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Debt Rattle August 25 2024

Aug 252024
 
 August 25, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  72 Responses »


M. C. Escher Still life and street 1937

 

• RFK Jr. Takes a Flame Thrower to the Entire System (Kevin Downey Jr)
• Trump Is Back On His A-Game (C.A. Skeet)
• RFK Jr. & Trump To End War On Small Farms, Save Nation’s Food Supply Chain (ZH)
• RFK Jr. Blames Biden For Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• Putin Outplayed US Neocon Plan to Balkanize Russia (Sp.)
• Putin Has Chosen Response To Ukraine’s Incursion – Envoy (RT)
• US In Agony Over Ineffectiveness Of Sanctions – Moscow (RT)
• US Announces New Sanctions On Russia (RT)
• Trump Invited To J6 Awards Gala’ Celebrating January 6 Rioters (RT)
• ‘End of Empire’: US Ruling Class Fatally Out of Touch (Sp.)
• US Hesitant Over Kursk Incursion Aid – WaPo (RT)
• Ukrainian Attack On Kursk Is ‘Wrong’ – Hungary (RT)
• Hungary May Send Migrants To Brussels To Avenge Asylum Fine (ZH)
• SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing (ZH)
• ‘Darkness Descending’: Tucker Carlson Reacts To Telegram Founder’s Arrest (RT)

 

 

 

 

Weinstein

 

 

 

 

Gutfeld

 

 

Vivek Van
https://twitter.com/i/status/1826998015694913973

 

 

Dipshizzy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827035655244828965

 

 

So good
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827172947280249138

 

 

 

 

They will have had elaborate conversations, and RFK will have made many demands, most of which Trump will have said yes to.

We haven’t forgotten those who say he’s an intel asset, but we’ll have to see..

• RFK Jr. Takes a Flame Thrower to the Entire System (Kevin Downey Jr)

Robert Kennedy Jr.’s highly anticipated speech on Friday was much more than the third-party candidate bowing out of the race and endorsing Trump. Kennedy laid waste to the deep state, big pharma, big food, the military-industrial complex, Democrat censorship, and how most, if not all, of these institutions may be working together for sinister reasons. Kennedy apologized for taking the stage 40 minutes late and then immediately jumped into action. “I attended my first Democratic convention at the age of 6 in 1960, and back then, the Democrats were the champions of the Constitution, of civil rights,” Kennedy stated. “The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, against colonialism, imperialism, and unjust wars. We were the party of labor, of the working class. The Democrats were the party of government transparency and the champion of the environment.

Our party was the bulwark against big money interests and corporate power. True to its name, it was the party of democracy. As you know, I left that party in October because it had departed so dramatically from the core values that I grew up with.” That was the nicest thing Kennedy would say of his former party. “It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big AG, and big money. When it abandoned democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president, I left the party to run as an Independent.” Kennedy then spoke of how the Democratic Party and the mockingbird media mudpuppies unitedly turned on him to chase him out of the 2024 election. After thanking the people who worked on his campaign, RFK Jr. took out his Zippo and went to work. “Now, in an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election, in a system that my father and my uncles thrived in.

A system with open debates with fair primaries… and with a truly independent media untainted by government propaganda and censorship, in a system of nonpartisan courts and election boards, everything would be different,” Kennedy declared. “I’m sorry to say that while democracy may still be alive at the grassroots, it has become little more than a slogan for our political institutions, for our media, and for our government, and most sadly of all for me, the Democratic Party.” “In the name of saving democracy, the Democratic Party set itself to dismantling it, lacking confidence in its candidate that, that its candidate could win in a fair election at the voting booth, the DNC waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself.” He spoke of “DNC-aligned judges” whose job was to throw Kennedy and “other candidates off the ballot and to throw President Trump in jail.”

Kennedy railed over what he called a “primary that was rigged to prevent any serious challenge to President Biden” and the now infamous Trump-Biden debate, which he suggested was a “predictably bungled debate performance,” which resulted in “the palace coup against President Biden.” He then blamed “shadowy DNC operatives” for appointing Kamala Harris without a primary election. He lashed out at Harris for going 35 days without an unscripted interview. Kennedy then set his sights on Biden’s censorship campaign. When a US president colludes with or outright coerces media companies to censor political speech, it’s an attack on our most sacred right of free expression and that’s the very right upon which all of our other constitutional rights rest. President Biden mocked Vladimir Putin’s 88% landslide in the Russian elections, observing that Putin and his party controlled the Russian press, and that Putin prevented serious opponents from appearing on the ballot.

RFK lawfare

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Not yet.

• Trump Is Back On His A-Game (C.A. Skeet)

But even his critics agree that Trump is a master showman, an indefatigable fighter, and certainly not one to let inept campaign management derail his reelection. By getting in front of the cameras, by doing the hostile interviews, on a near daily basis, Trump has slowly but steadily blunted Harris’s momentum by the simple fact that people see him and they don’t see her. Trump is effectively regaining control of the narrative. Since Kamala refuses to outline her policy positions, Trump went ahead and outlined her policy positions for her online. He is defining her because she won’t define herself. Trump is regaining control of the narrative. While Trump’s interview at the National Association of Black Journalists has been criticized, the fact is that people will remember not so much the pissing match he got into with “moderator” Rachel Scott.

They’ll remember he had the courage to face a tough audience and a lying, prejudiced interviewer. He did the same thing with the Libertarians. Kamala will never, ever agree to speak to, much less sit down for an interview for, a gathering of the Federalist Society or the NRA. Trump is regaining control of the narrative. While Harris picked up endorsements of this union boss or that celebrity pop star, Trump picked up the endorsement of Robert Kennedy Jr., who just suspended his campaign to throw his support behind him. The optics of a Kennedy supporting a Republican presidential nominee are worth a hundred Cheneys and a thousand Hutchinsons supporting the Democrats. The strategic timing of the announcement, meant to disperse any lingering euphoria from the DNC, has Trump’s style written all over it. Trump is regaining control of the narrative.

When Trump controls the narrative, he’s unstoppable. And it looks like, as of now, he is at least partially successful in wresting it back from the Democrat media machine. To this end, Trump should rightly continue trying to win over traditionally Democrat minorities rather than waste too much time with independents. As I’ve previously pointed out in these pages, “independents” are mostly closet liberals, and the lowest informed ones at that. Wasting precious time and resources trying to make them see reason is like wasting a division trying to claw across a quarter mile of no-mans-land on the fields of Flanders. By appealing to Democrat minorities, Trump is bypassing this futile war of attrition and hitting them right in the trenches. To this day, Democrats still don’t know how to counter Trump’s inexplicable (to them) rise in popularity among minorities other than to scream “RACIST!” ever louder and to accuse these minorities of being race traitors.

You’ll always have your Oprah Winfreys, the billionaire sellout who spoke to the field workers from the loftiest porch on the DNC plantation, warning them against “the old tricks and tropes that are designed to distract us from what actually matters” by talking about…segregation in the 1950s. You’ll always have your John Shapiros, the almost-VP pick turned kapos guard, passed over solely because he is Jewish, who nonetheless stood before a frothing crowd of antisemites in Chicago and told them to vote for the pro-Hamas candidate. But, as evidenced by Trump’s rising popularity among minorities, their rank-and-file is slowly but surely souring on the empty promises of racist, divisive identity politics. If Trump can continue to (1) drive the narrative, (2) keep making inroads with minorities, and (3) maintain the same discipline that he showed in his debate against Biden in his upcoming debate(s) against Harris, he might be able to not only hold onto his slim lead, but to expand it beyond the margin of cheat.

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Mere hours after the Friday announcement, RFK was already doing a press-op about this.

• RFK Jr. & Trump To End War On Small Farms, Save Nation’s Food Supply Chain (ZH)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent decades as an environmental lawyer fighting polluters and supported ‘green’ organizations for environmental justice. He is now setting his crosshairs on the pharmaceutical industry and cleaning up the nation’s food supply chain of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that poison consumers. He has determined that suspending his presidential campaign to team up with former President Trump will be necessary for the strongest success rate in making Americans healthier again, not through big pharma’s Ozempic shots but instead revitalizing small farms and shaking up corrupted federal agencies. Lifelong liberals like RFK Jr. backing Trump is one of the strongest indicators of just how extreme the ticket, unoriginal Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats have become. Harris’ team recently announced their first proposed economic policy, which was rooted in communism and included disastrous price controls. It appears the far-left ticket is being advised and heavily influenced by Marxists.

Between RFK Jr’s special announcement earlier Friday and his speech at Trump’s packed campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, the liberal with millions of supporters nationwide appears to have made a deal with Trump to join the campaign with a shot at waging war against corrupt federal health and food agencies, resetting the nation’s poisonous food supply chain, and launch a crusade against big pharma if the Trump team wins in November. RFK Jr. informed journalists at his special press conference in the early afternoon of Friday that America’s health crisis stems from ultra-processed foods pushed by giant food/pharma companies that have corrupted various federal agencies: “Autism rates were about one in 10,000 in my generation – in my kids Generation 1 in 34. I’ll repeat in California 1 and 22. Why are we letting this happen? Why are we allowing this to happen to our children? These are the most precious assets that we have in this country, how can we let this happen to them.

About 18% of American teens now have fatty liver disease, that’s like one out of every five – that disease when I was a kid only affected late stage alcoholics who were elderly. Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the Young and the old young. Adult cancers are up 70 79%. One in four American women is on anti-depressant medication. About 40% of teens have a mental health diagnosis and 15% of high schoolers are on Aderall, and half a million children on SSRIs. So what’s causing this suffering? I’ll name two culprits first and the worst is ultra-processed food. About 70% of American children’s diet is ultra-processed that means industrial manufacturing – these Foods consist primarily of processed sugar, ultra-processed grains, and seed oils. Scientists who, for many of them, formerly worked for the cigarette industry, which purchased all the big food companies in the 1970s and 80s, deployed thousands of scientists to figure out chemicals new chemicals to make the food more addictive, and these ingredients didn’t exist a 100 years ago.

Humans aren’t biologically adapted to eat them. Hundreds of these chemicals are now banned in Europe but ubiquitous in American processed foods. The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food and our medicine and our environment pesticides food additives pharmaceutical drugs and toxic waste permeate every cell of our bodies. The Assault on our children’s cells and hormones is unrelenting – name just one problem many of these chemicals increase estrogen – because young children are ingesting so many of these hormone disruptors, America’s puberty rate is now occurring at age 10 to 13, which is six years earlier than girls were reaching puberty in 1900 our country has the earliest puberty rates of any continent on the Earth and no this isn’t because of better nutrition – this is not normal – breast cancer is also estrogen-driven and it now strikes one in eight women. We are mass poisoning all of our children.”

RFK Jr. then touched on the processed food industry lobbyists who have corrupted Washington, resulting in a food supply chain filled with poison that is killing Americans. He said several federal agencies that are supposed to protect consumers have also been corrupted. He pointed out that the processed food industry has been “destroying small farms, and they’re destroying our soils.”

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“The Biden White House repeatedly spurned Russia’s offers to settle this war peacefully..”

• RFK Jr. Blames Biden For Ukraine Conflict (RT)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has accused US President Joe Biden of disrupting peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, because Washington “wanted the war.” Kennedy made the statement on Friday during a speech in Arizona, where he announced the suspension of his third-party campaign for the White House in the swing state and endorsed Republican Donald Trump. According to Kennedy, Washington had deliberately drawn Moscow into the Ukraine war with the objective of regime change in Russia. “President Biden sent [then-UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson to Ukraine to force President [Vladimir] Zelensky to tear up a peace agreement that he and the Russians had already signed, and the Russians were already withdrawing troops,” said the son of the 1960s-era Democratic US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.

Moscow has previously blamed London for blocking the Ukraine peace deal. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in April that Kiev abandoned a proposed peace treaty with Russia, approved by negotiators in Istanbul, in 2022 under British pressure. Boris Johnson visited Kiev in April of that year, and reportedly told Zelensky to “just fight,” prompting the latter to pull out of the discussions. The former prime minister has since denied derailing the peace talks. Kennedy also accused the US government of staging a coup against the democratically-elected government of Ukraine in 2014 and rejecting the Minsk Agreements, a series of peace protocols negotiated between Ukraine, Russia and the European nations in 2019, pushing Kiev into a conflict with Moscow. “The Biden White House repeatedly spurned Russia’s offers to settle this war peacefully,” Kennedy claimed.

The US has sought to exhaust the Russian Army and degrade its capacity to fight, he added, arguing that the objectives of the US government “had nothing to do” with protecting Ukraine’s sovereignty. Kennedy has described Ukraine as a “victim of the West” and “a proxy in a geopolitical struggle initiated by the ambitions of the US neocons for American global hegemony.” He went on to explain that Trump’s promise to reopen negotiations with Russia and end the war as soon as he takes office were among the reasons for him to endorse the former president’s campaign. Kennedy made clear that he wasn’t formally ending his bid for the White House and called on his supporters to continue to back him in other states where their votes are unlikely to sway the outcome.

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“They feel that they’re in the position they were 30 years ago. And the world has changed.”

• Putin Outplayed US Neocon Plan to Balkanize Russia (Sp.)

During his August 23 speech in Arizona Robert F Kennedy Jr., a nephew of President John F. Kennedy, endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump and accused the Biden administration and the US foreign policy establishment of provoking the Ukraine conflict. “Tiny Ukraine is a proxy in a geopolitical struggle initiated by the ambitions of the US neocons for American global hegemony,” Kennedy said. “In April 2022, we wanted the war. President Biden sent [then-British prime minister] Boris Johnson to Ukraine to force President [Volodymyr] Zelensky to tear up a peace agreement that he and the Russians had already signed,” he added. “That peace agreement would have brought peace to the region.” Kennedy noted that Donald Trump’s decision to reopen peace negotiations with President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine “alone would justify my support for [Trump’s] campaign.”

Kennedy “stated correctly the neocons are in control of [US] foreign policy,” Earl Rasmussen, a retired lieutenant colonel with over 20 years in the US Army and international consultant, told Sputnik. “We basically are looking for confrontation.” The commentatior said Kennedy has a real grasp on the ongoing situation and the historical background of the unfolding conflict. “Biden is not interested in peace,” Rasmussen said. “They’re not interested in democracy. They don’t care about Ukraine. And Georgia, for that matter, has always been looked at as a mechanism to further encircle and weaken Russia,” the expert said. Washington made preparations for the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine for years, the retired lieutenant colonel argued. He said the scheme probably originated in the 1990s, when the infamous ‘Wolfowitz doctrine’, aimed at retaining Washington’s sole superpower status, was formulated. The US-backed 2014 coup d’etat in Kiev was the continuation of this policy, the expert said.

“Now that we know that Minsk agreements were never meant to be implemented based on statements made by [former German chancellor Angela] Merkel and [former French president François] Hollande,” Rasmussen said. “We also know up to 50,000 Ukrainian troops were trained by NATO during that eight year period,” he added. “So this is a planned thing.” Anti-Russia sanctions, intended to halt Moscow’s energy cooperation with Western Europe, and the Nord Stream sabotage were not formulated overnight, the pundit said. The end goal was to foment regime change in Moscow and then “balkanize Russia,” he believes. “I think Putin saw that,” Rasmussen said, adding that the West completely underestimated Russia. “They didn’t understand the Russian people and the Russian culture and how the Russian would react to the situation. I think they thought Putin would just back down.” Rasmussen condemned the arrogance of US foreign policy: “They feel that they’re in the position they were 30 years ago. And the world has changed.”

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“This is impossible. There will be no buffer zone on the territory of Russia..”

• Putin Has Chosen Response To Ukraine’s Incursion – Envoy (RT)

President Vladimir Putin has decided on how to respond to Kiev’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region and everyone responsible will undoubtedly be punished, Moscow’s Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told journalists on Thursday. Earlier this month, Kiev launched its largest cross-border attack to date on Russia, sending in some of its best-equipped and most experienced soldiers in to Kursk Region in an attempt to seize Russian territory. The Ukrainian government has expressed hope that the operation will relieve pressure on its forces elsewhere on the front line, and strengthen Kiev’s position at eventual peace talks with Moscow. However, Russia’s Defense Ministry has reported that the incursion has effectively been halted and, while Kiev’s troops still hold a number of territories in the region, they have been experiencing heavy casualties throughout the fighting.

