787, which ended up being temporarily grounded for battery fires that regulators attributed to flaws in manufacturing, insufficient testing and a poor understanding of an innovative battery; the abject failure of the jimmy-rigged 737 MAX, which saw two deadly crashes and, most recently, a harrowing incident in which a sealed-off emergency exit blew out mid-air in an Alaska Airlines flight, leaving a gaping hole in the fuselage. m It is possible to see Boeing’s merger with McDonnell as simply an unfortunate mistake, and the rise of the likes of Harry Stonecipher as simply an instance in which the wrong person found his way to the top; and the outsourcing and cost-cutting as simply a misbegotten strategy.

But this would miss the wider trends at work in the American corporate landscape at the time. Boeing was hardly alone on this path. The writer David Foster Wallace once wrote that “America… is a country of many contradictions, and a big contradiction for a long time has been between a very aggressive form of capitalism and consumerism against what might be called a kind of moral or civic impulse.” What is evident is that starting roughly in the 1970s, this “aggressive form of capitalism” became ascendant in the US and for a long time overwhelmed – and is arguably still overwhelming – the “moral and civic impulse.” However, to view this as simply a moral failing is to miss the greater economic pressures at work.

The ‘70s were, in the words of historian Judith Stein, the “pivotal decade” that “sealed a society-wide transition from industry to finance, factory floor to trading floor, [and] production to consumption.” America had emerged from World War II with unquestioned manufacturing supremacy, but within a few short decades, US companies had begun falling behind. Whereas Japan, Germany, and, later on, China invested heavily in their industrial bases in the post-war period, the US came to emphasize innovation at the expense of capital investment. The 1970s were when nascent industrial powerhouse Japan pulled off its so-called ‘revolution of quality,’ which went a long way toward putting American manufacturers on the back foot.

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“..Trump will have to soldier on. He must stay controlled amid the tsunamis, not play into the hands of his accusers, and remember that he may soon be the only eleventh-hour hope to stop this mockery of American law, customs and traditions.”

• 83 million? (Victor Davis Hanson)

Donald Trump in furor stormed out of a New York courtroom for a while, in the defamation suit brought by author and dating/boyfriend/sex-advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. It was just settled against Trump for $83.3 million! The Carroll suit was largely subsidized by Reid Hoffman the billionaire capitalist, and mega-donor to the Democratic Party and leftwing causes. The subtext of Trump’s rage, aside from the outrageous monetary size of the defamation ruling, is that he was facing—and angered—a leftwing claimant, a quite hostile leftwing judge, and a leftwing New York jury. The civil suit serves as a mere preview of four additional leftwing criminal prosecutions, leftwing judges, and leftwing juries to come—all on charges that would never had been filed if Trump either had not run for president or been a liberal progressive. Yet here we are.

The E. Jean Carroll case is the most baffling of all five. She, the alleged victim, did not remember even the year in which the purported sexual assault took place, nearly three decades ago. Observers have pointed out dozens of inconsistencies in her story. It was never clear what were the preliminaries that supposedly (Trump denies meeting her) led both, allegedly, willingly to retreat together to a department store dressing room, where during normal business hours the alleged violence took place. Moreover, the sexual assault complaint came forward decades post facto—and only after Trump was running for and then president. Carroll eventually sued him for battery, but well after the statute of limitations had expired and thus the case seemed defunct.

Her claims of defamation injuries arise from being fired from her advice column job at ELLE magazine. She claimed that Trump’s sharp denials and ad hominem retorts led to her career ruin. But the loss for anyone of a column at 76 does not seem such a rare occurrence, and the absence of a salaried job in one’s late seventies for four years does not seem to equate to a $83 million hit. And note the allegation that her dispute with Trump led to her firing was strongly denied by the very magazine that cut her loose. But then another strange thing happened. In 2022, a new law (“The Adult Survivors Act”) was passed in the New York legislature. It also post facto established a twelve-month window (beginning six months from the signing of bill) that permitted survivors of long ago alleged sexual assaults suddenly to sue the accused long-ago perpetrator—regardless of the previous statute of limitations.

That unexpected opening suddenly gave Carroll’s prior unsuccessful efforts a rebirth. And she quickly refiled with the help of arch-Trump hating billionaire Hoffman. Yet the bill may have been introduced with Trump particularly in mind—given the legislator who introduced it, Brad Hoylman-Siga, was known as another Trump antagonist. More interestingly, he had earlier introduced and had passed another Trump-targeted bill. That “TRUST” act had empowered particular federal Congressional committees to have access to the New York State once sealed tax returns of high-ranking government officials—such as Trump. That bill’s generally agreed subtext was a green light for anti-Trump members of Congress to obtain legal access to Donald J. Trump’s tax returns.

So there is an eerie feeling that the New York legislature may have abruptly passed legislation that was aimed at the past conduct of Donald Trump but only after he entered the political arena. While these are not quite bills of attainder, there is something unsettling if they are post facto laws aimed at targeting the most famous and controversial man in America and the leading candidate for the presidency. In essence they were targeted statutes designed to make Trump’s prior legally unactionable behavior suddenly quite legally actionable. Trump will be subject to such special treatment all summer and fall. Prosecutors Bragg, James, Smith, and Willis will synchronize their court business for maximum effect.

Trump again will face leftwing prosecutors, judges, and juries on charges that are politically driven, involving alleged behavior that is either usually not criminalized or not to the same degree as Trump’s case. (Do we remember the nearly $375,000 federal fine belatedly leveled at an exempt Obama but only five years after his 2008 illegal garnering of, and not reporting, foreign campaign contributions?) The stakes are higher each day as Trump closes in on the nomination and thus becomes the hope of half the country to end the Biden madness. Somehow Trump will have to stay calm, give no opening to his legion of hostile prosecutors, while conducting a nonstop campaign against Biden (and for a while Hayley), and while fighting to keep his name on various state ballots.

So what we are witnessing is not even the extralegal efforts of Steele/Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie/DNC/Hillary Clinton in 2016, or the 2020 “Russian disinformation” ruse/change the voting laws/infuse half a billion dollars to absorb the work of the registrar machinations against Trump. We are way beyond all that. The legal system itself, hand-in-glove with leftwing politicos (compare campaign boasts of James and Willis, or prosecutorial visits to the January 6 committee and the White House) is turning the process of balloting and elections into an embarrassing farce. Still, Trump will have to soldier on. He must stay controlled amid the tsunamis, not play into the hands of his accusers, and remember that he may soon be the only eleventh-hour hope to stop this mockery of American law, customs and traditions.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Wild dogs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751228420925562943

 

 

Baby goat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751252951375712290

 

 


The bearded vulture is the only known animal whose diet is almost exclusively bone

 

 

Fata morgana

 

 

Monarch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751398451152044152

 

 

Clay
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751471302169227699

 

 

 

 

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