Moscow has estimated Ukrainian losses at some 4,700 servicemen as well as hundreds of pieces of heavy weaponry, including 68 tanks, since the start of the incursion. Commenting on Moscow’s future steps in response to the invasion, the ambassador stated that president Putin has already “made a decision.” He also said that he is “firmly convinced that everyone will be severely punished for what happened in Kursk Region.” Kiev has stated that it intends to create a “buffer zone” through its incursion into Russian territory. These plans have also been confirmed by Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh. Antonov, however, insisted that the Ukrainian operation will fail in establishing this zone. “This is impossible. There will be no buffer zone on the territory of Russia,” the envoy stressed.

He also claimed that Washington could put an end to Kiev’s incursion into Kursk Region with “a snap of the fingers” but that it apparently doesn’t deem such a move “expedient or necessary.” “I am firmly convinced that Kiev does nothing without an okay from its [Western] masters,” Antonov told TASS. “Given how many advisers are around Zelensky, and what power is given to Zelensky’s regime, to say that [Washington] does not know about anything… [Kiev] simply would not dare to lift a finger, to point a machine gun in our direction without Washington’s consent! Or at least they wouldn’t be sure that any of their actions would be supported by Western countries,” the ambassador added.

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“The US and its allies have imposed a record 22,000 sanctions on Moscow since 2014..”

• US In Agony Over Ineffectiveness Of Sanctions – Moscow (RT)

Washington’s latest round of sanctions against Moscow is aimed at underscoring US Vice President Kamala Harris’ “anti-Russian essence,” Ambassador Anatoly Antonov has said, dismissing the “fruitless” measures as ineffectual. On Friday, the US State and Treasury departments announced additional restrictions against 400 individuals and companies in Russia, Asia, Europe and the Middle East which Washington accuses of supporting Moscow’s military-industrial supply chains. “The administration [of US President Joe Biden] is in agony. The fruitless Russophobic ‘salvos’ are multiplying,” Antonov wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday. By introducing the new sanctions, the White House is trying to underline its “anti-Russian essence against the backdrop of the boiling election campaign,” he stressed.

“The negative aspects of US actions are obvious to everyone. The administration’s reckless steps lead to a crisis, but not to something creative,” the ambassador said. The restrictions “are harming not only domestic consumers, but also America’s partners in third countries,” he added. “It is obvious that in order to achieve true independence in the economic sphere, it is high time to abandon the hegemony of the dollar in the international monetary and financial system,” Antonov stressed. The US and its allies have imposed a record 22,000 sanctions on Moscow since 2014, when Crimea rejoined Russia and a conflict between Ukraine and the Donbass republics broke out as the result of a Western-backed coup in Kiev. Moscow deemed the curbs illegal, responding with travel bans on Western officials and other moves.

“Sanctions against Russia have been so multifaceted that we essentially don’t care what else the administration comes up with to ‘punish the Russian people’,” the ambassador pointed out. According to Antonov, the Russian authorities will act “to ensure that our citizens feel at ease and do not look back at American attacks.” Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal said that the “biggest ever sanctions” have failed to stop Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Western officials have been forced to acknowledge that the restrictions “hit more slowly than they hoped,” the outlet stressed.

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And what do you do when sanctions don’t work?

• US Announces New Sanctions On Russia (RT)

The US government has sanctioned almost 400 individuals and companies in Russia and around the world, including Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov’s son and his wife. Departments of State and Treasury announced the measure on Friday, on the eve of Ukraine’s independence day, to signal Washington’s ongoing support to Kiev in the conflict with Moscow. The sanctions also extended to entities and individuals in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In keeping with the practice of sanctioning family members of Russian officials, the US has blacklisted Pavel Belousov and his wife Yevgenya, as well as a consulting company in their ownership. Belousov’s father Andrey became the Russian defense minister in May.

“Companies, financial institutions, and governments around the world need to ensure they are not supporting Russia’s military-industrial supply chains,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement. According to the Treasury, there are “almost a dozen distinct networks” consisting of over 100 individuals and entities across 16 jurisdictions, including China, Switzerland, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates. Notably, 18 companies based in Hong Kong have been accused of ties to the Russian military industry. Treasury and State also warned financial institutions in other countries to “be cautious about any dealings with overseas branches or subsidiaries of Russian financial institutions,” including those that have not yet been sanctioned.

Friday’s designations mean that any property or interests in property of the listed individuals, directly or indirectly, have been blocked and must be reported to the government. Any transactions between US citizens – or foreign nationals within the US – are forbidden. Washington and its allies have placed over 22,000 sanctions on Russia since 2014, when Moscow responded to the US-backed coup in Kiev by welcoming Crimea’s reunification. Russia has called the blacklist illegitimate and responded with travel bans for Western officials and activists.

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“While the announcement lists Trump as an “invited guest speaker,” the former president will not attend the event in person..”

“..inclined to pardon many of them.” “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control..”

• Trump Invited To J6 Awards Gala’ Celebrating January 6 Rioters (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has been linked to a gala event aimed at raising funds for a group of January 6 Capitol rioters who are currently on trial. The ‘J6 Awards Gala’ at Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club will be held on September 5 to “honor and celebrate” the defendants, with ticket options starting at $1,500. A crowd of Trump’s supporters descended on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in an attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying what they believed to be Joe Biden’s fraudulent victory in the presidential election the previous November. The demonstration quickly devolved into a riot, with US Capitol Police taking hours to restore order. Biden and his fellow Democrats characterized the events as an “insurrection.” The authorities arrested and charged 1,358 participants, most of whom received misdemeanor trespassing offenses, although 127 have faced more serious charges.

The gala announcement appeared on the website of ‘The America Project’ political group, and invited people to “join us for an unforgettable evening as we honor and celebrate the twenty defendants who contributed to the powerful ‘Justice For All’ song.” The latter was recorded last year by a group of defendants comprising the so-called ‘January 6th Prison Choir.’ The track features them singing the Pledge of Allegiance and the Star-Spangled Banner, overlaid with excerpts of Trump’s speeches. The event is meant as a “night of recognition, solidarity, and support” as well as a “crucial fundraiser to provide much-needed assistance to the January 6th defendants who continue to face significant challenges,” the organizers explained. While the announcement lists Trump as an “invited guest speaker,” the former president will not attend the event in person, the New York Times reported, citing an unnamed person familiar with the politician’s plans.

In a post on his Truth Social platform in March, Trump vowed: “My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!” The Republican has repeatedly referred to the rioters as “political prisoners” and “hostages.” At a CNN town hall event last year, Trump revealed that he was “inclined to pardon many of them.” “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control,” he added. The Republican presidential nominee himself is facing federal charges for allegedly instigating the riot by urging his supporters to “fight like hell” against congressional certification of Biden’s victory. Trump’s lawyers insist that he was well within his rights to make such a statement, noting that he also encouraged his supporters to act “peacefully and patriotically.”

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“It’s almost like we’ve wandered into a Tower of Babble and come out on the other side babbling…”

• ‘End of Empire’: US Ruling Class Fatally Out of Touch (Sp.)

America’s political class is unable to address or even speak to voters’ most pressing needs. “The political class, Washington, DC, people inside the Beltway – they’ve grown more and more estranged from everyday people like you and me,” claimed journalist Jon Jeter on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Friday. The author joined hosts Garland Nixon and Wilmer Leon to break down Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech on the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, during which she advocated a hawkish foreign policy to the exclusion of focus on the material needs of working-class Americans. “I thought that speech was ridiculous and if I were a betting man I would say that it lost the election for the Democrats in November,” said Jeter.

“I don’t know who she thinks her audience was when she attacks Vladimir Putin. If I may paraphrase Muhammad Ali, Vladimir Putin ain’t never called me the N-word.” “Most people, particularly in the states and particularly the people who she’s depending on to win this election, Blacks and particularly Black men, particularly in Philadelphia and Detroit and Milwaukee – I don’t think they care so much about Kim Jong Un, about Vladimir Putin, about the threat from China,” he continued. “I think they care a lot about jobs, wages, debt reduction, things like that. So I thought that speech was almost odd and that it seemed to lack self-awareness about exactly who the Democrats are and who they need.” The analyst claimed the Democratic party is in the habit of abusing its voters, constantly attacking its activist base.

“I think people are ultimately going to feel like they’re being gaslit,” said Nixon, claiming voters are more likely to be concerned with inflation and the cost of living. The media outlet Bloomberg calculated the rise in the cost of basic goods and services in 2023, finding that the cost of natural gas has risen by 29% while the costs of groceries and electricity have risen by 25%. “I have to admit, I have very, very low expectations of our political class,” said Jeter. “This was a stunning speech for its lack of self-awareness. The Democrats’ problem is that they are unresponsive, wholly unresponsive to their base, to labor unions.” “It’s almost like we’ve wandered into a Tower of Babble and come out on the other side babbling. We don’t even speak the same language anymore. This is just a bewildering turn of affairs which I can only attribute to the end of empire.”

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“Washington is still assessing how Kiev’s offensive “fits into their strategic objectives on the battlefield itself..”

• US Hesitant Over Kursk Incursion Aid – WaPo (RT)

President Joe Biden’s administration is not convinced by Ukraine’s strategy in Kursk Region and fears a possible escalation with Moscow, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing sources. Kiev launched its largest incursion to date into internationally-recognized Russian territory on August 6. The Russian Defense Ministry said the advance into Kursk Region had been halted; however, Kiev’s forces continue to occupy a number of settlements there. Kiev has said it intends to establish a “buffer zone” on Russian soil and has touted the land it occupies as a potential bargaining chip for future peace talks. Moscow, however, ruled out negotiations with Kiev following the incursion, citing “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians by Ukrainian troops. The US remains unsure whether to help Kiev hold and perhaps even add to the land it now occupies, an unnamed diplomat told the Washington Post.

The Pentagon has, however asked the Ukrainians what they need to make their offensive a success, US officials have claimed, adding that no concrete decisions have been made. The Ukrainian Armed Forces has lost over 5,000 soldiers since the start of the incursion, as well as 69 tanks, 27 infantry fighting vehicles, 55 APCs, 350 armored combat vehicles, 34 artillery units, five anti-aircraft missile systems, and 11 MLRS launchers (including three US-made HIMARS), among other pieces of heavy equipment, the Defense Ministry reported in an update on Friday. The US announced the same day that $125 million worth of supplies, including howitzer and artillery ammunition, TOW antitank missiles, and unmanned aerial systems and ammunition would be provided to Ukraine.

As discussions continue over new aid amid the Kursk offensive, however, Washington reportedly says it’s uncertain of Ukraine’s goals in seizing territory inside Russia, and has no idea if it intends to hold or expand upon the territory it has seized. “They may have a plan, but they’re not sharing it with us,” the paper wrote, citing an anonymous US official. Washington is still assessing how Kiev’s offensive “fits into their strategic objectives on the battlefield itself,” Pentagon deputy spokesperson Sabrina Singh said on Thursday. “We’re still working and still have some questions,” she added.

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said earlier this week that Washington’s ammunition stockpiles are now “empty” due to aid provided to Ukraine. In June, Trump also made it clear that he would stop donating tens of billions of dollars’ worth of handouts to Ukraine. While US and Ukrainian officials “publicly tout a strong relationship”, the paper wrote, their ties have been “repeatedly tested by frustrations and fundamental disagreements about strategy and the level of support the West should provide.” Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov claimed earlier this week that Washington could put an end to Kiev’s incursion with “a snap of the fingers” but that it apparently hasn’t deemed such a move “expedient or necessary.”

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“Anything that stands in the way of a diplomatic settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev is “wrong..”

• Ukrainian Attack On Kursk Is ‘Wrong’ – Hungary (RT)

Hungary does not approve of Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region because the government in Budapest remains “pro-peace,” Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Hungarian prime minister’s office, has said. Gulyas became the most high-ranking Hungarian official to date to comment on the ongoing Ukrainian attack when asked about the issue during a briefing on Thursday. “Ukraine is not only defending, but also attacking. We want a ceasefire and peace,” Gulyas stated. Anything that stands in the way of a diplomatic settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev is “wrong,” including a “spillover of the hostilities into Russian territory,” he added. Gulyas’ statement on the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Region is in stark contrast to those from other officials in the EU and NATO.

The bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he had “reiterated the EU’s full support to the [Ukrainian] people’s fight” when he met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba last week. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has insisted that “Ukraine has the right to self-defense and it is clear that they can do their operation in Kursk,” while Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal has wished luck to the Ukrainian troops involved in the attack. Hungary has taken a neutral stance since the escalation between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022. It has provided Kiev with humanitarian aid, but has refused to send weapons, allow other EU states to ship military supplies through its territory, or to train Ukrainian troops, despite strong pressure from Washington and Brussels. The government of Viktor Orban has also criticized EU’s sanctions, arguing that they hurt the bloc more than Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly voiced readiness for dialogue with Kiev throughout the conflict. However, shortly after the launch of the incursion into Kursk Region, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that there can be no talk about negotiations with Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday that Ukraine has already lost more than 4,700 troops and several hundred units of military equipment, including 68 tanks and 53 armored personnel carriers, since the start of the incursion in Kursk Region on August 6.

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“We should find an agreement as soon as possible because we wouldn’t like to pay large amounts on a daily basis,” Gulyas said. “But if Brussels wants to take in migrants, we can help.”

• Hungary May Send Migrants To Brussels To Avenge Asylum Fine (ZH)

Several years ago, Texas had a brilliant idea: take the millions of illegal immigrant that were flooding its territory as a result of policies adopted in faraway places like DC, and bus them to places like New York and DC, other so-called sanctuary cities and, best of all, Martha’s Vineyard where those who run New York and DC tend to go on vacation. The result was an immediate revulsion by the false virtue-signaling NIMBY crowd, which cried foul at having to suffer the consequences of its actions. Turns out Texas’ idea was so good it is now being adopted across the Atlantic, where another illegal alien invasion has been taking place for the past decade, slowly replacing the indigenous population with millions of immigrants from northern Africa and the middle east.

Now, one European country has decided it also has had enough: Hungary suggested that it might – like Texas – start transporting migrants who show up at its border straight to Brussels, unless it can resolve a dispute with the European Union on penalties for its asylum policies, Bloomberg reported. The European Court of Justice has slapped a €200 million ($223 million) penalty, plus an extra €1 million daily fine, on the country for Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s non-compliance with the court’s earlier judgment on the protection of asylum seekers. Orban already promised retaliation in June for the ruling, one of several issues clouding the start of his stint in the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2024. Negotiations with the European Commission will start in September, Gergely Gulyas, the minister in charge of the prime minister’s office, told reporters in Budapest Thursday.

Should those talks fail, Hungary will start handing migrants “one-way tickets to Brussels,” Gulyas said. “We should find an agreement as soon as possible because we wouldn’t like to pay large amounts on a daily basis,” Gulyas said. “But if Brussels wants to take in migrants, we can help.” Though Gulyas provided no details on how such a scheme would work, the idea echoes disputes not only among US states over migrants – like those being bused to New York from the Texas border – but also elsewhere in Europe. In the UK, socialist Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed his new Labour government would scrap predecessor Rishi Sunak’s plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

Separately, Hungary was criticized by human rights groups this week for withdrawing state-funded shelter from Ukrainian refugees arriving from regions not directly affected by the fighting on the frontlines with Russia. A group of Hungarians from Ukraine’s western Transcarpathia region temporarily became homeless after the move, though Gulyas said aid groups helped provide accommodations for them. The EU’s executive arm is looking into the decree, according to a spokesperson but said the EU is united in providing protections, including accommodation, for those fleeing the conflict.

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Another 6 months… For what was a weeklong trip… Bye bye Boeing..

• SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing (ZH)

NASA said it has selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring home the US astronauts who were forced to extend their stay at the International Space Station because of the latest debacle plaguing the woke DEI disaster that is Boeing, whose space capsule suffered major technical issues. Boeing’s spacecraft will return without people on board, the US space agency said during a Saturday news conference announcing its decision, in which it said that it was too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months. The contingency plan means that NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams will hitch a ride home on SpaceX’s rival Crew Dragon capsule during a mission slated to launch in late September. That would put them back on US soil in February, when that capsule is slated to return and months later than originally planned.

Their empty Starliner capsule will undock in a week or two and attempt to return on autopilot. The seasoned pilots have been stuck at the International Space Station since the beginning of June. A cascade of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks in the new capsule marred their trip to the space station, and they ended up in a holding pattern as engineers conducted tests and debated what to do about the trip back. As Starliner’s test pilots, the pair should have overseen this critical last leg of the journey, with touchdown in the U.S. desert. It was a blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns plaguing the company on its airplane side. Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests both in space and on the ground.

Retired Navy captains with previous long-duration spaceflight experience, Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, anticipated surprises when they accepted the shakedown cruise of a new spacecraft, although not quite to this extent. Before their June 5 launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, they said their families bought into the uncertainty and stress of their professional careers decades ago. During their lone orbital news conference last month, they said they had trust in the thruster testing being conducted. They had no complaints, they added, and enjoyed pitching in with space station work. Wilmore’s wife, Deanna, was equally stoic in an interview earlier this month with WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, their home state. She was already bracing for a delay until next February: “You just sort of have to roll with it.” There were no other options.

The SpaceX capsule currently parked at the space station is reserved for the four residents who have been there since March. They will return in late September, their stay extended a month by the Starliner dilemma. NASA said it would be unsafe to squeeze two more into the capsule, except in an emergency. The docked Russian Soyuz capsule is even tighter, capable of flying only three — two of them Russians wrapping up a yearlong stint. So Wilmore and Williams will wait for SpaceX’s next taxi flight. It’s due to launch in late September with two astronauts instead of the usual four for a routine six-month stay. NASA yanked two to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return flight in late February. NASA said no serious consideration was given to asking SpaceX for a quick stand-alone rescue. Last year, the Russian Space Agency had to rush up a replacement Soyuz capsule for three men whose original craft was damaged by space junk. The switch pushed their mission beyond a year, a U.S. space endurance record still held by Frank Rubio.

Starliner’s woes began long before its latest flight. Bad software fouled the first test flight without a crew in 2019, prompting a do-over in 2022. Then parachute and other issues cropped up, including a helium leak in the capsule’s propellant system that nixed a launch attempt in May. The leak eventually was deemed to be isolated and small enough to pose no concern. But more leaks sprouted following liftoff, and five thrusters also failed. All but one of those small thrusters restarted in flight. But engineers remain perplexed as to why some thruster seals appear to swell, obstructing the propellant lines, then revert to their normal size.These 28 thrusters are vital. Besides needed for space station rendezvous, they keep the capsule pointed in the right direction at flight’s end as bigger engines steer the craft out of orbit. Coming in crooked could result in catastrophe.

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“POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme..”

• ‘Darkness Descending’: Tucker Carlson Reacts To Telegram Founder’s Arrest (RT)

The arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France is a warning to platforms that stand up to censorship, American journalist and political commentator Tucker Carlson has said. According to French media, the Russian-born entrepreneur was detained at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday and will appear in court on Sunday evening. The French authorities had reportedly issued an arrest warrant, arguing that insufficient moderation allows for Telegram to be widely used by criminals. The news of Durov’s apparent prosecution has raised concerns online, including suggestions that it could be politically motivated.

“Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech,” Carlson wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday. “It was a Western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member, that locked him away.” Durov’s arrest is “a living warning to any platform owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intel agencies,” Carlson argued. “Darkness is descending fast on the formerly free world.”

Carlson recorded a rare interview with Durov in April, in which the Telegram owner spoke about his disagreements with the Russian government, as well as the pressure he faced in the US. He said that the American government had wanted him to set up a surveillance “backdoor” on his messaging service, and he refused. X owner Elon Musk also condemned the reported arrest. “POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme,” he wrote in a comment to the news story. Telegram was launched in 2013 and currently has more than 950 million active monthly users. Durov is a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, but has been mostly been living in the UAE since the mid-2010s. He became a French and an Emirati citizen in 2021.

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Houthi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827074505505960328

 

 

Bad parrot

 

 

Collie

 

 

Cup

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 4 2024

Aug 042024
 
 August 4, 2024  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  36 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Seated woman 1903

 

• Harris Refuses Fox News Debate With Trump (RT)
• Judge Chutkan Denies Trump’s Motion to Dismiss Election Case (ET)
• Are Americans a Totally Conquered People? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Scott Ritter: Some Swapped Prisoners Were Likely ‘On CIA Payroll’ (Sp.)
• Israel Assassinates Chief Negotiator Across The Table (Cradle)
• Israel Isn’t Crazy, It’s Just MAD (Cradle)
• Europe’s Recipe for Disaster: The Von der Leyen Program (Godefridi)
• Hungary and Slovakia Consider Cutting Electricity Supply To Ukraine (RMX)
• A New Détente: Can Putin and Biden Make A Deal? (Drize)
• Venezuela Could Hand Energy Rights To BRICS – Maduro (RT)
• SpaceX May Save Stranded Boeing Starliner Crew At ISS (ZH)
• Gender-Bending Is The New Doping (Marsden)
• How Unelected Regulators Unleashed the Derivatives Monster (Ellen Brown)

 

 

 

 

Watters SS

 

 

Bidenomics

 

 

Shapiro

 

 

Lemon

 

 

Elon Matrix

 

 

Maduro

 

 

Disturbed yet?

 

 

 

 

Hahaha. What a surprise. They want control.

• Harris Refuses Fox News Debate With Trump (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris has declined former President Donald Trump’s invitation to take part in a televised debate on Fox News next month, insisting that her presidential opponent stick to a previously agreed showdown on ABC News. In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump accepted Fox’s proposal that he debate Harris on September 4 in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Trump was scheduled to debate President Joe Biden on ABC News on September 10, before Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to run in his place late last month. The ABC debate has been “terminated,” Trump explained, citing Biden’s decision to step down, and his pending litigation against ABC host George Stephanopoulos, which he claimed created “a conflict of interest.”

In a statement on Saturday, Harris’ campaign accused Trump of “running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to.” “He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to,” the statement continued. “The vice-president will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime-time national audience. We’re happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to.” Fox News is generally seen as more sympathetic to Trump, while ABC is perceived as more sympathetic to Harris. Trump debated Biden in June, in a CNN-hosted faceoff in Atlanta, Georgia. Biden appeared frail during the debate and lost his train of thought on multiple occasions, and his lackluster performance set off a crisis within the Democratic Party that ultimately concluded with him suspending his campaign.

Trump maintains that senior Democrats staged a “coup” against Biden, and that former President Barack Obama was instrumental in forcing the president to step aside. “They all dumped him, and they said, ‘Either you get out nice or we’re going to go after you.’ And that’s what happened. And he had no choice. There’s no question about it,” he told the New York Post last month. Writing on Truth Social, Trump explained that he prefers Fox News’ chosen date of September 4, as early voting begins in some states two days later. “I spent hundreds of millions of dollars, time, and effort fighting Joe, and when I won the debate, they threw a new candidate into the ring,” he declared. “Nevertheless, different candidate or not, their bad policies are the same, and this will be strongly revealed at the September 4th debate.”

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3 months before the election, she tries to restart the whole thing. A joint status report by Aug. 9, status conference set for Aug. 13. Next she’ll demand he shows up in person?

• Judge Chutkan Denies Trump’s Motion to Dismiss Election Case (ET)

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has scheduled a mid-August status conference in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, while denying his legal team’s motion to dismiss the indictment. The status conference, set for Aug. 13 in a Washington, D.C., federal courthouse, will address procedural matters and help determine the next steps in the proceeding, reads an order signed by Chutkan on Aug. 3. Chutkan ordered both the prosecution and the defense to submit a joint status report by Aug. 9, which will update the court on the progress of the case and can include such information as any agreements or disputes between the parties, as well as completed tasks and upcoming deadlines.

In the same order, Chutkan granted a brief stay on the briefing deadlines for special counsel Jack Smith’s motion seeking to limit the evidence and arguments that Trump’s legal team can introduce during the trial, particularly those that prosecutors argue are irrelevant or prejudicial. Specifically, the government’s motion seeks to exclude evidence related to Trump’s claims of selective prosecution, alleged investigative misconduct, and speculative theories about foreign influence or undercover agents during the Jan. 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol. Smith has also asked the judge to disallow arguments meant to sway the jury with political rhetoric or potential consequences of a conviction, and to impose limits on cross-examination by the defense, including potential testimony on Trump’s state of mind or belief that the 2020 election was stolen.

Chutkan’s order also denied without prejudice Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment, which was filed on statutory grounds. Trump attorneys claim in their motion that Smith’s indictment improperly applied legal statutes, while arguing that the charges filed failed to demonstrate any acts of deceit or trickery necessary to establish conspiracy to defraud the United States, a key charge leveled against the former president in the case. Smith’s team charged Trump with four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and to obstruct an official proceeding, in a case that centers on the former president’s actions after the 2020 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty, arguing that the case is motivated by political animus against him and is designed to thwart his 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump counsel also argued in the motion to dismiss that Trump’s public comments and actions to contest the results of the 2020 election were lawful exercises of his First Amendment rights and do not amount to obstruction of a government function. They also claimed that the indictment lacked the specificity required to support claims of corrupt intent, while arguing that the legal statutes cited by Smith’s team in the indictment should be interpreted more narrowly to avoid criminalizing legitimate political activity. A request for comment sent to Trump counsel regarding Chutkan’s rejection of the motion to dismiss was not immediately returned.

The renewed activity in the case, which had been put on hold pending Trump’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on arguments he was immune from prosecution, occurred after the case was returned to Chutkan on Aug. 2, paving the way for further motions and hearings. The Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that Trump is entitled to some immunity, based on the high court’s finding that presidents have absolute immunity for actions within their “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” presumptive immunity for official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts. The Supreme Court justices sent the case back to district court, leaving it up to Chutkan to decide how to apply the ruling to the case.

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“When people see that there is no limit on the power of corrupt prosecutors, they fear to go against the system.”

• Are Americans a Totally Conquered People? (Paul Craig Roberts)

The various “investigations” of the Secret Service’s failure to protect Trump are focused on operational and communication failures. The fact that the Secret Service did hardly anything normal procedures required has not yet raised the question whether elements of the Secret Service were involved. The failure is too large to be dismissed without investigation as nothing but a result of a collection of mistakes. The investigation that is needed is one that investigates whether elements in the Secret Service were involved in an assassination attempt on Trump, who is considered to be an existential threat to the ruling establishment. The investigation cannot be conducted by the Secret Service, Homeland Security, and the FBI, because if the assassination attempt was a deep state plot, all else against Trump having failed, these three agencies are the likely ones involved in the plot. A real investigation would have to answer these questions:

1. Was the acoustic evidence examined? 2. Were the fired bullets collected? Did they all come from the same rifle and was it the rifle found 7 feet away from Crooks dead body? Why was the rifle 7 feet away from the person alleged to have shot at Trump? 3. Why was Trump allowed to go on stage when the Secret Service knew Crooks was positioned on the building? 4. Why was the urgent information sent by the Pennsylvania police on the scene to the Secret Service not acted on and shared with Trump’s security detail? 5. Do such unprecedented operational and communicative failures of this magnitude suggest Secret Service complicity in an attempt on Trump’s life? 6. Was Crooks just a patsy whose presence was ignored because the plotters needed a patsy in place? It is unclear that the investigation can be conducted by a Congressional committee as members are dependent on ruling elites for campaign contributions and are vulnerable to threats from executive branch agencies.

The Founding Fathers made Congress weak because they feared “mob democracy.” But the consequence was to leave Congress too weak to hold the executive branch accountable. A real investigation would have to be conducted by credentialed independent experts, but even here independence can be hard to find. So many people rely on government contracts that it is difficult for many to speak freely. The fact that physics departments and universities are dependent on federal money explains why academic physicists avoided taking issue with the 9/11 narrative. Money speaks, and in the corrupt America of the 21st century, money is all that speaks. To understand the difficulty of private expert examination, consider the fate of the experts who proved beyond all doubt that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. That the election was stolen is as clear as day, but those who brought forward the evidence have been ridiculed as “conspiracy theorists,” sued, prosecuted or threatened with prosecution, and some sentenced, if memory serves, to prison for “interfering with an election.”

Even those who merely protested the stolen election were arrested, indicted, and imprisoned as “insurrectionists.” Any who survived the vendetta were bankrupted by their legal bills. Some of Trump’s lawyers were indicted along with him in a RICO indictment by a corrupt black female Atlanta prosecutor, apparently put in office with George Soros’ money and currently under investigation herself for going on vacations with money she paid her lover who she paid $700,000 to prosecute Trump. When people see that there is no limit on the power of corrupt prosecutors, they fear to go against the system.

Even if somehow an objective investigation could be conducted, if the conclusion was unacceptable to the ruling elite, the media would discredit it. The proven charges would lead nowhere. Look how long the US Department of Justice has been able to protect Hunter Biden from the perfectly clear evidence he provided on his laptop. In America today the main result achieved by the enormous sums poured into universities and public schools by taxpayers, corporations, philanthropic foundations such as the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, and by ego-driven businessmen, who want their name to live on forever on a university building, is to teach guilt to white students and to teach hatred of “white racist scum,” one of the most common terms used in American university classes.

The position of white people in American Society today is such that whatever they say, even if fact-based, is dismissed as “white supremacy speaking.” In other words, as white people are “aversive racists,” nothing they say, despite the evidence, can be believed. So, the conclusion in front of our face is that the ruling elite can do whatever it wants, because any challenge to it is impotent and results in the destruction of the challenger by the media, rejection by his family and friends, and if he is a business person the withdrawal of his financing, or his financial destruction by a Democrat prosecutor bankrupting him with the cost of endless producing of documents, as the corrupt NY prosecutor did to the website Vdare. It seems that what we are confronted with is the American people are whatever the ruling elite want them to be, which is insouciant sheep, totally incapable of protecting their freedom and independence. In effect, a totally conquered people.

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“I don’t think US-Russia relations are going to be in a position where such a prisoner swap could have occurred in the next year, maybe the next two years..”

• Scott Ritter: Some Swapped Prisoners Were Likely ‘On CIA Payroll’ (Sp.)

The operation to swap 26 prisoners from seven countries took place in Ankara (Turkiye) on Thursday. As a result, eight Russian citizens, detained and imprisoned in several NATO countries, along with their minor children, were returned to their homeland. All implications are that some of the people involved in the recent prisoner swap between Moscow and several Western countries were CIA espionage assets, Scott Ritter has told Sputnik. The exchange that occurred on August 1 appears to have been “a deal hashed out between the Russian secret services and the American CIA,” noted the former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and ex-UN weapons inspector. Commenting on what is being called the biggest such swap since the Cold War, Ritter pointed out that among the 16 prisoners released by Russia was Evan Gershkovich, “caught red-handed receiving Russian secrets.” The Wall Street Journal reporter was subsequently charged with espionage, found guilty at trial, and meted out a lengthy sentence.

US Marine veteran Paul Whelan was likewise charged with espionage, while self-described Russian political figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, as it turns out, had a US green card. “This implies there was a special relationship between him [Kara-Murza] and the US government that maybe the US government doesn’t want to talk about in public,” Ritter said. Kara-Murza “appears to have been on the CIA payroll as well,” he noted. As for the Russian side, among the eight people released by the US in Thursday’s prisoner swap was Vadim Krasikov, recalled Scott Ritter. The former Russian intelligence officer was arrested in Germany in 2019 and accused by Berlin of terminating Chechen terrorist Zelimkhan Khangoshvili on German soil.

Krasikov was given a life-sentence in German prison for wiping out a warlord, “somebody who had butchered, murdered Russian prisoners of war during the Chechen conflict and, accordingly, was hunted down and killed in Berlin,” Ritter underscored. Looking ahead, the pundit suggested that the latest prisoner exchange taking place in the twilight of Joe Biden’s presidency “may be the best that US-Russian relations are gonna be for some time now.” “I don’t think US-Russia relations are going to be in a position where such a prisoner swap could have occurred in the next year, maybe the next two years. So it needed to happen now, and that’s why it did. The largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War. Who knows what the future will hold… Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend of good relations, but probably not,” Ritter concluded.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) stated on Thursday that eight Russian citizens, who were detained and imprisoned in several NATO countries, have been returned to Russia. The exchange took place at Ankara airport (Turkiye) on August 1, 2024, and also included the repatriation of minor children. The security service added that the recently returned Russians were exchanged for a group of individuals who had been acting on behalf of foreign states, compromising Russia’s security.

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“..Today, it is the unifying, pro-resistance qualities of leaders like Haniyeh and Arouri that pose a far bigger threat to Israel.”

• Israel Assassinates Chief Negotiator Across The Table (Cradle)

The assassination of Hamas Political Bureau leader Ismail Haniyeh has killed any chance for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza – on terms favorable to Palestinians – and leaves a huge political vacuum within the resistance movement. The assassination, which took place during an official visit to Tehran for the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, coincided with 300 days of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh was the chief Palestinian negotiator in indirect months-long ceasefire talks with the Israeli delegation, among them Mossad Chief David Barnea, whose organization reportedly executed the shocking kill operation. This targeting of the head of the political movement reflects Israel’s systematic policy of assassinating leaders who can unify ranks and deepen relations with regional and international powers. This also explains the reasoning behind Israel’s 2 January assassination of Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, the key Hamas figure managing relations between Tehran, Ankara, Lebanon, and Doha.

Haniyeh, too, was distinguished not only by his ability to bridge the vision gap between Hamas’ military and political wings but also by successfully liaising with various regional and international powers and playing a major role advancing the interests of the resistance group in its three target regions – Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and abroad. Haniyeh’s assassination has created an urgent need to reorganize Hamas’ internal house – particularly urgent given Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza – and reconcile the disparate views of its leaders, such as Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and Khaled Meshaal abroad. Today, nothing would suit Israel more than seeing Meshaal, in particular, regain the reins at Hamas. The former Hamas politburo chief, after all, controversially split up Tel Aviv’s biggest regional adversaries – the Resistance Axis – at the start of the Syrian war by turning his back on the only Arab state member of the Axis, Syria.

It has taken Hamas years to fully reintegrate into the Axis after that betrayal, which is often blamed on Meshaal and his cohorts who decamped from Damascus to Doha. It was only through tireless efforts by leaders like Haniyeh and Arouri that Hamas’ relations with the regional resistance were publicly mended. Meshaal has since suffered the indignity of being spurned by Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah leaders, so his return to the top would be manna to Israeli ears – even though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had, almost successfully, undertaken to kill Meshaal in 1997. Those were different times, though, and alliances and interests in the region have shifted many times since. Today, it is the unifying, pro-resistance qualities of leaders like Haniyeh and Arouri that pose a far bigger threat to Israel.

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“Today, Israel employs the full spectrum of its MAD strategy in its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and across the West Bank – rape, murder, amputations, beheadings, torture – with impunity..”

• Israel Isn’t Crazy, It’s Just MAD (Cradle)

During the night hours between 30 and 31 July, Israel targeted two top Resistance Axis officials for assassination, both unprecedented in seniority during this round of conflict. First, top Hezbollah war commander Fuad Shukr was killed in an Israeli air attack on his residential building in the densely populated Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, leaving several civilians dead and over 70 injured. The second target, at 2 am on 31 July, was Hamas political bureau leader Ismail Haniyeh – a central figure in ceasefire negotiations – who was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s incoming President Masoud Pezeshkian. Within the course of a few hours, Israel managed to strike at three Resistance Axis members: Lebanon, Palestine, and Iran. In doing so, Tel Aviv violated a whole slew of international laws, diplomatic conventions, and customary practices that prohibit political assassinations while glaringly violating the territorial integrity of two UN member states.

Since its war on Gaza, Israel has rapidly gained global pariah status, not just because of its live-streamed genocide that has killed at least 39,000 Palestinian civilians – over 16,000 of them children – but also because of the unprecedented rulings and deliberations still underway at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over Israel’s war crimes. Thus, Tel Aviv’s incendiary actions last night beg the question, is Israel just crazy? Does it not see the global censure brewing, the boycotts expanding, its alliances dwindling, the social media rage, and its growing and glaring isolation? The simple answer is no. Successive Israeli governments have been entirely rational, depending on a single overriding strategy from which the state has not veered. Recognizing its geographic, population, political, and economic shortcomings from the get-go, the Zionist project – very calculatingly – implemented something we can call the ‘MAD strategy’ to attain its objectives and then punch well above its geopolitical weight class.

A weird but effective strategy, MAD actually derives from textbook deterrence theory: Creating a threatening presence by having an aggressive reputation with the touch of madness will prevent your enemies from attacking you. They would not attack a person who takes his enemy with him if he falls. This is the essence of Israel’s strategy with friends and foes alike, and once understood, it is hard to unsee these tactics in all the state’s dealings.After the Palestinian resistance’s 7 October military operation last year – and just as US President Joe Biden was en route to Tel Aviv to lend his support to Israel – the occupation army struck Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, killing hundreds of civilians seeking shelter and medical attention. The hit was by no accident. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deliberately sought those optics. He wanted to corner the US president into displaying support for his policies, no matter how awful the atrocity.

This is a long-practiced Zionist tactic to tame and groom targets to accept and expect Israeli bad behavior. Netanyahu also played this dangerous game with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Syrian war. After every meeting with the powerful Russian head of state, the Israeli premier would launch hard strikes against Syria – again, to tame and groom the Russians to accept and expect Israeli bad behavior. Today, Israel employs the full spectrum of its MAD strategy in its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and across the West Bank – rape, murder, amputations, beheadings, torture – with impunity. Allies, foes, and global populations are expected to accept the images and data and be ready for even worse scenarios. It is untrue that Tel Aviv acts irrationally. Implementing the MAD strategy is a rational decision for a small entity that needs to impose its oversized will on not only its neighbors but on global powers and international institutions, too.

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“By refusing on principle ever to govern with real right-wing parties, the center-right guarantees that the left remains forever in power..”

• Europe’s Recipe for Disaster: The Von der Leyen Program (Godefridi)

Calculated in terms of purchasing power parity – meaning disregarding the strength of the dollar — the average GDP per capita in the EU as of 2022 is 72% of the average GDP per American. Given that economic growth is higher every year in the United States than in the EU, this gap will only widen. This backwardness is confirmed by the innovation vitality of the American economy. In just one example, compare artificial intelligence, essentially an American innovation, to the lack of creativity in the European economy. NVIDIA’s success is unthinkable in Europe.

Three factors might help to explain Europe’s economic backwardness compared to the United States: the cost of energy, which is five to ten times higher in Europe than in the US; the greater difficulty in Europe of concentrating private capital to invest in R&D and finally, the pull of the “mad legislator”, which is even worse in Europe than in the US. For example, Apple recently settled an EU investigation regarding its restriction on third-party developers accessing its payment technology, which could have led to a fine of 10% of its annual revenue for non-compliance. Apple’s total net sales in 2023 were $383.3 billion, so a 10% fine would amount to $38.3 billion. Given Apple’s operating income in Europe is $36.1 billion, non-compliance with EU regulations could result in fines exceeding its regional earnings.

How is it, when all these facts are known, that von der Leyen was reappointed to her post, while the Greens lost the European Parliament elections, and the right-wing parties of all persuasions won them by a wide margin? Perhaps this seeming paradox can be explained by the fact that the center-right, the largest party bloc in the European Parliament, is ideologically subservient to the left, on two levels: 1) by adhering to most of the dogmas of the left, starting with environmentalism, and 2) by refusing on principle any coalition with real right-wing parties such as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy or, in France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN).

This ensures that, while losing elections, the left can stay in power. The new von der Leyen majority consists of four parliamentary groups: the center-right, the socialists, the left-wing liberals and the far-left environmentalists. Of these groups, the center-right is by far the largest. It would therefore be logical for them to dominate von der Leyen’s program. But that is not what takes place. It is the demands of the smallest group — environmentalists — that dominate: continuation of the Green Deal, total decarbonization by 2050.

European power is a mirror image of its two driving forces — France and Germany — where the center-right parties behave in the same way: ideological submission to the left and a ban on the right governing. In Germany, the right-wing political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), finds itself in a position to govern several regions with the center-right. But everywhere in Germany, the center-right prefers to ally with the left, the environmentalists, sometimes even the communists, than to govern with the AfD. In France, Le Pen’s RN clearly won the European elections, then the first round of legislative elections. The center-right immediately announced that it preferred a victory for the far left and the communists to a victory for Le Pen.

The post-war European citizen has never voted so far to the right. He is harvesting a program that has never been so extremely left-wing. The von der Leyen program owes more to the Greens (53 MEPs) than to the center-right (188 MEPs). By refusing on principle ever to govern with real right-wing parties, the center-right guarantees that the left remains forever in power. When voting no longer serves any purpose, democracy dies.

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“The proportion of electricity coming through Hungary in terms of Ukrainian imports exceeded 40-42 percent during several periods..”

• Hungary and Slovakia Consider Cutting Electricity Supply To Ukraine (RMX)

Roughly 40 percent of Ukraine’s electricity imports pass through the Ukrainian-Hungarian border, which means Hungary is not entirely powerless in the face of a Ukrainian blockade on oil supplies. In fact, Hungary may be forced to cut electricity to its neighbor if push comes to shove. Olivér Hortay, head of Századvég’s climate and energy policy department, noted that Ukraine’s biggest energy problem is the electricity system. Since the start of the war, the country has lost three-quarters of its own electricity generation capacity, leading to Ukrainians having to deal with prolonged blackouts and cuts to production due to a lack of electricity. To deal with Ukraine’s faltering electricity network, the country has been importing energy from neighboring countries. “The proportion of electricity coming through Hungary in terms of Ukrainian imports exceeded 40-42 percent during several periods,” said Hortay, while speaking to Hungarian television channel M1.

As a result, Ukraine may suffer “serious consequences” due to its oil blockade. He notes that the MAVIR station in Szabolcsbáka is one of the main hubs of the European and Ukrainian electricity systems. This is the only Hungarian and EU substation with 750 kV system components. Roughly 40 percent of Ukraine’s electricity imports pass through here. Hungary and Slovakia have both sounded the alarm to Brussels about Ukraine’s action of cutting oil supplies from Russia, which flow through the Friendship pipeline. However, the EU, which is well known for its opposition to the governments in Hungary and Slovakia, has responded cooly to the complaints, saying that Ukraine does not endanger the energy supplies of the two countries. Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó has rejected the EU’s argument and called Croatia, which is supposed to increase supplies in response to the Ukrainian blockade, an unreliable transit country.

Both Hungary and Slovakia rely on Russia for up to 80 percent of their oil supply, underlining the threat to both economies. Olivér Hortay explained that Russia’s Lukoil provides a third of the oil demand of the Hungarian Száhahalombatta refinery and 45 percent of the demand of the Bratislava refinery in Slovakia. Gergely Gulyás, the minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office, called it unfair and contrary to EU agreements that Ukraine is blackmailing Hungary and Slovakia because of its pro-peace stance. Hortay points to an existing association agreement, based on which Hungary and Slovakia initiated proceedings at the European Commission , where “literally it is stated that the parties cannot limit each other’s imports, exports and transit.”

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“..theoretically we can assume that this is the beginning of the process of realigning relations between Russia and the West..”

• A New Détente: Can Putin and Biden Make A Deal? (Drize)

Russia is delighted with Thursday’s prisoner exchange in Ankara, Western media outlets report, citing sources in their countries’ respective agencies. Meanwhile, in Washington and in Western European capitals, the event is being presented as a major diplomatic breakthrough. It may even be a prelude to further talks between Moscow and Washington. It was the largest swap in modern Russian history, not only in terms of the number of people involved, but also in their status. This time, not only foreigners convicted in our country, but also Russian citizens – let’s say critics of the existing state system and its leadership – were released from prison. We don’t need to list them all again. That information is everywhere in news stories and has been repeated many times.

It’s worth repeating that the last time anything like this happened was during the Cold War. So we have yet another indication that history is repeating itself more or less: missiles being placed in Western Europe, nuclear exercises in Russia, the decline in diplomatic relations….. all the signs are there. Nevertheless, this event is positive in terms of the prospect of defusing international tensions and perhaps encouraging a detente. Incidentally, this was a buzz word in the 1970s. Top US officials were in a festive mood. Joe Biden spoke at the White House, surrounded by the families of those transferred. The Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, flew from Houston to Washington to meet them. So, they were received at the highest level.

It also seems that the Kremlin has a lot of doubts about Donald Trump’s chances of victory. That’s the first thing. And secondly, it is no big secret that it’s much easier to come to an agreement with the Democratic Party in general and the Biden-Obama-Harris faction in particular. This is what we are witnessing. We can also recall that one of Biden’s first executive orders after taking office in 2021 was to extend the START treaty. As we know, ‘dear Donald’ refused to sign the document. But ‘Bad Joe’ took it and approved it, and immediately at that. So betting on this team seems quite logical. By the way, it’s also believed that both Iran and China believe it’s better to deal with bad than “very bad,” and they also don’t want Trump to return. But let’s not get sidetracked.

Anyway, an unprecedented agreement has been reached. And often when you manage to make one, it’s followed by a second. That is to say, theoretically we can assume that this is the beginning of the process of realigning relations between Russia and the West. Of course, the main stumbling block here is Ukraine, but it’s not the only one. And this process should take place before the election in the US, i.e. in the shortest possible time frame. The reason is obvious: Trump could win and then we’ll have to start all over again. Some will say: but what about all the hopes and assumptions pinned on him, and why are they being forgotten? Yes, we should not be naive. But events are moving, and moving fast. And time is running out. So what can we do? We can hope for the best, or rather, hope for the prudence of all parties. We don’t want the planet to burn in a fiery hell. So it makes sense to try to somehow avoid that scenario.

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Do it quickly.

• Venezuela Could Hand Energy Rights To BRICS – Maduro (RT)

Venezuela could transfer the development rights to its vast oil and gas fields that are currently operated by American energy companies to entities from BRICS nations, President Nicolas Maduro warned on Friday during a press conference in Caracas. BRICS originally comprised Brazil, Russia, India, and China before subsequently adding South Africa and, at the beginning of this year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Numerous other countries, including Venezuela, have expressed interest in joining the group. “If these people up north and their partners in the world make the mistake of their lives, then those oil blocks and those gas blocks that were already signed up [for US companies] will go to our BRICS allies,” Maduro said, adding that Washington was at the forefront of plans to destabilize his country.

With an estimated 303 billion barrels, Venezuela accounts for approximately 17% of global reserves of crude oil, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which lists the Bolivarian republic as having the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Chevron, the only American energy major still operating in Venezuela, scored a license to pump oil in the country in November 2022, a month after a sanctions waiver was implemented. This came in exchange for the unblocking of some of Caracas’ oil proceeds that had been frozen by US sanctions. Chevron is currently involved in four onshore and offshore projects in Venezuela through a partnership with state-controlled oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Earlier this year, the US company announced the goal of increasing output by 35% year-on-year by bringing new wells online.

Earlier this week, the White House recognized Western-backed opposition figure Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday, despite the official results showing incumbent Maduro having won. The Venezuelan leader has urged Washington to “keep its nose out of Venezuela,” saying that the protests that erupted in the country after the results were announced were an attempted “coup.” Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Maduro earlier this week on being reelected. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Venezuela’s opposition should admit defeat and congratulate the winner. He added that it is important for Venezuela to avoid attempts at destabilization orchestrated by third countries, and to remain free of outside meddling. Earlier this week, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil Pinto confirmed that Maduro had received an invitation to take part in the BRICS summit scheduled for October in the Russian city of Kazan.

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“Boeing is not allowed to ask Elon to save them in an election year.”

“..stranded in space for 2 months, on what was supposed to be a 1 week trip. They were not allowed to take any luggage or change of clothes or personal items, since it was such a short stay.”

• SpaceX May Save Stranded Boeing Starliner Crew At ISS (ZH)

Boeing’s crewed Starliner spacecraft mission to the International Space Station was initially expected to last just a few days, but it has stretched into weeks and now two months. The two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, have been stranded on the ISS following Starliner’s helium leaks and failing thrusters in early June. NASA and Boeing have been working to resolve Starliner’s issues, but progress has been limited. The big story here is that, after two months, Boeing has yet to publicly ask Elon Musk’s SpaceX for help. Optically, this would be a major blow to Boeing’s image, especially considering the series of mid-air mishaps involving its 737Max commercial jets. Additionally, it’s an election year for the Biden administration, which has been on a crusade against Trump and his supporters, but also is very anti-Musk. Any rescue mission by SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is undesirable news flow for Democrats.

However, a new report from Ars Technica, citing various sources, indicates SpaceX could be publicly called up to save the day. Here’s more from Ars Technica: “For a long time, it seemed almost certain that the astronauts would return to Earth inside Starliner. However, there has been a lot of recent activity at NASA, Boeing, and SpaceX that suggests that Wilmore and Williams could come home aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft rather than Starliner.” The report continued: “One informed source said it was greater than a 50-50 chance that the crew would come back on Dragon. Another source said it was significantly more likely than not they would. To be clear, NASA has not made a final decision. This probably will not happen until at least next week. It is likely that Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator, will make the call.”

On Thursday evening, NASA spokesperson Josh Finch told Ars, “NASA is evaluating all options for the return of agency astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station as safely as possible. No decisions have been made and the agency will continue to provide updates on its planning.” X users are wondering why the stranded Starliner story is not huge news.

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“..there are at least two countries already – Canada and the US – that permit anyone to freely decide the gender that gets listed on their passport.|”

• Gender-Bending Is The New Doping (Marsden)

Ever since the Paris Olympics triggered culture warriors by dumping drag queens all over the opening ceremony like fleur de sel with a faulty cap, they’ve been on high alert for any perceived attempts by the organizers to further a woke, gender-bending agenda. When Algerian boxer Imane Khelif defeated Italian Angela Carini in a fight that lasted just 46 seconds, with Carini taking a punch to the head and reeling from a suspected broken nose, it didn’t take long for social media to pick up on Carini’s cry that the match wasn’t fair. Nor would it take long for a debate to emerge along the usual fault lines around Khelif’s gender and for Khelif to become a Rorschach test. Former competitive swimmer Riley Gaines tweeted that “men don’t belong in women’s sports,” to which X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk replied, “Absolutely.”

Gaines has become an activist against men competing in women’s sports as a result of having to face off against transsexual swimmer Lia Thomas in the NCAA college swimming championships. And Musk has recently expressed upset over one of his children’s own gender transitioning. “The idea that those objecting to a male punching a female in the name of sport are objecting because they believe Khelif to be ‘trans’ is a joke. We object because we saw a male punching a female,” ‘Harry Potter’ author and frequent transsexual issue commentator J.K. Rowling wrote. Yet there isn’t any credible evidence that Khelif has ever undergone any kind of gender transitioning – something that would be unheard of in Khelif’s native Algeria. “This is the purest form of evil unfolding right before our eyes,” boxer and influencer Logan Paul said. “A man was allowed to beat up a woman on a global stage, crushing her life’s dream while fighting for her deceased father. This delusion must end.”

But then Paul deleted the posts. “OOPSIES,” he wrote. “I might be guilty of spreading misinformation along with the entirety of this app.” It’s no wonder everyone’s confused. Two sports governing bodies have faced off over Khelif and another athlete competing in women’s boxing, China’s Lin Yu-Ting. According to the International Boxing Association, the worldwide match sanctioning entity which disqualified both athletes in the 2023 World Championships where they won bronze and gold respectively, “the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.” Regulations stipulate that proof could be in the form of a DNA test, but no further evidence has been provided to confirm the results – perhaps due to concerns around privacy violations.

In the other corner, the International Olympic Committee calls the IBA’s ruling “sudden and arbitrary,” which can also be true without the results themselves being illegitimate. Accusing its CEO, Chris Roberts (an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to British army boxing), of a unilateral decision, the IOC issued a statement related to the latest controversy, stipulating that “as with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport.” That’s hardly a rigorous test, particularly when there are at least two countries already – Canada and the US – that permit anyone to freely decide the gender that gets listed on their passport.

Arguably, the most levelheaded take came from transsexual former Olympic decathlon champion Caitlyn Jenner, who explained in a recent Netflix documentary about Jenner’s sporting career and life that it was Bruce Jenner who won those accolades, not Caitlyn. Bruce also had the integrity to keep the dresses at home and not show up in one to compete in the women’s decathlon – and Jenner does not now support any man who would. Jenner has described Khelif as “the Algerian competitor with XY chromosomes,” referencing the IBA test results, and has argued that the IOC has a duty to protect the integrity of women’s sports. The IOC doesn’t seem too interested in actively doing so, however, preferring instead to just take participants’ and countries’ word for it.

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“.. financial commentators have put it as high as $2.3 quadrillion or even $3.7 quadrillion, far exceeding global GDP, which was about $100 trillion in 2022..”

• How Unelected Regulators Unleashed the Derivatives Monster (Ellen Brown)

“It was not the highly visible acts of Congress but the seemingly mundane and often nontransparent actions of regulatory agencies that empowered the great transformation of the U.S. commercial banks from traditionally conservative deposit-taking and lending businesses into providers of wholesale financial risk management and intermediation services.” – Professor Saule Omarova, “The Quiet Metamorphosis, How Derivatives Changed the Business of Banking” University of Miami Law Review, 2009

While the world is absorbed in the U.S. election drama, the derivatives time bomb continues to tick menacingly backstage. No one knows the actual size of the derivatives market, since a major portion of it is traded over-the-counter, hidden in off-balance-sheet special purpose vehicles. However, when Warren Buffet famously labeled derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002, its “notional value” was estimated at $56 trillion. Twenty years later, the Bank for International Settlements estimated that value at $610 trillion. And financial commentators have put it as high as $2.3 quadrillion or even $3.7 quadrillion, far exceeding global GDP, which was about $100 trillion in 2022. A quadrillion is 1,000 trillion. Most of this casino is run through the same banks that hold our deposits for safekeeping. Derivatives are sold as “insurance” against risk, but they actually add a heavy layer of risk because the market is so interconnected that any failure can have a domino effect. Most of the banks involved are also designated “too big to fail,” which means we the people will be bailing them out if they do fail.

Derivatives are considered so risky that the Bankruptcy Act of 2005 and the Uniform Commercial Code grant them (along with repo trades) “super-priority” in bankruptcy. That means if a bank goes bankrupt, derivative and repo claims are settled first, drawing from the same pool of liquidity that holds our deposits. A derivatives crisis could easily vacuum up that pool, leaving nothing for us as depositors — or for the “secured” creditors who are junior to derivative and repo claimants in bankruptcy, including state and local governments. As detailed by Pam and Russ Martens, publisher and editor, respectively of Wall Street on Parade, as of Dec. 31, 2023, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., Citigroup’s Citibank and Bank of America held a total of $168.26 trillion in derivatives out of a total of $192.46 trillion at all U.S. banks, savings associations and trust companies. That’s four banks holding 87 percent of all derivatives at all 4,587 federally-insured institutions then in the U.S.

In June 2024, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board jointly released their findings on the eight U.S. megabanks’ “living wills” – their resolution or wind-down plans in the event of bankruptcy. The Fed and FDIC faulted all of the four largest derivative banks on shortcomings in how they planned to wind down their derivatives. Banks are not just middlemen in the derivatives market. They are active players taking speculative positions. In this century, writes Professor Omarova, the largest U.S. commercial banks have emerged “as a new breed of financial super-intermediary—a wholesale dealer in financial risk, conducting a wide variety of capital markets and derivatives activities, trading physical commodities, and even marketing electricity.” She notes that the Federal Reserve has allowed several financial holding companies to purchase and sell physical commodities (including oil, natural gas, agricultural products and electricity) in the spot market to hedge their commodity derivative activities, and to take or make delivery of those commodities to settle the transactions.

It was not Congress that authorized that expansive definition of permitted banking activities. It was the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), part of the “administrative deep state,” that permanent body of unelected regulators who carry on while politicians come and go. As Omarova explains: Through seemingly routine and often nontransparent administrative actions, the OCC effectively enabled large U.S. commercial banks to transform themselves from the traditionally conservative deposit-taking and lending institutions, whose safety and soundness were guarded through statutory and regulatory restrictions on potentially risky activities, into a new breed of financial “super-intermediaries,” or wholesale dealers in pure financial risk. … Moreover, some of the most influential of those decisions escaped public scrutiny because they were made in the subterranean world of administrative action invisible to the public, through agency interpretation and policy guidance.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Love ya, but

 

 

Baby+dog

 

 

Sport
https://twitter.com/i/status/1819484638953529696

 

 

Toy fix

 

 

Ref
https://twitter.com/i/status/1819276069972635674

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 26 2023

Aug 262023
 
 August 26, 2023  Posted by at 8:31 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  55 Responses »


Gustave Dore Dante and The Ninth Circle of Hell (Treachery) 1857

 

• Europeans Fear Biden Will Push Ukraine To Peace – Bloomberg (RT)
• US To Reduce Military Aid To Ukraine In 2024 – WSJ (RT)
• Ukraine Mess Will Cost US $600 Bln More Even If Fighting Stopped Tomorrow (Sp.)
• Ukraine Ends With ‘Post-Zelensky Warlord’ – Ramaswamy (RT)
• ‘Total Lie’ Russia Killed Prigozhin – Kremlin (RT)
• Who’s Afraid Of Prigozhin And Wagner? (Bhadrakumar)
• Expanded BRICS To Dominate Global Energy Markets (RT)
• BRICS 11 – Strategic Tour de Force (Pepe Escobar)
• Trump’s First X Post Gets Over 210 MILLION Views In 24 Hours (DCE)
• Trump Mugshot Turned Into Merch (RT)
• The Trump Mugshot Ignites a Tinderbox Nation (Turley)
• Campaign Photo (Jim Kunstler)
• Elon Musk Says He’s Being Sued For ‘Political Purposes’ (RT)

 

 

 

 

Trump ad

 

 

 

 

Huntersgate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, we can’t have that.

• Europeans Fear Biden Will Push Ukraine To Peace – Bloomberg (RT)

European officials are concerned that US President Joe Biden could “nudge” Ukraine toward peace talks next year, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing anonymous sources. Bloomberg is the second major US outlet this week to warn that American military aid to Kiev may soon dry up. According to the US news site, European leaders worry that Ukraine’s lack of “significant battlefield progress,” coupled with pressure from the anti-interventionist wing of the Republican Party, could lead to Biden pressing Kiev to the negotiating table. The US has supplied more than $43 billion worth of arms to Ukraine since Russia’s military operation began last year, but the Biden administration is out of money for more aid packages. The president has asked Congress to pass a $40 billion emergency spending bill, half of which would be allocated to Kiev, but the bill will likely face stiff opposition from a growing number of Republicans opposed to Biden’s blank-check policy.

Furthermore, media reports earlier this summer suggested that continued military aid to Ukraine would be predicated on Kiev using its NATO weapons and training to make significant territorial gains against Russian forces. However, nearly three months into Kiev’s counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military has failed to breach Russia’s defensive lines, and has lost upwards of 43,000 men for its efforts, according to the most recent figures from the Russian Defense Ministry. With Ukraine’s odds of success dwindling, Biden will also enter 2024 having to campaign for reelection, likely against former President Donald Trump. The former president has repeatedly promised to force Kiev into a peace deal if elected, as has Vivek Ramaswamy, who is currently polling third for the GOP’s nomination.

American officials believe that the US will not give Ukraine “anywhere near the same level” of military aid in 2024 compared to this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. According to the paper’s sources, Washington would not be able to give Kiev the same amount of arms and ammo again, and American military planners are advising their Ukrainian counterparts to use what they already have more effectively. Publicly, the Biden administration insists that the weapons will keep flowing to Ukraine. According to a report by Axios on Wednesday, “senior US officials” have been in contact with European leaders to reassure them that the aid will continue, while National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday that key Republicans still back the administration’s policy of arming Kiev “for as long as it takes.”

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“What about the money we have already spent? What is the money for and what is victory?”

• US To Reduce Military Aid To Ukraine In 2024 – WSJ (RT)

The US is unlikely to give Ukraine “anywhere near the same level” of military aid in 2024 compared to this year, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing officials in Washington. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and his administration insist that they will continue to back Kiev to the hilt. The US has supplied more than $43 billion worth of arms to Ukraine since Russia’s military operation began last year, while leaked Pentagon documents indicate that NATO countries trained and equipped nine Ukrainian brigades to take part in the ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces. With the Ukrainian military failing to penetrate Russia’s defensive lines after nearly three months of fighting, American military planners are advising their Ukrainian counterparts to stick to their NATO training and use what they’ve been given more effectively, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

“The American advice is based on the calculation that the surge of equipment the US has funneled to Ukraine…is enough for this offensive and is unlikely to be repeated at anywhere near the same level in 2024,” the newspaper explained. Washington’s continued bankrolling of the Ukrainian military is a matter of political contention in the US. While almost all Democratic members of Congress back Biden’s policy of arming Kiev “for as long as it takes,” a group of more than two dozen Republicans are vehemently opposed. Moreover, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has promised to force Kiev into a peace deal if elected president next November, as has Vivek Ramaswamy, who is currently polling third for the GOP’s nomination.

The Biden administration has spent all of its money set aside for Ukraine, and the president is now pushing Congress to pass a $40 billion emergency spending bill, half of which would be allocated to Ukraine. With Republican anti-interventionists up in arms, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has suggested that he won’t give the bill his unconditional support. “You don’t get to just throw money [away],” he said earlier this summer. “What about the money we have already spent? What is the money for and what is victory?”

Biden’s top officials have downplayed the growing divisions in Washington. “We believe that the support will be there and will be sustained,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday. Sullivan added that despite the “dissonant voices” on the right, Republicans in “key leadership positions” will ensure that weapons keep flowing to Kiev. According to a report by Axios on Wednesday, “senior US officials” have been in contact with European leaders to reassure them that the supply of military aid will not dry up.

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It all depends how Ukraine is re-divided.

• Ukraine Mess Will Cost US $600 Bln More Even If Fighting Stopped Tomorrow (Sp.)

The costs of the geopolitical, military, and economic quagmire which the Biden administration unleashed in Ukraine will continue to steadily rise even if peace were to break out tomorrow, and American taxpayers are expected to largely foot the bill. That’s the conclusion of an independent economic analysis put out this week by a senior fellow from the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute, a pair of Washington, DC and Maryland-based think tanks. The analysis takes into account the World Bank’s March 2023 estimate that Ukraine will require some $411 billion in reconstruction support over the coming decade, plus whatever additional expenses may have arisen between then and now, with the analysis giving an overall ballpark figure of $600 billion+ in total expenses.

The analysis compared these ballooning costs to the $60 billion the US spent on Iraqi reconstruction after the 2003 invasion, plus the $90 billion spent in Afghanistan for reconstruction purposes during the 20-year US-led war and occupation of that country, which culminated in the collapse of the Afghan government and its NATO-trained military almost immediately after Washington withdrew its support in 2021. “There is no doubt that most of the US assistance to Afghanistan was probably stolen or went over to the Taliban…In the case of Iraq, most of the aid was wasted thanks to bad management, corruption and poor planning,” the report noted. “The US and its allies will need to cough up $60 billion annually to support Ukraine, and expect that a lot of it will be stolen. It will have to keep the funding up for 10 years,” the analysis added.

Citing waning support for continuing the proxy war against Russia from key allies including Germany and Britain, the report expects the US to have to cough up most of the cash. Accordingly, the analysis doesn’t rule out that the Biden administration may be deliberately seeking to prolong the military crisis as long as possible to put off committing reconstruction aid, particularly as a growing majority of Americans, including several major presidential candidates, no longer want to continue endlessly funding the conflict, or the Volodymyr Zelensky government. Ultimately, the analysis expects Ukraine to become “the most costly” reconstruction operation ever conducted by the US, pointing out that by comparison, the US Marshall Plan reconstruction campaign in Europe after World War II cost “just” $13.3 billion (or $173 billion in today’s dollars, accounting for inflation).

Questions have swirled for months surrounding Ukraine’s post-conflict economic future, with the nation’s gross external debt continuing to mount, and some observers fearing the country will be “crippled” by the debt it owes to the International Monetary Fund and other institutions over the long term. The tremendous interest US hedge fund giants like BlackRock have shown in Ukraine’s fertile black earth soil, as well as the country’s untapped rare earth mineral deposits, has also sparked concerns that Kiev might come out of the present crisis as a full-on economic neo-colony of the United States and its allies.

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Why would Russia allow that?

• Ukraine Ends With ‘Post-Zelensky Warlord’ – Ramaswamy (RT)

Continuing to send weapons to Kiev does not serve US interests and is only pushing Russia and China closer together, according to candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy was the only candidate on Wednesday’s debate stage in Milwaukee unequivocally against increasing US funding for Ukraine, already at over $100 billion. Asked about it by the government-funded Voice of America after the debate, Ramaswamy said that sending more money to Kiev “does not advance American interests” and the president’s job is to look out for Americans. “You mark my words, the way this war ends right now, without the US actually stepping in and saying we’re not going to fund any more of it, is going to be some post-Zelensky warlord takes over with a couple hundred billion dollars of American military equipment, just like what happened after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. And you see how far that got,” the 38-year-old tech entrepreneur added.

Ramaswamy also said his plan to end the conflict “will actually be probably better for Ukraine. At least it comes out with its sovereignty intact, which is not the plan they’re on right now.” If a recent CNN poll is to be believed, 71% of Republicans are against sending more money to the government in Kiev, while 59% say the US has done enough for Ukraine already. “I think that this is disastrous, that we are protecting against an invasion across somebody else’s border, when we should use those same military resources to prevent… the invasion of our own southern border here,” Ramaswamy said during the debate. He also argued that the US support for Kiev is “driving Russia further into China’s hands” and accused some of his rivals of putting Ukraine ahead of the US. “I find it offensive that we have professional politicians on the stage that will make a pilgrimage to Kiev – to their pope, [President Vladimir] Zelensky – without doing the same thing for people in Maui or the South Side of Chicago,” Ramaswamy said.

This provoked angry replies from former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former vice president Mike Pence – both of whom have recently visited Ukraine – as well as Nikki Haley, who called Ukraine “the front line of defense” for the US and accused Ramaswamy of having no foreign policy experience. Ramaswamy is currently ranked third in the GOP primary polls, behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 13.8% but ahead of Pence (4.1%), Haley (3.1%) and Christie (2.9%). Former president Donald Trump has said he would end the conflict “in 24 hours” and condemned the Biden administration’s bankrolling of the Ukrainian government. Trump is the absolute front-runner for the party nomination, with 56% support. He did not attend Wednesday’s debate, choosing to give an interview to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson instead.

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The plane had just come from Africa.

• ‘Total Lie’ Russia Killed Prigozhin – Kremlin (RT)

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday dismissed what he called unfounded speculation by some media in the West that Moscow may have been behind the crash of Wagner head Evgeny Prigozhin’s plane. “There is a lot of speculation about that plane crash and the tragic deaths of the passengers, among whom was Evgeny Prigozhin,” Peskov told reporters at the daily press briefing. “In the West, all that speculation is being presented from a certain angle. It’s all a total lie.” Peskov asked the media to rely on facts, “which as of this moment are few, as they have to be uncovered by the ongoing investigation.”

He also reminded reporters that President Putin had promised a thorough investigation, including the DNA testing of the remains. “There are no official results as of yet. The moment they are ready to be made public, they will be,” Peskov said. The Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600 private jet was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg on Wednesday when it crashed in Tver Region. There were ten people on board, seven passengers and three crew members. None survived. Authorities are still working to identify the bodies. Prigozhin’s name was on the passenger manifest, along with Dmitry ‘Wagner’ Utkin, whose call sign gave the private military company its moniker.

Officially, however, the Wagner Group PMC does not exist. Putin commented on Prigozhin’s reported death on Thursday, calling him a man of “complicated destiny” whom he had known since the early 1990s. The Russian president touched on Prigozhin’s business deals in both Russia and Africa and thanked him and Wagner for what they had done in the Ukraine conflict. He did not touch on the failed Wagner mutiny at the end of June, after which much of the outfit was disbanded, with the remainder moving to Belarus, along with Prigozhin.

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Former Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar is convinced it wasn’t Putin.

• Who’s Afraid Of Prigozhin And Wagner? (Bhadrakumar)

Prigozhin’s murder was staged on a special day that in a historical perspective, must be counted as the finest hour of Russian diplomacy ever since the disintegration of the former Soviet Union. The reality of “a new starting point for BRICS” — as Chinese President Xi Jinping stated — is yet to sink in fully, but what is beyond doubt is that Russia is walking away as the winner. Make no mistake that the BRICS unity held firm and rubbished all western prognosis; BRICS expansion means that the issue of a single settlement currency is on the table, and the international financial system is not going to be the same again; de-dollarisation is knocking at the gates; a new global trading system is taking shape which renders obsolete the exploitative 4-century old western regime geared to transfer wealth to the rich countries; BRICS has graduated, finally, from an informal club to an institution that will eclipse the G7.

[..] The plain truth is, there could be any number of people who wanted to physically eliminate Prigozhin. Within Russia itself, Prigozhin had recruited hardened criminals undergoing prison sentence to fight in Ukraine and thereby get their sentence commuted. He deployed them without adequate military training, and over 10,000 of them reportedly got killed. There is a deep sense of revulsion within Russia in the matter. Then there are the external enemies starting from France, which has been virtually evicted from the Sahel region, its playpen where it had a field day as the ex-colonial power until Prigozhin came and spoiled the party. France could barely hide its rancour toward Russia ever since then.

Meanwhile, the brewing crisis in Niger alerted the US that Prigozhin was on the prowl. The redoubtable acting secretary of state Victoria Nuland, who masterminded the 2014 coup in Ukraine, travelled to Niamey to plead with the coup leaders not to have any truck with Wagner. However, Prigozhin reportedly had sneaked into the neighbouring country, Mali, where Wagner is well established, with a view to establish contact with Niger’s new rulers and offer the services of Wagner. Suffice to say, Prigozhin was threatening to do to the Pentagon what he earlier did to the French Legion in Sahel.

It is entirely conceivable that the Biden administration decided that enough was enough and Wagner must be decapitated. Of course, Prigozhin’s departure along with his core group of senior commanders will incalculably weaken Wagner. Meanwhile, within Russia, the ruthless Uranian intelligence operates at different levels. The drone attacks on Moscow are being staged by saboteurs within Russia. And Ukraine too has a score to settle with Wagner, which is establishing itself in Belarus. Without doubt, there is a congruence of interests between the Ukrainian intelligence and its western mentors to destroy Wagner and eliminate it from the geopolitical chessboard altogether.

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Almost half the world’s oil. Now add Venezuela.

• Expanded BRICS To Dominate Global Energy Markets (RT)

The BRICS group of nations is on course to change the power balance in the global energy market, InfoTech news outlet reported on Thursday, citing calculations based on 2022 OPEC data on oil exports and production. According to the calculations, once the group expands after adding six new nations to its ranks, it will control nearly half of the world’s oil production and reserves. BRICS currently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. However, at the summit in Johannesburg this week, the group announced that Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will officially join in January 2024. According to the report, the group will greatly increase its weight in the oil market with the inclusion of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran.

Along with current members Russia and Brazil, these nations combined control 39% of the world’s total oil exports, or 17.1 million barrels per day (bpd). The 11 nations of the expanded BRICS will account for around 47.6% of the world’s total oil production, data shows. In terms of oil reserves, BRICS will also control nearly half of the world’s total, 719.5 billion barrels out of 1.6 trillion. If Venezuela, which has also recently applied for membership, is accepted into its ranks, the group’s control will be even greater – around 65.4%. In comparison, the G7 group of leading economies (The US, UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, France, and Japan) controls only 3.9% of known crude reserves. sAnalysts note that the expansion of BRICS to the Gulf countries is likely to see the US lose its influence in the global oil market.

“Saudi Arabia and the UAE joining is… extremely significant. The United States used to rely on the Gulf monarchies, especially Saudi Arabia, to exert control over the oil price. With their accession to BRICS, it seems likely that America has lost any control it had over oil prices for the foreseeable future,” Irish economist Philip Pilkington said in an article for the British portal UnHerd. According to Pilkington, the outcome of this week’s BRICS Summit also symbolizes the end of Iran’s economic isolation. “Given that the country is the world’s eighth largest oil producer and possesses the third largest proven oil reserves, this is a substantial economic and geopolitical development,” he stated.

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“..we may soon progress to BRICS 20 – on the way to BRICS 40..”

• BRICS 11 – Strategic Tour de Force (Pepe Escobar)

It will take time for the Global South, or Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright President Lukashenko), not to mention the stunned collective West, to fully grasp the enormity of the new strategic stakes. President Putin, for his part, described the negotiations on BRICS expansion as quite difficult. By now a relatively accurate picture is emerging of what really went down on that table in Johannesburg. India wanted 3 new members. China wanted as many as 10. A compromise was finally reached, with 6 members: Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Argentina and Ethiopia. So from now on it’s BRICS 11. And that’s just the beginning. Starting with the rotating Russian presidency of BRICS on January 1, 2024, more partners will be progressively included, and most certainly a new round of full members will be announced at the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in October next year.

So we may soon progress to BRICS 20 – on the way to BRICS 40. The G7, for all practical purposes, is sliding towards oblivion. Bur first things first. At that fateful table in Johannesburg, Russia supported Egypt. China went all out for Persian Gulf magic: Iran, UAE and the Saudis. Of course: Iran-China are already deep into a strategic partnership, and Riyadh is already accepting payment for energy in yuan. Brazil and China supported Argentina, Brazil’s troubled neighbor, running the risk of having its economy fully dollarized, and also a key commodity provider to Beijing. South Africa supported Ethiopia. India, for a series of very complex reasons, was not exactly comfortable with 3 Arab/Muslim members (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt). Russia assuaged New Delhi’s fears.

All of the above respects geographic principles and imprints the notion of BRICS representing the Global South. But it goes way beyond that, blending cunning strategy and no-nonsense realpolitik. India was mollified because Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at the table in Johannesburg negotiating on behalf of President Putin, and highly respected by New Delhi, fully understood that a new, single BRICS currency is a long way away. What really matters, short and medium term, is expanding intra-BRICS trade in their national currencies. That was stressed by New Development Bank (NDB) president Dilma Rousseff in her report to the South African summit hosts – even as Brazilian President Lula once again emphasized the importance of setting up a work group to discuss a BRICS currency.

Lavrov understood how New Delhi is absolutely terrified of secondary sanctions by the US, in case its BRICS role gets too ambitious. Prime Minister Modi is essentially hedging between BRICS and the completely artificial imperial obsession embedded in the terminology “Indo-Pacific” – which masks renewed containment of China. The Straussian neo-con psychos in charge of US foreign policy are already furious with India buying loads of discounted Russian oil. New Delhi’s support for a new BRICS currency would be interpreted in Washington as all-out trade war – and sanctions dementia would follow. In contrast, Saudi Arabia’s MbS doesn’t care: he’s a top energy producer, not consumer like India, and one of his priorities is to fully court his top energy client, Beijing, and pave the way for the petroyuan.

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The Tucker interview stood at 255 million views last time I looked.

• Trump’s First X Post Gets Over 210 MILLION Views In 24 Hours (DCE)

On Thursday evening, leading Republican presidential candidate and 45th President Donald Trump returned to X, formerly Twitter, in his first post since being suspended following the events of January 6, 2021. The post, which has gone viral, is a picture of Trump’s mugshot along with with the caption, “ELECTION INTERFERENCE NEVER SURRENDER! DONALDJTRUMP.COM”. As of 8:38 PM on Friday evening, Trump’s mugshot surpassed 210 million views after it had been posted for a full day. As of this report, Trump’s mugshot has 211.3 million views, over 331,100 reposts, 93,700 quote tweets, 1.4 million likes, and 39,300 bookmarks. “Approximately 10 million views per hour of this image,” X CEO Elon Musk remarked about the post. “Next-level,” Musk added along with a repost.

The mugshot’s historic nature has already been noted by many outlets. CNN called the photograph “iconic and infamous” and The Associated Press described it as “an enduring image that will appear in history books long after Donald Trump is gone.” The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., defined the image as “the most iconic photo in the history of US politics.” The image has already become a rallying cry for many with Trump supporters purchasing merchandise with the iconic photo ablazed across shirts, hats, mugs, and more. Trump’s return to X after nearly two years to post the mugshot shows his marketing genius and will make a lasting impression on millions of Americans.

Following the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, the billionaire unsuspended President Trump’s account, however, up until Thursday the president refused to use his account and instead used Truth Social. Trump’s return to Twitter, now X, has been long awaited and rumors circulated for months predicting that he would return to the platform in order to reach the tens of millions of Americans that use the social media network. In addition to being reinstated on Twitter earlier this year, Trump was also unsuspended on Facebook and Instagram. As previously reported by the DC Enquirer, Trump’s Instagram account was reinstated in early February after Meta unbanned his accounts after two years following the events of January 6th, 2021.

At the time of the initial ban, Meta released a press release giving the public an explanation of the company’s reasoning after it removed the 45th president on January 7, 2021. The company set a two-year hiatus until an oversight board could assess whether or not the former president should be allowed back on the platforms to reach his hundreds of millions of followers. Trump’s return to Facebook, Instagram, and now Twitter will prove to be a boon for his campaign and his popularity as the indictments ramp up. His choice to post his mugshot as his first post back to the platform reenforces the historic nature of the (mug)shot that will be heard around the world.

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“to fight the tyranny & insanity we’re seeing before us.”

• Trump Mugshot Turned Into Merch (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump’s mugshot from when he was booked and arrested at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia has gone viral while his son has already turned it into a line of merchandise. Shortly after the Fulton County’s Sheriff’s Office released the mugshot on Thursday, marking the first time such a picture has been taken of a former or sitting US president, Donald Trump Jr. posted a message on X (formerly Twitter) announcing new t-shirts, mugs, and posters featuring the former US president’s mugshot along with bold red and white text reading ‘Free Trump’. A t-shirt costs $29.99, a mug is being sold for $15.99, and a mugshot poster is priced at $19.99. The former president’s son pointed out, however, that all the proceeds from the merchandise sales would go to the Legal Defense Fund “to fight the tyranny & insanity we’re seeing before us.” “Unlike many, I won’t try to profit from this but will do what I can to help,” Trump Jr. wrote.

Meanwhile, many Trump supporters on Etsy and other online marketplaces have also jumped on the bandwagon and started selling all kinds of merchandise featuring the mugshot – even thongs. Trump surrendered himself at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday after being charged with several felonies connected to his alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections in Georgia. The former president was booked, arrested, and then quickly released thanks to a bail agreement secured earlier by his lawyers that saw Trump agree to post a $200,000 bond, as well as submit to several other conditions, including not using social media to target any of his 18 co-defendants or any witnesses in the case.

Some of Trump’s associates featured in the 41-count indictment have also turned themselves in at Fulton County Jail, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Trump has faced four criminal indictments this year as federal prosecutors have accused him of mishandling classified documents, attempting to interfere in the 2020 presidential elections, and allegedly paying hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels. The former president has denied any wrongdoing and has dismissed the allegations as a political witch hunt aimed at preventing him from running for the presidency in 2024.

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“The Trump mugshot captures a defining moment for our country. It will define us.”

• The Trump Mugshot Ignites a Tinderbox Nation (Turley)

I think that the Georgia, New York, and federal January 6th indictments are unwarranted and threaten free speech. Moreover, it is valid for many to object that these prosecutions could have occurred years ago, but were launched just before the presidential election so that Trump will be running from court to court through the general election. It is also true that the Mar-a-Lago case is more serious and more substantive . . . and that threat is continuing to grow as a threat for Trump as witnesses change their testimony and Trump aides confirm key prosecution claims. Likewise, while I believe the case against Trump in the Georgia indictment is weak, there are defendants in that case that face stronger claims on specific election-related crimes.

Of course, in an age of rage, reason is the first to die. We cannot allow that to happen; we cannot allow rage addicts to drive our political or legal processes. We have the greatest legal system in the world. We will sort out these issues from the criminalization of political speech to the claim that Trump can be barred from the ballot even without a charge or conviction. Courts are likely to divide on these issues. However, we remain a nation of laws. That tradition takes a certain leap of faith. We do not support that system only when we prevail. That is the view of court packers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.,Y.). Notably, Ocasio-Cortez even said that she does not understand why we need a Supreme Court.

Even law professors and legal commentators have called our Constitution “trash” and called for the country to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.” That is the greatest danger of these times: that our deep divisions will cause us to lose faith in our defining values and in each other. The Trump mugshot captures a defining moment for our country. It will define us. I believe that it is paramount that appellate courts consider the merits of the free speech and other challenges to the Georgia, New York, and federal cases. That may be difficult if judges support these prosecutors in demanding trials before constitutional appeals are taken. Appellate judges could agree, in good faith, that challenges are premature before any convictions.

The important thing is for citizens not to be played as chumps. We will sort this out. The courts will address these important legal issues as citizens resolve the equally important political issues raised by these prosecutions. The merchandising and madness aside, we have more matters to resolve . . . together.

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“It helps him hugely that the cases are transparently idiotic and mendacious..”

• Campaign Photo (Jim Kunstler)

On Thursday, attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who advised Georgia GOP officials on the process of assembling alternate electors in the case of election fraud under Georgia law, demanded a speedy trial. Under Georgia’s speedy trial law, Mr. Chesebro’s trial would have to take place this fall. (Such are the guiles of the law.) The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper called it, “an aggressive filing.” Ms. Willis had hoped to try all 19 defendants together during the 2024 presidential primary season, to support her RICO charges. Meanwhile, three other defendants, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, filed to have their cases removed to the federal court, in so far as the actions they are accused of taking happened while they worked in the service of the US government. Mr. Meadows is accused of seeking by email to get the phone number of a Pennsylvania election official.

Ms. Willis’s case hinges on a number of novel propositions. First, that it is somehow against the law to object to the outcome of an election. And second, that the process for relief in such a case, as provided in Georgia’s election contest law and the US Electoral Count Act of 1887, does not apply to Mr. Trump and his lawyers. Anyone who intends to challenge the outcome must necessarily assemble a panel of alternate electors if state officials cannot certify the election properly and in good faith. Ms. Willis refers to these erroneously as “fake electors.” Mr. Trump and his co-defendants will necessarily have to present evidence that the Georgia presidential election of 2020 was not certified properly or in good faith.

Will the defendants be allowed to present evidence of serious irregularities in the 2020 Georgia election results? If not, would that not be grounds for dismissal. So far, Democrats in charge of the machinery of law all over the country have skated on mere assertions that the 2020 election was fair. In Georgia, none of the principals involved in the dispute have been subject to cross-examination, the best instrument for truth-finding in the American legal system. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Sec’y of State Brad Raffensperger may not be so hot for an airing of what actually went on Nov 3, 2020 and the days after, especially the validity of over 100,000 mail-in ballots in a state where “Joe Biden’s” margin of victory was a mere 11,799 votes.

Mr. Trump seems to be thriving under the tribulation of four court cases brought against him as he runs for election in 2024. Each new set of charges boosts his poll numbers. It helps him hugely that the cases are transparently idiotic and mendacious. If he is initially convicted in any of them, he can still run for president and be elected, even if he’s jailed — as Eugene Debs did in 1920 getting 913,693 votes running on the Socialist Party from the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where he was jailed under the 1917 Espionage Act for speaking out against America’s entry into the First World War. The Party of Chaos is running scared. Everybody knows that “Joe Biden” can’t possibly run for another term and yet the public debate is so grotesquely disabled that nobody will talk about it. Most particularly, they will not talk about who might take his place. All they are really demonstrating with this barrage of prosecutions against their chief adversary is how broken, craven, and degenerate the party is, and what a menace it is, as they like to say, to our democracy.

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“We couldn’t even hire Canadian citizens..”

• Elon Musk Says He’s Being Sued For ‘Political Purposes’ (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claims that the US Department of Justice has been “weaponized” against his company for “political purposes,” and that the firm is being sued despite trying to stay on the right side of the law. The Justice Department announced on Thursday that it had filed a lawsuit against SpaceX for refusing to hire refugees and asylum seekers, and for allegedly “discouraging” these people from applying. Although SpaceX stated in its job advertisements that it could only hire US citizens and permanent residents due to the national security implications of rocket technology, the lawsuit claimed that refugees and asylum seekers have the same employment rights as US citizens under a 1965 immigration law. Musk claimed on Friday that prior to the lawsuit, government officials told SpaceX on multiple occasions not to hire foreigners.

“SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense,” he wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “We couldn’t even hire Canadian citizens, despite Canada being part of NORAD!” he continued, referring to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a cross-border aerospace monitoring and missile warning command. “This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes,” Musk added. In a separate post, he declared that “the weaponization of government agencies needs to stop. This fundamentally undermines public faith in the justice system.”

The arms trafficking law in question is the US State Department’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). All current SpaceX job listings inform potential candidates that unless a US citizen or permanent resident, they must obtain an ITAR waiver from the State Department to work at the company. As Musk explained on Friday, “the fundamental principle of ITAR law is that US companies who have advanced weapons technology, such as rockets with intercontinental range, must hire people who are permanent American residents, so that the technology does not fall into the hands of countries who wish us harm.”

While attempting to follow one law, the Justice Department’s lawsuit argues that Musk was breaking another. Although Musk is not a political rival of President Joe Biden, he has been at odds with the Biden administration since he purchased Twitter last October. Since taking over the since-renamed social media platform, Musk has published documents revealing a conspiracy by the White House, FBI, and other government agencies to control the flow of information on the site, prompting reports that the Biden administration had launched a national security investigation into the tycoon.

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Washkitten

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 12 2020

Oct 122020
 
 October 12, 2020  Posted by at 9:13 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  13 Responses »


Fred Stein Nadinola 1944

 

• WHO Backflips On Virus Stance By Condemning Lockdowns (News.com.au)
• WHO Warns Against COVID19 Lockdowns Due To Economic Damage (NYP)
• What Will It Take for Masks and Face Shields to End? (Mercola)
• Virus That Causes COVID19 Can Survive Up To 28 Days On Surfaces (AAP)
• Focused Protection, Herd Immunity, and Other Deadly Delusions (Gonsalves)
• Fauci Says Trump Ad Uses His Words Out Of Context; Campaign Says Not (JTN)
• Poll Gives Trump 3 Point Edge Over Biden In Florida (Fox35)
• Gov. Whitmer: Michigan Votes Will Not ‘Have Artificial Deadlines’ (Hill)
• SpaceX Promises Pentagon One-Hour Weapon Delivery Around The Globe (Fut.)
• China’s Steel Problem: Recovery Risks Making Foes Of Trading Partners (SCMP)
• New York Times Guild Once Again Demands Censorship Of Colleagues (Greenwald)
• If My Family Can, So Can Yours (Michael Flynn, Jr.)
• 7 Predictions For How 2020 Comes To An End (Bobinski)

 

 

This tweet says it better than I can. And it doesn’t even yet mention the WHO. They and Fauci might as well leave.

RIP in 2020 to the credibility of:

 

 

Trump Bartiromo

 

 

We can safely close down this operation now. Contradicting yourselves in such major matters shreds your credibility and you’ll never get it back. Fauci should know all about that.

• WHO Backflips On Virus Stance By Condemning Lockdowns (News.com.au)

The World Health Organisation has backflipped on its original COVID-19 stance after calling for world leaders to stop locking down their countries and economies. Dr. David Nabarro from the WHO appealed to world leaders yesterday, telling them to stop “using lockdowns as your primary control method” of the coronavirus. He also claimed that the only thing lockdowns achieved was poverty – with no mention of the potential lives saved. “Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer,” he said. “We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr Nabarro told The Spectator.

“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.” Dr Nabarro’s main criticism of lockdowns involved the global impact, explaining how poorer economies that had been indirectly affected. “Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry in the Caribbean, for example, or in the Pacific because people aren’t taking their holidays,” he said. “Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world. … Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition.”

Melbourne’s lockdown has been hailed as one of the strictest and longest in the world. In Spain’s lockdown in March, people weren’t allowed to leave the house unless it was to walk their pet. In China, authorities welded doors shut to stop people from leaving their homes. The WHO thinks these steps were largely unnecessary. Instead, Dr Nabarro is advocating for a new approach to containing the virus. “And so, we really do appeal to all world leaders: stop using lockdown as your primary control method. Develop better systems for doing it. Work together and learn from each other.”

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It feels like ages ago that I wroteLockdown 2.0 , but it’s only been 5 weeks.

• WHO Warns Against COVID19 Lockdowns Due To Economic Damage (NYP)

“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.” Nabarro said that there’s significant harm caused by tight restrictions, particularly on the global economy. “Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer,” he said. He added that lockdowns have severely impacted countries that rely on tourism. “Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry in the Caribbean, for example, or in the Pacific because people aren’t taking their holidays,” Nabarro told the outlet.


“Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world. Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition.” The UN agency previously warned countries against lifting lockdowns too soon during the first wave of the virus. “The last thing any country needs is to open schools and businesses, only to be forced to close them again because of a resurgence,” said Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. But Tedros had urged countries to bolster other measures, including widespread testing and contact tracing, so they could safely reopen and avoid future lockdowns. “We need to reach a sustainable situation where we have adequate control of this virus without shutting down our lives entirely, or lurching from lockdown to lockdown — which has a hugely detrimental impact on societies,” he said.

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Bit of a long quote. Joseph Mercola at LewRockwell.com first eviscerates all the vaccine efforts, then gives us a lesson in facemasks.

Note: even N95 masks don’t stop aerosols, but they do stop droplets, so they do have a function. Perfectly fitting them, as required in medical circles, is undoable, but we’re not looking for perfection.

• What Will It Take for Masks and Face Shields to End? (Mercola)

According to rotavirus vaccine developer Dr. Paul Offit,1 people will need to continue wearing masks and social distancing for “the next couple of years” even after a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available. “People now see vaccines as a magic dust that’s about to be sprinkled over this country and make this all go away. It doesn’t work that way,” Offit told MarketWatch, September 21, 2020. Offit, who sits on the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, said he’s wary of a COVID-19 vaccine that may be rushed to market under pressure from the government. The U.S. Health and Human Services’ Operation Warp Speed has pledged to deliver 300 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by 2021, if not sooner. However, developing a safe and effective vaccine normally takes years and begins with animal studies.

The COVID-19 vaccines are all being rushed straight into human clinical tests, forgoing lengthy animal trials altogether. Vaccine makers are also being shielded against liability if people are harmed by the experimental vaccines. Early warning signs that something might be amiss have already started emerging. As detailed in “Gates Tries to Justify Side Effects of Fast-Tracked Vaccine,” results6 from Moderna’s Phase 1 human trial revealed 100% of volunteers in the high-dose group suffered systemic side effects. Side effects included fatigue, chills, headache and myalgia (muscle pain); 21% suffered “one or more severe events.” A May 26, 2020, article in STAT news told the harrowing story of Ian Haydon, a healthy 29-year-old participant in Moderna’s vaccine trial who suffered severe side effects requiring hospitalization.

While Haydon recovered from the side effects, which included a raging fever, fainting, nausea, muscle pain and generally feeling “as sick as he’d ever felt,” just imagine what such side effects might do to an elderly person, an infant, young child or someone who is metabolically compromised or has an underlying condition such as a heart problem. For them, the reactions could be far worse and possibly fatal. Disturbingly, in July 2020, it was reported that Moderna’s 100-mcg dose vaccine — despite its 100% side effect ratio after the second dose — would proceed to Phase 3 trial assessment.

Like the Moderna vaccine, the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine also appears to come with a shockingly high rate of side effects. Results from one of its Phase 1/2 studies published August 15, 2020, revealed a clear majority of participants experienced side effects, including fatigue, headache, muscle ache, malaise, chills and feeling feverish. September 6, 2020, AstraZeneca paused its Phase 3 vaccine trial due to a “suspected serious and unexpected adverse reaction” in a British participant. The company did not divulge the nature of the adverse reaction.

 

 

[..] Ohio coronavirus rules issued by Governor Mike DeWine require people to wear masks at outdoor events when 6-foot social distancing is not possible. Not wearing a mask in Ohio is considered a misdemeanor. Penalties for failure to comply can include up to 30 days in jail and a $750 fine. While DeWine said his intent isn’t to arrest people for noncompliance, he failed to veto a bill that would have reduced fines and banned jail time for noncompliance. The fundamental problem with assaulting18 and arresting people for not complying with mask rules is that there’s no evidence to support the idea that masks prevent the spread of the virus. In fact, the science tells us masks cannot block viruses.

SARS-CoV-2 has a diameter between 0.06 and 0.14 microns. Medical N95 masks — which are considered the most effective — can filter particles as small as 0.3 microns. Surgical masks, homemade masks, T-shirts and bandanas are even more porous. At best, a mask may reduce the transmission of large respiratory droplets, but it does nothing to prevent the transmission of aerosolized particulates exhaled by asymptomatic or presymptomatic individuals with COVID-19. Health agencies’ own research show it’s a futile measure that only provides a false sense of security. For example, the WHO’s June 5, 2020, guidance memo on face mask use states “there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID- 19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.”

Similarly, a May 2020 policy review paper published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases, concluded that “Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.” This is highly relevant, as the influenza virus is about twice the size of SARS-CoV-2. If masks cannot prevent transmission of influenza, they certainly cannot prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

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Better get some UV light in your home?!

• Virus That Causes COVID19 Can Survive Up To 28 Days On Surfaces (AAP)

Australian scientists have found that the virus that causes Covid-19 can survive for up to 28 days on surfaces such as the glass on mobile phones, stainless steel, vinyl and paper banknotes. The national science agency, the CSIRO, said the research undertaken at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP) in Geelong also found that Sars-CoV-2 survived longer at lower temperatures. It said in a statement the virus survived longer on paper banknotes than on plastic banknotes and lasted longer on smooth surfaces rather than porous surfaces such as cotton. However, the experiment was done in a dark area which negates the effects of UV light. Peter Collignon, a professor of infectious diseases at the Australian National University, said this is known to reduce the life of the virus on surfaces.

“It is a factor, and that’s why the outside is probably again safer than inside because UV light is there and the virus can be inactivated on playgrounds and things in the sunshine,” he said. There is also significant uncertainty about exactly how large surfaces play into the transmission of the virus. “[The study] shows you that virus can persist … but if you ask me in the total scheme of things how important I think hands are compared to being close to people who are sick and getting it, I would say 90% of the problem and the transmission is related to being close to people who cough over you or sneeze over you or send you droplets. Probably around 10% of transmission is likely to be just hands and surfaces,” Collignon said. “But I still think it’s a good idea to wash your hands before you touch your face”.

The research, published in the Virology Journal, also found the virus lasted 10 days longer than influenza on some surfaces. Dr Larry Marshall, the chief executive of the CSIRO, said establishing how long the virus survived on surfaces enabled scientists to more accurately predict and prevent its spread, and so protect the community from infection. The deputy director of ACDP, Dr Debbie Eagles, said the results reinforced the need for good practices such as regular hand washing and cleaning surfaces. “At 20C, which is about room temperature, we found that the virus was extremely robust, surviving for 28 days on smooth surfaces such as glass found on mobile phone screens.” Similar experiments for Influenza A found it survived on surfaces for 17 days. Further experiments were carried out at 30C and 40C, with survival times for the Sars-CoV-2 virus decreasing as the temperature increased.

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Not many options remain.

• Focused Protection, Herd Immunity, and Other Deadly Delusions (Gonsalves)

The bulk of older Americans are integrated into our communities, living alone or with their spouses or their families. Even if we could make nursing homes into impenetrable fortresses impervious to viral entry, it’s not at all clear how we’d keep the millions of elderly “safe” as they live around, among, and with us. In fact, data from CDC suggests that we haven’t done a good job at all on this, and when virus cases surge in young people, the elderly are next in line for transmission. Another group of people to whom these three august academics give short shrift are the chronically ill in America. The CDC estimates that nearly half of all Americans (47.5 percent) have underlying conditions that predispose them to severe Covid-19 outcomes.

If it is a challenge to think of sequestering the elderly, what do we do with almost half of our fellow Americans who may be at similar enhanced risk of complications and death from Covid-19? Then there are the young. Kulldorff, Bhattacharya, and Gupta would have you believe that young people have little to fear from Covid-19, urging them to resume their normal lives. Yet if you look at hospitalizations for young adults with Covid-19 in a national study, 21 percent required intensive care, 10 percent required mechanical ventilation, and 2.7 percent died. Many of these young people had chronic conditions, which enhanced their risk—and over half of the young people hospitalized in this cohort were Black or Latino.

The herd immunity strategy, whether you call it this or “focused protection” or “age-targeted,” has already been tried without success, notably in Kulldorff’s native country, Sweden, which with less strict measures in places—particularly among the young—ended up with more deaths than its neighbors and didn’t avoid the economic impact of the pandemic, either. Furthermore, Sweden’s robust welfare state and national health care system probably averted even more serious carnage from its approach. In the United States, with our safety net in tatters, and where we don’t have such protections in place, pursuing a herd immunity approach could spell disaster.

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It’s obvious that he finds this awkward, but he did say it. Fauci has contradicted himself a few times too many.

• Fauci Says Trump Ad Uses His Words Out Of Context; Campaign Says Not (JTN)

National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci in a statement said that his remarks included in a Trump campaign ad were pulled from their context. “In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate,” he said in the statement after being asked if he had consented to be included in the political advertisement, according to CNN. “The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials.”

In the ad, Fauci is shown saying these words: “I can’t imagine that…anybody could be doing more.” The outlet reported that Fauci’s comment was taken from a March Fox News interview. “I’m down at the White House virtually every day with the task force. I’m connected by phone throughout the day and into the night—when I say night I’m talking 12, one, two in the morning—I’m not the only one, there’s a whole group of us that are doing that,” Fauci said in an interview with conservative host Mark Levin that CBS News said is the source of the clip. “It’s every single day. So I can’t imagine that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more.”


The Trump campaign is standing by its advertisement. “These are Dr. Fauci’s own words,” a spokesperson said in a statement, according to reports. “The video is from a nationally broadcast television interview in which Dr. Fauci was praising the work of the Trump Administration. The words spoken are accurate, and directly from Dr. Fauci’s mouth. As Dr. Fauci recently testified in the Senate, President Trump took the virus seriously from the beginning, acted quickly, and saved lives.”

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“It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%.”

• Poll Gives Trump 3 Point Edge Over Biden In Florida (Fox35)

President Donald Trump is leading former Vice President Joe Biden in Florida, according to a poll conducted this week by InsiderAdvantage. Pollster Matt Towery Sr. said the data shows Trump leading Biden by three points among likely voters in the Sunshine State; however, a significant number of those polled remain undecided at 10%. When asked, “If the election were held today, who would you vote for?” results were as follows: Donald Trump: 46%. Joe Biden: 43%. Jo Jorgenson: 1%. Undecided/No Opinion: 10%. Towery predicted Trump’s 2016 victory on FOX affiliates, just days prior to the election, signaling that many polls were failing to accurately reflect support for the Republican candidate. He also showed Barack Obama winning key battleground states in 2008.


“Once again, based on poor data and or weighting, many of the polls we are seeing simply are not picking up the actual level of support for President Trump,” said Towery, founder of InsiderAdvantage. “What stands out in this poll is that Trump is actually picking up 12% of the African American vote in the Sunshine State.” The survey of 400 likely Florida voters, conducted on October 6-7, involved live calls and interactive voice response calls to both landlines and cell phones. It is weighted for age, race, gender, and political affiliation. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%. Towery said the data also suggests Trump has the advantage in those age 45 and up with nearly 63% of the white vote in Florida but trails Biden 62%-25% among Hispanic voters. “These results are still within the margin of error, so Florida remains up for grabs. But to paint it blue or red on any projected electoral map at this point would be pure folly” said Towery.

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What on earth are Artificial Deadlines?

• Gov. Whitmer: Michigan Votes Will Not ‘Have Artificial Deadlines’ (Hill)

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said Sunday that the results of the state’s election will not be announced before “artificial deadlines” set by “people with political agendas.” The Michigan governor declined to tell CBS’s “Face The Nation” how long it will take for the state to determine the official results of this year’s election. “Michigan will be able to announce results, but we are not going to have artificial deadlines set by, you know, people with political agendas,” she said. “We’re gonna get this right.” “It will be soon after polls close,” she added. “I’m not gonna put a number on it, but we’re gonna get it right.” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) has said the battleground state that President Trump won in 2016 will not be able to report the election results on Nov. 3.


Election results are expected to be delayed this year as a record number of people complete mail-in ballots to avoid going to polling places amid the coronavirus pandemic. Whitmer also responded to a CBS poll that found half of Trump’s supporters think they should monitor voting places. “We are prepared to make sure this election goes smoothly,” she said. “We’re gonna keep people safe as they go to the polls, and we will not tolerate anyone who’s trying to interfere with someone’s ability to safely vote.” When asked about potential violence on Election Day, Whitmer said, “I’m not worried, but we are preparing to make sure we do everything we can to keep people safe.”

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Like Elon Musk? Here he is.

• SpaceX Promises Pentagon One-Hour Weapon Delivery Around The Globe (Fut.)

SpaceX and the Pentagon just signed a contract to jointly develop a new rocket that can launch into space and deliver up to 80 tons of cargo and weaponry anywhere in the world — in just one hour. Tests on the rocket are expected to begin as early as next year, Business Insider reports. It’s expected to shuttle weapons around the world 15 times faster than existing aircraft, like the US C-17 Globemaster. “Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour,” General Stephen Lyons, head of US Transportation Command said at a Wednesday conference. The new contract is further evidence that SpaceX is leaning hard into military partnerships.


Earlier this week, the private space company won a contract with the military’s Space Development Agency to manufacture four missile-tracking satellites. Prior to that, the Army approached SpaceX about turning its constellation of Starlink broadband satellites into a new military navigation network, and Space Force officials let slip earlier this year that they were already working closely with SpaceX after awarding the company a contract in August, BI reports. The new weapon delivery system resembles a militarized version of something that SpaceX CEO proposed back in 2017, when he talked about passenger space travel. Back then, Musk proposed launching passengers into space and then quickly landing them back down closer to their destination. The new plan is highly similar, just with weapons rather than people.

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China’s steel problem is gross overproduction.

• China’s Steel Problem: Recovery Risks Making Foes Of Trading Partners (SCMP)

As the Covid-19 pandemic damages so many economies around the world, killing jobs and shoving millions of families back into poverty, an uncomfortable and politically challenging possibility is beginning to emerge: certain economies will suffer more sharply than others, and China seems set to recover more quickly and suffer less pain. Managing the political anger this will generate will be one of the biggest diplomatic challenges China will face in 2021. Given Beijing’s blunt-instrument reputation in global diplomacy, this does not augur well. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the steel sector. Rapid recovery in production is already under way inside China – contrasted with deep contractions elsewhere in the world – and is set to escalate the rancour that has raged across the global steel market for decades.

Controversy over China’s surplus capacity and the global impact of exporting its surpluses has fuelled concern in the sector since the mid-1990s. This has made steel one of the most militantly protectionist of all sectors and the subject of more widespread tariff warfare than almost any other sector. China’s steel conundrum – similar to the challenges it faces in coal, cars and a wide range of other industrial products – is by default a world problem, given its size. It leaves its leaders with an awkward dilemma. Even a small mismatch between domestic supply and demand can result in huge ripple effects on global markets – impacts too large for anyone except China to manage.

China’s commitment to industrialisation and lifting material living standards for its huge population demands massive production of steel, with a perfectly reasonable desire to make as much of the steel as possible inside China. Its sheer scale makes it by far the world’s largest producer, accounting for about 53 per cent of the world’s 1.87 million tonnes of crude steel production in 2019. Its nearest competitors are India, accounting for 6 per cent, and Japan and the United States at around 5 per cent. Its locally made steel is mostly consumed inside China. It imports only a small portion of its consumption needs – mainly high-quality steel for its fast-growing automotive industry – and its market is comparatively self-contained.

With annual production close to 1 billion tonnes, though, it is easy to see how large a global impact China’s steelmakers can have with even a modest overshoot in production. Global overcapacity is estimated at around 500 million tonnes.
The implications of overcapacity on this scale come into focus when you recall that total US production is less than 90 million tonnes and Germany around 40 million.

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“.. for all of its virtues, buzz, spinoffs and a Pulitzer Prize — the 1619 Project has failed.”

• New York Times Guild Once Again Demands Censorship Of Colleagues (Greenwald)

The New York Times Guild, the union of employees of the Paper of Record, tweeted a condemnation on Sunday of one of their own colleagues, op-ed columnist Bret Stephens. Their denunciation was marred by humiliating typos and even more so by creepy and authoritarian censorship demands and petulant appeals to management for enforcement of company “rules” against other journalists. To say that this is bizarre behavior from a union of journalists, of all people, is to woefully understate the case. What angered the union today was an op-ed by Stephens on Friday which voiced numerous criticisms of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning “1619 Project,” published last year by the New York Times Magazine and spearheaded by reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones.

One of the Project’s principal arguments was expressed by a now-silently-deleted sentence that introduced it: “that the country’s true birth date” is not 1776, as has long been widely believed, but rather late 1619, when, the article claims, the first African slaves arrived on U.S. soil. Despite its Pulitzer, the “1619 Project” has become a hotly contested political and academic controversy, with the Trump administration seeking to block attempts to integrate its assertions into school curriculums, while numerous scholars of history accuse it of radically distorting historical fact, with some, such as Brown University’s Glenn Loury, calling on the Pulitzer Board to revoke its award. Scholars have also vocally criticized the Times for stealth edits of the article’s key claims long after publication, without even noting to readers that it made these substantive changes let alone explaining why it made them.

In sum, the still-raging political, historical, and journalistic debate over the 1619 Project has become a major controversy. In his Friday column, Stephens addressed the controversy by first noting the Project’s positive contributions and accomplishments, then reviewed in detail the critiques of historians and other scholars of its central claims, and then sided with its critics by arguing that “for all of its virtues, buzz, spinoffs and a Pulitzer Prize — the 1619 Project has failed.”

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From Michael Fynn’s son, who the FBI threatened to go after if Flynn sr. didn’t plead guilty to something he never did.

• If My Family Can, So Can Yours (Michael Flynn, Jr.)

“I’ve done lots of work on this topic, so it bothers me. But Rich Lowry has it right: POTUS has to accept that people have already made up their minds about Russiagate, and most just don’t care about it like POTUS does …” -October 10, 2020 tweet by Andy McCarthy. That was it for me. I keep up with the goings-on within the political arena. When I saw this tweet and read the underlying article by Rich Lowry, my reaction was simple. Seriously? It’s amazing to see there are those who claim to be republican and/or conservative still NOT grasp or have zero feel for the pulse of President Donald Trump’s base.

Breaking: The #1 unanswered question since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency is “Why has no one been held accountable in “RussiaGate”? A close second is definitely “Why is there this double standard for people like General Flynn versus Former FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe?” These questions have been asked more than any other since 2017. There are a variety of reasons I make this statement but let me offer you the following: Since 2017, my family and I have received MILLIONS of messages through various communication platforms (handwritten letters, texts, direct messages, phone calls, emails, etc). I have personally analyzed and kept track of where these communications originated. Why? I wanted to gauge the geographical locations of the Americans who have reached out to my family expressing the sentiment described above.

Was it from just red states? Oh no. I can say with 100% certainty we’ve received droves of communications not just from every single state in America, but some from supporters around the world. The floor of my father’s basement in Rhode Island (for example) is currently occupied with boxes FULL of handwritten letters from these amazing patriots. And let me tell you, these letters display a common theme. People are SICK of the lack of accountability and sick of the seemingly ignored criminality in RussiaGate. My family and I have been irreparably harmed by the Obama-Biden administration and their soldiers of fraud. My father was framed and forced to plead guilty to something he did not do. The truth of the matter has been held hostage for nearly FOUR YEARS by the likes of current FBI Director Christopher Wray, and current CIA Director Gina Haspel who frankly, in my opinion, should’ve been fired already.

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Some OK stuff, but the more you call Dems “Marxists”, the less I’m iterested.

• 7 Predictions For How 2020 Comes To An End (Bobinski)

Prediction 1: Trump will win the election in a landslide. I know, the media is telling you the polls are tight, but just look around. Trump rallies are packed to the gills while Biden can’t fill the bleachers at a high school football field. Trump supporters hold huge boat parades while we see NONE for Biden. Trump supporters hold freeway caravans around that country that take up all lanes of a freeway, while an attempted caravan for Biden in Las Vegas drew only 30 people. Just like in 2016, pollsters today are making it look like it’s a close race. This is gaslighting – they’re telling you something that runs directly opposite of what your own eyes are telling you, but they’re expecting you to believe what they say.

Prediction 2: On the evening of November 3, Joe Biden will not concede the election, even though the vote will clearly be for Trump. Hillary Clinton has publicly stated that Joe should not concede, so the seed has been planted in our minds to expect this. And, because we’re expecting it, we won’t be shocked by it.

Prediction 3: Massive mail voter fraud will create confusion and Marxists (e.g. Democrats) will insist that “every vote counts.” They know Americans want to be fair so Marxists will play on that. They will cry and wail and plead that every vote needs to get counted, so they’ll ask for sympathy for voters who didn’t follow confusing new election rules about how to cast their mail-in ballots. That will be their story, but many votes will be fraudulent. As they’ve demonstrated on America’s streets, Marxists don’t care about following laws; they care about power.

Prediction 4: Because of massive mail fraud ballots showing up late, election results WILL be delayed. The deceptive Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and the clearly biased Jack Dorsey at Twitter have already announced they will flag any posts or tweets that claim a victory for Trump. They KNOW Trump will have more than enough votes to win, but as Zuckerberg already told us, we should expect results to take “DAYS OR EVEN WEEKS.” In other words, Facebook and Twitter are well-aware of the planned mail-in voter fraud, and they’re already providing cover for it. The planned vote count confusion will be dragged out as long as possible. The Marxists’ intention is to keep confusion swirling at least until December 14 in hopes that the electoral college won’t be able to identify a winner. Expect ballots to keep showing up out of nowhere.

Prediction 5: If Marxists cannot keep up the façade until December 14, some states will obfuscate the electoral process by choosing not to follow the rules laid out in the 12th Amendment. In fact, both may happen. Either way, by attempting to throw the electoral college into confusion, Marxists (again, the Democrats) will make a push for the electoral college to be eliminated. Believe me when I say you don’t want this. Students of the Constitution know that if the electoral college is eliminated, the Republic will be gone.

Prediction 6: Expect Nancy Pelosi to be acting all patriotic and concerned about the Constitution during the chaos, but rest assured, it’s a passive-aggressive act. She is among the Marxist vanguard in both houses of Congress orchestrating the whole mess. You will also see some Marxist-friendly governors making a lot of noise.

Prediction 7: While Marxists in Congress are messing with the electoral process, Marxists on the streets (Antifa and BLM) will intensify their violence by burning, looting, and murdering even more than what we’ve seen to this point. There’s already a movement that seeks to lay siege to the White House. Not only do the puppet masters want all the street chaos to distract our attention from what’s going on in the electoral process, the street Marxists see this election as their only chance to either grab power or put up with Trump for four more years. The protestors have been trained to instigate violence, and copy-cat wannabes will want to join in. Street Marxists will view these riots as the fight of their lives: it will get intense.

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Gunnar Ekelöf (translation by W.H. Auden & Leif Sjöberg):

 

 

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